In one of his first actions as the new chair of the House Judiciary Committee, Congress member Jerry Nadler of New York is calling on top departments to turn over documents regarding the administration’s barbaric “zero tolerance” policy, including an unredacted copy of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo authorizing it. Having had his numerous requests ignored while Democrats were in the minority, Nadler writes that “these document requests, many of them sought for months, are just the start.”
The House probe into family separation begins as children stolen from families at the border remain in U.S. custody more than 170 days past a federal judge’s reunification deadline. Some of these kids remain in custody because they were sloppily separated from their parents, despite Health and Human Services (HHS) Sec. Alex Azar claiming that, “at the stroke of keystrokes,” he “within seconds could find any child within our care for any parent.”
With complicit House Republicans finally out of power, both Azar and DHS Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen will finally be under the scrutiny they deserve. In his letters, Nadler is calling on Azar, in one of several requests, to report all instances where children were physically or sexually abused while in HHS custody. Nadler is also calling on DHS to turn over the memo Nielsen signed authorizing the separation policy she claimed never existed.
This policy that supposedly never existed has resulted in possibly lifelong trauma for children. Sammy, a 3-year-old boy who was stolen from his family for three months, squirmed out of his mother’s arms when he was finally returned to her under court order. “I’m your mommy, sweetheart, I’m your mommy,” she cried, in a moment captured in a heartbreaking video of their reunion. She later said it took months for him to begin calling her mamá again.
“As this new Congress begins,” Nadler said, “the House Judiciary Committee will make good on its promise to the American people to hold the Trump Administration accountable for the abhorrent family separation policy that ripped children from the arms of their parents … we have already put the relevant agencies on notice that in the coming weeks we will schedule hearings in order to finally hold the Administration accountable for its policies and conduct.”
Tuesday, January 15, marks 173 days past the judge’s deadline. Family separation remains a crisis.