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At This Hour

Inside the Dangerous World of Human Smuggling, How Migrants Risk Their Lives to Cross the Border; New York, New Jersey and Connecticut Relaxing Most Pandemic Restrictions on May 19; Giuliani Team Preps for Legal Fight, Hopes Trump will Join Effort. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired May 04, 2021 - 11:30   ET

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

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Something better on the other side.

[11:30:01]

Today, one such attempt starts here in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. We watch from afar as two men carry a makeshift ladder toward a car, lashing it to the side. These are polyeros (ph) or human smugglers who help cross-migrants who pay them to get into the United States.

Today, the smugglers had told us to be in this neighborhood at a certain time. If they had migrants to cross, they told us we could follow them but would not tell us exactly when or where this would take place. After we arrived though, we're told they would indeed try to cross two migrants currently in the backseat of that car. So the car takes off, driving just a stone's throw from the border wall and El Paso, Texas, on the other side.

Further up the road, the car slows. And a minute later, the trio heads to the wall as we follow behind. This smuggler has never allowed cameras to trail him before. He agreed to have only myself and a local producer follow him only recording on our cell phones knowing our presence could increase his chances of getting caught. Trying to cross the wall here is extremely dangerous.

So right now, they're just making their way slowly towards the wall. They're crawling, clearly trying to avoid being seen by anyone that might be on the border, dragging the thing they're used to go up over the wall. This is a difficult here, no question.

It's slow progress on their hands and knees and a bit further on, they catch their breaths, so we had about 30 seconds to talk with the migrants. They allowed CNN to record them only if we hid their identities, a young man and woman, 18 and 20 years old. Originally from Ecuador, they say they paid various smugglers thousands of dollars each to bring them to this point. They told us they're hoping to eventually find work in South Texas.

This is the last step of a journey tens of thousands of people make every year, risking their lives and their freedom migrating to the U.S. with the help of smugglers, smugglers who are often accused of everything from sexual abuse to extortion, some taking terrible advantage of the vulnerable migrants they purport to help.

And some of the migrants are children, as record numbers of unaccompanied minors have been headed north recently, many from Central America. Some make it to the U.S. and others get caught by Mexican officials and end up in government-run shelters like this one. Either way, it's likely their family's paid smugglers to bring them here. Officials at this shelter say about three quarters of the kids here were smuggled, a horrifically dangerous trip.

The shelter psychology says they could be raped, they can be robbed, they can be extorted, they can die on the journey.

This 14-year-old girl says she was smuggled from Guatemala and along the journey passed from smuggler to smuggler, the threat of rape was always there. At times crowded into a van with many others, she felt like she couldn't get enough air. We couldn't make any noise, she says. They would only open up these little windows for a bit and then they would close them. It felt like you were choking.

Human smuggling like this is often run by loosely organized groups but sometimes and especially in Mexico, experts say there is a big role played by organized crime.

The cartel that operates so freely here, smugglers bringing people north, either work directly for those cartels or they work independently, but they have to pay the cartels for the right to move through certain territories.

VICTOR MANJARREZ, FORMER BORDER PATROL EL PASO SECTOR CHIEF: Human smuggling is a multimillion dollar industry. And I would venture to guess that it's approaching a billion dollar industry.

RIVERS: Former Border Patrol El Paso Sector Chief Victor Manjarrez says some cartels have used that money to create wide-reaching, sophisticated smuggling networks.

MANJARREZ: And it's almost like Fortune 500 company dealing with the supply chain.

RIVERS: And at the very end of that chain, smugglers like these, the man that we would later follow to the wall, they say they work for La Linea, an armed wing of the Juarez Cartel. Each migrant they cross pays the cartel roughly $2,000, a staggering sum for most migrants that often leaves them penniless. The smugglers say the cartel gives them a small cut for performing what they call a service.

We try to help them, he says. People come and ask for help, kids, women, men. We support them. But this is not some selfless act. They get paid for this and they are part of a system where rape, extortion, kidnapping and even murder are rampant.

We don't do that, he says. We're all humans. They want to arrive safely. We don't harm them. We give them food and water and help them cross. Other people may hurt them but we don't. We, of course, have no way to know if he's telling the truth. But he says, for him, this is a family affair. He works with his brother and even his 14-year-old nephew. They all smuggle people. The 14-year-old shows me one of the ladders they use.

[11:35:00]

Though, when he crosses kids over the wall, some his own age or even younger, he does it another way. He says, I tie a thick rope around their bellies and lower them down so they won't fall. His uncle says, without them, two migrants like the ones that we followed through the desert who'd want to get to the U.S. wouldn't be able to.

We watch as they hook their ladder over the border wall fence. The young man goes first. Once he's down, he runs. And the young woman then follows. Once up and over, she hits the ground and races off as well. We can't watch where she goes because the smuggler tells us we've got to go.

I had to run back from the fence, obviously, because smuggler was still afraid of getting caught. But for him, it was successful mission.

But for the two people that just crossed, their journey is far from over. It's mainly desert on that side of the wall and they didn't really seem to have a plan. A smuggler told us he had no idea what happened to them after they went over. Those two migrants managed to get in, but for many, that's not the case.

A few days later, we were filming something else on the border when we noticed something, more people desperate to cross. A woman and three young children make a break for the wall. Here though, the actual border is just the Rio Grande, more of a stream really. One by one, holding hands, they make their way. And once they crossed, they're in the U.S. But then comes the wall, a towering steel presence between them and where they want to be. Border Patrol detained them a few minutes later.

Matt Rivers, CNN, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN AT THIS HOUR: Thank you, Matt. That is really powerful reporting. Thank you so much.

Coming up still for us, the big reopening from Broadway to restaurants, to retail, New York joins a growing list of states trying to get back to normal. What does that going to look like?

We'll be right back.

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[11:40:00]

BOLDUAN: A major announcement as the country looks for hope on the horizon with this pandemic. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, are lifting most of their COVID-19 restrictions two weeks from now, relaxing capacity limits for restaurants, theaters and more. New York City is also returning to 24-hour subway service, which is a very big deal here.

It's been more than a year since the restrictions first went into play, so what does this mean now for New York City and beyond?

Joining me now is the founder and CEO of the Union Square Hospitality Group, Danny Meyer. It's good to see you again. As I said in the break, it's good to talk about some good news. So, thanks for coming on.

DANNY MEYER, FOUNDER AND CEO, UNION SQUARE HOSPITALITY GROUP: Thank you for having me, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Of course. What did you think when the governors announced this yesterday?

MEYER: You know what? This is the news version of a great shot in the arm. And I got to just say that after a year as you just said of really nothing but tough news, closing, opening, restricted, opening, closing and it's so hard for so many restaurants across the city and across the country to figure out what to do, what to do with their teams, what to do in their communities, this is truly a green light, and we know it.

I don't know what anywhere if this were a baseball game, but I know it is the late innings and I feel like we've got a pretty good lead going into it.

BOLDUAN: Danny, what are restaurants going to look like now? I mean, do you think there is going to be some of the pandemic impact lingers, like more spacing, less crowding, open windows, or will it -- do you think it will quickly be back to pre-pandemic, full capacity again?

MEYER: Well, in New York City, one of the great legacies will be that we now have relaxed all rules with respect to outdoor dining. And it's a great thing for New York because it's an outward symbol that the city is open for business.

And I just remember in the early days of last summer when we started to be able to serve some food on the street and we didn't know how to do it. We were taking people's temperatures at the table and Q.R. codes for contact tracing. Some of that may still be the case. But with the number of New Yorkers who have been vaccinated, you can just feel in the air how much more competent people are dining out.

So I do believe that outdoor will be a great legacy of this. It really helps restaurants' economy. Rents have done nothing but go up over the last 15 years or so. And what this does is to help to rationalize the rent you're paying indoors by adding seats outdoors.

For the people who feel very comfortable dining indoors, I think it's going to look pretty much like it used to probably within the next couple of months or so. BOLDUAN: That's really amazing to think about. You were also just appointed as the new chair of the New York City's Economic Development Board. And we were looking at just some of the numbers of just the hit that New York City has taken in the past year.

[11:45:02]

Almost 600,000 jobs still haven't come back to the city, at least a thousand restaurants have closed. How do you tackle that, Danny? I mean, what does economic development look like post-COVID here?

MEYER: It's a real complex puzzle, Kate. And I do think it is solvable. I think time is going to be part of this. But I also think we can actually do something, each one of us, to bring things about much more quickly.

Today, the biggest challenge facing restaurants trying to reopen is finding enough people to staff them. We have an unprecedented number of job openings this minute. We've never and we probably never will again have this many for hire signs set outside of restaurants, because everyone is opening and staffing from zero to a hundred at the exact same time.

Meanwhile, as you just mentioned, there's a lot of New Yorkers who lost their jobs during COVID-19, some of whom left the city altogether, but others of whom may have never been in the hospitality industry. So one of the things that I really, really want to try to encourage is for restaurants to reach out into communities of people that need jobs but who have a heart for hospitality and great work ethic. And if we can create a bridge for people that need jobs with an industry that needs people, I think that will be a big, big step forward.

BOLDUAN: Yes, absolutely. I have to ask you and I have no idea if this is directly pandemic-related, but 11 Madison Park, New York City restaurant (INAUDIBLE) out there that has been called one of the best restaurants in the world, they just announced that when they reopen post-pandemic, and I believe it is planned to reopen this next month, it's going to be an entirely vegan menu. And this is a place that was not known for its vegan options. It was known for its glazed duck. It was known for its poached lobster, and now going entirely meatless. What did you think of this decision?

MEYER: Well, I was not surprised. I opened 11 Madison Park with our team in 1998. And we sold it to the chef and general manager some ten years ago. And I've seen 11 Madison Park, which is a glorious restaurant, go through so many different iterations. And it always manages to find a way to do something new and fresh and surprising.

A lot of people don't know, Kate, 11 Madison Park is where Shake Shack was born. So there is a certain delicious irony in the notion that one of the best burgers in New York City was developed out of a kitchen that will serve nothing but vegetables.

But vegetables are awesome. 11 Madison Park is very, very close to the Union Square Green Market. And I'm sure they'll do a great job.

BOLDUAN: Your food history is pretty remarkable, Danny. It's really good to see you. Thanks for coming on.

MEYER: Thank you so much.

BOLDUAN: I really appreciate it.

Coming up for us, Rudy Giuliani's legal troubles heating up. Now his team is calling on Donald Trump to help as they prepare to fight.

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[11:50:00]

BOLDUAN: Rudy Giuliani's attorney tells CNN they are gearing up for a legal battle over what was seized by federal agents in an FBI raid at his home last week. We're also learning Giuliani's legal team is hoping that former President Donald Trump will join in the fight with them.

CNN's Paula Reid, she joins me now for much more on this. Paula, what more are you learning?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, in speaking with Giuliani's legal team, I have learned that they're actually going to add additional lawyers to the team as they prepare for this court fight to try to prevent federal investigators from being able to review some of the material that they have seized.

Now, the heart of their argument is going to be an argument over privilege. Last week when federal agents executed these search warrants at Giuliani's home and office, they seized several of his electronic devices, and Giuliani argues that some of the material on those devices is protected by attorney/client privilege.

Now, one of his most famous clients, probably his most famous client, is former President Trump. And one of Giuliani's legal advisers tells me they hope the former president will join in this fight. But so far there's no indication that the former president intends to get involved.

And, Kate, I thought that was unusual. I've asked several sources why wouldn't the president be inclined here to jump in and protect any communications. And it is well-known. The former president does not text or email a lot, so it's thought that maybe they're not terribly concerned that there will be a lot of direct communication between the former president and Giuliani.

But I am told that there may be other communications among other people discussing things that were said to the president, and those could potentially be challenged.

And it all comes down to this question of whether any challenge would even be successful. This is a really unusual case. The closest precedent we have is another former attorney for former President Trump, Michael Cohen, back in 2018 when his home, hotel and office were raided by the feds. He went to court to try to protect some of the materials that were seized. His lawyers actually convinced the court to appoint an independent authority to review all the material, but in the end, it turned out that only a fraction of what they challenged, and a fraction of what was seized was actually determined to be protected.

BOLDUAN: You're also learning more about who was listed on the search warrant, Paula. Who were they focused on?

REID: That's right. It was really interesting to see these names. It's about a dozen Americans, and Ukrainians, and investigators are also focused on any communication with any U.S. officials about former Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.

[11:55:04]

It appears, Kate, from talking to my sources that investigators are really looking at Giuliani's efforts to oust her, and whether he may have run afoul of any foreign lobbying rules.

BOLDUAN: Paula, thank you very much for that reporting.

Coming up for us, Congresswoman Liz Cheney just put out a new statement as Kevin McCarthy is doing nothing to back her up. Instead, Kevin McCarthy, the top Republican in the House, applying new pressure on Liz Cheney.

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