June 26, 2018

Rachel Maddow Shares Leaked Footage From Inside a Migrant Children Detention Center

A facility employee warned children not to talk to the media.

On Monday, Rachel Maddow shared footage surreptitiously recorded inside a detention center in New York City, which is currently holding migrant children recently separated from their parents at the border. The exclusive footage was recorded by a former employee who worked at the East Harlem facility until last week. She told MSNBC that she left her job in protest of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy.

The footage included several images of children eating and playing in what appears to be a classroom-like setting. It also included one heartbreaking video clip of the employee struggling to get information from a distressed young girl crying for her mother.

Later in the segment, Maddow shared audio that captured a facility employee warning children against speaking to the media because it could potentially hurt their chances of reuniting with their families. 

“If for whatever reason you talk to a reporter, you know what’s going to happen to your case?” the woman is heard saying in Spanish. “It is going to be on the news, and then one doesn’t know what is going to happen. If you are going to last here for a long time, I am not trying to scare you. I am just telling you it’s the truth.”

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