Immigration Legislation

Floor Speech

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JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, we have a humanitarian crisis at our borders.

A crisis initiated by an administration that purports to be the champion of `family values' but whose actions do not value families.

Yesterday, after much deserved criticism and push back, President Trump signed an executive order that modified his ``zero-tolerance'' policy by detaining parents and children apprehended by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection together, possibly on military bases, instead of separating them.

The executive order, however, is silent regarding where the families would be detained or whether children will continue to be separated from their parents while the facilities to hold them are located or built.

We have so much work to do, because even in ending the heinous practice of separating families, there are still many legal and practical obstacles.

Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, initially stated that ``there will not be a grandfathering of existing cases.''

Mr. Wolfe was later to be corrected by Brian Marriott, Senior Director of Communications for the Department of Health and Human Services, who stated that Mr. Wolfe had ``misspoke'' and insisted that ``it is still very early, and we are awaiting further guidance on the matter.''

Mr. Marriot then said that ``reunification is always the goal'' and that the agency ``is working toward that'' for the children separated from their families because of President Trump's policy.

While there is a possibility that the children could be connected with other family members or sponsors living in the United States, it is not necessarily the parent they were separated from at the border.

This raises the heart-breaking questions of what happens to the more than 2,300 children who have already been separated from their parents under the president's ``zero tolerance'' policy?

We have all heard the wailing of detained immigrant children on audio tapes and we have all seen the heartbreaking pictures.

The latest reports suggest that very young infants, some as young as 3 months old, are being separated and being placed in ``tender age shelters.''

This is outrageous.

This past weekend, I was at a processing center in McAllen, Texas and the Southwest Key Programs' Casa Padre which houses 1,500 children, most of them separated from their parents.

I saw people huddled in cages.

I saw children who certainly needed to be with their parents.

Like nine-month old baby Roger, who I held in my arms.

Or Leah, a one year old, separated from her grandmother and her sister, whose love for her would have provided comfort and protection.

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 forcibly removed from their parents, the traumatic experience engenders long-term negative effects on their physical and mental health and well-being suffers.

In one famous experiment in Romania, doctors considered the results later in life of those children separated from their parents.

The activity in the children's brains was much lower than expected.

``If you think of the brain as a lightbulb,'' Charles Nelson, a pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School said, ``it's as though there was a dimmer that had reduced them from a 100-watt bulb to 30 watts.''

The children, who had been separated from their parents in their first two years of life, scored significantly lower on IQ tests later in life.

Their fight-or-flight response system appeared permanently broken.

Stressful situations that would usually prompt physiological responses in other people--increased heart rate, sweaty palms--would provoke nothing in the children.

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.

The stressed endured by a child in custody is exacerbated when the child does not speak 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 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.

The level of callousness displayed by this administration towards those seeking refuge within our borders is shocking and the world is taking note.

Yesterday, Theresa May, the Prime Minister of our closest ally Great Britain, denounced the ``zero-tolerance'' policy on the floor of the House of Commons.

His Holiness Pope Francis said the ``zero-tolerance'' policy is contrary to Catholic values.

The Most Reverend Bishop Michael Curry stated that for Christians, Jesus of Nazareth is the standard of conduct for your life--he tells us--``love God and love thy neighbor.''

However, the Trump Administration has forgotten that.

The United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen defended this egregious policy.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions used Romans 13 (submit to rulers) to justify the ``zero-tolerance'' policy.

It is outrageous to use the Bible--Romans 13--to justify this policy.

However, many used Romans 13 to justify horrors in history such as slavery and Nazism.

The more operative biblical passages should be, Matthew 7--the golden rule--or Matthew 25--I was a stranger and you welcomed me (``least of these'').

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.

I am thankful to the 60 members of the United States Senate of Congress who said enough is enough to the despicable ``zero-tolerance'' policy.

I am thankful to the Republican governors of Maryland and Massachusetts who ended their contribution of National Guard deployments because they too are saying ``not in my name.''

But there is still more work to be done.

We should welcome mothers carrying their babies to a safe haven and ensure the safety of their children.

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.

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.

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