Congressman Jesús “Chuy” García Votes for Immediate Relief for Unaccompanied Minors

Washington, D.C. – Congressman Jesús "Chuy" García (IL-04) released the following statement after voting to support the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Humanitarian Assistance and Security at the Southern Border Act:

"For several months I have been horrified about the neglectful and abusive conditions being experienced by migrant children living in government sponsored detention centers. In interviews with lawyers monitoring the centers, children reported being hungry, thirsty and cold. Children are sleeping in overcrowded rooms on cement floors with thin blankets and are not able to bathe or brush their teeth regularly. Teenagers are told to care for toddlers and young children are often left alone. Children don't see doctors--even when they are sick.

"The children living in the centers are not criminals. These kids look like my grandchildren. They are all our children —America's children—and we must care for them as we would care for our family members in crisis.

"Six children have died since December 2018 in government custody. This is unacceptable. And these deaths do not tell the full story of suffering in these detention centers. A generation of children are experiencing mental and physical trauma they will carry for the rest of their lives. Our government is violating human rights standards for children and the conditions would be classified as child abuse by any child welfare agency in the United States.

"This funding bill is a necessary step to provide temporary relief for children being held in unsafe conditions at DHS facilities. This bill would provide $4.5 billion dollars to targeted accounts to bring DHS facilities into compliance with federally recognized health standards in the Flores Agreement. These standards include alleviating overcrowding, transferring unaccompanied children to the Office of Refugee Resettlement and giving them medical attention. It would give $2.9 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services to expand capacity in State licensed facilities to reduce reliance on influx shelters and restore legal services for unaccompanied children.

"Oversight provisions were included in the bill to increase accountability, including the ability to shut down facilities that fail to comply with health and safety standards under the Flores Agreement. The bill would require facilities to allow oversight visits from Members of Congress without prior notice, and to provide monthly reports on unaccompanied children.

Despite these protections included in the bill, I remain concerned about whether the agencies will spend the money on the children if the bill becomes law. Given the Trump Administration's abusive immigration policy, and its culture of corruption, Congress will have to work harder than ever to hold the agencies accountable.

"This bill does not address the root causes of the humanitarian crisis at the border. It does not address the violence and poverty that is forcing Central American families to leave their countries. It does not provide funds to expedite processing asylum requests or solve the systemic problems of our immigration laws. And it does not address the fact that we have a President who relies on an us-versus-them narrative designed to criminalize adults and children who arrive on our Southern border, many making a legal claim for asylum.

While we work on future legislation to overhaul a broken, racist immigration system, we must also try to address the life-threatening and traumatizing conditions migrants are subjected to by this Administration. However temporary this relief may be, it is now on Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell and President Trump to ensure the U.S. does not continue to perpetrate human rights abuses against children."