Korean American Divided Families National Registry Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 7152) to direct the Secretary of State to establish a national registry of Korean American divided families, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on this measure.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the sorrowful legacy of the Korean war is with us even today, more than 70 years after the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed.

The Korean Peninsula remains divided between a nation of free people and a totalitarian state that subjects its people and its population to utter tyranny and refuses to allow them to connect with the outside world from fear of losing control.

The sinister Kim regime continues to threaten the peace and security of the region and the world. We watched with alarm last week when Vladimir Putin visited North Korea, and the two rogue regimes signed a new strategic partnership agreement.

Meanwhile, families remain broken, from those still fighting to bring the remains of their loved ones home to those with extended family members still in North Korea.

Our vibrant Korean-American community feels this legacy strongly. More than 100,000 have relatives in North Korea, family members and descendants of those trapped on the north side of the 1953 armistice line.

The Korean American Divided Families National Registry Act requires the Secretary of State to establish a voluntary data repository for Korean Americans interested in participating in future reunions with their relatives in North Korea.

This bill also helps to ensure that any future dialogue between the United States and North Korea includes progress toward reunions for Korean-American families.

I thank the authors of this bipartisan bill, Congresswoman Wexton and Congresswoman Steel, for their work to help bring peace to Korean- American families. At the February 6 markup of the Foreign Affairs Committee, H.R. 7152 was unanimously adopted by a vote of 49-0.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for closing.

As a member of the AI task force, that was pretty cool to watch that actually go down just now for Ms. Wexton.

For far too long, the totalitarian regime in P'yongyang has denied Korean-American families the opportunity to reconnect with their family members in North Korea.

The Divided Families National Registry Act helps to lay the groundwork for those eventual reunions for which we continue to hope and work for. May that day arrive soon.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 7152. First, I thank Representative Wexton for her inspiring leadership on this important bill, and I thank Chairman McCaul for working in a bipartisan way to move this important legislation forward. This bill addresses a deeply human issue: the separation of Korean families caused by the Korean war.

One of the most painful outcomes of the Korean war was the division of families, a wound that, 70 years after the war's end, has yet to heal. This separation has caused immense suffering, not only for those in Korea but also for Korean Americans here in the United States. Over 100,000 Korean Americans have been unable to see or hear from their loved ones in North Korea.

Despite its ongoing tensions with North Korea, South Korea has managed to facilitate some family reunions through video calls, letters, and in-person meetings. Unfortunately, Korean Americans have not had similar opportunities. Currently there is no formal U.S. Government process to help them reunite with their relatives in North Korea.

H.R. 7152 aims to fill this gap. It calls on the State Department to gather information from Korean Americans who wish to reunite with their families and work toward facilitating those reunions. This bill also calls on the State Department to make family reunions a priority in any discussions with North Korea.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is about honoring families and ensuring that our Korean-American constituents can stay connected to those taken from them as a result of war and borders. Let's give them a chance to reunite, to heal, and to find peace.

I encourage my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. Wexton), the leader on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time for the purpose of closing.

Mr. Speaker, our conversations about the Korean Peninsula are often dominated by North Korea's nuclear and missile policy. While these are important conversations to have, we cannot lose sight of critical humanitarian and human rights concerns on the Korean Peninsula.

This bill is about a very personal and universal issue. It is about family. It is about connection. It is about bringing people together across generations and across borders.

Korean Americans who yearn for the chance to reunite once again with long-lost family deserve a chance to make that dream a reality.

Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will join me and support this important bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, as you may know, last year I was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, or PSP. It is basically Parkinson's on steroids, and I don't recommend it. It has affected my ability to speak, so I am using a text-to-speech app to make it easier for you and our colleagues to hear and understand me.

I rise today in support of my bipartisan Korean American Divided Families National Registry Act, which will help Korean Americans reconnect with the families they left behind in North Korea decades ago in the wake of the Korean war.

For more than seven decades, Korean-American families have not been able to see or speak with their relatives left behind in North Korea, and second- and third-generation Korean Americans know nothing but stories and heartbreak about their separated family members.

Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago, I participated in a bipartisan congressional delegation to the Republic of Korea and saw firsthand some of the lasting consequences that families have faced as a result of the war and displacement.

I have heard the stories of Korean-American families in Virginia and across the country who have sought for most of their lives for a chance to reconnect with their loved ones but have faced too great of a challenge in accessing any official channels to do so.

My bipartisan legislation being taken up by the House today helps to fix that problem. This bill would establish a data repository through the State Department of information about Korean-American families across the U.S., as well as their separated family members in North Korea, both living and deceased, and encourage cooperation between our government and that of North Korea for the purpose of offering the opportunity for these families to reconnect either in person or digitally.

The South Korean Ministry of Reunification, which is tasked with ensuring that South Korea is prepared for reunification when and if it occurs, maintains a similar registry of families that

were separated by the war and its aftermath.

By taking up this legislation today, we are giving these Korean- American families hope. This is a long overdue step to help make these families whole again, fittingly on the anniversary of the start of the Korean war.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in support of this bipartisan bill to reunite Korean-American families.

Mr. Speaker. I wish to add my voice of support for H.R. 7152, the Korean American Divided Families National Registry Act, introduced by Rep. Jennifer Wexton and Rep. Michelle Steel, good friends and colleagues of mine on the Congressional- Executive Commission on China.

This bill is a very tender-hearted one, for it recognizes the pain which still lingers so many decades after the Korean War Armistice, which divided family members in the North from those in the South.

By creating a registry of those who wish to be united with family members, this bill recognizes the depth of that pain, while offering hope that at some point in the future, a more permanent reunion may be possible.

It also harbors no illusions about the Kim regime in the Communist North, requiring that our State Department raise the reunion issue in any dialogue between the U.S. and the North, in consultation with our ally, the Republic of Korea, without allowing the North the ability to use this emotionally fraught issue as leverage in negotiations.

In other words, the aims of this bill are limited, and tempered by an understanding of the political dynamics on the peninsula, while taking a practical step towards eventual reunion of family members.

I ask my colleagues to join me in support, and I commend Reps. Wexton and Steel for this effort to help Korean-American families,

Mr. Speaker, due to unforeseen circumstances, I was unable to cast my votes for the H. Res. 901 or H.R. 7152. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 280, and YEA on Roll Call No. 281.