The Truths We Hold

by Kamala Harris

  It was an unacceptable answer. The next month, when Kelly appeared before the committee, I grilled him on the issue. He was evasive about whether this policy was under consideration, but he refused to rule it out.

  “So are you unwilling, sir, to issue a written directive that it is the policy of this department to not separate children from their mothers unless the life of the child is in danger?”

  “I don’t need to do that.”

  I continued to press for answers through the end of 2017 and into 2018, but DHS was not forthcoming. Then, on April 6, 2018, Attorney General Sessions announced a zero-tolerance policy at the border, meaning that the administration would refer for criminal prosecution any adult crossing the border illegally, regardless of the reason, and that this could include separating children from their parents. We learned through a New York Times report several days later that, despite DHS’s insistence that there was no separation policy, seven hundred children had been separated from their parents since the previous October, including one hundred who were under the age of four.

  There are few things more cruel, more inhumane, more fundamentally evil than ripping a child from her parent’s arms. We should all know this to be true on a gut level. But if we needed more proof, we could look at a statement released by Dr. Colleen Kraft, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, on behalf of the organization, stating that she was appalled by the new policy. Dr. Kraft wrote about the extraordinary stress and trauma of family separation, which “can cause irreparable harm, disrupting a child’s brain architecture and affecting his or her short- and long-term health.” These findings are shared by the American Medical Association, which has called for an end to the policy, noting that the children the U.S. government is forcibly separating from their parents may be scarred for life.

  The administration claimed that it wouldn’t separate families seeking asylum if they arrived at an official port of entry, as opposed to other parts of the border. But that didn’t hold true. There were reports of a six-year-old girl from the Democratic Republic of Congo who was taken from her mother when they arrived at the San Diego port of entry seeking asylum, even though the mother was able to establish a credible fear of persecution. This was just one of many documented cases of family separation at ports of entry. A blind six-year-old was taken from her mother. So was an eighteen-month-old. This wasn’t just a tragedy; it was a violation of international law. It was a human rights abuse. And the toll it took was not just on the children. After a man from Honduras was separated from his wife, after his three-year-old son was ripped from his arms, after he was placed in an isolation cell, the trauma led him to take his own life.

  On May 15, Kirstjen Nielsen, who had been confirmed as homeland security secretary after Kelly was named White House chief of staff, came before our committee. I told her that I was extremely concerned about the administration’s repeated attacks on some of the most vulnerable communities, children and pregnant women in particular, as enforced by DHS. I pointed to the DACA program, to the separation of children at the border, and to an agency directive that allows for more detentions of pregnant women. I expressed concern about a new information-sharing system between the Office of Refugee Resettlement and ICE that is likely to have a chilling effect on sponsors who otherwise would be willing to come forward to provide care for unaccompanied minors, because of fear that doing so would lead to their own deportation.

  I also noted that the previous week, The Washington Post had reported that Nielsen was considering undermining an agreement that ensures standards of care for immigrant children, such as the provision of meals and recreation, and calls for them to be placed in the least restrictive setting possible.

  I told her that the administration had routinely provided misleading information to the committee and had even gone so far as to claim that policies many consider to be cruel, such as routinely separating families, are carried out in the best interest of the child.

  “So my question to you is, last Thursday, The New York Times reported that the president has directed you to separate parents from children when they cross into the United States as a way to deter illegal immigrants, is that correct? Have you been directed to separate parents from children as a method of deterrence of undocumented immigration?”

  “I have not been directed to do that for purposes of deterrence, no.”

  “What purpose have you been given for separating parents from their children?”

  “So my decision has been that anyone who breaks the law will be prosecuted. If you’re a parent or you’re a single person or you happen to have a family, if you cross between the ports of entry we will refer you for prosecution. You have broken U.S. law.”

  Again I pressed. “So your agency will be separating children from their parents—”

  “No, what we’ll be doing is prosecuting parents who have broken the law, just as we do every day in the United States of America.”

  “But if that parent has a four-year-old child, what do you plan on doing with that child?”

  “The child, under law, goes to HHS for care and custody.”

  “They will be separated from their parent. And so my question—”

  “Just like we do in the United States every day.”

  “So they will be separated from their parent, and my question then is when you are separating children from their parents, do you have a protocol in place about how that should be done and are you training the people who will actually remove a child from their parent on how to do that in the least traumatic way? I would hope you do train on how to do that, and so the question is, and the request has been, to give us the information about how you are training and what the protocols are for separating a child from their parent.”

  “I’m happy to provide you with the training information,” she said, though she never did. Once again, Nielsen made the false claim that she had stuck with through the entire process: “Again, we do not have a policy to separate children from their parents,” she said. “Our policy is if you break the law, we will prosecute you. You have an option to go to a port of entry and not illegally cross into our country.”

  Let’s call this what it is. The White House and DHS were using children—babies—as pawns in a profoundly misguided and inhumane policy to deter immigration. Attorney General Sessions admitted as much—proudly, it appeared, while quoting scripture to justify the abuse:

  “Persons who violate the law of our nation are subject to prosecution. I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for purpose and order,” he said, seemingly forgetting or omitting all of the teachings of Christ in the process.

  For an added dose of cruelty, Sessions got rid of the right of women and children to seek asylum because of domestic abuse.

  I often describe the balance of our democracy as resting on four legs: three independent, coequal branches of government and a free, independent press. As this horror unfolded, the press worked tirelessly to safeguard our true values. Crews of reporters went down to our southern border, filming, filing, and reporting in real time, showing Americans what was really going on, bringing the crisis into our living rooms. The vivid daily coverage informed and inspired a public outcry that eventually forced the administration to backtrack, at least temporarily.

  On June 20, 2018, the president signed an executive order that ended its family separation practice. But that did not put an end to the story. Rather than separating families, the new administration policy was to hold those families indefinitely behind bars. As of this writing, jailing innocent children remains the policy of the United States. Children remain separated from their parents. And in the aftermath of the executive order, we were still greeted with headlines like this one, from The Texas Tribune: “Immigrant Toddlers Ordered to Appear in Court Alone.”

  On a hot, dr
y day at the end of June, I visited the Otay Mesa Detention Center, not far from the border between California and Mexico. I’ve seen many prisons. Otay Mesa was identical in appearance. To get in the facility, which is surrounded by chain-link fences and barbed wire, you have to pass through multiple checkpoints. One gate opens, you stand in the middle area, and then it shuts behind you before another opens ahead. For anyone detained there, it sends a strong signal that you are locked away from the world.

  Once inside the building, I met with mothers who’d been separated from their children. They were wearing blue jumpsuits with the word DETAINEE in block letters on their backs. I asked the facility staff to give us some privacy. They stood about twenty yards away while I asked the mothers about their experiences and came to understand the deep trauma they had endured.

  Olga told me that she hadn’t seen her four children—ages seventeen, sixteen, twelve, and eight—in nearly two months and that she wasn’t even sure where they were. She had fled domestic violence in Honduras, taking a flight to Mexico. She stopped at the Tapachula shelter, in Mexico, where she learned that there was a caravan helping asylum seekers get to the United States. It wasn’t going to cost her any money, and it was going to drop her off in Tijuana just south of the border. They provided her and her family with food on the journey and offered to help her with the process of seeking asylum. She said she traveled by airline, train, and bus and at some points walked, though she was often able to hitchhike. People along the way had wanted to help.

  When she arrived in Tijuana, she and her family were taken to churches and shelters, and eventually presented themselves to the U.S. Border Patrol. They were led to a holding cell and told to wait to be processed. That was when her children were taken from her, with no warning or explanation. She pleaded with the Border Patrol agents to tell her where her children had been taken. She presented their birth certificates. She needed answers. Desperately. But no answers were given. All she knew was that her three girls were being held together while her son was all by himself. Eventually a social worker was able to connect her by phone to her kids, who weren’t sure exactly where they were. She had come to believe that they were all in New York City, and though they said they were okay, it was hard to imagine that could be true.

  Another woman from Honduras had a similar story. She, too, had fled the country because she was being abused, and she had brought her eight-year-old son, Mauro, with her. Her son was also taken from her cell with no explanation. The deportation officers told her that he was in Los Angeles, but even they weren’t sure. She had brought him with her because she thought he would be safe in the United States. But now that hope seemed lost.

  The Department of Homeland Security had said that families seeking asylum at ports of entry would not be separated from one another. But when another woman at Otay Mesa, Morena, left El Salvador and presented herself with her two boys—ages twelve and five—at the San Ysidro Land Port of Entry processing center, her children were ripped away from her. She pleaded with the agents not to take her kids, but to no avail. She had to wait fifteen days to call her sons, because detainees were charged eighty-five cents per minute for calls and she didn’t have any money. She had to earn some by working at the facility. Morena had worked for seven days straight and was paid only four dollars. Olga had worked for twelve days and was also paid just four dollars. They said that when they tried to report abuse, they were yelled at. They told me they’d received a lot of verbal abuse from the officers, and had been forced to work late at night after long days of waiting for their hearings.

  Six weeks had passed and Morena was still unable to get in touch with her children. She called the facility where she was told they’d been taken, but the phone just kept ringing, with no answer. She told me that the only time they were allowed to make phone calls was when their kids were in class and unavailable. Morena said she was finding it hard to eat because she was so distraught over not seeing or speaking to her children in such a long time.

  When I spoke with the guards at the detention center, I had a lot of questions, and the answers didn’t add up. They told me, for example, that videoconferencing with kids was a service they offered that was available anytime and for free. They assured me that phone calls were free, too. But when I asked the mothers if they knew this, they immediately said no. They didn’t even know that videoconferencing was available. And when I returned to Washington and took part in a Judiciary Committee hearing with Matthew Albence, executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations at ICE, our exchange on this topic was revealing.

  I told Albence how, during my visit to Otay Mesa, I’d learned from the parents being detained that when they were performing labor, such as cleaning toilets or doing laundry, they were paid one dollar a day. “Are you familiar with that policy? Or practice?” I asked.

  “Many of the individuals that are in ICE custody are eligible to apply and work in a voluntary work program,” Albence replied. “It’s not mandatory; it’s voluntary if they choose to do so. Many do choose to do so, just to pass the time, while they’re awaiting their hearing or their removal—”

  “Do you think that people voluntarily choose to clean toilets to pass their time? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I can say that we have a large number of individuals within our custody that volunteer to work in the work program.”

  “To clean toilets? Sir, is that what you’re saying?”

  “I don’t know every task that these individuals are assigned, but again, it’s voluntary.”

  Voluntary? I don’t think so.

  The most shocking answer I got during my time at Otay Mesa was when I asked the detention facility staff the question many people had asked me: “Who is responsible for leading the process to reunite these families?” They looked around at one another blankly for a few seconds, until one (who was apparently more senior than the others) answered, “That would be me.” He then admitted that he had no idea what the plan was or the status of any reunification efforts.

  We would later learn that federal records linking parents and children had disappeared. In some cases, for unfathomable reasons, records had actually been destroyed. When a federal court ruled that families had to be reunited within thirty days, government officials had to resort to DNA tests to try to figure out which children belonged with which family.

  Before I left the detention facility, I reassured the mothers that they weren’t alone—that there were so many people standing with them and fighting for them, and that I would do everything in my power to help them. As I walked down the long driveway toward the exit, I saw that solidarity personified. Hundreds of people had gathered outside the fence, holding vigil in support of the families. People of all ages and backgrounds—children, students, parents, and grandparents—had traveled to Otay Mesa because they shared the anguish and the heartbreak of the mothers inside.

  I joined the throng of supporters, many of whom were carrying signs. ESTAMOS CON USTEDES . . . FAMILIES BELONG TOGETHER . . . WE WON’T BACK DOWN. Beneath the blazing summer sun, I told the press what I had seen.

  “These mothers have given their testimony, if you will, have shared their stories, and they are personal stories of a human rights abuse being committed by the United States government. And we are so much better than this, and we have got to fight against this. This is contrary to all of the principles that we hold dear and that give us a sense of who we are when we are proud to be Americans. But we have no reason to be proud of this.”

  These mothers had made the dangerous journey to America with their children because they knew that the danger of staying in their home country was even worse. They have the legal right to seek asylum, but when they arrive, we call them criminals. We treat them like criminals. That is not the sign of a civil society, nor is it a sign of compassion. The United States government has brought great shame to the American people.

  T
he values at stake here are so much bigger than an immigration debate.

  Nothing makes a child feel more secure than being tucked in by a parent at the end of a day, getting a kiss and a hug, a good-night story, falling asleep to the sound of their voice. Nothing is more important to a parent than talking with their child at night before the child goes to sleep, answering their questions, comforting and reassuring them in the face of any fears, making sure they know that everything will be okay. Parents and children everywhere relate to these rituals. They are part of the human experience.

  As family reunification began, we heard horrific stories that showed us just how shameful this administration’s actions have been. The Los Angeles Times reported on a three-year-old boy who was separated from his father at the border. “At night, Andriy sometimes wakes up screaming in the bunk bed he shares with his mother and baby brother.” We saw video of six-year-old Jefferson reunited with his father after nearly two months of separation. The child’s body was covered in a rash; his face was bruised; his eyes were vacant. His father cried, enveloping the boy in a hug. Jefferson was stiff and expressionless. We also learned, through PBS NewsHour, of a fourteen-month-old who was returned to his parents, after eighty-five days, covered in lice, apparently having not been bathed. It is hard to imagine anything crueler than such blatant state-sponsored child abuse.

  A mother who was separated from her children said that she had been kept in a cell with nearly fifty other mothers. She recounted that officers told them they weren’t allowed to eat because they were asking about their children. A pregnant woman fainted out of hunger. She said of the separated children that they had no shoes or blankets in the detention center and that there were people in the cells who had to sleep on their feet. The children were demeaned, she said, called “animals” and “donkeys.” These are surely just the examples we know, representative of horrors in the thousands that we may never hear of. These children, ripped away from their parents, will suffer lifelong trauma because of the actions of this administration. This behavior is not just immoral; it is inhumane. And I’ve introduced a bill in the Senate to put body cameras on immigration agents so we can deter such bad behavior and create transparency and accountability.