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Transcript: Jonathan Dekel-Chen on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Sept. 1, 2024
The following is a transcript of an interview with Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son is being held hostage by Hamas, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Sept. 1, 2024.
NANCY CORDES: We are joined now by Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of one of the Israeli-American hostages still being held by Hamas. He joins us from Tel Aviv, Jonathan, thank you so much for being with us. I can only imagine what a difficult night it has been for your family, for all of the families of the hostages. Have you been able to connect with the Goldberg-Polins or any of the families who lost their loved ones?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Sorry about that. I, Yes, I have corresponded with them over the course of the last few hours, expressing condolences. We are all absolutely horrified by the needless, senseless death of these six beautiful young people.
NANCY CORDES: What if anything have you been told by the Israeli government about how these six individuals died and when they died? Hamas is saying that they were killed by Israeli bullets. Do you believe that?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Yes, we from from we know what we know from the media, actually, and from some statements from our military, they died very shortly before they were found by IDF troops. All of them were were certainly living in a state of deprivation for many, many months. But in the end, as your reporter said, they were executed by Hamas. And the same is true, evidently, of six other bodies of Israeli hostages who were returned the week before, four of them from my kibbutz. Those were older men, in this case, this week, younger people, but all of them alive for months in Hamas captivity. So time is absolutely working against us, and quite honestly, against the people of Gaza as well.
NANCY CORDES: Well you heard Emtiaz report that several of the hostages who were killed were next in line to be released if there were to be a ceasefire. Who do you hold responsible for the fact that there is still no ceasefire today?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Well, the situation exists because Hamas, on October 7, invaded Israel, killed nearly 1400 people, committed mass rape, mass looting, destroyed homes and property, and has refused since October 7 to return all of the hostages. Now, that being said, you know, given that we’re dealing with Satan, I mean, that’s sort of the launching point for any discussion. Israelis at large, and myself included, have been extremely critical of the Israeli government for not negotiating in good faith now, for many, many months. There is no explanation, a reasonable explanation why our government is refusing to deeply engage in these negotiations and complete them, when our entire senior military establishment and intelligence community has been saying publicly and openly for weeks and months that the time has come to end the fighting in Gaza get our hostages home, as many alive as possible. We know that many dozens of the 101 remaining hostages have already been murdered, and to end the madness in Gaza. Simply the government that is preventing it.
NANCY CORDES: You are originally from Connecticut. Your son, Sagui is the father of three young girls, one of whom was born while he was in captivity. He’s among 38 hostages taken from your kibbutz. What if anything? Do you know about where he is being held and what condition he is in?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Well, one small correction on October 7, 79 people were taken from our kibbutz, and 51 slaughtered. There are 29 remaining from my kibbutz. We know that well, he’s 36 years old, father of three little girls. His seven month pregnant wife miraculously survived with their two little girls on October 7. The only thing that we know for sure about Sagui is that, as of late November, early December, we know that he was alive, wounded, but alive. And we know that because in the first hostage exchange, 40 of the 100 women and children who were released by Hamas in that first negotiation were from kibbutz, and a handful of them had seen Sagui and other men, mostly in the tunnels, and could tell us that he was still alive.
NANCY CORDES: Israel’s opposition leader is now calling the Netanyahu government a “death cabinet.” He’s calling for labor strikes against Netanyahu. Do you share that anger you said that Netanyahu has not engaged seriously. Why do you think that is?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Well, I don’t think it’s just my opinion alone. I think the vast majority of Israelis now have come to believe, by his actions, not his words, but by his actions, that he’s been driven primarily by a desire to retain power with a narrow, very radical messianic coalition in the Israeli government. And he has made choices to pursue this fantasy of total victory over Hamas, a terrorist organization, and no doubt, but this idea of total victory is a messianic one from his coalition partners, and not realistic. And he’s preferred that, at least to date, over the well being of all the hostages. There are seven Americans still remaining in Hamas captivity amongst the 101.
NANCY CORDES: CBS News has confirmed that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is going to meet virtually today with you and the other families of American hostages. Do you believe that the US government has done everything it can to bring these hostages home?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Well, I think the US government itself would say that they would have done enough when all the hostages are home, all of the 101. They say that in our meetings. I can absolutely state that since a couple of days after October 7, the US administration, from top to bottom, has been extraordinarily supportive of the hostage families: inclusive, sensitive, empathetic. I believe that they have done everything in their power up to now, but at the end of the day, two men have to say yes. One is Yahya Sinwar in a tunnel under Gaza somewhere, with the blood of 1000s on his hands, Israelis and Palestinians. And Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. President Biden, I believe, has done everything that he can. We need we need some more. But time, time is certainly against us. There’s no question of that.
NANCY CORDES: Well, we are hoping that you get more, and we appreciate you sharing your story with us today. Jonathan Dekel-Chen, thank you so much.NANCY CORDES: We are joined now by Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of one of the Israeli-American hostages still being held by Hamas. He joins us from Tel Aviv, Jonathan, thank you so much for being with us. I can only imagine what a difficult night it has been for your family, for all of the families of the hostages. Have you been able to connect with the Goldberg-Polins or any of the families who lost their loved ones?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Sorry about that. I, Yes, I have corresponded with them over the course of the last few hours, expressing condolences. We are all absolutely horrified by the needless, senseless death of these six beautiful young people.
NANCY CORDES: What if anything have you been told by the Israeli government about how these six individuals died and when they died? Hamas is saying that they were killed by Israeli bullets. Do you believe that?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Yes, we from from we know what we know from the media, actually, and from some statements from our military, they died very shortly before they were found by IDF troops. All of them were were certainly living in a state of deprivation for many, many months. But in the end, as your reporter said, they were executed by Hamas. And the same is true, evidently, of six other bodies of Israeli hostages who were returned the week before, four of them from my kibbutz. Those were older men, in this case, this week, younger people, but all of them alive for months in Hamas captivity. So time is absolutely working against us, and quite honestly, against the people of Gaza as well.
NANCY CORDES: Well you heard Emtiaz report that several of the hostages who were killed were next in line to be released if there were to be a ceasefire. Who do you hold responsible for the fact that there is still no ceasefire today?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Well, the situation exists because Hamas, on October 7, invaded Israel, killed nearly 1400 people, committed mass rape, mass looting, destroyed homes and property, and has refused since October 7 to return all of the hostages. Now, that being said, you know, given that we’re dealing with Satan, I mean, that’s sort of the launching point for any discussion. Israelis at large, and myself included, have been extremely critical of the Israeli government for not negotiating in good faith now, for many, many months. There is no explanation, a reasonable explanation why our government is refusing to deeply engage in these negotiations and complete them, when our entire senior military establishment and intelligence community has been saying publicly and openly for weeks and months that the time has come to end the fighting in Gaza get our hostages home, as many alive as possible. We know that many dozens of the 101 remaining hostages have already been murdered, and to end the madness in Gaza. Simply the government that is preventing it.
NANCY CORDES: You are originally from Connecticut. Your son, Sagui is the father of three young girls, one of whom was born while he was in captivity. He’s among 38 hostages taken from your kibbutz. What if anything? Do you know about where he is being held and what condition he is in?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Well, one small correction on October 7, 79 people were taken from our kibbutz, and 51 slaughtered. There are 29 remaining from my kibbutz. We know that well, he’s 36 years old, father of three little girls. His seven month pregnant wife miraculously survived with their two little girls on October 7. The only thing that we know for sure about Sagui is that, as of late November, early December, we know that he was alive, wounded, but alive. And we know that because in the first hostage exchange, 40 of the 100 women and children who were released by Hamas in that first negotiation were from kibbutz, and a handful of them had seen Sagui and other men, mostly in the tunnels, and could tell us that he was still alive.
NANCY CORDES: Israel’s opposition leader is now calling the Netanyahu government a “death cabinet.” He’s calling for labor strikes against Netanyahu. Do you share that anger you said that Netanyahu has not engaged seriously. Why do you think that is?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Well, I don’t think it’s just my opinion alone. I think the vast majority of Israelis now have come to believe, by his actions, not his words, but by his actions, that he’s been driven primarily by a desire to retain power with a narrow, very radical messianic coalition in the Israeli government. And he has made choices to pursue this fantasy of total victory over Hamas, a terrorist organization, and no doubt, but this idea of total victory is a messianic one from his coalition partners, and not realistic. And he’s preferred that, at least to date, over the well being of all the hostages. There are seven Americans still remaining in Hamas captivity amongst the 101.
NANCY CORDES: CBS News has confirmed that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is going to meet virtually today with you and the other families of American hostages. Do you believe that the US government has done everything it can to bring these hostages home?
JONATHAN DEKEL-CHEN: Well, I think the US government itself would say that they would have done enough when all the hostages are home, all of the 101. They say that in our meetings. I can absolutely state that since a couple of days after October 7, the US administration, from top to bottom, has been extraordinarily supportive of the hostage families: inclusive, sensitive, empathetic. I believe that they have done everything in their power up to now, but at the end of the day, two men have to say yes. One is Yahya Sinwar in a tunnel under Gaza somewhere, with the blood of 1000s on his hands, Israelis and Palestinians. And Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. President Biden, I believe, has done everything that he can. We need we need some more. But time, time is certainly against us. There’s no question of that.
NANCY CORDES: Well, we are hoping that you get more, and we appreciate you sharing your story with us today. Jonathan Dekel-Chen, thank you so much.
Former President Donald Trump on Friday predicted he’d break records for the number of people deported from the United States if he were elected for a second term.
Trump has vowed to launch the largest mass deportation program in U.S. history. Tom Homan, who led immigration enforcement during the first year-and-a-half of the Trump administration as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, proudly pitched the idea at the Republican National Convention this summer, telling undocumented immigrants to start packing.
“Let me tell you what it’s not going to be first,” he told 60 Minutes of the mass deportation plan. “It’s not going to be a mass sweep of neighborhoods. It’s not going to be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”
Plans for mass deportation
There are more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, about 3% of the population. Nearly 80% of them have lived in the country for a decade or more, according to estimates by the Department of Homeland Security.
Homan, who Trump has said would join his administration if he wins a second term, said a mass deportation operation would be based on targeted arrests.
“We’ll know who we’re going to arrest, where we’re most likely to find them based on numerous investigative processes,” he said.
60 Minutes
Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, has said it would be reasonable to deport a million people a year. And Trump’s top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference earlier this year that deportees would be removed from the country in a massive military air operation.
“You grab illegal immigrants and then you move them to the staging ground and that’s where the planes are waiting for federal law enforcement to then move those illegals home,” Miller said at the conference. “You deputize the National Guard to carry out immigration enforcement.”
Homan said he doesn’t use the term “raids,” but immigration enforcement operations at worksites would be needed.
“If I’m in charge of this, my priorities are public safety threats and national security threats first,” he said.
Others would follow for removals, he said. During a targeted enforcement operation, for instance, if an undocumented grandmother was found in a house, an immigration court judge should decide her fate, Homan indicated
“Let the judge decide,” he said. “We’re going to remove people that have a judge’s order deported.”
Shift in policy
Homan’s suggestion that an undocumented grandmother might face arrest would mark a major shift in policy. Under President Biden, ICE is mostly targeting those deemed national security or public safety threats — and people who just crossed the border illegally.
“It’s not OK to enter a country illegally, which is a crime,” Homan said. “That’s what drives illegal immigration, when there’s no consequences.”
The majority of the four million deportations carried out by the Biden administration have occurred at the southern border, where an unprecedented influx of migrants created scenes of chaos, a humanitarian crisis, and one of Vice President Kamala Harris’ biggest political vulnerabilities.
CBS News
Mass deportation would come with hefty bill, require more manpower, immigration experts say
The mass deportation plan former President Donald Trump has pledged to institute if he’s reelected would come with a hefty price tag.
The American Immigration Council estimated that it could cost $88 billion annually to deport one million people a year. The removal of millions of construction, hospitality and agriculture workers could reduce the U.S. gross domestic product by $1.7 trillion.
Tom Homan, who led U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first Trump administration, said he doesn’t know if the $88 billion a year cost estimate is accurate, but he says mass deportation is necessary.
“What price do you put on national security? Is it worth it?” Homan said.
How deportations work now
60 Minutes recently joined ICE officers in Silver Spring, Maryland, as they located and arrested undocumented immigrants with criminal histories, including assault, robbery, drug and gun convictions. They’d been identified by ICE as threats to public safety.
60 Minutes
They stopped a van and arrested the passenger, a 24-year-old Guatemalan with an assault conviction, who had been ordered deported by a judge five years ago. ICE officers said the driver of the van was also in the country illegally and had been deported once before, but he was let go. Matt Elliston, director of ICE’s Baltimore field office, said the driver didn’t have a criminal record.
“He was picking up his employee to go to work,” Elliston said. “It doesn’t make sense to waste a detention bed on someone like that when we have other felons to go out and get today.”
Elliston said ICE’s mission is targeted enforcement — using immigration law to improve public safety.
“It’s not to just aimlessly arrest anyone we come across,” he said.
It took a team of more than a dozen officers seven hours to arrest six people, and that doesn’t include the many hours spent searching for them.
Are there resources to support mass deportation?
There are more than 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States — about 3% of the population — and Trump has vowed to launch the largest mass deportation program in U.S. history. Homan, who Trump has said would join him if he wins a second term, said he’s unaware of any written mass deportation plan.
“ICE is very good at these operations. This is what they do,” Homan said.
But Elliston doesn’t know how, in Maryland, the agency could find the resources for mass deportation.
60 Minutes
“Just the amount of money that that would cost in order to detain everybody, you know, it [would be] at the Department of Defense level of financing,” he said.
Jason Houser, ICE chief of staff during the first two years of the Biden administration, said it costs $150 a night to detain people like those 60 Minutes saw arrested. The average stay as they await deportation is 46 days. One deportation flight can cost $250,000, and that assumes the home country will accept them. Many, like Cuba and Venezuela, rarely do.
Who would handle mass deportation?
ICE currently has around 6,000 law enforcement officers in its deportation branch. It would require a massive increase in manpower to arrest and deport a million people a year, Houser said.
“You’re talking 100,000 official officers, police officers, detention officers, support staff, management staff,” he said.
Trump adviser Stephen Miller has said staff could come from other government agencies, like the Drug Enforcement Administration, but Houser criticized the idea of taking people from other agencies outside ICE off their set missions.
Immigration enforcement also requires specialized training and language skills that most military and law enforcement officers don’t have.
“It is not an easy swap,” Elliston said. “What I can tell you in, from the Immigration and Nationality Act, immigration law is second to the U.S. tax code in complexity.”
Former President Donald Trump’s pledge to implement mass deportation if he’s reelected has ignited fears of family separations.
Monica Camacho Perez and her family have lived and worked in the United States since coming illegally from Mexico more than 20 years ago. Camacho Perez teaches English as a second language to immigrant adults, and she also works in the public high schools. Her family lives in Baltimore.
“We are a normal family, like anybody else,” she said. “We go to church. We work every day. We pay taxes,” she said.
She’s among the more than 500,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children who are protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program known as DACA.
“I’m the only one right now that’s, like, protected, while my parents are not, my brothers are not,” she said. “My brothers have children that are born here. So if they were to get deported, what will happen to their kids?”
Would families be separated if Trump’s reelected?
When asked whether there was a way to carry out mass deportations without separating families, Tom Homan, who led immigration enforcement during the first year-and-a-half of the Trump administration, said, “Of course there is. Families can be deported together.”
Like Camacho Perez’s nieces and nephews, more than four million U.S.-born children live with an undocumented parent.
60 Minutes
Asked why children should have to leave the country where they were born and raised, Homan said, “Because their parent absolutely entered the country illegally, had a child knowing he was in the country illegally. So he created that crisis.”
During Homan’s time leading ICE – in what became one of the most controversial policies of the Trump administration – at least 5,000 migrant children were forcibly separated from their parents when their parents were arrested at the border and prosecuted for crossing into the U.S. illegally.
Asked about published accounts saying that family separation at the border was his idea, Homan replied: “Not true. I didn’t write the memorandum to separate families. I signed the memo. Why’d I sign the memo? I was hoping to save lives. While you and I are talking right now, a child’s going to die in the border. . . . So we thought, ‘so maybe if we prosecute people, they’ll stop coming.'”
Trump has said Homan would be joining him in the new administration if he wins a second term. Asked if this family separation policy would be re-instituted then, Homan said, “I don’t know of any formal policy where they’re talking about family separations.”
60 Minutes
Asked whether it should be on the table, he replied, “It needs to be considered, absolutely.”
How that would happen given a court settlement reached late last year between the federal government and the American Civil Liberties Union is unclear. Under the settlement, the federal government is barred from separating migrant families at the border for the next eight years if the sole purpose is to prosecute the parents for entering the U.S. illegally.
“I can’t imagine living here without them.”
Back in Baltimore, Camacho Perez said she has given a lot of thought to what she would do if her parents were deported. Even though Baltimore is where she grew up, and she now owns her own home there, she thinks she would go back to Mexico with her parents if they were deported.
“They’re also part of my American dream,” she said. “And I can’t imagine living here without them.”
