[MUSIC PLAYING]
Rescueers in Venezuela are racing to reach
thousand still missing after two powerful earthquakes hit
within seconds of each other. Within 200 people have been killed and officials say that death toll will likely climb with people still trapped under rubble. I'm Leyla Faldin.
That's Michelle Martin, and this is a 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 a asylum at the border. And President Trump is courting farmers a group his own policies have heard. He's offering $11 billion in additional aid
after his tariffs and the Iran war squeeze their finances. Poles show people in farm country have lost confidence in the president. Is this enough to win it back? Stay with us.
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Listen to pop culture happy hour by at the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Rescueers in Venezuela continue their search for thousands of people missing after two devastating earthquake struck in quick succession on Wednesday night.
The quakes hit the Capitol and surrounding areas, causing widespread destruction and overwhelming local response efforts. Venezuela officials now say at least 235 people are confirmed dead, and warned the toll is likely to rise as the search continues.
Manuela Durada is a neighboring Colombian. He's with us now to tell us more about what he's hearing. Manuela, good morning. Good morning. You've actually been able to get in touch with people
on the ground. Where are they telling you about conditions there?
Well, basically what people are saying
is that some parts of Karakas look like a wash on, because many buildings have collapsed entirely. And also in La Guida, which is a city about an hour away on the Caribbean coast. And because so many buildings have collapsed,
thousands of people have lost their homes. They're sleeping in parks at night. Even people who perhaps are building didn't collapse or sleep in 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? I mean, it just sounds like the conditions
they 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 that's probably 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 Guida where a journalist is trying to get people to scream out their names to prove that they're alive. (speaking in foreign language)
So 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. The economy has strained. 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 gonna need a major economic support for rebuilding and even for the humanitarian response.
I mean, this is a government that's only paying public servants $200 a month because they're so broke.
The public servant of Venezuela
a teacher, a nurse, only gets paid $200 a month.
“It's a place where inflation is at 500% annually.”
So this is gonna be a big shock for Venezuela's economy. So it's not only just the rescue teams right now, you need 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 gonna be another investment you're gonna need to get that up and running. So yeah, it seems like it's gonna need support on many fronts to recover from the South quick.
- That's Manuel Rueida, he's reporting from neighboring Columbia. Manuel, thank you. Absolutely. (upbeat music) - The US 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, Jimino Steele is with us in studio to help us understand what this all means in practice. Good morning, Jimino.
- Good morning.
“- Okay, let's start with CPS 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.
This case was specifically about TPS recipients in Haiti and Syria, which total about 300,000 people, but it has broader implications. TPS 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 six 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.
So 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, detention, or deportation. And many also face losing their jobs, as companies will not be able to continue legally employing thousands of workers.
I record as Ben is the attorney representing the Haitian TPS holders. Their families are American citizens. They have American citizens children. So we're talking in a practical manner and to respect to all the TPS people.
You're talking down millions of people in the United States who contributed to the economy. - He argues that Haiti, Syria, and other countries are not stable enough for people to return to it. 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 six, three 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. border.
The order says asylum seekers need a 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.
- Okay, so both of these decisions may get harder from migrants to stay here or to get here. How does this plan to the administration's goal of mass deportation?
- Well, the H.S. General Counsel James Percival said that the decisions give the agency, quote, several more important tools to continue securing our borders. That 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 N.P. R. Z. H. Menett, Bustillo, thank you, Hona. - Thank you. (upbeat music) - President Trump hosted farmers in the White House Rose Garden last night,
or 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 Paris Daniel Kurt Slaven is here to tell us more about this morning, Daniel. - Good morning. - One of 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.
“- From the day I ran for some reason you like me.”
I came from the city, the city slicker. And from the day I ran, you liked me and from the day I ran, I liked 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 around table in Wisconsin a few weeks ago.
And Trump's administration has proposed a plan that would essentially force Iran to buy US ag 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 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 and 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 NPRPBS News Marists poll. This month it was at negative 10.
So that's a huge slide. - Did you know, 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 US had Qatar would oversee any unfrozen assets and use that control to require Iran to buy US coin soy and wheat. Now we should say that Iran pretty quickly responded
that they wouldn't go along with us.
“And the idea raises real questions, for example.”
Right now, Iran buys food from other countries, including US allies. So it could complicate the US's relationships with those countries if the US mussels 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 with airs. - 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 gonna do so.
That's just like smoking 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, NPR's Daniel Kirstley, Ben Daniel, thank you. - Thank you. - Before you go, we need your help to create a time capsule of American stories featuring you. Connect to 50 is a new project from Storycore
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. Sign up for this experiment in human connection at connect250.org. America, get ready to meet America.
- And that's our first for Friday June 26th I'm Michelle Martin.
- And I'm Leila Faldin. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Taraniel Ana Yucananov. Rebecca Metzler, Hamedover DC and H.J. May. It was produced by the ad-butch and New 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 Shailer, joining us again on Monday. (upbeat music)
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