Up First from NPR - Justice Department Shakeup, Guantanamo Migrants Lawsuit, Immigration Crackdown Poll

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Multiple prosecutors have resigned from the Justice Department after refusing to drop a corruption case against the New York City mayor and legal aid groups are demanding attorneys for migrants being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Also, results from an NPR/Ipsos poll show growing support for some restrictions on immigration. 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 Krishnadev Calamur, Barrie Hardimon, Eric Westervelt, Janaya Williams and Alice Woelfle. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis and our technical director is Carleigh Strange. Our Executive Producer is Kelley Dickens.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

There are mass resignations at the U.S. Justice Department. Yeah, senior prosecutors have quit, others put on leave. They refused to drop the case against the New York City mayor. Was the decision from the DOJ to drop it political? I'm Michelle Martin, that's Leila Fadal, and this is Up First from NPR News. Legal aid groups are demanding that migrants taken to Guantanamo Bay get access to attorneys. These immigrant detainees are now being held in a situation with less rights than even the alleged enemy combatants. And according to a new NPR Ipsos poll, Americans support stronger immigration restrictions than they did just a few years ago.

But when it comes to hardline policies like sending migrants to Gitmo or detaining people at schools and churches, that support drops. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. Mass resignations are shaking up the U.S. Justice Department. Three senior prosecutors, along with three others, have quit after they were directed to drop a case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams The episode amplifies concerns about whether politics is influencing decisions at the Trump Department of Justice NPR's Carrie Johnson is following the story and she's here now to talk about it. Good morning Carrie. Good morning, Leila Okay, so who exactly quit their jobs at the Justice Department and what drove them to quit?

Who exactly quit their jobs at the Justice Department and what drove them to quit? The acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan resigned after she faced a lot of pressure to drop a case against Democrat Eric Adams, the New York City mayor. Danielle Sassoon had only been on the job for about three weeks, but she had a strong record of prosecuting major defendants. She wrote a letter to DOJ saying there was really no good reason to dismiss the Eric Adams case, and in fact, prosecutors were going to add a new charge of obstruction against him for allegedly destroying evidence. She wrote that she attended a meeting with Adams' lawyers and a senior Justice Department

leader in late January. And at that meeting, the defense lawyers for Adams said he would help DOJ with its tough immigration enforcement campaign if they drop criminal charges against him. Sassoon wrote that sounded an awful lot like an unlawful quid pro quo. And the DOJ leader in the meeting admonished one of her team members for taking notes and wanted those notes after the meeting ended. Eric Adams committed crimes, she wrote, and there's no good faith way to walk away from

that case. I mean, if this is true, what they're saying, it sounds like it sets a dangerous precedent. But what is the Justice Department in Washington saying about all this? For now, nothing, but Amal Bovi, one of Donald Trump's former defense lawyers and the second in command at the DOJ right now, he wrote that Danielle Soosoon had been insubordinate. He was in that meeting with Adam's lawyer, and he says he was worried about those notes because of leaks to the media. He placed two other prosecutors in the Adams case on administrative leave while they undergo an investigation by their own Justice Department. NPR's learned one of those prosecutors won two bronze stars in

the military and that he clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts. Now, Keri, you're reporting multiple resignations. Who else left over this decision to drop the case? This mess spread beyond New York City and into Justice Department headquarters in Washington. Because the prosecutors in New York refused to back away from the Adams case, Amal Bovi transferred it to the Public Integrity Unit

at Main Justice here in D.C. Two senior lawyers quit, Kevin Driscoll and John Keller. Late yesterday, three more attorneys in D.C. Two senior lawyers quit, Kevin Driscoll and John Keller. Late yesterday, three more attorneys in D.C. quit, too. A former senior Justice Department official told me, this is by far the worst thing we've seen from the Trump Justice Department so far, and that's a high bar. And is there any response from New York's Mayor Eric Adams?

Adams has pleaded not guilty to all these corruption charges he's been spending time with President Trump and he says the Biden Justice Department went after him because he criticized Biden on immigration. But the prosecutors in New York started investigating Eric Adams long before that happened. When reporters asked Trump about all this last night Trump said he didn't personally request the case be dropped and he didn't know anything about it. And where do things go from here, Carrie? So far the charges against Adams have not been dropped so if senior leaders at DOJ want to do that they're gonna have

to do it themselves or find someone else who will agree. We're only three weeks into this new era at the Justice Department. We've seen so many firings of the people who prosecuted Trump, firings of prosecutors who prosecuted defendants in the Capitol riot, and FBI agents suing their bosses at the Justice Department. This is really unheard of activity at the DOJ. And PR's Carrie Johnson. Thank you, Carrie.

My pleasure. In addition to firings and resignations at the Justice Department, this week also saw the start of mass layoffs across the federal government. NPR reporters have been hearing from people inside multiple agencies who were laid off. Their numbers include people in the education department who are working on student loans and software engineers at the General Services Administration. More than a thousand workers at the Department of Veterans Affairs were let go. And hundreds of workers at the National Nuclear Security Administration expect to be laid

off. That's the energy department agency that maintains the nation's nuclear weapons. The full scale of how many people have been affected so far is not clear. And those numbers do not include people who are voluntarily resigning from the government following the so-called fork in the road offer. About 3% of the federal workforce, some 75,000 people, have accepted that offer. But it may not result in the cost savings that Musk and the president say they want, pay for federal workers made up just 3% of the total federal budget last year.

The U.S. government has not publicly identified the migrants it has sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. At least 112 people have been flown there in about the past week. Now a group of immigrant rights and legal aid organizations led by the American Civil Liberties Union is demanding that the Trump administration give those migrants access to lawyers. NPR's Sasha Pfeiffer has read the lawsuit that lays out those demands and joins me now. Good morning, Sasha. Sasha Sweeney, NPR, FIFER, NPR, FIFER, NPR, FIFER, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, FIFER, NPR,

NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, FIFER, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, FIFER, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, FIFER, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha Sweeney, NPR, Sasha S world. And the lawsuit alleges this isolation is not a coincidence, that the point of flying these migrants to a remote Caribbean island is to make it

especially difficult for them to communicate with lawyers, lawyers who could explain their legal rights and possibly challenge their detention. Here's something that the lead attorney in the lawsuit, League Alert of the ACLU, said to me. One has to wonder if they're doing it so they don't have access to counsel, so that they can be held without rights and so that the government can have these photo ops. And by photo ops, I'm assuming he's referring to the recent pictures we've seen of handcuffed men being loaded on and off military planes.

Correct. Those images were released by the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. And the ACLU says some of the migrants' family members learned their relatives had been sent to Guantanamo because they saw them in those photos. They recognized a brother or a son. And now several of those family members are plaintiffs in this legal case. What exactly is the lawsuit asking for? It wants lawyers to be able to go to Guantanamo and meet with the migrants.

But the suit acknowledges that traveling there will be arduous, will be hard to get to. So it asks that at a minimum, attorneys be allowed to communicate with the migrants by phone or video conference or email. The ACLU lawyer, Galeart, points out that the suspected foreign terrorists who've been held for up to two decades at Guantanamo do have access to lawyers. These immigrant detainees are now being held in a situation with less rights than even the alleged enemy combatants. What's the U.S. government saying in response to this? So Leila, our colleague, Jimena Bustillo, who covers immigration for NPR, got a statement

from Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin that says there is a, quote, system for phone utilization to reach lawyers, but no additional detail was provided. And several of the migrants' relatives say they've repeatedly called ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to get information about their family members, but no success. And by the way, the DHS statement also said this, if the American, all caps, Civil Liberties Union cares more about highly dangerous criminal aliens, including murderers and vicious gang members, than they do about American citizens,

they should change their name. In reply to that, Galernt of the ACLU said to me, we were hoping to get a serious professional response from the US government. This was not a serious response. Danielle Pletka Has the government said what happens to these people next? Danielle Pletka It says they'll be held at Guantanamo only temporarily until it can find other countries to take them.

But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem acknowledges that could take a long time. And we know from having sent suspected terrorists to Gitmo after 9-11 that some of those prisoners have never been allowed to leave, even ones who've been cleared for release. But DHS told us it will be ramping up the tempo of plane loads of migrants arriving at Guantanamo soon. I'm PR Sasha Pfeiffer. Thank you. You're welcome. Americans are deeply divided about President Trump's sweeping crackdown on immigration.

That is the finding of a new NPR Ipsos poll out today. The poll shows growing support for stronger restrictions on immigration, but at the same time many of the president's hardline policies are unpopular with big parts of the public. So to talk about these findings, we're joined by NPR's Joel Rose. Hey Joel. Hey Lama. So what stands out to talk about these findings, we're joined by NPR's Joel Rose. Hey, Joel. Hey, Laila. So what stands out to you from these poll results? The results are kind of a mixed bag.

On the one hand, we do see support for tougher restrictions. For example, President Trump's call for mass deportations of all immigrants in the U.S. without legal status. That was one of his big campaign promises. We see a plurality of Americans support that 44% in favor to 42% against But when you dig down into the details of how that might be accomplished that support erodes pretty quickly I talked to mallory newell. She's a vice president at ipsos which conducted this poll. Here is her take on what is happening while americans on the whole may be

more supportive of immigration restrictions in theory, in practice, there's still not a lot of agreement about what that looks like. Take some of the more hardline Trump administration proposals, for example, detaining migrants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, as we were just discussing, or allowing immigration authorities to make arrests in schools and churches. Those proposals still have a lot of support from Republicans, but they were broadly unpopular in this poll with Democrats and even with many independents. So, Joel, you also did some follow-up interviews with poll respondents.

What do they say? Yeah, this NPR episode poll shows that Republicans, for the most part, are very united in support of the president's crackdown. Four out of five support deporting all immigrants without legal status. Three out of four support denying federal funding to sanctuary cities that limit their cooperation with immigration authorities. And a big majority of Republicans say the US has been experiencing an invasion at the southern border. I talked to Thomas Dunkelberger. He is a longtime Republican voter from Holland,

Michigan. So as far as I'm concerned, that was an invasion. Not an armed invasion, certainly, but it was an invasion. That's got to stop. We can't afford it as a people. The people didn't vote for that. Democrats, on the other hand, are opposed to basically all of President Trump's immigration crackdown,

but especially his push to end birthright citizenship for children of immigrants who do not have permanent legal status in the US. Democrats also are opposed to challenging sanctuary cities and they don't like a proposal to allow the US military to make arrests and deport migrants. Some of these proposals are being challenged in federal court including the proposal on birthright citizenship which is blocked at least for now. Now you've been doing polls like this since the first Trump administration.

So put it in context for us. What interesting shifts have you seen on the issue? Yeah, I think there are a couple of things that stand out. Take the border wall, for example. We started asking in 2018 about expanding the wall along the entire US-Mexico border. Back then, only 38% of Americans supported that. Now, it's up to nearly half. At the same time, we have seen a steady erosion of support for Dreamers. These are immigrants

without legal status who were brought to the country as children. When we first started asking almost two-thirds of poll respondents favored a path to legal status for Dreamers, in our most recent poll, that support fell below 50% for the first time. Interesting. Yeah, those are some significant shifts and I think they do tell you something about the mood in the country right now. NPR's Joel Rose. Thank you, Joel.

You're welcome. This weekend on the Sunday story, four decades decades the guiding philosophy around how to get homeless people with addictions off the streets has focused on an approach called Housing First. Housing First is for the people who have found themselves really in the worst possible situation. It is getting them back onto some kind of foundation. Now many conservative lawmakers want this practice scrapped. Will James, a reporter from KUOW in Seattle,

joins us to talk about his new investigations into what about Housing First works and where it falls short. That's this Sunday right here on the Up First podcast. And that's Up First for Friday, February 14th. I'm Laila Faldon. And I'm Michelle Martin. And remember, Up First airs on Saturdays too. Aisha Roscoe and Scott Simon will have the news. Look for it wherever you get your podcasts. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Christian Duff Kalamer, Barry Hardiman, Eric

Westervelt, Janaya Williams, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hines and our technical director is Carly Strange, and our executive producer is Kelly Dickens. Happy Valentine's Day. Join us again on Monday. Valentine's Day is on the horizon and NPR's All Songs Considered has you covered with a mix of lesser known love songs for that special someone in your life. You don't make your wife playlists?

Well not anymore. I sealed the deal. Robin, Robin, Robin, Robin, Mister, Mister Robin. We're going to discuss this later. Hear new episodes of all songs considered every Tuesday, wherever you get podcasts. Hey, it's Rachel Martin from Wildcard. This Valentine's Day, NPR wants to show our love for listeners like you by giving away a free year of NPR Plus and $100 worth of NPR merch to one lucky winner. Enter for a chance to win at npr.org slash valentine. No purchase necessary. Entry page and a link to the official rules can be found at npr.org slash valentine.