>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour is made with music.

Specifically a new song from Bruce Springsteen.

Late last month, The Boss released a new track titled Streets of Minneapolis, which condemns ice and memorializes Renee Macklin.

Good and Alex Pretti.

The theme of the song protest is one that will be heard tonight at a concert in Rochester.

We're going to talk about that with local artists later this hour.

But first, what does the data tell us about the impact of Ice at local detention centers?

The number of non-criminals, nonviolent criminals held at a local center has soared in recent months, despite what the feds are saying.

And that reflects a national trend on who is getting picked up, who's getting detained, who's getting deported.

We're going to talk about that with WXXI Gino Fanelli.

We're going to start this weekly news roundup with a question.

If you are currently working, how do you get to work and how do you pay for your transportation?

State Senator Jeremy Cooney, chair of the Transportation Committee, has sponsored new legislation that, if passed, would allow employers to offer employees the ability to set aside pretax earnings to use towards certain commuting expenses as a fringe benefit, similar to an HSA for healthcare and WXXI News deputy Editor Jeremy Mull has been covering the story.

He is with me now.

Hello there.

How do you get to work?

Jeremy Mull.

>> I drive my car.

>> You drive your car.

Do you ever bike to work?

>> I don't I now live a lot closer to work than I used to.

>> So I know I kind of thought you might be in the biking category on some days.

>> Yeah, I probably should, unfortunately, good biking days also make me sweaty.

>> So yes, that's the.

That's always the challenge here.

so take me through what this is about and how it's structured and how it got on your radar here.

>> Sure.

it got on my radar the way many things do with the press release.

but so what this proposal from Jeremy Cooney is is is he explained it, and as you said, it's kind of like an HSA for transportation costs.

So we're talking about things like bus fare or using a bike share or something like that.

And you'd be able to employers would be able to allow their employees to set aside pretax money for those specific uses.

>> Not though.

There's one category where you could not use this for, which is what.

>> You cannot use it to buy a car or repair a car.

>> Repair your own car.

>> Yeah.

>> Okay.

did he explain why did you talk about that?

>> The idea is to to promote more sustainable forms of transportation.

More non-automobile, forms of transportation.

>> Okay, so repairing a bicycle?

Yes.

Rideshares.

Yes.

Bus passes, parking, just not your own car.

Correct.

and the exemption would apply only to state taxes.

It's a state level proposal.

But you know, I mean, for people listening who don't have an HSA or haven't dealt with an HSA before, the idea just being there that this money then doesn't get taxed, you can use more of it and use it in a way that's supposed to help you in your own commuting, maybe diversifying your commute, or the way I read this originally.

Tell me if I'm wrong.

I originally read this Jeremy thinking, well, the reason cars are not listed is because if you're in a household that can afford a car, you're in a sort of a different category than people who might need bus passes, might need rideshares or riding a bicycle to work.

And this is aimed at maybe a different tax bracket.

Turns out, maybe not.

>> I mean, that probably is one way you could look at it, but I think more the idea is to help people make choices or to provide an incentive for people to people for the choices they make or to help them with the costs of how they get to work.

If it is not an automobile.

So it kind of covers both ends, I guess.

>> Yeah, it seems to.

And then the question of who would decide how the benefit is used.

Senator Cooney told you that employers would have some discretion to set what employees could use the benefit for.

And I think we've got some sound from Senator Cooney that we can listen to.

Let's listen to Senator Jeremy Cooney here.

>> An employer could allow their employee to take a pretax benefit to include the costs of purchasing a bicycle, repairing their bicycle, joining a bike share program, a rideshare program, parking costs, and public transit passes.

Like for Pts here in Rochester.

This program would be a win-win for both employers and employees.

>> Okay, so if it's a win-win, who supports it?

Who opposes it?

What's going to happen with this?

>> I'm not sure who, if anyone opposes it, I can tell you that standing with Jeremy Cooney when he made this announcement was Bob Duffy from the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce and also representatives from Reconnect Rochester, who advocate for, you know, infrastructure and programs that increase bicycling or you know, serve pedestrians, promote transit, that kind of thing.

>> Yeah.

Reconnect Rochester is now officially on board, and the co executive director, Mary Starpoli, had this to say about that.

>> There are many workplaces, especially downtown, that are centrally located, where transit is rich and biking is very accessible.

And this can be a really nice incentive to promote those alternatives and those more sustainable modes of transportation.

>> Reconnect always has an answer on like, well, where else is this happening in the world?

And you reported New York City, Washington, D.C.

they've got some exemptions or setups that are similar here.

>> They have similar programs.

Yes.

the difference is, at least with New York City, there's is mandatory.

And what for employers with a certain number of employees what Jeremy Cooney is proposing is would be voluntary.

They could opt in.

>> Yeah.

So I have a question that I think maybe you won't be able to answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

There's one part that I think about, because when I think about my HSA, maybe this is true for a lot of people.

Maybe you use an HSA routinely for a regular expense, a CPAp, something ongoing, or maybe you build it up thinking there's going to be something that happens.

And I want a cushion for it, and then you wipe it out in a shot because you had a surgery, you had a baby.

Whatever happens for the people who build up kind of an egg with an HSA, now let's talk about this from the transportation perspective.

So you're putting in pretax money and it goes into whatever you would call this kind of an account for your commute, but you don't use it for a long time and then you lose that job.

I mean, like, I, I presume that money is going to be available to you no matter where you go and the sort of the workforce, et cetera.

>> That is definitely a question.

I don't have the answer to, but I would think if it's like a lot of other benefits that employers will have to include stuff in their handbooks about it, and so employees will know what they're getting into upfront.

>> I would think so.

So before I let you go, I want to talk a little bit about what I think is underlying this kind of a proposal.

And that's a a genuine desire.

I think it's genuine on the part of Senator Cooney to really expand infrastructure.

So you and I were talking before the program began about, you know, we had each covered.

Louise Slaughter, Congresswoman Slaughter over the years.

She was very keen on rail.

One of the first things I covered in Rochester was the news conference with Representative Slaughter, talking about the future of high speed rail, and it didn't happen in her lifetime.

Senator Cooney knows the headwinds that face things like rail, and he is looking at not just rail.

He's looking at a lot of different kinds of infrastructure.

But we are a very car centric society.

Right.

So does a program like this make more sense if it happens sort of in conjunction with a truly expanded infrastructure for bicycles, for different forms of transportation.

>> I mean, I can't presume to speak for him, but how I would see it kind of what you described, I think about it this way.

If I were thinking about starting to commute by bike, and I had a benefit that would let me do that, I would want to see infrastructure, too, right?

If I'm not super comfortable on the roads, the bike lanes and everything are going to be important.

If more people start using bikes, then more people want bike lanes and they start showing up.

So I think there is probably some infrastructure drive as part of this.

transit, you get more people using transit, you can build a more robust system.

It's easier to convince the people who have the money to give the money to the transit system in your city.

I think it's just pulling a bunch of levers.

>> Did you see what happened with the snow in New York City?

And Mayor Mamdani offering people $30 an hour to shovel?

Did you see that story?

>> I did not, I would have taken him up on that offer.

>> So here's why I bring that up.

Because when we're talking about how you get to work or how you get around a city, Rochester has been criticized over the years.

As you probably know about maybe not always prioritizing snow removal on anything but the roads.

So for sidewalks, for bicyclists people get really frustrated when we get six inches of snow and we get the roads clear.

But if you're trying to walk to work, if you're trying to walk to a corner store or grocery store and you can barely trudge through the snow, you can't push a stroller.

You can't ride a bicycle.

It gets really frustrating.

And I'm not sitting here criticizing the city.

I don't know how they did this winter.

I didn't sort of track it right, but this big snowstorm, two feet hits New York City in the last few days.

Mayor Mamdani goes on social media and says, big blanket offer if you want to work during the snowstorm, we'll pay you 30 bucks an hour and we'll pay you 45 bucks an hour.

If you end up working overtime, we need you to shovel.

And two things happened.

First of all, all the reports I've seen indicate the sidewalks are more clear than they've ever been in a snowstorm.

Because a lot of people wanted the money, and they took him up on it.

So people who didn't just have cars were doing okay getting around.

Then there was criticism that, well, here's video of seven people standing around one little ice dam, and it shouldn't take that many.

And what's the bill going to be?

This is going to flood the taxpayers.

This is going to be a failure.

So I haven't seen the final bill.

I don't know.

They're going to have to decide if that was worth it.

But what clearly happened, Jeremy, is they figured out a way in a short amount of time to get the sidewalks clear and to not just prioritize cars.

I don't know what the cost is going to be.

I don't know how sustainable that is, but if you've ever been out on a city street.

>> I live on one.

>> You live on one.

So you know the frustration that people feel, right?

>> I do, and, you know, I, I like to see the snow plow, the sidewalk plow go by.

Absolutely.

You know, I walk around in my neighborhood, I've said that many times on this program the city, I think is looking at this in some way.

I believe there is a discussion around sidewalk plowing, as in involving their Ada transition plan or one of their mobility plans.

I apologize if I'm getting the exact plan wrong, but I know this is a discussion that's popped up in some of the planning efforts that the city has got going on.

>> Yeah, the reason I bring it up is just because if we're going to see Senator Cooney's plan and people are going to prioritize multimodal forms of transportation, getting to work, not just a car, probably what you want to see is a maximum effort to ensure that the infrastructure of your city and your region can handle not just cars.

So we'll see.

I'm not saying they're not making an effort.

It's got to be hard to do it.

I'm glad I'm not running city departments or county departments.

>> Oh, sure, a lot, a lot of man hours, a lot of equipment.

you know, and it doesn't always snow at convenient times.

>> Exactly right.

Thank you.

Jeremy, from what I'm seeing in Jeremy's reporting, we're going to have to see throughout this legislative session if this bill gets out of committee on both sides, if they can sort of link it up.

And if it goes forward this year, and I know if it does, I know you'll be reporting on that.

>> Yep.

And as we were talking about before the show, there's quite a few interesting transportation related things unfolding in the state government this year.

So probably find more interesting stories like this.

>> Indeed, deputy editor for WXXI News Jeremy Moule.

Thank you sir.

Thank you.

More Connections coming up in just a moment.

I'm Evan Dawson Monday on the next Connections.

Teen empowerment is getting new digs in Rochester, expanding the work they do with Rochester's teenagers.

It's always powerful to hear from them.

And we'll do that first hour.

In our second hour, the R word seemed to be on the way out a decade ago, but some politicians, some people in the culture are using it sort of in a, an anti-woke way.

We're going to talk about the return of the R word.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield, providing members with options for in-person and virtual care, creating ways to connect to care when and where it's needed.

Learn more at excellus.

Ebsco.com.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson and Gino Fanelli is with me now in Studio Investigations and City Hall reporter for WXXI News.

We've been talking a lot on this program this week about immigration and Ice.

Part of that is a follow up to the state of the Union address.

What was said there?

And Geno has been doing a deep dive on data related to detention centers.

So the Trump administration has claimed that it's the purpose of what it's set out to do.

A year ago was to target criminals who are the worst of the worst.

Geno reported this week that figures published by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement ice paint a pretty different picture of who is filling up immigration detention centers.

so maybe not quite the worst of the worst that they told us who were going to fill up these centers.

>> It doesn't.

>> Seem like it.

so when I, when I started going through this data and again, this is publicly available data, I didn't have to file a Foil request for this or anything.

It is readily available for anyone to read.

It's published by Ice.

and I started with looking at the Buffalo Service Processing Center in Batavia, which is the area's largest immigration detention center.

It's I believe the largest in New York.

And what you can do is look at the kind of detainees that they have in there, and it'll show you the average daily count where in the currently in the fiscal 2026 year and what we found was for people that had a previous criminal conviction or a pending criminal charge, what you would call a criminal of any kind, whether they had a violent felony or misdemeanor, whatever pending or previous criminal conviction, they're actually at their lowest point since this data has been kept and reported which was the 2019 fiscal year.

But that doesn't mean that the total number of detentions is down.

It's actually at the highest point that we've seen.

And that is entirely accounted for by the average daily count of people that don't have a previous criminal conviction or a pending criminal charge.

>> So a huge number of overall detentions.

It's but a small percentage of those are actually violent.

>> Yes.

or and the number that are violent criminals even lower than what we put in our, our data charts and everything.

But yeah, the amount that are actually a criminal if we want to call anyone with a criminal conviction or a pending criminal charge, a criminal, which I somewhat disagree with that kind of verbiage.

But for the purposes of this, this is ICE's definition.

they are at the lowest point that we've seen, and looking at the data.

>> And I'm looking at one of the charts that you have here, and I think we had it up on YouTube again going back to 2019.

One of the things that stands out to me, looking at who Ice is detaining late in the first Trump administration, it was mostly people with criminal backgrounds in the detention centers.

The non-criminal backgrounds were a smaller number than the criminal backgrounds.

And then and throughout the Biden administration, it's mostly criminals, although that shifts in late in the Biden administration.

And that's been a huge shift in the first year plus of the new Trump administration.

So if you're watching on YouTube, the light blue bar is the non-criminal detention.

It didn't always it wasn't always the bigger bar here, but now it is a big, big flip flop.

So I know you reached out to Ice to talk about this.

How'd that go?

>> So we received a statement from the assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, who told us our data was inaccurate.

it.

>> Told you your data is inaccurate.

>> It's ICE's data.

It's it's data that belongs to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Published by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

They're saying that the data is inaccurate.

and the other point that she made was that 70% of the arrests made by Ice were people that were criminals, had a previous criminal conviction, or had a pending criminal charge.

She didn't provide any data to support that.

Besides that 70% figure.

and what we have seen in some other cases, and I don't want to say this is exactly what she's referring to, but they will sometimes detain someone and then charge them with some kind of charge related to their immigration status, which would then make them a criminal in the system.

I don't know if that's what she's referring to.

And I did ask I did reach back out to Ice to clarify what that figure.

They never responded.

So I, you know, we we we have the statement from, from, from ice and their justification for it.

And it boils down to two things.

They're saying that most of their arrests are of criminal people with criminal convictions or pending criminal charge, and that the data that we got, again, from Ice is inaccurate.

>> I want to make sure that we spend a little time on the point that you're making about how we categorize people who are detained.

I think you explained it well, but I think it bears repeating here.

Ice describes if you cross our southern border, if you if you cross into this country without documentation.

Ice categorizes that as a criminal offense.

And I think what we're actually trying to do with this data, which I think you did a really good job of, is say, okay, set aside the if you're undocumented, quote, unquote, you're a criminal.

Are there other criminal offenses on their record?

That's what we're talking about, right?

The people you're detaining in Batavia, the people you're detaining elsewhere, the people that Ice is picking up, are they picking up people whose only criminal offense is coming in this country undocumented, or do they have other criminal histories?

That's really the central question.

>> It is.

And and even when there's there's several things to get through here, but like one, a lot of people that are supportive of what Ice is doing will say that, well, if they're here illegally, that makes them a criminal.

But we that frankly, that's just inaccurate.

re study from the Social Security Administration found that about 46% of the undocumented immigrants in this country came here.

on a visa.

And that visa ended up they overstayed their visa.

That's not a criminal offense.

That is a civil offense.

there are, and that's one category of undocumented.

>> There's asylum seekers.

>> Yeah, there's there's people that have a pending appeals case that have been detained.

there's there's people that have been seeking asylum that were rejected, that are appealing, that we reported pretty extensively about Omar Ramos Jimenez.

That's his situation.

Right?

These are civil offenses.

These are not criminal offenses.

So if you try to boil down all undocumented immigrants in the country, to this person who snuck over the border and has been staying here illegally committing crimes that by the data that we have seen is not a massive it's not the majority.

And I know it's not even close to a plurality of the different kinds of situations that people have here.

So I think it's a misnomer that being and which you can when I speak about these things, I say undocumented because illegal immigrant has the kind of or illegal alien has this connotation that there is a crime that's been committed when that is not necessarily the case.

>> You know, yesterday on this program, it got, you know, a little feisty.

We got a lot of email from listeners during the program last night during the re-air overnight.

And I've tried to respond to every email about yesterday's program because we were doing a state of the Union review, and this was the hour in which we invited Republicans.

We invited probably more than a dozen Republicans to from the Rochester City Republican Committee took us up on that.

And first they tried to say that I.S.I.S.

detaining violent criminals, that's primarily what Ice is doing.

And I pointed out that's not correct.

Based on Gino Fanelli reporting, based on reporting that what Geno is reporting today tracks pretty well nationally.

From what I've seen.

>> It has.

>> Yeah.

Okay.

So it's not an outlier.

And then you heard for example, you heard Marcus Williams, who's chair of the city Republican Committee, say, okay, essentially.

Okay, fine.

But if they're here undocumented, I want them gone anyway, which that's a position you can take.

I just don't think you should claim that Ice is just rounding up violent people.

>> I.

>> Yeah, you can't claim that.

And to be clear, everyone who supports what this administration is doing and what Ice is doing will come back with the same thing.

Look at this undocumented immigrant who murdered this person.

We had a horrible incident.

And around that.

Oh, and a four person family was murdered by people that were here undocumented.

Okay these things happen with any group of person on the planet, too.

There is no category or demographic of person where you don't have murderers and violent people in them.

The question that has to come to your mind is, is it such a sizable portion as to paint that entire demographic group as murderers, rapists, killers violent people that want to destroy your country?

So I think it's intellectually dishonest to argue anecdotes as representative of entire demographic groups.

And I think we have a lot of intellectual dishonesty happening around this topic.

>> I also want to say, because someone's going to email me and say, do you not mourn for the people who've been killed by undocumented?

Of course, yes.

I mean, any violence is awful.

And we should seek to eliminate it.

We should mourn the people who are victims of it.

Of course, but it was also kind of instructive that the state of the Union, that in order to try to make this point, that Gino was talking about this idea that, well, we we flooded our country with dangerous criminals who are undocumented immigrants, the president pointed to a Ukrainian refugee who was murdered in Charlotte on the train, and the man who murdered her is an American.

>> And he said he came here through open borders.

was was the words that he used?

Yeah.

>> And it's not correct.

>> And does it matter that we're sitting here saying that it's not correct?

>> Well, I don't know.

I mean, I, I don't know, Gino.

I don't know.

Your reporting is just more data that helps drive this.

Again, I want to say again, if you're like Marcus Williams and you're feeling is whether you're violent or not, if you're not documented, I want you deported.

I don't care if you've been here for 30 years and you're raising a family, and you go to church and you work in a diner, I want you gone.

That's a position you can take.

You just can't say that.

All Ice is doing is targeting violent criminals, because that is not correct.

>> And this is a consistent pattern that I see with this kind of conversation is when that is always the first point.

Ice is targeting the violent criminals.

They're going after the quote, worst of the worst.

And then you can show data that doesn't support that conclusion that they are going after the worst of the worst.

And then the the goalpost immediately shifts to, well, I don't even care if they're criminals.

I just want them out anyway.

And then you have to ask the question, okay, why, why, why, why has this become this hill to die on for this entire political ideology?

it's not something I, I frankly, I just don't really understand.

We can have conversations reasonably about immigration policy and things like that.

But when we're, we're having these conversations and you can't really even argue a point because the point keeps shifting to a different reason.

why you think this should happen or what you think should happen based on really nothing, just really based on just vibes.

I don't think it's possible to have a real substantive conversation and meet people in the middle on that.

It's one end of an extreme versus another end of an extreme.

I don't think there is much moderation to happen there.

>> You also explored a specific issue in the Batavia facility on overcrowding.

Can you talk about that?

>> Yeah.

So the Batavia facility had actually been expanded in size a little bit during this term and has a capacity of 650 people.

it has on average daily 745.

It's about 95 people overcrowded on any given day.

Now, I will say that and this is an important note in all of this, the time spent in that detention facility, has shortened over the past couple couple or two fiscal years 2025 and 2026. we're currently in 2026. and that is showing it suggests that they are moving people through the system a little bit faster.

so on one hand, it is overcrowded.

On the other hand, you are moving through people through quicker.

And the question that I was actually talking with my editor about this morning is whether or not they're moving a specific demographic, criminal or non-criminal, out quicker.

and from the national level, which is the only data I had directly available to me on that, it's actually pretty similar.

the length of stay in detention facilities around the country has gone down overall.

But for criminal versus non-criminal, they're they're pretty much the same.

slightly, slightly longer for non-criminal.

but also depending on the arresting agency too, because Ice specific detention is actually slightly longer for criminals people with previous criminal convictions to go through the system.

So all of these things to say, it is kind of complicated.

What we do know right now is that facility is overcrowded.

it's moving a lot more people through it than before.

And based on the data that we have, it looks like most of the people that are in there on a day to day basis, about 83% of them are are not criminals.

They have no criminal charges and they have no pending criminal charges.

And Ice.

I should note too, part of their argument for this is, well, they have no criminal charges here, but in their home country, they could have been murderers, killers, rapists, or whatever it may be.

that is an argument that the secretary had provided to me.

>> And it's almost like, how do you refute that?

Like, what do you do with an argument like that?

>> It is a thing of like, prove me wrong is and I think this administration and this political ideology that exists here, it does a lot of that of like saying this is happening and it's okay, but it doesn't seem like it is like, well, prove me wrong.

Prove me wrong.

I think that every person that we that ice detains is someone who is a serial killer back in their home country.

And you can say that's that's ridiculous.

That doesn't make any sense.

well, prove me wrong.

>> And then now Gino Fanelli has got to go.

You're going to have to go to South America and dig up records on everybody, right?

Yeah.

And until you do, they're going to say that you're just a propagandist.

>> And how do you find records disproving something happened?

Yeah.

You can't.

And it's asking this burden of proof fallacy that kind of falls into this of that you can claim anything if there's always a loophole to allow you to slide through and say, well, you haven't proven this.

You haven't proven that.

And so if I'm of the belief, if you are making a claim, you should be able to back it up.

But the way this kind of rhetoric seems to operate is we're making a claim.

Our claim is the truth.

Prove us wrong, and.

>> And we'll move the goalposts if we have to.

>> And by the time you prove it wrong, even if you do.

There's been ten, 20, 30, 40, 50 more ridiculous claims that now you have to contend with and it doesn't even matter anymore.

But you've already gone too far down the rabbit hole.

>> Let me grab a phone call from Alex on this subject in Rochester.

Hi, Alex.

Go ahead.

>> Hey, guys.

I really appreciate the Gino's reporting on this, and I always go back to that.

I don't know, is it Edmund Burke who said those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it?

I remember learning about the well, trials of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Italian anarchists.

you know, a hundred years ago, Italians were the pilloried immigrant population in the media.

And I mean, anecdotally, I don't want to paint too wide a brush, but in my friends and family, those who are, you know, in support of I.S.I.S.

mandate are, you know, second or third generation Italian Americans.

And I make the emotional argument of, hey, these are people.

A hundred years ago, it would have been, you know, these appeals that, you know, oh, I came in the right way.

You know, these people that got to make sure they're coming in the right way.

They did.

They did 100 years ago, just as your great grandparents did.

They are doing it just as right as anybody did back then.

And yet the machine of the state is being brought to bear on this helpless population.

Italian Americans were, I don't know, 5% of the population in New York.

And they were less than 3% of criminals in prison.

They were not a criminogenic population, nor are any of the immigrants to the United States that have been targeted by Ice.

>> Alex, thank you for that bit of history.

I mean, in the late 1800s, it was Chinese immigrants.

And to Alex's point, the Italians had their turn sort of being othered and feared and stereotyped.

The Irish and it has evolved over time.

but I anything you want to add to Alex's point there, Gino.

>> I highly.

>> Encourage anyone who has get a trial membership to Newspapers.com.

It's a newspaper archive website.

It's awesome.

And you can read clips from newspapers from the late 1800s.

And I especially encourage you if you are a hard liner like Marcus Williams, to do so and look up the Democrat and Chronicle and just type in the word Italian.

From 1890 to 1910 and read how it was written about, and see if you think it sounds familiar to anything you're hearing today.

Because Alex is right.

This is not new.

This has been done throughout history to all kinds of different groups of people, and we reflect on it 30, 40, 50, 60 years later and say, yeah, we shouldn't have treated them like that.

But to pretend that it's unique every single time because it's a different demographic group that you're doing it to it's it's so willfully ignorant of the history of this country and the history of immigration in this country, and the way that we have treated people that have come here seeking a better life, that in a more just world, it would be so ignorant that we could dismiss it.

But unfortunately we can't, because this is what's happening now.

>> Alex.

Thank you.

Last thing, Gino, I hope this is obvious for folks, but as you continue to review the data, just as you would have done this time, if the data shows that Ice is correct, that mostly they're detaining people with violent records or criminal records in this country, you'll report that.

>> Absolutely.

>> You're just grabbing from their own data.

And I know you'll continue to do that for us.

>> I asked him for that data, too.

And if they get back to me, it's been three days, but maybe they will.

Maybe they won't.

Who knows?

But I will be reporting it either way.

>> Thank you for being here.

Of course, Gino.

>> Thank you.

>> Great stuff.

we're going to wrap the week with talking about a little protest music next.

I'm Evan Dawson Monday on the next Connections.

Teen empowerment is getting new digs in Rochester, expanding the work they do with Rochester's teenagers.

It's always powerful to hear from them.

And we'll do that first hour.

In our second hour, the R word seemed to be on the way out a decade ago, but some politicians, some people in the culture are using it sort of in a, an anti-woke way.

We're going to talk about the return of the R word.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Bob Johnson Auto Group.

Believing an informed public makes for a stronger community.

Proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson focused on the news, issues and trends that shape the lives of listeners in the Rochester and Finger Lakes regions.

>> Bobjohnsonautogroup.com its public radio stations across the country navigate an uncertain funding future.

It's time for you to become a sustaining member or increase your monthly contribution to your public radio station.

Your support ensures the future of independent media in this community and beyond.

>> When I saw him on the TV, he looked so proud and strong.

He sang out for peace and justice.

I do right or wrong.

>> That's the man with the Banjo by the Dady Brothers from WXXI on Stage season one.

We're closing with some some protest and some peace.

Music and John Dady is with us.

Musician with the Dady Brothers, of course, and co-producer of the Rise Up Rock concert, which we're going to be talking about.

Hey, welcome back sir.

>> It's good to see you, Evan.

How are you?

I'm doing good, buddy.

>> Nice to see you across the table.

Hello to John Kelly, musician and Kelley's Heroes co-producer of the RiseUpROC concert.

Nice to have you, sir.

>> Thank you for having us.

>> And Paul Vincent Nunes is leader of the occasional Saints.

The P.V.

Nunes Band and co-producer of the concert coming up here.

It's been a little while.

Nice.

>> It has been a while.

Good to see you, man.

Good to see you.

>> Paul Newman's.

What's your favorite protest song?

>> This land is your land.

>> This land is.

>> Your land.

Absolutely.

>> Yeah.

Okay.

>> John Kelley.

Start with that.

>> Let's go with Maggie's farm.

>> Maggie's farm?

Wow.

For those who don't know it, tell us a little bit about it.

>> Bob Dylan.

And it's.

It is sort of a metaphor for a lot of the things that are that were wrong with society at that time.

It might take at.

>> Least years since I've heard that.

An interesting poll there.

>> John Dady you know what?

I can't pick one.

There's there are so many good ones.

I'm reading a book right now by about Woody Guthrie, and this whole book is centered on this Land Is Your Land.

So I guess I would go with that.

We shall Overcome is another one that's had legs for a long time.

There's so many.

>> I, I read an article that kind of has become law now, when the conservative columnist George Will, in 1984 85 on the born in the USA tour, went to see Bruce Springsteen, he had been told by, I think, Max Weinberg invited George Will, and George Will didn't really know anything about other than, well, they're very popular.

And he writes this piece for the Washington Post and he says, finally, here's this working class hero who is singing about how proud he is to be born in the USA.

And there's people standing on chairs, and you ought to go back and read the piece.

It's amazing to listen to because George Will is a very smart guy.

>> Did not have a clue.

>> He didn't get it.

He didn't know that that was basically a protest song.

>> I saw that tour.

I saw it at Buffalo, and he opened with born in the USA.

Yeah, it was in Buffalo.

Yeah, it was his birthday.

It was Bruce's 36th birthday when he came out for the second set, the audience started singing Happy Birthday to him.

Do you remember that?

>> I do, yeah, he had a lot of choice words about the campaign that year.

>> Yeah.

>> Because that was, that was about a month before the election.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> Well, Bruce Springsteen released a protest song condemning violence.

conducted, in his words, by Ice in Minneapolis and memorable memorializing the lives of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

He put that out really quickly after the killing of Pretti, and it kind of got people's minds back on protest music, which is still a thing here.

And can I go around the table?

And why don't you guys tell us about what RiseUpROC is, is doing here?

>> John Dady well, you know, I'm going to have you go to Paul.

>> Okay.

>> Paul, this came from Paul's.

Tell him about your ride from Massachusetts.

>> You're right from Massachusetts.

>> Yeah, well, I was visiting my mom, my 96 year old mom who watches Rachel Maddow every night.

By the way, and Lucy and I know she's listening to the program.

Hi, mom.

Your boy's okay.

it was February.

it was January 24th.

Saturday, driving back to beat the storm.

I stopped at Canajoharie to get some tacos to keep me going.

Look at the phone, and I see the murder almost in real time of Alex Pretti.

And I'm.

I lose it.

Candidly, I find myself crying in my hands, alone in a booth.

And.

And what do we do as songwriters?

We.

I started writing a song almost on the way home to kind of comfort me in, in the in the grief of the moment.

Next day I call Jed Curran, who's a another well-known songwriter in town and say, look, what are you doing?

I we got to do something.

Let's get together somewhere.

Let's get a bar, maybe Abilene, talk to Danny and and for everybody who's who's not familiar with Rochester, Abilene is a is, a wonderful place for for original music in town.

And I knew we knew he would be a supporter of what we were doing.

And you know, other other calls go out, Mr.

Kelly over here and I talked to Mr.

Daddy, and he said, well, Paul, you know, that's a big idea.

You know, getting everybody together like that.

And and then raising money is what I was thinking for Legal Aid because, you know, they're on the front line.

And if folks don't think that Ice has an impact here in Rochester, well, they're mistaken.

It's right here.

It's quite, quite active.

And John Dady said this has got to go big Paul.

Let's go big.

Let's get reach out to everybody.

And in no time I mean, almost every call I made that Sunday.

And I know John Kelly made some more and and of course, the organizational skills of John Kelly and his wife Denise are formidable.

Formidable.

You wouldn't believe how much we accomplished, but let's check the date.

That was January 24th.

It's barely a month later, and people have responded.

We've gathered.

We've got Legal Aid Society behind us, of course, Immanuel Baptist Church, so wonderful in opening their arms to this kind of event, which is controversial in and of itself, that you want to go to a venue and do something like this and say things like this, songs of of Protest in Peace.

It was a it's a it's a remarkable community, an amazing community of musicians to do this and inspirational.

I think we're all a little overcome by how the power of the spirit of the songwriting community here in Rochester and how how grand it is.

So we've got a special night, special night tonight.

Really really wonderful little, as I said, a little overwhelmed by what's what's happened here.

>> So all the logistical details, what time.

>> Doors open at six, shows at seven.

We got over 20 artists of all different kinds, you know a real representation of what's happening here in Rochester.

no advance tickets are almost gone.

Mr.

Kelly may have to address that, but we've got some tickets at the door.

Just get there early if you want to see this.

It's going to be special.

>> 815 Park Avenue.

We have a variance for parking.

So you can park anywhere on Brunswick.

And we do have ten tickets left for sale.

There, benefactor level.

So ten, only ten.

Yeah.

And but we will.

>> Not totally there.

Still.

>> There are still seats left.

So if you get there early, we'll be able to fit a healthy number of more people in there.

>> Okay, again, where is this happening?

>> 815 Park Avenue at Emmanuel Baptist Church.

>> And what they suggested to is to carpool.

If you can carpool rideshare that my wife and I are going to come together.

We're meeting just to save on the parking because parking is tight.

>> So.

John.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, a night like tonight you know, Paul talked about kind of having to pull over and collect himself and absorb the news on Pretti.

It was just a few weeks after the killing of Renee Good, and the feeling that a lot of people have of, you know, like, is this us?

Is this our country?

How do you feel these days, exactly?

>> A terrible I mean going back to our president's early reign, as he would like to call it, it just I just kept thinking he's.

That's enough.

Enough, I can't know.

And it just keeps on compounding over and over and over.

And Pretti was just that was that.

Just that the sword turned in my stomach.

It just as Paul said, my wife and I both, we wept when we heard that news.

And.

What what is our country become?

What is our country become?

We as artists, you know, none of us are politicians.

I don't pretend to know politics.

We're artists.

And just to express ourselves knowing that it's just not our inner selves, but collectively, the people you know, whether you're left or whether you're right.

It's so far beyond.

For me, it's beyond politics.

It's about it's about good and evil.

It's about common decency to your fellow man.

And it's our country losing that.

It feels like it.

>> I got to add to John's eloquence that we were sad and grieving at the same time.

and writing songs and singing songs was a way to deal with this sense of sadness and grief.

you would think that the whole night would be full of rage and anger.

it's not it was interesting how many folks came to this moment with A Song of Peace.

Oh, there are a bunch of us.

who wrote protest songs and this.

And to write a protest song I'm going to say is against my brand.

>> It's against your brand?

>> Yeah.

It's just not what I do.

Well, John knows me.

I've done.

>> You do feel good songs for kids?

>> Yeah.

That's right.

I have a career across the country doing songs for children.

I've been doing that for for decades and don't do that much locally.

anymore.

But still do it nationally.

So I'm not going to be doing a song of rage and anger, you know, to seven year olds.

and so to write a song like that came out of me for this was just very unusual.

But to see what's come out of this circle of, of incredible musicians here in Rochester is going to be special tonight.

The songs of peace are beautiful.

The songs are of anger, are righteous and true.

Going to be special.

>> John, how do you feel about using this kind of medium as an art?

In a moment where people feel like there's not much that a single citizen can do, and feeling a little hopeless or helpless?

How does art sort of come into into the fore as, as a tool here?

>> Well, I would say that to get back to rage for a second, when when I responded to personally to what happened in Minneapolis, I, I spent probably an hour just typing into my computer.

It was I would call it rage prose.

You know, I'm an artist.

I do actually.

Kelley's Heroes does cover social issues often, but but this was different, and I was typing stuff in, and and I just figured it was maybe I'd feel a little bit better after that.

And but I really didn't.

But Paul called me, and then I revisited what I had wrote, and that became a song.

And that's a song I'm going to do tonight, and I released it in that time.

So my month has been about two things.

It's been about this show collecting our voices together and being a part of it myself.

>> Can I add one last?

Not about a music expression, but a lot of people have seen the posters that were done, of course, of Lady Liberty wearing Liam's hat and then the guitar with echoes to Woody Guthrie's guitar.

That was brilliantly, brilliantly done by Claire Margiotti.

Rochester, whose work I've been a big fan of.

And and really, she's become the face with her through her art.

>> I was just going to say that.

>> Just beautiful work.

>> The three of us were sitting at a diner for our very first meeting, organizing this, when Paul pulled up on her phone, her first for she sent she sent us four posters.

And I think for me, I don't know about you guys, but that that just solidified it all.

It's like, there's the face, there's and it was I think it was a big motivator for the three of us.

Like, wow, there's a poster.

We got to get off our butts and get this thing going.

>> Now we had to create a show that merited that kind of image.

Absolutely.

>> Absolutely.

>> As as an artist that has been been involved in, in, in, in, in these types of events before, this is just one moment.

And what I, what I think is that we need to we need to find more moments and more more mobilization and more things that represent the moment.

Like like the poster and that you mentioned.

>> A couple of emails to share here.

Sean and Fairport says Political Science by Randy Newman, one that I never hear anymore but fits today's world, I don't.

I know a lot of Randy Newman.

I don't know that.

>> I know that one.

That is a good one.

Great, great song.

He's he's genius.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah, man.

>> Might be genius, too.

Thank you, Sean, for that email.

And Mark wants to know if you can't attend tonight if this is going to be recorded.

This concert.

>> Yes, it's going to be streamed live.

And we will record that, and it will be available at some point after that.

But tonight there will be a streaming link.

>> So there will be a streaming link for live tonight.

>> Yes.

Right.

And what is how did he get that?

Do you go to Emmanuel Baptist?

>> If you go to Emmanuel Community Facebook site and to their YouTube, it's Emmanuel community.

>> Emmanuel community will we will make sure with the organizers we get a link and we'll put it in our show notes this afternoon.

Great idea.

So people can find it.

Yes.

So if you can't attend tonight again, the doors open at six.

>> Yes.

>> Yes.

>> At 815 Park Avenue.

>> Yeah.

>> And the event's going to go till when guys.

>> We're thinking 930, but I'm guessing it might be a little later.

What are you.

I don't think.

>> We can speculate to a reasonable degree of certainty.

That'll go later.

>> Our last.

>> Featured artists should go on at about 920, and then there will be there will be a choir and there'll be a finale.

And we'll go as long as we need to.

Let's put it that way.

>> Have you ever seen when a group of great musicians get together and they all stand around with an instrument, some things could happen.

You just.

You never know what could happen.

>> Absolutely.

>> There are a lot of great musicians going to be there tonight.

>> Are there?

>> I know there are.

thanks, guys.

John Dady John Kelley Paul Vincent Nunes.

Thank you for telling us about the RiseUpROC concert that is tonight.

And again, we're going to go out with the man with the banjo.

Anything you want to say about the man with the banjo?

John Dady.

>> Before that, I want to thank you for what you do for this community.

My wife, I don't as much, but Carol listens to you almost every day.

>> Is there something wrong with you?

>> I'm just too busy.

I'm running around cleaning up the yard.

She's constantly commenting on how tolerant you are and how you hear both sides of every issue.

That's a gift, and nobody that I've ever heard do a talk show does it?

Like you and your crew.

It's true.

>> That's really beautiful.

Yeah.

>> Thank you John.

Thank you.

So this is Joe singing a tribute to our hero, Pete Seeger, the best protest singer of all.. >> The pizza boy takes me back to the conversations we've had about Joe.

Yeah.

so a great way to go out with his voice.

Thank you.

John Dady.

Thank you.

Thank you, John.

Thank you.

Paul Vincent Nunes.

Thank you RiseUpROC.

so much tonight.

The concert tonight, 6:00, doors open.

Otherwise, have a great weekend, everybody.

We're back with you next week on member supported public media.

>> The whole world to sing We Shall Overcome.

When there's peace and justice, that's when his work is done.

Cause he's the man with the banjo.

Can't you hear it ring?

Yeah.

With freedom in his heart.

He makes the mountains sing.

He taught the whole world to sing.

We shall overcome today when there's peace and justice.

That's when his work is done.

>> This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without expressed written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the link at wxxinews.org.