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00:21Trump has promised to conduct what he calls the largest deportation program in American history.
00:27We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they
00:35came.
00:35In collaboration with ProPublica.
00:38Lovino was deployed to several cities.
00:40He was the one who was the tip of the spear for this new type of immigration enforcement across the
00:44country.
00:45When we talk about who they're arresting and who they're holding accountable, it's not the worst of the worst.
00:50From Los Angeles.
00:51Hundreds of National Guard troops.
00:53To Chicago.
00:54Operation Midway Blitz.
00:56To Minneapolis.
00:57The White House today doubling down.
00:59The pushback on protest.
01:01Trying to terrify people and try to scare people away.
01:04Border Patrol agents, they don't wake up in the morning and say, let me see who I can hurt today.
01:08And the fallout.
01:09President Trump and I, along with others in the administration, have recognized that certain improvements could and should be made.
01:19This program contains graphic content. Viewer discretion is advised.
01:28The Trump administration is deploying an estimated 2,000 federal agents to Minneapolis. That includes ICE agents.
01:35Homeland Security posted on social media this afternoon, quote, we're not leaving until the problem is solved.
01:42Go home to Texas, ass .
01:46January 7th, 2026.
01:52A month into the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration in Minneapolis, federal officers approached an activist named Renee Good
02:02as she sat in her car.
02:04That's fine, dude.
02:05I'm not mad at you.
02:07You want to come at us?
02:08I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy.
02:11Go ahead.
02:12Out of the car.
02:13Get out of the car.
02:14Get out of the car.
02:14No!
02:16No!
02:17No!
02:17No!
02:18Shame!
02:19Oh my f***ing God!
02:22What the f***?
02:23What the f***?
02:25You just f***ed!
02:26What the f*** did you do?
02:29The killing of Renee Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross stunned the country.
02:34What did you do?
02:36You!
02:38Shame!
02:40Shame!
02:41Shame!
02:46We are following a breaking news situation in South Minneapolis, a shooting involving ICE agents.
02:53We have just learned the victim's name.
02:55She is a 37-year-old woman and her name is Renee Nicole Good.
03:00She was shot and killed today.
03:02And ICE claims that the agent opened fire after Good, quote, weaponized her vehicle in an attempt to kill a
03:10federal officer.
03:11In the days afterwards, I spoke to eyewitnesses and visited the site where Good was killed.
03:18Mother of three, a partner, and a poet, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good as described by those who knew
03:25her.
03:25Her neighbors now mourning their loss.
03:29Like many here, Good had been out on the streets opposing the immigration sweeps.
03:34Yeah, I just started filming because I saw her body on the ground.
03:38A few blocks away, I met Liliana Zaragoza, who showed me videos she'd taken the morning of the shooting.
03:46She was on her way home after dropping off her kids.
03:51I opened my door and I exited with my hands up and I looked at one of the MPD officers,
03:58right?
03:58And I said, I'm an attorney.
03:59What, you know, what's going on?
04:01Is this an ICE operation?
04:03Is it an MPD operation?
04:05Is it something else?
04:06And he said, this is a crime scene now.
04:10And so when I get into my car, you know, I just grabbed my phone and started recording.
04:15And I saw on the sidewalk, a bloody person, bloodied head.
04:20I'm looking at her eyes.
04:22I'm looking at her body.
04:26And it was just a really horrific, violent thing to see.
04:29And for activists like you, what does her death mean?
04:35You know, I think it hits close to home for a lot of us who've been responding to these ICE
04:39raids.
04:41Frankly, you know, I was there responding like Renee Goode was responding.
04:46That was what you were doing.
04:47She was doing the same thing.
04:49Yes.
04:49And she wound up dead.
04:50Yes, exactly.
04:52The Trump administration depicted Goode as part of an extremist left-wing movement.
04:57Is that that woman is part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault, and to
05:05make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job.
05:07And the man the administration put in charge of the operation, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, defended the officer who
05:15killed her.
05:15A 4,000-pound missile is not something anyone wants to face, especially in a split-second decision-making process
05:24in a very already inhospitable environment.
05:27Hats off to that ICE agent.
05:29I'm glad he made it out alive.
05:31I'm glad he's with his family.
05:35By the time Renee Goode was killed...
05:37Bovino is in the Gold Suburban.
05:41I'd been following Bovino and the Trump administration's immigration sweeps around the country for seven months.
05:47Do you speak English?
05:49Thousands had been arrested on immigration charges.
05:52Do me a favor, just stay back, okay?
05:54What is your mission today? Like, if you were going to describe it for PBS.
05:57Title 8 immigration enforcement. So, uh, that's what we're here for.
06:01And all these bad people and bad things you see on the street that prey on American citizens, we're here
06:06to get them.
06:10But there was also a backlash.
06:12You better be careful.
06:14There's a lot of violence. Be careful.
06:15Are you encountering a lot of resistance?
06:17Most I've ever seen.
06:18Really?
06:19You bet.
06:20Amid the protests, the masked and heavily armed federal agents, sometimes backed by the military,
06:27had also arrested hundreds of U.S. citizens, routinely portraying them as domestic terrorists or extremists.
06:34Like, who do you think you're dealing with? Like, I'm not, like, Rambo or anything.
06:39With my colleagues at ProPublica and Frontline, we've interviewed officials, experts, and insiders.
06:46When you talk to agents who've been dispatched for these big operations, what do they tell you?
06:51They say it's a horrific situation and they've been put in very dangerous positions.
07:01So I've definitely seen a lot of violent acts instilled onto the agents by the protesters.
07:08And we analyzed the arrests of more than 300 protesters and bystanders caught in the crackdown.
07:15How could you do this?
07:17Why did you stop and question all these three-zero parts?
07:19Please get out of here.
07:20Get back.
07:21Get back.
07:22Get back.
07:22While there have been some successful prosecutions, over and over cases have been falling apart,
07:29contradicted by video evidence and witness testimony.
07:33Do you have video of it?
07:34Right here.
07:37And that's you getting it?
07:38Yep.
07:39Federal prosecutors have been dismissing charges or not filing them at all.
07:44So the case has collapsed. These things are not resulting in any real prosecution.
07:51And in cities across the country, countless people have been injured, and some even killed,
07:58by officers using tactics that experts say violate their own rules.
08:03People live here!
08:05You're not allowed to use less lethal weapons in that way.
08:08You're not allowed to fire people's heads.
08:11The agents attempted to disarm the individual, but he violently resisted.
08:16Fearing for his life, a border patrol agent fired defensive shots.
08:21Holy s**t!
08:23Oh my God!
08:24Why do we want?
08:25Eyes out!
08:26Why do we want it?
08:27Why do we want it?
08:29By February, amid rising opposition around the country,
08:33Eyes out! Eyes out!
08:35The Trump administration began backing off its campaign.
08:39And the man at the center of it, Greg Bovino,
08:42Stay back!
08:43was out.
08:49Reports of a surge in raids of undocumented residents have been circulating on social media.
08:54The roots of the story trace back to January 2025.
08:59Pura Mira.
09:00And a little-known operation that Bovino led in Bakersfield, California.
09:05Yeah, regular undercovers, everything.
09:07It was called Return to Sender.
09:10They were just rolling around the city like it was theirs, as if they were right, you know, in the
09:14El Centro border.
09:15Journalist Sergio Olmos reported on it for the nonprofit news outlets CalMatters and Evident Media.
09:21Greg Bovino, who was then the sector chief for El Centro, sent out about 65 agents 300 miles north of
09:28his sector into the interior of California to do this operation that they said at the time they had a
09:35targeted list of criminals they were going after.
09:37Fools came in deep on the Home Depot lot, helicopter and all.
09:40But Greg Bovino's crew would go up to Home Depots, gas stations, farmland.
09:47You know, looking at people who look Latino and stopping them and asking, show me your papers.
09:51Y aquà la patrulla fronteriza, pues, tiene, pues me imagino, pidiéndole los respectivos documentos a las personas.
10:00Thanks so much for your advice.
10:01Bovino agreed to talk to Olmos about the operation.
10:06Every single one of the 78 that we arrested were criminals when you cross the border illegally at USC 1325,
10:13illegal entry into the United States, so they were all criminals.
10:16Let's get that one out of the way here, right out of the box.
10:23If they cross the border illegally, then they're coming with us.
10:28They were under arrest and they're coming with us.
10:32They said they were looking after, going after criminals.
10:35That was what they promoted it as.
10:38And what was the reality?
10:40We got documents from Customs and Border Protection that showed that 77 out of the 78 people they arrested,
10:46they had no knowledge of criminal or immigration history prior to encountering them.
10:51All that means is they didn't know who these people were when they arrested them.
10:55The idea of a target enforcement where traditionally someone like, an agency like ICE would find out if somebody has
11:02a criminal record,
11:03they'd surveil their house, they'd check to see if they had been deported before.
11:05That whole, like, pre-investigation stuff, that doesn't happen when, you know, guys in Border Patrol just roll up to
11:11Home Depot and Kevlar and mask and see who runs.
11:14That's up what you guys are doing.
11:16And this operation in Bakersfield, we saw as a kind of, like, test case for how he could use Border
11:22Patrol in the interior.
11:26Yesterday's catch from Indio is being brought in by the Border Patrol.
11:30In fact, return to sender was a throwback to a campaign from the 1950s.
11:36Greg Bovino told congressional investigators a couple years earlier his model for immigration was President Eisenhower,
11:41that he really knew how to do interior enforcement, and I had to look this up because I didn't know
11:46what he was talking about,
11:47but it was Operation Wetback.
11:48This is the morning prison train.
11:50It's cargo, Mexican Wetback, who have sneaked across the border and are being deported.
11:56The operation, which took its name from a racial slur, started on the border,
12:02but eventually extended to major cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.
12:08Bavino really looks at Operation Wetback as, like, the way that Border Patrol should be used.
12:13They should not just be lined up on the border watching a wall.
12:16They should be in cities setting up checkpoints and just stopping people.
12:20They got this guy pulled over over here at INS.
12:24And treating every town as if it's right across the border.
12:28We made contact with and arrested a lot of bad people.
12:32In the interview with Olmos in early 2025, Bavino said the Border Patrol would be taking an aggressive approach going
12:41forward.
12:41Over the next several years, we're going to go hard.
12:44Whether you're an illegal alien, a fentanyl smuggler, or any other type of transnational criminal threats,
12:51I'd self-deport right now.
12:53Just go ahead and self-deport because the Green Team is on the job and it's game on.
13:02Game on with the Green Team.
13:03Federal authorities have been reported at several locations in Los Angeles.
13:07Five months after Operation Return to Center, the Trump administration deployed Greg Bavino to Los Angeles.
13:14This was not a folk depot in Westlake. It was earlier this morning.
13:20Homeland security agents were detaining multiple people outside that.
13:24He would be a key player in carrying out the president's immigration crackdown.
13:29Widespread immigration raids here in L.A.
13:31Federal officials have detained multiple people at different locations.
13:35I arrived in L.A. as dozens of people a day were being swept up in raids by the Border
13:40Patrol, ICE, and other federal agencies.
13:43Fifteen-year-old Brian Vasquez screaming at Border Patrol agents as they take his father into custody.
13:51Angry residents were also coming out to confront the agents.
14:01And protests were erupting.
14:03Full street! Our street!
14:06Full street! Our street!
14:08At this point, they're clearly on the road.
14:10They certainly are, and they're slowly making their way out of here.
14:14Oh, you guys, this is a Paramount on Atlantic.
14:16On June 7th, hundreds of protesters gathered near a Border Patrol staging area.
14:22I'm gonna start charging on this right now, but I don't know.
14:25Hey, you guys, there's more of us than there's them. Come on!
14:28Bovino told his agents how to handle the protesters.
14:31Arrest as many people that touch you as you want to.
14:35Those are the general orders.
14:37All the way to the top, everybody f***ing gets it if they touch you.
14:40You hear what I'm saying?
14:41Yes, sir.
14:41Less legals?
14:43We're gonna look at shipping tractor-trailer loads of that s*** in here.
14:47So, you catch what I'm...
14:48It's all about us now.
14:50It ain't about them.
14:51Professional, legal, ethical, moral, you know what we're talking about.
14:54Legal, ethical, moral.
14:55You're on camera.
14:56But other than that, it's what we do.
14:59Whose city is it, G?
15:01It's f***ing racist.
15:01It's our f***ing city.
15:05What does the community do?
15:08As the federal agents faced off against the demonstrators,
15:11they began unleashing tear gas and other crowd control weapons.
15:21The protest escalated.
15:30What you're witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order,
15:36and a national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags
15:41with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country.
15:46We're not gonna let that happen.
15:47Now, Wall Street!
15:48Our street!
15:50Wall Street!
15:51Our street!
15:52President Trump would quickly mobilize the National Guard.
15:57Extraordinary images out of Los Angeles tonight.
15:59Hundreds of National Guard troops now on the ground,
16:03deployed by President Trump,
16:05even though state leaders say they didn't ask for them
16:07and don't want them there.
16:09National Guard out of LA!
16:11National Guard out of LA!
16:13The administration cited vandalism and attacks on agents.
16:18What we have seen transpire in Los Angeles, California in recent days is shameful.
16:24Left-wing radicals waving foreign flags viciously attacked ICE and Border Patrol agents,
16:29as well as Los Angeles police officers.
16:32The mob violence is being stomped out.
16:34The criminals responsible will be swiftly brought to justice.
16:37And the Trump administration's operations to arrest illegal aliens are continuing unabated.
16:44On the ground, Bovino defended the operation.
16:48As for the violence and the demonstrators,
16:51violence will not deter us, the CBP mission here in Los Angeles.
17:00We know how to bring about peace, and peace begins with ICE leaving Los Angeles.
17:09Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told me she was caught off guard by what happened.
17:14Well, I will tell you, when the first raids happened,
17:17it felt like, as a city, we just got punched in the gut.
17:21For no reason.
17:23It just came out of nowhere.
17:25And it was a feeling of, like, the city being invaded.
17:28But it was an invasion of our own government against us.
17:36You had men jumping out of cars with rifles.
17:41They're gonna come to attack us! Look!
17:45With very dubious signage or uniforms.
17:52Everybody was horrified and outraged by the aggression.
18:00It was becoming clear that this wasn't just an immigration operation.
18:05It was evolving into something different.
18:08The federal government was also cracking down on demonstrators
18:11and arresting them in large numbers.
18:15One of those arrests, down the street from a corner store in East L.A., caught my attention.
18:21Hi. Can we see the footage? The video?
18:24Yeah.
18:25We don't get it yet? Yeah.
18:26Yeah.
18:26So this is from the raid this morning, and this looks like National Guard troops,
18:30eight to twelve of them, pulling up in two vans,
18:34about 5.52 in the morning.
18:36They put a cordon across the street, and they're blocking the street.
18:40And then our understanding is, behind that,
18:42they're arresting somebody who was involved in the protest.
18:45The FBI is arresting them.
18:47The man they arrested was Alejandro Orellana,
18:51a Marine Corps veteran who was part of a group that had been protesting the raids.
18:55It was, like, almost exactly at six in the morning.
18:59Suddenly I hear, like, man over a loudspeaker call my name,
19:03telling me that it's the FBI and that I need to come outside.
19:08They already have, like, their guns out.
19:10They throw the flashbangs in, and they still break down the front door,
19:13and they detain my family for, like, an hour.
19:16But, you know, I think to them it's like, well, this guy's former military,
19:19so, like, he has the training to, like, evade us or whatever.
19:24There was, like, over, like, more than two dozen, like, National Guardsmen
19:28just, like, lined up on my street as they were driving me off.
19:30It's like, who do you think you're dealing with?
19:32Like, I'm not, like, Rambo or anything.
19:35Lots of people wearing masks just in case there is more clashes with police tonight.
19:40It all stemmed from a news video in the early days of the protests.
19:44We have people right now, look at this, dropping off food and water.
19:47What are those boxes?
19:48Are those masks?
19:49That doesn't look like food and water.
19:50Yeah, those are—
19:50Looks like masks.
19:51Yeah, no, those are masks.
19:53Yeah, so—
19:53A bunch of us took it upon ourselves to, you know, go downtown
19:59and give out these resources, the food, water, and, of course, the PPE.
20:06I don't put on a mask unless you have a plan of not wanting somebody to see your face.
20:10Oriana was soon identified as the driver of the truck.
20:14Americans have to get organized.
20:17And targeted by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
20:20You saw the man handing out the thousands of dollars of face shields.
20:24And then by the Trump administration.
20:26You will see boxes and boxes of very professionalized masks and rioting equipment being dropped off for these protesters.
20:34So it's a good question the president is raising and one we are looking into about who is funding these
20:39insurrectionists and these rioters and these protesters and these illegal criminals.
20:44They're kidnapping people.
20:46I, National Guard, let me make my .
20:48The morning after the press conference, Oriana was arrested on charges including conspiracy.
20:56A charge often used for organized crime rings and drug syndicates.
21:01The acting U.S. attorney, Bill Asaley, was on the scene promoting the raid to a Fox News crew that
21:08had been given exclusive access.
21:09We have made it a huge priority to try to identify, locate, and arrest those who are involved in organizing,
21:17supporting, funding, or facilitating these riots that they're going on.
21:22Neither Asaley nor anyone from the Trump administration would talk to us about Oriana's arrest or the overall operation in
21:30L.A.
21:33Six weeks later, the charges against Oriana were dropped without any public explanation.
21:41One of the reasons why I feel like they dropped the case is because they looked at the case, they
21:46took a hard look, and especially like these more experienced prosecutors were able to convince Bill Asaley that, you know,
21:53you're not going to win.
21:54Like, it's a ridiculous case. Like, masks? They're not even, like, you can't assault someone with a mask.
22:02And your feeling is you were targeted. Why?
22:04I mean, it's not just my feeling, you know. It's not because of the masks. It's because you're an activist.
22:12One of the cases we're looking into involves Alejandro Oriana.
22:16Yes.
22:17I sat down with Cuauhtemoc Ortega, the chief federal defender for Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. He represented Oriana.
22:26The acting U.S. attorney here, Bill Asaley, seemed to portray your client as like a kingpin of this vast
22:34conspiracy to foment riots. What did you think of those statements?
22:38I thought they were pretty inaccurate. My client, our investigation and our trial defense would have shown that our client
22:46didn't engage in anything of that sort, that this whole situation was blown completely out of proportion, and there was
22:55no conspiracy.
22:56And I think that we would have succeeded at trial. And my guess is that's why the case was dismissed.
23:03We looked at 116 cases in California like Oriana's, U.S. citizens who were arrested in protests or bystanders who'd
23:13been observing the immigration agents.
23:16Many of those cases are still ongoing. And to be sure, some defendants have been convicted of violent crimes.
23:22But more than 40 cases have fallen apart, with prosecutors dropping charges or juries acquitting defendants.
23:33Ortega's office has represented the defendants in most of those cases.
23:38Cases started getting dismissed or started getting reduced to misdemeanors.
23:43That was very confusing for us at the beginning, because we would read the press statements, we'd see the social
23:49media posts, and we were expecting a case that was serious.
23:53And then we would get the evidence, we would review it, and we would see something else.
23:58Had you seen something like that before?
23:59No, this is very unusual to have a complaint filed where there's factual ambiguities that eventually result in problems for
24:11the government's case. That's not common.
24:16Greg Bovino would continue leading immigration operations in L.A. through the summer.
24:21We're here making Los Angeles a safer place.
24:27If you've been in policing, as I have, for many years, you come to realize that protests, civil disorder of
24:36various kinds, are part of the territory that you have to deal with.
24:41Chris Magnus oversaw Bovino when he was head of Customs and Border Protection during the Biden administration.
24:48He's one of those guys that I sort of learned as a chief, you go into a room and there's
24:58always somebody like the provocateur, the guy that's not afraid to ask the tough questions, to take the chief on.
25:06In the Border Patrol sector chief meetings, he was that guy.
25:12He told me he was concerned that Bovino and his forces were actually instigating some of the unrest in L
25:18.A.
25:19I think there's evidence of that clearly in terms of some of the videos he made and some of the
25:25ways he, you know, ginned up his troops.
25:31And they were treated like troops. I shouldn't even, you know, it's sad that I would even refer to them
25:36in that way.
25:37There are always some protesters in any group that take it too far that probably will need to be arrested.
25:45But the smart thing to do is you have a specific group of officers who are trained to be able
25:52to go into a crowd and extract those individuals,
25:56but to do it in a way that doesn't inflame the entire group.
26:02But by September, tensions were only rising.
26:06We're just getting this news.
26:08Conservative activist Charlie Kirk has been shot.
26:11Wow, this is unbelievable. Pray for him right now.
26:13Enough is enough.
26:14The killing of Charlie Kirk prompted a wave of harsh rhetoric from the Trump administration.
26:19We have to talk about this incredibly destructive movement.
26:24Left wing radicals and they will be held accountable.
26:27And it must stop right now.
26:30And it would set the tone as the administration's immigration sweeps moved on to a new city, Chicago.
26:38The Department of Homeland Security says it has begun Operation Midway Blitz targeting Chicago and the state of Illinois.
26:47Governor Pritzker estimates some 200 ICE agents and 100 vehicles are positioned in and around the city of Chicago.
27:00Hey, you speak English? How long have you been in the United States, sir?
27:04Uh, you're back.
27:0525, 25, yeah.
27:0735 years.
27:0935 years?
27:10Yeah.
27:12Get the f*** out!
27:14F*** you!
27:16Get the f*** out!
27:16F*** you!
27:17Get the f*** out!
27:22You guys just roll up on the front of the agent, dude. You saw?
27:25Yeah.
27:26Stop the f***ing shit, man!
27:28That'd be cool!
27:30As in L.A.
27:31F***ing ice f***ing Trump!
27:34Agents met fierce resistance here.
27:37Yeah, I gotta cover your face!
27:39What about you? Do you have your documentation?
27:41Is there a copy of it or what?
27:43I'm a Palvino!
27:46You see it?
27:48Palvino, whatever his name is.
27:49You're a f***!
27:51She's watching you!
27:52Greg Bovino had been given a new title,
27:54Commander-at-Large for Immigration Operations.
27:57How long have you done the concrete?
28:00Uh, eight years.
28:02Eight years?
28:03Yes.
28:03Wow, I can tell you do a good job.
28:05I wish I could write my name in the cement there.
28:08I wanted to interview Bovino about what I'd been seeing here in Chicago and in L.A.
28:16Okay.
28:16Can you tell us anything about what's going on today?
28:19Uh, it's just, uh, uh, it's called Title 8 Immigration Enforcement.
28:23Okay.
28:24Are you just stopping people who are doing yard work or people who have brown skin?
28:27Title 8 Immigration Enforcement.
28:29Okay.
28:30C-4.
28:30Those are good.
28:34All right.
28:35That'll do it.
28:35Hey, thank you, sir.
28:36I appreciate it.
28:37You have a good day.
28:38Hey, Commander, we'd love to arrange an interview for PBS.
28:40What's the best way to do that?
28:41Hey, uh, if you would notify our public affairs officer.
28:44Okay.
28:44What's your name again?
28:45It's A.C. Thompson.
28:46A.C. Thompson.
28:46Nice to meet you, bro.
28:47I would keep trying to get an interview with him and others at the agency.
28:52Border Patrol agents, they don't wake up in the morning and say, let me see who I can hurt today.
28:57I was able to speak to Art Del Cueto, a retired Border Patrol agent and former spokesman for the Border
29:04Patrol Union.
29:06The kind of thing we're seeing is, you know, we're following the convoy of Border Patrol agents and they're stopping
29:12at the person doing landscaping.
29:14Then they're stopping at the person doing construction work on a house.
29:18Then they're rolling through a strip mall and the first person they see who's not white ends up in a
29:25vehicle.
29:26And I think that's the thing that a lot of Americans find concerning.
29:30Well, I mean, they're arresting it based on intel that they have.
29:35You're not going to go into, you know, a lawyer or attorney building and start, you know, hey, maybe these
29:42guys.
29:42Because, you know, they've actually they have a status.
29:45You know, you go into areas where you realize that, you know, whatever crime you're looking for, that's the area
29:51of higher volume of those types of criminals.
29:54But I just I don't see it as, hey, they're arresting brown people.
29:58And I think a lot of it gets overhyped.
30:01Nobody wants to focus on, no, we're arresting individuals because they've committed a crime or we're arresting individuals because they've
30:07circumvented immigration law.
30:09Del Cueto now works for a group that advocates for mass deportation.
30:14He told me he'd been in touch with agents in L.A. and Chicago.
30:18And many of them said, look, there was times we were in neighborhoods and we were surrounded.
30:22I spoke to one agent that said, you know, our vehicles, the tires were destroyed.
30:27There was so much chaos that when we came back into our vehicles to leave, the partner that I had
30:33in my group on the passenger, he was no longer there.
30:38Here in Broadview, we have had huge crowds of protesters coming out every Friday for the past month.
30:43The people united will never be defeated.
30:47The Chicago suburb of Broadview was the site of some of the most intense protests against the immigration sweeps.
30:54You're here protecting them. You know this is wrong. You know it's wrong.
30:58On the morning of October 3rd, about 200 demonstrators gathered in front of an immigration processing center.
31:05Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the ICE processing center this morning.
31:10Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was on the scene, accompanied by her own video team.
31:16Just wanting to show everybody exactly how nice it is out here.
31:20As was Benny Johnson, a pro-Trump influencer, showcasing the operation.
31:25You look at these protesters out here, they don't care about America. They don't care about freedom.
31:29They don't care about what this country is and how special it is.
31:33We're going to remind them too.
31:37Johnson showed Bovino preparing to confront the angry crowd.
31:41That crowd there is an unsafe crowd on either side.
31:46They're going to, we're going to roll them all the way out of here.
31:48And when they resist, what happens?
31:52They get arrested.
31:53Who do you protect? Who do you protect? Who do you protect?
31:57Who do you protect? Who do you protect?
32:00For me as an elected official, it was important for me to be present, to witness what's happening.
32:05Juan Munoz came to the protest from a neighboring suburb.
32:09Tell me about October 3rd. Take me through what happened that day.
32:12Yeah, and so federal agents started to gather near the fence and started marching towards the protesters.
32:21F*** you, Greg Bovino! You're the scum of the earth!
32:25The Illinois State Police were kind of maintaining us in the free speech zone in which we were allowed to
32:30be.
32:31Kyle Frankovich was a protester in the crowd that day.
32:35Get the f*** out of our state, you f***ing scum!
32:37Gregory Bovino, he's in charge of the facility there.
32:42He started to yell at the crowd, saying, we're going to clear you out.
32:45Hey! Listen, we got one warning, one warning, f***ing!
32:48He knows this is a f***ing assembly!
32:51Everybody will move down the block into the right or you're going to f***ing arrest me!
32:55And as soon as he turned back to his own agents, he said, okay, start to arrest them.
32:59He is threatening to arrest everybody if we don't move. It's happening right now.
33:03They start pushing people off of where Illinois State Police had told us, like, you can be here.
33:11Cole Sheridan was also there, seen in footage wearing a white bike helmet.
33:16They start yelling at us, move back, move back or you'll get arrested.
33:22And people started to move back, but that's when they started to grab folks from the crowd.
33:33I was holding my phone and had my hands up. There was no aggression.
33:37But I felt somebody be taken down behind me.
33:43I tried to sidestep it, and as soon as I moved to the side, I felt somebody grab my shoulder
33:48and pull me to the ground.
33:51And once I fell into my back, that's when I saw it was Greg Vivino.
33:55And he told me, turn over on your stomach, you're under arrest.
33:59And as I was turning, I was telling him and whoever, you know, he told to arrest me, that was
34:03an elected official.
34:04And, you know, that met with no response, and they took me away into the parking lot.
34:11Break your job!
34:12There are people behind me. I can't move back. They're pushing me.
34:17Move back!
34:20Then I see the person next to me get grabbed and pulled down.
34:25I try to pick him up. I get pushed over by two agents, end up on top of this person.
34:31I have to kind of push myself up to let him out from under me, but there's already two or
34:35three agents on top of me at this point.
34:37And they have their knee on my back. They're screaming at me, stop resisting, stop resisting.
34:45They pick me up. On my left arm, I'm being held by this very worked up agent who immediately starts
34:55shaking me by the arm and saying, stop resisting, stop resisting.
35:01The agent on my other arm barks at this guy like, hey, you got to calm down.
35:08Not long after Cole Sheridan, Kyle Frankovich was also arrested.
35:12Let him go!
35:14They violently grabbed my arms behind my back, zip-tied me, and then started marching me to where they were
35:19putting the other dozen or so of us who arrested that day.
35:24I'm asking, who's detaining me? What am I being detained for?
35:28Eventually, supervisor comes up and says, well, you attacked Greg Bovino.
35:35And I was like, who's that?
35:37She said, well, he's the head of Border Patrol.
35:40Did you think that you were doing anything that would lead to your arrest when you got grabbed?
35:44No.
35:45You know, I don't know if I've ever experienced something truly that bizarre and absurd as like seeing a law
35:56enforcement agent concoct a narrative to arrest me, to press charges against me.
36:07And that was extremely unnerving.
36:12These are exactly the kind of people that we want to be pissing off.
36:16From the scene, Benny Johnson touted the arrest to his millions of followers.
36:21Probably about a dozen left-wing terrorists arrested for attacking police officers and ICE officers.
36:27These individuals assaulted ICE officers.
36:31Benny Johnson was embedded with ICE.
36:32He was filming and recording and streaming that day.
36:35And I can directly be seen in the video along with everybody else I was detained with, as he describes
36:40us as being violent extremists who had assaulted federal officers.
36:43He made similar statements on his Twitter account as well, with that video being shown with the posts.
36:49Of the 12 people arrested and shown in the video, only one was charged, Cole Sheridan.
36:56He was held for four days for allegedly assaulting Bovino.
37:00But prosecutors dropped the case after video contradicted the claims.
37:05If there hadn't been a bunch of cameras there, Benny Johnson, the right-wing influencer, Secretary Noem,
37:11if they hadn't been there, do you think you would have been arrested?
37:13It seems unlikely, given how truly weak their case was.
37:25I would kind of imagine that a huge part of it was publicity.
37:29Another part of it was trying to terrify people and try to scare people away from protesting and speaking their
37:36mind.
37:37They're trying to stop us from protesting!
37:39Over the course of a month in the Chicago area, we found more than a hundred people who'd been arrested
37:45as they participated in demonstrations or documented the immigration raids.
37:51Like in LA, a majority of the cases have been falling apart, with prosecutors dropping charges in at least 75
37:59cases so far.
38:01In a statement, the U.S. Attorney's Office said that nearly all the cases were reactive arrests made by law
38:08enforcement in the field.
38:10And they said their willingness to be open-minded and dismiss cases reflected our commitment to do the right thing,
38:17even when a crime was committed.
38:19They are saying things happened when they didn't happen, and then hoping that prosecutors will, you know, move forward on
38:26those charges.
38:27And for the most part, prosecutors are not, I think in part because you have more video footage available than
38:32you did in the past,
38:33and in part because prosecutors are aware that juries are not as quick to defer to federal law enforcement as
38:41they used to be.
38:47Christy Lopez spent years investigating law enforcement misconduct for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.
38:54We showed her footage of the protests and arrests at Broadview.
38:59One of the things, I think, is how much like a war zone those places look, and they don't need
39:03to be.
39:04These are people protesting in an ICE facility. They don't have weapons. There aren't that many of them.
39:10They appear to be peacefully protesting, some civil disobedience sometimes, but very mild.
39:15Most departments have handled protests like this that have gone on for weeks, sometimes months, without that level of militaristic
39:22response.
39:23There is no threat in most of these instances.
39:26And you're using force that is at best possibly lethal to, you know, a force that can be quite likely
39:31lethal.
39:33We're using force!
39:38Bovino later spoke about the arrests at Broadview in a deposition for a federal lawsuit against him and DHS.
39:45I believe that all uses of force that I've seen, and all arrests that I've seen have been more than
39:51exemplary.
39:53The federal judge in that case admonished Bovino and his agents for how they were operating, and ordered limits on
40:01their use of tear gas and other weapons, unless facing imminent physical threat.
40:08Yeah, Bovino, he was right there, man!
40:11Enrique Bahina was a witness in the case.
40:13They're the ones violent.
40:15They're the ones shooting tear gas into communities.
40:17They're the ones shooting pepper balls.
40:19He was filming immigration agents from his bike two weeks after the court order came down.
40:25There's like 10 cars of them.
40:27They're all right there.
40:29The day that I got the pepper ball to the neck, everyone was just telling them to get out.
40:36Do you have video of it?
40:41It's right here.
40:45Was anybody throwing stuff at them?
40:47Was anybody hitting them with anything?
40:50Nope.
40:51Not at all.
40:52Everyone was just telling them to leave.
40:56That's you.
40:57And that's you getting it.
40:58Yep.
40:59And are you yelling anything or saying anything right there?
41:01You just filmed it.
41:02I didn't say a single word.
41:04You have your meta glasses on.
41:05Yep.
41:08The court order was eventually overturned and the restrictions lifted.
41:17The Border Patrol still wasn't granting me an interview.
41:20But as the operations were getting more violent, a source within DHS agreed to talk.
41:26If we concealed their identity.
41:28I think it's important the public knows that there's people out there who are also outraged at the operations being
41:37conducted.
41:38The way that agents, officers are behaving and conducting business.
41:45You know, you know you're in the wrong when thousands, hundreds, you know, people are coming out and yelling at
41:52you.
41:54I don't even tell people who I work for anymore because I'm ashamed of them.
41:58And do you think there's more people that feel the way you do?
42:02Uh, I know there is at least a few for sure.
42:07Do you think we're going to end up seeing any of these agents who may have engaged in misconduct held
42:12accountable?
42:13No.
42:14I don't.
42:15Not in this current administration.
42:19Hundreds of protests are underway or planned nationwide today in response to the deadly Minneapolis
42:26shooting of Rene Good by an ICE agent.
42:33So we're in Minneapolis.
42:35It's a few days after federal agents shot Rene Good.
42:39We're hearing that there's going to be more federal agents coming to town, like a thousand.
42:43That's what the news is saying.
42:45And trying to figure out what this is all going to look like.
42:48Rouse, we got to get out.
42:52Daily confrontations were going on between protesters and immigration agents.
43:01The White House today doubling down on their support for the operations.
43:12We were reporting in the neighborhood where Rene Good had been killed.
43:23Agents were surrounding and questioning a man.
43:27Take your guns home.
43:29We don't want guns in our neighborhoods.
43:32We don't need that hardware.
43:33It's ridiculous.
43:35People were coming out of their houses.
43:37Get the out!
43:38You're not blind here!
43:41The agents started to leave.
43:43Get the out of here!
43:44Move out!
43:44You hurt them!
43:45Bye!
43:48One protester was pepper sprayed in the face at close range.
43:58Get the out of here!
44:01I spoke with the man they were questioning, Christian Molina.
44:05He said the officers had rammed his vehicle.
44:08They hit my car for no reason, man.
44:10They hit me.
44:10What happened?
44:11They followed me for no reason.
44:12I hit my car.
44:14They looked at me and they decided to pull me over for no reason.
44:17You believe that?
44:19That's Ford SUV?
44:20Yep.
44:21So they were a citizen.
44:23Suddenly...
44:24Oh, here, careful.
44:27Someone threw a snowball in the direction of the agents.
44:29Oh, my God!
44:33Oh, .
44:33Everybody's killing me!
44:35Turn around.
44:36Turn around.
44:36Turn around.
44:36Turn around.
44:36Turn around.
44:37Turn around.
44:37Turn around.
44:38Look at them.
44:40One of them tossed a tear gas canister into the crowd.
44:43Watch out!
44:47Watch out!
44:48Watch out!
44:49Watch out!
44:49Watch out!
44:49Watch out!
44:50Palace!
44:51You're not seeing a neighborhood!
44:53People live here!
44:55It's Peace Park!
44:57People live here!
44:58Watch out!
45:00Just come back and out!
45:04An agent pepper sprayed protesters and a news photographer up close.
45:11Another fired pepper balls into the crowd.
45:16I was hit three times.
45:17I got shot repeatedly with pepper balls.
45:20Get your help, get your help.
45:21Get me some f***ing words out!
45:24This is our f***ing neighborhood!
45:26I was in the car, they threw the f*** underneath the f***ing car.
45:29Yes!
45:30I can't see!
45:31Save on you!
45:40As they left, an agent shot pepper spray from his window.
45:47It hit my colleagues in the face.
45:50Do you need this?
45:51Yes.
45:51Here.
45:52Give me the camera.
45:53Give me the camera.
45:56Water!
45:57I got water!
45:57Water!
45:58Anybody need an eye walk?
45:59Was that spread?
46:00Did they just spray for a new debate?
46:03In the months I'd been covering this story, I'd seen the same pattern everywhere we went.
46:09Federal agents using weapons like tear gas and pepper spray against protesters and bystanders.
46:15The courts would try to rein them in, but they'd move on to the next city and do the same
46:20things.
46:21F***!
46:23F***!
46:27On local TV, Bovino was unapologetic.
46:30We're here to conduct that Title 8 mission.
46:33It won't stop.
46:35Despite rioters, agitators, and vast amounts of violence against federal officers, we're not going to stop.
46:42I showed footage from the scene to Christy Lopez.
46:46You're tear gas in a f***ing neighborhood!
46:48That's people!
46:49People live here!
46:51You see just use of excessive force after use of excessive force.
46:56In no scenario is it okay to be pepper spraying people as you're leaving the scene.
47:01It's just they're mad, they're scared, you know, they're able to get away with it, so they're just using the
47:07power they have to use force against people.
47:11I also showed our footage to Chris Magnus.
47:19It's pretty awful.
47:22You know, I mean, one of the things in policing when it comes to use of force, it's proportionality.
47:31Is the force really proportional to what you're receiving or what you're dealing with?
47:41People may well get under your skin under a lot of circumstances.
47:44You don't like it, but professionals don't react to it.
47:48This is what our country has become.
47:51Take off your vest, walk away, and say that you will not allow this to ruin our country.
47:57You have a chance to rectify this.
48:00You have a chance to do right by your country that you're so proud of.
48:03But Vino never ended up doing an interview with me.
48:11The Trump administration was continuing to express support for how the operations were being conducted.
48:18To all ICE officers, you have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.
48:22They reposted comments by Trump's advisor, Stephen Miller.
48:26You have immunity to perform your duties and no one, no city official, no state official, no illegal alien,
48:32no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duty.
48:41You ready?
48:42Yep, let's do it.
48:45We are asking this federal government to stop the unconstitutional conduct that is invading our streets each and every day.
48:53I met with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frye as he and other Minnesota leaders announced a lawsuit they hoped would end
49:02the crackdown.
49:03We've got about 600-plus police officers in the city of Minneapolis.
49:08And ICE and border control is coming in here with approximately 3,000 or more.
49:15And so this is massively disproportionate.
49:18We've been in the streets here.
49:20It is tense.
49:21Are you worried that more people are going to be hurt or killed?
49:25Yes.
49:31Twelve days later, 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Preddy tries to intervene as federal agents knock a woman down.
49:41Whoa!
49:42They repeatedly pepper spray him.
49:51He is pinned on the ground.
49:59Video shows an agent removing a legally owned handgun that Preddy had in a holster.
50:1210 shots.
50:13What the f**k did you just do?
50:16What the f**k did you just do?
50:19What the f**k did you just do?
50:21This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.
50:30Alex Preddy's killing was a turning point.
50:33You are so evil!
50:35The sworn declarations were submitted in federal court by people who say they witnessed the fatal shooting of Alex Preddy.
50:42They contradict the version of events presented by federal officials.
50:45The U.S. Border Patrol commander at large has been demoted amid the fallout.
50:50Greg Bovino would quickly be dismissed.
50:53President Trump facing growing scrutiny within his own party over how this immigration crackdown is being handled.
50:59And amid political pressure that now included Republicans, the president sent border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis.
51:07I'm not here because the federal government has carried its mission out perfectly.
51:14President Trump and I, along with others in the administration, have recognized that certain improvements could and should be made.
51:21That's exactly what I'm doing here.
51:24Even though Gregory Bovino is gone, I wonder if his imprint will last through all the federal agencies that are
51:30continuing to go out in the street.
51:31I wonder if anything will change, really.
51:34He was the one who was the tip of the spear for this new type of immigration enforcement across the
51:40country.
51:4165% say Immigration and Customs Enforcement has gone too far.
51:47The mass sweeps and violent clashes have subsided for now.
51:52But immigration arrests continue in large numbers.
51:58And in cities around the country, there are deep scars.
52:05And fear about what lies ahead.
52:21For more on this and other Frontline programs, visit our website at pbs.org slash frontline.
52:28To let's go on.
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