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- [00:05]
Shemitah Basu
Good morning. The top Border Patrol commander is leaving Minnesota. And as public opinion hardens against immigration operations, internal GOP dissent mounts as well.
- [00:16]
Republican Lawmaker / Critic
Escalating the rhetoric doesn't help, and it actually loses credibility.
- [00:21]
Shemitah Basu
But as calls for an investigation grow, Reuters explains how hard it is to hold federal officers accountable. And is social media dangerously addictive for teens? A major test case in California could force executives to the stand. It's Tuesday, January 27th. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News. Today, for the first time in President Trump's second term, there are signs that a shift on ICE and Border Patrol operations might be underway. In the past 24 hours, some Republican lawmakers have pushed for a change in strategy following the fatal shooting of Alex Preddy. And a flurry of announcements suggests the administration is trying to pivot. Yesterday, Border Patrol's top commander, Gregory Bovino, was reportedly demoted and will return to his former job overseeing Customs and Border Patrol operations in El Centro, California. Bovino has become the controversial face of Trump's immigration crackdown and cultivated an unusually prominent public image for his role. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt told reporters that Tom Homan, Trump's border czar, will be stepping in to lead operations in Minnesota. A former ICE director, Homan developed his own reputation as an immigration hardliner under previous Obama and Trump presidencies. But he has struck a markedly different tone to Bavino in recent weeks. While Bavino immediately made unsubstantiated accusations against.
- [01:51]
Jack Queen
Preddy, this looks like a situation where.
- [01:54]
Republican Lawmaker / Critic
An individual wanted to do maximum damage.
- [01:57]
Jack Queen
And massacre law enforcement.
- [01:59]
Shemitah Basu
Homan has been known to exercise more caution, as he did after Renee Goode's death earlier this month.
- [02:05]
Mark Zuckerberg
What good is it to do right now? To me, prejudge the facts what happened today without giving law enforcement professionals, whether it's the FBI or the local police there, give them time to look at all the videos, talk to all the witnesses, talk to the officers, and make an educated decision.
- [02:22]
Shemitah Basu
Also yesterday, a phone call took place between President Trump and Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz. Both sides characterized it positively. And Wall said Trump had agreed to speak to his officials to ensure that state investigators would be able to conduct independ pendant investigations. Trump said he also spoke with the Minneapolis Mayor, Jacob Fry, posting that, quote, lots of progress is being made. Fry said later Trump had told him the present situation can't continue, and he shared that some federal officers will be leaving the state today. But there's still a massive ICE presence in Minneapolis, and it remains to be seen how the active federal probes into the recent shootings will play out. Notably, some Republican officials have reacted to this latest fatal shooting by drawing a line and urging the administration to rethink their approach. Texas Governor Greg Abbott suggested the government would recalibrate their strategy. Utah Senator John Curtis said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's initial assessment of Pretti's death had weakened confidence in the administration. And on his podcast, Senator Ted Cruz urged a change in strategy. I would encourage the administration to be more measured, to recognize the tragedy and to say we don't want anyone, anyone's.
- [03:40]
Republican Lawmaker / Critic
Lives to be lost.
- [03:42]
Shemitah Basu
And the events of recent days were apparently the final straw for the lawyer defending the agent who shot Renee Good. Until yesterday, Chris Mattle was also a Republican candidate running for governor in the state. But Mattle announced he was ending his campaign, citing the ICE surge.
- [03:59]
Republican Lawmaker / Critic
Operation Metro Surge has expanded far beyond its stated focus on true public safety threats. United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear. United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That's wrong. ICE has authorized its agents to raid homes using a civil warrant that need only be signed by a Border Patrol agent. That's unconstitutional and it's wrong.
- [04:26]
Shemitah Basu
Meanwhile, Secretary Noem has agreed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March. This will be her first time speaking to lawmakers on this committee since taking her role. She's otherwise not appeared for a routine oversight hearing. Three days after the fatal shooting. Calls for accountability for the federal agents who shot Alex Preddy and Renee Goode on seventh are getting louder. Earlier this month, Minnesota Governor Tim Walls encouraged residents of the state to document federal immigration operations, pledging that accountability would come for officers who abuse their powers.
- [05:12]
Republican Lawmaker / Critic
Take out that phone and hit record. Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution.
- [05:25]
Shemitah Basu
It turns out there aren't many easy roads to do that.
- [05:28]
Jack Queen
Their ability to prosecute these agents could actually be quite limited in practice.
- [05:33]
Shemitah Basu
Jack Queen is a legal affairs correspondent for Reuters. He told us they don't have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution or civil lawsuits, as President Trump has suggested, but they do have something called qualified immunity.
- [05:47]
Jack Queen
They do have pretty powerful immunity protections under the law for their actions that are carried out in their capacity as federal agents. And so, so that means that basically pretty much anything that they have done under the color of office, acting in their capacity as federal agents, they cannot be prosecuted by the state for that, queen said.
- [06:07]
Shemitah Basu
That's to insulate federal agents from any kind of state level interference in their work. Should Minnesota decide to charge any of these federal officers, those agents could seek to move their cases to federal court and argue they are immune to prosecution because their actions were in the line of duty. That presents another hurdle for state prosecutors.
- [06:28]
Jack Queen
Basically what they would need to prove is that these officers violated a clearly established constitutional right that a victim had at the time, and it had to be obvious that they had this right and it had to be obvious that they would be violating that right. Now that all sounds pretty wonky and it sounds especially strange in the context of someone being fatally shot. But that is the way the law works and in many situations like this, courts will find that it's not exactly clear that in this particular circumstance a person had a clearly defined constitutional right that was clearly violated knowingly by a federal agent.
- [07:06]
Shemitah Basu
Outside of Minnesota, a federal case against these officers is also unlikely. Queen says the DOJ has so far shown no interest in bringing these officers up on charges and has defended their actions, saying they shot pretty and good in self defense. The qualified immunity legal doctrine was formalized by the Supreme Court nearly 60 years ago and was originally meant to protect government employees from frivolous lawsuits. Reuters in a 2020 investigation, found it's since become a powerful tool for shielding officers, particularly in cases involving potential use of excessive force. The precedent it has created would also likely apply to the officers involved in the Preddy and Goode shootings.
- [07:49]
Jack Queen
It's not unreasonable to think that if this case was litigated and it played out that a court would find that the officer was immune for that. And I think to a lot of people that would be shocking and unconscionable. But that is the way that the law tends to work and cases like this are extremely rare.
- [08:04]
Shemitah Basu
The Department of Homeland Security is leading the investigation into the recent fatal shootings supported by the FBI. Yesterday, the administration said body cam footage of Preddy's death does exist and is being reviewed. Today, a landmark trial begins that will ask a jury to consider the question, are social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and TikTok dangerously addictive for kids? It's the first test case in a wave of lawsuits being brought by parents and their teenage children, and it could pose major challenges for some of the world's biggest tech companies and force executives like Mark Zuckerberg to testify. The argument from these families is one you'll have heard before that because of these platforms, interactive tools and features, teenagers couldn't turn away and developed mental health problems through their continued use.
- [09:04]
Naomi Nix
And those harms ranged anything from depression and anxiety to even more tragic scenarios like untimely deaths. Because maybe their teenager fell victim to a sex torsion scheme and committed suicide or they participated in a TikTok challenge that was dangerous.
- [09:25]
Shemitah Basu
Naomi Nix is a reporter with the Washington Post. She told us today's case in California is being brought by an anonymous 19 year old plaintiff known as KGM who will argue that social media robbed her of her childhood.
- [09:39]
Naomi Nix
And so she's really like the first test case in this theory about whether social media addiction can both be proved and proven legally and whether if there is such a thing as social media addiction, whether that's what's actually driving some of the mental health issues that teenagers have been experiencing.
- [09:59]
Shemitah Basu
The tech companies dispute this. YouTube says it's fundamentally distinct from the other social media companies and Meta is expected to say it was not the cause of KGM's problems. They argue that they offer ways for people to protect themselves from undesirable experiences and say the evidence doesn't conclusively prove addiction. And here's Mark Zuckerberg talking to Congress back in 2020.
- [10:23]
Mark Zuckerberg
Most of the research suggests that the vast majority of people do not perceive or experience these services as addictive or have issues. But I do think that there should be controls given to people to help them manage their experience better. And this is something that we're very focused on.
- [10:38]
Shemitah Basu
Nix reports that the existing body of research paints a complex picture and causation could be hard to prove. She quotes one expert who said a recent study tracking students showed that some of those with the worst mental health came from two extremes, either little to no social media usage or very high usage. And a report from the American Psychological Association a couple years ago found that social media use was neither inherently beneficial or harmful. But critics point to internal company research and prominent whistleblowers who say executives know that their content causes harm. And the case will be closely watched because through the trial a lot is going to be revealed about these companies internal workings.
- [11:22]
Naomi Nix
And so what we're going to see in this trial is executives talking about the decisions they made to keep people on the platform. We're going to see the internal research about how teens are affected by their products.
- [11:40]
Shemitah Basu
One company involved in the suit, Snapchat, has already opted to settle for an undisclosed fee. And finally, a few other stories we're following. The deadly winter storm that swept across much of the country over the weekend is on its way out, but the National Weather Service says a deep freeze will now set in for about two thirds of the eastern U.S. record cold temperatures are expected in the Southern Plains and Mississippi Valley. The Mid Atlantic will see temperatures in the single digits. So far, 30 people have died in connection with the storm, according to the AP, and damage estimates are as high as $115 billion. The storm was the biggest accumulation of snow in years for millions of people. Officials in multiple states are advising people to stay home and off the roads if you're in an area experiencing extreme cold. The American Academy of Pediatrics has broken with the CDC on vaccine recommendations. It's the first significant break on guidance between the country's lead group of pediatricians and the government's public health agency. The AAP said Monday that it will continue to endorse vaccines protecting kids against 18 potentially life threatening diseases such as Covid the flu, Hepatitis A and B and the measles. Their guidance reflects previous recommendations but differs from the cdc, which recently narrowed its recommendations to higher risk kids and the Wall Street Journal has been looking into the dramatic lengths one company goes to to keep its trade secrets secret. WD40, famous for providing squeak relief, is over 70 years old, but apparently almost no one knows entirely how it's made. The only full version of the formula is apparently memorialized on a handwritten note, which is kept under lock and key at an undisclosed bank in San Diego. It's so closely guarded that it's reportedly only left the vault three times in the past 30 years. The company's CEO, Steve Brass told the Journal he was recently given a rare peek, though he described it was like getting into Fort Knox. The Journal reports that whole chat rooms exist to try and guess the formula, and the company would only confirm. Contrary to online speculation, there is no fish oil and there is no orange peel. 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. Rolling Stone has the story of an aspiring musician who authorities say scammed music streaming services out of millions of dollars through the use of thousands of online bots. If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News Narrated to find that story and I'll be back with the news tomorrow.