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A second ICE shooting in less than a week · This Week On ICE

0:07
SPEAKER_00: Pero la que más soñaba era ser papá.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Del buen momento que se dijo que tendría una princesa, todo en el cambio.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Siempre decía que a esa niña nada le faltaría.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Y así fue desde el momento en que la tuvo en sus brazos y sostuvo su pequeña mano.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Recuerdo que siempre la miraba y decía, está muy grande y hermosa.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Y se le salían las lágrimas.
0:33
SPEAKER_01: Él vivía por ella.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: From the moment he learned he would have a little princess, everything in him changed.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: He always said, that little girl will never lack for anything.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: And that's how it was.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: From the moment he held her in his arms and held her tiny hand, he never let her go.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: I remember he would always look at her and say, she's getting so big and beautiful.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to This Week On ICE for July 17th, 2026.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm Matt Kendrick.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: And I'm Kelly Kimball.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: You just heard Carolina Rojas Alvarez memorializing her late husband,
1:30
SPEAKER_02: Juan Sebastián Durán Guerrero,
1:32
SPEAKER_02: who was shot and killed by ICE in Biddeford, Maine on Monday.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: He was a 26-year-old Columbia National with a valid U.S.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: work permit and
1:39
SPEAKER_02: a social security number and was not the target of the warrants that ICE agents say
1:44
SPEAKER_02: they were attempting to serve.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: His wife and three-year-old daughter witnessed the killing while standing in their
1:49
SPEAKER_02: front yard where Juan had just left for work.
1:52
SPEAKER_03: ICE alleges that Juwan attempted to use his vehicle to ram federal officers,
1:56
SPEAKER_03: the same claim put forward by officials after the ICE officer shot Lorenzo Salgado
2:00
SPEAKER_03: Araujo in Texas last week and Renee Good in Minnesota in January.
2:05
SPEAKER_03: ICE alleged in its own statement that the victim was,
2:08
SPEAKER_03: quote, a threat to public safety without offering any details.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: The killing precipitated a rapid response from the community,
2:17
SPEAKER_02: with protesters attempting to enter Senator Susan Collins' offices and taking to the
2:21
SPEAKER_02: streets to demand ICE leave the state.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: The uproar has led ICE to claim on Tuesday that it was halting most of its
2:27
SPEAKER_02: traffic-related enforcement activities,
2:29
SPEAKER_02: although President Trump said in
2:30
SPEAKER_02: a statement on Thursday that he encouraged ICE to continue making traffic stops.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: So, Kelly, this has been a devastating week for us at the podcast and for the entire community.
2:45
SPEAKER_03: Tell us how this hit you and what we know about how this shooting went down.
2:48
SPEAKER_03: Often on this podcast,
2:49
SPEAKER_03: we have talked about the system of impunity,
2:52
SPEAKER_03: the broad sense of indignity and injustice.
2:56
SPEAKER_03: And I think this particular week,
2:59
SPEAKER_03: this particular story is just a massive capitulation and escalation of that.
3:04
SPEAKER_03: I have no words for what has happened to these two families,
3:08
SPEAKER_03: the family in Houston, the family in Bindford, Maine.
3:11
SPEAKER_03: But I don't know what $170 billion says to that statement, but if they have all of that money,
3:41
SPEAKER_03: Why was there a delay in wearing those body cams?
3:44
SPEAKER_03: Why is there such a delay in accountability?
3:47
SPEAKER_03: Why is there such a lack of robust and acceptable response from this law enforcement agency?
3:56
SPEAKER_02: I would go further than that.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we saw Susan Collins say that,
3:59
SPEAKER_02: in fact,
3:59
SPEAKER_02: Democrats have to take some responsibility for the lack of safety equipment like
4:02
SPEAKER_02: body cams because they rejected those provisions when they were offered by
4:04
SPEAKER_02: Republicans during the funding debate that partially shut down the Department of
4:06
SPEAKER_02: Homeland Security earlier this year.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: So I thought that was very disingenuous and a horrible thing for her to say,
4:10
SPEAKER_02: a horrible reaction for her to have.
4:11
SPEAKER_02: And regardless of whether
4:25
SPEAKER_02: These ICE agents have body cams.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: They shouldn't be shooting people and moving vehicles.
4:29
SPEAKER_02: So to give you kind of a breakdown of what was going on here, ICE was in Maine.
4:33
SPEAKER_02: They were attempting to serve an administrative warrant.
4:36
SPEAKER_02: So that's a warrant that ICE issues itself to...
4:39
SPEAKER_02: I want to repeat again that he had a legal work permit.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: He had a social security number.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: He was a taxpayer who was in the country legally.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: And when ICE agents attempted to
5:02
SPEAKER_02: Stop his car.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: They claim that he attempted to use his car as a ram.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: Once again, this is a claim we see them make repeatedly.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: They shot him while he was in the driver's seat.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: There's some horrible video.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: That has surfaced from immediately after the shooting where the car is making sort
5:16
SPEAKER_02: of uncontrolled loops,
5:17
SPEAKER_02: very slow loops in the center of an intersection before an ICE vehicle sort
5:19
SPEAKER_02: gently crashes into the car and stops it.
5:21
SPEAKER_02: ICE agents at that point pull a limp body from the driver's side door.
5:33
SPEAKER_02: and handcuff it.
5:33
SPEAKER_02: And there are eyewitnesses there.
5:34
SPEAKER_02: And I will say the eyewitness statements have been a little inconsistent on this,
5:36
SPEAKER_02: but there are eyewitnesses who say,
5:37
SPEAKER_02: at least one of them,
5:38
SPEAKER_02: who said that they heard the man that they pulled from the side of the car say that
5:41
SPEAKER_02: he had attempted to stop.
5:41
SPEAKER_02: Looking at the video myself, it looked like a dead body to me.
5:43
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure that witness's statement is reliable.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: So this man lost his life in a matter of minutes, and as far as we can tell, there was
6:02
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely no threat to officer safety or to, as ICE put it, the safety of the community.
6:05
SPEAKER_02: Kelly, I'd love to get into what we know about the ICE agent who committed this killing.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: A really in-depth dive from the Associated Press explored
6:10
SPEAKER_02: a history of violent behavior and mental illness with some pretty credible
6:13
SPEAKER_02: witnesses.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: What do we know about him?
6:23
SPEAKER_03: The man who allegedly shot Juan is an army veteran who,
6:25
SPEAKER_03: and this is in the words and the descriptions of his family members,
6:27
SPEAKER_03: who struggled with serious mental health issues since early childhood,
6:30
SPEAKER_03: and he never should have been given
6:32
SPEAKER_03: a badge and gun to allegedly protect America and America's streets.
6:35
SPEAKER_03: His name is David Rowlett,
6:36
SPEAKER_03: and his relatives have emphasized his history of violent behavior,
6:39
SPEAKER_03: the history of domestic violence.
6:41
SPEAKER_03: And so they...
6:54
SPEAKER_03: The family members told the Associated Press and have accused him of attacking women
6:58
SPEAKER_03: in his life over many years.
7:00
SPEAKER_03: They even shared
7:01
SPEAKER_03: a voicemail with the Associated Press from last winter in which he told
7:03
SPEAKER_03: a woman that he thought someone should slit her throat.
7:05
SPEAKER_03: And so this image of who this man who allegedly shot Juan, it underscores how...
7:18
SPEAKER_03: It goes against what the Department of Homeland Security has said about how it vets
7:22
SPEAKER_03: recruits,
7:23
SPEAKER_03: how it trains them,
7:25
SPEAKER_03: and really the hiring spree that we have seen since the beginning of Trump 2.0.
7:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
7:31
SPEAKER_02: Let's remember that part of these major funding deals that we've talked about for
7:35
SPEAKER_02: ICE included the rapid recruitment of agents.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: And that appears to be what happened with this particular officer.
7:40
SPEAKER_02: This leaves me speechless.
7:41
SPEAKER_02: The events of this week leave me absolutely speechless.
7:48
SPEAKER_03: I just want to end with the developments that we have so far, which isn't much.
7:52
SPEAKER_03: So Governor Janet Mills sent
7:53
SPEAKER_03: a letter to the state's congressional delegation just emphasizing the bare minimum,
7:56
SPEAKER_03: basically,
7:56
SPEAKER_03: that ICE officers need to have
7:57
SPEAKER_03: a minimum training requirements that need to be publicly posted,
7:59
SPEAKER_03: publicly on display.
8:08
SPEAKER_03: They need to have a regulation on the use of masks and face coverings.
8:10
SPEAKER_03: They need to make sure that they identify themselves in an enforcement situation.
8:12
SPEAKER_03: And they need to wear body cameras.
8:14
SPEAKER_03: And listen,
8:14
SPEAKER_03: these were the same conversations that Congress was having leading up to the partial
8:17
SPEAKER_03: government shutdown earlier this year.
8:19
SPEAKER_03: And Democrats lost that bid for many of these requirements.
8:35
SPEAKER_03: And ICE ended up receiving a windfall of an additional $70 billion.
8:38
SPEAKER_03: Without these requirements, we may well see more of these instances, more of these killings.
8:42
SPEAKER_03: And this is the thing that I fear the most, more of a lack of accountability in these contexts.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: We're going to stay on top of this story.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: I sincerely hope we don't come to you next week with yet another shooting to report upon.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: But we're going to be right back with two great interviews from our friends and
9:02
SPEAKER_02: colleagues in the field this week.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: The first one is with Camila Forte of Borderless Magazine.
9:06
SPEAKER_02: And since the start of Trump's second term,
9:07
SPEAKER_02: the corner has become this major weather vane for the community.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: You know,
9:21
SPEAKER_02: underscoring how the fear of ICE raids,
9:23
SPEAKER_02: the fear of detention has affected this community so reliant on day labor income.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: And then if you hang around till after the break,
9:30
SPEAKER_02: we're going to be joined by Rachel Schmidtke of Refugees International to discuss
9:35
SPEAKER_02: her work with deportees sent to Costa Rica rather than back to their home countries.
9:39
SPEAKER_02: This is a process called third party deportation.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: We've been talking about a lot on the show.
9:43
SPEAKER_02: And just before we get into those interviews, one housekeeping note.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: From now on, we will be publishing new episodes on Wednesday rather than Friday.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: So expect the next drop on the 22nd.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: And let's get into it with Camille.
10:00
SPEAKER_03: Welcome back to This Week On ICE.
10:01
SPEAKER_03: We're joined now by Camila Forte, a reporter and photojournalist at Borderless Magazine.
10:07
SPEAKER_03: She has just published an investigation that focuses on one Chicago street corner to
10:11
SPEAKER_03: reveal how ICE's Operation Midway Blitz and immigration raids have deeply impacted
10:16
SPEAKER_03: both day workers and the contractors that hire them.
10:20
SPEAKER_03: We're going to talk about how immigration enforcement has impacted the local
10:23
SPEAKER_03: community and economy And also what the grassroots response has been so far.
10:27
SPEAKER_03: Camila, welcome to the show.
10:29
SPEAKER_03: Thank you for having me.
10:32
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
10:33
SPEAKER_03: So your investigation hones in on the corner of Belmont and Milwaukee Avenue,
10:39
SPEAKER_03: just outside of a Shell gas station in Chicago.
10:42
SPEAKER_03: So our listeners are based all over the country.
10:45
SPEAKER_03: And so for those who aren't familiar with the city,
10:48
SPEAKER_03: can you explain what initially drew you to this particular corner and And what the
10:53
SPEAKER_03: significance it has to the city's day labor network.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: When we were looking into day labor corners in Chicago,
11:02
SPEAKER_00: we originally reached out to a community organization known as Latino Union,
11:06
SPEAKER_00: which is part of a larger day labor corner advocacy network across the country.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: And they were able to connect us to corners where their volunteers were particularly
11:16
SPEAKER_00: active in their advocacy and monitoring of the situation on the ground.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: And as we were doing research,
11:23
SPEAKER_00: we found out that this day labor corner,
11:25
SPEAKER_00: which is actually in the Avondale neighborhood,
11:28
SPEAKER_00: was one of the maybe oldest and most established ones in the city.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: There's records of this day labor corner going back to the early 90s that we could
11:35
SPEAKER_00: find and it might have been established prior.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: And so it seemed like
11:37
SPEAKER_00: a good case study site to see how things had changed over time
11:39
SPEAKER_00: a more reliable way.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Mm hmm.
11:46
SPEAKER_03: How did Operation Midway Blitz impact the day labor network?
11:49
SPEAKER_03: And then what has it been like since then?
11:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, day labor work has always been a difficult thing to take on.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: A lot of these workers are working in areas that are maybe owned by other people.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: It's very common for them to seek work outside of Home Depots and Shell Gas stations, which are
12:10
SPEAKER_00: owned by different folks who may or may not want them there.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: And so tensions between them and owners have always been present.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: That's always been a reality.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: But I think what we saw with Midway Blitz was that because they're known sites,
12:19
SPEAKER_00: they were being targeted pretty heavily during the height of Midway Blitz as sites
12:22
SPEAKER_00: that they could just go to and find people to pick up.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: And so that created a lot of disruption to the day labor workers,
12:36
SPEAKER_00: but also to the sites that were being targeted by ICE because there were violent
12:40
SPEAKER_00: arrests.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: There was pepper spray being deployed.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: There was all sorts of things.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: And I think that made business owners and people living nearby these day labor
12:48
SPEAKER_00: corners maybe wearier of workers and made the contractors who were going to pick up
12:53
SPEAKER_00: folks weary of So you really get into this community and really talk about these
12:56
SPEAKER_00: human stories at the real heart of your investigation.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, one of whom is a Honduran immigrant named Mario.
13:16
SPEAKER_03: And as he wrote,
13:17
SPEAKER_03: he saw two of his friends get detained by ICE agents last October,
13:19
SPEAKER_03: and those two friends were deported back to Honduras.
13:21
SPEAKER_03: And despite the risk of Mario himself getting arrested by ICE,
13:23
SPEAKER_03: he still regularly returned to that street corner to seek out day labor,
13:26
SPEAKER_03: even though he said he wouldn't be able to prove his immigration status immediately
13:28
SPEAKER_03: if detained.
13:41
SPEAKER_03: Due to the fact that he lost his green card, his social security card and driver's license.
13:46
SPEAKER_03: This is one of many stories that you identify in your piece.
13:49
SPEAKER_03: In interviewing so many types of people caught in the web of this massive
13:54
SPEAKER_03: immigration crackdown,
13:56
SPEAKER_03: what did you learn about the people that tend to be targeted,
13:59
SPEAKER_03: the people that tend to be at the center of these stories?
14:03
SPEAKER_00: It's a wide range of people who are seeking work out.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: One of the experts that we spoke to for the story mentioned that although
14:10
SPEAKER_00: a lot of them are undocumented,
14:11
SPEAKER_00: there's also folks that maybe are documented in work and contracting or other sorts
14:15
SPEAKER_00: of manual labor that may not have consistent work or reliable work that go to these
14:18
SPEAKER_00: places.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: And that was definitely something we heard over and over is that although it may be
14:22
SPEAKER_00: the stereotype that it's
14:31
SPEAKER_00: undocumented workers that don't do anything else to go to these corners.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: It's actually,
14:35
SPEAKER_00: the reality is it's a much wider range of skill sets,
14:38
SPEAKER_00: of backgrounds, of even legal status.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And so the people that are being caught up in these raids are concerned about being
14:44
SPEAKER_00: detained by ICE.
14:45
SPEAKER_00: It may just be a matter of their own physical safety.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: It may be a matter of getting caught up in a web that's trying to be as wide as possible.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: And so I think the
14:57
SPEAKER_00: Thisweekonice.com
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Borderless had reported on day laborers as recently as 2024.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And what we were seeing at the time,
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Chicago had gotten
15:19
SPEAKER_00: a huge influx of migrant buses coming from Texas and other states.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: And so there was very high competition for very limited work.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: And that was the situation in 2024.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: What we saw this year is that there is still very limited work,
15:28
SPEAKER_00: but the amount of people showing up on a daily basis is much lower.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Now, we went there over the course of two months pretty consistently.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: The max number of people I saw at varying times was maybe 12 workers,
15:45
SPEAKER_00: and a lot of workers are very hesitant to go up to cars.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: They don't recognize immediately.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Some of them will arrange pickups ahead of time with contractors they know.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: And so that creates maybe
16:12
SPEAKER_00: a harder situation for folks that were used to the more one-off pickups.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: And the work that's coming in is very, very limited.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: Some people will not see work for weeks because few people are showing up to try to hire them.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: What's that done to people's wages?
16:31
SPEAKER_02: Like, because there's less demand, are their wages down?
16:34
SPEAKER_02: Or because there are fewer workers, can they command higher wages?
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Not really.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: I think the wages have been pretty, pretty low for a long time.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: They're so desperate.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: They're willing to work for anything at this point.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: There's already been
16:47
SPEAKER_00: a decades-long issue of wage theft at Day Labor Corners in Chicago,
16:51
SPEAKER_00: which is what Latino Union was originally created to address.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And that's definitely something that we were still hearing is people would get
16:57
SPEAKER_00: picked up for work.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: And because they,
16:59
SPEAKER_00: you know,
17:00
SPEAKER_00: this was their one job that week,
17:01
SPEAKER_00: they maybe wouldn't ask any questions and then wouldn't get paid for weeks and weeks
17:05
SPEAKER_00: and weeks, if at all.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: And I think as the pressures of the larger economy have also come down on
17:11
SPEAKER_00: construction companies or restaurants or whoever it is that's picking up workers,
17:16
SPEAKER_00: that has also in turn impacted how much they're willing to pay for day rate work.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: The piece talks about how these day laborers are navigating real fear of detention,
17:27
SPEAKER_02: real economic stress, fear of job opportunities, each that we just mentioned.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: Can you tell us a little bit about How the community is reacting.
17:38
SPEAKER_02: Are people able to find support from other members of their neighborhoods,
17:42
SPEAKER_02: other
17:43
SPEAKER_00: organizations, NGOs, things like that?
17:44
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned earlier, Latino Union has been around for quite some time.
17:46
SPEAKER_00: But I think as Midway Blitz started to tick up,
17:49
SPEAKER_00: they were really in
17:51
SPEAKER_00: a unique position where they could create these larger networks and connect with
17:54
SPEAKER_00: rapid response groups to do more of the day labor corner monitoring that they've
17:59
SPEAKER_00: been doing for quite some time.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: They had
18:01
SPEAKER_00: a piece of legislation that they were trying to advocate for in Illinois to get
18:03
SPEAKER_00: state support for safe hiring corners,
18:05
SPEAKER_00: which is something that has been done successfully in Texas and other parts of the
18:09
SPEAKER_00: country.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: People go to
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And that way that would allow the Latino Union volunteers to focus on these more
18:21
SPEAKER_00: workers' rights issues.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: But that has kind of been put on the back burner because the crisis hit such
18:46
SPEAKER_00: a breaking point in October.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: And even though we have seen kind of like a downswing of reports and
18:50
SPEAKER_00: a lower amount of volunteer reports,
18:56
SPEAKER_00: I guess involvement in neighborhood monitoring over this summer,
18:57
SPEAKER_00: we have seen an uptick of ICE presence again.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: There were ICE detentions happening in that part of Chicago as early as June.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Just a 15-minute drive from where the State Labor Corner is, a man was arrested in Albany Park.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: And we have seen just like overall an uptick in ICE activity, even though it's a lot quieter.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Than it was before,
19:24
SPEAKER_00: which kind of aligns with,
19:25
SPEAKER_00: I think, the Mullen strategy of keeping ICE off the headlines.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you brought up Mark Wayne Mullen's sort
19:30
SPEAKER_02: of wider approach that uses this.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: I'm curious what your outlook is towards ICE enforcement over the next several
19:34
SPEAKER_02: months that was still warm in Chicago.
19:35
SPEAKER_02: And also,
19:35
SPEAKER_02: how do you feel that the community is preparing for possible higher levels of
19:39
SPEAKER_02: scrutiny and violence from ICE?
19:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: I think there are rapid response groups that are definitely on edge.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: The biggest issue they've had is that as ICE has decreased from the headlines,
19:56
SPEAKER_00: they have also had a decrease in signups and volunteer involvement.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: And so I think they're trying to find ways.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: to kind of tap into that again and strengthen these networks and preparation.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: There is still efforts to kind of track activity on the ground,
20:10
SPEAKER_00: but the slower pace and the less flashy raids and caravans or what they were doing
20:12
SPEAKER_00: last year have definitely led to a lack of attention, perhaps.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: It's not to the same level as it was
20:28
SPEAKER_00: In June of last year,
20:29
SPEAKER_00: where you could walk around
20:30
SPEAKER_00: a Chicago street and see at least 10 people with whistles around their necks,
20:33
SPEAKER_00: that is not as present anymore.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: But I think the need is still there.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: I also think
20:39
SPEAKER_00: a lot of rapid responders were really burned during Midway Blitz because they were
20:44
SPEAKER_00: targeted by federal officials afterwards.
20:47
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people were threatened and that created
20:50
SPEAKER_00: a fair bit of fear for some community members that were already really out there.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: And so I think as Mullen is trying to work That has kind of been mirrored in some
21:01
SPEAKER_00: rapid response groups where even if the monitoring is happening,
21:04
SPEAKER_00: it's less public than it used to be.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, Camilla.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate
21:09
SPEAKER_00: having you
21:09
SPEAKER_02: on.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: Goodbye.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Camilla and our friends at Borderless for joining us.
21:13
SPEAKER_03: Up next,
21:14
SPEAKER_03: we'll be joined by Rachel Schmidt Key of Refugees International to discuss her work
21:18
SPEAKER_03: with deportees trapped in limbo in Costa Rica,
21:21
SPEAKER_03: far from their home countries and their lives in the United States.
21:28
SPEAKER_03: Hey guys, Kelly here.
21:29
SPEAKER_03: We founded This Week On ICE in February of this year,
21:32
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21:34
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22:21
SPEAKER_03: Welcome back to This Week On ICE.
22:22
SPEAKER_03: We're here with Rachel Schmidtke,
22:23
SPEAKER_03: who is a senior advocate for Latin America at Refugees International.
22:25
SPEAKER_03: She is currently working in Costa Rica,
22:26
SPEAKER_03: where she is looking to document the new realities of dozens of third-country
22:30
SPEAKER_03: deportees from the United States,
22:31
SPEAKER_03: many of whom have no connection whatsoever to the country.
22:33
SPEAKER_03: Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, BBC,
22:44
SPEAKER_03: The UK's Channel 4 News, El País, and The Hill, among many other outlets.
22:48
SPEAKER_03: Rachel, welcome to the show.
22:50
SPEAKER_03: Thanks so much, Kelly and Matt, for having me.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: Very glad to have you.
22:55
SPEAKER_02: Let's start with your current project.
22:57
SPEAKER_02: You're based in Costa Rica.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: You've been following the developments of these third country deportations from the
23:01
SPEAKER_02: United States very closely.
23:02
SPEAKER_02: And I think many listeners will realize,
23:03
SPEAKER_02: but Costa Rica receives the second highest number of third country deportees from
23:07
SPEAKER_02: the United States after Mexico, which of course receives the overwhelming majority.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: Can you tell
23:10
SPEAKER_02: a little bit about the situation on the ground and what you've been tracking so far
23:13
SPEAKER_02: in your project?
23:13
SPEAKER_02: This second iteration of deportations, because Costa Rica received 200,
23:22
SPEAKER_01: deportees, including 81 children back in 2025.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: But the Costa Rican government and the United States government sort of formalized
23:30
SPEAKER_01: this agreement in March of this year.
23:32
SPEAKER_01: So starting in April of 2026,
23:35
SPEAKER_01: Costa Rica began to receive 25 deported people per week here to Costa Rica.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: So now we're now at almost 260 people that have been deported here since April from
23:47
SPEAKER_01: all different nationalities.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you could close your eyes and point to a globe.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: And probably hit one of the countries of people that have been deported here from
23:55
SPEAKER_01: Azerbaijan, Vietnam, China, India, Brazil, Colombia.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: They run the gamut.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: As you mentioned, many people had never set foot in Costa Rica before.
24:05
SPEAKER_01: I spoke with one person who didn't even know the name of the country that he was in
24:09
SPEAKER_01: while we were here, while we were interviewing him.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine the confusion that this generates.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: So people arrive here often not knowing that they're coming soon.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: And so part of the work that I'm doing is just trying to monitor,
24:23
SPEAKER_01: one, how they were treated while they're in the United States.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: Did they have protection concerns had they applied for asylum?
24:30
SPEAKER_01: And how they arrived here to Costa Rica,
24:32
SPEAKER_01: were they given information about it, as well as how they're being treated?
24:36
SPEAKER_01: Currently,
24:37
SPEAKER_01: the Costa Rican government,
24:39
SPEAKER_01: compared to other countries that receive third country deportees,
24:42
SPEAKER_01: which is over 30 countries now,
24:44
SPEAKER_01: they do In theory,
24:47
SPEAKER_01: offer the chance to seek asylum or to be given a one-year humanitarian permit.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: But we're trying to monitor to make sure that actually happens because,
24:57
SPEAKER_01: as you can imagine, it's not quite even across the board.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: So that's a little bit about what we're doing.
25:02
SPEAKER_01: RI's been one of the first people on the ground to monitor the implementation of this.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: Rachel,
25:17
SPEAKER_03: before we get to some of the testimonies and some of the stories of the individuals
25:23
SPEAKER_03: and families that you have interviewed,
25:24
SPEAKER_03: I'm curious about the contents of this agreement.
25:27
SPEAKER_03: So beginning April, it was 25 deportees per month.
25:31
SPEAKER_03: I'm wondering what else may be in accord with this agreement,
25:35
SPEAKER_03: if Yeni, you have a sense of any of the perceived incentives.
25:39
SPEAKER_03: Why is Costa Rica even agreeing to do this?
25:41
SPEAKER_03: Do you have a sense of that at all?
25:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the details in the agreement is 25 deportees per week.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: Oh, per week.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: Just wanted to, yeah, just mention the scale of the agreement.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: And basically, it's a very short
25:57
SPEAKER_01: Which is concerning to us because that means that there's not a lot of,
26:00
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:00
SPEAKER_01: parameters around what people who have been deported,
26:03
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:03
SPEAKER_01: what their rights are,
26:05
SPEAKER_01: what kind of the protections that they deserve when they come in country are, etc.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: But basically,
26:10
SPEAKER_01: the MLU just states the amount of people that they agreed to,
26:13
SPEAKER_01: that the Costa Rican government can exceed that number if they would like,
26:17
SPEAKER_01: and that the International Organization for Migration,
26:20
SPEAKER_01: the IOM, will be covering the costs of the deportees' lodging and services in full.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: And they are receiving that money from the United States government.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: So essentially the United States is paying for people to be housed here in various
26:36
SPEAKER_01: hotels and given a certain number of services and things like that.
26:40
SPEAKER_01: I think with the intention that they take assisted voluntary return through the IOM,
26:46
SPEAKER_01: obviously the IOM does screenings and things like that to sort of try to prevent
26:51
SPEAKER_01: People who have fears of returning to the country from going back.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: So there are
26:55
SPEAKER_01: a lot of people that are here in Costa Rica who may not want to be here,
26:58
SPEAKER_01: but can't return home.
26:59
SPEAKER_01: All that to say that one of the markers of these third country agreements in general
27:04
SPEAKER_01: is that they often happen in a sort of, there's a coercive nature to them.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: So under the first iteration with those 200 people that got sent last year,
27:13
SPEAKER_01: the former president of Costa Rica said,
27:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
27:16
SPEAKER_01: we don't want to upset our economic,
27:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
27:19
SPEAKER_01: So I think that there is,
27:20
SPEAKER_01: of course,
27:20
SPEAKER_01: a fear of having,
27:21
SPEAKER_01: you know,
27:21
SPEAKER_01: tariffs or some other sort of repercussion if the country doesn't sign on to this
27:25
SPEAKER_01: agreement.
27:25
SPEAKER_01: I do want to say that Costa Rica,
27:26
SPEAKER_01: kind of in the first time in its history,
27:28
SPEAKER_01: is really moving away from some of the traditions that really marked it as
27:31
SPEAKER_01: a country of human rights, of promoting peace, of being a very kind of
27:45
SPEAKER_01: We don't have an army here.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: They want to build up the police force.
27:49
SPEAKER_01: So I think that there's probably a coercive element or an economic threat element to it.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: But there may also be some incentives that Costa Rica is receiving for having signed
27:58
SPEAKER_01: this agreement.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what they are.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's safe to say that there's a little bit of a characteristic happening here.
28:17
SPEAKER_02: I think that's really typical just to comment on the carrot and stick approach.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: We've heard of some of the financial agreements with Iswatini,
28:22
SPEAKER_02: a few other countries receiving money,
28:23
SPEAKER_02: but those are,
28:23
SPEAKER_02: just so listeners are aware,
28:24
SPEAKER_02: those are often obscure when we talk about third-party deportations.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: Let's turn now to the actual folks that you've been interacting with and interviewing.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: I was wondering if you could highlight a few stories,
28:31
SPEAKER_02: anecdotes that you've heard while preserving the anonymity of the folks who have
28:33
SPEAKER_02: been deported there to the extent that you can.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: I think one that's top of mind,
28:47
SPEAKER_01: and I just saw him yesterday,
28:49
SPEAKER_01: is a man from
28:50
SPEAKER_01: a South American country who was threatened by armed groups in his country and had
28:55
SPEAKER_01: to flee with his whole family to the United States.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: He has a wife and children.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: They were all in an active asylum case.
29:02
SPEAKER_01: And he was picked up by ICE,
29:03
SPEAKER_01: detained,
29:03
SPEAKER_01: and then basically told that his claim wasn't valid and that his asylum case was now
29:07
SPEAKER_01: finished and he was deported back to Colombia.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: While he was deported, his wife gave birth to his third baby and the baby went into the NICU.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: So he obviously separated from a newborn that he's never met,
29:23
SPEAKER_01: obviously very distressed that his wife was going through this by herself,
29:28
SPEAKER_01: recrossed the border to try to join his family and to meet his child.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: And he was detained again at the border and deported here to Costa Rica.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: So he's never met his newborn.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: The baby is over a month old now.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: He's never met him.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: He's currently applying for asylum in Costa Rica.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: You know, trying to see what will happen with that, if he can reunify with his family here.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, again,
29:51
SPEAKER_01: he was very frustrated because he said, you know, I did everything the right way.
29:55
SPEAKER_01: I applied for asylum.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: I was in proceedings.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: I had my court hearing coming up.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: And ICE picked me up.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, it was just such a fast-moving process.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: And then he got deported here without You know,
30:08
SPEAKER_01: any kind of consent given or anything like that.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: So that's a story that I think is really heartbreaking.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: And it's emblematic, I think, of the level of family separation that we see.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: There's another case of another man from the same country who, again,
30:24
SPEAKER_01: fled very serious persecution in his country,
30:27
SPEAKER_01: very serious harms and remade his life in Los Angeles.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: And then again, was picked up by ICE.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: His asylum claim was denied.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: His entire family, in this case, received orders of deportation.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: He was deported and then recrossed.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: And he hasn't seen his children in over a year.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: So he said things like,
30:48
SPEAKER_01: you know, I'm just missing out on time and missing out on seeing them grow up.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: You know, they haven't been with their father in so long.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: And there's a strain on his marriage.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know what he's going to do because he can't go back to Columbia.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know how he would ever be able to go back.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: To the United States.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: So there's stories like that,
31:04
SPEAKER_01: that are just,
31:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:05
SPEAKER_01: people who are,
31:06
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:07
SPEAKER_01: living with their heart in another country and they're heartbroken psychologically,
31:11
SPEAKER_01: dealing with very,
31:12
SPEAKER_01: very difficult things with really no kind of good options for them.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: So those are sort of two stories that have really stood out to me.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: Of course, there's also other stories of people who just don't know what to do.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: They're trying to work here in Costa Rica, have not been able to get a work permit.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: So they're working informally.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: who have kids back in their home country that they're trying to provide for.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: There's just a lot of stories of this issue of just people really struggling.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: They're in this sort of limbo.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: They don't know what to do next.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: They've got maybe a humanitarian permit for the rest of the year.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: So they're like, well, maybe I will just bide my time until something changes.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: But I think the level of uncertainty and emotional devastation that they experience,
31:55
SPEAKER_01: not to mention the fact that they have maybe had businesses or Cars or homes or
32:00
SPEAKER_01: other sort of tangible property that they've lost.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: I talked to one man who said he lost like $50,000 in the span of just this last
32:08
SPEAKER_01: year,
32:09
SPEAKER_01: paying for lawyers,
32:10
SPEAKER_01: paying for a smuggler to try to recross, all this kind of financial loss as well.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people are in debt and that they can't pay it back.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: So just a lot of really devastating stories.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: Before we move on,
32:23
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to ask as well about the children you mentioned,
32:27
SPEAKER_02: I think 81 children who came in that first flight.
32:28
SPEAKER_02: Are they able to receive education?
32:30
SPEAKER_02: Are they able to receive appropriate care for surely what's been a traumatic incident for them?
32:36
SPEAKER_01: So most of the people of those 200 are not here anymore.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: Most of them went back to their home countries.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: Again, very concerning.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: We don't know if they returned back to harm.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: It's very likely that that was the case.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: While they were detained,
32:49
SPEAKER_01: they were not given any kind of access to education with Very little actual
32:53
SPEAKER_01: humanitarian care.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: A lot of these people were from Eastern Europe, so they were not used to the heat.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: A lot of kids just like really uncomfortable suffering,
33:01
SPEAKER_01: not to mention the trauma that they had faced when they were detained in the United
33:06
SPEAKER_01: States.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: I met one family whose 12-year-old was separated from her for over a month in ICE detention.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: And so he began to wet the bed and had obvious symptoms of very serious trauma.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: They ended up staying in Costa Rica for a little bit longer.
33:19
SPEAKER_01: The people that Eventually,
33:21
SPEAKER_01: left this detention center after the Costa Rican Constitutional Court ruled that
33:24
SPEAKER_01: they couldn't be detained there.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: Yes, they were given access to education.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: And the few that have stayed in Costa Rica that we know of, those kids are enrolled in school.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: The parents are trying to work again because in that first 200 flight,
33:38
SPEAKER_01: they were not Latin Americans.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: Many of them are still struggling to learn the language.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: So the parents aren't working.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: Thankfully, there's this really lovely Quaker community.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: In Costa Rica that has taken in several of the families and agreed to host them for
33:53
SPEAKER_01: over a year for free while they figure out kind of their next step.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: So it's a really beautiful, I think, example of solidarity here.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: But all that to say, children is specifically really suffered under that first agreement.
34:05
SPEAKER_01: Thankfully,
34:06
SPEAKER_01: in this second iteration,
34:07
SPEAKER_01: only one child so far has been deported and he was deported with his father.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: And I believe they are already back in Romania.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:16
SPEAKER_03: I'm curious about the experience day to day for folks that have been deported here.
34:21
SPEAKER_03: I imagine it's very, very different from those who may be deported to other countries.
34:24
SPEAKER_03: As you had mentioned earlier,
34:26
SPEAKER_03: that there are agreements with over 30 countries,
34:27
SPEAKER_03: at least that we know of, and at least at the time of this recording.
34:31
SPEAKER_03: I imagine when you think about deportees that are going to see caught prison in El Salvador...
34:37
SPEAKER_03: It's a very different experience.
34:39
SPEAKER_03: And I'm wondering when they're put up in these hotels,
34:41
SPEAKER_03: they have freedom to leave the hotel if they so choose.
34:43
SPEAKER_03: They have freedom to actually seek out work.
34:45
SPEAKER_03: They have freedom to go to this Quaker community.
34:47
SPEAKER_03: How does that compare to the realities of perhaps deportees in other countries with
34:52
SPEAKER_03: other very different agreements?
34:53
SPEAKER_03: What's the spectrum here of experience?
34:56
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is very different.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: I think the first iteration really was more similar to many other countries where
35:01
SPEAKER_01: people are sent, they are detained.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: Their rights are extremely violated,
35:05
SPEAKER_01: denied, even you could probably say akin to torture in some aspects.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: Definitely in Siquot, torture was absolutely something that people experienced.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: So in that first iteration,
35:15
SPEAKER_01: I think there was
35:17
SPEAKER_01: a similarity to many of the other agreements where it's very egregious,
35:21
SPEAKER_01: the rights violations that are occurring.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: I think what happened,
35:24
SPEAKER_01: and something that is a testament to Costa Rica and civil society,
35:27
SPEAKER_01: to the human rights groups that operate here, is that they pushed back extensively.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: on the Costa Rican government,
35:33
SPEAKER_01: which resulted in this constitutional court ruling in Costa Rica that prohibited
35:39
SPEAKER_01: Costa Rica from doing this again.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: So Costa Rica, the government cannot detain people.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: Not to say that they wouldn't if they could,
35:45
SPEAKER_01: it's just that legally they would be in huge trouble if they did.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that that is a good thing.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: It is a sign that the civil society here is robust.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: The human rights organizations that operate here are really strong and the
35:57
SPEAKER_01: government is susceptible to pressure, which is a good thing.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: We'd like to see that maybe happen in other countries where governments could become
36:05
SPEAKER_01: more susceptible to pressure either internally from human rights groups or others or
36:09
SPEAKER_01: externally through things like the Inter-American Human Rights Commission,
36:13
SPEAKER_01: for example,
36:14
SPEAKER_01: if it's not in America or other types of rights commissions in other regions of the
36:18
SPEAKER_01: world.
36:18
SPEAKER_01: The train has sort of left the station here.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: All these agreements are already being implemented.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: So how do we mitigate the most harm?
36:25
SPEAKER_01: How do we ensure that people at least have access to some sort of status that they can work?
36:31
SPEAKER_01: That they can do things when they've been,
36:32
SPEAKER_01: because they've been forced into countries that they don't want to be in that they
36:35
SPEAKER_01: may have never been before.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: And there are a lot of challenges when something like that happens.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: It's an extremely traumatic event to happen to someone.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: So at least if they can have a little bit more control Over their lives.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: I think that's something that we're aiming for.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: And not to say that people here in Costa Rica aren't struggling with that lack of control.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: That's certainly an issue, but at least they're not being detained.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: They have freedom of movement.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: And there are people, there are watchdogs here.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: That are monitoring and meeting with the government and trying to ensure that they
37:09
SPEAKER_01: are being protected and being afforded the rights that the government said that they
37:13
SPEAKER_01: would be afforded,
37:14
SPEAKER_01: which I think is not the case in most of these third country agreements.
37:20
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
37:20
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to continue talking about it a little bit because you mentioned
37:23
SPEAKER_02: a little bit earlier, and I think you've written in the past about how the U.S.
37:27
SPEAKER_02: has pressured Costa Rica to violate its own human rights law.
37:29
SPEAKER_02: And yet Costa Rica has at least a hundred year history of being a stable country with strong
37:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: And so I'll speak a little bit.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: My mother is Costa Rican and I'm half Costa Rican.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: So I'll speak
38:01
SPEAKER_01: a little bit from personal experience as well as just the temperature check that I'm
38:04
SPEAKER_01: getting here.
38:06
SPEAKER_01: But I think for many people,
38:07
SPEAKER_01: it's devastating to know that your country abolished its army in 1948,
38:12
SPEAKER_01: has invested so heavily in these strong institutions and education and public
38:16
SPEAKER_01: services and human rights.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: And Costa Rica has never been a country that has deported people.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, people have had relatively...
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Relative freedom of movement transiting through the country, for example.
38:28
SPEAKER_01: And so to see the sort of pressure from the United States,
38:32
SPEAKER_01: as well as
38:33
SPEAKER_01: a growing number of Costa Ricans who are turning their back on that tradition in
38:37
SPEAKER_01: exchange for maybe
38:39
SPEAKER_01: a sense of more security because of increased criminality in certain areas or
38:43
SPEAKER_01: narco-trafficking,
38:44
SPEAKER_01: I think is really scary for many people as they see it as a slippery slope, like
38:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay, if we agree to take these 25 deportees a week, what's next?
38:53
SPEAKER_01: Are we going to have concentration camps like ICE detention centers in Costa Rica?
38:58
SPEAKER_01: They already built this sort of like knockoff,
38:59
SPEAKER_01: like say quote, here in Costa Rica that they're going to start using soon.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: And so I think for the Costa Rican public,
39:04
SPEAKER_01: particularly these organizations that have always worked with refugees on human
39:06
SPEAKER_01: rights issues, it's really devastating to see the reputation
39:17
SPEAKER_01: The standard that Costa Ricans have come to expect when it comes to treating other
39:19
SPEAKER_01: people eroded so rapidly,
39:20
SPEAKER_01: especially the fact that it was already shocking the first time it happened and the
39:24
SPEAKER_01: fact that it's now enshrined in this more formal agreement that's going to be taking
39:27
SPEAKER_01: place for who knows how long.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: I think people are very worried and very upset that their government is kind of
39:30
SPEAKER_01: kowtowing to the United States.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: Costa Rica and the United States have always had a good, friendly relationship, but I think that
39:47
SPEAKER_01: You know,
39:57
SPEAKER_02: eroding your own human rights record for the sake of another country's deportation
40:00
SPEAKER_02: and anti-immigrant agenda does not say well with people here.
40:02
SPEAKER_02: When we've spoken before off the record,
40:03
SPEAKER_02: you mentioned meeting refugees from as far afield as China,
40:06
SPEAKER_02: Azerbaijan, West Africa, all over South America.
40:07
SPEAKER_02: You mentioned earlier in this interview someone who did not know that they were in Costa Rica.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: So for these folks who are so far afield and so far from their homes,
40:14
SPEAKER_02: what are their lives like there and what are their hopes?
40:16
SPEAKER_01: The language barrier is a massive issue.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: Thankfully, again,
40:18
SPEAKER_01: learning from the previous experience,
40:20
SPEAKER_01: the IOM is providing interpretation for people here.
40:21
SPEAKER_01: So they are being given information in their native languages.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: Initially, when they get these group sessions that they attend at the hotels.
40:26
SPEAKER_01: However,
40:27
SPEAKER_01: if they want to get a work card,
40:28
SPEAKER_01: for example,
40:28
SPEAKER_01: they have to go by themselves to the immigration office here and ask for it.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: How can they ask for it if they don't speak the language?
40:49
SPEAKER_01: And Costa Rican immigration does not have translation services for Uzbek language,
40:54
SPEAKER_01: for example,
40:55
SPEAKER_01: or Vietnamese or Nepalese or Azerbaijani or any other of these languages that Costa
41:00
SPEAKER_01: Rica just traditionally has never received people from those countries before.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: So there is no language capacity here to do that.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the onus to access the rights
41:12
SPEAKER_01: That are being afforded to people here is that they have to ask for it themselves.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: So one, they have to know that those rights are available to them.
41:20
SPEAKER_01: Not everyone understands off the bat what is and what isn't available.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: And two, they have to go ask for it.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: Again, very difficult.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: So I think a lot of people are basically just languishing in the hotel.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: They can't work, obviously, because they don't speak the language.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: So I think for a lot of people,
41:38
SPEAKER_01: It's very difficult because they're not being able to access things that they should
41:40
SPEAKER_01: be able to access.
41:41
SPEAKER_01: They don't understand why they were sent here and they don't understand what they're
41:43
SPEAKER_01: going to do next.
41:43
SPEAKER_01: There are some people who, again,
41:45
SPEAKER_01: like really face serious protection issues and they're not going to go back home.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: So they're trying to like figure out next steps that they should apply for asylum
41:50
SPEAKER_01: here and kind of figure out if they can live.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: in Costa Rica or trying to figure out if there's some way for them to get access to
42:09
SPEAKER_01: go to another country.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people are really interested in getting settlement to another place.
42:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that that's really an option for them,
42:17
SPEAKER_01: but that's something that many people have expressed.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: So in terms of hopes,
42:21
SPEAKER_01: I wish I could say that people have have planned for the future or have some sort of
42:26
SPEAKER_01: outlook about what's going to happen to them here.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: But the majority of people that I've spoken to are literally living in the day by day.
42:33
SPEAKER_01: They're not planning for much further out than the next couple of weeks,
42:37
SPEAKER_01: especially the people that don't speak the language because they are entirely
42:41
SPEAKER_01: dependent on the government here in Costa Rica or the IOM or other organizations to
42:48
SPEAKER_01: basically afford them the ability to like eat, live, you know, survive here.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: So I think for those that don't speak the language,
42:58
SPEAKER_01: that don't understand the culture, they are facing excessive Absolutely.
43:02
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
43:26
SPEAKER_02: That's it for us this week.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for listening.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: You can reach out to us at thisweekonice at gmail.com with questions, comments, tips.
43:30
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43:32
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43:33
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43:35
SPEAKER_02: So stay safe, look out for your neighbors, and we'll see you next time.