Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call attention to a 12-year- old girl Emon Ali, who is stuck in Djibouti. Emon and her father, Ahmed Ali, who is an American citizen, are in Djibouti because of President Trump's flawed executive order to ban travel to the United States. The Ali family is like many immigrant families throughout our country, including my own, who came to the United States in hopes of achieving the American Dream. As Americans, we know that the Statute of Liberty is a symbol of freedom and new beginnings for immigrants past and present, and it is a symbol around the entire world for the values that America holds. Since the founding of our country, immigrants from all over the world have been coming to the United States to make a better life for themselves and their families, or to escape persecution. Mr. Ali and his wife immigrated to the United States and earned their U.S. citizenships in hopes of achieving that American Dream. They had been making a living in my district and are supporting their two daughters in Los Banos, California. But they have also been living in sadness and heartbreak because their 12-year-old daughter, Emon, was born in Yemen before the civil war. For 6 years, the Ali family has been working through the appropriate channels to get their daughter a visa so she can gain U.S. citizenship and be reunited with her family legally.…”