GOP Chairman Candidate
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Member No.: 166
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| QUOTE | IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES
October 9, 2004
Mr. Hanscom (for himself, Mr. Carpenter, Mr. Cole, Mr. Conway, Mr. Garwood, Mr. Hatcher, Mr. Martin, Mr. Messer, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Pickett, Mr. Pregler, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Thayer and Mr. Wintermont) introduced the following bill
A BILL
To enact measures that will help retrieve abducted children from countries that are not signatories to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction or have bi-lateral agreements with the United States of America that address this issue.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE
This Act may be cited as the 'Bring Our People Home Act of 2004'.
SECTION 2. FINDINGS
(1) Every year, thousands of children are abducted from the United States of America, igniting international custody disputes between the parents of these children over which parent they should be with and country that they should remain in.
(2) Only 65 countries (including the United States of America) are party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, which guarantees the quick reuniting of children from the parent(s) that they were stolen from in their home country, and the prosecution of the person that abducted them, with only a handful of other countries having bi-lateral agreements with the United States of America to address this issue.
(3) Of the others, it is consistently difficult to wrestle back abducted children from other nations, particularly in the Arab world, where Islamic Shari'a law consistently defers to fathers that abduct their children from the United States and ignores American mothers who are the victims of these thefts.
(4) The most infamous Arab nation in this regard is Saudi Arabia, where it is believed that hundreds of American girls have been abducted into the Kingdom and often trapped there, later being forced to marry and become the property (along with their children) of Saudi husbands, with little hope of being returned to the United States.
(5) On August 30, 2002, Indiana Congressman and House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton arrived in Saudi capitol Riyadh as head of a Congressional delegation to seek the release of 14 children and young adults that have been abducted into the Kingdom, and was largely rebuffed by Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.
(6) Our own State Department indeed has been largely impotent in seeking the release of American children and young adults from Saudi Arabia and other nations that ignore the pleas of American mothers to bring their children home, even turning away American women from their own embassies and consulates in the nations that they have been abducted into.
(7) In 1993, U.S. Marines were ordered by U.S. officials in Riyadh to escort a desperate Monica Stowers out of the U.S. Embassy that she sought refuge with her two small children in, after being pressured by the Saudi Kingdom and the US State Department to throw her out. Stowers to this day remains trapped inside the Kingdom, with her whereabouts difficult to discern.
(8) One recent infamous case involves Sarah Saga, who was abducted into Saudi Arabia in 1985 at the age of six-years-old by her physically abusive father. In June 2003, after eighteen years of captivity and being sold off to a Saudi husband, she escaped to the U.S. consulate in Jeddah with her two young children, five-year-old Ibrahim and three-year-old Hanin.
(9) Upon reaching the consulate, she was met with hostility from US State Department officials who woke her up for daily meetings starting at 7 A.M. for weeks, being given only two options: return to the home of her abusive husband or leave Saudi Arabia alone, without her children, the latter whom would be sent back to a father who beats them daily. Saga, saying in Congressional testimony last year that she was pressured into signing a document (largely seen as without legal credibility by most lawyers) to allow her children to stay in the Kingdom without her ever being able to see them, regrets that decision after returning to the United States and being briefed fully on what legal rights she had by non-government attorneys.
(10) Arguably the most infamous case involving child abduction into the Saudi Kingdom involves Patricia Roush and her two daughters, Alia and Aisha Gheshayan, who were abducted into the Kingdom in 1986 by a physically abusive and mentally instable father, diagnosed in 1978 at an American hospital with chronic alcoholism and paranoid schizophrenia. In 1996, a pro-active U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and former Governor of Mississippi, Raymond Mabus, withheld the visas of the father and his entire extended family, which very nearly secured the release of the Gheshayan daughters to Ms. Roush, despite the protestations against Mabus from his own embassy officials in Riyadh and the U.S. State Department.
(11) With Mabus set to retire however, the next two U.S. ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, interim Ambassador Ted Katouf and later Wyche Fowler, Jr., a former US Senator from Georgia, lifted the ban on visas and scuttled the attempt to get her daughters out of the Kingdom. Former Ambassador Mabus appealed to former President Bill Clinton in December 1996, but the latter did nothing. The daughters remain in the Kingdom to this day, with Alia probably having been married off to a Saudi husband by this time.
(12) As of June 12, 2002, the State Department believes that there are 46 recent cases involving as many as 92 U.S. citizens being held against their will in Saudi Arabia, this being just the known quantity not including other cases that may be out there, and the quantity of just one country, not including hundreds of others that are not party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction or do not have bi-lateral agreements with the U.S. government addressing this issue.
(13) With continued belligerence from the Saudi Kingdom and other offending countries, coupled with appeasement from the State Department, it is incumbent upon the Congress to take matters into its own hands to begin securing the release of U.S. citizens in uncooperative countries, with diplomacy if possible, by force if necessary.
SECTION 3. EMBASSY AND TRAVEL REGULATIONS
(a) EMBASSY POLICY--
(1) In countries that are not party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction or do not have bi-lateral agreements with the U.S. government on this issue, all U.S. embassies and consulates are mandated to house U.S. citizens and their children that are trapped in these countries against their will, and send them back to the United States as soon as possible.
(2) All U.S. embassies and consulates are also mandated to house citizens of other nations, along with their children, that are party to the Hague Convention or have bi-lateral agreements with the U.S., and send them back to the home country of these individuals as soon as possible.
(3) If this policy is violated at any time, all members of the U.S. foreign service that staff the violating embassy or consulate will be immediately fired and not allowed to work any other job in the federal government, in the U.S. foreign service or otherwise
( TRAVEL POLICY--
(1) All visas and passports held by the immediate and extended family members of those related to anyone who abducts American children into a country not party to the Hague Convention or that do not have bi-lateral agreements with the United States addressing this issue, will have those visas and passports immediately invalidated until those abducted are returned to their immediate relatives in the United States. Said family members will also not be allowed to apply for visas and passports until those who have been abducted are returned to the United States.
(2) If this policy is violated at any time, all members of the U.S. foreign service that staff the violating embassy or consulate that issued the visa or passport or allowed existing ones to remain valid will be immediately fired and not allowed to work any other job in the federal government, in the U.S. foreign service or otherwise.
SECTION 4. REPORT
Every six months after the signing of this bill or overturning of a Presidential veto by a two-thirds majority of both houses in the Congress on this bill, the Secretary of State shall report to the House Government Reform and International Relations committees all cases of American citizens abducted into all countries, which of these countries are not party to the Hague convention or have bi-lateral agreements with the United States on the issue, efforts to retrieve these citizens and any children they may have and instances in which the laws created by this bill have been violated and the corrective actions taken to mend said violations.
SECTION 5. ENACTMENT
Said provisions in this bill will take effect immediately after the signing of this bill into law by the President or overturning of a Presidential veto of this bill by a two-thirds majority of both houses in the Congress. |
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HR 1.381 Bring Our People Home Act of 2004
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