The Raid

ICE has become a national deportation policing force — and according to a bombshell new ACLU report, it's operating with a level of violence and impunity America has never seen before. 

In this episode of The Raid, host John Carlos Frey sits down with Naureen Shah, Director of Government Affairs for the Equality Division at the American Civil Liberties Union and a longtime human rights lawyer, researcher, and advocate. Naureen leads the ACLU's immigration policy and advocacy work and previously served as Senior Director of Campaigns at Amnesty International USA and Acting Director of Columbia Law School's Human Rights Clinic. 

She joins the podcast to break down the ACLU's new report, "Agents of Chaos and Cruelty: How the Trump Administration's National Deportation Policing Force Has Attacked American Communities." The report documents 1,200 incidents across eight states in 2025, more than 400 of which involved corroborated civil rights violations — including U.S. citizens caught in the crossfire, dangerous restraint tactics used dozens of times, and a pattern of force used not in response to threats, but as a tool of intimidation and control.

 https://www.aclu.org/publications/agents-of-chaos-and-cruelty-how-the-trump-administrations-national-deportation-policing-force-has-attacked-american-communities 

https://theraidpodcast.org/

Disclaimer:

The statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants on this program are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of the distributor of the program and any person or entity affiliated with said distributor ("distributor's affiliates").  The distributor and distributor's affiliates are not responsible for, and shall not be liable for, the statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants, or for any content that appears on the program.   

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Host John Carlos Frey sits down with Sennett Devermont — known online as Mr. Checkpoint — the Southern California activist who built a nationwide alert network for DUI checkpoints, ICE operations, and police activity. Sennett traces his journey from a 2011 San Diego State student warning classmates about unconstitutional, unpublicized checkpoints to becoming one of the most recognizable "film the police" advocates in the country. 

The two also confront the sharper edges of the moment: the lack of accountability inside police departments, the retaliation faced by officers who report misconduct, and how ICE operates with even less transparency and oversight than local law enforcement. Sennett connects the dots to the billions of dollars flowing into policing and surveillance infrastructure, the criminalization of witnesses and citizen journalists, and why he now sees jury duty and law school — he just started his second year — as his next front line for reform. 

It's a candid, sometimes emotional conversation about fear, privilege, and what it actually costs to keep a camera rolling — plus concrete advice for anyone who wants to document an ICE or police encounter but doesn't know where to start. 

https://aftp.org/ 

@afp_foundation 

https://mrcheckpoint.com/en/

 @Mrcheckpoint  

https://theraidpodcast.org/

Disclaimer:

The statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants on this program are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of the distributor of the program and any person or entity affiliated with said distributor ("distributor's affiliates").  The distributor and distributor's affiliates are not responsible for, and shall not be liable for, the statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants, or for any content that appears on the program.   

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For months, The Raid has covered America's deportation machine through the eyes of journalists, experts, and activists — but the voices most missing from the conversation have been the immigrants living it. In this episode, host John Carlos Frey sits down with veteran journalist Charles Fleming, a 40-year newsroom journalist and former Los Angeles Times editor, who came out of retirement to find and tell the personal stories that mainstream media can't — often under strict anonymity, because the people he interviews have too much to lose. 

Fleming shares the story of Javier, who paints and sells his work under the name "Deported Artist." Born in Tijuana by accident — his mother crossed the border late in her pregnancy to see her dying father — Javier was raised his entire life in Oakland, California, alongside U.S. citizen siblings, with no understanding that he was undocumented. After serving a lengthy prison sentence, he was deported to Tijuana, a country he'd never known, where he has spent the last seven years rebuilding his life from nothing. His art — raw, political, and deeply personal — has become both his therapy and his voice. 

This is a conversation about who gets a second chance in America, who doesn't, and what's lost when a country stops asking that question. 

https://fleminguncounted.substack.com/p/uncounted

https://theraidpodcast.org/

Disclaimer:

The statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants on this program are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of the distributor of the program and any person or entity affiliated with said distributor ("distributor's affiliates").  The distributor and distributor's affiliates are not responsible for, and shall not be liable for, the statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants, or for any content that appears on the program.   

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At just 27, Sasha Renée Pérez became the youngest female mayor in San Gabriel Valley history. Now she's the youngest member of the California State Senate — and she's using that seat to take on ICE. Host, John Carlos Frey sits down with Senator Pérez to talk about her journey from Alhambra City Council to Sacramento, and the wave of legislation she's championing to protect immigrant communities across California. 

Pérez talks candidly about the online threats she receives, why she believes conversation (not conflict) is the path to bridging political divides, and what she thinks everyday people can do in the run-up to the midterms to protect their undocumented neighbors and preserve democracy. 

https://sd25.senate.ca.gov/ 

https://theraidpodcast.org/

Disclaimer:

The statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants on this program are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of the distributor of the program and any person or entity affiliated with said distributor ("distributor's affiliates").  The distributor and distributor's affiliates are not responsible for, and shall not be liable for, the statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants, or for any content that appears on the program.   

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A federal guard pleads guilty to nine separate counts involving women held in the same detention facility. The government's own records show over 1,310 abuse complaints filed against ICE detention staff in a single three-year window — and outside researchers have found over a thousand more. On this episode of The Raid, host John Carlos Frey traces how a system built with almost no independent oversight lets this happen again and again. 

This is not one bad guard. This is a pattern, documented in the government's own paperwork — and the story of what happens when the people holding all the keys are also the ones investigating themselves. 

https://theappeal.org/trump-doj-defunds-national-prison-rape-resource-center/ 

https://theraidpodcast.org/

Disclaimer:

The statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants on this program are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of the distributor of the program and any person or entity affiliated with said distributor ("distributor's affiliates").  The distributor and distributor's affiliates are not responsible for, and shall not be liable for, the statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants, or for any content that appears on the program

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An ICE check-in used to be paperwork. Now it can be a trap — and that shift is doing the work that raids and deportation flights can't. John Carlos Frey talks with Kimberly Avalos, a multimedia journalist and supervising producer at The News Movement, whose documentary "American Dreamers: Self-Deporting from the United States" was an Online News Association finalist for Excellence in Social Justice Reporting. Her latest film follows a subject she never expected to report on: her own uncle. 

Avalos and Frey get into the reporting decisions behind the film and the machinery it documents: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-se_lNefnU 

https://theraidpodcast.org/

Disclaimer:

The statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants on this program are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of the distributor of the program and any person or entity affiliated with said distributor ("distributor's affiliates").  The distributor and distributor's affiliates are not responsible for, and shall not be liable for, the statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants, or for any content that appears on the program.   

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The federal government owes nearly $1 million to Estrella del Paso, the largest provider of free legal services to unaccompanied migrant children in West Texas and New Mexico — and it isn't paying up. 

On this episode of The Raid, host John Carlos Frey sits down with Executive Director Melissa Lopez to break down how the administration tried to terminate a 20-year-old, congressionally mandated legal aid program, lost in federal court, and is now allegedly conditioning payment on providers handing over confidential client information about the children they represent. 

With reimbursements frozen since November 2025 and a contract deadline looming on August 1, Estrella del Paso and 90+ partner organizations nationwide are fighting in federal court to keep the program alive. Lopez lays out what's at stake if they lose: children facing deportation, alone, with no attorney and no advocate. 

https://estrelladelpaso.org/

https://theraidpodcast.org/

Disclaimer:

The statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants on this program are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of the distributor of the program and any person or entity affiliated with said distributor ("distributor's affiliates").  The distributor and distributor's affiliates are not responsible for, and shall not be liable for, the statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants, or for any content that appears on the program.   

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What does it actually take for a detention system to qualify as a "concentration camp" — historically, not emotionally? 

In this episode of The Raid, host John Carlos Frey sets aside the online shouting match and applies the definition historians actually use: mass detention of civilians, without due process or trial, based on identity rather than conduct — a framework traced back to camps in 1890s Cuba and South Africa, and used by researchers like journalist Andrea Pitzer. 

This isn't about winning an argument online. It's about being precise with a word that carries real historical weight — and deciding, with the facts in front of you, whether it applies - and it does. 

https://theraidpodcast.org/ 

One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps: https://andreapitzer.com/home/ 

https://luskin.ucla.edu/new-analysis-reveals-sharp-rise-in-ice-detention-of-immigrants-with-no-criminal-convictions 

https://www.hrw.org/report/2026/06/25/dying-in-detention/rising-deaths-in-an-expanding-us-immigration-detention-system

Disclaimer:

The statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants on this program are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of the distributor of the program and any person or entity affiliated with said distributor ("distributor's affiliates").  The distributor and distributor's affiliates are not responsible for, and shall not be liable for, the statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants, or for any content that appears on the program.   

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Before this year's midterms, ICE told a federal judge it had no records on any plans to send agents to polling places. That wasn't true. 

In this episode of The Raid, John Carlos Frey traces what actually happened when two Homeland Security agents walked into an active polling site in Syracuse, NY, to pressure a poll worker over a months-old social media post — and how that incident became the evidence that forced ICE to admit it's sitting on more than 11,000 pages it had denied existed. 

We go inside the Syracuse confrontation, the earlier enforcement actions in Texas and California that set the pattern, and the ongoing court fight over documents the public still hasn't seen — plus what election-security experts say this kind of incident does to voter turnout, whether or not it's ever repeated. 

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/ice-agents-polling-places-documents-democrats-foia-demand/ 

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/judge-trump-troops-voting-democrats-information-request/ 

https://theraidpodcast.org/

Disclaimer:

The statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants on this program are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of the distributor of the program and any person or entity affiliated with said distributor ("distributor's affiliates").  The distributor and distributor's affiliates are not responsible for, and shall not be liable for, the statements and opinions expressed by the host or participants, or for any content that appears on the program.   

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In this urgent, unfiltered conversation, host John Carlos Frey sits down with Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (IL-03) — the first Latina elected to Congress from Illinois and the Midwest — to confront the escalating violence of America's immigration enforcement system. 

Rep. Ramirez, a member of the Homeland Security Committee and the only member of Congress in a mixed-status family, doesn't hold back. She and Frey discuss the recent deaths linked to ICE and Border Patrol operations, the $70 billion appropriation given to DHS after the government shutdown, and why she believes promises of "reform" — including body cameras — are hollow gestures from an agency she says needs to be abolished. 

This is a raw, emotional exchange between a journalist and a sitting member of Congress about power, accountability, and what justice really means in America right now. 

https://ramirez.house.gov/ 

https://theraidpodcast.org/

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