- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- The Federal impact on immigrants and immigration in Memphis, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian.

Thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by Casey Bryant, a lawyer and executive director of Advocates for Immigrant Rights.

Thanks for being here again.

- Yeah.

- Gisela Guerrero is a lead organizer for MICAH and also involved in Immigrant Rights, which we'll talk about, some of the other organizations you all are involved in.

But let me also introduce Bill Dries, reporter with The Daily Memphian.

The other organization both of you are involved in is Vecindarios 901.

People, I think, reading the news have talked about some of its work, of following some of the things going on with immigrants, and trying to figure out what's going on.

Let's do this real quick.

I know we've had you on before, Casey, but for those who haven't seen you or read about you, we and other news organizations, what is Advocates for Immigrant Rights real quickly?

And then we'll talk about MICAH and Vecindarios, and then we'll get into the real issues.

- Sure, Advocates for Immigrant Rights is a nonprofit immigration law firm.

We represent people before the Memphis Immigration Court, and we do removal defense and detained defense.

Basically, we advocate for people's rights to remain in the United States under the law.

- Okay.

Gisela.

- MICAH is Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope, and so our primary focus is to community organize.

We do have a lot of members that are primarily faith-based organizations and congregations, but really it's anybody, people of faith and goodwill, who want to work towards social justice.

- And that's across not just immigrant and immigration issues.

We've had other folks from MICAH on over many times over the years- - Exactly.

- On other issues.

- Yep, education, public housing, public transit, and of course, the criminal legal system has also been a focus for us at MICAH.

- And Vecindarios 901 is, you both are involved, you're volunteers, I think, with Vecindarios.

Wanna talk about what that is?

- Sure, Vecindarios 901 is a 100% volunteer-run organization here in the city that has focused on providing a hotline for immigrants in the community.

So, anytime there is a need for, you know, trying to understand what activity, what law enforcement activity is happening with the family, they have the opportunity to call the Vecindarios 901 hotline and have folks who are a little bit more aware and informed about what law enforcement interactions may look like, particularly with ICE activity, and helping them guide through those engagements.

- What do we know now?

We had you on, Casey.

It was a couple months ago, I think.

And what do we know from what you all see, we will get with Bill and talk about some of the stats.

We've had law enforcement on, we've had both mayors, I think, on in the show in the last few weeks and county commissioners, but there's a murkiness about what the federal task force is doing, and there especially seems a murkiness about how many immigrants or people who are presumed to be immigrants or are they undocumented or illegal, are being detained, are being jailed, are being deported.

I mean, can you give us some numbers or some sense of the scale of what's happening?

- There aren't actually accurate published numbers about how many people are being detained for immigration purposes versus criminal issues, whether they're minor or serious criminal issues.

I mean, I'm bad with numbers and maybe Gisela knows, but I'll let you, yeah.

- And I mean, again, is it thousands?

Is it 10,000?

Is it hundreds of people?

- Hundreds.

- I mean, hundreds of people who've been detained and/or arrested.

- I mean, right now, sorry, as of just a couple days ago, I think there were about 325 people in the West Tennessee Detention Facility, most of whom had been detained through this task force.

So, the task force now is, it came along with this proclamation to have the National Guard come to town.

And that proclamation really didn't... I mean, it talked about the task force, but everybody got upset about the National Guard coming to town.

Well, it turns out it's all these federal agents that have been deputized to do immigration enforcement here across the city.

And so, what they're doing is riding along with local law enforcement, that's the Tennessee Highway Patrol, the Sheriff's Department, Memphis Police Department, and kind of like letting them do what their jobs are, and then just following along and kind of piggybacking on top of their work.

- So, is that essentially MPD, state trooper, whoever, pulls somebody over for speeding, broken taillight, whatever it is, and there is an immigration, is it an ICE person?

Is it border patrol?

Who is it that you were saying federal, is in the car?

Gisela, let's go, like, kind of microscopic, how that plays out.

- Sure.

We've seen a different combination of things.

We have seen actual agents ride in the passenger side, right, with either troopers, MPD, but we have also seen when a call is made in the radio, and Sheriff Bonner actually shared that with us as well just last week.

When a call is made and it's shared in the radio, every agent in the task force is made aware, and a couple of other vehicles will show up at a traffic stop.

And so, like Casey mentioned, even though a state trooper may have initiated the traffic stop, you now have other agents who will enter the interaction as well.

- And the federal agents aren't just a part of ICE, which is Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they're also the Homeland Security Investigations, they're also the IRS Criminal Investigations.

They're also the Department of Diplomatic Services or something like that.

There's agents from federal agencies that are not ICE- - That were essentially- - Doing ICE work.

- Deputized as part of this.

- Yes.

Yes.

- And I think probably all around town have seen federal agencies we never heard of before driving around downtown.

- There's also ATF, DEA.

- Yeah, yeah.

Most people heard that, but, like, the IRS one, there was another one that I was kind of, "Oh, I get that.

That must be part of this."

Let me bring in Bill, and we'll keep walking through this logistics here.

- So, what is the state of due process from your vantage points when these stops are made and when someone is arrested and becomes part of the immigration process?

- I think what we're seeing is a very, very fractured process, right, if we're talking about due process.

Again, the initiation is by pretextual stops, which we've had a lot of conversations in the last few years in Memphis about pretextual stops because we know that that is a reason that Tyre Nichols even had any interaction with law enforcement that evening where he was brutally beaten, right?

And so, I think right now what we're seeing in terms of due process, people are getting pulled over for things that normally you would not get pulled over for.

We've heard things as outrageous as not yielding at a green light, right?

And that's the initial cause.

And so then, immediately, agents are jumping into starting to question, "Where are you from?

How long have you been here?"

And so, when we think about due process, unreasonable searches, unreasonable questioning does not fall into due process, and that's just at the traffic stop, right?

- And these pretextual traffic stops set into motion a whole series of events that they're not contemplated by the same ideas of due process.

So, unlawful search is unlawful for the police department when they pull over someone for a taillight, but it's not unlawful for maybe ICE, because their job is to look for people who are not citizens of the United States.

So, we have these agencies that, I said before, are overlapping, and they're piggybacking on each other's authority, and then they have different authorities and different interests in "law enforcement".

And so, all of the lines are blurred for who's supposed to do what and what rules apply and how to even enforce those rules and rights and in what jurisdiction or context.

- Yeah.

- And I think considering the federal perspective too, in the federal context, is that we are actively seeing day to day, right, some shift in immigration policy and law.

And so, when we think about asylum seekers who are no longer eligible, right, refugee status that's getting taken away, but we're also seeing immigration judges no longer, right?

Like, they're being taken out.

And so, when we think about inputting a lot of new people into trying to go through a due process system, right, a legal system, but we're not actually having the judicial system to back it up, we're not actually gonna see timely and due process happening.

- Right.

- Because they're just degrading the system.

- And also, people are being transported to an immigration facility in Louisiana, I think, is the main one for people from here, is that right?

- There's 10 different immigration detention facilities in Louisiana, and then there's places that people will stop in on their way, so they're kind of temporary holding facilities.

The West Tennessee Detention Facility is a temporary holding facility.

- Is that in Mason?

- That's in Mason.

- Okay.

- There's a facility that's in Pickens, Alabama.

There's another one, it's called Etowah.

That one's in Alabama as well.

There's one in Madison County, Mississippi.

And these are all sort of, like, one to two-week stopovers before people eventually end up in a detention center in Louisiana.

- How does that distance from where these people live affect the process, or is this something normal before the task force that you saw going to these facilities way outside of where people live?

- I mean, even before anyone who was detained in this area would ultimately be sent down to Louisiana for their detention and custody hearings.

And it is by design that the logistics of housing and transporting and holding people is all over the place so that they can't access adequately legal representation or their families.

- Right.

As we record this, we're recording this about a week earlier from when you're actually seeing this.

Gisela, you talked about, a couple of days this week, Vecindarios had information about people with trailers being pulled over.

- That's right.

Yeah, so just yesterday, and I know this is gonna be a week behind, but just yesterday, we received some calls that a lot of working people were getting pulled over, and the reason they were given was, the trailers that they were hauling on their personal vehicles and that there was some indication that if it's a trailer being used for businesses, right, for commercial purposes, you need some sort of special licenses.

And so, again, right, we're seeing folks who are working-class folks, right, on their way to work, on their way back from work, and are getting pulled over for a very, very specific minute detail.

I don't think it's one that really creates harm, right, or is causing harm to the greater community.

And that's some of those reasons, right, and those excuses we're seeing for initiating a traffic stop.

And we do know people were, in fact, then detained and taken to begin this really hard and long process with ICE.

- So, people go to the scene from Vecindarios when you get a call that, "Hey, this is happening."

Does your presence there mean that people are usually released?

I mean, does it have an impact on what happens?

- I think it definitely does.

You know, on the one hand, part of it is about documenting the interaction, what is happening.

But we're also looking for any violations of civil rights because that still is the law of the land, right?

Everybody has certain civil rights.

And so, I think the other thing that we're seeing is family members that are also arriving to the scene, it's a very, very emotional moment for them.

And you can't think straight, right, when you're going through maybe your worst nightmare of the day.

So, for a lot of community members, having trained volunteers from Vecindarios showing up means they know someone is keeping an eye on civil rights violations, they know someone is documenting their interactions.

Any instructions that are being given about what to do next, all of that is being captured.

So, there's the immediate support of the family, and I think there's also the immediate support for the person who's now gonna be detained and processed.

- Is this a tense situation?

- Always, always.

- I mean, you would think that over time, the law enforcement officers come to know the people from Vecindarios and vice versa.

Does that happen?

- Some of them do, but they are cycling through federal agents on a two-week time period, so we've got new people coming in all the time.

They have different cars, they are from different agencies, they don't know Memphis, and they don't know us.

- So, I should say midway through show, and as Bill said, we're taping this a week before it airs, so merry Christmas to people.

I think it's airing Christmas week.

For people watching the show or watching it later, whenever it airs, who say, "Yeah, but, some or all of these people have been detained are here illegally, they're undocumented."

Your response is what?

- My response is that it's not necessarily the case.

I mean, the immigration law is very complicated and everyone's case is totally different.

And just because someone may be here without documentation, number one, doesn't make them illegal people, and number two, doesn't mean that they don't have a lawful path towards some kind of legal status in the United States.

And so, this process that they're employing to apprehend people is a process that's usually set out for criminal investigations or looking for criminal activity.

And these people aren't criminals, even if they have violated the law.

It's not criminal law that they've violated or if it- - In terms of their immigration status.

- That's right.

- Some could have.

I mean, some could have- - Sure, absolutely.

And there's a whole other- - Committed crimes, yes.

- Area of jurisprudence - Which I wanna- for that.

- Get to in a sec.

- Yeah.

- Just this first part, just to clarify, and my question was, people here potentially without proper documentation, so, you know, and hundreds of thousands of people, various times, come over the border every year.

Obama sent hundreds of thousands back, Trump in the first term did, Biden did.

I mean, this is not new, right?

- No.

- This notion of people coming over the border without proper... We can get into all the other stuff of people seeking- - Asylum.

- Asylum, excuse me, and so on.

But again, let me get Gisela in here.

I mean, for people in the Hispanic community in Memphis who are, let's just go through a hypothetical, they have not committed a crime, but they are not documented to the degree they want to be or that lots of federal law enforcement wants them to be.

Where do they stand?

What do they do?

And again, broken taillight, going to work, a trailer that maybe has a taillight out, what's the move, and where do they stand?

What do they do?

- Yeah.

I think it's a lot of helplessness, because for folks who want to go through a process, right, there was this term that was used a lot in immigrant rights movements about coming out of the shadows, right?

When DACA, you know, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals passed, there was a lot of that conversation of coming out of the shadows.

I think a lot of community members want to come out of the shadows, but as Casey mentioned, there's not a lot of avenues.

The avenues that do exist are very difficult, too long.

There are people who have been waiting decades to have their day in courts, literally decades, right?

And again, when we don't have a fully supported judicial system with judges, right, with courts, you can't get your day in court, or it's gonna continue being a long wait.

And we continue to see, right, those few avenues that are available are getting pulled back at this time.

- Let me just interrupt to say that Jodi Callahan on our staff did a really good story, and you all may have been quoted, I can't remember, but about that process and the complications, and told a lot of the stories of people in Memphis and where they stand in those decades it can take.

Also, John Kleist, a contributing freelancer for us, did a whole lot of stories of people, Hispanic immigrants, Korean immigrants, just all kinds of immigrant stories back to Eastern Europe that people should look at because it told their stories, the complications, the reasons, all of that and put, I didn't have anything to do with it, I just thought it was amazing when I read it, human faces on all the faces of immigrants.

We are very focused right now as a country on Hispanic, you know, immigration.

That's what this seems to be about, this federal effort.

But let's come back.

I interrupted you, Casey.

Finish your thought, and maybe we can segue into, there are people in our community, immigrants, non-immigrants, documented, undocumented, black, white men, women who've committed violent crimes.

And since we're talking about immigration, let's segue into how should violent criminals who are here as immigrants be treated?

And again, I interrupted you, so finish off.

- Well, that's okay.

So, I just did wanna say that, I mean, perhaps people entered the United States without permission.

Perhaps they are in the United States without permission, but does that mean that those people need to be snatched off the streets with no notice and really no transparency, and put into a prison?

And a prison, in some instances, there's prisons across the country that have been reopened after having been closed because of the dismal conditions inside.

And so, during this administration, they reopened them and were like, "Well, we'll just use these again."

And these are conditions that aren't even adequate for people who have committed crimes or who have been adjudicated guilty of crimes.

- Yeah.

- And so, you know, to segue then for what do we do with criminal people or people who have committed crimes or have been accused of committing crimes?

We have a whole process, we have a whole judicial system, we have prosecutors and we have public defenders, and we have bonds and we have jails.

Jails are full, don't have enough room for people, and those are also dismal conditions.

And so, I mean, we're kind of just looking at a big mess right now on a lot of different levels.

[chuckles] - Yeah.

Thoughts on that?

- Yeah, absolutely.

I think we're flooding.

We're flooding our judicial system, we're flooding our criminal legal system at this moment.

Here locally, right, we are feeling it even more intensely with our overpopulated jail that has led to deaths in our jail, right?

And that is also true in ICE detention centers.

The situations are so severe that people are having the ultimate consequences, and death is happening too.

I think when we look at the approach that we're seeing by the task force is, again, predominantly pretextual traffic stops.

We've seen more than 47,000 pretextual traffic stops in our city, and the number of arrests that are happening, warrant-based arrests, is only about 1,200.

So, when we think about where we're putting all of this time, energy, and resources, and are we really getting the outcome that we want, I think we have to question that.

- One more for me, I'll back to Bill here.

We've had a lot of politicians, a lot of people on the show.

We've talked about it in The Daily Memphian and all that.

I'm curious your take, like, both mayors, Mayor Harris, Mayor Young, City Council, county commissioners, who said, "Look, we welcome a lot of this federal intervention.

"We welcome the fact that violent crime is down some 50% now."

It was already down 20, 25% before this all started.

We've had very few people I can think of on the show.

We try, but very few people who've said, "We're really happy with what's going on with ICE, and immigrants."

But that notion that Memphis and the country has a violent crime problem and Memphis has a violent crime problem, it's been surprising to me the degree to which people are saying, "No, we really welcome this, "even the bad side of it.

We needed to bring down the level of violence in Memphis."

So, it's been really striking, and I'm curious how that intersects with the pretextual stops, the lack of transparency.

How do you do one and not the other, maybe from your point of view?

- Yeah.

I think in our methodology and in our principles at MICAH, we think about, you know, oftentimes, we see social issues as there's this one option or option two, but we really wanna push ourselves to think about another way, right?

And so, I think when we think about serving justice for many families who have been victims of crime here in the city and who want justice, I'm not sure that they see what considered justice it also means that many more other family members and their neighbors are now also having to experience some sort of harm, right, a separation of family.

I don't think that people would equate that as justice, and so I think we need to think about other ways.

- Casey, anything to add to that?

- I mean, I would just say it's a bargain with the devil.

[laughs] You know, yes, maybe crime is down.

Yes, we have a problem with crime in Memphis, but are we willing to sacrifice the rights that we have as individuals in this country so that we can have a militarized city?

- Yeah.

Bill, Bill, finish this up.

- A question to each of you.

Do you think it is possible to separate the work that the task force does on violent crime from the work it is doing on immigration?

- I don't think so.

I don't think so.

I think, again, everybody is working.

All the agents and local law enforcement are working so closely together.

I don't think there's any distinction.

I mean, people are being pulled over for minimal things, and that includes all sorts of working class people, as we've mentioned, documented, undocumented, black, white.

So, it's hard to see any distinction there.

- I mean, the only way that it could happen is if they just took out the component of immigration enforcement altogether.

And, you know, I just wanna share an anecdote from, it was the week of Thanksgiving.

There was a young person who was out at night and was experiencing mental health issues, and the neighbor called the cops on him.

In a normal context, you know, you have a kid in the neighborhood, you call the cops, make sure everything's okay.

The police come, MPD.

They can't identify the kid.

They understand somehow that he's not from this country, and so they call their pals at the Homeland Security Enforcement or Investigations to do an ID check.

So then HSI is there, MPD is there, they're trying to get the family to open the door to identify the kid, but the family doesn't wanna even open the door because they're afraid of what's going on because HSI is there.

If it was just MPD, it might've been a different situation.

"Here's your kid.

"We'd like to connect the child to the parents so that we can feel good about letting him go tonight."

Well, because the family didn't come out, then the child got taken to the police precinct and was transferred to the Department of Children's Services.

And so, all of this was happening because there were these overlapping interests.

And so, the thing that having this immigration enforcement component on top of the criminal enforcement that's going on is that it's undermining the actual enforcement that people are interested in seeing.

- When President Trump does, as he has done, he affected or announced a change in immigration policy towards Somalians.

Does that translate to the streets here when there is that kind of edict, or does it take more time?

- And we got 10 seconds.

[Eric chuckles] - I don't think we have a big Somali population here, but what it does is sets the tone for how we see our immigrant neighbors.

- We could do a whole show on some of these things that we didn't get to.

I appreciate your time, appreciate you being here.

Thank you, Bill.

Thank you, everyone.

Happy New Year.

If you missed any of the show tonight, you can go to wkno.org or The Daily Memphian or YouTube and get the full video, or you can download the podcast of the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks very much, and we'll see you next week.

[intense orchestral music] [acoustic guitar chords]