Deadline Passes for U.S. to Reunite Children and Parents
JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back -- everybody. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles. I'm John Vause with the headlines this hour. Sources tell CNN the former Trump attorney Michael Cohen alleges Donald Trump knew in advance about that 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. The President and others have repeatedly denied that Mr. Trump had any prior knowledge of this meeting. But Cohen says he was present when then candidate Trump was told about the upcoming get together by his son, Don Jr. North Korea has just handed over 55 cases of what's believed to be the remains of U.S. troops killed during the Korean War. It's the first such handover in more than a decade. The ceremony coincided with the 65th anniversary of the Korean armistice. Imran Khan is declaring victory in Pakistan's disputed general election. His party's leading in early results but the official count isn't out yet. The former cricket star is seen as being a favorite of the military and his opponents are now alleging the vote was rigged. A court-ordered deadline just passed demanding the Trump administration reunite parents with their children who were taken when they crossed the U.S. border illegally from Mexico. More than 1,400 families have been reunited, but more than 700 children remain in detention centers, and it's not clear when or if they'll actually see their parents again. Excuse me. Let's bring in CNN legal analyst Areva Martin once more and Republican strategist Luis Alvarado. Thanks for sticking around. Ok -- 1,400 reunions down, 700 more to go. We're hearing this claim of sort of success or victory coming from this administration. The chief of staff for the Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday, "We expect to be able to reunify all eligible parents -- eligible parents who are within ICE custody this evening by the court order." And you know, the key word there is eligible. They've sort of rewritten the rules here. And they still didn't kind of meet -- they still didn't meet their targets and they're kind of redefining and moving the goalposts.</s>AREVA MARTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. They didn't meet their target at all, John. And if anything, they want to be credited for the mess that they created. And really it shows the incompetence from the top to the bottom in terms of how these children and these families were handled. They were taken away from their parents, no tracking mechanism put in place, oftentimes not even knowing which child belonged to which parents. And now trying to reunite those families has proven to be the nightmare that anyone would have expected it to be given the way the process was carried out. And this whole concept of them -- them being the government defining who's eligible to be reunified with their parents. And what we're hearing from the ACLU lawyers and other activists is that they are selectively choosing families --</s>VAUSE: Yes.</s>MARTIN: -- and say you're ok. So you meet the standard so get your child back. But you -- we don't like you over here so you're not going to get your child back.</s>VAUSE: We'll get to that sort of the criteria and the standards in a moment. But we're also hearing from the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit in the first place. Their leaders are already saying, "The government should not be proud of the work they're doing separation. This is a disaster that they created. You know, Luis -- so, you know, the leaders point here -- Areva's point, they created this mess, why can't they fix it.</s>LUIS ALVARADO, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, it was a political mess and one of the dark side -- one of the dark moments in the White House administration so far when President Trump allows the far right inside the White House, Steven Miller, to lead then this is what's going to happen. It's going to be a disaster in the words of Donald Trump. It was a disaster.</s>VAUSE: Bigly.</s>ALVARADO: Very bigly. And they have tried a fix. But we know that government is not going to always land on a dime, and it's not -- and so they're moving in the right direction but yes -- to answer your question, it was something that was created from the White House.</s>VAUSE: Yes.</s>ALVARADO: Now, the government is trying to fix it. The government should not be political. They're trying to do the best they can knowing that the mission that was given to them was faulted and was going to cause a problem from the get-go.</s>VAUSE: But you know, when you hear -- when the President is asked about this and he says I've got a solution. Tell them not to come in the first place. You get the impression quite strongly that this is a president who doesn't care. Because if the President was invested in fixing something like this, Areva, it would be fixed.</s>MARTIN: I mean not only does he not care, we haven't even heard the President talk about these children in the last --</s>VAUSE: We haven't heard Republicans talk about these kids.</s>MARTIN: We haven't had Republicans but the President himself has not addressed the nation and has given us any sense of confidence that they are really trying and that they have resources and the competency to reunite these families. And what we're hearing on the ground is that it is chaos -- that kids are showing up, there are no parents; parents are showing up, there are no kids. Some kids are showing up with bruises, with illnesses. People are being stranded in bus stations and at airports. And that there's no coordination at all and that really the government can't be trusted in terms of even what they're telling the courts about how quickly the process was working. How many families have been reunited. And then let's talk about those parents that were deported --</s>VAUSE: Yes.</s>MARTIN: -- and kids are still here in the United States. So essentially they are orphans. They will have to go into some kind of foster care system. And that's hundreds of kids who've been ripped away from their parents and not able to be reunited because the government has no way of finding those parents that they have deported. That's deplorable.</s>VAUSE: Ok. We've had 13 Democratic senators who've released a video. They're reading a letter which was signed by some of the detained parents. Listen to this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To the United States public. July 15, 2018.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please help us. We're desperate parents.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Por favor, ayudamos. Somos madres de sesperados (ph).</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not criminals, but we need your help.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are not criminals.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But we need your help.</s>VAUSE: Luis -- I'm just wondering, as we head up to the midterms, is this an election issue which the Democrats can actually, you know, capitalize on? Is this a winning issue for Democrats? Because, you know, I think they're being just -- you know, it will be a winning issue for Republicans just as much on the other side.</s>ALVARADO: Well, it's going to be the issue that's going to energize both sides of their own bases. And I always go back to the middle. How are the persuadable Independents going to react to it? And there's an opportunity for Democrats to capitalize not just with Latinos to get them to come out to the vote. But also for the suburban women who understand the pain of separating a child from a mother. And that is going to give pause. Maybe they're not going to show up and vote for a Democrat but they'll probably just stay at home. And that's what many strategists are trying to figure out. How's the effect -- how's the polling looking? And the other danger is that Democrat's may overplay their hand --</s>VAUSE: Yes.</s>ALVARADO: -- and make it look too political.</s>VAUSE: Like calls for abolishing ICE which is really stupid.</s>ALVARADO: -- because there was no message strategy, there was no message discipline. And that's one of the dangers that then becomes a negative on a negative for the Democrats.</s>VAUSE: Yes. Very quickly, the Attorney General Jeff Sessions, he admitted this policy error as we've known all along -- it was meant as a deterrent.</s>LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: But is it a deterrent -- sir? Are you considering it a deterrent?</s>JEFF SESSIONS, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I say the fact that no one was being prosecuted for this as a factor in a five-fold increase in four years in this kind of illegal immigration. So yes, hopefully people will get the message.</s>VAUSE: We have discussed those numbers in the past -- Areva, how basically they're dodgy, rubbery figures but, you know, is anyone actually being deterred by this?</s>MARTIN: Not at all. And that's what's so insane and absurd about the whole policy. People are coming to the United States because they are fleeing unthinkable violence in their countries. And they're risking their lives to travel to the United States because it's safer than staying in their countries where their children are being raped, where they're being murdered. And Jeff Sessions has no credibility. He was very clear that this policy was designed to separate children from their families for deterrent purposes. And then when his base came after him, the Christian right, he then says, well, we never intended to separate children from their families. He has absolutely no credibility on this point. And the way the government has handled this is just the most anti-American thing that I can think of. And to your point about women, I think women are going to respond in November and they're going to send a strong message to Republicans that you can't tear babies -- infants and children -- apart from their parents and expect to be reelected.</s>VAUSE: You know, I thought that that would be kind of like just an obvious statement. But I don't know anymore. Anyway, we're out of time. So, you know, I'm not entirely convinced about anything at the moment. So we'll see.</s>ALVARADO: November is just so far away.</s>MARTIN: Trust me, as a mother, this is an issue that resonates with parents.</s>VAUSE: There's what -- 90 days to go. That's like 180 scandals to go.</s>MARTIN: Trust me -- John, I'm hardly ever wrong. I'm right on this point.</s>VAUSE: I always -- I always trust you, Areva. Where would I -- I would always trust you. Thank you.</s>ALVARADO: I trust the numbers.</s>VAUSE: Ok. Thanks -- Luis. Ok. Next up here on NEWSROOM L.A. as Amazon breaks corporate records and the CEO gets even richer -- some employees are asking, hey, how about a bigger piece of all that money?