S1: Welcome in San Diego , it's Jade Hindman. As Ice raids continue. Journalist and author Jean Guerrero joins us with the latest and analysis. This is KPBS Midday Edition. Connecting our communities through conversation. The local impacts of President Donald Trump's mass deportation plan are unfolding before our eyes. From an industrial paint shop raid in El Cajon to the rounding up of workers in a busy South Park restaurant. Ice agents are targeting everyone and anyone who is suspected of being in the country illegally. KPBS has documented cases of a grandmother , a soccer coach and a disabled asylum seeker caught in the enforcement over the weekend. A video of a woman being arrested by Ice agents in a mission Valley Hotel parking lot. Went viral. The arrest happened early Thursday morning. Take a listen. You.
S2: You. Know the way Kim.
S3:
S1: One that is filled with hopelessness. Our media partner , ten news , is identifying that woman you just heard as Brenda Valencia. And on today's show , we wanted to get the analysis from a reporter who's been following this for quite some time. Her name is Jean Guerrero. She's a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times and former border and immigration reporter for KPBS. She's also the author of the book Hate Monger Stephen Miller Donald Trump and the white nationalist agenda. Jean , welcome to midday Edition.
S4: Good to be here.
S1: Well , it's good to have you. And the incident we just heard about where Ice agents arrested a woman in a parking lot of her workplace. You know , they were wearing everyday clothing with no visible uniforms. In fact , they appeared to look like a construction workers based on how they were dressed. What are your concerns about these federal agents wearing masks with clothes that don't identify who they are or what agency they're with while driving unmarked vehicles ? Right.
S4: Well , there's a lot to unpack here. And I just want to start by pointing out that being undocumented in the United States is a civil offense , akin to rolling a stop sign. And for that , people are being tackled , kidnapped , and disappeared by masked men who often refuse to identify themselves and who often are. It's impossible to know that they are , in fact , from from law enforcement. As as as with this incident in Mission Valley. Uh , so this is a public safety crisis for Latinos , for people with brown skin. Um , because what's happening is , you know , it's creating the conditions for human trafficking and , and other crimes to be committed in broad daylight with impunity. Uh , because witnesses are less likely to intervene , fearing that they will be arrested and charged with obstructing federal agents. They're less likely to call for help. And this creates perfect cover for , um , not only state violence , but for bad actors who can now operate , you know , in , in a public street under the plausible disguise of law enforcement. We've already seen ice impersonators in other parts of the country. Kidnapping people. Um. And this this this collapse between , you know , the government and organized crime is is what Trump claims to detest about Latin America. And yet it's exactly what his policies are , are now replicating here.
S1: And you are you specifically use that word kidnapping. And talk to me a bit more about that. The administration would say detentions , but you say kidnapping.
S4: I say kidnapping because there are dedicated teams of lawyers who are looking for countless individuals who have been taken off of the streets and are unable to find them. Um , and when these individuals are in detention , if in fact , that's where they are , uh , they're often denied due process and the ability to get in touch with lawyers , with family members. Um , so that essentially is , um , quite literally a disappearance. Um , so what's happening is that Trump is is turning the United States into the version of Mexico that he and his Republican allies have long vilified. You know , this this environment in which unmarked vans can just pull up on the side of the street and , uh , take , you know , individuals can jump out masked and just take people and nobody knows what happened to them. There's , um , this crisis of of the , this apparatus that disappeared in Mexico and , and this , a version of that is unfolding in the United States with it's happening as a result of the Trump administration's policies.
S1: And while all this is happening , there's this ongoing battle in the courts. Just this morning , coming down as breaking news , the U.S. Department of Justice has sued the City of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. And city council members calling the sanctuary city law illegal and asking that it be blocked from being enforced.
S4: Um , the same with the labor leader , David Huerta , in Los Angeles being arrested for bearing witness to a raid. Um , and I don't find any of these attacks , uh , whether they're arrests , whether they are lawsuits. Um , surprising , uh , because , uh , given my expertise on Stephen Miller. What what they hate more than immigrants is. Allies of immigrants. People who , um , believe in immigrant rights and who will are willing to put their bodies on the line to protect their valued community members and their family members and their friends who are who are immigrants. And that is what Karen Bass and these various , uh , Democratic leaders across the US have have been trying to do is to protect valued community members , and for that , they are being targeted. There's there's this book that I've mentioned in the past , um , called The Camp of the Saints. It's a white supremacist dystopian novel that Stephen Miller , uh , promoted leading up to the first , uh , Trump administration , which depicts the the destruction of the white world by by brown refugees. And in that book , the the worst villain is in fact not the refugees , even though they are depicted as monsters and animals. The worst villain are the are the White allies and the the the allies , who who stand up for for these individuals and for the concept of human rights. And so I just see this all as , as a bigger assault on all Americans who believe in human rights and civil rights and who believe in compassion for the stranger instead of hate.
S1: Also recently , the Supreme Court issued a ruling that limits the ability of federal judges to issue universal injunctions. It did stop short of ruling on the legality of Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship , which is what those federal injunctions were for. So first , what is birthright citizenship for those who may not know.
S4: So it's the fact that when you are born in on US soil , you are automatically a citizen. It is a constitutionally protected right to citizenship based on having born on this land.
S1:
S4: Um , the attack on birthright citizenship is something that they wanted to pursue during the first administration. Um , and , you know , they , they , they held back because they , they knew that they were going to get a lot of pushback. Um , but in this in the second administration , they they feel a lot more emboldened to pursue all of the attacks on , um , various forms of legal immigration and pathways for people to become part of the American fabric. Uh. Who ? They don't want to be part of the American fabric. Because they come from countries that are , um , brown and black and that they they do not want here. Um , and so what they what they're trying to do is , is make it so that peop people who do not have legal status in the United States , which again , like I mentioned before , is it's a civil offense , a not a crime. It doesn't rise to the level of , of , of , of criminality that the administration likes to depict. They if they have children in the US , those children will not in fact be able to become citizens , even if this is the only country that they have ever known , even if they , you know , we're born here , grew up here , they will then face the possibility of being displaced. Um , just like so many people are being displaced right now. Mm.
S1: Mm. How does this recent Scotus ruling complicate Duplicate birthright citizenship.
S4: Well , so they actually they have not ruled on the constitutionality of birthright citizenship. What they decided was that federal judges can't have can't set a national injunctions on on policies that the administration is putting into place. And so it makes it so that in a lot of parts of the United States that have not sued for this executive order , they could very well end up seeing this go into place. Right.
S1: Right.
S4: Wow.
S1: Wow. Well , you know , I want to turn to a recent column of yours in the New York Times , which centers on the federal raids and the protests. They sparked one of the first being right here in San Diego.
S4: Because what they want people to believe and what they've successfully convinced a majority of Americans to believe , is that their immigration enforcement operations are prioritizing serious criminals. You know , hardened gang members , um , based on the propaganda that they're constantly putting out there. But when you have people out on the streets shooting videos of the people that they're actually going after , which is hotel workers , construction workers , um , you know , nannies , valued community members , um , mothers and fathers , um , being torn from their crying children outside of their homes and on the streets. This destabilizes that false narrative that they have created in which this operation is about law and order. It is very clear when you watch these videos that this has nothing to do with law and order , and it has everything to do with race , um , based on the people that they're targeting. You know , you cannot be a brown person in Los Angeles walking on the street anymore without fear that you could be detained by Ice and ultimately disappeared. Um , and I just really want to emphasize that because these , these arrests , like , they want to they want to claim that they're about law and order , but they're targeting , like I said , these valued community members. And at the same time , they are allowing the employers who exploit them to walk free without any repercussions. So if this was truly about enforcing immigration laws and protecting American workers , which they've convinced people that this a lot of people that this is about , then we would be seeing CEOs in handcuffs as well. But we don't because this is not about justice. It's about punishing people of color and fueling fear and reengineering the racial demographics of this country while dividing the working classes instead of confronting the corporations and billionaires who are actually driving economic inequality in this country.
S1: And just over the weekend , along right along with those videos we mentioned earlier , I saw a number of videos where , you know , the Haitian community was being targeted with these raids as well. Talk to me a bit about how far reaching this is because , you know , there are perhaps some people who , in the beginning of this thought , you know , this , this will not apply to me , when in fact this could be further reaching than than what people anticipated.
S4: I mean , you're already seeing people who voted for Trump sort of questioning their decision and talking to the media about their friends and their neighbors and their mentees and other valued people in their lives who've been taken by Ice , and how they're kind of surprised because they really thought that Trump was going to be prioritizing serious criminals , even though there has been reporting for years about including my own reporting about how , you know , Stephen Miller , who is his top immigration advisor , that that's not the goal. It's not about serious criminals. Stephen Miller has always said that the the , um , The main when he's talked about immigration , the main thing that he has taken issue with and tried to stop is legal immigration. This is why during the first administration , they focused on strangling , uh , the asylum system and choking off access , uh , to to refugees. This is why they restricted green cards. Um , and this is why we are now seeing the attack on birthright citizenship. Because , again , this is about reengineering the demographics of this country. And it was never going to be possible for Trump to keep his promise of mass deportations without rounding up innocent people like we're seeing , because the world that he and Stephen Miller created , in which there's millions of immigrant gang members running wild on the streets. It does not exist. And so they're diverse. They're diverting resources. This happened during the first administration and it's happening again. They're diverting resources from serious human trafficking and homeland security investigations to meet these quotas imposed by Stephen Miller for detained human beings. This is why you're seeing so many people who are essentially the low hanging fruit , you know , people outside of Home Depot , people at their workplaces , people outside of their homes , um , who are being racially profiled and taken in by , by ice , um , and and oftentimes by by men who , who , who are not , um , you know , who have masks and who are in unmarked vans and who the community cannot actually verify is ice. And yet oftentimes they feel paralyzed and don't feel that they can intervene , because what if it's ice ? What if I get arrested for , you know , allegedly obstructing an officer ? Um , so so it's become , like I said , a public safety crisis. People , people are much more vulnerable to being assaulted and kidnapped and trafficked in the black and brown communities of the United States.
S1: Um , you know , your column , um , hints at a larger pattern of of test cases by the federal government. Did you intend it to serve as a warning about what's to come ? Yeah.
S4: I mean , I've been trying to warn people for years now about what Stephen Miller wants and has been planning and has been pursuing from his positions of power. Um , but I also wanted the essay to serve as , um , a reminder that we all still have agency. Um , you know , I mentioned earlier that what Trump fears the most is are these videos. And , and I really do believe or I mean , not not the videos themselves , but the narrative change that these videos can inspire. Um , the administration understands very well the power of the human story. It's something that they've weaponized for years. It's why they created an office called Voice Victims of Immigration and Crime Enforcement , which is dedicated to uplifting stories of Americans who have been killed or who have had family members who have been killed by immigrants , to create the false impression that this is something that is happening. Um , you know , on a on a rampant scale , when in fact Act , immigrants are less likely to commit crimes and violent crimes than people who are born in the United States. But these. These human stories that Stephen Miller has uplifted from within the Trump administration in his tweets , in his in the speeches that he's written for Trump , um , they they recognize that people are moved by human stories. And so the most powerful weapon against the cruelty and and degradation of the rule of law that we are seeing right now is relentless exposure. Uh , it's it's flooding the zone with the truth and with the stories of these innocent people who are being who are being disappeared by , by , by agents of the administration.
S1: And to your point , um , especially when we talk about the video we heard earlier. I mean , there's a lot of fear , anxiety , and even terror among many immigrant communities and more broadly , communities of color right now.
S4: They're afraid to go to the grocery store. They're afraid to leave their homes. And so you have people who , despite economic precarity and the need to put food on the table for their children and for themselves , they are having to , in many cases , make the very difficult decision of staying home and hiding , because they know that if they walk out onto the street , they could then be permanently separated from their children , from their homes , from the lives that they have they've built here , um , for over years and sometimes decades. On the other side , you also see , um , new community networks that are designed to try to keep people safe. You have these ice watch groups that are forming , um , you know , putting out videos and other content , not just to try to change the narrative , but primarily to try to keep people safe and let people know when Ice is operating in their neighborhoods. And that way people can try to avoid those , those areas. Um , that's what these groups are trying to do. And so it's just a complete transformation of people's lives in , in many ways that are harmful to the economic , um , well-being of our communities as well as the , the public safety of , of our of our communities as well.
S1:
S4: Um , I think people are starting to understand that this is much more serious and wide reaching than they than they envisioned. Um , it's worse than a lot of people's worst fears. And so people are going out onto the streets and , and putting their bodies on the line to , to protest what is happening. Um , but as far as other policies , I think you're just going to continue to see this slow strangling of legal immigration pathways into this country , as well as an expansion of the attacks Hacks on , um , on undocumented individuals. And , you know , you're already seeing , for example , the , um , naturalization efforts to strip people of citizenship who have citizenship. Um , they're finding new and creative ways to , to to reduce the number of people in the United States who are foreign born and who have legal status , because the ultimate goal of this is to have a country that is in opposition to a multicultural and multi-ethnic and multiracial democracy. They don't believe in multiracial or multicultural America. They they want to strangle that in every way that they can. And so I think you're going to continue to see an expansion of efforts in that direction , that target people who have not broken any laws. Um , you know , regardless of whether they're civil or criminal. And that is what the goal has been all along , is to , um , attack all foreign born people in this country and , um , make it feel make it feel extremely uncomfortable to live here so that people start to self-deport and you're already seeing people making that very difficult decision to go back to their home countries. Um , you know , in Mexico and in various parts of Latin America and other parts of the world. And this entails traumatic separation from family members. But at the same time , for some people , it's better than having to live in constant fear and terror. And that is the goal. You know , they want to make people feel extremely uncomfortable living here and and to have them either if they can't target them with their with with their masked agents , then for them to leave of their own volition.
S1: I've been speaking with Jean Guerrero. Jean is a contributing opinion writer at the New York Times and former border and immigration reporter right here at KPBS. She's also the author of the book Hate Monger Stephen Miller Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda. Jean , thank you so much.
S4: Thanks , Jade.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
