[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
GROWING UP IN FEAR:
HOW THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S
IMMIGRATION POLICIES ARE
HARMING CHILDREN
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
AND LABOR
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, DECEMBER 4, 2019
__________
Serial No. 116-47
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: www.govinfo.gov
or
Committee address: https://edlabor.house.gov
______
U. S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
39-490 WASHINGTON : 2021
COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR
ROBERT C. ``BOBBY'' SCOTT, Virginia, Chairman
Susan A. Davis, California Virginia Foxx, North Carolina,
Raul M. Grijalva, Arizona Ranking Member
Joe Courtney, Connecticut David P. Roe, Tennessee
Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Tim Walberg, Michigan
Northern Mariana Islands Brett Guthrie, Kentucky
Frederica S. Wilson, Florida Bradley Byrne, Alabama
Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Mark Takano, California Elise M. Stefanik, New York
Alma S. Adams, North Carolina Rick W. Allen, Georgia
Mark DeSaulnier, California Lloyd Smucker, Pennsylvania
Donald Norcross, New Jersey Jim Banks, Indiana
Pramila Jayapal, Washington Mark Walker, North Carolina
Joseph D. Morelle, New York James Comer, Kentucky
Susan Wild, Pennsylvania Ben Cline, Virginia
Josh Harder, California Russ Fulcher, Idaho
Lucy McBath, Georgia Van Taylor, Texas
Kim Schrier, Washington Steve Watkins, Kansas
Lauren Underwood, Illinois Ron Wright, Texas
Jahana Hayes, Connecticut Daniel Meuser, Pennsylvania
Donna E. Shalala, Florida Dusty Johnson, South Dakota
Andy Levin, Michigan* Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Gregory F. Murphy, North Carolina
David J. Trone, Maryland
Haley M. Stevens, Michigan
Susie Lee, Nevada
Lori Trahan, Massachusetts
Joaquin Castro, Texas
* Vice-Chair
Veronique Pluviose, Staff Director
Brandon Renz, Minority Staff Director
------
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on December 4, 2019................................. 1
Statement of Members:
Scott, Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'', Chairman, Committee on
Education and Labor........................................ 1
Prepared statement of.................................... 3
Foxx, Hon. Virginia, Ranking Member, Committee on Education
and Labor.................................................. 5
Prepared statement of.................................... 6
Statement of Witness:
Barajas-Gonzalez, Ms. Gabriela, Ph.D., Assistant Professor,
Department of Population Health, Center for Early Childhood
and Development, New York University School of Medicine.... 9
Prepared statement of.................................... 11
Falusi, Dr. Olanrewaju, MD, FAAP, Pediatrician and Executive
Committee Member, American Academy of Pediatrics' Council
on Immigrant Child and Family Health, Past President,
American Academy of Pediatrics' D.C. Chapter............... 35
Prepared statement of.................................... 38
Martinez, Mr. Pedro, Superintendent, San Antonio Independent
School District............................................ 22
Prepared statement of.................................... 25
Metcalf, Hon. Mark H., J.D., Former Immigration Judge........ 28
Prepared statement of.................................... 30
Additional Submissions:
Castro, Hon. Joaquin, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas:
Prepared statement from Zero to Three.................... 97
Fudge, Hon. Marcia L, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Ohio:
Prepared statement from Children's HealthWatch........... 105
Grijalva, Hon. Raul M., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Arizona:
Prepared statement from UNIDOSUS......................... 114
Hayes, Hon. Jahana, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Connecticut:
Link: U.S. Government Accountability Office Report (GAO). 122
Chairman Scott:
Letter dated May 8, 2014.................................
Working Paper for UCLA Civil Rights Project.............. 123
Immigration Policy's Harmful Impacts on Early Care and
Education.............................................. 146
Social Policy Report Brief............................... 175
Prepared statement from Next100.......................... 177
Link: Trauma At The Border............................... 179
Takano, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress from the
State of California:
Our Children's Fear (CLASP).............................. 180
Questions submitted for the record by:
Davis, Hon. Susan A., a Representative in Congress from
the State of California................................ 222
Hayes, Hon. Jahana, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Connecticut
Omar, Hon. Ilhan, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Minnesota
Sablan, Hon. Gregorio Kilili Camacho, a Representative in
Congress from the Northern Mariana Islands
Chairman Scott........................................... 222
Stevens, Hon. Haley M., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Michigan
Underwood, Hon. Lauren a Representative in Congress from
the State of Illinois.................................. 220
Responses to questions submitted for the record by:
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez..................................... 226.
Dr. Falusi............................................... 234
Mr. Martinez............................................. 238
Mr. Metcalf.............................................. 244
GROWING UP IN FEAR:
HOW THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION'S
IMMIGRATION POLICIES ARE
HARMING CHILDREN
----------
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
House of Representatives,
Committee on Education and the Workforce,
Washington, D.C.
----------
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:18 a.m., in
Room 2175, Rayburn House Office Building. Hon. Robby C.
``Bobby'' Scott (Chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Scott, Davis, Grijalva, Courtney,
Sablan, Wilson, Bonamici, Takano, Adams, DeSaulnier, Norcross,
Morelle, Wild, Harder, Schrier, Underwood, Hayes, Shalala,
Levin, Omar, Trone, Stevens, Lee, Castro, Foxx, Roe, Thompson,
Walberg, Guthrie, Byrne, Grothman, Stefanik, Allen, Smucker,
Banks, Walker, Comer, Fulcher, Taylor, Wright, Meuser, Johnson,
and Keller.
Staff Present: Tylease Alli, Chief Clerk; Ramon Carranza,
Education Policy Fellow; Paula Daneri, Professional Staff; Emma
Eatman, Press Assistant; Christian Haines, General Counsel;
Alison Hard, Professional Staff; Carrie Hughes, Director of
Health and Human Services; Ariel Jona, Staff Assistant;
Stephanie Lalle, Deputy Communications Director; Andre Lindsay,
Staff Assistant; Jaria Martin, Clerk/Assistant to the Staff
Director; Richard Miller, Director of Labor Policy; Veronique
Pluviose, Staff Director; Carolina Silva, Education Policy
Fellow; Loredana Valtierra, Education Policy Counsel; Banyon
Vassar, Deputy Director of Information Technology; Katelyn
Walker, Counsel; Cyrus Artz, Minority Parliamentarian; Kelsey
Avino, Minority Fellow; Courtney Butcher, Minority Director of
Coalitions and Member Services; Dean Johnson, Minority Staff
Assistant; Amy Raaf Jones, Minority Director of Education and
Human Resources Policy; John Martin, Minority Workforce Policy
Counsel; Jake Middlebrooks, Minority Professional Staff Member;
Carlton Norwood, Minority Press Secretary; Brandon Renz,
Minority Staff Director; Chance Russell, Minority Legislative
Assistant; and Brad Thomas, Minority Senior Education Policy
Advisor.
Chairman Scott. The meeting will come to order. The
Committee on Education and Labor will come to order and
welcome, everyone, to the committee. I note that a quorum is
present and the committee is meeting today in a legislative
hearing to hear testimony on the subject of growing up in fear,
how the Trump Administration's immigration policies are harming
children.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 7(c), opening statements are
limited to the Chair and Ranking Member. This allows us to hear
from our witnesses sooner and provides all members with
adequate time to ask questions.
I now recognize myself for the purpose of making an opening
statement.
Today's hearing will help us understand and address the
impact of the Trump Administration's immigration policies on
children, particularly undocumented children and children from
mixed-status families. There are roughly 2.9 million children
living in the United States today who were born outside of this
country. An additional 16.7 million children were born in the
United States, but have at least one parent who was not born in
the United States. Alltogether, about 27 percent of all
children in the United States, a total of 19.6 million are
growing up in immigrant families.
While immigration policy is a topic of intense debate, it
is not the focus of the hearing, nor is it within the
committee's jurisdiction. Let me say that again, while
immigration policy is a topic of intense debate, it is not the
focus of this hearing, nor is it within the committee's
jurisdiction. We are here today because we have a legal
responsibility to protect children living within our Nation's
borders, regardless of when and how they got here. All children
should have a safe and healthy childhood. Not only is this a
principle embedded in our moral code, it is reflected in our
Federal code as well.
Federal laws protect the right of immigrant children and
the children of immigrant parents to access many essential
programs and services under the jurisdiction of this committee.
Of particular interest, these rights include access to a public
education for all students in this country.
In 1982 the Supreme Court's decision in Plyler v. Doe found
that undocumented children are protected by the Equal
Protection clause in the 14th Amendment. Accordingly, all
children have the same right to a free public education,
regardless of immigration status. Our Constitution prevents
undocumented students from being denied public education
services due to their immigration status.
Federal law also ensures that all children, regardless of
their immigration status or the status of their parents or
guardians, are eligible for Head Start, the largest Federal
early childhood education program and programs that deliver
basic nutritional assistance.
Protecting access to education and nutritional services for
all children is critical to ensuring that the nearly 20 million
children growing up in immigrant families in our country,
regardless of status, have an opportunity to reach their full
potential.
Regrettably, over the past 3 years, the Trump
Administration has implemented immigration policies and
inflammatory rhetoric to discourage or prevent children growing
up in immigrant families from accessing basic services for
which they are eligible under Federal law. Since taking office,
the Administration has expanded deportation policies, including
authorizing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE,
to arrest parents dropping off kids at school and conducting
the largest workplace raid in history, instituted a so-called
zero tolerance policy and separated more than 5,400 children
from their families, many of whom were held in unsanitary
conditions, and they finalized a rule, which is currently being
held up in Courts, that allows immigration officials to deny
lawful permanent resident status to immigrants based on their
use of vital services, including food assistance.
Throughout this period, dating back to the 2016 campaign,
President Trump has repeatedly directed a harsh rhetoric aimed
at immigrants, creating a culture of fear that has upended the
lives of individuals living in immigrant communities all across
the country. The combined effect of the President's policy and
rhetoric is inflicting physical and emotional trauma on
children throughout the country.
The Office of Inspector General of the Department of Health
and Human Services has documented distressing conditions in
Federal immigration detention centers. According to one of
their reports, children who are separated from their parents
``expressed acute grief that caused them to cry inconsolably''.
In the recent study, early childhood providers reported
alarming levels of anxiety symptoms and emotional distress
among young children. One provider reported that one of her 5-
year-old children was so distressed that he is biting his
fingertips to the point where they were bleeding.
School administrators have also reported increasing signs
of anxiety and emotional stress among K-12 students, as well as
a rise in hostile climates, all of which undermine student
learning. And providers of food and health in early childhood
education programs are reporting steep declines in
participation among immigrant communities.
This Administration's actions are jeopardizing access to a
safe and healthy childhood for millions of children,
undermining their development, and altering the trajectory of
their lives. We must recognize that denying any child access to
basic services is not only immoral, it is harmful to our
school, communities, and even our economy.
Frederick Douglass famously wrote that it is easier to
build strong children than to repair broken men.
As policy makers, we must protect the rights of immigrant
children regardless of their status so that they can learn,
grow, and contribute to our Nation. We must also increase
Federal investments in vital education programs that support
the development of all children, including programs that help
educators work with children suffering from trauma.
I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today and
look forward to their testimony.
I now yield to the Ranking Member, Dr. Foxx, for the
purpose of an openings statement.
[The statement by Chairman Scott follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Robert C. ``Bobby'' Scott, Chairman,
Committee on Education and Labor
Today's hearing will help us understand and address the impact of
the Trump Administration's immigration policies on children--
particularly undocumented children and children from mixed-status
families.
There are roughly 2.9 million children living in the United States
today who were born outside the country. An additional 16.7 million
children were born in the United States but have at least one parent
who was not. Altogether, about 27 percent of all children in the United
States, a total of 19.6 million, are growing up in immigrant families.
While immigration policy is a topic of intense debate, it is not
the focus of this hearing nor is it within this Committee's
jurisdiction. We are here today because we have a moral and legal
responsibility to protect the children living within our nation's
borders - regardless of when or how they got here.
All children should have a safe and healthy childhood. Not only is
this principle embedded in our moral code, it is reflected in our
federal code as well. Federal laws protect the right of immigrant
children and the children of immigrant parents to access many of the
essential programs and services under the jurisdiction of our
Committee.
Of particular interest, these rights include access to a public
education for all students in this country.
In 1982, the Supreme Court's decision in Plyler v. Doe found that
undocumented children are protected by the Equal Protection Clause in
the Fourteenth Amendment. Accordingly, all children have the same right
to a free public education - regardless of immigration status. Our
Constitution prevents undocumented students from being denied public
education services due to their immigration status.
Federal law also ensures that all children - regardless of their
immigration status or the status of their parents or guardians - are
eligible for Head Start, the largest federal early childhood education
program, and programs that deliver basic nutrition assistance.
Protecting access to education and nutrition services for all
children is critical to ensuring that the nearly 20 million children
growing up in immigrant families in our country - regardless of status
- have an opportunity to reach their full potential.
Regrettably, over the past three years, the Trump Administration
has implemented draconian immigration policies and inflammatory
rhetoric to discourage or prevent children growing up in immigrant
families from accessing basic services for which they are eligible
under federal law.
Since taking office the Administration has:
* Expanded deportation policies, including authorizing U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to arrest parents dropping
off kids at school and conducting the largest workplace raid in
history;
* Instituted a so-called ``zero-tolerance policy'' and separated
more than 5,400 children from their families, many of whom were held in
unsanitary conditions; and
* Finalized a new rule, which is currently being held up in the
courts, that allows immigration officials to deny lawful permanent
resident status to immigrants based on their use of vital services,
including food assistance.
Throughout this period - and dating back to the 2016 campaign -
President Trump has repeatedly and unapologetically directed harsh
rhetoric aimed at immigrants, creating a culture of fear that has
upended the lives of individuals living in immigrant communities all
across the country.
The combined effect of the president's policies and rhetoric is
inflicting physical harm and emotional trauma on children throughout
the country.
* The Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and
Human Services has documented distressing conditions in federal
immigration detention centers. According to one of their reports,
children who were separated from their parents ``expressed acute grief
that caused them to cry inconsolably;''
* In a recent study, early childhood providers reported alarming
levels of anxiety symptoms and emotional distress among young children.
One provider reported that one of her five-year-old children was so
distressed that he was biting his fingertips to the point where they
were bleeding.
* School administrators have also reported increased signs of
anxiety and emotional distress among K-12 students as well as a rise in
hostile climates, all of which undermine student learning; and,
* Providers of food, health, and early childhood education programs
are reporting steep declines in participation among immigrant
communities.
This Administration's actions are jeopardizing access to a safe and
healthy childhood for millions of children, undermining their
development and altering the trajectory of their lives. We must
recognize that denying any child access to basic services is not only
immoral, it is harmful to our schools, our communities, and even our
economy.
Frederick Douglass famously wrote that, ``It is easier to build
strong children than to repair broken men.'' As policymakers, we must
protect the rights of immigrant children - regardless of their status -
so that they learn, grow, and contribute to our nation. We must also
increase federal investments in the vital education programs that
support the development of all children, including the programs that
help educators work with children suffering from trauma.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today, and I yield to
the Ranking Member, Dr. Foxx, for the purpose of an opening statement.
______
Mrs. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I am disappointed for the lack of notice that
staff received in order to prepare for this hearing. While the
staff of the Majority met the requirements under the rules of
this committee, the notice certainly did not meet the standard
that you set at the beginning of this Congress to be a model
bipartisan committee. If the majority were interested in having
a serious conversation about this issue, it would have given
committee Republicans more than 1 day's notice heading into a
holiday week.
I am also concerned by the partisan preconceptions
surrounding the hearing title. The implication that the Trump
Administration is intentionally harming children is disgusting.
The sad truth is that children are often used as pawns by
smugglers and other nefarious networks to gain entry to the
U.S. That is why House Republicans have introduced legislation
that would protect children by addressing the factors that fuel
illegal immigration and fraud at the border.
Before we hear from our witnesses about the impact
immigration policies may have on children's development, I
would like to set a couple of facts straight.
First, school age children, regardless of their or their
parent's immigration status, have access to free education and
several federal programs, which include health and nutrition
benefits. Second, children coming to the U.S. illegally who are
separated from their parents are provided medical care, mental
health care, and education services. Other services available
to children, regardless of their or their parent's immigration
status, are provided through Head Start and Early Head Start
programs, which aim to help with children's growth in areas
such as language, literacy, and social and emotional
development.
Most notably, states and school districts are obligated
under Plyler v. Doe, as you noted, to provide all children,
regardless of their immigration status, access to public
education at the elementary and secondary level. Federal
elementary and secondary education programs also serve students
who are illegal immigrants.
This idea that this Administration's actions are denying
children access to education and child nutrition programs is
false.
That said, we know that all children, including those U.S.
born with immigrant parents, or children who are immigrants
themselves, may face trauma. As we learned during the
Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Human Services hearing in
September, the statistics are heartbreaking. Studies show that
26 percent of children in the United States will witness or
experience a traumatic event before they turn 4. And more than
2/3rds of children reported at least 1 traumatic event by age
16.
These traumatic events can significantly affect the child's
education and impair their ability to learn. That is why
Congress must address the root causes of the immigration
crisis, not its symptoms. Unfortunately, House Democrats are so
obsessed with impeaching President Trump and trying to
undermine the Trump Administration that we have been unable to
get to work on bipartisan solutions.
And once again, instead of working on bipartisan solutions,
the Democrats are using this hearing to cherry- pick stories to
advance a partisan narrative.
I look forward to the testimony of Mark Metcalf, who has
worked on these issues as an attorney and immigration judge.
Judge Metcalf is proposing solutions that should have
bipartisan support that would address the trauma and fear
immigrant children face. Many of these solutions have also been
proposed by the Trump Administration and Republicans in
Congress.
I thank our witnesses for being here today and look forward
to hearing your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
[The statement by Mrs. Foxx follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Virginia Foxx, Ranking Member, Committee on
Education and Labor
Mr. Chairman, I am disappointed by the lack of notice staff
received in order to prepare for this hearing. While the staff of the
majority met the requirements under the rules of this Committee, the
notice certainly did not meet the standard you set at the beginning of
this Congress to be a model Committee. If the majority was interested
in having a serious conversation about this issue, they would have
given Committee Republicans more than one day's notice heading into a
holiday week.
I am also concerned by the partisan pre-conceptions surrounding the
hearing title. The implication that the Trump administration is
intentionally harming children is disgusting.
The sad truth is that children are often used as pawns by smugglers
and other nefarious networks to gain entry to the U.S. That is why
House Republicans have introduced legislation that would protect
children by addressing the factors that fuel illegal immigration and
fraud at the border.
Before we hear from our witnesses about the impact immigration
policies may have on children's development, I'd like to set a couple
facts straight.
First, school-aged children, regardless of their or their parents'
immigration status, have access to free education and several federal
programs, which include health and nutrition benefits. Second, children
coming to the U.S. illegally, who are separated from their parents, are
provided medical care, mental health care, and education services.
Other services available to children regardless of their or their
parents' immigration status are provided through Head Start and Early
Head Start programs, which aim to help with children's growth in areas
such as language, literacy, and social and emotional development.
Most notably, states and school districts are obligated under
Plyler v. Doe to provide all children regardless of their immigration
status access to public education at the elementary and secondary
level. Federal elementary and secondary education programs also serve
students who are illegal immigrants.
This idea that this Administration's actions are denying children
access to education and child nutrition programs is false.
That said, we know that all children - including those U.S. born
with immigrant parents or children who are immigrants themselves - may
face trauma. As we learned during a Subcommittee on Civil Rights and
Human Services hearing in September, the statistics are heart breaking.
Studies show that 26 percent of children in the United States will
witness or experience a traumatic event before they turn four, and more
than two thirds of children reported at least one traumatic event by
age 16.
These traumatic events can significantly affect a child's education
and impair their ability to learn.
That is why Congress must address the root causes of the
immigration crisis, not its symptoms. Unfortunately, House Democrats
are so obsessed with impeaching President Trump and trying to undermine
the Trump administration that we have been unable to get to work on
bipartisan solutions.
And once again, instead of working on bipartisan solutions, the
Democrats are using this hearing to cherry-pick stories to advance a
partisan narrative.
I look forward to the testimony of Mark Metcalf, who has worked on
these issues as an attorney and immigration judge. Mr. Metcalf is
proposing solutions that should have bipartisan support that would
address the trauma and fear immigrant children face. Many of these
solutions have also been proposed by the Trump administration and
Republicans in Congress.
I want to thank our witnesses for being here today and I look
forward to hearing your testimony.
______
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
Without objection, all other members who wish to insert
written statements into the record may do so by submitting them
to the Committee Clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format
by 5:00 p.m. on December 17.
I will now briefly introduce our witnesses.
Our first witness will be Gabriela Barajas-Gonzalez, who is
an assistant professor at the Center of Early Childhood and
Health Development at the Department of Population Health at
the New York University School of Medicine. Her research
focuses on prevention of mental health problems and the
promotion of academic achievement in health and children from
immigrant and ethnic minority populations.
At this point I am pleased to recognize my colleague,
Representative Castro, to briefly introduce his constituent,
Mr. Martinez, who is before us today.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Chairman.
I would like to introduce a fellow San Antonian, Pedro
Martinez. Mr. Martinez joined San Antonio Independent School
District as its superintendent in June 2015. Since then, he has
brought a laser like focus on improving academic achievement
for the district.
In January 2016 Superintendent Martinez unveiled the SAISD
blueprint for excellence, target 2020, a 5-year plan with 10
academic goals. The district has since seen a continued upward
trajectory with strong gains in academic achievement. By 2019
its accountability ratings from the Texas Education Agency, the
district received an overall grade of a B, a wide improvement
from just a few years before where they received an F.
Throughout his 20 years of experience in education,
Superintendent Martinez has received numerous awards and
recognitions for his commitment to turning around educational
systems that have struggled academically.
I want to thank him for being here today and for sharing
his experience in the district.
One final note, Chairman, the San Antonio Independent
School District, where I went to school, where my brother went
to school, was part of probably the most significant case in
education in the Nation's history, known as SAISD v. Rodriguez,
which was decided by the Supreme Court in 1973 and
unfortunately where the Supreme Court said that education is
not a fundamental right in the United States. But since then so
many folks have been working and fighting for the students of
San Antonio and the students like them across our country.
Thank you, Superintendent, for being here.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
I will now recognize Representative Guthrie to briefly
introduce his constituent, Judge Metcalf.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Scott, for
yielding. And I am proud to introduce the Honorable Mark
Metcalf today. He is a constituent of mine, lives in one of my
21 favorite counties of Kentucky, Garrard County.
Mr. Metcalf is the Garrard County Attorney in Lancaster and
he has been there since 1990. He has been the 2013 Kentucky's
Outstanding County Attorney of the Year, and he has twice
represented Kentucky before the U.S. Supreme Court, and is also
Reserve Lieutenant Colonel in the Command Judge Advocate
General.
Really appreciate him being here. I was in Garrard County,
which is about two and a half hours from my home, on Monday and
was going to say hello to him, but they said he is preparing
for a hearing, so he should be prepared today because he was
prepared on Monday for sure.
I would like to yield to my fellow Kentuckian, Mr. Comer.
Mr. Comer. Thank you, Representative.
And I just want to echo what Representative Guthrie said
about Mark Metcalf. He has been a lifelong friend of mine.
Appreciate your leadership, your public service. And Mark
Metcalf is one of the premier immigration experts in Kentucky,
so we are glad to have you here.
Representative Guthrie, I yield back.
Mr. Guthrie. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
Dr. Olanrewaju Falusi is a pediatrician at Children's
National Hospital in Washington, DC, a past president of the DC
Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and an executive
committee member of the AAP Council on Immigrant Child and
Family Health. She has practiced and taught primary care
pediatrics for over a decade and serves as a Medical Director
of Advocacy Education at the Child Health Advocacy Institute at
the Children's Hospital.
We appreciate all of the witnesses for being here today and
look forward to your testimony. We remind the witnesses that we
have read your written statements and they will appear in full
in the hearing record.
Pursuant to Committee Rule 7(d) and committee practice,
each of you is asked to limit your oral presentation to a 5-
minute summary of your written statement. Let me remind the
witnesses that pursuant to Title 18 U.S. Code Section 1001, it
is illegal to knowingly and willfully falsify any statement,
representation, writing, document, or material fact presented
to Congress, or otherwise conceal or cover up a material fact.
Before you begin your testimony, please remember to press
the button on the microphone in front of you so that it will
turn on and the members can hear you. As you speak, the light
in front of you will turn green. After 4 minutes the light will
turn yellow to signal that you have 1 minute remaining. When
the light turns red your 5 minutes have expired and we would
ask you to wrap up.
We will let the entire panel make presentations before we
move to member questions. When answering a question, please
remember to once again turn your microphone on.
We will now begin with Dr. Barajas-Gonzalez.
TESTIMONY OF GABRIELA BARAJAS-GONZALEZ, Ph.D., ASSISTANT
PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF POPULATION HEALTH, NYU SCHOOL OF
MEDICINE
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. Good morning, Chairman Scott, Ranking
Member Foxx, and distinguished members of the committee. Thank
you for inviting me to this important hearing. This is truly an
honor.
I commend you all for your focus on this important issue
and hope you find my testimony today useful.
Approximately 5 million U.S.-born children, that is about 7
percent of all children in K-12 schools living in the U.S.,
have at least 1 undocumented parent. Immigration policies and
their enforcement have the potential to adversely influence
millions of students in our Nation's schools.
I come before you today to share findings from my research
with pre-K and K-12 educators, school-based mental health
professionals, and parents from several regions across the
country. The data I am gathering corroborates the growing
literature base documenting the negative impact of immigration
enforcement activity and threat of activity on children and
school communities.
The immigration-related rhetoric that preceded the 2016
elections and subsequent immigration policy changes and
enforcement practices have left many children and families with
feelings of deep anxiety. I began this research, which consists
of interviews with parents, educators, and mental health
professionals after teachers, with whom we had been working
with for 5 years as part of a longitudinal study of child
development, started asking for resources to address the fear
and angst they were seeing in their classrooms. Children and
youth who perceive their parents to be vulnerable to
immigration detention, regardless of parents' documentation
status, are enduring various degrees of fear and anxiety at
home, in their communities, and at school. Because children's
perceptions of their own safety is closely linked to the
perceived safety of their caregivers, many children with
immigrant parents across the nation do not feel safe.
Children's anxieties and fears are being fueled by chronic
uncertainty about their rights and their own safety and by a
persistent and pervasive fear of losing a parent.
Given the negative pre-election immigration related
rhetoric, when the results of the 2016 election were announced,
some children believed that their parents would be immediately
taken away by police or ICE agents. A 10-year- old asked his
parents, am I going to have to care for my sisters? When do you
have to go? Where are your suitcases?
In July 2019, after threats of national ICE raids, an 8-
year-old panicked when she learned that her mother was going to
go buy groceries and begged, don't go outside, mommy, I don't
need to eat.
I share these examples to illustrate that children believe
that their parents are in danger of being taken away from them
at any moment. Children are not only worried about their
parents, but are also fearful for their own safety and that of
their siblings.
What does this daily fear, uncertainty, and anxiety mean
for children's learning and well-being? Children's perceptions
of the current immigration climate may impact their learning
and well-being in at least three ways. One, an inability to
make it to school. For children, extreme worry and fear about
their parents being detained may lead them to not want to do
things that require them to be separated from their family,
like going to school. Two, when they do make it to school,
children may not be able to stay in school due to inconsolable
distress. Three, an inability to focus when in school. Children
are wondering if their parents will be home when they get home
and are vigilant for threat in their everyday activities.
Teachers, school administrators, and mental health
professionals indicate that they are being impacted in at least
three ways. One, given the shortage of mental health
professionals in schools, teachers and administrators are
spending extra time trying to manage children's distress. Two,
teachers and mental health professionals are spending extra
time connecting to students who are absent. And, three,
teachers, administrators and mental health professionals are
also experiencing a range of emotions due to the current
immigration climate, including anxiety, guilt, stress,
uncertainty, and hopelessness.
Additionally, mental health professionals indicate they are
being impacted by the climate in two additional ways. Their
workload has increased and their work has gotten harder as the
children already in treatment are getting harder to treat.
Teachers, administrators, and mental health professionals
indicate they want and need more professional development
training around trauma informed approaches to education,
training around implicit bias, legal resources to help navigate
the current immigration climate, more mental health
professionals and support for these professionals in schools.
Several counselors I spoke with were the only counselors
for 500 students or for 750 students. The recommended ratio is
250 to 1.
I hope the information I have shared with you today
provides a deeper understanding of the potential breadth and
depth of harm caused to students who are vulnerable or perceive
themselves to be vulnerable to our national immigration
policies.
Thank you for the opportunity to share this research with
you.
[The statement of Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez follows:]
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Chairman Scott. Thank you.
Mr. Martinez.
TESTIMONY OF PEDRO MARTINEZ, SUPERINTENDENT, SAN ANTONIO
INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT
Mr. Martinez. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Foxx, and
members of the committee, thank you for providing me the
opportunity to speak with you this morning about the issues
facing immigrant students and their families in San Antonio and
across the country.
My name is Pedro Martinez and I serve as the superintendent
of the San Antonio Independent School District, SAISD in San
Antonio, Texas. Our district covers the urban core of San
Antonio, serving approximately 49,000 students in over 90
campuses.
I am also the board chair and member of Chiefs for Change,
a nonprofit bipartisan network of state and district education
leaders committed to increasing student outcomes. The more than
30 chiefs who are part of the network oversee education systems
that collectively serve more than 7 million students. My fellow
members and I share a core belief, that all children should be
free to learn, free from fear, and that schools should be safe
and welcoming places for all children and their families. It is
not only our legal obligation to serve all of the students who
come through our doors, but it is our moral obligation.
I sit before you today not as a Republican, not as a
Democrat, but as an American, an immigrant, the leader of a
school system that has been enriched by the presence of
immigrant students. I am not here for a political debate, I am
here to offer my perspective and the importance of serving all
students well, regardless of their immigration status.
As someone who was born in Mexico himself, I know the
experience of being an immigrant student, an English-language
learner firsthand. With the support of the Chicago Public
Schools, the Catholic Church, and a strong family of 12, I was
able to succeed in becoming the first in my family to graduate
from high school, from college, from graduate school, and being
a naturalized citizen. It fills me with pride that most of my
younger siblings followed in the same path. In fact, three of
them are now teachers in the Chicago Public Schools.
Our story shows the greatness of this country. My parents
never had a job where they earned more than $7.00 an hour, and
now all of their living children have risen out of poverty and
are proud Americans, helping improve our Nation, including a
veteran who served three tours in Iraq as a proud Marine.
In San Antonio we also have a history of proud high school
graduates moving on to contribute to the workforce, the
community, and the country. Nearly 9 out of every 10 students
in our district identifies as Hispanic and Latino. Roughly 70
percent of our students are considered at risk, while 90
percent qualify as economically disadvantaged. But we continue
to see improved performance across all of our subgroups.
Graduation rates and college-going rates are on the rise, while
dropout rates are falling. The diversity of our students is a
source of strength and pride in our district.
San Antonio itself is a city rich with immigrants. They are
productive and hardworking individuals who become great
contributors to the community and our schools.
Having led SAISD for the past 4 1/2 years, I have seen a
remarkable turn in conditions for our immigrant students and
their families. Conditions in SAISD changed dramatically in the
spring of 2017 after national elections and the Texas
Legislature passing Senate Bill 4, which punished sanctuary
cities and forced police to start looking at immigration status
of our citizens. The combined effects of these events has led
to fear in my community. This atmosphere has contributed to
student attendance dropping, parents and other family members
becoming less likely to attend school events, and some
enrollment decline. I have witnessed a growing culture of fear
within the community among immigrants, many of them who are
afraid to send their children to school because they fear
arrest and deportation. These fears have risen in both
documented and undocumented residents and undoubtedly impact
the health and happiness of our students.
Here are some quotes that reflect the fear in San Antonio.
Quote number one, ``Although my children were born here in the
U.S., I am always nervous about enrolling them in certain
school programs that ask for my information. I don't want the
school to know that I don't have status here.'' Quote number
two, ``I get so worried every time I drive my children to
school. My neighbor recently got deported after the school
stopped him and his children on their way to school. For this
reason I don't drive as much or engage in school events.''
Quote number three, ``I have a son in fifth grade who
constantly asks me if I am going to get deported. It breaks my
heart because I can't tell him that it won't happen to me.''
I have witnessed the strength of the family unit and that
is what it takes for these families to be so successful despite
many incredible struggles. The fear of a tear in that family
unit or the effort to regain strength because of a tear in that
family unit, shows up as a great and enduring scar on the body
of humanity, a great suffering for lack of compassion.
It is evident our community in San Antonio is dealing with
trauma resulting for the uncertainty around the immigration
status. In this environment we have built a strong response by
creating a welcome center, we have trained our teachers and
counselors, we partner with our community to ensure that all
these children are successful. And I am seeing evidence of this
every single day. As Representative Castro said, last year our
district has the largest achievement gains in the entire State
of Texas. We are now the fastest improving district in the
state, even as we are dealing with these challenges.
But, again, we have had to partner with our community, with
organizations, we have had to train our teachers and counselors
to ensure that our children know their rights and that they are
not afraid to come to school every day.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Martinez follows:]
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Chairman Scott. Thank you.
Judge Metcalf.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MARK H. METCALF, J.D., FORMER
IMMIGRATION JUDGE
Mr. Metcalf. Thank you, sir. It is an honor to be here
today to testify before this great committee.
Chairman Scott. Is your microphone on?
Mr. Metcalf. I thought it was on, sir. I apologize.
It is an honor to be here today before this great
committee. Mr. Chairman, thank you, Ranking Member Mrs. Foxx,
thank you as well.
It is an honor. As a youth I served in this, the finest
deliberative body the world has ever known. I briefed bills and
attended hearings for my boss, and your colleague, Harold
Rogers of Kentucky.
I want to talk about immigration today in a way that we can
understand it at the ground level. America accepts more people
to lawful permanent residents and citizenship than any nation
in the world--all of them combined. In 2018 more than 756,000
people became U.S. citizens and since 2009 7.2 million
naturalized citizens entered the fabric of our Nation.
Immigration is among our proudest dynamics. It is a crown jewel
in our crown.
And in 2017 there were 1.2 million persons that received
lawful permanent residence. That is unheard of. Only in America
do we have this kind of engagement with the world. Only in
America. In Kentucky, and nationally, no distinction is made
between children in our schools who do not have legal status
and their native-born counterparts. Likewise, children get fed
in school programs before school, during school, after school,
and in the summer school feeding programs.
And since I am a prosecutor, I can tell you our state
courts operate in the same manner. No false or invidious
distinctions are drawn between the native born and the foreign
born. All are treated on a case by case basis according to the
facts and the law.
I was an immigration judge in Miami. I dealt every day with
these issues. I instructed parents from the bench to get their
children into school so they would grow up and have the best
concept of this Nation. And even, I want to say to you--
Chairman Scott. Judge, you have a bottle of water in front
of you. If you need anything else, just let us know.
Mr. Metcalf. Thank you. I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman.
I even had pushback from some parents who said, Judge, I--
through an interpreter--I want my children not to go to school
this summer. I said I want your children in school and I need
proof of that. And they got them into school.
Thank you, sir, I appreciate that.
But I also want to talk to you about disincentivizing
illegal immigration. As a judge I also saw the dark side of
immigration. In Miami, easily one half of my calendar never
came to court. In 2005 and 2006, 59 percent of those ordered to
appear in court never showed. Over the last 23 years in our
court system, 38 percent of those people ordered to court never
showed. Why does this affect these children? It is because
these children are being trafficked.
I want to make certain that the committee understands when
I walk out today--pardon this cold; I will talk through it, I
promise--with the last 14 seconds I have left, I will assure
you that the points I drive home today are that with order in
our system we will have laws enforced, Mr. Chairman, that will
dignify those children who are brought into the U.S., legal or
illegal, so that they are protected and so that they reach the
right places at the end of the process. Being placed in a UAC
program is the right thing. And if you examine the numbers over
the last 3 years, you will see that the Obama Administration
and the Trump Administration were both vigorously placing
children in the unaccompanied children programs that operated
by the Office of Refugee resettlement. I think that is a good
thing, and I think it reflects well on the Congress, it
reflects well on both the Obama and Trump Administrations, and
it dignifies this Nation the way immigration should be
dignified, by taking care, listen to all cases, and handling
them with the blind justice that is required of our country.
Thank you, sir.
[The statement of Mr. Metcalf follows:]
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Chairman Scott. Thank you.
Dr. Falusi.
TESTIMONY OF OLANREWAJU FALUSI, MD, FAAP, PEDIATRICIAN AND
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEMBER, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS'
COUNCIL ON IMMIGRANT CHILD AND FAMILY HEALTH, PAST PRESIDENT,
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS' D.C. CHAPTER
Dr. Falusi. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Foxx, and
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to
speak here today.
I am Dr. Olanre Falusi, a pediatrician in D.C. and
executive committee member of the American Academy of
Pediatrics, or AAP, Council on Immigrant Child and Family
Health. I am testifying here today on behalf of the AAP and its
67,000 members.
The AAP is nonpartisan and pro-child. Pediatricians care
about the health and well-being of all children, no matter
where they or their parents are born. Currently, 1 in 4
children in the United States lives in an immigrant family, and
9 out of 10 children in immigrant families are U.S. citizens.
Today's anti-immigrant climate, discriminatory social
policies, and heightened immigration enforcement create and
perpetuate unprecedented challenges for this growing population
of young people, resulting in both short and long-term negative
developmental outcomes that are costly for children and for
society.
I have witnessed this in my own practice. Children with
undocumented parents complain of headaches and generalized pain
brought on by the extreme stress and fear of knowing that their
parents may be deported at any moment. I have seen patients
decline to participate in SNAP, WIC, and Medicaid, despite the
fact that they are eligible for these programs, but they fear
that use of these benefits may harm their or their parents'
green card applications under today's proposed public charge
rules.
I am especially troubled when I see parents with newborns
refusing WIC benefits. Caring for newborns is a privilege for
me. They have an entire lifetime ahead of them full of promise
and opportunity. We know that their future is brighter when
they have access to healthy nutrition to help build a brain and
body that are healthy. However, over the last 2 years, more and
more parents in my practice are declining to apply for WIC,
including a 4 day old boy who I saw recently, who was born in a
local hospital and thus is a U.S. citizen and would most likely
qualify for WIC, but his parents were hesitant to apply because
they were afraid that they might jeopardize their ability to
stay in the United States. They knew about the breastfeeding
support, formula, and food benefits that WIC offers, but
unfortunately, due to anti-immigrant rhetoric around the use of
these programs, they have decided to avoid these services.
I have also cared for patients who are separated from their
families as a result of various Federal policies. When children
live in fear of being separated from a family member, it can
impact their health and development. As children develop their
brains change in response to environments and experiences. Fear
and stress, particularly prolonged exposure to stress, that
serious stress, and the absence of the buffering relationships
of caring adults, also known as toxic stress, can harm the
developing brain and harm short and long-term health.
When little bodies are in constant fight or flight
response, stress hormones remain elevated, continuously
activating the nervous system and suppressing the immune
system. The critical role of a parent or a known caregiver is
to buffer this stress. But separation from a parent robs
children of this buffer. Separated children can thus face
immediate health problems, including physical symptoms like
headaches and stomach pain, changes in body functions, like
eating and sleeping and toileting, behavior problems,
difficulty with learning and memory. Children who have been
separated may also experience feelings of mistrust,
embarrassment, 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, and even heart disease.
Despite the challenges that immigrant families and children
face, many offer tremendous assets and demonstrate remarkable
resilience. Resilience is fostered through strong family
relationships and community support. Policies that support
immigrant families, such as the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals program, or DACA, have demonstrated positive impacts
on the development of children in this country.
The mental health benefits to children whose mothers are
protected by DACA, and therefore protected from the fear of
deportation, are large and clinically significant. Children who
did not live in fear that their parent may be detained and
deported saw significantly decreased diagnoses of adjustment
disorder and anxiety disorder.
As a pediatrician I know that children and families who
have faced trauma can begin to heal with trauma informed
approaches and community support. As such, children in
immigrant families should have access to nutrition, education,
legal representation, and other essential services to support
their growth, development, and capacity to reach their full
potential.
We must continue to support all immigrant children and
families in the U.S. and treat them with dignity and respect.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today and I
look forward to answering your questions.
[The statement of Dr. Falusi follows:]
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Chairman Scott. Thank you.
Under Committee Rule 8(a), we will now have questions from
the members under the 5-minute rule. As Chair, I have decided
to go at the end, so I yield to the next senior member on the
majority side who will be followed by members on the minority
side.
First, Representative Grijalva.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And thank
you for the hearing. We affirm for this committee and for all
of us that Congress has an obligation to all children,
regardless, and not only by legal and Constitutional precedent,
but by the moral imperative that we have on this committee to
make sure that all children are cared for and cared for well.
One question, and Dr. Falusi brought it up--and let me
address it to both of you, Dr. Barajas-Gonzalez--at least in
the districts that I represent, and the one in Tucson, Arizona,
a drop in the enrollment for child care subsidies, i.e., CHIP,
WIC, and even after school, preschool kind of programs, I fear
that as a consequence, that because of the discussion about
public charge and other things, that parents don't enroll their
kids, as a protection, as a protection for themselves and their
kids.
How can the Federal Government ensure that eligibility
criteria is clear, that parents understand that they do not
have to reveal their immigration status for their children to
receive those services? And I will begin with you, if I may,
Doctor, and also Dr. Falusi.
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. Thank you for your question.
In conversations that I have had with parents about the
type of communication that they would find helpful, it seems
that right now any communication, as helpful as it is, does not
ensure their feeling of safety given changes that have been
happening to immigration policies.
What would be helpful is clear language that states that,
for example, it is only the child's immigration status that
matters in receiving certain benefits, not the parent's
immigration status. I think that has not been made as clear as
it could be and there is confusion around that. So to protect
families, families are closing off.
Thank you.
Mr. Grijalva. Doctor?
Dr. Falusi. Yes, thank you.
So I agree that families are scared, they are confused by
the proposed rules. I find that families I speak with are often
feeling that they are placed in this impossible situation--
whether they access these benefits and ensure that they and
their children remain healthy, but then risk possibly being
separated in the future, or they forego these vital services so
that they can stay together in the United States.
What we try to do in our health center is ensure that
families know that as for now they can access these benefits,
but I find that families are choosing to play it safe and
either to decline using the benefits or calling to disenroll
from these benefits.
So what we can do, I think, is to ensure that families
continue to have access to these benefits as they are eligible
for and to remove the fear and anxiety that has accompanied the
use of the benefits recently.
Mr. Grijalva. Superintendent Martinez, you mentioned DACA
and the net benefit, you know, not only in the 20,000 plus DACA
recipients that have now become educators and are in our
schools working high need areas, but the kind of stability that
brought to households and families and the benefit derived of
that. You know, everything is in abeyance right now as we wait
for a court decision and other things and the attacks on DACA
and the rescinding of it by this Administration, but would you
comment on what many perceive to be--and your opinion is very
important--the net benefit of that?
Mr. Martinez. Absolutely. I think DACA, maybe as imperfect
as it was done when it was created, probably was one of the
best things that ever happened to our students. One of the
things that I love is that we work with our DACA students on a
regular basis. We, for example, have a Dreamers Summit. We
invite parents as well as our undocumented students. We don't
ask them necessarily for their documentation status, but we
just invite them. And we have been doing it now for, you know,
4 years. The numbers grow ever single year. And we have given
children access to information about college and scholarships
and give them access about how to fill out the alternative
financial aid form. And we have created a safe environment for
them.
And so when I see we have teachers that are actually former
DACA students or currently DACA students, not only in my
district but across the entire county of Bexar County in San
Antonio, and so these are productive citizens that are actually
making a difference in their communities and helping us educate
our children.
And, of course, for me, like I said, it is one of the
biggest--I would ask of all you in a bipartisan respect-- to
really fix the issue of DACA and really make these individuals
permanent residents.
Mr. Grijalva. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired.
Dr. Roe.
Dr. Roe. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all the members
for being here today and testifying.
And, Mr. Martinez, for the most part, I love your city,
except for the time I spent there in basic training in the
Army. I will put that disclaimer out there.
I know you had said--and you have a very compelling story.
I read your testimony last night--and you said you have seen a
remarkable turn in conditions, and Dr. Gonzalez said the same,
our immigrant students' and families' conditions in the San
Antonio district changed dramatically in the spring of '17,
2017, due to both the election of President Trump and the Texas
legislation passing Senate Bill 4, which effectively banned
sanctuary cities. The combined effect of these events has led
to fear in the communities, atmosphere has contributed to
student attendance due--what you had gotten at in your
testimony. The truth is that President Obama, and following the
law, deported almost 3 million people. And ICE deportations
infrom 2009 to '11 were 385,000 per year, in '12 410,000, in
'15 and '16 slightly less at 250,000. President Trump, his
administration deported in '17 226,000, '18 about 250,000, and
in FY '19, about 282,000. So the numbers are far less with the
Trump Administration.
So I don't understand. Either the people are not getting
the information correctly because the data--those are the facts
right there of deportation.
And, Judge, I want to follow with you. I led the Doctors
Caucus to the border about 6 months ago. I went there to see
exactly for myself. I was my second trip. I spent 4 days there
in the last year and a half. And I watched. I was educated, we
went down to the border to a processing center, to a refugee
resettlement area. And this is what these folks have to deal
with. And the day I came here, 15 people walked up at the Rio
Grande River and turned themselves in. One was a family from El
Salvador. I think was a family. So when they come in these
officers are--is this child--does this child belong to you,
does it belong to this person, does it belong to anybody. And
they have had--many of these children have been recycled, have
been through the process many, many times. That is abuse if I
have ever seen it in my life.
And so when I visited down there the officials told me that
the biggest challenge they face was the demographics of
individuals. In 2012, 11,000 individuals from family units
apprehended, in '19 473,000. In '12 there were 24,000
unaccompanied children, FY '19 76,000 children. I cannot
imagine sending my 14-year-old child from El Salvador across
Mexico. They could be sexually trafficked, killed, or whatever.
No wonder they are traumatized. I mean any human being would be
going through that. And in FY '12 family units and
unaccompanied children made up less than 10 percent of all
apprehended individuals. In '19 it was 65 percent.
Judge, what challenges do these demographic changes present
to our border officials? Are there different considerations for
border agents when apprehending a family or an unaccompanied
child, or a single adult?
Mr. Metcalf. Thank you for the question, Congressman.
Here is the issue. When you have families coming from El
Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, coming from very poor areas--
think of southern Mexico and Chiapas, think of Huehuetenango in
Guatemala, they speak the Mayan overlay. And not just Spanish,
but Spanish with the Mayan overlay. The challenge for the
border officials is to be able to understand what is happening
with language differences so they can fully understand the
story.
Now, we have found through investigation that as many as
600 children have been trafficked in the way you have just
described, the recycling process. And in some of the stations
set to receive people as many as 30 percent of those children
did not test positive for the claimed family members. Where
that leaves us is how do we make the distinctions. Let us think
about court, domestic court, state court. We separate children
by sight and sound from adults to make sure that they are safe.
They are well fed, they are educated while they are held in an
area pending their cases. The same thing is true here. No one
wants to separate a child from a parent. That is the last thing
anyone wants. And one is too many. But one child trafficked is
also too many.
And so where we are left is trying to enforce the law with
the most sensitive gauges we have got, and that is asking
questions, doing the DNA testing, listening, and then--
Dr. Roe. Judge, I am going to interrupt you because my time
is about gone, but I do want to say this.
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir. I am sorry.
Dr. Roe. And, Mr. Martinez, look, our teachers, our nurses,
our healthcare people, we are not immigration people. Somebody
came to see me, I never asked, I just took care of them. And
that is what you are doing in the school system. What we have
to do at the border is do a better job of making sure that is
secure and making sure that you are not left with this you are
having to deal with.
I yield back.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. And I want to remind the members
that the focus is on the effect of the policy, not the policy
itself or whose fault it was or which administration, how the
children are dealing with whatever policy we have. Other
committees can debate the policy.
The gentlelady from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our
witnesses for being here today.
It was back in the early 1980s when the United States
Supreme Court in Plyler v. Doe found that children have a right
to attend public schools without regard to their immigration
status. And the Court found that any resources saved from
excluding undocumented children was far outweighed by the harms
that they would suffer from denying them an education. And also
importantly, regardless of your position, anyone's position on
the parents of these children, whether you think they came here
to find a better life or whether you think that they are
violators of the law, regardless of where you stand on that
issue, the Court also found that holding young children
accountable for the actions of their parents does not comport
with the fundamental conceptions of justice. We absolutely need
to understand that these are children we are talking about,
children and babies that we are talking about.
Dr. Falusi, you talked about WIC. I was just in a WIC
clinic in northwest Oregon last week and I heard about the fear
and the confusion that this Administration has created because
of its policies with the chilling effect on families who are
now afraid to seek out critical services that will help to keep
pregnant women, babies, and children healthy. And that is
really tragic, because as we heard and read in your testimony,
this is a really good investment to make sure that kids get a
good start in life. And we know that is not just happening in
Oregon. Children across the country are going without food,
without healthcare, putting them at risk.
And I want to note that this includes many children who are
U.S. citizens, whose parents may not understand that they do
not need to reveal their own immigration status for their
children to receive support.
The superintendent of Hillsboro, Oregon schools pointed out
that even though they have a significant Latino population,
they are not all from migrant families. They are all afraid of
what is going to happen to their friends and their families.
So these fears are--we are seeing them in our schools and
our clinics.
Dr. Falusi, how do you counsel families who are trying to
get the best support for their children, for their health and
development, but are also so fearful about the consequences?
And then also, Dr. Falusi, will you also talk about WIC?
Because a recent study from the University of California, the
PHFE WIC and the County of Lost Angeles found that for every
dollar invested in WIC it saves approximately $2.48 in medical,
education, and productivity costs. So talk about the economic
risk of not making sure these families are getting those
services.
Dr. Falusi. Thank you.
In terms of how we counsel families, we do try to encourage
them to be aware of what benefits they may be eligible for. I
think in the current environment, it is difficult for families
to decide how to make that choice. I am fortunate I work in a
health center that is co-located with a WIC clinic, so I can
partner with them in educating families about their benefits.
And from the pregnant mom whose child I may be seeing now, all
the way through the child who is about to enter kindergarten.
So that is a benefit. I think thinking about co-locating,
working more closely within the health sector and our WIC
clinics is critical.
And then in terms of the economic outcomes, so absolutely.
We know that early investment in child health and nutrition
reaps benefits for that child, the family, and society in
general. And not doing so increases the risk of things like
food insecurity, which we know is correlated with poor--
decreased math and reading scores. Imagine taking an algebra
test while your stomach is growling. Trying to focus in school
when you didn't have breakfast that morning or if your family
is encountering food insecurity.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And I am going to try to get
another question in for Dr. Barajas-Gonzalez.
Dr. Falusi. Yes, yes.
Ms. Bonamici. Doctor, in northwest Oregon I have heard
stories about the trauma young people from immigrant families
are experiencing. And I mentioned Superintendent Scott from
Hillsboro, Oregon mentioned that a lot of their families are
concerned and the kids are afraid.
What are the long-term effects of the trauma that these
young people are experiencing? What supports will they need?
The superintendent mentioned that some of them feel like why
even try if, you know--how can they dream if they feel so
afraid. And to what extent are school districts and healthcare
providers and community-based organizations able to provide the
support these students need?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. Thank you for the question.
The mental health counselors and educators I have spoken
with have all indicated a concern and their own reach trying to
educate themselves a bit more about what they can do. They are
all pointing to a need for more trauma informed care for
children.
The long-term impact for some, but not all children will be
potentially undereducation, underemployment, potentially
psychological distress. As you said, many people who find
themselves unable to dream about a better future because they
are living in uncertainty.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you.
And I see my time has expired. I yield back.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg.
Mr. Walberg. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
witnesses for being here today. I appreciate your testimony and
your backgrounds.
Judge Metcalf--
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir.
Mr. Walberg.--as you have pointed out in your testimony,
our legal immigration policies are extremely generous and
welcoming. I had the opportunity to see that and corroborate
that fact going down to the Rio Grande Valley sector just a
month ago and seeing the care that was given. I would contend
that care, and welcoming care that was given to immigrants
across, legal or illegal, were second to none. Certainly,
surpass anything in our bordering countries. They would not
give the same type of care that we give.
Are there ways, though, that we could improve the
efficiency of the legal immigration system--and again, the
legal immigration system--of our country?
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir, there absolutely is, and this
Congress is capable of doing that in a bipartisan manner, sir.
And I will give you the one, two, three on that.
First of all, enforce the laws. Grant relief wherever
relief can be granted, if you are in a court system, and then
welcome those people who win and remove those people who do
not. And the third thing we do, is we enforce the laws that are
intended to weave these new Americans into the fabric of our
country.
So what are we doing already? We are already offering
education regardless of immigration status, we are feeding them
regardless of immigration status. To refugees, we offer
something that looks very much like temporary assistance to
needy families. Continue that process.
We welcome 80 percent of the world's refugees each year.
The idea that we are hostile to immigration in general or in
particular is absolutely false. We have created an entire court
system meant to dignify everyone who is brought into
proceedings.
But to finish the answer, sir, you hit on the thing that I
think is the most important thing, how do we improve it. We
improve it by doing the things better that we are doing
already. We don't need to create new programs, we need to do
what we are doing right now very well.
The issue for a prosecutor is that it costs more to
incarcerate than to educate.
Mr. Walberg. And I think you would certainly concur that a
nation that makes it very clear that we are a nation of laws--
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir.
Mr. Walberg.--and justice, so that anyone determined to
come here understands that they will be treated exactly the
same as everyone else--
Mr. Metcalf. That is exactly right.
Mr. Walberg.--and the care that would be given, it would
encourage, I think, more legal immigration and really ferret
out more on the wrong side of the law for what they are doing.
And let me go on, considering the statistics you cited and
have been discussed today - the recycled child. I have heard
terrible stories about the recycled child, the actual credit
card that they have become for cartels to sell to others to
come across the line, then ship back to sell again. That is
terrible to hear about that, the unaccompanied children and the
legitimate concern we have that some unaccompanied children are
traffic victims.
Would it be responsible to allow children and adults to be
processed together without taking the necessary steps to ensure
that they are in fact a family unit?
Mr. Metcalf. Well, what you can do, sir, is do that DNA
testing on the front end.
Mr. Walberg. But we cannot mandate that yet, can we?
Mr. Metcalf. Not yet. That is in an experimental stage
right now.
Mr. Walberg. And I see--at least what I saw down in
McAllen, Texas, was that it was having some significant
positive impacts.
Mr. Metcalf. It is a deterrent, among other things. The
anecdotal information is that when a smuggler, or someone who
is party to smuggling a child for this purpose, is asked to
give a sample, a swab inside their cheek, they back away.
Mr. Walberg. They back away.
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir.
Mr. Walberg. Yeah. We have seen that.
Judge Metcalf, some have argued that we should be more
lenient in our detention policies with immigrants who cross the
border illegally, claiming that very few who are released
pending their court date fail to appear.
You claimed, however, that 38 percent of aliens free
pending their trial fail to show up over a 23-year period. Can
you explain the discrepancy?
Mr. Metcalf. Sure. What you are--the higher numbers are
subsets of the people who actually showed up for court. Over a
period of 23 years, 38 percent of all those who are placed into
proceedings failed to show. Those are numbers that are produced
by the Justice Department. And in the last 2 years they have
put out a statement regarding myths and facts about immigration
court proceedings, specifically failures to appear. In 2017
they very candidly stated 44 percent of those ordered to court
failed to appear.
The high number that you are being given is a true number,
but it is a subset of those who are already appearing for
court. In other words, 62 percent did show, and out of that
number they cherry picked a much better subset of those who
showed up actually 82 percent of the time.
Mr. Walberg. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that.
I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Takano.
Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I begin my questioning, I would like to ask
unanimous consent to submit to the record this report by CLASP
entitled ``Stop Separating the Families, Our Child's Fear,
Immigration Policy's Effects on Young Children''.
I want to first of all thank--unanimous consent?
Chairman Scott. Without objection.
Mr. Takano. Thank you.
I thank you, Chairman Scott, for this very important
hearing. As a former teacher, a public school teacher for 23
years--actually it is more like 24 years--I know very well what
it is like to comfort a child that is in constant fear of
deportation. I taught in San Bernardino County, California and
some of my students came from mixed-status families and many of
them were concerned and fearful that their parents would be
deported. They expressed this fear in their essays that they
wrote, and sadly students today are worrying about similar
things, but much worse and it is happening much earlier in
their lives.
In 2018 CLASP did a report that outlined how the current
immigration policies are impacting our Nation's youngest
children. And, Mr. Chairman, I already asked you to submit--for
the unanimous consent to put that report into the record. The
report mentions that a 5-year-old ``whose anxiety was so severe
that he was biting his fingertips to the point that they were
bleeding''. This fear is starting very early and is seen with
children as young as 3. The report also notes that ``this
pervasive fear is not limited to children in mixed-status
families, but extends to children whose parents have lawful
immigration status. Some even who are children of U.S.
citizens''.
My first question is to Superintendent Martinez.
Superintendent, how can teachers and administrators support
this unique demographic of preschool-aged minority students
that are in fear?
Mr. Martinez. So what we are doing in our district is we
have actually even set up meditation rooms. So when we see
children that are starting to act out we immediately involve a
counselor. We give teachers strategies. It is--right now
trauma-informed strategies are our biggest demand we are
getting across the district and the children are getting
younger. They are starting at 3, 4, and 5.
Mr. Takano. Superintendent, how are school administrators
and superintendents supporting their teachers that are in
classrooms where there are mixed-status students?
Mr. Martinez. So we always--one of the things we are very
intentional about is ensuring that all of our counselors first
of all have been trained and so that they know the rights of
immigrant students. We partner with MALDEF, we partner with
community organizations, we even do parent workshops. We have
also trained teachers. And so that has helped us just to be
able to at least have the conversations properly.
Like I said, right now what our teachers are mostly
struggling with is, as they see children acting out or seeing
them feeling stressed or exposed to trauma, present every
week--we had a case this week--we have cases where parents are
being deported. And so we know, we find out right away. The
children have to move in with a neighbor, they have to find
another relative to live with. And so we are having to organize
our counselors and working with our teachers to work with these
children.
Mr. Takano. I see. Well, you know, in summer of 2018--thank
you for your response--in 2018 during a Senate Appropriations
subcommittee hearing, Secretary DeVos confirmed that educators
cannot call ICE to report undocumented students. However, there
have been documented cases of a rise in hostile school climates
and numerous incidents of educators attempting to enforce
immigration law by reporting students and families to ICE.
Unfortunately, the Department of Education has failed to
issue guidance emphasizing Federal law on this issue since
2015.
Superintendent Martinez, what could the Department of
Education do to ensure that schools and educators have the
tools to support immigrant students and that all staff comply
with Federal law, and that Supreme Court precedents related to
students' access to education and privacy are respected.
Mr. Martinez. So it could be as simple as just having a
publication that really clearly delineates student rights. Our
board has actually passed policies. They have actually made
statements in the public about what our positions are. But
having even those written guidelines so that it is very
consistent, because the one thing we know about teachers, they
care about children. And I think as long as they understand
what the rights of children are, they don't have to feel the
pressure of turning a child in as if the child has done
something, you know, so terrible that they have to be turned
into ICE.
Mr. Takano. Well, thank you for that. I agree with you,
students should not have to worry about whether their parents
will be home when they get back from school, should not also
have to worry that they will have enough food to eat, or if
they will get any food at school. Their biggest worry should be
about passing their tests and getting good grades. And
unfortunately, the fear mongering and policies of this
Administration and the neglect of this Secretary of Education
have made it very difficult for children to only worry about
their grades and be children.
I thank you and I yield back my time.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Byrne.
Mr. Byrne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In 2016 the Pew Research Center estimated that 3.9 million,
or 7.3 percent of the kindergarten through 12th grade students
in the United States were either here illegally or were the
children of at least one parent illegally present in the United
States.
Can anyone on this panel tell me how much we on a nation
spend on public education for that population of students? All
right. It is around $60 billion. A significant and increasing
percentage of this cost represents remedial English education
required by the Federal Government for students designated as
Limited English Proficiency, or LEP. In 2016 it was estimated
that 9.6 percent of all students and 17 percent of kindergarten
students were now designated LEP. Educating those students is
expensive. By some estimations we are spending $59 billion just
on ESL and other programs to help children with English
language deficiency.
Can anyone on this panel tell me what percentage of
teachers in the United States are certified and trained in ESL?
All right. It is about 1 percent.
How about what percentage of ESL programs are paid for by
the Federal Government that requires it? Does anybody know that
answer? It is just over 1 percent.
Who pays for the rest? State and local school systems. So
we require it and we push 99 percent of the cost on state and
local school systems.
Look, that costs a lot of money for these state and local
school systems. Many of them, like my state of Alabama, just
don't have it, but because the Federal Government requires it
they have to put that money in there to the detriment of other
programs. At least 13 states spend over $1 billion per year on
Limited English Proficiency programs in public schools.
Earlier this year, this committee found that there is a $46
billion public school infrastructure shortfall. Accounting for
inflation, teacher salaries are down 1.6 percent since 2000,
classroom sizes are growing, resources for students are
shrinking. It is amazing we are here to talk about how the
Trump Administration's immigration policies are harming
children, but we never, never talk about how illegal
immigration is harming our students, teachers, and our
communities. People who are here legally are being harmed by
this.
The Federal Government has mandated that we provide public
education to the children of illegal immigrants, but we don't
pay for it, states and local districts pay for it. How is that
fair? How is that right that we make the requirement here at
the Federal Government and we put up 1 percent of the cost?
Look, I am a former state school board member in Alabama, I
sat across from teachers and superintendents and talked to them
about this issue. Dollars that our schools have are not
unlimited. The states don't print money like we do here in
Washington. They have requirements that they balance their
budgets. And coming up with the money to fund these K-12
education programs around the country is extremely difficult.
So I think if we are going to sit here and criticize the
President for enforcing the law, we need also to think about
the cost of not enforcing the law. That cost is not being borne
by those of us in Washington. It is being borne by men and
women in the states and local school systems around the United
States of America. But really the cost is being borne by
children who are being denied the programs that they should
have, children who are citizens of the United States, whose
parents are citizen of the United States. They are being denied
programs because we are forcing their state and local school
systems to take on an expense that we should be taking on
because we failed to enforce our own laws.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired.
And the gentlelady from North Carolina, Ms. Adams.
Ms. Adams. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
also the Ranking Member for convening the hearing today, and
thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony.
I want to first say that I am very concerned about this
issue as a retired educator, as a grandmother, and mother as
well. And I am proud that in Mecklenburg County our Sheriff
McFadden terminated the County's 287(g) agreement because he
knew that it didn't help improve public safety, nor did it help
make our Nation's immigrant community safer. In other words,
they are more afraid now than they have ever been and it leaves
immigrant children terrorized in these communities.
So as a result, we are trying to figure out really what to
do, and the fact that these situations have had chilling
effects on the welfare of our children.
In fact, researchers at Stanford found that the
establishment of partnerships between ICE and local law
enforcement have been followed by steep decreases in the
enrollment of Latino elementary school students. One study
shows that communities where local law enforcement established
these agreements with ICE, saw Latino enrollment in elementary
schools decrease by 10 percent over 2 years. And the authors of
this research suggest that Latino families living in these
communities are fleeing to other jurisdictions where they feel
less persecuted.
I want to ask Superintendent Martinez how your educators in
San Antonio are dealing with the hostile school climates. Are
educators well equipped to address the challenges that they are
facing? And if not, how can we best support our educators in
addressing these issues?
Mr. Martinez. So it is a constant struggle. I mean what we
are very fortunate about is that our teachers are very
passionate about our children. And so they are on their own--we
provide trainings after school, we provide trainings on
Saturdays. Like I said, we have trained every single one of our
counselors. We have partnered with experts, because we are not
the experts in immigration. And I always remind our teachers,
we are not required to be the experts, but you need to know
enough because at the end, the relationship between a child and
a teacher, it is so valuable. I don't care if the child is 3
years old or 18 years old, our teachers have the children at
least 7-8 hours a day and those relationships are key.
So, for us, we are just doing the best we can to support
our teachers. We don't get any direct resources, ma'am, from
the state or the Federal Government to do this, we do it on our
own because of our board and our community.
Ms. Adams. Thank you very much.
Dr. Barajas-Gonzalez, can you speak to the effect that the
feeling of fear has on students, including their academic
development and well-being?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. Children who are living in fear have
a difficulty focusing in schools. Children who are old enough
self report that they are having difficulty focusing because
they are worried about whether or not their parents will be
home when they get home. Children are also more vigilant about
things that they perceive to be a threat to them. I heard an
example from a school administrator about a K-8 class out at
recess time and a helicopter flew overhead and many children
flew in--ran into the classroom crying, thinking that the
helicopter was coming to take them away.
So when children are vigilant and scared by everyday
things, like a helicopter in the air or a police car going
slowly, and they perceive that to be somebody who is coming to
take them away, it is very hard for them to then focus in
schools on the curriculum before them.
Ms. Adams. So what kinds of things would you suggest or
that you have seen that we are doing to really address some of
these issues with these kids?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. So the administrator in that school
partnered with a counselor and they basically are trying to
create stable routines for the children, they have created
strong relationships with the parents so that the children feel
safe, that when a teacher says you are okay here nobody is
coming to get you, the child actually believes that is true and
can then lower their fear a bit to be able to focus in school.
Ms. Adams. Thank you very much and thank you for what you
are doing. You know, I have had a number of situations in my
district in Charlotte and Mecklenburg where students were
actually met at the bus stop and taken away. We had one young
man, for example, who was 2 months away from graduating from
high school. Never had an opportunity to finish. Was sent to
Georgia and ultimately sent back home.
So this is a serious issue, and thank you all very much for
your testimony.
Chairman Scott. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Allen.
Mr. Allen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank all
of you for being here today and enlightening this body on how
serious this problem is. And it is a very serious problem.
In fact, I really truly am ashamed of all of my colleagues
here in Congress because there has been no bipartisan effort to
fix it, and that is shameful. That is what the people sent us
here to do. And I am hearing about all of these incredible
problems you have got. In fact, I have had the privilege
through my church back home to be involved in mission work
throughout the world, South America, Africa, and Eastern
Europe. And one thing I witnessed that was common for every
area and the folks we tried to help was they had no health
care, no jobs, no hope, homes without floors, and corrupt
governments. And that was the common thread. It was a hopeless
situation.
But what I found was these people had a faith that I had
never seen. And they were so amazingly appreciative of what we
did for them, that we would take our time and go and help them.
Yet, we have people coming to this country illegally that feel
like they are living in the shadows and they are afraid. That
is sinful. That should not happen when the people in their very
own country who we are ministering to are so happy and glad
that we came and helped them.
Judge, I was interested in one part of your testimony about
trafficking. As I understand it, it is a major problem. And I
will tell you, one of my church members did ask me, a
constituent, said what is the deal with these people
advertising--he had just gotten back from a mission trip--I
mean he said--he talked to one of the people down there about
it and he said that there were billboards advertising come to
America, plentiful jobs, $15 an hour, free health care, free
education, and dial this number. I mean this stuff is beyond
belief. And these people are actually--these traffickers are
taking advantage of these families, promising stuff, and they
can't deliver.
Mr. Metcalf. That is right, sir.
Mr. Allen. Can you expand on that a little bit?
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir. Trafficking in human beings is a
multibillion dollar business.
Mr. Allen. Yeah, I just looked it up this--$100 billion.
Mr. Metcalf. Worldwide.
Mr. Allen. Yes, sir.
Mr. Metcalf. The Chinese triads, sometimes called the
snakeheads, the cartels who operate south of the border, you
are never going to get the kingpins. What you are going to get
are the coyotes. People call them the coyotes. They are going
to usher these people to a border that they control on the
Mexican side and they are going to get these people across at
any cost. As you know, they put them in the back of trucks and
lock them in. They are not trafficking in human beings, they
are trafficking in human suffering. And the problem that we
have in interdicting these is that they are very clever, they
can get through the border, or in the alternative, what they do
is they set these people loose at the Rio Grande. And what
happened last year? A father tries to cross with his son and
they both drowned. At some point you have them caught between a
border that has been hardened and hardened criminals
Mr. Allen. And that is horrible.
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir.
Mr. Allen. You know, again, as far as the people--okay, so
somebody comes in the country illegally, if they touch our soil
they have rights. And so they have to appear before a judge,
correct?
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir.
Mr. Allen. And then that judge gives them a court date to
reappear?
Mr. Metcalf. Actually, they are given their court dates by
DHS, their cases are put into the system, they advise where
they are going to be and they give that address, and then they
are told this is the address of the courthouse.
Mr. Allen. Okay. And then there is a large percentage who
don't show up for court, that disappear into our society.
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir.
Mr. Allen. And are living in the shadows, creating these
terrible problems for their children because they have broken
the law.
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir.
Mr. Allen. I mean is that a fact? They broke the law of the
land?
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir. That is--
Mr. Allen. And then we have got law enforcement trying to
deal with this problem and their hands are being tied. I mean
there are cities that will not allow our law enforcement to get
the job done.
Mr. Metcalf. That is obstruction.
Mr. Allen. Yes, sir.
Mr. Metcalf. That is what that is.
Mr. Allen. Well, I can tell you this--and I will finish up
with this--every member of this body ought to be ashamed that
this country is in this situation. And the American people
should demand of this body to fix this so that we are a land of
laws, law abiding citizens, and we don't put any family--
anybody who comes into this country through what we put them
through.
Mr. Allen. Yes, sir.
Mr. Allen. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Allen. It was a pleasure, sir.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms. Wild.
Ms. Wild. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Barajas-Gonzalez, in your testimony you wrote that for
some children the chronic uncertainty regarding safety and fear
borne from a perceived hostile immigration climate is a form of
psychological violence. Children who attend school while
experiencing this much psychological stress often need extra
support from their teachers and school. I assume you would
agree with me on that. Educational leaders whom I spoke with
yesterday from my home in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania
have told me that they are seeing a significant increase of
trauma-related needs among their students. And I have deep
concern that our Nation's educators are on the front lines of
helping children who are being harmed physically and
emotionally by immigration enforcement to the extent that they
are no longer teaching in their classrooms, but rather acting
in a field for which they don't really have any additional
training nor compensation. And it is not what they went into
teaching for to begin with.
So I would like to know from you, what are some of the ways
that schools across the country are stepping up to support the
increased health, educational, and emotional needs of their
students as a result of this immigration stress they are
experiencing?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. Thank you for the question.
So the mental health counselors and the teachers that I
have spoken with that feel best equipped to be able to handle
the distress of children really count on the support of
principals and administrators so that there are no fears about
whether or not they can address the needs of the children, say
in Spanish. So teachers feel comfortable speaking to the child
in Spanish at school to calm the child down, the principal
encourages this and encouraged by the administrator, so that
they don't need to translate anything through somebody else.
Ms. Wild. So that would be a best practice?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. For that child who needs to hear
something in their native language, yes.
In general, educators and mental health counselors are
acknowledging that there is a need for more mental health
counselors in schools. The counselors that I have spoken with
are usually working with the student body either of 500, 750,
or more. And the recommended ratio is 250 to 1. The mental
health counselors that I have spoken with have also indicated
that children are getting harder to treat. So if a child is
being treated for say anxiety and the counselor would recommend
that the child play outside or go to church as a form of
socializing, they are noticing that children don't want to go
outside anymore, they don't want to be in open places where
there might be a raid. They don't want to go to church because
they are scared that something could happen on the way to the
church. Children are imagining that there is a possible fear
anywhere that is not their home or potentially their school. So
it makes it harder to treat the children.
Children are also not disclosing as much to their mental
health counselors because they live in fear that something they
say--whatever it is that they say--could put their family in
harm. The children are withdrawing, even those in treatment are
withdrawing. It is making it harder for children to be treated
because they perceive threat.
Ms. Wild. Let me stop there for a moment, although I think
we could talk about this for a lot longer, but the corollary of
that, I assume, is the additional stress on teachers, on
educators, and principals and administrators. Is that true?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. Yes.
Ms. Wild. Can you tell us a little bit about the
psychological impact that this climate surrounding their
students is having on these educators and the school staff?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. Educators are reporting anxiety and
distress mostly around not being able to calm the children down
by being able to say your family is safe, nothing is going to
be able to happen. Because they themselves are not necessarily
sure that is true, it makes it harder for them to be able to
say it to children. They feel guilty about that.
They are also feeling anxious themselves with not
necessarily knowing the best way to help children right now
given what is happening. There is also given the increased work
load for mental health counselors. Some of them have mentioned
the potential of burnout. They say, you know, I could see in a
couple of years really burning out because this is a lot to
take on, given everything else that we are also seeing in
school.
Ms. Wild. And I assume collectively that this has an impact
also on the other students, the non-immigrant children who are
in the classroom, subjected to these external forces.
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. Everyone is connected in a school
system, so if one person--there are studies that indicate that
if teachers are suffering depressive symptoms, that the
classroom quality does go down. So everyone, yes, is impacted
by what is happening.
Ms. Wild. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Ms. Davis. Thank you. Mr. Banks?
Mr. Banks. Madam Chair, this hearing is literally labeled
how the Trump Administration is harming children. It is the
majority party who implemented policies that incentivize
illegal border crossings that put children in harm's way.
When President Obama illegally issued DACA by executive
fiat, he caused the death and suffering of an untold number of
children who were coached to cross treacherous desert territory
for an untenable promise.
In 2014, a little over a year after DACA was issued, there
was a 77 percent increase of unaccompanied children arriving at
the border. At the time, our system was built to house 8,000
beds for children. But in just 1 year we had 70,000 arrive. The
Obama Administration had to get creative and decided to crowd
the children in detention facilities. Photographs taken in
2014, now infamous, capture what happened. We saw kids in
cages. And despite what the mainstream media and some of my
colleagues may have told you, the kids in cages in that photo
happened under President Obama's watch.
While my friends in the majority are interested in gaining
new voters, my colleagues and I in the minority are trying to
sort out this mess and keep children safe.
So we know how this began, and that gives us a clue on how
it should end. We need to stop giving false promises to
migrants. And the only way to come to the United States is the
right way, to come legally.
Judge, how have the attempts to disincentivize illegal
immigration differ between the Obama and the Trump
Administrations?
Mr. Metcalf. The difference between the two has been that
President Obama's efforts to, as you put it, place children in
cages, was a result of a high number of people surging. I don't
think anyone wanted to put children in cages. And they were
actually behind chain link fences. They quickly moved them to
the UAC program as quickly as they possibly could, about 53,000
at the worst part of the surge. The Trump Administration did
even better, 73,000.
What happens when you disincentivize is you use DNA. That
is one thing. You create the presence of safe camps so that the
cases of the needy individuals, the authentic asylee or refugee
can be determined and those people admitted and the others not.
That is how you harden the borders right now and you do it in
the softest way possible so that you do not create more of what
is being described as trauma for children.
But I will point out, the people that came on these
journeys put themselves at risk to begin with. And I don't
blame them for trying to have a better life, no one here does.
But when you engage in that kind of a journey, we already know
that people are going to be assaulted, women are going to
suffer sexual assault, and kids will be taken away from parents
and held for ransom. We know that. But when we get to the
border, if we create the safe camps or the safe zones for them,
hear their cases, get them in, do the DNA, we will accomplish a
great deal of what we should have been accomplishing years ago.
Mr. Banks. Apparently, while counterintuitive to some, what
you are saying is that enforcing our laws and cracking down on
illegal immigration is the compassionate way to end the crisis
and suffering on our southern border?
Mr. Metcalf. I am.
Mr. Banks. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentleman's time has
expired.
The gentlelady from Washington, Dr. Schrier.
Dr. Schrier. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of our witnesses today. Together you paint
a frightening, grim, and frankly heartbreaking picture of the
effects of this Administration's immigration policies on the
well-being, both present well-being and future well-being of
our children.
One day these children are going to grow up to be adults
and history suggests that given opportunity and education and
support, they will become tomorrow's medical researchers,
entrepreneurs, teachers, and military service members, like
your family. They are America's future, and if we fail them we
will hurt our own country in every imaginable way.
As a pediatrician it has been my life's work and passion to
support parents and children so those children grow up healthy
and strong and live up to their potential.
And as you know, Dr. Falusi, we spend a lot of time
discussing things like nutrition and sleep and safety and
emotion coaching and nurturing relationships and activities
that will stimulate young minds. Will the policies of this
Administration undermine every single guiding principle that we
teach? And I would like to touch on a couple of topics.
Dr. Falusi, you spoke about immigrant families declining
WIC benefits and also SNAP benefits and CHIP, children's health
insurance plan benefits for fear of being labeled a public
charge. And this means that children who are eligible for these
safety net programs are not getting adequate nutrition, health
care, developmental screenings, and immunizations. That means
parents are not getting the guidance that they need.
I wonder if you could comment on why this is detrimental
for children or families and also for our society writ large?
Dr. Falusi. Thank you for the question.
So absolutely, I see families who are eligible for all of
these programs but due to public charge concerns or other
rhetoric are choosing to decline the services or to disenroll.
What this means for the children is that they could go without
the adequate nutrition that they need to build healthy brains,
that they need to then focus in school, to become healthy
productive adults. There is a clear link between early
childhood nutrition and health care and education with long-
term health effects. Kids who do not have adequate health care,
nutrition, and education become adults who are less healthy,
less productive, and that means less economically secure for
them and their families, which then of course translates into
less economic security for our society.
Dr. Schrier. Thank you. You also spoke about the plight of
children in government custody at the border. I have also
visited. Seven children have died while in government custody.
Many, if not most, are experiencing toxic stress, especially
those separated from not just parents, but family members. As
pediatricians, we are well aware of the devastating lifelong
consequences of toxic stress on children's brains and bodies.
I am working on legislation with Senator Murray to
specifically address the needs of children in custody. And it
goes without saying that children would be best off not in
detention facilities at all. However, given our current
circumstances I wonder whether you might be able to share your
thoughts about whether there are tools and techniques that
could be implemented by CPB agents to help children and
families emerge from these circumstances without lifelong
damage.
Dr. Falusi. So I would agree. And the American Academy of
Pediatrics has been clear on this as well, that children should
not be detained and that they should spend the least amount of
time as possible in the processing centers. However, if they
are to be detained, then this is where it is really critical to
have pediatric expertise at the border.
So we have talked and hear about trafficking and those
other concerns we have talked about. As you mentioned, children
who have unfortunately died in custody. I think some of these
things are part of my training, right. I am taught to look for
red flags for trafficking, I am taught to look for those subtle
signs of what is sick in a child. Children are not just small
adults, there are very subtle signs that they exhibit when they
become sick and then become very sick very quickly. But having
physicians, nurses, mental health professionals with pediatric
training at the border I think will help to mitigate some of
these issues.
Dr. Schrier. Thank you.
I have one last quick question for Superintendent Martinez.
Here is one of the things I have heard from teachers in my
district. This is a quote, ``Sometimes I don't get to say
goodbye. I have to hope that they are okay and that someone can
get them a message from me. When we do get a chance to say
goodbye, usually it is both of us crying and them just wanting
to know what they did wrong to deserve this and I don't have an
answer for them.'' A different teacher says, ``I tell students
that if they work hard enough they can achieve anything. Study
hard, work hard, and you will write your own future. But
sometimes it feels like I need an asterisk to say unless you
are a DACA recipient.''
Can you talk about ways that schools can support immigrant
children?
Mr. Martinez. Yeah. And unfortunately, those stories are
very prevalent with my teachers. And so what we have done and,
you know, we continue to emphasize this with our students,
whether it is our welcoming center, where we have all of our
students, whether they are coming from Mexico, from El
Salvador, or from Afghanistan, they all walk through it. We
work with our children that have aspirations about college and
that even if they are a Dreamer student or a DACA student, that
there are opportunities for them. Sometimes I feel--you know, I
feel a little bit - I worry. Because, again, I am not an
immigration expert, my teachers are not immigration experts, we
partner with people who that are and what they will tell us is
that they have--and they have been doing this work for many
decades--they have never seen this type of rhetoric, they have
never seen this type of vagueness.
And so if there is one thing that can be done on a
bipartisan, is just to clarify and really reduce the rhetoric,
because our children are listening to these words. And so I
think that is the most important thing. And so that is what our
teachers are trying to console them, but again, these are
children and words are powerful to them.
Dr. Schrier. Thank you very much.
And thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady's time has
expired.
The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Comer.
Mr. Comer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Mr. Metcalf, you mentioned human trafficking in your
opening remarks. And I think a lot of my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle downplay the role that lackluster
border security has with respect to human trafficking.
In your experience as an immigration judge, can you give us
some real-life examples of the impact human trafficking has on
people's lives, especially with respect to little to no border
security in parts of America?
Mr. Metcalf. Sure can. And thank you for the question.
First of all, let us talk about the effect on children.
Human trafficking has the effect on them that has been
described by these great pediatricians and education
professionals. It has that kind of an effect.
Secondly, what does it do? It incentivizes and
reincentivizes the growth of this $100 billion business so
that--and we need to keep this in mind, committee members, that
when you traffic a child and you find that child has been
trafficked, they become a person who then receives relief under
our laws. So we are already giving that child the benefit of
any doubt, realizing that they were trafficked, and we welcome
them into our American family because of the way they have been
treated.
Now, how do you stop it? You stop it only with the ways
that have commonly been used at the border, and that is to
harden the border and to infiltrate those groups as much as you
can. But the best techniques they found so far are rather soft.
It creates safe zones, safe camps, DNA testing. Listen to
whether you hear the sound of authenticity in the stories
because the traffickers also do this, they create stories for
the trafficked people to tell. We heard it all the time in
Miami. We even saw some of these traffic stories being retold
with different people.
So the idea that you get rid of trafficking by hard
measures is not always true. Law enforcement can do it using
our Mexican partners to help us, but the other thing we do is
we use smart enforcement. What they are doing at the border
right now is minimizing its impact on children, maximizing its
effect on its deterrent effect.
Mr. Comer. You mentioned DNA testing. And I believe in your
testimony you mentioned a pilot program that found--
Mr. Metcalf. Thirty percent.
Mr. Comer.--30 percent of cases where DNA testing showed no
matches among individuals seeking asylum as family members. Why
are adults bringing these children that are not related to them
across the border and claiming their children?
Mr. Metcalf. So they can get in themselves. That is the
whole idea. The children have become the all-purpose means to
enter the United States and stay. And smugglers know it and
they are maximizing the use of small children for that purpose.
Mr. Comer. The last question I wanted to mention is
something near and dear to me, which pertains to child
nutrition. I think that is a bipartisan issue. I think we all
support child nutrition. The U.S. Department of Agriculture
today just released some new requirements with SNAP that have
already been criticized by many of my colleagues to the left.
One of the programs that is under the subcommittee that I
lead in this committee is the child nutrition program. And my
question to you is are you aware of any regulation, guidance,
or directive by USDA Secretary Perdue, or anyone else in the
Trump Administration, that would limit in any way access to
school meal programs for children of immigrant families?
Mr. Metcalf. There are none.
Mr. Comer. Absolutely. And--
Mr. Metcalf. My wife feeds 4,500 kids a day.
Mr. Comer. Right.
Mr. Metcalf. Never is anyone asked what is your immigration
status.
Mr. Comer. And that is something that gets misstated many
times by critics of the Trump Administration with respect to
child nutrition programs, so I appreciate you clarifying that.
I appreciate your leadership on this issue in Kentucky and look
forward to working with you in the future.
Mr. Chairman, I yield my time back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentlelady from Connecticut, Ms. Hayes.
Ms. Hayes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Let me first say I am a teacher and educators sign up to
teach all children. To Mr. Martinez, you referenced the power
of words, I would like to just say to my colleagues, the use of
the term illegal versus undocumented is unsettling. No child or
human being is illegal. As leaders, we should refrain from
using such language when referencing the status of an
individual, especially a child.
I remember one day in my classroom very clearly, I came in
and half of my students were absent. And I am thinking, what is
going on. And one of the students came up to me and said, Miss
Hayes, you didn't hear what happened? And I said, no, you know,
what happened. And she told me about a raid at a local grocer
where two people had been arrested. But as a result of those
two people being arrested at this grocer, 14 kids in my class
who were unrelated to them didn't come to school. And it got me
thinking, because I had no idea that I had that many students
in my class who were undocumented.
The other thing that stood out--and it didn't matter to me
what their immigration status was because they showed up and I
taught them--the other thing that stood out for me is that all
the other kids in the class did know. So I imagine a scenario
where these kids were counseling each other and carrying that
burden as children of making sure that their classmates felt
safe, and then not knowing what to do in response when that
safety was gone, I--there are so many things going on right
now--but my question is for Mr. Martinez.
You know, we have heard of multiple reports of immigration
officers operating near schools and detaining parents on their
way to school dropping off their kids. Can you describe how
these interior enforcement activities like these, as well as
larger activities like I just described, strain teachers and
schools?
Mr. Martinez. Absolutely. You know, one of the things that
happens in any classroom is the classroom becomes a family. So
when you see a disruption to the family for whatever reason, it
affects the entire classroom. Every week we are seeing
incidents that are happening. It seems like it is accelerating,
especially this school year. And so for us, we are doing the
best we can as just ensuring that, again, our parents know
their rights. Because one of the things that we find over and
over again is parents are very--they are very believing. And so
they will believe that oh, it is okay, just sign this and you
will be okay. And then the next thing you know the child has
been separated.
And so for us, we are partnering with these community
organizations where the experts--but even they are telling us
how vague things are today. And so that is our biggest
challenge, Representative, is just helping provide good
information to our teachers and our families.
Ms. Hayes. I know you published an article about parent
engagement. Do you find that it is more difficult for parents
to be willing to engage in light of things that you just said?
Mr. Martinez. Yes, ma'am. So we have to work 10 times
harder to have the trust of parents. And the good news is that
we have been doing this now for, you know, for more than 3
years, that we are gaining trust, but again, every time an
incident happens, I mean it is another rebuilding of trust we
have to do. And so that is just something for us that is just
part of our parent engagement strategy, it is part of our
counselors' work, it is part of our specialists that work with
parents.
Ms. Hayes. Thank you.
Yesterday the Government Accountability Office released a
report regarding IDEA dispute resolution activity. Mr. Chair, I
would like to submit this report for the record.
Chairman Scott. Without objection.
Ms. Hayes. The GAO reported that immigrant parents may
choose not to bring a dispute forward for fear that the school
district may retaliate against the family and jeopardize the
safety of the family.
Do you find that children are not receiving special
education services as a result of this?
Mr. Martinez. We fear that is the case. And we see it
definitely when we see learning challenges in the classroom or
behavioral challenges. And so what we have informed our
therapist is to work with the parents, again, continue to make
sure that they know their rights, that getting a diagnostic is
not something that is going to be counted against them in some
way. And so, again, that is a continued effort that we have.
Ms. Hayes. Thank you.
And I guess I would like to close by saying we have heard a
lot about traffickers and children being used, coached across
the border for nefarious intent. I cannot let this moment pass
without mentioning my friend, Ivonne Orozco, who was brought
here at age 12 and is what we call a Dreamer. And in 2018 she
was named the New Mexico Teacher of the Year. And she teaches
Spanish and ESL education to kids in her community who are also
undocumented and entered this country. And she is one of the
highest performing teachers in that state and has had a very
successful career.
So I urge my colleagues to consider the cost of not
educating 7 percent of our population. And it doesn't matter if
these were Obama era regulations or Trump era regulations, we
own them now and it is our responsibility to fix it in the now.
With that, Mr. Chair, thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
Let us see, let us see. The gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Wright.
Mr. Wright. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I think all of you for being here today and, Mr.
Martinez, I want to congratulate you for the good work you are
doing in San Antonio. I live in Arlington, which is a little
farther north. I think you probably know Dr. Cavazos, my
superintendent who I think is one of the best anywhere, one of
the best superintendents.
It is a smaller district, over 60,000 students, but we have
a lot of the same issues up there in the Dallas-Fort Worth
area. Thirty-six percent of students are from immigrant
families and East Arlington and Grand Prairie it rises to fifty
percent. So we are dealing with a lot of the same issues. And
my hat is off to all school administrators, all the teachers
that are dealing with these issues.
I want to start by stipulating that, because you have heard
a lot of political talk here today, everybody on this committee
cares about children. We don't want children harmed, we don't
want them to live in fear. Any suggestion that anyone up here
or any political party has a monopoly on caring for children is
just ludicrous and insulting.
Another stipulation I want to make is we are a nation--and
you have already heard this--we are a sovereign nation, a
nation of laws. There is absolutely nothing wrong, nothing
racist, nothing mean or uncaring about expecting people from
foreign countries to respect the laws of the United States of
America. There is nothing wrong with that. And when someone
comes to our border from another country and they don't have
papers, they don't have a Visa, they are undocumented. But the
moment they cross that border, they are illegal, they are not
just undocumented. And there is nothing wrong at all with
speaking honestly about these issues. And we need to be honest
about it because we are never going to solve it otherwise. If
you come into this country and you violate the laws of this
country when you come in, you are here illegally.
Now, let us talk about why children live in fear of their
parents being deported. It is not because of the American
people, it is not because of the United States of America or
its policies, and it is not because of Donald Trump. It is
because adults have led or have brought children into this
country illegally. Well, of course they are going to worry
about deportation. Of course they will. But let us stop this
nonsense, this political talk that frankly is quite cheap, that
well, it is Donald Trump's fault that children live in fear.
That is just stupid. They live in fear because of choices that
their parents, or some other adult has made that brought them
into this country. That is why they live in fear. And it is
long past time that we keep these adults--make them responsible
for the choices they have made. It is not the fault of the
people of America, it is the fault of the adults that have made
those decisions to come here illegally.
Judge Metcalf, you talked about illegal trafficking. Are
you also, and in your experience, did you encounter the issue
of children being used to help transport drugs across the
border?
Mr. Metcalf. Those cases are being prosecuted by the United
States Attorney's Offices, sir. What we did encounter was the
fallout from those where children were involved collaterally.
And if they were part of a scheme in which trafficking was
involved, those children were brought into the country, our
country, and given safe haven.
Mr. Wright. I can tell you that in the briefings I have
gotten from Border Control and the Department of Public Safety
in Texas, it is a huge trouble, a huge problem on the Rio
Grande. They will use children--
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, sir, they do.
Mr. Wright.--to cross that river and the children are
sitting on the drugs on the rafts.
Mr. Metcalf. They are. We learned these things through what
happened in Miami. Children were being trafficked there as
well. People would get off cruise ships, claim that these
children were family members. What would happen, DNA testing,
swabbing in other words, revealed they were not.
Mr. Wright. Right. Thank you.
And I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Levin.
Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for holding
this important hearing.
Mr. Chairman, I am concerned that since his election Donald
Trump has signed several immigration executive orders that have
implemented extreme immigration policies and stoked fear among
immigrants and non-immigrants. I am especially concerned as
someone who has had community members in my district--this is
Michigan, far from the southern border--ripped away from their
families, detained, and deported, all to satisfy this
Administration's disturbing views on immigration.
I remember grieving with the young nieces and nephews of
Jimmy Aldaoud, a Chaldean Iraqi man from my district who was
detained by ICE and deported to his death in Iraq, to his
predictable death.
Jimmy came to America when he was a 1 year old and he lived
most of his adult life struggling with myriad mental and
physical health conditions. While he was ethnically Iraqi, he
had never actually set foot in Iraq, where our government
deported him. He was born in a refugee camp in Greece. He died
when he was deported to Iraq because he did not know the
language, he did not know the people, he had not been provided
even the basic legal documents necessary to live and move about
in Iraq, and he did not have access to the medical care he
needed to survive. He was a diabetic and he didn't last 60
days.
I cannot imagine what the next day at school must have been
like for his nieces and nephews, knowing that their loving
uncle had just been deported or, later, that he had died as a
result.
So in Jimmy's memory and thinking about his nieces and
nephews, who I met at his funeral, I would like to explore the
impact of this President's extreme immigration policies on our
classroom and kids, like Jimmy's nieces and nephews, and on
their teachers.
Dr. Falusi, can you speak to the long-term psychological
impacts of an experience like that? More broadly, living in
fear of family separation and how those impacts affect a
child's development and academic performance over time?
Dr. Falusi. Thank you for the question.
So certainly living in constant fear and anxiety can
stimulate the toxic stress response that I described, which we
know has both short and long-term effects. And maybe one of the
best ways I can show this is by talking about a child who I saw
just yesterday in clinic. A 14-year-old girl whose mother has
Temporary Protected Status, TPS, but with the uncertainty about
TPS--the mother is from Honduras--over the last couple of
years, there has been a lot of anxiety in the family. Speaking
with the girl herself, my patient, she actually has started
seeing a therapist to help her work through this anxiety. I
told them that I was coming here today and I asked them what
they would want you all as decisions makers, as legislators to
hear, and her mom said what I want them to know is that just to
think about the trauma and the suffering of the children. Think
about the suffering of the children. And she actually used the
word disintegration. Is the disintegration of my family worth
it? Is it worth it? My children have never been to Honduras,
she said. Would I pull them out of school and have them go to a
country that they have never been in or they lose their mother
if I was deported and they stayed. I am the one who picks their
clothes, who takes them to the doctor. Just kind of describing
really what the impact would be on her, on her children, on the
family with this uncertainty and the life that they are living.
Mr. Levin. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Dr. Barajas-Gonzalez, you know, we are Federal policy
makers trying to think about the whole country broadly. What
can you tell us about the broad implications of this
Administration's actions, like the one I described and
countless others, among all our constituents, on immigrant
families and their children? You know, if you sort of wrap up
about what you think the implications are and what we should
do.
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. So I wrote a social policy report
that was published by The Society for Research in Child
Development last year using a community violence framework to
understand the impact of immigration enforcement threat on
children. And so what you are describing speaks to sort of the
long-term impact that we see of violence. Depending on your
proximity to the violent incident, the duration of the
incident, and how greatly you were impacted by it, you will see
a manifestation in children that is equivalent to what you see
with children that are exposed to violence. You are going to
see lifelong trauma, you are probably going to see mental
distress, potentially anxiety and depression later on, and you
may also see underemployment and undereducation of children.
Mr. Levin. Wow. All right. My time has expired, but thank
you so much for your testimony and all of your work.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Walker.
Mr. Walker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank
all of the witnesses for taking the time to testify before our
committee today.
However, I will not be asking questions today because the
issue of our immigration crisis, while it is extremely
important, does not fall within the jurisdiction of this
committee. The main committee that has jurisdiction isn't even
meeting in their own committee room today. So where are they?
Well, they are in the Ways and Means room attempting to build a
sham case to impeach our President.
Our immigration, yes, is in dire need of reform. However,
holding hearings such as this one highlights the obvious
disdain for this Administration from my colleagues on the other
side of the aisle, but does nothing to advance solutions that
will actually address the challenges faced at our southern
border. This is not a Republican or Democrat thing.
With my ministry background I have led groups, as many as
10 different refugee camps, I've worked in 10 different refugee
camps throughout Europe. This is a compassionate thing. But
what we should be focusing on is a 2,900 percent increase in
the number of families that dangerously are crossing the border
this past year--60 different countries. We should be focusing
on 2,200 pounds of fentanyl seized at the border over the past
year, including 15 million pounds of drugs seized since 2012.
We should be focused on the alarming number of criminal
organizations trafficking children across the border. You want
to talk about anxiety for children? I can't think much worse
than that situation. We should be focused on the 14,000
convicted criminals that cross the border. We should be focused
on 4,300 migrants in distress that have been rescued at the
border.
If we are truly committed to addressing the immigration
crisis then we should be working together on the committees of
jurisdiction rather than celebrating Festivus today, airing our
grievances with no solution in sight.
I yield back.
Chairman Scott. The gentleman's time is expired.
The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Trone.
Mr. Trone. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member Foxx
for holding this important hearing today. And thank you
witnesses for being here today.
We all agree all children deserve a safe and healthy
childhood however, this Administration has continuously worked
to implement policies that discourage or prevent children,
families from accessing education, healthcare, and other
services that they are eligible under the law.
One area we have seen the negative consequences in the
Trump Administration's immigration policies and rhetoric is in
early childhood space. In interviews with focus groups with
early childhood education providers, the Center for Law and
Social Policy has learned that many children who had previously
attended early care education programs are leaving these
programs. Many providers are reporting significant drops in
enrollment, in attendance. But a child's eligibility for these
Federal public programs is predicated only on the child's
immigration status, not the parents. But the families are
foregoing enrolling for fear of putting family members at risk.
Dr. Gonzalez and Dr. Falusi, given what we know about how
the brain develops so much in the first 5 years of life, what
are some of the potential consequences of this decline in early
care and education enrollment and what could be done to further
prevent these declines?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. Children who attend early ed centers
and programs, such as pre-K, start kindergarten ready to learn.
So what you see with children no longer attending those
programs is you are going to see children starting off behind
their other children and having to catch up. Because learning
is cumulative, children are having to forego the learning they
would have had in those centers because of family fear. So you
are going to see lower academic achievement in the short-term
and children trying to catch up.
Dr. Falusi?
Dr. Falusi. And I would add that there is a direct link
between education and health. We know that when kids are
educated from an early age there is a return on investment on
their health in the short-term and in the long-term. So these
issues are very much linked and for that reason that we
advocate for following the law that every child, right, should
have access to quality education.
Mr. Trone. So these policies are driving income inequality,
driving health inequality, and certainly fueling our criminal
justice system where we are spending $80 billion when we should
be spending that on education.
Supreme Court decision '82 in Plyler v. Doe was pretty
clear about children's rights. But in recent years states like
Alabama, have attempted to force schools to collect information
about legal status of students. More recently, elementary
school leaders in Tennessee refused to provide information to
ICE when the agency requested student's records for fear they
would compromise the security of their students and families.
Mr. Martinez, to the best of your knowledge, do teachers
and leaders in the schools know the rights of their students?
And can you tell us what some of the legal deterrents are in
place to prevent ICE activity in these schools?
Mr. Martinez. So the great thing is that we remind our
teachers and our principals and our counselors, these are
Federal laws. Privacy, for example, is protected for all of our
children. We have actually even, because of Senate Bill 4, we
even made our own policy for our school police because we work
very hard to make sure the school police weren't subject to
that law at the state. So we also work with our community
organizations and parents for them to know that our police
department doesn't have the ability to even ask them for their
documentation.
And so for us it has been a constant training for teachers
and for staff overall. I have been very fortunate that our
staff have embraced it. Of course, you know, it is still very
difficult to make sure that we have the trust of the parents.
And that is the uphill battle for us.
Mr. Trone. Yeah. You think the school leaders are prepared
and comfortable to respond to these ICE requests throughout
your area, like were made in Tennessee?
Mr. Martinez. They are because we--you know, the guidance
we give them is you call our police department, and our police
have become experts in this, and that has been one of the
unintended benefits of Senate Bill 4 is we have become experts
on what we are required to do and what we are not required to
do.
Mr. Trone. Thank you.
I yield back my time.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you. I would like to thank you all for
being here today.
Obviously a country has immigration laws for many different
reasons. I have been down on the border myself three times this
year. In addition to the reasons you have the laws, one of the
things that struck me is how horrific it can be for the people
trying to come here. You know, people dehydrating to death in
the Arizona desert, women being assaulted by the horrible gangs
that right now control the border because the United States
does not control the border.
It had not occurred to me that it is horrible sometimes for
the kids that come here too. Even when they get across the
border, apparently it is very psychologically risky to them.
And it is unfortunate that parents, whatever, want to put their
children in that situation.
I am going to each ask the four of you what you are doing
in your private lives to make sure we don't have so many
illegal immigrants coming here, subjecting their children to
this uncertainty and possible psychological problems. Are you
weighing in politically, are you writing letters to your
congressman, are you educating the other congressmen here how
bad it is when we let people in this country illegally, how the
children are the ones paying the price?
I would like to go down each of the four of you, start with
the one on my left, your right, as to what you are doing to try
to discourage these illegal immigrants from coming in this
country.
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. The one on the right, Dr. Barajas-
Gonzalez?
Mr. Grothman. Right, right. You are first.
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. I am a developmental psychologist, so
I have been speaking with teachers, mental health
professionals, educators--
Mr. Grothman. I mean to prevent people from coming in the
country in the first place. Are you advising the parents to go
back home? Or what are you doing to--in your own sphere of
influence to discourage people breaking the law and coming in
the country?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. Ninety percent of the Latino children
in the United States are U.S. born children and they are
experiencing an extreme level of fear and concern given the
political rhetoric.
Mr. Grothman. I don't know anybody who is arguing against
legal immigration. So I don't think that is the problem. What
we are talking about today is you say there is fear among
children because their parents have come to this country
illegally and that someday they might be deported, which is
understandable. Obviously, the easiest way to solve the problem
is not have people come here in the first place.
So I am going to ask each one of you if you are concerned
about the children or don't want to have more children in this
country illegally, or children of parents who are here
illegally, what are you doing in your own sphere--you are all
leaders in your own community, I'm sure congressmen or senators
would be listening to your concerns--what suggestions do we
have, or what are you doing to prevent people from coming in
this country illegally and presenting us with this problem?
Or you don't care if people come here illegally, you don't
care if the children are being stressed, which seems to be part
of what happens when we have people break the law and come in
this country. Just as people, quite frankly, would be a little
bit concerned, you know, whenever their parents are putting
themselves at risk for doing whatever, you know.
Have any of you done anything? You know, written your
congressman, written letters to the editor, you know, said this
is what happens to children when parents decide to come here
illegally instead of legally? Any of the four of you have any
suggestions or have done anything to help this problem from
getting worse?
Mr. Martinez. So, Representative, with all due respect,
what I tell my students and children, this is a nation of
immigrants. That is how our nation evolved, that is why it is
the best nation in the world.
Mr. Grothman. Are you doing--well, I know, every year in
this country we swear in 700,000 new immigrants legally. I
think we have about 4 million in this country on work Visas
legally. The purpose of the hearing as I understand it is there
is concern among children whose parents have broken the law to
come here that they might be deported. Well, obviously one way
to deal with that problem is not having people come here
illegally. And I am wondering what you are doing, since you
purport to see damages, psychological damages to children whose
parents are coming here illegally, what you are doing to
prevent in the future more children being in this predicament.
And the obvious way is to say, you know, in the future, come to
this country legally.
But what are you doing along those lines?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. Given the national anti-immigrant
rhetoric, children are conflating their ethnicity with
immigration status. So children who are here legally--
Mr. Grothman. That is not answering my question. Is any one
of the four of you--
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez.--and are here with parents who are
here legally--
Mr. Grothman.--no, no, they only give me 5 minutes here.
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez.--are feeling fear because they are
conflating--
Mr. Grothman. None of you have done anything?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez.--their ethnicity with immigration
status.
Mr. Grothman. None of you have done anything to discourage
illegal immigration or to encourage your congressman to--
Mr. Metcalf. Congressman, I appreciate the question. As a
prosecutor, I handle each case on a case by case basis. We do
have people that are here illegally. They are treated exactly
the same as their citizen counterparts and are given the same
sense--
Mr. Grothman. I am disappointed that nobody has done--none
of the four of you have cared enough about this problem to
contact your congressman or encourage somehow to prevent
illegal immigration in this country. I am just very
disappointed that you didn't care enough.
Dr. Falusi. So I think I can best answer this question as a
pediatrician by saying that the children that I see experience
extreme trauma in their home countries and that is why their
parents decided to leave.
Children don't just choose to migrate, they are fleeing and
families who then come to the border seeking asylum are doing
so because it is their right to seek asylum.
Mr. Grothman. Thank you for--that is why I always tell
people back home, I say I have a great relationship with my
Committee Chair, Bobby Scott. Thank you for giving me an extra
minute.
Chairman Scott. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Castro.
Mr. Castro. Thank you, Chairman. I thank all of you for
your testimony and for being here today.
We are living in an era where unfortunately this President
and his Administration have a white nationalist running
immigration policy. And they have tried to inflict the deepest
harm with a viciousness that we have not seen, at least in a
few generations. And that bigotry obviously has extended beyond
the executive branch and into the legislative branch.
And I want to thank you for testifying to the harm that
many of these students are experiencing. Immigrant children,
the children of immigrants, and as was just mentioned even
folks who are not in either of those categories, but are simply
grouped in by the larger American society because of their
ethnicity. That is what we saw in El Paso when a madman drove
10 hours from Dallas to El Paso to murder 22 people, most of
those being American citizens, many of them, most of them of
Hispanic or Latino descent. They were not immigrants at all,
they were Americans.
So thank you, Doctor, for pointing that out, that it
becomes an issue of ethnicity as well.
Right now, students lead dual lives in a way that none of
us experienced when we were in middle school or high school.
That is, they have a social life both in person and then a
social life online. And one of the biggest problems that we
have in schools, not only on this issue, but just generally, is
bullying.
And my question is to you is because this creates--their
status or the status of their parents may create a situation
where they can be bullied, either by teachers or administrators
or fellow students, and that bullying quite honestly can be
across racial and ethnic lines, or even as I saw when I grew up
on the west side of San Antonio, intra ethnic bullying, where
people were calling each other wetback and call each other
mojados.
Mr. Martinez, what do you see in SAISD today?
Mr. Martinez. Yeah, I mean we have about 500 children that
have been released from detention centers that are now in our
district. And so one of the things that we are being very
intentional about is where these children are placed. We do
notice that as the children get older, especially children from
Central America, they will sometimes clash with our students
that are born in Texas or even from a Mexican descent. And so
we have become just much more conscious about it. And the good
news is we have enough schools that we can find the right
placement, but we are even, for example, going to develop a
newcomer center at Irving Middle School, which is a dynamic
dual language academy now.
And so for us, we are making sure--we are trying to get
ahead of it, especially because we know the numbers will
probably continue to rise in our district.
Mr. Castro. To the doctors, either of you, if you have
something to--some perspective to add on that?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. There has been an increase in
aggression, such as bullying noted, with some children echoing
what they hear in national discourse. So children may not be
aware of what they are repeating, but it is being repeated in
schools and causing distress to other children.
Dr. Falusi. And I think what this calls for is increasing
our capacity for mental health services for these children,
making sure that clinicians, mental health professionals are
trained in trauma informed care, thinking about the totality of
experience that the children have had, either in immigrating
here or as children of immigrants, or experiencing the bullying
in schools.
Mr. Castro. And, Mr. Martinez, I wanted to ask you also,
can you give some context about in your school district who
these people are? And thank you for bringing my friend, Patti
Radle, the chairwoman of the board with you, a long-time
advocate on the west side of San Antonio. Good to see you,
Patti.
There is a lot of misinformation about who these people
fundamentally are. I think it is odd that every Sunday pastors
across this country ask their parishioners to go down to Latin
America in a way that will be helpful to the people there, in a
way that will help save the souls of their parishioners. Why is
it that the people are good enough to be helped in Latin
America, but they are not good enough sometimes to be treated
as human beings here in the United States.
Who are these people?
Mr. Martinez. Our experience, Congressman, is these are all
individuals that want to follow our laws. In fact, you know,
they have always received the statement that hey, as long as
you are not a criminal, as long as you follow, you know, those
type of laws, you are going to be fine. These are individuals
who are active in their churches, they want to be active in
their schools, they tend to be some of my best students. And,
by the way, there is no one group. So some are undocumented
adults where their children are born here, some are the
children are born in a different country. They come from
different places.
I have a group of children from Afghanistan that we have at
one of our schools and they are wonderful families. They just
want to understand the system in the U.S.
Somebody said this earlier, they are the most appreciative
individuals that I have ever met. Everything we do, from our
services providing them uniforms or food or giving them access
to just resources in the community, they are the most
appreciative individuals I have ever met in my life.
Mr. Castro. Thank you.
I yield back, Chairman.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Guthrie.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. Thank you very much.
I apologize, I have been in another hearing that I was
Ranking Member, so I couldn't come to this. So it is important
to be here. And so I didn't hear a lot of the context. But I am
going to--just briefly, as Mr. Metcalf knows, I am from Bowling
Green, Kentucky, a refugee area, and my family personally is
helping several families that are in TPS status from El
Salvador. They came in 2001. They are legally in Bowling Green,
Kentucky. They are legal status, but it keeps getting updated
every year and a half or 3 years, depending, so they always
have to hit a deadline and it really brings a lot of discomfort
to their family and trauma because their kids are U.S.
citizens, their kids speak--I have talked to a parent where
their kid is translating and the parent will say. I know a
limited Spanish to know what that means, and you hear the
parents says, and the kid looks at me and says yup. And so that
means when they learn how to speak they speak with a Kentucky
accent. I mean it is just--they are honor students in high
schools that are there, but they live in this fear that--how
are they going to send the parents home when their kids are
U.S. citizens and we move back and forth.
And I just want to remind, because I worked on it, you
know, about this time last year, about a month from last year,
the President offered to sign TPS and he offered to sign DACA
if he could come up with a deal on our funding, and we just
couldn't get there. And the President has said that he would
sign DACA and he would sign TPS. I just wanted to put that in
there for the record. That was an offer that he made, because
I--I know the TPS because I was involved in it.
So still they did get an extension, but they are still
extending. We are trying to help them get permanent status, but
that is where we are.
And hopefully we can come together bipartisan to solve this
problem, because it is a real problem and kids do get--face it,
when their parents--I mean these are legal parents who may lose
their legal status and then the kids are--I mean they don't
know El Salvador, they were born and raised in Bowling Green,
Kentucky. They are as Bowling Green, Kentuckian as I am.
So we just need to be mindful of that when there may be an
opportunity to do something coming up very, very soon on this.
So hopefully people will be mindful of that.
But the biggest issue, Mr. Metcalf--again, it is great to
have you here, it was great to be in your hometown the other
day--as an immigration judge--this is the biggest thing we
get--the children at the border, they get an ORR, which I was
in a meeting earlier that has oversight of Office of Refugee
Resettlement, and then there this is big lag between getting
their adjudication, which they have the right if they come here
claiming asylum to be adjudicated. But it seems to be this big
lag and how you handle the children between coming here and
making their asylum claim and going through the judicial
system.
So what is a typical caseload and the backlog, and what
would be your suggestions of dealing with it?
Mr. Metcalf. First of all, my caseload in Miami was 1,400
cases. I inherited from a judge who had retired. I cleared my
1,300-1,400 cases almost within a year. All I did was hear
cases. I would open court at 8:00 and I didn't close court
until the last case had been heard.
Mr. Guthrie. Does that give you enough time to--I guess you
know going in--you prepare before you go in. I know how you
operate, but--
Mr. Metcalf. Right. I prepared every case and I stayed
late. I didn't seek a law clerk because the law clerk knows the
law, but the judge doesn't learn it unless he is doing it.
To give you an example of what needs to happen is we need
more judges. With more judges you can adjudicate more cases.
When I finished in Miami--when I started in Miami, we had
roughly 150,000 cases in backlog. When I finished in Miami we
had 186,000 cases in backlog. An as we sit here today, we have
over a million cases in backlog. And the way to deal with that
is like we deal with anything else, methodically,
professionally, and of course, compassionately. Everyone who
came into my courtroom was treated like a person from my
hometown. I spoke to everyone in a manner that dignified their
presence in my courtroom. I would not allow any court officer
to speak down to anyone. Everyone was addressed as sir or ma'am
in the language of their choice or usage. Everyone was treated
in the way I would want to be treated if I was sitting on the
other side of the bench. And I think that is true of most of
our judges. And handful of a handful misbehaved and we deal
with that, just like we do with any other problem, by
professional correction.
But the idea that we can work down these caseloads,
Congressman, by having more courts, more judges, methodical
enforcement of the law, I think is the best way to go about
this. There are no magic wands that can be waived over this
problem. It is a human problem and it becomes--as a human
problem it is a very complex problem. But the only way to deal
with it is to deal with it affirmatively and see these problems
as opportunities to demonstrate due process to those who are
seeking relief in our courts and show that the rule of law is
being followed regardless of who they are.
Mr. Guthrie. Thank you. And I am out of time. You are
right, it needs to be compassionate. When you look these
children in the eye, it is a real--it touches your
heartstrings. And Congress shouldn't just look down at the
other end of the Pennsylvania Avenue and complain about what is
going on, Congress needs to address this problem as well.
So I call on my colleagues, let us all work together to do
that.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Metcalf. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Scott. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Underwood.
Ms. Underwood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As a public health nurse I am deeply concerned about the
health effects of this Administration's policies on children,
families, and the communities they live in. And the people I
represent in northern Illinois share these concerns.
Dr. Falusi, you write in your testimony that the
Administration's proposed changes in its public charge rule are
having ``a chilling effect'', preventing legal immigrants and
mixed status families from accessing healthcare that they are
legally eligible for.
As a pediatrician can you tell us about the potential
consequences if these children don't receive care, such as well
child visits, particularly for very young children?
Dr. Falusi. Thank you for the question.
So the chilling effect that we are seeing is in effect in
the reduced use of these benefits, despite the fact that the
families are eligible for them. The consequences of not
utilizing those benefits are children would be less likely to
see me, to have their well child visits. In a well child visit
we screen for developmental concerns, mental health, we test
for anemia, we test for lead, we ask them about their school
status, their nutrition status, we inform families about how to
care for their children.
Having two children myself, I know that it is not easy
being a new parent and I see a new child at least eight times
in their first year, if not more. So imagining those families
not seeing their pediatrician and going without that guidance,
that care, those screenings and medical treatment where needed
is really concerning.
Ms. Underwood. Now, the proposed public charge rule hasn't
gone into effect, but it has been halted by the FederalCourts.
Dr. Falusi, how would those consequences you just detailed
be exacerbated if the new rule does go into effect?
Dr. Falusi. So what we worry about is families continuing
to call us to unenroll from programs that they are eligible
for. So this is beyond even the families who would be directly
impacted by the public charge rule, but going into the much
broader immigrant community, including those who are, as you
have said, legal documented immigrants, those who may actually
even be naturalized citizens. But because the law is so
nuanced, it may not recognize whether or not they actually are
directly impacted.
So I worry about families who are not sort of covered under
this public charge rule choosing not to utilize the benefits,
and those who may be, actually then not utilizing other
benefits, such as WIC, that are not even included within the
public charged proposed rule. But since it is a Federal
Government benefit, families are hesitant to utilize them.
Ms. Underwood. Yeah, I am really concerned about the public
health impact of communities all across this country.
I want to focus on one of the basic medical services that
children get at these visits, which are immunizations.
Vaccine hesitancy and misinformation are at dangerous
levels in America. Policies that risk lowering vaccination
rates risk the health of children, of seniors, of pregnant
women, cancer patients, and other vulnerable populations. But
this Administration's actions risk actively undermining public
health and efforts to ensure that children get the vaccinations
that they need.
Dr. Falusi, what are the specific public health
consequences if children in immigrant families delay or do not
receive immunizations?
Dr. Falusi. Right. It is just as with any child going
without vaccines leaves the susceptible to illnesses such as
the flu. We are entering flu season now, much concerns, right,
about kids who may be unvaccinated against the flu coming in
with coughs and colds and fevers that may last a week or two or
ending up in our hospitals or in our ICUs.
I also recognize that I have trainees who have never even
seen some of these illnesses that we have been vaccinating
against for 10 or 20 years and worrying now that we may have
more children who are unvaccinated and coming in with these
illnesses that we have stopped sort of thinking about because
we have been fortunate enough to have a--significantly reduced
the frequency of these illnesses. And we also know that
children then go to school and I worry about children who are
unvaccinated being around other children as they--we all know
children share germs very readily and being that it is again
wintertime, germs can spread easily indoors.
So I think it is incumbent upon us to ensure that children
have full access to the healthcare that they are eligible for
and they deserve, including these public health measures, such
as vaccines.
Ms. Underwood. And obviously, vaccinations are critical to
reducing preventable death, right? And so if we have a whole
cohort of children around the country who are not getting the
critical vaccinations, which could save their lives, we have a
real problem on our hands.
As you noted in your testimony, 1 in 4 children in America
lives in an immigrant family. These consequences will be felt
in all of our communities.
The Administration has also needlessly separated children
from their families, violating the fundamental values of my
community in northern Illinois and failing to make our country
safer. I have seen this firsthand on my oversight visits to the
southern border. The negative effects of family separation on
children's physical and mental health are indisputable. And
last month a Federal Judge ruled that the U.S. government must
provide mental health services and screening to children to
address the trauma of family separation.
Dr. Falusi, I am going to send you some questions for the
record about that family separation policy and the toxic stress
and long-term impacts of those early childhood experiences.
But thank you all so much for being here and for sharing
your expertise with our committee.
I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. The gentlelady yields back.
The gentleman from New York, Mr. Morelle.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity
to discuss how children are adversely affected by harmful
immigration policy and thank you to all our witnesses, both for
the work that you do and for your willingness to be here to
share your expertise with us on this important topic.
Just 2 months ago we held a subcommittee hearing to discuss
the adverse impact that traumatic experiences can have on the
emotional growth and success of children. In my district, in
Rochester, New York, nearly 1 in 3 children have a traumatic
experience that will hinder their emotional, social, and
academic success if not properly addressed. And I was pleased
at the take away from the September hearing was a consensus by
our witnesses that trauma informed practices on education are
critical to ensuring a fair shot at academic success for those
children. And I am proud of the committee's work to do better
by our Nation's youth, including immigrant children.
This past July I had an opportunity to visit with some of
my colleagues the southern border, both in Texas and in Mexico
and saw firsthand the difficult conditions immigrants and
asylum seekers are facing, simply for daring to seek a better
life for themselves and for their families. I always think,
parenthetically, that I suppose I should be grateful my great
grandparents sailed into New York Harbor at the beginning of
the 20th century instead of arriving at the wall in 2019. And
it is hard to imagine that America was more progressive in the
early 1900s than it is in the 21st century, but I will leave
that to another committee to discuss immigration policy.
But the adversities facing immigrant children, starting
with conditions at the border and extending to every day
discrimination and fear of deportation, it is clear that
children are experiencing various forms of trauma that will
impact them for years to come. And we are seeing the effects
trickle down to the education and the other resources available
to them.
A report by the Center for Law and Social Policy described
decreased attendance in childcare and educational programs by
immigrant children in recent years resulting in reduced
exposure to critical brain development, emotional management
skills, and academic success. And as a result, schools are now
more than ever in need of support to help students of all
backgrounds cope with increased anxiety and fear.
And I wanted to ask a question of Superintendent Martinez.
In October 2019 the Trump Administration reported at that time,
which is just a couple of months ago, a total of 5,400+
children had been separated from families at the border. And
can you just share what schools are doing to assure that those
children who have experienced family separation are receiving
the proper services to address the traumatic effects, the
mental, psychological effects that come from these adverse
experiences?
Mr. Martinez. So we are getting demand for mental health
services more than ever. And this is something that is
happening nationally, not only in San Antonio. And so we are
actually developing now--we call them care units. These are
specialists that are staff that are actually therapists so that
teachers don't feel that they have to take that burden on. And
so we are creating small teams now within our district. And
this is something that I am seeing in other districts across
the country as well, sir. And it is--unfortunately, again,
these are not extra resources that we are getting, and so this
is something that again we are trying to find resources both
internally and from philanthropy even to support us.
Mr. Morelle. So I am curious, if can just follow up, how
able are you to--as children I am sure are pretty transient in
these circumstances and move from district to district, are
neighboring districts or districts throughout the state able to
track them as they move from district to district? Is the
Federal Government playing a meaningful role in trying to help
monitor that movement?
Mr. Martinez. Sir, our biggest challenge is some of these
children end up in foster care and unfortunately our foster
care system was already in trouble, at least in Texas, and it
was even in Illinois where I grew up. So there, child services
is also overwhelmed. So what we are doing right now is just
having the conversations and saying, okay, tell us what
services that you have, how do we leverage our own resources.
We offered again, you know, with our therapists and counselors
again, we don't have many, and so for us that is what we are
fighting. And these are children that are several traumatic. I
mean some of them are very, very upset, very angry, they get
violent.
And so the good news in our district is that I have seen is
the compassion from our teachers because they know--you know,
they see what these children have gone through.
And so the challenge is not every district has that
ability. And some of my colleagues in the smaller districts
have even bigger struggles than I do.
Mr. Morelle. And I have just a few seconds remaining, but I
am curious, are you doing more in-service education with
teachers and folks who are in touch with the students to share
with them best practices around trauma informed care?
Mr. Martinez. Yes, sir. It has actually become our number
one request from teachers, which is great. So it is--we are not
even mandating them, it is their number one request from us and
that is now starting to drive all of our professional
development.
Mr. Morelle. Thank you, all of you, and thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Keller.
Mr. Keller Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would like to
thank the panel of people here to testify here today for being
here.
I think there is one thing we can agree upon, and that is
our entire immigration system is broken. While the humanitarian
and security crisis at our southern border made headlines for
months just less than a year ago, nothing has gotten done on
comprehensive immigration reform since the majority in this
chamber has lost their focus.
While I have dealt with the topic we are discussing today
in the House Oversight and Reform Committee, multiple times
this issue of immigration reform generally belongs in the
Judiciary Committee. So we have dealt with it many times. It
belongs to the Judiciary Committee.
What is the House Judiciary Committee doing today? Holding
another impeachment hearing. No wonder nothing is getting done
addressing this and other serious issues facing our immigration
system. In this committee, instead of focusing on things within
our jurisdiction, we must focus on picking up the slack for the
Judiciary Committee. While the topic of today's hearing is
concerning the harmful effects of our broken immigration
system, this committee has jurisdiction over a number of other
areas that need to be addressed.
Children are harmed when they are burdened by student debt
and failed education policies, children are harmed when this
committee does not do our job properly, reevaluating nutrition
needs through the child nutrition reauthorization process.
Children are harmed when they need prescription drugs and their
families cannot afford them. Those are all things that can be
addressed in a bipartisan manner in this committee, but not
doing so is another opportunity cost of impeachment.
Again, I believe most of us agree that immigration reform
is needed, but that is not within the scope of this committee.
Mr. Metcalf, I just wanted to follow up on something in
your testimony that I read and saw, and I want to make sure
that I am clear on this.
Children in America's public schools are afforded the same
opportunities for access services and education as students
with legal status. I mean all the students are accessible to
all the same benefits.
Mr. Metcalf. That is correct.
Mr. Keller Okay. So really the children of people that may
not have legal status in the United States are still getting
all those--all those things are available to all the children.
Mr. Metcalf. Still going to school, still eating, still
receiving all of the benefits that their native-born
counterparts receive.
Mr. Keller Okay. I just wanted to make sure that is clear,
because I think that is so important because that really does
explain where the jurisdiction of these lies.
You know, the distractions of the Judiciary Committee and
the lack of the majority of this House to address these issues,
which for a period of time they denied, has really had a cost
to our Nation's children.
And the other thing I would also say is a lost opportunity
by Congress since they are focused on other things, is children
of our active duty military and our veterans are harmed when
Congress doesn't pass the National Defense Authorization Act so
that our people protecting our Nation and our way of life have
the resources they need to be safe. And I wonder what happens
to those kids when they are worried about whether or not their
mother or their father is going to have what they need to
protect us here at home.
With that, I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Thompson.
Mr. Thompson. Chairman, thank you. Thanks to members of the
panel for being here. You know, hopefully, you know, we have
gotten kind of a dose of reality that is opposed to the title
of this mistitled hearing. We all want what is best for kids,
for children, and certainly children of folks--parents that
make decisions to put their children in harm's way to bring
them here versus using a legal immigration system. And I will
be the first to tell you that our legal immigration system is
broken, it needs to be fixed. We quite frankly need to make
sure the front door into this country works and works well for
people who want to come here and be citizens. But, you know, a
lot of the concerns we have heard about today, it was kind of
interesting to see and see some of the references within the
testimony.
Judge Metcalf, thank you for some of the references that
you put in there, you know, showing how what has been blamed on
the Trump Administration very clearly through the documentation
started that practice with cages, and that is what they look
like, whether that was the intent or not, it was under the
Obama Administration.
Judge Metcalf, there has been a lot of concern expressed
today about immigrant families not accepting services that they
are eligible for out of fear of exposure. In your testimony you
discussed several immigration reform efforts you think would
address the various problems in our current immigration
policies. Judge, I know you are not an expert on all the
programs in this committee's jurisdiction, but how would your
proposals make it more likely that immigrant families would
feel more comfortable claiming services that they are eligible
for?
Mr. Metcalf. I missed the last part, eligible for or not
eligible for?
Mr. Thompson. That they would be eligible for.
Mr. Metcalf. First of all, education. That is the first
thing you--first of all, you tell the kids at point of receipt
of services and tell the parents at point of receipt of
services. The way we educate in Kentucky, and that is my only
reference point, and my experience in Miami, public services do
a pretty good job of telling people what they can get. And when
you are educating around the receipt of public services, it
clues everybody in to what they can have, and what they can't
have in some cases.
What I prefer to see is that we use education as a tool to
assimilate everyone into our democracy. And even when it comes
to those who are here illegally, treating them with the dignity
required by the Immigration and Nationality Act assures them
that we have a rule of law solution to these problems.
Mr. Thompson. Yeah. I know this is a basic question to many
involved in immigration policy, but since the underlying
immigration issues raised by this hearing fall outside of our
committee's jurisdiction, could you just provide us a brief
overview of the various immigration statuses that immigrant
children and their families would have?
Mr. Metcalf. I think the way to look at it is this, when
someone enters the U.S. illegally--and by that I mean come in
across--violate a border or let us say overstay a Visa--you are
not removing the children per se, you are removing the lead
alien. The lead alien is usually the father or mother who
brought these kids in. The kids, they are going to be treated
just like kids any other place, and that is the way they should
be treated. Their status is uncertain at that point, but they
are alleged to be illegal.
Now, what I prefer to do in all of those cases is--when I
was a judge--is to say what relief can this person seek. Is it
asylum only or might they qualify for a form of cancellation or
adjustment. And in those cases, we gently nudge through the
attorneys before the court to getting these people in the right
form of relief so that they would have their best chance to
succeed in front of the court.
Now, as to the other--as to the balance of your question,
the only way I can answer it is by looking at the various
statuses that are available. One is TPS. TPS has to be renewed.
As long as you obey the laws, generally speaking, you don't
commit two misdemeanors, in other words class A misdemeanors,
you are going to be fine until it is determined that a whole
class of individuals is supposed to leave. Those are the only
things that I can think of that mirror a response to your
question, sir.
Mr. Thompson. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
The gentlelady from North Carolina
Mrs. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again I want to
thank our witnesses for being here today.
Mr. Metcalf, I appreciate very much the way you have
described how you have handled cases in your court. And I think
that should put to rest in the minds of a lot of people that we
have got people in these courts who are treating people
unfairly or unkindly. And I appreciate those comments that you
have made. And it certainly shows that there are judges, and my
guess is that you are representative of them, that do show
compassion to these immigrants regardless of their status.
As you said in your statement, we have the most welcoming
and inclusive laws on the planet. But could you also talk about
the damage done to our country when we ignore our own laws, and
in some cases actively encourage people to ignore the laws?
Mr. Metcalf. Yes, ma'am.
The whole point of our Immigration and Nationality Act, it
has three goals. It was produced--or it was passed to do three
things. One is to attract the talented and the hardworking.
Two, it was meant to provide relief or redeem the persecuted.
And three, it was intended to remove the offender. It serves
those purposes very well when we enforce the law, when we make
borders sovereign, when we give relief to those who merit
relief, and we bring them into what I like to say is--excuse
me--into full communion with the rest of our society. And the
way we do that is by following the laws that are on the books.
The way we got here is we were not following the laws on the
books. And the way we get out of it is to start following the
laws on the books.
Now, what has been addressed, Madam Ranking Member, is a
DACA solution. From talking to staff, I understand there is
support for that. That is a great way to start and bringing
everyone together at the same table and putting DACA into
effect, codifying it in other words. I think that is a perfect
way to begin to solve the problems that this hearing has
identified.
As far as making sure that people that are here illegally
receive the full benefits of education and healthcare and
meals, I think everyone in this room is all about that, ma'am.
And I think that is a down payment on being able to convince
people that we are striving to do the right thing.
Mrs. Foxx. Many of my colleagues have pointed out, and I
really want to associate myself especially with what Mr. Wright
said and some others who talked about our language, illegal is
the appropriate term for us to be using, as I understand.
Mr. Metcalf. It is, ma'am.
Mrs. Foxx. And the language of the statute used the word
alien because someone who is not a citizen but is here is
legally an alien. And so the term illegal alien has been used
usedappropriately.
You also talked in your testimony about the subject that
has come up today about the Trump and Obama Administrations'
approaches to unaccompanied minors. Could you walk us back
through that data, explaining how those numbers have changed
and describe to what extent the Obama and Trump Administration
approaches have been different?
Mr. Metcalf. Well, ma'am, I think that first of all, you
can see that--and I refer to page two in my testimony and I
outline the fiscal years and the people who were then placed--
the children who were placed in the UAC programs. We know that
beginning in the fiscal year 2013-14 we had a tremendous surge
at the border. In that year the Obama Administration did
exactly the right thing, it placed 53,000 children in a UAC
program. This is the same year, in fact, where we have the
picture that has been described as a cage. Those were actually
chain-link fences that were brought--or gates brought together
and created a vertical barrier. As far as I know there were no
horizontal barriers that were used to pen children in. And, in
fact, it is wise for us to remember that was termed as cages
were intended to keep children in a safe area and away from
things that might harm them if they got out of control, for
instance. That has been way too politicized.
But when you look at what the Trump Administration did with
the next huge surge, which is FY 2018-2019, you have about
73,000 people, and we brought in $4.6 billion of aid to the
border to address hygiene, food, healthcare, for all of these
people. I call that a win for Congress, I call that a win for
the executive.
Mrs. Foxx. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
Dr. Barajas-Gonzalez, as you are aware, the Flores decision
requires children in immigration detention under the Office of
Refugee Resettlement receive an educational assessment upon
arrival at the detention center. Why is that assessment
important, particularly for those eligible for services under
IDEA?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. An educational assessment helps
establish a baseline of understanding of the child's
developmental competencies at that time. Given that many
children are going through traumatic experiences, the
assessment allows educators and practitioners to gauge where
children are. My understanding is that the assessment needs to
be done with someone who is creating a safe space for the child
to be able to demonstrate their competencies in their language
of origin and that the child needs to feel safe and needs to
have good sleep, be well nourished. And that allows for a
baseline understanding of the child's competencies.
Chairman Scott. And if they are eligible for services in
the IDEA?
Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez. That I am not as versed in, but I am
happy to do research and get back to you on that.
Chairman Scott. Okay. Thank you.
Dr. Falusi, we heard about the problems if children are
discouraged from getting immunizations. What other problems
occur if children are discouraged from accessing public
services, like healthcare and nutrition services?
Dr. Falusi. Thank you for the question.
The things that I worry about are children not getting
those basic screenings that I mentioned and going under the
radar. If they have development delays, for example, we screen
for motor delays, speech delays, we screen for autism. So I
imagine then children who may have some of these risk factors
not getting diagnosed and possibly then not doing as well in
school or in their communities. Whereas we know we have really
effective therapies to be able to address these issues once we
discover them in our health centers.
Chairman Scott. So if you are doing the assessments and
they are eligible for services under IDEA, it would be
important that they be identified early so those services can
be available early?
Dr. Falusi. Absolutely. We know that early intervention is
really the best way to address some of these delays and
concerns.
Chairman Scott. Okay. And you mentioned toxic stress. What
problems occur when people are subject to toxic stress?
Dr. Falusi. So children are especially sensitive to toxic
stress. The toxic stress response in children can manifest both
physically, so with fatigue, trouble sleeping, the delays as I
mentioned, acting out behaviors, including actually aggression,
but then I see a lot more of depression and anxiety and
withdrawing behaviors. What we know is that then in the long-
term, as this stress response continues over time, is that it
can have immeasurable and long-lasting effects on their bodies,
including things that may be expected, like post-traumatic
stress disorder or continued depression and anxiety. But then
also physical illnesses, diabetes and heart disease, and even
increased risk of cancers.
So these early childhood exposures certainly have--and
research has shown over and over--long lasting physical and
emotional effects.
Chairman Scott. Is there anything you can do about it?
Dr. Falusi. Certainly. We can ensure that children are not
subjected to fear and anxiety. We can encourage families to
utilize these services and benefits that they are eligible for
and that when they do there is no stigma attached to it.
Additionally, we can ensure that children stay with their
parents or with trusted adults. What can buffer toxic stress is
having an adult who is caring and who is responsible for that
child to stay with them to buffer that stress. And we all
undergo stress, including children, but we don't see as many of
those long-term effects if there is a parent there who has not
been separated from them, but actually remains with them.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
And, Mr. Martinez, how does the school system respond if a
lot of children are showing up with a gap in education?
Mr. Martinez. So unfortunately that is the story of our
lives in San Antonio. Sixty percent of my kindergarteners are
at the lowest level nationally. And so for us what we have done
is just ensuring that--first we have preschool programs, we
have diagnostics so we can identify where children are at. We
are trying to recruit the best teachers, and we have had a lot
of success in bringing in those teachers, because there is no
magic bullet. It is having more resources, more teachers that
can understand what the needs are.
And, of course, having solutions for the non-academic
challenges, because whether we like it or not, those issues
become very relevant if they are not addressed in a--if they
are addressed early I have seen amazing things happen with
children that have autism, children that have speech
impediments. When it is caught early, it is amazing what can be
done with those children as they get older.
Chairman Scott. Thank you. My time has expired.
I recognize the Ranking Member for closing statements.
Mrs. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I turn to the substance of this hearing, I think it
is important to note a few issues about this hearing.
First, hearings should be about fact finding. The title of
this hearing presumes a conclusion rather than poses an issue
to discuss and learn about it, which leads to the second point.
Mr. Chairman, you said at the beginning immigration policy is
not in our committee's jurisdiction and we should not discuss
what each administration did or said. However, the hearing
title and your opening statement are all about immigration
policy.
When it was decided to call a hearing on the topic that is
clearly outside of our jurisdiction, no matter how much you try
to couch it, you should not be surprised that members of this
committee will talk about the underlying policy.
And it should not be a surprise that our members will take
offense to the argument that we should not enforce our laws.
Finally, many members on the other side of the aisle made
comments about amendments we offered to protect babies born
alive in the Higher Education Act markup, saying that was
outside of our jurisdiction and not appropriate for discussion
about the HEA. I disagreed with that notion considering we were
discussing funding that supports institutions and we should do
what we can to protect all life. I wish the majority could see
the need to protect all children.
Now, this hearing showed us what we learned before,
children who face trauma need assistance in our schools and
communities. We also know that it is incumbent upon parents to
help prevent that trauma when they can. When the parents are
the cause of that trauma we need sufficient support in place to
help those children. That is not in dispute and it is something
we should and have discussed in this committee.
What we also learned is that we need immigration reform and
enforcement if we are going to help these children, these
families, and our communities. And that reform will come only
if we put the politics aside and work in a bipartisan fashion.
We know this is possible, Mr. Chairman, because you have
demonstrated that in other situations.
I sincerely hope we can consider the directive to discuss
this issue has been met and we can get back to working in a
good bipartisan basis moving forward.
With that, I yield back.
Chairman Scott. Thank you.
I remind colleagues that pursuant to committee practice,
materials for submission to the hearing must be submitted to
the Committee Clerk within 14 days following the last day of
the hearing. Materials submitted must address the subject
matter of the hearing. Only a Member on the committee or an
invited witness may submit materials for inclusion in the
hearing record. Documents are limited to 50 pages each.
Documents longer than 50 pages will be incorporated into the
record by way of an internet link that you must provide to the
Committee Clerk, but please recognize that years from now that
link may no longer work.
Finally, without objection, I would like to enter into the
record a report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that
outlines how the Administration's changes in immigration policy
have created an unnecessary human and civil rights crisis at
the southern border, a brief from the Society on Research and
Child Development that explains how the threat of deportation
negatively affects children's development, a paper form the
U.S. UCLA Civil Rights Project that examines how the current
Administration's immigration policy has contributed to educator
stress and mental health difficulties, research from the Center
on Law and Social Policy explaining the chilling effect the
Administration's immigration policies have on early childhood
education program enrollment, and a joint Dear Colleague Letter
from the Department of Justice and the Department of Education
published during the prior Administration detailing steps for
schools to ensure their enrollment procedures are in compliance
with Plyler v. Doe.
In closing I want to recognize myself for the closing
statement. I thank our witnesses for being with us today. The
hearing provided committee members the opportunity to examine
facts surrounding immigration policies and how they are harming
children within our borders.
I want to highlight just a couple. We have a moral and
legal responsibility to protect rights of children, immigrant
children, and guarantee all children access to education and
nutrition programs they need to grow and learn. As I have said
before, we are not responsible for the immigration policy, but
we do have a responsibility to ensure that each child in this
country can have a safe and healthy childhood.
So I want to thank our witnesses for being with us today
and look forward to working with all of my colleagues towards
that shared goal.
And the hearing record will be held open for 14 days to
receive any further comments.
Is there any further business to come before the committee?
If not, the committee is now adjourned.
[Additional submissions by Mr. Castro follow:]
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[Additional submissions by Ms. Fudge follow:]
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[Additional submissions by Mr. Grijalva follow:]
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[Additional submissions by Ms. Hayes follow:]
GAO Report can be found at p. 1: https://www.govinfo.gov/
content/pkg/CPRT-117HPRT46287/pdf/CPRT-117HPRT46287.pdf
[Additional submissions by Chairman Scott follow:]
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Trauma At The Border can be found at p. 59: https://
www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CPRT-117HPRT46287/pdf/CPRT-
117HPRT46287.pdf
[Additional submissions by Mr. Takano follow:]
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[Ms. Barajas-Gonzalez response to questions submitted for
the record follows:]
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[Dr. Falusi response to questions submitted for the record
follows:]
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[Mr. Martinez response to questions submitted for the
record follows:]
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[Mr. Metcalf response to questions submitted for the record
follows:]
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[Whereupon, at 1:15 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]