STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President Trump's administration is rolling out its immigration actions day by day.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The federal government is broadening the number of people targeted for deportation and widening the locations where agents may arrest them.
INSKEEP: NPR immigration policy reporter Ximena Bustillo has been following all these developments. She's in our studios. Ximena, thanks for coming by.
XIMENA BUSTILLO, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: OK. We've heard things the administration is saying, and gradually, we're finding out how far they will go. Just a few weeks ago, December 16, an adviser to the president was on NPR and was played a prediction about, quote, "businesses being raided," and quote, "kids not in your schools." And Mary Louise Kelly asked Jason Miller what he thought.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: Jason Miller, is he wrong?
JASON MILLER: And I chuckle, not because I'm taken the issue lightly because it is such a bat, you know what, insane comment for this gentleman to make.
INSKEEP: So dismissing the idea of people vanishing from schools, what are we learning now?
BUSTILLO: Well, the administration has now cleared the way for arrests in schools. The old rule said that schools, as well as places of worship, health care facilities, and a list of other areas were off limits to arrests of people suspected of being without legal status. Now the acting secretary of Homeland Security has rescinded those guidelines, which the Trump administration says limits law enforcement from doing its job. My colleague Brian Mann spoke with Bishop Matthew Heyd, who leads the Episcopal Diocese of New York. And Heyd disputes the idea in the administration's announcement that criminal migrants were, quote, "hiding in schools and churches."
MATTHEW HEYD: This ministry of sanctuary is central to who we are. Our congregations and our service programs welcome everybody. This is what our faith calls us to do.
BUSTILLO: But we don't know yet how immigration enforcement agencies are planning to ramp up their operations.
INSKEEP: OK, so we'll keep watching that to see how far it goes. What else is the administration saying about immigration?
BUSTILLO: The department also issued two notices to start the process of implementing some of Trump's executive actions.
INSKEEP: OK.
BUSTILLO: One includes phasing out humanitarian parole programs. This includes the program that granted permission for certain people from Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela to be in the U.S. It's not really known what will happen to the hundreds of thousands of people currently living with humanitarian parole. This also accelerates a Biden-era decision to not renew the legal status of those under the program. Another action set in motion is restarting full implementation of Remain in Mexico. This was a program from Trump's first term that required migrants to wait in Mexico while their asylum claims were being adjudicated in the U.S. Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters yesterday that there needs to be a conversation with U.S. federal agencies.
INSKEEP: I appreciate the one thing you said. You said one of these moves about humanitarian parole accelerates a Biden decision. Biden's administration was also deporting people. This is a thing the United States does under any administration, but the terms are changing. And you mentioned, when you were on the program yesterday, that some people are suing over the new rules. Who else is suing now and why?
BUSTILLO: The main target of the lawsuits continues to be Trump's executive action that aims to reinterpret the 14th Amendment. This is the amendment that grants citizenship to nearly every person born on U.S. territory. It says all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens. Trump wants to change this widely understood meaning of those words and make citizenship dependent on the status of one's parents and whether they're here in the U.S. legally, illegally or on visas. A group of 18 Democratic state attorneys general, including from New Jersey and California, joined the legal fight to block the move.
INSKEEP: Got it.
BUSTILLO: And a coalition of civil rights and liberties groups also filed a separate lawsuit.
INSKEEP: NPR's Ximena Bustillo. Thanks for coming by.
BUSTILLO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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