Speech #CREC-2017-02-01-pt1-PgH860-7_t10

That, to me, is family values. That, to me, shows you the extent to which people will try to be together, to be with each other, to do the things that perhaps you and I, as U.S. citizens, take for granted. And that happened in El Paso, Texas, thanks to the Border Network for Human Rights, thanks also to the men and women in the Border Patrol. It didn't compromise our security. It didn't add any new immigrants to this country. It was just doing our best under the current conditions. The other anecdote that I would like to share with you, and which I will close on, involves another outstanding organization in the community that I have the honor to serve, Annunciation House, led by Ruben Garcia, who--when we faced unprecedented numbers of young children and young families, young moms in their teens and twenties, coming up from Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador, which have become the deadliest countries, not just in Central America, not just in the Western Hemisphere, but in the world, the deadliest countries in the world; kids being murdered and raped and sold into slavery. Those kids fleeing that horrific brutality and violence, coming up the length of Mexico, sometimes riding on top of a train known as la bestia, or the beast, to come and present themselves at our border, not evade detection, not try and escape, not try to do anything against the law; literally, as the law proscribes, presenting themselves at our points of entry to a Border Patrol agent, or a Customs and Border Protection officer, and asking for help and for shelter, depending on the best traditions inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, counting on the United States in their moment of need. Well, the Border Patrol were outstanding. The agents themselves, out of their own pockets often, were buying toys and gifts for these young children, taking care of them, having their hearts broken, doing their best to serve them. Agents who work for ICE and immigration were doing their best as well. As that flow of people, the number of people became too many temporarily for us to hold and to process, they got in touch with Ruben Garcia at Annunciation House, which is a charity operated in El Paso, Texas. And Ruben took those asylum seekers, those refugees, and housed them, clothed them, fed them, insured they had showers and medication and a visit with a doctor, the ability to talk to their families deeper in the interior of the United States and, most importantly, especially for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, had a full and complete understanding of their legal obligations under U.S. law, what they were allowed and not allowed to do, what their court expectations were, and that they must appear in court, and that their issue must be adjudicated, and that they may or may not be able to stay in this country. Annunciation House, Ruben Garcia, the volunteers who work for him, and hundreds of other El Pasoans who contributed did this at not a penny's cost to the Federal taxpayer or to our government. So $20 billion to build a wall or Annunciation House taking care of refugees, asylum seekers, little kids who need our help for free? That is the border. That is the best of us.