S1: Welcome in San Diego. I'm Jade Hindman. On today's show , we're talking about immigration policy and education policy in San Diego schools , ahead of president elect Donald Trump's inauguration. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. So president elect Donald Trump is set to take office in less than a week. He's promised to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history , between 150,000 and 170,000 people without legal status live in San Diego County , and 150,000 San Diegans are relatives living with them. All of those people could be impacted , and mass deportations will likely have far reaching impacts on everything from local law enforcement to our cross border economy. KPBS border reporter Gustavo Solis joins me now. Gustavo , welcome.
S2: Hello , Jade.
S1: So paint a picture for me. What members of our community will most likely be directly impacted by mass deportations in San Diego.
S2: Well , you just laid out the numbers , right ? 150,000 in the county are living without legal status , and another 150,000 San Diegans are people who live in , you know , what's called mixed status household , right ? So you have status , but your parent or your partner or your cousin doesn't. That's more than 300,000 people. I mean , that's the city of Chula Vista , right ? Like that's the entire population. So we're talking about a lot of folks. I think an important thing to note also is that the the data tells us that roughly 60% of people who are living in this country without status here in San Diego County , they've been here ten years or longer. So these are folks with deep roots in our community. We know more or less like which industries they tend to work in service construction , agriculture. You interact with them in more ways than I think you think of , right ? Some of them , I mean , if you've ever worked in a restaurant in San Diego and interacted with the back of the house , you know , some of those folks are undocumented. Uh , if you've ever gotten a Home Depot on a weekend and trying to get like a , you know , finish the shed out in the backyard or build a deck , like , do you see those folks out there waiting for work ? And they're very helpful and very handy , folks. If you've ever heard , uh , been annoyed by a leaf blower , uh , gas leaf blower , like , odds are some of them might either , you know , not have status themselves or be connected to somebody who doesn't have status. So. So they are in all walks of life. Uh , when you add DACA into it , folks with protected status who have been able to to go to college and get degrees and start businesses , it includes , uh , working professionals , lawyers. There are some reporters here in San Diego County , police officers , people in the military. So it does impact this very broad community over here.
S1: And so really , this could impact everyone. It's not so much that it will only impact certain members of the community versus others. Um , I mean , you you recently reported on Tijuana's plans to create a shelter for deportees. I know you've been following the news.
S2: Right. And he's projecting an era of of kind of confidence and reassurance. But they're preparing for the worst. They're kind of hoping for the best , preparing for the worst. And the key point is that they want to avoid being caught off guard. The mayor knows how politically dangerous open air migrant encampments are along the border. And that's the main thing he wants to avoid. Earlier this week , the city council in a special session down in Tijuana called the State of Emergency , which , you know , I don't want anyone listening to get confused. There is no emergency right now in Tijuana. It's an anticipation of of what could happen with mass deportations , but that will free up some additional funding. That , plus the shelter , which , you know , phase one , there's enough capacity for a thousand people but could be expanded for 3000 people. They hope Tijuana won't be overwhelmed by by mass deportations.
S1: Well , I want to talk about enforcement of these mass deportations. Trump has said he'll use the military to carry out the mass deportations.
S2: And that's that calling for mass deportations is a lot easier than actually carrying them out. And Trump's own record isn't great when it comes to deportations. Uh , President Barack Obama deported more people than than Donald Trump did. And this last fiscal year , Joe Biden has deported more people than Trump did in any of his fiscal years in office. So so it is like it's very easy to save , but very difficult to actually do. And that's because there are very serious logistical and fiscal challenges standing in the way of mass deportation. You need a lot of money. Congress would have to approve a lot of that funding. There's diplomatic considerations. Countries like Cuba and Venezuela don't accept deportation flights. And then just space , like you need a lot of detention beds to hold all those people. You need a lot of airplanes and airports to manage all the flights out of this country. It is an incredibly expensive and logistically challenging operation.
S1: Well , and speaking of those challenges you mentioned , how could this impact local law enforcement and staffing in San Diego ? We know that local departments have said that said that they are understaffed. There have been a number of deportations already under the Biden administration , as you mentioned.
S2: Right. Because we'll go into this later. But California has sanctuary laws that limit they don't outright , you know , eliminate it , but they do limit the level of cooperation and communication between federal and local law enforcement when it comes to immigration enforcement. So there are rules in place that that prevent San Diego police officers from asking about our immigration status or if they pull us over. There's policies in place that prevent them from joining a task force with Border Patrol explicitly to to go after folks who are in the country legally. I don't anticipate that changing under the next administration. I do think there could be some indirect consequences of policies like mass deportation , which would be increased distrust in local police , which is actually where the sanctuary laws come from. Right ? The sanctuary laws recognize that communities are less safe when immigrant communities feel that they cannot call the police , because they think that it'll somehow lead to somebody that they care about being deported during the first Trump term. We saw a decrease in 911 calls. I remember up in Los Angeles. There was a decrease in calls for domestic violence , and it wasn't because it was happening less , it was just because people were afraid to report those types of crimes. And that's why we have those sanctuary laws to give immigrant communities , those with and without legal protection , the confidence to call law enforcement and know that they will be helped , that it won't be used against them to to get them out of the country.
S1: Well , that's a very good point. I want to talk about those sanctuary laws that you mentioned earlier.
S2: I think a lot of it is has to do with what police can ask and cannot ask of us. And it doesn't just apply to police. It's any , uh , cities. Uh , people at the library , any kind of , you know , public serving , um , agency or department is not really allowed to ask or inquire about legal status. Uh , there are other prohibitions for law enforcement that they are not supposed to share data about immigration status of people in in custody , and they're limited in what they can share , um , with Ice , immigration , Customs Enforcement of people in the jail population. Right. So a common thing that happens in other states is somebody will be pulled over for driving with the tail lights off , they'll be put in in a jail. This could happen in Arizona or Texas. Folks who don't have these protections. But you know , you're thrown in jail for a nonviolent infraction. And then once you're in jail , they would share that your personal information with Ice , who would then look at their own database and see if it matches , and then they kind of pick you up in the jail. That type of stuff shouldn't be happening in San Diego County. That's where some of those protections are in place. And then there's other protections that go beyond the sanctuary law just given to to folks in California. Certain benefits , right. You get access to health care through the public system. Um , you can have , you know , in-state tuition for some community colleges. There are added benefits beyond the law enforcement facing one that are unique to folks in California.
S1: You know , how likely is it that Trump revives some sort of immigration restriction using public health as a justification , like we saw with the use of title 42 during the height of the pandemic.
S2: But I have seen some reporting out of national media outlets saying that the transition team , they're already trying to identify certain diseases that they could use as a justification for bringing back something like title 42. I think tuberculosis has been thrown out as a possible explanation. If that happens , I mean , the impact could be very severe. It could essentially stop a lot of the flow of folks coming to pursue humanitarian aid , uh , folks trying to seek asylum. It could make it a lot easier for Border Patrol agents to turn away people without the due process rights of of having their case heard or seeing an immigration judge. And it would if if it's the same outcome as the first version of title 42 , it would result in a lot of migrants being kind of stranded in cities like Tijuana and Mexicali along the border.
S1: What about DACA or protections for people without legal status who were brought into the country as children ? Trump tried to end DACA during his first term.
S2: And this is going to continue in to the Trump administration. The status of DACA is uncertain. There have been legal challenges. I think the Supreme Court had had a ruling recently , and the current status of DACA is that if you already had it before , you can renew it , but there's no new people applying for it. They're not accepting new applicants to DACA. Dhaka. And that's still the same thing. And that's without even mentioning that just the very nature of DACA itself is uncertain. Right ? You have this permit and you have to renew it every once in a while. You have to pay money for it , but it doesn't grant you a pathway to citizenship. So you are kind of in this constant state of limbo of having to renew your status , and there's no long term security of it ever being , you know , protected or enshrined in more protections or potentially having somebody like Trump come in and get rid of it. You're kind of always in this precarious state.
S1:
S2: Um , well just insane. Well , in California alone right there , there's there's actually a great study out of UC Merced looking at the economic contributions of folks who are in the country without status. and state and local taxes by that population was $3.7 billion. So just on the north side of the border , like in California , we could lose a big chunk of the tax base. Cross-border. If you add the tariffs in there , it could be devastating. It's so complex and so unique. Like the cross border economy is extremely dynamic that you kind of have to break it down sector by sector , whether it's construction or the service economy or agriculture. They would all be impacted slightly different. Some might actually be a little better , like manufacturing could get a little bit of a boom in Tijuana because they might get an influx of deportees who could turn around and be workers over there. Right. So I feel like we could devote a few hours to talking about just the impact of the cross border economy. Absolutely.
S1: Absolutely. And we'll likely do that in the future. Um , you've also done , you know , quite a bit of reporting on the mental health impacts of Trump's mass deportation plan.
S2: There was a big news out of , I want to say , Bakersfield earlier this week about , you know , large scale ice operations over there. And what you saw is immigrant communities all up and down California. Anytime they saw a Border Patrol car , even here in San Diego , I saw it on on Instagram and Twitter. They would take a picture or a video of the Border Patrol vehicle and say , hey , heads up. You know , neighborhood , the Border Patrol is out here. Don't come out if you don't need to. Like that kind of awareness or advisory or just a heads up. But I think that action speaks to the level of fear and anxiety that people are feeling right now , which I think is almost part of unintended consequence of this mass deportation rhetoric is just to instill fear in the community. And that , I mean , the inauguration hasn't happened , but the fear is already here , and you can kind of see it manifesting in different ways. The other ones are just people. They're depressed. And what happens when you're depressed ? You're not motivated. You don't want to go to school. You don't want to go to work. You want to stay indoor. You tend to isolate. Some folks are already seeing that. Last month , I talked to a therapist who specializes in working with immigrants and specifically immigrants without legal status. So I do think there's a lot of fear and anxiety , and I think it's important for folks to find community , build community if they don't have any. And there are a lot of resources out there , um , whether it's , you know , different groups in like , you know , KPBS out of San Diego State , San Diego State has , uh , an office and a room for immigrant students. Uh , there's different nonprofits , there's different community organizations that you can tap into. And I think people are looking for for some kind of community right now.
S1: There are a lot of resources out there. Some of them can be found on our website , KPBS. I've been speaking with Gustavo Solis , KPBS border reporter. Gustavo , thank you so much.
S2: Thank you. Jade , I appreciate you for having me on.
S1: Coming up , how closing the Department of Education could impact local schools. KPBS Midday Edition is back after the break. You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. As we approach president elect Trump's inauguration , we're looking into how the next four years could impact the state of education. The Trump administration has promised to make sweeping reforms that could affect K through 12 and higher education across the country. California may have its own protections in place , but what does that mean for schools , colleges and universities across San Diego County ? Here to break that down for us is Agustina Paglia. She is an assistant professor of political science at UCSD School of Global Policy and Strategy. She's also the author of the book Raised to Obey the Rise and Spread of Mass Education. Professor Paglia , welcome to Midday edition.
S3: Thank you.
S4: Jade , I'm very happy to be here.
S1: So glad to have you. This is obviously a big topic of conversation as many people wait to see what happens. So let's start with something at the forefront. And that is Trump's plans to eliminate the Department of Education. Remind us , what does the Department of Education do ? Absolutely.
S4: And I think I'm glad you asked that , because there's a lot of confusion out there about the plans to eliminate the Department of Education , which , by the way , would not happen right away. But the first thing I want to make sure people know is that the federal government , and therefore the Department of Education , does not make education policy because the US Constitution does not give the federal government any jurisdiction to make education policy. The Constitution implies that all policymaking in the realm of education falls under the purview of states and local governments. And so that's one thing for people to be aware of , is that the Department of Education make policy that affects the entire country. What it can do is it can publish guidelines that make recommendations for states to adopt and what it also does. And this is the most important function that the Department of Education has , is it administers federal funding for education , so the federal government cannot make education policy. It cannot , for example , sanction a national curriculum. It cannot sanction policy determining what teachers need to do in order to have a teacher certification. But what it can do and has done for many decades , is to fund states and districts. And the most important way by which the federal government does that is through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. And in particular , within that act , something known as title one , which is funds that the federal government provides to districts serving many low income students. And the Department of Education is in charge of administering those funds. And so it can send the funds or withhold those funds. And that's sort of a really important function , because sometimes the Department of Education , for instance , if we go back to the Bush years with No Child Left Behind , where districts were required to perform well in standardized tests , if they didn't perform well , the law said , you're not going to receive your title one funds from the federal government , and it was the Department of Education that was in charge of implementing that and withholding those funds. So that's sort of one of the most important functions. I would say.
S1: The department holds the purse strings for education across the country. It sounds like. So my next question here is , you know , what would it actually look like if Donald Trump were to close the Department of Education ? Right.
S4: So closing the Department of Education by no means means giving up the federal government's power to influence education policy in the states. So what the Trump administration would do would be to send the various offices that currently form part of the Department of Education to other federal agencies. So , for example , what would happen is that the office that currently manages the disbursement of title one funds would move to Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense , for example , would take over the Department for the administration of programs related to education for children of military families and programs that are related to , or funding that is related to education for Native Americans would go to the Bureau of Indian Affairs and so on and so forth. So it's really just kind of not giving up any of the functions of the Department of Education , but rather resending those redistributing those across different federal agencies.
S1: You know , much of your expertise is in curriculum policy. Can you tell us about some of the reforms that Trump is looking to implement at the K through 12 level ? Absolutely.
S4: So we first should go back to the previous Trump administration , where after Black Lives Matters , uh , Trump created the 1776 Commission or Patriotic Education Commission , and that commission was ended on the first day of Biden's administration. But that commission issued a report providing guidelines for states to promote more patriotic education in schools and to prohibit the teaching of divisive concepts , which , amongst some of the concepts included in this , the Commission's understanding of what constitutes divisive concepts was the notion of systemic or institutionalized racism. And what we saw after the , the , the abolishment of that commission under the Biden administration was that state legislatures took over that agenda and passed what were known as anti CRT laws at the state level , where conservatives or Republicans had control of those legislatures. And what the Trump administration in this new term plans to do is to expand that agenda to other states and to districts in blue states , if you want , that are not under states that passed these anti CRT laws , but they still want to promote patriotic education nationwide. And again , they cannot do so by passing a national curriculum that says this is going to be the curriculum you need to teach. But the way that they can influence the curriculum decisions that are made at the state level and district decisions over which textbooks to teach and so on , is by saying , if you don't teach patriotic education or your education system doesn't look the way we want to be teaching the American way of life. And also , if your district is teaching divisive concepts such as institutionalized racism , then you're not going to get federal funding. That's the power. The way that the federal government can influence curriculum is not by passing a curriculum , but but by threatening to withhold funding from districts and states that don't comply.
S1: I do want to move to higher education because we can't leave that out.
S4: So that's something that's that's I think going to be a very early measure is to say the federal government will not provide funding to any higher education institution that has a D office or a curriculum requirement , such as UCSD has. UCSD has a requirement for students that they should take a course that counts toward a Dei requirement. And so these are things that I think the Trump administration will not support and will threaten to withhold federal funding to anyone who has those kinds of things. Um , there are other things as well that we're seeing already. I think it's very helpful to look at what state legislatures in Republican dominated states are doing as a sign of what the federal government might also do. Um , at the national level , um , and some of the things that we're seeing , for example , are ending tenure protections for professors and instructors , which is some tenure protections are very important for protecting academic freedom and enabling people to study and teach things without worrying about political persecution. And we're seeing states that have already gotten rid of tenure protections. And I think it's. I'm curious how the federal government will handle that. Again , it doesn't have the ability to do it , um , directly , but I suspect it will want to , to do something , um , to weaken tenure protections. And likewise , we're also seeing attacks on shared governance , which is a principle that gives faculty professors a say over decision making. So it's not just administrators who are making university policy , but also , uh , instructors. And we're we're seeing sort of some , some attacks on that as well. But I think the broader impact also for higher education institutions in San Diego is because of everything that's going in the country , going on in the country , in other states , and fear that people have of what the Trump administration might do. What we're already seeing is a lot of self-censoring of professors not teaching certain topics or not studying certain topics. And that in and of itself is already in some ways , accomplishing the goal of the Trump administration without doing anything at all other than just engendering fear. But having people sort of stay away from studying these issues of racism in the history of the United States or teaching about that. And so I think that that's that's an important thing to keep in mind , is sort of the influence that the administration will have just through people's own self-censoring.
S1: Well , there's still a lot of uncertainty around what the future holds for education and Trump's next term in general. What do you recommend students , teachers , and parents look out for as we head into this next year.
S4: My main recommendation has to do with curriculum policies. There's going to be , as there has been over the last four years , a lot of debate at the state level and at the district level over what the curriculum should look like , what textbooks should a district use ? In California , we have an ethnic studies requirement for kids who are graduating from high school , and there's a lot of debate at the district level of which textbook exactly should be used to meet those requirements. And what I want to say to parents , to students , and to anyone who cares about education is that becoming involved and participating in this curriculum ? Debates , attending the school board meetings , offering your perspective is extremely important. If you care about the future of education in the United States , because one of the things that I have found through my work is that the curriculum rarely changes. It is , um , the policies that are made around curriculum , uh , are tend to stick around for many decades , and they last well beyond. Someone who put in place those curriculum policies leaves power. And so I think people need to realize that whatever comes out of the current debates over the curriculum is something that will most likely stick around for many , many decades. It will shape the future of education in the US , and it will also shape how we think of common values. What are common values across citizens in the United States ? So that's my main recommendation to to not just let other people decide what that curriculum will look like , but actually become involved in these conversations and express your opinion. And if you want the school to teach about the history of cruelty against slaves , don't take for granted that there's others who are going to express your same opinion. Make sure that you express that opinion and that you're expressing that to the members of the school board and to school principals that you're aware that you're familiar with , and so on.
S3: All right.
S1: I've been speaking with Agustina Paglia , an assistant professor at UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. Professor , thank you so much for joining us.
S4: Thank you. Jade. I'm glad I was able to talk with you today.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
