A number of U.S. lawmakers said on Tuesday they were concerned about the Iranian regime’s selection of a U.N. envoy linked to the 1979-1981 hostage crisis, and called on the Obama administration to do what it can to prevent him from taking up the post in New York.
“That really has got to be a serious question, as to whether or not the State Department gives … a visa to him,” Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Reuters.
Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian regime’s president, has chosen Hamid Abutalebi, to be Iran’s new ambassador to the United Nations.
“We shouldn’t accept him. We should change our rules or laws if we have to so that somebody who is guilty of that kind of behavior should not be allowed in the United States of America,” said Arizona Republican Senator John McCain.
Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz introduced legislation that would change U.S. law to allow the country to bar someone who had “committed overt acts of war against the United States” from entering the country.
“This nomination is willfully, deliberately insulting and contemptuous,” Cruz said in a speech in the Senate chamber.
Illinois Republican Senator Mark Kirk said he thought the administration should bar Abutalebi and that he would lobby other senators to back him.