U.S. Sen. Gary Peters on Missing Children, North Korea, and America’s Role in World
Peters also talks about the death toll in Puerto Rico, America’s exit from the Iran deal, and future mobility.
Detroit Today with Stephen Henderson is broadcasting live this week from Mackinac Island for the Detroit Regional Chamber’s 2018 Mackinac Policy Conference. It’s a week-long meeting of politicians, business leaders, and other public officials from Detroit and across the state.
It’s fitting we start with one of the major players representing us in Washington D.C. — U.S. Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) — as new questions emerged over the weekend about how the federal government is handling families who come to the country illegally. Reports showed children, some as young as babies, are separated from their parents and are at times lost in a system that won’t reconnect them, indefinitely.
It’s a type of purgatory, or hell, that has been thrust upon these families seeking a better life.
“If you’re coming across the border without documentation, that’s a crime, but the children are certainly not guilty of that,” says Peters. “I think people are looking at that intuitively and there needs to be a chance for that child to be around a loving friend or relative.”
Peters also speaks about a new Harvard study shows nearly 4,700 people were killed in Puerto Rico, rather than the federally reported 64 people. That’s 70 times more than reported. That’s far more than people killed by Hurricane Katrina.
He discusses the on-again-off-again summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, America’s exit from the Iran nuclear deal, and how Michigan can be a leader in next-generation mobility.
Click on the audio player above to hear the full conversation.
WDET’s Mackinac Policy Conference coverage is sponsored by The Henry Ford.
