Okay.
Sometimes it's easy to get a false sense of security as someone who knows that we are
in the United States legally with an American passport.
I was born in Argentina.
I came to the United States, my family had the a visa lottery.
Uh, and when I was 17 years old, because my parents were citizens, I was able to go to
the post office, fill out a passport application form and that made me an American citizen.
So I have a level of comfort, uh, when I'm talking to police officers or people from
border patrol, if I'm traveling down near the southern border or whatever, um, that
is warranted in the sense that I know I'm here legally, but at the same time it can
be a false sense of security.
We all the time hear horror stories about migrants who are detained for days without
soap, without a toothbrush.
But we sometimes think it could never happen to us because we are here legally.
And then we hear about and nine year old US citizen with her passport who was detained
by border patrol for 32 hours in March.
We had one story last week like this, so if an 18 year old American citizen, a Francisco
Erwin Galicia who was determined the detained by a border patrol transferred to ice held
for three weeks, even though he had documents on his person that proved he was born in Texas
within four hours of the Dallas morning news reporting about it, Galicia was free.
The explanation, it was a so-called bureaucratic mix-up.
Regardless whether detainees do or don't have American citizenship, they shouldn't be held
without a shower for 23 days like Galicia was.
It's UNAMERICAN and it's immoral and it is the antithesis of what this country is supposed
to be, but it's even worse.
We've now learned of a nine year old girl who in March was detained by border patrol
for 32 hours even though she was a US citizen.
I'm talking about Julia Medina.
She's American.
Her family lives in Mesut, Mexico.
They cross the border to go to school each day.
She and her 14 year old brother were detained by border patrol.
She had her passport on her, but border patrol said the picture on the passport doesn't really
look like her.
She was questioned at nine years old without her parents present.
When border patrol was asked, why did it take 32 hours to confirm her legal status as an
American citizen?
So far as of an hour ago, border patrol has not had an explanation.
Border Patrol tried to have Julia's 14 year old brother sign a document which said, actually
Juliette is his cousin, not his sister, insinuating some kind of human trafficking angle to the
entire fiasco, which of course is untrue.
It was indeed his sister.
Border Patrol also said Julia provided inconsistent information during her questioning.
She's nine years old, that she first say pizza's her favorite food and later said that it's
hot dogs.
She's nine years old being questioned by law enforcement without her parents.
Eventually Julia's mother was able to get the help of the Mexican consulate who contacted
American immigration authorities.
So I'm not telling you this story to suggest that this would be okay if Julia really wasn't
a citizen, right?
This is a moral crisis of the highest level, no matter what the nationality of the kids
that are being detained is.
What I'm trying to point out to you is that first of all, of course, this is hugely racially
tinge.
She's American with a passport, but she's non White Hispanic, crossing the border from
Mexico.
Secondly, if you're angry about how she was treated, realize that it's just as bad for
a nine year old without an American passport to be treated this way.
It's really easy for us to sit back and not react strongly when we're told, listen, a
lot of these kids in cages and kids being detained and questioned by law enforcement,
with no lawyers or parents, a lot of them are here illegally.
They're not American citizens.
These are children.
They're not deciding things for themselves.
If you're horrified by this story of the nine year old US citizen, Julia Medina, you should
be just as horrified by the stories of non-citizen kids as well.
Understand the gravity of the direction that we are going here.
This isn't just becoming a papers please society that we're developing.
It's one where even with the papers, it doesn't help you.
Like it didn't help Julia Medina because apparently as a nine year old, based on the combination
of her quote inconsistent answers and coming over the border and not looking like the picture
on her passport, even then the papers were not good enough to prevent a 32 hours attention
of a nine year old by immigration authorities.
I don't know what the solution is here it is.
I mean, yes, it's obviously getting rid of Donald Trump and changing the policy around
a lot of what is going on, but that's not the solution in and of itself.
This is a much bigger problem.
Uh, make sure to follow the David Pakman show on Instagram where we have a poll about this
issue at David Pakman show on Instagram.
And while
you're there, follow me