Democracy Now!

Trump and Putin Hold Summit in Helsinki, Trump Faces Protests in Scotland & Britain, In Pakistan, Bomb Attack on Election Campaign Kills Up to 149 in Balochistan, Gaza: 2 Palestinian Children Killed in Israel's Worst Bombing Since 2014 War, Trump Administration Seeks Direct Talks with the Taliban, Haitian Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant Resigns After Anti-Austerity Protests, Judge Slams HHS for Saying Reunifying Migrant Children with Parents Could Pose Risk, Protests Erupt in Chicago After Police Kill Black Man on South Side, Georgia: 2 Cops Use Virtual Coin Flip to Decide Whether to Arrest Driver

Two days after a court-imposed deadline, the Trump administration said Thursday that just 57 of more than 100 children under the age of 5 have been reunited with their parents after they were separated at the border under the "zero tolerance" policy. This comes as the Trump administration has announced a new asylum policy at the U.S.-Mexico border, which instructs immigration officers to immediately reject asylum seekers who say they are fleeing gangs or domestic violence. We're joined by Renée Feltz, Democracy Now! correspondent and producer who has long reported on the criminalization of immigrants, family detention, and the business of detention. Her new story for The Nation, reported in partnership with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, is headlined "For Some Migrant Families, a Second Separation Awaits."

We turn now to a major development in the case of a jailed Mexican journalist that Democracy Now! has followed closely. In El Paso on Wednesday, a federal judge issued a 26-page ruling that questioned the Trump administration's detention of Emilio Gutiérrez Soto and his son Oscar, and ordered an August 1 hearing to examine whether immigration officials violated his First Amendment rights. Gutiérrez first sought asylum in the United States in 2008 after receiving death threats for reporting on alleged corruption in the Mexican military. He's lived here in the U.S. for the past decade and has since won the National Press Club's Freedom of the Press Award. We speak with Penny Venetis, a Rutgers University law professor who filed the First Amendment challenge in Gutiérrez Soto's case; Bill McCarren, executive director of the National Press Club; and Eduardo Beckett, Gutiérrez Soto's lawyer.

President Trump is meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May today, just hours after warning that a "soft Brexit" will kill Britain's chances of a future trade deal with the United States. In an explosive interview with the Rupert Murdoch-owned British tabloid The Sun in which Trump claimed that Britain is losing its culture due to immigration, Trump said Theresa May had ignored his advice on Brexit negotiations. We speak with Gary Younge, editor-at-large for The Guardian and a columnist at The Nation.

President Donald Trump said Friday that immigrants fleeing violence and seeking asylum in Europe are changing "the fabric of Europe. … And I don't mean that in a positive way." Trump's xenophobic comments came during a shocking interview with the Rupert Murdoch-owned British tabloid The Sun. Massive protests have greeted President Trump during his two-day trip to Britain—including a 20-foot-long giant baby Trump blimp outside Parliament. We go to the streets of London to speak with Ash Sarkar, the anti-Trump coalition organizer who confronted Piers Morgan during a "Good Morning Britain" interview Thursday that went viral.

Amid Protests, Trump Meeting with Theresa May After Criticizing Her over Brexit, Trump Falsely Claims He'd Convinced NATO to Increase Military Spending, Trump Admin Couldn't Reunite a Dozen Migrant Kids Because Parents Already Deported, New Asylum Guidelines: Reject at Border All Gang & Domestic Violence-Based Claims, Mexican Immigrant Efrain De La Rosa Dies by Suicide in Stewart Detention Center, Report: Over 600 Migrants Have Drowned Crossing Mediterranean over Last 4 Weeks, FBI Agent Peter Strzok Faces Off with Lawmakers in Contentious Hearing, Ireland to Be First Country in the World to Divest from Fossil Fuels, Justice Dept. Reopens Investigation into Emmett Till's Murder, Carlos Russell, Key Figure of Black Liberation Movement, Dies in New York

Pundits and Democratic heavyweights were stunned when 28-year-old Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat 10-term incumbent Representative Joe Crowley in New York in last month's Democratic primary. We speak with George Monbiot, British journalist and author, and Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, about what her win means for the future of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement.

Mass protests are expected to greet Donald Trump as he arrives for his first visit to Britain as president. In London, protesters will float a 20-foot-long giant baby Trump blimp outside Parliament. The balloon depicts the president as an angry orange baby, wearing a diaper and clutching a cellphone, ready to tweet. In a press conference this morning, Trump said he is "fine" with the mass protests planned in the country and that Britons like him "a lot." In London, we speak with Sheila Menon, social justice activist and one of the organizers behind the Trump baby blimp. And in Oxford, we speak with George Monbiot, a British journalist and author. His latest book is titled "Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis."

At the NATO summit, President Trump called on member states to double their military spending to 4 percent of gross domestic product, and hailed the meeting as a success. He is scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, joins us to discuss NATO, the militarization of U.S. foreign policy and avoiding a second Cold War with Russia over allegations of election meddling. "I would argue that the bipartisan establishment consensus is bankrupt. … We believe you can have secure elections and avoid nuclear catastrophe," said vanden Heuvel. The Nation has just published an open letter, "Common Ground: For Secure Elections and True National Security," co-signed by Daniel Ellsberg, Gloria Steinem, Noam Chomsky, Governor Bill Richardson, Rev. Dr. William Barber and Michael Moore, among others.

Trump Calls on NATO Allies to Vastly Increase Military Spending, Trump Claims Victory at NATO Summit, Boasts of U.S. Weapons Sales, Trump Admin Says It Will Speed Family Reunifications After Missing Deadline, Immigrant Detainees Sue ICE After Being Shackled for Hours in Hot Van, Ex-CIA Contractor MVM Admits Children Held Overnight in AZ Office Building, Judge to Consider Release of Detained Mexican Journalist Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, Trump Admin Argues It Can Hold Prisoners at Guantánamo for 100 Years, Yemen: Amnesty International Fears War Crimes Committed in UAE-Run Prisons, White House Touts Kavanaugh's Business-Friendly Rulings, Papa John's Founder Steps Down as Chairman After Using N-Word, House Speaker Ryan Backs Embattled Rep. Jordan over Sex Abuse Allegations, Former Trump Campaign Chair Paul Manafort Boasts of VIP Treatment in Jail, Nevada Cancels Planned Execution as Drug Maker Objects to Use of Its Drug, Sri Lanka to Reinstate Death Penalty for First Time Since 1976, North Dakota: Water Protector Red Fawn Fallis Sentenced to 57 Months, Indigenous Camp on Canada-U.S. Border Takes Aim at "Line 3" Pipeline

A drug manufacturer has filed suit in an attempt to stop an execution of a condemned prisoner slated for tonight. The drug company Alvogen, which makes the sedative midazolam, filed a complaint in Nevada's Clark County on Tuesday, citing that the Nevada Department of Corrections illegally obtained the drug for use in the execution of Scott Dozier, a former meth dealer who was sentenced to die in 2007 for first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and robbery with a deadly weapon. Last year, Dozier dropped his death penalty appeals and asked to be executed. Nevada officials plan to use an untested three-drug protocol of midazolam, fentanyl and cisatracurium to execute Dozier. Today's execution would be the first time in 12 years that Nevada is carrying out the death penalty. We speak with Maurice Chammah, staff writer at The Marshall Project. His profile on Scott Dozier is titled "The Volunteer: More than a year ago, Nevada death row prisoner Scott Dozier gave up his legal appeals and asked to be executed. He's still waiting."

In Haiti, massive anti-austerity protests recently shut down parts of the capital Port-au-Prince after the government tried to dramatically raise fuel prices at the behest of the International Monetary Fund. Prices for gasoline, diesel and kerosene were to rise as much as 50 percent, but the government rescinded the price hikes due to public outcry. The proposed IMF-mandated fuel hikes come amid expected cuts to food subsidies. We speak with Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and president of Just Foreign Policy.

The Associated Press is reporting President Trump repeatedly asked senior White House advisers last year about the possibility of a U.S. invasion of Venezuela, in a bid to depose President Nicolás Maduro and his government. Trump reportedly brought up the U.S. invasions of Panama and Grenada in the 1980s. The AP reports Trump's comment stunned then-National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who warned military action could backfire. But then, the next day, on August 11, Trump raised the issue publicly. We're joined by Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research and president of Just Foreign Policy.


The Trump administration failed to meet a court-imposed deadline Tuesday to reunite all of the children under the age of 5 whom immigration officials took from their parents at the border and then sent to jails and detention centers across the country. Only 38 of the 102 children under 5 have been reunited with their parents, some of whom say their young children did not even recognize them at first after the traumatic, protracted separation. 
On Tuesday, Judge Dana Sabraw reiterated that all separated children—3,000 in total—must be reunited with their parents by July 26, saying, "These are firm deadlines; they are not aspirational goals." On Tuesday night, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar told CNN that the United States was acting "generously" toward the migrant children. For more, we speak with Lomi Kriel, immigration reporter for the Houston Chronicle, and Barbara Hines, an immigration lawyer and founder of the University of Texas Immigration Law Clinic.

Trump Admin Fails to Reunite Youngest Separated Children by Tuesday Deadline, In Brussels, Trump Attacks Germany & NATO Secretary, U.S. Threatens to Impose Tariffs on $200 Billion Worth of Chinese Goods, Trump Admin Eliminates $26 Million for Affordable Care Act Outreach Programs, Trump Pardons Oregon Ranchers Convicted of Arson on Federal Lands, Facebook Slapped with Fine in Britain over Cambridge Analytica Scandal, Pakistan: 20 Killed in Taliban Attack on Election Rally, U.N.: South Sudan Forces Committed Potential War Crimes This Spring, Irish Lawmakers Consider Banning Goods from Israeli-Occupied Palestinian Territories, American Airlines & Starbucks Say They'll Eliminate Plastic Straws, Activists Protest Outside National Homeland Security Conference in Manhattan, Nevada: Drug Company Sues to Stop Its Sedative from Being Used in Execution

The Trump administration will not meet today's deadline to reunite all migrant children under the age of 5 whom immigration officials took from their parents at the border and then sent to jails and detention centers across the country. The Justice Department says it will reunite only about half of the more than 100 migrant children under 5 today, after a federal judge in San Diego agreed to extend the deadline mandating the reunification of all of the youngest children. Today's secretive reunification operation will be overseen by the Department of Homeland Security and will involve transporting the children hundreds of miles across the country to undisclosed locations. In total, about 3,000 children are still separated from their parents. For more, we speak with David Cole, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and professor of law and public policy at Georgetown University Law Center.

Activists and organizers around the country are mobilizing against President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who needs a simple majority of 51 votes in the Senate to be confirmed. If Kavanaugh fills Justice Anthony Kennedy's seat, it will likely create the most conservative court the United States has seen since the 1930s. We speak with Cecile Richards, former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund; David Cole, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union; Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center; and Rachel Tiven, CEO of Lambda Legal.

Protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court on Monday night to protest Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Advocates say that Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation could lead to the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act. In Washington, D.C., we speak with Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center. In New York, we speak with Rachel Tiven, CEO of Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest national legal organization serving people living with HIV.

If President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed, it could lead to major rollbacks of civil rights, environmental regulations, gun control measures, voting rights and reproductive rights, including possibly overturning Roe v. Wade. Brett Kavanaugh has also argued that sitting presidents should be shielded from criminal or civil investigations. We speak with David Cole, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and professor of law and public policy at Georgetown University Law Center. His most recent book is "Engines of Liberty: The Power of Citizen Activists to Make Constitutional Law."

President Trump has nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill Anthony Kennedy's seat on the Supreme Court. While running for president, Trump openly vowed to only nominate justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade. Last year, Judge Brett Kavanaugh ruled against an undocumented teenager who sought to have an abortion while in federal detention. He said allowing the abortion would make the government "complicit" in something that is morally objectionable. For more, we speak with Cecile Richards, former president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

President Trump has nominated federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill Anthony Kennedy's seat on the high court. Kavanaugh has deep ties to the Republican Party and will push the Supreme Court further right if he is confirmed. Kavanaugh served as a senior aide under President George W. Bush in the White House Counsel's Office. He has similar credentials to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Both clerked for Anthony Kennedy, and both are backed by the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation, who drew up a list for Trump in 2016 of suitable right-wing judges to consider for the Supreme Court. We speak with Ian Millhiser, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and the editor of ThinkProgress Justice. His latest piece is headlined "Who is Brett Kavanaugh, Trump's pick to replace Anthony Kennedy?"

Trump Nominates Judge Brett Kavanaugh for Supreme Court, Trump Administration Will Miss Deadline to Reunite All Migrant Children Under 5, Federal Judge Rules Trump Administration Can't Indefinitely Jail Migrants, Britain: Theresa May's Government in Crisis After 2 Top Officials Resign, Ethiopia & Eritrea Sign Declaration of Peace, Ending Two Decades of Conflict, Afghanistan: Suicide Attack in Jalalabad Kills 19 People, Burma: Reuters Journalists Charged Under Official Secrets Act, Haiti: General Strike in Port-au-Prince as Protesters Call for President to Resign, Thailand: Rescuers Evacuate All 12 Boys & Coach from Underground Cave, India: Grassroots Environmental Movement Saves 16,000 Trees in New Delhi, "Callous Display of Unwarranted Privilege": Personal Driver Sues Trump for Back Wages, Trump's Mar-a-Lago Resort Seeks to Hire 61 Foreign Workers, Suit Moving Forward Against Neo-Nazi Organizers of Deadly Charlottesville Rally

Across the United States, thousands of migrant children remain detained alone after the Trump administration forcibly separated them from their parents at the border. Yet, despite the news about the United States' human rights abuses of migrants, asylum seekers keep risking the dangerous journey to the United States. Texas-based human rights lawyer Jennifer Harbury has lived in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas for more than 40 years and has long worked with people fleeing violence in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. She also knows intimately the U.S. roots of this conflict. Her husband, Efraín Bámaca Velásquez, was a Mayan comandante and guerrilla who was disappeared after he was captured by the U.S.-backed Guatemalan army in the 1980s. After a long campaign, she found there was U.S. involvement in the cover-up of her husband's murder and torture. We speak with Jennifer Harbury in Brownsville, Texas, about this history and this U.S. involvement in today's conflicts in Central America.

A federal judge will hold a hearing today on whether to delay Tuesday's deadline that mandated the reunification of all children under the age of 5 whom the Trump administration separated from their parents at the border. The Trump administration is claiming it needs more time to match children with their parents, including at least 19 parents who have already been deported. The American Civil Liberties Union says less than half of separated children under the age of 5 will be reunited by the Tuesday deadline. As Trump's "zero tolerance" policy crackdown continues, we speak with human rights lawyer Jennifer Harbury about how U.S. foreign policy has led to the violence that Central Americans are fleeing, and what happens when people follow the U.S. government's instructions and attempt to apply for political asylum at a legal port of entry. Jennifer Harbury has lived in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas for more than 40 years. She works with people fleeing violence in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, and has been active in the response to the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy.

A major U.S. military and CIA contractor has been detaining dozens of migrant children inside a vacant Phoenix office building with dark windows, no kitchen and only a few toilets, according to a new investigation by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Reveal learned about what some are calling the "black site" for migrant children after one local resident filmed children in sweatsuits being led into the building. The building was leased in March by MVM, a defense contractor that Reveal reports has received nearly $250 million in contracts to transport immigrant children since 2014. We speak with the lead reporter on this story, Aura Bogado, in Oakland, California. She is the immigration reporter for Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Trump to Announce His Supreme Court Nominee Tonight, North Korea Accuses U.S. of "Gangster-Like" Demands in Denuclearization Talks, Trump Heading to Brussels for NATO Summit, Judge to Rule Today Whether to Delay Deadline for Reuniting Migrant Children with Parents, U.S. Used Threats to Try to Derail Resolution on Breastfeeding at World Health Assembly, Record Rainfall Kills at Least 95 People in Japan, Turkish President Erdogan Sworn In for Another Term with Sweeping New Powers, Ethiopia and Eritrea Re-establish Diplomatic Ties After Nearly 2 Decades of Conflict, Anti-Austerity Protests in Haiti Force Gov't to Backtrack on IMF-Imposed Fuel Hike, Brazil: Legal Battle Erupts After Judge Rules Lula Should Be Freed from Prison, Thailand: More Boys Rescued from Underwater Cave, as Rescue Efforts Continue, Prosecutors Drop All Charges Against Remaining #J20 Defendants

The Trump administration is ending Obama-era policies calling on schools and universities to consider race as a factor in admissions, in the latest blow to affirmative action programs. The move doesn't change the law, but it rescinds guidelines set by the Obama administration to foster diversity in elementary and secondary schools and on college campuses. The move comes as the Trump administration is reportedly planning a challenge to Harvard University's admissions practices and as President Trump is nearing a decision on a Supreme Court nominee to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was long considered a swing vote on affirmative action. In 2016, Kennedy wrote the majority opinion when the court upheld the University of Texas at Austin's race-conscious admissions program. We speak to Dennis Parker, director of the Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Following Scott Pruitt's resignation, EPA Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler will become the agency's acting administrator. Wheeler is a former lobbyist for Murray Energy, the nation's largest underground coal mining company. He's also the former chief of staff for Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe, who is known as the most notorious climate-denying lawmaker in Washington. In one of his most famous stunts, Inhofe brought a snowball onto the Senate floor in 2015 in order to prove that global warming was a hoax.

On Monday, Scott Pruitt fled a restaurant in Washington after he was confronted during lunch by a mother and teacher named Kristin Mink. Mink was holding her 2-year-old son when she went up to his table. Video of the interaction has since gone viral. We speak to Mink about what she did and Pruitt's resignation just days later.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has resigned, amid an onslaught of financial and ethics scandals and widespread opposition to his campaign to roll back key environmental protections. President Trump announced Pruitt's resignation via Twitter. Trump later told reporters, "Scott Pruitt did an outstanding job inside of the EPA. We've gotten rid of record-breaking regulations, and it's been really good." At the time of his resignation, Pruitt was facing more than a dozen federal investigations into ethical misconduct, ranging from lavish spending to asking subordinates to help his wife find a job. Just earlier this week, CNN reported Pruitt kept a secret calendar and schedule in an attempt to hide his meetings with many industry executives.

EPA Head Scott Pruitt Resigns Amid Mounting Corruption Scandals, Former Coal Lobbyist Andrew Wheeler Named Acting EPA Administrator, HHS Administrator Says "Under 3,000" Separated Children in U.S. Custody, Guatemalan Immigrant Mother Reunites with Daughter After 55 Days, U.S. Army Discharges Immigrants Promised a Path to Citizenship, Statue of Liberty Climber on Protest: "I Went as High as I Could", Bill Shine Named WH Comms Director Despite Fox News Sex Harassment Record, Trump Mocks Sen. Elizabeth Warren as "Pocahontas," Attacks #MeToo, China Retaliates as U.S. Imposes $34 Billion in Tariffs on Chinese Goods, South Korean Peace Activists Call for Removal of THAAD Missiles, U.N. Envoy to Yemen Hopeful over Peace Talks, Trump Administration Extends TPS for Yemenis But Won't End Travel Ban, Thai Diver Dies Amid Effort to Rescue Boys Trapped in Cave, Fourth Ohio State Wrestler Says Rep. Jim Jordan Failed to Stop Sexual Abuse, Ed Schultz, Longtime Liberal TV News Host, Dies at 64, British Columbia: Greenpeace Ends 35-Hour Blockade of Oil Tanker, London Mayor Approves "Trump Baby" Blimp at July 13 Protest

Has the Trump administration set up concentration camps in Texas for migrants? The answer is yes, according to at least one expert: Andrea Pitzer, the author of "One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps." In one of her latest articles, Pitzer writes, "While writing a book on camp history, I defined concentration camps as the mass detention of civilians without trial, usually on the basis of race, religion, national origin, citizenship, or political party, rather than anything a given individual has done. By this definition, the new child camp established in Tornillo, Texas, is a concentration camp." We speak with Andrea Pitzer in Washington, D.C.

While the government struggles to reunite families who have been separated at the border under President Trump's "zero tolerance" policy, one detained Honduran woman has been organizing mothers behind bars to help find their children. The New Yorker reports that Mabel Gonzales has carefully documented the cases of mothers who have been separated from their children at a detention facility in El Paso, Texas, where she is currently jailed. Gonzales herself was separated from her two teenage sons eight months before the Trump administration announced its "zero tolerance" policy. She records the details of other separated mothers despite not being allowed to have a notebook while detained. She then shares the information with the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center in El Paso to help separated mothers locate their children. We speak with Linda Rivas, executive director and lead attorney of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.

The Department of Health and Human Services still has not disclosed how many migrant children they are holding who have been separated from their parents at the border. Last week, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said 2,047 separated minors were still in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. But the department has refused to give updated numbers, even though the Trump administration is facing a July 10 court-imposed deadline to reunite all separated children under the age of 5 with their parents. Meanwhile, CNN is reporting the Department of Homeland Security has been taking DNA samples of immigrant children. Immigration officials have reportedly been swabbing DNA from the cheeks of children as young as 2 months old, without consent, ostensibly in a bid to later reunite children with their parents. Rights groups have condemned the move, saying it could allow the federal government to track young immigrants for the rest of their lives. We speak with Linda Rivas, executive director and lead attorney of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, an organization working with asylum seekers along the U.S.-Mexico border.

A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration may not arbitrarily detain people seeking asylum. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled asylum seekers who have passed a credible fear interview should be given humanitarian parole, not indefinite detention. The suit was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, Human Rights First and the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies. We speak with Eunice Lee, co-legal director at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies.

Trump Administration Halts Obama-Era Affirmative Action Policies, Immigration Agents Taking DNA Samples from Separated Children, Trump Defends ICE Amid Furor over Anti-Immigrant Policies, Protesters Drop "Abolish ICE" Banner from Statue of Liberty, Migrant Ship Docks in Spain After Denial by Italy and Malta, Syria, Russia Press Offensive as Ceasefire Talks Collapse, Israeli Troops Assault Palestinians Ahead of Village Demolition, Britain: Scotland Yard Says Couple Poisoned by Russian Nerve Agent, Poland: Judges Defy Retirement Order as Former President Warns of "Civil War", AP: Donald Trump Pressed for Invasion of Venezuela in 2017, Wildfires Grow in Colorado, California Amid Drought Conditions, Heat Records Broken Globally, with 2018 Among the Hottest Years Ever, Indonesia: 34 Drown in Ferry Boat Disaster, Chile: 15-Year Sentences for Officers Who Killed Singer Víctor Jara

Yale University law professor and writer James Forman Jr. won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize in the general nonfiction category for his new book, "Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America." The prize committee praised the book for its "examination of the historical roots of contemporary criminal justice in the U.S., based on vast experience and deep knowledge of the legal system, and its often-devastating consequences for citizens and communities of color." Forman is the son of civil rights activists James Forman Sr. and Constancia Romilly, who met in the 1960s while organizing with SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

In a Fourth of July holiday special, we begin with the words of Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery around 1818, Douglass became a key leader of the abolitionist movement. On July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York, he gave one of his most famous speeches, "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro." He was addressing the Rochester Ladies Antislavery Society. This is actor James Earl Jones reading the speech during a performance of historian Howard Zinn’s acclaimed book, "Voices of a People’s History of the United States." He was introduced by Zinn.

While reporting from the U.S.-Mexico border, Democracy Now! saw firsthand how migrant children separated from their parents are being sent around the country. We spoke with an airport worker who described children being brought in early in the morning in order to be flown out to other states, and raised concerns about how they are being treated. "The oldest I have seen is 10 or 11 years old. ... The youngest is maybe 5," he says. "They are sitting there silently. … I feel kind of heartbroken. They are very, very young kids."

As the Trump administration accuses migrants of illegally entering the United States, Democracy Now! went to the international bridge in Brownsville, Texas, and found asylum seekers waiting for days in the hot sun after being told the United States was full. We are guided by Christina Patiño Houle, director of the Rio Grande Valley Equal Voice Network, and Michael Seifert of the ACLU. We also speak with Juanita Valdez-Cox, longtime farmworker organizer and executive director of La Unión del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), about the separation of families at the border, and attempt to interview an official at Case Padre, the Southwest Key detention center housed in a former Walmart.

In a landslide, voters have elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador to be Mexico's next president. The former mayor of Mexico City—who is known as AMLO—will become Mexico's first leftist president in decades. On Monday, López Obrador and President Donald Trump discussed immigration and trade in a phone call. Trump called on Mexico's president-elect to collaborate on border security and NAFTA, telling reporters, "I think he's going to try and help us with the border. We have unbelievably bad border laws, immigration laws, the weakest in the world, laughed at by everybody in the world. And Mexico has very strong immigration laws, so they can help us." We speak with John Ackerman and Irma Sandoval in Mexico City. Irma Sandoval is a professor and director of the Center for the Study of Corruption at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She is set to become comptroller general in President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador's government. John Ackerman is the editor of the Mexican Law Review and a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He is also a columnist for Proceso magazine and La Jornada newspaper.

Pompeo to Head to North Korea for Third Time, U.N. Urges Jordan to Open Border as 270,000 Syrians Flee Fighting in Daraa, Federal Judge: U.S. Can't Arbitrarily Detain Asylum Seekers, HHS Refuses to Say How Many Separated Children Remain in Custody, 18 Arrested in Los Angeles at ICE Protest, 3-Year-Old Ethiopian Refugee Dies After Stabbing at Birthday Party in Idaho, Trump Refuses to Lower Flags for Victims of Capital Gazette Shooting, Rhode Island Files Landmark Lawsuit Against 21 Oil Companies, EPA Chief Scott Pruitt Keeps Secret Calendar to Hide Meetings with Industry Figures, "I Urge You to Resign": A Mother Confronts Pruitt at Restaurant, Trump Meets with Four Possible Supreme Court Nominees, Michael Cohen Indicates He Will Work with Prosecutors, Trump Urges NATO Allies to Increase Military Spending, New Charges Against Harvey Weinstein Could Result in Life Sentence, Thailand Races to Rescue Youth Soccer Team Trapped in Cave, Report: Melania Trump Made Over $100K in Royalties from Photos Licensed to Media

At least 2,000 migrant children remain separated from their parents, after the families were forcibly separated by immigration officials under President Trump's "zero tolerance" policy. A federal judge has ordered all these children must be reunited with their parents within 30 days—but immigration advocates say the administration does not have a clear plan for how to reunite the families. In McAllen, Texas, immigration lawyers are scrambling to help their clients find and reunite with their children. Attorney Efrén Olivares is director of the Racial and Economic Justice Program for the Texas Civil Rights Project.

In New York City Saturday, more than 10,000 people marched across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and to demand the reunification of all migrant children separated from their parents during the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" crackdown.

Tens of thousands of protesters marched in cities across the United States on Saturday for a "Families Belong Together" rally to demand the Trump administration comply with a federal judge's ruling that all migrant children separated from their parents must be reunited. The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy led to the forcible separation of more than 2,000 children from their parents, some of whom have already been deported. The protests came 24 hours after the Trump administration said in a court filing on Friday that it has the right to hold children in detention with their parents for the duration of their immigration proceedings, which can take months or years. Current law prevents children from being held for more than 20 days. Democracy Now! was in the streets of Washington, D.C., where tens of thousands rallied.

In Mexico, leftist politician Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known as AMLO, has claimed victory after winning Sunday's presidential election by a landslide, vowing to transform Mexico by reducing corruption and violence. Preliminary election results show López Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City, capturing 53 percent of the vote—more than twice that of his closest rival. His three main rival candidates have already conceded. His victory comes after the most violent electoral season in modern Mexican history. At least 136 politicians have been assassinated in Mexico since September. For more, we speak with Christy Thornton, assistant professor of sociology and Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University. She was an election observer for the Scholar and Citizen Network for Democracy. She is currently writing a book about Mexican economic history.

In Mexico, López Obrador Will Become First Leftist President in Decades, Coast to Coast, Tens of Thousands Protest Separation of Migrant Families, Trump to Announce Supreme Court Nominee on July 9, At Deutsche Bank, Justice Anthony Kennedy's Son Loaned Trump $1 Billion, Afghanistan: Sikhs & Hindus Killed in Suicide Bombing in Jalalabad, Gaza: Thousands Gather for Funeral of Child Killed by Israeli Sniper During Protests, Syria: 150,000 Displaced by Syrian & Russian Daraa Offensive, Pentagon Admits to Killing 40 Civilians in Bombing in Raqqa, Syria, Last Year, Judge Blocks End of FEMA Housing for Puerto Ricans Displaced by Hurricane Maria, Far-Right & Anti-Fascist Protesters Clash in Portland, Oregon, Seattle Becomes First U.S. City to Ban Plastic Straws & Utensils

In Washington, D.C., 630 women were arrested Thursday during a massive nonviolent civil disobedience action on Capitol Hill protesting the Trump administration's immigration policies. Protesters, chanting "We care" and "Abolish ICE," and wearing mylar emergency blankets like those given to immigrants imprisoned in U.S. detention centers, flooded the Hart Senate Office Building for a sit-in protest demanding that immigrant children be released from U.S. custody and reunited with their families. Protesters included the actress Susan Sarandon and Linda Sarsour, co-organizer of the Women's March on Washington.

Thursday's Families Belong Together rally at the federal courthouse in Brownsville, Texas, culminated with people marching across the street to the federal courthouse, where migrants apprehended under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy have been prosecuted in mass trials.

At Thursday's protest in Brownsville a group of children took the stage to condemn the Trump administration for separating other children from their families. Ten-year-old Joana Aldape said, "These kids are human beings, not animals to be put in cages like those at the zoo."