- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- Immigration, schools, MATA, and much more tonight on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I am Eric Barens with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm joined tonight by a roundtable of journalists talking about some of the biggest stories of the week.

Toby Sells, News Editor with the Memphis Flyer, thanks for being here again.

- Thanks for having me.

- Katherine Burgess, who's with MLK50.

Thank you for being here.

- Yeah, glad to be here.

- Laura Testino is a reporter with the Daily Memphian.

And Bill Dries is a reporter with the Daily Memphian.

Bill, we'll start, there's a bunch going on, a whole lot of news this week.

We'll start, we're gonna talk a bunch about local impacts of immigration changes, or are they changes.

But there was a very viral video covered by all of us, all the local media, I believe, Tacos Nganas, a food truck, numerous locations around town, maybe set up what happened, and what we know so far, and we'll go from there.

- Well, this group of men, who were not wearing any identifying badges or anything like that that you could see on the video, came to this food stand and took away three men who were there.

And it took a little while before there was actually a federal acknowledgement that the men who came there were federal agents, and that this was part of an investigation that actually had started earlier this year.

Some questions about whether or not the business was hiring undocumented people to work there - Incredibly complicated, and there was not a lot of information, federal officials did, we're recording this on Thursday, I think it was either last night or earlier today, said the three employees detained in an immigration raid, were arrested as part of investigation into, quote, "Potential labor trafficking."

Who, Toby?

- I think Bill nailed it, that the most chilling part of that video was that these guys looked like they just walked off the street, and kind of did whatever they want, you know, announce themselves, there's no audio to be heard, really, on the inside to hear what they said to these guys.

But it kind of goes to these kind of unprecedented times we're living in right now, you know?

We've got Elon Musk, and some kind of secret group that's doing things that are constitutionally questionable.

You know, who is running this government right now?

When you see this video, and you see just three guys just walk up and do this, this act, you know, with no badges, no anything like that, it just has a chilling effect.

And I know the immigration community right now is really, really concerned and worried, and actually glad to get word that these were, in fact, federal agents.

- Yeah, yeah.

Katherine?

- Yeah, one thing that really struck me was how this illustrated how little knowledge there is about what's going on with immigration enforcement now, I know so many people were asking, do they have to provide a warrant if they enter a business?

Do they have to show ID?

And I went and tried to find answers, and I couldn't find them readily.

And there's just so many questions going on.

I think another thing that really struck me, and I believe Mauricio Calvo pointed this out in a Daily Memphian article, is that when officials are working on a labor trafficking situation, which is what they have implied this is, you don't normally arrest the victims.

Normally the victims would get support, because they are victims.

So this is a very strange situation that definitely does echo a lot of what's happening at the federal level.

- Mauricio Calvo, who heads Latino Memphis, was on the school board for a while, has been on the show some years ago.

There are people who are listening, I'll turn to Bill or whoever, but there are people who are listening say, well, these people, if they were undocumented, they shouldn't be here, period.

And whatever happens, and as disturbing as that might look, there's a whole lot of people who voted for Donald Trump who don't want illegal immigrants, undocumented immigrants, however you wanna characterize them, in this country, and including in Memphis.

- But the question, and the issue is, there are jobs here that are held by these people, someone is hiring them.

Also, the status of our laws allows you to come to this country illegally, but request asylum, it's part of the legal process.

- Yeah.

- And I think we see that in the same vein of just kind of, are we gonna question the status of legal or illegal immigration, versus the status of other education precedent in law that allows you to attend school, no matter your status, or the status of your parents?

Just kind of the same fear permeated immigrant community just a couple of weeks ago that prompted MSCS and its legal team to issue guidance reminding principals, you know, if agents come to your school, because this is allowed now, that now that these are not categorized as particular places that federal agents can't come, you're to reach out to their legal office just to make sure that the district continues to stay in compliance with its own laws that protect student identification.

- And I think you had written that, certainly it was rumored, and talked about, that a lot of families were keeping their children home, Scared that, you know, they could get picked up.

There's a proposal with the legislature right now that would allow local school districts and charter schools to opt out of enrolling a child who is, quote, "unlawfully present", unquote.

Its sponsors are specifically hoping to challenge a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

And I think we were talking before the show about Denver, you know, we don't cover Denver usually, but it's parallel, and there's a lot going around in the country at the local level that is being impacted by these changes at the federal level.

I was gonna go to Toby.

- No, certainly.

I mean, you're already seeing other school districts, other cities across the country, reacting to a lot of this stuff, and we're gonna see more and more of that as we go along.

You know, what this bill would allow, I mean, it's unconstitutional, you know?

And so they are actively trying to challenge the Supreme Court ruling on this, you know, rather than trying to make solid policy here.

So, that's what they're after, doing this, and it's just, again, it's just kind of wild time, and everything is up in the air right now.

- And speaking of being up in the air, social media is full of numerous posts saying, if you are stopped by ICE agents, ask for identification, they have to show you a warrant.

All of this, none of that, meant anything in this case.

These men were taken, we believe, to a federal facility in Louisiana.

- I think what we had today, again, recording this on Thursday, it was at least two of them are in Louisiana.

I don't know, that's 100%.

- Right.

Separated from whatever family they might have here.

You know, four years ago, we went through a version of this, where, if you were reporting on something at a school, and you went there, and there were children there who were Latino, and there were cameras involved, they would hide their faces.

And four years later, there's even more uncertainty about this.

- I mentioned the state legislature, and I think we picked up a story from Chalkbeat, or this week, last week, Todd Gardenhire, who's a very conservative Republican state senator from the Chattanooga area, he's very much opposed to this and the state going down this road.

And it's gonna be interesting how all these things play out.

But in the voucher bill, maybe we may kinda segue to some school stuff going on, the voucher bill that Bill Lee has brought forward, and that we passed this week, we'll talk about it, but it includes an immigration part to it as well.

- He certainly said, when he signed the bill yesterday on Wednesday, that he intends it to only apply to students who have legal immigration status.

You know, that could be interesting.

There's been a huge uptick of use in vouchers from Hispanic students and families here who want to go to Catholic schools, so we could see, you know, there may be some pushback there.

And I don't know, maybe Toby, you want to jump in a little bit about some of the other immigration bills that are related to education?

- Other than the one we discussed.

and Gardenhire really came out of kind of nowhere, I thought really pushing back on the bill.

He's a powerful Republican, and, you know, basically saying, this is what the people want in the GOP right now, and so we're just giving it to 'em, you know, rather than it coming from a solid policy place.

- Yeah, I think especially on the idea of it not coming from a solid policy place, I was thinking back to my days many, many years ago as an education reporter, and schools want increased enrollment, they get funding based on increased enrollment.

So I can't see schools actually wanting this anywhere, so it's clearly just a constitutional challenge, it's clearly to make a point, it's not something that schools actually want or have requested.

- And he does, Gardenhire, that Chalkbeat has reported about, does have a proposal in the legislature right now that would prevent school resource officers from having to report students' status.

That does have report from, or support from, the Tennessee Sheriff's Association, as Chalkbeat is reporting.

- Let's stay with the legislature, and again, I just I wanna make sure I acknowledge, I mean, there are people listening who think, "Well, this is how it should be," who voted for Donald Trump for these reasons and other reasons.

And so, it would be, I need to acknowledge that.

- Well, then let's have clearer laws about this.

Because the laws we have now are very two-sided.

Yes, you're illegal, but you can be hired here.

- Yeah.

- Yes, you're illegal, but you can apply for asylum here, and wait here.

- And maybe even clearer communications.

I mean, you know, just those moments between seeing the Taco Nganas video, and getting affirmation from the government, that yes, these were government agents.

That was a weird time in there.

Who are these guys?

Where'd they come from?

Can you just walk off the street and, you know, bully somebody around and detain 'em?

- Well, in a city that allows, a state, excuse me, that allows widespread availability of guns, it just seems like, just to somebody who looked at that video, it seems wildly dangerous for everyone involved.

I mean, it just, where does that go?

Let's pivot though back to the voucher bill.

The voucher bill, Laura, we talked about it recently, but the bill's been signed, $447 million initiative that kicks in July 1st, about 20,000 education vouchers worth about $7,000 each to become available in the 2025-2026 school year.

Fifty percent will go to folks of lower income, disabled.

The other 50 will be, I guess, a lottery, or just whoever applies for it.

Did I get most of it?

- Yeah.

That will still have to go through rulemaking at other state level bodies, and just a reminder that this is a program that's in addition to the so-called pilot that already exists in Shelby, Davidson, and Hamilton Counties.

And we just saw an interesting instance, St. George's, that his Memphis campus, and across its three campuses, has about 85 students on that pilot program type of voucher that offers the equivalent of about $9,300 towards education.

It's closing that Memphis campus for the upcoming school year, and it is potentially going to become a public school under the new Innovative School District for the University Schools at the University of Memphis.

- Let's stay with the schools for a second.

We don't have to relive the whole saga of MSCS, and Feagins, and superintendent, I mean, I think she's filed suit, or has said she's about to.

But the school board did, what, fund $50,000 for a quote, "forensic audit", unquote?

- That's the County Commission.

- That's the County Commission.

Excuse me.

So the County Commission did that, I got messed up mixed up.

Give us the update.

- Yeah, County Commission, as Bill reported, signed a resolution for $50,000 to support a forensic audit, which would cover five years, so from January 2020 to present January, which encompasses three different superintendents in that time, and could be up to about $7 billion in local, state, and federal funds that they would be looking at.

They've requested assistance, and they might need some financial assistance to get that kind of audit done from the state.

The comptroller has told The Daily Memphian that they see this as a supportive step, but haven't issued a formal response as to what their actions will be.

You know, meanwhile we'll see a little bit more changes, as Rod Richmond, the interim superintendent, sort of creates his team and figures out his step forward.

Jared Meyer Cole, the top literacy officer for the district, has decided to resign, and so there will be probably a little bit more additional shakeups on the senior leadership team.

- Toby?

- Just before we leave education and vouchers, I don't understand the end game, I don't know what this is about.

I mean, it's-- - On vouchers?

- Yeah, on vouchers.

- On vouchers.

- Yeah.

Sorry, going back.

I don't get it.

I mean, we're spending all this money, had a special session for these 20,000 kids.

What do we wanna do?

Why is there so much focus on this?

Is it to allow Christian schools to get money?

If that's the case, that's fine.

Just say so.

You know, Chalkbeat did stories that showed that, you know, private school kids that got these didn't do better than public school kids, you know what I'm saying?

So we're not having a data discussion here to say, "Well, we think that, you know, it's all about school choice."

I don't understand the end game, I'll just leave it at that.

- I mean, I think what I hear from people is that, you know, and everything going wrong right now at Memphis Shelby County Schools, which by the way, the fight between the superintendent and the board does not reflect necessarily what is going on in any given classroom.

I mean, I think that sometimes gets lost in the fray, and the noise, and so on.

But that kind of fighting is, what I hear from people, does not give them a lot of confidence that they want to have their kids in that school system.

And they want other options.

And if they see private schools, or a private school that's more in line with their values, or they think it's just a better education, why not give them some of the money and try it?

Because, again, this is what people tell me who are in favor of vouchers, it's not as if the school system is really, they would say, doing really well with many, many kids.

Yeah.

- Again, I think it is a notable point, just that the state's own review of its legislation finds that, or projects, that about two thirds of the students who end up using the ESFs, the new vouchers that was just passed, already will have been enrolled at private schools.

So this isn't necessarily something that even the state is saying, is going to, you know, really change public school enrollment as significantly as maybe prior years of supporting vouchers would have.

You know, the rhetoric has changed from helping more poor students.

- And you pointed out, I think to me on the show last time we were on, that, that even the pilot program was never really fully utilized.

- That's right.

- I mean, and that was 10,000 vouchers or something?

It was under, it wasn't-- - I don't have that number off the top of my head, it was less than 10,000 in its first years.

- And again, there were still some available.

So those who sort of have said, "Oh, this is gonna gut the school system," so far the data hasn't been that it's more than some thousands of families that are opting to do this.

- That's right, so far.

- Well, go on.

Go ahead.

- And Speaker Sexton, Cameron Sexton, who was in town last week, even he made the point that, in many cases, the voucher amount will not cover the entire tuition.

- Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, I mean, we've mentioned St. George's.

Last time I looked, when I had kids, I mean, St. George's used to be 20 grand a year, and I'm sure it's closer to 22, 23, 24, MUS, St. Mary's, Hutchinson, GSL.

I mean, a lot of them, I'm not naming 'em all, I shouldn't have named any, but they're very, very much more than the voucher amount.

- And folks that I know in different states, sorry, we're just jumping all over, but, you know, I know some folks in Florida who have their kids in private school, and when they got vouchers down there, their private school said, well, we're just going to increase our tuition amount by the voucher amount, consider that a donation to the school.

- Yeah.

- That's where we're heading.

- Let switch again.

Katherine, again, thank you for being here.

You've been doing a lot of work on MATA, and we haven't done an update, at least in a while.

What is the state now?

What do you hear?

What is the state of MATA?

It's still struggling, I think.

[laughs] - Well, it's still struggling.

That hasn't stopped.

Their new interim leadership is in place.

My understanding is that they're coming to town from a couple of different locations around the country, but they come to town several days a week.

And that's when they're on the ground working on MATA, including for a MATA committee meeting, City Council meetings.

So, TransPro has begun the work, the last MATA committee meetings, there were a lot of discussions about wanting to know what the board wanted, and what the board directed TransPro to do.

There's definitely gonna be some community engagement coming up, another community engagement survey.

And then also we have the actual financial audit, which we don't have the results of yet, that's coming up.

In the meantime, MATA is requesting 5 million from the City Council.

This is the 5 million they were promised when the mayor and the City Council said, "Please don't do route cuts."

Please don't do the route cuts the previous board had voted on.

they didn't do the route cuts, now they're asking for the money.

But at the same time, the City Council is asking for more financial information that they have not yet received.

So there's a little bit of a push and pull there.

- And TransPro, again, outside consulting, they did the big assessment.

That is, if you're really wonky, if you're watching the show on a Friday night, you need to go look up the TransPro Report 'cause it's just, it's sort of breathtaking, and then more breathtaking in terms of the details of how inefficient, and the spending, and the small amount of revenue, and how ridership's has fallen off.

- It really doesn't even get into the financials.

It's really operations.

So, considering how scathing that is, I know City Council members are expecting another scathing report on the financials.

- And I'm laughing not because it's funny.

I mean, it's like the schools, it's not funny.

I mean, these are kids, and these are families, and these are taxpayer dollars, and we need transit, and we need, you know, good schools.

It's just sort of as one looks at this, it's just kind of exasperating.

Maybe we'll switch to some other things that the state legislature that I'll run through, and y'all can just chime in.

The Downtown Safety Plan that the City of Memphis has been pushing for, $175 million, was in Governor Lee's budget.

That's in addition to, someone check me if I'm wrong, there's $550 million in FedExForum renovations that are not all signed, but all this is about updating the FedExForum, improving the whole neighborhood, and getting the Grizzlies to renew and sign a long-term lease to stay in Memphis.

It's $20 million in the budget for Memphis Zoo, one billion dollars to roads, against what is estimated to be a $30 billion backlog.

Thoughts on any of that from anyone?

Those in the budget proposal, those have not been approved.

- Right.

And the way the process works, that there could be additions, to or subtractions from, the budget in what's called the supplemental, that comes out in March.

As of now, what's not in there is state funding for Regional One Health.

If that stands, this is the second fiscal year, consecutively, that this hoped-for funding, basically the state has stiffed Shelby County.

- Yeah, and that is, you know, a long term $1 billion proposal to remake Regional One.

I think Katherine, you've been covering that as well.

Buying this property over where The Commercial Appeal building used to be, that's moving forward.

And the county has committed, what, half a billion dollars over 10 years, something like that?

- They've committed 350 million.

- Something seems like it's gonna happen.

- But Mayor Harris has a plan, and actually proposed last year that the county should go 500 million.

And just do the whole first phase.

The County Commission wasn't ready to go along with that.

But he's likely to propose that again.

- And state funding is really key.

And one thing that I've thought about a lot is how we've known for some time that Regional One is a very-aged building, it is not up to current standards for hospitals, And it also is not seismically sound, which has always struck me that if we were to have an earthquake, people would need to there, but the building might not be there.

And that sounds a little bit farfetched, but it is an alarming prospect when you want to consider like all prospects and make sure we have our safety intact.

So that's been known for years, and we still don't have money from the state legislature.

- I'll just say on the budget.

Glad to be thought of.

You know, I think in Memphis, we get this, they get this attitude about Nashville, and state lawmakers and all that.

And when we say Nashville, I don't mean the people of Nashville.

But, you know, but then we're not getting a lot of love down here in Shelby County, you know, but then to see these kind of big ticket items, you know, at the same time they're building a half a billion dollar stadium in Nashville, you know, it feels pretty good to be in there.

I hate to be like, you know, to be included, but there you go.

- Well, it comes with a lot of lobbying, by local officials who are spending a lot of time in Nashville.

Specially right about now.

- Go ahead.

- No, no, just, they're not, it's not out of the goodness of their heart, so somebody decided to help 'em that way.

Yeah.

- I will say one thing about Regional One, because, you know, we looked at MATA and the schools, and it's just, it's so messy.

There was a time when Regional One, the county-owned hospital, was really messy.

And while the building and facility is aged, it needs updating.

I mean, I don't think anyone really argues it needs it, its operations, its ratings, all that have improved dramatically from where they were, what, a decade plus ago?

It was really not a necessarily a great place to go, and now, for trauma, for all kinds of things, neonatal care, it is really very, very good.

So things can be turned around.

- And I'll just add to that, I was covering MAT-, or I was covering The Med, as we called it back then, back in those days.

And exactly like the MATA situation, they got rid of their C-Suite, brought in a whole bunch of consultants They came in, got everything running back on track.

They hired Dr. Reginald Coopwood.

And you don't see a lot of headlines about The Med, you know, finances anymore.

It's great.

- With just three minutes left here, one thing I'll highlight that we're covering, it hasn't gone forward, but again, national impact, local impact from national changes, net funding from the National Institute of Health was put on hold.

That hold has been stopped by the courts.

That federal funding is, I didn't write it down, but it's billions of dollars a year.

...But in Memphis, it's, you know, 116 million or so to St. Jude.

It is 46 million to UT Health Science Center.

It's 6 million to U of M. St. Jude is the 10th largest, or the number 10 on the list, of recipients of federal money.

So something we'll be covering, we don't exactly know where that is, it could have changed by the time you watch this show.

What else?

Wanda Halbert was in the news.

- Yes.

- Again, Bill.

- Well, it's budget time at the county, it's budget time everywhere, basically.

But some of the elected officials outside of the county administration are talking to the Commission earlier than usual.

And they're talking about making it easier for them to access money already in their budget, to hire more people, or to give pay raises.

And it's kind of a tension that's been there for decades, between the administration and these officials who were outside of that.

And so some of the elected officials got together to work out a plan, a proposal, and they didn't invite Shelby County clerk, Wanda Halbert.

So, they went to the Commission this week, and the Commission basically said, you need to talk to the county clerk.

- Yeah.

Speaking of suspension, our marijuana correspondent- - That's right.

- Toby Sells, we haven't gotten a cannabis update in some time, a lot of stuff going on right now, give us a quick rundown.

Quick rundown is that the state legislature's cranking up, which means that cannabis is on the menu again right now.

THCA products.

Basically the products that get you high, they got an injunction last week.

They're gonna be on the shelves until the summer, but there's already a ton of bills in the state legislature aiming at that, curtailing some of those products, two GOP proposals would take those THCA, any kind of intoxicating cannabis products off the shelves.

And there's two other bills from Democrats that would just fully legalize everything.

So we can go a lot of ways.

- Anyone driving around the streets of Memphis is surprised to hear that it's not legal.

We're out of time, I thank everybody for being here.

But a shout out to Shelly Rice, who ran the Frayser Exchange Club for quite some time, and Laura did a really great profile.

Frayser Exchange Club had the most amazing set of speakers, sometimes we were incredibly jealous of who Shelly could get to come, that we couldn't get to come.

But a shout out to him and a really nice profile that Laura did.

That is all the time we have this week.

We've got CJ Davis, the police director coming up in the next couple weeks, a whole bunch of other shows.

If you missed any, oh and the heads of the two parties, Shelby County parties, Republican and Democrat, that's coming up soon.

If you missed any of the show, go to wkno.org, YouTube, The Daily Memphian, or download the show as a podcast.

Thanks very much, and we'll see you next week.

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