What Has America Become?

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Garamendi for his passion and his profound words on this very difficult subject, not only for Members of the United States Congress, but also for many Americans across the country.

I had an opportunity yesterday, along with several other Members of Congress, including Bennie Thompson, the ranking Democratic Member on the Homeland Security Committee; Sheila Jackson Lee; Frederica Wilson; Ben Ray Lujan; and Filemon Vela, to visit two sites where these young kids are being kept in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas--one of them, Casa Padre; the other one, Casa Presidente.

When we were there, I and a few other Members of Congress met two young children who were being held without their parents. They were separated from their parents.

One of them was named Roger, an 8-month-old boy--8 months old. The administrators told us that his mother is actually deceased, and they believe that he had come to the country with his sister, but she was nowhere to be found.

The other was a young girl named Leah. She was 1 year old, and she was separated from her parents.

These are among the youngest victims of this brutal policy of President Trump in separating young children from their parents.

Most Americans believe that we can enforce our immigration laws and still respect human dignity and human rights. But in going down the road that this President has taken us, he is taking us down a road where we are losing our own humanity. He is taking us down a road that is reminiscent of the worst episodes and moral failures in the country's history, the things that, as Americans, we deeply regret.

Also, we have been asked by many Americans over the last few weeks in particular a common question as Members of Congress: ``What are you doing to stop this?'' We are pushing legislation. We are out on the streets. We are organizing rallies. We are doing every single thing that we can to change this, to end it.

I want to say thank you to my colleagues that were with me yesterday. Thank you also to Nancy Pelosi and the members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who visited San Diego; to Beto O'Rourke and Joe Kennedy, who were in Tonillo near the tent cities, near El Paso; to Frank Pallone, Hakeem Jeffries, and Jerry Nadler who were out in the New York-New Jersey area; and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and others who were in Florida.

Thank you to the folks in the Senate who also made a trip to McAllen, and to Senator Merkley, without whose help and support a few weeks ago in Brownsville, this issue would not nearly have had the same amount of attention.

This year marks 50 years since we lost two titans in American history, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. Fifty-two years ago, in a famous speech that he gave in South Africa on their Day of Affirmation, Senator Robert F. Kennedy said back then: ``Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.''

What we are asking is for this Congress to have the moral courage to listen to the American people and do right by these immigrants.

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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Yes, we went into the shelter, and we visited two of them. At one of them, there were about four or five infants. They had something called an infants room. At least two of those infants--one of them 8 months named Roger, the other one a year old named Leah--had been separated from their family members. They were being taken care of by staff.

But it was jarring to go into a room, to see young babies, and to realize that their parents or their family members were nowhere to be found, and that this is now standard government practice under the Trump administration.

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Mr. CASTRO of Texas. Absolutely. In fact, when we went into the second center, we asked them: ``Well, who is held here?'' And the administrator said: ``Children between zero and 12 years, and the youngest one we have right now is 8 months.''

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