Speech #1020116522

I appreciate my friend. the gentleman from New York. yielding to me. I wish to commend the gentleman who had the interest and showed Important sympathy in calling this special order. and my friend. the gentleman from Michigan. my next seatmate in the Judiciary Committee. for their outstanding testimony yesterday when we had the hearings and for their really strong support for the people who are the victims of this tug of war. As I said earlier. in the well In a 1minute speech. there is a human tragedy unfolding in the waters off Florida. and that human tragedy is the fact that you have something like 1.800 people aboard Navy ships. and you have to salute the work that the Coast Guard is doing taking care of the people. rescuing them from the peril at sea. but they are there in what I later called In the same 1 minute a kind of watery limbo. because thankfully. the Federal judge has said these people will not be repatriated or deported. whatever you said. back to Haiti. but that is where the order ends and the people stay aboard the ships or they are debarked momentarily at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base or someplace. Some few hundred. I think. are being sent to Venezuela for safekeeping for the moment. but those are only palliatives.