Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20240714

Amy from new york, this is democracy now family separation did not end the prosecution policy. Families continue to be separated by the border agencies for other reasons. Please do not let this become a store that passes from the front page and passes from memory the moment that it is not something that we are hearing about every morning. Amy after saying they had removed 300 children from a clint, texas, Detention Center, the department of Homeland Security is moving 100 Migrant Children back. The children have been locked up in philly conditions without adequate food, water, sanitation or medical care. We will speak to a human rights researcher who was recently inside the jail. We will also speak to a doctor who has become a government whistleblower after he was hired to inspect facilities where immigrant families are incarcerated. Plus, we will speak to a japaneseamerican psychotherapist who was born in a u. S. Internment camp. My name is satsuki ina. Arcereeormer child inc during world war ii. This is a photograph of me when i was in prison. Us were ago, 120,000 of removed from our homes and forcefully incarcerated in prison camps across the country. Protest thetoday to repetition of history. Amy but first, democracy now one gonzales will talk about his own experience, meeting stranded migrant families and the dallas airport. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The department of Homeland Security has moved 100 Migrant Children back to a Border Patrol jail in clint, texas, where a recent visit from lawyers revealed that children of all ages have been locked up without adequate food, water, sanitation or medical care, with older children having to care for the younger ones. Around 300 children were removed from the jail monday following widespread outrage over the reports. Meanwhile, the acting head of customs and Border Protection, john sanders, announced he is stepping down after just two months in the position. Acting immigration and Customs Enforcement director mark morgan is set to replace sanders. Morgan, an immigration hardliner previously said in a fox news interview that when he looked into the eyes of detained Migrant Children, he saw a soontobe ms13 gang member. All p positis in homand securi agencieresponsie for enrcing imgration licy are now bei held by actg ofcials, mning thewere not approv by the senate the nstituti require well havmore on is after headlis. A dided housapproved ntentiou4. 5 bilon emgency fuing pacge to address e border crisis tuday undegrowing essure to aress therump ministraon inhume treaent of mrants. The bill pasd largelalong party les with me prressive mocrats ting in favor after notiating to includprovisio, includg nehealth a safety andards for jaed migras. Four docrats ved ainst the bill. St week,hey issu a stement coemning t bil and lling fothe abolion of ice. Commerce member omar tweeted we should not be giving one more dollar to support this president s Deportation Force that openly commits human rights abuses and refuses to be held accountable to the american people. Kids and families cannot continue to die and be terrorized. The senate is slated to consider its own border funding measure this week, including President Trumps original request for more than 1 billion for customs and Border Protection and immigration thing Customs Enforcement. Meanwhile, activistsrom the defu hate caaign gatred in the sena rotundauesday t memberigrantwho diedhile the cusdy of thu. S. Governnt and a cl for ndinguts for ice a cbp. Esident ump thrtened tuesday to literatearts of iran if attackeanythin amican. The message, delivered via tweet, followed iranian president Hassan Rouhani saying the white house was mentally handicapped following news of new u. S. Sanctions. Meanwhile, iran said it would speed up enrichment of uranium, pulling themselves further out of the Iran Nuclear Deal as a thursday deadline given to european leaders to take more Decisive Action to protect the agreement approaches. The u. S. Pulled out of the packed last year. Back in the United States, democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna and republican matt gaetz unveiled tuesday an amendment to the National Defense authorization act, which would enshrine the need for congressional authorization before any military action can be taken against iran. Former special Counsel Robert Mueller is set to appear for a public testimony before the house on july 17. House intelligence chair adam schiff and judiciary chair jerry nadler said in a joint statement that mueller agreed to testify after they issued subpoenas tuesday. Muellers longanticipated report found that the Trump Campaign did not collude with russia during the 2016 president ial elections but did not come to any conclusions regarding possible obstruction of justice. Trump responded to the news via tweet, president ial harassment in new york city, Tiffany Caban appears poised for victory in the queens District Attorney race. Caban, a 31yearold queer latina public defender, would become the first woman to hold the post. She ran on ending cash bail, stopping the prosecution of lowlevel offenses, decriminalizing sex work, and going after bad landlords, cops, and immigration and Customs Enforcement. Tiffany caban claimed victory last night in queens. When we started this [indiscernible] said we could not build a movement from the grassroots. They said we could not win. We did, though. Amy she holds a lead of just over 1000 votes with 99 of precincts reporting but her main opponent, Queens Borough president melinda katz, says she will not concede without a recount. And recount and with over 3000 absentee ballots remaining to be counted. Cabans apparent win comes exactly one year after alexandria ocasiocortez won the 2018 democratic primary, toppling joe crowley until then, one of the most powerful democrats in the house. Ocasiocortez endorsed caban in the race and tweeted tuesday night as results rolled in, we meet a machine with a movement. Go to our website at democracynow. Org to see our recent interview with Tiffany Caban. South korean president moon jaein said today north korean and u. S. Officials are holding behindthescenes talks in preparation for a third summit between President Trump and kim jong un. The two heads of state last met in hanoi, vietnam, in february but those talks fell apart after trump walked away without making a deal. Although u. S. And north korean leadership have hit a wall over the issue of sanctions relief which north korea says is a necessary condition for any denuclearization deal trump and kim recently exchanged personal letters, which appeared to indicate a commitment to renewing talks. The u. S. Military reported two u. S. Soldiers were killed in eastern afghanistan today, one day after secretary of state mike pompeo made a surprise visit to kabul. Pompeo said the u. S. Is prepared to withdraw its 14,000 troops from afghanistan but says there is no timeline for such a move, and said the u. S. Hoped for a peace deal by september 1 ahead of upcoming president ial elections in afghanistan. Pompeos visit came days before a new round of talks between the United States and taliban. The talks have not included the afghan government, which the taliban refuses to negotiate with. Spains highest court convicted five men who go by the collective nickname the wolf pack for the rape of a teenage girl at pamplonas bullrunning festival in 2016, which they filmed on their cell phones. The ruling overturns an earlier, much less severe conviction of sexual abuse, which triggered widespread outrage and mass protests around the country. Back in the u. S. , illinois has become the 11th state to legalize Recreational Marijuana after democratic governor jb pritzker signed a bill tuesday allowing for the possession and purchase of small amounts of the drug. The legislation will pardon anyone with a nonviolent marijuana conviction under 30 grams. Individuals can petition the court to vacate convictions that exceed 30 grams. Nearly 800,000 marijuanarelated cases could be expunged thanks to the new law. The bill also sets up a program to invest in communities most affected by the war on drugs. Illinois is the first state to both legalize marijuana and set up a marketplace through the state legislature. The law will go into effect on the first day of 2020. Francisco is set to become the San Francisco is set to become the first u. S. City to ban the sale of ecigarettes. City officials unanimously voted in favor of the ban tuesday, and mayor london breed has indicated she will sign off on it. The measure also applies to flavored tobacco products. Proponents of the bill say that ecigarettes have not been properly assessed by the food and Drug Administration for safety. The spread of vaping among young people in recent years has raised concerns about the longterm Health Effects of the products. Opponents of the bill say the ban could cause people to turn back to conventional cigarettes. Juul, the most popular producer of ecigarettes, is headquartered in San Francisco. Employees of online home goods retailer wayfair in boston are walking out of work today to protest the Company Selling furniture to Government Contractor bcfs for its new immigrant prison in carrizo springs, texas. Last week, over 500 employees signed on to a letter demanding wayfair stop working with the government in the detention and mistreatment of migrants seeking asylum in the u. S. They wrote we believe that the current actions of the United States and their contractors at the southern border do not represent an Ethical Partnership wayfair should choose to be a part of. Wayfair rejected the employees demand. Immigration rights and Legal Aid Group raices applauded the action, writing no one who works for a company profiting from these camps should be standing idly by as children are dying. This takes a village. The Justice Department is alleging Duncan Hunter used Campaign Money to Fund Expenses related to at least five extramarital affairs. Court filings show hunter used the money to pay for hotel rooms, car services, and bar tabs for relationships with congressional aides and lobbyists. Hunter and his wife were indicted last year after they allegedly spent 250,000 of Campaign Funds on personal expenses, including vacations and their childrens tuition. Hunters wife pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors earlier this month. Hunters trial is set to be held in september. Congressmember hunter was one of the first members of congress to endorse trump for president in 2016. More recently, he came to the defense of accused war criminal, navy seal edward gallagher, who is currently on trial for allegedly shooting unarmed iraqi civilians and killing a wounded captive teenage combatant. Congressmember hunter defended gallagher by saying he and his hunter ande, duncan , his unit probably killed hundreds of civilians while serving in iraq in 2004. The first of a 29 democratic primary debate kicks off tonight employment. 10 candidates take the state each night. Candidates must either earn 1 support in at least three polls or gather support from 65,000 unique donors. Ndc climate activists from , Sunrise Movement protested the dncs refusal to host a climate changecentered primary debate. They were camping out in front of dnc headquarters overnight. Worldw to the rest of the that it can be done, that we can transform our economy and our 100 renewable energy. And we can do it within the next 10 years if the dnc has the guts to allow list allow us to have a climate debate. We need a president in the 2020 debate to have a progressive and bold agenda. Amy and those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Juan and im juan gonzalez. Welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. Amy it is great to have you back after your trip to dallas. Can you explain what happened to you in the airport on sunday monday when you tried to return home . Sunday afternoon. My wife and i were returning from a conference in dallas and we were boarding a flight to ,ewark airport when the flight after being on the tarmac for an hour and a half, had to come back to the gate. There were a lot of thunderstorms. Within the entire power in the Traffic Control system at dfw airport went down, so all flights for several hours that were coming out of the airport had to be brought back to the gate will stop there was pandemonium in general at dfw airport. Right on our flight, we noticed there were several other passengers who appeared to be Central Americans, obviously could not speak english, did not know what was going on. We tried to help them figure out where to go to try to revoke their flights. It turns out they were all Central American refugees who had just been released from Detention Centers and were being basically shipped by the federal government to relatives somewhere in other parts of the United States. There was a young salvador in woman with fouryearold and twoyearold son. There was a honduran man with a teenage son. There was a guatemalan woman with her young son. In the case of the guatemalans, not only do they not speaking was, they did not even speak much spanish. They were talking basically in indigenous languages to each other. We tried to have them out, but they were totally lost some of the older. They had no money. Most of them looked like they had never been in an airplane before. They did not even know how to figure out who to talk to or what to do. Tospent several hours trying help them. But then we discovered the American Airlines people were of no help whatsoever in terms of trying to assist these people because the lines were so long. We discovered there were several employees, not of the airlines, working the airport individual employees, maintenance people and others, who have now for months been trying to assist these stranded Central American refugees, tried to provide them food, blankets, whatever they could. They were doing it all on their own time and putting money pulling money out of their own pockets. The airlines wanted to shipped them to minneapolis or to miami or greensboro to stay overnight in those areas to get new flights to go wherever they were trying to head to. As the employees started telling me this, they said this is happening every single day, hub airports the like denver, dallas, chicago, when these summer storms come and there are outages and airplane cancellations. Completelynts are lost. No one is assisting them. No one is helping them. So on top of the problems they have coming up to the border into the u. S. , then dealing with detention, once they are released, they are now confronting this total chaos in the system because theyre just sending them on their way with no money and no help host of particularly the woman with the twoyearold and fouryearold, no stroller, all of the possessions basically and bags, and to deal with two children that have come from Central America and now even in the United States having no help, it is astonishing. The average air traveler or tourist is just going back and forth and does not even notice what is going on right in front of our very eyes. This is happening in airports across the country today and has been happening for months. If anyone who speak spanish at any one of these airports see someone who is completely lost, any help you can give them i think would be appreciated. Amy we were there one year ago in texas. Each airport we were in, including dallas, we saw a number of children holding those telltale plastic bags. When we would approach when there was an adult, they would come over and say get away from these children. They would say we could not talk to them. At the sign is those plastic bags for the kids. Astonishing this is happening in the United States in 2019. Amy when we come back from break, were going to talk to clara long of human rights watch, who was at the clint Detention Center, where children are taking care of children. She will describe the filthy conditions there. The news was yesterday, 300 kids taken away. And now the news is 100 are being brought back in. Stay with us. [music break] amy this is democracy now , im Amy Goodman Juan gonzalez. Juan the department of Homeland Security has moved 100 Migrant Children back to a Border Patrol facility in clint, texas, where children of all ages have been locked up without adequate food, water, sanitation or medical care, with older children having to care for the younger ones. Around 300 children were removed from the facility monday following widespread outrage over the reports, but customs and Border Protection said some of the children are being sent back, claiming the facility is no longer overcrowded. Lawyers who recently visited the facility described a scene of chaos and sickness, with children unable to shower or change into clean clothes for weeks on end. Meanwhile, the acting commissioner of customs and Border Protection, john sanders, has announced he is resigning in july, just to month after taking the job. Acting immigration and Customs Enforcement director mark morgan is set to replace sanders. Morgan is an immigration hardliner who has been criticized for his past comments. This is morgan appearing on turku carlsons show Tucker Carlsons show in general. And the president referred to them as animals, i absolutely said that is correct. Those ms 13 members. I continue because i have been there as a cheap, ive been to the detention facilities where i walked up to these individuals that are socalled miners them a 17 or under, and ive looked at their eyes and i said, that is a soon to be ms 13 gang member. Amy that is mark morgan, who has now been moved from being head of acting head of ice to acting head of cbp, Customs Border protection. He also reportedly was pushing for the raids on families around the country this weekend that was announced by ice, but then canceled at least, for now. Well, for more, we are joined by clara long, Senior Researcher at human rights watch. She was part of the Monitoring Team that visited Border Patrol facilities last week, including clint, where she interviewed Migrant Children held without their family members. She coauthored an article for cnn headlined we went to a Border Detention Center for children. What we saw was awful. Welcome back to democracy now ,escribe what you saw at clint where now 100 kids are being sent back in after the government said they took out 300. Thank you for having me. I was there as part of a team of lawyers and doctors who volunteered to monitor these facilities on behalf of of the settlement, a decadesold legal settlement between the government and lawyers for children who were detained by Immigration Enforcement. As part of that settlement, we do not have access to the location, the facility where children are being detained, but what we can do is speak to them because they are class members, basically, they are clients. Thisre sort of placed in Interview Room and given a roster of children who were in the facility. When we got there on monday, we got this roster and it showed there were over 350 children in the facility from zero to 17 years or. We said, ok, were just going to start calling the youngest kids, thealling the kids young parents. Some Young Mothers are there with infants. And were going to try to talk to the kids who it appears based on this list may have been here for the longest. When the kids came into the Interview Rooms, one thing we noticed is we were calling kids listed as being two years old or three years old. They were in deed alone in the facility. They would come into the Interview Room, usually together with a somewhat older kid, and the agents would say, oh, this kid is taking care of that other kid. Indeed, what the kids said was, you talk to the older kid come often these toddlers were preverbal. Oh, yeah, ive been taking care of this toddler because theres donuts to do it and they are in my cell with me. Ive been changing their diapers, giving them food, making sure they are ok for top ok. Interviews went. We were understanding that many of the kids had been there for weeks. The kid who had been there the longest we spoke with had been there for 26 days and that is in conditions that are really inappropriate for anyone for that amount of time, much less for a child. They have not been able to change their clothes for the most part. If they had gotten a shower or bath, is on the level of say once a week. Same thing with toothbrushes. They would say, we were allowed to brush our teeth once a week, but the nato notice we had a throw away the toothbrushes had ton they told us we wer throw away the toothbrushes because they were contraband. A lot of them said there are kids alsoesses, but have to sleep on the floor because there are not enough. That is the facility that after we decided it was so urgent, we had to speak out. Oh, let me to you quickly, the other thing that really concern us from the perspective of urgency was that many of the kids we called were visibly sick with runny noses, some of the younger kids had mucus stained clothing. Many of the kids we asked to speak with a said, no, you cannot speak with that child because they are in quarantine. We said we will go there no problem. We will send some team members to the quarantine room and have them immediately leave the facility if youre worried about us spreading Infectious Diseases. They said no. We call the significant number of kids, at least 10 at least, who said we could not see because they were in quarantine. Juan i want to ask you, in terms of how were you able to gain admission . Was this part of the now for President Trump, at least the floors decision . Here . E the personnel are these Government Employees are private contractors working for the government at this facility . Yes. The way we got in is to the now notorious for President Trump flores settlement agreement, which gives access to the plaintiffs whohe by all children detained Immigration Enforcement, customs and Border Protection. Back in a day, it was ayannas all of the agencies that took over from ins, including health and Human Services, which runs the big office of Refugee Resettlement detentions and shelters for children. Flores council has access to all of these to speak with children detained in all of these facilities where those facilities are licensed for child care. This is sort of counterintuitive. The Flores Council has access to inspect them as a whole. In the border virtual stations, flores does not have access to inspect the facility as a whole but we can speak with the children who are detained there. Outside of this settlement, there are very few no way for outsiders, attorneys, inspectors, others to enter into these Border Patrol stations where we did these visits last week and another team the week before in texas. They are closed to attorneys. They are closed to visitors. Theyre just very closed his abilities. They are run directly by the u. S. Border patrol, which is part of customs and Border Protection. You play that clip a few minutes earlier of now the acting commissioner mark morgan saying some pretty shocking things. Amy clara long, can you describe the bracelets that some of these children war . How you realized in fact the government has access to reaching their parents but are not calling them . Yeah. At one point, i had this quiet secondgrader who came into the Interview Room and sort of she sat on his big office chair. She was grabbing the sides of the chair. She was bracing herself. I asked her one question post up hello and invited her to speak. She said, ok. I said, who did you cross the border with. She said, my aunt. She started crying so hard she could not produce words. I tried to calm her down. I saw that she had her bracelet on with the words in permanent marker u. S. Parent and a phone number. Someone had taken the time to write that down i guess when they separated her from her adult relative, her custodian she crossed the border with. Point, there is a sense youre not allowed to use your phone in the facility but at that point, i and other members of our team decided, screw that, were going to start making phone calls. We took my phone and ill the number and connected with her father dialed the number and connected with her father. He had no idea where she was being held. They were able to speak. After that, she was able to ask for more phone calls because she realized phone calls might be a possibility. Of these kids had bracelets that have their parents phone numbers ring directly on them . She was the only one who i saw with a bracelet with the parents phone number. But there were so many kids who do have parents in the United States. Another group of brothers i spoke with had traveled with an older sibling to the u. S. A 19yearold sister. The sister was the one who had the parents information. But they separated these kids som their adult sister suddenly at the border, that they were left with none of their parents contact information. They were distraught. They felt like maybe they would never connect with their parents again. For them, we were able to hook up my phone in a hot spot on facebook and send a bunch of messages to the people the profiles that identified as their father and aunt and we were able to get the number and give their dad a call. Leavewhen the children that facility, where do they get sent . The children who are leaving the facility are going to the office of Refugee Resettlement, which is under a different agency, the health and Human Services agency. Theyre going into what is now an extremely bloated set of Detention Centers and shelters. Example, fort sill, these large Detention Centers are the new norm really under the Trump Administration, like the one in homestead, florida, being run by the office of Refugee Resettlement. Ive been doing visits and those facilities as well. The real problem we are seeing has to do with extremely extended lengths of stay, especially under the Trump Administration. They really slowed down the process to reunify children with family members in the United States. A lot of that has to do with the administrations desire and policy to use the information of people who come forward to take care of children and get them out of these Detention Centers for Immigration Enforcement purposes. So to arrest, detain, and deport the people go for to care for them. Amy we were talking to one of the attorneys in the center like you are is it fair to call it a child jail . Are words like detention facility simply euphemisms . In particular, the Border Patrol stations are jails. That is jailed. There is no mincing words. Amy when you are in this child jail where over 300 children were being held, children taking care of younger children often that they did not even know, a guard handing an eightyearold a twoyearold baby who was sick and sang take care of the they become cowarned binford described the stories of the lice combs being given to kids and told them to hand them around. A child with matted hair who is not given a shower warned binford talked about the possibility of death in these facilities and we saw one child after another dying in u. S. Government custody along the border. Do you share the same assessment . Of course. We pushed the request and schedule and go on these visits because of the steady rate of child deaths along the border in these border jails. After going there and talking these to these kids, it is easy to see why these conditions can become lifethreatening. Particularly because of the Infectious Disease risk, the lack of hygiene, and the fact that when people children are coming down with the flu or getting sick, the care plan appears to be to put them in a quarantined cell with no real child care. Its is like some and comes in twice a day to give medication. It sounds like someone comes in twice a day to give the medication, but no one is really caring for them. , thank you for being with us, senior reach her at human rights watch, part of the Monitoring Team that visited the facilities at clint, texas, where children were being held without their family members. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman with juan gonzalez. Juan a divided house approved a contentious 4. 5 billion emergency funding package to address the border crisis tuesday, under growing pressure to address the Trump Administrations Inhumane Treatment of migrants. The bill passed largely along party lines in a 230 to 195 vote, with some progressive democrats voting in favor after negotiating to include provisions including new health and Safety Standards for jailed immigrants. Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington State voted in favor of the bill after pushing for the changes, but she had tremendous apprehensions. The bill would allocate more than for housing and feeding 1 billion migrants in Border Patrol custody and nearly 3 billion for unaccompanied Migrant Children in department of health and Human Services. Four democrats voted against the bill representatives alexandria ocasiocortez, ilhan omar, ayanna pressley, and rashida tlaib. Last week, the progressive congresswomen issued a statement condemning the bill and calling for the abolition of ice. Representative ilhan omar tweeted we should not be giving one more dollar to support this president s Deportation Force that openly commits human rights abuses and refuses to be held accountable to the american people. Kids and families cant continue to die and be terrorized. The senate is slated to consider its own border funding measure this week, including President Trumps original request for more than 1 billion for customs and Border Protection and eyes. Amy heidi altman with National Immigrant Justice Center told the New York Times the administration chooses to direct the vast majority of funding toward enforcement, and then cries poverty when it comes to diapers and food. Its a hostagetaking way of engaging in policy. Immigrant advocates protested tuesday in the Senate Rotunda in honor those who have died in the custody of both agencies and demanding funding cuts. The Trump Administration pushes for more detention space, including for children and families. We are joined by two guests. Renee feltz is a democracy now correspondent and producer who has long reported on the criminalization of immigrants, family detention, and the business of detention. Her recent report for rewire. News is headlined willful recklessness trump pushes for indefinite family detention. And before we go to our next guest, a doctor who is a whistleblower, if you can weigh in, renee, on this bill that was passed, your experience in texas were you just returned from . From what we understand, this bill that was passed late yesterday out of the house, which still has to be reconciled with a separate senate bill, includes some 3 billion to shelter and feed migrants. As we just heard from clara long, these facilities are hardly shelters at the border. We are also being told there was about the ice funding was stripped out of this bill. But it has been clear, as nancy pass, trumpshed pato and his officials have also been pushing hard for this funding. Is it really for the children or is it perhaps for trump . Theres been a lot of pushback from progressive democrats to strip some of the few things that would expand attention in this bill out of it. We saw that pushed by the chair of the congressional progressive caucus, congressman regina paul. We saw push back from four freshmen members. Human to know was recently near the border. I went to speak with some of the mothers who were recently released from an ice Detention Center in philly, texas, the largest Detention Center in the country, 2400 beds. I went there to film it at night. You could see with the football stadium lights on at how massive this facility is. It stretches through a massive field. There are tents. Ook at. Isturbing to this ipart of at peoplare puing backgainst ctinuing to fund re of the type o deteion falities. Interestgly, whei was texamay, i wt to sanntonio and spokwith manothersho we releasefirst fr a boer patro facity and en puin this e Dention Center they sd the dention cter was bett than thBorder Patrol filities. When isked oneotherhat sh woulchange aut her te in e theetentionenter sh said, ess time about the provisions that were put into this bill supposedly to hold, especially these private soldiers, more accountable. Are there any teeth to that . Amy these are private prisons . Immigrant Detention Centers, once a medium security prison facility. We will hear from dr. Allen in a minute. These were some of the first o push f accotabili. So woulday thais succe. Enfoing thatwe wilhave to see hothat goe amy les he from a ung ther frohondurasho deribed herxperiencin a cbp shter, as is call. Shwas just relead from this ple alonwith her eightnthold n when y talk to her. Honestly were lost inhe river. After we crossedhe river, we re lost. We were headinback, buyoung woman stayed. Honestlywe said, tnk god, wh the borr patrolrrived. Th ge us wat. Th gave usome food a lile bit ofood, buit was fine. Washere anying missg li waterr food, tamins . Cloing. Wepent eks wiout channg ouclothes. Not shering. We did n have moy for fo or athing. Itas tou to gethem to ve usater a food. They dtive uthat mh. Is is wh we wereith bord patr. Weere inheir cusdy for t days we werin mexicfor two ys wiout a shower, with nothin have t changeour cloth sincwe start the jouey. A there a other dails you woullike to are . The was a m who camwith us. He broht a bab the by was h grandchd. E man wa depted anthe s. Agentkept theaby here theusthe babyasust managegrandcld. Should t be thiway. Weomeere fiting forur drea. Are suffeng thman was ported ithe by s brought here to the u. S. It should not be this way. To this woman who gave me her name but we did not use it because many of these people are seeking asylum from the countries they have fled and come to the u. S. For. I interviewed her. What is interesting to hear, these are people who are experts about what the conditions are in these facilities and they are speaking out and saying no more family detention, do not expand this, as the trumpet Administration Pushes to do only hold more people, but for longer in these facilities. Amy were going to go to break and will continue with renee feltz as well as a special guest we bring you right now, who is then dr. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman with juan gonzalez. Is named dr. Scott allen. Stay with us. [music break] amy this is democracy now , im Amy Goodman Juan gonzalez. By dr. Scottoined whose uncontroverted department of Homeland Securitys office of civil rights and Civil Liberties. He and dr. Pamela mcpherson were shocked at what they observed andng their inspections raised concerns internally. Last year they contacted lawmakers to speak out against family separation and family detention, and continue to so now after their concerns were ignored. They are corecipients of the 2019 ridenhour prize for truth telling. ,my welcome to democracy now dr. Allen. Can you tell us what you have found and what you decided to speak out . You are still on contract. That is correct. Thank you for having me. What dr. Mcpherson and i have been advising our government for, really going back to 2014, but more Austin Sibley over the course of the last ostensibly over the course of the last year, a policy that prioritizes confinement of children over care of them is deeply flawed. A lot of the chaos you are seeing on the border with the detention of children and their families is a predictable outcome of these flawed policies. We made specific warnings against these practices, really, from the very first day. We first inspected the very first family detention facility new mexico. That experience was very important in illustrating it is very difficult to keep children safe in detention. We found that in spite of mobilizing significant resources and personnel, that the facility struggled to keep children safe. In fact, it did not have adequate pediatrician or qualified Health Professionals to identify problems occurring right in front of their eyes. Juan this started under president obama, the first family Detention Centers and then ramped up now under President Trump. Your sense these facilities are often in rural, isolated areas where it is hard, not only as you say to get the proper medical professionals there, but also to have any kind of accountability from the general public or even journalists as well. Could you talk about the problems youve had been able to get the word out about what is going on . There have been problems all the way through with transparency of these facilities. They are run more like secured facilities that you might think would be appropriate for organized crime members or even terrorists, something where there is a Great Security threat. These young parents and their very them children do not represent that type of threat. If indeed we were treating them humanely, we would be very open and transparent about how we do that. But in fact, the accountability mechanisms of which the office of civil rights and Civil Liberties that a work for is a part of, as well as other likentability mechanisms the office of the Inspector General or oversight by congress, we would have to say that they have all failed to keep children safe. And the evidence is now well recorded in the news with the unfortunate news of child deaths that we predicted early on and warned the government of the very likely outcome of these policies, as well as the deteriorating conditions that children are held under, so just reports for getting out of the clint facility. Amy when you raised concerns that children would die in artesia in new mexico, they shut the facility down. Happenedescribe what now go and then go on to describe what happened when you went to the jails in karnes run by geo group dilley and dilley run by course of it, the two private prison companies. As i said, the artesia story was a very important one for us because it sort of illustrated in very stark terms the dangers of trying to rapidly stand up facilities that will house young and pticulay vulnerle children. Remeer, thesare chilen who often ha been trmatized e ready and t harmfulffectsf trma are aumulate over a lifeti. Sohey are ry vulneble populaon. Ey oftenn poorhysical health and e idea ocongregating childr togher wn there ofn not vacnated a publi healisaste probly the mt poignt exple iwe looked at eights i lled thehart of ery ild therand look at thei weig across e coursef the state. I s surprid to see a significant number o children who probly enterhe facily toome exteounirs given their rilous jrneys we not ining weight in e facili, whh is whayou woulexpect if it were aealthy a nurting facity. Ey were fact sing weit, whh is a reay disturng maer we dinot expe. Reviewi these ces, we found thcase of onenfant, a 18ontholdwho beenuffering diahea a haveecome quite dedrated. The moer cap psenting e chd to the positio thproblem s, the pitions we being rated in tempary duty aignment from adult falities. They we physicns who dot ha a lot oexperien in eating cldren. They totly missethe fact ov t course of muiple ctor viss that the child lost onehird of s body weight. 10being th ual panic moment for cnicians to send the ild an emerncyoom for ivsrve yes it i airacle ts child d nodie of aery easyo dinose and vereasily trtable an medical ndition. Told th they we playing withire. Thchalleng of keepg vuerable sta in thes environments were enormous and if they continued coming particular its a expanded, the risk of losing a child or more than one child was very high juan dr. Allen, you filed comments on the Trump Administrations proposed rule change under the flores settlement, which currently limits to 20 days the amount of time a child can be capped in can be retained to indefinite detention. Can you talk about your concerns in this indefinite detention given the kinds of conditions that you have already witnessed . Well, yes. It is a very important point. First let me start by saying as additions, we are keenly aware of decades of literature that show us the confinement of isldren in and of itself harmful to their health, leading to increase risks down the road, lifelong increased risk of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder. The toxic stress of isolation from community this is exacerbated when the confinement indefinite. T it can increase the trauma. All of that harm is known before you even get to the types of things we have been talking about. If you cant provide the necessary support to care for a vulnerable child population, the harms can be exacerbated. This is what really distressed as is in addition to the known harmful effects of confinement, we knew the government would struggle under the best of circumstances to be algebra by adequate resources to keep these children safe. In fact, everything that has followed has confirmed that worry. Amy are you calling for more whistleblowers . I think accountability and transparency is important. To some extent, i think the reason that a year after my colleague and i made these disclosures about the terrible conditions we had documented, the dangers to children, that it is a year later ive prethe fact the public is once again paying attention and expressing outrage, but the challenge is we are relying on reports, on accounts, but we are not seeing as the public what is going on inside these facilities. For those of us who do get to visit these facilities and enter them, were looking into the eyes of Young Mothers. Were looking into the eyes of Young Children who are suffering under these policies. In we see the human cost. I think most americans, if they were confronted with the humanity of what were doing here, would be outraged and would not tolerate it. Amy scott allen, thank you for being with us, medical doctor, whistleblower hired in 2014 to inspect facilities where immigrant families are incarcerated. On contract with the department of Homeland Securitys office of civil rights and Civil Liberties. Speaking out today what he has seen on the inside. This democracy now is to look at theow traumatic impact on the Mental Health of Migrant Children from being held by the Border Patrol and in immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention Centers. In oakland, we are joined by satsuki ina, who was born in the tule lake segregation center, a maximum security concentration camp for japanese americans during wwii. Amy this past weekend, she arrest against the detention of Migrant Children at fort sill, oklahoma, the site of a former japanese american internment camp. Satsuki ina, welcome to democracy now we played a clip of you from that protest that democracy now inrenee feltz covered oklahoma on saturday. As you listen to the descriptions of these children, you yourself having been born at tule lake, what you call a concentration camp, for japanese americans from over 110,000 japanese and japaneseamericans interned in these camps during world war ii. What are your thoughts . Japaneseamerican community has come to realize that what is happening to children in these detention facilities is resonant of the trauma we suffered during world war ii. After decades of living our lives as compliant and quiet and demonstrating improving ourselves as and proving ourselves as good citizens, many of us have felt it is time for us to speak out, to protest, to out in wayso speak that we have not in the past because we know what these children are experiencing. We know what it is like to have family separation, to suffer the longterm consequences of the uma of being incarcerated for some of us, more than four or five years. We feel like it is really important to speak out. Amy youre also a psychotherapist. Talk about your own experience as a child interned and what you are saying about the children areareinterned today, who jailed today, the psychological effects it has. Yes, i was my family was held for over four years and a was born in a concentration camp. Thinkfelong effects i have led me to become a psychotherapist to try and understand what happened to us. These children today held in captivity, separated ism loving care of adults, very disturbing. The reality that this is happening again is causing many of us to recognize that this is an injustice that is so discussed presented in the same way that we were a threat to national security, that we a threat to the economy of the United States. These are so much echoing what charges were against made against us that were unjust and without any basis. Inse children are growing up a time of tremendous chronic state of trauma. Captivity trauma is known to have lifelong effects on children growing up in resulting in depression and anxiety. Amy satsuki ina, were going to interview you for part two and post it online at democracynow. Org. Satsuki ina was born in tule lake segregation center, a maximum security concentration camp for japanese americans during wwii. That does it for our broadcast. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, ne