REMARKS
Council Member Diana I. Ayala on DHS policies that harm migrant children
1:27:59
·
5 min
Council Member Diana I. Ayala criticizes policies displacing migrant children from shelters and school settings.
- She expresses concern for the trauma and lack of stability these displacements cause children
- She highlights poor food quality and lack of cultural sensitivity in shelter meals, citing examples
- Ayala draws on her own childhood experience in shelters to emphasize the urgency of protecting children's well-being
- She calls for reforms to prevent unnecessarily displacing children and ensure they have proper housing and resources
Diana I. Ayala
1:27:59
Look, I I I think you guys are you guys have done the best that you can.
1:28:03
However, I do think that, you know, when history retails this story that, you know, we're not gonna be in the best position to be able to explain away how we displaced, you know, so many children who came in here innocently without consenting, without, you know, so much as, you know, saying a word, you know, giving any consent, and we are taking them.
1:28:37
And this is my this is and, you know and, again, it's not a critique of DHS because I understand that you also have to follow rules that are set by, you know, individuals that have no lived experience with, you know, any of this.
1:28:53
The fact that we're moving families with children out of settings that would allow them a a level of stability, and then moving them into you know, inappropriate, I would say, settings and hotels and, you know, perks where they're now subject to, you know, 30 60 day so that we're bypassing our right to shelter laws is to me problematic.
1:29:26
And I I just I feel really badly for these children because I believe her when she says to me that the children are getting sick off of the food.
1:29:35
I believe that.
1:29:36
I've seen it.
1:29:36
I've seen people come and testify before hearings in the past few months where mean, I had a gentleman come and bring me breakfast.
1:29:44
His breakfast consisted of a yogurt with raisin.
1:29:46
So, you know, I've learned to ask more detailed questions because when I asked in our people being fed, and I'm told, yeah, they're given they're provided with breakfast lunch and dinner.
1:29:56
It never occurred to me to ask was is it the dinner that they're being provided the same day after day?
1:30:01
Is it culturally relevant?
1:30:03
Is it warm enough?
1:30:05
Has anybody checking to ensure that it was it didn't expire.
1:30:09
And these are real things that people are living through.
1:30:11
Right?
1:30:12
And then we are seeing also the result of that that people are are not eating, not getting enough nutritional, you know, contents of, you know, food throughout the day.
1:30:24
But then the also a lot of waste.
1:30:26
Right?
1:30:27
Because folks are refusing to eat the food.
1:30:29
And I have I have a mother that sits in front of a store every day with her children and refuses.
1:30:36
She says that the last time she has she ended up in the emergency room with her son with full poisoning.
1:30:41
And so she sits in front of the dollar store and she, you know, begs people for not money but for food.
1:30:49
For her kids.
1:30:50
And and that's heartbreaking because if she was the exception and not the rule, then I you know, it's sad, but the fact that she is part of the rule is is to me an indication of how badly we are, you know, failing these these children.
1:31:07
And regardless of whatever people may think of the adults that are making the decisions, they're not, you know, migrating here for what whatever their own personal reasons are.
1:31:15
These children are innocent, and and they are being, you know, re traumatized every single time that we have that we're forcing them to leave school, every single time that we're forcing them to leave a place that they now call home, every single time that they think that they're gonna have to sleep on the street because they don't have anywhere else to go because nobody did diligence to ensure that they had a place to go and just assume that they may.
1:31:36
So now they have to continuously rotate through the system.
1:31:39
I don't I can't justify that.
1:31:42
And and and I just have to say that because I don't you know, I I like I wanna be able to sleep at night and not feel like I was completed in a system that allow these injustices to happen.
1:31:53
And I'm I'm a mother.
1:31:55
My mother struggled with us as we were, you know, growing up.
1:31:58
We were, you know, very poor.
1:32:00
We were in shelter.
1:32:02
The tier 2 that we lived in is on Houston and Columbia still there.
1:32:05
We moved in when it was brand new.
1:32:09
And I remember what I felt like as a child.
1:32:12
And I just, you know, whatever the politics and the reasoning and the money and there's no justification for or putting young children out on the street.
1:32:27
You know?
1:32:27
And even in the adults with the adult migrants, I get it.
1:32:32
It's a you know, we may look at that a little bit differently, but I worked with a migrant, you know, with with 2 migrant young men.
1:32:39
And it took me months to be able to get them an ID, to be able to get them an attorney that they could see so that they can start their paperwork, so that they can get their working papers.
1:32:48
So is a process that should be started on day 1.
1:32:51
Right?
1:32:51
So that then we're at least ensuring that they're exiting with the resources that they need to be successful.
1:32:58
In that journey, right, that we keep hearing about.
1:33:01
So, you know, I just I had to say that.
1:33:03
I'm sorry that I
