In the immediate aftermath of the Trump administration announcing its racist Muslim ban in January 2017, New York Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez was among the first elected officials to spring into action, rushing to John F. Kennedy International Airport with her fellow New Yorkers. Hameed Khalid Darweesh, an Iraqi man who once worked as an interpreter for the U.S. military, was being unjustly detained by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Velázquez’s actions ensured a play-by-play to reporters on the ground and undoubtedly helped secure Darweesh’s release—it’s a success she hopes to replicate to secure the release of the administration’s most vulnerable prisoners yet.
Velázquez was among more than a dozen House Democrats, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; Congresswoman Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), to visit immigration detention facilities along the U.S./Mexico border near San Diego Monday, including a facility for migrant children in El Cajon.
While the vast majority of the nearly 70 kids there are unaccompanied minors, or kids who arrived here on their own, a smaller group are children who have been torn from their parents due to the administration’s barbaric family separation policy. The fact is all are jailed, and all are separated from family. In an interview with Daily Kos, Velázquez described seeing kids who, likely in shock over their ordeals, seemed unreachable—until she said something they needed to hear.
“’I want you to know that you are not alone,’” she says she told a classroom of boys. “’I want you to know that we’re going to be out there fighting for you and protecting your rights.’ Every one of the kids were applauding. And that was the only moment where you saw them smiling and a sense of comfort that we didn’t see before.”
The emotional state of these children has been a primary concern for Velázquez and a topic the Democratic delegation raised repeatedly at the facility. ”That was a question that we hammered everyone with,” she said, “to find out whether or not they have enough trained staff to be able to detect the mental trauma these kids are going through. And I am concerned, because they’re saying there is a surge and more and more kids are coming in, and they don’t have the resources to hire more staff and to train staff to be able to deal with this.”
According to data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), nearly 2,000 kids have been kidnapped from their parents since Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III initiated the administration’s official "zero tolerance” policy in April. Congressman Jim Costa, another House Democrat who visited the facility, noted that given the daily rate of separations, “there could be 30,000 separated if it continues until August."
It’s a terrifying thought. Advocates have repeatedly stressed that many detained migrant parents have no idea where their kids have been sent to, and are only handed off an information sheet with phone numbers and instructions on how to try to locate their children, but no information sheet on where their kids actually are.
Velázquez said she asked facility officials if they had been given new guidelines following the policy’s implementation that would explain to them “what the process” of family reunification would be—“how long it’s gonna to take for these kids to be reunited with their parents.”
“They didn’t have guidelines,” Velázquez said, adding that outraged Americans need to keep rallying, protesting and calling their members of Congress.
”What we’re doing is engaging the American people because that public pressure is gonna be important. The people of this country need to send a message to Donald Trump and this administration: not under our watch.”
Can you give $5 to help keep immigrant families together—or bring them back together after separation?