"My "handler" was a friend of a friend of a friend. That delicate linkage was a conduit of trust. Trust enough to meet me anyhow; ICE informants had made his work more dangerous. I would need to be tested and mettled before he would introduce me to the undocumented workers who trusted him. They were the story. I wanted to talk to them in the rippling shock of recent ICE deportation raids."
"It was an independently owned diner off the interstate-the kind one could find anywhere in America. And it served, for the most part, working-class whites. The walls of the place were lined with '40s and '50s memorabilia and fading family photos. It served nostalgia with its pancakes-nostalgia for an America where, fresh from our great moral victory over the Nazis, we found ourselves the leader of the free world. It was, perhaps, America's great moment."
ICE deportation raids have produced a climate of terror and humiliation targeted at sanctuary jurisdictions, with televised operations staged as spectacle. Informants increase risk for community intermediaries, necessitating vetting before undocumented workers will speak. Recent near-miss raids in San Francisco and the Bay Area heightened anxiety about convoy-based operations. Meetings occur in inconspicuous locations to protect sources. Ordinary Americana settings can serve as reassuring covers. Violent imagery from raids unsettles potential witnesses and amplifies fear among undocumented communities and those attempting to document experiences.
Read at East Bay Express | Oakland, Berkeley & Alameda
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