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"Somebody Is Going to Die": Lawyer Describes Chaos, Illness & Danger at Migrant Child Jail in Texas

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WARREN BINFORD: Well, you know, the Trump administration is telling us that they are overwhelmed, that there's too much chaos, that there are too many people coming across the border. And frankly, there is chaos, but it is the chaos that has been created by this administration. We are nowhere near the highest level of apprehensions that have been taken by the Border Patrol over the last several decades. So, the numbers that we're seeing come in are not the highest numbers that we've seen. And when they say that, it's simply not true.

We are seeing a higher number, higher level of children and young families coming across the border, young mothers and their babies coming across the border, or young children coming across the border, and then some older unaccompanied children. However, we have facilities to take care of them. And as I mentioned earlier, most of these children have family in the United States who can care for them.

So, the administration currently has 12,000 beds online where they can take care of these children. Three-quarters of those beds are in licensed facilities, so that we have some assurance that these children can be relatively well cared for in these facilities compared to what they're experiencing in Border Patrol. We currently have 2,000 -- approximately 2,000 empty beds in those facilities. And children only need to be in those facilities for a few days, no more than 20 days.

So, if the administration would simply manage the resources it has, it can move these children in and out of Border Patrol facilities in a matter of hours, in and out of the Office of Refugee Resettlement beds, you know, those facilities, in a matter of days -- no more than 20 days is what's allowed by law -- and into the homes with their families, where it will cost the taxpayer no money to take care of these children. Keep in mind that these facilities that the administration has set up for these kids is costing the American taxpayer $775 a day, which is an outrageous amount of money for us...

AMY GOODMAN: Per kid?

WARREN BINFORD: Yes, per kid, which is an outrageous amount of money, when these children have family in the United States that want to take care of them and are ready to take care of them. All we have to do is let the parents and their families have these children back.

AMY GOODMAN: Is the Trump administration -- we just have 30 seconds -- breaking the law? For example, the Flores agreement?

WARREN BINFORD: Yes. Yes, absolutely. This is why we went to the media, is that they are absolutely breaking the law. They're breaking law as to the conditions of detention. They're breaking the law as to the number of hours that they can keep the children in Border Patrol facilities. They're breaking the law as far as how long these children are being kept in ORR facilities. They're breaking the law by taking the children away from their families. And they're also breaking the law by transporting them on Texas state highways without the appropriate child seats and infant carriers and, you know, these booster seats that are required by law. Everywhere I look, this administration is breaking the law. And the Border Patrol employees that we talked to said they don't understand why the American people aren't outraged by the mismanagement that they're experiencing.

AMY GOODMAN: Warren Binford, we want to thank you so much for being with us.

WARREN BINFORD: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Law professor at Willamette University, director of its Clinical Law Program, one of the experts asked to serve on the monitoring team for the Flores case.

When we come back, elderly Japanese Americans, who were interned during World War II, go back to one of those camps, in Oklahoma -- what they call concentration camps, incarceration camps -- because the Trump administration plans to put hundreds of migrant children there. Stay with us.

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