Reunite Children with Families: We Will Not Stop Until Each Child is with Their Parents

Floor Speech

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Mr. GONZALEZ of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to tell my fellow Americans and fellow Members of Congress that I am appalled over reports of mistreatment and abuse toward children at the Shiloh Residential Treatment Center.

The facility is under contract with the Department of Health and Human Services, and is located just south of Houston, Texas. The Shiloh facility is owned and operated by the same entity that formerly operated Daystar Treatment Center in Manvel, Texas. Daystar was closed because the way they physically restrained children led to the death of three teenagers. In most cases, the children were hog-tied. Now, instead of hog-tied, they are drugging children into submission.

One child was prescribed 10 different shots and pills, including the antipsychotic drugs Latuda, Geodon, and Olanzapine; the Parkinson's medication Benztropine; the seizure medication Clonazepam; and many, many others, such as nerve and pain medications, antidepressants, and cognitive enhancers. This is a crime.

A Federal judge in California, Judge Laughrey, recently explained: ``Psychotropic drugs are powerful medications that directly affect the central nervous system. They are particularly potent when administered to children. . . . They are more vulnerable to psychosis, seizures, irreversible movement disorders, suicidal thoughts, aggression, weight gain, organ damage, and other life-threatening conditions.''

The message is clear. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services needs to be reprimanded for letting these horrific actions take place, and provide answers to the American people. You cannot hide behind subcontractors. You are on notice.

Let me make this even clearer. The Federal Government must act at once. Stop placing these children in traumatic and dangerous environments that right now are causing children to suffer in pain.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join in this argument, utilize their powers of congressional oversight, and call on the administration to end these procedures and abide by simple rules of decency and humanity.

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