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Biden Admin Sues Texas Over Controversial Immigration Law; Some GOP House Members Threaten Gov't Shutdown Over Border; Homicide Rates Fall Sharpley In Many Major U.S. Cities; Google Disables Cookies For 30 Million Chrome Users. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired January 04, 2024 - 14:30   ET

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

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[13:33:04]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The Biden administration in suing Texas over their controversial new immigration law that gives local officials the authority to arrest people they suspect of being migrants. It also gives judges the ability to remove them to Mexico.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The Justice Department argues that this law undercuts the federal government.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is live for us at the White House.

Priscilla, the measure is set to take effect quite soon here, in March. What is next for this?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: All of this is going to play out in the courts now. The Justice Department asked the court to block this measure from taking effect at all.

For some history here, the Justice Department threatened to sue Texas last week if they didn't back down from this measure.

That did not happen. Just yesterday, the Justice Department sued Texas over this controversial immigration law.

Now, their argument here is that the federal government is charged with enforcing immigration law. That is not an authority that a state holds.

In fact, they go on to say pretty bluntly that Texas cannot run its own immigration system.

They go on to say in this complaint, quote, "Its efforts through S.B.- 4" -- that is the name of the measure -- "intrudes on the federal government's exclusive authority to regulate the entrance and removal of non-citizens.

"Frustrates the United States' immigration operations and proceedings and interfere with U.S. foreign relations. S.B.-4 is invalid and must be enjoined."

So again, the Justice Department asking the courts to step in to block this measure.

Zooming out, this is part of an ongoing to people tween President Biden and Texas governor, Greg Abbott, who launched his own border mission at the start of President Biden's administration.

It has caused alarm here at the White House, as I have seen the governor take on immigration actions, many of which are controversial, along the state's shared border with Mexico.

Just this week, this is the second legal action the Justice Department has taken against Texas.

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Earlier this week, they went to the Supreme Court and asked them to step in to allow the administration to cut razor wire, which Texas have put in place, and that border agents say have been discovering their own operations on the ground.

All of this continuing to unfold between the president and the Republican governor. Now this dispute is going to play out in the courts.

SANCHEZ: Priscilla Alvarez, live from the White House, thank you so much.

We want to pivot to Capitol Hill now. Because some House Republicans are saying that they will shut down the federal government if their demands are not met on a border deal.

Right now, of course, a bipartisan group of Senators is trying to find middle ground.

But Republican hard-liners have said they will only accepted a deal if looks like a deal that passed the chamber last year. H.R.-2, also known as the Secure the Border Act.

KEILAR: It includes provisions like resuming construction of the border wall, beefing up Border Patrol staffing, restricting use of humanitarian parole programs, and stripping non-profits of funding to care for migrants.

Let's go live to CNN's Manu Raju.

Manu, tell us where things are standing right now.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Really in a period of uncertainty and huge consequences looming.

There is a negotiation happening right now in the Senate to try to come up with some sort of middle ground among a handful Senators in the administration to see if they can get a deal that can actually pass the Senate and move through the House, get signed into law.

Of course, Republicans are insisting that the border security provision must be dealt with first before they will agree to greenlight aid to Ukraine.

Even aa the administration is sounding the alarm and demanding that aid to Ukraine be approved immediately, warning that the countries future could be at risk in its war against Russia.

But there's a big problem. This negotiation in the Senate still has yet to produce a deal. Even if there was a deal, many Republicans in the House say they simply will not accept it because it is not expected to go as far as that House bill, H.R.-2.

I spoke to several of key Senators who are negotiating this plan about what the Republicans' demand in the House, whether or not they would accept H.R.-2 as part of the negotiation. They pushed back.

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SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): If you are serious about getting results, you have to be working across the aisle. My impression is Speaker Johnson has not spent one minute trying to work across the aisle to get a deal on immigration.

We are trying to work across the aisle in the Senate to try to get a bipartisan deal on the supplemental.

RAJU: Is that practical? H.R.-2?

SEN. KYRSTEN SINEMA (I-AZ): I don't think that is a question for me. I can tell you we are working on building a practical and reasonable solution.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): We still how to be reasonable. We can just do nothing. We can't get everything in H.R.-2, so we're going to do nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: That last comment comes from James Lankford, the Republican who is negotiating, who is saying that simply because of the Democratic Senate and the Democrats in the White House with a Republican in the House, while he supports, it simply will not become law, giving the opposition among Democrats.

So you see the divide really play out. Not just within the Republican party but between the two chambers, between the House and the Senate.

And just huge questions about whether anything can get done or whether this will fall apart next week when they come back into session.

And what will happen in the future of Ukraine as well as Israel aid. All waiting on these critical negotiations play out over immigration.

SANCHEZ: The backdrop, Manu, over the Senate deal that includes protections for the border, aid Ukraine and Israel, is the broader fight over government funding.

You've learned that congressional leaders are inching closer to an agreement to set overall funding levels for the government, right?

RAJU: That is right. But it will not avert a government shutdown.

We've been told, according to numerous sources, that congressional leaders, speaker of the House Mike Johnson, as well as Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, are close to agreement on the overall spending levels for the rest of this current fiscal year that ends of timber.

But they still have to make a decision, program by program, on how to fund the rest of the government and what to fund and what not to fund. That is where the complicated matters come in, including dealing with issues of the border, as well as immigration, as we are hearing.

Calls from these Republican hard-liners, in particular, demanding stricter border security measures in that government funding bill. Some of them say, shut down the government, if they will not shut down the border.

That is going to be part of the dynamic as they come back to Washington with very little time next week. Because the first government funding deadline is January 19th. The next one is February 2nd.

And real concerns about a government shutdown because of those sharp disagreements. Even if there is an overall agreement on funding, what will they do about those overall programs? Will that lead to a broader government shutdown? Big questions in the weeks ahead?

KEILAR: Manu, we'll be tracking that with you. Thank you so much, live for us from Capitol Hill.

[14:39:57]

And still ahead, how safe is it in big cities across the country? What new numbers show about a record drop in murder numbers. We will have that ahead.

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KEILAR: Major cities across the United States are actually reporting a stunning drop in homicides. This is according to new data from the FBI and local law enforcement.

Just take a look at some of these numbers. Murders falling sharply in Chicago. Also down in San Francisco, down significantly in Atlanta, and also in many other American cities.

SANCHEZ: It's not just murder either. There were significant drops in nearly every other category of violent and property crime, including break-ins and muggings.

CNN's Mark Morales has been looking in this.

Mark, what does the data tell you?

MARK MORALES, CNN REPORTER: Right. And these are pretty significant declines. The numbers are fascinating. They really give you a snapshot of what is going on right now.

I just wanted to quickly run through some of these numbers in some of these major cities we are looking at.

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New York City down 12 percent as far as murders go. Detroit down 18 percent. L.A. down 15 percent. Phoenix down 14 percent. Philadelphia down 20 percent.

There is a lot going on here. And it's -- you always have to remember that with these numbers, we're coming back down from a spike. Right?

So the pandemic really affect things. It really affected the way police operated during the pandemic as far as crime was concerned. Also in terms of how the court system was operating.

While these numbers are declining, we are coming back down from a spike. We still have a lot more to go.

For instance, you look at New York City, their numbers are down for this year. But that is still up compared to where we were in 2019.

The same goes for Philadelphia. The numbers this year for 2023, this past year, they are down. But still up from where we were in 2019 when the pandemic started.

KEILAR: That's great news. Just that the trajectory is in the right direction, even if it hasn't come back down.

It is not the case, Mark, for every city, right? You have some where crime is sharply higher still, Washington D.C., New Haven, Connecticut, among them. Explain that to us.

MORALES: Right. This is sort of where a lot of the analysis still needs to be done right now.

Because, for law enforcement, they point to the ability to have the courts back working again. They point to crime intervention strategies. They point to everything working in lockstep, even having more patrol.

But that is not always the case for every city. Even places like D.C., for instance. They might still have some issues working with the court system.

So there's still a lot more work that needs to be done to get a lot of these numbers significantly under -- back to where they were before. But for some of these other cities, they've been unable to manage through that so far.

SANCHEZ: Mark Morales, thank you so much for the reporting. We appreciate it.

Still ahead, Google is disabling cookies for some 30 million Chrome users. We will break down what this means about how the company is tracking you online.

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SANCHEZ: No more cookies. It sounds like a nightmare but it's actually a way for you to have more privacy online.

Today, Google is beginning a media diet, a limited test to restrict the technology that allows advertisers to target you with ads by tracking your Internet activity, those cookies.

Google is starting by disabling cookies for 1 percent of its Chrome users, roughly 30 million people. It says, by the end of the year, cookies are going to be eliminated from Chrome entirely.

Joining us with more on this is Thomas Germain, a senior reporter at "Gizmodo."

Thomas, thanks so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us.

This is a big deal. The online ad business is a $600 billion a year industry according to the "Wall Street Journal." So why is Google now eliminating them?

THOMAS GERMAIN, SENIOR REPORTER, "GIZMODO": What we are talking about is one of the biggest changes not just in the history of the Internet but in the entire business model of the tech industry.

So cookies, like you said, are one of the primary ways that consumers are tracked online for targeted advertising purposes and all kinds of other things.

But the walls have been closing in when it comes to privacy as governments and the public wake up to issues about our data.

So a couple of years ago, Google saw the writing on the wall and I think they realized they needed to make the change to get out in front of this. Because if they didn't do something about privacy, the government was going to do it for them. And that's not what they wanted.

So they announced this new initiative to get rid of cookies and replace them with a new technology that still tracks you and allows advertisers to target you with ads but it works a little better when it comes to your privacy.

SANCHEZ: When you say it works a little better, there's an aspect to cookies that are actually beneficial, right?

Because we could just be talking about waffles or slippers, and then your phone just like it knows that you are looking to buy something and it pops up ads for you.

So how is the new system going to work? GERMAIN: It's phenomenally complicated when you get down into the

technical details. But on a basic level, what will happen is Chrome itself, your own browser will be the one tracking you instead of these files floating all over the Internet.

And then Chrome is going to collect data about what you are doing on different Web sites but it stores the data on your device, and Google and everyone else doesn't get to see it.

Instead, Chrome is going to sort you into these different cohorts of people who are interested in different topics. And then Web sites and advertisers will be able to ask Chrome which cohort, what topics is this person interested in and then show you an ad.

But they won't get to know exactly who you are or learn anything about your browsing history. That's a lot better for your privacy than the status quo, which is everyone gets to know everything about you.

At the same time, there are lots of other browsers, Firefox and Duck Duck Go, that don't track you at all. So, it's not perfect.

SANCHEZ: Yes. I'm wondering how businesses are reacting to this. I know some of them are concerned that Google is perhaps moving too fast and they haven't had a chance to adjust.

GERMAIN: Yes, Google is really concerned about the problem because, at the same time, there are regulators breathing down the company's neck, accusing it of being a monopoly and it doesn't want to do something that will hurt the competitors.

So it's been working hard to try and please the advertising industry and give it a technology that doesn't benefit Google more than anyone else and allows advertisers to continue the targeted advertising status quo. So it's a delicate balance.

Some companies are furious about this. They feel like Google is writing the rules of the Internet, and it kind of is.

And there are some ways where this will advantage the company and hurt others but, for the most part, they're really concerned about working together with the industry to find a solution that will please everyone. And that's a tough battle for the company.

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SANCHEZ: And quickly, Thomas, is there actually going to be a noticeable difference when you use Chrome?

GERMAIN: Yes, I think for consumers, for Chrome users, you are probably not going to feel any difference at all. You will see a pop- up that lets you know the change has happened.

But for the most part, it's going to be the same Internet, although there will be a lot of different things happening behind the scenes. Under the hood, what we are talking about is an earthquake happening in the Internet. SANCHEZ: Thomas Germain, thank you so much. Appreciate your expertise.

GERMAIN: Thanks for having me on.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

CNN NEW CENTRAL returns in just a moment. Stay with us.

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SANCHEZ: Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. I'm Boris Sanchez, alongside Brianna Keilar.