Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-04-21 Tuesday

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Headlines for April 21, 2026; Deaths in ICE Custody Skyrocket: 2026 Toll Reaches 17, on Average One a Week; Caught in the Crackdown: Cases Against Arrested Anti-ICE Protesters Keep Falling Apart; Animal Rights Activists Target Wisconsin Facility Accused of Breeding Dogs for Medical Experiments

San Francisco, this is Democracy Now. Deaths in ICE custody continue to skyrocket past previous records as the agency has been massively expanding the immigration detention system. A total of 48 people have died in ICE custody so far during the current Trump administration. As ICE rapidly expands its immigration jail system, deaths in ICE custody are surging. At least 17 people have died this year, on average, a person every week. 48 have died since President Trump returned to office. We'll talk to Detention Watch Network, then caught in the crackdown.

As arrests at anti-ice protests piled up, prosecutions crumbled, a ProPublica frontline investigation. Immigration officials conducted devil-raised and arrested. An investigation into the Trump administration's months-long crackdown. Are you encountering a lot of resistance? Most have ever seen. The pushback. They are creating the emergency and the crisis that we then need to deal. I'm asking, who's detaining me?

And the fallout. President Trump and I, along with others in administration, have recognized as certain improvements could and should be made. We'll speak to investigative reporter A.C. Thompson. And finally, to the front lines of the animal rights movement, Saturday, hundreds of activists attempted to rescue 2,000 beagles from Ridgeline farms, a breeding facility in Wisconsin accused of animal cruelty. The violence that we experienced today was off the charts.

And yes, it does not compare. Dozens of people were arrested. We'll go to Madison, Wisconsin, to speak with one of the organizers. Oh, that and more coming out. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in San Francisco. There's uncertainty over whether the U.S. and Iran will hold another round of talks in Pakistan after the White House said Vice President J.D. Vance is preparing to depart for Islamabad today. Even as Iran refused to confirm, it'll participate. A spokesperson for Iran's foreign ministry accused the U.S. of violating the 10-day ceasefire. He cited the U.S. Navy's seizure of an Iranian cargo ship Sunday while calling for the

release of its sailors and vowing to retaliate. Meanwhile, President Trump's warned he's highly unlikely to extend the 10-day ceasefire with Iran beyond its expiration on Wednesday evening and said the U.S. will likely resume bombing immediately if Iran refuses a deal. On Capitol Hill, dozens of military veterans and their family members were arrested Monday as they nonviolently occupied the Cannon House office building to protest the U.S. and Israeli war on Iran while demanding a meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson. At least 62 people were arrested, including elderly and disabled activists. Those protests continued. The protests were organized by a coalition that included about face. Veterans for peace, common defense, and military families speak out. This is Christina

Sarsen, a U.S. Army veteran from Pennsylvania. I personally am here for my sons. As a veteran, I know the harm that wars do to civilian populations, but also to our soldiers. I'm talking about the loss of life. I'm talking about injuries and lives change forever. I'm talking about PTSD and moral injury, and that's why I'm here today. The State Department says it'll host a second round of talks between Lebanon and Israel in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. The first negotiation since a tenuous ceasefire went into effect last week. The announcement came as people across Lebanon held funerals Monday for loved ones whose bodies were retrieved from the rubble of buildings left flattened by

Israeli strikes. Entire relatives prayed by the temporary graves of 80-year-old Hussein Dabuk and his 32-year-old son, Robbie, who were killed in the hours before the ceasefire took effect last Friday morning. This family, why is it their fault? Is it because they didn't leave Tyre? Is this our fault that we stayed? We don't want to leave our land. Our land is our honor and our dignity. What do these people do wrong for Israel to come and bomb them? You, Israel, who are supposed to do a ceasefire, committed a crime before it could take effect. Lebanon's health ministry says Israeli attacks in March and April killed over 2,300 people leaving over 6,700 injured and 1.2 million

people displaced from their homes. Lebanon's in Gaza, Israeli strikes have killed at least five Palestinians in separate incidents, and Israeli air strike killed at least three people in Western Han Yunus, according to health officials at Nasser Hospital. Israeli attacks have killed more than 750 Palestinians since last year's so-called ceasefire deal took effect. It comes as Israel's officially reestablish the Senor settlement in the occupied West Bank, more than 20 years after it was dismantled. Elsewhere, a Palestinian boy was killed earlier today after being struck by a vehicle in the security convoy of an Israeli minister in the occupied West Bank. 16-year-old Muhammad Majdi al-Jabir was riding his bicycle to school when he was run over.

Ha'arets reports the convoy was en route to secure Israeli settlement minister, Ariz Stroke, who lives in an illegal Israeli settlement in Hebron. Meanwhile, a joint report by the EU, UN, and the World Bank reveals $71.4 billion will be needed over the next decade for Gaza's recovery and reconstruction. The report also warns human development across the Gaza Strip has been set back by six. 77 years. Amnesty International has released its annual global human rights report describing the leaders of Israel, Russia, and the United States as, quote, voracious predators, unquote, intent on economic and political domination. The report documents the U.S. Israeli war in Iran, which has killed more than 3,000 people, Israeli attacks in Lebanon, which have

killed nearly 2,400 and the death toll in Gaza, which has surpassed 72,500 since October 2023. The report also points to signs of resistance, including the growing number of states joining South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. This is Amnesty Secretary General Agnes Calamard. It started with unlawful U.S. and Israeli attack in violation of the UN Charter. No self-defense can be invoked here. It morphed into open warfare against civilians. Iran launching indiscriminate, disproportionate retaliatory strikes,

Israel escalating its attacks on Lebanon. The conflict is endangering the lives and health of millions. of people across the region. The report comes as Hungary's newly elected prime minister, Peter Magyar, declared his government would be legally obligated to detain Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters Hungarian territory while still subject to an international criminal court arrest warrant. Speaking to reporters, Magyar said, quote, if a country is a member of the ICC and a person who's wanted by the ICC enters our territory, then that person must be taken into custody, unquote.

Japan's relaxed decades of restrictions on the sale of weapons and ammunition, clearing the way for arms exports to more than a dozen countries. Today's announcement by the Japanese Prime Minister is a further shift away from Japan's pacifist post-war constitution, created by the U.S. as it occupied Japan eight decades ago. China said in response it's seriously concerned about Japan's, quote, reckless militarization. Cuba's governments confirmed it recently hosted U.S. officials on the island, marking the first time senior American diplomats have visited the island nation since 2016. Cuban deputy foreign minister Alejandro Garcia del Toro said lifting the U.S. oil blockade

is a top priority, calling it, quote, an unjustified punishment of the entire Cuban population. The talks come as President Trump's repeatedly floated the use of military force against Cuba, saying his attention could turn to the island after the U.S. Israeli war on Iran. Last week, Trump said, quote, we may stop by Cuba after we finish with this. Meanwhile, the leaders of Mexico, Brazil, and Spain meeting in Barcelona as part of a gathering of progressive heads of state, issued a joint statement pledging increased humanitarian aid to Cuba and calling for its sovereignty to be respected. Deaths in ICE custody have reached a record high this fiscal year with at least 17 immigrants reported dead since January. The most recent case is of 27-year-old Alad Damien

Carbonell Batancourt, an immigrant from Cuba, found unresponsive last week while jailed in Miami. He reportedly died of a presumed suicide, but the cause is still an accident. under investigation. We'll have more on this story after headlines. The Justice Department's demanded officials in Wayne County, Michigan, turn over more than 860,000 ballots, along with envelopes and receipts from the 2024 general election. Trump defeated Kamala Harris to win Michigan's 15 electoral votes, but he lost in Wayne County, which is home to Detroit by nearly a quarter million votes. The DOJ's threats come weeks after the FBI subpoenaed election records in Arizona's Maricopa County and raided in elections

hub in Fulton County, Georgia, seizing thousands of ballots. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nassel called the request absurd and baseless, she wrote, quote, once again, President Trump's weaponizing the Justice Department in an attempt to sabotage our democratic process and turn it into his own personal agency to interfere in state elections. Meanwhile, FBI director Cash Patel told Fox news arrests over the 2020 election are coming as soon as this week. In related news, Cash Patel has filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the Atlantic magazine and journalist Sarah Fitzpatrick after she reported Patel has alarmed FBI colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking, erratic behavior, and unexplained absences. The report,

more than two dozen people, including current and former FBI officials, members of Congress, lobbyists, former advisors, and others. Several officials said morning meetings at the FBI were rescheduled until the afternoon because Patel was incapacitated following nights of heavy drinking. Cash Patel's security detail reportedly struggled to wake him on multiple occasions last year, and in at least one instance requested breaching equipment normally used by SWAT teams to enter buildings. Meanwhile, U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-Darimer resigned on Monday amidst a series of reports that she abused her position. She's accused of using public funds for personal travel, bringing subordinates to a strip club, drinking on the job in government offices, and having a romantic woman.

affair with her bodyguard. This comes after Chavez de Riemer's husband, Sean DeReymer, was barred from the Labor Department's headquarters after at least two female staff members reported he sexually assaulted them. Lori Chavez de Riemer is the third member of Trump's cabinet to be forced out in the last seven weeks, all of them women following the departure of Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Wired magazines revealed new details about how facial recognition technology has been used to closely monitor sports fans at the iconic Madison Square Garden in New York. Over a two-year period, security staff for New York Knicks owner James Dolan used the surveillance system to track the movements of a trans woman, in part to prevent her image from being seen on TV.

An 18-page dossier obtained by Wired shows the system tracked all of her movements, including when, when she entered and exited the bathroom. Dolan also used the facial recognition system to ban hundreds of people from the venue, including a group of lawyers involved in disputes with him. Photos of the lawyers were fed into the facial recognition software to prevent them from entering Madison Square Garden. Hundreds of delegates are arriving at the United Nations this week for the world's largest gathering of indigenous peoples, the UN permanent forum on indigenous issues. This year's forum centers on the survival of indigenous peoples in the context of armed conflict. Advocates also warned that the artificial intelligence boom is driving a new era of digital

extractivism with tech companies scraping indigenous medicinal knowledge, traditional stories, and genetic data without consent, while massive data centers threaten tribal lands and water resources. The Trump administration also made it increasingly difficult for delegates from the global South to obtain U.S. visas to attend the UN Forum. And the Goldman Environmental Prize, widely known as the Green Nobel, has announced its 2026 recipients. For the first time since the prize was established in 1989, all six winners were women. They are Erohontanchi of Nigeria, Boring Kim of South Korea, Sarah Finch of the United Kingdom, the Onilla Roka Matbub of Papua New Guinea, and Juvelas Morales Blanco of Colombia and Alana Akhak Hurley of the United States.

Hurley is the executive director for the United Tribes of Bristol Bay. She led a successful campaign against the pebble mine, a proposed gold and copper mine that would have required construction of a massive power plant, natural gas pipeline, and huge toxic tiling ponds. This award honors all of us, those who stood against all odds, those who never wavered in speaking up against greed and destruction. It honors those who have shown up year after year, writing letters, testifying at hearings, protesting, and raising their kids to value people over profit. And those are some of the headlines.

This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in San Francisco with Democracy Now's wonderful. Gonzalez in Chicago. Hi, Juan. Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. As the Trump administration continues to rapidly expand its immigration jail system across the country, we look now at the rising death toll of people in ICE custody, which has reached a record high in over two decades. At least 17 immigrants are reported to have died in ICE custody since January. That's on average about an immigrant death a week. The most recent death is of 27-year-old Alad Damien Carbonell Betancourt, an immigrant from Cuba who was jailed in

Miami. He reportedly died of a presumed suicide, but the cause is still under investigation. At least 48 immigrants have died in custody since President Trump returned to office. The cause death has varied, but includes at least one homicide. In January, El Paso County's medical examiner found that 55-year-old Geraldo Lunas Campos died from asphyxia due to neck and chest compression. Lunas Compos was pronounced dead January 3rd at Camp East Montana, a sprawling immigration detention tent camp at the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso. ICE claimed the Cuban father had died after experiencing

medical distress, but several immigrants that he was jailed with, later testified they heard Lunas Campos pleading for medication shortly before guards tackled him to the ground. One of the witnesses said in a sworn court declaration, he heard a guard tell Lunas Campos, shut up or we're going to make you faint.

He added, quote, the last thing I heard was Geraldo's speak in a voice that sounded like he couldn't breathe. He said, let go of me. You're asphyxating me, unquote. The Associated Press also reported a witness saw Lunas Campos handcuffed as at least five guards held him down while one put an arm around his neck and squeezed until he was unconscious. Meanwhile, a San Francisco Chronicle investigation found over a dozen deaths under the Trump administration could have been prevented with proper medical care. The Chronicle examined several cases, including Maxime Chernak, he had a seizure, but they waited to call 911. Luis Beltranianez Cruz. He complained of chest pain, but wasn't seen by a doctor for weeks.

Santos Benegas Reyes. He was in withdrawal, but not. sent to the ER. Lorenzo Antonio Batres Vargas, he couldn't breathe, but they told him to wait. And Ismail Ayala Uribe, he was in severe pain, but they sent him back to his cell. For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we're joined by Satara Gandahari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network. Can you explain this surge in deaths, Satara? I'm talking about deaths of immigrants in ICE custody. Explain what you have found. Good morning, Amy, and thanks for having me. As you said in your intro, we've already seen 17 people die in ICE custody this year,

which is an average of about one death per week. And I can tell you I've been tracking these numbers for several years now, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was another point where we hit a record number of deaths. And I have never seen anything. like this where I'm seeing ICE reporting out at least one death per week. It's really shocking. And of course, this comes on the heels of a record number of deaths in ICE custody last year, which also, you know, doesn't include the number of deaths that have occurred as ICE has been chaotically and violently targeting immigrant communities, you know, during their enforcement actions. At this point, if we continue to see the same pace of deaths with one death per week, we're set to far exceed.

last year's record by the end of this year. And Satara, how do you explain, given all the amount, all the extra additional skyrocketing amounts of money that the Trump administration has given to ICE, that they seem unable to provide the kind of care necessary for the people they detained? Sure. Well, you know, ICE has been acting with impunity now for decades, and we have seen really that the system is inherently violent. it's inherently abusive. We've seen these kinds of conditions now that have been documented for decades.

And as the Trump administration came into office last year and embarked on its violent and cruel mass deportation campaign, we know that immigration detention has been a key pillar of that campaign. They issued several executive orders in the first days, all of which emphasized the need for expanding ICE detention. They really kicked off this entire campaign with their announcement about expanding migrant detention at Guantanamo Bay, and they entered into an agreement with the government of El Salvador to offshore detention. And so these two announcements in many ways really serve to normalize the sort of everyday expansion of the system, where we have seen ICE expand its usual contracts with local jails, and sheriffs and local prisons.

We've seen them expand into military bases, as you mentioned, at Fort Bliss and Texas and others. We have seen a massive expansion into the federal prison system, the reopening of shuttered Bureau of Prisons facilities, agreements, really unprecedented agreements with state governments to open facilities, including the cruelly dubbed Alligator Alcatraz in Florida. in the Everglades, as well as the reopening of a shuttered state prison in Indiana. So they have really gone all out. And of course, last summer, their efforts were boosted by a massive unprecedented infusion

of funds from Congress that has allowed them to really ramp up this expansion of the ICE detention system. So as Congress is pouring more and more money into ICE and CBP, this money is being used to really expand the system. And, of course, the conditions remain as dire as ever and are being as exacerbated because we know that ICE doesn't really care about the well-being of the people in its custody. And who is responsible for providing medical care and mental health care in ICE facilities? Could you talk about the third-party contractors? Sure, yes, ICE contracts with third parties to provide medical care. The reality is the system is set up for, you know, with a profit incentive. And of course, you know, ICE isn't really interested in caring for the, for the people in its custody. They're interested in getting as many people into detention and deporting as many people as possible. So routine care goes on, ungiven. People are ignored to the point of emergency. And so we see, you know, all deaths in ICE custody really are preventable because no one should be in the system to begin with.

It's inherently violent. But we're seeing more and more that people are, you know, reaching the point of emergency for issues that could easily be dealt with if proper medical care was given. Can you talk about the growing opposition around the country to the ice state? detention facilities. And what has happened since Christy Noam left, purchasing warehouses across the country to imprison thousands of immigrants? What's happened to those facilities, Satara? With the warehouses, this is the most recent venture that ICE has gone into in order to expand its system. Of course, in December, they announced plans to purchase dozens of former industrial warehouses across the country and convert them into ICE detention facilities.

And of course, we have seen a massive opposition to these warehouses. It's been really inspiring to see people across the country standing up in solidarity with their immigrant neighbors and saying, you know, we don't want these types of facilities in our communities, in our country. It's wrong. And, you know, this is, again, part of a... a much broader effort that has been going on for many years now at Detention Watch Network. We coordinate the Communities Not Cages campaign where folks across the country have been fighting

against ICE detention centers in their communities for many years. But what we've seen with the announcement of these warehouses is really a grassroots sort of swelling opposition to the growth of this system into facilities that are warehouses. They're meant for industrial labor for. warehousing goods, not for detaining people. And they've been successful, and it's been such an inspiration to see. Well, last week, Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement resigned. Now, he'd never been confirmed by the Senate in his appointment. Your reaction to his resignation and his tenure? Sure. I mean, what we

seen over the last several weeks is sort of a superficial shakeup of the leadership at ICE and DHS. And I think it's really important to note that, you know, Todd Lyons might be out, but the agenda and the goals of this administration remain the same. And I think what it does speak to, however, is this growing opposition to this violent and chaotic and cruel mass detention and deportation agenda. people across the country are saying, no, this is not the kind of country that we want to live in. And so I think that's why we're seeing this sort of shaky place where the leadership is. And, you know, I think we are prepared to continue that opposition this weekend, together with folks across the country.

We're engaging in coordinated actions in more than 160 locations across the country to stand up and fight back against these. this warehouse expansion. And I think, you know, hearing that, seeing that opposition over the last several months has forced ICE to sort of put a pause on that. But I think it's important to remember, you know, first of all, ICE lies. I'm sure that there's negotiations happening behind the scenes. Several warehouses have already been purchased and are set to open. So we're going to do everything we can to stop that infrastructure from being established. And, you know, this is, it's important to remember that this is really part of a broader scheme to expand the ICE detention system. So we really need to keep paying attention to this because ICE is determined to expand its capacity to detain people

to more than 100,000 people at any given time, which is really a shocking number and, you know, parallel to the number of Japanese Americans that were incarcerated during World War II. So I don't think we can overemphasize how dire and how unprecedented this, this is. agenda is by the current administration. Before we go, Satari, if you could describe the ongoing detention of families and children at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Texas, that's the ICE jail there. Reporter Sarah Stilman writes in the New Yorker, under the Trump administration, thousands of immigrant children have been detained. Many have suffered from medical neglect.

If you can explain that. And then ultimately, who is responsible for providing medical care all over? Talk more about these third-party contractors. Sure, yes. Well, as you mentioned, the Dilley Detention Center in Texas is a family detention center. That means people are being detained there with their children. This was a practice that the United States has done for many years. It went away during the last administration and the Trump administration has brought it back.

And as you said, hundreds of kids have been detained in really horrific conditions. I mean, you know, the ICE detention system overall is, as I said before, inherently inhumane. And we have seen really unconscionable conditions throughout the system that, you know, no human being should suffer through. And especially not kids. And we're seeing very similar conditions to the disdainable conditions. the adult detention centers at Dilley where kids are being detained on a regular basis with their families, you know, being denied proper medical care, you know, their educations being interrupted. I mean, there's really no amount of detention that is appropriate for a child.

And yet we're seeing kids in these prolonged situations in detention. And it's really horrific. And ultimately, ICE is responsible for the health and well-being of the people in its custody. and they're utterly failing to provide that care. They do contract with third parties. There's a number of them that are contracted to provide medical care and other services inside of ICE detention centers. But ultimately, it's ICE's responsibility.

And ICE fails to hold their contractors accountable. Congress has failed to hold ICE accountable. So it's really just a vicious cycle that continues. and the whole time, you know, we have these private corporations profiting off of the pain and suffering of adults and children alike. Satara Godahari, we want to thank you for being with us, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network. Coming up, caught in the crackdown as arrests at anti-ice protests piled up, prosecutions crumbled. We'll speak to A.C. Thompson about his new investigation for ProPublica and France. line. Stay with us.

As I walk, written by the Lebanese musical composer Marcel Khalifa, performed in New York by the NYC Palestinian Youth Choir. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman in San Francisco with Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. I'm in San Francisco for the national theatrical release of the documentary about democracy now called Steal This Story, Please. We're headed to California's state capital to Sacramento today. The film will be showing at the Tower Theater in Sacramento at 7 p.m. I'll be doing the Q&A afterwards with the film's director, Tia Lesson. And then tomorrow, the film will show at the Roxy in San Francisco. I'll be introducing it at 6.

And then in Berkeley at the Rialto M. Elmwood, and we'll be doing a Q&A afterwards. On Thursday, we'll be in Seattle at SIF. That's the Seattle International Film Festival on Thursday night and on Friday night. And then we're headed to Portland, Oregon, and beyond. It's continuing to play in New York at the I. and all over the country in Los Angeles and beyond. You can go to DemocracyNow.org to get the latest details where I will be. As we continue now to look at President Trump's immigration crackdown,

we turn to an in-depth investigation into the law enforcement response to protesters. In cities across the country from Los Angeles to Chicago to Minneapolis, residents took to the streets to oppose the militarized immigration sweeps enforcement tactics and violence by ICE and Border Patrol agents. The investigation by A.C. Thompson for ProPublica is headlined, caught in the crackdown. As arrests that anti-ice protests piled up, prosecutions crumbled. The accompanying frontline documentary is caught in the crackdown. This is the trailer. Immigration officials conducted several raids and arrested dozens of people.

An investigation into the Trump administration's months-long crackdown. Are you encountering a lot of resistance? Most have ever seen. The pushback. They are creating the emergency and the crisis that we then need to deal with. I'm asking, who's detaining me? I live here. And the fallout.

President Trump and I, along with others in administration, have recognized as certain improvements could and should be made. That was the trailer for the new ProPublic. a frontline film caught in the crackdown. In a minute, we'll be joined by the investigative reporter A.C. Thompson to discuss what they found when they looked into the tactics, the arrest, the legal cases, and impact of these protests. But first, another clip. This scene is from Minneapolis. Shortly after Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE officer Jonathan Ross.

We were reporting in the neighborhood where Renee Good had been killed. Agents were surrounding and questioning a man. People were coming out of their houses. The agents started to leave. The protester was pepper sprayed in the face at close range. I spoke with the man they were questioning. Christian Molina. He said the officers had rammed his vehicle.

They hit my car for no reason, man. They hit me. What happened? They followed me. for no reason I hit my car. They looked at me and they decided to pull me over for no reason. You believe that?

If you need a razzob? Yep. I'm not your citizen. Suddenly, Oh, here, careful. Went through a snowball in the direction of the agents. One of them tossed a tear gas canister into the crowd.

Pepper sprayed protesters and a news photographer up close. another fired pepper balls into the crowd. I was hit three times. I got shot repeatedly with pepper balls. Get your heart. There's a fucking war show. An agent shot pepper spray from his window.

My colleagues in the face. You need this? Here. Give me the camera. Give me a camera. Give me a good. Water. Water.

Water. Water. In the months I'd been covering this story, I'd seen the same pattern everywhere we went. Federal agents using weapons like tear gas and pepper spray against protesters and bystanders. The courts would try to rein them in, but they'd move on to the next city and do the same things. On local TV. V. Pavino was unapologetic. We're here to conduct that Title V mission.

It won't stop, despite rioters, agitators, and vast amounts of violence against federal officers, we're not going to stop. There's also a scene from the frontline documentary where A.C. Thompson shows the same footage from Minneapolis to former law enforcement officials. First, Christy Lopez, who spent years investigating law enforcement. misconduct for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. I showed footage from the scene to Christy Lopez. We see just use of excessive force after use of excessive force. In no scenario, is it okay to be perishing people as you're leaving the scene? It's just they're mad, they're scared, you know, they're able to get away with it,

so they're just using the power they have to use force against people. Then A.C. Thompson shows the footage to Chris Magnus, a former head of Customs and Border Protection, who once oversaw Bovino. Magnus also served as a police chief in multiple cities. Pretty awful. You know, I mean, one of the things in policing when it comes to use of force, It's proportionality is the force really proportional to what you're receiving or what you're dealing with. People may well get under your skin under a lot of circumstances. You don't like it, but professionals don't react to it. Those were clips from the new ProPublica Frontline documentary caught in the crackdown,

now streaming for free on YouTube, PBS.org, and the PBS app. The Republican investigation by A.C. Thompson is headlined, caught in the crackdown. As arrests at anti-ice protests piled up, prosecutions crumbled. When we come back, A.C. Thompson will join us from San Francisco. Stay with us. Music performing at Joe's Pubb performing at Joe's Pub

in 2020 This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman in the Bay area in Berkeley and Juan Gonzalez is in Chicago. We've just been talking about this very important PBS investigative series called Caught in the Crackdown. It is a frontline pro-publica piece.

A.C. Thompson is the investigative reporter on this. AC, if you can just summarize, I mean, you very dramatic footage here. You were in Minneapolis right after an ICE officer, Jonathan Ross, killed. Renee Good, talk about the protests from Chicago to Minneapolis to Los Angeles, what people were doing when they were arrested, not to mention brutalized and in some cases killed, and then how their prosecutions crumbled. You know, it was fascinating for me to watch from June 2025 in Los Angeles to the fall in Chicago to winter in Minneapolis. following the immigration sweeps led by then Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino and the rest

of the immigration agencies and looking at the protests that were erupting around the country. It was the situation where there was allegations of a massive surge in assaults on federal agents. The Department of Justice was labeling the people who were in the streets as domestic terrorists, as agitators, as extremists. they were rounding them up in large numbers, arresting people from city to city to city. And then what we would see after these arrests would happen is as these cases moved through the court system, the allegations made against the individuals tended to fall apart under scrutiny. So we looked at 300 arrests in these various cities and found that more than a third of them had collapsed.

prosecutors had decided to dismiss them. They had refused to even file charges in the first place, or juries acquitted the defendants. And so the claims that the government was making about this massive surge in assault, about all these people being terrorists and domestic extremists and all this sort of stuff, it just didn't match up to the reality that, one, that we were seeing on the ground as we were filming. And two, what the courts were finding as they looked at the evidence and prosecutors looked at the evidence and said, this is not going to hold up. We're dismissing this case. And AC, you mentioned Chicago. You report there were 109 arrests there, but prosecutors eventually

dropped 75. That's nearly three quarters of all the people that arrested. The charges just disappeared. And that's a conservative, that's a conservative number, too. I think that number is going to grow in time as we get more evidence about exactly what's happened. But, Yeah, the vast bulk of the arrest in Chicago have been dropped by prosecutors. And the handful of cases that are still going on are still working through the system. But there seem to be some problems with some of those as well. Experts told us, law enforcement experts, former Department of Justice, civil rights personnel, said, look, this looks like a pattern in practice of bad arrest, of unjustified arrest.

And that looks like what we're seeing across the country. When you have arrest after arrest that doesn't hold up, that prosecutors don't have faith in the evidence, that juries don't have faith in the evidence, that's telling you that this is sort of more than just your normal run of the mill. Police effort, these are bad arrests. And how do these compare to the normal rates for U.S. attorneys or federal authorities in criminal cases? I mean, that's what stands out so much, right? Is in federal court, federal prosecutors win more than 90% of their cases. Very few are dismissed. They lose very, very few at trial.

They are incredibly successful. This wave of arrest stemming from the immigration sweeps and the protests against them, they've been very unsuccessful with. They're having problems in city after city trying to do these cases. And that means, you know, that is a reflection of, in all likelihood, unjustified arrest being made by Border Patrol agents, ICE agents, other federal agents that frankly don't normally deal with protests, with crowds, with these kinds of situations that they've been thrust into over the past year. A.C. Thompson, we want to thank you for being with us, investigative reporter with ProPublica and the PBS series Frontline. His new documentary caught in the Crockdown is streaming on YouTube, pbs.org, and the PBS app. We thank you for being with us. He's talking to us from San Francisco.

I'm in the Bay Area 2. We'll be at Tower Theater in Sacramento tonight at 7 for the theatrical premiere of Steal the Story, please, about Democracy Now. I'll be doing the Q&A with the director, Tia Lesson, after the film. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. We end today's show in Wisconsin, where police fired tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber-coated steel bullets at hundreds of animal rights activists Saturday as they attempted to rescue about 2,000 dogs from a facility that breeds Beagles for medical experimentation. The crackdown by Dane County Sheriff's deputies left scores of

people injured, including a protester who had two teeth knocked out. Twenty-five people were arrested. Protesters were attempting to enter a property owned by Ridgeland Farms, which agreed last fall to surrender its state breeding license and stop selling dogs to other labs by July first as part of a deal to avoid prosecution on animal mistreatment charges. A state judge found Ridgeland Farms likely broke Wisconsin animal cruelty laws by housing beagles in brutal conditions, performing surgeries without anesthesia, and leaving wounds untreated, along with other violations. Former workers say some beagles had their vocal cords surgically cut to silence them,

a process known as debarking. Ridgland Farm still holds federal research credentials and plans to continue breeding beagles for its own experimentation. Last month, activists successfully entered the property and freed about two dozen beagles who were subsequently adopted. For more, we go to Madison, Wisconsin, where we're joined by Rebecca Robinson with the coalition to save the Ridgeline dogs. She's been involved in the animal protection movement for over a decade. she was one of those arrested at Saturday's action at Ridglin Farms. Welcome to Democracy Now, Rebecca. Can you describe exactly what happened on Saturday and why you were involved with this protest?

Yeah. So we have been trying for over a decade to get the government to do something to help the Ridgland Beagles. And so on Saturday, nonviolent protesters attempted to rescue the, beagles who were in desperate need of help. These were teachers, veterinarians, students, software engineers. These were ordinary citizens who were trying to help these Ridgeland dogs to go in and take them to safety, get them the veterinary care that they needed. And what we were met with was overwhelming police brutality. There's no other way to describe it. People were tear gassed and pepper sprayed and pushed down.

injured in horrible ways after simply trying to help the dogs. And how many people were arrested? What were they charged with? So there were about 25 people arrested. I was one of them. I'm still not clear on what I was charged with. I was given no paperwork. I wasn't told why I was being arrested.

I wasn't read my Miranda rights. When we asked why we were being arrested, the cops just kind of shrugged. And so I'm still not clear on why I was arrested. The five who are still in custody are going to be arraigned later today. And could you talk about the broader crackdown against animal rights advocates nationwide, particularly under the so-called Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act of 2006? Yeah, so the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act basically protects any animal enterprise. But it does so in such an unjust way.

that it essentially limits our First Amendment rights to protest and to expose what's happening at these corporations. Ridgel and Farms is a multi-million dollar business, but there is no visibility into what happens there. And if we were to try and go in and take footage or try and expose what's happening there, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act is designed to prevent that, to prevent even workers there from sharing their footage and what is going on. inside of those buildings. I want to turn to Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, asking Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy last week, why the National Institute of Health continues to provide grants to groups that use beagles from Ridgeland Farms for experimentation.

We have something called Ridgelen Farms that's a beagle breeder for research. They've had 311 code violations, including very serious harm to health of dogs. The head of NIH, which you can ask, I said some of the nicest things about, I really like your head of the NIH that you have said that there's a policy about a beagle testing that would not allow analysts to be tortured. And that's part of what's happening with this facility. So grants are still, in the last month, going to groups that are getting beagles from Ridgelin Farms. Could you please take a look at this? because they are under right now, not a court order, a settlement to close down part of their breeding facility by July 1st, but they're not getting rid of the 2,000 beagles they have.

And if they don't, we know what's going to happen. They're going to get euthanized. And I just want to make sure that for that commitment, which is a good commitment, not to harm the beagles. Right now, you're still giving money to groups through the NIH that are using beagles from this highly questionable farm. I have a hard time, I believe you, but I have a hard time believing that. I need to look into this and talk to the office because we're trying to end. We've done more than any other administration history and animal testing. So that was Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan questioning the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy.

If you can say, Rebecca Robinson, why does Ridgeland Farm still hold federal research credentials? and why is it still operating in Wisconsin? So the USDA is responsible at the federal level for inspecting Ridgelham Farms. And the USDA has sent the same inspector for over a decade to inspect Ridgelham Farms. And he has just been rubber stamping their operations there. His inspection reports are two to three sentences that basically say, yep, everything's great here. He's clearly got a relationship with them. And so we haven't been able to get the USDA to step up and actually take a look at what's going on inside Ridgling Farms.

And that's not just related to Ridgling Farms. The USDA overall, the inspector general put out a report saying that USDA inspections of puppy mills nationwide has been a problem. And what do you expect to happen July 1 now with the deadline for Ridgeland Farms to shut down these? particular projects? So on July 1st, Ridgeland Farms will no longer be able to sell those beagles. But because of work that we've done to let their buyers know about the conditions at Ridgeline Farms, those buyers have stopped buying from Ridgelan Farms. So they have essentially a lot of beagles that they've been unable to sell.

And those beagles are at risk of euthanasia. We are very concerned that those beagles are simply going to be euthanized en masse because they can't be sold and they can't be used. And so we're very concerned about the safety of those beagles. And that's why we went in to try to get those beagles to safety. We just have 20 seconds, Rebecca. Explain what debarking is. So the way it was conducted at Ridgelham Farms, the workers would go to the kennel and they would essentially hold the dog while another worker would reach down the dog's throat with like scissors or forceps. And then they would rip out the dog's vocal cords and throw them on the ground in these barns. This is what former employees have told us was

happening there. It's a really horrific practice because the dogs are barking in distress. These are dogs living on wire flooring for their whole lives, never getting outside, never seeing sunlight. And then so when they're distressed and they are barking like that, the workers don't like it. So they, they devocalize them, according to the employees. Rebecca Robinson, I want to thank you for being with us, member of the Coalition to Save the Ridgel and Dogs, arrested at the action this weekend in Wisconsin. That does it for our show. Tonight I'll be at the Tower Theater in Sacramento for a Q&A after the screening of Steal This Story, please. Tomorrow, Thursday, I'll be introducing the film at the Roxy in San Francisco and the rail to Elmwood and Berkeley.

then at the Seattle International Film Festival, uptown cinema in Seattle. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez.