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Amanpour
Mexico Pledges to Stop the Flow of Central American Migrants; Trump Backs Off his Tariff Threats to Mexico; Arturo Sarukhan, Former Mexican Ambassador to the U.S., is Interviewed About U.S/Mexico Relationship; Six Children Died in U.S. Detention Centers; Dilapidated, Dirty and Unsafe Conditions in Detention Centers; Nicholas Kulish, Investigative Correspondent, The New York Times, and Scott Allen, Department of Homeland Security Whistle-Blower, are Interviewed About Southwest Key Programs. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired June 10, 2019 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:00:00] CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here`s what`s coming up.
Mexico tariffs are off the table for now, but what is it promising and what does the U.S. gain? I speak to the former Mexican ambassador to the United
States, Arturo Sarukhan.
Then the human cost of the showdown of the U.S./Mexico border. We look at the dire state of detention facilities and how one nonprofit has built a
financial empire housing child migrants.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELAINE WELTEROTH, FORMER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, TEEN VOGUE: I`m looking through and I`m realizing no one looks like me or my family.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because?
WELTEROTH: Because I`m Brown.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Claiming a space for yourself. Former teen vogue editor, Elaine Welteroth, shares her message of empowerment.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I`m Christian Amanpour in London.
President Trump is kicking off the week in what`s become a bit of a signature in his foreign policy. Announcing a crisis, threatening
punishment, declaring victory.
In a new deal, Mexico is pledging a robust effort to stop the flow of Central American migrants. It`s taken a whirlwind of threats and talks
between what are, after all, North American allies. It all started right here in London when during his state visit to the United Kingdom, the
president took aim at migration with a trade weapon. Warning Mexico that if it didn`t stop Central American migrants, he`d slap on tariffs of up to
25 percent on imported goods. A move even his own fellow Republicans couldn`t stomach.
After intensive talks between the U.S. and Mexico, President Trump backed off his tariff threat, hailing a new deal to limit migration on Friday.
But "The New York Times" says officials from both sides of the negotiations claim the deal mainly includes pledges that were already made by the
Mexican government months ago. Firing back, President Trump called their reporting a hit job.
So, what`s really changed? I`m joined now by Arturo Sarukhan, he is the former Mexican ambassador to the United States and now a senior fellow at
the Brookings Institute, and he`s joining me from Washington
Ambassador, welcome to the program. An easy mistake. What can I tell you?
ARTURO SARUKHAN, FORMER MEXICAN AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: Well, certainly these days I`d rather be in Mexico City than D.C., but --
AMANPOUR: Would you indeed? Well, why? Because I was going to ask, what would these tariffs have done to both countries?
SARUKHAN: Because it`s very painful, Christiane, to see a president single handedly scuppering what has been built in the Mexico/U.S. relationship for
two decades. By mixing apples and oranges, in this case, trade and immigration policy, not only would he have created a self-inflicted wound
on the economies and on the trade flows of these two countries, remember, Mexico, in this first quarter of 2019, has become now the first largest
trading partner of the United States.
But also, by contaminating a very complex agenda, he could derail the huge advances in a very complex relationship, very fluid relationship like the
one that exists between these two neighbors that have been achieved since the days of NAFTA 1993.
AMANPOUR: I mean, just quickly in terms of dollars and cents and human capital employment and the like, what would have happened if a 5 percent
tariff and then 5 percent each month up to 25 percent had been imposed? What would -- what difference would it have made to American consumers and
Mexican consumers?
SARUKHAN: Well, first of all, one of the things that President Trump seems to forget, despite having been on a Mexico bashing trend for the last three
years is that Mexico and the United States have developed integrated supply and production chains. What does this basically mean? It means that out
of every dollar of Mexican exports to the United States, 40 cents are of U.S. input, U.S. content.
So, if you are slapping a 5 percent, 20 percent tariff on Mexican exports you`re slapping that tariff on all the U.S. inputs that go into every
single dollar of Mexican exports. So, it`s not only avocados and your favorite Mexican beer, it`s what happens to everything from cars to
advanced components to heavy machinery to surgical and medical equipment. It will have a huge cost on consumers and on businesses on both sides of
the border.
I think a 5 percent tariff was writable. I was one who did not want Mexico to bend the knee to Trump`s ultimatums because I think -- in part because
of peso depreciation that`s going on right now, that would have offset the 5 percent tariff, and it would have really mobilized those U.S.
constituencies, governors, members of congress, both Republican and Democrats, who [13:05:00] understand that you can`t do this when you`ve got
28 states and the United States that have Mexico as their number one trading partner.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, Ambassador, you said you would have advised to ride out a 5 percent. What if it went up to 25 percent? And furthermore, it looks
like President Trump has brought the Mexicans to the table, has brought your president to the table and he is declaring a victory because of these
new details in the agreement over migration and trying to stop the flow of Central American migrants.
I mean, if it took that punishment and as you call it, bending the knee, I mean, is it a victory for the United States and a defeat for you?
SARUKHAN: I think it`s certainly is a political electoral. The president will portray it as a political electoral victory, although the details show
a lot of what had been discussed between Mexico and the United States for several months now is part of this signed agreement that was put out Friday
night. There are issues there that both countries have been discussing for some time, expanded manpower on the Mexican/U.S. border. It`s clear,
Christiane, that Mexico, despite Trump`s threats, has to do more to improve its ability to control, to regulation who comes in and who doesn`t come in
along our borders and that we need to do this in a way that ensures that our own principles are on asylum and refugee and not being undermined.
Some of this was already being discussed, some of it has now been agreed to in this agreement. But, obviously, the president is selling this to his
base as a diplomatic triumph.
AMANPOUR: I want to play a little bit of what your own foreign minister said about this when asked about who is up and who is down after this deal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think the United States got the better end of the deal, or do you think it was a fair balance for Mexico and the U.S.?
MARCELO EBRARD, MEXICAN FOREIGN MINISTER: I think it`s a fair balance because they have more drastic measures and proposals at the start, and we
have reached some middle point.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you feel like you were able to talk them back (INAUDIBLE)?
EBRARD: Yes, yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: I mean, you can see, Ambassador, that your foreign minister, I mean, looks a bit shaken, frankly. I just wonder what you heard through
your own grapevine of what your own country and your own government was thinking when this threat was made. And you said that, again, you did not
particularly approve of President AMLO, for short, taking a knee in front of these threats. What is the reaction to what he`s done in Mexico?
SARUKHAN: Well, first of all, Christiane, the Mexican delegation achieved two very important objectives as a result of these conversations. The
first one is that we`ve ensured that USMCA, the revamped NAFTA, and our significant intertwined economies and trade flows survived to fight another
day and that the president did not levy punitive tariffs on both countries, which would have hurt both countries.
The second one is that Mexico avoided one of the key demands of the United States, which was to agree to a safe third country agreement, which means
basically that migrants coming into the -- into Mexican territory seeking asylum in the United States have to request asylum in Mexico. That has
been a demand from the United States for quite some time. The U.S. will continue, is my guess, to push for this. That is what I think the
president was referring to in his morning rant this morning via Twitter.
So, these are two very important objectives. Mexico was able to defang these two threats and that`s why I think you see a bit of a mixed sense
here. Mexican public opinion, I think, in general, is concerned that what you have is a president who will be rolling out the threat of punitive
tariffs on a host of issues, particularly as we reach the high point of his re-election campaign where he will continue to do what he`s been doing ever
since he ran, which is use Mexico as a pinata to fire up his base.
AMANPOUR: So, let me just -- you know, given the fact you know this and the idea of migration and the border are his fixations, that is his
political base, that is what he`s run on from the very beginning, it`s what he declared his candidacy on. This issue is 1,000 percent his issue and he
believes it works at the polls.
So, I guess my question is, from the beginning, unless -- we put up a graph at the moment to show the record number of travel of migrants across the
border and apprehensions that happened in May of this year. It was a huge spike. The most in many, many years. I guess my question is, why wouldn`t
Mexico have done more? Would it have been possible to do more before you got to this threat punishment and [13:10:00] talks situation?
SARUKHAN: There`s no doubt that with the beginning, with the start of a new government, there has been a certain degree of lack of coordination,
internal lack of coordination in part because you also have government agencies in Mexico that are being -- their budgets, particularly the
immigration authority and the refugee authority, their budgets have been slashed as part of a broader general austerity drive by the president and
that has hurt Mexico`s ability to do more as it should, as a partner to the United States.
The other thing is that -- you shouldn`t forget that along the graph that you`ve just shown of arrests on the U.S./Mexico border, Mexico in the first
six months of 2019 has also been doing an important part of this, which is deporting back to Central American countries almost 75,000 central American
migrants. So, Mexico has not been sitting on its hands either.
The problem is, Christiane, you can`t enforce your way out of a migration crisis. This is going to take time, it`s going to take commitment, it`s
going to take resources, and it`s going to take addressing some of the drivers of these transmigration trends from Central America into Mexico and
on their way to the United States, mainly public insecurity and some of the effects of the draw up per the climate change patterns that are hitting
rural parts of the Northern Triangle countries, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, which is sort of driving a combination of urban migration,
fleeing and security, and rural migration, fleeing lack of economic opportunities.
AMANPOUR: Well, I`m glad you brought that up because I wanted to put to you something that Secretary of State Pompeo said about this very issue of
climate change. You know, many have said this is one of the drivers, it does fuel, as you said, what`s happening, the droughts, the crop failures,
et cetera, in Central America.
But in an interview with the "Washington Times," the Conservative newspaper, Pompeo downplayed the climate change aspect, essentially, he
said, according to the "Times," "Mr. Pompeo spoke more broadly, asserting that there are always changes taking place to the climate. And that as a
result, societies reorganize. We move to different places. We develop technology and innovation."
I mean, I guess that`s exactly what`s happening, that societies are organizing and moving. That is what Central American societies are doing.
Do you see an irony there, and what is the solution because this is an issue that is going to get worse, not better?
SARUKHAN: Absolutely. I think this is the proverbial chickens coming home to roost. I think years of negating the effects of climate change are
starting to profoundly impact migration and societal patterns. Yes, people adapt and people adapting by packing up their stuff and trekking north.
If to that you add, obviously, the role of human smuggling groups that are trying to piggyback on this and make a buck by telling people, "It`s now or
never, the borders are going to shut, you`d better get on the move now," this part of that, obviously, at play, too. But we can`t underestimate the
effects, the global change in climate warming are having on migration patterns within Latin America in general and towards the United States in
particular from the Northern Triangle and Central America.
AMANPOUR: And you alluded to some tweeting that President Trump had done today and in terms of questions about what might be next. Well, when will
the hammer fall again? He did say that there might be another immigration deal with Mexico. He once again threatened tariffs. He said the
following, "We fully signed and documented another very important part of the immigration and security deal with Mexico. One that the U.S. has been
asking about getting for many years. It will be revealed in the not too distant future, and we`ll need a vote by Mexico`s legislative body." Then
he said, "We do not anticipate a problem with the vote, but if for any reason the approval is not forthcoming, tariffs will be reinstated."
What do you think he`s talking about? You sort of alluded to what he might be talking about, but is this the third party asylum? Is this -- I mean,
what do you think he wants next?
SARUKHAN: With President Trump and his tweets, there are lies and half lies. The lie was his tweet on Friday saying that Mexico had agreed to buy
Ag exports from the United States, that is absolutely false. That`s not part of the agreement. It`s not there. It`s not even on a side letter.
That issue is not discussed.
Ag exports will grow if the president doesn`t torpedo the ability of the U.S. Congress, the Canadian Parliament and the Mexican Congress of getting
U.S. embassy ratified. This one today is a half lie because, obviously, he`s referring to trying to continue to push the third Safe Country
Agreement with Mexico.
If such a deal [13:15:00] were to be put on the table, and if Mexico were to accept that, it would require congressional consultations and
ratification in Mexico. So, what the president is basically saying, "If in 90 days we haven`t seen progress, we`re going to put this issue back on the
table," and he`s basically saying, "If the Mexican Congress weren`t to ratify this, then I again will use the issue of tariffs."
AMANPOUR: And so, what happens then? What does your country do? Because we`ve seen that he`s done it once. I mean, let`s face it. His own
Republicans didn`t like this idea. Obviously, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, has tweeted against it saying that, you know, temper tantrums
and threats are no way to conduct foreign policy. But, in a way, it did work because you have this deal that you`re talking about now.
So, what will happen if he doesn`t get this Third Safe Country and it doesn`t get put through the Congress of Mexico and he does threaten more,
you know, tariffs? What do you do? What does Mexico do?
SARUKHAN: Again, I think we should not blink, Christiane. We have to do jiujitsu with one of Mexico`s stronger points of containment of this
president which is the states and the governors and the members of Congress who will emphatically push back against tariffs being levied on all Mexican
imports to the United States because of the disruptive economic effects that will have on the U.S. economy.
I think we need to hold our ground and not blink and ensure that we are negotiating on parallel tracks. We`re not going to accept mixing trade
with immigration. That -- I`m not saying that that`s what the Mexican government is going to do, that`s what I would like to see the Mexican
government doing. I think that`s where we have to make sure that we`re leveraging these very important alliances that we have across the board in
the United States to push back against a president who single handedly is threatening not only USMCA but the future of Mexico/U.S. relations.
There could be many in this city, Christiane, in the next years or so who may be asking the very difficult question, who lost Mexico? Because the
willingness of Mexico to continue building this strategic forward-leaning relationship with the United States is going to evaporate.
AMANPOUR: But where does Mexico turn then if it`s not with the United States?
SARUKHAN: Well, it`s not an issue of and/or. The trade dynamics, because again, I think he will not be able to reach a point of slapping relevant
tariffs on Mexico because of the domestic pushback in the United States. Remember, Mexico is just modernized and upgraded its free trade agreement
with the European Union. We have -- we are part of revamped TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Mexico has -- Mexico along with Chile are the
two countries on the face of the earth that have the largest network of free trade agreements in the world.
AMANPOUR: It is quite remarkable to see how the current political dynamics are causing shifts in various different countries looking at other options
to conduct their business. It`s very interesting what you just brought up.
Ambassador Sarukhan, thank you for joining me from Washington in fact.
SARUKHAN: It`s a great pleasure, Christiane.
AMANPOUR: Thank you. And of course, now we`re going to turn to the humanitarian disaster which is the backdrop for this crisis to a large
extent.
Some 130,000 migrants, as I said, were caught crossing the border illegally last month, including 11,000 minors. These are levels not seen in more
than a decade. The surge comes as dilapidated, dirty and unsafe conditions have been found at some detention centers, according to a report by the
inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security.
Just last month, another child migrant died in U.S. custody. That is six child deaths in less than a year. Taking care of migrant children is now a
billion-dollar industry. And one nonprofit is dominating that market. Southwest Key Programs has been awarded $955 million worth of federal
contracts to run shelters since 2015. But it`s faced federal investigations over alleged financial impropriety.
Reporter Nicholas Kulish has written about this and is joining me from New York. And also, with us is Dr. Scott Allen who blew the whistle on the
appalling conditions in ICE detention centers. He is now represented by the Government Accountability Project, and he is coming to us from
California.
So, gentlemen, thank you both for joining us.
Let me first ask you, Nicholas Kulish, what conditions you discovered. You broke this story, along with your colleagues from "The New York Times"
about the Southwest Key Programs. Give us what you found out.
NICHOLAS KULISH, INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Sure. Well, what we discovered was that this [13:20:00] nonprofit, this charity,
if you will, was actually almost a money-making machine. Paying its CEO $1.5 million a year, its CFO $1 million a year, which as a result meant
that the children were not getting everything that they needed, subpar food, subpar medical care. You also didn`t have the kinds of controls to
ensure the right people were taking care of the children which resulted in sexual abuse allegations, physical abuse allegations. It was -- there were
significant problems there.
AMANPOUR: I mean, look, when you talk about the incredible amount of profit, this nonprofit is raking in, the salaries given to the CEO and CFO.
And we know the CEO had to step down and did step down earlier this year. How did that happen? Because this program, let`s face it, began in the
Obama administration, I mean, it began in 2015. So, what`s been the change? Why has this only just come to, you know, to attention, Nicholas?
KULISH: I mean, I think partly it was the child separations, right? You know, when the children were being separated from their families and put
into these institutions, it obviously meant that people started to take a closer look.
In particular, I think a lot of viewers will remember the Walmart. I mean, what better symbol is there for the way that the children are being
treated, that they`re being stacked up by the hundreds, over a thousand children in a former Walmart superstore. And so, that, I think, led us and
other journalists to take a really hard look at what was happening inside Southwest Key Programs.
AMANPOUR: So, let`s turn now to you, Dr. Scott Allen. I mean, essentially you are a whistleblower and you reported a lot of these terrible
conditions. I mean, I don`t know what you think of this terminology, but the "L.A. Times" wrote about it as -- they called it concentration camps.
And they said, you know, you may, you know, recoil at that term, but you should recoil. You being the public. I mean, really? Was it that bad?
Is it that bad?
SCOTT ALLEN, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY WHISTLEBLOWER: Well, first, Christiane, I should clarify for your audience that the centers I was
responsible for inspecting were the Family Residential Centers. These are centers run directly by the Department of Homeland Security, often through
contractors, and they house minor children accompanied by at least one parent. Typically, one parent.
So, they are distinctly different from the unaccompanied minor centers that you`ve just been talking about. But in any case, have parallel problems
and keeping children safe.
AMANPOUR: So, let me just ask you then. Do you agree that kind of really quite pointed terminology for the ones that Nicholas was talking about, I
mean, is that an appropriate way to describe them?
ALLEN: Well, I think as a physician, the main thing I can tell you is that the medical communities are quite unified in opposition to the detention of
children in these types of settings because decades of research have demonstrated that such detention is harmful to both their mental health and
physical health.
AMANPOUR: So, tell me exactly what you found in these ICE detention centers, Doctor.
ALLEN: So, my colleague, Dr. Pamela McPherson, who is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, and myself, I`m an internal medicine physician,
both of us with decades of experience in detention health, have been inspecting the Family Residential Centers since the very first one under
the Obama administration opened in 2014.
From the beginning, we reported our concerns that detention of children, regardless of the conditions of confinement is harmful to their health.
But in addition, we observed systemic problems in meeting their complex needs. We found problems recruiting and retaining qualified pediatricians,
pediatric mental health experts, there were problems acquiring interpretation. Many of these children speak indigenous languages and
interpretation services are difficult to find, making the medical transaction very fraught and risky.
And we found problems across a number of facilities with the physical design of the facilities which often wasn`t well planned to keep children
safe. So, in addition to knowing the detention is harmful, we found that the government was having trouble meeting its own minimal standards for the
health and safety of children.
AMANPOUR: So, when you reported this during, as you said, the Obama administration, what action did the government take?
ALLEN: Well, the very first place we inspected was in Artesia, New Mexico, it`s a largely government run facility, it had been put together under some
haste when the decision was made to start detaining minor [13:25:00] children with a parent.
What we found there were the types of problems I described and really probably the most compelling was the lack of adequate pediatric medical
specialty. Such that we identified it, while we were on site of a small infant who was suffering from diarrhea illness. And under the watchful eye
of well-meaning but typically adult trained clinicians, the baby lost a critical amount of weight and was severely dehydrated.
Really when we identified the case, we alerted the government that this was a near miss. The child actually well could have died of a simple and
treatable medical condition of dehydration. It was at that point we felt the safety of children in that facility was so impaired that we recommend
that they shut down that facility. And indeed, they did.
AMANPOUR: OK. So, before I turn back to Nicholas, I want to ask you, what happens -- because you`re now a whistleblower, what happens when you
reported it under the Trump administration, after the, you know, zero tolerance child separation policy?
ALLEN: Well, as Nicholas stated, a real key turning point for us as experts working with the government was the child separation policy. And
when there was public pushback against that policy, we correctly anticipated that their solution would probably be to increase family
detention.
We uniquely understood that rapidly increasing family detention would knowingly put children at risk of significant mental and physical harm.
And as physicians, we had an obligation to raise the alarm. We initially did so internally, as we normally do, but when there was no timely
response, we were eventually obligated to notify Congress, consistent with the Whistleblower Protection Laws in the United States.
AMANPOUR: And so, Nicholas, whistleblowing, consistent with the laws, Congress alerted, what have they done about it?
KULISH: You know, unfortunately, I think that they are so overwhelmed by the numbers of people that you showed in that graphic that, I mean, it`s --
you know, it`s a little bit like trying to -- the proverbial fixing the car while it`s driving on the highway. There`s just a -- they are talking
about opening more and more, you know, emergency shelters at this point for unaccompanied children. It`s very hard to find enough space for families.
And so, you know, I think what you see are sort of patchwork fixes and efforts to stay ahead of a crisis rather than really a comprehensive look
at a system that probably needs to be overhauled completely.
AMANPOUR: Well, given the fact that this nonprofit and the one that you`ve particularly focused on, which is Southwest Key, given the fact that they
seem to be evading any enforcement action, any penalties, any fines, although the CEO did step down. You know, like in wars, it`s very hard to
get the warlords to stop fighting because they make profit on all of this.
So, I wonder whether, you know, this is a lucrative business for these organizations and, you know, is there any real attempt to abate -- to see
this crisis abated?
KULISH: Right. Well, I mean, I think if you look at the -- say the emergency shelter in Homestead, Florida, that`s actually being run by a
for-profit company. More and more contracts are going to CHS, a for-profit company. So, you know, we sort of go from nonprofits that are acting like
for-profits to actual, you know, money-making businesses. And I think that, you know, there`s just a lot of money out there to be made on this
crisis. And so, no, there is no real incentive to try to stop it for those groups.
AMANPOUR: Look, you know, it`s always hard to actually say -- and it beggars` belief that in the United States of America, the richest, most
powerful country in the world, at least six children in the latest iteration have died in detention. I mean, just comment on that for me,
Doctor, would you? I mean, I know you`ve talked about dehydration and stuff. But, you know, Nicholas, as well, you can comment.
I mean, state inspectors continue to report on these violations, like children being given anti-depressants without medical assessment, children
trying to commit suicide, not getting the help they need, poor record keeping, poor, you know, attention to food allergies, and as you mentioned,
Doctor, language difficulties. How is this possible that it`s happening in the United States of America?
ALLEN: So, I think the critical mistake we`ve made in policy is it`s prioritizing confinement and using children to send a political message
over what we would have traditionally done at any other time in our history, which is to prioritize care, health and safety of the children.
[13:30:00] We should be mounting a massive relief operation, a humanitarian operation that prioritizes early triage and assessment by qualified health
professionals and placement of children in community settings which has been done safely historically.
And that would result in safer conditions for the children. None of that would preclude an orderly process of adjudicating asylum claims. But we`ve
made a critically terrible mistake not consistent with our history in prioritizing confinement over care.
AMANPOUR: So I am incredibly shocked again by what you have told Congress. You wrote along with your colleague Dr. Pamela McPherson, a letter to
lawmakers this past March on family detentions.
You said the following. "The expansion of detention has resulted in increased reports of harm to children." And then you say, "The practice of
detaining children and families is no longer an issue of policy dispute. It is a willful policy that knowingly inflicts serious harm to children,
including the risk of death."
Again, it is hard for me to read this and believe what I`m reading. A willful policy of causing harm to children in the United States of America.
I mean, you said it, doctor.
ALLEN: Yes. I have worked around immigration and detention settings for nearly 40 years. It shocks me all the more as someone who has been in
these facilities, looked into the eyes of these young women and their young children, often both vulnerable from a mental health standpoint and a
medical standpoint.
It still stuns me to have reported these findings. And it`s deeply disturbing to me that you referred to our March letter, the original
notification to Congress came back in July of 2018. And not only have the practices not stopped, but the program has continued to expand.
AMANPOUR: Well, I mean, look, Nicholas, you`re doing God`s work in breaking these stories, investigating it along with your colleagues, and so
much reporting, even local reporting has been done.
Local activists, local politicians along the border have all tried to raise this red flag and to scream about this emergency. And yet, it is
continuing. Why?
I mean is there -- why is this kind -- I mean there are deaths happening. There is a willful policy of causing harm to children. Why is this not
being, you know, taken more seriously, Nicholas?
KULISH: Well, I mean, more than just continuing, I think we could agree that it`s actually getting worse. I mean part of the issue is, you know,
where you used to have people crossing in the Rio Grande Valley between cities in South Texas, you have more and more children who are crossing now
in remote parts of Arizona and New Mexico.
And they are coming into border patrol care already in much worse condition. Already ill. Already dehydrated. Already suffering.
And, you know, I mean -- and for many of the people at border patrol, they are not equipped or trained to deal with children in this kind of peril.
And so -- and I think I have to say that I would agree with the doctor, that the idea of treating this as almost a law enforcement issue rather
than treating it as an issue of care for minors, for children is one of the big problems because you are really focused on, how do we detain people
rather than how do we heal them?
AMANPOUR: Yes. But you see here`s the thing. I mean the way that the dial moves, is to give visibility, right. To have reports like yours, to
have whistleblowers like you, doctor, bring these things to light.
And yet, I wonder whether this lack of visibility that still exists, despite what you guys are trying to do, means a lack of accountability to
wit apparently the last inspection of family detention facilities by the office of civil rights, et cetera and civil liberties occurred back in
2017. That`s more than two years ago.
And this administration has got rid of fact-checking groups or advisory boards when it doesn`t like what they were saying. The advisory committee
for the sustained national climate assessment, et cetera, et cetera.
Tell me how, doctor, since you`re the whistleblower here, where is the accountability? And is it just easy to sort of back that into the shadows?
ALLEN: Well, it`s a really key question. And, obviously, I strongly believe in accountability and I`m asking the same question, where is the
accountability?
Clearly, the internal mechanisms of which the office of civil rights and civil liberties historically have been a part of were no longer working.
And this is why we [13:35:00] elevated our concerns to Congress.
However, in the months since our initial disclosures in July of last year to the present, other than being asked to quietly brief staffers in
congressional committees and some conversations with some legislators, there have yet to be hearings specifically on this topic and more
importantly, no particular effort to hold the current administration accountable or to recognize the pressing nature of ongoing harms to
children.
AMANPOUR: And Nicholas, finally to you, we`ve only got a little bit less than a minute, but this is a political issue as well obviously. And the
president has his base and we`ve just, you heard us talk to Ambassador Sarukhan about the tariffs in punishment for this migration.
How -- it really is red meat to the base. So I mean it`s also a political situation.
KULISH: Right. I think that you know, to say as the president did, we are going to no longer have, you know, soccer balls and education and legal
representation for the children in unaccompanied minor shelters. I think it`s something that will be applauded by his base.
And, you know, these places like Southwest Key, before they were viewed as Walmart gulags, they were previously criticized as country clubs for
children by Republican legislators who saw those benefits that I just described as things that illegal immigrants in their language did not
deserve.
And so I think that the idea that you`re going to see a great investment of money in trying to care for these children under the current administration
is probably unlikely.
AMANPOUR: Well, I mean it`s really important to keep these stories coming. Nicholas Kulish and Dr. Allen, thank you so much indeed for joining us.
Now, the ceaseless misery of life at the U.S.-Mexico border has not escaped our next guest. Elaine Welteroth was the youngest ever editor of "Teen
Vogue." During her tenure, she led an editorial revolution putting the politics of today`s America at the heart of the publication`s coverage.
Commentary on identity, immigration, sexuality came to punctuate "Teen Vogue`s" typical stories on style, on beauty, and fashion. Welteroth
details all of this and this transformation in her barrier-breaking path to success with her new memoir "More Than Enough." And she`s been speaking
about all of this with our Alicia Menendez.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
ALICIA MENENDEZ, CONTRIBUTOR: Elaine, thank you so much for being here.
ELAINE WELTEROTH, FORMER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, TEEN VOGUE: Thank you so much for having me.
MENENDEZ: There`s a moment in the book, and I want you to take me back to that moment in your childhood when you were going through magazines trying
to create a picture collage of your family.
WALTEROTH: So it`s actually my very first memory in life. I was in preschool so around probably 3-years-old.
And I was sitting around a sea of kids and the instructors gave us an assignment which was to cut out people from magazines who look like our
family. Make a collage of our family to show and tell the classroom.
And so I dig in. I`m looking through. And I`m realizing no one looks like me or my family.
MENENDEZ: Because?
WALTEROTH: Because I`m brown. And I then realized everyone else is not brown except one boy in the class who is Mexican and it instantly made me
feel what I now know as other.
And as I looked through those pages, I recognize now that what I was experiencing was for the first time a lack of representation in media.
Obviously, didn`t have that kind of -- that level of consciousness, didn`t have those terms at 3-years-old.
I just knew it didn`t make me feel good. And I actually had teachers realize what was going on and come over and try to point me to like the one
brown person in one of the magazines and she pointed at the girl and said, "She looks so pretty. Look at her, she looks just like you. Look at her
hair."
She looked nothing like me. And I`m like, OK, because she`s the one brown girl. And something in me so desperately did not want to be different that
I ignored her. I froze up and I just kept cutting out white people and I made a collage of a white family.
MENENDEZ: And how did your black mother feel about that?
WELTEROTH: And my mom wasn`t having it. When my mom saw that collage, it was as if she had been preparing her whole life to have this race
conversation.
There was a full-on intervention. My older brother got pulled into it. She sat us down at the dining room table. She pulled out Ebony and Essence
Magazines and she said, "We`re going to redo that assignment. You`re going to take off those white bodies off that page. You can leave your dad."
Because my dad is white, although my dad was nothing like the white guy I picked out. I picked out like this businessman, this [13:40:00] really
chic man with a business suit and a briefcase. And my dad was like a carpenter who came home covered in sawdust every day.
And she said, "We`re going to redo this assignment." So we went through and we cut out people who looked like us. And she proceeded to pin that
collage or she taped that collage onto my bedroom wall right next to my bed so every night it was the last thing I saw and it was the first thing that
I saw when I woke up every morning because she wanted to reinforce this idea that you are a black girl and this is not anything to be ashamed of
and there is no escaping it.
And we celebrate that in this house. And I think having my mother there from the very beginning reinforce those messages of pride was really,
really important. Especially as a brown girl growing up in a predominantly white world.
MENENDEZ: What I find so interesting about the white paper family story and then a lot of the stories that follow is that it underscores the fact
that at home, you`re receiving one message. At home, you`re being supported. There`s no confusion there.
WELTEROTH: Right.
MENENDEZ: Even then, you cannot protect a girl from all of the messages that will come from the outside world.
WELTEROTH: Yes, yes.
MENENDEZ: What did that look like for you?
WELTEROTH: Well, listen, I think -- I`ll say this. The through line of this book and the title "Even More Than Enough" really was inspired by this
stat that I found that said that in America, young girls` confidence peaks at age nine which rattled me to my core.
And at the same time, when I really thought about it, it was unsurprising thinking about my own journey and the journeys about all the women in my
life. And it made me realize that we all sort of share this similar arc where you`re born into the world with a sense of limitlessness and
possibility and then slowly, but surely, the world places you in boxes and labels you and chips away at that confidence.
MENENDEZ: One of the experiences that you give us a window into that I know that we hear as much about is your experience of trying to prove to
yourself and others that you were black enough. And that comes in various forms. Boyfriends that you would use to validate your blackness? Friend
circles?
WELTEROTH: I don`t think any of those decisions were certainly not who I chose to date were conscious. It wasn`t me consciously trying to embrace
my blackness or --
MENENDEZ: But you see it as part of your retrospective, right or --
WELTEROTH: When I look back, I think that -- and I just thought that boy was fine. So first --
MENENDEZ: But you stayed with him a little long.
WELTEROTH: I stayed with him a little bit too long, as so many women do by the way. We often stay in bad relationships well past their expiration
date.
But certainly, growing up as someone who comes from a mixed race background, trying to figure out who I am and where I fit into the world,
there were some awkward stages. Yes, I was often the black friend, the token black friend in white circles when I was coming up all the way
through until college.
And I felt this yearning to really find my tribe of black women that I could be friends with and nurture a sisterhood with black women. And I
just didn`t have access to that community really when I was growing up.
So there was this urgency when I got to college. I was like I have to find black friends. And some of that came from a level of hurt.
There`s one experience that I share where my white girlfriends are my best friends for life, but there was one instance that I experienced at a
slumber party around eighth grade where the "N" word was used. And there`s nothing like that moment where the trust is broken between -- and where you
recognize your blackness and how it separates you from these people that you felt so intimately connected to and I still do, to be clear. We worked
through it and this is someone who to this day is one of my best friends.
But these are the moments that helped me recognize that blackness is not about the way you talk or the way you walk or who you date. It is a
collective experience of exclusion that cannot be [13:45:00] understood by -- deeply in the same way by someone who has never had to face that same
type of discrimination.
And so it sounds silly, but like I was laser focused. I was like I`m trying to find the black table at this school, which is Something that I
talk about in my book, this concept of the black table.
And, really, what the black table is, it`s a safe space where you can just be yourself and where you don`t have to worry about these types of
encounters happening, these microaggressions happening.
You can just take off the masks and you can stop code-switching and you can just really be yourself.
MENENDEZ: End of college, you got competing internships. One at Ebony.
WELTEROTH: Yes.
MENENDEZ: One at Essence.
WELTEROTH: Yes.
MENENDEZ: You chose to go to Ebony which everyone drags you for.
WELTEROTH: Yes.
MENENDEZ: What did you learn about the hierarchy of American media working at Ebony?
WELTEROTH: I`m from a small town. So I didn`t understand the politics of media when I was coming into this world.
I thought this was the best -- I mean I thought the clouds were parting, this was the best job I could ever come across.
But then on day one, I walked in, I looked around, it`s like this is nothing like "Devil Wears Prada". This is nothing like "Sex and The City."
Like where`s the fashion closet?
And I remember opening the door to what I thought would be the fashion closet and it was like this office supply room with like relaxers spilling
out of ripped bags and it just wasn`t the glamorous vision that I had in my mind of what it looked like to work at a magazine.
I cried in the bathroom. I got -- I let it out. I was just like, did I make the wrong decision?
But I -- you know, I sucked it up and I learned so much at that first job and the rest is history. I eventually was able to make my way to Conde
Nast and work my way up.
MENENDEZ: Because you end up at "Glamour".
WELTEROTH: Yes.
MENENDEZ: And there, you have the opportunity to talk to Eva Chung. What`s that conversation like?
WELTEROTH: At the time, she was the beauty and health director at "Teen Vogue" which is like one of the most coveted jobs at the time and she was
like the darling of new media. And she called me and told me in confidence that, over coffee, that she was looking to help find her replacement and
that she thought I`d be great for the job.
And I said thank you so much for thinking of me but I don`t want to risk it right now. I think if this were six months from now, I`d feel better. I
just got promoted and she said, "I totally understand, totally respect that."
And then days later I get a call from HR and the long story short is a friend of mine put it this way. she`s like what Eva wants, Eva gets.
MENENDEZ: So talk to me about some of the stories you chose to tell and some of the people you allowed to tell them during your time at "Teen
Vogue."
WELTEROTH: Well, the very first story I told at "Teen Vogue" was my natural hair story. I was appointed as the beauty director and I learned
only after accepting the job through headlines that I was the first black beauty director in Conde Nast history.
I didn`t think of myself as an activist in doing this. I just thought this is a story that probably have never been told in "Teen Vogue" and I know
based on all the girls that stop me on the street and ask me about my hair, this is something that will resonate.
So I told my natural hair story, and I cannot tell you how many times I was stopped by young girls who said, thank you so much for that story. I`d
never seen a story like that in "Teen Vogue" or moms or aunties who said how much it meant to them. And it really -- it was -- it reinforced that I
was there on a mission.
MENENDEZ: But what did that actually look like in the work that you did at "Teen Vogue"? How did you take the political and make the beauty and
health section which I don`t think people think of as inherently political?
WELTEROTH: No, not at all.
MENENDEZ: How did you do that?
WELTEROTH: I think that`s such a good question. I would say baby steps. Story by story.
And using beauty as a vehicle to celebrate diversity and inclusion and to start conversations that matter around identity, cultural identity, racial
identity. We did a story about cultural appreciation that put young girls from routinely appropriated communities at the center who could tell the
world from their own perspective what the differences between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation.
And it was those kinds of stories that started to shift the culture internally and how we thought about our platform and how we could use it to
really make a difference. And how even, yes, at a teen fashion title, we could start to infuse social consciousness into it and eventually news and
politics.
And I will say this, we did it -- we got it done because we didn`t ask for permission. We were prepared to apologize.
MENENDEZ: This is one of my favorite stories in the book. Tell me about the day that you were promoted to [13:50:00] editor-in-chief of "Teen
Vogue."
WELTEROTH: What a day. So, let`s see. I remember I was on set in like baggy jeans and a sweatshirt and a leather jacket.
MENENDEZ: Yes, you were in your worst outfit. My best outfit.
WELTEROTH: I was wearing Balenciaga booties and they were cute but they were not Anna Wintour approved. So I get this e-mail from Anna Wintour`s
office to come in and -- right away.
So I raced back to the office, change my clothes. Luckily, I had an outfit in my office and I might have pulled something from the fashion closet.
And I throw myself together and I go up there and I`m offered the job.
And I have to say, it was sort of this surreal moment because you work your whole career just dreaming of one day maybe that happening. And not ever
really expecting that opportunity to happen.
MENENDEZ: You were young.
WELTEROTH: Yes, I was 29-years-old. We had been doing the work to change the mission of "Teen Vogue" before that happened.
So I felt really equipped. I felt really ready. I had a clear vision of where I knew I wanted to take the title.
And I also did it in concert with two other people. So by the time that sort of we were handed the reins as leaders of this teen title, we were
ready to hit the ground running, and we did.
And then the 2016 presidential election happened. And there was one story that sort of caught fire and went viral that was published on the website.
And it was called "Trump is gas lighting America."
And that story is really what put "Teen Vogue" on the map as this sort of new political platform that was giving voice to a young generation of
socially conscious and politically engaged young people.
MENENDEZ: There is a story that stands out to me in the book because it takes what we generally think of as code-switching and sort of turns the
paradigm on its head. It`s a meeting that you lead with Bozoma Saint John, who`s a noted marketing executive. I think a lot of people know her from
her time at Uber and Boz just sort of owns the room.
WELTEROTH: She owns every room.
MENENDEZ: And she does not code switch. And that allows you to not code switch. And all of a sudden, you notice that the white people in the room
are having the experience of what ordinarily nonwhite people in white spaces constantly have.
WELTEROTH: That`s one of my favorite stories in the book. Boz is someone who just epitomizes liberation in the way that she moves through any room.
And she taught me something really early on when I became editor-in-chief. I reached out to her, had this big idea that I was actually having a hard
time getting traction.
And so I shared this idea with her. I asked for a meeting. And I had planned for it to be kind of a formal meeting where my whole team would
come and then her team would come.
MENENDEZ: She said no?
WELTEROTH: She was like "Yes, yes, we`ll do that. Have your people talk to my people but when can you come?"
So I come to her office and it`s like fur and like mur, incense, Jill Scott is playing. And I`m like, they let you do this here? She`s like, "They
don`t let me do anything." And I was like I just love the way this woman rolls.
The long story short is that we come up with this idea. I share this idea with her, she loves it and she goes, "Great."
So let`s set up the other meeting. We`re going to act like this meeting never happened. This is the pre-meeting.
I go what`s a pre-meeting? I`ve never been a part of a pre-meeting. She goes, "Girl, this is what white man have been doing on golf courses for
generations. This is how we do it. I got your back, I will support you on that meeting. We`re going to do this."
And so then we have the meeting where the two teams are coming together, but it was a small meeting. And the majority were black women leaders.
And it was the very first time in my career that I had seen the alchemy switch. And I saw that the white women in the room just sort of grappling
with being the only ones in the room and sort of code-switching or reverse code-switching.
And it was fascinating to me. It was illuminating to me. It was a little bit humorous to me because I had been that person my whole life, throughout
my whole career.
MENENDEZ: Been both directions.
WELTEROTH: In both directions. In both directions. In all-black spaces, not feeling white enough. In all-white spaces, definitely being the only
black person.
So I thought -- what it illuminated for me was that we all would be better citizens for going outside of our comfort zone and experiencing what it`s
like to be the [13:55:00] only one in the room.
MENENDEZ: Elaine, thank you so much.
WELTEROTH: Thank you so much for having me.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
AMANPOUR: And Elaine Welteroth`s new book which is "More Than Enough" is out later this week.
And that is it for us today. Remember, you can always listen to our podcast and see us online at amanpour.com. Of course, you can follow me on
Instagram and Twitter.
Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.
END
