[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 120 (Wednesday, July 17, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4918-S4920]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STOP CRUELTY TO MIGRANT CHILDREN ACT
Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, tonight I am rising to talk about
legislation that I have introduced that now has 40 Senators sponsoring
it. It is called the Stop Cruelty to Migrant Children Act.
I think all of us in America have seen so many stories of refugee
children being treated in a horrific manner at the border or beyond the
border in a system of child migrant prisons.
Just recently, we have had the story about 3-year old Sofia and her
parents--Tania and Joseph--proceeded to experience horrific
circumstances in which a gang killed Tania's mother and her sister-in-
law. A note was posted on the door that they would be killed, that they
had 45 minutes to leave. I imagine all of us would flee with our
children under those circumstances.
They made it to the border of the United States. They did get through
an initial hearing which is designed to determine if there is credible
fear of return, and that sets the stage then for an asylum hearing.
But we are shipping folks back into Mexico to await that asylum
hearing. In this case, the little girl in the family--she has a heart
problem, and she had suffered a heart attack--a 3-year old girl--yet we
sent that family back into Mexico without friends, without family,
without funds.
It is only because a Member of Congress heard about it--a Member in
the House, Congresswoman Escobar--and intervened, that the little girl
was allowed to remain in the United States. Even then, the
administration said you--the little girl, the 3-year old--you have to
choose between which parent will be in the U.S. and which one will be
sent back without funds, family, and friends into Mexico with the rest
of the children.
It is a horrific situation to split the family in this process,
horrific to ask a little girl to have to decide who would be in the
safety of the U.S. and which parent would be sent back into very
dangerous territory across the border. This is just one example out of
thousands.
President John F. Kennedy said: ``This country has always served as a
lantern in the dark for those who love freedom but are persecuted, in
misery, or in need.''
If President Kennedy were speaking today, he couldn't say those words
because today our country, under the current leadership, is not
conducting itself in a manner that serves as a ``lantern in the dark
for those who love freedom but are persecuted, in misery, or in need.''
Instead, we have a new policy. It is a policy that was articulated by
John Kelly just weeks after the administration took office. The policy
was that if we inflict pain and suffering on refugees, it will deter
immigration. The strategy of deliberately inflicting pain on refugees
is not supportable under any moral code, under any religious tradition,
or under any system of ethics.
Shortly after John Kelly, who was then head of Homeland Security,
expressed this, there was a reaction. This was in the early months of
2017. As a result, they took the program underground for a little more
than a year, until June of 2018, when then-Attorney General Jeff
Sessions gave a speech called ``Zero Tolerance.'' Six months out from
an election, it is not unusual to have an Attorney General give a
speech in which getting tough on crime is emphasized. But as you read
the details of that speech, you realize this wasn't about getting tough
on crime. This was about returning explicitly to the vision that John
Kelly had laid out originally of tormenting refugees in order to
discourage immigration. That is a whole different thing. It is not zero
tolerance; it is zero humanity.
Every one of us can picture relatives coming to this country and to
this border and would want them to be treated with respect and decency
as they pursue asylum.
Most people do not win their asylum hearings. The rate of success is
different in different districts. In some, it is 15 percent. In some,
it is 20 percent. In some, it is 30 percent. But the burden of proof is
on the refugee. The burden of proof is difficult to establish, so most
people do not succeed if they do not have extensive evidence to make
their case on the fear of return.
The initial hearing is easy in the sense that you simply have to
assert that you have a credible fear based on your story, but in the
asylum hearing, you have to prove it. You carry the burden of proof. Is
it too much for us to continue the vision of treating those fleeing war
and those fleeing famine, those fleeing conflict and violence--is it
too much for this America that we love to treat them with decency and
respect as they go through the adjudication process for asylum? It is
not. In fact, that has been the vision of America; that has been the
process in America to say that if you are truly fleeing these horrific
circumstances, then we light a torch to shine your way forward.
I cannot understand how it is possible that the administration
persists in this strategy of traumatizing children. It starts at the
border, where Customs and Border Protection has been instructed to set
up a blockade and block children who arrive right at the line on the
middle of the pedestrian bridge or the pathway and then block them from
entering while they call up Mexican officials to come and drag them
away.
I saw this down in McAllen a year ago June. Three CBP officers were
stretching across the bridge. Anyone who did not have a passport or a
visa was sent back into Mexico in violation of international law and
our domestic law. I asked why we would do this to refugees fleeing
persecution. Basically, the answer was this: We are too busy. We are
too crowded.
The only thing was, there was no crowding, not at that time. There
was no crowding at all. The interview rooms were empty. The processing
center at McAllen was empty. It was simply a strategy of slamming the
door shut.
[[Page S4919]]
For these families sent back across the border without friends and
family and extension funds to support them, it is very dangerous across
the border. This is happening with children at Tijuana. I was told of
numerous circumstances where unaccompanied children would come to the
border, and they would be blocked at the entry, and then the CBP would
say: Well, we can't let you step across that line until we consult with
the manager. Then the U.S. side would call up the Mexican side to come
drag these kids away.
I got a phone call. I was in my office here, working late at night. I
think it was about 11 p.m. at night. I got a phone call from a group
that has helped escort children. They said: We have three French-
speaking children on the border in Tijuana. They are at the line with
the U.S. gate, and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer is
blocking them from stepping across that line, and they are very worried
because if the Mexican officials come and apprehend them, they could be
sent back to the horrific circumstances--the life-and-death challenges
that they were fleeing from.
I had spoken previously to the head of that sector. I had a phone
conversation, and he said: No, our policy is to facilitate the
movement. Our instructions to our officers are to facilitate the
children in crossing that line as if they were our own children.
I said: Well, do you have training for this, because I keep hearing
reports of the blockade at the border.
He said: Yes, we have musters.
I said: Well, do you have training documents that say that it is your
policy to treat these kids as if they were your own and facilitate
bringing them across?
He said: Yes, absolutely.
The Legislative Affairs Director cut in on the phone call to say: I
will have that for you tomorrow. I will have those for you tomorrow.
We are still waiting for those documents. I don't know that they
exist. I don't know that the training exists. What I do know is that
after I had that conversation, I got a call from the border with this
volunteer group, and they had these three French children who were
being denied entry. I asked the volunteer who was with the children--I
said: Hand your phone to the American officer. I will explain the
conversation I had with the head of the sector and the policies that he
says are in place and the training that is supposed to be in place that
says you are supposed to treat these children as if they were your own
and facilitate their passage across the border.
The CBP officer said: No, I am not talking to a U.S. Senator. I will
talk only to the President of the United States.
I said: Turn on the loud speaker on the phone. Hold your phone up so
that they can hear what I am saying.
I told them the same thing--that I had met with their supervisors for
the sector, and their bosses had said: These are the guidelines. Your
guidance is to treat these children who are in front of you as if they
were your own and to facilitate their passage across that line to
safety and not leave them stranded in Tijuana.
Realize that being stranded in Tijuana for any child is horrific.
Imagine it is your child. Whether your child is 17 or whether your
child is 5, Tijuana is an incredibly dangerous place. There are all
kinds of sex industry operators there who thrive on pulling little kids
and teenagers into that sex industry. Do you want your child there with
no friends and family or funds on the street in that setting? There are
gangs who prey on the children who are on the street. Do you want your
children in that setting? No, of course you would never want them left
in that situation.
This border blockade is the first piece of traumatizing children to
discourage immigration. It is morally wrong, and it needs to end.
Then there is the metering program. Basically, metering says that if
you come to the border, we will not let you cross. But if you come the
following day to a square near the border, there will be a book, and
you can put your name in the book and get on a wait list. That is
called metering.
So I went to the square in Tijuana where this is done to watch the
metering process. People arrive with the book, and they place it on a
little table under a little canopy. They start calling out names. That
day, the United States was taking about 30 people, and when all of the
spaces were full, that was it.
Then everyone else on the wait list is waiting. If I recall right,
the wait had been about 6 or 7 weeks for people to be able to get just
a credible fear interview, which is the very first step. Realize that a
credible fear interview is not complicated. It can be done
expeditiously. It means 6 to 7 weeks with no money on the streets of
some hostile city across the border.
I want to show you a picture that perhaps you have seen. It is a
picture that deeply, profoundly disturbs me. This is a father and
little girl swimming the Rio Grande. They didn't just try to swim the
Rio Grande. They came to a port of entry of the United States of
America. They did what the President of the United States, President
Trump, said to do. They came to the port of entry, and they asked for
asylum. They were metered and sent back to Mexico to fend for
themselves for who knows how long--as long as the wait list ends.
It is dangerous to have a mother, a little girl, or a father on the
streets of a hostile city. If you wouldn't send your child into that,
if you wouldn't send your sister and your sister's child into it, then
we shouldn't be sending others into this perilous circumstance. It is
so perilous there, and you have no way to even buy food. You certainly
don't have money for a hotel. You have been stripped of your funds
during your journey. You fled suddenly to begin with and probably
didn't have resources on the front end of the journey. So what do you
do? You say: Well, I can starve and be beaten up--or who knows what
horrific treatment here--or I can go and cross between the ports of
entry and ask for asylum.
That is what they did. It was because they were rejected at the port
of entry--the very place President Trump said to come--that they lie
dead on the banks of the Rio Grande, trying to get out of the
incredibly hostile situation across the border. This is the deliberate
infliction of trauma, and for every situation like this, there are
life-and-death decisions.
This is not the end of it.
Let's say they had made it across the border and had been taken into
a processing center. What would happen in those processing centers?
Well, in the first one I went to in McAllen, there wasn't room to sit
down. There certainly wasn't room to lie down. You had little kids in
there who were crying and mothers who were crying, and the fathers were
in cells that were across the aisle on the other side. They were
holding these Mylar blankets. There were no cushions on the ground, and
there were lights left on all night long.
We have heard the reports of all of the various things we have done
to children in these processing centers--of our not providing diapers,
showers, soap; of our making it difficult for them to go to the
bathroom; of our making it difficult for them to get water; of our not
providing three meals a day; and of our not providing medical aid.
What kind of country treats children in this manner? Who does this
with our tax money, on our land, and by our government? This is more
than wrong. This is cruel. This is evil. This is the depth of darkness
to treat children in this fashion. That is why 40 of us have introduced
this Stop Cruelty to Migrant Children Act. The processing center isn't
the end of it.
Then we have a for-profit prison in Homestead that is paid $750 a day
on a no-compete contract. Who is on the board of that? He is the same
John Kelly who started the child separation strategy in March of 2017
and who then served as the President's Chief of Staff. He is paid to be
on the board of a for-profit. He is paid to lock up children. It is the
largest child prison in American history.
Now, if some other country had wanted to throw children back across
the border into hostile circumstances, if some other country had set up
a metering program that had left children vulnerable for weeks before
their initial credible hearings, if some other country had proceeded to
put children into holding cells and kept the lights on all night and
had given them no mattresses to lie on and had not supplied
[[Page S4920]]
diapers, hygenics, food and water, or medical treatment as appropriate,
and if some other country had locked up children in a child prison that
had been built to a capacity of 3,200 children at a for-profit and had
had no incentive to pass the children on to State-licensed care
facilities or to sponsors with homes, we would have 100 Senators down
here on this floor, saying we have to stop this because we stand up for
children in the United States of America.
So what I want to know is: How come there aren't 100 Senators down
here today, standing up against this type of treatment? I invite all
100 of my colleagues to join this bill to stop cruelty to migrant
children.
I was struck by some of the comments by the kids who were being held
down in Clint.
A 12-year-old boy said:
I'm hungry here at Clint all the time. I'm so hungry that I
awaken in the middle of the night with hunger. Sometimes I
wake up from hunger at 4 a.m. and sometimes at other hours.
A mother recounted that when she asked for medicine for her son's
fever, an agent retorted: ``Who told you to come to America with your
baby anyway?'' How about, instead, we get help for the child who has a
fever.
There are children being held in cages, children being marched in
single lines between Army-style huts, children who have been inflicted
with trauma through child separation, children who have been locked up
in a for-profit prison that has no incentive to move children to State-
licensed facilities. In fact, it is the opposite. It is by a company
that got a no-compete contract. Who is on the board? He is the former
Chief of Staff to President Trump.
So what does this bill do?
It ensures that children are not thrown back across the border when
they come up to the border of the United States. It ensures that
children receive prompt medical assistance. Many children have died
from fever. By just using a simple device to check the fever, it would
enable you to know if this child needs additional help. It would ensure
that basic hygiene and three meals a day are provided. It would allow
for more caseworkers to be hired to help children to be moved quickly
to State-licensed facilities or to homes, and homes are really where
they should be while they await asylum. Children belong in schools and
homes and on playgrounds, not behind barbed wire in a for-profit prison
that is designed to hold 3,200 people down in Homestead, FL. This bill
would prohibit that devilish, misdirected strategy of paying for and
incentivizing the imprisonment of children.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said: ``Our lives begin to end the day
we become silent about things that matter.''
I hear a lot of silence in this Chamber on the horrific treatment of
children. Let's have a little less silence and a little more advocacy.
Let's have 100 Senators sign up for the Stop Cruelty to Migrant
Children Act. America is better than the way we have been treating
these children. I give thanks to all 40 Senators who have signed on to
this legislation.
In our hearts, I think it is fundamentally understood that
deliberately traumatizing children in order to discourage immigration
is wrong. We have a responsibility to end it.
Thank you.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
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