Today, Explained - 2,000

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

That’s how many kids have been separated from their parents at border crossings over a six-week span since the Trump administration’s new zero tolerance policy took effect in April. CBS’s David ...Begnaud tours a holding facility in Texas. Then Vox’s Dara Lind explains why some conservatives are denouncing Trump’s new policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 All right. Hi, Mom. Hi, Sean. Guess who's supporting the show this week? Chitra. No, that's you. You are supporting the show, but it's Uber. Oh, Uber. Yeah. Really?
Starting point is 00:00:12 Yeah. I've taken Uber a couple of times. Yeah, there you go. Check it out. Do you want to help? Here, read this thing right here. Uber is moving forward, listening to feedback so they can improve and get better every trip. Nice. They're building new features to take the stress out of your pickup and working on ways to keep you better protected and connected throughout your ride. Nice. You can find out more by going to uber.com slash moving forward.
Starting point is 00:00:43 That's uber.com slash moving forward. That's uber.com slash moving forward. Thanks, Uber. Thank you, Uber. Hello? Hi, David. You can hear me? Yes, I'm good. Is the timing better? Yes, I'm good. Is the timing better? Yes, it's better. Let's roll.
Starting point is 00:01:08 Okay, let's do it. Tell me your name and how it is you want me to identify you on the radio. All right, so my name is David Begnaud, and I'm a CBS News correspondent. Tell me where you are right now. I'm in Hidalgo, Texas, about 30 minutes outside of McAllen. And why are you there? We are actually looking to speak to people who live near along the border about how they feel regarding the separation of families.
Starting point is 00:01:34 How many kids do you know of are being separated from their families? How many kids have been separated so far? Border Patrol tells us that since the zero tolerance policy was initiated, in the sector where we are, which is the Rio Grande Valley area, the busiest area in McAllen, Texas, they have separated nearly 1,100 kids from their families since May. A Homeland Security spokesman said today that nearly 2,000 minors were separated from their parents between April 19th and the end of May under the administration's new zero tolerance policy.
Starting point is 00:02:07 So the government has all of a sudden been giving media access to the sites where children who have been separated from their parents are being held. Why have they started doing that all of a sudden? I don't know. Good question. The facility we went to is a facility where kids have actually not yet been separated. So we were allowed entry into a facility where kids have actually not yet been separated. So we were allowed entry into a facility where people are detained. It's a former warehouse. It's a nondescript building that if you drove by, you wouldn't notice anything other than the border patrol cars that are in the parking lot. It doesn't look like a jail from the outside, but when you go into the inside, it's clear that these people cannot leave. They can't come and go. There are
Starting point is 00:02:45 cages, right? There's netting at the top of the cages. There is no way out unless they open the door and they let you out. Chain-linked fences, cages, enough room for people to put their legs out, maybe lay down on the floor, but it's not much more generous than that. People are allowed to come and go. You go to the restroom, you go to get food, maybe a little recreation, but the bottom line is it will look to any average person like a jail. When we walked in, there were two giant cages. Both had men in them. The men looked to be in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. They were on the floor. Some were sitting on mats. Others had foil blankets that were wrapped around them, the type of foil that you would see marathon runners using after a race to stay warm. It was about 73 degrees inside the facility,
Starting point is 00:03:36 we're told. As we progressed into the facility, the next large cage that we saw were unaccompanied miners. Border Patrol says they came across the border alone, and so they are detained alone with others their age. The cage across from the laundry area was a cage of fathers and children. Some fathers snuggled with their kids sitting on their lap. None of the kids looked miserable. I didn't see any crying. Some of the kids ate snacks like laced potato chips and green apples. Some were drinking milk. Others appeared to have a juice box. Other kids were sort of just sitting around, just playing, looking at the floor.
Starting point is 00:04:12 There's not much to do. There were no toys. There was one small television that we're told a Disney movie plays on. I don't know how you'd hear the movie. There's really no way. As we moved on to the next cage, it was mothers and children. Some mothers had what appeared to be newborns. One woman was pregnant. Others had toddlers. They appeared to be fine. The adults sort of all had this blank stare on their face. I don't think they knew who we were. I don't think they knew that we were there to document their story. By the way, we were not allowed to talk to anyone.
Starting point is 00:04:47 We were told, you also can't take a camera in. The only thing you can do is write down what you see. And so we wrote as much as we could in the 15 minutes of time that we had. How long have these people been there? Do you know? Everyone at the facility is there for no more than 72 hours. At some point within that 72-hour time frame,
Starting point is 00:05:02 the mother and father, if they cross the border with the child, mom and dad go to see a judge. At that point, they're separated from the child. If the judge decides to put the mother and father in jail for days, weeks, months, or years, a federal agency takes custody of the child and they could move the child to another city or state
Starting point is 00:05:19 for temporary housing with the possibility that that child is then reunited with a relative who may already be living in the United States. If the judge decides not to send the parents to jail, they go back to the detention center and they're reunited with the child. But at the end of the day, what is different under the Trump administration is that every single adult who crossed the border illegally is going to be prosecuted. Border Patrol says under the previous administration, not everybody was prosecuted. In this case, every adult is going to go before a judge.
Starting point is 00:05:52 And when the adult goes before the judge, if there's a child who's with them at the facility, they are separated at that point. Who's running this facility? Who are the people you were interacting with who represented the government? Customs and Border Patrol is the agency that is running the detention facility in McAllen. It is the busiest holding, processing detention facility anywhere along the southern border. And what was your impression of their understanding of this situation? Do they seem to be fully aware of what they're doing, of what the parameters of what they're doing are?
Starting point is 00:06:24 Look, this is an exceptionally confusing issue. And I actually said to Border Patrol at one point, you can't expect journalists to be able to have a comprehensive contextual understanding of a story if you have a news conference and you allow each reporter to ask two questions, which is essentially what happened. But to their credit, they are the only federal agency that is really doing this kind of cooperative press conference, talking to, answering questions with journalists. We've been trying to reach Health and Human Services for days now, and we can't get them
Starting point is 00:06:58 to put somebody on camera who can give us sort of a lengthy interview to answer our questions. They're the federal agency that would take the child from Border Patrol and find long-term sheltering, maybe in another city or another state. A lot of questions for them. Can't get a good answer for them. Also ICE, Immigration Customs Enforcement, they're involved.
Starting point is 00:07:19 I can tell you that behind the scenes, there is frustration amongst Border Patrol that they seem to be the only federal agency who is is taking the heat and boy are they taking it from every direction is the government not letting reporters close to the actual instance of separation my colleague gil king actually went into a reunification facility where a catholic nun who works for catholic charities here in south texas actually is involved in helping to reunify families. They're entering the country asking for protection.
Starting point is 00:07:50 How can that be breaking the law? They're not running away. They're simply saying, I need your help. My life is in danger. So we are able to see the before, thanks to Border Patrol who allowed us in, and on the back end, thanks to Catholic Charities, this nonprofit organization, what they're able to do once people are turned loose. Because remember, not all parents who go before a judge
Starting point is 00:08:11 end up going away for months or years. They sometimes, for various reasons, are returned to the facility. And the government told us today that they cannot, in fact, let me actually pull up the quote right here. So the Homeland Security Secretary said today, that they cannot in fact let me let me actually pull up the quote right here so the homeland security secretary said today when a child is apprehended with their parents homeland security is required due to various court rulings to release the child within 20 days so there are laws that
Starting point is 00:08:39 say in in in many cases where a judge won't make a definitive ruling to hold a parent, that families are reunified. And at that point, they are released into the community. And so there are organizations like Catholic Charities who take them to a church, give them some clothes, give them a voucher for maybe a bus ticket, feed them, and get them on their way with the understanding that they've got to go back and appear before that judge. You saw pregnant mothers, you saw mothers with newborns, and you saw adolescents with their fathers. I know you weren't able to speak to them, but is there some sense of dread that they might lose their kids? I didn't see angst on people's faces. I have to be honest with you. I didn't see fear, but I think it's hard for me as a journalist without talking to somebody to accurately convey how they feel.
Starting point is 00:09:27 I couldn't ask them questions. They just looked at us. Some were smiling, chatting with other people standing next to them. Everything seemed okay, as okay as it can be when you're in a detention facility. Is this actually working? I mean, I think Jeff Sessions has come out and said this is meant to be a deterrent. We cannot and will not encourage people to bring their children or other children to the country unlawfully by giving them immunity in the process. Is it working?
Starting point is 00:09:57 I asked the border sector chief, does the separations and what you're seeing, can you say that the program is effective, right? This deterrent way of turning people away. And his answer was, it's too early to tell. And I tried to pin him down several different ways to get him to answer the question. You're separating families. Can you just tell me, do you think that this is working as a deterrent? Is it helping you? Is it dropping the numbers? He said, it's too early to tell. In all fairness, many observers say it is too early to tell in two months. What we know for sure is that it's causing a huge emotional response around the country. David, thank you so much. Yeah, no problem. Good luck. Up next, this business of separating kids from their parents at the border has gotten so
Starting point is 00:10:47 big, so controversial, that some Republicans are turning against President Trump. This is Today Explained. Mom. Yes. You said you've used Uber a few times. Yes. How was it? Good. You Thank you. last year. Did you know that Uber has turned the page and is moving forward? That's what I heard. You heard that? Yeah. Oh, because you read it before? Mm-hmm. Do you want to know specifics? Yes. The company's goal is to improve the experience for both riders and drivers. They've been listening to feedback, working on ways to keep you better protected and connected
Starting point is 00:11:36 during your ride so that you can get better every trip. Sounds good. With new features, Uber's making it easier for you to verify the details of your ride, showing your driver's name, car, and license so you can make sure you get the right ride every time. Great. Do you remember where you can find out more? Uber.com slash dot com.
Starting point is 00:11:55 What is it? I think it was Uber.com slash moving forward. Uber.com slash moving forward. Uber.com slash moving forward. Thanks, Mom. You're welcome. I'm Dara Lind. I'm a senior reporter at Vox covering immigration. So, Dara, a bunch of Republicans in the House are speaking up against children being separated at the border.
Starting point is 00:12:19 Even Paul Ryan. What are they saying? What is he saying? So, there are a lot of expressions of sadness and regret, right? There's a lot of like, it is sad that this is happening to people. We don't want kids to be separated from their parents. I think I just made that really clear. There's less momentum on Congress's part to do something about it.
Starting point is 00:12:41 And why are they speaking up now? What's changed for them? It's become, I think, very clear that the family separation issue wasn't going away, that, you know, there continues to be a lot of outrage about it. The, you know, stories of people being separated from their children are mobilizing, I think, some people who wouldn't consider themselves Trump critics most of the time. The other thing is that the Trump administration isn't explaining this very clearly. They're tripping all over themselves. They don't appear to be agreed about whether this is something they have to do
Starting point is 00:13:13 or something that they are choosing to do, why they're choosing to do it. So it's making it very hard for Republicans to feel that they are being defended by the administration on this. I guess we can expect the president to be sort of inconsistent and haphazard. But what has his Department of Homeland Security said about this? So Trump's Homeland Security Secretary, Christian Nielsen, last night tweeted that we do not have a policy of separating families at the border, which is true in literally the most narrow sense. The official policy is that they prosecute everyone and they just put that policy in
Starting point is 00:13:47 place knowing that that meant that families would get separated. But as of Monday morning, she was actually actively defending it. She was saying that, you know, the kids are in great conditions, that you shouldn't listen to the media, that this, you know, kind of making it seem like something that was not a punitive policy, but that's something that people were actively being cared for. She's saying that kids who are being separated from their parents are not in harm's way, are doing fine. Right. And in fairness, there is a lot of confusion, I think,
Starting point is 00:14:15 in the controversy around this. There's a lot of outrage at the idea that the particular facilities that people are being held in may not be what you would want a kid to be in, you know, whether they're in cages or not. But at the same time, some people are much more concerned about the fact that they're being separated from their parents at all. So Nielsen was trying to answer the first group of criticism, but that really doesn't address the second group. What might change here? I mean, the House is talking about a few pieces of legislation now, right? Well, the pieces of legislation the House is talking about kind of date back to the last immigration debate.
Starting point is 00:14:48 Even though the compromise bill that they wrote did just come out last week, it's much more geared toward the concerns they were discussing then. What to do with immigrants who are facing the loss of their protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA program. What to do about legal immigration. So, like, there's nothing in either of the bills they're set to vote on that would actually change this policy. Why are they even discussing these two bills right now? Are they responding to this controversy over separating kids at the border with a piece of legislation that has nothing to really do with that? This is really the result of a much longer fight that some moderate Republicans have been fighting because they feel that they're vulnerable in November in the midterm elections without doing anything to address immigration. And they're concerned about not having done anything on DACA.
Starting point is 00:15:28 That's, you know, the other issue that Republicans do feel they're vulnerable on immigration wise. So it's kind of interesting timing for the House that this issue is kind of enforced to the fore at the same time that there is a totally separate immigration issue boiling over. But it certainly doesn't appear that they're trying to address it. They're just, you know, Republicans are claiming that Democrats not getting on board with it is somehow preventing there from being a solution to the separation issue either. Right. President Trump keeps blaming this on Democrats. What have Democrats said back to the president saying that this is Democratic obstructionism?
Starting point is 00:16:02 At this point, every Democrat in the U.S. Senate has signed on to a bill from Dianne Feinstein that would simply prevent Border Patrol agents from separating families. The bill ensures children may only be separated from their parents in the event they're being trafficked or abused by their parent. That would throw a wrench in the Trump administration's efforts to prosecute large amounts of people who have crossed into the U.S. between ports of entry. But it would certainly prevent family separation. And there haven't been Republicans who have signed on to that. Instead, Trump is just saying that Democrats are being obstructionist. Since this is sort of a new policy, the zero tolerance at the border, do we have any idea what the long-term impacts on these kids might be? There's been a big outcry among the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical professionals that you don't normally see on policy issues. And that's because people who
Starting point is 00:16:56 study child psychology understand that when children deal with other traumas or stressors in their life, having a strong, intimate relationship with someone can really help them regulate those emotions. Like essentially having a parent there helps a child cope with all kinds of other difficult things. So when you're both putting the child through a difficult experience and removing the close, well-regulated adult who's supposed to help them learn how to process things, you're throwing them off kilter and taking away the way that they learn how to get back on kilter again.
Starting point is 00:17:26 So they're very concerned about the long-term mental and physical health effects of that. You know, we heard from David Begnaud up top that he was in a facility in Texas where he was seeing kids who hadn't yet been separated from their parents, and they seemed more or less fine to him. He wasn't allowed to talk to any of them, but they didn't look, you know, like they were in agonizing pain. Have you seen or heard anything from kids coming out of this experience, how they feel, what they're saying? We have seen some reports from, like,
Starting point is 00:18:01 you know, families who are taking in kids as transitional foster children, that they're crying every night because they can't see their parents and they don't necessarily understand what's happening to them. But I also think that this is kind of a ticking time bomb scenario. Kids who are traumatized and dealing with things that they've never experienced and don't know how to process aren't necessarily going to be able to articulate those feelings very well. It's not necessarily an indication that they're not traumatized. I think, you know, we know enough about child psychology enough to know at this point that just because a kid isn't crying doesn't mean they're not very sad.
Starting point is 00:18:40 Darylyn, immigration reporter at Vox, thank you so much. Thank you. I'm Sean Ramos from This Is Today Explained. You heard it from my mom at the top of the show. Here it is for me. Uber is moving forward, listening to feedback so they can improve and get better with every trip. They're building new features to take the stress out of your pickup and working on new ways to keep you better protected and connected throughout your ride.
Starting point is 00:19:17 You can find out more by going to uber.com slash moving forward. That's uber.com slash moving forward.

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