Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, the Judiciary, the District of Columbia, and Independent Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006
TRANSPORTATION, TREASURY, HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, THE JUDICIARY, THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, AND INDEPENDENT AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006 -- (House of Representatives - June 30, 2005)
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, these cruel anti-family restrictions need to be reversed. They have already caused too much human pain and suffering.
Nelson Diaz arrived in the U.S. in 1981, leaving his father, brothers and extended family in Cuba. He visited his family in May 2004--and is now not eligible to return until May 2007. His father is 87 years old and in failing health. If he is forced to wait the full three years, Diaz will not see his father alive again.
Waldo Parravicini left his family behind in 1958 when he came to the U.S. Until last June, he saw them on a regular basis, delivering vital medicines to his aging father. Under the new restrictions, Waldo has missed the deaths of his father and grandfather, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends, as well as the births and baptisms of nieces and nephews. If Waldo and his 93-year-old mother have to wait two more years, she may never see her oldest daughter and grandchildren again. Regarding the new limits on family travel, Waldo says they are ``not worthy of any nation that truly values family and God.''
Ana Karim, a pastor with the Richmond Mennonite Fellowship in Richmond, Virginia, has family throughout Cuba, who she visited regularly until last year. She brought medicine, clothing and food to her two uncles, one suffering from cancer and the other from Parkinson's disease. Now Ana cannot visit any of her family in Cuba because the new law declares that her uncles, aunts and cousins are not immediate family.
Mr. Chairman, who in this Chamber can possibly, in good conscience, support a policy that deliberately creates such family pain and suffering?
We're supposed to be the good guys.
Stop punishing these innocent families.
Support the Davis amendment.
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