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Biden Administration Begins Entry Of Migrants Forced To Stay In Mexico By Trump; Midair Engine Failure On Boeing Jet; Millions Of Texans Without Safe Water; U.K. Goal To Offer Vaccine To All Adults By July 31; Gaza To Start COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout On Monday. Aired 5-6a ET

Aired February 21, 2021 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00]

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TRAVIS LOOCK, UNITED AIRLINES PASSENGER: There's a big boom and the kind of sound you don't want to hear when you're on an airplane.

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A plane carrying more than 200 passengers experiences engine failure in the skies above Colorado, as debris falls from the skies. The dramatic images coming up.

The bitter cold may be easing in Texas but access to clean water is still a serious problem for millions.

And as President Biden promises big immigration changes, I speak to one activist about what it will mean for those already in the country and the people trying to claim asylum.

Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to all of you watching here in the United States, Canada and around the world, I'm Kim Brunhuber, this is CNN NEWSROOM.

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BRUNHUBER: A midair emergency in the western United States could have become a deadly disaster. Instead, everyone walked away safely and deeply relieved.

Parts of a passenger plane plunged from the sky above Colorado after a Boeing 777 blew an engine. It eventually landed safely and the incident is now being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. Fascination quickly turned to concern for those watching from the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get Josie.

I just want to go home.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey, can you grab Josie.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So that she doesn't get hit by something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Pieces of the jet rained down on suburban Broomfield near Denver, ending up in front yards and soccer fields. A witness described the moment it happened to CNN earlier.

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KIERAN CAIN, WITNESS: I was playing with our two kids at the local elementary school on the basketball court, just having fun. An airplane was flying really high overhead. And basically what a sounded like a sonic boom made everybody look up.

As we did, we could see there was a giant black cloud of smoke high up in the sky immediately followed by, you know, what looked like pieces of the aircraft really just coming off. And basically a shower of things that were falling out of the sky.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: The engine failure happened shortly after takeoff. It forced the Hawaii-bound flight to return to Denver International Airport. Here is the audio of the moment the mayday call went out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mayday, mayday, United 328 -- United 328, heavy mayday, mayday, aircraft --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 320, again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Denver departure United 328, heavy mayday, aircraft just experienced an engine failure. Need return immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: All passengers and crew on the United Airlines flight made it off safely. The airline says most have since boarded a new flight to Hawaii. Incredibly, there have been no reports of injuries. CNN's Lucy Kafanov is on the scene covering the story for us. She filed this update from where the debris fell.

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LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So we are in Broomfield, Colorado. This was the area most impacted by the debris raining down from United Flight 328, the Boeing 777 that took off from Denver's International Airport. It was bound for Honolulu but minutes after takeoff, the pilots reported a problem with the right engine. They then turned around and, as they were doing that flying over this

area, residents, eyewitnesses on the ground reported hearing the sound of an explosion. One eyewitness described it as a sonic boom and that's when they saw black smoke coming from the plane and pieces of metal raining down.

Just to give you a sense of the scope of the debris field, I mean, down the block behind this cop car is a massive soccer field. There's a dog park, a lot of folks out and about earlier in the day, playing soccer, walking their dogs, enjoying the nicer weather that Denver had earlier in the afternoon.

All of that disrupted by this incredible event. The Broomfield police said they used a massive amount of police tape to section off these areas because, anywhere you go here, you can find pieces of debris. They're still urging residents to report those pieces. They're saying you shouldn't touch that, get the authorities involved.

And a miracle that no one was hurt, not any of the 241 people on board that craft nor any of the residents here on the streets of Colorado -- Lucy Kafanov, CNN, Broomfield, Colorado.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: We've heard from those on the ground but obviously things were even more worrisome for those actually on the plane.

[05:05:00]

BRUNHUBER: Passenger Travis Loock was sitting next to the engine when things went wrong.

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LOOCK: There's a big boom and the kind of sound you don't want to hear when you're on an airplane. And I instantly put my shade up and I was pretty frightened to see that the engine on my side was missing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, wow.

LOOCK: So we were just glad we weren't over the ocean. Because that's where we were heading.

It was pretty calm, actually. But like I said, the noise we heard was just not a noise you ever hear on an airplane. We have turbulence all the time coming out of Colorado. But this was different.

And so there was -- you could sense the fear a little bit but everyone was very calm and there wasn't shouting or anything like that. Just wondering what was going on. And a lot of people couldn't see the engine on that side, right?

So I was a little more freaked out because I could see it and I knew that was not right. There was some cheering when we landed. So that was something you don't hear very often on a plane. But there was cheering. We didn't cheer a whole lot right away. The flight attendants -- I mean, the pilots were busy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

LOOCK: So they were taking care of us. But we heard we will be landing in four minutes. Everyone was like OK, good, let's get us back on this ground. So yes, it was pretty calm. But nervewracking. You could see it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Unbelievable. All right. Let's bring in CNN transportation analyst Mary Schiavo, she's also the former Department of Transportation inspector general. For full disclosure, she is an attorney who represents families of airline crash victims and has current litigation pending against Boeing.

So thanks for joining us here.

So according to those on board, it happened about 20 minutes into the flight; what do you think happened here?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I think what happened is -- and I think the NTSB will really zero in on this -- is there was a failure of one or more of the fan blades or internal parts of the engine.

Now yesterday we were looking at this as something called an uncontained engine failure, where the engine actually spews out parts of the engine through the containment structures that are designed to contain these parts.

But pictures that are coming out now, such as the one we just saw from the passenger, very instructive to the NTSB. And they show that the engine pretty much held together.

So what the NTSB will be focused on is something they have issued a report on almost every year and that is the failures of inspections of jet engines, particularly ones that have been in service for a number of years.

United had something like this recently on a same kind of engine. There have been other engines. This was a Pratt & Whitney GE. But they are going to look at the inspections that are designed to find metal flaws in the jet engine blade and in the engines itself. That's been a big interest to the NTSB.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, and we should, you know, just emphasize, we don't know that that is the cause there.

SCHIAVO: Right.

BRUNHUBER: But if it was that, I mean, and you are talking about historically this failure here, it was a fault of training, right, that the people weren't trained to discern this.

So if this happened again, what does that suggest? SCHIAVO: Well, you're exactly right. In that report, the NTSB cited the training of the inspectors at the engine manufacturer and, in that particular case, it was Pratt & Whitney, same engine -- not same engine; same manufacturer of the engine here.

And they said that, look, if you are going to do the inspections of these engines -- now, inspections are very crucial to pick up these -- these flaws or imperfections or wear and tear in the engines that obviously the eye can't see. There are many ways to do it.

And they hadn't properly trained them.

According to the NTSB, they hadn't properly trained them to do these inspections, which, what's the point of inspection if you aren't trained and aren't doing it properly?

Those inspections are lifesaving. You must do and do them well. The Federal Aviation Administration ordered all of these types of engines to be inspected in 2019. So they will look at who did the inspections and were they trained to do them. Very important inspection.

BRUNHUBER: We will see whether that was indeed the case.

How exactly will they go about doing this?

Presumably -- I mean, they have great visual images there from the videos and, of course, they will be examining all of that debris.

What happens next?

SCHIAVO: What's already in the process, before they ever boarded planes and got the team ready to go to Colorado, they were already poring over the maintenance records and the inspection records. All of those are electronic now, you don't actually have to go pore over the books in the maintenance shop but they were looking at the -- really the life history of this aircraft, this engine. And they are going to be looking at that very intensively.

[05:10:00]

SCHIAVO: And they will be looking at other engines, other operations that had similar incidents. And what they do is something called trend analysis.

The FAA and the NTSB both are very interested in that because this trend analysis can help them spot problems before they happen. So they will have a lot of data already before they ever set foot in Colorado. It's to give them big, important clues as to what happened in this engine over its life and other engines like it.

BRUNHUBER: So that's the investigation. But let's turn to the human part of this story and the fact that, you know, the pilots were able to fly this and land this plane, despite one engine obviously not working. They are used to doing that type of thing.

But still having an engine, you know, performing like that or not working at all surely affects the way the plane responds. So tell me a bit about what they would have gone through, trying to fly it and trying to land it.

SCHIAVO: Absolutely. You are trained for this. I mean, literally, I think we got it probably about the first 15 hours of flight school. You're trained what to do when an engine goes. But it's very scary because, in this situation where you have a loss of an engine, it's always a possibility that you can actually lose the flight.

It's difficult to fly; the plane is, if you will -- I will put it in layman's terms -- it's kind of flying lopsided. It wants to turn in one direction and you have to fight that. Of course, they had to worry that they could contain the fire.

There are fire suppression and containment systems built into the engine. But it's always a worry. So they were concerned about other traffic, flying the airplane, not having anything go further worse, knowing when they came around to land this plane they had one shot.

You can't do a touch and go or do a go-round when you are down in one engine and it's on fire. So it's very scary, to put it bluntly. And according to the tapes -- and we heard the air traffic control tapes -- they performed amazingly well and were well-trained to do so.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, we shouldn't forget this in all of the talk about the investigation.

SCHIAVO: That's right.

BRUNHUBER: And everything else, just the amazing competence of the pilots involved here. And the luck as well that nobody down below was hit by all of this metal that was spewing forth from the plane. We will have to leave it there. Thank you so much for your analysis, Mary Schiavo, we really appreciate it.

SCHIAVO: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, the deepening crisis of broken water lines in Texas, 14 million people across the state are without ready access to fresh water. We will have that story just ahead. Stay with us.

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[05:15:00]

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BRUNHUBER: A major water crisis has developed in Texas, leading to long lines for bottled water. The deadly winter storm that hit much of the U.S. disrupted hundreds of public water systems.

On Saturday, more than 14 million Texans were without water and still more than 200,000 customers are without power across several states. Community organizations and National Guard troops are helping get food and water to those in need.

President Biden on Saturday freed up additional resources for Texas by approving a major disaster declaration. And 3,000 members of the Texas National Guard have been pressed into relief efforts. We get the latest from CNN's Omar Jimenez.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The water's not even bubbling.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The lights may be on but across parts of Texas the water isn't. Drinking water still needed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a panic mode that we didn't have enough drinking water. We would love showers but we'll get that when we get our water turned back on.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Texans waiting in long lines just to pick up cases of water, with nearly half the state under boil water advisories.

MAYOR STEVE ADLER (D), AUSTIN, TX: This is a community of people that are scared and upset and angry. We're eventually going to need some better answers. But right now we're just trying to get water to our neighbors.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): But it's not just drinking water. Some residents can't even flush the toilet without melting snow.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We relocated back to our house, five adults and two dogs, and we started harvesting snow because we also lost water at that point. Harvesting snow for toilet water.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): That lack of water making it difficult for those suffering from kidney failure. Some dialysis clinics have been forced to temporarily close, meaning patients have to go to the hospital to keep their kidneys from shutting down.

DR. PAUL NADER, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS DELL MEDICAL SCHOOL: So we've had double, sometimes triple coverages of physicians at all the hospitals. We cover many hospitals in Austin.

Ordinarily we finish most of our dialysis between about 8:00 and 5:00 or 6:00 at night for a regular day. We were working 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, dialyzing patients in the hospital.

JIANG (voice-over): President Joe Biden approving a major disaster declaration for Texas, freeing up more help from FEMA.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): You know, when disaster strikes, this is not just an issue for Texans. This is an issue for our entire country. Disasters don't strike everyone equally.

When you already have so many families in the state and across the country that are on the brink, that can't even afford an emergency to begin with, when you have a disaster like this, it can just set people back for years.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): As residents wait for the water and power to come back, some still forced to use their cars for warmth. Others, if they're lucky, find shelter in a hotel.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The guests, frankly, it's been the equivalent of camping indoors.

JIMENEZ: And moving forward, officials here are going to start looking at what exactly went wrong over this past week. Among what they're investigating is that many customers here in Texas reported getting extremely high power bills, even amid this catastrophe.

So Texas officials are investigating that.

On the water front, when could we see the water come back to Texas?

Well, in some places, we're well on our way. In Houston, for example, they've reached that minimum threshold for water pressure.

[05:20:00]

JIMENEZ: Here in Austin, officials are optimistic they can get water citywide by the end of the weekend -- Omar Jimenez, CNN, Austin, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: And joining me now are James Bartlett and Jarrod Casler, members of the San Angelo, Texas, Jeep Club. Many members have been helping out during the crisis by giving rides on the icy roads to first responders as well as delivering food to the elderly.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us here. Just so people understand a bit about the jeep club, you are both veterans. And the club itself no stranger to doing good things, things like organizing cleanups and so on. But this is really going above and beyond.

James, how did this particular idea come about?

JAMES BARTLETT, MEMBER, SAN ANGELO JEEP CLUB: Well, as everybody knows the snowstorm here started pretty early -- or late last week, I apologize. And we are sitting around and discussing just something we could do to help the community.

And the idea came in to kind of get together and get as many folks in the jeep club as we could to just give rides to our local hospital staff. And Jarrod and I talk about it and just put a post up on my personal Facebook. And it just took off and blew up from there really.

BRUNHUBER: And, Jarrod, I mean, tell me, we're seeing some of the pictures that you guys took and sent to us. Tell us what it's been like out there, what kinds of things you've been asked to do and some of the challenges you've run into. JARROD CASLER, MEMBER, SAN ANGELO JEEP CLUB: One of the -- I would say

one of our biggest things is there has been -- Texans are not very used to this amount of snow this fast.

And so when it all came in like this, people were having trouble getting to work. A lot of the people's cars couldn't get out of their driveways. Nobody had snow shovels. People just were not prepared.

So we had a lot of people asking us to pull their cars out of ditches. I know I personally had to pull a bunch of cars out of parking spots because they couldn't even leave the store.

Then we came together and we started giving ride after ride after ride to all the nurses, different first responders. And then the city asked us to help them because they had to shut down their transportation.

They asked us to help transport people from their houses to the warming shelters when all of that -- when everyone's power went out. So we ended up doing a lot of that type of stuff.

And then meals for the elderly, all of their volunteers could also not make it because their vehicles couldn't travel in this. So they reached out to us. So we also did that for them.

BRUNHUBER: It's pretty amazing that the city would reach out to you guys as civilians.

How did people react when you guys show up?

I mean, you are not first responders, you are not even the AAA.

How do people react?

CASLER: It seems like people wanted -- it seems like people -- you know, of course, they were upset that the city wasn't doing it and transporting people all night long. But when they saw us they were all happy again and all the worry went out of their eyes. And they were just happy they could get somewhere warm.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, you can imagine.

James, now that the crisis has expanded from, you know, being just about icy roads and facing the cold to access to food and especially water, how has that changed your mission?

BARTLETT: Well, I mean, for the most part, our roads down here are clear. So it kind of has changed it to where we are not going to be that primary means of transportation for folks. We are still able to offer, you know, ability to get out to get water or to deliver those things if needs be.

We haven't had anybody personally reach out that I know of contact the club. A handful of our members have had people still reach out, some elderly folks who can't get out, people that are further out of town.

And so a lot of our members have stepped up and continued that mission basically on their own, really, just helping take things to people that needed them and just giving them that assistance that, right now, they really desperately need.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: My thanks to James Bartlett and Jarrod Casler from the San Angelo Jeep Club. Great work there.

Thankfully, the deep freeze in Texas is beginning to thaw but the crisis isn't over yet. There are still water shortages throughout the Lone Star State.

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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): This here was the scene in Houston, as vehicles lined up for miles to get fresh water. And the temperatures are helping, as they stay above freezing.

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[05:25:00]

BRUNHUBER: And for more information about how you can help winter storm victims in Texas, you can go to cnn.com/impact.

All right. Coming up, the U.K. has been in a national lockdown since early January. We will explain why those restrictions are set to ease with a live report from London coming up next. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us in the United States, Canada and around the world.

Severe winter storms have hampered efforts to get more Americans vaccinated against COVID-19. There's now a backlog of vaccine doses, waiting to be shipped. And many states are postponing vaccine appointments.

White House officials say vaccine deliveries will be ramped up to compensate and hospitalizations from COVID-19 are dropping in the U.S. New data shows they are now at the lowest level since early November. That's when cases and deaths were picking up right before the holidays.

The road map to easing coronavirus measures in the United Kingdom is set to be unveiled on Monday. Prime minister Boris Johnson is spending the weekend finalizing details. The country entered its third national lockdown back in early January.

Mr. Johnson has said reopening schools is the priority. This is all thanks to the success of the U.K.'s vaccine rollout. It's hoped every adult in the country can get the first dose of the vaccine by early July. Here to discuss is Salma Abdelaziz in London.

It sounds as though there is some welcome news for many in the U.K.

What are we expecting to hear on Monday?

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: Absolutely, Kim. Everyone is waking up to this very exciting news. I, for one, am over the moon. Every adult in this country should be able to get their vaccine by July 31st. That's moving up that deadline.

And it was originally in the autumn. They also moved up the deadline, the government has, for all of those over 50 to be vaccinated by mid- April, which originally that had been may. All this a pledge from the prime minister, who says he wants to see this country's vaccination program move even further and even faster than it has.

It's already the third highest vaccination program in terms of rate in the world. The prime minister saying we can do more. The health secretary this morning reassuring everyone that the supplies are there to accomplish these rather ambitious goals.

But Kim, vaccinations does not necessarily mean lockdown is eased. It's a lot more complicated than that. Tomorrow, the prime minister will be laying out a road map. We know right now he is at Downing Street, meeting with ministers, crunching the numbers, looking at the data and projections because, ultimately, these are decisions that have to be driven by the science.

The key indicators, hospitalization rates, infection rates but also more information about what it means to be a vaccinated person.

Is transmission eased and by how much after you receive your immunization?

That will be a key question when it comes to easing rules. The first thing that's supposed to happen the key priority is schools, the earliest those could open is March 8th, that could be a staggered reopening. We will find out tomorrow.

The second thing is the economy, nonessential shopping, reopening those. And this road map should lay out when the hospitality will reopen. So giving people the expectation that normal life might resume but we are still a little bit away until we get there. We will find out more when the prime minister addresses the nation tomorrow.

BRUNHUBER: We will follow that story. Thank you so much, Salma Abdelaziz in London.

A small scuffle broke out between police and anti-vaccination protesters in Melbourne, Australia, Saturday.

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BRUNHUBER (voice-over): Hundreds came out to mostly peaceful demonstrations in Melbourne and in Sydney ahead of the country's mass COVID-19 program that starts Monday.

Some carried signs that read, "Coercion is not consent" or "My body, my choice."

Of course, getting a shot isn't actually mandatory. The prime minister's office says they aim to administer some 60,000 vaccine doses by the end of the month.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Palestinian health officials say the first vaccinations in Gaza will also start on Monday. Authorities say 2,000 doses of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine arrived from Ramallah in recent days. CNN's Sam Kiley is standing by in Jerusalem with more.

Sam, obviously some relief for those in Gaza, although tempered, maybe, by the frustration that it took so long.

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kim, the frustration is derived really by an argument essentially between Palestinian Authorities supported by the European Union, the U.N., that it is the Israeli, as they say, occupiers' role to handle things like a pandemic in the Palestinian areas.

That is a position the Israelis say is absolutely not the case. And they argue that the Oslo peace process was brought into life. The Palestinian Authority makes them responsible. It gets even more complicated in Gaza, where Hamas, the group designated as a terrorist organization in the United States, is in charge.

[05:35:00]

KILEY: Nonetheless the Palestinian Authority is getting some 2,000 vaccines into Gaza on Monday. They will be followed with some 20,000 that have been promised by the United Arab Emirates as a gift to Gaza, to try to get the 2 million people there, living in extremely difficult circumstances indeed, some 2 million people packed into a tiny space, potentially highly vulnerable to a COVID pandemic.

Interestingly enough, their levels of infection are about 53,000 with some 500-plus deaths from that. It's not too bad. Bad, though, it is in comparison with other countries. Of course, right next door in Israel, the vaccination campaign has been leading the world.

But Kim, they're worrying that that will plateau and there is talk now, indeed there is a promise from the government, to implement a requirement to show a COVID vaccination certificate of some kind in order to get access to places like gyms and areas of public performance on today, a day when a lot of the lockdown that the country has been under, is being lifted.

It is being lifted gradually, a number of schools and other businesses being allowed to open, not a complete lifting. But they're very keen to push ahead with their plans to try to get vaccinations done to all the targeted population by the end of March. Of course, March, critical month for Israel, yet another general election, Kim.

BRUNHUBER: Absolutely. All right. Thank you so much, Sam Kiley in Jerusalem.

More pro-democracy protests in Myanmar today. Sunday marks the 16th consecutive day of rallies following the military coup that follows the deadliest day of the demonstrations so far.

A volunteer emergency worker tells Reuters two people were killed and 23 were wounded Saturday when police opened fire on protesters in Mandalay.

World leaders are watching and warning military leaders on continuing the crackdown on demonstrations. Selina Wang joins me.

What effect is this having on the protests and the campaign of civil disobedience there?

SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kim, the increasing arrests and violence are certainly instilling fear in these protesters. CNN has spoken to many, who say they are terrified of being dragged out of bed at night or in early morning raids that have become more frequent since the military took over.

Despite this, Kim, these protesters are not backing down. They say they are fighting for their future. Many of them have lived through the brutal military rule and they are not ready to give up on democracy.

You mentioned the violence on Saturday, when police opened fire on protesters at Mandalay, leaving at least two dead and 20 injuries. This is according to Reuters and AFP, citing emergency workers on the ground.

CNN has confirmed tear gas and live rounds were used to disperse protesters. In video that CNN has obtained, you can see large crowds of people running away from police, taking shelter wherever they can.

In another video you can see a person being taken away by a medic. This all happening after a young woman died on Friday from a shot to her head. This young woman has now become a symbol of the movement. She has galvanized protesters, who are risking arrest every day. Kim?

BRUNHUBER: Thank you so much for that, CNN's Selina Wang in Tokyo.

President Biden's bold proposals on immigration are already being felt at the American southern border. We will show you the situation in McAllen, Texas, and speak with an immigration advocate about the new message from the White House. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: The Biden administration is already preparing to tackle one of the biggest headaches in Washington, immigration reform. And they have an ambitious plan.

Within its many proposals is an eight-year path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants. The word "alien" would be stricken from U.S. immigration laws and replaced with the term "noncitizen" and the number of visas will be raised from 55,000 to 80,000. CNN's Ed Lavandera has more from the Texas border town of McAllen.

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ED LAVANDERA, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Several times a day, Customs and Border Protection officials drop off groups of migrants at the bus station in McAllen, Texas.

LAVANDERA: (Speaking Spanish).

When did you cross?

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Edwin Rubio (ph) tells us he crossed the border the day before with his son.

LAVANDERA (through translator): Did you come because there's a new president here in the United States?

EDWIN RUBIO (PH), IMMIGRANT (through translator): Yes, correct. There will be new laws, new immigration laws that will favor Latinos.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Rubio (ph) is part of a rise in arrivals at the southern border that's been slowly increasing since last April. The migrants are driven by the COVID pandemic and the devastation left by two major hurricanes.

CBP reports about 78,000 people were apprehended at the southern border in January. These migrants have permission to move on with notices to appear in court.

LAVANDERA: The Biden administration continues to warn migrants coming to the United States that in many cases, they will be turned away.

But the fact of the matter is there are still some of these migrants who are being released. What we've seen here in McAllen is many family units. You can see here, mothers and fathers and many young children.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): They wait inside an old nightclub that's been turned into a Catholic charity shelter, run by Sister Norma Pimentel. She tells us it's a confusing time on the border because, while some families are being released, there are still roughly 20,000 migrants stranded on the other side of the border.

These migrants are a result of the Trump administration's controversial Remain in Mexico policy.

NORMA PIMENTEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CATHOLIC CHARITIES RIO GRANDE VALLEY: It is very confusing and they don't understand that.

Why them first and not us?

You know, we've been here, waiting for this day. And it's so disheartening to see them in such terrible conditions.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): While the Biden administration says it will begin processing migrants registered in the Remain in Mexico policy later this week, what's unfolding on the border captures the unstable reality of the country's immigration system.

JEN PSAKI, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Now is not the time to come. And the vast majority of people will be turned away.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Sister Pimentel says the numbers of migrants released to this shelter has jumped in recent weeks from a few people a day to about a hundred a day now. And it's up to the shelter staff to administer COVID-19 tests. Local officials tell CNN out of hundreds of tests, only two migrants have tested positive so far.

IVAN MELENDEZ, MISSION REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER: They absolutely need to take this seriously from a public health perspective, it's a complete nightmare.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Some migrants, like this family from Haiti, who say they entered through California, were forced to quarantine in a hotel for two weeks as a COVID precaution.

[05:45:00]

LAVANDERA (voice-over): They're being assisted by the nonprofit Jewish Family Service.

The parents ask that we call them Falla (ph) and Dol (ph). Falla (ph) says it didn't matter who was president, only that his family hopes to get asylum in the U.S. to escape the criminals who have tried to kill him.

FALLA, HAITI IMMIGRANT (through translator): We decided to leave my country to save my life and my family's.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Ed Lavandera, CNN, McAllen, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

And joining me now is Angelica Salas. She's the executive director for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

Thank you very much for joining us. As a reporter out in L.A., I've seen the work you do first-hand, when you're talking to immigrants and the undocumented there. So give me a sense of how they feel right now. There must be a sense of relief and optimism. ANGELICA SALAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COALITION FOR HUMANE IMMIGRANT

RIGHTS OF LOS ANGELES: Definitely. The immigrant community has hope for a better future for themselves and their families.

Just this morning, I was in a member leader statewide gathering of immigrants. And they were elated. They finally see light in their lives, the possibility that they can stay in this country, which they know is their home, where they've lived for many, many years.

They see the possibility of not fearing being separated from their families. So there's great hope and also great understanding that it's going to be a difficult fight in order to ensure that immigration reform becomes the law of the land.

However, right now, people are excited to have this possibility.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, on that fight, I mean, I read the statement that your organization put out in support of the bill. It was quite enthusiastic and I think that's been broadly echoed by most immigrant justice advocates.

Obviously, you and most Democrats would want the thing to pass as is. But that may not be realistic, given there's little Republican enthusiasm for this.

So if it has to be broken up into separate items, what should the priority be?

Should they go for something popular, like a path to citizenship for DACA, which has broad support across the country?

Or should they get the harder stuff done first?

SALAS: Well, our perspective is put everything on the table. But we're very clear: we need the legalization of the 11 million and we also need family reunification.

There are so many families, millions of them, who have been waiting decades to be reunited with their loved ones. The Biden immigration plan actually includes not just legalization but also family reunification.

It ensures that there are processes by which individuals, who are seeking entry into the country as refugees and asylees, can come into the United States. So it's important that we really look at immigration and immigration law holistically.

In order for one thing to work, the other has to also be repaired. So my perspective is that, let's go and fight for the big fight that we need to have. At the end of the day, you need 218 votes in the House of Representatives, 60 votes in the Senate and a signature from the president.

And you need that for all of the above bills. Now if there is a moment in time where we notice that, you know, the Republicans want, you know, something different, well, that's, you know, we're going to have to negotiate.

But I just don't think that we should start small in the beginning. We just -- we understand, we've been through this fight. But I also think there's so many things that are different right now, especially the enthusiasm of our president, President Biden, to use all his political capital to get this across the finish line.

BRUNHUBER: But then, you know, securing the border, I mean, that's going to be the huge challenge on the flip side here. As we heard from Ed Lavandera's piece, some migrants may be getting the idea that Biden is easing border controls, which could trigger a rush for the border and encourage, you know, coyotes and smugglers.

How does Biden get the balance right here, the need for humane policies versus encouraging a mass exodus, which could create its own humanitarian crisis?

SALAS: First and foremost, people do not leave their home country just because. They leave because they're forced to leave because of violence, because of, you know, famine, war. That's why they leave.

So what President Biden does in this immigration plan is invest every year $1 billion to ensure that Central American countries, which are right now devastated and who are seeing this outflow of people because they can't -- they can't survive in their home country.

So he's investing in what we call root causes. So that gives me a lot of hope.

[05:50:00]

SALAS: Because I think we all recognize, if we don't fix what's happening in home countries, to force people to have to migrate, then we're not going to move forward with this agenda.

At the end of the day, you know, it's very clear. You know, in terms of our borders, many of these individuals do qualify for asylum. They do have evidence that they need to be admitted in order to protect their life.

So I don't -- I just -- I want everybody to understand, people want to stay home. They want to stay in their home country. They want to have opportunities in the land of their ancestors with their families. It's only when you are driven to just incredible peril that you decide that you need to leave.

BRUNHUBER: Well, it's certainly going to be a long fight ahead to have this bill be realized. But we appreciate you coming on and talking to us in these early stages here, Angelica Salas, thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate it.

SALAS: Of course. Thank you so much for having me.

BRUNHUBER: Still to come on CNN NEWSROOM, it was an awful week for the people of Texas but the situation did lead to an unexpected friendship. We will explain how it happened. Stay with us. (MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:55:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

BRUNHUBER: All right, some breaking news. At the Australian Open tennis tournament, where the Serbian Novak Djokovic has just won his 18th grand slam title in straight sets. He overpowered the Russian, Daniel Medvedev, who played well in the first set then faded.

Medvedev was seeking his first major title; this is Djokovic's ninth Australian grand slam win.

An update on Britain's Prince Philip now. He got a visit in the hospital Saturday from his eldest son, Prince Charles. The 99-year-old Duke of Edinburgh is expected to remain in the hospital in London through the weekend. He was admitted on Tuesday after feeling unwell, according to a royal source.

The illness wasn't an emergency or related to the coronavirus. The source says Queen Elizabeth remains at Windsor Castle, west of London.

The horrible weather in Texas is bringing out the best in some of its residents. So looking through these pictures here, you would think they were taken by lifelong friends but this friendship started actually by accident on Valentine's Day.

That's when delivery driver Chelsea Timmons lost control of her car amid the ice and snow. She crashed into a flower bed outside the home of Doug and Nina (ph). The couple invited her into their home. Chelsea ended up staying five days. She baked this coconut cake for them as a thank you.

Finally, an Ohio bomb squad made a surprise discovery, responding to a call about a suspicious bag found outside a church. Well, they weren't met with ticking but purring coming from the bag.

Six newborn kittens and their mother were discovered with a note saying the mother went into labor the day before. The cats are now safely in a foster home.

Well, that wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. For viewers in the U.S. and Canada "NEW DAY" is just ahead, for international viewers it's "LIVING GOLF."