Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of New Jersey.

Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. I thank, again, Eliot Engel, Chairman Royce, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is the former chairwoman of the committee. I thank her for her very kind remarks. She has been a leader on human rights herself all over the world, especially with regard to Iran and some of the legislation she has gotten enacted into law. I thank her for that extraordinary leadership.

Again, this is an example of us pulling together and helping a group of people, survivors of ISIS genocide, who are in desperate need of assistance. We are now past the emergency level in most cases.

When we originally introduced the bill, I named it ``the emergency.'' We didn't get it passed fast enough, but there is so much more that remains to be done when it comes to recovery and sustainability of these precious lives that have been so wounded by ISIS through mass murder and genocide, which has been recognized by both the Obama administration and the Trump administration.

So this is an idea whose time has come, and my hope is that it will be implemented faithfully and aggressively from the moment it is signed.

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