周五凌晨1点多，我们和十几名共和党参议员在南部边境外出。
他们的信息是:把无人陪伴的未成年人送回去。
周三，有5156名儿童由边境巡逻队监管根据HHS公布的数据，有11900名儿童被卫生和公众服务部监管。
一路上，我们遇到了一位刚刚踏上美国国土的母亲——她5岁的女儿紧握着她的手。刚过午夜。
她热泪盈眶地告诉我，她为女儿而战来到美国。
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瑞秋·斯科特和她五岁的女儿踏上美国土地后，与一位母亲交谈
她情绪激动，描述了这段旅程——说这段旅程很艰难。他们很多天没吃东西了。当她的小女孩听到妈妈哭的时候，她也开始哭了。
“这非常困难，一路上要与饥饿作斗争很多天，要来躲避危地马拉的移民官员并不容易，”她说。“一个人独自来，没有人能帮助他们，一个人独自来，很难”
在母亲的口袋里，一张层压纸，上面有马里兰州一家人的电话号码。她的丈夫已经带着他们来自洪都拉斯的儿子到达了那里。他说现在是时候了。
乔·拜登总统表示，现在不是时候，但在周四的新闻发布会上，他反对将无人陪伴的未成年人送回家。
拜登说:“我要说的是，如果一个无人陪伴的孩子最终在边境，我们只会让他饿死并留在另一边，这是我永远不会做的。除了特朗普，以前的政府也没有这样做。”“我不打算干了。”
我们遇到了一个17岁的危地马拉人，他独自一人完成了这次旅行。他告诉我们他是出于“需要”——说家里没有机会。他在美国没有家人，只有一个牧师家庭朋友的电话号码。他已经步行一个多月了。
我们跟随十几名参议员来到河的边缘，墨西哥就在河的另一边。你可以听到木筏上的人在他们看过去的时候嘲笑他们。
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2021年3月26日，雷切尔·斯科特在美墨边境听参议员林赛·格雷厄姆讲话。
我问D-S.C .的参议员林西·格雷厄姆，他是否认为我刚刚遇到的母亲和孩子应该被送回。
“我不怪母女俩。我指责我们正在制定的政策。它激励人们进行漫长而危险的旅行。”他说。“你必须停止流动，你必须告诉母亲，她将不再被释放到美国。”
我问:“要不要把举目无亲的未成年人都遣送回国?”
“当然可以，”他说，“你必须关掉它，告诉人们不要来。”
格雷厄姆给拜登的信息是:“结束这种疯狂。来到边境，看看你的手表上到底发生了什么。”
拜登在周四的新闻发布会上说，他没有访问边境，因为这可能会给已经岌岌可危的局势带来压力，但他确实表示，他将扩大对关押儿童的设施的访问，特别是对记者而言。
拜登说:“我没有下台的一个原因是，我的主要成员已经下台，我不想成为焦点。”。“我不想，你知道，把所有的特勤局和每个人都带在我身边来碍事。”
乔·雷德尔/盖蒂影像公司
参议员特德·克鲁兹在得克萨斯州的里奥格兰德河游览了一部分后，抵达这里对媒体发表讲话
我问参议员们:他们对特朗普政府的条件和政策感到愤怒吗?
“什么暴行?令人愤慨的是，你诱使人们这样做，”格雷厄姆说。他补充说，“拜登总统今天在新闻发布会上的所作所为是一场灾难。...他所做的是制造了一场人类海啸，这场海啸将会来到美国。他不是故意的，但我认为他不了解自己的政策。”
俄克拉荷马州参议员詹姆斯·兰克福德(James Lankford)对我说:“我们真正要问的是，我们应该把孩子留在这里，而父母在他们国家的其他地方吗?”
Reporter's Notebook: Along the southern border with Republican senators
We were out past 1 a.m. Friday with more than a dozen Republican senators along the southern border.
Their message: Send the unaccompanied minors back.
On Wednesday, there were 5,156 childrenin Border Patrol's custodyand 11,900 children in the Department of Health and Human Services' custody, according to data released by HHS.
Along the way, we met a mother just moments after she stepped onto U.S. soil -- her 5-year-old daughter clenching her hand. It was just after midnight.
With tears in her eyes, she told me she fought to come to the United States for her daughter.
She was emotional, describing the journey -- saying it's been difficult. They went many days without food. As her little girl heard her mother cry, she began crying too.
"It’s been very difficult, a lot of days fighting with hunger on the way, and it’s not easy to just come, and hide from Guatemala’s immigration officers," she said. "One comes alone without anyone that can help them, one comes alone, it's very difficult"
In the mother's pocket, a laminated piece of paper with the phone number of family in Maryland. Her husband already made it there with their son from Honduras. He said the time to come is now.
President Joe Biden has said now is not the time to come, but pushed back against sending unaccompanied minors home during a press conference Thursday.
"The idea that I'm going to say, which I would never do, that if an unaccompanied child ends up at the border, we're just going to let him starve to death and stay on the other side, no previous administration did that either, except Trump," Biden said. "I’m not going to do it."
We met a 17-year-old from Guatemala who made the trip alone. He told us they he came out of "necessity" -- saying there weren't opportunities at home. He has no family in the United States, just the telephone number of a family friend who is a pastor. He's been on foot for more than a month.
We followed more than a dozen senators to the edge of the river, Mexico just on the other side. You could hear people on rafts taunting them as they looked across.
I asked Sen. Linsey Graham, D-S.C., if he believes that mother and child I just met should be sent back.
"I don't blame the mother and the daughter. I blame the policies we're creating. It’s incentivizing people to take a long dangerous journey." he said. "You have to stop the flow, you have to tell mother that she will no longer be released in the United States."
I asked: "Do you want to send all the unaccompanied minors back across the border?"
"Yes absolutely," he said: "You got to shut it off, tell people not come."
Graham's message to Biden: "End this madness. Come to the border and find out what is really happening on your watch."
Biden said during his press conference Thursday that he had not visited the border because it could put stress on an already precarious situation, though he did say he'd expand access to facilities where children are being held, especially for journalists.
"One of the reasons I haven't gone down, my chief folks have gone down, is I don't want to become the issue," Biden said. "I don't want to be, you know, bringing all the secret service and everybody with me to get in the way."
I asked the senators: Were they outraged with the condition and policies under the Trump administration?
"What outrage? The outrage is that you entice people to do this," Graham said. He added, "What President Biden did today at that news conference was a disaster. ... What he did is created a human tsunami that’s going to come to the United States. He didn’t mean to, but I don’t think he understands his own policies."
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said to me: "Really what we’re asking is, should we keep the kids here and the parents are somewhere else in their country?"
