End Cruel Immigration Enforcement Against Kids
Floor Speech
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Ms. JAYAPAL. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representatives Dexter and Tonko for hosting this incredibly important Special Order hour.
Since Donald Trump was sworn in 14 months ago, DHS has terrorized our children. Every single day 50 U.S. citizen children have had a parent detained, on average, and over 11,000 American children in total. After Trump restarted the cruel practice of detaining families and children, ICE has jailed about 3,500 adults and children. That includes over 900 children jailed beyond the 20-day legal limit set by longstanding legal settlement.
More and more children are forced to appear in court alone as Trump has cut funding for legal representation. Let's talk about what this all looks like.
In Washington State, ICE arrested a mother dropping off her 4-year- old son at a preschool.
In Oregon, masked ICE agents broke the car windows and arrested a father dropping off his son at preschool.
In Chicago, ICE dragged a daycare worker out of the facility, slammed her face against the daycare's glass doors, and arrested her.
Recently, in Vermont, the community surrounded a home for hours as ICE sought to enter without a warrant. Demonstrators created a human tunnel allowing a 4-year-old child wrapped in a blanket to escape the home. Her mother was desperate to get her to safety.
This is horrifying. We can't talk about any of this without recognizing the toll on our educators and our daycare workers who are on the front lines doing everything they can to protect our children, even as many of them are immigrants as well and face threats to their own safety.
We have also seen Federal agents use physical violence and chemical weapons indiscriminately.
In Chicago, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino deployed tear gas in a residential neighborhood as children were gathering for a Halloween parade. In the words of a Federal judge: These kids, their sense of safety was shattered, and it is going to take a long time for that to come back.
In Minneapolis, ICE deployed tear gas near a family in their car, causing a 6-month-old baby to stop breathing.
All of this leads to lasting trauma for our children, regardless of their immigration status or whether they have an immigrant parent or a family member.
Here is what Allison Bassett Ratto, a child clinical psychologist, has said about the harms to children: What they see are their classmates, their family members, and their neighbors often being apprehended in violent and confusing ways while doing things like picking up their children from the bus stop or going to their jobs. For children, this creates a sense that nowhere and no one is safe. The stress, the anxiety, and the trauma can become chronic, leading to both immediate and long-term damage to children's mental and physical health.
Tomorrow, as ranking member of the Immigration Subcommittee, I will be holding a hearing entitled: Trump's Assault on Our Children, and we will have legal and medical experts, educators, and directly impacted people who will testify to the harms and the trauma being caused to our children.
Donald Trump ran on going after the so-called worst of the worst. It has been very clear that this was never his intent. He made it clear that chaos and cruelty go hand in hand with mass deportation. It is inflicting lasting trauma on our children, regardless of immigration status.
Do not close your eyes. Do not close your eyes to this harm that our own government is inflicting on our children. Do not talk about Christian values or any other religious value and then traumatize our children.
Mr. Speaker, we will not stop fighting against this horror. We will not stop because it is our responsibility in this body to make sure that our government is not traumatizing these kids.
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