On today’s show: CNN examines how cities across the U.S. are preparing for Trump’s immigration crackdown. NPR’s David Folkenflik explains the tabloid scandal at the heart of Prince Harry’s legal victory against Rupert Murdoch’s publishing arm. Los Angeles County had started to curb homelessness. Will the fires undo that progress? The Washington Post looks at what might happen next. Plus, Trump’s nominee for U.N. ambassador faced questions from senators, Elon Musk’s hand gesture raises eyebrows, and Mariners great Ichiro Suzuki is headed to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Chapter 1: What preparations are cities making for mass deportations?
But first, immigrant advocates and families across the country are preparing for mass deportations now that President Trump is in office. It's something Trump promised for months on the campaign trail. Trump has already signed several orders that will impact immigration. But so far, we know few details about how his proposed mass deportation program would work, including who would be targeted.
Chapter 2: What are the implications of Trump's immigration orders?
Administration officials have said they will prioritize people with criminal convictions, similar to past administrations. And Trump has said that he wants to lean on state and local law enforcement to assist with the deportations. In fact, he has threatened hundreds of state and local officials with criminal prosecutions and lawsuits if they don't comply with his plan.
The courts will almost certainly get involved. A number of local law enforcement officials have already said they would not participate in mass detentions. Here's what one sheriff told CBS in Las Vegas.
I think it'll be an interesting conversation, but roundups out in the community and those kinds of things, that's not my job. I have too much to do.
Chapter 3: How are immigrant advocates supporting families?
But with Trump's threats looming, immigration advocates are trying to prepare families with the legal knowledge they might need to navigate an encounter with ICE.
Like in Springfield, Ohio, where Haitian migrants were placed in the national spotlight when Trump, on the debate stage, repeated false claims that migrants in Springfield were eating pets, a claim that Springfield police and officials have repeatedly said was not true.
Here's Vilas Dorsenville, the executive director of the Haitian Community Help and Resource Center in Springfield, speaking with the Columbus Dispatch.
Chapter 4: What legal rights do immigrants have when encountering ICE?
We told them that if it happens that they encounter with an ICE officer on the street, they have the right to remain silent. They have the right to ask to speak to a lawyer.
And in Miami, Florida, the Associated Press spent time with Nora Sandigo, who runs a foundation for children and has been helping families there prepare.
Today, what we did is we did a drill of how to protect if the deportation knock at the door of your house. I know so many families are alone. They don't have any relatives. They don't know what to do in case that something happens to their children.
During Trump's first term, under his zero-tolerance immigration policy, border officials separated thousands of parents and children at the southern border. This time, we could see families of mixed status pulled apart. Al Jazeera spoke to a family in New York who's preparing for the possibility of being separated. Valeria Reyes-Paz came to the U.S. undocumented as a child,
when her mom fled violence in Honduras. Valeria now has permanent status, but that's not the case for all of her loved ones. Here's her mom speaking to Al Jazeera. The mom says, we are fighters. We are not bad people. And Valeria says she's frustrated to see contributions of immigrants overlooked in all of these debates about their status in America.
I feel like right now there's a lot of anger inside of me. I don't understand how people don't see how much we immigrants do for this country. This country has been built by immigrants.
Deportations came up yesterday when Trump attended the inaugural prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington, and he was asked directly by Bishop Mary Ann Buddy to show compassion toward immigrants living in the United States.
The vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, wadara, and temples. I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities.
There are currently about 11 million people living in the United States without legal status. And it's estimated there are more than 3.5 million pending immigration cases slowly winding their way through our courts. Now to the U.K., where Prince Harry's years-long legal battle against the British tabloids has come to an end with a settlement agreement and a rare apology.
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Chapter 5: What was Prince Harry's legal victory about?
Chapter 6: Why are immigrants crucial to the U.S. economy?
He has also blamed the British tabloids for their coverage of his wife, Meghan Markle, which he has described as ranging from invasive to racist, and for drumming up drama that's led to a rift between him and the rest of his family. And Harry wasn't alone in these kinds of complaints.
Hundreds of people allege that the Sunday News of the World tabloid and the Sun tabloid hacked into their private voicemail messages, illegally obtained financial or medical records, and otherwise illegally acquired or obtained or got access to their private personal material.
Chapter 7: What did the bishop ask Trump regarding immigration?
Over the years, Murdoch's tabloids have paid more than $1.5 billion in settlements to settle more than 1,300 complaints. British civil law encourages settlements. That's because, as the BBC explains, the winner of a case could end up being on the hook to pay the legal cost of their opponent if the damages they're awarded in court are less than what they were offered in a settlement.
This settlement was unusual in that it came with a detailed apology. Murdoch has tried desperately to avoid any public acknowledgement of wrongdoing in other cases. Folkenflik told us hacking phones, hacking personal records is all quite normal in British media culture.
British tabloid culture is one where they like to think of famous people and powerful people as fair game, as sport. And they would go after the personal failings and the fallibilities of politicians, celebrities, actors, singers, sports stars, the like, and To an American audience, it would be a little bit as though Hollywood, Wall Street and Washington, D.C. collapsed in the same city. Right.
In the same concentrated area, you have most of the celebrities of the nation and most of the big newspapers. In fact, all of the big newspapers are based in London. So there is a frenzy and a scrum of competition there.
As the BBC points out, this outcome is a huge win for Prince Harry, but Murdoch's paper has managed to avoid its worst-case scenario, which would have been a full-blown trial, complete with highly-watched court appearances by the prince himself. Let's turn now to Los Angeles, where firefighters are still battling wildfires. Before this crisis, L.A.
already had a serious housing shortage, and now it's expected to get much worse. At least 200,000 Angelenos were ordered to evacuate, and thousands of homes and businesses have been lost. It all means housing will be even more strained, prices will skyrocket, and insurance will be far harder to come by. And that leaves one group even farther behind, L.A. 's unhoused population.
Here's Washington Post reporter Daniel Wu.
Most of the people I spoke to, they said the homelessness problem is an affordable housing problem. Just a simple lack of housing units where most of these folks can afford and can get off the street and begin to establish stability. So with the damage done by the fires and the displacement, there's going to be a lot more work to do.
Wu told us about Thomas Hutchinson, a 66-year-old who spent years navigating the L.A. homeless services system. He had just settled into a subsidized apartment in Altadena in December, weeks before the fires started.
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Chapter 8: How has the media impacted Prince Harry's life?
He evacuated and was taken to an emergency shelter. But since the fires, the shelter system is in major crisis. Many housing sites were forced to evacuate, and that's leaving Los Angeles' most vulnerable population with few good options.
What I heard from some of the people I spoke to, if they were lucky, they had friends or family they could stay with. Some slept in their cars, or some ended up back in just the emergency evacuation sites that were being used for everyone that had to flee the fires.
Staff at L.A. 's homeless services agencies told Wu that one of their greatest concerns right now is trying to locate people who are still unaccounted for, especially those who are on the streets being exposed to toxic air conditions. Before the fires, L.A. had the second worst homelessness crisis in the country. It'll be a while before we have a clear sense of how much worse it's about to get.
Now to a few other stories we're following. Trump's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik, faced questions from senators on the Committee for Foreign Relations yesterday. She testified Israel would be a top priority for her and says she does not believe in a two-state solution to the Israel-Hamas war.
She also says she believes Israel has a biblical right to the West Bank, which Israel has occupied for more than 50 years. On the same day as her testimony, Israeli forces launched an offensive in the West Bank that reportedly killed at least eight Palestinians and injured many more.
There has been a lot of scrutiny over a hand gesture made by Elon Musk during his speech at President Trump's celebratory rally on Inauguration Day. Musk thanked the crowd for making Trump's victory happen, then placed his hand on his heart before extending his arm straight out above his head. He then turned around and repeated the same motion to the people behind him.
Plenty have pointed out how much it resembled the fascist salute adopted by the Nazis. Musk himself appeared to brush aside the criticisms on X, saying, quote, the everyone is Hitler attack is so tired. Meanwhile, Wired reports, regardless of Musk's intentions, some right wing extremists are celebrating the gesture.
One leader of a neo-Nazi group posted on Telegram, quote, I don't care if this was a mistake. I'm going to enjoy the tears over it. And finally, a little history made in the world of baseball. Yesterday, Ichiro Suzuki was elected to baseball's Hall of Fame, becoming the first Asian player to make it to Cooperstown.
He made his debut with the Seattle Mariners in 2001 and at the time was the first Japanese position player in Major League Baseball. Ichiro told NBC News that he faced racist heckling when he started playing and knew that other Japanese players might be judged based on how he performed in the league. We now know how that turned out.
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