. we're the only people, people walk in, they put a foot in, please would you like to register. other countries say get the hell out of here. they do that. they have to do that. we say, they want to hire now 5,000 more judges so that a person puts the toe in the land that we have to go to trial. this is crazy what we're doing. i don't want judges. i want border patrol. i want i.c.e. good morning and welcome to a special three hour edition of "a.m. joy." we are live from texas where the

trump administration has erected a tent city near this intake center just along the u.s./mexico border to house children who migrated to the u.s., fleeing violence in south america. only for some of them to be taken from their parents who accompanied them. under donald trump's zero tolerance immigration policy. in about an hour from now, hundreds of people are expected to rally at this spot to demand the trump administration give those dads back to their moms and dads. the trump administration released a statement saying they do know the locations of all the children in federal custody and they're working to reunite them with their families. although a dhs official tells msnbc, separated parents were quickly given the option to sign paper work leading to deportation, meaning a large percentage of kids in hhs custody may no longer be in the u.s. officials also released new numbers claiming that as of june 20th, just over 2,000 minors are

being held by the government. as for this facility, there's still a lot we don't know about it. but, according to democratic law maimers who have been inside nearly 300 minors are in there and at least seven girls have arrived within just the past 24 hours. joining me now is kerry kennedy, president of robert f. kennedy human rights, hulion castro and the former mayor of san antonio, texas, president and ceo of voter latino which organized today's rally. thank you all for being here. so we're here in tornillo where we know there are hundreds of children, we can see mexico from here. >> that's right. >> and this is normally an intake facility for immigrants. what do we know about the legal status of those children inside that facility? >> right now they're still trying to sort it out. a lot of people separated from their families, but for viewers to understand, this tent city

for these children housing miors was literally erected less than a week ago and they had 98 children at that time. it was increase today 300 in less than a week is significant. i was talking to a lot of folks that basically do legal representation for these children, they have not been able to be inside. it's very unusual. usually when they actually bring in minors they're allowed to immediately have access to their attorneys. they have not. the reasoning behind it is, this facility's actually able to expand to 4,000 beds. there's a reason why it's in the middle of the desert but with a lot of vast opportunity for expansion and the thinking is that what they're going to do is actually transform it into a family detention. that is still prison. >> and that's indefinite. they would have to get a ruling overruling a finding that you cannot indefinitely detain children in order to get that. this is an unprecedented situation. it's not unprecedented in

american history to have internment. you're talking about detaining entirely families in that facility. unbelievable. >> it is unbelievable. it's amazing that the president believes that the answer to this atrocious policy that he put in place, that the fix to it is to indefinitely cage families together. many folks have spoken about for instance, a 2016 policy the obama administration put in place to keep families together, essentially to use ankle monitors so basically you would not keep them in cages indefinitely but you would allow them with ankle monitors to be able to leave, stay together but then also have to check in and that program was very successful. the point is, that there's a different way we can do this. we don't have to either separate families are keep them detained indefinitely. >> the program that you're talking about was an obama era pilot program that kept the

asylum seeking migrant families together. the trump administration canceled it. i.c.e. claimed that it canceled the program because it was too expensive compared to other monitoring methods and it did not remove enough asylum seekers from the u.s. i believe the cost of it was $36 a day per person and this cost too much money. this is much more. >> this is costing $400,000 a day and it cost $775 a night per kid. if you want to save money and do it more smartly and more humanely, the obama administration showed toward the end of the administration how you could do that. >> absolutely. what we know about this facility, it's meant to house teenagers aged 13 to 17. it currently houses nearly 300 minors and it has the capacity to go up to 4,000 people. one of the things that's been the most disturbing about the detention of these children around the country is the lack of access that lawmakers are not being given access, the human

rights organization that want to get in and see these kids are not getting full access. is there a way to change that? >> the way to change it is to go back to the obama-era policy and that's what we should do. you don't want internment camps in the united states. we want a country that's based on love and justice and peace and compassion towards those who suffered. that's what americans are yearning for and that's not what this is. yesterday, we were in mccallan, i went into the courthouse, i saw scores of people, asylum seekers, who have a right to be in this country, who had been turned away at the border by border police who told them we don't have enough people to process you so you have to go through the rio grande to get into the united states. they risked their lives almost drowning, some of them drowned. they come across and they're there met by scores and scores of people who immediately arrest

them, put them into shackles at their ankles and hands, around their waists, these huge bicycle chains and bring them in and process them like criminals, like criminals for what is essentially a traffic violation. this is a misdemeanor crime. >> yeah. >> and they're in these shackles, the humiliation, the terror of these poor people and then having their children stripped from them and this is not just a border issue, this is an issue across our country. these kids have been taken to 15 different states as far away as new york and it's very clear that the federal government has no idea what to do. they threw together this policy. they don't know where the kids are. they don't know how to match the parents with the children and it's a disaster.

>> a couple things to unpack there. i think a lot of people are asking -- i'm going by the questions i'm getting, that people are texting me and tweeting me and asking, why scatter the children around the country? i mean, is it a matter of making it harder for them to be found by the parents? why scatter them? >> it's a good question. it's probably a matter of space right now and places to house these kids, but the other answer to that i think is that this was a half baked measure. it was done in a haphazard way, incompetence is the standard operating procedure of this administration and so if they were going to take this policy on and know they'll have a surge of these minors to house, they could've done that in a more orderly way and i'll say whether it was republican or democrat in the past, usually when policies like this come down the pike, it was done in a more orderly way whether it's this or the travel ban that we saw at the very beginning of the administration.

this is an administration who's standard operating procedure is chaos and incompetence and because of that i think that's part of the reason you see folks everywhere and now a lack of effective ability to track parents with children. >> as our colleague chris hayes said, there's a through line through the incompetents that go through puerto rico and the muslim ban. there's a certain throughline that one could see. the other thing is what kerry said is important. these are asylum seekers. normally it would be processing people who are coming and presenting themselves, they are not law breakers. they have an internationally human right case to make and they're being told you can't come in, we're closed and then when they go around and present themselves and say, no i am seeking asylum, they're turning themselves in and getting arrested. >> that's something we should be very clear is that we in the united states, we helped craft this international law. we were one of the folks that

were at the table and said this is how you treat refugees, x, y, z. we right now are going against our own laws we created on the international order and i do caution americans who think that this is okay, because right now we are setting a standards for other countries to treat their minorities and refugees in abysmal conditions and we do not want to set that off. we have to have a responsibility as a world leader to continue that we are talking about our values and there's a reason why americans, regardless of party are outraged, because this is not who we are. this idea that you have 20 children in cages without anyone able to sue them because it's against federal law to touch them is abysmal and it's cruel. it takes a high level of depravity to come up with a policy like that. >> what are the normal protocols for refugees, for people typically presenting themselves for asylum in the united states?

>> you have a right to asylum under international laws. that was crafted by lou hanken an american lawyer on behalf of our country. so if you have a well founded fear of persecution based on race, creed, color, national origin or political belief which almost all of these people do, you have a right to get asylum in the united states and we are denying that right and we're breaking international law. i wanted to add something else. what i've heard from people across the country is what can i do? i want to get involved. we have started in conjunction with the civil rights lawyer -- lawyers for civil rights here in the valley and lupia is an organization started by chavez, something called break bread not

families. it's a fast you're doing for 24 hours over 24 days and you do the fast for 24 hours and then you pass it along to someone else. you take the money you were going to spend on food that day and send it in to break bread not families and we pass it along to people on the ground making a difference reuniting these families and i'm happy that maria theresa are part of the fast test. >> can we talk about what's going to happen today? i want to address one of the other issues i'm hearing a lot of people very worried about and i'll throw this out to anyone who can address it, the idea that once parents are deported, then the children are reclassified as unaccompanied and then the parents claim to the child is questioned because they're perceived as having abandoned the child or at least when the courts look at their claim they say you abandoned them. >> a mother had to sue the

federal government to get her child back. she is -- she's a refugee. she does not have resources and luckily lawyers and better angels said up and said we have to sue. how many parents are able to go through that process and match them so they can sue? it's unfathomable that we are so incompetent that we can actually recognize basic justice and made a mistake. >> what are we going to see today? >> we're going to see a rally that we expect at least hundreds of folks to come to to keep the pressure up on the trump administration, people coming from all over the country, including of course here locally from around el paso with a number of speakers and the message today really is that we want these families reunited. the only way that's going to happen is if we keep up the pressure. the trump administration reversed course, sort of, because of the immense pressure that they felt and the only way they're going to implement a policy to reunite these families

is if we keep that pressure up and my kudo is to local latinos for organizing this. >> we started this as an idea on sunday and it was because we saw so many people -- so many americans, regardless of political stripes who were angry and the only way we can bring attention to the first internment camp of children is to go there. it's far away, hard to get to on purpose. it is by design. we encourage folks to visit, stop separation.org. we've identified local groups here in el paso who need resource senate intelligence committee they can help the children and if you can go ahead and follow us on facebook, learn more about what's happening, we have people coming from all stretches of the country to be here to set off a week of action and end family detention. it starts in tornillo but it ends in washington, d.c. next saturday. we know that what's happening

here we have to bear witness to it, the only way we fix it is through members of congress and this administration. >> you can see -- i don't know if we can get a wide shot of it. this is the border. mexico is right there. as a former mayor of a city here in texas, just give people a sense of scale because the perception that we're getting out of the trump administration is that there is almost a barrage, a constant torrent of people flooding into the country. >> this other perception that he fans the flames is that somehow that these cities like el paso on the american side are runover with crime. el paso makes clear all the time is one of the safest big cities in the united states. it's got about 650,000 folks and it consistently ranks as one of the safest big cities and it butts up against the border, basically. >> can you tell us more about how people can contact the human rights organization that you're working with? >> i work with robert f. kennedy

human rights but they should really go to break bread, not families, and sign up for the fast and get others involved and that's really -- we need a grassroots movement as we just heard, this administration bows to pressure and we need to keep that pressure on. we want to do two things. we want to reunite those families but we don't want to reunite them in internment camps. president trump said, don't worry, we're going to bring those families back to the but he didn't say we're taking the 4, 5 and 6-year-olds out of cages. his plan is to keep them in cages. i think it's supposed to be 116 degrees here today. >> and just add their parents to the cages with them. >> everybody should be freed. the obama program had 99.6% of the time the families showed up for their hearings, so it's a

program that works. it's very inexpensive. this program is going to cost $280,000 per child per year to keep them in this desert. my god, let these people free. >> as a way for him to force congress to give him $25 million for a wall he said mexico was going to pay for. up next, our own jacob soboroff joins me with more of his amazing reporting on the crisis at the border. more "doing chores for mom" per roll. more "doing chores for dad" per roll. more "earning something you love" per roll.

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you're talking about murderers. you're talking about very, very violent criminals. >> do you know how many ms-13 members you caught here -- >> that have made it through, we're looking at 300% increase over last year. >> and how many people is that? >> it comes out to about 180. >> and how many total people did you catch last year? >> last year we had 187,000 people. welcome back to our three hour special edition of "a.m. joy" live from tornillo, texas.

the white house routinely use ms-13 as fear amonger. they make up just a tiny traction of the total apprehensions at the border. jacob soboroff unpack that had and much more in a "dateline" special, the dividing line which airs tonight at 7:00 p.m. on nbc and jacob joins me now. let's start with some facts on ms-13. donald trump loves to use them as a talking point in his speeches, his allies and conservative media talk about them constantly. what is ms-13? and is it a south american invasion of the united states? >> let's start at the beginning. ms-13 is a los angeles street gang that began in the parking lot of a 7-eleven in koreatown in the city of los angeles and during the clinton administration, many members of that gang who were undocumented immigrant were deported to south america. terrorized residents of south america, expanding massively and

caused some of the migrant refugee crisis that we're seeing on our borders today. the american policy of deporting these folks, instead of just locking them up in our jails and then deporting them or figuring out a different strategy is what caused some of what we're dealing with right now. i want to be really, really clear about what you just heard from the border patrol sector chief in our "dateline" special, he said 180 of 187,000 people that caught are ms-13 members. the whole policy of separating children and locking them up -- >> can you say that number again, 180 out of -- >> 187,000. i'm not very good at math but i believe that's .1% of all the people apprehended in the rio grande valley sector were ms-13 members and this whole thing was predicated by donald trump on the idea that people are fraudulently coming into the united states and that's why we have to separate families and lock up children.

the math is funny math, fuzzy math and it doesn't make any sense based on the statistics that we know about. >> and beyond that, let's talk about what people actually are fleeing. we know there's something called the northern triangle that is in south america that a lot of these families are coming from guatemala and el salvador, can you explain and does your special go into detail on what these families are actual fleeing? >> they're fleeing desperation, gang violence and persecution and they want a better life in the united states. they want a better tomorrow. when you hear the administration say, you have fake families coming into the u.s., fraudulent family units that are really terrorists or gang members, the percentage on that one is 1%. 1% of all of the families caught in the rio grande family center

are false. 1% of all of the families. based on that 1% statistic, the president and his administration decided in a systematic way, in a way that's never been done before to separate families from children resulting in today, 2,000 kids, 2,053 to be exact according to the numbers from the administration potentially never being reuniting with their parents again because i was told this morning that a large percentage of those parents may already have been deported back to their home countries. >> that is one of the things i think has been the most disturbing per your reporting jacob. the idea of parents of these 2,000 plus kids may already be outside of the united states because it's not clear what the process would be for them to get back into an american courtroom to claim their children or to even locate them. >> that's correct. these are not folks that are wealthy individuals. they're some of the most desperate, poor people in the

world, quite frankly and that's why they're coming here. when you get deported from the united states after coming here to try to seek asylum, albeit in between ports of entry, then you're kicked out of the country and your child remains incarcerated or at least in the custody of hhs. what are you supposed to do? you don't have the resources to hire a high priced attorneys to track down your children. these phone numbers are saying that are provided to be reunited, what do you do when you're in south america and try to dial these numbers and trying to figure out where your child is. >> yeah. the other issue, of course, is mexico, which is where many of these families are traversing through mexico to get to the united states. you get into a situation there because it's not as if it's easy to get mexico even to get to the united states in the first place. >> mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world. that is fair. donald trump makes very clear that he feels the reason we need a wall and we need to

incarcerate children is because mexico's violent and he thinks that's spilling over in the united states. we go to the morg in the special tonight in tijuana the most violent city in mexico where six people are murdered a day. over 1,700 murders last year alone. this year is expected to be on pace to pass that. if the president took the time to pick up his own dea reports and maybe read one page or two pages of those annual reports, he would learn that spillover violence is not something that happens in the united states. tijuana, ray nosera, they are dangerous cities in mexico but on the other side of the border, san diego, mccal lan, he will paso are some of the safest cities in ignoriu.s. he's ignoring his own agencies. we've had deterrence as a border

policy that started with clinton. a failure to address that is how we ended up with kids in cages in over the course of the last week. >> and not to mention the fact that mexico has elections coming up, not having a great relationship with the u.s. administration doesn't exactly make it easy for them to cooperate in trying to solve some of these problems. thank you so much for all the reporting that you have done on this issue. thank you very much. we'll be watching tonight. >> thank you, joy. >> thank you. don't miss jacob tonight on "dateline" at 7:00 p.m. eastern. put this in your dvr, mark it, watch it. it's very important for to you get the background on this. the dividing line, it's on nbc tonight. a closer look at america's ugly legacy of separating children from their families. we're not on an island anymore. [ roaring ]

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of people are expected to rally at this spot to advocate for children who remain in limbo separated from their families. outcry over the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents has elicited online rumors and fears of forced adoptions. many are citing the case from 2012 as a cause for concern and this is the case. a guatemalan mother who lost a legal battle to regain custody of her 5-year-old son. he was put up for adoption after she was arrested on immigration charges. danny is a vol less is joining me now. this was a case of a guatemalan mom who was arrested in an immigration raid. this case played out in 2012 as she appealed after her child was put up for adoption and she was claimed to have abandoned the child. a lot of people worrying about that and sharing that story. the mother ultimately lost her bid to get her child back from the american parents who had

adopted him without her consent and there is a new story out that's also being shared and this is the quote from it, danny, that is scaring a lot of people out there. i think what we'll see potentially is an increase in children unable to be placed at homes with relatives and being placed in foster families or facilities, according to the deputy director. and then they can be adopted out of foster care by people who are not their relatives. should people be worried about that kind of an outcome here? >> reporter: yes, and that's based on my personal experience handling these dependency type cases. federal and state law, require, require the state to initiate a termination of parental rights proceedings if a child has been in foster care for a certain percentage of the last 23 months. so the reason that's concerning is, as soon as you hear the

words foster care, that should make everybody very concerned and it's especially concerning with the case of immigrant children. mostly because even though the courts on appeal will preserve parental rights, on the other hand immigrants who return to their countries have little opportunity or finances to hire a stateside attorney and assert those parental rights in an appellate proceeding. that should have people very, very concerned. >> danny, what we're seeing here is the nbc news confirming the federal government saying that many of the parents who have been separated from their children may have already been deported, they may already be outside the united states. so put a pin in that. the second piece is there are a lot of infants that we do not know where they are, a lot of people asking where the little girls and the little infants are. jacob has seen some of these on

their own in these caged facilities. is the big concern here, that those babies, if they get placed in foster care and are left there for a certain period of time that those parents may never see those children again because as you said, they're parental rights get terminated because they've been taken out of the country? >> reporter: yes. the law expresses a preference for placement with relatives, so it may be the case that -- that some of the immigrants are being returned voluntarily, perhaps they would prefer that to any jail term and just rather return to the country and reuniting with their children later. we just don't know. as i've said before, the placement, once a child is placed in foster care, the chief concern is -- and i've seen this personally -- foster parents become attached to the child. whoever the child is placed with becomes attached and they may initiate adoption proceedings. when that happens, if there is

no original parent to contest them because that parent has been removed from the united states, then it becomes significantly easier to adopt that child, but even before adoption begins, initiating the termination of parental rights is something that is required by federal law. it's required by state law and the state must initiate those if there is what is considered statutory abandonment. the cruel irony here is that statutory abandonment may apply if a person is incarcerated for a crime but it could apply if a person is removed from the united states or even in custody in a federal detention center. >> wow. this is not been a reassuring conversation. that is pretty scary and hopefully there are some smart legal minds out there like yours that are thinking about ways to get in touch with these parents to find them and help them to preserve their rights to their own kids. thank you so much for that

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>> put in cages and sent to camps, that's not america. >> the separation of families needs to stop. that's not the america the world knows and loves. welcome back. today from tornillo, texas, one of the epicenters of the family separation crisis that has sparked outrage all over the country, indeed all over the world. yet the idea that this is unprecedented and not who we are as americans is unfortunately a bit of recisionist history. the truth is taking children away from their parents by government sanction or detaining them in internment camps has happened in america since its founding. for centuries, the children of enslaved americans, african and african-american were taken from parents. in the late 19th century, tens of thousands of native american children were taken from their families and forced to attend assimilation boarding schools.

during world war ii, japanese americans were order today live in isolated prison camps including an estimated 30,000 children. joining me now is giuliani cox and professor. thank you so much for being here. i want to read to you a little bit of an account of a guy named henry bib, a former enslaved person. this is from the museum. this is in "the washington post" on may 31st. the child was torn from the arms of its mother amid the most heart-wrenching streaks from the mother and child on the one hand and the bitter oaths and cruel lashes from the tyrants on the other. her mother was sold to the highest bidder. so clearly we have a history here. it is shocking to a lot of people that we're repeating it, but separating kids is unfortunately not un-american,

is it? >> i think there are a lot of things that we've seen in the past two years that people have referred to as un-american and the only reason we can think of them as un-american is we have been reluctant to take a cold hard look at the history of the united states. this is the most recent example. these are things we might wish were un-american or these are things that are contrary to the version of the america that we have sold and dispensed to the world, but there are deep historic roots to these kinds of actions. as a matter of fact, to show the kind of level of depravity that was involved in the institution of slavery, it was common enough for people to have had their children sold away from them that at the end of the civil war when african-americans had gained their freedom, one of the

things you find again and again from reports is these southern roads that are congested with people who are wondering from town to town, state to state, city to city trying to find relatives who have been sold away from them. and so this is very deep in american history of the you mentioned the example of the normal schools with native americans who were force fed a cultural assimilation and separated from their families in order to expedite that process. even in the more recent administrative forms of child separation, what's coming out in "the new york times" did a report on this a while back, is that there are racial disparities and even instances where children are taken out of homes because of concerns about abuse or other issues and that black children and white children who are in the same circumstances, black children are far more likely to be taken away from parents, even for

offense that's might be comparatively minor. there is this long dynamic that we should be clear about and the only way we can have any sense of hoping to avoid the repetition of this is to be clear about what is actually happened in the past. >> and i'm going to read another -- this is from the forced assimilation of border schools. bill wright, an indian, he was just 6-year-old, he remembers people bathing him in kerosene and shaving his head. they were prohibited from speaking indian. i remember coming home and my grandmother asked me to talk indian to her and i said grandma i don't understand you and she said who are you. there are japanese-american children who couldn't wait to

turn 18 to fight for america. a family interned in granada in colorado, and one last story and this is more recent. this is a child named carlos who's name was changed to jamison. he had been with his adopted parents in missouri since the age of 11 months. the judge said his biological mothers had no rights to see him according to her lawyer. she was arrested on an immigration raid in 2007 at a plant. his name was changed, his culture was changed. he's gone. how do americans jelani, oppose this, other than republicans who are for it f you look at the polling, the vast majority of everyone else is against it, how do people process this idea that this should not be who we are with the knowledge that we've been this way in the past? >> this is only understandable

by the relative parameters of humanity, who's humanity are we able to visible recognize and who's are we not. there are examples of this even when we talked about i've given to students in class about the melee, massacre and the fact that children were killed. there are very many americans who felt that the soldiers who were court marshalled as a result of that had given unjust treatment whereas we would have -- it would be incomprehensible that there would be any defense for anyone that would kill an american child under any circumstance, under any circumstances and so it is simply fundamentally this and i think that the question is, ask yourself, republican, what is your relationship to your child? what would you do to protect that child? how far would you go to make

sure that you reunited yourself with a child, with your offspring, your projny, your family and then ask yourself, if you can apply that same visceral sense of protection and love to someone who doesn't look like you? and that's the fundamental question. >> thank you so much, my friend. i appreciate you very much for being here today. thank you. >> thank you. up next, more live coverage from tornillo, texas. within moments from now, a rally is set to begin. we'll bring it to you live as it happens. i'm very proud of the fact that i served. i was a c130 mechanic in the corps, so i'm not happy unless my hands are dirty. between running a business and four kids, we're busy.

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the most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high blood potassium. ask your doctor about entresto. and help make more tomorrows possible. entresto, for heart failure. the fact is, we need more republicans because the democrats are obstructionists. they won't vote. they're total obstructionists. they don't want to vote. nancy pelosi, chuck shu mur. they want to use the issue. i like the issue for the election. our issue is strong borders, no

crime. their issue is open borders, let ms-13 all over our country. that's what's going to happen if you listen to them. >> welcome back as we continue our special edition of "am joy" live from tourneao, texas. donald trump sees his hard line political stance as a winner and turnout driver. according to the associated press, quote, several white house aides led by steven miller have encouraged the president to make immigration a defining issue for the mid terms. trump has told advisors he believes he looks strong on the matter, suggesting it could be a winning culture war issue, much like lhis attacks on nfl player who take a knee protesting police brutality. joining me is michael bennett, author of "things that make white people uncomfortable."

michael, thank you so much for being here. i want to start off by asking about that donald trump convergence where he believes these issues where he attacks players like nfl players who take a knee for the national anthem, the sort of cultural racial culture war issues are good for him and make him seem strong. what do you make of that? >> i don't think it makes him seem strong. i think we're trying to bring up issues that are happening to all-americans and want to be able to create those voices for those people and i think he's missing the message. really it's the connection between all america. america is made up of immigrants. homeless people from diverse backgrounds, different religions and genders. it's important we don't forget that. we get lost in picking the side, democrat, republican republican. at the end of the day we're trying to choose human. >> we just had another police-involved shooting that is making the rounds in

#blacklivesmatter unfortunately. people are thinking about this issue as well as the issue behind me, the deportation and caging of children. i want to read a little bit from your book. this is what you wrote. this is what you were thinking about in the first pre-season game in 2017 before the national anthem played. i was thinking about my mom, a teacher for over 20 years who taught me to question everything. i was thinking about the gap between what we are taught the flag represents and the lived experience of too many people. i was thinking about all of this and as the anthem started to play, i sat down. there was no way i could stand for the national anthem and there was no way i would, until i saw this country take steps toward common decency. we're in this moment where americans are confronting the fact that we have inturned our own citizens before, we've taken children from their parents before, police brutality has gone on for centuries. how do you approach that as an issue in terms of you said you want this country to achieve common decency but you see what's happening behind me and

it feels like we're sometimes sliding backwards. >> it's so hard to deal with. at the end of the day, we're always choosing sides. we never choose the human being aspect of it. i think people are being dhie mannized and nobody's talking about the value of the human. i think the experiences that we forget we don't have empathy and compassion for other people. my book is about having that empathy and compassion for other cultures and other people and trying to understand and just listen. i think we're trying to choose. we talk. we never, ever listen. you look at what's happening now. people are talking. nobody cares what's happening to the families that are being, you know, pulled apart. nobody cares about that. they're just worried about their kids. i think we can't have common decency until we start worrying about the other people around us because we all make up america. people choose which america that they love, but the reality, this is the america that we live in. people are being deported. people don't have fresh water. there's native american issues, brown people, police brutality.

women equality. me, too. these are issues that make up america and we can't choose the ones we love. we have to choose america for what it is and choose our part and how we make a change in it. >> yeah. donald trump challenged players to tell them who he thigs needs to be pardoned. here's who you should pardon. a handful of pardons will not address this. the players wrote these are problems our government created, many of which happened at the local level. you were invited, would you go to the white house to talk to donald trump? >> it would be -- actually, i think we should be able to have dialogue. i think not being able to have dialogue is a big issue right now. if we can have dialogue to figure out how we can make america great again. that's what he wants, everybody doesn't have a voice. we need to be able to bridge that gap and have those voices again. i don't know if he's really willing to listen, but if he's willing to listen and talk about police brutality and hear our

story, i wouldn't be against that. you know what i mean? if he's not going to listen and keep dividing us, then we can go. if he's going to have the opportunity to talk about the issues and the realities of what's happening in america right now, i'd be down to do that. >> michael bennett, super bowl champion michael bennett, congratulations on your new book. thank you very much. >> appreciate it. coming up, more "am joy" live from texas. but on the inside, i feel chronic, widespread pain. fibromyalgia may be invisible to others, but my pain is real. fibromyalgia is thought to be caused by overactive nerves. lyrica is believed to calm these nerves. i'm glad my doctor prescribed lyrica. for some, lyrica delivers effective relief from fibromyalgia pain, and improves function. lyrica may cause serious allergic reactions, suicidal thoughts or actions. tell your doctor right away if you have these, new or worse depression, unusual changes in mood

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and i like the issue for election, too. our issue is strong borders, no crime. their issue is open borders, let ms-13 all over our country. that's what's going to happen if you listen to them. >> welcome back to a special edition of "am joy." we are bringing you two more hours from torneo, texas. hundreds of people are going to gather. they're gathering justice for immigrants. one of the many rallies pushing back on the deeply popular, shocking quite frankly immigration policies of donald trump. on saturday the department of homeland security released a fact sheet saying that of the more than 2,000 kids in custody, 522 of them, they say, have been reunited with their parents.

the agency says 83% of these children in custody arrived in the u.s. unaccompanied by a parent. it's still unclear when more families will be reunited, but dhs says the process typically begins after the parents go through the court proceedings. joining me is director and actor rob ryan ner and michelle ry reiner, thank you both for coming down. >> thanks. >> let's talk about what the government is saying. i was talking with lawrence o'donnell on the show. he made a good point. at this point, these are their claims. >> yeah. >> but it's very complicated to just accept it at face value. >> yeah. the truth of the matter is there is no crisis except for the one that donald trump created. >> yeah. >> there is no crisis here. with you he cr but he created one, and clearly that's all he's interested in -- let's cut to the chase. this is about racism.

this is pure and simple racism, that's all this is. he's hoping that the people who support him will be ginned up and running to the polls to make sure that brown people don't come into america. that's exactly what's going on here, and he -- and in the processes' destroying families. >> yeah. at minimum, michelle, it seems that the trump administration, the political people on his team believe that the base of the republican party will be more moved by this, by separating brown children and parents than they will, for instance, by his tax cut because that's not what they're selling. they're telling him, no, this is the issue that makes you look strong. >> i hate to repeat what he said, but this is based on racism, period, as they like to say. that's all this is. they don't want more brown people coming into this country and taking their jobs. immigration is lower than it's ever been. there's no crisis at the border and it's just an inhumane,

unconscionable act by separating children. my mother was in auschwitz. she got separated from her entire family, lost her entire family. i never thought i would live to see something like that, particularly in this country ever again in my lifetime. >> yeah. >> it's hid yos. by the way, as a fellow jew, i'd like to hear ivanka speak up. not just where is the girls, where is ivanka? her issue is women and children as well as melania. where are they? why aren't they out there speaking about this and speaking about it and becoming the face of reorganizing and getting the kids and the parents together again? where are they? where is she? >> yeah. the next thing we're talking about, rob, is indefinite family detention. >> yes. >> not letting the children out of the cages but putting the families in with them. >> this is inhuman. what we're doing in the united states of america is inhuman. you mentioned it a second ago. he launched his campaign basically saying mexicans are

rapists, they're murderers. that's what he's still selling. it's the only thing he can sell to that racist base of his, and that's what he's been doing. he started his political career saying obama was not a legitimate president. this is all a reaction, the people who support him are frightened to death of this country becoming the browning of america. it's about immigration. it's about people coming together. we've been doing this for hundreds of years. it helps the country. it makes the country stronger. we need immigrants to help boost our economy and everybody knows that. >> yeah. >> this is xenophobia, pure and simple. >> and crime is lower where there's groups. >> absolutely. >> so everything that he's been saying is a lie. he lies about everything and higgs base agrees with him. >> yeah. >> and fox propagates it and that's it. 40% of the people believe that. >> we're here in el paso which is one of the safest cities in america. >> yes. >> mexico is literally right

there. you can see it from here. you can walk over to it. michelle, you talked about your family's experiences. there is the godwin's law. when you make the analogy to the 1930s germany, you go too far, but there are a lot of people who talk about it didn't begin with the violence with the jewish people, it started with the rhetoric. that rhetoric is pretty consistent. >> yes. >> that is one of the things that i think is destabilizing and frightening a lot of people. >> they follow the exact pattern that hitler has, i hate to say it, with the propaganda, even down to the red cross went into auschwitz, they cleaned it up for two days. it looked fine. they went back. everything seems to look fine. >> fascist playbook. >> same thing when maielania di that ridiculous trip and went down there. >> yeah, i don't care -- rob, what do you make of the fact of home and family.

it's one of those cultural touch stones because it captured a moment in u.s. history when this anxiety about social change, demographic change was captured in a brilliant way. archie had this humanity but he had a fear. >> he was definitely frightened. the man was a bigot. he was a racist. we made fun of it, we attacked him for it and be then it seemed that we were moving in a good direction. you know, we've seen great actors, you know, and oprah and we had barack obama become president, we seemed like we were going in a good direction, but what we didn't understand is obviously racism has been here forever, but it was kind of tamped down a little bit and then along comes donald trump and he gives it voice and he brings it right back to the surface. and it's shocking that there are 40%, as you say, or 46% -- >> yeah. >> -- those people who are supporting what he's doing here are racists, period. >> it's distressing.

>> to quote sean spicer. >> when you look at the polling, 55% of americans, only 55% disagree with the policy of separating children from their parents when they cross the border. 26% agree with it. when you break it down by party, 14% of democrats, i'm not sure what that is, or that i agree with it, 26% of republicans are for it, only 32% are against it. 5 56% are against it. more republicans are for it than are not. >> yeah. >> is that partisanship? >> no, it's more than partisanship because that 46% represents 25% of the country and 25% of the country, whether it's 25, 20, 30% are hard core racists. they do not want to see brown people coming into america. that's just what's going on here. i mean, think about this. immigrants are less likely to

commit crime -- >> yeah. >> -- than people who live here. people who are striving so hard to get through this country want a better life. they're not here to commit -- that's not saying that there isn't crime and that there isn't drug, of course there is, but that is way down. way, way down from where it was. we saw 1,600,000 people coming in. last year we saw 300,000. it is way down. >> yeah. >> this is a crisis. this one particularly is one that donald trump created. >> yeah. the movie you produced is called ""shock and awe."" that's been ringing in my head because it feels like what the trump administration does, they do a lot. they do a lot at once. they're reorganizing the federal government, department of education, department of labor. talk about denaturalizing immy dwran grants, the detention. it all happened so quickly. i wonder how people can stop to process it all let alone deal with it? >> well, they bring up these things, these made up crises to

obfuscate what's going on. i read this article last night. it's astounding what they're breaking apart and, you know, putting into the private sector. it's really scary what the settlement is doing. don't look over there. we're doing this here. people are noticing. it's really, really -- it's also every single thing that obama did. every single thing. >> yeah. >> don't tell me that's not racist. >> well, today the obama administration is speaking about our oceans, they're polluted. >> yeah. >> there's a sector of american people saying, oh, you hollywood people. why is hollywood talking again? the artists have been standing up against donald trump, really firmly against him. what's the balance of how much -- how much that doesn't help? what do you think? >> i think it helps if you understand the issues and you can speak intelligently about them. i think it doesn't help when you

say f trump. that kind of stuff doesn't help, but if you understand what's going on and you can put it in context. we have a president who does not understand the nexus between politics, policy, and government and how all of that works. so he just throws something out that he knows his base will lap up but he doesn't know how that's going to ultimately be implemented and how it's going to play out. so he winds up with this insane policy. >> yeah. and i think at the end of the day what a lot of people ask is people feel a bit helpless. other than marching, that's important, and showing sort of visible opposition, do you get that question a lot from people? >> yes. >> what do you do? >> what you do is you mobilize. you make sure that you get your vote out, you get them registered because right now there's no check on this president and in order to make

that happen we have to take back the house and the senate to put a check on this guy that has absolutely no clue as to how anything works. >> does this surprise you that more republicans aren't speaking out? pretty quiet. >> absolutely shocking. spineless. they're only concerned about the re-election, that's a pretty pathetic, you know, use of their time. that seems to be what they're doing. they have absolutely no back bone and no -- paul ryan, how would you feel if your baby was taken away from you? i'd like to know how all of these people would feel if it was their babies. have them listen to their tapes, the six-minute tapes of their babies crying or the mother screaming for their kids. >> unconscionable. >> marsha blackman. >> going to speak today. what are you going to say? >> i'm going to say what i've been saying, which is we need to get this man out of there. this man is poisonous to our democracy. we're right now at a point where

democracy is hanging by a thread. i mean, right now the courts are holding and right now the press, a big chunk of the press is doing their job but there's a big chunk of the press that is fighting back and pushing another narrative. it's hard to break through to those people. so i'm going to talk about what we need to do to save 241 years of self-rule. it's being tested right now. we're being tested. >> to quote that new book that just came out, he is evil. he is evil, and the thing is i thought he will come in, he won't really know, he's not that smart, do his showmanship thing, but he's evil in how he's treating people and dismantling everything anybody else in this country other than the top 1% of which he claims not to be. that's the joke of it all. he's not a goodman. >> are you more worried or more honeful today? >> worried. >> i'm worried but i'm hopeful. i'm hopeful because i still

believe in the decency of human beings. >> if they haven't done anything about the cyber attacks, they haven't done anything to change what happened in 2016. the same things are going on now that went on then. what's changed? >> what's changed in my opinion is that donald trump is in the white house and that will hopefully energize us to the point where we will overcome gerrymandering, we'll overcome russian interference, we'll overcome essentially state-run media and overwhelm enough so that we can do what we need to do in this country. >> rob and michelle reiner, you give a lot of people hope. you're voicing people's fears and hope as well. you do that brilliantly. we'll be looking forward to hear what you have to say. >> let's hear from ivanka and melania. get these kids back with their parents now. >> i think you have gotten the message out. it will be interesting to see if they respond. >> hopefully without that

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welcome back to our special edition of "am joy." we're live in tornillo, texas. a latino rally to end family detention is currently underway. this is one of the many rallies

that will take place all over the country in the coming days. jimmy gomez from california is with us to discuss congressional efforts to end this crisis and paolo mendoza is also here to talk mobilization efforts across the country. thank you both for being here. i normally would go ladies first. i want to go to the congressman first. this -- the feeling of crisis that every single person that i talk to, that i'm sure you've talked to has is on ten and yet in a normal crisis there would be immediate congressional hearings. congress would be hopping. where is the congress? >> you know, the republicans are flat footed. they're actually complicit with this president because they're afraid that if they go against him, that they're going to lose re-election. they need to get a spine to make sure they speak up. it's not just about the kids that are being held hostage by this president but also what it means to be an american and this country as a whole. >> with all due respect to the importance of elected officials, i, too, respect the work that

elected officials do. i don't think you get enough respect for the sacrifices to do a job. there's something of you're a soul. worrying about re-election versus worrying about your immortal soul, your conscience. the idea that a little kid could be dragged -- when you lose your child in the supermarket for five minutes you freak out. we all remember that moment where your child hides among the coat racks like my middle son used to love to do. you freak out. the idea that you could watch people being torn apart and think my re-election is more important than -- i find that shocking. do behind the scenes republicans say to you i get this is a moral outrage? >> actually, i haven't heard one of them say that. >> what? >> i haven't heard one republican say that. i've heard republicans that are not elected officials say that. >> sure. >> absolutely. there's a lot of deep empathy and independence of democrats. >> absolutely. >> i haven't heard that from one single member of congress. i did hear of one who called on steven miller to resign, to be fired. i called on the same thing.

>> yeah. >> he's really leading this anti-immigrant efforts in the white house. >> he and the president of the united states. paula, we've had donald trump -- i've stopped reading his tweets to be blunt on the air. i don't northerly do this anymore, but he tweeted this morning that in his view, these are presidential official statements because they come from his official twitter account, that when someone comes in, he says, we must immediately with no judges, no court cases, weird capitalizations there, bring them back to where they came. our system is a mockery to good immigration, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. basically saying there shouldn't be a judicial process. people should be summarily returned. >> what we have to accept as an american people we are living under a fascist state. we have to start functioning as a press. what is the press doing? the press needs to look and study press in fascist countries and how are they successful. and the american people, what are we going to do?

because we are still at a point, at a crossroads where we can turn this around, where we still hold the power but that power very clearly is slipping from our hands. what are we going to do? i think today marks a week of massive protests of civil disobedience, of demonstrations of people's moral outrage coming to a itipping point. to show the government that we will not be silent, that we will not allow this to happen under our watch. the children will not be separated from their parents for months, for years on end with no -- >> paola, we're talking this morning about the some of the parents -- many of them pleaded guilty in mass hearings where they pleaded guilty to the miss demeanor of crossing the border. >> yes. >> and have already in many cases been sent back to their home countries without their children. >> yes. >> in some instances we're talking about permanent separation. they're in a foster care system.

we know that the foster care system in this country can be abhorrent to children. they will be adopted by strangers. they will be the last children of this country. donald trump announced or i read in an article today that he has announced his task force for the reunification of unaccompanies minors. they were stolen from their children, from their parents. they are the stolen children of america and that's what we need to refer to them as and we cannot let donald trump spin this as if they are unaccompanied minors. >> congressman, we've seen instances where members of congress have attempted to gain access. united states senators, members of the united states congress and members of the house such as yourself have tried to gain access to these facilities which are federal facilities, even if they're privately run. how can it be that the people elected by the citizens of this country cannot gain access to a facility being run in the name of the people of this country? >> you know, this administration has run rough shod over the

constitution. the idea of powers, equal branches of government. this congress has to step up. that's why i even challenged chairman gaudy in oversight, even the tea party leader, mark meadows. i said, if you care about this country, congress has to play the check and balance on the administration. >> what do they say to you when you tell them that? >> they have a different idea what that means. they believe it's holding the state accountable which is completely nonsense, right? we have introduced amendments. there's an amendment that was accepted and passed in an appropriations bill that would prohibit i.c.e. and others from accessing these facilities. we'll introduce that and every different must-pass bill until it gets passed so we have direct access not two weeks away, not six days away, but whenever we show up we should have access to those facilities. >> this is the thing that keeps me up at night. the images we've seen have been

leaked by the american government. the bland, easier images, kinder images. what is really happening there has yet to be seen by the american people. and when that happens, again, i feel the moral outrage will continue but we need to have our congressmen and women and senators demanding and pushing and gaining access and then showing us what it looks like zbrmpt and paola, i have to ask you as an organizer, how do you bring into the process some americans who have mixed status families. i'm west indian. there are west indian people who have the same issue, people of african dissent who have the same issue. >> yes. >> there are undocumented people of all races and ethnicity. they're not all from mention i core or central america. but when they may have a fear of becoming involved in this kind of activism or stepping forward to foster their own relatives but they're afraid they'll expose those who are undocumented, how can they be brought into the conversation? >> it's a very difficult

conversation because you are exposing families to be separated. we're talking about family separation, just not being locked in jails with your parents. what we're asking for is for allies to step in. for those that actually have papers and can at this moment say something to go out on the street, there's a march on june 30th. families belong together. that will be massive. go out to that. vote obviously. we are looking to young people, to latinos to go out and vote. over 11 million latinos eligible to vote did not vote. >> this state is majority minority. >> yes. go out and vote. that makes a difference. >> congressman, lastly there are a lot of people throwing out the solution of giving trump what he wants. giving him the wall. giving him reductions to family immigration and family reunificati reunification. is there any circumstance under which democrats will or should give in on those fundamental issues? >> no. i believe in the saying you don't negotiate with legislative

terrorists and that's what he is. they're holding the kids hostage in order to get their legislative needs. just because you can do it doesn't mean you should do it. there are certain bounds and these people are legislative terrorists. that's not a term i used, that is a term that a former republican speaker has used. >> we're going to first of all thank you both. >> thank you. >> for what you're doing. are you both speaking at this rally? we will look for that. right now behind me just for our view jurors who are watching, i believe that this is joaquin cast castro. thank you for being here. we'll keep up with what you are doing. more "am joy" coming up. let's take a listen. >> and whether it was the muslim travel ban or the failure in puerto rico, the problem is this

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accountable. >> we will show up and we will not forget and we will win. the only -- >> welcome back to our special live coverage from tornillo, texas. you can hear the speeches going on. people are protesting the trump administration's policy of separating families and scattering children, literally around the country. an estimated 100 shelters in 17 different states. joining me is legendary labor leader delores puerta. thank you so much for being here. you know, when people here heard president barack obama say, yes, we can, that sense of hope was so palpable. yes, we can. yes, we can. that sense of hope. it feels like that has completely been flipped on its head. people are shocked, and i'm sure

you're hearing it, too, that we have gone from that to internment camps for children. are you as shocked as i am or is this what the cycle of activism is about? >> well, i think that this surpasses anything that we've ever seen before when we see that the cruel at this of the separation of these families, the detention of these families. people seeking asylum running from terror and death are coming here with the hope that they will be safe, their children will be safe and they will be safe and yet they end up imprisoned. no, this is really bad. but i think the one thing that we can say, the people that are here in this rally today all over the border, all of these different areas, they're still -- they still have the sense of the spirit. there's still hope out there. but the hope has to be with us as citizens of the united states of america and we've all got to come together to protest. >> and the anxiety that people have around immigration is

generally focused on farm workers, right? it's focused on the people that make sure we don't have a $15 a head lettuce. there is a false belief that there is a one-to-one tradeoff that the steel worker who's losing their job in pittsburgh is being victimized by the undocumented migrant in california who is picking let s lettu lettuce. why do you think people have developed that one-to-one zero sum idea? >> i really believe it's a lack of education, ignorance because people don't understand all of this coming together. they don't realize that immigrants in this country, from day one that they are the ones that built the country basically. >> yeah. >> we're talking about indian slave, african slave, people from mexico, asia. all of these people who came here to build our country, they don't understand that. they continue to do the things that are very difficult.

they add to it, they don't take away. >> besides that, this is a sort of separate compartment like issue. now we're not talking about undocumented immigrants coming in as farm members, we're talking about people fleeing violence in central america and are seeking asylum. are you surprised that this same anti-immigrant sentiment has been placed on asylum seekers? >> that is simple, what's going on now. i think somehow we have a very short memory. we don't remember the wars that the united states was promoting in central america that are creating the sentiment that people are running away from. many of these young gang members are being deported instead of rehabilitating them here in the united states. we deported them. then we create these issues. >> not to mention the drug policies and the cartels on the other side of the border, it's

customers for illegal drugs that they're fighting over. >> exactly. i think we have to take a lot of responsibility. we're the biggest country in the world. we have so much capacity. capacity some countries don't have. instead of saying, let's get together and try to solve the situations so the people don't have to leave their home in terror to come to the united states, we don't do that. >> as a lifetime in activism, give people advice. people ask this question, what do we do? i've been voting in november to change who's running washington. what should people do? >> one of the things people can do, by the way, i'm going to be meeting with kerry kennedy, robert's daughter who started a fast. >> yes. >> that was passed on to me today. we're going to be asking people all over the country to join kerry kennedy. she's asking people to fast for one day, for 24 hours. 24 hours is one day for 2400 children. they're separated from their parents.

that's one thing we can do. the other thing we can do, call our congress people. like michael moore says, get up in the morning, wash your face, brush your teeth and call your congress person. >> call your congress person. >> they do something that the president isn't doing. the daca problem, get that passed. help those people, help them. do something about the situation we have with people that are refugees seeking asylum in the united states to give them the protection that they need. >> i'm told you have to go because you have to be on that stage speaking. i' going to let you go. god bless you. wonderful to meet you. >> i have a little shoe here that one of the women delivered. she crocheted this as a symbol of all of the babies that have been separated from their parents. thank you very much, joy, and msnbc. >> you're welcome. >> delores, thank you. more "am joy" special coverage. thank you. what might seem like a small cough to you...

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and we're proud to offer so much more. welcome back to our special live coverage from tornillo, texas, where right now people are protesting the trump administration's zero tolerance policy, which is separating families at the u.s./mexico border and has been since early may.

joining me from homestead is msnbc correspondent mariana mariana atencia. i have to ask you where people are being asked to plead guilty and what you know about the hearings. what is that process? what happens to the people who plead guilty? . >> reporter: joy, good morning to you. i have been inside that federal court room in mccallen, texas. there are three buses that head there every day early in the morning with migrants who crossed the border as early as the very same week, a couple of days before. they cross the border and that is a misdemeanor. they are brought inside that courtroom in shackles. it is extremely humiliating to witness. shackles on their feet and hands. they tell me, the lawyers do because i wasn't allowed as a journalist inside the courtroom to speak to any of the migrants, the lawyers tell me they only get to meet them just an hour before if at all to tell them

what their rights are and they were advised to sit in that courtroom where the judge is explaining everything to them in english, they were advised to plead guilty so if they were separated from their kids, reunited with their children and the proceeding can get underway. it is a courtroom that sees -- it has two sessions, a morning and an afternoon session. in the morning session when i was there there were more than 70 people there. and the time that it took the judge to determine whether that person was guilty in every case, it was an average of about a minute. basically you would be asked to stand up, plead guilty and then be on your way. those people were being given time served for the most parts if they weren't repeat offenders. if they hadn't attempted to cross the border before, no criminal record in the united states, they were given time served, put in jail and then being sent back to their country for their deportation. when i was there out of the i believe more than 100 cases, at

least more than 30 were cases of people who had been separated from their children, and oftentimes they weren't even given the chance to tell the judge what made them come to the united states or ask or inquire about their kids. so that is the zero tolerance policy at work. it is people brought into courtrooms and being prosecuted for this misdemeanor that is crossing the border, many of whom come here as we've been discussing on your show seeking a better life for their children and families. >> mariana, there's another extraordinary piece of information that we have that i know that you have some tape to show us on, the idea that the parents who are now frantically looking for their kids. i liken this to if you lost your child at the mall and you went to the mall security desperately looking for your child and told, they don't open on weekends. a parentsly dhs, they don't open on weekends. the parents, i.c.e. is telling

them they're not available to help them locate their kids on saturday and sunday. they must come back monday through friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. can you explain this one? >> reporter: that is something we found out yesterday as democratic lawmakers were able to tour this facility in homestead, the second largest migrant shelter in the country. when they went in and asked where are the people working on reunifying their kids with the parents, they were told that that unit doesn't work the weekends. >> d.h.s., the department of homeland security does not have staff working on weekends so we have diligent, effective, aggressive policy in place to reunify these kids. what do we do? we just take the week end off? >> reporter: well, if you're a concerned parent, joy, you have been detained, you're in another

state or you're deported and you're in another country and you're frantically looking for your child, dhs has sent the following fact sheet last night that i'm going to read to you. i.c.e. has posted information advising parents that are trying to locate or communicate with a child to call the detention reporting an information line for assistance which is staffed by live operators monday through friday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. and then finally i want to show a sheet to you, to our audience. this is read to the kids inside this facility upon arrival. it is in spanish. it says -- we are very happy to welcome you. and assist you in the process of reunification with your family members in this country. incredibly shocking to find out that this that is being read to the children does not include saturdays and sundays.

>> oh, my god. >> the children that are separated in there -- go ahead, joy. >> no, no, no, no. i'm sorry. i'm shocked. i'm reacting in shock. i really didn't -- before i run out -- finish your sentence, mariana, of the 70 children -- >> reporter: just to put this in perspective. of the 70 children separated in there, we know a lot of them are girls. we're trying to ask for the gender breakdown. the ages start as young as 13. to put this in perspective, imagine having a 13-year-old girl somewhere in some facility in the country. these kids only get two ten-minute phone calls a week so imagine not knowing about your 13-year-old girl more than twice a week for ten minutes if they can communicate with you. joy? >> oh, my goodness. thank you so much for the reporting you're doing. shocking. i'm going to have to ask my team as we go out to break, we're going to be listening to when we

come back, more of this rally. if you wouldn't mind playing her interview with a dad who has gone through this in texas. we'll play that on the way out to break. much more "am joy" coming up. >> how did you feel when they took him away? >> i suffered a lot, he says. >> did you fear you wouldn't be reunited with him? yes. he says he feared he wouldn't be reunited with his son. you. and we're committed to improving every ride. starting with features designed to make it easy for your driver to find you... taking the stress out of pickups. ♪ we're putting safety at the heart of everything we do... by making it easy to verify your car, and driver. uber has new leadership, a new vision, and is moving in a new direction... forward

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we're small nonprofits, we need as much as love that you're here with us. >> welcome back from tornillo, texas. they're rallying to call for an end to separations at the border. cal perry is with me. we were talking about how out of place this is for a lot of americans who may be used to having the same conversations butt thin about things in other countries. >> i cover conflict around the world and strife it causes on civilian population. it is heartbreaking to be in america, see people lied to by the government, kids moved at night, hear a congressman or senator gets in, instead of

seeing children, shown a cctv shot of the kids. >> they don't get to see them with their eyes, shown a video shot. >> and let's be clear, that's a black site. when you put somebody in detention and separate that and let people peer in on them, that's a black site. >> in all years you have been reporting, what logical reason could there be to have a facility containing children and infants be a black site. >> i think it is a deliberate policy to move children around and to disappear some of the kids, scatter them into the wind. i think this is what the trump administration wants. i think they're watching this now and are pleased how this has gone. >> hiding them from parents. >> yes. >> you talk about moving kids around. we are scrambling to get that footage, played it on morning joe tuesday morning. what you're saying is when they move the kids place to place, they're doing it dead of night. >> by and large doing it at night. saw buses come in throughout the

day. one point we noticed there were young children on buses. we have also some long range shots. later that day three buses, 3:00 in the morning come out of the camp. later when the senators and congressmen go in, they say there are no little kids in there, just children between 14 and 18. i'm not saying that they moved them before the visit, but when you're moving children in the dead of night, everything looks nefarious. what are you supposed to do with that as a journalist. and one more, yeah? as a journalist in america in 2018, seems like telling the truth is suddenly a political statement because the party that's in power, their platform is to lie. when i stand on the road in front of that detention facility, internment camp, black site, and people don't believe me, 40% doesn't believe me, they're told not to, i am making a political scandal because i'm telling the truth. >> this morning as we are reading statistics out of the

trump administration claiming that 500 some odd children have been reunited, i have deep skepticism about the statistics. is that a legitimate skepticism to have from a journalististic point of view. >> we have been moved off a county road, lied to, told it was private property. called an hhs official, said i want to talk about this. he said cal, that's like if i called you and said what is going on with cbs news. this is how they talk to me in egypt and in places around the world that we don't want to be associated with. >> it reminds me of gitmo. is that too much? >> look, i think the way it is organized it is not too much. and the other thing of great concern to me since we don't already have access to the facility, they're going to move them to military bases. once on a military base, first you're asking men and women that protect the values of the country to become prison guards. secondly, you move them not on

commercial flights but military air. thirdly, we won't have access to the sites. dod will say it is a classified site. you can't get on, we have things here on the base you can't see. that should concern all of us. >> talking about indefinite internment on military bases in the united states, for children and families. >> while the parents have been sent back to these countries, the kids sit on military bases, we can't track how long it takes to end up in court. some of them age out of being a juvenile. some of them are growing up now. they end up in a home somewhere in iowa or nebraska and then they grow up. what was the first thing they saw coming to america, to this country, a military base. >> and parents dragged away. >> that's the first thing, end up on a u.s. military installation or this place here, seems to be the jumping off point for any number of agencies that don't want us sitting here. >> don't want us here. it is sobering. this is the kind of thing we

have to talk about, that americans have to confront. things that we are used to happening outside of this country, countries around the world we think of, happening here. >> we are losing moral standing around the world. >> thank you very much. i'll talk to you later. normally this is when we end "am joy." we're going to continue a third hour. right now, live from texas, we are here where a massive rally against detention of migrant families is going on behind me. coming up, one more hour of "am joy." stay with us. over the last 24 hours, you finished preparing him for college. in 24 hours, you'll send him off thinking you've done everything for his well-being. but meningitis b progresses quickly and can be fatal, sometimes within 24 hours. while meningitis b is uncommon, about 1 in 10 infected will die. like millions of others, your teen may not be vaccinated against meningitis b. meningitis b strikes quickly. be quick to talk to your teen's doctor

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