Reunite Children with Families: We Will Not Stop Until Each Child is with Their Parents

Floor Speech

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Mr. CARBAJAL. Mr. Speaker, I, too, am an immigrant to this country.

What has become evident is the cruel, self-imposed crisis that this administration has created. It has created a chaotic process for detaining and separating children from their families.

This is an administration that has now missed the court's order to start reuniting children, something that is unacceptable. We are talking about more than 2,000 children, kids that remain separated from their families.

About a week ago, I visited the El Tornillo detention center in Texas. I saw firsthand the conditions in which these children are being detained. I spoke to the children firsthand to get their own personal thoughts on what was going on.

They talked to me in detail about how they were woken up at 5 a.m. in a regimented fashion. They were rushed through showers and made to take showers in less than 5 minutes. They were given only 10 to 15 minutes once or twice a day for recreation, because they are out in the middle of the desert where it is extremely, extremely hot.

This administration has said that they are on track to reunite children with their families, but there is no clear plan. There are no details. There is a Department of Homeland Security four-point plan to nowhere that has been put forth. In this plan, there are no details. There is really an absence of a coherent process that will reunite these children with their families. This is unacceptable.

This is a self-imposed crisis and a cruel crisis that has been created by this administration. This is why we need a congressional hearing and oversight to get to the bottom of this and to really show the American people how misguided this policy has been and the inhumane conditions that have resulted from this policy.

America was once that beacon on the hill other countries looked to, in terms of how we treated our immigrants and those seeking shelter and asylum. We have lost that moral ground, because this administration has sought to destroy the values and ideals that our country has held up high for decades and centuries.

We also need legislation because, clearly, this administration reminded us that their zero-tolerance policy could be put in effect and implemented any other day again.

What this administration has done is un-American. This President has chosen to divide us again as a country, to go after the most vulnerable, and to go after immigrants in the most inhumane way. This is not the United States that we all love and care for.

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