MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: "Trump tweet creates census turmoil."
Interview
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HAYES: We have yet more details tonight of what life is like inside the Trump detention centers, this comes on the heels of a report release yesterday by the Department of Homeland Security`s own inspector-general, so basically from inside the Trump administration, highlighting extreme overcrowding and a lack of food and hygiene and facilities along the Rio Grande Valley. Today, The Atlantic spoke with a doctor who got the chance to evaluate dozens of detained children at the McAllen border patrol facility. The recollections are very hard to read and heartbreaking. I`ll quote here: "a 15-month-old baby with a fever had been in detention for three weeks. His uncle had fed him from the same dirty formula bottle for days on end until a guard replaced it with a new one." The doctor later noted that "denying the ability to wash their infant`s bottles is unconscionable, and could be considered intentional mental and emotional abuse." Before the doctor`s visit, the uncle had asked for medical attention because the baby was wheezing. In response, a guard touched the baby`s head with his hand and concluded he is not hot." The doctor later noted that access to a medical professional was denied. The American Academy of Pediatrics released these pictures today. Those are drawings by 10 and 11-year-old children in McAllen recently released from Customs and Border Protection custody and depicting themselves behind bars and in cages. We have almost no video of what it`s like in these detention camps except for this, which was shot by Texas Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro, who smuggled some sort of a recording device into a facility on Monday as part of a congressional delegation, even though border patrol confiscated members` phones. Congressman Castro joins me now. Why did you think it was important to defy their orders to confiscate your phones to get footage from inside?
REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO, (D) TEXAS: Because the country has to see what`s being done in their name, and also because I don`t believe that the executive branch has the authority tell the legislative branch with oversight power over these federal agencies that we can`t document what`s going on inside. And we asked the border patrol chief and an attorney that was there very specifically to site the law they were relying on to keep us from documenting what was going on, and they couldn`t cite a single law. So at that point, Chris, I considered their request a courtesy. And there is too much at stake for me to abide by courtesy at this point.
HAYES: The footage you show there shows women who appear -- they`re obviously not young children, they`re adult women, on the floor there in that cell. It looks like a jail cell. What`s striking to me is that what you guys saw -- they knew you were coming. This was not a spot visit, is that correct?
CASTRO: That`s right. But they didn`t think that we would get into that cell. The reason that we got into that cell is because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insisted that she be able to talk to those women, and basically, you know, pushed her way in there. And so when we got in there, the women started telling us their stories, some of them 50 days there in detention, some separated from their kids, some said they`d not been given their medications. The sink was not working. There was no running water. So when these women use the restroom, there was no way for them to wash their hands. So what we saw in that cell is consistent with what the pediatricians have said about other facilities. I also went next door and visited people in another facility. There was a woman who was in the early stages of pregnancy, and in that facility, there was a sink that was working, but there were paper cups that were being reused by the people in that cell. So, these conditions are deplorable and human rights are being neglected. The president had this to say: "if illegal immigrants are unhappy with the conditions in the quickly built or refitted detention centers, just tell them not to come. All problems solved." What do you think of that?
CASTRO: Well, first, these are mostly asylum seekers. They have the legal right to petition for asylum in the United States, just as anybody across the world has the right to do that in any nation. And also, it shows you that what we already know, that the president sees migrants as subhuman. He dehumanizes them for political purposes and political gain.
HAYES: There is reporting -- there is reporting -- ProPublica -- we covered it earlier in the week about a Facebook group with thousands of members in CPB that posted offensive, racist, sexist, derogatory memes, really some disturbing stuff. We`re reporting tonight from Politico that actually DHS officials were alerted to this, some admitted apparently anonymously that they had been monitoring it for, quote, intelligence, and that this -- it was notified to CBP as far back as 2016, which is under the Obama administration. What does that say to you about the culture of CBP?
CASTRO: CBP is broken, and they have a culture problem. And at this point, the bad has overtaken the good. And there are good agents who are trying to do their best to take care of the people in their custody, but they`re overwhelmed by the system. And they`re also undercut by the kinds of agents who were making those vile and vulgar comments. Right now there is no system in place in CBP that can really hold agents accountable when they do wrong. And that`s what we`re seeing, is that these people continue to exist and thrive in an organization that doesn`t hold people properly accountable.
HAYES: My final thing here about accountability. I mean, we`re watching all this. We`re getting this information from the IG report. There are minors being held in direct violation of a court order under Flores for more than 72 hours. There are folks in subhuman conditions for 40, 50 days. What`s being done? Like is this still going to go on? What are the remedies or recourses available to you, to us as citizens, to make sure this stops?
CASTRO: Really, Chris, this is -- this is going to take all Americans of good conscience to speak up and take action to change this, because you have a president and a senate majority leader in Mitch McConnell that quite honestly are unsympathetic to these people. And what -- we`ve got to do a few things, we have to not just pump more money into a broken system. We have to do things to raise the standards of care. We have to do everything that we can to move people through the process quicker so that you place people faster with sponsors, for example. And then finally, in terms of the long-term, we`ve got to invest more in the northern triangle countries of Central America so that people have opportunity and safety in their own countries, and then don`t feel like they need to come here to seek asylum.
HAYES: Just final question, though, in the very short-term, when you look at these emergency disaster situations, situations that I think would be considered human rights abuses, is there anything in the law right now that requires any reporting of metrics or conditions to congress by CBP right now so that you will know in two weeks or three weeks that this situation has gotten better?
CASTRO: There is some language that`s required. There is language in the appropriations bill that requires different kind of reporting, but it`s hard to match the reporting that comes back to the congress with what`s actually going on in the facilities. It`s clear at this point that we also can`t always trust what is being told us to us by the agency. And then when you try to go and independently verify that, we not only got an instruction that we couldn`t take photographs, we also initially got an instruction that we were not allowed to speak to anybody that was being detained. So these folks want to police themselves, and the system is totally broken.
HAYES: All right, Congressman Joaquin Castro, thank you for sharing that.
CASTRO: Thank you.
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