Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their work in bringing these important resolutions to the floor, and I stand in strong support of them in calling for the release of Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan. I thank my great colleague, Haley Stevens, for our work together as co-chairs of the Task Force on American Hostages and Americans Wrongfully Detained Abroad here in this House, and I am grateful for her relentless advocacy for Paul and his family. While we continue our work to get Americans out of these countries that are holding them only because they have a blue passport, I believe more has to be done, Mr. Speaker, to stop this trend that you can simply take and wrongfully hold an American with impunity. Mr. Speaker, listen to these statistics from the Foley Foundation's 2022 report: 175 percent increase in the incidents of U.S. nationals being wrongfully detained compared to the previous decade; a 60 percent increase in the average duration of a U.S. national's captivity over the past 11 years. Mr. Speaker, 75 percent of U.S. nationals currently wrongfully detained are held by who? Iran, China, Venezuela, Syria, Russia. From 2012 to 2022, an average of 34 Americans were wrongfully held by foreign governments each year. Now, when you put that in contrast to the decade of 2001 to 2011, there were only five.…”