Judge Orders US To Stop Expelling Unaccompanied Children Who Cross Border

Speaker 1: 00:01 Humanitarian claims of immigrant minors will now be heard in court Speaker 2: 00:05 In San Diego. There's been around 50 unaccompanied children per month sent back to Mexico or their country of origin. Speaker 1: 00:12 I'm wearing Cavenaugh with Mark sour. This is KPBS mid-day edition. The county's new board is getting set to tackle a climate action plan. That's just like Groundhog's day. It has been granted on this day. We just have to keep revisiting and COVID shutdowns take a big hit on San Diego. So arts and culture nonprofits that's ahead on midday edition. Speaker 3: 01:01 You're listening to midday edition on KPBS. I'm Mark Sauer with Maureen Kavanaugh. Our top story today, a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to stop expelling minors seeking asylum in the U S since March, the administration is sent back to Mexico or other countries, an estimated 200,000 border crossers, including thousands of youngsters under age 16, traveling alone, joining me to discuss the broad implications of this ruling is KPBS reporter max Ribble and Nadler. Max, welcome back to the program. Thanks for having me. So this ruling by federal judge Emmett Sullivan in Washington, DC, it requires the government to once again, processed the humanitarian claims of minors crossing the border alone. What does that mean? Speaker 2: 01:46 So under this program that was started shortly after the beginning of the pandemic in, in March, as it spread across the country. Uh, everyone even I'm accompanied minors for the most part were sent back to Mexico within a few minutes. Uh, you know, as short as, as an hour and a half even, um, or if not a few hours, uh, but it was a very quick process. People were fingerprinted, they were Aidid and they were sent back. Um, and this led to situations where young people, as young as three, four, five were sent back into Mexico, um, sometimes when they're not even Mexican, if they're from a central American country as well. So what this ruling now says is that they actually will get a hearing on the credible fear of where they're leaving from. And there'll be placed in a holding facility before they're immediately deported. So we have across this country, as we know, from previous humanitarian crises, along the Southern border, uh, several places where we can hold young people. Uh, these are quasi detention facilities for the most part. Uh, some are hotels, but young people can stay there, uh, for months or for weeks or months as their asylum case gets sorted out. Speaker 3: 02:57 The Trump administration used a public health to initiate this policy. When the pandemic started explain that Speaker 2: 03:03 Right at the beginning of the pandemic in March, the Trump administration used a CDC order, basically this old law that had been on the books for some time to say that the government has the right to expel people who might have contagious diseases. They then basically applied that to the entire Southern border and said that anybody who is coming, who does not have authorization to enter the United States who doesn't have a green card or a visa cannot enter the United States, including those seeking asylum. Speaker 3: 03:33 And this was a 19th century law under which the Trump administration initiated the policy of not allowing due process of minors, asylum claims explain the judge's decision regarding that law. Right? Speaker 2: 03:44 The judge was basically saying that they had taken this title 42, which is in a larger CDC code and really expanded it into something that it wasn't, especially when it comes to minors, which is not allowing them to have their due process rights when it comes to asylum claims. So he says, you know, this is just making it a much larger rule than it is because they're taking away large precedents of asylum law. And, and basically other rulings about how we treat young people, uh, who will show up at the border. And this has been a point of contention, like I said, for more than a decade now, ever since young people started showing up in really high numbers in the early Obama administration. Speaker 3: 04:25 Now this action was brought by the American civil liberties union. It was on behalf of a Guatemalan teenager. What argument did the ACLU make? Speaker 2: 04:33 This Guatemalan teenager was set to be removed shortly after they entered the United States and the ACLU, uh, which had been looking for a pointer for some time to challenge this, uh, found him, went to a magistrate judge in Texas and basically got to stay on that removal by saying that it would circumvent his right to have a credible fear interview, as well as his rights as a young person. Um, who's under 18 as a minor. So it went to a magistrate judge in Texas. The Texas judge agreed it stopped his removal and this larger ruling, which takes effect nationwide. It comes from this judge in DC who was acting off of the case of this Guatemalan teenager and the ACLU. His argument was you can't ignore this years and years of litigation just because you have this very expansive interpretation of a CDC subsection code, Speaker 3: 05:23 But the ruling as it stands now does not apply to adults crossing the border seeking asylum here, right? No hearings for them, Speaker 2: 05:30 For adults. There are other current policies in place which would allow very quick removal even without this title 42 code that they're citing. So, um, basically I think the priority was placed on the young people who we don't know exactly how many have been sent back. We have an idea that basically over 8,000 kids have been sent expelled across the entire border. That was a as of September and around in San Diego, there's been around 50 children per month sent back to Mexico or their country of origin, uh, since March. But this is incomplete data because we're relying almost solely on the government. And we're hearing from the other side of the border, that there's a lot more people just being sent back or pushed back to the other side without any documentation. Speaker 3: 06:15 Now, what impact might this really have on the number of people showing up at border crossing, seeking asylum, and after all Mexico central America are racked by COVID-19. Their economies are really struggling and places like Nicaragua have been belted by multiple hurricanes, Speaker 2: 06:30 Right? This current administration has done nothing to alleviate the circumstances that people are trying to leave from in central America. It's been just basically a suppression tactic trying to work with Mexico to make sure that, uh, it's militarized at Southern border to make sure that people can't make it to the United States. That's made great business for traffickers human traffickers to come and take people across the Southern border. So the basic idea here is that for the next couple of months, especially because of these natural disasters, the footage coming out of Nicaragua is horrifying. Um, people are still going to be leaving these countries and coming to the Southern border and just basically pushing them back into Mexico is not going to solve anything. Speaker 3: 07:09 And finally, some observers say this presents a challenge for the incoming Biden administration regarding the rise of migrants at the border seeking asylum. Uh, what do they mean by that? Speaker 2: 07:19 Right. So the Biden administration is going to have to ultimately decide whether they're going to lift title 42. Um, that's not going to be easy, right? Because you want to do it in a way that doesn't lead to a rush on the border. Even if you're planning on allowing as many people to come in as possible to get credible fear interviews, that takes a lot of manpower. And a lot of these institutions have been kind of stripped to the bone under the Trump administration, especially the asylum system has been taken apart. You'd have to rebuild it almost from scratch. Uh, so that's going to take a while. So a lot of people don't see this as a flip of the switch. They're seeing this as a multi-year effort by the Biden administration. And there are some things that they might actually keep from the Trump administration that had even been formulated during the Obama administration that they'd want to say, see, stick around, especially when it comes to central America. Speaker 3: 08:07 Well, lots to see how this is going to play out. I've been speaking with KPBS reporter max Rivlin Nadler. Thanks max. Thank you. Speaker 4: 08:25 This is KPBS mid day edition. I'm Maureen Kavanaugh with Mark Sauer. San Diego County is already working on another climate action plan, hoping they can come up with one that stands up to legal scrutiny, KPBS environment reporter Eric Anderson says there will be a new perspective on the board of supervisors after the latest effort flamed out this past summer, San Diego County is already put together for climate action plans. Each a spectacular failure. It's just like Speaker 5: 08:56 Groundhog's day. It has been Groundhog's day. I mean, we just have to keep running Speaker 6: 09:00 The climate action campaigns. Nicole capper, it says the County has been pushed by the state. California law requires all counties to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas they put into the year. But none of the counties, previous climate action plans survived legal scrutiny, Speaker 5: 09:16 Defiant, I mean purely defiant, um, and didn't care what the state law said. And so despite what the court kept saying, like, that's not okay. They just kept doing the same thing. So here we are, Speaker 6: 09:28 Environmental advocates say they've shared their views about what will work with the County, but each final plan failed to include their input. Speaker 5: 09:37 That's always been the crux of the problem. They really had their own game plan in mind. And so they were kind of having perfunctory public process, but they really, at the end of the day, wanted to continue to allow growth in the back country to continue to allow sprawl. And if we're going to continue to sprawl, we can't meet state climate goals. Speaker 6: 09:57 One major issue is vehicle miles traveled. That's how the state measures of greenhouse gas emissions are getting airborne. County officials have a general plan that aims to limit increases in vehicle miles traveled by locating new housing near existing services. But the County has approved 14, large developments in rural areas. Speaker 5: 10:19 Just stop pretending we can continue to develop. Speaker 6: 10:23 Even the state of California has warned the County that those sprawled developments would hurt the state's ability to hit its 2030 goal to roll back greenhouse gas emissions. We need to embrace the climate change is real. Nathan Fletcher is a member of the board of supervisors. Speaker 7: 10:38 We need to embrace that. We not only have a legal buddy moral obligation to have a climate action plan that addresses that. And I believe that early January, uh, this board will make a definitive statement, uh, to that end and begin to implement that. Speaker 6: 10:53 So we do have a motion by supervisor Jacob. Second by supervisor. The reason for that shift is tied to the election. For the first time in years, the board of supervisors will have a three to two Democrat. Majority things are changing and it will not be business as usual superior court. Judge Timothy Taylor has ruled on a number of climate action plans and housing developments in the County. Speaker 7: 11:15 My hope is that as a board, as we move forward, uh, judge Taylor won't have anything to do because this County has kept that judge incredibly busy over the course of the last decade. And we've lost every single lawsuit because we've had the wrong, Speaker 6: 11:27 That wrong approach has created financial incentives for builders to buy rural land and then seek exceptions to County development rules. Speaker 7: 11:37 If you can take land that is not appropriate to build housing in the general plan does not allow for housing. It has very little value. If you purchase that land for very, very little value and you jam through a general plan amendment, you can reap tremendous financial gain. And so we've physicalized and incentivized folks to fight for decades to put housing in the room. Speaker 6: 11:56 KPBS reached out to the building industry association, several times seeking comment. They did not respond to those inquiries. The trade group has successfully lobbied the board to approve developments that do not follow the general plan because they say those developments will ease a regional housing shortage. But if builders continue to push for housing in the back country, environmentalist say they have to compensate for the resulting impacts. Locally Speaker 7: 12:23 Developers really need to take a look and see how they can offset all of these products. Speaker 6: 12:30 The local Sierra club's Richard Miller says if developments cause more greenhouse gas emissions, the people who build those projects should be responsible for balancing the scales Speaker 7: 12:39 By doing some very simple things like adding solar, possibly preserving the land that's around them, building electrification. So there are ways that they can reach a net zero on a lot of buildings. Speaker 6: 12:54 Meanwhile, County staff are looking to build a climate action plan that will finally be resilient to legal challenges. That includes discussions with the environmentalist. Speaker 4: 13:06 Joining me is KPBS environment reporter Eric Anderson, Eric. Welcome my pleasure. Marine environmentalist. Say the board just did it again. The outgoing members of the County board of supervisors joined together yesterday to approve another major development. Oh, OTI ranch, village 13 located Northeast of Chula Vista. So is this another lawsuit waiting to happen? Speaker 6: 13:31 Well, I'm not, uh, good at prognosticating, uh, when it comes to whether or not there's going to be legal action, but I can say that the attorney general of the state of California urge the County not to approve this proposed OTI ranch development, because he has serious concerns about the fire risks. He doesn't feel that the changes they made to the project were enough to mitigate what he saw as a risk to people. And, um, he also doesn't feel that there's an adequate evacuation plan in the event of a fire. So, um, there are some serious, clearly stated concerns from the state of California that may or may not lead into a legal challenge. Speaker 4: 14:14 One of the ongoing problems the County has had in trying to get these developments through is convincing the court about its carbon offset program. Can you remind us briefly what that is? Speaker 6: 14:28 Sure. It's a pretty easy concept or to kind of get your hands around it. Once you start to look at it logically basically what the courts are saying is that, look, if you're going to build new housing, if you're going to build new projects that are going to generate greenhouse gas emissions, then you're going to have to find a way to kind of balance the scales. You can't just build an add those greenhouse gas emissions to the overall total in the state. Uh, the state is looking to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions and, uh, they want developers who are building projects to be able to mitigate for those projects, basically offset any kind of an impact you have. And what the issue is is if you put four or 5,000 homes or into the back country, those people have to drive to work. They have to drive to schools, they have to drive to jobs and that creates greenhouse gas emissions. So moving the development further away from existing development creates a bigger greenhouse gas burden. And that's really what the state is saying. Look, if you do that, make sure that you can, you can balance for that development. Speaker 4: 15:38 Is there any way that offsets could work to allow housing to be built in undeveloped areas of the County? Speaker 6: 15:46 The people I've talked to with say, yeah, they could. Um, but, uh, but the thing you have to understand is, is the burden is significantly heavier. If you move the development further away from existing urban infrastructure. So those 5,000 homes, if they were built in the core of San Diego, probably don't generate the kind of greenhouse gas emissions that they would if they're built somewhere in the back country and it would make it easier for the County to, and the developer to meet that goal. And I think that's the message that, that, uh, state officials are trying to get across. And I'm not quite sure it's, it's quite penetrated at least at the County supervisors level as of yet. Speaker 4: 16:29 Well, what kinds of things might the new board of supervisors consider as part of a new County climate action plan? Speaker 6: 16:36 Sure. The new board of supervisors of course, is going to be, uh, dominated by Democrats for the first time, uh, beginning in January. And, uh, we talked to Nathan Fletcher about this. Um, he's fairly confident that the board will, uh, relatively quickly say, look, if you're going to ask for, you know, an exception to the county's general plan to build somewhere in a rural area, you really need to carry the water on that and show that you can balance the greenhouse gas emissions, um, show that you can make sure that, that, that is environmentally sound before they're willing to give you that. Okay. Um, it's not clear whether or not they can go back and unapprove projects that may get approved between now and January. Uh, but they will certainly from January moving forward, likely have a different approach than what the current board of supervisors, which has dominated by Republicans has. Speaker 4: 17:34 So is it your sense that most development will be halted until the County approves a new climate action plan? Speaker 6: 17:42 Uh, really hard to say, uh, there is ongoing development now, uh, that doesn't require a supervisor's approval because it's in the confines of the general plan. There's a project up in Valley center. Uh, several hundred homes are being built right next to a major freeway. So it's right within services. It's inside the general plan. No lawsuit is on that project. It's going to add housing to the County. Um, it's just going to conform to, uh, what County planners were, were looking at when they considered, uh, the boundaries of their general plan development. Speaker 4: 18:18 When is it likely that supervisors might have a new climate action plan in place? Speaker 6: 18:24 Um, that's kind of hard to say, but they do need to have one, um, they're 10 years behind if you will. Uh, they were supposed to have one 10 years ago. Uh, the state is trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels. Um, and they need all the municipalities in the state of California to participate. So it's just a matter of, uh, the County staff, you know, deciding on what they want to do. And, uh, you know, hopefully this time finding a plan that will stand up to legal scrutiny and then the supervisors, uh, adopting that plan. Speaker 4: 18:58 I've been speaking with KPBS environment, reporter Eric Anderson and Eric. Thank you always a pleasure, Maureen, you're listening to KPBS midday edition. Speaker 8: 19:10 Um, Speaker 4: 19:16 This is KPBS mid day edition. I'm Maureen Cavenaugh with Mark Sauer, new research from university of San Diego's nonprofit Institute. And the commission for arts and culture shows that the arts and culture sector is particularly hard hit by COVID shutdowns, more so than any other nonprofit sector in the region with shifting demands, loss of program, revenue, donations, and funding, plus unprecedented cuts and furloughs. We're seeing an industry in crisis KPBS arts editor and producer Julia Dixon Evans spoke with one of the authors of the study, Laura Dietrich associate director of the nonprofit Institute. Speaker 8: 19:57 Laura, let's start with the staggering 95% of organizations reporting a loss of program related revenue sector wide, total loss of $96.6 million 79.4 million of that from programs. So admission and tickets classes, et cetera. What have you found across the arts and culture sector in San Diego and how does it compare to other sectors? Speaker 9: 20:23 Well, in particular arts and culture organizations are what we call high contact or close proximity organizations, right? So they are, um, interacting with people on a regular basis. So they have a more difficult time shifting their programs online. Other nonprofits have been more successful at that. Although arts and culture organizations are figuring it out, if you're tied to a building, um, and people coming into your building to experience your art or your performance, you know, over 90% of organizations in our survey, um, as a September one we're closed or only partially open. So they're just unable to generate revenue in the same ways that some other kinds of non-profits are able to do so, especially because they rely so much on that face-to-face interaction Speaker 8: 21:11 And artists by nature, creative and problem solvers. And we saw some quick pivots in the industry and a community that's pretty hungry for art, whether for healing or escape. And I spoke with Jennifer Eve Thorne of Moxie theater who had pivoted to virtual programs almost right away. Speaker 5: 21:32 I have had to be innovative in a way that I think theater hasn't been forced to be in a long time. And the, the cycle of innovation for theaters is speeding up. And so what's really been cool is finding a way to continue to make art, to reach and educate audiences about how to access it and realizing that this may be the solution to access to the arts, uh, that was really missing and, and making theater, uh, something that was only available to a minority of people who could afford it. Speaker 8: 22:13 Are these digital or virtual programs sustainable for organizations? Speaker 9: 22:19 Well, one thing we see in the data is they are certainly an option. Um, and as the Moxie theater demonstrated, they were able to pivot quickly smaller organizations in our research tended to be able to move their programming online, or even figure out ways to do things creatively outside or, um, you know, in venues that were open. So in that respect, those organizations, um, tended to do well. The ones that were much more tied to big buildings, um, or, you know, halls and things like that. That's, it's just a much tougher scenario. I mean, if you think of, in about Comicon, right, Comicon is a arts and culture organization on profit in San Diego, a huge one, uh, you know, they could not host Comicon this year. Um, they did a digital platform, but it was simply, you know, not quite the same, I think, as having all those folks at costume downtown Speaker 8: 23:16 And the sector also saw what you had called an unprecedented four in 10 layoffs or furloughs. And in this industry, particularly in the performing arts, we see, um, major use of independent contractors. And I spoke to AIG knocks of new village arts theater, a smaller nonprofit in Carlsbad who said this was their biggest hit by far, and here's their experience or shows our bread and butter. And so Speaker 10: 23:46 Without those, without those events, we, we really don't have, uh, a way to generate that same level of income, you know, on the flip side to employ the same number of artists and technicians and designers. And throughout the course of a year, a season, we could employ, you know, around 250 different people for various jobs. Speaker 8: 24:08 Laura, what's the impact here on independent contractors or shorter term gig style employees, whether at a place like new village arts or a comic con something bigger. Speaker 9: 24:19 Well, in our study, we saw that several thousand gig workers, contracts had been canceled as a result of COVID-19 the survey respondents told us that. So the begs, the larger question, you know, that's more unemployment in the region Speaker 8: 24:36 And shifting gears to philanthropy and individual donors, you showed that 65% of organizations reported a reduction in donor contributions. Again, here is Jennifer Eve, thorn of Moxie. Speaker 9: 24:50 And when this all first happened, there was an outpouring of support. And I think that as this continues, as our doors continue to remain closed, what I hope won't happen is that people will feel like they gave a year ago to support this arts organization because of the pandemic because of COVID and, and now they, they can't give again. And I understand that that might happen because there's so many, there's so many things to give to right now that are deserving. Speaker 8: 25:22 Laura, what did you find about COVID impact on philanthropy? Are people still giving but differently? Speaker 9: 25:29 Yeah, definitely. We see patterns of this both locally and, um, in a national poll that we just conducted with Luth research where donors are reporting about 50% of donors are saying they're giving, they're giving isn't changing, but at the other 50% are saying we are changing our giving. Um, and we're changing the kinds of organizations that we're giving to. And in those cases, we were definitely seeing a falloff in giving to arts and culture organizations and a preference for more immediate need kinds of organizations like food banks and, um, you know, health services, things related to COVID. So the other problem, I think that organizations are having is initially, although, uh, the previous speaker talked about an outpouring of support, I'm really glad for them. I don't think that's been the case across all arts or cultural organizations, especially those that are smaller, that don't have access to digital fundraising platforms who really relied on face-to-face fundraising opportunities. They were definitely, um, shuttered and sidelined, and I think I've felt a real impact in terms of being able to attract individual donations. Speaker 8: 26:40 And you're seeing that the impacts the pandemic on the arts may stick around for a while, like with a reduction of demand, for example, what are some of the factors that will make this a long lasting impact? Speaker 9: 26:53 Well, I think it's the same as it is for a lot of institutions. Just figuring out how to open, how to open safely the cost of reopening in this study, the participants estimated the cost of reopening to be $65 million just to get buildings, opening, functioning, working, um, and then to hire back employees who maybe have moved on to other, um, to other opportunities for work. So reopening the arts and culture sector will be, it will be difficult and it will be a longer term thing than just sort of flipping on the switch and opening the doors. Speaker 8: 27:27 And maybe artists are also optimist by nature, but time and again, I see organizations taking the time to check priorities or work on things like equity. Here's Debra, [inaudible] the museum of photographic arts with some insight to their approach to looking forward and looking ahead. Speaker 9: 27:47 So what we've been doing is trying to figure out what a nonprofit museum looks like in these kinds of circumstances. We've had to learn to evolve and think differently, not just about how we function now, but what we're going to be when we reopen, because any nonprofits they're going to be the same only just with a delay schooling themselves. Speaker 8: 28:15 And these findings overall are really grim, but I'm wondering what else you've seen, like MOBAs outlook here that can suggest some sort of hope for the arts and culture sector, Speaker 9: 28:29 Sort of the flip side of the coin of a large disaster. Like this is that you have opportunity to innovate. And we have seen it all across the nonprofit sector, not just in the arts and culture sector, a lot of innovative approaches to collaboration, new ways of doing things. It's really kind of opened up folks, eyes to the opportunities through the tech world. You know, I would say that if you just drive around San Diego, you can see that arts culture, humanities just seemed drained in our city. They're a huge part of our brand. So they'll always be with us. They need some caretaking right now. They need some attention from folks that believe in that part of our sector, that, that, um, they need support. They need people to give to them. I think for right now, that would be a great way to, to sort of hold off the hold the boundaries right now while we're waiting Speaker 4: 29:22 Dietrich researcher and associate director of the nonprofit Institute, which just published culture shift, measuring COVID-19 impact on San Diego arts and culture nonprofits speaking with KPBS arts editor and producer, Julia Dixon Evans. You're listening to KPBS midday edition.