Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Border Crisis; One Woman's Journey; Children in Limbo as Border Crisis Rages; Rockets Fly, CNN's Wolf Blitzer Takes Cover; Germany Expels CIA Official Over Spying

Aired July 11, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, I'm Brianna Keilar in for Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me.

And we're beginning this morning with the growing border crisis. Tempers are flaring. Americans are lining up on both sides of this issue.

Check out this video just in from Houston. This shows a big banner there on an overpass that says, "Deport, illegal aliens are killing America's future."

Also in Houston one of our affiliates caught up with one woman who said she is furious with the president's request for nearly $4 billion in government funds to handle the situation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNADETTE LANCELIN, HOUSTON RESIDENT: It's not right. Now billions of dollars want to be borrowed from the White House to help feed and house them. What about the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) kids here in our neighborhood? In our country? All these kids really? Why can't they go back? I'm sorry that the parents are in poor living conditions or surroundings or whatever's going on out there, I don't care. I care about what's going on right here in my own backyard, my neighborhood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Now later today Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson gets a firsthand look at a facility that will house undocumented immigrants in Artesia, New Mexico. But he may not get a warm reception in the state.

New Mexico's Republican Governor Suzanna Martinez has blasted not just the president over the border crisis but her own party as well, pointing the finger at Congress for failing to get anything done. In a statement to the "Albuquerque Journal" Martinez wrote, quote, "The immigration situation we face today is a direct failure of gridlocked Washington lawmakers and President Obama. Immigrants flood across the border or parents drop their children there expecting the federal government to just throw up its hands and let them in. That's not an immigration policy. That's a failure of leadership."

Ana Cabrera joining us live now from Artesia in New Mexico.

Ana, what should we be expecting?

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, we are actually at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center here in Artesia, New Mexico. So this is a place normally used to train special agents, other federal officers but it has now been converted just in the last couple of weeks into a temporary housing facility for many of these undocumented immigrants.

Now we're told so far more than 200 adults with children, mostly women with children, have arrived here. They've been bussed here from Texas, where they crossed the border illegally. Again many coming from Central America, so you can't just turn them around.

We understand this facility has the capacity to take in some 672 undocumented immigrants, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials tell us they expect a whole lot more to arrive.

We've learned that here they get to stay in what you might consider dorm rooms. They're provided with food and with clothing. They have access to a refrigerator, other snacks, other kind of everyday creature comforts, meant to feel more or less sort of like a normal life inside the confines of a campus-like setting. Children get to play outside. They're even bringing in teachers to help educate these children, which is actually a requirement by federal law.

So we anticipate seeing when we get a chance to go tour this facility a much different scenario than what we have seen inside in Texas, inside those very crammed and overwhelmed holding and processing centers. But it is important to know that this is only meant to be temporary, these undocumented immigrants can only stay here while they await deportation or while they work their way through the immigration court system.

You mentioned that Jeh Johnson, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, will be coming here within the next few hours. He's going to take a look at the facility himself, just opened again within the last couple of weeks, to see how things are going.

But listen to what he said yesterday, testifying on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEH JOHNSON, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Doing nothing is not an option. At our current burn rate within the Department of Homeland Security, ICE will run out of money in mid-August. Given the added transportation cost, given the added enforcement cost, customs and border patrol will run out of money by mid-September at the current burn rate, given the situation we face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: All of this costs a lot of money, so we're seeing that becoming another obstacle in this ongoing immigration crisis. We know already more than 52,000 unaccompanied minors alone have crossed the border, again, in Texas, just since October, and there doesn't appear to be an end in sight -- Brianna. KEILAR: No, there does not. Ana Cabrera, thank you so much, from New

Mexico.

Many illegal immigrants make the dangerous trip across the border. They are willing to risk it all to escape a life of violence back at home.

Our Kyung Lah follows one woman whose journey started in Guatemala. She made her way across three countries and traveled nearly 3,000 miles in search of her family and safety.

Here's her story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Speeding down a highway in northwest Washington this is the end of a long bus journey. But you're seeing the beginning of an undocumented life in America.

We first met Petrona and her son Rudy 38 hours earlier. 1300 miles south in El Centro, California. Her toddler, so exhausted, sleeps through the interview. As his mother recounts the nightmare of their life in Guatemala.

"I just want us to live," says Petrona, "and it wasn't going to happen at home." Guatemalan gangs ruling her town had threatened to kidnap and kill Rudy unless she paid them. They'd already broken both the legs of Petrona's father she says and killed another child in the family. To escape a death threat, her husband had already slipped illegally into America last year. She would do the same.

Two weeks ago, like so many others, she slipped easily into Mexico at the Guatemalan border but shortly after she crossed a river into Texas she was arrested and brought to a detention center, joining dozens of other mothers and children.

To cope with the tens of thousands of Central Americans like Petrona, the government flew her and about 100 others to Arizona. Then drove them to the Border Patrol center in El Centro, California, to be fingerprinted, have their picture taken and given notice to appear in court. She's released on her own recognizance.

"I'm almost there," Petrona tells her husband using a borrowed cell phone. He's living in Washington state where she's now heading. He sent her money to buy the ticket and Petrona and Rudy board the Greyhound for the 38-hour trip north.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not in Murrieta. Not in Murrieta.

LAH: Protesters in Murrieta say they don't want the influx of undocumented immigrants to come and burden their town but Petrona and all the other undocumented immigrants we've met are heading to other cities across America, absorbed into the north, the Midwest, and east.

(On camera): What if America makes you go back?

PETRONA SANCHEZ, UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT: No.

LAH (voice-over): "I will never go back," she says. Her son would be killed.

It's been more than a year since Santos has seen his family. Rudy doesn't recognize his father, but that doesn't matter right now.

"I don't know how she did it," he says. So stunned, he's not sure what else to say. They say Petrona will show up for her federal hearing but there's little incentive, no monitoring and the very real risk of deportation. Under that shadow begins their undocumented life, like the millions who have already made this journey.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Tacoma, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Kyung just introduced us to one family making the journey up from Guatemala into the U.S. and they are hardly alone. Since last October 57,000 children alone without their parents had made it across the border. Most are coming from Central America, Guatemala, as well as El Salvador and Honduras.

The purple dots on the map there, you see, those are towns where people are coming from. They're trying to escape a cycle of poverty and violence. The bigger dot the more the people there are leaving, and when those immigrants arrive at immigrant facilities in the U.S., they enter the American legal system which can be confusing for young people especially for those who do not speak English.

Joining us to discuss this is Jonathan Ryan. He's the executive director of a group that helps provide low-cost legal services to immigrants.

You know, the first question I have for you, Jonathan, is how do you find these immigrants who need your help or how do they find you?

JONATHAN RYAN, OFFERS LEGAL COUNSELING TO IMMIGRANTS: Well, my organization Raices has been working inside of the unaccompanied minors shelters that are maintained by Health and Human Services since 2008. So we literally are working inside of these facilities.

We were the first non-for-profit inside of any of the Department of Defense facilities that are being rented out to Health and Human Services. We are now in our fifth week working inside of Lackland. So we're meeting these children inside of the detention centers that they're being held.

KEILAR: And how many people do you have helping these kids?

RYAN: Currently Raices has a staff of 40.

KEILAR: OK.

RYAN: Twenty-five of us are dedicated towards this work, and we recently received an emergency grant from a foundation here in Texas to extend -- to expand and sustain our current emergency civil legal aid response.

KEILAR: So if you're dealing with this crisis, we're talking about undocumented minors, how do you give legal counsel to a child in a situation like this, a 5-year-old, for example?

RYAN: Right. Well, differently from our criminal court system, individuals who are in the immigration court system have no right to -- assigned counsel by the government. So what we have is a situation where non-for-profit organizations like Raices are left to try to fill this gap by providing representation ourselves or attempting to identify pro bono attorneys in the community who can help represent these children.

Now when we work with older children, they can assist us to prepare their defense and explain what it is they want us to do as their counsel, but when you speak about a child as young as 5, you identify a situation where you have a young person who fundamentally does not understand the nature and purposes of this immigration court system, who potentially cannot assist their attorney at all in preparing their defense.

So you have a system that can grind to a halt really as you see a prosecutor on one chair and the judge there up at the bench, and a 5- year-old whose head barely peeks over the brass buttons of her chair who really has no wherewithal at all as to the system that she's in or the ability to advocate for herself.

So as we talk about the billions of dollars that are being requested and being poured into the deportation system we must understand that this is an extremely resource-intensive prosecutorial system that really may not be appropriate for the treatment of refugee orphans.

KEILAR: Let me ask you about this. There is, we believe soon, bipartisan legislation in the House that would propose loosening this requirement for a deportation hearing, which is one of the reasons that you're kind of seeing a backlog here with so many undocumented immigrants now surging into the U.S. If that -- I guess the idea Democrats want to protect there being some sort of process for immigrants to have their -- have kind of maybe their day in court or to make their point if they are, you know, under threat of violence or something in their home country, but when you hear that proposal, how does that affect your work and how does it affect the immigrants that you're working with?

RYAN: Well, to my knowledge, I cannot think of another example where we have as a nation attempted to change the law in order to make it less humanitarian, in order to restrict access to justice and to due process, just to exclude one vulnerable group from that system of justice or access to civil legal aid.

Our country's laws of refugee and immigration law go back to some of the commitments that we made during World War II. The greatest generation of our nation went to war as we remember not to defend our borders or our interests, but to defend our principles. Chief among those is that our nation does not return individuals back to countries where they may be subject to persecution or torture. So to change the law just for these children would really be a

fundamental change in both our domestic and international commitments. I think that we should reflect as a nation on the history of these laws, their importance to our image as being the -- the beacon really of democracy and freedom of the world.

So I'm disheartened at the notion that these children who are approaching our country seeking protection may be pretermitted from even asking for our help.

KEILAR: And that will be part of the debate that we hear in Washington.

Jonathan Ryan, thank you so much. Great insight.

RYAN: Thank you.

KEILAR: Well, as the thousands of undocumented children wait for their fate to unfold, a number of organizations are on the ground assisting with food, medical care, even emotional support. And for ways that you can help go to CNN.com/impact.

GOP House leaders will move forward with a plan to sue President Obama. They're suing over the president's decision to delay part of his signature health care law without first seeking approval from Congress.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: Let me make this clear. This isn't about me suing the president. It's not about Republicans versus Democrats. This is about the legislative branch that's being disadvantaged by the executive branch.

What we're talking about here are places where the president is basically rewriting law to make it fit his own needs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: The Republican-led House is expected to vote on the resolution authorizing legal action against the president later this month. The White House says the move is nothing more than a political stunt.

And still to come, attacks from both sides continue in the Middle East. One rocket launched into Israel had even CNN's Wolf Blitzer running for cover. He is following all the action -- Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Brianna, I'm here on the border, Israel's border with Gaza, Gaza, what, maybe a mile and a half, two miles behind me? Just a little while ago we saw a plume of smoke go off. That means there was another Israeli airstrike.

We're going to have a full report. It's incredibly tense here along the Israeli/Gaza border. Much more coming up right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: In the Middle East, Israel hit by at least one rocket launched from Lebanon, seeing many rockets and CNN's Wolf Blitzer had to run for cover at one point when sirens wailed near his location at the Israel/Gaza border.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SIREN)

BLITZER: You can hear the sirens have just gone off so we're all being told to get to a shelter. And so, we're running --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Hamas rockets landing deeper into Israel -- one, as I mentioned, a direct hit. This was on a gas station in Ashdod where wolf was at the time. And the two sides continue trading fire. Israel answers with artillery fire, calls up some 30,000 reservists in preparation for a possible ground assault into Gaza. Casualties continue to mount in Gaza. At last report nearly 100 dead and we're going to be joined by Wolf Blitzer ahead in just a moment.

He is making his way from the Gaza border to Jerusalem as we speak, and we will be touching base with him as soon as we get him on the phone.

Let's check our top stories now. Leanna Harris, the mother of the Atlanta toddler who died after being left in a boiling hot car by his father, has hired a defense attorney. So far, she has not been named a suspect or charged with a crime. The father, Justin Ross Harris, charged with the boy's murder. He's been fired from Home Depot. He insists that all of this was a tragic accident.

The man accused of shooting and killing six people had a history of domestic violence. Police say Ron Haskell's ex-wife had a protective order against him after he beat her in 2008. Haskell kicked in his former in-law's door, tied up the family and demanded they tell him where to find his ex. Then, he shot to death six of the people who you see here, including four children. The family, as you can imagine, is devastated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOYCE STAY, MOTHER/GRANDMOTHER: They liked to go to the park.

TOM STAY, FATHER/GRANDFATHER: People don't really realize that sometimes they see that's just another happening, but unless you go through it, it's really hard.

JOYCE STAY: You have to forgive, and that's a process, and we can do that, even though six of our children have been taken from us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Haskell is charged with capital murder. A 15-year-old girl survived the shooting.

In an article this morning "The Wall Street Journal", America's top military leader say they supported the Beau Bergdahl swap. Letters written by the Joint Chiefs of Staff say they were motivated by a core believe never leave a soldier behind.

What about the threat of trading five high-value Taliban detainees for Bergdahl? Admiral James Winnefeld said, quote, "They never posed a direct threat to the United States homeland or our interests outside of Afghanistan. I do not consider them to be, quote, 'game changers'."

Still to come, will LeBron James be wearing this jersey next season or is he going to trade it in for one with a cavalier style?

CNN's Martin Savidge is in Cleveland where fans have quite the interest.

Hey, Martin.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Brianna. Yes, it's kind of a -- a love/hate thing when LeBron left, they kind of hated him, but if he comes back, oh, they are going to love him. We'll tell you all about it in just a bit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: As Hamas and Israel trade rockets and missiles, our Wolf Blitzer has been in the middle of it. He's joining us now on the phone.

Wolf, you were near the Gaza/Israeli border, and you actually had to take cover. Tell us about what happened.

BLITZER (via telephone): I was right near the border, maybe two miles away from the border between Israel and Gaza and you constantly see smoke from Israeli airstrikes into Gaza, to Hamas targets. You see the pounding. You see the smoke coming up.

I was there, not very far away I was driving to the area and all of a sudden, there's a lot of cars on the highway, everyone simply stops. The sirens go off, the doors of the cars open, people run out of the cars, and they run toward the nearest bomb shelter, if you will. They leave the doors of their car open. Very, very tense moment, something I didn't anticipate.

I have been here in the past when the sirens go off but never been driving and all of a sudden you start running and I started running with everyone else to a bombs shelter. You stay inside for a few minutes and then you get the all clear and come back out, you find your car and continue going. It's sort of become routine.

The closer you get to the Gaza border, we were only a few miles away, the more constant that situation is. If you're in a bigger city, whether in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, you hear sirens once in a while but nothing like it is when you get closer to the border with Gaza. KEILAR: This is just part of daily life there, so seeing you

experience it, we get a sense of what people near the border are dealing with.

I want to ask you about what we're hearing Israeli defense forces are now calling up tens of thousands of reservists. So the question is, are we going to see ground troops from Israel go into Gaza? Are you expecting that to happen?

BLITZER: I am, based on everything I'm hearing here, I wouldn't be surprised. I don't know if it will happen today, tomorrow or the day after. But the sense I'm getting from Israeli military and political leaders that they anticipate, unless there's some last-minute cease- fire effort that succeeds and it doesn't look like anything is even in the works right now. They're going to try to go in and destroy as much of the Hamas infrastructure as far as these missiles and rockets are concerned as they can.

I don't think there's any desire on the part of Israel to reoccupy Gaza. They left Gaza in 2005, but there is a desire I suspect to do as much punishing down to the military infrastructure of Hamas as they can. So, I wouldn't be surprised if the Israelis go in. They don't want to because they know there will be a lot of Israeli military casualties, a lot of Palestinian casualties. There already have been about 100 Palestinians that have been killed and 700 or 800 already injured.

As bad as it is on the Israeli side of that border between Israel and Gaza, it's a lot worse on the Gaza side right now, and everybody understands that, certainly the Israeli tanks and armored personnel carriers go into Gaza, it's going to become more intense.

So, everybody wants to try to avoid that, but my sense is it's becoming increasingly likely unless Hamas for whatever reasons decides to stop shelling Israel.

KEILAR: It sounds like we are on the brink of much, much more, Wolf, and with he know that you are there watching. Be safe and thanks so much.

BLITZER: Thank you.

KEILAR; And Wolf Blitzer is again live from Israel today on "THE SITUATION ROOM" today, that will be at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time, right here on CNN.

Well, Germany is kicking out the CIA bureau chief in Berlin. It's an openly punitive gesture and indignant reaction to the latest allegation that the U.S. is spying on our ally. Chancellor Angela Merkel put it bluntly, "In my opinion, spying on allies is, in the end, a waste of energy

It has also seriously damaged relations between the two countries.

And Atika Shubert joins us now from London. Atika, this one is unprecedented between friendly countries but it's

kind of a one-two punch following the fact that we learned that Angela Merkel's cell phone, right, was bugged or monitored at some point by the U.S.

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well that's exactly it. Germany was already angry at the fact that her phone appears to have been monitored, spied on by the U.S., this was revealed as part of the leaks by Edward Snowden, but then to have another two spying scandals on top of that, German officials that apparently gave over or sold secrets to the U.S. spying officials, that's what's really, really upset the Germans.

You can take a listen to what the German foreign minister had to say earlier this morning and you can see how upset he is. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FRANK-WALTER STEINMEIER, GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): Our decision to ask the current representative of the U.S. intelligence services to leave Germany is the right decision, a necessary step and fitting reaction to the breach of trust which has occurred. Taking action was unavoidable, in my opinion. We need and expect a relationship based on trust.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SHUBERT: The key word there, of course, is trust. Germany feels that the trust is broken, and they need to hit the reset button, but it's not clear if that's actually going to happen, and how they're going to rebuild that relationship, Brianna.

KEILAR: And so many in Germany, as well as other European countries, are also upset when they found out or figured that some of their, I guess, metadata from phones were being monitored as well by the U.S.

Are you expecting any response from the White House? Have we heard anything, Atika?

SHUBERT: We haven't heard anything yet but you have to understand in Germany in particular, they're very angry about this sort of mass collection of metadata. Remember, the German secret police, the Stasi, this is what they were known for. So there is a deep cultural reason why many in Germany feel this is stepping over the line by far.

KEILAR: All right. Atika Shubert, thanks so much.