<i>[tense music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>WOMAN: Hey Buddy. Are you happy, happy?</i> <i>CAITLIN: This is Constantin Mutu.</i> <i>Five months of his life were documented</i> <i>through these images.</i> <i>At just four months old he was taken from his father</i> <i>at the United States Border, making him the youngest child</i> <i>to be separated by the Trump Administration.</i> <i>But there were thousands of children</i> <i>separated like him.</i> All right, thanks for calling back. <i>My name is Caitlin Dickerson.</i> <i>I’m a national immigration reporter</i> <i>for The New York Times. </i>And you need that to give credence to the report, right? <i>Constantin’s separation took place</i> <i>at the same time I was reporting</i> <i>on family separations at the US border.</i> <i>I’m going to tell you how my reporting helped to uncover</i> <i>one of the Trump Administration’s</i> <i>most contentious policies. [baby cooing]</i> <i>And how that policy altered one infant’s life.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>Even before Constantin was born,</i> <i>the plans that would come to upend his life</i> <i>were already in motion.</i> <i>WOMAN: The fears are growing in the face</i> <i>of President Trump’s plans to step up</i> <i>immigration law enforcement.</i> <i>CAITLIN: A new administration</i> <i>had set its sights on the southern US border</i> <i>calling the situation a threat to national security.</i> <i>JEFF SESSIONS: They are violating the law</i> <i>and they need to be prosecuted.</i> <i>CAITLIN: The number of people seeking asylum was increasing.</i> <i>That included families</i> <i>who would not ultimately qualify to stay.</i> <i>MAN: Are department of Homeland Security personnel</i> <i>gonna separate the children from their moms and dads?</i> <i>JEFF: We—we have tremendous...</i> <i>CAITLIN: So Trump officials were working on</i> <i>an aggressive plan to stop people</i> <i>from crossing the border.</i> <i>- Yes, I am considering in order to deter,</i> <i>uh, more movement along this terribly dangerous network...</i> <i>CAITLIN: One idea was to separate children</i> <i>from their families. - Exactly that.</i> <i>CAITLIN: After a backlash, the administration</i> <i>publicly retreated from the idea.</i> <i>But soon after I got a tip</i> <i>that it was still moving forward behind closed doors.</i> <i>Sources said the White House favored the policy</i> <i>and plans were being drafted to separate families,</i> <i>and to justify the separations legally.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>That was when we published</i> <i>our first story on separations.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>Meanwhile, thousands of miles</i> <i>from Washington Constantin’s family was making</i> <i>their own plans to come to the United States.</i> 276 is what we’re looking for. Vasile? - Yes. - I’m Caitlin. Hi. - Hi. <i>CAITLIN: I’d first come across</i> <i>the mention of a four-month-old baby</i> <i>in court documents.</i> <i>CAITLIN: I was struck by his age</i> <i>and quickly confirmed he was</i> <i>the youngest separated child.</i> <i>CAITLIN: So I started searching</i> <i>for him and his family.</i> <i>CAITLIN: Constantin was from Romania.</i> <i>The vast majority of people affected by this policy</i> <i>were from Central America...</i> <i>but Constantin’s experience reflects the stories</i> <i>of thousands of families, from El Salvador,</i> <i>to Mexico, to Romania.</i> <i>CAITLIN: The Mutus live at the far end of a village</i> <i>in a shared family home.</i> <i>Constantin’s parents, Vasile and Florentina,</i> <i>got married when they were teenagers.</i> <i>CAITLIN: The Mutus are Roma,</i> <i>which means they’re part of a community</i> <i>that has long faced discrimination</i> <i>in many parts of the world.</i> <i>CAITLIN: They said their children were harassed</i> <i>in school and that they struggled to find jobs</i> <i>and receive treatment when they went to the hospital.</i> <i>CAITLIN: Vasile and Florentina told me that, like many Roma,</i> <i>their families had taken odd jobs</i> <i>and often begged for money across Europe</i> <i>to support themselves.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>The Mutus knew other people in their community</i> <i>who had claimed asylum in the United States,</i> <i>so they made plans to do the same.</i> <i>CAITLIN: They decided to travel with Constantin</i> <i>and his four-year-old brother.</i> <i>Their older children would join them later.</i> <i>The flew to Mexico on February 8th, 2018,</i> <i>and boarded a bus to the US border.</i> <i>Right before they arrived, the bus accidentally left</i> <i>Florentina and their older son behind at a rest stop.</i> <i>Vasile was alone with Constantin.</i> <i>He couldn’t reach Florentina</i> <i>so he decided to cross the bridge</i> <i>into Brownsville, Texas, a legal port of entry,</i> <i>and wait for his wife.</i> <i>CAITLIN: For several hours, he waited with Constantin</i> <i>with no understanding</i> <i>of the political context he’d just walked into.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>CAITLIN: Vasile says that border patrol agents</i> <i>didn’t explain why they were taking Constantin,</i> <i>or where he was going.</i> <i>CAITLIN: After Vasile and his son were separated,</i> <i>Constantin was placed in the care of the US Government.</i> <i>At four months old, he was served this notice</i> <i>to appear before an immigration judge.</i> <i>Three days later,</i> <i>government workers flew him here</i> <i>to western Michigan.</i> <i>[tense music]</i> Do you remember the first time you heard about Constantin? - Yes, there was just a lot of surprise and skepticism. Everyone trying to figure out, like, how— who is bringing this infant, how are we going to get him here, we’ve never had a kid this young, and so that was... <i>CAITLIN: Ana Devereaux and Camila Trefftz</i> <i>work with a legal aid organization</i> <i>that typically represents kids who cross the border</i> <i>without their parents.</i> What did you guys know about family separation... <i>But in the months before Constantin arrived,</i> <i>they began to see children who had crossed with a parent,</i> <i>but then were separated.</i> - Five to seven-year-olds that were coming, um, that would tell us, “I was separated from my parent.” We were seeing it more and more consistently without really understanding what the trends were or why it was happening. <i>CAITLIN: Like a lot of these kids,</i> <i>Constantin arrived in Michigan with no information</i> <i>about where his parents were or how to contact them.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>An entire team began to work on his case.</i> - I think the age gave all of us a sense of urgency of trying to figure out what was going on. <i>CAITLIN: Florentina decided that it wasn’t safe</i> <i>to cross the border, so she returned to Romania.</i> <i>Meanwhile, Vasile was detained in Texas.</i> <i>He had past convictions for fraud,</i> <i>one that involved robbery,</i> <i>but it’s not clear if that’s how officials</i> <i>justified separating him from Constantin.</i> <i>For nearly two weeks, Vasile and Florentina</i> <i>didn’t know where their baby was.</i> <i>CAITLIN: Vasile was provided almost no translation services</i> <i>at the detention center.</i> <i>He withdrew his asylum application</i> <i>thinking that it would help him</i> <i>get Constantin back more quickly.</i> <i>Instead, he spent the next four months in detention.</i> <i>CAITLIN: The same month that Constantin</i> <i>arrived in Michigan,</i> <i>the American Civil Liberties Union</i> <i>told me that they were about to file a lawsuit</i> <i>on behalf of a mother who had been separated</i> <i>from her seven-year-old daughter.</i> <i>This woman became known as Ms. L.</i> <i>And her lawsuit eventually became a class action</i> <i>on behalf of all separated parents.</i> And what happened after you filed the lawsuit? - So, when we filed the national class action we had Ms. L but we also had affidavits from a number of other parents describing what happened to them in vivid detail and what we were hearing was that family separation was increasing. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>CAITLIN: Officials continued to deny</i> <i>that they were separating families.</i> <i>But then I learned of an internal government document.</i> <i>A list of separated children created to help</i> <i>find their parents within the federal system.</i> <i>A government spokesperson first denied</i> <i>the list was accurate,</i> <i>but several inside sources</i> <i>told me that it was.</i> <i>Ultimately, officials confirmed the document</i> <i>for the record...</i> <i>and we published our story.</i> <i>At that point, the list had more than 700 names.</i> <i>Lee: The first question from the judge was,</i> “Is the ‘New York Times’ report correct that there are now 700 families separated?” I think it really got the judge’s attention, because he then recognized the Ms. L situation was not a one off, it wasn’t a handful of cases, that we were looking at a potential humanitarian crisis here. - I have put in place zero-tolerance policy... <i>CAITLIN: It took another two weeks</i> <i>before then Attorney General Jeff Sessions</i> <i>made this announcement.</i> - If you cross the border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child may be separated from you as required by law. <i>CAITLIN: The country would soon find out</i> <i>what this meant.</i> <i>[tense music]</i> <i>CAITLIN: As Trump’s zero-tolerance policy</i> <i>went into effect, hundreds more children</i> <i>were funneled into government custody.</i> <i>Some went into mass shelters</i> <i>while some of the youngest and most vulnerable</i> <i>were placed in foster homes.</i> <i>Constantin was placed in the care of a Michigan family</i> <i>who after months of negotiation</i> <i>agreed to speak with us.</i> <i>[baby crying]</i> WOMAN: Oh, yeah. He would do new sounds. They only do it for a short amount of time so you want his mom to be able to hear that. - And what do you remember of the first time that you met him? - He was all bundled up and it was nighttime so, the next morning our girls wanted to see him. So they crept into his room and were like, ”[gasping] Look at him!” - And what did he... <i>For security reasons</i> <i>foster families are generally barred</i> <i>from talking to the media.</i> <i>We agreed not to reveal this family’s identity</i> <i>so they could speak about Constantin.</i> MAN: Different things go through you mind. You don’t know what his personality will be like. WOMAN: Even four-month-old babies, you have to get to know them. MAN: That looks like an earlier picture, too. WOMAN: He doesn’t have his curls yet. CAITLIN: His hair got curly at some point? WOMAN: Yeah, yeah. <i>I think for me, every time Constantin would...</i> <i>you know, like he started sitting up</i> <i>or he started to feed himself or, you know,</i> <i>when he started to really, like, interact.</i> <i>Um...</i> <i>I would always think, it breaks my heart</i> <i>that his mom is missing this moment.</i> <i>[somber music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>MAN: The hard part about taking care of him</i> <i>was knowing that he wasn’t being taken care of</i> <i>by the people that took such good care of him</i> <i>before he came to see us.</i> <i>WOMAN: You know, he has a loving family in...</i> <i>WOMAN: Baby!</i> <i>WOMAN: Baby!</i> <i>CAITLIN: Constantin was growing up</i> <i>with another family across the world.</i> WOMAN: Baby! - [giggling] <i>CAITLIN: And as their bond grew...</i> <i>a chaotic political moment unfolded around all of them.</i> <i>Families arriving at the border</i> <i>now faced a new directive.</i> <i>The numbers of separated children were growing.</i> <i>Parents would end up thousands of miles apart</i> <i>from their children with no way of communicating.</i> <i>CAMILA: We were trying to find parents,</i> <i>trying to contact detention facilities,</i> meeting with kids and having them sob uncontrollably in our offices. <i>SCOTT: Parents are in ICE adult detention</i> <i>trying to find their children,</i> and there’s no process for putting them back together. Nobody at ICE has the phone number of the shelter that the kids have been sent to. <i>CAITLIN: Scott Shuchart worked in the</i> <i>Department of Homeland Security Civil Rights Office</i> <i>at the time. His team was processing</i> <i>hundreds of complaints a month,</i> <i>but even they were in the dark</i> <i>about how to track these families.</i> - We were trying to sound the alarm that was happening under zero-tolerance had major legal and constitutional problems. [angry chanting] <i>MAN: Across the country, outrage is building.</i> <i>CAITLIN: That summer, family separation</i> <i>grabbed the country’s attention.</i> <i>MAN: What kind of nation puts children in cages?</i> <i>CAITLIN: Then the news organization ProPublica</i> <i>released this audio from inside</i> <i>a federal detention center.</i> <i>[children crying]</i> - Well, good afternoon. It is my pleasure to be here. <i>CAITLIN: After months of contradicting statements</i> <i>from the administration,</i> <i>Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen</i> <i>gave an official explanation.</i> So in the last three months we have seen illegal immigration on our southern border exceed 50,000 people each month, <i>and a 435% increase</i> <i>in family units entering the country illegally.</i> <i>As long illegal entry remains a criminal offense,</i> <i>DHS will not look the other way.</i> <i>CAITLIN: Illegal entry is a crime,</i> <i>but it’s a low level offense that was rarely enforced</i> <i>against asylum seekers.</i> <i>Especially families.</i> <i>The Trump Administration changed that</i> <i>by ramping up prosecutions against more people,</i> <i>including those traveling with kids.</i> <i>Children can’t be held in jails,</i> <i>so they were separated from their parents.</i> <i>But even some families who crossed the border legally</i> <i>were separated, like Vasile and Constantin.</i> REPORTER: Are you intending for parents to be separated from their children? Are you intending to send a message? - I—I find that offensive. No, because why would I ever create a policy that purposely does that? - It’s not a policy change to enforce the law. That’s been—that’s been this administration’s policy since the day we got here. - I think it was just overwhelming to people that what we were working on was a policy where people had decided that hurting children was a way to achieve a general immigration policy goal. <i>[tense music]</i> <i>CAITLIN: Then two things happened in less than a week.</i> - Well, thank you very much. We’re signing an executive order. <i>CAITLIN: In Washington, President Trump</i> <i>bowed to pressure by signing an executive order</i> <i>halting family separations.</i> <i>He tried to place the blame on Congress</i> <i>for a practice that his own administration</i> <i>had put into place.</i> <i>And in San Diego, the federal judge</i> <i>in the Ms. L lawsuit not only ruled</i> <i>that the separations were unconstitutional,</i> <i>but also that the families had to be reunited</i> <i>under tight deadlines.</i> <i>WOMAN REPORTER: Overnight, a federal judge ordering</i> <i>the government to reunite... MALE REPORTER: Families need</i> <i>to be reunited within 30 days.</i> - The legal standard is, does it shock the conscience uh, to do what the government did here, and the court held that it did. <i>CAITLIN: But this was just the beginning</i> <i>of a long process for these families.</i> WOMAN: Come on. <i>CAITLIN: Despite the court</i> <i>order to reunite families</i> <i>as quickly as possible... </i>WOMAN: Constantin. <i>CAITLIN: Government lawyers halted</i> <i>Constantin’s departure from the US.</i> <i>[tense music]</i> <i>After four months of being detained,</i> <i>Vasile was allowed to return to Romania,</i> <i>but without Constantin.</i> <i>CAITLIN: As the Mutus waited,</i> <i>so did hundreds of other families.</i> <i>REPORTER: More than 2,000 children, HHS says,</i> <i>are still separated from their parents.</i> <i>CAITLIN: These government photos</i> <i>provided some of the few glimpses</i> <i>the public had into the mass shelters</i> <i>where children were being held.</i> <i>REPORTER: We’re learning that so many of these children</i> <i>aren’t even by the border anymore.</i> <i>REPORTER: It is still not clear, though if, when, or how</i> <i>they will be reunited. CAITLIN: When the judge</i> <i>ordered the government to reunite the families,</i> <i>it became clear that there was no plan.</i> - I think that’s when everybody realized how defective the record keeping had been. Right? There was a kind of mad scramble to go through records, thousands of records, by hand to try to identify who went with whom. <i>REPORTER: There are still more than 2,000 children</i> <i>who have not been reunited.</i> <i>Some parents have already been deported.</i> <i>CAITLIN: I got a tip from an inside source</i> <i>that helped to explain why.</i> <i>In processing the separations, border agents had deleted</i> <i>identification numbers that could have been used</i> <i>to track families.</i> <i>And hundreds of parents</i> <i>had already been deported</i> <i>without their kids.</i> <i>We published this story in early July.</i> <i>LEE: And that’s when the judge said,</i> “I want to have a hearing virtually every two days for the next two weeks.” So I think the judge, to his wisdom, recognized, “I’m gonna need to stay on the government because they’re just not gonna to do it.” <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>CAITLIN: Constantin’s day of reunification</i> <i>finally came.</i> <i>He was nine months old</i> <i>and he’d spent the majority of his life</i> <i>in government custody.</i> <i>PILOT: We shortly be departing.</i> <i>Please take your seat, fasten and adjust your seatbelt.</i> <i>CAITLIN: Along with a case worker</i> <i>and two immigration officials,</i> <i>his foster mother flew him to Romania</i> <i>to return him to his parents.</i> WOMAN: I remember just, him like, nuzzling his head up under my chin. Like, I knew in the next hour he was gonna be gone. <i>WOMAN: We were by the luggage carousel</i> and all of a sudden they said, “The family is here!” And his mom was coming and so she came and I... handed her her son. WOMAN: It was really hard. Constantin was reaching for me, and I ended up hiding behind the immigration officers. So I was out of view so she could just have time with her son. But I just stood behind the immigration officers and cried. [dogs barking] <i>[upbeat music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>[speaking Romanian]</i> VASILE: Ahh. Ohh. <i>[speaking Romanian]</i> Bravo. [baby crying] <i>CAITLIN: The government denied our request</i> <i>for an interview or comment on Constantin’s case.</i> <i>CAITLIN: More than 2,500 families were reunited</i> <i>as a result of the Ms. L lawsuit.</i> <i>But then came a new government report</i> <i>suggesting that thousands more families</i> <i>may have been separated.</i> <i>The process of reunification for those families</i> <i>remains unclear.</i> <i>And in fact, family separations are still</i> <i>sometimes happening at the border,</i> <i>and there’s little transparency</i> <i>about how the cases of these families are being handled.</i> - What was so disturbing about this was that the scale of harm was so out of proportion to what the stated policy aims were. <i>SINGERS: ♪ If you’re very, very happy, clap your hands ♪</i> <i>[clap, clap]</i> <i>[tense music]</i> <i>WOMAN: If you met one of these children,</i> <i>if you knew their story,</i> <i>if you knew a fraction</i> <i>of what they’ve gone through,</i> <i>like, all this uproar and fighting</i> and turning all these children into numbers instead of people, that would fall away. If you—if you just knew, like, one of these kids. <i>[somber music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>[percussive music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i>