When President Donald Trump tweeted Friday that, “We cannot allow our country to be overrun by illegal immigrants,” and blamed Democrats for spreading allegedly “phony stories of sadness and grief,” I couldn’t stop thinking about 6-year-old Jimena Valencia Madrid.
Jimena is the Salvadoran girl who was separated from her mother at the Texas border on June 13 as part of Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, and placed in a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol detention centre in Phoenix.
Luckily for her, her voice was recorded in a secret audio tape obtained by ProPublica. In the tape, you can hear children between the ages of 4 and 10 crying inconsolably, and pleading for “Mama” and “Papa.”