Following Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic damage throughout Florida’s Gulf Coast, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) met with local officials and volunteers from the barrier islands to discuss the storm’s impact and current recovery efforts. Photos are courtesy of...
Hurricane Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm, causing catastrophic damage along Florida’s Gulf Coast. It’s crucial for the federal government to expedite state-requested resources and authorize key policy flexibilities in order for Floridians to make a swift...
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office will host two in-person events to assist constituents affected by Hurricane Helene and help navigate applications for FEMA assistance. Food, water, and additional resources will be available at the events. Event...
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) office will host in-person and virtual Mobile Office Hours next week to assist constituents with federal casework issues in their respective local communities. These office hours offer constituents who do not live close to one of...
Following the impacts of Hurricanes Helene and Debby, some local governments in Florida face looming budget shortfalls that could disrupt disaster recovery efforts. If these local governments receive reimbursements for past hurricanes from the Federal Emergency...
Following Hurricane Helene’s catastrophic path through northwest Florida, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) met with local officials and volunteers from Citrus County. Senator Rubio also met with small business owners impacted by the storm. Photos are courtesy of...
The US must stand with Ecuador against narco-terrorists
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)
January 19, 2024
…Things aren’t looking good [in Ecuador]. As I write, four police officers have been kidnapped, two have been killed, the lawyer prosecuting TC Television’s invaders has been assassinated, dozens of prisoners have escaped from their cells, and the people of Ecuador are mostly hiding indoors as soldiers patrol the streets of the country’s largest city, Guayaquil….
I traveled to Guayaquil and Quito last February and knew that the nation had to confront many challenges. But the destabilizing influence of Venezuela’s narco-regime, combined with the soft-on-crime policies of both Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, has empowered cartels to make new inroads into the strategically located equator state.
What should be the role of the U.S. in all this? First, we must stand by President Noboa and his administration…. Congress passed the bipartisan U.S.-Ecuador Partnership Act in December 2022, which authorized a comprehensive diplomatic strategy to strengthen our commercial and security relations with Ecuador….
To improve the situation, we should consider working with Ecuador to update the crimes that qualify for the extradition of criminals to the U.S. As history shows, drug lords have long feared U.S. prisons more than those in Latin America. The current U.S.-Ecuador extradition treaty is insufficient for these troubled times and must be updated….
Finally, the U.S. must abandon any attempts to appease the international actors aiding and abetting Ecuador’s narco-terrorists and organized criminal groups, namely Venezuela’s dictatorship….