Military in LA, Immigration Raids and Business, Trump's Hush Money Appeal
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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The military is in Los Angeles in response to anti-ICE protests.
WILLIAM BANKS: If the crowds were trying to push through them or throwing rocks at their face, they could protect themselves. But they can't enforce the law.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
So what's the military allowed to do?
MARTIN: I'm Michel Martin. That's A Martínez, and this is UP FIRST from NPR News.
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MARTIN: As immigration enforcement efforts expand, raids are driving some workers into hiding.
ROBERT DIETZ: It has had a chilling effect in terms of people showing up for work.
MARTIN: How are businesses that rely on workers without legal authorization thinking about the crackdown?
MARTÍNEZ: And a Manhattan federal court of appeals will hear an argument to overturn President Trump's criminal conviction.
JED SHUGERMAN: This argument is such a stretch in this particular case.
MARTÍNEZ: What argument will Trump's lawyers make? Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.
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MARTÍNEZ: Downtown Los Angeles was under curfew last night for the first time since anti-ICE protests began on Friday.
MARTIN: City officials said the protests have been largely peaceful, but instances of vandalism and looting led them to implement the curfew. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has moved ahead with the deployment of Marines and more National Guard over the objections of state and city leaders.
MARTÍNEZ: Joining us now to talk about the military's role in Los Angeles is NPR's Martin Kaste. So, Martin, the National Guard arrived over the weekend. Marines are now in the city, though we don't yet know where they'll be. Is it clear what their mission is?
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: Well, the administration says they're there to protect federal facilities and employees. And we've seen some of that, you know, the row of National Guard with shields standing there as a human barrier in front of federal buildings. There have also been reports, though, of the Guard protecting ICE agents out in the field as they do their jobs, and that could put some of those soldiers into more dynamic situations that might start to look a little bit like they're part of enforcement.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. Would they be allowed to do that, to assist ICE directly with its enforcement work?
KASTE: The experts say no because of a 19th century law known as Posse Comitatus, which bars the military from acting as police inside the country. I asked William Banks about this. He's a professor at Syracuse University, and he's been studying this very question about what's legal for the military inside the country for years.
BANKS: For sure they can't arrest. If the crowds are trying to push through them or throwing rocks at their face or something like that, they could protect themselves. That's federal protection. But they can't enforce the law.
MARTÍNEZ: OK. So he says the military isn't supposed to do law enforcement, but they have been deployed inside the country over the years. I mean, I remember back in 1992, right here in Los Angeles, where I'm at, during the Rodney King riots. I mean, how is this military deployment different?
KASTE: Well, legally, the difference is that in '92, President George H. W. Bush invoked the Insurrection Act, which allows for the use of the active military to quell civil disturbances. But maybe just as important here is the difference that this time around, the state and local authorities don't want the military's help, and they don't know what to expect from the military now that they're here. And you can hear that frustration in the voice of LA Mayor Karen Bass. This is her last night when someone asked her, what are the Marines doing?
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KAREN BASS: Who knows? I mean, the bottom line is that we're not told. Basically, we have to operate on rumors. So rumor has it that there's 700 Marines that are going to come here. I have no idea what they would do when they would get here.
KASTE: And, you know, this is really unusual. Normally, you'd have the military plugged into the local emergency management system, coordinating with the police. Instead, what we have here is the state suing the feds to pull the military out, and that's not really a great climate for smooth coordination.
MARTÍNEZ: So what happens, then, if, say, the National Guard and/or the Marines get into a situation that requires force? I mean, how prepared is the military to use force against American civilians?
KASTE: The National Guard get crowd control training, and they have some of the gear, such as those shields. As to the Marines, well, I talked to Mick Wagoner. He's a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who focused on military law, and he said there are some Marines who get specialized training for missions such as evacuating U.S. embassies that are threatened by crowds. But he said, that's just not the same as police work. And he recalled an infamous case during the '92 riots in LA when the police asked some Marines to cover them as they approached a house.
MICK WAGONER: And the Marines then lay down suppressing fire. The police were completely aghast. What are you doing? You said to cover you. It's like, yeah, tell us if somebody sticks their head out or if you see a gun or something, but, Jesus, you just lit up that house.
KASTE: Wagoner says that case shows just how differently the police and military approach things and even understand basic words like cover me. And he says he really hopes that these Marines in LA now will be kept in the rear behind the National Guard because at least some of them may be police officers in their day jobs and may have more training for crowds.
MARTÍNEZ: All right, that's NPR's Martin Kaste. Thanks a lot, Martin.
KASTE: You're welcome.
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MARTIN: President Trump's immigration crackdown is driving some people out of the country.
MARTÍNEZ: It's also driving others underground, and that poses a challenge for businesses that have traditionally relied on workers who are in the country without legal authorization.
MARTIN: NPR Scott Horsley is with us now with the economic impact of the president's immigration actions. Good morning, Scott.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So, who's being targeted in these latest efforts?
HORSLEY: The dragnet is getting wider. During the campaign, the President promised mass deportation. But during his first few months in the White House, Trump and his team struggled to reach that kind of mass. There are very few people coming across the southern border now, so the administration has stepped up its arrests in the middle of the country. And speaking to reporters outside the White House recently, border czar Tom Homan promised an increased focus on workplace raids.
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TOM HOMAN: So you're going to see more teams on the streets you've never seen before. You're going to see more worksite enforcement than you've ever seen in the history of this nation. We're going to flood the zone.
HORSLEY: High-profile raids on farms and construction sites and restaurants have certainly captured attention and driven some workers into hiding. According to the Labor Department's tally, more than a million foreign-born workers dropped out of the labor force over the last two months. Now, we don't know how many of those were in the country illegally, but it's likely some people have quit going to work because they're fearful of being arrested and possibly deported.
MARTIN: And how is that affecting the economy?
HORSLEY: If you look at the broad national numbers, it's not having a huge impact yet. Both construction companies and restaurants, for example, continued to add jobs last month. Those are two industries that typically employ a lot of workers who are in the country illegally. But there are plenty of anecdotal reports of economic fallout from these enforcement actions. Robert Dietz is chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders. He says every time there's a raid on a big-box store or a restaurant, word gets around at nearby construction sites.
DIETZ: It has had a chilling effect in terms of people showing up for work, but it tends to be kind of localized. You know, the impact is for a week or two, and then people have got to show up and work and earn money for their families.
HORSLEY: Still, Dietz is concerned about what stepped-up enforcement might mean for the homebuilding industry, where a third of the workforce is foreign-born. It's not likely to ease what is already a severe housing shortage in the country.
MARTIN: So how critical are workers without legal status to the overall job market?
HORSLEY: A couple of years ago, economists at Goldman Sachs estimated that something over 4% of all workers in the U.S. are living here illegally. In addition to targeting those workers, the president's also been closing off various legal avenues of immigration, and he's been stripping hundreds of thousands of immigrants who did have some kind of temporary permission to be in the country of their right to work. Muzaffar Chishti, who's a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, says the combined effects of all those immigration policies could be far-reaching.
MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: Our economy, especially certain sectors of economy, are heavily driven by immigrant labor. We may want to not tolerate unauthorized immigration, but we still need real labor market needs to be met.
HORSLEY: Keep in mind, the native-born population of the U.S. is getting older. Ten thousand baby boomers are retiring every single day. And in recent years, it has really been the growth of the foreign-born workforce that has allowed the U.S. economy to keep growing. Now, the president and his team have a different strategy. It's one that depends on pulling more native-born people, especially men, off the sidelines and getting them into the workforce. Nothing in recent history suggests that's likely, but that is what would be needed to replace the immigrant workers we're now losing.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thank you.
HORSLEY: You're welcome.
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MARTÍNEZ: An appeal hearing for President Trump's criminal conviction and sentencing is set to take place in a federal Court of Appeals in Manhattan today.
MARTIN: It is the latest in a case involving hush money payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election in which Trump was convicted on all 34 counts last year.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR's Kat Lonsdorf is in New York for the hearing. Kat, before we get into the hearing, remind us how we got here.
KAT LONSDORF, BYLINE: So Trump was convicted in May of last year before the election on 34 counts of falsifying business records, which he did to conceal a payment to Stormy Daniels. The payment was in exchange for her silence ahead of the 2016 election about an alleged sexual encounter. And just a reminder - there were several cases, both civil and criminal, against Trump ahead of last year's election, but this was the only criminal case to go to trial. The conviction made Trump the first president to also be a convicted felon. And as far as sentencing goes, the judge ruled that basically, because Trump's president, he won't face prison time or other penalties, but the conviction will remain on his record.
MARTÍNEZ: OK, the hearing today. What argument for appeal are Trump's lawyers making?
LONSDORF: OK. So it's a little wonky. But basically, Trump was tried, convicted and sentenced in the New York state court system. His lawyers have tried and failed twice before to get the case moved to federal court, essentially hoping it would get dismissed that way. And they keep citing a specific law that allows federal officials to make such a move if the case involves conduct while in office. But it has yet to work. Remember, the hush money payment at the heart of this case occurred before the 2016 election, when Trump was still a candidate. But now Trump's lawyers are making the argument again, saying that prosecutors during the trial relied on evidence related to Trump's first term, and therefore, this law applies.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. What are the chances that's going to work?
LONSDORF: Well, legal experts I talked to say it's a long shot, basically. Here's Jed Shugerman. He's a professor at Boston University School of Law. And he told me he thinks this is an example of Trump's lawyers exhausting every possible argument in the hopes of getting this conviction overturned.
SHUGERMAN: This argument is such a stretch. In this particular case, it's a clearly losing argument that any federal judge on the 2nd Circuit - Republican or Democratic appointee - would and should reject.
LONSDORF: But, you know, Trump has also filed an appeal through the state court system, and Shugerman says that is actually where he thinks the strongest possible arguments are. Those hearings just haven't happened yet.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. So what do you think we're going to find out about today?
LONSDORF: So today's hearing is in front of a three-judge panel, and they'll have to confer, so there won't be a decision today. But what we'll really be listening for is what questions the judges ask, if they're skeptical or not, what they're skeptical about. This hearing and the decision will have implications beyond just Trump's case. If the judges rule in Trump's favor, it could ultimately make it easier to work around the state courts in our judicial system.
MARTÍNEZ: All right. That's NPR's Kat Lonsdorf in New York. Kat, thanks.
LONSDORF: Thank you.
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MARTÍNEZ: And that's UP FIRST for Wednesday, June 11. I'm A Martínez.
MARTIN: And I'm Michel Martin. Your next listen is Consider This from NPR. We here at UP FIRST give you the three big stories of the day. Our Consider This colleagues take a different approach. They dive into a single news story and what it means to you in less than 15 minutes. Listen now on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
MARTÍNEZ: Today's episode of UP FIRST was edited by Gigi Douban, Rafael Nam, Emma Bowman, Lisa Thomson and Alice Woelfle. I was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from David Greenburg. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange. Join us again tomorrow.
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