Political Quotes

“Mr. President, first of all, let me say I am really moved by Senator Booker's passion, Senator Nelson's clarity of thought, and by my other colleagues who have joined us. I am compelled to join them because we do have a crisis, but we also have, in my mind, a clear moral and legal compass we need to follow. We have a refugee crisis on our southern border, which I argue requires an emergency response domestically and the urgent recalibration of our foreign policy. Why do I say that? Because, as I have argued for several years in the Foreign Relations Committee, the continuous cuts we have had in the programs that are in our national interests, in our national security, were going to bring us a day in which we would rue the consequences of those cuts. So here we are with Honduras having the No. 1 murder rate per capita in the world, and the other two Central American countries from which these children are fleeing in the top five in the world. As Senator Nelson spoke so eloquently, there is the whole question of the narcotics trafficking taking place, using this as a via to the United States where the demand is, and the total inability of these countries to deal with entities that have more money and very often have more firepower than any of the national governments that are engaged. Then add to that the dynamic and explosive growth of gangs. I am talking about gangs armed and fueled with money in a symbiotic relationship with the drug traffickers. That creates a challenge.…”