Democrats are reviving an issue they rode to success nearly 18 months ago, staging a congressional hearing on how Trump administration immigration policies adversely affect children.
The administration’s zero-tolerance family separation policy was terminated less than two months after it went into effect last spring following widespread criticism from Democratic lawmakers and organizations.
The House Labor and Education Committee Wednesday called in school and health experts to explain “how the Trump administration’s immigration policies are harming children.”
House Democrats have hammered away at the Trump administration’s immigration policies since taking control of the chamber in January. At the time of family separations in May and June 2018, Republicans were running the House and Senate, which prevented Democrats from holding hearings, but the outcry nevertheless forced Trump to reverse course.
The hearing is the latest effort by Democrats, with their newfound power, to highlight an issue that was damaging to the White House politically.
In a hearing in February, Democrats on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s oversight subcommittee one by one lashed out at administration witnesses who oversaw the policy that resulted in separations. Later in the month, the House Oversight Committee passed a measure to issue subpoenas for three department heads to testify about the policy.
In the meantime, outside organizations began staging protests at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, where families would normally be held if they had not been separated.
By April, a former ICE director lamented in a Fox News interview the party’s heavy focus on its 2018 policy and, with that, the media’s attention. In July, the House Oversight Committee released a report that laid out its issues with the policy. Then, in September, the party renewed calls for background information on how the administration went about planning it.
Labor and Education Chairman Bobby Scott said Wednesday he scheduled the hearing to hear from medical and educational experts on the effects of the Trump administration’s positions and rhetoric on immigration, as well as policies enacted over the past three years, including the zero-tolerance action in 2018.
Ranking member Virginia Foxx of North Carolina erupted at the onset and said Democrats had already arrived at a conclusion based on “partisan preconceptions surrounding the hearing title.” “The implication that the Trump administration is intentionally harming children is disgusting,” said Foxx.
More than 5,400 children were separated from parents at the United States-Mexico border between July 1, 2017, and June 26, 2018, under the zero-tolerance policy, which mandated immigrant parents face charges for illegally entering the country even if they arrived with a child. In order to refer the adult for prosecution, the child had to be taken from the parent and transferred to Health and Human Services for care or placement with a family friend or relative in the U.S.
Medical and educational experts testified this incident, coupled with years of Trump’s comments through the years vowing to deport illegal immigrants, have led immigrant children to worry and experience health problems out of fear their parents may be arrested and deported at any time.
