Sheila Jackson Lee: “It is a painful experience, as I indicated. Toddlers don't speak. They are standing still, as has been evidenced by…”

“It is a painful experience, as I indicated. Toddlers don't speak. They are standing still, as has been evidenced by Members who have gone. I saw two little babies. Leah, a little older, fussy, playing on the floor, didn't want anyone to touch her. And Roger wanted someone to touch him. Mothers in cages, other mothers in a detention center in Los Fresno, nine of them from Honduras, each and every one had a child taken, and they were crying. But the crux of this is that they don't know where the child is, and the child does not know where they are. These centers are being put up. One that already exists in my community has been charged with abusing children: throwing them down on the floor and giving them medication that they do not want; in essence, giving them medication to keep them quiet. I know there are good people--everyone wants to talk about good people in their own State--but these are inhumane conditions. The greatest pain that I can say that you would see is men and women who are on the verge of deportation, they don't know what is happening, but they don't have their children. They are going back without their children. Then you also see these large warehouses with thousands of little kids from 10 to 17, but they have been there for a while. They are unaccompanied children, and we have no accounting of these children. That is what we are seeing. That is, I think, a shame on this government, and we can do better. We have been a refuge for refugees.…”