MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Joaquin Castro

Interview

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HAYES:  Once again, the Trump Administration has intentionally created a spectacle of cruelty and desperation at the U.S. border.  And the cruelty is the direct result, let`s be clear, of the lawlessness emanating from the White House.  Just as child separation was an intentional strategy to create misery, even as the administration lied about, the Trump White House is now using the migrants from Central America, many of them mothers and children to create a new spectacle of cruelty tear gassing people on Sunday as they tried to get through the border. 
 
The pattern is depressingly simple.  President Trump, a voracious cable news watcher does not like to see groups of immigrants from Central America trying to come to the country so his administration finds a way to punish those immigrants.  And to do so visibly, dramatically, to demonstrate to his base that he Donald Trump is on their side against Hispanic toddlers. 
 
That`s why he deployed troops the U.S. border, stringing up concertina wire instead of preparing for Thanksgiving with their families.  That`s why this administration separated immigrant families taking children as young as one-year old away from their parents with no real plan for reuniting those families until a court forced them to.  And that is why the United States government yesterday used tear gas against civilians, a weapon so awful that is banned in the use of warfare. 
 
All as the United States has let`s be clear, experienced a net outflow of undocumented immigrants back into Mexico.  The people on our border who are asking for asylum are quite literally fleeing for their lives.  The only reason they are in this position being tear gassed and treated like criminals is because this President has already worked steadily to dismantle what had been an established, orderly, lawful immigration system including legal ways of asking for asylum.
 
Instead of these people presenting themselves and applying for asylum at a port of entry as the U.S. law requires, they are instead being intentionally and illegally kept out.  In other words, there is lawlessness on the border but it is the lawlessness of Donald Trump ordering his administration to break the law.  All to create images like this one, a mother and her children wearing flip-flops and diapers fleeing the destructive force turned against them by the United States of America.
 
For more of what unfold this weekend, Texas Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro.  Congressman, your response -- your reaction to watching that scene unfold in San Ysidro.
 
REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D), TEXAS:  Well, like a lot of Americans, I was horrified to see women and children, these are folk -- babies and diapers barefoot being gassed.  And I think Americans were horrified at the idea of agents of the United States government making a decision to use tear gas on kids that are two or three years old.
 
And as you mentioned, this was a self-created chaotic situation by the president.  He has used migrants from day one even before he became president through the campaign as the number one political boogeyman for him.  He has weaponized resentment and fear of migrants basically to his political benefit.  And that`s why you see him do a lot of things that he does with respect to migration and immigration.
 
HAYES:  Here`s Lindsey Graham.  Lindsey Graham, a co-sponsor of the gang of eight bill that made his way through the Senate, Comprehensive Immigration Reform, a man who said that if the party nominated Donald Trump will get annihilated it and they`ll deserve it.  Today I have worked many Democrats of compassion for illegal immigrants already in the United States.  In order to solve this problem now, it`s time for Democrats to be clear they too oppose the lawless behavior from illegal immigrants at the border.
 
Basically, he`s saying that Democrats need to get tough, then you adopt Donald Trump stances, maybe you got to build the wall, and then we`ll come to the table.  What do you think of that?
 
CASTRO:  Well, first, most Americans and most Texans disagree with building a 2,000-mile wall between the United States and Mexico and they disagreed with the president from the beginning.  Also as you mentioned earlier, the migration from Mexico and other parts of Central America is lower than it`s been in decades.  There`s a net migration back to Mexico for example.  If -
* especially when you compare the numbers to say 2001 or 2002, and so this really is now very much a political issue that the president has used and created in his favor. 
 
And you know it just speaks -- Lindsey Graham`s quote speaks to how far we`ve come from just a few years ago when the United States Senate in a bipartisan way, I think was 68 votes passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill but John Boehner refused to put it on the floor vote because he was scared of losing his speakership and then the next year he quit his speakership.
 
HAYES:  You know, part of this also I think is this question of scale.  I mean, when people look at the images and the way that the caravan has been covered as this massive invasion, how do you -- how do talk to people about the scale of what we`re seeing and give some perspective to that?
 
CASTRO:  It can be tough actually.  I remember about a week and a half before the election, I was actually getting a haircut and the woman that was cutting my hair who was a Democrat said that she thought that the points that the president were making were actually getting through to people, that people in Texas in San Antonio were scared of this idea that you would have a mass of people that were trying to invade the country.
 
So it`s a lot of I think talking about the facts and the fact that these are asylum seekers, that there`s -- that they`re fleeing violence, that they`re in a desperate situation.  I mean, if you think about it, you look at those images, these people, a lot of them don`t even have shoes on, much less any weapons to hurt anybody.
 
HAYES:  Yes.  It`s also worth noting these are the people in some ways that are the most determined, the most desperate because they have managed to walk a thousand miles.
 
CASTRO:  You know, that`s true.
 
HAYES:  They`ve walked a thousand miles.  I mean, that`s a pretty insane thing to do.
 
CASTRO:  Yes, that`s right.  I mean, it speaks to the human will, but all of this was also created because the President -- you know, we put out a statement today at Congressional Hispanic Caucus that for generations both Democratic and Republican administrations have had an orderly process for asylum.  And this president has basically knocked all that, destroyed all that, and what he needs to do is reestablish that orderly process for petitioning for asylum.
 
HAYES:  Yes, Congressman Joaquin Castro, thank you for being here.  I want to follow up on that now with Lee Gelernt. 

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