Political Quotes

“I want to thank the distinguished senior Senator from Maine, my New England neighbor, for her comments, speaking on Leahy-Collins amendment No. 290. She and I and others have worked on this for a very long time. In her comments, she talked about shelters for homeless teens, and I think about how much better this whole country would be if this homeless teen could turn to a shelter and not to a trafficker. As I said earlier on the floor, traffickers often find their victims soon after they runaway or become homeless. In a couple of States, such as mine and the Senator from Maine's, especially at this time of year, people need shelter or they die. They literally die in a relatively short period of time from the cold. We see what happens. Listen to the stories of these trafficking survivors. Many of them began as a homeless or runaway teen. They are scared, desperate for affection, for food, for safety, and for a safe place to sleep. Our children and our grandchildren don't have to be scared. They have a safe place to sleep. They have food. But for a lot of these runaways, that is not the case. That is a problem we can fix. We can reauthorize the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. We can ensure that no child is turned away, regardless of their religion or their race or whom they love. A child is a child is a child. They all deserve our protection.…”