Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

New, White House Releases Images of Deportations on Military Aircraft; ICE Officials Say, 500-Plus Immigration Arrests on Thursday; Trump Revokes Security Details for Pompeo, Bolton Amid Iran Threats. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 24, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Today, the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, is speaking out about an immigration operation in his city, saying his community has been, quote, unlawfully terrorized, adding even U.S. citizens were detained.

Plus, January 6th, rioters at the White House? Trump says he's open to hosting them. Former D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone, who was brutally assaulted that day, will join me to respond.

And later, another outbreak of wildfires in Southern California, now in San Diego, and a new threat in the fire zone, mudslides. We'll tell you about that as well.

Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

All right, we do begin this hour with breaking news, new images coming into CNN, shedding light on the speed of President Trump implementing his immigration agenda. The White House has just released these images, migrants lined up, handcuffed, and led onto a military aircraft.

We should note, CNN cannot independently confirm the details because our crews were not there on the ground when these images were being captured.

CNN White House Correspondent Priscilla Alvarez is here to talk about this. Priscilla, what are we learning about these flights? And we should note, we were just showing this a few moments ago, those images were tweeted out or posted by the White House press secretary. So, this is coming from the White House.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. This is part of their show of force after the president signed his executive order declaring a national emergency at the U.S. Southern border. Now, if we can bring the photos up again, because I do want to point out what's different here. It is the use of military aircraft that marks a difference from the way this was handled before. Now, you see there are a line of migrants they are arrested as they -- or rather they are handcuffed as they are boarding the plane. That part of this is actually quite typical when it comes to immigration and customs enforcement and the way that they would board one of their deportation flights. But, again, what is notable in this, images of that military aircraft.

Now, I am getting some details from the Homeland Security official who tells me that it was about 75 to 80 migrants from Guatemala and they were bound for Guatemala. We are now getting updates from an organization on the ground in Guatemala that is putting out stills of these arrivals. So, this story is quickly developing. But in addition to that, we also know they were recent border crossers, so they were in Border Patrol custody and they were in the El Paso sector.

Now, the Pentagon has said that they were sending this military aircraft to El Paso and to San Diego. So, we'll see if more of these flights continue.

But, Jim, just to broaden this out a little bit, the situation at the U.S. Southern border is relatively quiet, far more than it was even over the last several months. So, about 1,100 to 1,300 people crossing a day versus the 4,000, 6,000 and up that we were seeing in recent years. So, this is an effort to really clamp down on the U.S. southern border, even as border crossings where they are right now are lower than they were in recent years.

ACOSTA: Interesting. All right Priscilla, stay with me. I want to bring in CNN Contributor and New York Times Journalist Lulu Garcia- Navarro. Lulu, good to see you.

Your reaction to seeing these photos from the White House they say that are military planes deployed for these deportations. And I guess one of the things that we should talk about, shouldn't the White House or the administration be giving some kind of access to independent journalists so we can witness this firsthand as opposed to getting these takeouts from the White House?

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I mean, I think press access for this is going to be very important. But I think we also need to really try and get context, understand what is happening and what is different than what we're seeing before. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, came out with a statement that said that they had 538 people yesterday.

[10:05:04]

And that is about double what we have seen previously. So, indeed, we are now seeing stepped up enforcement.

There has been some allegations that they are going into private places and not using warrants. That is illegal. So, again, is that different? What are we seeing that is actually different? And that's going to be the thing that's going to tell us if this is actually effective, who they're targeting and where are they targeting people. One of the concerns about this is that they're really going to be targeting people in blue cities and blue states. That is different than what we saw during the first Trump administration, where they're doing raids in North Dakota, in red states, in rural areas. This seems to be targeted in places that are blue states. So, what does that tell us? Does that tell us that this is politically motivated, that they're trying to instill fear in immigrant communities in blue areas as opposed to red areas?

You know, all of these things as we're looking at this enforcement operation, we have to really think about what it means and what is the administration actually trying to achieve.

ACOSTA: Yes, we're going to be talking about what took place in Newark, New Jersey, in just a few moments. But, Lulu, I do want to ask you, the president has ordered the Pentagon to search 1,500 active military troops to the southern border. We're also seeing these new images of military support away from the border. These are from Camp Pendleton in California. These are from New Mexico, some other images we can show you. And we're now learning that more soldiers are preparing for possible deployment to the border.

And so, I mean, Lulu, this is something that, you know, is a bit of a departure from what we've seen in the past in that this is a very militarized-looking deportation operation, mass deportation operation. What do you think?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, this is very unusual. This is not the purview of the United States military. They don't have the training for it. But this is what the Trump administration is doing to try and bolster their capacity to deport people because they haven't gotten more money from Congress for this. They don't have more ICE agents. And so they're trying to pull in other agencies to get involved in this deportation operation.

But this is where I think the Trump administration has to be careful. Because, you know, recent polling shows that there's overwhelming support for deportation of illegal immigrants that are here that don't have documentation. There is overwhelming support for deporting immigrants who have criminal convictions, but there is not overwhelming support for using the U.S. military. You know, 62 percent of Americans oppose separating families, something that the administration says that they're going to do. 59 percent are against using the U.S. military. And so, you know, this is not popular with the American people, so they have to be careful.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Priscilla, you were just saying a few moments ago that the numbers are down right now. So, I mean, I guess just to be a skeptic here, couldn't somebody ask the question, well, why not just use ICE resources here? Is the military being used here as part of a shock and awe sort of propaganda campaign?

ALVAREZ: Well, to Lulu's point, we have to identify what's different. And the U.S. military on the U.S. southern border is not different. There are already 2,200 active duty troops who were helping support the border mission. And now it's more of a numbers game, so sending more resources down to the U.S. southern border.

Our understanding is they don't have law enforcement authority. So, what they're doing is a lot of assistance when it comes to operational readiness, augmenting air operations and doing a lot of behind the scenes work when it comes to assessing intelligence.

So, we do have to discern that there is truth to the fact that the military was already there to assist border patrol because the resources provided by the federal government are strained and over the years have been overwhelmed. But what the Trump administration is doing is putting more of those Pentagon resources there as a show of force, as a show of them clamping down on the southern border. And even if numbers are low, what Trump officials want is for numbers to be zero.

ACOSTA: Right. And, Lulu, let's play some sound from some migrants who made the journey to the U.S.-Mexico border only to discover it's closed to asylum seekers. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, Lulu, this is a reminder of the human toll of all this. I mean, that is the central reminder of all of this. There are people who have come to this country and they did come in the right way. They actually followed the guidance of the previous administration.

[10:10:02]

They waited their turn. They put their information into an app. Many of them have come into this country and were given a parole. That is a legal right that is given by the government to be able to live and work here while asylum claims are being processed. And so, they did everything the right way, they think, and yet still they are being penalized for it because of the change in this administration, and that is an enormous human toll. These are families, these are children.

ACOSTA: All right. Priscilla, Lulu, thank you both very much. I appreciate it.

In the meantime, several cities are now seeing President Trump's expanding immigration crackdown, as Lulu was just discussing. ICE announced more than 500 arrests just yesterday, some of them in Newark, New Jersey. A restaurant owner there says about a dozen agents demanded to see documentation of his employees.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LUIS JANOTA, RESTAURANT OWNER: A couple of the guys couldn't show their identification. Three of them got arrested. 26 years in business, I've never seen anything like this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, Newark's mayor says ICE officers quote, unlawfully terrorized his city and detained undocumented residents as well as some U.S. citizens. CNN has been unable to independently verify that, but the mayor is expected to speak later on this morning.

Joining us now is the former acting director of ICE, John Sandweg. John, I guess what's your take? First of all, I want to ask you about Newark in just a moment, but we were just showing these images coming in from the White House. Of course, we have to remind our viewers, these are images provided by the White House of migrants being loaded onto military transport planes. What was your reaction to that when you saw it?

JOHN SANDWEG, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, ICE: Jim, look, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, the administration is essentially declared a war on immigration, not just at the border, but also in the interior. And by that, I mean, through these executive orders, declaring this a foreign invasion, but also harnessing all the resources of the entire U.S. government, not just focusing or relying on the Department of Homeland Security to focus on immigration enforcement here, but pulling on DOD resources, pulling on Department of Justice resources.

So, look, historically, as noted a moment ago, we've seen the military at the border during the Obama administration. We called on National Guard to supplement the Border Patrol's resources, but they were in a very limited and supportive capacity, primarily providing enhancing our surveillance capabilities at the border.

The use of military transport planes certainly is unprecedented. And I really think this is just the beginning because I think, like was just mentioned, they're just trying to augment ICE resources and DHS resources in order to carry out the mass deportation.

ACOSTA: Yes. And I remember covering some of this during the Obama administration, and there were moments when the Obama administration used commercial aircraft, civilian airliners, for example, charter flights to fly migrants back to their countries of origin. Is there perhaps an image that this Trump administration wants to get across by using these military assets and putting pictures out there?

SANDWEG: Yes, I don't discount the fact that there's a lot of politics involved here, right, and releasing these images, demonstrating the president's falling through on his word. But, look, Jim, the practical reality is that ICE is resourced to deport about 250,000 to 400,000 people a year. You don't call on the military transport, you know, flights. You don't direct the secretary of defense to enhance the detention space of DHS unless you're anticipating a deportation that's much larger than any we've ever seen before, you know, much bigger than the 250,000 to 400,000 we've historically seen from ICE.

ACOSTA: And, John, your response what we're hearing out of Newark, New Jersey, the mayor there saying that U.S. citizens were among those detained in an ICE operation yesterday. CNN has not been able to independently verify that, but that's what the mayor is saying.

An ICE spokesperson says this, quote, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement may encounter U.S. citizens while conducting fieldwork and may request identification to establish an individual's identity, as was the case during a targeted enforcement operation at a worksite today in Newark, New Jersey. So, ICE says citizens could be asked to show I.D. But is there any reason why an American citizen would be detained?

SANDWEG: You know, Jim, look, a temporary detention for law enforcement purposes is pretty standard. I think what's interesting about this Newark raid, so to speak, is that, you know, traditionally and historically, when you're doing these worksite operations, it's a criminal investigation. So you have a search warrant from a federal judge. You're working with the U.S. attorney's office, and you're looking for criminal misconduct, typically by the employers.

I think we're going to see reversion back to these kind of worksite raids, where the goal and the target really is the undocumented. The reason is, again, you're doing a mass deportation. So, what you need is to enhance the number of arrests. And, Jim, the fastest way to do that is to go to places where they're going to be large number of migrants.

I just think what's really important to note, though, is you don't go to work sites looking for criminals. The transnational gang members that are the real targets don't show up and punch the clock at a 9:00 to 5:00 job. So, you know, you get a higher yield, a higher number of arrests, but you're not getting those high quality arrests where there's a criminal nexus.

ACOSTA: And as immigration advocates point out, a lot of these migrants who are doing these jobs, they're doing jobs that native-born Americans just don't want to do, and in many cases, that's what we're seeing across the country.

[10:15:09]

John Sandweg, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.

Coming up, President Trump rolling back the security detail for some of the members of his first administration. I'll speak to one of the people affected by this, former National Security Adviser John Bolton. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Just four days into his second term, President Trump is not wasting any time going after those who have spoken out against him. Trump has revoked federal security protection for his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, who faces ongoing threats from Iran. This latest move comes just days after Trump pulled the Secret Service detail for his former national security adviser turned critic, John Bolton, and Ambassador John Bolton. Mr. Ambassador, thanks for being here.

Trump is defending his decision to pull protection for you and Secretary Pompeo. Let's listen to that.

[10:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: When you do have protection, you can't have it for the rest of your life. Do you want to have a large detail of people guarding people for the rest of their lives? I mean, there's risks to everything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: I guess, you know, he did vow retribution during the campaign. Is that what this is? What's your response to that?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: No, I think it is retribution. Look, there are several people, several former officials who are being protected because of Iranian threats made against their lives in connection with the elimination of Qassem Soleimani back in January of 2020, a decision President Trump himself approved.

If you could ask all of us, I'll speak for all of them, I think I could do that, we'd be delighted to say we'd like to see the protection ended well before the end of our lives if the threat diminishes. If the threat level remains high, look, it's up to the president. But getting -- in my case, getting Secret Service protection is not a perquisite. It's not something you should want. It was provided by President Biden because of threats that have subsequently been documented in a Justice Department criminal charge against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards official trying to hire a hit man against me,

ACOSTA: Right. And I have to assume that this protection not only helps you, but helps protect your family, members of your family as well at times. Do you fear for your safety, your family's safety?

BOLTON: Well, I think they follow the media in Tehran. And when they see that like Pompeo, myself no longer have coverage, given that it's just a few weeks ago now that the federal officials arrested a Pakistani national working for the Iranians trying to hire assassins to kill President Trump. This is a very real, ongoing threat. I was told as recently as the weekend before the inaugural that the threat level remained the same.

And I should say, you know, neither I or any of the other people who are receiving the protection have anything to do with establishing the threat level. That comes from a consensus from the intelligence community.

So, the idea that nobody's entitled to protection for the rest of their lives, except, of course, former presidents is kind of a non- answer to the point. I think Trump knew exactly what he was doing. ACOSTA: He's trying to rattle your cage, I guess. Is that what you think?

BOLTON: Well, whatever it is, you know, it's the sort of decision that represents the triumph of politics over national security. I'm sure when President Biden approved Secret Service protection for me, he wasn't wild about the criticisms I was making but he didn't allow policy differences to affect his decision.

ACOSTA: And, Mr. Ambassador, I did want to ask you about Russia and Ukraine. Trump said he wanted to meet Vladimir Putin, quote, immediately to secure an end of the war in Ukraine. What do you think this means for Ukraine? I guess Trump had said that he was going to try to end it as soon as he came into office. That hasn't happened. But what's your response to all that?

BOLTON: Well, I think Trump wants the Ukraine war and the Middle East war behind him. And I think he just wants to get it off his table. He thinks it's Biden's war. But I'm worried what that means for Ukraine. Because if you don't care what the terms of the resolution of the war are. I think Putin will try to influence Trump. I think he knows how to do that. He knows how to play Trump, and I think that's a very dangerous territory for Ukraine.

ACOSTA: And I just wanted to get your take on what Trump said during his inaugural speech earlier this week that the U.S. should take back the Panama Canal. Do you take that seriously? And what does that mean, take back the Panama Canal? Does he mean some sort of military operation or pressuring the Panamanians to hand it back over to the U.S.?

BOLTON: Well, he was asked specifically, you know, he wouldn't rule out military force. I mean, I think it's ridiculous. I think it makes us look ridiculous. He said in the inaugural that the Chinese are running the Panama Canal, that they absolutely are not. He had said earlier, Chinese soldiers were running the canal, which they absolutely are not.

There's a problem with Chinese port operations around the world. I think in many strategic places, there's a couple of Chinese port operations on the Pacific Coast of Panama Canal. They're not running the canal itself. But if we've got problems with that, and there may well be a legitimate reason to be concerned, the way you handle it sensibly is to have quiet, behind closed doors negotiations with the Panamanians to get the Chinese company moved out and get somebody else moved in.

When you negotiate under the glare of spotlights, you put people like the president of Panama, who happens to be pretty pro-American at the moment, you put him in a box and make it harder to get what you want.

[10:25:00]

In effect, what Trump is doing here is getting in his own way.

ACOSTA: All right. Ambassador John Bolton, thanks very much for your time. Good to talk to you, sir.

BOLTON: Thanks for having me.

ACOSTA: All right. And coming up, President Trump says he's quote, open to host January 6th pardon recipients at the White House. I'll discuss with former D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Just days after his sweeping clemency order that pardoned more than 1,000 January 6th rioters, President Trump now says he's open to hosting some of them over at the White House.

[10:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I don't know. I'm sure that they probably would like to. I did them something important. But what they did is they were protesting a crooked election. You know, I mean, people.