Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, Congressman Castro, for putting together this Special Order hour. And it is timely, to say the least. There are many borders that our Nation has. We have a lot of focus on the southwestern borders, such as in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. But there are also borders like what we have in Florida, with the Caribbean surrounding us, and a short, either plane ride or longer sea voyage to our peninsula. We have immigrants from Venezuela coming in, fleeing tyranny. We had for generations Cuban-Americans escaping the issues down there. We have folks of Mexican descent who are farm workers in Polk County, and in other areas, that are now second and third generation. And, yes, we have many refugees, particularly children, who have left the Triangle in Central America and are part of this great humanitarian crisis at the border. I got the opportunity to be able to visit the Homestead facility, a facility that had blocked several of us from several requests of touring it. And I saw over 900 children, between the ages of 12 and 17, that were in a facility not made for over 500. And I suspect those numbers have grown since then. There are a few of us who did speak Spanish, like myself, and were able to talk briefly to the children, even though they told us not to; but you know our responsibility that we have.”