Greece Begins Deporting Refugees To Turkey
BERMAN: All right. Happening now, Greek officials have begun deporting hundreds of refugees and migrants back to Turkey. It's part of a controversial new agreement with the European Union. More than 52,000 men, women and children are stranded in Greece since many Balkan nations decided to shut their borders. Let's get the latest from CNN's Phil Black. He joins us live from Turkey this morning. Give us a sense of what's happening, Phil.</s>PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, you can see one of the vessels behind me. This is the second of three vessels to pull in here to this Turkish town, and unload passengers who have effectively really failed in their dream of traveling to Europe and establishing a new life there. What we understand is that there are around 200 people on board. Most of them Pakistani, some Afghans, two Syrians who decided to voluntarily return as well. And as you say, this became necessary, this deal, this arrangement, because countries in Europe beyond Greece began shutting their borders. That created this backlog in Greece. Tens of thousands of people stranded in camps there. So the hope is that this deal would then enable some of them to begin coming back. But more than that, deter others from making the journey in the first place. We're now moving into the warmer spring and summer months here. The expectation was that you would see once again a huge surge of refugees making the perilous journey across the sea behind us. So now we've seen this first shipment come back. It's going to become a regular sight here for the foreseeable future. What we're talking about will be huge loads like this and the future from this point is really uncertain. Syrians, it is said, will be allowed to stay here in Turkey because Turkey has opened its gates to around 2.7 million Syrians who fled the conflict just across the border in their country. But as we're talking about here, this is also Pakistanis, Afghanis and people from North Africa as well. The expectation is their future is a little less certain because what they will have do once they get here is apply for some sort of temporary asylum or protection. There is no guarantee they'll get it. And so it's certainly possible that they will be deported from that point. But a controversial deal to be sure. Critics say that it is Europe abdicating its moral responsibility to help these people. And more than that, they say that shipping them back to a country that may not be in the best position to deal with them, to help them, and give them the protection they need -- John.</s>BERMAN: It's hard to imagine, Phil, people who have gotten that far, people from Pakistan and Afghanistan, as you say, who got as far as Turkey, would all of a sudden give up once they were shipped back from Greece. Did they say, did any of them say what their intentions are?</s>BLACK: Well, I think for many of them they wanted to get beyond Greece. They wanted to get to Germany and other countries in northern Europe. But once that has been closed to them, it has become I guess increasingly clear that there were fewer options if they were to continue to proceed that way and settling in Greece was not necessarily their intention. Also in the case of many of those people from those countries, they don't strictly fit the definition of refugees. They are not necessarily fleeing war and persecution in the same way that the Syrians are. So in the event that they were to apply here, the so- called economic migrants, if you like, they would have a tougher time of getting the sort of official protections in Europe. Now they have to see if they can get them in Turkey. But as I say, no guarantee there. The answer is it's entirely possible they could end up being sent back to their country of origin. Whatever country that is from which they left so long ago, beginning that journey to try and establishment a better life in Europe.</s>BERMAN: Phil Black for us in Turkey this morning. Thanks a lot, Phil.</s>ROMANS: All right. 58 minutes past the hour. Let's get an EARLY START on your money this morning. Stock futures are ticking higher. Seemingly unfazed by Donald Trump's claim that it's a terrible time to invest in stocks. That was in a "Washington Post" interview this weekend in which he also trashed the American economy. Oil is down below $37 a barrel. Stock futures in Europe are up. Shares in Tokyo falling overnight. Stock markets in China closed for a holiday. After those gains on Friday, the Dow is up more 2 percent this year. Nasdaq is just 1.85 percent lower. It was down almost 5 percent a week ago. The S&P 500 up about 1.4 percent this year. Of the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, 21 are higher now for the year. The biggest losers are mostly in financial stocks -- financial industry. American Express down 12 percent. Goldman Sachs down 11 percent. JPMorgan Chase off more than 9 percent. Concerns about their exposure to the oil industry shaking the financial sector earlier this year. Investors are also concerned about how the banks will fair with interest rates expected to remain low for the foreseeable future. They will rise, though, eventually. Alaska Airlines nearing a deal to buy Virgin America for $2 billion. That's according to reports overnight. JetBlue is also said to be bidding for the airline. All three companies declined to comment on the merger. It would mark another step in consolidation of the U.S. airline industry. Alaska Airlines is the eighth largest carrier in the U.S. by traffic. It's based in Seattle, flies to 90 destinations in the U.S.-Canada-Mexico. Virgin America is outside the top 10. It flies to 22 destinations. Virgin America stocks has been on a tear over the past two weeks amid rumors of that sale. The company was started by billionaire Richard Branson in 2007 and went public in 2014.</s>BERMAN: That chart, though, tells you something is happening.</s>ROMANS: Yes.</s>BERMAN: Or about to happen.</s>ROMANS: It tells you that someone is interested in that airline.</s>BERMAN: EARLY START continues right now.