Overview

• On September 18, the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved Rep. Brian Mast’s amendment removing Section 226 from H.R. 5300.
• The now-stricken language would have let the secretary of state deny or revoke passports based on a determination of “material support” to a designated terrorist group without a charge or conviction.
• Mast introduced H.R. 5300 on September 11 and withdrew the provision on September 14 after The Intercept’s report spurred widespread online criticism.
• Civil-liberties groups cited the Supreme Court’s 2010 Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project ruling, noting that certain speech can be treated as material support, and pointed to a 2023 ADL/Brandeis letter about SJP as a cautionary example.
• Democrats Gregory Meeks and Joaquin Castro condemned the idea in hearings, CAIR called it a threat to travel and free speech, and Mast said he dropped it to avoid a distraction.