--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, March 26th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, the fight over non-citizens' right to free speech, what one photojournalist saw when deported Venezuelans landed in El Salvador, and President Trump signs an executive order to overhaul voting.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But first, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz says he takes full responsibility for a group chat on the messaging service signal that included several cabinet members, the vice president and a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.
--:-- Mike Waltz: I built the group, I called it embarrassing, and I pledged to get to the bottom of it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Officials who were on that chat deny any classified information was exchanged.
--:-- Jeffrey Goldberg: The text thread included details about upcoming U.S. military strikes in Yemen.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, two other people in the chat, Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, were questioned about the incident by Democratic lawmakers in a previously scheduled Senate Intelligence Committee hearing yesterday.
--:-- Tulsi Gabbard: I can attest to the fact that there were no classified or intelligence equities that were included in that chat group at any time.
--:-- Angus King: Wouldn't that be classified? What if that had been made public that morning before the attack took place?
--:-- Tulsi Gabbard: I defer to the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council on that question.
--:-- John Ratcliffe: It's Hegseth's responsibility as the authority on materials classification to determine what was appropriate to share.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Republicans on the committee mostly didn't ask about the episode during the hearing, but two said that they would do so in a classified setting later.
--:-- Don Bacon: This is a gross error, and it's intentional. They intentionally put highly classified information on an unclassified device.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Trump on Tuesday downplayed the incident and expressed confidence in his national security team, calling it a minor glitch.
--:-- Jeffrey Goldberg: Just because they're irresponsible with the material doesn't mean that I'm going to be irresponsible with this material.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now let's continue following efforts by the Trump administration to deport students who have participated in pro demonstrations on college campuses.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At least three foreign students living in the U.S. legally have already been arrested, and Politico reports that at least two more students, both legal residents, are on the run from immigration officials as they pursue legal action to prevent their deportations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Yunso Chang has a green card, and Mamadou Tal is in the U.S. on a student visa.
--:-- Mamadou Tal: The Justice Department says the State Department canceled Tal's visa for his involvement in pro-Palestinian demonstrations six months ago, which they say created a hostile environment for Jewish students.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the Trump administration argues Chung, who was arrested in connection with a protest at Barnard College, is a threat to the administration's foreign policy agenda.
--:-- Yunso Chang: Both Chung and Tal say their First Amendment free speech rights are being violated.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A judge Tuesday evening ruled Chung can't be detained as she fights her deportation.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, universities and colleges are being pressured by the Trump administration to crack down on student protesters.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At Columbia University, where the Trump administration recently canceled $400 million in federal funding for failing to protect Jewish students from harassment, the interim president recently agreed to hire an internal security force that will be empowered to make arrests.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And she placed the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under additional oversight.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's being seen as an effort to get that funding restored.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In recent days, faculty members have condemned university leadership's decisions in closed-door meetings and publicly protested them.
--:-- Catherine Franke: We need to buckle our seatbelts. Things are about to get a lot worse in April and in May because this administration knows that it can get away with an awful lot of conduct and chilling speech and authoritarian governance with very little resistance from institutional actors like universities as powerful we thought as Columbia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So these actions are designed to test the water. How far can we go? And they now know they can go all the way.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Federal civil rights lawyers launched investigations into more than 50 schools last month in response to Trump's orders.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Several attorneys with the Office for Civil Rights told The Washington Post the administration instructed lawyers to collect the names and nationalities of students who may have harassed Jewish students or faculty.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And these attorneys say they're concerned these lists could be used to target or deport more students from foreign countries who participated in protests.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A representative with the Education Department told The Post, they want the information to assess how universities handled cases related to anti-Semitism.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They did not directly respond to questions about whether these lists would be used for deportations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When the Trump administration deported more than 200 Venezuelan men from the U.S. to El Salvador earlier this month, with zero due process, photojournalist Philip Holsinger was on the tarmac in El Salvador when they arrived, and he documented what they experienced from the time they landed to the time they were thrown into El Salvador's most notorious maximum security prison, known for its harsh conditions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Please be warned, this story involves descriptions of violence.
--:-- Philip Holsinger: What I witnessed was a theater of fear.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Holsinger describes the men being chained at their ankles and wrists.
--:-- Philip Holsinger: Many stumbled or fell to the ground as they tried to walk. And as they were falling, they were kicked, slapped, or shoved by the guards.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They had their heads shaved.
--:-- Philip Holsinger: One of the migrants sobbed, telling the guards, "I'm not a gang member. I'm gay. I'm a barber."
--:-- Shamita Basu: A guard slapped him. He cried out for his mother, and he was slapped again.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We caught up with Holsinger to ask about what he saw.
--:-- Philip Holsinger: As soon as I saw the faces of the Venezuelans, there was something different.
--:-- Philip Holsinger: The main difference is that I was used to seeing the murderers coming off the planes.
--:-- Philip Holsinger: I was used to seeing the MS-13 guys, and they don't cry, they're hardened.
--:-- Philip Holsinger: I was used to that.
--:-- Philip Holsinger: So these Venezuelan guys, even in defiance, you could see some fear.
--:-- Philip Holsinger: When somebody's angry, but they're thinking, maybe I'm about to get eaten alive.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The way they were crying struck me because it was unlike anything else I had seen with gang members in detention.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They were transported by bus to CICAT, short for the Center for Terrorist Confinement.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's a remote facility at the foot of a volcano.
--:-- Shamita Basu: El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, has praised its harsh conditions, and Trump has promised to pay Bukele $6 million to hold these men there for one year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: People detained at Sikad cannot make phone calls, have visitors, participate in recreational activities, or receive education.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And they're never allowed to go outside.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's almost like a spaceship.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's just concrete and steel, totally new.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You have no freedoms.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can't even speak.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A prisoner is not even allowed to address a guard. You have to have some very specific request.
--:-- Philip Holsinger: I never been in a prison like it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At some point it struck him many of these people don't even know where they've landed.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And maybe some of these guys realize, maybe whispering, maybe they know they're in Salvador.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But they're in a foreign country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And even if they don't know it, they can't call anybody.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And nobody's going to come and ask about them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As I mentioned earlier in the week, 238 men in total were sent to El Salvador by President Trump and his administration.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They have accused more than half of being part of the Tren de Aragua gang, a group that Trump has called a foreign terrorist group and wartime enemy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The administration has provided little evidence to support those claims.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shamita Basu: President Trump Tuesday signed an executive order that could have a big impact on elections.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The order, which will likely be challenged in court, would require proof of citizenship to register to vote on federal forms.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Most people register to vote through their state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It would also bar absentee and mail-in ballots from being counted if they're received after Election Day.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The order claims the U.S. has failed to enforce basic elections protections, but The Wall Street Journal reports states regularly audit roles to weed out ineligible voters.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The order also threatens to pull funding from states that don't comply.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Balal, who co-directed the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, was released from Israeli custody yesterday after being attacked by Israeli settlers in the West Bank on Monday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Balal was reportedly beaten up by masked settlers before being pulled out of an ambulance and taken into custody by Israeli military and police forces.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Balal told the Associated Press he was blindfolded and forced to sleep under an air conditioner while he listened to Israeli soldiers laugh about him.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Israeli military officials said that they responded to disperse a confrontation, but denied pulling anyone from an ambulance.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They did say Bilal was detained for allegedly throwing rocks at IDF police, which Bilal denies doing.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, today is the one-year anniversary of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore after a container ship crashed into it, killing six people.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A blistering NTSB report last week said Maryland leadership could have done more to prevent the collision and that the bridge was vulnerable.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Governor Westmore pinned the blame entirely on the ship's operator, telling Fox News they were reckless.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Despite all of the finger-pointing, commuters are the ones still feeling the impact.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A survey released this week said 60 percent of people who live within three miles of the bridge say that their lives are still being disrupted a year later.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next.
--:-- Shamita Basu: New York Magazine examines how workplaces in New York City have largely mandated that workers return to offices in a shift from the early days of the pandemic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Except now, many are struggling to find adequate space for all their employees.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Plus Narrated to find that story.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Thanks for listening to Apple News Today.
