MSNBC reporter shocked by Trump's child jails: 'One of the most despicable moments in modern American history'

MSNBC's Jacob Soboroff is one of the only reporters given access to the child detention camps operated by the U.S. government, and he was horrified by what he saw there.

The reporter appeared Friday on "Morning Joe" to process the experience, which he said was the most unnerving in his life.

"I witnessed one of the most despicable moments in modern American history," Soboroff said. "I saw kids locked in cages, sitting on floors, supervised by security guard contractors in a watch tower in McAllen, Texas."

"I will never forget it," he added. "I don't think the American people should forget what happened because this should never, ever happen again. It's the worst thing that I've ever seen in my entire life."

Trump apologists have downplayed the conditions the children are forced to endure without their parents, and Fox News broadcaster Laura Ingraham compared the facilities to summer camps.

"It's just wildly inaccurate," Soboroff said. "The first place I went is a former Walmart where kids are inside 22 hours a day, they get outside two hours a day. That was luxurious compared to what I saw (Thursday) in McAllen."

"I just wish the first lady, when she was there, would have been able to go and actually see that facility," he continued, "not the New Hope shelter, where kids are well taken care of. HHS takes care of the kids. They are social service providers, that's what they do."

"The border patrol, where we saw the cages, it is horrifying," Soboroff added. "It's 55,000 square feet on one side of parents and unaccompanied minors, and a huge number of those unaccompanied minors were taken from their parents and sitting there by themselves. What happened to those kids? Where are they now? Some of can kids that I saw there, we literally don't know where they are. The 500 that have been reunited, there's still 2,000 of them."