Up First from NPR
Alien Enemies Act, Legal US Immigrants Denied Entry, Deadly Storm System
Mon, 17 Mar 2025
The Trump Administration invoked a wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act to deport hundreds of Venezuelans accused of being gang members, several legal immigrants living in the US were denied reentry into the country, and a powerful storm system killed dozens in the Midwest and South.Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Kevin Drew, Luis Clemons, Alice Woelfle and Janaya Williams. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Destinee Adams, Zachary Coleman and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is David Greenburg. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the impact of the deadly storm system in the Midwest and South?
You're so mean. A deadly storm system has moved offshore after tearing through the Midwest and South over the weekend.
Dozens of people died when tornadoes and high winds knocked out power and leveled homes and buildings. What will recovery look like?
Chapter 2: How is the Alien Enemies Act being used against Venezuelans?
I'm Leila Fadil with A. Martinez, and this is a first from NPR News. The Trump administration deports hundreds of people who they accuse of being Venezuelan gang members using an obscure wartime law. Civil liberties advocates are raising a red flag.
It has never in our country's history been used during peacetime, much less against the gang.
A judge ordered the deportations to be stopped immediately, but some still happened.
Why? And two people living in the U.S. legally say they were detained and mistreated by U.S. immigration officials when they tried to re-enter the country. Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.
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Chapter 3: What legal challenges are arising from the deportations?
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The Trump administration has deported hundreds of people who it accuses of being Venezuelan gang members.
This weekend, they were flown not to Venezuela, but to El Salvador. In an extraordinary move, President Trump relied on a rarely used law from more than 200 years ago to quickly expel them without hearings or due process. A federal judge is trying to stop this.
We're joined now by NPR's Adrian Florido. So let's start off with what the Trump administration used to justify their actions.
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.
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.
The president invoked this authority to deport nearly 300 of them who are now in El Salvador, where they will be behind bars where they belong rather than roaming freely in American communities.
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.
The ACLU sued to stop these deportations, and a federal judge agreed to temporarily block them. But what happened?
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Chapter 4: Why were legal US immigrants denied reentry?
All right. That's NPR's Adrian Florido. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Wei.
A federal judge in Boston has scheduled a hearing this morning about what he calls serious allegations that customs and border protection officials disobeyed his court order.
A doctor who was legally working in the U.S. has been sent back to Lebanon. And in a separate case, a German-born green card holder is being detained. And that's raising concerns about an immigration crackdown in Boston.
Chapter 5: What happened in the case of the doctor deported to Lebanon?
NPR's Tovia Smith has been following the story. So first, bring us up to date on the case of the doctor who was returned to Lebanon, whose case is being heard in court this morning.
Yeah, this is about Rasha Aloe, a kidney transplant doctor at a Brown University-affiliated medical group. She was here on an H-1B visa. That's the one meant for highly specialized workers. And she went to visit family in Lebanon. And when she returned, she was detained for 36 hours at Boston's Logan Airport and had her phone taken from her, according to her cousin.
Her cousin was the one who got the federal court order barring officials from sending her back. And apparently her lawyers even made a frantic call to the airport control tower trying to stop the plane she was on. But they say officials, quote, willfully disobeyed the judge's order and sent her back anyway. We expect to learn more shortly from government lawyers in federal court this morning.
But so far, we've got just a preview from a spokesperson who said that officials use rigorous screening to help keep threats out of the country, is how they put it.
Okay, so now the separate case of the German-born green card holder, that's a different situation?
Yeah, in this case, Fabian Schmidt was detained for days when he tried to return to Logan Airport from a trip to Europe, according to his family. And officials suggest it's because he faced misdemeanor drug and DUI charges about a decade ago, and he was a no-show. for a court hearing on his case. His family says that's because he never got the notice.
But in this case, also, relatives say that Schmidt was mistreated in custody, violently interrogated, was how his mother put it when she spoke to GBH reporter Sarah Bedecourt.
He had to go and be stripped naked and was showered by two officers with ice-cold water. when he was interrogated again.
Officials say the claims are, quote, blatantly false without, however, saying specifically which claims. And they add, quote, when an individual is found with drug-related charges and tries to reenter the country, officers will take proper action, they said.
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