The U.S. apprehended and deported valid visa and green-card holders over the past few months. Newsweek reports that among them was a doctor from Brown University’s medical school. Business Insider says the administration’s hardline immigration policy and trade war are scaring away tourists. Trump invoked a wartime law to deport hundreds of migrants allegedly affiliated with a Venezuelan gang over the weekend. NBC News reports that a judge blocked the law’s use, but not before the deportations had already taken place. The Washington Post’s Meagan Flynn explains how the congressional spending bill could have broad impacts on Washington, D.C. Plus, deadly weather claimed the lives of dozens of people across the country, the U.S. carried out airstrikes against Houthi rebels, and the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournament brackets are set. Today’s episode was hosted by Shumita Basu.
Chapter 1: Why are tourists and green-card holders being detained?
Good morning. It's Monday, March 17th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, the wartime law that Trump used to deport hundreds of Venezuelans, how Congress put D.C. 's budget in limbo, and NCAA tournament brackets are here. But first, it's been just over a week since immigration authorities arrested Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil.
Since then, it's been reported that more people who, like him, were in the U.S. legally, either through green cards or valid visas, have been detained or deported in recent weeks as well. Let's start in Boston with a doctor who was returning to the U.S. from visiting family in Lebanon.
Chapter 2: What happened to Rasha Alouia and Fabian Schmidt?
Rasha Alouia, who lives in Rhode Island, was stopped at the airport where immigration authorities told her she would be deported. Her lawyer told the Providence Journal Alouia initially had some challenges applying for her H-1B visa, but those were resolved and she'd been cleared to return to the U.S. legally.
When she was detained, the journal reports that Alawiya had no access to her lawyer or phone. A federal judge issued an order to stop her deportation, but her flight back to Lebanon ended up taking off anyway. A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection said their officers adhered to protocol.
Also in Boston, the family of Fabian Schmidt, a green card holder from Luxembourg, said he was returning to the U.S. from Luxembourg. His partner was waiting to pick him up for hours, but he never came out. When his family called authorities, they learned he had been arrested by immigration officials. His mother told GBH in Boston they stripped Schmidt naked and violently interrogated him.
The family's been informed he's being held at an ICE facility. A customs spokesperson said Schmidt was detained because of a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge from 2015, a charge that was dropped. It is possible for green card holders like Schmidt to be stripped of their legal permanent residency status, but U.S. law states they need to appear before a judge before that can happen.
Chapter 3: Why were German tourists detained in San Diego?
Some people being arrested aren't legal residents, they're tourists. In San Diego, two German tourists, Jessica Broesch and Lucas Siloff, were apprehended separately as they each tried to return to the U.S. from Mexico. Both had tourist visas. Siloff's fiancé, Lennon Tyler, told the San Diego NBC affiliate they traveled together often and never had issues re-entering the U.S. before.
They look at his German passport and they become very aggressive and hostile almost immediately. Why are they throwing innocent German tourists in prisons? Why is Lucas sitting in a prison when he's done nothing wrong?
Nikita Loving was traveling with Jessica Broch when she was detained, and she told NBC her arrest stemmed from Broch's plans to tattoo Loving. Broch is a tattoo artist, and she'd been working on various tattoos for Loving for years. Immigration authorities said that plan qualified as work, which meant Broch's tourist visa was invalid.
But Loving told NBC Broch was planning to tattoo her as a gift with no money involved.
Then there's...
There's Rebecca Burke, a British tourist who was backpacking through the U.S. She tried to cross into Canada, the Seattle Times reports, but Canada rejected her because she planned to stay with a host family and do chores in exchange for food and lodging. Canadian authorities said she needed a work visa for that, not a tourist visa.
But when Burke tried to go back to the U.S., her father says she was handcuffed and taken to a detention center. ICE officials say she was detained for violating terms and conditions of her admission, but they didn't immediately provide more information about what that meant. Burke's father spoke with Sky News.
It's turned into a nightmare for her, for us, for us. And what's happened just seems so totally unbelievable.
The Washington Post reports that the Trump administration's hardline stance on immigration has impacted tourism overall. The number of overseas visitors to the U.S. fell 2.4 percent in February compared to last year, according to government data.
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Chapter 4: How is Trump's immigration policy affecting tourism?
They were sent to El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele says they will be held in a terrorism confinement facility for one year. Immigration and politics reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez said on CBS News Trump's deportation directions to the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice cited the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
It allows presidents to gain this extraordinary power to order the arrest, detention and removal of non-citizens ages 14 and older from countries that are deemed to be invading the U.S. or orchestrating a predatory incursion into the country.
The Alien Enemies Act is a wartime power most famously used in the internment of Japanese Americans, as well as Germans and Italians during World War II, and it gives the president and government broad powers. It's only been used three times during the War of 1812 and both world wars. Here's Montoya Galvez again.
This law would allow officials to process people subject to it without any of the due process protections outlined in U.S. immigration law, including the right to seek asylum. People would be able to be summarily detained and deported because they would be treated not as migrants facing deportation, but as enemy aliens.
The White House argues it didn't violate a court order because it's up to the president to decide who poses a significant risk to the United States and whether to expel them. The ACLU, in a challenge to Trump's actions, said the act shouldn't apply here since the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela. The timing of the flights could become a big issue.
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Chapter 5: What is the Alien Enemies Act and how is it being used?
The New York Times reports the judge's ruling was issued shortly before 7 p.m. on Saturday. The ruling even said, if necessary, planes should turn around. But it's unclear when exactly the planes landed in El Salvador. If it turns out the planes touched ground after the judge's order was filed, that could set up a constitutional showdown between the president and the judiciary.
Now to Washington, where lawmakers in the Senate voted Friday to pass a Republican stopgap spending bill preventing a government shutdown. The bill will fund the government until September. Republicans say the bill won't affect social safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
But the Congressional Budget Office has said this budget will be impossible to execute without cutting into at least one of those. The bill also targeted a bucket of spending that has long been treated as its own entity, the local budget for Washington, D.C.
See, even though the district has its own mayor and council who enact their budget, Congress has ultimate authority over it because it's not a state. And in this federal spending bill, the budget for D.C. was cut by $1 billion, even though Congress had already approved that money several times and local officials had already started to spend it.
On Friday, senators unanimously passed a separate piece of legislation to allow the district's 2025 budget to stand after D.C. leaders and residents protested the decision. But with Congress now in recess for the week, the House will not vote on it until next Monday at the earliest. So the district is still in limbo for now.
We spoke with Washington Post reporter Megan Flynn about the impact this cut could have on the city, residents, and the tens of millions of tourists who visit the nation's capital every year.
It's the first time this has happened in about 20 years.
Stopgap spending bills typically exclude money related to D.C. 's budget. But in this bill, House Republicans removed that exception.
And frankly, House leadership and House appropriations have not clearly explained the reason for it. And so it's a very tough situation right now for D.C.,
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