Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It's all things considered from NPR News. I'm Emily Kwong. It's been a really intense experience to be living here and then also reporting here.
That is Meg Anderson, a correspondent for NPR's National Desk based in Minneapolis, where for two months, the Trump administration's sweeping immigration campaign has resulted in violent, sometimes deadly confrontations between community members and federal immigration agents.
Renee Macklin Good was killed in just a residential neighborhood. I knew exactly where it was as soon as I saw the videos. And same with Alex Pretty. Where he was killed is just this really vibrant street. It's Nicollet Avenue.
Chapter 2: What is the ICE surge and its impact on Minneapolis?
People call it Eat Street. There's tons of really good restaurants. Most of them or many of them are immigrant-owned. And you watch the videos and you're like... There's a really weird element there of being really familiar with a place and then seeing these things, these horrible things happen.
For Meg, life looks normal in Minneapolis until it doesn't. Last night, I went to a friend's house.
I picked up takeout for us. I went to a place to get burritos. We did a pickup order and you go there and... It's like there are people standing guard outside. You can't enter. It's locked. They kind of radio in on a walkie talkie. You're you're who you are and what you ordered. They bring it out to you and then you go back to your car.
Chapter 3: Who were the victims of violence during the ICE surge?
And then I kind of went on my way to my friend's house.
This blend of the normal with the not so normal has been difficult for her. And then there was the time she was tear gassed while covering a protest.
I was OK. I was I was pretty far back and it was it was fine. But it was just weird to like have that happen and go home and, you know, have to shower and wash my clothes. And then like we made dinner, you know, and it was kind of like, well, what else are we going to do?
Consider this. When a national reporter is covering a story they're also living through, the job changes. Coming up, Meg Anderson on reporting on the surge of federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, the city she calls home. From NPR, I'm Emily Kwong.
Thank you. Thank you.
It's Consider This from NPR. NPR correspondent Meg Anderson has called Minneapolis home for several years. And when thousands of immigration agents arrived in the city earlier this winter, she had to adapt to reporting on a major story that had all of a sudden made her familiar surroundings in many ways unfamiliar.
When we sat down for this week's Reporter's Notebook, I wanted to talk to Meg about what it's like to cover this story unfolding in her own community.
I think it is a level of emotional drain that is really intense. But then also, like, what I'm experiencing here is the experience that, like, local reporters have, right? Like, this is, like, the definition of being a local reporter is that you're reporting on your own community and where really bad things happen, like, It's your own community. So I want to acknowledge that.
And there's been really amazing local reporting happening here. And I do think there's also an element of worrying or feeling like the national spotlight is going to drift away at some point. And I've been thinking a lot about that lately, how...
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Chapter 4: How does the local community perceive the federal immigration agents?
Like commiseration that's happening, right? Where I'm like, yeah, I live here too. I understand, right? Yep, I live right over there. Or I know exactly the place that you're talking about. Or yeah, that happened to a friend of mine too. That has felt much more present in the way that I'm talking with people when I'm interviewing them.
Yeah.
How has that changed how protesters or community activists, people you interview, responded to you when you reveal that, hey, I live here too?
With some people, I think it has created a little bit more of a sense of ease to just be like, oh, yeah, okay, you live here. Like, oh, you get it. But then I think there are other people like I have noticed, you know, because I was at the site where Renee Good was shot like two hours after it happened. And I have watched over the last month, like people become more guarded with the media.
Oh, I think people are scared and freaked out. And you know, as we see more reporting about like facial recognition technology, or there are, you know, rumors that I believe still are, I don't know if they're founded or not, if there's reporting on this, but like, infiltrating signal chats, right?
Or that there's going to be more focus on signal chats and things like you can feel people kind of becoming a little more insulated and a little like, actually, I don't want to talk to you or can I talk to you anonymously?
The administration has seemed to pivot. A little more than a week ago, they swapped out Border Patrol field leader Gregory Bovino for the White House immigration czar Tom Homan. And on Wednesday, Holman reduced the number of immigration officers in Minneapolis, removing 700 of them after state and local officials agreed to cooperate by turning over arrested immigrants.
Meg, as we talk now, has this changed the situation on the ground?
I think it is too early to say. What I'm hearing from people in the community is, nope, like nothing is different yet. Wow. There are still federal agents kind of roaming the streets. There are still kind of these very tense clashes between observers and And these federal agents.
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