Democracy Now!

Protesters in Brownsville are calling on the Trump administration to uphold its obligations to protect asylum seekers under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Rev. Dr. Helen Boursier cited the cases of Central Americans fleeing extreme gang violence being turned away at the U.S. border. She says vulnerable people are being denied their legal right to seek asylum and the legal right to flee when they face great risk.

Attendees at Thursday's protest in Brownsville included Tom Perez, the chair of the Democratic National Committee. Amy Goodman had a chance to interview Perez about Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy, as well as President Obama's record on immigration. They also talked about Tuesday's New York primary, where 28-year-old Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated 10-term Congressmember Joe Crowley.

More than a thousand people from across Texas came to protest outside the federal courthouse in Brownsville Thursday, demanding, "Keep Families Together." Brownsville and the Rio Grande Valley are the epicenter of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy that criminally prosecutes migrants who cross the border, and has led to the separation of more than 2,000 children from their parents. Speakers included the actor Jay Ellis, who stars in the HBO series "Insecure."

Annapolis, Maryland: 5 Dead as Gunman Storms Capital Gazette Newsroom, Trump Tweets "Thoughts and Prayers" After Maryland Massacre, Over 600 Women Arrested at D.C. Protest Against Family Separations, Federal Police Raid Occupy ICE Protest Encampment in Portland, Oregon, Brownsville, TX: More Than 1,000 Rally Against Trump Border Policies, VP Pence in Guatemala: "Exodus" of Central American Migrants Must End, Young Children Ordered to Appear Alone in Deportation Proceedings, GOP Floats Impeachment of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein Amid Muller Probe, "Dangerous" Heat Wave to Bring Record Temperatures to Parts of U.S., DNC Panel Votes to Scale Back Use of "Superdelegates", White House Says Trump Will Meet Russian President Putin on July 16

In our special broadcast from the U.S.-Mexico border, we speak to human rights lawyer Jennifer Harbury, who has lived here in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas for over 40 years and has been active in the response to the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy. Her husband, Efraín Bámaca Velásquez, was a Mayan comandante and guerrilla who was disappeared after he was captured by the 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. Now she continues to work with people fleeing violence in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

On Tuesday, Federal Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego ruled all children under the age of 5 must be reunited with their parents within 14 days, and all children 5 and older must be reunited with their parents within 30 days. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has claimed he could easily locate any of the children separated from their parents. But immigrant parents and their lawyers tell a different story. We speak to Rochelle Garza, an immigration lawyer based here in Brownsville, Texas, who is now representing immigrant families who have been separated by the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy.

Justice Anthony Kennedy's announcement came as the Supreme Court struck a major blow to organized labor Wednesday. In a 5-4 ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court sided with Mark Janus, a child support specialist who argued that a state law in Illinois allowing unions to charge a fee for collective bargaining violated his First Amendment rights. The ruling nullifies so-called fair-share provisions and will leave public-sector unions deprived of millions of dollars in union dues. Mark Janus was supported by a host of right-wing groups including the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity and ALEC—the American Legislative Exchange Council. We speak to Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate.com.

In a move that could transform the Supreme Court for decades, Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced his retirement, giving President Trump a chance to pick a second conservative on the high court. Kennedy, who was nominated by President Reagan, was widely seen as the swing vote on the nine-justice court. On Wednesday, he sided with the conservative wing of the court to deal a major blow to public-sector unions in the case of Janus v. AFSCME. He also sided this week with the majority upholding President Trump's Muslim travel ban. But Kennedy has sided with the liberal wing of the court on a number of pivotal issues. He has been instrumental in preventing Roe v. Wade from being overturned, and he has supported same-sex marriage, affirmative action and criminal justice reform. On Wednesday, President Trump said he wants to pick a justice who will be on the court for the next 40 or 45 years. We speak to Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate.com.

Trump May Reshape Supreme Court for Decades as Justice Kennedy Retires, Democrats Demand Delay on Trump's SCOTUS Nominee Until After Midterms, Supreme Court Deals Major Blow to Public-Sector Unions, House Rejects Immigration Bill Backed by President Trump, Occupy ICE Protesters Decry Trump Immigration Policies, Ship Carrying 230 Migrants Docks in Malta After Italy Denies Berth, Kenya: 15 Dead, Dozens Injured, as Fire Tears Through Nairobi Market, Officer Who Fatally Shot Antwon Rose Charged With Criminal Homicide, DOJ Approves Disney's $71 Billion Bid for 21st Century Fox

Left-leaning presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador appears poised to win Sunday's presidential election. López Obrador, also known as AMLO because of his initials, emerged as the clear front-runner since jumping into the race. This is the third presidential run for López Obrador, who was the mayor of Mexico City from 2000 to 2005. López Obrador has vowed to wean Mexico off U.S. agricultural imports, increase aid for students and the elderly, and consider amnesty for drug war criminals. We speak to Laura Carlsen, director of the Mexico City-based Americas Program of the Center for International Policy.

Hours after the Supreme Court issued its ruling upholding the Muslim travel ban, a federal judge in San Diego ruled immigration officials must stop separating immigrant children from their parents at the border and that migrant children already separated must be reunited with their parents. The ruling says all children under the age of 5 must be reunited with their parents within 14 days, and all children 5 and older must be reunited with their parents within 30 days. The ruling does not require the Trump administration to stop prosecuting people for crossing the border. More than 2,000 children remain separated from their parents, jailed in detention centers across the country. Immigration advocates are warning the Trump administration has no clear plan for how to reunite them with their parents, some of whom have already been deported. We speak to Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project; Linda Sarsour of MPower Change; and Diala Shamas of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

In a series of extraordinary legal decisions Tuesday, the Supreme Court has upheld President Trump's so-called Muslim travel ban, and a federal judge in San Diego has ruled immigration officials must stop separating immigrant children from their parents at the border and must reunite all parents and children within 30 days. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 to uphold Trump's travel ban, which prohibits people from entering the United States from five majority-Muslim countries—Iran, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Somalia—as well as people from North Korea and some government officials from Venezuela. In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor condemned the ban as "harrowing" and said it was "motivated by hostility and animus toward the Muslim faith." She also said the decision to uphold the ban involved "ignoring the facts, misconstruing our legal precedent and turning a blind eye to the pain and suffering the proclamation inflicts upon countless families and individuals, many of whom are United States citizens." After the ruling was announced, protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court to condemn the decision. We speak to Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project; Linda Sarsour of MPower Change; and Diala Shamas of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Tuesday was a big day for progressive Democrats. In New York, former Bernie Sanders organizer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Rep. Joe Crowley. In Maryland, former NAACP chair Benjamin Jealous won the Democratic gubernatorial primary. We speak to Linda Sarsour of MPower Change about what the victories mean for the Democratic Party.

In a stunning upset and the biggest surprise of the primary season this year, 28-year-old Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beat 10-term incumbent Representative Joe Crowley in New York in Tuesday's Democratic primary. Crowley is the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, and he'd outraised Ocasio-Cortez by a 10-to-1 margin. Crowley was widely viewed as a possible future House speaker. Yet Ocasio-Cortez defeated Crowley after running a progressive grassroots campaign advocating for "Medicare for All" and the abolition of ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Ocasio-Cortez speaks to Democracy Now! about her historic campaign.

Supreme Court Upholds President Trump's Muslim Travel Ban, Federal Judge: Trump Admin Must End Family Separations & Reunite Children, SCOTUS Rules to Protect Deceptive, Anti-Choice Pregnancy Centers, Tens of Thousands of Civilians Flee Syrian Gov't Offensive in Daraa, Report: U.S.-Backed, Saudi-Led Coalition Responsible for Half of All Child Deaths in Yemen in 2017, U.S. Primaries: Wins for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in NY, Ben Jealous in MD, Mitt Romney in Utah, NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Pleads Guilty, Will Serve 5-Year Prison Term

More than 2,000 migrant children remain separated from their parents, jailed in detention centers across the country. The Washington Post reports that U.S. authorities are collecting mug shots of the detained minors, some showing the children in tears. Immigrant children jailed in a converted Walmart in Texas are being forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in English each morning. At some of the facilities, the children are counted in "prison-style" head counts. In some cases, parents have already been deported, while their children remain in United States custody. For more, we speak with Dr. Dana Sinopoli, a psychologist who penned an open letter condemning the Trump administration's practice of separating children from their parents at the border.

More than 280 players in the National Football League sustained concussions in the 2017 season. That's an average of 12 per week. A recent study of the brains of 111 deceased NFL players found all but one were found to have CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE is a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head. We speak with NFL three-time Pro Bowler and longtime activist Michael Bennett about CTE, the risks athletes take while playing football and how fans need to humanize the players they love to watch on screen.

When Michael Bennett was 12 years old, James Byrd was lynched in Jasper, Texas. The African-American man was brutally murdered by white supremacists who chained him to the back of their truck by his ankles and dragged him for more than three miles along the road. By the time the men untied his body from the back of the truck, Byrd's head and right arm had been severed. Michael Bennett calls this killing his "Emmett Till moment." We speak with the NFL player and activist about his childhood and the influence of his mother.

Over the past two seasons, dozens of National Football League players have knelt during the national anthem to protest police shootings of black teenagers and men like Antwon Rose, a 17-year-old unarmed African-American teenager who was shot dead by East Pittsburgh police last week. The NFL's on-field protests began in August 2016 when quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the anthem to protest racism and police brutality. The National Football League announced last month that it will fine teams if players refuse to stand for the national anthem before games. Under the new rules adopted by the league's 32 owners, players will be allowed to stay in the locker room during the anthem. We speak with NFL three-time Pro Bowler and longtime activist Michael Bennett, who has been part of a movement, led by former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, protesting police shootings of unarmed black men. Bennett was recently traded to the Super Bowl champions Philadelphia Eagles—the same team President Trump recently disinvited to the White House. He is the author of a new book, "Things That Make White People Uncomfortable."

Mattis: U.S. Preparing to Imprison Immigrant Children on Two Texas Military Bases, Border Patrol to Stop Handing Immigrant Parents Over for Prosecution, In El Paso, Immigrant Parents Demand Return of Their Children, AP: Algeria Has Expelled 13,000 Migrants into Sahara Desert, Newly Released Scott Pruitt Emails Show More Ties to Lobbyist, Fossil Fuel Industry, NOAA Proposed Dropping "Climate" from Mission, Judge Dismisses Cities' Effort to Force Fossil Fuel Companies to Pay for Climate Change, Trump Attacks & Threatens Rep. Maxine Waters, PA: Family Holds Funeral for Antwon Rose, Unarmed Black Teen Killed by Police, Mexico: 2 More Political Candidates Assassinated in Lead-Up to Presidential Election, Brazilian Radio Journalist Jairo Sousa Assassinated in Pará, Argentina: Unions Launch 24-Hour General Strike to Protest Austerity, FDA Approves Cannabis-Based Drug for the First Time

To understand America in the age of Trump, prize-winning documentary filmmaker Eugene Jarecki says to look no further than the checkered history of Elvis Presley. Jarecki's new documentary "The King” opens in New York City this week. It follows the filmmaker as he drives Elvis Presley's 1963 Rolls Royce across the United States in an attempt to understand what has happened to America in the age of Trump. "The American dream … wasn't for anybody if you weren't a white man," Jarecki said. "We got here because this nation puts power and money ahead of democracy. We have been hijacked by capitalism." We speak with Jarecki about Elvis, cultural appropriation, the civil rights movement and the story of this country.

We feature voices of the thousands who marched on the nation's Capitol Saturday for the Poor People's Campaign. The mass demonstration followed six weeks of actions around the country and more than 2,500 arrests, as protesters join what they are calling a "moral revival" to demand an end to systemic racism, poverty, the war economy and ecological devastation. The march brought together activists from around the country more than 50 years after demonstrators converged on Washington, D.C., in 1968 to take up the cause that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been fighting for when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968: the original Poor People's Campaign. Demonstrators rallied to protest widespread poverty just days after U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley slammed a new U.N. report slamming the Trump administration's policies for worsening the state of poverty in the United States.

President Trump's "zero tolerance" crackdown on immigrants and asylum seekers continues as parents of more than 2,000 separated children say they still don't know where their kids are. Trump now says migrants should be deported without judges. We'll get response from Maru Mora Villalpando, an undocumented immigrant and mother with the group Mijente and Northwest Detention Center Resistance. She has a hearing in her own immigration case on Tuesday and says the best way to stop the separation of children from their families at the border is to drop the charges against their parents.

Trump Says Immigrants Should Be Deported Without Seeing Judges, Nationwide Protests Demand Reunification of Migrant Families, Abolition of ICE, Yemen: Tens of Thousands Flee U.S.-Backed Offensive Against Port City Hodeidah, Kushner Says U.S. to Unveil Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan Soon, Turkish President Erdogan Declares Victory in Presidential Election, Saudi Arabia Lifts Ban on Women Drivers; Feminist Activists Remain Jailed, Supreme Court Rules Gov't Needs Warrant to Collect Location Data from Cell Companies, Ex-Trump Campaign Staffer Tells Black Democrat, "You're Out of Your Cotton-Picking Mind", Millions Participate in Pride Marches Nationwide

An Eritrean man took his own life after being deported from the United States earlier this month. Zeresenay Ermias Testfatsion died by suicide at the Cairo International Airport. He was 34 years old. Testfatsion sought asylum in the United States in 2017, fleeing violence in Eritrea. He spent more than a year detained in South Florida and Ohio before he was deported. Friends and family are demanding to know why he was deported to Eritrea, despite his fears that he would be tortured or even killed there. We speak with Christine Ho, founder of a volunteer visitation program that provides support for immigrants and asylum-seekers inside Broward Transitional Center, the immigrant detention center in South Florida where Testfatsion was jailed for more than a year.

Human Rights Watch has a new report that exposes dangerously substandard medical care in ICE detention facilities around the country and reveals that more people died in immigration detention in fiscal year 2017 than any year since 2009. Physicians reviewed 15 deaths in immigration detention from December 2015 to April 2017, determining that substandard medical care contributed or led to eight of the 15 deaths. "What we found is ICE, the agency that's detaining now 40,000 people … and wants to expand, cannot provide adequately for the safety of the people that it holds," says Clara Long, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. She's the author of the report "Code Red: The Fatal Consequences of Dangerously Substandard Medical Care in Immigration Detention."

More 2,300 children have been separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border after their parents were charged with illegal entry under the Trump administration's ongoing "zero tolerance" policy. As concerns grow about poor coordination between Customs and Border Patrol, which takes the children, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which puts them into detention and foster care, The Intercept has a new report on one of the first reunifications. We speak with journalist Debbie Nathan about a Guatemalan woman whose 5-year-old son was taken from her last month by immigration authorities in Texas after she sought asylum, and has been reunited with him after 38 days in detention. We also speak with Clara Long, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. "It was a lot of work that took place outside of the government system," Nathan says. "It was a really wonderful thing, but it was very exceptional."

Military Prepares Four Bases to Hold 20,000 Immigrant Children, Ex-Head of Office of Refugees Accuses Trump Administration of "Child Abuse", Republicans Postpone Harsh Immigration Bill, Melania Trump Heads to Border Wearing "I Really Don't Care" Jacket, ICE Arrests 146 in Ohio in Largest Immigration Raid in Years, Parents with Babies Protest at ICE Field Office, Guatemalan Mother Seeks Sanctuary in NYC Church, Cynthia Nixon: ICE Has Turned into a "Terrorist Organization", Hundreds Shut Down Highway, Protesting Police Killing of Antwon Rose, Lancet Study: Police Killings of Black Americans Harms Mental Health of Black Population, NSA Whistleblower Reality Winner Agrees to Plea Deal, Trump Proposes Merging Departments of Labor and Education, Nikki Haley Slams U.N. for Examining Poverty in United States, 100 Arrested in Poor People's Campaign Action at U.S. Capitol, Israel Considers Bill to Criminalize Filming Israeli Soldiers, Benjamin Netanyahu's Wife Indicted for Fraud

A new investigation has uncovered rampant sexual violence against Yemeni prisoners held in prisons run by the United Arab Emirates in Yemen. The Associated Press reports that in March, 15 officers lined up the prisoners in the southern city of Aden and ordered them to undress before searching their anal cavities, claiming they were looking for contraband cell phones. The prisoners screamed and cried and those who resisted were beaten and threatened by dogs.Hundreds of prisoners reportedly suffered similar abuse. A Pentagon spokesman quoted in the piece said the allegations were not substantiated. The UAE is a key ally of the United States and has partnered with Saudi Arabia in its military assault on Yemen. We speak with Maggie Michael, the reporter who broke these stories. She is the Associated Press based in Cairo. Her latest exposé is headlined “Detainees held without charges decry Emiratis’ sexual abuses.” Last year, she reported on prisons in a piece headlined, "In Yemen’s secret prisons, UAE tortures and US interrogates."

Shocking reports have revealed that immigrant children were subdued and incapacitated with powerful psychiatric drugs at a detention center in South Texas. Legal filings show that children held at Shiloh Treatment Center in southern Houston have been “forcibly injected with medications that make them dizzy, listless, obese and even incapacitated,” according to reports by Reveal. Meanwhile, according to another Reveal investigation, taxpayers have paid more than $1.5 billion over the past four years to companies operating immigration youth facilities despite facing accusations of rampant sexual and physical abuse. For more, we speak with the reporter who broke these stories: Aura Bogado. She is an immigration reporter with Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Her latest stories are, "Immigrant children forcibly injected with drugs, lawsuit claims" and "Migrant children sent to shelters with histories of abuse allegations."

The government has no plans to reunite thousands of children who have been separated from their parents at the border, despite President Trump’s executive order claiming to end family separations. We speak with Zenén Jaimes, advocacy director for the Texas Civil Rights Project. He is part of their team that goes to the federal courthouse in McAllen each day since Trump began his "zero tolerance" policy, and collects information from parents who had their children taken away from them before they were taken to court to face criminal charges for crossing the border.

President Donald Trump’s executive order ending family separations at the border opts to indefinitely detain families together instead. The Nation reports that this policy will directly benefit the two largest prison companies in the United States: GEO Group and CoreCivic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America. We speak with Bob Libal, the executive director of the Austin-based civil and human rights group Grassroots Leadership. They sued the state of Texas when it tried to classify ICE's family detention centers as "child care" facilities. They won, but the detention centers continue to operate without a license. His new article in the Texas Observer is headlined, "It’s Time to Decriminalize Immigration.” It is co-authored with Judy Greene.

President Trump has signed an executive order claiming to end the separation of children from their parents at the border, but critics warn the order could lead to the indefinite detention of entire families. The government has no plans to reunite the thousands of children already separated from their families with their parents. We go to Washington, D.C. to speak with Franco Ordoñez, White House correspondent for the McClatchy Washington Bureau. His latest story is headlined, "Trump's immigration order replaces one crisis with another."

Trump Signs Executive Order to Jail Immigrant Families Together, Without Limit, House to Debate Anti-Immigrant Bills Providing $25B to Militarize Border, Migrant Children Secretly Transported to NYC Foster Care in Dead of Night, Reveal: Migrant Youths Sent to Detention Centers With Abuse Histories, Airlines Refuse to Transport Separated Migrant Children, Portland ICE Office Closes Amid 24/7 Protest Over Family Separations, Scathing New Report Gives U.S. "F" Grade over Refugee Treatment, Hungary Approves Law Criminalizing Those Who Help Migrants, U.N. Investigators: Syrian Gov't Committed War Crimes in Eastern Ghouta, EPA Releases Long-Suppressed "Nightmare" Study on Water Contamination, Nearly 100 U.S. Meteorologists to Stage On-Air Climate Change Protest, Climate Change Fuels Floods in Texas, Ivory Coast, India, Bangladesh, Former Archbishop of D.C. Removed Over Sexual Abuse Accusations, Disney Raises 21st Century Fox Takeover Bid to $71 Billion, UNC Student Faces Possible Expulsion Over Confederate Statue Protest

In 2004, investigative reporter Sy Hersh exposed the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq that shocked the world. Shocking photos of U.S. military personnel humiliating and torturing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib sparked global outcry, as well as national hearings, investigations and finger pointing. We speak with Sy Hersh about his investigation, nearly 15 years later.

While Sy Hersh was working at The New York Times Washington bureau, he would watch reporters call then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger nearly every day, diligently writing down his comments and then reproducing them as front-page news. This is one of many stories Hersh tells in his new memoir, "Reporter." We speak with award-winning investigative journalist Sy Hersh about his many years reporting on Kissinger. He says, "What I always said about Kissinger, publicly, and again and again, is that when people ... can't sleep and they count sheep, I think Kissinger has to count burned and maimed Cambodian and Vietnamese babies the rest of his life. But, of course, he doesn't."

Soon after President Richard Nixon resigned in 1974, Seymour Hersh got a call from a source at a California hospital. He learned that Nixon had beaten his wife so severely in 1974 that she sought treatment at an emergency room. Hersh did not report the story. Years later, he received criticism for this choice. We speak with Sy Hersh in New York City. He says of his decision not to report on Nixon beating his wife, "I was obtuse to the notion that it was a crime. … I didn't get it."

Before investigative reporter Sy Hersh exposed many of the government's deepest secrets, from Nixon's bombing of Cambodia to the CIA's role undermining the Chilean government of Salvador Allende, he served as press secretary for Democrat Eugene McCarthy during his 1968 presidential bid. We speak with Hersh in New York City about this little-discussed time in his life.

In 1970, Seymour Hersh won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on how the U.S. slaughtered more than 500 Vietnamese women, children and old men in the village of My Lai on March 16, 1968. The event became known as the My Lai massacre. We speak with Seymour Hersh in New York City.

"Our Country's biggest enemy is the Fake News," President Trump tweeted last week, in his latest attack on the nation's press. A week earlier, federal prosecutors revealed they had secretly captured years' worth of phone and email data from journalist Ali Watkins, who broke several high-profile stories related to the Senate Intelligence Committee. A former top aide on the committee, James Wolfe, has been charged with lying to the FBI about his contacts with the press. Meanwhile, Reporters Without Borders recently dropped the United States to number 45 in its annual ranking of press freedom. When the group first published its list in 2002, the United States came in at number 17. We speak with the nation's best-known investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh. He has a new book out looking back on his more than half-century of scoops and digging up secrets. It's titled "Reporter: A Memoir."

Governors Recall National Guard Troops from Border over Separation of Families, Intercept: U.S. Has Separated At Least 3,700 Children from Parents Since October, AP: Babies Jailed in "Tender Age Shelters" Across South Texas, Recalling Nazi Propaganda, Trump Says Immigrants "Infest" United States, As Trump Holds Refugee Children Hostage, GOP Pushes Sweeping Anti-Immigrant Bills, "Mr. President: Don't You Have Kids?": Trump Heckled by Latino Lawmakers, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Heckled at Mexican Restaurant, Members of Sessions' Church Accuse Him of Child Abuse & Immorality for Child Separation, Hundreds Protest Family Separation Practice in Cities Across United States, 10-Year-Old Mexican Girl with Down Syndrome Separated from Parents and Jailed in U.S., U.S. Withdraws from U.N. Human Rights Council, Canada to Become Second Country in World to Legalize Marijuana, AP: Prisoners Face Rampant Sexual Abuse in UAE Prison in Yemen, Charleston Apologies for Its Role in Transatlantic Slave Trade

The political crisis in Nicaragua is intensifying. More than 178 people have been killed since widespread demonstrations to oust Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega began in mid-April, when his government announced plans to overhaul and slash social security. Amnesty International has accused the Nicaraguan government of using "pro-government armed groups to carry out attacks, incite violence, increase their capacity for repression and operate outside the law." But the Nicaraguan government has blamed part of the violence on armed members of the opposition who are trying to overthrow the democratically elected government. We speak with Paul Oquist, senior minister for national policy in the Nicaraguan government.

President Trump is continuing to blame Democrats for his administration’s practice of separating at least 2,000 children from their parents in recent weeks. He also doubled down on the practice in an address Monday, ahead of his meetings today with Republicans to discuss compromise legislation on a hardline immigration bill. We speak with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrat of Texas. She has represented the 18th Congressional District since 1995, which includes most of central Houston. She is just back from the Texas border with Mexico, where she joined a delegation of lawmakers who visited a processing center in McAllen, Texas, and the Southwest Key Programs' Casa Padre, which houses 1,500 children in Brownsville, Texas.

Outrage is growing over the Trump administration’s separation of children from their parents along the U.S.-Mexico border. On Monday, ProPublica released audio from inside a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility, in which children estimated to be between the ages of 4 and 10 years old are heard crying "Mama" and "Papi" after being separated from their parents. In another part of the audio, a Border Patrol agent is heard joking, in Spanish, "Well, we have an orchestra here. What’s missing is a conductor.” Video footage released by the U.S. Border Patrol Monday shows migrant children in concrete-floored chain link cages, in an old warehouse in McAllen, Texas. A new Quinnipiac Poll shows roughly two-thirds of U.S. voters oppose separating children from their parents at the border. About 7 percent of Democratic voters support the Trump policy, while 55 percent of Republicans support it. We speak with Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Democratic congressmember from Washington state. She has just helped announce a march on Washington and cities nationwide on June 30 against family separation. She is vice ranking member of the House Budget Committee and vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. On June 9 she visited a detention center in her home state and spoke with some of the 200 asylum-seekers held at the Sea-Tac Bureau of Prisons facility.

Despite Outrage, Trump Defends Practice of Separating Immigrant Children from Parents, ProPublica Releases Audio of Separated Children Sobbing “Mama” and “Papi”, Microsoft Facing Threats of Boycott for Collaboration with ICE, U.S. and South Korea Cancel Joint Military Exercises, After Trump’s Meeting with Kim, Trump Directs Pentagon to Create Military Branch to Dominate Space, Afghan Peace Activists Finish 435-Mile March to Kabul, Demand Extension of Ceasefire, Judge Strikes Down Kansas Proof-of-Citizenship Voter ID Laws, Former CIA Software Engineer Accused of "Vault 7" Leak Indicted, Leftist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Challenging NY Rep. Joe Crowley in Next Week’s Primary

Hundreds of fighters have been killed and more than 4,000 civilians have fled their homes in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah since the U.S.-backed coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, launched an all-out offensive last week. Coalition aircrafts bombarded Hodeidah's main airport Monday, wounding dozens and preventing aid organizations from reaching parts of the city. As humanitarian organizations warn of a catastrophe for a quarter of a million civilians living in Hodeidah amid a conflict that has already killed 15,000 civilians, we'll speak with Yemeni scholar Shireen Al-Adeimi, whose recent report is headlined "Attack on Yemen Port Shows U.S.-Backed Coalition Willing to Use Starvation as a Weapon."

On Saturday, President Trump blamed the widely condemned family separation practice on Democrats, tweeting, "Democrats can fix their forced family breakup at the Border by working with Republicans on new legislation." Trump is set to meet Tuesday with Republican lawmakers to discuss a so-called compromise immigration bill they claim would end family separation while lifting limits on how long families can be detained, and which also includes a promise of $25 billion for Trump's border wall. Democracy Now! correspondent Renée Feltz discusses a history of family separation that has stemmed from previous legislative compromises with Democrats, and looks ahead to calls for them to defund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), if they gain control of the House in November.

A youth care worker who quit his job at a Tucson detention center for unaccompanied minors is speaking out about inadequate facilities, untrained staff and inhumane policies, after witnessing the devastation of family separations firsthand. Antar Davidson says he quit after he was forced to tell children who were separated from their mother not to hug one another. The facility is run by Southwest Key, a nonprofit that operates 27 facilities and has signed a lease to detain hundreds of separated children, including many who are a younger than 12 years old, in a "baby jail" in a former warehouse and homeless shelter in Houston. For more, we speak with Antar Davidson.

Protests have erupted nationwide against the Trump administration's new policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. Most of the parents apprehended by Customs and Border Patrol are now charged with criminal entry—and, in many cases, criminal re-entry—then taken to jails or prisons to serve their time before they are sent to immigrant detention centers. In the meantime, their children are being sent to shelters and foster care programs around the country. The Associated Press reports that between April 19 and May 31, nearly 2,000 children were separated from their parents. Hundreds of protesters also met at a family processing center in McAllen, Texas, where nearly half of all children have been removed from their parents. And in New Jersey, a group of Democratic lawmakers visited a private immigrant detention facility in the town of Elizabeth to speak with asylum-seeking parents held there after they were separated from their children. Meanwhile, on Sunday, in Houston, people marched in the rain outside a former warehouse and homeless shelter where the government plans to detain hundreds of separated children, including many who are a so-called tender age—children who are younger than 12 years old.

Father's Day Protests Demand End to Practice of Separating Children from Parents, Afghanistan: Taliban & Gov't Soldiers Celebrate Historic 3-Day Ceasefire over Eid, Yemen: Thousands Flee U.S.-Backed, Saudi-Led Offensive on Hodeidah Port City, Nigeria: 31 People Killed in Suspected Boko Haram Suicide Attacks, Report: India Facing Worst Water Crisis in Its History, Colombia: Right-Wing Politician Iván Duque Wins Presidential Runoff, 600 Refugees Disembark in Spain After Being Blocked by Italy, Israel Pushes Bill to Criminalize Filming IDF Soldiers, Political Cartoonist Rob Rogers Fired After Making Fun of Trump, Thousands Gather in Detroit for 20th Year of Allied Media Conference, NYC: Sixth Taxi Cab Driver Dies by Suicide in Recent Months, MOVE Member Debbie Africa Freed After Nearly 40 Years in Prison