Testimony Before the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development (SDIR)

Daniel Di Martino testified in a hearing titled Patterns of Forced Migration in Different Regions of the World.

Watch the full testimony here.

Dear chair and subcommittee members,

Thank you for allowing me to testify about this very important matter of my expertise, but also to my heart, which is the rising number of refugees worldwide.

I hail from Venezuela, the nation that has produced the largest number of refugees and displaced persons in the world, numbering 9 million today. This is a shocking fact because Venezuela used to be the fourth richest country in the world, it welcomed millions of immigrants in the second half of the 20^th century, including my four grandparents. Venezuela used to be the world’s top oil exporter, yet it is now the world’s top people exporter. It’s the country with the largest oil reserves on the planet, yet there is no gasoline. I was forced to line up for food, medicines, and other necessities for hours, the government told me when I could visit the grocery store and what I could buy, inflation destroyed my family’s income and made us poor, I lost power and water in my home frequently, and my childhood was plagued with fear of robbery, kidnapping, and murder by rising crime.

Click here to read the full testimony.

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Daniel Di Martino is a graduate fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a Ph.D. student in economics at Columbia University, and the founder of the Dissident Project, a speakers’ bureau for young immigrants from socialist countries.