New reporting finds immigration agents are using banned chokeholds to make arrests

0:00Support for Here and Now Anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design. MathWorks, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at MathWorks.com. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Federal immigration officers have been using specifically chokeholds and other similar tactics that can restrict people's breathing. ICE agents are using potentially deadly force to make arrests, sometimes using chokeholds that were banned after the murder of George Floyd. It's Tuesday, January 13th, and this is Here and Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR.

0:47I'm Chris Bentley. Today on the show, we get an update from Caracas following the U.S. seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. So oil is reportedly flowing out of Venezuela, which President Trump says is under his control. On the streets, the mood is tense. Well, the country is quiet. It's certainly not in chaos, but there's a good deal of tension. I think the security forces are trying to send a message that nobody should get the idea that there's a political opening. That story coming up in about 10 minutes. But first, after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Macklin-Good in Minneapolis last week, there's widespread outrage over the use of force by federal immigration officers.

1:36Agents have shot several people as they've carried out the president's deportation agenda over the past year. They've also used tasers and tear gas, sometimes on U.S. citizens. And at least 40 times, they've used dangerous techniques like chokeholds to make arrests. Even though police departments and federal agencies have banned those moves in most cases. That's according to Nicole Foy, who looked into this for ProPublica and joined us to talk about it. She told Peter O'Dowd that immigration agents have put civilians' lives at risk, using more than their guns. The most important thing to understand is that amid all this discussion about use of force and what's justified, our investigation has found that over the past year, federal immigration officers have been using specifically chokeholds, neck restraints, and other similar tactics that can restrict people's breathing in ways that are really life-threatening.

2:36They've been doing this for really over the past year, and this is despite the fact that their own DHS, DOJ policy bans many of these restraints, specifically chokeholds and carotid restraints. And then also their training really discourages from kneeling on people's necks, kneeling on people's backs because of the risk that can impose for injuries, but also for, again, restricting breathing in a way that so many of us are familiar with ever since George Floyd's murder in 2020. You have several key examples in your reporting with video footage to back it up. In this video, you can hear an agent pinning a DoorDash driver in Portland, Oregon, face down on the street.

3:21And in Spanish, he is repeatedly screaming for air. Okay. Solo necesito aire. Aire, aire. You know, boss? Okay. Aire.

3:37I just need air, he's saying there in Spanish. So you reviewed these cases with a panel of former high-ranking cops and law enforcement experts. What did they say when they saw that footage? They had many things to say about these different cases, but the kind of overwhelming consensus was police officers across the country are not allowed to use many of these tactics. Many would be disciplined for using these tactics. It has been something that for quite a long time, not even just because of 2020, that it's been discouraged from using, but also what they're describing, what they're seeing in these videos is they called it bad policing.

4:19You know, using it just to get someone to comply or just because someone is resisting or fleeing. And that's not actually what most use of force policy and certainly DHS and DOJ use of force policy allows for this. There has to be a serious risk to someone's life in order to allow this use of deadly force. And in many of the cases that we examined and even asked DHS, you know, what was the cause? What prompted the officer to feel like his life was in danger, that he had to use a chokehold on a 16-year-old U.S. citizen in a store? They couldn't really make clear, sometimes didn't answer, about why it was necessary to use these really dangerous tactics that can seriously injure people.

5:09There's another case I want to ask you about. This one's out of Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Agents stopped a man named Carlos Sebastian Zapata Rivera. You can see in an image, in a video, an agent's finger pressed against the neck of this man who was in his car. What happened? Yeah, that was when ICE officers were trying to arrest specifically the partner of this man. She had some charges for assault that are still pending. and they had their young daughter with them. And essentially what it boiled down to, it was kind of like a little bit more than an hour standoff in which local police were called.

5:50What it came down to was his wife did not want to leave her one-year-old daughter, and he wouldn't let go of his wife and his child. And at some point we reviewed a lot of body cam footage and statements, so we can't quite see what changed, but something changed. and you see in the video the officers reach forward and use a carotid restraint and see the man appear to start seizing. And seizing so violently that his one-year-old child who he's holding on to shakes with him. And again, was there any physical threat to the agent that you could see in that case? Not that we could see and not that DHS could explain.

6:33They had told him, you can hear in the body cam footage before, that they're telling them, they're telling, you know, this family that you need to get out of the car. You need to let go. They really wanted the husband to leave with the child, but then also threatened as well that if he didn't let go, that they would arrest both of them and turn the child over to the state. They really wanted to make this arrest, but they were all sitting in the vehicle. The car's not running. Like it doesn't appear that we could see or anyone could explain to us any type of deadly threat that would prompt that.

7:10After the most recent ICE shooting in Minnesota, I spoke with the former ICE director, John Sandweg, about how agents are trained and what they're legally allowed to do. Let's listen to part of our conversation. We've put our ICE officers out of position, right? We've pulled up Border Patrol agents out of their normal operating environment. A lot more traffic stops, a lot more at-large operations hitting the Home Depot parking lots. We've also, you know, things like that. We've pulled these Border Patrol agents up off the border, which is a completely different operating environment, and put them in large urban areas like Los Angeles, Chicago, you know, Minneapolis.

7:42And Nicole, law enforcement experts you spoke with said something similar about how immigration agents might be unprepared for working away from the border where they're usually housed. Is training a part of the issue here, do you think? I think it is a small part of the issue. It's not the whole issue, mostly because they have been trained to not use these tactics. They've been trained. They're banned from using chokeholds unless they have to use deadly force. But also sometimes when you translate training that you use on the border, tracing human traffickers or drug cartels, That doesn't really always translate super well to neighborhoods and stores where much of the public is not used to seeing federal officers operating in this manner.

8:32These situations spiral out of control very quickly simply because they are often very unplanned and not as targeted as the government repeatedly says they are. It can be hard for people to know who they're arresting, what people may do. And on top of that, there's quite a lot of pushback. There's a lot of people who do not want this happening in their neighborhood. And that just adds to the uncertainty and chaos at the scene of many of these arrests. You say there's a lot of pushback. In fact, we don't know how many of these cases are out there because the government doesn't publicly track how often an agent uses a chokehold or a maneuver that would cut off blood flow to the brain.

9:17Is there any sense that there would be federal investigations in any of these cases, whether there might be any kind of discipline? We've asked and not received any answers about that. But the only answer we've received is that when we sent them all of these cases, all of these videos, including with a lot more follow-up information, the response we got from DHS was that these were reasonable uses of force, that all of their officers act with utmost professionalism. Nicole Foy is a reporter with ProPublica. She co-wrote the story with her colleague Mackenzie Funk. We're going to link you to their work about immigration agents using chokeholds and other banned maneuvers at hereandnow.org.

10:02Nicole, thanks so much. Thank you.

10:08Coming up next, it's been hard to reach people inside Venezuela following the U.S. attack that took down the country's president 10 days ago. After the break, we'll get an update from Caracas.

10:23Thank you.

10:53insurance companies to find you the best fit for your health, your lifestyle, and your budget. And they work for you for free. Get the right life insurance for you and save more than 50 % at selectquote.com slash anytime. That's 50 % off at selectquote.com slash anytime. Venezuela's state oil company is reportedly reopening some wells that were shut down because of an American embargo that targeted the government of former President Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. military seized Maduro in the middle of the night on January 3rd and jailed him in New York on narco-terrorism charges. President Trump has since said he is in control of Venezuela.

11:37And while most of the talk this side of the hemisphere has been about the country's oil, we've been wanting to hear from someone in Venezuela about daily life for the roughly 30 million people who live there, and whether the U.S. intervention will change anything for them for the better. Phil Gunson is a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group. He lives in the capital, Caracas, and tells Indira Lakshmanan, things, for now, are quiet. It's certainly not in chaos, but there's a good deal of tension. I think the security forces are trying to send a message that nobody should get the idea that there's a political opening, not certainly in the immediate future.

12:15So what we're seeing is the colectivos, you know, these armed and uniformed, actually civilians who go around on motorcycles, intimidating people, members of the military as well, police stopping people, asking to see their phones, checking if there's any subversive material on them. So there's a good deal of tension on the streets. All right. Well, the vast majority of Venezuelans didn't vote for Maduro in an election that was stolen back in 2024. They didn't vote for his vice president, Delce Rodriguez, who's now in charge. And they certainly didn't vote for Donald Trump, who this week called himself the acting president of Venezuela.

12:52So where does this leave Venezuelans who supported the opposition to Maduro? Well, that's an excellent question. It currently leaves them nowhere. Of course, we've got this meeting coming up apparently on Thursday between Donald Trump and the leader of the Venezuelan opposition, Maria Corina Machado. Of course, the Nobel Peace Prize winner. And we'll have to see if she can find a way to get a seat at the table, really, because so far what seems to be happening is that the future of Venezuelans is being negotiated over their heads. Mm hmm. Well, President Trump has said he wants stability and democracy in Venezuela.

13:30But aside from Maduro, the rest of that government is still intact. Restoring democracy sounds like providing security for candidates and a free and fair election. Is there any sign that the U.S. is moving in that direction? Well, it's obviously very early days. The first stage of this process, according to Secretary of State Rubio, is the stabilization of the economy, which, of course, depends on this extraordinary operation whereby the U.S. is basically taking control of them as well as exports and apparently going to determine how the proceeds of those exports are spent. And it's quite an undertaking, and it's really not clear how that's going to happen.

14:11But of course, the people here, as you say, I mean, there's still power with the exception of Maduro himself. And they're going to be dragging their feet, especially the people with the guns, the people in the military, the police, the other branches, the security forces, the intelligence services, and so on. Because they really don't want to see any kind of political opening. Their individual and collective futures are very much at stake. Many of them could end up in jail, of course, on human rights charges or trafficking and so on if there were such an opening, if the rule of law were restored.

14:45You've said that those who are in power in Venezuela want revenge. What do you mean and who are they taking out their anger on? Those who, I'm sorry, you're referring to the opposition? No, those who are still in power, meaning Delce Rodriguez and the rest of the Maduro regime. Yes, indeed.

15:33We'll have to see how that plays out. It's very difficult, given the fact that the Venezuela military failed so dismally on Saturday, the 3rd of January, to defend even their president, let alone the rest of the country. They're not in a very good position right now to defend even themselves. President Trump has talked about fixing the economy by seizing the oil. Is that realistic? Well, oil is going to be crucial to the future of Venezuela. The oil industry is in a terrible mess. if Trump can manage to bring in the tens of billions of dollars that are needed to put back together the oil industry.

16:08And that, of course, will be tremendously positive. But it's an enormous undertaking. Phil Gunson is in Caracas, Senior Analyst for the International Crisis Group. Phil, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.

16:30We've got to take one more short break, and we'll be right back.

16:41Support for this podcast comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Mayrothra Institute at Boston University. On the show, host Kurt Nickish asks the thorny questions necessary for this moment about the role business plays in society. Questions like, why are executives paid so much? Why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? And of course, is business broken? Follow Is Business Broken wherever you get your podcasts.

17:16Not two weeks after its extraordinary intervention in Venezuela, the Trump administration is threatening to bomb Iran. Purportedly in support of anti-government protesters there, thousands of whom have been killed in a crackdown on dissent by security forces, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights News Agency. Help is on its way, President Trump said on social media. But many in the government had already been planning to attack Iran before the protests began, according to one Iran hawk who advised Secretary of State Marco Rubio back when he was running for president. That would be Matthew Kroenig, now at the Atlantic Council.

17:55I think what we've seen from President Trump and his kind of peace through strength doctrine is that he's comfortable with short, sharp, decisive uses of force, But he is pretty skeptical about big military interventions, boots on the ground. So if it comes to military action, I would expect airstrikes. And the low-hanging fruit would be Iran's missile program. It's been reported that after the 12-day war of last summer, Iran has been reconstituting its missile program. And there was even discussion between the Israelis and the United States about striking Iran's missile program anyway, even before these protests broke out.

18:33So if there were some kind of airstrikes, I think that the missile program would be an obvious target. You can hear that whole interview now at hereandnow.org. We're also following a move by the administration that turned heads in the real estate business. In a social media post, Trump said he wants to limit Wall Street from buying single-family homes. For years, many have blamed large investors like Blackstone and JPMorgan Chase, who've been buying up homes, for making real estate so expensive. Daryl Fairweather is chief economist at Redfin and told Peter O'Dowd, if you think this is going to make buying a home more affordable, curb your enthusiasm.

19:12First, they have to define what they mean by large investor. Maybe they would ban it based on the size of the company that's buying these homes, or maybe by the number of homes that are being bought. And I think if a home is appealing to one type of large investor, it would also be appealing to small investors. So I think that it probably wouldn't increase supply that's available to first-time buyers. It would probably just shift these homes being bought from large investors to small investors. And I also bet that investors are going to push back on this, especially the large ones who have a lot of money to lobby.

19:46So I'm skeptical that this would get passed in a way that would actually result in the goals that the president is talking about. Well, you make a very interesting point. The CEO of Blackstone, a big investment firm, was a major donor to Trump's campaign. Stock prices of companies like his dropped more than 5 % the day after the president made this post on social media. Are you surprised the president would push for an economic policy that would be tough on real estate companies, his bread and butter? I think it's really cheap talk to say that you're going to ban investors and then say that Congress is going to do it.

20:23It's a win just as a talking point, but I'll believe it when I see it actually passed and become law. I can sense that you're skeptical of this policy. What would be a better solution to bringing the cost of housing down? Well, what we really need to do is increase the supply of housing. We're 4 million homes short in this country, and the reason that housing has gotten so unaffordable is because of that supply shortage. It's really just supply and demand economics. Now, there's another question about how can we make home ownership more accessible as opposed to renting. And if you wanted to do that, I think what I would want is a tax on landlords as opposed to an outright ban on just one specific type of landlord.

21:03I think that would help level the playing field and make it so that investors are investing in something that is more productive to the economy than just buying existing homes. It's better for the economy if they're investing in things that are growing the economy.

21:22We'll keep following that story at hereandnow.org, but that'll do it for today's podcast. Here and Now Anytime comes from NPR and WVUR Boston. Today's stories were produced by Jenea Walker, Jenna Griffiths, and me, Chris Bentley. Our editors were Todd Munt, Michael Scotto, and Kat Welch. Technical direction from Caleb Green and Matt Reed. I wrote the theme music along with Mike Moschetto and Max Liebman. Our digital producers are Allison Hagen and Grace Griffin, and here and now's executive producer is Alan Freis. Thanks for listening. We'll be back with you tomorrow.