Filemon Vela

this is a horrendous idea. As with many of this administration's justifications for misguided border security actions, context and strategy are completely lacking.

To say that immigrants are overrunning our border is a lie.

As I stated on the day this deployment was announced, this is a horrendous idea.

To say that the border is lawless is a lie.

It is with a great deal of regret that I cannot join family and friends of Jesse Thomas Rhodes, known as Tom, as he is laid to rest today. Tom was, as he would often remind us, the first baby born on January 1, 1955, in Memphis, Tennessee…

Asylum is not a 'loophole,' as the Trump administration would like the public to believe.

The effect of family separation is also traumatizing.

I am opposed to tearing kids away from their parents.

We urge Congress to reject the policy proposals the Trump administration continues to offer as solutions as they will do nothing to address border security, but will instead endanger vulnerable people and call into question our Nation's…

How we treat refugees seeking safety is not a test of our National security, but a test of our National character.

I would like to express my deep concern about the so-called policy wall proposed by the administration.

Blaming and punishing the people who are seeking protection is inhumane.

I worry that there are no reliable mechanisms in place to ensure that families can be reunified later.

The right to seek asylum is enshrined in United States and international law.

Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) assertion that they do not have sufficient capacity to process asylum seekers is a poor excuse.

This is not who we are as a country. Our legacy--and the future we hope to leave to our children--call on us to be a Nation that welcomes and defends the rights of the most vulnerable among us.

The administration's practice of refusing to process asylum seekers and forcing vulnerable people... to remain outside the gates of the ports of entry is unconscionable.

Democrats want explicit language restricting border construction to the same see-through fencing that was already authorized under current law.

I reiterate my opposition to this practice, and I caution the Department from pursuing other such policies that do not honor our values as a Nation of immigrants.

Last month, all 12 Democrats on this committee and 63 other Democratic colleagues sent a letter to Secretary Nielsen asking her to halt the practice of separating migrant parents from their children.

Would you say that the $18 billion requested by the Trump administration to build border walls over the next 10 years is an accurate cost estimate?

This plan does not provide estimates of the full cost, time, and resources that will be required to take land from private landowners to build this border wall.

These CBP staffing issues are critical to border security, yet the administration continues to ignore these problems.

Customs and Border Protection has absolutely no metrics to show how a wall or even land-based technology contribute to border security in general.

The way I see it, this border security improvement plan illustrates how the Trump administration has politicized the way we identify border security gaps.