SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Federal immigration raids are getting more and more common across the country. On Monday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for federal immigration enforcement agents in Los Angeles to use race and other profiling factors in deciding who to stop and potentially detain. At the same time, ICE has expanded operations in Massachusetts and Illinois, and it remains active in Washington, D.C.
With the backing of the federal government and the courts, ICE is moving quickly to carry out the White House's deportation agenda. So what does it mean for protecting the civil rights of Americans? For more on this, we're going to bring in NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd. Hey, Jasmine.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: Hi, Scott.
DETROW: There's a lot to talk about here, but first, I want to start with this court ruling because it has gotten a lot of attention, and I think various elements of it have been kind of confusing. What do we need to know about what the Supreme Court said?
GARSD: So the Supreme Court in a temporary ruling - basically, what they said is that immigration agents may consider factors like race, whether Spanish is being spoken, whether English is being spoken with an accent, and employment location or people hanging out outside of a Home Depot - they may consider those factors when deciding to detain and interrogate someone. Yeah.
DETROW: It's temporary as the case still plays out. But I mean, let's play this out to its logical conclusion. If a United States citizen who's Latino in Los Angeles is walking down the street, does he feel like he has to carry his passport with him at this point?
GARSD: Certainly. People who I have been speaking to are already doing that. You know, people have been doing that in Los Angeles for months now. And increasingly, I'm hearing people around the country, Latinos around the country, who are doing that. And really the fact that they're doing that underscores the importance of this ruling.
DETROW: What else are people doing who have a worry in one way or another that they might be stopped and detained?
GARSD: Scott, I don't think I've ever, as an immigration reporter, spoken to so many people who are hiding behind closed doors, I mean, who are just not going out. I spoke to one family yesterday here in Washington, D.C., where I am, who - they have just stopped going to work. They've been here for about 25 years, and they're just not going out anymore. And they are going to self-deport, which is kind of, you know, one of the pillars of this administration's policy.
DETROW: But in the meantime, they're literally hiding from their government.
GARSD: They're literally behind closed doors. They are literally asking their son, who is an American citizen, a teenager, to go out and do the groceries. And that's kind of been, like, this really important pillar of policy, which is to make life feel so difficult for immigrants without papers. And, you know, arguably, with this Supreme Court decision, also for people who are Latinos and who are Spanish speakers or speak with an accent...
DETROW: Yeah.
GARSD: ...That the consideration is to self-deport.
DETROW: I want to talk specifically about a few of the cities. Chicago has been in the news for a lot of reasons lately - President Trump making threats against the city of Chicago, threatening to bring in the National Guard. We've seen reports in recent days that ICE activity has picked up in Chicago. What do we know about that?
GARSD: We know that he's launched a second immigration enforcement surge. We know that there is increased activity. It is important to highlight here that we haven't seen a significant increase in detentions...
DETROW: OK.
GARSD: ...Right now in Chicago, but we definitely have seen a heightened rhetoric. And we have seen this surge in immigration enforcement initiatives in Chicago and ICE agents, but we haven't really seen a significant increase in detentions just yet.
DETROW: Do we have a baseline number about how many of these detentions are happening a day nationwide, roughly?
GARSD: I mean, we know that the goal is 3,000 a day. We know that there has been a significant increase nationwide. I think a really important number to highlight is that consistently around 70% of people in immigration detention do not have a criminal conviction. And that seems like a really important statistic to think about when we're asking this question - what does it mean that you can consider all these factors during detention?
DETROW: So we're talking about the national picture. We're talking about Chicago. What about Boston? That's another city that's gotten some attention lately.
GARSD: Yes, we also have seen a second immigration enforcement surge in Boston. It's important to note that what the administration is doing here is talking about sanctuary cities - right? - cities where there are policies that local law enforcement cannot collaborate with immigration enforcement. And they're also blue cities, very specifically.
DETROW: I'm curious what groups trying to oppose this are telling you, whether it's civil rights organizations or legal groups or just people who are trying to document these detentions on the street as they happen with their phones. Like, what, if anything, are the people you're talking to feeling like they can do in this moment if they oppose these actions?
GARSD: Right now, I'm in D.C., doing field work in D.C. and Maryland and Virginia. And what I'm seeing is a heightened citizen activism, which includes things like taking children to school if their parents are undocumented and they are afraid of taking their kids to school. It also includes taping video of people being detained.
DETROW: Yeah.
GARSD: Can they stop the detention? Not necessarily, but the reasoning that I'm being told about it is to get any identifying features about the agent and also to talk about who is being detained. Do they have a family member who can speak for them?
DETROW: They're trying to get identifying features, and that's the reason that we've heard, at least, why so many of these agents are masking themselves.
GARSD: Yes, masking themselves - we're also hearing about no license plates, unmarked cars, civilian wear. In my reporting, something that has been really alarming is short-term disappearances - I mean, people who are detained and that nobody can find them in the system for three or four days. And so part of the reason why people say they're taking these videos is to be able to contact family members.
DETROW: I just want to underscore this because at times it feels like hyperbole, but we are talking factually about masked agents in unmarked vehicles taking people off the street, and at times, those people can't be identified. Like, those are things that you just said. Those are things that have been documented. It feels shocking to a lot of people, but I just want to underscore, like, this is the reality we're covering right now.
GARSD: This is the reality. I mean, look, this man who I spoke to, who has been in the U.S. for some 25 years, who is hiding in his home, who has a job in the service industry - he said so many things that just really were quite shocking about not being able to go out, not being able to get groceries, considering leaving. But the one thing he said that really stuck with me was, America is for white people now.
DETROW: I, over the course of the year, have kept thinking about the interviews that we did right before the election, the week of the election. President Trump ran on this. This platform was a big appeal for many of the people who voted for him. And I'm wondering, at this moment in time, as somebody who covers this issue, are you surprised by any of this?
GARSD: I mean, this - like you said, this was a centerpiece of his campaign. This was the promise. And I think the promise contained a fallacy. You know, the promise was we are going to take all those criminals and all those rapists and even, you know, all those cannibals and mental institution patients - these are actual things that were said - who are immigrants off of the streets.
And the fallacy within that promise is that we know we have abundant criminological studies that say that there is - you know, immigrants and undocumented immigrants do not commit crimes at the same rate as American citizens. And so I'm not surprised because when you make a promise like that, when you promise a historic mass deportation, you have to keep up with those numbers.
I think the thing that has surprised me is when I speak to MAGA supporters behind closed doors, to Trump supporters, and there is kind of a - you know, in hushed tones, an expression of, I'm no longer comfortable with this, or this is affecting my business. And it remains in hushed tones, but I am seeing more of that. I'm seeing more conservatives who are not entirely comfortable with what's happening right now.
DETROW: That is NPR immigration correspondent Jasmine Garsd. Jasmine, thanks much for talking to us.
GARSD: Thanks for having me.
DETROW: And it is important to note that although some Republican voters may be softening on their support for the president's approach to immigration, recent polling from the end of the summer does indicate that an overwhelming majority still support it. To watch video of my conversation with Jasmine Garsd, you can visit NPR's YouTube page. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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