Locked In with Ian Bick - ICE Agents Are Breaking the Law — Public Defender Exposes the Truth | Thomas Leaf Pt. 2

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

Public defender Thomas Leaf gives his unfiltered take on America’s growing immigration crisis. From ICE overreach to broken policies and political hypocrisy, Leaf breaks down what’s really happening behind the headlines. This isn’t courtroom drama — it’s a firsthand look at how the system is failing from someone who sees the consequences every day. #ImmigrationCrisis #ICE #BorderControl #PublicDefender #ImmigrationReform #JusticeSystem #IllegalImmigration #lawandorder Watch my first interview with Thomas Leaf here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfpfLca1xbA Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Presented by Tyson 2.0 & Wooooo Energy: https://tyson20.com/ https://woooooenergy.com/ Buy Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00:00 The Rise of ICE Impersonations and Immigration System Flaws 00:06:00 Legal Advice on Immigration Detainers 00:12:15 Understanding Crimes of Moral Turpitude 00:18:46 Immigration and Tax Contributions in the U.S. 00:24:41 Privilege and Injustice: Recognizing Humanity 00:31:09 Origins and Evolution of MS-13 00:37:06 Unseen Impacts of Immigration Policies on Communities 00:43:09 Understanding Protected Status and Immigration Challenges 00:49:06 The Danger of Racial Prejudice and Mischaracterization 00:55:17 The Weaponization of Stereotypes 01:01:31 The Importance of Police Identification 01:07:26 Community Solidarity and Peaceful Protests 01:13:36 Confronting White Privilege and Systemic Oppression 01:19:27 Creating a Space for Open Dialogue 01:26:22 Understanding Birthright Citizenship and Due Process 01:31:51 Understanding Fascism and Authoritarian Regimes Powered by: Just Media House : https://www.justmediahouse.com/ Creative direction, design, assets, support by FWRD: https://www.fwrd.co Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I have been seen a lot of news stories about people claiming to be with ICE agents or different federal agencies doing immigration enforcement and just straight up robbing people. The woman was working in a store and a guy came in with a mask on said he was an ice agent, zip-tied her to the counter and then robbed the joint for $1,000. Public defender Thomas Leif pulls back the curtain on America's broken immigration system from ice raids to illegal detentions. He's exposing the hidden injustices most people never see and the shocking truth behind how our country treats the people trying to find a better life. Thomas, welcome to Lockton, round two, man.

Ian, thank you for having me back, man. This is, you know, first time around was a blast. I had a lot of fun. And it was, it was, it was good to sit and talk with you and talk about my experience as a public defender. But watching the video was so, it's always weird seeing myself and hearing my voice. but, you know, the comment section was what I was most worried about.

And everyone always says, don't read the comments, but I can't help myself. And one of the comments, you know, that stuck with me was, I can't, like, was, I'm really glad to see that Stavi got himself a respectable job. And I was like, wait, is he mean Stavros-Lencus, the comedian? And I was like, oh, wow, that guy's really funny. You know, so I took it as a compliment. And I was like, oh, man, I got to get back to meal prepping and going to the gym more. Well, the first thing I said to you when you walked in was that you lost weight. It's definitely noticeably different.

Whoever that viewer was, thank you for inspiring me. Stavi, baby, I love you. You're hilarious. But yeah, you know, I got to make sure I can still fit in my suits. So for anyone that's interested in your backstory, we will have the first episode plugged LinkedIn in the description of this episode. I'm supposed to point it up here, right? So that the link is supposed to be. Yeah, I'm not that.

fancy with the editing, but we'll have it below in the description so people could check it out. Today we're doing something a little bit different. You're going to be speaking on a couple things that are going on in the world specifically in Connecticut that you're seeing on the front lines as a public defender that I think is a very much a hot topic right now and people are going to be interested in seeing. So if you want to just tell the audience that hasn't heard of you before from the first episode or isn't going to go watch it, just who you are and what you're going to be talking about today. Okay, definitely. First of all, my name is Thomas Leif. I am an assistant public defender. I've been in the public defender services in Connecticut for about a

total of 12 to 13 years now. I work at Danbury Superior Court in the office there. I've been there for about 10, 11 years now. Doing everything from suspended license cases to memorandum. murder trials and, you know, everything in between. But I got to preface. I'm here as a private citizen representing myself. I'm not a representative of division. I'm not speaking on the behalf of the division. I'm just speaking on behalf of myself and, you know, my observations and opinions and all my thoughts and opinions expressed here on my own.

I don't want to be anyone to misconstrue that I'm trying to speak for any organizations. Also, too, I am a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. So what I'm speaking on is not legal advice. So take what you learn from me or don't learn from me with, you know, with, you know, use it at your own risk. Consult an attorney before you do anything. But, you know, Ian, thank you for having me back on again. You know, I, it's, it's a privilege to be on a show like this that has such a wide reach and platform is yours. And I'm glad to be able to be here because, you know, right now,

you know, last time when I came on and talked about my, my background, my upbringing, and my career, it was a pretty lighthearted, you know, I wanted it to be a fun, lighthearted episode, but currently what we're seeing, and one of the reasons why I wanted to come back on the show, is that there is a, you know, a seismic shift in what we're seeing when it comes to, you know, you know, like the criminal procedure and due process or lack thereof when it comes to, you know, the current Trump administration's stance, policies, and behaviors when it comes to Department Homeland Security and, in particular, immigration and customs enforcement. You know, ICE has been a feature that I've had to navigate with my clients, the entirety of my

legal career. there's always been a kind of like a set sort of standard i mean immigration law is people don't necessarily make this distinction but there's two types of courts in our judicial system there's article three judicial courts is what i work in and then there's article one administrative law courts which is what immigration falls under so um there's different standards different you know, processes and everything. And admin law courts, um, their regulations can change from year to year. You know, it just is something as simple as a new policy happens. It, you know, whereas in my court, um, you know, the legislature, whether it's the Connecticut legislature or Congress has to

pass a law and that has to be signed into law, um, for it to be applicable for us. So it's not as um, static. Right. So every, year we will always get new trainings, new updates. DHS is, you know, going by this set of expectations or parameters and whatnot. And, you know, it's always, it's never a fun conversation to have with a client. Like, look, pal, if you plead out to this or based on your record, there's an immigration detainer, you know, before they release you, immigration is going to take you into their custody and initiate removal proceedings.

There is even a case, you know, probably about 15 years ago called K. Kentucky versus Padilla, where if I don't warn my client about the immigration consequences of pleading guilty to certain offenses, that that could be considered ineffective assistance of an attorney. And that's like a, you know, that's a big deal. So the division's always been on top of the jurisprudence when it comes to immigration. And what we've seen now in the last, let's see, what, four or five months now, is a complete upheaval of what we're used to seeing in the community and the in different state court houses,

not just in Connecticut, but nationwide. And it's, frankly, it's, you know, on the one hand, it's terrifying, right? On the other hand, for me personally, I find it completely unfair, infuriating, and frankly, un-American. I think that we're, what we've seen, you know, through the way in which ICE agents and a variety of other law enforcement agencies, whether it's the FBI, the ATF, the DEA, any of those alphabet three-letter agencies, right? The way in which they're being employed, taken off of other important duties to focus on, you know, hunting down, you know, people who are ostensibly undocumented or out of status, you know, in our city streets is,

it's a long, it, it, it, it, it was alarming when people started talking about it. Right. When you see at rallies, people holding up signs saying mass deportation now.

It's alarming to see that that's like a talking point upon which a, the administration is running its campaign on. To see it actually be put into action, right? Is, you know, is where things get, go from alarming to, to, like I said, terrifying and infuriating.

And it's really, you know, it's like, you know, and I don't want to turn this into me talking shit about the Trump administration or his presidency or record or anything else outside of that. But, you know, if you compare histories, right, the first Trump administration, we saw an uptick in a, like aggressiveness in terms of ice activity and taking people in the custody and seeking to remove

them. But nothing like this. This is completely different. Like what we're seeing today is is unprecedented. I cannot think of, I mean, there are a few examples I can think of that might be analogous, but only as a metaphor. Nothing like this policy that's being enacted by, what is it? Christy Noem and Pam Bondi is, you know, she's the Attorney General and Christy Noam's the head of DHS.

You know, their policy at the direction of, you know, the president and, you know, Stephen Miller, you know, what their, like, you know, what their overall grand strategy is and how they're going about doing it is, is never been done before as far as I'm aware in the United States. But to compare, right, you go back a couple of administrations, you go back to Barack Obama, right? You know, people, you know, want to, you know, we remember presidencies in a certain way, right? People have, you know, if you're on the left side of the spectrum, everyone wants to talk about Bill Clinton was like the greatest president of all time. But, you know, I remember him a little bit differently. You know, my lived experience through high school watching that presidency unfold was a little bit different than how people describe them. And just as, you know, people on the right want to, you know, turn, you know, Ronald Reagan into, you know, a saint. whereas, you know, I live through Reagan and I remember it a little differently than how we do it.

So we mythologize, you know, past presidencies and administrations. That's fair. That's normal. That's human. But, you know, an aspect of Barack Obama's presidency that I think oftentimes gets forgotten is that immigration was a big deal when he was president for both terms. And he was very aggressive in having people deported, right? Like there was, I think, if you tally up the numbers of people who were removed from the United States for immigration purposes during Barack Obama's two terms, I want to say like the total is more than at least the two previous administrations before him, if not the third.

You know, so, you know, and that that is, you know, that was, you know, I think that needs to be borne out and, you know, we need to bear that in mind because. is the the current discourse around immigration today and the immigrants within our communities, you know, is totally different than what it was back when Barack Obama, his direction and his policy and his administration, you know, was aggressively looking for people that would meet certain criteria to have them removed. And that criteria primarily was around criminal convictions, you know, And, you know, one of the things that we were trained on when it came to immigration issues when clients who were susceptible to removal, you know, immigration has two different types of crimes that they look at. They've got what they call aggravated felonies and crimes involving moral turpitude. So just to put it in perspective, the president of the United States would be inadmissible to the United States if you weren't a citizen.

Let's say he was a citizen of England and he wanted to come and visit the United States. He would not be admissible to the United States because of his criminal convictions. For two reasons. One, they're felonies. Two, they're felonies or crimes that involve dishonesty. So a crime involving moral turpitude could be something as simple as shoplifting. If you get convicted of a larceny in the sixth degree, it's a class C misdemeanor. You can go to jail in Connecticut for up the 90 days for that.

normally that a misdemeanor like that wouldn't make you removable but because larceny is considered a crime of dishonesty that would make you removable if you were you know a non-citizen at a status or seeking to change your status and and um you know you know so when i was when i was working with people and they're pleading guilty to certain certain crimes and you know we would talk about what their immigration status was, you know, I was able to say to them, look, you can expect X, Y, and Z to happen, right? Like, you can, you know, someone's going to, you know, confront you about this and there's going to be, you know, an order of removal possibly. And, and that was, you know, at least that was fair, you know, like, at least like, at least you knew what the rules were. You know, you know where the out of bounds is. You know how much time is on the clock. You know, whereas, today, there are no rules. There are no standards that are being adhered to.

I mean, whether it's issuing orders that are just on their face unconstitutional, you know, like just depriving people of any due process whatsoever. That's something I wanted to, you know, make sure we talk about, you know, but it's, it's, uh, there are just certain norms and practices that, that are expected, that you're expected to follow in a court of law, whether it's an admin law court or an Article 3, um, criminal court or civil court. There's like, there's practice book rules, there's statutes. There is the constitution that you have to, you know, abide by. Uh, you know, and my, my job as a public defender, as a criminal defense attorney is to look at what the

police did and say, hey, was there a constitutional violation in this search? Was this a legal stop? Was this statement induced in a way that violated my client's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination? And these are all things that you're seeing on a daily basis, just get completely, not even like thrown out the window, but like gleefully shredded, torn up, spit on and and stomped out in the ground by, you know, people in DHS and in ICE. I've been, sorry, I've been a little excited. I've got to try and, like, pace myself here, but, you know, you know, I don't know if, you know, in terms of, like, where, you know, it's, when you, like, you know, the other day,

like, there, like, ice has, has conducted their operations in Connecticut. Connecticut, anyone in the administration would say Connecticut's a sanctuary state, that there's sanctuary cities in Connecticut, which is like, to me, like, you know, that's just a sanctuary state, sanctuary city, whatever. It's a meaningless term to me. What does that mean? Because we see all this going on between New York City and the government and everything like that.

Yeah. So like a sanctuary city, I guess, you know, it depends. depends on who's using the term. You know, if you were to ask someone like, I don't know, like Gavin Newsom, you know, what it makes California a sanctuary state. He would probably say that the state of California is not in the business of executing immigration law or enforcing immigration law. That's a federal, you know, that's a federal, you know, thing. We're going to stick to state law. And by extension, we're also not going to.

going to just go and use our resources to go look for people who don't have legal status, right? We're not going to use a California Highway Patrol to, you know, do immigration checks or citizenship checks, you know, when they pull people over on, you know, California Route 1. Connecticut has what's called the Trust Act. And the Trust Act stands for the proposition that municipalities in the state of Connecticut are not supposed to. to be not working in conjunction with or cooperation with federal immigration authorities to enforce federal immigration law. And again, it stems from this idea that these states and these cities, municipalities,

don't want to use their municipal resources and their local tax dollars to pay for what should be federally funded law enforcement activity. You know, if like, you know, if the feds want to go into an area and do a certain thing, you know, fine. But don't be asking for local PD to pull officers off a patrol or don't be asking to use, you know, you know, municipal assets or resources or facilities to help in furtherance of, you know, federal law enforcement for immigration purposes. You know, and the Trust Act, you know, extends certain things, too, that if you are, if places of worship, like a church, synagogue, mosque, or places like town hall or any public building, courthouses especially, immigration is not supposed to, like federal immigration agencies are not to be doing enforcement practices or enforcement operations. in those locations. Because when they do, people get scared and they stop going to court. You know, they stop going to, they stop, you know, going to town hall to, you know,

whether it's to pay their taxes, which immigrants do, you know, it, you know, something that gets glossed over is that what the undocumented attestatus, you know, immigrant community in the United States paid something like $90 billion in taxes that they don't get in the form of refunds. So it is something that, you know, that you need to use the public buildings or services. Connecticut is taken a decision, and I agree with it. I think it's the correct thing to do that they say, look, if you're going to enforce, you know, federal immigration laws and do your operations like in, you know, in public places or if you've

got, you know, assigned judicial warrant, then you want to go take someone, pick someone up at their place of work or business. Fine, fair play to that. But don't go to, don't go to, you know, don't rate a church. You know, don't, don't have, you know, mass goons waiting to wrap people up in a courthouse. Because when they were doing that, the last time around, you know, I had, I, there is an example of, of a person who immigration agents tried to intercept. him on his way to a court appearance. And they did so outside the court built, the courthouse. Guy ran and, you know, ran away because he was scared.

Ends up getting hit by a car. You know, and it created a really unsafe situation that just didn't need to happen. And then that story circulates, it mutates. It turns into something huge that, you know, that maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. But stories like that spread, people hear about it in the immigrant community that, that, you know, immigration's waiting at court houses, so don't go to court. But that also extends to immigration is working with local law enforcement. Don't go to the cops.

You're the victim of a crime. Don't call 911 if you do and you're undocumented, you know, someone's going to snitch you out and you're going to get taken detained. And that should never be the case. You know, I'm a criminal defense lawyer, right? I'm a career public defender. you know, police agencies, you know, I think it would be pretty safe for me to say that there are a few officers out there who don't like me. You know, and that's fine. Fair play. There's a few officers out there that I don't really care for either. I think we're in the same boat, especially in Danbury.

Yeah. So, like, you know, like we're all human beings. But at the end of the day, if someone's the victim of a crime, I don't care what your status is. And neither does the law. There's nowhere written anywhere that if you're the victim of a crime, that you're not entitled to go file report and have it investigated. And, you know, Connecticut has an state constitution, an entire section, unlike the federal constitution, devoted to victims of crimes. And what are the victims' rights, you know, in a court of law? Like, what are they entitled to? You know, whether it's restitution, whether it's to be heard at a change of plea or a sentencing, right? There's like, you know, that's encoded enshrined in the Connecticut State Constitution. So when you have an entire community of people who are afraid to dial 911 after they've been victimized, you know, that's a dark place.

You know, that you're now, you've now stripped the rule of law away from an entire population. And they feel it and they know it and they know why. you know i mean it's like um you know everybody in this country right you know i have a friend of mine who always says like oh we're going to talk about the rule of law when we're all standing on stolen land you know that's a valid point you know it's something we people should consider but you know i'm a product of yankee imperialism right my dad was stationed in korea my mom was born in soul she's an immigrant you know i used to joking say she was fresh off the it used to be fabs fresh off the boat.

That was the, like, you know, the term that you'd use to tease, you know, people who just got here from, you know, Korea or Japan or China. That was a common thing, you know, growing up with my Korean friends. But, you know, my dad, you know, there was a, at some point, way back when there was a, you know, a heap of Irish guys who said, look, you know, it's not working out for me here. Let's, let's go out west and see what happens, you know. the United States inherently at its core is, you know, dependent upon immigrants, right? You know, I'll say this anyway.

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what happens when you go after the immigrants that are working the farms. No one else wants to do those jobs. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, I mean, it's a sad indictment of our, of our society when the only thing that we can summon as a defense for, you know, people working out in the fields is that, well, leave them alone because no one else will do those jobs. My, my position on this is leave them alone because they're fucking human beings right they're no different than you and i they want the same things that you and i want right they feel the same things that you and i feel um their hearts break in the same way they experience love in the same way that's someone's child that's someone's parent that someone's brother someone's sister and yeah they're doing a job

that no one else here wants to do and you know and bless them for that um but you know when i hear like, you know, it's frustrating when I hear like, you know, people who live in like my social strata, you know, people who are people, you know, I came from a family of means. You know, I was very, you know, watched the last episode. He'll learn all about how I was a lucky kid growing up. But, you know, like things like housing, food insecurity. I was, grew up in a world where I wasn't scared of the cops, right? And the immigrant community doesn't get those luxuries. And when I hear people speaking from privilege, it drives me crazy because they're always like, well, who's going to, who's going to do the landscaping jobs? Who's going to pick the food? Who's going to do this?

It's like, yeah, great questions. Fine, right? But like, acknowledge their inherent humanity first, please. Right? Treat these people. with some modicum of dignity. It's the least you can do. And when you see, like, when I see people talking about, like, what is it, the new one? I mean, they call it alligator alcatraz, right? It should be called alligator Auschwitz. Because it is by every definition of the word, if you look up concentration camp in the

dictionary in any way, that's what that place is. Right? It's a place where people are held indefinitely in detention without criminal charge. with no representation, no access to due process, and are subject to removal, right? And, you know, I want to be careful about being hyperbolic. Maybe some people's minds I've failed at that, failed that test already. But, you know, growing up as a kid, right,

you learn about World War II, the Holocaust, the rise of Nazi Germany, and the Third Reich. And, you know, and growing up in the age of, like,

the burgeoning internet and you get the first, like, you know, IRC chat room flame wars or debates on Facebook about this versus that. There's always this,

like, kind of like this rhetorical rule that the first person to use Hitler loses the argument, right? Because as soon as you, I mean,

that, like, Nazi Germany and the Third Reich and Hitler, They're like the evilest of the evil. Right. They're like you can't, they're incomparable to anyone else. But, you know, and fine, fair play to that. All right.

But that's not, I'm not saying that Donald Trump is Hitler. That's not the, that's not the statement I'm making. The statement I am making, however, is that the pattern and steps and the process that Nazi Germany followed to get from the fall and collapse of the Weimar Republic. to full-blown death camps being, you know, populated by, by deportees, because that's what they were called, right? It wasn't, there was a, there was a gradation, right? They started here and ended here. And on that line of continuity there, we're like right here.

Like if this is where the beginning is, we're like in that continuity when it comes to talking about mass deportation, removing. of people. I mean, there's something like what. I want to say like around 500,000 undocumented people from Ireland in the United States. And none of them getting rounded up, right? I remember growing up in New Haven, New Haven has likes to, you know, boast its Irish pubs, right? There was a whole bunch of Irish pubs in New Haven because there's a pretty strong Irish Catholic

community in New Haven. And for a time, all the staff without all those pubs were kids from Ireland. And they would come over, and they weren't coming over on work visas. They weren't coming over on, you know, they were all coming over on either student visas or tourist visas. And they were all over staying their visas. And they were all working under the table. They were all working outside of like work authorizations and all those things. And they weren't using ITNs to pay taxes.

They weren't, you know, and half the time, you know, when the, when, When the bar is closed, they're getting blind drunk and getting into fights in, you know, in Chapel Street. And New Haven PD would never arrest them because all the guys who did extra duty at the bars knew him, right? I'm not going to, oh, that's shamy. He's fine. You know, he'll, you know, he'll sleep it off. Call him a cab because Uber wasn't a thing yet. But, you know, so when you see that people who are being, the population that's being targeted, it's a very specific population.

And they're all people from Central America and South America. All right. And they're being removed not to their country of origin. You know, I mean, because there are some country, like, you know, I mean, I'm trying to stay organized and I know I'm ranting a lot here. I'm beating your ears off with this stuff. But, you know, being a person with autism, I get on these things and I go. And I'm trying to, you know,

Keep it salient. But, you know, one of the things that people I hear all the time saying, I see a lot of people in social media who are Trump voters who are saying, this isn't what I voted for. To which I say, no, it's exactly what you voted for, right? There's no surprise here. This is the policy that was being, that's being embraced today is exactly the policy that was being campaigned on. it is it is word for word line for line straight out of the project 25 25 you know you know playbook if you will you know and and so people should not be surprised about what's going on and and I and you know AOC Alexandria Ocasio-C Cortez said in a congressional hearing that

Republicans aren't going after illegal immigration they're going after legal immigration. And I think that's another distinction that people are not that the, I mean, the media is largely failing at this kind of reporting on what's happening and how it's happening. Now, when you say illegal immigration, are we talking about like the criminals, the ones that are, you know, like MS-13. Yeah. For example.

Sure. Because I'm sure there's a lot of people that feel strongly that they shouldn't be in the country. Sure. And that they, that that's what they voted for or, you know, that those people should be targeted specifically. I think that if the policy, if the policy platform that was being campaigned on and the one that was being enacted was more like, like we are going to devote resources to interdiction, you know, operations at the border, but not just at the border, but at the ports and at airports. because, you know, we're seeing that, like, the majority of fentanyl that comes in this country

doesn't come over the Mexican border. More of it comes over the Canadian border and through, but most of it comes in through ports, right? I mean, like, you know, and, you know, when you talk about MS-13, the, you know what the 13 stands for in MS-13? What? 13th Street. You know what 13th Street is?

No. South Central LA. So MS means Madasava-Truccia. Mada Salvatrucha. Salvatrucha is a nickname given to people from El Salvador. And when the United States had this thing called the School of the Americas, it was at, I think it was in Fort Benning, Fort Benning, Georgia. And it's where the JFK Special Warfare School.

It's where the Green Berets train. And what the school of the Americas would do, they would take people from South America and Central America, bring them to Fort Benin, and they would get trained by Green Berets. you know, counterinsurgency, right?

They would, they would be trained how to be, you know, jungle fighting commandos to go fight communism in Central and South America.

And the MS-13 guys, the founders of that gang, were trained by Green Berets at the School of the Americas. And when El Salvador, you know, collapses and these guys are like, hey, man,

like we lost, we need a place to go. A lot of them were brought and resettled as refugees in the United States where they didn't receive access to services and became kind of like listless and, you know, kind of alienated.

And what they saw in L.A. is that, okay, you know, the Bloods and the Crips have their own gangs and they stick to their neighborhoods. We are, you know, Salvadorans in this neighborhood. We need to stick together and protect each other because, you know, the government, the police, they don't care about us. And that's how MS-13 started.

And then these guys start committing crimes, doing terrible things, and employing the skis. that they had learned and passed down to their new generations of inductees, they start getting deported back to, you know, Central and South America. And then they take their skills, their connections that they developed in the United States to create this, this gang. And, you know, people always want to conjure MS-13 or, like, Mexican cartels, whether

it's like the Zetas or, you know, any, you know, I don't want to, you know, I'm afraid if I drop certain names that somehow I'm going to piss off the wrong people and end up on a list. But, you know, it's always, it's always been the part of the authoritarian playbook to otherwise the population that you're targeting and homing in on, right? Things that the current administration and the campaign and people who supported them would say about immigrants, whether they're from Latin America or South America. same exact things that you hear Russia say about Ukrainians. The same exact things that you hear you know, let's say

I'm trying to think of like, you know, other examples you know, because I again, you know, I don't want to conflate, compare everything back to Nazi Germany. But, you know, it's the same thing that you would hear, you know, I'm trying to get a better example. But I mean, you know, for lack of a better example,

it's when you look at how Jews are characterized prior to the Nuremberg laws in 1935, you know, it's always the same thing. You know, whether it's saying that they're eating the cats and dogs or they're smuggling in, you know, the remark was like, you got to look at the size of their calves. It's because they're carrying all those drugs on their back when they're crossing the border.

it is a gross misrepresentation of the community at large. You know, I think I'm trying to think of the last time I saw someone who had real identifiable ties to a group like MS-13 come through a courthouse that I worked in. And I can only think of really one example, right? Like we don't, like I remember there was a time where, you know, when I was, I started off from Bridgeport. And someone saw MS-13 spray-painted on like Long-Warf Pier in New Haven. And there was this huge people freaking out, like, oh, my God, MS-13's in Connecticut. How did they get to Connecticut? And like, it's just some kid who just spray-painted MS-13.

Relax. You're not, you know, so like, so like when someone says, I want an immigration policy that prevents someone who is an MS-13 member from entering the United States or remaining in the United States after they've entered illegally, yeah, I don't think. that's unreasonable. I don't think that's inherently racist. I don't think that is, I think that should be the policy objective of any administration. It would have been the policy objective of Joe Biden's administration. It was definitely, and what I saw was the policy directive under Barack Obama. And I don't, I, you know, just as George W. Bush's administration had similar

policy goals. When you have members of organized crime, right, you know, operating within your country and they don't have legal status to be here, that should be a policy directive. That should be an objective. But you don't see them talking about the Russian mob in Brooklyn, right? Like, you know, like you don't talk, you don't hear about, you know, what are we doing about Russian organized crime, you know, families in places like little Odessa who are some of them worse sex traffickers in the eastern seaboard? Not a single word. As far as the average, I mean, I bet most people who heard me just say that didn't even realize that Russian organized crime was operating in the tri-state area. But they've been there for decades. You know, they've been doing stuff alongside the Italian mafia in the tri-state area. But no one's talking about them. They're not on anyone's radar.

You know, when you see, you know, the national guard. mobilized, they're going to Home Depot parking lots. Right? Like, what are we doing? Like, what's, what's, what, what's the strategic goal with this? Like, what do you, what is it? What's the message that you're saying both overtly and, and, and, you know, without, you know, what's, what's the, the, the, the, the, the hidden message here. And, you know, I think any right thinking reasonable person could see that it's, it's a policy goal and

directive based purely out of racism. That the, you know, what's that, there's that Peter Griffin family guy meme where Peter Griffin is stopped by a cop and the cop pulls out like a cheat sheet and it shows different skin tones and he matches at the Peter Griffin. He's like, oh, you're fine. You're good. You know, like you're, you're, you're right on the line, Mr. Griffin. Like, you're, you know, so don't go tan too much. But, but that meme is literally what they're doing. doing. Like they're they're targeting people who are you know just brown skinned right and they're targeting people who English might not be their first language. Now tell us about some of those

situations that you know of firsthand because if there's individuals that think they're just targeting the criminals you're here advocating for the ones that aren't the criminals, ones that are the part of the legal immigration system. Yeah. So when AOC said that the Republican Party is targeting legal immigration. What she meant was there's a thing called protected status, right? There are people who are here on what they call compassionate parole or protected statuses. So, for example, Cubans, right? There was a whole contingent of Cuban refugees in Miami. Most of them came out strong for Trump, too, by the way. Like Latinos for Trump, that was a Cuban-led movement. and that movement was centered around Cubans who were, you know, who left Cuba by any means possible.

And there's no legal means to immigrate from Cuba to the United States. And this gets into another detail, too, when it comes to, like, refugee status and claiming asylum. You know, these people were here. They had protected status. And they just got a text message through, like, 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, the, the, the, going through the legal process of gain your status change, they just get a text message one day saying your protected status has been removed. Your compassionate parole program has been terminated, which in a text message that person went from being an undocumented person with legal status

in the United States to be an undocumented person now subject to removal without protected status. And guess what? If you get removed, they're not going to send. you to Cuba. They can't. There's no diplomatic relationship between the United States and Cuba. But, you know, Seacot, you know, where they're, you know, where they're the, the prison and where they put Kilmar Garcia-Brayu in, that's, that's where you're going, right? That's where, you know, that's, that's what's happening. And as a part of that message, you know, the implied message is remove yourself before we do it, right? Self-deportation, self-removal. That's, you know, basically you want to make conditions so difficult and so miserable that people just say, throw their hands up like, it's not worth it.

The juice ain't worth the squeeze anymore. And leave. So, so you have people, and this is why we're seeing so, this is something like I said, this is unprecedented, right? We are seeing hundreds, if not thousands of examples of people who are going to immigration court. people who are on electronic monitoring, people who have an assigned immigration officer that they're supposed to check in with, they have immigration court dates where they get to update the judge on where they are in the process of getting their naturalization process done to get legal permanent residency. And one of the tricks that they're doing, the DHS attorneys, is that they're moving for the immigration case to be dismissed.

Now, it is normally a dismissal is a good thing, right? Like in the criminal world, you hear dismissal, that's better than an acquittal, right? If you, if your charge are dismissed, you're legally entitled to say you weren't arrested. If you're, if your charges are dismissed, you might even have legal recourse to sue the agency that arrested you, because a dismissal means that there was no probable cause to support the charge. In the immigration court sense of the word, having the immigration removal proceeding dismissed. says to the immigrant, oh, we're not, the government's no longer seeking through this process to process you or to decide that you're going to be removed or not removed or granted, you know, residency or continue on if your protected status, right? And when you have protected status,

by definition, you showed up, you declared yourself, you applied for this and you were found worthy in the eyes of immigration and customs. And you were granted this. And to keep that status, you got to behave yourself. Getting arrested can, if you got arrested, you could have your protected status removed. Convicted or no, right? Like, you know, protected status can be conferred upon someone who's a human trafficking victim, right? The trafficking victim is Protection Act. that is for people who were illegally trafficked into the United States for a variety of purposes. Mostly it's for prostitution, but a lot of the guys that you, that, you know, that Linnezzan liberals like to say that they care so much about who's going to pick the food,

a lot of those guys were trafficked in, coyotes or human traffickers by definition. That program grants and confers upon you protected status, and all these people are getting their protected status taken away from them. And what Republicans are doing is saying, look at all these illegals. Five minutes ago, they were legal, dude. Like, you just made their status illegal by having your attorney say, we want this dismissed. And the person who is the subject of the removal proceeding or their immigration court proceeding doesn't have the wherewithal to object to it. And most people go to immigration court don't have an attorney because it's an Article 1 court.

You're not exposed to jail time. ironically. So you're not entitled to counsel, right? The whole, like, you have a right to an attorney, that only applies if you're facing jail time. Now, this isn't even more messed up permutation. These people are having their protected status taken away from them without due process. And what does that mean for them? They can now be detained and imprisoned. Right? So not only. should they be afforded due process of law because they're subject to the jurisdiction of our courts per the 14th Amendment and the Fifth Amendment as well, they should also be entitled to counsel

because they're looking at being incarcerated. You can call it detention. You can call it what you want. But the fact of the matter is that you're being clapped up in cuffs and taken to what it amounts to a jail cell. So these people are being stripped of any due process rights, what little due process rights they have, they're being jailed without access to representation, and their cases are being processed in a way that's completely outside any norms prior to this administration when it comes to processing immigration cases. So all the people who are going through the legal process,

all the people who are doing it, quote unquote, the right way. It's like the next time I see someone say, oh, I'm all four immigrants as long as they do it the right way, is the fastest way to tell me that you have no fucking idea how the immigration system works. Right? And it gets infuriating

because these are the same people who then turn around and say this isn't what I voted for. And, you know, Twitch is like, no, it's exactly what you voted for. And you continue to misconstrue and misunderstand what is being done to these people and why these people are here

and why they should be allowed to stay. because, you know, like, a story that made me sick, we had there were kids in foster care. Kids in foster care who had protected status, right? Had their protective status removed, not by court order, but by Homeland Security and ICE's own decision making, own policy decision. And those kids were taken out of their foster homes. and put in a detention center. Kids who don't have parents, right? Like kids who are in the process

of being naturalized and adopted, were taken from their father, about 500 of them, were taken from their foster home and put in detention center. Like, I cannot think of a, like, you know, Russia did that to Ukrainian children when they first invaded.

They basically took Ukrainian children said, you're Russian now, and took him back to Russia. And the ICC and the UN all agreed that that's a war crime. That could be classified potentially as a war crime. And, you know, when I think about how just, all right, you know, you talk about criminals, you talk about MS-13, you talk about Mexican cartels, you're right, what did that kid do? Why does that kid have to go?

You know, I want to know what the, I would love to hear what the, I would love to hear what policy decision or what the dictate is, why does the administration, why did they make that choice? Because it was a choice. That didn't happen by accident. So do you think that the net is too widely casted? I think the, I think when you say that you're casting a net, you're suggesting that there's a specific population you're going for, right? Like, you're going fishing, what are you fishing for today? Trout? No, I think I'm going to go noodle some catfish, right? This is not that. This is, depopulating the ocean, right? I mean, there's a better word for it, and it's called ethnic cleansing.

When you take a group of people based upon their ethnicity or perceived ethnicity, and you otherize them the way they're being otherized right now and being referred to as criminals or all these, you know, whatever derogatory word you want to use, right? And you are seeking to remove them en masse. You don't really care where to. You just want them out of here. And your sole criteria is based upon the color of their skin.

You know, and, you know, people are going to say, oh, no, they're not going by skin color. I'm like, you know, okay, all right. Sure. All right. Like, you know, that, you know, act in non-verbo, right? You know, words, not deeds.

You know, you can say what you want, but, you know, What am I going to believe? You are my lying eyes. You know, when you see, you know, people who, when you're going to work sites and detaining people and you're, you know, the only language that you're trying to speak to them in is Spanish, you know, you can say what you want, but it's, you know, it's no different than, you know, that would be like, you know, a fugitive slave patrol saying, no, this isn't about, you know, whether or not they're black.

Like, yeah, okay, pal, sure. You know, like, you know, it's just, there's a, the, the, there used to be at least, like, a level of disingenuous that, that I could at least say, well, at least you're trying to be polite about it. Now it's just blatant. Now it is just in your face. And not only is it in your face, but people are gleeful about it. Like going back to Alligator Alcatraz or Alligator Auschwitz, when you, when, when, when. ISDHS is like Facebook put that article up about like, you know, they constructed a facility in eight days that could house.

I don't know like 10,000 people or something like that. I don't know the number of how many beds they have there, but let's say, let's say it's 3,000, you know, people that can be held in there. They're going to stuff as many people than they can. The comment section is fucking wild. Like, like everyone's like, ooh, you know, gator bait, you know, oh, I can't wait. They'll hurricane season starts and all the gators go and go and eat, eat them, right? Like, it is, like, people gleefully celebrating, you know, the destruction of a group of people

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when you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at Redfin.com. Own the dream. In such a way that they don't even conceive of them or think of them as a human being. Do you think it's because those individuals are mischaracterious? in general by the press. I mean, we hear the common line, you know, this goes back to the criminal line, rapist, murderers, you know, coming into the country. Do you think that's what the issue is? Absolutely. I mean, the statistics kept on criminal offenses and recidivism. Immigrants are way lower than citizens if you, like, by on a per capita basis. The immigrant population in the United States historically, and to this day, is not a criminal population. It's not a, it's not, it's a, The violence that gets associated with them is a myth.

It's a narrative. And it is a purposeful narrative. And it's being peddled consistently, whether it's by media outlets or lazy journalists, or politicians who are trying to, you know, gain political ground and, you know, gain votes, you know, at the behest of, you know, tech oligarchs. guys like Peter Thiel

You know Like As a brief aside, right Peter Thiel Who is, you know, the guy who's like the surrogate of J.D. Vance You know, pumped in a toned Just as much money as Elon Musk in the Trump's campaign If not more.

But he's also very much in Like one of the guys who supported the Heritage Foundation drafting the Project 2025 You know, I should say allegedly Because the guy probably sue me out of existence. but but um but he has a company called palantir right now like you know that i'm a huge nerd right like you know that i'm a huge dork about stuff uh but for those in the in the in the locked in in sphere uh palanter is a reference to jara tulking's lord of the rings it's the stone

that um if you saw the movie pippin touches it and he sees the big red eyes sauron and you know and everything that's a palantir and what is the palanee Palantir, it was a stone that Sauron used to corrupt, you know, whoever was on the other side of it, whether it was Denethor or whether it was like the, you know, I got to, I got to reel myself in because I'm about to go on a totally different tangent. But it is so dark and messed. It's so, it's so fucked up to me that a guy like Peter Thiel, who's not stupid, right, who's very purposeful in what he does and everything he does. chose the name Palantir because clearly that to me says like you think you're Sauron. You think you're Sauron and you think Donald Trump's Dennathor and you think that you're going to use the Palantir to corrupt him and twist him to do what you want, which is what exactly what Sauron did. You know, and now Palantir has a contract to gather up biographical data and generate heat maps of every American citizen. You know, how close they are to doing that? I don't know, but the thought terrifies me.

that they want to basically have a dossier on every single person in the United States. And that's what Palantir has been contracted to construct and do that create this database. Which is like the most ridiculously dystopian Blade Runner thing I can imagine. So I mean, but going back to you asked the question, do you think that these people are being mischaracterized?

You know, like, I mean, it absolutely is a mischaracterization. You know, I mean, that's the hallmark of, of, you know, racist stereotypes. You know, everyone always likes to say, well, stereotypes come from a place, right? But, you know, at the same time, stereotypes as basic low-level superficial bullshit that they are, they're not just, they don't just come from a certain thing, but the purpose that they serve is to be a weapon, right? Stereotypes are weaponized against people all the time. You know, whether it's on a low-level in grade school or a policy level, you know, Why else would you say that Haitian refugees who were legal immigrants, might I remind you, they had applied for asylum, were granted asylum, and we're moving into and integrating within this community in Ohio, a completely fictitious story, completely made up.

I think the person who first peddled it is like a known white supremacist, you know, that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs, you know, that they were stealing the neighbor's pets and eating them. And when that gets repeated over, it got repeated in the presidential debate. you know and and and and it's like even when the media even when you do see the media you know grow the tiniest of backbones and say hey by the way um the city manager of that town said that's not true when like how about you just say hey man why are you lying so much like why you why you continually creating this fake narrative that's predicated upon what is not even debunked. It doesn't even need to be debunked. It's such a ridiculous anecdote that no reasonable person could believe it. But if you are down on your luck

and you are a part of the have-nots and you want to buy into this idea that the American dream is still attainable for you, and you are being told that immigrants are coming to this country and taking your opportunities away from you, You know, you don't need much permission at that point to believe a story like that. You're just waiting to be given permission to embrace that kind of narrative and then turn it into your own truth and internalize it.

You know, that's the process. That's how it happens. I mean, you know, like my mom's Korean, right? And in Korea, there's this narrative about Korea in the relationship to the United States. States and that Koreans are taught to believe that they should be grateful to the United States because the United States saved Korea from communist invasion in 1950. But that narrative belies the fact that the United States turned South Korea into a military junta for, you know, 30-odd years after the Korean War, that South Koreans were told stories

about North Koreans, right? that and that that story gets permutated and share it all across the world and in the United States. It's, it's always funny when I tell people I'm Korean or my mom's Korean, they always ask me, North or South, right? And I'm like, well, where does that come? I used to be like, South, duh. Like, if she was from North Korea, she wouldn't be here.

Like, what do you talk? How, like, think about that question for a second and ask yourself, is that even, like, an appropriate question to ask, let alone in offensive. I don't think it's offensive. I just think it's, when the person asked me, I'm like, oh, you disappointed me. I thought you're smarter than that. But it comes from these stereotypes and these narratives that we are taught to think about people from North Korea based upon, you know, whatever the dearest leader is doing, that that gets conferred upon North Koreans writ large. And it gives you permission to hate them, right?

When you are, there's a reason why when you go to basic training and you're taught how to shoot a rifle that the target is in the shape of a human silhouette is to disabuse you from the idea that who you're shooting is a human being. It's just a blank silhouette that happens I have a head and shoulders. And you're being taught to put two in the chest and one in the head. Don't think about whether or not that that kid is some conscript just like, you know, or, you know, some kid who just, you know, join the military to pay for college. don't think about, you know, that he's got a mother, you know, and a father are going to mourn his passing because you just killed him, right? You have to otherize the people that you perceive as your enemy to give you permission to enact violence upon them. And right now, the United States, as a system, as a country, as a state, has a monopoly on state violence. There is no, right now, there is no counterbalance to, you know, to quote unquote, law enforcement agent. going around and behaving in ways that are completely outside of the norms of any professional code of conduct for any law enforcement agency, whether it's at the municipal, state, or federal level.

And by that, I mean, running around wearing level three, you know, level three, you know, ceramic plates with, you know, assault rifles and face masks. Can you explain that to us, the face mask issue? Yeah. Yeah. I saw, I witnessed, who were ostensibly federal agents detained someone outside the courthouse in Danbury. A couple weeks ago there was a raid in Danbury. And I think about eight to ten people were taken or kidnapped, as some people like to say.

And I was interesting. I, you know, when I went out and watched what was happening, there was maybe. five or six people. And they all had, like, you know, one had an FBI placard. Another person had, I think, a DHS placard. And the others didn't have placards. But only one of them was wearing a mask. The rest were, you know, had their faces open.

One even had a badge on their on their lapel, right? But then you start seeing groups of guys who look like they could be downloadable operators and call a duty, right? who are carrying like war fighting kit and all of them are wearing masks. Now it's everybody's wearing a mask. And they're not, you know, you're taught to say, you know, that if you ask a police officer, right, what's your name and badge number? Every department has a policy.

It says when it's even in state statutes. Like Connecticut has, I think every state has the same statute. where if you ask an officer to identify themselves, what is your name, what is your badge number, what department are you from? They have to give it. They're required to. And you know better than anyone else that an FBI agent loves nothing better

than to say, I'm special agent so-and-so from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. You know, like that is something that law enforcement is bred to do. It's supposed to be in their professional genes that you go and you identify yourself. because there is an inherent authority that's granted in you and that badge that you carry, that when you carry, when you are in, when you are granted, the privilege, mind you, the privilege to wear a badge and carry a weapon and have arrest powers over another human being,

you have to follow certain dictates and protocols, one of which you should, you should identify herself if asked, right? And, you know, cops always like to say this to suspects when they have them in detention. I'm not talking about immigration detention. I'm just saying regular old investigative detention. And a cop will always say to you, right? Well, you know, if you say, well, I, you know, officer, I don't answer questions. I'm invoking my right to remain silent. And the next question from the officer is always going to be, well, if you got nothing to hide, you know, if you didn't do anything wrong, you know, why not say, like, you know, why not say something? Why not answer the question?

If you're innocent, then you got nothing to hide, so just answer the question. To which I want to flip on them now and say, look, if you're enacting the law, if you're acting upon the law and what you're doing is lawful, why do you need to cover up? Why do you refuse to show your badge? Why do you refuse to show your credentials? Because, like, you know, and the respond, the canned response from, you know, DHS is always, oh, we're seeing agents getting doxed. You know, okay, haven't seen a single example of this. No one's produced a single example of any law enforcement agents getting doxed and their families being attacked. I haven't, me, maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe it's happening. I'm just not aware of it. But I've been trying to pay close attention to this. And I'm not seeing that happen anywhere. What I am seeing, though, are people. ordering a bunch of shit from Amazon. And a lot of this stuff is easier to get. I could go on Amazon right now,

and I can order a set of Crytech ACUs, the really cool ones that have like the venting and all that shit. And I can spend, you know, 50 bucks on a plate carrier. And I can have someone make a patch that says ice and put it on my back, wear a mask and go on,

tell people I'm an ice agent. So do you think there's a lot of fake ice agents running around? It's happening. It's happening. There is, I think, in New York, a woman was working in a store and a guy came in with a mask on said he was an ice agent zip tied her to the counter and then robbed the joint for a thousand dollars and there is another there i mean it's like there are i haven't heard any stories about ice agents or any federal

agents getting docs but i have been seen a lot of news stories about people claiming to be with ice agents or different federal agencies doing immigration enforcement and just straight up robbing people And the question I got to ask myself, you know, if, you know, I got to ask myself, is that someone who's masquerading as a federal law enforcement agent? Or, or even worse, are these guys actually deputized and they're just, this is their side hustle? Might as well, you know, who's going to stop us? No one's, no one's, no one's calling us out on this. So how does that get fixed? How does society fix that aspect of it?

The normal civics answer would be to vote out those who enacted these policies. That's assuming there's going to be another election. I'm going to assume that there's going to be. I'm assuming that there's going to be a midterm election. I'm assuming that there's going to be a presidential election in four years. But let's say if we continue on the trend that I said from Weimar Republic to Fullborn Third Reich, If we're here on the continuum, it's not too farther along on that continuum until the, the, the, the, the, an authoritarian regime does something like declare martial law and suspends elections. I mean, like one of the big knocks that Trump used to say about Vladimir Zelensky.

He hasn't had an election. Well, yeah, because Ukraine's in a state of war and under martial law. So therefore their elections are, are called off for the time being. that's kind of you know who's to say you know Stephen Miller already said we're looking into suspending habeas corpus you know in the last time habeas corpus was suspended they think it's a civil war you know i think it you know it's i mean there might be one or two instance you know sometime afterwards but that's not that's not a little thing so you know how do you do to what do to fix it i mean i mean i mean like

how do you fix a problem that we've never faced before? You know, were I to have a good solution to this? I think, you know, I think what it comes down to is solidarity in the community. I think that when you do see communities band together and demonstrate peacefully, right? And all the, I went to No King's Day, you know, I was over at the flagpole in Newtown. It was wonderful. I just got a new dog. It's a puppy, right?

I took him down. He had a great time at his first protest, you know, a little, my, of course, my dog's name is Bandit, right? And he is a little cattle dog. He's a little goofball. I love the thing. I love the little guy. And he's having a grand old time because, you know, people are out there with their kids

and everything. And, you know, when the L.A. When the L.A. crackdown happened, everyone's like, oh, my God. they're burning down the city. No, that was, that was like a five block area, right?

There were protests going on everywhere else that were not only peaceful, but effective. You know, when you, what was it, when,

um, I tried to raid that Italian restaurant, a dinner or lunch hour in like Calabas or, or was it, I forget, it was a Southern California city. And the people,

like it was, to me, it was like, you know, the, the, the leftist in me, you know,

cheered. When you just saw, the people just right just come outside and just start saying no you're not going to do this and what did they do they ran because at their core these people who are like you know if you're going to do this job where you're going to be allowed to wear a mask and carry an assault rifle right and you get and you're operating under the you know the you know under the eight egos of law enforcement um they're cowards like to a man they're all cowards and bullies you know and you can see it in their eye like they're not like like you know like if you you know you know when you meet someone on the yard in the way they move in the way they look at you you know who's bout it bout it and who's a bitch forgive the the expression but when i look at these guys you know and women right none of them are really bout about it none of them are really like they they they they're They only act hard and get aggressive when they know they have numbers.

And they, you know, and it's like it takes a lot of guts to say, what are you doing to a guy who's carrying, you know, an M4 and he's got six mags on his front placard there. You know, and, and, you know, and calling in the Marines, you know, it's bad enough using National Guard people to do these things. but making people who enlisted in the Marine Corps and that oath that they make you take to uphold and defend the Constitution from enemies both foreign and domestic to me is such a tragic, like, abuse of those kids.

You know, like there's, you're watching, like there was a story about a group of guys, three brothers, all of them, immigrants, all of them in the Marine Corps, watch their father get the same. not kicked out of him like beaten down humiliated like in the streets in front of everybody

you know you know beaten abused and you know disappeared you know and his sons are marine are members of the Marine Corps you know you're seeing people like there's a story we're talking about before we started recording about the guy

who just got deported to Jamaica right because he was born on an army base you know by that logic, my sister, were she still alive, could potentially be under this current regime deportable. What are you going to do?

Deport my sister, send her back to Germany because she's born on an army base and an army hospital. And they're saying that it's, you know, you're not a citizen because that's not U.S. sovereign territory, which is like, you know, the jurisprudence of that comes out of like Guantanamo Bay and the torture cases out of there, too. The question is whether or not army bases are U.S. sovereign territory. Are you entitled to, you know, due process of law? You know, but I was always under the impression that if you're born to a U.S. citizen, through that process, you know, I'm a citizen because my dad's a citizen.

My mom was a citizen, was a naturalized citizen. But if this current administration's thinking about birthright citizenship, you know, is carried through, then they could, they could, they could justifiably seek to have my mom do. naturalized. And then by dint of that, question whether or not my citizenship is valid. You know, and again, you know, I just, you know, trying to, I know, I'm, I know, you give me a great deal of latitude, you know, I appreciate that. But you got, but, you know, to go back and try and answer your question, you know, how do you fix it? What do you do? You know, I mean, community organizing is critical, but also, too, the onus of dismantling

systems of oppression, do not lie with the oppressed people. The responsibility lies with that who are of the oppressor's class, right? And that's not my quote. I'm taking that from someone. It's probably, I think it's probably Marx or someone else has said it. It's, I think, I definitely heard Nelson Mandela say something similar along those lines. But it's up to people who look like you and me if I'm honest. You know, my dad, you know, asked me, what do I do if I see someone being detained? I told them, you know, take out your phone and videotape it. You know, make a video of it.

Go up and ask, demand. Like, do you have a judicial warrant? What are you doing? Who are you? Identify yourself. Because I tell you now that if one of these goons who's kidnapping someone off the street in the city of New Haven turns around and sees, you know, my dad, Freddie the Leaf, you know, in his Atticus Finch summer suit, you know, hoffing his way over the court, you know, elderly white guy with glasses and walking with the cane challenging you, he's going to think twice because he's conditioned.

We're conditioned to think that immigrants, brown skin, violent, violent, you know, immigrants, whatever, you know, we, that guy is already just waiting for the word go to do violence to that person. But he hasn't been conditioned to do violence towards someone who looks like my father. Someone who looks like you, someone who looks like me. You know, even though, I mean, I identify as an Asian person because I'm half Asian, I'm half Korean. You know, I didn't grow up eating kimchi for nothing. But, but, but, you know, if I'm honest, I get treated with all the privilege of a white man. And, you know, I think that if you're going to combat systems of oppression or you're going to, you know, you're going to, you're going to, you're going to, you're going to, you're going to, you're going to. you know,

um, resist what's going on. White people need to decolonize their mind. Is what it comes down to. White people need to, to confront the fact that they, that white privilege is a real thing. And that white privilege doesn't mean that you didn't struggle.

What it does mean, though, is that no one ever tried to take something away from you because you're a white. And I'm sure that there is a whole host of, you know, men's rights activists or right wing activists or whatever who want to throw, a variety of, you know, you know, counter arguments of that, fine, have at it. But the fact of the matter is, is that no one ever wrote laws to prevent people from moving into a certain area or to get, you know, a mortgage because they were white. It's never happened.

You know, I mean, when, you know, I think the last time you could think of, you know, maybe people discriminated against Irish people when they first got here. Maybe people discriminated against, you know, Italians or Jews when they first got here, right? But eventually, all of those groups were welcomed into the white category. And poof, like that. What's held against them is no longer an obstacle to them. There used to be signs, help wanted, no Irish need to apply. I remember there was a bar in Westville where I grew up that had this old sign on the door.

And I don't know why they kept it around. I think I know why. It used to be a biker bar at one point, but he used to say no colors, no colored, no Irish allowed inside. And it was like an old sign from like, you know,

like the turn of the century from like 1900s. But, you know, that's not a thing anymore. You know, no one, no one's ever going to say anything to me or,

or I'm not going to suffer any sort of injustice because, you know, I'm named after my great grandfather, Thomas Collins, who comes from Cork, Ireland. At least, he doesn't, but, you know, someone, someone way back, you know, a couple generations hence did. You know, but it's funny, my mom, though, had to put up with a lot when she came here. And, you know, when you are given permission to dehumanize a group like immigrants, whether

they're from Central America or South America, the only thing. way to do the only way to combat that is that people who are not the target of that kind of thinking have to be the ones to stand up and say this is wrong right people who look like you and me have to stand up and put ourselves in jeopardy and stand in front of the vulnerable people and say if you're going to get to them you got to go through me that's how I feel right I'm not going to say that you or anyone else should feel the same way. That's how I see it, right? To me, the solution to this problem is when people who look like me who lived and grew up in privilege like I did say, look, you know what? This is a moment where I have to stand up for what's right

and protect people who can't. And, you know, it's easy for me because that's why I do what I do. It's why I'm a public defender, right? And if you want to know more about that background. Imagine a room that feels calmer, warmer, more inviting. That's the quiet beauty of Serena and Lily. Every piece is designed in-house, crafted by expert hands and made to live effortlessly with what you treasure most. Choose from over 150 fabrics and finishes,

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Oh, you should get up my FICO account instead. FICO scores are the ones used by 90% of lenders, and other credit scores can vary up to 100 points. That would have been helpful yesterday. Get the scores lenders use. get the right FICO credit score for your critical, including your FICO scores used for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards. Visit myfico.com or download the MyFICO app to get started today. Sorry, go watch the other episode. I don't know, but does that kind of answer your question?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's, this show's all about getting different perspectives. And my standpoint is, like, I don't get involved with politics or, you know, take opinions on certain matters. but I think it's always important to open up the audience to different perspectives. Yeah. Whether you agree with someone or not, you know, there's always going to be, you know, people that don't agree with someone. I mean, you look at, say, the president of the United States, half of the population didn't vote for him and doesn't agree with him. It doesn't mean he's not successful. He or she, you know, whoever the president is, this applies to all presidents, you know.

It's just everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Sure. So I think it's important to have, like, say someone like yourself who is working with individuals that are going through these situations to voice their opinion and voice their concerns and to share their perspective. Yeah. And doing it in a way where, like, we have this conversation and no one's screaming at each other or threatening each other. Like, you look on Facebook. Like, if you posted something about your opinions on Facebook to the world, there's always going to be people that go crazy over it. So this gives it the setting where you can speak your opinion and your thoughts without having someone combative and go after it.

Like, you know, I remember growing up there would be talks about politics at Thanksgiving dinner. Yeah. And someone's always leaving angry or upset. Yeah. Because there's always going to be different views, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So I like being able to, like, create that space where the person could come and talk about it and share their perspective. Yeah.

And because I think that you've created a space. in a platform where that is the case is one of the reasons why I would even, you know, want to be, let alone agree to, coming on your show. I mean, you know, in a lot of ways, you know, while you do have a platform where you're trying to create a space where there can be a true exchange of thoughts, ideas, and dialogue. And it's like, I don't want anyone who's listening to this, if you voter for Donald Trump, I don't think less of you, right? You have your own reasons, and you don't have, no one has to justify their reasons to me as to who they voted for or why. You know, like, I don't think that's, that we're all, you know, everyone has the right to vote,

cast your vote, and vote for the person you believe in, right? I have a different set of criteria and who I vote for. I vote for the person who I think is going to do the most good for the most vulnerable. I'm not voting for someone who I think is going to address what my necessary concerns are. My feeling is that I'm going to vote for someone who's going to vote for someone who's going to going to help the most vulnerable people in my community because by doing that, I'm going to feel the, I'm going to be okay, right? I want to make sure that the people around me who don't have what I have are going to be okay too. And I'm happy extending that kind of grace to someone who

voted for Donald Trump, whether it was one time, two times or whatever. And I try really hard not to be like I told you so or be a dickhead I can comment like you know I had a rule at one point

only talk about sports and pop culture on Facebook and nothing else for that exact reason right because when there's anonymity when you can

dehumanize the person you're talking to you're giving yourself permission to say the wildest thing to that person because there's no consequences

you have to look them in the eye when you say it right like like um you know, however, to balance that out, if you're supporting or down with something that the Ku Klux Klan would endorse, I ain't trying to fuck with you.

I'm not friends. Like, you're like, we're not cool. Like, I'm not going to hang out with you, right? Like, you know, I'm not, like, that's not, like, you know, I'm not, like, you know, I'm not a safe space for fascists. right and nor do I have to be and nor does the um the the the public forum or need for civil discourse you know dictate that to me if you're going to stand up and make jokes about how you hope alligators you know eat people in in that that newly erected camp you know like look inwards you know like talk to your priest you know i mean

I'm nominally Catholic. I'm Catholic more in identity as a person of Irish heritage. But, you know, but, you know, I did go to catechism. I did get confirmed. And then one of the things I remember, you know, from, you know, with Sister Cindy and Sister Rosemary used to, you know, drill into me as a kid at St. Aden's school, is that, you know, Jesus said,

what you do to the least of my children, you do unto me. And guess what? The people in those camps are his children, too. And if you're going to hold yourself out as a Christian and talk about Christian values, and that is a huge component of this administration, you know, like you see all these Republican congressmen who can't wait to take a knee while they vote to strip Medicaid from 17 million people who do, you know, the department of the secretary of defense can't wait to talk about how much Jesus is a huge influence in his life. and I'm like, well, you may want to balance that out with what the ministries of Christ was at the time, because guess what? He was a refugee too.

And guess what? You know what the one thing Jesus said was a totally prohibited usery? Wasn't anything else. What was the one thing that Jesus got really pissed off about? The money changers at the temple. What do you do? He flipped the tables over, right? So like what do we like what do we doing people?

Like what do you like what do you mean that you're going to do this yet you're that you're on the one hand going to talk about how you're living a Christian life and then go and militarize, you know, an entire branch of government, turn it into your own secret state police and start disappearing people because they're just too brown for you or you don't like the way they sound when they speak English in a broken accent. You know, that is to me, it's irreconcilable with moral, with any kind of code of morality that I'm familiar with. There's, to me, there's no, it's not like, you know, everyone, like the problem with mainstream media is that they want to give equal time to both arguments, both sides of the argument. And I'm like, yeah, no, no, like, there, there is, like, we all have to have a moral compass.

have to have a belief system that we adhere to with what is right and what is wrong, you know, and taking children from their parents and deporting that, like, seeking to remove a child from the United States who's going through chemotherapy, there is no, there is no justification that you can give me to say that that's okay. There is nothing that you can tell me. You can, you, you could sit me down with Tom Holman right now, you know, the guy who's, who's like, you know, if Stephen Miller is the Reinhardt Heidrich of this administration, Tom Holman would be the, you know, the Adolf Eichmann, you know, going off and doing these things, there ain't a single thing that dude's going to tell me that's going to convince me that what he's

doing is moral or justified, let alone legal. You know, I mean, like, you know, people want to talk about, like, you know, going back to the due process question, right? Like, birthright citizenship and due process of law. are the most settled legal questions you can think of in jurisprudence. It is, when I was in law school doing con law, we never even really stopped to talk about, you know, birthright citizenship and, and due process of law under the 14th Amendment and the 5th Amendment.

And the 14th Amendment is unambiguous, right? It says all persons, meaning every single person, subject to the jurisdiction in the United States is entitled to due process of law when they're facing the deprivation of life, liberty, or property. Now, I would argue that under the 14th Amendment, people who are looking at potentially being removed

and potentially being detained, even in Article I immigration court, should also be entitled to legal representation. And for a while, there was legal representation for people who were facing detention. under the same exact principle that if the government, if the state can lock you up, you get a lawyer. I don't, how is that unreasonable?

What's the problem with that? You know, someone explained to me why that's not okay. You know, we always like to talk about how, you know, right-wingers talk about American exceptionalism, right? And American exceptionalism comes from Alexis to Toadville's novel, a book about America. And they always get it wrong. when he says when Alexis de Tocqueville talked about American exceptionalism

he's not saying America is exceptional in the sense that it's better than everyone else he's saying that America is exceptional because it is the sole example of this sort of thinking

about you know how how we should self-govern as opposed to all the other you know like they're like we were we were unique and different at the inception of this of this country. We were far from perfect. You know, look at, look at the third, fourth, and fifth verses of the Star-Spangled Banner.

There's a reason why we stop at the first after the second stanza because, you know, you know, Francis Scott Key had some pretty horrific views about black people. You know, and that's okay. We don't need to be perfect, right? Good doesn't have to be the enemy of perfect. We're supposed to be a nation evolving and improving, right? Like, we started off where black people were considered three-fifths of human. And that was for census purposes.

That was to make sure that southern states had more representation in the legislature. It wasn't so that black people could vote. It wasn't so that, you know, like freed slaves could be considered. you know, a human being because they didn't view them as a human being. The Confederacy, like, is predicated upon white supremacy. It's like it's in their founding documents. So, you know, we started here and we're here, and we should be going up. And we should, we should look back.

This country should look back at itself in 50 years and say, look how far we've come. When I was growing up and being educated about the civil rights movement, It was completely foreign to me that college students at Kent State could protest peacefully and get shot and killed by national guardsmen. Right. And that's the Kent State massacre in 1968. And the Vietnam was, no, Kent State was later. I think that was in 1970. But any event, right?

Like the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, you know, there was segregation. there was Jim Crow. And there are still the vestiges of those of those policies and practices that are being conferred upon the immigrant community today, you know, that what I see is not progress, but what I see is a regression. And that's what makes me so angry is that we've been there. We've been here before and we apparently didn't learn our lesson. you know, that we have, you know, Ruby Bridges, the little girl who went to little, to when Little Rock, Arkansas was forced to desegregate their schools and the first little girl that was brought to that school escorted by National Guardsmen, mind you, to go to school.

Ruby Bridges, that little, she's 70 years old. She's still alive today. You know, and, you know, the, you know, the people, the powers that, want to scrub any mention of her from, you know, the annals of history because that's DEI, that's CRT. That's whatever catchphrase we can come up with to make humanizing people of a different skin color, you know, seem inconsequential or silly. You know, it's like, you know, it's always like, you know, how come we have to have black history month? Well, because all the other 11 ones are devoted to white history. That's why. All right, pal, you know, settle down, relax,

enjoy the federal holiday while you're at it you know like what is that what what foods being taken off your plate you know and and and it and it and it's you know and I it's just I it's just I grew up being taught in understanding that fascism is bad that fascism is bad that fascism is an ideology in system of governments that is more relevant reprehensible than monarchy. Right? Like, you know, like, you know, when I think, you think of fascist regimes, you think of Nazi Germany, you think of Mussolini, right? You think of, you know, Victor Orban in Hungary.

You think of Nikolai Chochescu in Romania. You think about, you know, my cousin, Kim Jong-un, right? He's not my cousin, but we do, but my mom's last name is Kim. but there's like you know we in koreans we only have like four or five last names so so but i mean like those are those are authoritarian dictatorial Vladimir Putin you know these are authoritarian dictatorial fascist regimes and when you have the current administration demanding loyalty tests or demanding that people account for what they're doing and how they're using their time and oh by the way we want to see your social media

media, right? Like if, like I, like, I'm, I've never been scared to say anything in public, right? I'm not scared to voice these opinions right now to you, even though that you're going to broadcast it to a fuck ton of people, right? And, you know, I hope I dressed up nice enough for the whole thing, you know, but at the same time, what I'm saying right now would put me in a category of people that the courage, administration wants to deport. You know, you have, you know, the president of the United States sitting with the president,

it was a Buceli. And he and, and double downs on it later on saying, well, you know, we have some really bad, nasty people in this country. And I'm looking at ways to getting rid of them too. And by virtue of the fact that I am standing in opposition to the, to the regime, and I'm voicing my discontent and I am saying that what they're doing is wrong and it has to stop puts me in that category now. Now, do I think anything is necessarily going to happen to me?

If you asked me five years ago, I'd be like, no, no one's going to do anything. No one's going to say anything. I'm not going to get a knock on the door. But people who've been posting literature around their neighborhood about what your rights are in Spanish when ice comes knocking on your door have gotten raided. have had their door kicked in and in in in in home flash banged you know because you know and and then some dhs you know was a homeland security inspector hs i would they it's like everyone needs a fucking and you know three-letter unit right like every letter yeah everybody everybody

needs to have their own little special club when it comes to like you know who gets to point guns of people and and and and they're and and and and why how come you're posting these posts Why are you doing this? Why are you saying these things? You know, your friend in mine, Hassan Piker, right? He gets detained coming in from, you know, U.S. citizen, you know, very outspoken, way more, you know, brazen in his beliefs than mine, you know, and has a huge massive platform, you know, he's eating Joe Rogan's lunch right now. And he comes in from a flight and gets sent to secondary, you know, inspection through customs

and is put in a room where people are being detained and some of them are being led out by to be either removed or denied entry. And he's a citizen. And he made it abundantly clear. The only reason why, the only reason why he was put in that room and made the wait a couple hours and made

the missus connecting flight was so that someone from immigration, someone from customs can look him in the eye and say, we know, we know it's you, we know who you are. And it was meant to intimidate him. Like, what kind of Orwellian 1984 bullshit is that? The fuck, dude. The guy's a podcaster.

He streams on Twitch. You know, like, like, this isn't like, you know, Sam Adams and the Sons of Liberty. You know, like, what do you? You know, like, it's like he's not like, you know, like a sleeper cell. You know, it's just, no, he's a dude on Twitch who, you know, that kids like to watch, you know, while they're playing video games. doing whatever. You're funny, Thomas. Listen, Thomas, I appreciate you coming on today, man, and sharing your perspective on this.

Yeah, I appreciate you give me the time, Ian, you know, for what it's worth. It's, again, like I said, it's a privilege to come on and speak to you. I think what you're doing and giving a voice to the voiceless with people who are post-conviction, post-release, and trying to reintegrate with the community is that is that's yeoman's work that is work that talk about a job no one wants to do right that's a population no one wants to stick up for and i think you do an admirable job doing that so i appreciate you give me the time and space to talk about things um and again i'm i'm a lawyer but i'm not your lawyer and all the things that i've said are are are my own beliefs and opinions and not that of any other

agency or a group of people. I'm just speaking, speaking, uh, from what I know and what I see. Not another three letter agency. No, no, no. And there was a lot too. There's a lot. There's some other things I wanted to get into as well, um, like for like local things, but maybe, maybe there'll be in episode three. Yeah. We'll see, we'll see how the views do. Sounds good, Thomas. Thanks again. Thanks again, Ian. I appreciate it.