When Border Patrol comes to town

0:00Noel King:Last month, Nora Maybe, a reporter in Montana, was looking around on Facebook for story ideas. In Montana, particularly in rural areas, Facebook is where a lot of news is shared. And a post from the local sheriff caught her eye. He said that Border Patrol agents had rocked up outside of business in the very small town of Freud, Montana, to take someone in, and that he, the sheriff, was trying to assist them. But then, at the end of his post, he added this. It's important to note that this man was not a threat, not a danger to his community, has no criminal history, and has been a great member of this community.

0:36Which I just haven't seen a statement like that from law enforcement, particularly in a really, you know, conservative area that typically has a lot of support for all types of law enforcement, Border Patrol included.

0:48Noel King:Coming up on Today Explained, the story of Freud, Montana, a town where most people voted for President Trump, and how residents reacted when reality hit home. Support for this show comes from the Working Forest Initiative. The working forest industry is committed to planting more trees than they harvest. More than 1 billion seedlings are planted in U.S. working forests every year. From biologists to GIS analysts, hiring managers, accountants, and more, Working Forest professionals have dedicated their focus towards sustainability, using their expertise to help ensure a healthy future for America's forests.

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2:19This is Today Explained. I'm Nora Mabee, and I'm a reporter for Montana Free Press.

2:30It's Friday at 9 p.m., and we're pulling into Freud. So I drove into Freud on a Friday night with my colleague Lauren Miller. A big Freud sign. Freud is a deeply conservative rural agricultural community. In the last election, 75 % of voters there supported President Donald Trump. Most farmers grow things like peas, lentils, canola, and wheat. The main street of the town was empty. I know they're playing basketball. I wonder if everybody's at the high school. Basketball is life in these tiny rural communities. I think this is it. We're here. The town has just 195 people, but in the stands at this high school basketball game, there was easily 250 people there.

3:27This game was really emotional because two of the players on this high school team, their father, Roberto Orozco Ramirez, was recently arrested by Border Patrol. and his arrest really shook this tiny town of Freud. It's honestly heartbreaking to see such a good family go through this because they help the community in many ways. People in the stands were wearing his diesel shop logo on their sweatshirts. The basketball team warmed up with some shirts that said a Roseco on the back and they had the diesel shop logo on the front. And some people wearing bracelets that said a Roseco strong. So it just really showed, you know, the boys that support was all around them.

4:11I just want to help out in any way possible and show awareness that they don't deserve this treatment. Tell me about this man, Mr. Orozco. So he is a 42-year-old father of four. He has lived in Freud, Montana for more than a decade, long enough to build his own diesel shop where he fixes semi-trucks, school buses, tractors. and really provides an invaluable service to farmers in the area. He's also a Little League coach, and he came to the U.S. at some point illegally. Court documents say that in 2009, he was removed by ICE and deported. At some point, he came back. On January 25th, Orozco Ramirez was arrested by Border Patrol, and Roscoe's arrest has really shaken the residents there.

5:10In the complaint, it documents that the officers wearing plain clothes and in unmarked vehicles came to his diesel shop and knocked on the door. Later, when I was talking with his sons, they said their dad was immediately suspicious of this because people never knock on the door. This is a place where people, yeah, just walk in. So he was suspicious and he ended up kind of closing the door on them That's what his wife says. But then, you know, the complaint also alleges he yelled at them on their way out. And as they were in their car driving away, it says he threw a two by six piece of lumber in their direction.

5:48And that's what led ultimately to a charge of threatening a federal officer. That's something, you know, his family disputes. Then his wife has said that different officers wearing their uniforms and in marked vehicles came back right after that with weapons on them. But that she and her husband actually closed all the doors to the shop and hid in the back and waited for them to leave. They were really scared. And that was that was 10 days before the arrest. people contacted the sheriff and basically said, you know, can you intervene? And he tried to act as an intermediary, asking Roberto to essentially turn himself in, thinking that that would lead to a better outcome with law enforcement.

6:41people were shocked um they were surprised to see the national immigration crackdown extend beyond big cities like minneapolis and chicago and reach you know this tiny corner of the state they said they believed trump's policy to be about arresting the worst of the worst um criminals gang members things like that and in this town where everybody knows everybody it's an example of the tension between the personal and the political and what happens to a community when they vote one way, but then a personal experience forces them to confront their beliefs. Hmm.

7:22Noel King:All right. So this is a town where you know something's up if someone knocks at your door because it's so tight knit that normally people just walk on in. So how do people in this tiny, tight-knit town react when they learn this man is now in the custody of Border Patrol? For people in town, this is the first time they are learning about Roberto's status. A lot of people told me they didn't know he was here illegally. You know, they just thought of him as their friend and their neighbor. And yeah, when they hear that he was deported once, it does bring up some complicated thoughts. So my colleague and I went to the Mint Bar in town.

8:07It's the only bar in town to talk to some people on Super Bowl Sunday. And the bar, you know, it had some gambling machines, which is very common in Montana, and then tons of signs everywhere. This one man we talked to, Rod, was sitting right under a wooden sign that said, Rod's Crisis Corner. And we do have a lot of illegal aliens in our country, but a lot of them are gangs and criminals and drug guys and things like that. Roberto is not one of those. He has been a solid citizen here maybe, what, 15 years or something? Oh, over 10. We're all farmers. There's always 20 trucks in his yard. I've never heard a bad word about it.

8:59Everybody hears about everybody in these kind of small communities. I've never heard a single bad word about it. In the complaint, there's also an allegation that Roberto had an affiliation with a gang. People are livid about that. You know, I actually spoke with a Trump supporter and he said... There's no gangs here. There's no gangs here. No. No, no gang at all. We have student council. We don't have... Some people are saying, like, rules are rules. You know, he should have followed the rules and done the path to obtain citizenship. But that's when his sons, you know, wish more people would understand that gaining legal citizenship in the U.S.

9:43is not that easy.

9:45Noel King:So obviously people feel very strongly about this man and their neighbor. How do they feel about immigration enforcement happening in their little town? You know, some people told me that, you know, people really support Trump here, but that they don't necessarily support him because of his immigration policies. More so the issues that are important to people here are the economy and things that affect farming or even oil. There's also some oil fields. But then, you know, I did talk to this, that same man in the bar. He said he really likes what Trump's doing at the border, and he likes that policy.

10:27But when I asked him about what he thought of Roberto, he said he thought Roberto should have the opportunity to pursue legal citizenship. But you've got to differentiate from guys like him that are just being a solid citizen living here. Give them the opportunity to become a citizen. But you've got to get rid of those criminals. They've got to go. So do you disagree with what happened to Roberto?

11:11It's interesting to see these really conflicting beliefs on display. People are not pro or con on this issue. They're mostly mixed, which is another thing that makes this story so interesting. You know, what really struck me is, you know, 14 of these community members, which is a pretty significant percentage of the town's population, drove seven hours one way to Roberto's initial hearing. And that hearing only lasted eight minutes. And then I just watched them as they huddled after the hearing. They hugged each other. Some people cried. And then they got back in their cars and drove home.

11:48Noel King:We were reading your story, and someone in the comments said something along the lines of, people were happy to vote for the Trump immigration policy in theory, but then they realized how it actually affects them and affects their neighbors. Does that feel like what you saw? You know, it's interesting. In Freud, people do not really like talking about politics and division. And, you know, I even spoke with the mayor who said we are too close-knit for that. Like, if you say the wrong thing or upset someone, your business could totally go under. You need your neighbors in this town. So I didn't quite hear people saying that they would change their vote.

12:34And when I talked to some community members, they said they weren't sure. They weren't sure if this was going to lead to, you know, a change like that. Do you think that this, what's happened, is going to change people's opinions about Trump or politics? Or do you think it's going to, like, have some sort of bigger ripple effect about the political landscape here? I don't think it will change it. Yeah. I mean, they're definitely against Roberto being, going through what he is today. but I think they vote for Donald Trump again tomorrow. But then some people said Trump signs that were displayed in people's yards in the neighborhood have come down in the last few days.

13:15And then the Orozco boys also said they saw on Facebook at least one comment from someone saying they were sorry that they voted for Trump.

13:24Noel King:What do you think that this story from this small town tells us about the moment we're in, the political moment we're in more broadly? I think it's shown that, you know, these immigration policies that the Trump administration is implementing have affected, you know, almost everybody. If they are stretching to this tiny rural town, you know, where this man has lived for 10 years without problem and really riling up this community and neighboring communities, you know, I think it just shows the ubiquity of this crackdown. And also, you know, the ripple effects from it. Like, if Roberto ends up detained for a long time or if he is deported, you know, a family will lose their father.

14:19People will lose their friend and neighbor. But, you know, a lot of farmers will suffer in this area by losing their mechanic. And the mayor even said the local economy will take a big hit. There's not a lot of businesses in the area.

14:35So many people across the country are grappling with the really difficult consequences of Trump's immigration policies. And I think the big question is, how will this change or will this change how they vote? And will it change their politics in the future?

15:08Noel King:That was Nora Mabee of the Montana Free Press. Will it change their politics in the future? It's a big question. It's a good question. And at this point, it's a national question. We're going to try to answer it ahead. Thank you.

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18:24Noel King:We're back with Eric Levitz. He covers politics and the economy for Vox. Eric, when President Trump was campaigning, he talked a lot about mass deportation. On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. The largest domestic deportation operation. A Trump mass deportation. What do we know about how American voters thought of that when he came into office a little over a year ago? Yeah, so when Trump came into office, he had public opinion at his back, really, for at least many aspects of his immigration program. In November 2024, CBS News YouGov poll found that 57 percent of Americans supported, quote, a national program to find and deport all immigrants who are in the U.S.

19:08illegally. and 73 percent said that the next president should make deportations of some kind one of his top priorities. And so there was really this sense in the United States that something needed to be done to reestablish security at the border. And so Trump really had a mandate to do something on immigration.

19:28Noel King:All right. So he has the wind at his back a year ago when he comes in and then he gets the next 13 months to put his policies in place, the mass deportation policies in place. Where is public sentiment today? It's really pretty incredible what a turnaround Trump has managed to engineer.

19:50As of last month, Trump's approval on immigration was underwater by about 12 points. Americans now disapprove of his deportation program by eight points and say ICE is making communities less safe rather than more safe by 21 points. You know, not long ago, abolish ICE was one of the most politically toxic propositions in American politics. And in January, a YouGov poll found 46 % of voters, including one-fifth of Republicans, saying that they supported that concept.

20:22Noel King:We actually covered that stat on the show one day right after Alex Preddy was killed is freaking staggering. This is becoming a huge problem for them back home, putting Republicans in a very difficult spot. You know, a lot of this polling was done right in the aftermath of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Preddy. And so I think maybe it might be hard to overstate how much of an influence the, you know, spectacle of armed agents of the state seeming to unnecessarily execute U.S. citizens have had on public opinion. The bottom line is the administration has gone out of its way in both its messaging and in practice to make its approach to mass deportation as extreme, disruptive, and polarizing as possible.

21:14Noel King:In the first half of the show, we talked to a reporter about this very small community in Montana where people voted for Trump in 2024, but then somebody that they love, somebody from the community who's quite popular, was picked up by Border Patrol. And I wonder, Eric, how typical it is for public opinion to change on something like immigration enforcement when it goes from being theoretical to, oh, wait, this guy was one of us and we liked him and now we don't like what's happening to him. How much of this is Americans being hit by the reality of what mass deportation means? Yeah, I think that that's definitely a significant part of it.

21:58I think that the generic proposition, should people who are in the country illegally be deported, often gets majority support because, you know, there's a basic intuition. You break the law and so you should be removed. But then there is, you know, competing intuitions where if you describe, okay, somebody that's been here for a long time, follows the law, works hard, you know, is a pillar of their community, should that person be, you know, thrown out of the country? And then often the polling changes. Public opinion can shift with conditions, you know. So during the Biden administration, when there were large inflows of asylum seekers.

22:41Illegal crossings are over 2 ,500 per day. Come on, man. That leads to a backlash where people are more prioritizing their instinct about the law being important and enforcing immigration law being important and deportations being justified. Now you have a move of the dial where in the Trump era, we've remarkably seen a real collapse in unauthorized border crossings. So in December 2023, at the U.S.-Mexico border, there were 250 ,000 unauthorized border crossings in that month alone. This past December, there were about 6 ,500. Wow.

23:25Noel King:In the first full eight months of this Trump administration, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported just over 85 ,000 encounters at the border. That's the lowest number since 1970. We've got the most controlled border we've ever had in the history, and in my lifetime, the Border Patrol. The situation has just so radically changed, and I think this is what makes Trump's declining approval on immigration really remarkable, is that I think if he did almost nothing, he would have been able to declare victory on this issue and been very popular. And so in this climate where we have basically a secure border and then we have this incredibly extreme, radical and disruptive approach to immigration enforcement that also feels a bit indiscriminate, that doesn't seem to be targeting the worst of the worst, as the administration often suggests, I think that creates ripe conditions to activate the public's, you know, more sympathetic moral intuitions about interior immigration enforcement policy.

24:33Noel King:We have some idea about what Donald Trump meant when he said mass deportation, because he said again and again that he would deport a million people a year. Bare minimum of one million illegal aliens per year. So now we have ourselves in a situation where people increasingly don't trust ICE. They're not happy that their neighbors are being picked up. And on top of that, we know from a lot of reporting that many of the people who are being arrested do not even have criminal records. So at a certain point, does Trump try to lower the temperature on the promise? Does he say, OK, we're not going to do a million people a year because we got most of the bad guys.

25:11Noel King:We will pull back. Do you see him moderating what he said at all? You know, I will say that one important piece of context here that could prevent Trump from really taking this full retreat is that public opinion here is still a little bit mixed and complicated. So his approval rating on immigration is, you know, negative by, you know, between nine and 12 points, depending on what you look at. But that still makes immigration actually his best issue.