i m jim acosta and begin in the middle east where a cease fair between islamic jihad was supposed to go in effect. more rockets were fired toward israel from gaza after the agreed upon time. they continued blaring sirens warning of incoming fire also. for days now we have seen attacks like that one right there in that dramatic video. this is an israeli air strike on gaza where at least 33 people have reportedly been killed over the past few days since wednesday, palestinian forces have fired over 1200 rockets towards israel in response and cnn s ben wedeman joins us now from jerusalem. ben, what more do we know about the cease-fire? reporter: well, the cease-fire, jim, was supposed to go into effect at 10:00 pacific local time. that was an hour ago, but until about half past the hour, there were still rockets going out of gaza and israeli air strikes going in. since then, however, it appears that the cease-fire has taken hold. the situation has calmed down and in the street
have tangible solutions. enough with the finger pointing. doesn t matter how we got here, how do we solve this? nine out of ten people seeking asylum aren t going to qualify for asylum so you ll have a generation of people that are going to have to live in the shadows and in large cases, the biden administration is making it harder for immigration reform so would love to sit down and build that conversation out as we get forward but it has been difficult. well, what would you like to do to tackle that problem? is it time to invite congressional leaders from both parties, the president, vice president down to the border? get everybody down to the border and try to solve this? you re exactly right. jim, i ve hosted over 100 members of congress at the border. now, most of them have been republicans and have only hosted a handful of democrats but you re on to something. the next step is how do we in a bipartisan manner visit it and, look, we just had just earlier this week there was a
did cross illegally. they came to the border without documents and they did cross when they told them not to but they thought that was their only clear path in. there s no clear path to how biden is going to take these people in legally. and he s committed to 100,000 coming in. but there s no dates, no by when. and as we been reporting, fewer than 7,000 from all over the world have come across the border. that s right. they had that goal of 125,000 for this fiscal year and since october, fewer than 7,000 have come in. these ukrainians are actually the lucky ones to be able to come into u.s. soil. we understand because of title 42, most immigrants have come to the borders, even those trying to claim asylum aren t getting through. 1.7 million migrants had been stopped. we just got news from the homeland security secretary that
i think that s an important point. there s no blanket asylum claim. there s no economic asylum claim. there absolutely is a specific case by case basis. so no one s disputing that. but that s nut what s at issue here. what s at issue here is these individuals seeking asylum aren t even being afforded the opportunity to make their case. you know, and the devastating circumstances that we re looking at under the previous administration, the human rights campaign did a study and found that over 1,500 people that the united states deported without hearing their asylum claim were later raped, murdered or tortured. one individual literally ate the documents that he was bringing to show that he was being persecuted because he knew if venezuelan authorities found them he d be tortured, and that s exactly what happened. and so what the secretary is saying is exactly right but that s not the issue. the issue is we need to afford people the opportunity, the due process of law and have a full ye
there s no blanket asylum claim. there s no economic asylum claim. there absolutely is a specific case by case basis. so no one s disputing that. but that s nut what s at issue here. what s at issue here is these individuals seeking asylum aren t even being afforded the opportunity to make their case. you know, and the devastating circumstances that we re looking at under the previous administration, the human rights campaign did a study and found that over 1,500 people that the united states deported without hearing their asylum claim were later raped, murdered or tortured. one individual literally ate the documents that he was bringing to show that he was being persecuted because he knew if venezuelan authorities found them he d be tortured, and that s exactly what happened. and so what the secretary is saying is exactly right but that s not the issue.