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Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I rise today to highlight a new rule by the State Department that honors a 15-year-old Portland girl whose life was cut short by a hit-and-run driver in 2016. The girl's name is Fallon Smart, and the man accused of manslaughter in her hit-and-run death was a Saudi national.

Subsequent reporting by my hometown paper, The Oregonian, uncovered that the Saudi national likely fled the country with the assistance of the Saudi Government. The paper's reporting later revealed that this Saudi affront to American justice was not--repeat, was not--an isolated example when its nationals face criminal charges in our country.

Our paper found 17 cases in the United States and Canada of Saudi nationals who fled justice while facing criminal charges. These cases-- some go back decades--are not for parking tickets. The charges against these Saudi men include rape, manslaughter, and felony hit-and-run.

In Oregon alone, journalists identified seven cases of Saudi nationals absconding justice. Their crimes included first-degree manslaughter, unlawful firearm possession, intoxicated driving, third- degree felony assault, and multiple sex crimes including sexual abuse, first-degree rape, and numerous counts of first-degree encouraging child sex abuse.

In Montana, two Saudi nationals fled after accusations of sexual assault.

In Ohio, two Saudi nationals fled after being accused of third-degree involuntary manslaughter and beating people with weapons at a college bar.

In Oklahoma, a Saudi national fled after being convicted of first- degree rape.

In Pennsylvania, a Saudi national fled after being accused of attempted rape.

In Utah, a Saudi national fled after being convicted of rape.

In Washington State, three Saudi nationals fled after respective accusations of rape, sexual assault of a child, and beating and stabbing a classmate.

In Wisconsin, a Saudi national fled after being accused of two counts of sexual assault.

In most of these cases, local law enforcement confiscated the passports of the accused criminals and set bail at thresholds the individuals were unlikely to be able to pay themselves. Yet we now know that many of these individuals somehow made bail and quickly received the resources and travel documents necessary to board a plane and leave, only to resurface in Saudi Arabia.

How did they leave the country without a passport?

Based on this evidence, it appears that the Saudi Government was assisting their citizens in evading prosecution in the United States.

I repeatedly pressed Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the State Department to explain what they knew about this pattern of cases. Despite all my efforts to get some answers, the Trump administration failed to even acknowledge the disturbing pattern or explain what, if anything, was being done to stop it.

That is why, in 2019, I authored and got passed a law to declassify an FBI report on this issue. The FBI report contended that the Saudis were assisting fugitives, and they would not stop whisking away criminals until ``the U.S. Government directly addresses this issue with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and ties U.S. cooperation on KSA priorities to ceasing this activity.''

So, in a sentence, you have foreign nationals in our country facing the most serious criminal charges and our supposed Saudi ally helping its citizens flee the American justice system. That is a disgrace, and, in my view, it demanded action.

Once President Biden was sworn in, his administration assured me that American diplomats in Riyadh had raised this issue with Saudi officials at the highest level, but that was just the start. The State Department further pledged to me that it is acting to put in place a new policy named for Fallon Smart that would revoke visas ``in cases where a foreign official has provided concerning forms of assistance to foreign nationals in evading prosecution in the United States by absconding from the United States.''

This Fallon Smart rule came after I put a hold on Michael Ratney's nomination to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. I did it to raise the profile of this issue and get commitments from the State Department. I lifted my hold on that nomination, and Mr. Ratney has been confirmed. I want to thank Secretary Blinken for agreeing to take concrete actions that are going to deter other foreign officials from assisting fugitives on American soil.

I plan to watchdog the State Department's implementation of the new policy to ensure there is real accountability for foreign officials who prevented justice from being carried out in the manslaughter of Fallon Smart and other horrendous crimes across the country.

There is no way to bring Fallon Smart back to her family and no punishment to heal the family's grief and loss, but today is a good day on the march to justice for Fallon Smart and so many others. The Fallon Smart rule sends a strong message that there is no place in our country for foreign officials who help criminal suspects evade the law, and I am going to continue to bird-dog this, closely watching the administration to make sure it enforces the Fallon Smart rule whenever there is evidence that foreign diplomats are undermining the American justice system.

I promised never to be silent whenever Saudi Arabia tries to cleanse its blood-stained hands in the fight for U.S. justice in the hit-and- run death of Fallon Smart. Her death at the hands of a Saudi national on Hawthorne Boulevard in Southeast Portland--near our home--must never be forgotten, and I can tell you the work to hold the Saudi officials accountable in this case will not ever be forgotten.

Unfortunately, despite all the progress in achieving the Fallon Smart rule, some Federal bureaucrats in this administration continue to defer to the interests of dictators in the Middle East. That callous attitude by Federal immigration officials has had devastating impact at home in Oregon for two people who have done everything right to contribute to their adopted communities.

The names of these two standout Oregonians are Matar Matar and his wife Dr. Amal Alyusuf, and the saga of this couple's unconscionable wait for asylum has also been detailed by in-depth reporting in The Oregonian newspaper.

The couple's appeal for asylum began more than a decade ago. Matar was the youngest member of Bahrain's Parliament and had been jailed and tortured for weeks on end by Saudi-led security forces. The couple fled with their children to the United States for refuge and applied in good faith for asylum. More than 10 years later, their case somehow remains ``pending'' in America.

Our country, of course, has always taken great pride in providing refuge for people fleeing the worst abuses in their native countries. It is a path to freedom that the Wyden family knows more than a little about. My parents fled the Nazis in the thirties for safety in America. I am the proud first-generation son of those refugees, both of whom worked every day to contribute to our country.

As has been well documented in The Oregonian, this Bahraini couple is doing the same thing in Oregon as my parents and uncounted millions of immigrants have done for centuries here; namely, this couple is making every available effort, while raising their three children, to make their new communities even better places to live and work. Matar works for the Willamette Dental Group in Portland, and Dr. Alyusuf provides essential healthcare in rural Oregon, practicing as a physician in Douglas County.

Yet my office has run into a bureaucratic morass again and again from unresponsive immigration officials closing their eyes and ears to all the evidence of how this exemplary Oregon family is owed better. So just as I pledged to seek justice for Fallon Smart and to make sure this administration follows the Fallon Smart rule, I am, today, putting this administration on notice that I will be just as dogged in pursuing a just solution for this Bahraini family.

Simply put, this family should not have to endure this brutal limbo of more than 10 years waiting to know that it can continue contributing to a better Oregon, free of fear from deportation at a moment's notice. And I intend to be relentless in helping this family, as we did with Fallon Smart, achieve the security and justice that they so deserve.

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