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A Minnesota Dad Takes on ICE · Question Everything

0:06
Speaker 1: From KCRW and Placement Theory, this is Question Everything. Brian
0:09
Speaker 1: Reid here with a special episode off our regular schedule.
0:13
Speaker 1: Because of the snowballing constitutional emergency in Minnesota, ICE has
0:17
Speaker 1: killed American citizens in the streets. Now two journalists, Don
0:22
Speaker 1: Lemon and independent Minnesota reporter Georgia Fort, have been arrested
0:25
Speaker 1: for covering a protest. The government is going after people
0:29
Speaker 1: who are documenting what federal agents are doing, both quote-unquote
0:32
Speaker 1: official journalists and ordinary Minnesota residents who have reordered their
0:37
Speaker 1: lives to observe ICE agents. Our team has been talking
0:41
Speaker 1: to Minnesotans all week, trying to understand what life is
0:43
Speaker 1: like there right now, what people feel is important that
0:46
Speaker 1: we cover. And while doing this, our managing editor, Kevin Sullivan,
0:50
Speaker 1: he ended up on the phone with a former colleague
0:52
Speaker 1: of his named Michael Corey. Mike lives in St. Paul
0:56
Speaker 1: with his wife and two kids. He's a former data journalist.
0:59
Speaker 1: That's how he and Kevin know each other, from the
1:01
Speaker 1: Center for Investigative Reporting. Mike also worked for a while
1:04
Speaker 1: at the Minnesota Star Tribune, though these days he's a
1:06
Speaker 1: historian at a university. Kevin was calling Mike because he'd
1:10
Speaker 1: seen a Facebook post Mike had written hours after ICE
1:13
Speaker 1: agents shot and killed 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Preddy while
1:18
Speaker 1: Preddy was filming them a week ago today. In the post...
1:22
Speaker 1: Mike wrote about the fear he and his family were feeling,
1:25
Speaker 1: even as a white family living in an affluent area.
1:28
Speaker 1: He had gotten involved in some local organizing efforts himself,
1:31
Speaker 1: and Kevin was reaching out to him to look for
1:33
Speaker 1: leads and ideas. But as he was talking to Mike,
1:36
Speaker 1: Kevin messaged me and said, I think we should just
1:38
Speaker 1: run this phone call. And that's what we're going to do.
1:41
Speaker 1: Because hearing from Mike, he captures so much of what's
1:44
Speaker 1: happening on the ground right now in Minnesota. In this crucible,
1:48
Speaker 1: minute by minute, regular people are inventing new ways of
1:52
Speaker 1: to get and provide information that they need to stay
1:55
Speaker 1: safe and that they can trust. They're trying however they
1:58
Speaker 1: can to hold the 3,000 federal agents who swarm the
2:02
Speaker 1: Twin Cities accountable to document what they're doing. And Mike's
2:05
Speaker 1: become part of this. Since ICE began its operation, he's
2:09
Speaker 1: gotten involved in the group chats on Signal, the encrypted
2:12
Speaker 1: messaging app that in recent weeks tens of thousands of
2:14
Speaker 1: locals have come to rely on for sharing information. Mike's
2:18
Speaker 1: shown up to record ICE agents after getting tips on Signal.
2:21
Speaker 1: that agents are going after somebody nearby.
2:24
Speaker 2: I'm not doing anything. I'm not impeding you. You're embarrassing yourself.
2:27
Speaker 2: You're embarrassing this country. You're embarrassing this country.
2:31
Speaker 3: You are everything that is.
2:32
Speaker 2: Wrong with this country. We're all just standing here, man.
2:35
Speaker 2: No one's impeding anybody. Get back from what?
2:38
Speaker 1: Mike doesn't consider himself a journalist anymore. He doesn't consider
2:41
Speaker 1: himself an activist either. Those terms feel like they're mattering
2:44
Speaker 1: less and less right now. Mike just believes in helping people,
2:48
Speaker 1: he says. Here's our managing editor, Kevin Sullivan, on the
2:51
Speaker 1: phone this week with Mike Corey.
2:55
Speaker 4: Tell me again, like, what do you say about how
2:56
Speaker 4: weird it is being there?
2:58
Speaker 2: I need people to understand just, like, how overwhelming and
3:00
Speaker 2: intense this is, just, like, day after day after day.
3:04
Speaker 2: It's not just a story of protests. It's a story of, like,
3:08
Speaker 2: ICE agents just completely disrupting the life of a whole
3:11
Speaker 2: state and just making everyone feel unsafe. And just, like,
3:14
Speaker 2: my kids having to live in this environment where we're somehow, like,
3:17
Speaker 2: trying to give them a normal childhood. In this completely
3:20
Speaker 2: abnormal situation. It's just a very, very strange existence. And I, like,
3:25
Speaker 2: if I choose to be, I'm about as safe as
3:27
Speaker 2: anyone can be. But no one is safe because you
3:29
Speaker 2: got these guys, like, driving around, like, crazy and ramming people.
3:33
Speaker 2: I mean, they literally, like, ram people if they think
3:36
Speaker 2: that you're following them or if they just, like, see
3:38
Speaker 2: that your name is Hispanic. Like, they will ram you.
3:40
Speaker 2: You're just going about your daily life. You see abandoned
3:43
Speaker 2: cars every day where presumably ICE had, like, picked someone
3:46
Speaker 2: up and just left them. Like the other day, there
3:49
Speaker 2: was a car that had been left running for so
3:52
Speaker 2: long that there was an icicle going from the tailpipe
3:54
Speaker 2: to the ground and it had just been left running.
3:57
Speaker 1: Wow.
3:58
Speaker 2: And that is like a daily occurrence to see that.
4:00
Speaker 2: So even when you don't see the ice agents, it's
4:02
Speaker 2: just like pervades every part of life. And it is
4:06
Speaker 2: just so bizarre feeling like you are taking on the U.S.
4:10
Speaker 2: government just by being even remotely compassionate and that somehow
4:16
Speaker 2: in some ways we're winning. But it is utterly exhausting.
4:20
Speaker 2: And also, it's just like, we remember this from after
4:23
Speaker 2: George Floyd was murdered. That feeling of just constant anxiety, adrenaline.
4:29
Speaker 2: It's just so asymmetrical. You both have to somehow go
4:32
Speaker 2: on doing your job while this crazy invasion is happening. Yeah.
4:38
Speaker 4: Just want to circle back to like that Facebook post.
4:41
Speaker 4: You wrote, you know, you woke up exhausted after a
4:44
Speaker 4: cold but triumphant March. Then you saw news of another
4:47
Speaker 4: ice shooting. We realized it was time to get the
4:50
Speaker 4: kids ready for basketball. And then you were wondering, should
4:53
Speaker 4: we go? And that struck me because like you said,
4:57
Speaker 4: you're a big corn-fed Minnesota boy. White guy.
5:01
Speaker 2: Well, Wisconsin, but yeah.
5:03
Speaker 4: You know what I mean. But like to think that you...
5:07
Speaker 4: And your family feel unsafe.
5:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. Why? It's a couple of reasons. One is because we,
5:15
Speaker 2: we live in a diverse city and we live in
5:17
Speaker 2: a diverse city intentionally. And so like, if you're going
5:20
Speaker 2: to participate in public life in a diverse city, you're,
5:23
Speaker 2: you're going to be around people who are not white.
5:26
Speaker 2: And so just like participating in life in the city,
5:28
Speaker 2: like you're, you're, you're in spaces with people who are
5:31
Speaker 2: more at risk and intentionally. So, but also like, The
5:35
Speaker 2: rec centers in St. Paul, like where they play the
5:37
Speaker 2: basketball games, the city has invested a lot of money
5:40
Speaker 2: in building nice rec centers in neighborhoods that were traditionally underserved.
5:43
Speaker 2: And so just the rec centers specifically that we're going
5:45
Speaker 2: to go to, like these are in neighborhoods that are
5:48
Speaker 2: like intensively being targeted by ICE. So like one fear is, well,
5:52
Speaker 2: maybe they actually show up at the rec center just
5:55
Speaker 2: so they can do some numbers. But also, like I said,
5:57
Speaker 2: they just like they drive crazy and they ram people.
6:00
Speaker 2: And so like you just have to like be aware
6:01
Speaker 2: of these super aggressive drivers that might be around. They're
6:05
Speaker 2: very unpredictable. They will do weird stuff.
6:08
Speaker 4: Right. So it looks like you're being very active in
6:12
Speaker 4: the activist movement there.
6:14
Speaker 2: What are you doing? It's kind of a mix, and
6:17
Speaker 2: I will be a little circumspect, but I will say
6:20
Speaker 2: that there's people doing mutual aid, there's people doing rapid response,
6:24
Speaker 2: there's people doing patrolling in different venues. Patrolling is like
6:29
Speaker 2: you have a planned time where you're going to show
6:31
Speaker 2: up and walk or drive around a specific area And
6:34
Speaker 2: your main job is to, like, alert people if you
6:37
Speaker 2: do see ice. And there's, like, commuting, which is, like,
6:39
Speaker 2: driving around and following ice. That's among the most dangerous things.
6:43
Speaker 2: I generally don't do that because it is pretty dangerous.
6:46
Speaker 2: And a lot of people are just doing a mix
6:48
Speaker 2: of all of those things. And it really did go, like,
6:50
Speaker 2: from those early weeks to, like, there's hundreds of people
6:53
Speaker 2: doing stuff to now, like I said, there's tens of thousands,
6:56
Speaker 2: if not hundreds of thousands of people. It's so... amazing
7:00
Speaker 2: like what people have organized and what people have done
7:03
Speaker 2: in a truly organic way there is not a central
7:06
Speaker 2: organization and i think that is like hard for people
7:08
Speaker 2: to believe but like it really is self-organizing like set
7:12
Speaker 2: up a chat in your neighborhood with people you know
7:14
Speaker 2: and that's largely what people do and they're very local
7:18
Speaker 2: like the next neighborhood over there's a different chat that
7:20
Speaker 2: i'm not in and i don't know anything about is
7:22
Speaker 2: it a signal chat is that what you mean they're
7:24
Speaker 2: all signals yeah it's pretty much all signal it started
7:26
Speaker 2: out like people just like texting and now there's like
7:30
Speaker 2: DIY dispatchers and there's people just doing plate checks. But
7:35
Speaker 2: it's all organically. Plate check basically is people set up
7:40
Speaker 2: forms for like, hey, if you have confirmed ice in
7:43
Speaker 2: a vehicle, take down their license plate and you add
7:46
Speaker 2: that to the database. So there's this database of thousands
7:50
Speaker 2: of license plates that are allegedly ice plates. And so
7:53
Speaker 2: now people can search that database. And so if you're
7:56
Speaker 2: either out on patrol or you just pass a plate...
7:59
Speaker 2: You can either text the chat like, hey, give me
8:02
Speaker 2: a plate check on this one, and someone else will
8:04
Speaker 2: look it up. Or now there's even bots that search
8:06
Speaker 2: that database. If you look at all these chats, it's
8:09
Speaker 2: just like plate check, blah, plate check, blah, plate check, blah.
8:11
Speaker 2: And it's just thousands and thousands of them a day.
8:13
Speaker 2: And the problem was that they change their plates every day.
8:17
Speaker 2: They move them around to different cars. So this got
8:20
Speaker 2: very complex. And so the trick is just figuring out, okay,
8:23
Speaker 2: who do we trust? How much does this need to
8:26
Speaker 2: be vetted? There's always this risk that surveillance really is
8:29
Speaker 2: happening and you're going to get targeted.
8:31
Speaker 4: Well, they can monitor signal chats. I thought the whole
8:33
Speaker 4: point of signal was that they couldn't.
8:36
Speaker 2: You don't really know who's in there. And so you
8:38
Speaker 2: have to assume that like people have managed to find
8:40
Speaker 2: the link because like one person giving away the link
8:43
Speaker 2: to the wrong person. Like the other day I was
8:45
Speaker 2: doing a school patrol and someone put in the chat
8:50
Speaker 2: for the school patrols like, hey, give me a plate
8:52
Speaker 2: check on this plate. And then someone said, oh, actually,
8:55
Speaker 2: that's my plate. well, okay, now you're just exposed that
8:59
Speaker 2: this person has this license plate. And so if someone
9:01
Speaker 2: is in there, that's maybe a risk. And it sounds paranoid,
9:06
Speaker 2: but again, theoretically, these people have the entire resources of
9:08
Speaker 2: the U.S. government at their disposal. And so I think
9:12
Speaker 2: it's a real thing.
9:12
Speaker 4: I'm just curious, like your journalist had on now, like
9:16
Speaker 4: how are you able to communicate, organize when it's hard
9:20
Speaker 4: to know who to trust?
9:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, So after George
9:25
Speaker 2: Floyd was murdered, I was working for the Star Tribune.
9:28
Speaker 2: And in my sense of them was that media was
9:31
Speaker 2: at the center of getting information out, like on a,
9:34
Speaker 2: on a momentary basis. And my Twitter was a big
9:35
Speaker 2: part of that. And this feels really different. Like I
9:39
Speaker 2: am getting my news from the signal chats and maybe
9:42
Speaker 2: like hours later, the Star Tribune will report on the
9:45
Speaker 2: same thing. But like this, it's happened more than once
9:48
Speaker 2: when Alex pretty was shot on Saturday. Like the thing
9:50
Speaker 2: I mentioned in my post. I was texting with one
9:53
Speaker 2: of my reporter friends and I told her that that
9:55
Speaker 2: shooting had happened like because the signal chats know right
9:58
Speaker 2: away and there were hundreds of people on the scene
10:01
Speaker 2: so fast. And so I think like for people who
10:04
Speaker 2: are plugged in, they are getting their news from signal,
10:07
Speaker 2: not from the media. We all know that local media
10:12
Speaker 2: just continues to get hollowed out and hollowed out and
10:15
Speaker 2: hollowed out. And to me, it's really fallen below the
10:17
Speaker 2: threshold of like what, It's really possible to cover these
10:21
Speaker 2: things at the level they should be covered at. Even
10:24
Speaker 2: in the Star Tribune, for a long time, their homepage
10:27
Speaker 2: did not reflect to me the gravity of what was happening.
10:30
Speaker 2: We had thousands of federal agents, unprecedented level invasion of
10:35
Speaker 2: a U.S. city, and they're still running business stories over
10:41
Speaker 2: the scroll line. I do think it contributed to the
10:45
Speaker 2: lack of understanding for a while that people had about
10:47
Speaker 2: what was really going on. I really think like the
10:50
Speaker 2: news is getting shared on Signal. That's how people who
10:53
Speaker 2: are involved are getting all of their news. And you
10:55
Speaker 2: can see this now in like right-wing groups being like,
10:57
Speaker 2: look at these Signal chats. Like clearly it's like George
11:01
Speaker 2: Soros or something, blah, blah, blah. And then I think
11:04
Speaker 2: all of us are just like, look, I'm as surprised
11:05
Speaker 2: as you are that this many people signed up, but
11:08
Speaker 2: it really is just like the soccer moms and the PTO.
11:11
Speaker 2: Like that's what's doing it. One of the things I
11:14
Speaker 2: think is interesting is like, okay, so all this information
11:16
Speaker 2: I'm talking about is like, So there's this database of
11:20
Speaker 2: like thousands of interactions where ICE has like stopped people
11:23
Speaker 2: or arrested people. All that's completely unvetted. And so I
11:27
Speaker 2: think like for me as a data journalist, if someone says, hey,
11:30
Speaker 2: can we do something with that data? That raises questions
11:33
Speaker 2: for me because like I can't verify that data. And
11:36
Speaker 2: I know that a lot of it is going to
11:37
Speaker 2: be wrong. But that's also really what's going on. And
11:40
Speaker 2: that's like the best available source. And so I think
11:43
Speaker 2: like covering something like this has really been a challenge
11:45
Speaker 2: for the media community. because ideas about how you're going
11:50
Speaker 2: to document things or the reliability of sources, all of
11:54
Speaker 2: that's out the window. The federal government's not going to
11:56
Speaker 2: give you any information, and then the things they do
11:57
Speaker 2: give you are going to be a lie. And, like,
12:00
Speaker 2: state and local, like, are just not resourced to give
12:03
Speaker 2: you reliable data. It's a challenging story to cover. I
12:07
Speaker 2: saw someone the other day say on Blue Sky, like, wow,
12:10
Speaker 2: Star Tribune should really get, like, a special Pulitzer or
12:13
Speaker 2: something for their coverage. And I got to say, like,
12:15
Speaker 2: And don't get me wrong, I have colleagues I respect
12:18
Speaker 2: very highly at the Star Tribune, but I think that's bullshit.
12:21
Speaker 2: I think you should give Signal a Pulitzer. Really what's
12:29
Speaker 2: most needed for me is just being places and frankly
12:34
Speaker 2: using my whiteness that does convey some protection to just
12:40
Speaker 2: be present in the spaces and sometimes just directly meeting
12:44
Speaker 2: these guys. Because I have to say, some of the
12:48
Speaker 2: times when I have seen them, it does throw them
12:50
Speaker 2: off when it's like a white dude with a beard
12:53
Speaker 2: who is yelling at them. Can you tell me about
12:55
Speaker 2: any specific incidents? Yeah. So this was before Christmas. This
12:59
Speaker 2: was when there was more daily ice activity in Cedar Riverside,
13:03
Speaker 2: where the Somali community is. And we just got a
13:07
Speaker 2: text that said, hey, ice agents are here. They're arresting people.
13:12
Speaker 2: And so a bunch of us like all converged to
13:15
Speaker 2: the scene. And it was wild. Cause like we, we
13:18
Speaker 2: got like, it was like three or four blocks away
13:20
Speaker 2: and we get there. And within seconds, like a small
13:24
Speaker 2: community member, like flags me and several other people down
13:27
Speaker 2: and says, come in here. They're in the back of
13:30
Speaker 2: this building. And so we're like filming with our phone.
13:33
Speaker 2: You're on private property. And my reaction was just like, okay,
13:39
Speaker 2: I don't know this person. I'm going in the back
13:41
Speaker 2: of this building. I don't know what's going on. But
13:44
Speaker 2: I go in there with several other people, and we're filming,
13:47
Speaker 2: and immediately we see that these two agents have shoved
13:50
Speaker 2: this young black man up against the wall.
13:53
Speaker 4: I have my ID!
13:55
Speaker 2: Come on, let's just look at his ID! Just look
13:58
Speaker 2: at his ID! And he was just screaming, like, I
14:00
Speaker 2: am a U.S. citizen. I am a U.S. citizen. I
14:02
Speaker 2: have my ID. I can show you my ID. I'm
14:04
Speaker 2: a U.S. citizen. And they just keep saying, we don't care.
14:08
Speaker 2: We're going to find out. And they drag this guy out.
14:11
Speaker 2: Back up. That's all you got to say is back up.
14:14
Speaker 2: I'm not doing anything. I'm not impeding you. You're embarrassing yourself.
14:18
Speaker 2: You're embarrassing this country. We're yelling things like, he says
14:22
Speaker 2: he's a citizen. What are you doing? Like, you don't
14:23
Speaker 2: have a right to be here. Get out of our town.
14:26
Speaker 2: They dragged that guy into a car, drove him away,
14:28
Speaker 2: and he was held. I forget for how long. And he's,
14:32
Speaker 2: this is a story that's like, he appeared with Mayor
14:34
Speaker 2: Fry and with the police chief. Like, he was a U.S. citizen.
14:36
Speaker 2: He was not lying. Like, that was all completely true.
14:39
Speaker 2: And so just to like see them just directly targeting
14:42
Speaker 2: someone who was insisting the whole time, I am a citizen,
14:45
Speaker 2: I have ID, and they were not interested, was really
14:48
Speaker 2: galvanizing for me. And so then about 20 minutes later,
14:53
Speaker 2: everyone who had responded to that was just walking around
14:57
Speaker 2: the neighborhood to see if they would come back. And
14:59
Speaker 2: they did. And at that point, they pulled into this
15:02
Speaker 2: one street in Cedar Riverside, which was a huge strategic
15:05
Speaker 2: mistake and something that if you were where here locally
15:07
Speaker 2: you would know not to do because there's really only
15:09
Speaker 2: one way in and one way out of Cedar Riverside.
15:11
Speaker 2: And there's also just like tons of traffic there. And
15:14
Speaker 2: so they immediately kind of got like parked in like
15:16
Speaker 2: there and were kind of stuck. And so then they
15:18
Speaker 2: didn't know what to do. What are you going to
15:20
Speaker 2: do when you find out he's an American citizen? Are
15:22
Speaker 2: you ever going to apologize? Are you going to apologize
15:24
Speaker 2: to him and his family for putting him in the
15:26
Speaker 2: back of a car? And so we're all yelling at
15:29
Speaker 2: these guys, like, get out of our town. You don't
15:30
Speaker 2: belong here. Like, you're violating people's rights. And like what
15:34
Speaker 2: I feel like I always want to say to these
15:36
Speaker 2: guys is And it's like, what are you going to
15:38
Speaker 2: do in 10 years? What are you going to tell
15:40
Speaker 2: your kids? What are you going to tell your grandkids?
15:42
Speaker 2: Are you proud of what you're doing right now? And
15:45
Speaker 2: some of them will respond back like, yeah, I am actually.
15:48
Speaker 2: But not a lot of them. And my impression, that
15:53
Speaker 2: does make an impact on some of them. I'm not
15:54
Speaker 2: saying it changes their behavior. But they know. No one's
15:57
Speaker 2: touching you.
15:58
Speaker 3: I'm right here.
15:58
Speaker 2: Are you going to tell your mom this is what
16:00
Speaker 2: you do with your time? What are you going to do?
16:02
Speaker 2: What are you going to do when this is all over?
16:04
Speaker 2: What are you going to tell her 10 years from now?
16:06
Speaker 2: What are you going to tell your kids? Look, we're
16:11
Speaker 2: not going to let this go. This is going to
16:13
Speaker 2: follow you for the rest of your life. I'm not
16:15
Speaker 2: saying that because I'm concerned about you, but I want
16:18
Speaker 2: you to know that. You are making a decision right
16:21
Speaker 2: now that is going to follow you the rest of
16:22
Speaker 2: your life. What are you going to do when this
16:24
Speaker 2: is all over? Everyone's going to know you guys are
16:26
Speaker 2: doing this shit. Is this what you want with your life?
16:30
Speaker 2: Just to have that experience of just saying this to
16:33
Speaker 2: somebody who has a lot of guns and pepper spray
16:36
Speaker 2: and lots of ammo, it's pretty wild. And so when
16:40
Speaker 2: the federal government's narrative is like, look at all this violence,
16:43
Speaker 2: where these brave agents are being met with all this violence.
16:46
Speaker 2: And I'm just like, they're the ones with guns. They're
16:50
Speaker 2: the ones with pepper spray, using it indiscriminately. And I
16:53
Speaker 2: saw them using it indiscriminately against people who were not
16:56
Speaker 2: threatening them. They're the ones who are going out of
16:59
Speaker 2: their way to shove people and be extremely confrontational. They're
17:02
Speaker 2: getting yelled at. And so for them to talk about Violence,
17:06
Speaker 2: I think, is so telling, but also just absurd, that
17:10
Speaker 2: I feel like people here have been so incredibly patient
17:14
Speaker 2: and disciplined. And so just hearing these narratives over and
17:18
Speaker 2: over again, that somehow we are doing violence by yelling
17:22
Speaker 2: at somebody, I think is just crazy. My dad's a
17:26
Speaker 2: retired police officer. And so I've spent my entire life
17:29
Speaker 2: around police officers who I respect and police officers who
17:32
Speaker 2: really scare me. I've seen the full gamut. And as
17:35
Speaker 2: a journalist, like, interacting with law enforcement, like, and covering
17:38
Speaker 2: the border. And so it's like, I know how this
17:40
Speaker 2: stuff is supposed to work. And nothing about this is
17:43
Speaker 2: how this is supposed to work. There's still, like, thousands
17:47
Speaker 2: of masked goons snatching people off the street, many of
17:50
Speaker 2: whom are perfectly legal to be here. And they're disappearing people,
17:53
Speaker 2: putting people on planes every day. So it just feels like,
17:57
Speaker 2: what I'm feeling today is just this very, like, intense
18:00
Speaker 2: anxiety that We've done all this work. We've done so well.
18:05
Speaker 2: But is America going to get bored and bail on us?
18:09
Speaker 1: That's Mike Corey in St. Paul, Minnesota. Thanks for listening today.
18:21
Speaker 1: The man that Mike videoed getting pinned against a wall
18:24
Speaker 1: and dragged into detention by ICE agents. He's a 20-year-old
18:28
Speaker 1: Somali-American named Mubashir Khalif Hussein. He came to the U.S.
18:32
Speaker 1: as a child and is now a U.S.
18:33
Speaker 2: Citizen.
18:34
Speaker 1: After ICE released him later that day, Mubashir held a
18:37
Speaker 1: press conference with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Fry, where he told
18:41
Speaker 1: the story of what happened to him and how important
18:43
Speaker 1: it was that Mike and others raced over to witness
18:46
Speaker 1: and record it.
18:48
Speaker 3: I felt like I was being assaulted. I was being kidnapped.
18:50
Speaker 3: And that's exactly what it was. And the way they
18:54
Speaker 3: were treating me, it was inhumane. They dragged me across
18:58
Speaker 3: the road. They Slammed me to the ground, choked me.
19:01
Speaker 3: I was on call for. They had a copy of
19:04
Speaker 3: my passport. And I told the agent, he has my
19:07
Speaker 3: passport copy. And he said, we don't care, we're still
19:10
Speaker 3: taking you in. And they kept me for two hours.
19:15
Speaker 3: And if this is what's happening to a U.S. American
19:18
Speaker 3: citizen on camera, imagine what could happen to your loved
19:21
Speaker 3: ones when there's no one around to witness what they're doing.
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Speaker 1: The Department of Homeland Security gave a statement about this
19:27
Speaker 1: incident to Minneapolis Public Radio. They said that agents were
19:31
Speaker 1: talking to somebody outside of a restaurant. Mubashir walked out
19:34
Speaker 1: of the restaurant, saw them, and ran, and that that
19:38
Speaker 1: gave them reasonable suspicion to chase him. They claim Mubashir
19:42
Speaker 1: then violently resisted officers and refused to answer questions, and
19:47
Speaker 1: that a large crowd of, quote, agitators dissented. and began
19:50
Speaker 1: to threaten the officers. And they said this is why
19:53
Speaker 1: they decided to detain Mubashir, to, quote, safely finish asking
19:56
Speaker 1: their questions. Along with other video, a security camera captured
20:00
Speaker 1: what happened. We'll share that on our Substack, questioneverything.substack.com, and
20:05
Speaker 1: you'll see Mubashir was not resisting officers. The folks recording
20:09
Speaker 1: him are, yes, shouting, but standing and walking peacefully, documenting
20:14
Speaker 1: what happened. I feel like that official DHS response perfectly
20:18
Speaker 1: encapsulates how quickly things can just get out of control
20:21
Speaker 1: when you surge 3,000-plus heavily armed federal agents into a city.
20:26
Speaker 1: We will continue to cover what's happening in Minnesota and
20:29
Speaker 1: with ICE and with the escalating attacks on the press.
20:32
Speaker 1: If you're in the Minneapolis area and have any tips
20:34
Speaker 1: or something you want us to look at, you can
20:36
Speaker 1: reach me on Signal.com. at brihreed. 45. That's B-R-I-H-R-E-E-D dot 45.
20:44
Speaker 1: Anyone can reach me there with tips from anywhere in
20:47
Speaker 1: the country. Today's episode was produced by managing editor Kevin
20:52
Speaker 1: Sullivan and Zach St. Louis and edited by me and
20:55
Speaker 1: Neil Drumming. Robin Semien and I are Question Everything's executive producers.
20:59
Speaker 1: Our team includes producer Sophie Kazis, contributing producer Sam Egan,
21:03
Speaker 1: contributing editor Jen Kinney, and associate producer Kevin Shepard. This
21:06
Speaker 1: episode was fact-checked by Marisa Roberts and Texter. Mixing and
21:09
Speaker 1: sound design by Brendan Baker. Our music is by Matt McGinley.
21:13
Speaker 1: If you're interested in supporting Question Everything as a partner
21:15
Speaker 1: or a sponsor, please write us at hey, H-E-Y, at placementtheory.com.
21:21
Speaker 1: Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel, Tejla Jamera, Natalie Hill,
21:25
Speaker 1: and Jennifer Farrow.
21:27
Speaker 2: See you soon.