This American Life - 880: What Is Your Emergency?

Episode Date: February 1, 2026

911 calls unlike any we’ve heard before, and other stories about immigration agents sweeping through America. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: A collection of 911 calls where you can hear immigration enforcement moving through different cities and leaving chaos in their wake. (9 minutes)Act One: More 911 calls, including people on the line with dispatchers as ICE is chasing them, trying to puzzle out their next moves. (22 minutes)Act Two: Home Depots keep getting raided over and over again in Los Angeles. And day laborers are still showing up in store parking lots to find work every day.  So what’s that like? Months and months of that cat and mouse? Anayansi Diaz-Cortes went to find out. (11 minutes)Act Three: Memo Torres tries to build an archive of every person taken by federal agents in Southern California. (11 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.

A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, This AmericanLife.org. Back from federal immigration agents launched big operations in North Carolina. This is back in the middle of November. One of the things that local reporters did to get a sense of what ICE and Border Patrol were doing, the scope of it, the kinds of things they were up to, was that they requested 911 calls. Charlie 911, do you need police fire a medic? Hello, good afternoon.

All right, hold on, please. When the city releases east to reporters, they alter the voices a little to protect people's identities. This woman saying that all morning, these black vans have been showing up at her building, pretending to be exterminators so the people will open their doors. And she thinks to her ice and everybody's scared. There's been reports from,

around the country of immigration agents pretending to be contractors or utility workers or police to trick people and then map them. And the dispatcher does not know what to do with this. Okay. So what did you need police assistance with? Did you just want us to know that this is happening in your neighborhood, ma'am? The woman says no, she wants the police to come because people are intimidated. and it's private property.

And how is it okay to say they're exterminators when they're not? The picture that you get from these 911 calls, Ryan Orley and Julia Coyne collected them for the Charlotte Observer. Jim Daly did it at the Southside Weekly at Chicago. We requested some ourselves. The picture that you get in these calls of immigration officers is different from the videos we've all been seeing online and in the news. The videos capture individual incidents, right?

Viral moments. They're often combative or violent. These 911 calls have that sometimes. But they're also something else. Together, they're like a portrait of a country where ICE officers and Border Patrol agents are spreading everywhere. All sorts of run-in-the-mill locations, this new presence that everybody's bumping into.

So many of the calls are people who are not targeted by ICE, but just calling to say they're here, getting in the way of daily life. Hello, this is 911. He's police fire a medic. Police, police. What address? Do you any police at? The University City Emergency Department. We're in the ER.

What's going on out there? Yeah, we have a bunch of self-declared ICE agents here who are interfering with patient care and we need them removed. And how many would you say are there? Six. Okay, and are they in the ER right now? Yeah, they're literally in the room with me. Okay, okay. And do they have any weapons that you can see?

Yep. You guys just come to the ER. We can show you who they are. What is the address? They need to police. Holiday Express. The Void Corporate Drive. Is this referencing a specific room number? No. We have a big bus parked out there. They're not staying at the hotel. I don't know who they are. I don't know if they're ice agents or what they are,

but they're hovering around and making my guests uncomfortable. comfortable along with employees. So I want them off my property, it's my property, and someone needs to inform them of that. So they should not be inside of my hotel. They should not be parked at my hotel without any sort of payment. It's my personal property. I'm paying the property taxes for it, not them. Scott, where you should have been 911?

Yes, hi. I just tear gas the whole street by Rico Fresh on Armitage and Drake. And I was just, I'm a U.S. citizen and I was just going to a grocery store and they start tear gas in the whole street. It's ridiculous. Like, are we in the freaking war? This is from Chicago, from when it was flooded with federal agents

during Operation Midway Blitz. Hundreds of immigration agents all around the city, arresting thousands of people. It's by Rico Fresh on Armitage and Drake. Armitage and Jurassic. Why is they doing that? Who gives them the right to do? do this.

All right. Anybody need an ambulance, ma'am? No, no one needs the ambulance, but you need to be aware of the things. Like, you can't just do that. But when I was walking to the grocery store and they jerked out

and everyone? Ice agents, you said? Yes, it was ice agents in unmarked cars, wearing the uniforms, unmarked, covering their faces. I just want you to be

around the fact. I don't know if you can arrest anyone. All right. And you say, nobody needs an ambulance right now, all right? No, I'm fine. I'm not going to walk home. And that call, maybe you noticed, the dispatcher struggling to figure out exactly what to do for this woman. Does she need an ambulance, she keeps asking?

It's unclear in a bunch of these calls what 911 can do to help. And in the calls, you hear both sides, the dispatchers and the callers, as they try to figure it out in real time in this entirely new situation they both find themselves in, where people are calling local police to do something about federal agents. I need you guys to come here right now. I'm crazy. Grace and killed there.

There's U.S. Border Patrol, and they're going bombs and they're fucking hitting U.S. citizens. They just knocked out a young lady with a bike. What the fuck is going on? They get the paramedic, for her. Do you think she needs paramedic? They're taking her.

Why are they taking her? Do you think she needs paramedic, sir? Yes, they need paramedic. The dispatcher then transfers to the fire department to get a paramedic. That he stays on the line. The fire department, how can I help you? I need to come here now. Is there someone hurt in there?

Is there someone injured? I think he hung up fire. Because if they were throwing bombs and hurting bombs, yeah. I'll try to call back. Okay. I should say, for most of these calls, we can verify the basics of what happened, through videos or local reporting or other sources,

though there were a handful where all we have is the call, like this next one. A man called 911 with this stumper. He says, masked men stopped him and asked him for his ID and violated his rights and damaged his phone. His question for 911 is next time, if they kidnapped me, what do I do? And if I get kidnapped, what do I do?

What do I call? If you get kidnapped, you can call 911. Okay? You know what I could. Okay. I hear you. So basically it's just people with masks, then I can defend myself? Can I bring my gun and defend myself?

That's a little hard to hear. He's saying if it's people with masks, can I defend myself? Can I bring my gun and defend myself? So what is the situation? I can't advise you on anything or a lawyer, but I can have officers reach out to you and talk more about this. Here, peace. Who there?

We're from WBZ Chicago, This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. So, here we all are. Federal officers shooting American citizens, killing two in Minneapolis. What we hearing these 911 calls is people in real time doing what so many of us are doing.

Not quite believing what's happening right in front of them. Not sure what to do or what can be done. And in this case, calling the place that you're supposed to call when there's an emergency. Saying there is one, right here. Today in our program, we have more of these calls. You'll hear people with 911 on the line as ICE is chasing them, trying to puzzle out their next moves.

And you'll hear a bunch of other people trying to outplay armed federal officers in this new version of America that we all find ourselves in. Stay with us. It's American Life. Act one, what is the nature of your emergency? So before we jump back into more 911 calls, it seems worth saying a word

about how we got to this point that people around the country are calling local law enforcement about the presence of federal law enforcement. Okay. So last year, the Trump administration, hoping to deliver on his campaign promise of mass deportations,

it tripled ISIS by, giving the more money than any federal law enforcement agency. And DHS rapidly hired lots of new enforcement officers, 12,000 they claim, more than doubling its workforce. The Trump administration cut the training time for these new agents in half to 47 days, a number chosen reportedly because Trump is the 47th president. Now they say the training is 42 days. To recruit these agents, DHS ads were all about protecting the homeland

and repelling foreign invaders. They used a lot of white nationalists, slogans, and memes. Google that if you're curious. It's shocking. And, you know, who knows how many people like that actually signed up. I'm bringing this up because all of that set a certain tone for the agency. This was the new Fiss Out, Agro, Coming for You branding of our immigration enforcement. And the White House really, really wants them to deliver.

The architect of Donald Trump's immigration policy, Stephen Miller, kind of famously berated DHS officials last May and demanded they arrest 3,000 immigrants a day, a quota it is nowhere close to achieving. So that also sets a stage for the nationwide tour of American cities that federal agents have been on for months. Going from one city to the next, Los Angeles, then Chicago, then Charlotte, then Minneapolis, then New Orleans.

Some of the operations got cutesy, trolley names, Charlotte's Web, Catahoula Crunch, Catch of the Day in Maine. And when they arrive in each city, in the calls that I want to play you right now in this act of the show. What's interesting is, there are these little runs of calls that tell a story when you listen to them in sequence, one after another after another. It's like you see the immigration agents roll through town on some particular afternoon or evening, moving down the block from corner to corner and spot to spot. Leave a little cloud of chaos each place they touch. We're going to start with a whole bunch of calls from Charlotte that begin at 10.04 in the morning.

But the guy who's funding 911, because ICE seems to be breaking the law. And 911 is the place you call to report somebody breaking the law, right? Charlotte 911. Do you need police, fire, or may it? We've got a shrewby Tahoe. It's definitely ICE. They have their license plate. Like, it's covered.

Like, it's, like, I'm pretty sure that that's illegal. It's all covered up, and he's backing into this corner right now. You say you believe it's ice? Oh, he's got a camera out right now, and they're in, like, tactical gear and everything. What type of vehicle is it? It's a Chevy Tahoe. The numbers on the plate are, like, deliberately crossed out. And where are they at?

I'm at North Trion Street. I'm in the kangaroo. The kangaroo's gas station, mini-mart. Like, I'm at a distance. But they're in the... kangaroo right now. Okay. Oh, here comes the cavalry. What do you mean? There are all the fucking ice agents are coming in right now and this guy's, this guy's walking up to me. I don't have to roll down my window, do I? So you had the

traffic light? Fall phone note. I'm on my phone with 911 actually because you guys. This is your first warning to stop follow notes and it's on camera. Your license plate is obstructed. You guys are on camera as well. camera first warning stop following us. Do you follow us? We're going to risk you for impeding. Impeding what?

Good. You got all that, right? Yes. I'm not impeding anything. I'm just sitting over here. He said I was following them. I just drove into the gas station here. There's like, oh my God, there's like eight trucks in here now.

But my concern was the license plate that was deliberately crossed out. And then he's going to want to say that I was following him. And you heard him, like, how intimidating he was trying to be. So you just want me to have an officer call you? Yeah, that would be great. Okay. So that's the first call in this set of calls. 17 minutes later, completely unrelated to that first guy,

about a mile and a half away on the same road, North Tri-on Street. I just had a car hit me. He just said, the back of my house. car. Okay, where are you? I'm no trying on. I'm right behind him. He's running away from me. He's an ICE, a detective. He just hit my car and he just ran away. A detective? It's your car? Uh, ICE police control car.

Oh, ice hit your car. Yeah, he's in my car right now. He's running away. All right, listen to me. I'm rushing out to follow. I'd advise you not to follow, the dispatcher's saying. Just to keep yourself out of harm's weight No I mean they're not going to do nothing to me I'm American citizen

But it's just the fact that he hit him off He's on the way I understand Yeah that's not That's not going on right Right Okay Well I will tell you is

The officer's not going to come and chase you guys down The officer is not going to come chase you guys down In other words You're on your own Sure Now they're calling me where they're going They pointed a gun at you? Yeah.

Yeah, that's just by the lady my old assistant, right? He hit my car, and now they were pointing guns at me. Yeah, and they just hit my car, too. I understand that. Where are you right now? Oh, no trying on. This goes on for a little while. The dispatcher asking for a cross street.

The guy doesn't know the cross street, and you're pounding on his windows. Do you see an intersecting street where you are? Yes, sir. Weird. I'm writing. Just a minute. Yes, sir. Davey the car, bro.

That's the door. Open the door. Open the door. Open the door. Go. About that. A while later, 911 gets this call. I got the same car in the same location, and the guy who is in the car.

My cousin has been abducted by ICE and he is a U.S. citizen. So I need... I need help on how to proceed. And she has a U.S. citizens, so we'll see what's going on with that. I thought that was just going to be to detain immigrants that are not from here, not also U.S. citizens. So you say he was kidnapped by ICE officials, ma'am? Did I hear you to arrest me?

Yes, ma'am. And I do have video footage. Okay, ma'am. This is Patrick gets some more information, and then pulls another person on the line to talk to the caller. I'm going to have an officer call you and talk to you about this. CMPD doesn't deal with immigration enforcement, so I'm not sure how we would proceed with that.

We would like to know if the police can't help us, who can help us find our cousins, you know? Who do we, who are we supposed to try to help? Right, right. I understand your concerns. I'm sorry you guys are going through this. Okay, so a man gets pulled from his car, but that was one call.

Cousin looking for him, that's the next call. And then an hour after that, there's another call about the car that's sitting there. Windows smashed in. Okay, what type of report are you trying to make? Damage report. What type of damage report? What happened?

I don't really know, far as everything, but my cousin was stopped by ice and they bashed the windows. And I'm not sure why if he's a U.S. citizen. But the car is under my name and he's a co-sign. And we're both on the insurance and everything. But I need a police report as far as trying to see what the next steps are. All right. I have an air call for service.

We'll get officers out there as soon as we can. An accident report. That's something the 911 operator knows how to do. The government later filed charges against the guy they pulled from the car. His name is Christobal Maltaos. He's 24. Agent said that when his car moved, he hit an officer with his car mirror and then charged him with felony assault, resisting and impeding.

A few weeks later, the DOJ dropped the charges. One thing that hits you when you listen to these 911 calls is this feeling like nobody's going to come save you. Superman's not going to show up. The cavalry is not going to come in. The police aren't going to be there. The police aren't going to come because local police won't interfere

with federal immigration officers doing their jobs. You hear operators telling that to callers. You also hear them say, can you just get out of there? Or can you just play along? For instance, here's another call. We're in the same city, Charlotte, North Carolina, the day after everything you just heard.

Do you need police, fire or medic? Police. Police. What address? So I'm over here on Eastway by the Showmars at Eastway Crossing. I've got two vehicles that are in Border Patrol and they're following me and they're trying to get out of the car. There's two wagon nears and they've got their sirens on and they're border patrol. They're not police and they're trying to pull me over right now.

now and they've been driving recklessly. And they're right on my ass, and I'm a U.S. citizen. I am not immigrated here whatsoever, and they're trying, and they're driving recklessly. They're, like, right on my butt. They keep trying to block my path, and there's actually four of them trying to have ram into my car.

Can you police them someone, ASAP? Are you able to, okay, are you able to, like, pull over safely? I am, I just pulled over. Okay, just try to comply as best as you can. I'm putting... Hello?

Hello? I'm on the ground. I'm on the ground. Okay. Hello. I'm on the ground. It gets kind of faint there, but he's saying, I'm on the ground.

This continues for half a minute. Then you hear the dispatcher pipe up again. Hello, number one. Hello. Then there's another half minute or so like this, until, finally. This happened in the parking lot for a shopping mall. Witnesses heard him yelling, I'm a U.S. citizen as he was dragged out of the car. Several agents' cars surrounded him, they handcuffed him, they took him.

A crowd gathered, upset, filming. The guy's name is Joshua Long. He was detained for six hours. says he was charged with assault on a federal officer. Here's something you might not have guessed. There isn't just citizens and immigrants calling into 911 on these calls. ICE and Border Patrol call, too. And they call 911 for a bunch of different reasons.

Sometimes it's for the stuff that anybody calls 911. There's one call where federal agents got into a fender bender and wanted to file a regular traffic accident report. Another Border Patrol agent called to report a theft. He said that somebody, presumably to be a protester, but he doesn't say, broke into his car, so his work laptop, some ammunition, and his uniform. He turned on the light. I apologize. But it had my badge in there, too. I didn't realize that my bag was in there.

My bag is right now. Calls like these, non-in-one operators respond to like any other calls. But sometimes, ICE and Border Patrol call for help with their jobs out in the field. and that's more complicated. Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, lots of cities, sanctuary cities, don't allow local police to help with immigration arrests. This is a huge bone of contention for the Trump administration who've tried to sue to change this. And just this week demanded that Minnesota help them as a condition for reducing the number of federal agents there. But one way that some local police do step in and step in all the time to help federal agents is to manage crowds and protesters.

who show up around their operations. And in cities where local police are not cooperating with ICE and Border Patrol, one way the federal agents can get them to show up is by calling 911. So, for example, in Worcester, Massachusetts in May, ICE called repeatedly for police to come to Eureka Street to help them deal with the crowd when ICE arrested a woman, as her teenage daughters, watched. How do you get there as such as they can?

What happened? We have a crowd surrounding an officer. And he's requesting immediate assistance. Can you send units, please? Mr. Worcester, I'm going to send units. Yes, beautiful. Any weapons that they can tell? Other than the agents, no.

About how many people is it? About 25. 25 people surrounding one officer. After that, the scene gets pretty unruly. People in the crowd demand to see a warrant for the arrest. The waste does not need a warrant to arrest somebody. That's something lots of people don't know. Here's one last example of ICE calling 911.

In this case, doing something that kind of surprised me to hear so baldly there on a recording. In October, in Oxnard, California, ICE agents deliberately rammed their Jeep Cherokee into the side of a pickup truck of an activist who'd been following them. They teaboned the truck. There's video of this. And then the agents called 911 and lied about what happened. 911 was your emergency? Hi, I'm with DHS ICE. I had a local individual crash.

They backed into our vehicle. We're pursuing them right now. They're causing a major safety incident. We need locals here now because we're in an active pursuit with this vehicle. He backed into us and he's fleeing from us and he's causing an insane safety hazard to this entire area. Ice hasn't released the name of this agent. He hasn't talked to the press. so we can only guess

of why he's saying what he's saying. Maybe he has no idea he was filmed ramming his Jeep into the pickup truck and he's trying to create a record. Maybe he's just saying anything that he thinks would get the local police to come help him. The dispatcher does send police cars out to help, and they stop the pickup.

ICE arrests the activist. His name is Leonardo Martinez. But the video of the agents ramming his truck goes viral and he was released a few hours later. Over the eight months since ICE and Border Patrol began these operations around the country, their tactics have gotten more extreme. And the guard rails protecting people's rights have been crumbling.

In their first operation, in Los Angeles last summer, immigration agents began widespread racial profiling, stopping anybody speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent. And then in September, the Supreme Court said they would allow that for now. So now they can stop anybody who looks or sounds foreign to them. Another change? DHS issued a new policy, seeing federal agents could enter somebody's home

without a judge's order, which until now was considered unconstitutional. And as things ramped up over this fall, it was made clear to federal agents that if protesters or anybody else tried to slow them down, they could basically do whatever they wanted to them, whatever they saw fit, and they would not be punished. Here's Stephen Miller in October. To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. And anybody who lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to avoid you.

obstruct you is committing a felony. You have immunity and no one, no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties. So where's that lead? I have one last call I want to play you. This is from Chicago. A lot of apartment. I can help you. Can I get all medical attention? I'm 35 in California. I just been shot. Okay. Sit 30th in California? Let's the first in California, please.

What's on your body where you're shot? Where on your body where you shot? Huh? Where on your body where you shot? On my arm and on my leg. I keep my arm no more. Zmaramara Martinez, a U.S. citizen. She was driving around her neighborhood

warning people that agents were coming and was shot October 4th, three months before Renee Good and Alex Pretti was shot and killed in Minneapolis. Help us on the way now. We'll be there shortly. You're outside on the corner there? I'm right here in the corner in the corner. Okay, help us on the way. We're going to be there shortly. We'll meet you there.

Ma'am, do you don't see you? Do you have a bandana on shot? Oh my God, God. Do you have a bandana or something to do you have a bandana or something to say? She's saying to somebody, do you have a bandana or something to say? or something to stop this. Oh, fucking shit. Hello?

Please, something that shot you. The ice agent shot me. Agent. The ICE agent shot you? No. Marimo Martinez's case is eerily like Renee Goods. She was in her car,

and the government accused her of using her car as a deadly weapon and called her a domestic terrorist. Newsgovers has documented 13 people who have been shot by immigration agents since these big city sweeps began, and most of them they were shot in their cars. Also, most of them were accused by federal agents of not complying with orders or trying to escape or using their car as a weapon. Two of the people shot in their cars died. The rest survived. This woman, Marimo Martinez, was one of the survivors.

In her case, a border patrol officer, Charles Exum, said she rammed her. her SUV into his. She said it was the other way around. And once she got into court, when charges that she forcibly assaulted, impeded, and interfered with a federal law enforcement officer, once it got before a judge, the government decided to drop its case. Martinez's attorney had argued that body cam evidence clearly showed Exum swerving his vehicle to hit Martinez. Also, it was revealed that Charles Exum, the officer who shot Martinez, bragged about it in text to his friends, saying things like, I fired five rounds and she had seven holes.

Put that in your book, boys. Before he jumped out of his car and shot her, he was recorded on body cam footage saying, do something, bitch. In the end, his glee, his apparent pleasure in the violence of his own actions, turned into a problem for their case, and how a jury would see it.

In a sense, that's what's happened, these operations nationally. In the last two weeks, their brutality and the seeming incompetence of the people carrying them out, the reckless incompetence is hard to avoid. Feels like everybody's been talking about it, whatever their politics.

In Minnesota, the place has been ground zero for so much of this lately, the police chief for West St. Paul, Brian Sturgeon, was asked this week by a resident at a city council meeting. What do we do if ICE agents break the law? Can you help us? In other words, the same question that came up in a few 911 calls.

Looking strained and tired, Chief Sturgeon said, I don't know. I don't have answers for you on a lot of things. They have a different playbook. They have a playbook that I'm not trained in. Our officers aren't trained in. They have a playbook that we disagree with on some aspects of. I'll be honest with you.

He seemed truly lost about what he could possibly offer. His suggestion? call 911. I want our citizens to know that if you see something, or if, for instance, if they're hanging, if they're stopped by a bus stop, call us. We will be there. If you are afraid because they're in the area or they're knocking on your neighbor's house, call us.

No, if you do call 911, we will be there. I know it's not what you want to hear, but, yeah, it's a, difficult situation. I don't have answers for a lot of the stuff because I don't understand it either. President Trump, meanwhile, after first saying this past week that he would be de-escalating immigration enforcement, by the end of the week, city is going to be full steam ahead. As of today, operations continue in cities around the country. Conno Jaffe Walt produced that story about 911 calls. Coming up, the glutton of Los Angeles goes to war. That's in a minute. from Chicago Bubba Radio, when our program continues.

This American Life from Ira Glass. Today's program, What's Your Emergency, Stories of Life in this New America, where federal agents have swept out across American cities. In this half of our show, we're going to turn to people trying to outsmart, outrun, and outplay those forces, beginning now with Act 2. Act 2, there's no place like Home Depot. So there's certain spots around the country getting rated over and over again. like Home Depot parking lots, where day laborers gather looking for work.

Back in May, Stephen Miller reportedly yelled at DHS leaders, why aren't you at Home Depot? And then shortly after that, they were in force. One of the very first ticket hit in Los Angeles on the first day of the feds arriving in June was this one in West Lake, L.A., on Wilshire Boulevard. And then in August, this same Home Depot was the spot where DHS launched a brand new strategy that are called Operation Trojan Horse where Border Patrol agents hid in the back of a Penske truck

that pulled up into the parking lot as if it was just a regular moving truck looking to hire people. When workers ran to it to get jobs, the back opened, agents jumped out in tactical vests with weapons. 16 people were taken that day. And five months later, this same Home Depot is still getting rated. And people are still showing up to find work every day. So, what's that like?

Months and months of cat and mouse? Reporter Anianzi D.S. Cortez wanted to find out. This Home Depot is not the easiest place to try to conduct a raid, because at the edge of the parking lot is a kind of safe zone, an area the size of 10 parking spots surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Inside there's a small building. There's a corrugated roof. Day laborers know when there's a raid, they can take shelter there.

It's run by a nonprofit called Gadesen. Set up years ago to make sure day laborers actually got paid by contractors hiring them. Everyone just calls it El Centro. I want to introduce you to two people who are here just about every day. Daniel Jimenez is a security guard. How did you find this job? Yeah, how did you end up here? My friend's dad is the owner of the security company I'm hired through.

Before that, I was a dishwasher at a wedding venue. Great, Dodge coming up to table warn. I didn't know anything about what they did here. I literally just started working here. Daniel's 20 years old with slouchy younger brother vibes, constantly fidgeting with his vape and often dropping it. Go-to drink at Starbucks across the parking lot, mango dragon fruit refresher.

When you see him in his post, just outside the gate to El Centro, he looks bored. That's a big contrast with the second person I want to introduce you to, Joshua Eraso. College grad, passionate about non-profit work and labor policy. That's from his LinkedIn page. His vibe. Soft-spoken community organizer. The person the day labor has turned to for everything. Job connections, immigration lawyers, coffee, toilet paper, Thanksgiving.

forgiving turkeys. People come to the cynthro for all kinds of stuff. Even just to hang out and watch TV, Daniel stands outside the gate. Joshua's inside. That's why we have like our door system and our locks and all that. But, you know, we have the cameras and I'm ready. Here's how it works. If there's a raid, workers try to rush inside. Daniel tries to shuttle people through the gate. When they're in, Joshua will lock the gate. It's private property, so federal agents can't enter without a warrant.

And it can be pretty harrowing. You just hear people screaming, screaming, migra, migra, and then it almost feels like a stampede of people just running to where they can. Holy shit, you know, this is intense. One raid in particular stuck with both of them. This was back in August. Immigration agents rolled up with tear gas. People ran towards the center. Daniel was outside the gate. Joshua was inside.

Daniel thinks he got 15 people in, but then one guy, on the way in, tripped. He tripped in the middle of the door, and he was just laying there with ice trying to, four ice agents on him, and I couldn't close the door, and they were trying to get in.

So I had to try to close it, and not let them get in and not squish him. Wow. With that guy who's like, do I save one more and possibly risk everyone, or do I just let them take him? Which is a, I feel like I stuttered a little bit on that decision for like a half a second. Inside the fence, Joshua was struggling with the same question of when to lock the gate. The immigration agents have now grabbed the man's legs in his shirt,

but his shoulder and armor inside the gate, his hand reaching out for Josh. Joshua. Kind of reaching out for me to grab him. Outside the fence, two agents grabbed Daniel and pulled him away from the gate, leaving the door to Joshua alone. Joshua knew the guy stuck in the door, knew him well, said he was like a deal, an uncle. Maybe 50 or 60, came around most days. When it's like, what do you do?

I grab his hand and all I wanted to do was like, you know, come on in and close the door and like, get out of here. And like, yeah, like, we did it. like you were saved. But in the moment, I was thinking to myself, like, like, there's people here, there's people over there that the ice officers can't even, like, see. There's the fact that, like, you know, we have our computers,

which might have, like, information, you know. You have to think about all these things. Joshua makes a quick decision, locks the gate with the man still outside. He was, like, at the door. He was a strong dude. Like, you know, he's, like, almost getting away from, like, five other. other grown men grabbing him and he's like, Joshua, Joshua, like that with his hand out, kind of very grunting because he's using his strength and me having to be, I can't, like I'm sorry.

And then him, like the other agents overpowering and like throwing him back out the door onto the sidewalk on the floor. The guy's shirt had almost been completely ripped off by the officers. Joshua watched from behind the locked doors they arrested him. He says the rest of the day he kept asking people, did I do the right thing? What would you have done?

I just felt like shit. I felt like I felt like I felt him. I felt like to see someone like taking in front of you with their hand out and you, in an essence, being like, no. Like I'm not going to grab your hand. It kind of feels like I let them down. But then you think about like, but if I had done that, like, they would have opened the door and they would have came in.

And then, but then it's like, fuck, if it went the other way, maybe 12 people had gotten taken, you know? I think I was asking others just to be like, what would you have done? Like, would you have grabbed their hand? Would you not have grabbed their hand? I guess trying to affirm that I made not the best decision, but I made the decision that had, like, the least amount of negative consequences. I have like this thing that keeps coming to mind when you're talking about this. This is my producer, Lily Sullivan. Have you ever heard of this?

Like, I think it's like an ethical situation. Like if a train is going down the tracks and you're the conductor and there's one person on one track or six people on the other. Who would you save? Yeah. You lived that situation. Like it's actually that situation and you were the conductor. Yeah. I would just blow up the train.

So it couldn't get to either one. the train being here, ice, but no, I wouldn't inflict any violence on anybody. But my solution would be get rid of the, remove the train from the equation so the people can live. There's one more operation I want to tell you about. That felt big for a different reason. This one happened just a few weeks ago while I was in the Starbucks there, in the parking lot. A woman opened the door and shouted, ICE is here. Yigo Ice.

baristas froze, panicked. Drinks started flying. I left my drink on the counter and rushed out. I head for El Centro. I expected outside to be chaos. But what happened instead, it was creepily still. Oh my God, the whole front is empty. There's no more workers.

Everyone just left. The SUV circle. But then it's just... the screeching of tires. As far as I can tell, no one gets taken from the parking lot. This round, the immigration agents just left. The center was locked down.

Inside, some workers watched a John Claude Van Dam movie. The hero? The one who sounded the alarm? The one who spotted ice? I honestly didn't see this coming. It was Daniel, the 20-year-old who stands outside the gate. He spotted them first. He was on high alert, pacing.

For months now, he'd been memorizing license plates every day from photos a community watch group had sent around. What'd you see? There was two Ford Expeditions. Would you like the plates? Sure. There was a California paper plate, BTC, 1984, and then a Texas plate, WNJ 34, 22.

He told me it started memorizing, them because checking his phone was too slow. That other raid weighed on him. The day he said he stuttered. He didn't want to stutter again. I think lots of people right now are finding themselves in roles they did not see coming, doing things they never imagined. One of the bosses here has a new nickname for Daniel.

He calls him El Monstro de la Berta, the monster of the door. Which is new. This didn't used to be a place that. needed a monster at the door. Anianzi Dias Cortez. Lily Sullivan produced that story. Act three, memo to the future. Emergency suggests something immediate and short-term.

That happens fast, runs old adrenaline, and then ends. Mickey Meek has this story about a guy who's been in an emergency mode for eight months now. Los Angeles was way ahead of Minnesota's governor Tim Walts, when he called on people to carry their phones on them at all times. to record immigration raids. L.A. has been making videos all along. The hard part is keeping track. Did you get that one, Izzy?

Which one? In Glenda, Weine and Columbus. Yeah, that's a new one. Memo Torres and Izzy Ramirez are building an archive. Every day's raids, arrests, sightings of federal agents in Southern California, 230 days in counting. Memo delivers a roundup at the end of every day.

Just him, speaking to the camera, and playing video clips. It's called The Daily Memo. It's Monday, August 11th, and it's Day 67 of the IC. Jevelle. It's Wednesday, October 15th, and it's Day 133. Today's Thursday, November 20th, and it's Day 168.

The mother ran with her infant as her husband was taken by agents. We confirmed about 14 people kidnapped by Master of Agent. I don't even live in Los Angeles. And yet, I've been watching the Daily Memo for months. It speaks to something about this moment. For a while now, almost every day has felt like,

I can't believe this day happened. And also, what did happen exactly? The Daily Memo is trying to organize that chaos. Memo records the Daily Memo video at night. And then during the day, all day, almost every day, for months now. He and Izzy are in the small room in L.A., a work studio, sitting in front of computers while their phones are blowing up with texts and DMs and videos from around the city.

Memos got two screens in front of him. When I was there, one screen was a map, zoomed in on northeast Los Angeles, with pins where that day's raids had happened so far. The other screen had a Google Doc with bullet points and links to videos that he and Izzy were making together. They cross-check videos, call witnesses, often community watch teams and rapid responders. They're weeding out fake or mislabeled videos. In the room, it's long silences and then quick shorthand as they try to gather, verify, and archive the same bundle of information for each incident and each day.

Like, how many people taken? Yesterday was 14. Yeah. And the day before that, I had, so that's 28 plus 8, it's 36, 36 people. What time? Do you know what time the classic car wash was? The classic car wash was? Not city car wash.

And where? Here's this one saying ice is an inglewood. It is a total grind, both bonateness and distressing. Memo is six foot four, and he's got this big beard, perfect hair. The first time I met him, he was taking his first day off work in six months. You have, like, a threshold for yourself of being like, I will do this until X. I'll do this until I know I got to do something else. Yeah, it's interesting.

I don't have too much time to think about all that, to be honest with you. I'm literally living in minute by minute to what's happening with ice. People are like, oh, man, well, we don't want you to burn out. I'm like, I burn out every fucking day. You know? And I go home and then crash and then eat an edible, put on some TV, go and pass out, and then wake up the next day and just be like, fuck, here we go again. But, like, you know, it's no different from, like,

My landscaping and gardening days where it was just the same grind every single day. Yeah, like, what are the things that are useful from that life for this one? And just fucking shut up and work. You know, nothing about, like, that life, the day labor life or the gardening life is pleasant. Nothing about it. You're dealing with people that are, you know, passively racist. Hard-ass work. I mean, even, like, in the worst weather, whether it be hot and dry or cold, freezing and miserable, you're still got to

get out there and mow the lawns, trim the trees, trim the bushes, dig the dishes, get dirty, back pains, sores. And when you wake up the next day, it doesn't matter how bad your body feels or how tired your mind is. You get right back up, 530, meet the crew, get your coughing, your donut, and get right back to it. So all of that I brought with me. So it's like, yeah, so what? It was tough. Yesterday was tough.

Today's going to be tough again. Tomorrow's going to be tough again. And that's the routine of life. Memo is 45 years old, Mexican-American. He's lived his whole life in L.A. He had his own landscaping business for 16 years. And then, almost a year ago, managed to turn the thing he did for fun into his job. He liked to photograph and post about the places he ate at on his lunch breaks.

Taco trucks, little breed a hole in the walls, Takeros had set up shop on sidewalks. His Instagram handle was El Chagone de Los Angeles, the glutton from Los Angeles. and a website called L.A. Taco hired him full-time. He did food reviews for them, like the giant taco hiding under the 10 freeway. But within a few months, federal agents showed up in the city, and memo and the rest of the staff at L.A. Taco switched to covering raids and protests. There wasn't even a big discussion about it. It just made sense. The people they all regularly saw and talked to were now targets.

So the whole organization changed overnight, from being a membership-based website with local food and culture stories with some news to still being that, plus a home for the Daily Memo. One of the top Metro reporters for the LA Times says no one else in the city, including the LA Times,

is doing this kind of detailed daily accounting. This record memo started? This is it. Memo had a specific audience in mind when he started. The Daily Memo was in English, partly because he was trying to reach the younger, more online members. of Latino families in L.A.,

the ones taking care of paperwork and bureaucracy, the kids of street vendors, gardeners, day laborers, the ones now trying to keep their parents safe. In the daily memo, he would tell the audience what parts of the city and surrounding areas are getting hit, what times of day. And when he saw patterns and trends emerging in the videos, he'd point them out.

Every daily memo, by the way, starts out with a cartoon taco on the screen and the sound of a bite being taken out. Today is Thursday, November 6th, Day 154 of the Ice Siege. Most of today's abductions happen on the streets, including questioning a homeless man. They also rated a U-Haul on Geron-O-Toro, which seems to be a new target of theirs. Like, they just learned that they also have day laborers. Well, they took four people from that U-Haul.

Another new favorite target? Recycling Centers. Memo and Izzy get videos and tips no one else does. Because they're not outsiders. They're trusted. Memo was one of the first to track, what places were getting rated again? and again, car washes, school drop-off areas, Home Depot's. He knows who they often targeted. Latinos and work clothes, a lot of older people, 50-plus. The Daily Memo tracked the evolution of immigration raids in L.A. from a hodgepodge of random agents, often in street clothes and with no

visible identification, to a more consistent, militarized look. Green Border Patrol vests, sometimes helmets, with rifles. Over time, there are more videos of agents opening fire on people. The first U.S. citizens arrested in Los Angeles were big stories. Now those are common, in L.A. and elsewhere. When DHS accuses people of assaulting federal agents, the Daily Memo is a place lawyers go to to look for videos that may prove them wrong. And there's one more kind of video in the Daily Memo's archive. These eerie still lifes, a food cart with meat still sizzling on the grill, but no one's there, a row of buckets with bouquets in them. A lunch bag left in front of an apartment complex.

The aftermath of someone being taken. Memo showed me a video of a woman stumbling on a gardening truck on a residential street. No one in it or nearby. The open truck bed is full of tools and gear. So we're in Rubidol right off of Mission Avenue and Prestmore. They got rakes, lawnmowers, blowers, shovels, ladders, pipes. So like in that instance, what are you? What are you doing?

Well, we'll just report that we found an abandoned truck. A lot of people find out about this stuff through the videos. They'll comment, that was my cousin, that was my dad. Oh, my God. We were wondering where he was at. And they'll reach out through the DMs. And then I get to talk to them and be like, okay, I'm sorry. That's how we verify that.

It was actually a nice agent. I learned two of my former employees when I had my Lanski Company that were deported from some of these videos. I'm like, dude, these are people who are like 15 years. I know them really well. I know their families. At the end of the night, after Memo finished recording the Daily Memo, I sat next to him and pulled up some old black and white photos on my phone from the 1950s of Mexican men and work hats lined up to board planes and trains.

This is when the government ran another big deportation campaign in California, targeting Mexican immigrants. It named it after a slur, Operation Wetback. And looking at them, one thing really stood out to Memo. There are no chains or shackles. Yeah. There's no military gears, there's no rifles. Look, it's like Barney Fife right there.

Right? Barney Fife, the bumbling sheriff from the Andy Griffith Show. I wasn't there, and I won't say that the cruelness wasn't there, but you don't see the cruelness in the images then as you're seeing it now. How will these videos look in five years? 20 years. 50. What are we going to think about them?

Memo's got his mind on the future too. He and Izzy are downloading all the videos so they can't disappear. At some point, in some future America, maybe they'll lead to a reckoning. Miki Meek is a producer on our show. The program is produced today by Miki Meek and Nadia Raymond and edited by Laris Darcheschi. People with Together Today's show include Fia Benin, Zoe Chase, Michael Comitat, Suzanne Gabbar, Angela Jarousie, Cassie Howley, Seth Lynn, Molly Marcello,

Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Robin Reed, Marisa Robinson, Texter, Ryan Rummary, Alyssa, Ike, Shreys Kondaraja, Krista Rattala, Nancy Updike, and Diane Wu. Our managing editor is Sarah Abdur Armino. Senior Eddardin, our executive editor is Emmanuel Barry. Special thanks today to Ayesha Wallace Palomaris and Javier Cobrae from L.A. Taco, Palmyra Figueroa and Pablo Alvarado, at National Day Labor Organizing Network, Jessica Lessonhop, Maddie Weiss, Jamie Suesneddle, Mike McGuire, Abdi Rahman Ali, Anna Adlerstein, Eve L. Ewing, Mariah Wolfeel, Scott Dusharm, Peter Mancina, the Central American Resource Center, organizers at the LA Tenants Union, Patricio Emiliano, Provencio O'Donohue, and Kedjeejee Nikoje.

Our website, ThisAmericanLife.org, where you can listen to our entire archive of our 850 shows for absolutely free. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. As always, door program's co-founder, Mr. Tori Malatia. You know, he loves pretending he's a little Joey in Australia, living in a pouch. I'm in the kangaroo. I'm Iron Glass.

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