[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 4 (Wednesday, January 9, 2019)]
[House]
[Page H292]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          OPEN OUR GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Carbajal) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CARBAJAL. Madam Speaker, this week, I visited the Customs and 
Border Protection facilities where 8-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonso was 
held shortly before he fell sick and tragically died on Christmas Eve. 
This was just 3 weeks after 7-year-old Jakelyn Caal died in custody 
nearby.
  I went to Alamogordo because I wanted to hear directly from CBP 
agents why these two children died and what changes are being made to 
ensure that not one more child dies while in United States custody.
  CBP agents told us that they needed more personnel, more 
technological support, better coordination between agencies, and 
improvements to facilities to accommodate the higher percentage of 
children and families seeking asylum.
  One checkpoint I visited didn't have a shower for migrants. They were 
transported an hour each way every 2 days for a shower. The other 
facility didn't even have potable water.
  The Border Patrol agents were also understandably frustrated that 
their online database did not synchronize with DHS systems, creating 
even more confusion when migrants were being moved or processed. Not 
once did the agents mention building a wall.
  What I confirmed was that this President purposefully created this 
humanitarian crisis at the border for political reasons by taking the 
following actions:
  Trump cut the Central American Minors refugee program, which had 
allowed migrants from Central America to apply for humanitarian relief 
while in their home countries instead of traveling to our border, 
forcing them to make a dangerous journey with their children to escape 
life-threatening violence in their countries.
  He then separated families at the border, taking toddlers from the 
arms of parents and losing track of people's children in the process, a 
stain on the history of our great Nation.
  And he blocked asylum-seekers from their legal right to present 
themselves for screenings through metering at the ports or denying all 
asylum claims, creating huge backlogs at the legal ports of entry with 
squalid conditions and pushing more migrants to attempt to cross the 
border between ports of entry out of desperation.
  This is a real humanitarian crisis that is unfolding because of the 
President's obsession with an ineffective wall that Mexico was 
supposedly going to pay for rather than listening to the actual needs 
of our CBP officers.

  The President continues to repeat the lie, as he did last night 
again, that America faces a crisis in the number of border crossings 
from Mexico. Surprisingly, there was not one migrant housed at the two 
CBP facilities I visited this week.
  The reality is that overall border crossings are on the decline. 
There has been an 80 percent reduction in the number of border 
crossings since the year 2000.
  Trump created and welcomed this shutdown, telling the public that he 
is proud to shut down the government and that he ``will take the mantle 
of shutting it down.'' The President should, instead, join Congress and 
immediately sign bipartisan legislation that previously passed both the 
House and the Senate to reopen the government.
  More than 800,000 Federal workers aren't sure of when their next 
paycheck is coming, airport security and safety is suffering, and the 
affordable housing programs for our homeless veterans are quickly 
running out of funding on the central coast that I represent and across 
the Nation. I urge the President to do the right thing so that we can 
get to work for the American people.
  Mr. President, open our government up.

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