Up First from NPR - New ICE Policies, Hegseth Claims, West Bank Attacks

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Immigration enforcement will now be able to arrest migrants at sensitive locations like schools and churches ; new misconduct allegations emerge against Pentagon chief nominee Pete Hegseth; and Israel launches a military operation on the occupied West Bank.For 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, Anna Yukhananov, Robert Little, Olivia Hampton and Alice Woelfle. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Chris Thomas, Milton Guevara and Claire Murashima. We get engineering support from Robert Rodriguez, and our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Immigration officers have clearance to make arrests in schools and churches, places previously considered off limits. We're getting them out of the country. They're going to be gotten out of the country first. How do the new rules change law enforcement? I'm Steve Inskeep with Laila Fadl, and this is Up First from NPR News. The president's pick to lead the Pentagon faces one more round of criticism. Pete Hegseth denied many accusations about his personal conduct and also spoke of his redemption. Now, his former sister-in-law has sent an affidavit adding to the allegations.

How's that affect his nomination? Also, Israel launched a military operation in the occupied West Bank. How if at all does that fit in with the ceasefire that finally arrived in Gaza? Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day. Hey, it's Robin Hilton from NPR Music. Many years ago, I helped start the Tiny Desk Concert Series, and right now NPR is looking for the next great undiscovered musician to perform behind the famous desk. Think you've got what it takes? Submit a video of you playing an original song to the Tiny Desk Contest by February 10th. Find out more

and see the official rules at npr.org slash tiny desk contest. Every January, millions of people take the pledge to cut down on alcohol in the new year. If you're one of them, count on LifeKit, NPR's self-help podcast, for tips and tricks you can use to make the most out of your commitment. We'll help you draw up plans and have experts weigh in on how to stay motivated and kind to yourself throughout the month. Search LifeKit's Dry January wherever you get your podcasts for the tools you need to pull it off. from NPR.

Usher, Yo-Yo Ma, Boy Genius, Shaka Khan, Billie Eilish, Weird Al, one thing all these big stars have in common, they've all played behind NPR's Tiny Desk. And if you enter NPR's Tiny Desk Contest between now and February 10th, you could be next. Unsigned musicians can find out more and see the official rules at npr.org slash tiny desk contest. President Trump's administration is rolling out its immigration actions day by day. The federal government is broadening the number of people targeted for deportation and widening the locations where agents may arrest them. NPR immigration policy reporter Jimena Bustillo has been following all these developments.

She's in our studios. Jimena, thanks for coming by. Good morning. Okay. We've heard things the administration is saying and gradually we're finding out how far they will go. Just a few weeks ago, December 16th, an advisor to the president was on NPR and was played a prediction about, quote, businesses being raided and quote, kids not

in your schools. And Mary Louise Kelly asked Jason Miller what he thought. Jason Miller, is he wrong? And I chuckle not because I'm taking the issue lightly, because it is such a bat, you know what, insane comment for this gentleman to make. So dismissing the idea of people vanishing from schools, what are we learning now? Well the administration has now cleared the way for arrests in schools. The old rules said that schools as well as places of worship, healthcare facilities, and a list of other areas were off limits to arrests of people suspected of being without

legal status. Now the acting secretary of Homeland Security has rescinded those guidelines, which the Trump administration says limits law enforcement from doing its job. My colleague Brian Mann spoke with Bishop Matthew Hyde, who leads the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and Hyde disputes the idea in the administration's announcement that criminal migrants were, quote, hiding in schools and churches. This ministry is sanctuary, it's central to who we are. Our congregations and our service programs welcome everybody. This is what our faith calls us to do.

But we don't know yet how immigration enforcement agencies are planning to ramp up their operations. Okay, so we'll keep watching that to see how far it goes. What else is the administration saying about immigration? The department also issued two notices to start the process of implementing some of Trump's executive actions. One includes phasing out humanitarian parole programs. This includes the program that granted permission for certain people from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela to be in the U.S. It's not really known what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of people

currently living with humanitarian parole. This also accelerates a Biden-era decision to not renew the legal status of those under the program. Another action set in motion is restarting full implementation of Remain in Mexico. This was a program from Trump's first term that required migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims were being adjudicated in the U.S. Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum told reporters yesterday that there needs to be a conversation with U.S. federal agencies. I appreciate the one thing you said. You said one of these moves about humanitarian parole accelerates a Biden decision. Biden's administration was also deporting people. This is a thing the United States does under any

administration, but the terms are changing. And you mentioned when you were on the program yesterday that some people are suing over the new rules. Who else is suing now and why? The main target of the lawsuits continues to be Trump's executive action that aims to reinterpret the 14th Amendment. This is the amendment that grants citizenship to nearly every person born on U.S. territory. It says, all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens. Trump wants to change this widely understood meaning of those words and make citizenship dependent on the status of one's parents and whether they're here in the U.S. legally, illegally, or on visas. A group of 18 Democratic state attorneys general, including from New Jersey and California, joined the

legal fight to block the move. Got it. And a coalition of civil rights and liberties groups also filed a separate lawsuit. And Piers, thanks for coming by. Thank you. The president's nominee for secretary of defense is once again facing allegations of alcohol abuse and misconduct. Yeah, Pete Hexeth endured a round of questions about his past as well as his qualifications and his nominations made it out of a Senate committee on a party line vote.

The full Senate has yet to vote. And now his former sister-in-law has added her own views. She submitted an affidavit to senators saying Hegseth caused his ex-wife to fear for her safety. Unsurprisingly, the affidavit is now public. NPR congressional correspondent Deirdre Walsh is among reporters who obtained copies. Deirdre, good morning. Good morning, Steve. Okay. So what in this document adds to what was already known? This is an on the record sign sworn statement from Hegseth's former sister-in-law.

As you noted, Danielle Hegseth, she was married to his brother, Nathaniel, and she states that she was asked to provide the statement by the top Democrat on the panel, Jack Reed. Senator Reed told me last night he made the request for the details because he didn't think the FBI background check on Hegseth was adequate. Danielle Hegseth says in her personal opinion, Pete Hegseth is quote, unfit for the job. She says her former sister-in-law Samantha, Hegseth's second wife who he divorced, feared for her personal safety during their marriage. She often hid in a closet. She said Samantha had a plan about texting her

a safe word or code word that meant she wanted someone to fly to Minnesota to help her. Danielle Hegseth also said she personally witnessed Hegseth intoxicated, yelling in her face. She told the FBI that Hegseth abused alcohol numerous times over the years, to the point of actually passing out during a holiday gathering.

Well, what does Hegseth say about all that? Julie Well, MPR reached out to his attorney, Tim Parlatori. He has not responded. But Parlatori told NBC, which first reported on this affidavit, that Samantha Hegseth, this ex-wife, never alleged any abuse and actually signed court documents acknowledging there was no abuse. And she affirmed that as part of Hegseth's background check.

He maintained, parlatory, that Danielle was, quote, an anti-Trump far left Democrat who was divorced from Hegseth's brother and never got along with family. He said she has an axe to grind. In Samantha Hegseth's case, she told NBC in a statement there was no physical abuse, she wasn't going to comment on her marriage, and she didn't have representatives speaking on her behalf. It's worth noting that during the public confirmation hearing, Pete Hegseth was pressed about previous allegations about excessive drinking and inappropriate behavior, which he denied. Pete Slauson In a broad sense, said they were anonymous

allegations and so forth. I guess the key question here involves Republican senators. How are they responding to this? You know, they're standing behind them. I spoke with several last night after this affidavit became public. Most said they hadn't read the document, but they questioned the timing, the motivation. Hex-S nomination is on track for a full Senate vote later this week or over the weekend at the latest. I talked to Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker. He told reporters he had grave doubts about Danielle Hegcess' account in the affidavit, but he also admitted he

hadn't read it. He said he was planning to review it, but he dismissed it as political. So far no Senate Republican has publicly said they're gonna oppose Pete Hegcess' nomination. With the 53 seat majority. He can lose three votes and still three Republican votes and still get confirmed. He's not likely to get any support from Democrats, but he's not going to need them. Right now, he has the vote. Yeah, I guess we should note the political context as well that President Trump has demanded this nominee and conservative groups have campaigned pretty strongly and threatened primaries and so forth against Republican senators. Deirdre, thanks so much. Thank you, Steve.

That's NPR's Deirdre Walsh. Okay, the ceasefire in Gaza is holding in a fourth day. But Israel has announced a new military operation, this time in the occupied West Bank. Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz says the military is using key lessons learned from the war in Gaza. We're joined by NPR's Kat Lonsdorf, who was just there. Hey there, Kat. Hey.

Okay, so we're told this military operation focuses on the Jenin refugee camp, which is a phrase we use from time to time in this coverage. But what do we mean when we say refugee camp? Yeah. So this is a place where Palestinians have lived for many generations. It's not tense. Like you might think of when you hear refugee camp, it's basically a city where lots of Palestinian families and kids live with houses and schools.

You know, Janine has also long been a militant stronghold attacks that have killed Israelis have been launched from there. Right now it's hard to get information on what's happening on the ground there because it's essentially become a closed military zone in the past few days. We do know that an Israeli airstrike there killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded many more according to Palestinian health officials. Israel says this is a counter-terrorism operation aimed at strengthening security in the West Bank.

Palestinian forces have also clashed with these fighters. And there also have been Israeli military operations there in the past. I went into the Jenin refugee camp after the last major one in the fall, and that operation lasted weeks and was very, very destructive. I feel we need to dwell always on the map here when we say West Bank. So there's Gaza, which is a separate area, which was the center of the war between Israel and Hamas, where there's now a ceasefire. The West Bank is a separate area, much bigger in size.

Millions of Palestinians live there. A lot of Israeli settlers have also moved in with the sanction of the Israeli government. And we have this bit of news that President Trump, after his inauguration, has said he will end sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank. What does that mean? Yeah. So President Biden put those sanctions in place to try to deescalate violent Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. Those attacks have increased dramatically since the war in Gaza began. There have been some attacks on Israeli settlers too. Even just this weekend, there were Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian villages. They burnt cars and other property. Settlers groups said that this was timed to coincide with the

release of Palestinian detainees and prisoners in accordance with the Gaza ceasefire deal. President Trump now canceling those sanctions on Israeli settlers, certainly coming after what happened this weekend, really doesn't discourage that kind of violence. How is all this affecting life in the West Bank? Its main life throughout the West Bank difficult, even in the areas not directly affected. The West Bank consists of a series of checkpoints and designated roads for Palestinians, and most of those have been closed by the Israeli military, making travel throughout the area really hard. And on top of that, many Palestinians in the Israeli military, making travel throughout the area really hard.

And on top of that, many Palestinians in the West Bank worry that Israeli's military focus is shifting over to them now that there's a ceasefire in Gaza. I talked to 53-year-old Walid Amira in Ramallah about this, the day the ceasefire in Gaza went into effect. He told me, of course the war is coming here. The Israeli government wants to prove something to their people and the West Bank will become the place where they can prove it, he said. And of course there's a new presidential administration, as we mentioned.

How do they view the West Bank? Yeah, I mean, several of President Trump's appointees are very pro-Israel. Mike Huckabee, who will be the next US ambassador in Jerusalem, has visited Israel several times and argued that the West Bank belongs to Israel. Elise Stefanik, who is set to be the next UN ambassador, said in her confirmation hearing yesterday that Israel has a right to the West Bank as well.

So if Israel does make moves to annex the West Bank, it seems likely the US administration will give them the green light to do so. And Pierce Kat Lonsdorf, thanks so much. Thank you. And that's Up First for this Wednesday, January 22nd. I'm Steve Inskeep. And I'm Leila Faldin.

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