Official: Agency warned separation bad for kids
WASHINGTON — A Department of Health and Human Services official told senators Tuesday that his agency had warned the Trump administration that separating families would be dangerous for children. But some of the government’s top immigration officials used a Senate hearing to largely defend how the policy has been implemented, with one comparing family detention centers to “a summer camp.”
One official told the Senate Judiciary Committee that while the Trump administration was developing its immigration policies, Health and Human Services officials said they were worried “about any policy which would result in family separation due to concerns we had about the best interests of the child.” Commander Jonathan D. White of the U.S. Public Health Service
Commissioned Corps, a branch of HHS, said they were also uncertain their department had enough resources to handle large numbers of detained immigrants.
“There’s no question that separation of children from parents
entails significant potential for traumatic psychological injury to the child,” White said.
Lawmakers and journalists who have visited some detention facilities around the country and migrants themselves have reported poor conditions. The top members of the Judiciary committee — Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. — have asked inspectors general of two federal agencies to investigate reports at some centers have suffered alleged sexual and other forms of abuse.
Matthew Albence, an executive associate director at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told the lawmakers that “the best way to describe” conditions at family detention centers was “like a summer camp.” He said the facilities undergo rigorous inspections and offer basketball and other forms of recreation, food and water around the clock and medical and dental care.
“We do not leave our humanity behind when we report for duty,” Carla L. Provost, acting chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, told members of the committee.
At one point, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, asked witnesses whether they would want their children to stay in one of the government’s family detention centers. “I think we’re missing the point,” answered Albence. “These individuals are there because they have broken a law.”
Grassley said Trump’s crackdown on people illegally crossing the border from Mexico was well-intentioned but has had unintended consequences.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, defended the officials and said Congress was also to blame for the problems. He said congressional critics “offer no plausible or workable solution at all.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chided the administration for not having an adequate system for matching separated children with their parents. He cited the often frantically crowded Chuck E. Cheese children’s restaurants as having procedures that work.