Students:This is Mr. Cordess' history class from Prescott High School, and Channel One News starts right now!
Arielle: Now, President Trump is ending a government program that allows thousands of young undocumented immigrants to stay here in the U.S. Without it their future is uncertain.So what is going on here, and how does this change the immigration laws in America? Tom Hanson breaks it down.
Tom: Across the country thousands hit the streets yesterday in protest.
All right, so the protestors are just over there.It looks like there are maybe four or five arrests. We were told that a lot of the people who are actually getting arrested are undocumented, and that could mean deportation for them.
They are protesting a move by the Trump administration which would cancel a program that protects some undocumented immigrants from being deported, or forced to leave the U.S.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions: The Department of Homeland Security should begin an orderly, lawful wind down, including the cancellation of the memo that authorized this program.
Joe Galman: I came to this country with my parents,and I’ve benefited immensely from, you know, all of the amazing things that America has to offer, and just the idea of taking that right away from so many children was extremely bothersome to me.
Tom: The program is known as DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It is for young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally when they were children.They are often called DREAMers.
What was your initial reaction to the announcement this morning?
Sofi Chavez: My initial reaction was to cry because…
Tom: It is okay, it is okay.
Chavez: It's just cruel, and it's wrong.
Tom: DACA doesn't provide a path to citizenship, but it does allow recipients to work legally, and they are protected from deportation.
Cynthia: DACA has opened a lot of doors for me. Work permit jobs, and that just closes a lot of doors for me and — as well as many other DACA recipients here in our school.
Tom: An estimated 800,000DACA recipients are given work permits, which last for two years. The administration will phase out the program by allowing current permits to expire. Requests for new permits which have already been submitted will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Many DACA recipients say the U.S. is the only home they know and they are being punished for something their parents did.
Luke Hwang came to America at age 11.
Luke Hwang: These are children who have grown up in this country and call this home.
Tom: Hundreds of thousands of DACA recipients are currently working and paying taxes. Without DACA it is estimated the U.S. would lose between $200 and$400 billion from the economy over 10 years. But critics of DACA say it hurts the economy and gives a free pass to people here illegally.
Sessions: It also denied jobs to hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing those same illegal aliens to take those jobs.
Tom: President Obama implemented DACA five years ago with an executive action, but the Trump administration argued the action is unconstitutional and it should be handled by Congress.
The president tweeted, "Congress, get ready to do your job —DACA!" Tom Hanson, Channel One News.
Arielle: The White House said DACA will be phased out over the next six months.And Azia Celestino follows the personal journey of one DREAMer who came here illegally from Mexicoas she tries to make it to college.
Azia: Is going to college a normal thing in your city in Mexico?
Diana: It wasn't particularly in my kind of village. We would always hearabout the United States being the land of opportunity and just everything great over here.
Arielle: That story is up on ChannelOne.com.
All right, next, the legacy of the most powerful bomb ever used.
Arielle: Countries near North Korea are taking the threat of nuclear war more and more seriouslyas the unpredictable country continues to make threats. Its neighbors, South Korea and Japan, are not sitting around, though. They are exploring options about getting stronger weapons.
It would be the first time that Japan ramped up its weapons since the end of World War II, when it learned firsthand about the destructive power of a nuclear weapon. Maggie Rulli traveled to Hiroshima,Japan, for a look at the lasting effects of the bomb.
Shigeko Sasamori: Hiroshima City was clear, blue skies, very beautiful day. And I look up, and I saw the airplane. At almost same time, I saw the white thing drop from the airplane. Then I got a very strong force that knock me back. I don't know how long I was unconscious, but when it conscious back, I look around. Everything is pitch black.
Maggie: It was 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945. The United States dropped a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima, Japan. It started with a flash — 0.03 second of an intense fireball that burned hotter than the surface of the sun — scorching clothes, houses and people, leaving fingerprints, permanent shadows burned onto the ground.
Then a blast, shockwaves as powerful as 1,000 hurricanes, bending windows and shattering concrete. Those who were not burned were killed by the blast. The last hit, radiation:Direct gamma rays penetrated the body and destroyed tissue. Some people thought they had escaped injury, only to die a few days later from radiation.
An estimated 140,000 people died, more than half of the city's population. Shigeko Sasamori was 13 years old.
Sasamori: No one say anything because too much hurt.
Maggie: Shigeko survived, horribly burned and all alone. No food, no water, no medication, for days, calling for her mother.
Sasamori: Then my mother heard, "Here I am" — very weak voice. She can't recognize me.My face was such a horrible burned. She couldn’t tell where the mouth, where the nose, where the eyes.
Maggie: As a young woman, Shigeko was sent to the U.S.,where she got dozens of surgeries and regained the use of her hands. The bomb left permanent scars on Shigeko and on Hiroshima. It is here we discover her story is not uncommon.
These are clothes that have been just ripped to shreds by the blast of the bomb. Look at this one. This was just a girl who was a first year in high school, so just a freshman, and it has just completely been ripped apart.
Historian and second-generation survivor Kenji Shiga takes us around the now busy city, but one that remains marked by its tragic past, a living history lesson.
So sitting where we are sitting when the nuclear weapon went off, we would have been killed instantly.
Kenji Shiga: Definitely, absolutely. That would have been immediate, which means this person would have had no idea what happened.
Maggie: This elementary school, a haunting memorial where, 70 years later, the walls are still marked with messages looking for lost loved ones. Even though the building stood, everyone in it died.
This hospital, the epicenter of the blast. Hardly any medical personnel were left to care for those wounded, and no one knew how to treat their unfamiliar injuries.
Shiga: It was the first atomic bomb ever used in history, so they didn't know how to treat patients. No idea.
Maggie: Just three days after the devastation in Hiroshima, the U.S. dropped another, even more powerful, nuclear weapon just south of here, in the city of Nagasaki. Instantly another 40,000 people were killed. The U.S.,led by President Harry Truman, felt the second bomb was necessary to end the war. Both cities were instantly destroyed. It was a devastation that would be felt for decades.
A nuclear weapon produces a large amount of radioactive material, sometimes referred to as nuclear fallout. Radiation can kill instantly or be a slow death, taking years. It is blamed for birth defects, land contamination and higher rates of cancer, like Shigeko, who has had cancer twice. Yet she wants her legacy to not be one of death, but of peace.
Sasamori: Because I've survived to tell what happened, God give me the life. I feel, "Why people don't learn?" We don't need the atomic bomb!
Maggie: TodayShigeko travels the world,telling her story, sharing the history of Hiroshima with young people, like these students in New York City.
Kenelson Marcellin: It really touched me. Like, it could've been me. And to hear the story and how hurtful it was, it's really amazing.
Maggie: Today some question if the nuclear bomb was really necessary to end the war, while others say it is their very existence that continues to keep America safe. Maggie Rulli, Channel One News.
Arielle: Deep series. Thanks,Maggie.
Now, today's Word in the News, which you just heard, is epicenter, which is the central point of something, typically a difficult situation or disaster.
Okay guys, it is time to head out of here, but we will catch you right back here tomorrow.
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