The Bethlehem Project: An immigration raid divides a community

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0:34In a half mile, take the Pennsylvania 378 South exit toward Bethlehem.

0:48I'm walking down Main Street in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and it almost kind of feels like a movie set of an American small town. You know, tree-lined streets, black lampposts, brick sidewalks, cute little restaurants and shops and coffee shops. And not far from where I'm standing in downtown is the rusting remains of the former steelworks. Bethlehem's a former steel town. And it kind of feels like the ghost of Bethlehem's past a little bit, very symbolically looming over the town. It's also just a symbol of pride and like a symbol of, you know, those working class roots. Bethlehem is a wonderful place because there's so many different people and walks of life.

1:36It's a historic town, but I think it's pushing towards the future. The town has successfully transitioned to other industries like tech, logistics, education, and health care. We actually passed a major hospital on the way into town. But there's still a lot of economic angst here and political division. I like what the Republicans are doing compared to the Democrats. I don't want to pay health care for illegals. I don't think politicians should be dictating what women should do with their bodies. I really like the ideas of libertarianism. So basically do whatever you want, marry who you want. Not only is Bethlehem a case study of how politics has changed in post-industrial America, it's also a critical area in a critical swing state.

2:37Over the next several years, the Financial Times is going to be taking a close look at Bethlehem to try to understand how big political and economic issues are playing out in people's day-to-day lives. And we're going to bring you an audio version of some of those stories right here on the Swamp Notes podcast. I'm Sonia Hudson, and this is the first episode of our special series on Bethlehem.

3:06I'm joined by the FT's U.S. News Editor, Derek Brower, who has been spearheading the newsroom's Bethlehem project. He's here to talk more about what we can expect from it. Hi, Derek. Hi, Sonia. So tell us a little bit about this project and what you're hoping readers and listeners will get out of it. Well, that's a good question, Sonia. We thought, I think, looking at how we covered the previous election, how American politics is covered in general, that we needed to do something from the ground up and explain how people living in Trump's America were feeling about Trump's America. There's trillions of dollars at stake in how elections are decided.

3:47Bond markets are affected by who wins an election. Housing prices are affected. The global economy is affected. And those elections are decided by people in battleground states and swing states in corners of states like Pennsylvania, like Bethlehem. So that's why we want to go find out how these people are feeling. And why did you pick Bethlehem in particular? We wanted to find a city in America that represented a lot of the themes that are prevalent in the MAGA movement. And so Bethlehem, which, by the way, will be famous to some of our listeners as this place that was the home of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, who steel guarded the Golden Great Bridge and Empire State Building and so on.

4:27And the industrial past is such a big and important theme of politics that Donald Trump has espoused in recent years. So that's the first thing. It also has shifted politically in ways that the country has shifted politically over the past elections. The movements in how people have voted have been towards the winning candidate. The demography is akin to that across the country with Latinos and an African-American population living alongside majority white population. And then fundamentally, it's just a city that I think will allow us to explore some of the big themes of Donald Trump's economy.

5:02That's the crackdown on immigration, the impact of tariffs, his efforts to control inflation, and the hopes and aspirations, but also the anxieties of younger people as they try to fathom or figure out how they're going to get new jobs, live with an AI revolution that they see unfolding in front of them, and afford housing. And the main story in our first episode today is about the crackdown on immigration that you mentioned. We'll get to that in just a second. Derek Brower, the FT's U.S. News Editor, thanks so much for your time. Thanks, Sonia. Right now, someone is asking AI a question about your industry.

5:45They're looking for the perfect recommendation or an accurate solution, and they're ready to act on it. When AI gives an answer, is your brand a part of it or not? Most companies have no idea which. GIST changes that. We show you where you're visible, where you're not, and give you the tools to do something about it. It's time to make AI work for your brand with GIST. Learn more at gist.ai.

6:19U.S. President Donald Trump has made cracking down on immigration a central part of his second term. Cities across the country are experiencing more raids from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, as a result. We're following a massive ICE raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia. Protests erupted in the streets of Los Angeles after immigration officials conducted several raids and arrested dozens of people. Bethlehem is no exception. Back in June, an immigration raid at a construction site sent a chill through the city. Tonight, the Bethlehem community came out to stand in solidarity with 17 people arrested by ICE during a raid.

6:58Now, this was relatively small compared to some of the other immigration enforcement actions across the country this year. But the response in Bethlehem, which is 30 percent Hispanic, highlighted the intense division over how to treat people who work and contribute to society, but also came to the country illegally. The FT's Guy Chazan went to Bethlehem to learn more about this. He joins me now to talk about it. Hi, Guy. Hi. So let's rewind a little to June. Tell me what we know about the raid and any other immigration enforcement actions since then. Well, the men who were detained were construction workers, and they were restoring a place called 510 Flats, which was an apartment complex in the south side of Bethlehem that had been damaged in a fire and they're all led away.

7:48Some people were on the scene and actually photographed it and filmed it on their phones.

7:57But no one in Bethlehem seems to know where the men who were mainly from Venezuela and Mexico are being held or even whether they're still in the United States. There have been further detention since then. For example, one woman I spoke to watched in horror as ICE agents led her husband away. Her husband's called Darwin Contreras, as he was attending a routine appointment at Lehigh County Courthouse, which is just in the neighboring town of Allentown. And he's been in detention ever since. And can you just back up a little bit and talk about how this raid fits in with immigration enforcement that we've seen across the country this year?

8:39Well, ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has really stepped up its activities all over the country. We saw in Los Angeles, for example, how ICE agents raided car parks next to Home Depot stores where Mexican day laborers often gather to pick up work. And this is really coming from the top of the White House. Officials like Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, have been saying how it was important for ICE to really step up its enforcement activities and really pursue undocumented aliens and detain them and possibly deport them. So we're seeing this across the country. Really, what happened in Bethlehem is no exception at all.

9:27Yeah. And like we heard earlier, there was a rally after the raid in support of the people who were arrested. You spoke to someone who helped organize that. Can you tell me about them and how they reacted to the raid when it happened? Well, yes, this is John Irons, who's a local county commissioner. I was born in Ecuador and I was adopted as an infant. And so I grew up outside of Chicago. And so, you know, the immigrant story is part of my story, too. And I went with him to the construction site where the raid happened. We're aware that ICE has been operating for a long time and detaining people, but we haven't seen these large worksite raids in Bethlehem.

10:08He told me that the raid had made him really scared. You know, I know that my citizenship and my status is just a legal decision and that it can be taken away from me, and we need to acknowledge that everyone's at risk. He felt like if they were targeting these men, then really everyone was at risk. Everyone with an immigrant background was at risk of being arrested and possibly deported. And after the raid happened, John Irons helped organize this protest that about 500 people showed up to. Stay loud, stay clear. Immigrants are welcome here. And they were holding up placards that said things like, don't bite the hands that feed you.

10:52And we speak for those you silenced. John Irons described the mood of this protest, but he also said how people generally feel in the city. Yeah, there was a lot of anger. There was a lot of, you know, fear. And this was kind of the moment we're talking about this change in our federal government and what's happening with the expansion of the ICE budget and sort of rise of fascism. And so people were ready to be activated on this. And it's obvious that people are very exercised by these ICE enforcement actions. And really, it's led to waves of protests, not only in big cities like Los Angeles, but also in small communities like Bethlehem.

11:35Well, what do immigration officials have to say about the raid and some of the other arrests that they've made in Bethlehem since then? Well, Homeland Security basically said that these inspections, as they call them, workplace inspections, are critical for targeting illegal employment practices. And they're saying that such practices actually undermine American workers and destabilize labor markets. And one spokesman for the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, has also sort of hit back at criticism of the arrest of Darwin Contreras, saying that he was actually a criminal with convictions and that he was arrested during a court hearing for driving under the influence.

12:21Well, Guy, what about people in the community that were in support of the raid? What did they tell you? They basically said that the people who were arrested in that June raid had broken the law. And, you know, what country is going to just turn and look the other way when people enter the country illegally? There was also a sense of trying to create a kind of deterrent effect as well, I think. We're not going to just sort of turn a blind eye to this illegal immigration, to these undocumented aliens. They are going to be held accountable for breaking the law. So that was the argument that the supporters of this policy were pushing that I spoke to in Bethlehem.

13:05I feel like this conversation that we've been having around the responses to the raid has been very black and white. Did you talk to anyone in Bethlehem whose opinion falls more in the middle? Yes. I mean, for example, the head of the local Chamber of Commerce, Tony Ionelli, he was very, very nuanced on it. He said he was OK with some measures to crack down on immigration. Do I think that, quote unquote, very bad people who have committed very bad crimes, do I think removing them from illegally being here? You know, I think that's OK. But Ian Ali also said that there really should be a pathway for people who have been in the country for a long time and haven't committed any crimes, a pathway for them to achieve citizenship.

13:53There are a lot of good, hardworking people that are, number one, would contribute, but number two, are doing lots of jobs that many people are not lining up to do. And I mean hardworking jobs with a dedication like I've never seen. and that that would actually solve a lot of problems and also be good for the economy. So we've heard takes from across the spectrum throughout this conversation, but do we have any data on how many people fall into these different camps? Well, I think polls show how divided the country is on this. A New York Times Siena poll in September found that 51 % of people thought Trump's actions on immigration had gone too far, but 47 % said they had been just right or not gone far enough.

14:42So there is sort of rising concern about the way this policy is being implemented. But there are still plenty of people who agree with it. Yeah, it's interesting because in some ways, like the imagery or at least the imagery that the Republican Party has put out about the border of all of these people coming across. If you're living in Pennsylvania, that's almost 2 ,000 miles away from you. But it probably feels really different when that immigration enforcement actually comes to your community. Absolutely. And, you know, Bethlehem is 30 percent Hispanic. And from my conversations with people, it became clear that really a lot of the Hispanic people who live in Bethlehem have have been there for decades and are really very, very well entrenched in the community and respected members of the community.

15:36I kept hearing the word hardworking, skilled workers. Something that I feel like we keep coming back to is this idea of contributing economically and whether these immigrants have contributed economically, been hardworking, as you mentioned. And how big of an impact on the economy has Trump's deportation drive had? Well, I think it's increasingly important. And, you know, over the summer, we saw a lot of agricultural workers being arrested and people in the hospitality industry. These are sectors of the economy that have long experienced labor shortages. And you heard farmers, you heard people who own restaurants complaining about the fact that the policies of the Trump administration were actually undermining their business because they were not going to be able to replace the foreign workers that were now being rounded up and in some cases deported.

16:33And there was a really interesting paper put out earlier this year by researchers from the centrist Brookings Institution and the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. And it predicts that a drop in net migration will, quote, put significant downward pressure on growth in the labor force and employment, unquote. And monthly payroll employment growth could be near zero or negative in the next few years. And in fact, the last non-farm payroll report we got shows there has been very little change in employment since April. So there is a kind of economic argument in all of this as well. And that is something that is potentially quite dangerous for the Republican Party and for the Trump White House.

17:19If they pursue these policies too aggressively, they could lead to strains on the economy, which will put off traditional Republican constituencies. What does all this tell you about the approach that each political party has taken on immigration? And maybe also what approach they should take to appeal to voters in a critical area like Bethlehem? Well, I think the overall impression I had from this was that Bethlehem is a swing city, Pennsylvania is a swing state. I think it's one of those things where swing voters or independents are really put off by what the Trump administration is doing in terms of immigration.

18:04They might have wanted the new government to exert greater control over the southern border, but I don't think they envisage these kind of policies, the sort of snatching people in workplaces and at courthouses and so on. And I think among sort of real classic swing voters, there is a sort of revulsion from that. I don't know yet whether it's enough to make them change their minds about the Republican Party and sort of swing them more towards the Democrats. I think it's still a bit early to tell. But it's generally, it could be one of those issues that does emerge as a sort of important factor in the midterm elections next year if the Democrats really harness that in order to win support and win over those wavering voters.

18:55Guy, you mentioned earlier that a lot of people in the community were shocked by this raid. You know, now that it's happened and there's been some time for people to sit with this, where do you think Bethlehem goes from here? Well, it's interesting. There was a very, very robust response and a group of residents created something called the Lehigh Valley Emergency Response Network. We don't set out thinking that we're going to necessarily prevent every ice arrest in the Lehigh Valley. I mean, I think that would be unrealistic. And the idea is that they want to, as the local pastor John Stratton put it to me, They want to be able to sort of monitor ICE actions because ICE is acting in places which it never did before, such as courthouses.

19:43We are documenting any human rights violations, that we are bearing witness to the violence of ICE and the cruelty of ICE. And also provide resources to people who are seeing loved ones and relatives and friends get arrested and deported, providing advice to them, maybe some legal support as well. Guy Chazan covers U.S. politics and the economy for the FT. Thanks, Guy. Thank you.

20:23This was Swamp Notes, the Bethlehem Project, the series where we explore the biggest U.S. economic and political issues through the lens of one city. Our show was edited by Mark Filipino. It was mixed by Sam Giavinko. I'm your host, Sonia Hudson. The FT's acting co-head of audio is Topher Forges. Check back next month for another trip to Bethlehem.

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