Heartbreaking Leaked Audio Catches Border Agent Joke as Migrant Children Cry for Their Parents

 According to figures recently released by the United States Health  and Human Services Department, the U.S. government is currently  imprisoning at least 10,773  undocumented children without their parents in 100 different shelters  spread across 40 states. This number is up 21 percent from 8,886 in just  a month’s time—showing that ICE and other government agencies have been  ramping up their detainment of migrant children. 

This recent wave of detainments has come in the aftermath of a push  by the Trump administration to separate families at the border, but it  is unclear how many of these 10,773 children crossed the border  unattended and how many were separated from their parents. 

However, according to a report  from Business Insider, a Customs and Border Protection official told  lawmakers at a hearing last week that 658 children had been separated  from 638 adults between May 6 and May 19 under the “zero-tolerance”  policy. 

The conditions inside many of the facilities where these children are  being held are being compared to the concentration camps that  imprisoned innocent Japanese immigrants during World War II. 

On Monday, ProPublica released an audio recording that was taken  inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility that appears to  substantiate these fears. It is nothing short of heart-breaking. The clip recorded two girls who had just been separated from their  parents. They are scared to death and wailing as the border agent jokes,  “We have an orchestra here.” 

As ProPublica reports,  the desperate sobbing of 10 Central American children, separated from  their parents one day last week by immigration authorities at the  border, makes for excruciating listening. Many of them sound like  they’re crying so hard, they can barely breathe. They scream “Mami” and  “Papá” over and over again, as if those are the only words they know. 

 This week, CNN reported on one detention center in McAllen, Texas, where children were held behind chain-link fences in a warehouse setting. Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who visited the facility earlier this month described the scene, saying that, 

“We  did see the children who were held inside here. In wire-mesh, chain  linked cages that are about 30×30, a lot of young folks put into them. I  must say though, far fewer than I was here two weeks ago. I was told that buses full (of children) were taken away before I arrived. That was one of my concerns, that essentially  when you have to give lengthy notice, you end up a little bit of a show  rather than seeing what’s really going on in these centers.” 

Even First Lady Melania Trump has expressed regret over her husband’s zero-tolerance policy. 

“Mrs. Trump hates to see children separated from their families  and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve  successful immigration reform. She believes we need to be a country that  follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart,” the first lady’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. 

Laura Bush, another unlikely critic, also spoke out against the zero-tolerance policy, writing in an op-ed article that, “These  images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese-American internment camps  of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful  episodes in U.S. history. We also know that this treatment inflicts  trauma; interned Japanese have been two times as likely to suffer  cardiovascular disease or die prematurely than those who were not  interned.”  

 Former CIA Director Michael Hayden weighed in on Twitter, posting an  image of a Nazi concentration camp while referencing the zero-tolerance  policy.   

“I was trying to point out we need be careful not to move in that direction,” Hayden later told CNN. While this is a policy that Trump is taking to horrific extremes, it is important to point out that families were separated under the Obama administration as well. 

In fact, the Obama administration deported more people  than any other president in the past century. Although, it is likely  that Trump will break Obama’s record, considering his tough talk on the  matter. The arguments against an open immigration policy ignore this very  real human cost, while instead focusing on imaginary scenarios—many of  which have been proven to be false. For example, a series of studies  have indicated that immigration does not increase crime and that  immigrants are actually far less likely to commit violent crimes than  native-born citizens. 

Another study revealed that increased levels of immigration do not increase terrorism. Meanwhile, it has been found that you are at least eight times more likely to be killed by a police officer than a terrorist. There are also plenty of faulty economic arguments leveled against an  open immigration policy, for those who are willing to trade another  person’s life for a few extra dollars on their balance sheet. However,  these claims have been shown to be baseless as well, since various  studies have indicated that immigration actually drives economic growth and that undocumented residents pay billions in taxes.