[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 31, 2017)]
[House]
[Page H753]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           FIGHT CLOSED DOORS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Kennedy) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. Speaker, on Friday, I visited a community health 
center in Worcester, Massachusetts. There, at a place dedicated to 
healing those in their community, I met one of their patients. It was a 
42-year-old Muslim refugee from Baghdad who arrived in the United 
States this past November. He, his wife, and his children spent 3 years 
in a Turkish refugee camp after fleeing their home country.
  His family had been targeted in Iraq. He had been hospitalized four 
times with bombing injuries. He and his wife had both been shot. He 
watched his own brother burn to death in front of his eyes, and 
countless members of his family are still missing.
  He was a musician back home, but he struggled to keep up his craft as 
he has fled. A doctor in that health center managed to track down a 
used trumpet and presented it to that man as a gift. Now, every time he 
visits that health center, he brings the trumpet and plays it for the 
staff.
  My visit was no exception. He stood in front of our group and proudly 
played our national anthem with tears in his eyes because this country 
had given him a home. This country is helping him mend his wounds, has 
protected his family, and has given him a chance to fight another day.
  It is a badge of honor that he shares with every single person living 
in our great Nation, regardless of color or creed, that we are all 
bound together by the immense opportunity of those golden doors, opened 
at one point for our own families sometime down the road.
  Hours after our visit, our President--his President--told him that 
his relatives, his neighbors, and millions of others who have suffered 
just as he has were no longer welcome here.
  To Samira Asgari, a 30-year-old doctor traveling to Boston to study 
cures for tuberculosis, he closed the doors.
  To the Iraqi general who commands an American-trained 
counterterrorist force traveling here to visit his relocated family, 
our President closed our doors.
  To all of the 21.3 million refugees worldwide, the leader of our free 
world told them that their pain and their suffering was not his 
problem, and he closed our doors.
  And to the global community, he made clear that his government will 
give in to terror and will make decisions based on fear rather than 
strength.
  Mr. President, I hope you hear us loud and clear when we say that 
these actions are an insult to the country we all love. They are an 
insult to our Constitution and an embarrassment to the blood, the 
sweat, and the tears that generations of Americans have shed in defense 
of Lady Liberty.
  So, Mr. President, we will fight, we will march, we will protest, we 
will raise our voices, and one day we will win.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to direct their remarks 
to the Chair and not to the President.

                          ____________________