WKNO TRANSCRIPT
CHRISTOPHER BLANK (Host): Concerns over the Tennessee National Guard have largely preoccupied Memphis as Trump's crimefighting task force gets underway. But one agency is here with a specific target in mind: immigrants. With us to talk about how the mission of ICE raises particular civil rights concerns is author and immigration journalist Daniel Connolly. Thanks for joining us.
DANIEL CONNOLLY: Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me, Chris.
BLANK: Daniel, we've been hearing city leaders and activists voice concerns that in a majority Black city, there is a greater risk of racial profiling, especially from agencies that are not local. But a point you make in a recent column is that ICE is legally empowered to racially profile. How is that, and what does it look like on the streets?
CONNOLLY: Yeah, that's right. I did a column for the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis, and I feel like we're paying way too much attention to the National Guard and not enough attention to ICE. And there was a Supreme Court decision Sept. 8th. Some people in California had filed a lawsuit over the indiscriminate ICE arrests that were taking place in Los Angeles. They were doing things like going to car washes, places like that, and grabbing anyone who looked Hispanic. A lower court judge heard this lawsuit and said, "You can't just grab Hispanic people, that's racial profiling." This case went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court lifted the injunction on Sept. 8th, and said "Yeah, basically you can do racial profiling. Do they speak Spanish? Do they speak with an accent? It's A-okay to do racial profiling."
BLANK: One claim being made by activists on social media is that ICE is working in tandem with state troopers. What is the benefit to teaming up with agencies that are ostensibly tasked with finding violent criminals?
CONNOLLY: There are a lot of state troopers that are part of this task force, and there's a community group called Vesendarios 901 or V901. They are saying that the state troopers are working very closely with ICE, either an ICE agent riding along with them in the vehicle or coming immediately after a traffic stop. Most people when they see a state trooper behind them will stop. They're not going to try to run away, and it makes sense that if you're trying to do a lot of immigration arrests, working with state troopers or another law enforcement agency like that would make sense.
BLANK: Does a state trooper have the authority to pull somebody over that, maybe, an ICE person doesn't?
CONNOLLY: Legally, it's a good question. Effectively, ICE can stop anyone who is brown for any reason. They can walk up to anyone in Memphis and say, "Show me your papers."
BLANK: Wow. You've mentioned in your column that you're married to a legal immigrant and you've stated that she and others here legally -- people going through the process of legal immigration -- are afraid. Why is that?
CONNOLLY: So, my wife has a US passport and she's been carrying it with her for months, and the reason is that if she gets stopped by ICE and she cannot prove immediately that she's a citizen or a legal immigrant, they can detain her. And there have been multiple cases around the country of US citizens being detained, in some cases for days, without being able to get out. Now, most of them do get out, but again, if it's my wife, it could take a day or two before we sort this out. So, again, we're talking about a US citizen. We're not talking about someone who's here illegally.
BLANK: I've seen some of the videos. It seems that people are keeping an eye out for where they [ICE] are. Is this what's going on among the local activist community?
CONNOLLY: Yeah, so the the group that I keep mentioning V901 has a hotline, and anyone can call into the hotline and say "I've seen police officers here." In the current environment, they're getting so many reports of task force activity all the time that they are now saying they can't verify them all. Let me give you some context here why I find this credible. In my column, I mentioned some analysis from the Associated Press of similar Trump actions in Washington, and the AP said that from August into early September the biggest category of arrests that the federal task force had made in Washington was immigration. It was more than guns or warrants and drugs combined. Unfortunately I think as we learn more and more about what's happening in Memphis, we're going to see that that's what's occurring here and we could be facing hundreds if not thousands of people being arrested and deported. Many of whom do not have a criminal record other than immigration violations. In my column I wrote that it's really time for people to speak to their elected officials and ask your elected officials --city council members, mayors, etc. --to demand answers on this, and to do something about this.
BLANK: And it sounds like one of those numbers the media needs to find out is how many of those daily arrests that are being reported here in Memphis are undocumented immigrants versus the violent criminals that we've been told are being taken off the streets.
CONNOLLY: That's the kind of information I would love to know, and I had made a round of inquiries yesterday to a bunch of federal agencies and the Tennessee Highway Patrol, and got no answers. So it's a really critical question of who's being arrested, what are their names, what are the criminal charges and I really hope that those of us who are, like me in the media, that we're able to make some ground and find out.
