House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings (D-MD) blasted the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday after the DHS cancelled the committee’s scheduled tours at 11 migrant detention facilities.
Cummings sent acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan a letter telling him that the department’s actions were “inconsistent” with McAleenan’s previous testimony that he welcomed congressional visits to the facilities.
The Oversight chair listed several “troubling reports” from the committee’s inspections last week, during which detainees alleged that they were being pressured into signing documents in English without a translator, toddlers were being fed burritos and “hundreds” of detainees were providing up to eight hours of labor in a “voluntary work program” that paid only $1.00-$1.50 per day.
“It appears that the Administration expects Congress to be satisfied with receiving agency tours of facilities–in some cases without the ability to photograph conditions or interview detainees–and not to question the policies or decisions that agency officials make,” Cummings wrote. “That is not the way effective oversight works.”
“Congress has an independent responsibility under the Constitution to determine whether federal programs are operating as they should be–not merely to accept the Administration’s word for it,” he continued.
Read the letter below:
I really like this Cummings guy.
Trump’s concentration camps are very literally a crime against humanity, and every decision-maker at the top should be tried in The Hague.
The Trump regime has a lot to hide. If they didn’t, they’d allow Cummings to tour the concentration camps. Cummings needs to keep pushing.
Damn right. The time for 'reasonableness is over. time to call atrocity out.
Slightly OT but, refusing to name and treat an atrocity as such is to blunt coherent civic action against it, a tactic so-called moderate right-wingers know all too well; e.g.,
“The devil can cite scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek…” —Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice, 1596)
There needs to be consequences for the behavior of this administration and that goes all the way down.
Sometimes I feel like he’s the last man left who cares -on a deep, heartfelt level. I realize that’s unfair to so many other Dems who also care, but Congressman Cummings has maintained his integrity, demonstrated his passion on this issue, and maintained his composure through the vilest racist slanders. And he keeps moving forward despite this Administration’s illegal efforts to subvert every investigation. It feels like he’s kept his faith in our government and our Constitution, which I appreciate, because my own is flagging.
I appreciate him so much because of how he carries himself through adversity. Just a terrific role model.