Speech #1020129420

And when we politically put an economic sanction on this country. an economic embargo. and the people find themselves fleeing not only from hunger and famine but also fleeing from the ends of rifles. is that economic or political? And how do we determine this in these great United States of America? Do we pluck people who are starving to death. who have been taken out of sharkinfested waters. whose native language is patois. which is a broken French. and take American citizens from the Immigration Department. pick these people out of the water. put them on Coast Guard cutters and. with forms and ballpoint pens. ask them to state their political background for us to determine whether or not they are fleeing for economic or political purposes? I say to the gentleman from New York I suggest that the reasons that have been raised by this administration are not economic. but indeed are political. that there is no question in my mind that if we found 10.000 or 15.000 people fleeing from a European country. that we would not return them to the same type of holocaust that these people may face. Indeed. those that follow what happened to the Jewish community. when Adolf Hitler allowed them to leave on a ship called the Ship of Fools in 1939. this ship was denied entry into the Port of New York. denied entry into Havana.