[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8370]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1115
                   CONGRATULATING ARMANDO VALLADARES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate my dear 
friend and a true patriot, Ambassador Armando Valladares, for being 
awarded the Canterbury Medal, the highest honor bestowed by The Becket 
Fund for Religious Liberty.
  Armando Valladares spent 22 years in Castro's gulags. He endured 
unconscionable torture while in prison. Why, Mr. Speaker? Because 
Armando refused to put a sign on his desk saying that he supported 
Fidel Castro.
  No matter how much abuse he endured in prison, Armando fought his 
jailers every day. He protected his conscience from the constant and 
ongoing attacks of the brutal Communist dictatorship.
  In 1988, President Ronald Reagan installed Armando Valladares as our 
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
  Earlier this year, Ambassador Valladares wrote about President 
Obama's misguided and dangerous overtures to the Castro regime--one-
sided negotiations. In a recent op-ed that Armando Valladares wrote, he 
said: ``In agreeing to meet with Raul Castro, Obama rewards a regime 
that rules with brutal force and systematically violates human 
rights.''
  Ambassador Valladares, thank you for your courage. Thank you for your 
principled stand against the Castro regime. Godspeed, my friend.


            Commemorating Deering Estate's 100th Anniversary

  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the 100th 
anniversary of one of south Florida's most notable cultural, 
historical, environmental, and archaeological treasures, the Charles 
Deering Estate, located in my beautiful congressional district.
  Charles Deering, the first chairman of the board of International 
Harvester, bought the property in the year 1916. Now, as a jewel of the 
Miami-Dade County Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces system, the 444-
acre Deering Estate serves as a center of community life in the very 
groovy village of Palmetto Bay.
  It also conserves globally endangered native plant communities and is 
a focal point for the ongoing Biscayne Bay coastal wetlands restoration 
that aims to re-create more natural freshwater flows and to slow 
saltwater intrusion into our drinking water sources as sea levels rise. 
And the sea levels are, indeed, rising due to global climate change.
  Mr. Speaker, the Deering Estate's future will be just as important as 
its past to all of south Florida. The Deering Estate is indeed a jewel 
in our already beautiful south Florida treasures.

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