AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: As we continue to look at the Trump administration’s federal immigration raids, we turn to a new investigation, radio investigation, by Latino USA, Futuro Media and CalMatters. It’s called “Taken: The Agents Raiding Communities and the People Trying to Stop Them.” This is a trailer for the special report.

FERNANDA ECHAVARRI: The neighborhood patrols in L.A. begin before sunrise, teachers and school psychologists warning their neighbors about armed men in unmarked cars waiting to take people.

COMMUNITY MEMBER: We’re looking for vehicles with paper plates.

FERNANDA ECHAVARRI: ICE. In Chicago, a father killed during one of the first raids. In Mexico…

PRESIDENT CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM: No estamos de acuerdo con esta forma de trato.

FERNANDA ECHAVARRI: Even the president calls it psychological terror. And at the center of it all, Border Patrol’s Gregory Bovino. But most of the people being detained have no criminal records. Some are even picked up during appointments. “Taken: The Raids, the Man Behind Them, and the People Trying to Stop Them.”

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined now by Maria Hinojosa, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, founder of Futuro Media. She’s the host of Latino USA. Futuro’s new investigation is titled “Taken: The Agents Raiding Communities and the People Trying to Stop Them,” produced in special collaboration with CalMatters, independent media group in California.

Maria, welcome back to Democracy Now! On the one hand, you have these brutal attacks on people, from Chicago to Los Angeles. On the other hand, you have people fighting back. Can you talk about the journeys you took with these community groups that are taking observation of what these agents are doing into their own hands?

MARIA HINOJOSA: Yeah. I mean, it’s great to be back with you, and thank you for having me.

You know, we first started in L.A., and we were on the ground with [Unión del Barrio], which does, basically, tracking on the streets of — well, we were there, South Central. You have teachers, L.A. teachers, who, before they go work on their job as a teacher, are in cars going through neighborhoods and peering into cars to make sure that they are not ICE vehicles, and then alerting the community if there is someone there that is ICE, if there isn’t. In the time that we were there, they didn’t spot anyone, but there were many close calls. You know, they are very expert in seeing the tinted windows, strange cars that are appearing. But I have to say, I just — again, and the mayor just said it, it feels surreal. It felt so surreal to be on the streets of L.A. having to patrol your own communities to defend them from the government and the federal agents. But this is — as the community member said, “It would be worse if we weren’t doing this. By doing this, at least we feel like we have some power to respond.”

And in Chicago — I mean, I’m a Chicago girl, you know? But this, when we first got there, the assaults were happening in the suburbs of Chicago, in West Chicago. And communities were pouring out onto the streets. I mean, one moment that stands out for me is actually a family of white people from West Chicago, a mom, her kids, the father, and they were all wearing shirts that said “Jesus was an undocumented immigrant,” and they were carrying a huge Mexican flag. And I was like, “What’s happening?” But this is what it looks like. And I have to say, this is extraordinarily — I mean, I can’t even find the word, because it is a response. It’s not that it’s heartwarming. It is a natural response that citizens are having to feeling assaulted in their own communities. And in that sense, witnessing that was powerful and empowering.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s go to a clip from “Taken.” This is of a 31-year-old Mexican man named Mauricio who was chased and detained by immigration agents while waiting for the bus in Los Angeles on June 8th after work.

MARIA HINOJOSA: Mauricio was first taken to a detention camp an hour south of Los Angeles. Then, at 5 a.m. that next morning, he was put on a plane. He was shackled. He had absolutely no idea where he was going.

FERNANDA ECHAVARRI: ¿Y te dicen a dónde vas?

MAURICIO: No dicen nada. No nos dicen…

FERNANDA ECHAVARRI: O sea, ¿te suben a un avión y no tienes ni idea a dónde vas?

MAURICIO: Ni idea para dónde vamos ni nada, nada.

MARIA HINOJOSA: They were taken to an ICE tent camp. Mauricio’s knee was causing him a lot of pain, making it almost impossible for him to walk.

FERNANDA ECHAVARRI: Three days passed since Mauricio had been levantado.

MAURICIO: Cuando llegaron dos agentes y lo levantaron igual.

FERNANDA ECHAVARRI: Taken, kidnapped, a word that in Mexico has a heavy significance. This is the term used for cartel-related kidnappings or state-sanctioned disappearances. And Mauricio knows this. It’s precisely why he’s using that term.

MAURICIO: A lo mejor me expresaría como que hubiera sido un arresto cuando traen uniforme, y en realidad ellos no traían uniforme. Estaban de civiles.

FERNANDA ECHAVARRI: “I was picked up by people in plain clothes,” he tells us — no uniforms, no badges, no arrest order.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And in this other clip from “Taken,” Maria Hinojosa, you interview Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.

MARIA HINOJOSA: Can you please respond to this question of psychological terror that is being unleashed on Latinos and Latinas?

PRESIDENT CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM: [translated] We do not agree with this treatment, nor with the raids that have been carried out. These raids, in fact, cause fear and anxiety among Mexicans living there.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Maria Hinojosa, obviously, you narrated both the clips that we played. So, if you could respond, elaborate on these two?

MARIA HINOJOSA: Right. And also, I want to give a big shoutout to my team, Futuro Investigates, Fernanda Echavarri, our managing editor, Sergio Olmos from CalMatters.

I mean, the situation with Claudia Sheinbaum, when we were able to get into the morning press conference, one of the things that I ended up asking her, which, frankly, all of the journalists in the room were surprised, because I said to her, “I’m a Mexican woman. You’re a Mexican woman. This is affecting my heart. How are you affect — how are you feeling this emotionally?” All the journalists were like, “We don’t ask Claudia Sheinbaum about her emotions.” But she was like, “This is deeply upsetting.” And it was important to see her reaction, to say, “I’ve talked to Marco Rubio, and yet it falls on deaf ears.”

For me, the fact that Mauricio uses this word ”levantados”, which means “taken,” it is the news — the term that is used in Mexico for actual kidnappings. He was, in fact, kidnapped. I mean, what we break in this documentary is the fact that when they are taken, they are then denied basic due process. But in Mauricio’s case, we were able to document, for five days, not one single phone call. And the only way that he was able to get a phone call was he was coerced into signing his own removal. And that’s when they got — he was able to make the phone call. And, in fact, they also asked them to give the name and number and address of the person that they’re going to call, in another way to go and find that person and take that person who they’re calling. This is big news, the fact that we are actually witnessing the denial of due process and coercion and having to sign your own removal just to get a phone call.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what about the responses from the governor, Governor Newsom, or Mayor Karen Bass?

MARIA HINOJOSA: Well, Mayor Karen Bass said this is the hunting of Latinos and Latinas. And this, we know. We are watching it. The situation with Newsom and Karen Bass is that they also admit, pretty clearly, that there is a limit to what they can do against this federal assault. Nonetheless, they are both committed to standing up and saying and doing as much as they can. But, actually, what can they do legally is there is a limit to what they can do.

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, it’s amazing, all the big sports news this past week — not that I focus on this myself, but, you know, the Dodger win.

MARIA HINOJOSA: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: You have federal agents seen staging at the Dodger Stadium parking lot Tuesday morning, a day after the team celebrated their back-to-back championships with thousands of fans in downtown L.A. I mean, this is amazing. And then you have groups that are calling for the boycott of Home Depot because they’re using their parking lots.

MARIA HINOJOSA: Right. What I came away from this journey of being in Chicago, being in L.A., then being in Mexico, it’s what I asked the president. This is psychological terror. There is no way that you can explain it, except for that. It’s not that you actually have tens of thousands of troops and agents. No, you have enough to create a sense of instability and fear and terror. And what we do know is that people, little girls, little boys, are afraid to leave their homes. They are experiencing this emotional horror. How do you — how do you explain psychological terror that is being unleashed by the federal government against its people, especially those of us in New York after 9/11, when we actually felt that there was some element of terror? The terror now is coming from our own government.

AMY GOODMAN: And your response to President Trump on 60 Minutes in response to Norah O’Donnell, saying, “We haven’t gone far enough,” when she talked about the violence of the attacks? We just watched, in Chicago, a preschool Spanish immersion teacher being dragged out as parents and the kids, the preschoolers, watched in horror as agents took her out of the school.

MARIA HINOJOSA: Right. And in Chicago, it all began with the murder of Silverio Villegas, a 38-year-old father. When Trump says this, I mean, he’s showing his true colors. I don’t like to use these terms. They are very difficult terms. I mean, clearly, Trump is saying we should have ethnic cleansing against Latinos and Latinas. If it hasn’t gone far enough when you’re, you know, pulling screaming people, separating, breaking windows, and he’s saying we haven’t gone far enough, he, in his mind, believes that all of us, me included — I wasn’t born in this country — are, therefore, a problem for this country. It’s horrible.

I just — what really — what I can’t sit with is the number of people who are, frankly, just sitting by and watching this, letting this happen, and believing that they are taking the worst of the worst. It’s exactly what the mayor of Evanston said: They are not taking the worst of the worst. In fact, we know, the data shows, that immigrants, undocumented immigrants, commit fewer crimes than American citizens. And, in fact, just to let you know, I was in the emergency room on Tuesday night, had a little asthma attack. All of this talk about New York being overrun by immigrant criminals — who was the only person who I saw that had a police sitting outside his bed? A young white teenager. So, it doesn’t jibe with what’s really happening. And Donald Trump is showing his true colors. He wants us all to leave. Pero yo no me voy. I’m not going.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And finally, before we end, if you could talk about the role of Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino?

MARIA HINOJOSA: Well, so, I like to say that before all of this happened, Gregory Bovino was a big nobody. Nobody knew his name. Gregory Bovino was in charge of the Border Patrol in the southern sector of California. And he has taken this moment to become the man on the scene. And he likes to dress up, actually, like a Nazi SS agent. He’s using the long dark coat, making that salute. And he is unleashing this terror and having a great time, and, in fact, then using our tax dollars to produce these social media videos that make it seem like there is a war going on in Chicago, in L.A., Portland next, New York. It’s not true, but they are portraying this to scare other Americans from the fact that, yeah, immigrants are not a threat, but they have to produce these highly produced videos in order to do that.

AMY GOODMAN: And before we go, on another issue, you did get to question the Mexican president, Sheinbaum. Now she is in the news because as she was talking to people on the streets of Mexico City, a man came up behind her, groped her, trying to kiss her neck. And she ultimately brought charges, saying this is attack on all women of Mexico.

MARIA HINOJOSA: You know, I get triggered every time I see that video. I was raped when I was 16 in Mexico. And so, actually seeing the president saying, “I’m going to press charges,” I’m just like, “You know what? It makes me feel like I should go back and press charges against the man who did this to me in Mexico when I was just 16.” I think the fact that she’s saying, “If this can happen to me as a female president, it can happen to any woman,” and so the fact that she’s actually pressing charges, I think, is extraordinary. I think there are many women in Mexico who will take the step of going and pressing charges, unlike me. I won’t be able to do that. But it is a horror. And it is the — the sense that this man could do this, while being filmed, touching a woman, trying to get to the president’s chest, is horrible.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you so much for being with us, Maria Hinojosa, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, founder of Futuro Media, host of Latino USA. We will link to Futuro’s new radio investigation, “Taken: The Agents Raiding Communities and the People Trying to Stop Them,” produced in special collaboration with CalMatters.

Coming up, the Palestinian analyst, writer Tareq Baconi. He’s out with a new memoir, Fire in Every Direction. Stay with us.