[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 142 (Wednesday, November 19, 2014)]
[House]
[Page H8075]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE 43 MURDERED MEXICAN STUDENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Vela) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. VELA. Madam Speaker, I rise to bring attention to the massacre of 
43 students in Mexico.
  Edmund Burke said:

       All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good 
     men do nothing.

  On September 26, students from a teacher training college visited 
Iguala, Mexico, to participate in a protest. According to media 
reports, the students were arrested by police forces and handed over to 
a criminal gang. Their burned bodies have reportedly been found 
discarded in a river.
  As The Washington Post reported yesterday:

       The demand to find the students and punish those 
     responsible for their disappearance has broadened into a more 
     diverse fury about corrupt politicians and their drug-
     trafficking cronies.

  Mexican prosecutors have formally charged former Iguala Mayor Jose 
Luis Abarca in the disappearance of the students. Unfortunately, this 
is not an isolated incident. In the last several months, three 
constituent families of mine have been touched by murder in northern 
Mexico.
  I again call on the United States State Department to ensure that the 
Mexican Government thoroughly investigates these atrocities and that 
those responsible be brought to justice and prosecuted to the fullest 
extent of the law.
  The crises of human smuggling, drug smuggling, and illegal migration 
do not begin or end at the border. Resolving these matters requires 
that we address issues of economic development and cartel violence in 
Mexico and that we address the demand for narcotics in the United 
States, along with eliminating the presence of cartels in an estimated 
1,000 U.S. cities.
  The leaders of the State Department in Washington, D.C., need to 
understand that this is one of the most pressing foreign policy issues 
confronting our Nation. Otherwise, evil will indeed triumph.

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