Donald Trump on Immigration; Prince William in Jordan
HOWELL: Thank you for being with us. We're CNN Newsroom live in the United States and around the world this hour. I'm George Howell.</s>CHURCH: And I'm Rosemary Church. Let's bring you up to date on the main stories we're following this hour.</s>HOWELL: The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won re- election in Sunday's snap vote, this according to head of that country's supreme election board. With almost all votes counted, state media report Mr. Erdogan's coalition is also still in control of parliament. The opposition though is disputing those results.</s>CHURCH: Prince William is in Jordan for the first leg of his Middle Eastern tour. He will soon meet with young Syrian refugees and visit an army base. Later on Monday, the Duke of Cambridge will fly to Israel, making him the first British royal to make an official visit to the country.</s>GEORGE HOWELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: The U.S. President Donald Trump is digging in on his tough stance on immigration. He tweeted Sunday that those caught illegally trying to enter the country that they should be deported without due process. No judicial involvement he says. Mr. Trump also said the U.S., "Cannot allow all of these people to invade our country."</s>CHURCH: Meanwhile, the U.S. Government has to deal with the more than 2,000 immigrant children in detention centers. Their job now how to reunite the families that was separated in April and made by the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration. One migrant from El Salvador knows firsthand what it feels like to be separated from her child.</s>HOWELL: Her 5-year-old daughter was taken from her when she arrived at the Texas border two years ago. She told her story to CNN's Scott McLean.</s>SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's hard to think of being locked up and separated from your child. But for this woman, it's a nightmare she doesn't have to imagine.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via translator): It's very painful not only for us as mothers but also for our kids.</s>MCLEAN: She shared her story on condition of anonymity. Her case is still pending in court. It begins in early 2016 in her native El Salvador when a death threat from a local gang sent her running for her life. After traveling for almost a month, she reached the Texas border looking for asylum. Instead, she ended up losing her daughter. She was locked up in detention while the girl who was then just 5 years old was taken to a separate shelter for unaccompanied minors.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via translator): I told them that they couldn't do that. We have to be together. And then she told me if I didn't let them take her, they were immediately going to deport us both.</s>MCLEAN: What was going through your mind at that point when you realized that you -- your daughter was being taken away from you?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via translator): The truth is I thought that I wasn't going to see her again.</s>MCLEAN: She says it took two weeks to locate the child and it was almost three weeks before they connected by phone. What was that conversation like that first conversation with your daughter?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via translator): I would say, my daughter, are you OK? And she would say, yes. I would say with God first, we're going to see each other again and she would just say, yes.</s>MCLEAN: After a month, the 5-year-old girl was turned over to a relative in the U.S. Her mother was released a few weeks later. Under the Obama administration, family separations were not widespread, but not unheard of either.</s>JEH JOHNSON, FORMER UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Immigration laws --</s>MCLEAN: Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said separations were for health or safety concerns. A woman here had been deported alone once before. Her lawyer won't say why, but says the forced separation was unjustified.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: At that time it absolutely was not the policy. It was against policy.</s>MCLEAN: Not everyone in this country probably has sympathy for you. What would you say to those people?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via translator): I can only say that this should no longer happen, that no kid is taken from their parents because it's a trauma the kids go through and it affects them and is impossible to forget.</s>MCLEAN: Mother and daughter are now living together in Western Colorado. But they will still have to convince a judge that they are in genuine need of protection and there are no guarantees. Does that scare you?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (via translator): Yes, for my life and my daughter's life.</s>MCLEAN: Scott McLean, CNN Las Vegas.</s>HOWELL: Scott, thank you for the reporting. Now, let's get perspective with Scott Lucas, Scott, a Professor of International Politics at the University of Birmingham and the founder of E.A. WorldView live this hour via Skype in Birmingham, England. A pleasure to have you, Scott. Let's first talk about the president's suggestion that immigrants be denied due process as it stands now asylum seekers and even people who cross the border illegally. They had limited rights. The president wants to skip the judges, cut out the courts, and simply kick people out, your thoughts.</s>SCOTT LUCAS, PROFESSOR, INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM: This is not just a suggestion. This is a demand from Donald Trump and it's one that he has made before although he made it loudly on Twitter yesterday. Let's explain why. The Trump administration including Trump and advisers like Steven Miller see the courts as an impediment, not as an essential part of the American system. Remember that it was the courts that prevented them from implementing the Muslim ban in January 2017 on people being able to enter the U.S. from six mainly Muslim countries. Remember, it's the courts which had limited their ability in previous months to crackdown on immigration or carry out anti-immigration measures. Remember, it's the courts that could rule in this case that it is illegal to detain parents and children before they get to a port of entry and claim asylum. So in other words, the idea here is, you run over the courts. You bypass them and indeed it goes further because Trump also said yesterday that you will bypass Congress because what he effectively did is undermine Republican immigration bills and says, look, it's not worth passing these now. The Democrats will block them. The idea here is there should be only one source of power in the U.S. government, thus the Trump administration whatever the cost we see from this immigration policy.</s>CHURCH: And Scott, let's just listen to what two lawmakers had to say when they were told that they didn't have permission to inspect a New Jersey detention center. Let's bring that up.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You do not have permission.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we now --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congressman entitled to do here --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is America. This isn't Moscow.</s>CHURCH: And so Scott, we are seeing lawmakers turned away from these detention centers. One of them saying, this is America, not Moscow. What's going on here? On what basis are these detention centers allowed to prevent the access of lawmakers and of the media?</s>LUCAS: There's, you know, there are certain provisions which regulate for example, when you're holding minors in, "Shelters", in this case detention centers. And that is for example, you may not be able to talk to these because these could be vulnerable children. There could be health issues about that. That is one reason why for example these children are being vaccinated. But let's be clear here. These aren't health and safety reasons preventing these basically visits. That is officials, officials answerable to the Trump administration don't want legislators, don't want journalists to see what is happening. Two weeks ago when they allowed limited visits albeit without photographs, that's when we first heard about the extent of the detentions. So why let them back in to continue to show us that in fact many of the children are not being reunited and indeed that many of the children are now effectively lost in the system because records haven't been kept.</s>HOWELL: OK. Look, Scott, despite the images that we've all seen around the world of these detention centers despite the sounds, you know, the audios that -- the audio that we've all heard of the children screaming out for their mothers and their fathers. The president has indicated in Nevada this weekend that he sees the whole thing as a winning play going into the November midterms. Let's listen to that.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And immigration, we have to be very strong. I like the issue for election too. Our issue is strong borders, no crime. Their issue is open borders, let MS-13 all over our country. That's what's going to happen if you listen to them.</s>HOWELL: The emotion of what's happening set aside here, Scott, the question many voters they support what the president is doing, this aggressive approach toward immigration. Are Democrats underestimating his appeal here on this issue or is this enough to rally that base?</s>LUCAS: Let's be clear. Some people support Trump. The question is whether it's many. It is the strategy of the key White House Adviser Steven Miller. It is probably the strategy shared by Attorney General Jeff Sessions as well as Trump which is if we continue to crack down no matter what the legal issues are, no matter what the cost is to children and parents, we'll win in November's congressional elections which means by the way, they're not going to apologize. They're not going to back down over what has happened in recent weeks. Connect that to the second issue. They think if they win in Congress in November that their belief, that the courts are not important, that you can go around Congress is justified. In other words, these elections now are much more than returning an individual representative or senator. It's even more than the immigration issue. It is a question about the extent of the Trump administration's power and I would go even farther. This is a battle for the soul of America coming up. It will be fought not over the next week, the next month but all the way through November and beyond.</s>CHURCH: Scott Lucas, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.</s>HOWELL: Wow. Thank you.</s>LUCAS: Thank you.</s>CHURCH: All right. Let's take a short break. But still to come, a monsoon is bearing down on refugee camps in Bangladesh and it's feared hundreds of thousands of people may be in danger. We'll have the details for you next.