Supporting the Assad regime and defending the Assad regime is a bad decision.

First of all, it is an extremely repressive regime, as repressive perhaps as any other regime in the entire world.

we are essentially bankrolling the regime and stashing its hard currency abroad

I don't understand how three little children, three orphaned children who want to visit their grandfather in the United States are somehow deemed--or denied a tourist visa.

the same government that denied them the tourist visa gave one to Mariela Castro so she could come to the United States and justify the fact that they are holding an American hostage.

Because you are part of a system that cannot survive and that long after those leaders are gone, you are going to be left behind picking up the pieces of what you are doing right now.

the people of Cuba have freedom, the freedom to choose any economic model they want, but the freedom to choose their leader so they can have any economic model they want.

The repression, the imprisonment, the beatings, the torture still continues.

I hope one of the things we will be able to talk about today and over the next few months are some new tactics.

Why is there such an obvious double standard when it comes to Cuba?

It is not time to forget. We can never forget those who have suffered and died at the hands of dictators.

As long as we have a voice in the United States Senate, that voice will be for the freedom of the Cuban people.

If you are involved in beating people, if you are involved in jailing people in Cuba, if the government is using you, whether it is here in the United States as part of the Interests Section or in Cuba, in abusing human rights, your name…

we see the highest amount of repression, as has been said by those within Cuba, in five decades

people who all they want basically is for their country to have freedom and self-determination.

What is for us to stand for is democracy and the right of the Cuban people to determine their own future.

The Cuban people are no less deserving of America's support than the millions who were imprisoned and forgotten in Soviet gulags.

the tactics that this administration has pursued are naive.