Young Oak Kim: “I rise to support this rule; however, as we debate this important legislation today, I think it is important that we…”

“I rise to support this rule; however, as we debate this important legislation today, I think it is important that we address North Korea's denial of a bipartisan congressional delegation trip to North Korea. For the first time in 40 years, we finally have a Republican Speaker of the House, and our Republican committee chairmen have requested that I pick a small delegation to North Korea. This is a bipartisan group of both Republicans and Democrats, yet the North Koreans denied our group's entry. We have contacted North Korea again for an August trip, yet we have not still received any answer yet. All this happened while the other Member of Congress have visited North Korea. Ironically that Member was a Democrat. This picking and choosing of Member visits is a discriminatory policy. This is simply unacceptable. This is an insult to the Speaker of the House, the House leadership, and to this Committee of International Relations. This is the most serious insult in my opinion to the U.S. Congress. We should not tolerate these actions, otherwise the entire world will laugh at us, laugh at this Congress.”