Minneapolis

Pushkin. Hello, Hi, my wife, Hi, my husband. How are you.

I'm getting through?

Yeah, so you wanted to talk I did.

I feel like we haven't had much of a chance to connect over the last couple of weeks because there's been a lot going on here.

Here is Minneapolis, where I live, and the epicenter of what the Trump administration is calling Operation Metro Surge. Since it all began with the regular business of work, childcare and running a household, Emily and I haven't really had a chance to sit down and actually talk. I knew she had a lot she wanted to tell me, so I asked her to start at the beginning.

On Wednesday, January seventh, I had dropped Aggie EF at school, and I was driving down thirty six, which is a one way.

There were I don't know.

If it was six or eight vehicles.

Coming directly toward me, going the wrong way down a one way at full speed, and I really thought I was going to have a head on collision. Then they just suddenly stopped, and then a bunch of men started running out of the cars and they were all masked and all the vehicles were unmarked. My brain just wasn't connecting what was happening? And then I saw two women running toward this scene with whistles, and then somewhere in my head it clicked like, oh, this is an ice raid.

I said, who do they think they are?

Who do they think they are?

Oh my gosh, it's just too much.

I mean that's when everything just like exploded.

I got home, and you know, I.

Had news on the background, and I saw that a woman had been shot dead, and that turned out later that this was Renee Good and she had just dropped her kid off from school too. She was shot about forty minutes after I had that encounter, about.

Four blocks away. I don't know.

I went to the vigil that night. Okay, there were a lot of people there. I think everybody there really felt an obligation.

To be there.

While I was there, I got a text from Katie, my sister, telling me that ice had showed up at Theo's school. THEO is her fourteen year old nephew, and that they had pepper sprayed a crowd of teachers and students. So she texted me that and then wrote, I have no idea how to process this with my child?

Learn what ice was the thing?

When did you learn that ice was a thing?

I don't do you remember now?

Do you?

And Aggie?

You know, Aggie's nine, and so it's that's been one of the really hard things here is to know what do you tell your kid. I've been trying to talk to him about it just as honestly as possible, with trying to emphasize you know that he's safe. But even if he is safe, there's a lot of kids right now around this city his age who aren't. And that's how do you explain that?

You know, you told Aggie about Renee Good?

Yes, and what was that like?

I first told him that a woman had been shot by ice. Then the next day, Julian came over and Eli, Julian's dad said something to me about, oh, and you encountered them that morning in front of Aggie.

And so then Aggi was like, wait, what you're head right now?

Yeah, I'm okay, Umber.

You wouldn't have stopped if I was in the garden.

No, no, And we talked about it for a couple of minutes and then he said, okay, I think I think we need.

To stop talking about this now. And so I respected that and stopped talking about it.

So then the Thursday and Friday after Rene Good was killed, schools were canceled across the city because it just wasn't safe. I stayed home with Aggi and some of his friends came over, and you know, throughout the day we would be player, the kids would be playing, and they would just they'd be fine, and then they would say, it's so sad, like this is so sad that I was murdered somebody.

This is what Aggie's friends are saying.

Yeah.

Yeah, And I actually have a really clear memory that day we were working with the hot Glugu and Julian somehow cut his hand, and the concern that they all just sort of rallied around him and were so worried about his hand.

Julian, Yeah, he's like the mister tough guy.

I know.

And then there was this moment after I bandaged it up that we all have never had a moment with the boys like this where we all sort of like hugged each other.

The boys went for this, they allowed this.

Yeah, And I do think it was just like this.

Moment of vulnerability that we were all feeling such a weight, you know that it just a lot us to have this moment of coming together.

It was really beautiful.

Wow.

I mean everything is completely overwhelming, but you still have to eat, you still have to walk the dog, and you know, kids are still kids. That next morning, I was laying in bed and Aggie came in wearing a captain's hat and a suit jacket and started wrapping about yachts.

Yas I want for my birthday. Yah, I can get it. Cookie Vaca yachts.

You're really right, Yes, it was all about going on yachts and having cookie vacs.

I have a cookie vaca right now.

I wanted from my birthday.

Yats.

You don't need to do back yachts Tuesday.

This is Tuesday, the thirteenth, less than a week since Renee Good had been killed once again. I had dropped Aggie off at school and I was driving home and suddenly all these vehicles start swarming around my car and I'm a little bit boxed in, and then I started hearing the whistles, and so I decide to get out. There's ice agents all over. They're going up to an apartment building yelling you got to open up the door, and you know, the crowd is slowly growing, but pretty quiet.

At the oldest. But I'd be surprised if it was even that.

One of them is wearing a T shirt and shorts, even though it's you know, it's very cold outside.

I mean it's so cold.

It's the kind of cold that you know, you take your gloves off for a few seconds and your fingers just really hurt, Like it is hard to be outside in this weather.

Yeah. Yeah, And when we see the kids, we just start screaming.

Shame on you.

I'm a mom, you know, like, shame on you is the words that come to mind, and we're yelling, you know, their kids and sorry, this is gonna be the hardest part for me. So everything else I should just say. First, like everything escalated very quickly. It just becomes chaos where ice agents are just pushing people, shoving people, kicking them,

Because what else do you do.

But just to stand there and see somebody brutalized like that.

You just feel so powerless.

So I'm standing on the corner and they're trying to get this car to go. This woman in a car and there's nowhere she can go. I mean, it was just chaos, and they're screaming at her. There's like fifteen agents, you know, just surrounding her car, screaming at her.

Window.

The car then help them window. All of a sudden, they break her passenger side window. Then they go around to her side and forcibly pull her out of the car, and she's screaming. And then they've just got her by all fours and start carrying her away. And then I see that they have a white haired man that they are carrying by all fours, and they open the back door of a black suv and literally like stuff him in. That's the only language I know how to use. Sorry,

And then the first I just hear.

A bunch of like pa pa pa, pa, pa pa pa, and I figure out that these are I guess what are flash bangs, And smoke just starts to pour out, and then it hits hits your throat first, and it starts to burn and you're starting to cough and you're like, oh, that's strong. And then it hits your face, the skin on your face, and then your eyes eyes start to burn, and for a second you're like, oh, this hurts, but it's okay. And then each second that passes, you're just like, oh, it's not okay.

Oh it's really not okay. And then you're just like.

Fucked.

And then I just can't really move I'm doubled over and I grabbed a fist full of snow to put on my eyes, and I can't see in anyway. And then I just feel like a hand reach out for me and grabs my hand and they start to just guide me way out of the gas. And then there's a guy there wearing a bandanna and he says, this is my house. This is my house. It's the most Minnesotan thing of all time. We walk in the house. None of us can even see really, and he says, I'm.

Sorry it's so messy, and.

Thank you.

That's much better.

I had a bottle of water and we're pouring it over my eyes.

You very much.

Or the hospitality.

You know, there's that famous mister Rogers saying that when trouble strikes, look for the helpers. And that's what I've always used with ho you look for the helpers. But you know Renee Good was a helper and Alex Preddie was a helper.

Like they're murdering the.

Helpers coming up. After being shot in the leg by an ice agent, Julio Cesar Sosa Salis became national news. Since then, his family has been forced into hiding after the.

Break, I pay them a visit.

One week after Renee Good and a week and three days before Ali x Preddi, another person in Minneapolis was shot by ICE agents. He was at his home when it happened. He was shot in the leg, It wasn't fatal, and the incident didn't get as much media attention. The man's name was Julio Cesar Sosa Celis. He was Venezuelan,

Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello.

Since Julio and Indiani have been incarcerated, Eumilis has been taking care of their three year old son. Her grandson, Emilis has been in the US since twenty twenty three. With the shooting, she fears that she and her family have become targets, even more so targets of ice, so she doesn't leave the house, not the grocery shop, not to go to work. She keeps the blinds drawn, the lights outside off. She says, she prays that God will just make her house invisible.

Yes, Jamila's.

Yes, Yes, I'm with my interpreter, Eric, who's not really an interpreter but my former officemate who works as an immigration lawyer. The house is full of life, four kids of her own, ages nine through fourteen, and her three year old grandson, Julio, and Indriani's son. Once inside, one of the kids locks the door behind us. Since the shooting, even though her children have opened asylum cases and social security numbers, Emilis has kept them all home from school.

Yeah, but I like, I didn't tell Oh my teachers, so my greats are going down. Oh so I'm scared about that too.

I'm sorry.

I really want to go to school again, but my mom's like, you need to stay here cause though Ice can't take you and things like that, you know, But I really when I go to school.

Again, yea MEI.

Lisa's ten year old son Javier, walks over.

I don't ask a question.

He has a question he wants to ask me.

Yes, did you know when the ice thing's gonna don't?

Oh, I wish I knew.

I'm so sorry. As her partner Danielle makes himself dinner and the kids come and go from the living room.

Yeah.

Elise tells me about her life before all of this, why she left Venezuela for the United States.

In the first.

Places, we were living hidden mineot.

My fear of returning is really strong.

When I ask why that is, Jamlis just says political persecution and leaves it at that. Her daughter Indriani had already migrated to the US and made a home for herself and her son in Minnesota. Jemilie really missed them. To see them again, she and her family embarked on a difficult journey, mostly done on foot. She and her partner Danielle told four little kids across South and Central America and through Mexico.

We didn't have phone, we didn't have money, Monea, I had some coins kaminamo for domess.

We walked for two months la cage, sleeping in the.

Street, comiendo, eating what people would give us Kaminamomucho walked a lotes.

But always happy with a lot of faith in in being.

Able to once again see my daughter and my grandson.

On the way from Colombia to Panama, they passed through the incredibly dangerous rainforest known as the Darian.

Gap, where a lot of people have died.

The Darien Gap is a roughly sixty mile stretch of rainforest. It's the only gap in the Pan American Highway. No road, not even a dirt trail. The area is filled with strong rivers, flash floods, and wild animals. There is no police. Many migrants are murdered and raped during passage. But of all the places they traveled through, Yemalis says, the parts of Mexico controlled by the carte Owls were the scariest.

Yeah, I rang trappers on Mar Salon del Monte.

The three armed men came kind of out of the trees.

And ede is a momento.

They said, nothing's gonna happen. Give us your money, lefono, give us your phones.

The left for nothing.

I said, I don't have money. Or phone.

Emily's gestures towards her twelve year old daughter, who's sitting on the couch Joros.

She cried because she saw the guns, maybe hero, and they said she better be quiet or will kill her. Me An my son he was curious about the guns, and they said, if he looks at me again, I'm gonna kill him.

No, the noo.

They took all our clothes off, looking forward to see if we had hidden money.

When they didn't find anything, they let them go. Emilis and Danielle had heard about a train that carried migrants from Mexico City to the American border. The train was referred to as le Bestia the Beast. It's also been called the Train of Death. Passengers ride on top of freight cars. Loss of limbs, maimings, even death occur as people try to board the moving train. The family was told by other migrant travelers where to wait for the train. They waited and waited.

Bienel train grandisio.

Then comes this big train. It everyone starts cheering the train in the.

Train correria correria, corre pers solas and I saw a.

Lot of people start running and running and running, and Perro.

Josi momento the tar.

And I said to God that in that moment, God, if it's your will for us to get on this train, let it stop.

Okay, and train the train moving.

I could get on, and my husband could get on, but the kids no have to jump on clearly, and I couldn't jump and grab onto the train with holding two of my children and him holding.

The other to.

And if I felt that the train could kill me.

When the train came to a full stop, yamils took it as.

A sign there was a ladder, so we won't.

We climbed up very quick and we passed five days on the train on top of the train like that. When we went through towns or villages, people would throw us food.

Or cookies or ok for a moment.

Because we couldn't get down, because if we got down, the train could leave and we'd be stuck.

Is a train no mole Maxico.

That train moved us through half of Mexico.

And the kids, how were they?

Yeah, we we tied them on. We tied the children down. One just has to say I'm going and I'm moving.

Forward through the cold at night and the heat during the day. Emilies and her partners stayed awake holding on to the children. Falling asleep meant running the risk of being shoved from the train or simply falling, which could mean instant death. So for five days she hung on no bad room, just a pot, no proper food, just what they could catch, and no sleep. In this way Jamilies spent her birthday, she was turning thirty four years old. The train finally stopped in Juarez.

People had been killed, children had been taken, people had had their stuff stolen. See this, and I thank God that we were people that were very blessed.

A man who saw the family get off the train offered to buy them food. Other people gave them drinks. Another man even gave them money. They all ate and finally, walking distance from the US border, they slept. In the morning, US Immigration admitted Yamilies and the children into the US. They spent the night in a border patrol tent and were given paperwork to start the asylum process. Eventually, they were placed on a bus to Chicago. Emilis's daughter Into

Door, Condida gonsus jorando.

She was hidden with her baby in her arms, crying, my momo wangam and she was saying to me, mamma, if they come in, they're going to kill us.

Teargas had been thrown through the window and so Yamilis's daughter and grandson got on the ground. They were phoning from under the bed.

I can show you the video. You can hear everything.

Jamils pulls out her phone. She had recorded the call, and she shows me the video.

You're going to kill us.

I asked where Julio and his roommate were while she was on the phone with her daughter. Turns out they were also on the phone.

They were there, and they were talking to their mothers and because in that moment they thought that they were going to kill them mouth and they wanted to say goodbye to each of their mother's.

Emily says that her daughter rightfully didn't open the door, but I broke the door down. While she's telling this story, the toddler runs in. He's bright eyed and wearing a little football jersey.

Is this your grandson?

Hi?

Hello?

Police took his mind looking, but I don't. He's talking about how the bomb came through the window and they shut his dad, Julio.

Candles.

Grand's talking about the smell. It's smelled ugly smell. Did it hurt your eyes?

I did, like the bustle, he.

Merely says. Her grandson keeps talking about that night. He still has nightmares.

He sleeps with.

Me, and I hear when he wakes up at night.

Mom, he's smaller.

To flee political persecution from one country, the family underwent a death defying journey to another country, only to be persecuted by that new country's government. Could you ever have imagined that it would get this bad, that it would get like this?

No, it's.

A beautiful country, and it's four seasons. Hello cold, the heat, I like the heat bar.

That first winter, Emilius wore gloves and hats indoors. Wherever she went. She carried around a space heater that had been gifted to her. But seeing how much the kids enjoyed the snow the winter has grown on her.

You may I feel good here. We came to work. We came for the good of our children, truly, you guys, And next summer are invited to eat at my house. If I'm here, We're gonna eat really well.

On Tuesday, Julio appeared in court to counter the federal government's narrative. Lawyers presented photographs showing a bullet hole through the front door of Julio's house and a bullet hole in one of the bedrooms between a mattress and a crib. The judge ordered Julio's release who When Julio left the courthouse, ice agents were waiting for him outside. He's now back in attention. Indviani was released last week. On the morning she returned, her son was still sleeping when.

She woke him.

He didn't recognize her at first, but then he hugged her now he doesn't want to leave her side. He's afraid Ice will take her again. Jamilis still hasn't left the house and her kids have yet to return to school. This episode was produced by Emily Condon and me Jonathan Goldstein, as well as supervising producer Stevie Lane and Senior producer Khalila Holt. Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Cruzado. My interpreter at Yeami Lyssa's House was Eric Day. Editorial help from