S1: Hey there , San Diego , it's time for KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. President Trump returned to the white House a year ago with a mission to upend U.S. immigration and ramp up its enforcement , how it's brought a major shift in focus away from the border and onto America's streets , including here in San Diego. Today , we bring you a roundtable discussion with border and immigration journalists. About a year in change along the San Diego Tijuana border and how it's impacted how they approach their work , plus what role local leaders have to play in immigration enforcement operations in San Diego. That's ahead on KPBS roundtable. You may have seen it , a five year old boy in a blue knit cap standing against a car as federal agent holds him by his Spider-Man backpack. It's one of the many images we're seeing out of Minneapolis this week , as Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agenda continues one year into his second term , the way we think about and report on immigration looks a lot different. Joining me to talk more about it are three local journalists covering immigration in our region. Shelby Bremer is here. She's a reporter with NBC in San Diego. Gustavo Solis is also here. He's investigative reporter here at KPBS. And finally , Elliot gets back with us. He's the US immigration news editor at the Associated Press. I want to welcome you all here to roundtable. Shelby , this is your first time. Welcome to you.
S2: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
S1: It's great to have you. And welcome back to you both. Um , unprecedented is a word I think we often hear when we're kind of hearing descriptions of the story of immigration over the past year. And I'm just wondering if you thought that was the right word for it. What word would you use to describe it ? Elliott.
S3: Certainly in my lifetime , in our lifetimes. I mean , you'd probably have to go back to the 1920s to see something. You know , immigration at the front , at the forefront of the agenda. Um , I've never seen anything like it. I , you know , it was , uh , in some ways it's surprising , and in other ways it's not. I mean , he did. President Trump said during his campaign that he was going to do a lot of these things. They're spelled out in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 , but just the breadth of it and the scale of it. And just to see it actually happening , the scenes that you described in Minneapolis , um , I just didn't think it would happen. And I would say for me as a reporter and an editor , it's a really , uh , incredible time. Uh , it just , you know , I worry that I'm , you know , are we going to meet the moment ? Because I feel like when I look back at my career , this is this is going to be a this is going to be , you know , a key moment that we're all we're all , you know , expected to to deliver and explain what's happening. It's just it's difficult in this one hour for whatever whatever time you have here to to capture it. But it's yeah it's huge. It's unprecedented is a good word.
S1: I mean , Shelby , as Eliot said , it's kind of impossible to encapsulate all the change over the past 12 months. But , I mean , you know , how would you describe it.
S2: If I had to pick one word ? Unprecedented is good , but I would almost go overwhelming for a number of reasons , because the system itself is so complex that learning all the intricacies is can be overwhelming. It's been overwhelming for me , but I think also we've seen just sort of these federal agents and the presence of federal immigration authorities overwhelm many communities. And there's a lot of emotion. And and these images , you know , I think by design are meant to be overwhelming. So that's that's what I would go with. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. Gustavo go ahead. Yeah.
S4: Yeah. I'm president that I've heard it so much it almost.
S1: Meaningless at this point. Yeah. Yeah.
S4: Yeah. You can only say that so many times before you just lose all meaning of it. I think , like Elliot and Shelby said it. It's more than that. I would say chaos overwhelming. Everyone's tired. I know in the beginning of the year , the prevailing motion among immigrant communities was fear. It still fear. But also , I think has been kind of replaced by anger. There's palpable anger at what's going on. Uh , Eliot , what you said about meeting the moment is something that I've been thinking a lot about. And the people I talked to , I've also thought about that to some lawmakers and policymakers , but especially immigration lawyers. They tell me they feel like this year their job has been more vocational and like their career leading up to this , and they've used those same words , meaning the moment. And.
S3: Um , yeah.
S5: And I would I would.
S3: Concur with what what Shelby said about overwhelming. I , I had a chance to take two weeks off over the holiday , and I just It was just like , whoa. I mean , it kind of caught my breath , so to speak , and just realized how tiring it is to , to to just digest the daily news. And yeah , everyone says that's by design shock and awe. It is. It happens. But I feel like , you know , with the new year I've felt like , yeah , we need to cover everything that's happening , the daily news. But we also need to be more strategic and pick out like what are the key themes , the key areas you can't can't cover everything like the the amount , the volume of news that we cover in one that happens in one week is probably equivalent to what happened in one year under Obama.
S1: So I want to talk more about those themes , but I do want to take a moment to kind of step back about , you know , a year ago when we got to this point , I was kind of going back to past roundtable episodes on the border and the conversations we had maybe a year and a half plus ago were quite different. I would say , um , I just wanted to kind of get your thoughts.
S4: The and Biden's presidency was , you know , chaos at the border. That was kind of the theme , right. There was this mass surge in immigration. There was a lot of asylum seekers who used humanitarian parole to kind of control the situation. But I think those viral images , a lot of people at the border , I mean , Trump used those images and that rhetoric of open borders to win the election. I think towards the tail end of the Biden administration , you started to see the numbers decline , especially after he limited asylum in June , I believe. Right. June , July.
S5: June 2nd , 2024.
S4: So you started to see those numbers decrease. But the rhetoric was ramping up. Um , and in the in the last year , I think the theme for me in the last year was just this shift in enforcement from enforcement at the border to enforcement at the interior. And my reporting has reflected that last year. I count in one hand the number of times I went to Tijuana to report on stories. And that's just because the news was here. It wasn't over there anymore. And that reflects the shift in interior enforcement.
S1: Yeah , absolutely. And , Shelby , I want to bring you in now , because during that kind of shift that Gustavo was , was talking about was really kind of when you came to San Diego and started on this beat.
S2: So I moved here in May of 2024 , and I covered the limiting of asylum , and I went to the border a couple of times , met with some people , you know , migrants there , but they actually put me on the housing and homelessness beat when I first started. So I worked that beat for a little while. And then I don't know if you remember when Governor Newsom came to the border in December of 2024 , and it was about the Otay Mesa East port of entry , and it was an announcement on like a road that was going to be the groundbreaking was going to be in January , and it was pretty clear , I don't know if you guys were there , but it was pretty clear that that was sort of a front for the governor to then talk about what mass deportations would look like and the effect on California's economy and tariffs. And it was a political speech under the veil of , you know , this road. Right. And so I yeah. Yeah. So I covered that story. And then the next day they called me and they're like , so you do this now. So I started covering immigration in the border in December of 2024 right as Trump was about to take office. And so I was like , okay , let me learn the most complex system in the country , you know , foreign and domestic policy , you know , in the next six weeks before we have to , like , really ramp up. Um , but I remember when I initially came here and went to the border , there were migrants that would come to the gate we call whiskey eight. And then every time I went there after , nobody. And I remember talking to aid groups in the months after Trump took office saying they hadn't seen anybody show up since January , which was such a stark difference from what they had seen previously. I also went out to Tacoma , where that was a huge centre of international attention because people were streaming through a gap in the border wall , the border fence , and there was no one there. And the town looked completely different from reports that I had seen. So it was fascinating for me to kind of come into this at a time when things had so drastically changed at the border.
S1:
S3: But I have to give , give a shout out to Shelby because , um , your reporting has been really good , and I , you know , we we there's so much depressing news about journalism these days. And , you know , with the , with the staff cutbacks over the last ten years or more and not just in San Diego , but really in local , you know , in cities across the country , in Chicago , Minneapolis , the , the local. I rely , you know , as a national news organization , rely so much on local media , and I think they really are talking about meeting the moment. I really have stepped up. But yeah , I mean , exactly what what what Gustavo said , I mean , and I could I could cite some numbers. I mean , in December 2023 , which was the peak year , there were 250,000 arrests for illegal border crossings. Then it dropped to about 50,000. By the time Biden left office , and now it's since Trump almost immediately took off. It's been around 6000 a month. So there were , you know , in December 2023 , there were like many days of more than 10,000 arrests in a single day. And now you're seeing half of that in in a month. So , you know , I would say , like for me , 95% of my time now is interior enforcement and before , not just for me , but for the whole AP , 95% of immigration reporting , maybe not quite that much , but the thrust the overwhelming majority of our efforts was border with about the border.
S1: And Gustavo , you reported on some of those first examples of this kind of interior enforcement here in San Diego , thinking of the raid at an El Cajon paint shop. There was also the South Park raid that happened , you know , soon after that.
S4: Right. Because we knew it was happening in other cities. I think New York was the first one , if I remember correctly , where there was large action before then there were a lot of rumors and reports and stories about it. I remember there was a call. People freaked out because Border Patrol vehicles were parked outside Rady Children's Hospital and they thought , oh , Border Patrol is raiding the hospital. And it turned out not to be that the hospital had to put out a statement. But I think that spoke to the level of just fear and anxiety over this. So when the El Cajon raid happened , That was the first instance of , okay , this is real in San Diego. This is happening here. Now , when the same thing that was on a Friday around five during the rush , uh , there was local reaction from that one. And since then , San Diego's. We'll talk about this later , I'm sure. But San Diego is kind of a weird situation because there aren't big enforcement actions like that , but there's a lot of daily arrests. It's kind of like , um , a death by a thousand cuts instead of one big show like we've seen in Seattle , Portland , Minneapolis , Memphis. Uh , so so that's been unique to kind of cover it from that angle.
S2: Well , in those two , though , I want to point out the distinction , though , there were warrants and those were like large scale operations versus what we've seen with the warrantless arrests or kind of the patrolling. Right. Because , you know , a lot more information came out about those two operations in the days after once , you know , the smoke had all cleared , essentially. Right.
S4: Right. And a lot of that information is because of the paperwork , because of the warrants in the legal action. Yeah. Yeah.
S5: Yeah. There was , you know.
S3: Uh , the big the first big operation , really big , big operation was Los Angeles. And I know we're going to talk later about Greg Bovino , who's got local roots , but he was the commander , and he's kind of , you know , shifted to all the hotspots after after LA , he went to Chicago. Then he went to Charlotte , North Carolina , um , New Orleans. And he's been in in Minneapolis since January. But there have been like there's not a part of the country that's not affected. I mean , I , you know , everywhere , everything every day. But they do have these sort of big operations. Minneapolis is like astounding three , 3000 federal officers. The Minneapolis Police Department's like 600. Wow. So it's just , you know , for a city that's not not one of the biggest cities. So , you know , they had this sort of , like , top tier enforcement targets and there's a guessing game of like , what's next ? I mean , San Diego could be next , but it looked like it was going to be San Francisco , but the mayor and some business leaders. You know , prevailed upon Trump to call that off. Kind of almost at the last minute. There was a lot of speculation about New York because , you know , after Mamdani won that he would go in. There's a lot of immigrants there , new arrivals. But he had that sort of love fest with with Trump in the white House. And that hasn't happened yet. It could. So it's a guessing game. I mean , earlier this week , they announced like kind of a second tier operation in Maine. So I don't know. It's a guessing game where they're going to go next. But there isn't a part of the country that's unaffected.
S4: And the sense I get is that they could potentially do multiple deployments at once because they have more agents , they have more money. Now is going to be a year or two with more resources. So they have less of those constraints.
S1: All right. We're going to go to the break. But then I want to touch back on. I know you've been following what's been happening in Minneapolis and elsewhere. Elliot I want to kind of touch back on that. You're listening to KPBS roundtable. Stay tuned. Welcome back to KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. Today we're having a discussion with local immigration and border reporters as we mark the one year anniversary of Trump entering office for his second term in office. And my guests are NBC Seven's Shelby Bremer , KPBS. Gustavo Solis and the Associated Press Press's Elliot Padgett. Elliot , you know , you touched on this earlier , but you've been covering you cover U.S. immigration nationally , and you've been covering some of these large scale immigration operations and these , like , blitzes we've been seeing we've seen them in LA , Chicago , and now most notably in Minneapolis.
S3: For all of these operations , uses the term turn and burn. We had an , you know , been on many ride alongs with ice where they sit outside a house for six hours or , you know , waiting for someone to come outside. They avoid they avoided violence. They would do a vehicle stop or discretely , you know , stop someone as they were getting into their car. This is a completely different you know , it's very high visibility. You see incidents with tear gas and and flash bangs and , you know , it's very , very public and very dangerous. I mean , in some ways , I'm surprised we did see the death of a woman in Minneapolis. But , you know , I'm somewhat surprised that more of that hasn't happened just because there's such a , you know , heavily armed agents with with their with their rifles , masked agents , protesters blocking their , their , their , their way and just a lot of frustrations. You know , a lot of a lot of potential for things to go very bad , so much more public. A lot of clashes in public. We haven't we hadn't seen that before.
S1: And you mentioned they're the death of Renée Nicole Goode happened earlier this month.
S3: I mean , I and I don't have any insights that you guys don't from watching , you know , just following the news. I mean , it's something that really struck a chord. The we didn't see the we we , we don't know completely what happened. Right. I mean , there was some video that was pretty , pretty telling. It looked like , you know , she said , she said , you know , I'm not mad at you. Her partner was very upset and sort of , you know , really mouthing off to the to the , the CBP officer or was it it was Ice , I think. But , um , Renee good was was seemed very calm and it looked like , you know , she was shot as she was going away and Now there's talk about what did. Did he hits ? Did she hit him ? If she did , it wasn't hard. And he was. He did not. Look , the officer who shot her did not look like he was fearing for his life. I mean , he walked around the car. He was. He didn't seem like he was in any sign of panic mode. But , you know , we don't have the full story. It's going to be a question like , is there an investigation ? I the Kristi Noem was the DHS secretary was very , very , very fast to say that Renee Good was a domestic terrorist. So , you know , I'm not terribly you know , I don't I don't expect much in terms of an investigation. We don't know. But certainly that and there have been like a series of events that that would probably be the , the biggest one. But , you know , the five year old boy the other day was taken away with his dad. Um , we were we were at the scene where the ice just , like , rammed through. I think , again , I think it was Iowa federal agents rammed through a front door of a man's home without a without a court warrant. So a lot of these , these , these incidents that are being captured by reporters and the public in a way that they weren't in other cities. Shelby.
S1: Shelby.
S2: Go ahead. Yeah. I'm curious if either of you have noticed in your reporting and in talking to the community , if you've noticed a difference or an evolution in sort of the community response to these kind of enforcement actions.
S4: A little bit. Actually , the week after Rene Goode was shot and killed by federal agents , I was with this group of sweet old church ladies that volunteered to watch at the courthouse in response to the federal courthouse arrest , but they were they were on edge because there's tension between them and the Ice agents in the courthouse. Some of the agents , according to to these ladies have described , um , have said , oh , those those court watchers are intimidating us by standing in the hallways. And in their minds , there's a line between , oh , they're creating this idea that we are intimidating. What's the next step is they're going to call us domestic terrorists. Like they saw what happened to René. Good as something that could potentially happen to them. As women who are volunteering to just watch and see what's going on in immigration courts. So. So I did see that , um , but it , it had like a double edged sword. Right. It caused a little bit of fear and concern , but it also galvanized them and kind of reaffirmed their commitment to doing this.
S2: Yeah , I think I've sort of seen a little bit of the same. You know , we have seen so much at the Federal Building here in San Diego , and I'm sure that we should talk a lot about that. But there were protests , of course , immediately after the death of Rene Goode here in San Diego. And I thought it was really interesting that a lot of people , even in my own newsroom , didn't know that those protests have actually been happening every week for months. Right. And so a lot of it is the same people who are galvanized. And we've had those volunteers at the courthouse since those arrests really started in May. So there was a little bit of a shift , and I did talk to protesters who came out for the first time after the death of Rene Goode. But this is also there were a lot of people who were already feeling on edge. And so it's kind of the same undercurrent , but maybe a little bit more stepped up , you know , more people kind of taking action , I think. Yeah.
S4: Yeah. It feels like an escalation. Um , and I mean that by like an escalation in resistance against and protest against what ISIS is doing , but also an escalation of more aggression from Ice. It's sort of like one justifies the other. And it's like this endless cycle of , well , they're protesting us. Well , we got to be more aggressive while they're being more aggressive. We have to protest them. And I'm concerned about where that leads.
S3: Oh , yeah. Definitely. I don't have like a really good visceral , like feel for what you're talking about. I mean , I just look at the polls and they show that Trump is losing some support. I mean , it was it may have gotten him elected , but it's it hasn't fallen off cliff. But his support , it's no longer one of his. He no longer has. You know , this huge base of support is is weakened. And I think part of that is because , like , you know , he says there , you know , every day we're going after the worst of the worst. Every day we get a press release of , you know , ten names of people with criminal histories who have been arrested. But like last time I checked. And , Gustavo , you could probably speak better to this because I know you followed this data , but I think 70% of people in Ice custody have no criminal conviction. Um , so , you know , it's.
S4: It's harder to believe that it's harder to believe the narrative that they're going after the worst of the worst , where the data is so obviously contradictory to that narrative. Right.
S3: Right. And I think , like when you start to arrest and we , I , we could talk about what's happening at the federal building because I was there myself just one day. But people who are just , you know , they've been here for 30 years. They have small businesses , they're raising families , no criminal histories. They have lots of roots in the community that I would think. I mean , it just kind of logically that that's going. Not going to sit well with many people.
S4: And your reporting has been great in highlighting some of those cases.
S2: Oh , yeah. Thank you. I was just thinking when you were talking about that , I was thinking of do you remember there was a man who was taken from his truck in Encinitas , like about a block or two from a school , and I went to cover it the next day. And of course , the community is really upset because it happened as kids were walking to school. And , you know , they thought that that was not the appropriate time , place or way to do that. And I remember going up to the school in Encinitas , which is a North County , you know , very well-to-do suburb , and I wanted to talk to parents to see how they felt. And the first woman that I approached leaving the school said , I would love to talk to you , but I'm undocumented myself. And that was kind of unexpected for me. Right ? And so I think the sort of public opinion has shifted because a lot of people didn't necessarily know about all of their neighbors legal statuses. Right ? And so they didn't necessarily know that mass deportations meant their neighbor , their friend. You know , also in Encinitas , there's a a market where the owner , his case was essentially it was , um , administratively closed. You know , some ten plus years ago , which is essentially when the government says , all right , we're not going to pursue you. We're not going to prosecute you. We're not going to attempt to deport you. And it's essentially put on pause. But the agreement is that either party can bring it back up at any time. Well , now we're seeing those cases get reconsidered. That's the term. So basically put back on the docket. So it's people who thought that their cases were over ten plus years ago are now being called back into immigration court. And one of those was a market owner in Encinitas who thought it was over. And he's now called into court. And the entire community basically showed up at immigration court well , in support. And so you see that and they probably had no idea what his status was before. But we see these personal stories , and I think that's really impacting public opinion.
S1: And Gustavo Shelby , you both have covered you know , some of you know , we've talked about what's been happening downtown at the federal courthouse , um , while San Diego has , you know , not seen this great surge , you know , of of enforcement actions in the same way as Minneapolis is going through right now. There have been new strategies and new tactics that we've seen in San Diego with some of , you know , some of the folks that you've been reporting on , Shelby. You know , can you talk about that and kind of its importance in the story here in San Diego ? Yeah.
S2: You know , I think probably a big inflection point was when they started making arrests at immigration court. I don't know if you guys would agree , but in May , they started detaining people , you know , who were showing up to their hearings because for a long time the line was , well , we're going after people who are , you know , criminals who are right. Exactly , exactly. And by definition , if you're showing up to a hearing as required , that is following the rule. So I think that that , you know , and especially seeing the videos of those detentions and arrests , I think really shocked a lot of people. And that sparked a lot of those volunteers who go and stand at immigration courts , stand outside the ice check in office every single day. They did that because they saw those videos , right ? So I think that really , um , inspired a lot of public feeling. Right. And then we saw the tactics sort of shift to now at the check in office , which is a little more secluded than the immigration court , where people were being told to come check in with the agency directly. And then recently we saw at the ice app office , which is where people go for their ankle monitors. I think the big one and Gustavo , I know you've covered this too is at Green Card Interviews. This was huge late last year.
S4: Right. Courthouse ice check ins ASAP. The green cards are particularly appalling because the green card lawyers explain it to me sometimes it's almost just like a formality. By the time you get to the green card interview , you've been vetted. You've been in the country for a long time. They know more or less who you are. You're not going to get a green card interview if if you're a public safety threat , if you're a criminal. and historically , the green card process takes so long that if you're here on a visa , the visa may expire. They say , hey , don't worry about it. We can adjust the status after the green card. And the people being targeted are the children , parents and spouses of U.S. citizens. A lot of them. Because San Diego is a big military town , the spouses of veterans and active duty military. And I think that is especially in a moderate place like San Diego , that is striking a chord.
S1: And that's something , Shelby , you've you've covered quite a bit in telling some of their stories too , right ? Absolutely.
S2: I covered one family that this was not at a green card interview , but I was at the Federal building , a family that was checking in. Well , actually. So it was a the son is a marine and he was visiting his sister with his parents. The sister is married to a marine. They were visiting her and her husband on Camp Pendleton , and they were stopped at the gate and the parents had pending visa applications. They were stopped at the gate , taken downtown , released and told to come back. And I was there the day that they were told to come back for the check in , and I watched the two parents be led away , and the dad is wearing a bright red shirt that says , proud dad of a US marine. Um , you know , and that was sort of a striking image for me that no one would have known about if I had not been standing there watching it with my own two eyes. Right. Um , and with the green card interviews , I've covered a few cases where it's spouses of marine veterans who have literally told me , you know , I gave 20 years for this country , and this is how they repay me. And I think that that's something that , you know , has stuck with me , um , a lot.
S3: I'll jump in there because I think what both of you hit on is , like , crucial. And when I look at like , what are the big themes that we're going to look at in the coming year ? This is it. They're going after people that , um , you know , for lack of a , you know , not not a good term , but low hanging fruit in the sense that it's easy for the administration to find them because they they show up for court , they show up for their interviews. They do everything they're supposed to. And it's easy for them. You know , the the administration knows where they live. Um , you know , I won and I think San Diego has kind of anecdotally stands out from other places across the country in some of these practices , not the not the immigration court arrests that were all over , but the check in at the ice , the ice check ins , and then the what you're talking about the green card interviews. I've just seen a lot of anecdotal reporting from Chicago , from , excuse me , San Diego , that I haven't elsewhere. But I showed up at the just one afternoon on the second floor of that building where the on Front Street and a man who had like , you know , been here 30 years landscaping business family. He he got a note. You know , he had he had a run in like ten years ago with the border patrol at a checkpoint at sun , sun San Clemente. And they closed his case. And , you know , he was fine. And then he. But they knew where to find him. He got a notice show up next Tuesday. He did it. And I don't know what happened to him. I imagine he got deported. But that was just you know , there is a these the people who pay the who who follow the rules in the sense of showing up at their appointments , showing up for court. They're the ones who are , who are , who are most vulnerable. And , you know , the the people who are committing the crimes. They're they're hiding. I mean , they're going to be much harder to find.
S2: Well , and I'm also curious about your experience in communicating with DHS and with Ice , because , you know , with every case that I cover of an individual story , I do my own criminal background check. I run every database , I look up everything and I go to the administration , I go to Ice , and I say , hey , tell me about this case. Why was this person detained ? Deported ? What is the government's plan for this person ? Why have they been at the Hotel Mesa Detention Center for three plus months , that kind of thing. And sometimes they come back in the case of the family of the marine , they come back and they say , well , he had , you know , a domestic violence case from 2020. And I go to the family and I say , what's that about ? They're like , no , that's not true. I also looked it up myself. I could find no record of charges. And so sometimes it's difficult for me because I have no agenda. I have it's not our job to determine what's right or wrong. I'm trying to get all the facts , but it's been difficult , I would say , for me to get all of the facts when they're the agencies that we are trying to ask questions of , don't necessarily want to tell us.
S3: A good point.
S1: And we'll be back. We're just going to take a short break. You're listening to KPBS roundtable. You're listening to KPBS roundtable. I'm Andrew Bracken. Today , we've been taking a closer look into immigration enforcement , how it's shifted over the past year. My guests are KPBS is Gustavo Solis , Shelby Brimmer from NBC seven San Diego and the Associated Press is Elliot Gustavo. When we were going to the break , Shelby was talking about some of the challenges , you know , involved in , in , you know , as an immigration reporter reaching out to these agencies and getting getting data.
S4: You do want to verify the claims that the the the activists , the deportees. Do you want to verify everything that people are telling you ? And when you don't hear from a federal agency or they tell you contradicting information , but they don't back it up with any hard documents , it's very hard to navigate that. It's unfortunate , but I in my personal experience , the agency has said things that are not true. Not just once or twice , but several times. And it cast doubt on the things they do say. Which is why push back and ask for documents to verify what they're saying. But the the attitude I feel that I get from them is trust us , they're criminals. and they use the term criminal very liberally. I remember early on in the administration there was a question about what do you mean by criminal aliens ? And the white House press secretary essentially said any immigrant in the country without status is a criminal alien , even though being in the country without status is a civil violation , not a criminal one. So there's so much ambiguity , and the rhetoric doesn't help that it's just a frustrating situation , unfortunately. And as a reporter , yeah , it's a very difficult one to manage. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. I'm so glad you brought that up because that's something that I think about a lot is I think right now we are having a conversation about what the definition of the word criminal is. And , you know , in the court of public opinion , there are a lot of people who do think that being here without status is a crime. And so , you know , I think it's so much broader than just , you know , visa status or green card or anything like that. It's like what is right and wrong is kind of the public battle , I think , that we've been having for the past year.
S4: We've had internal conversations about how to treat certain statements from the administration when they are just factually incorrect. I want to be fair to the government and give them their voice. But if they're using if they're telling me lies that I've disproven in the past. Are we doing our audience a disservice by publishing those ? We've had those kind of conversations , and in previous years we wouldn't think of having those kind of conversations.
S3: Yeah , I mean , they are very responsive. They do. There's the head public relations person. Public affairs is like , I don't know when she sleeps , but she responds to every email. But yeah , I mean , absolutely. We run into these problems. There was a , you know , in Minneapolis , a man who was pulled out of his house and his his underwear. And the statement was that from DHS was that he was living they were going after two sex offenders who were living in the house. And the guy said , well , that's not true. There was there's no we don't have I don't have anybody living , you know , nobody like that. And so I don't know if DHS if it was an honest mistake or what , but you definitely you know it. You have to be very skeptical and you have to verify everything. Everything ? Yeah.
S2: And I want to bring it back to those green card interviews , too , because you said something about the administration essentially saying being here without status is a crime. And that was the line that I got from DHS and Ice on the arrests of those people at their green card interviews and something that a lot of attorneys I actually had several immigration attorneys say the same line to me , which was sort of chilling , which is I've never seen anything like this before. They don't know each other. But , you know , when you have ten immigration attorneys saying that to you , kind of , you know , your ears perk up a little bit. Yeah. But the administration essentially said , you know , being here without status is a violation. And a lot of those people , the immigration attorney said that actually , if you were to renew your visa while in the green card process , that's fraudulent because you're not here as a student , you're not here as a worker. You are here married to a US citizen. You are in the green card process , so you can't renew your visa , right ? But the question is , is that status illegal in the eyes of the administration or not ? For many , many generations , it was not.
S4: One of the other question. Is it illegal to the point that we need to incarcerate people for it ? Right. Jaywalking is illegal. I've never been in jail for jaywalking , so there is. I think we should recognize that law enforcement has discretion over what they choose to enforce and not enforce , and how they enforce it.
S2: Well , and I should note , too , that many of the green card interview arrests that I've covered , they spent ten days , two weeks in detention in the automated detention center and then were released. A judge ordered them released. So were they. Should they have been detained at all ? What what was the intention of ? That is the broader question.
S4: I think the question.
S3: So so I know we're not going to have time to get to like we're scratching the surface here.
S5: And so I mean , just one thing.
S3: You mentioned just incarceration. In July , they started a new policy to deny bond to anyone. Yeah. And so it's mandatory detention for anyone. And the detention population is doubled to 70,000. Ice was given $75 billion under the bill. Big beautiful bill. 45 billion of that is for detention. For new detention. There's a , you know , record high number of deaths in Ice custody. And , um , and a lot of reports about , you know , horrible conditions at certain certain ones , California City , Fort Bliss , Texas , and others. So , I mean , that's going to be a priority. But , you know , like , we could we could talk for a long time about just that and , you know , a refuge. I'll just mention one word , like 200,000. Hundreds of thousands of people who were thoroughly vetted for as refugees are now being told that they need to come back and they need to they need to come in for a reason. You know , riveting. Um , and they could be deported. So , I mean , these are just huge changes. We don't know to what extent they'll follow through , but , you know , you could talk about all these changes , and they are I'm sure , you know , immigration experts will say , I've never seen this. I've never. You know , I never could have imagined this.
S1: You know , we've been talking about some of these big themes , and you're right. There's way too much to to to cover it all today. But I did want to kind of take a couple minutes and just talk a little bit how all this change has impacted you all in how you approach your work. Shelby , you were talking about , you know , reaching out to federal agencies and some of the shifts there. But , I mean , one thing about your reporting is you tell really personal stories. You , you know , put a face to this data , face to what we're seeing. Gustavo , you know , you all kind of make those efforts. And I'm wondering , has that become more challenging , as you know , the culture of fear as you referred to earlier ? Gustavo , you know , people are much more fearful. How has that changed your own approach to reporting and getting people's stories in this , in this climate ? Well.
S6:
S2: Speaking for myself , it is so hard to get people to be willing to talk about this , because in many cases this is a life or death for them. You know , if there are some people tell me that if they are sent back somewhere , they very likely could be killed. And that's something that I think about and I carry. But I also feel an obligation to share those personal stories , because I think that people need to know that these aren't just numbers , right ? That there are real people that are impacted by even the most minor policy change. It could upend their entire life. So there's there's a real challenge there. And I think , you know , when we talk about meeting the moment , I am always concerned about getting it right. Doing someone's story justice , but also being fair and and protecting safety. There's there's so many different threads that , you know , I'm constantly thinking about.
S4: Oh , you're right. The stakes are so high it it induces a lot of stress , which is tiny relative to the stress the sources are feeling. Um , yeah. I have had people say no back out in the last minute , but I've had had other people want to step up and say something because they also want to meet the moment. I've been much more intentional or maybe gentle with my sources. Meet them where they're at. We'll do the interview where you want. Let me know if you want your face shown or not shown. We have a conversation about it in a way that I didn't a year or two ago , so that's been something to consider too. Um , but yeah , it's been interesting. I mean , you hear all kinds of stories. Just yesterday I was talking to to a couple , uh , her partner had just been released for Ice detention. And one of the questions I've been asking lately is , has your experience changed the way you view your relationship with the US ? Uh , the girlfriend , born and raised here said she's embarrassed to be American. The boyfriend , who had just been spent four months at the Otay Mesa Detention Center , was out on a habeas petition. He's originally from Lebanon. He said , I still believe the US is the best place in the world to live , and I'm grateful that I live here because they took my family in when nobody else would. He hates what happened to him. He's angry and bitter about that , but that hasn't changed. So you see that interesting dynamic play out too.
S1: And Elliott , you yourself I mean , you published this.
S3: Well , yeah. I mean yeah , yeah.
S1: The human Chicago food vendors.
S3: I was just thinking of that actually. Thank you. But the human.
S1: A few minutes left.
S3: The human element is critical to immigration. I mean , you know , the it's easy. It's very important to talk about what is administrative closure. What is. We didn't talk about this. But what is an administrative warrant versus a judicial warrant ? Administrative warrant is an ice order to go in and arrest someone. A judicial warrant is something signed by a judge. And I said this week , well , we learned this week that Ice is empowering its officers to force entry into a home without a court warrant. But , you know , you talk about these these terms and it's easy to lose readers. Immigration law is incredibly complex. So the human stories is what drives it. And yeah. I mean , I , I always I personally have I mean , yeah , it's a little more difficult to get people to talk on the record , but there is , you know , going back many years undocumented , unafraid. Have you heard of that ? Yeah. Like and so I profiled the Chicago couple that was kind of like that. They were like , you know , we're not going to we're not going to buckle down. We're not going to change our routines. And they were there in the middle of the tear gas selling to , uh , you know , Aguas Fresca. And , and they invited me over to their house for , for lunch and dinner , and , and we profiled them by name and , but we were very clear with them , like , hey , we're we're publishing your name. We're not we're very forgiving if people back out. We respect that. But they wanted their names out there.
S2: So yeah. And , you know , it's an interesting point. I don't know if you guys have noticed this too , but sometimes I'll talk to somebody who's going through the immigration system and they're they're a little hesitant to talk. They're a little confused. They're not sure if they want to talk to me , but if they have a US citizen , spouse or kid , that kid comes up to him and says , no , let me tell you about my dad. I got something to say about this because they feel as though they have a little bit more power to speak on behalf of their loved one who is in danger at this point. Yeah.
S1: I wanted so much more. I want to add to the conversation there , but I think we're going to have to leave it there. I want to thank my guests , Shelby Bremer. She's a reporter with NBC seven San Diego. You can find her work there. Elliot. Spag. It's been with us. He is the US immigration news editor for the Associated Press and Gustavo Solis. He's the investigative board reporter here at KPBS. We'll have links to some of their reporting. You can check out at KPBS. Org. Thanks again for being here.
S4: Thank you.
S2: Thank you.
S1: That'll do it for this week's roundtable. Thanks so much for listening. You can listen to the show anytime as a podcast. And if you want to support the show , you can always leave us a review there as well. KPBS roundtable airs on KPBS FM at noon on Fridays and again Sundays at 6 a.m.. If you have any thoughts on today's show , you can always email us. That email is roundtable at KPBS. You can also leave us a message at (619) 452-0228. Roundtables technical producer is Brandon Truffaut. The show is produced by Ashley Rush. Brooke Rooth is roundtable senior producer , and I'm your host , Andrew Bracken. Thanks again and have a great weekend.
