Reports Indicate ICE Arresting Numerous Illegal Immigrants for Deportation
CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I hope Saturday has gone good to you so far. I'm Christi Paul.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to the CNN Newsroom. We begin right now with the president.</s>PAUL: Yes. Immigration enforcement surge across the nation. Democrats and advocacy groups now blasting the Trump administration after hundreds of undocumented immigrants were arrested in at least half a dozen states.</s>BLACKWELL: It's the first large scale enforcement of President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro released a statement to CNN saying he is concerned about the raids and it reads, "I am asking ICE to clarify whether these individuals are in fact dangerous, violent threats to our communities and not people who are here peace fully raising families and contributing to our state. I will continue to monitor the situation."</s>PAUL: Immigration officials call the arrests routine. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly had this to say about it.</s>JOHN KELLY, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: First of all, they're not rounding anyone up. The people that ICE apprehend are people who are illegal and then some.</s>PAUL: ICE says many of those arrested had prior felony convictions including violent charges such as child sex crimes, weapons or assault charges.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's talk about it now with Joey Jackson, CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney, Jessica Stern, criminal and immigration defense attorney, and Jack Kingston, former senior advisor to the president's campaign and former Georgia congressman. Good morning, everyone. Jessica, let me start with you. I understand you told our producers your offices having flooded with calls from undocumented immigrants concerned about what to do and they're describing what is happening when they get visits. Tell us what you're hearing.</s>JESSICA STERN, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: That's right Victor. Our phones are ringing off the hook along with other colleagues of mine for people, families that are now reporting that their loved ones, their husbands are just recently picked up in these raids. Immigration and customs enforcement will go out of their way to say that they're not raids, that they're not rounding people up, but I'm not sure how else it can be described. It is a circumstance that hasn't quite been done like this in the past. While there were routine raids that happened occasionally under the Obama administration, who they are going after in this situation does seem to be different. It's not people necessarily with criminal convictions. It's folks that were living peacefully here, potentially for many, many years, and possibly a pending driving without a license or something minor seems to be what we are seeing is the most common for the people that are being arrested right now.</s>BLACKWELL: How about that, Congressman. President Trump, then candidate Trump said that there has to be a deportation force. That famous speech in Arizona, he said he would be investing or doubling down on ICE's deportation efforts. Is this the deportation force, not focusing on the bad dudes, as he said, but in the case of Guadalupe Garcia De Rayos, this is a mother who has been here since she was a teenager now deported back to Mexico.</s>JACK KINGSTON, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Actually in the case of Ms. Garcia, she had been arrested for a criminal impersonation in 2009. She since 2013 knew that she was going to be eventually deported. I'm not sure why she wasn't more proactive, because as a mother, you would think that she would be. But she knew that her time was coming up. And that's the way it has always worked. Remember, Barack Obama deported 2.5 million people and that does not include the year 2016. So for the left to suddenly say this is new stuff. This is absolutely not new stuff. This is routine. What they do is they try to go after the class one, the most violent illegal aliens, and then along the way if they find that you're out there, then they do arrest you and deport you even if you weren't the target. If you are somewhat in the way, that's the way is it has always been. Now, the last couple years of the Obama administration, that was a little bit fuzzy, but really during Bush and the early years of Obama, that was the business at hand. And so for the critics to suddenly say this is new and this is a big change, it's not accurate at all. And anybody would look at the Obama deportation record of 2.5 million people knows that.</s>BLACKWELL: All right, go ahead, Joey.</s>JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Congressman, most respectfully, I beg to differ with you. There's everything new about this and this is nothing like we've seen before. In an effort to justify the recent deportation of a mother who has two children who's been here since she was 14 years old, I don't see the rationale.</s>KINGSTON: Well, the rationale --</s>BLACKWELL: Hold on congressman.</s>JACKSON: I don't see the rationale in that justification.</s>KINGSTON: Read the case --</s>BLACKWELL: Congressman, please, just hold on for a second. One at a time. Joey, go ahead.</s>JACKSON: If the objective is to get rid of people who represent a threat to this country, if the objective is to protect border security, if the objective is to protect us from people who are engaging in drugs and human trafficking, I fail to understand, congressman, the justification of taking a mother who, yes, it's true, she indeed, false Social Security number, she was living here under false Social Security number. That's a crime. That's not to be justified. The president clearly has an enforcement duty and responsibility. But if you're going to talk about an executive order which indicates that people who represent a threat to this country should be removed, I fail to see your rationale, congressman, that justifies what they did with ICE. How do you justify --</s>BLACKWELL: Jessica, before I come to you, go ahead, congressman.</s>KINGSTON: It's the law of the land. It's the law of the land. I'm sure you've read the case. I'm sure if you didn't know anything about our system on immigration that you know that this is the way it's always been conducted.</s>JACKSON: No, it has not.</s>BLACKWELL: Hold on, let him finish.</s>KINGSTON: If she was a felon, but if they go after a violent criminal and they find her along the way, she signed an order in 2013 knowing that she would be deported and that her time was up. Now, I believe that --</s>BLACKWELL: Hold on, hold on. Congressman, let me ask you this. What Donald Trump said during the campaign, late in the campaign, and certainly after his election, he said that he would be going first after the violent criminals. You bring up that 2009 conviction of using a fake Social Security number, but Guadalupe Garcia de Rayos does not qualify as a violent criminal. Should she be at the top of the list in the first three weeks of the administration to be deported?</s>KINGSTON: She was not the target, and people like her have not been the target. Yet people like her along the way when they go after the targets, if they find somebody like Ms. Garcia, they do deport her in accordance of the law of the land. And this is what Barack Obama did. This is what George Bush did.</s>JACKSON: No, it's not.</s>KINGSTON: Barack Obama, 2.5 million people. I'm sure --</s>BLACKWELL: Hold on for a second.</s>JACKSON: I know we're in an era of alternative facts, but we really should tell the viewers what the facts are. And the fact is that if you want to talk about a conviction for a false Social Security number and equate that with violence and say that, well, you know what, her time was coming, the fact is that she checked in with the immigration officials, as was her duty, as was her responsibility, and every other time she was released to her family. So if we're going to have a discussion, congressman, about border security, if we're going to have a discussion about protecting America, why are we talking about --</s>BLACKWELL: Hold on. Congressman, Joey, hold on for a second. Jessica, let me get you back in here. What are you telling the people who call your office? What should they do?</s>STERN: This is different from what we've seen in the past because before we were able to say under President Obama that if you didn't have a conviction for a significant crime then you were not going to be a priority for deportation. Now what we're seeing is that people without convictions, so this is different from even Ms. Garcia's case or violent criminals, people that just have pending cases, pending traffic violations, we are not able to really clearly advise at this point beyond saying be careful when you have a knock at your door. Understand who's there. Don't open it unless there's a warrant. That's what we're dealing with right now because there are police officers going to people's homes saying we're looking for someone else, and then they're arresting family members for simply no violations beyond something minor.</s>BLACKWELL: Jessica Stern, Jack Kingston, Joey Jackson, thank you for the conversation. We've got to wrap it there, but we of course will continue to talk about it. Christi?</s>PAUL: Thank you so much. President Trump not backing down after the court rejected that travel ban, as we've been talking about. The president says he might now sign, quote, "a brand new order" as early as Monday. He's also not ruling out taking it to the Supreme Court. But in addition, the president is now promising new security measures to keep Americans safe from terrorists. CNN's White House report Jeremy Diamond looking into this. Do we know exactly what he's weighing in terms of his options?</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: We know exactly what the president said yesterday to us on Air Force One. The president talked to reporters and he talked about what might come next, whether it would be taking this legal battle and extending that or some new security measures. Listen to what he said.</s>DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The unfortunate part is it takes time. Statutorily it takes some time. But we'll win that battle. But we also have a lot of other options, including just filing a brand new order on Monday. It could very well be. But I like to surprise you. We need speed for reasons of security. So it could very well be that we do that.</s>DIAMOND: Now that is of course a little bit less definitive than what the president said right after the ninth circuit rejected the administration's request to reinstate the travel ban. That's when the president took to Twitter and said "See you in court." Now it seems that maybe he will see the opposition here in court, but not quite yet. The administration officials telling CNN telling that they are not planning on appealing this decision quite yet, but they could take a legal battle further in the future. But at least what seems to be coming right now is that the president is considering signing another executive order, one that would perhaps address similar concerns that the previous one did, but one that may be a little bit more narrowly tailored. So that's what we'll be waiting for this week.</s>PAUL: All right, sounds good. Jeremy Diamond we appreciate it. Thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: A major player in the foreign policy plan, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, under fire over revelations he discussed U.S. sanctions with Russia and then possibly misled people within the White House about it. We have the president's response.</s>PAUL: And the president and the Japanese prime minister will be at the golf course today. We're live at Trump's Florida resort with more on plans for today. Stay close.