Venezuela Earthquakes Aftermath, SCOTUS Immigration Rulings, Trump Offers Farmers Aid

0:02Rescuers in Venezuela are racing to reach thousands still missing after two powerful earthquakes hit within seconds of each other. More than 200 people have been killed and officials say the death toll will likely climb with people still trapped under rubble. I'm Leila Faldil, that's Michelle Martin and this is Up First from NPR News. The Supreme Court handed President Trump two immigration wins. One lets his administration strip legal status from hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Haiti and Syria. The other makes it harder to claim asylum at the border. And President Trump is courting farmers, a group his own policies have hurt.

0:37He's offering$11 billion in additional aid after his tariffs and the Iran war squeezed their finances. Polls show people in farm country have lost confidence in the president. Is this enough to win it back? Stay with us. We'll give you news you need to start your day.

0:56This message comes from Fisher Investments. Senior Vice President Michael Hosmar reflects on one of their core values. We want to empower our clients with knowledge. In fact, Fisher is built on that idea. It comes straight from our founder, Ken Fisher, who believes the more our clients understand about the plan we've built for them, the more comfortable they will be with their personal financial situation. Learn more at fisherinvestments.com. investing in securities involves the risk of loss. This message comes from MidiHealth. CEO Joanna Strober shares why they started a virtual care platform for women in paramenopause and menopause.

1:35Our goal at Midi is to make sure that all women have access to really expert care, starting around 35 and 40, making sure that they get access to all the things that can help them thrive as they're growing older. MidiHealth. Committed to helping women in midlife with paramenopause and menopause care. Accessible via telehealth visits at joinmidi.com. Rescuers in Venezuela continue their search for thousands of people missing after two devastating earthquakes struck in quick succession on Wednesday night. The quakes hit the capital and surrounding areas, causing widespread destruction and overwhelming local response efforts.

2:14Venezuelan officials now say at least 235 people are confirmed dead and warn the toll is likely to rise as the search continues. Manuel Rureira is a neighbor in Colombia, and he's with us now to tell us more about what he's hearing. Manuel, good morning. Good morning. You've actually been able to get in touch with people on the ground. What are they telling you about conditions there? Well, basically what people are saying is that some parts of Caracas look like a war zone because many buildings have collapsed entirely, and also in La Guayra, which is a city about an hour away on the Caribbean coast.

2:49And because so many buildings have collapsed, thousands of people have lost their homes. They're sleeping in parks at night. Even people who perhaps their building didn't collapse are sleeping outside because they're afraid of the replicas from the earthquake. So basically what humanitarian groups are saying in Venezuela is that this is going to be a very long effort to support these people. These people are going to need food, shelter, medicines. So this is going to take several weeks. They're going to need support for several weeks there to get back on their feet. And what about right now? How is the search and rescue operation working?

3:27I mean, it just sounds like the conditions there are really horrific. Yeah, what you have right now is hundreds of people also trapped inside the rubble, inside buildings. And some of these people are still alive and desperately waiting for help. Venezuela doesn't have much experience dealing with major earthquakes because they just don't happen there so often. It's not like California or Japan. Some journalists have been trying to speak to people who are trapped inside buildings. This is a clip from the city of La Guayra where a journalist is trying to get people to scream out their names to prove that they're alive.

4:12So you can see there that you can sort of hear their voices muffled because these people are just behind several feet of concrete, like inside a hole or very deep inside a building and they can't get out. And it's not exactly a secret that Venezuela's economy has been severely strained for a number of years. You've certainly written reporting on that. You know, the economy is strained. You know, the health services is strained. The infrastructure in general has been under pressure. So do they think that they can cope with the scale of this disaster? Yeah, I mean, the government of Venezuela is going to need major economic support for rebuilding and even for the humanitarian response.

4:50I mean, this is a government that's only paying public servants$200 a month because they're so broke. Any public servant in Venezuela, a teacher, a nurse, only gets paid$200 a month. It's a place where inflation is at 500 % annually. So this is going to be a big shock for Venezuela's economy. So it's not only just the rescue teams right now you need, you know, the immediate response to help people. But how do you help the country recover some of its infrastructure after that? The nation's main airport has also been damaged. So that's going to be another investment you're going to need to get that up and running.

5:28So, yeah, it seems like they're going to need support on many fronts to recover from this earthquake. That's Manuel Lueda. He's reporting from neighboring Colombia. Manuel, thank you. Absolutely.

5:47The U.S. Supreme Court gave President Trump more power to enact his immigration agenda on Thursday. One decision allows the administration to move forward with revoking temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants. The other puts limits on how immigrants can claim asylum. NPR's immigration policy correspondent Jimena Bostillo is with us in studio to help us understand what this all means in practice. Good morning, Jimena. Good morning. OK, let's start with TPS or temporary protected status. What are the implications of this ruling? In a six to three decision, the conservative majority ruled that the president has virtually unrestrained power to end the program known as TPS.

6:26This case was specifically about TPS recipients in Haiti and Syria, which total about 300 ,000 people. but it has broader implications. TBS provides deportation protections and it grants work permits, and it's given to people from specific countries affected by war, natural disasters, political instability, or any other condition that might make a country unsafe to return to. Each country's designation can last 6 to 18 months, and that's at the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security. Now the court is agreeing with the government that making those designations is up to the secretary and not subject to legal review.

7:01So what happens to hundreds of thousands of people who are in the U.S. on this program? Well, they need to either adjust their status, which is very limited ways of doing so, or they need to leave the country. But if they don't, they risk falling out of status, and that could lead to an arrest, a detention, or a deportation. And many also face losing their jobs, as companies will not be able to continue legally employing thousands of workers. Ira Kersben is the attorney representing the Haitian TPS holders. Their families are American citizens. They have American citizen children. So we're talking in a practical manner with respect to all the TPS people.

7:41You're talking about millions of people in the United States who contribute to the economy. He argues that Haiti, Syria, and other countries are not stable enough for people to return to, and many of these people have also been here for decades. He also said that the government could immediately begin deporting people if they have received final orders of removal while the cases have been pending in court. Now, there was also a second immigration decision from the court, this one related to asylum. Tell us about that one. That was another 6-3 decision, and the court backed a policy that allows custom and border protection agents to turn away asylum seekers before they cross the U.S.

8:16border. The order says asylum seekers need to fully cross the U.S. border to claim asylum. So essentially migrants who are turned back by border officials under this policy technically never left the physical side of the Mexican border. So the administration argues that they are ineligible to apply for legal protections to be in the U.S. And that ruling effectively further limits who can get permission to stay in the country. OK, so both of these decisions make it harder for migrants to stay here or to get here. How does this play into the administration's goal of mass deportation? Well, DHS General Counsel James Percival said that the decisions give the agency, quote, several more important tools to continue securing our borders.

8:56And President Trump has a broader goal of mass deportation. So to do that, the administration has been making more people eligible for deportation, even if they were already legally here. We've already seen the administration terminate TPS for nearly every country that has had it since the start of Trump's term and the asylum ruling limits how migrants can ask for that permission to come into the U.S. These rulings allow the government to further change the immigration system. That's NPR's Ximena Bastillo. Thank you, Ximena. Thank you.

9:32President Trump hosted farmers in the White House Rose Garden last night, where he discussed wanting to give them more federal aid. It's part of an effort to shore up the president's relationships with a group that had been part of his base ahead of November elections after tariffs and the Iran war has squeezed their finances. And Piers Daniel Kurtzleben is here to tell us more about this. Good morning, Daniel. Good morning. What did the president have to say to the farmers? Well, first off, Trump likes to talk about people supporting him and farmers have heavily supported him in the past. So that came up multiple times.

10:05From the day I ran, for some reason you like me. I came from the city, a city slicker. And from the day I ran, you like me. And from the day I ran, I like you. But beyond that, he talked about a few policy proposals, including that$11 billion in farm aid he wants now. Now, if Congress approves that, it would be in addition to$12 billion in aid paid out earlier this year. And like you said, this all comes amid a wave of White House attention on farmers. There was a farmer roundtable in Wisconsin a few weeks ago. And Trump's administration has proposed a plan that would essentially force Iran to buy U.S.

10:42ag products, though details on that are very sketchy right now. And Trump is pushing to allow higher ethanol fuel to be sold year round. Now, right now, it's not because it can contribute to air pollution during warmer months. That is a lot of focus on one sort of particular, I don't know, constituency, I guess I would say. But it's also true that the president's own policy decisions have caused problems for this group. Well, exactly. Now, it had already been a rough few years for farmers, but Trump's actions this term really didn't help. Tariffs made inputs like equipment more expensive. His trade wars have especially damaged the soybean market.

11:20And the war in Iran made fertilizer and diesel more costly. though prices are starting to come down. But people in farm country have lost confidence in the president. One month into this term, rural voters' net approval of Trump was at plus 22 percentage points in the NPR-PBS News Marist poll. This month, it was at negative 10. So that's a huge slide. Danielle, can we go back to that proposal you just mentioned about Iran? Can you tell us any more about it? Well, not really, because we don't know a lot. What officials have said is that the U.S. and Qatar would oversee any unfrozen assets and use that control to require Iran to buy U.S.

12:00corn, soy, and wheat. Now, we should say that Iran pretty quickly responded that they wouldn't go along with this. And the idea raises real questions. For example, right now, Iran buys food from other countries, including U.S. allies. So it could complicate the U.S.'s relationships with those countries if the U.S. muscles them out of the Iranian market. Now, none of that has stopped Trump and other White House officials from talking up this proposal all week. But if it doesn't happen, farmers won't give Trump credit for simply attempting a new policy, says Republican pollster Whit Ayers. Promises of things that might happen in the future if things all go our way and the Iranians decide to buy a bunch of agricultural products, even though they say they're not going to do so.

12:45That's just like smoke and mirrors. And as far as aid goes, now that may make some farmers happier with Trump. But also, a lot of farmers will tell you they just prefer good profits over government checks. That is. And P.R.'s Danielle Kersleyman. Danielle, thank you. Thank you. Before you go, we need your help to create a time capsule of American stories featuring you. Connect 250 is a new project from StoryCorps and Morning Edition celebrating America's 250th birthday. Get matched with a stranger from a different part of the country and learn about each other's lives. The recording goes to the Library of Congress, showing future generations who we are as Americans right now in our own words.

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13:35And that's Up First for Friday, June 26th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Leila Faudil. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Tara Neill, Anna Yukonanov, Rebecca Metzler, Mohamed Elbertisi, and H.J. Mai. It was produced by Ziyad Batch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. Our technical director is Carly Strange. And our executive producer is Jay Shaler. Join us again on Monday.

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