Lucille Roybal-Allard: “Members of this House were appalled when they learned about the incident involving our colleague, the gentleman from…”

“Members of this House were appalled when they learned about the incident involving our colleague, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu), at the Department of Energy headquarters a few weeks ago. The gentleman from California had been invited by DOE to be a guest speaker at a celebration honoring the contributions of Asian Pacific Islander Americans to this country. But when he arrived at DOE headquarters, he was refused admittance and asked three different times whether he was an American citizen, even after producing an official card identifying him as a Member of Congress. An Asian American aide accompanying the gentleman from California (Mr. Wu) was also refused admittance, despite producing a congressional identification card. As the representative of the 33rd Congressional District of California, I am proud to represent an active community of Asian Pacific Islander Americans in Los Angeles. Understandably, we were very upset at this incident and the implication of discrimination by an official government agency.”