Tearing Immigrant Children Away From Their Parents

Floor Speech

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Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues this afternoon on what is, I think, a very important issue facing our country today, and that is remembering what our common shared values are all about: a Nation of immigrants, past and present.

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply disturbed, as is my colleague, Congressman Correa, and others that are here, by the administration's current policy, which we believe tears families apart who are seeking asylum at our borders. That is simply not the American way. These are parents and children fleeing to America, coming here via legal means, seeking refuge for a host of different reasons.

And what happens to them now?

Children, including infants and toddlers, are taken from their parents' care, and sent to shelters, which we now know are sometimes juvenile detention centers. That is not right. That is not the American way. The parents are sent to detention facilities as well, which may be in the form of Federal prisons.

At America's borders, this is happening to families; families who, again, are legally seeking asylum. We have had a whole history and tradition of allowing families who are seeking legal asylum.

And what are they fleeing?

Well, we know what they are fleeing: domestic violence, rape, murder, and gang violence.

If that is not traumatizing enough, now we are talking about separating them and detaining them, and we are not even beginning to consider the sort of natural disasters that have afflicted neighbors of ours.

This is an outrageous policy. I think it is morally disgusting and un-American. We are not a nation in terms of our shared values that tears families apart. We never have been. The American family is the foundation of our country. We are not a nation that systematically uses fear and the threat of detention to scare immigrants from trying to legally enter this country and build a better life for themselves and their families for what they might be fleeing.

Yes, no one disputes that we need to secure our borders. We must ensure the safety of our Nation. That is our highest priority. We must prevent those who want to do harm to us from entering, whether we are talking about transnational gangs who are engaged in drug trafficking, or in sex trafficking, or in other illegal activities that devastate our communities. We all agree on that.

I have consistently voted for improved border security funding and policies. But ripping these families apart like this is not securing our borders.

For over a decade, I have been calling for comprehensive immigration reform that includes border security that fixes our broken immigration system, and does it in a way that is fair, just, and works. We had such a proposal in 2013 that the Senate passed 68-32. Sadly, we could not bring it up. It was a bipartisan measure.

If we had a strong and comprehensive functioning immigration system, there would be no chance for these disgusting policies to occur, as they are now today.

In closing, I stand here today calling on Congress to move on immigration reform, comprehensive immigration reform, that is bipartisan. Let's put an end to these immoral, cruel, and un-American policies. If we can't do that, then let's just try to bring a clean Dream Act to the floor. I guess we will see what comes next week, in terms of what is being proposed.

Mr. Speaker, I stand here today for families who are being ripped apart at the borders, for immigrants past and immigrants present, for let us never forget America is a Nation for over 240 years that has been made up of immigrants from all around the world. For the future, and the soul of our country, I ask that we come together and fix this broken immigration system.

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