WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) will tour the Karnes County Residential Center and the South Texas Family Residential Center outside of San Antonio, Texas next week. Both facilities house a large number of families caught in our broken immigration system. Rep. Grijalva will use this opportunity to see the conditions families face firsthand, and to highlight concerns raised by the fact that private companies operate both facilities for profit.

Rep. Grijalva is a prominent advocate for the needs of families and children ensnared in our immigration system.

• In December 2014, he led 59 House Democrats in sending a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell expressing concern over the lack of adequate protection against discrimination and sexual assault for unaccompanied minors in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

• For Mothers’ Day this year, he wrote an article recognizing the hundreds of mothers held in family detention centers just like the ones he will visit next week.

• On May 27^th, he joined 135 of his Democratic colleagues, including Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, in sending a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson expressing deep concerns with the Department’s “continued detention of mothers and children in secure, jail-like facilities.”

• On June 17^th, Grijalva sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch requesting a thorough and public investigation into allegations of mistreatment of detainees at Eloy Detention Center outside of Phoenix, Arizona, which allegedly led to the deaths of two detainees.

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