Victims, and it is contrary to our values in this country. And lifelong trauma. Doctors from the American Academy of pediatrics call taking children from their parents sanctioned child abuse. This type of trauma can be longlasting. And its difficult to recover from thi it is a form of child abuse. And good day, everyone. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington. President trumps policy of separating children from their parents is coming under fire from former first lady laura bush. A normally apolitical figure, unable to keep silent in the face of such suffering. In the Washington Post today, she writes the president s wife is also voicing concern about her husbands policy, releasing a statement saying but still seems to be suggesting that Congress Needs to address this problem, even though her husband could change it with a single phone call. The president is now calling on democrats to give the republican majority enough votes for a larger immigration bill. In essence, using the children as leverage to get money for the wall. Today, Homeland Security secretary neilson tweeted first the administration does not have a policy of separating families at the border, but today denying that the trump policy is an intentional departure from bush and obama enforcement. There has been much outcry, consternation, and frankly misinformation from many in the press andongress over the last few weeks that we at dhs are intentionally doing things that e unhumanitarian, that are cruel, immoral, and disgraceful. We areoing none those things. We are enforcing the laws passed by congress. It is important to note that these minors are very well taken care of. Dont believe the press. They are very well taken care of. Well, first of all, Kristen Welker is joining me now, nbc White House Correspondent and nbcs jacob soberov at the border at the processing station, and with my here is bill crystal. They are not enforcing the laws, they are enforcing a policy announced by Jeff Sessions in may, rejected by both the bush and obama white houses. Kristen . Its a really important point, this was a policy announced by the attorney general, zero tolerance. What it means is that anyone who is crossing the border illegally is subject to prosecution, and if you are subject to prosecution, the attorney general says you could be separated from your child. That is why youre seeing these separations at the border. Andrea, you raised the important point, which is that past administrations, when they have prosecuted people who have crossed the border illegally, have not chosen not to necessarily separate them, not to separate families. And yet this administration is saying, we are taking a zero tolerance approach to all of this. Now, what is complicating their talking points about the fact that this is up to congress is the fact that the president , if you listen to lindsey gr who has the ability to change this policy with a single phone call. But you have the chief of staff, john kelly, in recent comments, say thing is a deterrent. They are use thing to tryo deter people cross the border without legal and proper documentation. So this is becoming a growing political crisis, frankly, for this administration, those images that jacob has been showing us throughout the day, are ones that the president and Sarah Sanders will have to answer for today. Now we have new numbers, jacob, from dhs, saying that the department now has 11,785 minors in its care as of today, 500 children were added to that number, that includes the number of 500 added in the last couple of weeks. Youre at ground zero there. Tell us what you saw when you went in. Camera crewinside. Ke pictures lets extrapolate that number. That would be 20,000 people at the rate theyre going by august. 20,000 people, young, unaccompanied minors, detained, separated by their parents. I want to stop for one second. Lets go back to the picture. This is ground zero right here for falyation in the United States of america. Inside that building, a little off to left, there are over 1100 people detained by the Border Patrol. In this sector, since the beginning of that policy was announced, over 1100 additional, separate children have been separated from their parents, taken away from their parents and put into the custody, part of that 11,000 and change number we just referred to. We were not allowed to bring cameras inside, but we did get handout photos and video from the department of Homeland Security and border ka troll. Take a look at this. This is our tour. Thats me on the left being guided by a member of the bor patrol. Those are single adult males. Theyve always been in there. Those changes have always been in there. They were criticized during the Obama Administration, as well. Whats different than today, more than before, children are being separated to deter people in coming into the country. It is not true when you hear the administration saying this is a democrat policy and something done before. None of that is accurate at all. All you have to do is walk into that buildin to confirm it with your own eyes. Jeff sessions announced in may, not that long ago, this is the attorney general announcing a new policy. Lets watch. I have put in place zero tolerance policy for illegal entry on our southwest border. If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. Its that simple. If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you. And that child may be separated from you as required by law. So its completely discretionary. Jacob, i want to make one point that you were citing yesterday. I believe you said that there are four qualified, certified social workers for all those people that are in that separation facility. Only four, andrea. Yesterday, only four that were inside this facility. I want to correct something i said earlier. I said you could have a 2yearold separated from a parent. The accurate age range is they separate children 4 and over. So still, i mean, whether its a 2yearold or 4yearold, you could have a 4yearold that is by themselves inside this building after their parents have been taken to court charged with a federal crime, awaiting for health and Human Services to pick them up. If one of those four social workers is not available to help them, feed them, do something, otherwise they would be sitting by themselves or Walking Around with other young children, theres nobody to take care of them. If were going to get to 20,000 young people by august, in the custody of health and Human Services, you ve ataffing crisis, something that Border Patrol said, the planning has not been well thought out. There are challenges that are happening logistically that are stressing not just the children, but the agents that are tasked with pulling off this policy. Lets get to the politics of all this, bill crystal. It seems to me this was rushed th midterm strategy, rather than as an immigration strategy. And that they thought it would project toughness and build the wall and put pressure on democrats to agree to an immigration bill that would include money for the wall in order to get these kids out o custody. Right, but whats striking to me is they doubled down this moing. That is, President Trump seemed from his tweets to be unhappy with this policy. Maybe they can negotiate. But this morning, the attorney general gave a speech, the secretary of Homeland Security gave a speech, and trump tweeted, they both defended the theyidnt sa this isn unfortunate side effect of the policy and were going to work on fixing it. They didnt say that. They doubled down in full defense of the policy, and President Trump this morning eslated it , you know, if ure agast this policy, youre for crime and terrorism. And he misstated germanys situation. He said gemi jgermany erkel has an immigration problem. What was t keys to President Trumps campaign. Mexi rapists and muslim ban. He won. And this i wre hes going. For me, this morning is very important. This is not a mistake. This is not unfortunate whe theyre going to work it out. They may still getherebu r now, they are welcoming this fight and turning it into a much bigger fight. If you are on the side of the immigrantsyou are for unlimited immigration, letting criminals in, and then in effect saying since hes talking about merkel, i suppose hes talking about unlite immigration of var terrorist threat. So its an astonishing eslation by the president. Talk to me about laura bush. She did extraordinary work in afghistan, that was a bipartisan effort. But sheaunched it for coeducation in afghanistan during the war. But that is the major Public Policy besides literacy. But for her to come out with this kind of ant is extraordinary. Yes. And obviously something her husband concurs in. For me, a republican senator, its a 5049 senate. Republican senators and house members have to say this is unacceptable. We can have a broader debate, you can be hawkish in terms of different policy debates. But fix this thing now. If a couple of republican senators said that and said they would stop voting for President Trump, in 30 house members said that and refused to vote for this bill theyre trying to get the floor, that would be among them. Right now, the trumpfe line , you see susan collins, one of the republican senators willing to be critical of trump, said well, we need to work on as a comprehensive settlement, and the feinstein bill is too broad. You can fix the family ng whole debate withle other kinds of immigration policy. Trump does not seem to be scared of the politics of this. I dont know, maybe he thinks immigration is the issue that won him the presidency, he thinking. And maybe he thinks he can win this debate. Hes listening to steve miller. And steve bannon. And steve bannon, exactly. Thank you so much, bill, kristen andjaco f continuing to be with us and keep us honest about it. This morning, the president of the American Academy of pediatrics described the impact of the president s policy of the children inside these cages. I wento a shelter that was designed for very young children, an walked into the toddler room, and very different than when you normally see toddlers, theyre usually running around and rambunctious. There were a number of very quiet children. And there was one little girl who was just sobbing and wailing and beating her fists on the mat. I was told you couldnt comfort or hold a crying child. We all knew that this child was crying because he washe wanted mother. Dr. Julie litman joins me now. Thank you very much for being with us, doctor. I want to point out the president is coming into the east room on an unrelated matter. We may take a bit of that and hear whether he talks about this. But what is the bottom line of the impact from yourdies and your colleagues about the imonh in this kind of situation and not knowing when theyre going toheir parents again . Well, i think what we know first and foremost is that highly stressful experiences, like separation from parents, disrupt the delopnt o chs brains. And place them at risk for short and longterm health problems. And how do you how do you assess the conditions that these kids are living under right now as seen by your colleague down there . Well,hen i was inside the Processing Center myself, i can tell you i witnessed similar conditions, even without the separation piece, and i can tell you that theyre only worse now. I saw myself cagelike structures, chainlink fences extending from the floor to the ceiling. Children lying down on mats, and lights that were kept on 247, wh is incredibly disorienting to anyone, especially a child. What kind of advice, if any, do you know that dhs is getting excuse me, hhs, health and Human Services getting in terms of treating the children compareto adults . And what if there are more than a thousand people there and only four certified social workers . Well, i any first and foremost we have to remember that these experiences are highly stressful and theyre taking away the buffer of a parent. So nothing can replace the love and support of that parent that has been stripped from that child. This policy is undeniably hal children. In the interim, we can attempt to provide comfort and as much normalization as possie. But until we end separation of children from their parents, were causing harm to those children. We also know that family detention is not a substitute or a solution to family separation, and detention is as harmful as any form of separation. We should not be detaining children and families, and we should absolutely not be separating children from their parents. Doctor, thanks for joining us. Continue talking to you and your colleagues. Right now, the presides speaking in the east room. Lets listen. Il say it very straight, immigration is the fault and all of the problems that were having, because we cannot get them to sig legislation. We cannot get them even to the negotiating table. And i say it very strongly, its the democrats fault. Theyre really obstructionists, and they are obstructing. The United States will not be a migrant camp, and it will not be a refugee holding facility. It wont be. You look at whats happening in europe, you look at whats happening in other places, we cant allow that to happen to the United States. Not on my watch. For the rest of the world, you look at everything thats taking place, pick up your newspapers this morning, and you see. We want safety and we want security for our country. If the democ would sit down instead of obstructing, we could have something done very quickly. Good for the children, good for the country, good for the world. It could take place quickly. We could have an immigration bill, we could have child can separation. Were stuck with these horrible laws. Theyre horrible laws. Whats happening is so sad. Its so sad. And it can be taken care of quickly, beautifully, and well have safety. This could really be something very special. It could be something maybe even for the world to watch, just like theyre watching our great economy, how its soaring. They could watch this. We have the worstration laws in the entire world. Nobody has such sad, such bad and actually in many cases, such horrible and tough. You see about child separation, you see whats going on there. But just remember, a country without boarders is not a country at all. We need boarders, we need security. We need safety. Have to take care of our people. You take a look at the death and destruction thats been caused by people coming into this country without going through a process. We want a meritbased immigration system so that boeing and lockheed and all of the people, grumen, all of the people here today, the heads of every company, so that you can hire people on a merit base. You know theyre coming in, theyre people that came on merit, not based on a lottery or people that snuck across the border. And they could be murderers and thieves, and so much else. So we want a safe country, and it starts with the boarders. And thats the way it is. Now i would like to [ applause ] thank you. Joining us now is jacob soberov. Lets do a quick fact check. It is not the democrats, its not congress. This is an enforcement action which the obama and bush white houses rejected as being too harsh and unnecessary, what they were calling a nuclear option, and it is something that Lindsay Graham and others who support the president who say he could change with a phone call. But again, using it against the democrats and as bill crystal was just saying, doubling down on it a Midterm Election strategy. Eplet all say it together, there is no law that requires the federal government to separate children from their families if they have entered the United States illegally. That is a policy that has been put into place, and it has resulted in, in this Border Patrol station, 1100 children since april being taken away from their parents. It has resulted in little children waiting alone in this station. I sasome of them yesterday, waiting to get picked up by the department of health and Human Services, and taken to facilitiacross the country, one of a hundred, in 17 states where they have to wait to go through a process, to get into a Foster Care Program or sponsorship program, because of a decision by the president of the United States. He said it makes him sad. What is sad is that he doesnt understand that this is a policy that is 100 under his control and he could endt right now. Kristen welker rejoining us from the white house. T clear he doesnt understand . How much leeway do we give the president for not understanding his own policy . Or is it something being done deliberately . Reporter i think theres a deliberate element, andrea. What strikes me about what we are answering, the comments we just heard from President Trump, the tweets throughout the morning, this is traditional donald trump. Hes digging in, the pressure is mounting, around hes effectively saying im going to keep fighting. Im going to keep fighting my way out of this political crisis. As you were saying before the president started speaking, andrea, this is also something that energizes his base. They like to see him fight and fight on these core issues. We heard steve bannon over the weekend. Of course, someone who was fired from this white house, but still someone who represents a hardline view when it comes to immigration policies say look, this is what we want to see from this president. And from this attorney general. So i do think there is an element to this that is very deliberate by the president politically. Now, the question becomes, at any point does the political pressure outweigh this fight that hes waging, thats energizing his base. Thats the unanswered question. We just learned that the briefing initially slated for was pushed back to 3 30. Thats an indication that perha