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Ranchers, Vigilantes, Police Prepare For Big Changes At Border; Economists: High Rates May Lock Some Americans Out Of Home Buying; Climate Summit Hits Roadblock Over Money To Fight Climate Crisis. Aired 2:30-3p ET
Aired November 22, 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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[14:33:49]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: We back now with a rare look at some hot spots on the border with Mexico, where ranchers, vigilantes and police are on the lookout for people crossing illegally into the U.S.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Many of those front-line folks expect Donald Trump to stop the flow of illegal migrants as promised.
CNN's David Culver takes us there
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DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More than 30 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border --
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: We're going to go run that.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Absolutely not. I just had him at 85, so we're going to talk.
CULVER: -- Arizona deputies close in on a suspected migrant smuggler. This SUV going 40 miles over the speed limit.
UNIDENTIFIED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER: Get back in the car. Now!
CULVER: After a quick search though, no migrants found. They let the driver go with a reckless driving ticket and move on to the next, running down cars like this all day.
It's part of the stepped-up search efforts for cartel-backed drivers. On average, deputies tell us they bust two to three vehicles a day carrying migrants or drugs here.
MARK DANNELS, COCHISE COUNTY SHERIFF: This is a really hot spot. So the cars that come down from Phoenix, take the three-hour journey, pull on this highway, pull into a spot in here, hit the horn and they'll pop out of the brush.
CULVER: Sheriff Mark Dannels tells most smugglers are U.S. citizens paid by Mexican cartels. [13:35:03]
DANNELS: We've got to get back engaged into what the cartel's all about, a ruthless, murderous gang. And number two, they have no respect for this country.
JIM CHILTON, OWNER, CHILTON RANCH: They need to secure the border at the border.
CULVER: Jim and Sue Chilton tell me the cartels use their ranch as a crossing route.
J. CHILTON: The idea that people coming through here, through my ranch, are coming into poison our people is very, very objectionable to me.
SUE CHILTON, OWNER, CHILTON RANCH: You can see they're all carrying backpacks. Many of them are identical.
CULVER: They show me about two hours of surveillance footage collected from just five cameras on their 50,000 acres in Aravaca.
(on camera): They all look like they're wearing fatigues, camouflage. I mean, it almost looks like a military operation.
J. CHILTON: Over 3,000 people coming to my ranch in the last three and a half, four years are in the country. We have no idea who they are.
They're what's called got-a-ways.
CULVER (voice-over): The Chilton say the surging got-a-ways started when President Biden took office and halted construction of the border wall.
Sue points to the half mile gap on their ranch that she calls the door.
S. CHILTON: Obviously, if you leave your door standing open in your house, where do people come in?
CULVER (on camera): The open --
S. CHILTON: The door, right? OK.
J. CHILTON: Federal government's warning us that there are bad people coming through here.
CULVER (voice-over): Jim says he's come face to face with them.
J. CHILTON: About 20 guys ran across the road and up that hill to going northwest and the guy in front appeared to have a AK-47.
CULVER (on camera): Do you carry any protection while you're out here?
J. CHILTON: I always have a weapon, David. Here's my pistol. You have a weapon people go the other way. CULVER (voice-over): We soon learned Jim isn't the only one armed in these parts.
TIM FOLEY, ARIZONA BORDER RECON: You name it, I've been called it.
CULVER: Some call Tim Foley a vigilante. He says his self-funded group, Arizona Border Recon, is here to deter the cartels.
FOLEY: It's a game of chess or whack a mole.
CULVER (on camera): Who's winning?
FOLEY: Them.
CULVER (voice-over): Volunteers from across the U.S. join Foley in his unofficial and, at times, controversial, patrol effort.
(on camera): And so why do it?
FOLEY: I love my country, and that's why I said I'll be here until I feel it's secure.
CULVER: When you look at where the border wall ends, what goes through your mind?
J. CHILTON: Why did it end? Why wasn't it finished? But I'll guarantee you that President Trump is going to finish it and secure the border.
CULVER (voice-over): Pulling up to where the wall ends, Jim warns us the cartel's been battling it out to control this corridor.
(on camera): Would you hear gunfire?
J. CHILTON: I've heard gunfire, yes.
CULVER: Like a war zone?
J. CHILTON: A war going on over there. I don't hang around, I get out of here.
CULVER: We see some movement up on the ridge, which, according to Jim, is very likely one of those cartel scouts because they have lookouts all over.
They'd likely be watching us because we're at, as the Chiltons say, the doorway into the U.S. And that also happens to be their money- making route.
CULVER (voice-over): About 50 miles east of the Chiltons' ranch, Nogales businessman, Jaime Chamberlain, knows the economic importance of the border. His produce import company relies on the port of entry here.
JAIME CHAMBERLAIN, PRESIDENT, CHAMBERLAIN DISTRIBUTING, INC.: Any time that you take away those resources, whether it's personnel or whether it's funding for Border Patrol, you are weakening those ports of entry.
CULVER: But he believes the economy and national security are about to improve.
CHAMBERLAIN: I think the new administration has made it clear that they're going to go after criminals first.
CULVER (on camera): Are you nervous with President Trump coming in? Do you have uneasiness about it?
RAFAEL, MEXICAN IMMIGRANT: Yes. It's different, you know? Trump is different, so. But I respect him, too.
CULVER (voice-over): Along the border wall, we meet Rafael, celebrating his 34th birthday with his mom and son visiting from the other side.
A decade after crossing illegally, he is still undocumented, working on a construction site with a team of about 10.
CULVER (on camera): How many of them would you say are undocumented?
RAFAEL: Like 10, 10 --
CULVER: Like, everybody?
RAFAEL: Yes.
CULVER (voice-over): But Cochise County deputies say they aren't focused on migrants like Rafael. They want the cartel-fueled smugglers who operate day and night.
DEPUTY DAN BRENNAN, COCHISE COUNTY SHERIFF'S INTERDICTION TEAM: I can kind of safely assume that I think activity will pick up in the coming days until the inauguration.
CULVER (on camera): And that's just the cartels basically saying, ten thousand times.
BRENNAN: Hey, let's get it. You know, we're here to make money. Let's get it while we can.
CULVER (voice-over): David Culver, CNN, Cochise County, Arizona.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: A really eye-opening story.
Fantastic work by David Culver. Our thanks for that report.
[14:39:52]
Coming up, the Fed is keeping their effort to cut interest rates alive. So why are mortgage rates going up? Why home buyers could be waiting a while. We're talking years to see a drop.
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KEILAR: It's no secret that the American dream of buying a home has become well out of reach for millions of people.
So it was welcome news when the Federal Reserve started cutting interest rates in September. But mortgage rates have defied the Fed, and they've actually moved higher, nearing 7 percent in the past few weeks since the election.
So why is that, you're probably asking.
Let's talk about it with Roben Farzad, business journalist and host of NPR's "Full Disclosure."
Roben, why? Why aren't we seeing some kind of relief for homebuyers?
ROBEN FARZAD, BUSINESS JOURNALIST: We still have a lot of money in the system, and interest rates refuse to go down.
[14:45:01]
You typically see interest rates slashed when we're in an economic tumble. Indeed, the Fed took rates down to zero in the throes of the pandemic and there we're people have been allowed to avail themselves of 2 to 3 percent mortgages. And they are loathe to give those up.
Now, you see, the prevailing rate is still, you know, stubbornly closer to 7 percent. And that has a lot of people on the sidelines.
KEILAR: People voted for Trump, more people voted for Trump, believing that he would fight inflation. But you're saying that the bond markets are betting that Trump's promises would feed inflation, and the Fed will have to hike rates to fight it.
FARZAD: Well, no. I mean, the worry is that the incoming administration doesn't take kind of deficits seriously. And it's mostly about spending and it's out there with tax cuts and things that would add to the deficit.
I mean, make prospective bondholders more scared about buying our securities and then sending the yields lower. And it's just very hard to do at a time when you're issuing more debt to keep the lights on and keeping the debt balances high.
And the Fed had these plans and investors we're hoping the Fed could cut more into it. But now you might see more daylight between this Fed and the Donald Trump White House.
And so since the election, we've seen a lot of anxiety about it. Already, housing sales are having kind of their worst year since maybe the mid-90s on fear of pricing.
Pricing is -- is stubbornly high. Rates are still close to 7 percent. And so what's going to break that logjam?
KEILAR: So what are economists saying about when the right rates might finally come down? I mean, when are we going to see that happen?
FARZAD: That is the kind of big existential question. That is the multi-trillion-dollar question. You do see rates slashed when the economy is in distress.
If it's in true distress, not close to 4 percent unemployment, but something akin to the financial crisis or various things that we saw over the last 20, 25 years where the Fed comes in and half a point at a time starts cutting rates to stimulate the economy.
The big question right now is that a market where housing for so many million prospective buyers, does the Fed need to stimulate into that? I mean, who exactly benefits?
If you're a young family that's waiting for cheaper interest rates, is that going to bring home prices down or are home prices going to go up if the Fed brings interest rates and then mortgage rates down?
And so breaks that logjam? It's almost kind of a standoff or a game of uncle. Somebody has to cry uncle first. And there are huge questions in this.
KEILAR: What's the long-term effect of people being priced out of the -- of the housing market and out of the lending market for getting into a home?
FARZAD: Just a learned helplessness, generationally. You're supposed to have older people that pass on these things to younger families, the existing housing stock that would move on.
But we saw this renaissance of -- of housing during the financial -- I mean, during the pandemic where people were taking on second homes, satellite markets.
I mean, in your area, if you were going to look at Westchester or Newburgh or even going up to Upstate New York or various points up and down the eastern seaboard, and on top of that, you get something like a 3 percent, 3.5 percent mortgage.
And so those older people -- a lot of these are boomers and older. Gen Xers, they're loathe to give that up. But what finally convinces them to give that up? They can't hold on to it forever.
I mean they're going to need a first-floor bedroom. And the question is, are these people who are husbanding money and paying lots in terms of rent, in the meantime, able to afford when exactly that handoff happens?
I think it has everyone, economists, housing strategists, everyone on Wall Street scratching their heads.
KEILAR: Yes, I actually live in D.C. So I think they're heading down to where you are to get their second homes closer. But still the
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KEILAR: Yes.
FARZAD: They're thinking about the markets of D.C. Already you're seeing areas of Pennsylvania where people are being crowded out. People talk about York, P.A.. In New York, they talk about Westchester and Upstate New York.
You know, here in Richmond, Charlottesville, Durham, North Carolina, these have all been beneficiaries, especially lower-tax environments. And that's caused a lot of fear and loathing and frustration among locals.
KEILAR: Yes, completely. We've even wondered how that affects the political landscape in some states as well.
Roben, great to have your insights. Thank you so much.
FARZAD: Thank you, Brianna.
[14:49:14]
KEILAR: Next, some countries say it's way too expensive, while others argue the amount is an insult. All the drama holding up a deal at a big climate summit, next.
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SANCHEZ: The COP 29 climate summit is now in overtime after a funding plan aimed at dealing with climate change ran into backlash from poorer countries.
The U.N. wants wealthy, developed nations like the United States to provide $250 billion each year by the year 2035 to help poorer countries tackle climate change.
That figure is significantly higher than the current amount, which you see on the wall there, but it may still fall far short of how much is actually needed.
CNN climate correspondent, Bill Weir, joins us now.
Bill, where do things stand?
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's a lot of outrage happening in Baku, Azerbaijan, right now. And to be clear, this is the majority of the world's population, the majority of the developing countries saying this is not about charity, this is about a, "you broke it, you agreed to help fix it" situation.
In 2009, the richest countries agreed to set up a $100 million -- $100 billion a year fund for these developing countries. The payments didn't start until two years later, 2022.
And now, it seems like they're clawing back and pulling back on the ambition to do this support. They came to this with economists agreeing that given the speed and scale of the climate crisis, the figure should be between $1.3 trillion and $5 trillion a year to be shared by the richest nations.
[14:55:06]
The new offer, $250 billion by 2035, which, given inflation, is not that much of a bump.
It's why Panama's lead negotiator said, "This offer is a spit in the face of all the nations like mine. They offer crumbs while we bury the dead. Outrageous, evil and remorseless."
Overall, what you have at this COP is China, which is exploding in renewable power, they put on 67 percent of the world's solar and wind to date, while the U.S. is 7 percent. But they want to be treated as a developing nation and get largesse from the richer nations.
While this is happening, Saudi Arabia is now sort of boldfaced, resisting all progress on this. They're just dug in and trying to shoot down everything.
And then, of course, the United -- the United States is coming in with the Trump administration, Boris, promising to drill, baby, drill, for the next four years.
SANCHEZ: Bill Weir, thank you so much for keeping an eye on the situation in Azerbaijan. Thanks so much.
A Wisconsin kayaker, who was believed to have drowned, just recorded a video revealing that he's alive. But he won't say where he is, or perhaps, more importantly, whether he plans to return home to his wife and three kids. This story next.
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