Caught in the Crackdown

This program contains graphic content. Viewer discretion is advised.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Trump has promised to conduct what he calls the largest deportation program in American history.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.

NARRATOR:

In collaboration with ProPublica.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Bovino was deployed to several cities.

SERGIO OLMOS, CalMatters:

He was the one who was the tip of the spear for this new type of immigration enforcement across the country.

GOV. JB PRITZKER, (D) Illinois:

When we talk about who they’re arresting and who they’re holding accountable, it’s not the worst of the worst.

NARRATOR:

From Los Angeles—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Hundreds of National Guard troops.

NARRATOR:

—to Chicago—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Operation Midway Blitz.

NARRATOR:

—to Minneapolis—

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The White House today doubling down.

NARRATOR:

—the pushback on protest—

COLE SHERIDAN, Protester:

—trying to terrify people and try to scare people away.

ART DEL CUETO, Frm. V.P., Border Patrol union:

Border Patrol agents didn’t wake up in the morning and say, “Let me see who I can hurt today.”

NARRATOR:

—and the fallout.

TOM HOMAN, Border czar:

President Trump and I, along with others in the administration, have recognized that certain improvements could and should be made.

NARRATOR:

Now on FRONTLINE: Caught in the Crackdown.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The Trump administration is deploying an estimated 2,000 federal agents to Minneapolis. That includes ICE agents.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Homeland Security posted on social media this afternoon, “We’re not leaving until the problem is solved.”

FEMALE VOICE:

Go home to Texas, a–hole.

A.C. THOMPSON, Correspondent:

Jan. 7, 2026.

A month into the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration in Minneapolis, federal officers approached an activist named Renée Good as she sat in her car.

RENÉE GOOD:

That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.

BECCA GOOD:

You want to come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy. Go ahead.

JONATHAN ROSS, ICE agent:

Get out of the car. Get out of the car. Get out of the f—— car.

FEMALE VOICE:

No! No! Shame! Shame! Oh my f—— God. What the f—? What the f—? You just f—— … What the f— did you do?

A.C. THOMPSON:

The killing of Renée Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross stunned the country.

FEMALE VOICE:

What did you do?

FEMALE VOICE:

You. Shame. Shame. Shame! Shame!

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

We are following a breaking news situation in south Minneapolis, a shooting involving ICE agents.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

We have just learned the victim’s name. She is a 37-year-old woman and her name is Renée Nicole Good. She was shot and killed today. And ICE claims that the agent opened fire after Good “weaponized her vehicle in an attempt to kill a federal officer.”

A.C. THOMPSON:

In the days afterwards, I spoke to eyewitnesses and visited the site where Good was killed.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Mother of three, a partner and a poet—37-year-old Renée Nicole Good as described by those who knew her. Her neighbors now mourning their loss.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Like many here, Good had been out on the streets opposing the immigration sweeps.

LILIANA ZARAGOZA:

Yeah, I just started filming, because I saw her body on the ground.

A.C. THOMPSON:

A few blocks away, I met Liliana Zaragoza, who showed me video she’d taken the morning of the shooting. She was on her way home after dropping off her kids.

LILIANA ZARAGOZA:

I opened my door and I exited with my hands up. And I looked at one of the MPD officers, and I said, “I’m an attorney, what’s going on? Is this an ICE operation? Is it an MPD operation? Is it something else?” And he said, “This is a crime scene now.”

And so when I get into my car, I just grabbed my phone and started recording, and I saw on the sidewalk a bloody person, bloodied head. I’m looking at her eyes. I’m looking at her body. And it was just a really horrific, violent thing to see.

A.C. THOMPSON:

And for activists like you, what does her death mean?

LILIANA ZARAGOZA:

You know, I think it hits close to home for a lot of us who’ve been responding to these ICE raids. It frankly—you know, I was there responding, like Renée Good was responding.

A.C. THOMPSON:

That was what you were doing. She was doing the same thing, and she wound up dead.

LILIANA ZARAGOZA:

Yes, exactly.

A.C. THOMPSON:

The Trump administration depicted Good as part of an extremist left-wing movement.

VICE PRESIDENT J.D. VANCE:

That woman is part of a broader left-wing network to attack, to dox, to assault and to make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their job.

A.C. THOMPSON:

And the man the administration put in charge of the operation, Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, defended the officer who killed her.

GREGORY BOVINO, Commander-at-Large, U.S. Border Patrol:

A 4,000-pound missile is not something anyone wants to face, especially in a split-second decision-making process in a very already inhospitable environment. Hats off to that ICE agent. I’m glad he made it out alive. I’m glad he’s with his family.

A.C. THOMPSON:

By the time Renée Good was killed—

MALE VOICE:

Bovino is in the gold Suburban.

A.C. THOMPSON:

—I’d been following Bovino and the Trump administration’s immigration sweeps around the country for seven months.

MALE FEDERAL AGENT:

You speak English?

A.C. THOMPSON:

Thousands had been arrested on immigration charges.

MALE FEDERAL AGENT:

Can you do me a favor? Just stay back, OK?

A.C. THOMPSON:

What is your mission today, if you were going to describe it for PBS?

GREGORY BOVINO:

Title 8 immigration enforcement, that’s what we’re here for. And all these bad people and bad things you see on the street that prey on American citizens, we’re here to get ’em.

A.C. THOMPSON:

But there was also a backlash.

GREGORY BOVINO:

You better be careful. There’s a lot violence. Be careful.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Are you encountering a lot of resistance?

GREGORY BOVINO:

Most I’ve ever seen.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Really?

GREGORY BOVINO:

You bet.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Amid the protests, the masked and heavily armed federal agents, sometimes backed by the military, had also arrested hundreds of U.S. citizens, routinely portraying them as domestic terrorists or extremists.

ALEJANDRO ORELLANA:

Like, who do you think you’re dealing with? I’m not Rambo or anything. [Laughs]

A.C. THOMPSON:

With my colleagues at ProPublica and FRONTLINE, we’ve interviewed officials, experts and insiders.

When you talk to agents who’ve been dispatched for these big operations, what do they tell you?

ART DEL CUETO, Frm. V.P., Border Patrol union:

They say it’s a horrific situation, and they’ve been put in very dangerous positions.

MALE SPEAKER:

So, I’ve definitely seen a lot of violent acts instilled onto the agents by the protesters.

MALE PROTESTER:

Shame on you!

MALE PROTESTER:

Hey, watch out!

A.C. THOMPSON:

And we analyzed the arrests of more than 300 protesters and bystanders caught in the crackdown.

WOMAN ON THE STREET:

How could you do this?

A.C. THOMPSON:

Why did you stop and question him?

MALE BORDER PATROL AGENT:

Please get out of the area, sir.

MALE BORDER PATROL AGENT:

Get back, get back, get back.

A.C. THOMPSON:

While there have been some successful prosecutions, over and over, cases have been falling apart, contradicted by video evidence and witness testimony.

Do you have video of it?

ENRIQUE BAHENA:

Right here.

A.C. THOMPSON:

And that’s you getting it?

ENRIQUE BAHENA:

Yep.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Federal prosecutors have been dismissing charges or not filing them at all.

MALE VOICE [on phone]:

So the cases collapsed. These things are not resulting in any real prosecution.

A.C. THOMPSON:

And in cities across the country, countless people have been injured, and some even killed, by officers using tactics that experts say violate their own rules.

MALE PROTESTER:

People live here!

CHRISTY LOPEZ, DOJ Civil Rights Division, 2010-17:

You’re not allowed to use less-lethal weapons in that way. You’re not allowed to fire at people’s heads.

GREGORY BOVINO:

The agents attempted to disarm the individual, but he violently resisted. Fearing for his life, a Border Patrol agent fired defensive shots.

FEMALE VOICE [on video]:

Holy s—! Oh my God!

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

What do we want? ICE out! When do we want it? Now!

A.C. THOMPSON:

By February, amid rising opposition around the country—

GIRL ON STOOP:

[Crying] ICE out! ICE out!

A.C. THOMPSON:

—the Trump administration began backing off its campaign, and the man at the center of it, Greg Bovino—

GREGORY BOVINO:

Stay back.

A.C. THOMPSON:

—was out.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Reports of a surge in raids of undocumented residents have been circulating on social media.

A.C. THOMPSON:

The roots of the story trace back to January 2025 and a little-known operation that Bovino led in Bakersfield, California.

MALE VOICE:

Yeah, regular, undercovers, everything.

A.C. THOMPSON:

It was called “Return to Sender.”

SERGIO OLMOS, CalMatters:

They just were rolling around the city like it was theirs. As if they were right in the El Centro border.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Journalist Sergio Olmos reported on it for the nonprofit news outlets CalMatters and Evident Media.

SERGIO OLMOS:

Greg Bovino, who was then the sector chief for El Centro, sent out about 65 agents 300 miles north of his sector into the interior of California to do this operation that they said at the time they had a targeted list of criminals they were going after.

MALE VOICE:

Fools came in deep on the Home Depot lot, helicopter and all.

SERGIO OLMOS:

But Greg Bovino’s crew would go up to Home Depots, gas stations.

MALE FEDERAL AGENT:

Have a nice day, sir.

SERGIO OLMOS:

Farmland.

MALE VOICE:

[Speaking Spanish] Immigration, dude.

SERGIO OLMOS:

Looking at people who look Latino and stopping them and asking, “Show me your papers.”

MALE VOICE:

[Speaking Spanish] And here the Border Patrol is, well, I imagine asking for the respective documents from these people.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Bovino agreed to talk to Olmos about the operation.

GREGORY BOVINO:

Every single one of the 78 that we arrested were criminals. When you cross the border illegally, 8 USC 1325, illegal entry into the United States, so they were all criminals. Let’s get that one out of the way here, right out of the box.

MALE FEDERAL AGENT:

You’re under arrest for alien smuggling. It’s actually a federal felony.

GREGORY BOVINO:

If they cross the border illegally, then they’re coming with us. They are under arrest and they’re coming with us.

SERGIO OLMOS:

They said they were going after criminals. That was what they promoted it as.

A.C. THOMPSON:

And what was the reality?

SERGIO OLMOS:

We got documents from Customs and Border Protection that showed that 77 out of the 78 people they arrested, they had no knowledge of criminal or immigration history prior to encountering them. All that means is they didn’t know who these people were when they arrested them. The idea of a target enforcement, where traditionally an agency like ICE would find out if somebody has a criminal record, they’d surveil their house, they’d check to see if they had been deported before, that whole pre-investigation stuff, that doesn’t happen when guys in Border Patrol just roll up to a Home Depot in Kevlar and mask and see who runs.

MALE VOICE:

That’s f—– up what you guys are doing.

SERGIO OLMOS:

And this operation in Bakersfield we saw as a kind of test case for how he could use Border Patrol in the interior.

VINTAGE NEWSREEL:

Yesterday’s catch from Indio is being brought in by the Border Patrol.

A.C. THOMPSON:

In fact, Return to Sender was a throwback to a campaign from the 1950s.

SERGIO OLMOS:

Greg Bovino told congressional investigators a couple years earlier his model for immigration was President Eisenhower. That he really knew how to do interior enforcement. And I had to look this up because I didn’t know what he was talking about, but it was Operation Wetback.

VINTAGE NEWSREEL:

This is the morning prison train. Its cargo: Mexican wetbacks, who have sneaked across the border and are being deported.

A.C. THOMPSON:

The operation, which took its name from a racial slur, started on the border but eventually extended to major cities like Chicago and Los Angeles.

SERGIO OLMOS:

Bovino really looks at Operation Wetback as the way that Border Patrol should be used. They should not just be lined up on the border watching a wall. They should be in cities setting up checkpoints and just stopping people.

MALE VOICE:

They got this guy pulled over, INS.

SERGIO OLMOS:

And treating every town as if it’s right across the border.

GREGORY BOVINO:

We made contact with and arrested a lot of bad people.

A.C. THOMPSON:

In the interview with Olmos in early 2025, Bovino said the Border Patrol would be taking an aggressive approach going forward.

GREGORY BOVINO:

Over the next several years we’re going to go hard. Whether you’re an illegal alien, a fentanyl smuggler or any other type of transnational criminal threat, I’d self-deport right now. Just go ahead and self-deport, because the green team is on the job and it’s game on. Game on with the green team.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Federal authorities have been reported at several locations in Los Angeles.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Five months after Operation Return to Sender, the Trump administration deployed Greg Bovino to Los Angeles.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Homeland Security agents were detaining multiple people outside that Home Depot.

A.C. THOMPSON:

He would be a key player in carrying out the president’s immigration crackdown.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Widespread immigration raids here in LA.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Federal officials have detained multiple people at different locations.

A.C. THOMPSON:

I arrived in LA as dozens of people a day were being swept up in raids by the Border Patrol, ICE and other federal agencies.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Fifteen-year-old Brian Vasquez screaming at Border Patrol agents as they take his father into custody.

BRIAN VASQUEZ:

[Screaming] Papi!

A.C. THOMPSON:

Angry residents were also coming out to confront the agents.

MALE PROTESTER:

You’ve got no jurisdiction here.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Oh my God!

A.C. THOMPSON:

And protests were erupting.

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

Whose streets? Our streets! Whose streets? Our streets!

MALE REPORTER:

They certainly are. And they’re slowly making their way out of here.

MALE VIDEO STREAMER:

All right you guys, this is at Paramount on Atlantic.

A.C. THOMPSON:

On June 7, hundreds of protesters gathered near a Border Patrol staging area.

MALE VIDEO STREAMER:

They’re going to start charging at us right now, but I don’t know. Hey, you guys, there’s more of us than there’s them. Come on.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Bovino told his agents how to handle the protesters.

GREGORY BOVINO:

Arrest as many people that touch you as you want to. Those are the general orders, all the way to the top. Everybody f—— gets it if they touch you.You hear what I’m saying? Less-lethals? We’re going to look at shipping tractor trailer loads of that s— in here. So, you catch what I’m—It’s all about us now. It ain’t about them. Professional, legal, ethical, moral. You know what we’re talking about. Legal, ethical, moral. You’re on camera. But other than that? It’s what we do.

MALE BORDER PATROL AGENT:

Whose city is it, Chief?

GREGORY BOVINO:

F—— ours. This is our f—— city.

MALE PROTESTER:

What did the community do?

A.C. THOMPSON:

As the federal agents faced off against the demonstrators, they began unleashing tear gas and other crowd-control weapons.

The protest escalated.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:

What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and on national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country. We’re not going to let that happen.

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

Whose street? Our street! Whose street? Our street!

A.C. THOMPSON:

President Trump would quickly mobilize the National Guard.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Extraordinary images out of Los Angeles tonight. Hundreds of National Guard troops now on the ground, deployed by President Trump, even though state leaders say they didn’t ask for them and don’t want them there.

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

National Guard out of LA! National Guard out of LA!

A.C. THOMPSON:

The administration cited vandalism and attacks on agents.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, White House press secretary:

What we have seen transpire in Los Angeles, California, in recent days is shameful. Left-wing radicals waving foreign flags viciously attacked ICE and Border Patrol agents as well as Los Angeles police officers. The mob violence is being stomped out. The criminals responsible will be swiftly brought to justice, and the Trump administration’s operations to arrest illegal aliens are continuing unabated.

A.C. THOMPSON:

On the ground, Bovino defended the operation.

GREGORY BOVINO:

As for the violence and the demonstrators, violence will not deter us, the CBP mission here in Los Angeles.

KAREN BASS, Mayor, Los Angeles:

We know how to bring about peace. And peace begins with ICE leaving Los Angeles.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told me she was caught off guard by what happened.

KAREN BASS:

Well, I will tell you when the first raids happened, it felt like as a city we just got punched in the gut for no reason. It just came out of nowhere. And it was a feeling of like the city being invaded, but it was an invasion of our own government against us.

You had men jumping out of cars, with rifles.

MALE PROTESTER:

They’re going to come to attack us, look.

WOMAN ON STREET:

[Crying] Why are you taking me?

KAREN BASS:

With very dubious signage or uniforms. Everybody was horrified and outraged by the aggression.

A.C. THOMPSON:

It was becoming clear that this wasn’t just an immigration operation. It was evolving into something different. The federal government was also cracking down on demonstrators and arresting them in large numbers.

One of those arrests, down the street from a corner store in East LA, caught my attention.

Hi. Can we see the footage? The video?

CONVENIENCE STORE OWNER:

Yes, yes.

A.C. THOMPSON:

So this is from the raid this morning, and this looks like National Guard troops, eight to 12 of them, pulling up in two vans, about 5:52 in the morning. They put a cordon across the street, and they’re blocking the street. And then our understanding is, behind that, they’re arresting somebody who was involved in the protest. The FBI is arresting them.

The man they arrested was Alejandro Orellana, a Marine Corps veteran who was part of a group that had been protesting the raids.

ALEJANDRO ORELLANA:

This is almost exactly at 6:00 in the morning. Suddenly I hear a man over a loudspeaker call my name, telling me that it’s the FBI and that I need to come outside. They already have their guns out. They throw the flash-bangs in, and they still break down the front door. And they detained my family for like an hour. But you know, I think to them it’s like, well, this guy is former military, so he has the training to evade us or whatever. There was over more than two dozen National Guardsmen just lined up on my street as they were driving me off. It’s like, who do you think you’re dealing with? I’m not Rambo or anything. [Laughs]

MALE REPORTER:

Lots of people wearing masks just in case there is more clashes with police tonight.

A.C. THOMPSON:

It all stemmed from a news video in the early days of the protests.

MALE REPORTER:

We have people right now, look at this, dropping off food and water.

MALE NEWS ANCHOR:

What are those boxes?

FEMALE NEWS ANCHOR:

Are those masks?

MALE NEWS ANCHOR:

That doesn’t look like food and water.

FEMALE NEWS ANCHOR:

It looks like masks.

MALE REPORTER:

Yeah, no, that’s—those are masks.

ALEJANDRO ORELLANA:

A bunch of us took it upon ourselves to go downtown and give out these resources: the food, water and of course the PPE.

MALE NEWS ANCHOR:

You probably don’t put on a mask unless you have a plan of not wanting somebody to see your face.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Orellana was soon identified as the driver the truck—

ALEX JONES:

Americans have to get organized.

A.C. THOMPSON:

—and targeted by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

ALEX JONES:

You saw the man handing out the thousands of dollars of face shields.

A.C. THOMPSON:

And then by the Trump administration.

KAROLINE LEAVITT:

You will see boxes and boxes of very professionalized masks and rioting equipment being dropped off for these protesters. So it’s a good question the president is raising and one we are looking into about who is funding these insurrectionists and these rioters and these protesters and these illegal criminals.

MALE PROTESTER:

They’re f—— kidnapping people. ICE, National Guard, [speaking Spanish] the same s—.

A.C. THOMPSON:

The morning after the press conference, Orellana was arrested on charges including conspiracy—a charge often used for organized crime rings and drug syndicates.

The acting U.S. attorney, Bill Essayli, was on the scene, promoting the raid to a Fox News crew that had been given exclusive access.

BILL ESSAYLI:

We have made it a huge priority to try to identify, locate and arrest those who are involved in organizing, supporting, funding or facilitating these riots that are going on.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Neither Essayli nor anyone from the Trump administration would talk to us about Orellana’s arrest or the overall operation in LA.

Six weeks later, the charges against Orellana were dropped, without any public explanation.

ALEJANDRO ORELLANA:

One of the reasons why I feel like they dropped the case is because they looked at the case, they took a hard look, and especially these more experienced prosecutors were able to convince Bill Essayli that you’re not going to win. It’s a ridiculous case. Masks? They’re not even—You can’t assault someone with a mask.

A.C. THOMPSON:

And your feeling is you were targeted why?

ALEJANDRO ORELLANA:

I mean, it’s not just my feeling. It’s not because of the masks, it’s because you’re an activist.

A.C. THOMPSON:

One of the cases we’re looking into involves Alejandro Orellana.

CUAUHTÉMOC ORTEGA, Federal Public Defender:

Yes.

A.C. THOMPSON:

I sat down with Cuauhtémoc Ortega, the chief federal defender for Los Angeles and the surrounding areas. He represented Orellana.

The acting U.S. attorney here, Bill Essayli, seemed to portray your client as like a kingpin of this vast conspiracy to foment riots. What did you think of those statements?

CUAUHTÉMOC ORTEGA:

I thought they were pretty inaccurate. My client—Our investigation and our trial defense would have shown that our client didn’t engage in anything of that sort, that this whole situation was blown completely out of proportion and there was no conspiracy. And I think that we would have succeeded at trial. And my guess is that’s why the case was dismissed.

A.C. THOMPSON:

We looked at 116 cases in California like Orellana’s—U.S. citizens who were arrested in protests or bystanders who’d been observing the immigration agents. Many of those cases are still ongoing, and to be sure some defendants have been convicted of violent crimes. But more than 40 cases have fallen apart, with prosecutors dropping charges or juries acquitting defendants.

Ortega’s office has represented the defendants in most of those cases.

CUAUHTÉMOC ORTEGA:

Cases started getting dismissed or started getting reduced to misdemeanors. That was very confusing for us at the beginning, because we would read the press statements, we’d see the social media posts and we were expecting a case that was serious. And then we would get the evidence, we would review it and we would see something else.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Had you seen something like that before?

CUAUHTÉMOC ORTEGA:

No, this is very unusual to have a complaint filed where there’s factual ambiguities that eventually result in problems for the government’s case. That’s not common.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Greg Bovino would continue leading immigration operations in LA through the summer.

GREGORY BOVINO:

We’re here making Los Angeles a safer place.

CHRIS MAGNUS, Commissioner, CBP, 2021-22:

If you’ve been in policing as I have for many years, you come to realize that protests, civil disorder of various kinds are part of the territory that you have to deal with.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Chris Magnus oversaw Bovino when he was head of Customs and Border Protection during the Biden administration.

CHRIS MAGNUS:

He’s one of those guys that I sort of learned as a chief there, you go into a room and there’s always somebody like the provocateur, the guy that’s not afraid to ask the tough questions, to take the chief on.

In the Border Patrol sector chief meetings, he was that guy.

A.C. THOMPSON:

He told me he was concerned that Bovino and his forces were actually instigating some of the unrest in LA.

CHRIS MAGNUS:

I think there’s evidence of that clearly in terms of some of the videos he made and some of the ways he ginned up his troops. And they were treated like troops. I shouldn’t even—you now, it’s sad that I would even refer to them in that way.

There are always some protesters in any group that take it too far, that probably will need to be arrested. But the smart thing to do is you have a specific group of officers who are trained to be able to go into a crowd and extract those individuals, but to do it in a way that doesn’t inflame the entire group.

A.C. THOMPSON:

But by September, tensions were only rising.

MALE NEWSREADER:

We’re just getting this news.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk has been shot.

ALEX JONES:

Wow, this is unbelievable. Pray for him right now.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Enough is enough.

A.C. THOMPSON:

The killing of Charlie Kirk prompted a wave of harsh rhetoric from the Trump administration.

JD VANCE:

We have to talk about this incredibly destructive movement.

FEMALE VOICE:

—left-wing radicals, and they will be help accountable.

DONALD TRUMP:

And it must stop right now.

A.C. THOMPSON:

And it would set the tone as the administration’s immigration sweeps moved on to a new city: Chicago.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The Department of Homeland Security says it has begun Operation Midway Blitz, targeting Chicago and the state of Illinois.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Gov. Pritzker estimates some 200 ICE agents and 100 vehicles are positioned in and around the city of Chicago.

MALE BORDER PATROL AGENT:

Hey, you speak English? How long have you been in the United States, sir?

MAN ON STREET:

Thirty-five. Thirty-five, yeah. Thirty-five years.

MALE BORDER PATROL AGENT:

Thirty-five years?

MAN ON STREET:

Yeah.

MALE BYSTANDER:

Get the f— out! F— you. Get out of here! F— you!

MALE BORDER PATROL AGENT:

Thank you.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Did these guys just roll up on the first Asian dude he saw?

FEMALE BYSTANDER:

Yeah.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Stop f—— kidnapping people.

MALE BYSTANDER:

F– ICE, f— Trump.

A.C. THOMPSON:

As in LA, agents met fierce resistance here.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Yeah, you’ve got to cover your face.

MALE FEDERAL AGENT:

What about you? Do you have your documents? Is this a copy of it, or what?

MALE DETAINEE:

A copy.

MALE FEDERAL AGENT:

OK.

FEMALE VOICE:

F— Bovino! He’s here!

MALE BYSTANDER:

Bovino, whatever his name is.

MALE VOICE:

You’re a p—-.

FEMALE VOICE:

We’re watching you.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Greg Bovino had been given a new title: Commander-at-Large for Immigration Operations.

GREGORY BOVINO:

How long have you done the concrete?

MALE WORKER:

Eight years.

GREGORY BOVINO:

Eight years? Wow, I can tell you do a good job. I wish I could write my name in the cement there. [Laughs]

A.C. THOMPSON:

I wanted to interview Bovino about what I’d been seeing here in Chicago and in LA.

Can you tell us anything about what’s going on today? We’re with PBS.

GREGORY BOVINO:

It’s just called Title 8 immigration enforcement.

A.C. THOMPSON:

OK. Are you just stopping people who are doing yard work, or—

GREGORY BOVINO:

Title 8 immigration enforcement.

A.C. THOMPSON:

OK.

GREGORY BOVINO:

C4? These are good.

Hey, thank you, sir. Appreciate you. Have a good day.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Hey, Commander, we’d love to arrange an interview for PBS. What’s the best way to do that?

GREGORY BOVINO:

Yeah, if you would notify our public affairs officer.

What’s your name again?

A.C. THOMPSON:

It’s A.C. Thompson.

GREGORY BOVINO:

A.C. Thompson.

A.C. THOMPSON:

I would keep trying to get an interview with him and others at the agency.

ART DEL CUETO, Frm. V.P., Border Patrol union:

Border Patrol agents, they don’t wake up in the morning and say, “Let me see who I can hurt today.”

A.C. THOMPSON:

I was able to speak to Art Del Cueto, a retired Border Patrol agent and former spokesman for the Border Patrol union.

The kind of thing we were seeing is we’re following the convoy of Border Patrol agents, and they’re stopping at the person doing landscaping, and they’re stopping at the person doing construction work on a house. Then they’re rolling through a strip mall and the first person they see who’s not white ends up in a vehicle. And I think that’s the thing that a lot of Americans find concerning.

ART DEL CUETO:

Well, I mean, they’re arresting it based on intel that they have. You’re not going to go into a lawyer or attorney building and start, you know, “Hey, maybe these guys,” because they’ve actually—they have a status.

You go into areas where you realize that whatever crime you’re looking for, that’s the area of higher volume of those types of criminals. But I just, I don’t see it as, “Hey, they’re arresting brown people.” And I think a lot of it gets overhyped. Nobody wants to focus on, no, we’re arresting individuals because they’ve committed a crime, or we’re arresting individuals because they’ve circumvented immigration law.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Del Cueto now works for a group that advocates for mass deportation. He told me he’d been in touch with agents in LA and Chicago.

ART DEL CUETO:

Many of them said, look, there was times when we were in neighborhoods and we were surrounded. I spoke to one agent that said, “Our vehicles, the tires were destroyed. There was so much chaos that when we came back into our vehicles to leave, the partner that I had in my group, on the passenger, he was no longer there.”

MALE NEWSREADER:

Here in Broadview we have had a huge crowds of protesters coming out every Friday for the past month.

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

The people united will never be defeated.

A.C. THOMPSON:

The Chicago suburb of Broadview was the site of some of the most intense protests against the immigration sweeps.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

You’re here protecting them. You know this s— is wrong. You know it’s wrong.

A.C. THOMPSON:

On the morning of Oct. 3 about 200 demonstrators gathered in front of an immigration processing center.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the ICE processing center this morning.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was on the scene, accompanied by her own video team.

The Benny Show

BENNY JOHNSON:

I just wanted to show everybody exactly how nice it is out here.

A.C. THOMPSON:

As was Benny Johnson, a pro-Trump influencer showcasing the operation.

KRISTI NOEM:

You look at these protesters out here, they don’t care about America. They don’t care about freedom. They don’t care about what this country is and how special it is. Well, we’re going to remind them today.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Johnson showed Bovino preparing to confront the angry crowd.

GREGORY BOVINO:

That crowd there is an unsafe crowd. On either side we’re going to roll them all out of the way here. And when they resist, what happens?

MALE FEDERAL AGENT:

They get arrested.

GREGORY BOVINO:

They get arrested.

JUAN MUÑOZ:

For me, as an elected official, it was important for me to be present, to witness what’s happening.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Juan Muñoz came to the protest from a neighboring suburb.

Tell me about Oct. 3. Take me through what happened that day.

JUAN MUÑOZ:

Yeah, so, federal agents started to gather near the fence and started marching towards the protesters.

MALE PROTESTER:

F— you, Greg Bovino! You’re the scum of the earth!

KYLE FRANKOVICH:

The Illinois State Police were kind of maintaining us in the “free speech zone” in which we were allowed to be.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Kyle Frankovich was a protester in the crowd that day.

MALE PROTESTER:

Get the f— out of our state, you fascist scum!

KYLE FRANKOVICH:

Gregory Bovino, he’s in charge of the facility there. He started to yell at the crowd, saying, “We’re going to clear you out.”

GREGORY BOVINO:

Hey, listen, you’ve got one warning, one warning only. This is an unlawful assembly. Everybody will move down the block and to the right or you’re going to be arrested.

MALE PROTESTER:

F— you, Greg Bovino!

JUAN MUÑOZ:

And as soon as he turned back to his own agents he said, “OK, start to arrest them.”

MALE PROTESTER:

He is threatening to arrest everybody if we don’t move. It’s happening right now.

COLE SHERIDAN:

They start pushing people off of where Illinois State Police had told us, you can be here.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Cole Sheridan was also there, seen in footage wearing a white bike helmet.

COLE SHERIDAN:

They start yelling at us, “Move back, move back or you’ll get arrested.”

MALE FEDERAL AGENT:

Move, move, move.

JUAN MUÑOZ:

And people started to move back, but that’s when they started to grab folks from the crowd.

MALE PROTESTER:

The whole world is watching!

JUAN MUÑOZ:

I was holding my phone and had my hands up. There was no aggression. But I felt somebody be taken down behind me.

MALE PROTESTER:

He wasn’t doing s—!

JUAN MUÑOZ:

I tried to sidestep it, and as soon as I moved to the side, I felt somebody grab my shoulder and pull me to the ground.

MALE PROTESTER:

You guys are a bunch of fascists, what the f—!

JUAN MUÑOZ:

And once I fell onto my back, that’s when I saw it was Greg Bovino. And he told me, “Turn over on your stomach, you’re under arrest.” And as I was turning, I was telling him and whoever he told to arrest me that I was an elected official. And that met with no response, and they took me away into the parking lot.

MALE PROTESTER:

Quit your job! Quit your job!

COLE SHERIDAN:

There are people behind me, I can’t move back, they’re pushing me.

MALE BORDER PATROL AGENT:

Move back!

COLE SHERIDAN:

Then I see the person next to me get grabbed and pulled down. I try to pick him up. I get pushed over by two agents, end up on top of this person. I have to kind of push myself up to let him out from under me, but there’s already two or three agents on top of me at this point. They have their knee on my back. They’re screaming at me, “Stop resisting, stop resisting.” They pick me up. On my left arm, I’m being held by this very worked-up agent who immediately starts shaking me by the arm and saying, “Stop resisting, stop resisting.” The agent on my other arm barks at this guy like, “Hey, you’ve got to calm down.”

A.C. THOMPSON:

Not long after Cole Sheridan, Kyle Frankovich was also arrested.

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

Let him go! Let him go!

KYLE FRANKOVICH:

They violently grabbed my arms behind my back, zip-tied me and then started marching me to where they were putting the other dozen or so of us who were arrested that day.

COLE SHERIDAN:

I’m asking, “Who’s detaining me? What am I being detained for?” Eventually, supervisor comes up and says, “Well, you attacked Greg Bovino.” And I was like, “Who is that?” She said, “Well, he’s the head of Border Patrol.”

A.C. THOMPSON:

Did you think that you were doing anything that would lead to your arrest when you got grabbed?

COLE SHERIDAN:

No. No. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced something truly that bizarre and absurd as seeing a law enforcement agent concoct a narrative to arrest me, to press charges against me. And that was extremely unnerving.

The Benny Show

BENNY JOHNSON:

These are exactly the kind of people that we want to be pissing off.

A.C. THOMPSON:

From the scene, Benny Johnson touted the arrests to his millions of followers.

BENNY JOHNSON:

Probably about a dozen left-wing terrorists arrested for attacking police officers and ICE officers.

These individuals assaulted ICE officers.

KYLE FRANKOVICH:

Benny Johnson was embedded with ICE. He was filming and recording and streaming that day, and I can directly be seen in the video along with everybody else I was detained with, as he describes us as being violent extremists who had assaulted federal officers. He made similar statements on his Twitter account as well, with that video being shown with the posts.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Of the 12 people arrested and shown in the video, only one was charged: Cole Sheridan. He was held for four days for allegedly assaulting Bovino. But prosecutors dropped the case after video contradicted the claims.

A.C. THOMPSON:

If there hadn’t been a bunch of cameras there—Benny Johnson, the right-wing influencer, Secretary Noem—if they hadn’t been there, do you think you would have been arrested?

COLE SHERIDAN:

It seems unlikely given how truly weak their case was. I would kind of imagine that a huge part of it was publicity. Another part of it was trying to terrify people and try to scare people away from protesting and speaking their mind.

MALE PROTESTER:

They can’t stop us from protesting.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Over the course of a month in the Chicago area, we found more than 100 people who’d been arrested as they participated in demonstrations or documented the immigration raids.

Like in LA, a majority of the cases had been falling apart, with prosecutors dropping charges in at least 75 cases so far.

In a statement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said that nearly all the cases were “reactive arrests made by law enforcement in the field.” And they said their “willingness to be open-minded and dismiss cases” reflected “our commitment to do the right thing,” even when a crime was committed.

CHRISTY LOPEZ, DOJ Civil Rights Division, 2010-17:

They are saying things happened when they didn’t happen, and then hoping that prosecutors will move forward on those charges. And for the most part, prosecutors are not, I think in part because you have more video footage available than you did in the past, and in part because prosecutors are aware that juries are not as quick to defer to federal law enforcement as they used to be.

MALE PROTESTER [on video]:

Watch out, watch out.

MALE FEDERAL AGENT:

Get back, get back!

A.C. THOMPSON:

Christy Lopez spent years investigating law enforcement misconduct for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. We showed her footage of the protests and arrests at Broadview.

CHRISTY LOPEZ:

One of the things I think is how much like a war zone those places look, and they don’t need to be. These are people protesting an ICE facility. They don’t have weapons. There aren’t that many of them. They appear to be peacefully protesting. Some civil disobedience sometimes, but very mild. Most departments have handled protests like this have gone on for weeks, sometimes months, without that level of militaristic response. There is no threat in most of these instances. And you’re using force that is at best possibly lethal to force that can be quite likely lethal.

PROTESTERS [chanting]:

Lock him up! Lock him up!

A.C. THOMPSON:

Bovino later spoke about the arrests at Broadview in a deposition for a federal lawsuit against him and DHS.

GREGORY BOVINO:

I believe that all uses of force that I’ve seen and all arrests that I’ve seen have been more than exemplary.

A.C. THOMPSON:

The federal judge in that case admonished Bovino and his agents for how they were operating and ordered limits on their use of tear gas and other weapons unless facing imminent physical threat.

ENRIQUE BAHENA:

Yeah, Bovino, he was right there.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Enrique Bahena was a witness in the case.

ENRIQUE BAHENA:

They’re the ones violent. They’re the ones shooting tear gas into communities. They’re the ones shooting pepper balls.

A.C. THOMPSON:

He was filming immigration agents from his bike two weeks after the court order came down.

ENRIQUE BAHENA:

There’s like 10 cars of them, they’re all right there.

The day that I got the pepper ball to the neck, everyone was just telling them to get out.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Do you have video of it?

ENRIQUE BAHENA:

It’s right here.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Was anybody throwing stuff at them? Was anybody hitting them with anything?

ENRIQUE BAHENA:

Nope, not at all. Everyone was just telling them to leave.

A.C. THOMPSON:

That’s you, and that’s you getting it.

ENRIQUE BAHENA:

Yep.

A.C. THOMPSON:

And are you yelling anything or saying anything right then? You’re just filming.

ENRIQUE BAHENA:

Nope. I didn’t say a single word.

A.C. THOMPSON:

You have your Meta glasses on.

ENRIQUE BAHENA:

Yep.

A.C. THOMPSON:

The court order was eventually overturned and the restrictions lifted.

The Border Patrol still wasn’t granting me an interview. But as the operations were getting more violent, a source within DHS agreed to talk—if we concealed their identity.

ANONYMOUS DHS SOURCE:

I think it’s important the public knows that there’s people out there who are also outraged at the operations being conducted, the way that agents, officers are behaving and conducting business. You know you’re in the wrong when thousands, hundreds of people are coming out and yelling at you. I don’t even tell people who I work for anymore because I’m ashamed of that.

A.C. THOMPSON:

And do you think there’s more people that feel the way you do?

ANONYMOUS DHS SOURCE:

I know there is, at least a few for sure.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Do you think we’re going to end up seeing any of these agents who may have been engaged in misconduct held accountable?

ANONYMOUS DHS SOURCE:

No, I don’t. Not in this current administration.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Hundreds of protests are underway or planned nationwide today in response to the deadly Minneapolis shooting of Renée Good by an ICE agent.

A.C. THOMPSON:

So we’re in Minneapolis. It’s a few days after federal agents shot Renée Good. We’re hearing that there’s going to be more federal agents coming to town, like a thousand. That’s what the news is saying. I’m trying to figure out what this is all going to look like.

We’ve got to get out!

Daily confrontations were going on between protesters and immigration agents.

MALE PROTESTER:

Murderers! Remember that you are murderers!

MALE PROTESTER:

F— you all, motherf——!

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The White House today doubling down on their support for the operations.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Go home!

A.C. THOMPSON:

We were reporting in the neighborhood where Renée Good had been killed.

MALE PROTESTER:

Go home!

MALE PROTESTER:

We don’t need gas masks or more guns.

PROTESTER:

What’s that about?

A.C. THOMPSON:

Agents were surrounding and questioning a man.

PROTESTER:

Take your guns home. We don’t want guns in our neighborhoods.

MALE PROTESTER:

We don’t need that f—— hardware. It’s ridiculous.

A.C. THOMPSON:

People were coming out of their houses.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Get the f— out. You don’t belong here.

A.C. THOMPSON:

The agents started to leave.

MALE PROTESTER:

Get the f— out of here. Move out, you heard them.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Bye!

A.C. THOMPSON:

One protester was pepper sprayed in the face at close range.

MALE PROTESTER:

That’s not necessary. You’re f—— breaking cars. Get the f— out of here.

A.C. THOMPSON:

I spoke with the man they were questioning, Christian Molina. He said the officers had rammed his vehicle.

CHRISTIAN MOLINA:

They hit my car for no reason, man. They hit me.

MALE REPORTER:

What happened?

CHRISTIAN MOLINA:

They followed me for no reason and hit my car. They looked at me and they decided to pull me over for no reason. You believe that?

A.C. THOMPSON:

That Ford SUV?

CHRISTIAN MOLINA:

Yep. I’m a U.S. citizen.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Oh, here, careful.

Suddenly, someone threw a snowball in the direction of the agents. One of them tossed a tear gas canister into the crowd.

MALE PROTESTER:

You’re tear gassing a f—— neighborhood!

FEMALE PROTESTER:

It’s people!

MALE PROTESTER:

People live here!

A.C. THOMPSON:

An agent pepper sprayed protesters and a news photographer up close. Another fired pepper balls into the crowd. I was hit three times.

I got shot repeatedly with pepper balls.

MALE PROTESTER:

This isn’t a f—— war zone, this is a f—— neighborhood!

FEMALE BYSTANDER 1:

I was in the car. They threw s— underneath the f—— car. Yes.

FEMALE BYSTANDER 2:

I can’t see.

MALE PROTESTER:

Shame on you!

MALE PROTESTER:

I need help. I need help.

A.C. THOMPSON:

As they left, an agent shot pepper spray from his window. It hit my colleagues in the face.

You need this? Here. Give me the camera, give me the—

FEMALE PROTESTER:

Water! I’ve got water.

MALE REPORTER:

Was that spray? Did they just spray from a moving vehicle?

A.C. THOMPSON:

In the months I had been covering this story, I’d seen the same pattern everywhere we went: Federal agents using weapons like tear gas and pepper spray against protesters and bystanders. The courts would try to rein them in, but they’d move on to the next city and do the same things.

On local TV, Bovino was unapologetic.

GREGORY BOVINO:

We’re here to conduct that Title 8 mission. It won’t stop despite rioters, agitators and vast amounts of violence against federal officers. We’re not going to stop.

A.C. THOMPSON:

I showed footage from the scene to Christy Lopez.

MALE PROTESTER [on video]:

You’re tear gassing a f—— neighborhood!

FEMALE PROTESTER [on video]:

It’s people!

MALE PROTESTER [on video]:

People live here!

CHRISTY LOPEZ:

We see just use of excessive force after use of excessive force. In no scenario is it OK to be pepper spraying people as you’re leaving the scene. It’s just they’re mad, they’re scared, they’re able to get away with it, so they’re just using the power they have to use force against people.

A.C. THOMPSON:

I also showed our footage to Chris Magnus.

MALE PROTESTER [on video]:

This isn’t a f—— war zone, this is a f—— neighborhood!

CHRIS MAGNUS:

It’s pretty awful. One of the things in policing when it comes to use of force, it’s proportionality. Is the force really proportional to what you’re receiving or what you are dealing with? People may well get under your skin under a lot of circumstances. You don’t like it, but professionals don’t react to it.

MALE PROTESTER:

This is what our country has become? Take off your vests, walk away and say that you will not allow this to ruin our country. You have a chance to rectify this. You have a chance to do right by your country that you’re so proud of.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Bovino never ended up doing an interview with me.

FEMALE PROTESTER:

F— off! F— you!

A.C. THOMPSON:

The Trump administration was continuing to express support for how the operations were being conducted.

STEPHEN MILLER:

To all ICE officers: You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties.

A.C. THOMPSON:

They reposted comments by Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller.

STEPHEN MILLER:

You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one—no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist—can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duty.

MALE VOICE:

You ready?

JACOB FREY, Mayor, Minneapolis:

Yep, let’s do it.

We are asking this federal government to stop the unconstitutional conduct that is invading our streets each and every day.

A.C. THOMPSON:

I met with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey as he and other Minnesota leaders announced a lawsuit they hoped would end the crackdown.

JACOB FREY:

We’ve got about 600-plus police officers in the city of Minneapolis, and ICE and border control is coming in here with approximately 3,000 or more. And so this is massively disproportionate.

A.C. THOMPSON:

We’ve been in the streets here. It is tense. Are you worried that more people are going to be hurt or killed?

MAYOR JACOB FREY

Yes.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Twelve days later, 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti tries to intervene as federal agents knock a woman down.

They repeatedly pepper spray him.

FEMALE BYSTANDER:

Whoa! What the f—, people. What the f— is wrong with you?

A.C. THOMPSON:

He is pinned on the ground.

Video shows an agent removing a legally owned handgun that Pretti had in a holster.

Then—10 shots.

FEMALE WITNESS:

[Screaming] What the f— did you just do? What the f— did you just do? What the f— did you do?

GREGORY BOVINO:

This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Alex Pretti’s killing was a turning point.

MALE WITNESS:

[Screaming] You are so evil!

MALE NEWSREADER:

Sworn declarations were submitted in federal court by people who say they witnessed the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti. They contradict the version of events presented by federal officials.

MALE NEWSREADER:

The U.S. Border Patrol commander-at-large has been demoted amid the fallout.

A.C. THOMPSON:

Greg Bovino would quickly be dismissed.

MALE NEWSREADER:

President Trump facing growing scrutiny within his own party over how this immigration crackdown is being handled.

A.C. THOMPSON:

And amid political pressure that now included Republicans, the president sent Border Czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis.

TOM HOMAN:

I’m not here because the federal government has carried its mission out perfectly. President Trump and I, along with others in the administration, have recognized that certain improvements could and should be made. That’s exactly what I’m doing here.

SERGIO OLMOS:

Even though Gregory Bovino is gone, I wonder if his imprint will last through all the federal agencies that are continuing to go out in the street. I wonder if anything will change, really. He was the one who was the tip of the spear for this new type of immigration enforcement across the country.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Sixty-five percent say Immigration and Customs Enforcement has gone too far.

A.C. THOMPSON:

The mass sweeps and violent clashes have subsided for now. But immigration arrests continue in large numbers, and in cities around the country, there are deep scars, and fear about what lies ahead.

DIRECTED BYnnGabrielle Schonder

WRITTEN & PRODUCED BYnnA.C. Thompson &nnGabrielle Schonder

CO-PRODUCED BYnnTimothy GruczannChris O’CoinnnAlana SchwartznnKeira Kennedy

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EXECUTIVE ASSISTANTnnEllen O’Neill

DIRECTOR OF IMPACT AND EXTERNAL RELATIONSnnErika Howard

SENIOR DIGITAL WRITERnnPatrice Taddonio

PUBLICITY & AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT COORDINATORnnJulia Heffernan

SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERnnKyle Russo

ASSISTANT DIGITAL EDITORnnAmbika Kandasamy

ASSOCIATE DIGITAL EDITORnnMackenzie Wright

DIGITAL PRODUCER / EDITORnnTessa Maguire

DIRECTOR OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONSnnAnne Husted Blatt

ARCHIVES & RIGHTS MANAGERnnJohn Campopiano

BUSINESS MANAGERnnSean Gigliotti

FOR GBH LEGALnnEric BrassnnSuzy CarringtonnnJay Fialkov

SENIOR CONTRACTS MANAGERnnGianna DeGiulio

BUSINESS DIRECTORnnSue Tufts

SENIOR DIRECTOR, BUSINESS & OPERATIONSnnMary Sullivan

SENIOR DEVELOPERnnAnthony DeLorenzo

LEAD, DIGITAL DESIGN & INTERACTIVEnnDan Nolan

FRONTLINE/COLUMBIA JOURNALISM SCHOOL FELLOWSHIPnnTOW JOURNALISM FELLOWnnJala Everett

FRONTLINE/NEWMARK JOURNALISM SCHOOL AT CUNY FELLOWSHIPnnTOW JOURNALISM FELLOWnnLeo MirandannSunny Nagpaul

FRONTLINE/MISSOURI SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM FELLOWSHIPnnMURRAY JOURNALISM FELLOWnnSkye Lucas

PBS CREATIVE VOICES FELLOWSHIPnnDIGITAL PRODUCERnnTasnia Choudhury

AUDIO STRATEGY DIRECTORnnJoel Patterson

ARCHIVAL PRODUCERnnCoral C. Salomón Bartolomei

SENIOR DIGITAL PRODUCER / EDITORnnMiles Alvord

SENIOR DOCUMENTARY EDITOR & PRODUCERnnMichelle Mizner

DIGITAL EDITORnnPriyanka Boghani

STORY EDITOR & COORDINATING PRODUCERnnKatherine Griwert

POST COORDINATING PRODUCERnnRobin Parmelee

SENIOR EDITOR AT LARGEnnLouis Wiley Jr.

FOUNDERnnDavid Fanning

SPECIAL COUNSELnnDale Cohen

SENIOR PRODUCER,nnDIGITAL AND AUDIENCEnnNicki DeMarco

SENIOR PRODUCERSnnDan EdgennFrank Koughan

SENIOR EDITOR & DIRECTOR,nnLOCAL JOURNALISMnnErin Texeira

SENIOR SERIES EDITORnnLauren Ezell Kinlaw

MANAGING EDITORnnAndrew Metz

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER & EDITOR-IN-CHIEFnnRaney Aronson-Rath

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