MSNBC "The Beat with Ari Melber" - Transcript: Immigration
Interview
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MELBER: I`m joined now for a special discussion on this. Congressman Adriano Espaillat, Democrat from New York, the first Dominican-American to be elected in Congress and formerly an undocumented immigrant himself, and Jorge Baron, executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Right Project. And with me in New York, Alicia Menendez, a contributing editor for Bustle and host of the "Latina to Latina" podcast. Thank you all.
Congressman, I begin with you. Is this a humanitarian crisis caused by the U.S. government?
REP. ADRIANO ESPAILLAT (D), NEW YORK: There`s no question about it. These asylum seekers, we are prosecuting people that are fleeing from violence, in some cases from natural disasters, from adverse conditions. And we are treating them as criminals.
Not only that, but we are stripping their children away from them. How unholy is that. This amounts to child abuse. Most experts understand and know that when a child is brutally or forcefully separated from his or her mother, they are traumatized in short-term and long-term.
So this amounts to child abuse. And the government is perpetrating that kind of behavior. I haven`t seen anything like this and the whole world is watching. It even caught the attention of the United Nations. The human rights unit there has asked the Trump administration to halt this practice.
MELBER: Congressman, take a listen to what speaker Ryan said today.
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MELBER: If speaker Ryan doesn`t want this outcome, is he doing everything possible to prevent it?
ESPAILLAT: Absolutely not. In fact, they are just back pedaling. These children are being held in jail-type holding facilities that restrict their movement for 22 hours a day, allowing them only to go into the courtyard for one hour. They are restricted hours. They are under heavy surveillance.
This is clearly a jail-type situation for children. As they are 11 years old, ten, nine, eight years old. Some as young as four and three years old. These are children. For God sake, America. What`s happening to you soul?
MELBER: Let me play for another claim by the attorney general on how typical this is. Take a listen.
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MELBER: Not unusual. Not unjustified is the claim, Jorge. Your response? (CROSSTALK)
MELBER: Sorry I was going to Jorge now and then congressman, we will come back right to you. My apologies.
ESPAILLAT: Thank you.
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