Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Dem Rep SLAMS investors who profit from child imprisonment at ICE detention center

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Dem Rep SLAMS investors who profit from child imprisonment at ICE detention center · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The calls to shut down Dilly Detention Center are getting louder.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: The notorious South Texas Detention Center, also known as a
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: prison for migrant families and that is exactly what it is,
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  Speaker 1: is still operating. In a letter to DHS Secretary Mark
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  Speaker 1: Wayne mull In, a group of more than one hundred
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  Speaker 1: Democratic House lawmakers described the brutality that is still unfolding
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  Speaker 1: inside the facility and the lasting trauma that it is
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  Speaker 1: inflicting on the kids inside a quick warning it's disturbing quote.
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  Speaker 1: Parents describe horrendous conditions at Dilly, leading to severe depression, hopelessness,
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  Speaker 1: and suicidal ideation amongst their children. Children have reported that
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  Speaker 1: their food is often contaminated with wounds and mold, and
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  Speaker 1: that they feel sick after drinking tapwater. Families also report
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  Speaker 1: not being able to sleep at night because the lights
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  Speaker 1: are kept on in their rooms throughout the night. We
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  Speaker 1: have heard heartbreaking accounts like this before. I reported on
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  Speaker 1: a young couple, also in a ZA, who fled Russia
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  Speaker 1: last year with their one year old baby. A mirror
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  Speaker 1: they ended up at Dilly quote. According to Amir's mother,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: employees a Dilly forced her to wean him off formula,
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  Speaker 1: claiming he was too old. The solid food options Alson
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  Speaker 1: insisted were not appropriate for a one year old. She
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  Speaker 1: described being so desperate to get a mirror to eat
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  Speaker 1: that she sucked a spicy pasta sauce off noodle so
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  Speaker 1: she could feed them to her son. She and the
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  Speaker 1: Zat resorted to hiding cereal from the dining hall at
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  Speaker 1: breakfast in their socks and hoods for later, so their
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  Speaker 1: child would not go to sleep hungry. This is from
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  Speaker 1: our reporting with the Marshall Project and Cay Gerera, the
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  Speaker 1: senior producer here at ms NOW. Again, there are so
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  Speaker 1: many stories like this from so many traumatized kids and parents.
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  Speaker 1: Back in May, I went with a congressional delegation to Dilly.
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  Speaker 1: The lawmakers are going in to visit imprisoned families and
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  Speaker 1: see the conditions for themselves. Press was not allowed inside,
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  Speaker 1: but what they told me afterward was chilling. Here is
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  Speaker 1: what Congressman jaquin Castro saw inside.
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  Speaker 2: What you see, oh, just you know, the devastation with
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  Speaker 2: drama for those kids, you know, and some people I've
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  Speaker 2: seen a few times now, and you can kind of
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  Speaker 2: see this, this whole fading away from that and they'll
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  Speaker 2: say I was here last.
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  Speaker 3: Time you came, and you.
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  Speaker 2: Know, I talked to your office. But I'm still sitting
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  Speaker 2: here for four or five months, and you know, so
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  Speaker 2: it's with the kids especially, it's really hard to see.
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  Speaker 1: Texas Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro joins US now he plans
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  Speaker 1: to head back to Dilly this week. Congressman, it's good to.
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  Speaker 2: See it again.
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  Speaker 4: Great to be with you, Jacob.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you when you go back to Dilly
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  Speaker 1: this week. Let's just go back and the clip that
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  Speaker 1: we played, you talked about how difficult it is to
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  Speaker 1: see people that are still inside every single time you
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  Speaker 1: are there. What's the goal this time around.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the goal for one hundred and ten of us
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  Speaker 3: at least who signed that letter to Mark Wayne Mullins,
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  Speaker 3: is to get Dilly shut down. It is the only
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  Speaker 3: place in America that I can think of where we
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  Speaker 3: imprison young kids as young is two months old, who
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  Speaker 3: have committed no crime and done absolutely nothing wrong, and
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  Speaker 3: then we traumatize them by denying them medical care or
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  Speaker 3: delaying medical care, by serving them sometimes food that's got
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  Speaker 3: worms in it that's not suitable for them. Also by
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  Speaker 3: the indignity that they see committed upon their parents, and
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  Speaker 3: there's a kind of psychological trauma that we don't talk
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  Speaker 3: about very often. But it's the only place in America
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  Speaker 3: also where we have allowed for the commodification of this
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  Speaker 3: child imprisonment. Cour Civic, as you know, is the private
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  Speaker 3: prison company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars, if
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  Speaker 3: not billions of dollars running this facility, and the more
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  Speaker 3: people that are put into that facility, the more money
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  Speaker 3: they make. And so literally, it's to me shocking that
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  Speaker 3: in the United States and our nation we have allowed
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  Speaker 3: for investors to make money off of child imprisonment of
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  Speaker 3: kids who are as young as two months old.
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  Speaker 1: It actually gives me the chills to hear you say that,
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  Speaker 1: even though I know it is honestly, it is disgusting
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  Speaker 1: to hear that there are people making money off of
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  Speaker 1: detaining babies and toddlers in the United States of America
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  Speaker 1: in what is effectively a prison for families. And this
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  Speaker 1: is not a place like the detention centers I said
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  Speaker 1: during family separation, where even though people were held there
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  Speaker 1: over the legal limit of twenty days under that Flora
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  Speaker 1: Settlement agreement. Here people are held at times over one
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  Speaker 1: hundred days I think the family that I met was
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  Speaker 1: inside a dilly. I mentioned the letter that you and
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  Speaker 1: more than one hundred of of your Democratic colleague sent
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  Speaker 1: to Mark Wayne Moullam, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary.
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  Speaker 1: Has he responded to your letter.
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  Speaker 3: We have not gotten a response. We're going to keep
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  Speaker 3: pressing until we do. I know they're senators in the
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  Speaker 3: other chamber who are also talking about doing their own letter,
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  Speaker 3: and I hope that they absolutely will, because again, they're
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  Speaker 3: traumatizing these kids. Investors are making money off of it,
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  Speaker 3: and that includes some of the largest asset managers in
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  Speaker 3: the comfant in the country who are also managing things
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  Speaker 3: like firefighters pension funds, teacher pension funds, and other public
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  Speaker 3: pension funds. So they're traumatizing them. Investors are making money
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  Speaker 3: and they're keeping them well beyond the legal limit, that
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  Speaker 3: twenty day legal limit. I've told you that I've met
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  Speaker 3: with families who have been there seven months, nine months.
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  Speaker 3: There was a family that was there for eleven months.
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  Speaker 3: These kids will never never be the same. Unfortunately, that
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  Speaker 3: trauma will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is exactly right. It is a trauma that
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  Speaker 1: lasts a lifetime. One senior Homeland One senior HHS official
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  Speaker 1: Jonathan White told me during family separation that I'm traumatizing
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  Speaker 1: a child, is traumatizing them for the rest their lives.
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  Speaker 1: If I could, I want to play a clip of
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  Speaker 1: my interview with a couple that I mentioned earlier, also
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  Speaker 1: in Azad. They were the ones that were held inside
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  Speaker 1: Dilly after they left Russia with their one year old.
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  Speaker 3: A mirror.
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  Speaker 1: She shared with me, the mother that she was worried
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  Speaker 1: about the impact of detention on our son, exactly like
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  Speaker 1: you're talking about. And at the time, he had become
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  Speaker 1: aggressive and he started hitting himself in the face, all
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  Speaker 1: kinds of awful, awful things. And I asked her about that.
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  Speaker 1: Let's listen, and this is through a translator. What's it
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  Speaker 1: like as a mother to watch your one year old
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  Speaker 1: son go through that, to change, to behave in that way?
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  Speaker 4: That was the hardest part. For those four months, all
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  Speaker 4: we thought about was our child, because as for us,
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  Speaker 4: we could have just sat there, nothing terrible would have
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  Speaker 4: happened to us. But the fact that our child spent
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  Speaker 4: those four months sitting and sleeping under the lights, that
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  Speaker 4: was what truly drained us both mentally and physically.
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  Speaker 1: Because the genus we think about Dilly every single day,
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  Speaker 1: we are traumatized. We got second logical traumas ourselves. It's
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  Speaker 1: so hard to fathom babies going through this. How many
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  Speaker 1: families like theirs have you met inside?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm at this point hundreds. You know, these kids
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  Speaker 3: are We go and we talk to the parents and
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  Speaker 3: the kids are often there, and you'll see that some
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  Speaker 3: kids are just stonefaced because I think they're in a
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  Speaker 3: kind of shock that they're in this trailer prison. And
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  Speaker 3: then some kids are very emotional that they're sobbing. There
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  Speaker 3: have been times where kids have come up to me
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  Speaker 3: and begged me to get them out of there. And
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  Speaker 3: so yeah, I mean, you see the trauma express itself
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  Speaker 3: in different ways. And then as a young parent myself,
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  Speaker 3: or as a parent myself of young kids, I have
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  Speaker 3: a twelve year old to ten year old and a
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  Speaker 3: four year old, you know, your kids kind of see
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  Speaker 3: you almost as as invincible as a kind of superhero.
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  Speaker 3: And I've sat in rooms with families where you can
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  Speaker 3: see that the kids that aura that that you know,
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  Speaker 3: that that respect that they had for their parents, this
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  Speaker 3: idea that their parents could could cure any ill for them,
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  Speaker 3: could protect them, has faded away. And you can sense
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  Speaker 3: it in the parents of this pain that their kids
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  Speaker 3: have seen them in this very vulnerable, very ugly situation,
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  Speaker 3: and I just know that that's going to last with
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  Speaker 3: them the rest of their lives.
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  Speaker 1: I know how hard you have been fighting to get
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  Speaker 1: this place shut down, and I just want to tell
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  Speaker 1: our viewers it was closed during the Biden administration and
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  Speaker 1: it was reopened during this second Trump administration. Please keep
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  Speaker 1: us posted after you go back this week. Let us
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  Speaker 1: know what you see and what you learn and how
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  Speaker 1: your fight continues. Congressman Waking Castro from Texas, thank you
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  Speaker 1: so much.
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  Speaker 3: Good to be with you.