Nydia Velázquez

Congress must ensure that our small businesses are fully included in this once in a generation investment.

Many of the issues you talk about are at the heart of what this Committee will be working on for the rest of the 117th Congress.

I can hear the passion and enthusiasm in your voice when you talk about ways to strengthen our nation's small businesses.

It is critical that this Committee quickly come together to replenish the Restaurant Revitalization Fund.

I urge the U.S. Congress to endorse the Puerto Rican Self-Determination bill.

H.R. 2070...is fundamentally based on a rejection of the voice of the people of Puerto Rico...

The proponents of statehood demand that we respect, according to them, their civil rights.

H.R. 2070 and S. 865, Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act of 2021, by Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY-07) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

H.R. 1522 proponents argue this bill is self-executing and that statehood is automatic. That is false.

Homophobic slurs are abundant in the rhetoric of the Statehood Party in Puerto Rico.

I want everyone to understand that when they got a whopping 52 percent--wow, just imagine.

The only legislative option that respects the will of the people of Puerto Rico, and ensures a binding process of self-determination is H.R. 1522, the Puerto Rico Statehood Admission Act.

H.R. 2070 and S. 865 reject and silence the will of voters in Puerto Rico.

Is there anything in the U.S. Constitution that prohibits Congress from entertaining a free association agreement with Puerto Rico different from the current agreement and different from independence?

That is precisely what Nydia Velazquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act offers.

The Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act of 2021 authored by Congresswomen Nydia Velazquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez...

And can Puerto Ricans still retain their U.S. citizenship under other status options that are not statehood?

the Puerto Rico Self-Determination Act is the inclusive democratic approach to solving Puerto Rico's status, while the Statehood Admission bill is a one-sided, undemocratic bill that does not even achieve the aim it supposedly purports.

Biden won the election. Biden campaigned for President of the United States saying that he would not listen to that plebiscite.

Velazquez, Hon. Nydia M., a Representative in Congress from the State of New York.

It is up to us, to Congress, without thoroughly, precisely vested by the Constitution, to decide what type of mechanism for decolonization we should pursue.

In conclusion, we cannot decolonize Puerto Rico without a genuinely democratic and inclusive process.

Could you imagine the framers in 1787 saying let's keep the Articles of Confederation and not convene the convention because Washington might all of a sudden become a dictator?

Without housing justice it is really hard to achieve racial justice.

These families are already stretched thin due to the pandemic, illness, trauma, and low wages.