Expressing support to the organizers and participants of the historic meeting of the Assembly to Promote the Civil Society in Cuba on May 20, 2005, in Havana.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in commemoration of the 90th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. This is both a somber and encouraging day for both myself and many of my constituents, who are survivors or ancestors of survivors. Somber in memory of the millions who lost their lives, and encouraging in the success of the Armenian American community of building new lives in the U.S., as well as an independent Armenia.

April 28, 1915 will live as a day of infamy in the lives of all Armenians, all over the world. It was this day that the Turkish government ordered the deportation of 2.5 million Armenians out of the Ottoman Empire. Within hours, Turkish forces had rounded up over 300 Armenian scholars, and deported or killed them. Over the next year, 1.5 million Armenians were killed or deported to concentration camps to await certain death.

I have always supported the Armenian American community. However, my support for the community does not only stem from the size of the Armenian Community in Queens, but also because I see the strategic importance of the Caucasus region for the United States.

In 2003, I had the opportunity to visit Armenia and to plant a tree at the Genocide memorial. The independent country of Armenia is a living testament to honor the memories of the survivors.

I believe that by failing to recognize these barbaric acts, one becomes complicit in them. Let us never forget the 1.5 million Armenians who perished in 1915 and 1916.

Mr. Speaker, again I commemorate the 90th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, and hope that April 28th, 1915 will never be forgotten. I also ask that the New York Times story focusing on survivors of the genocide be inserted into the Record. Their words and memories speak louder than any speech we will hear today.

[From the New York Times, Apr. 23, 2005]

Armenian Immigrants Recall a 90-Year-Old Tragedy

(By Corey Kilgannon)

A cheery sign in the New York Armenian Home in Flushing,

Queens, yesterday informed its elderly residents in colorful

letters of the current date, season and weather.

And of an anniversary: ``Remember April 24, the Armenian

Genocide.''

A framed proclamation by Gov. George E. Pataki hung nearby,

declaring April 24 as Armenian Remembrance Day to commemorate

the Turkish massacres of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians

beginning in 1915. It called the killings ``the 20th

century's first such calculated effort to destroy people on a

massive scale'' and added that ``the Armenian Genocide led

academics to coin and utilize the very term genocide.''

It is doubtful that even with failing memories, any

residents at the home needed a reminder.

``This time of year, they all get disturbed and remember,''

said Jenny Akopyan, assistant director of the home.

Tomorrow, thousands of Armenian-Americans from across the

Northeast are expected to gather in Times Square to mark the

90th anniversary of the murders of their relatives and

forebears by Ottoman Turks during World War I.

On April 24, 1915, Turkish soldiers arrested hundreds of

Armenian leaders in Constantinople, then tortured and

executed them. The mass slaughter of Armenians over the next

several years is often called the first genocide of that

century and a precursor to the Holocaust.

The Armenian Home, on 45th Avenue in Flushing, opened in

1948 and has long housed many genocide survivors who escaped

by playing dead, fleeing or other means. Most of the

residents are from families decimated by the genocide, but

only a half dozen--all in their 90's--actually escaped it as

children.

The most recent death of a survivor was in August: Lucy

Derderian, age 103, who ``only survived the genocide because

her mother was smart enough to hide her under the dead bodies

during a massacre,'' said Aghavni Ellian, the home's

executive director.

Ms. Ellian walked into the home's day room, where about two

dozen elderly Armenian immigrants sat watching ``The Price Is

Right'' on a large television next to an ornate Christian

shrine bedecked in crimson and gold. She carried a lamb dish

that had been delivered for later: madal, a roast blessed by

a priest and traditionally eaten on April 24.

The residents had just finished small cups of thick, strong

Armenian coffee. Few survivors could offer completely lucid

recollections, but each had some snippet of horror seared

into memory.

Gulumya Erberber, 93, said that Turkish soldiers had

beheaded her father, a wealthy academic, and seized his

riches and several houses. She was 3 years old then, and her

mother fled with the five children to a mountain village

where the townspeople did not speak Armenian but did help the

family.

Israel Arabian, 99, leaned on his cane and related how he

was forced to work for a Turkish officer who took Mr.

Arabian's teenage sister ``as a wife.'' He ran away and grew

up in a Greek orphanage before eventually coming to New York

and settling in Queens.

Many Armenians bitterly denounce the Turkish government for

denying that the killings constituted genocide. In an

interview yesterday, Tuluy Tanc, minister counselor for the

Turkish Embassy in Washington, said the accusation of

genocide was ``unfair and untrue,'' a legal ploy to gain

reparations.

``We don't see what happened as genocide, quote-unquote,''

Mr. Tanc said. ``Unfortunate and tragic events took place

during World War I and bad things happened to Armenians, and

Muslims and Turks also.''

``The number killed is much less than they say--it's more

like 300,000 Armenians who lost their lives,'' he said,

adding that Turkish leaders had recently asked Armenia to set

up a commission to study the killings.

Onorik Eminian, 93, said she was a young child living in

the city of Izmir when the Turks killed her parents and other

relatives. She said she has never stopped having nightmares

about it, especially in April.

``I saw plenty, sir, plenty,'' she said. ``I saw them go in

and they broke our churches. They took old ladies, old like

me now, and shot them one by one. This I saw in front of my

eyes. They chopped the arms off our schoolteachers and hung

them from the trees in the street to teach us a lesson. We

watched our priest come delivering food, and they killed him

and threw the food into the street.''

``Are you sure you want to hear my sad story?'' she asked.

``I was playing in front of our house when they came on

horses. My grandmother pulled me in. The Turks grabbed my

father--he was hiding Armenians in his coffee shop--and I

cried, `Daddy, Daddy, don't go' and I held onto his leg. Then

one soldier told me to shut up and hit me right here with a

rifle. Look, I still got the mark.''

Weeping, she pointed to a bump on her forehead between her

eyebrows and dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

``I said, `Where's my father?' and they said, `Here's your

father,' and they held up his jacket and pants.''

She grew up in an orphanage, and eventually came to New

York, lived in Astoria and had two daughters who never saw

any mention of Armenian genocide in their history books.

``If you write this in the newspaper,'' she said, ``will

the Turks come here and kill me? I'm still afraid of them.''

Mr. Speaker, today we gather to remember and commemorate the Armenian Genocide, one of the darkest chapters of World War I, and the first of the series of genocides we saw in the 20th Century.

The Armenian Genocide is sometimes called the ``Forgotten Genocide.'' In fact, as most of you know, back in 1939, prior to the invasion of Poland, Adolph Hitler argued that his plans for a Jewish holocaust would, in the end, be tolerated by the West, stating: ``After all, who remembers the Armenians.'' Who remembers the Armenians? Today, we provide an answer: We Do! We Remember!

We do so because it is important, indeed it is essential to remember and reflect upon these events, but we also do so because we know that the Armenian people today struggle on an ongoing basis to confront and surmount the legacies and the consequences of those dark days.

Consider, for a moment, what might have been.

At the end of the first World War, the American public was acutely aware of the atrocities that had been committed against the Armenian people from 1915 on--atrocities that we knew had resulted in the death of more than 1 million Armenians and left the remaining Armenian population starving and destitute.

At the time, U.S. Ambassador Henry Morganthau reported that ``When the Turkish

authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were simply giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact.''

A military mission headed by Major General James Harbord in 1919 had been sent to report on conditions in the region and make recommendations to U.S. policy makers. General Harbord sent a clear message about the defenselessness of the Armenians and the dangers they still faced.

By the time of the Paris Peace negotiations at the end of the War, President Wilson was committed to the notion of using the proposed League of Nations to help the Armenians. In a September 6, 1919 speech on the Treaty creating the League, he spoke of the Armenian Genocide, ``When I think of words piled upon words, of debate following debate, when these unspeakable things that cannot be handled until the debate is over are happening, in these pitiful parts of the world, I wonder that men do not wake up to the moral responsibility of what they are doing. Great peoples are driven out upon a desert, where there is no food and can be none, and they are driven to die, and then men, women, and children thrown into a common grave, so imperfectly covered up that here and there is a pitiful arm stretched out to heaven, and there is no pity in the world. When shall we wake up to the moral responsibility of this great occasion?''

On May 24, 1920, Wilson proposed to create a U.S. mandate in Armenia, in which we would have sent in troops to maintain the peace and provide assistance to help the Armenian people establish a functioning government and economy.

But the proposed U.S. mandate never occurred. Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge from Massachusetts, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who earlier had championed the cause of the Armenians, refused to support President Wilson's proposed Mandate. Senator Lodge said at the time, ``To invite this country to take charge of that crossroads of the nations in Armenia, to commit itself to sending its troops there for an indefinite period, and to bear the expenses involved for an indefinite period, is something for which I could never bring myself to vote.'' And on June 1, 1920, he, along with the other Republican isolationists in the Senate voted 34 to 43 and 34 to 41 against two Democratic amendments that would have fully or partially authorized the Mandate.

And so, Armenia was left on its own, open to attack from both Turkey and the Soviet Union. And the Armenians made a fateful decision. Rather than accept Turkish dominance and the prospect of additional killings, they signed an agreement with the Soviet leadership's point man in the Caucuses--a man named Josef Stalin--to join the Soviet Union. That fateful decision led them to more than 60 years of Armenian suffering under the yoke of the Communists.

So, as we all gather together to consider the legacy of the Armenian genocide and the Diaspora it created, it is also appropriate for America as a nation to consider what can be done to give something back to those who, by tragic circumstances, were forced to live through unspeakable atrocities during the Genocide only to then come under the control of a brutal Soviet rule.

Armenia today faces enormous economic and political challenges: It has hostile neighbors. It faces blockades that stifle trade and economic opportunities. It needs economic and military assistance.

There is much that the U.S. government can and should do to assist the Armenian people: We should grant Armenia Permanent Normal Trading Relations status, so as to facilitate the growth of trade and economic relations. We should provide Armenia with the economic and military assistance it needs to develop its economy and ensure its security. We should press for an end to the Turkish and Azerbaijani economic blockades.

The writer Milan Kundera once wrote that ``The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.'' There are those that would deny the Armenian Genocide, just as there are those that deny the reality of the Nazi Holocaust. In commemorating the Armenian Genocide, as we do this evening, we all collectively engage in that struggle of memory against forgetting. But we do this not only to remember the past, but to animate the future with a commitment to prevent such things from ever happening again, and to strive towards making a better future for the Armenian people, a people who have suffered so much.

In September of 1919, President Woodrow Wilson spoke of his vision of a future Armenia. He said, ``Armenia is to be redeemed . . . So that at last this great people, struggling through night after night of terror, knowing not when they may come out into a time when they can enjoy their rights as free people that they never dreamed they would be able to exercise.''

It has taken Armenia decades to reach a point where its people could enjoy their rights as a free people--the rights Wilson spoke of. Today, we have an opportunity to help ensure that they can build a better future. And so, I look forward to continuing to work with the Armenian- American community and Members of the Congressional Caucus on Armenia to address the issues facing this region, so that together we build something positive, something hopeful, something good for the future--a peaceful, prosperous Armenia with close ties to the United States.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the one and a half million Armenians who perished in the Armenian Genocide that began 90 years ago on April 24, 1915. This is a sacred obligation that we undertake each April--to ensure that future generations of Americans remember the first genocide of the 20th century and to ensure that the men, women and children who perished at the hands of the Ottoman Empire are not lost to history.

Mr. Speaker, there is no dispute that what happened to the Armenian people is genocide. Thousands of pages of documents sit in our National Archives. One of these documents is a report from the American Consul in Trebizond, Oscar Heizer. On July 28, 1915, Heizer cabled the U.S. Embassy in Constantinople to report on the massacre of 180 Armenian road workers, who were shot and stripped of their clothes before being buried in the woods.

Newspapers of the day were replete with stories about the murder of Armenians. ``Appeal to Turkey to Stop Massacres'' headlined the New York Times on April 28, 1915, just as the killing began. On October 7 of that year, the Times reported that 800,000 Armenians had ``been slain in cold blood in Asia Minor.'' In mid-December of 1915, the Times spoke of a ``Million Armenians Killed or in Exile.''

Prominent citizens of the day, including America's Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau, and Britain's Lord Bryce reported on the massacres in great detail. Morgenthau was appalled at what he would later call the ``sadistic orgies'' of rape, torture and murder. Lord Bryce, a former British Ambassador to the United States, worked to raise awareness of and money for the victims of what he called ``the most colossal crime in the history of the world.'' In October 1915 the Rockefeller Foundation contributed $30,000--a sum worth more than half a million dollars today--to a relief fund for Armenia.

Last week at the annual commemoration of the genocide here on the Hill, I had the honor to meet, Henry Morgenthau, the grandson of Ambassador Morgenthau. He is still carrying on his grandfather's mission to make America and the world aware of what happened.

The generation of Armenians with direct memory of the genocide is almost gone; their children are aging. Much of the rest of the world has moved on, reluctant to dredge up ``unpleasant'' memories and risk the ire of modern Turkey.

But even now, almost a century after the start of the genocide, some survivors are still with us. One of them, Ghazaros Kademian, is a constituent of mine. He is 96 now, but his mind is sharp and he remembers clearly the day when, as a six-year-old boy he and his family were forced from their house. He was from the village of Zaitoun, located southeast of present day Turkey. Kademian's father stayed behind to defend his homeland and was murdered. His mother took his hand and ran away.

Kademian and his mother had no shoes, coats, food, or money. They had to leave everything behind for the Turks. He does not remember all the details of their long journey, except it was harsh, cold, and dangerous, because they had no idea where they were going.

The boy and his mother ended their flight in Kirkuk, in what is now northern Iraq. He remembers very vividly that the first night in Kirkuk they hugged each other for warmth and slept in front of a church for protection. In the morning he woke up; but his mother did not move, she was frozen and dead. He was left alone, homeless, in a town where he did not speak the same language.

What happened to Ghazaros Kademian's family was terrible and tragic, but not uncommon. All over the Ottoman Empire Armenian children and their parents fled from their homes with only the clothes on their backs. But for those of us who care deeply about this issue, Kadmian's story is a reminder that we must redouble our efforts to ensure that our nation, which has championed liberty and human rights throughout its history, is not comp1icit in Ankara's effort to obfuscate what happened between 1915 and 1923. Worse still, by tacitly siding with those who deny the Armenian Genocide, we have rendered hollow our commitment to ``never again'' let genocide occur.

Within the next few days, several of my colleagues and I will be introducing a resolution commemorating the Armenian genocide. This should be an easy resolution for all of us--Republicans and Democrats-- to support.

The reason that we have yet to succeed in passing a resolution honoring the murdered Armenians is simple: The government of Turkey refuses to acknowledge the genocide and has spent millions of dollars and expended countless hours of diplomatic effort to prevent us from commemorating the suffering of the Armenian people. Turkey's opposition has always centered on its assertion that acknowledging the victims of its Ottoman forebears would cause an irreparable rift between the United States and an important ally.

Last summer, during consideration of the fiscal year 2005 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, I offered an amendment to prohibit the Government of Turkey from using U.S. foreign aid to lobby against H. Res. 193, a resolution introduced by Representatives Radanovich, Schiff and the co-chairs of the Armenian Caucus, Representatives Knollenberg and Pallone, that officially recognizes the Armenian Genocide. H. Res. 193 had been cosponsored by 110 of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

My amendment touched off a flurry of activity by Turkey's lobbyists. According to a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing, lobbyists for the Government of Turkey made at least 32 separate contacts with U.S. Government officials over a 3-day period in an attempt to kill my amendment. These included telephone calls to the Speaker of the House, other Members, numerous congressional staff, an Assistant Secretary of Defense, National Security Council staff, the Office of the Vice President, and other State and Defense Department staff.

While Ankara's agents did not succeed in blocking adoption of the amendment by the House, it was stripped in conference and the full House never did vote on the Genocide Resolution.

In the name of Ghazaros Kademian and those no longer with us, I call upon the distinguished Speaker of the House to allow us to vote on a Genocide resolution this year. We must do it soon, for with each year the events of 1915-1923 recede a bit more into the dark of history.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from south Florida (Mr. Wexler) for the time.

This resolution is very important because it continues the very important, historic tradition begun here in this Congress, by this Congress in April of 1898 when, after a century of fighting by the people of Cuba for the independence of Cuba, the United States, because of the Congress of the United States, came out in support of Cuban independence. In April of 1898, this Congress passed what is very well- known in Cuban history, the joint resolution that recognized that Cuba is and of right ought to be free and independent. So this Congress began a tradition in April of 1898 that continues to this day, a tradition in support of the right of the Cuban people to be free.

For the last 46 years, the Cuban people unfortunately have been under the boot of a totalitarian dictatorship that, while it has perhaps been the most inept, certainly one of the most inept of the Communist dictatorships in having achieved the systematic, utter destruction of what was one of the most prosperous economies in this hemisphere; in that sense, it has been absolutely inept. In terms of totalitarian control, it has been quite effective, and it maintains an absolute, intense oppression over the Cuban people to this day.

My colleagues have mentioned the onslaught of 2 years ago that was condemned by a resolution offered by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez) a few weeks ago, and it was condemned by this House, the absolute campaign, if you will, of the march of 2003 that arrested dozens and dozen and dozens, almost 100 pro-democracy leaders and threw them in prison, but the campaign continues.

The campaign of oppression and intimidation, beginning in January of this year, the totalitarian Communist regime in Cuba has begun a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing. Hundreds of young people, mostly young men, 95 percent of whom are black, have been rounded up and thrown in prisons beginning in January of this year in what the dictator calls Operation Containment, containment of the young people.

Now, this assembly was organized, as has been mentioned by my distinguished colleagues, by Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello and Felix Bonne Carcasses and Rene Gomez Manzano, is an important, historic development. There are some people who now say that we must reject the subterfuge seeking to attack this assembly, that they have not invited all pro-democracy groups. All pro-democracy groups, the organizers of this assembly have invited all individuals and organizations within Cuba who support democracy. Some say then they have not been invited. In fact, they have been invited, but that is not the problem of the organizer. That is the problem of somebody else, very important.

This is an important, extremely valiant effort that over 360 civil society groups, pro-democracy groups within the island have called for, and they seek to meet on May 20. So what this Congress today is saying is: We support you. We know what you are doing. We know the courage that it entails to say, within a totalitarian state, that a meeting will be held in support of freedom and democracy and free elections and the legalization of political parties and freedom of religion and freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Within the totalitarian state, to say that there will be a meeting engaged in such discussion is really a heroic act, and so today, what we are saying is that we recognize that, and we support you.

Simply to end, Mr. Speaker, as I commend the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart) for having brought forth this resolution today in such an important and timely manner, I simply want to read the names of some of the thousands of political prisoners who cannot have their voices heard. Obviously, they all deserve to be heard, but I would like to read some of their names.

It is my privilege and honor to serve in this Congress with my brother Mario, where there are two brothers who are serving in prison in Cuba simply because they came out publicly in support of freedom and democracy. One brother, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, was sentenced to 25 years in the gulag for his support of democracy. The other one, Luis Enrique Ferrer Garcia, was sentenced to 28 years in the gulag because he supports democracy.

Someone who I admire very much, I have followed his long and distinguished fight for freedom for many years, has been languishing since 1990, mostly in solitary. His name is Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, also known Antunez. He was sentenced to 18 years because, ever since he was in high school, he said he favors democracy and rejects totalitarianism, and so he has suffered the consequences since then.

Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, 20 years in the gulag.

Diosdado Gonzalez Marrero, 20 years in the gulag.

Felix Navarro Rodriguez, 25 years.

Prosperso Gainza Aguero, 25 years.

Hector Maseda Gutierrez, 20 years.

Claro Sanchez Altarriba, 15 years.

Victor Rolando Arroyo, 26 years.

And perhaps the best known, certainly someone who is a symbol of resistance, character, dignity, as all these men and women are, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, 25 years.

There are thousands, Mr. Speaker, of men and women like this, many, by the way, charged with what they call in the totalitarian system common crimes, like seeking to leave, seeking to flee to freedom. That is a common crime. So the regime does not even recognize them as political prisoners. There are thousands of political prisoners in Cuba such as these men whose names I have read. We owe them our solidarity.

Today, we are expressing our solidarity, and specifically through this resolution, our solidarity with the meeting convened for May 20, which will seek to develop ways to hasten what is inevitable, and that is an end to the totalitarian nightmare and the commencement of the dawn of freedom.

Mr. Speaker, last night, the House passed House Resolution 193 as a suspension bill. For people who may not know, suspension bills are meant to be noncontroversial measures the House typically passes unanimously.

I voted no. Let me tell you why. Because it was a protest vote meant to encourage freedom and liberty for all Americans. Let us start with what it said.

H.R. 193 is a resolution that says in part, ``expressing support to the organizers and participants of the historic meeting of the Assembly to Promote the Civil Society in Cuba on 20 May 2005 in Havana. Whereas, Fidel Castro's terrorist regime has continued to repress all attempts by Cuban people to bring democratic change to Cuba and denies universally recognized liberties, including freedom of speech, association, movement and the press.''

I could go on but there is no need to. It is all right there in what I just read. We decry liberties denied Cubans while a Cuban-American in my city of Seattle is denied the right to go to Cuba to visit his son by the U.S. government.

Remember the grandstanding on Elian Gonzales? We wag our fingers at Fidel and shout about Cubans being denied liberty at every moment. Well, we are denying the right of an American to travel to Cuba for a few days to see his son. How hypocritical is that?

I am talking about the plight of Sergeant Carlos Lazo. He came to America from Cuba in the early 1990s floating on a raft in the ocean. He risked his life for a chance to come here. Talk about the quintessential story about risking everything to call America home. Carlos Lazo is the stuff of books and movies and news coverage. He wants none of it. He just wants to see his children in Cuba. And the United States government will not let him go.

Floating on the raft in the ocean, that is what Carlos Lazo did. That is about as courageous as it gets. So he arrives in America. He moves to the State of Washington. A man grateful to be alive, he determines to embrace his new country and do everything within his power to give back. He joins the Washington National Guard. Over a year ago, his unit dispatched to Iraq. Now Carlos serves his country in one of the most dangerous places in Iraq, Fallujah, as a medic. He serves on the ground in Iraq for a year.

When his duty is over, Carlos wants to go see his kids still in Cuba. Carlos goes to Miami, but he is denied the right to travel to Cuba. He is denied the right to board an airplane bound for Havana. He saw them in 2003, and he is told by the government: You cannot see them again until 2006. Three years.

Sergeant Lazo, who proudly served America, who risked his life to get here and risked his life to defend liberty, is now a man whose liberty has been denied. He cannot see his children in Cuba until the President lets him go.

When will Carlos be able to visit his children in Cuba? I ask that the Speaker, because the administration is in denial, call the White House. They want to perpetuate a bureaucracy and a failed policy, not assist an American who wants the sum total of what every parent wants, the right to see their kids.

The government has in place a policy which denies the basic liberties of an American hero, and we have not lifted one finger in this House to help Carlos Lazo. The Secretary of Defense is not interested in him. The White House is not interested in its citizen. The White House and this House are only interested in wagging fingers at Fidel Castro.

Carlos Lazo is a man who embodies everything Americans stand for, courage, determination, quiet thanks from a man grateful to have made a new life and a new home. And now Carlos is a man who cannot be united with his family. Carlos is a man who did not want to be anything but a quiet, grateful American and is forced to become a man in the spotlight, hoping someone will pay attention, hoping someone will let him see his kids.

H. Res. 193 is a suspension bill that would have us suspend disbelief. Carlos deserves the thanks of a grateful Nation and the immediate assistance of this administration and the Congress. We ought to add his name to H. Res. 193 so he can travel. We should do that and make a resolve that the United States of America, which sees itself as a beacon of liberty in the world, extend its support to Carlos Lazo and will facilitate his immediate travel to Cuba to be reunited with his kids.

Anything less than fighting and defending the liberty of Carlos Lazo from the State of Washington is the work of a Congress long on hyperbole and short on action in defense of liberty.

Mr. Speaker, call the Secretary of Defense before the day is out. I bet he is still in his office. Send Carlos Lazo to Cuba, to his sons in his former homeland, so he can be a free American.

If you want to make a real statement about what it means to be free, let one American be free, free to travel, free to be reunited with his children, free to show the people of Cuba, firsthand, what freedom means in this country.

Free to show Cubans firsthand that America does not have to prevent its citizens from leaving the country in order to keep them.

Mr. Speaker, use your office to intercede and let this House stand as a beacon of freedom and liberty for every American, not just some Americans.

So long as Carlos Lazo is forbidden from visiting his children in Cuba, America can only be known as the land where some are truly free and others are truly denied liberty.

Send Carlos Lazo to Cuba.