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

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, this morning, the hot Sun rose on a tent city 20 miles outside El Paso, TX. That tent city stands as a makeshift detention facility to house children who have crossed our border and have been separated from their parents. This tent city, I would suggest, is hopefully a temporary monument to modern-day American cruelty.

Across South Texas, so-called tender age shelters have sprung up to house very young children, even infants, who have been taken from their parents in an act that pediatricians, psychologists, and frankly anyone who has raised a child themselves know is the most traumatizing and upsetting thing you can do to a young child, which is to take them away from their parents by force, with no understanding of what is happening or expectation of when they will be reunited.

This morning, thousands of children woke up to the voices of strangers in strange places and started another day in institutionalized, fenced-in confinement. This is happening in our Nation.

I have heard from dozens--hundreds of Delawareans by every means they could communicate with me, and I am sure my colleagues have also heard from hundreds or thousands of their constituents, as we, as a nation, have been haunted by the sounds and images of vulnerable children crying out for help.

On one hand, I think this is a simple issue of right and wrong, but on the other, this issue, like so many others that affect us in the Senate, has been complicated by politics and by rhetoric and by statements, frankly, meant to mislead.

The American people, though, I think deserve clarity about what has been happening along our southern border in recent weeks and what its impacts have been and may be to families, to children, and to parents who have crossed our border. So let's be clear about what is happening.

President Trump and his administration created--created--a humanitarian crisis by adopting a so-called zero tolerance policy to compel prosecution of all who cross our southern border, many of whom are people fleeing unspeakable violence in their home countries in Central America. Then the President and leaders in his administration excused or even misled people about this policy--this cruel policy--in a variety of different, conflicting, and, frankly, at times, even absurd ways in the past week.

Administration officials claim they didn't actually have this policy or claimed they were compelled to do this by a nonexistent law or claimed their policy was a deterrent to prevent people from seeking asylum in the United States.

Regardless of the explanations given, the American people spoke clearly and forcefully over the past week and said the President's policy was unacceptable. They said this treatment of children was an un-American tragedy that should not continue.

Under that sustained pressure from the American people, our President relented and yesterday signed an Executive order, but even then he has only created new problems with the Executive order he just issued.

As a Senator and as a person of faith, my own public service is closely tied to the values taught to me by my Christian faith and by my parents. I know many of my colleagues with whom I have spoken, on both sides of the aisle, feel the same way. We have to ask ourselves as parents, as people of faith: How can we stomach the human suffering of a child being ripped from his mother's arms and that intentional, willful child abuse being imposed to make that child a hostage or a bargaining chip in our long-running and unresolved conflicts here about immigration policy? How can we tolerate even one father being left in torment, searching for his baby or child, not knowing where they are or even if he will ever see them again, and having that torment imposed as a tool of policy, and how can we stomach multiplying those individual tragedies by 2,342?

By my count, since May, 2,342 children have been forcibly separated from their parents after crossing our border. In just 6 weeks, 2,342 lives have been changed in ways that will have lasting consequences.

Now, the President has issued the Executive order that he claims will end this separation of families, but that Executive order is seriously flawed and will create as many problems and questions as it seeks to address. Of course, it doesn't change the fact that this policy, this zero tolerance policy, has already inflicted trauma and suffering for thousands of families and children. I think it creates a new humanitarian challenge, a new humanitarian crisis, because the consequences of this new Executive order will be to detain entire families in what may well prove to be ill-equipped tent cities.

This policy does nothing to clarify what will become of the more than 2,300 children already separated from their families, some of whom have been lost track of by the agencies responsible for them.

We live in the world's most powerful and prosperous Nation, but I am afraid we are watching, day after day, the way in which the administration has chosen to treat children, through their indefinite detention or separation from their parents, in a way that will have lasting and negative consequences for our human rights record.

As a nation, we were founded as an idea, a place to which people came fleeing persecution, fleeing countries in collapse or authoritarian regimes, and seeking a brighter, newer future in this country. I think we are being dishonest or shortsighted about our own family's history if any one of us stands and says that none of our ancestors came here-- none of our ancestors came here seeking relief from oppression or outside the legal mechanisms of the time. I think we are forgetting our family's history if we say: Today we must close our border absolutely and prevent anyone seeking asylum from coming to our country.

Frankly, I have struggled as leaders in this administration have chosen to cite Scripture and to use their faith as an explanation or justification for why this zero tolerance policy was required.

Our Attorney General, a former colleague of mine, someone whose knowledge of Scripture I know to be thorough, cited Paul's Epistle to the Romans to justify this policy. In fact, I think it is specifically Romans 13:1 through 5.

He said Romans 13 requires us ``to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for His purposes.''

I, too, am somewhat familiar--in a passing way--with Scripture. I try to read my Bible daily, and, with all due respect, I disagree with Attorney General Sessions's reading.

In Paul's letter to the Romans, he says, just before Romans 13--in Romans 12, and then just a little later in Romans 13--so if you just read a few verses on either side, I think the message is clear: We are urged to share with the Lord's people in need; we are urged to live in harmony with one another, and we are reminded most pointedly later on in Romans 13 that love is the fulfillment of the law and that ``love thy neighbor'' is the greatest Commandment of all.

If there is one common theme, not just in this epistle but in the Gospel, it is that Jesus radically opened His heart and His preaching to those considered outcasts and ordinary and marginalized in His society in His time. With whom did He spend His time? Outstanding citizens? Respected leaders? No, with prostitutes, with tax collectors, with lepers, with Samaritans, with the others, and with the outcasts.

I just ask those who heard what Attorney General Sessions had to say and who thought it was the right answer to rethink whether this strained and cramped reading of Paul's letter is truly a faithful reading.

Romans 13 does, indeed, instruct us to follow the law and to respect those in authority, but I will say this particular passage--and it is being misquoted in order to support oppression--has a long and storied history.

It was cited by Tories in this country who opposed those who stood up for freedom in the American Revolution. It was cited by slaveholders who opposed abolition in the runup to the Civil War. I heard it cited by those who defended the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

Yes, it does teach us to obey the law and respect the law. It does teach us that God ordains those in authority, but it does not mean we should simply accept unjust and inhumane laws and the abuses that flow from them. As a person of faith, I simply cannot accept the current policies for the treatment of those who cross our borders seeking asylum and refuge in our Nation.

In the last few days, as I have heard on my television and social media, the sounds of crying children and the images of children being kept in what certainly looked to me to be little more than cages, I have been thinking about something written by one of America's most famous former slaves, Frederick Douglass--a man who spent much of his life in this very city and who wrote about the consequences on the oppressor of cruelty.

In his book, ``My Bondage and My Freedom,'' he recounted his life as a slave, and he wrote about the brutalizing impact of slavery on the people of faith who tolerated it. I think his words bear briefly repeating today. He said at one point in that book:

The mistress of the house was a model of affection and tenderness. Her fervent piety and watchful uprightness made it impossible to see her without thinking and feeling--``that woman is a Christian.'' There was no sorrow nor suffering for which she had not a tear, and there was no innocent joy for which she had not a smile. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach.

Frederick Douglass goes on to say:

Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these excellent qualities, and [slavery soon proved its ability to divest] her home of its early happiness. Conscience cannot stand much violence. Once thoroughly broken down, who is he that can repair the damage?

I think we should reflect, as people of conscience motivated to public service, in many cases by a shared faith, about our responsibility to speak up for the values upon which our Republic was founded and through which it has been improved.

When we promote humanity, kindness, love, tolerance, and openness, we advance our Nation. I have been heartened by the calls I have heard from across my State and country by people of many different backgrounds, many different faith traditions, many different political views. I am reminded of that passage of Frederick Douglass of the harm it causes us to be a part of a nation that imposes such a cruel and thoughtless policy and turns away and fails to look at it and fails to step forward and fails to change it. I am encouraged by what change there has been so far, but I will remind those listening that we must redouble our efforts.

Let me quote just a few. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called forceful family separation ``immoral'' and ``contrary to our Catholic values.'' The Holy Father, Pope Francis himself, expressed his agreement with that opinion, saying he is on the side of the bishops conference in this debate.

Rev. Franklin Graham, one of President Trump's most ardent defenders, called this policy ``disgraceful'' and said: ``It's terrible to see families ripped apart and I don't support that one bit.''

A personal friend of mine, Rev. Jim Wallis, of Sojourners, has worked with a broad group from across faith leadership, from the evangelical community to the Protestant community, to put together a group that goes by reclaiming Jesus and to post online an important statement that speaks to how across so many different faith traditions this practice, this policy of forcibly separating children--and now a subsequent policy of family detention--speaks ill of all of us.

Christians, Jews, Muslims, humanists, people of all traditions have been calling on our President to end this treatment of fellow human beings. I have heard from colleagues, Republicans and Democrats, from all over this country, their voices of concern. So it is my hope that we will refuse to tolerate this; that we as a body will take a stand; and that we as a nation will urge our President and this administration to adopt new, more humane policies for people crossing our border and seeking refuge in this country; and that we will support bipartisan legislation to fix our broken immigration laws. It is only by the action and leadership of this administration that we have gotten into this space; it is only by their action and leadership that we can get out of it.

I pray it is not too late for us to restore this Nation's reputation as a country that welcomes those seeking refuge from around the world. I will continue to pray every day for our President, for our Senators, for our Nation, for its values, and for our ability to stand up for the treatment of children in distress.

Thank you.

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