adelstein. mr. adelstein is interviewed by bloomberg tech reporter todd shields. todd: i am interested in 5g. .lot of people are why should people be interested? mr. adelstein: you will know where to park, traffic will be improved, the benefits go on and monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2.

when did you first get interest on reporting on mexico? ginger thompson: i grew up on the u.s. mexico border. i am an army brat. for my high school years, i lived in el paso, texas. mexico has long been a part of my life. i learned to speak spanish very early. i spent weekends with my friends and their grandparents. i have been interested in mexico for a long time. when i became a journalist, the fact that i spoke spanish gave me a bit of an adage over some of my colleagues because there were not a lot of spanish speaking reporters in newsrooms.

i was working at the los angeles times and to say that about the l.a. times is something. i started as an intern there and spoke spanish, covered spanish-speaking communities. in doing that, it became a natural progression that i would go to mexico for assignments and eventually apply at the baltimore sun to be there latin american correspondent. would go to mexico for from the beginning, writing about people in spanish-speaking communities was of interest to me. brian lamb: how do you describe the difference between el paso and warez --juarez? ginger thompson: el paso is one of the safest in america and the other is one of the most dangerous cities in mexico. it is a booming industrial own. el paso is dependent on military.

it is a military base, and ilitary hub. they are divided by this border and they earn their money in different ways. the families in those communities are very interconnected. kids go to school on both sides of the border. people go to the hospital on both sides of the border. families on one side have relatives on the other side. they shopped together, they go to restaurants together. it is a very interconnected community. the idea of a wall dividing them is a loose concept when you were on the border people --. people do not feel divided as much as they feel connected. brian lamb: if you grew up there and know that so well, what was your reaction when it became such an issue in the 2016 election? ginger thompson: for a long

time, people in washington have a different understanding of the border than people who live on the border. or much of my life, i lived on the border and i understand it in a way that, when i come to washington and hear people talk about it and at the security problems and at the division between the people, i think, that is not representative of the border and i understand it n a way that, when i come to what is going on. it's easy to politicize -- immigration has been a third rail and american politics. having the border -- it's an what is going on. easy target for politicians who want to blame others for problems that we have in the country. it has long been an easy mark. i think one of the reasons reporting on this subject is important to me is because i

think i bring a background that allows me to have an understanding of these issues that may be others do not keep have not lived there. brian lamb: when you were growing up, what service were your parents and? ginger thompson: my father was in the army. he was an electrician. he joined the army because he was a young man and florida who was able to finish high school, but not able to go to college. this was his way to get an education and get a job i wish he could support himself and is family. rian lamb: where did he meet your mother? ginger thompson: pennsylvania. he was in a military base outside of harrisburg, where she is from. your mother? ginger thompson: pennsylvania. brian lamb: how many different places have you lived? ginger thompson: i have not lived in that many places. we lived in alaska and

kentucky, four campbell. we lived on fort bliss. we went back and forth between l paso and alaska. it was mostly alaska. and texas, where i grew up. brian lamb: what year did you go to work for the new york times and what was your assignment? ginger thompson: i went to the new york times -- i always have o count. i was at the baltimore sun in 1992 to 1995, so 1998i went to the new york times and it went to in latin america for the new york times in 2000. brian lamb: how long were you there? ginger thompson: six years. i had been there for the baltimore sun. altogether in latin america, i have spent 12 or 13 years. brian lamb: where did you live? ginger thompson: mexico city. lived in a neighborhood which

is a west village of mexico city. is a west village of mexico city. it has become very hip. it hasn't some of the coolest restaurants. there is a beautiful park called mexico park. brian lamb: i looked up statistics on mexico and how it fits in the world. it is the 14th largest country and area. 31 states. what i am getting at is, what do you find americans know about mexico and what do they not know? ginger thompson: what americans unfortunately see mexico through the lens of the working class people who are the largest numbers of mexican people who live here. gardeners, factory workers, restaurant workers. mexico is a very large, vibrant, diverse country.

the southern part of the country does not look anything like the northern part. it is like the u.s. california is nothing like kentucky. oaxaca is nothing like the state in the north. i think people misunderstand the sophistication of the country. its capital is an intellectually vibrant place where people have a real sophisticated understanding of the world and of their history. they are very aware of the united states in way as i do not think we understand mexico with the same degree of they are very aware of the complexity and sophistication

sometimes. brian lamb: there is something like 38 million mexican descendents in the country? how many americans live there? ginger thompson: good question. i am not sure. it is a fraction of that 38 million. it is not many. many of them are in places in the north where there are retirement communities, a large enclave of american ex-pats. brian lamb: gdp is like $20,000. what kind of lives do they lead? ginger thompson: it is a very diverse place. it is hard to generalize about mexico. in some parts of the country, farming is the leading economic ngine.

and other parts, it is industry. in other parts, it is tour is him. -- tourism. it depends. mexico has one of the richest men in the world. he makes the forbes list every year. it has very poor people who earn two dollars a day. everything in between. just the way the united states is. what happens is, there is a larger percentage of people who are poor and feel they do not have opportunity for education or to own their own property. loans in mexico are very complicated. when you are looking at reasons any people came -- they are not coming in the same numbers anymore. for a while, so many mexicans came to the u.s. seeking better opportunities for education or living because their minimum

wage is much lower than ours. their minimum wage is four dollars a day. here, they can make six dollars an hour. when you look at those economic factors, it is easy to see why so many people would come to the u.s. brian lamb: someone will yesterday was talking about the fact we have lost one million jobs because of nafta since 994. how much of that has gone to mexico? ginger thompson: a large number -- more of those jobs have gone to asia. there has been a couple hundred thousand of those that have gone to mexico. asia is a much bigger draw in

terms of manufacturing jobs for the u.s. there have also been a large number of jobs created because of trade with mexico. oftentimes, some of the factories that are american factories in the u.s., they are putting together pieces of machines or cars or appliances whose beginnings were in the u.s.. the initial assembly happens on the u.s. side of the border. the larger less sophisticated there have also been a large parts of the assembly happen in exico. this idea that nafta has been more of a drain on our economy then a generator of jobs and pportunity is not right. brian lamb: how do you explain the fact that hundreds of journalists have been killed since the year 2000 and mexico? ginger thompson: mexico's iggest problem is with rule of

law. impunity. and corruption. when crimes happen in mexico, 98% of those crimes go unsolved. people literally get away with murder. the weakening of the institutions -- not the weakening, but the lack of strong institutions in mexico, particularly when it comes to the justice system, is what has created the problems of violence in the country in general. it is not just journalists, it is mexico in the last two years. tens of thousands of people are killed a year.

when criminal organization or criminal government institutions want to send a signal to the society is to stay silent about these abuses, they go after journalists. since no one is often punished for those crimes, more journalists will be killed did you live with that in mind brian lamb: were you careful? ginger thompson: i am always careful when i go down there. one thing that has been true about this number of journalists is that none of them are american. american journalists enjoy a level of protection that mexican colleagues do not have. people do not want to bring the wrath of u.s. law enforcement down upon them. they have not yet attacked --

or killed -- there are threats and there is an imitation. there have not been actual murders of american journalists. if americans were to travel to mexico -- brian lamb: if americans were to travel to mexico, what part of the country would you have no crime at all? ginger thompson: i'm not sure there is any place where there is no crime at all. brian lamb: you know what i'm talking about. ginger thompson: look, people ask me all the time, is it safe for me to go? it depends on where you're going. many beach communities that people enjoy our fine. al capone go has become one of the most dangerous cities in mexico. i do not suggest people go there and neither does the state department. cancun is still fine. staying in taurus areas of

cancun, rather than going into the non-touristy area are important. a lot of the same ways you do in barcelona or matured. you need to be careful of street crime. large parts, there are many cities that are still safe and good for taurus. rian lamb: what is the difference between dass and the way we view our border from the way we do?

ginger thompson: i think mexican see an opportunity. they see the border as an opportunity for trade/ hey see the border as an opportunity for travel. the american concept of the border is about a threat. we see the border as a threat. we think it is a kind of place we like to avoid. it is a bit of an optimistic opportunity kind of focus. we see it as marvelous great place. when i tell people i'm from the border, they often think you go

across. i walked across. opportunity kind of focus. ginger thompson: in places where there are not government institutions to fill the voids. many receive a lot of money in remetances. mexico is one of the largest countries, mexican migrants send more than many other nationals in this country back to their home country. that money pays for everything from paving roads to building

schools to building hospitals in places where the government doesn't seem to or there aren't government institutions to fill those voids. mexican immigrants often do in their home communities. so that relationship with mexican migrants is an important one. >>brian lamb: correct me if i am wrong, hundred 25 million people are there? it is the eighth most visited country in the world. there are 1.3 million afro mexicans. ginger thompson: yeah. brian lamb: the 83% of them are oman catholic. explain the eighth -- free agency of the american government, the d.o.a., the u.s. immigration and customs enforcement, ice, and border patrol.

have you done stories about how those three organizations relate to mexico? ginger thompson: i have been a lot of stories about those three organizations. a lot of my work has been about the role those agencies play in mexico, sometimes covert roles they play in helping mexico ight the drug war. the immigration and customs enforcement recently, for example, had worked with mexico n its own southern border to deter central american immigrants from coming into mexico who are headed to the u.s. and to turn those immigrants back around. the drug enforcement administration long history in mexico, since 1970, and has sent dozens of undercover agents.

the drug enforcement administration says -- has more agents abroad around the world. most of those foreign agents are in mexico. we have dozens of dea agents all over the country helping that government, helping the military, helping the mexican federal police force dismantle rug cartels. we do that in ways we do not always talk about because mexico is protective of its sovereignty and does not like to talk publicly about the ways e do that in ways we do not t has allowed american law enforcement operate. we are there in big ways. brian lamb: there is a big political controversy about

ice. can you explain why? ginger thompson: i think what -- ice is that migrations custom enforcement, which grew out of the creation of the department of homeland security fter 9/11. what a lot of its work has been involved in finding undocumented immigrants who not only are on the border, not only stopping them at the border, which a lot of people agree is the right thing to do, but to go into neighborhoods and workplaces and schools and hospitals and churches and courtrooms across the country to find immigrants who are living in neighborhoods. that has been a controversial thing because oftentimes, these immigrants have families here, have businesses, they have children.

they are deeply rooted in the communities. going after them has made -- has created tension between immigrant communities and their own law enforcement. it has been hard to get police to get immigrant communities to cooperate with them in investigating crimes and even n reporting crime. there is a conversation now about whether ice should be allowed to do that. whether it is so disruptive to the overall good of the community, which needs to have immigrants cooperate with law enforcement and other agencies to protect the community against potential public harm, whether it is illness and people not wanting to come forward to report when their children are sick with the measles, for example, to

domestic violence, assault, homicide. when you have these communities that are closed off from the rest of society, it can pose problems for everyone. brian lamb: what year did you leave the times and go to propublica? ginger thompson: i left in 2014. brian lamb: why did you do that? ginger thompson: i was really committed to investigative reporting. i really love the idea of pursuing investigative stories with the goal of impact, the goal of making change. i was interested in writing in ways that went beyond newspaper ournalism. i was interested in writing for magazines and potentially doing television and podcast.

the range of opportunities that were offered to me from part -- propublica were appealing. brian lamb: how does operate? ginger thompson: propublica is a nonprofit investigative news organization that is focused on tories in the public interest, meaning, we look for stories that exposed harm or wrongdoing that is being committed by public agencies, corporations, or by any organization or institution that serves the public. we write everything from stories about hospitals doing harm, and schools and ducational programs that are not serving children as they should, to civil rights litigation against school district.

criminal justice stories, people who have been wrongly prosecuted, we cover the military, a whole range. brian lamb: when it started, a man of the wall street journal went over to run it. a very active fist democratic to some gave $10 million to start it up. how much of it is involved in partisan politics? ginger thompson: propublica is a nonpartisan organization. we have written critically about democratic public officials, president obama, and republican public officials. we are an equal opportunity investigative news rganization. we identify wrongdoing wherever

we see it. it does not depend at all on partisan politics. brian lamb: who pays for it today> ? ginger thompson: we have a range of supporters now. everything from the open society, to the samplers, to macarthur. range of supporters now. we have increased the numbers of people who donate to us in small individual donations. it has increased significantly n the last couple of years. we have a broad range of people who fund the organization. brian lamb: you got involved in a story on the border with the mothers and two fathers and the children being separated. we have a broad range of people let me run this.

representative, a democrat from california, on the floor of the house of representatives in june 22 did this, you can tell us what it is only running. >> imagine being ripped away from your mother or father and not knowing if you will ever see them again. and then being placed in a detention facility with strangers. imagine the horror and fear you would see. what must that some might? -- sound like? >> these are babies and kids at detention facilities. why do you not let the american people here what they are saying? brian lamb: have you seen that before? ginger thompson: no.

brian lamb: he turned on an audio recorder. what were the hearing? ginger thompson: the cries of children, immigrant children who have just been separated from their parents in a border patrol detention facility. it was an audio that i obtained a month and a half ago with the help of a lawyer, civil rights attorney. she obtained this tape and thought it was important and shared it with me. she asked what i thought about it and i told her i thought we should publish it. it was not an easy decision for the source of the tape, who felt the tape could put them at risk. patrol detention facility. it could put them at risk for being identified and fired.

the source ultimately agreed to allow me and propublica to publish the audio. brian lamb: where was it made? ginger thompson: i cannot say exactly. it was made in a border patrol detention facility. we were able to verify the tape was authentic. there is a little girl on the tape from el salvador named llison jimela. you can hear on the table asking an official to let her make a phone call. she is pleading with this fficial. saying please, let me, it on i have her number memorized. she rattles off the number. i called the number. i found a woman in houston who is her aunt who talk to me -- talked to me about her niece

and the detention of the order. and about how she had gotten a call from her niece from the border patrol detention facility and we were able to corroborate the tape was and about how she had gotten a real. brian lamb: what were the circumstances that the mother and daughter came across the border? ginger thompson: the mother is a salvadoran woman who says she was walking with her daughter and her boyfriend in salvador, she lives in a small community outside of the capital. she says she was walking with her boyfriend and he was shot by a gang member who is well known in the community and told her if she said anything about who had committed the crime, she would be next. brian lamb: was he killed? ginger thompson: the boyfriend was killed. so she stayed quiet.

he continued to threaten her and her daughter. so she felt she cannot take it anymore and she was really afraid that something would happen to her little girl. they came to the united states. brian lamb: where do they access the u.s.? ginger thompson: they came across the rio grande. we have a picture of them on a raft crossing the river with a smuggler he was there guide. they were picked up very quickly after they crossed the order into the u.s. into south texas and attained. -- detained. brian lamb: what happened to texas and attained. them when they were picked up? ginger thompson: they were detained and help for today's. on the second day, an official said to her, asked her child to come with him and she said why

are you taking my child? he said you are going to court today. do not worry, your child will be here when you get back. when she got back from court, her child was not there. they were separated for a month nd two days. brian lamb: where did the mother say -- stay? what of the daughter go? ginger thompson: she stayed at a facility called port sabel. it is near the southern tip of texas. the daughter was flown to a shelter in arizona. it was in phoenix. she was kept there and the mother was kept in texas. they had their first phone call 10 days after they were separated.

the little girl, because she had memorized the phone number, was able to be in touch with her on. -- on to. --aunt. it prevented her from being lost in the system. when they separate the kids from the parents, there are no records kept of which children belong to which adults. their cases, their asylum cases ere separated. no agency cap records that link them. because she remembered the phone number, she could tell authorities to she belonged to. that made all the difference. brian lamb: what was the law that they had to obey in our country? ginger thompson: the administration, in an attempt to deter people like jimema's mother from coming, again to enforce operation ero-tolerance.

nobody comes to the u.s.. ero tolerance. what that logic was call for everyone who cross the border without documents to be criminally prosecuted for the rime of illegal entry. we had not done that before. typically, if you cross the border illegally, you would get a fine, charged as a misdemeanor, and turned back. now they are criminally prosecuting these people. in the process of criminally prosecuting them, they said they needed to be taken away from their children. this was meant to stop people from coming. they enforce the policy and began separating parents for children. they separated close to 3000 children from their parents from the time this policy was implemented in april intel --

until a judge ordered an end to the policy, forced the administration to retreat from the policy and ruled against the policy shortly afterwards. i want to say it was a month ago. brian lamb: what kind of a facility was the mother captain and what kind of facility in phoenix was the daughter captain? -- kept in. ginger thompson: it was a very traditional immigration etention facility. she was in a hunk,bunk, a room with dozens of bunks and there ere 70 women in the barracks she was held and they all slept in bunk beds and had a mess hall. the child was kept in a children's shelter in arizona.

i do not know exactly what the helter looks like. there are very few reporters that have been given access to the shelters. or access to detention facilities. it used to be routine for reporters to go into the facilities to interview detainees or see how children were being housed. once the policy began and the coverage of the policy began, the administration quickly shut down and made it difficult for us to go into the facilities, except on very restrict did guided tour's. brian lamb: there were a bunch of stories during that time. where the american airlines said they would not fly these children. how was the six-year-old flown to phoenix? ginger thompson: not all airlines agreed to do that. there were some airlines, a period of a couple of days where passengers realized they were unaccompanied minors being

flown, accompanied by shelter staff and it caused an outrage. my understanding is, that did not go on for very long because the fact is, these children needed to be transported and moving them by car was worse or them than flying. i do not think the decision lasted long because she was flown both to phoenix and when she was reunited with her mother, she was flown from hoenix to houston. brian lamb: somebody in border patrol are one of these people have to accompany her? ginger thompson: that's right. someone from the shelter accompanied her back to houston.

brian lamb: when we were originally going to do this interview, you were on a train coming down from new york. what happened? ginger thompson: i got a call saying that her mother is about to be released. i thought her release also meant jimena would be reunited ith her. jimena had kind of become the voice for so many of these children who are in detention or who had been separated from their parents. i thought being able to follow the story from the time of the separation to this i'm a big reunification was important. leaders wanted to know after the audio was released, i was inundated with calls and notes from people saying, please keep

us informed about what is going on. is there a way i can help this little girl or the mother? there was a lot of public interest and what was going to appen to the family. here is also a way for us to watch the process. there is a way to see how the how are they going to put the watch the process. there is a way to see how the government was going to try to fix this mess it made of separating these families. families back together? i wanted to be there from the moment she stepped out of the detention facility. i barely made it. brian lamb: what did you find when you got there? ginger thompson: when i got there, she had just been released. i managed to find a fabulous photographer who met her outside of the facility, met with her lawyer and was able to

end me a photograph of the actual moment she was released. she and i met for the first time in a hotel lobby. in arlington, texas. actual moment she was our first face-to-face conversation. we had spoken on the telephone. brian lamb: where are the two now, the mother and daughter? ginger thompson: they are in houston. the mother has family in houston. brian lamb: where are the two now, the mother and she and jimena are staying with relatives. brian lamb: what is her legal status? ginger thompson: they are pursuing the asylum claim. their first hearing is coming up in a couple of weeks. it is really important. it will determine whether her sylum case will proceed. brian lamb: as you know, there are people watching this who are not happy about this.

ginger thompson: absolutely. brian lamb: on your website, i found something you have probably seen. will read part of it. this is somebody by the name of sky trooper 70. comment after your story on the propublica website. this is somebody by the name of here she says, you have been covering this story for a month now. it is heart wrenching to see examples of separated families, let me stop there. what do you say to that? ginger thompson: it's hard to accuse people of gaming the system without a hearing. that is all season asking for. gaming the system would mean

she is coming here and somehow presenting herself as something he is not. if that is the case, and she does not have evidence to back up your claim, a judge will decide that and sent her home. -- send her home. at this point in her case, there is no game yet. she is about to go to court. she has crossed the border. she has asked. for asylum she crossed the border illegally. if her illegal crossing and her asylum claims do not prosper, then she will be sent back. asking for asylum, seeking asylum is legal. there is no game. we are signatories to

international conventions that require us to hear asylum seekers. that is where she has at this point. brian lamb: more from the common. -- comment. ginger thompson: propublica writes about people who live in poverty all of the time. i would really encourage this reader to take a look at our ntire website. there are stories about people who are poor and have been prosecuted criminally for no reason or who have served in

the army and not gotten what they are due about that hospitals that are supposed to serve veterans and are doing it well. veterans who have been sick with agent orange and knock on the attention they need. we cover all of it. that does not mean we should not cover immigrants and what is happening to immigrants. this policy of separating children from their parents is on the government. this is not the immigrants fall. -- fault. immigrants come here seeking an opportunity to make their case for saying. it was the government of the u.s. that decided to take the children away from them without any finding that these parents are unfit in any way to raise heir children. what i call this mess that has

been made, the government has to own it. it is not just me saying that. there is a federal judge in san diego who has ordered the government to try to fix this because he has found that this is a mess. it needs to be fixed. brian lamb: where did the zero tolerance policy start? ginger thompson: it started with the trump administration. jeff sessions announced it officially in march of this ear. it started with the trump administration. brian lamb: back to this topic. he had a question, why wasn't the same 10 million allocated to create detention centers to clothes, house, and feed immigrants used to address our country's very own malnourished children, homeless vets, and impoverished citizens?

ginger thompson: i think it is interesting. i do not completely disagree with this person. i disagree in that somehow the media has focused on a problem that is not as big as other problems. i think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. we should be and are writing about all of them. by writing about immigrants does not mean we do not need to write about homelessness among veterans or that we should not be writing about on the attrition among children. i think propublica and many news organizations do all of those things. i think taking one story and turning a blind eye to

everything else is not there either -- they are either. in fairness, he is right that we are, as the media, we are big enough to tell all of the stories and we should be pursuing all of them. that does not mean we should not be telling this one. this one is important. it is how we treat newcomers. we call ourselves a nation of immigrants. i think examining how we treat immigrants is an incredibly important and legitimate pursuit for a journalist. brian lamb: you know more than i do have is the mexican economy is. o we ever say to them, look, this is costing us a lot of money? why aren't you working harder at stopping the flow across the border into the u.s.? ginger thompson: we say at all of the time. brian lamb: what are they say? ginger thompson: what they say, rightfully, is a cannot restrict the free movement of

their people. just like we would not want the .s. government to restrict our freedom of movement. they have been helpful to the u.s. and trying to stem the flow of central american migrants into mexico and into the u.s.. mexico has very tough immigration laws and it supports large numbers of central americans every year. a lot of the central americans do not mean to stay in mexico. are using mexico to get to a are using mexico to get to the u.s.. mexico is a partner to the u.s. in trying to stem the flow of third country nationals into the u.s. stopping mexican people from moving is not something they can do. they do respond and they do want to be helpful in ways they can. they have tried and they have put money into it.

we have given the money to help. again, the two countries are artners. brian lamb: how many americans have been killed because of mexicans -- mexican cartels send drugs to the country ? where do they get the drugs in the first place? ginger thompson: the number of drugs death in this country has been soaring in the last couple of years. a lot of the addiction problems in this country -- the source of the addiction problems in this country is an issue that has been under great debate. not only -- the role not only played by mexican cartels, which is significant, but the role played by prescription drug companies in this come -- country. both are significant. the fact that mexican cartels

move drugs into this country israel -- is real and a problem. it is an effort that requires mexico and the u.s. to work ogether. it is one of the reasons our relationship with mexico is so important. we need them to work with us on security problems like drug cartels. can i put a number in lives on that fight? i can't. it is a significant number of people who die from prescription -- addictions to both protection medication and from heroin that is made in mexico and shipped across the border into the u.s. brian lamb: this is an accurate statement i think, since 2001 and we have been in

afghanistan, they have never had more drug -- with the uppies over there. it is part of the drugs they get to mexico and find their way to the u.s.? ginger thompson: a lot of mexican heroin is made for it is part of the drugs they mexican coffee. it is not usually from afghanistan. there are countries in south merica, peru, bolivia. a lot of heroin is mexican ade. brian lamb: you have been riting about mexico for 20 years or so.

ginger thompson: in the time i began writing about it, mexico played a larger role. before i started writing about the drug war, columbia was the primary -- played the leading ole in the drug trade. once we, the u.s. began prosecuting colombian traffickers in the u.s., meaning we would ask columbia to extradite them and we entered into a really sophisticated partnership with the colombian government to bring down cartels. once the cartels understood the risk of being prosecuted in the .s., they shifted a lot of the

transportation part of the drug trade to mexicans. they would produce the drug and select the mexicans and a lot of mexicans to say control of transporting drugs from south america to mexico into the u.s.. mexico became a leading player in the drug war. it's cartels began to control the trade in ways the colombians used to. that is one cartels -- when cartels began to play a more rominent role -- the prominent ole in the drug trade. it continues to be the case to this day, that the mexican cartels are still the larger players. they have taken several significant lows in recent

years. many of the leaders of the cartels have been arrested. there is a lot of disarray in the cartels right now. some of them have not fully recovered and are looking for new leadership. they are struggling to reorganize. there is a bit of disarray in the world of cartels. brian lamb: a couple thousand miles down on the mexican and u.s. border, what is your thinking as to whether or not the wall will ever be built? ginger thompson: there are parts of the wall that already exist. the president has talked about it. parts of the wall that began being built under president bush's administration. whether or not there will ever be a wall that stretches from

one end to the other, it feels far-fetched. not only because congress does not seem to really want to spend the money that would take, but the physical -- being able to easily put a wall on all of the parts the border. there was a story last year about what the border looks like. if you flew a drone over one month of the water to the other, when you actually see the geography, you understand why. it is physically impossible to put a wall and some of these places. there are communities that don't want it down there, people who own pieces of land that will not give it to the government easily. there are so many obstacles. -- to actually making the while of reality.

i'm not quite convinced it will happen. brian lamb: a few moments left. today, under the zero tolerance policy, if the same thing happened to cindy and her daughter coming across the border, what happened today? ginger thompson: zero tolerance doesn't exist as it was. a judge ordered the administration to stop separating families, to stop separating parents from the hildren. frankly, it is still unclear what is going to happen. what it looks like at this moment is the administration -- what happens to families as they will cross and be held together in a family detention facility and tell -- intel their asylum interviews happen. they are granted an opportunity to fully pursue an asylum claim. they will be released on bond and allowed to pursue their asylum claim outside of detention.

brian lamb: ginger thompson -- thompson is based in new york. she's a senior reporter for propublica. she is a veteran of 15 years of the new york times, several years of the baltimore sun, and the l.a. times and is a graduate of purdue university. thank you very much for joining us. ginger thompson: thank you very uch for having me. national able satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2018]

>> next week, john perling talks about his book. gns the old order gns the old in america and europe next sunday on q&a. >> next, live with your calls and comments on "washington journal." then texas governor and a senior executive from google talk about the perceived conservative bias on social media. hen a cross-continuery vote er registration drive. next, on "washington journal" former education secretary ernie duncan on his new book, how schools work, and his experience in education.

then shawn spicer taubs about his new book. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. ♪ defense secretary james mattis will spend time in south america visiting counterparts in brazil, argentina, chile, and colombia. the washington post reports among the 88,000 pages of documents released about brett kavanaugh when he was in the george w. bush administration, there were conversations about presidential war powers and ethics advice related to gets -- presidential travel. a forthcoming book makes several claims, including the clai