"There are children by themselves. I saw a six-month-old baby, little girls, little boys. There are mothers with their babies and with small children," Warren said in an interview recorded by CNN. "And they're all on the concrete floors in cages."

At some points during her remarks, Warren's voice seemed to crack as she expressed her frustrations about how people were treated inside the facility.

"That's not what our country stands for. We are people who believe in the worth of every human being," she said when asked about a tweet President Trump sent in which he called for immediately deporting anyone who crosses into the United States illegally without trial. "When a woman comes here with her 4-year-old son, and says, 'I am asking for amnesty, I have been threatened by gangs in my home country,' we should at least give her a hearing. That is the least that is required of us as a country and as human beings."


Jerome Campbell can be reached at jerome.campbell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jeromercampbell.