amna: -- geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. amna: israeli officials say their deadly strike on an aid convoy was a result of misidentification. geoff: president biden and

former president trump when tuesday's primaries about both see protest both that hint at challenges come november. amna: and our report on major shifts in immigration, following asylum seekers from around the world, moving through mexico to the u.s. border. >> it's not just that women or men are traveling by themselves. they're traveling with their families. we are looking we are seeing a lot of different profiles, with a lot of vulnerabilities. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular. this is sam. how may i help you? this is a pocket dial. i thought i would let you know that with consumer cellular, you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of everything. have a nice day.

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and with the ongoing support of these institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. amna: welcome to the newshour. today, the bodies of foreign aid workers killed in an israeli strike early yesterday morning, have left gaza, and are being flown to their home countries. geoff: they worked for world central kitchen, whose founder today accused israel of targeting his employees deliberately, an accusation israel denies. nick schifrin starts our coverage. nick: he had flown 7800 miles from home to help feed the hungry. today, he began his final journey home, pushed out of a morgue. the american-canadian jacob

flickinger was 33 years old and he leaves behind his partner, sandy, and their one-year-old boy. with him as he crossed the egyptian border today, his friends in life and death, an australian, damien sobel from poland, and the british security team, john chapman, james henderson, and james kirby, whose cousin today remembered him as someone who wanted to help. >> he was completely selfless explained why he went to gaza. nick: quote kitchen coordinated as a convoy left its warehouse by the sea in central gaza. the group says israeli munitions hit an initial vehicle and workers then moved to another vehicle that was struck and then a third vehicle that was struck as they traveled on were next to the coastal road that israel designates for humanitarian aid. >> we were targeted deliberately . nonstop. until everybody was dead in the convoy. nick: jose andres is a celebrity

chef whose activism and charity has earned him deep respect among policymakers. the group also fed israelis after hamas's october 7 terrorist attack. he spoke to reuters today. >> it is not a war against them anymore. it is a war against humanity itself. nick: israel says it takes pain to limit civilian casualties. in response to the attack, it opened a joint situation room international humanitarian groups and launched an investigation whose initial finding was laid out last night by the chief of the general staff, lieutenant general hartsell. >> it was a mistake that followed the misidentification during a war in a very complex conditions. geoff: today, a u.s. official confirms that president biden will speak with prime minister benjamin netanyahu tomorrow. for more on this we get two views, retired master sergeant

wes bryant had a 20-career in the air force and deployed to iraq, afghanistan, and syria. as a joint terminal attack controller, he called in air strikes and led air targeting cells. he is the co-author of "hunting the caliphate: america's war on isis, and "dawn of the strike cell." and retired israeli lt. col. jonathan conricus had a 24 -year career in the israel defense forces. he commanded combat forces in lebanon and the gaza strip and was most recently an idf international spokesperson. he is now a senior fellow at the washington based think tank, the foundation for defense of democracies. thanks very much. welcome, both of you, to the newshour. jonathan, let me start with you. the chief of the general staff called this incident a "misidentification." can you ask plain how that is possible when as the world central kitchen says, it was coordinating with the idf on its movements? jonathan: what i understand from the review, which has not yet

been completed, what the idf has said so far, we are responsible. we are accountable. and this is not hamas's doing. we did it. that is number one. they have been able to establish that but they have not yet been able to establish how did this misidentification happen and how was an aid convoy mistaken for a vehicle carrying terrorists who made a wrong decision, who misunderstood a very complex and dynamic battlefield, and who got it wrong? i personally know that they are investigating it now, waiting for the outcome for a transparent and honest after action review. geoff: what is your response to those two words? one, misidentification that we heard from the chief and general staff, and some kind of misunderstanding or misunderstood, complex battlefield? wes: i appreciate those remarks. misidentification does of course happen in combat.

but to me, this strike is just an effect or demonstration of a broader problem and that is a pattern of targeting negligence, pattern of indifference towards civilian harm, and a pattern of disregard toward international humanitarian law. that the idf has unfortunately, although being our allies, and though having a clear precedent to go after hamas, which is a dangerous and brutal terrorist organization, that the idf has unfortunately demonstrated throughout their operation in gaza. geoff: can you respond to that, targeting negligence and a disregard for civilian casualties? jonathan: those are very unfortunate or incorrect assessments of idf practices. i myself have been in the targeting rooms, or the cells where we do those processes.

i have seen the process, the legal overview, and i have seen the intelligence vetting that is done, which is part of protocol before we strike. we operate in an extremely complex environment unlike expeditionary missions, which i think is the benchmark that you will bring up and give me examples of. that benchmark is not really relevant because we are talking about defending our homeland here. we do not have the same leisure and time to be super extra careful when it comes to taking out live military targets because our civilians are at risk here. israel is committed to the international law of armed warfare. israel takes precaution. israel uses distinction and proportionality, but that does not mean, sadly, that palestinian civilians do not get wounded or killed on the battlefield. but the responsibility for that is first and foremost with those who set up the battlefield, and

that is hamas, not israel. geoff: take on those two points. one, there is a difference, as jonathan put it, between fighting, as you did, in afghanistan, iraq, and syria, and fighting in israel itself or next to gaza, but also, international humanitarian law specifically, distinction and proportionality. do you believe the idf is following those two tenants? -- tennets? wes: i absolutely don't, for the most part. a 30,000 casualty ratio, whether or not 9000 or 10,000 of those are hamas operatives, that is a huge ratio between civilian casualties and combatants. with comparing past wars with this, every war has its differences but urban combat is urban combat and war is war. more importantly, international humanitarian law is just that. and what i see the idf doing is

taking the principles of military necessity and proportionality and saying that basically, any civilian loss that happens is justified because of the military necessity of this target. it is just not the way the u.s. conducts warfare. even with the civilian harm that the u.s. has caused, which it has caused civilian harm, we know that, the u.s. itself would absolutely not be conducting a targeting campaign in the way that idf has in the last few months. and that is something that i think the whole world is paying attention to and i think both israeli and u.s. government need to pay closer attention to. geoff: jonathan, you are shaking your head. jonathan: yes, i can personally tell of hundreds of strikes that have been aborted in real-time in this war in gaza because of the presence of children,

civilians, women, elderly, and people who we assessed were not enemy combatants, and airstrikes were called off because the proportionality between the military necessity and the importance of taking out a target did not warrant or justify the killing or the probable wounding of civilians. the gaza battlefield is an area which is virtually impossible to fight in without having noncombatant casualties. that is how hamas has rigged the battlefield. that is what we are fighting, and that is the sad reality that we, by trying to move civilians out of the battlefield have tried to negate. that is what the israeli defense forces did in the beginning. we called on civilians to evacuate because we know that fighting high-intensity warfare in urban terrain is a horrible endeavor that leads to casualties.

geoff: hamas has rigged the battlefield. how much does that matter in your opinion as u.s. as the idf campaign? wes: hamas's does not -- known use of human shields does not negate the idf's responsibility. the idea that it has put out statements, netanyahu himself, that these strikes have unwitting or involuntary human shields that hamas is using, and therefore, it is justified that we went after this target and we can't avoid in some of these cases killing these civilians. well, unfortunately, through that, idf has also acknowledged that they are still striking when civilians are actually known in the target area and that is obviously just even from the reporting and the corroboration that we see, and so that is a problem under u.s. law of war.

that would be a violation of our law of war and international humanitarian law and under all common interpretations, it would be as well. i don't doubt that the idf is calling off strikes, is aborting in some cases but they are not doing enough. geoff: there is a lot more to discuss but we are out of time. i want to thank you so much. thanks very much for both of your time. wes: thank you. jonathan: thank you. ♪ amna: in the day's other headlines, and early spring storm brought a late winter to new england. in the region braced for more than a foot of snow especially in new hampshire and maine. the storm drenched the mid-atlantic and northeast with heavy rain. elsewhere, several states in the south and midwest were cleaning up from tornadoes and flooding a day earlier. the extreme weather was blamed for at least one death. authorities in taiwan report

nine people were killed and hundreds hurt after the island's strongest earthquake in a quarter-century. it struck during morning rush hour just after eastern coast about 90 miles from taipei to the capital. some older buildings tipped over including one meaning out of 45 degree angle. taiwan's vice president said rescuers spent the day searching for survivors. >> the most important thing right now is to rescue people. we have to check carefully how many are still trapped. we must quickly help them and the wounded should be given the best medical care. >> aftershocks continued to throughout the day but quakes are common in taiwan and much of the population quickly returned to their routines. in ukraine, the government has lowered its military conscription age to 25 as it tries to replenish its armed forces after two years of war. president zelenskyy signed three bills into law today. they cut the draft age from 27

and also you laminated some exemptions. nato foreign ministers agreed today to begin planning long-term military support for ukraine. the diplomats, including antony blinken, met in brussels. the nato chief pointed to the stalemate in congress over american aid. >> because every time -- they assure me that there is a majority in the u.s. and also the u.s. congress for support but so far, have not been able to turn that majority into a decision and that is what we are all waiting for and it is urgent. amna: he is pushing a $100 billion fund for ukraine over five years but so far, the reaction among nato members has been mixed. uganda's constitutional court has upheld an anti-gay law that calls for the death penalty in some cases. the judges declined to overturn the law today. they did void some sections, including one that criminalized the failure to report homosexual acts. the statute targets what it

calls "aggravated homosexuality" involving sexual relations with a minor or when the accused is infected with hiv. back in this country, crews in baltimore cleared more wreckage of the francis scott key bridge, nine days after a giant cargo ship smashed into it. a second temporary channel has now opened near the cobweb of jagged steel and concrete. plans call for a third channel to let larger ships pass. >> those two alternate channels so far have produced eight commercial vessel transits. those are tugs and barges inbound and outbound from the port of baltimore. so those two alternate channels are beginning to make a difference. there's much more work to go. but those are again small steps in a long marathon. amna: one shipping terminal is still operating in baltimore's outer harbor. the company says it expects to unload 10,000 imported cars and trucks from backlogged ships over the next 15 days.

federal prosecutors are sharply criticizing a court order in former president trump's classified documents case. federal judge aileen cannon had asked attorneys to submit potential jury instructions. and she appeared to accept mr. trump's argument that he acted within the law. but in a filing late tuesday, prosecutors called that, quote, a "fundamentally flawed legal premise." and on wall street, stocks mostly steadied after tuesday's sell-off. the dow jones industrial average lost 43 points to close at 39,127. but the nasdaq rose 37 points. the s&p 500 added 5. still to come on the "newshour," former president trump's increasing use of incendiary rhetoric on the campaign trail . amid rising costs following fires and storms, fema is easing access to federal disaster assistance. a look at the historic rise in viewership of women's college basketball. plus, much more. >> this is the pbs newshour from

weta studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: last night, voters in wisconsin, new york, connecticut, and rhode island turned out for their states' presidential primaries. for more on the results and what this means for the upcoming election, white house correspondent laura barron-lopez joins us now. four primaries last night. what were the biggest takeaways? laura: president biden and former president donald trump both won their primaries respectively. there was a larger than expected turnout of uncommitted voters in states like wisconsin, where it received about 8% of the vote. uncommitted voters are democratic voters that are upset with president biden because they want him to take more swift action for a cease-fire in gaza, and then also, nikki haley voters. there are still a number of republicans who are voting for nikki haley and in a state like wisconsin, she got nearly 13% of

the vote. geoff: we have some fresh polling. polling of course is a snapshot in time, not a predictor, but where does this rematch between donald trump and president biden stand right now? laura: the new polling released says that president biden has a small two point lead over donald trump nationally and that is within the margin of error and then according to a new wall street journal poll, it is a razor thin margin between president biden and former president trump in the key battleground states of georgia, michigan, nevada, pennsylvania, and wisconsin, but donald trump is clearly leading president biden in two other battleground states, arizona and north carolina, by five and eight points respectively. crucial to note is that rfk junior, the independent front runner, has around 11% of the vote across these swing states, and then i want to go back to our poll for a minute and highlight that another key data point in our poll is on voters

views of political violence, and it shows that 20% of americans believe that they may have to resort to violence to "get the country back on track." and when you break that down further, you see that 28% of republicans agree with that sentiment compared with 12% of democrats and 18% of independents. geoff: returning to this so-called uncommitted movement, these voters who are voting uncommitted against president biden and the protest votes we are seeing against president trump, driven in part by nikki haley supporters, how do you see that you evolving? laura: with the uncommitted vote, those are democrats, as i noted, that are clearly very upset with president biden and they are exercising this as a protest vote. i spoke to one of these uncommitted voters recently who said they are not necessarily in the abandoned president biden camp but that they want to exert this protest and that hopefully, they feel like they can maybe end up voting for president biden come november so the question is ultimately do they stay home, do they protest vote,

or do they actually go back to president biden? when you look at nikki haley voters, president biden's team is actively courting these voters. i spoke with a republican strategist who conducts focus groups with a number of republicans including two-time trump voters who are not necessarily happy with the former president and they have expressed this frustration. >> at this point, trump has been charged with 91 criminal charges. so do you want a president who is indicted and perhaps found and, you know, in so many situations, we don't even hire people for jobs if they have a criminal history. laura: another voter, white 68-year-old female who voted for trump in 2016, and then president biden in 2020, said that trump it's -- talk of wretch -- trump -- trump's

talk of retribution and revenge scares her. i want to make clear that when you are looking at uncommitted voters and nikki haley voters, they are very different. uncommitted voters are not necessarily persuadable for president trump whereas nikki haley voters, both president biden's campaign as well as anti-trump republicans like sarah longwell think they are persuadable and could go to president biden. geoff: thank you so much. we appreciate it. laura: thank you. amna: meanwhile, trump and biden continue to make the case for their campaigns directly to voters. just yesterday, the former president made stops in two critical battleground states. and lisa desjardins is here to break down his message. lisa. lisa: whatever you callhe former president, he clearly is a showman. his following comes from his speeches and directly from his words not staff or , infrastructure. now i know voters are already

exhausted. i have been talking to you. by a lot of the political shrapnel going around but trump's speeches in michigan and wisconsin yesterday are a good chance to shed light on how trump speaks in general and his latest verbal flames. mr. trump: i stand before you to declare that joe biden's border bloodbath -- this is a border bloodbath. this ends the day, i take the oath of office. lisa: we start here. trump's newly-minted message. and now the phrase pushed by the republican national party. mr. trump: with your vote, i will seal the border. i will stop the invasion, i will end the carnage. >> the framing is so important for donald trump. lisa: we asked jennifer to watch the speeches with us. she is an author and professor who specializes in political and trump rhetoric. the border is trump's core message, she says, and this framing, he carefully forged attack on biden and anyone who calls it a humanitarian crisis. >> he is constantly trying to

frame how we understand political reality. and so, it cannot be neutral. it cannot be a situation at the border. it has to be violent. it has to be an invasion. it has to be a bloodbath. lisa: no question, the southwest border is overwhelmed and dangerous in places, but there is no evidence of a "bloodbath" for americans living there. of course, trump is also arguing that the border is causing a crime wave across the country. but violent crime rates are at modern lows on average and down in many cities. and multiple studies show that migrants are less likely to commit crimes than others here. even so, trump is trying to cement the idea that migrants are the enemy. mr. trump: they have a new form of crime. it's called migrant crime. lisa: trump attacks some as subhuman. this week repeating a word he's long associated with migrants committing crime. mr. trump: nancy pelosi said please don't use the word

animals or when you're talking about these people. i said, i'll use the word animal because that's what they are. lisa: the speeches included a regular trump feature about his outreach to victims. mr. trump: right here in kent county, a 25-year-old michigan woman named ruby garcia, who has become a very well known name, beautiful young woman, was savagely murdered by an illegal alien. they said she had just the most contagious laughter and when she walked into a room she lit up that room and i heard that fro m so many people and i spoke to some of her family. lisa: trump does meet with and call victims families. but in this case of a young woman killed last month, ruby garcia's family told a newspaper actually they never heard from him. >> i think it's unusual for him to misremember meeting a family, like this. but i think using hyperbole is something that's very common for him. mr. trump: for years, i used to tell the fake news back there. look at all those cameras. wow. but i used to tell them. show the crowd. i give up with that. lisa: we brought in another

language to help. he said that beneath trump's attacks on the media and others is an expert speaker keeping his , crowd and followers with him. matt: it's us versus them. and here they are. they're right in our midst. and we know more than they do because we're able to see what's going on. lisa: with this, trump builds to an all-encompassing thought. mr. trump: if we don't win on november 5, i think our country is going to cease to exist. it could be the last election we ever have. i actually mean that we don't -- i actually mean that. we don't win i think this could , be the last election we ever have. that's where our country's going. >> what do you think he's doing there? lisa: jennifer says this kind of speech is what separates trump. it is not political razzle dazzle but dangerous, hyperbolic fearmongering. jennifer: he is trying to make it seem as though everhing is at stake. most people are not excited about his campaign, or biden's. and so both candidates are trying to generate a lot of interest. one way you do that is through using intense and extreme

language to make it seem as though everything is at stake. lisa: and wisconsin yesterday, he added religion injecting the , idea that while joe biden is a regular churchgoer, he, donald trump, is the christian candidate this election. mr. trump: november 5 is going to be called something else. you know what it's going to be called? christian visibility day, when christians turn out in numbers. lisa: trump's speeches were a showcase of why he succeeds and fails. they contain a weave of lies and truths around one constant center. jennifer: all presidents run as heroes. it's not uncommon. joe biden is running as a hero right now. he's running as a hero to save democracy. donald trump is running as a different kind of hero. and he is the only one who can save the nation. he's the only one who can save his followers. more than class, gender, race, socioeconomic status. the one thing that trump

supporters have in common is that they want to follow a strong leader. lisa: we noticed yesterday trump left out two other common features of his speeches. he has repeatedly played the national anthem as sung by january 6 prisoners, and pledged to pardon them at the beginning of his rallies, and he has often used an anthem for conspiracy theorists in qanon near the end. >> how do they look at some of this potentially coded language and its impact when it comes from mr. trump speeches? -- trump's speeches? lisa: he uses classical devices, encouraging force in speaking, but the way he activates i think his followers is the most important and i heard from a lot of different ways that i spoke to, talking about something called pralypsis.

i am inferring something but i have plausible deniability. he is activating his followers bymplying something and then fighting with the media over whether he said it or not. that has strong consequences not only for his campaign but for statistics like about violence. when he is saying the situation is dire and democracy will end if i am not elected, he is implying to some of his followers that violence is ok. amna: lisa desjardins, thank you so much. lisa: you are welcome. ♪ amna: last month, the federal emergency management agency or fema made some big changes to its disaster relief programs. changes that the agency called, quote, "the most significant updates to disaster assistance in 20 years." among them, expanding access to money for food, water, and other essentials. funding immediate housing needs when people can't return home.

help for repairs not covered by insurance. reducing paperwork required for temporary housing, and more. for more on what these changes mean, i'm joined now by fema administrator deanne criswell. . welcome back. thanks for being here. deanne: thanks, amna. that's great to be here. amna: so as you long as you know, fema's long faced criticism long before your tenure, even for being slow to respond in disasters bureaucratic to deal with. i guess the big question is, why couldn't many of these changes have been made sooner if they are so needed and significant? deanne: you know, i think the changes that we made. one, they're transformational, for sure, and we are extremely excited about them. but to make changes of this magnitude, it takes time. and part of the time was really spent listening and listening to people that have been impacted by these disasters, whether it's survivors and communities or local emergency managers, state directors hearing the problems that people faced. and i think that in the past, we've really approached delivery of our programs in this very generic, one size fits all

approach. and what i've realized, having been a customer of fema previously and now in this role, you know, that everybody's situation is different and unique. and so we really spent a lot of time after i first started in this role, understanding the unique characters, characteristics, and nature of each community and understanding what their barriers are, and then how do we make changes to those barriers, how do we pull them down so more people can access our programs? and it just took time. deanne: -- amna: can i ask you what role was played in these pushing forward, these changes in what we know are the growing frequency and intensity of more extreme weather events, of the disasters that accompany them. did that help push these changes across the line? deanne: i think that was really one of the the driving forces of being able to actually get these moving forward and getting the people of our agency who have spent a lot of time thinking about the types of changes that were needed, really knowing that more people are impacted. right? we're seeing more people impacted. we're seeing recoveries become more complex. we're seeing them take longer. and so how do we help these communities become more resilient?

how do we help these individuals jumpstart this road to recovery using the programs that we have, instead of creating this disparity between those who need our help the most, but really faced the most barriers. and so i think as we saw more and more people having to face this, yeah, it really gave us an opportunity to really think hard about what we could do to change that. amna: there's the insurance piece of it i want to ask you about. we mentioned it briefly in the introduction there. you've given previously the example of a homeowner who has some $80,000 in damage after a disaster. if they only get 45,000 from insurance, fema could step in and fill the gap. we're now seeing reports out of california, in particular, of insurers dropping homeowners because they live in areas that are too prone to wildfires. we've seen similar issues in florida. so how would this help those homeowners? i mean, would fema step in to cover the whole cost if insurers have dropped homeowners? amna: -- deanne: it's a really good question, because one of the things that we do provide is some financial assistance to jumpstart recovery, but we don't replace insurance. and so with these changes in the

past, if an insurance company gave you what our statutory maximum is, which right now is $42,500, and it changes a little bit every year, every fiscal year, if an insurance company gave you more than that, then we couldn't give you any more, even if you had uninsured losses. so now, we can at least cover uninsured losses, but still up to that max of $42,000. amna: so there's still a cap on what there is. deanne: there is. but the problem is that insurance companies are dropping insurance policies because of the types of catastrophic risks that these communities are facing, which is why another thing that we are really focused on this year is building resilience in these communities, because if we can make a community more resilient, it's an insurable community. so resilient communities are insurable communities. so the more we can build their resilience and help them on that road, the more we think that we'll be able to create the environment for the insurance market to stay in those neighborhoods. amna: there's a resilience question. there's also this question we've seen in conversations about where people are choosing to live, where they're choosing to

rebuild. should fema should the federal -- should fema, should the federal government play more of a role in discouraging people to rebuild in areas that are continuously hit, or supporting people to move to other areas? deanne: i think it's a really complicated question, because where you build is one part of the question, but how you build is also another part of the question, right? there are certainly parts of this country that where you build is the conversation we should be having, but sometimes it's just about how you build. are we going to help you build in a way that makes you more resilient to the type of threat that you're facing? like if you are in an area that is prone to sea level rise. right. if you're going to move into wildfire community, you know how you build is going to make a difference. or if you're going to build in the midwest where we saw tornadoes yesterday, how you build makes a difference. amna: there is the price tag which is worth a second look as , well. you said the expected new policies could increase federal disaster cost by some $500 million a year. we know these storms aren't getting less expensive.

can fema afford to continue to fill these gaps and make these changes? deanne: i think one of the things that we need to talk about with that is the costs that we're going to be covering were covered by somebody, they were covered by state programs, they were covered by nonprofits. they took time to put in place, which eventually slowed the recovery process down for individuals. and so i really believe that even with an increased federal share and there will be an increased state share as well in some of these, that it also helps them on their road to recovery. and so the long term benefits, you know, we're not going to know what those are right away, but those long term benefits of people being on their road to recovery, staying in their community and not having to move, those are going to be the soft costs that are saved in the end that i think are going to be equally as important to have, you know, awareness of. amna: fema administrator deanne criswell, thank you so much for being here today. great to speak with you. jennifer: -- deanne: thanks, amna. ♪

♪ amna: apprehensions of migrants at the u.s. southern border reached a record high at the end of last year. but before crossing into the us, -- the u.s. many in this , increasingly-global group travel more than 1500 miles through mexico. with producers sam weber and christine romo, we recently went to mexico's southern border with guatemala, to report on this dsperate journey. >> when we met them on this mexico roadside, these families, originally from venezuela, had already been walking for ian days. amna: where are they headed now? >> we are going to the united states, god permitting. >> why did you leave? >> my country, my country. the government is horrible. amna: under a blazing sun, in near 90 degree heat, they share they're heading to the u.s. to

seek asylum. we ask what they need. >> water. water. >> and food for the children. amna: 10-year-old brittany has already witnessed and lived what no child should. brittany: we had to pass through the jungle and cross rivers. they stole our money and lied to us. amna: when was the last time you had anything to eat or drink? >> i don't know. amna: but she's fueled by a simple dream. >> i want to study. amna: study, what do you want to study? >> doctor. amna: little brother jason is just jason: i'm going to the five. disney castle. amna: you're going to the disney castle? and with that, they press on. each step, they hope, bringing them closer to a better life. as migration worldwide erupts to record levels, this part of southern mexico has become a global crossroads, with thousands of asylum seekers passing through each day, most

on their way to the united states. >> we are here right now. and here is mainly the way that people enter to mexico. amna: eli cruz leads the tapachula sub office for the united nations international organization for migration. eli: it's not just that women or men are traveling by themselves. they're traveling with their families. there are a lot of children. we are looking we are seeing a lot of different profiles, with a lot of vulnerabilities. amna: for years, migrants crossing into mexico were largely from central america . 2023 marked the first year that people from south america outpaced them, with record numbers from venezuela and ecuador, according to mexican government data. but the patterns continue to shift. what about people from even further away, for example, at the u.s. southern border? some of the biggest jumps we've been seeing over the last three years have been for people from russia, from india, from china. have you been seeing that here as well?

eli: yes. in the last years, we have been seeing a lot of these nationalities. also people from afghanistan, or from bangladesh. amna: over the past decade, mexico has become an increasingly popular and accessible route to the u.s. for asian and african migrants. in fact, out of 195 recognized countries in the world mexican officials say 120 nationalities have come across their southern border. the majority of those crossings happen here. this shallow stretch of the suchiate river is all that separates guatemala from mexico at this point and rafts regularly ferry people across . but in some ways, the most difficult part of the journey is still ahead. some 1500 miles and many more obstacles before the u.s. southern border. but those who can afford it skip all of those obstacles and gain swift passage to the northern border. smugglers like mario handle all the details. >> my clients all want to arrive safe and sound in the united

states. amna: we're using a different name to protect him from cartel retribution. he charges up to $21,000 per person for longer journeys and says his network has moved 50,000 people into the u.s. since 2021. amna: what do you tell them when they approach you? do you guarantee them that they will be able to make it? mario it's my word and my : reputation on the line. out of all the clients that i've had, only two or three have been detained. the rest are in the united states. amna: newshour has no way to verify that claim. i ask him about migrants' stories of abuse and assault on their journeys. mario: yes, it's true. the people that happens to don't have the money to pay for my services. the overland trip across mexico can take around 15 days but i can move any nationality into the united states via plane in a matter of hours. there is always a way to get in. amna: with scarce resources, 24

-year-old rosa and her family are making their own way to the u.s. they left venezuela in september of 2023, traversing the deadly and dangerous darien gap into central america. rosa: we saw horrible things, dead women, children, and we worried constantly about what could happen to our children, if the river would take them, if they would dehydrate, if they would suffer from malnutrition because we didn't have enough food, or if they would need medication. amna: 32-year-old merlin, a former government official, says she fled political persecution. she and the other mothers banded together to get their families to the united states. merlin: some brought tents, some brought medicine, we organized everything. we are a total of 16 people, five mothers all traveling together with our children and we share everything and we help each other along the way. rosa: sometimes we would run out of everything and have to go without food and water.

if all we had was a piece of bread, then we made sure all of the children ate so they would survive because they are not as strong as we are. amna: in mexico, they've entered a so-called "containment zone" set up by mexican officials under u.s. pressure. checkpoints pepper the roads. migrants without paperwork can be detained. even those who make it to mexico's north can be bused or flown back to the south , an effort to alleviate pressure at the u.s. mexico border. -- u.s.-mexico border. near the river bank, rosa, merlin, and their families wait to board a bus provided by mexican immigration. there's no shared schedule, timing, or final destination. u.s. officials tell newshour this unpredictable effort aims to move migrants from dense cities into less-populated areas, and keeps them in southern mexico. but that hasn't stopped the flow of migrants. there are no official government numbers. but some officials and ngo's estimate between 4000 and 6000

migrants arrive daily. roughly half are processed by mexico's refugee agency, known as comar. the other half are entering under the radar and not registering. newshour's repeated requests for an interview with a comar official were denied, citing election season restrictions. merlin says they knew mexico would be the toughest part of the journey, but they're not deterred. merlin: we are heading out now. we have high hopes and we are excited to move ahead in our journey. we don't know where they're taking us but we're going to stay positive. sam: -- amna: after several days walking and busing through mexico, rosa, merlin, and family arrived in mexico city more than six months after they left venezuela. from here, they plan to try and get an appointment with u.s. immigration through the cbp-one app, a legal route for asylum seekers before continuing on to the border. it's at this point in the journey that countless families

get close only to get stuck. you haven't been able to get an appointment yet. how long have you been trying ? >> no, we've been trying for an appointment every single day. amna: juan and rocio have spent nearly two months at this shelter along the u.s.-mexico border with their five kids. cartel violence in their home state of guerrero has paralyzed a once-thriving state. when you think about your life ahead, if you make it into the united states, what do you want for your children? what does that better than life look like? >> i want my children to do well, to go to school and be someone in life. i don't want them to live in fear. amna: susana hurtado rochin is a program coordinator for save the children in the state of sonora, on the border with arizona. for many of the children that come through here, the journeys that they have made are unimaginable. what's the impact of that kind of journey on a child? what does it do to them? susana: both adults and children, arrive with mixed emotions.

they arrive with an idea of getting to the border and crossing right away into the united states and then they get here and they're stuck and they're conflicted about being so close but yet so far away at the same time. save the children works directly -- amna: save the children works directly in shelters across the u.s.-mexico border, setting up child friendly, safe spaces. >> the goal is to give them a sensation of taking back control of their lives and not living in standby mode. so that they can continue with their lives, meet people, make friends and to do it all in a place where they feel safe to express their feelings and speak about their emotions. amna: seven-year-old carely and her sister, 11-year-old citlali are already preparing for life in the u.s. carely: i just know one thing in english. you're my baby. amna: you're my baby, oooh! they tell us they prefer life in the shelter to life back home. what do you like about being here, about staying here?

carely: i like the games. amna: the games. carely: what i like best is being with my family. amna: their parents, juan and rocio, say they'll wait as long as it takes to get an appointment and enter the u.s. legally. the border crossing is just a few miles away, but for this family, close enough is good enough, for now.n what asylum-seekers face when they cross the border, and how u.s. immigration officials are coping with it all. geoff: monday night's march madness game, in which iowa beat lsu to go to the final four, was watched by more than 12 million viewers on espn, making it the most-watched women's college basketball game ever. in fact, it was the most-watched -- amna: that's right. in fact, it was the most-watched college basketball game ever on the cable channel men's or women's.

john yang joins us now with more. john: geoff and amna, that audience was bigger even than last year's record-setting ncaa championship game between the same two teams on abc, which reaches more homes than espn, it was bigger than any major league baseball game since the 2022 world series and bigger than every national hockey league game since 1971. the question is whether it's a one-time effect of superstar caitlin clark or is it a sign of bigger changes for women's sports? nicole auerbach is a senior writer for the athletic, covering college football and basketball. are we seeing a big shift in women's sports? nicole: we are seeing a shift. there's people that watched the second part of that doubleheader on monday night. in any other year, that would have been a record for a non-for

game for the women's tournament and instead, this year, that record has been broken so many times, it wasn't, but what i think it does is it has introduced a lot more people to a lot of the stars in women's basketball. we are seeing them stick around even if they came in for caitlin clark. they are getting to know walk-ins and--who was injured for the last year and a half and maybe they are deciding that they are getting invested with their local team. we are seeing it continue to build and spread so i think that there are a lot of stars in place and interesting teams and parity across the board that will keep people engaged in women's college basketball even after caitlin clark heads out to the pros. john: compared to the men's tournament, on the secondary market, tickets for the final four, for the women's final four, are $2300, which is twice what the going rate is for the men's final four. what does that tell you? nicole: it tells you that one is in an arena and one is in a

football stadium, but it shows that demand for these tickets on the women's side, i had said to some folks who were involved in the planning for cleveland before the tournament began that if you got south carolina, yukon, iowa, or one of the three, you would probably have a pretty good audience, and i think that this is going to be an incredible atmosphere for these teams because of those fan bases that are going to be there, but it does show that there is demand. john: beyond college basketball, are we seeing this shift in women's professional soccer and other sports? is it too early to say that we have crossed a threshold now? nicole: i think we have crossed a threshold. i noticed it anecdotally among my friends that they are planning their weekends around these women's games. they are making sure that they are going to be done with whatever work they had in order to be seated in time for that seven a lot game to watch iowa and lsu and that has been changing over the last couple of years because obviously, we have seen the viewership increase in a lot of different sports but even in the collegiate space,

that includes women's gymnastics, volleyball, softball, so you are seeing the growth in a lot of these areas and then you are seeing media companies respond to that and give better timeslots, better channels that they are on to make it more accessible and to ride off of that because if it is more accessible, you are going to find new and bigger audiences that are down the road and so i think that we have seen that across the board and obviously, i think with this women's basketball season, if you watched one game, you were more likely to stick around and watch more and i think that is what is really getting people excited about the future. obviously, caitlin clark is a unique phenomenon but if she introduces more people to the sport and they realize this is really fun, this is higher-level athleticism, they are more likely to stick around so i think you are seeing that in a number of spaces. john: we mention to the new attention to this but there's also a negative attention on angel reese of lsu. she has gotten a lot of criticism since her team won the national championship last year.

she got very emotional talking about it monday night in the postgame news conference. >> i have been through so much. i have seen so much. i have been attacked so many times. death threats. i have been sexualized. i have been threatened. i have been so many things and i have stood strong every time. i just try and stand strong for my teammates because i don't want them to see me down. and not be there for them. so i just want to always just know like i'm still human. john: i'm going to ask this very plainly. how much does race play into that? nicole: quite a bit. i think a lot of what we have seen over the last year has been two things, right, that we are talking about a female athlete and we are tking about a black athlete, an angel has actually talked about this a little bit throughout the weekend. i was in albany when she was opening up about this in the lead up to that championship game. she says she has not had peace since this year's national championship game and it's really hard to imagine anyone being able to put themselves in

her shoes and understand how famous she got so quickly and then you become a polarizing figure who is not afraid to say how they feel, and that has attracted again a lot of criticism and all of the things that angela said is absolutely -- has absolutely happened to her. that is part of this as well. there are more eyeballs on black female athletes and there is an underside to this that is ugly and that is something we all need to be aware of so we can help make this better for female athletes, especially black female athletes in college sports who are really young and exposed in a way that is just hard to imagine. but it's not someone who necessarily sought out the level of fame that she has but has to live with it and it's, you know, incredible to hear her teammates have her back and support her which led to that emotional response. john: thank you very much. nicole: thanks for having me. ♪

amna: join us back here tomorrow night for our exclusive conversation with japanese prime minister fumio kishida on efforts to increase security cooperation in asia. and that's the newshour for tonight. geoff: and i'm geoff bennett. thank you for joining us. and have a good evening. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by -- ♪ ♪ >> moving our economy for 160 years, bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> it was like an ah-ha moment.

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