It is a simple message. Do your job. Thats all for us tonight. Thank you for watching. Cnn tonight with don lemon starts now. I gave the whole network, cnn tonight. Thank you, chris. Were going to do our jobs. Youve been doing yours. Were going to keep folks to the facts here and hopefully the people in washington will do as you say, do their damn jobs. Is lets continue on, my friends. See you tomorrow. This is cnn tonight. Im don lemon. The Trump Administration is trying hard to deny and deflect intense criticism of its immigration policy, separating undocumented parents from their children at the southern border. They can and are trying to deny those facts. Our job on this program is to bring you those facts, and we will do that tonight. But first you have to hear this. Its the sound of what propublica reports are the voices of little kids from Central America being held at a customs and Border Protection facility last week, sobbing for their parents. [ children crying ] its heartbreaking. Since we began reporting on this story, as the crisis at the border grows each day, a lot of people have said this is not what we stand for. This is not america. This is not who we are. But is it . Because i want to you listen to some more, and you cannot deny that this is who we are right now. This is what we have become. We are now a country separating Vulnerable Children from their families. And in this case, as youre about to hear, a sixyearold girl desperate for someone to phone her aunt. [ speaking spanish ] we are a nation that has always welcomed people from around the world to our shores. And lets face it, some of us, some of our ancestors have been more welcome than others. Many came here out of desperation. Many came here carrying hope. Some came here in chains and ships. But all had a hand in making america great. Long before that was a corny Campaign Slogan when it was a real thing. Bloorksd sweat, and tears, when it really meant something. As these families are ripped apart, its important to note that 133 years ago yesterday, someone else arrived on our shores. A french ship sailed into new york harbor carrying lady liberty. There is a famous poem inscribed on the statues base. The famous poem inscribed on the statues base. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, your yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse are of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me, i lift my lamp besides the golden door. What does that golden door look like tonight . I want to begin with ginger thompson, a Senior Reporter at propublica and Jennifer Wright a human rights attorney. Good evening to both of you. Good evening. Its awful. Jennifer, i want to get to you, and ginger, youre here with me. As you were listening to that audio, you were almost in tears. Yeah. Ive spent the weekend with this tape and it still really shakes me. Especially the sixyearold girl. Why so . I have nephews, i have nieces, i have a granddaughter who is about six years old, and so hearing her voice, you know, brings all of those people who i lve to mind. What does that golden door look like tonight . I think thats what this story was about, sort of saying enforcing all of us to reckon with what this policy is. I think theres been an attempt to kind of make this a sterile policy debate and to even characterize the children as gang members and risks and threats to the country. I think if you wanted to defend this policy, thats fine, but we need to be able to say clearly what the policy is and what the policy does. And the voices that have been missing in this debate about this policy are the voices of the children. Jennifer, i want to get to you. We have lots to talk about. And again, welcome to the program. We should note that cnn has not been able to verify the source of this audio or the events that reportedly occur on it, but we have reached out to u. S. Customs and Border Protection and are awaiting a response from them. Youre the one who released this heartbreaking audio here to pro publica. What can you tell us about these children . How did you get it . How did i get it . Yes, maam. A whistle blower was so appalled by the weeping of the children and the obvious trauma being inflicted upon them that the whistleblower prepared the tape and brought it to me for legal advice and then authorized me to pass it on to ginger thompson at propublica and to other any press agency that was interested in making this reality known. So, jennifer, what did your client say about the ages of the children that we hear on the recording . Give us some background here. There is a range of ages. Some of the older kids in the room were unaccompanied minors that would probably be teenagers, but theres just a few of those. The rest of them were very small children, as you can hear on the tape. You know, some fouryearold, fiveyearold, sixyearold, sevenyearold, in that range. Ginger, we talked a little about the sixyearold girl, but we hear the one child asking officials to call her aunt and she recited the phone number. You called that number and spoke to the childs aunt. What did she say . She talked about how terrifying it was for her to get a call from her sixyearold niece after having traveled a month from Central America, through mexico, across the border. The little girl was crying and saying, you know, aunt, ill behave myself. Ill be a good girl. But please come get me because im alone. And, you know, shes here going through an asylum claim of her own and is in a legally precarious place, particularly now the aunt . The aunt. And so shes sort of at a loss of what to do and how to help. So shes still there, the sixyearold . The sixyearold is now in a shelter being run by health and human services, so shes out of the Border Patrol facility. I want to bring in now dr. Alan shapiro. Dr. Shapiro is a pediatrician in and the cofounder of terra firma, a health care that provides justice for children. Doctors, welcome to the program. You heard that awful audio, and im so emotional. I hate to be this emotional because i want to get the story out. I dont want to detract from it. But the children that had been at this center for less than 24 hours, what is your initial reaction . I imagine its damaging. Im not a doctor, but hearing people cry like that, how damaging is that . First of all, its absolutely heartbreaking to hear those tapes. What were hearing is a manifestation of acute stress reaction that these kids are going through. These are kids that have suffered so much already, to arrive in our Justice System for protection and to be torn out of the arms of their parents are leading to conditions such as these acute stress reactions were seeing that is very worrisome. So what acute stress does is it leads to regressive behavior, withdrawal, aggressiveness, bedwetting, things that all the milestones that they mastered are now getting reversed. Thats very concerning. It affects their learning and their development and growth. And we also know what this stress is doing, especially over a longer period of time, is leading to toxic stress. And toxic stresses release the exposure of those stress hormones that we know are the fight and flight hormones, that red alert hormones that can lead to longterm chronic problems like high blood pressure, like cancer, like learning disabilities. This is very disturbing, and really, to me as a pediatrician seems like governmentsanctioned child endangerment. Ill talk to you a little bit more about that, but i want the viewer to hear more. Jennifer, i want to play one moment. This moment stood out to me again. Watch this. [ children crying ] [ speaking spanish ] so that comment, jennifer, from the border agent extremely upsetting. What is this whistleblower telling you about how these children are being treated by officials . Theyre certainly not being understood and theyre being sort of jovial and joking around and trying to jolly the children who have just been torn away from their parents. And we have to remember that almost all of these people hurrying north, going through extreme dangers trying to get to the rio grande, extraordinary dangers, leaving everything behind, these people are refugees. Trump wants to talk about how these people are, in fact, criminals. But we have to remember that the cartels, they can buy any police officer, they can buy airplanes, they can buy boats. They dont need to send starving, terrorized families to try to run the river. So were punishing the victims here and sort of joking around with the kids as if it was no big deal. I find that infuriating. The other thing is dr. Shapiro mentioned the American Academy of pediatrics said the same thing you did, the Trump Administration separating families at the border is child abuse. I want to get zef zeleny who asked secretary nielsen that. Heres how she responded. Watch this. How is this not specifically child abuse for these innocent children who are indeed being separated from their parents . I want to be clear on a couple other things. The vast majority, vast, vast majority who are in the care of h its right now, 10,000 of the 12,000 were sent alone by their parents. Thats when they were separated. We now care for them, we have high standards, we give them meals, we give them education, we give them medical care. There is videos, there is tvs. I visited the Detention Centers myself. That would be the answer to the question. What do you think of the response . Im incredulous, to be honest. I just cant believe how families fleeing for their lives can be blamed for what is happening and what our policy is. What can you tell us about the conditions, sandra . In the centers . Yeah. So the problem with these centers has been that the access to them is extremely limited, right . They are, you know, Big Box Stores in some cases, walmarts in some cases that have been converted into holding facilities. And so inside of these box centers are kinds of kennels where, you know, men are kept in a couple of kennels, women are kept in another couple of kennels, unaccompanied children in another and then, you know, some of those unaccompanied children now are not really unaccompanied but theyve been torn away from their families. Thank you, all. Thank you, i appreciate it. Jennifer, thank you so much. I appreciate you coming on as well. Were going to talk we have a lot more to talk about, including i want to know why arent we seeing girls and pictures of girls . Is that deliberate . Because were only seeing guys, were only seeing men and very few adult women, but girls . Whats going on here . Some say theyre defending their policy at the outrage of the growing at the separation of children. This was played in the White House Briefing room today as well. Two white house reporters, they will join me next. Behr presents ordinary versus overachiever. A lot of p but just one can behr through it all. Behr premium plus, a top rated interior paint at a great price. Family friendly, disaster proof. Find it exclusively at the home depot. Prepare for your demise, do your worst, doctor. I will. But first, a little presentation. Hijacking earths Geothermal Energy supply. Phase 1. Choosing the right drill bit. As long as evil villains reveal their plans, you can count on geico saving folks money. 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This is happening as audit is released of children in Detention Centers sobbing for their parents. I want to bring in april ryan a White House Correspondent from American Urban Radio Networks and executive editor of sentinel newspapers. Good evening to both of you. Happy to have you both on tonight. Tell us what is happening at the white house. The press briefing today was unbelievable. Thank you both. April, ill start with you. Before the briefing today reporters listened to the audit of children crying. What was it like when it played at the briefing today. Even before that, the president of the Correspondents Association who is a bloomberg reporter, she played it. We were all listening to it. And then others started listening. This is before sarah or the secretary of Homeland Security came out. And while the secretary of Homeland Security was talking, olivia newsy, a reporter, started playing. She was way in the back of the room. We heard the children wailing. This is as the Homeland Security head was talking. At issue, olivia newsy was saying, have you seen, have you heard this tape . So she never got a response so she started playing it. And she acknowledged it on twitter that she was the one way back in the back of the room. We could hear it all the way up front. You could actually hear it on the audio. You could see hogan, giggly, and sarah looking around to see who was playing it. Im still trying to figure out who played the darth vader march at one point in time too i didnt hear that. Some people had asked about that, it was up front. The scary thing is the reaction from this administration. They doubled down on them being victims themselves of being held hostage by democrats, and the logic that they employed was, were not holding these poor, innocent victims hostage, but if we dont get what we want, were going to continue the policy. So they are using them as leverage. They as much as admitted it. Don, i have to tell you, this is one issue ive covered for 35 years, and its frightening in its scope. Both parties have punted this issue for years. And when you think about the fact that this country you read the new colossus at the beginning. You think of the foundations of our republic and how were treating these people. These kids have to endure they start, they travel a month. These parents have nothing. They come to the border. They are sometimes kidnapped by the people who brought them over, they are robbed, they are beaten, they are sexually abused. Some of them end up dead. Ive seen them stack four or five high like cord wood in a 5x8 uhaul, suffocated to death. And then they come over here, were supposed to be the shining city on the hill, and the rest of their humanity is stripped of them and their children are taken from them. Is this who we are as a country . Its a question we have to ask. And there was a question asked about compassion, and this administration is more determined to enforce the law than to show compassion for the victims. These people arent gang members. These people are victims. Thats the thing, because i think theyre trying to pull the wool over your eyes. Exactly. Its not really the law, and weve already explained that. I had several people on last week who tried to say it was, now all of a sudden this week theyre admitting the Trump Administration did change the policy because the facts are just not on their side. Its at their discretion. April, has anyone at the white house or with the administration tried to explain to you or anyone there why you cant have zero tolerance without separating parents from their kids . Well, you know, today i dont know what they were trying to say because it was back and forth. You know, the Homeland Security secretary said one thing and sarah came back let me tell you what she said. Last night she tweeted, we do not have a policy separating families at the border, period. But it was in context. She was still defending the policy. Then today she defended the separations very publicly. Watch this, april, and ill let you finish your point. Heres the bottom line. Dhs is no longer ignoring the law. We are enforcing the laws as they exist on the books. As long as illegal Entry Remains a criminal offense, dhs will not look the other way. At first shes like, that isnt our policy or whatever. Now shes all in, but go on. Heres the deal. From the very beginning this administration has said if you indeed illegally cross the border, youve committed a crime. This administration is saying they dont care if its man, woman, cat, dog, child, adult. Theyre going to look at it as a crime. Theyre trying to put teeth in this to set an example. But thats one of the reasons i ask the question about the pond issue. Are these kids being used as a pawn, because it is trying to fix the broken immigration system, immigration reform. And Homeland Security had said, no, the kids arent being used as a pawn. But Sarah Huckabee sanders says no, the kids arent being used as a pawn. They can secretary sanders said, oh, we want everything, its all or nothing, to include the wall. Its leverage, its political congressman, say one thing and do another, yet the president can change this policy. A briefing had been delayed, delayed, delayed three and a half hours. So how did they did they want her there . Was sara not willing to take the brunt of all this . I know a couple people told me back the guy at 25 minutes after that briefing supposed to start, im the guy that says where are you . And they say, if you tell me, youll tell somebody else. So the other guy. I think he wanted security to speak to it specifically because sarah had already tried to handle