>> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> ifill: and i'm gwen ifill. on the newshour tonight, homicides spike, after declining for decades. what's behind the rise of violent crime in american cities. >> woodruff: then, our running series continues: an interview with republican presidential candidate dr. ben carson. >> ifill: plus, the new iron curtain in eastern europe. hungary seals its border to stop the flow of migrants. >> the hungarian boarder is the european border. when we are protecting the borders of hungary we're at the same time protecting europe. >> you are stopping refugees from fleeing war zones. >> woodruff: all that and more

on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: the largest of 27 wildfires in california kept expanding today. the rocky fire has now spread across more than 100 square miles.

it's burning some 100 miles north of san francisco, and so far, it's only 12% contained. overnight, the blaze jumped a highway that served as a barrier. it's endangering several thousand homes, and officials have urged about 13,000 people to leave the area. >> woodruff: the family of a black woman who died in a texas jail has now filed a wrongful death suit in federal court. sandra bland was pulled over by a white trooper for a traffic violation. three days later she was found hanging in her jail cell. officials say she committed suicide. today, in austin, her mother said whatever the circumstances of bland's death, her constitutional rights were violated. >> i am still confident in the fact that she knew enough about jesus she would not take herself out. now i'm the first one to tell you if the facts, the facts, i'm not talking about the fiction, if the facts show without a doubt that that was the case

i'll have to be prepared to deal with that. but the bottom line is she never should have been inside that jail. >> woodruff: bland's family wants a federal investigation of her death, plus full toxicology results from the time of her death. in yemen, pro-government forces, backed by saudi air strikes have gained more ground from shiite rebels allied with iran. new clashes erupted today outside the southern city of aden. a day earlier, loyalist troops recaptured a strategic military base that the rebels had held since spring. >> ifill: formal efforts began today in the u.s. congress to kill the nuclear deal with iran. republican ed royce, chairing the house foreign affairs committee, introduced a bill to disapprove the agreement. senate republicans, including south dakota's john thune, promised a similar effort. >> the president, who has up until recently said that no deal

is better than a bad deal has now all of a sudden changed his language. it's evolved now to where it's this deal or war. and i think that the american people see through that. and it's really important that we have this discussion, we have this debate. >> president obama has promised to veto any resolution that rejects the iran deal. >> ifill: president obama has promised to veto any resolution that rejects the iran deal. he won the support today of three key democrats: senators tim kaine of virginia, barbara boxer of california and bill nelson of florida. >> i believe it's in the u.s. interests that iran is not a nuclear power sponsoring terrorists. as dangerous a threat that iran is to israel and our allies, it would pale in comparison to the threat posed to them and to us by a nuclear armed iran.

>> ifill: meanwhile, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu again condemned the iran deal, in a webcast to members of american jewish groups. >> woodruff: authorities in israel have arrested the alleged head of a jewish extremist group after a fatal arson attack. a palestinian child died last week when his family's home was set on fire. israeli leaders have blamed jewish extremists and vowed to crack down on their activities. >> ifill: american airlines today joined united and delta in banning the transport of big game trophies. that follows an international uproar over the killing of cecil the lion in zimbabwe by an american dentist. the airlines say they will no longer accept lion, leopard elephant, rhino and buffalo trophies. >> woodruff: and on wall street the dow jones industrial average lost 47 points to close at 17550. the nasdaq fell about 10 points, and the s&p 500 slipped nearly five.

>> ifill: still to come on the newshour: police grapple with a rise in murders across the country. what you can do to protect yourself against drug resistant infections. and much more. >> woodruff: the first half of this year has been a more violent and tragic one in many cities, leading police, community leaders, families and friends of victims to ask what's happening? >> woodruff: across the country, scenes like these are playing out, at an escalating pace. the major cities police chiefs association reports homicides have spiked this year after hitting 50-year lows in 2013. members of the group voiced alarm at a washington meeting on monday. >> what we focused on was the fact that we're going to

shooting scenes now where you've got more and more victims being shot, you've got more spent rounds being collected as evidence; we're finding more and more high capacity magazines involved in these shootings. >> woodruff: the association reports homicides are up an average of 19% in 35 big cities. chicago has the dubious distinction of leading the list, with 252 killings, up 20%. but st. louis and milwaukee have seen increases of roughly 60 to 88%. the city of baltimore had 45 homicides in july alone, the most since 1972. that followed the death of freddie gray in police custody last april, and the resulting riots. yesterday, baltimore leaders announced federal agencies will embed special agents with city

detectives. democratic congressman elijah cummings. >> the only people who are getting, making, doing pretty good now are the morticians. they're the only ones. and i say that we are a city that is better than that. and so to all of our, all those folks who think that you've got to-- you get your power from carrying a gun and shooting somebody and hurting somebody i'm begging you, put your guns down. >> woodruff: meanwhile, police chiefs say they are still trying to fully understand what's behind the surge in killings. we turn now to two police chiefs dealing with this every day: chief edward flynn from milwaukee and colonel samuel dotson the police chief of st. louis. chief flynn, to you first. milwaukee an 88% in homicides just since last year. what is going on? >> well we're seeing a number of different dynamics playing

out. certainly one of the things we've seen is a dramatic increase in the use of firearms particularly semi-automatic pistols in our violent deaths. we've seen that our shootings are up significantly our homicides are up dramatically. over 85% of our homicides are committed with firearms, and of those, over 85% are committed with semi-automatic pistols. we recently passed a very weak and ludicrously weak gun law that allows basically concealed carry permits to be granted to people who meet the statutory definition of career criminals. we've also got a situation where no matter how many times you are arrested for carrying our gun illegally, it remains a misdemeanor, even though a second offense for carrying marijuana can be prosecuted as a felony. so very weak and relatively recent gun laws are certainly a major contributor to our dramatic spike in firearms-related violence. >> chief what about in st. louis? a 64% increase over last year.

is it all about guns? >> i'm seeing exactly the same thing they're seeing in milwaukee. the availability of guns. we have a constitutional amendment in our state that was passed within the last year that makes it an inailennable right to have a gun. courts have declined to prosecute convicted felons we arrest with guns. i'm seeing exactly the same thing, high-capacity magazine a willingness to use the guns, and a judiciary that sometimes doesn't follow through on the prosecution. we had research done from a university here of about 250 cases of unlawful use of a weapon. over 61% of those cases got probation. that means those people are right back out on the street committing crimes. >> >> woodruff:, so chief flynn is this different in milwaukee from the situation last year and the year before? there was a drop in the homicide rate up until a year or two ago. now it shot back up. is there such a difference in people's accessibility people have with guns?

>> i think the consensus among the chiefs is a desire to learn what are the components of what appears to be a tipping point. what are the series of small changes that taken together have created a dramatic spike across the country in our central cities. certainly our firearms law went into effect in november of 2011. and almost immediately we started to see an increase in the use of pistols. the use of a pistol in a crime in milwaukee, the biggest single number is under three months. our firearms are easily bought legally. 90% of the crime guns we seize at the scene of a crime were bought legally. and they were sold legally too because secondary sales don't require background checks. we have a significant component to our violence problem and in other similarly situated cities. the easy availability of firearms large-capacity magazines is resulting in many more bullets being used in our

crime scenes and many more guns being used at our crime scenes. >> well, both of you have talked to the news media about this and you've also attributed other factors. chief dotson, last november this was a few months after the michael brown incident in ferguson, you told... you said, quoting, you said police officers had been drawing back from everyday enforcement due the fears they could be charged. as a result, the criminal element is feeling empowered. is that still the case there in st. lucie -- st. louis? >> i think it's part of conversation that has to happen nationally. we talked about it yesterday in washington, d.c.,, the ferguson effect, and how some departments may see officers that have a little trepidation when they go into an enforcement situation. we see criminals will have a little feeling of empowerment around the movement that's going on. so i think when you layer that in with the availability of guns, the trepidation of police officers and in st. louis a

little bit now an uptick in the use of heroin, crack cocaine difficult to find, heroin is the drug of choice. i think we're seeing a lot of street-level disputes that are solved with firearms because of that. >> woodruff: chief flynn, you said in an interview with a reporter not long ago, you said society over the last 25 years has delegated its social problems to the criminal justice system, and the criminal justice system, you said is insufficient to the task. what did you mean by that? >> well, our most challenged neighborhoods are populated by folks who are suffering from generations of poverty and unemployment. if you draw an ellipse over our highest crime neighborhoods, you're going to find that those capture the highest percentage of abandoned and foreclosed house, the highest poverty rates, the highest unemployment rates and so on. public space violent crime is one of the many symptoms of endeppic intergenerational poverty. the problem is it if lasts 30 to 40 years, we have disinvested in mental health services

disinvested in social service, disinvested in virtual he everything in folks in these conditions need except the police. 80% of our work even in our highest-crime neighborhoods is fundamentally social work. i need to add something else, as well. obviously the criminal justice system is coming under a lot of scrutiny right now, as well as it should in a free society. but i would simply ask that as we cover the needs for possible changes in the criminal justice system, we stop ignoring the fact that the biggest disparity in the criminal justice system is criminal victimization inch my city, if you're an after cab american, you are 18 times more likely to get shot than if you are if you are white. you're nine times more likely to get murdered. the levels of crime within these challenged neighborhoods are extraordinary, and it's that disparaged victimization to which the police respond, and sadly too often are criticized because they're there in the first place. >> woodruff: chief dotson, i

don't want to ask you flat out if you agree with what he said, but what is your perspective on that, on the role that these social problems, that the fact that the police have been asked to solve social challenges in our country. >> i think he's absolutely right. police officers have become the face of government in a lot of communities. and as we've seen, school systems fail, as we've seen cutbacks in mental health services, in health services overall, when you dial 911 the police officers are the ones that respond first and most quickly. and we're asked to solve a lot of those systematic social problems that have happened over generations. crime has been trending down as a country for the last 20 years. but now we're at a point where the disinvestment into those neighborhoods, we're starting to see the outcome or the results of that. we have to get back to focusing resources into those neighborhoods. by resources i don't mean police officers. we need to make sure that there are quality education

opportunities, economic opportunities jobs substance abuse programs. all of those are outside of law enforcement, but those are exactly the issues that law enforcement deals with in the community every day because we're the only face of government in some neighborhoods. >> woodruff: very quick final question to both of you inch baltimore they are embedding ten federal agents to work with the city police department, to help them solve address some of their violence issues is. that the kind of thing that would make a difference to beth of you quickly, chief flynn? >> well we use f.b.i. agents and a couple of our anti-gang task forces. we also have a partnership to the alcohol, tobacco and firearm s task force. so forming partnerships is useful, and working with the feds gets you into federal court where the sanctions could be significant. >> and chief dotson? >> we're taking many cases to the federal authorities, u.s. attorney here. we have done it just the opposite. we've taken police officers from the city and the county and embedded them with federal

agents on a task force to focus on the violence and the rapid response force. so not just the homicides but the violence, because a precursor to the homicides are the shootings that ed talked about that are happening far too frequently, high capacity magazine, lots of victims. >> chief samuel dotson of st. lucie, chief edward flynn of milwaukee, we thank you both. >> thank you. >> ifill: doctors and health authorities are increasingly sounding the alarm about the growth of drug-resistant bacteria. in the u.s., they infect at least two million people and today, the centers for disease control and prevention issued a call to slow the rate of hospital-acquired infections which alone account for more than 600,000 cases.

one particular bacteria is accountable for 15,000 of those deaths. the c.d.c. is urging hospitals, health departments and others to change their approach the germs' spread-- action that it says could save 37,000 lives. doctor michael bell is a deputy director there who specializes in infectious diseases. he joins me now. dr. bell, explain to us in layman's terms, first of all what are drug-resistant infections? >> so when we talk about drug resistance, we're talking about antibiotic resistance. we're talking about germs that can cause infections that normally we could have treated with antibiotics but now we can't. the germs continue to develop new ways of getting around the antibiotic. >> what is the source of these germs? >> well, the germs come from all over the place. you're surrounded by them. we're covered in them. we're full of them. the environment that they live in is the same one that we inhabit. the key is to keep them from going places where they don't

belong, and if they do get there, to be able to treat them. and that's the challenge with antibiotic resistance. >> ifill: so we focus on the kind of superbugs we hear about in hospitals, but you're saying that these bugs these germs are everywhere? >> germanys in general are, in fact, everywhere. superbugs are often found in hospitals because that's where people with either devices like catheters or surgical wounds tend to be, and those are also people who tend to be-to-get antibiotics. when you put those together, it's a great way to generate more of these very resistant bacteria. >> ifill: what is it about antibiotics that makes these germs take hold or makes it difficult for them to stop spreading i guess? >> well, so the issue that we're facing is that in the past we would have antibiotic resistance to one or two drugs, but we had more drugs in the pipeline. right now we're coming awfully close to the cliff where we don't have new drugs coming on

the market very soon, and at the same time, these bacteria the nightmare bacteria are developing more and more resistance to a wider range of drugs. that means not only that we won't be able to treat an infection, but what worries us a great deal is that we're going the lose the ability to deliver types of care that we take for granted, so, for example surgery, if i'm in a traffic accident, i can be repaired by a talented surgeon but without antibiotics, i might very well die from an infection of the wound. similarly with cancer treatment, if my immune system has to be turned down temporarily, that's fine for the cancer treatment, but without antibiotics i might die from an infection some there's a lot about modern health care that hinges on the availability of good antibiotics. >> ifill: what would it cost for us to start to implement some of the ideas some of the recommendations that the c.d.c. is making to head this off? >> it's all about scale. we know that the techniques and

approaches that we discussed in the press conference today, where multiple hospitals collaborate inform each other and work with the health department to give each other heads up for hot spots of infection, of patients who might be carrying something. this is a very good thing inch some the health departments, some health care systems are already doing it. but they're in the very small minority. and so what we're looking at it is making it possible for all patients in this country to benefit from that kind of coordinated care. >> ifill: who is most at risk and what do we simply, do just simply wash our hands? >> in terms of what we can do as individual, yes, hand washing is great. insisting that people wash their hands before they touch you if you're in a health care setting is also very important. not being afraid to speak up. similarly, hand washing is good for clinicians, but there are more things to be done. one is using antibiotics correctly. and wisely.

there's a concept of antibiotic stewardship that focuses on making sure that we use the right antibiotic for the right amount of time and then we stop as soon as it's not necessary anymore, so we don't give bacteria the opportunity to become resistant. that stewardship approach is something that is rapidly becoming standard of care in most of our health care facilities, and it's something that we're very actively promoting. we want to make sure that even if we're fortunate enough to develop new drugs in the coming several years, we won't see those used up as quickly as we've seen every other antibiotic in the past. >> ifill: and elderly and infants and people with compromised immune systems are the ones who are most likely to be affected? >> well, so that's true of many things, but in addition to those fragile, vulnerable people we also have the patients that i just described, somebody who is in a traumatic car accident, somebody who is receiving care for cancer or some other operation.

pretty much anybody in a health care setting is at risk. we're also seeing that because antibiotics are used in the community as well as in hospitals, some of these organisms can be also coming from the community. it's one of the reasons that having the health department as an active part of the collaboration is so valuable, because they can look acrossettings, not just in one hospital, but also into the community. >> ifill: dr. michael bell the deputy director of the c.d.c. division of health care quality promotion. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: stay with us coming up on the newshour: dr. ben carson on his bid for the presidency. wildlife detectives bust poachers stealing shellfish off the coast of washington state. and, a new film on vigilante groups fighting drug cartels on the border of the u.s. and

mexico. >> woodruff: we return now to europe, and another look at the continent's growing migrant crisis. in the former communist nation of hungary, the government is racing to complete what opponents are calling a new iron curtain along its border with serbia, by the end of the month. leaders there say they can't cope any more with the tens of thousands of migrants who are entering the country after arriving in europe through the greek islands. special correspondent malcolm brabant reports. [crying]. >> reporter: this family is more than 3,000 miles away from home in congo. after months on the road, they've just slipped across the frontier from serbia and have been stopped by the hungarian police. the adults don't want to be filmed for fear of jeopardizing their chances of reaching france another thousand miles away. in this porous border region,

the country lane is teeming with migrants. you're in hungary. you are in hungary. where do you come from? >> come from serbia. okay. enough. >> reporter: nearby a member of a right-wing vigilante group, which claims to protect a local vimage, stands guard over a group of pakistanis who have also just entered hungary. some fled for economic reasons. others because of persecution. >> i wanted to marry some girl. they killed her. so they want to kill me and i'm running. me and my family my relatives everybody. >> reporter: the migrants fear a repeat of violence they say was inflicted by police in bulgaria. >> they shipped us here and here

and here. everything they take from us. >> reporter: but the vigilante lets them go. the authorities estimate as many as 2,000 people are crossing illegally into hungary every day, although most have no intention of remaining in the country their sheer numbers intimidate some on isolated farms. the owner of this small holding complains of aggressive migrants climbing over her fence late at night. >> ( translated ): we've got no idea what these people are like. i'm afraid of them because i live on my own. >> reporter: her neighbor shows off a gas spray. he keeps it for protection. in this hostile climate, the hungarian army is on the move building a 110-mile-long fence along the border with serbia. opponents call it europe's new iron curtain. despite being one of the poorer members of the european union, the government here is

allocating more than $80 million to the project, much to the approval of local ultra nationalist mayor. >> they destroy all their documents before they arrive to the hungarian side. they don't want to show their identity. we never know who is that may grand. maybe there is a few terrorists in the groups. >> reporter: so far this year 80000 migrants have crossed into hungary. this group is waiting for a bus chartered by the hungarian authorities that will take them part of the way toward refugee camps. this law officer with hungary's helsinki committee, which advocates on behalf of migrants and helps them with their applications for political asylum. >> building a fence would not be an effective tool to stop people from coming, to stop refugees

from threing war zones. it's more seen as a political action as a propaganda measure by the government to reinforce their popularity or to stop the decrease of their popularity amongst hundred dwairn voters. > reporter: 100 miles from the border in the capital budapest, the government argues that other walls and friendss have been effective and dismiss accusations it's being erected to win support inside hungary. a government spokesman says tin flux left them with no alternative. >> it's an unstoppable flood. it's going to speed up by the end of the year. as a matter of fact, the hungarian border is the european border some when we are protecting the borders of hungary, we are at the same time protecting europe. >> socialist opposition partys have accused the government from isolating hungary from its allies and lacking in humanity but a leading lawmaker with the nationalist party believes the fence alone is not enough and that additional protection

measures are needed. >> the migration that is hitting the borders of the european union is absolutely unbearable. from the southern direction or from the eastern direction we're having a free of migration, which is going to come to a situation whereby europe is going to collapse given the demographic trends in europe, given the economic and financial situation in europe, and, of course, given also this migration, europe is going to disintegrate if we don't get down to business with regard to the issue of migration. >> reporter: it's long been the dream of european federalists to have a union free of border controls, to facilitate the uninhicked movement. of people and goods. but the scale of the migrant crisis has caused many politicians to question the wisdom of having eradicated passport checks. this fence may be on the outer reaches of the european union but will it encourage other

member states the start reinstituting border controls inside? what's clear is the concept of a united states of europe is being undermined by this human tide. in serbia another transit country on the long refugee trail north, the decision to build a fence has been met with alarm. serbia says it can't afford to pay to accommodate and clean up after the migrants, and they have asked the financially strapped u.n. refugee agency to cover its costs. a local mayor claims his municipality will run out of money soon and fears the fence will exacerbate his problems. >> ( translated ): it's the sovereign right of any country to build a fins on its territory, but the worst thing is they could be stuck here for a longer period of time and we don't know what to do with them. >> reporter: serbia is reported to be speeding up efforts to help the refugees on their way.

they arrived in the southern hungarian town where they get a chance the clean up. very basic facilities provided by volunteers sympathetic to the migrants plight and paid for by donations do help. >> some milk. >> we all remember what the term iron curtain meant. my parents generation, they have very sad memories about building walls and fences between nations in europe. they were all very happy in 1990 when the so-called iron curtain was removed, so i think it's very let's say an anysic to build fences and walls between countries. >> reporter: after a brief stay, they're sent by train the budapest. but instead of being taken to a refugee camp, many of them end up camping out in the subways beneath the main railway station. one of the volunteers is angry that the government is not doing more to help. >> i think it's both outrageous and extremely inhuman.

it's very clinical at the same time. what they try to do now is boost their popularity by pointing to these people as a common enemy. the reason why these people are here is simply because the government refuses to treat them as human beings. >> there's less squalor but undemintished despair in a budapest park where a 20-year-old from afghan is resting after walking through iran and part of turkey. he's helping a young mother and her child on their journey. they've become something of a surrogate family after he says, islamists killed his parents, brother and sister and burned his home. where do you want to go? >> i don't know. i want to go to a place where we have peace and they respect me. >> reporter: but where? >> like germany, like another country, england. they respect me.

they give me a home. they give me not like anywhere. we are human. we have been living in this world. >> reporter: every migrant carries a personal tale of hardship, but many europeans are becoming selectively deaf as the numbers grow and their governments are divided about how to respond. in the meantime, the migrants are racing to beat the fence before it is completed. for the pbs "newshour," i'm malcolm brabant on the hungarian-serbian border. >> ifill: more than a dozen republicans gathered in new hampshire last night to explain why one of them should be president. the rollout continues thursday night as the ten most popular gather in cleveland for the first in a series of poll-tested, party-sanctioned formal debates. this afternoon, fox news

announced the stage will include donald trump, who tops the polls, and ohio governor john kasich, who squeezed texas governor rick perry out for the tenth slot. also making the cut: the only physician in the race, retired neurosurgeon ben carson. i spoke with him a short time ago as part of our continuing series on the men and women competing in 2016. we call it "running." thank you for joining us. >> my pleasure. >> ifill: i want to talk to you as a physician. it's the one thing that makes you very unique in this race from all the other more than a dozen candidates. as you prepare to go on the debate stage in cleveland on thursday, i'm sure a lot of these questions will come to you, as well. you'll been talking a lot of planned parenthood and how it should be defunded. i want to ask you as a physician, who would happen to the people who go to planned parenthood for treatment other than abortion? where should they get services? >> well, you know, i have had an opportunity to be the guest

speaker at fund-raisers for multiple pregnancy centers around the country. they're all over the place. and they can get those same services there. plus they get somebody who counsels them on all the alternatives that they have and doesn't sorts of push them in one direction. >> ifill: so you're saying there are other alternatives which don't involve government funding? >> yes, most of those are privately funded. >> ifill: another question for you as a physician: there has been much discussion recently around the country about the black lives matter movement and you have made clear that you believe that all lives matter. so as a physician who has dealt with violence, who has worked in emergency room, who has dealt with the fallout from that, why what should we be doing about gun violence in this country, and does it disproportionately affect one population over another? >> well, certainly you see a lot more gun violence in inner cities. i've spent many, many a night,

you know, working on the heads of people who have been shot in the head, you know black people primarily, but white people, as well. and it's devastating. and, of course those lives matter. i believe what we're going to have to do is really concentrate on where is all this violence coming from? and it's not all coming from one specific area. but it's coming from a general lack of respect for life. and, you know this person pissed me off and i got a gun i'm going to kill them. i mean, when did we get like that? and the values that used to be put into people, i think a lot of it stems from the fact that we don't really like to talk about values anymore because

whose values are they we ask? you know, it's all relative. there is no right there, is no wrong. you know, it's all relative. it's the same thing that the romans did. >> ifill: that's not the same thing as a solution to the problem. >> no. the solution to the problem is we have to start teaching values again, teaching people to respect one another again, and to understand that human life is valuable. even if somebody disagrees with you, their life is still valuable. >> another question to you as a physician, you have called for the repeal like many, probably all republican candidates have of the president's health care plan. what would you replace it with? >> i would replace it with a system that puts the care back in the hands of the patients and the health care providers. it would revolve around health savings accounts which everybody would have made available to them from the day they're born until the day they die, at which time they can pass it on to their family. i would pay for it with the very

same dollars we pay for traditional health care work although we wouldn't have to use as much and people would have real control of their health savings account. it wouldn't be the kind that has a whole bunch of bureaucrats involved. you would give people the ability to shift money within their hsa within their family. so let's say you're 500 short. your sister could give it to your or your cousin or uncle or grandmother. anybody in your family makes every family their own insurance company with no middle man. >> ifill: so many other things i want to talk to you about. i don't want to dutt you off, but i do want the move on the immigration, which the president has obviously talked that he has an approach. donald trump has said he has an approach, building a wall, which i think you said is stupid. you have suggested perhaps creating a guest worker program that allows people back into the country. how do you at the root take care of those or somehow deport those 11 million undocumented immigrants who are here now? >> well, i haven't said anything about deporting them.

what i said is we have to secure all the borders not just the southern border because it's not just people from mexico and honduras. it's jihadists. we need to be able to secure those borders. and then we need to turn off the spigot that dispenses all the things they're coming here to get. if there's no reason for them to come here, that stops the influx. now, you still have 11.5 million people here some of whom have never been any place else. where are you going to send them to? we have to be pragmatic here. those people are given an opportunity to become gust guest workers. they have to register and they have to pay a back tax and they have to pay taxes going forward ands a we don't collapse the farming industry and hotel industry and a bunch of other industries. it doesn't give them citizenship and voting rights. if they want to get in citizenship, they get in the back of the line and go through the same process as everybody else. >> i want to read back to you something you said last night at the forum in new hampshire and

you have said before. you talked about how religious freedom is under attack and you went on to say, there's a war on women, racial wars, income war, religious wars, every war that you can imagine is going on, you said. why do you think that is? and what is it that a president can do to speak to that conflict? >> why are the purveyors of hatred and division having a field day in our society? i think some of it comes from the fact that we are not resisting them. and our positions of leadership, in some cases we actually play into the hands of the purveyors of division rather than pointing out what we all have in common. and that's something that i think the bully pulpit is particularly useful for doing. >> so the bully pulpit is a solution the all of these wars? >> it's not a solution, but it helps tremendously. and, you know, we have to make it very clear to the american people that we're not each

other's enemies. and just because somebody happens to disagree with you about something doesn't mean that they become your mortal enemy and that you should try to destroy them and destroy their life and destroy their family. where did this kind of stuff come from. obviously it does not come from anybody whose interested in strengthening our country. >> dr. ben carson, good luck on thursday night, thank you for joining us. >> thank you very much. >> woodruff: next, when you hear the word poaching, you might think of trophy hunters killing big game in africa. but millions of dollars are made in an illegal trade much closer to home. katie campbell of kcts in seattle has the story. she reports for the public media project earthfix. >> i need a uniform. i need a uniform. right there, right there. >> reporter: this is a bust but it's not what you think.

these officers are breaking up a black market of illegally harvested shellfish-- clams oysters, mussels. poachers are stealing them from washington's puget sound... >> the clams are stolen. >> reporter: ...and selling them for thousands of dollars, says washington fish and wildlife deputy chief mike cenci. >> fish and wildlife police officers are the only thing standing between bad guys that poach bivalve shellfish from areas that they shouldn't, and human health and safety. >> reporter: officers are on patrol day and night, searching for poachers, staking out businesses and collecting evidence. they say cheating the system is much easier than policing it. shellfish are a high risk food because they're filter feeders. they suck in whatever is in the water-- toxins, harmful pathogens or even pollutants. thousands of people get sick

from tainted shellfish each year in the united states. some even die. the difference between poached seafood and legal seafood isn't something you can see. for clues, washington fish and wildlife sergeant erik olson has to check the paperwork. >> so, do you have any paperwork for this? >> i should have. >> reporter: the paperwork is meant to ensure that shellfish can be traced back to the beach from where it was harvested. it's a low-tech process based on the honor system. >> so, if you want to find out where these oysters are from how do you know? >> reporter: bill dewey works for taylor shellfish and is chair of the committee that develops the nationwide rules for tracking shellfish. >> so, when we do a harvest on the beach, the harvesters generate a handwritten tag with all of the information about the date, the bed that it's harvested, all of our company information, our certification

number and so on. >> reporter: tags accompany the shellfish from the beach to the processing plant, all the way to the marketplace, supposedly guaranteeing that these shellfish are safe to eat. >> if you're in a restaurant and you order oysters, you should be able to ask your wait staff to see the tag that came with that shellfish when it was delivered to the restaurant. >> reporter: but a system based on trust is also vulnerable to abuse. >> if people want to sell illegal shellfish, you can do it. you can game the system. >> reporter: cheating the system is as easy as making a fake tag. >> there's got to be somebody out there writing tickets once in a while to keep everybody in check and make sure you're doing it right. >> you don't have one ounce of labeling anywhere throughout this place. if you cannot prove where it came from and that it's safe for human consumption, i can't let you sell it. >> reporter: with thousands of markets and restaurants in the seattle area alone, olson says

if he had more time or more officers, he could file a felony-level shellfish violation pretty much every day. but what's even more alarming is that fish and wildlife investigations are finding the shellfish black market is operating through businesses that have little to do with seafood-- places like nail salons, gas stations and even a video store. >> frankly, if someone would've told me that an asian video store would be a place that shellfish would be trafficked i wouldn't have believed them. and we know now that any business, any storefront could be potentially involved in the seafood trade. >> reporter: of all the shellfish that sell on the black market, one clam is above the rest: the geoduck. most americans have never heard of, much less eaten, a geoduck. so, why is there such a thriving black market for their meat? before we answer that, let's get one thing out of the way.

it may be spelled geoduck, but it's pronounced "gooey-duck." geoducks are the largest burrowing clams in the world. predominantly found in puget sound, they can live up to 160 years; that's one of the longest lifespans in the entire animal kingdom. an adult geoduck weighs around one-to-three pounds, and in asia their meat is a prized delicacy. about 90% of the geoducks harvested in the u.s. are sent across the pacific. that's about $70 million worth a year. in china, geoduck was once reserved for elite banquets, but china's growing middle class has developed a taste for the delicacy and the disposable income to afford it. this rising demand has sent geoduck retail prices to as high as $150 per pound, and soaring prices create a big incentive for poachers. here's how it works: harvesting

wild geoduck is allowed only in certain areas of puget sound; the state auctions off each area, but there's a still limit on how much can be dug up within each area. the man who decides that limit is bob sizemore. he's washington state's lead geoduck research scientist. >> you need to be very careful with the harvest rate. basically, if you cut down a forest, it takes a very long time to come back. >> reporter: each time an area is harvested, it takes about 40 years for the geoduck population to recover. that's why harvest rate is 2.7%; anything higher would not be sustainable. out in puget sound, sizemore and his team count geoducks before and after an area is harvested. but with just five divers, they're only able to survey 3% of areas geoducks are found. >> we still see signs of illegal harvest, we still see signs of poaching, and we don't find any recovery.

>> reporter: on any given night, tons of fresh seafood pass through seattle-tacoma international airport. it's a bottleneck where fish and wildlife officers can check the cargo as it's moving through. >> the overwhelming majority of that product is, in fact, geoduck. it's just thousands of pounds. if shellfish is not accompanied by a department of health certification tag, i am required to seize that. >> reporter: officers must look at each tag to find out whether the shellfish came from an open area and were harvested by a licensed harvester. >> that is not salmon. >> reporter: there's no electronic system or any quick way to determine if the information on the tags is accurate. everything must be hand checked. officers confiscate seafood that's not properly tagged, but they're only able to check a fraction of the boxes and

there's no telling how much poached shellfish slips through. >> if the incentive is there-- and believe me it's there, we're talking big money-- then people are going to take advantage of the holes in the system. right now, there are holes that you can drive a semi-truck through. >> reporter: for the pbs newshour, i'm katie campbell with earthfix in seattle. >> ifill: finally tonight: violence and suffering in mexico's drug wars, captured in close-up detail. jeffrey brown has our look. >> brown: it's the stuff of the nightly news, the violent drug wars in mexico and along the u.s. border. but the documentary "cartel land," which won awards at the sundance film festival for directing and cinematography, takes the viewer along on a sometimes wild and scary ride at ground level.

filmmaker matthew heineman embedded himself with met cook, self-appointed lawmen and others. we spoke we sethly at the a.f.i. docks festival in washington. >> for me there's been a lot of really wonderful documentaries, news stories articles about the drug war about policy, about this issue and i really wanted to put myself on the ground in the middle of it. i wanted to get into places that people hadn't seen before. i'm in the a war reporter. i have never been in situations like this before. >> you never have? >> never. >> that's exactly the kind of situation heineman found himself in. he tells a story through the lens of two modern-day vigilante groups, mention -- mexicans led by the charismatic dr. jose merraras. and a paramilitary group of americans patrolling the u.s. border, led by tim foley of arizona. >> on some level the characters are these two men. they're both 55 years old. one lives in arizona, one in

mexico. they both believe the government has failed them. and they both have sort of taken up arms to fight for what they believe in. access and trust are everything and developing that trust with my subjects was really important. obviously especially on the mexico side, you know, it's really frightening. i mean, i... you really didn't know if you were with the good guys or the bad guys. and very quickly i realized this story was more complicated, that the lines between good and evil were much more blurry. >> brown: complicated indeed. we watch as key figures are compromised, leaders and citizens in mexico begin to act more and more like the cartels they're fighting. >> that's also when it starts to get scary for you. >> yeah. for the citizens living, there it's horrible. they've been living in these conditions for years, there's no government institutions. often the government is

colluding with the cartel. there's no one to turn. to that's what's so carrie. that's what this movement was born out of, it was born out of this desire to bring order and coyors and safety. >> there is an incredible scene in the back of a car in a van where a vigilante group in mexico has grabbed somebody off the street and is holdning them at gunpoint, accusing him of being one of the cartel members. tell me about that, because you... it's remarkably shot. it's a horrifying moment because you don't know if... we don't know if the guy is actually guilty of anything. >> i was in the back of this car as they were interrogating him, running a gun up and down his head. it was frightening. as a human being who cares about people and cares about the world, seeing this violence, you know, literally right in front

of me, obviously my human instincts were trying to stop it but i'm there to document what was happening. >> near the end of film one of the characters says it's never going to stop, period. is that what you came to think? >> i really do think this problem is cyclical. and i do, you know, as long as there's a demand for drugs in the states there will be supply for drugs in mexico and south america flowing northward. i do find some hope that people are sick of this in mexico. i find hope in people standing up and saying we can't take this anymore. whether that results in change, you know, who knows, but i think it's important that people out there talk about it. because for years people often walked around shrouded in fear, and even mentioning the cartel, people never even dreamed of saying that so i think, you know, i find some hope in that. >> the film "cartel land" can be seen in select theaters around

the country this summer. from washington, d.c.,, i'm jeffrey brown for the pbs news hour. >> woodruff: on the newshour online, a group of artists and community members banded together to give ferguson a makeover after riots destroyed some of the town's businesses, and the results can be seen in a new children's book, "painting for peace in ferguson." we have a photo gallery of some of those murals, on our homepage. that's at pbs.org/newshour. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, "cold mountain," the civil war love story. once a best selling novel now a new opera. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. join us online, and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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