Traffic stops, body cameras and the fight to hold ICE accountable

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:19)
There is an attempt to cover up currently taking place. And that attempt to cover up is something that ICE has perpetrated in other cases.

**Chris Bentley** (0:30)
Texas Democrat Al Green is among the congressmen demanding investigations after immigration officers killed two people in Texas and Maine.
It's Monday, July 20th, and this is Here & Now Anytime from NPR and WBUR. I'm Chris Bentley. Today on the show, it was another weekend of wildfire smoke choking Americans across the Midwest and East Coast. I hate to say it, but could smoky summers be the new normal? Also, how AI helped soccer coaches during the World Cup.

**Ina Fried** (1:14)
All the teams had information from Lenovo about different plays. And what's nice about this is not just that it helps one team, but it helped all the teams equally.

**Chris Bentley** (1:24)
Before we get to that story, though, should ICE officers wear body cameras? That's one question the man overseeing Immigration Enforcement is being asked after ICE officers shot and killed two people earlier this month, one in Houston, the other in Bideford, Maine.
Here's President Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, on Fox News yesterday.

**Tom Homan** (1:46)
I want officers to wear body cameras because I want the American people to see what the officers saw when they took that action.

**Chris Bentley** (1:52)
Homan is being asked about a lot more than body cameras, though. For one thing, NPR spoke with people close to the ICE agent who shot Joan Sebastián Duran Guerrero in Maine. They described the officer as a violent person struggling with mental health who never should have had a gun.
Duran Guerrero's widow, Carolina Rojas, said last week she could not bring herself to tell their three-year-old daughter that her father is gone.

**Carolina Rojas** (2:21)
Now, my daughter asks about her dad, and I don't have the strength to tell her that dad won't come back, that she will no longer be able to hug him and tell him, dad, I love you. Every night she asks about him.

**Chris Bentley** (2:36)
We wanted to ask someone who knows the agency about ICE conduct, so we called up John Sandweg. He was acting director of ICE from 2013 to 2014 under former President Obama.
Here's his conversation with Indira Lakshmanan.

**Indira Lakshmanan** (2:51)
So Tom Homan referred to the body cameras.
We understand that, you know, the officers were supposed to be wearing those. The agency got millions of dollars from Congress for body cameras. Why are they still not wearing them?

**John Sandweg** (3:08)
You know, Indira, it's hard to say. I mean, obviously, the administration is kind of pointing the finger at the government shutdown here. But the reality is, as you know, the agency's really never been more flush with cash. Not only were they appropriated money directly for the body cameras, but also these tens of billions of dollars just generally for immigration enforcement that were likely accessible as well for body cameras. So I think it's hard to look at this and think of it anything other than it just wasn't a priority.
You know, historically, as these body cameras have been deployed, law enforcement agencies have found that the officers support it. I don't think the administration is necessarily opposed to the deployment of them. Just again, it clearly wasn't much of a priority for them though.

**Indira Lakshmanan** (3:48)
All right. An analysis by the Associated Press finds that at least nine people have died during immigration enforcement operations since Trump returned to the White House. Democratic senators are now demanding immediate, independent, transparent investigations after the most recent ICE shootings, but Republicans control both houses of Congress. So will we see those investigations?

**John Sandweg** (4:09)
It's hard to understand how we're going to see that, right? There's so much suspicion and distrust, obviously, of DHS, obviously of ICE, but also, you know, of all government institutions right now. Historically, Indira, every time there's been a use of force investigation, there are always questions and concerns about whether or not there would be a transparent investigation.
Typically, of course, the federal government wants to control those investigations. You see some jostling historically between which investigative agency would be lead, but ultimately, the findings of any investigators flow to the Department of Justice. And I think just by virtue of that fact, whether it's FBI agents or DHS Inspector General, or ICE itself conducting these investigations, the simple reality is that whatever they find or whatever recommendations that they make go to federal prosecutors at the Department of Justice. And I worry that just for that reason alone, there will never be a circumstance where there's an investigation, one way or the other, that's going to give people the kind of comfort that this was fully and fairly investigated.