weekly jobless benefits that goes through september. there is expansion of tax credits affordable care act subsidies. and there's also funding for schools, states, and vaccines and a lot more as well. here's how an eligible family of four earning under $150,000 a year, couple earning $96,000, i should say, with two children, would receive here. each person gets $1,400, plus there is a $3,000 tax credit for each of the two children age 6 or older. the total help for this family is going to be more than $11,000. still not a single republican in the house is expected to vote for it in the coming moments as was the case in the senate. >> i call upon my republican colleagues to stop their march madness and show some compassion for their constituents who are less than wealthy. >> i've heard people across the country say this bill today is costly, corrupt, and liberal. it's a laundry list of left-wing priorities that predate the pandemic and do not meet the needs of the american families. >> let's go to capitol hill now, and manu raju is there following all of this. what's the status on this vote? >> any minute they're going to start voting. we do expect the vote to begin as early as 1:10 in the east, so in about ten minutes or so. it will be about a 45-minute vote, maybe up to an hour. and the democrats do believe they have the votes. they are supremely confident that they will get the requisite votes. we do expect about 217 to be the magic number in the house. that means that democrats can't afford to lose more than four votes. this also depends on who actually shows up and votes today. but that's the expectation. they can't lose more than four. and there's no expectation that they will in fact lose more than four. likely potentially only one democrat may vote against it, jared golden of maine, one democrat who voted against the initial version of the plan kurt schrader of oregon has indicated he will support this. and all republicans are signaling that they will vote against it as well, suggesting this is too big, unwieldy and just simply not needed at this time, despite polls showing its overwhelming popularity among most voters. the belief among the republicans is that ultimately voters will reward them for standing firm against this, but democrats are suggesting this is absolutely what's needed for this economy, a sweeping measure, brianna, as you indicated, $1.9 trillion hitting virtually all aspects of the u.s. economy, money for individuals and families, relief checks, $300 a week in jobless benefits that would go through the beginning of september. also money for schools or vaccine distribution, an expansion for a year of the child tax credit aimed at lower-income americans. where this pandemic has ravaged this economy and coming after a number of other massive spending proposals went into law in the trump era. this being the biggest achievement of joe biden as president. this will come just a couple of months after he was sworn in. and we do expect later this afternoon both senate majority leader chuck schumer and nancy pelosi to formally enroll this bill, take the formal steps to sign this bill once it passes the house. that will set the stage for joe biden signing this into law in the coming days here, brianna. >> and we are going to be watching the minutes unfolding here on the house floor. manu raju, thank you so much. i want to bring in our cnn political director david chalian to talk about this. this is big in comparison, david. this is the biggest economic boost to american middle-class families in decades. how does this compare to other sweeping government relief efforts? >> yeah. take a look at some of the other high-priced items that have passed through congress. here are five of them. three of these five are related to the coronavirus pandemic including last year the $2 trillion c.a.r.e.s. act and the $900 billion act in december that went for additional care. and now this 1.9 trillion american rescue plan, all three of those related to the pandemic. you add a $1 trillion plan in today's dollars for the 2009 recovery act, the obama stimulus. and if you go back to the new deal programs and add it up in today's dollar value, brianna, that was $789 billion worth of government funding into the economy. so, that's how it stacks up. you see where this bill getting passed today stacks up in this very expensive legislation from the government to try and bring the economy back for most americans. >> and you just heard manu there. there's no republican support. and that's not expected to change here in this coming up vote. this may make you think that this does not enjoy broad support across the country. but it does. >> take a look at our brand new poll conducted by ssrs. 61% of americans in this poll, brianna, favor this economic package, this covid relief bill that's passing the house today. 37% oppose. it even gets more popular when you break down some of the kpoepts that you and manu were talking about. 85% approval for the tax credits. 77% approval for the money that's in the bill to reopen schools and get kids back into classrooms. 76% approval for the stimulus checks. by the way, you don't get numbers like this without republicans, and it's a majority of republicans in the poll that also support those that's not true with the aid to local and state government. that's at 59% overall support. and i think only about 20% of republicans support that part of the bill in our poll, brianna. i do want to also show you in our poll joe biden's overall approval rating at this point in his presidency halfway through his first hundred days here on day 50. he's got a 51% overall approval. and this is how he stacks up against all his modern-day predecessors. you see, he's six points higher than donald trump was at this point in his presidency four years ago. but he's below everybody else which sort of speaks to our polarized nature and our politics these days, and how popular the covid relief bill is. >> david, i'm so sorry to interrupt you. let's go to the white house briefing. >> president biden has made clear from day one that he wants to change our immigration system. doing so means truly building back better because we can't just undo four years of the previous administration's actions overnight. those actions didn't just neglect our immigration system, they intentionally made it worse. when you add a pandemic to that, it's clear it will take significant time to overcome. we must build a better immigration system that reflects our values as americans, enforces our laws, safeguards public health, and moves away from cycles of irregular migration. today i'm here to talk about what we are doing with partners in mexico and central america to ensure that people don't make this dangerous journey and instead have opportunities for economic advancement and safety at home. the president has committed to seeking $4 billion over four years to address the root causes of migration including corruption, violence, and economic devastation exacerbated by climate change. as part of that plan we will dangerous the causes that compel individuals to migrate including improving governance and providing a foundation for investment and economic opportunity, strengthening civilian security, and the rule of law. working across the whole of government, we will look at access to international protection and refugee resettlement and rethinking asylum processing to ensure fair and faster consideration. only by addressing those root causes can we break the cycle of desperation and provide hope for families who clearly would prefer to stay in their countries and provide a better future for their children. president biden, when he was vice president, visited the region many times and is clear-eyed about the challenge. he insists now as he did then that governments commit to being true partners in creating the conditions for growth and security. but i want to emphasize that the funds we're asking for from congress don't go to government leaders. they go to communities, to training, to climate mitigation, to violence prevention, to anti-gang programs. in other words, they go to the people who otherwise migrate in search of hope. and they will have to have the participation of the private sectors in those countries who for too long have evaded taxes, underpaid workers, and failed to be part of the solution to creating safe, prosperous, and democratic countries. we've already begun specific actions to both undo the previous administration's policies and to advance a new vision of immigration. we have ended the so-called migrant protection protocols which sent people back to mexico to wait, sometimes for years, for a chance to present their asylum claims. working with the government of mexico, international organizations and ngos, we have safely admitted over 1,400 migrants and closed the most dangerous face of the mpp, the matamoros migrant camp. today we are announcing the restarting of the central american minors program for children to be reunited with a parent who is legally in the united states. this program was ended abruptly by the previous administration leaving around 3,000 children already approved for travel stranded. in phase two, we will be working to improve the camp program to expand safe and legal avenues to the united states. i want to be clear, neither this announcement nor any of the other measures suggest that anyone, especially children and families with young children, should make the dangerous trip to try and enter the u.s. in an irregular fashion. the border is not open. going forward we will continue to look for ways to provide legal avenues in the region for people needing protection while we continue to enforce our laws. this is a process. we have a great deal to do. but this administration has made significant progress, and we will continue to do so. it reflects who we are as americans putting our values at the center of our policy. thank you. >> go ahead. thank you for doing this, roberta. this $4 billion that the administration is seeking, are you seeking this as part of a larger comprehensive immigration package, or as a stand-alone bill? >> well, i think what you'll see is that $4 billion in a central american northern triangle strategy will be part of our foreign assistance request and will focus on the things we know that work. obviously, it's not our first rodeo. the president when he was vice president worked on these issues. we know how to get money to communities that are most likely to send migrants but also that are suffering the greatest effect of two hurricanes this season, et cetera. so, it will be part of our overall foreign assistance package in the meantime, we are focused on getting humanitarian assistance to these countries after hurricanes eta and iota. so in that sense it's part of a larger plan. but obviously there are parts of this that will be on the domestic side as well to fix the whole extent of our immigration processing. >> and what else is the administration doing right now to work with these home countries to send a message to people, don't come here, don't send your children here? >> well, i think one of the most important things is to make sure that we get communications right and the message right. and i'm happy to repeat that. but i think it's also important that we work with the international organizations that have very credible voices and have very good networks among migrants sending communities to dispel the myths and misinformation that smugglers are using. when we talk about the border not being open and the ways in which we are trying to dissuade people from making that dangerous journey, the smauglers are conveying exactly the opposite to people. so we have to make sure we get that message out. we also need to be looking at things like the c.a.m., the central american minors, program, and how we can make that eligibility greater. but the next step is to look at solutions in the region. what more can we do to process people legally who require protection so they don't have to make that journey. and we're with looking at all of those things. >> and you said that this isn't your first rodeo. should the administration have been better prepared to handle this influx of children before it changed the policy allowing them to stay in the country? >> i think what we're doing right now is making a difference in the home countries, beginning to work with governments. that couldn't start until january 20th. there is one government at a time. you can't start changing processes of government, building facilities. all of this is part of the plan as quickly as possible to make sure that our domestic processes work more smoothly, more quickly, as i mentioned, but also to work with foreign governments. and you can't do that obviously till january 20th when you take over. but there have been multiple engagements with the government of mexico at very high level with the government of guatemala, with the honduran government, el sal vadorn in the first six weeks of government. so i think we've gotten off to a fast start in that engagement. >> thank you, madam besser. how has the government balanced the need from honduras about ongoing concerns for corruption. federal prosecutors say that the president was working on a plan to flood the united states with cocaine? >> i think one of the things that i made clear in the opening comments, which i want to reiterate, is that none of the money that we're looking to get from congress from the taxpayers of the united states goes to government leaders. and so i don't think that means that presidents are unimportant in these countries, but i do think that it's important to understand that we will be working with civil society, with international organizations and international ngos on the ground. we will work with officials that we can work with. but we also think it's really important that these countries make commitments, really explicit commitments, to advancing on anti-corruption. and in some places that will be hard to do if you've got officials for whom there is a cloud. and i think we need to work with the organizations that we can in countries. in some places we will work with religious organizations, ngos, et cetera. it's a challenge in countries that have confronted serious corruption risks. >> just want to follow up. like, what mechanism is in place? how do you possibly safeguard that funding to make sure it stays out of the hands of corrupt politicians? >> i think one of the things that we've always done, and 31 years in the state department has taught me this is we do end use monitoring. our embassies and people that we work with are looked at before they are recipients of funds. and we look at checks and we look at what's being done with the funds. we also don't deliver money in most cases. we deliver training. we deliver new lighting facilities that reduce violence and crime. so, a lot of what you do, it's not handing over blank checks. and i think that's really important in this. >> thank you very much. you're talking about restarting c.a.m. and these other long-term goals for what immigration policies should look like. right now new cnn reporting shows that unaccompanied migrant children are being held in these border facilities for on average 107 hours. that's up from i believe 77 hours on average last week. so, what is the biden administration doing right now to fix that? >> well, i think my part of this focuses much more on what we're doing at the end of this process in central america and mexico. i think all of us at every stage of this process are doing everything we can to make sure that children are well cared for and moved into facilities that are appropriate for them. but i want to make a point again that it's really important that people not make the dangerous journey in the first place, that we provide them with alternatives to making that journey, because it's not safe en route. and so if i could just emphasize that that it's really important that that message get out, because the perception is not the same as the reality in terms of the border not being open. but we want to provide through c.a.m., through other mechanisms ways for some of these young people to be reunited with family members in the united states. [ speaking foreign language ] >> you're telling them not to come just to follow up quickly, you're telling them they should not come. should you describe what's happening on the border as a crisis given how these numbers are spiking so much week by week? >> i think -- i'm not trying to be cute here, but i think the fact of the matter is we have to do what we do regardless of what anybody calls the situation. and the fact is we are all focused on improving the situation on changing to a more humane and efficient system. and whatever you call it wouldn't change what we're doing because we have urgency from the president on down to fix our system and make sure that we are better at dealing with the hopes and the dreams of these migrants in their home country. >> madam, do you think it's coincidence that as soon as trump and his immigration policy were on the way out and biden and his stated policy were on the way in, this historic surge at the border started? >> well, first of all, one of the things i think is important is we've seen surges before. surges tend to respond to hope. and there was a significant hope for a more humane policy after four years of, you know, pent up demand. so, i don't know whether i would call that a coincidence. but i certainly think that the idea that a more humane policy would be in place may have driven people to make that decision. but perhaps and more importantly, it definitely drove smugglers to express disinformation, to spread disinformation about what was now possible. and we know that. >> if the change in administration has brought hope, then, from your perspective, is this surge good? >> i don't think that's what i just said. i think it's a reflection of how migrants feel at a particular time. i think what we are doing is making sure that we respond to that hope for people who need protection. we respond to that hope in a way that their cases can be adjudicated more quickly. but i don't think anybody would say that coming to the united states in an irregular fashion is a good thing. that's why i've tried repeatedly to dissuade people from listening to those smugglers. but we're going to try our best to do everything we can at each end of this in the united states, but especially in central america and mexico to ensure we have safe, orderly, and legal migration. >> go ahead. president biden, when he was vice president, was very active on working with the northern triangle countries. i'm just wondering were there lessons that you or he or other administration officials, many of whom are in jobs in this administration, have learned about how to deal with those countries or how to deal with foreign aid to them, that are informing how you're approaching things now? and just to kind of follow up a little bit on what peter was asking. are you concerned at all about kind of mixed messaging, at the same time you're telling people not to come, that the journey is dangerous, that because you are offering this talk about more humanitarian process, that people will not, you know, pay attention to the fact that they could apply from their home country that they are still, you know, so hopeful that there really is kind of a conflicting message coming from washington to central america? >> so on the first question, the question of learning things from when the vice president was leading a lot of our efforts in central america previously, i think, yes, that's a resounding yes. both the president and all of us who worked with him on that for him on that learned a great deal. and i think