What a second Trump presidency could mean for the border

S1: Welcome to KPBS roundtable. I'm Scott Rod. Today on the show , a conversation with journalists covering the border on what a second Trump presidency could mean for the nation's immigration system.

S2: He's made this promise , and you have to take him at his word that he's going to do the the largest deportation in history , I think , is the way he's put it.

S1: But how would president elect Trump carry out this plan , and is it even feasible ? Plus , our weekly conversation about other big stories in the roundup. That's ahead on KPBS roundtable. This week , president elect Donald Trump wasted little time in announcing several key cabinet nominations to help him accomplish his top priorities for his second term. One of those top priorities , of course , is on immigration. Trump has promised mass deportations , as well as sweeping changes to the border and how immigration works in the US. We wanted to delve into what another Trump presidency could mean for immigrants , the immigration system and the San Diego Tijuana border region. Joining me are three of the region's leading border and immigration reporters. Kate Morsy is a border and immigration reporter for several publications , including Voice of San Diego and Capital and Main. Elliot Baggett is the immigration team lead for the Associated Press here in San Diego. And Gustavo Solis is the border reporter for KPBS. Welcome to all of you. Hello. Hi.

S3: Hi.

S1: Briefly to start as reporters covering immigration and the border. What were your first thoughts after it became clear that Donald Trump would return to the white House for a second term ? Elliot , I'll start with you.

S2: Then I was going to probably be waking up at like five in the morning and looking at my phone and saying , what did what happened overnight ? What did he tweet ? What did he that's what happened in the first term. It was a roller coaster. There were just , you know , a flurry of announcements at night , in the morning , on the weekends , things that policies that we had never that I never thought it never imagined. Very creative ones that today might seem like old hat , you know , the the pandemic era ban on asylum , you know , just title 42. I mean , the list goes on. We could talk for , for an hour about everything that he did in his first term. And yeah , I just just , you know , the last couple week or so just trying to come to terms with what's , what's ahead. It's going to be , you know , it's going to be a pretty wild ride , I think.

S1:

S3: Just thinking about how much work it was to be on this beat during the last administration and the the pressures to keep up with everything. I remember in the first week or so of his his last administration , he passed three immigration executive orders that were laundry lists of everything he wanted to accomplish in office. And some of those things happened right away , like the Muslim ban. Other things took a couple of years for his folks to figure out how to implement , but we right away had this list of things that he was going to do , and we had to figure out what they meant and then follow all of them through.

S1:

S4: But the other thought was , okay , buckle up , because it is a lot of work. I think they both described the cycle that was the first Trump administration. It was like you'd wake up and there would be , um , a tweet or a press release or a new announcement , and it was just overwhelming. It was like this endless cycle of reacting to what the administration was doing. It was a lot of , uh , like outrage and sadness and feelings. So it was just this really draining marathon for a long time. So we've been at KPBS , I don't know , Kate and Eliot , how you've been kind of planning or getting ahead of the second administration , because one of the things we do want to try to avoid is , as much as we can getting not stuck in that cycle of just reacting and reacting , reacting , but really trying to to approach it in a different way.

S1: Build the wall was Trump's campaign promise eight years ago. We heard that over and over again. This time around , Trump campaigned on the promise of mass deportations. Now , what does that mean ? How could that work ? Or is it still unclear ? Elliot , I'll start with you.

S2: It's unclear. Um , you know , it's not going to be like a flip of the switch. Ice is Immigration and Customs Enforcement , which does the deportations , detentions and removals is , um , uh , has limited resources , limited bed space. Uh , they can reprogram some quite a bit of money , apparently. And so they can can get a shot in the arm that way , and they can do certain sort of shock and awe type of , of measures that , uh , actions that , that some people predict will happen. And I'm talking about workplace raids that that didn't happen during the Biden or Obama years. It did happen during Trump and George W Bush , where they have , you know , hundreds of of of officers , armed , armed people , uh , you know , show up at a factory at six in the morning and arrest. I think the largest was , uh , some chicken plants in Jackson , Mississippi , where they arrested like 800 people. And then someone has to go pick up the kids at school. And it's very , very dramatic. tumultuous. Um , and you know , so he's going to want to make , you know , people think that he will want to make a big show of it , you know , but there's limited things they can do with ISIS budget. The question is , what else is he going to do ? Is he going you know , Trump has talked about invoking Wartime Powers Act , the Alien Enemies Act Stephen Miller has talked about red state governors sending National Guard into blue states. So the example he gave was , you know , the Virginia governor since the National Guard into Maryland , which has a lot of sanctuary jurisdictions , they would send them into neighboring states to make arrests. I mean , those would be big moves. Um , he could , as he did with the border wall , you know , tap declare some kind of border emergency and tap the Pentagon military budgets , billions of dollars , which he used to build the wall. He could get money , potentially get money through some sort of border emergency. Um , I mean , a lot of it's somewhat speculative , but he has laid it out , you know , they've he said during his first term that he wanted to , you know , mass deportations. And he , uh , I think Kate was showing me the numbers earlier. But , you know , Obama was had the record number of deportations. So this time he's got , you know , he's they've had for , you know , four years to sharpen their pencils , so to speak , uh , a new , new judiciary , new Supreme Court. So it could be different this time.

S1: So that phrase , mass deportation seems succinct. It may seem simple to people , but it sounds like a really sprawling sort of. Yeah. And I.

S2: You know , they make arrests every day. So it's not going to be like , oh my God , there's one arrest. Uh , the first person arrested , you know , they're going to be there'll be people arrested up until the last day of the Biden administration. So it's not going to be like , in that sense , a dramatic change. But , you know , he he's made made this promise and you have to take him at his word that he's going to do the the largest deportation in history , I think is the way he's put it. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. Okay. I want you to jump in here. Tell us a little bit about what you think this mass deportation promise might look like , and maybe break down some of the numbers of how it compares to past administrations. Yeah.

S3: So I think one of the things that his administration ran into the first time around is that deporting someone is actually quite complicated. So they made a number of arrests under his administration. I remember in one of the early quarters of his administration here in San Diego , we had more arrests than anywhere else in the country from the Ice office. And , you know , we saw things like what Elliot was talking about with the raids. But arresting someone is not deporting someone. You know , you you have a whole process where they have to go to immigration court. They have to get an order of removal before they can actually be deported. And then you have to make arrangements with the country that you're going to send them to. The country has to do a bunch of paperwork before they can actually be taken back. There are some countries that are easier to to deport to than others. Some countries are not cooperative at all. I know the Biden administration has done some work to try to get more cooperation from some of those countries , so Trump may actually have an easier time with those thanks to some of the work that that the Biden administration has done. But when you look at the at the numbers under the the last Obama term , there were actually about 300,000 more deportations than there were under the Trump administration. And that's that's a pretty significant number. Right. And so it's one of the things that I'm going to be watching for is what have they come up with in the last four years that they've been sitting on this and thinking about what worked and didn't work the first time in terms of their goals , what are they going to do differently to try to shortcut that process ? That's I think , if if they're going to execute something based on what they've been talking about , they're going to have to find a way to get around this , this immigration court process and , and deportations to with countries that are difficult to deport to. And that really remains to be seen. But I would imagine with the work that Stephen Miller has been doing in the last four years , he's probably got some ideas.

S1:

S4: It's very expensive. And you just require physical space , right ? If you arrest a bunch of people , where are you going to detain them ? Right. Ice only has so many spots now I know. Uh , private detention facilities are kind of looking like they're going to step in. What was it ? After a day or two after the election , I think the stock for Geo Group went up 30%. So they stand to to maybe play a bigger role. Kate mentioned the the airplanes. Uh , the federal government charters with a lot of private companies. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of coordination. There's a lot of movement. I think just last week in Haiti , two commercial flights had to turn around because there were shootings at the airport in port au Prince. Uh , Venezuela is not in good terms with the US. So how do you deport people to a place like Kate mentioned that won't accept them ? Those are some very challenging things to overcome. And now in terms from the from kind of the migrant perspective or the undocumented person perspective , I think one of the impacts is just the fear that comes with mass deportation , right ? One of the things I think that Trump did in the first term was eliminate the priority that Ice had , right. Um , Ice recognizes that there are millions of undocumented people in the country. It makes more sense to focus on the ones who have criminal convictions and orders of removal already. Right ? It narrows the scope and it makes it more manageable. One of the first things Trump did in the first term was eliminate those priorities , and that resulted in a lot of people getting caught up in what was what was the term collateral. Yeah. Thanks , Eliot. Collateral deportations. Right. So ISIS going to one house to look for one person , but they're aunt and cousin and nephew are also all there. And also all undocumented. and it doesn't matter whether they've been in the country ten years , have a job , and have never really broken any criminal like they're in the country illegally. They're fair game. I think that's a big fear from the the Trump approach to mass deportation , just from an immigrant community perspective. And not to mention , I think make status families are a thing , a really big thing. Mixed status families is the parents are undocumented , but the the children are U.S. citizens or one spouse and the other have different statuses. And that really , I think people assume that deportation is only impacting immigrants who don't have legal status , but they impact you as citizens directly and indirectly all the time.

S3: Gustavo is absolutely right. And I think one of the things that we saw last time that we're likely to see again is Ice going for people who are in that like already ordered , removed space and what that means , what that looks like. There are people , for example , who say you're undocumented , you've been ordered removed , but you have a US citizen child who has some kind of condition that requires really intensive medical care. And so ISIS said , okay , you've been ordered deported , but we're going to let you stay here to take care of your kid. We saw a lot of those folks get deported right away under the Trump administration last time. So people who have have these appointments to check in with Ice , they're the first ones who are going to really , I think , be able to show what what is happening. Are they are they still allowed to stay ? We saw a lot of those folks taking shelter in churches last time around.

S2: Um , I just I went on a ride along with ice up in Oceanside. I want to say it was about two years ago , and they they had been casing out this one home for days. And the guy , I believe he had a criminal record they wanted , you know , he was the target. He wasn't home or. No. I think they , they , they did arrest him , but they were they had an interaction with his girlfriend , who was also in the country illegally. And they were just like , well , we don't really care about her. She's she's , she's she's obeying the law. She's not she's not a concern for us. And so they just left her alone. Whereas when I'm aging myself here. But when I went out with George W Bush and that administration right along in the Linda Vista area , they were just stopping everybody. They would they would go for one person. But then , you know , like Gustavo described , there's six other people in the home and they , you know , they would take they they would , you know , arrest anyone who was here illegally. One one thing that , um , will be very important , I mean , Ice does not have generally does not have search warrants. So there'll be a lot of these , uh , advocacy groups telling people not to open the doors. So it's difficult for them to make arrests at the home. They do it out in the streets or in the workplace. And then , you know , in California is generally a sanctuary state , meaning that law enforcement , the sheriff and the police departments do not cooperate with Ice. So they're going to be , uh , immigrants in , in states like that are going to be in a much better position , I would say , or safer position. However , whatever word you want to use than someone in a , you know , a share where the sheriff is , like , all gung ho to enforce immigration laws.

S1: When roundtable returns. More from our panel of journalists covering the border , including their reporting on the people who would be most impacted by Trump's proposed policies.

S3: She would disappear on me. And then , you know , a month or so later , I'd get a message in WhatsApp from a new phone number like , hey , it's me. I got robbed at gunpoint again , and my phone was taken.

S1: That's ahead on roundtable. You're listening to KPBS roundtable , I'm Scott Rodd. Today we're getting reaction from reporters who cover immigration and the border along the San Diego Tijuana border region. I'm speaking with KPBS , Gustavo Solis , the Associated Press is Elliot Bagot and immigration reporter Kate Morrissey. You all have enumerated many of the challenges with mass deportation. It's not a simple sort of concept to carry out , but the folks who Trump has said he would like to appoint to key cabinet or senior staffing positions have made clear that they're dead set on this.

S2: Uh , and he , you know , Tom worked , worked his way up the ranks very steadily. You know , a lot of he's done , you know , his every aspect of immigration. I interviewed him in 2018. He said , I'm not the smartest guy in the room , but I know immigration and that no one will really dispute that. I mean , he he's been out in the in the , you know , lonely nights out in Campo. He's been , you know , a deportation officer and investigator , and he's worked his way up to the top of ice. Uh , he kind of became a public figure maybe in the midway through the Obama years and was a leading lead ice during much of much of the Trump era. So somebody who really knows how the machine operates is , is someone told me , uh , and then another person who's about 20 or 30 years older , younger. Excuse me. Uh , Stephen Miller is the deputy chief of staff. He's , uh , I mean , both of them are extremely , uh , knowledgeable and smart about the immigration system. Um , their rhetoric is a little different , but they're they're , you know , pretty much in lockstep on , you know what ? I think they'll be directing everything , really , from the white House. Kristi Noem was named the South Dakota governor , was named , uh , Homeland Security Secretary , assuming she gets confirmed. Someone who has very little immigration experience but is a Trump loyalist. Um , so I would expect , you know , I mean , just from just from what I said that Homan and Trump , excuse me , Homan and Miller would be making a lot of the policy decisions out of the white House.

S1: Kate , much of your reporting over the last several years has looked at the US asylum system , and you profiled people who were going through the asylum system , including one immigrant named Barbara , who came to the United States from Nicaragua. Tell us a little bit about her story and what it says about the asylum system and how that system might change under a Trump presidency.

S5: So Barbara came.

S3: To the border during the Trump presidency last time she was placed into the Remain in Mexico program , which was of the Trump administration's creation , and it required asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their US immigration court cases. So every time they had court , they would come to the border. They would cross , they would go to their hearing , they would get put on a prison bus , taken back to the border , and then they would wait again in Mexico for the next hearing. And so what we saw with that program was quite a number of things. One , people had a very difficult time getting attorneys because attorneys couldn't figure out how to represent people who were physically in Mexico. And so we saw the asylum grant rates drop because it's very difficult to bring a case without an attorney. It's very complex. It takes quite a number of hearings , quite a lot of evidence to show how your case lines up with the specific definition of asylum. Um , and then on top of that , we saw criminal organizations in Mexico start to take much more of an interest in the migrants who were stuck waiting there. They were sort of like sitting ducks. And so we started to see an increase in kidnappings , an increase in extortion , um , all kinds of attacks and harm that were happening to people. There was a there was a human rights first database of of these attacks that were were documented , um , and that that continued through the the second policy that he , he brought into place with title 42 , where people were then being expelled and back to back to Mexico without being allowed to request asylum. And so we saw those attacks increase. And so I think now all of that sort of infrastructure to take advantage of migrants is already in place for whatever he brings next. But so Barbara was was one of these people who was sent to Tijuana , uh , to wait for her case. And , um , she was robbed several times. So I followed her story for months. I actually went to Nicaragua , fact checked her whole case. She had a very compelling case based on political persecution from the Ortega regime. And she would disappear on me. And then , you know , a month or so later , I'd get a message in WhatsApp from a new phone number like , hey , it's me. I got robbed at gunpoint again and my phone was taken. Here's my new phone number. And that was. That was something that happened over and over again. And I was following her story. She was actually able to come into the United States under the Biden administration when he wound down the program the first time. And so now she's got her green card. She's she's doing quite well in , in Florida. Um , but there's , you know , this this potential for that to come back and for people to be in that sort of same , uh , limbo that she was in , that was very difficult. She was separated from her child because she had left him behind when she fled for her life , because she wasn't physically well enough to bring him. And so , you know , being in that space for , for years , waiting for your immigration court case , uh , is very difficult on people and not safe. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. A reminder that the stakes are just so tremendously high for the people who are caught in that limbo. Gustavo , you've done reporting on the CBP one app and its role in the US immigration system.

S4: It would be the short version of it. So CBP one is the Biden administration's one of the initial responses to to the what was described as the chaos at the border. Right ? A lot of people showing up at once , all trying to get in. One of his solutions was to create this mobile app instead of coming to the border and and just waiting , you download this app , you sign up and you wait for an appointment to come in legally at a given time and place. And on paper it sounds great , right ? We use apps for everything. This is streamline. It makes sense in practice. It really didn't work very much for for a lot of reasons. Right ? One there were language concerns with initially was in Spanish , Haitian Creole , and I.

S3: Don't even think it was in Creole.

S2: I think it's in three languages right now. Yeah.

S4: So like if you don't speak Spanish or any of the other languages , a lot of folks speak indigenous languages , right ? There are a lot of folks from Ukraine , uh , different parts of Asia coming by. So that makes it very difficult , right ? If you don't have a smartphone that has the software to carry the app , it's just going to crash on you , right ? So it became an equity issue , let alone Wi-Fi , if you don't have access to Wi-Fi. How can you sign up and check ? Then there was the limitation of appointments , right ? Elliot helped me out. Was the cap on on daily appointments.

S2: For 1450 , and 400 of those are in San Isidro.

S4: 1450 for everyone trying to come through the southern border every day , demand heavily outweighs supply to the point where the the average wait times from when you create an account to when you actually get the appointment have become longer and longer and longer. I spoke to folks in Tijuana who waited nine months for an appointment , and that was months ago. Now I'm hearing people have been waiting a year wow , to get this appointment. So imagine that , like folks who are asylum seekers want to come through legally , are being forced to wait. By definition , they're already very vulnerable , right ? They don't have steady jobs , a source of income , steady housing. Kate mentioned some of the problems with remain in Mexico where people took advantage of these vulnerable migrants. I think CBP one has those same echoes.

S2: I would disagree a little bit with that. I mean , I don't dispute anything you said. And there were there were some other glitches too that got ironed out. But yeah , I mean , to me , nine months and I , you know , many people wait less than that. Some people it's like a lottery. So , you know , some people get lucky , but it doesn't seem like that much to wait for a two year parole in the United States. You get a work permit. Uh , you know , I it's to me , it's very orderly. Everyone. You know , people show up three times a day with their appointments. It's much better in many ways that , you know , less corruption , uh , more , more transparency. Everyone gives their fingerprints. And so it doesn't it seems very orderly. And a lot of people , I mean , 800,000 , I believe , have have come in this way since it started.

S3: I would say , though , that that there is an issue when people who are still imminently in danger have trouble making like accessing the system.

S2: Not an asylum. It's not an asylum system.

S3: So if if you're in imminent danger in Tijuana as an asylum seeker , there's no way for you to say like , hey , pick me tomorrow app , right ? Like that. That , um.

S2: It's not designed that way.

S3: Right ? But but the asylum system , like the reason why it was created to was to protect people who are in imminent danger of their lives. People who like. If you think back to Jewish migrants during the Holocaust , who came on a ship to the United States , and we sent them back to Europe , and hundreds of them were killed in the Holocaust. The reason why we as a world decided to create asylum as a thing was because that happened. And so if you're thinking about sort of the reason for the system and then you're looking at , you know , the way this app functions , it is falling short on identifying the people who need to be screened right away.

S2: Yeah , and I don't think that was the purpose of CBP one. It was more just to , you know , so many people were coming in for there was no other way to get in the country. So everyone was applying for asylum , whether they had good cases or not. And so this was just a way to handle the just the massive flows where people were crossing and , you know , by the hundreds. And just in the desert now it's it's much more orderly.

S6: So I think.

S4: We can agree on that. CBP one is one of the policies. I forget who , but the Trump administration has hinted that they want to get rid of it , right ? Yeah.

S2: That'll be that'll be one of the first things to watch. Yeah.

S6: Yeah. Mhm.

S1: And what would that mean then in terms of folks who are trying to cross perhaps who are trying to seek asylum here , this app that you know may not be perfect , but it is creating some sense of order , allowing some people to come through.

S4: It's an imperfect app , but it is working. And right now , practically speaking , it's the only legal way most migrants have access to the asylum system , barring some of the , you know , parole programs that the Biden administration rolled out. But if you eliminate the one way people have like , like , right. Was the the analogy people use like get in line , right ? They want people to get in line. Right now , CBP one is the closest thing we have to a line. If you eliminate that and there is no line , then then you really block access to asylum , right ? You go back what Kate was saying about the commitments we made after the Second World War to , to help these people out. You're kind of going back on those commitments a little bit , I think.

S3: Well , I would expect to see similar to what we saw at the beginning of the Biden administration , actually , which was people had been waiting , people had been waiting through this pandemic policy. Biden had said he was going to create some kind of humane system. And then in the first months of his administration , there was no change. And so people got frustrated. They were like , I was waiting and you said you were going to do something and you haven't done it. And so we saw a bunch of people who had been in that limbo position make the decision to cross without authorization , either through the mountains , over the wall. And so then they're putting their lives at risk in a different way.

S2: For some reason. Some nationalities like it more than others , but some of those people who are now waiting are going to cross illegally , as Kate suggested , and potentially and very dangerous. Others maybe won't come. I don't know , I wouldn't venture a guess on that one.

S1: Briefly , I want to get your final thoughts on all of this. Looking ahead to the coming weeks before Trump is Trump takes office.

S4: I'm curious to see what comes out of it. California still has , as Elliot mentioned , some of the sanctuary laws that were passed during the first administration , which do limit the cooperation of local law enforcement. With that , um , even at the local level , if a San Diego police officer or any person in the county stops you , they're not allowed to ask you for your immigration status. They're not allowed to share it with Ice. So I think people listening to this can take comfort to some of those extra protections they have from being here once the administration begins , I think I don't look forward to it because of all the work that I'll have to do. Right ? It'll be and that's the approach of the administration. I think they've kind of gone on record saying that they want to do a lot of little things , all at once to try to overwhelm the system , and it could be done in a lot of different ways. I mean , one of the appointments we didn't mention was uh , or not appointments , but nominees was , um , uh , gates out of Florida , who would be attorney general , which oversees the immigration courts that are separate. And Kate mentioned about problematic issues with the immigration courts. Right. Unlike the criminal system , it's totally separate. It has its own rules , right ? You have the right to get an attorney , but one isn't necessarily provided for you. And you see these instances of children trying to represent themselves in another language with really complex issues. So I , I think it's kind of on on the immigration reporter community to try to catch everything that's thrown our way and make sense of it. So I do look forward to reading the work of my colleagues and contributing to to that conversation.

S1: Staying on top of it will be a tall task for sure.

S3: Um , but I just , you know , I feel like with the the things we saw last time , there's going to be a lot going on. And it's , it's a lot for any one person to keep track of. And the best thing that we can do , as Gustavo was saying , is , is as a community of journalists , make sure that we're we're catching all of the things together and holding up each other's work. And so , you know , I'm very much looking toward how I can do my part in that. And , and , you know , look for the things that I know to look for because of what we saw last time. But I think a lot of it is , you know , waiting to see the ways that they're going to bend the system this time. And it's hard to know before they start to make those moves what those are going to be. So just getting ourselves as ready as possible for what that might look like.

S1: We'll have to leave it there. I've been speaking with freelance immigration reporter Kate Morrissey , Elliott's Baggett immigration team lead with the Associated Press and KPBS investigative border reporter Gustavo Solis. Thanks to all of you for joining me today. Thank you. Scott.

S6: Scott.

S3: Thank you.

S4: Happy to be here. Thank you Scott.

S1: Up next , we hear about other stories we've been following this week on the roundup , including a look into why it takes so long for California to count its votes.

S7:

S1: You're listening to KPBS roundtable. I'm Scott rod. It's time now to talk about some other stories on our weekly roundup. And joining me is KPBS , Andrew Bracken. Hey , Andrew. Hey , Scott. All right , start us off.

S7: Still , it's been , what , almost two weeks since the election ended and California still counting their votes.

S1: Has it been two weeks ? It feels like five months.

S7: Well , in San Diego County , there's , you know , as like midweek this week , they still had about 140,000 outstanding votes that they were still tabulating. I think that's down to like we're recording right now about 77,000 , but still a lot. And so I've just seen some some talk about this. There was a piece in the L.A. times but also just on social media , kind of , you know , is this a good thing ? Is this , you know , healthy for democracy , that we take so much time to count all our votes when many other states are done counting their votes ? I think we have a lot of rules to let people you can sign up to vote , you know , one minute before the polls close. And that's really cool.

S1: The Secretary of State is taking its time to really make sure that every ballot is counted , and that these results are reliable. Obviously , that's really important and that does take time. But the fact that this goes on and on much longer than other states , it does raise questions. It also can create misperceptions sometimes. For example , you know , when you start to see , you know , the results when there are still many votes to be counted. You know , I saw there was a headline that said , well , it looks like , you know , Trump received more a higher percentage of the vote this time than , than in 2020. But , you know , that's going to change over time. And it's.

S7: A moving. Target.

S1: Target. Yeah. And experts pointed out whoa. You're jumping the gun here. So I think it creates potential misunderstandings and also potentially distrust. Again taking time to count votes is good. But when people see that it takes us long , I think mistakenly they can look at it and say something seems weird here. But again , it's all about counting every vote , auditing those results , making sure that everything is as accurate as possible. And I think it's an interesting push and pull between trying to make California's elections as user friendly as possible. Right ? There is drop off ballots , mail in ballots. You can go in person. And as you said , you can register on Election Day and cast a conditional ballot. So I do wonder if there is if there's much that they can do to try to keep elections , as you know , open and as user friendly as possible , like I said , but trying to speed up the count , I do wonder if if that sort of a tug of war that , you know , creates some difficulty. Yeah.

S8: Yeah.

S7: I think that's an interesting debate to see going forward.

S1: And I think rightly so. He fears that Trump will try to dismantle Trump's administration , will try to undermine or revoke. You know , he called a special session for the legislature , which is going to convene in early December. And then Newsom jetted off to D.C. to talk with folks in the Biden administration to try to , like I said , fortify all of the things that he's been able to him and lawmakers have been able to pass and set into place here in California , you know , ranging from disaster aid. There is a concern that Trump had threatened to potentially withhold disaster aid. There is currently outstanding reimbursements that the federal government owes California that Newsom wants to make sure that the state does get. But also there's concerns about moving forward. Requests for disaster aid may be denied. There are issues on the environment. The state still needs some approvals from the federal government in terms of phasing out fossil fuel burning cars. Trump has made clear that he wants to revoke or stand in the way of the state's plans for zero emission vehicles , and getting some of these approvals in place. It may not protect California's plans completely , but it may provide some additional security. There's also a push to try to get more land preservation and conservation , which would prevent development on those lands and , of course , high speed rail. That's been a beleaguered project in California for many years , and they're relying on federal dollars to complete the Central Valley leg. You know , again , this project has hit snags and cost overruns over the years. And if this federal money is pulled , that could definitely be another big hit.

S7: And you covered Governor Gavin Newsom during the Trump administration. Is this kind of reminiscent to how he approached his first term ? You see kind of similarities there.

S1: I think that I think that Newsom knows what happened the first time around. He's like , it's not it's not a distant memory. The state was involved in over 100 lawsuits. There was lots of wrangling and words back and forth. You know , at times they kind of seemed like frenemies. They would sometimes be on the same page and be okay , but then other times they'd exchange pretty tough words. So , you know , it's reminiscent in the fact that it just seems like Sacramento lawmakers , the governor , they're all in the attorney general. Everyone's gearing up again , probably for a drawn out , years long fight. Newsom has made clear he's going to try to work with the Trump administration where he can. Um , but it also be it's very clear the writing's on the wall , that they are girding themselves for what's probably going to be a pretty contentious four years with Trump in office.

S7: Yeah , obviously a lot more more to come on that. One other story I have was from I learned of it from Axios San Diego. It's actually reporting from USA Today's home Front. And it found that San Diego is the top city when it comes to net inflow of college educated people coming to San Diego. San Diego saw a net inflow of almost 13,000 college educated residents. I think number two was Charlotte in North Carolina , but San Diego was the top of that list. Axios mentions it kind of bodes well for , you know , potentially the economy in the region. It also kind of says a lot about the industry , the biotech , some of that , you know , aerospace that San Diego has. And Axios did also mention that there's actually a lot of college graduates leaving the region. And San Diego was 13th on that list with 23,452 college graduates leaving. So it balances out somewhat. But I thought that was an interesting kind of window into where we are with San Diego and the future.

S1: Well , of course you hear about brain drain in cities all over the country and different regions , and that's obviously a big concern. But those brains have to be going somewhere. The fact that they're coming to San Diego , the fact that San Diego is at the top of the list , it's not completely surprising. Number one , I mean , I think that's notable , certainly , but a lot. It's a desirable place to live. There are a lot of opportunities here , but that could come with some pros and cons. Obviously , you know , have a having a well-educated workforce is a great thing. It could also help bolster the economy , perhaps create new jobs. But in certain sectors it might make those jobs more competitive , harder to get. It might be , you know , a challenge in certain and certain sectors.

S7: And we have other challenges with obviously housing and cost of living that always come up. So that might.

S1: And if you have folks who are coming in that are college educated in there , perhaps making a higher wage , you know , that could also you could see the cost of living , the cost of housing also bump up.

S7: Who gets left out in that. Yeah , exactly.

S1: So definitely pros some cons here. But also the fact that you noted that there are a number of folks who are also leaving the area with , with , with college degrees. You know , it doesn't mean that San Diego is holding on to everyone and everyone wants to stay here or is able to stay here. People are finding opportunity here , but some folks are also seeing opportunity elsewhere. I want to turn to a story in the New York Times going back to the Trump administration. There's been a flurry of appointments. The one that jumped out to me amid the others , which there have been some notable ones , for sure. Trump tapping Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to be the heads of this Department of Government efficiency.

S7: Did you see the Doge ? Yeah.

S1: A.K.A Doge , a play on , uh , Elon Musk's little crypto buck. Whatever. Dogecoin.

S7: Dogecoin. Yeah.

S1: Uh , what did you think ? I've got thoughts , but I want to hear your thoughts on this.

S7: I mean , oh , man , you're putting me on the spot here. I think I'm Elon Musk out right now at the moment.

S1: Um , aren't we all.

S7: So I don't know what to make of it. I think some of this , it's just like I'm interested to see kind of how it works , because I know Musk is his hands and all these different sort of areas of the economy and these different industries. And I think some of them have connections to the government. So I think , don't you need to kind of a lot of times when people come into the government , they need to sell shares , they need to divest from a lot of their investments that are , you know , maybe connected to government contracts. So I think there's a lot of devil in the details there , like how that's actually going to work.

S1: Yeah , a lot of uncertainty. You hit on a big one. Well there's a question about is this actually going to be a government agency ? If so , there are certain rules about , you know , conflicts of interest , which yeah , Musk has a lot of business with the federal government. There have been there's been some talk about this potentially being outside the government , maybe sort of a quasi government agency , which again raises questions about oversight. And I think at the at the bottom of this , you know , Musk has said he wants to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget , which is just an insane amount of money from the federal budget. And like all kind of joking aside , you know , about Dogecoin and all this stuff like , these are people's lives and livelihoods that we're talking about. You know , we're talking about social welfare programs. We're talking about environmental programs , talking about , you know , eliminating potentially lots and lots of jobs all the way across the country. This isn't just , you know , bureaucrats in Washington , D.C. there are federal employees all over the country. So there could be some serious , serious effects from the decisions that Musk and Ramaswamy make in the name of efficiency. But that can have a lot of outfall. Yeah.

S7: Yeah. And I think the one of the examples that people point to is Elon Musk did this with Twitter and that like got a lot of attention , at least in the tech industry , of just cutting costs to a very extreme degree. And a lot of people look to that , at least in the private sector , in the tech sector is like a success or is like something to emulate. And we've seen a lot of job losses in the tech industry the last couple of years since he took that on. Um , yeah. But obviously the government's a whole different thing.

S1: So it's a whole different beast. But also Twitter has been hurting in a lot of ways. They so advertisers fleeing , you know , a lot of people say that the.

S7: What its value actually is. Who knows. Right. Yeah.

S1: Yeah. But a lot of people say the the quality of the platform and the content on it has degraded. So , yeah , you know , in the name of efficiency. Sure. He cut a lot of jobs , but has there been a ramification of that ? Yeah , absolutely. I'm going to wrap up with one final story. Burning man is hurting for money. Uh , you know , this this festival out in Blackrock city in Nevada , uh , a big , big deal for a lot of people to go out and do their thing , uh , out in the desert. But apparently the Burning Man nonprofit , which puts this on , is seeking $20 million in donations because they're saying that the costs , the cost of putting on the festival is way more expensive than the amount of money they're bringing in through tickets. And so , you know , just to give you an idea , the base ticket last year was $575 to get into this festival. And they claim that the cost per person , per participant is north of $700. It's got a lot of burners burning up about it. Some people are not happy to see this. They they're wondering , you know , where's all this money going ? And they want to see some more transparency on this before they're forking over more money to support this festival. I thought this debate was very interesting.

S7: Full disclosure I'm not a burner. I know several burners of past or maybe even some to today. Um , so I can't speak to the actual experience , but , um , I mean , it has grown , right ? I mean , it's they basically create a city from scratch. So I gotta imagine there's a lot that comes with that.

S1: I sort of , from arm's distance , find it fascinating and strange , but I am not a burner.

S7: Um , maybe this year you will become one.

S1: I don't know , maybe if they drop those ticket prices , I'll head out.

S7: It doesn't sound.

S1: Like roll around in the dirt and do some ketamine. Uh , that's gonna be it for this week. Andrew , thanks for joining us , as always. Thanks , Scott. Well , that'll do it for our show this week. You can listen to KPBS roundtable anytime as a podcast. Roundtable airs on KPBS FM at noon on Fridays and again Sundays at 6 a.m.. Roundtables technical producer this week was Brandon Truffaut. This show was produced by Andrew Bracken. Brooke Ruth is Roundtable's senior producer and I'm Scott Rodd. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend.