END CRUEL IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AGAINST KIDS

END CRUEL IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AGAINST KIDS

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 57 (Thursday, March 26, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 57 (Thursday, March 26, 2026)] [House] [Pages H2755-H2761] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] END CRUEL IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT AGAINST KIDS (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Ms. Dexter of Oregon was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.) General Leave Ms. DEXTER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and submit extraneous material into the Record. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Van Epps). Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Oregon? There was no objection. Ms. DEXTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to tell you about a second grader named Diana Crespo-Gonzalez. She loves to draw, and she loves school. On January 16, she was sick. She had a persistent fever, her nose wouldn't stop bleeding, and her parents did what any good parents would do. They took their child to see a doctor. They never made it inside. Instead, immigration agents surrounded their car. The parents pleaded with the agents to just let their daughter get seen. Think about that for a second, Mr. Speaker. Put yourself in their car, wondering if you made a mistake by taking your child to a doctor. Shortly after, Diana and her parents were detained and transported 2,000 miles from their home in Gresham, Oregon, to the Dilley child family detention facility in Texas, the largest child detention facility in the United States. I will say that again: the largest child detention facility in the United States. That is a sentence that should not exist. The conditions at Dilley are not just bad; they are indefensible and inhumane. The food is inedible. One father detained there with his child said: ``We were given wormy food, and when someone spoke out about it and said that the children should get better food, he was taken in the middle of the night and threatened that he and his family would be separated.'' Another said: ``Sometimes there are strange things in the food, and it seems like strange parts of an animal that shouldn't be in the food, but many children do not eat the food here. It worries me when there are so many small children who are just not eating.'' A 14-year-old said that his 7-year-old brother stopped eating entirely. Many report that the water is not drinkable, that it is too salty, and that it smells of chemicals. If you do drink it, your stomach turns with pain. It is not just food and water, but the foundation of human life. As if that weren't bad enough, these kids and families are also being deprived of sleep, healthcare, and education. Children inside have reported ideas of self-harm, even suicide. A 14-year-old who was detained for 45 days said: ``Since I got to this center, all you will feel is sadness and mostly depression.'' Mr. Speaker, if you advocate for yourself, or as a parent advocating for your child, there is the threat of retaliation. One father said: ``We are scared to ask for anything because the officers start threatening us that they will put us in different detention centers and put our children in foster care.'' This is where they sent Diana, a second grader who just needed to see a doctor. I couldn't stand back while she was in prison there, and I had a chance to help. One of the most important lessons I have learned in my first year in Congress, Mr. Speaker, is that you cannot defend your constituents from behind a desk. Showing up and advocating for the people you represent matters. So I traveled to Texas with plane tickets in hand to bring Diana and her parents back to Oregon. When I arrived, officials repeatedly blocked my entry, giving shifting and contradictory explanations as to why. I was told I could not enter because of measles cases, despite an officer telling me just the day before that there were no active cases and no risk. I was told to leave. I was told to wait. I was told nothing at all. The message was clear: Don't look too closely. Oversight isn't optional. When ICE blocked me from entering, I made it clear that if they would not let me in, they would at least bring my constituents out to speak with me. After hours of waiting and arguing, ICE actually did more than that. They released the Crespo-Gonzalez family altogether. I was able to escort them home. Diana made it home, but there are children today who are still trapped in Dilley. Legally, children are not supposed to be in custody for more than 20 days, yet dozens of children have been [[Page H2756]] detained at Dilley for over 3 months, one-third of a school year spent in prison--children who are sick, children who are scared, and children who do not understand why this is happening to them. It is not just children who have been detained who feel the trauma of this immigration crackdown. Children in my district live in fear of the ICE man. He comes to them in their dreams, and it worries them that they are going to come to get them or a loved one. I heard it from a teacher in Oregon who shared how devastating ICE's presence has been for her students. She said: ``Many students stopped coming to school for weeks, either because parents did not feel safe to bring them to school or students did not feel safe to leave their parents, knowing they might come home to an empty house.'' Across this country, ICE is targeting children outside of schools, outside of clinics, and outside of their own homes. Immigration enforcement against children is inhumane and unnecessary. Families can and should be able to navigate their immigration cases together and in community, with the support of loved ones and legal services. This is about who we are and who we want to be as a country. Kids need care and compassion, not cruelty and cages. Today, we will spotlight the importance of ending cruel immigration enforcement against children once and for all. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko), who is my co-host for this important event. {time} 1600 Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I thank Congresswoman Dexter for being such a strong and bold voice for justice and fairness in this House. She is such a great, welcome addition to the Caucus and to the House, and we appreciate her work. We are convening this effort because of the urgent discussion that is necessary to bring very strong, laser-sharp focus to this issue. The Trump administration has repeatedly shown that it is willing to use any method in its brutal and inhumane immigration agenda. That includes detaining kids like 5-year-old Liam Ramos on his way home from school in January in Minnesota or ending longstanding guidance that banned immigration enforcement activities at sensitive locations like our hospitals, courthouses, or schools. It includes putting a former ICE official in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, the agency responsible for unaccompanied children. It is no surprise, then, that this administration is treating unaccompanied children like criminals. Often, these children arriving in the United States without a parent or guardian are fleeing persecution, violence, and trafficking. Congress expressly authorized the ORR to care for unaccompanied children with a separate charge from immigration enforcement. However, tragically, over the past year, the ORR and ICE have become one and the same, and it is traumatizing our children. Unaccompanied children are now being held by ORR for an average of over 200 days. Let me repeat that. Kids who are alone who have fled all that they have ever known are being held by our government for over half a year of their life. They thought they were coming to America for a better life. In many instances, these facilities are failing to provide basic care to these children. Yet, they continue to hold these kids even when they have a family member who is ready to care for them outside of ORR custody. Take Diego. His father was approved to care for him after he arrived unaccompanied in 2024, but he was re-detained in November of 2025 and held for 4 months because of a new DNA requirement by ORR. To make matters worse, ORR is now sharing data and information on potential sponsors with ICE, so many parents and family members who want to care for these children are frightened to provide any information that could lead to their arrest or their detention. On several occasions, ICE has used these kids as a lure, a lure to detain family members. Carlos, a father with temporary protected status, was detained during a December 2025 appointment with ICE in New Mexico that he thought was a regular step in his effort to reunify with his 14- and 16-year-old children who had been held in ORR custody for almost a year. While Carlos was released on a judge's order, his children are still in ORR custody. His son is now 15 and regularly has panic attacks. His daughter is afraid that she will wait for her father forever. That is despicable. These draconian tactics are creating lasting trauma for these kids and their families, and we are already seeing the effects. No child should have to worry about whether they will be used as bait by the government. No child should sit in detention for months on end. No child should face additional trauma here in our United States. This issue is deeply personal for me. As a once-New York State legislator, one of my proudest accomplishments was passing Timothy's Law, which enacted mental health care parity across the State of New York. The law was named after a young constituent of mine, Timothy O'Clair, who, after suffering with mental illness and not receiving the care that he needed, took his own life at 12 years of age. We must take the mental health of children seriously. They are not pawns. They are not bait. They are n