Trump Administration Reports 471 Parents were Deported Without their Children; Satellite Images Show New Activity at North Korean Missile Site; Investors Look for Direction as Market Opens.
SCIUTTO: Listen up for this story. In a new court filing, the Trump administration is now admitting that some 471 migrant parents were deported from the U.S. without their children.</s>HARLOW: Let's get right to Jessica Schneider, she has the details on this. So that's the number we learned. What else do we need to know behind that number?</s>JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Poppy and Jim, this is all part of an ongoing class action lawsuit. So, like you said, the Trump administration now identifying those nearly 500 parents who were removed from the U.S. without their children. So, that number on its own might sound shocking, but really, it isn't entirely unheard of that parents will opt to leave their children in this country when they're sent back home, and that's because many of them have family members here in the U.S. who can sponsor that child. So now for some clarification as to what happens. A spokesman at the Department of Homeland Security, they're stressing that at the height of those family separations last Spring, separated parents, they were, in fact, routinely asked by ICE agents and their home consulates. If they wanted to be reunited with their children before they were sent back home, meaning they take their kids with them. A lot of these parents opting not to do that. So DHS is also previously acknowledged, you know, that parents were removed without their children. We've heard that in the past. But now with this court filing, the administration is providing the updated count here. And we know that it was 471 parents who left this country without their children. So, in addition to that, the court filing actually revealing some new numbers as well, that the number of children who have been reunited with their families as of Monday, just more than 2,700 kids, they've been discharged from the government's care. And Jim and Poppy, that number is up six since mid February. So the government showing here perhaps that it is making some progress with these kids leaving the government's care here. Guys?</s>SCIUTTO: And certainly, important, if the parents had the option to be with their kids, and decided to let the kids --</s>HARLOW: Right --</s>SCIUTTO: Stay --</s>HARLOW: Yes --</s>SCIUTTO: Jessica, thanks for helping clear that up. Let's discuss now with James Clapper; he's of course the former director of national intelligence. General Clapper, thanks very much for joining us this morning.</s>JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Thanks for having me.</s>SCIUTTO: So on this issue, the administration officials prior to Nielsen's testimony yesterday have admitted in public numerous times, Sessions did this, Kelly and others. That the family separation, zero tolerance policy was explicitly intended to deter asylum seekers. And I just wonder when you look at issues like this, like parents being sent home without their children, and there's some confusion as to how much, you know, freedom they had to bring them or whether they made the choice to do so. But whether that should be seen as a mistake by the administration or an intended part of the policy.</s>CLAPPER: Well, I honestly don't know, Jim. This is a very complex and very charged situation emotionally. And in fairness and I'm thinking about the people in the trenches at the border trying to deal with this. And as opposed to what the politicians back here in the beltway and in Washington say. I think under any circumstance of forced separation of children, particularly if the parents haven't or sponsors have consented to that is egregious, and that was the policy, particularly with the prior Attorney General. I think the administration would be well served to clear that up and equivocally state that is not the policy.</s>HARLOW: Right, because Nielsen in her testimony, Director Clapper yesterday just confused all of it. And by the way, if it was intent -- the intent was to deter, it didn't work, right? If you look at the number of families that have been attempting to cross the border specifically.</s>CLAPPER: You know, exactly, Poppy, that's true.</s>SCIUTTO: So looking at those numbers, Poppy is talking about here, 76,000 border apprehensions just in February alone and the administration, begging the point in the last four months, there have been as many of these apprehensions as the prior 12-month period. I wondered of course, you were part of this 58 former national security officials who put forth a joint letter last month saying that, you are aware of no emergency, justifying the president's emergency declaration. I wonder, as you look at those numbers, does that bolster the administration's case that there isn't emergency at the border?</s>CLAPPER: Well, I think -- I think there's clearly a humanitarian crisis. I just associate the termer national security or national emergency with some sort of national security threat --</s>SCIUTTO: Right --</s>CLAPPER: Which has been the essence of the hype from -- particularly from the president, his tweets and you know, all these human traffickers, and this is the threat to us, and that's why we have to deploy active duty forces to the border which I think is a mistake, and we shouldn't do that. That's an abuse of the troops to use them for that -- for that purpose. But I do think it's pretty obvious however tremendous humanitarian crisis, and I think the Department of Homeland Security and again, I'm thinking about the troops on the front line there have a tremendous challenge. And I'm very sympathetic to them.</s>HARLOW: If we could get you on North Korea because this is very important, obviously, Jim was there at the summit in Hanoi, and since it fell apart, since the president walked away from the table, these new satellite images, Director Clapper showing rebuilding at this specific long range missile launch pad site. What's your read, how concerned are you about it?</s>CLAPPER: Well, welcome to negotiating with the North Koreans.</s>HARLOW: Yes --</s>CLAPPER: This is an all too familiar pattern of theirs, it's been my strong conviction ever since I engaged with the North Koreans when I went there in 2014 to bring it out to our citizens that they are just not going to denuclearize. I don't care what they say. Now, you know, these summits and dialogue, it works to their advantage. It puts Kim Jong-un on the stage on an equal basis with the president of the United States which is something the North Koreans have longed for, for decades. So, it's not surprising to me that we see evidence of them continuing with their nuclear and-or missile program. That is -- that is the way they generate leverage. And I just wish that the president -- in fact, in the summit in Singapore in June, had asked Kim Jong-un what is it -- what will it take to make you feel sufficiently secure that you don't need nuclear weapons?</s>HARLOW: Right --</s>CLAPPER: And it seem to me the answer to that would kind of determine your negotiating strategy, and I don't know that we know that. The other thing would have been very handy to have agreed on, would have been a definition -- a mutual definition of denuclearization which as far as I know we still don't have. So, this is not surprising and this is a typical North Korean behavior.</s>SCIUTTO: John Bolton said this morning, he's open --</s>HARLOW: Yes --</s>SCIUTTO: To -- the president is open to more -- to the possibility of another summit.</s>HARLOW: Very surprising --</s>SCIUTTO: So, we'll see if that one produces more results.</s>HARLOW: Director Clapper, thank you, as always.</s>CLAPPER: Thanks for having me.</s>HARLOW: Democrats divided this morning, a lot of back and forth, confusion, fighting, bickering over what to do about the repeated controversial comments from freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar about Israel. What is the lasting impact on the party here in terms of the division from this?</s>SCIUTTO: We are just moments away from the opening bell on Wall Street. Investors searching for some sort of direction, the jobs report out tomorrow, that's going to be important. And tension could be growing between the U.S. and China and their long-standing trade dispute. Can they reach agreement? That's a big deal.