Providing for Consideration of H.R. Border Security and Immigration Reform Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I am strongly against this rule and the underlying legislation. We have a human rights catastrophe on our hands. In less than 90 days, the Trump administration has ripped 2,500 children out of their parents' arms.

I am the father of a 3-year-old and a 6-year-old. I can only imagine what it would mean to have them taken to parts unknown, perhaps even locked in a cage, not knowing, not being able to find out what is happening to them.

This was a conscious decision that President Trump and Attorney General Sessions made to separate children from parents. It was not the congressional intent of the law. It was not the way that President Obama implemented the law. It was not the way President Trump implemented the law until 90 days ago. But then President Trump made this mean-spirited decision to literally take little children, even babies, away from their mothers in our country, to place innocent children in facilities that have mats on the floor or thermal blankets for warmth, away from the loving embrace of a mom or a dad.

The President called this a zero-tolerance policy. It was simply the only reason that these families that are fleeing to the U.S., who are trying to keep their children safe, are being treated like criminals and having their young children taken away from them.

Children are being moved around this country faster than the Office of Refugee Resettlement can even track. We already know that the Office of Refugee Resettlement has a history of literally losing children, losing track of them while they are in custody, and now they are responsible for even more young, innocent lives.

Young children are being placed with host families as far away from the border as Michigan and Washington State. Parents don't even know where their children are. And young children are simply terrified about what happened to their loving mom and their loving dad, and how our country, the United States of America, could be complicit in separating them from the only parents they know.

This is an embarrassment for our Nation, and it must end.

And it is offensive when these bills before us are talked about as consensus or compromise, when no Democrats were involved. It may be a consensus between far-right Republicans and rightwing Republicans, but it is not a consensus among moderates, independents, or a single Democrat.

And when it comes to caring about these kids, I know my Republican colleagues care as well. So show it by supporting a true compromise bill, like the Dream Act, like other bills that we have had before us, like comprehensive immigration reform that, of course, will get votes from both sides of the aisle because they are the right thing to do for our country.

There are long-term consequences for this shortsighted policy. The very act of separating a family has traumatic and long-lasting impact for young girls like this, taken away from their mom and dad, their culture, their support system. They don't even have the tools at a young age to process what is going on or the trauma or the reality of the situation.

One Colorado pediatric emergency doctor treating children removed from their parents said: ``The children clung so tightly and completely to their foster mothers, both at the emergency department and at home, that they were literally unable to put them down. They were terrified that their world would be broken for a second time.''

The Trump administration is creating a generation of thousands of kids, many of whom will grow up in our country, whose first and sometimes most formative memories is of somebody wearing the badge or the flag of our country tearing them apart from their mother or their father while they are screaming, while they are crying out in the void of a fluorescently-lit warehouse funded by your taxpayer dollars.

According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, responsible for the care of these kids, many children remain in these shelters for 57 days on average.

It is further disturbing that President Trump would willingly pull families apart and not have any plan for reuniting them even with his executive order, no plans to unite the over 2,500 children who have been torn apart from their parents.

According to the former director of ICE, these family separations may become permanent, literally leaving hundreds of kids here in the U.S. left in an already stressed and underfunded child welfare system, where they literally have a mom or dad fully capable of giving them care and loving them that has been forcibly separated from their own young children.

My office has been flooded with calls--I know yours has too, Mr. Speaker--some callers crying on the other end, demanding that we do something.

Yet, instead of ensuring that we provide resources families need and reunite them and heal the trauma, the Republicans are bringing to the floor partisan bills that would detain families indefinitely and criminalize even more immigrants. But this is what happens in a broken, failing, unaccountable immigration system. On that, we agree.

So, please, begin the discussions of compromise, of consensus. And that doesn't mean yourselves, Republicans. You control this body. You get to say what we vote on. It means involve caring independent, unaffiliated, Democrats, moms and dads, the faith community, the law enforcement community. Don't just have this discussion behind closed doors and come out with even more draconian measures that tear even more families apart.

So instead of bringing two bills to the floor that have widespread opposition, even in your own party--Republicans failed to pass their own bill--there are bipartisan solutions that would not only pass the House, but would get a large majority of the House. We could probably get to two-thirds of this House voting for compassion and love if we only were willing to try, bills that truly balance and include border security and safety and the values of our country, so we know that we, as Americans and as taxpayers, are not complicit in tearing a young girl's world apart.

Look, in Congress we often argue on policy issues. And I respect Mr. Newhouse, my friend from Washington. And I would tell him that what a compromise means, Mr. Newhouse, is not you compromising with Stephen Miller; it means you compromising with Luis Gutierrez or Zoe Lofgren or me or the faith community. It is not a compromise when reasonable people like Mr. Newhouse and Mr. Curbelo go into a backroom and have the reason beaten out of them by hateful fearmongering that is, frankly, un-American.

Look, I urge my Republican colleagues to imagine that these children were theirs, because they are ours, they are our wards, they are in our country. This cannot be allowed to continue. We need to reject this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this heartless, inhumane bill and begin a true process of compromise and consensus that can secure our borders, fix our broken immigration system, unite families, restore the rule of law, and reflect our values as Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article from Reuters today titled: ``U.S. Centers Force Migrant Children to Take Drugs.''

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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, ``Immigrant children,'' quoting from this article, ``are being routinely and forcibly given a range of psychotropic drugs at U.S. government-funded youth shelters.''

Taking multiple psychotropic drugs can seriously injure children. And many youths in Shiloh detention facility are being given nine different pills in the morning, six in the evening. You are paying for them all, Mr. Speaker. Taxpayers are paying for pills and injections and drugs for 2-years-olds and 4-year-olds that have been stripped from their parents.

One mother said she nor any other family member had even been consulted about their daughter being given powerful drugs.

Many kids are being held down, forcibly given injections when they refuse to take the medication that our tax dollars are paying for.

We need to stop this, Mr. Speaker.

You don't need a bill to stop it. President Trump needs to stop it. He wasn't doing it till 90 days ago; then he started to do it. It is not the will of Congress. It is not the letter of the law. It is a policy that is un-American and far outside the intent of Republicans or Democrats in this body.

If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Ranking Member Nadler's bill, H.R. 6135, the Keep Families Together Act, which I am proud to cosponsor. This thoughtful proposal would prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from separating children from their parents, of course, except in extraordinary circumstances, and limit the criminal prosecution of asylum seekers.

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Mr. POLIS. Jayapal) to discuss our proposal.

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Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentlewoman from Washington an additional 15 seconds.

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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I also remind my friend from Miami that we have reached several compromises.

He and I are both members of the Problem Solvers Caucus. I am proud that the Problem Solvers Caucus--more than 25 Democrats, 25 Republicans--we agreed. We reached a compromise bill--border security, addresses the needs of the Dreamers. I think it would get 60, 70 percent of the votes on the floor of the House. Let's bring that bill up.

Unfortunately, Republicans chose to set Mr. Curbelo's work and my work aside and proceed with a spiteful bill that makes the problem worse.

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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article entitled ``Pentagon Asked to Make Room for 20,000 Migrant Children on Military Bases.''
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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, the Trump administration is now looking to house up to 20,000 children taken away from their parents at military bases. They are looking to take 10 times as many children away from their parents as they already have.

It is time to stop President Trump.

Lofgren).

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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, isn't that amazing? Republicans can't even find elected Representatives willing to come down here on the floor and defend taking kids away from their parents.

They are out of speakers because Republicans are embarrassed. They know that they cannot face the American people, no less their Maker, knowing that they are complicit in tearing innocent children away from mom and dad.

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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Newhouse may be proud, but there are no other Republicans who have come to the floor to join him.

We have so many Democrats who want to speak about how you can unite families that I don't even have enough time to give.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleague Mr. Newhouse if he will yield me the balance of his time. Well, I wish he would, because no Republicans are willing to face the American people, because they know they are not working to solve this issue. They are working to tear more families apart. And they are lying about it, Mr. Speaker. They are lying about it.

Mr. Speaker, I want to go to the definition of the word compromise, because I think that there needs to be education regarding what these words mean that are being tossed around. A compromise is an agreement or settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions.

It doesn't mean looking at yourself in the mirror and conceding to yourself. It doesn't mean Republicans going into a closed-door meeting and coming out with a bill that makes things worse. It means Republicans and Democrats working together, each giving up some things, each living with what they can accept.

I have worked hard on compromise with many of my Republican colleagues through the Problem Solvers Caucus to solve and provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers while securing our border.

This bill makes things worse. It guts legal immigration. It eliminates two family immigration programs: married children of U.S. citizens, and siblings of U.S. adults. It doesn't even grandfather in people already in the system waiting to be reunited with their families, meaning that it will eliminate the current legal way that families can be reunified.

This bill raises the credible fear standard for asylum seekers to begin the process by raising the standards to more probably than not. This bill does nothing to prevent the Trump administration's grotesque policy of separating parents and children at the border. In fact, it simply removes protections for those families who are currently not separated at points of entry.

And now we are hearing that President Trump is preparing military bases to house up to 20,000 more kids that he plans to snatch from their moms and their dads.

We can do better. This humanitarian crisis is entirely President Trump's making. He didn't do it before the last 90 days. He just started a misinterpretation of the law. His recent executive order is not a solution. Over 2,300 kids have already been separated from their parents and there is no plan to reunite them.

This order doesn't even require any families be detained together, and the order doesn't contain any prohibitions barring family separation. We know that separating kids is wrong. I hope Americans agree that this is bad for kids.

But let's also look at science.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said that the incarceration of families and separation of families has long-term consequences for the health and wellbeing, mental and physical, for children and parents. Separation consequences include: post-traumatic stress disorder, developmental delays, and poor psychological adjustment.

I dare say that these policies of the Trump administration, who on their own decided to tear 1- and 2- and 3-year-old kids away from their parents, is going to create even greater needs for these next generation of kids, many of whom will grow up here legally, those who successfully pursue their asylum claims.

And while those immigration claims are being adjudicated, some might have to return to their native country. Some will be able to stay. Families should be together. No parent should have to see their own child stripped away.

This bill is hemorrhaging support. I have an article that I include in the Record from Politico stating that the Koch network won't support the House immigration bills, entitled: ``Koch network raps Trump, won't support House immigration bills.''
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Mr. POLIS. I don't agree with the Koch network on much. I do know that they fund many Republicans, but maybe now that the Republicans are taking children away from their parents, the Kochs will stop funding Republicans, because I am glad to hear that they are people of principle.

The article says they ``push for a more moderate approach toward immigration legislation,'' and they have ``called on Trump to stop his administration from splitting up immigrant families,'' which this bill does not do.

In fact, this bill ends those who are waiting for family reunification today. So there is a legal way to unite families. This bill eliminates that and will lead to more families being apart.

This is a false crisis entirely of President Trump's making. I hope that even he has recognized that the American people will not stand for 3- and 4-year-olds literally being put in cages, strapped down while they are given drugs and medicated and injected, with Americans complicit in this atrocity.

It needs to be reiterated one more time that the votes we take on the rule today are more than procedural. They have a significant impact on young lives of innocent children.

They will show which Members of Congress care about fixing our immigration system and are willing to compromise and work in a bipartisan way, and which Members of Congress vote to make all of the problems outlined here today worse and more widespread.

We need to reject these bills, reject this rule. We need to keep families together. We need to begin the sometimes challenging work of compromise and consensus building between Republicans and Democrats, between Mr. Newhouse and Mr. Curbelo, and me and Ms. Lofgren and others--not with Stephen Miller, Steve King, or Louie Gohmert.

Reject these bills. Keep families together. Let's work together on border security, on fixing our broken immigration system, on uniting families, on a permanent solution for Dreamers, to ensure that this horror and affront to our American values ends and doesn't repeat itself ever again.

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Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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