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- [00:05]
Shemitah Basu
Good morning. It's Thursday, April 3rd. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News today. On today's show, some farmers start to fear the squeeze from Trump's tariffs. Planned Parenthood faces threats to its funding on multiple fronts and why every allergy season feels worse than the last. But first, the Trump administration says they've deported a man from Maryland to El Salvador in error, but that they stand by the deportation and are powerless to bring him home. The man's name is Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Atlantic reporter Nick Miroff was the first to report on the so called error.
- [00:52]
Nick Miroff
Kilmar Abrego Garcia was arrested in Maryland on March 12th. Within 48 hours, he was relocated down to an ICE deportation staging area in South Texas. And you know, two days later, his wife recognized him in the photos released by the Salvadoran president showing all of these detainees arriving in that mega prison complex after the Trump administration's three deportation flights.
- [01:21]
Shemitah Basu
According to court filings, Abrego Garcia came to the United States almost 15 years ago as a teenager after fleeing gang violence in El Salvador, the very country where he is now detained. In 2019, Garcia received protected legal status after a judge determined that he could be a target if he were deported back to El Salvador. In the years since, his wife, who is an American citizen, says Abrego Garcia attended regular check ins with ice, followed the rules, and is the family's main breadwinner, working five days a week as a sheet metal worker while also attending college classes. Abrego Garcia is the father of several kids, also American citizens, including his five year old son who has disabilities. Despite never having been charged with a crime, the Trump administration alleges that Abrego Garcia ran a gang. His attorney says that that label is the result of an incident in 2019 where he and three other men were detained. One of the men allegedly said that Abrego Garcia was a gang member but didn't have proof. And Abrego Garcia maintained that he was not affiliated with a gang. Here's his wife Jennifer speaking with CBS News.
- [02:29]
Alice Miranda Alsteen
He's not a criminal. My husband is an amazing person, an amazing father.
- [02:35]
Shemitah Basu
Abrego Garcia's attorney is pushing for the courts to order the Trump administration to bring him back to the United States and to even withhold payments to the Salvadoran government, which is charging the United States to imprison deportees. Miroff said there is a process to deport someone with protected status, but the administration isn't following that protocol here.
- [02:56]
Nick Miroff
They didn't even take the steps to reopen his case, to try to introduce that evidence and get his withholding of removal status stripped from him. Right. That would be the due process. Instead they just grabbed him and within three days he was out of the country and into this megaprison in El Salvador.
- [03:14]
Shemitah Basu
Miroff expressed concern about the kind of precedent Abrego Garcia's case could set.
- [03:19]
Nick Miroff
I think we're heading to a potentially dangerous place where the government is just going to say somebody is bad or is a gang member, even though they, they don't have any criminal record or any refutable evidence. And then they're making these decisions and sending them off to a dungeon like prison where who knows when they'll be able to get out.
- [03:38]
Shemitah Basu
Attorneys for other men who have been deported say their clients have also been wrongly accused of being gang members and are now languishing in one of El Salvador's harshest maximum security prisons. And yet, despite mounting reports of the questionable legality of some of these deportations, immigration and Trump's handling of it is still his most popular policy, a late March CBS News YouGov poll found. When asked about the administration's program to deport immigrants who are in the country illegally, 58% said they approve. President Trump announced a new round of tariffs at an event at the White House Rose Garden yesterday. In a few moments, I will sign a historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world. A 10% tariff will be placed on all of the U.S. s trading partners with the exception of Canada and Mexico. Dozens of other countries will also see double digit tariffs, with China taking a big hit, a 34% tariff on all goods. Meanwhile, in a vote late Wednesday, a handful of Republicans joined all Democrats in the Senate to pass a bill that would block some previously announced tariffs on Canada. It's symbolic, but Politico notes it's a rare rebuke by some Republicans of one of Trump's signature agenda items. The Wall Street Journal recently checked in with one core constituency that has largely supported Trump in the past but is now feeling nervous about how his tariffs might affect them American farmers. An average of 78% of voters in rural farm dependent counties backed Trump in the 2024 election. But the Journal's Christina Peterson, who joined us from the Capitol, reports that some have concerns.
- [05:30]
Christina Peterson
Now, what's interesting about this moment is that they are not particularly happy with the actions that he and his administration are taking. They don't necessarily blame the president personally, but they are feeling the brunt of a variety of decisions.
- [05:48]
Shemitah Basu
In a survey cited by the Journal, 54% of farmers said they did not support Trump's use of tariffs as a negotiating tool. According to USDA research, Trump's trade policies in the first administration led to more than $27 billion in losses. But Peterson said even before these latest tariffs were enacted, farmers were struggling.
- [06:08]
Christina Peterson
Commodity prices are so low and costs are so high that Congress authorized $10 billion in economic aid in December. That's just going out now. So these are tough times for farmers already to be contending with new challenges.
- [06:23]
Shemitah Basu
Other major policy decisions impacting farmers have to do with federal spending. The Agriculture Department said that it was phasing out programs used to buy local produce for food banks and schools. There's also been some money frozen from a Biden era climate project that's having an impact on farmers like Jim Hartman in North Carolina, who Peterson spoke to.
- [06:43]
Christina Peterson
When our photographer went to meet up with him. His forklift that he had hoped to replace and instead is just repairing wouldn't start. He can't finish a packing and processing facility that he was building to help him scale up. He can't buy a machine that would kind of parcel honey out into little packets to use to sell to school districts. So it's really slowing his ability to scale up his operations.
- [07:10]
Shemitah Basu
The Agriculture Department cuts alone are costing just Hartman an estimated $100,000 in revenue. He told the Journal that despite being a lifelong Republican who voted for Trump in November, these policies are, quote, pushing left. The administration has said that they have farmers backs. And Trump himself has talked about the upside of tariffs allowing for more agricultural products to be made in the U.S. but Peterson said there's one big wrinkle in that plan for farmers.
- [07:40]
Christina Peterson
There are constraints that don't exist elsewhere. For example, seasons and growing conditions. You can't just grow an avocado anywhere. Some US Companies grow tomatoes and avocados in Mexico because the growing conditions are so much more favorable there. So one of the things they're saying is, you know, we support the president's goals, but just practically, it's really hard to do some of those things in the US In April.
- [08:19]
Shemitah Basu
Let's turn now to the headwinds facing Planned Parenthood. Last month, the organization announced it would sell the historic building that houses its Manhattan clinic, reducing the total number of Planned Parenthoods to just three total in the city. Meanwhile, the organization is caught in the middle of legal battles and threats to its funding from the administration and from states. Just this week, Politico reports the Trump administration announced it would withhold tens of millions of dollars from nine Planned Parenth state clinics across the country. Alice Miranda Alstein is a senior healthcare reporter for Politico. And she told us these are dollars that come from the Title 10 Family Planning Program.
- [08:59]
Alice Miranda Alsteen
It's a federal program, you know, more than $200 million per year that funds clinics around the country that provide contraception, sti testing, other sort of sexual and reproductive health services for low income people that are free or subsidized.
- [09:19]
Shemitah Basu
Alsteen reports these Planned Parenthood chapters received notices earlier this week saying their funding is being temporarily withheld.
- [09:27]
Alice Miranda Alsteen
The issues the Trump administration brought up as the reasons for this were that these organizations had made statements on their website or as part of their mission statement or some sort of public communication promoting diversity. And the Trump administration said, oh, that violates President Trump's executive order banning promotion of dei. They also dinged these organizations for saying that they offer services to undocumented immigrants.
- [09:59]
Shemitah Basu
The organizations were given 10 days to show they will comply with Trump's orders. After that, the administration will let them know whether the grants are suspended or terminated altogether. Other providers that receive money through the federal family planning program received similar notices and had their funds frozen or received less than expected. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood also appeared before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. NPR described it as a case that isn't really about abortion, except that it is. The court is considering whether a state, in this case, South Carolina, can remove Planned Parenthood clinics from its state Medicaid program and bar patients from suing to enforce their right to pick a medical provider.
- [10:42]
Alice Miranda Alsteen
This is about one state's attempt to kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program to say to the low income people in the state, look, you can go anywhere you want for services, but you can't go to Planned Parenthood because they also provide abortions outside of the Medicaid program.
- [10:59]
Shemitah Basu
Alstein reports the conservative justices seem sympathetic to South Carolina's argument. And she says the result of this Supreme Court decision, along with the previously mentioned cuts, could have a big impact on the organization's future.
- [11:12]
Alice Miranda Alsteen
I think that a lot of other states will move to kick Planned Parenthood out of their Medicaid programs as well. And so, you know, the organization is getting hit by these Title 10 cuts. They may also lose this state Medicaid funding, which are, you know, two pretty important sources of revenue for them.
- [11:42]
Shemitah Basu
Before we let you go, a few other stories we're following. The price price of gold is hitting all time highs this week as investors are growing worried about market instability and the impact Trump's tariffs may have on the economy. Gold futures are up more than 18% since the start of the year, with some analysts predicting the price will continue to soar over the next few months. The S&P 500, meanwhile, is down more than 4% over the same period. While gold frenzies in times of economic uncertainty are nothing new, a financial planner who spoke to NPR urged caution. He said, remember that gold doesn't pay interest, it doesn't pay dividends, and like anything else, what goes up can always come back down. In international news, people in Myanmar are continuing to dig through the rubble after a devastating earthquake left more than 3,000 people dead and destroyed thousands of buildings, homes and other structures. The 7.7 magnitude earthquake took place along Myanmar's Sagang Fault, an 800 mile fault line that scientists say has uncanny parallels to the San Andreas Fault in the western United States. Both fault lines measure around 750 to 800 miles and have plates passing by one another at equally fast rates. They're also both in extremely densely populated areas. The Washington Post spoke with geologists who say the similarities between the two should serve as a warning sign for California and the big one everyone knows will come eventually. And finally, do your allergies feel worse this year? If so, you're not alone. Vox reports that once again, we are facing the worst allergy season of our lives, with multiple cities reporting record high pollen count, largely driven by the effects of climate change. It's hitting the southern United States the worst, and because so many people's allergies are acting up all at the same time, Vox says allergies could cost the economy billions of dollars in lost productivity. Their tips to reduce your suffering Keep doors and windows closed when there's high pollen count, leave your coat and shoes outside if they're covered in pollen and wipe down your pets before you bring them inside. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. The New Yorker investigates the popular wedding website the Knot and growing complaints about, quote, fake brides problem. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News plus narrated to find that story and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.