KIDS IN CAGES: INHUMANE TREATMENT AT THE BORDER HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES OF THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION JULY 10, 2019 Serial No. 116–44 Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform ( Available on: http://www.govinfo.gov http://www.oversight.house.gov or http://www.docs.house.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 37–284 PDF WASHINGTON : 2019 COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Minority Member ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan Columbia PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky JIM COOPER, Tennessee MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JODY B. HICE, Georgia RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI, Illinois GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland JAMES COMER, Kentucky HARLEY ROUDA, California MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas KATIE HILL, California BOB GIBBS, Ohio DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana PETER WELCH, Vermont CHIP ROY, Texas JACKIE SPEIER, California CAROL D. MILLER, West Virginia ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee MARK DESAULNIER, California KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands RO KHANNA, California JIMMY GOMEZ, California ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan DAVID RAPALLO, Staff Director CANDYCE PHOENIX, Subcommittee Staff Director VALERIE SHEN, Chief Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor JOSHUA ZUCKER, Assistant Clerk CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director CONTACT NUMBER: 202-225-5051 SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Chairman CAROLYN MALONEY, New York CHIP ROY, Texas, Ranking Minority Member WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ROBIN KELLY, Illinois MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JIMMY GOMEZ, California JODY HICE, Georgia ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of CAROL D. MILLER, West Virginia Columbia (II) CONTENTS Page Hearing held on July 10, 2019 ............................................................................... 1 WITNESSES Panel 1 Yazmin Juμrez, Asylum Seeker Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 8 Panel 2 Michael Breen, President and Chief Executive Officer Human Rights First Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 16 Clara Long Deputy, Washington Director Human Rights Watch Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 18 Hope Frye, Executive Director Project Lifeline Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 20 Dr. Carlos A. Gutierrez, M.D. F.A.A.P., Pediatrics Private Practice Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 22 Ronald D. Vitiello, (Minority Witness) Former Chief, U.S. Border Patrol Former Acting Director, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Oral Statement ........................................................................................................ 24 INDEX OF DOCUMENTS The documents listed below are available at: https://docs.house.gov. * Statement from the American Medical Association; submitted by Chair- man Raskin. * Statement from Amy Kahn; submittedby Chairman Raskin. * Statement from Carol Martin, Executive Director of Trauma Recovery at EDMR Humanitarian Assistance Programs; submitted by Chairman Raskin. * Statement from Church World Service; submitted by Chairman Raskin. * Statement from the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners; submitted by Chairman Raskin. * Statement from Myra Jones-Taylor, Chief Policy Officer for Zero to Three; submitted by Chairman Raskin. * ″Inside the Secret Border Patrol Facebook Group Where Agents Joke About Migrant Deaths and Post Sexist Memes″ from ProPublica; submitted by Rep. Gomez. (III) KIDS IN CAGES: INHUMANE TREATMENT AT THE BORDER Wednesday, July 10, 2019 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES, COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:52 p.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jamie Raskin (chair- man of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Raskin, Maloney, Clay, Wasserman Schultz, Kelly, Gomez, Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Norton, Roy, Massie, Meadows, Hice, Cloud, Miller, and Jordan. Also present: Representatives Tlaib and Grothman. Mr. RASKIN. The subcommittee will come to order. Please close the doors if you can. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. This subcommittee is convening this hearing regarding inhu- mane treatment of children and families at the border. I will now recognize myself for five minutes to give an opening statement. I want to welcome—oh, Okay, we’re going to start with a video. If you would run that. How are we doing on the opening video? Okay. Let me know when that comes up. I want to welcome the members of the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. I want to welcome our distinguished witnesses and guests to this hearing on the humanitarian crisis at the border. The American people are up in arms about reports, both from the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security and the media and various human rights groups, about the dangerous over- crowding, spreading infections, influenza, diarrhea and lice, perva- sive medical inattention, sexual assault, and systematic abuse of the rights of migrants in U.S. Government care and custody at the border. We hope to shine a bright light this afternoon on these dark developments to enable rapid and effective legislative re- sponses. I especially want to thank our first witness, Yazmin Juarez, for coming to share the painful story of her 19-month-old daughter Mariee, who experienced untreated respiratory complications dur- ing her detention by ICE and died shortly thereafter. We know that six children have lost their lives while in detention at the border. (1) 2 I want to thank all the Members of Congress and this committee who have traveled to the border to investigate and all of those who are prepared to do so in the coming weeks. The human rights violations and family catastrophes happening at the border are not improving a serious regional refugee crisis, but they are worsening and exacerbating it. What is driving this refugee crisis? Gang violence and intimida- tion, government dysfunction and police corruption, political perse- cution, rape and gender violence, they are all driving unprece- dented numbers of desperate families and terrified children out of the Northern Triangle of Central America to the United States. Many of the migrants amassing at our border are escaping threats of imminent death or bodily harm or the prospect of their children being forced into violent gangs or criminal networks of sexual abuse and trafficking. Some are climate change refugees fleeing the devastating effects of extreme drought and flooding in their home areas. The journey to the border today for these huddled masses is traumatic and filled with deadly peril. Along the way, many are robbed, assaulted, or raped. Some have been killed. Parents have drowned alongside their children in the Rio Grande. But hundreds of thousands have made it to our border. They turn themselves in to border officials and make their legal claim for asylum, a claim that they have the right to make under both American and international law. Yet they have been greeted not as refugees whose asylum claims must be heard and taken seriously under our due process of law, but as presumptive criminals and threats to the American people. The Trump administration has prosecuted them, subjected their families to prolonged and miserable detention, separated children from their parents, and forced migrants back into Mexico. The en- tire thrust of this policy is punishment, both court-ordered and gov- ernment-administered, and deterrence by means of mass trauma. While the Trump administration did not cause the refugee crisis in Central America, it has exacerbated it by cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid for education, healthcare, and community development to precisely the countries which the refu- gees are now desperately fleeing in huge numbers. We owe the region at least this aid, given that we are a key mar- ket for the drug trade that has wreaked so much violence and inse- curity in these countries, and all of us are implicated in foreign policies toward Central America over the last several decades which have emphasized war and military assistance over economic and social development. The administration’s chaotic policy responses have produced a se- vere humanitarian crisis at the border, with dangerous over- crowding, widespread sickness and disease, and a shocking failure to provide adequate medical care, food, water, and sanitation. America is watching scenes of sick