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Trump Suspends Tariffs on Columbia After Migrant Agreement; Visas Can Mean Grueling Work, But an American Dream; U.N. Urges Rebels to Stop Hostility, Withdraw from Goma; 80 Years Since the Liberation of Auschwitz; Philadelphia Eagles, Kansas City Chiefs to Play for NFL Title. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired January 27, 2025 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: At this hour, U.S. deportation flights to Colombia have resumed after a dizzying turn of events. Late on Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on Colombia for refusing to accept two such flights. Colombia's president then threatened his own tariff on U.S. goods. But both sides soon backed down, seeming to have settled the issue pretty quickly.
CNN contributor Stefano Pozzebon explains why the Colombian president initially blocked those U.S. military planes from carrying deportees from entering the country
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: President Petro was trying to send a message. The message was that they would not accept the military flights or what he calls an inhumane treatment of these migrants. And one of the things that apparently was particularly hard to digest is that many times migrants being deported back from the United States arrive here in Latin America in handcuffs as if they've committed any crime.
And of course, the position of the Latin American government is that a migrant does not commit a crime just by crossing into the United States, however undocumented. Now, of course, that is the same that happened with Brazil and Mexico, who have also protested this treatment. Petro tried to draw a line.
And then probably, well, we've seen on one side the Twitter diplomacy or X diplomacy, we should call it, with Petro posting his ideas and his state policies on X in real time. And Donald Trump doing the same on his own social media, Truth Social, as if the two leaders were almost messaging each other and bickering, frankly, in front of our eyes. And on the other hand, we've seen the diplomatic back channels that have provided a fruit and provided a success.
Colombia has been a staunch ally of North America, of the United States over the last 50 years. These channels have always worked in the last few hours. Throughout today, we were in touch with sources, with experts, with analysts, with diplomats who were telling us that the phones were really busy as the professionals were trying to amend the rift that the two presidents had caused.
And in the end, well, we're still seeing two different versions. On the one side, the White House is saying that Colombia has caved and they have accepted all of President Trump's terms. And on the other side, the Colombian government is saying that they will accept deportation flights with humane treatment.
Maybe it's just a matter of using civilian aircraft rather than military aircraft, because this country has received more than 124 deportation flights over the last 12 months. So it's not like that these flights are a new thing. What really triggered this reaction was the use of military aircraft and probably the handcuffs towards these migrants.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Brazil is slamming the way U.S. agents are threatening immigrants, calling it degrading. The Brazilian federal police say they discovered 88 deportees who were handcuffed by their feet and hands on a plane that was in poor condition. The country's foreign ministry says it violates an agreement with the U.S. which calls for the, quote, dignified, respectful and humane treatment of returnees.
CNN has reached out to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and State Department for comment on that.
President Trump's aggressive push to crack down on immigration is bringing into question what his policies could mean for those in the U.S. legally on work visas. CNN's David Culver reports on that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Calling out to us from the back of the bus, Juan Manuel Cisneros shows us what he describes as his American dream come true.
(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
CULVER: I said, do you always carry that document with you? And he goes, yes, because if anything happens, he can pull it out and say I'm here legally in this country.
CULVER (voice-over): Everyone on this bus can say the same. They're farm workers here on H-2A visas, which allow foreign workers to fill temporary or seasonal agricultural jobs.
CULVER: They come here for about eight months. All the folks on this bus who are on their lunch break are from Mexico. He says they're able to work the field. And as he sees it, it's a good solution to be able to make money and yet at the same time be here legally.
CULVER (voice-over): But with that visa comes grueling work.
RICK ROTH, PRESIDENT, ROTH FARMS: Nobody local wants to work in agriculture harvesting crop. Nobody. These are hard working able- bodied men and that's what they're doing. They're doing manual labor. CULVER (voice-over): And they're doing it in a place that might surprise you.
CULVER: That's east.
ROTH: Yes.
CULVER: If I go far enough, I'll hit Mar-a-Lago.
ROTH: Yes, you will.
CULVER (voice-over): You need only travel about 40 miles from here as Roth Farms sits just on the western edge of Palm Beach County, Florida.
CULVER: Certainly doesn't feel like the beaches of Palm Beach.
ROTH: But it has the weather.
CULVER (voice-over): Which can be brutally hot and humid for those working these fields. Yet despite his need for a reliable and cost- efficient workforce, Roth says he supports President Trump's stance on immigration.
CULVER: Is it going to get more difficult to get workers, you think, under President Trump and the crackdown on immigration?
ROTH: No, I think it actually will get easier.
[04:05:00]
We just want people to be vetted and we want good workers that are come out, come out here.
CULVER: So the H-2A visa program may seem like a perfect solution to keep predominantly migrant workers employed on farms like this one here in Florida.
But critics point out that it doesn't cover every person or every situation. Say, for example, those migrants who are fleeing violent and dangerous situations and don't have a home to go back to once the season's over. Or those who simply want to live and work with their families year-round in the U.S.
And then you've got small farmers who say that the program is just way too costly and way too complicated.
CULVER (voice-over): For now, though, Roth sees H-2A visas as the best way to keep U.S. farms running. He hires a third-party company to handle the logistics. They recruit the workers from abroad and then place them at several different farms, including Roth's.
ROTH: You hire them in Mexico and you transport them over here. You pay all the transportation costs.
CULVER: You're paying for that. ROTH: I pay all the transportation costs. We put them up in housing. We pay all the housing costs. The only thing we're allowed to charge them for is the cost of the food when we feed them.
CULVER (voice-over): So what is it like for these workers?
CULVER: So here it is about 5 o'clock in the evening, and these workers have just finished their shift at Roth Farms. They're arriving back at their housing complex.
CULVER (voice-over): Juan Manuel and the others invite us to meet them after their workday is over.
CULVER: Yes? What do you do this time of the day? Yes, when you get here from work.
(SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
CULVER: Dinner's at 6?
JUAN MANUEL, MIGRANT WORKER: Si.
CULVER: We can go with him. He's inviting us up. They've been working 10 hours today. They work six, sometimes seven days a week. They have just a few things that they need, a few changes of clothes, some snacks, and not much privacy.
CULVER (voice-over): Juan Manuel shows us his setup.
CULVER: He says what he makes is about $16 an hour. So here what you make in an hour, as he puts it, is an entire day's work in Mexico.
CULVER (voice-over): This is his third year on the Visa Work Program.
CULVER: He said the money that he makes here, he's able to support his family in Mexico as well and help his mom and dad and brother and sister.
And he said that's what you need to do to survive.
You can see all the workers now are gathering from all the different buildings. Most of them all work at different sites, but they come together to eat and then sleep. And then they will be back at it on the fields in about 10, 11 hours from now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: South Korean authorities have submitted their initial findings on last month's fatal Jeju Air crash. While the investigation hasn't yet yielded a definite cause for the air disaster, officials are focused on the role of a bird strike and the location of a landing guidance structure. Feathers and avian blood were found on both the plane's engines. 179 people were killed when the plane crashed whilst landing in South Korea on December the 29th.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has easily won a seventh straight term in office. That's according to the country's election commission. Officials say the close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin received nearly 87 percent of the vote. But critics have called it a sham. European politicians complain this was not a fair vote because independent media are banned in Belarus and leading opposition figures have been detained or driven into exile.
The country's 2020 election resulted in mass protests after opponents accused the government of cheating in Mr. Lukashenko's favor.
The United Nations is urging the Congolese rebels and allied Rwandan forces operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo to halt all hostile action immediately. The M23 rebel group has entered the outskirts of Goma, near the Rwandan border, surrounding the city and closing its airspace.
The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting on Sunday and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reiterated his, quote, strongest condemnation of the M23 offensive, which is causing havoc amongst the civilian population. CNN's Ben Hunt has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN HUNTE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Civilians hurried towards Goma with everything they can carry on their backs. The fighting between the M23 rebel group and the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo, hot on their heels as panicked residents flee outlying areas to seek shelter. The U.N. says the encroaching violence has already displaced some 400,000 people in the region since the beginning of the year, and there are fears as the clashes continue, there'll be many more.
MARCELINE KACHARANGA, DISPLACED BY FIGHTING (through translator): We are fleeing without knowing where were going, as if we have nowhere to return. Look, my older sister, she gave birth yesterday. She has a baby and we don't know what to do.
[04:10:00]
HUNTE (voice-over): After a lightning offensive that began just weeks ago, M23 rebels have made significant territorial gains and have encircled Goma, which is located near the border with Rwanda. Flights from the city's airport have been grounded and gunfire and artillery fire can be heard across the city.
South African and U.N. authorities say at least 13 peacekeepers from the U.N. and other international forces have been killed, and the U.N. says it's temporarily relocating non-essential staff out of the area.
Medical staff in a hospital in Goma say they're overwhelmed with patients and have had to set up emergency tents to treat the wounded. Some who say they narrowly escaped the fighting.
JEANNETTE NEEMA MATONDO, WOUNDED IN FIGHTING (through translator): We packed our bags, took our children and left. When we reached the checkpoint, a bomb fell on us. I was thrown backward in the direction I had come from. I still had my baby on my back and my belongings were next to me, but everyone around me was dead.
HUNTE (voice-over): International groups warn that the violence could escalate into a wider regional conflict. The DRC recently severed diplomatic ties with Rwanda, which it says funds and supports M23 rebels. Rwanda denies this but says it does have troops and missile systems in the eastern DRC for its own security.
For decades, the eastern part of the DRC has been infiltrated by militias and armed groups, many stemming from Rwanda's 1994 genocide and lingering hostilities between Hutu and Tutsi groups.
Aid agencies say many people in this area have been displaced before by ongoing conflicts, and with the pitched fighting, uprooting them once again. The humanitarian crisis in the DRC can only get worse for those surrounded by fighting with no place left to go.
Ben Hunte, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Never again is a phrase associated with the lessons of the Holocaust. Now, 80 years after the liberation of the most notorious Nazi death camp, survivors want the world to remember. That's next.
[04:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: 80 years ago today, Soviet troops passed through the gates of Auschwitz, the concentration camp, liberating some 7,000 desperate men, women and children who had suffered horrifying punishment at the hands of Nazi soldiers.
World leaders and Holocaust survivors are gathering today at the camp outside Krakow, Poland, to commemorate the devastating genocide orchestrated by Adolf Hitler that killed more than 6 million people during World War II. The majority of those murdered in the Holocaust were Jews, but the Nazis also targeted Poles, the Roma, gays and Soviet prisoners of war.
As the world observes this milestone anniversary, one of the few remaining survivors of Auschwitz is working to share the terrible story of the Holocaust with the next generation. Isa Soares has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JACKIE YOUNG, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: What I'm about to tell you now I had absolutely no knowledge of myself.
ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the last 13 years, Jackie Young has been taking teenagers beyond the history books.
YOUNG: The war has been on already two -- over two years.
SOARES (voice-over): Educating them about the Holocaust by retelling his harrowing story as a baby sent to a Nazi concentration camp. YOUNG: How and why I survived two years, eight months as a nine-month- old baby, I sure do not know.
SOARES (voice-over): It was 1945 when Jackie in the U.K. on a British Royal Air Force plane. His adoptive parents never told Jackie he was a Holocaust survivor, keeping his early life secret for years.
YOUNG: Any little piece of the puzzle of my past was more than welcome.
SOARES (voice-over): It's a puzzle that he is yet to complete. But with each piece, a moment of clarity for 83-year-old Jackie.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What is something you haven't found out yet, but you would like to?
SOARES (voice-over): And an awakening of the mind for this younger generation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did the whole process change your identity and the way you see the world today?
YOUNG: It's what I call cathartic.
SOARES (voice-over): With each passing year, some say this generation could be the last to hear from Holocaust survivors. Their testimonies consigned to footnotes in history books.
SOARES: Given what we heard from Jackie and the lessons from history and what is playing out in the world right now, how does his story shape all of you who are the future?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I feel that it really highlights the importance and the need to stand up to, you know, prejudice and stand up for those who are vulnerable. And I feel that it reminds us of the importance of teaching and educating younger generations to really combat prejudice and promote peace.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I agree. And that kind of story kind of leaves you wondering, what about the other children that have the same story? What happened with them? Do they know what happened? Do they not know?
SOARES (voice-over): Jackie says he has found peace that the puzzle of his life may never be complete.
YOUNG: I resign myself to the fact that the pieces are smaller by the day.
SOARES: The reception you get from the teenagers, many of them have studied it. But as I heard today, it's quite another story hearing it directly from someone who lived it and breathed it. What do you think they take away from it?
YOUNG: I'd like to think that they have opened their eyes a bit to what can happen with humanity. I mean, we've got no other game on this world. SOARES (voice-over): Life lessons from a Holocaust survivor, whose story of trauma and resilience will hopefully reverberate beyond these school walls.
Isa Soares, CNN, North London, England.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[04:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: We now know which teams will be playing in the upcoming Super Bowl. The Philadelphia Eagles will take on the reigning champs, the Kansas City Chiefs, in New Orleans. On Sunday, the Chiefs found themselves in a tight back-and-forth contest against the Buffalo Bills.
But Kansas City held on, winning 32 to 29. And now the Chiefs and their star quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, have a chance to make history as the first team ever to win three straight Super Bowls.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PATRICK MAHOMES, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS QUARTERBACK: I'm just so proud of my teammates, man, how they responded. That was a great football team. And I'm just lost for words. I mean, I'm excited for New Orleans.
TRAVIS KELCE, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS TIGHT END: Never satisfied, baby. When you play in front of Arrowhead Stadium like this, every single AFC championship, you kidding me? Kansas City, before you go get out here. Just do a little dance, make a little noise. Yeah, get down tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: And standing in the Chiefs' way, the Philadelphia Eagles facing the Washington Commanders. The Eagles were dominant with quarterback Jalen Hurts and running back Saquon Barkley, each rushing for three touchdowns. Philly wins big, 55 to 23.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SAQUON BARKLEY, PHILADELPHIA EAGLES RUNNING BACK: It's amazing, man. It's amazing. We're here. Super Bowl. But the goal wasn't just getting there. The goal is to win. And we're going to celebrate, enjoy this, and get right back to work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Well, the Eagles and Chiefs faced off in Super Bowl 57 two years ago. Kansas City won that game on a field goal with just eight seconds to play.
[04:25:00]
One of the most dramatic finishes in Super Bowl history.
Pop star Ed Sheeran has added another new achievement to his stellar career by playing a concert in Bhutan. He spoke about what was a first for the Himalayan country, bordered by China to the north and India to the south.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ED SHEERAN, SINGER, SONGWRITER: I went for dinner with the king and queen yesterday. And they said, we just want people coming to the country that want to love and respect the country and understand the ideals. Yes, I feel super honored that I was chosen. And I can't wait to play. This is, like, such my jam.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: After the concert, Sheeran shared his enthusiasm on social media, writing: I had the honor to be the first ever international artist to play Bhutan last night. What a gig. What a country. What a beautiful place with incredible people.
Finally, this morning, a movie theater in Paris just hosted a special dog-friendly screening of a Disney classic. 18 dogs arrived at the cinema to see Lady and the Tramp. Some sat in the aisles, some in their owners' laps, and some on their own red chair. The theater's director says the event went so well that they are planning a showing of Beethoven next.
Thanks for joining me here on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster, CNN "THIS MORNING" up next, after a quick break. We'll leave you with images from northern Gaza. This is the scene as Israel allows Palestinians to return, finally, home.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians waiting for two days at roadblocks after Israel accused Hamas of breaching a ceasefire agreement and refusing to open those crossing points. We'll have more in the coming hours.
