The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3577 - Epstein Cover Up Falling Apart; True Story of Chicago ICE raid w/ Melissa Sanchez & Jodi Cohen

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

It's News Day Tuesday on the Majority Report On today's program: The Trump administration continues its efforts to cover up the Epstein files. Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) says that she looked into the unredacted Epstein files and discovered that Donald Trump never kicked Epstein out Mar-a-Lago as he claims. Ghislaine and Epstein both invoked the fifth amendment when asked about their experiences with Donald Trump. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) points out the inconsistency in Ghislaine Maxwell not pleading the fifth when she spoke to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche but now is using the fifth over questions that do not implicate her. Journalists from ProPublica, Jodi Cohen and Melissa Sanchez join Sam for a conversation about their piece "The Real Story Behind the Midnight Immigration Raid on a Chicago Apartment Building". In the Fun Half:   Trump administration is expecting a devastating job numbers report on Wednesday and so they have sent out Peter Navarro and Kevin Hassett to blame the numbers on immigrants.   The pedophile formerly known as Prince Andrew's ex-girlfriend says if you're not in the Epstein files "you're a loser".   Howard Lutnick says he searched himself in the Epstein files "just like everyone else".   Bill Maher is an idiot and a shill. His shilling and stupidity are especially blatant when he monologues about how kids aren't protesting the Christian massacres in Nigeria because "it doesn't involve Jews".         all that and more To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: DELETEME: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/MAJORITY and use promo code MAJORITY at checkout. ROCKET MONEY: Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster: RocketMoney.com/MAJORITY SUNSET LAKE: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% off of your entire order at SunsetLakeCBD.com  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com

You are listening to a free version of The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. To support the show and get another 15 minutes of daily program, go to Majority.fm. Please. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Tuesday, February 10, 2020. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA.

On the program today, Melissa Sanchez, Chicago-based reporter on immigration and labor for ProPublica, and Jody S. Cohen, senior editor for ProPublica on that ice raid. The Chicago building months ago kicked off a lot of what we're saying. seeing from ice. Meanwhile, it is three days before a DHS shutdown, and the White House insists on maintaining its warrantless secret police. In Minneapolis, ICE ramps up targeting of legal observers. Meanwhile, ICE officials testify in front of Congress for the first time since the shootings of pretty and good. Under pressure from lawmakers, DOJ is unredacting more of the Epstein files, but not nearly enough. This, as is as Nutlik, excuse me, Lutnik on the hot seat. Also in those Epstein files, six new likely incriminated men whose identities we don't know yet. White House

pushing Republicans save act to influence. include an end to mail-in voting. Trump threatens to block the opening of a newly built bridge between Canada and Detroit. White House to cut $600 million in a congressionally appropriated health funds to four blue states. And Rubio blocking Trump from Cuba talks as Cuba's crisis continues under a third. full blockade from all goods and supplies. In a huge regulatory cut, Trump EPA to gut climate policy this week. And Trump's Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shutdown has cost Americans now $19 billion.

$6,000 San Francisco teachers strike. It's likely to go to its second day. And lastly, just breaking, Tom Malinowski concedes to Annalia Mihei. I can't, I just botched it. In Jersey's 11th district, all this and more on today's majority report. I'm also just getting word that, is that true? Antonio Delgado just ended his campaign for lieutenant governor. More on that in a moment.

I don't know where I, yes, Delgado just dropped out of that Democratic primary for New York governor. That may have been a fait accompli once Mamdani endorsed Hockel. He deserves a lot of credit, though, because just his running in that race to the left of Hockel, in the run-up to Mamdani's election, and in the weeks after convinced Hockel that she had to help Momdani achieve at least some of his priorities early on. And so Delgado deserves some credit for that. Folks can go back and look at our interview with him that we did, I guess, about six months ago. Can't quite remember. Maybe it was four or five. More on that later.

In the meantime, lots are, is happening now both with these ICE hearings and the Democrats' refusal. at this point to fund DHS, at least permanently. We don't know if there'll be another continuing resolution. John Thune is out there making it sound like negotiations are going well in a way to encourage senators to vote for a continuing resolution to give it a little bit more time. But if Democrats hold strong, which, again, I'm not sure. sure what the polymarket bet would be on that. Go bills. But, exactly. You can read the social media about that, but we'll see. The biggest issue is the Democrats requiring judicial

warrants to enter into people's homes, which is basically like saying follow the Constitution. Don't know why that it would even be controversial, frankly. That has to be one of the asks. I mean, would Republicans be happy with IRS agents being able to come into homes with just an IRS administrative warrant? Want to go in and see if you guys are how you really are? Are you really as broke as you say you are? You really declaring everything? Could we have AOC's CDC without warrants go in to check and see if, like, you've actually gone?

gotten your shots? I mean, it's absurd. It's absolutely absurd. The other ask, of course, is no masks. And then there's about eight others. The no mask one has a little wiggle room, just so that it just can't be in an arbitrary or capricious. Yeah, don't wear a mask capriciously. Okay. That's what really upsets me. It's just to have a little intention with your style. That's what I think the Democratic are saying, but we'll see. There would be a couple 100, perhaps

up to 250, maybe 300,000 workers who would be put on furlough if the DHS shuts down. Now, of course, ICE has a big slush fund. But Trump seems to be afraid of a shutdown. So there is some leverage

there. We'll see. Meanwhile, around the world, we're hearing daily of investigations of resignations, of people in, particularly in Europe, resigning from government being investigated because of their association with Jeffrey Epstein. In this country, it, I don't know, it seems to get you just like a, I guess they make a documentary about you. But lawmakers are started to see the unredacted files. People are starting to go through these millions of files. And it is not lessening the pressure.

Here is Representative Becca Ballant of Vermont yesterday. Speaking to Dropsite news, she's been going. going through the unredacted Epstein files. Now, understand, lawmakers have access to this. They have the ability to go on the floor of Congress and read off all this stuff. Remember, Mike Revelle did this with the Pentagon Papers. They are protected by doing so. And frankly, I don't know why they don't do this.

the fear that Gravel had about the Pentagon Papers was, am I actually revealing any U.S. military secrets that may put service members in harm? At the end, obviously, it did a huge service to anybody who was conscripted into that war, because it helped bring it to an end. But I don't see what the danger is here. To go out, you don't have to, you don't have to name victims to the extent that they haven't already been exposed. So I'm surprised somebody hasn't already done this, although I'm not convinced we won't see it soon. But here is Representative Becker, a ballot.

I just wanted to ask you, have you had a chance to review any of the unredacted files over at the DOJ, the Epstein files? I did. You did? Yeah, I just came from there. What can you tell us? There's a bunch of sick fucks. And, and, I mean, anything more that we don't know? I feel like that's pretty well established.

I know. I think the part that is just so disgusting is that so many people knew. Did he have any ties to any intelligence agencies? We've established some in our reporting, but wanted to know based on the five. I only had about a half hour, so I'm going to go back again tomorrow. So mostly today, I was just trying to go through a couple documents that was particularly interested in finding out. What were those? one was related to whether or not Trump, you know, had ever kicked Epstein out of Marlago, as he claimed.

What'd you find? That is not. It's not true. It's a lie. It's a lie. That's a big deal. Because Trump's story up to this point has been like, oh, I kick. them. I did not have good relations with Jeffrey Epstein, et cetera, et cetera. And if the Epstein files prove that that's a cover story, it becomes even worse, because it's

not like we don't know that he's associated with Jeffrey Epstein. If he's lying about what happened after whatever it was, 2005, when he supposedly kicked him out, it raises real question as to what is there. Before we get to number two, let's go to number seven. Gleine Maxwell was ostensibly testifying to the House Oversight Committee. And here's a split frame of what she said. In 2010, it was Jeffrey Epstein, 2026. It's Galane Maxwell.

Have you ever socialized with Donald Trump in the presence of female, under the age of 18. Though I'd like to answer that question, at least today, I'm going to have to assert my fifth, sixth and fourteenth amendment rights. Are you aware of Donald Trump ever engaging in sexual activity with an individual introduced to him by you or Jeffrey Epstein? I invoke my Fifth Amendment right to silence. It's obviously her right to invite.

that, although, and I would imagine this would been brought up before if it was the case that you cannot exert this right once you have already spoken to it. Now, we don't know what she was spoken to with Todd Blanche. Ostensibly, Todd Blanche being the assistant attorney general who went to Galane Maxwell and interviewed her for something like six hours. presumably asked all sorts of questions, did so in an official capacity. We should also mention again that he was Donald Trump's defense attorney days before he was made assistant attorney general. after that interview,

Gleine Maxwell was transferred against all Bureau of Prisons' regulations to a minimal security facility where she was allowed to purchase or be given a puppy. Here is Rokana talking about Gleine Maxwell pleading the Fifth Amendment multiple times. I submitted to Comer a letter with six or seven questions. Things like who were the other co-conspirators? Who were the other men who raped these underage girls? Did she have any conversations about a deal with Donald Trump? Now, she's taken a blanket Fifth Amendment on any question. And my view is that many of my questions don't in any way incriminate her. So we'll see what she does. But there's seven questions. that I have specifically asked.

And the assumption is she's pleading the fifth to each one of those. And the American people will see that there's an inconsistency. Why did she not plead the fifth when Blanche asked her questions? And now she's pleading the fifth about things that don't implicate her, but may implicate many of the other powerful people in the Epstein class that committed these crimes. I really don't know. I don't know the answer from a legal perspective, as to where one can invoke legitimately the fifth and how this would be enforced.

I would imagine the ability to compel testimony, regardless of someone pleading the fifth, is going to change if Democrats take control of Congress, because they're going to have a little bit more leverage. I also don't know as a legal matter whether you're allowed to take the fifth after you've answered questions about it in the first place or ostensibly answered questions about it, right? Because we don't really know what Todd Blanche asked. We just know what Todd Blanche said that he asked. We don't know what she answered. we just know what he claims she answered.

There's the more the people dig through this stuff, the more questions are raised rather than answers given to it. There was the DOJ writing up Epstein's suicide the day before it happened. You know, I got the date wrong yesterday at the beginning of the show happens. Doesn't give you a lot of faith in the confidence level of, I mean, I do this every day.

And so there's some days, particularly on a Monday, where I may get it wrong. But I'm not working at the Department of Justice, the chief law enforcement agency in the country. And am not reporting on the supposed suicide of a guy. who could have implicated the president of the United States and whose suicide just happened not to be caught on camera that night because of a bug in the system. It sort of feel like somebody would be like, hey, this is a big deal.

Let's just make sure everything you're writing here is okay. So it's like a two-page document. Dut your eyes and cross your teeth. Here is Representative Melanie Stansberry. And making the point, like, Right now, the British government is going forward with an investigation as to whether Prince Andrew gave Epstein any type of sensitive information. Now, it's quite possible that Jeffrey Epstein said to Bill Clinton and to Bill Barr

and to Bannon and all his connections. Remember, he had connections with the White House until essentially. he was no longer living. It's quite possible that Epstein said, I only take information from Prince Andrew. The rest of you guys, that's not what this is about. It's like a mafia hierarchy. Yeah, I don't.

It's just I don't feel comfortable having our relationship be this transactional Larry Summers. I don't want it to affect our friendship. Yeah. I just, that's for me and Prince Andrew. He and I have a different relationship than I have with all these other world leaders and Hood Barack. So I just want you to know that's different. I mean, why is there an investigation in England? They're former monarch.

And we have nothing in this country. Nothing. Here is Representative Melanie Stansbury making that argument. Now, we have a lot of questions for Ms. Maxx. well with regards to what actually happened in Epstein's affairs. Who was directly involved in the sex trafficking, money laundering, and influence peddling scheme that she and Jeffrey Epstein were involved in, how Donald Trump was involved and whether or not he committed any crimes himself, as did his many associates who are named in the Department of Justice files. Let us be clear that

Donald Trump is not only named thousands of times in the latest release from the Department of Justice, he is named over 38,000 times in the files that were released two weeks ago alone. And we know that that only represents half of the files that the Department of Justice has in its possession, including files that were used for direct investigations of perpetrators, people who committed crimes, people who were co-conspirators in those crimes, and individuals who knew of those crimes. We know that there are multiple administration officials, including Howard Lutnik, Elon Musk, who served as the appointee for the Doge efforts in the White House. We know that the Secretary of Navy.

We know that Steve Bannon. We know that there are more than three dozen associates, family members, and individuals directly associated with Donald Trump named in those files. Now, there are now at least nine or ten other countries across the world that have opened investigations or force their leaders to step down because of their mere association with Jeffrey Epstein. And the United States government is engaged in an active cover-up of the largest sex trafficking scandal and influence peddling scandal in the history of the United States. And Donald Trump is right at the center of it. And the person who is living to provide the

evidence who knows what is going on is trying to invoke the fifth to buy her. her clemency. So that's Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico. Here she was on, what day was this? Last week, she was talking about Trump and his mention in the files about being subpoenaed in a trial involving a 13-year-old girl. This is number six. To be honest with you guys, I actually went through the files this weekend in depth.

Donald Trump is not only named over and over in them. It is discussed this trial in which he was accused of raping a 13-year-old at Epstein's house. There is extensive discussions about a subpoena of Donald Trump in one of Jeffrey Epstein's cases in which he was accused for rape and sexual abuse. he was subpoenaed and gave a deposition in that case. There is extensive discussion between Donald Trump, Elaine, Maxwell, and Mr. Wolf about not only Trump coming to his house, but, you know, Epstein says in these emails that he has photographs of Trump with girls. To be honest with you guys, I actually went.

I mean, look, there's obviously you would think this would require an investigation. and Republicans are refusing to investigate this. I mean, that's just the bottom line. The Republicans are refusing to investigate this. And can we know if they are covering this up? I don't know. Can we go to Kalshi and see what the predictive markets think? Did Donald Trump engage in any of this?

Here's the problem that the Republicans have is if Democrats continue to press, which I hope they will, and it's quite clear that, you know, and I will cop to having some measure of skepticism about how sort of like deep this ran through our sort of government at one point. I mean, prior to the release of these files, I was like, you know, Trump may be implicated. But this is, I mean, this is a pretty big. deal. And it's quite clearly bigger than Epstein.

And it requires investigation. And here is a little taste of, I think, what's going to happen to Republicans if they continue to stonewall. And it's going to get much worse for them if the Democrats take control of Congress. But I think this type of stuff is going to certainly inhibit Republican chances in the fall unless, of course, Donald Trump rolls out ice and starts collecting ballots, which I think is, again, I check Kalshi, but that's not a bet that I would shy away from. Here's Laura Ingram.

This is in July of 2025. And I got to think it hasn't gotten better. This is at TPSA back in July of 2025. and, you know, particularly now, I have a feeling it would be a little bit even more pronounced. How many of you are satisfied? You can, you can clap, satisfied with the results of the Epstein investigation. Clap. I told you to clap.

You guys aren't listening. I'm not going to grade you on a curve. So I was going to get to that. How many of you are not satisfied with the results of the investigation? I know is that not shocking. I would imagine that that level of dissatisfaction, if there is an ounce of integrity in any of those people's bodies who are sitting there, which up for debate.

But if there's an ounce of integrity, if they had any sincerity in what they were talking about in that moment, I would imagine, I don't know how you can get more unanimous than that. But I would imagine that applause would be, you know, going on for about half an hour. hour. Yeah, like no one's going to applaud, yes, I'm satisfied. They might not boo as hardly, but it's really difficult to say, yes, this is great. This is what I asked for.

I feel delivered for. In a moment, we're going to be talking to Melissa Sanchez and Jody Cohen about that raid on a Chicago apartment building that happened in September, where supposedly, I think these Black Hawk helicopters and repelling from helicopters to go after Trend to Agua. And it turns out not so much. These guys have done a great report in ProPublica. We'll talk about that in a moment. First word from our sponsors.

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But it gives you real-time alerts for large transactions, upcoming bills, refunds, and low balances. Let rocket money help you reach your financial goes faster. Go to rocketmoney.com slash majority to join. That's rocketmoney.com slash majority. Rocketmoney.com slash majority. Quick break. When we come back, Melissa Sanchez, Jody Cohen, right back after this. We are back, Sam Cedar on the Majority Report. Emma Viglin out today. Joining me, Melissa Sanchez, Jody S. Cohen from ProPublica. And before we get to both of you, want to play this clip from ABC.

from back in September 30th of 2025 that interviewed residents of this Chicago apartment building the day after it was raided by ICE. To one woman who actually lives in this building and she says she was detained by ICE agents overnight and she says they took everyone and then asked questions later. They just treated us like we were nothing. Patricia Fisher said she came out to the hallway of her apartment complex on the corner of 75th and South Shore Drive in her neck gown around 10 Monday night only to find ICE agents yelling police.

It was scary because I've never had a gun put in my face. They asked my name and my date of birth and asked me, did I have any warrants? And I told them no, I didn't. She said she was then handcuffed and released around 3 a.m. Fisher says she was told if anyone had any kind of warrant out for them, even if it was unrelated to immigration, they would not be related. least. Citizen at video shows the chaotic scene overnight. Neighbors tell us there were dozens of ice agents. Neighbors like Ebony Watson says they duck for cover as they heard several flashbangs go off.

They were scared by the kids were crying. They looked very distrary. I was out there crying when I seen the little girl come around the corner. Because they was bringing the kids out too. Have them zip tired to each other. That's all I kept asking. Where's the morality? Where's the human? One of them literally last. He was standing right here. He said,

you're going to be the kids. Watson says budget trucks and military-style vans were used to separate parents from their children. Other neighbors say they saw agents destroying property to get in the building. And they had a big 15-inch chainsaw with a round blade on it cutting this fence down. We're under siege. We're being invaded by our own military. The FBI did confirm this morning that they did help the U.S. Border Patrol carry out a targeted immigration enforcement operation in this area. And they say they have been supporting these efforts.

at the direction of the U.S. Attorney General. Okay. Melissa Sanchez, Jody Cohn, welcome to the program. So that was the report from September. And Melissa, give us a sense, like, how much of what that report discusses was actually the case? And where can you fill in in terms of just like what happened that night? I mean, I'm particularly struck by the budget rent-a-truise.

that were supposedly used to separate people. But talk to us about what you know about that night. Sure. So most of what was in there is true. It was a really scary, massive operation, unlike anything seen in this country in a big city, in recent memory, something like 300 federal agents

were there, different immigration agencies, the FBI, ATF, et cetera, heavily armed. There was a Black Hawk helicopter. Like there was images. of agents rappelling down onto the top of this five-story building. It's 130 units. It's a huge building on the south side of Chicago, pretty low-income, distressed area. And the, the publicly, what the Trump administration said at the time and continues to say is that the building had

been taken over by Trindiarawa, the big scary Venezuelan van that gang that the Trump has gone after over the past year. And what we found in reality is zero evidence that that was the case. There were dozens of innocent and families that lived there alongside U.S. citizen, mostly African-American families. The vast majority of the people that we talked to and subsequently met were paying rent, apparently not necessarily to the landlord, but to other folks in the building who were taking their rent and pretending they were the landlord. But the government claimed it was a big victory against terrorism. They claimed that they got two Trendiarawa members during this raid of the 37 people who they arrested, who were immigrants,

we haven't found any evidence that that was the case. There were zero criminal charges filed against anybody that night. Wow. So, Jody, and in the course you are reporting, I mean, the separation, at one point, I saw reports that they were separating black people and, I guess, presumably Venezuelans or Latino people, into separate. like the budget rent of trucks and trying to determine, I mean, this was a complete fishing expedition, but is that the case?

That's what the residents told us that there were separate bans, that the black residents were put in one van, and those who they thought were immigrants were put in a different van. I mean, as Melissa said, this was an operation unlike any scene in this kind of. country in recent memory with helicopters and repelling agents, but also what made it different was that Border Patrol had invited a camera crew to follow along and show images and make kind of like a movie out of this that they shared. So you could see the operation beforehand with Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander out there saying, we are here. We are going to get, you know, Trend de Aragua members. We're here to make the community safer. And then,

you can see video of them parading out immigrants in one case is looking for tattoos, looking, you know, asking them questions right on camera. And that was all. And you can see people being, as you said, put into different vans. So Jody, give us a sense of like what the sort of genesis, I guess, of this raid was. it does not sound like it was well maybe they got it maybe they were told that they got a tip that Trenago is there or may or what but tell us what the genesis of this raid was well what they said the genesis of the raid was what the government said the genesis was was to get um because they had

intel that this building was occupied by gang members now what was suspected from the beginning from the residents um was that the landlord was involved in and perhaps the property manager as well, were involved with talking to the government, but neither of those individuals have talked publicly about it, and DHS and other federal officials have not addressed their involvement. But what we were able to show recently through arrest records for two of the men arrested that night in the narrative of those arrest records,

what Department of Homeland Security said was that they had into, that there were immigrants who were unlawfully occupying apartments or squatting. And that is the narrative of, in their words, why they focused on this building. And the narrative also says that the property manager and the landlord gave them verbal and written consent to enter the building. And what do we know about the history of that building, though? So there could have been motivation for doing that because the history of that building is that the company, the company that owns the building had been in court trying to evict people squatters from that building, that they're, you know, that she had, her company had obtained court orders throughout all of last year to, to evict people that the Cook County Sheriff's Office, had been in that building carrying out those evictions just weeks before the raid, that there were a lot of problems with the building, with the inspections. The company had failed almost every

inspection for the past two years prior to the raid. The building was a real mess. I mean, there were wires hanging everywhere, water, electricity didn't work. The elevators didn't work. It was a dangerous building and there was criminal activity in the building. There were many, many, many calls to emergency police calls to the city. But Melissa, to the extent that there was criminal activity in that building, no evidence of like gang activity. It was rather like, it just seemed like the Wild West there. I think it was a little bit like the Wild West and it might have depended floor by floor. There were some floors that were more clearly occupied by single men who made. have not been paying rent, who may have been squatters, both African-American and Venezuela.

And a lot of floors that were families, that were people who were working, children who went to school right across the street. Like, Jody and I walked into that building a few times. Some of the apartments were really nice. Like, it was actually studying. Some families paid $1,200 a month for their units. Others were squatting in places that you would not want to walk into, places that, like, Jody described, like the walls were falling apart.

They smelled like urine. And, yes, there was crime. I mean, we do want to say. say, like some people told us that they saw men both African American and Venezuelan, like, openly walk around with, like, guns. There was drugs. There was prostitution. There were parties.

All of that stuff is true. And there was a murder there last summer. There was a murder of a Venezuelan man by presumably another Venezuelan who is now in custody. And that case may have been part of what triggered all of this, too, because there was an attempt by ICE to get custody of this guy from the Cook County Sheriff's Department. And this is a sanctuary city. state and county. And so we did not turn over this man to the feds. And there were there was reporting from Breitbart afterward that then prompt, you know, there was kind of an escalation of attention

from the right about this place and accusations that the, the people involved in this murder were gang members. But nowhere in any of the police records that we have obtained is there evidence of this. I have interviewed 15 of the 16 menace women who live in that building. And not one referenced any gang activity. They acknowledge there's some young guys there. who were in trouble, but people were not from the state of Adawa where this gang is from, and people were not, it was not, where there was not organized crime there. There was some drug dealing, there was some prostitution. And so where was, where were the Chicago police?

Where was the sheriffs? I mean, I presumably, they were called at various times if they were able to evict people, presumably they were called, like, and was there no representative? Like, was nothing getting fixed in that building? by the landlord? Melissa? Do you think there? I mean, I think that there were fixes from time to time, but it would fall back into disrepair and the problems would continue.

Even after the raid, the, you know, there was a judge in Cook County. The building was in foreclosure. And there was, the judge said, okay, you need security there 24 hours a day. Because anybody could, could walk in there, even after all the attention on this property. And so the property manager hired security, but within two weeks, the security was gone. He said they weren't doing their job. I had to fire them. It just there was not a lot of, there were short-term fixes that maybe the elevator would

work for a couple days, and then it wouldn't work again. And the consequences were horrendous. I mean, Jody and I, one of the times we went, it might have been three weeks after the raid. I think we were on the third floor of this building. and we met an African-American woman who I think had Section 8 and she lived there. She didn't have any legs. They'd been amputated.

And she couldn't leave her unit. She couldn't leave the building because the elevator hadn't been fixed in weeks. And so there were just serious consequences for the people who lived there. Yeah. Speak more to that. Like, where are these people who are living there now? I mean, I saw footage the place look completely ransacked. And if there was no repairs happening beforehand,

I imagine some people were able to like, you know, pay for their own repairs or do their own repairs. What is the state of the building now and like what happened to the people who were living there? So after the rate, there were about two dozen, I think, people who were still on the rolls for paying rent. They were still, there were still rent paying tenants. Either they were paying or they were. How many units? 130. I think, oh, there were 130 total.

how many were occupied after the raid by rent-paying people probably about two dozen. And eventually in December, the judge who was overseeing this foreclosure case said that everyone had to be out of that building, that it was no longer safe. She ordered everybody out. She appointed a receiver for the building, a new property management company, and gave each of the remaining tenants had some stipends. I don't think they were all that. I think they thought they were not all that much, and they were forced to leave.

And that's the U.S. citizens, the African Americans were there. The Venezuelans, the immigrants, it was mostly Venezuelan. There was a Nigerian man. There was maybe a Mexican man or two. Almost all of those people were deported. They were either deported back to Venezuela. You know, we have complicated relations with Venezuela. Some were sent to Mexico.

And I talked to one today who's still making his way down. He's in Panama right now. Some other Venezuelans, women with U.S. born children were released in the U.S. with ankle monitors. One of them, her husband was deported to Venezuela. She's got three little girls all in diapers, and she's living in a homeless shelter. So people's lives have just been turned totally upside down since this happened. And at one point you write about a consent decree that may have been violated. Jody, what can you tell us about that consent decree? So that's how these arrest records became public was there's this

ongoing consent decree, it's been many years now, that limits when federal agents can carry out warrantless arrests, it sets limits on when they can do that. There has to be probable cause that they would flee, for example. Is this a consent decree that is applicable in Chicago, or is this nationwide? What? It's Chicago and some in the area around Chicago. Okay. And this predates this current administration. It predates the Operation Midway Blitz, which was the deportation program that the administration was carrying out in Chicago, or that predated what's happening in Minneapolis now. And so, yes, this consent decree goes back a while, but it is being enforced now. by immigrant rights lawyers who are saying that these recent arrests were in violation of the decree, and they're working to get, those lawyers are working to get people released. Now, as Melissa said, not just with this raid, but with so many of the people who were arrested over the past, you know, six months or so, they, you know, are not here anymore.

They've been deported. They've left. And what the lawyers are working on now is trying to get relief for the people who are still here in the United States, either to get them out of jail, out of the detention that they're in, or to loosen the restrictions that they're on if they're already out. Melissa, are those people, those are presumably immigrants, or are they U.S. citizens that have been detained? and those folks, to the extent that they're immigrants, why have they not been just summarily deported? Because that's what it seems like ICE is doing, is they're deporting people before things can actually work their way through the court. And so by the time the judge says, where is this person? They're like, we don't know.

They're gone. They're not in our custody anymore. Yeah, I mean, the people we're referring to who are affected by this consent decree are immigrants. So the immigrants who were arrested and detained, some U.S. citizens. were detained, the U.S. citizens were detained too that night, but just for a couple of hours and for the most part released. No, that's exactly what happened. But the problem with this is it's Venezuelans, and we have a problem with Venezuela. Like, we're not regularly deporting people to Venezuela the way we can to Mexico or Honduras or some other country. And so a lot of these guys

were either... That's why we sent them to Seekot. The first run. To Seacot, unfortunately. And, I mean, Venezuela did start taking back some deportations after the whole Seacot thing, but not at the same. level that we were putting people into detention. And so some of these men were accepting deportation or they were given voluntary departure what you give to good immigrants. But they were languishing in the facilities. And sometimes they would be waiting weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks to see a judge because they'd be getting bounced around from jail to jail. And every time they get bounced around, they have to see a new judge and a new district. And so their cases were

getting prolonged. And they were getting sick and tired. And they would call me from these facilities in Texas, in Kentucky and Indiana, like crying sick. They couldn't see doctors. They were, they were, one of them told me he was like losing his mind. The guy who just called me from Panama who spent, I think, close to four months in jail before he finally got deported to Mexico. And he could have been one of the people who was, who was helped by this, by this recent action on the consent decree. But he was just so sick of being in jail that he gave up. Most of these people just just gave up and went back home, even though they were going back to a country that is like on the brink of, I don't know what, with this country, given even though we just went and arrested the president.

into Venezuela. So they're going back to a country that they had fled years ago. The economy in that country is still on the floor. There's no stability. A lot of the people who were deported from this raid have actually already left Venezuela and are living in Colombia or in Chile because that's the only place it can go to make some money to survive. So the story of this person that you spoke to today or yesterday and endured those four months, can you tell us about a little bit about what he said about the conditions there? Because we're starting to hear more and more reports, particularly out of that facility in Texas. But I've also heard about it as far north as Berlin, New Hampshire, that no heat, barely any food, no sleeping accommodations, basically, I don't know, low-grade torture.

I don't know if there's grades of torture, but as a way of basically, having these people say, I forfeit whatever rights I had to any type of legal process and to go. What can you tell us about what you've heard about the conditions in these facilities? I mean, everything you just described, I mean, Gabrielle would call me and, you know, somehow somebody snuck in a phone at one point into one of the facilities, I think, in Arizona. And they would show me videos or he'd call me on video calls and I'd see, like there were enough beds to sleep on. beds didn't have mattresses. It was very cold. They were hungry. The food wasn't good. The food was, the water was contaminated. People, people were afraid that if they drink the water, they would get sick. They would get sick. They'd get, they get fever. We talked to one guy who got a TB, he thinks in the

facility, but in a facility in Indiana, but it's unclear. There are reports now of, of TB going around in some of these facilities. I think in Texas, there was some. I mean, at one point, Gabriel, I mean, they would get bounced around, which made it really hard. I mean, like, just, the Gabriel, I think, might have been passed around to 12 or 13 facilities or back and forth to some of them. They would lose belongings in the transfer. They might have had like a gold chain when they went in and then when they left, nobody could find the gold chain. It would cost money to see a doctor. They wouldn't get medicine.

They would get like a pill. Everybody got the same pill. It was unclear what the pill was. It's really hard to verify these allegations. There were plenty of allegations. The last place that Gabriel was in was in Texas. I think it was East Montana. and I think that's where somebody, somebody got killed.

There was talks about somebody who committed suicide, people attempting to commit suicide, hunker strikes. It's like, you name it, it was happening. But, I mean, it wasn't SICOT. We also have interviewed people who spent time in Seacot. So they weren't getting beat up and tortured in the same kind of way as maybe we saw in El Salvador. But the conditions were miserable and the conditions were so much that people did give up on good cases, good asylum cases, because it wasn't worth staying here any longer. And some of the people who gave up, too, like, faced, like, potential imprisonment in Venezuela because they left for political reasons.

But even that was preferable than staying here in this country. Yeah, I wanted to ask you specifically about that in terms of, like, their status. So if you are in an asylum process, you are here legally. You are here lawfully, right? I mean, you are, you're in process. You don't have permanent residency. You don't have any type of permanent legality. but you're not undocumented because you're specifically documented.

The court knows where you are, the authorities know where you are, and you're going through the process that we have to determine your eligibility to stay here longer. How many of those 37 that were charged? How many were in that process or a different type of process? So, I mean, we don't know the story for every single one. Of the ones that I've spoken to, I'd say, all of them entered the country kind of in the same way, either through an app that gave them an appointment to go to the border and say, I want to ask for asylum, and they came in through that process. Or they crossed illegally and then found the nearest border patrol agent and said, hey, I'm here, I'm here seeking asylum.

And so, yes, they're, like, technically here illegally, but they do have this, like, permission to wait out their case. And maybe half of them were in the process and still going to their court dates and doing all the things like they were supposed to. some of them might have missed court dates. So they became more, they already had orders of deportation. Some of them didn't. And a lot of them didn't have court dates yet. So they were still kind of in the middle. And it's unclear whether they would have gone to those court dates because a lot of people were now afraid of going to court and getting arrested. But yeah, a lot of the people did have work permits. Some of those had gotten suspended in some point last year. But they thought they were doing things the right way. One man I'm thinking about Yan Carlos, who was a former paratrooper in

Venezuela. He told me that the night that the border patrol burst down his door and grabbed him. He's like, my papers are right there. My papers are on top of the TV, trying to point to where his papers were. And nobody cared. He got swept up like everybody else. A lot of them said that when they saw the film crews, like taking, you know, taking video of them as they were getting marched out, hands up tied behind their backs. They're like, I'm here legally. I have asylum. My papers are inside. And like none of that was aired publicly. That wasn't talked about. And Jody and I went to maybe eight or nine of their hearings in immigration court. And like there were, like I said, a couple of them who did have deportation orders prior to all of this.

But most of them, the fact that they had immigration court, they spent weeks in immigration court because they still had cases that had to get resolved. So, I mean, I think you're entirely right. But it's complicated because they're sort of in this gray area of like legal and not legal. And they're in the system where like everything is just pressuring them to just abandon their case. leave the country. Jody, is there anything that we haven't discussed?

Do you think that folks should know about this story? It's great reporting and really important to be able to contextualize what we saw because I don't know that we've ever had a raid like that

for without a knowledge of like, I mean, I sort of feel like in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, you know, maybe we saw like, you know, the raid on the, I think a push was it, the, where they, you know, attempted to, because they thought there was like a bomb making happening or something. But they had no idea who any of the individuals were in this building. And they just raided it as if it was like some type of military operation.

Right. And I think one thing I was going to say is just to expand what Melissa just said about the court hearings. I mean, before they were deported, we did go to, I think it was eight, eight or nine different hearings for men who were detained that night. And not once during those court hearings, they ask the lawyer for the government, whether they're, you know, what the criminal history is. And there was no criminal history for any of any of these individuals. And as part of the consent decree, the government did have to produce a list. And there were hundreds of names on it of people who had been arrested during a period. of time in Chicago, and they listed their, you know, safety risk and their public safety risk. And in almost all cases, it was low. There was not a public safety risk for the people that they

were detaining here in Chicago. Unbelievable. Well, Melissa Sanchez, Jody Cohen, we will link to your piece at majority.fm and in our podcast and YouTube description. Thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, folks. We're going to take a break. Did I mention up top that Emma wasn't here? No.

I totally forgot. Yeah, she's a little under the way. I didn't know if you were just trying to be mysterious. I was just trying to create a little suspense with the show today. It was move that was bombed in Philadelphia in 85. I said push. I knew there was some kinetic. quality to it.

We're getting old. Our own city. Just dropped a bomb into a block in Philadelphia. Unbelievable. That era, in the 80s, there was a lot of that type of stuff. All right, folks, we're going to take a break, head into the fun half. Just a reminder, it's your support

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you determine that. Will the majority part business model ever collapse? Was there ever a majority board business model? We spent a lot of time today on the

chances of Jesus coming back in 2027. And believe me, there's really no way for you to make a lot of money on it, unless you already have a lot of money. Or if Jesus does come back before 2027.

The flip side, is you could also vote you could also bet that he if you have any inside info hey jesus do me a saw and give me a heads up because said me a sign jesus came to me at the end of my bed and said take the bet it's going to be subject first 2027 um all in it's definitely happening also don't forget just coffee dot co-op fair trade coffee hot chocolate, use the coupon code, majority, get 10% off. In the fun half, incidentally, we're going to be talking about the jobs numbers that the administration appears to think is going to be quite bad

and are already providing pre-buttles for, but before we get there, Matt, what's happening in the Matt Leckian media universe? Yeah, right after the show today left reckoning, we got two Texas candidates, Etienne and Greg Stoker talking with David Griscom about running for Congress in Texas. And Robert Skavarla talking about the Epstein files. So check that out coming up right after the show today. All right, folks. See you in the fun half.

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