Civil Rights
SHERIDAN -- They came here from Central America, and Mexico, Brazil, China and India hoping to start a new, better life in the U.S. Then they ran smack into the Trump administration's hardnosed new immigration policy and now find themselves locked up in this tiny Yamhill Valley town.
The intense national debate over immigration hit home in Oregon, where 123 would-be asylum seekers have been moved into the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan over the last month.
Democratic members of Oregon's congressional delegation visited a federal prison Saturday where immigrants from Latin America have been transferred and blasted the Trump administration for separating parents from children.
Sen. Ron Wyden said that "what we saw over the last hour demonstrates that the Trump ‘zero tolerance' policy makes zero sense and shows zero understanding of American values."
SHERIDAN, Ore. -- Nearly two weeks after he was refused entry to an Immigrant Detention Center in Texas, an event that was broadcast live on Facebook, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley and a few of his colleagues visited a federal prison where undocumented immigrants are reportedly being detained under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance policy."
Oregon's U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, with House members Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader, demanded that the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) immediately allow individuals being held at a federal prison in Sheridan, Ore., under the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance policy" to access legal services through free phone calls.
WASHINGTON — Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, denied on Wednesday that Trump administration policies were driving up health insurance costs, which many experts expect to surge again in 2019.
Oregon Democratic Rep. Suzanne Bonamici questions H.H.S. Sec. Alex Azar about the policy of separating children and parents when arrested at the border: "Is the policy of separating children from their parents in the best interest of those children?"
H.H.S. Sec. Alex Azar responds: "Individual children are separated from their parents only when those parents cross the border illegally and are arrested. We can't have children with parents who are in incarceration, so they are given to me."