--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Monday, March 17th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today.
--:-- [Discussion continues with Shamita Basu setting the stage for the day's topics]
--:-- Shamita Basu: On today's show, the wartime law that Trump used to deport hundreds of Venezuelans, how Congress put D.C.'s budget in limbo, and NCAA tournament brackets are here. But first, it's been just over a week since immigration authorities arrested Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Halil.
--:-- [Discussion continues with Shamita Basu introducing the story]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Since then, it's been reported that more people who, like him, were in the U.S. legally, either through green cards or valid visas, have been detained or deported in recent weeks as well. Let's start in Boston, with a doctor who was returning to the U.S. from visiting family in Lebanon.
--:-- Rasha Alouia: [audio clip of Rasha Alouia speaking]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Rasha Alouia, who lives in Rhode Island, was stopped at the airport, where immigration authorities told her she would be deported. Her lawyer told the Providence Journal Alouia initially had some challenges applying for her H-1B visa, but those were resolved, and she'd been cleared to return to the U.S. legally.
--:-- Shamita Basu: When she was detained, the journal reports that Alouia had no access to her lawyer or phone. A federal judge issued an order to stop her deportation, but her flight back to Lebanon ended up taking off anyway.
--:-- Shamita Basu: A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection said their officers adhered to protocol.
--:-- [Discussion continues with Shamita Basu introducing the next story]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Also in Boston, the family of Fabian Schmidt, a green card holder from Luxembourg, said he was returning to the U.S. from Luxembourg. His partner was waiting to pick him up for hours, but he never came out.
--:-- Fabian Schmidt's Mother: [audio clip of Fabian Schmidt's mother speaking]
--:-- Shamita Basu: When his family called authorities, they learned he had been arrested by immigration officials. His mother told GBH in Boston they stripped Schmidt naked and violently interrogated him.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The family's been informed he's being held at an ICE facility. A customs spokesperson said Schmidt was detained because of a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge from 2015, a charge that was dropped.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It is possible for green card holders like Schmidt to be stripped of their legal permanent residency status, but U.S. law states they need to appear before a judge before that can happen.
--:-- [Discussion continues with Shamita Basu introducing the next story]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some people being arrested aren't legal residents, they're tourists. In San Diego, two German tourists, Jessica Broch and Lucas Seeloff, were apprehended separately as they each tried to return to the U.S. from Mexico.
--:-- Jessica Broch: [audio clip of Jessica Broch speaking]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Both had tourist visas. Seeloff's fiancée, Lennon Tyler, told the San Diego NBC affiliate they traveled together often and never had issues re-entering the U.S. before.
--:-- Lucas Seeloff: [audio clip of Lucas Seeloff speaking]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Nikita Loving was traveling with Jessica Broch when she was detained, and she told NBC her arrest stemmed from Broch's plans to tattoo Loving.
--:-- Nikita Loving: [audio clip of Nikita Loving speaking]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Immigration authorities said that plan qualified as work which meant Broch's tourist visa was invalid.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But Loving told NBC Broch was planning to tattoo her as a gift with no money involved.
--:-- [Discussion continues with Shamita Basu introducing the next story]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Rebecca Burke, a British tourist who was backpacking through the U.S. She tried to cross into Canada, the Seattle Times reports, but Canada rejected her because she planned to stay with a host family and do chores in exchange for food and lodging.
--:-- Rebecca Burke's Father: [audio clip of Rebecca Burke's father speaking]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Canadian authorities said she needed a work visa for that, not a tourist visa.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But when Burke tried to go back to the U.S., her father says she was handcuffed and taken to a detention center.
--:-- Shamita Basu: ICE officials say she was detained for violating terms and conditions of her admission.
--:-- [Discussion continues with Shamita Basu introducing the next story]
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration's hardline stance on immigration has impacted tourism overall.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The number of overseas visitors to the U.S. fell 2.4 percent in February compared to last year, according to government data.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And the research firm Tourism Economics estimates over the course of this year, tourism will decline by 5% as a result of Trump's, quote, polarizing policies and rhetoric.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That would have a significant economic impact, potentially billions of dollars lost at a time when the U.S. economy is already on shaky ground due to Trump's tariffs and escalating trade wars.
--:-- [Discussion continues with Shamita Basu introducing the next story]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Let's stick with President Trump's crackdown on immigration and look at a specific law being cited in some deportation orders that hasn't been invoked since World War II.
--:-- Camilo Montoya-Galvez: [audio clip of Camilo Montoya-Galvez speaking]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Over the weekend, Trump deported about 238 suspected members of the Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua, despite a court order blocking the flights.
--:-- Shamita Basu: They were sent to El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele says they will be held in a terrorism confinement facility for one year.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Immigration and politics reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez said on CBS News, Trump's deportation directions to the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice cited the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
--:-- Camilo Montoya-Galvez: [audio clip of Camilo Montoya-Galvez speaking]
--:-- Shamita Basu: It allows presidents to gain this extraordinary power to order the arrest, detention, and removal of non-citizens ages 14 and older from countries that are deemed to be invading the U.S. or orchestrating a predatory incursion into the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Alien Enemies Act is a wartime power most famously used in the internment of Japanese-Americans, as well as Germans and Italians during World War II.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And it gives the president and government broad powers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's only been used three times during the War of 1812 and both world wars.
--:-- Camilo Montoya-Galvez: [audio clip of Camilo Montoya-Galvez speaking]
--:-- Shamita Basu: This law would allow officials to process people subject to it without any of the due process protections outlined in U immigration law including the right to seek asylum.
--:-- Shamita Basu: People would be able to be summarily detained and deported because they would be treated not as migrants facing deportation, but as enemy aliens.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The White House argues it didn't violate a court order because it's up to the president to decide who poses a significant risk to the United States and whether to expel them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The ACLU, in a challenge to Trump's actions, said the act shouldn't apply here since the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The timing of the flights could become a big issue.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The New York Times reports the judge's ruling was issued shortly before 7 p.m. on Saturday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The ruling even said if necessary, planes should turn around.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But it's unclear when exactly the planes landed in El Salvador.
--:-- Shamita Basu: If it turns out the planes touched ground after the judge's order was filed, that could set up a constitutional showdown between the president and the judiciary.
--:-- [Discussion continues with Shamita Basu introducing the next story]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now to Washington, where lawmakers in the Senate voted Friday to pass a Republican stopgap spending bill preventing a government shutdown.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The bill will fund the government until September.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Republicans say the bill won't affect social safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But the Congressional Budget Office has said this budget will be impossible to execute without cutting into at least one of those.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The bill also targeted a bucket of spending that has long been treated as its own entity, the local budget for Washington, D.C.
--:-- Shamita Basu: See, even though the district has its own mayor and council who enact their budget, Congress has ultimate authority over it because it's not a state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And in this federal spending bill, the budget for D.C. was cut by $1 billion, even though Congress had already approved that money several times and local officials had already started to spend it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: On Friday, senators unanimously passed a separate piece of legislation to allow the district's 2025 budget to stand after D.C. leaders and residents protested the decision.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But with Congress now in recess for the week, the House will not vote on it until next Monday at the earliest.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So the district is still in limbo for now.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We spoke with Washington Post reporter Megan Flynn about the impact this cut could have on the city, residents and the tens of millions of tourists who visit the nation's capital every year.
--:-- Megan Flynn: [audio clip of Megan Flynn speaking]
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's the first time this has happened in about 20 years.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Stopgap spending bills typically exclude money related to D.C.'s budget.
--:-- Shamita Basu: But in this bill, House Republicans removed that exception.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And frankly, House leadership and House appropriations have not clearly explained the reason for it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And so it's a very tough situation right now for D.C.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We're already halfway through the fiscal year, so Flynn told us city officials will most likely have to resort to immediate layoffs and furloughs of essential workers, people like teachers, firefighters, police officers, public defenders and transit workers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The public transit system which serves D Maryland and Virginia could alone face a million loss.
--:-- Shamita Basu: According to the city, they say that virtually every area of the government would be impacted including public safety, including education, cleanliness, sanitation workers.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Virtually all the services that you can think of would be expected to see cuts.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Some lawmakers who want to see D.C.'s budget restored are arguing making cuts there does effectively nothing to balance the federal budget or reduce federal spending.
--:-- Shamita Basu: D.C.'s budget is overwhelmingly locally raised tax dollars.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And so they argue, you know, why would Congress do this if they're not realizing any federal savings from this?
--:-- Shamita Basu: This is, they say, would only hurt local D.C. Really the core areas that a lot of people care about in their community.
--:-- [Discussion continues with Shamita Basu introducing the final stories]
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Starting with tornadoes, wildfires, and dust storms tearing up the country.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At least 40 people are dead, hundreds injured, and many without power after a streak of damaging weather events.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In Kansas, at least eight people were killed after dozens of vehicles were involved in a crash caused by a dust storm.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Mississippi's governor said at least six people were killed by tornadoes in the state.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And in Missouri, at least a dozen people died as twisters spread through the state overnight on Saturday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In international news, the U.S. launched airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen over the weekend, killing 53 people, including five children.
--:-- Shamita Basu: That's according to the rebels' health ministry.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Trump administration said the strikes were in response to Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea and also issued a warning to Iran.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Houthis have vowed to target U.S. ships in the region as long as the strikes continue.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox Business there would be an unrelenting missile campaign until the attacks stopped.
--:-- Shamita Basu: And finally, March Madness begins this week as the NCAA basketball tournament gets underway.
--:-- Shamita Basu: In the men's bracket, the Auburn Tigers were selected the number one overall seed and are joined by Duke, Florida and Houston as the other top seeds.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The Southeastern Conference, which Auburn is a member of, is fielding a record 14 schools in the 68 team bracket.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Meanwhile, on the women's side, UCLA is the number one overall seed with South Carolina, Texas and USC taking the other three number one spots.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The men tip off on Thursday, the women on Friday.
--:-- 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: With health systems hollowed and public trust on the decline, New York Magazine explains that our ability to fight a possible bird flu pandemic, if things get worse, may not be enough.
--:-- 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: Thank you.
