--:-- [Up First theme music plays]
--:-- Michelle Martin: Hello there. I'm Michelle Martin. And this is Steve. We are following the election, of course, as everybody is, and we're glad you're joining us for Up First.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: There are other ways to make sure you do not miss a development through the day. First, every weekday, you can find a new episode of the NPR Politics Podcast with context and analysis on the big stories whenever they happen.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So you get an alert, big breaking news, you don't know what to think, look for the NPR Politics Podcast a few hours later.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And you can also hear Consider This, a podcast in which NPR covers one big story in depth every weekday evening. They're all over this election and the aftermath and anything else happening in the world.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So you got Up First in the morning. Consider This in the evening, the NPR Politics Podcast, anytime big stuff happens. And around the clock election news survival kit from NPR Podcast.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Thank you for listening. Here's the show.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Vice President Harris spoke from the same spot where Donald Trump fired up a crowd on January 6, 2021. It doesn't have to be this way.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: How did she reach out to voters who disagree on issues but agree about the Constitution? I'm Michelle Martin.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's Steve Inskeep. And this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Former President Trump has promised to launch mass deportations of undocumented people if elected. But how exactly does he plan to deport more than 11 million people?
--:-- Jasmine Garst: Well, not a lot of specifics. He said he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which allows the president to detain and deport non-citizens from an enemy nation during wartime.
--:-- Tamara Keith: He also has said he would use local police.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: And Trump and his allies have talked about invoking the Insurrection Act and deploying troops to the southwest border.
--:-- Tamara Keith: I was watching his speech Sunday from Madison Square Garden where he said some of these things and it made me wonder how feasible it all is.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: Well, first of all, Congress would need to allocate massive amounts of money to hire new agents, increase facilities, and Trump hasn't been specific about how he'd do that.
--:-- Tamara Keith: And also civil rights groups are prepared to challenge all this.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: I mean, consider the Alien Enemies Act. We are not at war with countries that migrants primarily come from.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Okay, so you can see the legal challenges coming if you use these various laws as your authority.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: The next question is whether the president can commandeer local law enforcement or rely on their cooperation, as it were.
--:-- Tamara Keith: So partnerships between certain police departments and immigration authorities already do exist for detaining and holding immigrants.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: And those partnerships, by the way, have been accused of enabling racial profiling and of breaking community trust.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Now, legally, no, the president can't force a police department to collaborate with immigration enforcement.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: In fact, during his presidency, Trump tried and it was deemed unconstitutional.
--:-- Tamara Keith: This is an experience that lots of presidents have. They show up in the most powerful office in the world and find out their limits to their power, so long as the Constitution holds, so are his hands to some extent tied.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: Kind of.
--:-- Tamara Keith: I think it's really important to look at what's happening on a state level.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: In the last few years, we've seen states like Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas, and Arizona now attempting to pass their own immigration enforcement laws.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Now, what legal scholars have told me is that they expect that under a Trump presidency, we would see places that already participate in immigration enforcement really ramping it up.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: And the Justice Department under Trump giving them a green light.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Oh, interesting.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: So in states that are politically aligned with Trump, he could change considerably, but other states maybe a little bit less.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Let's talk now about Harris's approach to immigration.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: So 60% of voters say immigration is a major concern.
--:-- Tamara Keith: The Biden-Harris administration has been criticized by the Trump campaign for being weak on immigration.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: And what we've seen is Democrats veering more conservative, talking less about paths to legalization and much more on border security.
--:-- Tamara Keith: Also pushing a bipartisan bill from earlier this year, saying that if elected, she will sign that into law.
--:-- Jasmine Garst: And I guess in her big speech last night, Harris did talk about a path to legalization, but also talked about deporting people who need to be deported.
--:-- Corey Turner: Okay, waitress, barista, babysitter are just some of the other jobs, second jobs, that teachers in Head Start have to work in order to make ends meet.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Pay in the federally funded preschool program is so low that many Head Start centers are struggling to hire enough staff to keep their classrooms open.
--:-- Corey Turner: Now the Biden-Harris administration is trying to help.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And NPR's Corey Turner has been asking how.
--:-- Corey Turner: Let's start with the problem as they define it. How low is teacher pay here?
--:-- Michelle Martin: It is so low that the program meant to help children living in poverty actually forces many of its staff to live in poverty.
--:-- Corey Turner: Nationally we know the average salary is around $40,000 or less.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Because that was the average salary.
--:-- Corey Turner: I mean, that's okay if you're just out of school, just getting started in life, but get a little older, you have some expenses.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That is really, really tight.
--:-- Corey Turner: So what happens if Head Start Center just can't find enough teachers at those rates?
--:-- Michelle Martin: Kids and families miss out.
--:-- Corey Turner: I spoke with Madonna Princer, who runs the programs in Grand Rapids.
--:-- Michelle Martin: She told me she struggled with this just last year.
--:-- Corey Turner: When we started in August, I needed 43 teaching staff.
--:-- Michelle Martin: So we were talking, you know, over 20 classrooms not being able to open.
--:-- Corey Turner: Princer says she has nearly a thousand children on her wait list.
--:-- Michelle Martin: She's also raised wages about as much as she can without big cuts or a funding increase from Congress.
--:-- Corey Turner: Okay, but we started by saying the federal government wants to do something about this. What is it?
--:-- Michelle Martin: Yeah, the Biden-Harris administration has created a rule requiring Head Start teachers to get a pay bump of as much as $10,000 per person.
--:-- Corey Turner: The problem is, without Congress, Steve, local program directors are being told they have to pay for it, in some cases by cutting services.
--:-- Michelle Martin: With the election just a week away, it's also worth noting the Republican Project 2025 calls for eliminating Head Start.
--:-- Corey Turner: We know Donald Trump has disavowed that project.
--:-- Michelle Martin: I did ask his campaign for his position, and I got a vague quote about returning education to the states.
--:-- Corey Turner: In the meantime, back in Michigan, I spoke with teacher Savannah Claypack.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And I asked what it says she thinks in many places that you can make about as much money flipping burgers as you can teaching in Head Start.
--:-- Corey Turner: Why it's not a priority, I don't know.
--:-- Michelle Martin: I think that there is a push right now to make it a priority, but we're still, it's a long ways away.
--:-- Michelle Martin: That's NPR's Corey Turner.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And that's Up First for this Wednesday, October 30th.
--:-- Michelle Martin: I'm Steve Inskeep.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And I'm Michelle Martin.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: For your next listen, tune in to Consider This from NPR.
--:-- Michelle Martin: North Carolina has not chosen a Democrat for president since 2008.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: If the Harris-Walls campaign is going to change that, it needs more rural Democrats to turn out.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Hear how one grassroots group is trying to make that happen.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Listen to Consider This from NPR.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Today's Up First was edited by Roberta Rampton, Alfredo Carbajal, Steve Drummond, Nicole Cohen, Olivia Hampton, and Alice Woelfle.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It was produced by Ana Perez, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas.
--:-- Michelle Martin: And we get engineering support from Robert Rodriguez.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Our technical director is Zac Coleman.
--:-- Michelle Martin: Join us tomorrow.
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