In a bicameral letter today, 66 Members of Congress called on Secretary Lloyd Austin to “immediately” revoke his illegal Defense Department policy funding travel for abortions, saying they were “appalled by the flagrant disregard for the law” demonstrated by the Biden Administration. The letter—led by Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Vicky Hartzler (R-MO) and Sens. Steve Daines (R-MT) and James Lankford (R-OK)—comes on the heels of Secretary Austin’s October memorandum proclaiming that the Pentagon...
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At a bipartisan congressional hearing chaired by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), human rights activists today sounded alarm bells over the brutal crackdown on the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, calling on the Vatican and White House to speak out and take immediate action in response to the extreme anti-Catholic persecution being perpetrated by Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship. The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission hearing—entitled “The Perilous State of Religious Freedom in Nicaragua”—comes just days afte...
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Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester), who voted this week to repeal President Biden’s COVID vaccine mandate for US service members, said “ending Biden’s outrageous military COVID vaccine mandate is long overdue. The Biden COVID mandate has wrongfully discharged thousands of our courageous service members, threatened the livelihoods of tens of thousands more, and weakened our national security forces.” The repeal of Biden’s mandate is now well on its way to becoming law as part of the finalized versi...
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The “Kyle Mullen Naval Safety Enhancements”—a measure authored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-Manchester) to improve medical care and oversight for rigorous military training programs—is now well on its way to becoming law after being accepted by the Senate as part of the finalized version of the FY23 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which passed the House today for a second time by a vote of 350-80. Named for the 24-year-old Navy SEAL candidate from Manalapan who passed away after the notori...
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Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Global Human Rights, today issued the following statement on the recent reports of forced abortions in Nigeria: “The credible reports by Reuters implicating Nigerian officials in systematic forced abortions performed on women and girls who were kidnapped and raped by Islamic militants shock the conscience. The United States must stand with these victims and ensure that those involved i...
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Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) testifies before the House Rules Committee in July on his NDAA amendment to protect the education benefits of US service members forcibly discharged because of Biden’s COVID vaccine mandate. Democrats on the Committee blocked Smith’s amendment, denying it a vote by the full House of Representatives. As Congress enters eleventh-hour negotiations over its key annual defense policy bill, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) today continued his full-court press to restore hard-earned edu...
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Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Co-Chair of the House Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, today condemned the United Nations’ passage of a resolution—by a vote of 90 to 30 with 47 abstentions—that called the foundation of the State of Israel a “catastrophe”: “This week’s egregious vote by the United Nations General Assembly condemning the founding of Israel as a ‘catastrophe,’ or Nakba, is a display of hatred for Israel and callousness towards its citizens and comes at an especially chilling time w...
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U.S. Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) released a statement regarding the historic mass protests against General Secretary Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP): “The CCP’s ‘zero-Covid’ policy is outrageous. In addition, the CCP restricts all human rights and freedoms in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and across China. It has robbed the Chinese people of their human dignity. “The Biden Administration's weak rejection of the CCP’s zero-Covid policy and refusa...
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Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, today issued the following statement: “The targeting of Cardinal Joseph Zen in Hong Kong—a one-time bastion of freedom—underscores the efforts of the Chinese Communist Party to silence this champion of religious and civil liberty. Though his sentence was relatively light, the enemies of religious freedom targeted him to send a message: no one is safe. It is be...
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Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) this week introduced new legislation—the Education Achievement and Opportunity Act of 2022 (HR 9320)—to make quality education from kindergarten through high school more affordable by providing critical tax relief to parents of schoolchildren. Smith’s bill would provide a tax credit of up to $10,000 per child to pay tuition and fees for enrollment in Jewish, parochial, public, charter, private and religious schools. Up to $1,500 of the authorized assistance can be used f...
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