Up First from NPR
Migrants Leave Guantanamo, Israeli Hostages Update, Changes at FEMA
Fri, 21 Feb 2025
Nearly all migrants held at Guantánamo Bay have been released, with over 170 Venezuelans flown to their home country. Israeli authorities say a hostage body returned by Hamas is not who the militants claimed it to be. And the impact of job cuts at FEMA. 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 Eric Westervelt, Didi Schanche, Neela Banerjee, Reena Advani and Janaya Williams. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott and our technical director is Carleigh Strange. Our Executive Producer is Kelley Dickens.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who are the migrants being sent to Guantanamo?
Who is the United States sending to Guantanamo? We have some idea now that the U.S. has sent migrants to that base and back out. Our correspondent tells us what court filings reveal about some migrants removed from this country.
I'm Michelle Martin with Steve Inskeep, and this is Up First from NPR News. Israeli authorities received four bodies yesterday from Hamas. Israel says they do not know the identity of one of the bodies. They also did not receive the body of a mother who was supposed to be delivered with her children. How might Israel respond?
Here in the United States, the Trump administration laid off some FEMA workers and people involved in the Emergency Management Agency tell NPR it's backing off work on building codes to make buildings more resilient. What's changing and why? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day. We have a clearer picture this morning of how the Trump administration is using the U.S.
naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The United States recently sent a group of migrants to the base. Now they've been sent away on the way to their eventual destination, their home country of Venezuela.
And we've learned some information about them along the way. So let's go to NPR immigration correspondent Sergio Martinez Beltran. Sergio, good morning.
Good morning, Steve. What do you know about this flight? Well, the Trump administration announced yesterday that 177 Venezuelans who had been in Guantanamo Bay for a couple of weeks were removed to Honduras. That's all but one of the migrants who'd been detained there. Honduras was sort of a layover for them.
The Venezuelan government met them later and flew them back home, and the migrants landed in Venezuela last night around 10 p.m. local time.
Okay, so United States, Guantanamo, Honduras, Venezuela, zigzagging around the Caribbean and surrounding areas. So I want to figure out what we've learned here.
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Chapter 2: What is the current status of Israeli hostages?
What's the point? That's a good question. The administration knows that sending migrants to Guantanamo is very costly and very complicated logistically. But it's clear many of these migrants were used as part of a public relations operation by the White House. Most, if not all, of the people they sent to Guantanamo had already been in detention during the Biden administration.
So these were not new RSTs. And when they were put on a plane, there were cameras and those visuals were published across the world. It also tells us that Guantanamo will likely be a temporary detention facility that will be used to house migrants from countries where deportations might be more challenging.
OK, so they're sending a signal either to the U.S. public or to future migrants about what they want to do to people who come to the United States. Another question now, Sergio, what was the lawsuit that you mentioned earlier?
Yeah, that lawsuit was filed by the ACLU because for a few weeks, no one knew where these migrants were. The family members had stopped hearing from their loved ones, and they assumed they had been transferred to Guantanamo, but the government never told them. And so the ACLU was alleging that the migrants did not have access to telephones to call attorneys or family members.
But despite this new development of removing people from Guantanamo, the ACLU says the lawsuit continues. Last night I talked with the lead ACLU attorney on this case. He told me the removal of all detainees won't stop the lawsuit unless the Trump administration tells the court they will not transfer anyone else to Guantanamo.
NPR's Sergio Martinez Beltran, thanks for your reporting. Really appreciate it. You're welcome. In Israel, authorities say a body returned by Hamas, a hostage, is not who the militants claimed it to be.
Among the four bodies handed over yesterday were supposed to be those of two young boys and their mother. But after forensic testing, Israeli officials said the mother's remains were not among the bodies of the returned hostages. NPR's Adil El-Shelchi has been following events.
Adil, good morning.
Good morning.
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Chapter 3: Why are FEMA job cuts significant?
That's right. So three buses exploded in a suburb called Bat Yam. It's just south of Tel Aviv. Luckily, no injuries were reported. The police said the buses were empty. They had just finished their routes. They were parked in lots around the city. Israeli police said it found explosives on two other buses which didn't detonate.
The bombs were the same type as those that had exploded, and bomb squads were able to defuse them. No group claimed responsibility, but right away, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office ordered the military to step up its incursions in the occupied West Bank. The military has escalated as airstrikes and raids there since the beginning of the ceasefire, especially around the city of Jenin.
Thousands of Palestinians have been displaced from their homes because of these attacks, and Israel says the operations are trying to root out militants.
NPR's Adil Alshalchi, thanks for your reporting. Really appreciate it, as always.
You're welcome, Steve.
In this country, President Trump's administration has brought its firings to FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the people who help local authorities in disasters.
In addition to the firings, people involved tell NPR that FEMA is cutting back on its work to make homes and buildings safer before a disaster. This is also one of the agencies the president has talked of eliminating.
Lauren Sommer with NPR's Climate Desk is covering this story. Lauren, good morning. Good morning. How many people were fired?
So it's more than 200 employees. That's what the Department of Homeland Security told me, and they oversee FEMA. These are workers on probationary status, which basically means they were within one year of taking the job. But, you know, I spoke to people that had been at the agency more than a decade, and they were only on probationary status because they accepted a promotion for a new job.
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