‘Smile at these kids, please’: reporter’s first-hand look at Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ youth-detention pens

‘Smile at these kids. They don’t see people from the outside world all that often, and they feel like animals locked up in cages who are being looked at ... ’

That’s the reporting from NBC’s Jacob Soboroff, counted among only a handful of journalists invited by Health and Human Services for a tour inside the largest U.S. detention facility for migrant children, nicknamed “Casa Padre,” and created out of an empty Brownsville, Texas, Walmart store.

Oposing lawmakers, and even Trump administration allies such as Franklin Graham, are scrutinizing the unprecedented actions, unprecedented at least in recent memory, of separation and detention under what President Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, have deemed “zero tolerance” on border crossings. The administration has said it won’t accept flight from gangs and domestic violence as asylum rationales.

As a matter of policy, the U.S. government is separating families, including infants, who travel into the U.S. by crossing the border illegally. As parents are apprehended and face federal criminal prosecution, the children are considered “unaccompanied minors” and sent into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of HHS, many to await a foster-care sponsor. There have been some reports of cases in which immigrant families are being separated before reaching the ports of entry, where they can present themselves for asylum by following U.S. law.

Soboroff has said be believes his admission to the nonprofit Southwest Key shelter, stretched beyond capacity with the latest influx, was made possible after Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, earlier this month used a live Facebook video, eventually reaching over 1 million views, to chronicle his frustrated efforts to gain access to the facility. Reporting reveals limited chances to talk to their parents and up to 22 hours per day spent inside, with access to television and video games.

The White House responded to Merkley’s actions: “Senator Merkley is irresponsibly spreading blatant lies about routine immigration enforcement while smearing hard-working, dedicated law enforcement officials at ICE and CBP.”

Sessions has said the way to avoid separation and incarceration is to not travel to the U.S., which has prompted his critics to charge that current policy is violating international and U.S. asylum rules.

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