Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Trump Signs Order to End Family Separation Policy; Trump Administration Seeks to Detain Families Indefinitely; Migrants Say U.S. Making Asylum Claims Difficult; Hungary Makes It a Crime to Aid Immigrants; Victory for May on Withdrawal from E.U. Bill; Erdogan Faces Crucial Election Test; Struggling to Survive in World's Wealthiest Country; Childhood Marriage, and Murder In Sudan; Heartbreak And Celebration At The World Cup; Neymar Returns to Brazil Training. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired June 21, 2018 - 02:00   ET

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


[02:00:00]

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Plus a CNN exclusive: a report from Sudan on the teenager sentenced to death for killing an abusive man she was forced to marry.

And later, a horrifying discovery in England. An investigation finds a doctor overprescribes strong painkillers to the elderly, causing hundreds of early deaths.

Hello and welcome to our viewers joining us from all around the world. I'm Rosemary Church and this is CNN NEWSROOM.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CHURCH: Donald Trump is promising to be as tough as ever on undocumented immigrants trying to enter the United States. He spoke to supporters in Minnesota just a few hours after signing an executive order to stop separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Now that's a major reversal for the president after days of blaming Democrats and insisting he couldn't do anything about the separations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So the Democrats want open borders, let everyone come in. Let everybody come in. We don't care. Let them come in from the Middle East, from all over the place. We don't care.

We are not going to let it happen and by the way, today, I signed an executive order, we're going to keep families together but the border is going to be just as tough as it has been.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: But the president's executive order doesn't solve the immigration crisis along the border with Mexico. In fact, analysts say it leaves even more questions unanswered. CNN's Kaitlan Collins reports from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Trump abruptly reversing course today, signing an executive order to end the separation of families on the border.

TRUMP: So we're going to have very strong borders but we're going to keep the families together. I didn't like the sight or the feeling of families being separated.

COLLINS (voice-over): A striking about-face from a president who has refused to back down, insisting only yesterday that he had just two choices.

TRUMP: Those are the only two options. Totally open borders or criminal prosecution for law breaking.

COLLINS (voice-over): Contradicting himself.

TRUMP: You can't do it through an executive order.

COLLINS (voice-over): And aides who have maintained their hands were tied.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congress has the power to fix this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congress and the courts created this problem and Congress alone can fix it.

COLLINS (voice-over): Trump now hoping to defuse a crisis of his own making on the southern border with the stroke of his pen. But an executive order isn't required to end the separations. Sources telling CNN the president wanted to look decisive, telling aides it would look badly if he reversed the policy quietly.

TRUMP: The dilemma is if you're weak, if you're weak as some people would like you to be, if you're really, really pathetically weak the country is going to be overrun with millions of people. And if you're strong then you don't have any heart.

COLLINS (voice-over): Tensions reached a boiling point in recent days as images of children separated from their parents and kept in cages continue to surface. The Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen confronted by protesters while dining at a Mexican restaurant in Washington.

Trump telling aides he knew the images looked bad politically but insisting the media was only showing the worst ones.

TRUMP: Those images affect everybody but I have to say you have double standards.

COLLINS (voice-over): But the administration could be back in square one in a matter of days. Sources say the executive order won't end the zero tolerance policy that led to the separations in the first place and an order could create an entire slew of legal problems.

TRUMP: We're going to keep families together but we still have to maintain toughness or our country will be overrun by people, by crime, by all of the things we don't stand for and we don't want.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: CNN's chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin joins me now to talk more about Mr. Trump's new executive order.

Good to have you with us.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: Hi.

CHURCH: So President Trump signed an executive order that wasn't necessary to end his own administration's policy of separating children from their families.

Why did he choose this more complicated avenue rather than simpler options?

And what are the legal ramifications of this?

TOOBIN: Well, the president wanted to do a couple of different things.

[02:05:00]

TOOBIN: He wanted to reassert his desire to keep the borders closed, to keep a tough line on immigration. But he wanted to retreat from this policy of separating parents and children, which has drawn such universal condemnation, both in the United States and around the world.

This executive order, at least, purports to do both of those things. Whether it actually does is a separate question.

CHURCH: Yes, this is the issue, isn't it?

Now the children will be held with their families while the parents are prosecuted.

How will that work?

And what happens to the children if the parents need to be held for more than 20 days?

TOOBIN: Well, and if I may jump ahead to an even simpler question, which is, what happens to the 2,000 children who are already being held, pursuant to this policy?

(CROSSTALK)

TOOBIN: Answer, I don't know. The order doesn't address that at all. And that question is especially difficult because, as I understand it, the recordkeeping of where these children are, where their parents are, how can they find each other, that is far from clear.

So that issue is, in many respects, the most important because these kids are already locked up.

What happens to them?

Now to jump to your question, going forward, what happens when parents and children are stopped at the border now?

Well, there is a rule on the books. It's actually a settlement of a case called Flores, which says that children with their parents can only be held for a maximum of 20 days, that the family unit cannot be held for longer than 20 days before they have to be released, in effect, on bail.

So the fact that the children will not be separated is only a 20-day resolution unless this court ruling is changed because, at the moment, OK, let's say the government says we're going to keep them together.

But under this court ruling they have to be released after 20 days.

So do they release the children by themselves, creating the problem again, separating the children?

Or do they release the parents as well, which is inconsistent with the president's hard line?

That's not addressed in the -- in today's order, either.

CHURCH: So it certainly gets rid of the difficult optics initially. But let's go back to those 2,300 children, who have already been separated from their parents.

What is the process of getting them reunited with their families?

How long could that possibly take?

And what about these babies that we're hearing?

How do they get reunited with their parents?

Given most of these young -- any of the kiddies under 5 probably don't even know the full name of their parents?

TOOBIN: Rosemary, I'm going to say the three words that you're never allowed to say on cable news, which are, I don't know. I don't know what happens to these 2,300 kids. I don't know how they find their parents. I don't know whether they will be reunited at all.

This is why the president's executive order has been met with something less than a claim by people who are opposed to this policy because it doesn't address, in many respects, the most important issue, which is, what happens to these kids who have already been locked up?

What happens to them? And will they ever get reunited with their parents?

You know, it's one thing to talk about kids who may be arrested in the future and, you know, what the policy is going to be going forward. But we have these kids who are already in custody. And the executive order doesn't address their situation at all.

CHURCH: And not to put you on the spot, but overall, what needs to happen here to fix the immigration laws in this country?

TOOBIN: Wow.

(LAUGHTER)

TOOBIN: Excuse me, that is a -- that's a pretty tough one. I mean, there certainly has to be -- there is not a good -- it is not a good situation to have people coming across the border illegally in these desert locations.

These are incredibly dangerous. The migrants are often exploited by what are known as coyotes, these people who purport to bring them across safely. There is an important -- the enforcement at the border is certainly a part of the story.

But as long as people want to come to this country and as long as there are jobs here, as long as there are opportunities --

[02:10:00]

TOOBIN: -- here and as long as there is terrible crime and corruption in the countries south of here, we are going to have this problem.

And, you know, walls haven't stopped it, arrests haven't stopped it. The impulse to migrate across borders, as we've seen around the world, is something that governments are almost powerless to stop.

CHURCH: Jeffrey Toobin, we appreciate your legal analysis on these very complicated matters. Thank you so much.

TOOBIN: OK.

CHURCH: And when President Trump signed his executive order, he insisted those who enter the U.S. through proper channels will be welcome. But many families trying to do things the right way say they learned very quickly, that's not the case.

CNN's Ed Lavandera reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Senda da Vida migrant shelter sits inside this compound in a ramshackle neighborhood in Reynosa, Mexico, on the edge of the Rio Grande.

There are nearly 50 migrants inside. More than a dozen were children. It's where we found Christian Ortiz cleaning up the mattresses soaked by an overnight rainstorm. Ortiz showed us the slashing scars on his back. The beating drove him north leaving his two sons behind.

LAVANDERA: He says these are the scars from where he was whipped by gang members in Honduras and his family was threatened if he didn't join the gang.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Ortiz says he left his two sons to request asylum in the U.S. But in recent weeks, the Trump administration has moved to make it more difficult for Central American immigrants to win asylum cases.

LAVANDERA: He says he doesn't have the documentation of what he went through, only the scars. And that's the only thing he has to show them. So he's not convinced that that would be enough to get asylum in the United States.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): He feels that the only option he has is to cross the Rio Grande illegally. So now he plans on how to cross the river on a raft.

LAVANDERA: For weeks, Trump administration officials have urged migrants to seek asylum at official ports of entry. This is the bridge that takes you from Reynosa, Mexico, into Hidalgo, Texas.

Not only are migrants telling us that they're often getting turned away in the middle of the bridge by U.S. Customs officials but they're also telling us that Mexican customs officials aren't even letting them set foot on the bridge.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Patricia Flores says she's been turned away at this bridge twice in the last two weeks and that Mexican authorities threatened to deport her if she tried again.

Flores and her 7-year-old son are from El Salvador.

LAVANDERA: She says she's scared of being separated from her son but she doesn't think God would allow that.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): She says she had to escape gang violence. She says her son saw a man who was shot in the eye outside their home. And that one of her son's favorite imaginary games is to run around with a make-believe bulletproof jacket and pretend he survived the gang members' gunshots.

LAVANDERA: I see you're getting emotional.

So I was asking her why she does this. And she said it's worth the hard journey.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): These migrants sit in a form of purgatory, straddling a life between north and south.

Tears well up in Christian Ortiz's eyes and he says one last thing before we leave.

CHRISTIAN ORTIZ, MIGRANT: (Speaking Spanish).

LAVANDERA: He is saying that he hopes that the stories of immigrants like himself and others will change President Trump's heart.

LAVROV: (voice-over) -- Ed Lavandera, CNN, Reynosa, Mexico.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And still to come, an advocate for detained immigrants describes the frustration of trying to navigate President Trump's zero tolerance policy.

And a look behind a scathing report on U.S. poverty. The harsh reality in one American city. We're back in a moment.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:15:00]

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone.

Well, Hungary's response to the immigration crisis in Europe has been increasingly hardline. Now the Hungarian parliament has gone even further, making it a crime to render basic humanitarian assistance to migrants and refugees.

The new law takes effect in one or two weeks. Hungary already has some of the most heavily fortified borders in Europe. But now someone can risk going to jail by helping a migrant just fill out paperwork or telling them where to get services in Hungary. Human rights activists say it marks a low point in the country's history.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Today is World Refugee Day and the Hungarian government, instead of providing protection, has decided to actually not provide protection, but deny protection and actually side with the persecutors.

It starts to persecute even individuals, human rights defenders and others, who assist asylum seekers. I think this is a new low point for Hungary today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: A crucial victory for Britain's prime minister in her mission to keep Brexit on track. The House of Lords passed the withdrawal bill. It repeals the law that allowed the U.K. to join the European bloc in 1973.

Some lawmakers wanted to have a final say on the deal. Instead they accused her promise of a meaningful say.

Pro-E.U. lawmaker Dominic Grieve originally argued Parliament hadn't been given enough control. But then he reversed himself and came under some pretty harsh criticism for doing that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOMINIC GRIEVE, BRITISH MP: We do face some real difficulties at the moment. It's rightly said that those who the gods want to destroy, they first render mad. And I have to say there is enough madness around at the moment to make one start to question whether collective sanity in this country has disappeared.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Six conservative members voted against the bill and more battles are expected over trade and customs. The U.K. is due to exit the E.U. on March 29th.

Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing a crucial test on Sunday as voters go to the polls. He could be forced into a runoff or even out of office in the landmark balloting. But if he wins, he's likely to tighten his already firm grip on power.

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's election season and the race is heating up. The June 24th election is different to previous ones. For the first time, voters will choose their president and parliament at the same time.

And it's a critical vote. It could either mean an end to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's presidency if he loses. Or if reelected, he'll have new sweeping power, like the ability to issue decrees to hire and fire officials in key positions.

And the office of the prime minister will be eliminated under this new system, this executive presidency. While President Erdogan is leading the polls, a win is not guaranteed. If no one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two candidates face off in a second round two weeks later.

So who are President Erdogan's main rivals?

His top challenger is Moharem Injay (ph), the candidate for the main opposition center left republican --

[02:20:00]

KARADSHEH: -- people's party, the CHP. While best known for his fiery speeches, his campaign effort has also been colorful, singing traditional songs and dancing at rallies.

Former interior minister and veteran center nationalist right politician Meryl Ochshener (ph) is the only woman running for president.

And the candidate for the pro-Kurdish leftist party, the HDP, Selahattin Demirtas, imprisoned on terror charges for alleged links to the Kurdish militant group, the PKK, is running from his prison cell.

Turkey's Kurdish issue, the war on Syria and terrorism are some of the key issues this election. But one thing seems to be on the mind of most voters.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I think the economy is finished. For example, we are now selling the Turkish bagel for 1.5 lira instead of one because the prices for water, flour and electricity have increased significantly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): The prices are very different. When you go to the market, you see the difference. I hope the economy will be fixed, especially after the elections. We want the prices to go down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): The Turkish lira is losing its value compared to the dollar and euro, which is having a huge impact on our economy, either salaries or in lira. But the rent, everything we eat and drink and wear is based on those currencies.

KARADSHEH: People say they are really feeling the impact of Turkey's economic troubles with rising inflation and the Turkish lira hitting record lows in recent months.

The economy, once President Erdogan's main strength, could prove to be his weakness this time around. There are concerns about how fair and free these elections will be. The country is still under a state of emergency since that failed coup attempt back in 2016.

With the media crackdown that followed, much of the airwaves and newspapers are under the control of President Erdogan' ruling party. But one thing is for certain: the candidates are not just names on the ballot paper. They're genuine competitors in what is expected to be a tight race and an election that could seriously change Turkey's direction -- Jomana Karadsheh, CNN, Istanbul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: A shocking report on poverty in the United States will be presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council later Thursday. It comes just days after the U.S. withdrew from the Council.

The report found about 40 million people are living in poverty. That's more than 12 percent of the population. And nearly a third of them, 32 percent, are children. The report also says the U.S. has the highest rate of income inequality among all Western countries.

Where those numbers become real is in America's small towns and rural communities but also in major cities. Lynda Kinkade went out on the streets of Atlanta to talk with Americans who are working but still struggle every day for food, health care and other basic human needs, all in the wealthiest country on Earth.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are people out on the streets in one of the wealthiest nations on the planet, you know, that are struggling for meals, for shelter.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things are tight right now. Rent's high everywhere.

LYNDA KINKADE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Had you ever been homeless before?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never, never.

KINKADE (voice-over): These are America's working poor, earning so little they can't afford a home, not even one for rent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You might work today, might not tomorrow, which then puts you in a bind because you're only making like $40 to $50, maybe $60 a day.

KINKADE: So how much were you earning an hour?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: More than like 8 bucks an hour.

KINKADE: Right. And you're 30...?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eight.

KINKADE: Thirty-eight?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, ma'am.

KINKADE (voice-over): Maudine Faul (ph) works several jobs in catering and cleaning. But most businesses won't give her more than 30 hours a week to avoid paying health care. She's been homeless 18 months.

KINKADE: So do you ever feel vulnerable when you're living on the streets?

MAUDINE FAUL (PH), HOMELESS WOMAN: You really cannot rest --

(CROSSTALK)

KINKADE: You can't relax. You're on edge.

FAUL (PH): I am.

KINKADE (voice-over): John Barber (ph) used to own his own maintenance business.

JOHN BARBER (PH), FORMER BUSINESS OWNER: I had four people working for me.

KINKADE (voice-over): Today, he's making grilled cheese sandwiches at Safe House Outreach in Atlanta. Losing everything in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit forced him on the streets for the best part of a decade.

BARBER (PH): You may not take a shower for two or three days. I wouldn't hire myself if I was looking like that. I never was really religious at that point but I started praying to God at that point.

KINKADE (voice-over): He decided to start walking, New Orleans to Atlanta, over 700 kilometers in 32 days. Safe House Outreach helped him find a full-time job. But he was jobless after just 18 months due to illness. Now he --

[02:25:00]

KINKADE (voice-over): -- oversees the kitchen here, which serves hundreds of meals a day to the homeless.

KINKADE: (INAUDIBLE)?

BARBER (PH): Yes.

KINKADE (voice-over): The official unemployment rate might be at record lows. But Safe House Outreach says they've seen an increase in the number of underemployed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In a given year we'll see about 4,000 people.

KINKADE: This is the report being presented to the United Nations that finds if you are one of the 40 million Americans living in poverty, you're likely to stay that way. The American dream, it says, is rapidly becoming an American illusion.

KINKADE (voice-over): Across the U.S., people working for tips can often earn as little as $2.13 an hour and have to make up the rest in tips just to meet the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're not livable wages. These are little tokens that they're throwing. These are the crumbs from your table.

KINKADE (voice-over): Nolan English is the director of the outreach program.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At least 40 percent of the people that we serve are working and holding down two or three jobs.

KINKADE (voice-over): Around the clock, seven days a week, they send out teams to talk to people who are struggling, living below the poverty line. One man living in a park started convulsing in front of us. Had Nolan not been there to call paramedics, the situation could have been far more dire.

The U.N. report found, unlike other wealthy nations, the U.S. has neglected its signed international agreements, which state that access to health care and food are basic human rights.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The only thing that could be done with this current administration would have to be a total change of heart.

KINKADE (voice-over): Lynda Kinkade, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And that's in the wealthiest country in the world.

Well, President Trump signs an executive order to end family separations at the border with Mexico. But New York's mayor and governor say it's not enough. What they're demanding from the White House -- that's next.

And after years of questions, a stunning conclusion as to what happened to hundreds of patients at a British hospital.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. I'm Rosemary Church. Want to update you on the main stories we've been following this hour.

(HEADLINES)

[02:30:00] CHURCH: U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order reversing his administration's policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. The order does nothing to reunite more than 2000 minors already taken from their families. My next guest has been meeting with detained immigrants and has been advocating for them. Ahilan Arulanantham with the American Civil Liberties Union of southern California and joins me now via Skype. Thank you so much for being with us.

AHILAN ARULANANTHAM, LEGAL DIRECTOR, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION: Thank you for having me.

CHURCH: Well, President Trump's executive order has not reversed his zero-tolerance policy, but it has stopped the separation of families for now at least. But this means that whole families will now be detained together. The problem comes of course in 20 days when the children can't legally be kept in detention, how difficult has it been to explain this process to the people you've been talking to?

ARULANANTHAM: That's very difficult to explain to people who come here fleeing persecution why they have to be imprisoned and even harder to explain why they have to be then separated from their children. And it's really -- it's a horrific experience to have to go through that. I've also represented children who are separated from their parents and it's really -- it's one of the most awful policies that we have seen really in the modern history of the United States. And it's unfortunate that it took an international outcry and a lawsuit from the ACLU and so much to get the administration just to even begin to reverse course which is what we've seen today.

CHURCH: Yes. The pressure has certainly been intense and it has worked for now. Of course, the other big part of this story is that the president's executive order did not address the 2300 children and babies that have already been separated from their families and staying in various detention centers across the country, some of these babies as young as three months old which is just incredible. How will they be reunited with their families and how soon can that happen? What's the process involved?

ARULANANTHAM: There are really two problems here, you know, with respect to the problem of the 2300 children who were separated in the recent past. The administration has said they have had no plan and I think that's -- it's a real big mystery how exactly people are going to be reunited with their children in this situation. And, you know, that's really a sign of how completely haphazard the administration has been in its approach to this problem. And they did not think through the problem at the outset how they were going to create a massive human rights problem and they haven't figure out how they're going to fix it. But the other issue, you know, is very important to address is that this executive order does not stop the government's policy of prosecuting people who cross the border in the desert in order to apply for asylum. In fact, it doubled down on that policy.

And during the time when those people are then serving sentences in jail, the policy does not make clear whether it's going to continue to separate family -- parents from their children in that process during a criminal sentence which really shouldn't be being served in the first place. So it remains to be seen both what will happen in solving family separations on the border even in, you know, going forward basis and of course how the administration is going to fix the massive problem it created for these 2300 children and their families.

CHURCH: And what have you been telling these families? How do you explain to people what lies ahead and what the future holds for them? What do you say?

ARULANANTHAM: I've said -- as for these particular families, the ones that were separated starting in May, I haven't been able to tell them anything because there are some several hundred of them somewhere between 400 and 1000 of them. They're held about two hours outside of the Los Angeles area. We have tried now for more than a week to get access to see those people and the government has blocked us. They blocked lawyers from immigration legal service organizations even private lawyers who were retained by the families to represent those people have been blocked from getting access.

And as a result, I actually haven't been able to see any of the families or the children separated in these most recent waves. That being said speaking with other legal service providers who have spoken to them, they have nothing concrete to say. You know, all they can say is we will do everything in our power to try to help you. But there is no way to navigate this federal bureaucracy because it remains just a complete mess, and it's a problem that hasn't existed very much in the past because the government has almost never done this kind of tearing apart of families in such massive numbers and in such a haphazard way.

[02:35:03] CHURCH: It is most definitely a distressing story to cover. And of course, your work is just extraordinary trying to piece these families together. And I just cannot understand how a 3-month- old, if there's not a paperwork there how that child finds its parents. But this is something we will all be working through. Ahilan Arulanantham, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it and all that you do. ARULANANTHAM: Thank you for having me.

CHURCH: The city and State of New York are blasting the Trump administration's immigration policies and his executive order aimed at ending family separations. We get the details now from CNN's Jason Carroll.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Early Wednesday morning, a camera captures a group of young girls entering an immigration foster agency in Harlem called the Cayuga Centers. According to a federal source, the girls were separated from their families after crossing the border. Now, the city's mayor expressing outrage after his office has learned there are hundreds more just like them at this facility.

BILL DE BLASIO, MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY: 239 of them are right here right now and this is just one of the centers in New York City. The folks here told us that since the program began over 350 children have been here all because of the family separation policy of the Trump administration.

CARROLL: Mayor De Blasio says the youngest here is nine months old. Many are from Guatemala. At the facility, they attend classes and receive social services during the day and go home with foster families at night. Workers telling the mayor some of the children had to be treated for lice, bedbugs, and chickenpox. The mayor says some children need treatment for the mental trauma of being separated from their parents, and he is not convinced they will be reunited with their families anytime soon.

DE BLASIO: Well, they have to make sure they're reunited. I mean this policy is so fundamentally broken to begin with. The kids are being sent thousands of miles away from their parents. We have to change the policy. We have to fight to change the policy.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: Adding to the mayor's frustration, getting a sense of how many children were sent from the border to New York City. De Blasio's office said until today they had no idea 239 children were at this one facility.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: The city has six other immigration facilities where children could be held. The mayor says the federal government has instructed those facilities not to share information about children from the border coming through their doors. Currently, there are at least 16 states nationwide that have facilities for unaccompanied children, that according to an official list from Health & Human Services obtained by CNN. New York's governor says the president's executive order ending separating families crossing the border does not address helping those 2300 children who have already been separated from their families. GOV. ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK: This executive order is not going to

do it. And using 2000 children pulling them out of the arms of their parents is as disgusting a process as I've ever seen. And it really says as a country we should take a look in the mirror and are we still the United States of America?

CARROLL: Jason Carroll, CNN New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: And this just into CNN, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has just given birth to a baby girl. The 37-year-old leader delivered her child at 4:45 p.m. local time weighing 3.31 kilograms. That's according to her Instagram feed. The prime minister posted thank you so much for your best wishes and your kindness. We're all doing really well thanks to the wonderful team at Auckland City Hospital. Mrs. Ardern was elected in October and announced her pregnancy in January also by Instagram. The last leader to give birth while in office was the Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto back in 1990. We'll take a short break here. We're back in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:41:43] CHURCH: Welcome back everyone. An independent report has reached the staggering conclusion that more than 450 patients died prematurely at a British hospital. They had been given powerful pain killers without medical justification at a hospital in Southern England. Erin McLaughlin reports on one family's long campaign for answers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANN REEVES, DAUGHTER OF PATIENT: Yes. First and foremost, this is about my mom. She was a wonderful mother. She was our role.

ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: 88-year-old Elsie Divine was admitted to the hospital to help her recover from a urinary tract infection. Four weeks later she was dead. Her daughter Ann believes it was the high doses of pain medication. Medications she insists her mother did not need.

REEVES: It would kill you. It would kill anybody. She had no chance. I'm her voice now and I will not stop until someone in this government, in the Department of Health can sit me down and say this is why we gave your mother those drugs.

MCLAUGHLIN: And so began Ann's 19-year odyssey for truth and accountability. What exactly happened to her mother and hundreds of other patients at Gosport War Memorial Hospital. The answer for Ann and dozens of other families arrived Wednesday and it's chilling.

JAMES JONES, CHAIRMAN, INDEPENDENT PANEL: There was an institutionalized practice of the shortening of lives through prescribing and administering opioids without medical justification. The hospital records demonstrate that 456 patients died.

MCLAUGHLIN: James Jones led the independent government funded inquiry.

JONES: There is no closure.

MCLAUGHLIN: Which took four years and over $18 million to reach that conclusion. To call out this woman, Jane Barton responsible for the practice of prescribing medication at Gosport. Barton retired in 2011 following a separate investigation that found her guilty of professional misconduct. She couldn't be reached for comment, but according to the BBC she issued a statement in 2010 that said, throughout my career I have tried to do my very best for all my patients and have had only their interests and wellbeing at heart. The inquiry makes clear that culpability extends beyond Barton to include hospital staff and those responsible for hospitals to account.

MCLAUGHLIN: Well, as you can see from this display setup by the families over the years, there have been any number of inquiries even criminal investigations. The families say the cries of the whistleblowers have fallen on deaf ears. Those investigations inadequate that is until the current inquiry.

Now, families are urging a fresh criminal investigation.

REEVES: My mom came from a time when they thought doctors were gods. They believed everything the doctor said, but the worst move on now. We've got the internet. We got the process of checking what drugs we have. And certainly for us we will always be checking the medical file and making sure that we know what's going on.

[02:45:01] MCLAUGHLIN: Erin McLaughlin, CNN, Portsmouth, England.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And CNN has reached out to Gosport War Memorial Hospital and has not yet received a response.

Well, the world watched in horror earlier this year when Sudanese teenager Noura Hussein was sentenced to death for killing her husband who she claims raped her.

Activist say, there are many cases similar to Noura in Sudan. And they are working to combat the violence and change laws that empower abusers.

In an exclusive reporting, CNN's Nima Elbagir uncovers more of Noura's story. And also speaks to an 11-year-old girl fighting to escape her husband's brutality.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NOURA HUSSEIN, SUDANESE TEENAGER WHO KILLED RAPIST HUSBAND: I had no idea how I got there, I was still carrying the knife. He told my parents that he wanted to marry me. The first time I ever saw him was a week after he proposed the marriage to my uncle. I told him, I don't want to marry, I want to study. I was in the eighth grade. And they fooled me. NIMA ELBAGIR, SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: These are the words of Sudanese teenager, Noura Hussein. For her safety, this is not her voice, but it is Noura's story in her own words.

HUSSEIN: They did all the usual rituals for the wedding. I was overwhelmed with anger. I didn't want this man. I sat in the hairdressers, contemplating suicide.

ELBAGIR: This is Noura on her wedding day. Noura is on death row. Convicted of the murder of her 35-year-old husband. Noura's case has caused controversy across Sudan. A controversy, Sudan's government has refused to comment on.

Noura's husband's family have -- we're told by activists, threatens violence against her supporters. They also refused CNN's request for comment.

The badly kept secret here is more than a third of marriages in Sudan are child marriages. A number that is rising. Aggravated by the financial realities in Sudan and a law that sets the legal age of marriage at 10. But some brave little girls are choosing to speak out.

ELBAGIR: Are you ready? How old are you?

AMAL, SUDANESE SEEKING DIVORCE: Seven.

ELBAGIR: This is Amal's story and Amal's own voice. For her safety, we're not showing her face. Amal is seeking a divorce from her abusive husband.

AMAL: He treated me horribly. I went to my father but he sent me back to him. Then, when he beat me again, I fled to my father but he sent me back again. The last time he beat me, I went to the police station.

ELBAGIR: When it's all over, Amal wants to be a doctor. Beside her, her father wipes away tears. Unlike Noura, Amal's father is here in support of her.

AMAL'S FATHER: Twice, she came to my home. Twice and I was terrified and frightened. I sent her back.

ELBAGIR: The man is 38 years old and wanted to be married to an 11- year-old girl. Shouldn't you have been suspicious?

AMAL'S FATHER: Well, I'm regretful, regretful.

ELBAGIR: Her father promises only to think harder the next time a proposal for marriage comes to his underage daughter.

Nahid Jabrallah's office walls are adorned with art from rescue child victims. Her center Sima is one of the organizations fighting on Noura's behalf. It works to combat violence against women and forced marriage, in spite of a regular diet for threats. ELBAGIR: Aren't you afraid when you talk about these cases?

NAHID JABRALLAH, DIRECTOR, SIMA CENTRE FOR TRAINING AND PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN'S RIGHTS: I think that we, at the Sima Centre and other organizations do things as a conscious choice. Noura is just one of the 37 percent of girls married in Sudan under the age of 18, just one of the cases that has reached us. There are so many others that are similar, even down to the details.

HUSSEIN: We arrived at the honeymoon flat. I locked myself inside one of the rooms. I refused to eat, I refused to leave my room. On the ninth day, his relatives came. His uncle told me to go to the bedroom. I said no. So, he dragged me by my arm into the bedroom, all of them tore at my clothing his uncle held me down by my legs and each of the other two held down my arm. He stripped and had me while I wept and screamed. I was bleeding. I slept naked.

[02:50:46] ELBAGIR: A familiar childhood ritual part and parcel of growing up. Women and girls across Sudan are fighting for the right for a childhood. Against laws that legalized child marriage. Laws that don't recognize marital rape. Laws that empower their abuses.

Noura, still had the knife in her hands when she fled to her parent's home. It was her own father who handed her to the police, and it's there that she learned that she killed her husband. She's now awaiting the results of her appeal. Nima Elbagir, CNN, Khartoum, Sudan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: And you can hear from Nima, about her exclusive reporting in that piece, coming up on CNN Talk. That's at noon in London, 7 p.m. in Hong Kong only here on CNN. We're back with more news in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHURCH: Heartbreak and celebration in Russia as Uruguay confirms its place in the World Cup knockout stage along with Russia. While Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco are eliminated. "WORLD SPORTS" Kate Riley, joins us now to talk more about this. So, let's look at all the highlights from Wednesday.

KATE RILEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes, we're going to start with the main man, CR7, Cristiano Ronaldo and how he fed earlier. Of course, this World Cup is the only trophy that has eluded this superstar striker.

He really is quite amazing and he is determined to win it with Portugal this year. Not only that, he is in a hurry to win the gold boot as well after his second game on Wednesday. He is now the tournament's top scorer.

We -- they would take it still taking their seats, Rosemary, when CR7 launched himself at goal heading home for Portugal after only four minutes, it means that Ronaldo has now scored the two fastest goals at this tournament. He also struck after four minutes against Spain and now leads the tournament with four goals. And if you think they're not excited in Portugal, well, you're going to have to check out this goal that was heard on Portuguese radio.

ANNOUNCER: (INAUDIBLE)

RILEY: Yes, this is had the excited about that. And it was a very quiet day at the World Cup, not many goals around. But it was just enough to settle things in Group A. Uruguay's win against Saudi Arabia means that they and Russia are through to the next round.

The Saudis and Egypt have been officially eliminated, unfortunate for them. Here's how it happened while on his hundredth cap Luis Suarez celebrated with a crucial goal sweeping in from close range, midway through the first half.

It was the only goal of the game, but it was enough for Uruguay and enough to eliminate the Saudis. Well, the focus will now turn to tomorrow on Monday, Rosemary, for that decisive game in Group A. The winner takes the group but if it's a draw, then Russia will finish ahead of Uruguay.

[02:55:34] CHURCH: Russia's did blowing everyone's mind.

RILEY: Just a bit.

CHURCH: The fans, themselves and, of course, their president. So, let's look ahead now, what are the matches for Thursday? What should we be looking at?

RILEY: Yes, from Cristiano Ronaldo to Lionel Messi. Yes, it doesn't get much better than that, does it well? Two teams that have won the World Cup in the past takes center stage on Thursdays.

Both France and Argentina will play their second games of this World Cup. In Group C, Denmark who beat Peru, and their opener. Will take on Australia and like globe will take on Peru knowing that a win can pretty much assure them a spot in the knockout round.

Well, one game in Group D has Argentina against Croatia, but many are looking forward to Friday, and Brazil's game versus Costa Rica. And it's amazing how the hopes of a nation can really rest on just one player at least, that's how it feels at times definitely.

When Neymar was injured during the World Cup, four years ago, it seems as though all of Brazil went into shock. And there was another shock intake of breath when he abandoned Tuesday's training session apparently feeling the worse for wear after being kicked all over the park by the Swiss in the opening game.

Anyway, the good news is that he is back in training and everything seems to be fine and that is according to the Brazilian Football Confederation. He broke the news and posted this video clip on their social media feed. Brazil played Costa Rica next up on Friday in Saint Petersburg. CHURCH: Well, it says, I mean it's been compelling, doesn't it? And full of surprises.

RILEY: They has. Yes, loads of subplots and, of course, it's just great to celebrate the world's best.

CHURCH: Yes, the fans are loving it. Kate Riley, great to see you and we'll talk again next hour, right?

RILEY: Me, well. Thank you.

CHURCH: OK, thanks so much. Well, coming up but next hour on CNN NEWSROOM, much more on the World Cup than the matchups for the day. Plus, we will hear from a key oil minister about a tough decision ahead for OPEC members. All that and much more still to come. So, stay tuned and stay connected. You can reach me @rosemarycnn. You're watching CNN.