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June 19, 2018

ProPublica Releases Audio of Separated Children Sobbing "Mama" and "Papi"
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Outrage is continuing to mount over the Trump administration's practice
of forcibly taking children away from their parents, which the American
Academy of Pediatrics calls "government-sanctioned child abuse." The
Pulitzer Prize-winning news outlet Pro Publica released audio from
inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children
estimated to be between the ages of 4 and 10 years old are heard crying
"Mama" and "Papi" after being separated from their parents. A warning:
the audio is disturbing.

Children: [Wailing]

In another part of the audio, a Border Patrol agent is heard joking, in
Spanish, "Well, we have an orchestra here. What's missing is a
conductor." Only minutes after this audio was released, Homeland
Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen began a White House press briefing,
during which she repeatedly lied by claiming only congressional action
could stop the practice of separating children and parents. During the
briefing, a reporter from New York magazine played the audio of the
children weeping out loud, leading one reporter to ask Kirstjen: "How is
this not child abuse?"


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