[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 50 (Thursday, March 22, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H2030]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 PROTECT MINNESOTA'S LIBERIAN COMMUNITY

  (Mr. PAULSEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PAULSEN. Mr. Speaker, time is running out. Unless the 
administration takes action by March 31, members of Minnesota's 
Liberian community who have been here for more than 20 years after 
fleeing a vicious civil war and making new lives here in the United 
States could be forced to leave.
  Minnesota is home to one of the largest Liberian communities in the 
country. More than 16,000 Liberians, including 4,000 children, have 
made Minnesota their home, and for decades, they have been productive 
members of our society and our economy.
  Since the early 1990s, Presidents of both parties have ensured that 
they can stay. A bipartisan group of my colleagues and I are asking and 
joining together to ask the President to act to do the same.
  I have also coauthored bipartisan legislation to allow these families 
to stay because, Mr. Speaker, we are asking the President: Don't let 
this happen. Do the right thing. These families are fundamentally 
American, and they are a part of the very fabric of what we have in 
Minnesota as a community.

                          ____________________