Experts share concerns over ICE’s recruitment strategy
Good Morning, I’m Lawrence K. Jackson….it’s MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22ND EXPERTS HAVE CONCERN’S OVER ICE’S RECRUITMENT STRATEGYMore on why next. But first... the headlines….########
IT’S OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW AT THE SAN DIEGO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TONIGHT.
THE NEW TERMINAL ONE WILL WELCOME ITS FIRST FLIGHT AT 8:55 THIS EVENING, AND THE LAST FLIGHT OUT OF THE OLD TERMINAL ONE WILL LEAVE 15 MINUTES LATER.
AIRPORT SPOKESWOMAN NICOLE HALL SAYS PASSENGERS WILL FIND THE NEW TERMINAL MUCH MORE SPACIOUS WITH LOTS OF NATURAL LIGHT. AND SHE SAYS SOME OF WHAT’S IN THE CURRENT TERMINAL ONE WILL FIND NEW LIFE IN THE NEW TERMINAL, BUT OTHER MATERIAL WON’T BE MOVED.
T1MOVE 2A :15
“Some of those items will be donated to local nonprofits to help those organizations. The materials that are there in the existing Terminal One that are not moved or are not donated will be demolished.”
THE OLD TERMINAL ONE OPENED IN 1967. HALL SAYS IT LONG AGO OUTLIVED ITS USEFUL LIFE.
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OCEANSIDE’S CITY COUNCIL APPROVED A RESOLUTION LAST WEEK DIRECTING CITY STAFFERS NOT TO ASSIST FEDERAL IMMIGRATION AND ICE EFFORTS
AS THE U-T REPORTS, MORE THAN 60 PEOPLE SPOKE ON THE ISSUE WITH MANY SAYING THEY, THEIR RELATIVES OR NEIGHBORS LIVE IN FEAR BECAUSE OF INCREASED ENFORCEMENT
A FEW WHO OPPOSED THE RESOLUTION SAID THE CITY SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED
A SINGLE RESOLUTION WAS PROPOSED FEATURING NINE SEPARATE POINTS
SIX OF THOSE POINTS WERE UNANANIMOUSLY APPROVED WITH THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE CITY DOES THEM ALREADY TO SOME DEGREE
THESE WERE THINGS LIKE PROTECTING RESIDENTS SENSITIVE INFORMATION & LIMITING ACCESS TO CITY SPACES NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
A PROPOSAL TO ALLOCATE MONEY FROM THE CITY’S BUDGET TO HELP THOSE IMPACTED BY ICE, FAILED
THE TWO OTHER POINTS WHICH FACED OPPOSITION WERE DROPPED WITHOUT A VOTE
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SAN DIEGO’S HOME MARKET HAS BEEN STAGNANT TO SAY THE LEAST
THE MEDIAN HOME PRICE IN JULY WAS 900 THOUSAND DOLLARS ACROSS THE COUNTY
THAT’S ACCORDING TO ATTOM DATA SOLUTIONS
THEY COMBINE SALES OF SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES, TOWNHOUSES AND CONDOS AND SAY THE MEDIAN PRICE HAS REMAIN UNCHANGED FOR FIVE MONTHS IN A ROW
THERE WERE ROUGHLY 23 HUNDRED HOME SALES THROUGHOUT THE COUNTY IN JULY
THAT’S THE 3RD-LOWEST NUMBER OF HOMES SOLD FOR A JULY IN 37 YEARS
From KPBS, you’re listening to San Diego News Now.Stay with me for more of the local news you need.
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IMMIGRATION CUSTOMS AND ENFORCEMENT IS IN THE MIDST OF A MASSIVE HIRING BINGE, WITH A GOAL OF HIRING 10,000 AGENTS BY THE END OF THE YEAR.
REPORTER GUSTAVO SOLIS SPOKE TO EXPERTS WHO SAY THE AGENCY’S RECRUITMENT STRATEGY IS FILLED WITH WHITE NATIONALIST MESSAGES AND IMAGERY.
ICERECRUIT 1 (gs) 4:59 SOQ
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Some of the images look like World War II recruiting posters. Uncle Sam asking you to defend the homeland.
Others reference a glorified version of the past. White settlers traveling across the planes toward their Manifest Destiny as Native Americans retreat to the shadows.
These are the words and images the Department of Homeland Security is using to recruit thousands of new deportation officers. It’s a historic expansion that will make ICE the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country.
And experts who study extremist groups are flagging these posts as dangerous.
SIMI 00:11:57:04“Propaganda is an art. We need to look at it as such. It’s a very powerful way of communicating and it typically obscures the truth. When it’s done most effectively, it makes it hard to call it out as well.”
Peter Simi is a sociologist at Chapman University who’s studied extremist groups and violence for more than 25 years. He says part of the problem with these posts is their ambiguity.
SIMI 00:04:34:06“There are people who maybe aren’t well versed in terms of the culture of far-right extremism … who will see something like Uncle Sam and say well we’ve always used Uncle Sam as a symbol of the United States. If it were just Uncle Sam that would be one thing. But it’s not just Uncle Sam.”
He says the posts can be interpreted through a White Nationalist lens.
For example, in that Manifest Destiny post, the words heritage and homeland are capitalized.
SIMI 00:12:36:35“There is two uses of H that are capitalized. In white supremacist circles HH stands for Heil Hitler. That’s one aspect.”
Also, the post contains exactly 14 words.
SIMI 00:12:57:04“Again in White Supremacist circles this is a very well-known slogan referred to as the 14-word statement.”
White Nationalists use messages with exactly 14 words as a reference to a famous phrase from the 1980s – We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.
SIMI 00:13:44:10“And it became one of the most central slogans among White Supremacist. They reference it everything from tattoos to t shirts to emails, it’s just ubiquitous among these folks.”
ICE did not respond to questions from KPBS about their recruitment efforts.
Simi says plausible deniability is a big part of extremist communications. The messages can be interpreted in a variety of ways. And whoever posted the image can just say people like Simi are overreacting.
Which means academics or members of the media cannot say for sure whether something is explicitly supporting extremist ideology.
SIMI 00:14:20:59“Unless you’re able to find the person who created that post and they were to admit that, yea this was intentional it’s hard to ever definitively say, which is part of the point.”
The current ICE expansion comes at a unique time for the agency, according to people who study law enforcement. Allie Preston is a Senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.
CAP 00:10:56:23“There is generally support for changes in the immigration system but what’s happening now is that people are very much against the direction that this has come in and it has really turned into a militarized, authoritarian, form of policing and I really think it really will damage this institution’s ability to continue.”
As part of her research, Preston regularly talks to retired local and federal police officers. They tell her that ICE’s aggressive tactics are eroding trust.
CAP 00:04:57:05“They see this as undermining that work of local law enforcement who in many cases have had to work really hard to build trust in their communities.”
Preston is worried that ICE has already lowered its standards since President Donald Trump took office in January.
For example, ICE eliminated age restrictions that previously required applicants to be older than 21 and younger than 37 or 40 depending on the role. DHS officials cut down ICE’s 18-week training course to 8 weeks, and waived Spanish-language requirements, vehicle pursuit courses and other training.
CAP 00:15:29:16“I think in light of everything that’s happening, it’s really like a perfect storm of different circumstances that are making policing more dangerous for communities and really undermining the roles that they are supposed to be playing.”
While ICE refused to comment for this story, the agency announced that they’ve had more 150,000 applicants for jobs.
Meanwhile, experts like Simi and Preston say they plan to keep an eye on ICE to see who they hire and how agents conduct themselves.
Gustavo Solis, KPBS News
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LOCAL PEDIATRICIANS ARE RAISING CONCERNS ABOUT NEW GUIDANCE FOR MEASLES VACCINES.
HEALTH REPORTER HEIDI DE MARCO SAYS THE CHANGE CAME FROM THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION’S VACCINE ADVISORY PANEL.
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MEASLES 1 TRT: 1:12 SOQ
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted Thursday to stop recommending a combined shot for measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox for children under 4. They are now advised to get two vaccines instead. The panel cited a small risk of seizures in toddlers who get the combination shot. Pediatrician Maya Kumar says About 8 in 10,000 children are at risk.
DR. MAYA KUMAR
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS
00;12;34;01 - 00;12;42;13
If you compare the side effects of the vaccine to the side effects of the disease, it is immensely dwarfed by the side effects of the disease.
She says the change isn’t based on any new science.
DR. MAYA KUMAR
00;21;02;20 - 00;21;11;11
It's simply reinterpreting old data in the way that fits your perspective, and I think that that's dangerous.
Kumar worries it will lead to fewer kids finishing their vaccines.
DR. MAYA KUMAR
00;17;24;23 - 00;17;32;13
It’ll be less convenient, and it’s going to raise more questions, and this alone is going to reduce adherence.
Kumar says since the combined shot is no longer recommended for children under 4, it may not be covered by government insurance. This could lead to out-of-pocket costs for low-income families.
Heidi de Marco, KPBS News
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SCIENTISTS AT THE SANFORD STEM CELL INSTITUTE AT UC SAN DIEGO ARE IN THE MIDST OF A RESEARCH MISSION WITH TEST SAMPLES ABOARD THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION.
SCI-TECH REPORTER THOMAS FUDGE TELLS WHAT THEY’VE LEARNED ABOUT CANCER GROWTH AND AGING.
STEMSPACE 1 (tf) :51 …soq.
The environment of space is an accelerant, in some ways. It accelerates both aging and the development of cancer. Catriona Jamieson is the director of UC San Diego’s Sanford Stem Cell Institute. She and her research team have gathered data from 9 space missions to test the effects of being in space on stem cells. They found the cells age rapidly, dividing and mutating when they should be at rest.
17:27 ‘If we reduce our stem cell component we lose our bone marrow failure and we can’t make a normal immune system. We lose an immune system to fight infection but we also lose an immune system that’s capable of fighting cancer.”
They have also carried cancer tumors to space. Cancer develops much more quickly in microgravity, and that allows scientists to study cancer growth in real time. SOQ.
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ALRIGHT SDNN LISTENERS, TODAY I’M LAUNCHING A BRAND NEW SEGMENT CALLED ‘THE POD BEHIND THE PKG’
PKG IS SIMPLY NEWS-SLANG FOR A NEWS STORY. THE PREMISE FOR THIS SEGMENT IS SIMPLE: IDENTIFY STANDOUT PIECES AND STORIES FROM MY COLLEAGUES THAT CREATE OR SPARK IMPACT, INSPIRATION OR SOME SENSE OF FEELING!
ONCE PER WEEK, I’LL BRING IN A REPORTER, ANCHOR OR VIDEO JOURNALIST FOR A BEHIND-THE-SCENES, DEEPER DIVE AND INFORMAL CHAT. JOINING ME THIS WEEK FROM OUR INVESTIGATIONS TEAM WAS SCOTT RODD, HERE’S THAT CONVO:
2:03 : LJ: Scott, how you doing?
SR: I’m good, how are you?
LJ: Doing good, I wanna thank you because this segment was inspired really by your Euthansia Rates piece almost two months ago, I had just been at the company for about a week so glad to get it launched…but take me all the way back to the beginning, before we got to the multiple part series, before we get into the most recent details, talk to me about when you even first noticed this uptick in numbers
SR: Well first off I’m honored that the story inspired this, that’s awesome!
You know this story, this series goes way back month and months, we actually got a tip from someone that said hey look, we’re concerned about what’s going on at the county animal shelters. You should take a closer look. So, myself and my colleague Elaine Alfaro, she’s a fellow reporter here, we dug into the data and we said yeah, there’s something strange going on here the euthanasia rates for dogs just skyrocketed in recent years and so we said what’s going on here? So we dug into it and we found some really interesting trends and patterns and concerning, basically some concerning data. & we got a bunch of people to talk to us mostly on background, saying hey yeah we’re seeing some concerning things & over time we got more people to open up & eventually get some people ON the record
LJ: Initially I believe it was supposed to be really just a one-part series, it blossomed into a two-part series, we just got another a most recent part out of it as well, at what point when you sit down with those info/data & your looking at it do you decide that it’s multiple parts or is this something your editor is doing really?
SR: A lot of it depends on what happens after that first part so a lot of times when you put out an investigation what you’re hoping for is that it shakes other things loose, so we put out that first story and we had people come out to us and say, who we actually hadn’t talked with say we have more to share with you & that’s how the second part came about … we had heard abo ut this Audit that was done years ago that found some serious issues at the shelter and that audit was basically buried. & so once we got our hands on that audit BOOM, that was part number two, & then more people came out and said hey, we got even more to share with you & that’s what you hope for out of an investigation is once you put it out, you’’ sort of reap the rewards of all that hard work
LJ: What can you share about when someone comes forward & says hey I’ve got something. How do you verify what they’re saying? How do you know they're telling the truth? & then also how are you protecting them?
SR: Great question, in a nutshell that part 3 was based on a recording of the Assistant Director at the department of animal services basically using crude language to describe dogs and essentially complaining that not enough euthanasias were happening. & so, I had heard about this recording from multiple people and it was almost sort of this mythological creature that I knew was maybe out there but I was kinda like, I’ll believe it when I hear it. Eventually, I did get my hands on it and when I did from there it’s like we gotta make sure this is legit, make sure we authenticate this, so I went, I reviewed this message in the format that it was sent, I listened to it. Basically took all the steps to check all the boxes to say yes I verified this in-person, I know it’s real, now we need to move ahead and talk with people to see what they say about this & get the county’s response
7:55 : LJ: Part One: Uptick, Part Two: Audio, Part Three: Voice Message, is there a possible Part 4 or Part 5 Anything you can give us Scott Rodd upcoming?
SR: Uh, I might need to leave this as a little bit of a cliffhanger but we are looking at more reporting, for one the county has said that they need to make improvements, they recognize this, they say we want to bring down our Euthansia rate, we want to brin g down our turnover rate among staff so we’re looking at well, what does that mean? What will the improvements be? How will you change policies in the department? So, we’re definitely taking a close look at that so stay tuned for part 4, maybe part 5 who knows?
LJ: Absolutely, Scott Rodd from our investigations team with a very very strong piece of journalism, Scott thank you for your time
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That’s it for the podcast today. As always you can find more San Diego news online at KPBS dot org. I’m Lawrence K. Jackson. Thanks for listening and subscribing by doing so you are supporting public media and I thank you for that. Have a great day!
