[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 126 (Thursday, July 26, 2018)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1085-E1087]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        FEDERAL EMPLOYEE UNIONS

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 25, 2018

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to join my colleagues in 
condemning the President's cruel and inhumane family separation policy 
and its failure to reunite children with their families.
  Over two months ago, the Attorney General of the United States 
announced this administration's inhumane and cruel child separation 
policy.
  This policy was the function of hasty political considerations and 
incomplete calculations of the ramifications of what such an abhorrent 
policy would do to the children implicated, the parents who brought 
them to our country in the hopes of a better life, a nation that has 
watched in horror, and a global community aghast at the measures being 
taken pursuant to this ``zero tolerance'' policy.
  I have returned from my second trip to the Southern border in as many 
months.
  I was there to conduct effective oversight to reexamine whether 
families are being reunited and to determine what due process is 
available to these individuals in the United States Courts and where 
these individuals can seek corrective action for that which confronts 
them.
  When I visited the border last month and the federal detention 
facilities that housed parents and children quarantined from one 
another, what I witnessed was horrific and unforgettable.
  One baby, 9-month-old Roger, had been taken from his 19-year-old 
sister after she was prosecuted for crossing the border illegally.
  Their mother is dead, and they were coming here to find family.
  Little Leah, just one year old, was taken from a grandmother and a 
sister.
  The pain was no less visceral when speaking with mothers wondering 
where their children have gone.
  In South Texas I met Gabby, from Honduras, who had a 45 day-old baby 
taken from her, and while housed at the facility had not yet been 
treated or given medical attention.
  To be sure, these children are not alone.
  To date, thousands of children remain separated from their parents.
  In fact, once this administration realized that the optics of this 
child separation policy were not favorable, the administration 
attempted to disperse the quarantined children to faraway corners from 
where they were separated--South Texas--and away from their parents.
  Indeed, one of the locations proposed to house these children was a 
shelter in my congressional district--the 18th District of Texas--
ironically, on Emancipation Avenue.
  The goodness and decency of the residents of my district, gleaned 
from their opposition to this policy, was immediately and abundantly 
clear.
  Citizens organized throughout our community to make their opposition 
to this plan known loud and clear.
  Congressional action must reflect the passionate activism of our 
fellow Americans.
  Upon returning to the Congress, together with my colleagues on the 
House Judiciary Committee, and its Ranking Member Jerry Nadler, we 
introduced H.R. 6135, ``Keep Families Together Act.''
  This bill promotes family unity by prioritizing keeping families 
together.
  It would prohibit the Department of Homeland Security (``DHS'') from 
separating children from their parents except in extraordinary 
circumstances.
  The bill requires an independent child welfare agent official to 
review any such separation and return the child if no harm to the child 
is present.
  Thereafter I wrote to the President and was joined by 57 of my 
colleagues, asking him to end this policy, but also additionally to: 
Order the immediate cessation of the zero-tolerance policy for criminal 
illegal entry;
  Reinstate the highly successful family case management program, which 
avoids the cascading ills associated with the President's child 
separation policy, while accounting for the law enforcement concerns at 
the heart of border enforcement;
  Conduct a census of all accompanied immigrant children as well as a 
count of all unaccompanied immigrant or refugee children housed at 
facilities unknown to Congress;
  Restore eligibility for asylum status for those fleeing gang violence 
or domestic violence;
  And prohibit federal agencies from assisting any State from 
terminating the parental rights of any person whose child was removed.
  To date, the President has not responded to this letter.
  Indeed, it appears as if the President's lack of response to the 
letter I led is indicative of the administration's overall tact towards 
legitimate inquiries for oversight, like that which is prescribed by 
Article I of the Constitution.

[[Page E1086]]

  Despite the fact that a federal judge ordered the reunification of 
children under age 5 by a date certain, last week the Department of 
Homeland Security indicated that only about 50 percent of these 
children were reunited by the date prescribed by the court, and that at 
least 2,551 of all of children remain separated from their parents.
  The lack of empathy and compassion symbolized by both the policy and 
the failure to reunite these children with their parents is wrong, but 
sadly consistent with other instances where the administration lacked 
compassion towards those seeking asylum.
  Notably, last month also brought news that the administration plans 
to foreclose the ability of asylum seekers to cite gang violence or 
domestic violence as an acceptable reason to seek asylum.
  While this policy shocks the conscience, it is of no surprise that it 
would emanate from an administration which boasts as its Attorney 
General a stalwart opponent of immigration and a Chief of Staff who, 
while he was DHS Secretary, believed that separation of children from 
their parents was an effective means of deterring immigration writ 
large.
  The ad hoc procedures the government has created to respond to the 
judicial decree to unite these families offer further proof that it 
never intended for families to be brought back together.
  It is unconscionable that there had been no plan for the orderly 
reunification of these children with their families.
  As we face the July 26 deadline for the Federal Government to reunite 
the thousands of innocent separated children, we must stand fast in 
continuing to demand justice.
  Yesterday, the Trump administration told the court that it had 
reunited or ``appropriately discharged'' 1,187 of the 2,551 children 
ages five and older who were forcibly separated from their parents.
  The administration has also reunited 58 out of 103 children who are 
under the age of five and whose reunions were required by the first 
deadline, July 10.
  The administration identified 1,634 class members who are eligible 
for reunification and are in various stages of the process.
  However, in the same federal court filing, the Trump administration 
has claimed that the separated children of 917 parents are either not 
eligible, or ``not yet known to be eligible,'' for reunification.
  For parents whose eligibility the government is challenging based on 
a prohibitive criminal history or unfitness finding, more information 
is clearly needed.
  As the ACLU have argued in court--the government's word alone on this 
determination is not sufficient, which is why they have asked the court 
to order the government to provide details about the nature of the 
charge, conviction, or warrant for each parent.
  As of July 20, the Trump administration reported that it had 37 
children in government custody who have ``not yet been matched'' to a 
parent from whom they were taken.
  Additionally, when asked in court, the administration was not able to 
provide a count of the number of parents who were released from ICE 
custody and whose locations are still unknown.
  This is the all-important question: where are the parents whom the 
government has already deported?
  For the separated children under five years old, there were an 
estimated 12 parents who had already been deported by the time of the 
court's June 26 order requiring reunion.
  In a status update on the ongoing court-ordered family reunifications 
filed Monday, the government said 463 parents of separated children 
aged five and older are indicated as no longer in the U.S. according to 
their files.
  These cases are apparently ``under review.''
  As a mother, I am devastated and disappointed that the administration 
represented what they did not know and could not do.
  They did not know the true number of the children separated, they 
could not reunite these children, and there is still no plan for their 
reunification.
  It is beyond comprehension that a governing body in this nation could 
create a humanitarian crisis and be so uninformed as to abdicate its 
responsibility to rectify the situation.
  Beyond any future government measures that reunite the separated 
families, Human Rights Watch reports that making any of these families 
truly whole, including by addressing the trauma our government 
callously inflicted on them, will take much longer.
  Is this review from a leading human rights body truly reflective of 
our nation, which just a half-century ago declared never to ``witness 
or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation 
has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home 
and around the world?''
  Did the President plan to make orphans of thousands of children who 
came here with loving parents?
  These are question that should haunt this country for years.
  Under no circumstance can we allow the barbaric separation of 
families to continue.
  This policy is one of the most un-American policies implemented under 
the Trump Administration in our name.
  This policy must galvanize the country to act.
  Americans from all walks of life must band together to say with one 
voice: not in my name.
  Mr. Speaker, today I rise to denounce the President's unjustified 
assault on our nation's thousands of dedicated federal employees.
  In his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy proclaimed a call 
to duty--``Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can 
do for your country.''
  Millions from all corners of our nation throughout our history--in 
peace and in war, in prosperity and in hardship--have answered this 
call with their full measure of dedication.
  They are our public servants.
  They showed up to serve and to lead.
  They work long hours ensuring that our government has the greatest 
wealth of knowledge and expertise to best address the needs of our 
citizens.
  They risk lives at the front lines of disaster zones so that no 
American is left in distress.
  They lead the way while making sure nobody falls behind.
  By any stretch of the imagination, these men and women should be 
celebrated as heroes for their altruistic dedication to service.
  But the President, far short of ensuring that these federal employees 
have the best environment for which to carry out their commitment to 
serving their nation, has gone great lengths to attack these servants 
as part of a faux ``swamp.''
  As a candidate, Trump falsely told voters that the federal 
bureaucracy was awash in ``waste, fraud and abuse.''
  By abusing his power to issue executive orders, the President ordered 
to roll back civil-service protections that federal employees have 
enjoyed for a generation, making it easier to fire poor performers, 
curtailing time employees can be paid for union work, and directing 
agencies to negotiate tougher union contracts.
  The orders require agencies to negotiate union contracts in less than 
a year.
  They direct managers to move more aggressively to discharge employees 
involved in even minor misconduct, limiting to one month a last-chance 
grace period for improvement that now can last up to 120 days.
  The orders also require agencies to begin charging unions for space 
in federal buildings they now use for free.
  And, the orders limit federal employees to spending no more than a 
quarter of their workday on ``official time''--paid time to do union 
business, a benefit Congress approved for federal unions in 1978, when 
the House and Senate overwhelmingly passed the Civil Service Reform 
Act.
   According to the Civil Service Reform Act, the U.S. government 
allows employees to ``organize, bargain collectively, and participate 
through labor organizations of their own choosing in decisions which 
affect them.''
  The rationale is that such participation promotes the public 
interest, contributes to the effective conduct of public business, and 
enables the amicable settlement of disputes between employees and 
employers.
  Section 7131 of that bill provides federal employees with ``official 
time'' to engage in representational activities, discussions of 
grievances, dispute resolution, labor relations training, labor-
management relations, and new department initiatives, among other 
things.
  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission implemented the 
legislation by adopting rules that ``require managers and supervisors 
to allow complainants who are employees 'a reasonable amount of 
official time, when in official duty status, to prepare their EEO 
complaint and to respond to agency and EEOC requests for information.' 
''
  In one fell swoop, Trump cut the federal union representatives of 
their time assisting colleagues with filing grievances, addressing 
sexual harassment claims, and resolving workplace problems.
  For a president who has been the object of numerous grievance 
complaints and sexual harassment claims, the hypocrisy of limiting time 
to pursue such claims is shocking.
  As a sign of the concerted war on federal employees, there also have 
been several other efforts to limit unions.
  This year, for example, the U.S. Department of Education eliminated 
official time as part of its new labor contract.
  Organizations representing these federal employees have argued this 
contract is completely unfair.
  In this spirit I would like to commend the efforts of one such 
organization, the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE.
  As the largest union for government employees, they have risen to the 
occasion to provide federal employees with the passionate defense that 
they deserve.

[[Page E1087]]

  AFGE has challenged the executive order on official time as a 
violation of the right to freedom of association guaranteed by the 
First Amendment.
  I was proud to have joined the amicus curiae brief in support of 
AFSCME's position in the case of Janus v. AFSCME, which supported and 
defended the need for unions and collective bargaining.
  Eighty years ago the American labor movement was little more than a 
group of dreamers, and look at it now.
  From coast to coast, in factories, stores, warehouse and business 
establishments of all kinds, industrial democracy is at work.
  Employees, represented by free and democratic trade unions of their 
own choosing, participate actively in determining their wages, hours 
and working conditions.
  Their living standards are the highest in the world.
  Our labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups.
  They have raised wages, shortened hours and provided supplemental 
benefits.
  Through collective bargaining and grievance procedures, they have 
brought justice and democracy to the shop floor.
   But their work goes beyond their own jobs, and even beyond our 
borders.
  Our unions have fought for aid to education, for better housing, for 
development of our national resources, and for saving the family-sized 
farms.
  They have spoken, not for narrow self-interest, but for the public 
interest and for the people.
  Unions are as important as they ever were--because corporations are 
just as dedicated to their bottom line, regardless of the consequences 
for workers.
  David Cox Sr., President of the AFGE, understood that ``Federal 
employees understand what is needed to improve the internal workings of 
their agencies far better than private consultants.
  ``Federal workers and their representatives should play an important 
role in the development of organizational changes involving federal 
agencies and the services they provide.''
  ``Neglecting to seek input from employee representatives in the 
development of government-wide reorganization plans is 
counterproductive to any genuine effort to increase the efficiency and 
effectiveness of government.''
  AFGE General Counsel David Borer astutely remarked that ``These 
executive orders are clearly at odds with what Congress has mandated by 
law,'' and that ``These directives from the White House display a 
shocking lack of respect for the Constitution and represent a serious 
overreach of the president's executive powers.''
  Indeed, these executive orders are not merely an affront to the blood 
and sweat of America's public servants--as great as that may be.
  AFGE has also challenged the President's executive orders on the 
grounds that they exceed the president's authority under the U.S. 
Constitution by violating the separation of powers and exceeding 
current law.
  The president has used our federal employees not only to frame them 
as a scapegoat for our nation's problems, but also to subvert Congress' 
place as an equal branch of government--an attack on our system of 
checks and balances befitting of a banana republic.
  This constitutional crisis should concern us all.
  This attack on our federal employees disrupts the effectiveness of 
our government, labor rights across the nation for all professions, and 
the integrity of our very system of government.
  I urge all of my colleagues to reflect the dedication that these 
federal employees have shown in serving our nation, and work to resist 
the arbitrary, despotic attacks that the President has levied against 
them.

                          ____________________