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--:-- Leila Fadel: Hello.
--:-- A Martinez: Now A. Martinez is ignoring me. Do I have to hear her?
--:-- Leila Fadel: You're so me.
--:-- A Martinez: A deadly storm system has moved offshore after tearing through the Midwest and South over the weekend. Dozens of people died when tornadoes and high winds knocked out power and leveled homes and buildings.
--:-- Leila Fadel: What will recovery look like? I'm Leila Fadel with A. Martinez and this is a first from NPR News.
--:-- A Martinez: The Trump administration deports hundreds of people who they accuse of being Venezuelan gang members using an obscure wartime law. Civil liberties advocates are raising a red flag.
--:-- Leila Fadel: It has never in our country's history been used during peacetime, much less against a gang. A judge ordered the deportations to be stopped immediately, but some still happened. Why?
--:-- Leila Fadel: And two people living in the U.S. legally say they were detained and mistreated by U.S. immigration officials when they tried to re-enter the country.
--:-- A Martinez: Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.
--:-- Leila Fadel: This message comes from BetterHelp. President Fernando Madeira describes how BetterHelp online therapy has helped him.
--:-- President Fernando Madeira: For me, sometimes I just need to go and talk to somebody that It's not going to judge me, right? It's going to be there and they're going to listen to me. And I can't start just saying, look, I'm not feeling right today. And it feels natural. I love it.
--:-- Leila Fadel: To get matched with a therapist, visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.
--:-- A Martinez: This message comes from Sony Pictures Classics. In Eleanor the Great, June Squibb brings to vivid life the spirited 94-year-old Eleanor Morgenstein, who after a devastating loss tells a tale that spirals beyond her control.
--:-- Leila Fadel: From director Scarlett Johansson comes a comically poignant exploration of how the stories we hear become the stories we tell. Deadline puts it, there won't be a dry eye in the house. Eleanor the Great, now playing only in theaters.
--:-- A Martinez: This message comes from NPR sponsor AARP. Where do you see your career in 12 years? What are you doing now to help you get there?
--:-- Leila Fadel: The sooner you start enhancing your skills, the sooner you'll be ready. That's why AARP has management, finance, and small business reskilling courses, all to help your income live as long as you do.
--:-- A Martinez: Because the steps you choose to take today will help you love what you do in the future. Learn more at aarp.org slash skills.
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--:-- A Martinez: Ritual vitamins are made with bioavailable clinically studied key ingredients and a patented nutrient delivery system that aims to help your body use the nutrients you're getting.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Ritual's essential multivitamins are made with you and your body in mind and backed by scientific research filled with key ingredients as well as the essence of mint so you can enjoy taking your vitamins.
--:-- A Martinez: Get 25% off your first purchase when you visit ritual.com slash NPR.
--:-- Leila Fadel: The Trump administration has deported hundreds of people who it accuses of being Venezuelan gang members. This weekend, they were flown not to Venezuela, but to El Salvador.
--:-- A Martinez: In an extraordinary move, President Trump relied on a rarely used law from more than 200 years ago to quickly expel them without hearings or due process.
--:-- Leila Fadel: A federal judge is trying to stop this.
--:-- A Martinez: We're joined now by NPR's Adrian Florido.
--:-- Adrian Florido: So let's start off with what the Trump administration used to justify their actions.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Well, on Saturday, President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act. It is a law from 1798 that authorizes summarily detaining or deporting citizens of an enemy nation.
--:-- Adrian Florido: This is a wartime law. We are not at war with Venezuela but in his order Trump described Venezuela Tren de Aragua prison gang as a force invading the U
--:-- Adrian Florido: Hours later hundreds of immigrants his administration claims are in that gang had been deported to El Salvador Here's White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt on Fox News.
--:-- Carolyn Levitt: The president invoked this authority to deport nearly 300 of them who are now in El Salvador, where they will be behind bars, where they belong, rather than roaming freely in American communities.
--:-- Adrian Florido: El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, said that he would lock them up for a year, and he released photos of shackled men being unloaded from planes and having their heads shaved.
--:-- Adrian Florido: The ACLU sued to stop these deportations, and a federal judge agreed to temporarily block them. But what happened?
--:-- Adrian Florido: Yeah, it was an emergency suit from the ACLU on Saturday, and Judge James Boesberg of the Federal District Court in D.C. said that he didn't think the Alien Enemies Act authorized the immediate deportations.
--:-- Adrian Florido: He told the government to turn back any planes that might already be in the air, but that didn't happen. And it's not clear if the planes had already landed in El Salvador or if officials chose not to divert them back to the U.S.
--:-- Adrian Florido: El Salvador's president, who takes pride in flouting due process in his crime crackdowns, mocked the judge's order on social media, writing, Oopsie, too late.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Venezuela does not regularly accept deportation flights from the U.S.A., So Bukele said that he had struck a deal with the U.S. to imprison these deportees for a fee.
--:-- Adrian Florido: And tell us more about the concerns civil liberties advocates are raising over the president's use of this law.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Well, the Alien Enemies Act has only been used three times before, the last time during World War II when the government used it to detain Japanese, German and Italian citizens.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Liga learned the ACLU's attorney in this lawsuit told NPR Trump is misusing the law. The Alien Enemies Act cannot be used during peacetime for regular immigration enforcement.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Congress was very clear in the statute that it can only be used against a foreign government or foreign nation. It has never in our country's history been used during peacetime, much less against a gang.
--:-- Adrian Florido: He says the ACLU acted fast because once the U.S. has turned someone over to a foreign government, federal courts lose jurisdiction. A judge can't order El Salvador to send people back.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Now, the people who were deported, who the Trump administration claims are gang members, do we really know if they are Tren de Arragua members?
--:-- Adrian Florido: We don't know who most of them are. The Trump administration hasn't named them, hasn't offered evidence to back up its claim.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Since yesterday, some families of men who were in immigration detention in the U.S. have spoken out to say they fear their loved ones may have been in this group and that they are not gang members.
--:-- Adrian Florido: So what happens now?
--:-- Adrian Florido: Well, the Trump administration has appealed the judge's order temporarily blocking deportations under the law.
--:-- Adrian Florido: The ACLU says it'll fight this vigorously. They insist there is huge danger in allowing the president to invoke wartime authorities during peacetime that it sets a dangerous precedent.
--:-- Leila Fadel: All right. That's NPR's Adrian Florido. Thanks a lot.
--:-- Adrian Florido: Thanks a lot, Leila.
--:-- Leila Fadel: A federal judge in Boston has scheduled a hearing this morning about what he calls serious allegations that Customs and Border Protection officials disobeyed his court order.
--:-- Leila Fadel: A doctor who was legally working in the U.S. has been sent back to Lebanon.
--:-- Leila Fadel: And in a separate case, a German-born green card holder is being detained.
--:-- Leila Fadel: And that's raising concerns about an immigration crackdown in Boston.
--:-- Leila Fadel: NPR's Tovia Smith has been following the story.
--:-- Tovia Smith: So first, bring us up to date on the case of the doctor who was returned to Lebanon, whose case is being heard in court this morning.
--:-- Tovia Smith: Yeah, this is about Rasha Alloway, a kidney transplant doctor at a Brown University-affiliated medical group.
--:-- Tovia Smith: She was here on an H-1B visa. That's the one meant for highly specialized workers.
--:-- Tovia Smith: And she went to visit family in Lebanon. and when she returned, she was detained for 36 hours at Boston's Logan Airport and had her phone taken from her according to her cousin
--:-- Tovia Smith: Her cousin was the one who got the federal court order barring officials from sending her back And apparently her lawyers even made a frantic call to the airport control tower trying to stop the plane she was on
--:-- Tovia Smith: But they say officials, quote, willfully disobeyed the judge's order and sent her back anyway.
--:-- Tovia Smith: We expect to learn more shortly from government lawyers in federal court this morning.
--:-- Tovia Smith: But so far, we've got just a preview from a spokesperson who said that officials use rigorous screening to help keep threats out of the country is how they put it.
--:-- Tovia Smith: OK, so now the separate case of the German-born green card holder, that's a different situation?
--:-- Tovia Smith: Yeah. In this case, Fabian Schmidt was detained for days when he tried to return to Logan Airport from a trip to Europe, according to his family.
--:-- Tovia Smith: and officials suggest it's because he faced misdemeanor drug and DUI charges about a decade ago and he was a no-show for a court hearing on his case.
--:-- Tovia Smith: His family says that's because he never got the notice.
--:-- Tovia Smith: But in this case also relatives say that Schmidt was mistreated in custody, violently interrogated was how his mother put it when she spoke to GBH reporter Sarah Bettacourt.
--:-- Tovia Smith: He had to go and be strip naked and was showered by two officers with ice cold water and was interrogated again.
--:-- Tovia Smith: Officials say the claims are, quote, blatantly false without, however, saying specifically which claims.
--:-- Tovia Smith: And they add, quote, when an individual is found with drug related charges and tries to reenter the country, officers will take proper action, they said.
--:-- Leila Fadel: And, Sylvia, all this comes as the Trump administration has been promising to take a hard line on immigration in general.
--:-- Leila Fadel: What kind of reaction are you seeing to all this in Boston?
--:-- Tovia Smith: Yeah, this is being seen as Trump making good on one of his central campaign promises or threats, however you see it.
--:-- Tovia Smith: And this was reiterated, by the way, by border czar Tom Homan just a few weeks ago when he specifically called out Boston for vowing to not help ICE enforcement officers.
--:-- Tovia Smith: I'm coming to Boston. I'm bringing hell with me.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Meantime, those who oppose the Trump administration's hardline stance are also fired up.
--:-- Leila Fadel: There's a protest planned for this evening to support the doctor who was sent back to Lebanon.
--:-- Leila Fadel: As, of course, there have been other protests, including many around the nation this weekend, in support of the Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil.
--:-- Leila Fadel: He was taken into custody by officials who say his campus protest activities basically amount to a national security threat because they, quote, align with Hamas, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
--:-- Leila Fadel: All right, that's NPR's Tovia Smith. Tovia, thanks.
--:-- Tovia Smith: Thanks.
--:-- Leila Fadel: At least three dozen people are dead after severe weather sparked tornadoes, dust storms, wildfires, and heavy rainfall across the South and Midwest over the weekend.
--:-- Leila Fadel: The storms continue to rattle the East Coast overnight, but have largely moved offshore.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Residents across the country are still taking stock of the damage.
--:-- Leila Fadel: NPR's Rylan Barton has been following this.
--:-- Rylan Barton: So tell us what happened over the weekend.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Yeah, so this really volatile storm system affected a huge swath of the country.
--:-- Rylan Barton: It created a trail of destruction from Kansas and Oklahoma down to Texas, and then over east to Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi.
--:-- Rylan Barton: In the east side, on Friday and Saturday, the system dropped baseball-sized hail in some places, produced dozens of deadly tornadoes.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves said that six people were killed in tornadoes there.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Speaking on Sunday, he promised a quick response. Mississippians in times like these step up and do what is necessary to take care of our friends and our neighbors.
--:-- Rylan Barton: And that makes me proud to be a Mississippian.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Also 12 people died in Missouri where Governor Mike Cahill said yesterday that hundreds of homes schools and businesses were destroyed or severely damaged
--:-- Rylan Barton: In Arkansas the National Weather Service said that damage from two of the tornadoes there showed they were likely F4s That's the second strongest class of tornadoes, with one of them estimated to have a peak wind of 170 miles an hour.
--:-- Rylan Barton: The last time that happened on the same day in the state was 1997.
--:-- Rylan Barton: First responders across the region are still working to clear debris, restore power to homes, and eventually distribute supplies for recovery.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Yeah, now tell us about the high wind and wildfires that took place on the western side of the area affected by the storm.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Right. So Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas, there were hurricane-force winds.
--:-- Rylan Barton: They created dust storms and wildfires.
--:-- Rylan Barton: On Friday, eight people died in a 71-vehicle pileup in Kansas.
--:-- Rylan Barton: That was after a dust storm suddenly reduced visibility to near zero.
--:-- Rylan Barton: That closed Interstate 70 for over 24 hours.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Another three people were killed in dust storm-related crashes in Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle.
--:-- Rylan Barton: In Oklahoma, Governor Kevin Stitt said that high winds stoked more than 130 fires across the state, killing four and damaging or destroying nearly 400 homes.
--:-- Rylan Barton: And in Texas on Sunday, officials say there's more than 42,000 acres were burning from 36 different wildfires, including a nearly 10,000 acre wildfire near Fredericksburg in central Texas.
--:-- Rylan Barton: The threat of fires is expected to continue there into the next week.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Wow. So that's all of that's a lot.
--:-- Leila Fadel: What does recovery look like?
--:-- Rylan Barton: So the process is really just starting.
--:-- Rylan Barton: President Trump said on his Truth Social account yesterday that he's monitoring the storm damage and that he and First Lady Melania Trump are praying for everyone impacted.
--:-- Rylan Barton: He promised to assist state and local officials in the recovery.
--:-- Rylan Barton: And he said National Guard troops were already deployed to Arkansas, where the most powerful tornadoes took place.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders surveyed damage there Saturday.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Our goal is to help and aid the local folks on the ground, take care of people, worry about the paperwork later.
--:-- Rylan Barton: This is just the beginning of tornado season and more severe weather could be on its way in the next several weeks.
--:-- Leila Fadel: That's NPR's Rylan Barton. Rylan, thanks.
--:-- Rylan Barton: Thanks.
--:-- Leila Fadel: And that's Up First for Monday, March 17th.
--:-- Leila Fadel: I'm A. Martinez. And I'm Leila Fadel.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Thanks for listening to Up First.
--:-- Leila Fadel: You can find more in-depth coverage of the stories we talked about today and lots more on NPR's Morning Edition.
--:-- Leila Fadel: That's the radio show that Steve Inskeep, Michelle Martin, A. Martinez, and I host.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Find Morning Edition on your local NPR station at stations.npr.org.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Today's episode of Up First was edited by Kevin Drew, Louise Clemens, Alice Wolfley, and Jenea Williams.
--:-- Leila Fadel: It was produced by Zia Butch, Destiny Adams, Zachary Coleman, and Christopher Thomas.
--:-- Leila Fadel: We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Our technical director is David Greenberg.
--:-- Leila Fadel: Join us again tomorrow.
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--:-- Leila Fadel: Support for this podcast comes from Dignity Memorial. For many families, remembering loved ones means honoring the details that made them unique.
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--:-- Leila Fadel: Find a provider near you at DignityMemorial.com.
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