Dozens Dead in L.A. Fires, Middle East Ceasefire Talks, Homeland Security Chief

Summary

NPR's Up First: January 13, 2025

On this episode of NPR's Up First, hosts Steve Inskeep and Emy Martinez delve into three major stories shaping the day: the devastating wildfires in Los Angeles, critical ceasefire negotiations in the Middle East, and reflections from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as he prepares to leave office. Below is a comprehensive summary of the episode, capturing all key points, discussions, insights, and conclusions.

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1. Devastating Wildfires Ravage Los Angeles

Firefighting Efforts and Current Status

With the onset of fierce Santa Ana winds, Los Angeles is battling two of its largest wildfires to date. Thousands of firefighters from across the nation, including personnel from Mexico and Canada, have converged on the region to combat the blazes.

Key Developments:

• Containment Progress: Over the weekend, significant strides were made in containing both the Eaton fire in Northeast LA and the Palisades fire on the west side. Fire Chief Anthony Maroney highlighted, “These winds combined with low humidities and low fuel moistures will keep the fire threat in all of Los Angeles county very high” (03:18).
• Evacuation Orders: Despite containment efforts, new evacuation orders were issued as the fires continue to spread into unpopulated hills. LA City Fire Chief Kristen Crowley urged residents to stay vigilant, stating, “Stay informed, follow all evacuation warnings and orders. And the key here is without delay” (03:34).

Impact on Communities:

• Pacific Palisades and Altadena: These areas are among the hardest hit, with thousands of homes destroyed. Residents are grappling with the aftermath, including the loss of property and loved ones. Investigations are ongoing, with cadaver dogs employed to locate victims, delaying the return of evacuees and hindering debris cleanup until toxic waste is safely removed (04:24).

Challenges Ahead:

• Weather Conditions: The National Weather Service has warned that critical fire weather conditions will persist through Wednesday, with wind gusts potentially reaching 70 mph (03:40). This poses a significant threat to both containment efforts and the safety of residents.
• Resource Allocation: Governor Gavin Newsom announced the deployment of additional National Guard troops and the continuous aerial support from planes and helicopters. Despite these measures, the unpredictable weather remains a formidable challenge (04:19).

Community and Government Response:

• Rebuilding Efforts: Governor Newsom emphasized the urgency of rebuilding affected neighborhoods, promising to streamline environmental reviews and construction permits to expedite recovery (02:35). However, officials caution that premature rebuilding efforts could jeopardize long-term safety.

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2. Critical Ceasefire Negotiations in the Middle East

Background and Current Negotiations

Amidst ongoing tensions, diplomats and officials from the U.S., Israel, and Hamas are engaged in ceasefire talks in Qatar. The negotiations aim to halt the 15-month-long war in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli hostages before President Elect Donald Trump assumes office on January 20th (00:17).

Details of the Proposed Deal:

• Hostage Release: The framework includes Hamas releasing approximately 33 Israeli hostages, while Israel is expected to release over a thousand Palestinian detainees, including 22 individuals serving life sentences for attacks on Israelis (07:54).
• Six-Week Pause in Fighting: A temporary halt in hostilities is proposed to facilitate humanitarian aid and further diplomatic discussions (07:54).
• Exile of Released Detainees: Released prisoners would likely be exiled to countries such as Turkey, Qatar, or Egypt (07:54).

Challenges and Obstacles:

• Political Dynamics: Both the outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administrations are pressuring the negotiations, albeit from different perspectives. While Biden emphasizes the urgency of reaching a deal, Trump has warned, “if the hostages are not released by his inauguration, there will be, quote, hell to pay” (06:34).
• Stakeholder Positions: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s finance minister opposes the deal in its current form, adding complexity to the negotiations (08:32).
• Mediator Influence: Qatar and Egypt, aiming to maintain favorable relations with Trump, are intensifying their efforts to persuade Hamas towards flexibility, as indicated by a Hamas official involved in the talks (07:52).

Quotes and Insights:

• Daniel Estrin from Tel Aviv: “Both the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration are working together on this, which is unusual. And they both want the same thing” (06:40).
• Hamas Official: “Hamas is trying to show flexibility and that it's proposed several different ways to try to resolve the points of contention” (08:28).

Potential Outcomes:

• Success Factors: The collaboration between differing U.S. administrations and the strategic interests of Israel, such as pursuing diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and addressing Iran's nuclear program, could steer the negotiations towards a breakthrough (08:32).
• Red Cross Involvement: The presence of the Red Cross, which facilitated the last hostage exchange, underscores the humanitarian focus of the talks (09:37).

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3. Reflections from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas

Overview of Tenure and Achievements

As Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas prepares to depart, he offers a candid reflection on his four-year tenure, particularly focusing on border security and immigration policies under the Biden administration (09:48).

Border Security and Immigration Policies:

• Deportations: Mayorkas highlighted that over 250,000 individuals were deported in the past year, marking a significant increase from previous years. He stated, “I don't think we prevailed in communicating to the American people successfully the challenges of migration at an historic level since World War II” (10:02, 10:14).
• Policy Implementation: Emphasizing the administration’s efforts, Mayorkas noted, “They would not [have legal defense]. Presumably, the removal, the deportation of the individuals would be pursuant to law” (12:52). This underscores the administration's strict stance on immigration enforcement.

Challenges Faced:

• Mixed-Status Families: One of the most contentious issues has been the deportation of mixed-status families, where U.S. citizens live alongside undocumented relatives. Mayorkas acknowledged the moral dilemmas, stating, “They would be accompanying deported relatives, sometimes the very relatives upon whom they rely to live” (12:39).
• Legal and Ethical Concerns: The administration grappled with maintaining border security while addressing humanitarian concerns, a balance that has drawn criticism from both Republicans and immigrant rights groups.

Future Implications:

• Incoming Administration's Plans: Mayorkas anticipates that the Trump administration will push for more aggressive immigration policies, including mass deportations and potential expansions of border security measures (11:29).
• Legacy and Continuity: While Mayorkas believes he has strengthened the administration’s border security, he acknowledges that the work is ongoing and the new administration may pursue further changes (13:34).

Quotes and Insights:

• Alejandro Mayorkas: “I don't think we prevailed in communicating to the American people successfully the challenges of migration...” (10:14).
• Steve Inskeep: “He did everything that he could” (13:37).

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Conclusion

Today's episode of Up First provided a thorough examination of pressing issues affecting the United States and the broader international community. From the relentless wildfires threatening Los Angeles communities to the high-stakes negotiations seeking peace in the Middle East, and the impactful reflections from a key figure in homeland security, NPR delivered insightful and timely reporting to inform listeners at the start of their day.

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For a more in-depth exploration of these stories and additional analyses, subscribe to Up First+ for sponsor-free listening and support your local NPR station at donate.npr.org.

Transcript

[Steve Inskeep]

Thousands of firefighters have come to Los Angeles to help slow the spread of the two biggest wildfires.

[Emy Martinez]

As the wind is expected to pick up again. Officials are asking residents to work with them.

[NPR Correspondent]

Follow all evacuation warnings and orders without delay.

[Steve Inskeep]

I'm Steve Inskeep with a Martinez, and this is up first from NPR News. Negotiations are underway to end the war in Gaza before or President Elect Trump takes office next week.

[NPR Correspondent]

I think there's a certain fear of the unknown in terms of what the new administration will do and will say.

[Steve Inskeep]

What are the odds of success?

[Emy Martinez]

And we spoke with President Biden's homeland Security secretary as he prepares to leave office.

[Alejandro Mayorkas]

I don't think we prevailed in communicating to the American people successfully the challenges of migration.

[Emy Martinez]

Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.

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[Emy Martinez]

California's governor is looking to rebuild the parts of metro Los Angeles swept away by wildfire.

[Steve Inskeep]

Gavin Newsom says he wants to restore neighborhoods as quickly as possible and for people restoring their homes, he will use his power to waive California's favorite famously challenging environmental reviews. First, though, the fires have to burn out and they have killed an estimated 24 people so far as we know.

[Emy Martinez]

We're joined now by NPR's Adrian Florido in Los Angeles. Adrian, firefighters made some progress containing these fires over the weekend. How are things looking now?

[Adrian Florido]

Well, things are looking better. Firefighters are gradually containing the Eaton fire in Northeast LA and the Palisades fire on the west side. Each of those fires destroyed thousands of homes. As you said, they are now burning mostly in the unpopulated hills, but they are still spreading. There were new evacuation orders over the weekend in neighborhoods that the fires were approaching. The big concern now is that winds are, as you said, about to pick up again. There could be gusts as high as 70 miles per hour in some areas. This is LA County Fire Chief Anthony Maroney.

[Alejandro Mayorkas]

These winds combined with low humidities and low fuel moistures will keep the fire threat in all of Los Angeles county very high.

[Adrian Florido]

LA City Fire Chief Kristen Crowley pleaded with residents to stay alert and to.

[NPR Correspondent]

Stay informed, follow all evacuation warnings and orders. And the key here is without delay.

[Adrian Florido]

The National Weather Service a has warned that critical fire weather conditions will last through Wednesday. Okay.

[Emy Martinez]

Now, you know, last week we heard a lot about how there aren't enough firefighters or other resources to get these fires under control. So do officials now have what they need?

[Adrian Florido]

Well, they're now saying that they are staffed and equipped to handle this. Thousands of firefighters have come in from other states, from Mexico and from Canada and are working the fire lines. The governor of California called up a thousand more National Guard troops to help. Dozens of planes and choppers have been dropping water and flame retardant pretty much around the clock. Of course, as we saw last week, a wind and the embers that it carries are what really bring a lot of uncertainty.

[Emy Martinez]

Now as far as the communities that have been hit the hardest, that's Pacific Palisades in Altadena. What's going on there?

[Adrian Florido]

Well, people there are just starting to take stock of all that they've lost and what comes next for them. For the most part, these communities are still off limits even to residents because investigators are going through with cadaver dogs to search for possible victims. Louisiana county is also saying that before debris cleanup can start in these communities, either by county crews or homeowners themselves, that hazmat teams are going to have to go through parcel by parcel to remove toxic waste. At a community meeting yesterday in Altadena, Louisiana's Public Works Director Mark Pastrella said county officials already hearing from people asking when they can get in and start rebuilding. But he said it's way too soon. He did promise that officials are working to streamline the cleanup process and also the construction permitting process that's going to be ahead for a lot of people.

[NPR Correspondent]

We intend to make this as fast as possible to rebuild your homes.

[Adrian Florido]

In the meantime, maybe people are scrambling to find temporary housing and also to figure out whether they're covered by their insurance policies.

[Emy Martinez]

Now, Adrian, my son and granddaughters had to evacuate to my house, even though they're not from an area that has burned. And they're not going back anytime soon, I don't imagine. But have any people have been allowed to return?

[Adrian Florido]

Well, a lot of people in the areas that were under mandatory evacuation orders have not gone back. And the county fire chief said that the conversation about when they will be allowed to return won't start before Thursday. Officials want to be sure that those evacuated communities are no longer at risk of catching fire because these fires are still burning not too far away. Those Santa Ana winds are still blowing also, and Los Angeles is still in an active emergency. All right.

[Emy Martinez]

That's NPR's Adrian Florido. Thanks a lot.

[Adrian Florido]

Thank you.

[Emy Martinez]

A. This is a crucial week in negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

[Steve Inskeep]

Diplomats and Officials from the U.S. israel and Hamas are all in Qatar, not all sitting in the same room, but close by. After 15 months of war, they're trying to be creative in getting some kind of agreement. The goal is to end the fighting and secure the release of Israeli hostages before President Elect Trump takes office on January 20th.

[Emy Martinez]

NPR's Daniel Estrin is on the line from Tel Aviv. So, Daniel, we mentioned people are trying to get creative here. How so?

[Daniel Estrin]

Well, both the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration are working together on this, which is unusual. And they both want the same thing. They want some kind of agreement before President Biden leaves office. Yesterday, Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu there is a an immediate need for a deal. And we've heard Trump many times say if the hostages are not released by his inauguration, there will be, quote, hell to pay. Biden's outgoing ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, told me that Trump is driving the momentum here.

[NPR Correspondent]

I think there's a certain fear of the unknown in terms of what the new administration will do and will say. And there's no daylight between the, you know, the incoming administration, the outgoing administration, in terms of wanting a hostage deal now and pressing all parties to make the concessions that are appropriate to reach that.

[Daniel Estrin]

I spoke with an official with knowledge of the ongoing talks who's not authorized to speak publicly, but who said Trump's team has told Israel that by the inauguration they want either a deal or a declaration of principles, which would be some kind of document that would, you know, lock the sides into a commitment toward a deal.

[Emy Martinez]

What would those principles be?

[Daniel Estrin]

We do know the basic framework of the deal, a Hamas would release around 33 Israeli hostages. A Palestinian official tells NPR this morning that Israel is discussing the release of more than a thousand Palestinian detainees, including 22 people serving life sentences in connection with deadly attacks on Israelis. And those prisoners would be presumably exiled to Turkey, Qatar or Egypt. And during all of this, there would be a six week pause in fighting. There would be a surge of aid to Gaza and more talks about the other hostages and trying to end the war.

[Emy Martinez]

Daniel, there have been talks before, so what are the chances of this one actually succeeding?

[Daniel Estrin]

There is a lot of pressure on all the parties now to move forward. Qatar and Egypt, the two Arab mediators, want good relations with Trump, and so they're putting a lot of pressure on Hamas. A Hamas official not authorized to speak to the media told us that Hamas is trying to show flexibility and that it's proposed several different ways to try to resolve the points of contention. As for Israel, there is a key ally of Prime Minister Netanyahu, the finance minister, who is staunchly opposed to the deal as it's coming out now. But Israel does have motivation to cooperate with Trump on this. Israel wants his help with a couple of big things. It wants Trump's help to pursue diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, and it also wants Trump to potentially support an attack on Iran's nuclear program. So you do see that the talks have reached a crucial phase now. Israel's top security chiefs have traveled to Qatar this weekend to participate. And the president of the Red Cross has come to the region. The Red Cross was the group that facilitated the last hostage prisoner exchange.

[Emy Martinez]

That's NPR's Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv. Daniel, thank you.

[Daniel Estrin]

You're welcome.

[Emy Martinez]

President Biden's Homeland Security secretary is reflecting on four contentious years in office.

[Steve Inskeep]

Yeah. Alejandro Mayorkas oversaw border security and immigration. Big issues in President elect Trump's vis victory in November.

[Alejandro Mayorkas]

I don't think we prevailed in communicating to the American people successfully the challenges of migration at an historic level since World War II.

[Steve Inskeep]

Mayorkas said that here in Studio 31 during an exit interview.

[Emy Martinez]

And you spoke to him, Steve, so how did he defend his work on the southern border?

[Steve Inskeep]

Well, he argued the administration's record is stronger than they managed to get across before the election. And it is true a that a key number that the Border patrol uses is way down encounters with people at the border, which is a way to try to get an idea of whether things are going up or down. There was a it's way down. There was, of course, though, a huge surge in asylum seekers back in 20, 23. So it's down from that. High level America says the US Is also sending away asylum seekers who do not have a strong claim to stay here. How many people have you deported, say, in the last year?

[Alejandro Mayorkas]

I believe the number is well over 250,000, a very significant number.

[Steve Inskeep]

Is that higher than it would have been a few years ago then?

[Alejandro Mayorkas]

Yes, it is. And we have built that capacity and we've built those processes.

[Steve Inskeep]

It's worth noting here that while Republicans criticized the administration for not doing anything, immigrant rights groups sometimes said the administration was being too harsh. And Mayorkas is a former prosecutor. He's effectively saying here the Biden administration ultimately has delivered the border security that Republicans ran on, and now a Republican.

[Emy Martinez]

Administration'S about to take over. How's he viewing them?

[Steve Inskeep]

Well, he knows that Republicans plan to pass a border security bill, which they refused to do last year. He knows that Republicans plan a lot more than border security. They plan mass deportations. Although let's talk about where we are now. He says the US Already deported a quarter million people in the past year. He says if you expand that number, you're gonna need a lot more resources. And you may also face some moral questions.

[Emy Martinez]

And what are those moral questions?

[Steve Inskeep]

Well, there are a lot of painful scenarios in sending people away. And some of them invol mixed status families. U.S. citizens in a household with people here illegally, like parents who had children in the United States, for example.

[Emy Martinez]

Now, I do remember President elect Trump talked about them before.

[Steve Inskeep]

Yeah, he did the other day on NBC. Said he doesn't want to break up the family, so he wants to send them all back to whatever country. Mayorkas talked us through the brutal realities of that law. Biden, he says, tried to keep mixed status families together inside the United States. Republicans sued. Courts threw that out. So if you're going to keep the family together, the remaining option is to make everybody leave, even US Citizens. Let's listen.

[Alejandro Mayorkas]

They would be accompanying deported relatives, sometimes the very relatives upon whom they rely to live.

[Steve Inskeep]

Would they have any legal defense against that situation?

[Alejandro Mayorkas]

They would not. Presumably, the removal, the deportation of the individuals would be pursuant to law. That's a very difficult choice and some would posit in some ways an inhumane choice to compel.

[Steve Inskeep]

He says it's not something the Biden administration wanted to do, but that a new president has said he is determined to try and I find it useful at this moment a just to kind of get a baseline on where we start here because the Biden administration did ramp up deportations, did ramp up border security at the very end. And so that's the point at which the Trump administration begins promising massive changes.

[Emy Martinez]

I wonder if he felt like he's accomplished everything he wanted to do.

[Steve Inskeep]

He did not say that he did. I think that he sees this as a continuing process and he did everything that he could.

[Emy Martinez]

All right, Steve, thanks.

[Steve Inskeep]

Glad to do it.

[Emy Martinez]

And that's a first for Monday, January 13th. I'm Emy Martinez.

[Steve Inskeep]

And I'm Steve Inskeep. You know, we had up first give you three big stories of the day like we just did. Our colleagues at consider this take a different approach, diving into a single story and what it means to you. Also in just 12, 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Emy Martinez]

Today's episode of up first was edited by Gigi Duban, Jerome Sokolovsky, Adriana Gallardo, Lisa Thompson and Alice Wolfens, produced by Zia Butch, Nia Dumas and Iman Maani. We get engineering support from Arthur Laurent, and our technical director is Zach Coleman. Join us again tomorrow.

[Steve Inskeep]

Okay.

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