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Biden Announces Protections for Some Undocumented Spouses and Kids; Heat Wave Creating Dangerous Conditions Across U.S.; 29 Large Fires Active Across the Country; Putin Arrives in North Korea to Meet with Kim Jong Un. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired June 18, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The second action I'm announcing today is about keeping families together. My dad used to have an expression, he'd say, Joey, family's about the beginning, middle, and the end. About keeping couples together who are married, where one spouse is a U.S. citizen, the other is undocumented. They've been living in the United States for at least 10 years. These couples have been raising families, sending their kids to church and school, paying taxes, contributing to our country for every -- for 10 years or more. As a matter of fact, the average time they've spent here is 23 years, the people we're affecting today.

But living in the United States all this time, there's fear and uncertainty. We can fix that. And that's what I'm going to do today. Fix it.

Here's the point. It doesn't require any fundamental change in our immigration law. There's already a system in place for people we're talking about today. But the process is cumbersome, risky, and it separates families. Under the current process, undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens must go back to their home country, for example, to Mexico, for example, fill out paperwork and obtain long-term legal status. They have to leave their families in America with no assurance that they'll be allowed back in the United States. So they stay in America, but in the shadows, living in constant fear of deportation without the ability to legally work. All this, even though under the law today they are eligible for long-term legal status.

Today I'm announcing a common-sense fix to streamline the process for obtaining legal status for immigrants married, excuse me, to American citizens who live here and lived here for a long time. For those wives or husbands and their children who have lived in America for a decade or more but are undocumented, this action will allow them to file a paperwork for legal status in the United States, allow them to work while they remain with their families in the United States.

And let's be clear, this action still requires undocumented spouses to file all required legal paperwork to remain in the United States. Requires them to pass a criminal background check, and it doesn't apply to anyone trying to come here today.

It only applies -- this action is a better way. It doesn't tear families apart while requiring every undocumented spouse to fulfill their obligations under the law.

Look, the actions I'm announcing today will go into effect later this summer. And by the way, just as was true for the protection of DREAMers, the steps I'm taking today are overwhelmingly supported by the American people, no matter what the other team says. In fact, polls show over 70 percent of Americans support this effort to keep families together. It's important.

And the reason is simple. It embraces the American principle that we should keep families together. In 2013, President Obama and I took a similar action to allow undocumented spouses and children of America's servicemen to stay together while they apply for legal status in America.

Servicemen protecting our nation should not have to worry about keeping their families together, for God's sake. This policy has been in place for over a decade and it's working well, and so will the new one.

Look, let me close with this. I refuse to believe that to secure our border, we have to walk away from being an America. For that's generations have been renewed, revitalized, and refreshed by the talent, the skill, the hard work, the courage, and determination of immigrants coming to our country.

Look, the Statue of Liberty is not some relic of American history. It stands, still stands, for who we are. But I also refuse to believe that for us to continue to be America that embraces immigration, we have to give up securing our border. They're false choices.

We can both secure the border and provide legal pathways to citizenship. We have to acknowledge that the patience and goodwill of the American people is being tested by their fears at the border. They don't understand a lot of it.

These are the fears my predecessor is trying to play on when he says immigrants, immigrants, and his words are poison the blood of the country. When he calls immigrants, in his words, animals. When he was president, he separated families and children at the border.

And now he's proposing to rip spouses and children from their families and homes and communities and place them in detention camps.

[15:35:02]

He's actually saying these things. It's hard to believe it's being said, but he's actually saying these things out loud. And it's outrageous. Folks, I'm not interested in playing politics with the border or immigration. I'm interested in fixing it.

I've said it before. I've said it before, and I'll say it again today. I will work with anyone to solve these problems. That's my responsibility as President. That's our responsibility as Americans. Because the simple truth is there's not a single damn thing we can't do if we put our minds to it. We've got to remember who in the hell we are. We're the United States of America, and nothing is bound by capacity. We're a nation of immigrants, and that's who we are.

God bless you all, and may God protect our forces. Thank you.

SANCHEZ: We've been listening to President Biden at the White House touting this new executive action to protect the legal status of the spouses, the undocumented spouses and children of U.S. citizens. The President is there saying that to secure our border, we don't have to walk away from being American. He said we can both secure the border and offer a pathway to citizenship for folks who have been in the country for an extended amount of time.

As he pointed out, the average amount of time that these undocumented folks have been in the United States without actual paperwork averages out to about 23 years. He also took the opportunity to attack his opponent, Donald Trump, as being out of touch and inhumane on this issue.

KEILAR: Yes, that's right. Let's go to Lauren Fox, who is on Capitol Hill. And Lauren, I understand you just spoke to a congresswoman whose husband, whose very spouse, could be impacted by this executive action. Talk to us.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Brianna. I spoke with Representative Delia Ramirez of Illinois and her husband, Boris Hernandez. Her husband got DACA status back in 2012 when he was 14 years old. He crossed the border illegally back in the year 2000.

Now, they have been married since the fall of 2020, and he's been trying to go through the process to adjust his status in this country, given the fact that he is now married to a U.S. citizen and a sitting member of Congress. But they say that that process has taken so much time, it is so difficult to understand where they are in this process, and they said that while they're continuing to go through that application, this announcement today could have an impact on their own family if that first route does not go as they hoped.

So this is having an impact, not just on thousands of American families right now, but on a member of Congress who says she is the only person in Congress who is from a mixed-status family. And she has to remind her colleagues all the time when they ask, is your husband going on a CODEL? No, he can't go on a CODEL because he is not a U.S. citizen. I think that it's such an important reminder that this does affect such a broad group of Americans. Here is what she said earlier about the president's announcement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DELIA RAMIREZ (D-IL): The reality is there's mixed emotion, right? For me, as the only member of Congress in a mixed-status family, it gives us a little bit more relief. But that's not relief for my brother-in-law or my sister-in-law. So I think part of what you hear, too, is we're thankful for what he's doing today, and we have so much more work to do. There are still hundreds of thousands of people still in the shadows who are going to watch the news today and ask themselves, does this finally mean that I finally get out of the shadows? And for many, not yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And Ramirez has not been shy about criticizing the Biden administration's past executive actions, as well as their other statements on border security. But she said that this is an important step. She also argued that this is a critical move that the administration could make to try to make inroads with the Latino community.

She said it's important to remember that your best surrogates on the campaign trail, in her words, are the people whose adjustment of status affects their own families. She said there's nothing more important than someone who is then motivated to vote because their father got a work status, because their mother got a work status. She said that that is obviously something that could help the Biden administration.

But it is important to remember and to point out that these are people who are getting adjustments of status. They are not people who would be able to vote in the next election -- Brianna.

[15:40:02]

KEILAR: Yes, very good point. And thank you for making it. Lauren Fox, live for us from The Hill. Thank you so much.

And we'll be right back with more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: About 1/5 of the entire U.S. population is at risk because of this extreme heat that is descending on parts of the Northeast and the Midwest.

[15:45:00]

Right now people in at least 19 states are under heat alerts. As millions more face temperatures that are topping 90 this week.

SANCHEZ: Meantime, 29 large, active wildfires are raging across the United States. And all of those fires, except for one, are burning in the West. That includes the Post Fire, just about an hour north of L.A. It's charred more than 15,000 acres since it erupted on Saturday. So far, it's about 24 percent contained. We want to go now to CNN national correspondent Natasha Chen, who's on the ground in Castaic, California. Natasha, the winds there are supposed to be easing up. Are firefighters getting a better handle now?

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, that is the hope, that there will be better conditions this afternoon. Though, as we speak, I can still feel some of the wind gusts spreading around those particles.

It's been very thick, heavy air. You can feel it sort of burn the eyes a little bit. It feels like very heavy allergies. So even if one is not evacuated from the area, people here definitely feeling the effects.

We actually followed some folks out of this command center just now in the last hour to a boat launch, where for the first time in L.A. County, they were actually shuttling fire crews to the perimeter via boat over a lake. And so we watched those hotshot crews go to the southern perimeter where there's a lot of steep and rugged terrain. So even in better conditions, they expect that that can still take about a week to fully secure that line right there.

This is just one of more than a dozen wildfires in the West, as you mentioned, a lot of them in Northern California as well, quite near the vineyards and wine country.

And then you have the New Mexico fires, the two of them, that have descended upon one village town. As an official described it, like a pair of tongs with that town just in the middle. Here's one resident describing fleeing that place.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAPT. MARCO RODRIGUEZ, L.A. COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: What we're seeing down here at the lower part of the fire, southern part of the fire, is a lot of rugged terrain, really difficult to access. We're going to be putting some crews on boats and trying to get them up to this side here and try to attack this part of the fire with direct attack.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHEN: I'm sorry, that was the public information officer, Captain Marco Rodriguez. He's actually the one who brought us out to the boat launch and has been sharing a lot of their experience here, saying that as the fires continue to get larger and more frequent in this era of climate change, their strategy now is more fire crews attacking this more quickly, hoping to get this wrapped up so that they're ready for the next fire.

And as we mentioned, of course, there are other fires in New Mexico. Thousands have evacuated from that area. So we're keeping a close eye there where there are extreme drought conditions as well -- Boris and Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, we're keeping our eye on it, too. Natasha, thank you for that report. We appreciate it.

And coming up next, a rare trip to Pyongyang for the president of Russia. Why U.S. officials are worried. Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SANCHEZ: For the first time in more than two decades, Russian President Vladimir Putin is in North Korea meeting with Kim Jong-un. Moments ago, Putin walked the red carpet as the North Korean leader personally greeted him on the tarmac. A warm embrace to start this two-day visit.

The first face-to-face encounter between the two since they met in Russia last September. It's a sign of deepening ties that rattle the nerves of some Western nations.

Let's discuss with Evelyn Farkas. She's the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. Also the executive director of the McCain Institute. Evelyn, thank you so much for being with us.

I'm wondering what your reaction is to seeing those early images of Vladimir Putin visiting Kim Jong-un.

EVELYN FARKAS, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR RUSSIA, UKRAINE AND EURASIA: I'd say, Boris, it's really kind of a comedown for Vladimir Putin that he has to come to Pyongyang, to North Korea, a country that is still very economically deprived, obviously not open to the world, still under international sanctions, a pariah state. And this is a state that Vladimir Putin used to be able to boss around together with the United States and other U.N. Security Council members.

And now he's actually beholden to him. He owes the North Korean leader quite a lot, it appears. He needs him for the war in Ukraine.

SANCHEZ: Yes, I'm wondering, because there's an article published in North Korean state media, Putin praised North Korea's unwavering support for its efforts in Ukraine. I'm wondering how linked do you think this visit is and his increasing proximity to Pyongyang to the deepening alignment that we've seen and the show of support that we saw in Italy at the G7 among NATO nations last week?

FARKAS: I mean, I think it has everything to do, like I said, with the war in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin needs weapons. North Korea has been providing millions of ammunition, so bullets basically, for the weaponry that Russia needs and Russia cannot manufacture.

North Korea has also provided missiles, ballistic missiles. According to South Korea, they've been used in Ukraine, in the battlefield there. So the Russians are dependent on North Korea right now for weaponry.

I do think, yes, there is a diplomatic angle there, as you mentioned. Russia is trying to show that it has friends and allies, you know, while the West is meeting, while the G7, which kicked Russia out in 2014 when it first invaded Ukraine, the West is meeting and showing that it's allied. Russia is showing, well, I have friends and allies too, but his allies are far weaker and they can help him only in limited ways.

SANCHEZ: Well, we saw some of that with the Russian warships that docked in Havana last week as well, right? I'm wondering, from a U.S. perspective, if this tells you anything about the state of U.S.-North Korea relations, because as far as I'm concerned, the last reporting that we saw was that there really wasn't any communication, at least publicly, between the two since President Biden took office.

[15:55:05]

FARKAS: That's right, Boris. So if they were neutral, you know, when President Biden took office, meaning we decided we were going to try, but we weren't going to break our backs trying, and certainly President Obama, if you recall, prior to President Trump, had given up on any kind of real diplomatic progress with North Korea. I was there in 2008, actually, when we had the last chance for diplomatic progress, and that was under President Bush.

President Trump really made a show of trying to deal with the North Korean leader, but that didn't work either. North Korea has decided that they are going to be a nuclear power, and that presents problems for China in particular, because while it has been kind of a patron country, you know, helping North Korea, it really doesn't want a nuclear North Korea, a nuclear-armed state there. And Russia, I think, has decided that maybe it can live with a nuclear North Korea, again, because it finds it convenient to have this kind of ally.

And Russia is really trying, as you mentioned, to shore up its relationships around the world, to demonstrate to the United States that it too has friends. The visit to Cuba was, you know, in that same vein. A little bit more escalatory also, because they used warships to visit Cuba for the first time.

SANCHEZ: Yes, Evelyn Farkas, appreciate your perspective. Thanks for being with us. And stay with CNN we're back in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:00:00]

SANCHEZ: Just into CNN, we want to update you on one of the stories we've been following all afternoon. 911 services in Massachusetts now seem to be restored across the state.

KEILAR: Yes, the state's executive office of public safety and security posted on X the following.

The Massachusetts 911 system has been restored. The public may now resume calling 911 for emergencies.

And it says it's continuing to investigate the cause of the disruption. Obviously, good news. That's back up and running.

SANCHEZ: Positive development. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper, also a positive development. It starts right now.