--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, March 24th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, what closing the Department of Education would mean for low-income school districts, why American chicken farms are particularly vulnerable to bird flu, and a community rallies behind a teacher who was told her classroom decor violates policy. But first, we're learning more about the Venezuelan migrants deported by the United States and sent to El Salvador with no due process.
--:-- Sylvia Foster-Frau: CBS News has obtained an internal government list with the names of the 238 men, more than half of whom President Trump and his administration have accused of being part of the Tren de Aragua gang, a group that Trump has called a foreign terrorist group and wartime enemy.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He used those terms again when he invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a move that allowed him to give these men no chance to defend themselves in court and has set off a legal battle. And now many of their family members and friends are speaking out, saying they are not part of any gang and have committed no crimes.
--:-- Sylvia Foster-Frau: Washington Post immigration reporter Sylvia Foster-Frau told us about 29-year-old Mervin Yamarte, who came to the U.S. to escape Venezuela's political and economic crisis and to send money to his partner and child back home.
--:-- Sylvia Foster-Frau: And so he came up through Central America, crossed the border, was detained for a few days, released, and then got a home in Dallas, Texas, where he began working at a tortilla-making factory. He lived there with his three friends and was working there. They formed a soccer team and they played soccer together in the afternoons and really just kind of made a life for himself in the year and a half that he's been in the United States.
--:-- Sylvia Foster-Frau: Armed officers showed up at their Texas home and brought all four of them to a detention center. Yamarte's family told The Post he and his friends were asked to sign deportation papers, and they agreed to it thinking they were going home to their loved ones in Venezuela. But that wasn't the case.
--:-- Sylvia Foster-Frau: He was put on a plane and actually sent to El Salvador's mega prison, which is a notorious and huge complex that has been at the center of allegations of human rights abuses and has been part of the crackdown on crime there in El Salvador.
--:-- Sylvia Foster-Frau: Yamarte's mom realized her son was in El Salvador from seeing a video shared by Salvadoran president Naib Bukele that depicted gang members being violently pulled from airplanes and brought to this infamous prison.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We found, the still that the moment where she recognized her son, it's a very close up part of the video where you see his face and he appears to be wincing. He's kneeling down wearing this like ripped black shirt. His head has been shaven.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There had been footage earlier in the video of them shaving all of the new prisoners' heads. And there's an officer behind him kind of gripping him on the shoulder.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And as you can imagine, how hard that would be for a mother to see.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security would confirm whether Yamarte and his friends had ties to gangs.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We asked the local ICE in Dallas, We asked the federal agencies Homeland Security and Immigration Customs Enforcement at the federal level, We asked the White House what evidence do you have that these folks are tied to Trenderagua? Can you kind of give us a rundown? Do you have any proof? What are you using to determine this?
--:-- Shamita Basu: And we got no response.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We also scoured court records on the national, state, and local level trying to find if these people had been charged with any crime and we could not find any crime.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And then we also spoke to family members and girlfriends and friends of these four immigrants, and they were very vehement in their insistence that these men were not members of the gang.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The administration has so far provided no evidence supporting their claim that the men on these flights had gang affiliations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And it's becoming increasingly clear some, if not many, likely were not gang members. Still, the administration has continued to defend the deportations.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, the judge who ordered the administration to turn around the planes flying these men to El Salvador, an order that was not followed, he said in a separate hearing on Friday that he was skeptical the Justice Department has grounds to invoke the Alien Enemies Act at all, saying the administration has stretched and distorted the intent of the statute.
--:-- Shamita Basu: As President Trump makes moves to end the Department of Education, even though Congress is supposed to get the last word on eliminating it, let's talk about what kind of impact that might have on students, particularly in low-income districts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We've said it before, but it's worth saying again, the DOE isn't in charge of curricula. That's up to the states. funding also largely comes from states, with only about 8% coming from the federal government.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the Trump administration has said it would maintain federal funding streams for two of the DOE's key programs, Title I, which serves low-income communities, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But some educators and policy experts worry that disruptions to these and other programs are inevitable if the DOE is eliminated and its functions assigned to other parts of state and federal government.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One coming change with the potential for big impact, a data arm of the education department called the National Center for Education Statistics will soon see its staff reduced from more than 100 earlier this year to just three employees.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is a department that tracks the condition of education in the country, identifies gaps in achievement, and assigns grants for rural and low-income schools.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But with a severely short staff, it's unclear how money will be allocated in the future. And that money is really important.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Title I and rural schools can use it for basics like teachers' salaries, technology, and school buses.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Axios reports, the states that have the most to lose if the DOE is dismantled are mostly states that voted for Trump.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Take, for example, Mississippi. In the 2021-2022 school year, about 23 percent of its public school funding came from federal dollars.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One policy expert told Axios lower wealth states like Mississippi will struggle to make up for lost federal funding.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, educators themselves, many who are already tired of super tight budgets in the classroom say that they fed up.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Chloe Eierman is a third-grade teacher in the Denver area. She spoke with NBC News at a teacher rally against federal cuts to education last week.
--:-- Chloe Eierman: I think the scariest part is that we don't know. That uncertainty is terrifying and it's drawing away from what really matters here, which is the education of our youth and our future Americans.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The administration, for its part, says this is all about eliminating bureaucracy and returning power to the states.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Here's Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaking to Fox News after Trump signed the order.
--:-- Linda McMahon: We want to raise scores, not continue to let scores get lower. And the president is really convinced that the bureaucracy of the Department of Education is a hindrance in that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But even officials in some Republican states say they aren't sure Trump's order actually does that.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Kevin Huffman led Tennessee's Education Department under a Republican governor.
--:-- Kevin Huffman: I think the whole thing is based on a false premise that somehow federal bureaucracy is the barrier and the reason why kids aren't learning more.
--:-- Kevin Huffman: But in my experience, that's not true. States already have lots of autonomy and some use it well and some do not.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Aside from administering federal aid to K-12 schools, the Education Department is also the largest source of loans for college students.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Trump administration says loans will instead be overseen by the Small Business Administration, which McMahon headed up during Trump's first term.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's turn now to egg prices, an American staple that's been causing a lot of pain for grocery shoppers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's outrageous. I just don't understand why our egg prices gotta be so high.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At Waffle Houses across the country, the menus now say there will be a temporary 50-cent surcharge for every egg you order.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A tough hit, since eggs are Waffle Houses' most ordered item.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's extremely high. Like the price of anything, they've gone up substantially over the last few years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Skyrocketing less. What, six, seven months? Made us a lot more conscious of, like, how much we're using them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Those omelets are going to become a luxury item. It feels like people are eating gold now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, there is some good news on the horizon.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Department of Agriculture reported last week that Americans should soon start to see the price of eggs come down a bit.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They're saying wholesale egg prices have fallen significantly, and consumers should start to notice it on their grocery shelves in the next few weeks.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, NPR looks at our neighbor to the north, Canada, and how they have managed to keep egg prices at bay.
--:-- Shamita Basu: According to NPR, Canadian chickens haven't been affected by bird flu the way American chickens have.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's primarily because egg farms in Canada exist on a much smaller scale.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The typical egg farm up north has around 25,000 egg-laying hens, while many farms in the U.S. have more than a million.
--:-- Mike von Massow: If individual farms represent a larger proportion of production, then when an individual farm is affected, you're taking more of that supply, right?
--:-- Shamita Basu: Since the 1990s, the average farm in the U.S. has quadrupled in size.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's because pressure to produce cheap goods meant that farmers had to make up the difference with volume.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Dairy farmers in Canada don't have the same incentive to produce more because they're protected by a federal system that sets production quotas.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It keeps prices stable.
--:-- Mike von Massow: There is less incentive to grow because I can make money at this size. There is still incentive to be efficient but there is not a requirement to get as big.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are a few more factors beyond size. Barns in Canada are sealed more tightly because of the colder weather.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's also kept out the virus.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There are fewer free-range chickens in Canada, a group that's more likely to become infected.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Also, Canada doesn't allow the import of eggs and dairy from the U.S., which is a source of contention in the ongoing trade war.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, while the Department of Agriculture reports that American prices should drop soon, there's also an effort underway in Congress to get egg prices under control.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A bipartisan bill was introduced in the House that proposes reining in regulation for farmers, which currently requires them to discard eggs that don't meet certain refrigeration requirements.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Supporters of this bill say that rule has led to hundreds of millions of eggs each year being thrown away.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And at a time when there's fewer to spare, every egg counts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Canadians are headed to the polls early after newly sworn-in Prime Minister Mark Carney called for snap elections to be held in April.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Carney on Sunday asked Canadian voters to send a strong mandate to deal with an escalating trade war over tariffs with President Trump, saying Trump wants to, quote, break us.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Carney and Canada's Liberal Party will face conservatives and their leader, Pierre Polyev, who has sought to distance himself from Trump.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Since Trump announced steep tariffs, Canada's liberals have done increasingly better in national polling.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In other news, Pope Francis is out of the hospital.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The 88-year-old pontiff thanked the crowds and gave a blessing in a brief public appearance on Sunday after his discharge from a hospital in Rome.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The pope has been hospitalized for five weeks, first with a microbial infection, then double pneumonia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Officials say he'll continue his recovery at his residence in Vatican City.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, a teacher in Idaho is refusing to take down classroom signs that her district said violates policy on content-neutral displays.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The poster reads, everyone is welcome here and has hands in an array of skin tones.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Sarah Anama teaches World Civilizations at Lewis and Clark Middle School.
--:-- Sarah Anama: I would do anything to protect my students. I love all of them unconditionally.
--:-- Sarah Anama: We protect them from danger, quite literally would take a bullet for these students.
--:-- Sarah Anama: And this is the one small thing that I feel like I can do to speak out against this and stand up for them, to protect them from being affected by racist sentiments affecting their classroom.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Today, local advocacy groups have encouraged people to wear Everyone is Welcome Here t-shirts to work or school.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A local screen printing shop worked through the weekend to try to meet demand, with thousands of shirts ordered.
--:-- 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: The New Yorker examines why the MAGA movement has appealed to so many young men in recent years, and what it might take for the left to reach them again.
--:-- 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.
