Adrian Florido
Appearances
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-27-2025 6PM EST
Immigration and Customs Enforcement and partner agencies have reported raids to pick up hundreds of immigrants in Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, San Diego, Miami and many other cities. ICE says it's targeting potentially dangerous criminal aliens. Its press releases highlight arrests of people convicted or wanted for crimes like extortion, homicide, domestic violence and narcotics violations.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-27-2025 6PM EST
But advocates say it's also getting people who pose no threat. In Atlanta, activists reported immigrants with pending asylum claims were rounded up. In Puerto Rico, the ACLU said ICE had detained people with legal status and no criminal history. Advocates have filed a raft of lawsuits to try to slow the deportation dragnet. Adrian Fledivo, NPR News, Los Angeles.
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LA Wildfires, Carter's State Funeral, Trump's Agenda
Well, a lot of the destruction so far is from the Pacific Palisades fire, which is where one of the two biggest fires is burning. News choppers were able to fly over that affluent coastal community yesterday and filmed block after block of homes reduced to ash. Homes in nearby Malibu also burned.
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LA Wildfires, Carter's State Funeral, Trump's Agenda
The Hollywood Hills caught fire last night, and that blaze has quickly spread, forcing chaotic evacuations there. I was able yesterday to get into a neighborhood ravaged by the other big fire, the Eaton Fire in Altadena on the east side of Los Angeles. I walked past more than 20 homes burning or already burned to the ground, and that was over just a couple of blocks.
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LA Wildfires, Carter's State Funeral, Trump's Agenda
You know, the ruins of many of the houses in the neighborhood where I was were still burning and every so often something under the rubble would explode or a wooden door frame would finish collapsing and it would shoot up this puff of embers. And it was windy, so neighbors were rushing to make sure that those embers didn't set their houses on fire.
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LA Wildfires, Carter's State Funeral, Trump's Agenda
I met a Brittany man as she and her brother were hosing down their roof and their lawns before evacuating.
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LA Wildfires, Carter's State Funeral, Trump's Agenda
And across the street, Michelle, I met Sarah Rudd. She evacuated on Tuesday night, but while she was gone, her neighbor, who had not evacuated, noticed that her house had caught fire, and she said that he grabbed his hose.
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LA Wildfires, Carter's State Funeral, Trump's Agenda
When we spoke, she had just come back to check on her house. She was leaving it again. But as we spoke, other houses were burning on her block, so hers was still at risk, and there were no firefighters around.
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LA Wildfires, Carter's State Funeral, Trump's Agenda
Well, fire officials have said L.A. just doesn't have enough firefighters to tackle so many large fires at once. The ones who have been out there since Tuesday are exhausted. L.A. 's mayor, Karen Bass, says that more crews are coming in from other counties and cities.
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LA Wildfires, Carter's State Funeral, Trump's Agenda
Officials also said that some of the fire hydrants that firefighters were tapping into in the Pacific Palisades went dry on Tuesday. Winds that day had prevented aircraft from doing water drops, so hydrants were the only option and they couldn't take the strain. Janice Quinones is LA's top water official.
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LA Wildfires, Carter's State Funeral, Trump's Agenda
She said the officials are still working to fill the tanks and the reservoirs where water is needed.
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LA Wildfires, Carter's State Funeral, Trump's Agenda
No, not really, Michelle. There are several major fires burning across the region. Conditions are extremely dry, and it's the winds spreading these flames and making this all so unpredictable. High winds are expected at least through tonight, so this emergency is not over.
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Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
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. This 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.
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Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
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 Leavitt on Fox News.
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Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
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.
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Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
Yeah, it was an emergency suit from the ACLU on Saturday, and Judge James Boasberg 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.
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Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
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, 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.
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Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
to imprison these deportees for a fee.
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Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
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. Legal learned, the ACLU's attorney in this lawsuit told NPR Trump is misusing the law.
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Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
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.
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Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
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. 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. So what happens now?
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Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
Well, the Trump administration has appealed the judge's 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.
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Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
Thank you, Wei.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
Well, things are looking better. Firefighters are gradually containing the Eaton Fire in northeast L.A. and the Palisades Fire on the west side. Each of those fires destroyed thousands of homes, as you said. They are now burning mostly in the unpopulated hills, but they are still spreading. There were new evacuation orders over the weekend in neighborhoods that the fires were approaching.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
The big concern now is that winds are, as you said, about to pick up again. There could be gusts as high as 70 miles per hour in some areas. This is L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Maroney.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
LA City Fire Chief Kristen Crowley pleaded with residents to stay alert and to stay informed.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
The National Weather Service has warned that critical fire weather conditions will last through Wednesday.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
Well, they're now saying that they are staffed and equipped to handle this. Thousands of firefighters have come in from other states, from Mexico and from Canada, and are working the fire lines. The governor of California called up a thousand more National Guard troops to help. Dozens of planes and choppers have been dropping water and flame retardant pretty much around the clock.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
Of course, as we saw last week, a wind and the embers that it carries are what really bring a lot of uncertainty.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
Well, people there are just starting to take stock of all that they've lost and what comes next for them. For the most part, these communities are still off limits, even to residents, because investigators are going through with cadaver dogs to search for possible victims.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
LA County is also saying that before debris cleanup can start in these communities, either by county crews or homeowners themselves, that hazmat teams are going to have to go through parcel by parcel to remove toxic waste.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
At a community meeting yesterday in Altadena, LA's Public Works Director Mark Pestrella said county officials are already hearing from people asking when they can get in and start rebuilding, but he said it's way too soon. He did promise that officials are working to streamline the cleanup process and also the construction permitting process that's going to be ahead for a lot of people.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
In the meantime, people are scrambling to find temporary housing and also to figure out whether they're covered by their insurance policies.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
Well, a lot of people in the areas that were under mandatory evacuation orders have not gone back. And the county fire chief said that the conversation about when they will be allowed to return continues. won't start before Thursday. Officials want to be sure that those evacuated communities are no longer at risk of catching fire because these fires are still burning not too far away.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
Those Santa Ana winds are still blowing also, and Los Angeles is still in an active emergency.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
Thank you.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
Well, both the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration are working together on this, which is unusual. And they both want the same thing. They Yesterday, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there is an immediate need for a deal. And we've heard Trump many times say if the hostages are not released by his inauguration, there will be, quote, hell to pay.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
Biden's outgoing ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, told me that Trump is driving the momentum here.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
What would those principles be? Yeah. We do know the basic framework of the deal. Hamas would release around 33 Israeli hostages. A Palestinian official tells NPR this morning that Israel is discussing the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian detainees, including 22 people serving life sentences in connection with deadly attacks on Israelis, and those prisoners would be
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
presumably exiled to Turkey, Qatar, or Egypt. And during all of this, there would be a six-week pause in fighting, there would be a surge of aid to Gaza, and more talks about the other hostages and trying to end the war. Daniel, there have been talks before, so what are the chances of this one actually succeeding? There is a lot of pressure on all the parties now to move forward.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
Qatar and Egypt are the two Arab mediators want good relations with Trump. And so they're putting a lot of pressure on Hamas. A Hamas official not authorized to speak to the media told us that Hamas is trying to show flexibility and that it's proposed several different ways to try to resolve the points of contention.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
As for Israel, there is a key ally of Prime Minister Netanyahu, the finance minister, who is staunchly opposed to to the deal as it's coming out now. But Israel does have motivation to cooperate with Trump on this. Israel wants his help with a couple of big things. It wants Trump's help to pursue diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.
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Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief
And it also wants Trump to potentially support an attack on Iran's nuclear program. So you do see that the talks have reached a crucial phase now. Israel's top security chiefs have traveled to Qatar this weekend to participate. And the president of the Red Cross has come to the region. The Red Cross was the group that facilitated the last hostage prisoner exchange.
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Canada's New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget
Well, Khalil A. was one of the Palestinian students who last year negotiated on behalf. of the campus protesters who were pressing Colombia to divest from Israel over the Gaza war. He was outspoken, very involved. He recently graduated.
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Canada's New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget
I spoke with his lawyer and she told me that on Saturday night, Khalil and his wife were arriving at their university apartment and that ICE agents were in the lobby. They told Khalil his student visa had been cancelled. But Khalil is not on a visa. He is a legal permanent resident. When his wife went to get his green card out of the apartment, agents said that it had been revoked. Revoked.
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Canada's New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget
Did they give a reason? Well, his lawyer, Amy Greer, says she spoke with one of the agents on the phone during the arrest, and he didn't give her a reason.
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Canada's New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget
Greer said that she was shocked the government had declared his green card revoked without due process.
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Canada's New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget
Instead, agents drove Khalil to a detention center, she said, while his pregnant wife, a U.S. citizen, stayed behind. Okay, now what are you learning about what's behind all this, possibly? Well, I got a statement last night from DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin. She said Khalil had been arrested in support of a recent executive order that President Trump signed on anti-Semitism.
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Canada's New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget
She said Khalil had, quote, led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. Separately, in a post on X, Secretary of State Marco Rubio linked to a news story about Khalil's arrest. and wrote that the administration would be revoking the visas or green cards of Hamas supporters so they can be deported.
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Canada's New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget
Can you give us just maybe a little more context about the government's motives here? Well, conservative lawmakers have really tried to label pro-Palestinian protesters as pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist, or anti-Semitic. In late January, President Trump signed an executive order that he said would be used to go after students who participated in, in his words, the pro-jihadist protests.
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Canada's New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget
It directed federal agencies to work toward deporting international students who participated. The order cited federal law that allows deporting foreign nationals who express support for terrorism. Students have always rejected, A, the claim that their protests were pro-terrorist or that they supported Hamas's 2023 attack on Israel. They say the protests were for peace in Gaza.
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Canada's New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget
Well, student activists are denouncing it as a chilling attempt to use deportation to stifle free speech and to repress pro-Palestinian activism and criticism of Israel. Khalil's attorney, Amy Greer, told me that she's angry the government was attempting to tar Khalil as anything other than the kind and loving person that he is.
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Canada's New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget
She has a legal team that is trying to find out where he's being held and that plans to defend him and to ensure that he gets due process.
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Canada's New Leader, ICE Arrest Columbia Student, Congress and The Budget
Thank you, Abe.
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ICE Student Arrests, HHS Cuts, Stefanik Nomination Pulled, China Trade City
Well, I'll start with what happened. It was Tuesday. A security camera captured it. Ozturk is about to cross the street on her way to dinner to break the Ramadan fast with friends. Six agents surround her, and one grabs her arm.
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ICE Student Arrests, HHS Cuts, Stefanik Nomination Pulled, China Trade City
Ozturk screams visibly terrified as agents handcuff her and lead her to an unmarked car. She is Turkish and a Ph.D. student at Tufts on a student visa. She's been involved in pro-Palestinian activism. Last year, she published an op-ed criticizing her school's leaders for not condemning the war in Gaza or cutting economic ties with Israel.
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ICE Student Arrests, HHS Cuts, Stefanik Nomination Pulled, China Trade City
Not precisely, but the Department of Homeland Security said that Ozturk has, quote, engaged in activities in support of Hamas. DHS has offered no evidence of this. Her lawyer calls those allegations baseless. She says Ozturk is a gifted student and Fulbright scholar studying child development.
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ICE Student Arrests, HHS Cuts, Stefanik Nomination Pulled, China Trade City
But last night, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he personally revoked her visa after assessing her activities.
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ICE Student Arrests, HHS Cuts, Stefanik Nomination Pulled, China Trade City
Ozturk, after her arrest, was quickly flown to a detention center in Louisiana, Michelle, and her lawyer is fighting to free her.
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ICE Student Arrests, HHS Cuts, Stefanik Nomination Pulled, China Trade City
Well, yesterday Rubio said that he has revoked hundreds of visas, many of them student visas, making those people immediately deportable. Here he is again.
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ICE Student Arrests, HHS Cuts, Stefanik Nomination Pulled, China Trade City
Rubio is delivering on President Trump's promise, Michelle, to deport non-citizens whose activism he claims supports Hamas terrorism and is anti-Semitic. Trump has taken special aim at universities, saying they're infested with radicalism. He's demanded that schools crack down on protests and is pressuring them with funding cuts or threats of funding cuts.
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ICE Student Arrests, HHS Cuts, Stefanik Nomination Pulled, China Trade City
Student activists say this is all about muzzling dissent and free speech and that these deportation arrests are about spreading terror and punishing students for their political beliefs. And they say that the arrests are unconstitutional and lawyers are fighting them.
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ICE Student Arrests, HHS Cuts, Stefanik Nomination Pulled, China Trade City
Well, like I said, their lawyers are fighting in federal courts and immigration courts to prevent their deportations. Some are making constitutional arguments, leaning on the First Amendment right to free speech. The government is also aggressively defending its authority, though, to revoke the legal status of these students and to expel them.
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ICE Student Arrests, HHS Cuts, Stefanik Nomination Pulled, China Trade City
Thanks, Michelle.