Florida Senate - 2020                                    SM 1756
       
       
        
       By Senator Flores
       
       
       
       
       
       39-01703-20                                           20201756__
    1                           Senate Memorial                         
    2         A memorial to the Congress of the United States and
    3         the President of the United States, urging them to
    4         grant temporary protected status to Venezuelans in the
    5         United States.
    6  
    7         WHEREAS, Venezuela is enduring an unprecedented economic,
    8  humanitarian, security, and refugee crisis, consisting of
    9  extreme food and medicine shortages, severe infant and child
   10  malnutrition, rampant crime, and government-sponsored
   11  repression, and
   12         WHEREAS, Venezuela’s economic crisis continues unabated,
   13  and the International Monetary Fund estimates that the annual
   14  inflation in Venezuela reached almost 265,000 percent in July
   15  2019, and
   16         WHEREAS, in 2017, the Office of the United Nations High
   17  Commissioner for Human Rights reported the deaths of 124 persons
   18  in Venezuela which could be attributed to violations of the
   19  right to freedom of peaceful assembly, and, in July 2019, the
   20  office reported the deaths of 66 persons during protests between
   21  January and May 2019, 52 of which were attributable to
   22  government security forces or pro-government armed groups, and
   23         WHEREAS, from September 2017 through April 2018, a review
   24  of pharmacies in five major cities in Venezuela showed a
   25  shortage of nearly 85 percent of medicine essential to treat
   26  four of the most recurrent causes of morbidity in the country,
   27  including diarrhea, respiratory tract infections, diabetes, and
   28  high blood pressure, and
   29         WHEREAS, according to the Office of the United Nations High
   30  Commissioner for Human Rights, Venezuelan intelligence and
   31  security forces have increasingly used arbitrary arrests and
   32  detentions to repress and intimidate civil society, political
   33  opponents, and voices of dissent, and
   34         WHEREAS, in the June 2018 report published by the Office of
   35  the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid
   36  Ra’ad Al Hussein, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
   37  Rights, stated, “The failure to hold security forces accountable
   38  for such serious human rights violations suggests that the rule
   39  of law is virtually absent in Venezuela,” and
   40         WHEREAS, according to United Nations figures, more than
   41  four million Venezuelans have fled the country, the largest
   42  exodus in the recent history of Latin America and the Caribbean,
   43  and
   44         WHEREAS, by early 2018, more than half of all Venezuelans
   45  had lost between 19 and 24 pounds, and today 90 percent of all
   46  Venezuelans do not have enough money to buy food and 60 percent
   47  live in extreme poverty, and
   48         WHEREAS, the minimum monthly wage in 2017 bought only 12
   49  percent of one Venezuelan’s basic food needs, and by 2018,
   50  approximately 5,000 people per day were leaving Venezuela in
   51  search of food, and
   52         WHEREAS, the people of Venezuela are facing a dire need for
   53  temporary protected status, NOW, THEREFORE,
   54  
   55  Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   56  
   57         That Venezuela is in a humanitarian crisis, and the
   58  Legislature of the State of Florida condemns Venezuelan
   59  President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian steps to undermine
   60  democratic institutions and urges the Congress of the United
   61  States and the President of the United States to grant temporary
   62  protected status to Venezuelans in the United States.
   63         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of State dispatch
   64  copies of this memorial to the President of the United States,
   65  to the President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of
   66  the United States House of Representatives, and to each member
   67  of the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.