[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 99 (Tuesday, June 24, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H5651-H5652]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CHILDREN AT AMERICA'S BORDER

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, as the founder and cochair of the 
Congressional Children's Caucus, I rise to talk

[[Page H5652]]

about children, the children in America who need more Head Start seats 
or the children in northern Nigeria who are being attacked and stolen 
away by Boko Haram who stole some 30 or 40 girls and some 31 boys.
  I rise to talk about the children who are at America's border--
through no fault of their own and through no fault of this 
administration--a baby or children laying on the floor with a blanket. 
Some have taken to the political grandstanding of blaming the President 
and the President's administration.
  The United Nations has indicated that this is a proportion of 
international humanitarian crisis. Fifty-eight percent of the children 
that were questioned were not here for immigration issues; they are 
displaced internationally--they were forcibly displaced.
  It is our job to address this question. We should address this 
question with humanitarian response, with more processing centers. We 
should have more detention centers that are there for families and 
children, so they can be processed appropriately; more immigration 
judges; we must deal with more children's organizations like the 
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, First Focus, 
Children's Legal Defense Fund.
  Let us not grandstand on these babies. They are here because they 
have been forced to leave a devastating condition in their country. 
Attacking the administration is wrong.

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