Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey listeners, before we start, I wanted to let our friends out west know about an event I'm doing in the City of Angels next week. On Tuesday, January 20th at 7 p.m., I'll be in conversation with my colleague, Jamel Bowie, and our boss, the head of New York Times Opinion, Katie Kingsbury.
Chapter 2: What are the current dynamics of ICE enforcement in Minneapolis?
And together, we're going to make sense... The Library Foundation of Los Angeles is kindly hosting us. You can find more information in our show notes, and you can buy tickets for the event online.
Chapter 3: What is COPAL and how does it support Latino communities?
Just go to lfla.org calendar and check out the event for January 20th at 7 p.m.
Chapter 4: Who is Francisco Segovia and what led him to anti-ICE activism?
From New York Times Opinion, I'm Ross Douthat, and this is Interesting Times. The death of Rene Good in Minneapolis has put a spotlight on the aggressive tactics of immigration and customs enforcement agents operating in U.S. cities. And it's also spotlighted the groups organizing to observe and protest immigration enforcement.
I'm really interested in these small-scale efforts, which have led to people standing on street corners and blowing whistles to alert neighborhoods to ISIS presence, to following agents carrying cell phone cameras while the agents are conducting operations and making arrests.
It seems like a very effective style of protest in certain ways, especially since it generates footage of ICE overreach and abuse. But it's also fraught with risk when it tempts protesters to interfere with law enforcement directly. My guest today is training people for this kind of activism.
Chapter 5: What does it mean to be a constitutional observer?
Francisco Segovia is the executive director of a Minneapolis nonprofit that's on the front lines of the anti-ICE operations. And I wanted to talk to him about how he trains people for interactions with ICE agents. What kind of risks it carries for protesters and what people like himself want from immigration policy. Francisco Segovia, welcome to Interesting Times.
Thank you. Thank you for having me here.
So we're going to talk about what it means to train people to protest. We're going to talk about the goals, the larger goals of the anti-ICE protests.
Chapter 6: How does the community respond to ICE actions?
Yes. But I just want to start by getting something immediate from you about the situation in Minneapolis. We're taping this on Wednesday. It's about a week out from when Renee Good was shot and killed. Can you just describe what you see as the current dynamic on the ground, both with ICE agents and with protesters?
Sure.
Chapter 7: What training is provided to keep protesters safe?
It is a scary moment for thousands of families in Minnesota. We see ICE agents all over the city driving their cars, stopping people, and we see people chasing them as well. people whistling, alerting others that ICE is present. A lot of videos of ICE arresting people and people crying, windows, cars' windows being broken.
So it is like, I will say, being in the, maybe in the middle of a civil war where people are running. Yesterday, for instance, right outside my office, we saw a woman running,
Chapter 8: What types of immigration enforcement are considered legitimate?
I think she was telling businesses to close doors because ICE was around. And we all from the office ran out, put our vest to see what was happening. And right immediately ICE came to the corner, stopped the vehicle and arrested two people. That's what we are going through right now.
How many people do you think are involved in the different kinds of protests?
It depends. If there is a march, hundreds or thousands of people will show up. But when there is an ICE action, what we have noticed, for instance, yesterday, A lot of people get out of their houses. And so people just get out of their houses, get into the street and become present and to begin chanting things like shame and, I mean, in just a matter of minutes.
you can see 30, 50, 100 people coming to witness and chant and say various things to ICE agents.
So what is COPAL? Tell me, what does the organization do in normal times?
COPAL stands for Communities Organizing Power and Action for Latinos. We came about in 2018. And what we did or what we created the organization was to better the quality of lives of Latino families in Minnesota. But then right after we began, COVID came in. And so that it was then when we created the helpline that we have now. So supporting families across the state to support. keep healthy.
But our main mission is to better our communities through a range of activities that we do. One of them is a worker center. We have a worker center where people come to look for jobs, careers, youth and adults. We also support people who have been victims of wage theft, which is pretty common in some industries.
And we have offices as well that we have opened in two other cities, Rochester and Mankato.
And what about immigration work, again, prior to the current protests? Obviously, there was immigration enforcement in Minneapolis before the current wave, right? If somebody called your helpline having been taken into custody by ICE four years ago, would you have done something?
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