“Trump Creates Crises & Preys on Fear”: Rep. Jayapal on Policy of Separating Kids from Parents

Outrage is growing over the Trump administration’s separation of children from their parents along the U.S.Mexico border. On Monday, ProPublica released audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children estimated to be between the ages of 4 and 10 years old are heard crying “Mama” and “Papi” after being separated from their parents. In another part of the audio, a Border Patrol agent is heard joking, in Spanish, “Well, we have an orchestra here. What’s missing is a conductor.” Video footage released by the U.S. Border Patrol Monday shows migrant children in concretefloored chain link cages, in an old warehouse in McAllen, Texas. A new Quinnipiac Poll shows roughly twothirds of U.S. voters oppose separating children from their parents at the border. About 7 percent of Democratic voters support the Trump policy, while 55 percent of Republicans support it. We speak with Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Democratic congressmember from Washington state. She has just helped announce a march on Washington and cities nationwide on June 30 against family separation. She is vice ranking member of the House Budget Committee and vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. On June 9 she visited a detention center in her home state and spoke with some of the 200 asylumseekers held at the SeaTac Bureau of Prisons facility.

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