Today's edition of Take Two starts out by looking into how why cases stalled before Immigration courts have now reached an all time high. Plus, a look at this weekend's Telluride film festival and the mysterious moving rocks of Death Valley and more.
Russian tanks and troops roll into southeastern Ukraine
In Ukraine, more than 2,000 people have died since fighting broke out in the spring between Ukrainians and pro-Russian rebels. This morning, Russian tanks rolled into the southeastern region of the country.
Ukrainian and NATO officials report that troops have entered the country as well. We turn to the BBC's Europe Editor Dina Newman to find out what's going on there.
Follow a teen through the 'strange experience' of immigration court
The first time 17-year-old Yoel faced an immigration judge in the courtroom earlier this year, she was so petrified she could hardly speak.
“I felt nervous," said Yoel, a soft-spoken girl who didn't want her last name used because of her status. " They asked me my name, and I wasn’t able to completely say it, because of my nerves.”
Terrifying as it might have been, it was not nearly as terrifying as what she left behind last fall in San Pedro Sula, Honduras -- considered the most violent city in the world; a place where gangs are especially powerful.
“I was threatened," she said. "I couldn’t go anywhere they because always followed me. When I tried to report them, so they'd be careful around me, they threatened me. They told me that if I reported them, they would kill my entire family.”
Yoel says she was targeted because a local gang leader wanted her for himself, by force - regardless of how she felt: "He threatened me, and wanted me to be with him, either the right way or the wrong way. I didn’t want to live like that. I didn’t want to live with a gang member."
She fled the home where she lived with her mother and younger siblings for her aunt's home. But members of the gang followed her there one day, forcing her to flee out the back door. It was then that Yoel decided to leave Honduras. She left in the company of a family friend, a man headed north to work who agreed to look after her.
They made it to Mexico, and from there it was a harrowing journey north on the train migrants call “La Bestia,” or The Beast. Migrants with no other means of transportation climb atop the train en route to the United States, but some don't make it: Some fall to their death or are maimed, while others are preyed on by criminals.
Yoel spent roughly a month on and off the train, hiding in cramped spaces at the bottom of boxcars to avoid the eyes of those who target young female migrants like her.
“You see so many ugly things," Yoel recalled softly, sparing the details. "People suffer very much. Thank God, nothing happened to me, but you see young women who really suffer.”
Halfway there, she dialed the Inglewood home of her father, Ramon Vallecilla, who came to the United States in 2005. He’d ridden the same train back then, and was shocked to learn that his little girl was on it. He still gets emotional when he remembers their conversation.
“I imagined that if as a man you suffer on that train, then let's not mention as a minor, and worse, as a woman," Vallecilla said. "I told her that she had to dress like a man in Mexico, so they would think she was a man."
"If you come on the train dressed as a woman," he pauses, "you lose.”
Last December, Yoel made it to the U.S.-Mexico border in Tijuana. She jumped the fence and turned herself in to the Border Patrol.
Now she’s living with her father in Inglewood, and seeking asylum.
According to a 2008 law designed to protect trafficking victims, minors under 18 from countries that don’t share a border with the U.S. must have an immigration hearing. This includes minors from Central America, who began arriving in large numbers at the U.S.-Mexico border during the past year. Their numbers have added to the strain on the immigration court system, already backlogged by more than 375,000 immigration court cases as of June.
After being apprehended by border agents, these minors are released within 72 hours to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for sheltering them until a suitable adult relative is found to take custody.
The majority are eventually released to family members in the U.S., but they leave federal custody with an order to appear in court, typically within 21 days.
“It’s such a strange experience for them," said Lindsay Toczylowski, an attorney with the Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project in Los Angeles, which represents minor clients pro bono. "They have probably never been in a courtroom, as most 10-year olds in the United would have have never been in a courtroom.”
Yoel is one of Toczylowski's clients - and, as the attorney points out, one of the ones lucky enough to have a lawyer. Those who don’t have must appear in court alone. It's a scenario that Toczylowski sees regularly, with scared kids relying on an interpreter while facing the judge and a government attorney.
"I’ve seen where there’s a complication, like the child’s address is wrong, and that can be really intimidating for a kid, because they feel like they have gotten in trouble or something, like they've done something wrong" Toczylowski said. "The entire process, it’s not meant for kids.”
Their best options for staying in the country are applying for asylum, or for children abused or neglected by their parents, what’s called Special Immigrant Juveniles Status.
Roughly half the kids in immigration court in Los Angeles lack legal counsel: Non-profit legal providers are too few, and for-profit attorneys out of most immigrant families' budgets. Toczylowski says the ones who do have counsel are about nine times more likely to prevail than those who don’t.
Yoel, who recently turned 18, says she's determined to make it to every hearing. Her younger brother, who is 14, recently followed her north; he was recently released from a government shelter and has joined her and her and their father. He is also seeking asylum, and the time of her next hearing, their cases will have been combined and they'll appear in court together.
The process that Yoel hopes will win them asylum is intimidating, even if she's become slightly more accustomed to the courtroom. But her far greater fear is returning to Honduras.
“Here in this country, I feel safe. In mine, I don’t. In mine, many things happen that..." she trails off, "No. I am afraid of going back to my country.”
If her luck holds out, she won’t have to.
This story is part of a series looking into the immigration court system in Los Angeles, the busiest in the country. Burdened by a massive backlog of cases and long wait times, the courts play a key role in deciding the fate of thousands of immigrants.
Related:
For kids facing a judge in immigration court, 'a strange experience'
Understaffed immigration judges face rise of migrant cases
Immigration news: Inside LA's courts, overwhelmed by child migrant cases
US to change how it handles 'voluntary departure' immigrant cases in California
U.S. border patrol says it will change key aspects of how it deals with some Mexican nationals who face deportation in Southern California. The changes will affect situations known as 'voluntary departure,' when an undocumented immigrant chooses to be removed rather than contest deportation.
Related: Understaffed immigration judges face rise of migrant cases
The changes include providing more information on the right to an immigration hearing and giving those in custody a list of legal services.
It's the result of a settlement after a 2013 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. For more, we're joined by NPR reporter John Burnett.
According to the ACLU, the terms of the settlement include the following:
- That information will be provided — in writing, orally, and through a 1-800 hotline — regarding the consequences of taking “voluntary return” to non-citizens asked to choose between voluntary return and a hearing before a judge;
- Agencies will cease “pre-checking” the box selecting “voluntary return” on the forms they provide to non-citizens;
- Non-citizens will be allowed to use a working phone, provides with a list of legal service providers, and allowed two hours to reach someone before deciding whether to accept voluntary return;
- Lawyers will be provided meaningful access to clients detained by Border Patrol or ICE;
- Individuals will no longer be pressured or coerced to accept voluntary return;
- ACLU attorneys will be allowed to monitor compliance with the settlement agreement for three years.
In response to the settlement, the Department of Homeland Security said in an email to Take Two that "in no case is coercion or deception tolerated" at the agency. The full statement:
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) use voluntary return as an option for individuals who may request to be returned home in lieu of removal proceedings, but in no case is coercion or deception tolerated. In an effort to address the issues raised in this litigation, both agencies have agreed to supplement their existing procedures to ensure that foreign nationals fully comprehend the potential consequences of returning voluntarily to Mexico.”
Related: For kids facing a judge in immigration court, 'a strange experience'
Previously: Immigration news: Inside LA's courts, overwhelmed by child migrant cases
California's drought has dried up wells, leading one town to home deliver water
Nearly the entire state of California is in the middle of a severe drought.
For most residents, the water is still flowing, even if it's just a trickle. But in the Central Valley town of East Porterville, taps have actually run dry.
Tulare County officials have now stepped in to drop off drinking water to affected residents. In late January-early February, they started to get word that homes' privately-drilled wells had began to sputter out.
"It started as a slow trickle, and as of about June or July it's turned into a fire hose of reports," says Andrew Lockman, manager of emergency services for Tulare County, where East Porterville is located
Just recently they gave an estimated three weeks of drinking water to each person in affected homes.
However that was a one-time drop-off.
"We've been trying to get funding," Lockman says. Most money for this effort comes from the county's general funds, and the approval process has been slow going.
He says if state and federal officials declared Tulare County a natural disaster zone as a result of the drought, it would free up more money at a faster rate.
"The drought is materializing very slowly. It's not a traditional disaster, so we haven't had the normal resources available," he says.
Also holding back the floodgate of government support is the residents themselves. Lockman says some haven't reached out for a number of reasons: Some people aren't conditioned to call the county when their well runs dry, for example, and don't know to reach out in the first place. Others are afraid that news of no running water in a home will mean their house is red-tagged.
"Then there's some concerned from people that are undocumented that may not want to interact with the government," Lockman adds, "and there's a concern about child welfare services getting involved."
He says there's an urban legend that officials will take away people's children if they discover there's no water in the home.
"We've never taken anyone's children just because of a lack of running water," says Lockman.
In the long-term, his department is encouraging residents to apply for grants where private companies would deliver future water supplies instead of officials. However, the county will still help pay for that service in this time of need.
That may continue until people have their wells re-dug, or the drought lets up.
Testing out Alfa Romeo's newest 'economy' sports car
Normally Take Two's series The Wheel Thing has auto critic Susan Carpenter coming in to talk the latest news about cars and motorcycles.
But this week we did something a little different: Instead, Alex Cohen took a ride in a brand new “economy” sports car from Alfa Romeo.
It’s the first model to make it to U.S. shores in years! And you won't believe the price.
writes about cars and motorcycles for the Los Angeles Register.
State of Affairs: Gov. Brown meets with Mexican president, Garcetti talks LA's minimum wage and more
It's time for State of Affairs, KPCC's weekly roundup of politics in the Golden State with Southern California Public Radio's Alice Walton and Frank Stoltze.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto was in California this week. He and Governor Jerry Brown met to discuss a range of issues, from the economy to climate change to education.
The visit was not without some controversy. Protesters, including Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, were in Sacramento to bring attention to a U.S. Marine who has been jailed in Mexico since March. What did Jerry Brown have to say about the case of Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi?
There were all sorts of bills flying through the Legislature this week as its session wound down. Which bills made the cut?
This week, Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin said she was still evaluating the gubernatorial candidates and would not automatically endorse her party's candidate. Swearengin will be on the November ballot as a candidate for state controller. Is this an effort to court more liberal voters?
Monday is Labor Day and there's news that L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti is gearing up to announce a new minimum wage proposal for Los Angeles employees. The mayor wants to increase wages to more than $13 an hour by 2017, but there's already pushback from the business community. What's happening with this proposal?
A piece in Politico this week says that Eric Garcetti is part of a growing group of local and state Democrats who are breaking with the federal government's policies. In Garcetti's case, that's immigration.
This weekend is the "Made in America" festival in Grand Park. City Hall's internal emails on this concert show that this two-day concert truly is a priority for the Mayor's Office. Why is that and how's it going to go this weekend?
Disneyland drones? Disney files three patents for unmanned aircraft
Disney has applied for three patents for unmanned aircraft — yes, drones!
However, the contraptions would be used in the parks' entertainment shows.
Disney's proposals include happy-sounding drones, like "flixels," or floating pixels. These floating pixels could replace dangerous, polluting, and inconsistent fireworks displays. In fact, it looks like the drone designs Disney has in mind could potentially eliminate some major issues associated with outdoor events.
Could this type of commercial use, which is still prohibited by the FAA, change some public perceptions of drones? Drone expert and Pepperdine Law Professor Greg McNeal joins Alex Cohen to discuss.
McNeal on how Disney would use drones in parades and aerial shows:
"So replacing blimps, replacing inflatable-type things you see in parades — they think if they took similar inflatable things but had small drones that would move the arms in precise ways, move the face, move the mouth, move the wings of characters in precise ways, that would make a far more exciting demonstration for the people on the ground."
How Disney would replace fireworks with drones:
"Disney shoots off fireworks pretty much every single day. ... They want to replace the fireworks with coordinated light shows, where the drones assemble and create the image of Peter Pan or Tinkerbell in the air, and then in comes Captain Hook, swinging a lighted sword, and then Peter Pan flies away. And each of these points of light would be represented by a glowing drone in the sky that creates these stunning aerial demonstrations."
Whether this all would be legal:
"If they tried to do it now, it would be illegal. The FAA has basically said that if you're flying drones for commercial purposes without specific authorization fro the FAA, it's unlawful. That's the scope of the FAA prohibition until later this fall, when they're supposed to promulgate new regulations."
Whether those rule changes are likely to happen:
"The first challenge with the rules is that the FAA is expected to miss its deadline. They've already missed a few deadlines, and many people close to this think they're also going to miss the deadline in the fall. Congress has directed since 2012 that the FAA has to integrate drone aircraft into the national airspace. We're going on more than two years without much movement on that front. The second challenge is that even if they did hit their timeline, it's not clear that the FAA knows how to innovate. What Disney is trying to do is something very innovative. ... Will the FAA have rules in place that will accommodate whatever type of drone it is that Disney wants to use? I'm hopeful but I'm not optimistic."
On safety concerns about Disney drones:
"It's tough to think about a company that would be more concerned with safety than Disney. They fire off pyrotechnics every day and they have rides that people are on every day. The other interesting thing about Disney is that after the Sept. 11 attacks, the company's lobbyists convinced congress to add to an appropriation rider a prohibition on flights above Disneyland or Disney World. So no aircraft can fly below 3,500 feet within three miles of Disneyland or Disney World. What that means is that Disney's drones would have no possibility of colliding with other aircraft. And because Disneyland has so much space, there's little likelihood that they're going to need to fly these things directly over people."
Could Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson be held accountable in court?
The fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown more than two weeks ago set off a wave of protests and calls for the arrest of Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, Missouri police officer who shot the 18-year-old.
Last week, a grand jury convened to decide whether to indict Officer Wilson, and Attorney General Eric Holder announced a separate federal investigation. But even if they determine that Wilson acted improperly, it's unlikely that he or the city of Ferguson will actually be held accountable. That's what Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Irvine School of Law, recently argued in an op-ed in the New York Times.
Death Valley 'sliding stones' mystery solved
If you've ventured out to Death Valley National Park in California, chances are you've seen the so-called sailing stones at Racetrack Playa. The dry lake bed out there is littered with rocks — and some big, heavy ones, too — that appear to have been dragged across the landscape by an invisible force.
No one had ever witnessed the rocks moving from one place to the next, however, and folks long wondered how it could be possible.
Now a scientist has figured it out, and he published his findings in Nature. Paleobiologist Richard Norris, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, spoke with Take Two to shed some light on this longstanding mystery.
"The answer is that it is ice, but it's ice floating on a couple of inches of water. This totally blew me away. This ice is 2 or 3 millimeters thick — the width of a key — and it happens when just a light breeze is blowing. It seems like you need steady breezes, sunlight melting the floating ice sheet that forms in the wintertime at night, ... and you get ice break-up that happens around midday. "
On why it's a less subtle process than you might think:
"My cousin and I were out there in December, and we were sitting on this hill, overlooking the playa. ... One moment it was this beautiful, quiet day with this breeze blowing along, and then the whole surface, a mile-wide surface of ice, begins to pop and crackle as it broke up under the influence of these winds. And the ice is moving at this point, not terribly fast, but it just bulldozes the rocks along."
On whether his theory is truly the final answer to the mystery of the moving rocks:
"Well, this is for sure how it happens part of the time. I'd say we pretty much figured it out. There may be some other possibilities we haven't sorted out yet, but it's primarily thin ice, light breezes and not hurricane-force winds that make the rocks move."
Activists push to end ban on gay men donating blood
Nearly 50,000 Americans signed a "We the People" petition last month. It calls on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to end its 30-year ban preventing gay and bisexual men from donating blood. The petition fell short of the 100,000 signatures needed to get a White House response, but Southern California Public Radio's Adrian Florido says that has not stopped activists from pushing for change.
City living makes for big, fertile spiders
City living can have several perks for spiders. A recent study found that city living makes the perfect environment for spiders to feed and breed. Among that list of species that thrive in an urban city are pigeons, raccoons and rats.
Lead author of the study Elizabeth Lowe from the University of Sydney, Australia says that the warm environment and the variety of preys available in the city actually benefit the arachnids.
Scientists switch bad memories with good ones in mice
Most memories have some kind of emotion attached to them. For example, you might be overcome with negative feelings when you think about the time you went on a bad date, or you might feel happy when you think about the time you went camping with your friends.
What if you could replace the memory of the bad date into a good one? That's just what neuroscientists at MIT have been doing with mice, according to a recent study. Roger Redondo, lead author of the research, says they have found a way to switch bad memories with good ones in mice.