captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, agony and outrage-- the georgia shootings highlight the increasing danger faced by asian-americans, with one lawmaker calling this a crisis point. then, hot spots-- spikes in covid cases in several states raise concerns over new variants and re-opening too early. and, work shift-- rhode island uses covid relief dollars to stimulate an economy decimated by the pandemic. >> there are a lot of jobs that with a reasonable amount of training, one can be real good at and thrive. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: fear and fallout from the deadly shootings in atlanta are still echoing tonight. investigators have not identified a motive, but the issue of hate crimes against asians headlined a hearing in washington today. lisa desjardins reports. (gavel pounds) >> desjardins: for the first time in more than 30 years, a congressional hearing on

discrimination against asians. an issue both public and personal for asian-american lawmakers in both parties. >> the asian american community has reached a crisis point that cannot be ignored. since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, asian americans have been terrified by the alarming surge in anti-asian bigotry and violence we have witnessed across our nation. >> 68% of these incidents and crimes were targeted towards asian american women. this has to stop. >> desjardins: the topic is especially poignant in the wake of deadly shootings at spas in the atlanta area this week. eight people were killed, six were women of asian descent. the full motive of the accused gunman, 21-year-old robert aaron long, is still being investigated, but its effects are reverberating nationwide. numerous cities held vigils last night, moments of grief and frustration.

>> it's heartbreaking to notice and realize that time after time similar issues happen and it's as if we're never heard, it's as if the government doesn't care. >> desjardins: back at today's >> desjardins: witnesses pointed to a long history of bigotry and abuse, from the chinese exclusion acts of the 19th century, to japanese internment in world war ii, to recent, vicious acts of violence, including this assault on a 91- year-old man in oakland's chinatown, and just yesterday, an elderly woman in san francisco. this, witnesses argued, undergirds less visible but also powerful issues. actor and advocate daniel dae kim: >> i was speaking to a pollster during the recent ections and i asked him why, when i see polling results broken down by race, do i so rarely see asian americans as a separate category. he looked me dead in the eye and said “because ian americans are considered ¡statistically insignificant.'” >> desjardins: it was a complex and at times tense hearing, as

some democrats raised racial slurs used against asians, including during the pandemic. >> i'm asking you to please stop using racist terms like ¡kung flu' or ¡wuhan virus' or other ethnic identifiers and describe them as virus. i am not a virus. >> desjardins: republicans, like chip roy of texas pushed back, arguing that too much is being made of race as a motive and america as racist and it is chilling free speech. >> it seems to want to venture into the policing of rhetoric in a free society, free speech and shouldn't be worried about having a committee of members of congress policing our rhetoric because some evil doers go engage in some evil activity, as occurred in atlanta, georgia. >> desjardins: to that, congresswoman grace meng reacted strongly. >> your president and your party and your colleagues can talk about issues with any other country that you want, but you don't have to do it by putting a bullseye on the backs of asian

americans across this country, on our grandparents, on our kids. this hearing was to address the hurt and pain in our community and to find solutions and we will not let you take our voice away from us. >> desjardins: at the white house, president biden ordered flags on federal property to fly at half staff for four days to honor the shooting victims in atlanta. he and vice president kamala harris travel there tomorrow to meet with asian american leaders. for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. >> woodruff: we explore the response to the rising violence against asian americans with democratic congresswoman judy chu, of california. she is the chair of the congressional asian pacific american caucus and as we saw a moment ago in lisa's report, she testified at today's hearing. >> congress woman chu thank you very much for joining us, we appreciate it. we still don't know the full

motive or the information about what happened in this shooting, the shootings in the atlanta area, we do know six victims were asian american women, and the new york times is reporting that the shooter visited two of those spas priously. is it -- do you believe right w, that it is right to call this an asian amican hate crime? even as we don't have the full picture yet? >> i do think this is an anti-asian hate crime. the reason iay this is that this shooter starts this at a business called the young asian massage. he clearly knew who he was targeting. and then he drove 27 miles to a mall to do even more shooting, but went to two asian spas. now, if this was an issue of his

sexual addiction, he could have stopped anywhere in the atlanta area anywhere else but no. he specifically chose three asia spas where obviously he would do a majority of killing on asian women. so i think it was deliberate. and also remember that when people commit crimes they may have multiple reasons for why they do it. and many times they don't say that hate is a part of it. they don't think of themselves as haters. but clearly, he had some issue with asians and possibly women as well. so i am just heart broken over this. i am still in shock and i cannot believe that this was the largest mass shoong since the pandemic began. but so it is. and yet this day was coming,

because we've had a whole year worth of hate crimes against api's related to covid 19. all starting with when donald trump started using the terms china virus wuhan virus and even kong flu. >> how do you lay the blame at the feet of president trump? there's no question he called it the china virus repeatedly. we also know there's been an anti-asian american thread running through much of american history going back to the internment. the japanese cams around world war ii. and even earlier than that. >> we do know that asian americans and asian businesses were starting to experience dirty looks and ugly rumors, around january, before donald trump accelerated his rhetoric. but it was in march when he

started calling it the china virus and wuhan virus, even though the cdc and the world health organization warned not to use such terms because of the stigma that would have to those from different geographical locations and those with specific ethnicities. so they knew that it would cause harm. and in fact, we, the congressional asian pacific caucus, did numerous things, press conferences, statements, letters to them. to have them cease using these terms because of the harm i would cause asian americans. instead, donald trump doubled down using it more and saying i at all his rallies and having his republican followers say it. as a result we saw anti-hate slang and rhetoric increase by 900% on twitter, and anti-asian

hate crimes increase by 150% in major asian cities during this time period. so i do lay this straight at the feet of donald trump >> ngress woman have you yourself been on the receiving end of anti-anything language? >> of course. we have this kind of thing going on all around our neighborhoods. actually, i feel so much for my constituents, who tell me stories over and over again, and one constituent, one city had a busstop when a man assaulted him with his own cane causing him to lose part of his fingers. so it just make myself blood curdle to think of what people are going through, how vulnerable they feel just walking out in the public and not knowing if they're going to be attacked just for being who

they are. >> what do you think finally is the most important thing that the congress can do, that the president can do to address the kind of discrimination and the kind of out and out hate that you say has become the problem that it is in this country? >> well, the president took a great step forward, president biden, by issuing the executive order within the first week of his taking office. condemning the anti-asian hate crimes and incidents. but also saying that the department of justice should work with the aapi community in deveping programs that would com bat anti-asian hate. this is extremely significant. we need to have grant programs that will allow local law enforcement agencies to develop their hate crime programs and have a training that is

necessary to combat this. and we need to engage the aaipcommunity have it translated into these resources as well as bilingual hot line that is make it he does for api community members to call if they are having a hate crime issue or a hate crime incident that occurs to them. so there are many steps that can be done, by the way, these are all encompassed also in the built that we want passed the no hate act as well as the covid 19 anti-hate act. both these bills would provide a great source of resources that could indeed improve the way we deal with hate crimes in this couny >> congress woman judy chu of california thank you very much for talking with >> woodruff: as many mourn the killings in georgia, a troubling

new report casts a wider lens on the growth and dissemination of hateful speech around the country. amna nawaz looks at the alarming levels it is reaching. >> nawaz: that's right, judy. that report from the anti- defamation league shows the amount of white supremacist propaganda nearly doubled in the last year. that included racist, anti- semitic and anti-l.g.b.t.q. fliers, stickers, banners and posters. the report noted more than 5,000 incidents or over 14 a day. cases were found in every state with the exception of hawaii. and at least 30 groups distributed this kind material but three were responsible for more than 90% of it. for more on this we're joined by the c.e.o. and national director of the anti-defamation league, jonathanreenblatt. welcome back to the news hour and thank you for being here. we're talking about this distribution how is it being

delivered and why in this increase now. >> few things. first this was so ugly about this moment in time and what we uncovered in this report, these stickers, fliers, posters, leaflets, they didn't show up in the dark recesses a place where you wouldn't find it. they show up in very public spots. in college towns, coffee shops, oh and mains main street, which is exactly the intent over the straight whose dropped this propaganda they want to find ways to get the message out to the masses and terrorize people who marginalize communities who see this kind of content. so it's a very deliberate effort to infiltrate society and they come out of the shadows to do it and then the flyers and stuff that can retreat back into the shadows, again, it's intended to engender fear to spread anxiety and create terror >> what do we know about why you're seeing disturbing increase over last year?

do you have reasons for it >> no question that in 2020 we had an environment where, treatment of its weren't just empty bowl don'ted, they were energized, he and his fellow travelers from white house staff to members of congress to elected officials would repeat their rhetoric, would actually credential white supremist media for white house events as inexplicable as that may be and refuse to consistently and clearly and cogently call them out in prior generations and elected officials always had done. republicans and democrats across the board. used to routinely recognize the threat that extremism and hate would pose to all of our society. so when elected officials fail to do that, when people in positions of authority look away or dismiss it or worse tell these people to quote stand back and stand by, or suggest that

you know, you're very fine people, that doesn't dog whistle, it's a bull horn they hear and feel validated and that gives them even more momentum. >> i want you to asking you about other report this week, it is related. intelligence and homeland security officials released an unclassified report. they say extremists potty 58ed by race or ethnicity, they quote the most lee although violent extremist threat. have you seen any of that in correlation to the increase in this kind of propaganda >> no doubt we've seen a surge of hate crimes in recent years. we can simply look at the number of anti-semitic incidents where after a 15-year decline in 2016 they went up 37%, 16, 30 some --

201758, %, that brought up the tree of life massacre the most violent anti-semitic act in american history and from tree of life to el paso back to charleston to charlottesville to even the events in atlanta this week, what we need to recognize is that those aren't out liars, if you will, those are actually data points on a trend line. and what that trend line tells us is that this environment has been conditioned to the point where prejudice has become simply more pedestrian, hate is part of the republic conversation, and bad actors feel like they're impulses can be acted upon. so i think we're in a very precarious position. and what it shows us we should also recognize is that it can start with name calling then moves to propaganda, to violence, ultimately to

vandalism and ultimately escalates to violence. so if you don't interrupt intolerance, if you don't step up and push back on prejudice, it can met it has size into something much worse >> jonathan greenblatt, ceo of the anti-defamation league, thank you for being here again, appreciate it. >> thank you. ♪ ♪ >> woodruff: in the day's other news, the u.s. will send a combined four million doses of astrazeneca's covid vaccine to mexico and canada. the biden administration has stockpiled doses, pending the vaccine's approval here. last week, the white house said president biden was not ready to share the supply, but that changed today. >> our first priority remains vaccinating the u.s. population, the reality is, but the reality is that border knows no, the the pandemic knows no borders and ensuring our neighbors can contain the virus is a mission

critical step, is mission critical to ending the pandemic. >> woodruff: meanwhile, mexico announced travel curbs along its southern border, to contain covid. growing numbers of central american migrants have been heading north, toward the u.s. the european union's drug regulatory agency said today the astrazeneca vaccine does not pose a significant threat of blood clots. a number of european states had suspended use of the vaccine, pending the findings. the fight over wearing face masks sparked fireworks at a u.s. senate hearing today. kentucky republican rand paul, himself a physician, rejected c.d.c. guidance to keep wearing masks after being vaccinated. white house advisor dr. anthony fauci said the science shows virus variants are still a threat. >> when you talk about reinfection, and you don't keep in the concept of variants,

that's an entirely different ball game. that's a good reason for a mask. >> you want people to get the vaccine? give them a reward instead of telling them that the nanny state's going to be there for three more years and you gotta wear a mask forever. people don't want to hear it and there's no science behind it. >> well, let me just state for the record that masks are not thear. masks are protective. and we have... (crosstalk) >> if you have immunity, they are theater. if you already have immunity, you are wearing a mask to give comfort to others. you're not wearing a mask because of any science. >> i totally disagree with you. >> woodruff: later, president biden again pleaded with americans to keep wearing masks. he also said his goal of 100 million vaccinations during his first 100 days in office will be met tomorrow, 41 days early. the u.s. senate today confirmed xavier becerra as the secretary of health and human services. the california state attorney general squeaked through, 50 to 49.

democrats rejected republican claims that he's too liberal and knows little about health care policy. the u.s. house of representatives moved late today to pass two major immigration bills. they grant legal status and potential citizenship to some two million dreamers, brought here illegally as children, and one million fa workers. the two parties jousted over the need for action, versus border enforcement. >> dreamers are doctors, nurses, lab technicians, contact tracers, and job creators. farm workers are getting infected and dying from covid at a much higher rate than the general public. they are literally dying to feed you. >> there are legal avenues to enter our country. doing otherwise is a violation of our laws. unfortunately house democrats are not interested in making any serious attempt to address this crisis.

today we are voting on two bills that not only do nothing to address the problem, it ignores the problem. it will actually worsen the situation. >> woodruff: it is unclear what the bills' chances are in the evenly divided senate. the biden administration's first high-level talks with china have begun in anchorage, alaska. secretary of state antony blinken arrived today. he's joined by national security adviser jake sullivan for two days of meetings with china's top two diplomats. russian president vladimir putin accused president biden of hypocrisy today. biden said this week that he believes putin is a killer. in response, putin said it's biden who represents a history of violence. >> ( translated ): regarding the american establishment, its identity was formed in circumstances that are well known. the colonization of the american continent by europeans was tied with the extermination of the local peoples.

this was followed by a brutal, long and difficult period of slavery. all of this continues in history to this day. otherwise, where would the black lives matter movement have come from? >> woodruff: a u.s. intelligence report this week said russ tried to hurt mr. biden's chances in the u.s. presidential election. the kremlin denied that. back in this country, a former ambassador to russia, william burns, has won senate confirmation to be director of the c.i.a. it came without opposition, on a voice vote. powerful storms rolled across more of the deep south today, with georgia, florida and the carolinas bracing for possible tornadoes. an apparent twister struck southwest alabama on wednesday, tearing out trees and damaging homes. but, there were no deaths. claims for unemployment benefits jumped to 770,000 last week, up 45,000. and, wall street was down today, on falling oil prices and rising

interest rates. the dow jones industrial average lost 153 points to close at 32,862. the nasdaq fell 409 points, 3%, and, the s&p 500 slid 58. still to come on the newshour: spikes in covid cases raise concerns over new variants. afghanistan peace talks continue as president biden weighs a troop withdrawal. despite the repeal of the travel ban, many families remain separated by the u.s. immigration system. plus much more. >> woodruff: coronavirus cases in the united states are down substantially from the height of

the last wave, but new data indicates hot spots are picking up once again. william brangham has the details. >> brangham: judy, new cases were up in 15 states over the past week. that includes places like, new york, new jersey, tennessee. and there's concern about hot spots emerging in minnesota and michigan. all of this comes as many states are re-opening even more widely. and, overall, new infections are still high: nearly 60,000 reported yesterday. there were 1100 more deaths as the u.s. is closing in on an overall toll of 540,000 people who've died. dr. ashish jha is back with us tonight to talk about all of this. he's the dean of the school of public health at brown university. very good to see you again. we were what seemed like on a pretty solid decline for many weeks.

now that seems to have plateaued and we're reporting there are upticks in certain places. what is going on? >> thanks for having me on, i'll tell you what's happening here. this is really an effe of variants and one specific variant of the b-117, initially found in the u.k. it is now probably 40% of all infections maybe 50% in the united states. and before the end of this month, we'll be close to 90 or 100% of the infections, it's a much more contagious variant. and it is spreading more quickly and this is the variant that's causing the problems in europe, leading to lockdowns and it is really slowing down our decline in the united states. >> as you were saying this is a known to be more contagious variant. does the evidence seem clear to you as i read in some places this is also a variant likely to make people sicker and if so, would we see a rise in hospitalizations and deaths

coming down the road? >> yes. so there's no doubt about the contagiousness. it's a far more contagious virus. on the issue of is it more lethal, if you get it? there is some evidence to suggest that it might be. the best news about this variant is that our vaccines work really well again. there's no problemn terms of vaccine efficacy against this variant. in terms of hospitalizations and deaths, we do have one advantage. which is we have managed to vaccinate a lot of older and high risk people, not everybody, but a lot. i'm hoping while we might see a bump in hospitalizations it won't being a like the winter surge that we saw. >> do you think that there's a possibility that some of this uptick is also people just frankly being sick of the pandemic and letting their guard down >> no doubt about it we've seen states starting to open up. a lot of states are going to full restaurant capacity. and this is not the moment to do it. i don't think we're that far away from the moment where we can open things up much more in

a way that's safe. we're probably four weeks away from maybe six weeks away from that. we're not quite there yet and i think some states are going a little too fast. >> as judy mentioned president biden said today we'll hit the 100 million vaccination mark tomorrow. that's -- i think over a quarter of the country. seems we're so close and yet, i don't know, do you share that real concern that this might be a moment where we let our guard down and this gets out of our hands again >>. >> it's been such a long pandemic. here we are, i sort of feelike we're at the five yard line and got the ball and we should just hold on to the ball. what's happening is we want to stop. look, i think by mid to late april, every high risk person who wants the vaccine will have gotten one. at that point, it becomes much safer to start relaxing public health measures. and that's what we have to do and that's what we should be

doing, this is not about wait three or six months, it's literally mid to late april. people tired, states opening up i understand i wish we could hold on a bit longer. >> just weeks away, as you say. about the astrazeneca news, we saw today that the u.s. announced they're going to send several million doses to canada and to mexico, this is a drug that has been used all over europe and elsewhere, but not approved for use in the u.s. we now heard the european medical agency saying they don't think there's ahealth risk with the vaccine, are you glad to see the u.s. finally shipping this vaccine abroad. >> i am. we have about 30 million doses stock-piled. it's not authorized for use in the united states. i think that at earliest it will be authorized say a month and a half or two, by that time time we'll have so much vaccine we're probably not going to need to use the astrazeneca vaccine, it's a good vaccine, made a big

impact in the u.k. europe is using it. no reason for us to be stock piling and keeping 30's million doses of a vaccine we're unlikely to ever use, i would much rather get it to countries that can use it now to save lives. and we'll be fine. it will have no impact on american's's ability to get vaccinated of. >> dr. ashish jha. always good to have you. thank you. >> thank you. >> >> woodruff: today in moscow, the u.s. and a half dozen countries are holding a summit about afghanistan, and how best to end the war the u.s. launched almost 20 years ago. to discuss the prospects for peace and the biden administration's afghanistan policy, we turn to nick schifrin >> hello nick, tell us what do we know about what's bee wind gust discussed in moscow and how

does that fit in with the biden administration's approach? >> moscow hosted these talks for years, judy but u.s. officials hope these talks begin an international diplomatic push that leads to a peace deal in afghanistan and a u.s. withdrawal ahead of an impending deadline. the talks brought the americans, the russians, the chinese, afghan delegation, including former president and the taliban around one table. u.s. is trying to rally international opinion in order to pressure the taliban to agree to a cease fire and the afghan government to step down. in a draft peace proposal first reported by tolo news, the u.s. is calling for replacing the current government with a traditional peace government a new constitution written by a committee almost half taliban, new taliban lawmakers, new supreme courts half taliban and a national cease fire and secretary of state tony blinking

wrote a letter urging gani to develop constructive positions and ended with an unmistakenible threat. united states has not ruled out any option, we're considering the full withdrawal of our forces by may 1st. that is the withdrawal date the u.s. and the taliban agreed to last february under president trump along with the taliban talk peace and prevented al-qaeda from having a safe haven in afghanistan. u.s. is asking the afghan president and the government to step down before a negotiated peace. >> tell us how is the afghan government responding to that? >> senior afghan tells me they welcome the push but point out the u.s. not delivered a promise reduction in violence. and also calls the biden approach fast food, as in it's forcing everything to consume something that is too quick to succeed. and president gani himself insisted if he steps down he

will do so with a new election and he criticized the new u.s. approach. >> any institution can write a fantasy on a piece of paper and suggest a solution for afghanistan. i advise those who go to this or that to gain power is that political power in afghanistan has a singular gate and that is the vote of the afghan people. >> senior u.s. officials tell me that is not good enough that the government must agree to step down without a new election as for the taliban, judy, they reject the part of the cease proposal that requires them to have a national cease fire before peace agreement >> and nick, tell us more about what is behind this push by the biden administration and how are analysts on the outsidjudging this? >> president trump pushed for as rapid a withdrawal from afghanistan as possible. and that led to that 2020 deal that required the u.s. to

withdrawal by may 1st and senior biden officials say that left them in an almost impossible position. they abide by the deal and withdrawal but would reduce u.s. leverage over he peace talks but they nationally told security advisors it would lead to the disintegration of the afghan government or a violent civil war or the u.s. could ignore the deadline but that would leave the taliban to resume attacks on u.s. troops. and this week, president biden criticized the deal suggesting that it had boxed him into a corner. >> i was not a very solid negotiated deal that the president, the former president worked out. >> may 1st is tough. >> could happen. but it is tough. >> the administration is pushing for this diplomatic progress to make progress in the next few weeks. but analysts say that is not a lot of time. and they say that a provisional government would likely be two

weeks to actually survive. take a listen to the international crisis group laura miller who urges the biden team to support the current government. >> meeting behind an afghan government as dysfunctional and weak as it may be, but that still standing is better for afghanistan, better for u.s. interest than leaving behind a cobbli together traditional government that has no real foundation and consensus that would not survive an american withdrawal or the collapse of the peace process. and that would simply lead to the collapse of the afghan state as we know it. i don't think a genuine peace process, which takes time, can be relaced by the quicky peace process that tries to take shortcuts >> under and other analysts have other ideas including six-month extension of the withdrawal deadline to try and make more

diplomatic progress or putting the un in charge. they do not want the u.s. to stay in afghanistan indefinitely but the fact is afghan security forces admit they cannot secure their own country without u.s. help. the taliban has provincial capitol surrounded in the campaign have left many afghans feeling unsafe but the diplomatic push will continue even if hard to succeed. next month it will be a higher level about afghanistan in turkey among foreign mnuchin ministry. nick schifrin covering it all for us, thank you. >> >> woodruff: nearly eight weeks have passed since president biden lifted one of his predecessor's most controversial immigration policies-- a policy which many have come to know as the "muslim ban." yet despite that early action, many separated families still

remain blocked from entering the united states. newshour special correspondent james fox has the story. >> reporter: inside the arrivals terminal at louisville international airport, a moment once considered impossible is finally taking place. >> look, he's coming, he's coming! >> reporter: a family split in two-- the mother and children building a new life in kentucky, the father trying to escape an old life in iran-- is finally reuniting after being separated for nearly five years. >> we proved to each other that we are belonging to each other forever, because even the separation couldn't separate us. >> reporter: farshad amirkhani was supposed to fly to the u.s. in 2017, only months after his wife and children made the journey themselves. but that all changed when then- president donald trump signed an

executive order now known by many as the “muslim ban”-- a ban which went into force the very same day that amirkhani was scheduled to enter the u.s. as a father, amirkhani has missed out on nearly half of his children's lives, so he is humbled to be one of the first iranian immigrants to re-settle in the u.s. in years. >> home sweet home? >> this is your home! >> reporter: their reunification is, in large part, thanks to a series of executive orders signed by president joe biden on his first day in office-- one of which fulfilled a signature campaign promise: to lift his >> if i have the honor of being president, i will end the muslim ban on day one. and we're gonna restore american leadership around the world starting by putting our democratic values and our diplomacy at the center of our foreign policy again. >> reporter: biden also instructed his state department to resume visa processing, particularly for those who had already been interviewed by a consular officer, like amirkhani.

still, even with many of the trump-era travel bans out of the way, some critics believe that biden has not moved quickly enough to reverse all of his predecessor's policies. specifically, two travel ban extensions, presidential proclamation 10014 and 10052, which had halted all legal immigration during the pandemic, were not lifted by the president until the end of february, five weeks after his inauguration. now, for most visa applicants, that five week delay was just another hurdle in what is already a very long line of obstacles. but for thousands of others who had been granted temporary visas to enter the u.s. between 2020 and 2021, a delay like this is potent while many may have been approved to come to the u.s. just as those additional bans were put in place, the expiration date on their visas has not changed. meaning their travel window, which was originally about ten months, has been reduced to a matter of weeks. what's more, a backlog in applications, combined with the pandemic, means some of those promised visas are now beginning to expire before they can even

be delivered by the state department. >> what we're facing is all of their immigration paths end, and when i say end i mean end. >> reporter: curtis morrison is an immigration attorney who has been suing the biden administration to lift the immigration bans extended by president trump in his final weeks in office. his lawsuits, four in total, are still being argued in virtual court on behalf of more than 2,000 plaintiffs who are running out of time to get into the country before their long- awaited visas expire. that is, unless congress or the courts intervene. >> so these people were extremely lucky to be selected once. the idea that they could be selected another time is a very remote possibility. so basically they have been selected, they have gone through the process, they have been issued the visas, they have done everything right. they've made all these arrangements, they went to hotels, sometimes in third countries, to prepare to come to the u.s. as soon as the proclamation was over. and then trump extended it, and

biden let it stay. >> reporter: ever since his first daughter was born in 2019, pouria mojabi, an iranian-born tech entrepreneur in oakland, has been working with curtis morrison to bring his parents to the u.s. to help him and his wife raise their children. even though he is an american citizen, his parent's hopes of watching their grandchildren grow have been made impossible by the muslim ban. >> we just wanted to see my parents, and we fought every single day. i mean nothing worked. this past three, four years-- i did-- i personally did a lot of protesting. i am part of two, three different lawsuits. spent a lot of money for legal fees. fought with every possible thing we could. i mean nothing worked. >> reporter: nor is anything expected to work, at least soon, because as of today, u.s. consular officers have not even scheduled an interview with his parents, an essential step towards being issued a visa. responding to questions on how they were addressing the

backlog, the state department told the newshour, “we are working daily to find ways to increase the number of immigrant visa appointments despite covid- 19.” >> we talk to them by internet but we are not sure whether they know us at all, whether they love us at all. and that is suffering. >> reporter: suffering, curtis morrison believes, which is unlikely to end with a new president. >> i do think the biden administration will use the pandemic as an excuse to not follow through with promises, specifically about immigration especially. becauseven if he does undo trump's policy, it's not going to solve the problems that trump

created. that is going to take some very creative solutions and a big commitment, ambitious commitment, and i don't think that the will is there. >> reporter: despite the families who long for it to be. for the pbs newshour, i'm james fox. >> woodruff: this week marked the 52nd straight week with high unemployment claims. all told, more than a million people filed for state and emergency fedel unemployment benefits. the state of rhode island is working to match several thousand of its residents with employers who need employees. paul solman has the report for our series, "work shift", which focuses on navigating the job market in a post-covid economy.

>> reporter: i'm thinking of changing careers. what have you got? >> do you want a law enforcement career? >> reporter: meet “skipper,” rhode island's job matchmaker, hooking up employers looking for labor with the state's unemployed due to covid. erica hanley worked for a travel agency. >> all of a sudden, like everything stopped. and i lost my job. >> reporter: renato queiroz was running catering for a newport resort when covid hit. >> and i just didn't feel safe anymore, especially with weddings and parties, like you can't keep people apart. >> reporter: mary claussen had two retail jobs. both went kaput. >> i felt a lot of anxiety, what do i do now? >> reporter: and craig garner lost the latest of his many warehouse jobs. >> never over 12 dollars. >> reporter: never over 12 dollars an hour? >> nah, and if you got a raise, it was maybe like 10 cents, 15 cents. nothing you can like live off of, you know. >> reporter: just four of some 7,000 state residents who've

signed up with back to work rhode island, a program that's used cares act millions to train folks for jobs that the state's employers just can't fill. and it turns out there are plenty of those. >> it is very tough to find workers. i mean, you can schedule someone for an interview and they don't even come for their interview. >> reporter: karen paolucci heads h.r. at industrial robot maker yushin. >> last year, i spent $25,000 on recruiting fees, just trying to fill open positions. and with covid it didn't help. because if you could stay home, you could make the six hundred dollar stimulus on top of what you would receive from unemployment. >> reporter: now a number of academic studies dispute that the $600 discouraged work. but i've interviewed several workers and employers who echoed paolucci's stay-at-home claim. as for craig garner... did you know people who did that? >> absolutely, but i just, i couldn't be one of those people. >> reporter: so what did you do? >> it was tough because everything was shut down. and then eventually i started

seeing gina raimondo on tv. >> if you're a rhode islander and you're hearing this and you're out of rk and you're afraid, back to work r.i. >> reporter: that's former rhode island governor gina raimondo, now president biden's commerce secretary. >> this is a big deal. this isn't just job training. >> reporter: she also touted the back to work program to employers. >> this isn't train and pray. we're not going to train and pray you he folks. we will tailor these training initiatives so that when you hire someone you have confidence they're going to be able to do the job. >> reporter: so craig garner signed up and soon got an interview at yushin. he forgot, however, about dressing for success. >> craig came down in his jogging pants. and i wasn't 100% impressed. >> reporter: o thing that seemed to turn off people at yushin when you arrived was you were wearing sweatpants. >> man, after i left the building, i thought about that for like the whole month, if i lose this opportunity over sweatpants, i'll be very extremely mad.

>> reporter: especially since the job, in which he'd learn how to build robots, offered him a way out of dead end warehouse work. in the end... >> i wasn't happy with his jogging pants but he said, i want to work. if you give me a chance, i can prove you that i'll be an asset to your company. that hit my heart. >> you can never judge a book by its cover. never. >> reporter: and never judge a job applict by his sweat pants? >> yes. >> reporter: for craig garner then, not just a new job but a new career. same for laid-off retail worker mary claussen, age 32, who, one day last summer, happened to check out the state labor department's website. >> and i saw that the very next day they were having this zoom info session for this behavioral health specialist training. and i was like, oh, my gosh, i want to do this more than anything. >> reporter: you mean this was literally your dream job? >> yes. >> reporter: but, with no college degree, claussen felt she wasn't qualified.

now, after the five-week full time program, a collaboration of a local hospital, a community college and the state, she runs therapy groups for hospitalized adolescents. >> and there are more opportunities that sort of arise as you kind of move up in the ranks a bit. which is just this amazing feeling because we're there every day trying to help give these kids some bit of hope. to kind of feel some of that with sort of straightening out my own life is this really powerful thing. >> there are a lot of jobs that with a reasonable amount of training, one can be real good at and thrive. >> reporter: especially says scott jensen, head of the state's department of labor and training, if employers are intimately involved. and hand-holding would-be employees through the process. >> so did you like science class in high school? sure. i loved it. and you're in the hospitality industry now, ok? have you ever thought about being a process technologist? >> reporter: an advanced manufacturing worker, that is,

using cutting edge machines, as, for example, in the pharmaceutical industry. >> i was enamored with the idea of going from food to e sciences. >> reporter: turns out laid off catering manager renato queiroz had liked science class. >> biotechnology. right away i could see myself doing it. >> reporter: but biotech for a 31-year-old who had never even signed up for college? what went through your mind? >> that i must have been crazy. >> reporter: turns out he wasn't. >> i'm in talks with amgen right now, waiting for a start date. >> reporter:o you've actually already got a job in industry? >> correct. i am astounded because i didn't have any experience going in. >> reporter: but he got ten weeks of training, on state of e art equipment, just like he'll be using at amgen's new plant in rhode island. >> so it's basically getting those that are underemployed and unemployed, trained and ready to go and enter an industry that needs people to get into that

industry. >> give yourselves a round of applause. >> reporter: just like erica hanley, the former travel industry sales rep, now with a newly minted certificate in mortgage finance. >> they saw that people are retiring. so there was a need for trained individuals to come into the mortgage banking industry. >> reporter: and how much did this cost you? >> nothing. this was free. this was covered by the state of rhode island. >> reporter: but what if you can't afford to be out of work while training? >> we pay for people's laptops. we pay for things like your grocery bills, and things like new brakes for your car, for child care. >> reporter: we end this story with economist bob lerman, a skeptic of many job training programs. >> it's good, but it's just not, in my view, good enough. >> reporter: instead, lerman advocates “apprenticeship” programs, like the one he took us to years ago to at bmw's spartanburg, south carolina plant, where trainees are paid to learn on the job. >> and i'd like to have a little

bonus for completion so that there is an incentive for them to do a really good job, stay until the end of the apprenticeship and really master a skill. >> reporter: so, why not apprenticeships, i asked scott jensen? >> we see a lot of work to training programs that really are apprenticeship but just aren't called that. these are quicker. so apprenticeship by any other name is still a good deal. >> reporter: and that, thinks rhode island, is what they've got. for the pbs newshour, paul solman. >> woodruff: now, a reflection on heritage and how, in the melting pot of america, a name can provide a concrete link to family traditions. filmed before the georgia shootings, writer te-ping chen recently shared her "humble opinion" that people need to embrace ethnic names-- and not

shy away from them. >> as a child, i was given a boy's name. ours was a family of three girls, but my parents wanted to honor my paternal grandfather. i was their last child, so i wound up with his name. for years, my name, te-ping, has made me feel incredibly conspicuous. growing up in california, i learned to hate introducing myself, because so few people could ever pronounce my name. teee-ping? they'd say. tuh-ping, they'd say. my cheeks would burn, and i'd feel stiffly uncomfortable, like a searching spotlight moving over a crowd had suddenly fixed on me. in chinese, the name sounds gently affectionate and lilting to my ears, and the character is lovely. the "te" means “virtue,' "ping" means 'peace.' but in english, the letters looked clumsy to me on a page, awkward and off-balance. at restaurants and in coffee shops, i grew used to giving out a fake name, it was easier than hearing someone stumble over mine. and yet my parents were proud of the name, proud of what it stood for. they were americans, but they hadn't left their heritage behind. our family tradition of names

dates back centuries, to the ng dynasty, with every generation's name taking a different aracter from a poem, and in my generation's case, why would they throw that away for a jessica or a molly, a name that had no meaning to them? i now understand: we name ourselves to honor our forebearers who carried us here. a beloved grandmother, a so and so, the third. we anchor ourselves that way, we acknowledge the soil we're made from. history is precious. it doesn't survive unless you choose to embrace it. for so many years, my name has felt like a flag that's stuck out, bristling, from any form or name tag. but that's okay. it's a name that's made me think hard about identity. in that way, it's helped make me who i am, even when it's uncomfortable. i recently had a son, and we gave him a chinese name, too. his name means joy. it didn't occur to me to do it any other way. there's strength in saying that yes, you're here. we're here.

so what if the tongue stumbles? this is where we come from, and these are our names. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: we offer a variety of no- contract wireless plans for people who use their phone a little, a lot, or anything in between. to learn more, go to consumercellular.tv >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide.

>> the alfred p. sloan foundation. driven by the promise of great ideas. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> today, i thought it would be fun to do a fresh spin on a viennese classic, the wiener schnitzel, topped with a green goddess salad bowl along with lemon-pepper leaf potatoes. we'll also visit the charming town of durnstein to sample apricot liqueur and a small family-owned winery to taste one of my favorite wines, gruner veltliner. i love to travel the globe in search of new food and wine discoveries. for me, it's about more than returning home with a handful of new recipes. it's about taking the spirit of austria... of italy... of greece... and of the danube river... and injecting some of their magic into our everyday lives. food has a unique ability to transport us. join me as we discover new plates and places on our culinary journey together. >> "joanne weir's plates & places"