The committee will reconvene. I want to thank all of our extraordinary witnesses who have come to be with us today. Michael breen, president and ceo of human rights first. Thank you for coming. Hope frye, the executive director of project life line. Clara long the deputy direct for Human Rights Watch. Dr. Carlos gutierrez, a pediatrician in private practice. And ronald vitiello, who is the former chief of u. S. Border patrol and former acting director of i. C. E. I will begin by swearing all of you in. Please rise and raise your right hand. If you would. Thank you. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god. Let the record show that all of the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you. Please be seated. Please speak fl the microphone. Your written comments will be received without objection. And mr. Breen you are invited to give an oral presentation. Thank you for the tune to be here today and for this important hearing. For over 40 years human rights first has been representing asylum seek eshs in the american legal system. We helped draft the refugee act in 1980 today we have clients who have been forced back to the mexico under the policy who are struggling with access to counsel, deliberately deprived of medication and accused of no crime. There is no reason why there needs to be a burgeoning human rights crisis at the border. Or the human rights and due process violations we see every day. This is the predictable result of deliberate policy and gross incompetence by the administration. There are better answers. There are tons of better answers. My written testimony submitted to this committee with numerous reports and recommendations by human rights first and others lay out a clear path forward that respects human rights and safeguards our nation and and i hope we can talk about those things. But right now i would like to try and keep a promise i made yesterday in juarez and el paso. Before i came back to my own daughter and to other parents. In overcrowded rooms filled far away from this one including a Church Sanctuary verpted to a shelter for over 1007 people. I promised other parents trying to get back to their kids. Parents like miss juarez spoke of the continued belief in the United States of america and abiding faith in god. And i promised them i would do my best to make their voices heard here today. The 18 or 19yearold girl who stood up in a crowded Immigration Court look the judge in the eye with all the courage she could muster and asked him to get her back to her daughter. She had survived a rape at age 13. And when she reefed the border to seek asylum she didnt have the proper paperwork so she was separated from her 5yearold child and then sent to cbp detention. The socalled i. C. E. Boxes for 50 days. When guidelines say three. Three days. 50 days. Then taken to juarez, dropped off, and told to fend for herself until after her hearing. The judge was powerless to do anything but ask the companys representative an toerp from dhs to make note of it. Since there is still no system in place for keeping track of separated families and making sure they get back together, who knows what good that note will do . The many Refugee Families i met with in juarez, including a woman who requested asylum with her partner and two children, they were taken to that now infamous make shift camp unthe bridge. After about three days in terrible conditions, her 5yearold was too weak to stand. She told me she begged an officer for help. Help me, she said, my child is dying. And she told me the officer applied and i quote, well, are they dead yet . Then shut up and stop crying. She said that she and others called the Television Crews outside the fence for help and were soon sent to a tent camp in the desert she driebd as worse. There they were told the conditions were punishment for trying to talk to the media and if they tried it again things would get worse. Finally her daughter collapsed and lost consciousness. At that point she and her daughter were taken to the hospital and treated for severe dehydration. When she got back to the camp her partner and her other child had been moved to another facility that was the last time she saw them. And then she too was left in mexico to fend for mercy and her child where i met her in a place where kidnapping, stault and rape of Asylum Seekers is an everyday occurrence. I could go on and on. This is no plorng just about the integrity of our borders. This is about the integrity of our nation. Mr. Chairman i want to say one other thing. I know what it means to wear the American Flag on my choerld when i go to work every day. Im a proud member of a Law Enforcement family. I served as an army officer myself. And through my careers of training and service it was drilled into me again and again that when you wear that flag you carry with you the horp and values of this entire nation. That your conduct defines the ideals and meaning of the flag in the eyes of the world. In two wars i saw men and women alongside me make unbelievable sacrifices to uphold the values and ideals. Nouses and thousands of us held that line. Thousands and thousands continue to try to do that right now. Its not so that the congress of the United States will stand by while american officials are ordered to conduct a policy of deliberate cruelty against children, stand by while men and women wearing that flag are ordered to pull children younger than my own daughter out of their parents arms and knowingly deliver defenseless families in the arms of criminal gangs to suffer kidnapping, assault and rape. This is not the america that was the honor of my life to serve. I cannot believe it is the america this congress wishes to leave and i cannot believe that this is the legacy that any of you want for your public service. But unless you act it will be. Thank you. Mr. Breen thank you very much. Ms. Long you are recognized for five minutes. On behalf of Human Rights Watch i want to thank this subcommittee on civil rights and Civil Liberties for the opportunity to testify at todays hearing. Human rights watch is a nonprofit, independent organization that investigates allegations of human rights vials in more than 90 countries around the world, including in the United States. I am the acting deputy washington director at and a Senior Research on immigration at Human Rights Watch and i have over a decade of experience covering border and immigration issues. Since 2016 i have searched as a detention monitor and consultant with the flores settlement legal team visiting children detained in the brownsville, texas, casa padre facilities, the now closed tent facility in tornillo, texas in in homestead, florida and those held in Border Patrol station sns california, arizona and most recently texas. From june 17th to june 19th of in year i was part of a Monitoring Team that interviewed children in Border Patrol stations in the el paso area about their protections under the flores agreement, which is a decades old as you know Class Action Settlement obligating the United States government to release Migrant Children expeditiously and deer to detention standards. What we found was outrageous. Our interviews with nearly 70 children in the el paso sector revealed that the u. S. Border patrol is holding many children, including some who are much too young to take care of themselves in overcrowded border jails for weeks at a time without contact with family members, regular access to showers, clean clothes where toothbrushes. Many sleeping on hard floors, many were sick. Many including children as young as two or three were separated from adult caretakers without any provisions for their care, besides that provided by unrelated older children, also held in detention. On my first day in the clint Border Patrol station i sfoek with an 11yearold boy caring for his 3yearold brother. She had been fending for nemesis in a cinder block cell with dozens of other children for three weeks. When i met them the little one was quiet he had matted mayor, a hacking could have. Muddy pants and eyes fluttering closed. As we spoke he fell asleep on two Office Chairs drawn together. Im the one who takes care of him here. No one helps me take care of him, his brother told me. My son is almost three. And sometimes when im with him these days i find it difficult not to think of the skrushiating moment i had to send those two alone back to their cell. Like these boys nearly all the children i met in Border Patrol detention were visibly dirty mud stained wearing the same clothes they wore when crossing the border. They told us they were not given regular access to soap or tooth brushes or they were given access to showers only once a twus twice in a period of weeks if at all. Unsurprise will go i infectionous disease appeared widespread. I went into the flu sell cell for five days i had a fever in there i was shaking some of the other kids were vomiting. No one kwas taking care of kids with the flu. We were not allowed to leave the flu cell ever, a 14yearold girl told me. We and others have been raising the alarm about dplobl hygiene practices abuse and in mistreatment fl Border Patrol detention for siem atop time. What is now happening is the agency is subing children to be to inhumane conditions far beyond the 72 hour limit required by us law. Compounding poepgs harm. Sometimes when we ask we are told we will be here for months said one 14yearold girl who said she had been in clint for three weeks. Despite niece pro longed lengths of stay we found no evidence that anyone had made any attempts to reunite children with family members in the United States. Indeed many of the children we spoke with had been separated from families and were deeply traumaticized as a result. The officers took my dear grandmother away. We have not seen her since that moment. Thinking about in makes me cry at times, the words of a 123yearold girl detained alone at clint with her 8 and 4yearold sisters petitions abuses with are not a vacuum but in a context of a concerted effort by the administration to punish and deter Asylum Seekers including by returning thousands of families to mexico to dangerous conditions and severe injustice. No one should support child abuse as immigration policy. Congress should exercise strenuous oversight to ensure children are quickly released from detention and guarantee safety and well being while detained families belong together and free. Children should be allowed to remain adult family members when thats in their best interests and be promptly released with appropriate support to ensure they appear for immigration proceedings. Issues cbp an and Parent Agency dhs a blank check to expand the system for detaining children will only increase the permanent harm already being suffered. Thank you. Thank you very much, ms. Long. Ms. Frye. Thank you raskin, members of the subcommittee. Thank you for this opportunity to testify before you. Im an attorney with more than 40 Years Experience practicing Immigration Law. Please is your mic on . Sorry. Okay. I coordinate and lead monitoring visits to cbp, orr and i. C. E. Facilities on behalf of counsel. I went to the rhode island grenada Border Patrol station from june 10th to 14th. While public attention focused on hideous conditions at the krint station in el paso, the situation at border facilities in the rgv are spanx sbngsly the same. What sting wishes the rgv secretarier is the 2017 federal Court Decision that found them in viemgs of flores for failing to provide adequate food, adequate access to drinking water, access hygiene and adequate sleeping conditions and by keeping the temperatures too cold. Theyve had two years to remedy the failures. What have they done . Nothing. Children in the rgv are going hungry given nonnutritious food and not enough. Pureed food necessary for infants is completely missing. When there are bolts and formula there is no way to wash the bottles so they become contaminated. Some of the babies were breast fed, moms complaint they got inadequate water to assure milk production. The children we saw were filthy wearing the same wet and muddy clothes in which they traveled. Many were covered in music and vomit, babies had soiled diapers. The children smelled foul. No child had warm clothes despite the extreme cold in the Holding Areas babies were in oncies with no sweater jacket or socks. Some children showered but some had not like the 17yearold mother with a 10yearold son had been held more than 20 days without showering. Its outrageous these conditions exist. The government is not only flouting the rule of law, its terrorizing the clirn. Influenza killed a boy in the rg vflt three weeks before our arrival. We found nearly every one of the children we met sick with the flu, differing only in the severity of symptoms. I met a 16yearold girl in her and her 8monthold daughter. The baby was extremely ill lethargic with a deep cough. She had a mild cold when they arrived but cbp duke took the medicine and clothes. Despite the raging flu for which the entire facility had been under quarantine, the baby will not received any medical attention. After rigorous advocacy by the Flores Council we were allowed to bring a pediatrician into the ursula facility. After the pediatricians visit was announced five infants whom we had seen before were taken to the hospital to the natal intensive care unit. We began our cbp visit on monday. On wednesday night i got sick. I had a fever, 102. 5 vomiting diarrhea. I developed this deep, racking tinnous cough, the same cough many of the children had. At 4 00 a. M. On friday i called 911. The er doctor ordered me admitted to the the hospital. I had influencea a caught from the children. I was put in isolation given iv fluids and medicine they began respiratory therapy. I have i had a five day kaurs of tama flu. We had the same disease but they had to plead for medical attention. Some were maybe given a few does doses of tama flu. Most were returned to the packed cages on the freezing roomgs and transmit the flue eflu to other children. Its child abuse pure and simple like the case of the premature new born baby ill call baby k rich after traveling from guatemala her mom had an emergency csection in mechanics mexico. Born a month premature baby. Mom was forced to throw away her things. This included her backpack including the babys clothes. Kept in a freezing cold crowded kwaj without soap, a toothbrush or shower or clean clothes. Baby k was nonresponsive appear looked at risk of dying. Immediately after encounter baby k and mommen brought the senior most attorney for the government to see them. Shechs disturbed and took the information necessary to gain release to the orr shelter. Despite this and massive other intervention it took the government over two days to transfer baby k and mom to orr custody. The administration would have us believe that the number of arriving children is the delays release from cbp and creating the subsequent need to warehouse children in unregulated, influx facilities like homestead but the real culprits are the l policy that slow the rate of release from orr shelters by imposing restrictive and unnecessary requirements for the vetting family sponsors. Rather than providing funds to detain additional children, congress should be working to ensure their expeditious release to their families. Mo are far better suited to care for these children than a government nas causing them so much harm. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for your testimony. Dr. Gutierrez. Thank you very much, chairman raskin and Ranking Member mr. Roy. Thank you subcommittee members, congressional subcommittee members for the opportunity to speak to you concerning the medical aspects of what im faced with as a private pediatrician in el paso, texas. I am as you might say in the front lines of taking care of theets men, women and children. As a pediatrician we dont have any age limits because we have to take take care of adults as well. Let me tell you how i got involved with doing this in the year 2014 when we had a lot of the Central American refugees arrive on our borders. And at that time the Border Patrol was was kind enough to ask for our help. The community the community physicians. And asked us if we would be present on arrival when the refugees would be arriving at the Border Patrol detention facilities. We were glad to help. There were about 20 of us on call every day. We provided excellent care as soon as they would arrive from the buses things went smoothly. Not one death. Fast forward the year last october. We had the same situation where we began having a lot of refugees arrive on our border city. And being naive i thought lets do it the way we did last time. We did a great job taking care of the medical needs of the refugees. I approached individuals who i thought would be able to give us permission and told them that we had between 50 and 100 physicians, pediatricians, adult doctors, ob gyns, doctors dent uftis ready to step in and do whatever we could. We were told thanks but no thanks we dont need your help. I was flabbergasted, how the heck can they say that . And i mean, i tried. I tried. We went through our congressman. Congressman orourke, later on through congressman Veronica Escobar to no avail. We were not allowed to gain access to the Border Patrol detention facilities. Our our feel as a doctor as a pediatrician especially is that if we could get there right as soon as they arrived to the centers we could m