captioning sponsored by wnet >> snenivasan: on this editio for saturday, may 11: more funding for the border as the u.s. tare steps to crack dow undocumented immigrants.gn and, in our siure segment:fi syria's l frontier. next, on pbs newshour ekend. >> pbs nehour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. im sue and edgar wachenii. seton melvin. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. lter. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products.

that's why we're your retirement company. additional support has been proved by: and by the corporation for public broadcastin and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like yo thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sasan: good evening, and thank you for joining us. anting defense secretary patrick shanade his second trip to the u.s.-mexico border today,he promisinill accelerate plans to secure the border and arnd a way to return enforcement to the dent of homeland security. shanahan said that the military" t going to leave until the border is secure." but he also told reporters that active duty and national guard oops deployed to the border will not be staying indefinitely. more than 4,300 military troops are on the border, supporting customs and border protection agents. yesterday, shanahan announced that he is transferring $1.5

billion from other defense erojects to a pentagon cou drug fund to help pay for construcon of barriers on the u.s.-mexico border. we'll have more on changing immigration policies coming up after the news summary china has not yet retaliated for increased u.s. tariffs on its goods that went into effect yesterday. and china's top trade negotiator said talks with the u.s. will continue, even though the two countries failed to reach an agreement in meetings this past week. >> ( translated ): i don't think the negotiation has broken down. on the contrary, i think it is just a small setback in th talks between the two countries, which is inevitable. we are still cautiously optimistic for the future. >> sreenivasan: vice premier liu he said that tariffs, which the trump administration increased on some chinese goods from 10% to 25% yesterday, would first need to be lifted before any deal can be reached. legislators in hong kong disagreed violently today over proposed amendments to the

territory's extradition law. lawmakers from both sides of the issue clashed over access to the chamber, sending at least one to iae hospital. the controveamendments would make it easier to send criminal suspects to mainland s china. opponesay they could face unfair trials, and that the amendments erode hong kong's judicial independence. hong kong was guaranteed the right to retain its own social, legal and political systems for 50 years, following its handover from britisho chinese rule in 1997. in pakistan, authorities say f thr gunmen stormed a five-star luxury hotel in the southern port city of gwadar, and kill at least one person, a security guard. the military said in a statement that the four assailants were killed after an hours-long shootout, and all the hotel's guests were safely evacuated. a separatist group known as the balochistan liberation army, which opposechinese and foreign investment in the region, claimed responsibility for the attack. on thursday, the b.l.a. claimed

responsibility for an attack on a coal mine that killed at least five people. the islamic state is claiming that it has established its first so-called province in india. through its news agency, isis announced yesterday he area lies within india's northern state of jammu and kashmir. isis has claimed responsibility for attacks on indian soldiers during recent clashes in tt state and local police say an isis militant was killed thereye erday. rita katz, director of the site intelligence group, tweeted that ile isis has nothing resembling governance in india, the claim should not be written off. officials in texas say they are monitoring the air and water in communities near the houstonsh channel where multiple vessels collided yesterday afternoon. a tanker hit a tugboat and two barges it was pusharg, that were ing tens of thousands of barrels of a gasoline product. some of e product, called reformate, spilled into the busy waterway when one the barges capsized, and the other was damaged. reformate is a colorless and

flammable gasone product that is toxic to inhale, touch, or ingest. air samples so far do not show dangerous levels of the gas. water samples are not yet available. >> sreenivasan: the trump administration's attempt to limit immigration also includes efforts to remove undocumented immigrants from the united states. and, there is now evidence that some immigrants are feeling thes pressure and cg what is called "voluntary departure:" asking the courts to allow them to return to their country of birth rather than waiting in detention centers. r inent investigation, the marshall project, a non- partisan, non-profit news ganization, in partnership with politico, found that the number of voluntary departures doubled from 2017 to 2018, reaching a seven-year high. christie thompson, staff writer at the marshall project, joins us now from seattle. >> sreenivasan: try to give an explanation of it but explain how these voluntarily departures

work. >> so it is a cplicated idea. voluntarily departure is a term in immigration law that allowsso one to leave the down without actually having a deportation on their record and if it is granted bay jud it means they have a little bit more control over how and when they leave the country and it also means they don't have to wait quites long tapply to come back to the u.s. on the other hand it alsoeans giving up your fight to stay in this country. >> sreenivasan: and what kind of peopleuaify? you said a judge can grant this. so who gets these? >>oluntary departures only are available to people who don't have a serious criminal background. and that's something that was really important in our findings is that there has been this huga in in people that are fine for voluntary departure, a seven nsar high, nearly 30,000 applicatast year. and what a lot of experts told us that is a sign of how indiscriminate immigration eoforcement has gotten under trump because onlye that don't have a serious criminal oackground, that haven't been involved in a locrime are eligible and that's who is applying. >> sreenivasan: okay. and how does it work? i mean, is it once you get this

tomatically get a plane ticket home? >> so first you have to apply. a judge has to deem you are eligible tbe given voluntary departure and then you actually have to buy your own plane ticket home. and that can be a real barrier for folks because those pla tickets are actually far more expensive than if you and i were to try to buy a tcoicket to mexi city. it is a special kind of ticket that has to be le to to be changed at any time so it can be thousands and thousands ofo dollars justy back to mexico. then you buy your ticket and if you don't leavthe country the date the judge said it automacally giewrng a turns into are a removal or and then you are facing deportation. >> sreenivasan: the, ty have to say may we want incenfotives people to either over stay or we want them to leave voluntarily. >> right. and the justice department has definitely paiseen this as a win for the trump administration. these number lumped in with deportation data,

saying this is a sign oruthe return t of law and that enforcement under the trump administration working.tt their goal is g more people out of the country, whether it be through deportation or voluntary departure. that happened. on the flip side it is also a sign tt even though trump spends a lot of time talking about these hardened criminalsic and his polit speech that a lot of the people that we are sweeping up are people who don' really havrious criminal background, people who a judge thinks are worthy enough to get a voluntary departure and that's who people are. it is not those, you know, tough rdened, harded, hardened criminal history category criminal trump likes to talk iout. >> sreenivasan: possible judges are trying to get through their own queue faster byng granore of these? >> that's definitely something that we were told. former iigration judges told me that they were worried that uge pressure on this h looming backlog 0 and the pressure from the justice department to really move through case as more quickly might be pressuring judges to

try to wrap up cases, offent voy departure because that means someone is getting out, you not going to be tied up in a lot of peals or dragging tout court fight even longer. >> sreenivasan: all righst, ch thompson, staff writer at the marshall project joining us from seattle. thank you so much. >> thanks for ng me. >> >> sreenivasan: the conventional ground war with isis is over in syria, but it's the beginning of a new one for the coun embattled kurdish population. newshour weekend special correst jane ferguson has our story from northeastern syria. >> reporter: syria's kurdish families gather in fields, where they sing and dance, ringing in the new year, known here as nowruz. also called the persian new year, it embraces practices from the ancient religion zoroastriasm, like lighting fires through the countryside. the fire represents cleansing,

a fresh start. this year really is a fresh start for the kurdish people.er is much to celebrate. their militias are about to announce victory over isis. m after h loss and suffering, people here are honoring both their dead andvi those who've sd the fight. >> ( translated ): this nowruz has more joy because of our martyrs and fighters on the front line. this nowruz, we are very happy, especially the female fighters and comrades. >> reporter: many, like shilan hassake, a kurdish fighter whoug isis, can now look to a future without the islamic state controllg land nearby. >> ( translated ): my thoughts are to develop this area and to avenge the blood of the martyrs. >> reporter: the next day, isis' defeat was announced. the islamic state made its las stand here, in a tiny village called baghouz near the syrian-iraqi border in march.

it left a trail of destruction as they slowly retreated under intense fire. in the end, tens of thousands of its fighters, wives, and children surrendered. the rest fought to the death. the group lives on as an insurgency, but no longer controls any territo. it was the last gasp following five years of brutal rule by is over an area once the size of great britain, stretching across syria and iraq, and the result of an historic military partnership between the u.s. and the local kurdish militia inno rtheast syria. in 2015, they formed a new force, the syrian democraticor fo s.d.f. it combined kurdish fightersra with local a. the s.d.f. battled isis on the ground, guided by american special forces, while u.s.je fighte and their coalition partners pounded isis targets with air strikes. warian qamishli is a kurd has been commanding all-female

s.d.f. fighters in this area throughout the w against isis. to her, this was a deeply personal mission >> ( translated isis attacked us. they took the yazidi women and kept them as sex slaves. they wanted to destroy the yazidi religion. they wanted to rebuild their caliphate here. not only women-- everyone in this area held weapons and stood against this barbarian enemy. we have nothing other than this land, and, as women, if they attack us, we will take up weapons anfight. anyone would resist. >> reporter: as the battlefield fighting ends here, the geopolitics becomes more dangerous. in many ways, the defeat of isis as a group that can control its own territory syria is really just the ending of one phase of this war and the beginning of a very new, complex, and dangerous time. ths e kueated their own semi-autonomous area of syria,

called rojava, back when the syrianution began, pushing back government forces from their areas. long marginalized and discriminated against by the governnt in damascus, they finally achieved their goal of limited self-rule.li their ce with u.s. troops gave the kurds the strength to solidify their territorial gains. with american boots on the ground, thassad regime was not going to march in. then, suddenly last december, president trump announced on twitter,efore the battle against isis was over, that all 2,000 u.s. troopwould be leaving syria. the news shocked u.s. miliry officials, kurdish commanders, and the diplomatic community. the u.s. secretary of defee, jim mattis, and american commander in charge of the alliance with the kurds, bret mcgurk, both resigned. >> ( translated ): to beonest this decision surprised us, especially when the fighting against the terroras not finished. >> reporter: amjad othman is t

spokesperson of the syrian democratic council, the political umbrella of the s.d.f. >> ( translated ): it was not only the kurds who were shocked this decision. the christians were surprised, too, and also other arabs in the area. they know the regime will take revenge on them, so all the people in this area were fearful. it was not only the kurds who were nervous. >> reporter: since his tweet, president trump has backtracked, saying 400 u.s. troops will stas ia, half of them supporting the kurds. mona yacoubian is an analyst at the congressionally-funded u.s. institute of pe thshington. >> well, i think iu.s. pulls out or even leaves just a small, residual folle, the kurds ind themselves, i think, in a very precarious position. and the... the semi-automous area that they've managed to carve out of northeastern syria, the system of governance and security, all of that-- the

kurdish project if, you will-- i think will indeecome under threat should the u.s. withdraw. >> reporter: an even greater threat to the kurds is neighboring turkey. for decades, the turkish government has fought an armed kurdish insurgency inside turkey, called the p.k.k., that demands an independent breakaway state. both the u.s. and turkey consider the p.k.k. a terrorist organization. turkey says the syrian kurdish forces are one and the same as the p.k.k. and will not be tolerated on its border. in january of last year, the turkish military moved across the border into syria and invaded the kurdish-controlled area, afrin, easily pushing back the kurdish forces. turkey continues to threaten another invasion into kurdish areas across the border in syria, to push the kurdish forces back from the border. >> the kurds have already been pushed out of a canton further i

west in syriafrin. and there, the... the turks have invaded and... and occupied this space. and by all accounts, at least from the kurdish sids has led to forced displacemeev, atrocities ethnic cleansing. and so, i thk that the kurds view as a very serious existential threat the prospect of any sort of turkish invasion further to northeastern syria. >> reporter: the experience of a turkish invasion into their syrian territory has shaken leadership in kurdish syria. >> ( translated ): wn turkey started attacking afrin, we launched a resistance. the resistance went on for 58 days. we defended ourselves from the attacks and didn't attack anyone. we didn't attack the turkish vernment, and we didn't even attack the syrian government. we were just defending ourselves. look at the border. we are not occupying any turkish cities. >> reporter: because turkey is a

member of the nato alliance, the white house is in a tough position deciding whom to back. the kurds are american battlefield partners who have fought and died alongside u.s. troops, but turkey is an important nato partner. president trump's shock announcement caused the kurds to reach out to an unlikely ally: the syrian regime. they have t odds with the damascus regime for years, wut doing a deh the regime may be the only way the kurds could k.hold off a turkish attac dr. abdulkarim omar, co-chairman of foreign affairs for the kurdish authority in northeastern syria, says the kurds have also react to russia. >> ( translated ): when trump tweeted, we had a meeting with the russians and gave them a road map to find a solutn for syria, but the damascus regime is not ready to solve the problem. the regime is still thinking in the same mentality from before 2011. assad wants to control all of syria through the military.

>> reporter: despite the kurds' unsuccessful attempt to enter peace talks last year, further discussions with the damascus regime are inevitable. >> i think ultimately for the kurds, the end game is one of survival and lies very much in trying to reach some sort of negotiation with the syrian regime. , reporter: all the whilee fight against isis isn't over. the group may have lost all its territory, but it hasn't died. it is still all over the area the syrian democratic forces controls, hidden amongst the population. roadside bombs and assassinations are common. >> ( translated ): the end of isis geographically and as a state doesn't mean the end of terratism. thate will start now. isis is underground and has tens of sleeper cells. their ideology is still on the ground in the areas that they used to control. ♪ ♪ >> rorter: meanwhile, the white house remains vague about

the number of u.s. troops to stay on the ground in northeast syria, while trying ld bring in sors from partner countries a suchs the u.k. or france. so far, there has been no progress on this plan. as syria's kurds enter this unstable new phase of e war, they find their u.s. allies on the ground inconstanand the future of their hard-won territory at the mercy of others. >> sreenivasan: for more than 25 years, joseph kony and the lord's resistance army terrorized citizens in uganda, killing tens of thousands, abducting more than 25,000 children to become soldiers and sex slaves, and displacing more than two million people. i recently spoke with shannon sedgwick davis, an attorney, human rights advocate, and president and c.e.o. of the bridgeway foundation, who, in an

attempt to stop the violent armed group, stepped outside the traditional threshold of philan. she's written her account in a book, "to stop a warlord: my peory of justice, grace and the fight foe." there are lots of problems you could tackle. why this? >> yeah, so, our foundation has a mission statement to stop genocide and mass at on the globe, and we just found that we weren't doing that. we found that we were funding a and after the 2008 christmas a.ssacres committed by the l.n which over... almost 800 people were killed over a series of time that they were actually there for their christmas prayers, we really had to take hard look at ourselves and our mission statement and asif we were doing what we said we were going to do. and that's when we decided to embark on this very unlikely alliance. >> sreivasan: now, this was... you've basically decided to help train an army to go find joseph kony. that's a pretty drastic step >> yes, definitely drastic. and we looked at gaps in the mission. we spent a lot of time on the ground with the local heroes and

community leaders who really did have the solutions at hand and really did know what it was going to take. and we kept hearing two things, that communications was a gap. this is an area where there no cell phone coverage and often not even h.f. radio coverage. and so, one community would be attacked by the l.r.a., and then ae l.r.a. would travel to a nearby communi attack that same community, and they leuldn't have warning of that. and so, we were abo do some things and work with some locald s to actually bring h.f. radio systems to a lot of these communities so that theyh ould give eher early warning. but another particular gap that you pointed to that we actually found alon in training.this gap the l.r.a. was operating in these small, nimble groups in the area the size of california under triple canopy forest bten, and there needed to some training for the troops that were actually pursuing him, the african union troops. >> sreenivasan: the trainingis a lot of sort of ethical dilemmas and questions.

how did you get through that? i mean, this is pretty precedent-setting. and were you concerned that this would open a floodgate of philanthropically-funded armies? >> yes, absotely challenging. and we had to spend a long time sitting and listening what we were asked to come and bring and solutions that others and experts that were much smarter than us thought that the area in the region needed. but what we couldn't sit with... it was very difficult to sit with the idea that we would actually intervene in this way, but what we knew we absolutely couldn'tit with was just hundreds of people continuing to be killed this way. the year before we intervened, there were 776 killed by the l.r.a. the year that we ended our strategic support alongside a multitude of amazing partners in an alliance we had, there were 12 killed. and last year, the l.r.a. killed eight. that's still too many, but we could no longer sit with this. >> sreenivasan: to see our full interview with shannon sedgwick

davis online, visit www.pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: someone's going to look at this thd say, "look, spent all this time, they trained all these people, and that guy is still out there." >> yesjoseph kony does remain, and our work remains because of that. you know, kony h a particular m.o., and he would go into... they would go into villages, and they would kidnap young children and then, those children wouldul timately become commanders in the army. td those folks did not want to be outre and did not want to be fighting for this cause. and when we stopped focusing on e ny in particular and started focusing on all thwho wanted to come home, that's where we reallyaw success. and we had folks that would actually travel back to the region and identify familyme ers for those still fighting in the l.r.a. and would record messages from those family membs. and we would plug our cell phones, our iphones, into these speakers that we had on our helicopter and hover over these regions.

and in the aftermath, 730 came out and are free now today. are there other philanthropies trying to fill a gap that government accounts not finish the task? yes there is simply not enough being done. you only have to turn on your tv or your radio yeah, there's simply not enough being done. ramean, you only have to turn on your tv or youo for a few minutes to realize that the world is on fire and that there are so many conflicts just blazing on the gand we're just simply not doing enough. we're not responding. ooand my hope is that this shows that there really doesn't have to be a fence aroe human heart, that we actually can engage these issues and that thwee are different ways tha can try to engage these issues, ways that are different than have ever been tried before. >> sreenivasan: all right, the book warlord.""to stop a author shannon sedgwick davis, ks so much for joining u >> thank you for having me.

>> sreenivasan: finally tonight, heavy rains and fl are predicted again across the south this weekend, and in new orleans, officials have opened a spillway to relieve stress on the city's levees as the mississippi river continues to rise. this is the first time the spillway-- which is near the city-- has been used twice in a single year, and only the 14th time it's been opened since it was built in 1927. that's a for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made e ossible by:

bernard and irhwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. seton melvin. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t. vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. .rosalind p. walt barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. support has been provided by: and by the corporation for puic broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. be more. pbs. er

annouon this episode of "earth focus," lessons learned during hurricane katrina are being put to the test along the coast of louisiana. some predict new orleal be submerged by the end of this century. the region's survival depends on its ability to adapt to climatehange. if successful, louisiana may provide a blueprint for others around the world. [film advance clicking]