Rochelle Garza: OK, how are you doing Alan?

Alan: Pretty good.

Rochelle Garza: So, my name is Rochelle Garza. I'm an attorney.

Alan: OK.

Rochelle Garza: I'm looking for my client's daughter. I called last week, on the 11th of June, and I was told that I would be contacted by the shelter.

Alan: The shelter?

Rochelle Garza: Yeah. And I haven't been contacted, and neither has my client.

Alan: OK. What's the name of the minor?

Kevin Sieff: So she gives the name of this girl to the operator and he looks her up and finds her in the system.

Alan: What I can do is to try to do-- try to send the shelter inquiry again. I mean, because they usually do contact. But right now, with the high volume of minors that are entering the United States, it's a little complicated for them.

Ira Glass: Hey Kevin, when he says the high volume of minors entering the United States, is that what's happening?

Kevin Sieff: No. I mean, there is no surge of minors crossing the border. In fact, there are fewer people crossing the border than almost any time in the last decade. What there's a surge of is a surge of families being separated, and that's what's changed.

Ira Glass: And that's why he's getting so many calls.

Kevin Sieff: Right. There are children and parents who can't find each other.

Rochelle Garza: Maybe there's a better way for us to do this. Can I send a letter to you or to the shelter somehow, saying that I'm representing her father? That way I can at least confirm, you know, where she is and so I can go ahead and start working on her case.

Alan: OK. For that-- so basically, we don't release that information of the shelter. We can't release that information to the public.

Ira Glass: We don't release the information saying what shelter she's in, is what he's saying, right?

Kevin Sieff: Right.

Alan: Due to safety concerns, safety purposes. But I mean, I can type out a little bit of, like, whatever you want to tell them, tell the shelter, and I can make sure they get the message if that'll work for you.

Rochelle Garza: Yeah, no. I guess I'm just trying to figure out a way that I can explain that I'm an attorney and that I'm the attorney assisting the parent. And the parent has asked me to locate the child. So that way, I can speak with her. Is there any email address that I can maybe send a letter of representation to? Even if it's to someone at your office.

Alan: Give me one second.

Kevin Sieff: I think that's one of the fundamental problems here, is that they're making it really hard for her to establish that she is, in fact, representing a child.

Alan: And is the parent in the detention center?

Rochelle Garza: Yes. I think you can probably see that in your system, right?

Alan: I can try to find them. But--

Rochelle Garza: Do you want me to--

Alan: I was just asking so that--

Rochelle Garza: Do you want me to confirm his name?

Alan: Huh?

Rochelle Garza: Do you want me to confirm the dad's name? I can give that to you.

Alan: No, it's OK. No, I only have the information for the minors. I don't have the-- for the adults. I mean, I can't go to the ICE locator and find them, but--

Ira Glass: This surprised me. Is he saying that his database lists the child and where the child is, but doesn't have the parent's name attached to that?

Kevin Sieff: Yeah. I mean, he's telling Rochelle that he has no record of even that parent's name, let alone where that parent's located. I mean, and this, I think, is the biggest concern that lawyers have right now is, is there even a record in a government database of which child belongs to which parent? We don't know the answer to that question. But there are a lot of reasons, including this exchange, that would make us think that they don't. They don't know.

Ira Glass: So again, so in the recording, he then heads off to try to answer her question about how can she get through to the daughter.

Alan: OK, I mean, just give me one second so I can speak to my supervisor about this. Let me ask what else I can do for you.

Rochelle Garza: OK. Thank you, I appreciate that.

Alan: Do you mind holding on--

Rochelle Garza: I do not mind.

Alan: --for a little bit? Thank you.

Ira Glass: Kevin, so on his computer screen he actually has the information that she wants, of where this girl is?

Kevin Sieff: Yeah, that's basically what he's saying, that he has it. He knows where she is, but he can't give it to her.

Ira Glass: Now eventually, as this call goes on, the guy gives her an email address. But then it's just the same email address that's on the form that she has, right?

Kevin Sieff: Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, I kind of saw her just entirely deflated after he gave that address.

Kevin Sieff: Right, so having had it, how do you feel about that call?

Rochelle Garza: Not very good.

Kevin Sieff: Why?

Rochelle Garza: I mean, they're not really trying to help. Yeah. Sorry, it's rough. I just don't know how we're going to track down these kids. That's not helpful. I mean, I can still go through the motions of sending an email to that email address, but I just don't have any faith that it's going to go anywhere.

Rochelle Garza: Sorry, I'm getting emotional. But it's very frustrating. And I can only imagine what's going on on her end.

Ira Glass: OK, so that was a week ago. What's happened since?

Kevin Sieff: So, Rochelle reached out to one of the legal service providers who work with children who are detained after crossing the border. And these are organizations that represent children through their deportation proceedings, through their asylum hearings. And these organizations keep track of the kids that they're working with.

Kevin Sieff: They each have a list of the kids. And Rochelle kind of got lucky, and the person she reached out to did actually have a record of this girl and was able to tell Rochelle where the girl was being held.

Ira Glass: She found the name of the shelter?

Kevin Sieff: She found the shelter, yeah. So then the next step was for her to get to the shelter to try to set up basically an appointment. So on Thursday afternoon, she drove to the shelter. And she walked in and there the girl was. I talked to her right afterwards.

Rochelle Garza: She looked like her dad, so I recognized her right away. I felt-- I felt really emotional about it actually, when I saw her, just because I could see her dad's face in her face. I had to-- obviously, any time you go and you introduce yourself to a child, like they don't know who you are. I obviously explained my relationship to her dad and to her and that I've been looking for her.

Rochelle Garza: And her eyes turned really red when I mentioned her dad. And I asked her if she wanted to write him a letter and she was like, yes. And so she frantically wrote this letter, and I gave her the time to do that.

Ira Glass: And so this girl, she's 12 years old. What did Rochelle say? Is she doing OK?

Kevin Sieff: Yeah, the girl's doing OK. Rochelle said she looks healthy. She's wearing a uniform given to her, a sort of polo shirt given to her by the shelter. And she was wearing a bunch of friendship bracelets that I guess she's learned to make there. And then Rochelle had to do this thing, which is explain that this girl probably is not going to see her dad any time soon, and she might not even talk to him any time soon.

Rochelle Garza: The way you explain it is, like, you kind of have to explain what's going on in the national realm, right? You have to say there was this executive order and there was this decision out of the courts, and put it in that kind of context so that-- I mean the thing is, I don't have an answer for her, Kevin. Like, I can't tell her, you're for sure going to get a phone call this day. You're for sure going to be reunited with him on this day. All I can say is, I don't know.

Ira Glass: Kevin, I thought the policy had changed. Like, the president announced that we are no longer separating families from children. And in fact, the government announced that they had reunited over 500 children.

Kevin Sieff: Yeah, I mean, the government has made these announcements about their plans to reunify families. But when you talk to the lawyers who are representing the parents, nothing has changed at all. And in many cases, not only are the families not reunified, but these lawyers still can't figure out where the children are being held.

Ira Glass: And what do we know about the 500-plus kids who the government says they reunited?

Kevin Sieff: I mean, the government has said that they've reunited these families. When I talk to lawyers who are representing hundreds of parents-- I mean, there's one organization that's representing 376, another that's representing I think over 400 now. I haven't heard of a single-- at least as of a few days ago, I haven't heard of a single reunification.

Kevin Sieff: So I mean, I think in the absence of concrete information about who these families were, how they were reunified, lawyers are really wondering if these kids were among the 2300 who were separated from their parents. If maybe they were from a different pool of children. It's possible that the government numbers are accurate, but there are just so many questions about them, because there's really no documentation that goes along with it.

XXX

Andrew Collins: What's up, man?

Quacy Roberts: What's going on with you?

Andrew Collins: How you doing? Long time no see. You haven't aged a bit, man.

Quacy Roberts: No, I have haven't.

Andrew Collins: What they say, black don't crack?

Quacy Roberts: No, it crack. Especially if you drink a whole lot.

Andrew Collins: Right. No, man, you look good. I'm not used to seeing you without a hat, though.

Quacy Roberts: Oh, yeah. You is what you is.

Andrew Collins: There you go. There you go.

Lilly Sullivan: You guys remember each other now?

Andrew Collins: Yeah.

Quacy Roberts: I remember like it was yesterday.

Andrew Collins: I don't want to say that, like, from the beginning. Like, so it's been 10 years since I've even been there. So if I don't remember specifics, like, that's not to disrespect you or anything like that, because I know this was very personal to you. It's just that I don't remember. There was so many people and I did so many bad things, so.

Quacy Roberts: I'll start to make it specific, because I still have the police report.

Andrew Collins: So I remember thinking then, like, OK, my partner might have stretched the truth a little bit. But I still was convinced you were guilty because he said you were guilty, right? So--

Quacy Roberts: It's what the police say.

Andrew Collins: I know I wanted you, though. I know I wanted you to be guilty.

Lilly Sullivan: Why?

Andrew Collins: Quacy bothered me when I was a police officer, because he didn't-- he didn't just shut up. Like, he'd tell me my breath stunk, and--

Quacy Roberts: I'd never--

Andrew Collins: I think there are some people that would say, day for day, whatever those other people did in jail, he should have to do that now-- day for day.

Quacy Roberts: Right. That would have sounded good. That would have been fair. Like whatever, you can set it by saying, one person got two to five. Another person got 40-something months to something months. Take all them, add all of them together, and see can you face up to them? Bad mofo, ooh. Yeah, yeah, that'd be appropriate. Yeah.

Andrew Collins: I'm glad it didn't happen. But I could see that argument.

Quacy Roberts: Yeah.
