WEBVTT

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For over 40 years, I've been
a clinical social worker

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and a developmental psychologist.

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And it seemed almost natural
for me to go into the helping professions.

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My parents had taught me
to do good for others.

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And so I devoted my career

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to working with families
in some of the toughest circumstances:

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poverty, mental illness,

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immigration, refugees.

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And for all those years,
I've worked with hope and with optimism.

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In the past five years, though,

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my hope and my optimism
have been put to the test.

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I've been so deeply disappointed
in the way the United States government

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is treating families who are coming
to our southern border,

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asking for asylum --

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desperate parents with children,
from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras,

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who only want to bring their kids
to safety and security.

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They are fleeing some of
the worst violence in the world.

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They've been attacked by gangs,

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assaulted, raped, extorted, threatened.

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They have faced death.

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And they can't turn to their police
because the police are complicit,

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corrupt, ineffective.

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Then they get to our border,

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and we put them in detention centers,

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prisons, as if they were common criminals.

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Back in 2014, I met some of
the first children in detention centers.

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And I wept.

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I sat in my car afterwards and I cried.

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I was seeing some of the worst
suffering I'd ever known,

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and it went against everything
I believed in my country,

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the rule of law

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and everything my parents taught me.

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The way the United States
has handled the immigrants

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seeking asylum in our country

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over the past five years --

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it's wrong, just simply wrong.

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Tonight, I want to tell you
that children in immigration detention

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are being traumatized.

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And we are causing the trauma.

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We in America --

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actually, those of us here tonight --

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will not necessarily be on the same page
with respect to immigration.

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We'll disagree on how we're going
to handle all those people

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who want to come to our country.

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Frankly, it doesn't matter to me
whether you're a Republican or a Democrat,

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liberal or conservative.

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I want secure borders.

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I also want to keep the bad actors out.

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I want national security.

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And of course, you'll have your ideas
about those topics, too.

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But I think we can agree

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that America should not be doing harm.

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The government, the state, should not
be in the business of hurting children.

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It should be protecting them,

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no matter whose children they are:

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your children, my grandchildren

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and the children of families
just looking for asylum.

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Now, I could tell you story after story

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of children who have witnessed
some of the worst violence in the world

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and are now sitting in detention.

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But two little boys have stayed with me
over these past five years.

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One of them was Danny.

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Danny was seven and a half years old
when I met him in a detention center

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in Karnes City, Texas, back in 2014.

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He was there with his mother
and his brother,

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and they had fled Honduras.

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You know, Danny is one of these kids
that you get to love instantly.

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He's funny, he's innocent,

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he's charming and very expressive.

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And he's drawing pictures for me,

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and one of the pictures he drew for me
was of the Revos Locos.

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The Revos Locos: this is the name

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that they gave to gangs
in the town that he was in.

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I said to Danny,

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"Danny, what makes them bad guys?"

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Danny looked at me with puzzlement.

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I mean, the look was more like,

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"Are you clueless or just stupid?"

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(Laughter)

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He leaned in and he whispered,

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"Don't you see?

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They smoke cigarettes."

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(Laughter)

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"And they drink beer."

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Danny had learned, of course,
about the evils of drinking and smoking.

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Then he said, "And they carry guns."

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In one of the pictures,

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the stick figures of the Revos Locos
are shooting at birds and at people.

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Danny told me about the day his uncle
was killed by those Revos Locos

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and how he ran from his house
to his uncle's farmhouse,

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only to see his uncle's dead body,

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his face disfigured by bullets.

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And Danny told me he saw his uncle's teeth
coming out the back of his head.

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He was only six at the time.

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Sometime after that,

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one of those Revos Locos
beat little Danny badly, severely,

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and that's when his parents said,

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"We have got to leave
or they will kill us."

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So they set out.

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But Danny's father was
a single-leg amputee with a crutch,

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and he couldn't manage the rugged terrain.

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So he said to his wife,

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"Go without me. Take our boys.

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Save our boys."

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So Mom and the boys set off.

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Danny told me he looked back,
said goodbye to his father,

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looked back a couple of times
until he lost sight of his father.

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In detention, he had not
heard from his father.

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And it's very likely that his father
was killed by the Revos Locos,

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because he had tried to flee.

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I can't forget Danny.

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The other boy was Fernando.

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Now, Fernando was
in the same detention center,

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roughly the same age as Danny.

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Fernando was telling me about the 24 hours
he spent in isolation with his mother

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in the detention center,

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placed there because his mother
had led a hunger strike

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among the mothers in the detention center,

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and now she was cracking
under the pressure of the guards,

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who were threatening and being
very abusive towards her and Fernando.

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As Fernando and I are talking
in the small office,

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his mother burst in,

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and she says, "They hear you!
They're listening to you."

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And she dropped to her hands and knees,

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and she began to look under the table,
groping under all the chairs.

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She looked at the electric sockets,

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at the corner of the room,

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the floor, the corner of the ceiling,

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at the lamp, at the air vent, looking
for hidden microphones and cameras.

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I watched Fernando
as he watched his mother spiral

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into this paranoid state.

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I looked in his eyes
and I saw utter terror.

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After all, who would take care
of him if she couldn't?

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It was just the two of them.
They only had each other.

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I could tell you story after story,

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but I haven't forgotten Fernando.

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And I know something about
what that kind of trauma,

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stress and adversity does to children.

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So I'm going to get clinical
with you for a moment,

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and I'm going to be
the professor that I am.

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Under prolonged and intense stress,

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trauma, hardship, adversity,
harsh conditions,

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the developing brain is harmed,

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plain and simple.

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Its wiring and its architecture

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are damaged.

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The child's natural stress
response system is affected.

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It's weakened of its protective factors.

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Regions of the brain
that are associated with cognition,

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intellectual abilities,

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judgment, trust, self-regulation,
social interaction,

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are weakened, sometimes permanently.

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That impairs children's future.

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We also know that under stress,
the child's immune system is suppressed,

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making them susceptible to infections.

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Chronic illnesses, like diabetes,
asthma, cardiovascular disease,

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will follow those children into adulthood
and likely shorten their lives.

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Mental health problems are linked
to the breakdown of the body.

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I have seen children in detention

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who have recurrent
and disturbing nightmares,

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night terrors,

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depression and anxiety,

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dissociative reactions,

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hopelessness, suicidal thinking

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and post-traumatic stress disorders.

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And they regress in their behavior,

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like the 11-year-old boy

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who began to wet his bed again
after years of continence.

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And the eight-year-old girl
who was buckling under the pressure

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and was insisting
that her mother breastfeed her.

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That is what detention does to children.

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Now, you may ask:

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What do we do?

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What should our government do?

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Well, I'm just a mental
health professional,

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so all I really know is about
children's health and development.

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But I have some ideas.

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First, we need to reframe our practices.

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We need to replace fear and hostility

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with safety and compassion.

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We need to tear down the prison walls,

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the barbed wire, take away the cages.

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Instead of prison, or prisons,

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we should create orderly
asylum processing centers,

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campus-like communities

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where children and families
can live together.

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We could take old motels,
old army barracks,

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refit them so that children and parents
can live as family units

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in some safety and normality,

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where kids can run around.

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In these processing centers,

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pediatricians, family doctors,

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dentists and nurses,

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would be screening, examining,

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treating and immunizing children,

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creating records that will follow them
to their next medical provider.

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Social workers would be conducting
mental health evaluations

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and providing treatment
for those who need it.

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Those social workers
would be connecting families

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to services that they're going
to need, wherever they're headed.

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And teachers would be teaching
and testing children

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and documenting their learning

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so that the teachers at the next school

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can continue those children's education.

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There's a lot more that we could do
in these processing centers.

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A lot more.

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And you probably are thinking,

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this is pie-in-the-sky stuff.

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Can't blame you.

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Well, let me tell you that refugee camps
all over the world are holding families

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like those in our detention centers,

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and some of those refugee camps
are getting it right

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far better than we are.

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The United Nations has issued reports
describing refugee camps

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that protect children's
health and development.

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Children and parents live in family units

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and clusters of families
are housed together.

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Parents are given work permits
so they can earn some money,

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they're given food vouchers so they can
go to the local stores and shop.

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Mothers are brought together
to cook healthy meals for the children,

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and children go to school
every day and are taught.

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Afterwards, after school,
they go home and they ride bikes,

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hang out with friends, do homework
and explore the world --

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all the essentials for child development.

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We can get it right.
We have the resources to get it right.

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What we need is the will
and the insistence of Americans

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that we treat children humanely.

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You know, I can't forget
Danny or Fernando.

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I wonder where they are today,

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and I pray that they
are healthy and happy.

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They are only two
of the many children I met

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and of the thousands we know about
who have been in detention.

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I may be saddened

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by what's happened to the children,

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but I'm inspired by them.

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I may cry, as I did,

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but I admire those children's strength.

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They keep alive my hope
and my optimism in the work I do.

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So while we may differ
on our approach to immigration,

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we should be treating children
with dignity and respect.

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We should do right by them.

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If we do,

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we can prepare those children
who remain in the United States,

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prepare them to become productive,
engaged members of our society.

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And those who will return to their
countries whether voluntarily or not

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will be prepared to become the teachers,
the merchants, the leaders

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in their country.

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And I hope together
all of those children and parents

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could give testimony to the world
about the goodness of our country

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and our values.

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But we have to get it right.

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So we can agree
to disagree on immigration,

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but I hope we can agree on one thing:

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that none of us wants to look back
at this moment in our history,

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when we knew we were inflicting
lifelong trauma on children,

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and that we sat back and did nothing.

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That would be the greatest tragedy of all.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)