[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 29 (Thursday, February 14, 2019)]
[House]
[Pages H2000-H2001]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 YEMEN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Rose) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ROSE of New York. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to say that I was 
proud to vote for H.J. Res. 37 and to stand in opposition to continued 
U.S. engagement in hostilities in Yemen as yet undeclared by Congress. 
However, this is just the first step in addressing just how far astray 
we have gone when it comes to Yemen and in our foreign policy more 
broadly.
  Let's be clear: the crisis unfolding in Yemen right now is a 
consequence and the responsibility of actions by both Republican and 
Democratic administrations. We took a low level conflict, and we put it 
on steroids. We took a regional issue, and we turned it into the 
biggest humanitarian crisis in the world.
  For what?
  We started supporting the anti-Houthi coalition because we didn't 
want Iran to expand its influence, and here we are, the Houthis are 
closer than ever to Tehran, and they are launching Iranian-made 
missiles at Riyadh.
  I thought we were done doing dumb stuff.
  On top of all of this, the President compounded this humanitarian 
crisis by implementing a travel ban which left the families of American 
citizens stranded in a war zone that we ourselves helped create.
  Now, I represent one of the largest Yemeni-American communities in 
the United States. I have hundreds of families in my district, Staten 
Island and south Brooklyn, who worry about their husbands, their wives, 
their children, and their parents, who only want to be reunited with 
them in the United States.
  Now, many families have told me that they can apply for a waiver 
which somehow makes this constitutional. But not a single person from 
the Secretary of State on down can tell me how my constituents can 
actually get the waivers that their family members so desperately need. 
We still don't know.
  Nobody cares about national security more than I do, but this isn't 
it. We are the most powerful country in the world, and we have trapped 
my constituents' loved ones in a war zone with no answers for how they 
can get out of there.
  How does this make us more safe?
  It is time we have a clear-eyed look at how we conduct our foreign 
policy and, more importantly, how we decide to use military force in 
the first place. This resolution is just one step in the right 
direction.

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