Court Rules On Hygiene For Migrant Children, San Diego Cybersecurity Concerns, Dance Nation

Speaker 1: 00:00 Today we're going to start the show talking about immigration. First, California filed another lawsuit against the Trump administration this time over the administration's new public charge rule, which could block immigrants who use public assistance from becoming permanent residents. Here's California Attorney General Javier Bissera. Just this morning Speaker 2: 00:20 in California, the economic engine for the nation. We know that we cannot afford to sit back. While this administration targets programs that children and families across our state rely on and we know that welcoming and investing in all of our communities makes our state and our entire nation stronger. We will fight this unlawful rule every step of the way. Speaker 1: 00:44 California's legal action follows similar lawsuits filed by other states over the new public charge rule. The rule is set to go into effect in October. Meanwhile, a three judge panel of the Ninth U S Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday dismissed an appeal by the Trump administration and upheld a lower court ruling that says the government must provide food, clean water, and basic hygiene items to migrant children being held in detention. KPBS reporter Max Riverland Adler has been following the story and joins us now. Max. Welcome. Hi. So can you explain what the Trump administration was appealing and what this three judge panel ruled? Speaker 3: 01:24 The Trump administration was appealing a 2017 decision that basically modified a 1997 settlement that the government reached with advocates for migrant children in detention. This 2017 ruling essentially said that basically this agreement that the government had entered into included sanitation issues for children as well as their safety. So that would be blankets, toothbrushes, shampoo, soap, the government then spend the last two years appealing that decision all the way to the ninth circuit, basically saying, uh, because the judge didn't spell it out in the original settlement, we don't necessarily have to provide people the, again, people meaning children with these requirements. You know, again, we're talking about blankets and soap, these basic necessities, basic necessities. Yeah. Speaker 1: 02:13 So what was the government's defense for not having to provide these basic hygiene items? Speaker 3: 02:19 The government was basically saying, we didn't think that part of safety and sanitation included a warm blanket, not keeping people in freezing cold cells or you know, necessarily giving them clean drinking water because these weren't specifically enumerated in the original settlement. We don't have to provide them with it. In fact, I'm a judge of the judges on the panel of three judges that they faced back in June. A judge scolded them about this argument that they were making. Speaker 4: 02:47 It's within everybody's common understanding that, you know, if you don't have a toothbrush, if you don't have, so if you don't have a blanket, it's not safe in Santa Fe. Well, wouldn't everybody agree to that? You do you agree Speaker 5: 03:00 with that? Well, I think it's, I think those are, there's fair reason to find that those things may be part of savings are Speaker 1: 03:11 so what does the ruling mean for kids who are being held along the border? Speaker 3: 03:16 So the ruling doesn't necessarily mean much without any proper enforcement. So right now, given the influx of children along the border and the conditions they're being kept in border patrol, they are not meeting the obligations of the Flores settlement agreement. And so what the judge would like to do from the 2017 decision is send in people to inspect and determine and maybe, um, sanction the federal government for not providing these types of, um, requirements as per the agreement for the children. But currently they are not receiving any of these, you know, particulars that the judges enumerated. Um, at the moment. And, and we've seen this play out over the past few months. Basically the situation that these children are kept in, which would be freezing cold sells, 'em space blankets, these kind of tinfoil looking blankets, lack of access to clean water. And of course, you know, just the general fact that the lights are kept on 24 hours a day so the kids cannot sleep. Speaker 1: 04:16 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco also ruled this morning that an injunction barring the Trump administration's latest asylum restrictions, uh, doesn't apply to the entire border. Can you explain what the judges said? Speaker 3: 04:28 So this applies to a rule that was announced last month that basically said if you are somebody looking to claim asylum and you enter the United States before and before then you traveled through a third country. So meaning you did not take a flight or you did not take a boat directly to the u s you went through Mexico or like a lot of asylum seekers. You went through several south and Central American countries before arriving in the u s you have to apply for asylum at one of the, in one of those countries. And not only that, that asylum process has to play out and can be completed before you're allowed to apply for asylum in the u s uh, late last month they were two separate on the same day decisions handed down by the federal courts. One in DC, one in California, the one in California decided that it was going to be, um, that, that this rule would need to not take effect. Speaker 3: 05:21 It would be a nationwide injunction and the one in DC said that this rule could move forward. Now, the question was whether that ruling in d c in California would be allowed to take effect nationwide. The government appealed and today the ninth circuit said that it would not be allowed to take effect nationwide. It would only be in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is California, Arizona among other western states. So now you have a split circuit decision where basically the law will be different in a state like Texas, which is a different circuit court, then it will be in California. Speaker 1: 05:55 So then what are some of the practical implications of this ruling for migrants heading to the u s Mexico Speaker 3: 06:01 border? So if you are crossing the border today and a place like you know, Juarez and you are trying to enter into El Paso, you could be denied entry by an asylum officer at the port of entry because you didn't apply for asylum outside, uh, in another country that you transited through the same migrant. If they were to come to, to Quanta and try to cross into Santa CGO there, they would not have to meet that requirement. They wouldn't have had to apply for asylum. In a third country before entering, whether the government is going to apply this, we don't know because the asylum officers have not yet been given guidance, uh, after this new ruling. So I want to, we definitely want to pay attention to how this plays out. And then on top of that, there are a few kind of other legal moves that people trying to strike down the rule could make. But definitely what you have now is a separate asylum system in separate parts of the country. Speaker 1: 06:59 All right. I've been speaking with Max Rib Adler who's been covering this for KPBS Max, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. music Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego officials are investing in new technologies to help the city become more advanced. But as science and technology reporters, Shelina Chop Mani explains these innovations, create questions about cybersecurity and individual privacy on a bustling downtown San Diego street passers by, probably aren't thinking about streetlights for the that, but they have cameras. But when resident Brian Walker did start thinking about it, he had [inaudible] Speaker 2: 00:26 question. So it's like what's the purpose? And like who, who's the company that is the third party source that's doing all this monitoring and what is their intentions in the first place? Speaker 1: 00:36 Eric Caldwell, director of economic development for San Diego says it's only the city that's collecting data from the smart technologies it's deploying and the intention he says is to help the city save money and become more efficient. Speaker 2: 00:49 It's about taking information that you already have and putting sensors into the urban environment, sensors into your workflow so that you're getting near real time data that helps you make better decisions. Speaker 1: 01:03 In recent years, the city has installed around 3000 smart street lights with plans to install a thousand more. Caldwell says the lights can show how many people or bikes go by, what's the temperature outside or even driver patterns and communities. Speaker 2: 01:19 That's really critical information in terms of understanding how changes we're making to mobility. Infrastructure is actually being utilized by the public. Speaker 1: 01:29 But the idea of a smart city doesn't appeal to all. There are two concerns. One is how does the city physically secure data that it's collecting? Darren Bennett, chief information security officer for the city of San Diego attended a u s chamber of Commerce Cyber Security Conference in San Diego last month. He says the city is always trying to stay ahead on security from a hardware perspective. Speaker 3: 01:52 Dev, we you follow best practices for security. We use different security standards. Um, we have a third party auditor come in and uh, you know, monitor our work, evaluate if, if we're up to standards. We also know what our critical data is and where it is and protected accordingly. But he says it's impossible to stay ahead of every possibility. There is no perfect entity, you know, there, I always joke that it's an unfair game, right? You know you have a limited number of security professionals trying to secure an entity and then you basically have almost an unlimited number of foreign hackers that are trying to get in and there's a second concern that was brought up at the same conference by [inaudible] Speaker 1: 02:33 Adam Boleo of the consulting company, Deloitte who moderated a panel of these smart cities, San Diego gonna change the way we live and how do we prepare for them to manage the risks that are going to be a submission. One sentence touched the smart city in proper perspective. It's basically security versus civil liberties. ECS, Ds, Gordon Romney says the reality of imperfect security paired with the collection of personal data is concerning [inaudible] the real problem. How do we maintain the sanctity of the individual and their privacy? Back at the city administration building, Eric Caldwell says San Diego takes both physical and personal security. Seriously, it's doing that by not only investing in it technology that's secure, but also by being cautious about what type of data is being collected in the first place. For example, he says the streetlights are just collecting metadata. It's just Speaker 2: 03:25 numbers. It's not telling you who walked by. It's not telling you where they were going. It's not following people around the city. It's not providing raw video data. Speaker 1: 03:36 This data he says is intended to help the city create helpful tools. And though he says it's only the city that's handling this data, some residents like Brian Walker still feel scared, Speaker 2: 03:48 too cold. So it's like, what are they doing with the other portion of the data? You know, are they selling it to other people that are data mining people's everyday lives? Cause that's kind of weird and creepy Speaker 1: 03:59 for KPBS news. I'm Shalina Celani Speaker 4: 04:11 [inaudible]. music Speaker 1: 00:00 Moxie theaters strives to showcase women playwrights. And this weekend they opened Claire Barron's dance nation. KPBS arts reporter about doc Amando speaks with the plays director Jennifer Thorne. Jennifer, you have a new play opening this weekend dance nation. Tell me a little bit about what this plays about. Dance nation tells the story of a competitive dance team of 12 and 13 year old girls and one boy there from Liverpool, Ohio and they are climbing their way to the nationals competition. Okay. Now when you mentioned dance and that age, I always conjure up an image from Donnie Darko and sparkle nation. Is this the kind of world we're entering into? I think in a way that you sort of are, there's definitely a lot of sparkle and for anyone who may have ever seen the reality TV show dance moms, the playwright was sort of obsessed with that. And so that makes its way into some of the play for sure. Speaker 1: 00:56 Now it is sort of inspired by these reality, this reality TV show. But what is the play really about? Is it, what is it kind of, uh, trying to tackle by using this as kind of the core of the story? I think what Claire Barron, the playwright is really telling a story about is success, ambition and desire and specifically how we think about those things in women. And I think that the, the recent success of the women's us soccer team and how they were really shamed for celebrating their victory is sort of a great way to think about some of the, the things that are getting touched on in the play in a really fun way. The playwright included some instructions in terms of things that you need to be considering when you're putting on a production of this. What were some of the directives that she gave? Speaker 1: 01:45 So one of my favorite things that she requests is that all the 12 and 13 year old dancers are played by adult actors. And so our cast ranges in age from their twenties to their sixties and I think that she does that because it's sort of hard when you are 12 and 13 to have perspective about this horrible and powerful age. And something about the distance that these actors have from that age really gives us the chance to feel what it's like to be that age again. And was there also direction in terms of whether use dancers in this [inaudible] is called dance nation, but um, are you supposed to have talented and skilled dancers in this? I think it's really funny. She, she includes a note right at the end that says that that you could do the play with dancers, but that she thinks it's much more fun for the audience if the actors are not dancers. Speaker 1: 02:43 And so while some of our cast, like all actors has movement and some dance experience, they are not by trade dancers and she's the playwrights, right? It really makes it more fun to watch these people who have had to learn these extensive dance routines, uh, in the same way that you or I would have to learn if, as, as people who don't walk through life as dancers from scratch. And it makes it sort of powerful and joyful to watch them use their bodies and awaken that dancer inside of them. And why did you feel you wanted to stage this play? Right now it's Moxys 15th anniversary season and uh, this play was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Uh, Claire Barron is an ob award winning playwright. And this play, while it sounds really fun and is really fun, is an incredible, powerful exploration of, of women's voices at such an important age. Speaker 1: 03:39 And it felt like the best way for us to celebrate such an important anniversary. And for people who may not be familiar with Moxie, what is kind of your mission statement? What fuels your passion for putting on plays? Our mission is to create more diverse and honest images of women for our culture. And one of the primary ways we do that is through the production of female playwrights. And we do that in part because there's a big disparity in a American theater, uh, still, uh, since, uh, even since our founding between the production of male and female playwrights. Uh, but also because by, by focusing on women's work, it allows us to explore the incredible breadth of what women are writing about. And so fans of ours know that when you come to a show, you don't know what you're going to see. You don't know if it's going to be wild, you don't know if it's going to be sweet, you don't know if it's going to be vulgar. Speaker 1: 04:32 It's always a surprise. But that's, that's what women are. We are, we're diverse and uh, unique. And so as their work. And for you, you're directing this, you're also the artistic director at Moxie. What about this particular play did you find most attractive and also most challenging? I think that the first thing that drew me to it is that I myself feel like 12 and 13 years old for me was just a train wreck. It was horrible. There's no age I would, I would, I would re-experience any part of my childhood or adult self if I could skip 12 and 13 and then at the same time I feel like that was also sort of the dawning of something really powerful that I've only now began, begun to understand. And I have a daughter who's 11 and going into junior high and I'm watching her start to see her power. Speaker 1: 05:28 And uh, so I was attracted to the story for that reason. And also because the play has these incredible artistic challenges. And you mentioned this is the 15 anniversary for Moxy, but it's also another kind of anniversary for you, a at your location on Oklahoma Boulevard. That's true. We've been there now for a decade in our space. Uh, we are one of San Diego's finest strip mall theaters, I like to say, but we're really proud of where we're located. Uh, part of our location means that we are really accessible, not just physically accessible. Our parking is free, which is great, but also financially accessible. We really pride ourselves on being financially accessible to people. And so our ticket prices, because of our location, we're able to keep them low. All right, well, I want to thank you very much for coming in and talking about dance nation. Thank you for having me. That was Beth AHCA. Mando speaking with Moxie theaters. Jennifer Thorn Dance Nation opens this weekend and runs through September 15th.