Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 2014

Floor Speech

Ms. HIRONO. Madam President, I rise today to support S. 2648, the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act.

I recently led a congressional delegation to McAllen, TX, and to Lackland Air Force Base to see firsthand what the administration was doing to handle this border crisis. It was clear to me that the hard-working men and women on the front lines of this crisis are doing the best they can under very difficult circumstances.

We should pass this important bill to provide the necessary resources to fairly address this humanitarian crisis. We should provide Customs and Border Protection the resources they need to pay their agents overtime when needed, and to provide the necessary food, water, and medical supplies to these children.

My colleagues and I saw children in these CBP facilities as young as 7. We learned that many of these children arrive severely malnourished and dehydrated. They are clearly desperate. They are not traveling here simply because they want to. They are fleeing mortal danger at the hands of violent drug gangs. These gangs have rendered their home countries some of the most dangerous places in the world to live. We should be working together to make sure these children are given proper care in our facilities and that our CBP agents have the support they need.

It was also clear to me that these CBP facilities, meant to safely hold dangerous criminals, are no place for children to be held, even for just a few days. This is a view also shared by CBP officers on the ground who said this is no place for children.

That is why I believe it is so important to provide necessary funding to the Department of Health and Human Services so they can continue to maintain shelter capacity at places such as Lackland Air Force Base where we visited. At Lackland, I was given hope. I saw children being educated, being taught English, praying if they chose to, and learning the Pledge of Allegiance. I saw a place that reflected our values as a country.

This is why I strongly oppose altering the protections of the 2008 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. The answer is not expediting screenings and deporting these children as soon as possible at the border. All this will accomplish is to send these children back into harm's way--indeed, into the murder capitals of the world--even more quickly.

I have actually seen what these expedited screenings look like. During our trip we saw small children sitting on concrete blocks in a noisy and overwhelming CBP facility. In this environment, these children struggle to answer questions from uniformed Customs and Border Protection officers. Let me be clear. That officer was doing the best he could, but children arriving here after a dangerous journey are in no condition to quickly explain their reasons for coming to the United States, much less understand the legal basis for their claim to relief under U.S. law. When children are asked to provide that explanation in the kind of harsh environment we saw in McAllen, they have little chance of making a compelling case for asylum or other protection. At this facility children cannot access legal help to make their case. Many of these children have legitimate legal claims that they have been physically abused, raped, or victimized by gangs or human traffickers. We must give them a fair chance to tell their stories.

This bill, which I support, does not repeal these protections. Instead, it takes the important steps of funding our immigration courts to levels necessary to timely hear these children's claims.

This bill also helps with legal representation and orientation services--something the faith communities and other advocates we met with told us were necessary. This will help to speed up the legal process, while ensuring that the rights of these children are protected.

Just as importantly, this bill funds our efforts to address the root causes of why these children are arriving in our country in the first place. It will help us stop drug trafficking from this region and will help stabilize these economies that have been ravaged by the narcotrafficking violence.

This past weekend, columnist and commentator George Will eloquently spoke on this issue. He said:

My view is that we have to say to these children welcome to America. You're going to go to school and get a job and become Americans.

We have 3,141 counties in this country. That would be 20 per county. The idea that we can't assimilate these 8-year-old criminals with their teddy bears is preposterous.

We can handle the problem is what I'm saying. We've handled what Emma Lazarus famously called: ``the wretched refuse of your teeming shores,'' a long time ago, and a lot more people than this.

George Will is right. We are a country that welcomes refugees--as many of these children are--from all around the world.

I urge my colleagues to support this important supplemental appropriations measure.

I yield back my time.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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