Meg Anderson
Appearances
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-11-2025 3PM EDT
Studies show THC, the chemical in marijuana that makes you high, can impair driving. But THC can stay in your body for hours or even days. So it's hard to know if someone was high when they got pulled over. Police are searching for a tool that would work as well as the alcohol breathalyzer. They're piloting THC breathalyzers, saliva tests, even goggles to measure a person's pupils.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-11-2025 3PM EDT
Jordan Wellington, a consultant who works on marijuana policy, says there's also a role for the public to police themselves.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-13-2025 1PM EDT
The grants helped train prison guards, bolstered police alternatives for mental health crises, and trained police to communicate with deaf people. The Justice Department told the Institute those initiatives, quote, no longer effectuate its priorities. Amy Fettig, who leads fair and just prosecution, said the cuts should raise alarms for anyone getting federal money.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-13-2025 1PM EDT
The federal government and this administration are signaling...
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-13-2025 1PM EDT
Last week, the DOJ cut federal grants for the Maine Department of Corrections. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox & Friends it was because the state holds a transgender woman in its women's prison. Meg Anderson, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 04-19-2025 4PM EDT
U.S. courts have said that the people taken to El Salvador got limited or no due process before they were sent there, something they are legally entitled to. And now that they're in El Salvador, the administration is saying they no longer have control over what happens to them.
Up First from NPR
Supreme Court Blocks Deportations; Imprisonment in El Salvador; US-Iran Nuclear Talks
Yeah. So the mega prison that they were sent to is known as Seacott, and it is notorious. Human rights groups have reported torture and medical neglect in that prison and other Salvadoran prisons and say inmates are often denied due process and even contact with family and lawyers.
Up First from NPR
Supreme Court Blocks Deportations; Imprisonment in El Salvador; US-Iran Nuclear Talks
Michelle Deitch, director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, put that situation in perspective for me.
Up First from NPR
Supreme Court Blocks Deportations; Imprisonment in El Salvador; US-Iran Nuclear Talks
And I should mention, U.S. courts have said that the people taken to El Salvador got limited or no due process before they were sent there, something they are legally entitled to. And now that they're in El Salvador, the administration is saying they no longer have control over what happens to them.
Up First from NPR
Supreme Court Blocks Deportations; Imprisonment in El Salvador; US-Iran Nuclear Talks
Well, it means that they're being deprived of protections that they would have had if they had been held in the United States. The government here has a duty by law to care for people in its custody. U.S. prisons and immigration detention centers are far from perfect, to be sure, but there are still layers of oversight.
Up First from NPR
Supreme Court Blocks Deportations; Imprisonment in El Salvador; US-Iran Nuclear Talks
The federal government monitors and inspects its prisons and detention centers. People in custody have the right to pursue legal action if they allege abuse or neglect. And judges can intervene when laws are violated. Legal experts I spoke to said it's extremely hard, if not impossible, to see how any of that could happen once people are in a Salvadoran prison.
Up First from NPR
Supreme Court Blocks Deportations; Imprisonment in El Salvador; US-Iran Nuclear Talks
So the Trump administration has clarified that quote, homegrowns in this case means U.S. citizens. And I should note that legal experts say there is absolutely no U.S. law that would give Trump the ability to send U.S. citizens to foreign prisons. But if someone in the U.S.
Up First from NPR
Supreme Court Blocks Deportations; Imprisonment in El Salvador; US-Iran Nuclear Talks
is convicted of a crime, their constitutional rights, like the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, should, in theory, still apply no matter where they're sent. That's according to Lauren Brooke Eisen. She's the senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice. But she says...
Up First from NPR
Supreme Court Blocks Deportations; Imprisonment in El Salvador; US-Iran Nuclear Talks
So I reached out to both the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security for this story. In a statement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the immigrants sent to El Salvador are, quote, terrorists, that they had final deportation orders, and that there was due process. But she did not provide any evidence for those assertions.
Up First from NPR
Supreme Court Blocks Deportations; Imprisonment in El Salvador; US-Iran Nuclear Talks
The DOJ, for its part, did not respond to questions about outsourcing U.S. prisoners abroad.
Up First from NPR
Supreme Court Blocks Deportations; Imprisonment in El Salvador; US-Iran Nuclear Talks
You're welcome.