Adriano Espaillat: “September 20 this next week is the 1- year anniversary of Hurricane Maria. One year later in Puerto Rico, in the…”

“September 20 this next week is the 1- year anniversary of Hurricane Maria. One year later in Puerto Rico, in the neighboring island of Puerto Rico where there are U.S. citizens living because Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, the schools are still closed. One year later and people are still waiting for home repairs. One year later and the death toll continues to rise. One year later and we are just now finding out that the death toll resulting from Hurricane Maria and its aftermath resulted in 2,975 deaths, a drastic, dramatic increase from the original reported numbers by the government of merely 64 people. Madam Speaker, the numbers have ballooned from 64 people who died during that terrible storm and the aftermath, to 2,975. We are just now finding out that close to 3,000 U.S. lives were lost while this administration did very little. Just this week, the President said that he has done an A-plus job. He seems to feel that there are only 64 deaths there, but that is not the case. In fact, there were 3,000 lives that perished there with slow response, and that is failure. That is an F-minus, to me, for government. But that is not all. Such is the indifference of this administration to the lives of Puerto Rico. And, Madam Speaker, we have a moral obligation to help the Puerto Rican people. They are American citizens. When we are in a time of war, when our Nation is in danger, we call upon them to defend us.…”