WITHOUT pausing once to sit down or use the bathroom Nancy Pelosi spoke for more than eight hours on February 7th to protest Congress’s failure to protect young immigrants threatened with deportation. Between 10am and 6.10pm, the 77-year-old Democratic leader in the House of Representatives stood in 4-inch heels, reading heart-wrenching letters from high-achieving young immigrants and quoting from the bible and Pope Francis. When she finally stopped, she turned around to high-five her cheering colleagues before sitting down. Although she claimed during her address that it was not her intention to break any record, this may have been the longest speech ever made on the House floor.
The ostensible reason for Mrs Pelosi’s protest was to demand that Paul Ryan, the House Speaker, allow a vote on a legislative fix for DACA, (the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme). Introduced by Barack Obama it shielded from deportation about 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to America as children and was cancelled by President Donald...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2nUrgSs
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