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Interview With Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA); Trump Removes Commandant of Coast Guard; Trump Set to Begin Immigration Crackdown. Aired 11:30a-12p ET
Aired January 21, 2025 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:30:02]
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And, of course, that is something that could strain the relationship with Mexico.
Now, moving forward, we're looking for those interior enforcement actions that they have talked so much about as part of the mass deportation pledge. Now, sources I have spoken would say that ICE is doing the work today, as it has done before, that they are going after public safety and national security threats.
But the framing from Trump officials has been essentially that they will have more authority to arrest people, to arrest those who, while they're doing an enforcement action, they may come across who was not part of their targeted operation.
Those types of things are different from the Biden administration. So that is where we may see some changes, but still looking for whether there would be massive sweeps or raids. Those can often take some time. And remember, Pam, the resources ICE has is quite limited.
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Right. And it is notable, though, what you laid out. It is already having a direct impact on lives.
And when it comes to that app, this was an app that was supposed to allow for these orderly appointments and entry into the United States under the asylum. And from what I gather, from what I have been reading from some immigration officials, there is concern that perhaps without this app that could lead to more potentially illegal crossings or smugglers.
ALVAREZ: Yes.
Yes, Homeland Security officials I have been speaking with say this was part of a broader plan that they had to try to drive down illegal crossings by essentially providing another option for people to legally present to border authorities. So, with that taken away, that has caused concern among some of the officials I'm speaking with that they may start to cross illegally, because, essentially, what they tell me is, where else are they going to go?
If they have been waiting, if they have traversed across Latin America to get to that point, it's very unlikely they're going to go back home. Now, just to provide some context here, back in 2017, when Trump took office, numbers were still pretty low in his first month, as smugglers and migrants tried to game out how serious he was about his immigration agenda.
And then the numbers started to go up. So that is the caveat to all of this is, even if some people want to cross, they may still be trying to figure out what it would look like to be in the U.S. under the Trump administration.
And so we may not see those numbers go up for a little bit of time. But, certainly, again, going back to the interior enforcement, which is the fixation of this second term of the Trump administration, a lot of these Democratic-led cities are the ones that are on high alert because they have been called out so many times by the president or by Tom Homan, the border czar, as places that they want to carry out enforcement actions because there have been an influx of migrants in those cities.
So, certainly, there is a lot of preparations under way in all these cities as some of these questions remain unanswered, even despite what we saw yesterday with those series of executive actions.
BROWN: All right, Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much. I know how busy you are right now tracking all of this.
Let's bring in Tom Jawetz into the conversation. He was a senior lawyer for Homeland Security in the Biden administration.
So, Tom, we're learning that four of the top immigration court system officials were fired by President Trump on Monday. What does that move suggest to you?
TOM JAWETZ, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL: Well, I will say, having served in the Biden administration, I came to really respect and rely on the career civil servants who have dedicated their careers to federal service and public service.
During Trump's first term in office, there was a huge amount of sort of demonization of the civil service work force. And I will say, when I got in there, morale was extremely low because the politicals who had been in place under the first Trump administration were just ramming their agendas through without any real concern for what the law or what operational realities required.
We saw continued demonization throughout the four years when President Biden was in office, where President Trump and his allies continue to attack the work force. And I think we're just seeing a continuation of that once they're once again resuming power.
BROWN: So what are the implications for our viewers to understand of not having career civil servants running the immigration court system and the immigration system overall and instead having people that are loyalists?
JAWETZ: Yes, for sure. I mean, first of all, the stakes in immigration proceedings are
extremely high, right? They can be life-and-death proceedings regarding whether a person who's fleeing for their life has an opportunity to seek protection here or not, whether a family will be allowed to stay here where they have got children, they have got their lives built, or they will be removed and separated.
On top of that, immigration law is notoriously complex. It's just a very, very challenging area of the law, and it requires true expertise. I marveled all the time at the depth of knowledge that the career civil servants around me had regarding our immigration laws.
And so when you get rid of the top lawyer for the immigration court system, when you get rid of the top immigration judge, when you get rid of the person who runs your policy system, that sends an incredible, incredible chilling effect throughout the work force, I think.
[11:35:11]
I'm not the only person who has served in governments under either Democratic or Republican administrations whose phone is blowing up from a career civil servants who either are experiencing this kind of retribution or are afraid they're next.
But it also means that you're going to get people in place who don't have the same fidelity to the law, don't have the same expertise in the law as the people that they're pushing out.
BROWN: But how do you know that?
JAWETZ: And so we can expect to see decisions...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: How do you know that the people that will replace them won't have the same fidelity to the law?
JAWETZ: I mean, I think we're getting that direction from everything we have seen over the last eight years of the Trump administration and the people that they have been putting in place, basically.
There's a reason why so much of their agenda the first time around was actually successfully blocked in court. And, frankly, it's because they were doing so many aggressive things that did not comply with the law. And they did it by shoving it through career civil servants and over their objections.
When I got into government service, and I worked in the Department of Homeland Security General Counsel's Office, there were attorneys there who had prepared memos declining to work on things that their supervisors had asked them to work on because they were afraid it would jeopardize their professional licenses.
No one issued such a memo when I was there, because I would never have required them to do something that jeopardized their professional license. That's not the kind of person who's going to be taking over these kinds of roles.
BROWN: So what happens to this huge backlog, millions, I think, of immigration cases in the system? That is -- that's a big problem. And it's been an ongoing problem no matter what administration is in office, right?
JAWETZ: It is, yes.
I mean, there were efforts under the Biden administration to try and put together policies to expedite the adjudication of cases. There were priorities put in place to close cases that were not as significant or even terminate cases that were not high priorities.
So there were efforts to chip away at that backlog, but it is absolutely incredible. And assuming we get continued congressional inaction, that's not going to get much better.
BROWN: Well...
JAWETZ: I think the fear is that some of the policies that come out of the executive orders that were issued yesterday and the orders and memos that are going to follow in the days and weeks to come might try and chip away at that backlog of immigration court cases by essentially just eliminating due process entirely and just pushing cases through without fair consideration.
BROWN: Well, we will have to wait and see. And we will see what Congress does and if Congress does provide more funding for more immigration judges. I know that's been something that's been talked about.
President Trump, for his part, has also begun the legal battle to end birthright citizenship in the U.S. How do you expect courts to view that fight?
JAWETZ: I do not think they will be successful at overturning a core principle of the 14th Amendment. This is something that basically all legal scholars agree on, yes.
BROWN: All right, Tom Jawetz, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
We know that, right now, President Trump is at the national prayer service there at the National Cathedral right now. We hear the choir, that this is a Washington tradition for the day after the inauguration, sort of a wrap-up of the inauguration events and festivities.
Let's listen in.
(SINGING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:43:17]
BROWN: I want to go now to some breaking news, A Department of Homeland Security official confirming that the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard has been removed from her position over leadership deficiencies -- that was a quote -- and operational failures.
I have extensively reported on the Coast Guard's cover-up of sexual assault cases. We don't know if that played a role at all in this. CNN's
CNN's Natasha Bertrand joins us now for more.
This is a pretty significant move, Natasha.
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: It is, Pamela, if not just because it really shows that this could be a sign of things to come in terms of how President Trump and his administration deal with military leaders that they feel are perhaps focusing too much on diversity and inclusion initiatives, which is one of the stated reasons, according to this DHS official, why Admiral Fagan was relieved of her duties as commandant of the Coast Guard.
Now, we did ask the Department of Homeland Security for reasons why she was relieved, and they did send us a list that included things like failure to address border security threats, prioritization of those DEI initiatives, which Secretary of Defense, future Secretary of Defense, if he has confirmed, Pete Hegseth has said is going to be one of his priorities in removing from the department once he does get installed here, as well as Operation Fouled Anchor, which is that investigation into sexual assault and sexual abuses committed at the Coast Guard Academy that was covered up by the Coast Guard beginning in around 2018.
Now, Admiral Fagan, she was not directly involved in that. However, she did signal to members of Congress last year when she was grilled on the sexual assault investigation that was not disclosed to Congress that she was aware of certain aspects of it.
[11:45:03]
And, according to the Department of Homeland Security, that is one reason why they felt like she needed to be terminated as part of her -- or in her position there.
But, still, I think the broader picture here is that this is the first kind of termination of a senior military leader that we have seen that has been explicitly kind of linked to the promotion of those diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within the military.
And, in fact, this is not the first time that the Coast Guard has been targeted by Trump's allies. Back in August, former GOP Representative Matt Gaetz sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security raising concerns about Fagan's alleged focus on these initiatives over, for example, other more important things, like he said, recruiting and focusing on interdicting drugs at the borders -- Pam.
BROWN: Yes, all right, Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much.
We will be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:50:55]
BROWN: And I want to get back to our breaking news, a Department of Homeland Security official confirming that the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard has been fired over -- quote -- "leadership, deficiency, and operational failures."
The list also cites the -- quote -- "mishandling and cover-up of Operation Fouled Anchor." That's a secret internal Coast Guard investigation that substantiated dozens of rapes and assault allegations at the agency from the late 1980s to 2006 that CNN first uncovered, leading to systemic change or a vow of systemic change within the Coast Guard and congressional hearings with Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, who joins us right now.
So, Senator, thank you so much for coming on.
First, your reaction to some of these actions.
SEN. MARIA CANTWELL (D-WA): Well...
BROWN: Go ahead.
CANTWELL: No, I think it's appalling that the head of Homeland Security is firing the very admiral commandant of the Coast Guard who took this issue of Fouled Anchor that you guys broke as a story. Why? Because it was being covered up.
Literally, issues of sexual assault and sexual harassment at the Coast Guard academy and at sea, and people covered it up. The only reason we know about it is because CNN broke the news. Now we get a new commandant, the first woman commandant in the history of an armed forces of our nation to serve. She stood up and said, this is a problem and we have to deal with it, and so literally tried to move forward with the right kind of response in the Coast Guard to this issue of sexual harassment and sexual assault.
And, today, she's being fired for, instead of covering it up, deciding that this needed to be exposed and the Coast Guard needed to deal with this issue. So I think it's the wrong decision. It's the wrong decision by Homeland Security. She did a good job.
In fact, the last commandant was the one who did cover it up. I think he admitted to you that he covered it up. So what are we doing here today firing somebody who was on the job helping a Coast Guard that has to have a basic diverse work force?
And one of the things they need in a diverse work force is to protect those interests of women.
BROWN: And, as you know, after the reporting and after there were congressional hearings, she had vowed to do a review, and there was a report that came out saying that it would do a better job at the handling of sexual assault cases and so forth and really enact systemic change.
Are you concerned with her firing that the vow in that report won't actually be followed through with?
CANTWELL: What kind of message are we sending? The previous commandant admitted to you that they had covered it up. I think he even said something like, I would do it again.
And now we had a new commandant, a woman, who said, no, we're going to take this serious and we're going to clean up the academy and we're going to clean up these actions, because we have almost -- I don't know what the number is, a very high number, 30 percent-plus of a Coast Guard work force that are women, and we want to continue to attract women in the Coast Guard.
And so you're going to fire her over the fact that she wanted to clean up a mess created on a previous watch? It's the wrong decision.
BROWN: And, to be clear, she did testify to your committee that she only learned of the -- quote -- "totality' of the Fouled Anchor probe when we inquired about it, but she clearly was aware of parts of it before because she also fired a commanding officer caught up in the investigation.
I also should note just for our viewers the reasons cited aren't just this, right? There are other reasons, according to a DHS official, saying it was because of her -- quote -- "failure to address border security threats" and -- quote -- "excessive focus on diversity, equity and inclusion policies."
What is your reaction to that?
CANTWELL: Well, I don't know what that latter part means. But if you mean she paid too much attention to cleaning up the mess in the Coast Guard of sexual assault and sexual harassment, there's no amount of time she shouldn't have spent on that. There's no amount of time she shouldn't have done that job and cleaned up the Coast Guard's act on that.
[11:55:02]
But our Coast Guard, very big mission, five different major responsibilities, and interdiction of drugs, particularly fentanyl and things of that nature, protecting illegal fishing, very big issue in the Pacific Northwest, making sure that they participate in the safety and the delivery of our coasts.
So I do not want to see a commandant serving -- every new administration coming in and firing a commandant. You need a continuity of service in the Coast Guard that is really important. And I'm not saying you can't fire somebody. I'm simply saying, what is the reason here that this is being done?
And I would say people didn't like the fact that she was cleaning up the Coast Guard on this issue of sexual assault and sexual harassment.
BROWN: You think that's the reason?
CANTWELL: I think -- I don't know why else you make that decision today.
I can cite lots of things that the Coast Guard has been very helpful on, on very big issues. Look, I hope this administration will get serious about what the Russians are doing impacting our fisheries in the Pacific Northwest. And they are having a devastating blow on this industry and in illegal fishing and illegal movement of these fish with the help of China, is a very big issue.
So I'd rather have a Coast Guard commandant right now who could help us with that, instead of waiting now how long for us to get a new commandant.
BROWN: All right, Senator Cantwell, thank you for your time.
And thank you for joining us. I'm Pamela Brown. You can follow me on Instagram, TikTok and X @PamelaBrownCNN.
Stay with us "INSIDE POLITICS WITH DANA BASH" starts after a short break.