home of the "Pbs newshour."
Jeff: We take a look at an
18-month invtigation into
president trump's zero-tolerance
immigration policy.
We need to take away children --
the secret history of the U.S.
Government's family separation
story.
That's the cover story of the
latest issue of "The atlantic"
magazine.
Children were separated from
their parents with no tracking
process that would allow them to
be reunited.
I spoke with "Atlantic's" staff
writer Caitlin Dickerson about
her piece.
>> The focus was on Jeff
sessions and Kiersten Nielsen,
the attorney general and
homeland secretary at the time,
but I discovered the idea came
from the head of ice under the
trump administration, but he has
been in border enforcement for
decades.
He came up with the idea to
separate families as a deterrent
for migration.
He first proposed it during the
Obama administration.
At the time, Jeh Johnson, the
former security secretary, said
no, declined to proceed.
He posed the idea again under
trump on it was ultimately
approved.
Jeff: Fullback the curtain on
the bureaucracy.
You say there were factions
within the trump administration.
The careerists, more moderate
types, and then you had the
hawks, and then you also had
Stephen Miller, the hardline
immigration senior advisor known
for espousing white nationalist
ideologies.
Give us a sense of how all those
competing groups within the
administration were talking
about this policy.
>> It is really no surprise that
people well known for their
hawkish views on immigration
were pushing for really harsh
enforcement policies, including
separation of families, but one
of the most interesting things I
took away from the story was the
degree to which people who held
apolitical roles, who had served
under presidents both Republican
and Democrat, also went along
with zero-tolerance, sometimes
without fully realizing it at
the time.
Some of them told me he
remembered being in meetings
about separating families or
about prosecuting parents in a
way they knew would require
parents to be separated from
their children, but they would
say it was not strategic at the
time to speak up or push back
against Miller given how much
influence he had over the
president.
Others told me they thought the
idea was so outlandish that it
would never be approved.
Unfortunately, as a result of
that, you have a series of
conversations that take place
over the course of two years and
many discussions and
opportunities people had to push
back and just did not take those
opportunities.
That's how policy ends up making
it over the finish line and into
the implementation stage.
Jeff: You also paint a picture
of the lasting damage, the
trauma that has befallen
families.
You talked to a 36-year-old
farmer from the islands of
Guatemala who crossed the border
with his five-year-old daughter.
What did he tell you?
>> I met him in 2018 over the
phone after he had been deported
back to Guatemala without his
daughter.
He was one of many parents who
were told that if they agree to
their deportation they would get
their children back, and of
course they did not.
Reunification did not start in
earnest until they were mandated
in a federal court case.
At that point, many families had
already been separated for
months.
Of course now, some families are
still separated and have been so
for years.
He was completely inconsolable
when we first spoke.
It was hard for him to even
focus on the conversation we
were having because he just
wanted answers, you know?
He had very little information.
His family is living on four
dollars a week, if that.
He did not have a TV to get
information.
He was sometimes relying on
radio reports to try to figure
out where his daughter was and
when he was getting her back and
even today when I interviewed
him for the story, she
immediately burst into tears,
and you think about what
happened even though so much
time has passed.
This experience is still with
them every day.
Jeff: As I was reporting from
the white house covering the
trump administration, one of the
things I found hardest to do was
to get a sense from border
patrol agents who were the ones
on the ground actually removing
-- in some cases forcibly
tearing migrants' kids away from
them come from her parents --
how they were able to do that,
why they did that, even though
it was stated policy.
>> Would hear very dramatic
stories from children and
families and then talk to the
administration and hear that
everything was going very
smoothly, very humanely, that
clear communication was taking
place, so you had these two
completely covered and accounts
of what was going on.
We did not get access to the
facilities.
We were not allowed to watch
what happened.
I work hard to get other
first-hand accounts of
separations.
I eventually connected with a
salvadoran consular worker who
was based in a processing center
in south Texas, one of the
biggest processing centers in
the country.
She watched hundreds of
separations take place and said
she is still shaken today by
what she saw, a sea of parents
and children being pulled apart,
all at the same time in this
incredibly chaotic fashion.
Children were being pulled on
one arm by a border patrol
agent, on the other arm by their
parent, screaming and crying.
She says she is still haunted by
the sounds of the facility
today.
She spent a lot of time in the
cells where separated children
were being held and they would
grab onto her legs, grab onto
her belt, anything they could to
just beg her for information and
ask her not to leave them alone
at the end of the day because
they were so confused about what
was going on and so shocked.
Jeff: At the end of the day,
what does accountability look
like?
I remember asking then candidate
Joe Biden and he said that the
trump administration for its
policy needed to be held to
account.
So far, the administration has
not done that.
What they have done is try to
reunite as many families as they
can, but you interviewed sec.
Mayorkas.
>> He told me that
accountability falls to the doj.
As you know, the doj has
actually been defending family
separation in court in civil
litigation brought by families
seeking damages.
There are cases against
government agencies involved as
well as individual officials,
and doj represents both cases.
You are really not seeing any
efforts at this point made
toward holding accountable those
who are responsible, and at the
same time, there is no law
saying that family separations
could not start again tomorrow.
The Biden administration has
made it clear that is not what
they plan to do, but there are
lots of Republican potential
candidates in 2024, including
president trump, who still
believe in this idea and would
like to see it reimplemented.
Jeff: Your story is exhaustive.
Thank you for joining us.