Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System

0:00Hello. Now A. Martinez is ignoring me. Do I have to hear her? You're so mean. 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. What will recovery look like? I'm Leila Faldil with A. Martinez, and this is a first from NPR News.

0:29The 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. It has never in our country's history been used during peacetime, much less against the gang. A judge ordered the deportations to be stopped immediately, but some still happened. Why? 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. Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.

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2:23The 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. 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. A federal judge is trying to stop this. We're joined now by NPR's Adrian Florido. So let's start off with what the Trump administration used to justify their actions. 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.

3:01This is a wartime law. We are not at war with Venezuela, but in his order, Trump described Venezuela's Tren de Aragua prison gang as a force invading the U.S. And 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. 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. 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.

3:41The ACLU sued to stop these deportations, and a federal judge agreed to temporarily block them. But what happened? 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. 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. 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.

4:21Venezuela does not regularly accept deportation flights from the USA, so Bukele said that he had struck a deal with the U.S. to imprison these deportees for a fee. And tell us more about the concerns civil liberties advocates are raising over the president's use of this law. 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. 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.

4:57Congress 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 the gang. 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. 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? 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.

5:33Since 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. So what happens now? Well, the Trump administration has appealed the judges' order temporarily blocking deportations under the law. 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. All right. That's NPR's Adrian Florido. Thanks a lot. Thank you, A.

6:10A 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. A doctor who was legally working in the U.S. has been sent back to Lebanon. And in a separate case, a German-born green card holder is being detained. And that's raising concerns about an immigration crackdown in Boston. NPR's Tovia Smith has been following the story. 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. Yeah, this is about Rasha Alloway, a kidney transplant doctor at a Brown University-affiliated medical group.

6:47She was here on an H-1B visa. That's the one meant for highly specialized workers. 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. 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 but they say officials quote willfully disobeyed the judge's order and sent her back anyway. We expect to learn more shortly from government lawyers in federal court this morning, 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.

7:38Okay, so now the separate case of the German-born green card holder, that's a different situation? 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. 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. His family says that's because he never got the notice. 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 Benicourt.

8:16He had to go and be strip naked and was showered by two officers with ice-cold water and was interrogated again. Officials say the claims are, quote, blatantly false, without, however, saying specifically which claims. 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. And, Sylvia, all this comes as the Trump administration has been promising to take a hard line on immigration in general. What kind of reaction are you seeing to all this in Boston? Yeah, this is being seen as Trump making good on one of his central campaign promises or threats, however you see it.

8:57And 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. I'm coming to Boston. I'm bringing hell with me. Meantime, those who oppose the Trump administration's hardline stance are also fired up. There's a protest planned for this evening to support the doctor who was sent back to Lebanon. As, of course, there have been other protests, including many around the nation this weekend, in support of the Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil. 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.

9:44All right, that's NPR's Tovia Smith. Tovia, thanks. Thank you.

9:55At 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. The storms continue to rattle the East Coast overnight, but have largely moved offshore. Residents across the country are still taking stock of the damage. NPR's Rylan Barton has been following this. So tell us what happened over the weekend. Yeah, so this really volatile storm system affected a huge swath of the country. It created a trail of destruction from Kansas and Oklahoma down to Texas, and then over east to Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

10:29In the east side, on Friday and Saturday, the system dropped baseball-sized hail in some places, produced dozens of deadly tornadoes. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves said that six people were killed in tornadoes there. 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. And that makes me proud to be a Mississippian. Also, 12 people died in Missouri, where Governor Mike Cahill said yesterday that hundreds of homes, schools and businesses were destroyed or severely damaged. In Arkansas, the National Weather Service said that damage from two of the tornadoes there showed they were likely F4s.

11:12That's the second strongest class of tornadoes, with one of them estimated to have a peak wind of 170 miles an hour. The last time that happened on the same day in the state was 1997. 1997. First responders across the region are still working to clear debris, restore power to homes, and eventually distribute supplies for recovery. Yeah. Now tell us about the high wind and wildfires that took place on the western side of the area affected by the storm. Right. So Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas, there were hurricane-force winds. They created dust storms and wildfires. On Friday, eight people died in a 71-vehicle pileup in Kansas.

11:46That was after a dust storm suddenly reduced visibility to near zero. That closed Interstate 70 for over 24 hours. Another three people were killed in dust storm-related crashes in Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle. 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. 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. The threat of fires is expected to continue there into the next week.

12:25Wow. So that's all of that's a lot. What does recovery look like? So the process is really just starting. 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. He promised to assist state and local officials in the recovery. And he said National Guard troops were already deployed to Arkansas, where the most powerful tornadoes took place. Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders surveyed damage there Saturday. Our goal is to help and aid the local folks on the ground, take care of people, worry about the paperwork later.

12:59This is just the beginning of tornado season and more severe weather could be on its way in the next several weeks. That's NPR's Rylan Barton. Rylan, thanks. Thank you.

13:12And that's up first for Monday, March 17th. I'm A Martinez. And I'm Leila Faldil. Thanks for listening to Up First. You can find more in-depth coverage of the stories we talked about today and lots more on NPR's Morning Edition. That's the radio show that Steve Inskeep, Michelle Martin, A. Martinez, and I host. Find Morning Edition on your local NPR station at stations.npr.org. Today's episode of Upburst was edited by Kevin Drew, Louise Clemens, Alice Wolfley, and Jenea Williams. It was produced by Zia Butch, Destiny Adams, Zachary Coleman, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott.

13:44Our technical director is David Greenberg. Join us again tomorrow.

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