Barbara Lee: “I thank Representative Jayapal for yielding, and I thank her for her tremendous leadership and for staying steady and…”

“I thank Representative Jayapal for yielding, and I thank her for her tremendous leadership and for staying steady and focused. And, also, I just have to recognize her for the input which she has provided to the conference committee to keep the government open, but, also, it was a conference committee to fund Homeland Security. Her input and what she gave us really was extremely important to get that done. We have a lot of work to do. So I thank her very much for that, also. Yes, our Nation has yet to recover from the Trump administration's cruel zero-tolerance, zero-humanity prosecution policy that tore and is tearing thousands of children from their parents and guardians, which was announced 1 year ago this week. Since Donald Trump started his zero-humanity policy--and that is exactly what it is--we have learned more and more disturbing evidence. We know that the Trump administration piloted family separation on a limited basis and planned to impose a policy of mass separating of children from their moms and dads--a policy. We have seen the administration's memos contemplating how this could be done and the resources needed to separate and detain thousands of children and parents. The Government Accountability Office has investigated, finding that, despite the administration's contemplation, this is a very serious, serious problem, that they were unaware the then-Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, intended to launch this zero-humanity policy.…”