Energy and Water, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. NELSON. Madam President, I have just returned from South Florida where I went to a detention facility in Homestead, FL. There are 1,000 children in this detention facility, and 94 of 1,000 are children who have been separated from their families.

Despite being the senior Senator of Florida, despite having oversight responsibility of the Department of HHS, despite the fact that in that oversight capacity, we have the funding responsibility for the Department of HHS and one of its components, the Office of Refugee Resettlement--these children separated from their families are handled by that office--despite all of that, the Deputy Secretary of the Department of HHS refused to allow me to enter this facility and said that it was the Department's policy that you have to fill out a form, which we had done, but you have to wait 2 weeks before being allowed to enter the facility.

The question is, Why do they not want the Senator from Florida to get into this detention facility where there are children who have been separated from their parents? It must be that not only is this Department policy, but this is being directed by the President in the White House. They don't want me to see it because they don't want us to know what is going on in there.

I have subsequently found out that in addition to those 94 children, there are 174 children being held in my State of Florida who have been separated from their families. This is the current debate: Children have been ripped apart from their moms and dads, and it has always been an American value to keep families together, even when you are adjudicating the lawful or unlawful status of the parents. You always keep those children together on an immigration question, yet President Trump has now altered that policy.

Despite all the finger-pointing and the deflection, President Trump and his administration know this is their policy; he doubled down on it last night. But there is nothing in the law that requires them to tear parents away from their children. There is nothing in the law that requires the administration to rip an infant from a parent's arms, some young enough still to be nursing.

The decision to enact this quite horrendous and shameful policy was a decision by this administration--and this administration alone. That is why this Senator went to Miami yesterday. I wanted to see it for myself. I wanted to see: Is the facility clean? Are the children sleeping in beds? Are they sleeping on the floor? Do they have adequate care? If they were, I could report that it was a good news story.

I also wanted to be able to talk to the young children, the ones who had been separated. I had already gotten word from Senator Van Hollen, who had been in Texas on Saturday and met a mom who said that her child had been separated from her and that child was in a detention facility in Florida. I wanted to see that child.

I am very proud of all of our colleagues who have come together to support legislation to keep these families together, and 49 of us on this side of the aisle have signed on as cosponsors. The policy of this legislation is simply this: Don't separate families in this question of immigration. It would prohibit the separation of those families. That has been the policy, and all the President would have to do is to say it, but in taking the position he has, maybe the only recourse is for us to pass this law.

I am proud of our colleagues on that side of the aisle who have rightfully stood up and publicly condemned this practice because every American knows that taking children from their parents is just not right. If a family is legitimately fleeing violence, repression, and conditions that most of us cannot imagine, they have a right under American law to present themselves at the border and ask for asylum. Past administrations of both parties have recognized this, which is why they acted with compassion and refused to do what the Trump administration is doing now. It is certainly time that we return to our true American value of keeping families together.

Because the passage of a statute is a long shot, it is really not up to us. It is up to the President. He could say it, and it would be done. No matter what we do here in this Chamber, the power to end this shameful chapter in our Nation's history lies with the President and his pen. He can sign an Executive order today, just as easily as he can sign a law that we pass here in Congress. Either way, it is up to him. He doesn't need Congress to act. He and he alone is allowing this shameful practice to continue, and he alone can stop it right now.

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