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Interview with Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Brian A. Nichols; Interview with "Hate Radio" Director and Playwright Milo Rau; Interview with 404 Media Reporter and Co-Founder Joseph Cox. Aired 1-2p ET

Aired January 28, 2026 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:00]

PAULA NEWTON, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everyone, and a warm welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.

Still on the street, protesters stand up in Minneapolis as some Republicans come out against the Trump team's immigration tactics.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is cruelty, this is inhumane, and this is a death sentence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: -- Haitians in America brace for deportation. I ask President Biden's former Assistant Secretary of State about the dangers of sending

them back to a country riddled with gang violence.

Then --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: -- "Hate Radio." The unnerving story of how the Rwandan airwaves paved the way for genocide. Playwright Milo Rau joins me.

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH COX, REPORTER AND CO-FOUNDER, 404 MEDIA: That technology is now being used to determine whether somebody should be deported.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: -- the ICE surveillance state. Joseph Cox tells Hari Sreenivasan how the U.S. government is using new tech to write up target lists.

Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Paula Newton in New York, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.

The whole world is watching what's happening in Minnesota, the state at the center of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown. Minneapolis Mayor

Jacob Frey says local police won't enforce federal immigration policy. President Trump tells him he's, quote, "playing with fire."

Some Republicans, though, are now speaking out after the killing of ICU nurse Alex Pretti, with Senator Thom Tillis railing against both Homeland

Security Chief Kristi Noem and top White House adviser Stephen Miller.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): Stephen Miller never fails to live up to my expectations of incompetence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think he should be fired?

TILLIS: I'm going to leave that up to the president. I can tell you, if I were president, neither one of them would be in Washington right now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But do you think Noem should step down?

TILLIS: I think Noem needs to decide what -- I mean, I think if Noem looks at her body of work, I could not be. If I were in her position, I can't

think of any point in pride over the last year. She's got to make her own decision, and the president does. But she has taken this administration

into the ground on an issue that we should own. We should own the issue of border security and immigration, but they have destroyed that for

Republicans, something that got the president elected, they have destroyed it through their incompetence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: So, hearing that, Trump responded by calling Senator Tillis a loser. And a frequent target of Trump, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, was

attacked last night in Minneapolis. A man, as you see there, ran at Omar, spraying what is still an unknown substance. That was before he was tackled

and taken away.

Now, the understatement here, it's an extraordinarily tense time in America. We want to go straight to our Kevin Liptak, who's been following

developments there in Washington for us. Now, you know, we've seen a lot of movements from the administration in the last 48 hours. Perhaps it's a

pivot. Is it optics, though? And I am wondering what discernible change people in Minnesota may see on the ground, if any.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: I mean, I think what you have not seen so far is any pullback of these wide-scale immigration

enforcement operations. There's no indication that, for example, the agents that have been causing so much anger among the community there have started

departing.

And, in fact, just yesterday, we saw an operation that got a lot of headlines when ICE agents tried to enter the Ecuadorian consulate, which

drew a lot of anger from the government of Ecuador. And so, you are still seeing some of these operations underway.

And I think it just underscores that the changes and the pivot that President Trump seems to have been putting in place is not a change in

policy. It seems to be a change in tactics. And when you talk about Tom Homan, who is the president's border czar, who has been sent to Minnesota

to sort of supplant the leadership that had been in place there previously, this is not someone who is opposed to the president's tactics.

[13:05:00]

Tom Homan is a hardliner through and through. The difference is what he sees -- or how he sees all of this playing out. He isn't necessarily in

favor of these widespread sweeps of the community to try and look for every undocumented migrant that might be living there. His goal is for much more

targeted operations going after migrants who may have criminal histories, who may be violent criminals, and try and go after them in a much more

targeted way.

Of course, the other objective seems to have been to try and cool temperatures with local leaders in Minnesota, with the governor, Tim Walz,

with the mayor, Jacob Frey. And it had seemed until a couple of hours ago that that was working.

You know, Tom Homan met with them on the ground. Both sides of those conversations came away saying that they were productive, Tom Homan

acknowledging that, yes, they would continue to have disagreements, but that there was some progress made.

Of course, now President Trump coming out this morning warning Jacob Frey that he was playing with fire by saying that he would not allow some of

these federal enforcement officials to operate in this state and calling for them to withdraw entirely does seem to be reigniting some of those

tensions that initially at least had seemed to be easing.

NEWTON: Yes, and you can imagine that in Minnesota on the ground that certainly the fear remains. Now, we had people even like Senate Majority

Leader John Thune. And, Kevin, this really got my attention because he refused to back Homeland Security Kristi Noem. And now, you have this

perhaps new scrutiny of Stephen Miller, right? He's the deputy chief of staff there at the White House.

Do you think there is a broader shift going on with the Republican Party at the moment? I mean, I have heard more than one Republican politician say

the president is getting bad advice, not saying Stephen Miller, but pretty much pointing in his direction.

LIPTAK: Right. And we should say Stephen Miller, his title is deputy chief of staff, which very much understates how much power and how much influence

he has in the West Wing. The president very much relies on Stephen Miller and has relied on Stephen Miller for the better part of a decade for almost

all of his policy advice, whether it's on immigration or most recently in this term, whether it's on foreign policy and any number of issues.

And so, yes, you do hear Republicans begin to whisper that Stephen Miller is a bad influence on the president, that he is suggesting policies that

are not benefiting the president's either objectives or his politics.

But I think it's still a very far cry from the president dismissing Stephen Miller. This is someone who has been around the president for quite a long

time. The president has said in the past that, yes, Stephen Miller is someone who is out there in a lot of ways. But still, I think the president

maintains a lot of confidence in him to carry out his agenda.

When it comes to Kristi Noem, I think the story might be a little different. Certainly. for now, the president is sticking with Kristi Noem.

He said very explicitly yesterday that he did not expect her to resign. He held this lengthy meeting with her in the Oval Office earlier this week

that came at her request. And there was no indication over the course of those two hours that she was expecting to see her job pulled out from under

her.

I do think it's notable when you start to hear some of these senators come out and be very critical of the job she's done. Certainly, that's an

indication of a shifting position. But Thom Tillis, we should note, is not running for re-election. He has now become one of the top critics of the

president.

The other senator that we heard from yesterday, Lisa Murkowski, is someone who has also never held her tongue in her criticism of President Trump. Who

we have not heard from yet are the president's loyalists, the people who are behind him in almost everything. They very much still backing the

president in all of his sort of personnel decisions.

NEWTON: You do wonder, though, what they -- all of them may hear when they head back home in terms of the tactics used in Minnesota. Kevin Liptak,

grateful to you. Appreciate it.

Now, we turn to what will happen with the Haitian community. In less than a week, Haitians in the United States are set to lose what's called temporary

protected status. In other words, 350,000 Haitians are at risk now at being deported. Some U.S. lawmakers are already ringing alarm bells, warning that

sending them back to Haiti amounts to a death sentence.

The United Nations warns that armed gangs and the violence they are perpetrating just continues to escalate. With, in recent months, more than

8,000 killings, and that's how many were documented just in the last year.

Brian A. Nichols focused on Haiti during his time under President Biden's administration. He was the assistant secretary of state for Western

Hemisphere affairs, and he joins us now from Washington, D.C. And grateful to you as we try and turn our attention.

[13:10:00]

As has happened as many times, it has not affected any change. And we need to get to what is a core contradiction right now. And the State Department

you used to work for. It maintains this level four do not travel warning to Haiti. Of course, citing the rampant gang violence there. And at the same

time, DHS, Department of Homeland Security, is saying, look, 350 Haitians, you are no longer protected here in this status. You need to go home. DHS

is offering a thousand bucks to self-deport.

I mean, how dangerous do you believe this new policy is for Haitians? And what do you believe will come out of it?

BRIAN A. NICHOLS, FORMER U.S. ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WESTERN HEMISPHERE: Well, this is a crucial time in Haiti. Haiti is in a prolonged

political, security, economic and humanitarian crisis. The metropolitan Port-au-Prince area, the capital, is riddled with gangs. The interim

government in Haiti has made progress in recent weeks in going after the gangs and their leaders who are all internationally sanctioned.

But the violence, the rapes, the murders, the assaults that Haitians, particularly in the area where most Haitians live, is critically bad. And I

would add that the impact of removing 350,000 Haitians to their own country from the United States would also be a tremendous economic blow to Haiti.

Because many, many of those people provide economic remittances, payments to their family members in Haiti. And the economy there is already in a

serious recession. So, losing those remittances would also dramatically harm Haiti as a nation.

NEWTON: It is such a good point, especially at such a critical time for aid, aid being cut by so many governments now, including the United States.

I do want to give people the context of which you speak.

You know, you noted how bad the situation was when you left a year ago. And things have gotten so much worse. Just to give people some insight, the

U.N. says gangs control up to 90 percent of the capital. That's including all major roads and ports. As we were saying, over 8,000 people killed in

2025 alone in gang violence. More than 1.4 million Haitians are internally displaced from their homes. And more than 6 million -- I want to point out

that is well over half the population in need of humanitarian assistance.

You know, I know this is going to be perhaps a naive question. But people are wondering, given all the efforts of you and others, why are things

still so much worse?

NICHOLS: Well, Haiti has long been suffering at the hands of a pernicious, rapacious elite that has exploited the security situation for their own

benefit, including now some members of the Transitional Presidential Council in Haiti.

The situation there, I mean, you can go back to the founding of Haiti, where the country was saddled with enormous debts that it had to repay to

its former colonial master, France. And over time, Haiti has failed to achieve economic stability. But Haiti can have a much better future. And I

think that, you know, the Trump administration has done some positive things. I think the creation of the gang suppression force with the U.N.

mandate that will increase the funding and resources going for security in Haiti is a very important step.

The conversion of the mandate to one that has a U.N. mandate that has a political component will help as well. But Haiti also needs dramatically

increased economic and humanitarian assistance. Just today, Doctors Without Borders, Medecins Sans Frontieres, released a report talking about the

surge in rapes in Haiti. And that's just one of the many scourges that Haitians are dealing with.

NEWTON: Absolutely. And that has been going on in Haiti, unfortunately, for many years. And yet, you know, you speak of nations, whether it was the

U.S., Canada, the U.N., also obviously trying to get involved on the ground. Not much has changed. The political situation right now at this

hour remains fraught.

I mean, Haiti is governed by this nine-member transitional presidential council with seven voting members. It was created in 2024, as you pointed

out, to try and steer the country through what everyone wants, which are fair and free elections, which, to be frank right now, seems like a dream.

[13:15:00]

You know, a few days ago, five of those seven moved to oust the prime minister just weeks before the council's mandate expires, and that's

supposed to happen next week. You know, the U.S. has called the move illegal and warned of consequences. But, you know, I'm going to ask you a

question that no one in Haiti can answer right now. I know if you speak to its citizens, they can't.

Who holds legitimate authority in that country right now? And it seems like any effort to try and stabilize the political situation ends up in failure.

NICHOLS: Well, since the 2021 assassination of the last elected president in Haiti, there's been a series of interim leadership. And the transitional

presidential council was created with the participation of Haitian stakeholders and the mediation of the United States, the Caribbean

community, Canada, others, the U.N., to try and find a path forward to elections. But that was a limited term with the specific mandate of

restoring security and getting the country to an election. That term is up, on February 7th.

Those people need to step aside. They have demonstrably failed to uphold their part of the bargain. I would note that the prime minister now, Alix

Didier Fils-Aime, has done a very good job in trying to navigate a very difficult security, economic and political situation. And the attempts to

remove him and prolong their tenure by the members of the transitional presidential council really flies in the face of the desires of the Haitian

people who want an election.

But the first step to an election in Haiti is restoring security. Then you've got to have campaigns. You've got to have the infrastructure in

place for people to vote safely. And hopefully, you know, by the end of this year or into next, you'll be able to have an election that reflects

the will of the Haitian people. Doing so prematurely would mean that gang leaders are able to control the political environment in Haiti, and that

would be unacceptable.

NEWTON: Yes, but as you understand, they likely do right now as well, which is why you have so much turmoil in that council. And so, I ask you,

is that not what Haitians are staring down at this point, more political turmoil in the next two or three weeks, even though, as you point out, the

United States and other countries support the prime minister and what he's trying to do?

NICHOLS: Well, I think it's crucial that the transitional presidential council step down at the end of their tenure on February 7th. I think the

prime minister has demonstrated that he is able to take the steps necessary to move the country in a better direction. He's been respected. He's been

active and engaged and focused on the key issues of security and trying to deal with the humanitarian and economic crisis in the country.

There's a debate right now in Haiti as to whether or not they would have, you know, one of the members of the transitional presidential council

continue as acting president. Haiti's constitution calls for a two-headed government with a president and a prime minister, and that's one of the

debates that's going on there.

I do not see any support, really, for the current members of the transitional presidential council continuing. Even the groups that put them

forward for those positions in April 2024 have largely withdrawn their support from them.

NEWTON: Right. Again, though, it doesn't set up a good situation in the weeks to come. Since we have you, I do want to discuss more of the broader

issue of hemispheric affairs right now, the Donroe Doctrine. You said that, in fact, when you were in office in 2024, before there was a Donroe

Doctrine, that, in your words, there's no region that's more important to the United States than the Western Hemisphere. You kind of saw that echoed

in this State Department policy. You spent your tenure building what you called a network of partnerships.

I mean, in terms of the Donroe Doctrine, though, it explicitly revives and also hardens the old Monroe Doctrine, right? We have seen the

administration remove Nicolas Maduro, but to note, not his regime, from Venezuela. It's now issuing blunt warnings in Haiti. Still, it's unclear

what it's doing in other parts of the hemisphere, including places like Cuba. How do you view this pivot in the hemisphere by the Trump

administration?

NICHOLS: Prioritizing the Western Hemisphere is important, but doing so in a way that strengthens our partnerships and our relations with the

countries of this region is vital to force our will upon the other countries in our hemisphere and to exert violence and force to achieve our

goals harkens back to the worst times in our relationships and sows the seeds for future unrest in our region.

[13:20:00]

There's going to be a bounce back a push back from this type of a policy that does not take into account the ideas, the desires, the goals of the

peoples of this hemisphere and to just impose our will as a hegemon is not going to serve the longer-term interests of the United States. Extending

the hands of friendship, of trade relations, economic investment and democracy, which is something that the so-called Donroe Doctrine really has

omitted from its toolkit. It hasn't taken steps to --

NEWTON: It is policy itself --

NICHOLS: -- install democratic government.

NEWTON: Right.

NICHOLS: Yes.

NEWTON: It's not just a document, right? It's the policy itself. We don't have a lot of time to go here --

NICHOLS: It's just the policy.

NEWTON: Yes. We don't have a lot of time to go here, but I do want to ask you about Marco Rubio, who, you know, has a lot of experience in the region

and a lot of interest in the region. He said to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the U.S. plans to establish a diplomatic presence

in Caracas. And CNN, we've reported, that the CIA is also to have planning a foothold in Venezuela. How do you see this mix of diplomatic outreach,

but also very coercive rhetoric and actions?

NICHOLS: Well, I think that having a diplomatic presence in all of the countries in our hemisphere should be a positive thing. But that implies

having a real relationship with the governments and respecting the will of the peoples of this region.

Given all the things that got us to this moment, the United States would be pushing for a democratic government in Venezuela. Maria Corina Machado and

Edmundo Gonzalez demonstrated that they enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of Venezuelan citizens. They had an election in 2024

that proved that without any shadow of a doubt. And the majority of the countries in our region recognize Edmundo Gonzalez as the president running

as a proxy for Maria Corina Machado, Nobel Prize laureate.

So, this is a time to push for democracy, not for an authoritarian government in Venezuela that will only provide us with oil, but not longer-

term stability or respect the will of the Venezuelan people.

NEWTON: Brian A. Nichols, we will have to leave it there. But we will, of course, watch developments politically on the ground in Haiti, but also

with Haitians in the United States as they continue actually to have some legal challenges to being deported. Brian A. Nichols for us. Appreciate it.

NICHOLS: Thank you for having me.

NEWTON: Later in the program, can words kill? That's the central question of Hate Radio, production revealing the dark role of Rwanda's media to

incite genocide. Milo Rau, director and writer, joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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NEWTON: Next to the power of propaganda and a warning from recent history. In the 1990s, Rwanda saw a brutal genocide of Tutsis by Houthis. And it

unfolded at an extraordinary speed, with some 1 million people killed in about 100 days. The world was shocked, even as it failed to act. But there

were warning signs, like the hate-filled radio broadcasts that incited violence, condemning Tutsis as less than human, and eventually urging

listeners to commit unspeakable atrocities.

The theater production "Hate Radio" takes us right into the broadcast booth of Rwanda's notorious radio station, RTLM. Now, it was first performed in

2011, and next month it comes to St. Anne's Warehouse in New York. And its playwright and director, Milo Rau, joins us from Stockholm. Welcome to the

program, sir. Appreciate it.

MILO RAU, DIRECTOR AND PLAYWRIGHT, "HATE RADIO": Hi, hi. Thanks for having me.

NEWTON: You know, it seems as if we're talking about something that would be innocuous. It is anything but. So, when we talk about a radio program,

for people who may not be familiar, what was RTLM, and what is its place in Rwandan history?

RAU: The history of RTLM is quite interesting, because it was created after the opening of Rwanda itself, after the creation of democracy there

by the pledge of international community. So, they wanted to create independent private radio station, and that was RTLM. So, actually, the

idea was very well, but then it came under the influence of extremists. And that's how it was created. And it prepared the genocide. And during the

genocide, it was even a tool to point on people where they were hiding, to even speed up the genocide.

And of course, in the last days, it was bombed. And the different moderators and hosts were disappearing. Some were taken by international

justice and live still today. So, I could meet some of them.

NEWTON: Yes, and I'm sure some of the stories were just hard to really envision in terms of how this ended up playing out in this genocide. Can

you give some insight to our audiences as to why you decided to recreate these broadcasts in this play, in a theater, which some people would be

called documentary theater? And some people are wondering why you felt this was the most powerful vehicle to do it.

RAU: I think in that moment, there was no television in Rwanda. And this was the first independent radio studio. So, you can't over-evaluate the

influence that it had on what actually happened. And it was also this radio that in an even funny way. So, when you watch the show that we did, which

just shows the radio studio, it's a lot of fun. It's very good music. It's a lot of different hosts. It's a lot of different stories. It was even a

call-in radio studio.

So, it was very, very modern at that very moment for people that were not used to this. They were used to speeches of the president, to traditional

music, to priests talking. And all of a sudden, you had this kind of crazy boy group. They were casted. So, whether it was the funny guy from the

city, then there was the lady talking to the more traditionalist people from the countryside and so on.

Everybody could identify with them. And they moved more and more, let's say, the barrier of what you could say in the open and public space and

whatnot. So, it started with little jokes, racist jokes, with sexist things, with little theories, putting paranoia on the listeners. And it

went more and more. And in the end, it was really a kind of a station to kind of command the killings. So, it was a very fast development.

And I think you can really not overestimate the influence of this radio studio. Even I met a lot of people that were in the army that liberated

Rwanda, so as soldiers. And even them, they listened to it because they loved the music. And of course, they knew then what the other side was

doing.

And I think the specific thing we do in this show, we not only recreate a show, we recreate a show and all the hosts in the studio that you see on

stage are played by survivors of the genocide. So, you could say that the victims are playing the perpetrators, telling them why they should commit

genocide against themselves.

So, it's a very hard way of staging it and to understanding it the same way. Because at the impression, I have to work together with the people

that really listen to this radio, survive this radio.

NEWTON: It would be quite jarring. Milo, I do want to give our audience just an idea of what you're talking about here. We're going to listen to an

excerpt. And it's from a caller that calls in to thank RTLM Radio for what they do. And they then go on to request a song. Listen.

[13:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KANTANO (through translator): Keep it up, Didacienne. Would you like to request a song?

DIDACIENNE (through translator): A song, yes.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

GEORGES (through translator): Yes, I would like to hear that song. Yay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEWTON: You know, in testimony that I have seen in courts and extradition hearings for Rwanda, I heard a lot, obviously, of this call to genocide,

which was presented as evidence, it was cold, hard evidence. I had not heard a lot of this. I had forgotten. And it is so jarring. How do you

reconcile this kind of programming with the legacy of RTLM's genocidal language? It was incredibly harsh and dehumanizing for Tutsis.

RAU: Yes, true. It's extremely harsh. And I think the hardest part of it, and you could hear it in this excerpt, that it is mixed with pop culture,

with fun, with good mood. So, when we imagine fascism and genocide, especially in Europe, we see, of course, these black and white pictures of

Adolf Hitler and this kind of stuff. And then you have this radio studio when you present it, and we are touring since 15 years in all continents.

Everybody thinks that it's from their city because it looks like the radio station from today. And that makes it extremely influential and extremely

effective at that very moment.

And you have speeches that are super direct, super political. And then you have this kind of joking about music and choosing the program. When we

presented it the first time, it was in Rwanda. And we did it in front of the Rwandan Senate. And the wife of the director of the Senate, she

survived the genocide. And she said that for the first time, she listened to these songs again.

For example, I like to move it, move It, because she didn't listen to them anymore because they were on that radio station. So, it's this mix that

makes it so effective and so horrific that as a public, you even start to move with the music, you know? And you start laughing with the jokes. And

then you fall immediately into the trap. And I think that's the interesting thing of this studio and why it was so effective.

NEWTON: Wow, that is a startling thing that you say, that what is essentially pop music would be associated with genocide in that way. And I

do want to talk to you about two words that stick out to me was the issue of the word cockroaches, as it was used, but also the intimacy of the

violence that actually was perpetrated.

For many years, this radio station was referred to as Radio Machete. And the documentation of the horrific violence, neighbor on neighbor, and

pulling it all back to this kind of dialogue on this radio station. How powerful was that for you in staging this?

RAU: It was extremely hard. It was extremely hard to describe with cockroach, for example. So, there is this whole process of dehumanization,

legitimization, of course, of the enemy, but also of the genocide, creating the enemy, creating the Tutsi. They didn't exist as a group of people. They

were a crazy mix of ethnical enemies and political enemies and so on.

So, it was really something happening in a slow way. It was just like jokers first. Then it became more serious and serious. And in the end, it

became very clearly you have to kill them now and we call you to kill now these people that are hiding in this school or that school or in this house

and that house, even pointing numbers of cars and numbers of streets and so on and so on.

So, it was super explicit. And at the same time, as you say, super personal. You could call in, children called in, you know, they were

talking to the victims before killing them through the radio. And all this together gives a mix that for me, before I knew this radio was not, I

didn't know about that.

And of course, now it became very sensitive to hate speech. So, when people are starting to talk like this, to make kind of a political program,

political speech like this, mixing fun and dehumanization and calling metaphorically for killing the enemy. But it's not meant like this, but

perhaps it can become reality.

So, this is an extreme good example how a society can shift from democracy, from popular culture into something extremely dark.

NEWTON: And that context that you give us is so important. As you said, this was after Rwanda was in -- you know, had had elections.

[13:35:00]

I want to kind of give voice to the survivors here who talk about this. And just to quote one here, saying that I don't believe, I'm quoting a survivor

here, "I don't believe in an end to genocide. I don't think this is the last time we will experience these most heinous of atrocities. If there was

one genocide, then there will be many more."

It is grim, and yet it is likely steeped in reality, her testimony. And yet you, with this theater production, a very provocative one, how do you see

it? How do you believe this will contribute to understanding the power of hate speech?

RAU: You understand the power of hate speech really by living its atmosphere. That's how this show functions. That's why I did it, by the

way, because there are a lot of shows about genocide, but especially about the genocide in Rwanda. And there's a whole iconography of it. And there's

a whole thing, how you talk about it. But for example, there was never a way to really understand, to really being immersed in what it means to

almost, as I said, dancing to the music and to understand that you can become subject of this kind of radio too. You can become perpetrator of a

genocide too, without even trying to understand. Because it goes slow. And I wanted to show that.

I just wanted to give two hours. And there's a prologue in the epilogue, and you quoted from one of the testimonies, where we understand what is the

outcome of it. What is the reality of all this fun? What is the reality of this hate speech? And I think it's kind of a balance that the play tries to

establish.

NEWTON: Certainly. The production now will be in New York. But given the first time you did it in 2011, it clearly has much residence beyond Rwanda.

Milo Rau, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.

Now, stay with CNN. We'll be right back with more after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NEWTON: So, over the past year, about 230,000 people were arrested in the United States by ICE and deported by the Trump administration. That's more

than the total number of deportees during President Biden's entire four- year term.

Now, under Trump's immigration crackdown, ICE agents are picking people off the streets and from their homes at a very high rate. But what tools are

enabling them to target neighborhoods? Joseph Cox is the founder of 404 Media and has done extensive reporting on the federal agency and its

expanding surveillance technology. He speaks to Hari Sreenivasan about the role of Palantir in facilitating all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Paula, thanks. Joseph Cox, thanks so much for joining us. You and your team at 404 have been

doing a series of stories about how technology is being used in the mass deportations and raids that we're seeing around the country by ICE. One of

your most recent articles was titled, Elite, the Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid.

In it, you write, Palantir is working on a tool for immigration and customs enforcement that populates a map with potential deportation targets, brings

up a dossier on each person, and provides a confidence score on the person's current address. Now, you've learned that ICE is using it to find

locations where lots of people it might detain could be based. How does this work?

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JOSEPH COX, REPORTER AND CO-FOUNDER, 404 MEDIA: So, it is a map interface and an ICE official will simply draw a circle or a square onto that map and

all of these small pins will appear. They'll then click onto one of those pins and that will be a specific person or an ICE's sort of vernacular, a

target. That'll be their name, date of birth, a photo if they have it, and as you said, the address and the address confidence score.

Elsewhere in the user guide I obtained explaining how this tool works, it says these addresses can come from the Department of Health and Human

Services, USCIS, which is part of DHS, and various other sources as well. It seems to be a tool that brings together data from all of these usually

separate places and sources and brings it into a sort of all-in-one single tool that ICE can use to find neighborhoods to raid, maybe write up target

lists, and eventually supervisors to approve those lists and send people out into the field.

SREENIVASAN: So, how did you confirm the connection between ICE and the company Palantir?

COX: So, ELITE is an acronym and then in the user guide the full text of that was spelled out. I then, as I usually do when I get leaked documents,

I started googling around. The only mention of that spelled out acronym on the entire web was included in a Palantir contract for 29.9 million. To me

that made a very solid link between this particular tool and Palantir.

And of course, last year we already reported that Palantir was working on immigration enforcement for the second Trump administration. They were

doing various data analytics services and products and that sort of thing. But this was really the first link that we got between, oh, they're making

this specific tool and ICE is using it. It was finally bridging that divide between Palantir doing some frankly obscure technology work over here and

what is actually happening on American streets.

SREENIVASAN: So, what does ELITE, the acronym, stand for?

COX: ELITE stands for Enhanced Leads Identification and Targeting for Enforcement. That is a very unique acronym.

SREENIVASAN: You mentioned that there's a confidence score. So, how's that calculated?

COX: According to the user guide, there are two main metrics that dictate or influence that confidence score. The first is the source of that data.

So, the Department of Health or wherever it may come from. And the second one is the recency, as in when was the last time that address was updated.

And that's especially important for ICE because when it's trying to find people to detain and deport and those could be people with no criminal

conviction or it could be what they describe as the most wanted or the worst of the worst or whatever it may be that DHS -- it may be however DHS

is describing that.

Those addresses are really, really important for ICE because they can finally try to track down where that specific person may be. And that's why

they have a confidence score. They want to be quite efficient in what they're doing. They don't want to be sending personnel around randomly.

They do want to find a specific location to go and target. And that is what this tool at least hopes to do.

SREENIVASAN: Do you know if this tool has been and is being used in the raids that we're seeing around the country?

COX: So, in December, ICE officials and Customs and Border Protection officials gave really illuminating testimony in a case going on there. It

was discussing an immigration raid that happened in October. They targeted a woman who has the initials MJMA in the court transcripts and about 30

other people as well. And in that testimony, an ICE official explicitly said that they used something called ELITE, describing how it's used to

build up target lists, describing how they went to neighborhoods that they called target rich, because there were lots of people there that they could

potentially detain.

And that was one of the key pieces that allowed me to do this investigation, because this is hearing from ICE officials themselves about

how they're using this tool, what it's useful for, because when I approached DHS for comment on this, they weren't going to readily confirm

those details themselves. That testimony has been really, really illuminating, not just for this story about Palantir, but various other

ones about the surveillance tech that ICE is using in the field.

SREENIVASAN: Is anything that Palantir is doing today illegal?

COX: As far as I know, nothing that Palantir is doing is illegal. This data sharing between agencies is the fruit of an executive order from

President Trump. So, it is legally authorized in that sense. It's crucial to remember that Palantir doesn't go out and gather data. They're not

performing facial recognition. They're not tracking phones.

[13:45:00]

All Palantir does is, it seems quite well, bring all of this data together so the customer, in this case ICE, can understand it.

SREENIVASAN: Just as a note, we have reached out to both ICE through the Department of Homeland Security and to Palantir about your reporting. We

haven't received any comments. And you mentioned in your reporting that you've reached out multiple times to Palantir, to ICE, and they have not

gotten back to you, correct?

COX: Yes, I have heard from the company once or twice over my several months of reporting. And usually, they say they regret that the leaks have

happened rather than commenting on the substance of the leaks themselves.

I would say it's much more interesting to look at what they say internally, of course. And Palantir justifies its work with ICE by saying it believes

it can make ICE's work more efficient, more transparent, more accountable. Ultimately, ICE is the one deciding how to use this technology, if they use

it at all. ICE is the one that decides we're going to detain this person or track down people in this neighborhood.

SREENIVASAN: Wired recently had an interesting report about internal communications at Palantir, where there were several employees that were

very concerned about how the company's products are being used in ICE enforcement. And quoting from the Wired story now, they were talking about

an internal wiki, kind of a reference base inside Palantir that employees all have access to. And it said, the wiki acknowledges, quote, "increasing

reporting around U.S. citizens being swept up in enforcement action and held, as well as reports of racial profiling, allegedly applied as pretense

for the detention of some U.S. citizens, but argues that Palantir's customers at ICE remain committed to avoiding the unlawful/unnecessary

targeting, apprehension, and detention of U.S. citizens wherever and however possible."

We should note that Wired also said that they tried to reach out for a comment and did not receive one. So, it's interesting that there is kind of

this internal tension, at least, from employees.

COX: Yes, we saw this in the first Trump administration, as well. When Palantir was doing some work with ICE, it was specifically working on a

system called ICM for Homeland Security Investigations. You know, that's the part of ICE which focuses on cybercrime or child abuse or money

laundering, that sort of thing.

Some employees still had an issue then. This time, the outrage does seem to be much more visceral, I would say, indicating by the leaks that I've

received and Wired has received as well. But employees in that company can't necessarily change the policy directives of Palantir as a whole,

especially when you have leadership such as the CEO, Karp, saying that it is the responsibility of tech companies to help defend the West, defend

democracy.

Now, of course, myself and I think other people who look into Palantir as well find that quite a strange thing to marry with the idea that they say

they wish to defend American and Western values, while also providing the technological infrastructure for the agency that now says it does not need

a warrant to enter buildings.

I sincerely try to square that circle. And I would love if Palantir responded to my requests for comments -- to my requests for comment to

elaborate on that as well.

SREENIVASAN: You've also reported about facial recognition technology. And so, many people have seen these viral videos where the ICE agent really

just sticks his or her phone up directly to the person and kind of takes a snapshot. And that phone --

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