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The Raid

John Carlos Frey

Hosted by six-time Emmy Award winner John Carlos Frey, THE RAID PODCAST is a deep dive into the frontlines of the ICE and Border Patrol immigration raids being implemented by the Trump administration. With an expert team of journalists and community members, the ever changing landscape and stories of the “mass deportation” are documented and broadcast. Learn firsthand what the raids feel like, whether they are lawful and what is happening to the people swept up by the unprecedented and ever increasing show of force.

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Avg 29 min
English

Episodes 36

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#146
Friday · 12 min
ICE at the Polls?
Election Day is weeks away, and the officials who control armed federal law enforcement still won't say a simple word: no. Host John Carlos Frey breaks down the pattern building since February 2026 — FBI Director Kash Patel's refusal, under direct questioning from the Senate Judiciary Committee, to commit that FBI agents will stay away from polling places; DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin's “specific threat” exception for ICE deployment at voting sites; a bipartisan warning letter from a dozen sen
#145
Thursday · 47 min
Fixing America's Broken Immigration System
Host John Carlos Frey sits down with immigration attorney and author Robert Coughlon Jr. to discuss his new book, Fixing Immigration in America: A Commonsense Plan for Immigration Reform. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience in family-based immigration and deportation defense — and a personal history that includes his father's career as a Border Patrol agent, INS adjudicator, immigration attorney, and eventually immigration judge — Coughlon lays out a middle ground approach to one of the
#144
Tuesday · 14 min
A 3,000-Child Detention Camp
In the summer of 2026, the Department of Health and Human Services quietly published a federal procurement notice most Americans never saw. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is asking contractors to design, build, and run an "emergency intake facility" — a campus capable of holding up to 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children at a single site. In this episode of The Raid, host John Carlos Frey investigates the government's case for a mega-facility — surge capacity, efficiency, and faster c
#143
September 11 · 8 min
All Immigration Judges Should Quit
George Pappas spent twenty years as an immigration attorney before becoming an immigration judge in 2023. Two years later, he was fired by email — three sentences, no explanation, the same day as a dozen colleagues around the country. Pappas has advocated for all immigration judges to quit since they are working within a corrupt and broken system. In this episode, we break down Pappas's account, the data behind the wave of judicial firings and resignations, why immigration courts sit inside the
#142
September 10 · 51 min
Memo Torres Won't Give Up
They want you exhausted. That's the strategy. Journalist Memo Torres returns to The Raid to talk about ICE burnout — and why staying engaged might be the most radical thing you can do right now. After more than a year of escalating ICE raids, record detentions, and rising deaths in custody, host John Carlos Frey asks the hard question — how do we stay engaged when the trauma never stops? Torres opens up about the toll of covering immigration enforcement every day, the friends and rapid-response
#141
September 8 · 32 min
Countdown to November — A Warning
Before you press play, host John Carlos Frey wants you to know what this episode is. More than a year ago, a source he's worked with for close to 15 years — someone who has never once given him bad information — told him a specific set of things was coming. All five have now happened. But there's a sixth thing the source described — a plan to engineer chaos or violence at the polls this November and pin it on the political left, potentially opening the door to the Insurrection Act, ICE deployme
#140
September 4 · 40 min
She Fled Guatemala to Save Her Children
Veteran journalist Charles Fleming returns to The Raid to tell the story of Maritza, an asylum seeker from Guatemala who survived decades of abuse before finding refuge in the United States. Host John Carlos Frey and Fleming trace Maritza's six-year journey through the U.S. asylum system: her legal border crossing to request protection, the landmark policy that first recognized domestic-violence survivors from Central America as a protected class, and the grueling process of proving her trauma
#139
September 3 · 46 min
Married to a U.S. Citizen - Detained by ICE Anyway
Tatiana came to the United States from Russia on a legal visa and is married to a U.S. citizen. Five and a half months ago, she was arrested by ICE outside the Santa Monica studio where she worked as a tattoo artist — no warrant, no charges, no explanation. Her husband, Amir Modaraei, joins The Raid to tell the full story: how a 911 call during a rough patch in their relationship put Tatiana on ICE's radar, how an agent allegedly surveilled and harassed the couple for nine months before her arre
#138
September 1 · 11 min
Six Months Later: Facts Behind Renee Goode's Death
On January 7th, a 37-year-old mother of three named Renee Goode was shot and killed by an ICE agent on a residential street in south Minneapolis — two blocks from an elementary school. The federal government says she tried to run the agent over with her car and called it an act of domestic terrorism. Her family, eyewitnesses, and an independent autopsy tell a very different story. Six to seven months later, the state of Minnesota still hasn't been given full access to the evidence that could se
#137
August 28 · 11 min
Sovereignty Ignored: A Federal Raid on Tribal Land
Armed CBP agents and contractors entered Tohono O'odham land before dawn, blocked tribal police from enforcing their own law, and brought in a SWAT team to protect the work. Before sunrise on August 25, roughly twenty masked, armed CBP agents crossed onto the Tohono O'odham Nation alongside border wall contractors — Tribal police were blocked from making arrests. A CBP tactical unit, a surveillance balloon, and coordination with Mexican police followed. John Carlos Frey breaks down what the T
#135
August 27 · 47 min
From Undocumented Kid to Vice Mayor
John Carlos Frey sits down with Carlos Garcia — former executive director of the human rights organization Puente Human Rights Movement, former Vice Mayor of Phoenix, and longtime immigrant rights organizer. In this conversation, Garcia and Frey trace the roots of today's ICE raids back to Arizona's Sheriff Arpaio era and the state laws — SB 1070, the 287(g) program, English-only policies, and more — that turned local law enforcement into de facto immigration agents. This is a candid, wide-ra
#136
August 25 · 15 min
ICE Was Outside Her Town Hall
A local officer runs the plates on a Ford Explorer parked outside a town hall — and the story the driver gives him falls apart within minutes. In this episode of The Raid, host John Carlos Frey breaks down what happened outside Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's August 6th town hall in Richfield, Minnesota, when a woman claiming to be private security turned out to be a federal Homeland Security Investigations agent. This episode looks past the single parking-lot encounter to ask a bigger question: wha
#134
August 21 · 8 min
How Migrant Children Became Bait
A father in New Mexico thought he was going to an interview to reunite with his kids. Instead, ICE put him in chains. On this episode of The Raid, John Carlos Frey traces how the Trump administration is using migrant children in federal custody as leverage to locate and detain their parents and relatives — and how that's just one piece of a much bigger strategy to dismantle long standing protections for migrant children and to fast track their deportation. This is a story assembled from public
#133
August 20 · 14 min
A Border Patrol Killing They Tried to Bury
Host John Carlos Frey investigates the killing of Isaias Sanchez Barbosa, a 31-year-old man shot three times by a Border Patrol agent on a private ranch in Starr County, Texas, on December 11th. Frey lays out how this case fits a long-running pattern: agency self-investigation, a fast public statement built on the same handful of justifying phrases, records that surface only when a reporter or a lawsuit forces them out, and grand juries that almost never indict. He also makes the case for why a
#132
August 18 · 45 min
A Year of People Getting Taken - Izzy Ramirez
For over a year, LA Taco staff reporter Izzy Ramirez has been on the ground documenting ICE and Border Patrol raids across Southern California — logging arrests, archiving footage, and standing between agents and the communities they're targeting. In this deeply personal follow-up conversation, host John Carlos Frey asks the question most interviews skip: what has doing this work actually done to you? Izzy opens up about the drinking, the public "crash outs" on social media, the nights he can't
#131
August 14 · 43 min
ICE Is Political Violence — with Eric Ward
Host John Carlos Frey sits down with longtime civil rights organizer Eric Ward — Executive Vice President of Race Forward and a Senior Fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center — to unpack the argument at the center of his recent Colorlines essay, "The Latest ICE Surge Is Political Violence." Drawing on nearly four decades of organizing work, Ward lays out why he believes the current wave of ICE enforcement is not simply aggressive immigration policy, but a deliberate campaign of political intim
#130
August 13 · 32 min
ICE Is Paramilitary — ACLU's Naureen Shah
ICE has become a national deportation policing force — and according to a bombshell new ACLU report, it's operating with a level of violence and impunity America has never seen before. In this episode of The Raid, host John Carlos Frey sits down with Naureen Shah, Director of Government Affairs for the Equality Division at the American Civil Liberties Union and a longtime human rights lawyer, researcher, and advocate. Naureen leads the ACLU's immigration policy and advocacy work and previously
#129
August 11 · 54 min
Filming ICE with Mr. Checkpoint
Host John Carlos Frey sits down with Sennett Devermont — known online as Mr. Checkpoint — the Southern California activist who built a nationwide alert network for DUI checkpoints, ICE operations, and police activity. Sennett traces his journey from a 2011 San Diego State student warning classmates about unconstitutional, unpublicized checkpoints to becoming one of the most recognizable "film the police" advocates in the country. The two also confront the sharper edges of the moment: the lack o
#128
August 7 · 37 min
He Did His Time Then They Deported Him
For months, The Raid has covered America's deportation machine through the eyes of journalists, experts, and activists — but the voices most missing from the conversation have been the immigrants living it. In this episode, host John Carlos Frey sits down with veteran journalist Charles Fleming, a 40-year newsroom journalist and former Los Angeles Times editor, who came out of retirement to find and tell the personal stories that mainstream media can't — often under strict anonymity, because the
#127
August 6 · 53 min
Senator Sasha Renée Pérez on ICE Raids & Saving Democracy
At just 27, Sasha Renée Pérez became the youngest female mayor in San Gabriel Valley history. Now she's the youngest member of the California State Senate — and she's using that seat to take on ICE. Host, John Carlos Frey sits down with Senator Pérez to talk about her journey from Alhambra City Council to Sacramento, and the wave of legislation she's championing to protect immigrant communities across California. Pérez talks candidly about the online threats she receives, why she believes con

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