I am happy to join as Senator Campbell’s cosponsor on this legislation, which expresses through immigration law our national commitment to leaving no stone unturned in our efforts to bring back any American prisoners of war who may still be alive in Southeast Asia. This bill would provide refugee status in the United States to any person, from a specified set of countries, who delivered into American custody a living American veteran from the Vietnam or Korean Wars. It also takes steps to ensure that the existence of this new law will be announced through broadcasts in the Southeast Asian region.

This bill has 36 sponsors, Republicans and Democrats, showing once again that the United States Senate is committed on a bipartisan basis to the POW/MIA cause. We must be vigilant in protecting the interests of those American families that still hold out hope that their loved ones may be alive in Southeast Asia. This legislation is a small but useful step in that direction – I hope it will give anyone who has information about our missing soldiers an incentive to come forward and share it.