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DeLauro Statement on President Biden’s Task Force to Reunify Families Separated by the Trump Administration

February 2, 2021

WASHINGTON – House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (CT-03) released the following statement on President Biden's executive actions to reverse the Trump Administration's immigration policies and reunify children with their families:

"Families fled to the United States to escape violence. Then, our country tore them from their parents, keeping them first in cages before the Department of Health and Human Services shipped them thousands of miles away to live with strangers. This crisis manufactured by the Trump administration was state-sanctioned child abuse—plain and simple.

"As an Appropriator with responsibility for federal health and human services spending, I have long fought against this abhorrent policy and led numerous hearings and legislative efforts on the atrocities committed against families by the previous administration, including securing family separation amendments in the fiscal year 2019 spending bill, leading my colleagues in a resolution condemning these actions as child abuse, and exercising continued oversight of the mental health impacts of this abuse. I am relieved to see the Biden Administration taking real steps to reunify families and begin the process of helping families heal.

"With the actions taken today, President Biden is prioritizing fixing our long-broken immigration system, and Congress must meet these executive actions with legislation. I stand ready to provide the funding the Biden Administration needs to carry out the mission of the family reunification task force. We cannot give up until every single child is reunified with their family and immigrant families feel safe in our country."