The GOP’s tug-of-war over spending cuts
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What are the implications of the upcoming GOP bill?
Good morning. It's Tuesday, May 20th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, the upcoming GOP bill may have hurt the U.S. credit rating. Another airport near miss makes America's air traffic issues unignorable. And a second high-profile exit at CBS News made tensions with Trump.
But first, yesterday, the Supreme Court gave the administration permission to terminate the temporary protected status former President Biden had granted to about 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants. This had given them legal rights to work and live in the U.S. as their home country was deemed unsafe or impossible to return to. The Trump administration is planning to end similar rights for 500,000 Haitians later this year. Although border crossings are down substantially, President Trump is working to fulfill his promise of deporting millions of people. According to the Brookings Institute, the best available data indicates that daily deportations are below Biden-era levels, in part because of the lull in border activity. But conflicting data from government agencies makes it difficult to know the true number. One way the administration is trying to boost its numbers is by detaining people at routine and mandatory immigration check-ins.
The Guardian analyzed immigration arrests made during Trump's first month in office and found roughly 1,400 happened during ICE check-ins or right after. That's around 8% of the total arrests made during that time. Some of the people detained have no criminal records. Like Josue and Jose Lopez Diaz, brothers from El Salvador who are 19 and 20 years old. They came to the U.S. almost 10 years ago with their mom, who was fleeing poverty and gang violence. They were detained at the border. Their asylum request was denied. But the family was released into the U.S. while their appeal process continued. And the brothers were pursuing green cards under special immigrant juvenile status for those under 21 years old who've been abused or neglected by a parent.
in this case, their father. In March of this year, Josue and Jose went with their mom to a routine check-in with immigration officials in Manhattan, and they were both detained.
How does immigration policy affect families?
These are church kids who their pastor says are entirely free from vice. They had no criminal record, no reason to think that they wouldn't just kind of do this check-in and then leave, and yet they were detained.
That's Mark Chisano, who told the family's story for New York Magazine.
They were very quickly brought to a detention center in Buffalo, and they stayed there a couple of weeks. Eventually, they're flown down to Louisiana in this crazy trip that was many, many hours long. They're shackled the entire way so intensely that they both had what they called phantom pains afterwards, even after the shackles were taken off. They get to Louisiana. They spend some time there and are told that they're going to be deported. At the end of the week, they get removed to El Salvador. And that's where they are now.
Josue missed his high school graduation. He told Chisano that an immigration official told him to not worry about that stuff anymore because, quote, you're not from here anymore. But their mother told Chisano the United States is all they know. El Salvador is so foreign to them at this point that she doesn't know who they will live with. And she can't leave the U.S. to go be with them because she can't leave her youngest son, a U.S. citizen who's eight years old, behind. He has a neurological disorder that requires constant care.
These brothers are so American to the point that they were being used to translate for other immigrants while in detention by ICE. So I think that's worth keeping in mind when we think about who is being detained by the Trump immigration system.
Let's turn to Congress, as House Republicans race to pass a major tax and spending package before Memorial Day. In doing so, they're preparing to face a basic math problem. The scale and scope of their proposal could increase the deficit by several trillion dollars, just at a time when borrowing costs appear to be climbing and concern over mounting debt rises.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What are the implications of the upcoming GOP bill?
0:05–2:28
2
How does immigration policy affect families?
2:28–7:18
3
What are the consequences of changing the U.S. credit rating?
7:18–10:18
4
How are tax cuts connected to economic growth?
10:18–11:47
5
What challenges do Republicans face with their spending proposal?
11:47–15:04
Speakers
5 identifiedMore from Apple News Today
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