07/11/19 07/11/19 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> i am here today because i don't want any more little angels to suffer the way mariee did, the way i am now. i don't want any more mothers or fathers to lose children. it can't be so hard for a country like the united states to protect children. amy: a guatemalan mother testifies on capitol hill about

how her 19-month-old child died after being jailed in an ice detention center in dilley, texas most of this comes as the trump administration is threatening to launch nationwide immigration raids on sunday. we will speak with california congressmember nanette barragan, who visited a migrant child jail in texas last week. then to the u.s. women's national soccer team. r rights1 equal pay! amy: chance of equal pay during their victory celebration in new york. we will look at what the world cup win means for the equal pay movement and the future of title ix. places dish a acosta faces calls to resign, he is also facing racism for cutting

the budget to fight international sex trafficking by 80%. we will get the latest. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. labor secretary alexander acosta defied calls by congressional wednesday leaders to resign over the lenient plea deal he gave to 2008 serial child sex abuser jeffrey epstein when acosta was the u.s. prosecutor in florida. the plea deal saw epstein serve a 13-month prison term, though he was allowed to leave jail six days a week to work from his private office. he would be picked up by his private chauffeur in return in the evening. it has been described as one of the most lenient deals for a serial child sex offender in history. the case drew renewed attention this week when epstein was

charged in a manhattan federal court with sexually assaulting and trafficking dozens of underage girls between 2002 and 2005 at his homes in manhattan and palm beach, florida. he's pleaded not guilty. earlier this year, a federal court ruled secretary acosta's team violated the crime victims right back by failing to inform epstein survivors about the nonprosecution deal of 2008. speaking to reporters for nearly an hour wednesday, secretary acosta did not once apologize to epstn's ctims andefended his handling of the case. >> we belilieve we proroceeded appropriately, that basesed on e evidence -- and not just my opinion -- but based on the evidence, there was value to getting a guilty plea and having them register. lookok, no regretsts is a very d question. amy: this comes as another woman, jennifer araoz, told nbc

she was recruited by epstein when she was just 14 years old and she said he raped her in his new york city townhouse when she was 15. she was interviewed by savannah guthrie. >> in your mind, did you use the word "rape"? did you recogngnize it then? >> no, i don't the guy did. i just thought, like, it is my fault. like thats obligated, is just what y you're supupposeo do. amy: on wednesday, jennifer araoz asked a new york city court for help in identifying the woman who first recruited her to epstein's mansion. on capitol hill, house lawmakers heard heart-wrenching testimony wednesday from the guatemalan mother of a toddler who died after she became sick in an ice jail near the u.s.-mexico border. yasmin juarez says her 18-month-old daughter mariee was

healthy when she brought her to the u.s. in march seeking political asylum. but one week after the pair were jailed at the south texas family residential center in dilley, texas, the girl developed a cough, diarrhea, and vomiting, with a fever that spiked at 104 degrees. juarez says her daughter received inadequate medical care in a clinic set up in the center's gymnasium. after their release, juarez rushed her daughter to the emergency room. she e spent sisix weeks in h hol before she died of complications from a deadly lung infection. >> all of the hard work of these dodoctors came too late. my mariee died on mother's day, that a day on my city in my country we celebrate mother's day. when i left the hospital that day, all i had with me was a piece of paper with her handprints in pink paint that

the staff i created for me. it was the only thing that i had left. just her handprints. it theses had made previous day as a mother's day gift. amy: juarez has filed a $60 million lawsuit against the united states for the wrongful death of her daughter mariee. she was one of seven children to die in u.s. immigration custody, or shortly after a release from custody, over the past year. before last year, no child died in u.s. immigration custody in over a decade. wednesday's house hearing on immigration jails came as one of the house oversight committee's most prominent members, new york's alexandrdria ocasio-cort, called for the department of homeland security y to be dismantled. speaking with the new yorker radio hour, ococasio-cortetez repeated h her call for thee ababolition of ice, , immigratin and customs enforcrcement. host david remnick asked ocasio-cortez if she would get rid of the department of homeland security as well. >> i think so. i think we need to undo a lot of

the egregious -- a lot of the egregious mistakes the bush and administration did. afeel like we are at -- qualified and supportive position, at least in terms of evidence and in terms of being able to make the argument that we never should have created the dhs in early 2000. amamy: this comes as unnnnamed currenent and former homeland security officials told reportrters that ice is preparig to arrest thousands of undocumented immigrants in sweeps scheduled to begin sunday. officials say they will arrest any immigrants they find common colluding so-called "collateral deportations." many local officials have promised to resist the ice raids. meanwhile, mother jones is reporting that ice has opened three new immigration jails in the deep south as part of an effort to circumvent a congressional limit on the number of people in u.s. immigration detention. among them is the adams county

correctional center, a mississippi prison operated by corecivic, a for-profit prisison corporation. that center has been plagued by reports of inadequate medical care, staff mistreatatment, anad rotten food, and was home to a prison riot in 2012 that left a guard dead. ice is currently holding some 54,000 people in its jails -- an all-time high, and far more than a target of about 40,000 people set by congress. in philadelphia, police arrested six immigrant rights activists wednesday as they held a sit-in protest at joe biden's 2020 campaign headquarters. the protesters are demanding that biden apologize for the roughly 3 million deportations that occurred while he served as vice president under barack obama. they're also seeking a commitment by biden to end immigration detentions and deportations on his first day in office. freshman democratic congressmember ilhan omar of minnesota is calling on advertisers to boycott tucker carlson after the fox news host targeted her in a racist attack on his program tuesday night.

during a three-minute monologue, carlson blasted omar -- one of the first two muslim women ever elected to the u.s. congress -- as a "living fire alarm" and "dangerous." >> after eveverything americicas done for omar anand for h her fafamily, she e hates thisis coy momore than ever. she is living proof the way we practice i iigration has b bome dangerous to thihis countrtry. she aiving firere alarm, aa warning to t the rest of us we betterer change our immigration system immediately or else. amy: ilhan omar tweeted in response -- "fox news is now giving a nightly platform to white supremacist rhetoric. it's dangerous. advertisers should not be underwriting hate speech." tucker carlson has a history of racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic comments. he recently said immigration makes america poorer, and dirtier, and more divided and in 2006 called iraqis semiliterate, primitive monkeys. the trump administration is welcoming right-wing media stars

to the white house today for a forum billed as a social media summit. among those invited to attend are bill mitchell, a self described member of the trump train who's embraced the far-right q-anon conspiracy theory, and ali alexander, a far-right activist whose recent tweet smearing senator kamala harris as "not an american black" was retweeted, then deleted, by donald trump jr. also joining will be james o'keefe, a discredited right-wing activist known for targeting planned parenthood and acorn. o'keefe was famously arrested in texas for trying to wiretap the office of the former u.s. senator from louisiana, mary landrieu. a federal appeals court in virginia has dismissed a lawsuit against president trump arguing he broke the constitution's anti-corruption clauses by profiting from his hotel business in washington, d.c. a three-judge panel of the u.s. court of appeals for the fourth circuit ruled that trump's continued ownership of the trump international hotel did not violate the foreign and domestic

emoluments clauses of the constitution. all three judges were nominated by republican presidents. the trump organization has canceled plans to host a charity golf tournament co-sponsored by a miami-i-area strip club.b. wednesday's move by the trump national doral golf resort to scrap the planned event came a day after "the washington post" reported plans to have dancers from the shadow cabaret strip club work as so-called caddy girls to vip guests paying $450. the planned event was to benefit a basketball-themed children's program called miami all stars, which is not registered as a charity in florida. and when attention was drawn to it yesterday, they pulled out saying they did not want the money. the fbi on wednesday arrested six people on corruption charges related to puerto rico's recovery from hurricane maria, including two top officials in the administration of governor ricardo rossello.

a 32-count indictment charges the officials, including the former head of puerto rico's health insurance administration and the island's former education secretary, with illegally funneling federal funding to politically connected contractors. following wednesday's arrests, arizona democratic congressmember raul grijalva, who chairs the house committee that oversees puerto rico, called on governor rossello to resign. in louisiana, floodwaters from heavy rains have left much of new orleans and parts of the gulf coast underwater, as tropical storm barry churns offshore ahead of its predicted landfall as a category 1 hurricane on saturday. the storm spawned a waterspout over lake pontchartrain wednesday and left new orleans's famed bourbon street underwater. a senior state department intelligence analyst has resigned in protest after the trump administration blocked parts of his written testimony to congress about the dangers of climate change.

in june, analyst rod schoonover was permitted to appear before the house intelligence committee to testify about the national security risks posed by global warming, but the white house barred him from submitting peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and intelligence reports as evidence to back his claims. part of his censored testimony to congress read -- "absent extensive mitigating factors or events, we see few plausible future scenarios where significant -- possibly catastrophic -- harm does not arise from the compounded effects of climate change." this comes as a new nasa-funded study published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences found rising global temperatures from human activity have pushed west antarctica's thwaites glacier to a tipping point that will likely see meltwater from the massive glacier raise global sea levels by about 50 centimeters, or more than a foot-and-a-half. the process could takeke as lite as 150 years.

and thousands gathered in lower manhattan yesterday to celebrate the u.s. women's national team's historic fourth world cup soccer championship at a raucous ticker tape parade. megan rapinoe, alex morgan, rose lavelle, and their teammates rode floats through new york city's canyon of heroes as supporters chanted "usa!" and "equal pay!" the parade ended at city hall where new york city mayor bill de b blasio hosted a c ceremonyo celebrate the teamam's second consecutive world cup win and awarded the athletes with keys to the city. cocaptain megan rapinoe address the crowd with a message to the team's fans and the country. >> we have to listen more, and talk less. we have to know that this is everybody's responsibility. every single person here. every single person who is n not here.

every singlele person who does t want to be here. every single person who agrees and doesn't agree. it is our responsibility to make this world a better place. i think this team doeses an incredible j job of takingng thn our shoulders and understanding the position that we have and the platform that we have within this world. amy: after the ceremony in new york city, the u.s. women 's soccer team flew to los angeles to attend the espy awards where they were honored with the best team award. we'll have more on the u.s. women's team and their figight r gender e equity later inin the broadcdcast. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. nermeen: and i'm nermeen shaikh. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. "the new york times" is reporting the trump administration is preparing to launch nationwide immigration raids beginning on sunday to target members of undocumented families. officials told "the times" that immigration n and customoms enforcement agents will target at least 2000 immigrants.

the raids are expected to take place in at least 10 major cities. "the times" reports authorities may detain immigrants who might be on the scene eveven thoughghy were n not targets of the rarai. presesident trump first publicly threatened t to carry out the nationwide raids in june but then postponed them. this comes as trump's immigration policies are coming under international criticism. the u.n. high commissioner for rights, michelle bachelet, has condemned the didire conditions i in which jailed migrants are being held in the u.s. and the ongoing separation of children from their families. she warned that the detention of migrant children may constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment that is prohibited by international law. amy: meanwhile, congressional lawmakers have decried the conditions where migrant children are being held. "the new york times" and "the el paso times" recently revealed there has been an outbreak of scabies, shingles, and chicken pox at a border patrol station

in clint, texas, where hundreds of migrant children have been held without access to sufficient food, water, beds, or medical care. we go now to washington where we are joineded by democratic congresswoman nanette barragan of california. last week, she took part in a congressional delegation that vivisited that border patrol facility in clint, texas. welcome to democracy now! it is great to have you with us. we just got this news of the outbreak of scabies and shingles and chickenpox at that very facility that you visited. can you describe what you saw? ,> well, amy, there are cells much like you've seen the advertisements of the border patrol am a five or six cells were they are holding children. when we went, they locked the doors so we cannot talk to these children. these are basically prison cells . they are concrete floooors. theyey are bringing in

nylon-looking bunkbeds. maybe you get a blanket. but yoyou are locked i in a roo. if you go to a s separate area n the back after you leave the cell area, there's a place thatt looks almost like a warehouse. it is hot in there. there are more of these nylylon bunkbeds. and there is a whole stack of mats ready for children. when we w went, amy, there weree only 25 and 30 children. at the height, they had 700 children. and reports of children who could not sleep and could not find a place to even lay down. completely unacceptable. nermeen: congressmember, were you able to speak to the children or any of the people who are being detained? >> no. when we got there, we clearly were told you cannot speak to the children. there is to be zero conversations. now, when we walked into the ,rea where the prison n cells ae

that is what i call them, five or six of them, there was a door with plexiglas that went pretty low. soso you had a small boy, must have been three or four years old, run up to the p plexiglas n which the case some of us got on our knees to be able to be face-to-face with this little boy. he was putting his hands up against the plexiglas to trtry o touch you, to say y hello, try o cocommunicate with you. you could see he was asking for his father. it was really heartbreaking to see what was happening. we were not allowed to go into these cells to talk to the children. amy: there was video from congress member and check the congressional hispanic caucus joaquin castro who reported video on his cell phone during the visit to o border patrol facilitieses in el paso, texas. the san antonio democrat said he refused to relinquish his phone to border agents to take video of detained immigrants and asylum seekers. in one video, you can hear

congressmember alexandria ocasio-cortez speaking to the women in spanish. if you can describe how the .uards also responded and respond to president trump's tweet or he said what you described on the border in these various facilities is untrue. he said the people in the facilities that are jailed are very happy and their condition in these jails, child jails, and otherwisise, a far betteter from where they came from. where thehe location video was taken n was right befe we got to clint. first of all, the president's tweet is an outright lie. i have been there first him plenty of times. when i was there several months ago, i saw firsthand the overflow. i saw people packed into these risen cells.

it is s completely untrue. it i is completely false witithe president is sayaying. i would bet he has not been to these locations and thesese plas to see for himself how packed it is and see the despair in people's eyes. the face of desperation. we got mobbed by women and their children asking for help. it is so heartbreaking to be there and to hehear that and too not build a say "let me hehelp yoyou. let me do sosomething to relieve thisis pain and to put you in a better situation." the law enforcement officers that we were with that gave us ththe tour were very d different this tim around than they had been a couple of months ago when i went. the last time i went, they let me speak to the individuals, the parents. they let me even take a phonee

in. they let me take a photo with nobody spaces. this time around, very different. they confiscated telephones. they said, you're not allowed to talk to a dull. -- talk to adults. as members, sometimes we're told that, we get there and you try to talk to them, i speak spanish, for example, and will try to talk to them in the corner. in this instance, demanded we be allowed to speak to the detainees and just heard theheir stories and their cries for help. let me tell you why it is so critically important that members of congress be able to speak to the detainees. because what you hear from officials on the guided tour, what they want you to see and what they tell you, is very different than when youu start speaking to the detainees. we have had instances where they tell you they're getting plenty of diapers, but when you talk to the women, to the mothers, they

will show you rashes from their children. they will tell you they are not getting enough diapers. they will tell you they are not getting the medical care that we are being told they are getting. and so you can see photos of them showing you toothbrush and diapers, bubut it doesn't mean t is getting to the detainees or they are being treated in a fair so thatified manner they can get a shower and they can be clean. we saw people who had not been cleaned, who had not showered several months ago. it was days on end. and it is disturbing. everybody in this country should be outraged about how we're treating women and families and children and people who are escaping violence, coming here for asylum -- which is legal in the united states. nermeen: on capitol hill, house lawmakers heard heart-wrenching

testimony wednesday from the guatemalan mother of a toddler who died after she became sick in an ice jail new the u.s.-mexico border. yazmin juarez says her 18-month-old daughter mariee was healthy when she brought her to the u.s. in march seeking political asylum. but one week after the pair were jailed at the south texas family residential center in dilley, texas, the girl developed a cough, diarrhea, and vomiting with a fever that spiked at 104 degrees. she says her daughter received inadequate medical care in a gymnasium.up in the she rushed her daughter to the emergency room after release. she spent six weeks in hospital before she died of complications from a deadly lung infection. during her testimony juarez , exexplained how she was treatd by immigrations officials. after the interview, the ice

immigration official asked me why, for what reason i had come to the united states. i responded that i had come for my child's future. but they practically did not let us talk. and he said, in these words, "you know this country is for americans. donald trump is my president. we can take your daughter away from you and lock you in jail." and i remember i just started to cry because i really did notot have any words t to respond to them. to me, that is mistreatment. i am here today because i don't want anymore little angels to did, thee way mariee way i am now. i don't want anymore mothers or fathers to lose children. it can't be so hard for a country like the united states to protect children. nermeen: and this is more of what yazmin juarez told lawmakers on wednesday. >> all the hard work of these

doctors came too late. my mariee died on mother's day, on a day that in my city, in my country, we celebrate mother's day. when i left the hospital that day, all i had with me was a piece of paper with mariee's handprints in pink paint that the staff had created for me. it was billy thing that i had left. just her handprints. the nurses had made it the previous day as a mother's day gift. there are days i want to give up because for me it is very, very hard to see so many children and for none of them to be my daughter, and to think i will never see her again or hug her or enjoy being with her or tell her just how much i love her. for me, that is very hard. you have no idea how hard it is to move forward without my little girl. they tore out a piece of my heart.

they tore out my soul. and now i'm suffering, and it is difficult for me to get up and move forward. i wanted a better future for her , to work hard, and to get ahead so she could keep growing the way she was. i can't do that now. i can't do that because she is gone. nermeen: so that was yazmin juarez speaking to lawmakers on wednesday about her daughter who died just after being released from detention. the last year, six children have died in custody. grillrse, this little died just after she was released. and before last year, no child died in a decade. congresswoman, could you comment on what has been happening in these facilities and why so many children have died? >> first, it is absolutely heartbreaking to hear the

account of ms. juarez yesterday and her daughter. and this is what should move our lawmakers in our country to act so they are not trereated inhumanenely. it i is an outrage. i am almost speechless for words on what is happening. when you see the pattern of how these children are being treated, when you see the floor's decision were children are being held longer than the 72 hours, when you hear the words of those in the administration about determinantsts and how they're tryiying to deter, it is hard. it is hard not to think this is being done in a situation, in a manner to make it as difficult as possible, as painful as possible on how these children and how these families are being treated to try to deter people. and it is outrageous. we should not ever resort to

violating human rights and practices to try to deter people from coming to this country. and that is what this administration has been focused on. it is the anti-immigration agenda. it is finding ways to to turn peoplele. and so they're slowing down the process. that is why we have so many these right now i in prison-like conditions. so they are turning people away at ports of entry, and that alone is killing people bebecaue then their desperation of when they are waiting in memexico -- whwhich is violent and people ae experiencing horrific situations there. they then come and travel between the ports of entry. some o of them are ending up in the rio and dying. but in these facilities, when they get to this country and they are in these detention centers, they're not getting the treatment they need and they are not being processed out quickly enough.

ist of that, i believe, because of the administration slow down and processing people. we need to get more immigration judges. we also -- we need to invest in alternatives to detention. and this is something the administration has cut back on. they would rather jailed peoplpe and house people, children, and families, instead of allowing them to be reunited with their families here in the states. we know that. they have said that. and the result has been overcrowding. the result has been the people are getting sick and dying. i said that months ago when i saw the situation firsthand. i walked out and said "people will die if this continues." you cannot put sick people in rooms with other sick children. it is going to spread. that is common sense. amy: let me ask about the growing rift, the increasingly publblic dispute between house speaker nancy pelosi and quarter

freshman congress woman known as the squad. pelosi recently told "the new york times, "all of these people have their public and her twitter world, but they did not have any following. there are four people and that is how many votes they got. yesterday, alexandria ocasio-cortez told "the washington post" i kind of thought she was given the progress of flank and more of an arms distance in order to protect more moderate members, which understood them up with a persistent singling out come it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful. the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color. can we get your response to this? certainly, it has s intensified over the whole issue of immigration. >> yes. there's a lot of tension going on, certainly when the house supplemental came up, we were fighting to get provisions,

guardrails, and d provisions in there so we could have some accountability and some oversight. when you're just handing out a blank check, it does not feel good. and when you see what is happening at the border and it is only then intensifies whihile we are fighting so hard to get these provisions in an thehese guardrails, as i like to call them, and so this h has been the result of some disagreement within the party on whether you give a blank check, you puput te guardrails in or not. i did not support without oversight provisions. it did not have the very critical things we needed as just a first step. this is an ongoing issue. amy: let me ask you about your response to congress member ocasio-cortez: for the department of homeland security to be dismsmantled. here she is being interviewed by david r.i.m. neck. he asked her if dhs should be

abolished. >> i think so. i think we need to undo a lot of a lot of the -- egregious mistakes of the bush administration. -- al like we're at a very qualified and supportive position, at least in terms of evidence and in terms of being able to make the argument that we never should have created dhs in the early 2000's. amy: do you feel the department of homeland security should be abolished? security is really big. and i think that is the problem. it oversees everything f from te secret service, all fema, rescue and recovery, human trafficking. it does cbp officers at the port of entries, the seaports there protecting from terrorist threats. so it is very big. andwithin that you have ice

enforcement happening. there does need to be serious looks at how do we restructure this, how do we break this up, how do we make it so it is not so big and unmanageable? we have seen that in various hearings in homeland security on this reallyy to see large agency -- the largest law-enforcement agency that does so many factors. i have serious concerns with enforcement and ice right now, and i think we need to look at how we fix these systemic problems and how we restructure it so it is not what it is now, which is a lot of abuses of people's rights and violations of human rights at the border. amy: finally, the raids that apparently are about to take place, president trump threatened them several weeks ago. now it is being said "the new york times" reporting sunday major immigration raids that people will be picked up who may

just be in the area, in 10 major cities. can you tell us what more you know? i mean, as a congressmember, you have oversight. call come the hispanic caucus had a call about three or four weeks ago when the first reports were out that these were going to happen. we had a call wiwith officials from homeland sesecurity about these reports. they wouould not confirm o or dy they were going to happen, which to mee led me to believe they were going to happen. they would not confirm or denyny locations. but what they did say was exactly what is being reported. that they have targeted enforcement operations. however, they're going to pick up anybody a along thehe way who they encounter. and this is a problem because this is why we have a a funding

issusue. this i is why there's so much disorganization within that department because there is no more priorities. instead of focusing on violent felons, they are focusing on everybody. would you h have no focus, it makes it that t much more challenging. i am telliling constituents to e alert.t. knknow your rights. so important right now that t we gogo out and we tell people abot resources to know their rights and not open the door and to making sure we are all vigilant. it is deeply concerning and troubling that the president and this admdministration are continuing to cause fear in our commmmity's, just makingng it - amy: do you agree with los angeles mayor eric garcetti who in the last threat of these deportation raids, set on twitter, no angelino should never have to fear being smashed from their home are separated from their loved ones. we're doing of it and to provide

immigrant families with info and ahead of the ice deportation sweeps, saying the local authorities will not cooperate with ice. do you say the same, the local authorities in california should not cooperate with ice a around these deportatioion raids? >> i do agree with the mayor on this. we have to make sure that we are conveying this message to our communities, that we stand with them. ice is a federal agency. until the have a better system in place, and right now they have complete disorganization, we're going to continue to stand firm on n this. this is wrong and we are going to give as much as information as we can to our immigrant and migrant family members and community members. it is pretty devastating to see the fear being cost. amy: nanette barragan, you are a

well-known ballplayer in washington, as in baseball, soccer, member of the house to midi on homeland security, but also i wanted ask about the women's soccer team. chants that went on yesterday at the tickertape parade. they said "usa" and they added "equal pay." your thoughts on this and what congress can do? >> i think it is so great to see the women go out and win. i'm totally behind the effort of equal pay. of thealluded to, one two o women of congress whplplay on the men's s baseball team. we need to be on the same level, get paid the e same, be treatatd the sameme. i i am so proud of women's soccr and what they're doing right now to be the inspiration for young the country.

i am so glad to see that. we're going to continue the fight in congress for equal pay. that is something that is imimpacting community's of color at a disproportionate rate as well. we have a lot of work to do. we need everybody on our team, including the u.s. women's stand with us. they're at the forefront of this fight. amy: the women's soccer team is headed to the capital. there not been invited to the white house by president trump, even though they are the winningest soccer team nancy pelosi has invited them. when we come back, we will look at what he was women's soccer cap win means for eqequal pay ad the future of title ix. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "movimiento" by the uruguayan musician jorge drexler.

this is democracy now!, i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. nermeen: thousands gathered in new york city yesterday to celebrate the u.s. women's national soccer team's historic fourth world cup championship at a ticker tape parade. megan rapinoe, alex morgan, rose lavelle, and their teammates rode floats through new york city's canyon of heroes. ending the celebrations at a ceremony at city hall. supporters chanted "usa!" and "equal pay!" p pay1l equal pay! nermeen: the continued battle for equal pay and working conditions has just begun, equal to the westminster in. prize money for this year's women's world cup is just $30 million, compared to $400 million for the 2018 men's world cup. amy: the u.s. women world cup victory came just months after

members of the 2015 women's team sued the u.s. soccer federation over gender discrimination. this is co-captain megan rapinoe who is the team's top scorer and best player, addressing the crowd d at city hall just aftete they receiveved the keys to the cityty. responsibility to make this world a better place. i think this teamoes an incredibible jobob of taking thn our shoulders and understanding the position that we have in the platform that we have within this world. pay andrew cuomo sign equity legislation for new york state in a gesture of support for the women's soccer team, just one day earlier senator joe manchin introduced legislation to withhold federal funding for the u.s. hosting the 2026 men's world cup until the women and equal pay. receive the u.s. women's team's high profile fight for pay equity is focusing the spotlight on the pay gap from women, not just

soccer players. women make $.80 for every dollar paid to men, black women make $.61 for every dollar. native women make 58 cents. latinx women make 53 cents. we are joined now by julie suk, professor of sociology at the graduate center at cuny. she is also the dean for master's programs. the women's soccer team exultant and defiant as the head of u.s. soccer federation addressed the crowd at city hall. he was met by chances of "equal pay." what does this call by the women's soccer team, yes in the realm of soccer, mean for this country, for women around the country? think their victory is a testament to some of the successes of title ix in this

country since the 1970's. title ix is very distinctive as antidiscrimination law in this country because it not only prohibits discrimination, it actually requires gender parity. amy: explain exactly what title ix is. >> it is a statute that was passed in 1972 around the time that you all rights amendment was being sent to the states for ratification. it is a statute that prohibits not only discrimination in educational programs receiving federal funding, but also prohibits the exclusion from participatioion on account of s. what that has meant in practice am a because of the way it has is notterpreted, is it enough just to say we are not discriminating on the basis of gender. institutions, universities, have to equalize conditions so that women and men really have an equal opportunity in sports programs. this has made a huge difference to the ability of women to participate in sports and

eventually to excel over generations. nermeen: does that apply only to universities, not high schools? >> it applies to all recipients of federal funding. nermeen: do you agree the women's soccer team won because precisely y of this title ix and what it enabled for women athletes? >> i do because i think what title ix shows is if we are really committed on the groundnd toto actual equality between men and women and have a very robust understanding of what that means, it means we can unleash women's full potential. there are so much talent i think that is not allowed to come out when we have an equal pay practices or when we have various practices on the ground that include women one way or another. legislation dof you think is necessary to ensure equal pay for women and men? >> currently we do have title vii employment of the equal pay

act of 1963. those are the statutes the women's national team is invoking in a lawsuit that was filed that you mentioned. go fartatutes do not enough because even though they require equal pay for equal work, there are a lot of exceptions, including if you pay men and women unequally, based on any other factor other than sex, that is legal under the equal pay act. many other countries in recent years have passed more robust equal pay laws. for example in france, they have an equal pay index to large employers will have to measure certain things like the pay gap between men and women in the company, the number of women who have gotten raises after maternity leave, those kinds of things. they get a certain score. if the risk or falls below a certain level, there three years to fix it or they can get fined up to 1% of payroll. seeing something you're

in other countries. other countries that also have gender equality in the constitution for some amy: talk about the state of pay and also of wealth, the disparity between men and women in the u.s. >> i think it is a complicated thing. makeigure we have is women $.80 on the men's dollar. it is due to a large -- amy: that is white women. >> that is all women. but if you break it down, of course you get lower percentages as compared to men. but i think -- a lot of the factors not only doing with discrimination because of gender stereotyping and exclusion of women in certain programs from education all the way up to the workplace, it has a lot to do also with the effects of gender roles on women's careers and their earning ability, including the fact many women take career breaks in ordeder to raise children.

because in this s country, we don't really have meaningful paid parental leave for men or women and this tends to have a pretty bad affect on women's earning ability over their careers. that 80% is something that is complicated. it represents not only discrimination in the context of underpaying women for the exact same job, but broader disadvantages that have to deal with the gender role that women and men play in our society. nermeen: how do you think that compares to the extent of course it is true the u.s. has among the oecd countries, among the worst provisions for maternity and paternity leave. to what extent is that a reflection of how far we are here from gender inequality? because a kind of says something about how the role of the mother and the father, but principally the mother given what you've said about gender roles, how much that is valued and how much

space is made for it. >> economists who have studied the gender pay gap have suggested that if you control for maternity him at the gender pay gap actually narrows significantly. if you control -- that is to say women who are not mothers make almost as much as men whether they are fathers or not. so you're absolutely right that our lack of accommodation for working mothers in this country, including our lack of a federal policy of paid parental leave -- right now i believe only 11 or 12% of american workers have access to paid parental leave. and when the leave is not ok, we have a family radical lead act that authorizes unpaid leave after 12 w weeks, but when families havee unpaid leave, the time youou have a baby is realay not a gogood time not to be makg any money. what this usually means is that men continue to work and women take as short a time period off

as possible if they don't have access to paid leave o or stop this also has s very bad effects on maternal health and infant mortality. amy: how this title ix, how is equal pay and particular, how would these be affected by the passage of the equal rights amendment? explain what that is. >> the equal rights amendment is an amendment to the u.s. constitution which would propose a must 100 years ago that says equality of rights shall l not e denied or abridged by the united states or by any -- it prohibits the government from discriminating on the basis of sex. what it would do is it would make thehe government responsibe and accountable for a wide range of governmental failures in the context of gender inequality. obviously, they would not be able to actually exclude women for many government programs or public educational programs on

the basis of sex, but i think it could mean something more. that is your not abridging the quality of rights, it means that when we systematically fail to provide equal opportunities on the ground that the government is somehow responsible. and i think it would make sense then to have a kind of robust understanding of nondiscrimination that you see in the context of title ix, which has produced results. amy: what would it take to pass equal rights amendment, the e.r.a., right nowow? >> what it would take right now is one more state legislature to ratify the equal rights amendment. what happened when the equal rights movement was sent to the states for ratification is we got 35 states before the deadline in 1982. we need 38. ratified,7, nevada has illinois has ratified. so if we have one more state, we

will have 38 states. amy: i would thank you for being with us. we will continue to follow that movement. julie suk, professor of sociology at the graduate center at cuny. she has written about the era and about gender equality in the constitutions across the world. when we come back, labor secretary out to cost a -- laborand over secretary alexander acosta, being criticized for cutting the budget to fight international sex trafficking by 80%. .tay with us for ♪ [music break]

amy: "the drum" by the hip-hop duo the seige. this is democracy now!, i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. nermeen: labor secretary alexander acosta is rejecting calls to resign and is defending his role in a 2008 plea deal

given to the wealthy serial child sex abuser jeffrey epstein. at the time acosta was a u.s. , prosecutor in florida. "the miami herald" has described the plea deal as "one of the most lenient deals for a childld sex offender in history." amy: acosta has cocome under fie funding fors to cut trafficking. helds questioned when he an almost our news conference to justify the extremely lenient deal he made with epstein back in 2008 when he was the u.s. attorney in florida. but this is what he said when questioned about the budget around sex trafficking. >> the laboror secretary comingf tried repeatedly to cut a program that deals with human trafficking in the labor department by of the eta percent , going before congress advocating for that.

why should people trust you to focus on human trafficking a protect if you have done that? foreigne referring to countries, for a foreign country labor related work as part of the budget every year those grants have been removed, as have other grants for foreign countries. let me just add as part of the budget every year, those grants are put back in by congress. this is what happens in washington. eiffel a suspect those grants will remain in this year. amy: to talk more about alex acosta's record, we're joined now by taina bien aime, executive director of coalition against trafficking in women. we're not as much talking about the case of jeffrey epstein, which we talked about the last few days. at this issue of his cutting of the budget. can you explain what this means? >> the department of labor has a bureau that is international labor affairs bureau. their primary responsibility is childbat forced labor,

trafficking, labor and sex trafficking, inhuman trafficking in general. for secretary acosta is saying, it goes primarily -- this money goes primarily to international programs is correct, but it also goes to domestic programs. -- say he has a budget of 68 million dollars. what he is proposing is for the bureau ilab to be reduced by 80% to $18 million, congress will fight him on that. the appropriations committee will fight him on that. but what it means is we are faced with in a administration that once to reduce its efforts to this very complex, human rights violation called human trafficking.g. it is not just jeopardizing what we're doing to combat child sex trafficking, but also child labor trafficking. so many -- the state department also works on human trafficking

and also provides services and programs to combat it. , departmenty on dol of labor, specifically for child labor trafficking. for instance, cocoa production. there are three major u.s. companies -- hershey, mars, and nestle -- that cannot even -- they committed to ensuring to consumers that no child labor trafficking is involved in the production of cocoa. what will happen to those commitments, right? we don't even know whether they are fulfilling their commitments to ensure ththat. whenever you buy a bag of m&ms or skittles that that does not involve child trafficking. it is very interesting you have a acosta, who makes this extremely lenient deal with the child sex rapist, with jeffrey epstein, where he goes to jail for something like 11 months but every day he can

go out, his chauffeur pick some up to go to work -- and this was in florida. he works for president trump who is been accused of sexually assaulting at least 17 women. but why are -- why is this in the department of labor? >> that is -- well, sex trafficking is dealt with in many agencies across the u.s. government. , the bureau that specififically looks at human trafficking, which includes, as we know human traffickingng has many forms of exexploitation. you have trafficking for labor, trafficking for sex, situations of slavery and servitude. that is their mandate to ensure the u.s. develops programs that are well funded to combat it. amy: if it was cut by 80%, would devastate the monitoring of stopping human trafficking? >> it would get the program. amy: we will do part 2 and post it on democracynow.org.

t, executive director of coalition against trafficking in women. 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 possible by democracy now!]

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