Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility officials in Elizabeth, New Jersey didn’t know who they were messing with when they tried to refuse entry to a group of House Democrats on Father’s Day weekend. Their delaying tactics stalled. Calling the cops on them didn’t work. Telling them to get media out of the room was futile. When they opened a door leading into the facility, legislators physically prevented it from closing until they could go inside. Finally, a small delegation was allowed to go in.
They haven’t been alone. U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal of Washington state were among the first legislators to have sprung into action following the official implementation of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy and traveled to facilities holding separated kids and parents. Outside the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac—the administration has been arresting so many migrants that some are being transferred to federal prisons—Jayapal said that border agents told some anguished moms that their “families would not exist anymore.”
Merkley, on the other hand, never even made it past the sliding doors of the former Brownsville, Texas Walmart that is now jailing up to 1,500 migrant kids, a surge from 1,200 just weeks ago. After nearly 20 minutes of Merkley pacing outside, a supervisor finally came out to where he was waiting, but only to brush him aside and speak to the pack of policemen the facility had called due to his presence. Finally, the facility supervisor asked Merkley, a sitting United States senator, to leave the premises. He did—but not without pissing off the viewers who were watching through a livestream.
The anger and horror in the air are palpable. Across the nation, outraged Americans have demanded a stop to this brutality and want answers, leading Congressional Democrats to trek to immigration detention facilities in California, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas and other states to meet with separated families and to examine conditions, though some with more success than others. Some, like a Congressional delegation led by civil rights icon John Lewis of Georgia, risked arrest in an act of civil disobedience in a support for families.
Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans are nowhere to be seen. Legislatively, Senate Republicans could join all Senate Democrats supporting U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein’s “Keep Families Together Act,” but none currently do.