Karen Bass

Eritrea is known as a country that it is claimed is the most censured country in the world, has been cited repeatedly for its abysmal human rights record.

I can't tell you how many times I have talked to folks from Ethiopia and Eritrea locally who always stop and say why don't you do hearings--why don't you do hearings on what is happening in Eritrea.

Well, whatever the numbers are, why are a lot of people fleeing?

I think it is particularly important.

I have to say that Mr. Rangel is one of the lions in this House. I have had the honor of serving with him for the last 6 years. He knows I am upset with him because he is choosing to retire. When I came here and really wanted to work on…

As I mentioned before, I have had the honor of serving with Mr. McDermott for the last 6 years, knowing that he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa. He was the one that led the effort around conflict minerals, something many people were…

As Mr. McDermott leaves, I will take his comments as my marching orders for what I am supposed to do in the next session, so I thank him very much. I would urge my colleagues to support H.R. 2845. I yield back the balance of my time.

I also want to thank Ambassador Booth and Ambassador Lyman and I'm glad that we will be hearing your testimony today.

I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that there are several people here from Gabon who are expressing their concern about the elections that took place.

I stand here as somebody who is happy that we have finally changed our policy in Cuba.

I want us to hold ourselves to a higher standard.

the men are called johns. They should be called child molesters and they should be prosecuted like child molesters.

I'm concerned about domestic sex trafficking that does not have an international connection where the average age of girls in our country that are involved in sex trafficking is 12 years old.

I wanted to ask actually that you make some changes next year in how the reporting on the United States has done.

a girl is not ever considered as a prostitute because if you're under the age of consent how can you be a prostitute? It's actually rape.

I want to just wrap up my testimony because I hear they're calling votes, I think.

But when we deport a child who do we deport a child to?

It's just hard to look at our progress that way of U.S.--of what the problem is going on with U.S. children.

I am so concerned about the cycle of violence, and I hope that this atrocity doesn't lead to revenge killings like we have seen.

In the month of June, 22 people were murdered by guns in Los Angeles. The oldest person was 46, and the youngest was 3. On one day alone, June 11, eight people were killed. We all know the statistics: every 24 hours, 30 people are killed…

I am hoping H.R. 5456 will take into consideration unintended consequences and not contribute to homelessness amongst youth.

I do worry sometimes though in those countries where from the U.S. perspective we push term limits and want people to step down.

I attended the summit last year, especially the YALI part of it where President Obama was in a townhall meeting with the YALI participants and one of them stood up and said that they wished that some of the millions of dollars that we…

But I do support that when we--because elections are cycles the funding and the planning should be adjusted...

We know that removing a child from home is traumatic for the child regardless of the circumstances.