[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 46 (Thursday, March 14, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2381-S2382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                      Nomination of Dennis Hankins

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, it has been almost a year since President 
Biden nominated Dennis Hankins to be the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti. In 
that time, Haiti has gone from a tenuous political situation into a 
security and humanitarian catastrophe.
  Vicious gangs, armed largely with weapons trafficked from the United 
States, have plunged the country into chaos. They have burned 
government buildings. They have attacked police stations. While the 
Prime Minister was out of the country to facilitate an international 
peacekeeping mission, gangs led a massive jailbreak, releasing nearly 
4,000 prisoners. Mr. President, 15,000 Haitians have been forced to 
flee their homes. Almost half of the population is facing a food 
insecurity crisis. And this is within a very short distance of the 
United States of America. Thousands have been murdered, hundreds 
kidnapped. According to U.N. officials, gangs have used collective 
rapes to instill fear, punish, subjugate, and inflict pain.
  We are on the verge of having a failed state roughly 800 miles from 
our shores.
  Secretary Blinken was in Kingston this week to help broker a 
political agreement with other partners in the region--an agreement for 
a political path forward that includes the creation of a transitional 
Presidential council following the resignation of the Prime Minister.
  I am pleased that we are finally voting on Ambassador Hankins' 
nomination so he can start doing the job he was nominated for, but it 
has taken us way too long to get to this point. I am pleased that we 
are voting on his nomination. It should have been done well before now.
  I mentioned this week my meeting with General Richardson, our 
SOUTHCOM commander, as to how critical it is in our hemisphere and 
around the world to have confirmed Ambassadors to speak on behalf of 
America.
  We want to have a strong voice on what is happening in Haiti, but how 
can we have that if we don't take advantage of having a confirmed 
Ambassador? I am glad we are correcting that today. This nomination has 
been held up for reasons that have nothing to do with Haiti and nothing 
to do with the qualifications or experience of the nominee.
  U.S. leadership matters, especially in a country so close to our 
border. We need Senate-confirmed Ambassadors on the ground who can work 
with Haitian leaders and diplomats in the region to lay the groundwork 
for a transitional unity government.
  We need someone who understands the depths of the humanitarian 
suffering, which, if not addressed, will lead to thousands of Haitians 
seeking refuge at our southern border.
  Most importantly, we need someone who can help coordinate once the 
Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission is in place, which 
will be critical to restoring security. We need that multinational 
security force in place, but we need our voice to make sure they can be 
successful.
  In Haiti--in this region and throughout the world--we need to have 
confirmed Ambassadors. Ambassador Hankins has more than two decades of 
Foreign Service experience. He has served in some of the most complex, 
crisis-prone situations in the world, including in Haiti.
  In 2015, he was confirmed as Ambassador to Guinea by unanimous 
consent--unanimous consent. He was previously confirmed. He has the 
experience and the vision to guide this process forward and advance 
U.S. national interests.
  I want to call on my colleagues to support the administration's 
outstanding funding request for Haiti. Not

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only do we need to get the Ambassador confirmed, but we need to have 
our contributions available so that the multinational force that Kenya 
is leading can be deployed and we can start to restore order in Haiti 
so that a transitional government has a possibility of restoring the 
order necessary to avoid the current crisis and be able to address the 
humanitarian needs and stability that the people of Haiti so badly 
need. But it starts with us confirming the Ambassador, and we have a 
chance to do that with this next vote.
  I am pleased that we have this opportunity today, and I urge my 
colleagues to support this nomination.