>> Situation at the border is a daily series of tragedies.
And in many cases these tragedies involve very large numbers, numbers of people being
held, numbers of families being separated.
We've got a tragedy for you today that involves a number two, two individuals that I wanna
tell you about.
One is Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, who is frustrated because his family from El Salvador
was unable to present themselves to US authorities and request asylum.
So he chose to swim across the river on the border on Sunday with his daughter, Valeria.
He set her around the US bank of the river and started back for his wife Tanya Vanessa
Avalos.
But seeing him move away the girl threw herself into the waters.
Martinez returned for her and was able to grab her but the current swept them both away.
And they both tragically died while trying to exercise their 100% legal right to apply
for asylum in the United States.
A right that has become increasingly difficult to exercise because of choices made by Donald
Trump and his administration.
We wanna show you the picture to drive home how serious this tragedy is, but we wanna
warn you that this is obviously incredibly graphic.
And with that warning, here's the photo that has been running since this morning.
Those are two people who were fleeing horrific circumstances in their home country and just
wanted to come to the United States because they believed, I hope not 100% falsely, that
a better life, potentially, awaits them here.
That has been the dream of the United States, if not the reality, for literally centuries.
But now we have people in power that are trying to make sure that that is not the case.
And so situations like this, well, they can't be directly linked to any one action or 100%
natural consequences of the choices our country has made in terms of our immigration policy.
Now sad is that images, I wanna show you one that in hindsight seems even sadder a photo
of the family together.
Here, you can see all three father mother and two year old child as well.
And think about if the situation had been differently.
If we had been a little more inviting in this country, how much we could've been strengthened
as a society by having those three beautiful people be a part of America.
But we chose to go a different direction in our country.
>> Yeah.
>> So sorry, obviously incredibly dark material, but that's the situation.
>> It's so much darker than even just the picture.
I can't stop thinking about this mom watched this happened.
>> Yeah.
>> And this little girl like drowning to death, and like things like suffocating like those
have to be the most horrific.
Like slow deaths ever.
And the two-year old, an almost two-year old had to suffer that.
And also, a part of this that I think is important about this story is that I was reading this
in a bunch of articles having stated that he was unable, the family was unable to apply
for asylum.
And so I started thinking why actually found an article that had the information.
They had gone to the bridge.
Remember we hear constantly this talk about you've gotta go to the appropriate ports of
entry.
You have to do it the legal way.
They did that, and guess what?
They were told this port is closed, come back after the weekend.
>> Yeah.
>> And so they have nowhere to go.
They're stuck in Mexico and they want to apply for asylum so they were forced to swim, they
were forced by the government that had the bridge that they're saying come to shut down.
What do you do when someone tries to do it the way your asking for and then you find
a way to shut that down?
This is horrible.
And I wish that we didn't have to consistently see graphic images like that to care.
Long time ago when somebody said, hey, this is bad, that's it, that's all they should
have taken.
Because you should just care about humans.
But it has to come to a point where you have to shake people by showing them that.
That's horrible.
I think we're better than that.
We should be.
>> I think it's about the point of entry and breaking through the apathy.
My heart is absolutely broken every time I watch people demonize families for trying
to provide better for their own.
You have to ask yourself what conditions are taking place on the land for a family with
the child to deem the caution of the water as safer?
And I think that these stories aren't new.
I think the national conversation around these stories are definitely opening people's eyes
up to the xenophobia and racism that exists in the United States.
I had the pleasure and a joy of going down to the border when Trump and the administration
met families seeking asylum with tear gas.
And we went to camp.
And we took diapers, and food, and medication, and tents.
And anything they will possibly need to make that journey from Mexico into the United States
a lot better.
It's so difficult because this morning I was walking the dog and there are seven brown
children who live next door and they're all under five years old.
And they came up to the dog and started playing with the dog and one of them was telling me
about his pet bird and I went into the house and I immediately started bawling because
I don't see how people can see the babies here any different from the babies at the
border.
They all deserve a childhood.
They all deserve better opportunities.
They all deserve to live in safe conditions and I think that when I see people even like
Nancy Pelosi talk about, well, we'll try to work through this and we'll figure out a way.
It's simple impeachment when we do not stand up for what's right and when we do not exercise
our social responsibility to stand up for not just all Americans but all human beings
who inhabit US soil and surrounding.
We're supposed to be the world leader and I don't see that now.
>> Yeah, and instead we're allowing Donald Trump to have the policy he wants.
And it necessitates these sorts of outcomes.
When you tell people, as you pointed out, you have to go to ports of entry, even though
you don't, that's not a legal requirement.
You can go literally anywhere you want.
They tell them that so that it's easier to deny them because now it's not just, they
got in, we have to hear them out.
We could just put up a gate here, and then we're gonna turn them away.
The policy is to force people to wait for weeks or months in Mexico, people who I know
you probably assume have tons of money, tons of resources, it turns out actually they don't.
It's designed to cause them to lose hope and turned back.
And if that means that some of them get robbed or assaulted or raped or murdered while they're
waiting, that's how you make an omelet, I guess, that is the policy.
The policy is designed to create suffering as we point it out.
>> These two there's, I'm so sorry, there's also people aren't realizing I heard this
first hand.
When some of the families take an asylum in the US, that there are a US vigilantes, people
who had taken weapons >> Mm-hm.
>> And they're going into the desert, they're going near the border, they're hunting people
who are seeking asylum, so many of these families, they're thinking, if we can get to that bridge
or if we can get to the border, we have an opportunity, but they're also aware that there
are people that are hunting their lives out there.
>> Yeah, absolutely, we already talked about, was it New Mexico or Arizona, the self-professed
leader of the Militia was arrested and later were able to find out that the border patrol
there was allowing it to happen this behavior.
They were kinda like knowing what was going on, watching it, and just not doing anything
about it.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah and look, obviously, this image incredibly effects you you can't help it.
But those are not the only individuals that have died in recent weeks, two babies, a toddler
and a woman were found dead in the sweltering heat, three children and adult from Honduras
died in April after the raft capsized on the Rio Grande.
A six year old from India was found dead earlier this month in Arizona, where temperatures
routinely soar well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
And we know that a number of children in our custody have died in facilities where there
is literally no reason for them to die.
So they're safer to some extent if they can get across the border and be taken by Border
Patrol but not necessarily out of the woods there.
And although it is exhausting day after day to try to get but to tell people who have
no empathy, to feel empathy and to tell people who refuse to use common sense to have it,
and they will say, why are they doing this?
Why are they risking, like, imagine doing something that could result in your two-year-old
daughter dying.
Don't just say that, actually imagine it.
What would the situation at home have to be to get you to do that?
Does anyone seriously believe that, they just really want social security, that's why they're
willing to see their children drown, that I just wanna take some of our resources.
That's why they're willing to be victimized along the way for literally thousands of miles.
No, people only leave when the situation is scarier at home.
There's a poem I saw section someone had tweeted out where it's like, people only put their
kids on boats if they fear the land more than the water.
They would not do this unless if they had any alternative, and they don't, and now they
don't even have the natural alternative of being able to turn to the United States, the
richest society in the history of humans, to help them.
>> And why are we pretending, it only goes as far back as their familly tree.
When I see all of these wealthy white people talking about them coming over here and them
creating problems and bringing diseases and bringing crime, all of England and Europe's
most notorious criminals piled onto a boat, came over here, raped, pillaged, committed
genocide, inflamed-.
>> And it just, I don't understand how we don't see history repeating itself and how
also we're not taking a look at the nuances here like, I don't understand there are no
substantial facts around how immigration is harmful to the US.
What it does show is an uptick in our economy.
It does show that they have contributed not just this year, not just last year, but for
generations, for hundreds of years, they have contributed to the American economy.
So I haven't heard anybody really talk about the harm.
>> Yeah, and yeah, it is important to note.
Kids don't even wanna leave their parents' home to go to college.
>> Nobody wants to leave their home, just thinking about how sad that is, they don't
want to leave their homes, they have to.
And another part of this that just makes it awful is, we do know how bad things are, but
it's making them want to leave, need to leave, because we are the reason why things are so
bad.
>> Thank you.
>> Our history books are, but- >> They're really history.
>> Well, we are the reason, this country is the reason why a lot of these countries, where
they are now or in the state they are now?
What people are mean to flee them?
>> Yeah.
>> Because that's something that we did.
>> Yeah, yeah, it's the international version of the sorts of policies that result in gated
communities.
This making these people suffer long enough and eventually if we're getting enough guns
and big enough walls, they probably wouldn't have to deal with that, right?
Now when I give you the update as of today, there was effort in D.C. to try to put some
money into the situation.
And so the House and the Senate have both passed bills.
The bills are not the same however.
We're talking about similar amounts of money.
One is $4.5 billion, one is $4.6 billion.
But the actual wording of the bills are very different in terms of how much leeway the
Trump administration would have to use the money in the way that they want.
Now some members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus
oppose the Senate bill that was passed, arguing it allows the administration too much leeway
to spend the money on purposes they oppose.
The bill passed Tuesday by the house, includes stricter conditions on facilities that hold
migrants and excludes money for the Defense Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Agency contained in the Senate Bill.
Now, what was really interesting is, the house version was almost a total party line.
It was almost no crossover Democrat and Republican in terms of who voted for it.
The Republican leadership in the Senate says the house bills and obvious non-starter anyway
the restrictions that they put in there are necessary because we're only gonna use the
money for the things that we say we're going to, we put the why are you fighting against
the legal requirement to do that.
If you don't want to put this money secretly into building a wall, or God knows what.
Why are you fighting against the requirement that you do what you say you're gonna do willingly?
>> Right, it's always like that.
That's always the situation.
We just don't want that written down.
What?
>> We just oppose long bills.
>> Right.
>> I guess.
And so as of right now, we don't know.
There's not that much time before a ten day recess in D.C., and so it's possible that
they could do reconciliation between the two bills.
It's possible that you could see the senate or the house blink.
Or it's possible that nothing could happen and the money doesn't get spent.