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ICE Raids Targeting Migrant Families Set To Begin Sunday; Filthy Onesies, Few Beds, Lack Of Soap For Migrant Children; Oregon Governor Sends Cops To Find GOP Lawmakers Who Skipped Climate Vote; Man Injures Five TSA Agents While Rushing Through Security; A Look At Why Ebola Is Once Again Becoming A Crisis. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired June 21, 2019 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[14:30:00] JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: This operation, as you mentioned, is set to begin just days after the president's tweet on Monday where he warned that millions of illegal aliens will be removed.

And we're learning, of course, there won't be millions off the bat. But instead, this ICE operation will target approximately 2000 people.

And, Brooke, that correspondents with the 2000 people that ICE sent letters to in February asking them to self-report to ICE offices to comply with those court-ordered removal orders that they've been given.

And we talked to immigration officials who say that plans for this operation, they've been in the works. But that the operation was likely prioritized after the president's tweet on Monday.

We also learned that the acting head of DHS, Kevin McAleenan, has been hesitant about aspects of this removal that targets families because of concerns about being accused of separating families.

But the new acting ICE director, Mark Morgan, he's been adamant. And he stressed it to reporters earlier this week, he said, if you're here illegally, you should be removed. That's the mantra going-forward.

Brooke, we've learned that this operation will unfold in several large cities where DHS has been tracking cases. That includes, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, L.A, Miami, New York, New Orleans and San Francisco.

And we have learned that the removal likely won't be immediate. Instead, here's how it will play out. Families will be taken into custody, and then moved to ICE family residential detention centers. That's where agency workers will gather up the family's travel documents and eventually remove those families.

This is a process. And this appears to be swift action taken by the administration all after that tweet from the president on Monday, Brooke, so we expect this will be starting in those 10 cities on Sunday.

Brooke, we've heard from advocacy groups. They say there are ready to mobilize Sunday perhaps to try to stop some of these ICE agents from moving forward -- Brooke?

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Instantly, you think of families, some members may be citizens, some may not, how that would work.

Jessica Schneider, we'll be watching those tent cities. And I'm sure we'll cover all of this starting Sunday.

Thank you so much for the reporting and the heads-up.

We're also learning disturbing horrific details about conditions at some border facilities. A team of doctors, lawyers and advocates paid a visit to centers in Texas where they said virtually everyone was sick and living in, quote, "unconscionable conditions."

One researcher says kids are left to fend for themselves. Kids are taking care of babies. Kids are sleeping on the floor. And some are staying in rooms with no windows. Many don't have shoes or socks.

Warren Binford is a law professor at Willamette University. She was part of the team who interviewed these migrant children.

Warren, thank you for coming on and sharing what you saw.

Tell me what it was you witnessed with your own eyes.

WARREN BINFORD, LAW PROFESSOR, WILLAMETTE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW: Brooke, we were just shocked by the inhumane conditions that hundreds of children were being kept in outside of El Paso, Texas. This is a facility that wasn't on our radar screen until last week, when we heard a significant number of children appeared to be moved to this facility.

Once we saw the roster with the children there, we saw there were infants, toddlers, preschoolers, school-aged children, over 350 of them on Monday when we arrived.

We started to bring the youngest children in there, and the children who appeared to have been held the longest. We started asking them about conditions. The children were dirty, they were sad, many of them were sick.

We found out there was an influenza outbreak there. Children are being put into isolation. They're sleeping on concrete floors. They're reporting not being able to sleep at night, because of the conditions. Some of them are sleeping on cement blocks.

They are not being fed adequate amounts of food. They're being given no fruits or vegetables. The same instant foods day after day. The children don't have anyone to care for them.

The guards are bringing in younger children, who have been taken away from their parents or other family members, and asking, who wants to take care of this little boy or girl.

(CROSSTALK) BINFORD: The children, some of them are 7 or 8 years old and are being asked to take care of toddlers or preschoolers, and they simply don't know how.

We had a 2-year-old boy brought to us with no diaper. When I asked the little girl why he didn't have a diaper on, she said he didn't need one. He immediately peed right in front of me right there on the conference room chair.

They are tired. They were falling asleep during the interview. They were sleeping on the conference table, falling asleep in the chairs.

We have a health and humanity crisis going on at these facilities and we need to put these children back with their families. Many of the children, almost all of the children we interviewed had family here in the U.S., and that's where they need to go.

BALDWIN: Just -- I know you're a professional and a professor and this is your job to document these things. You just rattled off a lot. And I'm wondering, I don't know if you're a mother. Obviously, you're a caring human being. What was it like for you personally to see that?

BINFORD: Well, let me be honest with you, my children are -- I have two daughters. They're 9 and 16 years old. They are exactly the ages of some of the children we were interviewing.

[14:35:06] As a human being, as a parent, the first thing you want to do is wrap these children up in your arms and try to comfort them and care for them as any decent human being would want to do. It takes a lot of strength and willpower not to go there, because that is the human instinct to care for these children.

What we try to do is create these one or two hours we have with each individual child or sibling group, and try to show them love and humanity in that interview and allow them to tell their story to us, and allow them to tell their story so it can be put on to the court record.

BALDWIN: An official responded to all of these reports and said, it's all about perspective, and this is better than it was before. Your reaction to that?

BINFORD: I was not at this facility before. I can't imagine it being worse than what we saw this week. These children are being treated inhumanely. They are unhealthy. There's no soap. Their health and wellbeing is being harmed. We need to make sure these children are taken out of there.

But I can't imagine it being any worse than what we saw this week at the Clint Border Patrol facility and last week at Ursula when we had to get a preemie medical attention because the child appeared to be dying.

There are over a half a dozen children who have died in recent months in these facilities. And now we know why. BALDWIN: I hope everyone stopped what they were doing and listened to

what you said.

Warren Binford, thank you so much for the work you are doing and for bringing the light to people who don't have a voice right now. Thank you.

BINFORD: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Whoo.

A political battle over the climate crisis gets so heated, Oregon's governor decides to call in the cops to bring back Senators who actually left the state in an attempt to block the vote. We're live at the state capital with the case of the runaway Republicans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:41:45] BALDWIN: The governor of Oregon made a bold move. She called state police to round up Senate Republicans who fled the state on an attempt to block a vote on the climate bill.

Now Republican lawmakers are fighting back with threats of their own.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STATE SEN. BRIAN BOQUIST (R), OREGON: We're going to have a special session or I'm going to send the state police to arrest you. I'm quotable, this is what I told the superintendent. "Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I'm not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon." It's that simple.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: CNN national correspondent, Sara Sidner, is live in Salem with the details.

You just talked to the governor. What is she now saying?

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: She's frustrated. She says this is an embarrassment to the state of Oregon and that the peoples' work needs to be done.

She makes the point that the people voted in a super majority Democratic Senate and they wanted them to do their jobs. But they cannot do their jobs until at least two Republican Senators come into the Senate for a quorum.

Right now, every hour, they come in, the Democrats showing up, and it's called no quorum, and they leave and go on a recess until the next hour. They are hour by hour waiting to see if their Republican colleagues will show up.

This all started this week when the governor said, if you walk out, after the Republicans said that they were going to walk out, they did not want to see this overarching climate bill passed, but because of the super majority, the Republicans know, if they show up, it will likely pass. The Democrats have the floor. They can take care of this without a single vote from the minority party.

At that point, when she heard they were going to walk out for the second time this year -- they did so in May -- she decided to take a stand.

And as you heard, a Republican Senator took a stand as well, threatening state police if the governor ordered them to come pick him up.

Here's how she responded to his call of doing something, a threat to state police.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BROWN, (D), OREGON GOVERNOR: Look, it's absolutely unacceptable. Senator Boquist needs to stop inciting violence. And he needs to behave and follow the law.

I think this is really important. We negotiated in good faith to bring Senate Republicans back, and it was my expectation they keep their word. I'm keeping mine.

They need to show up. Happy to have conversations once they're in the building.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: They have not come in the building yet. And, yes, state police are in conversations with some of those Senators.

We heard from one of the Senators wives that they had fled the state.

But there are some Senators here, as we understand it, from a source, here in Oregon.

We expect there to be some visits from state police if they don't come walking in the building -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: The saga continues.

Sara Sidner, thank you.

SIDNER: Yes.

[14:44:39] BALDWIN: The terrifying moments when a man rushed the TSA at the checkpoint at an airport. Look at this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Chilling video after this brazen attack int a TSA line in Phoenix. Surveillance cameras captured him plowing through this body scanner, bum-rushing multiple agent. Even swings at some of them.

CNN's Scott McLean has more on who this guy is. Who is he? Why did he do this?

[14:50:04] SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Brooke. That is the burning question, what was this person trying to accomplish.

If you look at the tape, you can see him bowl over one TSA officer. A second tries to tackle him. And he starts swinging wildly at a third.

If you watch the bottom of your screen, you'll see another officer walk over from the other side of the scanner and tackle him.

If you can't them, there are nine TSA officers who are in that immediate area. It takes at least three to get him on to the ground. They managed to hold him there for long enough for police to arrive.

Even police, Brooke, had trouble getting him out of the airport because he was kicking and trying to get away. They had to call in the fire department to strap him into a gurney in order to get him in the back of a police car.

His name is Tyrese Garner. He's only 19 years old, from Lubbock, Texas. He has no past criminal convictions, though the police say that he was under the influence of either drugs or alcohol. They also suspect he had some mental health issues as well.

For those who have flown out of Phoenix's airport, this is in terminal four in the D-gate area where Southwest, American and a couple of airlines are located.

It is not clear whether he actually had a ticket and, if he did, where he was going.

He's been charged with trespassing, assault and resisting arrest. He is still in jail because he hasn't posted the bond.

Meanwhile, Brooke, the TSA says five of its officers were hurt. Four were taken to intensive care or urgent care, I should say. One was taken to the hospital. We don't know the extent of their injuries. All of them have been released -- Brooke?

BALDWIN: Nine agents involved in that. Do not mess with the TSA.

Scott McLean, thank you very much.

CNN goes there and gets a rare look at a deadly Ebola outbreak.

Plus, the courtroom stunner. A witness confesses to murder, the same murder trial for which his Navy SEAL colleague is on trial.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:57:21] BALDWIN: BALDWIN: CNN is getting a rare look at an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. New medicines were supposed to slow the virus down. But months later, it is still spreading.

CNN's David McKenzie gets an inside look at U.N. teams on the front lines.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The cameraman enters this exhausting battleground where a transparent barrier isolates a highly contagious Ebola patient from the outside world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE)

MCKENZIE: His team rushes to stabilize a young woman who lost her baby and her husband to the virus.

The death rate in this outbreak, nearly 70 percent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes you forget even for myself. This is my third Ebola outbreak. The terror that this strikes into people.

When people come here, they feel they might die. In fact, they believe there's a good chance they will. But if they're inside there, they can see the eyes, the emotions, the care of the doctors, and also for the family members coming in. They'll be able to interact with them. They're no longer isolated in the same sense.

MCKENZIE: They call these new units, the cube. The family can begin to trust us, says the doctor, because they can see with their own eyes that we are caring for their loved ones.

Its design, a hard lesson learned from the 2014 West African epidemic where Ebola killed more than 11,000.

This time around, teams are also armed with an effective if experimental vaccine. Advances that meant this outbreak was supposed to be different.

It wasn't supposed to last this long or kill so many. Ten months later, it is still spreading.

For the vaccine to work, the teams need to be able to reach all of this. But this is eastern Congo, a region racked by decades of violence, where armed groups continue to thrive in a dysfunctional state, so a mistrusting community is understandable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's at stake here is whether we can break this transmission or not. If it continues to be interrupted, it's likely that the virus would continue to propagate.

MCKENZIE (on camera): And what would that mean for this region, for global health?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It remains a threat to surrounding provinces, it remains a threat to surrounding countries. So we cannot let it spread.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): For the spread to stop, Samuel needs to work, keeping track of those most likely to become infected. (on camera): So that's 36.8. So that's safe?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, that's safe.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): But like so many health workers here, Samuel has been threatened, even beaten up by his terrified neighbors.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sometimes all the world knows is fear. They don't look at the individual people.