public remarks on the war in israel. hezbollah is backed by iran. attacking israel from across the northern border out of lebanon. the violence stoking fears of a larger regional conference. the u.s. and israel watching it as well. we ll bring news as we get it. also at the hour of 9:00 a.m. eastern the u.s. calling for humanitarian pause, israel a pushing forward. secretary of state antony blinken with the israeli prime minister back in tel aviv today. we expect to hear from him soon as well. a lot of moving pieces. i m bill hemmer. welcome to friday in new york city. dana: i m dana perino and america s newsroom. we ll take you through all the news. secretary blinken met with netanyahu and his war cabinet. earlier this morning he spoke with israeli president herzog. they reiterated israel s right to defend itself and urging palestinians in gaza to let s talk about new protests erupting in the west bank. good morning, to you. a real sense of tension hanging in the air
house minority leader kevin mccarthy leading a group of republican lawmakers going to the border today. it comes as republicans are blaming president biden for the surge. they say he has sent a clear message that the border is open for business. it is entirely, you cannot but notice the administration changes and there is surge. there can be no question when sending a message to people. it has to be our border is closed. you can t say in spanish one thing and english another. one for the consumption of those in central america and the other for domestic consumption. it has to be the same message. they aren t doing that. when a similar surge happened a few years ago president obama called it a humanitarian crisis. as i suggested, this is going to get nothing but worse as the spring comes. bill: former acting ice director ron vitiello joins us. we begin with casey stiegel in mcallen, texas. thanks. it was another busy night for u.s. border patrol agents all along the
shoulders, the small of my back, my waist. often enough by late 2014 i didn t want to go to the holiday party he was hosting for the albany press corps at the executive mansion. john: some top democrats are joining the list of the lawmakers demanding cuomo s resignation including house judiciary chairman jerry nadler among several prominent new york lawmakers issued statements saying that the time has come. sandra: yeah. yet still silence from vice president kamala harris on this. she has not joined those calls by fellow democrats for him to resign. nor have we heard from senators gillibrand or elizabeth warren, all three of whom were vocal in opposition of brett kavanaugh in the confirmation hearing. all of this is after the governor s own lawyer reported a groping allegation to the police. the woman involved has so far declined to press charges herself. cuomo has continued to deny the allegations, john. john: sandra, the cover of the new york post stating it all.
the school district and teachers union middle and high schoolers will show up two days a week to complete classes online. what a complete fraud. the teachers union should be ashamed of themselves. ainsley: that s a beautiful shot of our capitol and i happened to be in chicago because k through 8 grade all back in school. last week k through 5 went back. the second week of this and the high schoolers are not back in school yet. we have a panel of business owners, some of them have lost their businesses, some are struggling to pay employees and we have a high schooler who plays sports and just want to be back in school. hey, bipartisan, hey, steve. it s going to be exciting because major cities have been slow to open up and the kids have been frustrated and some of them just want to save their senior year. i m glad that you re up close and personal and i think it s great because we will be talking about getting up and going in california, not so much as well as up a
the surge and are encouraging smugglers to be bolder than ever. we ve seen surges before. surges the end to respond to hope and there was a significant hope for a more humane policy after four years of pent up demand. so i don t know whether i would call that a coincidence but i certainly think that the idea that a more humane policy would be in place may have driven people to make that decision. harris: well, here is how many are coming. more than 100,000 migrants were encountered at the border in february. that s a 97% jump from the same month of last year. nearly 30,000 unaccompanied children were encountered. some 3,000 of them 12 years old or younger. arrests and deportations plunged as president biden tightened the rules how ice agents can operate. there were more than 2300 arrests in february. that s down 66% from the average number over october, november, on december. and only about half the number of deportations if in february compared to the month before. fewer