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The journalist documenting her uncle's self-deportation · This Week On ICE

0:00
[music]
0:05
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to This Week On ICE for July 22nd, 2026.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm Matt Kendrick.
0:11
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Kelly Kimball.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: Today on the show,
0:13
SPEAKER_00: Kelly will bring you a conversation with Kimberly Avalos of the news movement.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: She's the director of an emotional news short documentary
0:21
SPEAKER_00: about her uncle's self-deportation from the United States titled Forced to Return.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Together,
0:26
SPEAKER_00: they talk about the many excruciating choices that refugees
0:29
SPEAKER_00: and asylum seekers like her uncle are forced to make and why
0:33
SPEAKER_00: the first place her uncle visited upon returning to Ecuador was a cemetery.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: You can find a link to the film in our Substack newsletter this week.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: Then on Monday,
0:42
SPEAKER_01: The New York Times reported that the FBI has stopped investigating ICE agents,
0:46
SPEAKER_01: meaning all such issues will be handled internally by the Department
0:49
SPEAKER_01: of Homeland Security.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: Matt will break down what we know.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: Then we'll briefly talk about what it says about the state of justice
0:54
SPEAKER_01: and accountability surrounding ICE encounters.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: Stick with us.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: I'm joined today by Kimberly Avalos, who was a journalist with the news movement.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: Kimberly recently released a documentary about her uncle,
1:24
SPEAKER_01: David Avalos,
1:25
SPEAKER_01: who lived in the United States for just under three years before making
1:29
SPEAKER_01: the difficult decision to self-deport to his home country of Ecuador in order
1:33
SPEAKER_01: to protect himself and his family.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: David's story is part of a growing trend as the U.S.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: government intensifies immigration enforcement.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: For many immigrants,
1:43
SPEAKER_01: increased scrutiny and the fear of detention or removal are forcing them to make
1:47
SPEAKER_01: an incredibly difficult choice to leave the country voluntarily and return to
1:51
SPEAKER_01: the places, circumstances, and challenges they originally left behind.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: This process is often known as self-deportation.
2:00
SPEAKER_01: Kimberly followed her uncle's journey from his final days in the United States
2:03
SPEAKER_01: through his flight back to Ecuador and into the early days
2:06
SPEAKER_01: of rebuilding his life there.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: Today she's here to talk about what it was like documenting that journey and
2:11
SPEAKER_01: to tell us a bit more about this deeply personal story.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Kimberly, welcome to the show.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
2:20
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to talk about the story behind the story.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: What inspired you to turn to your own family to talk about self-deportation?
2:27
SPEAKER_02: I've been covering immigration for a very long time.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: In fact, a few years ago, I did cover another self-deportation angle among DACA recipients.
2:36
SPEAKER_02: Didn't imagine for it to resurface in this way.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: But around three years ago,
2:40
SPEAKER_02: when my uncle arrived to the U.S.,
2:42
SPEAKER_02: I was very heavily covering the And that was at the same time
2:53
SPEAKER_02: that Ecuador was spiraling into violence.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: And that's when I coincidentally heard news that I had family members
2:59
SPEAKER_02: that were arriving to the border.
3:01
SPEAKER_02: Some of them did get caught up in the buses.
3:04
SPEAKER_02: I picked up
3:09
SPEAKER_02: That was when my uncle arrived and my cousins.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: So I think at that point, even though it was a very long time ago, my worlds kind of clashed.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: And a story that I was covering at work was also very related to something
3:23
SPEAKER_02: that was happening with my family.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: And they got caught up in those headlines.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: So I think he was very close to us throughout these years where he leaned
3:32
SPEAKER_02: on my family to navigate the asylum process and to It was very devastating
3:39
SPEAKER_02: for my family when we got news that he got that notice in the mail and the notice
3:44
SPEAKER_02: to report to an ICE office.
3:46
SPEAKER_02: And I experienced that as a niece first with my family.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: I grieved with them.
3:54
SPEAKER_02: We tried to make sense of the situation as best we could.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: We tried to explore alternatives for him.
4:00
SPEAKER_02: And I It wasn't until weeks after that I really started to think about this as
4:06
SPEAKER_02: a story and how maybe it wouldn't look like these aggressive ICE raids anymore.
4:12
SPEAKER_02: It would be this kind of like pressure and incentivizing of immigrants to leave voluntarily.
4:19
SPEAKER_02: And that's when I realized again that my uncle and my family were just a part
4:25
SPEAKER_02: of these headlines.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: When I realized that Sort of as a journalist,
4:30
SPEAKER_02: when you look for people who are experiencing these things and the impacts
4:37
SPEAKER_02: of policies, that's what we constantly look for, especially for video.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: And I just realized that he had such a perfect story in a way.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: He's been the recipient of seeing the impacts of this country's policies for
4:51
SPEAKER_02: a few years now, and it was having a very kind of tragic end.
4:55
SPEAKER_02: So...
4:57
SPEAKER_02: That's sort of how the seed was planted.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: Your uncle indeed has an incredibly compelling human story at the center of this.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: So in the documentary,
5:06
SPEAKER_01: you really take us to some of the inciting incidents that inspired your uncle
5:11
SPEAKER_01: to want to come to the United States to begin with,
5:14
SPEAKER_01: with the hope of getting asylum status that can
5:16
SPEAKER_01: then help bring his whole family one day to the United States for safety.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: So...
5:21
SPEAKER_01: Back in 2023, his two sons were kidnapped by members of the cartel and then held for ransom.
5:28
SPEAKER_01: And then your uncle gave up his car for collateral to bring his sons back home safely.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: That was one among a cascade of incidences and compounding pressures
5:39
SPEAKER_01: that inspired him to go up to the United States to seek asylum and
5:42
SPEAKER_01: then eventually seek safety for his whole family.
5:45
SPEAKER_01: Can you talk a little bit about This story and how it may speak to a lot of people
5:50
SPEAKER_01: who may need to make this decision to self-deport and some of
5:54
SPEAKER_01: the circumstances they may be coming back to as a result.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: It's certainly complex.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: My uncle and his sons were not the only family members I had that came to the border
6:05
SPEAKER_02: and are now in the U.S. And there is a lot of family that I still have in Ecuador.
6:10
SPEAKER_02: Thankfully, not all in the most dangerous hot spots or not even nearest the strongholds.
6:17
SPEAKER_02: But that is an ongoing issue that is a huge part of my life today and how I relate
6:24
SPEAKER_02: to my family.
6:25
SPEAKER_02: During this trip where I went back with my uncle,
6:28
SPEAKER_02: as he self-deported,
6:29
SPEAKER_02: I went to see my grandma,
6:30
SPEAKER_02: who I hadn't seen in three years because of the situation that had been escalating.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: The sense that this is not over is something that I really wanted to be clear
6:43
SPEAKER_02: to viewers,
6:44
SPEAKER_02: like the challenges that he will have to encounter while he's there is going to be
6:51
SPEAKER_02: an ongoing journey because the violence in Ecuador is nowhere near over.
6:58
SPEAKER_02: And he left for a reason and the reasons that he left are still there.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: They talked with my family who's still there, who didn't leave, especially on my mother's side.
7:09
SPEAKER_02: And these kind of adjustments that they have to make to their lives
7:12
SPEAKER_02: to not make themselves a target.
7:15
SPEAKER_02: The situation had been building So even in my visits before to family,
7:22
SPEAKER_02: it was already shifting over the course of a few years.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: Like I was told,
7:27
SPEAKER_02: you know,
7:28
SPEAKER_02: maybe don't wear your jewelry or don't take out your phone
7:31
SPEAKER_02: or probably not safe anymore to walk around on your own.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: Like, just make sure someone's with you all the time.
7:39
SPEAKER_02: It's still,
7:39
SPEAKER_02: I think,
7:39
SPEAKER_02: caught everyone by surprise when it reached that breaking point
7:42
SPEAKER_02: when cartels very much infiltrated the country.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: There's a huge narrative among people in the U.S. that migrants for economic reasons.
7:55
SPEAKER_02: And that is absolutely a reality.
7:58
SPEAKER_02: But asylum seekers are a very specific category of immigrants that feel
8:04
SPEAKER_02: that they are being persecuted or their lives are in danger or their families are
8:09
SPEAKER_02: in danger.
8:10
SPEAKER_02: And they come for protection, which is an international right.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: So...
8:15
SPEAKER_02: My uncle fell under that category.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: And I still think that in 2029,
8:22
SPEAKER_02: when his case reaches a judge,
8:23
SPEAKER_02: he has a very real possibility of being granted asylum.
8:28
SPEAKER_01: One of the main triggers that brought him to come to the decision
8:33
SPEAKER_01: to self-deport was receiving an order by ICE to appear before court,
8:38
SPEAKER_01: which is a kind of a routine process.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: But this didn't feel routine this time for your uncle.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: What that really meant or signaled for him.
8:49
SPEAKER_02: This honestly brings me back to three years ago as he was starting to learn what
8:54
SPEAKER_02: the requirements would be of him as an asylum seeker living in the U.S.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: And that was one of the things that we all had to explain to him.
9:01
SPEAKER_02: Like, well,
9:01
SPEAKER_02: you know,
9:02
SPEAKER_02: as part of this way of tracking immigrants
9:04
SPEAKER_02: and them just making sure you're still there and confirming the details
9:08
SPEAKER_02: of your case, you'll have to go to an ICE office now and then.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: And he did.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: He went several times.
9:14
SPEAKER_02: He even spent some time in North Carolina and he went to his check-ins there.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: So that was something that he was accustomed to.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: I think that everyone realized when the climate started to change and
9:34
SPEAKER_02: when there were news coming out that These appointments were now being used
9:39
SPEAKER_02: as opportunities to arrest and detain immigrants.
9:44
SPEAKER_02: And this was the first time during this climate that my uncle or either
9:50
SPEAKER_02: of my cousins got a notice.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: So he has been working with an attorney or had been working with an attorney
9:58
SPEAKER_02: on his case, on his asylum case.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: So he said, well, you kind of have options here.
10:04
SPEAKER_02: One, you can...
10:07
SPEAKER_02: Go to the appointment and there's a very real risk that you will be detained
10:15
SPEAKER_02: and coerced into deporting eventually.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: Or you can essentially not go, forego your asylum case and live as an undocumented person here.
10:28
SPEAKER_02: And my uncle had spent some time in detention already when he crossed the border.
10:33
SPEAKER_02: He was there for three months, and that was a very traumatic experience for him.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: I remember when he finally got to my dad's house and he had lost a lot of weight.
10:43
SPEAKER_02: That did not match the photos that I had seen of him before.
10:46
SPEAKER_02: And he always talks about that.
10:48
SPEAKER_02: And I think I didn't really understand why the fear of detention was greater than
10:54
SPEAKER_02: the danger in Ecuador to him.
10:56
SPEAKER_02: And I think What became clear in the conversations leading up to the documentary and
11:02
SPEAKER_02: while filming,
11:03
SPEAKER_02: that there's also this very real...
11:06
SPEAKER_02: You hear a lot about the government treating immigrants as if they're criminals.
11:13
SPEAKER_02: But it didn't really set in until later that my uncle was being made to feel like a criminal.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: And that really...
11:25
SPEAKER_02: Impacted him.
11:26
SPEAKER_02: Like he didn't really understand why he was detained in the first place.
11:31
SPEAKER_02: And then the possibility that he would be detained a second time for
11:36
SPEAKER_02: an
11:38
SPEAKER_02: unknown amount of time under what we've seen are terrible conditions
11:44
SPEAKER_02: or what we've heard reported are terrible conditions.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: So the kind of like visceral...
11:54
SPEAKER_02: rejection of that possibility that he displayed from the beginning.
11:58
SPEAKER_02: Like, this was not an option for him.
12:00
SPEAKER_02: And of course, there's pockets of Latino communities all around here.
12:04
SPEAKER_02: And he has seen, you know, people get arrested.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: They've seen ICE in their communities and in the communities that they work in,
12:13
SPEAKER_02: in the communities that their friends are in.
12:15
SPEAKER_02: So the constant kind of vigilance that he had to have So it's not just the fear
12:22
SPEAKER_02: of arrest, but it's like the constant, like, when are they going to show up?
12:26
SPEAKER_02: And even during his last couple of weeks in the U.S., he stopped working and he didn't have to.
12:33
SPEAKER_02: But he said, I'm not going to get arrested at the very last minute.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm not going to risk that.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm going to stay here.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: And he stayed inside.
12:41
SPEAKER_02: He stayed indoors for two weeks because he was so afraid of arrest.
12:46
SPEAKER_02: So it does go deep.
12:48
SPEAKER_02: And then when you think about The administration's intimidation tactics,
12:54
SPEAKER_02: like I saw that play out in real life,
12:56
SPEAKER_02: like the intimidation works and immigrants are living in fear.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: My uncle was in fear for this entire time,
13:04
SPEAKER_02: but even more so in a heightened way in his last few weeks in the U.S.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: And up until the very last day when he went to the airport,
13:10
SPEAKER_02: he was worried about encountering an ICE agent and being arrested just
13:14
SPEAKER_02: as he's trying to leave.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: You bring your camera through so many intimate moments in this documentary,
13:21
SPEAKER_01: and I told you before hitting record that there were at least a couple of moments in
13:25
SPEAKER_01: the documentary that really brought me to tears.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: It's very powerful, and it is the power of the human story that makes your...
13:33
SPEAKER_01: Your piece so impactful.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: I loved how when you were interviewing your uncle,
13:37
SPEAKER_01: there was a little beep that was going off because the smoke detector battery,
13:42
SPEAKER_01: I think, might have died.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: And you hear like this little beep, like routinely.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: I was like, man, that is so real.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: That's so like, I'm so glad that either you had to keep that in or you kept it in anyway.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what the situation was.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad it was in.
13:56
SPEAKER_01: I loved the little moment of like the dog scampering across the floor in the living room.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: And you even brought the camera to Driving up to the airport,
14:05
SPEAKER_01: getting in line at the airport,
14:07
SPEAKER_01: and I have said some hard goodbyes to family members in airports before.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: And without even needing to address it,
14:15
SPEAKER_01: you can see the kind of lurch or this rock in the stomach that you feel when
14:20
SPEAKER_01: a hard goodbye is coming or has already arrived, right?
14:24
SPEAKER_01: I felt that in the B-roll and in those little scenes that you had throughout the documentary.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: And I do encourage people that are listening to this podcast right now to click
14:34
SPEAKER_01: the link in our newsletter.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: It's about a 15-minute documentary, more or less.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: And well worth the time, absolutely.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: One of the first places that your uncle goes to once he arrives in Ecuador,
14:47
SPEAKER_01: he goes to a cemetery.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: I'd like for you to explain why this was one of the first places that he went to.
14:57
SPEAKER_02: When I was explaining to my uncle and making the formal request to film his journey,
15:02
SPEAKER_02: I was expecting a very different response from him.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: I was expecting fear.
15:09
SPEAKER_02: I was expecting hesitation.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: But he was remarkably open about documenting this.
15:17
SPEAKER_02: And it surprised me when I even...
15:20
SPEAKER_02: I really tried to be careful and like informed consent is a very big thing.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: So especially with my uncle,
15:25
SPEAKER_02: I was like, it's going to require me having a huge access to your life.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: And I need you to understand what that means.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: And I need you to understand how it relates to this wider story and why it's important.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: And so when I asked him about his plans specifically,
15:45
SPEAKER_02: like very specifically, I was very surprised that he told me that.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: Even when he told it to me, it felt private.
15:54
SPEAKER_02: And I immediately said, would you allow me to film that?
15:57
SPEAKER_02: Like, that's extremely crucial to your story.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: It's about what he lost, what a trip to the U.S. cost him.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: And even though he gave me permission and even though he was very clear with me
16:12
SPEAKER_02: about,
16:13
SPEAKER_02: yes, you can absolutely film it, but don't talk to me because I will not be okay.
16:18
SPEAKER_02: Like, don't, I won't be there for you.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: I'll just be there with my son.
16:23
SPEAKER_02: Even then,
16:23
SPEAKER_02: I don't think I was expecting him to,
16:27
SPEAKER_02: you know,
16:27
SPEAKER_02: especially with video,
16:29
SPEAKER_02: people get really freaked out about the camera and they change.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: They kind of filter themselves and there's this thing in your face and
16:36
SPEAKER_02: that never happened with him.
16:38
SPEAKER_02: And it didn't happen that day at the cemetery.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: And I was fully sobbing behind the camera.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: He broke down.
16:46
SPEAKER_02: And even during the interview, he said that, you know, that was his oldest son.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: And he said that of all his children,
16:57
SPEAKER_02: he loved him,
16:58
SPEAKER_02: like his son loved him the hardest and would like dedicate him songs and things like
17:04
SPEAKER_02: that.
17:04
SPEAKER_02: And
17:07
SPEAKER_02: him being far away when he was killed, I was there.
17:13
SPEAKER_02: When they got the news, it was devastating.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: They very, very strongly considered going back.
17:21
SPEAKER_02: And I think he'll always regret that he would have wanted to at least bury him, but he couldn't.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: He never saw him again.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: He always thought that if they were ever to go back to Ecuador,
17:32
SPEAKER_02: if the situation had calmed down,
17:36
SPEAKER_02: that he knew his son would be there to greet him at the airport,
17:38
SPEAKER_02: that he would be the first person to greet him.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: So he said that Because that's not going to happen.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: The first thing he would do when he got to Ecuador was go to see him at the cemetery.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: And I could actually kick myself because as I was recording, I clicked stop.
17:57
SPEAKER_02: And that's when he started saying things like,
18:00
SPEAKER_02: this was the price I paid for the U.S. Was it potentially all for nothing?
18:04
SPEAKER_02: He's no closer to asylum and there's no promise that he would get it.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: So I don't think he thinks it's worth it.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: And for those that are listening and haven't watched the documentary
18:18
SPEAKER_01: before listening to this episode,
18:19
SPEAKER_01: what you're describing,
18:20
SPEAKER_01: Kimberly, is that David's eldest son was killed by members of a cartel.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: He was driving a taxi and the cartel members had targeted the passengers.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: And they ended up killing him as well,
18:35
SPEAKER_01: perhaps in a misunderstanding,
18:36
SPEAKER_01: thinking that the passenger and the driver were accomplices together
18:40
SPEAKER_01: in whatever reason they were targeting the passenger.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: The son's name is or was Alexis,
18:47
SPEAKER_01: and he was killed while David was already in the United States seeking
18:51
SPEAKER_01: an asylum case.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
19:17
SPEAKER_01: I also come from a family of immigrants and the Pyrrhic process that comes
19:24
SPEAKER_01: with immigrating and acclimating to the U.S.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: is not lost on me as someone who has borne witness
19:29
SPEAKER_01: to what my own immigrant family members have gone through and are still going
19:34
SPEAKER_01: through.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: So the fact that he got off the plane to see his son immediately and everything
19:38
SPEAKER_01: that he said about I always love him and I'm always going to be there
19:43
SPEAKER_01: to keep him company is amazing.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: So heart-wrenching.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's something that I would find difficult to overlook when we talk
19:51
SPEAKER_01: about the impact ICE has had on immigrant communities in the U.S.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: and the impact that ICE has on multiple generations of communities here in the U.S.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: The process of telling the story of your family and self-deporting You know,
20:05
SPEAKER_01: how do you believe this story fits into this broader tapestry
20:09
SPEAKER_01: of immigration enforcement,
20:11
SPEAKER_01: the ballooning apparatus that ICE has
20:14
SPEAKER_01: with its something like $70 billion new funding from just a couple of months ago to
20:20
SPEAKER_01: the growing stigma against immigrants that we are seeing in this country?
20:23
SPEAKER_01: How does your documentary fit into this broader tapestry?
20:26
SPEAKER_01: What are you hoping that this story can kind of deliver to viewers and listeners?
20:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm excited.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: Always surprised at the knowledge gaps around how the system works.
20:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, just go to the comments on this video on YouTube.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: Like, now he can come back legally or he should be punished for breaking the law.
20:49
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, asylum is a legal route.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: And always this myth of the line, like, get in line.
20:56
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, there's no line.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: There's so much kind of Basic foundational knowledge that
21:04
SPEAKER_02: a general public doesn't have about how this system works.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: So I think any piece that I do is in hopes that you help fill those knowledge gaps.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: And in this case, for example, he's an asylum seeker, said that a million times.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: And people still think that, oh, he was an illegal.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: And I hate that word.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: I think that in this case,
21:26
SPEAKER_02: it's this kind of shift that Like I said in the beginning,
21:31
SPEAKER_02: towards this quieter strategy that the administration has said they're embracing.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: My uncle during the interview said, they mess with you psychologically.
21:42
SPEAKER_02: The fear here,
21:43
SPEAKER_02: the fear that's instilled,
21:45
SPEAKER_02: the fact that it's such an intentional part,
21:48
SPEAKER_02: I think is easy to miss because of the divisive kind of nature of this issue in
21:55
SPEAKER_02: the U.S.
21:57
SPEAKER_02: But We see it in direct aggressive ways.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: We see it with even unfortunately the killings that is already in the news again.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: But for them to kind of bet on that fear that they've instilled and trust
22:12
SPEAKER_02: that immigrants will choose to leave voluntarily after that and it's working,
22:18
SPEAKER_02: that's what I wanted people to realize are the consequences of these kinds
22:22
SPEAKER_02: of things, especially for
22:26
SPEAKER_02: This category of immigrants for asylum seekers that fled for a reason.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: They're self-deporting back to extremely dangerous situations.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: You always want to create windows for people, especially with video as a platform.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: You want to help people understand each other better
22:45
SPEAKER_02: by highlighting these lived experiences that you may not experience,
22:50
SPEAKER_02: that may not touch you directly, but
22:54
SPEAKER_02: Any human story has a universal theme that we can all relate to.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: And these feelings of, like, fear, of home, of family, of responsibility, of this man.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: Like, my uncle,
23:07
SPEAKER_02: which I hope came through in the documentary,
23:09
SPEAKER_02: has a very serious commitment to his identity as a father.
23:15
SPEAKER_02: And that,
23:17
SPEAKER_02: I think,
23:17
SPEAKER_02: I hope, came through in each of these chapters of the journey that we documented.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: So it's a universal human experience.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: And I think,
23:28
SPEAKER_02: I hope that while these abstract politics or something may be hard to grasp
23:33
SPEAKER_02: for some people,
23:34
SPEAKER_02: this window into one person or a community's story is something that becomes
23:42
SPEAKER_02: an access point.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: And it becomes a vehicle for people to understand each other better and understand
23:48
SPEAKER_02: the impacts of these rhetorics that feel far away, but have very real impacts.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: Kimberly, thank you so much for hopping on our show to talk about your documentary.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: Both Matt and I look forward to following your work and your reporting moving forward.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: You're always a friend to us and you're welcome on the show anytime.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: And thank you so much.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, Kimberly, for sharing such a heart-wrenching story with us.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: We highly encourage listeners to watch the film.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: You can find that linked on our substack.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: We're freely available on YouTube.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: Just Google the news movement.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: It'll pop right up or the film's title, Forced to Return.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: We're going to take a short break and then we're going to come back to discuss
24:27
SPEAKER_00: the FBI's reported plans to stop investigating ICE in the wake
24:31
SPEAKER_00: of two deeply traumatizing shootings.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: So stick with us.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, Kelly here.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: We founded This Week On ICE in February of this year,
24:44
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24:45
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24:50
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24:52
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24:54
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24:55
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24:56
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25:01
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25:05
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25:44
SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to This Week On ICE.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: So, Matt, The New York Times has reported that the FBI has ceased investigating ICE.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: Tell us what we know so far.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, The New York Times managed to get its hands on letters sent to FBI regional directors.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: You know,
26:00
SPEAKER_00: say you're running an FBI office in Arizona or Texas or something,
26:04
SPEAKER_00: you might have received one of these letters,
26:05
SPEAKER_00: essentially saying that the FBI will stop investigating ICE.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: It's actually on officers.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: It's on officers.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: So that's an interesting part.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: There's some discussion.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: So basically, the FBI was
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Previously,
26:24
SPEAKER_00: as part of these larger investigations into ICE-related shootings,
26:29
SPEAKER_00: ICE-related killings,
26:30
SPEAKER_00: one of the FBI's responsibilities was to investigate whether the person who got shot
26:35
SPEAKER_00: or somehow involved with ICE in some way had fought.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: Basically,
26:58
SPEAKER_00: I want to say up top that ICE and the DOJ both deny this is happening,
27:03
SPEAKER_00: but the New York Times is sticking by its reporting.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: It also included a statement of denial in its story saying that both ICE
27:09
SPEAKER_00: and DOJ are not admitting to this.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's part of a larger sweep that we've seen.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: It's a shooting of Joan Guerrero and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo last week,
27:20
SPEAKER_00: where this kind of quiet approach that Mark Wayne Mullen,
27:23
SPEAKER_00: the DHS secretary, publicly espoused is being just complacent.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: So independent oversight is falling away.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: I also wanted to just highlight our friend of the show,
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Austin Kocher,
27:47
SPEAKER_00: put out a Substack post this week showing that ICE arrests are near record levels.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: We already reported that at the end of June,
27:55
SPEAKER_00: there was a five-day period during which Absolutely.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: And when it comes to the narrowing of accountability measures or the narrowing of
28:31
SPEAKER_01: the levers that people can pull to hold ICE and DHS accountable
28:35
SPEAKER_01: for all these different directives,
28:37
SPEAKER_01: The major weather vane for me is body cameras and the flip-flopping of
28:42
SPEAKER_01: whether they will have body cameras, whether they won't have body cameras.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: It's an amazing point of jockeying in Congress as well.
28:48
SPEAKER_01: As we saw,
28:49
SPEAKER_01: there was a massive funding search for ICE in June where ICE received
28:54
SPEAKER_01: or DHS received $70 billion in extra funding and $20 million was allotted
29:00
SPEAKER_01: to body cameras.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: And so...
29:03
SPEAKER_01: When we look at the killings of Lorenzo Salgado Raujo,
29:07
SPEAKER_01: of Joan Sebastián Guerrero, we also see body cameras being a major hinge point here.
29:13
SPEAKER_01: ICE officers were not wearing body cameras when Lorenzo was killed.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: Joan Sebastián Guerrero,
29:18
SPEAKER_01: his killing, ICE officers were wearing body cameras, but they were turned off.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: And now it's a major point of contention where there's kind of this influx
29:27
SPEAKER_01: of questioning and Why aren't there body cameras?
29:30
SPEAKER_01: Why aren't ICE officers receiving body cameras in a timely manner
29:34
SPEAKER_01: when Kristi Noem herself in the wake of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis said
29:38
SPEAKER_01: in February that ICE officers will be wearing body cameras?
29:43
SPEAKER_01: The White House's response to this influx and criticism following the deaths
29:48
SPEAKER_01: of these two fathers was, oh, we're going to send out body cameras in 60 days.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: But to me,
29:55
SPEAKER_01: I'm like,
29:57
SPEAKER_01: Why didn't you guys already have the body cameras if this was already a point
30:01
SPEAKER_01: of discussion in February?
30:03
SPEAKER_00: They already said that they would send them out.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: They had already claimed that they had been sent out.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: And there's two things that come to mind with that.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: One is that in the response to these shootings,
30:12
SPEAKER_00: the reporters are Tom Homan has been going on Fox News and other friendly outlets
30:16
SPEAKER_00: and some not so friendly outlets where.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: He's being questioned about these shootings.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, well, they should have just complied.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, well,
30:23
SPEAKER_00: they were in vehicles that had emergency lights on and the officer ICE agents were
30:28
SPEAKER_00: in uniform.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: But we don't have video evidence showing that at all.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: And the other stories that ICE has told about it.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: Attempted rammings and all this stuff.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: It's proven it's collapsed upon further investigation.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: And so these body cameras being on could provide some clarity on how the interactions go down.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: But I doubt that in either of these two cases,
30:45
SPEAKER_00: they would have made ICE look any better,
30:47
SPEAKER_00: which I think accounts for part of why they are so unwilling to put them out.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: The other thing that comes to mind that I just do want to mention is
30:56
SPEAKER_00: that We know ICE has also constructed a database of dissenters
31:01
SPEAKER_00: and using facial recognition technology of people who have opposed ICE on
31:05
SPEAKER_00: the streets or who they suspect of being possibly undocumented folks in the country.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: If the FBI is backing off of investigating ICE,
31:29
SPEAKER_00: if ICE is impeding state investigations,
31:31
SPEAKER_00: which we've seen them do,
31:33
SPEAKER_00: if we have no way of independently holding accountable,
31:36
SPEAKER_00: if ICE is essentially investigating itself,
31:38
SPEAKER_00: then body cameras might be able to give us more context about ICE's activities,
31:43
SPEAKER_00: but I don't think they will meaningfully impede ICE activities.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: It's a very, very valid point.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: And I think the only way that we can In my opinion,
31:54
SPEAKER_01: that we could continue to see documentation and accountability is to look at really
31:58
SPEAKER_01: the individual investigations that are being done by such organizations
32:02
SPEAKER_01: as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: We have had a couple of those folks on our show before Human Rights Watch being one of them.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
32:11
SPEAKER_01: people have to basically keep showing up and showing out at the risk
32:15
SPEAKER_01: of being identified as a domestic terrorist.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: You're actively putting yourself in the fray.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: When you go to such places as Delaney Hall,
32:23
SPEAKER_01: as Adelanto ICE Detention Facility,
32:26
SPEAKER_01: it has become an incredibly fraught playing field, basically.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: And to your point,
32:31
SPEAKER_01: one more thing about these body cameras,
32:33
SPEAKER_01: too, is that Tom Homan had an interview with CBS's Face the Nation.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: And what I found so interesting,
32:39
SPEAKER_01: he said that the money that would have been for body cameras was held up
32:43
SPEAKER_01: by Democrats during the partial government shutdown.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: But that timing doesn't make any sense because they received that influx of money,
32:52
SPEAKER_01: $70 billion in June after the government shutdown.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: And so they had all this time to send body cameras.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: And suddenly they're going to send body cameras to the rest
33:03
SPEAKER_01: of ICE law enforcement agencies within 60 days.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the same thing Susan Collins said, right?
33:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: Her response after the shooting in Maine was,
33:12
SPEAKER_00: well, Democrats held up all of these safety things that we offered them.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's completely bad faith.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: It's inaccurate.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: And yet it's what we can come to expect from the spokespeople
33:20
SPEAKER_00: for this administration who are doing nothing but providing cover
33:23
SPEAKER_00: for this bad behavior.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: They're banking on people forgetting the timeline of all of this.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: They're banking on people misremembering.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: And then in hopes that they can reconstruct the narrative of how things went down,
33:36
SPEAKER_01: they can control what accountability actually looks like in their terms.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: And so basically,
33:43
SPEAKER_01: another reason to listen to our podcast every week is we try to get
33:45
SPEAKER_01: the story straight as best we can.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: And it will be a challenge for the next administration.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: I think whether it's Republican or Democrat,
33:52
SPEAKER_00: the next presidential administration is going to face blowback for this.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: We're already seeing that in the upcoming elections.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: All that to say, keep your eyes out.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: That's it for us this week, folks.
34:01
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34:04
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34:08
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34:10
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34:12
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34:16
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34:20
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34:22
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34:23
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34:24
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34:25
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34:27
SPEAKER_00: Remember, that's our new publication date.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: And in the meantime, stay safe and look out for your neighbors.