Political Quotes

“I thank the chairman for the time. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act, authored by my good friend and colleague, Mr. Chris Smith of New Jersey. Mr. Smith has been a stalwart supporter of the rights of children and for the left-behind parents, who all too often feel as though they have been abandoned by their government and have no place to turn. According to our State Department, hundreds of parental transnational child abduction cases occur each year. In most of the cases, the left- behind parents here in the United States face a tremendous uphill battle with the foreign country's government to return their child. To make matters worse, they have no recourse, no legal basis to turn to, that would compel that foreign government to cooperate with them and return their abducted child to the United States. The effects that this has on both the child and the parents are significant and, in many cases, have unshakable, lifelong consequences. Mr. Smith's bill gives hope where there previously was none. It represents a new approach to resolving this issue by giving our government and the President the avenues needed to press the countries that are found to be habitually noncooperative and noncompliant to work with the United States in order to resolve these cases.…”