Lawmakers get ‘heartbreaking’ look at facilities holding migrant children
BROWNSVILLE — It was a small room in a shelter, with colorful walls of cartoon animals and the alphabet. There was an 8month-old, Roger, and a 1year-old, Leah, giggling with other infants in high chairs.
“It was just heartbreaking. They look at you with big eyes,” U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján, D-New Mexico, said Monday afternoon after a congressional roundtable here. “Seeing baby Roger there, it really got me.”
The room of infants was in Casa El Presidente, one of two children immigrant shelters that members of Congress from across the country — from Mississippi to New Mexico, Florida to Texas — toured Monday afternoon to get a firsthand look at the separation of immigrant families along the
U.S.-Mexico border.
About 2,000 children have been placed in shelters since the Trump administration announced a “zero tolerance” policy last month on illegal entry into the country and began charging their immigrant parents with criminal violations. The separated children are being held in shelters until they can be placed with relatives or foster parents.
The administration says it is enforcing existing law and vows to stand by the policy in the face of widespread criticism from congressional leaders — including House Speaker Paul Ryan — religious leaders, former first ladies and the U.N. human rights commissioner.
‘Two days of pain’
After their tours, the lawmakers joined immigration advocates in the roundtable to describe what they observed.
“I’ve spent two days here,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, DHouston. “Two days of pain.”
Rep. Filemon Vela, DBrownsville, who organized Monday’s congressional tours of Casa El Presidente and Casa Padre, both Southwest Key Programs shelters, said, “What we are experiencing in this country today, what we’re watching for at least 2,000 children and counting ... is the American dream turning into an American nightmare.”
Manuel Padilla, chief of the Border Patrol sector in the Rio Grande Valley, said Sunday that families with children under age 5 were mostly allowed to stay together.
“It’s a haunting feeling,” said U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, referring to the infants in the shelter. “I think it’s strengthened everybody’s resolve to do everything we can to change this policy.”
While pressure increases to end the separations and reunite families as the parents seek asylum, Vela said the administration hasn’t announced a clear plan for reunification.
Legislation is pending to end the separations, including a late announcement Monday by Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz that he would file a bill to double the number of federal judges and require that immigrant families seeking asylum be kept together.
RAICES, a statewide nonprofit that provides legal counsel to immigrants, launched a Family Reunification Program this month to take up the task that, according to spokesman Justin Tullius, the government has failed to do.
“It can be very challenging to find the parent,” Tullius said. “And we’ve seen no movement at all on the government’s part.”
“Imagine a child that’s been released from the shelter and into the community,” Tullius said. “If their mom or dad is being detained in an immigration camp, and is fighting a complex case before a judge and has no lawyer, you can imagine that’s a family that will remain separated because the system is stacked against an asylum seeker.”
During their 45-minute shelter tour, Jackson Lee and Castro said they each held Roger in their arms. Castro said he talked to Leah as she waddled about the room. Lujan had to step outside of that small room of infants, “out of frustration” and emotion, he said, for the children.
Castro described the facilities as a far cry from caged holding areas in processing centers in McAllen but also “spartan,” with “a lot of uniformity. These centers are buying in bulk.” All the boys wore the same dark pants and orange striped shirts.
Vela said that “the living situations are not ideal when we’re talking about children because the ideal situation is that children are home with their parents.”
Casa Padre, a converted Walmart, houses nearly 1,500 migrant children, all young boys, Vela said, with only 70 of them having been separated from their parents after crossing the border. Of the 80 boys and girls at Casa El Presidente, he said, 40 of those were separated from their parents.
The San Antonio ExpressNews has reported that Casa Padre had 13 health violations last year and that there were 150 violations across Southwest Key Programs.
Vela said three teenage women who arrived at Casa El Presidente pregnant gave birth soon after. They are at the facility now with their U.S. citizen children.
Lujan said he inquired about the futures of these women and their children.
“All that they would tell us, the only answer that was repeated was, once they turn 18, if they’re still detained, they cannot stay together,” he said. “That was the response that kept coming back. Not much else was offered.”
The issue of trauma
Mike Seifert of ACLU Texas, urged lawmakers at the roundtable to fight for more government transparency, including “body cameras and other surveillance” equipment to keep Border Patrol agents accountable. Several congressmen took notes at his suggestion.
Dr. Dolly Lucio, a pediatrician, said infants like Roger and Leah likely suffer from complex trauma — “trauma suffered before the previous trauma has been resolved,” referring to the often harrowing route Central American families take to reach the U.S.
“You’re immediately creating a mentally unstable adult, even if you reunite them with their parents,” she said.
Castro said he found himself in “a bit of a moral quandary” after visiting the facilities. On the one hand, he said he would urge the Southwest Key Programs staffers to get out of the business that is effectively participating in the new family separation policy.
But on the other, he said, “who would you rather have taking care of these kids? Do you want a for-profit institution or some large defense contractor that comes in here and sets up shop?”