'Can't throw more money at a broken system': Rep. Tlaib on border funding

Martha Raddatz interviews Rep. Rashida Tlaib on "This Week" about the congresswoman's visit to a border detention facility in Texas and what's next in the immigration debate.
8:06 | 07/07/19


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Transcript for 'Can't throw more money at a broken system': Rep. Tlaib on border funding
But I will outwork your hate, I will outlove your hate. Democratic congresswoman Rashida tlaib addressing protesters outside a detention facility in Clint, Texas, this week. She joins me from Detroit. Welcome to "This week." I want to get your reaction, first of all, to acting secretary mcaleenan. So, in regards to the report -- in regards to what he was saying it's so contradictive of what we got in the inspector general's report recently. What I saw was a number of people, up to 14 in one area sleeping on the floors. Number of them saying, they didn't bathe within 15 days. Where congresswoman Pressly went up to the water feature next to where the water comes out, she turned the knob and there was no water that was coming out. Literally every single woman confirmed what the one woman said. Which is, I asked for water, and they said go drink it from the toilet. I think there were too many of us. Close to over 10, 11 members of congress, several of them were in the same cell unit where the 14 women or so was at. And then I was in another area where the door they finally, they were open up the door to speak with a grandmother who was there for 40 days and hadn't seen her grandson that she came with since then. Who's also special needs. Alexandria ocasio-cortez, your colleague who was at the border with you, confirmed the facilities to concentration camps, do you agree? Absolutely. It's traumatic. I mean, I don't know how to explain to people what we saw. When we're explaining to people and they're kind of looking back at us, that can't be true. We're all there. You have congressman Castro, all of us were there. We saw what we saw. We heard from folks inside the facility. Some of them haven't seen their children since being there. What you also need to know, the mere touch, the mere, even me holding the hand, broke them down in tears. They're under a lot of trauma. They're in a facility that is dehumanizing. This is choice by the current administration. They are choosing to not allow asylum to go through the legal procedure. Mcaleenan has been sounding the alarm for resources to help the migrants. You voted against the $4.2 billion emergency border bill to deal with the surge of migrants. To provide shelter and care for unaccompanied children. The abouting secretary said those fund are critical to get children out of custody and transported -- Listen to this, you know what the cbp agents said on the ground, Martha. Martha, you know what they said on the ground. Ask a cbp agent. I talk to the secretary, throw more money at a broken system. Inhumane system. Three agents took me aside, away from colleagues and said, more money isn't going to fix this. They weren't trained to separate children. They don't want to separate 2-year-olds away from their mother. That's not what they were that's not what they signed up for in our service to our country. They signed up to protect the border. Not to separate children, not to people in cages. They all said that this is a broken system. This is inhumane. These are also human beings. These are also fathers and mothers, themselves. A mother of five, they all don't want to be doing this. They all know that this is a choice. Martha, in the '80s it was more that was coming across the border and we didn't do this. We allowed the asylum seekers to go true the legal process. Show us evidence-based approaches to making sure that people are in humane conditions. That they have medical care. That they're not going to go hungry. This father told me he was there for four days, eating potato chips. He was gripping his son. He said I'm here because I have no other choice. I can tell you as a mother of two, but also as a child of immigrants, immigrant parents, I know my parents would have done the same thing for me to have a better future. But our country is doing is, creating a generation of children that will remember what our country what did to them. I won't vote for that. That's a choice that I make. I can tell you, my district supports me 100% because they know the system is broken. They know that these agents, again, many of them overworked, suicide is up among cbp agents. Look at the numbers. Look at the report. All of us can't be lying. I want to -- congresswoman. When we voted against it, it was because we knew this was not the choice that we needed our country to move forward on. There is a better choice. We have seen it in the '80s. We need to do better than we're doing now at the border. I want to bring up that aid package again, in a column in "The New York Times" this morning, the speaker of house Nancy Pelosi said that you and the three other Progressives made yourself irrelevant to the process by voting against this bill. All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world. She said, but they didn't have any following. They're four people and that's how many votes they got. You know, people us, like me, we're reflective of our nation in many ways. But many of us didn't want to be the first of anything. But more people like us have been missing in the halls of congress. More people like us, people of color have been missing in the chamber. Because of most of us -- Pressly says, people closer to the pain need to be at the table making the decisions. You know what it feels to be dehumanized. I'll tell you right now, we're not going to stand by and allow brown and dark-skinned children to be ripped away from their parents. To dehumanize. To feel like -- What would you say to Nancy Pelosi? I honor the fact we're there. 650,000 people are represented by each and every single one of us. That there's some sort of, I think in many ways, something special about having a refugee, having a woman that, you know, experienced alone what incarceration has done to her family, everybody has these experiences that have been missing in the halls of congress, honor that, respect that, put us at the table. There's a better approach. They passed something out of the house still I will not support anything that's broken and dehumanizes people. Guess what, Mitch Mcconnell sent you back that something that was worse. All you can do is focus on him. Uplift the women, especially women of color within your caucus. More people like us, more people like me who come out to vote, we win. I'm going to have to stop you there for time. It's disappointing that speaker would ever try to diminish our voices in so many way. I appreciate your comments. Thank you so much. Coming up, the powerhouse roundtable tackles our new poll


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