Reflecting on the week's events

This is our glass. On this American life, one thing we like is a good mystery Sometimes about really big things But most times The little mysteries at the best. Our Lost and foundound is currently filled with pants. I don't know I've never seen this happen. This is true. This is true Mysteries of every size Each week this American life wherever you get your podcast It was a busy week for President Trump in the courts. He had big wins on immigration, but came up empty on his efforts to make changes to voting ahead of the midterms. What happened? Let's find out I Politics podcast. I'm Tamer Keith I cover politics. I'm Hmena Bustille and I cover immigration. And I'm Mara Lason, senior national political correspondent Let's talk about the immigration rulings at the Supreme Court. Two different rulings We should go with TPS first or temporary protected status. Youan to remind us what that is and what happened here So temporary prrotected status is a designation that the Homeland Security Secretary can assign to a country and typically that grants protections for people from that country to be in the US and work in the US legally because they might not be able to return to their home countries because of various challenges such as war, natural disaster, political instability, a whole host of potential other reasons the Secretary can decide on This has been a program since like the nineteen nineties, and generally the designation lasts between six to eighteen months. But for several countries, some of these statuses stay in effect for decades and decades. They've just been renewed and renewed and renewed because secretaries have deemed that these countries are not safe That gets us to this case before the U.S. Supreme Court and the court's decision. What did they decide? So in a six thir decision, the Conservative majority decided that it is not the purview of the court to weigh in on the conditions of those countries and that it is within the power of the government to be able to terminate that status or not as it sees fit. This was particularly about the designations to Haiti and Syria three hundred thirty thousand people from Haiti, about six thousand people from Syria that are affected by this decision. But a lot of advocates say it goes beyond that scope. Last year we saw the Trump administration under former Secretary, Christy Noome onene by one terminate every single TPS that came up for renewal last year, countountries like Venezuela, Cameroon, Syria, Afghanistan. And we only saw one sort of renewal and that was last month for Lebanon. And it wasn't quite a renewal. It just kind of automatically extended. There are a few other countries that are going to come up for expiration later this year, El Salvador, Ukraine are on that list. And so there's a lot of questions about how the administration is going to move forward with those that are still standing. And let's just be clear on what this means for those people. In theory, they just need to go back to their home countries or what happens with them? I mean, in practice, they need to return. You know, if they are not able to adjust their status, so basically find another way to legally be in the country, that could be like claiming asylum, maybe they've been able to secure a green card. If they are not able to do something like that, then they are at risk of their permission to be in the country to expire. And if they're here when that expires, they could be subject to an arrest, a detention and a deportation. so This administration is really hoping that a lot of the folks who are under this program leave Hamena, the court also issued a decision on asylum. What was the question before the court and how did they roll The question was regarding a policy that is called metering. esssentially if someone comes near or to a port of entry, if border patrol agents can turn them away before they manage to cross. And now keep in mind Currently the ability to claim asylum the southern border is very, very narrowed to only legal ports of entry. And so this ruling essentially further limited that option by allowing border agents to turn people away before they have physically into US land. What does this mean for people now who want to seek asylum? Basically, you have to already be in the country to do so. and there are even limitations on that. You can only claim asylum. I believe it's within a year of being in the country. You know, I'm reminded of the Republican National Convention back in twenty twenty four. We were all there There were a lot of people holding up signs that read mass deportations now These rulings are about legal immigration Maro, what do you make of this? Well, the politics of this are going to be very interesting to watch because Mass deportations now, as those signs said, that idea was very popular with the Republican base. But when Trump came into office He said he was going to focus on illegal immigrants, immigrants who were in this country, undocumented, who had committed crimes. And that stand was very popular. So was securing the border But as time went on, he did some other things. He started to peopleople who someome of whom had green cards, were in the country legally Some American citizens got killed in protests about immigration. and Polls showed that people started souring on the administration's implementation of its immigration agenda. Not the basic idea of a secure border. We don't want any criminal undocumented immigrants in the United States, but this was quite different. And this ruling was the first big ruling allowing the president to deport people who are here legally And what I'm really interested in is how the public is going to react when their're home health aids or people who work in a meat packing plant. Some of these Haitians and Syrians who have TPS are very integrated into their communities. They're working at a time when we have a labor shortage in this country And I don't know if this is going to be as popular as the other parts of his immigration agenda. And then the overall message it sends which is pretty simple the United States is no longer a welcoming country, even for legal immigrants. Well, and I think that especially with TPS, though I think, also asylum, The view of the Trump administration is that Democrats and the Biden administration were too lenient that they were trying to expand legal immigration beyond what certainly those that are aligned with Trump view as, you know what these programs were designed for. Right. But when you get into legal immigration, you're in a whole different territory. The Trump administration has also talked about denaturalizing citizens It's This whole process is about d doocumentation. It's not about finding criminals who are here in this country illegally anymore. Himena, did these rulings get the administration closer to its goal of mass deportations? Yeah, I mean, the agency being DHS definitely celebrated these rulings with you know a top official at DHS even saying that these rulings give the administration more tools to secure the border. And so they do see this as a way to get cl closer to that goal. But I think to Mara's point, you know, there is a Technical, legal, maybe even difference to the public between targeting the quote unquote, worst of the worst, people who did enter the country egally and have committed crimes versus people who were actually given a permission to be here. And we have seen this administration, you know expand the scope of how it's narrowing. It almost sounds like an axyorum, but expand the scope of how it is narrowing the ability to stay as an immigrant and come in as an immigrant into the country. Yeah, and don't forget, Haitians have been in Donald Trump's sights for a long time. He's criticized them harshly and often falsely during the campaign. He said that Haitians in Ohio were eating people's pets without any evidence of that. And he's also changed other parts of immigration. The refugee program has now been pretty much shut down except for one group of people, which is white South Africans. It's a very clear message. meembers of his administration have talked openly about trying to return America to what they call its European roots. You could read that as more white because the country is fast becoming mininority white, As a matter of fact, there are projections that by twenty forty five, the American population will be majority minority And all of these efforts with asylum, with refugee status, TPS, are all aimed at that goal We are talking about two Supreme Court decisions, but there is one that we are waiting for, a big one Yeah, we're still waiting on that major decision regarding birthright citizenship. And so that could continue to signal how the court is feeling about the Trump administration policies. I think everyone's attention is going to be on that next week Yes, absolutely. Well, we are going to let you get out and get back to reporting Himina, but thank you for joining us today. Thanks And when we come back, where the president fell short in the courts this week NPR's tiny desk can't come to you. I mean it's a desk, but the tiny desk contest tour can. New York City join NPR's tiny desk contest winner, Cure for Paranoia at Warsaw this july ninth. It's all the NPR Tiny Dk energy minus the office furniture Get your tickets now at tinydktour. org You know, every day on up first NPR's Golden Globe nominated Morning News podcast, we bring you three essential stories. At the heart of each story Our questions, what really happened It really mattered what happens next At NPR, we stand for your right to be curious and to follow the facts. Follow up first wherever you get your podcasts and start your day knowing what matters and why This is Tanya Mosley, co host of Fresh Air. Don't miss my interview with comic and storyteller Ali Sadi We talk about fatherhood, healing, and how prison changed him. He's been out twenty nine years, but he says, theseese psychological wounds are different than my physical ones Listen to fresh air on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts And we're back with my co host, Miles Park, Hey, Miles. Hi, Tam So In the previous segment, we talked about some wins the president had. You're here because the president also had some losses in the courts this week. his attempts to influence how people vote slapped down by various courts. Walk us through what happened? So many courts and so many slaps down. I mean so let's take this into a few different buckets. One, all the different ways, I guess that the president has tried to influence election policy basically have gotten slapped down by the courts. So executive ordderers one bucket. He has written two different executive orders, one last year that tried to implement proof of citizenship requirements to voting. One earlier this year, the people that's been in the news a lot recently, this idea of trying to get the USPS to police mail ballots and how mail ballots are delivered. USPS is the postal serervice. Yes, exactly. So both of these executive orders have now been struck down by federal courts. We had new orders in both of those this week. Another bucket, DOJ, the Department of Justice trying to compel states to hand over their voter data. This is something we've talked about overver and over again the last year. We're now up to close to a dozen cases where courts have stepped in to say, no, states are not required to give you their voter data last bucket. The Trump administration since last year, pod listeners might remember this because MPR was the first to report on it, has been building this data system at DHS to try to find non citizen voters using combining a bunch of different data sources. And this week a federal judge stepped in there and said, no, that effort is illegal. So taken in totality, we have just seen loss after loss after loss. and I was actually at an event this week with a bunch of election officials and a former DOJ lawyer said the DOJ right now is the losingest law firm in America when it comes to elections cases That is quite a quote. Also, I noticed you made a little flex in there, but you didn't fully flex because it was you that broke the story, not just NPR. That's true. It was me and Jude Joffy Block. Thank you, Tam. Credit where credit is due. Also, we have to note that the USPS, the US Postal Service, is one of NPR's financial supporters Mara, let's back up for a moment here Unlike with immigration, which we talked about earlier, the president basically has no power to control elections. States control elections. That's in the Constitution. He just doesn't have the same level of executive power in this realm. At least that's how the courts have been ruling. Why do you think the White House is so interested in pushing this envelope The Pident has been fixated on Elections he doesn't win for quite some times. and he has said over and over again that if elections he doesn't win are false or rigged And he has been relitigating the twenty twenty election, where numerous judges have ruled that that election was free and fair, and Donald Trump was the loser But he is laying the groundwork to say that the twenty twenty six elections have been rigged if they go against him and his party. He's not on the ballot. B both houses of Congress are up for grabs So I think that he's trying to change public opinion about the safety and security of our elections, which Miles can tell you are pretty darn secure and have been for a long time. and the instances of election fraud are minuscule Yeah, I mean, Mar, it's not just kind of like democracy watchers making that point. It's the voting officials themselves. Let's listen to a little bit of Republican Gabe Sterling. He's an election official who works for the Secretary of state there, Brad Raffenssberger, who famously post twenty twenty election was talking about the fact that President Trump was pushing misinformation about the election, that there was essentially a pressure campaign on election workers to try to influence the results. And what Sterling said this week was that whether it's these execut orders trying to influence election policy or whether it's the Save America Act, which as we know, President Trump is continuing to push for in Congress, all of these are efforts that actually could end up affecting the midterms in some way or another The reality of this is R Republicans, my team are going lose seat They're going say If we'd won these lawsuits, if we passed the Save America Act, if we did all these things, we would have won And that's what they're building towards. So it's a win win either way Well, Andmara, you mentioned that President Trump, you know has long contested elections that he didn't win or that his people didn't win and said it was rigged There's this remarkable thing where he also has soned outbt about elections where he did win and where his people did do well. Just in the last week, he has been talking about the California guubernatorial primary, and Steve Hilton, the Republican is now one of the top two made it through the primary, going on to the general election. But Trump tells this story of, well, it was looking like he wasn't going to make it. and I made a phone call and then he was in the top two Trump is talking about elections where his guy actually did well. as if it was rigged. Yeah, but what he's mostly trying to do is sow doubt about elections being free and fair So that he can say any election he didn't win or his party didn't win was rigged. And he's had a lot of success with that. The number of people who tell pollers that they don't believe in the safety and security of elections in the United States has grown. Also, we know that a lot of election deniers, people who agree with Donald Trump on his false narrative of what happened in twenty twenty become the election officials in many states across the country. So not everyone is a Gabe Sterling or a Brad Raffensberurger Yeah, and I do feel like that that cynicism that has sort of set in. I thought it was really interesting the same event Michigan Secretary of State Jolyn Benon, who also withstood a lot of pressure in twenty twenty and harassment that's been widely documented. She talked about that a little bit. Let's hear. So much of the work to undermine democracy is about creating this narrative that democracy can't be trusted so that even if you lose in court, people have lost so much faith in the system that they give up on it and walk away, which we know whenes Undermining democracies at large in the history, it's when citizens lose faith in their democracy that democracies die And you kind of hear it, it puts These officials in a really tough spot because they're basically like we are winning in court. In some cases, that might not be enough if people still lose broader faith in the system. Miles, where do these cases go, by the way? Could the Supreme Court rule for Trump in these cases It definitely some of them could make it all the way up to the Supreme Court. Basically all the cases I mentioned could potentially be appealed or are already in the process of being appealed. But I will also note that The two executive orders I mentioned, the moment they were drafted I could not find an election lawyer in America who thought they were legal. So I would be hesitant to say that this is going to head up to the Supreme Court and that they will eventually be overturned or will rule in Trump's favor just because it is a pretty universal feeling in the election law community that Congress and the states run elections. Well, and this is As a reminder, an election year There are primaries happening. There is a general election in November in every congressional seat in America and many others It kind of feels like the clock is ticking here Totally. And I think that's one of the things that these voting officials are really freaked out about is that even if like all of these things we're talking about have not gone into effect or have been stopped from going to effect, but do you think every voter who saw the news last year that President Trump was signing a new executive order a couple of weeks ago, this USPS order that somehow USPS is going to be policing who votes by mail It seems unrealistic that every one of those voters who saw the initial news is now following the court cases to know where the rules stand now. And I think there's a lot of fear. midterms are already such low turnout elections. And so I guess I'm wondering a lot of people in this space are wondering There are going to be people who are just so freaked out or so confused that they decide not to show up. Okay, we are going to keep our eyes on all of this or You will, Miles, you will. I will indeed. And to be clear, MPR politics podcast listeners are in the know on where these things stand, but I'm just more worried about the broader public, you know. All right, we're going to take one more quick break and then it's time for Can't Let it go There have been some fantastic movies released this year, and we know you can't see them all. So we're recommending some great films that might have flown under the radar to add to your watch list Listen to Pop Culture Hay Hour via the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. For instant clarity on world events in just five minutes, listen to NPR News Now. New episodes drop every hour. With the latest on US. politics, international news, the economy, health, science, technology, and more, five minutes is all it takes to get fully caught up with NPR News now Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts. This week on Wait, Wait don't tell me we ask comedy legend Robert Smidel about the moment he first knew he was funny. When I was like four or five, I could draw really well, so I could draw Fred Flintstone and Snoopy. And then probably a couple of years later, I started drawing them having sex Listen to the Wa Waight Don't tell M me podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts And we're back and it's time for C't Let It Go. The part of the pod where we talk about the things from the week that we just can't stop thinking about politics or otherwise I am going first and what I cannot let go of is the same thing the president can't let go of, and that is the reflecting pool. Oh, I thought you were going to say the twenty twenty election. I reallyally Tam. Do we need to have are we gonna do this right now? One track mind, Miles. O track mind. No I'm talking about the reflecting pool. This is the very large, shallow pool that is there to reflect the national monuments there on the National Mall. and it has had a long and sad history of Algae blooms and funks But President Trump He took this on along with all of his many other remodeling projects and was like, I amm going to do this better than anyone has ever done it before. And Biden and Obama, they just couldn't get it done, but I can do it. The president had the pool surfaced with something called rhino lining in American flag blue and Th then it was filled with water And then that water immediately turned green with algae. And now the liner, this, whatever it is, that's American flag blue is chipping and peeling and floating up to the surface. It feels like one of those classic cases where I mean, we've talked about this a lot where I don't know that anyone was thinking about the reflecting pool. And like every time I walk by it, I live not that far away from it. I'm like, that's pretty. And now I feel like I'm like I am like looking at it being like,, that's not as good as it Wow. And like I feel like it is a problem kind of created by President Trump now making everyone focus on it. now everyone's like, oh, there is algae. Oh that is like he wasn't able to fix it. likeike he probably, I don't know. It seems like one of another like self self fulfilling problem. Self owns. He sel owns Is that the word I'm looking for? Is it the Streissand effect? He like drew attention to it right? But anyway, Mara, what can't you let go? Okay My canan't Let it G is about Gracy. Gracie is a giraffe Gracie lived in Texas. She was three years old, but then she went missing She has been missing for two weeks. She escaped her enclosure at the Cedar Hollow Ranch in the Texas Hill Country. I don't like where this is going. No, I don't like that Gracie's being talked out of the past tense at all. Well, we don't know where Gracie is Uh the Jones Vic Jones who owns this remote property It's about one hundred and sixty kilometers west of San Antonio. He sent up helicopters to look for her. He put out a five thousand dollars reward, but she still hasn't turned up. She's about ight of a tree and we know that giraffes nibble on the leaves on tops of trees And it's a very sparsely populated area. It's very rough and there's no sign of Gracy. Now what was interesting to me