Providing for Consideration of H.R. Matthew Young Pollard Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019

Floor Speech

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this Keep Families Together Act.

Mr. Speaker, over the last month, our country has reeled from the cruelty at the border. And this week we waited apprehensively to see if the Trump administration would meet the court-ordered deadline to reunite at least the children under 5 who have been taken away from their parents, separated for months at a time.

The Trump administration did not meet that deadline. To date, only 57 children have been reunited with their families. Over 3,000 children were separated from their families, and all of this was a self-imposed tragic, tragic set of circumstances that came from Donald Trump's decision to institute a zero tolerance, zero humanity policy at the border for parents who were seeking asylum for their children.

Mr. Speaker, headlines every day are blaring about what is happening in the short term and the long term in terms of trauma caused to children--to children, Mr. Speaker. One headline said that some of the children who were 2 and 3 years old did not even recognize their parents after 4 months of being separated--children who were breastfeeding at their mother's breast, separated.

Mr. Speaker, the American Association of Pediatrics has said that the long-term trauma and consequences to these children is absolutely devastating. And let me be clear about what we are doing. The United States Government--and I say not in my name--the United States Government is separating children from their families, putting kids in cages, parents in prisons.

Why? To deter people who are coming to the United States to do what I, as a mother, and I believe any parent would do, to seek safety from violence, from persecution, from being killed, gang raped, all kinds of stories that I heard directly from the women and the men who fled and are being held in a Federal prison.

Mr. Speaker, the Keep Families Together Act is the only bill that would help prevent these horrors from occurring again and from happening now. It prohibits the separation of children from their parents; it limits criminal prosecutions for asylum seekers; and it requires the Department of Homeland Security to reunite children and their parents.

I have got to say, Mr. Speaker, I hear these things from people who I believe are deeply good people on both sides of the aisle.

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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that there is any Republican or Democrat that would want this kind of trauma to occur. But I ask my Republican colleagues to stand up for who we are as a country. Do not allow America to become this in the eyes of the world. Do not go back to your children tonight and tell them that you allowed for this to continue.

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