Maddow got emotional once she attempted to describe scenes lawyers and medical providers reported from the shelters.
MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow cried on the air Tuesday night while trying to deliver an Associated Press report on “tender age” migrant shelters.
The report broke new information on the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy. Officials have started sending babies and other young children separated from their parents at the southwest border to “at least three ‘tender age’ shelters in South Texas.”
Maddow got emotional once she attempted to describe scenes lawyers and medical providers reported from the shelters.
Rachel Maddow chokes up and cries on air as she struggles to deliver news that migrant babies and toddlers have been sent to “tender age” shelters pic.twitter.com/O6crm8cvyR
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) June 20,2018
She asked for an on-screen graphic in an effort to gather herself, which the network didn’t have. After trying again to deliver the news, she apologized and announced the end of the segment.
Maddow wrote a Twitter thread shortly after with the information she intended to say on the air.
Ugh, I’m sorry.
If nothing else, it is my job to actually be able to speak while I’m on TV.
What I was trying to do — when I suddenly couldn’t say/do anything — was read this lede:
1/6
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20,2018
“Lawyers and medical providers who have visited the ”tender age » shelters described play rooms of crying preschool-age children in crisis…
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— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20,2018
“The thought that they are going to be putting such little kids in an institutional setting? I mean it is hard for me to even wrap my mind around it,” said Kay Bellor, vice president for programs at Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, “Toddlers are being detained.”
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— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) June 20,2018
Steven Wagner, an official with the Department of Health and Human Services, said “tender age” shelters are for children younger than 13 years old.
Wagner also said the government doesn’t run the facilities but that each facility has a staff that is specially trained to care for younger children.
The facilities are in Combes, Raymondville, and Brownsville, Texas. A fourth shelter in Houston is scheduled to open soon with capacity for 240 children.
Brooklynn is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an intern for IJR Blue. In Chapel Hill, she began as a copy editor at the… more
