[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 103 (Wednesday, June 20, 2018)]
[House]
[Page H5349]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     I AM STANDING FOR THE CHILDREN

  (Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, America is listening to the pain of so 
many of the Members, my colleagues, as we have experienced the 
devastation of watching families torn apart from their babies, their 
toddlers, their young children.
  I spent my Sunday and Monday, Father's Day, looking at those who just 
simply wanted an opportunity, holding baby Roger in my hands, whose 
mother had died and whose sister was ripped away from him and 
prosecuted criminally for entering the United States. Or baby Leah, who 
was 1 year old and was obviously fussy and had been in such a way that 
she was experiencing trauma.
  And yet, we now have this executive order that looks as if the 
President has done something that he could not have done a few hours 
ago, which is picking up the telephone and telling the people at the 
border to cease and desist.
  Those are good people who work there. They are only following orders. 
But this is a tragic executive order--it has no heart to it--because 
what it does is, yes, it keeps the families together in a 
criminal posture and houses them in the same conditions, now on 
military bases, rather than allowing them to proceed through court 
proceedings. In my southern district of Texas we have 50,000 cases in 
backlog because, as I go to the Budget Committee, this administration 
refuses to give us more judges.

  Well, they are trying to open one of these places in my congressional 
district. And I want to congratulate Houston, because Houston is 
standing for humanity; it is standing, as the Pope has said, because 
everyone deserves dignity.
  This executive order is not worth the paper it is written on because 
it could have been a phone call, not a demand that it is all of 
Congress' fault.
  But I am standing for the children, and we are going to save them.

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