Factually! with Adam Conover - Fighting ICE with Journalism, with Memo Torres

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Trump’s assault on immigrants is ongoing. ICE continues to raid neighborhoods, kidnap people, and commit the occasional murder. Time and again, it’s been proven that standing together with the community is the most effective response. Memo Torres is a multimedia journalist with the esteemed L.A. Taco, which had roots as a local food scene blog before becoming an award-winning journalism outlet. This week, Adam talks with Memo about the current state of the ICE raids and the crucial role of local journalism in this moment. Find Memo’s work and L.A. Taco at https://www.lataco.com/--Get 20% off DeleteMe by going to https://joindeleteme.com/adam and use code adam to protect your privacy!Download Cash App Today: [https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/2vjj5nrh] #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Discounts and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures.--SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Hey there, welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thank you so much for joining me on the show again. You know, one of the worst ongoing plot lines in this horrible Trump administration tale that we're living through is ISIS assault on immigrant communities around the country. A growing army of masked thugs have barreled their way into communities, kidnapping people, brutalizing people for most of the last year. Oh, and they've also committed occasional murders, some highly reported on, some less so. Earlier this year, though, we saw the people of Minneapolis heroically come together to basically

defeat ICE in their own city and chase them out with their tails between their legs. But despite that very high-profile victory by the public of this country against fascism, the raids have not stopped. And there are billions of dollars still flowing in to build out this racist deportation force to create new detention centers and to brutalize the communities that you and I live in. But even though people are still being snatched off the street across the country, there has been less and less news coverage. The news cycle has moved on. Oh, and by the way, local journalism has collapsed in most communities around the country. And that means that when the

government does this stuff, when that grandma is snatched off of your street corner, increasingly no one notices. So how do we learn what is happening in these communities where most people don't speak English and which therefore are not the focus for national news outlets like CNN or the New York Times, which of course serve English speaking populations? I mean, we need to know what is occurring. How do we? Well, it has fallen to members of those communities themselves to let us know all of the awful things that ICE is continuing to do. And today, we have an incredible on-the-ground reporter who has been doing exactly that. This man helped turn what used to be a humble LA food blog into one of the most important centers for news about ICE raids in Los Angeles. And his work

shows how important independent journalism has become in America, not just for providing a more direct picture of what ICE is doing in our communities, but just to, report the news in general. So this is not just an interview about ICE in America. It's also a conversation about how we can bring back the kind of local journalism we desperately need in this country. I know you're going to love it. Before we get to it, I want to remind you if you want to support this show and all the stories we bring you every single week. We'll head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover, five bucks a month.

It gets you every single episode of the show ad free. We'd love to have you. And if you'd like to come see me on the road coming up soon this weekend, April, second through fourth, I will be in Sacramento, California at the Punchline Comedy Club. April 10th through 12th, I will be in La Jolla, California at the world famous comedy store. April 14th just added this show. I will be at Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank right here in Los Angeles County, if you want to go to that. And on April 18th, I will be taping my new special at the Den Theater in Chicago, Illinois.

Please come out. If you want to get tickets to all those, Adam Conover.com. and in May I'm going to be in Kansas City. Don't forget about Kansas City. Adamconover. Dot net for all those tickets. And now, let's get to this week's interview. You know, we're going to be talking about Los Angeles a lot more this year. That's because it's a big year for us in local politics, but also because LA's a microcosm of what is happening everywhere in America. And by talking about what's happening here, we can also shed light on what is happening in your city. And, you know, Memo Torres is one of the very best people to talk about what

is happening here. He's a multimedia journalist for LA Taco and his daily Memo update has become essential viewing for anyone who wants to understand exactly what ICE is doing on the ground. He's an absolutely incredible guy. Love to having him on the show so much.

Please welcome Memo Torres. Memo, thank you so much for being on the show, ma'am. No problem, man. It's, uh, your coverage of what's been going on with ICE in L.A. has been roundly called like some of the best available, especially considering considering how our local media has crumbled.

I want to start by just jumping into the news. ICE has been sent into airports lately. What have we seen from that in L.A.? Just a lot of like kids and old fat guys lolliggging around. Just standing around? Just standing around, you know, without the masks. Yeah. And all of a sudden feeling betrayed because they're running away from people

trying to get pictures of them. Because you have people with their phones. not going, okay, ice isn't here for me. Yeah. I can chase them around the airport and, like, harass them a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I wonder how do they feel like after the Trump administration has been like they got full immunity, they can wear masks, they can protect their identities.

All of a sudden, he's like, go to the airports and unmask yourselves. Like, how do you feel as an ice agent, you know? And just go stand there. Just go stand there and look cute. And so you can be humiliated. Yeah. Because that's not what they, hey, I signed up to like anonymously beat up brown people. I don't want to stay. Now I've got to drive to LAX.

Fine parking. Horrible. Well, I mean, jokes aside, it's been pretty brutal in the city for the past year. Yeah. And there was a big press hit about it, obviously, when it started. I remember I was in New York at the time and I was like, I almost felt like bad to not be in Los Angeles because it was so traumatic for the city. Everybody I knew was like really feeling it. And then obviously we know everything that happened in Minneapolis.

but news has sort of quieted down over the past couple months as we get kind of used to it. And, you know, that's how the press cycle works. But what has been continuing to happen in LA since? Well, we've had a big upheaval with ICE in general, right? In the DHS, yeah, Christine Nome that's been demoted. Right. Gravino has been demoted. We got the new guy, Mark Wayne Mullen, who's taking over, ready to fight America,

fast and everything. Yeah. So there's been a lot of restructuring. with ICE and Border Patrol See the big The chaotic ones were Border Patrol And I think people tend to confuse ICE

And border patrol They're separate agencies And even with ICE There's other agencies We can get into that later They're all under DHS But they're like Separate agencies

So there's like There's Border Patrol There's ICE And under ICE you have ERO You have EHSI And then sometimes they work With FBI Marshals

It's complicated It's messy Yeah But you know We've been seeing A lot of restructuring People getting fired reorganizing

So it's been a little bit calm, but we've also been seeing them build their fleets out. We've seen like 60 new vehicles at California City Detention Center at the Lantos Detention Center had about another 30 or 40 new vehicles. They opened up a new field office at the James, I think James Corman, correct me if I'm wrong, the federal building in Van Nuys and on Van Nuys Boulevard, the Pue de Boulevard, correct me if I'm wrong. But it's out there. And they've also been shipping new vehicles to the Santa Ana Field Office, San Bernardino. So they've been building their fleets.

Wow. And I think this whole time they've also been training their new recruits, which you can see at the airports are babyface with kids. And now we're starting like this week, we started seeing a lot of those new vehicles with the dealer tags still kind of coming out of these offices and out in the streets and starting to snatch people. Because we knew that the Trump administration is devoting billions and billions and billions of billions more dollars to ICE and to DHS generally. I did a video a couple months ago about like where it's like hard for us to even conceive of how much. resources they're going to have. And so this is them staffing up now and like shopping, buying their tanks or whatever they want to buy so that they can like continue to. So do you feel like what we saw like last summer was just the beginning like a little taste? Is it going to be

a bigger enforcement effort? I think their plan is still to grow. I mean, Tom Holman, the borders are. He's been very adamant that the goal is still mass deportation. They're still buying up warehouses all over the country. Colorado is just flooding it with warehouses and these things called ghost rooms which are rooms, ghost rooms at detention centers or in hidden buildings around the country

that circumvent requirements that detention centers have like basics requirements, like having a toilet, you know, feeding them food, you know, stuff like that. So they circumvent them because they're technically temporary holding cells and they're just supposed to have a max of like 72-hour holding cells. Uh-huh.

California loans had over 750 violations of that. Wow. And the nations had about 5,000 violations of that. So they're doing that. They're also increasing their ISAP operations, which ISAP, which is an alternative program. Instead of being in detention, they put you in ACO monitor, you have to go to check-ins. So there's like a hidden office here in downtown L.A. on Hill and Second. They just got a new warehouse in Chatsworth where people are reporting to there,

and then just being disappeared from behind the warehouse into vehicles and sent to detention centers. Wow. So there's a lot of like secrecy, shadowy stuff going on to behind the scenes and we're keeping track of that. And but yeah, I mean, they're expanding the ghost rooms, the detention centers. ISAP, interesting enough, is run by a company called Buy Corporation, which is a subsidiary of CoreC Civic, I believe. Corpic, which is one of the private detention centers operators. So there's all kinds of stuff going on and behind the scenes that people are not seen. So just because they're not as loud on the streets anymore, which I think is the goal.

They're still doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes, like taking people from jails. And you might think, oh, well, they're criminals. Well, no, sometimes people get arrested and haven't been charged with anything. They haven't got their due process or court hearings. Right. It could be dismissed. They're taking people from their ISAP check-ins. They're taking people from their regular check-ins.

And you just saw at the, how the DOJ just admitted at the courthouses, they mistakenly, quote-unquote, told people they can, you know, take people from courthouse and an immigration court here. And they were like, oh, yeah, we technically didn't have authority to do that. That was a mistake. But they did it anyway. They did it anyway. They were just like, oops. Do you have a sense of how many people in L.A. County has been affected by this kind of enforcement?

Like, how many people have been taken? How many people have been? Yeah. It's been about 6,500 people. Wow. I've been taken. We've documented almost just as much with those numbers. Now, we've documented about, I forgot how much.

I think it's like close to maybe 2,000 incidents from the streets, but the number's a lot higher, like 6,000. It just proves to show that they're grabbing people from work sites, offices. Because more than one person per grab. And not just that, but it's just where they're taking them from. Like I said, there's a lot of people getting taken behind closed doors, you know. Uh-huh. Like a work site meaning, like me a picture.

Yeah, like what I was just describing, like the ice have check-ins. People go to check-in with ice, and then they take them. they go to their immigration check-in at a federal building, and then they take them from there. So you don't see these on the streets. People aren't recording them. They're not being logged or documented, per se. So when these people are going in for their immigration check-in, I'm imagining it makes me think of a parole kind of check-in.

What, why would someone be checking in and why are they being taken at that moment? Well, when you're in an asylum process or you're currently or you're applying for your for your residential cards or whatever. You know, you have to go to check-ins. You have to show good faith that you're going to be there. You have to update paperwork. You have to pay fees. There's all kinds of stuff for you to make sure you're being compliant.

So these people are being compliant, and then all of a sudden they get taken. And a lot of the reasons could be like maybe a lawyer didn't fill out a form right or they didn't fill out of form right. You know, they forgot the dot and I or cross a T. Or sometimes they have these apps, especially for ISAP. have an app that they use that's a terrible app. Sometimes information doesn't go through when they check and through the app. So just technological,

you know, mistakes that happened. So there's a lot of different reasons. Like literally ICE is just looking for any reason to deport anybody. Yeah. They could have had a DUI from 20 years ago. All of a sudden, their favorite quote, criminal illegal alien. Yeah. You know, so in a lot of cases, some people,

the sneakiest one is when people have charges. Like they were charged with, there was one case in, I think it was Fontana or Pomona, where a guy got chased into his house that were coming for him. Turned out this guy had a charge on his record. Went to court, charge was dismissed. The charge was for assault

because he was fighting with his neighbor about defense, you know, the stupidest shit ever. And the neighbor charged him with assault that he assaulted him. Case was dismissed. You know, I have a, I had a neighbor who could have done

the same to me, honestly. Things got a little heat during the pandemic. You know what I mean? There was some bad blood over offense. But, but, you know, I'm in a little bit more of a privileged position in L.A. County. So what happened to this guy? I don't know. Kind of lost a tracker.

I think they eventually grabbed them and took them anyways. Wow. Yeah. So a lot of these folks are people who, like, came to the border seeking asylum or had some other, hey, I think I deserve to be in the country. And the government says, well, we're not sure yet. We got to go through the process, but you can cool your heels in L.A., but you got to come check in every once in a while.

And so they are in the country legally or at least in an intermediate zone, like the same as when you're in a jail, but you haven't been charged with a crime yet kind of situation. Or maybe, well, it's kind of the opposite because it's like, are we going to let you in? But then the government is seeing them as like, these are a low hanging fruit for people. We can go through. And if they've done anything wrong, we can kind of brutally deport them. Yeah. Yeah, or detain them. And there's a big question that's like, why are people being detained and not being deported?

Right. If the intention is mass deportation, why are they building up all these warehouses and detention centers? My understanding was it's because it's to conceal the fact that it's a lot harder to deport people than they would have you think because you have to send them somewhere, which means there has to be a recipient, which means you have to get another country to agree to take them. Yeah, that's hard, right? No, not at all. Am I wrong? Yeah. Okay, never mind.

Sorry. Literally, people will be deported within 24 hours. Okay. So, okay, you saw the incident in San Francisco airport. Yeah. It was Angelica and her daughter Wendy. Angelica, yeah, and her daughter Wendy. Where the agents, they tracked her down.

I guess TSA tipped off the agents that these folks were trying to fly out. These folks that came in in 2018, they did the whole check-ins. They had an ankle monitor. I talked to a family member, keep him anonymous. They kind of broke it down together. At some point, Diana Kvonner came off, and then we never heard from immigration again. So she's been here for now since 2018. She was going to fly to Miami with her daughter to visit family.

All of a sudden, ICE just shows up and tackles her, separates her from the daughter and take them away. Overnight, that happened Sunday. Sunday night, they flew them to Texas, held them in one of those holding rooms. And from Texas, they flew them to L.A., and they held them in the holding room there. And by Tuesday, they were back in Guatemala. Wow. Like, the deportation is quick. Okay.

Yeah. I've seen people get taken from car watches in L.A. And they're in Tijuana in two or three hours. Wow. Like fast. Okay. So the deportation isn't slow. Okay.

It's fast. So why, yeah, why are they detaining people then? A lot of these people that they're detaining have been here for years. Ten years, 15, 20 years. They've built their lives here. Yeah. They have businesses. Their families are here.

Their kids are here. They don't want to go back to their country. That's as far from like asylum cases where. they're in danger of going back to their countries and they're afraid of that. So, like, you know, they don't want to go. So when you get detained, you have to sign a self-deportation letter and agree to self-deport. If not, they put you in jail in a detention center, concentration camp, and then you have to wait for, you know, your day in court where you can have a lawyer, plead your case, and then get out on bond. And then they raised the bond prices ridiculously high.

They used to be like a $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000. bond. Now they're up to like 10, $15,000 bonds, $20,000 bonds. Wow. Um, they, they, they dismissed the rules for who can qualify for a bond too. They changed the rules that's who can and cannot qualify for bonds. So they're staying in detention centers longer. Um, so you're seeing people bond out now, like at an average of six months when they used to take about 30 days. But so all the folks you mentioned who were deported quickly, they all signed. Most of them signed. Um, most of them signed. Um, a lot of them had, maybe a deportation order.

It's all messy, man. These guys don't keep track of paperwork. These guys can barely fucking read and write. I've seen some of the reports and their text messages that get leaked. Like, these guys don't know what the hell they're doing, man. Like, honestly.

Yeah, I mean, it does seem like, just to talk about that for one second, like if you are an absolute moron and you just want to beat people up and you want a government salary and you want those good bennies. you know and ICE is hiring it like it you're not going to get the best of the best from that program you know that's who you're going to get you're going to get all army rejects police rejects

yeah high school rejects yeah i mean this is their plan like what's what's the problem with american men they don't get work and they're just sitting around on their asses playing video games it's like this is this is their in-sell jobs program right basically uh it's man, well, and that sort of poses its own problem with like, how do they actually do this enforcement? Because they're going to have, you know, huge numbers of idiots. It's hard to actually do anything professionally. You ever have anything of yours on the internet that you really just wish wasn't out there? For me, it's a mountain of leaked photos of me that prove I was born with a reptilian tail.

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How is this amount of people being taken off the street, like affecting life in communities in in L.A. where this is happening. I mean, it's devastating our economy. I mean, look, if we want to talk about it. LA specifically, we survived the pandemic somehow. Then we had the Hollywood strike, which really just kind of dissimited the economy here in Los Angeles, a lot of jobs, a lot of industries. And then you had the fires, and now you have the raids. So on top of all of that that's already we've been through here in Los Angeles, now going after the people that are rebuilding the homes

from the fires, you know, people that served like the Hollywood industry through catering jobs or grip or construction sets, to, you know, now these business businesses. are just everywhere I go everywhere I like I literally just got my hair cut and my barber's like I'm gonna have to close down too like I'm not getting a lot of food traffic anymore wow you know um I talked to restaurants um they're like we used to have like Friday Saturday Sunday where like our money makers guaranteed he's like we're lucky if we get one day a month where we get like a busy day wow you know um there's a report from the department of economic opportunity from the la county I just stated that about 50% of people are seeing over 50% decline in, no, 82% of businesses

have reported of more than a 50% decline in foot traffic and business. Wow. You think about how that's going to translate into tax revenue for the city, cutting programs, you know, it's going to affect everybody. Yeah. And I mean, look, there's all the other bad shit that's happened in L.A. over the last 5, 10 years. But you think a big part of that is attributable to the ICE enforcement?

Is it like people don't want to. want to go out for a fact for a fact people uh look there's about 3.7 million immigrants in Los Angeles um how many are undocumented we're not sure um but they're a huge part of the workforce yeah so when they're afraid to go out to work literally people tell me like look if we don't go out we're facing either getting evicted or getting deported uh-huh you know like that's a choice they have to make so they have to go out to work yeah and um you know I'll go to like street stands at night because, you know, I love tacos. I covered tacos for a living for a while.

Yeah. They'll tell me that like, you know, at night we don't see as many brown faces anymore. Yeah. It's definitely, you have events like, you know, that are getting canceled. You have, you know, historical spots like Santie Alley, you know, empty during the week. You know, used to be packed, you know, just everywhere. It's definitely, you can feel it out when you walk around in these communities. You can't really feel it as much when you're, like,

Silver Lake or Echo Park or Santa Monica or Brentwood. Of course. Right? But you go to the rest of L.A. And you can feel it's palpable. Well, and when you leave, you know, I've lived in L.A. 10 years now and I've always lived in this part town, you know, Silver Lake area. But when I leave those parts of town, West Hollywood, Santa Monica here, I'm, I'm like, oh, okay, now I'm in like actual L.A.

You know what I mean? Like there's the folks who move here to work in Hollywood or whatever. And then there's like, you know, the vast. most populated county in America, right? Huge economic engine. Like it just goes and goes and goes. And it's like, yeah, like you say, it's immigrants. I mean, you said 3.7 million.

The county is what, 10 million? Yeah. So over a third of the entire county is immigrants of some, like people who literally were born in a different country. And then they're kids, right? So their kids are probably the same number again, right? So we're talking the majority of the county is immigrants or a media family of immigrants, probably, right?

How much do you think that L.A. was a target for ICE specifically for that reason? Here's a big blue city that is defined by immigration. Yeah, I think 100%. That was the whole goal, the point. I think that was a... I mean, Trump is petty. Yeah. You know, he's going after his enemies, people that go, you speak out against them.

And I think California has been one of those states. I mean, that's also why I went against Minnesota. You know, you see him just going around to these blue hotspots. Yeah. Because I'm thinking there's got to be some cities in Texas. Like Houston, famously diverse city. I don't know how many people in Houston are immigrants, but like, it's pretty close to the southern border.

Yeah. You know, like it can't be, it's not zero. And you don't hear the same stories coming out of those cities to the same extent. Well, there's something interesting that happened in those cities like there, Louisiana, Florida, they have the 287G program. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but to explain to folks, 287G is a program by DHS and ICE where they all pay local police departments to do the raids and the arrest for them. Ah.

So you're like, like one of the second highest numbers that I saw a few months ago, I don't know if it's still consistent, was Louisiana. And you're not hearing anything from Louisiana. I know Greg Bovino went there for about two weeks with his border patrol after he couldn't handle Charlotte in there, you know, all the grandmas with guns out there. So he left. I was like, collect this, and then went to Louisiana for two weeks, and then he left.

But they're still doing operations. Same thing in Florida. And that's because of 287G, which pays local police departments to do the rates for them. California is a sanctuary state. Yeah. We don't allow that.

And my understanding is, just talking about the sanctuary policy briefly, part of it's because, like, local law enforcement is like, we can't do this or we won't be able to do our jobs, right? Like the police themselves, say what you will about the L.A. or any or the sheriff's department, obviously horribly corrupt.

But even they are saying like, well, we can't be involved in immigration enforcement or else we wouldn't be able to do what we're supposed to do, right? Like in terms of what like, well, the argument that I've heard is that, like, they need some amount of community cooperation. Like they need to like, like they need to know that when they knock on the door that the, the people inside know that there's a difference between them and immigration where people aren't ever going to talk to them. Yeah.

Is that it hold water to you or no? I mean, yeah, there's, I don't know if LAPD cares about that, but it's definitely that something that we're seeing. Like, when they're like, oh, you know, crime is going down. Well, it's going now because nobody's calling LAPD anymore. Nobody's calling the police. Like, they don't trust them. Yeah.

Like, like, I keep track of these rates daily, I guess, sent pictures and video from all these folks, undocumented folks, community folks. And, like, they just see a car with little lights or unmarked or somebody in uniform. They don't know the difference between me. ICE or LAPD. They're just like, emigras here. ICE is here. And it's like, and then I verify the pictures. I'll call the police stations.

It's not an operation that we're conducting. You know, so it's like, yeah, they don't know who to trust. Yeah. Well, yeah, they're not calling 911. And that does impede on LAPD's ability to like keep the peace, unquote, you know, if they do. So let's talk about how you are tracking what's

happening. Like, you're getting reports from who and how are you collecting them? Yeah, how do you do it? From everywhere, man. I get reports now from people individually through either my DMs, on social media, through my emails. A lot of people have my number.

They text me. But a lot of it now, you have rapid response groups that are really good about posting things online. So I follow all of them. I've built relationships with a lot of the rapid responders. So we're in constant communication with them. You know, honestly, I can't do any of the reporting I can. if it wasn't for rapid responders, trusting me and including me in their chats

and me being able to communicate with them and exchange intel and verify information with them. So it's really been this grassroots community coming together and organizing to work together. Now it's amazing because now you'll see like rapid responders from like one area like mobilized to go help, but rapid responders is another one they're getting hit hard

to just go out there and, you know, alert community, A, ISIS here or document in a, you know, an arrest or kidnapping. And so, yeah, just I have the trust of the community. And it's probably the most valuable asset I have that I think other media doesn't have. And these rapid response groups, these are volunteers in communities who are banding together to help address what's happening.

So tell me how those groups form. So there's actual, like, non-profit organizations. You have like Union del Barrio. You have, like, I see Port J. in San Bernardino, I might have brutalized that. You have also like Cheerla, which is a national, you know, immigration organization that does a lot of the defense work and rapid responding. They're the ones, the first ones to organize rapid responders.

You have an early rapid response team. So you have like the more official groups, but then you have a lot of like autonomous people. Yeah. The difference between the rapper response groups, they do trainings of like, you know, how to record from afar, don't get close, do it legally. And then we have all these autonomous foods that just don't give a fuck. And I love these guys. Don't ever condone how they do it.

God, I love it, man. They'll get right up on their faces and their windows. I've seen, like, there's this guy, Arturo in San Diego. Arturo Gonzalez, shout it to that guy. He doesn't care, man. I've seen them do videos where, like, they got out of the car and they'll do like the whole circus chasing them around the car. Like, come on, get me. Get me.

They get frustrated. Wow. You know, like, people just go right up to the car. them and stuff. And I don't condone that, don't do that, unless you're crazy, don't care, or ruthless and relentless. Yeah. But those guys are really, like, the ones chasing them and then being on their asses, you know, while other ones do it more the way you're supposed to do it.

So I'm here to encourage autonomous behavior, but a lot of these autonomous guys are, like, ballsy. Yeah. And there's a, they're all been inspired by, like, a soccer mom. Shout out to Angie, who was like, one of the first ones to just be on their ass, It's chasing them everywhere. Just following them everywhere. I think I've seen that name is familiar.

I think I've seen at least one clip from Angie. Yeah. And the purpose of this is mostly to record. Mostly to record. And just give them a hard time. Give them friction. Give them a hard time. Alert your communities.

Yeah. You know, going around and just telling vendors, people with blowhorns, with the megaphone, ICE is here, get indoors, be careful. Yeah, just warning community, recording the, situations and trying to figure out who the family member is that just got taken and try to contact them and get him a close and get him to resources immediately. And you are then taken those recordings or that information you're reporting and you do a daily vertical video. You blasted out the daily memo, which I've seen is invaluable.

What do you feel the purpose of that is? Obviously, it's good just to spread the information, but yeah. One is to spread the information. I think I, I, I, I, I, I've heard so many times, I first from our own mayor going on the circuits, you know, that it's not as bad anymore. I'm like, what are you talking about? We had a record week of like 50 kidnappings in like a few days. It's one to spread awareness, but two, most importantly, I mean, as a journalist, I think it's important for us to document. You know, I'm keeping a historical record every day. This is day 295 because I've been doing this.

Yeah. I'm archiving every video, every incident because they disappear from the internet. Yeah. So I'm archiving all the videos. I'm documenting as much information I can from each particular raid. It's been very useful for lawyers. I know people that are fighting currently. The big case in Los Angeles, Perdomo versus Nome,

or Pardomo Vasquez versus Nome, Kristineau. That's the one that had the temporary restraining order. That's the big federal case in court right now. So they came and were able to use a lot of my footage for their to make their case. Wow. So yeah, the work I'm doing, I feel like is essential not only for currently to fight the administration, but two, historically. And three, like down the road, people can learn from this. Yeah.

I mean, it's the basic task of journalism, right? Something happens in the world and someone needs to go, hey, that happened. Yeah. And like write it down, broadcast it. And then that's how we know about it now. It's also how historians know about it in the future. if you weren't doing this and the rapid response groups weren't doing it, these people would just be taken. And then historians would say, oh, some amount of people were taken and we don't really know how many.

Well, the government said this many. But, you know, no one was writing it down at the time. So it's just, it's like just the basic journalist job of keeping a record of it. Keeping a record. Yeah. And also, it's community-based journalism. Like, letting people know, how are they operating? How do they look?

What are your rights? Where are they mobilizing? Okay, it's calming down. I'll get ready. They're coming back. Yeah. You know, like they changed some laws. This is, you know, just kind of keeping, you know, community inform is very important.

How did you start doing this? You were a landscaper originally, right? That's what I was told. Yeah. I was a landscaper and then came across LA Taco and I was like, you know, I can help. Like, I always, I didn't really read books. I read articles all the time. I was important.

I loved reading, like, newspapers and articles. Then I was like, I saw the importance of needing independent media. media, especially around 2018 when media was kind of collapsing around Los Angeles. Yeah. So I was like, you know, I'm down with this. I can help out. I know what it's like to start a business. I've done it myself.

I started building the membership program and all that stuff, getting free tacos for members. I actually saw you at one of our events early on. Yeah. I jumped down pretty early. I mean, you know, I moved here from New York. It's a much more media-rich environment, you know. Moved out here. I'm like trying to find some sense of community.

and you guys, it's like, you know, sort of left-wing community news and taco reviews. I was like, okay, this is good. And it's a blog, you know, I like, I grew up in the blog era, so I miss just having that thing to load. And, yeah, I don't remember what event it was, but I remember going.

And I've always had merch from you guys. Yeah. I'm not wearing any of it, but I got like, I think, yeah, you gave me some. You're going to see me in it. My, like, the first thing I ever wore that said L.A. on it was like your black hoodie from like five, six years ago. Oh, nice.

And, you know, I wear that on the road all the time. It's, uh, yeah, you know, it, it, it, L.A. Taco also, by the way, has kind of like a cool factor in Los Angeles. Like if people see you in L.A. Taco gear, they're like, oh, L.A. Taco. Oh, yeah, cool. You know what I mean? It's like, it looks like superficially. It's like, okay, there's the, it's just an L&A. But if people know the typeface, they're like, oh, okay, you're like, you're, you're, you, you actually are following what's going on. I remember the Dodgers gave up towels one time with our typeface.

Wow. And we were just flooded like, oh my God, Elit Taco Calabla, the Dodgers were like, no, we didn't. Literally just used the same type face.

They just literally use the same type face. That's really funny. Which is a really obscure one. But like you guys made a LA Taco hat that looks like is the same colors as a Dodgers hat. And that's what I wear to Dodgers games. I'm like, all right,

it looks like I'm supporting the Dodgers, but it's like a little bit more legit than that. But I mean, when I went to that event a couple years ago, it was much smaller site. Yeah, they were super small. Now you guys are getting so much acclough. I feel like almost having you on the show late. Everyone's been talking all year about the amazing work you guys are doing. You're getting your flowers from everybody.

So how has it grown and how does it feel becoming like one of the more important media outlets in the most populous county in the country? I mean, it's wild, man. I think, for one, I want to thank all our supporters, everybody that's, that's been, I mean, we've grown to the point where, like, for the first 100 days, I was doing all this reporting alone. I was doing all the tracking. I was recording the, writing the articles. I was, I was recording myself, editing it, doing the B-roll, and public putting it out on all social media and everything by myself. I was burning out. But thanks to supporters, like, coming in, like, I've been able to grow our team.

I have two people now helping, three people now helping me. our other side of our team, the editorial side, they've also been able to grow. It's just been amazing the response from Los Angeles, seeing the value of our work. Yeah. And wanting to encourage it and keep it going. So I think we've proven that independent journalism can outperform legacy media in terms of like doing community service journalism. You know, because we're really connected to the community. Like we're out there.

Yeah. I mean, people are, people know about you guys. And are they like is just. straight up, like, traffic to your site, like growing or, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, everything's growing. Our memberships more than doubled.

We've had a lot of foundations come and support us. I've been doing interviews with people like you. Yeah. It's been amazing, you know. But I appreciate it. I think that the, the sweetest part is just being out on the street and being recognized and just having people just come up to me. And literally, like, we'll start crying and thanking me for the work.

Yeah. You know, it's like, it's really sweet. And it's also like, please, I don't want to cry again. Unfortunately for you, you're a really tall guy. Yeah. And I'm sure, like, you go to a, you go to a L-AFC or a Dodger game or whatever, and then you're going to be flooded with people. I stand out.

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That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash factually. Promocode factually at checkout. L.A. is such a weird place, right? Because, again, second biggest city or biggest county, however you want to count it in the country. And yet there has always been so much less media coverage of what happens here than anywhere else.

You know, the LA Times was a big paper for a long time, but it was never as big as in New York Times. And now it's like a shell of itself. I, like, for a little while, I was like, oh, maybe we're going to not end up so bad, you know? I would go visit, you know, family friends in San Francisco. And I'd be like, oh, my God, the San Francisco Chronicles like eight pages long.

Thank God it's not that bad in L.A. And now it is that bad, right? Like, you look at the paper and you're like, what the fuck is this? Why do you think that, like, L.A. has kind of been a media desert for so long um you know like first i do want to say that like you you can bat we can bash on the on the actual publications but there are good journalists within them so a hundred percent you know there's great people at a late times doing the good work yeah they just

laid off a bunch of them that's my complaints a lot of them i still support the paper because i'm like i need to support the people who are still there yeah i just think because like one it's building their own or they're more a beholding to to to their pockets um other legacy media as you know, they're shareholders. Two, I just don't think they understand the changing dynamics of media right now, like using social media. I think they're

barely catching on to that kind of concept. I mean, we've gone from like paper to websites to now social media. That's where most people get their news now. Yeah. So, you know, ad revenue, Google has taken over ad revenue. That's another big problem. So

all these papers don't get their ad revenue anymore from their stories. And I think there's a loss of trust in the community. Like, I think that's why we're standing out as a publication because I have the trust of the community. Yeah. I've been literally, I've shown up to raids or events and people, I showed up one time to respond to this raid that was in Pomona, where they had taken somebody's car and people were getting out outside and they were like shouting with megahorns. ABC 7 showed up, Telemundo, Nivision.

And they're like, fuck you guys. We're not going to talk to you guys. and then I show up like, oh my God, it's L.A. Taco. Yeah. It's kind of weird. Like, yeah, fuck guys. Hey, man, I love your work. Go to hell.

Like, you're awesome. Can I take a selfie? I'm like, what is happening here? Well, it's because you're, like you said, because you're connected to the community. I mean, like I said, I've met, there's a lot of L.A. Times reporters I really love, and I see them at events,

and I'll give them a quote and stuff like that. But they're always there a little bit in the old school reporter way as being an observer from the outside with a notebook and, and, oh, what's happening here kind of thing? Whereas, you know, I imagine you show up and it's like, you are, you are from the street, you're of the street, you know, like from the block, whatever you, however you want to put it. It's like, it's just a manifestly different relationship.

Yeah. Do you feel, is this a different kind of journalism? Because like maybe, maybe someone would say, oh, is that less objective as a form of journalism or something? Because you have more of a stake in what happens than a lot of people. How do you feel about that piece of it? Yeah, I mean, I talk about this all the time. It's the number one question I get.

Like, look, I always tell people, one, journalism, the freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the right to assemble, that's their first constitutional right, because that's a right of the people. To me, journalism is a right of the people and it belongs to the people. So when you're doing journalism, if you're not doing it for your communities, who are you doing it for, right? And two, it's like it should serve the communities. Three, objectivity.

I mean, I think, first of all, people's definition of objectivity is biased by nature. Like what your think is objective is different than what I think is effective. You can ask that question to anybody. Everybody's going to argue about what objectivity is. Yeah. And I think...

So objectivity is subjective. It's subjective to begin with. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So, and then three, or four, I don't know, I'll stop counting. But, you know, it pisses me off when, like, you're, these people, like you said, they do parachute journalism.

They come in, do a quick story, and then they're out to the next story. Yeah. And they're taught to not get too close to the story, right, to these people. Yeah, they'll do like a whole 60-minute feature on these billionaires, like Mark Zuckerberg and like humanize them. Look, he's just a dad like you. Let's really get to know the person. Let's really get close to them. It's like, why can you, why is your objectivity about who you can get close to different there in that sentence?

But I think the most important part of it is that the reason we're standing out at LA Taco is because we are close to the communities, we report for the communities and we give voice to them. And that's why we can do the reporting we're doing. And these legacy media companies can't do it. Yeah. Because they're not embedded. They don't have that trust. And they don't, you know, they're not tapped in. You know, that's what separates us.

And that's why I can report on every incident. And that's why I can contact all kinds of people. That's what people trust me. That's why we have the street level news first. Yeah. Yeah, that legacy media will never be able to do because they're out here. How important is the taco in LA Taco? I mean, there's like that name to me.

It's like funny, right? And I'm like, it's like it's taco reviews and it's ice news. And I also go for the Taco review. Like literally, I think I wanted to get some Sanitas with a first. and I was like, let me go, let me look at your list, right? Because I trust it more than anywhere else. But why tacos as the thing that goes with news, you know? I think tacos is the most accepted food in Los Angeles.

You literally have tacos at every corner. Yeah. Everybody loves them. And I think it's a great angle, representative angle of Los Angeles. You can go anywhere and have, I mean, how many late nights are you not there at a taco truck and just kind of fucking around with other people or your friends? And for me, I just think it's a great way to be like, here's a great taco.

By the way, do you know your government's doing this? They like Google Best Taco in L.A. And then they get your list. I assume you're on the first page if people are searching. We better be on the first page. You better be. The name is L.A. Taco. And you do comprehensive lists.

You do like real lists. Like it's as good as anything that L.A. Times does in terms of your food coverage. Yeah. I mean, to me... And then they click and then they see the government news. They see the government news. Right, go for it. Yeah, but for me, like, food is always the greatest way of telling community stories, right?

Yeah. You're going, like, why is there enduring food here? Why is this particular taco there? Why is that, you know, Colombian food there? And then, like, you get to tell the stories of, like, people's struggles, place, immigration, through all of that stuff. You know, it's not just about the food. It's like, why is this Arepa here? Like, why can you have this?

Yeah. So you get to tell cultural, historical, add context to communities, you know, and understand really why L.A. is the way it is. Yeah. You know, and then from that is like you start reporting on how these people are being affected by current policies. Yeah. You know, it's just food is just a great, great way to any conversation. And that's how we use food. I mean, it is true that when you eat food or when you look into why is this food here, it always brings you to like the history of the people so quickly.

You know, it's like you eat a bon me and that's the French colonization of Vietnam. That's what you're eating, right? And it's like delicious. And you're like, man, there's one good thing about colonialism and we got this sandwich out of it. I mean, yeah. But like the history is there in the sandwich, right?

And like, why do they have the same coffee in Vietnamese restaurants as in New Orleans? You know, it's like part of that. The same thing is true of, yeah, tacos or anything else. Why is the best Chinese food in Mexicali? Why? Yeah, because all the Chinese folks that came to build a railroads were kicked out of the U.S. to the border.

No way. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. There's just incredible history you can find through food. Wow. That's really fucking cool. Well, a place where those things come together, where politics and food come together in

LA is like street vendor specifically. You said on the street corner, that is like where you get tacos. and, like, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, so talk about that, like, tell me a little bit about that and how ICE is affecting, like, the folks we buy our food from. Yeah, I mean, like, I think I've seen so many videos of people, um, old ladies being taken that, set of salt amales on the corner, uh, fruit vendors, um, I was just speaking to a fruit vendor, the, the, last week. She was telling me how she still goes out to vent fruit, but she hides

in her car and she waits for like the people to come up. Wow. Because she doesn't know if it's ice or not. Wow. So then people come up to the fruit car and start looking around. A lot of times people are walking up concerned like, oh my God, did she get taken? And she's like, has to see, like make sure they don't look like ice and then she'll come out of her car to go through. Jesus Christ. So I was like, they're working and living like in fear. This is a quote that stuck with me when I talked to a car.

car wash vendor, a car wash manager, and he's like, and I was verifying some incidents at his car wash. And that's what he ended up with. Like, you know, man, we live and work and fear every day. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just, that's what it is. When you said a tamale lady, I don't know if that one made me more emotional. And I'm like, why, why does tamale, why do the ladies sell tamales I'm like feel most protective of? I think it's because they make them at home and then they bring them, right? And it's like, they're all in a hot thing. They're not making them in front of you. It's like, so it feels like there's even more love involved.

Like every time I buy it tamale, I'm like, this is all thanks, mom. Yeah. They're like old ladies and grandma, you know, and they have a little table and a fridge, you know, cooler. Yeah. You know, they're the sweet. And then they get taken and I've seen their grandkids go in. Like, they're 14 years old. They should be at school.

But no, they have to solve tamales too because they need the endco. Yeah. And that's so much, you know, L.A. culture, like, one of the first. I really remember distinctly the first time I got like a fruit cup, like sliced fruit, you know, after moving here. And I felt like, oh, I understand something about the city, right? Like I had seen them, but like until I was like, okay, let me, let me see what this actually is. I was like, oh, I, like, I felt like I took the city into my body, you know, when I did that. It was like so, so clear.

I mean, what's your, what's your favorite taco right now? We'll go back to serious in a second, but like, I feel like this is the nice thing about you is I can always bring it back to something that's fun to talk about. Oh, man, I have so many favorite tacos. Right now, the taco I've been enjoying is comals. They have a short-ripped taco with some fries on it on a hairling blue corn, freshly made tortilla with some green salsa. It's fucking delicious. Where is that? It's inside of Mercado Paloma.

Okay. You know where Hobosh is? Yeah. I think a lot of people know Hobart's now. Oh, the restaurant. Yeah. It's inside of a food hall. So they share that food hall with them down by USC on the other side of the 110. Okay. Let's go back to ice. Now that I'm picturing short rib and fries and and green salt. Homemade tortilla. Fuck. Yeah. I mean, what do you what do you think about the political response of, you know, the people who run the city? Sometimes I feel like they're saying the right things, you know. I mean, are they doing them? I think the system, I think that these moments of crisis have really shown the weaknesses in our own city government structures, right? Mask, the Karen Bass, she hasn't done the best response.

People are not happy with the responses. I think also people have a lack of education to understand how our government, our own civics work. Yeah. They don't realize like Bass doesn't have direct control. The L.A. Center Council doesn't have direct control of our own police. You know, they don't understand those structures and how things operate. And I think it's proven, like, L.A.'s government is very decentralized.

And that's the point. So that not any single person has a lot of power. Yeah. I mean, every city council member is like the mayor of their own district, really. Yeah. Versus like, you know, they look at Mamdani in New York. They're like, why can't L.A. be like that? Yeah.

Well, they have a vertical system. And then the thing, I always have to tell people, there's huge parts of L.A. that you would think are part of L.A., and they're actually not. Right. Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Burbank, all these places. We have 88 mayors in this county. Yeah. If you look at a map of L.A., it's like Swiss cheese.

And there's a lot of people in those other areas going like, oh, fuck Karen Bass. But that's actually not their mayor. Exactly. And so that is like, when the city was built, it was much more like Reagan-esque. and or I mean, Regan came later, but I thought there's a much more of a philosophy of like, we don't want to have a government. Like, just keep it. Let's keep it neutered.

Let's like, we don't want any city services. And so like as a result, like a hundred years later, like we don't really have them. Yeah. And then they can't get their shit together because you need like all 14 council members to agree on doing anything for the city. Yeah. You know? And then you have like what?

Four very progressive ones, a couple moderates and then a couple on the right. Yeah. So it's like getting them to agree on making any kind of forceful change is very difficult. Our mayor, I don't know, all she can really do is appoint and suggest stuff. But even then she's not like coming out as a forceful mayor, you know, speaking strongly. Yeah. And even then like she doesn't seem to be like, have her finger on the pulse, you know, which is very disappointing. Like and and, you know, I've spoken with her.

I've met with her. She invited me to meet with her. very nice. Got to understand her a little bit in some of the decisions that she does and can't do. But at the same time, I just think I think our government structure

needs to change if you want to have anything impactful done. How should it change? I think power is a little bit to consolidate it. Maybe like an emergency revolution, we're like we're in a time of crisis that like we consolidate power so that somebody can make a goddamn decision.

Yeah. You know? And make something happen. Yeah. You know? I mean, there's such a thing as too much power in one office, like seeing that with the president right now. But then if it's too diffuse, then people just pass the buck forever, right?

Exactly. We're kind of in that position where like we don't want to be trumping authoritarian style. I mean, like New York system with Mandani. It's great when you have Mandani in there. Yeah. It's terrible when you have like Adams or something, you know? So like that's a trick about governments and people need to understand that. Yeah. What do you think about, you know, watching Mamdani in New York and and the sort of change that's happened there? And you, I go there a couple times a year and I used to live there. And when I go back now, I'm like, people are just walking around with smiles on their faces. And they're building things.

Yeah. They're like, he's like, hey, we're going to build like 10,000 public restrooms. I'm like, oh, my God. Like, incredible. What does that make you think about L.A.? Does it make you think anything else is possible? What do you think the differences are? I mean, I was having the discussion actually literally last night with somebody about our city council.

And they made a great point. And it's true. I think a lot of our city council members, like all of them, do a lot of posturing. They have their languages. They're using their words. They're speaking out.

But like I think the difference between these folks and like, Mandani's, and Mandani actually gets out there. He's shoveling. He's doing the work. He says what he's going to do. And then he goes and does it with the community. Yeah.

You know, like he's doing the work. And I think a lot of like from, from our local government here to the state level, I think a lot of people, are just fucking lazy. Don't do the extra work. Aren't really committed or weren't worried about their positions and their images.

Then actually getting out on the streets and like physically doing the work. Yeah. You know? And I think that's a huge difference. Yeah. Like they want to not get yelled at, but they don't want to like take the risk. Yeah.

And actually do the thing. Like there was something different about the way Maldani talked about plowing the streets after the blizzard that they had there like a month ago. Yeah. Where he was like, we're plowing the streets. And he's like out there. He's in the snow. And then like the streets actually did get plowed.

It wasn't like, oh, we're going to make sure we have the best plowing program in America or whatever. Like some sort of vague language. It was like, no, it's concrete. Here's what we're doing. Here's what we're actually doing. It felt like direct community connected. It's like part of it's just like a feeling. It's like the way the person is

addressing the city. The vibe he portrays, the constant smile. Yeah. Even when he's getting heckled. Yeah, yeah. He's got that, you know, he's got that charisma. Yeah. And it works.

I think, but I think more importantly, like, he says what he's going to do and he does what he says. Yeah. You know, and there's no posturing. Yeah. And I think, uh, and our city government is stuck with like, oh, we can't do this because it takes 10 years to get a street light or we can't do that because this ordinance says this or we can't do that.

A lot of why we can't do something. Start talking about what we can do at least, please. Yeah. And go do it. Yeah. I think that would be huge change. I think the thing that I learned the most from watching Mamdani is when somebody says they're going to do something and it makes everybody go, can he really do that?

That makes it more possible to do the thing. Yeah. Because once people are talking about can he really do that, then other people go, yeah, he can. And then someone writes an editorial, I don't really think he can do it. Well, now they're talking about whether or not the thing should be done, how possible it is. And like, if you go out there, like, that's leadership, right? You change what is possible. Every leader is constrained by, you know, groups and politics.

And that stuff is real. And you really do have to negotiate it or negotiate with it. But this is, I probably said on the show before. This is like my criticism of Obama is that Obama was talked about how constrained he was all the time. And of course he was. But also, he was the first black man to get elected in the history of America. He did something impossible. He expanded our notion of what was possible.

Then he got in office and he stopped doing that. And he could have just put some fucking targets on the wall. Yeah. And if you miss some, that's okay. And I'd love to see that approach in our city as well. I'd love to see like. Okay, so what would that look like in terms of ice, right? In terms of the response to the city.

Like what would your hypothetical, mayor or city leaders do? Or is what the city do generally? Well, I think one, I think as a mayor, as a mayor of a city and even city council members, I mean, but as a mayor of a city, one, you have to project leadership. You know, you have to project that you're, even if you're not in charge of the city council or all the police commission, that you're there talking to them and telling them like, this needs to have and this is what the people are demanding. You have to, you have to do that.

One is, and if you don't, you know, you'll, as a. the mayor, you appoint the commission or the commission, you appoint the LAPD chief. And if they're not doing what you want and what the people want, then make some changes. Yeah. You have that power to do that. Yeah. You know, you might not have direct control, but you have indirect control. Yeah.

Bring the fucking city council in. Start yelling on them. I can beat some heads. Like, like, guys, like, this is a fucking emergency. But no, they don't, they're not treating. Like, I know the mayor's not treating ice as an emergency. I asked, you know, I asked her like, you know, how often do you keep tabs on this? She's like, oh, once a week I get an update.

I'm like, shit changes day by day. Yeah. Like, you know, there's wonderful people doing great work, right? Like, I'll just a what is it, the resilience budget. I forgot what it's called, but she gave away $5.1 million of counting money to support 1100 businesses affected by eyes. Wow. Right?

You have, you know, senators like Sasha René Perez. You have Isaac. Brian. Brian. You know, they have Mark Gonzalez. They're all trying to pass these. bills to try to address different things for ice. Yeah.

Those are state legislators. State legislators, you know, everybody's doing what they can. I'm not sure exactly. I've been hearing a lot from like L.A. City Council. Yeah. Or Mayor Bass. I think I got brought into the city council meeting months ago. And it was Monica Rodriguez.

And she brought me in. And she was like, yeah, I want you to testify. I get a testimonial about ice raids. This was like in December. And I was like, okay. So I walked in there. I thought we were going to sit down. They're going to ask me questions.

Like, what's going on? No, she's like, here's the mic. I'm like, okay. Yeah. So I just kind of like, you know, kind of giving my two sense about like what they need to be doing and supporting the communities. Um, I think the, I think the, there's a big disconnect between politicians in our local government and the people on the ground doing the work. Yeah. You know, like they need support.

They need backup. You know, at the very least, rein in your police. Because every time they're out there, what is ICE do? They call their local police department. A, I got some guy following me And then they go and harass them, arrest them, give them a bullshit ticket You know, detain them for a little while,

throw them in jail and then let him out later, a couple hours later. Yeah. It's like, bring in your police, you know? So this is the argument that I've heard That people are starting to talk about now In the mayoral election that, you know, the chief of police says, Well, that's a mutual aid request.

We can't turn down mutual aid requests, which is the norm that like law enforcement departments help each other, right? Like, oh, the San Diego's got a problem. We'll send some cops to, or whatever it is. Yeah. And then the mayor goes, well, yeah, the chief of police says they can't turn down mutual aid requests. That's just a norm, right?

That's just something that they do habitually. And they could say, no, we're not going to fucking do it. And the mayor could say, well, if you, unless you start turning down the mutual aid request, I'm going to fire you. Like that kind of thing. That would be like a new thing, right? Yeah, that could be a new thing. I mean, but like, come on.

I mean, Chief McDonald literally said, I'm not going to enforce the mass ban because I think it's silly. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Like, how are you not going to enforce a piece of legislation? State law? Yeah, that just got passed. Yeah.

Like, how are you not going to enforce law? Like, nobody's paying you to, like, give your opinion on these laws you have to enforce. Like, your job is to enforce these laws. Yeah. You know? Uh, how do you feel about, you know, the future of Los Angeles, both related to, ice and just generally we got like we got the world cup and the Olympics coming up in the next couple of years and so that's just more Trump attention yeah on L.A. more people from both around

the world coming here but you know right wingers people who hate immigrants coming here you know what do you think's going to happen I don't know man I think it's going to be a big shit show because when you have those kind of big events DHS has to get involved because of their counterterrorism programs right? They have to work with local police. You're going to see a presence and people are not going to understand that they need to be there for that. It's going to be interpreted for these other reasons as ICE

immigration enforcement and people fucking hate ICE right now. Of course. And who knows if DHS is actually going to have ICE do that kind of immigration enforcement and policing like they're trying to do at the airports. Yeah, man. I think the new cycle is going to be fucking bananas, dude.

That's what I think. And like the city needs an injection of money. is this the best way to do it? I know we're going to be spending all kinds of money just to comply for the requirements for these games, for stadiums, for all this stuff. So are we going to net? I've been reading reports about how cities actually lose money

when they host these games. I mean, most of them do. What they say about the one, about the Olympics that like the Olympics in the 80s was one of the only ones not to lose money and that we still have that infrastructure. That's the argument that I've heard, right? I mean, that's like a very reductive.

simple argument. I'm sure there's a million details. Right. So who knows, it's certainly going to be disruptive to a lot of people who live in the area and the extra law enforcement is like, and the question is like, are we prepared for it? Are we prepared for what's, what to happen? You know, what, what is the city going to do when there's some giant conflict between ICE and a community, you know, the morning of the opening ceremonies, you know? imagine. Yeah. I mean, who knows what it's going to look like. All I know is that the city's operating in a deficit now. We're losing money. We're going to have missing tax revenue after all these,

you know, all these businesses do their tax revenue and payoffs. And then we're going to have to invest more money in maybe metro, maybe police, and making sure we're up to code on everything that we need to happen. I don't know. We're going to be stretched thin, I think. Yeah. You know, we'll see. Does this, you know, reporting take a toll on you, you know, being from the community that is being affected by this shit, right? You're closer to it than most reporters. Yeah.

You know, seeing like, looking at these videos. I mean, I'm the kind of person when there's a horrifying video on social media. I tend to not watch it because you can lose a whole day that way. I tend to go, okay, I heard there's a really bad video out there and I'm going to respond appropriately, but I don't need to, you know, dwell in my Instagram stories watching people scream. Yeah. But you are doing that as your job. How is that for you? Yeah, it's fucking, it's draining, man. I mean, me and Izzy and Aisha, like, we burn out, like, almost every day. It's, it's, it's draining, but like, you learn to operate in it. You learn to just kind of

keep moving forward. Tell him, like, you know, I tell him, like, hey, just need to relax a little bit, just relax a little bit, like, don't stress today. Yeah. I sometimes still will just be like, you know what? I need some headspace to like clear and I'll just kind of like, zone off for a little bit, but, you know, it's relentless, man. These last week when ice has been restructuring, it's been nice. We've all kind of relaxed, but now we're looking to gear back up and just.

They give you a little summer, a little spring break. Yeah. And, you know, what you said is very true. Like, people do burn out on like seeing these videos. I know a lot of people tell me, like, they don't want to watch the videos because it's traumatizing people are logging off of Instagram. So when I do with the Daily Memo, I try to make sure I don't show as much of that. Maybe just a small clip and kind of explain what happened.

So the people at least know what's going on. This was useful about your videos. You're like, you're in this neighborhood. We saw this happen. And then it's like a little clip or like no sound or whatever. And then we go like, okay, we know that it happened. Here's the clip. And if you want to see it, the links on the article.

We're getting the reporting, not the direct. the trauma. Yeah. Awful. Um, it do you feel like, you know, sometimes when I look at what Trump is trying to do in terms of immigration enforcement, it does seem kind of laughable. It's like they're trying to on a good day, it feels that way to me. Um, they're, they want to do mass deportations. Turns out it's a lot harder to deport tens of millions of people than you thought. They're hiring all these morons. They were chased out of Minneapolis. Obviously, a lot of people were hurt there, but it was like, you know, I mean, the people in Minneapolis kicked their asses, right? Yeah. At the end of the day, how do you feel about it? Well, they're still in Minneapolis.

Yeah. They're still getting their asses kicked. I mean, sure, like they brought it down from what, 2,700 agents to 2,000 agents. There's still 2,000 agents over there. Yeah. And it's, I talk to people over there and they're like, yeah, for some reason, the social media algorithms aren't really pushing those contents out anymore. But you're still fucking seeing ice ages over there. Yeah, I think what Trump is doing is, yeah, it's laughable. I think literally, I think there's a bigger picture to this in just immigration enforcement. I think immigration enforcement is the curtain.

He's literally just building his own secret police. Nice. I mean, the fact that he's just like, I'm going to send ice to the airports. Yeah. Like, good point. Like, what? I just got this my own private

military force that I can just send anywhere I want to do anything I want to do TSA check-ins Yeah Like I think people don't understand that People don't understand

That there's this whole machine behind it That's been building And working with AI To like Palantir technologies Using facial recognition Literally trying to To figure out Who are the people running

Anti-Ice accounts on Instagram just keeping a database of all their enemies. Yeah. Of anybody that's going against it. I mean, we're on the FAA watch list. I'm constantly getting monitored. Wow. Yeah.

What does that look like for you? How so? Just, I mean, just do your phone all of a sudden just starts doing its own shit. Wow. Or you can hear people on the other end, like, when you're in conversations with people. You're just like, you know, it's like, it's weird shit that happens. Your phone starts overheating, like, for no reason. I've been followed by eyes.

Like physically followed? Yeah, on the car. Izzy's been followed by eyes, walking down the street. Yeah, like, they're monitoring everybody. And I think people need to understand that immigration is just the excuse to build this big Gestapo-like army that's going to be serving Trump's personal interest whenever he wants them.

Oh, GSA's not getting paid. going to send ice over there. Like, where was it going to send him next? I mean, that that did like ping for me slightly in the back of my mind when he made that announcement, but I didn't think about it like that consciously of like, yeah, wait, normally you can't do that with a federal, with federal agents, just be like move them around like little chess pieces, like a little army man and say, I want them to stand over here. But, you know, like, the Secret Service, you know, I'm going to send 10,000 Secret Service guys to the, to the Von Supermarket to like stand around. Like, you can't. But for,

some reason with ice he's able to do it and that kind of gives the game away a little bit you try to do it with the national guard he kind of like realized he was going to have to fight the governors for that right but the ice that's all him right and that's like a classic i mean i think the thing of trump as dictator is like a little bit of an over comparison because or the trump hitler comparison because it's like it's a different time you know we have a different social structure like I'm sure he has aspirations but like you know I mean the Nazis were like they knew what they were doing

yeah there was a tight ship there were smart people evil people as fuck these guys are dorks trying to be like I don't know what the fuck they're doing but they are trying right that's my point is that creating like okay I got these guys in uniform who will do what I say

and I can have them go stand around or be scary is like sort of a fundamental step in the fascist playbook that like he clearly has done Now, luckily for us, yes, they're like out of shape in-cell dorks that people that are scared of people, right? That are slipping on the ice and are getting chased out by grandmas with air horns in Minneapolis. A lot of them get chased out by community members, soccer moms and stuff. They're like all of a sudden run away when they like, you know, somebody confronts them.

Yeah. Well, and I think that's important. Like, sure, they are, they're still agents and they're still hurting people in Minneapolis. But like Minneapolis was not scared, you know? people were not like, oh, we can't do, which is, you know, I imagine what happened in Europe in the 40s, right? Right. You didn't have this kind of response.

Do you feel like we're seeing the same kind of response from the people of L.A.? Like it's more diffuse because it's a different, more spread out place. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think that's the main point is that the geography for L.A. is different. So you see these ice agents go hit like these main boulevards, the Home Depot's at the main boulevard's car washes, and then immediately dip and they're out. You know, versus being like in communities are like, you know, kind of close-knit, smaller streets away from highways. And they easily just get stuck by communities coming out to the street.

Yeah. So the response is different. I think originally the first few months though, you just saw L.A. coming out and throwing shit at them. Yeah. You know, breaking windows, skateboards, rocks from Paramount, you know, like downtown L.A. It was fucking wild. Like down in Bell, the Battle of Bell and Maywood. You know, like, that was epic.

Yeah, L.A. was definitely coming out and fighting ice, literally. And a lot of those people paid the price. I know people that are currently in jail because of that, you know. Yeah. So, yeah, I think so, too. I think L.A. was always the first testing ground, and everybody learned from L.A. Now we're learning from Minnesota, you know, and we're taking cues from them, too.

What's the future for you guys and for L.A. Taco? I mean, you guys are becoming institutionalized, you know? Like you're growing into like a real outlet that people are relying on that has stability. What are you, what do you hope to be doing, you know, five or ten years from now? Keep growing. I think our coverage is starting to expand now out of L.A. We've had a lot of response and requests from like the I.E., even San Diego. You know, our reach is getting larger.

even nationals, like we have national, like people in other states I look at us for information. So just kind of growing that and really just kind of growing community journalism at an independent outlet. Yeah. I think it's really important. I think people see the value in that, the effectiveness of that. Like sure, you can scorn on it when it's times of peace.

But when it's times of war, people realize you need this stuff. Yeah. And I just hope people still support us. And the only thing we have to talk about it, tacos. I hope so too, man. I hope that we've lost so much journalism around the country. And even, you know, LA Times laid off a couple hundred journalists over the past

couple of years. I'd love to be able to hire a lot of these journalists. Yeah. You know? Do you think that one day, like there's other outlets like yours, you know, L.A. material just opened. There's like, there's like a half dozen others. Yeah, there's a lot of great little news, uh, independent journalists.

Do you think 10 years from now, we have a news environment that is, is able to support as many journalists as we used to have through outlets like yours? We need to. Yeah. We need to. We can't. I mean, imagine, imagine LA without LA talk or without me doing this reporting. Yeah.

Nobody would know exactly how many raids are happening and documenting all this stuff. Yeah. You know, it's important. And shout out to also to other press out there, like, you know, LA Freedom Press, Calo News, LA Local, high speeds. I mean, like, local journalism is important. Yeah. It's very important. I hope people understand that.

Yeah. And keep it alive. I hope eventually just somebody, we figure out a way to get you guys a lot more money. So you can hire a lot more people and, you know, grow it. Because that's the thing that's important and people need it and they want it. And it's like the business for it is collapsed and we need to build it up again. I can't take you enough for being here and for doing the work that you do. How can people support you?

I'm sure there are a lot of people want to after hearing this. Yeah. You can go to our website, LATATO.com, or any of our social media pages on our link in bio. You can either drop a donation, but the best way is just to become a subscriber.

Yeah. You can get tons of perks. By the way, tonight, we're going to have our, no, tomorrow night. I don't know we're going to air this, but we're going to have our

kickoff Taco Madness Party, which is our premier taco Madness of March Madness, but with Taqueros on the bracket. And they go to, they go to time. I've had to separate taqueros competing.

It's amazing. So much fun. It gets physical? Oh, no. They start talking all kinds of trash. And their fans start talking with their trash with their fans. And I got to be like, guys, you need to keep her fans on the cool. Like stop instigating this shit.

And then we have the big, you know, May 2nd is our Taco Manus life event where we have like taqueros and another competition. And it's a big of blast. But yeah, I don't know why I brought that in. Just throwing it in there. No, no, no, that's great. Like, yeah. Yeah, forget like. But you get perks.

My point was that. Yeah, as a member, you get perks. You get to go to those events for free. Community events for free. You get, you know, a piece of merch for free. And also all this great journalism. And this is the best part is instead of going, hey, please support L.A. Taco because local journalism is important where we left it.

It's like, no, no, no. Go to L.A. Taco and learn where the best fucking taco spot in your neighborhood is and then go there and eat and then go back to the website and be like, now how do I feel about this? Like go, just go for the tacos first, right? Yeah, that. And also, we're very proud of our merch if you just want to buy some merch. All our merch is made by local street artists in L.A.,

or graffiti artists or any other artists. You guys are so sick. Thank you so much for coming on MMO. Okay, thank you enough. Thank you so much, man. From one fan to another. Oh, that's really kind. Thank you.

Well, thank you once again to Memo Torres for coming on the show. I had such a blast in that interview. I hope you did too. Please go support L.A. Taco. want to support this show, head to patreon.com slash Adam Con, over five bucks a month. Get to every episode of the show ad free. For 15 bucks a month, I will read your name in the credits and put it in the end of every single one of my video monologues. This week, I want to thank Aros Harmon, Adam P, Urilyloenthal, Bekreddin and Bragamov, Troy Stifler, and thanks for a great

show at Punchline SF. Thank you, thanks for a great show at Punchline SF. I'm glad you had a good time with the show, and thank you for your support. If you'd like me to read your name or silly your name in the form of a message to the rest of the audience, I will say whatever the fuck you put in that box, all right? So head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. We would love to have you there. Of course, you want to come see me in Sacramento, La Jolla, Burbank, California, coming back to beautiful Burbank, the Den Theater, April 18th, to date my new special,

Kansas City and May, head to Adam Conover.net. Would love to see you. Give you a hug after every single show. Thank you so much for listening. I want to thank my producers, Sam Rodman, Tony Wilson, everybody here at HeadGum for making the show possible. Thanks to you for being here, and I'll see you next time on Factually.

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