Forced Family Separation

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I first thank Senator Merkley from Oregon for organizing this very important session tonight.

Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions unveiled the Trump administration's new zero tolerance immigration policy. Whether you come to this land fleeing violence, poverty, or persecution, justice isn't blind. It is now also brutal.

This inhumane policy sends a shudder down the spine of the Statue of Liberty, but not that of our President. Zero tolerance really means zero refuge. Zero tolerance really means zero discretion. Zero tolerance really means zero humanity.

The Trump administration's mindless approach to our broken immigration system takes away the ability of Federal law enforcement officers to exercise any discretion that might be warranted based on the facts and circumstances on the ground. In other words, zero tolerance is an anti-immigrant dragnet, the shocking effects of which we have been witnessing these past few days as children have literally been ripped from their parents' arms and separated from them, as their mothers and fathers are taken into custody.

These horrific images were finally enough, even for President Trump. This afternoon, he signed an Executive order that he says addresses the family separation crisis. It does no such thing. The Executive order that the President signed doesn't end the zero tolerance policy of prosecuting anyone and everyone who crosses the border. It reaffirms it.

If all parents are still being prosecuted as criminals, which the Executive order requires, what does this Executive order actually do? We can only assume that this Executive order would imprison, remand, and incarcerate children--some as newborns--into the same correctional facilities as their parents. They would be sleeping in cages instead of cribs.

In this country, our courts have decided that this treatment of children and families is malicious. In the Flores agreement, more than 20 years ago, we stopped this practice. Now, the President wants to bring it back with a vengeance.

The Executive order directs the Attorney General to try to modify the Flores agreement, but any attempt to undermine the critical protections for children that this landmark settlement has put in place should and will face immediate court challenge. Families and children don't belong in jail, period.

Our President's Executive order does not ask for trained child welfare workers to carry out his wishes. He has called in the military. He expects this cold-blooded tactic--a tactic he is using to negotiate his wall--to be implemented by the Pentagon.

Now, what does that mean? Apparently, he envisions internment camps, using existing military brigs or other facilities to lock up these families. It sounds like a return to the shameful internment camps of the 1940s, during World War II, one of the darkest chapters in our Nation's history. We know how that ended--with the Federal Government paying more than $1 billion to right a wrong that could never actually be corrected. It was a mistake that we should not even contemplate repeating.

So President Trump first manufactured this crisis at the border, and his new Executive order makes it worse. The only thing President Trump wants to solve is the public relations nightmare he has plunged his administration into.

This is not a PR stunt. These are children's lives at stake. How we respond to this crisis will define the character of each and every one of us. It will define our character as a nation. At this critical moral juncture, I ask each of my colleagues to choose humanity.

To my Republican friends, your voices carry weight in this conversation, especially with this administration in power. Use your voices. Make clear that this Executive order will not end the suffering that this administration is inflicting on vulnerable immigrant families, because in the United States we do not keep children in jails or military prisons. We do not criminalize asylum seekers. We welcome immigrants for their contributions. We seek immigrants for their talents. We proudly remember our own families who came across a border, whether land or water, knowing this country meant a new start.

We are better than this. We must be better than this. The President wants to send a message that immigrants aren't welcome in America. His leadership may be devoid of compassion, but the American people are not. This policy must end.

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