Durbin Delivers Opening Statement In His Spotlight Forum On Children Traumatized By The MAGA Mass Deportation Agenda

Durbin Delivers Opening Statement In His Spotlight Forum On Children Traumatized By The MAGA Mass Deportation Agenda

Durbin: "That is not a public safety operation that we see. It is an occupation by a paramilitary force. And, as so often occurs in an occupation, children have been the most harmed."

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, today hosted a spotlight forum entitled "The Kids Are Not Alright: How Mass Deportation is Traumatizing Children." Today's forum, which featured testimony from Chicago residents, examined how the Trump Administration's anti-immigrant campaign has terrorized both immigrant and U.S. citizen children and is leaving lasting emotional scars on innocent kids.

Durbin delivered an opening statement that underscored the severity of the trauma that children face as they fear the ongoing mass deportation operations implemented by the Trump Administration. During his remarks, Durbin shared the stories of Chicago's youngest residents who were traumatized by Operation Midway Blitz as parents were deported, a teacher was ripped from her classroom, and kids were pepper sprayed.

Key quotes:

"The American people have witnessed the brutality of this Administration's mass deportation campaign."

"Immigration agents have arrived in cities without consulting local law enforcement. They have roamed American streets in paramilitary gear and arrested and detained people based on the color of their skin, their accents, and the language they speak-what is known out here as the 'Kavanaugh [stop].' They have shot and killed people. That is not a public safety operation that we see. It is an occupation by a paramilitary force. And, as so often occurs in an occupation, children have been the most harmed."

"In my home state of Illinois, during the so-called Operation Midway Blitz, a suburban Chicago father and his one-year-old daughter, Arianna, were pepper-sprayed by federal immigration agents as they headed to the grocery store. They were quickly rushed to a nearby hospital, where doctors called poison control in Atlanta for advice. Since the pepper-spraying, Arianna has been more clingy and unsettled. That's no surprise to any father or grandfather who knows this story. She is too young to understand what happened to her family, but she doesn't want to be left alone anymore."

"The Trump Department of Homeland Security rescinded a policy that limited ICE raids at schools, child care centers, and other places where children play and learn. Why were these restrictions in place to prevent ICE from raiding schools and child care centers? Because of the harm we know happens to children when they experience this trauma. Witnessing a parent being detained-or fearing that a parent will be taken away-can have a lasting emotional scar on a child."

"Take my late constituent, Ofelia Torres, who passed away last month at 16 years of age, a student at Lakeview High School. Her father was ripped away from her as she battled cancer. He was in a Home Depot parking lot trying to pick up an odd job. They [federal agents] came and arrested him, and he begged them to let him finish the job or at least, go home to his daughter, who just got back from the hospital for brain cancer treatment. They refused. They took him away for two weeks. They [Ofelia's doctors] had to stop treatment because of the stress of her father's [situation]."

"Or the three-year-old who witnessed his father being detained at a traffic stop. Now, whenever he hears sirens, he hides under tables and starts crying uncontrollably. His preschool teacher said, 'He doesn't understand immigration policy. He just knows someone took his dad.'"

"This Administration has restarted the inhumane practice of family detention. Under the best of circumstances, family detention is costly, ineffective, and exposes children to lasting trauma. But under this Administration, families in detention have received food contaminated with worms and mold. They have struggled to obtain water for formula and medical care for babies and children."

"This includes Amalia, an 18-month-old baby who became so sick with a respiratory illness that she was hospitalized for 10 days, only to be returned to detention and denied medication."

"In the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act that we passed last year without any Democratic votes, Republicans gave the Department of Homeland Security $45 billion dollars for immigration detention, including family detention. Yet, the Trump DHS cannot find the money to give kids safe food and medicine. In fact, after children wrote letters from Dilley, one of the detention centers, about conditions there, guards took away their art supplies. The cruelty is the point."

"Thankfully, the American people are rejecting this depravity. Educators like our witness Maria have worked tirelessly to protect their kids and help them navigate the cruelty of this campaign. Neighbors have volunteered to drop children off at school. Students around the country-including two of our witnesses here today-have stood up for their classmates and family members."

"Congress has to do its part as well. The harms to children are exactly why Democrats have held the line and-with the support of the American people-laid out demands to deal with the Department of Homeland Security. The demands are simple-and include ending roving patrols that lead to children and babies being tear gassed and ending indiscriminate arrests that tear apart some families and put others in detention."

"And we must pass a path to citizenship-something I've worked on for more than two decades-to give stability to families and communities. It is long overdue."

Durbin also introduced the forum's witnesses, who offered testimony from the perspective of an educator, an immigration lawyer, a clinical psychologist, and high school students.

"Our first witness is Lia. I met with Lia at her high school in Chicago. She led hundreds of high school students in Little Village, a Hispanic area in Chicago, in a walk out during Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago. She has continued her work to organize students in her community in opposition to this Administration's mass deportation campaign."

"Our next witness is Elora Mukherjee, who directs the Immigrants' Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. Professor Mukherjee represents multiple families who have been detained."

"Our third witness is Maria, a first-grade teacher at Funston Elementary School in Chicago and member of the Chicago Teachers Union."

"Our next witness is Dr. Lisa Fortuna, a clinical psychologist and a Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at the University of California Riverside, School of Medicine."

"Our final witness is Samia, a senior in high school in Minnesota, and the local student representative on her school board."

Video of Durbin's remarks is available here.

Audio of Durbin's remarks is available here.

Since President Trump's return to office, children have become targeted, traumatized, and victimized by indiscriminate enforcement, roving patrols, and excessive force. Some children have been caught up in raids or been tear gassed, while others live in fear that they will lose a loved one, neighbor, or friend. Even schools and child care centers have been impacted by immigration enforcement actions, disrupting environments that are supposed to be a safe, nurturing place for children to learn and grow. Witnessing these chaotic and scary scenes of militarized law enforcement can create toxic stress that impacts a child's developing brain, which can harm their neurological and behavioral development and health.

This Administration is also targeting children and families for detention and deportation. Experts agree that children should never be in immigration detention, and any time in government custody should be limited to the time needed to place them in a safe and loving environment. Sadly, this Administration is arresting children and attempting to detain and deport them without due process, even when they have valid claims for status, like asylum or special immigrant juvenile status.

In response to the Trump Administration's surge in federal law enforcement in Chicago and continuous threats to deploy the military in the area, Durbin has taken a number of steps to push back on these unlawful actions carried out by DHS under the direction of President Trump. Durbin's actions to push back on the Trump Administration's so-called "Operation Midway Blitz" can be found here.

Durbin, along with U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), has also notified the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that they have referred the unlawful actions of Trump Administration officials and federal law enforcement agents responsible for immigration enforcement in Illinois to Attorney General Pam Bondi for investigation. The Trump Administration repeatedly appears to have violated the constitutional rights of individuals in Illinois during "Operation Midway Blitz," and the officials responsible for these violations are acting with impunity. If this Administration fails to pursue charges, the statute of limitations will permit the next Administration to prosecute officials who acted unlawfully.

In December, Durbin also sent an oversight letter to DHS to push back on the Trump Administration's false narrative that it does not arrest U.S. citizens. The letter, which requested a response by December 16, demanded answers about the total number of U.S. citizens arrested during immigration enforcement activity during the Trump Administration; the agencies responsible for the arrests; the length of detention following the arrests; audio or video footage of the arrests; agency directives governing encounters and arrests involving U.S. citizens; and policies regarding the maintenance of citizen arrest data.

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