Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu played audio of children crying in a detention center for 5 straight minutes on the House floor

An audio recording of immigrant children recently separated from their parents circulated the web after it was published by ProPublica, but Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) wanted to be completely sure that his fellow lawmakers heard it, too.

Lieu played the recording on the House floor Friday, despite Rep. Karen Handel (R-Ga.) repeatedly trying to shut it down, footage from CNN shows.

"If the Statue of Liberty could cry, she would be crying today," said Lieu. "As I stand here there are 2,300 babies and kids who are ripped away from their parents by our government and are in detention facilities across America."

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After about 40 seconds, a scuffle began. Handel said that Lieu was "in breach of quorum," and told him repeatedly to "suspend" the audio while she banged the gavel. Lieu insisted that there were no House rules that prohibited playing audio, and said that "the American people need to hear this." After about five minutes of play, the tense moment came to an end and Lieu ended the recording — but not before he had demanded that members of the House imagine if it was their own children detained in a faraway facility. Watch the display below, via CNN. Summer Meza