650: Change You Can Maybe Believe In
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"WBC Chicago, this is American Live." Step 1. You are currently in the custody of the US Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection. You have been charged with a crime of illegal entry into the United States. Step 2. So Kevin, who is this and what is she reading? So this is Rachelle Garza, she's an immigration attorney in Brownsville, Texas, and she's reading a flyer that was handed to some parents after they were separated from their children. Kevin C is correspondent for The Washington Post. And on the flyer, there's a phone number basically, which is really the only lifeline they have to their children. The only way they can get information from the government about where their children are, how their children are doing. And explain what she's trying to do. She's trying to locate her client's child. So she represents a man who's detained in an immigration detention center who basically minutes after crossing the border was separated from his daughter. How old is his daughter? She's 12. OK, so let's figure out how we're supposed to do this. So action one, call ICE. If you're in a detention facility, call this way. OK, let's call that OR parent hotline. What is that? The OR parent hotline. So we're calling outside of an residential facility. So that's the phone number that you're supposed to call either as a parent or as an attorney to try to locate your child. I mean, it's really the most-- when you look at this flyer, it's the most useful piece of information on it. So yeah, this is the number that Rachelle's about to call. So it starts in Spanish and then it switches to English. You have reached the OR national cost center open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are calling about a person traveling to the United States who is 18 years of age or older, please press 1. If you have a case manager's extension, please press 2. For all other calls, please press 3 or remain on the line and you will be connected with a case manager. Your call will be monitored for quality assurance. OK, so there's whole music and there's a phone tree. This all feels very like the most normal thing in the world. Exactly. It's like you're trying to fix your cable. So on this recording, you made an operator picks up after six minutes and not that long, really. Please wait as we can. Yeah, of course. OK, how are you doing, Alan? Very good.
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