Politics and views in the United States.

President Trump's border czar says he supports ICE raids in schools, churches. Colombia's president says his government won't accept US immigrant deportation flights. And Vice President JD Vance defends Trump's Jan. 6 pardons.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to "2025 Talks," where we're following our democracy in historic times.

Message needs to be clear.

There's consequences of entering a country illegally.

If we don't show those consequences, you're never gonna fix the border problem.

Tom Homan, President Donald Trump's border czar, is standing by the administration's plans to send immigration agents into sensitive areas, like schools and churches.

During an interview with ABC, Homan added Congress needs to authorize more funding for deportations so Trump can fulfill a central campaign promise.

Meanwhile, Trump is imposing tariffs and a travel ban on Colombia, after the Latin American country turned away two planes carrying migrants.

Along with blocking deportation flights from the U.S., the Colombian government is now retaliating with tariffs of their own.

Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says the dispute misses the point.

We need to understand why people are coming to the southern border of the United States and mitigating that in the first place.

And I am tired of hearing from people who cannot point out Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala on a map, telling us about how to mitigate the millions of people seeking refuge.

Critics of immigration argue they take jobs, drive down wages, and burden community resources.

New data from Kentucky finds migrants there added $14 billion to the economy.

Anthony Capote with the Immigration Research Initiative says they're 5 percent of an otherwise rapidly aging workforce and own more than one in seven businesses.

Immigrants are really embedded throughout Kentucky's economy.

They make up 12 percent of construction laborers, 24 percent of software developers, and 16 percent of physicians.

Pete Hegseth has been officially sworn in as U.S. Defense Secretary after the Senate confirmed his nomination by a single vote.

Three Republican senators voted against him, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says Trump technically violated the law when firing more than a dozen inspectors general without notifying Congress beforehand.

Graham says Trump is just picking the people he wants.

So I'm not, you know, losing a whole lot of sleep that he wants to change the personnel out.

I just want to make sure that he gets off to a good start.

I think he has.

I'm very supportive of what he wants to do in America.

The White House website for the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, created under the Biden administration, recently went dark.

People working for fewer gun deaths say they fear much of the office's successful work will be derailed.

Finally, Vice President J.D. Vance is defending Trump's unconditional pardons of 1,500 January 6th rioters.

Vance says the administration examined each case individually and concluded there was a massive denial of due process of liberty and constitutional rights.

I'm Alex Gonzalez for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

Find our trust indicators at publicnewsservice.org.