♪ ♪ welcome to "amanpour" on pbs. tonight, as the clock ticks down on the status of thousands of undocumented immigrants in america, i speak to one such immigrant turned new york lawyer on the disappearing american dream. plus, a republican senator compares trump's attacks on the media to joseph stalin. renowned russian-american journalist marcia getten on trump, putin and totalitarians of the past. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ "amanpour on pbs" was made

possible by the generous support of rosalynn p. walter. >> good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. i'm christiane amanpour in london with the global perspective. if the united states government shuts down friday night, it could all come down to the fate of the d.r.e.a.m.ers, the 8 help you,000 or so young, undocumented immigrants brought into the country as children. democrats say they'll oppose any bill that keeps the government up and running if it fails to give the d.r.e.a.m.ers legal protection. meanwhile, what's lost in all of this political drama is the human drama. almost a million young americans living under constant fear of deportation and they can't make the most basic life choices about work or schooling or even whether to start a family. he is himself a d.r.e.a.m.er and he was 5 years old when his mother brought him across the border from tijuana to san diego. he had no choice in the matter,

but now he's the first immigrant without legal status to join the new york state bar. >> peter vargas, welcome to the program. >> thanks so much for having me. >> caesaesar, you are a d.r.e.a.m.er, but you must be living a nightmare from day to day not untiling your fate. >> we have a congress who is not doing anything and a congress that refuses to take action and for myself and my family, not only do i worry about my own future, but i worry about my mom's future, she's also undocumented. and we're talking about the original d.r.e.a.m.ers and we're talking about our parents who risk anything to give us a better life and for me, this is not just about myself, and this is about my mother. this is about our immigrant community that is facing terror, really, from this administration who is targeting everyone, literally everyone. >> so let me go back to what you

were saying about your mother. it was your mother who brought you to the united states, across the border, undocumented the both of you when you were just a little boy. remind us, remind our viewers what it took for her to do that, and what you remember about that, if anything? >> well, i remember the last day that we were in mexico. i remember picking up from school and instead of going home we went to the cathedral in the town square, and for me, i didn't know anything about, but knowing that we were -- that was the last day that we were going to be in mexico, and i remember her going to the cathedral and kneeling down and praying, and saying [ speaking spanish ] god watch over us and a flash, we were at the u.s.-mexico border. i remember the smell of wet dirt, the darkness and the rocky terrain and the lights in the distance and all of a sudden i remember us just running, running, running, and my mom falling down and her picking me

up right away, and for me, at that moment i can't imagine what must have gone through my mom's mind and heart where anything could have happened that night, she could have been killed or raped, but the love of her children was more powerful than anything. i'm want just living an american dream, i am living my mom's american dream and that is why i'm an attorney and that is why i'm an advocate because we need to ensure that we are protecting immigrant communities that are aspiring for a better life and that starts with the original d.r.e.a.m.ers, our parents. >> cesar, that is a really moving story and the fact that you have fulfilled her dream and your own dream is amazing and i'll get to that in a moment, but when your mother pulled you across the border, when you were something like 5 years old, what did she come here to do? what was her fate when she got across the border? >> well, like anything, i remember when we were in mexico, she was widowed. she was alone. she had no money and she -- i can imagine her thinking if i

stay in mexico not knowing whether i'm going to feed my children. i remember times when we were just eating black coffee and sweet mexican bread which was our dinner and my mom took a decision like any mother would do, risk anything for my children to ensure that they have a warm home, to ensure that they have food in their bellies. >> what was her work when she came to the u.s.? >> well, she never asked anything from anyone from the government. she used to collect cans, recycle them. she used to sell food, baby sat. and i remember when she used to take us to all those places and for me, i remember when i was 5 years old and 10 years old and when i was almost a teenager i used to be embarrassed of her taking me to this place because i realized that she was out there hustling and making ends meet, but now i really appreciate that because she did everything to ensure that her children had everything. she did everything so that she wouldn't have to ask anything

from the government and i think that is a very powerful story of what we have in the u.s. that when you have this administration talking about immigrants are taking jobs and immigrants are just sucking up services from u.s. citizens, he is completely fearmongering and completely mischaracterizing the spirit of immigrants who come here for a better life. >> of course, her status is also currently unclear. >> yeah. she is undocumented, and i hope that i'm -- to be in the process of becoming a citizen and one day to be able to petition her to become a u.s. citizen. >> cesar, as an undocumented person in the united states for your entire life, how on earth can you go through the legal requirements and all the other bureaucratic requirements to basically live, but also to become an attorney? >> it really doesn't take much,

really. it just takes what we have seen across history with immigrants whether it's a first woman attorney or the first supreme court justice and just simply having the hard work and the as prision to live the american dream and it wasn't hard for me and i remember being rejected because of my immigration status and receiving rejection letters from colleges because i had no social security number and being rejected from jobs when i submitted resumes and when they called and said mr. vargas, can you sub met your social security? the american dream is not about the fancy car or big house and the american dream is opened the doors of opportunity for others as others have done for me. i would have not gotten here had it want been by the amazing support of my teachers, professors, colleagues and local elected officials and i think that is why we are here. i am here because of the product of so many people who had my back, but also i am the product of many immigrants' dreams who one day want to see their

children live that dream of becoming an attorney, engineer and artist and so forth. >> so, cesar, when you heard president trump talking about this, particularly the other day, and saying that he wanted the d.r.e.a.m.ers like you to be treated with heart, that he wanted a bill that had, you know, love for d.r.e.a.m.ers. he seemed to want to get it done. he seemed to think that democrats and republicans could do it and something flipped on thursday. what do you make of those comments? >> i think that despite everything, i really do think that the trump administration, president trump himself does want to do something. my concern really is with the administration and his senior adviser, stephen miller who has been an immigration hardliner. he has a history of being anti-immigrant and limiting both undocumented and targeting undocumented immigrants as well as attorney general jeff sessions which one of them was the most vocal anti-immigrant senator when he was in congress.

he needs to pull himself away from these hardliners and extremists like jeff sessions and stephen miller so he can work with republicans who want to get something done to work with democrats who want to get something done. >> they're concerned about the security aspect of it, whether it's the wall or increased border security. do you have sympathy with those arguments? >> well, i don't think no one opposes border security. for me, we have seen that myself. let's mack su let's make sure that we have the funds to ensure that we have the latest technology to interseed drugs and monitor remote areas in the border. we of the to make sure the border patrol agents have the resources as well as the training to keep our nation safe, but when we're talking about the wall we're talking about a reality tv hit, right, for the trump administration. when we're talking about the wall he's talking about $23 billion from our taxes to pay for something that for him he

thinks will look good. that's the difference between border security and the reality show that this administration wants to do with the wall. >> so, cesar, you're an attorney, do you think as some are suggesting that some of the words he's been using with raci racist tinges, racial tinges en people try to dissect this and put it through court, if they do, is there a constitutional problem with some of the language that trump and the administration are using? >> there's no question that remarks that this administration has been using are racist. period. there's no unequivocal on that the president's staples have been racist and many of his policies have been rushlly underlined with, like, the muslim ban, with immigration enforcement and there's no question about that. the courts have been used in the president's remarks especially on twitter when they are dealing with situations like the travel

ban. the court has said that this is a muslim ban. on immigration the president has said that mexicans are rapists. now we are seeing that countries from africa and haiti and the caribbean are shithole countries and there's no question that they're seen very clearly where we have seen other times that they have used very clear racial undertones that demonstrate that this policy, that the administration whether it's on immigration and whether it's foreign affairs, they're coming from a very racial discriminatory undertone and we need to ensure that the constitution prevents that policy from being implemented. >> cesar vargas, you are the first undocumented person to become an attorney in new york state. thanks for joining us. >> thank you so much for having me. now our next guest is the russian-american journalist masha getsen whose new book

warns that totalitarianism has reclaimed russia. i sat down with her to discuss this, president putin's seemingly endless reign and why she thinks that arizona senator jeff flake is right to take to the senate floor to dom pair trump's attacks to the media to the rhetoric of joseph stalin? >> masha getsen, welcome. >> thank you. good to be here. >> totalitarianism, joseph stalin, they seem to be having something of a rebirth these days. i mean, today senator jeff flake takes to the senate floor to excoriate presint trump about his attack on the press, likening the enemy of the people accusation to what stalin did. your book is all about totalitarianism, and these are big word, though. these are big accusations, are they really accurate? it's a fair question, and i think the important thing to understand now and it's never been more relevant is that this

is not something that was a one off in the history of humanity and we're not ensured from having a repeat performance and we'll never know how close we came to the abyss, but we are certainly living through a crisis and i think that senator flake was absolutely right to point out the very clear way in which trump has borrowed the phrase the enemy of the people from joseph stallen, and it's not an accident that trump did that. it does tap into a kind of politics. >> do you think he knows that? >> do you think that these people would have used that specifically for that reason? >> i don't think that it's conscious, but i think that sense that he has to equate himself with the nation and that anybody who is opposed to him has to be positioned as the enemy of the station. that instinct is there. >> your book is about totalitarianism raising its ugly head in russia, and vladimir putin is the longest serving

russian leader since stalin who was there from the 20 to the 50. what do you mean about putin's russia? >> what i mean is that i don't think he set out to create a totalitarian regime. the most accurate description, and it's the mafia state, the mafia state who distributes money and power and everything is centered on him, and when he started cracking down in 2012 in the wake of the mass protests when he was coming for his third term as president, and he was cracking down in russia, right? it wasn't somewhere else and russia has a memory of 70 years of totalitarianism and so the habits and the behaviors and the informal institutions that he brought back to life when he staged his political crackdown, when they have the informal institutions of the totalitarian society. >> they keep having these elections which are really not

contested elections? >> you know, in the soviet union, i remember this from growing up, we had elections, too, and they were called the free e pregz of citizen will and the free e pregz of citizen will was that you were obligated to show up and there was a penalty for not showing up at the polling place and then you were obligated to put a check mark against the one name on the ballot and there was nothing free about it and there was nothing expressive about it and no citizenship to it and there was no will. >> russian elections are getting very close to that sort of level of absurdity. >> of course, we have an election coming up in russia in march barely two month away and in the latest new yorker piece you write, there are dapd ats and their names will appear only in the kremlin allows it and there is a campaign and the candidates are allowed to appear on television only if the kremlin okays it. there are usually debates and vladimir putin has been in power for 18 years and running for another six-year term and they

take part in them. there are opinion polls and their results are adjusted to fit the probable result of the vote, and then there is the vote, and his outcome is preordained. in other words, the event scheduled for march 2018 is want an election, but it's called one. that's brilliant. >> thank you. i couldn't have said it better myself. >> you did say it! >> i did say it. the question is why did they do it? why hold elections at all? and woodly, i think that it's still a fine legitimacy for putin. he claims an inflated number of votes even in the rigged non-election, and yet sort of the large number gives him a kind of mandate for the next six years. it's really difficult to explain how it work, but what i think is important to understand is that they perceive the elections as a potential stress point for the regime which is why there's so much to do around them which is

why someone like alexei who is the leading opposition could want be registered as a candidate and yet kremlin is running its own opposition candidate to sort of sidetrack some of the -- of the votes. >> are you sure? are you sure that she is, as everyone claim, a stooge? >> you know, i think her story is a little complicated. yes, i am sure that she is running by arrangement by the creme lip. i have no doubt. >> you've said that nobody can run unless the kremlin allows it. >> that's exactly right. and she hasn't really made a secret of it. at the same time, i think she's running because she thinks she can do something by having access to the media. >> know people are cynical about her, but on the other hand she has stood up and taken brave stances and russia, you're not allowed to mention alexei novotny's name and she stood up

and confronted putin on that, and remember, everybody knows it's her father the mayor of st. petersburg was putin's big mentor. but she did do that, and she is trying to push the envelope as far as she can. do you see any currency in that at all? >> i do. it presents a moral dilemma for anybody thinking about russian elections and thinking about whether to vote in russian elections. i wouldn't vote in russian elections because no matter how you cut it it is a farce by voting. at the same time, what he is doing is breaking sort of the mono on the me of the public space and it is an affront to the monopoly that the kremlin has on any kind of conversation. i think she is trying to push it as far as she can. the fact that it's been done by arrangement of the kremlin and the fact that she is succeeding

some of the support makes it highly problematic, but it's one of those thing, and that's part of what makes the experience of living in russia and the experience of living in a totalitarian society because it specializes in presenting people with untenable choices. >> let's talk about alexei novotny because for all intents and purposes he is the most organized opposition figure even though he won't be allowed on the ballot, he has got regional offices and he's trying very hard to create some kind of political machine, this is all for post-putin years, right? i don't think anybody believes that they can challenge putin now. >> i think novotny probably believes he can challenge putin now, and i think that his kind of politics, is the art of the impossible, and that each though i disagree with most of his positions, i think that it's incredibly admirable and i think that that's exactly the way to go up against putin. i think the thing to understand about novotny, though, is that

he has not been able to create a political organization yet. he has an amazing sort of media outlet where he investigates corruption. he publishes the results and they reach a lot of people when he calls on people to come out and protest helpeds of thousands of people come out, but it's not political in the sense that it's not these people aking together. >> every individual, his call comes out into the square and goes back home to rage at the tv again and the reason the kremlin will not be on the ballot because if they do he'll be able to convert that currency to an actual political organization, and that is simply not conceivable in putin's russia. >> back to putin and his claim to have brought back pride to russia. last year he basically said that excessive demonization of stalin is one of the ways to attack the soviet union, russia.

he's very aligned with stalin. >> he is not aligned just with stalin. he is aligned with ivan the terrible. he's written a fascinating new narrative for russian history that is kind of seamless, that excludes the revolution and the bolshevik revolution and it's the grand imperial history that goes from ivan the terrible to peter the great to putin to stalin, to putin and these are all in a terrifying strong man leaders, but i think that's very much how he sees russia. he sees russia primarily as an empire, and aus as a country as old empires feel inside is the empire that's constantly under siege and needs to be fighting the rest of the world. >> edward lucas, it could be easily argued that for most russians, the golden years is

something of a golden age and never in the country's history have so many lived so well, so peaceably and so proudly. that's the dilemma, right? >> i think it's less true now than it was a few years ago, and russia enjoyed unprecedented prosperity from the year 2000 to 2008 and mostly because putin got lucky with the oil prices and there's no reason and no other explanation for this, right? it's not like he undertook economic reform or did something else that created that kind of wealth in the country. russia finally ran through as of last week. the research fund has been liquidated and there's no money left. >> that news came and went with barely a whisper. >> well, we're having a bit of trouble paying attention to russia in the western world, aren't we? we're only interested in whether russia elected trump. let's talk about that, we do feel and you've written that everyone is way too obsessed and

focused on that issue. >> i'm actually more concerned about how it's distracting people with how trump is doing than from what putin is doing although we have great sympathy for my colleagues back in moscow and the correspondents who haven't done a real russia story in a year because all they're raving about is the russiagate story. it was interesting to read one of your experiences being with putin and we've got the "s" word that trump used and you described putin using the word "d" head. i honestly don't want to say it. you can say it if you want, but how did that affect you? >> it was -- well, at that point i had just written a book about putin and i was interested in putin as a character and it wasn't that i'm particularly offended, but as a highly educated middle class jewish lady from middle-aged jewish

lady from the center of moscow i ought to have faint bhd he used that kind of language in front of me, because it's just not done in russia, right? it is absolutely not done. it is absolutely not done and second of all it's not done in mixed company and it's not done in an intimate setting and it's not done across professional lines and across class lines and gender lines and it's not done and the fact that he did it was to me, it pointed out two things. one is that he's sort of lost his sense of his audience. he talks the same way to everybody. he's always talking to those who were in the barracks and he used to be able to pitch a speech to whoever he's talking to and he completely lost the ability and the desire to try. by using that kind of language and that kind of rhetoric and he uses it all of the time he's degraded the russian public

sphere, and that's become acceptable and i think that gives us reason to worry, and i think that's happening in the u.s. and we need to pay attention to that. >> there seems to be, and russia seems to be at the head of this group of country, the che guevera countries, if you like, the home for people who are anti-american, isn't that what putin has created out of russia today because there are people who support him and support his policies whether they're in syria or elsewhere? >> putin has part of his appeal and he does have appeal to a lot of rugs assians and part of his appeal is to make russia great again and to make russia great again he has to position russia in opposition to an enemy. no enemy is great enough to be the enemy of a great russia other than the united states. so anti-americanism is very much a part of his politics. he doesn't get to be important

unless the united states is dangerous, and of course, in syria, you watch russian television reports on the war in syria pretty much every time they will talk about how they are confronting the americans there, not the syrian opposition, but the americans. >> thanks so much. >> thank you. >> and that's it for our program tonight. thank you for watching "amanpour on pbs" and join us again tomorrow night. amanpour on pbs was made possible by the generous support of rosalynn p. walter. ♪ ♪

katty: you're watching "beyond 100 days" on pbs. the european union has found more than 3500 exams of russian disinformation. christian: all geared at destabilizing the e.u. and the european parliament says it is an orchestrated strategy. katty: according to a new report russians are spreading fake news through as many channels as possible. former presidential advisor steve bannon refused to answer questions on russia saying the white house ordered him not to. mr. trump's promise of fake news awards may be fake news but attacks on the press no