[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 7]
[House]
[Pages 9797-9798]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


                     END IMMIGRANT FAMILY DETENTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, you are in the presence of greatness. No, 
not me, but I am flattered if that was your first thought. Rather, I 
speak of my excellent grandson, who has come to Washington and to the 
floor of the House of Representatives to see his grandpa at work.
  Tonight, Luisito, who is 12, will be my escort, along with his 
grandma, at the annual White House picnic for Members of Congress and 
their families. It would take way more than the allotted 5 minutes to 
enumerate all of the reasons for this grandfather's pride, so let me 
just say I am looking forward to showing him off at tonight's 
gathering.
  But more than tonight's picnic, what I am really looking forward to 
is Father's Day. This Sunday, in Chicago, along with Luisito, my 
grandson, I will be with his dad and my daughters, who always make the 
old man feel loved.
  And this Father's Day, I will be especially thankful for being 
allowed to have my family around me, because on Monday, I will be 
visiting with hundreds of children who cannot be with their dads.
  On Monday, I will be joining seven of my colleagues in San Antonio to 
visit the two largest family detention facilities in the country. 
Karnes and Dilley are where moms and their children are being kept 
behind bars awaiting resolution of their immigration cases seeking 
asylum.
  Remember a year ago when tens of thousands of children and young 
people were fleeing violence in three countries in Central America? The 
Republicans thought that these children would bring this country to its 
knees, and anti-immigration groups organized mobs to protest and keep 
children out of detention facilities in their communities. Do you 
remember that?
  Well, many mothers with small children were also fleeing to the U.S. 
last year, and they are still being held in detention facilities, which 
are operated by private prison companies in Texas and Pennsylvania. 
They are detained for the completely lawful act of seeking asylum. My 
colleagues and I are going to see firsthand what is going on.
  The minority whip, Mr. Hoyer, and two of my closest allies on the 
family detention issue, Ms. Lofgren and Ms. Roybal-Allard, both of 
California, are going, and we will be hosted by our colleague from 
Texas, Mr. Castro, as we visit the two facilities.
  I am sure that Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, and 
even private companies who are contracted to run the facilities and 
profit from the incarceration of other people, are trying their best to 
make the conditions of detention for these moms and kids as humane as 
they can.
  But, you see, that misses the point. We shouldn't be holding 
vulnerable women and children in detention. We have mothers and small 
children living in jail-like facilities with uncertain futures, limited 
access to legal counsel, and this has been going on for some time, for 
almost a year for some of them. Even with schools and laundry and TVs, 
they are still being held behind fences.
  Moms still have to explain to the youngest children that, no, in 
fact, they do not know when they can leave or whether they will be 
deported back to the violent countries they fled after months in 
detention.
  Children who face trauma, gangs, murder, and sexual assault in their 
neighborhoods were forced to leave alone or in groups or with a parent. 
They faced all sorts of dangers--smugglers and predators--on the 
journey to northern Mexico, where we know assault, robbery, and rape 
are commonplace. Then they crossed the U.S. border, often with the 
guidance of additional smugglers and criminals, and, following the 
process in the U.S. law, presented themselves to authorities to request 
asylum.
  Now, because we have not put money into our immigration court system 
and, by the way, because we have not created ways for people to come 
here with visas instead of smugglers, we are all paying a higher price 
to house and feed moms and kids when much cheaper monitoring and 
supervision options are available. Why? The government feels that 
imprisoning these children and moms, even in relatively humane 
conditions, will be a deterrent to others.
  But 136 House Democrats, including all 8 Members traveling to Texas 
on Monday, have asked the Secretary of Homeland Security to end the 
practice of holding moms and children in detention when there are other 
ways to get the job done.
  The children are paying the highest cost. It doesn't take a 
developmental expert to know that weeks and months in detention in 
prison-like conditions, having already lived through weeks and months 
and years of desperation, are not conducive to good child development.
  But with my Republican friends, it is usually not the human cost that 
matters. So let me break it down another way.
  At $343 per person per day, we are spending $125,000 per detainee per 
year--$125,000. But the alternatives to detention we could be using 
cost about $5.50 a day, or about $2,000 a year. That is cost savings 
logic that even in Washington we can understand.
  Mr. Speaker, regardless of how you feel about the funding and 
regardless of how you feel about immigration or policy issues, Central 
America, or any other issues, you cannot lose sight of the fact that we 
are talking about children.
  As a father, I will not be able to look at those children without 
seeing my grandson, and they are probably a lot like your children and 
grandchildren, too. I am going to Texas for myself to see these women 
and children we are holding, and I encourage my colleagues to do the 
same.

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