06/21/18 06/21/18 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracacy now! pres. trump: we are signing an executive order. i consider it to be a pretty important click of order about keeping families together while at the same time being sure we have a very powerful, very strong border will be equal if not greater than previously. amy: president trump reverses himself, signing an executive

order claiming to and at the separation of children from their parents at the border. but critics warn the order could lead to the indefinite detention of entire families. and the government has no plans to reunite the thousands of children already separated from their families. many of the kids have been sent thousands ofof miles away from e border, including new york city, where merrier -- mayor bill de blasio slammed the trump administration. folks are message is simple -- stop this right now. stop this broken, inhumane policy right now. and come clean with the truth. who are these children? where are they? happening here? how is a possible none of us knew there were 239 kids right here in our own city? how is the federal government holding back that information for the people of the city? amy: one of those children, as young as nine months old.

we will go to washington, d.c., and to mcallen, texas, for the latest on the crisis. then to a shocking story out of yemen. a nenew expose by the associated press has found officers from ththe united arab emirates has sexually tortured yemeni priso s prisoners in secret prisons. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. president trump has signed an executive order wednesesday reversing himself, claiming to end the separation of children from their parents at the border by jailing the kids and the parents together while their legal cases wind through the courts. the order does not say where the families will be detained or whether children will continue to be separated from their parents until the facilities are ready. pres. trump: we want security for our country.

the republicics won secucurity d insist on security foror our country. we will have that at t the same time we have compassion. we want to keep p families together. i will be signing something in a little while that will do that. amy: critics warn the order will lead to the indefinite detention of entire families.. and the trump administration has so far not outlined any plans for reuniting children already separated from their families -- at least 2300 children have been separated since attorney general jeff sessions announced a zero tolerance policy in april. the intercept reports the number jailed since last october could as 3700.h on capitol hill, republican house speaker paul ryan said he will allow debate today on a pair of sweeping anti-immigrant bills that would severely restrict the number of visas granted to immigrants while providing an additional $25 billion to further militarize

the u.s.-mexico border. the bills appeared to be dead on arrival after north carolina republican mark meadows got in a heated confrontation with paul ryan over the measures, which many conservatives say don''t go far enough.. whoew york cityty, children were separated from their families were brought to a manhattan foster care organization in the dead of night early wednesday morning. video broadcast by the local news channel spectrum news ny1 shows five girls being ushered into a foster care facility in east harlem run by cayuga centers just before 1:00 a.m. an hour later, several girls were filmed leaving the facility with their heads covered, as they were ushered into a car. the video prompted outrage from new york mayor bill de blasio, who questioned how the federal government could be holding separated children without telling city officials. >> stop this right now.

stop this row can come inhumane policy right now. come clean with the truth. who are these children? how many are they? where are they? how is it possible that none of us knew there were 239 kids right here in our own city? how is the federal government holding back that information from the people of this city? meanwhile, a new investigation by reveal shows taxpayers have paid more than $1.5 billion in the last four years to companies operating immigrant youth shelters that faced accusations of serious lapses in care. in a number of the cases, the goveme kept placing children with the companies even after serious allegations had been made. reveal also reports that some children held at shiloh treatment center near houston, texas, were restrained and injected with powerful anti-psychotic drugs against their will, making them dizzy,

listless, obese, and even incapacitated. american airlines and united airlines have asked the trump administration to stop transporting immigrant children who have been separated from their families aboard their company's planes. american airlines said in a statement -- "we have no desire to be associated with separating families, or worse, to profit from it." and united airlines ceo oscar munoz said -- "our company's shared purpose is to connect people and unite the world. this policy and its impact on thousands of children is in deep conflict with that mission and we want no part of it." meanwhile, resistance to trump's immigration policies continues to swell ahead of a planned national mobilization on june 30. in portland, oregon, u.s. immigration and customs enforcement, ice, shut down its operations wednesday amid a 24-hour occupation of the area outside ice's offices that began on father's day.

mike pompeo claimed wednesday the unitited states is working tirelessly to support refugees aroundnd the world, eveven as te trtrump admininistration dreww international l ndemnation for its policycy of family separatin anand its treatment of asasylum-seekers.. in a statementnt markingng worod refugee day yesterday, pompeo praised the strength and courage of millions of refugees, adding -- e wi"w continue to help the world's most vulnerable refugees, reflecting the deeply held values of the american people." he made no reference to the jailed children and parentnts in the united states.s. mpmpeo's comment came a as refugees international graded the trump admininistration's trtreatment of refugees s as an" in a scathing new report released wednesday. refugee rights groups say admissions of refugees have

slowed to a crawl under president trump, with the u.s. on track to take in just 22,000 people this year. that's less than half of donald trump's stated target of 45,000 refugees, which was already set to be the lowest number resettled in the u.s. since 1980. in hungary, lawmakers have approved a harsh anti-immigrant bill that will crack down on anyone offering aid to migrants seeking asylum. under the legislation, offering food, water, or legal advice to migrants would be outlawed. even printing leaflets with information for asylum seekers would become a criminal offense. this is hungngarian huhuman rigs lawyer marta pardavi. day and's world refugee the hungry government has set up protection has decided to actually not provide protections. deny protections. it starts to persecute even

individuals, human righghts defenders, a and otherers who at asylylum-seekers. i think this is a new low point for hungngary today where evenn criminalould face prosecution. amy: united nations investigators said wednesday syria's government committed war crimes and crimes against eumenides during its five-year occupied byntry rebels until it was recaptured by syria earlier this year. a u.n. p panel commissioned by e human rights council found besieged civilians in eastern were indiscriminately attacked and systematically denied food and medicine. hastrump administratition quietly released a major review of a national water contaminatio c crisis causeded a famimily of chemicals k known as pfas after president trump's environment protection agency suppressed publication of the federal health study.

internal emails released after freedom of information act request showed the trump administration a aide seeking to suppreress the study a and morna top epa officicial about the "potential public relations nightmare this is going to be." the u.s. to permrmanent hehealtd human servrvices studydy found e os used in pfos m mpf teflon and firefighting foam are unsafe for health, levels as little as 1/10 the amount the epa have previously called say. the pentagon has used foams containing these chemicals and exerercises at militarbabases nationwiwide. in a a march report to congress, the pentagon listed 126 military installations where the nenearby water shows potentially y harmfl levelsls of s kabubul roles just -- chemicals. in climate news, nearly 100 on-air meteorologists will wear

blue and red stripes as they go to broadcast today across the united states in a coordinated effort to draw attention to the threat of human-caused climate change. the stripes are a reference to a warming stripes graphic designed by climate scientist ed hawkins, which shows global average temperatures as a series of vertical stripes covering the years 1850 to 2017. the graphic shows a shift from blue stripes to red, with the most dramatic increases in temperature cocoming in recent years. the action by meteorologists united on climate change comes on the northern hemisphere's summer solstice and amid extreme weather around the world. in southern texas, emergency workers used boats to rescue trapped residents from their homes in the city of mercedes wednesday after more than a foot of rain fell, leaving whole neighborhoods underwater. in ivory coast, at least 18 people were killed in the city of abidjan this week after flash

floods from torrential rains tore through residential neighborhoods. in india, nearly 20 people were killed and some 800,000 people were displaced after heavy monsoon rains caused a river to overflow its banks, ngfldi hundreds of villages. heavy rains have also left parts of neighboring bangladesh underwater, with 12 killed a ana 250,000 people displaceded. aid groups are warningng of the potential of f flooding anand landslideseso displace some of the 700,0,00rohingya r refugees living in n makeshift shelters in bangladesh. the former archbishop of washington, d.c., cardinal theodore mccarrick, has been removed from the ministry for sexual abuse and misconduct dating back decades. church officials said wednesday mccarrick was credibly accused of sexually abusing a teenager nearly 50 years ago.

they also said he had faced three allegations of sexual misconduct with adults in the past. "the washington post" reports that cardinal mccarrick helped shape many of the church's policies for responding to the sexual abuse crisis. in media news, disney has increased its offer to buy 21st century fox to more than 71 billion dollars, increasing its previous bid by more than one third in outbuilding --- outbidding an offer by rival comcast. any deal by either disney or comcast would consolidate two of the e biggest players in hollywd and wowould reshape the media ad entertainment industries. and in north carolina, unc doctoral student maya little has been charged with property destructioion and faceces possie expulsion fofor poing g reinkk and her n n blooon t the university's "silt t sam" statue, which s s erecd inin 191913 thohonor nfederat ldldiers in a stement, ya littl

noted studentsho had tossed paint onhehe samstatatuen thee past to celebrate spor victieies dinot t fa crimimil chchges. shwrote -- "at un dousinghe monumt in int in t name ofasketbal is deed a paste while ing e same tcontextuize and fight cism is crime. reveing the cist vionce uponhich samas built- expong a tru the unirsity would like to ke covered -- could sult in expulsion an online tititionemanandi that theharges ainst may litt be dropd has be sied by nely 4000 ople. and ose are me of th helines. this is mocracy w!, mocracyn.org, thwar an ace repo. 'm amgoodman. nermee and i'm nermn shaikh lcome toll of oulistener and ewers fr around e cotry and ound theorld. presidentrump hasigned a execive ordeclaimingo end the sepation of ildren fm their parents from the border, but critics warn it could be to

the indefinite deton of entire families. as for the thousands of children already separated from their families, the government has no plans to reunite them with their parents. trump made the announcement as he stood with vice president mike pence and homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen. pres. trump: it is about keeping families togogether whilile at e same time being sure that we have a very powerful, very strong border and border security will be equal, if not greater, than previously. we're going to have strong, very strong borders, but we're going to keep the families together. the site orke feeling of families been separated. thank you very much, everybody. we will get the wall done. we will get the wall done. >> children being separated? ivanka and my wife

feel strongly about it. i think anyone with a heart would feel strongly about it. we don't l like to see family separated. at the same time, we don't want people coming into our country illegally. amy: president trump also told reporters wednesday -- "we don't want people coming in from the middle east through our border using children to get through the line." the supreme couris e expected to issusue a ruling on trumump's tl ban by the end of this month. meanwhile, chihiren taken frfrom their parents continue to be shipped to shelters and detention centers around the country. in new york, people went to the airport to greet children with signs that welcomed them in spanish. this comes as the associated press reports immigrant children as young as 14 who were housed at a juvenile detention center in virginia say they were beaten while in handcuffs, locked in solitary confinement for long periods, and left nude and shivering in concrete cells. we begin today's show in washington, d.c., where we are joined by franco ordonez, white

house correspondent for the mcclatchy. his latest story is headlined "trump's immigration order replaces one crisis with another." a lot has happeneded in the last 24 hours, in the last six weeks, in the last months or year and a half. franco, talk about president , whatreversing himself this executive order means, and what will happen to the thousands of children who are now jailed. looks it is quite -- it really has been quite a turn of events in the last 24 hours. president trump flipped. he said that he was going to force the democrats to come to the table. he tried several times to blame his own policy on the democrats. in the end, he reversed himself and came out with this executive order under tremendous pressure from republicans, from some in

his family, and from segments of his important base -- his loyal base. the religious community, for one. what the executive order does is essentially says that they are no longer going to separate children from their mothers at the border when they come in. but there is a big question about how that will be done and when that will be done. there is a floors agreement, 20 your old agreement that was relitigate it a few years ago that limits the ability of the government to detain children for more than about 20 days. trump says he is going to keep the families together for the link of the court hearings. that could be a year, two years, even longer. the courts are likely not going to allow that. so this is a big question. is the president going to see permission first or is he going to ask for forgiveness?

is he going to g the court and say, hey, can we renegotiate this long-standing agreement? or is it going to just lock up the children with their parents, keep them longer than the 20 days, and wait for the lawsuits? we shall see. but this thing is not going away. this is going to be a continuing battle, for sure. nermeen: can you explain when you think this executive order will be implemented? >> i think they're trying to implement it very quickly. but as i point out, this major court agreement limits the administration from holding these children with their parents for more than 20 days. the children, as you pointed out, are not going to be immediately reunited with their parents. thatat is another bibig questioe trump administration continues to get flack over. so there is a lot still to happen. there's a lot of things that are unclear that we will continue to be asking questions about today.

amy: explain how this can possibly work. also, if you can clarify the numbers for us. the government says they have something like more than 2300 kids. the intercept is saying him if you go back a few months, you add another 1ki this that they have something like 3700 from last october. but how do they match up these children with these parents? some of these parents have already been deported. as we noted in the headlines, you havevehe mayor o of new york bill de blasio saying, how is it possible we have 239 children here in new york city who are being held as young as nine months old and we did not know about it?? he is the mayor of new york. how do they reunite the parents and children that have already been separated for many of whom the government has a did not have proper documentation to lengthy -- link the two? >> we reported yesterday

displaces one crisis with another. we were -- we were referring to the family detention policy. your pointing out essentially a third crisis, how to reunite these children. i'm not sure the administration completely knows. when we asked the question, they said they were working on this, looking into it. but this is a work in progress. as you know, until 24 hours ago, they had no plans on doing this. they were continuing to fight to maintain this policy, to try to get the democrats to the table so they can negotiate a settlement. the hope for today that congress could vote on a measure that would end this situation. that looks increasingly unlikely. so you see what trump did last night in issuing the executive order, there are so many questions about what is going to happen to these kids.

yes, there had been about 2300 children who have e been taken from their parents since the zero tolerance policicy put into place. there are other children as well. there is about 11,000 children who are without parents and guardians. th i includes,s, of course, the unaccompanied children who came by theelelves. this issue of children and how you're going to handle the is going to be a big issue in the next few days, in the next few weeks. it is going to be a serious problem. amy: of what to bring into the conversation bob libal, director of t the austin-based civil and human rights group, grassroots leadership. suing stahete of texas when it tried to classify ice's family detention centers at child care -- as child care facilities. they won, but the detention centers continue t to operate nw without a license. his new article in the texas observer is headlined "it's time to decriminalize immigration," co-authored with judy greene.

can you talk about what this case is all about and where these children are being put? >> thank you for having me. as franco said, this trades one crisis, one cruel policy with another. what we know it this point is that as these criminal prosecutions are proceeding and cases for these children and for these families continueues, that people will be lockcked up in these giant for-profit famamily detention camps. the two largest of which are in south texas. as franco said, the flores settlement says children cannot be detained in unlicensed detention centers for more -- in a prolonged manner. the court seveveral thatat means about 2020 days. courts have ruled that

means about 20 0 days. this i is a challenge to that moment. about two years ago or three years ago, the family dedetentin centers went to o the state of texas and try to apply for child care licenses in an attempt to essentially prolong the detention of immigrant children. we successfully fought back that effort in the courts. the state of texas try to rewrite the laws. the geo group brought a bilill o the e state legislature to chane the way licensising happens in texas. that effort was s beaten back to the texaxas state legislature. for nowow, these family detentin cacamps are unlicecensed. they are secure. ththey are prisonsns. i t think this is goingng to be quite the fight about the future of what happens to these children and thesese mothers. i think itit is important to recognize what is driving thiss policy is the zero t tolerance

policy implememented by y je sessions. hastrump administration falsely said they had no choice, that the law says you have to prosecute everyone that comes to the border. this is not true. in fact, these laws were used sparingly until about 2004-2005 when operation streamline was implement it. the piece that judy and i wrote yesterday in the texas observer -- observer says if the trump administ is rationking for a legislative fix, the pro-immigrant forces in congress to give the trump administration that legislative fix it should introduce legislation that would repeal the laws that allow jeff sessions to prosecute people en masse. so to repeal unlawful entry and unlawful reentry, which r criminal prosecutions that are driving this entire crisis. nermeen: bob, i want to go to

the geo group which you mentioned. during hearings on whether texas should issue a license to family detention centers, a honduran woman named norma who spent more than a month detained at the karnes county family detention center told a committee about her daughter who turned five while locked up. she said -- on "my daughter knew she was a prisoner. i don't think that a place full of cameras and security guards is a place for children." bob, can you say a little bit more about this geo group and what role it plays in these detention centers? >> sure. detention centers in south texas, there's one in karnes operated by geo group and largestilly, the immigration detention center att 2400 beds opoperated by core civic, formerly known as corrections corporation of america. the two larargest for-profit prison corporations.

both of these companies are their stockded and soared yesterday, which gives you an indication of how investors are seeing this policy change as one that is going to benefit the private prison industry. these facilities are prisons. there is no doubt about that. i think the testimony that we heard repeatedly from the moms woin ts facility who havehe quit in protest indicate that these are no place for children, no place for families. the trauma people experience of being locked up in these facilities is real. our litigation and during the legislative fight at the texas capitol, we heard from pediatricians, social workers, formally detained women and their children -- all of whom said this is no place for a child.

whatcan you talk about this crisis at this moment has brought in to start really for you jacob your been working on this for a long time. ao group helping to draft texas law, you know, the corporations being involved with the writing of the laws that would allow the family detention centers tolicens as ch are facilities without meeting all of the state's requirements. >> sure. starkk this puts into contrastst what our options are moving forward. i think that everyone who is concerned about the welfare of immigrant children and immigrant families needs to stand up and say that t indefinite detentionf families and for-profit detention camps is not a solution to family separation.

the push at this point needs to be to end family detention and family separation and to be really pushing to end the underlying laws that drive these policies. we simply cannot give someone like jeff sessions the ability to continue to criminally asse at theeople en m border. i think this administration has proven they have no regard for the immigrant children and their parents at the border. and i think when you see a policy that is implemented that benefits the private prison industry at the expense of immigrant children and their parents, i think that really tells the entire story. amy: we want to thank you for being with us, bob libal, with grassroots leadership speaking to us from austin. franco ordonez, we would like to ask you to stay with us. when we come back from break, we

will talk to a person in mcallen, texas, who is talking about trying to reunite these chilen that the trump administration said as late as last night they have no plans for. they don't know what to do with these 2300 children. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "how long, how long blues" barbara dane. performing yesterday in our democracy now! studios. tonight she is performing at joe's pub. may 12 was her 91st birthday.

this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we go to mcallen, texas, where we're joined by zenen jaimes perez. he is part of their teen that goes to the federal courthouse in m mcallen each dayay since tp began his zero tolerance policy and collects information from parents who have their children taken away from them before they were taken to court to face criminal charges for crossing the border. can you talk about your response to the executive order and what you have learnede parents who you have spoken to at the courthouse? >> thank you for having me. i think your guest hit the nail on the head. this is no solution to with the crisis is actually happening. since the zero tolerance policy was announced, we knew that mcallen in south texas was going to be ground zero because this is where we are seeing most of the crossings as well as asylum-seekers. since the end of may, we've

interviewed over 350 people. these are people who have been separated from their children. this is just in the mcallen courthouse. as of right now, we're looking to connect all of them with legal counsel, but the crisis remains. we have no idea what the next steps are for the children in our shelters. having done these intakes myself, we have spoken to mothers with children as young as four years old to fathers with children who are 16 years old who camame here because they were being t threatened by ganag members oror threaeatened to j n these gagangs. aboutut thislked clearly, for the cririsis was fm the begininning the zero totolee polilicy. instead of g going bacon t that, ththe executivive order yesterdy actuallyly doublble down.. we can still expect the same number of prosecutions to be happening in the mcallen courthouse.

for us, it will l be just as importanant to keep going becaue the separation will c continue. whwhen someone is sent from the prprocessing center to thehe mcn coururthouse, ththey will nobe with their child. ththere is gng too be around a 2 hour turnaround from when that person is getting the criminal prosecution to win they exactly are going to be sent to a family detention center, which is still unclear where exactly because we are already at capacity with almost all of these centers. nermeen: could you say something flores summit in if it is possible to be negotiated at the trump administration will be able to detained children for more than 20 days? thought --ple have fought the flores settlement for decades. many people have been raising this for many weeks now, we thought this was the initial intention of the administration.

separate these people and t when it came down to it, when the images begin to horrific, to say, ok, we think he them together, we will just give them together in jajail. it r remains to be seen how exactly this is going to work. we think it is going to be the intention of the a administration to try to violate the flores agreement. it would lead to the indefinite detention of theseamilie which we know this is what the administration is seeking in the first place as a way to dedeter people from even coming. we have to keep that in mind. they're trying to punish children and families to basically send a message to the rest of the people all over the world ththat if you come here, t only will you get criminal prosecution, but we will hold you in a prison for indefinite amount of time. amy: can you explain what it means when the government announces today if carrots want to get their children -- pareres

were together children back, that ago through the normal sponsorship process w will stop and rereally, what exactly is happening? we spoke to congressman for jayapal who went to prison in washington state or were over 100 women were being held and their kidsknow where are being held. the mothers were flown to washington staples that meanwhile, the secretary from an security is saying, oh, they can time.their kids all the they don't know where they are. and what it means to say they can now go through the normal sponsorship process. when they call a number they were handed in court, it says something like if you want to get your kid back, you can leave a message here but know that what you say here can a and will be used against you and court. >> exactly. you sort of highlighted the exact nature of the black hole of all of the information here.

what we're currently seeking just remember, this is all new. parents who are currently in immigration detention will have to go through the normal resettlement process to get their children back. this in itself is a long and arduous process. orr is under the health and human services department. this can involve months of backgrgrnd checks, fingerprinting, and in some instances a saliva test. part of the aclu lawsuit a few month ago showed one mother had to take saliva test four comes to basically prove it was her child. at the end of the day, the administration admit -- is making it even more difficult to get children sponsored. be many m months, some cases over a year, before parents s -- remember, are in detention facilits many of them will not have legal counsel or any kind of help to navigate all of the system

before they even get a chance of sponsoring and seeing the children again. amy: we want to thank you very much for joining us, zenen jaimes, joining us from mcallen, texas. we're going to go to new orleans. we are just on the phone with aura bogado, immigration .eporter with reveal her latest story is headlined "immigrant children forcibly injected with drugs, lawsuit claims" and "migrant children sent to shelters with histories of abuse allegations." tell us what you found. >> hi, amy.. we have been looking into these migrant shelters for a while. 1 100e found over allegations, investigation violations, crimes for which people were sent to prison and other kinds of examplele in whih

some pretty serious stuff happen. somemetimes it has to do with te forcible injection ofeavy psychohotropic drugs on sometims pretty young children, sexual assault allegations, solicitation of child pornography for which someone is currently serving i believe a 10 year sentence. some pretty horrific stuff. nermeen: can you describe what the effects you learned about what the effects have been of some of these psychotropic drugs that children have been forcibly injected with? amy: and who gets to choose that they are being injected? what do ththey know about their medical histories? >> yeah. to ahappens is children go first shelter. sometimes they are stepped up. that is the term the government uses.

ththey are stepped up in terms f they see a behavior they don't like and children. they can be referred to a psychiatrist who then independently makes a determination. inin the case of a family here n new orleans that i have been spending time with, there was a nine-year-old boy who never had a history of mental illness. wanantingly talks about to leave, wanting to run away, wanting to reconnect with his .other he tried to run away. because of that behavior and some other behaviors, he was then referred to a psychiatrist. that psychiatrist created and neared of in which he says that he recommended the child be placed under certain drugs. the government then decided to take him to the shiloh treatment center, which is a place right outside houston, texas.

he was drugged without consent and without his mother's consent for nearly six months. the government knew the entire time where his mom was. home visitsed two where she lives. they refuse to give her custody of her child. she begged. she sometimes was angry. she sometimes tried negotiating. she tried so may different ways. multiple text messages between her and the caseworker and other workers at this facility in texas, and they would not give her her child back. sometimes the response was nothing posted she would not hear back from them for several days. thiss often something like is the doctor's orders he has been described -- prescribed that and we cannot do anything about it. when i talk about residential treatment center, people may think this is some kind of serious inpatient building or

perhaps a large kind of estate in which people can heal. ist our investigation found there are a lot of properties that are associated with shiloh, even know it only uses one main address. most of those properties are trailers. nermeen: as far as you know, how long has this been going on? >> shiloh in particular first got its contract from the government in 2013 to house immigrant children. but it has been housing children in general for a lot longer. several years before then, a child that was in shiloh's custody died from being restrained there. it was still able to keep its license and continue operating. the have been violations that the government -- the federal

government knows about, that local officials have been outraged about, and the state of texas itself -- we found a lot of this through pupublic record. you can see inspection records as recently as december. there is a report that says very serious -- some of thee psychotropicic medicines were lt out in the reaeach of children where they could just get access to them. there are a lot of inspection reports that indicate not everything was up to par there. amy: i want to bring franco ordonez back into the conversation. you also reported wednesday that trump planned to erect tent cities to house immigrants is the start of his presidency, eating from the beginning of your story you write -- john "the department of homeland secured asked congress for $95 million to erect tent cities in two locations in texas to detain all immigration violators according to budget document shared with mcclatchy provided to congress in march of 2017."

can you talk about the so-called soft sided structure facilities to house immigrants possibly undercut me children or families after the u.s. seized the surge of your's immigrants crossing the southern border during the obama administration? >> essentially what we're seeing the trump administration partially because of the zero tolerance policy, but because they have been pushing this enforcement since the beginning of the administration and had obviously and to increase this enforcement right from the beginning -- really, since the campaign. they ran out or are running out very quickly of detention space in these child shelters. they have no more room to put them. childrenabout 11,000 who are held without parents in these type of shelters. there are about 95% full. they need this extra space.

they are building these tent cities to hold these children and those on military bases in order to accommodate the additional children that are being held. the once the tent cities we're told are for an a cup new minors, not the separated children. but if the children were not separated, there would be more space and us facilities so these tent cities are to kind of make up for that missing space. , you have beeno reporting on this for a while, before zero tolerance policy was put into effect six weeks ago and then trump has reversed it with an executive order. people don't even understand why he needed in executive order to do this. but when you talk about sexual abuse, kids being injected with drugs, being sent to psychiatrist to ask what the problem is when they are just asking for their parents to be reunited with her parents? and then when they are upset, being injected or being given

pills? needumber of people they to staff these places now, with the influx of children they are imprisoning and families, will make them even more vulnerable. as that not right? what level of scrutiny does any person who is hired get right now as these centers try to desperately staff of for thousands more people? >> right. the cenenters, nonprofifits, sometimes private, this, sometimes religious, sometimes not, but they consistently have said in the past is, we do a background check on everybody. that is probably true. i don't know how extensive the background check is. also, background check -- it is likely a lot of people would pass the background check and not necessarily understand how , particularly young

children, who have experienced a lot of trauma. it is hard to say. honestly, i cannot looking at a future in say, for sure, we will see more allegations and more arrests and crimes that we can confirm will stop but when you have a lot of people coming into a a lot of young people, a lot people,mely vulnerable people who have been trafficked, people who have been through tremendous abuse -- not to mention the journey alone -- that does create a very vulnerable population. we know that vulnerable populations are a prime target, virtually, an easy target for abusers. i cannot predict what is going to happen. i don't think it was surprise a lot of people if we start hearing about more allegations in the future. amy: we want to thank you, aura bogado, for joining us, an

immigration reporter for reveal, from the center for investigative reporting. we will link to your pieieces "immigrant children forcibly injected with drugs, lawsuit claims" and "migrant children sent to shelters with histories of abuse allegations." we want to thank franco ordonez white house correspondent for , the mcclatchy washington bureau. his latest story is headlined "trump's immigration order replaces one crisis with another." we're going to go abroad next to egypt to learn about what is happening in yemen. the u.s.-back saudi uae attack on yemen. wel taillk about what is happening g to yemeni prisonersn uae jails in yemen. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "be reasonable" by barbara dane. performing in our studio. tonight she is performing at joe's pub. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. nermeen: we turn now to a shocking new investigation of rampant sexual violence against yemeni detainees held in prisons run by the united arab emirates in yemen. the associated press reports that in march, 15 officers lined up the prisoners in the southern city of aden and ordered them to undress before searching their anal cavities, claiming that they were looking for contraband cell phones. the men screamed and cried and those who resisted were beaten and threatened by dogs. hundreds of detainees reportedly suffered similar abuse. witnesses told the ap that detainees were raped while other guards filmed the assaults. ap also reports that yemeni

guards working under emirati officers electrocuted prisoner'' genitals and sexually violated others with wooden and steel poles. a pentagon spokesman quoted in the piece said the allegations were not substantiated. amy: the uae is a key ally of the united states and has partnered with saudi arabia in its military assault on yemen. last year, ap exposed the existence of secret prisons run by the united arab emites in yemen where torture was widespread. for more, we go to cairo to talk to maggie michael, the ap journalist who wrote the expose, headlined "detainees held without charges decry emiratis' sexual abuses." welcome to democracy now! maggie, talk about what you found. >> high. our investigation started in 2016 and since that time have been speaking to witnesses, to security officials, families. and finally come in this investigation, we managed to

speak to prisoners inside the prisons. they are talking about how sexual abuse being used as a way to extract confessions. and sometimes to turn them into informants to the emiratis gorsuch revising and running supervisingho are and running prisons. yearnvestigation last exposed a network of 18 prisons in cities of aden and elsewhere. our investigation this year prisons, at least 5 -- there's a lot of sexual abuse happening to detainees. what is different this time is we also spoke to officials who were at one point allied with emiratis. they defected. their testimonies were very

important to confirm whether prisoners and the families have been saying all the time. being held without charges, no trials, even those who were released,ders to be they still kept in detention. the officials -- one of them, at least, was involved in the torture. he confirmed they were filming detainees while being raped in order to turn them into informants. maggie, can you say, the drawings, some of which are television viewers can see, the drawings you received from the prisoners, how you got access to those drawings? >> the thing is, we communicated a prisononers inside in aden and southern yemen.

one of them is a really good artist. in order to answer my questions about exactly what is happening, he decided to show it to me by drawing positions of torture, abuse. and then tooctures and by phone and sent them by whatsapp. this is how we got them. lately, they have been finding it hard to use the same way. we relied more on text messages from inside the prison. amy: maggie, you were told by some prisoners that the american personnel in thehe prisons were there in uniform and must be aware of the torture. one senior security official at the prison in the city said in your piece come a americans use

emiratis as gloves to do the dirty work. explain what you us involvement is. what u.s. involvement is. >> based on what we had last year and this year, americans are in the main base of emiratis in yemen. threes is including areas. these have american interrogators. they are american personnel in uniform. there are also mercenaries, including american. the main mission is interrogation. what we were told also is that torture does not happen in front of the americans, but they are aware of it. either by hearing people being tortured or by seeing marks of torture on their bodies.

official told me is americans are aware of what is happening, and they're not only aware, there actually part of it. instead of doing the torture themselves in order to get confessions, they're using the emiratatis to do the dirty work. nermeen: can you talk about the role of the united arab emirates? now it is taking a leading role in the saudi assault on yemen, in particular its assault on hodeida, the crucial port of hodeida. >> this is the dilemma of the yemeni government. on one side it needs the emiratis because it is leading the forces that are fighting the uthi rebels who have occupied northern yemen since 2016 in order to liberate and take over hodeida ports from the houthis

--hodeidah is known as the mouth of yemen. this is where most of the humanitarian aid and imports get through northern yemen, where the strong majority of the population is concentrated. so the port is very important for the two sides. for the government and for the houthis. the government needs and relies on the emiratis in taking over hodeida. at the same time, in southern yemen where the government should be having the upper hand, instead the emiratis have taken the lead. they set up their own militias in every single city. each of these militias have their own tribal and regional agenda. they set of prisons. they took control. it undermines to a great extent the yemeni government.

week, the last president of yemen was barred from returning to the government for nearly a year. that based on his .wn aides and commanders he could not get back to yemen because the emiratis did not want him to return. amy: we just have 30 seconds. i want to quickly ask, is the u.s. involved with giving lists of names of yemenis to the emiratis to jail? the americans have a list of the most wanted men, but not every single man arrested by the emiratis are on the list. the emiratis are trying to get information about the men on the list through mass arrests. amy: magmichael, we will into your piece. maggie is a reporter for the associated press. her latest piece "detainees held , without charges decry emiratis' sexual abuses."

we will also link to her last years piece "in yemen's secret prisons, uae tortures and u.s. interrogates." that is all for the show. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made pççzñvpx]