Rosa DeLauro

My hope is that, and just in terms of summarizing, Secretary Johnson, you support terminating the MOA.

The guiding principle of U.S. and international law concerning these children must be the best interest of the child.

I have been calling for ORR to process children more quickly out of this prison-like facility since the last Congress.

In the Obama administration, the turnover was 35 days. It was 90 days last year.

That must end, and I am working on legislation to address this.

That is not what is happening at Homestead.

What we wanted was the protections for these children and a discharge plan, and those two pieces are what we still want.

I just might add that the bulk of the money in the supplemental is for permanent licensed beds, understanding your need.

Most chillingly, the administration introduced new bureaucratic delays and onerous fingerprinting requirements on sponsors.

Make no mistake, however, that it is administration policies that have brought us to the brink, a crisis created by failed administration policies.

Children have no freedom of movement.

Why are Federal facilities exempt?

The Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security initiated a Memorandum of Agreement using children as bait and scaring sponsors from coming forward.

The administration initiated a zero-tolerance policy, which, as a result, separated children from parents, adding to the numbers of unaccompanied children.

We have got to do better.

We just cannot turn our back on them.

We need to shut down this temporary prison-like facility, one that is unlicensed by the State of Florida.

I commit to keep working with you to hold this administration accountable.

This administration inherited the humanitarian crisis on the Southern border, one that has only worsened in recent years.

Frankly, in my view, that delay compounded--that delay by Congress compounded the crisis at the border and made things worse, not better.

I think it is obvious to everyone here that there are significant disagreements between the President and the House majority on matters pertaining to immigration policy.

No. The answer is no. We worked on it, but we don't have the answers.

So my priority is to responsibly shut down Homestead to eliminate the use of facilities that are not State-licensed.

HHS does not separate children from their parents and has not done so in the past.

However, that is not the law of the United States, and that is not within the purview of HHS to change.