Trump Administration Immigration Policy Shifts

The US and Iran spent the weekend trading fire. Iranians attacked two cargo ships. The U. S. then struck targets in Iran, and Iran followed that by firing missiles. Where does that leave a ceasefire? Leila Feaudel with Stven Skeep, and this is the first from NPR News . Coming up, we have an eyewitness account of devastation in Venezuela. An earthquake in Caracas knocked down buildings like dominoes. Our colleague Ada Peralta is there. Also, the Trump administration tells hundreds of thousands of people with temporary protected status to apply for a new status or leave. We'll actually give you a plane ticket plus roughly two thousand one hundred dollars to help you reestablish when you get there. The administration want its case in court. Did it also win the politics? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day The United States and Iran spent another weekend of their ceasefire not ceasing fire. The latest exchange of missiles began in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranians say Iran alone has control. Iran opposed a UN backed plan fired on ships, starting a whole new round of attacks with the U. S. The latest missiles yesterday went after U. S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. NPR's Kerry Khan is monitoring all this from Tel Aviv. Hi there, Kerry. Hi. Okay, I just got to ask are the ceasefire peace talks, the continuing peace talks still on. We believe so a sen,ior U offic.ial S. who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations told MPR last night that quote, nothing has been canceled and talks are on track for the coming days. The Associated Press is reporting that Pakistan , a key mediator, says talks will resume Tuesday. And yet, we did have this exchange of fire. What happened over the weekend? In recent days, Iran struck two ships attempting passage through the Strait of Hormuz. These ships were going through this newly coordinated route that hugged the coast of Oman, which shares part of the strait with Iran. Last week, the UN's international maritime organization and Oman set up this route. Iran says it is a violation of the preliminary plan for permanent peace. After Iran's attack on the first ship, the US then struck multiple drone missile and radar sites in Iran , then Iran fired into Bahrain and Kuwait in retaliation. Okay, if Iran is striking ships on their way through the strait is the strait open ? Well, we'll see. Traffic did drop over the weekend according to monitoring groups, but the conflict over who controls the Strait of Hornus continuz continues. Secretary of State Markarubio was just in the region and told Gulf Allies It will remain open . But yesterday, Iran's foreign minister Abas Araki was adamant. He said any alternative or quote separate arrangements for the strait will lead to complications. The responsibility for these arrangements lies with Iran and no other entity or country, he said. Okay, so we've got two major sticking points in negotiations. One we've just been discussing the Strait of Hormuz. The other is Lebanon, where Israeli troops remain in the southern part of the country and they say they're going to stay there , but Israel did reach an agreement with Lebanon's government. What's going on there? Yes, a deal was reached between the US, Israel, and the Lebanese government late Friday , Israel says it's historic with the Lebanese army agreeing to disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah, however, was not part of those talks, and its leader over the weekend condemned the deal and demanded Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon. Last night I spoke with Ofir Falk. He's the foreign affairs advisor to Israel's prime minister and I asked him repeatedly how is this deal going to work without Hezbollah signing on and given the Lebanese Army's poor track record, and here's what he said. There's only going to be one weapon in Lebanon. It's going to be the Lebanese government. It's historic that they recognize Israel's sovereignty and they seek peace with Israel. They're saying that straight out. He said Israel has laid the path for the Lebanese army by greatly degrading Hezbollah's military might . But Steve fighting continued over the weekend too, despite the deal, authorities in Lebanon and Israel say there were multiple deaths in Lebanon and one Israeli soldier was killed. Kari, thanks for the update. You're welcome. That's in beer's Kari Khan in Tel Aviv Okay, we have an eye witness account now of earthquake damage in Venezuela. Much of the world has seen video of collapsed buildings in Caracas, a city of millions . The story hits differently when you meet some of the people who have been digging through the rubble. And PRSA Peralta is in Caracas, hi there . Hey, Steve, what does it look and feel like there? Hey, it's all just really tragic . I mean, yesterday I was at the site of a sixteen story building. I mean, I guess it would used to be a building because you know, now it's just a pile of rubble like three stories high and people there told me that a rescue crew did show up at some point, but they said it was too dangerous for them to work there. And what I saw was just a couple of dozen family members climbing through the rubble and were just picking random places to dig. And then at times the smell of death would get stronger and they would dig faster . And I mean, look, there are helicopters in the air and there's back hose and the Venezuelan government has deployed the military and the police. And a bunch of foreign countries have sent rescue crews here, but there's just not enough of them to get to the more than seven hundred buildings that the government says were damaged here . You know, yesterday , we also drove we were in front of a three story building that was completely collapsed and I saw parents just moving pieces of con crete with their bare hands . No rescue crew had stopped to help them , but their kid was under the rubble and wanted to have him back. So they were just there doing the work. You mentioned the smell of death. I just have to observe. There's a period after an earthquake or a disaster like this where you're trying to find people who may be alive in the rubble. Have we gotten past that point where it's possible? Not officially , but we have seen a shift in the past few days . Like on Saturday there was a rush to try and get people out of the rubble . And you know, on highways I saw people just on motorcycles with like shovels and picks on their back . And they were just trying to find any building that collapsed. And they just started to dig . You know, there were a lot of calls for help coming from the buildings, but the hours went by and the calls started diminishing. And the smell is sort of like the hardest part of this . The streets in La Wida , which got the hardest hit by the earthquakes. I mean, they started smelling of rotting flesh . And rescuers say that the real opportunity to save people comes in the first three days , but I think everyone who has a person who is missing , and there's thousands of report ed missing . You know, I think they're just waiting for a miracle at this point. When you say there aren't enough rescue crews, how are people thinking about the way the government has responded? I mean, help is so limited here that as we saw, you know, big trucks and earth moving vehicles move through the streets , people were standing in front of them saying no, you have to go to my building to find my people . So I think there's a lot of anger and a lot of resignation . And you see that in that people are walking through half collapsed buildings trying to take couches out and their couches out, their refrigerators out of these buildings, knowing that it could collapse at any minute, but they feel like they're not going to get any help. So they have to get what they can out of these buildings. And Per Zada Peralta, thanks for going there so we can see this through your eyes. Appreciate it. Thank you, Steve. Some other news now, the Trump administration says Haitians and Syrians who have been in the United States under temporary protected status now have two choices they can apply for a new legal status or they can leave the country. Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen said this on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday . Either try to fill out the paperwork and be here underneath a permanent status or we'll help you get back to your country. We'll actually give you a plane ticket plus roughly twenty one hundred dollars to help you reestablish when you get there. But temporary protective status according to the to the courts and in its name itself not permanent status. A Supreme Court ruling last week upended more than a decade of protections for Haitians and Syrians with TPS , and it put protections for hundreds of thousands of other immigrants in question. The ruling was a win for Trump legally, but is it a win politically? Our senior national political correspondent Mara Lyston has been looking into that. Mara, good morning. Good morning. Okay, before we get to the politics, let's start with the facts. What does happen here with three hundred thirty thousand Haitians and Syrians? Mark and Mullen did not directly answer whether the administration has plans for mass deportations of these immigrants. And CNN's Jake Tapper pushed Mullen on whether Haiti and Syria were safe enough for people to return. Remember, the whole point of TPS temporary protected status is to give protections to people whose countri home countries are too unsafe, either from war or natural disaster or other factors. And Mullen emphasized, as you heard him say, that this program was meant to be temporary. He told Tapper, quote,be they M canay go back there and restore their country . And the Supreme Court ruled that the administration has discretion to make this decision in the way that they want . And also the court ruled on asylum cases as well, right? That's right. The court also reaffirmed the Trump administration's ability to restrict who can apply for asylum in the United States. The Constitution does give the executive branch control over immigration, and that's a power that Donald Trump has been using very aggressively, but both of these cases uphold the ways that Trump is trying to fundamentally reshape not just illegal immigration, but also the legal immigration system. But the question that's on your mind is a little different. So they're winning in court, they're getting to do what they want. Your question is whether that is politically good for the administration. Right. And that remains to be seen. You know, originally, Trump's immigration agenda was very popular because it focused on things people really cared about, securing the border, deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records. But as time went on, it morphed into something different, like going after green card holders, people who'd been in the United States working without a criminal record for decades. Some of these people were very integrated into the economies of their communities like Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. Remember during the twenty twenty four campaign, Trump expressed his long held animus towards Haiti ans when he falsely accused them of eating people's pet dogs and cats . So then his immigration policy became much less popular even among Republicans. What we have to watch for now is how the end of TPS plays politically and a lot of that is going to depend on how fast the administration moves to deport these immigrants, legal immigrants. The bottom line is that the U. S. is no longer a welcoming country for immigrants, evengal im milligerants. The administration is also talking about denaturalization , taking away citizenship, and that historically has been a very rarely used tool. Now we have another case looming. Any day now we'll hear about birthright citizenship from the Supreme Court. That's right. Before the end of this term, the Supreme Court is going to rule on whether every child born on U. S. soil is an American citizen. This is written into the Constitution, but the Trump administration is challenging that idea and we don't know if the court will agree with him. But just the fact that the issue is before the court shows how far the Trump administration has pushed the debate about who is an American, who gets to be an American , and their position could ultimately be a political liability even if there are legal wins along the way. And Pierce Marlison, thanks for the insights. You're welcome. Here's another story we're following one of the world's most famous art detectives was on the hunt for a stolen van Gogh and turned to an unlikely source for help. You have born soccer players, born teachers, born policemen, I'm a born burglar. This is the Sunday story from NPRs, N howew an art thief and an art detective set out to recover a missing masterpiece. You can listen right now to the Sunday story here in the Upfirst podcast from NPR News and that's Upfirst for this Monday, june twenty ninth. I'm Steve Inskee. And I'm Leila Faldin. Today's episode of Upfirst was edited by Tina Kria, Miguel Messias, Tara Neil, Dana Farrington, Mohammed El Bernisi and Adam By wasr prodneuc.ed It by Z ad Butch and Neia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacy Abbott and our technical director is Zach Coleman, join us again tomorrow. Do you notice how in the list nenam,es here, Leila . The name of Christopher Thomas Very I think is a very huge thought. Our director is Christopher Thomas . Everyone else, apparently, much less important. Yeah