Speaker Nancy Pelosi

As House Democrats continue our successful drumbeat of action across the nation to “Own August,” I write with several important updates for our Caucus, Congress and Country.

The Administration is seeking to codify child abuse, plain and simple. Its appalling, inhumane family incarceration plan would rip away basic protections for children’s human rights, reversing decades-long and court-imposed rules and violating every standard of morality and civilized behavior.

Countless lives have been saved since the passage of background checks legislation. Tragically, efforts to irresponsibly circumvent the law have emerged, enabled by new technologies and techniques: sales made over the Internet, at gun shows and person-to-person. These evasions must be swiftly and fully corrected.

There's an American leader whose words resonate on the global stage. Who draws attention in foreign capitals. Who carries a message from the United States by simply arriving.