[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 3 (Friday, January 5, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E26]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              AMERICA WORKS--NOTWITHSTANDING THE SHUTDOWN

                                 ______


                          HON. EVA M. CLAYTON

                           of north carolina

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, January 5, 1996

  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to share with my colleagues a happy 
ending to what was an unfortunate situation for a 10-year-old girl. The 
Government shutdown threatened to cause this little girl to be stranded 
in Germany, missing school, until the resolution of the budget dispute.
  At the start of her Christmas break, December 20, she traveled as an 
unaccompanied minor, from Wilmington, NC, to Germany, to visit her 
father and ailing stepmother, who is hospitalized with cancer.
  Her passport expired on January 2, 1996, and the Consulate in 
Hamburg, Germany, informed her father that the passport could not be 
renewed because of the shutdown. The airlines, in turn, informed him 
that Government directives prevented them from allowing the child to 
board the plane with an expired passport.
  Imagine, Mr. Speaker, the mother's distress and more importantly, the 
girl's distress--being away from home, missing school, and having to 
pass her time in a foreign land. If ever a face should be placed on the 
tragedy of this Government shutdown, hers is the face. What a sad 
lesson in civics for this 10-year-old schoolgirl, faced with the harsh 
reality that she could not return home because of the shutdown of the 
U.S. Government.
  But, with the help of Mr. Woody Olmsted, an outstanding Federal 
Government employee at the Immigration and Naturalization Service; Mr. 
Bill McKillop, who works at the American Consulate in Frankfurt, 
Germany; Bob Fritz, Office of American Citizen Services, State 
Department; Ms. Lisa Piccione, manager of Government Affairs at Delta 
Airlines; and Mr. Dick Doubrava, who works for Delta Airlines in 
Atlanta, GA, we were able to ensure that this young girl is able to 
return to school and home. This is an outstanding example of a public-
private partnership, working through a problem. And, even more notably, 
it is an outstanding example of dedicated public servants, serving and 
helping citizens of the United States.
  America works, notwithstanding the shutdown, and Federal employees 
are dedicated, even when they are not being paid.

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