Mr. Speaker. throughout my years in Congress. I have heard from a number of constituents concerned about citizens of Communist countries who have been approved for immigrant visas to the United States by our Department of State. but were denied permission by their own governments to leave. Yesterday. a lady who lives in District 4 in the State of Arizona. who fled Romania 16 years ago and is now a citizen of the United States telephoned my office in desperation. requesting assistance. She asked that our Government use its influence to encourage the Romanian authorities to allow her 52year old brother and his wife. Vasile and Evdochia Preda. permission to emigrate to the United States. Mr. Preda has already lost his job because of his attempts to leave Romania. He is now on the third day of a hunger strike protesting the Romanian Governments refusal to give him and so many others permission to emigrate from that country. The State Department periodically presents to Communist authorities the names of those who have repeatedly been denied permission to emigrate in an effort to emphasize the deeply felt belief that persons should not be held in a country against their will. I am contacting the Department of State to ask that they include Mr. Preda and his wifes names on the list and to do all possible to help them. With this statement. I am calling on the Romanian Government to exercise compassion and allow the Predas and others like them to emigrate from the country.
Keywords matched
immigrant emigrate visas