Children Are Being Used As Pawns In Trump's Fight For More Border Money
On Morning Joe, Julia Ainsley explains how Trump is using the horrific conditions of migrant children in detention centers to pressure Congress for more money for more detention centers.
"We've been talking about the appalling conditions of migrant children that are being detained in American custody. How long are these children being held?" Mika Brzezinski asked Ainsley.
"We got the numbers broken down, it looked like they were staying on average of 110 hours. Now we are past that, talking about children staying there over a week. There was the case of a child who had the flu, near death with 106 degree temperature, who had to stay there over a week in those conditions before he could be taken to a place for better care.
"CBP is using that same argument that we saw from the vice president, that it is a matter of funding from Congress before we can move them to better places. That argument doesn't stand when it is such a simple solution. Yes, it's true that these facilities were not built for long time. Those were not built for children. They were built for mainly male, adult populations. But we're in that reality now, and we have been for some time. Why aren't there better policies in place? CBP had deaths of migrant children in their custody since December, the first time and now two others. The question is, why can't there be policies in place to move beyond this problem? If we have capacity problems, how do you alleviate in the meantime?"