Up First from NPR - Tough New Immigration Policy, Heavy SCOTUS Caseload, State of U.S. Economy Now

Episode Date: June 8, 2024

A series of new executive actions are aimed at improving security at the southern border, we'll tell you how the changes are being received at the border. Also, it's June, usually around the time the U.S. Supreme Court goes into recess - but justices still have 16 fairly major cases to consider - that's a lot. And, we'll check in on the health of the U.S. economy, looking at barometers like inflation, mortgage rates, and employment numbers.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President Biden has a new immigration policy. The new restrictions might play well with a voter base the president is hoping to court, but how is it playing out at the border? I'm Scott Simon. I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is Up First from NPR News. President Biden's new policy has been in effect for less than a week. It's already resulting in hundreds of daily deportations. We'll hear from those who are being sent back.

And U.S. Supreme Court justices still have a lot of cases to decide before summer recess. They might have to pull some overtime. Also, inflation, gas prices dropping, But home prices? Ugh. Are high. We'll look at what these indicators may mean for the economy. Stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend. Now Our Change will honor 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to our change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today. President Biden signed an executive order on Tuesday aimed to temporarily suspend the

processing of most asylum claims at the southern border. The restrictions will kick in every time the number of daily crossings reaches 2,500. And the executive actions have had an immediate impact for many who are trying to cross into the U.S. And Paris immigration correspondent Sergio Martinez Beltran is in Tucson, Arizona this morning. He joins us now. Sergio, thanks for being with us. Thank you. You were in Nogales yesterday on the Arizona-Mexico border.

What did you see? So yesterday I crossed into the Mexican side and I hung around the port of entry and also went to a migrant shelter called Juan Bosco. And in both places, Scott, I saw migrants who had just been deported. They were wearing purple bracelets with their personal information. They told me they had attempted to cross into the U.S. just a few days ago. And that's what Biden's executive actions were intended to do, right?

To expedite the removals of migrants who crossed illegally. But overall, I have to say, I didn't see chaos or hecticness. What did migrants you talked to in Mexico say? Many of them were disappointed to be turned back. I talked to a woman named Liz. She's 30 years old. I met her right by one of the port of entries. Liz is from Guerrero, Mexico, and she's fleeing cartel violence,

so she didn't want us to use her last name. She told me that on Wednesday she tried to cross into the U.S. without authorization with her sons, ages 5 and 9, and she says she didn't know about the restrictions on asylum claims. So now she'll go back to Guerrero, the place she tried to flee. So she may not be trying to cross again. What about other migrants? Well, other migrants have the same story. Many of them told me that they are now trying to figure out what to do next. But I have to say, none of the people I talked to told me they were going to try to cross again, which is what the Biden administration wants, right? The goal is to deter migrants from crossing without authorization.

Now, the Biden administration has said they want people to use legal pathways to claim asylum, like the CBP One app. That's the platform where migrants are encouraged to use to apply for asylum. The issue is that it is a lottery system and there are only 1,500 appointments available per day. Guadalupe Flores from Michoacán, Mexico, waited eight months, but yesterday she had her appointment. She says it's been maddening, but that it is the legal process, which means she won't have to risk her life for that of her 14-year-old son. I tried to reach out again late last night to see whether she was allowed to stay in the U.S., but she won't have to risk her life or that of her 14-year-old son. I tried to

reach out again late last night to see whether she was allowed to stay in the U.S., but she didn't answer. Are border communities in Mexico ready for the surge? Well, the shelters for immigrants have dealt with surges of migrants in the past, right? But the local Red Cross said over 200 people had been deported to Nogales, Sonora, by midday yesterday. So with hundreds of migrants deported every day, plus those already en route to the border, that could put a serious strain on cities like Nogales, which usually experience higher numbers of migrants during warmer months. Again, it is early. It's only been four days since the policy was implemented, but that's

what it seems could happen in the days ahead. NPR Sergio Martinez Beltran, thanks so much for being with us today, Sergio. You're welcome. Now on to the Supreme Court. June is typically when the court goes into recess, usually until October. But maybe not this year. There's several major cases they still have before them right now, and they're big ones. Guns, abortion, presidential immunity, and more. Joining us now to talk about the rulings likely to come before the court's summer break is NPR Legal Affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. Hi, Nina. Hi there, Aisha.

So let's start out with a broad overview. How has this term compared with others? Well, let's put it this way. I make a list of the big cases every term at this time of year. Normally by this time, there are somewhere between four and six big cases that have not been decided yet. But this year, there are, that's the drum roll, 16 cases. And while the court almost always finishes its work by the end of June, I think this year, the justices will go into July.

And among those big 16 cases this term, what's the biggest one? Probably it's the case testing Trump's claim of immunity from criminal charges for his attempts to overturn Biden's electoral victory in 2020. It is undoubtedly the most important test of presidential power since the Supreme Court's 1974 decision ordering President Nixon to turn over to the Watergate special prosecutor specific, and it turned out, incriminating tape recordings of his White House conversations. Trump's also implicated in a second case involving the January 6th riot at the Capitol, this one involving a federal statute that makes it a crime to obstruct an official proceeding. It's the most serious offense charged against many of the rioters, and it's one of the charges against Trump, too. Aside from those cases, I would say the other biggest cases are two involving abortion, two important gun control cases,

and a raft, a raft of regulatory cases in which business interests are asking the Supreme Court to limit the federal government's regulatory powers. What are those two abortion cases about? In one, an anti-abortion group is challenging the FDA's rules for prescribing and dispensing abortion pills. Since the court struck down Roe v. Wade two years ago, more than half the women terminating pregnancies in this country use pills, and anti-abortion groups are trying to limit the pill's availability. The other abortion case involves a federal law aimed at ensuring that hospitals don't turn away patients needing emergency care and specifically whether the law requires abortions when needed to save not just the mother's life, but also her health. And the gun cases? Well, one involves a federal law making gun possession a crime for anyone subject to a domestic violence court order. That statute is being challenged, as is the federal ban on so-called bump stocks, which can convert legal semi-automatic guns into illegal machine guns that can fire up to 800 rounds in a minute.

You also mentioned the raft of regulatory cases the court will decide. Tell us more about these. This all involves what the right calls the administrative state. And this Supreme Court, with a conservative supermajority that includes three Trump appointees, has been very receptive to many such challenges. The biggest of these, this term seeks to overturn something called Chevron deference. That doctrine, adopted by the court 40 years ago, says that if the meaning of a statute is ambiguous, courts should defer to the regulator's interpretation of the law, the idea being that agencies have the expertise to fill in the gaps to carry out broad congressional mandates.

If the court abandons that doctrine, and there's every indication it will, it's hard to wrap your head around all the ways that regulators would be stymied, from air and water pollution regulations to federal rules on health and food safety, just to name a couple of them. So, Nina, are there clues about what's going to happen in all these cases you've talked about? Well, we know that the court has not decided roughly half the cases it has before it, including almost all of the most controversial cases. And if you look at the numbers as to which justices have written the most and which justices have written the fewest number of opinions, you can see that the two more senior liberal justices have written the most,

meaning they may not have many more majority opinions to write, only dissents. And the court's conservatives, especially the chief justice, have written the fewest, meaning they likely have lots more majority opinions getting ready to drop. None of this is good news for the court's liberals. In fact, in a moment of unusual candor, Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently told an audience at Harvard that there are days that I've come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried. And there are likely to be more of those days, she said. That's NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg.

Thank you so much for talking with us. Thank you, Aisha. You go to put fuel in your car? Gas is a little cheaper, so maybe you think, finally, prices are more manageable. But then you take a look at your eye-watering grocery bill and think, well, maybe not. Americans keep hearing the economy is good, but for many, their wallets contradict the headlines. And how people feel about the economy will likely affect how they vote in November. NPR's chief economic correspondent, Scott Horsley, joins us now. Good morning. Great to be with you, Aisha. So, Scott, we know inflation has a lot to

do with people's unhappiness with the economy. When I go out to eat or go to the grocery store, prices are still high. A Red Baron pizza used to be $5, now it's $7. So what is going on? Well, you're right. Inflation has come down a lot since it hit that four-decade high a couple of years ago. It was above 9% back then. It's under 3.5% now. We're going to find out about May's cost of living this coming week. But there hasn't been a lot of progress on inflation in the last few months. Now, there is some encouraging news at the gas pump. Gas prices dropped by eight cents a gallon this past week. That's the biggest decrease all year. And we know that gas prices have an outsized impact on people's feelings about the economy. So we'll see if cheaper gasoline helps people get out of that funk they've been in. Yeah, I mean, it's definitely nice to see gasoline prices come down, especially as people are traveling for the summer. But a lot of other things still seem really

expensive. You're right. Grocery prices have pretty much leveled off, but they're not going down for the most part. And the price of restaurant meals is still climbing by about 4% per year. Now, businesses do say they're getting more pushback from customers who have hit their limit on spending. More shoppers are hunting for bargains and some businesses are responding with more discounts. Applebee's, for example, reintroduced its $1 margarita. And more than a quarter of all Applebee's customers are now taking advantage of some kind of promotion when they order. So people are getting more price conscious. Companies have to think twice about raising prices because they know they risk losing business when they do so. And by the way, that is normal. That's how the economy usually works. What was abnormal was the

situation we've had in recent years when companies raise prices at will and shoppers just kept buying. One dollar margarita sounds like party time to me. But one thing that's not getting a discount is house prices. They are still going up and we might need some margaritas if we end up going house hunting. Yeah, and that's a big concern, especially for people trying to buy their first house. There aren't a lot of homes on the market, so prices are high. And then there's the double whammy of high interest rates on top of that. A new survey from Fannie Mae this past week showed just 14% of people think this is a good time to buy a home. Mortgage rates did inch down a little bit this past week, but they're still pretty close to 7%. So what's it going to take to get lower interest rates? I thought I heard they were going to start

getting those down a bit. The Federal Reserve has signaled it wants to see more progress on inflation before it starts cutting interest rates. Some other central banks in Europe and Canada did start cutting rates this past week, but the Fed's expected to stand pat when policymakers meet on Wednesday. Borrowing costs are likely to stay high at least through the summer, and that means it's going to remain costly to get a car loan or borrow money for a business or just carry a balance on your credit card. We could start to see some relief from those high interest rates in September, but it's going to depend on what happens with inflation and the job market between now and then. But the job market still looks pretty good, right? It does. The Labor Department reported Friday that employers added 272,000 jobs in May, a lot more than forecasters had expected.

Average wages were also up 4.1% over the last year, which is more than enough to keep pace with inflation. That strong job market's a double-edged sword, though. It's good for workers, but those big wage gains could put upward pressure on prices, and that makes it that much harder for the Fed to get prices under control, so it feels confident about cutting interest rates. NPR's Scott Horsley, thank you so much. You're welcome. And that's Up First for Saturday, June 8, 2024. I'm Scott Simon.

And I'm Aisha Roscoe. Michael Radcliffe produced today's episode with help from Hiba Ahmad, Fernando Naro-Roman, and Gabe O'Connor. Dani Hensel is our director. It was edited by Dee Parvaz, Alfredo Carbajal, Krishna Dev Kalimer, Julia Redpath, Pallavi Gogoi, Melissa Gray, and Ed McNulty. Our technical directors are Hannah Glovna and Nisha Hainas with engineering support from Ted Meebane, Stacey Abbott, and Arthur Halliday-Lorent. Evie Stone is our senior supervising editor. Sarah Oliver is our executive Producer. Jim Cain is our Deputy Managing Editor. Tomorrow on the Sunday Story Podcast, the economics of video games.

Who's playing, who's paying, and who's getting paid. You can listen to more news, interviews, sports all weekend long on your NPR station. Even some game shows. This is the weekend after all. To find your station, go to stations.npr.org.