Americans Being Unjustly Held in Iran

Floor Speech

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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, these faces are not household names, faces; no one knows who these unknown Americans are. And that is because they have been held in Iran for so long.

September 18, 2015, and also detained in 2015.

Of course they were not detained the 444 days that Iran, a totalitarian dictatorship and theocracy, held 52 American diplomats, and the world is not watching the same as they did then. That is how this President could make a deal with Iran and not include these victims of this dictatorship.

So today, Mr. Speaker, I come to the floor to remind people that in the years, the decades, since I was a young lieutenant in 1979, when the Ayatollah Khomeini blamed students for somehow doing something--not his government--and continued to blame them and blames them in many ways until today, the Iranian Government, today, would still hold our Embassy hostage. It still is a shell waiting for a return, a return that I fear this President wants to do by executive order. He has already thrown aside so much of what was working to stop this regime from spreading terrorism.

Mr. Speaker, as we speak today, these people are held hostage, and the American people are being held hostage by a President who chooses to use the pen and the phone over the democratic means at his side.

Mr. Speaker, I will continue coming to the floor and pointing out that Iran continues to be a dictatorship spreading violence throughout the region; continues to fund Hamas and Hezbollah; continues to, in fact, destabilize countries in the region, and now does so with 140 billion more dollars.

Mr. Speaker, it is extremely important that we stand firm in this House that this cannot be tolerated; that, ultimately, this body must stand and do what it is obligated to do, which is, in fact, to demand freedom for Americans held involuntarily and illegally around the world, and particularly in Iran. President Obama's Supreme Court Nomination

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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I will close by commenting on the Democratic Whip's statements. He is demanding that the Senate do its job.

At a time in which the political season is well underway and politicians are campaigning around America for President, at a time in which two sides have two different visions of the Constitution--one is that the original intent of the Constitution be adhered to and changed only by the will of the people, as it has been 27 times; or, that it be simply cast aside the way the current nominee for the Supreme Court would do with the Second Amendment and others--I respect the minority leader's right to an opinion; but, of course, we all, on this floor, have a right to be wrong from time to time. Mr. Speaker, he clearly was when he went on for more than 10 minutes, telling us that we have to confirm a Supreme Court Justice in the middle of a political season.

I wish he had joined me in saying that this President should not make agreements that circumvent the Constitution, that circumvent this body and leave Americans stranded abroad.

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