cooperation from an enormous industry, making big money without changing anything. i'm ray suarez. that's the "inside story." ♪ this is al jazeera america live from new york city. i'm tony harris. chicago releases another deadly police shooting video. adz the justice department says it will investigate the police department. political ideologies, officials say'd farook and his wife had been radicalized for sometime and went to a shooting range just days before the attack. donald trump is turning up his anti-muslim rhetoric, calling for a shutdown of

muslims entering the united states. and the border, u.s. officials sound the alarm about a new spike in unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border. ♪ a new information tonight about the california couple that opened fire inside a san bernardino social services center last week. syed farook and his wife are accused of gunning down 14 people attending a holiday party before they too were killed by police. melissa chan joins us live from southern california with more. melissa. >> reporter: tony one of the things that officials started off were to dispel rumors. they were very clear that they

just don't know at this moment whether the female radicalized the male. they say they knew the shooters had been radicalized for sometime but they don't know by whom or when. five days after the mass murder of 14 people inside the inland regional center, the fbi says it is trying to learn what motivated the suspects. >> we have brought in a reconstruction team. we have collected over 320 pieces of evidence so far, and we have transported a number of those pieces of evidence to washington, d.c. primarily to our fbi laboratory, to our bomb lab. >> reporter: among that documentation that the couple had been showning their shooting skills. >> we do have evidence that both of these subjects did some target -- participated in target practice in some ranges within the metro area, or within the

los angeles area. in that target practice on one occasion was done within days of this event. >> reporter: monday's new information comes in part from more than 400 interviews investigators have conducted. and atf say it now has more details about the guns connected to syed farook. >> he purchased the pistols recovered at the scene, as well as the rival recovered during the search war rent. we have both the federal documentation, and the california documentation to establish that he purchased the firearm. >> reporter: much of the focus has shifted to his wife. her background has been one big question mark. at the moment there is precious little information and the fbi says it is working with overseas partners to find out more.

local leaders say what is important is trying to get things back to normal. >> the purpose of terrorism is to make ordinary people afraid to do the ordinary things. last wednesday was an ordinary day in san bernardino county. it was a day when a group of our employees were gathered. these were dedicated public servants. to honor them, to express our sacrifice, we hav to fight to le maintain that ordinary. we can't be afraid. >> reporter: well, you are talking about maintaining that ordinary, and yet i'm standing outside the county supervisors where in about an hour there is going to be a vigil. one of many that have been going on. the city very much still in the process of coming to grips and trying to heal, tony. >> melissa, let's go back to the

investigation for a moment. what else do we know about the man who purchased the two long guns involved in the shooting? >> reporter: the fbi executed a search warrant on a home in riverside county. and the owner of the home was a former neighborhood of farooks. we know he is the owner of those semi automatic rifles that were used in the attack. and it's uncertain at what point the guns were transferred to farook. >> gotcha. donald trump is coming under fire from both sides of the isle for his latest anti-muslim comments. he says they should stay out of the country until officials find out what is going on. senator ted cruz said, quote, that is not my policy. and bernie sanders called the

comments racist and sexenophobi. a group of refugees arrived int today. heidi zhou castro joins us now from dallas. and heidi, what more do we know about these syrian refugees? >> reporter: we know that a family of six arrived in dallas today, that's parents, two children, and two grandparents and they joined family who was already living here in dallas. another six syrian refugees also landed in houston with nine more scheduled to arrive there by the end of the week. there had been no opposition until, of course, thor paris attacks. almost immediately after, the texas governor became the first of 30 state leaders in the u.s. to say he did not want syrian refugees to resettle in their

state. they threatened legal action, and then backed down when the federal government shared enough information about this group of refugees to allay any concerns. tony? >> where do the governor's efforts stand at the moment? >> reporter: according to a spokesperson for thet third quarter attorney general's office. a federal judge issued an ed dick saying they must share their information prior to the refugees arriving. all this rhetoric has accomplished is to delay the arrival of one of the syrian refugee by a few days. >> what are some of the syrian refugees already living in texas saying? >> reporter: we spoke to brother, and he said the family is aware of what is going on, and the heated rhetoric, and of course, they are just try

resettle here and people their heads low until some of the tension dies down. for the first time in months food arrived in the syrian city of homs. there is a deal that calls for the withdrawal of thousands of opposition fighters. the syrian government cut off the food supply in the summer. meanwhile the pentagon denied it was behind a deadly attack on a syrian army base. three soldiers were killed and 13 others were injured in the attack. u.s. officials dismissed the claim, blaming russia for the attack. new questions, new complaints, and a disturbing new video have chicago's police department facing a new level of scrutiny tonight. it comes in the form of a wide-ranging investigation by the justice department. the attorney general said the

probe was requested by local officials and community leaders. >> we will examine a number of issues related to the chicago police department's use of force, including use of deadly force, racial, ethnic and other disparities, and its accountability mechanisms. >> chicago has been gripped by protests since the release of a video showing laquan mcdonald being shot dead by a police officer. that officer is charged with murder. today another video was made public. ronald johnson was shot in the back as he ran from officer last year. but prosecutors aren't bringing charges. andy? >> reporter: tony, the state's attorney here was under a tremendous microscope in this ronald johnson shooting which happened just a week after the laquan mcdonald shooting. she insists she is not covering anything up.

the attorney for johnson's family insist she is. >> i am going to call it as i see it. >> reporter: and this is what she saw. police dash cam video of the shooting of ronald johnson. the video shows johnson running from officers with what alvarez says is a gun in his hand. a different officer shoots johnson in the back. but you don't see him fall to the ground. alvarez says the video is not good, and has no sound, but it was strong enough to help her decide that the shooting was justified. >> mr. johnson ran into a public park and towards an occupied police vehicle arriving on the scene. >> reporter: alvarez says the fact that johnson was shot in the back while running away, does not enough to convince her that the officer was in the wrong. >> he could have turned around

and fired at officers. >> reporter: but the attorney for the johnson family insist he didn't have a gun on him. and the video is not clear enough that he had anything in his hand. >> the biggest lie is he said he turned and pointed. and no one can argue that he did not turn or point. >> reporter: the johnson family attorney says the officer who did the shooting was never actually interviewed by alvarez. >> this is the blind leading the blind. >> reporter: and he said the officers never gave sworn statements about what happened until after they all watched the video that night. >> they all got their popcorn ready, because the video of the murder of dorothy holm's son was being played on the screen. >> if that had been anybody in her family that got killed like

that, that officer would have been charged with murder. >> reporter: the major says he is not going anywhere despite calls for his resignation after the mcdonald and johnson videos. and johnson's family isn't going anywhere either. they are not dropping their civil lawsuit against the city. in the chicago police department it is not against the rules to shoot a suspect in the back that is fleeing if that suspect is holding a weapon. >> gotcha, so did anything happen with the independent police review authority today? >> well, at ipra, last night the head suddenly resigned and the mayor replaced him. ipra was just formed in 2007, coming out of another police scandal, as a way to be more transparent in the department. but tomorrow you'll meet a whistleblower at ipra who says

he was fired from that group for trying to say that these police-involved shootgs -- the investigations were leaning too heavily towards the police. >> andy thank you. coming up at the bottom of the hour, i'll speak with the johnson's lawyer about what they call a quest for justice. and hillary clinton says she will reign in wall street. what she plans to do despite support from many banks. and more and more children are crossing the u.s.-mexico border by themselves. ♪

the united states will soon have a new national terror alert system. jay johnson the homeland security secretary made the announce today. the system is expected to provide better information about threats against the country. but as jamie mcintyre tells us nothing beats intelligence from the public. >> reporter: the old color-coded system was announced by the first homeland security secretary with great fanfare back in 2002. >> presently the nation currently standings in the yellow condition, an elevated risk. >> reporter: it featured five alert levels, low, guarded, elevated, high, and severe. the problem is no one knew what to do when the alert level was raised from elevated to high. >> the major problem with the lor-coded system is it isn't communication information.

>> reporter: she replaced it with the national threat advisory system which it turns out has never been used because it is tig -- triggered only by the threat of a specific plot. >> we need a system that adequately informs the public at large, not through news leaks of joint intelligence bulletins to law enforcement. not through leaks from announcement government officials. >> reporter: johnson some sort of intermediate alert would allow law enforcement to share nonspecific threats. this man called for tougher screening to shut down what he called the jihadist superhighway that he says allows isil followers to easily enter the united states. >> i can reveal today that the united states government has information to indicate that individuals tied to terrorist

groups in syria have attempted to gain access through our country through the u.s. refugee program. >> reporter: he says in his opinion the u.s. now faces the highest threat environment since 9/11 with three isil inspired attacks on three continents in just three weeks. but u.s. officials insist there is no fool-proof way to predict or prevent the kind of assault that claimed 14 lives in san bernardino or the attack that killed three people at the planned parenthood clinic in colorado springs. something president obama acknowledged. >> the fact is that our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, no matter how effective they are, cannot identify every would-be mass shooter, whether that individual is motivated by isil or some other hateful i deology. >> maybe you see something suspicious but you don't want to get involved.

>> reporter: they say even more important is getting more alerts from the public. the fbi says it's see something, say something, public awareness compare is one of its biggest tools. >> in almost every case we find that somebody saw something, whether it was a family member, or friend, or coworker, and didn't say something to law enforcement. wrote an innocent narrative over facts that were making them feel uncomfortable. please don't do that. >> reporter: but jay johnson appeared in virginia flanked by rely is gous leaders and muslim boy scouts to urge that the 3 million muslim americans not be vil -- villefied. in urging people who see

something to say something, jeh johnson stressed he is talking about suspicious behavior, people turning towards violence, not skin color, language, or religion, tony. a question for you, cannot indians be sued in native american tribal courts? that issue was heard before the supreme court today. the case stems from an alleged sexual assault on a reserve situation in mississippi more than a decade ago. >> reporter: members of the mississippi tribe and supporters protested as the justices heard arguments over whether non-indians can be sued in tribal court. >> dollar general is taking a stab at diminishing tribal sovereignty. >> reporter: the case involves a 13-year-old boy who was inturning at the dollar general.

the boy alleges the manager molested him. his parents sued in tribal court for damages. an attorney for dollar general argued this violates the right to due process, quote: justice sewn r -- sonia stoudemire. quote: he told the justices. chief justice john roberts wasn't convinced: indian tribes do have

jurisdiction in some criminal cases, but they won that right in congress. tribes can prosecute nominatetives for domestic violence against women and children. instances of abuse marked by a giant healing quilt spread out on the capitol lawn. demonstrators say if the tribe lacks authority, abuse victims may have to travel hundreds of miles to county courts just to get protective orders. >> it would be devastating, because it seems like all of our hard work will have been stopped, but for a moment in time. >> reporter: there's some concern that the justices even took this case, because two lower courts found in favor of the tribe and against dollar general, arguing the lawsuit could proceed in tribal court, so the worry is whether the justices want to overturn that. more than three decades ago the court did element tribal

jurisdiction, but left open a few exceptions. the question is whether the court will now close the legal door even further. lisa stark, al jazeera, washington. in an op-ed for the "new york times" today, hillary clinton described how she would reign in wall street. hum. here with the details is david shuster. >> reporter: tony she said she would do things like strengthen the consumer financial protection bureau, that agency that is supposed to help consumers against the excesses of wall street. she said she would close some of the loopholes. she would regulate short-term trading. she would impose a tax on some of the i willingest banks but it doesn't go as far as bernie sanders, and so much of this seems it doesn't go far enough

for the most liberal wing of the democratic party. but it may be her attempt to say i have a plan for regulating wall street. >> a lot of change being suggested there. those who are purely her correctics, what are they saying? >> reporter: they are saying this is pure politics with bernie sanders saying he would put a transaction free on every trade, and then use that money on infrastructure spending. hillary clinton is being caught in the middle on this. there you have somebody far to the left who says i would break up the big banks and reimpose glass-steagall. hillary clinton doesn't go that far, but her team argues that breaking up the biggest banks in this day and age is not very wise. so it's the kind of thing where people who felt like the previous clinton adz min strikes, they will like some of what hillary clinton is suggesting she will do, but people will look at this as

politics and say this is merely an attempt to draw attention away from the fact. she received $17 million in campaign contributions from wall street through the years from hillary clinton. >> what else are you looking at tonight? >> we're looking at the politics of fear. democrats are fearful about guns. republicans are fearing the administration is not doing enough to confront isil. >> i cannot wait for that. you can watch david shuster in for ali velshi tonight "on target" at 6:00 pacific right here on al jazeera america. beijing has raised the worst possible smog alert level. everyone is being told to stay in doors as much as possible to avoid the toxic air. 20 million people are affected.

the government expects the smog to last until thursday. another police-involved shooting in chicago. up next the family is claiming a cover up. i'll talk to the family's lawyer about the case, and it is a police shooting that is not getting a lot of attention. what lead to the death of a 26-year-old man in san francisco.

♪ the justice department has launched an investigation into the chicago police department.

among other things it will examine the racial disparity in the use of force by officers, at the u.s. attorney general announced the probe, the cook country prosecutor made a separate announcement concerning the case of ronald johnson. >> mr. johnson was armed with a handgun. mr. johnson has run from an area where shots had recently been fired. mr. johnson resisted arrest. and mr. johnson ran into a public park and towards an occupied police vehicle arriving on the scene in that park. based upon an objective review of the evidence and the law, we have determined that the prosecution could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the actions of officer hernandez were not reasonable and permissible under the laws of the state of illinois. >> michael oppenheimer joins me now from chicago. and you just heard the state's attorney there for cook county. she's essentially saying i can't

make a case. what is your response? >> i did hear her. i heard this morning when she spoke for over an hour and gave a weird convoluted description of everything. and showed a second video, that had nothing do with this shooting and said that was going through the officer's find when he fired those shots. i think her investigation has been a joke. the state's attorney's office called me on friday night to see if i had any evidence to give them 14 months after the shooting of ronnie johnson. >> it was supposed to have been an investigation conducted by the prosecutor's office. why are they calling you all of these months later? >> i don't know. i don't know what they think of me, but i don't have the power of the government behind me, or a full staff of investigators, i don't have subpoena power to a grand jury, which she does.

she has taken no one to the grand jury. she has contacted no one on this case. i have interviewed officers and civilance, and none of them have been contacted. and she relied on the independent police review authority to make her investigation and she said that. the head of the commission was fired or resigned last night. >> yeah, and we are going to talk to that individual tomorrow, i believe, on this program. you said this whole investigation is a joke. that it is the blind leading the blind. what do you mean by that? expand on that for me. >> well, everybody has criticized the state's attorney in this case. again, she has contacted none of the witnesses in this case. she says today in public at a press conference that she relied on ipra. ipra has never been independent. they have rarely if ever

recommended that a police officer be disciplined or fired after thousands and thousands of complaints. >> michael, what is your theory? let me get into some of the weeds here just a bit. what is your theory of what happened that night? and the question that anyon watching the tape would have for you -- so let me ask it -- is why did ronald johnson run from the police? >> well, we don't know exactly why he ran, because officer hernandez took his life and we can't ask him. however, we do know that ronald johnson was passenger in a car with two other young men. they had gone to party. they got back in the car, and somebody shot out the back window of the car. the police arrived. they flooded the area. he ran. i would submit he was not only afraid of the people shooting at the car, but also he was afraid of the police, which turns out to be prophetic, because it was

the police who murdered him that night. >> the prosecutor is suggesting that there were witnesses. there were two others in the car, and at least one in the car said to the prosecutor that johnson actually had a gun. have you spoken to either/or both of those other occupants of the vehicle that night? >> we have. and what anita alvarez, the prosecutor sail -- failed to say is she read the deposition of these two men. when the young man gave his deposition, and i read it today, what he said was the police basically coerced me. they came up with this story that they wanted me to say, and i said that story. he never had a gun, he had no record, he has a good job. he said the police basically

conjured up a story and said you know thereas a gun in the car, and told him what to say. and he is a kid, a he said it. >> again, what is your theory here? that the gun was planted by police? >> i hate to allege -- i hate to allege that a gun is planted. that's a horrible thing to allege. and i have never alleged that before in case. but there is no other choice in this case but that. officer hernandez says that he recovers the gun from ronald johnson's right hand. as though video does show, it shows him running full speed and officer hernandez taking aim and firing at his back. if there was anything in his hand it certainly wouldn't have stayed in his hand. the other thing is the other officer secured his body before hernandez got there. only took a couple of seconds. there is no way those officers would have left a gun in his

hand. and it's rule of the police department, you don't take a gun out of a guy's hand. you wait for an evidence technician to take a picture. there is no way he recovered a gun, because it wasn't there. and if he didn't have a gun, the gun was planted. >> i want to understand what you are asking for here. is the burden on you at this point to find new evidence to -- to prompt the prosecutor or a judge to take another look at the case? >> no. we actually filed a civil lawsuit in federal court. a civil lawsuit. we're asking on behalf of the family that a federal prosecutor, through a federal investigation, that they take new investigation in this case, because the state's attorney's office is incompetent. so we are asking them to reopen this case after today's debacle, and file federal charges against

officer hernandez and other officers who helped cover up this tragic story. >> i see. you know, we're getting these videos now after an extended period of time. to your knowledge, are there other videos out there? are there more shootings that have been captured on videotape that we might eventually be having a conversation about down the road here? >> i find it hard to believe that there are not more cases where there are videos, whether it's a dash cam video, which are really grainy, or cell phone videos. we have lots of cases where there are police reports that we believe are coverups of what actually happened. people are starting to believe now that they see it, what is going on, and it has got to stop. >> all right. michael oppenheimer, attorney for the family of ron old johnson. thank you. in san francisco a police

shooting last week continues to anger many in the city. cell phone video captured several officers firing on a man holding a knife. al jazeera's lisa bernard has more on the fallout. >> reporter: on a san francisco street a confrontation between police and a 26-year-old man. this cell phone video captures a burst of gunfire. [ gunfire ] >> reporter: and mario woods goes down. the killing has caused outrage among some. jeff is the city's lead public defender. >> i was shocked by the san francisco police department's handling of the entire situation. >> reporter: police say they were looking for woods after he allegedly stabbed someone. when they sound him, they say he was carrying this knife.

the police chief says officers repeatedly yelled drop the knife then fired bean bag guns. in a statement it says: candles still burn at the spot where mario woods was shot and killed. dozens of people have come by to pay their respects. the community is asking why so many bullets are used. and some are demanding that the police chief resign. police appear to have fired at woods about 15 times. the public defender says this is yet another officer-involved shooting in a series of such shootings across the country that lead to anger, protest and a call for change. >> it's situations like this, that require us to say, isn't

there something better that we can do? >> reporter: sfdp has called for an internal investigation, and the police chief says his department has joined a group of 25 other u.s. police departments to study deescalation tactics. up next on the program, a spike in child migrants, more and more kids are trying to cross the united states-mexico border. we will talk to one of them about the violence they are trying to escape.

the government says it has dramatically managed to reduce the number of undocumented mi r minors crossing the border from mexico. but in some areas more undocumented minors are entering now than before. in october, the amount of minors crossing in the big bend sector in texas was up more than 500%, compared with the same time last year. paul beban joins us with more. paul? >> reporter: well, that's right, tony, as you mentioned overall for the year so far, the numbers are down, but what we're seeing now is an upward tick at the time of year when that normally doesn't happen. over the last three months every sector of the border the numbers have gone up.

here in the rio grand sector where i am, it's up from over 1500 to over 3,000, so this is really where the action is in terms of raw numbers. the people who are fleeing are children. and they are what the border patrol calls otms, and that means other than mexicans. they are coming from honduras, and el salvador, places where the violence is spiralling out of control. and the stories they are telling are absolutely chilling. that's the voice of a teenage girl named maria. that's not her real name. she is 17, a minor. authorities say they need to protect her identity before they deport her back home. she told us why she left. >> translator: because there was a tragedy in my family. they killed my brother.

i saw who it was, and how he was killed. >> reporter: maria says nobody knows why her brother was shot, but it happened right outside her family's front door. she heard the gunfire, went outside, and when she fell down beside her wounded brother, he moved. >> translator: and the man noticed that he moved and that's when he shot him again in the heart. >> reporter: oh, my god. >> reporter: the gunman pointed his weapon at maria, but then ran off without a word. in that was october 10th. her uncle was gunned down a week later, though the family isn't sure if it was related. >> translator: i was never afraid the man would come after me. but my aunt said it's too dangerous for you to be in el salvador and i agreed. i will leave and live in dallas with my aunt, because she is a u.s. citizen, and we'll worry about the paperwork later. >> reporter: maria aunt sent

money to pay human smugglers to bring her here. it was a harrowing journey, but she made it to a safe house. like many mexican border towns this town is wrecked with poverty and crime and violence. mexican authorities are often part of the problem, shaking migrants down for money, even colluding with the cartels and coyotes. the plan was for the smugglers to bring maria and the others to the rio grand, and they would swim or raft across to texas to a place like this. but before that could happen, maria says the smugglers stole everybody's money, and cell phones just moments before the safe house was raided by mexican police. >> translator: no more than ten minutes later, the police arrived. when we heard the police, we all

hit the floor. >> reporter: her journey ended before she became a u.s. border patrol statistic, but when you look at records of minors, caught crossing the border from august through october of 2014, and compare them with this year, you see much higher numbers and rising at a much faster rate. the engine driving the increase is violence. in october, about the time maria left home, united nations put out a report of gang violence spiralling out of control. according to the u.n. this year el salvador moved into first place in the world for the rate of murders of women. guatemala thanks third. this sister runs a migrant

shelter here. [ applause ] >> dozens, sometimes hundreds of people pass through her every day. [ applause ] >> reporter: and what are they saying? this >> the stories are that the violence in their country is really bad. the women are saying that they fear for their lives; that they are afraid, and so this is what we're hearing. >> reporter: maria says she won't stay in el salvador. she is already making plans for the next time she leaves home and heads north. and that's something we see over and over again. every time i have spoken to someone here who has been caught on the mexican side or is making their way, they say if i get sent back, i'm going to come back again. it is simply not safe for me to be at home. >> are border officials seeing this as part of another surge like the one in 2014?

>> reporter: well, as you mentioned earlier, the numbers aren't quite there yet, but, again, the issue is this is a reversal of a seasonal trend, usually this time of year the numbers are going down. so if this is a sign that that pattern is changing, really what they are saying is all bets are off. we just don't know what is coming. >> is there any effort on the mexican side of the border to put the brakes on the movement. >> reporter: last year they tried to tighten up the southern border with guatemala. maria did the same thing, she crossed from guatemala into mexico and came with the coyotes the west of the way. the word is the coyoteses have found a new way around.

so this may be the beginning of a new surge. >> thank you, paul. we're joined by a researcher for the u.s. program for human rights watch. clara good to have you on the program. >> thanks for having me. >> pleasure. pleasure. we stand at a place where overall numbers are down, but we're in the middle of an upswing, kind of a tick in numb numbers. take a moment and paint a picture of what is happening on the ground in places like honduras or guatemala in terms of crime. >> well in honduras for example, in the last couple of weeks there were at least four mass shootings, two targeted to taxi drivers and bus drivers, people who are often the victims of -- of gang extortion or protection payments. murder -- the murder rate in el salvador are at levels not seen

since the civil war. there were over 900 just in the month of october. and stories like maria are all too common. people who are witnesses of crime, people who are suffering from extortion payment that they cannot pay. >> so for the sake of the discussion, i'm an immigrant, who is in the hands of the border patrol. i'm saying, look, i'm -- if i'm returned, i'll be killed. what is happening with that kind of information now at the border? >> you know, unfortunately not very much. what we have found through research looking -- speaking both with -- with migrants who are attempting to seek asylum at the u.s. border and also by analyzing u.s. government data is that people who tell border patrol that they are afraid that they can't return are very

rarely flagged for this required next step in the asylum processing. when you come to the u.s. to seek asylum at the border, most -- most people -- most will be placed into a summary deportation procedure. basically a border patrol agent has the responsibility for signing your deportation order. and under u.s. law, that agent is supposed to ask you if you are afraid. and if you say you are afraid for any reason of returning to your country, you should be forwarded on to a more extensive interview. we have found this just doesn't happen. >> so that's why you are called the process at the border, the due process at the border, a sham, right? >> it's a sham. and i have to tell you. in october, i sat with -- with 40 women who were in family detention. that's a bit of a special case.

the u.s. has drastically expanded its capacity to detain families. mostly mothers with children and mostly from these three countries in south america that we're talking about. those women went through this process at the border, and i sat with them while they told me about what they had told the border patrol, but i also was able to look at an official transcript of their supposed interview with the border patrol, and the two don't add up. >> right. >> they said i told the border patrol i was afraid, and you see on a counter signed official document a lie, a border patrol agent saying no, she said she wasn't afraid. >> i'm reflecting back on what you are describing happening on the ground in guatemala, and honduras, is this a border patrol problem, or a refugee crisis? >> border patrol doesn't really apply to people fleeing their

life. someone has a right to seek protection. that's international law and u.s. law. a law we have recognized and in fact we're urging europe and others to take into account when dealing with the refugee crisis in europe. unfortunately, there are -- the border agency in the u.s. doesn't take seriously its responsibility to protect people fleeing for their lives. >> clara long, a researcher for the u.s. program for human rights watch. good to see you. thank you for your time. >> thank for having me >> and john siegenthaler is here. >> tony coming up tonight at 8:00 keeping america safe. homeland security is launching a new national alert system after last week's deadly attacks in san bernardino. also washington's plea to the american muslim community, investigating the chicago police, the u.s. justice department looks into possible

civil rights violations. the investigation will focus on race, the use of force, especially deadly force and accountability. what could happen if violations are found. government spending, congress working on a bill to keep the government open past friday, but some republicans are taking aim at the consumer financial protection bureau, what it could mean for the spending bill and consumers. and tonight, detroit in 1963. back then was one of the world's most vibrant cities. our journalist takes a look at that time in light of the financial struggles the city deals with today. >> i use the metaphor of my work, where i set up an oil rig somewhere and dig as deeply as i can, and that really allowed me to show what detroit gave america but also the seeds of its own collapse. >> john appreciate it. up next from the margins to the main stream, now france's

national front party is making big strides in the country's first voting since the paris attacks. ♪

♪ france's far right national party appears to be making big gains in the first round of nation national elections. it is the first voting to take place since last month's paris attacks. >> reporter: the morning after the night before and marine le pen is in triumph act mood her party surged into the lead in six out of 13 regions. a success she predicts that they will consolidate in the final round next sunday. >> translator: the national front maintains people's trust more and more. and if you have some analytical capacities in connection with the people, you realize there is

no surprise in yesterday's results. this will continue to grow. prepare yourselves psychologically. >> reporter: the national front has long been seen as a fringe party out on the extreme right of french politics. but these results show that it is now a main stream party with a serious chance of governing, at least in the regions. for many people that comes as a shock. >> translator: i see more and more people voting for the national front, people that i know. so voting for the national front is now something almost ordinary. it makes me very afraid. >> translator: i don't believe that voting for the national front is a protest vote anymore. >> reporter: the big losers on sunday were the ruling socialists who previously controlled almost every regional council. they did so badly in three regions that they pulled out of

the second round in order to concentrate their efforts in places where they stand chance of winning. an important question now facing the former president and his republican party is whether to do a deal with the socialists. this would mean withdrawing some of their candidates too in order to block the national front. the answer, it seems no. >> translator: we have been almost unanimous in saying that we must not pull our candidates out of the race, first because we have campaigned for weeks to denounce the bad govern in the region. >> reporter: voter apathy also played a part in these results. nearly half of the electorate didn't bother going to the polling station. more people may come out in the second round, which could have a significant impact on the final results. jacky rowland, al jazeera, paris. today marks the 74th anniversary of japan's attack on

pearl harbor, which plunged the united states into world war ii. the national park service and the u.s. navy hosted a joint memorial ceremony in honolulu, hawaii today. i'm tony harris thanks for watching. john siegenthaler is back with today's news right now. hi there, tony. we begin with changes to how the government alerts the public about potential threats. jeh johnson announced that the u.s. will soon get a new terror alert system. this comes a day after the president addressed the u.s. on how to fight isil. >> translator: the old color coded system was