02/03/21 02/03/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! residents of burma protest monday's military coup by banging pots and pans from their windows as ousted leader aung

san suu kyi faces police charges. we will look at what the coup means for rohinga refugees who have faced decades of repression under the burmese military. >> my markham the military object declared -- have declared -- [indiscernible] then they made us homeless. then president biden has signed ,, three new executive orders on immigration even as hundreds have been deported. advocates say far more needs to beone. >> we are rking day in and day ouwith families that have been separated and tens of thousands of refugees that are stuck at the u.s.-mexico border. we were disappointed to say these -- s these ecutive orders do not have a clear cap toward unification more and do any of the harmful policies of the trump administration. amy: finally, jeff bezos has

announced he is stepping down as ceo of amazon amid new calls to break up the $1.7 trillion company. all that and more, coming up. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. house democrats say former president trump was singularly responsible for the january 6 insurrection at the u.s. capitol in a legal brief filed tuesday ahead of next week's impeachment trial. the lawmakers write -- "trump summoned a mob to washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down pennsylvania avenue." they also argue trump's baseless claims of election fraud helped rile up his base. trump's lawyers wrote in their own brief that trump had a right to question election results, and that the trial is unconstitutional since he is no longer in office.

meanwhile, president joe biden and first lady biden paid the respect to capitol police officer brian sicknick whose body lay in honor at the capitol rotunda on tuesday evening. five people lost their lives in that january 6 insurrection, two officers died by suicide following the attack. the u.s. will start shipping coronavirus vaccines to retail pharmacies next week, making the shot much more accessible to many around the acountry. the biden administration also said it is increasing the weekly vaccine allocation for states, tribes, and territories by 5% as public health experts urge speeding up vaccination as the best defense against fast-spreading variants. top infectious disease expert dr. anthony fauci said 70% to 80% of the u.s. population should be fully vaccinated

before the united states can return to a sense of normalcy. less than 2% of the population has been vaccinated so far. in related news, preliminary data from a new study show a single dose of the oxford-astrazeneca vaccine could cut transmission of the coronavirus by 67% and offer protection from the virus with up to 76% effectiveness for as long as 12 weeks. the findings support the strategy that some countries have employed of spacing out vaccine doses to get more people rapidly inoculated. on capitol hill, democrats are moving forward with president biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, voting tuesday to kickstart the budget reconciliation process, which would not require any republican support to pass the legislation. in other news from d.c., the senate confirmed alejandro mayorkas as head of homeland security tuesday, making him the

first latinx and first immigrant to lead the department. the senate also confirmed pete buttigieg as transportation secretary, making the former south bend, indiana, mayor and presidential candidate the first openly gay cabinet secretary in u.s. history. meanwhile, the senate armed services committee held confirmation hearings for kathleen hicks tuesday, biden's pick for deputy defense secretary. senator elizabeth warren questioned hicks on the $740 billion defense budget, which warren called unconscionable. >> we connue to overinvest in dense whilunder investing in public heah and much more that would keep us safe and would save lives. soet me ask the question this way, dr. hicks, do you believe that we can find ways to lower the top line budgetumbers and then spend that money more

effectively without sacrificing our security? amy: kathleen hicks responded cutting the military budget would necessitate "making decisions that may incur risk themselves." senator elizabeth warren, who is joining the senate finance committee, said her first order of business would be to introduce legislation implementing a wealth tax on fortunes over $50 million. the tax would likely affect 75,000 of the richest households. "it is time to make the ultra-rich pay their fair share," warren said. politico is reporting house minority leader kevin mccarthy is leaning toward removing far-right congressmember marjorie taylor green from the house education committee after meeting with her tuesday. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell condemned her "loony lies and conspiracy theories" monday, while house democrats introduced a resolution to strip her of her committee assignments over heristory of violent threats and racist, anti-muslim and anti-semitic comments.

she has called for the killing of nancy pelosi and president obama and has questioned in the past whether in fact the mass shootings at the sandy hook elementary school and parkland high school were in fact false flag operations. in russia, nationalist opposition leader alexei navalny has been sentenced to 3.5 years in prison. navalny will serve around 2.5 years since he has already served time under house arrest. his arrest has prompted mass street protests, with thousands detained in recent days. u.s. secretary of state antony -- tony blinken and other officials around the world condemned the ruling and called for navalny's release. in court, navalny struck a defiant tone, again accusing vladimir putin of ordering his poisoning with the nerve agent novichok in august and calling on his supporters to keep putting pressure on the kremlin. "you can't lock up the whole country," navalny told the courtrm.

coronavirus vaccinations have started in the occupied west bank after israel transfer the first batch of a total of by thousand doses of the vaccine to frontline palestinian health workers after coming under fire for refung to share its vaccines with palestinians. this is a west bank resident commenting on the arrival of the vaccines. >> the vaccine is good but they were only giving it to the health care workers, not to the public. amy: the occupied territories are also expecting to receive 37,000 doses of the pfizer-biontech vaccine through the world health organization's covax scheme in mid-february. in the u.s., freshman new york congressember jamaal bowman -- congressmember jamaal bowman called on israel to vaccinate all palestinians. he wrote -- "as a black man living in america, i know the feeling of being neglected by my government, and society, of feeling like a second-class citizen or not a citizen at all." in other news from the region,

serbia and turkey have condemned monday's establishment of diplomatic relations between israel and kosovo. serbia objects to israel's recognition of kosovo's statehood as part of the deal, while turkey says kosovo's plan to open an embassy in jerusalem is a violation of international law. kosovo is to be the third country after the u.s. and guatemala, and the first muslim majority open an embassy in 1, 2 jerusalem. kosovo will also recognize hezbollah as a terrorist group as part of the agreement. the normalization deal was announced by former president trump last september. in mexico, immigration agents are under investigation for their possible involvement in the massacre of 19 people in the northern state of tamaulipas. the 19 bodies were found shot and charred in a town near the u.s.-mexico border in january. relatives of asylum seekers from guatemala say they believe some of the dead could be their loved ones, including teenagers who were trying to reach the u.s.

only four bodies have been identified. two were guatemalan and two were mexican. back in the united states, jeff bezos has announced he is stepping down as ceo of amazon, the $1.7 trillion company he founded in 1994. bezos will remain as executive chair and the company's biggest shareholder. jeff bezos is now worth about $185 billion after personally making over $70 billion since the start of the pandemic. jeff bezos will be succeeded in july by andy jassy, who runs amazon's cloud computing division. in a 2018 interview with pbs frontline, jassy dismissed concerns about amazon's market monopoly and the antitrust push against the company. >> we have relively ti are ofheverall mket seents inhe categies in which wopere and i ink the other thg to rember is consums and cuomers ve a

choice on ere ty spenthe money sily becse amazon decideto pure a mart seent doesot mean e cuomers ar goingo spend the money ere. amy:assy alsdefended amaz's cision tsell facl recoition soware to lice dertments d foreig gornments the intview, ough aman annound last summer iwas banng policese ofheir facl recognion technolo for oneear amidhe histic bla lives mter and anti-pice brutity upsing. in relat news, azon willay delivery drivers a settlement of $61.7 million after a federal trade commission probe found it stole tips from its amazon flex drivers over 2.5 years. amazon used the tips earned by flex drivers -- hourly workers who do not receive any benefits and make deliveries in their own vehicles -- to pay their wages. in south florida, two fbi agents were fatally shot and three others wounded tuesday morning in one of the deadliest shootings in the agency's

history. the officers were shot while executing a search warrant in a child abuse case. the subject of the investigation was found dead and had apparently barricaded himself inside an apartment complex. in missouri, a 39-year old black father died in the parking lot of a hospital after repeatedly being denied treatment. david bell was turned away twice from the barnes-jewish hospital days before his death despite reporting severe chest pain. on january 12, he was denied proper treatment for a third time and died minutes later as his wife pushed him back to their car in a wheelchair. david bell was a father of three and worked as board director at the local fire and rescue center. and in nework, an anti-sex worker law, commonly known as the "walking while trans" ban, has been repealed, marking a major victory for sex workers and transgender advocates who have been pressuring state officials for years.

the law, which prohibited loitering for the purpose of sex work, led to the disproportionate criminalization, police harassment, and arrests of black and latinx trans people. amy: we begin today's show in burma where the military seized power monday in a coup ousting facto leader aung san suu kyi. eaier toda burme police arged thformer nobel peace prize laureate as well as burma's deposed president win myint. hundreds of lawmakers, activists and human rights defenders have also been detained since monday's coup. telecommunications have been cut in parts of burma, which the military calls myanmar. on tuesday night, oppones of the coup staged their rst protest by banging pots and pans outside their widows in yangon.

-- outside their windows in yangon. reuters reports staff at 70 hospitals and medical departments in 30 towns across burma stopped work today to protest the military. monday's coup unfolded hours -- monday's coup unfolded hours before lawmakers were to take their seats in the opening of parliament following a november election in which the military made unsubstantiated claims of fraud. in the election, aung san suu kyi's party won over 80% of the contested seats in the burmese parliament. aung suu kyi spent years fighting against the burmese military, winning the nobel peace prize in 1991 for her efforts. she spent 15 years underouse arrest before becoming burma's de facto civilian leader in 2016. but in recent years, she has

been condemned for presiding been over a campaign of violence by burma's military against the minority rohingya muslim community, which saw over 1 million rohingya flee to neighboring bangladesh. many displaced rohingya fear the coup will make it impossible to return home. this is mohammed salam speaking from the refugee camp in cox's bazar. >> now in myanmarf the military have declared a one-year state of emergency. it is not good for the rohingya people. they tortured us a lot and carried out genode and mate as meless. we are now away from our home in bangladesh, living under tents. there is nothing here for us. now the military governance ain. they have arrested the democratic leader with luke perry force.

-- with military force. amy: to talk more about the coup in burma, we're joined by maung zarni, a burmese scholar, dissident, and human rights activist living in exile in britain. he is co-founder of the free rohingya coalition, as well as the forces of renewal for southeast asia or for-see, a grassroots network of pro-democracy scholars and human rights activists across southeast asia. maung zarni, thank you for being with us. talk about what unfolded in burma, the country that the military calls myanmar. >> t military decided that they could no longer play this democracy game with on son suu kyi after -- with aung san suu kyi after two cycles. and expect to be aung san suu

kyi. basically what happened, was the military completely outfox legally as well as at the polls, so that is why the military decided to wreck the game. what is interesting is there personal factors that trigger this coup on monday. the commander in chief has a price tag on his head because he is named basically the number one criminal against humanity with respect to rohingya genocide. the other one is, of course, they saw what happened on january 6, the storming of u.s. capitol, they saw what is going on in china, russia most of the

ideological climate moving toward the far right around the world emboldened the generals that this is the time to end this democracy game with aung san suu kyi. amy: can you talk about the u.s. response? yeah president biden issuing a statement where he refers to burma, not million markham as president obama also did, and the issue of whether to call it a coup d'état? i monday, biden said the u.s. is "taking note of those who stand with the people of burma in this difficult hour and urged the international community to pressure the burmese military to relinquish power, lift restrictions on communications and free all officials and activists who have been detained. he suggested the u.s. may impose sanctions on burma and if they call it a coup d'éta it would require that they cut off aid to

burma. >> i think designating the coup as coup, as should be, obviously, trigger the freezing of aid. but not a lot. i think over 100 u.s. million dollars in the development were civil society aid or humanitarian aid from burma. i think we should also not forget the fact the united states has in some ways contributed to the situation. in 2010 when the burmese military decided to play ball with the western democracy, they brought in essentially a very limited form of democracy where the military generals played regions to the civilian

democrats. the last 10 years, we have lived with this -- basically, the big lie that we are democratizing and this is a fragile transition with aung san suu kyi at its helm. on monday, the military itself killed and buried that lie. amy: aung san suu kyi aung san suu kyi so talked about's -- so talk about aung san suu kyi's ro le. the latest is being charged a saver having a legal radios got from abroad, finding that in her home. but the role she has played i mean, she was considered freedom fighter for so long, won the nobel peace prize under house arrest for so many years by the military, it's chief credit, then became the chief spokesperson and justified what happened to the rohingya muslims that were forced ultimately

about a million of them into neighboring thing the --. now they have turned on her, the woman who has definitive for all these past few years? >> as you know, i was afoot soldier supporting her and campaigning for her release and then the development of boycott campaign under the u.s. for the longest time. i saw her at the international court of justice in a different room when she was defending the military and denying the charges of genocide. it is really painful as a dissident to see, you know, the metamorphosis of aung san suu kyi from the human rights defender, democrat dissident, to

becoming the military defender, the spokesperson. two things happen. one was she miscalculated that if she kept on placating the military, which her father founded some 75 years ago, calling the military generals her brothers -- because she consider them her father's sons. she got the litary would cooperate with her to truly democrate the country and return to the barracks. that proved to be wrong. i have always said that this will not work. i came from an extended military family. the military has no interest in democratizing the country. and no commitment to democratic values whatsoever. the second reason is, she

herself is an anti-muslim racist. she shares the views that rohingya muslims do not belong in burma. that is a view that ali is institutionalized and the public has embraced. amy: i want to go to aung san suu kyi in her own words back at the hague in 2019 defending the burmese military's treatment of the rohingya. >> regrettably, place before the court an incomplete and misleading picture of the situation in were kind of state. yet it is of the utmost importance the court assess the situation on the ground in rakhine. amy: the significance of this case in the hague and then what will happen to the rohingya now with the military seizing power?

>> i think the military has institutionalized the general subtle percution of rohingya since 1970 -- there are far more rohingya dispersed across the world than rohingya in the country. they are about half a million rohingya in open air prison camps in the west and about 120,000 and it with the german officials called concentration camps. the rest are in these villages from where they cannot leave. there are one million rohingya in bangladesh waiting to be repatriated. we cannot expect the perpetrators of genocide to welcome back the survivors of genocide. it is like telling the rohingya

to go back to auschwitz, telling the victims of the nazis to go back to auschwitz because you have new bathrooms and new paint. sohe repatation is off the table. amy: i want to thank you, maung zarni, for joining us. burmese scholar, dissident and human rights activist. of the free rohingya coalition, co-founderof the free rohingya coalition, as well as the forces of renewal for southeast asia or for-see, a grassroots network of pro-democracy scholars and human rights activists across southeast asia. when we come back, president biden has halted deportations co he said, at hundreds of immigrants have been deported in the last days under the new administration. stay with us.

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and the coup recorded in 2018 in bangladesh. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. we look now at president biden's latest moves to undo the trump administration's hardline anti-immigration policies. in an address from the oval office tuesday, biden built on executive orders he announced during his first week in office by signing three new orders. pres. biden: with the first action of the day, we're going to work to undo the moral and national shame of the previous administration that literally, not figuratively, ripped children from their families and with no plan, none whatsoever, to reunify children who are

still in custody and their parents. the second action addresses the root causes of migration to our southern border. and the third action come the third order i will be signing, a full review of the previous administration's harmful and cut to productive deportation. amy: one of the new orders establishes a task force focused on the reunification of migrant families separated under trump's "zero tolerance" policy. it will be led by homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas, who was confirmed by thsenate tuesday as the first latinx and immigrant to lead the department. he was born in havana, cuba, and is the son of jewish-cuban refugees. biden also ordered a review of the trump policy known as "remain in mexico" that requires non-mexican migrants to stay in mexico as their immigration cases wind through court and has left tens of thousands of asylum

seekers waiting in dangerous conditions along the border. this is asylum seeker marlen, speaking to the advocacy group people without borders about facing homelessness with her family after being sent to mexico. >> we vividly remember when we arrived to the immigration office in mexico. they did not give us a place to sleep or anything to eat. our children slept on the floor that night. amy: this comes as ice has deported hundreds of immigrants in recent days despite biden's call for a moratorium, including a survivor of the 2019 mass shooting at an el paso, texas, walmart. she was deported to mexico last week. the woman identified only as rosa had been cooperating in the investigation into the shooting. local outlets report she was apprehended after a traffic stop for a broken brake light. this is rosa speaking by phone

with el paso station kvia. >> would he told me i have to go to the police station, i was really scared because i know they can deport me. that was my first thought. i want to tell what happens and everything. i am hoping to be back, be ok. amy: the biden administration is also deporting a man named paul to haiti who new york congressman munger jones had worked to successfully stop the deportation just weeks ago before biden was sworn in. around 3:00 a.m. tuesday morning , he tweeted "at 3:00 a.m., my staff woke up to an urgent call. suddenly, in the dead of night, ice was into deport the beloved

paul peerless to haiti, country where he has never been." for more, we're joined by two guests. in tijuana, mexico, erika pinheiro is an immigration attorney and the policy director for al otro lado -- in english, "the other side." also with us, aura bogado, senior reporter at reveal from the center for investigative reporting. we welcome you both. auro, let's begin with you. can you explain what is going on? you have these executive actions that are truly important concluding one that calls for a halt to deportations. this is the president of the united states. and yet hundreds of people have been deported under this new administration. what is going on? >> thank you for having me. what we're seeing is quite a departure from the previous administration. i don't want to discount importance of appearances, the importance of the with the president of this untry talks about a human being, including

people who may be detained or deported. we're seeing a lot of great language. the commissioner of the task force, another order to suspend deportations and yet we see a continuation of the same practices that happened under president trump previously under obama. i do think there's a difference. there is absolutely a difference in tone, but what we're seeing is, for example, with the commission of the task force, singh dhs -- the same agency has separated children at the border, now tasked with figuring out where these families are. it is still unclear what will happen after that. i think for a lot of people in the last they were so since the executive orders were announced, it does not really go far enough.

also, a task force set for something that a lot of people voted on. the biden ticket sort of stood against all of the family separations, so the idea that we now need a task force to figure out how to move forward instead of having something in place when biden also has the house and the senate, rings hollow for a lot of people. amy: erika, i want to ask you about your client alvaro and his little boy who said all he wants us to be reunited with this father. they have been separated since he was six years old. this is alvaro speaking to nbc news about the day the two were separated. >> an officer told me, give me your children's things because you're going to different places. i did not know what was going to

happen to my child. amy: erika pinheiro, if you can talk about among the executive orders are this issue of separation, the hundreds -- over 600 children still left it is believed separated from their parents. in some cases, the administration does not even know where the parents are. in hundreds of cases, they may well be in the united states and a few hundred may be outside the united states. clearly, biden has put a top priority on this because the people serving on this committee are the secretaries of homeland security --mayorkas just confirmed -- the secretary of health and human services, former attorney general of california, and the attorney general yet to be confirmed. and first lady jill biden. talk about what this means. >> thank you for having me, first of all. i want to mention it is probably

well over 600 families that are still separated. the 600 number are the number of parents that have yet to be located. amongst that population, we are not sure still separated, who might be reunified. but we are in touch with hundreds of falies that have been separated for years and remain separated with no clear pathway toward reunification. i would ask the full number of separated families could be 1000 or me. we are not sure. i am heartened like many others to see there is a task force, there is movement toward reunification. it working with the families every day, i can tell you every day of delay feels like an eternity for parents separated from their children. i was disappointed to see in the executive order that the task force has given 120 days until the first report out and periodic reports out after that. i would hope the task force to

reunify families on a rolling basis, like i said, we are in touch with families now and have been vetted and ready to come by. amy: the task force was given four months to study this? >> right. there is no indication they will begin any unification immediately or bring back parents who have been deported without their children i can tell you from working on this issue that the government has fought those types of unification's every step of the way. i'm hoping this task force is not another stall tactic to delay these reunifications and hope biden keeps his promise and reifies these families. amy: tell us more about alvaro and his little boy. >> alvaro, like many other parents, was separated from his son at the border. he came to the united states seeking protection.

in this case they told him he was been separated. in other cases, agents told the parents "your child is just going to take a shower and they will be right back in aura bogado you're going to court and when you, your child will be here." of course, they never saw their children again. parents were tricked into signing their own deportation. they were told your child will be on the plane with you or in a home country and they get back to their home country and their child is still in the united states. like alvaro, many of these families are going on three years of being separated from each other. the children, for the most part, are not detained anymore. ey're living with families or other sponsors but and very situations, some are in precarious situations and have gone from house to house. i have even talked to kids that are now homeless because they don't have anyone to care for them in the united states. amy: can you talk further about this absolutely critical issue?

aserika said, when you're talking about children who are separated from their parents, every single day matters. >> it does. i have spent a lot of time investigating family separations in the previous administration, under the obama administration published at the end of last year about a child who in 2013 was just 10 years old when she was separated from her family at the border. she spent seven years, close to seven years going from shelter to shelter. she was in washington, texas, new york, florida, massachusetts, you name it. she started to believe her family had abandoned her post meanwhile, there in north carolina the whole time trying to figure out what happened to her. she was alone. she was drugged for a big chunk of that time. she was 17 when she requested to be deported back to honduras.

i was able to talk to her right around that time and she was able to reconnect by phone with her family in north carolina, but ver reunited. she had her entire adolescence bouncing around from the age of 10 to 17. during that time, she hardly learned to read or write. she cannot do either very well. she can speak some phrases in english. imagine your entire adolescence, imagine everything you learn from the ages 10 to 17 -- she did not even have a hug that time because it is not allowed in the shelters she was in. now she is in a very violent situation back home in honduras when biden talks about this national shame, this idea that we will have a task force to look at the very discrete number of families that fall under the specific scope under one summer during trump, i do wonder if we

can also sort of take a moment and think about what truth d reconciliation means in other examples, what we hold other nations to and whether we will be able to really reconcile the violence, really, that happened to migrant families at the border forears. and also the public's attention. this was a really, really heightened issue during the trump administration. a loof political football and posturing around this. now we see celebrations for the executive orders. maybe a lot of change will come through it. maybe not. you compare obama and trump on the numbers alone, one president deported farm anymore more than the other and that was obama. we will see what biden does. amy: i want to ask erika pinheiro about the remain in mexico policy.

you're in tijuana right now. talk about what exactly it is, who has to remain to mexico and what is happening to them. >> two years ago in january 2019, the trump administration started the program known as "remain in mexico was good and basically it forces mostly central american migrants, some south american migrants, to wait in mexico for u.s. court hearings. when these emigrants are in mexico and more than 65,000 have been said to mexico and this program, they are not given any kind of support in mexico. their wedding in some of the most dangerous cities in the world along the border. they are rarely communicated with regarding future court dates so those could change and a lot of people miss court

because they do not receive any communication from the u.s. courts. i think by the end of the programr by the time the programs opt in march -- stopped in march of 2020, i think 5% or less had access to an attorney. as of march 2020, the cdc ordered close asylum processing at the border. anyone who was in mexico waiting for a court hearing has been stuck here since then. this cdc order has been re-issued every month. when biden was elected, there was a lot of hope amongsthe migrants would be a plan for processing them into the united states or they can continue their asylum hearings in the u.s., but as we've seen with the recent executive orders, they have been given no timeline. i can say as an advocate, people have been very patient in the face of really dire circumstances. i have met dozens and dozens of

families who suffered assaults, rapes, kidnappings, homeless, lost their jobs, the pandemic has really had a disproportionate effect on this population. we're honestly very disappointed about the fact the executive order does not have a timeline for processing. there's only so much and so far the migrants will listen to us when we say wait for the plane, don't rush the border, don't try to go to the port of entry, just wait for the administration to tell you what to do. if we don't have an answer for these people, other groups will feel that information void like cartels and smugglers and ultimately, the lack of a plan is going to result in more migrant deaths. amy: i want to get this update on today's headline, the associated press reports a dozen mexican state police officers have been arrested for the possible involvement in the massacre of 19 people in the northern mexican state.

the officers face homicide charges. relatives say they believe some of the dead could be their loved ones, including teenagers who were trying to reach the u.s.. only four bodies have been identified, two guatemalan and to the mexican. do you know about this? >> yes, i do. the only surprising thing about this story is the police were actually arrested. living on the border in mexico, i can tell you i personally have tried to call the police countless times when migrants were raped. i had a client who escaped the kidnapper by beating him with a pipe she found in the house where she was being kept with her child. we called the police. they did not want to come that day to take a report from her.

we have seen countless cases of migrants being extorted by immigration agents, by the police. when we file the report, things like smuggling operations, we were told they're not going to do anything unless it involves child sex trafficking and other types of smuggling -- it was not even a priority to law enforcement here. it does not surprise me at all the police were involved, especially where we have heard numerous reports of systematic extortion, assaults, kidnappings by mexican security forces. i don't really see a solution for this as long as the ports of entry remain closed to processing. migrants have no other choice but to really engage with smugglers to try to cross the border to seek protection between ports of entry. if they don't engage with smugglers, that is when they get kidnapped and killed. amy:erika, i want to ask about

your group tweeting last night that it has joined several groups, including louisiana advocates for immigrants and intention come to file a civil rights complaint against ice in lasalle corrections for the use of torture in making black refugees sign their own deportation papers. what has happened here? >> again, this is something that is unfortunately so common across the immigration system but rarely comes to light because it is happening behind prison doors. at lasalle in particular, we have seen systemic and continued torture of black migrants during the pandemic. there were numerous incidents where detainees were not given ppe, they were pepper spray eight, put in solitary confinement. they were lied to about their legal rights. right now although we are

technically under a deportation moratorium, we have seen hundreds of black migrants being deported. it seems like they are imaging the detention -- emptying the detention centers. in the case of the haitian migrants at the subject of the complaint, they are being lied to. they're being told they don't have any option to continue their cases. they are being coerced by terrible detention conditions. the result is people are being deported to very dangerous situations. amy: finally, the president has issued an executive order to end all new contracts with for-profit prison companies, but that is run by the doj. he has not talked about ice. we know about the horrific conditions at a number of ice jails by these for-profit companies. ultimately, can you talk about

what you expect to see under biden and what you think is most important to address right now? >> is important to keep in mind it is detention and not imprisonment because it is not technically punishment for a crime. these are people who are being held on civil charges. again, for a ticket that rained on re-humanizing an entire population of migrants and immigrants come to continue this while putting a pause on other programs is not necessary. there is no public health or public safety reason for why which people and families must continue to remain detained. i am not sure exact what we can expect from the biden administration. again, i do think thtone is

very important and i'm not saying that in a facetious way. i think it is important the portrait is important and important to keep in mind one of the people who was deported was a survivor of the el paso shooting. the ideology behind the gunman was to literally massacre and get rid of a whole bunch of people that he did not see as belonging to this country. so when we have this to administration supporting somebody who survived -- supporting somebody who survived that crime that was likely eligible for a new visa and then literally getting rid of that person, that does unfortunately fit with a certain kind of xenophobia that is rampant in this country. i'm not sure what we can expect to see but it is not so much a preview but the early sns -- i can't say i'm too surprised.

we he got some signs about wh the next four years might look like for immigration migration. a different tone, maybe not different actions. amy: why independent reporting like yours is so important. aura bogado, thank you for being with us, senior reporter and producer covering immigration at reveal from the center for investigative reporting. and erika pinheiro, immigration attorney and the policy and litigation director of al otro lado, thank you for joining us from tijuana, new mexico. next, jeff bezos is stepping down as ceo of amazon. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the quarantine report. i'm amy goodman. jeff bezos has announced he is stepping down as ceo of amazon, the $1.7 trillion company he founded in 1994. bezos will remain as executive chair and the company's biggest shareholder.

he is now worth about $185 billion after personally making over $70 billion since the start of the pandemic. jeff bezos will be succeeded in july by andy jassy, who runs amazon's cloud computing division. it's most lucrative division. amazon announced the news as it reported record profits. on tuesday, the company also reached a $61.7 million settlement with the federal trade commission over charges that it stole tips from its amazon flex drivers over 2.5 years. amazon used the tips earned by flex drivers to pay the wages of the hourly workers who do not receive any benefits and make deliveries in their own vehicles. this all comes as 5000 amazon workers in alabama begin voting next week to decide whether to become the first unionized amazon warehouse in the country. we go now to washington, d.c., where we are joined by robert weissman, president of public

citizen, which is calling for amazon to be broken up. your response, robert weissman, that yes jeff bezos is stepping down as ceo but will still be extremely active, made even more active at least in a public way with amazon? >> there's no rean to think anything is going to change at amazon besides bezos has taken this new role. there's a chance for the company to rethink its predatory business model -- no reason to expect that will happen. but the government needs to step into take much more serious action than it ever really, -- contemplated to restrain, control, and ultimately break of amazon. it is too much concentrated power as a predatory business model. neither of democracy can operate fairly with this massive coentration of wealth and power. amy: it is interesting is

stepping down at a time when under this new administration big tech is under scrutiny. what that means, we will see. but what would it need to breakup amazon? how would that happen? >> well, one thing amazon has done throughout its quarter century of existence is leverage -- engaged in predatory pricing and leverage power from one business line to grow in another or exact profits from another stop the company now actually makes more profit from its web services than it does from the consumer company that so many of us are familiar wi. those two companies don't need to be joined together. they could be separated and that would prevent the possibility -- many think the ongoing practice -- of amazon effectively using information from its web services to figure out how it could market and profiteer on the consumer side.

we also would want to see -- a spinoff so that the company does not have an entry point by way of acquisition into the dominating grocery business both for in person and deliveries. amy: talk about the ftc decision. >> this came 10 yesterday a couple of hours before bezos made the announcement. it is shocking. not entirely shocking to cover these engaged in waste theft across the country all the time so it is become normalized to some extent. but coming from amazon, the idea they are pocketing money that consumers give as tips to their drivers and not conveying those tips to the drivers, when in fact we in amazon advertised you are contract drivers keep these

tips, just as down. you have to ask, why? when is enough? what is the level of greed you need? how much money does jeff bezos need? the amount that will be returned to drivers is about $60 million that amazon allegedly improperly unfairly siphoned off tips to the drivers. jeff bezos made 1000 times more than that since the pandemic and increased stock value. why would you nickel and on these employees? it is a company that has predation built into the business model will stop yet another reason it has to be restructured. amy: he said he is going to spin more time with blue origin, his space company, and "the washington post." what does this mean for news in the country? >> who knows? he will also spend more time

uninsurable enterprises, supposedly. as a washington resident, up to seven quote the washington post" has become a better paper since bezos wanted and yes that interfered with it. more engagement from, not be a good thing. but i think one thing that -- maybe should spend more time with this charity, all the other super billionaires do that, which is fine maybe but the problem is, no one should have $200 billion personally in the first place to give away, especially when they made that gigantic amount of money by extracting it from their workers and undermining small businesses across the country. amy: explained that, small businesses, both completely dependent on amazon but also exploited by amazon and what should be done. >> what we're seeing in sector after sector is smalbusinesses are finding they can't survive in brick-and-mortar traditional

stores or canola survive doing that if there also online. so they're moving their businesses increasingly online but you can't really do a business online on your own if you just rely on people that search your business out and buy from you. so then you have to move yourself the so-called amazon market, sell your products over amazon. but once you do that, you get caught up into the rules of the game that amazon establishes. there's lots of evidence, including in a detailed report from the house subcommittee on antitrust last year, that shows amazon takes a lot of money from those smal businesses. they don't have any choice except to pay it. and then they get to successful, amazon, because of their data tracking, knows about it, and begins a competing business on its own. so the small businesses feel like heads amazon wins, tails they lose. they cannot make it.

but they have no choice but to try their best to work through and on amazon. amy: rob weissman, president of public citizen. that does it for our show. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693>ú■og

ya ♪ hello. and welcome to nhk "newsline." i'm keiko kitagawa in tokyo. we begin this hour with the mie yan nar. are believed to be under house arrest and p granted permission for the pair to be detain pd until february