(silence)
- (reporter) It is a scene many Americans are struggling
to make sense of.
Chained link fences, cages, temporarily holding
more than 1,000 immigrants. - Oh, I know what this is.
- It's the children being taken away from their parents
because they're immigrants.
- I've heard about this.
It's been all over the news for a pretty good amount of time.
- (reporter) ...many of them children, here in McAllen, Texas,
at the central processing center, one of America's...
- This is really bad.
- (reporter) ...processing facilities.
- Why are they in tin foil?
- (reporter) Wrapped in mylar blankets with the means to stay warm.
- That's so sad.
They're not even real blankets.
- (reporter) These images released today by U.S. Customs
and Border Protection are among the few visuals
we have that provide a glimpse into America's immigration crisis.
It is images like these that have now become
a flash point in the Trump administration's
zero-tolerance policy, calling for parents and children
to be separated if the parents have crossed the border illegally.
- That's bad!
- This is very, very sad.
- (reporter) In a recording first obtained by Pro Publica,
you can hear the desperate sobbing of children.
- (child sobbing) - That is sad!
They should be kept with their parents.
- It makes it more real to you, what's really happening
to these poor children.
- (child sobbing)
- Oh my gosh.
- (reporter) President Trump today staunchly defended
his administration's immigration-- - I believe Trump
is a good guy, though.
- (Trump) The United States will not be a migrant camp.
- It doesn't have to be! At least help the children.
Like, come on!
- (reporter) And as the fight rages on,
and with policy makers at odds, it is the experience of those
detained children that is of greatest concern.
- That would be so scary, to be away from your parents
for that long.
I can't even be alone. I can't even stay home alone.
- I would be heartbroken if I was separated by my mom.
- You still have to respect him, but he's making
the most dumbest decisions in the whole world.
- He's saying, "Oh, I'm not doing this on purpose.
They're the ones doing this." But I don't think that's true
because just because they're crossing the border
doesn't mean they have to be in jail.
- People come here to be safe but, really, when they come here,
if they have children, they get taken away from their children.
This really, really, really needs to change.
- (children crying)
- Oh...
- I would be scared, too.
- (children sobbing)
- (adult speaking in Spanish) - Wow.
- That is rude!
- (reporter) These are children crying for their parents
at a detention center, children who have been separated
from their parents, don't know where their parents are,
scared kids.
If you've ever heard a kid cry like that,
you'd know where that comes from. That's fear.
- (sighing) I just think that it's horrible what they're doing
to these children. It's not their fault.
- My grandparents are immigrants.
They're not illegal, but my mom, I feel like she would be
really sad to be taken away from them,
and I would be very sad to be taken away
from my mom and I don't think it's really fair.
- The guy said, "We have an orchestra here."
I just thought that was rude.
- I knew there was some kind of crisis,
but I never realized how bad it was.
- This can't keep happening.
I really don't want it to be like, oh, brushed to the side
because another thing happens.
We need to focus on something, get our policies straight,
and then we can focus on another thing and fix that.
- (Trump) We're signing an executive order.
I consider it to be a very important executive order.
- Okay.
- (Trump) It's about keeping families together,
while at the same time, being sure that we have
a very powerful, very strong border and border security.
- What he means by borders is what people think
is that big wall.
- (Trump) So we're gonna have strong, very strong borders,
but we're going to keep the families together.
I didn't like the sight or the feeling of families
being separated-- - So why'd he agree to it
if he didn't like the feeling?
- (Trump) And it continues to be a zero-tolerance--
we have zero-tolerance for people that enter our country illegally.
- Well, what he said was better.
- That's very nice of him because it's sad
when you take away a child from their parents,
and the child doesn't even know where their parents are going.
- I'm happy he changed his mind and I'm happy he's ended the policy.
I feel like he's kind of making it seem like,
"I've always been-- I've always never wanted this
to ever happen."
It's like you did kind of-- you are okay with this.
- (FBE) So from what you saw, why do you think
they're doing this to people who are trying to get
into the United States? - Um, to be honest, I have no idea,
but they shouldn't have even thought of this.
- I don't even know why he would ever think about
putting them in cages and stuff like that.
That's what you do to animals in a zoo.
If you don't want them to come in here illegally,
and you're kicking them out back into Mexico,
then at least have their kids be with them.
- They're definitely trying to discourage illegal immigrants,
but I don't think that's the way to do it.
They're trying to treat a symptom with more illnesses.
- If Donald Trump stopped it, he wouldn't have stopped it
because he wants immigrants to stop coming in.
He probably would have kept it going if it stopped them.
- The parents crossed illegally
and illegal's not the right thing to do
and they think that kids should not follow
the influence of the parents by doing this,
but it's really not the kid's fault at all.
It's more of the government's.
- (FBE) So this is being done because of a big issue
that is going on in the United States that is called illegal immigration.
- Illegal immigration?
- (FBE) Do you know what that means?
- Nope. I know the word "illegal" means it's against the law.
- It's where Mexican people come to the United States
without doing their U.S. citizen paper, stuff like that.
- Illegally cross the border, but I don't think
they should be arrested for that and put in cages because
it just doesn't feel right.
They're just desperate to get out of their state
and then you put them in cages? What's wrong with you, Trump?
- Illegal immigration is when someone from another country
goes to-- well, not just America, but you go to another country
without having a green card or a permit to work and live there.
I have family in Mexico, so we talk about it a little bit.
- (FBE) So to give you a bit more background,
there are legal ways to be allowed to enter the United States
and also illegal ways of trying to sneak in
and not following the law and trying to move here.
Why do you think that there are people
who want to come to the United States so badly
that they'd break the law instead of trying to follow the law?
- Because, well, they're desperate because of something.
Because this is America.
This is the home of the brave and land of the free.
Everybody wants to live here.
- Some of them are living in places that are way worse
than what it is over here, that they just want to be safer.
They don't want their children or their family to be in danger.
- I heard on the news that people were being treated badly
in other countries and want to come to a better country.
You should at least say please and stuff
and say you're being treated badly. They might change their mind.
- (FBE) So as you saw in the videos, there have been many cases
coming out of families who are trying to get into the country
illegally and are not being allowed in
and being detained since it is breaking the law,
and they are sometimes separating children from their parents
and keeping them detained separately. - I'm speechless.
This is really, really bad.
- America has a really bad reputation with other countries
because they're like, "Oh, if you go to America,
you'll get help," but if you go to America,
you might get deported or detained.
- We do not look like a friendly country, I would say,
because if we're detaining people from their children,
it doesn't really look great.
- (FBE) Why do you think that they would make that choice?
- I have no idea because what they're doing is basically evil.
- If they think that the president is going to be making
laws like this, then they might not want
to do stuff like going into the country.
- I don't think they do it more for the kids
but more for the adults to say, hey, you came to America
so now this is your fault that you didn't come in legally,
so we're gonna take your kids from you now.
- If their parents made that decision and they knew what was gonna happen,
then at least keep them together and kick them out of here together
because it's worse to separate them and children crying.
- (FBE) Now people have been coming into the country illegally
for many years. This is not a new problem.
So in an effort to stop it, President Trump and his administration
for a period of time had been allowing this to be done to families.
Some people felt it's the right thing to do
because it's important for our country to protect itself from people
breaking the law because you need to follow the laws
and many people enter legally and follow the law.
- Well, it is kind of important to keep our country safe
but at the same time, you really shouldn't separate families.
- I haven't thought about that side yet,
but I think now that I've heard of it, it was parents' fault
because if they did their U.S. citizen paperwork,
none of this would happen.
They would be with their children right now.
- Sometimes they just don't want foreigners who they don't know
who really they are to come in because then the criminals
would hear about it.
They cause a lot of problems and now we can't kick them out anymore
because we don't have the laws anymore.
- (FBE) On top of that, people worry that if we don't know
who's coming into the country, bad people could come in
and then might commit crimes or take work away
from legal people in the country and things of that nature.
- Why do you care if they take work? Just find another job.
Find the nearest McDonalds. They're always for hire.
- There's a slight possibility of a bad person coming in,
but most people just want a good life in America.
- Of course, we need to make America safe
from people like terrorists who might come in
and might want to do bad things, but I feel like we should
also make it easier for people who are in bad living situations
back in their home country, so they can come to America,
which is, for some people, a place of opportunity.
- (FBE) So hearing a small bit of both sides,
what do you think?
- I think... why should you punish the kids?
I mean, you should punish only the parents
because it was their idea.
- It's not the kids' decision.
It's their parents' and I think they should stay together
and maybe just-- I know that it's not good for people
to be detained, but I mean, they should at least
just be together.
- I just don't like how they were separating
kids from their families, but now they're keeping them together--
but still I feel like people should be entering legally.
It'll cause less chaos.
- There's always a middle plane. There's always a gray.
I don't think they're doing the correct thing
by illegally crossing, but I don't think the right way
is to separate children from their family.
- (FBE) After hearing a lot of feedback from many people,
President Trump, as you saw, signed an executive order
ending the policy of children being separated from their parents
at the border. - So no more of doing that.
But it's that whole chunk of people that are in that detention center
are still in there.
- (FBE) So it's a little complicated, but this policy actually doesn't stop
holding children-- it means that they will just now be held
with their parents. - That's this much better,
but still they shouldn't be doing that.
- (FBE) Many people don't think that this solves the problem
since it's unclear how they are going to reunite
so many children who are right now still separated from their parents.
- I feel bad for the kids who are still separated.
- Why? They changed the policy already!
- (FBE) And also with other laws, children can only be held
for a short period of time, so they might still be
separated from their parents, even with the new law.
- I feel that Trump is just not up to this task.
- (FBE) Do you think that there's any answer
to this problem right now? - Well, I'm only seven,
so I'm not the president or anything.
I'm not even a class president yet.
- After all these people leave that detention center, no more.
- All you need to do is get more security
and you'll just stop the whole entire thing.
You won't need to detain anyone.
You won't need to separate anyone.
- Being a 10-year-old, I probably don't have the idea
that the president of the United States would have.
We need to at least have some things in mind
if you come here illegally, but it doesn't need
to be this crazy detaining you from your children.
- Maybe do more research of their background.
If they've done anything bad in their life.
- Just build a wall.
If it's bricks and it's flat, then they can't climb over it,
unless they have some gecko or flying powers.
- Anyone can jump a wall. That's not gonna stop anyone.
And it's gonna be so expensive.
The means to get this goal just have to be different.
They have to look for another way to do this.
- (FBE) So as we discussed, this illegal immigration issue
has been happening for years, long before President Trump
was in office.
We just talked about some of the reasons
that people don't want people coming into the country illegally,
and it's not just the United States that deals with this issue.
- Oh, really?
- (FBE) It is illegal to just live in any country
that you are not born in, and almost every country has
laws around how to live there legally.
Why do you think it's like that?
- I mean, people just don't want bad people coming into their country.
- It doesn't matter what race, color, or anything--
you're just a person. it's just countries.
I never really thought about that, but it's true.
We should all just be able to live in the same place.
- No country wants to not be able to control its borders.
They have their own economical climate and they can't just let anyone in.
It's unlawful and society wouldn't work that way,
if people just went out and you had no passports, no visas.
- (FBE) So finally, if you had an opportunity to talk to lawmakers
of the United States about this issue, what would you want them to know?
- I would want them to know that this is stupid.
- This seems very unfair because we were made of immigrants.
Trump's family probably in the past were immigrants.
Why can't we just let new immigrants in?
- It's not fair that these countries have to be hurt in such a bad way,
just because they're another race or from another country,
they should be taken away from their families or deported back.
- Try your very best to make us the nicest, the kindest way
that we could possibly be while still being strong
on immigration but not crazy detaining people.
- Lawmakers, they have control, but eventually, in a democracy,
people are the people who have control,
so if we don't like something, we can always change
who's making the laws and it's not the simplest task,
but if everyone bands together, it's possible.