Chris Coons: “this morning, the hot Sun rose on a tent city 20 miles outside El Paso, TX. That tent city stands as a makeshift…”

“this morning, the hot Sun rose on a tent city 20 miles outside El Paso, TX. That tent city stands as a makeshift detention facility to house children who have crossed our border and have been separated from their parents. This tent city, I would suggest, is hopefully a temporary monument to modern-day American cruelty. Across South Texas, so-called tender age shelters have sprung up to house very young children, even infants, who have been taken from their parents in an act that pediatricians, psychologists, and frankly anyone who has raised a child themselves know is the most traumatizing and upsetting thing you can do to a young child, which is to take them away from their parents by force, with no understanding of what is happening or expectation of when they will be reunited. This morning, thousands of children woke up to the voices of strangers in strange places and started another day in institutionalized, fenced-in confinement. This is happening in our Nation. I have heard from dozens--hundreds of Delawareans by every means they could communicate with me, and I am sure my colleagues have also heard from hundreds or thousands of their constituents, as we, as a nation, have been haunted by the sounds and images of vulnerable children crying out for help.…”