DPCC Co-Chair Dingell: What’s Happening at the Border is Unacceptable
WASHINGTON, DC – Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, Co-Chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), appeared on CNN Newsroom with Fredricka Whitfield to discuss the situation at the border and the latest news surrounding the census. House Democrats continue to fight For the People to lower health care costs, increase paychecks by rebuilding America and clean up corruption in Washington. Click here to watch the video.
"People need to understand what the census is. We take a count of who the people are in this country and it's used for very important things, like determining how much money is going to go to all of the states, redistricting, et cetera. it's got a long history, decades-worth."
"One of the things that has happened is that you want maximum participation. The decades norm of about being anonymous for participation. This is a count."
"[The President is] undermining people's confidence. it's already hard in certain areas to get a real count and this is undermining getting what this country needs, a real count."
"Congress has been gone a week, probably a time that everybody needed to take a deep breath. We did get some money to go to the border that the administration had asked for. We didn't go as far as I think we needed to go, nor did a number of other people in terms of setting exact standards. But in the week that we've been gone, we've seen this report but we've seen inspector generals' reports telling us how bad that many of these facilities are. We are getting more and more reports by agents themselves."
"They're not running beautifully, and we've got objective data telling us that. We need to appeal to the compassionate and human side of all of us. These are unacceptable standards."
"This is not a humane society. We need to think about who we are as Americans and what we're going to do to protect our children and it's unacceptable what's happening at the border and it's documented."
"We've got to stop pointing fingers and we all have a responsibility. The President needs to own up to it. If he's not going to own up to it, Congress needs to act further and set absolute standards that must be abided by at these borders. We can't keep kicking the can down the road. We have to do something about it now. And I hope that my Republican colleagues will join the Democrats in continuing to visit regularly these facilities so we altogether work to get them fixed."