The Daily - Father and Son, Forced Apart at the Border

Episode Date: June 20, 2018

A 5-year-old boy named José and his father fled the violence in Honduras and headed to the United States. They were separated at the border. What has happened to them in the weeks since? Guest: Miriam Jordan, who covers immigration for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, a five-year-old boy named Jose and his father fled the violence in Honduras and headed for the United States. They were separated at the border. What's happened to both father and son in the weeks since? It's Wednesday, June 20th.

So when Jose and his dad arrive at the border, they meet the Trump administration's new zero-tolerance policy. Every migrant trying to cross into the United States illegally is treated like a criminal. Miriam Jordan covers immigration for The Times. So Jose's dad goes to detention, and Jose gets put on a plane to Michigan to stay with a foster parent who has agreed to take him in.

So what does that actually look like? Well, what it looks like is Jose and two other minors arrive with an escort after midnight at an airport in Michigan. Jose's exhausted. He merges with this trash bag that's stuffed with his dirty clothes from his long trek across Mexico to reach the border and two small pieces of paper. One is a stick figure drawing of his family from Honduras. The other is a sketch of his father

who had been arrested and led away from him shortly before. So these are two drawings that he's made. Well, he actually didn't make the drawings. The drawings were made, according to Jose's account, by una señora. So we don't know if this was someone who was on the journey with him and with his father, or if it was a U.S. official who helped Jose initially.

We just don't know. But there were drawings of his family and of his dad, and he's holding on to them as he gets off the plane. Yes, and he's holding on to them for his dear life. And who is there to meet him when he gets off this plane? He's met by an American woman named Janice. He gets off the plane and she stretches out her hand to him and he won't take it. He won't touch her hand? He wants nothing to do with her. Of course, he was really tired and confused. He won't let go of the pictures. For the first few days, he can't be soothed. He tosses and turns. He can't sleep through the night. He alternates between crying and moaning.

He refused to take off the clothes he'd arrived in for several days. And as Janice sees it, for several days. And as Janice sees it, it's because he didn't want anyone taking anything away from him that connected him to the past of being with his father and his own family. So does she eventually get him to change his clothes? Yes, eventually he allows her to peel off his socks and his oversized yellow T-shirt and navy blue sweatpants and gray fleece pullover, bathes him, and he follows directions. But as Janice put it, he kept up a little wall. And what happens over the next few days? Well, Jose starts to get acclimated to his temporary home, and he begins attending a multi-age kindergarten. He's there with other Spanish-speaking migrant children. He begins to play. He plays soccer and catch, but he's still asking about

his family and his father every single day. And he still won't let go of those pictures. I mean, he tucks the pictures under his pillow each night. In fact, Janice became worried that they were so afraid that they were going to tear, so she convinced him to let her laminate them, which she does at one point. Janice told me a story about something that happened one night when she was putting him to bed. Suddenly, Jose announces, I'm going with my papa on Saturday. And Janice stops and thinks and doesn't know exactly how to respond. And then gathers herself and says, you know, mi amor, I don't think it will be this Saturday. We still have to get some information about where your dad is so that we can call him.

And then we'll see. So Jose listens and asks her to please stay in the room because I don't want to be alone. So who are these families, like Janice and her family, that take in children like Jose? What is this system? So across the country, the government contracts nonprofits that specialize in placing children with foster families. Many of these, like Catholic Charities and Lutheran Family Services or Bethany Christian Services, in the case of Jose, have programs that are specifically for unaccompanied minors who have come across the border since their numbers began to surge in 2013-2014. So Janice's family had participated in that program before.

So the system that was created to deal with children who came to the United States alone as unaccompanied minors under President Obama is now being used to deal with children who are being made into unaccompanied minors by the Trump administration's policy of separating them from their parents. Correct. This system is now tapping into its network of families and recruiting new families to accommodate the children who have been separated from their parents at the border. role as being this place of refuge for unaccompanied minors, but who is now being given children who are being separated from their parents. Right. Jose is the first child that the family has taken in who crossed the border with a parent rather than alone, and then was forcibly separated from the parent. Jose

has no idea where his father is. He doesn't know when he will see him or talk to him again. And Jose is much younger than most of the other unaccompanied minors they hosted. Those unaccompanied minors knew they had family in the United States. They had come across the border alone with a piece of paper or having memorized the telephone number of their family members. They knew they were going to meet on arrival in the United States, or at least shortly after their arrival. In this case, there's so many unanswered questions. They don't even know where his dad is. Everything is so opaque currently. I mean, even senior administration officials have said that they're not sure how many children have been reunited with their parents after being separated

from them. And there are so many different agencies involved in this process. There's the Department of Homeland Security. There's Health and Human Services. There's the Department of Justice. And those agencies are not necessarily all talking to each other. And things can fall through the cracks. Children can fall through the cracks. So is the more common practice right now that children are going to these government facilities that we've been seeing about and hearing about, and that foster care, like what Jose is entering, is a less common outcome? It's hard for me to judge because there haven't been any numbers supplied by the government in terms of this many kids are in our facilities

and that many kids are in foster care. But I do believe that the more common practice is to keep children in these licensed shelters or facilities that are independently run. Jose might've also ended up with a foster family because he's so young. It's hard to know for sure. My hunch is that it's because he's on the young side and they prefer to place younger kids in a more intimate setting. In addition, the government facilities are packed. They're at 95% capacity plus. But it could also be that Jose was extremely distressed by the separation when it occurred and shortly after, prompting authorities to prefer a more intimate or smaller family environment that would be more nurturing. So at this point, Jose has been apart from his father for several weeks now.

Has there been any contact between he and his dad? I think about 10 days or so after he arrived in Michigan, he spoke with his parents for the first time. The phone calls were separate, with his mother in Honduras and his father in detention. Janice tells me the calls went smoothly, but then she also realizes that they changed everything. Somehow, it sunk in that there was no way of knowing

when Jose would see his father or his family. And it triggers this separation trauma again. What happens? When they arrive home, she offers him some toys. He erupts in anger, screaming and crying for almost an hour, she told me. It was incredibly hard to watch, she said. The look on his face was a look of pure anguish. She said she had to fight back tears. Along the way, he flung the pictures that he cherished or treasured onto the kitchen floor, sobbing. Hmm.

We'll be right back. So Miriam, where is someone like Jose's father taken after he is separated from his son? separated from his son? Well, Jose's father was most likely transferred to a detention center near the border where he would wait until his court hearing where he would be criminally charged for entering the country illegally. And I was there the other day at one of these hearings, actually. And what actually happens in these hearings, like the one you attended? How does the day start? A busload of detainees arrive at a court. Everyone is shackled, shuffles off the bus and into a building where they're allowed to meet with attorneys who have been assigned to them. The attorneys, who are Spanish speakers, explain what will happen during the hearing, what the options are for someone like Jose's dad. And typically,

the migrant will choose to plead guilty. Then the first seven defendants file into this room. descendants file into this room. They line up in front of the judge. Many of them are still in this kind of dusty, sweaty garb that they were wearing when they made the journey. They look dazed, weary, kind of resigned to their fate. Their heads are kind of drooped, and many of them actually just finished their journey across the desert that morning and been apprehended and brought in. It's not clear. And the judge begins. He says, good afternoon, tells them his name and something like, you're being represented

by a lawyer at no cost to you because you're charged with a criminal offense of illegal entry. no cost to you because you're charged with a criminal offense of illegal entry. And he turns to the lawyers. The lawyer stands behind each one of the seven migrants and asks, counsels, have your clients made a decision to waive their right to a trial and enter guilty pleas? The lawyers respond in unison, yes, your honor. Then the judge goes down the line, utters each migrant's name, and asks if she or he pleaded guilty. And they're hearing the proceedings through headsets.

There's an interpreter in the room. And each one says C. Number one says C. Number two says C. Down to number seven in the line who says C, meaning, yes, I plead guilty to this offense. And what exactly is going on here? I haven't encountered a court scene like this ever. that the government is trying to quickly hold hearings for folks who have been apprehended at the border. And there are large numbers of them. It's time consuming and expensive to do individual hearings. So they do what critics call assembly line justice. This is kind of like a factory of migrants coming through.

Right. It's like rapid fire proceeding where here's seven, then another seven, and then seven more. And by the end of it, 90 minutes or less later, 74 migrants had

pleaded guilty to entering the United States illegally. Is this a new phenomenon, what you observed in this courtroom? It's actually not a new phenomenon. It's known as Operation Streamline, launched by the Bush administration in 2005 as a deterrent to illegal crossing. It's not clear that it worked as a deterrent, but it sure speeded up the judicial process. The Obama administration keeps the program operation streamlined functioning, but for the most part, I'm told by immigration attorneys, first-time offenders are spared. Under the Trump administration's

zero-tolerance policy, this practice is back in full swing, and first-time offenders are being hauled into court in large numbers. To handle those large numbers, courts in some parts of the country, like Texas, have up to 40 people in a courtroom all at once. Miriam, I'm struck by how almost like farce-like this whole proceeding that you're describing is, because it has all the trappings of normal court hearings, except it's being applied at such an astonishing scale to so many people simultaneously that it doesn't really resemble anything we've come to think of as American justice.

Exactly. That's the reason why critics say that this assembly line justice undermines due process. But this administration is determined to pursue this. But this administration is determined to pursue this. And in fact, it's about to introduce Operation Streamline to California, which has long resisted the program. if they, under the zero tolerance policy, want to prosecute every illegal immigrant who enters the country, the only way to do it without completely overwhelming the federal courts is by having these mass hearings. And these mass hearings, like the one you attended and are describing, these are the criminal proceedings that necessitate separating children like Jose from his father. Under the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy, children like Jose have to go into either a government licensed facility or enter foster care with strangers. facility, or enter foster care with strangers. A parent, like Jose's dad, faces criminal charges in an assembly-like court setting.

That's what it's all about. So how does this day in court that you witnessed end? So the migrants all get on the bus again. Eventually, they're transferred to immigration custody. Most of them will likely be deported very quickly unless they decide to apply for asylum, as we understand Jose's father did. And that would initiate a completely separate bureaucratic and legal process of its own. And Miriam, what will happen to a child like Jose at this point when their parent is convicted and sentenced

but attempting to apply for asylum? It's really not clear, to be honest. Jose and his father are supposed to be reunified, but in this environment, with all this uncertainty, the asylum process is a lengthy one that can take years. process is a lengthy one that can take years. And meanwhile, it's really not clear what will happen to Jose and his father. Miriam, thank you very much. You're welcome. Here's what else you need to know today. I support and all of the members of the Republican conference support a plan that keeps families together while their immigration status is determined. while their immigration status is determined. On Tuesday, congressional Republicans endorsed a legislative plan

to end the practice of separating children from their parents at the border. Their proposal, laid out by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, would allow parents and children to be detained together while their legal status is established by courts. At the Republican National Convention, President Trump said about the problems of the nation, quote, I alone can fix it. In the case of family separation, it's actually true.

But Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, quickly rejected the plan, saying it was up to President Trump to end the practice through his executive authority. Mr. President, you alone can fix it. In fact, the president alone can fix it with this flick of a pen by signing a presidential order to end the agonizing screams of small children

who've been separated from their parents. Mr. President, I'll lend you my pen. Any pen. You can fix it yourself. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow. Hi, everyone. It's Michael.

There's been some questions about our decision not to run excerpts from a Times interview with Stephen Miller, the White House advisor. Some further context. My colleagues Julie Davis and Michael Scheer interviewed Miller as part of their reporting for a print story on the White House's current practice of separating parents and children at the border. They had recorded it for fact-checking purposes, and it was only after the story was published, with on-the-record quotes from Miller, that the Daily requested to air the audio as part of an interview with Julie about her reporting.

The White House objected because the terms of the original interview had not included its use on the Daily. We recognized that the ground rules for the interview were not clear, and so we made a decision not to use the audio. There was much discussion about this decision, and so we made a decision not to use the audio. There was much discussion about this decision, and we took it very seriously.