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Georgia Groups Lobbying Big Corporations Over Voting Rights; Washington Post Reports, Army Initially Pushed to Reject D.C.'s Request for National Guard Presence Ahead of January 6 Rally; L.A. County Restaurants, Movie Theaters, Gyms Reopen. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired March 16, 2021 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): As tens of thousands migrants make the dangerous journey to the U.S. southern border -- someone stole all her money along the way -- many discover that getting here is just the beginning.

Some migrants describe crowded immigration processing centers -- she says it was packed with people -- without showering facilities.

Did they let you shower?

And some say they slept under a bridge overnight, on pebbles and sand while waiting to get transported to immigration processing facilities. Once there, migrants say they get three meals a day.

This as CNN learns about 4,200 unaccompanied migrant children are in Border Patrol custody, attorneys blowing the whistle this weekend about children in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions at this massive temporary immigration processing center in Donna, Texas, where unaccompanied children, including many under ten years old, are being held, some for five to seven days, which is against U.S. law.

Peter Schey is a lawyer representing thousands of unaccompanied minors in federal custody and says capacity at the Donna facility is 1,000 detainees. And right now, it's holding about 2,000.

PETER SCHEY, PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW: It is an untenable situation. The administration needs to address immediately.

FLORES: The head of Homeland Security directed FEMA to help credit more shelters for unaccompanied children and move them out of Border Patrol custody quickly. DHS says, Border Patrol officials do everything they can to take care of unaccompanied children in their care.

As for mothers entering with children, many are released by Border Patrol at this bus station in Brownsville.

Why did you come here? She said the economic crisis in her country is very severe. The reasons migrants say they're trekking to the United States varies. Some, like, Selvi Melgar (ph), says he lost everything during a recent hurricane in Honduras. And Marisol Ramirez (ph), who says the toughest part of her journey was when her daughter was hungry and she had no food, said she's here because of the lack of jobs and the abundance of violence in her home country.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FLORES (on camera): In prior years, CNN has obtained access to processing facilities, sometimes even just pen and paper. This time, my team and I have been here for a week. We have asked Border Patrol and Custom and Border Protection for access to the facility that you see behind me and others like it that access has been denied.

We have also asked Border Patrol about the accounts of these migrants who say that they've waited under a bridge, that they spent the night there before being transported to processing facilities, we have not heard back. Kate?

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN NEWSROOM: Rosa, thank you so much for being there. Thank you so much for that report.

Coming up for us, billboards are now popping up in Atlanta in the fight over voting rights. Their target not the lawmakers who are trying to make it harder to vote, rather, major companies calling on them to speak up.

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[11:35:00]

BOLDUAN: Battle lines are being drawn over voting rights in Georgia and voting rights groups are now calling on major corporations to speak up and they're doing this in a very public way. Billboards are now popping up in Atlanta urging Georgia-based corporations, like Coca-Cola, Home Depot and Delta and more to oppose the Republican-led state efforts to make it harder to vote there.

Protesters also staged a die-in outside the Coca-Cola museum as part of this campaign and this pressure campaign. All the while, Republicans in the state legislature are full-steam ahead, pushing measures that would repeal no absentee voting and further limit early voting options, including essentially eliminating early voting on Sundays, which is quite popular.

Joining me now is the person helping to lead this public pressure campaign, Nse Ufot, Executive Director of The New Georgia Project. Thank, for coming on.

Why is -- I'm looking at these billboards and I was wondering today why is the support from companies like these important?

NSE UFOT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE NEW GEORGIA PROJECT: Because the killing these anti-voting bills and the Georgia legislature is an urgent matter and it's of the utmost importance. And I can't think of more powerful actors, more influential lobbyists inside the Georgia legislature than these major corporations that call Georgia home. Because they have traded on the legacy of civil rights and voting rights organizing that made Atlanta, that made this country what it is.

And so their silence in this moment is unacceptable because many of them have spent significant sums of money on Get Out the vote campaign targeted at young black Georgians, young black Americans, encouraging their participation in our elections in this moment. And, again, the hypocrisy is astounding. And if you want us to vote, then when the right to vote is being attacked, when the freedom to vote is being attacked, you cannot sit back, you cannot be silent.

[11:40:02]

BOLDUAN: So, the companies have put out some statements, broadly speaking saying that they all support voting rights. And take Coca- Cola, for example, in a statement that was given to CNN. Coca-Cola said that voting is a foundational right in the United States and that company will continue to work to advance voting rights and access, also saying they support the chamber of commerce and the efforts to help facilitate a balanced approach to the election bills that have been introduced in the Georgia legislature this session.

I hear from you that is clearly not enough. Why is it not enough?

UFOT: Well, a balanced approach -- so, one, acknowledging voting as a foundational or a fundamental right, according to the Supreme Court, means that those are rights that are deserving of heightened level of protection particularly from government interference. So we're looking at nearly 300 anti-voting bills from state legislatures and over 40 states that this is an attack on voting. So this is an attack on a foundational right. Then we need to be very concerned about this coordinated, well-funded attack in this moment, number one.

Number two, what exactly do you mean by a balanced approach to these anti-voting bills? There is one side that is continuing to perpetuate the big lie, that there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia and in other states in 2020. And then there is one side that is saying we want to continue to build upon the success of the 2020 election cycle when millions more of Americans showed up and participated in our elections free from intimidation and chose their leaders, and that they were able to survive multiple recounts so that people were assured that our election results had integrity.

I don't understand the attempt to equivocate what we are saying with what these lying liars who lie are saying about voter fraud that did not exist.

BOLDUAN: I'll say one thing. I mean, the chamber put out a statement saying that they oppose the provisions but you definitely do not hear even close to using the word oppose or opposition or anything even approaching that in the statements that you see from these companies. That is absolutely clear. Because, I mean, saying you support a -- that voting is a foundational right is about as captain obvious as it gets. I'm curious just to get your take, Stacey Abrams was on with Jake Tapper and she said when you look at these bills that they're racist and it is a redux of Jim Crow in a suit and tie. Nse, I'm just curious how you would describe it.

UFOT: I would describe it as Jim Crow with a Q. And the idea is that -- QAnon -- this massive disinformation campaign that many people think that we were done with that led to people dying, Capitol Police officers dying that, led to 147 Republican members trying to invalidate the Electoral College count, that our power in these 300 anti-voting bills across the country that it's Jim Crow 2.0.

Stacey Abrams is absolutely right, that -- yes, Jim Crow with a Q.

BOLDUAN: I'm very interested to see as you pressure campaign continues, people see these billboards more and more what these companies have to say, because the statements aren't going to be hopefully not the last thing you'll hear from them. Thank you so much, Nse.

UFOT: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, there is new reporting just ahead about security requests ahead of the Capitol riot and whether the Pentagon was initially against providing support.

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[11:45:00]

BOLDUAN: The Washington Post has new reporting coming in that seems important that the Pentagon was initially reluctant to send National Guard troops to D.C. ahead the insurrection at the Capitol ahead of the January 6th planned protest. According to The Post, the Army initially pushed to deny D.C.'s request for Guard assistance.

Let me bring in CNN's Whitney Wild. She's been following this very closely. Whitney, what more are you learning about this new reporting coming in?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, according to The Washington Post, the Army was initially reluctant to send in National Guard troops to assist law enforcement for traffic and for crowd control and they said that was only warranted if there was a crowd of around 100,000 or more people at this rally, which we know is many, many more than what was initially expected that day even though the crowd size was very, very big.

And the reason that the Army was reluctant to send their troops out there was a number of reasons. The first was they said there wasn't a federal agency who appeared to be in control of the preparations ahead of time, or the on-the-ground operations. They were also concerned that the resources of federal agencies hadn't been exhausted. And then, finally, the Army's perspective was they're not first responders. They're the military. They're not the cops. So they very much wanted to be a last resort here. However, The Washington Post also points out that National Guard assistance for crowd control, for traffic, assisting law enforcement for large scale protests has something that's been happening for decades around here. So it seemed in that way incongruent with past practice here in D.C.

Here is what the U.S. Army said in a statement.

[11:50:00]

So this is which I think we have a full screen pulling up here. Maybe we don't. Okay, we'll move on -- we do. So this is a spokeswoman for the Army. This is Col. Cathy Wilkinson, saying, clearly, the mayor's request was approved and supported. The draft memo was not signed or approved. It is customary for the Army staff to provide options for Army senior leaders to inform their decision-making process.

The decision-making process here has been somewhat of an enigma, Kate, because we haven't heard from any of the higher ups at the Pentagon who were in this line of decision-making so this is just a small window into what the thinking was leading up to January 6th.

BOLDUAN: And why there are so many questions for them to answer, the decision-making leading up and on January 6th. Whitney, thank you very much.

Now, let's turn to this. Ten years later, Syrians are still enduring the horrors of war, and it is not over. What started as a peaceful uprising in that country became a brutal crackdown in a decade now of fighting with no end in sight, leaving an entire generation of children who know nothing but trauma and war.

CNN's Arwa Damon traveled back to Syria, spoke with some of the war's youngest victims, she's joining me now from Idlib, Syria.

Arwa, what are you hearing from Syrians ten years on?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kate, it's almost impossible for many of them to actually put into words what it is that they've went through and let me just tell you the story of one little boy who we spoke to. His name is Sultan (ph). And we're not talking about one trauma. We're talking about multiple traumas.

When this little boy was five years old, his baby brother was killed in a strike. When he was six years old, his father was killed in a strike when we went to the market to go buy vegetables. When Sultan (ph), he was eight he was burnt in a strike.

He is one of the sweetest boys I have ever met. He has this brilliant smile, these eyes that sparkle like a 10-year-old's should. He's as old as the war itself but then they darken, Kate, as he thinks about everything that he's gone through. He still has nightmares. He wakes up screaming he's on fire, begging his mother to put out the flame.

And he is not a unique story. He is not a unique case. So many children that we have been talking to share similar experiences. Many people will tell you that every week, every month is the anniversary of the death of someone who they loved.

And what is especially painful for so many Syrians is that in all of this, Kate, they've had a voice. It's just that it hasn't mattered. It hasn't mattered how many dead bodies were pulled out of the rubble. It hasn't mattered how many of them were displaced or detained or disappeared. What Syrians have learned right now, a decade on, is that when bigger geopolitical games are at play, the lives of the innocent don't matter.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And there's the thing. Conventional wisdom be damned, it doesn't matter if it's messy or tough. We can't turn away when you see this pain, the trauma in the beautiful faces of the children that you're meeting there. Arwa, thank you for going back there, thank you for being there.

Coming up for us, once an epicenter of COVID cases and deaths, Los Angeles is now taking the first steps towards normal. We'll be right back.

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[11:55:00]

BOLDUAN: A big moment for Los Angeles County, the nation's most populous county and for quite some time a coronavirus epicenter. Many businesses are now reopening for the first time in nearly a year.

CNN's Stephanie Elam is joining us from Los Angeles with more on this. Stephanie, what are you hearing and seeing from folks at this moment?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kate, it was exactly a year ago today that I went live from a restaurant when everything had started to shut down and everything was closed. And so for basically a year, these businesses have not had people inside.

But this opening up, you see people are very happy. This is Jocelyn. Jocelyn, why did you want to eat inside today?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's very cold outside.

ELAM: (INAUDIBLE)?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. But like it's been a year now since like the pandemic and, I don't know, it's just nice to like sit down with friends and enjoy eating inside every now and then.

ELAM: Every now and then. So that's one perspective that we keep hearing, that people miss this and how cold it is here at the Waffle in Hollywood, people are happy to come out.

You see it's early on that people are here. I'm going to get a quick sound from Drew here. Drew, you're the general manager here, what's been the hardest part about being closed this long?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, boy, just not having enough hours for staff. We're so happy to be open again and be able to support enough work for the people who have hung in there through this difficult period.

ELAM: For sure. And speaking with Drew and other restaurants, I know some restaurants are not ready to reopen because they need to retrain their staff to do this. Right now, restaurants can open up, museums as well as movie theaters by 25 percent capacity. If you have a gym or a yoga studio, that's about 10 percent that you can have. So businesses have to figure out is it's worth it for them to open up.

But keep in mind, when we saw California and Los Angeles County and we saw those numbers spike, as we did, I just took a look at the latest data that we have from L.A. County and California, the test positivity rate is under 2 percent for both of those jurisdictions. So it shows you things are starting to look up, look better and people are happy to see some signs of normalcy here, even if that means you're still wearing your masks inside and sitting far apart, Kate.

[12:00:02]

BOLDUAN: The new normal, we'll take whatever we can get. Thank you, Stephanie. I appreciate it.

A programming note for all of you, CNN's Jake Tapper is going to be speaking.