Joaquin Castro

Many Americans and many around the world have been shocked by the Trump administration's use of family separation.

I do want to raise a concern with H.R. 1697, which is that I basically think that the bill is written a bit too vague and it is too broad.

Absolutely. In fact, when we went into the second center, we asked them: ``Well, who is held here?'' And the administrator said: ``Children between zero and 12 years, and the youngest one we have right now is 8 months.''

Yes, we went into the shelter, and we visited two of them. At one of them, there were about four or five infants. They had something called an infants room. At least two of those infants--one of them 8 months named Roger, the other one a…

I think the facts have borne that out from that first midnight run. There's basically been information that's been shared and President Trump, I think, is using people in the legislative branch, including Devin Nunes, to do his dirty work.

I said that I would ask Devin Nunes today and I did that. When I asked him or told him that Democrats should be part of the meeting, he said that he wasn't going to play that game and then walked off.

Tomorrow's meeting seems to be a Trump legal defense team huddle, so they can figure out what's out there.

This whole thing has turned into a racket. It's basically, I believe, a way for the President to receive information about what the DOJ has, what the FBI has, to handicap his legal liability.

Will you leave them with a civilian nuclear program?

So the President----

What does that mean?

Our message to these countries must be clear: Inclusive open societies contribute to better democracies.

This is an affront to the freedom of speech, the bedrock of democracy, and our values and principles as Americans.

Today, human rights, civil liberties, including freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, and rule of law, are constantly under threat in many parts of the world.

I want to also congratulate all the members whose bipartisan bills are being considered here today.

It is important that the United States supports Israel by guaranteeing a robust security assistance package.

In the last decade, we have seen democracies around the world in retreat, including some in our own backyard.

I want to say thank you to Chairman Royce and Ranking Member Engel, for bringing these measures before us today.

Amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 5274 offered by the Honorable Joaquin Castro, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas.

No. And I've heard that Adam Schiff, our ranking member, he would have been contacted first. I've heard he was not told, and I certainly have not heard anything.

I can't speak, of course, officially for the Democratic members, but my vote is that we issue our own report, and I think that -- I suspect that everybody will agree with that.

Absolutely. Let me just start with one fact. Roger Stone knowing ahead of time that WikiLeaks would dump e-mails belonging to Hillary Clinton. That's one example.

I strongly disagree. And, you know, Anderson, this is a real betrayal of the American people and of the public trust for Republicans to close the investigation this way.

This was a take their word for it investigation that simply went through the motions.

No. I believe our intelligence agencies. I think they got it right.