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The World and Everything In It
3.25.25 Illinois homeschool bill, safeguards for unaccompanied minors, and remembering the SS United States
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Mary Reichert
Good morning. Illinois is on the verge of tightening rules on homeschooling, ostensibly to keep kids safe, but at what cost? We go from being one of the best states in the union to home school to the worst state in a matter of one vote. Also today, new efforts to protect unaccompanied minors crossing the border. Later, a final mission for the U.S. navy's fastest, largest ship. That red, white and blue on the stack stood out. It was just in pristine shape. And the power of shareholder advocacy commentary from economist Jerry boyer. It's Tuesday, March 25th. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Mary Reichert. And I'm Nick Eicher. Good morning. Up next, Kent Covington has today's news. A familiar sound in Israel. Air raid sirens sounded out over Jerusalem last night after the Israeli military says it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen. The Houthi rebels based there have fired a handful of long range missiles in Israel in recent days. And the US Military is responding with fighter jets launching airstrikes daily against Houthi targets for more than a week. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz told cbs, these guys are like al Qaeda or ISIS with advanced cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and some of the most sophisticated air defenses, all provided by Iran. Waltz says the U.S. airstrikes have taken out key Houthi commanders. Meantime, reporters pressed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about reports that several of President Trump's national security advisers mistakenly added the editor in chief of the Atlantic to a secure group chat where they discussed military strikes in Yemen. But Hegseth set of headlines suggesting that war plans were shared in the chat. I've heard I was characterized, nobody was texting war plans. And that's all I have to say about that. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker says lawmakers will look into the matter on a bipartisan basis. And in Saudi Arabia on Monday, US Negotiators sat down with Russian and Ukrainian diplomats, though not at the same time, the two warring parties reportedly occupying different floors of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Riyadh. President Trump said they talked about multiple pieces of a potential peace deal. We're talking about territory right now. We're talking about lines of demarcation. We're talking about power, power plant ownership, Trump referring there to the possibility of the US Taking ownership of and responsibility for the safety of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Russia seized control of the plant shortly after invading three years ago. UN Nuclear watchdogs have voiced concerns about its stability ever since talks yesterday also centered on safeguarding critical shipping lanes on the Black Sea. And at the White House. President Trump on Monday also welcomed executives from Hyundai and leaders from Louisiana to announce a $20 billion investment to include a $5 billion steel facility in Louisiana. This will be Hyundai's first ever steel mill in the United States, one of the largest companies in the world, by the way, supplying steel for its auto parts and auto plants in Alabama and Georgia, which will soon produce more than 1 million American made cars every single year. He noted that by making steel here in the US the automaker will avoid paying new tariffs on imported steel. The president called it a, quote, clear demonstration that tariffs very strongly work. Meanwhile, Canada's prime minister is citing the ongoing tariff war with the United States. In calling a snap election months ahead of schedule, Prime Minister Mark Carney said he wanted voters to select their government now in light of the tariff battle. I'm asking Canadians for a strong, positive mandate to deal with President Trump and to build a new Canadian economy that works for everyone because I know we need change. All House of commons seats, nearly 350, will be on the ballot. Whichever party controls the majority of those will form a new government and choose a new prime minister. The election is scheduled for April 28th. Former Republican Congresswoman Mia Love has died at the age of 49. Elected in 2014, she represented Utah on Capitol Hill for four years and made history as the first black Republican woman to serve in the House. This election is historic because it has raised Utah's voice and we have boldly told Congress that the status quo will not work. Love was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2022. Her daughter said the cancer stopped responding to treatment earlier this month. I'm Kent Covington. And straight ahead, a new education bill in Illinois threatens to crack down on private and home education. Plus, the end of the line for a historic American ship. This is the World and everything in it. It's Tuesday, 25th March. Glad to have you along for today's edition of the World and Everything In It. Good morning. I'm Nick Eicher. And I'm Mary Reichard. Up first, regulating homeschoolers in Illinois. Last week, a committee of the Illinois House approved a measure framed up as protecting homeschooled kids. In the end, though, the plan won committee approval and heads to the House floor. World's Education beat reporter Lauren Dunn has the story. Jennifer Brady showed up at the state Capitol in Springfield, Illinois before 6:30am on Wednesday. We got there when it was still dark because we wanted to have a seat actually in the hearing. When the House Education Policy Committee hearing began at 8am the meeting room was full. So was the rest of the building. All three levels of the Capitol were wall to wall people. You could hardly even walk. It was really neat. In fact, they commented twice that this was the most people that they have ever seen at the Capitol. The homeschooling mother of four came to hear lawmakers discuss House Bill 2827. The Homeschool act is a minimal step to provide accountability, transparency and protections for families who choose homeschooling as an option that State Representative Tara Costa Howard, the bill's sponsor and a Democrat representing District 42 in the suburbs of Chicago, Education is a fundamental right for every child. However, we know that loopholes exist and we have a duty to ensure that children actually receive an education and that they don't fall through the cracks of our system. Last year, the Illinois Policy Institute found that 130,000 students left public schools between 2019 and 2022. Some moved out of state, others switched to non public schooling. Because Illinois does not currently require parents to submit annual paperwork in order to homeschool, it's unclear how many families now educate at home. In 2024, investigative reporting from ProPublica found instances where children pulled out of school were being neglected or abused. One of the hearing's witnesses was Jonah Stewart, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education. That's a Massachusetts based nonprofit advocating for homeschool oversight law. Across several states, we have tracked over 500 cases of extreme abuse and neglect in homeschool settings where the abuse escalated because of the isolation afforded through homeschooling. Several of those cases were in Illinois, including seven fatalities. Representative Howard's bill would require the Illinois State Board of Education to register home educators and their children. The bill is about a form. ISBE will create this form and it requires families to declare that they're choosing homeschooling as their option. It is that simple. But others say the law is about a lot more than that. There are already robust laws on the books in Illinois to deal with truancy, educational neglect and abuse. Kirk Smith is executive director of Illinois Christian Home Educators. He and his wife used to teach in public schools, but in the year 2000 they began educating the first of their 11 children at home. People were moving to Illinois because our homeschool laws were so good and now people are talking about moving out of Illinois because this goes from 0 to 100. Smith says the language of the bill would not limit the form to gathering basic information Education officials would have the freedom to ask for whatever details they want, including about what parents are teaching. Families would have to resubmit the form every school year. If home educators fail to file, then officials would investigate for truancy and could hand things off to the Department of Children and Family Services. The bill would also require private schools to submit similar forms for every student they enroll. Representative Howard and those who support the bill say the form would deter bad actors from using homeschooling to get their children off the grid. But opponents say the bill opens the door to unreasonable penalties on hardworking families. Here's Will Estrada, senior counsel for the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. Not one single state in the nation. Even highly regulated states like New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Rhode island make it automatic criminal class C misdemeanor, 30 days in prison if convicted, $500 fine criminal conviction, potential removal of children and placed in temporary foster care if you fail to file paperwork. Before Wednesday's hearing, Illinois residents submitted witness slips in favor or opposed to the bill. Hundreds wrote in support, while tens of thousands called on lawmakers to oppose it. Around 7,000 people came to the Capitol to show their opposition. Republican State Representative Daniel Swanson asked Representative Howard about those voices. Here's how she responded. This bill is about the thousands of children whose voices are not heard. I am the voice of the voiceless here today, and I will continue to fight for them to have a voice, for them to be protected and for them to have the right for education. I guess we're here fighting for the 47,668 that have responded as opponents to this because those are the voices I hear and the ones I see in my district, the ones I see throughout Illinois, the ones who are here today. Kirk Smith was outside the state Capitol during the hearing. He found Representative Howard's concern for homeschool children unconvincing, given that the cases of abuse cited occurred where children in troubled homes were pulled out of public school, not raised in homeschool. This is not a homeschooling problem. This is a public school problem. This is a parent problem. This is a sin problem. And of course, in Illinois, we don't know how to deal with sin. Sitting in the back of the hearing room, Jen Brady had her suspicions about how the committee would vote when the hearing ended. We were hoping that the record amount of witnesses would, would sway them, but they don't care what we say, and so they're going to push their agenda no matter what. So the feeling in the room was hopeful but still kind of knowing these Democrats are going to vote for this bill. There being eight votes in favor, four voting opposed, and one voting present, House Bill 2827 is declared passed as amended and will be favorably reported to the House floor. Thank you, everyone, for the robust debate today. The bill heads to the Illinois House floor for a vote in the coming weeks. Reporting for world, I'm Lauren Dunn. Next up on THE WORLD and everything in it, protecting migrant children from trafficking. When children cross the border with neither parent nor legal guardian, it's border patrol that'll pick them up. Then it will hand them over to the Department of Health and Human Services. At that point, the children are placed in federally funded shelters while HHS tries to find an eligible sponsor to take them in. But critics say the system is susceptible to fraud and often it's rushed and that puts these children at greater risk. Adi Offerins reported this story for world. I'll place a link in the transcript for you to read more about this tighter vetting process under the Trump administration. Addie joins us now to talk about it. Good morning, Addie. Good morning, Mary. Talk about the changes he put in place. So these new guidelines tighten up the process for releasing migrant children to their sponsors. So now every sponsor, along with any adult caregivers or household members over 18, has to get fingerprinted. So fingerprints are one thing. Is there anything else new in these rules? Yes. Sponsors have to give clear, unexpired, high quality copies of their IDs front and back before a child can be released to them. And then when they show up for fingerprinting, they have to bring the original ID with them. @ that time, I spoke to an expert that pointed out a real worry. The fact that these rules had to be spelled out in the first place suggests a lot of this just wasn't happening before, at least not consistently. Well, Addie, thanks for keeping an eye on this story for us. You bet. World's Mary Muncie takes it from here. Attorney Jennifer Podkall represented unaccompanied children in immigration court for five years. There were kids who had been forced to work in farms. There had been kids that I worked with who had been victims of sex trafficking. There had been kids who had been forced to do domestic labor by a family member. Podcall was the first person some of the children ever told about their situation. And because they told her in some cases, law enforcement was able to prosecute the trafficker. I had built rapport with them. We had trust with each other. They understood that we had attorney client relationships. So I couldn't tell anybody anything without their permission first. That's when some of the kids finally opened up and I realized what was going on and was able to get them helped. Podcall now serves as the chief of global policy and advocacy at Kids in Need of Defense or kind. It's an organization that receives government money to provide migrant children with legal representation. Unaccompanied children with no legal status are usually put into deportation proceedings, but many of them claim asylum in a bid to stay. She said. The organization currently manages more than 5,000 cases. This isn't theoretical. I mean, this is real. You know, I imagine the kids faces as I tell these stories. About 450,000 unaccompanied migrant children arrived at the U. S. Mexico border under the Biden administration. That's more than half of the nearly 750,000 unaccompanied children placed with sponsors since 2012 under the Biden administration. The numbers went to historic heights. Jessica Vaughn is the director of policy studies for the center for Immigration Studies. They relaxed the vetting of sponsors in order to keep up with these huge numbers and deliberately adopted policies that would release minors as quickly as possible, either to their parents or another relative or almost anyone asking to sponsor the minors without the standards of vetting that are commonplace or routine for child welfare agencies. For example, in foster care placements, once HHS releases the children to sponsors, government officials are required to follow up with the children 30 days later. Last year, whistleblowers told Congress that the agency had failed to maintain contact with over 300,000 children. Tara Rodas directed a federal case management team at an emergency intake site. Here's Rodas testifying before Congress in November. Migrant children are working overnight shifts in slaughterhouses and factories, and some may die today because they don't have the knowledge or skills to do the job that they're supposed to be doing. But they're doing it because they need to repay debts to their smugglers and traffickers. And in August, the inspector General's Office for the U.S. department of Homeland Security found Immigration and Customs Enforcement had not provided almost 300,000 children with a date or time to appear in immigration court. Immigrant advocates agree that some of the Trump administration's extra vetting measures are essential for shielding children from exploitation and ensuring they end up in stable homes. But others argue authorities should prioritize increasing post release services and following up with more than just a phone call. I don't think one phone call where someone just hopes somebody answers. There's not enough that you can tell what's really happening through that one phone call. Podcall with Kind says in addition to presenting children's cases, lawyers also act as another pair of eyes ensuring a child's overall safety. Those touches from the attorneys and the social workers that provide the post release services are crucial because they're the ones who are going to know, oh, this kid is working in a dangerous place or the sponsor is charging rent to this child. She worries that supervision is in jeopardy because the Trump administration halted a significant portion of funding for Kind and other legal representation organizations on Friday. Not only that, but she says many of the children Kind defends are at risk of being sent back to dangerous situations in their home countries. Reuters obtained an internal ICE memo last month showing the agency is launching new efforts to ensure unaccompanied immigrant children with no legal status are put in removal proceedings and that those with final orders of removal are deported. Vaughn, with the center for Immigration Studies noted that deporting individuals who cross the border as older teenagers and are now adults will be relatively simple. The ones who are still minors, you know, there's going to have to be a little bit more of a process. For one thing, we've got to identify their parents, whether they're here or in their home country and reunite them with their parents. She argued that while increased vetting procedures are essential, Trump's executive orders shutting down the border will make the most difference in the long run. These parents and families are no longer being enticed to send their kids with criminal smuggling organizations into the United States, thinking that they're going to go to school or get a job and be able to help the family, when in fact they ended up being trafficked into labor arrangements. So that risk has just been eliminated now with the move to secure the border. Reporting for World I'm Mary Muncie. Additional support comes from Letourneau University, the Christian Polytechnic university. More@LETU.edu the Dutch are experts at controlling floods. With so much of the country below sea level, they've built engineering marvels to keep the water at bay. But the same lock system that keeps dry land dry can also block the fish. So behold. So a warm welcome. It is fish doorbell time. Yeah, simple concept really. A webcam pointed at a river lock in the city of Utrecht. Viewers who spot a fish waiting to migrate can click a digital doorbell that sends a screenshot and timestamp to lock operators. And if it's legit, they open the the gate and let the fish pass. It's part crowdsourcing, part citizen Science with a touch of good neighbor co founder Mark von Hoeckelum. It shows that there is a huge willingness and potential in people just offering a little bit of a better environment to help nature out. So in a country famous for holding water back, now it's the fish making waves. With a little help from a global fan base, it's the world and everything in it. Today is Tuesday, March 25th. Thank you for turning to World Radio to help start your day. Good morning, I'm Mary Reichard. And I'm Nick Eicher. Coming next on the world and everything in it remains. Remembering America's flagship, the SS United States is the fastest passenger ship ever built and the largest ever made in America. She stretched 100ft longer than the Titanic. She carried presidents and celebrities across the Atlantic. And yet today, the old gal is largely forgotten. Yeah, isn't that how it goes? World's Myrna Brown introduces us to one woman on a mission to preserve the legacy of the ship. How old am I now? I'd have to stop and think. Pam Paflis doesn't like to talk about her age. What's that in your hand? Oh, that's my Brownie Instamatic camera. But ask the silver headed grandma about her biggest adventure, you'll get an earful. I was 11 when I went on the cruise and it was so cold that year that they had to have some kind of boats to break the ice up to get the ship away from the dock. Paflis was a passenger on the SS United States. Her memories of being on the ship are as vivid as the old photographs she's treasured since then. Dozens of them, sealed in large Ziploc bags and organized with paper clips. What did it look like when you were 11 years old? When I was 11 years old, that red, white and blue on the stack stood out. It was just in, I would say, pristine shape. Then christened the SS United States, she was five city blocks long and grossed over 53,000 tons. Audio from June 23, 1951, the day the SS United States launched. She was built to be a super ship. Although never used in wartime, it could be quickly converted into a naval vessel. In peacetime, it was a luxurious passenger ship. To her passengers, she's not a machine, but a grand hotel which also turns out menus, wine lists and so on. But oceangoing travel wasn't just for the rich and famous. Immigrants heading to America also sailed on the ship. And there were middle class families too, like the Paflas. Taking a 16 day cruise from New York to the Caribbean. First stop was Nassau and then we went to St. Thomas, Morocco, Martinique, Trinidad and Cristobal. The SS United States sailed on numerous transatlantic routes carrying close to a million passengers over its 17 year career. The only way to know what it's like is to travel on the American champion of the ocean. But as air travel took off, passengers chose speed over the glamour of an Ocean Crossing. In 1969, six years after the Paflis family cruise, the SS United States was retired. But Paflis says she never forgot the experience or the ship. Actually, I flew over at one time about 10 years ago while it was docked in Philadelphia. I flew into that area. In 1996, the SS United States was anchored on a pier on Philadelphia's Delaware river, the only major port large and deep enough to accommodate such a massive vessel. The ship sat dormant there for nearly 30 years. A legal dispute over rent ensued between peer representatives and the SS United States Conservancy, the organization responsible for the ship. After years of haggling, a Philadelphia district court ordered the ship to be removed from the pier. But weeks before the eviction, the conservancy accepted an unusual offer from the state of Florida. Sink the ship and turn it into an artificial reef. It took 12 days and several tugboats to guide the 990 foot long ship down the Delaware river to the coast of Alabama where Pam Paflis lives. You're not going to believe me when I tell you this, but Pam, that's Willie Jones. He runs a boat tour agency that offers scenic cruises along the Alabama coast. Pam that you met up there called me and said I've been on this boat when I was 11 and I want to go see it. I'm sure other people would want to go see it. You're a boat company in Mobile. Why don't you do that? Taking PAFLA's advice, Captain Willie, as he's called, began offering rare looks at the SS United States from his two story mock paddle wheel bowl. If you want to go ahead and start making your way out to the decks, if you want to get a photo, it turned out to be a good business. We've already taken out 450 and we've already got another 550 booked in the future. For Pathless, it's been bittersweet. She's been on every one of Captain Willie's special SS United States tours. It was sad to see. You could tell it was deteriorating. Every day I come out they're taking more things off or it just looks, looks sadder. But Pafla says it's also an opportunity to break out her collection of photographs and a few of her favorite SS United States stories. Here are some menus. I think I'd pass on Kangaroo Tail. I'm sure I did. The SS United States will spend the next six to 12 months in mobile getting reef ready. Crews will remove the ship's prominent smokestacks, the fuel from the tanks, and any other hazardous material on board. Then the ship will be towed to Okaloosa County, Florida, its final destination and its last mission. I'm so glad you kept all of this, aren't you? Oh, and it's been the most fun just having people come up and thank you for bringing. Yes, thank you for bringing this. We're gonna add our voices to that. Thank you. Yes. Jerry. Reporting for world, I'm Myrna Brown in Mobile, Alabama. Every after mid morning they would have bullion. I just remembered that nobody knows that. And they'd have it sit up. Today is Tuesday, March 25th. Good morning, this is the world and everything in it. From listener supported World Radio. I'm Nick Iger. And I'm Mary Reichard. World Opinions contributor Jerry Boyer says when shareholders talk to companies, and not just about companies, that's when real change can happen. Christian conservatives and corporate America have spent a rough several years going through a messy divorce. Maybe it started in 2015 when Salesforce lived up to its name by forcing Indiana governor Mike Pence to abandon support for a state level version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Maybe it was Target's decision in 2016 to engage in a same sex affair with activist groups whose demands started with bathroom privileges. They moved on to book banning and eventually to merch partnerships with a trans Satanist. And then there's Disney and Bud Light. Even Tractor Supply and John Deere flirted with pronoun mandates and toxic HR struggle sessions. Let's be honest, it sure looked like the once happy couple. Conservatives and corporate America betrothed in the Reagan coalition had developed irreconcilable differences. But then again, maybe it wasn't a divorce. Maybe it was just a trial separation. Consider JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the world. In 2022, Chase closed the account of former U.S. ambassador Sam Brownback after he founded the National Committee for Religious Freedom. Brownback then received inconsistent answers when he requested an explanation. His experience became part of a broader investigation into the reasons behind banks shutting down the accounts of conservative and religious clients. The list of debanking victims includes organizations like Indigenous advance and even Melania and Barron Trump. Throughout this wave of debanking, JPMorgan Chase stood out as a key player due to its sheer size. Chase apologized for the debanking, but argued eventually that it was a good faith error, not a policy. The facts of the matter are murky now. Banks argue that federal regulations raise the risk of certain banking customers, especially those with international elements. Whether banks had their arms twisted into becoming the instruments of cancel culture or whether this provided a ready excuse to impose elite cultural norms on the rest of us is not clear. Either way, this is clearly an opportunity for conservatives and banks to team up again and roll back the regulatory state. And thanks to the persistence of a coalition of savvy attorneys, financial professionals and concerned citizens, the tide is turning. In 2023, JP Morgan removed a social risk clause from its payment processing policies, putting an end to using vague terms like intolerance and hate to determine whether a customer could be debanked. But the most significant breakthrough came just a few days ago, when Chase agreed to implement a policy change that explicitly protects both customers and employees from discrimination based on their religious or political beliefs. Put simply, this is the work of years to lock in an actual policy change negotiated in good faith, as opposed to public statements cast from a safe distance. What we've seen is that progress comes from talking to companies rather than talking about them. Political outrage machines are more about fundraising and brand building than they are about being salt and light. Of course, engagement doesn't always work. Conversations with bank of America show some banks are just not ready to listen to half the country. Some CEOs are true believers in using shareholder money for social causes, but others are true believers in shareholder capitalism. JPMorgan Chase's CEO seems to be among the latter. But it's important to remember that shareholder capitalism requires shareholder engagement. Shareholders have power. I, for one, believe that the marriage between business and conservatives can be saved. But like with any marriage, it takes work. I'm Jerry Boyer. Tomorrow, the powers struggle over deportations, how the executive and judicial branches are clashing on immigration enforcement and meeting lawful immigrants where they are. That and more tomorrow. I'm Nick Eicher. And I'm Mary Reichard. Washington producer Harrison Waters wrote the story about homeschool policy. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. The Bible says Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him. Verses 1 and 2 of John chapter 20 go now in grace and peace.