bethany christian services.hey have been assisting on the website, trying to assist some of the children. a lot of people are afraid betsy devos funds it, that's not quite true. her family foundation funded one of the religious freedom restoration acts in her home state of michigan. that would allow bethany christian services and other christian based adoption agencies to not adopt children out to couples that were gay. it is not her family funds bethany christian. but people are freaked out by it. i want to play the voice mail message. if you call, this is what you hear. take a listen. >> hi, you reached bethany christian services national office and voice mail line in regards to family separation. thank you for contacting us. please listen to the following message carefully. bethany continues to work to reunion fie families that have been separated at the border. long before the zero tolerance policy was implemented, bethany has been proactive in partnering with federal agencies to reunion fie unaccompanied an

agencies like bethany christian services in michigan struggling to reunite these families who have been spread across the nation. >> what's new about this is we're not sure how long it would take to reunite a child with a parent who's in a detention center. and so we would need contact with that parent. usually when separations are unexpected, the parent may not have made a plan with another family member in the united states. would you take our child if we weren't available? or they maybe, you know, didn't prepare the child for that. >> reporter: it was bethany christian services who placed samuel with foster parents in michigan. >> i do hear stories about the detention facilities. they talk about mats on the floor. not a lot of food. and of course crying and fear. and most often they come extraordinarily dirty, lice, all sorts of things. >> reporter: but those detention centers and the foster care are supposed to be temporary. >> the reason it took so long for samuel to be reunited with his father is that samuel had to go through the voluntary departure process. which means that an im

joining me now is th man behind the words, the president and ceo of bethany christian services.nks for taking the time. >> thank you. >> so first of all, as you look at these children here, as you receive them into your care, i can just imagine my own children separated from me under those circumstances, how are they doing? >> obviously, they are traumatized. they have been through a difficult journey. they have come from a really difficult place. i like to describe it as they came from hell on earth so they are places in like honduras, they had to flee for their lives and travelled across mexico and parts of latin america and then come to the border and are separated from families. they have been through trauma and have had a traumatic journey and facing more trauma. >> so what do you tell them? i imagine they have a lot of questions. can you answer their questis? they will be asking when will i see my mom and dad. >> we try to work with the children to find the parents immediately. obviously, we have to call around to different detention centers. we have people that do that. w

going to foster care and today i spoke with the largest provider of tht refugee foster care, bethany christianeir youngest is eight months old. >> yang: what can you tell us about that foster care? >> so they have 99 peds in michigan and maryland, and theay gn kids to families who have some training andoster parent these refugee kids very young. what they told me is that the kids are distraught. heand that's also what war is happening inside these shelters. these kids are very, very frightened.al theyasleep crying, and then they wake up crying. >> yang: that's a good point to bring in. dr. kraft, you vised one of these shelters along the texas border, the mexican border with texas. temperature us what you saw. >> well, i visited the shelt in april 2018, and the first room we visited was the toddle room. we walked in, and the shelter is equipped with toys anbooks and cribs and blankets and has a t homey fe it. but the children were relly remarkable when we walked in there. when you normally walk into a room with toddlers, they are loud and rambunctious and playing and moving around, and these c

do want to bring in donna abbott, she is the director of refugee and immigrant programs with bethany christian in grand rapids, michigan. so, donna, what you're understanding -- well, mcallen, texas, is one place, but there are dozens of facilities across the country that have children or parents or both, but what's your understanding about the kind of treatment, services, aid, counseling, supplies, all of that. >> bethany provides children with a case manager, a clinician and the children in foster care, so those are the kind of services we provide and the case manager works very hard at identifying not only the parent, but other potential family members who could provide care, and be ensured that the child has communication with parent and/or other family members. >> so, donna, help me understand. now we're looking at a tighter picture. you can see the silhouette of people who are onboard that bus, by the way, as you and i are talking, so if i have to interrupt you to get more information about what's happening here, you know, my apologies in advance. but tell me, then, how is bethany used?

. >> hannah mills with the transitional foster care program at bethany christian services. you are doing god's work. thank you for your time. >>> i'm joined by bill nelson, florida senator who tried to visit a vilt in homestead florida yesterday but was denied entry by health and human services. senator thank you for your time today. i would like to ask you first though to respond to the president's executive order. this was just signed. what in your view does this do to address the problem? what should congress do next? >> i just got a glance at it. you just pointed out one of the problems. the court order. this goes back to a court case in 1999 called flores. that court order says a child cannot be in detention for more than 20 days. the president's executive order today is obviously litigated and so we have this inconsistency with what the law is, no more than 20 days for the detention of a child. the president's order says he's going to detain them, but you're going to detain them as a family, and it could be for a very long time. now, the other thing that is not appare

a staffer at bethany christian service, which is assisting these displaced children says, not only are they being separated from their family, they are being transported to place that they don't know in the middle of the night. mr. speaker, taking children from parents presents a deep moral crisis for our nation. abduction of children from their parents is a crime against humanity. the trump administration's kidnapping of children must end. i ask unanimous consent to nsert this important article in the record and remind my colleagues of the words at the base of the statue of liberty by emma, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses in the record and yearning to breathe free, the retched ref fuse of your eeming shore, send these the homeless, tempest tossed to me, i lift my lamp beside the golden door. that's the america that i know. homeless, that's the america of liberty for all. i yield back. . the speaker pro tempore: without objection. are there any further requests for one-minute speeches? the chair lays before the house the following personal requests. the clerk: leave