Ed Royce: “I thank the gentlelady for yielding. Mr. Speaker, this is the North Korean Refugee Adoption Act of 2011, and I want to…”

“I thank the gentlelady for yielding. Mr. Speaker, this is the North Korean Refugee Adoption Act of 2011, and I want to thank Chairman Ros-Lehtinen and Ranking Member Berman for their support of this bill, and also I think we should thank the numerous Korean American organizations from around this country that tirelessly advocated on behalf of its passage. They are the groups that originally came to me with the heart- wrenching problem that these orphans face, and they suggested an idea for a solution. I would like to recognize the Defense Forum Foundation, the North Korea Freedom Coalition, the Korean Church Coalition for North Korea Freedom, the Korean American Coalition, the Korean Churches for Community Development, the 300 Pastoral Coalition, and the 318 Partners. These are the groups that suggested that with a lot of hard work we might get this legislation through. They put through countless phone calls and meetings and rallies up here on Capitol Hill and I think really helped generate the widespread support that this bill has today. Of course, the bill stems from the problem that for over 50 years North Korea has been one of the world's most repressive regimes. Every imaginable freedom that we enjoy here--speech or assembly or association or worship, and actually oddly enough, even the right to smile--is denied in North Korea by one statute or another. Meanwhile, the regime's elites live in luxury.…”