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