A Reporter Describes Immigrant Detention in Texas

FEATURING ZOË CARPENTER – The investigative news outlet Pro-Publica has obtained disturbing audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection detention facility of children screaming for their parents. The audio was obtained by an anonymous source who was distraught at the sight of the 10 Central American children who had just been separated from their parents by border agents. All the children heard in the audio calling for their parents are between the ages of 4 and 10.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was confronted with the sounds of the children wailing at a press conference on Monday. But she decided to double down on the Trump Administration false assertion that the government was simply enforcing existing law.

Texas is ground-zero for the family separation scandal. A former Walmart site turned holding facility in Brownsville, Texas is apparently holding about 1,400 people. Photos from the inside have been making the rounds on social media. And, in Donna, Texas the government is building a tent city to house the anticipated increase in child detainees. A third Texas site is the Border Patrol detention facility in McAllen, Texas which was briefly opened to press over the weekend and from which officials released to the public a video on Sunday.

Read her recent piece in The Nation called ‘What It’s Like Inside a Border Patrol Facility Where Families Are Being Separated’ HERE.

Zoë Carpenter, The Nation’s associate Washington editor. She worked previously for Rolling Stone, and has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, and other media outlets.