AMNA NAWAZ: Good evening.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

Geoff Bennett is away.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: We're on the ground in Texas, where a community is banding together to help their neighbors recover from historic floods.

MICAH WATKINS, Volunteer: With the camps that it flooded, with especially Camp Mystic, just kind of hearing about that pushed me even further to come out here and do what I can.

AMNA NAWAZ: President Trump's latest tariff threats, mostly on Asian countries, add to global economic uncertainty.

And California's controversial crackdown on homeless encampments.

DR. SALMAAN KAMAL, UCLA National Clinician Scholar: I can sympathize with a lot of people who want to address the homelessness issue in California, but criminalizing homelessness and banning encampments is going to make the problem worse.

(BREAK) AMNA NAWAZ: Welcome to the "News Hour."

Search teams continued to comb through large parts of Central Texas today, looking for survivors five days after deadly floods.

But hope is starting to fade.

No new survivors have been found in days, and the death toll is still rising.

At least 109 people were killed, 94 of them in the Kerr County area.

Special correspondent Christopher Booker has our report from Texas.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Just along the Guadalupe River, a community has come together.

This disparate group of people from all over the state, area law enforcement, firefighters and volunteers, have now shifted their focus to recovery.

MAN: May we be able to give strength to this community, and may we be able to stay strong throughout this day.

CRYSTAL SMITH, Volunteer: All right, Dasha, are you ready to work?

She is a trained cadaver... CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Crystal Smith entered the call with her cadaver dog, Dasha.

Why is she here today?

CRYSTAL SMITH: To help see if we can help at all with any sort of recovery or all of the search efforts, really, anything, and try to help bring some closure and reunite some of these families.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Micah Watkins has been helping since Sunday night.

MICAH WATKINS, Volunteer: I actually have camp next week I'm heading to.

And with the camps that it flooded, with especially Camp Mystic, just kind of hearing about that pushed me even further to come out here and do what I can.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Lieutenant Tim Stack is here with 16 other members of his police department.

LT. TIM STACK, Lakeway, Texas, Police Department: There's always an opportunity, and there's always hope that somebody's still going to be there alive.

I mean, they found a guy in a tree a couple days after the incident, because he just got washed up there and no one saw him.

And I was telling the guys now, I said, you never want to pull that branch away, and see that person that's made me deceased underneath there.

But you also still want to pull that branch away to find that person.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Less rain in the forecast today offered some relief for search efforts.

More than 160 people are still missing.

Today, Kerr County personnel dodged questions from reporters about how the county alerted residents about the floods.

LARRY LEITHA, Sheriff of Kerr County, Texas: we're in the process of trying to put a timeline.

That's going to take a little bit of time.

As I have told you several times, that is not my priority at this time.

There's three priorities.

That's locating, locating the people out there, identifying, notifying the next of kin.

That is what I'm taking as my job as sheriff here to do.

OK.

QUESTION: With all due respect, sir, I think that the community here is asking these questions.

What happened?

When did it happen?

Was the emergency manager awake at the time?

Did they push the button to issue an emergency alert?

LARRY LEITHA: Sir, it's not that easy you just push a button, OK.

There's a lot more to that.

And we have told you several times.

(CROSSTALK) QUESTION: Did it happen, sir?

LARRY LEITHA: I can't tell you at this time.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Earlier today in a Cabinet meeting, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said she was overcome with emotion during her trip to the state.

KRISTI NOEM, U.S.

Homeland Security Secretary: I had walked through the cabin where all the little girls died.

And I had kind of fallen apart in there, but I walked out of the cabin and a gentleman was standing there and he said, that man over there needs a hug.

And so I walked over to him and I hugged him and I said: "Do you work here?"

And he said: "No, my little girl was in that cabin."

And he said: "And I just found her best friend about an hour-and-a-half ago."

She had passed away.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: She defended President Trump's proposal to start phasing out FEMA and shift disaster response to the states.

KRISTI NOEM: We as a federal government don't manage these disasters.

The state does.

We come in and support them.

And that's exactly what we did here in this situation.

MAN: Right now, I pray that you would comfort everybody here.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Back in Texas last night, people gathered in San Antonio to mourn and pray for the victims, like Sherry Richardson, who worked at a home for children with disabilities, or Odessa Police Department Officer Bailey Martin, who was on a trip to the Guadalupe River with his family, and 8-year-old twin sisters Hanna and Rebecca Lawrence, who were killed by the flooding at Camp Mystic.

In Kerr County yesterday, volunteers loaded trucks with food and water for flood victims.

For mother Shavawn Justice, the pain is all too personal.

SHAVAWN JUSTICE, Center Point, Texas, Resident: I have had a couple of friends who don't have a house anymore or they have lost their husband.

There's the -- I have a friend who's missing.

So, I mean, it's a little difficult, especially in a town where there's not too many people.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: In this rural corner of Texas, everybody seems to know somebody that's been affected by this tragedy -- Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: Christopher, it's unimaginable what folks on the ground are going through.

Can you just give us a sense when you talk to them of what they're feeling, what the atmosphere is like in Kerr County?

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: The atmosphere is strangely calm.

It's certainly so somber and sad, but all the volunteers we spoke to are very focused on the task that's before them.

They are thinking about where they need to walk through, what they need to search through and really, I think, have not let any emotion come into what they're doing.

Nearly universally, everyone said they're there to provide closure for the victims and for the families.

But it's clear that the emotion hasn't really come in yet.

They're just focused on what they need to do today to help the victims and help the victims' families.

AMNA NAWAZ: And that recovery effort you were following today, I mean, there have to be enormous logistical hurdles to getting that done.

Tell us more about that.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Yes, it is logistically very challenging.

A great chunk of this morning was just figuring out who should go with who.

They were looking for locals that had knowledge of the terrain to be paired with professional search-and-rescue operations.

We spent a great deal of time with a group that was trying to launch a boat on the river.

Now, this seems like it should be something simple, but many of the access points have been cut off by debris.

In addition, the ground is soggy, so when they found an access point, they couldn't pull in their heavy boat and trailer.

They also had to negotiate with landowners, basically going, knocking door to door to see if they could pull their trailer through and launch the boat.

Ultimately, they were unsuccessful.

Now, this is just one small example of what they're trying to do.

We spoke with a group that was heading out on foot, and they said a successful day for them would be that if they covered just two miles of the river -- Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: Such a long road ahead for them.

Our special correspondent Christopher Booker and team on the ground in Center Point, Texas, thank you so much.

CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, there are still a number of questions about the weather forecasts and why there weren't better warning systems that could have possibly saved lives.

Our Deema Zein spoke earlier with Matthew Cappucci, a senior meteorologist from MyRadar.com.

And she began by asking him about the origins of the storm itself and why it dumped so much water.

MATTHEW CAPPUCCI, Senior Meteorologist, MyRadar: We knew that we had ample moisture in place, absolutely tropical moisture content in the atmosphere.

Part of the reason for that was last Monday, Tamaulipas, Mexico got hit by Tropical Storm Barry.

Barry moved inland, dissipated, and then left this big blob of humidity that eventually wafted north into Texas.

So we knew the antecedent atmosphere conditions favored very heavy rain, but we didn't see much of a trigger.

And so that's why even more than 12, 24 hours out, yes, we thought there could be some isolated flooding, but we didn't think we'd see anything more than like six, seven inches, never mind a foot-and-a-half of water.

What wound up happening, though, was that as we headed towards Wednesday and Thursday, dying thunderstorms in West Texas left something called an MCV, or a mesoscale convective vortex, like this leftover whirlpool in the atmosphere, this little, teeny eddy.

And this invisible eddy, this little corridor of spinning air, parked over Texas Hill Country and did two things.

Number one, it helped focus moisture.

It gathered storms and really served as like the local trigger to get storms going.

And it wasn't moving, so those storms anchored in place.

And the other thing too, this thing was pulling in moisture from the south.

So you had an uninterrupted supply, a fire hose of tropical moisture from the Gulf that was aimed directly into these stagnant storms.

And it's July.

The upper-level winds are very weak.

The jet stream has retreated all the way to Canada.

So there's nothing to move these storms along either.

And so you got downpours lasting six, seven, eight hours, dumping three inches per hour.

Very quickly, some folks saw a foot to a foot-and-a-half worth of water.

DEEMA ZEIN: Was the storm actually what meteorologists thought that it would be, or did it move in a direction that they didn't even expect it to move?

MATTHEW CAPPUCCI: We knew the potential was there for some high-end flooding.

We didn't necessarily think the storm would stall for as long as it did.

And I think that's when things quickly became problematic.

And it was apparent right around midnight, 1:00 in the morning, as you headed into the Fourth of July, that something very bad was happening.

But by then, even though they were updating the forecast, they were issuing the warnings, a lot of folks were asleep.

And so even though the warnings went out and made folks cell phone squeal and trigger the wireless emergency alerts with the emergency alert system, I think a lot of people just had gone to bed not thinking much was going to happen.

And when they woke up, it was a completely different story.

There's no good way for a scientist or a communicator to convey a low-probability, high-impact event.

And so I think the forecasts were basically, yes, there could be some flooding.

There could be some locally bad flooding.

It wasn't until midnight into very early on the Fourth of July when warning operations really were like you know what is hitting the fan, that this is going to be a catastrophe.

So the warnings were good.

The forecasts were flawed.

The other frustrating thing too has been people trying to use this for political advantage, people saying, oh, DOGE cuts caused this flood.

No, typical National Weather Service forecast office staffing is like two to three meteorologists for this overnight shift.

They had five in place at the Weather Service in Austin, San Antonio.

They were staffed up.

They were doing their thing.

They knew in advance what was coming and they had folks there doing the job.

Staffing was not an issue.

If anything was an issue, the imperfect forecast going in may have been degraded by the reduction of weather balloons over parts of the Great Plains and the Midwest.

We have fewer balloons going up to get data because of budget cuts.

Then you have less data going into weather models and less accurate weather model simulations.

So that may have been a factor, but that's something we have to sort of iron out a little more.

DEEMA ZEIN: What can you tell people as a meteorologist on the situation and how it could be prevented and what really went wrong?

MATTHEW CAPPUCCI: This absolutely could have been prevented.

It doesn't take three hours to get to higher ground.

A lot of folks had two to three hours warning.

Many of the fatalities were children.

There needs to be a responsible adult who is making these decisions and keeping abreast of the weather.

There needs to be a plan in place ahead of time.

Every school, every camp in America should have a NOAA weather alert radio and have a plan for any type of alert that can come their way.

And so few people do.

And until we live as a more weather-ready society with these plans, taking these steps, listening to the warnings, I don't think anything's going to change.

DEEMA ZEIN: And this is always a question that has to be asked when big weather events like this occur, but was climate change a factor to the size of this storm?

MATTHEW CAPPUCCI: So that's a good question.

People always ask about climate change.

What I will say is this.

No event is caused by climate change.

There will always be floods in Flood Alley in Texas sporadically every couple years.

The atmosphere does have a greater capacity to hold a little more moisture these days because, as the environment warms, the air is like a sponge.

You add a little more moisture.

For every degree Fahrenheit the air temperature warms, the air can hold 4 percent more water.

And so that may have led to a bit of extra water coming down with this episode.

But I think trying to connect it to climate change is challenging, just given this was very unfortunate meteorology, very unfortunate and coincidental ingredients coming together.

And that will always be a thing.

Natural disasters will always happen.

It's only natural.

And so even though climate change is raising the ceiling a little bit, this was very much a natural disaster.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, that was "News Hour"'s Deema Zein speaking earlier today with meteorologist Matthew Cappucci.

Meanwhile, just a short time ago, Texas Governor Greg Abbott was asked about problems with flood warnings on July 4.

In a testy exchange with reporters, the governor said he was not focused on blame, saying he would focus on solutions and the future instead.

Continuing his visit to Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Vice President J.D.

Vance and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson today.

Netanyahu's trip, his third this year, comes as Israel and Hamas are negotiating the terms of a cease-fire proposal.

Yesterday, the prime minister floated the idea of resettling Palestinians abroad in foreign countries, a move he said was supported by the United States.

Netanyahu is expected to meet with President Trump again tonight.

Lisa Desjardins reports.

LISA DESJARDINS: Today in Washington, efforts to address and end the bloody Israel-Gaza war.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Gaza is a tragic -- it's a tragedy.

It's a tragedy.

And he wants to get it solved and I want to get it solved.

And I think the other side wants to get it solved.

LISA DESJARDINS: He is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today meeting with leaders across the Capitol.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, Israeli Prime Minister (through translator): Hamas will not rule there.

We will do what is necessary to make this happen.

We will use all our possible force and, if possible, that of others to realize this goal.

There will be no Hamas.

And I say it again, because people are saying we can stop, we can leave.

We will defeat them so they can no longer fight us.

This is a goal we will not give up on.

LISA DESJARDINS: This as other Israeli officials continue indirect cease-fire talks with Hamas in Doha.

The U.S.-backed proposal would see a 60-day cease-fire, with Hamas releasing hostages intermittently for 50 days in exchange for Palestinian detainees.

There would be a humanitarian surge of aid from both the United Nations and the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

There is no guarantee of a permanent cease-fire, but President Trump would mediate until a final agreement is reached.

And the Israeli military would deploy to areas of Gaza on the first and seventh day of the cease-fire.

But U.S. officials warned the "News Hour" that there is no day-after plan and that the war could very well restart in two months.

And last night, while at dinner with Mr. Trump, Netanyahu promoted the resettlement of Gazans abroad.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: We're working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realize what they always say, that they want to give the Palestinians a better future.

LISA DESJARDINS: A sentiment supported by Trump.

DONALD TRUMP: And we have had great cooperation from surrounding, meaning surrounding Israel, surrounding countries, great cooperation from every single one of them.

So something good will happen.

LISA DESJARDINS: But both Hamas and humanitarian groups have rejected the resettlement in the past, calling it ethnic cleansing.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, unrelenting death and destruction.

An Israeli strike early this morning on a school turned shelter in a refugee camp killed at least nine people, four of them children.

According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, at least 52 Gazans have been killed in the past 24 hours alone.

And according to a World Food Program report, nearly half-a-million Gazans are expected to face catastrophic hunger.

These parents lost their infant last week to malnutrition.

Aid is scarce and often it is an immense risk to collect it.

Over 500 Palestinians have been killed near aid distribution points in the past six weeks.

Thousands of Israelis nationwide there protested this week to stop the fighting and release the hostages.

Many are calling for the violence to end, but here bloodshed is still a part of daily life.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Lisa Desjardins.

AMNA NAWAZ: Also today, President Trump ramped up criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin after reversing course on sending additional weapons to Ukraine.

Trump told reporters last night the U.S. needs to send more weapons to Kyiv to defend against intensifying Russian attacks.

The Pentagon announced last week it would pause deliveries of certain weapons.

In a Cabinet meeting today, Trump did not say whether he knew about that pause in advance.

He also criticized the way Putin is carrying out the war.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.

He's not treating human beings right.

He's killing too many people.

So we're sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine, and I have approved that.

AMNA NAWAZ: The president has often questioned the value of sending more military aid to Ukraine and has openly praised Putin in the past.

Trump also said today he's considering whether to support more sanctions on Russia.

The Supreme Court cleared the way today for President Trump's plan to fire hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

The justices lifted a lower court order that had temporarily blocked the layoffs.

The job cuts were led by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and targeted employees at the Departments of State, Treasury and others.

The court said it was not weighing the validity of specific cuts and technically the measure is temporary while other legal challenges play out.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only dissenting vote, writing that the order promises - - quote -- "the dismantling of much of the federal government as Congress had created it."

The U.S. State Department is warning its employees that an unknown person has been using artificial intelligence to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

According to a cable seen by the Associated Press, the impostor tried to contact at least three foreign ministers, plus a U.S. senator and a governor.

Officials say the unknown individual sent voice and text messages last month using A.I.

powered software to mimic Rubio's speech and writing style.

They say the person was likely trying to manipulate government officials to gain -- quote -- "access to information or accounts."

The State Department says it is investigating the incident.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants today for two top Taliban officials in Afghanistan.

The judges accused the group's supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, and the country's chief justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, of persecuting women and girls and targeting those who defy the Taliban's policies on gender, gender identity, or expression.

Since the Taliban retook power four years ago, they have largely banned girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade and limited women's access to public places.

The court says those actions are evidence of crimes against humanity.

Blistering temperatures have returned to Europe after last week's heat wave claimed at least eight lives across the continent.

In Athens, the sun beamed down on tourists as they were ushered out of the Acropolis.

Authorities closed the country's most visited ancient site from 1:00 p.m. local time as temperatures hovered near 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Meanwhile in France, hot and dry conditions helped fuel wildfires overnight in and into today.

The flames reached the outskirts of Marseille on the southern coast, forcing its main airport to close.

On Wall Street today, stocks ended mixed as investors digest President Trump's latest tariff plans.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 165 points on the day.

The Nasdaq managed a slight gain of nearly six points.

The S&P 500 closed just barely in negative territory.

And some welcome news for weary travelers.

The Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, is finally ditching its shoes-off screening policy.

TSA has required fliers to shed their shoes since 2006, several years after a British-born terrorist dubbed the shoe bomber tried to take down a flight from Paris to Miami.

This evening, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the change is long overdue.

KRISTI NOEM, U.S.

Homeland Security Secretary: We are excited with the fact that we have the technology now, that we have the multilayers of screening in place that we have built in over the recent several years.

They give us the ability to allow our travelers to keep their shoes on.

AMNA NAWAZ: Noem added that the new policy is being rolled out nationwide with immediate effect, and added that other security mandates, like liquid limits and removing laptops, are also being evaluated.

Still to come on the "News Hour": how a massive budget boost from Republican legislation could impact immigration enforcement; a new look at basketball star Caitlin Clark's extraordinary journey; plus much more.

President Donald Trump is ratcheting up tough trade negotiations by threatening to place much higher tariffs on several countries starting on August 1.

Most of the 14 countries targeted are in Asia, including Japan and South Korea, some of the U.S.' largest trading partners and staunchest allies.

William Brangham joins us now with more -- William.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Amna.

In addition to those, some of the other nations targeted are Myanmar and Laos at 40 percent, Cambodia and Thailand at 36 percent.

Japan and South Korea will get 25 percent tariffs.

For more on the implications this will have on the relationship between America and its Asian allies, we are joined by Wendy Cutler.

She's the vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, and previously was acting deputy U.S. trade representative.

Wendy Cutler, thank you so much for being here.

I wonder, how serious are these nations taking these tariff threats?

The president argues that he is making them to trigger dealmaking.

Do you believe that that's what's going to actually happen here?

WENDY CUTLER, Vice President, Asia Society Policy Institute: Look, I think these countries are taking these letters that were sent yesterday very seriously.

For most Asian countries, the U.S. is their largest export market.

So high tariffs would really have serious implications for them.

So I expect to see an intense -- negotiations to intensify until the next deadline set by the president of August 1.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, the president argues that he's imposing these tariffs to counter what he argues are unfair tariffs put by those other countries upon the United States.

Is that a fair argument that he's making?

WENDY CUTLER: Well, look, countries could open their markets more.

And, frankly, I think some success is already being made to get countries to lower their tariffs and get rid of their non-tariff measures.

But take a country like Korea, where we have a free trade agreement.

We have zero tariffs with Korea now.

So, in some ways, a 25 percent tariff not only doesn't make sense, but goes against our obligations under that agreement with Korea.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right.

Japan and South Korea are America's, I believe, sixth and seventh largest trading partners.

And, as we mentioned, they are key allies in this region, especially when it comes to countering China's influence.

Is this ratcheting trade war going to change that dynamic, change that relationship in any meaningful way?

WENDY CUTLER: I think so.

I think there are long-term implications for the continuous pressure we're putting on these countries in the trade area.

Both Korea and Japan have been strong allies and on the economic front have been partners on our economic security agenda, including trying to create and maintain resilient supply chains and bolstering cooperation on shipbuilding and energy and semiconductors.

So, in some ways, we're missing the larger picture.

And I worry that these countries are going to look at us differently and treat us differently going forward, even if they're able to reach a deal on August 1.

This has not been a great experience for them.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: One of the fears that people have raised is that, if we do antagonize our allies, that they might move closer in ways large and small to China.

Is that a concern that you share?

WENDY CUTLER: It's a concern, but I'm not overly concerned, in that many countries in Asia have their own problems with China and very much want to maintain a relationship with the United States in order to reduce their dependence on China.

So I think there will be some fallout and we will see more cooperation between some of these Asian countries and China, but I don't see them moving into the China camp because of these tariff wars.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, the president argues that he's doing this and that no previous president has been able to because of his business acumen.

And I wonder, does this tariffs-on/tariffs-off policy seem like -- or can you glean a coherent economic policy that the president is trying to articulate here?

WENDY CUTLER: Look, it's difficult, and it just seems day by day there seems to be a different objective for these tariffs, either bringing manufacturing home or raising revenues or getting rid of unfair trade practices.

So there is a lot of confusion.

And the deadlines keep -- they keep moving.

And so there's so much uncertainty and chaos.

And this, I think, is impacting our economy and the global economy, where forecasts now for global economic growth are being revised downward as we speak.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: All right, that is Wendy Cutler of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Thank you so much for your insights.

Really appreciate it.

WENDY CUTLER: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: This week, 10 people were charged with attempted murder of federal agents after a July 4 attack on an immigration detention center in Alvarado, Texas.

Fireworks were shot at the facility and a police officer responding to the scene was shot in the neck.

The acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas said that last week's events were -- quote -- "an ambush of federal and local law enforcement officers."

The charges come as immigration agents just received a major infusion of funding to carry out President Trump's deportation agenda.

The big budget bill passed by Republicans includes billions for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, giving it more funding than any other federal law enforcement agency.

But speaking at his Cabinet meeting today, the president suggested that the administration might not need to spend as much as he thought.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: I don't think we're going to need so much of it, because we had zero come in last month, so I'm not sure how much of it we want to spend.

You may think about that.

You may actually think about saving a lot of money because the wall's been largely built, and it obviously worked.

But you may want to think about that.

AMNA NAWAZ: Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, joins us now with the latest.

So, Laura, we heard the president there seem to downplay the need to use all of the money that was allocated for his deportation agenda.

What should we understand about that?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: So the president is somewhat right in that the numbers of border crossings are down.

It's not zero.

According to his border czar, Tom Homan, the June 2025 numbers, just over 6,000 border crossings occurred, compared to more than 83,000 during that same time in 2024.

But it's not zero.

Now, when it comes to whether or not the administration is going to spend the money that's allocated in this bill, the border czar, Tom Homan, as well as Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller have made very clear that they intend on spending the billions in this bill.

Tom Homan said this week that they want to arrest 7,000 people every day for the remainder of the administration.

AMNA NAWAZ: So billions allocated in the bill.

Break it down for us.

Where are those billions going?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: So, total, there's more than $160 billion that are going to immigration enforcement and the deportation operation.

So when you break it down, that means $46.5 billion to building the rest of the border wall, $45 billion to immigration detention centers, nearly $30 billion to hiring and training ICE staff, and $3.3 billion to immigration court judges and attorneys.

Now, some of those pots of money can be moved around.

If they don't want to spend that much on the border wall, they don't have to.

They can transfer it to other parts of ICE.

But ICE plans to hire an additional 10,000 new agents to the tens of thousands they already have.

And also they want to have at least 80,000 new detention beds.

AMNA NAWAZ: So that increase in funding for ICE, for immigration enforcement, how unprecedented is that kind of increase?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, it's incredibly unprecedented.

I spoke to David Bier, who is the director of immigration studies at the conservative Cato Institute.

And David Bier said that the administration has already moved a significant number of ATF agents, of DEA agents over to help immigration enforcement.

And now this bill will dramatically increase ICE's capabilities on top of that.

DAVID BIER, Director of Immigration Studies, Cato Institute: Under this bill, if -- by 2028, you're talking about spending effectively 80 percent of all federal law enforcement dollars will go to immigration enforcement.

And so when you think about the scale that we are prioritizing this type of enforcement over all other types of crimes, everything you can think of is being deprioritized to focus on deportations.

And primarily it's going to be deportations of people without any criminal record, without any arrest record.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: So, as Bier said, law enforcement being moved from other types of operations, other -- prioritizing other types of crimes to specifically focusing on immigration enforcement.

And David Bier warned that the impact of this law will mean that ICE raids could very well become an everyday part of American life and hit communities that it hasn't necessarily hit already.

He warned that he thinks there could be an increase of racial profiling, including of American citizens.

And we have seen some American citizens get caught up in these ICE operations already, some arrested, some put in handcuffs, and he is concerned that that will only increase.

Now, another impact of this, according to David Bier's and the Cato Institute's number-crunching, and they did this by looking also at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Offices estimate, but that they estimate that the U.S., according -- because of this bill, is going to lose some $900 billion in tax revenue that is paid by these immigrants who are potentially going to be picked up and deported by the administration.

AMNA NAWAZ: So we have seen this dramatic increase in funding for ICE.

You talked about scaling up ICE's capabilities on the ground, everyday ICE operations, as David Bier said.

What does that look like in practice?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: I spoke to a number of former ICE officials, Amna, and they said that reaching that additional 10,000 ICE agents, hiring up that many ICE agents, is not necessarily an easy feat, and that they could end up using the money to hire out contractors that could help ICE agents, that could supplement their operations.

I spoke to John Sandweg, the former ICE director, and when he was looking at the big picture, he told me that this bill is ultimately going to allow the Trump administration to build an enforcement and deportation apparatus that is much harder for any future president to dismantle or to try to downsize.

JOHN SANDWEG, Former Acting ICE Director: This infusion of capital is not just about the near term and about increasing the size of ICE during the Trump administration, but I think it's also about building an immigration enforcement system that will sustain a much higher number of deportations, not just in the next 2.5, three years, but in the next 10 years.

We're going to see an ICE, that it is going to be hard for any future administration to shrink it, and its capacity to deport will certainly be at the highest level it's ever been in the history of the United States.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Now, John Sandweg and other former ICE officials told me that they expect private prison contractors to be a big -- to play a big role in creating these detention centers, those billions that are going to be allocated to detention centers.

They expect that a lot of private prison companies are going to be getting the majority of that money in order to build out these facilities, and what they expect in the near term is soft-sided facilities.

Those tent facilities like the Alligator Alcatraz in Florida are what is expected to be built more quickly because it's a lot harder to build brick-and-mortar facilities.

AMNA NAWAZ: Laura, you have reported on this during his campaign.

Initially, in office, President Trump said he was focusing on violent criminals, on public safety threats.

We have seen ICE has gone far beyond that already, so who is and will be targeted for arrest moving forward?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: The bottom line, Amna, is that there is no way to reach that 7,000 daily arrests that Tom Homan and the administration is talking about without expanding their targets.

Now, ICE arrest data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and the UCLA Center for Immigration Law shows that a majority of the undocumented immigrants that have been arrested since Trump took office did not have a criminal conviction.

And David Bier and other experts that I have talked to said that now they expect the administration to increase their targeting of undocumented immigrants that are either recent arrivals or ones who had their legal status stripped away more recently.

And we saw that increased -- those increased operations already in Los Angeles this week, where there were troops as well as ICE agents and military vehicles that descended on MacArthur Park.

This is near a predominantly Latino neighborhood.

And the -- Karen Bass, the L.A. mayor there, said that this is another example of the administration ratcheting up the chaos.

But bottom line is that there is an expectation that more and more operations are going to be carried out in communities and at worksites like Home Depots and other areas across the country.

AMNA NAWAZ: Our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, thank you.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: California is home to the nation's largest homeless population, many of whom live in encampments, one of the most visible symptoms of the state's dual housing and homelessness crises.

Governor Gavin Newsom, whose administration has spent more than $20 billion on housing and other programs, recently urged cities and counties to pass laws that effectively ban -- quote - - "dangerous and unhealthy encampments."

While some welcomed the move, as Stephanie Sy reports, others worry about the health impacts on the state's homeless population.

STEPHANIE SY: Tucked between a freeway and a waste processing plant in Southeast Los Angeles is a community.

What may look like things discarded are people's precious belongings.

MAN: Everything's ready to go, right?

STEPHANIE SY: On a recent morning, outreach workers turn up.

Jacqui Herrera and David Mendez are moving.

The couple can only bring what they can fit into these plastic bags, plus their bikes.

They gaze out the window nervously as they're transported to their next stop.

CARTER HEWGLEY, L.A. County Homeless Initiative: The criteria is, are you here and are you experiencing homelessness and are you willing to come inside?

STEPHANIE SY: Carter Hewgley is a senior manager at L.A. County's Homeless Initiative, which runs the Pathway Home program.

CARTER HEWGLEY: You guys will be living together, your own place.

STEPHANIE SY: Today was weeks in the making.

Herrera and Mendez, along with 21 other households, are moving into temporary housing in area motels.

CARTER HEWGLEY: All of the people going into interim housing today will have on-site supportive services, intensive case management, life skills development, and mental health supports at the location they're going to.

STEPHANIE SY: After hours of filling out paperwork, learning the rules, and meeting with a case worker, they're finally shown their room.

The tension of the day seems to fall away.

What did you think when you walked into this room, this air-conditioned room of your own?

DAVID MENDEZ, Pathway Home Participant: To be honest, thankful.

STEPHANIE SY: Yes, be honest.

DAVID MENDEZ: I was extremely thankful, actually.

Like, I get to fix my life up, because this was basically what kind of stopped me, in the sense of not being able to on a daily basic shower or whatever and go look for a job or like... JACQUI HERRERA, Pathway Home Participant: Have a restroom.

DAVID MENDEZ: Yes, and all that.

STEPHANIE SY: L.A. County is banking on programs like Pathway Home to reduce the number of homeless encampments, which ballooned across the state during the COVID pandemic.

It's resisted recent calls by Governor Gavin Newsom for cities and counties to adopt ordinances that would effectively ban encampments on public property.

GOV.

GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): It's time to take back the sidewalks.

It's time to take these encampments and provide alternatives.

It's time, I think, to just end the excuses.

STEPHANIE SY: Newsom's announcement is part of a broader trend toward more aggressive enforcement against homeless encampments across the state.

After a U.S. Supreme Court decision last June made it legal for governments to penalize sleeping and camping in public places, cities like San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland, some of the most liberal in the country, began to enforce and adopt measures aimed at curbing encampments.

Last November, Garden Grove, a city in Orange County, passed a ban on public camping spearheaded by councilmember George Brietigam.

Do you think you're a model for other cities?

GEORGE BRIETIGAM, Garden Grove, California, Councilmember: I know we are.

I mean, we have got the best success.

I do have fault.

If that's all cities are going to do is pass an ordinance and shoo off their problems to other cities, I think that's not a very responsible methodology.

STEPHANIE SY: Garden Grove had already successfully reduced its unhoused population of only a few hundred people by 39 percent between 2022 to 2024.

It's something Breitigam attributes to providing services such as health care and a new regional shelter that offers drug treatment and job training.

GEORGE BRIETIGAM: We have got all the carrots, and we needed that stick to progress with the harder-to-get-to homeless individuals.

STEPHANIE SY: Why did you feel like you needed the stick when you were already enjoying so much success?

GEORGE BRIETIGAM: You know, we know we're getting the easy ones now, the ones who are willing to cooperate.

You're going to have less success when you're dealing with the hard people.

And so how do you motivate people to take advantage of the programs?

How do you motivate them if there's no consequences for their negative behavior?

JESSE LUCATERO, Garden Grove, California, Police Department: We're not very heavy-handed on this ordinance at all.

STEPHANIE SY: Garden Grove Police Officer Jesse Lucatero says his unit prioritizes offering services and shelter and uses the ordinance as a last resort.

He says they have issued fewer than a dozen citations since the law came into effect last December.

JESSE LUCATERO: So, like 99.9 percent of the time, when we have someone that's in violation of this camping ordinance, we get compliance and they will willfully just move on.

STEPHANIE SY: For critics of public camping bans, forcing people to move on is more of a problem than a solution.

SHAWN PLEASANTS, Advocate For Unhoused People: It's just like the leaf blowers.

You blow the leaves to this side of the street, and they blow them right back.

That's all they're doing.

STEPHANIE SY: Before getting housing and becoming an advocate, Shawn Pleasants lived in an encampment in Los Angeles' Koreatown for 10 years.

He's been through encampment sweeps.

SHAWN PLEASANTS: Sweeps are probably some of the most devastating events that you encounter as a person living on the streets of Los Angeles.

Your journey for housing just gets pushed back again because now you're back in survival mode.

All that stuff resets, resets every single time.

STEPHANIE SY: That's a pattern Dr. Absalon Galat has seen over and over again.

Galat is head of L.A. County's street medicine and mobile clinic program, which treats 3,500 unsheltered patients a year.

DR. ABSALON GALAT, L.A. County Health Services: A lot of my patients are always moving.

And they're losing their medications, which are so important in maintaining their health, as well as their documentation that will actually help them go into housing, their I.D.s, the Social Security.

You're taking away the support that people have for one another.

STEPHANIE SY: That cycle is made worse with incarceration, which critics warn will happen more often where public camping is made illegal.

DR. SALMAAN KAMAL, UCLA National Clinician Scholar: I can sympathize with a lot of people who want to address the homelessness issue in California, but criminalizing homelessness and banning encampments is going to make the problem worse.

STEPHANIE SY: Dr. Salmaan Kamal researches the health impacts experienced when the homeless are put in jail.

DR. SALMAAN KAMAL: People with a history of incarceration typically have a hard time finding jobs, finding housing.

In the long term, these folks are going to be back out on the streets.

They're going to be in a worse situation, and they're going to be farther away from housing.

STEPHANIE SY: And farther away from medical treatment.

DR. ABSALON GALAT: The discharged people know.

STEPHANIE SY: Dr. Absalon Galat says overdose is the leading cause of death among the city's homeless population, and that programs like L.A. County's Pathway Home support recovery.

DR. ABSALON GALAT: Before, our focus was, how can I keep you alive on the street as long as possible so you don't overdose?

Our rates of success is much higher with our patients that have been in interim housing, because now they don't have to worry about, where am I going to eat today, where am I going to sleep today?

STEPHANIE SY: County officials say they are seeing promising results overall.

In the two years since Pathway Home launched, more than 1,600 people have moved into interim housing, and one in five are now in permanent homes.

Back in his motel room, David Mendez, who also struggles with the substance use disorder, is already thinking ahead.

DAVID MENDEZ: I allowed my substance abuse, whatever, to just overtake me first.

STEPHANIE SY: What do you think you're going to get from here that goes beyond having this place?

Like, what kind of services do you feel like they can connect you to?

DAVID MENDEZ: I think the biggest one that matters to me right now is stop using, in a sense, like... STEPHANIE SY: Mendez and Herrera said this could be the fresh start they need.

Was it a good day, Jacqueline?

JACQUI HERRERA: Yes, it was great.

It was like -- I do.

DAVID MENDEZ: Yes, I think it was a great day, actually.

I mean, I'm just happy.

STEPHANIE SY: Two Angelenos no longer unsheltered.

Still, more than 52,000 others remain on the streets in this corner of the Golden State.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Stephanie Sy in Los Angeles.

AMNA NAWAZ: She's one of the biggest names in all of sports today, and a new book takes a deeper look at how Caitlin Clark got there.

From college stardom at Iowa to shattering attendance records and now as a top financial driver for the WNBA, Clark's rise and her arrival to the league have come with some controversy.

I talked with sportswriter Christine Brennan about her book "On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women's Sports," and asked her how and why playing for the University of Iowa helped to make Clark a superstar.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, Author, "On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women's Sports": Because, at Iowa, she could shoot from anywhere and everywhere, including the next county and the parking lot.

And it would go in.

She's the high-wire act in that way.

She's a basketball player, of course, as you know, but she is also an entertainer.

And I think the allure and the reason Caitlin Clark is Caitlin Clark, and obviously other women's basketball players over the years have not risen to this transcendent figure in our culture, is because she does have those incredible shots, passes, et cetera.

Well, that, of course, is where Caitlin Clark was able to do that, at Iowa.

If you have her go to Notre Dame, which she actually committed, a soft commit, Muffet McGraw, her coach there, said to me for the book, she said, if she'd come here, it would have been different.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN: She wouldn't have been able to just shoot threes left and right.

The team around her would have been different.

Yukon as well, she would have been a cog in a great machine, those schools being perennial favorites, whereas Iowa hadn't been to the Final Four a long time.

It's incredible how, by Caitlin making that decision to stay home, everything changed.

AMNA NAWAZ: She goes on to break scoring records.

She has at least 11 NIL deals, you report in the book, worth more than $3 million by the time she's done with college.

But, in the book, I was surprised, you really go hard after the league, after the WNBA, for what you say is being unprepared for her arrival.

The league itself and also not preparing the players.

You write about a call that you have with the WNBA official.

And you write: "What was I hearing in that WNBA's official's voice?

Not happiness, not anticipation, not excitement.

No, it was something else."

What was it?

What do you think they got wrong?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN: You have got people barnstorming -- Caitlin is barnstorming around the country.

You have got people lined up in January and February for games, the TV ratings, four million more people watching the women's final with Caitlin Clark in South Carolina than watched the men the next night.

I mean, that's a sentence I thought I could never utter.

And here it's all coming to the WNBA.

And as that official told me, I said, do you realize how big this is?

And this person said, yes, this is the biggest thing to happen to the WNBA since Maya Moore.

We heard from several people saying the players were having some tough times dealing with this, or Sheila Johnson, of course, talks about that would be hurt feelings if Caitlin Clark winning an award, but the other players not.

So if the league had been more prepared - - and these are not necessarily my words.

Dr. Harry Edwards, the great civil rights leader, the man who was the impetus for the Black power salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and Briana Scurry, the great goalkeeper, their words in the book, I'm so appreciative that they talked to me about, you have to understand that a 74 percent Black league, and you have now got a white woman who's becoming the biggest star they have ever had.

In our polarized society today, we can see that could be an issue.

I can understand that.

We all do.

And so if the league, as Harry Edwards says, seminars, Zoom calls, talk to the players, explain to these wonderful players that she's coming along after them, and that this is that opportunity, and you were there to start this process.

And that's where the WNBA failed the players, according to Dr. Harry Edwards.

AMNA NAWAZ: And, as you know, a lot of the conversation around the hits she takes, around some of the rivalries that followed her from college to the league do break down along racial lines, because this is a league, as you mentioned, built on the backs and run by, dominated by Black women athletes here.

You get pulled into this in one reporting incident too.

There's a clip that goes viral, a player named DiJonai Carrington who accidentally hits Clark in the eye during a game, and you ask her about that moment, whether she intended to, what that play was about.

And the Players Association comes after you.

They issue a very strong statement.

They accuse you of trying to bait an athlete into participating in a narrative that's false, designed to fuel racist, homophobic, misogynistic vitriol.

They call for your credentials to be pulled.

What did you take away from that interaction?

And I know you respond in the book, but I want to give you a chance to respond here as well.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN: Sure.

No, thank you.

And, obviously, that failed.

I did not lose my credentials.

AMNA NAWAZ: Right.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN: I have asked tough questions of athletes, male and female, for years.

Was the Players Association saying that these female athletes couldn't handle those questions, that we shouldn't be asking similar questions?

And you ask a specific question, Amna, to give that athlete the chance to hit it out of the park, to take it any which way she wants.

And what was happening online was terrible.

We know that Twitter/X is a cesspool.

It's worse for women than men, and it's certainly worse for Black women than white women.

And there were millions of responses and tweets and posts talking about DiJonai Carrington, accusing her of going after Caitlin Clark.

How do you, as a journalist, try to get an answer, which also then gives the athlete the chance to clear the air?

You ask the specific question.

That's exactly what I did.

And I do feel a sadness for the league as I'm reporting this, I'm a journalist, I'm reporting it, but as someone who's cared about women's sports, for years and covered the WNBA these years, that they weren't more prepared for the national scrutiny that was coming.

How on earth is DiJonai Carrington not prepared to be able to answer that question without getting angry that it was asked?

And, again, it's something that most pro athletes understand.

They have been helped by their leagues or their players association, whatever, their agent, to the point where they know you get a question like that, you want that question because then you can clear the air.

And that's all that was.

AMNA NAWAZ: Underscoring all of your reporting in this book is the idea of the business of the game around Caitlin Clark and how it has completely changed with her arrival at the WNBA.

You note that the videos that the Indiana Fever produced have been top among all the Major Leagues.

No team in the NBA, NFL, MLB or WNBA got more video views, ticket sales, jersey sales all up exponentially.

The impact beyond just her team though, are we seeing that?

Is this a sense of like a rising tide lifting all boats?

CHRISTINE BRENNAN: We saw a statistic just a few weeks ago that I think tells the story, not in the book because it just happened.

Caitlin Clark, when she was injured the first time, missed five games.

And during those five games, more than half of the viewership of the entire WNBA, not just the Fever, but the entire WNBA, more than half, disappeared, meaning that when Caitlin Clark is gone, more than half of the audience goes.

You now have tangible proof of just the importance of Caitlin Clark, is that, when she is gone, then more than half the viewership leaves the league.

That is wonderful actually to know for the players as they go into the collective bargaining agreement, because she is, as you said, the economic rocket ship leading the way.

Use her.

You can -- she's obviously a player that you will all make more money and have a better contract knowing the power of Caitlin Clark and knowing that that light shines on her, and it also shines on all the other players.

AMNA NAWAZ: The book is "On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women's Sports."

The author is Christine Brennan.

Christine, always great to see you.

Thank you so much.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN: Great to see you.

Thank you, Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: Remember, there's always a lot more online, including a look at financial accounts for kids in the Republicans' mega budget bill, what the so-called Trump accounts entail, and who is eligible to receive them.

That is at PBS.org/NewsHour.

And that is the "News Hour" for tonight.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

On behalf of the entire "News Hour" team, thank you for joining us.