Situation, deliberately holding of kids and asylum kids. It doesnt have to happen in the United States and it violates many treaties that we are a part of it. Mr. Castro the Trump Administration has doing Something Different in a few ways. Zero tolerance policy and started egress iffle separating father and mothers and kids were lost and the administration had no way ahead of time to track them and reunite them with their parents and what is known as remain in mexico that once people seek asylum. The administration has done, number one, they send many of them right back to mexico and these are unfortunately the cities that some of these cities that the United States government and the department of state recommends that americans do not travel to and we are recommending to our own folks that they dont go to these same cities. And then the other thing they have been doing is metering in trying to block people from remember these people are legally presenting themselves for asylum and blocking these folks. What happens, in the situation you have with the man and his young daughter, the photo from three weeks ago that the whole world saw and i didnt speak to a Single Person who saw that photograph of the father and his twoyearold daughter dead in the water with the young girl, her arm over her dad, i didnt speak to anybody who said that hey saw that noteo that didnt cry. Mr. Soto i thank you for your leadership and thats why we are here tonight. Im proud to be joined by my good friend of jimmy gomez who has been a champion of issues related to immigrants and hispanics across the nation. R. Gohmert thank you for and thank you for the codels and thanks for the worning. Mr. Soto as we go into the budget, the protections that we couldnt get in recent bills, we will double down to make sure eville have. Mr. Gomez the separation of families, all of these things. Thank you for inviting me to participate. I actually serve on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and we had a hearing about the conditions of the camps at the border, the conditions that the children are kept in and we have lost six kids at the border. And i want to just highlight their names, because we need to recognize there is a human face to the tragedy that we see. Its not just numbers. We have carlos hernandez, age 6, will mere ramirez, age 2, jacob retter res. , and age 7 and maria, age one. And maries mother actually testified in front of the committee to tell her story of what she was trying to accomplish by coming to this country and about the fear that she had as shes crossed and as she was detained. I want to remind people. A lot of people think it is a crisis being created on its own. Its not. Its a result of this administrations zero tolerance policy. And i want to remind people zero toll raps policy because this president as he was running for office said he was going to be tough on this issue and he would be the only one that could solve it. What we see, we saw the zeroof tolerance policy. And it states that anybody that crosses between ports of entry will no longer be held civilly and administratively responsible, that they would be convicted criminally. And he said, quote, jeff sessions, the attorney general when this policy was supersede , it shall any existing policy and caused people and their criminally convicted being held for breach of criminal law, being separated rom the parents are being separated. Mr. Castro how is it these families got separated, why would the government do that. And there is in section 1325, a law that allows a government to basically charge the parents with a crime. Thraffer separate them from their kids and send the kids off to somewhere else. Mr. Gomez we want to make people understand, this crisis was a direct result of this policy. It didnt say they will be separated but zero tolerance that led to the separation. One triggered the other. People then tried to make the argument that it happened under the Obama Administration. The Obama Administration didnt do that. There are were unaccompanied minors flowing into the country. This administration has really policy zero tolerance which has ripple effect, the remain in mexico issue, the separating of kids and not keeping track of these kids and this administration, time and time again said they never had a child separation policy. Mr. Castro that was bizarre. You remember when secretary nielsen was the secretary of Homeland Security and i think it was the first hearing when she was asked about the Trump Administration family policy and she said there was no family separation policy and said there was no family separation policy. Mr. Gomez it was mr. Conaway . It is a fabrication and a lie. And that is something that we want to call out to make sure people understand what is going on now isal direct result of the zero tolerance policy. We want to make sure that a lot of the decisions were based on politics, not on personal belief and want to seem tough, they want to implement the policies without understanding how did on theplement the policy ground. I went out to victorville and i went to texas, so i have been to the border quite a bit of times. And when you Start Talking to the people who are response i will for implementing these policies, the men and women who are customs and border control, some of them are trying to do a good job, they are saying they are being put in a impossible situation by this administration. When youre making policy on not rational decisions but on politics, then you end up with a big mess on the border. I actually spent a night at the border with my one of my colleagues. Thats right. You and annette barraganment and you saw the metering policy. Thats where they block people from legally presenting for asylum. You saw it firsthand. You ended up spending almost a whole night, i think, sleeping there on the concrete. Mr. Gomez yeah. We spent the night at the mexican side of the border. Literally on the line. And we were there just to observe migrants, to present themselves for asylum. They were on u. S. Soil. They presented themselves. They were told that it was full. We asked to congresswoman barragan and i asked to see the facility. They refused to show us. Mr. Castro these were c. B. P. Agents . Mr. Gomez . Any refused to let us in to see it yes. They refused to let us see it. We got there around 1 00 in the afternoon and i we didnt leave until the next day around 7 00 a. M. So we spent the night. It was cold, we slept on the ground. The migrants couldnt leave the u. S. Soil or the mexican authorities would have grabbed them. So we got corraled using bike racks into kind of a cage to keep us in a certain area. Every so often the custom and Border Patrol would wake us up to ask us whos here, how many kid, how old. But these are questions we answered three or four times. Mr. Castro its a purposeful way to disrupt your rest, your sleep, to try to get as many people out of there as possible. Mr. Gomez correct. What we were trying to remind them is that by international law, by u. S. Law, these migrants had a right to present themselves for asylum. And then so they can be processed. They ended up getting in. The woman who was tear gassed at the border and that famous mr. Castro with her kids. Mr. Gomez with her kids. She was one of the folks and she asked for a credible fear asylum hearing and she went through the process and thats why we have this process. So that we dont end up with just a backlog at the border thats more dangerous for the kids and the migrants and its unnecessary what we believe under our rule of law. Mr. Castro you mentioned the Trump Administrations policies. There was a really excellent article written not too lock ago, written by a gentleman long ago, written by a gentleman. And i think he wrote it for the atlantic although i could be wrong. But his point is that the cruelty is the point it seems like. And the further along we go, the more it seems that thats the case. That some of these policies are done for sheer harshness toward the people that these policies are directed toward. And you know that last week there were a group of from us the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that went over to two Border Patrol stations in el paso, texas. First the el paso Border Patrol station, number one. And then the clint facility which is now infamous. And this was the same day or the day after a story had broken about a Facebook Page, i think that was acebook page set up for a secret group or private group set up for Border Patrol agents, former Border Patrol agents and current Border Patrol agents. 9,500 members of this group. Group that had made some very vial and vulgar comments about the people vile and vulgar comments about the people in their care, about members of congress, about the work that they do. And i want to read you a lot of it is stuff i cant read on the house floor because theyd probably shut me down for being vulgar. Mr. Gomez if i could interject. I mentioned this article in the oversight hearing. Its actually entitled inside the secret Border PatrolFacebook Group where agents joke about Migrant Deaths and post sex memes. Mr. Castro if our colleagues have not read that article, republican and democrat, you should read that article that was published last week. Because it tells you exactly the problems with c. B. P. Right now and the culture at c. B. P. And i want to read one thing. We were talking about the father and when he and his daughter died, they were facedown in the river. She had her arm around him. And so everybody saw that photo. Around the world. Throughout the country. So i want to tell you a post that was on this Facebook Page posted by a Border Patrol agent or a former Border Patrol agent. Im going to quote here. It says, quote, ok, im going to go ahead and ask. Have you all ever seen floaters this clean . A but ying to be a ive never seen floaters like this. Could this be another edited photo . Weve all seen the dems and liberal parties do some pretty sick things. Now, that was his post. There were a few responses to that post. Some of them were memes. One of the memes had a sesame street character and the language below the sesame street character says, oh, well, about these deaths. Another meme from another agent or former agent has a picture, theres a famous scene in a movie, rocky vi of the russian fighter and he uses a famous line for anybody thats ever seen it. The meme says, if he dies, he dies. Theyre talking about the little girl and the man who are hugging facedown in the river. U know, i reached out to secretary mcleanen, i think still the acting secretary of d. H. S. , i think hes still acting, i think im right about that. And i said over the weekend, id like to have a discussion with you this coming week and were trying to set it up, about the accountability and disciplinary who for c. B. P. Agents have made the most vile and vulgar comments. Dont get me wrong, there were some people who were part of this group that im sure never made a comment, there were people that were part of this group that never said anything close to some of the worst stuff on here. That would not be subject to discipline. A big part of the problem right now is the culture at c. B. P. And as far as i can tell, theres close to zero accountability for anything like this or what happened in maine in the northern border a few weeks ago. It was reported, because you, you know, because you know, if you take a Greyhound Bus from mcallen, texas, and youre going to go to dallas or austin or wherever, you get stopped along the way by c. B. P. Agents. Same thing in california, if youre coming up from san diego or near the border. And c. B. P. Agents will get onto the bus go up to each person or at least the people they suspect could possibly be immigrants, and theyll ask you to basically prove your citizenship. So weve been in a battle with greyhound over that because of the rights that americans have, having to prove citizenship. But heres my point. So i think it was aclu that got emails made public of a few agents on a few occasions or may have been one agent on a few occasions saying to his agents that were going out to do these checks on the buses, his message to them was, happy hunting. Happy hunting. I asked the secretary, well, what are you going to do about that person . Somebodys describing going after human beings here as hunting . What is the disciplinary process . We, congress has not gotten any answers about what the disciplinary and accountability process is at the department of Homeland Security, at c. B. P. , for actions like this. And then one more thing, and then of course i want to hear ore of your perspective. Also, you know, besides the fact that there is hardly any accountability as far as we can tell, its also very secretive. I mean, really. Border patrol right now is probably the most except for the secret service, probably the most secretive Law Enforcement agency in the country. The least transparent Law Enforcement agency in the country. And you and i both know that when weve gone and visited the border, when weve gone to these facilities, there are good agents who are doing their work, who are doing it honestly and earnestly, who are not mistreating anybody, who are helping to defend and protect the United States. But those people are overwhelmed by a system that is undercut by a bad culture at this point and by these rogue agents who have essentially ruined the culture at c. B. P. And i dont know that the higherups right now are lifting a finger to do anything about it. Mr. Gomez i think you make some excellent points. One of the one point i want to kind of talk about is this culture thats permeating the custom and Border Patrol. I think that its also based because of the leadership of this administration. The attitude of zero tolerance as in like, nope, doesnt matter what conditions youre leaving, it doesnt matter if youre fleeing violence, it doesnt matter if youre a victim of domestic abuse, you can no longer use that as a rationale for seeking asylum. Ou know, that zero tolerance mentality is whats also helping drive this rotting of culture within customs and Border Patrol. Changing the leadership makes a difference. But as long as theres a change in the civilian leadership. Oversight is crucial. A lot of people ask, whats the difference between democrats and republicans . Whats the difference between you guys being in charge versus republicans being in charge . One of the things that i noticed when i was on oversight in the minority from my first year and a half in congress is that we couldnt call in custom and Border Patrol on i. C. E. And department of Homeland Security to have a public hearing on these issues. The only hearing we had regarding the zero tolerance policy was behind closed doors, no cameras present. I dont even believe staff was allowed in the room. So we had to sit there and ask. And we asked enough questions to get more information about how the zero tolerance policy worked. How the nitty gritty. But if people dont hear it, the public doesnt hear their testimony, then it lacks the credibility because some people think were making it up. So we need not only the right kind of leadership to reform the culture, we also need to make sure that theres direct oversight by congress and that is our job. I voted against the emergency supplemental because i didnt feel there was enough constraints on the money that was going to be sent to these agencies, that they were going to actually use it to improve the humanitarian crisis that was going on on the ground on the border region. So we need to continue pushing that oversight. And thats what i plan on doing. I know that under your leadership the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is doing, and at the same time i want to highlight another issue. People act like i. Cremplet i. C. E. Has been around forever. We have to remind people that our system was restructured after 9 11 to make sure that we do have appropriate security at the border, at the ports of entry, through the airports, right . We had major flaws. So reorganizing and changing and holding bureaucracy accountable, thats the job of congress. Thats the job of everybody that gets elected. So the idea of what should be done, i think that first we need to make sure that were more specific on our money, make sure that theres better leadership and at the same time never running away from our values that this country is based on immigrants and built by immigrants. Mr. Castro i want to talk to you about because, you know, americans ask the question rightfully of members of congress, ok, so youve identified a problem or youre complaining about a problem, what is your solution to it . So i want to talk about that for a second. But, one more a few more examples on the Facebook Group. Because i really want our colleagues to have a sense of how deep this problem is and that its not just meage imaginary. This is right here imaginary. This is right here in writing and in pictures and in language. So, there was a post and this is actually one of the more mild posts. But it says, its a meme, and the language on the meme says, you know what, im just going to go ahead and say it. Dourans have the stupidest names ever hondurans have the stupidest names ever. This is a current or former Border Patrol agent. And then one more. Before i read this i want to explain something. In Border Patrol, they have their own language. And one of the slurs that they use, talking about the desperate people that are presenting themselves