[Victor Blackwell, Cnn Anchor:] Still so many questions about this man. Do not know definitely or definitively who this man was, if he was or was not a refugee. Is that surprising that, at this point, they still don't have those answers?
[Tom Fuentes, Cnn Law Enforcement Analyst:] No, Victor. I think the problem here is that the fingerprints that were on file that they think they recovered from this individual come back to someone that the French arrested in 2013 who was reportedly born in Casablanca, Morocco, a 20-year-old. And now how did that person get back in the country and is this the same person? So, I think, right now, the authorities are trying to verify the identity of the individual, if that is true, or if he was coming through refugee, you know, systems in Germany and on to France. So I think they still have a lot of questions about the identity.
[Blackwell:] And there are great concerns about the entrance of so many tens and hundreds of thousands of refugees coming into Germany specifically. Angela Merkel, the chancellor there, has recently proposed to make it easier to deport asylum seekers who break laws. We saw yesterday those protests in Cologne after the attacks on New Year's Eve. Are we seeing the beginning of a crackdown on refugees?
[Fuentes:] I think possibly there is a political price that is being paid by the fact that a couple of refugees have turned out to commit terrorist acts out of the tens of thousands of refugees who are legitimately trying to, you know, come to other countries, whether it's in Europe or the U.S. for safety. So I think that that is the problem. But the rising sentiment against many of the refuges, the rise in even Muslim populations in general has started to have a backlash in Europe. Now, going back a couple of years there is a lot of sentiment against letting anybody come into those countries and we have heard a little bit of that in our political process here in the U.S., so that is the problem, that you let in tens of thousands of legitimate refuges that are that are seeking safety, seeking asylum and then, you know, there are going to be a couple of slip through. And even if they weren't intended to be terrorists when they joined the refugee system or entered the system, in some cases, they radicalize later, as do our own homegrown home-born people radicalized later in life.
[Blackwell:] No question, especially after the attacks, those 120 reports of groping or sexual assaults on women on New Year's eve in Cologne, that the people there and the people around the world want those 31 suspects, 18 of them asylum seekers, reportedly, to be brought to justice. But what consideration is given to this crackdown on refugees, if that is what we are seeing? That the consideration that that is playing into ISIS'narrative, that the West does not want you because you are Muslim?
[Fuentes:] Well, that is the speculation and there have been postings, I think al Shabaab put out a recent video basically saying that, you know, you're not going to be fit in you're not going to fit in, I mean, in the new country and you're not going to be wanted and you're going to come up under oppression because you're a Muslim and the way others have come under oppression in the past. And I think that there is some play into the narrative that is coming out, that, you know, is trying to make a divide between, you know, the non- Muslim and the Muslim populations of countries in the West.
[Blackwell:] All right. Tom Fuentes with us throughout the morning. Tom, thanks so much.
[Fuentes:] You're welcome.
[Christi Paul, Cnn Anchor:] OK. Now let's take you to Paris and the Place de la Republique where we find Jim Bittermann as they get ready for the memorial where thousands are gathering to remember the historic day last year when millions marched together in solidarity against the attacks at "Charlie Hebdo." What are you seeing this morning, Jim?
[Jim Bittermann, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, in fact that ceremony took place the official ceremony took place about an hour or so ago. There were several thousand of people here at Place de la Republique including dignitaries, the President Hollande was here as well as the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo. They unveiled a plaque to the dead. Not only from "Charlie Hebdo," the 17 who died in the "Charlie Hebdo" attacks and subsequent attacks, but also the attacks on November 13th that killed 130 people. So this memorial today was planned as kind of a commemoration of both of those tragic events. I just would like to bring in here Christi Melissa Bell who is a foreign affairs editor for "France 24." Melissa, you were here a year ago and there has been an awful lot of things happened in France since then. How do you think the French are reacting to all of this and how are they taking it on board?
[Melissa Bell, International Affairs Editor, France 24:] I think there is still a great deal of shock. I don't think France has gotten over or even begun to digest this year that started with this extraordinary blood bath and ended with one that almost dwarfed where it happened earlier on in the year. I think it will take some time for the French to come to terms with it. Of course the Americans had an experience of a large-scale terrorist attacks many years ago. When it happens to you for the first time on your own soil and particularly the November 13th attacks when so many people are so randomly attacked and those attacks happening at the same time across different points in the city that was tremendously shocking to the French. And it will take the country a long time to come to terms with what went on and of course, even as the French come to terms with this psychologically, the investigations continue. And even now, one year on from "Charlie Hebdo" and two months on from the November 13th attack the people who ordered these attacks, the people who are them, who are possibly believe the French investigators in Syria, still haven't been named or found or caught. And I think this is another of the things that the French is starting to come to terms with.
[Bittermann:] It must be very disturbing, I would think, to know that there are some people out there that are possibly planning something else.
[Bell:] And always this fear that anything can happen any time. We were reminded of it just a couple of days ago in Barbes when a man walked into a police station armed with a kitchen knife and a fake explosive belt it turned out. The sense that anything can happen any time and this is a city under attack. For so many years we have been carrying out interventions as though they were carried out surgically far away. Now that these things are come in the sense I think it will take a long time for the country, first of all, to get over it, but also to come to terms with the idea that in a sense the risk is always there.
[Bittermann:] Thank you very much, Melissa Bell. Back to you, Christi.
[Paul:] Jim Bittermann, we appreciate the update. Thank you so much. Next on NEW DAY U.S. B-52 bomber bombers flying over South Korea. This is in a show of force against North Korea. We are taking you to live to North Korea for that story.
[Blackwell:] Plus, the man accused of ambushing a Philadelphia police officer in the name of ISIS. He goes to court. We will analyze the charges he is facing and discuss the case.