"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."
"The televised raids in the sanctuary city of Los Angeles, in the sanctuary state of California, staged a spectacle, staged for terror, staged to humiliate democratic leaders in their strongholds. As seen on my phone, videos of their protester-beating Gestapo theater had left me in a cold sweat. I wanted to talk to the undocumented. I wanted to hear their account of things."
A "handler" linked by acquaintances provided a fragile conduit of trust to undocumented workers. He insisted on testing and mettle before introductions because ICE informants had made his work dangerous. Televised ICE deportation raids in Los Angeles were staged as spectacle and terror, aimed at humiliating democratic leaders in sanctuary strongholds. Phone videos of protester-beating scenes induced fear. A near miss in San Francisco occurred when ICE convoys were turned back days before an expected arrival that would have used the city as a regional base. The handler met in a busy, nostalgia-lined diner, turned off the recorder, and recounted his advocacy roots and bitterness.
Read at Metro Silicon Valley | Silicon Valley's Leading Weekly
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