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Maine Congressperson To Visit Federal Detention Facilities In Texas

Robert F. Bukaty
/
Associated Press
U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, addresses the Democratic Convention, Friday, May 18, 2018, in Lewiston, Maine.

President Trump may have signed an executive order to stop the forcible separation of immigrant children from their parents at the border, but Maine Congressperson Chellie Pingree says that's not the end of the issue. For one thing, there are caveats to the order itself, and Pingree says they raise red flags.

Maine’s 1st District U.S. House Rep. Pingree and more than 20 other Democrats will visit federal detention facilities in Texas this weekend to investigate conditions for immigrant families separated at the border.

"Very few people have had much access to these facilities, so obviously we're hoping to get in there to see the conditions where the kids are being kept,” Pingree says. “We would really like a chance to see where the girls and babies are, but so far the administration has not been very forthcoming with that information."

Despite President Donald Trump's executive order to end the practice, Pingree says there are still plenty of questions about how the federal government will address the situation going forward and how families will be reunited.

"It says children will not be taken from their parents if there are sufficient resources and facilities which means that many more places have to be built,” Pingree says. “There aren't a lot of family holding and retaining facilities. He's also attempting to keep families held together, possibly, but indefinitely, which raises a whole lot of concerns. I think we just don't have a lot of confidence that the administration is about to stop this policy."

Among her concerns is whether there is a system to accurately track isolated kids, especially after their parents are sent back to their home countries.

"We've heard from lawyers that they can't locate children and put families back together," Pingree says. "We're hearing that kids are being shipped to facilities literally around the country, and we have very little idea of actually where they're going."

Pingree and the group will speak to children and parents who have been separated under the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy. She says her office is receiving as many calls from people upset about this issue as it did during the debate over health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act.