[Anderson Cooper, Cnn:] Good evening. Thanks for joining us. We begin tonight with political and policy confusion and the children suffering as a result of it. Yesterday, President Trump signed that executive order to solve a problem that he himself created. Some 2,300 kids taken from their parents in the border now scattered to all corners of this country. He promised it would end family separation. Then we were told it would not apply to the kids already in custody. The ones who had been separated and later that it would and today on Capitol Hill, more confusion from DHS secretary. Asked about how families will actually be reunited, she said there was plan in place.
[Kirstjen Nielsen, Homeland Security Secretary:] We have a plan to do that. As you know, we do it on the back end. So, a combination of DHS, DOJ, HHS reuniting as quickly as we can.
[Cooper:] Well, keep them honest, though, her answer seemed to refer to current procedures, which required parents to call government hotlines to locate their kids. She also appeared to be referring to the thousands of unaccompanied minors in custody, not the recently separated 2,300 kids. Now, as for them, we've got no clear plan nor apparently has the Department of Health and Human Services. A spokesperson telling CNN they are, quote, awaiting for their guidance on the implementation of the executive order. So, mixed signals on the implementation and mixed signals as well on the meaning of the order itself, even from the man who signed it. Here is how the president described it yesterday.
[Donald Trump, President Of The United States:] It's about keeping families together while at the same time being sure that we have a very powerful, very strong border and border security will be equal, if not greater than previously. So, we're going to have strong, very strong borders, but we're going to keep families together.
[Cooper:] It's about keeping families together. He said yesterday, unless, of course, it isn't.
[Trump:] I signed a very good executive order yesterday but that's only limited. No matter how you cut it. It leads to separation ultimately.
[Cooper:] So, it leads to separation ultimately. Just as a point of fact, the president appears to be referring to the court settlement requiring children accompanied by parents to be released from custody within 20 days. It's not entirely clear that he was, though. If he was, he seems to be ignoring the fact as a former acting ICE director told us last night that this does not have to lead to family separation. Yet the president now calls it inevitable, this thing he started three months ago and yesterday claimed he was ending. And if you're head is not spinning already, listen to Attorney General Jeff Sessions today on the practice followed by his thoughts on it just last month.
[Jeff Sessions, Attorney General:] It hasn't been good and the American people don't like the idea that we're separating families. We never really intended to do that. If your smuggling a child, then we're going to prosecute you. And that child will be separated from you probably as required by law.
[Cooper:] So, today he said we never intended to separate families. Previously, he indicated they did intend to do just that. And if that isn't confusing enough, there was this the first lady leaving to visit migrant children down in Texas, making a compassionate visit wearing jacket with these words on the back. I really don't care. Do you? Now, she did not wear it in Texas, but had it on when she landed back in Washington. And she kept it on at the White House as calls poured in to the White House about why the first lady might be wearing a coat with the rather large, seemingly insensitive sign on the back. Her press secretary said and I quote, it's just a jacket. There was no hidden message. OK. But then a couple hours later, late today, the president contradicted his wife spokesperson tweeting that oh no, there actually was a message intended in the sign. "I really don't care, do you?" written on the back of Melania's jacket refers to the fake news media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are and she truly no longer cares. Really? That was the message? OK, but remember, this was the trip to unveil this? That message? Was this really the best trip to unveil that message? I mean, who exactly came up with that idea? Because the first lady of the United States was making a trip to the border in the midst of a crisis in which kids had been ripped from their parents arms, a trip designed to show compassion and caring and she's wearing a giant sign that says I really don't care, do you? Then the White House says there's no message to it. It was just the coat she happened to grab off the rack, and now, the president's claiming it was actually a meta statement about the media. I was going to say you can't make this stuff up, but you know what, every day, it seems like the White House sure does try. It's worth remembering that at all the center of this noise, all this confusion, all the politics and posturing, the confusion and outright dishonesty are 2,300 kids 2,300 kids are now scattered across the border region and the entire country having endured the kind of trauma we first heard on that recording which had such an impact for so many people audio of a child at a detention center crying out for her parents. Today, we found the mother also incarcerated. You'll hear from her in a moment. But first, some of that audio of her child obtained by "ProPublica".
[Border Patrol Agent:] Where are you from?
[Unidentified Child:] El Salvador.
[Border Patrol Agent:] And you?
[Unidentifeid Child:] Guatemala.
[Border Patrol Agent:] Don't cry.
[Unidentified Child:] I want to go with my aunt
[Border Patrol Agent:] You're going to get there. Look, she will explain it and help you.
[Unidentified Child:] At least can I go with my aunt? I want here to come I want my aunt to come so she can take me to her house.
[Cooper:] Well, joining us now is Rosa Flores from the facility where the mother of one of those children is being held. So, you spoke to a Cindy Madrid for about 45 minutes today I understand. How was she doing?
[Rosa Flores, Cnn Correspondent:] You know, she's described she's in despair, she's depressed, she's paralyzed with pain because she says that she misses her daughter. Here's what she told me.
[Cindy Madrid:] Please help me reunite with my daughter soon. I'm desperate. I want to see her. I love her and that I miss her so much. And that I hope to see her very soon, God willing. We've always been very close, her and I. We've shared everything, together. She's very fun. She's very charismatic. She likes pets. She likes having fun. She is very intelligent. She is very loving.
[Flores:] And, Anderson, Cindy also says that her daughter has never been apart from her mother. They've never separated since birth. This is very tough for this woman.
[Cooper:] Rosa, at the facility Melania Trump toured today, the manager there said that the children in his facility are able to talk to their parents by phone for 10 minutes twice a week. Is that across the board at all these facilities? Have Cindy been able to talk to her daughter?
[Flores:] You know, that was one of the astounding things about this conversation with this woman because despite what the administration has said and the Cindy was describing how they were watching television when President Trump signed that executive order and all of these women in his facility started cheering and crying and thinking that things were going to change, that they're going to be able to talk to their children. But that was not the case. Take a listen.
[Madrid:] I have not once talked to her. I've been talking to the social worker, but she only took my information because she said my daughter was in an activity. She told me to call at 5:00 p.m.; but my call was not answered. To date, they haven't answered me. Not one time. Imagine, all these days without knowing anything about my daughter, without talking to her, without seeing her. Without any information about anything. It's maddening because at the every moment I ask myself, how is she? Has she eaten? Are they taking care of her? Do they shower her? It's maddening not knowing anything about her, you know?
[Flores:] Now, Cindy shared that phone number that immigration gave her with us. So, during our interview we tried that number twice and here's what we heard on the other end of the line. Take a listen.
[Unidentified Female:] Hi, it's
[Flores:] And, Anderson, this woman said that she's not the only one. Most of the women that she knows in this massive facility are just like her. They have not been able to communicate with their children.
[Cooper:] Rosa, I understand that Cindy Madrid said she had a message for the first lady. What did she say?
[Flores:] You know, I was actually doing the interview with her when the news broke about Melania Trump landing in the Rio Grande Valley, visiting a separate detention center. So, I asked her about the first lady's visit and here's what she said.
[Madrid:] I would hope that she would help me. I think she understands what it's like to be a mom. Perhaps she has never been separated from her children; but she understands that one would give everything for one's children.
[Flores:] And, Anderson, I was also able to talk to Cindy's sister, so this little girl's aunt and she says that she actually was able to talk to the little girl and the six-year-old she said that is very worried about her mother, asking her aunt if her mother had eaten, if she was still in detention, if her mother had had her detention hearings. And then processed this with me this little girl, her wish about leaving detention is she hopes to take a shower at her aunt's house, according to her aunt. And she says that she wants to buy and eat as much cereal as she can Anderson.
[Cooper:] Rosa Flores, I appreciate the report. Thank you. As we said, children taken from their parents are now spending their nights not just apart from them but sometimes several thousand miles apart, approximately here in New York state. Today, New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo visited one such facility in the New York City area. He joins us now from Albany. So, Governor, the facility that you tour, what were you able to see and what were you actually able to find out about the kids there?
[Gov. Andrew Cuomo , New York:] Well, Anderson, the first, it's a hodgepodge to use a word. I think what happened is when they started the zero tolerance policy April 7th, that triggered once they decided to arrest the parents, that triggered the problem of whether you put the children because the current law says you can't detain the children. And HHS then has been in this scramble ever since sending children all over the country as we well know. We have a very large force, the care system in the state of New York, so we wound up with many of the children. Basically today, the young people we spoke to, they're basically traumatized. They're in limbo. They showed up at the border with their parent. They were all excited. They were going to America. Salvadoran running from MS-14, Guatemalan running from a dangerous condition, they get to the border and they are separated from their parent immediately. They're shipped to a state they've never heard of. They can't speak the language. Your point about contacting the parents is very different, it depends where the parent is and what detention center. We have one young person who's been there for several months only spoke to a parent once. But they're traumatized. Many of them have psychological issues. They have anxiety. They have depression. Many of them are on psychotropic drugs and under the care of a psychiatrist. And they don't know what's next. They don't know what's going on. Are they seeking asylum? Are they going to be sent back? And much of this started in AprilMay, as soon as the zero-tolerance policy went into effect. And, look, this is either gross government incompetence, unparalleled, or it is the most disgusting political display we've ever seen, right? It's one or the other.
[Cooper:] What's
[Cuomo:] This was either a debacle.
[Cooper:] What's
[Cuomo:] In any event
[Cooper:] Go ahead.
[Cuomo:] you have 2,300 children. I'm sorry. In any event, for me, you have 2,300, 2,500. Who even knows what the number is? I tried to get HHS, Health and Human Services, to tell us how many children were in the state today so I can provide help. They won't even tell me. I don't know that they even know. But in any event, you have 2,500, 2,700 young people being used as political pawns, traumatized and this is a trauma that can last them a lifetime.
[Cooper:] What
[Cuomo:] It really is that kind of traumatic situation.
[Cooper:] What I don't understand is, you know, when General Kelly was head of Homeland Security, he was publicly raising this idea of separating families, you know, when he was running it. They you would think if they were talking about it back then, at the very least, they would have had a lot of time to kind of figure out the where kids would go, to figure it out, and it wouldn't be, to use your words, such a hodgepodge. I mean, did the workers at the facility you were at, that they seemed have guidance as to what was actually going to happen next? Or how these kids would be reunited or what the next step was?
[Cuomo:] No, they had no idea. But, Anderson, it's what you said. April 7th, they put in the zero tolerance policy. We're arresting everyone. We're tough. We're strong, strong borders. The law says you can't detain children. That triggers the children having to be sent somewhere else. The president does the executive order yesterday. The headline is president reverses himself. He didn't reverse himself. The executive order is a sham. A reversal is a 180. This was a 360, this was a political pirouette. He wound up just where he started. The executive order says the attorney general must go renegotiate the Flores decision, which is the decision that guides the fact that you can't detain juveniles. The attorney general hasn't even started that, and good luck. The Obama administration tried to renegotiate Flores and they couldn't. Today, they say, we're going to set up camps for 20,000 family detention you can't do that either under the Flores decision. So, none of it makes sense. None of it follows the law. And I think what this is really about is making a robust political statement. We're strong on the border. We have an infestation, and that the children are the pawns in this national debacle.
[Cooper:] And it's not going away anytime soon. Governor Cuomo, appreciate your time tonight. Thank you. More now on the trauma the governor just spoke of because there really is no overestimating how wrenching it is for these kids. We all remember the fear as young kids of being separated, even momentarily from a parent. Joining us now is Dr. Colleen Kraft, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Kraft, I mean, the governor was talking about the trauma these kids are going through in detention centers. There's also the trauma, I imagine in the many unknowns of when and how they'll actually be able to be reunited with their parents. It's one thing to be separated. It's another thing to not really know what the future holds.
[Dr. Colleen Kraft, President, American Academy Of Pediatrics:] Absolutely. And so, the kids who can tell you that they're traumatized are telling you this and acting out and we're seeing anxiety and depression and all kinds of other problems. The kids that I've seen were the really little ones who some of them are pre-verbal and all they know is that that one foundational relationship in their life has been taken away from them. And they either externalize their behaviors. They become aggressive, crying, screaming, or they internalize them and they become withdrawn.
[Cooper:] It's also, I mean, Doctor, talk about the first two to three years of life and a child's development has pretty much the most important, you know, immediate span of time. If you have kids who are pre-verbal, you have little children of that age being separated from their parents there's no telling what that does to a kid for the rest of their life, just in terms of their own development.
[Kraft:] Absolutely. So, the brain develops most rapidly between birth and three years of age and that's when we want positive experiences and positive relationships to build that brain architecture correctly. And what's happening with these kids is that the trauma is causing something we refer to as toxic stress where their fight-or-flight hormones are staying high in their system and that actually keeps them on red alert all the time and disrupts their brain development, disrupts their ability to speak to gross motorfine motor movements to develop relationships from here on out.
[Cooper:] The fact that the president's executive order is allowing for these families to be reunited, but that they may be held together possibly indefinitely or even if they don't pass if they don't alter this, the Flores settlement, within 20 days, they could be separated again.
[Kraft:] So, after the president's executive order, the question we have is now what? So, when are these families going to be reunited? When are these children going to be reunited with that foundational relationship, that parent who loves them? And where are they going to be kept? Are we going to have them in a place where they'll be retraumatized again? You know, where is the action now that this executive order has been has been declared?
[Cooper:] You visited one of these detention centers. Can just described a little bit about what you saw, what you heard? I mean, are caregivers there able to touch them, to console them?
[Kraft:] So, what I saw was in one of the tender care shelters, and it was a very homey environment. There were appropriate books and toys and blankets and things there for the children to keep them clean and fed. But when you walked into the toddler room which should be a den of activity and noise and a rambunctiousness, you had several very quiet little toddlers who were just looking at you frightened. And one little girl who was just sobbing in the middle of the floor and couldn't be consoled, the workers who are in the room were trying to help this little girl out they were giving her a book and a toy, but they couldn't distract her and they weren't allowed to hold her or touch her. So, this child was really in a great deal of pain and the rest of us felt so helpless because we knew she needed her mother and we couldn't give that to her. And I mean, I guess you know the reason they're not allowed to touch a toddler or an infant is for, you know, the preventing kind of abuse, at the same time, the idea of a child not being getting any kind of affection is I mean, it just it's kind of stunning. It's sad and I don't know what or where or why this policy exists. But I saw this in action happening on the day that I visited.
[Cooper:] Dr. Colleen Kraft, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Just ahead, the message that wasn't a message until it was. New reporting on how the White House is handling the outcry over the first lady's sign on the back of her jacket today. Also later, breaking news, something you'll only see here. Exclusive new evidence at the confusion and chaos surrounding the president's executive order.