ICE Raids, Military Force on American Soil, and the Fight for Justice in America

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Speaker 1 Welcome to Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams from Crooked Media. I'm your host, Stacey Abrams.

Speaker 1 Like the rest of our country, I am devastated by the targeted attacks on State Representative Melissa Hortman and State Senator John Hoffman.

Speaker 1 Tragically, Representative Hortman and her husband lost their lives to this vicious act of political violence. Senator Hoffman and his wife survived, and we pray for their continued recovery.

Speaker 1 Our prayers are also with the Hortman and Hoffman families and the people of Minnesota.

Speaker 1 This is an unthinkable tragedy for their loved ones, their communities, and for all of us who believe in public service.

Speaker 1 In a nation where our eyes are often turned towards the nation's capital, we are, each of us, served in our states by legislators who often operate in obscurity, but carry our hopes and dreams for the future.

Speaker 1 Melissa was known as a champion for families, and John is a defender of community.

Speaker 1 These are people who work daily to make it a little bit easier to make a good living, to take care of our families, and to ensure a better future for our children.

Speaker 1 We must together mourn this horrific tragedy by confronting what it says about where we are in our national discourse.

Speaker 1 When political violence is tolerated, excused, or encouraged, democracy itself is in danger.

Speaker 1 I know the weight of violent threats and fear, and we can never allow fear and violence to dictate who serves, who speaks, or who shows up to lead.

Speaker 1 No elected official, no staffer, no community member should ever fear for their safety because of their beliefs or their service, not in a functioning democracy, not in the United States.

Speaker 1 We must reject the violence and the extremism that continues to infect our politics.

Speaker 1 Now is the time for courage, for compassion, and a recommitment to the values that hold our nation together, that hold our people together.

Speaker 1 As we process this tragedy, we cannot succumb to the instinct to cast blame on anyone other than the gunman.

Speaker 1 But we can take responsibility for the atmosphere that has numbed us to the ways we are losing the soul of America.

Speaker 1 Since the start of President Trump's second term, he and his Republican allies have eroded democratic norms at an astonishing pace.

Speaker 1 And as we think about atmosphere, we have to think about the last two weeks because we have watched this administration foment a dramatic shift in how we understand what is permitted in our country under our name.

Speaker 1 ICE agents have raided the streets of Los Angeles, targeting undocumented immigrants with senseless cruelty.

Speaker 1 The administration's original claim that they would focus on deporting those with criminal records has been proven as patently false. And I would argue it was never true.

Speaker 1 Stephen Miller, in particular, has been unabashed in his vile invective, and he has been imbued with an irrational power to mete out his hatred of those he considers other.

Speaker 1 With the tacit approval and permission of the Republican Party, Trump, Miller, Christy Noam, and their armed agents have stormed schools, invaded churches, swarmed workplaces, and even raided home depots and warehouse factories, flanked by a military presence that is a clear repudiation of America's edict that our military not act as domestic law enforcement.

Speaker 1 Yet they have kidnapped children, terrorized grandparents, and ripped families apart in pursuit of purity.

Speaker 1 However, in a revival of the American spirit, these raids have inspired pushback.

Speaker 1 Protesters hit the streets and ringed these elementary schools to demonstrate against the inhumane treatment of their friends and neighbors. Students have walked out of class.

Speaker 1 Neighbors have stood up for neighbors. Communities have been loud and vigorous in pushing back and saying not here, not now.

Speaker 1 And these protests have been vital assertions of the First Amendment and a timely reminder of our obligation as citizens.

Speaker 1 But our constitutional rights and federal law have not stopped Trump and his people from abusing their power.

Speaker 1 Indeed, he has deployed the National Guard against protesters in Los Angeles without the consent of California's governor.

Speaker 1 And they've sent hundreds of Marines to the city, an extraordinarily chilling act. Its only contemporary precedent is President Lyndon B.

Speaker 1 Johnson, who deployed the National Guard to defend protesters and protect their right to voice dissent. Trump's actions are not the work of a president.
It is the cowardice of a wannabe dictator.

Speaker 1 In 2020, Trump said that he regretted not deploying the military during the George Floyd protest. And let's not forget, he almost did.

Speaker 1 The only thing that stopped him was then Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

Speaker 1 But now we're in a new world. The Department of Defense is no longer run by a former Secretary of the Army.
It's run by a Trump Trump sycophant and talking head, Pete Hedseth.

Speaker 1 The former Fox and Friends host has made one thing clear.

Speaker 1 He will happily do whatever the president tells him to do, including this troubling deployment of the military against its own people and on our own soil.

Speaker 1 In the taxonomy of autocracy, he is right out of the authoritarian playbook. As tanks roll down the streets of Washington, D.C.
in absurd spectacle, Trump is making good on his promises.

Speaker 1 And he has handpicked a cabinet of men and women whose fealty is not to the Constitution, but to political power.

Speaker 1 Because they do not serve the American people, they will not stand in the way of a military invasion of cities and states that defy Trump's will or Republican ambitions. They work for him, not for us.

Speaker 1 Their ambition is characterized by the $45 million vanity exercise that was hosted on Trump's birthday.

Speaker 1 This penchant for militarism and willingness to use our troops for personal and political gain should be shouted down by congressional leaders and rejected by those in uniform.

Speaker 1 But their shameful silence isn't stopping people across the country from standing up to Republican complicity.

Speaker 1 Like the patriots who formed our nation, Americans are making their voices heard with the no kings protest and local demonstrations against these extrajudicial raids.

Speaker 1 Together, powerful statements against an erosion of our values in clear defiance of of cruel power grabs and strongman tactics is happening everywhere, including in neighborhood near you.

Speaker 1 And around the world, those who have long looked to our country as a beacon of democracy can look at us and see what we are willing to stand for.

Speaker 1 Because across continents, from South America to Europe to Africa and Asia, Others have seen this happen before.

Speaker 1 And what we are witnessing on a daily basis has been the opening acts of tyrants in Hungary and Turkey, in Venezuela and the Philippines, in Burkina Faso.

Speaker 1 No one expected America to be added to this list, but we don't have to stay here. While this is a dangerous and frightening time, it is not too late.

Speaker 1 Today, we've got two guests with us to help us unpack what's happening right now and to help us prepare for what's coming next.

Speaker 1 MSNBC's senior Washington correspondent and co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend, Eugene Daniels, and Immigrant Defenders Law Center attorney Ileana Johansson-Mendez.

Speaker 1 And a quick note, we recorded this interview on Monday, June 16th.

Speaker 1 Eugene Daniels, welcome to Assembly Required.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1 Well, I want to start by setting the scene at the LA protests because that has been consuming so much of our national discourse.

Speaker 1 And as of today's recording on Monday, June 16th, it has been a week since those protests began.

Speaker 1 Can you give us a quick recap of what happened, what sparked the marches, and what's happening on the ground?

Speaker 2 Yeah, first, what we started to see were people in Los Angeles and really people around the country being frustrated, concerned, worried about the way that the Trump administration has been operating in their kind of ICE raids that they're doing.

Speaker 2 And one of the things that Stephen Miller, who's the deputy chief of staff staff at the White House and kind of the brainchild behind all of the immigration policies of this administration, has told ICE and told DHS was that there's a 3,000 person a day quota, that they have to arrest 3,000 people.

Speaker 2 One of those things that he also added was to roll up on Home Depots, right? They are also going to people who are at their immigration.

Speaker 2 hearings, going to where we tell them to go in order to continue to operate and stay in this country.

Speaker 2 You started seeing a lot of protests, a lot of peaceful protests at one point, people just kind of walking around going to the ICE facilities, the detention facilities.

Speaker 2 It ratcheted up. And you know, you always have a couple of knuckleheads, right, that do something kind of as it gets laid or there gets too many people.

Speaker 2 But what you ended up happening and seeing was the president of the United States deciding that those couple of knuckleheads were worth the National Guard going in, despite the fact that the mayor of Los Angeles and the governor of California both said, we don't need it.

Speaker 2 We have it. We're good.
We're happy to arrest people who break things and do things wrong.

Speaker 2 And then they sent the Marines in, right? So hundreds of Marines, which we've

Speaker 2 never seen

Speaker 2 on American soil. That's not really what they're trained to do, are there as well.

Speaker 2 They are supposed to be kind of protecting the personnel and the buildings, the federal buildings, but we did see them arrest one person in an incident who happened to be a veteran going to Veterans Affairs.

Speaker 2 And so the frustration that you're hearing now around the country after Saturday and these No Kings protests is an administration people feel like has gone too far in their immigration policies, that people feel that they're too cruel.

Speaker 2 And they were promised something and people feel like they were told that the president and his administration would arrest people who were quote unquote criminals.

Speaker 2 And those were the people who were going to be deported. And that's not what we're seeing anymore.

Speaker 1 Part of what's driving this conversation is what should we expect of our country? What should we expect of our nation, irrespective of who the president is?

Speaker 1 And part of the way we understand that is the media and the press. And I know you have been a very thoughtful

Speaker 1 advocate for

Speaker 1 retaining the freedom of the press and understanding how it has to operate. But there's also been some critique of how the press has been covering what's happening right now.

Speaker 1 To your point about the difference between what's being said about the protests and what's actually happening is in part the result of the media.

Speaker 1 So what responsibility does the media have for the moment we're in?

Speaker 1 And how are you thinking about the role that you have, that other journalists have in pushing back against what seems to be the erosion of our democracy?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think the media has a huge role to play, right? We have a huge responsibility.

Speaker 2 I don't know that when many of us got in, we thought that we'd be kind of like really trying to hold, help hold the institutions together in the way that it feels like we're doing on a day-to-day basis.

Speaker 2 But, you know, you have to be very careful, right? This administration, especially has a loose relationship with the truth, let's say.

Speaker 2 You even had on Saturday at the president's

Speaker 2 military parade, his aides saying there were 250,000 people there.

Speaker 2 We know that's not true and so as a reporter when the the administration is saying this is why we're doing something or this is why something's happening this is how many people are at a thing this is um the kind of impact that something's that that's that a policy is having that there's a war zone in los angeles we have to verify that right we have to check that and i think that the administration has tested and stretched at all the institutions, but also the media, right?

Speaker 2 Because we are not every not every single journalist is kind of like prepared for this moment. And we've done it before, right?

Speaker 2 The four years, but now, you know, this is Donald Trump kind of unchained and being able to do whatever he wants.

Speaker 2 He doesn't have folks around him who are trying to keep him coloring inside the lines, right? The people around him want him to do what he said he was going to do.

Speaker 2 And so like even this weekend for our stories, when we were working on our shows for Saturday and Sunday on the weekend at MSNBC, we were talking about, okay, if we're showing one of these Waymos on fire, did it happen on Friday, right?

Speaker 2 This video from last Monday or Tuesday. Did we, when we're talking about the location of this, so we're being clear with people that LA is humongous.

Speaker 2 And so this kind of area where these protests are happening is very small, right? And so we created a map.

Speaker 2 for one that showed folks okay this is where the protests are happening zoom out this is how big los angeles is right to be clear with people these are the things that um if you might be hearing the LA's on fire, but it's actually not true.

Speaker 2 When we were on the show, I talked about folks I talked to who live in LA. I had one friend, I said, How's it going? What are you, what are you seeing?

Speaker 2 And they said, I woke up to the sound of birds chirping today. I didn't even hear a protest.

Speaker 2 So, like, you know, just being very clear and honest with the American people and the viewers about what's actually going on, doing frankly our jobs, right? It shouldn't be that difficult.

Speaker 2 I think you have a lot of journalistic institutions and kind of bosses on top of bosses who are struggling in this moment.

Speaker 2 We're very lucky at MSNBC, our bosses are kind of clear-eyed about this situation and what we should be doing and saying in this moment.

Speaker 2 But you do have other networks trying to navigate their relationship with this White House and the Trump administration, how he likes to retaliate against people he sees as his enemy, and their responsibility to tell the truth in this moment.

Speaker 2 It's complicated for them. It's not as complicated.
I I don't find it that complicated. I think it's complex, right?

Speaker 2 There's a lot of things going on, but you become a journalist, at least I did, to tell the truth, to

Speaker 2 hold powerful people accountable and to tell stories for folks who can't tell them themselves. And if I can't do that, then I'm not interested in operating within it.

Speaker 1 I love the fact that you distinguish between something being complicated and something being complex, that there might be layers to it, but the answer is still pretty straightforward.

Speaker 1 And for me in preparing for this episode, I made the very deliberate decision to reject the narrative that

Speaker 1 what's unfolding in California or anywhere can justify the violence that's being meted out by Trump, by Republicans under his banner.

Speaker 1 They're sending in military troops to occupy communities and terrorize neighborhoods.

Speaker 1 And yet our human instinct and our political instinct is to convey a sense of comparison, even if it's not comparable in size or scope or intention.

Speaker 1 When you are thinking about the audience, when you're watching what's happening in California, when you watch the arrest of Mayor Baraka or Representative McIver or the tackling of Senator Padilla,

Speaker 1 what do you want your viewers to understand about their role in normalizing what we're seeing happen?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think one, I'm always trying to break down for the viewers the context and provide a little bit of clarity in what's happening, right? So when Ross Baraka was arrested,

Speaker 2 you know, being very clear about what he was doing, right? He wasn't there to protest. He wasn't there because he shouldn't be there.
He was there doing his due diligence.

Speaker 2 Same thing with the congresswoman and the other congress folks who were there. Senator Padilla being there and saying, this is my state.
I want to talk to

Speaker 2 the head of DHS because I've written some letters and I haven't heard from you, right? All of these things are things that are supposed to be allowed.

Speaker 2 And being honest with our viewers, that like, look at what's happening. And if, and let's be really clear.

Speaker 2 If folks feel like they can tackle a U.S. sitting senator to the ground and arrest him after he said very clearly, I'm the senator of this state, one of two humans in this state that's a senator.

Speaker 2 If they can feel like they can arrest and take to court and charge some sitting member of Congress with assault. What does that mean for the rest of you, right?

Speaker 2 What does that mean for the American people who don't have the same access to influence and power, right? And

Speaker 2 on our show, we try to be very clear with people, right? We showed over and over the video of Padilla being tackled.

Speaker 2 We showed over and over again the president of the United States saying that if people protested his parade on Saturday, that they would be met with, quote, very heavy force, right?

Speaker 2 We showed the video of this sheriff in Florida who said

Speaker 2 that they would,

Speaker 2 you know, I think it was great, people would be graveyard dead if they threw a brick in Florida on that Saturday.

Speaker 2 Talked about Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, saying, telling people, if a protester is blocking your way and you feel scared, quote unquote, you can run them over, right?

Speaker 2 All of these things, people have to understand that it's not just on the federal level where this type of conversation is happening.

Speaker 2 It's trickling down. It's being supported in a lot of ways by the folks on the ground.
And that's where

Speaker 2 the concern that I have, I I think that a lot of folks have, where the really scary things can actually happen.

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Speaker 1 Well, we know that this morning, and we're recording this on Monday, June 16th, that the president put out on Truth Social his intention to scale what he's doing and take it nationwide.

Speaker 1 And he had some very

Speaker 1 derogatory things to say about cities that he considers to be democratically run and, therefore, not of America.

Speaker 1 We also know there are Trump voters who are incredibly unhappy about the administration's targeting of immigrants who don't have a criminal record.

Speaker 1 The New York Times reported on this small town in Missouri that had been solidly pro-Trump until ICE arrested their beloved undocumented resident, and that sparked a backlash within the community.

Speaker 1 And then Trump himself recently announced that he's going to start pulling back on raids into hospitality and agriculture.

Speaker 1 And yet, Stephen Miller is saying that ICE needs to to be in front of Home Depots and 7-Elevens. So talk a bit about why it matters that we are talking so much about immigration.

Speaker 1 And how does this help us understand the legitimacy of what this administration is trying to achieve?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 One, Donald Trump believes in his heart of hearts, in his brain of brains, in his soul of souls, that immigration and cracking down on undocumented people in this country is the reason that he's president of the United States, right?

Speaker 2 He sees it as the issue that people care about the most. But we just had some NBC news polling over the weekend.
9% of Americans say it's their top issue. That's under health care.

Speaker 2 That's under the economy. It was number five on the list, right? And so

Speaker 2 the question that we have to ask, right,

Speaker 2 is if only 9% of Americans, and that's kind of commiserate with other polling that we see, if they are, if people don't care that much about it, why are you doing it? It's because of his base.

Speaker 2 He told his base first that, you know, kind of brown people were taking their jobs and that he would get it under control.

Speaker 2 And that, you know, if you're really, if you're white and sad, you know what I mean, and you're dealing with struggles in this country, which are valid, right?

Speaker 2 There are white people dealing with struggles in this country. It is because, not because of, you know, bad policies in Washington, D.C.
or your state.

Speaker 2 It's because brown people are like taking up all the resources that you should have, you should be able to attain.

Speaker 2 And so with all of that happening happening and him saying, you know, we're going to go after everyone, we're going to do mass deportation, right?

Speaker 2 These are folks who were excited about mass deportation. I was at the RNC.

Speaker 2 It was kind of shocking watching people walk around with signs that said like mass deportation now and really like being excited about this idea of people being snatched off the streets.

Speaker 2 And I think there was kind of a

Speaker 2 a concept both in the media and kind of with some of these folks that you talked about that they were only talking about violent criminals.

Speaker 2 Actually, the first press briefing that the White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, had, she said, anyone who's here undocumented can fall under this, can be, you know, pulled out and deported.

Speaker 2 And so they've made very clear from the very beginning, this is how they operate. They want to operate.
And so I think folks should watch what they're doing. One, when do things get ratcheted up?

Speaker 2 If things are getting ratcheted up when President Trump feels like his back is against the wall, when he feels like his bill is suffering in Congress, when he feels like

Speaker 2 the world is at war and he doesn't have a handle on it. Like, how are they ratcheting things up when it comes to the issue they feel like is number one for their folks? That is really important.

Speaker 2 But I think they

Speaker 2 have underestimated even some Trump supporters who you're talking about Carol. Her name was Carol, the woman in Missouri.

Speaker 2 There are all these stories around the country of people saying, wait, why are you taking Carol? Or why are you taking Tommy?

Speaker 2 I think they misunderstood how people view immigration and more importantly, what community means, right?

Speaker 2 We all understand that when we're talking about the people around us, we see them as community and family, especially in these small towns, even folks who voted for Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 And so, you know, I'm fascinated to see how, you know, as he starts to kind of, someone said moderate this weekend on the show, I wouldn't call it that, but change the way that he's talking about, you know, farmers or people who are hotel workers or farm workers and what they're, how he's going to assist them or not go out and deport them.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I think the genie is already out of the bottle, the toothpaste is out of the tube.

Speaker 2 I don't know how you unring that bell when from the very top and from the very beginning, you've been saying, get everybody out of here.

Speaker 2 And so like everyone listening to that should keep that in mind.

Speaker 1 And I just want to take that a little bit further because, you know, we know if raids are happening in hotels in Chicago, but not in Miami, if there are ICE agents swarming farms in California, but not Iowa, what does that tell us about national cohesion and about the people who should be standing up to Trump?

Speaker 2 It tells you like the rules are for thee and not for me kind of thing, right? You know, I lived in Miami as a kid.

Speaker 2 We all know there are undocumented people in Miami, right? There's a lot of undocumented people in Florida working.

Speaker 2 There are farmers, you know, farm workers in Iowa, like I said, who are also undocumented working.

Speaker 2 And so what you're seeing is them striking fear into their political, who they see as their political opponents, these governors and these mayors of these blue cities and states.

Speaker 2 We had the Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson on over the weekend, and he, they're preparing and they have been prepared for ICE to come in.

Speaker 2 And they've been dealing with ICE, kind of making those operation, doing those operations in their area and their city.

Speaker 2 And for the folks in red cities and red states, they seem to be okay, but Missouri is also a problem. They took care of, right?

Speaker 2 And so it it is, there are these kind of outliers, but for the most part, the president is saying, we are going to go into these blue cities.

Speaker 2 We're going into these blue states because it is red meat to his base.

Speaker 2 He's already said that the blue cities and states don't follow the law, that the blue cities and states and the leaders of those cities and states do not love America, quote unquote.

Speaker 2 Every president has a party, right? And a political party, and they think about a lot of their political decisions in that way.

Speaker 2 But we've never seen a president other than Donald Trump who sees like, okay, I'm going to help my folks first and the rest of the Republican Party.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, we'll see what happens with the rest of the folks.

Speaker 2 And that is something I think that, you know, we're navigating as journalists to try to cover, but also the leaders, both on the Republican and Democratic side, are trying and often failing to try to navigate as well.

Speaker 1 Well, I've argued on this platform that it is dangerous to center Trump alone as the harm that's facing America.

Speaker 1 I see him as symptomatic and a very aggressive and virulent symptom of a Republican orthodoxy that is open to authoritarianism.

Speaker 1 As you pointed out, Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott and other governors have said and echoed his behavior.

Speaker 1 And then you have a cabinet where the Senate confirmed people who were very clear about their intention not to follow the law.

Speaker 1 You have bills that they're willing to pass despite the real harm to their constituents.

Speaker 1 And I'm not asking you to take a partisan position, but I wonder, as someone who represents the independent media, what does this collapse or at least this complicity say to you about independent political power in this moment in history?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think with Donald Trump, and we're this week, 10 years since he came down the Golden Escalator and unlaunched his first run for president, he has created an incentive structure for all the leaders from him on down to operate differently, right?

Speaker 2 And you have a party in the first term that I really think thought that Trumpism would be gone eventually, that they, you know, they were all operating with this idea that, okay, let's just like keep them calm and we will get through this and the party will go back to the party of Reagan in the bushes, right?

Speaker 2 That was kind of the way that they were all operating and making decisions. It has become very clear that's not the case.

Speaker 2 And so instead of, especially in Republicans and Congress, standing up and say, hey, wait a second, we decide where the money gets spent.

Speaker 2 We decide what cuts happen because we hold the power of the purse. They have allowed Doge and the president to operate however they want.

Speaker 2 That is, there are supposed to be three different branches of government that are co-equal.

Speaker 2 And what has happened, especially in Congress, you have Republicans who either are true believers in what Donald Trump wants to do, but many of them who we talk to all the time as reporters, who will say one thing behind closed doors and on background, and then vote a different way or go out and say something different in front of a microphone, which is

Speaker 2 one,

Speaker 2 I stopped trusting those people very quickly because I can't talk to someone who's not, you know, 10 toes down each time.

Speaker 2 But he's created this incentive structure to not fully be honest about the things they want to do, to

Speaker 2 pound the table instead of try to compromise, right? That's changed everything in Washington, DC and our politics.

Speaker 2 And I think you're right, when you're talking about centering him, he's kind of the head of it.

Speaker 2 But at the end of the day, there are Republicans in Congress and elsewhere who are trying to taking Trumpism, making it their own and move forward.

Speaker 2 And some of them are much more interested in policy than Donald Trump is, right?

Speaker 2 And so, and many of them may understand the tools of government and the machinations, whether it's federal, state, or local

Speaker 2 aspects of government. And so they're able to do things and move things forward.

Speaker 2 And I think, you know, the thing that I think that really encapsulates all of what you're saying is Project 2025, right?

Speaker 2 It was, and a lot of what was in the Project 2025 was something that Republicans have been saying for a long time. That wasn't the beginning of it, right?

Speaker 2 That wasn't the beginning of the conversation. And now we're seeing that be able to go through.
And Russ Baught, who is ahead of B

Speaker 2 in this administration, is a large part of that. And so I think people should, one, continue to read.

Speaker 2 I look at Project 2025 all the time because to kind of figure out where things are going because they've given everybody the blueprint, right?

Speaker 2 And so it's like for Democrats, for independents who are looking to counter what the Republicans want to do, or what this administration wants to do, or American people who are watching things happening and are shocked by it, like read the document.

Speaker 2 It's in there.

Speaker 2 They gave us all the information.

Speaker 1 So I've got two last questions for you. So one, I just want to give you a second to juxtapose for us your

Speaker 1 observations about the military parade on Saturday and the No Kings protest on Saturday. And I'll just let you take it from there.

Speaker 2 Keep it simple.

Speaker 2 So one, I should say I'm a military brat. My dad was in the army for 21 years.
He retired as a lieutenant colonel.

Speaker 2 And I spent in military intelligence. And so I spent my entire childhood traveling around the country, mostly the South, as an Army brat.

Speaker 2 So I've seen military parades. I've been to parades that celebrate the Army.

Speaker 2 I have waved my own little flags at different parades over the years.

Speaker 2 And I think the issue for a lot of folks wasn't that someone wanted to celebrate the Army, right? I think the issue was it didn't happen in a vacuum. And those things didn't happen in a silo.

Speaker 2 And so Before Donald Trump was in the White House, the Army had already decided they were going to do something for the 250th anniversary.

Speaker 2 They were not going to do a parade. They were going to do kind of like this festival kind of thing in Washington, D.C.
Trump gets in in February, they change their minds. And so the

Speaker 2 watching the tanks roll down and

Speaker 2 the people who were there and looked kind of bored, frankly.

Speaker 2 I don't think Donald Trump got what he wanted out of it. Let's we're being real.
You know, there was like the

Speaker 2 VIP stand was like a third full. It was definitely not the 200,000 that folks thought were going to come.

Speaker 2 But it was, and it definitely wasn't the bastille day that Donald Trump saw. And this is where he got this idea in 2017.

Speaker 2 But at the end of the day, every

Speaker 2 army official or military person I've talked to was uncomfortable with it, right?

Speaker 2 Because of the Fort Bragg speech, where he had some of these guys and gals throwing on MAGA hats and booing, you know, elected officials in this country and kind of being partisan, which is not how that's supposed to operate.

Speaker 2 They were uncomfortable because the week before, the president sent the Marines to Los Angeles and seemingly kind of made things more tense there, right?

Speaker 2 But then you have these protests around the country that were already set as the, you know, the No King protests. And We don't have full numbers yet, but it seems like millions.

Speaker 2 And I was, I was, we had someone named Beverly on, and she was in Kansas City, and she operated and created her own, you know, the indivisible group there. And so it's heading the protest.

Speaker 2 And she was talking about the Republicans that she had there, the military veterans that were going to be coming that day, the independents that were there, because they weren't just concerned with like Donald Trump's parade, but how he's been operating.

Speaker 2 And I think there's an, that, that has created the juxtaposition, but I think it's it, it shows how basically we have these two worlds,

Speaker 2 at least two worlds in this country right now, where one group of a lot of people are saying something and then you have like a kind of minority operating in a different way and moving and making decisions for folks on that side of things.

Speaker 2 And, you know, I don't, I don't, you know, we had Hakeem Jeffries on, the leader of Democrats in the House and asked him like, how do you kind of take this energy and do something with it?

Speaker 2 wasn't very detailed to be fair, but you know, they are, you do have leaders starting to think about what they do with this moving forward

Speaker 2 because you can't just like let it fall to the wayside.

Speaker 1 Speaking of which, we love on the show to give people something to do. And as a journalist who is doing such a wonderful job of keeping us informed,

Speaker 1 in addition to watching you wherever you are and reading you, whatever you write, what should our audience be doing to stay up to date and to understand this current moment? What should they read?

Speaker 1 What should they watch?

Speaker 2 Local newspapers, like, because I think there's so much of what we cover that is 30,000 foot, right? And we try to drill down as much as we can.

Speaker 2 But I think if you are someone who really wants to understand the things that are going to impact your everyday life, right? It's going to happen on that local level. I started my career in local TV.

Speaker 2 Every time I talk to students, journalism students, I tell them, you know, sure, I want you to come to DC at some point, but start down there and make sure that the people in communities, big and small, have access to the unvarnished truth about their elected leaders as well.

Speaker 2 I think there's a lot of corruption happening on the local and regional levels and state levels because the journalism there has been gutted.

Speaker 2 So people supporting that helps, but also it helps them to stay informed about what's coming and understanding like, what the hell happened to Carol? You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like those, those are the kinds of things. And like,

Speaker 2 why was I at you know, the bowling alley the other day? What's going on? And we aren't going to be able to catch all of those things.

Speaker 2 And I think the local folks are going to are doing and will continue to do a good job of helping to explain this moment to the American people.

Speaker 1 Eugene, thank you so much for being here. And thank you for keeping us informed.

Speaker 2 Thank you so much for having me. This is really fun.
Thank you.

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Speaker 1 Liana, thank you so much for joining Assembly Required.

Speaker 4 Thank you. It's an honor to be here.

Speaker 1 Well, we appreciate you, especially in light of what is happening around the country and particularly in California.

Speaker 1 So first off, can you talk about the kind of work that MDEF does, particularly the work you're doing to support people who've been arrested?

Speaker 4 MDEF is a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles, and we believe that no immigrant should stand alone when facing our unjust immigration system.

Speaker 4 So we've been on the front lines of this fight for years. Our core work is providing free legal defense for people in deportation proceedings.

Speaker 4 You know, we help immigrants apply for lawful status, fight their case, get released from detention so they can reunite with their families.

Speaker 4 And of course, while most of our work is deportation defense under Trump 1.0, we realized that that wasn't enough.

Speaker 4 You know, we now also engage in strategic litigation and advocacy on a local and national level with the goal of creating a more just and humane immigration system.

Speaker 4 So, you know, we've done things now like sue the Trump administration over the Remain in Mexico program in his last administration, which prevented them from reinstituting it this time around.

Speaker 4 And we're suing them now over their recent cancellation of legal services for unaccompanied children.

Speaker 4 And so we've been kind of preparing for another Trump administration for years. And

Speaker 4 we realized a few months ago that we needed to ramp up certain services.

Speaker 4 So we have started doing things like know your rights presentations in the community to prepare people to respond if they get picked up, but also if their workplace, you know, if there are school leaders, church leaders,

Speaker 4 administrators at hospitals, we've been training them on what to do if ICE comes to their workplace because the first line of defense is avoiding deportation and arrest in the first place.

Speaker 4 And then, secondly, and this is where our focus is right now, is our rapid response work.

Speaker 4 We have a team now that is really focused on being able to provide that immediate, quick response when somebody is detained.

Speaker 4 So, right now that we've seen this huge ramp up in immigration enforcement around the community, our team has been on the ground trying trying to gain immediate access to the people that have been detained.

Speaker 4 We have a hotline where families can call and say that a loved one has been picked up by ICE and give us their information so that we can try to locate them and set up an intake and match them with an attorney either at INDEF or at a partner organization or a pro bono attorney.

Speaker 4 We're also leading kind of a coalition of local organizations in coordinating those intakes at the local detention centers.

Speaker 4 So we have a combined list from several nonprofits that we are working through, trying to find everyone on that list who has been picked up and is right now disappeared by ICE, and then also make sure that an attorney gets to connect with them before they are deported while they are still detained.

Speaker 1 So we know that this conversation has been in the news for years.

Speaker 1 And part of the reality is that there are so many people who think, well, it's not not about me. It's only about criminals or immigration isn't my top issue.

Speaker 1 Can you talk about why what you are seeing unfold? And we'll go into the specifics in a minute, but why

Speaker 1 the average person who does not think immigration matters to their lives, why they should be not just paying attention, but should be concerned about what we see unfold?

Speaker 4 Absolutely. I mean, Trump likes to say that they're going after the worst of the worst, that they're going after criminals.

Speaker 4 But what we're really seeing is that people who have lived in the U.S.

Speaker 4 for decades, who have built lives here, who have U.S.-born children and grandchildren, they've operated businesses, they've become part of the fabric of our community.

Speaker 4 They're being ripped away from their families in these broad immigration sweeps, where honestly, it feels like people are being picked up just because of the way that they look.

Speaker 4 The really scary thing right now is that people are afraid that if they get picked up by ICE, they may never see their families again.

Speaker 4 We've already seen that this administration is willing to disappear people to places like Sekot, the mega prison in El Salvador, and to refuse to bring them back even when faced with a court order saying that they had to facilitate that return.

Speaker 4 So the kinds of implications that that has for everyone's civil rights and constitutional rights and due process are really scary because this is where we start.

Speaker 4 This is the most vulnerable vulnerable factor of our society.

Speaker 4 And if we're going to allow them to trample on their rights, to ignore, you know, their Fourth Amendment rights, to deny them access to attorneys, to deny congressional oversight when those people are detained, what are they going to do next?

Speaker 4 You know, who's the next group that they're going to go after? And we're already seeing that in their haste to sweep up as many immigrants as possible, lawful permanent residents and U.S.

Speaker 4 citizens are also being swept up.

Speaker 1 So that brings us to the mass ICE raids that started in Los Angeles and that really stoked the initial protest more than a week ago. Can you walk us through how that Friday unfolded?

Speaker 1 Where were you when the arrest began? How did your organization respond? And what was the actual reaction on the ground?

Speaker 4 So Friday morning, we started to hear that there were raids happening across the city, at Home Depots, in the fashion district in downtown LA.

Speaker 4 We heard, of course, that the SEIU's president was arrested during that raid.

Speaker 4 And we ended up sending teams to what we call B18.

Speaker 4 It's the detention center that is inside the federal building in downtown LA, in part because we were already going to meet with people there who had been detained earlier in the week,

Speaker 4 but also because we knew that that's where they were being sent. And so we were there.
We were one of the first groups that was on the ground at the federal building.

Speaker 4 And so, kind of two things were unfolding at the same time. Both there was a press conference and protesters, you know, protesting against the broad sweeps that started that morning.

Speaker 4 And we had a team of attorneys from IMDEF and some of our partner organizations at the doors to the detention center demanding to be let in to see the people that were detained.

Speaker 4 The protests were really quite peaceful.

Speaker 4 There was no violence, there was no tagging yet.

Speaker 4 There were no Waymos on fire at that point. And yet we saw ICE respond with tear gas into the crowd for no reason, really.
There was no threat to the building. There was no threat to the staff.

Speaker 4 They ended up shutting down attorney and family visitation in response to those protests, which made no sense to us.

Speaker 4 But it was the first step that they were taking to cut off access for the rest of that weekend. They have not reopened since 6 o'clock on Friday.

Speaker 4 We still have not been able to access anyone in that facility. And while they tell us there's nobody there, we can't know that for sure because nobody has been allowed in.

Speaker 1 And part of what you're talking about is that

Speaker 1 we are being denied the information and therefore the accountability that makes a democracy work.

Speaker 1 Part of the way you have a nation with 330 million people work is that we have to trust that people are doing what they say they're going to do, that they're going to do it right.

Speaker 1 And if mistakes are made, that we'll know about those mistakes and we can fix them. And in the absence of access, in the absence of transparency, we're being asked to trust them.

Speaker 1 People who have already demonstrated bad faith and bad action, or am I getting this wrong?

Speaker 4 No, absolutely.

Speaker 4 Even since last Friday, you know, most of the detainees from the federal building in downtown LA have been moved to other facilities.

Speaker 4 Some of them are in Adelanto in the high desert here in California. Others have been moved out of state.
And repeatedly, they have

Speaker 4 either deliberately or simply because they are so unorganized, denied access to information. We're having trouble with almost half of the cases, even though they've been detained for over a week now.

Speaker 4 We still don't know where they are. Their families don't know where they are.

Speaker 4 When congressional representatives have showed up both at the federal building in downtown LA on Saturday the 7th, and then at Adelanto, they've been turned away.

Speaker 4 And this is extremely concerning because these are places that have already been rampant with abuses and poor conditions.

Speaker 4 And for the few people that we have been able to meet with, what they tell us about what's happening inside these facilities is really concerning.

Speaker 4 The families that were in the LA detention center for 24 to 48 hours, you know, reported that there wasn't enough space for everyone. People were sleeping on the floors.

Speaker 4 There were no mattresses, no pillows, no blankets. Families were set in makeshift tents because there wasn't enough space to actually have an area for women and children.

Speaker 4 So they just put them in a tent outside. Those families said that they had a snack pack twice per day, which

Speaker 4 consisted mostly of a bag of chips and a carton of milk.

Speaker 4 So even when their three-year-old needed water, I told them there was none.

Speaker 4 So we've already seen reports of people having medical emergencies in just the last week because of the conditions inside these centers.

Speaker 1 Well, I appreciate you lifting that because so much of the news coverage has been focused on trying to create this false equivalence between the raids and the reactions.

Speaker 1 And there is the legitimate reaction that people are having to what is an unprecedented behavior here in the United States.

Speaker 1 And instead of us talking about why these raids are creating such a visceral reaction, a terrified reaction, we are instead having these arguments about the legitimacy of protest.

Speaker 1 I want to spend a little bit of time in this conversation really talking about the communities that are being impacted. And you just...

Speaker 1 pointed out what's happening to those who've been held without access to food.

Speaker 1 What are other stories that you believe people should understand about what's happening because of these cruel raids and how people are really being impacted?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 You know, this weekend was just Father's Day and there were so many families in LA that had an empty seat at the table and they're worried, you know, is he

Speaker 4 in detention here in Adelanto? Is he in Texas? Has he been moved to Arizona? Is he about to be deported?

Speaker 4 They're really afraid that they will never see their family family member again.

Speaker 4 In fact, we had a woman call us last week to say that her husband, who's Korean, had been picked up by ICE. He had been here in the country for years.

Speaker 4 He had been going to his ice check-ins and his appointments.

Speaker 4 Not so long ago, he got an ankle monitor.

Speaker 4 And then soon after received an order saying you have to buy yourself a flight to Korea by June 13th.

Speaker 4 So he did. He complied.
He bought himself a ticket. The wife bought a ticket.
They were going to move together to Korea.

Speaker 4 And then there was another notification saying, you actually have to come in for an appointment on the 12th.

Speaker 4 And so the family had planned a going-away party for the 12th. They said, let's go to the ice chicken.
We'll come back. We'll have a good, big going-away party, and then move the next day.

Speaker 4 Instead, on their way to that appointment, I stopped their car and pulled him out and detained him. He wasn't given given an opportunity to explain that he had already purchased his flight.

Speaker 4 So this whole weekend, he's been detained and there's really no reason for it, no justification. It becomes clear that cruelty is the point for ICE.
This is really a

Speaker 4 psychological warfare that they're waging on our community. to the extent that people with lawful status are afraid.

Speaker 4 Our own staff at MDEF, who have lawful permanent residency and DACA and refugee or asylum status, they're afraid I could be next because we're watching as our clients do everything right.

Speaker 4 They go to every appointment, they file their applications, they go to every hearing, and then there's this bait and switch.

Speaker 4 ICE

Speaker 4 is requesting dismissal. in court.
You know, families mistakenly think, oh, this is what a relief. I'm not in deportation proceedings anymore.

Speaker 4 And then the minute they walk out of the courtroom, there are ICE officers in plain clothes waiting to arrest and detain them and put them expedited or removal.

Speaker 4 And people who are going for their residency applications or for their citizenship interviews instead are getting picked up and detained. So the message that people are getting is it doesn't matter.

Speaker 4 if you do everything right. We can detain you just because we want to.

Speaker 1 I recently had Rachel Maddow on the show and at the beginning of this year, we had Heather Cox Richardson and both of them have really been intentional about anchoring what we're seeing today in the history of not only our country, but other nations.

Speaker 1 And when you think about what you're seeing unfold, when you think about what we are watching,

Speaker 1 what does it tell you about what's going to come next?

Speaker 1 What will it actually take for both ICE and the Trump administration and Republicans who are supporting and cheering this behavior on, what will it take to carry out the arrests at the scale they're aiming for?

Speaker 1 And what does that do to our country in that attempt?

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 part of what we've already seen happen is that, you know,

Speaker 4 society, our community is saying this is unacceptable. People are coming out to speak out against what is happening, against these broad sweeps.

Speaker 4 People who have never taken a stand on immigration before, they know that this this is wrong.

Speaker 4 And so what has been actually very inspiring is to see the response on the ground, to see people mobilized to protest and protest peacefully, which of course is not what the media is always showing,

Speaker 4 because that's really what it takes. It takes all of us to work together.

Speaker 4 We as the attorneys representing people in detention have our peace.

Speaker 4 The litigators have theirs, but we also need the people who are out in the streets protesting, who are calling their representatives and writing letters, and the people who are working to protect their neighbors.

Speaker 4 And as long as we have people who are willing to do that, who are willing to keep that light on what is actually happening, there's a chance that we as a people can pressure this administration to stop what they're doing because it's wrong and because it's bad for our country.

Speaker 1 I was recently in a group of mixed partisanship, and someone who was defending what's happening said, well,

Speaker 1 Biden deported more people than Trump has so far. Obama deported more people.

Speaker 1 Bush deported more people. And I would acknowledge that immigration enforcement has been problematic under many administrations, regardless of partisanship.

Speaker 1 But what have you observed about the similarities and the differences between what's happening today and the approach?

Speaker 1 How do folks like me who instinctively know the comparative is wrong, how do we respond to this facile argument that what Trump is doing is no different than anyone else?

Speaker 4 What is fundamentally different is that, you know, under Obama and under Biden, there was a process.

Speaker 4 You know, people knew that if you applied through this program, did it in a certain way, applied by a certain time, you could get your status. You know, people

Speaker 4 who they were trying to deport were given a day in court, a chance to fight their case before a judge. And what we're seeing here is that the rules are out the window.

Speaker 4 We've already heard of people being detained in the morning and finding themselves in Tijuana that same day because a deportation officer gave them a paper and said, if you sign this, you can talk to an attorney.

Speaker 4 And instead,

Speaker 4 they were signing a voluntary deportation order. So they were bypassing the legal system that exists and tricking people

Speaker 4 into

Speaker 4 deportation. And that is something that we have never seen any of the recent presidents do in their efforts to enforce immigration law.

Speaker 1 What's so disturbing about what you describe is that it sits

Speaker 1 side by side with what we watched unfold this week. We saw a sitting U.S.

Speaker 1 president deploy the National Guard over the objections of a governor, not because the governor was trying to obstruct the rights of protesters under the First Amendment, but because the governor said, this is my responsibility.

Speaker 1 And the last president to deploy the National Guard over the objections was done in order to defend and protect civil rights protesters. We even saw Pete Hexeth agree that Marines should be deployed.

Speaker 1 And you and I both know they've had Marines basically acting as de facto law enforcement during raids in California.

Speaker 1 Those things are not legal, or if they are, they have not been fully supported by existing law and existing precedent. And you just described the trickery that's being used.

Speaker 1 Talk a little bit about what it means to have the National Guard and the Marines who are involved in immigration enforcement. Do they have the authority to check someone's status?

Speaker 1 Do they have the authority to arrest and detain?

Speaker 4 What should we be thinking about when we think about the National Guard and American military forces on the ground in our states the military and the national guard do not have the authority to act as immigration enforcement they should not be asking anyone about their status or checking their papers they cannot help ice in that capacity no they are really only supposed to protect you know federal buildings and federal operations and act as crowd control and so The arrests that we've seen for the most part have been in that capacity, in the crowd control capacity.

Speaker 4 However, their presence, that militarized presence during peaceful protests has really been an instigating force.

Speaker 4 So, you know, Trump is using peaceful protests as an excuse to deploy them, and then their very deployment creates the chaos that he's using to justify having them there.

Speaker 4 Part of what we're seeing between ICE being out in the communities, it creates this atmosphere of fear, right?

Speaker 4 Right now, driving into downtown Los Angeles, it was very calm this morning.

Speaker 4 You know, it mostly looks like business as usual, but it's also eerily quiet because people are afraid to leave their homes. Immigrant families are afraid to leave.

Speaker 4 My sister is a high school administrator, and she was telling me about her student whose mother sells tamales, but she's too afraid to leave her house right now.

Speaker 4 So instead, her daughter, who just graduated from high school last week, who should be celebrating and preparing for college, is instead selling those tamales for her mom,

Speaker 4 supporting her family and trying to protect her mom from getting picked up and deported by ICE, fighting to keep her family together. And that

Speaker 4 fear has a real human cost on the families and the communities in LA and across the country.

Speaker 4 The second part of that that we're just starting to see is the social and economic cost because our streets are empty, our shopping centers are empty, our businesses are not going to last if their workers are afraid to come in and if their customers are afraid to leave their homes to go shopping.

Speaker 1 So, Iriana, thank you so much for helping us understand this moment. But what we try to do on the show is also give people calls to action.

Speaker 1 So what tips and resources can you share for immigrants who want to know more about their rights and find legal representation?

Speaker 1 And how can the people listening help those who have already been harmed or who are in jeopardy?

Speaker 4 Whatever community you live in,

Speaker 4 there are going to be nonprofit organizations doing this work nearby. So I think find out who that is.
For people who are in Southern California,

Speaker 4 come to our website, mdeaf.org backslash resources. We have know your rights presentations that are pre-recorded that anyone across the country can listen to.

Speaker 4 We have trainings for educators and church leaders and hospital administrators on how to keep their employees and also their patients and their clients and their members of their parish safe in case of enforcement.

Speaker 4 Secondly, find your lane, right? Do the thing that you can do, that you are good at, that you have the capability to do in this moment, whether it's donate or uplift other people's stories.

Speaker 4 We actually are uplifting a partner organization called CLU, and on their website, cluejustice.org backslash bond, they have a bond flund.

Speaker 4 So, if you want to help keep families together and make sure that people who are detained can get home to their families and go back to work and help support them and make sure that family isn't facing food insecurity and homelessness, you can help donate so that that family can pay for them to get out of detention.

Speaker 4 And lastly,

Speaker 4 writing to your congresspeople, calling them making your voice heard is so important right now they need to understand that this is not just about immigrant families this is about our whole community our whole country that this impacts more than just the people that are being detained and that we all care and are watching what happens

Speaker 1 Liana thank you so much for being here Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 4 It's been an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 1 As always on Assembly Required, we're here to give you real actionable tools to face today's biggest challenges. First, be curious.

Speaker 1 To better understand what's happening in our national debate about immigration and its components, our June Assembly Required recommended read is The End of Asylum by Philip G. Schrag, Andrew I.

Speaker 1 Schoenholtz, and Jaya Ramji Nogales. These experts on immigration law trace the history of America's immigration system and the Trump administration's destruction of our historical role as a refuge.

Speaker 1 It is one component of a much larger complicated system, but it is a critical conversation in this moment of international upheaval.

Speaker 1 And as Eugene mentioned, following your local news sources is vital for understanding what is happening on the ground in your own community.

Speaker 1 Make sure to watch your local news and subscribe to your local paper.

Speaker 1 If you'd like to learn more about how to support local news, visit the American Journalism Project to get involved at www.theajp.org. Next, solving problems.

Speaker 1 As the rule of law breaks down, it is even more important to shore up those providing legal aid. Research LegalAid Org serving your local community and find out how to get involved.

Speaker 1 If you live in Southern California, you can visit our guest, Ileana's organization, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, at www.immdef.org.

Speaker 1 And as always, we want to do some good. Protest works, but not everyone feels comfortable or has access.
So start where you are and use what you know.

Speaker 1 If you're on social media, share stories of real people facing the impact of this terror campaign by the Trump administration. If you can volunteer, identify a local charity that supports immigrants.

Speaker 1 Undocumented children are particularly at risk, so check your community for ways you can show up from the most vulnerable.

Speaker 1 We are always reaching out to a broader audience that wants to dive a bit deeper into the headlines and to find ways to make a difference, but we need your help to reach them.

Speaker 1 If you like what you hear, be sure to share this episode and subscribe on all of your favorite platforms. And to meet the demands of the algorithms, please rate the show and leave a comment.

Speaker 1 I love hearing what you care about, so continue to tell us what you've learned and solved or want to hear about next.

Speaker 1 You can send an email to assemblyrequired at crooked.com or leave us a voicemail, and you and your questions and comments might be featured on the pod. Our number is 213-293-9509.

Speaker 1 This wraps up this episode of Assembly Required with Stacey Abrams. Be careful out there, and I'll meet you here next week.

Speaker 1 Assembly Required is a crooked media production. Our lead show producer is Lacey Roberts, and our associate producer is Farah Safari.
Kirill Polaviev is our video producer.

Speaker 1 This episode was recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Our theme song is by Vasilis Photopoulos.

Speaker 1 Thank you to Matt DeGroat, Kyle Seglund, Tyler Boozer, Ben Hethcote, and Priyanka Mantha for production support. Our executive producers are Katie Long and me, Stacey Abrams.

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