MSNBC "The Beat with Ari Melber" - Transcript: Immigration
Interview
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MELBER: Now, against this backdrop today Donald Trump is doubling down in his speech on child separation policy. He is also literally wrapping himself, take a look, giving a big hug to an American flag.You can watch it twice. It looks the same way both times.
If you have a sense that things are starting to come off the rails in America right now, that things are getting worse, we can report for you tonight there is a lot of evidence to that end. Let`s speak plainly.
Your federal government openly admits it`s using innocent children as a pawn in an international effort at what they call deterrence. Your government creating camps to detain these children, and the President of the United States is lying about his own policy in a way that is brazenly sloppy even by his own standard. The kind of lies that act a gesture of one of the more significant questions in executive can ask the rest of the nation in a constitutional democracy. What are you going to do about it?
I`m joined now by California congressman Judy Chu. She met yesterday with some of the children separated from their parents in facilities in California. Enrique Marones, a founder and director of Border Angels and "the Chicago Tribune`s" Clarence Page.
Congresswomen, starting with the facts, what did you see on your tour? REP. JUDY CHU (D), CALIFORNIA: Yesterday, 14 Congress members including myself and leader Nancy Pelosi went down to the border in San Diego to go to one of these shelters that is housing these children. We saw 62 children ages six to 17 who were either unaccompanied minors or were separated from their parents. And it was just overwhelming to see these really young kids as young as six being there by themselves, traumatized by the situation.
We were able to talk to the mental health counselors who told us what these children are saying in private, that they feel lost, they feel abandoned, they do not know where to turn next and they are scared for their lives. This is not the America that we know.
MELBER: Is this a consequence of what this Congress that you are a member of has passed or a consequence of Donald Trump`s zero-tolerance orders?
CHU: This is solely the responsibility of President Donald Trump. Donald Trump issued the zero-tolerance policy. This is what is causing these young people to be separated. Now over 2,000 of them that have been separate from their parents. And Donald Trump has the ability to reverse this. He could call Jeff Sessions right now and tell him to stop this, to stop this separation of children from their parents. So, yes, it is squarely at the feet of President Trump.
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