The Trump administration is facing more than 300 legal challenges, many of which are being litigated by the American Civil Liberties Union led by Anthony Romero. The executive director has been at the helm through historic legal battles—from voter supression and “muslim” bans, to exposing torture in military detention and defending immigrant and reproductive rights. Romero sits down with host Maria Hinojosa and guides us through the ACLU’s current fight to protect our constitutionally enshrined rights in an era of raids, denaturalization threats and attempts at ending birthright citizenship.
Latino USA is the longest-running news and culture radio program in the U.S., centering Latino stories and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:23):
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(01:31):
Every day it feels like yet another unprecedented attack on
everyone's civil liberties and civil rights. That's ever since Donald
Trump returned to the White House in January from the
suggestion to strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship status.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
A memo out this week outlines how the administration plans
to denaturalize some citizens and remove them from the country.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
To undoing more than one hundred and fifty years of
a constitutional right to US citizenship if you're born in
this country.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
So thanks to this decision, we can now properly file
to proceed with these numerous policies and those that have
been wrongly enjoined in a nationwide basis, including birthright citizenship.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
To deporting immigrants without due process.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
President Trump and his borders are Tom Homan said the
mass deportation of migrants in this country illegally would begin
with dangerous criminals, the worst of the worst, they said.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
But CBS News has learned that among hundreds of alleged
gang members deported this past week to El Salvador was
a Venezuelan migrant with a job and no criminal record.
In the process of seeking asylum.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Including to countries they're not even from.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
Up administration has deported eight migrants to South Sudan. They
were held at a military base in Djibouti for weeks.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
These and other unparalleled acts have led to more than
three one hundred lawsuits against the Trump administration. So far,
several of those cases have been filed by the American
Civil Liberties Union. The Union, commonly referred to, of course,
as the ACLU, is the largest nonprofit organization in the
(03:16):
US dedicated to providing legal assistance in the protection of
everyone's civil rights. Today I'm in conversation with its leader,
Anthony Romero.
Speaker 8 (03:28):
They'll fight us tooth and nail and will succeed because
we know how to do this. We've been doing this
for one hundred and five years.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Prometo is a Puerto Rican civil rights attorney. He's been
the executive director of the ACLU since two thousand and one,
the longest tenure ever for a leader of the organization.
Rometto is also the first Latino and the first openly
gay man to lead the ACLU. From his position at
the helm of a number of historic legal battles in
(03:56):
this country.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Rometro is going to.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Offer us his unique perspective about what we're facing, what's
to come, and why he's urging every single one of
us to do something. From Futuro Media, It's Latino USA.
I'm Maria no Josa today a conversation with anthonyro Metro,
(04:22):
executive director of the ACLU. He's going to talk about
some of the most pressing civil rights issues we're facing
as a country today under Donald Trump's second term. Anthonyro Metro,
(04:43):
you know I often call you Tony. I feel like
I know you enough that I can do that. Welcome
back to Latino USA.
Speaker 9 (04:49):
Great to be back, Maria, So happy to be back
with you.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
For more than a hundred years, the ACLU has literally
been at the center of protecting not just mine or yours,
I mean everyone's civil liberties. They participated in more Supreme
Court cases than any other private organization in the country.
Of course, what many people don't know is that it
(05:13):
is a gay Puerto Rican man who has been at
the helm of the ACLU for almost twenty five years.
So that means, Anthony, that you've had a front row
seat to some of the most critical legal battles of
our lifetime. You have led the ACLU through four US presidents.
You have challenged policies from every single one of those
(05:36):
presidents in court. So today, Anthony, how would you describe
where we stand in terms of civil rights.
Speaker 8 (05:44):
It's often hard to keep track of the full assault
on civil liberties, civil rights, on our democracy. So I've
come up with three big buckets of what keep me
up at night and what is really concerning. In bucket
number one, you have the targeting of individuals and institutions
(06:06):
that are the political nemesies of Trump's maga ideology.
Speaker 9 (06:11):
Right.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
These are the law firms that he's going after because
they were engaged in a lawful DEI. This is the
targeting of Harvard and Columbia because they felt that they
were seed beds of the quote quoke ideology. This is
where you would put some of the students who they're
(06:32):
endeavoring to deport because they don't agree with their political ideologies,
especially around Palestine and Israel. This is like our client
Mahmoud Khalil or roumezo oaster who the garment has picked
up incognito agents, picking them up and then trying to
deport them.
Speaker 9 (06:51):
Bucket number two is.
Speaker 8 (06:53):
The targeting of politically weak groups to score cheap points.
And here you've got to put in the attack on immigrants,
the Stephen Miller crusade against Latinos, against immigrants of all
walks of life. The kind of the anti immigrant agenda
(07:14):
feels like it's a way for them to curry favor
with the mega constituents and the MAGA supporters. I would
add in here the transgender community. The political process cannot
defend their rights and liberties unless groups like ours from
the courts stand up for them. And the third bucket
(07:34):
is the targeting of the norms and institutions that comprise
our democratic process and are the undergirding of our system
of checks and balances. The effort to run rough shod
over judges, the efforts to kind of get completely into
Congress's lane, the efforts to shut down members of the media,
(07:56):
that shameful settlement between Paramount and Trump Right.
Speaker 7 (08:02):
Paramount has agreed to pay Donald Trump sixteen million dollars
to settle a lawsuit over a sixty minutes interview with
his former presidential opponent Kamala Harris. Mister Trump alleged that
the interview, which aired one month before the twenty twenty
four election, was selectively edited to improve how then Vice
President Harris sounded. CBS denied that.
Speaker 8 (08:22):
A case they would have won a case had they
had the gumption to fight it, right, So that's really
undercutting the independence of our media, which is such an
important part of our system of checks and balance as
a fourth estate. So those are ways in which I
organize myself, and then that's kind of like my dashboard,
and then I keep thinking what can we do in
(08:43):
each one of these different areas to make a difference.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
The fact is that what we are seeing now, Anthony,
in terms of violations of human rights. People are being
picked up, They're shipping people around into quote unquote third
countries like South Sudan, El Salvador in the case of
Kima Abrigo Garcia without due process. Of course, Kima is
now saying about his treatment inside that he was tortured
(09:09):
in conditions that are just horrific and essentially, Anthony, it
could happen to anyone.
Speaker 8 (09:14):
Now, Trump started this anti immigrant effort as a way
that he was going to target criminals and the worst
of the worst, the de Aragua right, and we brought
that suit right on behalf of the one hundred and
thirty men who were shipped off from the States to
the gulag in El Salvador. And part of what we
(09:36):
learned is that we knew that he had invoked the
Alien Enemies Act in secret, and then we knew that
they were going to use that secret authority of this
act to remove these individuals without due process. Now, the
Alien Enemies Act seventeen ninety eight law. Last time we
used it to remove Germans who were on American soil
(10:00):
during World War Two, and we still gave the Germans
due process rights. The Alien Enemies Act was properly invoked
because we were indeed at war with Germany. We're not
at war with anybody, Maria. So this invocation of this power,
which it's really for these unique moments when the nation's
at war. And if we gave the Germans thirty days notice,
(10:22):
why are we giving them hours notice? Of our clients
who are being moved to a third country, none of
them able to contest the reasons why they're being deported.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Of course, Anthony, you and I have been saying this
for years, right, you should keep your eyes open. You know,
Ice and Border Patrol largest law enforcement agencies. They're growing.
There's lack of accountability. We're having to have conversations about denaturalization,
something that I've always under Trump been highly aware of.
(10:56):
I guess I should ask you how concerns should I be, Anthony.
Speaker 9 (11:00):
I think we need to be concerned.
Speaker 8 (11:02):
I don't think they'll be able to denaturalize American citizens
easily or readily. That's a process that doesn't give the
executive branch that power.
Speaker 9 (11:13):
It's the saber rattling.
Speaker 8 (11:14):
Which I find increasingly troublesome because it shows that they're
willing to run the galtlet at any cost unless they're stopped.
If they were to bring a case to try to
denaturalize an American citizen, we will challenge it, just like
we're challenging the birth's right citizenship. I think the place
where we're not able to stop them and we just
(11:35):
have to do triage is this escalation of the law
enforcement powers around the Department of Homeland Security. With the
new bill that was just passed, the BBB Appropriations Bill, right,
they're going to give so much money, one hundred and
seventy billion dollars to the Department of Homeland Security. It
will make that agency larger than the militaries, some of
(11:59):
the top five six militaries in the world.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Coming up on Latino, USA, I continue my conversation with
Anthony Romero. We're going to talk about denaturalization, birthright citizenship,
and some of the major legal challenges to Trump's proposed
immigration policies.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Stay with us, Yes, hey, we're back.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Let's get back now to my conversation with ACLU Executive
director Anthony Romero. I want to come back to the
issue of denaturalization. You're saying it's going to get a
lot worse, but also hold on one second, it's not
going to be that easy.
Speaker 9 (12:57):
It's not going to be that easy.
Speaker 8 (12:58):
I mean, the revocation of US citizenship can only occur
with a judicial order, and you have to go through
civil proceedings or a criminal conviction for fraud around the
naturalization process. You have to show basically that people lied
or committed fraud as they applied for their US citizenship.
Speaker 9 (13:17):
Right. It's not like the revocation of a green.
Speaker 8 (13:21):
Card of a legal permanent residence where if people commit crimes,
you can more readily revoke a green card. Right once
you're a US citizen, it's really hard to revoke that,
And so anyone they try to denaturalize, we're going to
be all over it.
Speaker 9 (13:38):
The fact is that they float these as.
Speaker 8 (13:40):
Child balloons that Trump wants to denaturalize people as a
way to further in bolden the rest of his constituents,
and it's also to make the other parts of his
agenda look less unreasonable. So when you're as extreme as
saying we're going to denaturalize American citizens, Okay, don't do that,
but you can hold seven hundred and fifty thousand people
(14:02):
in these new detention centers. So it's moving the goal
post on us so that we begin to react to
the most extreme part when.
Speaker 9 (14:10):
We're already in extreme situations right now.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Which leads me to something that happened recently.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Laura Lumer, who is a right wing pundit close to
Donald Trump, when FIREWL recently, she said that there will
be sixty five million meals for alligators. Alligators the reference
to the immigrant detention camp right in Florida that's being built.
Speaker 10 (14:31):
Right in the middle of the sweltering heat of the
Florida Everglades, reports of mosquitoes the size of elephants, no
water to clean yourself, and food that has worms in it.
Those stomach churning details come from an inmate inside the
New Florida Immigration Detention Center known as Alligator Alcatraz and
(14:51):
this weekend.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
And the number sixty five million is the number of
Latinos and Latinas in the United States. Right, there are
a number of more samples of blatant lies racism now
set out in the open.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I'm wondering, Anthony, how have you historically seen the use
of dehumanizing language in terms of kind of a precursor
for attacking people's civil rights.
Speaker 9 (15:16):
Well, that's part and parcel of what they do, right,
They that's why.
Speaker 8 (15:19):
They use their dehumanizing words and their labels. And that's
why labels matter. Right, That's why illegal alien? What other
language could you use to kind of deny someone their
due process rights or equal protection under the law?
Speaker 9 (15:34):
An illegal alien?
Speaker 8 (15:36):
And so I think with Laura Lumer when she was
kind of saying that all of us are up for grabs,
I mean, this is where I'm saying. I think they
are so overreaching that we will harvest the people of
good hearts and minds who will say no, no, no, no, no,
that's going way too far. It's only been what six
months since the president took over. It's a very different
(15:59):
environment than the beginning of his term already. I mean,
there are three hundred and twenty five lawsuits. We have
about one hundred and thirty four legal actions against the
Trump administration. We've won on major cases, whether it's Alien
Enemies Act. I still think we went on birthright citizenship.
It shows you just how far they're willing to push.
And I think ultimately the dehumanization of our communities and
(16:21):
of our people and of our immigrant populations is got
to be part of their job because otherwise they're not
going to get good Americans to agree with their agenda.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Now, one of the cases you brought it up, Trump
is actively seeking to end citizenship for children who are
born to non citizen parents in the United States. I
want to talk about the most recent Supreme Court verdict
on this issue because it is confusing. Right, Yeah, give
us the layman's lame women's understanding of what happened with
the Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
How concerning should this be.
Speaker 8 (16:54):
Birthright citizenship for me is hollowed ground right in the
fourteenth Amendment. It is how we turned the children of
slaves into US citizens. It's also how this nation of
immigrants allowed for people to be all equal under the
law right. It's not just in the Constitution, it's also
(17:16):
in the statute. So I don't think we lose. I
will tell you I wasn't so sure they would be
that kind of brazen.
Speaker 9 (17:23):
Right.
Speaker 8 (17:24):
We were preparing all sorts of cases for his first day.
What would it be? What would it be? And then
I was able to have a conversation with someone and
I learned that, oh my god, they're actually going to
file an executive order to repeal birthright citizenship on day one.
And I remember coming back to the office and telling
(17:45):
Legal learn who's are one of our top lawyers, saying,
you got to get me that damn lawsuit ready. I
want to see it. I want to see the briefs.
I want to see the pleadings. We got to be
ready day one. And there was a whole debate.
Speaker 9 (17:56):
Within the issue.
Speaker 8 (17:56):
No, they're not going to do that, They're not going
to be that brazen, and yesterday they were so the
idea that they dared step on that hallowed ground a
nation of immigrants and fixing America's original sin for me
was indication that the gloves were off and they were
going to run the gounlet as far as they could.
Now birth Right said, what happened with the Supreme Court
just recently was this question of there were multiple lawsuits,
(18:19):
and the question was whether a federal judge and any
one of these jurisdictions should be able to issue what
they call a universal injunction that stops the policy from
being implemented across the country. Now, the Court went out
of its way to strike down universal injunctions. Within two
hours of the Supreme Court decision coming down, we filed
(18:43):
a nationwide class action lawsuit and they'll fight us tooth
and nail and will succeed because we know how to
do this. We've been doing this for one hundred and
five years. For a class action, you have to show
that there's a cohesion among the plaintiffs in the class,
that they're all similarly situated, that they all have a
similar harm, that they could all seek a similar remedy.
(19:06):
I promise you we'll get it done. They made it
harder for us. They're going to make it more time
consuming better. If those are the rules are going to
put to us, fine, we'll comply.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
We'll be right back. Hey, we're back.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I know you remember this, Cable news networks were exploding
with the talk about Latino men, Latino men voting for Trump.
Latino men were the ones who did this. Latino men
handed the election to Donald Trump. And so what we
did here at Latino USA was that we created a
series called Ombre Understanding Latino Men, and we've been trying
(19:53):
to understand how it is that so many Latino men,
many of them children of immigrants, did in fact turn
right towards Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Give us your.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Sense in terms of why you think what was it
about Latino men in this moment in history that led
them to fall into what Donald Trump was selling.
Speaker 8 (20:17):
Frankly, I think part of what happened is we lost
the narrative with working people who felt that they weren't
given a fresh shot. I have one of my family
members who I know voted for Trump, and we've had
a kind of a loving hard conversation about how can
(20:40):
that be and why would that have happened? And what
this person told me is like, look, I really want
my family and myself and my children to have the
chance of living an American dream, the ones in which
I believe in that you shouldn't have to go to college,
but I should be able to have a good job
(21:01):
and provide for my family and have safe schools and
what the old American dream was be able to provide
for your loved ones.
Speaker 9 (21:10):
And for good or bad.
Speaker 8 (21:13):
You know that a lot of people thought that the
Republican Party was going to be able to deliver on
that in much better ways than the Democrats. I think
ultimately those same groups of people are going to say, oh, no,
I didn't mean that.
Speaker 9 (21:26):
You should deport all of these folks. I mean, look
at all this stuff that's going viral.
Speaker 8 (21:30):
The lovely Latino was being chased by these ice agents
who's riving.
Speaker 9 (21:35):
Two sons were Marines.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Masked Federal agents were films pinning a man to the
ground and repeatedly striking him in the head and neck
before putting him in an unmarked car. The man in
the video has been identified as a Narciso Baranco and
is the father of two active duty Marines and one
Marine veteran. He is currently being held in ice custody
according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson.
Speaker 8 (22:00):
That got sent to me by like five people and like,
oh no, that's not what we mean. And I think
part of what's at play is to kind of remind
people that the American dream is for all of us
and to make sure it's within people's reach. I think
there are only a few people who are bad hearted,
evil people. I think most of the people who voted
(22:21):
with Donald Trump, there's still good people that we can
harvest that kind of that goodwill without a fight.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I know you hear this all the time, and I
travel around the country and people are like, I don't
know what to do. I'm giving up, there's nothing to do.
What do you want them to do.
Speaker 8 (22:38):
I have no time for people who tell me that
they're worried but they don't want to do anything about it.
There is so much to do. At the ACLU, we
have this program called people Power. We have over thirteen
hundred people who will be trained tonight on know your
rights issues and how to take action if there's a
raid or a deportation, and.
Speaker 9 (23:00):
We'll do them virtually.
Speaker 8 (23:01):
Indivisible is doing amazing work at organizing marches and visits
in congressional districts. United We Dream is one of my
favorite organizations. They're building a whole new effort to help
the community have access to legal services and humanitarian assistants
that will be announced soon. There's groups like Democracy Forward
(23:24):
that are doing the litigation.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I think you're saying, don't wring your hands, but realize
you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Organizations exist. You
can be a part of them in multiple different ways.
Anything that we need to be paying attention to that
we might be missing, something that you're like, watch this please.
Speaker 8 (23:44):
The one thing I am worried about, and I hope
I'm wrong, is that they will play the congressional card next.
Speaker 9 (23:52):
Right, we've seen the Executive Order blitz.
Speaker 8 (23:55):
Plt's number two has been the scaling up of deportations
and raids. The third one is or they still control
of the House and the Senate and the White House,
and I can expect them to want to change our
nation's immigration's laws, right, And that's what we have to
be ready to hold democrats accountable because too many of
the Democrats are going to try to roll over and
(24:16):
dance with the devil. And I think we have to
make sure we hold people accountable and make sure that
we don't allow them to fully rewrite the laws.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
And the needro Metro. What's bringing you some joy?
Speaker 9 (24:37):
I think what brings me joy the work is really meaningful.
I work a lot. I work almost seven days a week.
It's hard, but I love.
Speaker 8 (24:45):
My job and I love the fact that we are
fighting for things that really matter to real people.
Speaker 9 (24:51):
People always ask me, how do you stay optimistic?
Speaker 8 (24:54):
If not that hope is a precursor to action.
Speaker 9 (25:00):
Is the precursor to hope.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
If you do something right, an act of kindness, if
you volunteer, if you support a nonprofit, if you support
your neighbors and help them through a hard point, if
you accompany them when.
Speaker 9 (25:15):
They're afraid of what's happening. In the face of such.
Speaker 8 (25:19):
Mendacity and meanness and vitriol and kind of the dehumanization
of the Trump administration, to just be kind, to be thoughtful,
to be engaged is the most flagrant defiance to an
agenda that is just trying to make us less human
(25:40):
than we are.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Don Antonio, Tony, Anthony.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Maria Getia, thank you for being in conversation with me
for Latino USA.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 9 (25:53):
It's been my sincere privilege and pleasure.
Speaker 8 (25:56):
Maria, and I think the world of view will being
a tether.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
That was the executive director of the ACLU, the American
Civil Liberties Union, Anthony Romero, dear listener. Two days after
(26:27):
we recorded this interview, on July eighth, a federal judge
certified the nationwide class action lawsuit that Anthony Romero spoke
about during our conversation. The judge temporarily blocked the implementation
of Trump's executive order that attempts to deny birthright citizenship
to babies born to non US citizens. Judge la Plant
(26:49):
said his decision was not a close call, and added
the deprivation of US citizenship and an abrupt change of
policy would cause irreparable harm. The pause the Trump administration
one week to appeal. No decision was announced by the
time this episode went to air. So here's what could happen.
(27:11):
If the court rules in favor of the Trump administration.
It would allow the federal government to begin enforcing the
executive order, But because there are currently twenty eight states
with pending litigation around the issue, the government would only
be able to begin enforcement of.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
This law in about half of the country. Now.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
If the court rules against the Trump administration, the government
would be blocked from enforcing Trump's executive order, and all
children born in the United States, regardless of their parents
immigration legal status, will continue to be granted US citizenship.
Now to be clear whether the Trump Administration's executive order
(27:54):
is actually in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore unconstitutional,
that issue has not yet been taken up by the courts.
Latino USA will continue to report on the legal battle
around birthright citizenship. Our episode was produced by Julia Ta Martinelli.
(28:25):
It was edited by Andrea Lopez Grusado. It was mixed
by Julia Caruso. We recorded this script for this episode
in the studios of the Chicago Recording Company with help
from Aidan Kramer. The Latino USA team also includes Roxanna Guire,
Jessica Ellis, Victoria Estrada, Monica Morales Garcia, Renaldo Leanos Junior,
(28:47):
Stephanie Lebau, Luis, Luna Marta Martinez, JJ Carubin, and Nancy Trujillo.
Fernando Echavari is our managing editor. Benni Leiramirez and I
are executive producers. And I'm your host, Mariano Jsa. Latino
USA is part of Iheart's michul Dura podcast network. Executive
producers at iHeart are Leyogo Miss and Arlene Santana. Join
(29:10):
us again on our next episode. In the meantime, you
can find us on social media. I'll see you there.
Don't forget your listener. It's so easy, so affordable, so
special to join Futuro Plus. You can listen at free
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yatusaves Yes Joo.
Speaker 9 (29:34):
Latino USA is made possible in part by the Ford Foundation,
working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide,
the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and Skyline Foundation.
Dear listener, Before we begin today's show, we have some
news to share. Starting this week, the podcast version of
Latino USA is going to be distributed by the Makurdura
Network at iHeartMedia. That is the biggest Latino vertical in
the podcast industry with over two hundred and fifty million
monthly listeners. So doing this is an opportunity for our
(00:23):
stories to reach more listeners than ever at a critical
time in our country's history. It also makes us more
resilient as an independent news nonprofit. What happens for you,
dear listener, is we maintain one hundred percent of our
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(00:45):
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(01:09):
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(01:31):
Every day it feels like yet another unprecedented attack on
everyone's civil liberties and civil rights. That's ever since Donald
Trump returned to the White House in January from the
suggestion to strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship status.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
A memo out this week outlines how the administration plans
to denaturalize some citizens and remove them from the country.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
To undoing more than one hundred and fifty years of
a constitutional right to US citizenship if you're born in
this country.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
So thanks to this decision, we can now properly file
to proceed with these numerous policies and those that have
been wrongly enjoined in a nationwide basis, including birthright citizenship.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
To deporting immigrants without due process.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
President Trump and his borders are Tom Homan said the
mass deportation of migrants in this country illegally would begin
with dangerous criminals, the worst of the worst, they said.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
But CBS News has learned that among hundreds of alleged
gang members deported this past week to El Salvador was
a Venezuelan migrant with a job and no criminal record.
In the process of seeking asylum.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Including to countries they're not even from.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
Up administration has deported eight migrants to South Sudan. They
were held at a military base in Djibouti for weeks.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
These and other unparalleled acts have led to more than
three one hundred lawsuits against the Trump administration. So far,
several of those cases have been filed by the American
Civil Liberties Union. The Union, commonly referred to, of course,
as the ACLU, is the largest nonprofit organization in the
(03:16):
US dedicated to providing legal assistance in the protection of
everyone's civil rights. Today I'm in conversation with its leader,
Anthony Romero.
Speaker 8 (03:28):
They'll fight us tooth and nail and will succeed because
we know how to do this. We've been doing this
for one hundred and five years.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Prometo is a Puerto Rican civil rights attorney. He's been
the executive director of the ACLU since two thousand and one,
the longest tenure ever for a leader of the organization.
Rometto is also the first Latino and the first openly
gay man to lead the ACLU. From his position at
the helm of a number of historic legal battles in
(03:56):
this country.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Rometro is going to.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Offer us his unique perspective about what we're facing, what's
to come, and why he's urging every single one of
us to do something. From Futuro Media, It's Latino USA.
I'm Maria no Josa today a conversation with anthonyro Metro,
(04:22):
executive director of the ACLU. He's going to talk about
some of the most pressing civil rights issues we're facing
as a country today under Donald Trump's second term. Anthonyro Metro,
(04:43):
you know I often call you Tony. I feel like
I know you enough that I can do that. Welcome
back to Latino USA.
Speaker 9 (04:49):
Great to be back, Maria, So happy to be back
with you.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
For more than a hundred years, the ACLU has literally
been at the center of protecting not just mine or yours,
I mean everyone's civil liberties. They participated in more Supreme
Court cases than any other private organization in the country.
Of course, what many people don't know is that it
(05:13):
is a gay Puerto Rican man who has been at
the helm of the ACLU for almost twenty five years.
So that means, Anthony, that you've had a front row
seat to some of the most critical legal battles of
our lifetime. You have led the ACLU through four US presidents.
You have challenged policies from every single one of those
(05:36):
presidents in court. So today, Anthony, how would you describe
where we stand in terms of civil rights.
Speaker 8 (05:44):
It's often hard to keep track of the full assault
on civil liberties, civil rights, on our democracy. So I've
come up with three big buckets of what keep me
up at night and what is really concerning. In bucket
number one, you have the targeting of individuals and institutions
(06:06):
that are the political nemesies of Trump's maga ideology.
Speaker 9 (06:11):
Right.
Speaker 8 (06:12):
These are the law firms that he's going after because
they were engaged in a lawful DEI. This is the
targeting of Harvard and Columbia because they felt that they
were seed beds of the quote quoke ideology. This is
where you would put some of the students who they're
(06:32):
endeavoring to deport because they don't agree with their political ideologies,
especially around Palestine and Israel. This is like our client
Mahmoud Khalil or roumezo oaster who the garment has picked
up incognito agents, picking them up and then trying to
deport them.
Speaker 9 (06:51):
Bucket number two is.
Speaker 8 (06:53):
The targeting of politically weak groups to score cheap points.
And here you've got to put in the attack on immigrants,
the Stephen Miller crusade against Latinos, against immigrants of all
walks of life. The kind of the anti immigrant agenda
(07:14):
feels like it's a way for them to curry favor
with the mega constituents and the MAGA supporters. I would
add in here the transgender community. The political process cannot
defend their rights and liberties unless groups like ours from
the courts stand up for them. And the third bucket
(07:34):
is the targeting of the norms and institutions that comprise
our democratic process and are the undergirding of our system
of checks and balances. The effort to run rough shod
over judges, the efforts to kind of get completely into
Congress's lane, the efforts to shut down members of the media,
(07:56):
that shameful settlement between Paramount and Trump Right.
Speaker 7 (08:02):
Paramount has agreed to pay Donald Trump sixteen million dollars
to settle a lawsuit over a sixty minutes interview with
his former presidential opponent Kamala Harris. Mister Trump alleged that
the interview, which aired one month before the twenty twenty
four election, was selectively edited to improve how then Vice
President Harris sounded. CBS denied that.
Speaker 8 (08:22):
A case they would have won a case had they
had the gumption to fight it, right, So that's really
undercutting the independence of our media, which is such an
important part of our system of checks and balance as
a fourth estate. So those are ways in which I
organize myself, and then that's kind of like my dashboard,
and then I keep thinking what can we do in
(08:43):
each one of these different areas to make a difference.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
The fact is that what we are seeing now, Anthony,
in terms of violations of human rights. People are being
picked up, They're shipping people around into quote unquote third
countries like South Sudan, El Salvador in the case of
Kima Abrigo Garcia without due process. Of course, Kima is
now saying about his treatment inside that he was tortured
(09:09):
in conditions that are just horrific and essentially, Anthony, it
could happen to anyone.
Speaker 8 (09:14):
Now, Trump started this anti immigrant effort as a way
that he was going to target criminals and the worst
of the worst, the de Aragua right, and we brought
that suit right on behalf of the one hundred and
thirty men who were shipped off from the States to
the gulag in El Salvador. And part of what we
(09:36):
learned is that we knew that he had invoked the
Alien Enemies Act in secret, and then we knew that
they were going to use that secret authority of this
act to remove these individuals without due process. Now, the
Alien Enemies Act seventeen ninety eight law. Last time we
used it to remove Germans who were on American soil
(10:00):
during World War Two, and we still gave the Germans
due process rights. The Alien Enemies Act was properly invoked
because we were indeed at war with Germany. We're not
at war with anybody, Maria. So this invocation of this power,
which it's really for these unique moments when the nation's
at war. And if we gave the Germans thirty days notice,
(10:22):
why are we giving them hours notice? Of our clients
who are being moved to a third country, none of
them able to contest the reasons why they're being deported.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Of course, Anthony, you and I have been saying this
for years, right, you should keep your eyes open. You know,
Ice and Border Patrol largest law enforcement agencies. They're growing.
There's lack of accountability. We're having to have conversations about denaturalization,
something that I've always under Trump been highly aware of.
(10:56):
I guess I should ask you how concerns should I be, Anthony.
Speaker 9 (11:00):
I think we need to be concerned.
Speaker 8 (11:02):
I don't think they'll be able to denaturalize American citizens
easily or readily. That's a process that doesn't give the
executive branch that power.
Speaker 9 (11:13):
It's the saber rattling.
Speaker 8 (11:14):
Which I find increasingly troublesome because it shows that they're
willing to run the galtlet at any cost unless they're stopped.
If they were to bring a case to try to
denaturalize an American citizen, we will challenge it, just like
we're challenging the birth's right citizenship. I think the place
where we're not able to stop them and we just
(11:35):
have to do triage is this escalation of the law
enforcement powers around the Department of Homeland Security. With the
new bill that was just passed, the BBB Appropriations Bill, right,
they're going to give so much money, one hundred and
seventy billion dollars to the Department of Homeland Security. It
will make that agency larger than the militaries, some of
(11:59):
the top five six militaries in the world.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Coming up on Latino, USA, I continue my conversation with
Anthony Romero. We're going to talk about denaturalization, birthright citizenship,
and some of the major legal challenges to Trump's proposed
immigration policies.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
Stay with us, Yes, hey, we're back.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Let's get back now to my conversation with ACLU Executive
director Anthony Romero. I want to come back to the
issue of denaturalization. You're saying it's going to get a
lot worse, but also hold on one second, it's not
going to be that easy.
Speaker 9 (12:57):
It's not going to be that easy.
Speaker 8 (12:58):
I mean, the revocation of US citizenship can only occur
with a judicial order, and you have to go through
civil proceedings or a criminal conviction for fraud around the
naturalization process. You have to show basically that people lied
or committed fraud as they applied for their US citizenship.
Speaker 9 (13:17):
Right. It's not like the revocation of a green.
Speaker 8 (13:21):
Card of a legal permanent residence where if people commit crimes,
you can more readily revoke a green card. Right once
you're a US citizen, it's really hard to revoke that,
And so anyone they try to denaturalize, we're going to
be all over it.
Speaker 9 (13:38):
The fact is that they float these as.
Speaker 8 (13:40):
Child balloons that Trump wants to denaturalize people as a
way to further in bolden the rest of his constituents,
and it's also to make the other parts of his
agenda look less unreasonable. So when you're as extreme as
saying we're going to denaturalize American citizens, Okay, don't do that,
but you can hold seven hundred and fifty thousand people
(14:02):
in these new detention centers. So it's moving the goal
post on us so that we begin to react to
the most extreme part when.
Speaker 9 (14:10):
We're already in extreme situations right now.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Which leads me to something that happened recently.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Laura Lumer, who is a right wing pundit close to
Donald Trump, when FIREWL recently, she said that there will
be sixty five million meals for alligators. Alligators the reference
to the immigrant detention camp right in Florida that's being built.
Speaker 10 (14:31):
Right in the middle of the sweltering heat of the
Florida Everglades, reports of mosquitoes the size of elephants, no
water to clean yourself, and food that has worms in it.
Those stomach churning details come from an inmate inside the
New Florida Immigration Detention Center known as Alligator Alcatraz and
(14:51):
this weekend.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
And the number sixty five million is the number of
Latinos and Latinas in the United States. Right, there are
a number of more samples of blatant lies racism now
set out in the open.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I'm wondering, Anthony, how have you historically seen the use
of dehumanizing language in terms of kind of a precursor
for attacking people's civil rights.
Speaker 9 (15:16):
Well, that's part and parcel of what they do, right,
They that's why.
Speaker 8 (15:19):
They use their dehumanizing words and their labels. And that's
why labels matter. Right, That's why illegal alien? What other
language could you use to kind of deny someone their
due process rights or equal protection under the law?
Speaker 9 (15:34):
An illegal alien?
Speaker 8 (15:36):
And so I think with Laura Lumer when she was
kind of saying that all of us are up for grabs,
I mean, this is where I'm saying. I think they
are so overreaching that we will harvest the people of
good hearts and minds who will say no, no, no, no, no,
that's going way too far. It's only been what six
months since the president took over. It's a very different
(15:59):
environment than the beginning of his term already. I mean,
there are three hundred and twenty five lawsuits. We have
about one hundred and thirty four legal actions against the
Trump administration. We've won on major cases, whether it's Alien
Enemies Act. I still think we went on birthright citizenship.
It shows you just how far they're willing to push.
And I think ultimately the dehumanization of our communities and
(16:21):
of our people and of our immigrant populations is got
to be part of their job because otherwise they're not
going to get good Americans to agree with their agenda.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Now, one of the cases you brought it up, Trump
is actively seeking to end citizenship for children who are
born to non citizen parents in the United States. I
want to talk about the most recent Supreme Court verdict
on this issue because it is confusing. Right, Yeah, give
us the layman's lame women's understanding of what happened with
the Supreme Court.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
How concerning should this be.
Speaker 8 (16:54):
Birthright citizenship for me is hollowed ground right in the
fourteenth Amendment. It is how we turned the children of
slaves into US citizens. It's also how this nation of
immigrants allowed for people to be all equal under the
law right. It's not just in the Constitution, it's also
(17:16):
in the statute. So I don't think we lose. I
will tell you I wasn't so sure they would be
that kind of brazen.
Speaker 9 (17:23):
Right.
Speaker 8 (17:24):
We were preparing all sorts of cases for his first day.
What would it be? What would it be? And then
I was able to have a conversation with someone and
I learned that, oh my god, they're actually going to
file an executive order to repeal birthright citizenship on day one.
And I remember coming back to the office and telling
(17:45):
Legal learn who's are one of our top lawyers, saying,
you got to get me that damn lawsuit ready. I
want to see it. I want to see the briefs.
I want to see the pleadings. We got to be
ready day one. And there was a whole debate.
Speaker 9 (17:56):
Within the issue.
Speaker 8 (17:56):
No, they're not going to do that, They're not going
to be that brazen, and yesterday they were so the
idea that they dared step on that hallowed ground a
nation of immigrants and fixing America's original sin for me
was indication that the gloves were off and they were
going to run the gounlet as far as they could.
Now birth Right said, what happened with the Supreme Court
just recently was this question of there were multiple lawsuits,
(18:19):
and the question was whether a federal judge and any
one of these jurisdictions should be able to issue what
they call a universal injunction that stops the policy from
being implemented across the country. Now, the Court went out
of its way to strike down universal injunctions. Within two
hours of the Supreme Court decision coming down, we filed
(18:43):
a nationwide class action lawsuit and they'll fight us tooth
and nail and will succeed because we know how to
do this. We've been doing this for one hundred and
five years. For a class action, you have to show
that there's a cohesion among the plaintiffs in the class,
that they're all similarly situated, that they all have a
similar harm, that they could all seek a similar remedy.
(19:06):
I promise you we'll get it done. They made it
harder for us. They're going to make it more time
consuming better. If those are the rules are going to
put to us, fine, we'll comply.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
We'll be right back. Hey, we're back.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
I know you remember this, Cable news networks were exploding
with the talk about Latino men, Latino men voting for Trump.
Latino men were the ones who did this. Latino men
handed the election to Donald Trump. And so what we
did here at Latino USA was that we created a
series called Ombre Understanding Latino Men, and we've been trying
(19:53):
to understand how it is that so many Latino men,
many of them children of immigrants, did in fact turn
right towards Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
Give us your.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Sense in terms of why you think what was it
about Latino men in this moment in history that led
them to fall into what Donald Trump was selling.
Speaker 8 (20:17):
Frankly, I think part of what happened is we lost
the narrative with working people who felt that they weren't
given a fresh shot. I have one of my family
members who I know voted for Trump, and we've had
a kind of a loving hard conversation about how can
(20:40):
that be and why would that have happened? And what
this person told me is like, look, I really want
my family and myself and my children to have the
chance of living an American dream, the ones in which
I believe in that you shouldn't have to go to college,
but I should be able to have a good job
(21:01):
and provide for my family and have safe schools and
what the old American dream was be able to provide
for your loved ones.
Speaker 9 (21:10):
And for good or bad.
Speaker 8 (21:13):
You know that a lot of people thought that the
Republican Party was going to be able to deliver on
that in much better ways than the Democrats. I think
ultimately those same groups of people are going to say, oh, no,
I didn't mean that.
Speaker 9 (21:26):
You should deport all of these folks. I mean, look
at all this stuff that's going viral.
Speaker 8 (21:30):
The lovely Latino was being chased by these ice agents
who's riving.
Speaker 9 (21:35):
Two sons were Marines.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Masked Federal agents were films pinning a man to the
ground and repeatedly striking him in the head and neck
before putting him in an unmarked car. The man in
the video has been identified as a Narciso Baranco and
is the father of two active duty Marines and one
Marine veteran. He is currently being held in ice custody
according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson.
Speaker 8 (22:00):
That got sent to me by like five people and like,
oh no, that's not what we mean. And I think
part of what's at play is to kind of remind
people that the American dream is for all of us
and to make sure it's within people's reach. I think
there are only a few people who are bad hearted,
evil people. I think most of the people who voted
(22:21):
with Donald Trump, there's still good people that we can
harvest that kind of that goodwill without a fight.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
I know you hear this all the time, and I
travel around the country and people are like, I don't
know what to do. I'm giving up, there's nothing to do.
What do you want them to do.
Speaker 8 (22:38):
I have no time for people who tell me that
they're worried but they don't want to do anything about it.
There is so much to do. At the ACLU, we
have this program called people Power. We have over thirteen
hundred people who will be trained tonight on know your
rights issues and how to take action if there's a
raid or a deportation, and.
Speaker 9 (23:00):
We'll do them virtually.
Speaker 8 (23:01):
Indivisible is doing amazing work at organizing marches and visits
in congressional districts. United We Dream is one of my
favorite organizations. They're building a whole new effort to help
the community have access to legal services and humanitarian assistants
that will be announced soon. There's groups like Democracy Forward
(23:24):
that are doing the litigation.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
I think you're saying, don't wring your hands, but realize
you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Organizations exist. You
can be a part of them in multiple different ways.
Anything that we need to be paying attention to that
we might be missing, something that you're like, watch this please.
Speaker 8 (23:44):
The one thing I am worried about, and I hope
I'm wrong, is that they will play the congressional card next.
Speaker 9 (23:52):
Right, we've seen the Executive Order blitz.
Speaker 8 (23:55):
Plt's number two has been the scaling up of deportations
and raids. The third one is or they still control
of the House and the Senate and the White House,
and I can expect them to want to change our
nation's immigration's laws, right, And that's what we have to
be ready to hold democrats accountable because too many of
the Democrats are going to try to roll over and
(24:16):
dance with the devil. And I think we have to
make sure we hold people accountable and make sure that
we don't allow them to fully rewrite the laws.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
And the needro Metro. What's bringing you some joy?
Speaker 9 (24:37):
I think what brings me joy the work is really meaningful.
I work a lot. I work almost seven days a week.
It's hard, but I love.
Speaker 8 (24:45):
My job and I love the fact that we are
fighting for things that really matter to real people.
Speaker 9 (24:51):
People always ask me, how do you stay optimistic?
Speaker 8 (24:54):
If not that hope is a precursor to action.
Speaker 9 (25:00):
Is the precursor to hope.
Speaker 8 (25:02):
If you do something right, an act of kindness, if
you volunteer, if you support a nonprofit, if you support
your neighbors and help them through a hard point, if
you accompany them when.
Speaker 9 (25:15):
They're afraid of what's happening. In the face of such.
Speaker 8 (25:19):
Mendacity and meanness and vitriol and kind of the dehumanization
of the Trump administration, to just be kind, to be thoughtful,
to be engaged is the most flagrant defiance to an
agenda that is just trying to make us less human
(25:40):
than we are.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Don Antonio, Tony, Anthony.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Maria Getia, thank you for being in conversation with me
for Latino USA.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
We really appreciate it.
Speaker 9 (25:53):
It's been my sincere privilege and pleasure.
Speaker 8 (25:56):
Maria, and I think the world of view will being
a tether.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
That was the executive director of the ACLU, the American
Civil Liberties Union, Anthony Romero, dear listener. Two days after
(26:27):
we recorded this interview, on July eighth, a federal judge
certified the nationwide class action lawsuit that Anthony Romero spoke
about during our conversation. The judge temporarily blocked the implementation
of Trump's executive order that attempts to deny birthright citizenship
to babies born to non US citizens. Judge la Plant
(26:49):
said his decision was not a close call, and added
the deprivation of US citizenship and an abrupt change of
policy would cause irreparable harm. The pause the Trump administration
one week to appeal. No decision was announced by the
time this episode went to air. So here's what could happen.
(27:11):
If the court rules in favor of the Trump administration.
It would allow the federal government to begin enforcing the
executive order, But because there are currently twenty eight states
with pending litigation around the issue, the government would only
be able to begin enforcement of.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
This law in about half of the country. Now.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
If the court rules against the Trump administration, the government
would be blocked from enforcing Trump's executive order, and all
children born in the United States, regardless of their parents
immigration legal status, will continue to be granted US citizenship.
Now to be clear whether the Trump Administration's executive order
(27:54):
is actually in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore unconstitutional,
that issue has not yet been taken up by the courts.
Latino USA will continue to report on the legal battle
around birthright citizenship. Our episode was produced by Julia Ta Martinelli.
(28:25):
It was edited by Andrea Lopez Grusado. It was mixed
by Julia Caruso. We recorded this script for this episode
in the studios of the Chicago Recording Company with help
from Aidan Kramer. The Latino USA team also includes Roxanna Guire,
Jessica Ellis, Victoria Estrada, Monica Morales Garcia, Renaldo Leanos Junior,
(28:47):
Stephanie Lebau, Luis, Luna Marta Martinez, JJ Carubin, and Nancy Trujillo.
Fernando Echavari is our managing editor. Benni Leiramirez and I
are executive producers. And I'm your host, Mariano Jsa. Latino
USA is part of Iheart's michul Dura podcast network. Executive
producers at iHeart are Leyogo Miss and Arlene Santana. Join
(29:10):
us again on our next episode. In the meantime, you
can find us on social media. I'll see you there.
Don't forget your listener. It's so easy, so affordable, so
special to join Futuro Plus. You can listen at free
gift bonus episodes and cheese May and you'll be supporting
the kind of reporting that you'd love. So Gasis and
yatusaves Yes Joo.
Speaker 9 (29:34):
Latino USA is made possible in part by the Ford Foundation,
working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide,
the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and Skyline Foundation.
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