Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, this debate today is about who gets to be an American. What opinions do we have to have to be counted as Americans? This is what this debate is about, Madam Speaker. There is this idea that you are suspect if you are an immigrant or if you are from certain parts of the world or a certain skin tone or a Muslim. It is no accident that members of the Republican Party accused the first Black President, Barack Obama, of being a secret Muslim. It is no accident that former President Donald Trump led a birther movement that falsely claimed he was born in Kenya because, to them, falsely labeling the first and only Black President of the United States of America a Muslim and an African immigrant somehow made him less American. Well, I am Muslim. I am an immigrant and, interestingly, from Africa. Is anyone surprised that I am being targeted? Is anyone surprised that I am somehow deemed unworthy to speak about American foreign policy, or that they see me as a powerful voice that needs to be silenced? Frankly, it is expected because when you push power, power pushes back. Representation matters. Continuing to expand our ideas of who is American and who can partake in the American experiment is a good thing. I am an American, an American who was sent here by her constituents to represent them in Congress, a refugee who survived the horrors of a civil war, someone who spent her childhood in a refugee camp.…”