Admin Official: Children in Border Protection Custody Will Be Reunited; Migrants Desperate To Flee Violence In Their Countries Fear Being Separated From Their Children In U.S.
HARLOW: Breaking news, Customs and Border Protection says it expects all children in their custody who are separated from their families will be reunited with them by tonight. That's according to an administration official. That is good news for them, but this would only apply to those children taken by the agency within the last three days. There are still more than 2,000 kids that Health and Human Services in their custody that will not be reunited tonight. That includes one boy whose mother is detained and is frantically trying to track her son down. Ed Lavandera is OUTFRONT.</s>ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The phone call came from inside the Port Isabel Detention Center in South Texas. On the line is an undocumented immigrant who asked that we not identify her by name. She's from Honduras and was separated from her nine-year-old son 11 days ago after crossing the Rio Grande illegally.</s>LAVANDERA (voice-over): I asked her how she's feeling. Not good at all she says. It's a trauma we will never forget. All of the mothers who are here as well as the kids. The truth is we never imagined this would happen.</s>LAVANDERA (voice-over): I asked her how he was separated. They betrayed us, she said. They told us they weren't going to separate us from them and we never imagined it was going to be for so long. Department of Homeland Security officials have vehemently denied that immigrants have been misled in anyway.</s>JODI GOODWIN, ATTORNEY: There are things that you can do specifically to help out with the children.</s>LAVANDERA (voice-over): From inside her South Texas law office, Jodi Goodwin is trying to find 22 children. She represents 25 undocumented immigrants who've all been separated from their children for about two weeks. Most of them don't even know where their kids are at this point?</s>GOODWIN: None of them know where their kids are. I don't know where their kids are.</s>LAVANDERA (voice-over): Goodwin says her clients have tried calling the numbers provided by the federal government to track with their children were sent, but that hasn't worked. Only three of her clients have even spoken to their children.</s>GOODWIN: It's just not a system where you punch in a parent's name and it pops out the child's name. That -- it just doesn't exist.</s>LAVANDERA (voice-over): Can be highly frustrating for them.</s>GOODWIN: Very frustrating. It's very frustrating. And each time I see them, you know, they ask, you know, any news? Do you have news?</s>LAVANDERA (voice-over): While there have been a number of emotional reunions between separated families, there are still many families struggling to just connect over the phone. The Department of Homeland Security says there is not a publicly accessible database to track the shelters where undocumented children are being kept. The DHS says the adult detention centers have phones where their parents can call their children. The Honduran immigrant on the phone tells me she's in a wing of a detention center with 70 other mothers who are also trying to communicate with their children. I asked her what message she would like the world to hear. She says, President Trump for one second put yourself in our place. The only thing we want is for them to give us our children back.</s>LAVANDERA: And Poppy, government officials say one of the reasons why this database of children isn't widely accessible is for security concerns and predators in that sort of thing. But the fact of the matter is, tonight, dozens if not hundreds of people even though they have been in custody for weeks in many cases still trying to at least even make the most of the simplest phone calls to identify and at least reach out to their kids. I spoke with another man just within the last hour who's in custody in the detention center. And he says his main concern here tonight is the anxiety and insecurity that his daughter must be feeling since they've been separated since June 4th. Poppy?</s>HARLOW: Absolutely. Ed Lavandera, such important reporting. Thank you for being there. OUTFRONT now, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, Efren Olivares. His group is representing 381 undocumented immigrants who have been separated from their children. Efren, thank you for being here tonight. And I want to get your reaction of the breaking news just in that Customs and Border Protection says all the children in its custody will be reunited with their parents today. Your reaction to that and does that include any of those you represent?</s>EFREN OLIVARES, DIRECTOR, TEXAS CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT: That is good news if that is in fact true. It is good news because for those parents and those children, the separation will have ended. We have not confirmation -- have not received confirmation if that includes for example the 17 parents we interviewed yesterday who had been separated. But it should because they had been arrested three days ago so it should include them. The remaining question is the other 2,500 children who are still separated from their parents.</s>HARLOW: Right.</s>OLIVARES: When are they going to be reunited?</s>HARLOW: Of course, so what can you tell me about the process that your clients, your nearly 400 clients are going through right now dealing with the government to be reunited with their children? I mean, are you aware? Is there any federal database that they're using to track down these kids? Is it clear they where everyone is?</s>OLIVARES: It's not clear. I hope there is such a database that the government is using to kept track of them. I know we are tracking them on a database with the parents and the children. Most of the children are either en route or at a shelter and the parents are either at a detention facility or some of them are no long in that system, which means they either have been released or deported. So we're trying to get confirmation of that. But I hope that someone of the federal government is just keeping track of these 2,500 -- 2,400 families.</s>HARLOW: So if they're listening right now, representatives from the federal government, I mean, what do you need most from the government to help in this reunification and to make it as expedient as possible?</s>OLIVARES: First of all, a clear plan to reunite them. Including the plans and process and safeguards to make sure that no parent is deported without a child. That no child is deported without a parent if that hasn't already happen. As well as some clear numbers, how many children, how many parents, what state of the country are they, and what conditions are their children. That, the government should held accountable on that information.</s>HARLOW: When the first lady visited one of these facilities just yesterday, she spoke to the children at length and one of the things she said is how can I help. Listen.</s>MELANIA TRUMP, FIRST LADY: Also like to ask you how I can help. To these children to reunite with your families as quickly as possible.</s>HARLOW: So answer that for us from your perspective. Dealing with these parents. What can the first lady do to help reunite them?</s>OLIVARES: She could have visited facility where the children are separated their parents actually are located. And she could have reunited those children with their parents when she was here. She chose to visit a different facility, and as far as I know, her visit did not directly result in a single reunification.</s>HARLOW: Appreciate your time and please keep us posted on how these reunifications go and what you're running into in the process. Thank you. OUTFRONT next, Michael Cohen's new strategy? Re-tweeting this picture? Is this a message to the president? The man he's with, actor Tom Arnold who met with Cohen just last night. He joins us next. Plus, are the images of separated families at the border phony? The president says he thinks these are phony stories made up by the Democrats for political purposes. We'll debate.