Families Belong Together, Not Behind Bars

Indefinite Family Incarceration
On Wednesday, the Trump Administration unveiled a new policy that would end decades-long, court-imposed protections for children and families at the border and allow for the indefinite detention of vulnerable families without basic standards of care. The Administration is seeking to codify child abuse, plain and simple. Its appalling, inhumane family incarceration plan would rip away basic protections for children's human rights, reversing decades-long and court-imposed rules and violating every standard of morality and civilized behavior.

The indefinite and prolonged detention of children would compound the cruelty and accelerate the heart-breaking humanitarian situation at the border, worsening conditions for children already forced to sleep on concrete floors, eat inedible food and be denied basic sanitation and standards of care. As the American Academy of Pediatrics has written, ‘No child should be placed in detention…even short periods of detention can cause psychological trauma and long-term mental health risks.'

This inhumane and utterly unconscionable rule circumvents the conditions set in the Flores settlement, and we expect the District Court to swiftly strike it down. Democrats continue to call on this Administration to end its assault on families and children, and to join us to protect families and preserve America's heritage as a beacon of hope, freedom and opportunity for all.

Background Checks to Save Lives
This past Sunday President Trump stated "We already have a lot of background checks." Countless lives have been saved since the passage of background checks legislation. Yet, tragically, efforts to irresponsibly circumvent the law have emerged, enabled by new technologies and techniques: sales made over the Internet, at gun shows and person-to-person. These evasions must be swiftly and fully corrected.

One of the first acts of our Democratic House Majority was to pass the Bipartisan Background Checks Act (H.R. 8) and the Enhanced Background Checks Act (H.R. 1112). H.R. 8 expands the existing background checks law to include guns sold at gun shows, online and through person-to-person sales, while H.R. 1112 closes the dangerous Charleston loophole that enabled the tragic hate crime at Mother Emanuel Church.

I pray that the President will listen to the 90 percent of the American people who support universal background checks. Once again, I call upon the President to bring Senator McConnell back to Washington to immediately take up House-passed, bipartisan legislation to address this epidemic and to save lives.