Hi there,

There has never been a more urgent time for courageous, daily, independent news. Media is essential to the functioning of a democratic society. Can you support Democracy Now! with a $15 donation today? With your contribution, we can continue to go to where the silence is, to bring you the voices of the silenced majority – those calling for peace in a time of war, demanding action on the climate catastrophe and advocating for racial and economic justice. Every dollar makes a difference. Thank you so much!

Democracy Now!
Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

Trump Admin Sends 1,600 Kids to Texas Tent City as Number of Detained Children Hits Record High

Listen
Media Options
Listen

The Trump administration is transferring detained migrant children from shelters across the country to a barren tent city in West Texas. The New York Times reports that hundreds of children are being sent each week from shelters to the tent city, which currently houses 1,600 children. The facility reportedly has no school, and children have only limited access to legal services. The U.S. government is now detaining a record 13,000 migrant children. We speak with Louise Melling, deputy legal director at the ACLU, who says, “We have more children in detention now than ever before.”

Related Story

StoryOct 10, 2024“Complete Neglect”: Thousands Were Not Evacuated from Florida Jails & Prisons Ahead of Hurricane Milton
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to switch to another gear in the last minute we have with you, and that is the ACLU’s involvement with the migrant children issue, The New York Times reporting the Trump administration has begun transferring detained migrant children from shelters across the country to a barren tent city in West Texas. The Times reports hundreds of children are being sent each week from shelters to the tent city, which currently houses 1,600 children. The facility reportedly has no school. Children have limited access to legal services. The U.S. government is now detaining a record 13,000 migrant children. Your thoughts on this latest news and what it means for these kids? We’re talking about almost 2,000 children, if the government is even telling us the truth on that number.

LOUISE MELLING: I’m so glad you raised it, because I think it’s incredibly important that this story break through, even in the midst of the incredibly important hearings about the Supreme Court. As you’ve indicated, this is just a horrific story. We have more children in detention now than ever before. We have children being bussed in the middle of the night. We have children without school. This is all being done with our tax dollars, right? This is another reason to be reaching out to your members of Congress, to be asking—urging them to stand up, including to withhold and withdraw money from DHS.

AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, then you have the convergence of that issue with Kavanaugh, when Judge Kavanaugh, as a federal court judge now, actively got involved with the case of a migrant minor—she was 17 years old, this is the Garza case—

LOUISE MELLING: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —and tried to prevent her from getting an abortion. That decision was overruled, and this young woman, Jane Doe, got the abortion. But it was Judge Kavanaugh now who intervened in that.

LOUISE MELLING: Judge Kavanaugh issued a decision, yes, that was going to—in the face of ban on Jane Doe’s access to an abortion, that was going to give the government time, shall we say, to continue to look for a sponsor, time that really meant further delay, time that didn’t respect the fact that the government’s obligation is not to bar any of us from having access to abortion.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Louise Melling, we want to thank you for being with us, deputy legal director at the ACLU. Again, in a rare move, the group has decided to oppose Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court and is now running an ad campaign in key states to target senators on their position on Judge Kavanaugh.

This is Democracy Now! When we come back, a new NAFTA? We’ll talk with Lori Wallach. What does it mean? Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: That music by the visionary Latin jazz musician Jerry González. He died on Monday at the age of 69.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Next story from this daily show

What Does Trump’s “New NAFTA” Trade Deal Signal for Workers, Corporate Power & the Environment?

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top