Press Releases

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D- Maine), hosted by Congressmen Filemon Vela (D-Texas) and Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), will be joined by more than 20 other Democratic Members of Congress on Saturday, June 23, at the U.S.-Mexico border near McAllen and Brownsville, Texas. The group will speak to children and parents who have been ripped apart by President Donald Trump’s and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ cruel new, zero-tolerance family separation policy. 

“President Trump's executive order is an admission that he and members of the Administration have been lying all along about their role in instigating family separation and their authority to stop it,” said Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. "This order may mean a temporary halt to the cruel trauma of forcibly separating children from their parents at the border, but this is by no means the end of the issue. We do not know how these isolated children will be reunited with their families. The Administration has not changed its zero-tolerance policy of indiscriminately prosecuting adults and is now seeking authority to detain families together indefinitely. Many questions also remain about whether they have the proper facilities to make this possible and why no Members of Congress have so far been allowed to visit facilities housing girls and babies—a must for performing our oversight responsibilities. I hope to get answers to these and other questions when I travel to see President Trump’s detention centers in Texas this weekend."