June 22, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 114 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

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From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           WORLD REFUGEE DAY

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, this past Saturday, June 20, we marked the 
20th commemoration of World Refugee Day. Since 2000, World Refugee Day 
annually shines a light on the struggles of displaced people all over 
the globe and encourages us all to redouble our efforts to help them.
  We are currently experiencing the most severe refugee crisis in 
recorded history. There are almost 80 million forcibly displaced people 
worldwide, of which more than 30 million are refugees and asylum-
seekers. Every 2 seconds, someone is forced to leave his or her home 
because of conflict or persecution. That means that, since I began 
speaking, roughly 20 individuals have become newly displaced.
  These numbers are staggering and difficult to comprehend, but try to 
imagine for a moment what it means to be a refugee: to watch your home 
torn apart by conflict; to become the target of violence and 
oppression; to fear so greatly for your life and the lives of your 
loved ones that you choose to leave everything you know behind and take 
a dangerous journey to a place where the language and the culture are 
unfamiliar, where you have no support system, where you may struggle 
every day to make ends meet.
  This nightmare is the reality for almost 80 million human beings 
around the world. The situation has only worsened since the outbreak of 
the global COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of refugees are in low and 
middle-income countries, where weak health systems are already 
struggling to provide the basics of care. According to the 
International Rescue Committee, just 34 conflict-affected and fragile 
countries could see between 500 million and 1 billion COVID-19 
infections, leading to between 1.7 million and 3.2 million deaths over 
the course of the pandemic. Furthermore, refugees and displaced persons 
tend to live in precarious conditions that make them even more 
vulnerable to the coronavirus. They often live in crowded housing 
situations with little access to basic hygiene services, the perfect 
breeding ground for infectious diseases to spread. For instance, there 
are about 850,000 Rohingya refugees living in congested camps in Cox's 
Bazar in Bangladesh. As the coronavirus began to take hold there in 
March, experts warned that the lack of sanitation and capacity for 
social distancing in these refugee camps would create the ``perfect 
storm'' for transmission of the disease.
  Additionally, many refugees are employed in informal industries with 
little to no options for sick leave, restricted access to public health 
services, and have few, if any, resources to weather the financial 
burden of quarantine measures. Many are forced to defy stay-at-home 
orders to find ways to support their families, risking their health and 
that of their loved ones to provide basic shelter and food.
  Take, for example, the story of Orlando, a member of an indigenous 
community in Venezuela who is among the 4.5 million Venezuelan migrants 
and refugees who have fled the country's hunger, violence, and 
insecurity since 2014. He now lives in Brazil with 18 other families 
from his indigenous group. He and his family make their living as 
artisans, but when lockdown orders prevented them from selling their 
crafts, they could no longer afford rent. All 120 of the individuals 
living in his house were expelled, sent to the street in the middle of 
a pandemic. Meanwhile, many of Orlando's family members became sick 
with the virus, and one sadly passed away, devastating the community. 
Unfortunately, stories like this one are common among refugees.
  The good news is that there are a number of incredible multilateral 
and nongovernmental organizations working tirelessly to ensure that 
displaced people are safe, healthy, supported, and treated with the 
dignity they deserve. These organizations deserve our gratitude and, 
more importantly, our assistance. In my home State of Maryland, 
organizations such as the IRC, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee 
Service, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society--now HIAS--and World Relief 
are there to help refugees start a new life in the United States. 
Especially now, as the COVID-19 pandemic stretches resources and 
capacity of service providers around the world, it is critical that the 
United States do its part to help address the refugee crisis.
  That is why I joined all the other democratic members of the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee in introducing legislation to provide an 
additional $9 billion in funding for international efforts to fight the 
COVID-19 pandemic and strengthen our refugee resettlement process to 
accommodate those affected by the global health crisis. I also urged 
Secretary of State Pompeo to contribute at least $500 million to the 
U.N. campaign to protect displaced and disadvantaged persons around the 
world from the coronavirus.
  Historically, the United States has prided itself on offering safe 
harbor to the world's refugees. This country, after all, was founded by 
a group of people fleeing religious persecution. The plaque on the 
Statute of Liberty, perhaps the most famous symbol of American freedom 
and democracy,

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reads, ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to 
breathe free.'' But we have not always lived up to the values on that 
inscription. When World War II displaced millions of Jews, many of them 
sought asylum in the United States. Thousands were turned away and sent 
back to their deaths in their home countries. The most infamous 
incident was a ship called the St. Louis that carried almost 1,000 
Jewish refugees to a port in Miami. After being denied entry and forced 
to return to Europe, more than a quarter of those passengers perished 
in the Holocaust.
  It is important to acknowledge and learn from dark chapters in our 
history like this one, so that we can do a better job of respecting and 
protecting human life moving forwards. This is why I have been so 
troubled by President Trump's anti-refugee policies. Whether by making 
the lowest Presidential determination on refugee admissions in the 
program's history or by locking up asylum-seekers at our southern 
border, the Trump administration has turned our Nation's back on those 
fleeing violence and oppression and stained the U.S. reputation as a 
champion of human rights.
  We cannot allow these policies to continue. First and foremost, they 
are wrong. This sort of behavior violates the most basic tenets of our 
democracy: equality, freedom, and justice. But beyond that, it actively 
hurts our country to ignore the plight of refugees. When we shirk our 
responsibility as a global leader in humanitarian assistance, we 
exacerbate worldwide instability that will affect us, too. Moreover, by 
closing our doors to refugees, we miss out on the valuable 
contributions that they make to our society. Think of the contributions 
to science, art, and politics that refugees like Albert Einstein, 
Gloria Estefan, and Madeline Albright have made to the United States 
and to humanity. As I speak, think of all the displaced people around 
the world who are working on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic to 
help keep their adopted communities, including ours, safe.
  To improve our country's treatment of refugees, I worked with 
Senators Leahy, Booker, and Harris and Representative Zoe Lofgren to 
introduce the Refugee Protection Act of 2019. This bill is a 
comprehensive blueprint for reinvigorating U.S. refugee and asylum 
systems. It bolsters the U.S. Refugee Admission Program and expands 
protections for refugees, and restores due process and dignity for 
asylum seekers. Broadly, it seeks to repair the U.S. role as a refuge 
for the persecuted. I urge all of my colleagues to support this 
crucial, lifesaving measure.
  The most important thing to remember is that refugees are our fellow 
human beings who have found themselves in the most difficult of 
circumstances. They are brothers, daughters, fathers, grandmothers, and 
friends. They have ideas, hopes, and aspirations and deserve the same 
respect, security, dignity, and opportunity we wish for ourselves and 
our families and friends. This World Refugee Day, let us recommit to 
providing safe harbor to the vulnerable, no matter where they are from. 
I always like to say that our values are our strength, so let us live 
by our values and help build a brighter future for all the world's 
peoples.

                          ____________________