What you’re listening to, are the sounds that have been missing from the policy debate
around immigration.
From the ones with the most at stake: children who’ve been forcibly separated from their parents.
It's a recording that was made from inside of a Border Patrol facility, of children who
have been separated recently from their parents
after having crossed the border without documents
into the United States.
That’s Ginger Thompson, the ProPublica reporter who obtained this secretly recorded clip from
a Texas civil rights attorney.
They were between the ages of four and ten.
All of the children on this recording are
from Central American countries.
There's a 6 year old Salvadoran girl on the clip.
Her name is Alison Jimena Valencia Madrid.
She was just finishing kindergarten back in El Salvador.
Her mother decided to flee gang violence.
She has family in the United States.
In this tape she is distraught
and asks authorities to let her make a phone call.
She wants to
call her aunt.
There are around 2,300 kids who have been separated from their parents,
since what’s known as
the "zero tolerance" policy was started by the administration in April.
The zero tolerance policy calls for all people who illegally cross the border, even if they're
crossing for the first time,
to be criminally prosecuted and that their children or any
children that they brought with them will be separated during that time.
They're being held initially in these border patrol facilities,
but then they move into facilities that are controlled by Health and Human Services.
The United States will not be a migrant camp.
We do not have the luxury of pretending that all individuals coming to this country
as a family unit, are in fact a family.
This administration has a simple message: if you cross the border illegally,
we will prosecute you.
The backlash to this policy has been swift and sharp.
People with very diverse political views on every other thing seem to have come together
to condemn this policy.
I don't think we should obey a law that goes against what God intends,
that you would take a baby, a child.
It's terrible to see families ripped apart and I don't support that one bit.
We do have to find the middle ground of somehow, you know,
honoring the law of the land,
but showing mercy to the immigrant.
The administration has sort of been struggling to respond.
I would cite you to the apostle Paul,
in his clear and wise command in
Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government.
It is very biblical to enforce the law,
that is actually repeated a number of times throughout the Bible.
Have you heard the audio clip of these children wailing
that just came out today?
I have not seen something that came out today,
but I have been to detention centers
and again, I would reference you to our standards.
The image of this country that you want out there, children –
the image that I want of this country is an immigration system that
secures our borders and upholds our humanitarian ideals.
Congress needs to fix it.
We're not the ones responsible for creating this problem,
we've inherited it, but we're actually the first administration stepping up
and trying to fix it.
The Trump administration blames the previous administration for this policy.
But the Obama administration did conduct a record number of deportations,
but that administration
did not prosecute people criminally for crossing the border for the first time
nor did it separate
children from their parents at the time of the crossing.
Facing the backlash, the administration opened up tightly controlled tours of the facilities.
This is handout footage from the government.
Cameras are tightly restricted for journalists.
And the children being detained are not allowed to speak to them.
They can be sort of sanitized, very sterile experiences that show you what the shelter
looks like, but when it comes to children,
gives you very little sense of
what impact being there has on them.
For now, this clip is the closest we've gotten to hearing from the children.
The Salvadoran girl who asked for the phone call with her aunt
actually got that phone call.
I dialed that number as well and was able to speak to the aunt.
You know, the aunt was was devastated by this phone call and said to me, you know,
can you imagine getting a phone call from your 6 year old niece who is screaming into the
phone and saying you know
Please Auntie, please. I'll behave myself, just come get me out of here,
because I'm alone.
Thanks for watching.
We want to keep reporting this story
and talking to families who have been affected.
So, has your family been separated at the US-Mexico border?
Or do you work in a border detention facility
or aid families who've been affected by this policy?
If so, contact us at the link in the description below.