Tearing Immigrant Children Away From Their Parents

Floor Speech

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Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this very important issue. I just want to echo the comments of my colleagues about the basic inhumanity the policy the Trump administration is perpetrating on these people who are trying to cross the border in order to seek asylum, in order to flee violence and absolutely unlivable conditions in a variety of countries in Latin America.

To have a policy of separating them from their children is inhumane and goes against every basic value that we, as Americans, hold dear. The terrible thing about it is, if you listen to the Trump administration, that seems to be the idea. Their notion is to make it as painful as possible, to discourage these people from wanting to seek refuge in the United States.

Think about how that policy just flips on its head everything that we were raised to believe about America. One of the things that makes America great is we are made up of people from all over the world, in many cases, those who have fled horrific living conditions, to come here and build a better life for them and their families. That has made us all better. Our country is stronger because we are renewed every generation by a new set of immigrants from a variety of places across the world.

The Trump administration is the first administration in the history of this country to be openly, 100 percent hostile to all immigrants. They are trying to make the policy as brutal as possible, because they don't understand the benefit of immigration. They seem to think that it is hurting us when it is not.

So they are wrong on that policy and it is a very simple policy to fix. In fact, it is interesting. We have heard the President on a couple of occasions in the last month say: Oh, not my policy. It is because of some law that Congress passed.

It is possible that he is that ignorant. I doubt it. I actually think that he is simply not telling the truth to the American people about a policy that his own Attorney General has stated clearly.

So President Trump, if you are as appalled as you said you were on a couple of occasions by this policy, you are the President. Fix it. Change it. Stop it.

In my district at a Federal penitentiary in SeaTac that is supposed to be for the most dangerous criminals that have committed Federal crimes in the country, there are housed well over 150 women right now, many of whom have been separated from their children when they crossed the border.

There is a simple fix to this process. As previous speakers, including Mr. O'Rourke, have said, we have an asylum process in this country. There is a standard by which people can seek asylum and it can be granted or not. We should allow these people coming across this border to go through that asylum process.

This notion that we don't have room is patently ridiculous. Even at this point, we have all kinds of jobs going on unfilled in this country. But beyond that, our basic humanity should say: these people are suffering. We have a law that says we should protect them. Follow that law.

And also, in terms housing them, there are more people than I can count, more nonprofit organizations, more religious organizations, volunteer organizations, who have said: We will gladly take in these immigrants while they await their asylum here.

There is a very simple solution to this. We don't have to put them in the horrible barracks that Mr. O'Rourke described a few minutes ago. There are people who will take them, keep them while they go through the process. It is very simple.

Stop the policy of separating children from their mothers and fathers. It is wrong. It is inhumane. It is grossly unnecessary. They come across the border. We have got a process. Keep them with their families. Take advantage of the resources that are available out there in the private sector to find them a place to stay with their families together, and go through the asylum process.

Now, I understand the asylum process. Not everybody is going to qualify for asylum, and it is possible that some of these people are going to have to be sent back to their home country. But at a minimum, we can make sure that when they stay here, they stay together as a family, and if they are allowed to stay, they stay together as a family. If they don't get granted asylum, then they go back as a family.

To separate families--and I want to emphasize this last point before I finish--when you listen to the Attorney General, when you listen to the administration, they are doing this because it is cruel, because they are so opposed to immigration that they want to try to discourage people. And that is just a sad commentary on what the United States has become under this President. We should do the humane thing.

Keep families together. Give them their day in court, their day to prove that they qualify for asylum, and then you can make the decision from there. But don't rip children out of the hands of families. It is something that the United States of America should never do.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from California, Mr. Correa, for holding this hour, and I thank him for giving me the opportunity to say a few words.

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