[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXAMINING THE FAILURES OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S INHUMANE FAMILY
SEPARATION POLICY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 7, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-3
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
govinfo.gov/committee/house-energy
energycommerce.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
35-404 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
Chairman
BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois GREG WALDEN, Oregon
ANNA G. ESHOO, California Ranking Member
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York FRED UPTON, Michigan
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois
MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana
G. K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
DORIS O. MATSUI, California CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS, Washington
KATHY CASTOR, Florida BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland PETE OLSON, Texas
JERRY McNERNEY, California DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
PETER WELCH, Vermont ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
PAUL TONKO, New York GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York, Vice BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
Chair BILLY LONG, Missouri
DAVID LOEBSACK, Iowa LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana
KURT SCHRADER, Oregon BILL FLORES, Texas
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
Massachusetts MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
TONY CARDENAS, California RICHARD HUDSON, North Carolina
RAUL RUIZ, California TIM WALBERG, Michigan
SCOTT H. PETERS, California EARL L. ``BUDDY'' CARTER, Georgia
DEBBIE DINGELL, Michigan JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
MARC A. VEASEY, Texas GREG GIANFORTE, Montana
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire
ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
NANETTE DIAZ BARRAGAN, California
A. DONALD McEACHIN, Virginia
LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER, Delaware
DARREN SOTO, Florida
TOM O'HALLERAN, Arizona
------
Professional Staff
JEFFREY C. CARROLL, Staff Director
TIFFANY GUARASCIO, Deputy Staff Director
MIKE BLOOMQUIST, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
Chair
JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
JOSEPH P. KENNEDY III, Ranking Member
Massachusetts, Vice Chair MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
RAUL RUIZ, California DAVID B. McKINLEY, West Virginia
ANN M. KUSTER, New Hampshire H. MORGAN GRIFFITH, Virginia
KATHY CASTOR, Florida SUSAN W. BROOKS, Indiana
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma
PAUL TONKO, New York JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
YVETTE D. CLARKE, New York GREG WALDEN, Oregon (ex officio)
SCOTT H. PETERS, California
FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey (ex
officio)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hon. Diana DeGette, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Colorado, opening statement................................. 2
Prepared statement........................................... 4
Hon. Brett Guthrie, a Representative in Congress from the
Commonwealth of Kentucky, opening statement.................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the
State of New Jersey, opening statement......................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Hon. Greg Walden, a Representative in Congress from the State of
Oregon, opening statement...................................... 11
Prepared statement........................................... 13
Hon. Michael C. Burgess, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas, prepared statement............................. 14
Witnesses
Kathryn A. Larin, Director, Education, Workforce, and Income
Security, Government Accountability Office..................... 16
Prepared statement........................................... 18
Answers to submitted questions............................... 231
Rebecca Gambler, Director, Homeland Security and Justice,
Government Accountability Office \1\
Ann Maxwell, Assistant Inspector General, Office of Evaluation
and Inspections, Office of Inspector General, Department of
Health and Human Services...................................... 40
Prepared statement........................................... 42
Answers to submitted questions............................... 233
Jonathan White, Commander, United States Public Health Service
Commissioned Corps, Department of Health and Human Services.... 49
Prepared statement........................................... 52
Answers to submitted questions............................... 238
Lee Gelernt, Deputy Director, Immigrants' Rights Project,
American Civil Liberties Union................................. 97
Prepared statement........................................... 100
Answers to submitted questions............................... 274
Jennifer Podkul, Senior Director for Policy and Advocacy, Kids in
Need of Defense................................................ 113
Prepared statement........................................... 115
Julie M. Linton, M.D., Cochair, Immigrant Health Special Interest
Group, American Academy of Pediatrics.......................... 125
Prepared statement........................................... 127
Cristina Muniz de la Pena, Ph.D., Terra Firma Mental Health
Director, Center for Child Health and Resiliency, on behalf of
the American Psychological Association......................... 134
Prepared statement........................................... 136
----------
\1\ Ms. Gambler did not offer oral testimony or submit a prepared
statement for the record.
Dona Abbott, Vice President of Refugee and Immigrant Services,
Bethany Christian Services..................................... 144
Prepared statement........................................... 146
Answers to submitted questions............................... 277
Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D., Director, Center on the Developing Child
at Harvard University.......................................... 149
Prepared statement........................................... 151
Submitted Material
Letter of June 29, 2018, from Mr. Walden, et al., to Alex M. Azar
II, Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services,
submitted by Mr. Walden........................................ 200
Report by Committee Republicans, ``CODEL to the United States-
Mexico Border,'' July 12, 2018, submitted by Mr. Walden........ 207
Article of January 29, 2019, ``I've fought sex trafficking as a
DHS special agent--We need to build the wall for the
children,'' by Timothy Ballard, FoxNews.com, submitted by Mr.
Carter......................................................... 220
Letter of January 18, 2019, from Mr. Pallone and Ms. DeGette, to
Alex M. Azar, Secretary, Department of Health and Human
Services, submitted by Ms. DeGette............................. 222
Letter of June 14, 2018, from Jessica Henderson Daniel,
President, and Arthur C. Evans, Jr., Chief Executive Officer,
American Psychological Association, to President Donald Trump,
submitted by Ms. DeGette....................................... 229
EXAMINING THE FAILURES OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S INHUMANE FAMILY
SEPARATION POLICY
----------
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2019
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:33 a.m., in
the John D. Dingell Room 2123, Rayburn House Office Building,
Hon. Diana DeGette (chair of the subcommittee) presiding.
Members present: Representatives DeGette, Schakowsky,
Kennedy, Ruiz, Kuster, Castor, Sarbanes, Tonko, Clarke, Peters,
Pallone (ex officio), Guthrie (subcommittee ranking member),
Burgess, McKinley, Griffith, Brooks, Mullin, Duncan, and Walden
(ex officio).
Also present: Representatives Cardenas, Veasey, Barragan,
and Soto.
Staff present: Mohammed Aslami, Counsel; Kevin Barstow,
Chief Oversight Counsel; Jacquelyn Bolen, Professional Staff
Member; Jesseca Boyer, Professional Staff Member; Jeffrey C.
Carroll, Staff Director; Waverly Gordon, Deputy Chief Counsel;
Tiffany Guarascio, Deputy Staff Director; Zach Kahan, Outreach
and Member Service Coordinator; Chris Knauer, Oversight Staff
Director; Jourdan Lewis, Policy Analyst; Perry Lusk, GAO
Detailee; Kevin McAloon, Professional Staff Member; Joe
Orlando, Staff Assistant; Kaitlyn Peel, Digital Director; Tim
Robinson, Chief Counsel; Andrew Souvall, Director of
Communications, Outreach, and Member Services; C. J. Young,
Press Secretary; Jen Barblan, Minority Chief Counsel, Oversight
and Investigations; Mike Bloomquist, Minority Staff Director;
Adam Buckalew, Minority Director of Coalitions and Deputy Chief
Counsel, Health; Jordan Davis, Minority Senior Advisor;
Brittany Havens, Minority Professional Staff Member, Oversight
and Investigations; Samuel Kanusher, Minority Intern, Oversight
and Investigations; Peter Kielty, Minority General Counsel;
Ryan Long, Minority Deputy Staff Director; Brannon Rains,
Minority Staff Assistant; Zack Roday, Minority Director of
Communications; and Peter Spencer, Minority Senior Professional
Staff Member, Energy.
Ms. DeGette. The committee will come to order.
Good morning. This is the first hearing of the Oversight
and Investigations Subcommittee of Energy and Commerce for the
116th Congress.
I want to start out by thanking all of the new members of
the Oversight Subcommittee, which has a grand tradition in this
Congress. I also want to thank our brand-new ranking member,
Congressman Guthrie, for joining us today. This committee has a
long history of bipartisan work on many, many issues affecting
this country. I know we are going to work together to do true
bipartisan oversight. I look forward to working with everyone
on this subcommittee on bipartisan investigations and finding
solutions to ultimately improve our Government.
Mr. Guthrie, I would like to yield to you for a minute, if
you would like to make any brief remarks.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you very much for being here.
And I want to congratulate you on your being the chair and
using the gavel. You have got a good start to it. So, it is
good to have you here.
I wasn't on this subcommittee before, but my understanding
is it has always tried to work, where they can, on a
bipartisanship basis. And you are one of my good friends here
in Congress. And so, I look forward to the opportunity to work
with you----
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Mr. Guthrie [continuing]. And work together with the
committee.
Ms. DeGette. Thanks, Mr. Guthrie.
Today the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is
holding a hearing entitled, ``Examining the Failures of the
Trump administration's Inhumane Family Separation Policy''. The
purpose of today's hearing is to examine the Department of
Health and Human Services' response to the administration's
zero-tolerance policy, efforts to reunify children separated
from parents, as well as the health and well-being of those
children.
The Chair now recognizes herself for the purposes of an
opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DIANA DeGETTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO
Today we take a look at the Trump administration's ill-
conceived and, frankly, shameful family separation policy that
led to thousands of children being separated from their parents
at the border. It has been now nearly a year since this cruel
policy was put in place, and we still have many unanswered
questions. To be clear, what happened to these children should
never happen in this country.
On behalf of the American people, we are here today to
understand exactly what happened, why it happened, and what
needs to be done to make sure that it never happens again. We
also want to know the extent of the harm that these separations
may have caused these children and families.
When we talk about family separations, it is important to
keep in mind that these are real kids. These are real families
who were forcibly torn apart and they were kept apart by our
Government. Because of a policy put in place by this
administration, unnecessary long-term harm may have been
inflicted on thousands of children.
We know from decades of research that childhood trauma such
as family separations can have serious and longstanding
consequences for children. This research demonstrates that the
toxic stress that comes from separating a child from their
parents can cause irreversible harm to children. It can
literally disrupt their brains and other biological systems. We
also know that separating kids from their parents can cause a
host of other long-term mental and physical health problems.
As noted by the American Psychological Association, quote,
``These problems can include severe psychological distress,
including PTSD, sleep disturbances, withdrawal, substance use,
aggressive behavior, and decline in educational achievement.
The longer the parent and child are separated, the more severe
some of these symptoms may become.''
Like many Members of Congress, I visited some of the
facilities where these separated children were being housed. It
was heartbreaking. I will never forget what I saw that day. I
will never forget the looks in the mothers' eyes when they told
me that they had no idea where their children were. I will
never forget the children who had no idea where their mom or
dad were. All I could think of when I was standing there was,
as a nation, we are so much better than that. And that is why
we are here today.
Part of the failure of this administration's tragic
separation policy was not only its cruelty, but its incompetent
implementation. For example, despite the fact that the Office
of Refugee Resettlement, known as ORR, would be responsible for
caring for a huge influx of separated children, the Government
Accountability Office found that key officials within the
agency were apparently given no advance knowledge of the now-
infamous April 2018 zero-tolerance memo, which led to thousands
of separations, and therefore they didn't plan for the sudden
influx that was about to come. As a result, ORR, tasked with a
challenging mission, suddenly found itself inundated with
thousands of forcibly separated children with no place to
accommodate them at all.
By the summer of 2018, things got even worse. After a
Federal judge ordered that thousands of children be unified
with their parents, the Department of Health and Human Services
was forced to pull together over 100 staff to manually pore
through the thousands of case files and endless databases to
try to identify which children and parents had been separated.
It is as if nobody ever discussed how reunifications would
happen before this plan was launched, and it probably didn't
happen.
In addition to this emergency HHS team, the administration
also sought the help of NGOs, like the ACLU and KIND, to locate
families that had been separated, including parents that had
already been deported without their children.
Then, the HHS Office of Inspector General released a new
report last month that found that thousands more children may
have been separated from their parents than previously reported
in an influx that began in early 2017, before the
administration's zero-tolerance policy was announced.
Now, while I understand this family separation policy
didn't originate at HHS, that doesn't relieve the Department
from having to answer some key questions. For example, we need
to know what role HHS leaders played in formulating this
policy, whether they made any effort to stop it, and whether
they raised any concerns about the harm it would do to the
children who were separated. There is no evidence that HHS
leaders ever tried to stop this abhorrent policy.
As the agency dedicated to health and welfare of children,
we need to know why. One could argue that it was HHS's duty to
stop this harmful policy. And some wonder how much longer this
would have gone on if it weren't for the action of many NGOs
that became active on this matter, including some who will
testify today. We want to know exactly how many kids this
administration has separated from their families, and we need
to know what is being done to reunify each and every one of
these families.
Commander White, I want to say to you, I have got enormous
respect for the mission of ORR and for you. I think the
facilities around the country are dedicated to serving
vulnerable children, and they are trying to provide high-
quality care. I know our ORR has a difficult mission, and the
many charitable organizations that work with ORR to take care
of unaccompanied children do important work.
But you are going to hear some harsh comments today. And I
am sorry that Secretary Azar is passing the buck to you, when
we asked him to be right here in your seat today. The bottom
line is the administration's policy of separating children from
their parents at the border, and the chaos it unleashed, has
left scars that will never heal. We need to know how this
policy was created, and we need to know what you plan to do
about it.
We are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation that offers
care to the needy, and we are a nation of compassionate people.
We are not a nation that rips families apart, and we need to
stop this for once and for all and get these kids back with
their parents.
[The prepared statement of Ms. DeGette follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Diana DeGette
Today, we take a look at the Trump administration's ill-
conceived--and, frankly, shameful--family separation policy
that led to thousands of kids being separated from their
parents at the border.
It has been nearly a year since this cruel policy was put
in place, and we still have many unanswered questions.
To be clear, what happened to these children should never
have happened in this country.
On behalf of the American people, we are here today to
understand exactly what happened, why it happened, and what
needs to be done to make sure it never happens again.
We also want to know the extent of the harm that these
separations may have caused these children and families.
When we talk about family separations, it's important to
keep in mind that these are real kids, and real families, who
were forcibly separated and kept apart by our Government.
Because of a policy put in place by this administration,
unnecessary long-term harm may have been inflicted on thousands
of children.
We know from decades of research that childhood trauma such
as family separations can have serious and long-lasting
consequences for children.
This research demonstrates that the ``toxic stress'' that
comes from separating a child from their parents can cause
irreversible harm to children. It can literally disrupt their
brains and other biological systems.
We also know that separating kids from their parents can
cause a host of other long-term mental and physical health
problems.
As noted by the American Psychological Association [quote],
``These problems can include severe psychological distress,
including PTSD, sleep disturbances, withdrawal, substance use,
aggressive behavior and decline in educational achievement. The
longer the parent and child are separated, the more severe some
of these symptoms may become.''
Like many Members of Congress, I visited some of the
facilities where these separated children were being housed.
It was heartbreaking. I'll never forget what I saw that
day. I'll never forget the look in those mothers' eyes as they
told me they had no idea where their children were. I'll never
forget the children who had no idea where their mom or dad
were. All I could think while I was there was that we, as a
nation, are better than this.
And, that's why we are here today.
Part of the failure of this administration's tragic family
separation policy was not only its cruelty, but its incompetent
implementation.
For example, despite the fact that the Office of Refugee
Resettlement--known as ORR--would be responsible for caring for
a huge influx of separated children, the Government
Accountability Office found that key officials within that
agency were apparently given no advanced knowledge of the now-
infamous April 2018 ``zero tolerance'' memo, which led to
thousands of separations, and therefore didn't plan for the
sudden influx that was about to come.
As a result, ORR, already tasked with a challenging
mission, suddenly found itself inundated with thousands of
forcibly separated children--with no plan in place to
accommodate them all.
By summer of 2018, things got even worse.
After a Federal judge ordered that thousands of children be
reunified with their parents, the Department of Health and
Human Services was forced to pull together over 100 staff to
manually pore through thousands of case files and endless
databases to try to identify which children and parents had
been separated. It's as if nobody discussed how reunifications
would occur before this plan was launched.
In addition to this emergency HHS team, the administration
also sought the help of NGOs such as the ACLU and KIND to
locate families that had been separated, including parents who
had already been deported without their children.
Then the HHS Office of Inspector General released a new
report last month that found thousands more children may have
been separated from their parents than previously reported, in
an influx that began in early 2017--before the administration's
``zero-tolerance'' policy was announced.
While I understand that this family separation policy
didn't originate at HHS, that doesn't relieve the Department
from having to answer to some key questions.
For instance, we need to know what role HHS leaders played
in forming this policy, whether they made any effort to stop
it, and whether they raised any concerns about the harm it
would do to the children who were separated.
There is no evidence that HHS leaders ever tried to stop
this abhorrent policy. As the agency dedicated to the health
and welfare of children, we want to know: Why?
One could argue that it was HHS's duty to stop this harmful
policy. And some wonder how much longer this would have gone on
if not for the action of many of the NGOs that became active on
this matter, including some who you will meet on the second
panel.
We want to know exactly how many kids this administration
has separated from their families. And we need to know exactly
what's being done to reunify each and every one of them.
Commander White, I have respect for the mission of ORR, and
the facilities around the country that are dedicated to serving
vulnerable children and providing high-quality care. ORR has a
difficult mission and the many charitable organizations that
work with ORR to take care of unaccompanied children do
critically important work.
But you are going to hear some angry comments today, and it
is disappointing that Secretary Azar is passing the buck to
you, when it should be him in your seat right now.
The bottom line is this: This administration's policy of
separating children from their parents at the border--and the
unmitigated chaos that it unleashed--has likely left scars that
may never heal. We need to know how this policy was created,
and whether problems--such as the agency's apparent inability
to track which children were separated from a parent at the
border--remain unresolved.
We are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation that offers
care to the needy and helps the most vulnerable. We are nation
of compassionate, caring people.
We are not a nation that rips families apart just to send a
message to the rest the world--and we must ensure that we never
allow ourselves to become such ever again.
Ms. DeGette. At this time, the Chair will recognize the
ranking member of the subcommittee, Mr. Guthrie, for purposes
of an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BRETT GUTHRIE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you, Chair DeGette, for holding this
hearing. And again, congratulations on being chair of Oversight
and Investigations. As you know, this committee has a history
of working together on important investigations, and often on a
bipartisan basis. I am sure we will find areas we can do that
as we move forward.
But, as we begin the hearing on family separation policy at
the border, I want to be clear. I support strong enforcement of
our Nation's borders, but I do not support separating children
from their parents. Between the violence they face in their
home country and on their harrowing journeys to the U.S., these
children face severely traumatic experiences even before
arriving here. And under no circumstances should we add to that
trauma by separating them from their parents.
This committee's oversight over the care and treatment of
unaccompanied alien children by the Department of Health and
Human Services, as well as the sponsorship process for
unaccompanied children, extends back to 2014 with the first
major influx of children and family units coming across our
southern border.
This overwhelmed the previous administration and resulted
in children being placed with traffickers within the United
States. Because of the work done by this committee and others,
reforms were made to the Office of Refugee Resettlement
program, including improving the medical care available to
children while in HHS care and custody.
In June, following reports that the administration had
adopted a zero-tolerance policy for immigrants entering the
U.S. and was separating children from their parents, all of the
Republican members of this committee sent a letter to HHS
expressing our belief that children should not be arbitrarily
separated from their parents, and that all children in HHS care
should be properly cared for.
We agree with the majority that there are questions for the
administration regarding the creation and implementation of
zero-tolerance policy. But I would point out that the Justice
and Homeland Security Departments are best positioned to speak
directly to the policy itself.
As noted by the extensive oversight this committee has
conducted over 5 years, we deeply care about the health and
well-being of these children. And that is why we invited HHS to
be here today to testify on the first panel regarding the
agency's role in caring for affected children.
Commander Jonathan White is a career civil servant and has
long experience working with unaccompanied children in the
Office of Refugee Resettlement. After the announcement of the
zero-tolerance policy, and subsequent ruling from a Federal
district court judge ordering the reunification of children
separated from their parents, HHS officials, including
Commander White, worked tirelessly to reunify the children that
were separated from their parents, all while they continued to
care for and work on placement of thousands of traditional
unaccompanied children through the standard sponsor process.
While we have important questions for HHS with respect to
the challenges and ramifications of a policy that was created
by the Department of Justice and implemented by the Department
of Homeland Security, I want to underscore that HHS did not
separate a single child. Their sole role and responsibility was
to care for the children while they were in their custody and
work to reunify children with the parents from whom they were
separated. If that was not possible due to a risk of the
child's safety or the wishes of the parent for their child to
remain in the United States, HHS worked to place the child with
the most appropriate sponsor.
Without the other departments here, we simply cannot have a
full conversation about the creation of, planning for, and
implementation of the zero-tolerance initiative with the
witnesses before us today.
We also invited Bethany Christian Services to testify on
the second panel. Bethany is a subgrantee that provides direct
care for unaccompanied children in HHS custody. They also care
for 108 children who were separated as a result of the zero-
tolerance policy. Because of their role in caring for
unaccompanied children, Bethany has practical insight into the
care for both traditional unaccompanied children and those who
were separated, and can speak to the trauma these children have
endured in home country on their journey to the U.S., as well
as the effects of zero-tolerance policy.
I thank our witnesses for being here today and being part
of this important discussion.
And I yield to the Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Guthrie follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Brett Guthrie
Thank you, Chair DeGette, for holding this hearing.
Congratulations on becoming chair of the Oversight and
Investigations Subcommittee. This subcommittee has had a
longstanding tradition of working on important investigations,
often on a bipartisan basis, and I look forward to working with
you in this new role and hopefully continuing that tradition.
As we begin this hearing on family separation policy at the
border, I want to be clear: I support strong enforcement of our
Nation's borders, but I do not support separating children from
their parents. Between the violence they face in their home
country and on their harrowing journeys to the U.S., these
children face severely traumatic experiences before even
arriving here--and under no circumstances should we add to that
trauma by separating them from their parents.
This committee's oversight over the care and treatment of
unaccompanied alien children by the Department of Health and
Human Services, as well as the sponsorship process for
unaccompanied children, extends back to 2014 with the first
major influx of children and family units coming across our
southern border.
This overwhelmed the previous administration and resulted
in children being placed with traffickers within the United
States. Because of the work done by this committee and others,
reforms were made to the Office of Refugee Resettlement
program, including improving the medical care available to
children while in HHS care and custody.
In June, following reports that the administration had
adopted a zero-tolerance policy for immigrants entering the
U.S. and was separating children from their parents, all of the
Republican members of this committee sent a letter to HHS
expressing our belief that children should not be arbitrarily
separated from their parents and that all children in HHS care
should be properly cared for.
We agree with the majority that there are questions for the
administration regarding the creation and implementation of the
zero-tolerance policy, though I would point out that the
Justice and Homeland Security Departments are best positioned
to speak directly to the policy itself. As noted by the
extensive oversight this committee has conducted for over 5
years, we care deeply about the health and well-being of these
children, and that is why we invited HHS here today to testify
on the first panel regarding the agency's role in caring for
affected children. Commander Jonathan White is a career civil
servant, with long experience working with unaccompanied
children at the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
After the announcement of the zero-tolerance policy and
subsequent ruling from a Federal district court judge ordering
the reunification of children separated from their parents, HHS
officials, including Commander White, worked tirelessly to
reunify the children that were separated from their parents,
all while they continued to care for and work on placement of
thousands of traditional unaccompanied children through the
standard sponsor process.
While we have important questions for HHS with respect to
the challenges and ramifications of a policy that was created
by the Department of Justice and implemented by the Department
of Homeland Security, I want to underscore that HHS did not
separate a single child--their sole role and responsibility was
to care for the children while they were in their custody and
work to reunify children with the parent from whom they were
separated. If that was not possible due to a risk of the
child's safety or the wishes of the parent for their child to
remain in the United States, HHS worked to place the child with
the most appropriate sponsor. Without the other departments
here, we simply cannot have a full conversation about the
creation of, planning for, and implementation of the zero-
tolerance initiative with the witnesses before us today.
We also invited Bethany Christian Services to testify on
the second panel. Bethany is a subgrantee that provides direct
care for unaccompanied children in HHS custody. They also cared
for 108 children who were separated as a result of the zero-
tolerance policy. Because of their role in caring for
unaccompanied children, Bethany has practical insight into the
care for both traditional unaccompanied children and those who
were separated and can speak to the trauma these children have
endured in home country, on their journey to the U.S., as well
as the effects of the zero-tolerance policy.
I thank our witnesses for being here today and being part
of this important discussion. I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman yields back. The Chair will now
recognize the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Pallone, for
5 minutes for purposes of an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK PALLONE, Jr., A REPRESENTATIVE
IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mr. Pallone. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank
you for being our chair, because I know about how effective you
have been as the ranking member and will be even more effective
in this position.
The committee today is finally holding the Trump
administration accountable for one of its worst failures.
Yesterday marked 10 months since the Trump administration's
cruel family separation policy was put into action. We all
heard the horror stories of how children were ripped away from
their parents and have seen the unforgettable images of crying
children standing alone and mothers unable to be with their
children. These images and stories were devastating.
And 10 months later, we still do not know fully how this
all happened. We do not have a full understanding of how this
policy was created within the administration, who provided
input, and what kind of planning took place. Most importantly,
it will take years for us to know what long-term consequences
these actions will have on the thousands of children and
families affected by this policy. These children and families
are the ones we should keep in mind today, because most of us
cannot imagine what they have gone through.
Now, the failures of the Trump administration's family
separation policy were twofold. First, the policy itself was a
failure because it was inhumane on a fundamental level. As we
will hear from the child welfare experts on the second panel,
family separations can never be done humanely. There are
decades of research demonstrating that parental protection is
critical for child development and that forced separations have
debilitating effects and long-term consequences. This includes
post-traumatic stress, depression, aggression, and long-term
psychological and mental health problems. And these problems
particularly affect young children.
Now, to be clear, it appears the Trump administration
policy was created by the Departments of Justice and Homeland
Security. However, we still don't know what role, if any, HHS
leaders played in its creation. Since HHS is tasked with caring
for these children and ensuring their health and welfare, were
HHS's leaders consulted when this policy was being considered?
We need to know the answer to that question.
The second failure of the policy was its execution. Even
after the Trump administration decided to intentionally and
forcibly separate children from their families, it was
implemented with incompetence and confusion. The independent
watchdogs on our first panel will testify about how the
administration did not plan for this policy, and, frankly, it
showed. GAO found that the agency had no procedures for
reunifying families and had to make processes up on the spot,
often with chaotic results. In some cases, the ORR shelter
caring for the children only learned a child had been separated
when the child told them.
Now I am speaking from somewhat personal experience in all
this because, on Father's Day, many of us, myself and some of
the New York delegation, went to the Elizabeth Detention
Center, which was a detention center near my district in New
Jersey that was for fathers. It was only for men. But we met
with four fathers on that day. It took us 2 or 3 hours to get
in because they didn't want to let us in. It was one of those
contracted, private facilities.
And when we finally met with them, no one knew where the
kids were, right? In other words, I talked to the guards. I
talked to the people in charge of the facility. The fathers had
no communications with their kids. They didn't know where the
kids were. They had no processes, and the people in charge
admitted there was no procedure for them to communicate with
their kids or tell them where their kids were. And they were
all separated in the middle of the night by surprise. They
didn't even know that it was going to happen.
But the worst thing of all--and I don't know if we are
going to get into this today--was that the fathers in many
cases were being accused of being abusive. And I felt that the
people in charge were convinced that, just because they had
brought their daughters or their sons--most of the cases, it
was daughters--over the border meant that they were somehow bad
people that were trafficking or they were abusing their kids,
just because they had brought them over the border.
And so, that is one of my concerns today. I don't know if
it is going to be answered here today, but we need to get to
the bottom of it. Does this family separation policy continue
because, when someone comes over the border--I will use a
father with his daughter, but we can use others--that it is
just automatically assumed that somehow they are bad and they
should be separated? Because separation, you think that somehow
the parent is not doing a good job. That just can't be done
willy-nilly as if it is OK because they are a bad person
because they brought their kid in, because then you have all
these negative consequences from the separation that inured
just because someone has made that decision. And so, I am very
concerned about what is happening now, not just what happened
in these particular cases at the time of the zero-tolerance
policy.
Now, finally, Madam Chair, I have to note that the HHS
witness today is not the person we asked to be here. I respect
Commander White and the work he has done in response to this
crisis. And our aim here today is not to tarnish ORR or the
career staff who dedicated themselves to their mission of
serving children. But I personally invited Secretary Azar to be
here today because this committee has questions that only he
can answer. And I am disappointed he declined our request to
testify. However, I can announce that Secretary Azar has
committed to coming before this committee in the coming weeks
on the President's budget, and this will provide us an
opportunity to ask questions about the role he played in the
creation and implementation of the family separation policy.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pallone follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Frank Pallone, Jr.
Today, this committee is finally holding the Trump
administration accountable for one of its worst failures.
Yesterday marked 10 months since the Trump administration's
cruel Family Separation Policy was put into action. We all
heard the horror stories of how children were ripped away from
their parents and have seen the unforgettable images of crying
children standing alone, and mothers unable to be with their
children.
These images and stories were devastating. And 10 months
later we still do not fully know how this all happened. We do
not have a full understanding of how this policy was created
within the administration, who provided input, and what kind of
planning took place. Most importantly, it will take years for
us to know what long-term consequences these actions will have
on the thousands of children and families affected by this
policy. These children and families are the ones we should keep
in mind today, because most of us cannot imagine what they have
gone through.
Every parent has experienced a sudden moment of fear: in
the grocery store, or at the mall, when you turn around and
your child isn't there. For most of us, we're lucky enough to
turn the corner and find our child again, and that second of
panic dissipates.
But for thousands of families who were the victims of the
Trump administration's family separation policy, they were
forced to live their worst nightmare for months, with long-term
traumatic consequences that we are only beginning to
understand.
The failures of this policy were twofold. First, the policy
itself was inhumane on a fundamental level. As we will hear
from the child welfare experts on the second panel, family
separations can never be done humanely.
There are decades of research demonstrating that parental
protection is critical for child development, and that forced
separations have ``debilitating effects'' and long-term
consequences. This includes post-traumatic stress, depression,
aggression, and long-term psychological and mental health
problems. These problems particularly affect young children.
When you walk into the lobby of the HHS headquarters here
in Washington, there is a quote on the wall from Hubert H.
Humphrey. It says, in part, ``the moral test of government is
how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life--
the children.'' Well, it is indisputable that this policy
failed that test. This administration failed the children.
To be clear, it appears this policy was created by the
Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. However, we still
don't know what role, if any, HHS leaders played in its
creation. Since HHS is tasked with caring for these children
and ensuring their health and welfare, were HHS's leaders
consulted when this policy was being considered? We need to
know this answer.
The second failure of this policy was in its execution.
Even after the Trump administration decided to intentionally
and forcibly separate children from their families, it was
implemented with incompetence and confusion. The independent
watchdogs on our first panel will testify about how the
administration did not plan for this policy--and it showed.
GAO found that the agencies had no procedures for
reunifying families, and had to make processes up on the spot,
often with chaotic results. In some cases, the ORR shelter
caring for the children only learned a child had been separated
when the child told them.
Efforts to reunify children with their parents were so
chaotic that the administration had to call in HHS's emergency
response agency, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and
Response (ASPR). This is the agency dedicated to providing
healthcare coordination in response to disasters like
hurricanes. It is telling that the administration had to use
them to clean up the mess after this self-created disaster.
Finally, I must note that the HHS witness today is not the
person we asked to be here. I respect Commander White and the
work he has done in response to this crisis. Our aim here today
is not to tarnish ORR or the career staff who dedicate
themselves to their mission of serving children. They do
important work and we thank them.
But I personally invited Secretary Azar to be here today,
because this committee has questions that only he can answer. I
am disappointed he declined our request to testify. However, I
can announce that Secretary Azar has committed to coming before
this committee in the coming weeks on the President's budget.
This will provide us an opportunity to ask questions about the
role he played in the creation and implementation of the family
separation policy.
Let there be no doubt that the decision by this
administration to cruelly separate children from their parents
is a stain on our country. We must find out how this
administration allowed this to happen so we can ensure it is
never repeated again.
I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair will now recognize the ranking
member of the full committee, Mr. Walden, for 5 minutes for the
purposes of an opening statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GREG WALDEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OREGON
Mr. Walden. Thank you, Madam Chair, and congratulations on
becoming chair of this very important subcommittee. I enjoyed
working with you over the years on this subcommittee when we
were both involved in it directly, and I know you will do a
great job. I am glad you are doing this hearing.
Since 2014, the committee has conducted rigorous oversight
of issues related to unaccompanied alien children and the
system put in place to care for these children by the
Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Refugee
Resettlement. In 2014, it was the first major influx of
unaccompanied alien children and family units crossing into the
United States. As a result of this committee's oversight then,
improvements were made to the UAC program, but questions remain
and we have more work to do.
The immigration issue is complex and one that Congress and
the country have been grappling with for decades. While I
support strong enforcement of our Nation's borders, I want to
make something very clear: I support keeping families together.
Last summer, I voted to ban family separation, and I strongly
believe that children should not be separated from their
parents, period.
That is why I and every Republican on this committee sent a
letter to HHS last June expressing our belief that children
should not be separated from their parents. In addition, our
letter sought information from HHS to ensure that children who
are in ORR's custody, whether they cross the border as
unaccompanied alien children or because they cross the border
with a family member and were subsequently separated, are
properly cared for while they are in ORR's care.
So, I would like to ask the Chair for unanimous consent
that the June letter be entered into the hearing record.
Ms. DeGette. Without objection.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Walden. It is also why I led a bipartisan delegation of
this committee down to McAllen, Texas in July to visit and tour
part of the Southwest border, a port of entry, a central
processing facility operated by the U.S. Customs and Border
Protection, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
detention facility, and an ORR shelter. It is also why
committee staff has since visited an additional five Office of
Refugee Resettlement facilities, including the temporary influx
ORR shelter in Tornillo, Texas, that has since closed.
I would also like to ask unanimous consent, Madam Chair,
that a memo drafted by the Republican staff about the
facilities our bipartisan delegation visited last July be
entered into the record.
Ms. DeGette. Without objection.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. Walden. While the committee has conducted oversight
over the UAC program and/or our facilities over the past 5
years, it is critical to today's hearing to acknowledge that
the Office of Refugee Resettlement and the role that it plays
in caring for UACs is a vital but small part of our overall
immigration process. ORR's and HHS's responsibility is to care
for the children that have been transferred to their custody
from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and then work to
reunify or vet and place children with a safe and appropriate
sponsor.
For the children who are separated from their parents,
those separations happen because of immigration enforcement
decisions made by the Department of Justice and carried out by
the Department of Homeland Security. The majority's stated
objective is to assess HHS's preparation and response to the
zero-tolerance policy and its efforts to reunify children with
their families. Given HHS's role in caring for and reunifying
the children that were separated, as well as their role in
caring for traditional unaccompanied alien children, we felt it
was important to invite them to testify as one of our minority
witnesses for the first panel.
Commander, we are glad you are here.
We greatly appreciate all of the witnesses and the work
that you all are doing. We appreciate you appearing before us
today.
With that said, in order to adequately examine the zero-
tolerance policy that led to family separations, it is critical
that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland
Security also be part of this conversation.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walden follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Greg Walden
Thank you, Chair DeGette, for holding this important
hearing today.
Since 2014, this committee has conducted rigorous oversight
of issues related to Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) and the
system put into place to care for UACs by the Department of
Health and Human Services' (HHS) Office of Refugee and
Resettlement (ORR). 2014 is when the first major influx of UAC
and family units crossing into the United States occurred. As a
result of this committee's oversight, improvements were made to
the UAC program, but questions remain and we have more work to
do.
The immigration issue is complex, and one that Congress and
the country have been grappling with for decades. While I
support strong enforcement of our Nation's borders, I want to
make something very clear--I support keeping families together,
and strongly believe that children should not be separated from
their parents. That is why I, and every Republican member of
this committee, sent a letter to HHS last June expressing our
belief that children should not be separated from their
parents. In addition, our letter sought information from HHS to
ensure that children who are in ORR's custody--whether they
crossed the border as an unaccompanied alien child or because
they crossed the border with a family member and were
subsequently separated--are properly cared for while in ORR's
care. I'd like to ask the Chair for unanimous consent that the
June letter be entered into the hearing record.
It is also why I led a bipartisan delegation of Members
down to McAllen, Texas, in July to visit and tour part of the
Southwest border, a port of entry, a central processing
facility operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP),
a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention
facility, and an ORR shelter. It is also why committee staff
have since visited an additional five ORR facilities, including
the temporary influx ORR shelter in Tornillo, Texas, that has
since closed. I would also like to ask for unanimous consent
that a memo drafted by Republican staff about the facilities
our bipartisan delegation visited last July be entered into the
record.
While the committee has conducted oversight over the UAC
program and ORR facilities for the past 5 years, it is critical
to today's hearing to acknowledge that ORR, and the role that
it plays in caring for UACs, is a vital but small part of our
immigration process. ORR and HHS's responsibility is to care
for the children that have been transferred to their custody
from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and then
work to reunify or vet and place children with a safe and
appropriate sponsor. For the children who were separated from
their parents, those separations happened because of
immigration enforcement decisions made by the Department of
Justice and carried out by DHS.
The majority's stated objective is to assess HHS'
preparation and response to the zero-tolerance policy and its
efforts to reunify children with their families. Given HHS'
role in caring for and reunifying the children that were
separated, as well as their role in caring for traditional
UACs, we felt it was important to invite them to testify as our
one minority witness for the first panel of today's hearing.
We greatly appreciate the witnesses that are here appearing
before us today. That said, in order to adequately examine the
zero-tolerance policy that led to family separations, it is
critical that DOJ and DHS be part of the conversation as well.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Walden. With that, I would yield to the gentleman from
Texas, Dr. Burgess, the remaining.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I think it is important for contextual purposes for us
to at least acknowledge that the United States accepts over 1.1
million people per year into the country on a legal basis, has
done so for as long as I have been in Congress, which is over
15 years, and that number has actually increased in the first 2
years of the Trump administration. This makes the United States
the most welcoming country to immigrants of all the countries
in the world.
In 2012, President Obama announced the Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals. Shortly after that, the word on the street
in Central American countries was that, if you can get to the
border and arrive across the border, you can get a slip of
paper called a ``permiso,'' and you will be allowed to stay
and, ultimately, the President will give you amnesty. And that
brought the onslaught in 2013-2014. I first became aware of
this problem in 2014. I didn't even know the Office of Refugee
Settlement existed before 2014, but I have made multiple trips
down there.
And let me just say, this subcommittee has a history of
oversight that has benefitted the people who are in the custody
of ORR. No doctor was on the staff before this subcommittee--
this subcommittee--had a briefing from the Department. This
committee is responsible for the mental health checks that
children get in these facilities, and this committee is
responsible for the fact that children are given an opportunity
for followup after they leave the facility and are placed with
a family.
I was horrified when I went down there that the children
were just sent off to wherever, whoever identified themselves
as a family member. In a different hearing, in a different
committee, we learned that children are sometimes trafficked by
family members.
So, this subcommittee has a significant history of
improving things for the children who are placed under the
custody of ORR.
Commander White, thank you for being here today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Burgess follows:]
Prepared statement of Hon. Michael C. Burgess
When the current immigration crisis began in 2014 under the
Obama administration, few people knew about or understood the
role of the Office of Refugee Resettlement within Health and
Human Services. While Democrats seek to place blame for the
``zero-tolerance'' of immigration law violations, all Energy
and Commerce Republicans signed a letter supporting enforcement
of our Nation's borders AND keeping families together. HHS is
not responsible for and does not have jurisdiction over
immigration policy. The Office of Refugee Resettlement has been
on the receiving end of immigration enforcement policies from
the beginning.
This subcommittee has a history of being involved in the
care of Unaccompanied Alien Children. Our oversight resulted in
the establishment of a Division of Health for Unaccompanied
Children and the employment of medical staff at facilities to
test for and treat communicable diseases.
Children are now being screened for medical, dental, and
mental health, in addition to sexual abuse and vulnerability to
trafficking. Previously these cases were identified through
self-admission and children were provided a letter indicating
their eligibility for services. In 2015, ORR implemented a 30-
day follow-up call and established a national call center for
sponsors and children.
With the improvements in ORR care spearheaded by this
subcommittee, HHS is better serving the children referred to it
by DHS and continues to diligently place all eligible children
with their parents or appropriate sponsors. I look forward to
advancing this continuum of care.
Mr. Burgess. I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman yields back.
I ask unanimous consent that Members' written opening
statements be made part of the record. Without objection, they
will be entered into the record.
I ask unanimous consent that Energy and Commerce members
not on the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, of
which we have many joining us today--and I welcome you--be
permitted to participate in today's hearing. Without objection,
so ordered.
I now would like to introduce panel 1 of our witnesses for
today's hearing. Ms. Kathryn Larin, who is the Director of
Education, Workforce, and Income Security for the General
Accounting Office; Ms. Rebecca Gambler, Director of Homeland
Security and Justice, Government Accountability Office; Ms. Ann
Maxwell, Assistant Inspector General for Evaluation and
Inspections, Office of Inspector General, Department of Health
and Human Services, and Commander Jonathan White, United States
Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.
Thanks to all of you for appearing before this subcommittee
today.
Now I am sure you are aware the committee is holding an
investigative hearing, and when doing so, has the practice of
taking testimony under oath. Does anyone have any objections to
testifying under oath?
Let the record reflect the witnesses have responded no.
The Chair then advises you that, under the rules of the
House and the rules of the committee, you are entitled to be
accompanied by counsel. Do you desire to be accompanied by
counsel during your testimony today?
Let the record reflect the witnesses have responded no.
If you would, please rise and raise your right hand, so
that you may be sworn in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
You may be seated.
Let the record reflect that the witnesses have now
responded affirmatively, and you are now under oath and subject
to the penalties----
Mr. Duncan. Madam Chairman?
Ms. DeGette [continuing]. Set forth in Title 18, Section
1001, of the United States.
For what purpose does the gentleman from South Carolina
seek recognition?
Mr. Duncan. I believe the oath was incorrect and
incomplete.
Ms. DeGette. This is the oath we use, and that is the oath
we are going to use today.
It is now time for Members to have the opportunity to ask
questions, and I will recognize myself for 5 minutes. Let me
just start. I have very limited time. So I would appreciate a
yes-or-no answer to any of the questions.
Ms. Maxwell, let me start with you. OIG recently concluded
that thousands of additional--oh, opening statements from the
witnesses. Sorry, this is my first time. So everybody has to
bear with me.
Ms. Larin, let's have a 5-minute opening statement from
you.
STATEMENTS OF KATHRYN A. LARIN, DIRECTOR, EDUCATION, WORKFORCE,
AND INCOME SECURITY, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; ANN
MAXWELL, ASSISTANT INSPECTOR GENERAL, OFFICE OF EVALUATION AND
INSPECTIONS, OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
AND HUMAN SERVICES; AND JONATHAN WHITE, COMMANDER, UNITED
STATES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE COMMISSIONED CORPS, DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
STATEMENT OF KATHRYN A. LARIN
Ms. Larin. Chair DeGette, Ranking Member Guthrie, and
members of the subcommittee, Ms. Gambler and I appreciate the
opportunity to be here today to discuss efforts of the
Departments of Health and Human Services and Homeland Security
to plan for and respond to family separations that occurred
during the spring of 2018 at the Southwest border.
According to officials, the increased separations resulted
from a memo issued by the Attorney General on April 6, 2018,
regarding criminal prosecutions of immigration-related
offenses, known as zero tolerance. On June 26th, a Federal
judge ordered the Government to reunify certain separated
families.
Today, my testimony will cover three key issues. First, I
will discuss planning efforts by HHS and DHS related to the
April 2018 memo. According to HHS and DHS officials we
interviewed, the Departments did not plan for family
separations or for an increase in the number of children
transferred to HHS because they were not aware of the memo
until its public release. However, HHS officials also told us
that in the year prior to the April 2018 memo, they saw a
tenfold increase in the number of children known to have been
separated from their parents.
Two things likely contributed to the increase. A memo
issued by the Attorney General in April 2017 prioritized
enforcement of certain immigration-related offenses, and an
initiative in the El Paso Border Patrol sector increased
criminal prosecution of such offenses, including those parents
who arrived with minor children.
In November 2017, HHS officials told us they asked DHS
officials about the increase in child separations and was told
there was no official policy of separating families. When
separations continued, HHS's Office of Refugee Resettlement
considered planning for continued increases in separated
children but were advised by HHS leadership not to engage in
such planning, given that DHS did not have a policy of
separating families.
Second, I will discuss systems for indicating children were
separated from parents. At the time of the Attorney General's
April 2018 memo, there was no single database with reliable
information on family separations. Data systems maintained by
Customs and Border Protection and by the Office of Refugee
Resettlement did not include a designated field to indicate a
child had been separated from a parent. Both HHS and DHS
updated their data systems by the summer of 2018, but, at least
initially, there were indications that data was not
consistently being shared between the agencies.
It's too soon to know whether these data system changes,
when fully implemented, will consistently indicate when
children have been separated or will help with reunifications.
Further, these changes do not address broader coordination
issues that we identified in our prior work. We recommended
that the agencies improve the process for referring and
transferring custody of children from DHS to HHS. That
recommendation has not yet been fully addressed.
Third, I will briefly summarize Federal actions to reunify
families in response to the June court order. First, to create
a list of children covered by the court reunification order,
HHS and DHS officials told us that they deployed an interagency
task team to identify and locate children and parents. HHS
manually reviewed about 12,000 electronic case files of
children in its care.
Once HHS had identified eligible children, the process of
reunifying them with parents evolved over time, based on
multiple court hearings and orders, which presented challenges
for HHS staff who were facilitating reunifications. For
example, HHS started by using DNA testing to determine
parentage for young children. But, on July 10th, the court
approved the use of DNA testing only when necessary to verify a
legitimate concern about parentage or to meet a reunification
deadline. Similarly, the process for determining whether the
parent is fit or presents a danger also evolved over time,
based on court orders. Finally, procedures for physical
reunification varied, depending on whether parents were in the
custody of ICE or had been released.
This concludes my statement. I'm happy to answer any
questions you might have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Larin follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. DeGette. Thank you, Ms. Larin.
Ms. Gambler, I understand you are here to support Ms.
Larin's testimony and you won't have an opening statement.
Ms. Gambler. That's correct.
Ms. DeGette. Ms. Maxwell, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ANN MAXWELL
Ms. Maxwell. Good morning, Chair DeGette, Ranking Member
Guthrie, and other distinguished members of the subcommittee.
Thank you for inviting me to discuss OIG's review of the
number of children impacted by family separations. Our review
provides three key insights about what is known and not known
about children who are separated from their parents by
immigration agents and referred to the Department of Health and
Human Services for care. Generally speaking, HHS provides these
children with temporary shelter and care before releasing them
to sponsors in the U.S. to await their immigration hearings.
Our first insight is that more children over a longer
period of time were separated than is commonly understood. The
public discussion regarding the number of separated children
has largely been tightly focused around the Ms. L v. ICE class
action lawsuit that requires the Government to reunify certain
separated children. Specifically, the case covers children
separated from their parents that were still in HHS care on the
date of the court order, June 26, 2018. The required reporting
on these children is a matter of public record and, as such,
the 2,737 children covered by the case became the de facto
count of separated children.
But, if you widen that focus for a more comprehensive view,
as we did in this study, you see these children only represent
a subset. Exactly how many more children were separated is
unknown. This is because there is no integrated data system
that reliably tracks children who are separated by the
Department of Homeland Security and then referred to HHS for
care.
Now, based on informal records, HHS officials estimated it
potentially received and released thousands of separated
children prior to the June 2019 court order. These separated
children were part of a significant increase in the number of
separated children that started approximately a year or so
before the court order. Prior to this increase, HHS staff
reported that receiving separated children was quite rare and
the increase strained its ability to place these often very
young children in shelters equipped to address their needs.
The second point is that the Government struggled to
identify which children in its care were covered by the court
order. To respond to the court's reunification order, the
Government, led by HHS, had to first engage in an extensive,
labor-intensive effort to identify children who had been
separated from their parents. This included analyzing more than
60 datasets and manually reviewing 12,000 case files. And even
with these extensive efforts, HHS later identified additional
separated children that were covered by the court's
reunification order. This, again, speaks to the challenges of
accounting for separated children in the absence of reliable
data about their circumstances. In this case, it also impacted
timely reunification.
The third important item to note is that HHS continues to
receive separated children. At this point, separation should
only be occurring where there are concerns for a child's
safety, as has historically been done. However, DHS immigration
agents provided HHS with limited information about the reasons
for these separations. For example, the most common reason DHS
reported these more recent separations is a parent's criminal
history. But HHS didn't receive specifics about the criminal
history, and these specifics are important because, from a
child welfare perspective, not all criminal history rises to a
level that would imperil a child's safety or preclude release
back to their parents.
In conclusion, limited information about separations means
we cannot account for the full impact of family separations on
children. Further, the limited data about recent separations
impedes HHS's ability to put children's needs at the center of
its decisionmaking.
In response to these challenges, HHS has taken several
steps to improve its monitoring of separated children. However,
it's not yet clear whether these changes will be sufficient, as
monitoring systems are only as good as the information put into
them. As such, we encourage HHS and DHS to look for
opportunities to improve communication and data sharing in the
interest of better serving separated children.
Thank you for the opportunity to present this information.
I'm happy to address any questions that you have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Maxwell follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. DeGette. Thank you very much, Ms. Maxwell.
And now Commander White, for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JONATHAN WHITE
Mr. White. Good morning. Chair DeGette, Ranking Member
Guthrie, honored members of the subcommittee, it's my honor to
appear on behalf of the Department of Health and Human
Services.
My name is Jonathan White. I'm a career officer in the
United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. I'm a
clinical social worker and an emergency manager. And I've
served in HHS under three administrations. I'm presently
assigned to the Office of the Assistant Secretary for
Preparedness and Response, and I previously served as the
Deputy Director of ORR for the unaccompanied alien children
program.
And in my testimony today, I do want to discuss aspects of
the ORR program's policies and the administration that I have
been involved in since February of 2016. In my time at HHS, I
have had the privilege of helping to oversee and support the
grantees that provide the actual care for children as well as
the process of placing children with sponsors. And more
recently I served as the Federal health coordinating official,
that is, as the HHS operational lead, for the interagency
mission to reunify children who were in ORR care as of June
26th, 2018, who were separated from their parents at the border
by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
I am proud of the work of our team on the reunification
mission, and I'm also proud of the care that's provided every
day in the UAC program to children. And I will say, these are
some of the most vulnerable children in our hemisphere.
ORR is responsible for the care and temporary custody of
UAC who are referred to ORR by other Federal agencies. ORR does
not apprehend migrants at the border, and we do not enforce
immigration laws. Those functions are performed by DHS and the
U.S. Department of Justice.
The Homeland Security Act of 2002 and the Trafficking
Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 govern the ORR
program as amended. So do certain provisions of the Flores
Settlement Agreement. As defined by the Homeland Security Act,
if a child under the age of 18 with no lawful immigration
status is apprehended by another Federal agency and there's no
parent or legal guardian available in the U.S. to provide care
and custody of the child, he or she is considered a UAC and is
transferred to ORR for care and custody.
And in our shelters, we provide housing, nutrition, routine
medical care, mental health services, educational services, and
recreational activity. These shelters provide an environment
that is very much on par with facilities in the child welfare
system that houses U.S. citizen children. The facilities are
operated by nonprofit grantees and are licensed to provide care
to children by the State licensing authorities of the State
where they're housed.
The exception is ORR's temporary hard-sided influx care
facility in Homestead, Florida, which is not required to obtain
State licensure because it's located on federally owned
property. However, the children who reside at that location
generally receive the same level of care and services as UAC at
a State-licensed facility.
The UAC bed program capacity has expanded and contracted
over the years, driven by fluctuations in the number of
children referred and the average time children remain in ORR
care. To respond to these fluctuations, we developed processes
for bringing both permanent and temporary UAC housing capacity
online. In fiscal year 2018, 49,100 children were referred to
ORR by DHS. In fiscal year '19, through December, we received
approximately 13,948 referrals.
The President issued Executive Order 13841 on the 20th of
June, 2018, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of California, in Ms. L v. ICE, issued its preliminary
injunction and class certification orders on June 26, 2018. On
June 22nd, the Secretary of HHS directed ASPR to help ORR
comply with the President's Executive Order. And to execute
that direction from the Secretary, we formed an incident
management team, which at its largest included more than 60
staff working at headquarters and more than 250 field response
assets from ACF, from ASPR, from the U.S. Public Health Service
Commissioned Corps, and contractors.
Shortly after the Ms. L court issued its orders, the
Secretary directed HHS, and our IMT in particular, to take all
reasonable actions to comply. We faced a formidable challenge
at the start of this mission. On the one hand, ORR knew the
identity and location of every one of the more than 11,800
children in our care on that date. We could access
individualized biographical and clinical information regarding
any one of those children at any time. But we did not always
know which of them were separated.
We received information from DHS regarding any separation
of an individual child through the ORR portal on an ad hoc
basis for use in ordinary program operations. We had never
before conducted a forensic data analysis to satisfy the new
requirements set forth in the court order. So we worked closely
with DHS to try to identify all the parents of children in ORR
care who potentially met the court's criteria for class
membership. This required us to analyze more than 60 sets of
aggregated data from CBP and ICE, as well as the individualized
case management records for children on the portal. And
collectively, hundreds of HHS personnel reviewed the case
management records for every child in care as of June 26.
We also required every one of the more of 110 residential
shelter programs to provide a certified list to us, under
penalty of perjury, of the children in that program's care that
they had identified as separated, as potentially separated. And
that's what led us to come up with our additional list of 2,654
children in ORR care who were potentially separated from a
parent at the border by DHS.
Going forward, ORR continued to amass new information about
the children in ORR care through the case management process.
And the new information that ORR amassed between July and
December 2018 led us to conclude that 79 of the possible
children of potential class members were not, in fact,
separated at the border by DHS, and that led us to conclude
that a total of 162 other children were.
It's important to understand that we always knew the
location and the status of every child in our care. We did not
lose any children at all. But we did have to recategorize some
who were potentially separated. We also had to effect the
reunifications of children.
Working with close partnership with colleagues in ICE, DOJ,
and the Department of State, we first worked to reunify
children with parents in ICE custody, and this was an
unprecedented effort, requiring a novel process which we had to
develop and which the Ms. L court approved.
Under the compressed schedule required by court order of 15
days for children under the age of 5 and 30 days for children
between the ages of 5 and 17, we reunified 1,441 children with
parents in ICE custody, all of the children of eligible and
available Ms. L class members in ICE custody in that timeframe.
Absent red flags----
Ms. DeGette. Commander, if you can sum up?
Mr. White. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. DeGette. If you can sum up?
Mr. White. We were tasked with the reunification of all of
the children of parents in the Ms. L class where it was safe to
do so. And as of this date, there are, of the 2,816 children
that we were able to identify as separated that were in our
care on the 26th of June, only six--only six--remain who might
potentially still be reunified. None of those are operationally
reunifiable today. They will need either a change in the
parent's status or change in the direction from the parent out
of the country through the ACLU to effect their reunification.
The other children are all either reunified, appropriately
discharged, or are in care but won't be reunified.
I'm glad to answer further questions about that. Thank you,
Ma'am.
[The prepared statement of Mr. White follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Ms. DeGette. Thank you very much, Commander.
It now is time for Members to ask questions, and I will
recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Ms. Maxwell, OIG recently concluded that thousands of
additional children, aside from the ones the commander has just
identified, may have been separated from their parents or
guardians beginning in 2017. Is that correct?
Ms. Maxwell. That's correct.
Ms. DeGette. And, Ms. Larin, months before the Attorney
General's April 2018 zero-tolerance policy memo was issued, ORR
officials saw a tenfold increase in the number of children who
were separated from their parents. Is that correct?
Ms. Larin. That's correct.
Ms. DeGette. Now, Ms. Larin, ORR officials told you that, a
few months prior to the April 2018 zero-tolerance memo, they
considered planning for continued increases in separated
children, but HHS leaders advised them not to engage in that
planning. Is that correct?
Ms. Larin. That's what we were told.
Ms. DeGette. Now also, as part of your audit, did you
interview the Secretary of HHS to determine whether he had
advance notice of the AG's April 2018 memo before it was
issued?
Ms. Larin. We did not interview the Secretary.
Ms. DeGette. You did not interview the Secretary?
And, Ms. Maxwell, do you know whether the Secretary was
consulted about family separations before the release of the
April zero-tolerance memo?
Ms. Maxwell. Our work looking into the challenges the
Department faced in reunifying the children is ongoing, as are
interviews with senior HHS officials.
Ms. DeGette. So, have you interviewed Secretary Azar about
this?
Ms. Maxwell. We have not.
Ms. DeGette. Now, Commander White, do you know whether the
Secretary was consulted about family separations before the
release of the April memo? Yes or no?
Mr. White. I do not know, ma'am.
Ms. DeGette. OK. Now, Commander, I think that you agree
that family separations inflicted lasting trauma on thousands
of children and families, and it also created widespread chaos
within HHS as it attempted to reunify the children. Do you know
whether the Secretary or any senior officials at HHS attempted
to reach out to DOJ or DHS prior to the release of the zero-
tolerance memo to explain how this policy would impact children
and strain ORR's ability to take care of them?
Mr. White. Yes, I do agree that separation----
Ms. DeGette. No, do you--yes, do you know whether they
reached out to senior officials or the Secretary reached out to
these other agencies before the order was issued?
Mr. White. I do not know. It's my understanding that the
Secretary was not aware of the memo prior to its release.
Ms. DeGette. OK.
Mr. White. But I never briefed the Secretary on this issue
until we were assigned to the reunification mission.
Ms. DeGette. OK. Now, HHS's stated mission is to enhance
and protect the health and well-being of the people in this
country. Under the law, the administration has to consider the
best interest of the child when it makes these decisions. Do
you believe that the administration's decision to enact a zero-
tolerance policy, which resulted in the forcible separation of
thousands of kids from their parents, was in the best interest
of the children?
Mr. White. I do not believe that separation of children
from their parents is in the best interest of the child, but I
did not participate in the discussions regarding the policy.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you. Thank you.
Now, we still don't know what role Secretary Azar played in
the creation of this policy, but you personally say you did not
consult with him? Is that correct?
Mr. White. I had never met Secretary Azar until the day
that I was assigned to----
Ms. DeGette. Do you know if anybody else consulted with
him? Do you know that?
Mr. White. I am not aware of any communication to Secretary
Azar about separation prior to the announcement by the Attorney
General.
Ms. DeGette. OK, but do you know that for a fact? Yes or
no?
Mr. White. I am not aware of any communications with the
Secretary about this.
Ms. DeGette. Now, you've heard both the Office of Inspector
General and the GAO testify that there was an uptick in the
number of children being removed and put into the custody of
ORR even before the April memo. And it could be up to thousands
of children. I'm wondering what ORR is doing right now to
identify those children and reunite them with their parents.
Mr. White. ORR does not have visibility or authority over
children who have exited its care. We never separate--no one in
HHS separated a single child from their parent. We have the
ability and have pursued reunification for every child who is
in ORR's care. The children who have been discharged to a
family member are outside our authority. No one in HHS knows--
no one in HHS knows--who the children who had been separated
from their parents and were referred to ORR and appropriately
discharged to family member sponsors before the 26th of June
are or how many they are.
Ms. DeGette. Well, that's not my question. But my time has
expired. So, I know we will be exploring this.
I will recognize the ranking member for 5 minutes.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it very
much.
And, Commander White, before I get started with my
questions, I want to note that I understand that the zero-
tolerance policy was created and implemented by other
Departments who are not here testifying. So, if you are asked a
question or if a question is posed today by me or any Members
that is better answered by the Department of Justice or the
Department of Homeland Security, please let us know.
That said, I would like to ask you some questions about the
role HHS played in the implementation of the zero-tolerance
policy, if any, and about the ORR program. You just testified
that you were not involved in creating the zero-tolerance
policy nor aware of the Secretary. Are you aware of anyone else
at HHS involved in the planning or preparation for the zero-
tolerance policy?
Mr. White. So, HHS is not a law enforcement agency. We
don't have any authorities or equities in immigration
enforcement.
Mr. Guthrie. Was anybody involved in the planning of this
policy, knowing that you may have children come to your care?
Was anybody involved in the planning of the implementation of
the policy of HHS that you are aware?
Mr. White. I'm not aware of that. We participated and I
also participated in discussions about potential policy
scenarios that would result in separation of children from
their parents. However, at no time during the time that I was
at ORR, and I was there until March 15th of 2018, were we
notified that there would be family separation, that that
policy was formal. We observed an increase.
Mr. Guthrie. When did you become aware of the policy?
Mr. White. I was aware of the formal policy notification
when the Attorney General said it on television on April 6th.
Mr. Guthrie. You have previously testified that you are
involved in discussions about immigration policies that you
just talked about that could result in separation of families,
as you just said. Could you tell us more about these
discussions? And specifically, when did these discussions take
place and what concerns did you raise, and what were you told
in response?
Mr. White. The first meeting that I attended on this topic
on February 14, 2017, and that meeting was at the office of the
Commissioner of Customs and Border Prevention. I and a
colleague were there for ORR. There were also folks from DOJ's
Executive Office of Immigration Review, CBP, and ICE present,
as well as, I believe, DHS policy.
At that time, one policy option for implementation of
catch-and-release that was discussed was referral of minors as
part of family units as unaccompanied alien children to ORR. I
subsequently shared that with my own leadership, and on a
number of occasions I and my colleagues made recommendations
raising concerns not only about what that would mean for
children, but also what it would mean for the capacity of the
program.
Mr. Guthrie. What were you told in response, though, to the
concerns you raised?
Mr. White. On the occasions that I raised it, I was advised
that there was no policy that would result in the separation of
children and parents. And that remained the answer that I
received during my entire tenure until I left ORR.
Mr. Guthrie. OK. Well, Commander White, as I stated in my
opening statement, I do not believe that children should be
separated from their parents. In addition, you have previously
acknowledged in testimony before the Senate, as well as on
weekly phone calls you do with congressional Members and staff,
which we greatly appreciate, that separation of minors from
their parents involves a risk of severe psychological trauma.
And that is important to note, that almost all of these
children have sustained quite severe traumatic exposures before
their journey and on their journey to the U.S.
It is my understanding that ORR has always been a very
trauma-informed program. Can you elaborate on how ORR has
always been a trauma-informed program and what that means in
practice?
Mr. White. The children that we receive--and I'm speaking
now of the vast majority of children in care who are true
unaccompanied alien children--the children that we receive, 90
percent of whom come from the three Northern Triangle countries
of Central America, often have extraordinarily severe histories
of traumatic exposures and adverse childhood experiences. They
come from communities that are confronted with severe poverty
and food insecurity, as well as severe violence. And often,
they have been victims of violence or an extortion by gangs.
Their lifetime exposure to violence and sexual assault is very
high.
For this reason, the program has always had a trauma-
informed focus. This includes providing every child with a
licensed mental health clinician.
Mr. Guthrie. That was my next question. I have about 25
seconds. So, what medical care and mental healthcare do you
provide? Now you just got started on that. Would you just
discuss that?
Mr. White. Every minor receives routine and emergent
healthcare, including an initial medical evaluation, age-
appropriate vaccinations, and healthcare. Every child receives
individual or group modality mental health services
commensurate with their needs.
Mr. Guthrie. So, in my final 5 seconds, would you have
advised DOJ or DHS to implement the policy of zero tolerance,
if they had asked?
Mr. White. Neither I nor any career person in ORR would
ever have supported such a policy proposal.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. And I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes the
chairman of the full committee, Mr. Pallone.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you. And I apologize, I had to go to
the other hearing on net neutrality, so I missed a lot of your
statements.
But I wanted to ask Commander White, if I could, I know
that when you walk into the HHS's headquarters--and, of course,
we went there for a briefing after the zero-tolerance policy
was put in effect--there is a quote on the wall from former
Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who the building is named
after. And it says, ``The moral test of a government is how
that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the
children; the twilight of life, the elderly; and the shadows of
life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.'' And today, we
are focusing on the first part of that quote, how this
administration treated those who are in the dawn of life, the
children.
So, Commander White, do you believe that this policy passed
the moral test that Hubert Humphrey spoke of?
Mr. White. I'm really not an expert on such things. I,
however, have said previously, and will say again, that
separating children from their parents poses significant risk
of traumatic psychological injury to the child. And separations
for cause that are necessary to protect children have always
been part of this program. I think the national discussion,
including the discussion for legislators, is specifically, what
are the legitimate criteria for separation?
Mr. Pallone. And again, this kind of goes back to what I
said in my opening statement, which is that I understand that
there may be occasions when it is justified. But if you have to
weigh it in balance and say that you are separating kids and
all the terrible things that result from that, I think you have
to be really careful not to separate kids whenever possible.
And that is why I mentioned, when I went to the detention
center in New Jersey on Father's Day, I just got the impression
that, oh, you know, there was no real criteria for deciding,
even today, when we do this. And it shouldn't just be assumed
that somehow the parents are bad because they are taking the
kids over the border and therefore they should be separated.
So, that is the concern I have.
But, Commander, in March 2017, the then-Secretary of
Homeland Security, John Kelly, publicly stated that DHS was
considering separating children from their parents at the
border. And at the time, child advocates sounded the alarm on
the negative effects separation would have. I understand when
you testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that you
personally raised concerns about the policy. I know you have
said something about this, but could you get specific? What
specifically were the concerns you had and who did you raise
them with, if you could?
Mr. White. The concerns which I expressed were two: first,
that this would be inconsistent with our legal requirement to
act in the best interest of the child and would expose children
to unnecessary risk of harm; second, that it would exceed the
capacity of the program. Issues of bed capacity are very
important to ORR because it constitutes our ability to provide
a safe and appropriate environment to every child.
I should add, I emphasized that not only would this likely
exceed our capacity, but it would particularly exceed our
capacity that was specifically licensed for what we call
tender-aged children, which is to say children under the age of
12, and especially children under the age of 5, since those are
separate licensed facilities, and a facility that's appropriate
for care to a 16-year-old cannot easily flex to provide care to
a 4-year-old.
Mr. Pallone. Did you say, or maybe you were going to say,
who you raised these concerns with? That was part of my
question.
Mr. White. I raised these concerns within my own--to my own
leadership.
Mr. Pallone. Specifically?
Mr. White. That would be the Director of ORR, Scott Lloyd;
the Acting Assistant Secretary of ACF, Steven Wagner; and the
Counselor to the Secretary for Human Services, Maggie Wynne.
These were the superiors who I made recommendations to and
identified these concerns to.
Mr. Pallone. Do you know what any of those people did in
response to the concerns you raised?
Mr. White. We participated together in modeling and
discussions. Additionally, I think it is important to note that
Secretary Kelly, to whom you just alluded, then-DHS Secretary
Kelly, subsequently made a public announcement that there would
not be separation, and that announcement was referenced in the
subsequent communications to me when we revisited this later,
that there wasn't a separation policy.
Mr. Pallone. All right. Thank you so much.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you. I now recognize the ranking member,
Dr. Burgess, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Burgess. I appreciate the recognition and the
advancement in status. I am not the ranking member of the full
committee.
However, let's talk just for a moment. The title of this
hearing is ``Examining the Failures of the Trump
Administration's Inhumane Family Separation Policy.'' The
difficulty--and, Commander White, let me just focus here for a
minute--the difficulty was because of the numbers of people and
unaccompanied children that were coming across the border
through not just the Trump administration, the beginning of the
Obama administration, and continued to the Trump
administration. Is that a fair statement?
Mr. White. It is absolutely a fair statement that one of
the most fundamental challenges we face every day in the UAC
program is the number of minors who come in as unaccompanied
and the fluctuations in the number of minors who come in as
unaccompanied.
Mr. Burgess. And let's talk about that for just a minute,
because the fluctuations are important. I have made at least
nine trips to not just the Texas border, other places on the
border, primarily the Texas border because it is my home State.
I also made a trip to the Northern Triangle countries this
August, tried to get a delegation to go. Mr. Pallone had a
cruise or something, and he couldn't go with me.
I thought it was important that we understand what is going
on here. The fluctuations that you described, August of 2016, I
was down in the Lower Rio Grande Valley sector, and the number
of people who were coming across in August 2016 was high. In
fact, when I went down to the border with the Border Patrol,
they in fact encountered a group of people, about five or six
women, some small children, some teenaged boys, that had just
been left there by coyotes. Hot sun, out in the brush, cotton
clothing on, flip-flops for shoes. I mean, they were no way
equipped to handle a trip across the desert or across the brush
country to try to get to civilization. They were just left
there by the traffickers.
And I asked Customs and Border Patrol, I said, ``This is a
pretty serious situation. Do you encounter this often?'' ``All
the time. In fact, sometimes we bring buses down to the border,
and 40, 50 people will get on the bus and go off to a
processing center.'' So, it was a big deal.
Now, in May of 2017, I went back down to that same sector
on the border, and it was vacant. The holding facility, the
processing facility, no one there. ``What happened that changed
this?'' And they said, ``Well, the inauguration of President
Trump. The word went out that he's going to build a wall, and
nobody came.''
Well, Secretary Kelly at the time was Homeland Security
Secretary. He visited just a week or so before I did and had
made the statement publicly, according to the papers, that the
numbers are down but if Congress does not fix the problems with
the laws that are inconsistent, we can expect this problem to
reignite. So, Congress must act. And Secretary Kelly was
exactly correct.
So, a year later and we are facing another influx. But,
again, it is not the only time in our history that we have
faced large numbers of people coming into our country where it
has become a management problem. An online publication,
``Moments in Diplomatic History,'' quoting Deputy Secretary of
State John Bushnell in April of 1980, the Mariel boatlift. You
may have heard about it. It was a big problem, and the Carter
administration had to deal with it.
There were, of course, some difficulties. Humans landed up
and down the Florida Keys, in Miami, by the thousands, not
relatives, not related to people that were there. None had
visas. Most had no documents. Republicans started causing
problems for President Carter, saying you couldn't control your
borders.
So, here is Secretary Bushnell describing this: ``I
remember sitting in a windowless conference room of the
National Security Council with Secretary of State Edmund
Muskie, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Director of the CIA,
head of the Coast Guard, head of the INS, and several other
senior officials, debating how to stop this flow of Cubans.
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski chaired until
President Carter came in. There was a long discussion of how
the Coast Guard and Navy ships might physically stop the Cuban
boats. We asked the admirals, how can we do this? It was
suggested the boats could be rammed or shot.'' Wow, that seems
even harsher than a zero-tolerance policy, shooting the boats
at sea. But, again, you have a vast number of people coming
into your country, and you do have an obligation, the
Government has an obligation to control that flow.
Bill Clinton, when he ran against George Herbert Walker
Bush, just derided George Herbert Walker Bush for his blockade
of Haitians coming by boat. And Bill Clinton said during the
campaign, ``By golly, if I win this election, the Statue of
Liberty will again be open for business and we will not turn
those Haitians back at sea.''
What did President Clinton have to do before he took
office? He had to go on Voice of America, tell the Haitians not
to come by boat because so many were projected to die at sea on
that perilous journey. Bill Clinton started a zero-tolerance
policy----
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Burgess [continuing]. Before he was inaugurated.
I yield back my time.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
Illinois, Ms. Schakowsky.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you very much, Congressman DeGette,
for this hearing.
I am going to try and hold it together because this has
been such a traumatic experience for so many Americans watching
what has been happening. I have been to the border. I have been
to shelters, both in McAllen, Texas, and in Chicago, where
people are getting very good care. The children are getting
good care.
But can anybody here on this panel challenge this? The
United States does not know how many children have been
separated from their parents. No one?
Does anyone know how many are still separated from their
parents? Nobody knows.
And now we know that those in ORR custody, that there is no
way to know how to divide out those children that have been
separated. Is that right, Commander?
Mr. White. Ma'am, no. I want to be very clear. Children in
ORR custody, children who have been in ORR custody who were in
ORR custody on the 26th of June, we have laboriously worked to
identify them.
Ms. Schakowsky. No, I understand, but you----
Mr. White. The challenge is those who exited ORR custody,
because----
Ms. Schakowsky. OK.
Mr. White [continuing]. HHS did not receive from DHS any
list or any indication of the complete set of separated
children.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
Mr. White. In partnership with them, we worked hard to
identify every one of those kids from those who were in care.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you.
Mr. White. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Schakowsky. I just feel like what has been happening is
more than irresponsible and sloppy. But I really think that
what we are talking about is state-sponsored child abuse, and I
would go as far as to say kidnapping of children.
Ms. Maxwell, I want to ask you, what, if any, criteria have
been shared with HHS regarding how determinations are currently
made to separate children from their family and what, if any,
process exists for HHS or attorneys for the families to dispute
these?
My experience when I went to McAllen was a whole courtroom
of people, these immigrants coming across, these refugees
coming across, were declared guilty of crossing the border
illegally. So, is that a criteria? They are criminals? How do
we know?
And, Ms. Larin, you mentioned that there was no real
criteria of who is, then, unfit and who should be separated.
Ms. Maxwell. Yes, to be clear, there is no Federal statute
that dictates the circumstances under which families must be
separated at the border. That is a discretion made by
enforcement, immigration enforcement agents.
As it pertains to children who are newly separated, we do
note in our report that there is information coming about the
cause of the separations, but there lacks a level of
specificity to determine whether or not the separations that
are currently happening meet the spirit of the preliminary
injunction, as well as allow ORR to have the information
necessary to care for the children.
Ms. Schakowsky. Let me ask, Ms. Larin, do you want to
comment on that, or is that accurate?
Ms. Gambler. I'll address that for GAO, if that's OK,
ma'am.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK.
Ms. Gambler. We understand from DHS that, under certain
circumstances, children could be separated from their parents
at the border, and those circumstances include things like if
the parent is unfit or represents a danger to the child, if
they have a criminal history, or if they have----
Ms. Schakowsky. Criminal history, how is that defined,
however? Are these people criminals because they crossed the
border?
Ms. Gambler. According to what was laid out in the court
order for that population to be eligible for reunification, the
court determined that, to be eligible for unification, that it
would be, in determining fitness, it was if the parent, a
consideration of if the parent was involved in possible
criminal violations, but not including improper entry,
misdemeanor improper entry.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK. Do we know how many children have been
separated from their parents for a reason that was given? Do we
have a number?
Ms. Gambler. So, ma'am, GAO actually has ongoing work right
now for the House Homeland Security Committee where we're
looking at how the Department of Homeland Security is
addressing families that are encountered at the border. We are
planning to report out on that work later this year.
Ms. Schakowsky. OK. I just want to say that my
constituents--I was hearing from parents, regardless of party,
who were so, and are so, upset at this child separation. A
number of them said this is not rocket science. What about a
hospital bracelet put on a parent with a matching one for a
child to identify them? It is so shocking that we do not know
how many. I hope this hearing can get to some at least knowing
what we need to know.
I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman from
West Virginia, Mr. McKinley, is now recognized.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
A few quick questions to understand. The media and some
folks here in Congress continue to talk about the children
being put in cages. Commander, I haven't heard anyone talk
about that yet. So, I would like to hear how you react when you
hear that ORR is putting children in cages. How do you react to
that?
Mr. White. Well, of course that's false. I mean, this is
actually--there are so many things about this issue that are
complex, and this is not one. The images that have been in the
media are actually images of border stations.
But the easiest, I think that the best answer for this is
come and see. Come and see an ORR shelter. And I know that many
Members of Congress have toured them and we have that process.
But ORR shelters are licensed by the State in which they're
housed to be a residential care setting for children. They are
not detention facilities.
Mr. McKinley. OK.
Mr. White. In many States, they have no locked doors to the
outside because that's not permitted under State law.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you.
Mr. White. We do not put children in cages.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you.
Mr. White. In fact, that's why we do influx sheltering.
It's because, for their mission, appropriate for their mission,
border stations are a detentional holding setting. We don't
have those.
Mr. McKinley. OK. Thank you, Commander.
I would also try to get a grasp--I am from West Virginia.
We are not seeing the influx or the problems that some of the
other folks are, but we follow the media. I am trying to get an
understanding for the American public to understand like, for
the minors, the accompanied minors, what is the age? What would
you say the average age for an accompanied minor would be?
Mr. White. So----
Mr. McKinley. Yes, just a range maybe.
Mr. White. So, unaccompanied alien children can be any age,
although the greatest majority of them are teenagers. Those
minors who were separated, the demographic is younger because,
after all, they were traveling with parents. They have a
different set of needs and a different demographic picture than
true UACs. Most UACs are teenagers. Sometimes we do get much
younger children, typically, who were traveling with like a
teenaged brother or sister.
Mr. McKinley. Commander, if you could, again, just if you
could get back, I would like to understand. I can
compartmentalize it better if you give me an average age. If
you can get back to me on the short answer if the average age
is 8\1/2\ or the average age for the unaccompanied minor might
be 14, I would just like to know what that is.
Mr. White. The greatest number of unaccompanied alien
children is 16 and 17.
Mr. McKinley. My last question, Commander, or whomever
would like to answer, there are so many misrepresentations
about--you just heard it here that this is state-sponsored--I
don't even want to finish the sentence. I would like for you to
just walk through with me, please, give me a day in the life--
day one, when you first get a child, let's just say one of the
minors, that they come into your presence. Could you walk
through what they begin with?
Because I was told one of the first things they do is
vaccinate the children to make sure that they are healthy. I am
told that they have access to doctors, that there's a mental
health individual that they can be counseled with. Can you walk
through what a day is like as compared to what others are
talking about--they're put in cages? Give me, just in the
remaining time, a minute and a half----
Mr. White. Sure. So, every----
Mr. McKinley. What is an average day, first day?
Mr. White. So, every child who enters ORR care, part of
their first hours in ORR care will include a comprehensive
psychosocial assessment and risk assessment to determine their
needs. They also go through a process we call IME, which is
initial medical evaluation. That's a complete medical workup.
And then, we begin the process of their age-appropriate
vaccinations, which we do to CDC standards. This is all part of
every child's first day, along, then, with the beginning of the
process of their know-your-rights and legal screening process
and their orientation to the program they're going to be in.
Mr. McKinley. And mental health, because mental healthy,
they may have begun to have problems based on what life was
like back in their village or community. And then, they went
through the ordeal, the trauma of a lengthy march through
Mexico to come up. What kind of mental health treatment are
they receiving?
Mr. White. So, every minor in ORR care has a licensed
clinician, and we have a specified ratio of clinicians to
children. Children receive individual and group modality
clinical services. Some children are diagnosed as having more
significant behavioral health needs and would receive a higher
acuity care or be moved to a higher acuity setting consistent
with those needs. I actually feel, I am very proud of the work
that we do for the health and safety of children in care.
Mr. McKinley. Thank you very much. I yield back my time.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
California, Dr. Ruiz, 5 minutes.
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you very much, Chairwoman.
Let's be very clear. We all know that ORR did not do the
separation of children. We know that CBP and ICE separated
children. Let's be very clear that it was CBP and ICE that
detained children in cages. Let's be very clear with that.
This is an outrage. Morally, it is a stain in our
conscience as individuals, and every mother and every father
that loved any of their children should feel the compassion and
the hurt that these children and their parents went through
when this happened.
And I understand by the look in your eyes, Commander White,
that you understand that. And as healthcare professionals, you
understand the experience of having to go through and witness
that as well.
And yet, since it was one of the most intentional, hurtful
experiences in our Nation's recent history that our Federal
Government has done to any population, this committee held no
hearings on the topic while it was ongoing. This committee had
no legislation that we marked up except for this resolution of
inquiry, and it was not passed with favorable sentiment to be
voted on on the floor. We were simply asking to have a hearing
to get questions answered, simply asking for a resolution of
inquiry that Congress is saying we want more information, and
that was denied by this committee in the last cycle.
Commander White, do you understand the effects of toxic
stress on children?
Mr. White. I have professional training that does indicate
that toxic stress--that's an accepted scientific reality--has
consequences, both for children's behavioral health and their
physical health, and those consequences are frequently
lifelong.
Mr. Ruiz. So, this problem is not over, even after they
unify the child with the family, right?
Mr. White. The consequences of separation for many children
will be lifelong.
Mr. Ruiz. Yes. In March 2017, the American Academy of
Pediatrics published a public policy statement opposing the
separation of mothers and children at the border, stating,
quote, ``Federal authorities must exercise caution to ensure
that the emotional and physical stress children experience as
they seek refuge in the United States is not exacerbated by the
additional trauma of being separated from their siblings,
parents, or other relatives and caregivers.''
You mentioned a tender age, Commander White, children under
5 or children under 12. In your opinion, were they
retraumatized by our Federal Government when we separated them
from their mothers?
Mr. White. So, I've previously testified before the
Senate----
Mr. Ruiz. Yes or no, do you feel that they were
retraumatized by being separated from their parents?
Mr. White. Separation of parents is a traumatic event and
has the potential for having those psychological consequences,
as a matter of fact.
Mr. Ruiz. So, let's be clear. Is there a nullification of
retraumatized or is this an additional trauma that adds
additional stress and additional harm to a child after they
experience the difficulties that they experienced in their home
country, going through the long trek? Did we add additional
retraumatization to that child?
Mr. White. For many children, that is----
Mr. Ruiz. Yes.
Mr. White [continuing]. Consequence, yes.
Mr. Ruiz. My understanding is yes.
So, when you voiced your concern to your leadership, when
Ms. Maxwell mentioned that you, that the Department of Health
and Human Services knew that there was a surge of family
separations, and folks were aware and they were questioning,
did you voice your concern and did you say these need to--how
were you treated when you voiced your concern?
Mr. White. I received a respectful hearing. I was advised
that there was no policy to result in family----
Mr. Ruiz. Did you feel like that was a way to tell you
don't bring it up any further, this was not official, so don't
mention it anymore to anybody else?
Mr. White. No.
Mr. Ruiz. OK.
Mr. White. That was not how I took it.
Mr. Ruiz. And did you advise that HHS should take a little
more proactive step to stop these separations?
Mr. White. That is the recommendation I give to anybody----
Mr. Ruiz. And did it occur?
Mr. White. It did not, in fact, occur, but----
Mr. Ruiz. OK. In the intake, you said that you, that the
ORR did not distinguish which children were separated and which
children were not separated, correct?
Mr. White. That's correct because, historically----
Mr. Ruiz. So, let me ask you a question. Were you able--was
there anything preventing you from asking the question during
the intake, ORR to say, ``Was this child separated from their
parent?,'' knowing that that was going on?
Mr. White. So, that is now part of intake----
Mr. Ruiz. Yes, but you were not denied or you weren't told,
``You can't ask that question.'' And you failed, the Department
of ORR failed to ask that question during the intake of the
child.
Mr. White. No, we routinely ask and have asked for years.
Mr. Ruiz. At that time, you said that you were not able to
determine if they were separated or not separated. A social
worker, a case manager would simply ask, ``Was this child
separated?'' to determine a full history and context to provide
the adequate treatment for toxic stress. Did that occur? And
were you proud that it did not occur?
Mr. White. We did attempt to identify for the----
Mr. Ruiz. Well, earlier mentioning----
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired. We are going
to have to----
Mr. Ruiz [continuing]. You said that you didn't.
Mr. White. No, I actually was very specific. What we did
not have is a single comprehensive list because the reality is
many children who we have identified as separated, there is
nothing in their initial assessment to indicate their
separation, even when they're asked a question specifically.
So, that's not an exhaustive list.
Mr. Ruiz. So, those questions----
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's--I'm sorry----
Mr. Ruiz [continuing]. Were asked specifically?
Mr. White. Yes, sir.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired. The
gentlelady from Indiana, Ms. Brooks, is recognized.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman DeGette, and to
Ranking Member Guthrie. Thank you for holding this important
hearing today.
I would like to remind the committee that, during an
important debate over the passage, during the Energy and
Commerce Committee debate on the Pandemic and All-Hazards
Preparedness Act, we did accept an amendment offered by
Representative Lujan and Representative Blackburn, to require
ORR and the Department of HHS to provide us weekly reports. And
so, this committee did--in clarification of my friend, the
gentleman, Dr. Ruiz--this committee did address that, actually,
during the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act debate.
And it was included and, in fact, has been voted on by the
House, has passed out of the House twice, once in the last
Congress, and I am proud to say that Congresswoman Eshoo and I
already have gotten it out of the House once again.
And in that bill about pandemic and all-hazard
preparedness, we addressed this issue in requiring the
Department to provide weekly updates and to provide the
Department to deal with this issue. And so, just--I wanted to
clarify for the record that our committee did address this. We
have actually passed it in the House, although people might not
have realized. It was a very important bill having to do with
pandemic and all-hazard preparedness with vaccines and
preparedness for public medical emergencies.
I would also like to share that I, too, have visited not
only the border and visited the Brownsville facility and saw--
which overwhelmed me--the Southwest Key facility, where I saw
1,379--I will never forget that number because it was on the
board as I walked in--1,379 boys, ages 11 to 17. I, like
others, saw that they were incredibly well cared for.
I was overwhelmed at the numbers of children at that point
in time--this was in July of 2018--the vast number of
unaccompanied children. Some may have been some of those who
had been separated and were in the process of being reunited
with their families. But I think, until I saw that, I really
had not the full understanding of the massive numbers that our
country has been dealing with since 2014, and the massive
numbers of children who were separated from their parents in
their home countries, smugglers and coyotes who were paid to
bring those children. So, these children have been experiencing
toxic stress for a very, very long time, including these
unaccompanied children, as well as those that we separated. And
for the record, I, too, was opposed to the separation of
families and separation of children.
I want to talk very briefly about one of the facilities.
And, Commander White, there have been media reports about the
variation of care, the tent city that we saw, Tornillo. It is
my understanding it has since closed. Is that correct?
Mr. White. The temporary influx facility, the Tornillo site
has been closed. It's no longer necessary.
Mrs. Brooks. And so, can you please talk with us, and I
think this has to do with the fluctuations. And this has to do
with what I would call a crisis that we have been handling, but
not handling incredibly well, since 2014. We still have
thousands of children. In December, there were about--I have
the numbers--about 4,000 unaccompanied children that came each
month in October, November, and December. Do you know what the
numbers were in January? How many unaccompanied children do we
have?
Mr. White. I don't have with me monthly numbers, although,
as a reminder, we do provide those to Congress monthly. I can
tell you that, thus far this fiscal year, we've received just
under 14,000 referrals, and that last fiscal year we received
49,100 children in care. Over recent years, the fluctuation has
been between 40,000 to 60,000 children a year that come into
the care of ORR.
Mrs. Brooks. And we are at 14,000 now?
Mr. White. Thus far this fiscal year.
Mrs. Brooks. Thus far? And do you have any way of
predicting what is coming for the next three months?
Mr. White. So, we have to use bed capacity modeling to
anticipate how many beds we're going to need. But the most
honest answer to your question is no one can predict how many
kids will cross the river tomorrow.
Mrs. Brooks. And because of that challenge--and my time is
up--because of that challenge, I will be submitting some
questions in writing relative to the future planning.
Since we have absolutely no idea how many thousands upon
thousands of unaccompanied children in addition to--and God
forbid there are any further separations--but the unaccompanied
children, our country has not dealt with this problem yet. And
they continue by the thousands, and these are children who are
coming to our country with no adults.
And I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady yields back. The gentlelady
from New Hampshire, Ms. Kuster, is now recognized.
Ms. Kuster. Thank you.
Like my colleague, Ms. Schakowsky, I will try to keep it
together. I am a mother. I have been an adoption attorney for
25 years. I am very, very well versed, to quote the commander,
and I want to thank you for your courage today, for your
honesty, and for your compassion.
The consequences of separation of children from their
parents will be lifelong. I have been to McAllen, Texas. I have
been to Brownsville. And I want to be very clear to my
colleague, Mr. McKinley. I have seen the cages. I have walked
through the cages. I have seen the children crying. I have been
with the mothers who had no idea where their children were
taken. We were all crying. It was a group of women, Members of
Congress, mothers and grandmothers ourselves, weeping in the
arms. The guards were weeping. I met two women breastfeeding
their babies that were taken by the Government of the United
States of America, breastfeeding their babies.
So, I understand that you did not make that happen, but we
are all citizens of the country that made that happen. And with
all due respect to my colleague, Ms. Brooks, who is a friend
and a colleague, yes, they faced trauma in their home country,
and we need to do more. Yes, they arrive with trauma at our
border, and we need to do better and open our arms with
compassion. But we have inflicted additional trauma on each and
every one of those children, and we need not forget until we
get to the bottom of this. And I appreciate all of your
professionalism in helping us to do just that.
Now what I want to focus on is the children who are
separated in your jurisdiction. I have great respect for the
care that they are receiving. But they are being placed into
child placement agencies, and they were sent at that time
around this country, while their parents, mothers and fathers,
were sent to detention facilities thousands of miles away. They
had no contact. The women that we spoke to couldn't make a
phone call. Then, they were charged for the phone call. They
had no money.
And I want to focus on the legality. My colleagues are
doctors, I am a lawyer. Help me understand how those children's
rights are being protected, and promise me, please, that not a
single child has had parental rights terminated against that
parent's will on grounds of abandonment or neglect because the
United States of America separated that parent.
Mr. White. Let me look at the pieces of your question.
First of all, ORR has no authority, this Congress has never
provided authority to ORR to terminate parental rights. That is
not something we do. We also----
Ms. Kuster. Sorry to interrupt.
Mr. White. Yes?
Ms. Kuster. But can you promise me that there's no agency
across this country where ORR has placed a child that has
somehow slipped into a State court, a county court, and urged
the termination of parental rights because this child was,
quote, ``abandoned at the border''?
Mr. White. So, as it happens, our grantees are prohibited
by program regulations from attempting to intervene in
custodial matters in court. And indeed, in previous years where
there have been isolated cases where someone attempted that, we
have fought against that. So, I can be very clear about that.
We do not allow that.
But I need to talk, because I think this is also very
important that people understand this, about what discharge to
a sponsor means. Because I hear in the media all the time talk
about discharge to sponsor, like that's some kind of crypto
adoption. Sponsors are members of the child's family
overwhelmingly.
Let me give you the exact statistics for the year, because
it's very important. Because when we talk about the children
who transited ORR care and were discharged to sponsors before
the court's order, let's talk about those children in the
context of what that population looks like.
So, in 2018, 86 percent of the children in our care were
released to an individual sponsor, and 42 percent of them went
to parents, 47 percent of them went to close relatives. That
means an aunt, an uncle, a grandparent, or a sibling. And 11
percent went to a more distant relative, like a cousin, or a
nonrelative that's a family friend generally identified by the
parent in home country.
Ms. Kuster. Commander, I am sorry to interrupt.
Mr. White. And that's important.
Ms. Kuster. My time is up. I agree with you that is
important, and I would far rather have those children in a
loving home with a parent, a grandparent, someone who will care
for them, than to have them separated and placed in an agency.
So, I appreciate that.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady's time has expired. The
gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Griffith, is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Griffith. I thank our chairman very much, and am
pleased to welcome you to that chair, and look forward to
working with you over the next several years in that capacity.
Let me just make it clear that the question earlier was,
Could somebody slip into a state court? As a former practicing
attorney in that arena, and with a spouse who is a juvenile and
domestic relations district judge in the Commonwealth of
Virginia, you can't guarantee somebody won't commit an improper
act, but it would be a fraud on the court to indicate that a
child had been abandoned when that child came into this country
with a parent.
But the bigger question for all of this is all those
thousands of children. How many did you say it was last fiscal
year that came across who were unaccompanied when they came to
the border?
Mr. White. So, the total number referred last year was--
excuse me--I believe 47,000. I had it in front of me a moment
ago. I'm sorry.
Mr. Griffith. I believe you said the average over the last
several years had been between 40 and 60. So, 47 would be on
track.
Mr. White. Right.
Mr. Griffith. If not exactly accurate, it would be
consistent with the average, is that correct?
Mr. White. Right. If I take my glasses off, I should be
able to give you the number. Yes, last year, in fiscal year
'18, it was 49,100 children. Over the last several years, it
has fluctuated between 40,000 and 60,000 children a year.
Mr. Griffith. And when they come across unaccompanied, you
all take charge of them, as we heard earlier, make sure they
get some medical attention, both physical and mental health, is
that correct?
Mr. White. Yes, they're referred to us by another Federal
agency, and only a Federal agency can refer. We cannot lawfully
take children directly, nor can State entities refer them. DHS
refers them. And then, we designate which of our facilities is
right for the child and has a bed for that child. And DHS
brings the child to that facility. That's where we begin to
provide services.
Mr. Griffith. And for those who come unaccompanied in the
first place, the 40,000-some predominantly, you all then try to
find someplace for them, whether it's with family or with an
agency, a placement agency, is that correct?
Mr. White. So, we are required by TVPRA and the Homeland
Security Act to place the child in the least restrictive
setting. That means, almost invariably means, an individual
sponsor, and we work with the family to identify that
individual sponsor. But I really want to emphasize this.
Children do not go out into the State adoption systems. That
does not happen. And if we cannot find a family member, if we
can't find a sponsor, working with the family, that can meet
the emotional and financial needs of the child, and that can
get through our vetting process for child safety, that child
remains in ORR care, and can remain in ORR care in some cases
until their 18th birthday.
Mr. Griffith. And it's also a fact that there's lots of
children who cross the border that you don't how many that is
because they never are placed into any agency's hands at all
and they don't come to your referral, and they're just in the
country? Isn't that also true?
Mr. White. Certainly. The majority of apprehended children
are children who are a part of family units. That's what all of
the separated kids were. But, ordinarily, family units are
managed by ICE and the children don't come to ORR. Then, of
course, also, there's some children who enter the country
without status and they're not apprehended. We don't know, we
don't have this ability on any of them.
Mr. Griffith. And as a part of all this, of the 49,000 last
year, roughly 2,800 were people who came across with a parent
or with somebody in the family, and then they were separated,
of which I also was opposed. And you all have placed all, I
think you said, but six of those or determined that they can't
be placed and are putting them through the standard process? Is
that correct, yes or no? My time is running out on me.
Mr. White. The 2,816 are the potential children of Ms. L
class members.
Mr. Griffith. OK. And Ms. L is a court case that the court
said that you have to deal with these children in an expedited
manner and get them back to their parents.
Mr. White. Right.
Mr. Griffith. I am going to have to move this along because
I am running out of time.
You have six cases left, but my understanding is that five
of those, under the Ms. L case, the ACLU is playing a role, and
that five of those have been delayed resolutions because you
have been notified by the ACLU that there is something going on
that they want to take a look at. Is that not correct?
Mr. White. So, of the six children who might potentially
still be reunified, one has a parent in custody. I don't mean
ICE custody. I mean criminal custody.
Mr. Griffith. OK. I need to know, are the five being held
up by the ACLU?
Mr. White. And the other five, I would not say they're
being held up by the ACLU.
Mr. Griffith. OK.
Mr. White. I'm saying that we are awaiting an indication
from the ACLU what the parent's final decision is regarding the
child.
Mr. Griffith. What the parent's decision is regarding the
child?
Mr. White. Right.
Mr. Griffith. There's some question whether they want the
child, as tragic as that is?
Mr. White. Whether the parents wish to have the child
reunified within, them in home country or stay in ORR care.
There are five that we are awaiting that notification.
Mr. Griffith. And that would create toxic stress, too, if
your parent says, ``I don't want you back.''? The answer is, it
answers itself.
I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
Florida, Ms. Castor.
Ms. Castor. Thank you, Chairwoman DeGette.
I want to associate myself with the remarks of my
Democratic colleagues who have expressed outrage over the Trump
administration's family separation. And it was entirely
frustrating that the Republican majority refused to allow us to
have a real oversight hearing. And I want the public to know
what did happen. Rather than have an oversight hearing, they
marched us over to HHS. And so folks understand, that is right
next door. And the HHS leadership could have come here across
the street, so that the public could understand and hear
questions being asked in front of everyone. But, fortunately,
we have rectified that here today.
Commander White, we know that the Trump administration
started this routine family separation well before it was
announced, formally announced, in May of 2018. You have
testified here today that you did express concern over family
separations. How did you express that? You said you had
conversations. Did you also put it in emails or write any memos
to that effect?
Mr. White. It's important to distinguish two different
points in time. First, the discussion of this as a potential
policy option, that began in February of 2017 and went through
spring of 2017.
Ms. Castor. Did you write any memos before, during that
time?
Mr. White. Yes, I produced memos, emails, and I raised it
in meetings.
Ms. Castor. OK. And then, after the policy was announced in
2018, did you write additional memos and emails expressing
concern over the----
Mr. White. No, because I was not in ORR at that time. The
subsequent period of discussion about this was regarding our
informal observation within ORR that we were receiving a number
of children who appeared to be separated in much greater
numbers than----
Ms. Castor. Did anyone, after the policy was announced in
May 2018, did anyone within ORR tell HHS leaders that family
separations should be stopped?
Mr. White. I was not working in ORR at the time.
Ms. Castor. But do you know of any? Have you seen any memos
or emails, any written documentation?
Mr. White. I have not seen memos or emails. The concerns
that I had about separation were shared by every career member
of my team. So, I'm confident that they continued to make
those----
Ms. Castor. After the separations began taking place, are
you aware of anyone from HHS attempting to tell DOJ or DHS that
the separations should be halted?
Mr. White. I'm not aware of that, but that doesn't mean it
didn't occur.
Ms. Castor. You haven't seen any emails or memorandum from
HHS to other agencies along those lines?
Mr. White. No, but I'd----
Ms. Castor. How about to the President? Or the President's
Chief of Staff.
Mr. White. Yes, I would not know.
Ms. Castor. If HHS leaders didn't know that separations
were under consideration, they were willfully blind. If they
did know and they didn't speak up, they were complicit in the
trauma that was inflicted on the children. And at the very
least, when it became clear that separations were taking place,
as the top health officials in the country, Secretary Azar and
HHS leaders should have put their foot down and stood up for
the children.
Mr. White. Secretary Azar----
Ms. Castor. There is little doubt that this administration
failed that moral test. This administration failed the
children.
So, Ms. Larin, thank you for the work of the Government
Accountability Office here.
ORR officials told you that they were not given advance
notice of the Attorney General's April 2018 zero-tolerance
memo. It strikes me as inconceivable that the agencies that
would be most affected and would be responsible for separating
children and caring for them were not given any advance notice.
Based on your expertise of looking into the operations of
numerous Government agencies, wouldn't you expect all of the
agencies that would be responsible for carrying out this policy
to have been part of interagency discussions?
Ms. Larin. Yes. One of the key things that we look at when
we're assessing agency performance is whether they have
appropriate internal controls. And by that, I mean, do they
have a structure in place to achieve agency objectives?
Ms. Castor. Including impact of family separations on the
health and well-being of children?
Ms. Larin. A key principle of internal controls is
operating on the basis of reliable and accurate information,
including information both internal and external to the agency.
Ms. Castor. And we still don't know if Secretary Azar or
Secretary Nielsen were given advance notice of the April 2018
memo. However, if they weren't, once they became aware of the
chaos that ensued, the trauma being inflicted on the children,
the huge burden on ORR, would it have been reasonable for
Secretary Azar to have reached out to DOJ and DHS to at least
raise concerns about the harm the policy was causing?
Ms. Larin. So, GAO has reported on the importance of
interagency coordination, and that that is key to planning, the
involvement of stakeholders----
Ms. Castor. Did you come across any memos along the lines I
asked Commander White of anyone at HHS expressing concern to
DHS, DOJ, the President, or the President's Chief of Staff?
Ms. Larin. We did not get any evidence that that
consultation occurred.
Ms. Castor. Did you ask for it then?
Ms. Larin. We asked if there was any consultation, and we
were told there was none.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady's time has expired. The Chair
now recognizes Mr. Duncan from South Carolina for 5 minutes.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for allowing us
to delve into the issue of children apprehended at the southern
border when they cross illegally into this country.
The gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Schakowsky, just asked
Commander White from HHS, ``Do we know how many kids are
currently separated from their parents at the southern border
in this country?'' Let me ask this: Do we know how many
children were brought into this country by coyotes and sold
into the sex slave market to be violated primarily by men in
towns like Chicago or Atlanta? The answer is no, we don't.
Because we don't know how many people, children or otherwise,
cross our southern border annually.
We are investigating today the separation of kids when
apprehended at the border and what we, as a nation, when
apprehending unaccompanied or accompanied children illegally
entering this country, working to assess their situation--is
that a family member they are with or is it a coyote, somebody
that is wanting to traffic that child? What is their physical
condition? What is their health? A lot of them come with a lot
of problems. We need to assess, do they have immunization or
are they bringing in something that may affect the children
within our communities where they are relocated? That is the
absolute appropriate thing to do in this Nation, to find out
the health of these children before they are turned over to
loved ones.
That takes a little time to do DNA tests on who they were
accompanied with and that child to see is that a family member,
to make sure that we are not allowing that child to go with a
human trafficker to be sold into the sex slave market. Super
Bowl weekend, 169 individuals were arrested in a sex sting
operation. Eighteen victims were freed.
I am wearing this ``X'' because today is Human Slavery
Awareness Day. Forty million people in this world are currently
in the slave market, are currently enslaved. Seventy percent of
those are women, and 1 in 4 in the world are children--
children. It is right that we are shining light on this issue
at the southern border of these children. It is right that our
Nation is trying to do right by these children, to make sure
that they don't end up in the sex slave market or end up in the
slave market working for someone in their household, to make
sure that they are reunited with family members here or
reunited with family members back in their country.
Because let me remind this committee that they have entered
this Nation illegally. Right or wrong, whether they are sent
north by their families from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador,
or other places, to try to, hopefully, make a better life for
that child, or whether they are accompanied with a parent
coming across the border--right, wrong, indifferent, whatever
the issue is--we, as a nation, need to make sure that we are
doing right by the children.
And so, I want to urge this committee and this Congress to
not just focus on this issue of children at the border and what
HHS and ORR are trying to do, because I believe you are trying
to do the right thing. And there are laws on the books about
what we are supposed to do. But to also focus on the issue of
what is a reality for many children that enter this country and
enter the slave market, whether it is the sex trade or others,
all over the globe, we have the power in this Congress to do
that.
And, look, I am for a border wall because, according to a
DHS special agent, we need to build the wall for the children.
This is an article that is dated January the 29th that I would
ask to include in the record, Madam Chair.
It is great that we are focused on this issue, Madam
Chairman. It is important that we make sure that our Nation is
doing right by those that want to come into this country, and
that we are doing right by American citizens, where those that
do come into this country are immunized and are healthy and are
reunited with loved ones, and all that. But let's focus also on
this ``X'' and the human trafficking that is going on all over
the globe and is a big issue on our southern border, that we
failed as a committee and as a Congress to address as part of
this issue.
And with that, I will yield back.
Ms. DeGette. Without objection, the gentleman's Fox News
submission is entered into the record.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Ms. DeGette. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
New York, Mr. Tonko, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Later today, we will hear about the chaotic attempts to
reunify children with their parents from child welfare experts
outside of this administration. We will hear shocking stories
of how children were ripped away from their parents and the
effect that this trauma will have on the rest of their lives.
Before we have that dialog, however, I think it is
important to understand from this panel how we got to that
place. So, Ms. Larin, the very first line in your report
states, and I quote, ``The agencies did not plan for the
potential increase in the number of children separated from
their parent or legal guardian as a result of the Attorney
General's April 2018 zero-tolerance memo.'' Is that correct?
Ms. Larin. That's correct.
Mr. Tonko. OK. And then, further, Ms. Larin, is it also
true that CBP and ICE and ORR officials told you that they did
not take specific planning steps because they did not have an
advance notice of the AG's memo and only became aware of it
when it was announced publicly?
Ms. Larin. That's correct.
Mr. Tonko. So, then, further, Ms. Larin, did GAO speak with
anyone in the Secretary's office at HHS about the awareness of
the AG memo?
Ms. Larin. We did not talk to the Secretary.
Mr. Tonko. If not, as you are indicating, is it possible
that they had some awareness of that situation?
Ms. Larin. We're not aware of any awareness.
Mr. Tonko. Commander White, last year in front of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, you testified that, while neither
you nor anyone who reported to you had any advance knowledge of
the Attorney General's memo, they had been in discussions over
the previous year about policies that could result in a
separation of kids from their family unit. We also know from
GAO that ORR considered planning for continued increases in
separated children, but HHS leaders advised them not to engage
in such planning. During this time, you were the Deputy
Director of ORR with responsibility for the unaccompanied
children's program. Who specifically within HHS leadership told
you not to plan for continued increases in separating children?
Mr. White. I received that from Scott Lloyd and from Maggie
Wynne, who were, respectively, at that time the Director of ORR
and the Secretary's Counselor for Human Services.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And, Commander White, given that you
previously testified that you never met Secretary Azar prior to
the implementation of the family separation policy, is it
possible that discussions occurred amongst HHS leaders prior to
implementation without your knowledge or awareness?
Mr. White. I couldn't speculate on what occurred without my
knowledge.
Mr. Tonko. But is it possible? I'm not asking you to
indicate that it did happen. Is it possible?
Mr. White. Of course it's possible, but I wouldn't be the
person to ask because I don't know.
Mr. Tonko. Commander White, did you agree with the decision
not to plan for continued increases?
Mr. White. It was my hope that the reason that we were not
planning it is that that meant that separation would not occur.
I experienced relief at that notification that separation would
not occur.
Mr. Tonko. Do you believe ORR would have been better
prepared to care for and reunify separated children had it been
allowed to plan for continued increases?
Mr. White. We would have been better prepared for the
capacity issues. However, to be clear, we were able to
successfully reunify thousands of children with their parents
because Judge Sabraw in the Southern District of California
created a pathway through his orders for us to do that. We
could not have effected the reunification of children with
their parents in ICE custody absent his providing a way to do
that, under our steady-state authorities.
Mr. Tonko. But it took hundreds of HHS staff, did it not?
Mr. White. Well, it absolutely did.
Mr. Tonko. Well, thank you for your responses.
This administration should never have had a family
separation policy to begin with, but they made it worse by not
even notifying ORR about it, the very agency that would be
tasked with caring for these thousands of kids. I just find
that totally unacceptable. And as a New Yorker, we are proud of
the fact that we border along the bay with the Statue of
Liberty and the inscription included therein: ``Give me your
tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe
free,'' and not including your children looking to be separated
from their parents. I find this whole approach so deplorable on
behalf of our kids and the trauma that will follow them for
their lives.
With that, I yield back, Madam Chair.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman from
Oklahoma, Mr. Mullin, is now recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Mullin. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you,
everybody, for being here.
Obviously, this is a very emotional topic that people have
strong feelings about, which we should. I am a father of five,
and two of my beautiful kids are adopted. And every child
deserves a home and a loving parent. And there is just not
enough homes out there welcoming everybody. Unfortunately, that
is what we face.
We do that currently right now. In Oklahoma, there are not
enough foster parents out there. There are not enough parents
that are willing to adopt that are out there. Yet, we have an
influx of children coming across our southern border. The
question is, what do we do with them? How do we do it?
Ms. Maxwell, HHS OIG issued an issue brief which found in
part that thousands of additional children may have been
separated from their adult parents by DHS and referred to ORR.
In the context of this report, is it referring to children who
may have been separated from a parent or legal guardian only
for any specific reason?
Ms. Maxwell. So, with respect to the agreement, this issue
brief is a broader perspective, and separations could have
occurred for a myriad of reasons.
Mr. Mullin. But you said thousands more. You said there are
possible thousands more. Where did you come up with that
information where you said thousands more?
Ms. Maxwell. Sure. Thank you for the opportunity to talk a
little bit more about that. So, the thousands estimate was
provided to us by HHS officials that were running the program
and tracking separated children. And it relates to a
significant increase in the number of separated children that
they noted----
Mr. Mullin. But you said ``possible''. How would we not
know the exact number? I think Commander White said that, you
know, I mean you keep track of every child, is that not
correct, that is referred to you?
Mr. White. We absolutely do. However, the question as to
how many of the children we received who had been appropriately
discharged before the judge's order, how many of them were
separated, no one in HHS has a definitive list to work from.
Mr. Mullin. How long has this separation been going on? Not
underneath the current policy, how long has separation from an
adult or a parent been going on on the southern border?
Mr. White. So, let me make one bright-line distinction.
Separation from parents and legal guardians is legally
different from separation from anyone else.
Mr. Mullin. Well, but we have got to determine if they are
actually legally their parent, right?
Mr. White. Correct. Separation----
Mr. Mullin. But how long has that separation been going on
on the southern border?
Mr. White. Some separations have, as I've said elsewhere,
have always been part of the program.
Mr. Mullin. OK.
Mr. White. We have separations for cause.
Mr. Mullin. So, this was going on during the Obama
administration, too?
Mr. White. Separations for cause are distinct from large-
scale separation----
Mr. Mullin. Well, but we still do separation of cause.
Mr. White. Correct.
Mr. Mullin. There is a large number that is coming into it.
We know it is a $2.4 billion human trafficking industry now
that the cartels are running. So, there is always a cause for
us to have concern about anybody coming across the border when
we don't know for sure that it is their parent. And we can't
just take the adult's word for it. How long has this separation
been going on, though? Was this practice not going on
underneath the Obama administration, too?
Mr. White. So, prior to what we saw beginning in July of
2017, separations from parents occurred typically for one of
four circumstances. The parent was medically unable; there were
doubts about parent----
Mr. Mullin. But, no, just it's been going on before,
though? That is what I am trying to get----
Mr. White. What we have seen over the last few months,
however, was not going on prior to July of 2017. However----
Mr. Mullin. But the separation for the concern of the child
has been going on through the Obama administration, too?
Mr. White. Correct.
Mr. Mullin. OK.
Mr. White. And before.
Mr. Mullin. Now we have talked about this cage that is a
detention holding area that----
Mr. White. Correct.
Mr. Mullin. We have been talking about this cage. Now there
is a picture floating all around the internet of this cage.
That cage is from 2014.
Mr. White. The images that I have seen in the media are
mostly from the Nogales processing center during the 2014----
Mr. Mullin. Right. So, 2014. So, that was under the Obama
administration, right?
Mr. White. Correct.
Mr. Mullin. Yes, correct.
Mr. White. Yes, I worked----
Mr. Mullin. So, my colleagues on the other side want to say
that this is the Trump separation, the family separation, but
the separation was going on prior to this. And all it is, is
about the safety of the children. Now, if we can't agree on
anything, let's not make a political point out of this and
start pointing fingers at each other. It is about the children.
It is about the children.
I know some of you guys have opened your homes up to kids,
but how many of you have actually opened your homes to kids?
Right now, I have six living with me. Three are biological. So,
you want to talk about opening your family and talk about the
kids? Then get off your butt and do it yourself. Do you want to
really be compassionate about it? Then open your house up. Oh,
wait, just make a political point: ``I am OK with just sitting
here. I am OK with just saying we need to do something.'' Well,
do more than just say something. Now, there are some colleagues
of mine on both sides of the aisle that have been great, that
have opened their houses up, but there are few. But everybody
wants to make a political point.
The fact of the matter is, at the end of the day, it is
about taking care of the kids. And if we can get away from the
political rhetoric and just focus on the kids, then we might
actually be able to get something done. But, as long as we dig
in and point fingers, we are going to be right here 2 years
from now, too.
I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now
recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Peters, 5
minutes.
Mr. Peters. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you. Thank
you, Madam Chairman.
And thank you to the witnesses. I have found your testimony
so far to be very forthright and helpful.
I will just say that families coming to the United States
seeking refuge and asylum are expected to be met with American
welcome, and I think, in the style that Mr. Mullin might have
wanted, but this administration chose to go against decades of
immigration policies that kept families together and court
rulings that establish protections for migrant children. And
when we talk about separating kids for cause, it is because it
is for cause in those individual circumstances where the
evidence suggests that that would be the right thing for the
child. It wasn't this wholesale separation that took place
under the Trump administration. I think that is what is new and
that is what concerns a lot of members of this committee.
As a San Diegan, I know the border is part of our identity
and our culture, and San Diego and Tijuana are inextricably
linked. The border we see as an opportunity, not as a threat.
And ripping terrified children from their parents' arms is not
the policy of neighbors.
We must acknowledge the lasting trauma that these children
may face for the rest of their lives. It is horrific to know
that our Government causes pain, and we, as a Congress, have a
duty to provide support and resources to assist separated
families.
I do want to acknowledge the work of the court system as an
institution that has stepped in and made a difference here,
partly because it was the court in my home district, the
Southern District of California. It was Judge Sabraw, who I
actually practiced law with a long time ago. And he is one of
many Federal judges. He happened to be a Republican appointee
who takes his job of providing justice very seriously in an
impartial and nonpolitical way.
Commander White, in a recent court filing, you stated the
statistics suggest that, if a separated child who ORR
discharged before June 26th, 2018, remains in the United
States, then he or she is, quote, ``probably with their
family.'' In considering what we know about the challenges HHS
has faced in identifying separated children, what level of
confidence do you have that these separated children were
placed with their family?
Mr. White. Thank you, sir. So, let me clarify this. While
we do not know because it was never provided to us in HHS,
while we do not have a list of every kid who was referred to us
as separated, we absolutely do know to whom we have discharged
every child who's been in our care. So, when we speak about
those children who were separated and referred to us and
appropriately discharged before Judge Sabraw's decision on the
26th of June, we can speak with certainty about what happens to
children in that process.
So, the answer is--and I alluded to the statistics
earlier--is, during that year, 86 percent of children in our
care went to an individual sponsor. Ninety percent of the time
that's to a parent, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, or
grandparent, and the remaining 10 to 11 percent of the time,
it's to a cousin or their distant relative or a family friend.
So, while I don't know which of the kids were separated,
because I haven't been given that list, I do know what happens
to children who exit ORR care. And indeed, if someone cared to
give us that list, we could walk through it. But that is the
answer to that question. That's why I said probably they're
with family members, because that is to whom we discharge the
vast majority of children.
Mr. Peters. And in your recent court filing, you stated
that you believed ORR would face significant hurdles if it
tried to collect information from separated children who were
discharged before June 25th.
Mr. White. Yes, sir.
Mr. Peters. And that you believe that attempting to reunify
them with separated parents would present, quote, ``grave child
welfare concerns''. Can you explain why you think that that
would be a grave concern?
Mr. White. Yes, sir. I think it's helpful if you look at
the whole paragraph in the declaration. So, here's what I said
about grave child welfare concerns. And what I said was that,
is that, in some instances, the sponsor, that family member,
might not wish to have the child, or the child might not wish
to come back into Federal custody, so we could go through this
legal process.
And since in ORR there is no capacity to go and take
children into custody, what would that actually look like? And
I really want this understood. What that would actually look
like is ICE agents or other Federal law enforcement going into
an immigrant family's home to forcibly remove that child and
put them back in Federal custody.
So, yes, I believe that has a very significant risk of
retraumatizing a child who's already been traumatized in many
cases by separation, and I stand behind the truth of what I
said in that declaration.
Mr. Peters. But you agree----
Mr. White. That's not how it's appeared in the papers, but
that's what I said.
Mr. Peters. But you do agree that we should try to
determine where children went, who they are separated from,
make sure their parents and guardians know where they are?
Mr. White. I think we are eager to comply, as we have thus
far, with whatever Judge Sabraw determines that we need to do.
And I think it's very important that people know the full
story. But I want to be clear, we will not have at our disposal
the same tools to identify children in care, nor will we have
the same capacity for children who are no longer in care. It's
just a completely different ball game.
Mr. Peters. All right. Thank you.
I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Massachusetts, who I am delighted to say will serve as the vice
chair of this subcommittee for the 116th Congress, Mr. Kennedy,
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kennedy. Well, thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank our witnesses here for your testimony and
for your service to our country.
A couple of points, right off the bat. One, I think if I am
hearing everybody correctly, Commander White, you indicated
that there was a policy put in place on a memo signed by the
Attorney General of the United States of America that directly
impacted individuals would be or should be in your care, and
you didn't know about it until it was announced on television.
And when asked, it was denied that that policy existed. Is that
right?
Mr. White. So, my questions about separation preceded the
policy announced, based on observations that we were seeing
above what we would expect to see in terms of the ordinary
separations for cause.
Mr. Kennedy. So, the second point, my colleagues have
pointed out how good a job a number of agencies are doing on
the border and trying to address this and a number of other
concerns, which they have gone to great lengths to explain that
this is being well addressed and well taken care of, which I do
hope that the lawyers from the White House are looking at that,
as they contemplate an emergency declaration for immigration,
for potential immigration moves, depending on what happens next
week.
Third, Commander, you had mentioned a number of folks who
raised concerns about what was taking place, but that that
didn't change. Do you have any idea why your concerns weren't
heeded?
Mr. White. I elevated to my leadership, my immediate
leadership, my concerns that separations were occurring, and
that if we saw larger-scale separations, it would exceed our
capacity, and additionally that separating children from family
units was inconsistent with the best interest of the child.
Mr. Kennedy. Understood, sir, and I apologize to cut you
off. You have been forthcoming. I just don't have that much
time.
You never got additional--but you well entered those
concerns, and were you ever told why they weren't going to do
anything about it?
Mr. White. I was told that family separation wasn't going
to happen. And I have no reason to doubt the veracity of their
statements. I think that's what the people who told me that
also believed.
Mr. Kennedy. I appreciate that.
There is testimony that is coming on the second panel that
indicates that children are still being separated from their
parents at the border. And while these reasons for separation
are not often clear, it is evident that separations are
occurring at elevated levels compared to past years. Ms. Abbott
I believe will testify to those words.
Ms. Maxwell, you testified to the fact that ORR has
continued to receive children who have been separated from a
parent or guardian. Do you know whether those separations are
still at an elevated level?
Ms. Maxwell. Indeed, the separations that have occurred
after the preliminary injunction are about twice the level as
they were in late 2016. It's still significantly less than the
peak that we saw in the summer of 2017, but the average is a
little less than 1 percent.
Mr. Kennedy. And, Commander, do you have any concern that
those separations are coming for anything other than good
cause, given the four strict limited categories of good cause
that you enumerated earlier?
Mr. White. So, we strive to identify the reasons for
separations. That is part of the information that we've added
to the portal. But, to answer your question, Congressman, there
is no specification in law from you all in Congress about the
permissible grounds for separating a child from a parent. And I
would submit that, if you want to see that, that's on you all.
Mr. Kennedy. I appreciate that, sir.
Moving from the children to the facilities, I visited a
number of them as well. I want to ask specifically, though,
about some reports that have come to my attention that the
Trump administration is working to house detained children on
land that was owned, or is owned, by the Department of Defense
that is not currently being used because it is contaminated
with toxic chemicals, including lead, arsenic, mercury, PFAS,
and perchlorate. Even for an administration that seems to go
out of its way to treat immigrants as less, this seems a new
low. We know that children are vulnerable for toxic waste and
that even low levels of exposure can result in permanent health
damage, as if, given the testimony that we've heard, these kids
have not already gone through enough.
So, Mr. White, can you detail for the committee any
discussions that HHS or ORR has had with DoD regarding the use
of the land that might contain toxic chemicals?
Mr. White. Thank you. We actually got your letter
yesterday, and you allude to two military installations. Let me
be clear. One of them is a military installation we did use in
2016 to shelter 8,800 children. That's Fort Bliss. As a
reminder, Fort Bliss is 1\1/2\ times the land area of the State
of Rhode Island.
We do not--I really want to be as clear as I can be about
this--we do not set up temporary influx shelters on sites that
pose an environmental health risk to children. In fact, we have
ruled out sites in the past specifically on that basis that
were otherwise suitable. We vet hundreds of potential sites
that sister agencies identify. The sites that you identify in
your letters are ones that had already been precluded by HHS.
We had already ruled them out before we even got to the
environmental health assessment because there were other things
that made them unsuitable.
Mr. Kennedy. And, sir, just briefly, because I am running
out of time here. I appreciate that feedback.
A facility in Homestead, Florida, was not required to
obtain State licensure because it is located on federally owned
property. That begs a question as to whether recent efforts to
identify more Federal property to house these children is in an
effort to circumvent some of those State licensing
requirements. Do you have any knowledge as to any effort to do
so?
Mr. White. So, I have worked on every single influx
sheltering mission in the history of this program. And I'll
tell you something that goes back. I would love it if they were
State-licensed. The life of every career person and every ORR
official who works on that would get tons easier. But the
reality is, it's not that we get around licensure, it's they're
licensure-exempt.
We are not appropriated with enough funds to maintain a
steady capacity that accounts for the real surges we see. So
there are times when we must use temporary influx facilities
because the alternative is border stations, and we've heard
conversations today about why border stations, although they
are absolutely suitable for law enforcement, are not suitable
for child welfare.
I am very proud of the work that I have done and my
colleagues have done in influx shelters and the way that we
maintain program standards under incredibly difficult time
situations with fluctuations in the numbers of children we get.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Kennedy. I appreciate it, sir. Thank you.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady from California, Ms. Barragan,
is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Barragan. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you all for being here today and, Commander, for
some of your responses.
I actually have visited an ORR facility down in San Diego
with several of my colleagues. So, one of my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle asked, what's a day in the life, you
know, what is it like, a day in the life? And let me tell you,
when I went to go visit this facility, and talking to some of
my other colleagues that have visited other facilities, what we
saw were children, children who were very quiet, children who
were not playing and happy and interactive like kids should be.
And what we saw was the impact of trauma that was happening,
kids that were crying for their parents, kids that wanted to be
with their parent.
And I heard an official say, ``Oh, the kids have it really
good here. They've got a bed. They can play.'' And one of them
even said, ``They have it better than my own kids do at home.''
And I was shocked. Well, your kids at home get to be with you.
And to indicate and to just even say that a child has it well
off here, when they are separated from their family, I think
just shows just a complete ignorance of the trauma that is felt
by these kids.
And we have heard report after report of kids being
reunited with their parents, feeling like they were abandoned
by them, not recognizing them, not wanting to go back to them.
I think it is so critical.
Now, I have introduced a bill, a mental health bill, to
making sure that we provide ongoing medical treatment for kids,
even after they have left these facilities, because I don't
think they are getting that care. And this trauma goes on for a
very long time.
Now, one of my questions was going to be about where can a
Member of Congress actually find a standard that is being used
to say that a parent is unfit and should be separated from
their child. But what I think I have just heard you say is,
there is no place a Member could look because there is no
standard, and that is upon us in Congress to do. Is that
correct?
Mr. White. So, it is a question for DHS, the criteria that
they use to effect separations for cause. But, to be clear,
there is nothing in law which either precludes arbitrary
separation or defines the terms for separations. Neither is
there anything in law that gives us in the ORR program the
authority to say that child is not separated after all and
refuse a placement.
Ms. Barragan. And equally speaking, there is no process for
a parent to actually say, ``Well, that's not true'' or to
appeal a finding that they should be separated from their
child. Is that correct?
Mr. White. So, there is no process.
Ms. Barragan. OK. Thank you.
One of the other mind-boggling parts of this whole aspect
on this separation has been on how difficult it has been for
the administration to reunite families and the lack of a
tracking system. I read the January 17th, 2019, HHS OIG report.
And from my reading of it, it says--the report is still not
clear that ORR, HHS, and DHS can track separated families
across agencies even today. Is that true, Ms. Maxwell?
Ms. Maxwell. Yes. Both agencies have stated they've made
improvements to their tracking systems. We do have ongoing
concerns with the quality of the data being input into those
systems. As I mentioned, current separations, information about
them is being sent to ORR, but not always at the level of
specificity and sometimes even limited information as to the
reason of the separation. For example, while most of them are
separated and the indication is for criminal history, we did
note that some separations were, the reason given was
immigration offense only. And some reasons were just given as
``other.''
So, given that lack of transparency about the reasons for
current separations, we made a referral to the DHS OIG to look
into this, because we think the quality of the information in
those systems is as critical as having those systems.
Ms. Barragan. So, Ms. Larin, maybe you can also chime in
here. What needs to happen so that we can make sure that these
data systems have the proper information-sharing and that
vulnerabilities could be addressed?
Ms. Larin. As I mentioned in my testimony, both agencies
have made changes to their systems. Prior to the court order,
neither one of them had a way to consistently indicate whether
a child had been separated. Now each of them have a checkbox.
But, initially, it was not clear that data was consistently
being shared between the agencies. So, we have not assessed
since then whether the systems are working to identify every
child who's been separated.
Ms. Barragan. OK. And then, Commander, when my colleague
from Oklahoma was asking the question about how long
separations have been going on, I think you tried to at least
explain that they were not going on like this prior to the
zero-tolerance policy. Would that be accurate?
Mr. White. There have always been separations for cause
throughout the history of the program. That is different from
wholesale separation.
Ms. Barragan. Commander, I am already over my time. There
has been a change, hasn't there been?
Mr. White. There has been a change. That's why we're
talking.
Ms. Barragan. Yes. So, just so everybody knows, I sit on
Homeland Security as well. Secretary Nielsen came in, said
there was no separation policy. She's lied before. But, then,
of course, she starts mincing words, and when you really find
out what is happening, it is they started prosecuting parents
and that resulted in the separation of children. So, it is this
administration's zero-tolerance policy. It is this
administration that started this from happening, was trying to
hide it. And now Congress is trying to make sure we provide
that oversight, and we will continue to do so.
I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady yields back. The gentleman from
Florida, Mr. Soto, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Soto. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
So, as far as I could tell, the timeline, we saw a
Draconian immigrant family separation order come down without
prior planning, coordination, or advice, from the White House,
leading to absolute chaos. And for that, I am sympathetic to
those of you who had to implement that, because you weren't
given any advice on that.
And we saw a population of separated children skyrocket. My
colleague Mr. Kennedy mentioned the Homestead facility that I
had the unfortunate honor of having to go to, after being
blocked initially from being able to go. And there at the
Homestead facility, the second largest that we had, 1,179
teenagers were at this facility made for 500. And that was the
first clear point for me that there was no preparation for
this, much to do with the fact that the White House didn't give
anybody advance notice and just threw it out there.
The bottlenecking of these kids was caused by several
policies like zero tolerance, but another one was the
fingerprinting of entire adult members in the household that
was an HHS decision in the Tornillo influx care facility and in
other facilities.
Commander White, did HHS implement the extra vetting
process in 2018 to include all members of the household, in
addition to parents or potential sponsors? Yes or no, because
we will go into----
Mr. White. I apologize. Could you say--I had a hard--I
didn't actually hear you. I'm sorry.
Mr. Soto. Did HHS implement extra vetting processes in June
2018 to include all members of the household, in addition to
the parents or potential sponsors?
Mr. White. We expanded our biometric background check in
2018, and subsequently we had a change in operational policy to
waive some of those requirements again. We have been
iteratively changing our review process in response to
oversight from Congress, as well as our own lessons learned,
since 2014.
Mr. Soto. And, Commander, we will get into some of those
things. Did HHS consider this new policy would affect the
increase of the number of children under ORR's care and whether
you all had the resources to meet those needs at that time when
you implemented that additional fingerprinting?
Mr. White. The two main variables that drive the number of
kids in care at any time are the number referred each day on
average and the number discharged each day on average. So,
among the variables that we looked at in modeling scenarios was
a continued decline in discharge rate that did occur.
Mr. Soto. And then we saw later HHS announce that it would
no longer require the additional vetting, determining, quote,
``Additional steps required to fingerprint all household
members has had an impact on timely release of UAC without
demonstrating benefit to the safety of children after they're
released from ORR care.'' And we saw HHS Assistant Secretary
Johnson state that adding anything to the protection or safety
for these kids through the extra vetting was accomplished
without those means.
Going into sort of our next question, within a month of the
actual vetting policy reversal, the last of the children held
at the Tornillo influx care facility were gone. Did HHS conduct
an analysis of this fingerprinting policy prior to or after its
implementation?
Mr. White. So, both. So the right way of understanding this
is that we iteratively are constantly looking at our release
processes for safe and timely discharge. And I want to be clear
with you, Congressman. Safe discharge and timely discharge have
some friction between them.
Mr. Soto. Sure.
Mr. White. The safer you make a review process for a
sponsor, the longer the average length of care. Our motivations
were to increase child safety. That particular operational
change, after we were able to see how it rolled out in
practice, it burdened discharge rate more than it benefitted
safety, and that is why Assistant Secretary Johnson made the
announcement that she did. We continue to strive, and will
continue to strive, to make changes as we need to, to find the
optimal ratio between safety and timeliness in discharge.
Mr. Soto. So, given the fact that it caused more of a delay
than actually kept children safe and led to more mushrooming of
the population, you all determined ultimately it wasn't in the
best interest of the child to do that?
Mr. White. That's right. All of our decisions in the ORR
program must be guided by the best interest of the child, but
they're also bounded by the appropriated resources we receive.
Mr. Soto. Thank you.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman yields back. I have extended the
courtesy to the ranking member for an additional around of
questioning.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you very much.
And, Commander White, it was mentioned that you had
unaccompanied children at Fort Bliss, ORR had at Fort Bliss. I
understand Fort Bliss is a massive place. I am sure you didn't
put them in the parts of Fort Bliss that they don't belong. But
you also said that was 2016?
Mr. White. Correct. We----
Mr. Guthrie. I want you to verify that was 2016.
Mr. White. We operated a temporary influx shelter in 2016
at the Dona Ana Range Complex on Fort Bliss. We sheltered
nearly 9,000 children there. And because of that, we were also
able to safely evacuate children out of the path of a hurricane
from Florida and to prevent a backup in the border stations. I
am proud of what we did at Fort Bliss. I'm proud of what we did
over two administrations in every one of our influx missions.
Mr. Guthrie. OK. And that was previous to President Trump's
administration?
Mr. White. Yes, sir.
Mr. Guthrie. I just want to ask this question, and then I
will finish up because I know we have got another panel coming.
But just kind of putting where we are now is where I am
getting at. So, has ORR's accounting and tracking of children--
separated children--changed since the zero-tolerance policy?
Are you receiving the proper information from DHS to properly
have the information you need about children that are
separated, not unaccompanied, but separated for cause? And if
not, what can Congress do--or, overall, let me finish--what can
Congress do to make your job more effective?
Mr. White. So, we have added--essentially, it's a box in
the referral, the electronic referral system, that DHS
personnel use and CBP personnel use to refer a child into ORR
care, for the referring agency to indicate if this child has
been separated and, if so, the circumstances of the separation,
right. So, that is an improvement we've made electronically.
We, additionally, have added more robust procedures in our
own intakes process to identify and notify up if there are
minors that the program that's providing care to the child
believes are separated, so that we can more comprehensively
track them.
In terms of what Congress can do, it is reasonable to
believe that, if there was clear legislative guidance about
when a child may be separated from a parent, that would ease
the work of both Departments, both our colleagues at DHS who
are striving honorably to execute their requirements and us.
Additionally, many problems would be prevented if ORR shared
with DHS the power to determine who is unaccompanied. As a
reminder, we accept all the children who are referred to us. A
lot of things might be different if that power were equally
shared between the two agencies. That's what Congress could do
for us.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Mr. White. That is only my opinion.
Mr. Guthrie. I appreciate that.
And I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you. And Mr. Cardenas from California
has come in. So, I will recognize him for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cardenas. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman, and
thank you for giving us, the legislative body, an opportunity
to shed some light in full view of the American people and the
world on how to get down to the bottom of what has been going
on with the--I personally consider it an atrocity that any
country would wholesale take action, intended action, of
separating babies, children from their parents.
I haven't heard of anybody in the psychological field that
has said anything other than that is probably the worst thing
that a person, that a society or any individual can do to a
young brain, is to give them that experience of that trauma. I
have not heard any of them say anything other than that trauma
lasts a lifetime. Not only does it have a mental effect on that
human being for a lifetime, it actually translates into
negative physical effects as well.
So, that having been said, it is alarming to me that
earlier, I think it was you, Commander White, was quoted as
making a statement along the lines that perhaps you are not
even going to be able to reunite all of the children in custody
today with their appropriate parents. My point on that is, if
in fact that is what you were willing to admit, I thank you for
that admission because, until that moment, we were given
stories from the administration and from various departments
that everything is going to be OK at the end of day, it is not
that bad, all the children are going to be just fine.
And nothing could be further from the truth. No offense.
Once a child has been traumatized like that, it is never going
to be just fine after that fact.
I just want to remind us that the ability of not being able
to return every single child to their rightful families
eventually, and for us to do anything less than everything that
we can do to make that right with that child and their family--
anything less than that would be like we are treating them like
sweaters left behind in a lost and found. These are human
beings. They might not be American human beings, but they are
human beings.
With that, I would like to ask some questions. Commander
White, with the reports of children crying themselves to sleep
at the ORR facilities, did HHS provide any advice or training
to CBP on how to minimize trauma for these separated family
members, particularly the children?
Mr. White. So that's something we'd have to get back to you
on. I do not know if there was any interagency discussion. HHS
is a big agency. I did not myself provide any technical
assistance to an interagency, but that is a question we'd need
to get back to you on.
Mr. Cardenas. OK. If you can provide that to the committee,
that would be very important for us to know the answer.
And again, Commander White, I am not here to beat you up. I
am actually here to compliment you, because everything that I
have heard about your comments have been pretty darn forthright
and just straightforward with trying to paint a truthful
picture about what happened and what has been going on.
I apologize, I am having a hard time even asking some of
these questions because it is just so startling that in the
greatest country in the world we actually participated in this,
in separating thousands upon thousands of children.
But at what point in time was your Department made aware
that there was going to be an increase, a drastic increase, an
influx of children that would have to end up in your custody?
Mr. White. I am not aware of any HHS--I have no personal
knowledge of any HHS person being advised of ZTP, zero-
tolerance policy, prior to its public announcement.
Mr. Cardenas. Because my time is short, thank you.
Did you personally inquire or did you discuss with any of
your colleagues at your level, above or below, if they were
inquiring to ask if anybody else has heard, or at least----
Mr. White. Because----
Mr. Cardenas. Maybe they were inquiring, but they weren't
getting any answers?
Mr. White. Because in many interagency meetings it was
clear to me that there were--that the possibility existed that
separation was going to happen, indeed, that preparation for
that policy possibility was underway, as I've testified
previously, I did elevate those concerns to my own immediate
leadership.
Mr. Cardenas. But, as far as you know, no direct answers
were given, based on the question I just asked earlier?
Mr. White. Again, to my knowledge, no one in HHS knew the
zero-tolerance policy. I have never heard an HHS person say to
me, ``Yes, I knew the zero-tolerance policy was going to
happen.''
Mr. Cardenas. Thank you for your frankness, Commander
White.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from
Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thanks for the
hearing.
Thanks to our panelists.
Ms. Larin, your inquiry in terms of the GAO's review of all
this, was that confined to looking at what was happening in ORR
or was it broader than that, looking at the other agencies and
how they touched this issue of the zero-tolerance policy?
Ms. Larin. We looked at planning both by HHS and by DHS.
Mr. Sarbanes. DHS? Good.
Ms. Larin. Or the lack of planning.
Mr. Sarbanes. OK. So, I was fascinated when you gave your
initial testimony, because you seemed to be describing a
situation in which the official policy of the administration
was that there would be no family separation, but the
unofficial policy, going back to 2017, was that there would be
a family separation, which obviously puts the professionals who
are trying to do their job well in an incredibly difficult
position. They sit in meetings having to interpret coded
language or winks and nods, as in our official policy is not to
separate families, but, in effect, on the down-low this is what
we are really up to. Terribly disrespectful of people who are
trying to do the right thing, as I believe, Commander White,
you have indicated you were trying to do at every step along
the way, and having to tolerate the kind of atmospheric
conditions that seemed to be happening in these meetings and
gatherings, where you are trying to pull information to allow
you to do the right thing.
So, Ms. Larin, I would just like you to expand a little bit
on that disconnect. I mean, I have seen the Trump
administration issue kind of shoot-from-the-hip policy
directives that get carried on cable television before people
in the agencies that have to own those directives even know
about it through a combination of incompetence sometimes or
other motivations. But this is an interesting case, because
this is one where the powers that be seemed to know what they
were up to, and they were saying officially, ``We're not doing
any of that stuff. There's no zero-tolerance policy. There's no
policy of separating families,'' but actually that is what we
are doing.
Describe that disconnect to me because you touched on it in
your initial comments, and I think it is very telling as to the
difficult position that so many people, just trying to do their
job and trying to protect the interests of these families and
children, were placed in as a result.
Ms. Larin. So I noted in my testimony that there was an
increase in separated children, children who were separated
from their parents, between 2016 and 2017. And we were told
that there were two different policies that potentially led to
that increase. One of those was a memo by the Attorney General
that was issued in April 2017, so a year before the April 2018
memo, that prioritized enforcement of certain immigration-
related offenses. And there was also an initiative that was
specific to the El Paso Border Patrol sector, which, again,
increased referrals and prosecutions of immigration-related
offenses, including parents of minor children, and that likely
resulted in separations. So there were policies that were being
implemented that could have led to that increase.
Mr. Sarbanes. What is interesting about that is it almost
sounds like the administration was finding ways to test this
out before they moved into a more official posture on it. One
would have thought, based on some of the ripple effects, that
those more localized or targeted deployment of this policy
would have demonstrated that they would have come back
realizing that that was a terrible direction in which to go.
But apparently the lesson they drew from it was that they
should expand the policy more broadly, with the disastrous and
tragic impacts that it has had for these children.
And I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman yields back.
I just have a couple of final questions for the panel.
Commander, I think you had said, for the children separated
before the April order, that it would be very difficult for HHS
to now figure out where those kids went because most of them
were released into custody, into their parents or whoever,
right? Is that right?
Mr. White. The important timeframe is not when they were
separated. It's whether they had already been discharged from
ORR by the 26th of June. When we looked at the direction of the
court in Ms. L, every child, every single child who was in
care, there was no start date.
Ms. DeGette. Right. OK.
Mr. White. The earliest separation of any kid on that list
was separated in 2014. We went back as far as they went.
Ms. DeGette. But the court order said you had to identify
children after the time of the order. Is that right?
Mr. White. There was no start date from when they were
separated. What mattered for the order was whether they were in
care on or after the 26th of June.
Ms. DeGette. I see. So, what you are saying today is--and
you painted this Draconian picture of if ICE went back into
these homes and took these kids. I don't think anybody is
suggesting that that is what we should do. But, if we were
going to identify what Ms. Maxwell talked about, the potential
thousands of kids who might have been separated--we don't
know--it would probably take another court order to do that
because of the interagency operations. Is that what you are
saying today?
Mr. White. I'm saying that I don't believe that we're
capacitated to do--from July of 2017 until the court date, more
than 47,000 children moved out of our door.
Ms. DeGette. Right. Yes, but----
Mr. White. The best way to get that would be to pose this
question to the Department of Homeland Security because, as a
reminder, HHS separated zero children.
Ms. DeGette. Right. I understand.
Mr. White. We weren't there when it happened.
Ms. DeGette. Believe you me, I understand that. But,
however--and you don't really have to answer this--but HHS said
they couldn't identify those children before, and the court
said to do it. So, we are going to hear from our next panel
about what they want to do, but this is what we are concerned
about, is these thousands of kids that the IG has identified
that may or may not be with family members now. So, we will
have to explore this further.
There is one other thing. You had mentioned to
Congresswoman Castor a memo that you wrote in 2017. Is that
right?
Mr. White. I apologize, the Castor memo?
Ms. DeGette. No, you had told Ms. Castor you wrote a memo
in 2017 to your supervisors.
Mr. White. Yes, I wrote at least multiple memos.
Ms. DeGette. OK. So, this is really more a message for your
Department, and not for you. But, on January 18th, 2019, Mr.
Pallone and I sent a letter to the Secretary asking for a
number of documents. That would have been included in those
documents. While we have received some documents in this
committee, we did not receive that document or many other
relevant documents. And so, I am asking you to please
communicate to the Department that they do need to comply with
this document request.
And I would ask unanimous consent to put our January 18th
letter into the record. Without objection, so ordered.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. White. And I know HHS is going to fully honor your
request, and I've talked to folks. They're working very hard on
going through that number of documents.
Ms. DeGette. OK.
Mr. White. That will happen.
Ms. DeGette. And the last thing I will say is we really do
value the efforts that you have made, but we intend to continue
this investigation because many of the questions the Members
have asked are questions you can't answer because these
conversations took place above you.
And I also want to thank all of the other witnesses for
participating in this hearing and for your thorough
investigations.
Members will submit questions for the record. And I ask
that the witnesses respond promptly to the questions.
And with that, the subcommittee will dismiss panel 1.
After the next panel has been set, we will invite them to
the table.
[Recess.]
Ms. DeGette. The Chair will announce, because people have
asked, we are expecting a series of votes between 1:30 and 2
o'clock. And so, we are going to start with testimony from the
second panel, and then, we will break when we go for votes. So
that if people need to use the restroom or grab a quick bite,
they can do that. And then, we will reconvene 15 minutes after
the vote ends.
I would now like to introduce our second panel. I don't
know where Mr. Gelernt is. He is on his way.
Mr. Lee Gelernt, who is the deputy director of the
Immigrants' Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties
Union, will be joining us.
Ms. Jennifer Podkul, who is the senior director of policy
and advocacy of Kids in Need of Defense.
Welcome, Mr. Gelernt.
Dr. Julie Linton, who is the cochair of Immigrant Health
Special Interest Group of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Dr. Cristina Muniz de la Pena, who is the Terra Firma
mental health director of the Center for Child Health and
Resiliency, who is here on behalf of the American Psychological
Society.
Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Professor of Child Health and
Development and Professor of Pediatrics, of Harvard Medical
School.
And Ms. Dona Abbott, the vice president of refugee and
immigrant services of Bethany Christian Services.
Ms. Abbott, I am sorry we don't have a name tag yet for
you, but we are printing one off. These are the glitches when
you have your first committee hearing of the year.
I know all the witnesses are aware we are holding an
investigative hearing, and when doing so, we have the practice
of taking testimony under oath. Does anyone have any objections
to testifying under oath?
Let the record reflect that the witnesses have responded
no.
The Chair advises you, then, that under the rules of the
House and rules of the committee, you are entitled to be
accompanied by counsel. Do you desire to be accompanied by
counsel during your testimony today?
Let the record reflect that the witnesses have responded
no.
If you would, then, please rise and raise your right hand,
so that you may be sworn in.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Ms. DeGette. Please be seated.
Let the record reflect that the witnesses have responded
affirmatively, and you are now under oath and subject to the
penalties set forth in Title 18, Section 1001, of the Criminal
Code.
The Chair will now recognize the witnesses for a 5-minute
summary of their written statements.
There is a microphone and series of lights in front of you.
It turns yellow when you have a minute left and red to indicate
your time has come to an end.
Mr. Gelernt, you are now recognized for 5 minutes, and
thank you for being with us.
STATEMENTS OF LEE GELERNT, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, IMMIGRANTS' RIGHTS
PROJECT, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION; JENNIFER PODKUL,
SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR POLICY AND ADVOCACY, KIDS IN NEED OF
DEFENSE; JULIE M. LINTON, M.D., COCHAIR, IMMIGRANT HEALTH
SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS;
CRISTINA MUNIZ de la PENA, PH.D., TERRA FIRMA MENTAL HEALTH
DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR CHILD HEALTH AND RESILIENCY, ON BEHALF OF
THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION; DONA ABBOTT, VICE
PRESIDENT OF REFUGEE AND IMMIGRANT SERVICES, BETHANY CHRISTIAN
SERVICES; AND JACK P. SHONKOFF, M.D., DIRECTOR, CENTER ON THE
DEVELOPING CHILD AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
STATEMENT OF LEE GELERNT
Mr. Gelernt. Thank you, Chair DeGette, Ranking Member
Guthrie, and the rest of the Members. I apologize I was late.
I am the lead ACLU lawyer in the family separation lawsuit.
So, I'm going to talk a little bit from that background, talk a
little about the lawsuit, where we are, what I think needs to
happen.
I've been working at the ACLU for more than 25 years doing
civil rights work in the immigration area. And I feel confident
in saying that the family separation practice is the worst
thing I have seen in my 25-plus years. No other administration
has done anything like this family separation policy. I think
the prior panel made it clear that it was very limited in the
past, it was for cause. It was not this widespread systemic
family separation. And I think, worse still, family separations
are still occurring, as the prior panel mentioned.
We filed our lawsuit in March of 2018, and this is before
zero-tolerance policy. And at that point, we alleged, based on
talking to lots of people all over the country, that there were
hundreds of separations. By the time I stood up in court in the
beginning of May, the media had recorded roughly 700
separations. I think it now is clear that there may have been
many more, but this is even before the zero-tolerance policy.
And when the court ruled on June 26th, the Government
reported that there were 2,700 separations. Those 2,700 are
not, obviously, the whole story, as this committee has talked
about previously with the prior panel. The Government's
response now to the HHS report doesn't dispute that there may
have been thousands more kids separated and released from ORR
before the June 26th date of the court's order.
What I find remarkable is that HHS is saying it may not be
worthwhile and just too hard to actually try and find where all
these children are and where the parents are, and that it is
remarkable that HHS is saying it may be in the child's best
interest not to do so.
And Commander White mentioned that it would not be great
for ICE to now be showing up at all these children's houses.
And I'd like to talk about this more, hopefully during the
questions, but we see no reason why that would have to be how
it would be done. The information could be provided to social
workers, to us, just as it has in the past, and we could find
out what the family wants to do. But to say in the United
States it's not worth finding children the Government separated
seems to us to be an untenable position.
At a minimum, I think we need to find out the full scope of
the problem. And I think that the Government really needs to
participate in that process. I think one of the things that the
committee knows is that there were roughly 400 parents that we
know of who were deported without their kids, and at one point
the Government stood up in court and said, ``Well, if the ACLU
wants to find those parents, let them find them.'' Ultimately,
Judge Sabraw put his food down and said no, the Government has
to help the ACLU. But I think going forward, that's a lot of
time and resources. We're happy to do it, but we certainly need
the participation of HHS to help us and for the rest of the
agencies.
Let me just sort of conclude by stating five points that I
think are critical going forward.
First, as I said, we think the committee should ensure that
HHS accounts for these thousands of kids talked about in the
report to see how many there are, where they are, and what
needs to happen.
The second point is that we think it's critical going
forward that there be proper procedures put in place and proper
processes going forward, so separations do not occur based
solely on a unilateral determination by an untrained CBP
officer at the border.
Third, in the extremely limited situation where separations
do occur going forward, it's absolutely critical, as the prior
panel pointed out, to have an integrated database that allows
tracking quickly. And Judge Sabraw was shocked, truthfully,
about how bad the tracking system was. He called the
separations brutal and offensive, but then, on top of that, he
said he was really startled by the lack of any kind of tracking
system. And I don't think one is in place at this point.
Fourth, there were many parents deported without their
children who were misled or coerced into giving up their own
asylum rights. We believe that those parents, if they have
legitimate asylum claims and were coerced or misled into
leaving without their children, ought to be given a fair
opportunity to have an asylum hearing. And some of those
parents got on the plane, were told their children will be on
the plane with them, only to have the plane take off, and now
they're stuck in Central America and their children are here.
Finally, we believe strongly that funds should be allocated
for the families that were separated to assist them with
obtaining medical and other types of assistance. As was pointed
out in the prior panel, and I think is going to be strongly
reinforced by the doctors on the panel, these children are
suffering real trauma and harm, and they need assistance.
I'd just conclude by saying, when I met with one of our
plaintiffs, the mother who had had a 4- and 10-year-old child
taken from her for months, and what she said when they came
back was that the 4-year-old still asks her, ``Are they going
to come and take me away again in the middle of the night?''
And I think that's what's going on with these children. Any
sense of stability has been shattered, and without real medical
assistance, I think it's going to be very difficult for them to
recover.
I'll stop there. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gelernt follows:]
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Ms. DeGette. Thank you, Mr. Gelernt.
Ms. Podkul?
STATEMENT OF JENNIFER PODKUL
Ms. Podkul. Thank you, Chairwoman DeGette, Ranking Member
Guthrie, and members of the subcommittee.
I'm very grateful for your invitation today. I'm here to
represent Kids in Need of Defense, a national organization
dedicated to promoting the rights of child migrants and
ensuring every child has access to high-quality legal
representation.
Traditionally, KIND has only represented children who
arrive in the United States unaccompanied, meaning without a
parent or a legal guardian. However, last summer during the
family separation crisis, we expanded our services to serve the
separated children and families.
The majority of children that we serve come from El
Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. These children have fled
their countries out of a desperate need for protection. Extreme
violence and threats to their lives and safety leave them with
no choice but to flee. Children are telling us that they're
embarking on what they know will be a dangerous journey. As one
11-year-old told me who I interviewed, he said, ``If I stayed
in my country, I would die. If I took the journey, I might die.
So, I had to take the chance.''
Because of these levels of fear and desperation, any
policies designed to deter future asylum seekers from asking
for protection will be unsuccessful. You can't deter away a
refugee crisis.
Unfortunately, what we saw this administration do last
summer was an attempt at deterrence, but in the most cruel way
imaginable. Once the systematic separations began taking place,
KIND sent emergency teams of lawyers to serve these families.
Their stories were heartbreaking.
There is an 8-year-old boy who's separated from his father,
and he was put on an airplane to an ORR facility over 2,000
miles away. The DOJ officer told him he would see his father
when he got there. That was not true.
There is a 7-year-old who is highly traumatized by being
separated from her father. And when the KIND attorneys went to
go meet with her in a shelter, they could not even begin to
discuss her legal case. She couldn't even answer questions. She
was just sobbing during that entire meeting.
There is a mother who is separated from all four of her
children. And when she was finally waiting the return of her
youngest, she was given the wrong baby.
Our attorneys heard several hundreds of these kinds of
stories. We were serving younger children than we had ever
before. As attorneys, we're obligated to represent a client's
express wishes. Yet, some of these children couldn't even talk.
While some of the children have legal claims that are
distinct from their parents', many children's cases are
dependent on their parents' claim. But because there is no
system in place to track the separated children and their
parents, our attorneys didn't even know which children had been
separated, let alone how to find the parents.
We must demand accountability for what happened last
summer, but we must also focus on the separations that are
continuing to take place and address the systematic
shortcomings that are still harming children. Although the law
allows DHS to separate a child from their parent if there is
ever a risk to the child's safety, there are no standards for
how that decision should be made. In order to reduce
unnecessary traumas, we need to have answers to these six
questions:
One, who is doing the screening to evaluate the rare
instance in which a child should be separated?
Two, what specialized training does that screener have to
make a decision with such grave consequences?
Three, what standards are they using to make that decision?
Four, who reviews that decision?
Five, how can a decision be challenged if there's a concern
that the separation was not necessary?
And six, what tracking systems are in place to ensure
communication and future reunification in the event that a
separation must occur?
We need answers to these questions immediately. Congress
gave the care and custody of unaccompanied children to Health
and Human Services because of their expertise in child welfare
issues. HHS should help DHS develop standards for screening and
make sure that a trained child welfare professional is doing
that screening to ensure that it only happens when it's
absolutely necessary. When DHS sends a child to HHS, HHS must
demand that DHS provide complete information about that child,
and then, HHS must always provide that information to the
child's attorney or advocate.
What happened to children under the family separation
policy must never happen again. Intentionally harming children
is not who we are as a country, and we must act now to ensure
that we are protecting any child that comes to us asking for
help.
Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Podkul follows:]
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Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Dr. Linton, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JULIE M. LINTON
Dr. Linton. Chairwoman DeGette, Ranking Member Guthrie, and
members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to speak here today.
I'm Dr. Julie Linton, a practicing pediatrician in
Greenville, South Carolina, where my clinical work is focused
on the care of children in immigrant families. I'm the cochair
of the American Academy of Pediatrics Immigrant Health Special
Interest Group. On behalf of the American Academy of
Pediatrics, or the AAP, and our 67,000 members, thank you for
holding today's hearing.
The AAP is nonpartisan and pro-children. Pediatricians care
about the health and well-being of children, all children, no
matter where they or their parent was born. As pediatricians,
we know that children do best when they are together with their
families. After reading media reports in March of 2017 that the
Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, was considering a
policy that would separate immigrant mothers from their
children upon arriving at the U.S. border, we immediately spoke
out against this proposed policy.
We, subsequently, wrote to DHS six times to urge the agency
to reject such a policy. The AAP also issued roughly half a
dozen statements about why family separation devastates the
most basic human relationship we know, that of parent and
child. The AAP has repeatedly said that separating children
from their parents contradicts everything we stand for as
pediatricians, protecting and promoting children's health.
Today, I will underscore the health effects of separation,
both what we know from the scientific literature and what I
know from caring for patients. Prolonged exposure to highly
stressful situations, known as toxic stress, can disrupt a
child's brain architecture and adversely impact short- and
long-term health. A critical role of a parent or known
caregiver is to buffer this stress. Separation from a parent
robs children of that buffer.
Separated children can face immediate health problems,
including physical symptoms like headaches and abdominal pain;
changes in bodily functions such as eating, sleeping, and
toileting; behavioral problems like anger, irritability, and
aggression; and difficulty with learning and memory. Children
who have been separated may also experience feelings of
mistrust and bereavement, guilt, or shame. In the long term,
children who have been separated may be susceptible to chronic
conditions such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder,
diabetes, or heart disease.
I have seen the impact of family separation with my own
eyes. In June of 2018, I cared for an 8-year-old boy that I
will never forget. This boy and his pregnant mother fled
violence and direct personal threats in Central America.
Realizing that the zero-tolerance policy was at that time in
effect, I specifically and gently asked the boy and his mother
if they had been separated at the border. With my question, a
chilling silence arose. They both became tearful and their
angst was palpable. The boy shook and his mother shuttered
whispering, ``Seven days.'' For seven days, this boy and his
pregnant mother did not know about the other's location or
safety.
This separation was shorter than many children harmed by
the zero-tolerance policy, but he still suffered the
consequences. He could no longer sleep through the night. He
had trouble being away from his mother for even a short period
of time. And his mother reported he was a shell of his previous
self.
Children are not little adults. To untrained eyes, they can
appear quite healthy, even when their systems begin to shut
down. Tragically, this was the case for Jakelin and Felipe
while in the custody of Customs and Border Protection in
December.
We urge our Federal agencies to apply a child-focused lens
when considering policies that could have an impact on child
health. The AAP remains committed to working with Federal
agencies to offer our expertise as medical providers for
children in order to protect and promote child well-being.
Additionally, children should not be placed in unlicensed
facilities, whether they are run by HHS or DHS. The findings of
the HHS Office of Inspector General about Tornillo and family
separation are troubling. We urge all relevant Federal agencies
to address these findings.
It is critical that all reunified children receive
appropriate medical care in the community to help them recover
from the traumatic experience of separation from their
families. Children and families who have faced trauma, with
trauma-informed approaches and community support, can begin to
heal. As a pediatrician, I know that, first and foremost, we
must treat all immigrant children and families seeking safety
in the U.S. with dignity, compassion, and respect.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Linton follows:]
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Ms. DeGette. Thank you, Doctor.
Now, Dr. Muniz de la Pena, recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF CRISTINA MUNIZ de la PENA
Dr. Muniz de la Pena. Thank you for the opportunity to
share my thoughts before the subcommittee related to the
adverse health impact of family separation at the border.
I'm Cristina Muniz de la Pena, licensed psychologist and
director of mental health services at Terra Firma Immigrant
Youth Clinic in New York City. I'm speaking today, also, on
behalf of the American Psychological Association, or the APA.
Terra Firma is a program designed to serve unaccompanied
immigrant children and families since 2013. Over the past six
months, however, Terra Firma has received increased requests
for mental health services from foster care agencies and
immigration attorneys caring for these children, as well as
from the parents themselves who had been reunited with their
children and are still struggling with the aftermath.
My thoughts are drawn both from kids' examples from my
therapeutic work with these children and from research
findings. The traumatic impact of the separation of children in
the border involves at least two different types of trauma. One
is the acute trauma of the insensitive manner the separations
were performed, and the other is the trauma from the length of
the separation. The level of impact of these vary depending on
crucial factors, such as the child's age and gender,
developmental level, the level of harshness of the separation,
the length of the separation, the degree to which the child had
communication with the parent during the separation, and the
degree to which the child was informed and predictability was
offered during the separation.
Ample research tells us that unwanted and unexpected
separation from parents may have severe consequences in a
child's developmental processes and psychosocial functioning.
When separated from their parents, high levels of anxiety and
distress occur which impair the developmental trajectories in
otherwise healthy children. The following two examples
illustrates some of the adverse circumstances and outcomes of
parent-child separations.
The youngest child seen in our program was a 2-year-old
Honduran boy who had been separated from his mother while
asleep and was kept away from her for 2 months. The mother had
been told to leave the detention cell, and when she asked to
wake her son up to take him with her, the officers told her to
not bother because she was going to be right back. After 2
months of helpless wait, the mother was reunited with her son
in New York. She came to our program asking for help, concerned
about the then-3-year-old son and anxiety of separation and
persistence of hypervigilance. During the sessions, the boy
clung to his mother with fearful demeanor and had great
difficulty relaxing and letting go to initiate the normal
exploring behavior of a child his age.
Another 4-year-old Salvadorian boy I evaluated, who
appeared highly pleasant, engaged, and animated at first, would
suddenly turn quiet, stare off, and become emotionally flat
following each question about his father and the separation.
During these episodes, the child appeared to struggle to return
his attention to the present moment and reengage in
conversation and play. These are clear symptoms of
disassociation from the trauma of being snatched from his
father without any explanation or opportunity to say goodbye.
Research shows that the longer parents and children are
separated, the greater the reported symptoms of anxiety and
depression. According to the APA's Presidential Task Force on
Immigration, sustained parental separation also predicts
ongoing difficulty trusting adults and institutions, as well as
reduced educational attainment.
Attachment is the emotional bond that typically forms
between infant and caregiver. In lay terms, attachment, love,
and protection from a parent is to a child's mental health what
water, oxygen, and food are for physical health. It is the
means by which helpless infants get their primary needs met. It
is also the needed platform of safety and comfort that allows
for a child to explore, learn, and develop.
As an example, the mother of the 2-year-old described
earlier expressed feelings of profound anxiety and depression
because she was terrified of connecting emotionally with her
son, then being detained, causing him a second trauma of
separation. As a result, she found herself keeping her
emotional distance to protect her child from a second trauma of
separation. And therefore she was unable to provide the
emotional safety and nurturing necessary for her son to feel
safe, venture into the world, and develop.
In sum, from my observations and well-documented research
findings, attachment with a main caretaker must be protected
and preserved. Meaningful access to trauma-informed mental
healthcare is critical to ensure that both adult and child
survivors of separation trauma heal.
I would urge this committee to consider the serious mental
health impact of parent-child separation on both children and
parents, and put an end to the practice of family separation
and help to ensure that immigrant children and their parents
reunite and receive needed mental healthcare.
Chairwoman, I would ask that the letter that the APA wrote
to the President in June about family separation be included in
the record.
And I will be pleased to answer any questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Muniz de la Pena follows:]
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Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Now, Ms. Abbott, I am pleased to recognize you for 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF DONA ABBOTT
Ms. Abbott. Chair DeGette, Ranking Member Guthrie, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to
appear before the committee today, so that I may share the
impact that family separation had on the children Bethany
serves and to propose solutions, so that we as a nation may
better care for children and their families who are seeking
refuge. My hope is that the protection and care of children
evokes a bipartisan response.
Bethany partners with the Office of Refuge Resettlement as
well as Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services and the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops to meet the need of
unaccompanied children. These children have fled from
dictators, gang violence, sex and labor trafficking,
starvation, and countries with the highest murder rates in the
world. ORR does a good job of ensuring that children in
transitional foster care have access to the services they need,
including a safe temporary foster home, education, medical
care, case management, mental health services, legal screening,
and postrelease services.
As soon as children enter our care, we immediately begin
the process of locating their families. Since 2013, Bethany has
directly reunified more than 2,000 unaccompanied children with
sponsors. Our mission always has been, and always will be, to
quickly and safely reunify children with their families.
During the implementation of the family separation policy,
Bethany provided care for 108 separated children. Bethany staff
worked diligently to identify the location of their parents
and, jointly with their parents, develop a reunification plan
for every separated child in our care, as we do with every
unaccompanied child in our care.
Sadly, some children are still being separated from parents
and caregivers at the border. While the reasons for continued
separations are not often clear and continue to be concerning,
it is never OK to take children from their families for the
purpose of immigration enforcement. Children should never be
used as a deterrent, leverage, or bait.
Many more children could be better protected by giving ORR
authority at the border. Under current law, CBP has 72 hours to
determine if a child is fleeing to the United States as an
unaccompanied child, with a parent or known guardian, or being
trafficked. CBP is a law enforcement agency, and their agents
are not trained in child welfare best practices. ORR social
workers with a background in child protection could facilitate
quick, adequate investigations and assist in making decisions
about the appropriateness of separation.
I would also like to address a major barrier to reunifying
children with families. In May 2018, the Department of Homeland
Security and HHS announced a memorandum of agreement mandating
continuous information-sharing on unaccompanied children,
including their sponsors. We are no longer able to reassure a
sponsor that claiming their children won't lead to their arrest
and potential deportation to a country that they've fled to
escape violence and persecution. Sponsors are being forced to
choose between the safety of their households and their
children, a decision no parent should ever be forced to make.
The MOA should be rescinded.
As I was preparing this testimony, I was reminded of two
sisters, 15 and 11, who were raised by their grandmother in
Guatemala. Their mom lived in the U.S. and regularly sent money
back home so the girls could be fed, clothed, and go to school.
It wasn't long before gang members started visiting their home
and demanding protection money. The price for their protection
eventually surpassed their ability to pay. Gang members beat
Grandma in front of the girls and promised to return for the
girls if payment was not made in full. The girls fled. Bethany
and ORR helped these girls find safety and then, eventually,
their mother. Young girls should not have to live in fear of
being raped and prostituted, especially when people in this
great country can do something to help them.
Like these two girls, every unaccompanied child is made in
the image of God. Each of them mattered deeply to Him, and each
of them should matter to us.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Abbott follows:]
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Ms. DeGette. Thank you so much, Ms. Abbott.
And batting cleanup, Dr. Shonkoff. Thank you so much for
joining us. You are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF JACK P. SHONKOFF
Dr. Shonkoff. Chair DeGette, Ranking Member Guthrie,
members of the subcommittee, I want to thank you, also, for
myself for the opportunity to be here with you today.
My name is Jack Shonkoff. I am Professor of Child Health
and Development at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and
the Graduate School of Education, and Professor of Pediatrics
at Harvard Medical School. And I direct the Center on the
Developing Child at Harvard University. I'm a pediatrician by
training, and my work is focused on early life influences on
learning, behavior, and health.
I took the liberty--I promise I will not exceed my time--
but I cut two paragraphs out of my prepared remarks because
they've been said by everybody who has spoken here this
morning. So, what I want to do is take a chance on using this
opportunity to give you a deeper understanding of what the term
toxic stress means. It's been mentioned a great deal. I'm going
to give you a deeper understanding of that. And my testimony is
based on strong scientific consensus from decades of scientific
research. This is not about a single study, but it's the
consensus of the scientific community.
Sudden forcible separation of children from their parents
is deeply traumatic for both the child and the parent. But,
above and beyond the distress we see on the outside, this
triggers a massive biological stress response inside the child
which remains activated until the parent returns and provides
some sense of comfort.
Without exaggeration, there are literally thousands of
studies that have converged on the following two simple, basic,
core scientific concepts. No. 1, a strong foundation for
healthy development in young children requires a stable,
responsive, and supportive relationship with at least one
parent or primary caregiver. And the second concept is that
high and persistent levels of stress activation, known as toxic
stress, can disrupt the architecture of the developing brain
and other biological systems, which I will say a little bit
about in a moment, with serious negative impacts on learning,
behavior, and lifelong physical and mental health, not just
mental health.
So, early experiences are literally built into our brains
and our bodies from the beginning. Stable and responsive
relationships promote healthy brain development, they establish
well-functioning immune and metabolic systems and
cardiovascular systems, and they strengthen the building blocks
of resilience. If these relationships are disrupted, young
children are hit by the double whammy of a brain that is
deprived of the positive stimulation it needs and is assaulted
by a stress response that disrupts its developing circuits.
When any of us feels threatened, our bodies' stress
responses are activated. Heart rate and blood pressure go up.
Stress hormone levels are elevated. Blood sugar arises, and
inflammatory responses are mobilized. This is the fight-or-
flight response, and every one of us knows what it feels like
physically to be optimally stressed out. And I want to repeat
that. The toxic stress response is what everybody here
understands. When you are most stressed, you know what you feel
physically. We all know what that feels like.
This response is automatic, and it's essential for
survival. It is built into our biology, but it is designed to
go back to normal when the threat is over. And if the sense of
danger continues, the ongoing activation of the stress response
system shifts from being protective and allowing us to deal
with threat to becoming disruptive and outright damaging over
time.
For example, persistently elevated stress hormones can
disrupt brain circuits that affect memory, the ability to focus
attention, and regulate behavior. Excessive inflammation and
metabolic responses to stress in childhood increase the risk of
heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, stroke, various forms of
cancer, as well as depression and a vulnerability to addictions
in the adult years.
A number of people have alluded to this. It's not magic. We
are opening up this black box. We are beginning to understand
what is it about all of this constant stress that makes you
more at risk for heart disease decades later. It's because the
underlying biology is what is happening to these ensuring
systems.
Unlike positive or tolerable stress, which can build
resilience, extensive, prolonged toxic stress has lifelong
consequences. So, what I want to do is conclude by sharing with
you how these scientific principles that I've just described
provide a powerful framework for understanding the damage
caused by the current family separation policy.
All children who are abruptly separated from familiar
caregivers at the border experienced overwhelming stress. Will
some survive without significant problems? The answer is yes.
Will many be seriously impaired for the rest of their lives?
The answer, again, is yes.
The biology of adversity suggests three factors that
influence who is at greatest risk.
The first is age. Younger children are the most vulnerable
because their brain circuitry and other biological systems are
relatively underdeveloped, and they are the most dependent on
adult caregivers.
The second is previous harm from adversity. Many people
have alluded to this. The pile-up of stress on children who are
already compromised shifts the odds against them even further.
Intentionally withholding the most powerful healing
intervention we could possibly offer, the care of their parents
when children are in danger, goes against everything that
science tells us. Everything.
The third reason for variation in outcomes is the duration
of separation, and that's the part that I want to leave you
with. Toxic stress is a ticking clock, and prolonged separation
inflicts increasingly greater harm as each week goes by. From a
scientific perspective, the initial separation and the lack of
rapid unification are both highly indefensible. Forcibly
separating children from their parents is like setting a house
on fire, and prolonging that separation is like blocking the
first responders from doing their job.
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Shonkoff follows:]
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Ms. DeGette. Thank you very much, Doctor. Thank you.
On popular demand, we are going to recess the committee
until the conclusion of this series of votes that we are about
to have on the floor.
I would ask the witnesses to stay close, because we will
reconvene immediately after the conclusion of the last vote.
Thank you.
The committee is in recess.
[Recess.]
Ms. DeGette. The committee will come to order.
And the Chair will recognize herself for 5 minutes for
questioning.
Mr. Gelernt, I wanted to start with you because I wanted to
ask you about this point that Commander White made about the
court ordering the reunification of the families. And what he
said is that, because of the different agencies that are
involved in that process, it really took a court order to get
them operating together, which seems kind of ridiculous to me,
but that is what he said. So I am wondering what the ACLU is
planning to do in the pending lawsuit about the new reports
that we have that there may have been thousands of children
separated even before the April order. And what processes are
you guys going to undertake?
Mr. Gelernt. Right. Thank you for that question, because I
think that is a critical point.
And I want to be absolutely clear. It's the Government's
position that the court did not require reunification of the
children who were released from ORR before June 26. Our
position is that the court was including those children. So we
have a motion now before the court to clarify that those
children who were released--separated and released--before June
26 are part of the class. The Government has an obligation to
find them and reunite them. So we will be in court on February
21st where the court will hear that motion. And so what we will
ask the court is to clarify that those children are part of
this class and then to come up with a plan to reunify those
children.
I would emphasize, though--and I think this is a point the
Chair made before--there is, we believe there is a legal
obligation, and we will try to clarify that on February 21st,
but we see no reason why the Government should need a court
order to do the right thing here and try and reunify those
kids.
And to a point I think the Chair made and a few others made
from the last panel, we do not believe that it's either ICE
goes into all these households and gets the children or nothing
is done. We believe it can be done by the Government giving the
NGOs information about the parents and children, and that we
contact them. That's what the court has ordered in the past,
and that works perfectly well.
Ms. DeGette. So, if it is in the best interest of the
child, then that is what the agency will do?
Mr. Gelernt. Exactly. We would contact the parent. We would
contact the child welfare agency. We'd contact the child's
lawyer. And we'd say, ``What's the situation with this family?
What do they want to do?'' There's no reason why ICE needs to
go in. And that's worked perfectly well in the past, and that
could work for these thousands of children going forward.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Dr. Linton, in your testimony you state that there is
overwhelming research confirming irreparable harm caused to the
children by separating them from their family, and that the
trauma by forced separations leads to a host of health
challenges. Is that correct?
Dr. Linton. Yes, Congresswoman, that's correct.
Ms. DeGette. And, Dr. Muniz de la Pena, based on your own
observations, you have found that when children are separated
from their parents, high levels of anxiety and distress occur
which can impair the development trajectory of otherwise
healthy children. And that includes intense fear, helplessness,
and vulnerability. Is that also correct?
Dr. Muniz de la Pena. That's correct.
Ms. DeGette. And, Dr. Linton, to put a fine point on it, as
I think you testified, separations lead to toxic stress. And
Dr. Shonkoff testified that that actually disrupts the child's
brain architecture and affects short- and long-term health. Dr.
Linton, is that correct?
Dr. Linton. Yes.
Ms. DeGette. And, Dr. Shonkoff?
Dr. Shonkoff. Yes.
Ms. DeGette. Yes?
So I just want to pivot for a second to figure out how we
can prevent something like this from ever happening because, as
we heard, kids are still being separated from their parents at
the border. And sometimes in limited circumstances separations
are appropriate to protect the child, but it is still being
elevated.
And so, Ms. Podkul, I wanted to ask you--you said,
according to your observation, the separation decisions are
still being made arbitrarily. And so I want to ask you, what do
you think we should do in order to ensure that the separations
are only happening in the very limited situation where there is
a genuine reason to believe that the parent is unfit or
presents a danger to the child?
Ms. Podkul. I think there needs to be clear guidelines
about when separations are appropriate, and I think we need to
ensure that child welfare professionals are making those
decisions. Right now, those decisions are being made by Customs
and Border Protection officials and not somebody with
specialized training.
Ms. DeGette. And do you believe we can put systems in place
to track these kids, so that DHS is providing ORR with
sufficient information so the families can be reunited?
Ms. Podkul. Absolutely. I don't think that's going to be
hard to do.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you. Thank you.
I yield to Mr. Guthrie.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Thank you to you all for being here today.
And I have a couple of questions directed to Ms. Abbott.
Bethany Christian Services has spent more than 20 years caring
for and helping unaccompanied children reunify with their
family in the United States. Can you please describe how this
process has changed over the past 20 years?
Ms. Abbott. We always have provided care to unaccompanied
children, children who come to the United States without a
parent or an adult, to provide care for that. What had changed
over the last year is seeing children separated from their
parents. Foster care is meant to provide care when the parents
aren't available to provide care or cannot provide healthy care
for a child. We were seeing children who are healthy and
attached to their family--their family was providing good
care--being separated.
Mr. Guthrie. How many that were separated not for cause
other than illegal entry, the zero tolerance, how many children
under zero tolerance did you care for?
Ms. Abbott. A hundred and eight.
Mr. Guthrie. A hundred and eight? And they are all
reunified?
Ms. Abbott. They have all been reunified as of September
24.
Mr. Guthrie. What kind of difficult thing did you find in
reunifying? What was the hardest thing to do in a reunify?
Ms. Abbott. I think it's the information that's available.
Because we've had a long history of finding family for children
who've been separated, we have staff well-trained at figuring
out how to track down parents. So sometimes the information
would come that was just inadequate information or parents
would be moved from one detention facility to another.
Mr. Guthrie. Because Captain White testified that they now
have--are they separated and what is the issue, I mean, why
they were separated.
Ms. Abbott. Yes.
Mr. Guthrie. Has that been helpful?
Ms. Podkul. It's been helpful because we can identify that
a child has been separated, but sometimes it doesn't give
enough explanation. So, it says illegal, you know, they've been
charged with criminal history or maybe even in their own
country with abuse or neglect. We don't know what that means
until a child comes into care, we have a chance to communicate
with the parent and the child to figure out whether it raised
to the level that a separation should have occurred.
Mr. Guthrie. OK. How many organizations like yours are
helping refugee children?
Ms. Abbott. We work with the United States Catholic
Conference a bit, USCCB, and LIRS, in providing care----
Mr. Guthrie. There's several? Many doing it?
Ms. Abbott. Yes.
Mr. Guthrie. Did your organization work with any Federal
agencies such as HHS or DHS when trying to create these
unifications, reunification plans?
Ms. Abbott. Yes, not directly, only through USCCB and LIRS.
But we were, we do have a Federal field specialist onsite----
Mr. Guthrie. OK.
Ms. Abbott [continuing]. Who is directly contracted with
the Office of Refugee Resettlement and advises us on all of our
reunification findings.
Mr. Guthrie. OK. There have been reports in the media that
separations may still be occurring for zero tolerance.
Ms. Abbott. Yes.
Mr. Guthrie. Has Bethany Christian Services continued to
see any cases for children who are separated from a parent or
legal guardian without cause other than illegal entry or zero
tolerance?
Ms. Abbott. I hate to say, after 40 years of working in
this field, that I'd have been naive not to have realized that
our Government would separate children purposefully. So, after
zero tolerance occurred, an alert went out to our staff saying
you need to inform leadership the minute we see any referrals
in children who have been separated. So, in the last three
months, we received 12 referrals on children separated from a
parent.
Mr. Guthrie. Were they separated for cause or for----
Ms. Abbott. Well, the cause is usually a criminal history
or inaccurate reporting at the border, not proof of the
relationship. So sometimes families in crisis don't always tell
the whole truth about the situation. And so the officer on the
spot is trying to make a decision as to whether this child
belongs to the family or not.
Mr. Guthrie. OK. Thank you.
I have just a few minutes. I won't take all my time. But I
just want to comment.
I know there is a lot of stress in the immigration system
today. I can specifically speak to families in my community of
Bowling Green, wonderful families who are from El Salvador,
came in 2001 under TPS. And they are extended, they don't know
from year--I don't know exactly what their window is, but it is
getting short on them. But it has continued to be extended.
They have been there for 18 years, and they are still not sure
what their next, what is going to happen after a few months. I
think it is another year.
Their children are U.S. citizens. Their children speak
English as a first language. As a matter of fact, I was talking
to one the other day and used a double negative. And I said,
well, the problem isn't whether they are going to speak
English, but whether they will speak it ``good'' or ``well.''
So, that is kind of a joke. English teachers like that one.
And they just don't know, and you see that with DACA
children and the opportunity to fix--and it seems like kind of
the frustration when we have--this policy was bad. I didn't
support it. We shouldn't have done it that way. But if you look
at the concerns with DACA, the concerns with TPS, whatever, the
administration is enforcing the law as we wrote it--not
necessarily us sitting here, but as Congress has written the
law, particularly TPS and those such things as that. And the
President has offered, he said in last year's State of the
Union that he was for a path to citizenship for DACA. He said
that. He brought up TPS just a few weeks ago and said that,
once the Government is open again, we will discuss these things
and they will be on the table. And so, I really hope that this
never happens again, but I do hope that we, as a committee, as
a Congress--not necessarily in this committee, but this
Congress--will look at all of the issues that are going on in
the immigration system and take care, do the right thing.
I know my constituents--oh, I am sorry, I ran out of
time?--I know my constituents say secure the border and we can
deal with these other issues, and I hope we do.
I am sorry, I wasn't looking at the clock.
Ms. DeGette. Dr. Ruiz, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you.
This hearing has been very good for the human soul. It
holds a mirror to our conscience as a nation and as
individuals. And it has been very difficult to take.
Personally, my heart swells. As a father, just to imagine that
I was separated from my child brings me to tears. And it is
hard. I'm emotionally drained. And I just can't imagine what
the children and the parents went through and what they felt.
As a physician, we have the Hippocratic Oath, ``First do no
harm''. And I believe that should be a guiding principle for
our Federal Government as well.
You see, talking about the cases of real people humanizes
this story. And oftentimes, that affects our conscience, and
oftentimes perhaps it could create a sense of not allowing that
to affect us as human beings. It is easy, then, to turn to
dehumanizing the individual, so that you feel guilt-free
perhaps or don't allow it to enter your conscience. And I see a
lot of that going on. But separating families is dehumanizing,
not only for those that have been separated but also for the
separators, because it will affect them and their conscience as
well.
We have talked about--I have heard some statements that,
well, they already had toxic stress in their home countries,
almost implying that, well, they are kind of damaged goods,
like we didn't cause any more harm to them.
So, Dr. Muniz de la Pena, is there additional harm,
additive harm to an individual when you separate them from
their parent? Is there any difference that we did versus what
they felt in their home countries?
Dr. Muniz de la Pena. There's no doubt about it. If you
think about physical harm, it is the same concept. If you have
someone physically injured and you continue to injure that
person, they will have more injury.
Mr. Ruiz. It is compounding. It is additive.
Dr. Muniz de la Pena. Of course.
Mr. Ruiz. And the other thing is, back home, when they are
threatened or being raped or they were going to be killed, and
whatnot, or extreme poverty, or other stimuli for toxic stress,
at least they have their parents to help them cope. When you
separate that parent, then you are leaving that child
completely vulnerable with nobody to hold them and to comfort
them.
Dr. Linton, what are the long-term effects years from now
that they are going to experience?
Dr. Linton. Well, what we know about toxic stress--and
certainly Dr. Shonkoff can describe the large body of science--
but what we understand is that serious prolonged stress, in the
absence of a buffer, places children at risk not for just those
short-term effects that I discussed in my opening statement but
also long-term effects, including depression, substance use,
diabetes, and heart disease. And that really stems from the
biology of having stress hormones coursing through the body
without any control and the damage it does to the body.
Mr. Ruiz. It rewires the brain to a point--and this is the
part that gets me--to the point where they won't be able to
interpret love. They won't be able to feel that comfort of
trust with anybody in any relationship. They will have
difficulty feeling intimacy that many of us have the luxury of
feeling with our spouses and the vulnerabilities.
Dr. Shonkoff, welcome. I am a Harvard Medical School
graduate. Thank you for being here.
And I wanted to ask you, what is the treatment? What do we
do now? What should ORR be doing to mitigate and lessen those
symptoms that they are going to face for their lifetime?
Dr. Shonkoff. As you know, there is a prevention question.
There is a treatment question. There is kind of a long-term
outcome question. In this case, it is all the same.
In fact, this committee has responsibility for so much in
the healthcare domain. All of the health problems of adulthood,
the expensive ones, have their origins early on.
Mr. Ruiz. So, what do we need to do to mitigate and to help
these children now?
Dr. Shonkoff. We need to provide kind of a stable,
nurturing, responsive environment in which predictable
relationships help protect children from excessive stress
activation. That affects every part of their developing system.
Mr. Ruiz. If I may, just a quick thing. There were reports
that people weren't allowed to hold babies when they are crying
and have their fit. What happens to the physiology of that
child, of that baby, that is not held, that was left alone
without being coddled by another human being?
Dr. Shonkoff. It is a critically important question
because, in fact, what's happening is that biologically that
baby is responding to what is essentially a life-threatening
situation, not being taken care of, because babies are so
helpless.
And I think the misconception is we say, well, none of us
remember things that we had experienced when we were babies----
Mr. Ruiz. We do.
Dr. Shonkoff [continuing]. And babies don't really
understand what's going on anyway. But the reality is it may
not be a conscious memory, but the body doesn't forget. The
body is affected. The body is affected biologically. And that's
why statistically these children in those circumstances are
already more at risk for problems later on. So it's the
invisible part. It's what's going inside the body that we're
understanding more and more now. But when we look at young
children and we say, well, they're either crying and they seem
upset or they seem better and they're not acting out, we don't
see what's going on inside. And that's what 21st century
science is telling us, about how to address what is essentially
a commonsense moral issue----
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Dr. Shonkoff [continuing]. Which is how important these
issues are.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Ruiz. Thank you.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman from Oregon.
Mr. Walden. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And I want to thank all our panel here today. We've got a
couple of hearings going on simultaneously. So some of us had
to go back and forth. But I appreciate the concern you are all
showing for these children.
I don't know anybody up here that supported the separation
policy, certainly not me. And we want to do the best for these
kids.
Ms. Abbott, Bethany Christian Services has been a
subgrantee for ORR for some time, right?
Ms. Abbott. Yes.
Mr. Walden. How long?
Ms. Abbott. We have been, we have worked with ORR since
'75.
Mr. Walden. 1975?
Ms. Abbott. With refugee children fleeing Southeast Asia,
and then have worked with the unaccompanied children since ORR
took responsibility for those children.
Mr. Walden. Walk me through, because you are there on the
ground. How many children do you deal with at any given time?
Ms. Abbott. Right now, we have the capacity to have about
99 children in foster care. We don't offer large shelter
settings. We do really believe that a family setting is best--
--
Mr. Walden. Sure.
Ms. Abbott [continuing]. For an unaccompanied child.
Mr. Walden. Yes.
Ms. Abbott. So, at any one time, we could have 99 children
in care. And we are expanding our foster care capacity into
three other States, so that we can continue to meet the need of
truly unaccompanied children----
Mr. Walden. Yes.
Ms. Abbott [continuing]. Who need a family setting.
Mr. Walden. I figure it is somewhere around 11,000 children
right now are in the ORR system. It varies, I know, because it
is a daily intake and a daily----
Ms. Abbott. Exit.
Mr. Walden. Yes. And ORR is kind of in the middle, right?
Ms. Abbott. Yes.
Mr. Walden. I mean, they just have--the Border Patrol turns
over these people, these kids, to ORR. They take care of them
and give them----
Ms. Abbott. Find sponsors and assure that the release is to
a safe, caring adult.
Mr. Walden. And that is something I think you have heard
all of us talk about as well, because there were mistakes made
by the Government in the past in some instances, right, of
turning kids over to people we thought were their responsible
parent or guardian or something? It turned out they ended up in
really bad environments, right? Have you seen that?
Ms. Abbott. Not at Bethany, but I have heard----
Mr. Walden. Right.
Ms. Abbott [continuing]. And been involved in consulting in
some situations where that has happened. We try hard to do home
studies, background checks on the families, and so forth, and
the children and get information from parents. We can contact
parents back in country of origin, if the other parent is
there.
Mr. Walden. Right.
Ms. Abbott. Often, many of the reunifications you've heard
about are with another parent that's already here. One parent
was coming with other children to join that parent.
Mr. Walden. I know when I toured, led the delegation to
Texas, and we went through one of the facilities and met with
the kids and all, to a certain extent--obviously, we respected
their privacy--it seemed like they had access, we were told at
least they had access to call their parents or loved ones back
in their home country, as well as to be in regular contact with
whoever they might be going to be placed with here in the U.S.
Is that----
Ms. Abbott. That is correct, and ORR policy mandates that
we provide that service.
Mr. Walden. And my understanding is, what we saw, again, at
this facility was they had access, basically, to 24/7 medical
care as well as routine mental health services in the facility.
Is that your experience as well?
Ms. Abbott. Yes, at least with our transitional foster care
program and our small shelter program that we have in Grand
Rapids and Maryland, that's been our experience.
Mr. Walden. OK. I was just thinking back to, literally
thinking of the facility and the doctors and then the mental
health services, and the phones they could access.
When you are with these kids, what do they tell you? I
mean, unlike the rest of us, you are actually there, you and
your folks. I mean, some of you may be doing this work too. So,
I am not trying to say that. What do these kids tell you, what
stories?
Ms. Abbott. The stories are much like the story I told
about the two girls. Their stories are as compelling as any
refugee story I've heard. Like I say, I've been working with
refugee kids for 40 years, and their stories about
victimization, their fears----
Mr. Walden. On the way up?
Ms. Abbott. Well, in their own country.
Mr. Walden. In their own country or on the way up.
Ms. Abbott. It forces them to flee to begin with, yes.
Mr. Walden. OK.
Ms. Abbott. The idea of the gangs that are out of control,
governments either unable or too corrupt to intervene to
protect their citizens.
Mr. Walden. So we were told when we were there in the
bipartisan delegation that, for some of these people, it is
literally the first time they have felt this safe and cared for
since they left their home country, because of the kind of
victimization you were talking about in the home country or the
horrific things we have all read about on the journey north. Is
that what your experience is?
Ms. Abbott. Yes. I believe that a lot of people who come
here as refugees or asylum seekers are looking just for that.
They want safety.
Mr. Walden. Yes.
Ms. Abbott. They want all the things that we all want.
Mr. Walden. So, in conclusion--I know my time is about
out--it feels to me like we have a humanitarian crisis or a
problem at the border. Is that your take, too?
Ms. Abbott. Yes, yes. I tend to refer to those at our
border as refugees----
Mr. Walden. Yes.
Ms. Abbott [continuing]. Rather than migrants, because I
think people think, when they think migrants, that people have
a choice.
Mr. Walden. Or they are going back and forth?
Ms. Abbott. Yes.
Mr. Walden. Yes.
Ms. Abbott. But the majority of children we're seeing
coming from the border right now are truly--again, we get well-
founded explanation of fear of persecution.
Mr. Walden. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your courtesy in
extending extra time.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady from New Hampshire is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Kuster. Thank you.
And thank you to the panel and for your expertise.
I want to go back to the scene of being inside. We were,
again, in Brownsville and in McAllen, Texas, with the families.
I want to get at, do you have a professional opinion--and we
will continue with Ms. Abbott--whether those children would be
better off with their parent?
Ms. Abbott. A child is always better off with their parent.
Ms. Kuster. Right.
Ms. Abbott. And if a parent and a child has to be
separated, there needs to be a reason, that the child's safety,
whether it's physical or emotional, is threatened.
Ms. Kuster. And again, I would just say from my own
experience, 25 years in the child welfare and child protection
legal world of adoption, that in fact our laws are very, very
strict of what it would take to terminate parental rights, and
particularly to terminate parental rights against the will
rather than in a consensual way.
So I want to go back, if I could, to Mr. Gelernt and Ms.
Podkul, about the process, because I know that you are going
back into court. I want to understand what we could be doing
differently, from all of the witnesses, to protect these
children and to make sure this decision is not being made in an
arbitrary or perhaps even capricious way.
And I think there was a reference made to separation being
used as a technique or a tactic of immigration, which, by the
way, the Trump administration didn't hide that. I mean, they
spoke openly that this was going to be used as a threat. ``We
will take your children if you come into our country. We will
take your children.'' That is the moral failure.
Internationally we lost moral authority in the league of
nations, in the world of nations. I certainly feel that way.
What could this committee, what could we in Congress be
doing differently? And would it be to have well-trained people
under contract with ORR who understand child welfare, who
understand the psychology?
And you talked about the acute nature of the separation and
the length of the separation, and the circumstances. Let me
tell you, the women I met, just briefly, the circumstances were
that they were told they had to go to court, they had to go to
a court hearing, and they were not allowed to bring the
children into the courtroom. And the children were taken by our
Government while they were in the courtroom. And I mentioned
two mothers breastfeeding, breastfeeding infants that were
stolen by our country.
So how could we change? Could we have social workers at
that initial moment to sort this out?
And then, because my time is short and I want to give you
time, why can't we have a hospital band? Why can't we have a
number that the parent and the child has? How, in this day and
age, has our country lost track of these children and these
parents?
Mr. Gelernt. Yes, so taking your last question first,
there's no question we could have an integrated database and a
tracking system. And the judge in our case is very concerned
that there wasn't one, and he has asked that we work with the
Government to come up with one. And if he's not satisfied, he
is going to add to it.
But I think this committee and Congress certainly can do
oversight of that, and they could implement something even
better, if they decide to do that.
In terms of going forward, we're absolutely seeing
separations, and we don't know what standards CBP is applying.
They certainly are not using experts in child welfare to do it.
So there have to be very clear standards. There has to be
someone who's trained in child welfare to do it. And there has
to be a way where the information flows to the parent and the
people taking care of the child to say, ``Wait, we need to
contest that.'' So there has to be processes to contest it.
Ms. Kuster. Do the children have any kind of legal advice?
Do they have access to an attorney to----
Mr. Gelernt. Not all of them, unfortunately. But, even the
ones that are getting legal advice, what we're hearing--and
I've been getting texts all morning saying, ``Make sure the
committee understands that, even if we are with them, we're not
always being told that they were separated from a parent in the
U.S. The child is just being dumped on us. And so, we don't
actually know what the situation is.''
So that information has to be told to the people taking
care of the child, so they can look for the parent and get to
the bottom. But we are seeing separations for the most minor
crimes or even allegations, and we are very concerned that
these, although they are being called for-cause separations,
there's really no basis for them.
Ms. Kuster. And I just have to close because my time is up.
The capricious nature of this, one of the mothers,
finally--finally--after months, by the way, not days, not
weeks, months, was able to get through on a telephone to her
child, and her 4-year-old child refused to come on the phone to
speak to her because the child had been told that she abandoned
the child at the border.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady's time has expired. The
gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Griffith.
Mr. Griffith. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I look forward to
working with the gentlelady in regard to a number of items.
It is interesting that we just had a bill today--and I am
not sure, I haven't sorted it all out yet, it was voice voted--
where we cut advocates or defenders in the juvenile courts, we
cut them out of getting some grant money. I am sorting it all
out, and I was going to vote ``present'' if it had come up for
a recorded vote. Because, if you were watching the first panel,
my wife is a juvenile judge, and they cut that money as well.
And so, I wanted to check on that.
Ms. Abbott, you all had 108 children. Can you tell me how
long it took you all to get them back--what the shortest and
longest was--back with their parents?
Ms. Abbott. I don't have that information.
Mr. Griffith. Roughly, do you have any ideas? I won't hold
you to it exactly.
Ms. Abbott. OK. Roughly, 54 days.
Mr. Griffith. About 54 days?
Ms. Abbott. It's our average.
Mr. Griffith. OK.
Ms. Abbott. But I can't tell you the, yes, the earliest and
the rest. Because we're used to reunifying children all the
time. Even before we were aware that there was going to be a
new policy, we were already in the process of reunifying
children. Even when they've been separated, we have been
talking to parents in detention centers and identifying other
relatives if the parent didn't want the child to remain in
foster care.
I think one of the things we have to emphasize is that we
need to talk with parents. Parents have a right to make
decisions about their children and how to keep their children
safe and where their children belong. Many families may choose
to have their children stay with a relative in the United
States than be reunified with them in country because it's so
unsafe for the children to reunify--a tough decision for a
parent to make, but one we need to respect.
Mr. Griffith. And I don't know the answer. I am just
looking for answers. Mr. Gelernt, I asked earlier, there
apparently are five kids that the ACLU has said--hold up a
minute--as a part of the court action, that had not yet been
reunified with their parents, of the six that are still out of
that first grouping remaining. And I was wondering if you could
enlighten us as to the what the complications were, what the
problems were. I understand some of them might be out of
country, the parent my be out of country. And just wondering if
you could enlighten us as to what that process is and why we
are holding up on five of those.
Mr. Gelernt. Right. Yes, Congressman. I think it may
actually be down to three now, but I'm going to double-check
that.
Mr. Griffith. OK.
Mr. Gelernt. And I could let the committee know.
It's certainly not us holding it up. It's respecting the
parents' wishes. I think they were particularly complicated
cases where the child may have been in danger coming back. The
parent was having trouble understanding what the child's rights
would be in the U.S. I think one parent was difficult to find.
So, for those complicated reasons, we're giving the parent a
little more time to make the choice.
And it's an agonizing choice, just to pick up on my
copanelist. When I was in Guatemala talking to these families,
you would have a father saying, ``Well, look, my life is
basically over.'' And this was someone in his forties. ``The
gangs may kill me, but I can't bring my child back here. It's
just too dangerous.'' And to see the agony on the face of these
parents. And so, I think no one should be under the mistaken
belief that these parents don't want their children. It's they
are making what is a classic choice for many vulnerable
immigrants, that they are just going to have to leave their
children in the U.S.
And so, for these three parents, there are certain
complications where, for privacy reasons, I can't get into.
Mr. Griffith. Yes, sir.
Mr. Gelernt. And so, we are just giving them a little more
time to respect their wishes.
Mr. Griffith. And I understand that, but I would then turn
to Dr. Shonkoff's testimony. Doctor, the child may not
understand that. The child is not likely to understand that if
they're a particularly young age, are they?
Dr. Shonkoff. Well, it depends on what you mean by
``understand''. You're absolutely right.
Mr. Griffith. OK. Yes.
Dr. Shonkoff. You're absolutely--children don't understand
that, but----
Mr. Griffith. And I think you testified earlier that they
don't know what is going on, and even if the parent has made
this decision, for all reasons that we might agree with, it
still creates the problems that you were talking about with
toxic stress for the child, particularly if they are--I mean,
if they are 17, maybe not--but if they are 4 or 5, 6, 7, even 9
or 10, they don't understand all that, do they?
Dr. Shonkoff. Well, what's wonderful about your question,
Congressman, is that for young children the forcible separation
from a parent in our child welfare system, even in
circumstances where the child is in danger, is seen as
threatening and upsetting for the child. No young child sees
the separation as a relief, even in tough circumstances. And
so, that's the problem. We have to think through the mind of
what does this look like for the child, not just the adult.
Mr. Griffith. I appreciate it. I appreciate all of your
testimony today, and we are going to try to make sure that this
doesn't happen again. And even where there are cases where
there are justified reasons--I think you said, Ms. Abbott, you
had about 12 or so that had been referred because there was a
belief--we need to try to make it minimal. And if there is a
legitimate reason for the separation because the person is a
really bad actor who is the parent who came with them, we need
to make sure that we're taking action to get them into a secure
situation where they have got somebody who creates that safe
space that you talked about, Dr. Shonkoff.
And I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
The gentlelady from Illinois.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you so much.
I know we are mainly talking about the effects on children
of this separation, but I wanted to ask about the issue of
essentially our country making decisions, and it seems rather
quickly that these are made, on who is a fit parent. And so, if
someone could just describe to me--my understanding of our
domestic child welfare system, ending parental rights is really
a big deal and is a very prescribed process for that to happen.
So, I don't know if anybody wants to--I don't want to go too
long on it, but it has to be done over time, right?
Dr. Muniz de la Pena. Normally, if there's not an imminent
threat, like the kid has a physical injury visible, the child
remains in the home, and they activate an investigative process
where social workers go to the home and interview the children
separately from the parents. And they visit the family every
week or every other week to continue an ongoing supervision
process to see if the indicators of possible abuse or neglect
are real. And that, it takes a lot for, in my experience in New
York State, it takes a lot to take the children from the home.
Ms. Schakowsky. So, I am assuming that the premise behind
that is that it is best to try and keep a child with the
parent. There is a bias toward, because it is so important to
keep a child with a parent. So my understanding here is that
criminal behavior can be a reason for someone being taken away
from a parent. Now does that always, regardless of what it is,
make that parent--I mean, how do they decide what is a reason
to take the parent away? I don't know if there is, you know----
Dr. Shonkoff. I think, especially when you talk about young
children, young children don't exist outside of a relationship
with a caring adult. They can't survive. So that, in any of
these circumstances where we consider the possibility of an
alternative arrangement, it's a developmental and psychological
emergency to kind of preserve for the child a protective
relationship. It starts in the family, and if in some
circumstances it's deemed unsafe, it's still a relationship
emergency to determine what happens next, as opposed to feeling
like removing the child is somehow an answer. Young children
cannot exist without a caring relationship.
Ms. Schakowsky. So, yes, go ahead.
Ms. Podkul. If I may, I think your question is very
astute, because what you're saying is, it's not only do we have
no standards and no child welfare professionals making the
decision in that moment, there's no followup so a parent or
child could ever challenge that, if that was the wrong
decision. So, there's two points where we're failing these
families: at the point of separation and also we're not giving
them an opportunity to have that reviewed and challenged, in
case it was an erroneous decision.
Ms. Schakowsky. Go ahead. But, before that, let me make
sure that I put on the record, I am not saying that we want to
keep children in unsafe situations. And if someone is a child
abuser or posing as a parent and really it's a trafficker of
some sort, obviously, we have to deal with that.
But go ahead.
Mr. Gelernt. Right. I think what you just said there is the
key. A criminal conviction under State child welfare laws does
not mean you would separate from parent. It has to be the type
of criminal history that suggests the parent is a real danger
to the child,
And what's happening now is, the Government is separating
for very minor crimes, nonviolent crime, crimes that happened
decades ago, that would never under our domestic laws allow for
the separation of parent and child. It has to be where the
parent is either unfit or presents a danger to the child. That
has to be the standard. That's the standard the court laid out.
And I think what some of my copanelists were suggesting is
one role for this committee is to flesh that standard out, so
there is really clear guidance for whoever is doing the
separations. And hopefully, that's someone who knows about
child welfare.
Ms. Schakowsky. I want to tell a really quick story. When
we were down at the border, we saw a woman who was inconsolable
in a cage. And she was crying because she came in with her 7-
year-old granddaughter. That granddaughter was taken away,
redefined as an unaccompanied minor, 7 years old, because we
didn't recognize a grandparent. There was no paper saying she
was the legal guardian. But, clearly, they could have seen the
relationship, I am sure.
So is there something we should do about definition of what
a family is? Whoever.
Dr. Shonkoff. So many of these are moral issues. From a
scientific point of view, a child's brain is not asking about
the genetic relationship between----
Ms. Schakowsky. She had raised that child, by the way.
Dr. Shonkoff. Yes. What a child's brain needs is a
responsive, consistently responsive person, and it doesn't have
to be someone you're related to, but it has to be the person
who is the important adult caring for you. Grandparents----
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady's time has expired.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady from Indiana.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Each of you have so much background and expertise in
various aspects of this really horrible situation we've been
dealing with now for many, many years. And I would love to
actually hear from each of you in my 5 minutes because we all
want to fix--we all want a better system. We all want a system
that does not include separating families who are legitimate
family members.
And so, we don't have a terrific system. We don't have
standards. We don't have procedures. I am hearing from all of
you that we just have been lacking this for years and years.
So I would love for each of you, very briefly, to just
share, if you could fix one thing--and you all have very
different expertise--if you could do one thing that helps not
only the separation issue but also my continued concern for the
unaccompanied children as they are going into all of our
communities.
And Bethany I understand is opening or has just opened a
facility in Indianapolis. So I welcome you. I look forward to
visiting. I haven't had the opportunity to do that yet.
What should we be doing? And very quickly, I mean, and I
know all have said--and I respect--I am a lawyer. I have been
in these courts, and I have talked to my juvenile judge. And
she is seeing some of these children coming into the courts.
But yet we have no idea where they are around the country or
even maybe how to help them.
So very quickly, Mr. Gelernt?
Mr. Gelernt. I think other people will probably talk about
the standards and processes going forward. I think one thing
this committee should think about is, for the kids who were
separated and were subjected to this kind of trauma, as the
doctors have pointed out, that really may be permanent, what
this committee can do to get them potentially some medical
health. Because I think there's no way that these children and
these young parents are going to be able to cope without
professional help.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
Ms. Podkul?
Ms. Podkul. I think we need to make sure that we are not
being wasteful with our resources in trying to deter away a
refugee situation. I think what we need to do is dedicate our
attention and resources to getting the bottom of every person's
story and finding out who needs protection here in the United
States. And the best way to do that is make sure we have an
efficient court process and that people are represented
throughout that process.
Mrs. Brooks. And have more trained professionals figuring
out who is in a dangerous versus in a family situation?
Ms. Podkul. Exactly. Exactly.
Mrs. Brooks. Do we use DNA testing, swabs? Do we use that?
Ms. Podkul. Yes. Well, I think what we can----
Mrs. Brooks. To figure out if they are actual family
members?
Ms. Podkul. Well, a lot of family members are coming with
appropriate documentation to show family relationships. So, I
think what we need to do is have a specially trained cohort of
professionals who know what are all the tools that can be used
and then let the families decide what they want to do in terms
of moving forward.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
Dr. Linton?
Dr. Linton. And, Representative Brooks, you mentioned the
needs in the community. And I would, as a pediatrician who is
on the ground in my community, I would say that every child who
is coming to our country in search of safe haven, including
those who have been separated, really does need access to
comprehensive medical care and mental health services where, in
partnership with our legal colleagues, we can ensure that their
stories are told and they have access to legal counsel, to
education, and to health services that allow them to stay
healthy as they proceed through their immigration cases.
Mrs. Brooks. And so, expansion of legal/medical
partnerships? But we have got to know where the children are.
Dr. Linton. Yes.
Mrs. Brooks. We have to know where they are.
Yes, Doctor?
Dr. Muniz de la Pena. I want to say that I think we do have
the guidelines and best practices. In the child welfare
agencies, we have the guidelines of how to separate children
and how do we reunify when there was risk. They are being
practiced in every State. So, we could adopt those guidelines
in the immigration context and bring those professionals to
really counsel people there on the ground.
And then, in the community, I also work with the children
that are released in the community. I agree with you that they
need ongoing mental health and medical services, integrated
care.
And I would add that one of the biggest barriers is that
these children are released to the community, and most States
don't have health insurance. So, they face great barriers to
access basic medical and mental health services. So, that's a
big issue.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you. Thank you.
Ms. Abbott?
Ms. Abbott. I would suggest that an expansion of the
postreunification services--those are services that follow a
child after they're reunified with a family. It would help make
referrals to community professionals, look for where healthcare
could be provided, and identify whatever the needs are that
that family and child has. Right now, ORR does not have enough
resources to assure every child and family gets that service.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
In my 10 seconds, Dr. Shonkoff?
Dr. Shonkoff. So, I would say the urgency is the passage of
time, in a sense that the crisis, as much as it is a crisis of
plan of separation, the urgent emergency is the amount of time
it takes to reunite the child with family, because the increase
in damage is real.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you all. Thank you all for your work.
I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
The gentlelady from Florida, Ms. Castor.
Ms. Castor. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thank you to all the witnesses for what you have done
to help children, especially in the midst of this inhumane
family separation policy.
Mr. Gelernt, the ACLU is engaged in ongoing litigation to
reunify the children who were separated from their parents as a
result of the family separation policy. So, I'm going to ask
this of you, but if any of the other witnesses have answers, I
would like to hear those too.
Earlier today on the first panel, Director Gambler from the
Government Accountability Office, who oversees the Homeland
Security and Justice Departments, responded to a line of
questions that the action taken by a parent or guardian in
properly entering the U.S. with a minor is not a factor in
deciding whether a child should be separated from that parent
or guardian. Is my characterization of Director Gambler's
response consistent with your understanding of the test for
separation that immigration officials or judges have been
applying before and under the zero-tolerance policy?
Mr. Gelernt. What we saw was that people were separated for
entering illegally until the court said, ``No more of that.
That can't happen.'' But we believe it may still be happening.
But one of the other things I think that's tricky is that,
although they may say it's not the basis for separation, they
put the parent in jail for 48 hours and then they say, well,
the child can't come to jail, so we're going to separate. So
it's sort of, they know what's going to happen, and then they
say, well, you don't want the child going to jail. And we say,
well, what about giving the child back after the 48 hours when
the parent is released?
And that's really what the court got its hands around, is
parents were not getting their children back for 8, 9 months.
And so I think you're right to characterize it. It's very much
a factor of, we're going to prosecute this mother, put her in
jail for 48 hours because it's just a misdemeanor, and then
we're not going to give the child back. And the judge said it
cannot be a factor, but it very much was a factor, and we think
it may still be a factor.
Ms. Castor. Thank you.
How many parents or guardians separated from their children
in percentage terms have been previously charged, detained, or
arrested for improper entry into the United States?
Mr. Gelernt. That's a very good question, and we've been
trying to figure that out and have not been able to get
statistics on it. And I don't know that the Government keeps
track of it. So I think we are trying to interview people and
get some sense of it, but it's very difficult. But by no means
was everyone who was separated someone who went and crossed
between ports of entry. Our main plaintiff, Ms. L, went to a
port of entry, applied legally, and was still separated from
her child. And there were many people like that. So the
narrative that ``Oh, we won't take your child if you go to a
port of entry and apply legally'' is simply not true.
Ms. Castor. Could a prior case that has been brought
against a parent or guardian for attempting to cross the border
or enter the U.S. improperly be used as a factor in determining
whether to separate that parent or guardian from their child?
Mr. Gelernt. We don't believe so, and we don't believe that
the court is allowing that. So, if we see that--the problem is
we're not getting full information, and I don't think the
providers on the ground are getting full information. But we
will go back to court anytime we see that because we think the
court made it clear that that's not a basis for separation,
because then you would be separating lots of asylum seekers
where they're not presenting a danger to their child.
Ms. Castor. As we heard on the previous panel as well,
several ongoing and unresolved issues between HHS and DHS have
impaired efforts to reunify children with their parents and may
have resulted in additional separations even after the family
separation policy supposedly ended. Incomplete data, failure to
share information collected between Departments.
Ms. Podkul, I would like to start with you. Why is it
important to ensure that the data about children's separation
status be tracked and shared with HHS?
Ms. Podkul. There's so many reasons.
Ms. Castor. So many?
Ms. Podkul. But I would say, just looking at the child's
legal case, oftentimes it's going to be the parent who has the
information about why the family fled the country in the first
place. The adult is often the one that's going to hold the
documents that would be used to prove a case.
So, if our attorneys are representing a child, they're
going to have incomplete information and the child won't be
able to make their case about why they need protection. So it's
incredibly important not only for reunification purposes but
for our Government to find out what is the story with this
child and does this child need protection here in the United
States.
Ms. Castor. Were you surprised by the January 2019 OIG
report about ORR, that they are still having problems? The ORR
systems are still not where they need to be to properly track
potentially separated children?
Ms. Podkul. Unfortunately, I was not. I can tell you, just
a few weeks ago, a colleague reported that she was interviewing
a child, and the only way she found out that that child had
been separated from a parent was through her own interview with
the child. She was never notified through the official files, a
file for the child. She was never notified by the ORR case
worker. It was only because she interviewed the child and
specifically asked him that she found out that he had been
separated.
Ms. Castor. There is so much more to do.
Thank you very much. I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman from South Carolina is
recognized.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Let me remind the committee that it's Shine a Light on
Slavery Day today. Forty million people around the globe are
enslaved. Seventy percent are women. One in four are children.
I want to thank the panelists. It is obvious that your
heart is in the right place, that you care about children, and
you want to do what is best for them.
I actually supported money for the Northern Triangle
countries when we had the unaccompanied children issue back
during the Obama administration. I had a conversation with
President Obama at the Summit of the Americas in Panama, where
I told him I probably supported more money than he was asking
for to deal with the problem down there, to try to stop the
flow of unaccompanied children. It is hard to believe that
parents would send their children north unaccompanied that way.
To shift gears just a little bit, on Monday, McAllen agents
working near Hidalgo, Texas, arrested eight illegal aliens
shortly after they entered the U.S. When they did the
background check, a Mexican man's records checked that he had
been arrested in Cobb County, Georgia, for child molestation.
Later that night, agents from the Rio Grande City, working near
Roma, Texas, arrested a Honduran mule. Records checks indicated
that he had been arrested and convicted in North Carolina for
indecent liberties with a child.
Tuesday morning, Arlington agents working near Progressa,
Texas, arrested 16 illegal aliens after making their illegal
entry into the United States. Record checks for a Honduran man
revealed he is a member of MS-13, a gang with a criminal
history that included aggravated assault with a deadly weapon,
kidnapping, false imprisonment, State of Florida. The Border
Patrol is processing these subjects.
And that is a real issue. People are coming into this
country, and they are all not children. They are all not with
their parents. We have a situation at our border.
But I am hearing today things like toxic distress and
traumatic life experiences. So let's talk about some of those.
How about the traumatic life experience of having your loved
one murdered by an illegal alien, like Kate Steinle or Brian
Terry, or the David family, or countless other Angel Moms and
Angel Dads who will never hold their children in their arms
again because of violent illegal aliens?
How about the traumatic life experience of having your
neighborhood taken over by MS-13? Having your school terrorized
by illegal alien gangs? American children raped, beaten, and
murdered by MS-13 thugs? The President mentioned one in New
York on the subway, the first subway murder in I don't know how
many years there, by MS-13 gang members. That is toxic distress
for American families that they face every day because of
illegal immigration.
So we are not here today to talk about asylum reform or
changing the Flores Settlement or building the wall or
mandatory E-Verify. We are not talking today about illegal
immigration magnets that created the incentives for illegal
families to do the stupid things that endanger their kids by
traveling thousands of miles across a desert to come in the
country that they may or may not get asylum or citizenship
from.
We are not talking about the drug trafficking of the meth,
and the fentanyl, and the cocaine, and the marijuana that is
pouring across our southern border. We are not talking about
the sex trafficking today and human trafficking in general that
happens along our southern border. We are not talking today
about sanctuary city policies. We are not talking about the
murder of American citizens on American soil by illegal
immigrant thugs. We are not here to discuss how to end the
crisis at our border by strengthening American security. No, we
are here playing politics to muddy this President and the laws
that are on the books that require what is going on.
Now I mentioned earlier today, when children are
apprehended at the border, either alone or with someone, we
need to make sure that that person they are with is a relative
or a parent. So get that child away from maybe a potentially
dangerous situation. I just mentioned some--child trafficking,
human trafficking, sex trafficking--that affects children.
Let's separate that child and make sure that that person is who
they say they are, that there is a DNA test, make sure that
that child who has just traveled thousands of miles is healthy.
They don't all get the inoculations that we get and give to
our children here in this country. So there is a potential that
they have the diseases that we have beat back in this country
that they could be bringing in and exposing American children
when they are relocated in our communities. That is important,
to make sure that that child is healthy and he gets the
vaccination that is needed.
And then we will figure out if that person that he came
with is a parent or, if he is alone, maybe there is somebody in
the country that will take care of that child. That takes a
little bit of time. You can't do it overnight, and many times
you can't do it in 72 hours.
And so, when I talk to the Office of Refugee Resettlement
and I talk to the folks at HHS, they are doing the best they
can to make sure that those kids have a comfortable, safe
environment to live in while we are figuring all this out,
places to kick a soccer ball and interact with other kids while
we are figuring this out, because heaven forbid we release a
child into the country that ends up in Atlanta, Georgia, during
the Super Bowl, providing a service because they are a sex
slave in this country. It is hard for me to fathom that we even
have that going on in this country.
But it is Shine a Light on Slavery Day, and it is going on
around the world, and we can put an end to it.
And with that, I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentlelady from New York is recognized for
5 minutes.
Ms. Clarke. I thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the
ranking member.
I thank our experts for being here and sharing with us
their observations and the work that they are doing.
My colleague, I know, was not trying to make us believe
that he is in favor of innocent individuals having their
children orphaned by a broken process that was established
under this administration.
And so I just want to focus in once again on why we are
here. There are innocent families who have been separated at
the border, and an incompetent administration that did not take
into account all of the steps that need to be in place to
accept individuals into our Nation as refugees along with their
children.
I wanted to ask a couple of questions. Dr. Muniz de la
Pena, I understand that your clinic has also provided services
to children who have been affected by this policy. Could you
describe some of your firsthand experiences in working with
these children and their families?
Dr. Muniz de la Pena. One of the first experiences that was
different from the general unaccompanied immigrant children
population that we see is that it was younger ages. And so, the
trauma, how it showed up, the stress was very different, from a
7-year-old who was sobbing from the minute she was in the room
and I started asking questions and couldn't talk the entire
session and hung onto me because that's all she could do, from
the child I described earlier with disassociation symptoms, so
he couldn't even be present to answer the questions about that,
but he was able to answer any questions about what sports he
played or what toys he liked. A teenager who was depressed and
feeling hopeless and helpless that nothing else was going to
change in her life, because that's what trauma does to you.
When terrifying experiences happen to you that you don't have
control over, you might generalize that to any experience in
your life and any figure of power in your life.
Ms. Clarke. And how would you say that these experiences
have impacted the mental health of the children that came
through your clinic, both now and in the long term?
Dr. Muniz de la Pena. In the short term, you see a lot of
symptoms of acute stress, so a lot of anxiety. I have a way of
describing this. Children and humans in general, we tend to
internalize this stress or externalize it. When we internalize
it, we become depressed, we become anxious. There's low self-
esteem, fear. When you externalize it, you are the kind of
person that acts out, that becomes loud, that has impulsivity.
So you see that in the children in the short term.
In the long term, the way that you relate to people is
affected, the way that you feel about yourself, the way you
feel about the world, the beliefs you have and perceptions and
expectations you have about others, the way you are able to
love your family, your own children in the future, your
partner. So it affects the basic elements of your life
experience.
Ms. Clarke. Very well.
Dr. Linton, you mentioned in your testimony that you have
served patients who were separated from a parent as a result of
this policy. And your description of the boy and his mother who
were separated for over a week is heartbreaking. One shudders
to think how many children had to go through these experiences.
But, Dr. Linton, from a clinical perspective, how were
these children affected by the experience of being separated?
Dr. Linton. Well, I think we can use the framework again of
toxic stress to think about that, both the impact on the short
term and then the impact on the long-term health. I think
what's broader here and what's different about this particular
set of children is that this is really Government-sanctioned
child endangerment. So, rather than the experiences that a
child had in country of origin that left the family with no
choice but to flee, upon arriving on our border, rather than
providing a response that was characterized by dignity,
compassion, and respect, we've retraumatized the child and
reinitiated the process of toxic stress, compounding that
stress, as Dr. Ruiz mentioned, and furthering that stress, such
that we have a much more serious risk of both short-term impact
and long-term impact.
I saw with that child, who had only been separated for a
mere seven days, a serious physiologic reaction right in front
of my eyes. And I can only imagine what that looks like, and I
have seen what it looks like when it's much more prolonged.
Ms. Clarke. Well, let me thank all of you. And I want to,
in particular, thank you at the ACLU for taking on a role and
responsibility that really wasn't necessarily part of your
mission but has become a part of your mission. Our Nation is
reeling from the realization of what the United States
Government under this particular administration has done. And I
really believe in the end we are going to have to start
restitution. So I hope that the ACLU will look into ways and
work with this Congress to look at what restitution could look
like for these families, because there is no way that this
crime against humanity should go just the way that it has.
Mr. Gelernt. Thank you, Congresswoman, and we absolutely
will.
Ms. Clarke. I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Burgess, is
recognized.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And thanks to our witnesses, our panel, for staying with
us. This has been a long day, an important day, an informative
day.
Let me just be sure that I am clear on a couple of items.
First, Mr. Gelernt, as we have heard throughout the course of
this long day, the problem on the border during the Trump
administration, but may have actually predated the Trump
administration. So I remember going down in 2014, 2013. I think
in the height of the surge of unaccompanied immigrant children
in 2014 I remember a Customs and Border Patrol individual
giving me a figure of we pick up 1,300 a day, we process 1,300
a day, we have got 90 beds. So that was a problem.
And ORR, subsequently, has said--one thing Mr. Duncan
referenced, some of the appropriations that were done during
the Obama administration. So, got more resources down there,
but still it was a big problem to have to manage.
At that point, children were being held at a reclaimed
barracks in San Antonio at the Air Force Base there. Was ACLU
involved in any of those cases?
Mr. Gelernt. Well, Congressman, I would like to distinguish
between two types of unaccompanied children. The first I think
is what you are talking about, which are kids who were
genuinely unaccompanied, coming here without a parent. And they
need some place to go. I think that presents one issue.
But what we're talking about here that's different than
prior administrations is children being rendered unaccompanied,
taken from their parents.
Mr. Burgess. And let's stay with that concept for a minute.
Because, in 2014, the child comes and is unaccompanied. Yes,
it's Lackland Air Force Base. If they have a parent with them,
the procedure, if I remember correctly, particularly down in
south Texas, was they got dropped off at the parking lot at
Sacred Heart Church in McAllen. And a volunteer at the church
would provide a bus ticket, and off they would go. They had a
notice to appear. And I referenced the term ``permiso.'' That
was how it was referred to locally back in home country.
So that was part of the problem, as well, because folks
were just going into communities without really a lot of
control, and no one knew who they were, where they were showing
up.
The pediatricians on the panel can tell us that there are
some public health implications to that. 2014 saw one of the
largest outbreaks of Enterovirus D68 that had ever been seen in
this country. I am not saying it was a result of the surge of
unaccompanied alien children and their family units, but
certainly the timeline, it was August of 2014 when that
occurred.
Dr. Linton, you talked about you had a child that had
recorded a seven-day separation, is that correct? In general,
were the separations longer or shorter than that? You gave that
one as an example.
Dr. Linton. Yes. So the majority of the separations were
much longer. And as the chair of the American Academy of
Pediatrics Immigrant Health Special Interest Group, I have the
privilege of connecting with pediatricians across the country
who have cared for children who've been separated----
Mr. Burgess. Let's stick with ones you, yourself, directly
administered to.
Dr. Linton. So I've seen children separated from anywhere
from several days to several months.
Mr. Burgess. And my understanding from information you
provided to the staff, that there was a three-month separation?
Dr. Linton. Yes, I did see a three-month separation.
Mr. Burgess. Do you remember when that was?
Dr. Linton. Yes. It was in a previous administration. And
what I would add to that would be that what I learned from that
was seeing the horrible short- and long-term effects of health
that made me attune to what I may see in a future separation,
which was then reported by pediatricians across the country.
Mr. Burgess. So that occurred before the unenlightened
Trump administration came to power. So that was 2015 or 2016?
Dr. Linton. That separation was an example of one of the
specific separations that may have occurred prior to systematic
Government-sanctioned separation for merely crossing a border.
Mr. Burgess. But what were the circumstances of that
separation?
Dr. Linton. I'm not privy to discuss the separation, but
the mother was not reported to----
Mr. Burgess. Well, I think it would be important, Madam
Chairwoman, if there is some way you can provide in a public
forum that----
Dr. Linton. I think I can share that this woman was
victimized by a gang and had fled as a result of that and was
subsequently accused of violence, which she had not in fact
willingly been part of. She was forced by----
Mr. Burgess. See, I do agree with Mr. Duncan, and he said
that he had requested from the Obama administration to perhaps
consider additional funding for countries in Central America,
and I don't disagree with that. I did travel down there this
summer. Yes, there is a problem with violence, but the violence
is begotten by corruption of their governments. I guess the big
news this morning is there's a new President in El Salvador.
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Burgess. And he sounds to be a reformer. I encourage
this administration to make the inroads and outreach to that
new administration in El Salvador. We are not going to solve
this problem----
Ms. DeGette. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Burgess [continuing]. On the southern border. It is
going to have to be solved farther upstream.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair recognizes----
Mr. Burgess. Thank you. I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. The Chair recognizes the chairman of the full
committee, Mr. Pallone.
Mr. Pallone. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Some in the administration claim the family separation
policy is over, the crisis is past, and we should move on. But,
even if the administration has cleaned up their act, which
remains unclear based on what we heard today, the children who
were ripped from their families still suffer enormous physical
and psychological consequences long after being reunited with
their loved ones.
So I just want to dive a bit deeper into the research that
has been conducted on these impacts. I think it is safe to say
that forcibly separating a child from their parent would
disrupt that relationship and would substantially impact the
stability and predictability of that child's environment, and
this could cause immense damage to the child's development that
would only compound the longer the disruption occurred.
So let me just ask some questions in this regard. Dr.
Shonkoff, what made the policy of forced separation uniquely
damaging to the children affected by it?
Dr. Shonkoff. That's a really good question. Uniquely
damaging is that it was Government-ordered separation
arbitrarily. Beyond that, it's not unique at all. I mean, this
is not a new phenomenon for us to understand what the
consequences are for children to be separated from their
parents. And we know a lot about how to minimize the trauma and
how to meet the needs. But I think the only thing in my mind
that was unique was that I have no memory of the Government
ever ordering kind of arbitrary separation of children from
parents.
Mr. Pallone. And, Dr. Linton, is there anything you would
add about what the research shows regarding the unique harms
caused by the forced separation policy?
Dr. Linton. I think I would add that, again, we're
retraumatizing children who have already fled violence and are
seeking safety. And then, doing that in a systematic way is
much different than doing that on a case-by-case basis under
the provision of child welfare standards where you're concerned
for the safety of the child at the hand of a parent, and you
have the supervision of a competent family court making that
determination.
Mr. Pallone. Let me go back to Dr. Shonkoff. Is there any
way to design a policy of forced separation that would not be
harmful to children?
Dr. Shonkoff. Any abrupt separation is traumatic for a
child. The question of whether it's harmful depends upon what
is prompting the need for separation. So I think the message
here is really clear from any perspective. It is that
separating children from their parents should have a very high
threshold for being done. And when it's done, for whatever
reason, it immediately creates an urgent situation of how do we
protect the child from the effects of the separation.
Mr. Pallone. I am going to go back to Dr. Linton again. In
your professional opinion, is there any research that shows
that a policy of forced separation is good for children?
Dr. Linton. There's no evidence at anytime a separation
from a parent is good for children.
Mr. Pallone. Well, let's say if the Government had
consulted you on a family separation policy. What would you
have told them?
Dr. Linton. I would have told them that separation of a
parent and a child should never occur unless there are concerns
for the safety of that child at the hand of a parent and a
competent family court makes that determination with the best
interest of the child at hand.
Mr. Pallone. And, Dr. Muniz, can I ask you to comment on
that too, the same thing?
Dr. Muniz de la Pena. Yes. I think that we have systems in
place already in each State to investigate cases where there is
indication of child abuse or neglect. And so, that can inform
the process in which we separate those children. But it takes a
lot legally for a court to take away a child from a parent. It
doesn't happen immediately without signs of immediate harm,
physical, especially physical. So I think we have already
systems that we could use.
Mr. Pallone. I appreciate all this. I mean, I know I sound
like a broken record, Madam Chair. And I know that HHS is not
in charge of the separation. They are not the agency that
orders the separation and when people are separated.
But I just think that, when I weigh these things, and even
today, based on the advocates in my district that I talk to,
they are very concerned about the fact that, even today, that
sometimes--I don't know how often--children are separated from
their parents at the border because there is this sort of
innate concern that they shouldn't be taking the kids off to
the border and there is something wrong with the parents that
do that.
I experienced that too, as I said earlier, when I went to
visit the fathers that I visited in New Jersey on Father's Day,
that there was this sort of notion by the people that were
watching them that, just because they brought the kids over the
border, that they are bad parents. And it seems to me that,
even if you believe that, which I don't, the harm that is done
by separating them is so much worse than if they were kept with
the parent.
And so I think what Dr. Linton said is true, that unless
you have--what did you say? You said that you actually would
want to see it litigated in court before it was done, that this
parent was abusive or this parent, you know, it was something
harmful to the child. And I agree with you.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
Soto, 5 minutes.
Mr. Soto. Thank you, Madam Chair.
And I spoke a little bit before about my experience at the
Homestead facility in south Florida in our home State. And that
was after being blocked from getting to go the first time,
where we saw 1,179 teenagers, primarily from Honduras,
Nicaragua, El Salvador, there. Many of them were there because
of the family separation policy.
And this idea that it is an act of negligence by a parent
or somehow this is de facto proof that a parent was doing
something bad for their kid is just totally false. When you
look at, unfortunately, the war-torn countries down there and
the drug cartels, this is an act of love. I mean, I don't think
anybody can deny that this is a loving parent who doesn't want
their kids condemned to death or being conscripted in drug
cartels.
We saw a surge of folks in the Homestead facility, among
many others, when the family separation policy happened. We
also saw a bottlenecking of them afterwards due to certain
policies. One of those that both created this bottleneck and
weaponized HHS was the announcement of a formalized memorandum
of agreement to share information, including immigration
status, of potential child sponsors. I have seen many folks who
have raised serious concerns about this, the idea of using
information obtained from detained immigrant children to try to
deport their parents. It risks weaponizing ORR into becoming an
immigration enforcement arm of DHS. A hundred and seventy such
people were deported by ICE as a result of that information
sharing.
First, Ms. Podkul, KIND stated last June that the proposed
information collection under the MOA will, quote, ``alter
longstanding practice and frustrate the ability of the ORR to
place children in the least restrictive setting in their best
interest.''
Ms. Podkul, how does the MOA interfere with ORR's ability
to act in the child's best interest?
Ms. Podkul. Sure. When Congress gave the responsibility of
unaccompanied children to ORR, what they did is they separated
who was going to be doing the immigration enforcement--that was
going to go to DHS--and then the care and custody of children
would be a completely different arm of Government. And the goal
was that agency could prioritize child welfare. And then we had
a whole other department and agencies who were responsible for
immigration enforcement.
Up until the MOA, ORR was never using information they were
gathering. That was never intended to go to ICE for immigration
enforcement purposes. What ORR was doing is they were finding
the best possible person who was willing to care for the child,
at no cost to the Government, while that child goes through
their court process.
Mr. Soto. Thank you.
Mr. Gelernt, in Secretary Nielsen's and Secretary Azar's
last November letter, the ACLU joined 111 national
organizations urging the reversal. Could you describe any
firsthand examples of the chilling effect on potential sponsors
and how that impacts children and families?
Mr. Gelernt. Yes. I think what we're seeing is families
being scared to come and sponsor children. We feel like they're
being deterred from coming forward.
Also, some of the procedures that have been put in place,
the delays in fingerprinting, fingerprinting everyone in the
household, some of these changes we think are creating real
delays in getting children out. And so that detention centers
are filling up unnecessarily.
Mr. Soto. Thank you.
And, Dr. Muniz de la Pena, what would the impacts be on a
child faced with the possibility that they might put family
members at risk for arrest or deportation by naming them?
Dr. Muniz de la Pena. Well, there is already research about
the impact that the fear of the deportation of your caretaker
does for children, and it is similar to what has been discussed
in terms of toxic stress. Because just the fear of losing your
caretaker can create that fear of harm to your well-being. So,
I think that the harm is obvious.
Mr. Soto. And, Dr. Linton, are there potential compounding
effects of both the possible extended separation due to this
MOA and the related guilt/responsibility placed on these
children?
Dr. Linton. Yes. I think we've heard today from our panel
that prolonged separation increases the risk of both the short-
and long-term effects of that stress response on the developing
brain and the developing body of children who have been
systematically separated.
Mr. Soto. Thank you.
And I just want to end by saying, you know, this is a legal
act, coming to this Nation seeking asylum. This isn't even an
unlawful entry. And there's a humane way of doing this. Unless
there is cause, then we should be using ankle bracelets and
letting kids go to the best caretaker they have and let the
immigration process sort itself out, rather than this
separation to try to deter in the most inhuman way that the
greatest nation in the world could possibly do. And it doesn't
even serve as an effective deterrent in the process.
And with that, I yield back.
Ms. DeGette. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
With unanimous consent, we will enter the letter offered by
Dr. Muniz de la Pena from the American Psychological
Association into the record.
[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Ms. DeGette. And I really want to thank all the witnesses
for coming today. This was the first hearing this committee has
had on the unaccompanied minors and the family separation, and
it has been a very important hearing. I appreciate you sticking
with us for the whole day.
And I want to let you and also the previous panel know that
the investigation continues. We are still waiting for documents
from HHS about how far up this policy went. And we are also
still looking at what the policies are. And so we can expect
more action.
I remind Members that, pursuant to committee rules, they
have 10 business days to submit additional questions for the
record to be answered by witnesses who have appeared before the
subcommittee. And I ask that the witnesses agree to respond
promptly to such questions, should you receive any.
With that, the subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:32 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
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From: Jonathan White, Commander, United States Public
Health Service Commissioned Corps
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