Immigration Legislation
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. CLARKE of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for her impassioned plea and for enumerating for us the type of work that we are going to have to engage in to redeem ourselves by looking at reunification of these families to the best of our ability. We are going to need the resources. We are going to need the will. We are going to have to redeem ourselves by getting these children back to their parents by whatever means we possibly can muster.
Rosa DeLauro also raised some very important questions about investigation and oversight about child abuse. It is my hope that we will continue to be vigilant because, indeed, all of our souls are tied to what has transpired here. None of us can feel as though we don't have a role to play in redeeming our country in what has just occurred.
Mr. Speaker, it is my honor and privilege to yield to the gentleman from the Fifth District of Illinois (Mr. Quigley), someone who has been a part of this body fighting for justice and human dignity.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. CLARKE of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman of the Ninth Congressional District of Illinois, a very prominent member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, for really drilling down on a number of the issues that we all have to grapple with here in Congress as Members of the House of Representatives and of the U.S. Senate, that the administration under Donald Trump has to grapple with, and the American people.
We really have to search our souls at this time and think about the children. We are talking about infants, who are breastfeeding, taken away from their mothers. We are talking about toddlers who are barely able to walk, who aren't potty-trained, who have to be stacked up with a whole bunch of other children who they have no relationship with.
We have heard reports of children trying to console one another and being chastised because they are afraid. They only have one another to cling to, and no one is there to hug them, to soothe them, and to make them feel okay. This is unreal in the 21st century that we would sink to such depths to prove a point. And what is the point again? That you cannot come to the United States seeking refuge from violence, from death and destruction, as so many others have done in prior generations. These people, in particular, have no claim to asylum. That if you dare come and claim it, we will take your children, and we will extract from you even more pain than you left in the country that caused you to flee. I can't believe that this is the United States of America in the 21st century.
Maloney), who has something that she would like to share, from the 12th Congressional District of New York, and a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. CLARKE of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York for her sentiments as well. And as she has stated--I didn't state this in the beginning of my remarks--I happen to be a second generation American myself. My parents came from the beautiful island nation of Jamaica in the Caribbean as foreign students in the 1950s. They came to this Nation where they knew that their talent and their work ethic would enable them to reach their God-given potential, but could never have dreamt that they would live this long--they lived more time here in the United States than they ever did in the Caribbean--as naturalized Americans to see this type of behavior take place in our country on the auspices of our government.
I look at my octogenarian parents, and I say to them, this is not who we are as a nation. And that we stand with all the people of goodwill in this Nation who see this behavior from the Trump administration as totally abhorrent. That we will not stand by idly and see this continue. We will be part of the resistance to make sure that these families' human dignity are restored, and that these children, where possible, can be returned to their families, at whatever cost it may be. It may mean that we will have to do DNA testing, or it may mean that we will have to hire private investigators. Whatever the cost, it is up to us to make these families whole.
They only came to this Nation seeking refuge, and what we gave them was heartache, was pain. What we have given these children is trauma, is pain, is heartache.
What we are hearing of reports now from some of these privately hired-out contractors is children being abused, which was inevitable because, indeed, we are irresponsible in the behavior that this administration took. These organizations were not vetted. They tried to do all of this in the dark, and now we all pay a very dear price.
We have all been stripped this much, a little bit more, of our humanity due to the behavior of the Trump administration, Donald Trump, and his Cabinet members who saw fit to hide this from the American people and to treat human beings as though they didn't deserve the human dignity that all human beings on this planet deserve.
So, Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for giving us the time to share the perspective of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all of my colleagues who came to the floor this evening. We stand shoulder to shoulder, united with the American people to make this right, to end this zero-tolerance policy, and to push back at every turn on the dehumanization of mankind, womankind, childkind across this globe that still regard this Nation as a shining city on a hill.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. CLARKE of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for his eloquence and putting what has been a very disturbing period of time for the American people in perspective.
Indeed, as our children born in the United States witness what is taking place under the Trump administration, we all have to ask ourselves a question about who we are as Americans and what it is that we are leaving as a legacy for our children and our grandchildren to inherit from us.
I believe the gentleman from Massachusetts has really put it all into context. Indeed, here in the United States, where we have the access to the best of everything, we have limited ourselves by the artificial divisions that would subjugate some of humanity while elevating others.
Having said that, I have been joined by one of the most eloquent speakers here in the House of Representatives. She is the chairwoman of our Steering and Policy Committee for the Democratic Caucus and has been a fierce fighter for children and families.
Mr. Speaker, it is my honor to yield to the gentlewoman from the Third Congressional District of Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. CLARKE of New York. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for bringing to the fore the concerns of children in our country who are looking at what is taking place on our border and not quite understanding, not grasping, the weight of why and how something like this could happen in this country, the home of the brave and the land of the free.
We are really in a space in time right now where every American is really questioning what we value in terms of one another's humanity.
Someone I know who has been a part of solution-driven policy is Ms. Carol Shea-Porter, the gentlewoman from the First Congressional District of New Hampshire.
Shea- Porter) at this time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source