Statement

Washington, D.C. – Senators Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), today introduced the bipartisan Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act. The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) welcomes this important legislation.

Mr. Sessions is directing federal prosecutors to impose overly harsh mandatory minimum sentences on drug crimes further devastating communities that need help.

The following is a statement of support for the Elie Wiesel Act from dozens of national and state-based nongovernmental organizations.

The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) denounced House passage of the American Health Care Act, a bill that would leave 24 million people without health coverage, strip away protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions, eliminate the Medicaid expansion, and cut Medicaid by $850 billion, forever ending the program as we know it.

FCNL opposes efforts by the president and members of Congress to roll back restrictions put in place in the 1950s that ban partisan political activity in houses of worship.

Today, Reps Carlos Curbelo (FL-26) and Ted Deutch (FL-22), co-chairs of the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus, led 19 other members of the Caucus in a letter to President Trump urging him to maintain our country’s commitment to the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The U.S. Air Force just dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal in Afghanistan – the first time a MOAB (also known as “Mother of All Bombs”) has been used in combat. This is a significant escalation of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, more than 15 years after the U.S. invasion.

There are no easy solutions to the violence in Syria. But our faith and experience lead us to reaffirm that bombing will not end that violence. Only by addressing the root causes of violence and conflict in Syria can we move the U.S. closer to peace.

The Trump administration’s missile attack against Syrian government airfields will do nothing to end the bloodshed and violates U.S. and international law. The Friends Committee on National Legislation urges Congress to step forward from the sidelines and reassert its constitutional authority by voting to stop the U.S. from widening the war in Syria.

We are shocked and saddened by the horrific chemical weapons attack on civilians in Syria. Our hearts go out the victims, their community, and the Syrian people who have witnessed years of destruction.