Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania. There is no one to whom he can take a back seat in terms of his freshman term for his engagement and involvement. He has made the most eloquent statements on the floor,…
Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania. There is no one to whom he can take a back seat in terms of his freshman term for his engagement and involvement. He has made the most eloquent statements on the floor, which show his commitment to the people of this Nation and the people of his district.
Tonight is certainly an example of that, as we have come to the floor to, really, speak about children. I hope that my friends and my colleagues will fully appreciate the fact that, as we speak about children, we are speaking about everyone's children.
We are speaking about a young boy who was killed running away from law enforcement--not running toward, not creating a threat.
We are thinking about children who need a better education or children who need to have a supplemental nutrition program or children who need to be safe from human trafficking. We are talking about children.
Mr. Speaker, a week ago Monday and Sunday, I was in McAllen and Brownsville. I was in the detention centers with the tinsel, silver- like blankets. I was in the cage-like atmosphere where human beings were kept, human beings, of course, who had fled their country and had come across the border.
Some might make the point that they came across illegally, but they came across and presented themselves to officials. Heretofore, that action was not a criminal action.
I saw those individuals. I saw the most potent memory of what is wrong about what we are doing: mothers who were crying their hearts out for having not been able to see their children, with stories that would break your heart, stories where you were told to go into court, your children could not go with you, and you came back and your children were gone.
What father, what mother could even live with themselves, knowing their child had been snatched with no information and in a--how should I say it?--deceiving manner, not a manner where you could sit and explain to Jose or Maria or little Roger, whom I held in my hands, 9 months old, fleeing with his sister because his mother is deceased.
What do you think that sister feels? Her mother is deceased, and the 9-month-old that she was bringing, her mother's baby, is taken away from her. And Roger cannot speak. One-year-old Leah cannot speak. None of them can speak, and they have been taken away.
How dastardly, how insensitive our government appears to be. A Nation founded upon the values of humanity, freedom of religion and speech and due process. We all know the law provides anyone within our boundaries the right to due process.
But, no. We are, in fact, doing what Bishop Daniel E. Flores of the diocese of Brownsville said: We are acting, by separating immigrant parents and children as a deterrent, on a cruel and reprehensible policy.
Reverend Bishop Michael Curry said: For Christians, Jesus of Nazareth is a standard of conduct for your life. He tells us to love God and to love thy neighbor.
I would say almost every religion speaks about love, speaks about family--not in the way that the United States Attorney General used and abused the New Testament, by citing Roman 13, to submit to rulers, to justify the child separation policy, before he was completely undermined and embarrassed by a fake executive order that was signed by the President of the United States.
I say that because that term has become part of our language. I have never used it before, but it was an appropriate description of an executive order that will last for only 20 days and will not have any answer for us going forward.
We don't have any legislation. Our legislation to solve this problem introduced by Mr. Nadler and the Judiciary Committee Democrats and all of us, welcoming anyone else who would like to sign, would get to the immediate concern of not having a separation of these children and, also, ending the zero-tolerance program, which has created this unjust situation.
Let me indicate to you that all of the medical professionals, including Alicia Lieberman with the Early Trauma Treatment Network at the University of California said: Decades of studies show early separations can cause permanent emotional damage. ``Children are biologically programmed to grow best in the care of a parent figure.''
Members who have visited have said they walked into rooms with 300 children, and they were absolutely silent. They were frightened. Toddlers.
Who among us who have had toddlers in their home, from our own children to those of us fortunate enough to have grandbabies, like mine--like Roy III and Ellison--have ever seem them sit still?
These children were in total fear and apprehension. This is what we are creating. This is not the America we love.
It is noted that the activity in the children's brains was much lower than expected. If you think of a brain as a light bulb, it is as though there was a dimmer that has reduced them from a 100-watt bulb to a 30- watt bulb.
This is what happens. Children who have been separated from their parents, in their first 2 years like little Roger, who is 9 months old, their IQ may go down.
So we are on the floor today, and I am glad to be with Chairman Richmond of the Congressional Black Caucus. We believe in speaking out on the issues that impact all of humanity. And this is the sin that we are in the midst of.
Do you realize that the only numbers that these children and parents are getting are the aid numbers? Someone says there is a number at Health and Human Services. None of us have seen it.
I am demanding a full inventory of every single child that we allege that we have who was separated and snatched from their family members, who are in foster care or some detention center, as well as the 10,000 unaccompanied children.
Mr. Speaker, do you realize that I have been here long enough that I was down on the border 4 years ago when the massive numbers of unaccompanied children came to the United States? Then, we put these boys and girls, as unaccompanied children, in this vast industry of foster care and centers. They are still there.
Can anyone who believes in a higher power want to accept that? Even as clean as these places may be, Mr. Speaker, do you know that these caretakers working in these nonprofits, that they cannot touch the children? They cannot hold the children. They cannot comfort a crying toddler. They are told not to touch these children.
Do you realize that we are in one of the worst, or largest, refugee crises in the world. That is why we are receiving these people. It is going up 67 percent all over the world because people are fleeing devastation and crises in their countries. That is what is happening in Honduras, with the largest number of murders in the world. El Salvador. Guatemala has a million people displaced.
Yet, our government would suggest that they cannot seek asylum for domestic violence or gangs or fleeing a place that has volcano ash that has displaced a million people in a small country? Where is our mercy?
That is why we are on the floor today. We are on the floor today because of, as I indicated, the horrible, horrific impact on children.
``Reuniting and Detaining Migrant Families Pose New Mental Health Risks,'' says The New York Times.
I want to just add these points to your discussion that we have faced.
Some of these children, Mr. Speaker, are in foster care. We know that there are American children in foster care. We know that there are families who are trying to get back on their feet. They want their children. There is a love for those children. But they have had to be moved out.
The worst thing--I have had these calls to my office--is a mother's parental rights to be extinguished unfairly when she was trying to get herself together, maybe economically, maybe trying to get off drugs. We feel the pain of that mother, that American mother.
How would you like to be a Guatemalan mother--this happened in 2012-- who was arrested on immigration charges and lost custody of her son, who was then adopted by a Missouri couple over her objection. The judge who initially terminated the mother's parental rights found that, should she be deported, the chance that she might try to return to get her child would render her an unfit parent.
I feel like I am in a nightmare. Your child is snatched away from you at the border. They go into foster care. Some good-intending people--I don't want to condemn the adoptive parents, good-intending people.
I don't know who gave them the authority that this was an available child. These children are in foster care around the Nation. They are everywhere. We don't know which way they are, to be honest with you.
They get in foster care and some--maybe I'll say--well-intentioned foster care notifies someone and said: ``We have a child for you to adopt.'' And your rights are quashed.
I am feeling pain right now. I can't even imagine it: I have fallen upon hard times. My State children's protective services takes my child. I make a commitment to get my life back together, and my child is lost to me forever.
This is an amazing scenario that we are in. I want to read this last thing and then speak very quickly about our family values.
This is from an immigrant mother: My child was snatched from me and separated from me one day after I was arrested.
Again, I want to end the arrests, the zero tolerance. They are presenting themselves for asylum. They should have the right to go through the legal process. Then they should have the right to counsel, due process. And they should have the right to be able to be released.
Now, there will be a great deal of ire and humor for some on this point. That is because they don't understand. We had a case management program that was 90-plus percent positive on the return of those individuals, those families, for their court date. This administration defunded it.
It was a case management program. They followed those families, put them on the electronic bracelet, and they returned. They did not escape. They did not remain in the United States without coming to court and getting a determination.
So this mother was separated. This is a court case, thank goodness, that was filed on June 22: ``I have been able to speak to my child only three times and only for approximately 5 minutes each time since we were separated. My son isn't able to give me much information about his circumstances because he is too young and too upset to understand what is happening.''
She doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know where she is.
``Every time we talk, he only wants to know when he will see me again, so it is hard for him to focus on anything else.''
Just like I said, we are diminishing his capacity. We are creating a situation of undermining his intellectual growth, his psychological growth, all of this.
``There have been a few times he said that he had a nosebleed. I told him to tell someone if he is feeling sick, but he is too scared to tell anyone.''
That is why you went into a room of toddlers and nobody was moving. Nobody was moving. No toddler was even moving.
``He says that he is scared to report any type of mistreatment or health issue because the other children have told him that children who report things get sent to another place.''
I have legislation that I am introducing, and I hope my colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, will extend the temporary protected status for Salvadorans, Hondurans, and, as well, Guatemalans. We want to give them TPS on the basis of the volcano.
Why? Because this administration has ended it. It will end in 2019. These people are fleeing violence, and you will be sending those here who are working, contributing, and paying taxes--before we can try to regularize or find a way for them to access status--you will be sending them back to murderous countries in the largest crisis of refugee movement in the history of our time. You will be sending them back. Where is our mercy?
Then you want to add to that the fact that we have an administration and a Congress that is making changes to school free lunches. These are for our children already here.
Making eligibility proposed cuts to Supplemental Security Income, SSI, many children, that is their lifeline. If something happens to their parent, they have SSI.
The refusal to adopt comprehensive criminal justice reform, I am a steadfast supporter of good law enforcement. They are part of the legal and law and order structure, but they are also part of the human rights and civil rights structure of this Nation. It is important that we have the collegiality, the comity, the communications, and the friendship, actually, between police and community.
It is difficult when there are mothers who are African Americans who believe that their Black boys are more apt to be shot by law enforcement, as a young man was just shot a few days ago in Pennsylvania. This is not a condemnation of law enforcement. It is to work to make the system better and to save lives.
So we are interested in criminal justice reform. But, of course, that is not moving in the direction we would like. I would like it to be moving in a nonpartisan manner to save lives.
The GOP chose to cut $150 billion over a decade from various safety net programs: Medicare; cash assistance programs, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; again, as I said, SSI; and healthcare.
Republicans are suing the government to eliminate the preexisting condition requirement for insurance carriers. I am almost speechless. I cannot believe that. I was here for the Affordable Care Act. We laid ourselves on the line to fight for all of those who came to us in hearings, pleading: I have asthma. I have acne. I am pregnant. I have diabetes. I have sickle cell. And I have not been able to get insurance.
Here we are taking away that lifeline that was a valuable asset to the healthcare of the American people.
The farm bill, cutting $23 billion that resulted in 400,000 households losing SNAP--our children, here in the United States--the supplemental nutrition program, thousands of children losing reduced meals.
Do you know, right now, Mr. Speaker, out of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, my Houston parks department is serving three meals a day to children who would not eat but for this program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture--three meals a day to hungry children. There is hunger in America, but we are making it worse.
What about the $1.9 trillion tax cut? Do you realize that I go around in my community and beyond and people ask me: ``What happened with the tax cut?'' They don't have any impact from the tax cut. There is no increase in wages. Bonuses are not anything that anybody remembers because only a few people got them. This is the pay-more-for-less tax cut, massive tax cuts and a lot of money going to individuals who already have money. This is Robin Hood in reverse.
This bill is unprecedented and breathtaking in its audacity. It is making rich people richer. It is a scheme. And by taking insurance away from 24 million people, raising costs for the poor and middle class, these are questions of whether family values exist in this Nation.
As Judge Learned Hand observed: ``If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.''
So I would ask that my colleagues join me, as I asked in the Women's Caucus hearing just a few minutes ago, that we secure a count of every single child held in captivity. That means an immigrant child who was snatched away from their family or an unaccompanied child. There are thousands. Where are they?
I would also ask that Members be aware that these facilities are being brought into our districts with no notice to us as Members of Congress. These facilities are being paid for by Federal tax dollars, and the tax dollars of my constituents, in particular, in Houston, Texas. They have given no notice to local officials. We were not even aware that they were coming.
The site that is about to be seeking to be opened is in a concrete area. It is very difficult for any of us to see where these children would play and recreate. So we wonder: How we are going to treat children who are going to be thrown into these facilities with no access to what children need?
Then this ending of the temporary protected status, I ask my colleagues to join me on the legislation that I will be introducing for a 2-year extension, so that these individuals are not thrown into the devastation that will make them refugees, because they will be coming back, and they are now contributing citizens.
What do you do with a country that has a million people displaced, like in Guatemala? What do you do when we say that we are supposed to have values, and not only are we treating parents who are deeply pained--poorly, reprehensibly, and inhumane--by snatching their children, or not seeking to reunite those children who came unaccompanied? When I say that, obviously, not reunite them into a bad situation, but document--they are just being held in these institutions, 10,000 of them. They are just being held.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for being particularly gracious and yielding.
I want to have paid tribute in my words to little Roger in Brownsville, Texas, and little Leah in Brownsville, Texas, a 9-month- old and a 1-year-old. Even if they go to foster care, that is not their relative or their parent. Which of their parents will have their parental rights extinguished against their will and, unfortunately, have one of our courts say it is a right decision? Which of these people will be denied due process, because we have words from this administration that say: I want no lawyers or courts. I want Border Patrol and ICE?
Those are not judges and juries. That is not a component of due process. Law enforcement has its role, and then the judiciary has its role, and the rights of these individuals warrant that.
Mr. Speaker, I close with Ephesians 4:30-32: ``Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.''
And Galatians 5:22-23: ``But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self- control; against such things there is no law.''
There could be no law against being humane to these children.
I am grateful to the Congressman for his leadership in the Congressional Black Caucus. We are not only talking about domestic issues here in the United States, but we have extended ourselves to talk about the pain that is transpiring in these mothers and fathers right now, at 9:10 p.m. eastern time, in these detention centers, without their children.
Mr. Speaker, over the last many weeks, the country has been horrified by the sights and sounds of children being separated from their parents, and Americans aghast at the realization that families are being torn apart in their name.
When I visited the border and the federal detention facilities that housed parents and children quarantined from one another, what I witnessed was horrific and was echoed in heartbreaking audio recordings released by the press revealing children crying, aching for their parents, as all face a fate uncertain, and one inconsistent with the American ideal.
I will never forget the little children I met during my visit to the border.
One baby, 9-month-old Roger, had been taken from his 19-year-old sister after she was prosecuted for crossing the border illegally.
Their mother is dead, now their family is gone.
This crisis is not just an immigration matter, nor is it just a foreign policy matter. It is a humanitarian crisis, executed by an administration that purports to be the champion of ``family values'' but whose actions do not actually value families.
But the President's attempt at attacking children and their caretakers is not one that only pertains to asylum seekers at the borders.
For the entirety of his term, the President and his administration have relentlessly targeted communities of color and the programs they have previously benefitted from.
This includes changes to school free lunch program eligibility, proposed cuts to Supplemental Security Income, the refusal to adopt comprehensive criminal justice reforms, one thing after another.
Just last week, the GOP chose to cut $150 billion over a decade from various safety net programs which include Medicare and cash assistance programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Supplemental Security Income.
And the House farm bill that Republicans passed, and which Democrats were unanimously in opposition to, will result in some 400,000 households losing SNAP benefits.
As well, thousands of children would also risk losing their enrollment in free and reduced-price school meal programs because of this.
The President and GOP have promised for years now to create a plan to improve health insurance for everybody.
But that promise has not been kept.
By passing a nearly $1.9 trillion tax law and repealing the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate, Republicans will increase health care premiums on children and families.
According to the CBO, 4 million more people will be without health insurance by 2019. By 2027, 13 million more people will be uninsured. Families' premiums will also increase by nearly 10 percent on average per year over the next decade.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has significantly improved the availability, affordability, and quality of health care for tens of millions of Americans, including millions who previously had no health insurance at all.
Americans are rightly frightened by Republican attempts to repeal the ACA without having in place a superior new plan that maintains comparable coverages and comparable consumer choices and protections.
It is beyond dispute that the ``Pay More For Less'' plan proposed by House Republicans a few months ago fails this test miserably.
The Republican ``Pay More For Less Act'' is a massive tax cut for the wealthy, paid for on the backs of America's most vulnerable, the poor and working class households.
This ``Robin Hood in reverse'' bill is unprecedented and breathtaking in its audacity--no bill has ever tried to give so much to the rich while taking so much from the poor and working class.
This Republican scheme gives gigantic tax cuts to the rich, and pays for it by taking insurance away from 24 million people and raising costs for the poor and middle class.
It is despicable and shameful that those elected to serve their people would rather see their pockets full than their constituents healthy and well.
An Administration that cared about ``family values'' would not be working so hard to repeal a healthcare program that has insured
nine out of ten Americans and saved families with genetic diseases and pre-existing conditions thousands of dollars in debt.
In 1968, African Americans were about 5.4 times as likely as whites to be in prison or jail; compared to today, African Americans are 6.4 times as likely as whites to be incarcerated, which is especially troubling given that whites are also much more likely to be incarcerated now than they were in 1968.
It is clear the inequalities and disparities that ignited hundreds of American cities in the 1960s still exist and have not been eliminated over the last half-century.
As Judge Learned Hand observed, ``If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration justice.''
Reforming the criminal justice system so that it is fairer and delivers equal justice to all persons is one of the great moral imperatives of our time.
For reform to be truly meaningful, we must look at every stage at which our citizens interact with the system--from policing in our communities and the first encounter with law enforcement, to the charging and manner of attaining a conviction, from the sentence imposed to reentry and collateral consequences.
The need for meaningful prison and sentencing reform cannot be overstated because being the world's leader in incarceration is neither morally nor fiscally sustainable for the United States, or the federal government, the nation's largest jailer.
For individuals who have paid their debt, the reentry process is paved with tremendous, and often insurmountable, obstacles resulting in recidivism rates as high as 75 percent in some areas.
More must be done to ensure that the emphasis on incarceration is matched with an equal emphasis on successful reentry so that the approximately 630,000 individuals who reenter society each year are prepared to be successful in civilian life.
This is why I have also strongly supported and cosponsored legislation that will allow those with a criminal conviction to have a fair chance to compete for jobs with federal agencies and contractors.
I have also been working for many years to stop the over- criminalization of our young people.
Today, more and more young children are being arrested, incarcerated, and detained in lengthy out-of-home placements.
Harsh and lengthy penalties handed down to young offenders increase their risk of becoming physically abused, emotionally traumatized, and reduce their chance of being successfully reintegrated back into their communities.
I have introduced and supported legislation to help reform how youth and juveniles are treated to reduce contact and recidivism within the juvenile and criminal justice system; to help protect them from a system that turns them into lifelong offenders.
Just as we need to minimize the conviction of innocent people, we must address the unnecessary loss of life that can result from police and civilian interactions.
Effective law enforcement requires the confidence of the community that the law will be enforced impartially and equally.
That confidence has been eroded substantially in recent years by numerous instances of excessive use of lethal force.
There is no higher priority than improving the peacefulness of these interactions and rebuilding the trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve and protect.
At what point will Republicans step away from the tyrant of their party and make changes that will actually benefit the communities they represent, to stop fighting the disenfranchised and instead fight FOR the disenfranchised?
Now more than ever, the Trump Administration and the GOP have shown how inhumane they are when it comes to dealing with marginalized individuals.
This has become crystal clear in the span of two weeks when the public was finally made aware of the policies in place at our Southern borders.
While the President purported to end the practice of separating families with his Executive Order signed on Wednesday, thousands of children have been torn apart from their families and sent to various pockets of the country, often under cover of night, without any indication to their parents as to their whereabouts, or a plan to reunite them.
In my home state of Texas, a migrant who was separated from his family committed suicide while in federal detention.
A mother who, while breastfeeding her young child when both were in federal detention, had her child ripped away from her arms.
This cannot be how we make America great again; this is how we make America hateful again.
The Trump Administration is utterly failing in its basic duty to treat all persons with dignity and compassion, and is making a mockery of our national values and reputation as a champion of human rights.
We are a great country with a long and noble tradition of providing sanctuary to the persecuted and oppressed.
We are also a nation of families, from all shapes and sizes.
From the 16-year-old girl and her single mom who desperately depend on the benefits SNAP provides.
To the 19-year-old girl who must now become the sole guardian for her baby brother, in a country she prays will offer her peace and refuge (and return her brother to her).
It is in that spirit that we should act.
It is for them that we must all stand together in the face of injustice.
Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a copy of an Op-Ed entitled ``We Must Cease the Inhumane Practice of Separating Families Apprehended on the Border'' in The Hill newspaper.
We must cease the inhumane practice of separating families apprehended
on the border
[From The Hill, June 12, 2018]
(BY REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D-TEXAS), OPINION CONTRIBUTOR)
Every day hundreds of persons, ranging from infants and
toddlers to adolescents and adults, flee violence,
oppression, and economic desperation from Guatemala, Honduras
and El Salvador, seeking safe harbor in the United States.
They are not criminals or terrorists; they are refugees
seeking asylum. While they hope to receive asylum, none of us
expected that they would be treated as criminals or that
their children would be forcibly separated from them. I
cannot think of a situation more devastating than having the
government forcibly separate a parent from their child to a
place unknown, for a fate uncertain, absent any form of
communication. But shamefully that is exactly what is
happening under this administration.
Reports indicate that as many as 700 children have been
taken from adults claiming to be their parents since October
2017, including more than 100 children under the age of 4.
This startling fact comes after Acting Assistant Secretary
Steven Wagner of the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) testified before the Senate in April 2018 that
during a review of more than 7,600 unaccompanied immigrant
children who had recently arrived and been placed with a
sponsor, officials at the agency were unable to determine the
precise whereabouts of 1,475 children.
This is unconscionable and unacceptable.
This administration's practice of separating children from
their parents inexplicably turns accompanied children into
unaccompanied children, with all of the attendant risks and
dangers, including human trafficking. In 2014, the Permanent
Subcommittee on Investigations reported that ``over a period
of 4 months, HHS allegedly placed a number of UACs in the
hands of a ring of human traffickers who forced them to work
on egg farms in and around Marion, Ohio. The minor victims
were forced to work six or seven days a week, twelve hours
per day. The traffickers repeatedly threatened the victims
and their families with physical harm, and even death, if
they did not work or surrender their entire paychecks.''
What is even more reprehensible is to this day, the Trump
administration maintains that the Office of Refugee
Resettlement (ORR) is not legally responsible for children
after they are released from ORR care. This line of thinking
allows such gross negligence to take place in the first
place. As the Founder and Chair of the Congressional
Children's Caucus and as a parent and grandparent, this is
unacceptable.
Studies have documented that when young children are
traumatically removed from their parents, their physical and
mental health and well-being suffers. The effects of these
traumatic experiences--especially in children who have
already faced serious adversity are unlikely to be short-
lived, and can likely last a lifetime. This is exacerbated
when the child in custody speaks a language that is not
English or Spanish. Although the government has a legal
obligation to provide reasonable language services to
unaccompanied minors, many children arriving to the U.S.
speak indigenous languages and have little or no translation
assistance provided by the U.S. government.
The Trump administration's ``zero-tolerance'' policy does
not make our nation safer or more secure, nor is it a
solution to the problem of illegal immigration and refugees
seeking asylum. It is, however, monstrously cruel, inhumane,
and shameful and makes a mockery of America's reputation as
the most welcoming and generous nation on earth.
United Nations Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani
recently condemned the Trump administration's treatment of
unaccompanied minors coming to the United States saying that
``the use of immigration detention and family separation as a
deterrent runs counter to human rights standards and
principles''.
The last time this nation had policies that promoted the
forcible separation of children from newly arrived persons
was slavery: a dark chapter in this nation's history that we
should not revisit. Today, the parents of these thousands of
children will not be deterred from finding ways to reunite
with their children, even reentering the United States under
the threat of imprisonment. It
would be unconscionable to prosecute parents under these
circumstances. There must be strong and aggressive
congressional oversight of this administration's immigration
enforcement.
The Trump administration's policy should cease and desist
immediately. National Policy regarding immigration
legislation should not create greater fear for families
already traumatized by intolerable conditions in their home
countries. U.S. immigration policy should not deter refugees
from seeking asylum within our borders. We should welcome
mothers carrying their babies to a safe haven and assure the
safety of their children.
I will soon be introducing legislation prohibiting the
separation of children from their families absent a health or
safety risk. The legislation will also provide that these
children the right to be represented by counsel and that
translation services be available at all legal proceedings at
all stages.
As we have seen with the recent volcanic activity and
earthquakes in Guatemala, the United States should be seeking
ways to help its neighbors in the Southern Hemisphere. The
Trump administration is utterly failing in its basic duty to
treat all persons with dignity and compassion. Rather, it is
making a mockery of our national values and reputation as a
champion of human rights.
This crisis is not just an immigration matter, nor is it
just a foreign policy matter. It is a humanitarian crisis,
executed by an administration that purports to be the
champion of `family values' but whose actions do not actually
value families.
We are a great country with a long and noble tradition of
providing sanctuary to the persecuted and oppressed. And it
is in that spirit that we should act. We can do it; after
all, we are Americans.
Mr. Speaker, it is a painful experience, as I indicated. Toddlers don't speak. They are standing still, as has been evidenced by Members who have gone. I saw two little babies. Leah, a little older, fussy, playing on the floor, didn't want anyone to touch her. And Roger wanted someone to touch him. Mothers in cages, other mothers in a detention center in Los Fresno, nine of them from Honduras, each and every one had a child taken, and they were crying.
But the crux of this is that they don't know where the child is, and the child does not know where they are. These centers are being put up. One that already exists in my community has been charged with abusing children: throwing them down on the floor and giving them medication that they do not want; in essence, giving them medication to keep them quiet.
I know there are good people--everyone wants to talk about good people in their own State--but these are inhumane conditions. The greatest pain that I can say that you would see is men and women who are on the verge of deportation, they don't know what is happening, but they don't have their children. They are going back without their children.
Then you also see these large warehouses with thousands of little kids from 10 to 17, but they have been there for a while. They are unaccompanied children, and we have no accounting of these children.
That is what we are seeing. That is, I think, a shame on this government, and we can do better. We have been a refuge for refugees. There is a way to orderly do this.