Speaker 1: Well, you can't be born to alpham On the ground,
Speaker 1: I think we're seeing federal immigration agents deployed to cities
Speaker 1: across the country in ways that they have not been
Speaker 1: used for decades.
Speaker 2: With the gun down.
Speaker 3: Nikolfoy is an immigration reporter with Pro Publica. She says,
Speaker 3: what's happening in America now isn't traditional border enforcement. It's
Speaker 3: a new kind of highly militarized policing targeting civilians.
Speaker 1: It's not just ice or border patrol. You've also got
Speaker 1: agents from the FBIDA. Agents who normally would be going
Speaker 1: after trafficking rings or drugs at the border are now
Speaker 1: coming into a number of US cities that are not
Speaker 1: used to this level of immigration enforcement and conducting what
Speaker 1: they say are targeted arrests, intended to deport the worst
Speaker 1: of the worst immigrants.
Speaker 3: And we're getting them out of the country.
Speaker 1: We just started that, We're getting them out of the country.
Speaker 3: The Trump administration says nearly seventy percent of the people
Speaker 3: immigration and Customs enforcement have arrested our criminals, but US's
Speaker 3: own data shows the overwhelming majority have no criminal conviction
Speaker 3: at all, and admit a promise to deport a million people.
Speaker 3: In Trump's first year back in office, ICE raids have
Speaker 3: become broader and more aggressive.
Speaker 1: What people are seeing instead are agents going through neighborhoods
Speaker 1: and going to stores and home depots and outside churches
Speaker 1: and schools, any Memorial Christian church, and we are not
Speaker 1: okay with your being on our property, So resulting in
Speaker 1: the American public coming in contact with immigration agents as
Speaker 1: they arrest their neighbors and loved ones in ways that
Speaker 1: we really haven't seen in quite a long time in
Speaker 1: this country.
Speaker 3: I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to seven A today
Speaker 3: Nicole Foyd on Trump's deportation machine, how it's reshaping everyday
Speaker 3: life in America and what happens when communities try to
Speaker 3: stand in the way. It's Wednesday, December civity. Nicole, Trump
Speaker 3: and senor officials have repeatedly talked about deporting one million
Speaker 3: people in his first year back in office. We're roughly
Speaker 3: eleven months into his second term, So tell me about
Speaker 3: the orders that have been given to us and what
Speaker 3: we're seeing in terms of numbers.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the reasons why we're seeing so
Speaker 1: many more people being detained is because ICE has these
Speaker 1: aggressive quotas of three thousand a day is one of
Speaker 1: the quotas that has been widely reported, and when you
Speaker 1: have that level of pressure, it's resulting in a lot
Speaker 1: more people being considered targets for deportation. Before this current administration,
Speaker 1: if someone was not the target of an operation what
Speaker 1: we'd call like at a collateral arrest, they are coming
Speaker 1: in for a target. This is somebody who has, you know,
Speaker 1: an arson charge on their record, and there's someone they
Speaker 1: would really like to deport out of the country, and
Speaker 1: they know where they are, if their family is there
Speaker 1: and the rest of their family is undocumented, are in
Speaker 1: various legal statuses, they would normally not arrest those people,
Speaker 1: but now that's not the case. And that's also why
Speaker 1: you will see agents go into a parking lot, a
Speaker 1: store and detain multiple people just because they were there,
Speaker 1: even if they may have only been there to target
Speaker 1: one person.
Speaker 3: One of the things you're reporting has un COVID is
Speaker 3: that it's not just undocumented people being swept up in this.
Speaker 3: What you found is that US citizens are also being
Speaker 3: detined by immigration idents. Can you tell us about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. US citizens have frequently in the past been detained
Speaker 1: by immigration agents. This is not something that is new
Speaker 1: to the Trump administration. However, there were a number of
Speaker 1: warnings from experts this time that with these aggressive quotas,
Speaker 1: this interest in deporting as many many people as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible, that US citizens, let alone people with green cards,
Speaker 1: that they were going to get caught up in this
Speaker 1: immigration dragnet. And what I found in my reporting here
Speaker 1: at Pro Publica is that in the first nine months
Speaker 1: of the year, immigration agents detained at the very least
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy US citizens. These were citizens who
Speaker 1: were detained because immigration agents had questions about their citizenship.
Speaker 1: But these were also citizens who were detained because maybe
Speaker 1: they were at protests, or more often, they were accused
Speaker 1: of assaulting or interfering in operations that sometimes ended with
Speaker 1: them spending several days in federal detention, without their families
Speaker 1: having any idea where to find them, without access to
Speaker 1: a lawyer, without access to a phone call, and sometimes
Speaker 1: even medical attention. Many people are being arrested with on
Speaker 1: allegations of assault or interfering that we can find very
Speaker 1: little evidence that those things ever occurred, and in many
Speaker 1: many cases the government came either. There's been many cases
Speaker 1: dropped dismissed or people never charged despite being held for
Speaker 1: several days after, you know, publicly officials have said this
Speaker 1: person assaulted someone. But then also too, the agency has
Speaker 1: said that from their view, if they're going into a
Speaker 1: place and they're trying to detain as many people as possible,
Speaker 1: they're going to hold everybody in this home depot, parking lot,
Speaker 1: for example, until they can ascertain their citizenship. Sometimes this
Speaker 1: may be a short experience, but many citizens have found
Speaker 1: that it's not a short experience and sometimes can be
Speaker 1: a very violent experience.
Speaker 3: So what kind of mood is that leading to on
Speaker 3: the streets of some of these cities. What's the feeling
Speaker 3: on the ground as people try and go about day
Speaker 3: daily business.
Speaker 1: I think that across the country, people in immigrant communities
Speaker 1: and people who have legal status are citizens, but who
Speaker 1: are Latino or Hispanic in particular, but certainly many other
Speaker 1: immigrant groups are really worried that when they walk outside
Speaker 1: the door and they go to school, to work, you know,
Speaker 1: the grocery store, that they're going to be detained. And
Speaker 1: that's because they're watching it happen on their phones or
Speaker 1: to happen to their loved ones, you know, everywhere I
Speaker 1: think what's happening to Somali Americans right now in the
Speaker 1: Twin Cities in Minnesota is one example. There's been a
Speaker 1: number of you know, US citizens who have been detained,
Speaker 1: who have just been going about their business. That's creating
Speaker 1: a lot of fear. Even though the government says, you know, oh,
Speaker 1: there's no nothing to be worried about if you're here legally,
Speaker 1: many people have learned that's not the case. I covered
Speaker 1: immigration in the first Trump administration, particularly on a local level,
Speaker 1: and I have not seen this level of just pushback
Speaker 1: and community resistance to these agents being in their neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: People have community patrols, they are delivering groceries to people
Speaker 1: who are stuck in their housesn't too afraid to leave.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a combination of, you know, people
Speaker 1: are afraid to leave their homes and go about their
Speaker 1: daily business. But there's also a number of Americans who
Speaker 1: have decided that now is the time to push back
Speaker 1: forcefully against immigration agents that they say they do not
Speaker 1: want in their neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: Coming up now. Trump's the immigration agenda has changed America forever.
Speaker 3: Nicolo just wanted to step back for a moment and
Speaker 3: get a sense of the skyle of undocumented immigration in America.
Speaker 3: What do we may when we say someone is undocumented.
Speaker 1: The truth is is that we for forty to fifty years,
Speaker 1: we have had a lack of immigration reform. So that
Speaker 1: means there's a number of people who either crossed the
Speaker 1: border illegally or came legally and their status has since lapsed.
Speaker 1: Whether they had a visa expire, or they committed a crime,
Speaker 1: or they did something that would invalidate their visa. There's
Speaker 1: a number of ways that people can have kind of
Speaker 1: shaky legal status. During the Biden administration, there also was
Speaker 1: this unprecedented level of immigrants who were coming and seeking asylum,
Speaker 1: mostly from Central America, but certainly we had a number
Speaker 1: of folks from Ukraine, from Russia, from other world conflicts
Speaker 1: coming to the border, and we're entering the country through
Speaker 1: ways that the government told them to enter. Many people
Speaker 1: who are being detained right now and who are considered
Speaker 1: deportable are people who followed the rules that they were
Speaker 1: supposed to. Many people have pending asylum claims, Many people
Speaker 1: have valid work authorization, so it's a variety of cases.
Speaker 1: But the truth is too is that like falling out
Speaker 1: of status, you know, overstaying a tourist visa and then
Speaker 1: staying and working for thirty years. That's not a crime.
Speaker 1: It's a civil infraction, and it's not something that's normally
Speaker 1: been treated as a priority for the government because undocumented
Speaker 1: immigrants are in every single industry and predominant in many
Speaker 1: industries that we need in order to function as a society,
Speaker 1: whether it's construction or agriculture or restaurants and so.
Speaker 3: One of the interesting things, of course, has been the
Speaker 3: response to attacks and immigrants. There's been pushed back from unions,
Speaker 3: local organizes as well as from city and state. Latest
Speaker 3: recently a zorin Mandani relates to VDA couching people in
Speaker 3: the head to stand up to us.
Speaker 2: First, ice cannot enter into private spaces like your home, school,
Speaker 2: or private area of your workplace without a judicial warrant
Speaker 2: signed by a judge.
Speaker 1: That looks like that.
Speaker 3: So, what are sort of the most significant ways you're
Speaker 3: saying papal and governments try to stand between us and
Speaker 3: the communities they're targeting.
Speaker 1: I think the very first and most obvious thing that
Speaker 1: is happening is that everyone is filming everything in the
Speaker 1: second that immigration agents show up anywhere. People are filming
Speaker 1: everything and following agents. They'll have these like neighborhood watch
Speaker 1: groups where people are assigned to follow in alert and
Speaker 1: blow horns or just yell in the street that ICE
Speaker 1: is here and so that if there's anyone who's concerned
Speaker 1: about that, they may be able to leave. And also
Speaker 1: though many people who are physically blocking cars from leaving.
Speaker 1: I think in New York there was videos circulating of
Speaker 1: there was a parking garage where ICE agents were staging
Speaker 1: for a raid in a huge shopping district and activists
Speaker 1: showed up and physically blocked for a long period of
Speaker 1: time those vehicles from exiting. Now, people here, the ICE
Speaker 1: agents are trying to get out and come with me. Here,
Speaker 1: brig they're not letting them leave. There's a variety of
Speaker 1: acts that people have created. There is a very dedicated
Speaker 1: response to trying to identify ICE agents because the vast
Speaker 1: majority of them are conducting these arrests, not even in
Speaker 1: identifying uniforms. So there's a huge interest in identifying these
Speaker 1: agents and all of these things are they that even
Speaker 1: though recording and filming ICE agents is absolutely not against
Speaker 1: the law in the United States. It is a First
Speaker 1: Amendment right that we take very seriously. We've seen many
Speaker 1: times that immigration agents and the government have treated this
Speaker 1: as an assault or tried to claim that this is
Speaker 1: interfering or obstructing their operations.
Speaker 2: There is an entire system of feeder organizations that provide money, resources, weapons,
Speaker 2: and when they're attacking ice officers, they're attacking federal buildings
Speaker 2: where they're isolating public officials for harassment, dosing, intimidation, and
Speaker 2: ultimately attempted assassination. It is all carefully planned, executed, and
Speaker 2: thought through. It is terrorism on our soil.
Speaker 1: There is increasingly interest from the government in labeling people
Speaker 1: who especially like the longtime nonprofit groups and advocacy groups
Speaker 1: who work with immigrants, as domestic threats. People have been
Speaker 1: charged in that. You know, there was an activist in
Speaker 1: la who was charged because he was distributing masks for
Speaker 1: people to wear because of tear gas, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: maybe not something that you would normally consider would be
Speaker 1: considered a domestic terror threat, but they have been very
Speaker 1: vocal that they believe that that is a threat to
Speaker 1: government operations. I personally reported on a number of citizens
Speaker 1: who were accused of assaulting officers, punching officers, blocking agents
Speaker 1: with their car, and video evidence does not show the
Speaker 1: government's narrative, but that is a continuing priority that we
Speaker 1: will likely see more of from the government.
Speaker 3: What do you say is the ultimate gall Nikole? How
Speaker 3: do you say, Disoulry shaping America as we've known it.
Speaker 1: I do think that we are going to see some
Speaker 1: pretty serious societal shifts. The number of US citizen children
Speaker 1: who are leaving the country right now, I don't think
Speaker 1: we have seen for one hundred years, back when there
Speaker 1: was a huge push in the nineteen thirties and nineteen
Speaker 1: forties in the US where millions of citizens, mostly Mexican Americans,
Speaker 1: were deported from the country. You know, we're also losing
Speaker 1: thousands of immigrants who have been here for thirty forty years,
Speaker 1: have raised US citizen children and grandchildren, and were contributing
Speaker 1: tax payers and valued members of the community. I also think, too,
Speaker 1: what has concerned a number of experts who I've spoken
Speaker 1: to is also this I think comfort level with seeing
Speaker 1: federal agents in neighborhoods acting like police when they're not
Speaker 1: police in ways that we've again not really seen. I
Speaker 1: think there's a number of concerns from constitutional rights experts
Speaker 1: that America is moving towards this place where like you
Speaker 1: have to carry your passport on you, we are now
Speaker 1: seeing certain behaviors of the government be normalized very quickly
Speaker 1: in front of our eyes. Certainly, there are people pushing
Speaker 1: back against this. Certainly there are also judges restricting some
Speaker 1: of these actions. But a lot is happening, and not
Speaker 1: everybody's always paying attention. I couldn't tell you what's going
Speaker 1: to come next, but a number of experts who I've
Speaker 1: interviewed are very concerned about where we go from here.
Speaker 3: Well, Niiclway very plays that you're paying attention for us,
Speaker 3: and thank you so much for coming on seven.
Speaker 1: I am thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Also in the news, the two government responsible for the
Speaker 3: Bondeou Beach massacre traveled to the Philippines to receive military
Speaker 3: style training before carrying out their attack. According to the IBA.
Speaker 3: City security sources have told the broadcast that twenty four
Speaker 3: year old Navid Akrim had links to Australia's pro Islamic
Speaker 3: state network, was known to Azio as far back as
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen. Investigations are now underway looking at potential ties
Speaker 3: to international extremist networks. Our security agencies discovered the pair
Speaker 3: of gunmen have been to Manila for training in November.
Speaker 3: The Philippines is a known training ground for militants and
Speaker 3: the Prime Minister Anthony Alberezi has visited Ahmad, a lamed
Speaker 3: in hospital that thank him for his bravery and disarming
Speaker 3: one of the gunmen in a deadly Bondai attack. The
Speaker 3: forty three year old fruit shop owner, who was originally
Speaker 3: from Syria, suffered gunshot wounds as he intervened to save
Speaker 3: countless lives on Sunday night. He's now recovering in hospital
Speaker 3: in Sydney. Mister Albanzi called mister Hmad an Australian hero.
Speaker 3: More than two million dollars has been donated to a
Speaker 3: crowdfunding campaign for mister Ahmed. I'm Daniel James. This is
Speaker 3: seven AM. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 2: I all on one