"nightline" is next. thanks for watching, enjoy your humidifier. goodnight. this is "nightline." >> tonight, crisis at the border. migrants, mostly haitian -- >> thousands of them, many with children, taking this narrow and treacherous path as cross the rio grande. >> the biden administration already sending thousands back and holding firm. >> if you come to the united states illegally, you will be returned. >> these haunting images reopening new wounds. >> our lives do not matter. our pains do not matter. plus lies and betrayal. >> it's just, he's unavailable. >> someone long distance? someone from work? >> the new series focusing on the women of the clinton scandal, produced by the woman at the center of it all, monica

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♪ good evening. thank you for joining us. it's the latest crisis at the u.s. southern border, and now new images of desperate migrants

and the u.s. border patrol are sending shock waves throughout the world. abc's kenneth moton is there. >> reporter: under blistering heat. a constant flow of humanity wading across the u.s. border. families braving the dangerous journey through mexico, carrying their hopes and dreams, seeking refuge in the land of the free. what greets them on the other side in texas, the border patrol. in the small town of del rio, a mounting crisis is developing. the biden administration under fire. the world watching. at one point, more than 14,000 migrants, most from haiti, sheltering under a bridge, hoping for asylum in the u.s. the border patrol, underresourced and overwhelmed. >> my dream is to live a better life without problems. to grow up my baby without problems.

because back at my country, there are problems. >> reporter: they arrived with his pregnant wife and spent a week under the bridge, eating just bread and water. >> she's sleeping on the floor without a bed. >> it's heartbreaking. the fact that they're putting their lives at risk is really telling us the situations they come from. >> reporter: like so many of these migrants, they have come from central or south america, having left haiti after the 2010 earthquake that shattered that nation. >> for a variety of reasons, perhaps mostly economic, the economy suffered with covid, we have seen them migrate up over the last few months to our southern border. >> reporter: for years after that 2010 earthquake, haitians living in the u.s. have been granted temporary protected status. the trump administration let that designation expire. but after the assassination of the haitian president and another devastating earthquake earlier this year, the biden administration once again gave haitians that special status.

>> while that tps is only applicable for people that are already here in the united states, that might have given the haitian community hope that if they somehow got into the united states, maybe they could take advantage of that tps as well. >> reporter: some of these migrants will claim asylum and be sent off to await the process inside the u.s. but many have already been loaded onto planes and deported back to haiti. the administration says one to three flights per day. the biden administration using something called title 42, a trump-era law prohibiting migrants from seeking asylum citing covid concerns. >> if you come to the united states illegally, you will be returned. your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your family's lives. >> title 42 is actually not immigration law as much as it is public health law, that allows an emergency to be declared and basically the borders to be closed. a year ago, you could definitely

see the case. we did not have vaccines, we did not have a robust testing capability. we have those things now. >> reporter: unaccompanied minors and many families are exempt from title 42. but migrant advocates like girleen say that's not enough. >> title 42 should not be used as a way to trap migrants, as a way to trap asylum seekers. why can't we make sure they are tested, they are vaccinated, and provide them the access? >> i urge president biden and secretary mayorkas to immediately put a stop to these expulsions and to end this title 42 policy at our southern border. >> reporter: now so many migrants are living in fear of being sent back. joseph, a school teacher and father of three, crossed ten countries to get here. he asked us not to show his face out of fear they would be kicked out. what do you hope here in the u.s. for you and your family?

>> jean-baptiste crossed 11 countries to get to the u.s. he and his family have been living in chile the last four years. his pregnant wife and 10-year-old daughter are back on the mexico side. he said they made it to the u.s. camp but called it hell. >> there seems to be an understanding that, we have a debt that we owe the afghan people. there is a slightly different

sentiment for those trying to reach us from the southern hemisphere. and, you know, i think that is a good question for us to ask ourselves, why? >> reporter: criticism hit a peak when these videos and photos emerge, showing border patrol agents on horseback aggressively attempting to back migrants as they cross the rio grand into the u.s. an agent grabbing a man by the back of his shirt. fear and panic as border patrol works to control this section of the border. >> as i saw this image, it brought me back to slavery. >> take your time, take your time. >> as a black woman, as a descendent of slaves, as a woman from haiti whose forefathers and ancestors fought to end slavery, fought for freedom of all black people. so yes, it is painful.

because we keep on being reminded that our lives do not matter. our pains do not matter. >> reporter: the border patrol chief initially defending the agents. >> we do not know who are the smugglers or who are the migrants, so it's important that those border patrol agents maintain a level of security. >> reporter: overnight, homeland security called the video extremely troubling, saying the full investigation, which will be conducted swiftly, will define the appropriate disciplinary actions. >> do you have it under control? or you'll have it under control? >> we will get it under control. >> human beings should never be treated that way, and i'm deeply troubled about it. >> reporter: we spoke with del rio's mayor about what's happening here in this town. you've seen that image? >> i've seen it. we don't know the situation that came out -- that caused that, that contrast, to happen. but i can tell you what i've seen has been a humanitarian effort of proportions that i've never seen in my life. >> reporter: the union representing border patrol agents defending the images,

arguing that's their training. dhs says it now has agency monitors on the ground here to make sure policies are being followed. texas governor greg abbott visited del rio today. he's asking the biden administration for an emergency declaration. >> these border patrol officers are overwhelmed with the amount of work they are required to do. and they are suffering the consequences of an administration that is not providing them either the personnel or the resources they need. >> i hope what comes out of what we're watching in del rio is this public pressure on congress to once and for all address things that we are now on four presidents trying to address this we have got to fix it. because the problem is just going to get worse. and these are human beings that deserve to be treated better than we're capable of treating them today. >> people are coming to the u.s./mexico border because they are in need of protection. because they are dying. because they need support.

>> reporter: in a life that has afforded these families so few options, making this treacherous journey to give his family a better life is one of the few choices joseph says he has. i want to ask, what does america mean to you? >> translator: i went through all this danger with my family, my wife and my children, because the united states, i think it's really the last journey for to us make our dreams come true. >> our thanks to kenneth. up next, the new fx series produced by monica lewinsky. a different take on the bill clinton impeachment scandal. coming up friday on "nightline," juju chang's exclusive interview with south korea's president. and the mega-famous band bts. >> you're watching "nightline"!

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it was the scandal that it was the scandal that rocked the 1990s and nearly ended the clinton presidency. a new fx series relives the drama through the women at the center of it all. here's my "nightline" coanchor juju chang. >> i'm kind of in something. >> reporter: monica lewinsky and linda tripp, their fates collided in the halls of the pentagon in 1996. >> it's just he's unavailable. >> someone long distance? someone from work? someone important? >> reporter: linda tripp's manipulation and betrayal of monica lewinsky by exposing her affair with president bill clinton led to one of the most explosive political scandals in

our nation's history. >> the president has felt obliged to say again that he did not have a sexual relationship with 21-year-old monica lewinsky. >> at the end of the day, loyalty for linda is being loyal to herself. she was out to protect herself. >> my calls with monica. >> reporter: the drama retold in the new fx series "impeachment: american crime story." the series goes behind the walls of the most powerful institution in the free world, exposing a forbidden affair and a string of lies. >> i did not have sexual relations with that woman. miss lewinsky. >> reporter: the scandal and impeachment that followed now told from the perspective of the women at the heart of it. >> the relationship between monica and linda was the central relationship of the story. >> reporter: president clinton and a then 22-year-old intern, lewinsky, depicted by actors clive owen and beanie feldstein. >> hello? >> hey. >> hi, handsome.

>> how was your first day? >> every depiction of monica that i read, that i researched, monica herself, would say she was a bundle of contradictions at the time. so she was incredibly confident, but very insecure. incredibly naive, and also very savvy. >> i'd be fired. >> reporter: a nearly unrecognizable sarah paulson plays linda tripp, gaining more than 30 pounds, wearing prosthetics. she was also one of the show's executive producers. the real-life linda tripp sat down with abc news in 2001, defending her actions with monica. >> she essentially accosted me coming into the pentagon, pulled me into the cafeteria, blurted it out. she said, i've been involved in an affair for a long time. >> why did you tape monica lewinsky? >> i found myself in the personal crosshairs of the president of the united states. remember, i was going into an as was monica.uation, as was he- they were both going to lie.

they said, essentially, i'm going to lie, he's going to lie, you are going to be the one convicted for perjury, not us. >> reporter: lewinsky is also a producer on this series, seen here on the red carpet alongside the star-studded cast who worked closely with her in retelling her personal story. >> monica was incredibly involved in the scripts. so by the time the scripts got to me, i knew that everything that monica said was sanctioned or approved by monica herself. >> from the beginning it was important to monica that she not be perceived as a victim in the relationship with bill clinton. she was completely into him. >> reporter: the team says it was lewinsky who fought to include a racy moment when she says she flashed the president her thong. >> for monica, wanting to include things like the thong, i think in part is just people know i'm involved. if we omit it, people will think

it's because i don't want to own it. >> everybody that i spoke to that ever met him said that he was super charming and super warm, and it was just about finding that difference between the public figure and the private guy. and there is a world that we don't know, because we don't know what people said behind closed doors. >> i have a huge crush on you. >> reporter: that power imbalance is portrayed as tender but ultimately destructive. >> monica was very clear at the time and now that their relationship was consensual, but just because someone is consenting doesn't mean there's not an imbalance of power. >> reporter: but bill clinton was not above the law. in 1994, paula jones, a former arkansas state employee, accused clinton of groping her while he was governor of arkansas. that accusation would spark a lawsuit and eventually an fbi probe which ultimately exposed his affair with lewinsky. clinton settled jones' lawsuit with no admissions of wrongdoing. >> i think history at the time, i mean, certainly '98, '99 got monica completely and utterly,

devastatingly wrong. she was sort of a meal for society to feast upon. >> reporter: that final takedown by the fbi orchestrated by linda tripp, who had spent months secretly recording their private phone calls. >> she was talking to someone that she deeply, deeply trusted. >> reporter: history remembers tripp as a villain, committing an unthinkable act of betrayal, turning those secret tapes over to federal investigators. >> my calls with monica. >> she was newly divorced. and her children were growing up and out of the house. one of them was. and she was miserable. >> loyalty is very important to me. >> reporter: paulson hopes to humanize tripp. >> there is a big part of linda that is extraordinarily patriotic. and having worked at the white house, i think for her was the job of her life. and to be forsaken there, i think she never got over it. and what she did with that crushed feeling was something pretty despicable. >> we try to walk in her shoes,

understand why she betrayed monica, why she did what she did. but her punishment was for people to make fun of her looks. >> what did they say? >> they think you should get liposuction. >> reporter: for john goodman to play her on tv, a lot of the women in this story end up with plastic surgery. paula jones and linda tripp changed their faces. >> reporter: tripp spoke with abc news about her decision to change her appearance. >> i didn't realize how ugly i was till i saw the pictures after this story hit. >> do you think your physical appearance affected the way the public viewed you? >> yes. it was easier for the country to accept evil, manipulative, betray, villainess, ominous, odious, all those horrible words if the photos matched the description. >> reporter: linda tripp passed away in 2020 of pancreatic cancer. >> the one remarkable thing about linda by the end of her life is she didn't seem to have much regret. to find yourself 20 years down

the line and look over your shoulder, in the rear-view mirror, and not question your behavior, is the only part of it that i really kind of can't come to terms with about linda. >> reporter: now 48 years old, money cass has emerged in recent years, giving a 2015 ted talk on shame. >> i went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one worldwide. >> reporter: and becoming an activist against bullying. >> and the case of monica, the whole world is full of possibilities when she begins the story. and by the end of this episode of her life, every door in the world closed to her for the next 20 years. >> our thanks to juju. "american crime story" airs tuesday nights on fx, which is owned by our parent company, walt disney. up next, the marines who were in the right place at the right time to save the day. he d. ♪

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♪ ♪ finally tonight, in many ways it was the perfect storm. blinding rain falling during a washington, d.c.-area rush hour. >> the marines are going to help

us! this is so cool. we just got stuck. >> luckily for one driver, the marines weren't far. four of them turning up just in time, braving the downpour in their dress blues. never mind the raging storm. the four going behind the car and pushing it and its occupants to higher ground. >> this is the most american thing ever. thank you! >> devil dogs to the rescue. that's "nightline" for this evening. catch our full episodes on hulu. we'll see you right back here same time tomorrow. thanks for the company, america. good night.