880: What Is Your Emergency?
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A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbearped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.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. "Saulin, 911, do you need police fire or medic?" "All I want is to have a fancy seat." "Alright, hold on, please." When the city releases these two reporters, they alter the voices a little, to protect people's identities. "Look, the pastor is the mayor, is the mayor, and the mayor is the mayor of the city." There's women 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 rise, and everybody's scared, they've been reports from around the country of immigration agents pretending to be contractors, or utility workers, or police, to trick people, and then nab 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?" "No one 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 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, in the news. The videos capture individual incidents, 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? Hello, this is 911. Can you please fire a minute? Uh, please. Please. What address do you need to please stop? Um, University City Emergency Department, we're in the ER. Okay. What's going on up there? Yeah, we have a bunch of self-explanatory, ICE agents here who are interfering with patient care and we need them removed. And how many would you say are there? Six. Okay.
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