Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. MURPHY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

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Mr. MURPHY. Madam President, I rise today to speak on the immigration bill presently before the Senate.

First, I wish to congratulate the leaders who have been able to bring this bipartisan bill to the floor. The Gang of 8, of course, gets all the attention, but Senator Leahy, the majority leader, and so many others who have added both merit and momentum to this bill deserve to be praised as well.

I particularly wish to congratulate Senator Leahy, the majority leader, and the authors of the bill for the transparent process with which we have debated this bill. I don't know the sum total of all the amendments that were considered by the Judiciary Committee, but it was a long markup with virtually every idea and every amendment vetted.

We have been standing on the floor of the Senate for nearly 2 weeks debating this bill. That is right and that is good. This is one of the most important bills the Senate will talk about. This matters to millions of undocumented people all across this country, but it also matters to millions of other individuals, families, and businesses who have been weighed down by an immigration system that doesn't work any longer.

Today we will be debating a new amendment on border security that will, for many of us, be overkill. In order to make sure the perfect doesn't become the enemy of the good, this will bring this very important debate near to a close.

I rise to talk about one additional amendment I am offering that I hope the Senate will consider, amendment No. 1451. It would, very simply, prohibit the Department of Homeland Security from housing children in adult detention facilities.

There is already fairly good law and some good regulation on the books today that protect a lot of immigrant children from being held in difficult detention facilities. Many of these children who are classified as ``unaccompanied alien children'' are required to be transferred to HHS custody within 72 hours. There is some good law and good regulation built up around this issue already.

The data we have been getting over the last several years does tell that current law doesn't work for every child in the system. As we learned recently, ICE data says as many as 1,336 children were placed in adult facilities between 2008 and 2012. Of these children, apparently 371 of them spent more than 3 months in an adult facility--3 months in an adult facility.

I want you to put yourself in the shoes of a little 12-year-old boy who may just be learning how to speak the English language, who maybe came here with his parents and his family but was picked up by himself, somehow through the system was separated from his family, locked up, and his family may have some reluctance to come and claim him because they, themselves, are undocumented.

They worry they will be deported along with the child.

Think about sitting, as a 12-year-old little boy, alone, perhaps uncomfortable about communicating, in an adult facility for 1, 2, or 3 days and then imagine that for 1, 2, and 3 months. It is unacceptable.

While DHS disputes some of these numbers and is certainly doing what it can to make sure these children don't spend time in adult lockups, the law can be clear and we can create, with this amendment, a very clear line for all children, no matter how they are categorized, to make sure they do not spend time in adult facilities.

There are some very harsh realities for children who are locked up with adults. We know this because we, unfortunately, do this for documented children--for American citizens. Too often when children are arrested on the streets of this country, they get housed in adult criminal facilities within the American justice system. The National Prison Rate Elimination Commission Report found incarcerated minors are much more likely than adults to be sexually abused, especially when they are locked up with adults.

Sometimes, to try to prevent this from happening, these children are put in isolation in ICE detention facilities. That may protect the child from abuse, but the isolation itself, which can go on for days and days and days, causes serious psychological problems and sometimes, the data shows, can lead to suicide.

Think also of one particular case--Mariana, we will call her--of a 17-year-old who came from Guatemala. Mariana was brought through the Mexican desert by one of these coyotes. The journey was so difficult, the coyote just abandoned her, 17 years old, by herself in the middle of the desert. She managed to find her way to a highway and at that highway the Border Patrol picked her up and took her to one of the holding facilities and threw her in with a bunch of adults.

She was 17 years old, but the Border Patrol officers insisted she looked like she was in her twenties, and she didn't have her birth certificate with her. So the default was to put her in an adult facility and to not believe her. Finally, a couple of kind women in the facility intervened and allowed her to call her mother in Guatemala and get a copy of her birth certificate. Finally, after all this, she was transferred to HHS.

This shouldn't happen. With this amendment we can create a clearer line to make sure children such as Mariana, and the hundreds who are even younger than she, when they are picked up for whatever reason, are not housed with adults. The amendment would require DHS to determine the child's age when there is any notice or suspicion the detainee is a child under the age of 18. Then DHS would have to transfer or release the child, after determining the child's age, so children such as Mariana would not have to wait and struggle themselves to get out of an adult detention center.

My amendment also would make it clear the best interest of the child should be the main concern in transferring or releasing the child. Finally, building on some of the data reporting requirements that are in the underlying bill, my amendment would include a couple of additional categories that DHS is required to report so we know where all these children are, the conditions in which they are being housed, and whether they have a lawyer trying to look out for their interests.

I think this is an amendment that can get bipartisan support. No matter where we stand on issues of border enforcement or a pathway to citizenship, we all believe a child that has been detained by ICE, likely through no fault of their own, deserves to be treated like a child; that they deserve to be housed with other children, if they can't be returned to their family. This amendment would do that and I think would be another way, as we conclude the debate on one of the most important bills this body will take up this year, for Republicans and Democrats to come together around our common values.

I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum, and I ask unanimous consent that the time during the quorum be equally divided.

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