Transcript of Venezuela Earthquakes Aftermath, SCOTUS Immigration Rulings, Trump Offers Farmers Aid New

Rescuers in Venezuela are racing to reach thousands still missing after two powerful earthquakes hit within seconds of each other.

More than 500 people have been killed, and officials say the death toll will likely climb with people still trapped under rubble.

I'm Leila Faldin. That's Michelle Martin. And this is Up First from NPR News. The Supreme Court handed President Trump two immigration wins. One lets his administration strip legal status from hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Haiti and Syria. The other makes makes it harder to claim asylum at the border.

And President Trump is courting farmers, a group his own policies have hurt. He's offering $11 billion in additional aid after his tariffs and the Iran war squeezed their finances. Polls show people in farm country have lost confidence in the president. Is this enough to win it back? Stay with us. We'll give you news you need to start your day. Rescuers in Venezuela continue their search for thousands of people missing after two devastating earthquakes struck in quick succession on Wednesday night.

The quakes hit the capital and surrounding areas, causing widespread destruction and overwhelming local response efforts. Venezuelan officials now say at least 589 people are confirmed dead and warn the toll is likely to rise as the search continues.

Manuel Rueda is a neighbor in Colombia, and he's with us now to tell us more about what he's hearing. Manuel, good morning.

Good morning.

You've actually been able to get in touch with people on the ground. What are they telling you about conditions there?

Well, basically what people are saying is that some parts of Caracas look like a war zone because many buildings have collapsed entirely. And also in La Guaira, which is a city about an hour away on the Caribbean coast. And because so many buildings have collapsed, thousands of people have lost their homes. They're sleeping in parks at night. Even people who perhaps their building didn't collapse are sleeping outside because they're afraid of the replicas from the earthquake. So basically what humanitarian groups are saying in Venezuela is that this is going to be a very long effort to support these people. You know, these people are going to need food, shelter, medicines. So this is going to take several weeks. They're going to need support for several weeks there to get back on their feet.

And what about right now? Like, how is the search and rescue operation working? It sounds like the, the conditions there are really horrific.

Yeah, what you have right now is hundreds of people also trapped inside the rubble, inside buildings, and some of these people are still alive and desperately waiting for help. Venezuela doesn't have much experience dealing with major earthquakes because they just don't happen there so often. It's not like California or Japan. Some journalists have been trying to speak to people who are trapped inside buildings. This is a clip from the city of La Guaira where A journalist is trying to get people to scream out their names to prove that they're alive. How do you call yourself, brother? Anthony.

And the other?

Ramón.

And the other?

Ari.

So you can see there that you can sort of hear their voices muffled because these people are just behind several feet of concrete, like inside a hole or very deep inside a building, and they can't get out.

And it's not exactly a secret that Venezuela's economy has been severely strained for a number of years. You've certainly written reporting on that. You know, the economy is strained, you know, the health services are strained, the infrastructure in general has been under pressure. So do they think that they can cope with the scale of this disaster?

Yeah, I mean, the government of Venezuela is going to need major economic support for rebuilding and even for the humanitarian response. I mean, this is a government that's only paying public servants $200 a month. Because they're so broke. Any public servant in Venezuela, a teacher, a nurse, only gets paid $200 a month. It's a place where inflation is at 500% annually. So this is going to be a big shock for Venezuela's economy. So it's not only just the rescue teams right now, you need, you know, the immediate response to help people, but how do you help the country recover some of its infrastructure after that? The nation's main airport has also been damaged. So that's going to be another investment you're going to need to get that up and running. So it's— yeah, it seems like it's— they're going to need support on many fronts to recover from this earthquake.

That's Manuel Rueda. He's reporting from neighboring Colombia. Manuel, thank you.

Absolutely.

The U.S. Supreme Court gave President Trump more power to enact his immigration agenda on Thursday.

One decision allows the administration to move forward with revoking temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants. The other puts limits on how immigrants can claim asylum.

NPR's immigration policy correspondent Jimena Bustillo is with us in studio to help us understand what this all means in practice. Good morning, Jimena.

Good morning.

OK, let's start with TPS, or Temporary Protected Status. What are the implications of this ruling?

In a 6-3 decision, the conservative majority ruled that the president has virtually unrestrained power to end the program known as TPS. This case was specifically about TPS recipients in Haiti and Syria, which total about 300,000 people, but it has broader implications. TPS provides deportation protections and it grants work permits, and it's given to people from specific countries affected by war, natural disasters, political instability, or any other condition that might make a country unsafe to return to. Each country's designation can last 6 to 18 months, and that's at the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security. Now, the court is agreeing with the government that making those designations is up to the secretary and not subject to legal review.

So what happens to hundreds of thousands of people who are in the U.S. on this program?

Well, they need to either adjust their status, which is very limited ways of, of doing so, or they need to leave the country. But they— if they don't, they risk falling out of status, and that could lead to an arrest, a detention, or a deportation. And many also face losing their jobs as companies will not be able to continue legally employing thousands of workers. Ira Kurzman is the attorney representing the Haitian TPS holders.

Their families are American citizens. They have American citizen children. So we're talking in a practical manner with respect to all the TPS people. You're talking about millions of people in the United States who contribute to the economy.

He argues that Haiti, Syria, and other countries are not stable enough for people to return to, and many of these people have also been here decades. He also said that the government could immediately begin deporting people if they have received final orders of removal while the cases have been pending in court.

Now, there was also a second immigration decision from the court, this one related to asylum. Tell us about that one.

That was another 6-3 decision, and the court backed a policy that allows Customs and Border Protection agents to turn away asylum seekers before they cross the U.S. border. The order says asylum seekers need to fully cross the U.S. border to claim asylum. So essentially, migrants who are turned back by border officials under this policy technically never left the physical side of the Mexican border. So the administration argues that they are ineligible to apply for legal protections to be in the U.S., and that ruling effectively further limits who can get permission to stay in the country.

Okay, so both of these decisions make it harder for immigrants to stay here or to get here. How does this play into the administration's goal of mass deportation?

Well, DHS General Counsel James Percival said that the decisions give the agency, quote, several more important tools to continue securing our borders. And President Trump has broader goal of mass deportation. So to do that, the administration has been making more people eligible for deportation, even if they were already legally here. We've already seen the administration terminate TPS for nearly every country that has had it since the start of Trump's term. And the asylum ruling limits how migrants can ask for that permission to come into the U.S. These rulings allow the government to further change the immigration system.

That's NPR's Jimena Bustillo. Thank you, Jimena.

Thank you.

President Trump hosted farmers in the White House Rose Garden last night, where he discussed wanting to give them more federal aid.

It's part of an effort to shore up the president's relationships with a group that had been part of his base ahead of November elections, after tariffs and the Iran war has squeezed their finances.

NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben is here to tell us more about this. Good morning, Danielle. Good morning. What did the president have to say to the farmers?

Well, first off, Trump likes to talk about people supporting him, and farmers have heavily supported him in the past, so that came up multiple times.

From the day I ran, for some reason you like me. I came from the city, a city slicker, and from the day I ran, you liked me, and from the day I ran, I like you.

But beyond that, he talked about a few policy proposals, including that $11 billion in farm aid he wants now. Now, if Congress approves that, it would be in addition to $12 $12 billion in aid paid out earlier this year. And like you said, this all comes amid a wave of White House attention on farmers. There was a farmer roundtable in Wisconsin a few weeks ago, and Trump's administration has proposed a plan that would essentially force Iran to buy U.S. ag products, though details on that are very sketchy right now. And Trump is pushing to allow higher ethanol fuel to be sold year-round. Now, right now it's not because it can contribute to air pollution during warmer months.

That is a lot of focus on one sort of particular I don't know, constituency, I guess I would say. But, but it's also true that the president's own policy decisions have caused problems for this group.

Well, exactly. Now, it had already been a rough few years for farmers, but Trump's actions this term really didn't help. Tariffs made inputs like equipment more expensive. His trade wars have especially damaged the soybean market, and the war in Iran made fertilizer and diesel more costly, though prices are starting to come down. But people in farm country have lost confidence. Confidence in the president. One month into this term, rural voters' net approval of Trump was at +22%age points in the NPR/PBS NewsMarist poll. This month, it was at -10. So that's a huge slide.

Danielle, can we go back to that proposal you just mentioned about Iran? Can you tell us any more about it?

Well, not really, because we don't know a lot. What officials have said is that the U.S. and Qatar would oversee any unfrozen assets, and use that control to require Iran to buy U.S. corn, soy, and wheat. Now, we should say that Iran pretty quickly responded that they wouldn't go along with this, and the idea raises real questions. For example, right now Iran buys food from other countries, including U.S. allies, so it could complicate the U.S.'s relationships with those countries if the U.S. muscles them out of the Iranian market. Now, none of that has stopped Trump and other White House officials from talking up this proposal all week, but if it doesn't happen, farmers won't give Trump credit for simply attempting a new policy, says Republican pollster Whit Ayres.

Promises of things that might happen in the future if things all go our way and the Iranians decide to buy a bunch of agricultural products, even though they say they're not going to do so, that's just like smoke and mirrors.

And as far as aid goes, now that may make some farmers happier with Trump, but also a lot of farmers will tell you they just prefer good profits over government checks.

That is NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben. Danielle, thank you.

Thank you.

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Mai.

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