Israel Expands War, Dems Enter Redistricting Fight, Setback For Asylum Seekers

Israel says it will expand its war on Gaza and take full control of Gaza City.

Prompting a Shabbat dinner protest.

I'm Adrian Ma.

And I'm Scott Simon, and this is Up First from NPR News.

Moves and countermoves in the redistricting fight.

That's right.

Texas Republicans made the first move.

Now California Democrats are responding with a plan of of their own.

And some asylum seekers who've been in the U.S.

for years are getting letters saying their applications have been dismissed.

They're just doing the process that was legal.

And now the government's wanting to retroactively go back.

What happens next?

So please stay with us.

We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

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Israel's military is ramping up for another offensive into Gaza City.

The move was approved by Prime Minister Netanyahu's cabinet yesterday and there has been resistance from around the world and within Israel.

The UN Security Council is set to hold an emergency meeting and the foreign ministers of five countries have condemned Israel's plan.

us.

Good to be with you, Scott.

And tell us about this reaction to the Israeli government's decision.

Well, the foreign ministers of Australia, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, and Britain all strongly condemn the Israel government's decision to launch a new large-scale military operation.

They say it risks violating international humanitarian law.

And Scott Germany, one of Israel's staunchest longtime supporters, along with the U.S., obviously due to historical reasons, the Holocaust, said it will stop exporting military equipment to Israel that could be used in the Gaza Strip.

And Israelis I was talking to say that is huge.

Tell us about what you hear from Israelis.

Well, I can tell you many people are in shock.

Yesterday, I went to a town south of Tel Aviv where the families of hostages held a protest Shabbat or Sabbath dinner near the defense minister's home.

And they shouted out in megaphones that they wished him a, quote, black Sabbath.

There was a tent set up and a place set at the table for 50 hostages, the ones still in Gaza, alive and dead.

And I spoke with 68-year-old retiree Yaffa Friedman, who lives here.

She was a major in the Israeli army.

Here she is.

I think it's the most worst decision that our government has got ever.

I think it's going to kill all the hostages.

I see no reason to do it.

If you'll ask me, what stopped the war a year ago?

You know, Scott, I also spoke with the cousin of former hostage Carmel Ghat.

The 40-year-old was shot by her Hamas captors last year when Israeli troops stormed the city of Rafah.

And her cousin Gil Dickman told me the army is making the same mistake if it goes into Gaza City.

That's what they did in Rafah.

They decided to go inside Rafah and to move with enormous power of the IDF and hostages were killed.

My cousin was killed because of this decision.

You know, both of these people also expressed alarm over the huge suffering that this new offensive will bring on civilians in Gaza.

And tell us, please, about what people in Gaza Gaza are saying.

Well, Scott, the suffering and starvation there is massive and will likely get worse.

There are hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza City, one of the last parts of the enclave that is not occupied by Israeli forces.

Now, NPR's producer on the ground, Anas Baba, spoke to 51-year-old Ali Abu Al-Hanafi, who's already lost his house and two children in the war.

He says he's not leaving.

He says, I fled south once already and it was full of torture.

They've destroyed everything, people, houses, trees.

There's nowhere to go, he said.

And Eleanor, back to Israel.

How do you see events playing out?

Well, I'm going to refer back to Yaffa Friedman, who was at that Sabbath dinner.

I asked her, why is this happening if so many people seem to be against it?

You know, Scott, a poll out last month, found that 80% of Israelis want the war to end.

And she said to me, quote, the country is being held hostage by a few far-right extremist ministers.

These are the ones Netanyahu relies on for the survival of his government.

And they've made no secret, Scott, of the fact that they want Palestinians to leave Gaza and they want to build Jewish settlements there.

Now, Netanyahu's government put out a statement with five principles of this plan, which include disarming Hamas and establishing an alternative civil administration there that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.

Scott, already 500 former intelligence officers and military commanders of the IDF say there are no more military goals, so let's end this war.

And today, Scott, 300 Israeli architects and urban planners have called to stop the destruction and to rebuild Gaza.

They say 300,000 homes have been destroyed, as well as hospitals, schools, mosques, farmland, and the list goes on.

And Pierre Eleanor Beardsley in Tel Aviv, thanks so much for being with us.

You're welcome.

Democratic leaders in the California legislature say they support Governor Gavin Newsom and his plan to enter the redistricting fight that President Trump has set off around the country.

First, Texas Republicans devised a plan to redraw their congressional map to get five more GOP seats in next year's midterms.

Now, Governor Newsom wants to counter by mapping out five more seats for Democrats in California.

Texas Democrats, who fled their home state, were in Sacramento yesterday with California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas.

We will not allow Trump's Republican Party to rig this system and take permanent control of the U.S.

House of Representatives.

We're joined by Guy Marzarati, California politics and government correspondent at KQED in San Francisco.

Guy, thanks for being with us.

Good morning, Scott.

And what did California Democrats announce yesterday?

Well, we heard from Democratic leaders in both the state Senate and the state assembly that they are behind Newsom's redistricting plan, and they're going to take it to the ballot in a special election in November.

That's necessary here in California because the voters here have created this nonpartisan commission to draw political lines.

So it would have to go back to the voters.

It would have to be voters to hand the power back to the legislature.

So here's kind of the outlines of the plan we heard yesterday from Democratic leaders.

They're going to release a proposed map with new congressional lines next week.

And then it's a really tight sprint.

The legislature returns to session on August 18th.

They're going to have just a few days to place this on the ballot.

August 22nd is the deadline.

And then there would likely be a separate vote on the actual map and then also setting up a trigger where this California plan only goes into effect if Texas or other Republican states follow through with their gerrymanders.

Democratic leaders in the legislature support the governor.

What about rank-and-file Democrats?

Can you tell?

Yeah, I think it looks like they're getting in line.

Just a couple weeks ago, I was hearing a lot of skepticism from some Democrats in the legislature.

You know, they knew this independent commission was popular.

I think they liked a lot of its work.

And I think they were also worried about county workers and kind of having them scramble together this election for November 4th, because this is a tighter timeline than we're used to seeing for a statewide election.

But I think ultimately, kind of national concerns won the day.

Los Angeles Assemblymember Isaac Bryan spoke yesterday.

And he said, look, California can't stand by if Republican states are pursuing these gerrymander districts.

This is not a turn the other cheek moment while they continue to send blow after blow to the foundations of democracy.

Where I'm from in Los Angeles, when they go low, we squabble up.

And this is kind of Ben Newsom's theory here all along, right?

That Democratic voters want to see more fight from their elected leaders and that control of Congress at this moment is more important than, you know, quote-unquote good government practices.

That's kind of Ben Newsom's argument, and that argument appears to have won over state lawmakers.

What's the reaction of California Republicans?

They're not supportive of moving forward towards this plan that's going to favor Democrats, but they don't have the power to stop it here in California.

Democrats have a supermajority in the state Senate and the state assembly.

In Washington, in Congress, we did see California Republican Congressmember Kevin Kiley introduce legislation, and that would have stopped all mid-decade redistricting nationwide.

We should have voters choosing our representatives.

We shouldn't have representatives choosing their voters.

And we also heard Kiley call out how Speaker Mike Johnson kind of asked him to step in, stop this escalation of gerrymandering that we're seeing across the country.

Unclear where those efforts will go.

And I think it's also worth saying, Scott, Kylie's one of the Republicans in California who I think is seen as particularly vulnerable in a potential map redraw.

So he has a lot to lose here.

Kyle, do you have any sense of how California voters feel about setting aside

an independent commission, something that the state used to be proud of?

Yeah, hard to say.

I mean, independent redistricting has been popular in California.

And I think the idea of, you know, politicians going to the voters, asking for them for this gerrymander, that might turn a segment of the electorate off.

There's also, you know, the work of this independent commission has succeeded in a lot of ways.

There's communities that were previously split into multiple districts that have now been placed together in these new maps.

You have a lot more competitive seats here, races in California, than states like Texas and Florida.

If you just look at the House results over the last two years, but this is happening in this larger picture of a partisan war.

And I think the extent to which Newsom can make this about red versus blue, Democrats versus Republicans, I think you can see a clear path for his campaign to succeed here.

Guy Marzarati from KQBD in San Francisco, thanks so much for being on the job for us.

Thanks for having me.

Immigrants applying for asylum in the U.S.

often have to wait a very long time.

Now, the Trump administration is telling some asylum seekers who've been in the country for years, they might have to start from the beginning.

It's the latest attempt to strip protections for those who came to the U.S., claiming they are fleeing persecution.

Here with the details is NPR's immigration policy reporter, Jimena Bustillo.

Hi, Jimena.

Hey, Adrian.

So tell us, what have you found out about what's happening?

Immigration attorneys have recently told me that in the last few weeks, several of their clients who entered the country between 2019 and 2022 are getting letters in the mail now telling them that their asylum applications are dismissed.

These clients often entered between legal ports of entry and then encountered immigration officers.

What should have happened next is they should have been sent to an asylum officer to do what is called a credible fear interview.

That is when federal officers assess whether someone's claims of persecution are valid.

But in the later years of the first Trump administration and mostly during the Biden administration, that interview didn't always happen.

One attorney, Maria Florencia Garcia, told me she has clients whose interviews kept getting canceled.

Then it was impossible to get rescheduled.

And now years later, they're trying to schedule this when the asylum application has been pending for a couple of years now.

Dozens of people went ahead with applying for asylum without the interview because that has to be done within a year of entering the country.

So time was of the essence here.

And even if the government was being slow on other parts of the process, U.S.

Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, told me that this process is not new, and everyone who tries to claim asylum must first do the interview.

Okay, so typically people receive the interview, then they apply for asylum.

Why weren't those interviews happening?

The short answer is lack of resources.

I spoke with Morgan Bailey, a former USCIS official during both President Trump's first term and former President Biden's term.

There aren't enough asylum officers to cover the workload, but there has also been such an increase in the number of asylum applications as well.

She noted that this still isn't necessarily how the problem has been resolved in the past in terms of mass notices being mailed out to dozens of people to restart their process.

Immigration attorneys acknowledge that there was a step that was skipped, but they say that that's the government's fault.

And applicants who have been waiting five or six years shouldn't be the ones to face the consequences.

Here's Arna Limas, another immigration attorney.

They're just doing the process that was allotted to them, that was legal and provided to them the moment that they presented themselves in the U.S.

And now the government's wanting to retroactively go back.

So what are some of the ways people are navigating this?

It's kind of messy.

Different letters that I I reviewed say different things.

Some tell applicants to wait to hear from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE.

Others tell them to report to ICE themselves.

And some don't provide any next steps at all.

And right now, there's a lot of fear of interacting with ICE.

Lawyers have pointed out that currently, a lot of the credible fear interviews are happening after someone has been detained.

And even if a person is found to have a valid fear of being returned to their home country, ICE has new new policies mandating the detention of an immigrant while their case plays out.

Here's Lemas again.

It's anything.

You go to court, you get detained.

You go to your ICE appointment, you get detained.

You go to work, you get detained.

You apply for asylum, you're given that notice.

In addition, there's a new asylum application fee of $100 that would be applicable.

And immigration advocates say that this is a new system that takes people who have been waiting years, working, going to school, and puts them right back where they started.

And it leaves them at higher risk for detention and deportation.

NPR's immigration policy reporter, Jimena Bustillo.

Thanks for being here, Jimena.

Thank you.

And now, a moment to remember astronaut Jim Lovell, who died this week at the age of 97.

Lovell flew in space four times, including as commander of Apollo 13.

You might remember that 1995 film.

He was portrayed by Tom Hanks.

An oxygen tank exploded aboard the spacecraft, and after enormous effort on the ground and in space, the three astronauts made it safely home.

And while it cost Lovell his only chance to land on the moon, he did get to coin one very iconic phrase.

Our colleague Mary Louise Kelly spoke with Jim Lovell several years ago and asked him to tell the story.

On Apollo 13, who actually said the famous words?

I'll let you say it now.

Houston.

The way this went was the fact an explosion occurred.

Yeah.

I was in the lunar module going down into the command module when

Jack said, Houston, we got a problem.

Okay, we've had a problem here.

And Jack Lausma down at Mission Control Center said, say again, please.

Mrs.

Houston, say again, please.

By that time, I got down there, saw that we lost two fuel cells, and I said, Houston, we have a problem here.

we've had a problem.

We have a main B bus undervolt.

And that was how that all came down to pass.

And of course, then they just said, Houston, we have a problem.

And I kind of wish I had copyrighted that.

I would be in my yacht right now in the Riviera.

And I went back and looked because there's some controversy over the official transcript reads, Houston, we've had a problem.

And then it got changed to misquoted.

We have had a problem.

We have had a problem.

We've had a baby bus undervolt.

And of course, you know, it got picked up.

And every time someone has a problem, they say, easily, we've had a problem.

Do you ever catch yourself saying that around the house?

Yes.

Mary Louise Kelly speaking with Jim Lovell in 2018.

And that's up first for August 9th, 2025.

I'm Adrienne Ma.

And I'm Scott Simon.

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Companies selling some high-tech gadgets want you to think so, but at what cost?

A conversation with author Amanda Hess about her new book, Second Life, Having a Child in the Digital Age.

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