Family Separation

Floor Speech

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Ms. BONAMICI. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

I spent the day before Father's Day at the Federal prison in Oregon, meeting the 123 asylum-seeking immigrant men who are incarcerated in prison. They were fleeing horrific violence and religious persecution. They were Christian and Sikh men from India. There was an LGBTQ man from Honduras and a man from Mexico whose property was burned because he has been targeted by gangs. We spoke with men who were separated from their wives and children and who, on Father's Day, had no idea where they were or how they were.

Criminalizing asylum seekers and separating families is cruel, and it is appalling.

Now we find out that there are tender-age shelters. Babies don't need their own jail. They need their own parents. This must stop. The President and the Department of Justice could stop it right now.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said that separating families in this way causes irreparable harm. Mistreating children for political leverage is outside of moral bounds, even for this administration.

As a mother, it breaks my heart. As an American and granddaughter of immigrants, it makes me furious.

And if the President won't sign something today, which he could, then, Speaker Ryan, bring us the Keeping Families Together Act, and let us do something to stop this horrific atrocity that is happening to children and to people who are coming to this country.

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