Up First from NPR
Wrongly Deported, DOGE And Agency Data, Harvard Defies The White House
Tue, 15 Apr 2025
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele says he has no plans to return a Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador, an NPR report details unusual data events at the National Labor Relations Board, and Harvard University says that it won't comply with a list of demands from the Trump administration.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 Roberta Rampton, Brett Neely, Steven Drummond, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Janaya Williams. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Carla Esteves, Ashley Montgomery, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent. And our technical director is David Greenburg. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the controversy surrounding the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego-Garcia?
The Trump administration seems to have no plans to bring back a Maryland man mistakenly sent to a prison in El Salvador.
Why don't you just say, isn't it wonderful that we're keeping criminals out of our country?
Is the administration defying the Supreme Court? I'm Michelle Martin, that's Leila Fadl, and this is Up First from NPR News. A whistleblower at the National Labor Relations Board tells NPR that after Doge, Elon Musk's cost-cutting group, gained access to their servers, records were deleted and security tools were deactivated.
That doesn't just happen. Logs don't just disappear. Tools don't just turn themselves off randomly.
Was the agency's data compromised? And Harvard says it won't let the Trump administration dictate what it teaches, who it hires, or who it admits. It's risking billions of dollars in federal funds by defying the demands. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.
Despite a Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of a Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to a Salvadoran prison, the White House appears to have no intention of doing that.
Why don't you just say, isn't it wonderful that we're keeping criminals out of our country? Why can't you just say that?
And Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele says he doesn't plan to release the man either.
The Trump administration has accused Kilmar Abrego-Garcia of being a gang member. His attorney says that is not true and there's been no evidence presented publicly to support that. The Salvadoran president was in the Oval Office yesterday meeting with President Trump.
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Chapter 2: How is the Trump administration responding to the Supreme Court's order on deportation?
My colleague Alyssa Nadworny recently spoke to some of those leaders. Here's Andrew Martin, the chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis.
We're in a moment with great uncertainty about what the future of the relationship between the federal government and American institutions of higher education look like. Uncertainty is challenging.
And a lot of these leaders said that's made it really hard not just to focus on budgets, but also on students, faculty, and education itself.
NPR education reporter Janaki Mehta. Thanks, Janaki.
Thank you, Layla.
Peace talks to end the civil war in Sudan are happening in London today. It's been two years of war. 100,000 people have been killed and 15 million are displaced. This is the world's largest humanitarian crisis. The UN says famine there is the worst the world has seen in decades. Sudanese officials have criticized the negotiations in London.
They say their representatives weren't invited and that even as talks were happening, massacres were still taking place in the western region of Darfur. NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu has been covering this since the beginning. He's at that conference in London and he is on his way back to Sudan. You can follow his ongoing coverage of the conflict on NPR.org.
And that's Up First for Tuesday, April 15th. I'm Laila Faldin. And I'm Michelle Martin. Your next listen is Consider This from NPR. We here at Up First give you the three big stories of the day. Our Consider This colleagues take a different approach. They dive into a single news story and what it means to you in less than 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Today's episode of Up First was edited by Roberta Rampton, Brett Neely, Stephen Drummond, Mohamed El-Badisi, and Janaya Williams. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Carla Estevez, Ashley Montgomery, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Arthur Lorenz, and our technical director is David Greenberg. Join us again tomorrow.
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Chapter 8: Why is Harvard University defying the Trump administration’s demands?
So this Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is led by Elon Musk. Does he fit into the story?
Yeah. So there currently are several ongoing NLRB cases involving Musk's companies, including SpaceX and Tesla. That was really concerning to some of the labor law experts that I spoke to. He said that he will recuse himself from anything involving his companies, but we haven't really seen any evidence that's true so far.
If he got access to information about how the government was building those cases, or private statements from witnesses even, it could give him a real leg up in court, for one.
Do we have any evidence that Doge is acting this way in other parts of the federal government?
Absolutely, Michelle. According to my reporting and a lot of public evidence, this seems like a trend. First, there are over a dozen court cases where government witnesses have outlined Doge's mishandling of sensitive data at agencies like the Treasury Department or the IRS.
I also heard from aides in Congress, and they say there are ongoing investigations into other reports of Doge removing data from agencies for unknown reasons. Part of the reason Brulis came forward was to inspire others to speak up.
I believe with all my heart that this goes far beyond just case data.
The rule list provided a lot of technical data we have not seen before, but this could be just one piece of the puzzle.
That was NPR cybersecurity correspondent Jenna McLaughlin. Jenna, thank you. Thank you. You can find a lot more of Jenna's reporting at NPR.org and hear more about this story on All Things Considered tonight.
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