MSNBC "All in with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: Immigration
Interview
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HAYES: We are back here on the border in McAllen, Texas with our special coverage of the decision by Donald Trump and his administration to, among other things that we`re still learning about, forcibly separate migrant children from their parents as a plan to deter people from coming here seeking asylum.
Two weeks ago my next guest, Senator Jeff Merkley, was turned away from a former Walmart in Brownsville, Texas that is now being used by the Trump administration, contracted through a social services agency, as a detention center for migrant children.
Merkley returned to the South Texas border this weekend to tour processing centers in the Rio Grande Valley, including here in McAllen, to better understand how the Trump policy is playing out on the ground.
And joining me now from back in Washington is Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon.
Senator, what did you learn by being able to access these facilities?
SEN. JEFF MERKLEY, (D) OREGON: Well, I`ll tell you the -- it was very striking right from the beginning to that how much easier it is to get in when you have seven members of congress coming together, but also because
of the publicity of the last two weeks.
But what we saw out on that bridge that Jennifer was speaking to and I was able to meet with Jennifer when I came two weeks ago is a story that really gives the lie to what the administration is saying when the secretary of homeland security says if only they would come to the border official site to come across there would be no issue, and yet they`re turning people away from those official sites. They`re leaving them on the bridge two weeks ago, as Jennifer was describing, and now just having border guards out there turning them away if they`re seeking asylum, letting just a couple through in the course of a day, just a few through.
HAYES: Senator, there`s a big decision that you and your colleagues have now. One way to understand what`s happened is that the president has taken hostages, essentially, in both the sort of metaphorical and literal sense - - 2,600 children separated from their parents through an act of the president and his administration, and now is using them as leverage to try to get a legislative solution favorable to his preferred policy goals.
Ted Cruz has a bill that is relatively narrow, but would truncate the asylum process and do a lot of other things. Are Democrats going to play ball with this essential -- this legislative negotiation on these terms?
MERKLEY: Well, we`re going to keep emphasizing that this entire problem was created with the stroke of a pen, a presidential pen, and it`s a presidential pen that can end it.
Now, Cruz is putting forward a bill, that`s what legislators do. His bill actually sets up a kangaroo court. It says that you have 14 days from your -- basically your detention, or your prison cell, to be able to get documents from your home country to make your case and prove that your life was at risk and you have a credible fear of return. Nobody can do that. So everybody would be turned down for asylum. I`m sure there`s other problems in it as well, but that`s certainly one of them.
We have to keep coming back to the fact that we are a nation that has always treated through fleeing persecution with respect, treating people respectfully. They get their hearing. If they meet the standard then
welcomed into the U.S., if not then they leave.
And we have -- well, we only let in about 1 out of 5 through those hearings. And we had a case management program that was working, by all accounts, quite well, but the administration shut down, that had people turning up for their hearings at very high rates. And one article I read it said 100 percent, another article said 99 percent.
So, we had a perfectly good system torn down by the president in this effort to start essentially hurting children to send a message to families overseas, just totally unacceptable.
HAYES: All right, Senator Jeff Merkley, thanks for your time tonight.
MERKLEY: Thank you, Chris.
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