Campaign Action
House Democrats are wasting no time in using their new powers to investigate abuses under Donald Trump’s racist agenda, including announcing an inspection of the border facility where an eight-year-old boy was held before he died on Christmas Eve, as well as compelling Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to testify before a House committee over her role in anti-immigrant abuses.
Over the weekend, new Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) chair Joaquin Castro and Congress member Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico said they’d be accompanying a number of leading Democrats, including Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and new House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler of New York, to New Mexico to probe the death of Felipe Gómez Alonzo, who arrived in the U.S. seemingly healthy, but then deteriorated in U.S. custody.
“The members—including Reps. Nanette Diaz Barragán (D-Calif.), Salud Carbajal (D-Calif.), Veronica Escobar (D-Texas) and Nadler—will also review DHS’ secondary medical checks for children in detention that were announced after the boy’s death,” Politico reported. “There was no emergency medical technician on duty Christmas Eve when he started to appear nauseous and lethargic, according to DHS officials.”
Trump and members of his administration, including Nielsen, have falsely blamed the parents, Democrats, basically anyone else for these deaths. Nielsen has mostly evaded testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee—she’s appeared only once during her tenure despite overseeing state-sanctioned kidnapping at the border—but that’s changing too, now that Democrats control the House.
The committee’s new chair, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, has called on Nielsen to testify, using his letter to also call out the “outright lies” in a presentation she made earlier in the week to congressional leaders. “Your border security presentation submitted to Congress today is yet another example of the misinformation and outright lies the Trump Administration has used to make the case for the President’s boondoggle border wall, defend the government shutdown, and distract the American people from a border policy so flawed that children have died in Department of Homeland Security custody.”
Nielsen is deserving of extra scrutiny for her blatant lies regarding family separation and her complete disregard for the loss of lives on her department’s watch. Last month, Nielsen said she didn’t know—or more likely, doesn’t care—how many people have died while in DHS custody. “There have been at least 12 deaths under your watch,” Congress member Pramila Jayapal of Washington state told her, “including a suicide at the Northwest Detention Center, which is just south of my district, and that death is being currently investigated.”
The administration already appears to be scrambling, with White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeting Monday that Trump “will travel to the Southern border on Thursday to meet with those on the frontlines of the national security and humanitarian crisis. More details will be announced soon.” Reality: He's going to spread lies, meet with border officials sympathetic to his anti-immigrant cause, and ignore the kids he has locked up in Tornillo, Texas.