Forced Family Separation

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from Hawaii for sharing her personal experience of how that felt because that is so important for us to hear. I thank the Senator from Oregon and all the Senators who are out here tonight to speak on this.

I may be only one person, but today I bring to the floor of the Senate the outrage, the pain, and the frustration of millions of people in my home State of Washington and across the country who see what President Trump has been doing on our southern border, who have been watching the pain this forced family separation has caused so many innocent children, who have begged the President to pick up the phone, sign a piece of paper, do whatever it takes to make it stop, who have refused to be silenced as President Trump carries out his hateful and divisive attacks on immigrants, and who heard a recording with desperate cries of children calling for their parents. When I heard that, my heart stopped. Like every mom, like every human being, I just wanted to reach out and comfort that child. I could only think of how his mother felt because I assure you, whether she was in that room, a room 100 miles away, or a room 3,000 miles away, like every mom, she heard her child's cry, too, and her heart was broken.

While today we saw President Trump change his story about whether he did, in fact, have the ability to make it stop, there are a lot of questions that remain--questions that actually I and others have been asking the Trump administration for weeks that have gone unanswered, like exactly how these parents are being informed about their children's safety. Where are they? Where are they being located? When will they be reunited? Those are just a few. There are more.

President Trump says the Executive order stops the separation. Does that mean starting today? Next month? When? What about the thousands of children who have been removed? Will they ever see their parents again? When? Where? How?

I have not gotten answers from the Secretary of Health, Alex Azar, whose Department should be focused on families' health and well-being but has instead spent that time complicit in a policy of separating families and traumatizing parents and children alike.

Even experts, such as the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said that the practice of intentionally inflicting trauma on young children is child abuse.

While it is a good thing that President Trump dialed back his systematic child abuse, it is not enough. We are not going to say everything is OK now. We are not going to stay quiet because while we are still digging into this new Executive order, here is what we do know right now: If this is implemented, there will continue to be zero tolerance for all asylum seekers, including domestic violence survivors. It is a system of locking up children by the thousands, all carried out in our great country's name.

I just read the story of a woman named Blanca who left El Salvador after she received threats on her 8-year-old son's life. She took those threats seriously, she said. Why? Because another family member had already been kidnapped. And as Blanca said, when the extortionists don't get their money, they kill people.

So Blanca left everything behind to seek safety for her son. Two months ago she arrived at the U.S. border to seek asylum. Blanca said that was the last time she saw or talked to her son, Abel, whose last words to her were ``Mom, don't leave me.''

That is the last thing she heard.

Blanca now sits in a Federal detention center at SeaTac in Washington State where she told her story through tears to an AP reporter. Her son, she has been told, is in custody in upstate New York. That is 3,000 miles away from her, and she doesn't know when or if she is ever going to see him again.

Blanca's story is horrifying. It is sad. Unfortunately, it is not unique. She is one of thousands of parents and children who fled violence and persecution only to find a new nightmare upon arrival in the United States of America--a nightmare caused deliberately, for no good reason, by President Trump, who has chosen to scapegoat asylum seekers and put their children into detention centers for an undetermined amount of time.

We are better than this. We must be better than this. Turning children into bargaining chips or leverage points or deterrents--that kind of cruelty should not be an option in this great Nation.

In recent days, my office has been flooded with thousands of calls and emails and letters from moms and dads and grandmothers and grandfathers--people from all walks of life, from every community I represent--who are angry at the President's new zero tolerance policy and who are horrified by these families who are being ripped apart. So I know I am not alone.

If we can find hope in one thing, it is knowing that all those calls and emails and letters--all of that outcry--got through to the President to change course on one of his most heartless policies yet.

But we cannot let up now.

President Trump has claimed for days he needed congressional action to do anything at all. Today, he proved that to be simply untrue.

So now we know President Trump will bow to stern pressure of a stern moral movement. Families in Washington State and in every State across the Nation are continuing to demand action, and I am going to keep working to make sure their voices are heard for the sake of so many who seek refuge in our great country and those who believe in the kindness and respect and compassion that does make this country great.

Thank you.

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