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Homan Not Happy with Pace of Migrant Arrests; Kentucky Agencies Help Refugees Felling the Crackdown; Measles Outbreak in Texas; Dr. Georges Benjamin is Interviewed about the Measles Outbreak; Mexico Threatens to Sue Google. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 17, 2025 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:30:00]

BILL DE BLASIO (D), FORMER NEW YORK MAYOR: And if he doesn't do it really quickly, events are going to overtake him.

And the unfortunate reality is, we have, in this city right now, a series of choices before us. We have an election for mayor in four months, Democratic primary, which is decisive. If it's not going to be Eric Adams, at this point it looks like it's going to be Andrew Cuomo, a man charged with numerous acts of sexual harassment, among other things. I mean, this is a very sad reality for New York City right now. So, when I say he has one chance to fix it, it's almost like a prayer that something gets better in this city, and the mayor shows that leadership to help us get out of this mess.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Here is why I ask the - whether he has a chance to fix it. When you look at what happened surrounding him, never mind the case being dropped by the Trump administration. And by the way, the deputy attorney general has said it wasn't dropped on the merits of the case, it was dropped because he wouldn't be able, if he was doing this and being in court, wouldn't be able to go through with Donald Trump's initiatives on immigration. So, it wasn't about the merits of the case.

But when you look at what happened surrounding Mayor Adams, you had, and I have to read this because there are so many. You had so many people resign. A whole bunch of aides. But the first deputy mayor resigned. The school chancellor resigned. The deputy mayor for public safety resigned. The chief counsel resigned. The police commissioner resigned. The health commissioner resigned. That leaves the city with a whole lot of, well, no, right, oversight. No management of certain things because they are looking at this case and going, we don't want anything to do with it. What does that tell you about his leadership?

DE BLASIO: It's deeply troubling. It's deeply troubling. And the fact is, and it's fascinating and painful to watch something like this because that simple act of going on "Fox and Friends," that alone, or having the meeting with Homan, poisoned this situation. That was his mistake. Again, he is the elected mayor of New York City. We should be doing everything by elections.

One of the other things that - SIDNER: Shouldn't he be working with the president is a question.

DE BLASIO: Well, in general, any mayor should work with a president, try and get the best out of that relationship for the people we serve. But the fact is, elections are what matter here.

One of the things the Justice Department has actually said for generations is they should not interfere with elections. So, there is an important grain of truth in saying, resolve cases before you get too close to an election. Resolve them one way or another. Just bring them and act on them or drop them.

But the bottom line is, yes, this is a profound crisis. If he doesn't do something different right now, it's obviously the end of the line. But that's bad for New York City on a whole nother level because then look at the ramifications, look at the likely next leader and what happens. And we get plunged into a new era of scandal.

This is not something that should be happening in the biggest city in this country, the greatest city in the world, in my view. Here we are. I'm just praying he can give people some reason to believe again. If he can't, then events will overtake him.

SIDNER: Will you run?

DE BLASIO: I've - my time as - I was honored to serve for eight years. My time is done.

SIDNER: All right. Bill de Blasio, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

DE BLASIO: Thank you.

SIDNER: Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump is now telling ICE agents to step up their game, saying the agency isn't arresting migrants fast enough. Now, the White House border czar is blaming the country's mayors.

So, what is in a name? A lot, if you ask Mexico's president, now saying that she is willing to sue Google over the Gulf of Mexico/Gulf of America switch on Google Maps.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:37:40]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is falling short of goals set by the White House when it comes to arresting undocumented migrants. President Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, told CNN he is, quote, "not happy" with the current pace of arrests.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is with us this morning.

Priscilla, they're putting a lot of resources into these arrests, but they can't reach the numbers they want?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John, this is where ambition meets reality. And the reality for Immigration and Customs Enforcement for many years has been that they have limited personnel and resources. So, yes, the Trump administration came in and they pulled multiple levels - levers of government to try to shore up those resources, tapping the DEA, ATF, FBI, all of them, to put them out on the field with ICE officers to increase the number of arrests. But so far, while they did outpace those during the Biden administration, some 900 compared to the last year with the Biden administration, which was around 300, they are starting to fall short of that now, ranging around 600 arrests a day.

Now, I have been told by sources that there have been tense calls between the White House and ICE amid all of this frustration, and two senior officials at ICE have been reassigned.

Now, Tom Homan told CNN's Dana Bash yesterday that he applauded the work they've done so far but more has to be done.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: ICE is doing a great job. I'm not happy with the numbers because we got a lot of criminals to find. So, what we're talking about right now are increasing the number of teams, increase the targeting, the division of ICE that creates the target list of, you know, finding who these people are, what their criminal history is and where we're most likely to find him. We got to increase the targeting production.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: So, you hear there increase the targeting production. Here's why that's important. Before targeting lists were already done to essentially know who they were going after and where they were. But those take time. And so that is part of the reason that sources say the number of arrests have dropped over the last couple weeks. So, there, Tom Homan saying that part of the operational change moving forward is doing more on that production side, while also putting more teams across the country.

But at the end of the day, John, it is difficult for ICE to come with the results that the White House is looking for because they have been so strapped for resources for so long, and because this is just a completely different enforcement posture from the last four years.

[08:40:12]

BERMAN: All right, Priscilla Alvarez for us explaining the numbers. Appreciate it.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, immigrants are facing fear and uncertainty as the Trump administration targets their communities, including people living in the United States legally, migrants with temporary protected status, for example. Incoming refugees and the organizations who support them are all concerned and trying to figure out what their future holds.

CNN's Isabel Rosales has the story from Kentucky.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: When you arrived in Louisville, how did you arrive?

SEMSUDIN HASELJIC, PROGRAM LEADER, KENTUCKY REFUGEE MINISTRIES: Imagine me without prosthetics on a stretcher and in wheelchair.

ROSALES (voice over): A war injured refugee. For two decades now Semsudin Haseljic's life work has been to help others like him at Kentucky Refugee Ministries.

A flurry of executive orders targeting immigration signed in one of Donald Trump's first acts as president. One of them indefinitely suspending refugee admissions, a legal and vigorously vetted pathway, and canceling flights that were already booked.

HASELJIC: We did not imagine a hard stop on the refugee arrivals.

ROSALES (voice over): A whiplash moment for resettlement agencies nationwide, and especially hard felt in Kentucky, which ranks top five in the nation per capita in refugee arrivals. The order claims the U.S. can't absorb large numbers of refugees without compromising the resources, safety and security of Americans.

HASELJIC: The administration's claim that the refugees are putting burden on the communities and everything that's - that they were -

ROSALES: What do you say to that?

HASELJIC: That's totally not true because our refugees are becoming self-sufficient.

ROSALES (voice over): Trump says it's also a matter of national security.

HASELJIC: Refugees are the most vetted population that comes to the United States.

ROSALES (voice over): And the order doesn't stop there. Federal funding to aid refugees already here is frozen, money that would cover costs for food, rent, English classes and employment services, until refugees could stand on their own.

Janvier Ndagijimana's family barely made the cut, arriving just six days before Trump took office. Through a translator, he tells me he spent 30 years living in refugee camps, forced to escape his homeland of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he insists he would have died from war and violence. ROSALES: When you heard about these executive orders, did you cry as a

family.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, TRANSLATOR: He said he felt so much pain in him when he came to learn that.

ROSALES (voice over): It's the pain of a father separated from his children. Two of them, adults, had their tickets booked for this month, abruptly canceled. His son, Jack, says without that critical money coming in to support refugee settlement, he's fearful his family won't make it.

ROSALES: You're worried you could end up homeless?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, TRANSLATOR: Yes.

ROSALES (voice over): If the suspension continues, KRM projects it will lose almost $1.5 million this fiscal year.

ROSALES: But the money's not there right now.

HASELJIC: They say temporarily stopped.

ROSALES: Are you worried that that could be extended?

HASELJIC: Nobody has crystal ball right now because the administration seems to be doing whatever they want to be doing.

ROSALES: What's next for their family?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE, TRANSLATOR: The only thing they can do is just to pray to God, to change the heart of the president so he can do the right thing.

ROSALES (voice over): Isabel Rosales, Louisville, Kentucky, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: This morning, Mexico's president now threatening legal action against Google for its recognition and use of the name "Gulf of America."

And a measles outbreak in Texas has now doubled in size. New details on how to keep yourself healthy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:48:37]

BERMAN: New this morning, a measles outbreak in west Texas has now reached at least 48 cases and appears to be spreading quickly. That's double what it was just a few days ago. All of the cases are in people, mostly children, who are either unvaccinated or whose vaccine status is not known. Several cases are now also reported in nearby New Mexico.

Let's get right to CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell.

The measles vaccine is very effective for people who take it.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, it is. And that seems to be what potentially is going on here in Texas. And as you said, we've got these 48 cases in Texas. But now also we have three confirmed cases in New Mexico right across the border there in that neighboring Lea County. I talked with New Mexico's health department over the weekend. They said they still have several test results pending and so we may see more cases mount up in New Mexico today. We're, of course, keeping a close eye on Texas as well.

Of those 48 cases now in Texas, 13 patients have been hospitalized. And as you said, all of the cases are either unvaccinated or have an unknown vaccine status.

This also is affecting children predominantly. The age of distribution shows that 13 of the cases are in children ages four and under, and 29 of them are in people who are between the ages of five and 17. And so there is concern, of course, that we are going to see more cases. They are trying to vaccinate folks.

We heard from New Mexico that in just the two days between Thursday and Saturday they got about 400 people in the state vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella, John.

[08:50:09]

BERMAN: It is so contagious, measles is. What are some of the contributing factors here to the spread?

TIRRELL: Just as you said, how contagious it is. I mean if you think about this, if somebody is in the room with measles and they're breathing out, they leave the room, for the next two hours that virus can hang in the air and potentially infect somebody else, especially if they are unvaccinated. That's how contagious it is.

But as you said, this vaccine is incredibly effective. If you look at this graph from the CDC, you can see measles cases start to plummet after the vaccine was introduced in 1963. And we declared measles eliminated in 2000.

But we are starting to see some numbers creeping down in terms of especially children who are getting vaccinated against MMR. And particularly in Gaines County, the center of this outbreak in Texas, we see an exemption rate for kindergartners of 18 percent, John. And that is, of course, one of the big concerns about why we're seeing this outbreak.

BERMAN: Yes, Sanjay always talks about what you need, like 90 to 95 percent vaccination rate to keep measles away. That is nowhere near where they need to be.

Meg Tirrell, thanks so much for being with us.

Kate. BOLDUAN: And joining us right now is Dr. Georges Benjamin. He is the

executive director of the American Public Health Association, a leading public health organization.

Doctor, thanks for your time.

You have that measles outbreak in Texas. We're hearing it's the state's worst in nearly 30 years, all because of, as we're look - as Meg was reporting on, low vaccination rates there. Add to that you have moves among state health officials, like in Louisiana, moving to pull back in promoting vaccination programs. What is the impact of just these two things together? What are you hearing from your members right now?

DR. GEORGES BENJAMIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION: You know, a lot of great concern about what's happening in Louisiana. You know, the health department is supposed to be the trusted communicator for your community, for all things health. And they pulled back on that. They're not giving people the information that they really need to protect themselves. And then, of course, they've said they're not going to do mass vaccinations. And the problem with that is, of course, is the health department, as you saw with the measles outbreak, is the provider of last resort. And it's the only entity that has a legal responsibility to contain these kinds of infectious outbreaks.

BOLDUAN: Yes, this - this memo, kind of the directive coming from the surgeon general in Louisiana, it basically would immediately stop the state from using media campaigns and health fairs, as you're talking about, to promote and even distribute vaccines that have - I mean that have long been proven safe and effective, if more leaders, public health leaders in more states continue with this, what can public health experts like yourself and others do to kind of fill this void?

BENJAMIN: You know, the problem is, this is public health malpractice if they continue to do this. This is absolutely against the core principles in which public health was founded. And what will happen is we'll have more people that will get sick and more people die. And for us, it means that we're going to have to rev up our efforts to properly communicate the risks for people all over the country, and particularly targeting those states, like Louisiana, which are not, you know, holding up their end of the bargain.

And, you know, the real problem with Louisiana, if you rank all the 50 states in terms of overall health, Louisiana is at the absolute bottom. They cannot afford to, you know, stand back on something that they can actually do to improve the health of the people that live in Louisiana.

BOLDUAN: How much of this do you think has to do with the position and posture that President Trump and now his Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have taken toward public health and toward the benefits of vaccines?

BENJAMIN: You know, a real concern there is a very live and active anti-vaccine community out there. Some people who are absolutely against vaccines and some people who are vaccine skeptics. And the concern we have now is that the Trump administration, now at its head, of course, has someone who I believe is anti-vaccine. Everything he's said and done. And we know that actually Mr. Kennedy was in Louisiana talking with the governor. He knows the current secretary of health. And they have been listened - you know, they're listening to him in some of the things that he's said. And so this is one of the things we feared if Mr. Kennedy became health secretary, that his past would catch up with him, the things that he's said, and we're really concerned about him and some of the other nominees that they have that are coming into the department who are tragically vaccine skeptics.

BOLDUAN: At the very same time even just talking about the department, you have a - the - our latest reporting is about 5,200 people that are going to be fired across the Department of Health and Human Services.

[08:55:06]

CDC, NIH, FDA impacted. Among those fired is almost an entire class of the CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service, which is these are the disease detectives that are sent out and deployed to investigate new threats to stop an epidemic, or worse, from taking hold.

What do you think the real impact is of cuts like that?

BENJAMIN: Well, we know this is a decapitation that was poorly designed, poorly thought through. And the implications will be that we will have more people and more people die and get sick and not just, you know, at the federal level. Many of those people that are losing their jobs were actually assigned to our state and local communities. So, the capacity to contain outbreaks like this will be diminished, not just from the federal level, but also, you know, the folks that live in our own communities right next door.

BOLDUAN: Dr. Benjamin, thank you so much for coming in and thanks for your work.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, a terrible scenario now leading to a third death after a fire exploded in a Wyoming highway tunnel Friday and fire erupted after a massive pileup involving 26 vehicles inside that tunnel. Now, three are dead, at least five people seriously hurt. The NTSB has joined the investigation into that crash.

And in Brookline, Massachusetts, stunning video captured by a doorbell camera shows the moment a building collapsed. No injuries reported because the building was under construction and no workers were inside at the time of that collapse. Yikes. Now the cause of the investigation - or the collapse obviously still under investigation. Authorities, though, evacuating nearby buildings as a precaution.

And Colombian superstar Shakira has been hospitalized with an abdominal condition, forcing her to cancel her Sunday concert in Lima, Peru. In a statement on social media, she says she hopes to recover soon and that her team is working on a new date. The Grammy winner is currently touring Latin America. She started last week in Brazil. Peru was her second stop. And she's still scheduled to perform in Canada and the U.S. starting in May.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, Mexico's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is making clear that she is not giving up without a fight. A fight over the name of that body of water west of Florida, south of Louisiana, east of Mexico. President Trump declared a switch from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in that executive order that we've talked so much about. And now Mexico's leader is saying she's willing to sue tech giant Google over all of this.

CNN's Valeria Leon is in Mexico City with much more on this.

What are you - what is the latest? What are you hearing?

VALERIA LEON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kate, the Mexican government is analyzing the legal implications of this situation. The office of the legal counsel of the presidency is exploring whether a civil lawsuit against Google is viable under Mexican and international law. And with this, Mexico has found support from some international institutions, including the Encyclopedia Britannica, which has reaffirmed that it will continue using Gulf of Mexico as the correct designation.

And the controversy between the Mexican government and Google escalated when Sheinbaum publicly said that her administration is considering this civil lawsuit against the tech company for the rebranding of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. And the designation of Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America in its maps application was considered a move that Mexico argues it's - it's not only historically inaccurate, but legally incorrect.

But the situation escalated after Google replied to the Mexican government's letter explaining that its naming policy is not dictated by a single governmental source. Instead, it considers various references and regional naming conventions. However, this response did not satisfy Sheinbaum's administration, as the Mexican government insists that the Gulf of Mexico is the only correct and historically recognized name. The situation became more controversial when it was discovered that Google Maps had already implemented the name change for U.S.-based users. And in response, Google opted for a compromise, displaying both names, Gulf of America in parentheses for users outside the United States.

So, this is part of what Mexican president said, and we're expecting to have her presser and this she will talk about more details on how the Mexican government is going to respond to Google.

Kate.

[09:00:01]

BOLDUAN: Let us see what avenues they see in terms of the legal front here. Thank you so much.

And a new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.