The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars, I’m your host Mansa Musa. In this country, United States of America, we have laws that protect the citizens of the United States. What constitute a citizen of the United States? If you were born here or you receive your citizenship through the immigration naturalization process, lately we’ve seen our country shift into a period much like when they interned Japanese, much like when they rounded up slaves, much like when they rounded up people just indiscriminately because they didn’t feel as though they was worthy of being a citizen in this country. Hey, I’m talking about what’s going on with so-called illegal immigrants. People who come to this country for no other reason than to have a better life and they believe what the Statue of Liberty say. Open arms. Come. You are welcome. But this is not the case. And we’ve been hearing about ICE raids over and over and over again. But here joining me today to talk about the impact that ICE raids are having on local communities is Kori Skillman. Welcome to Ratting the Bars, Kori.

Kori Skillman:

Hi. Thank you for having me.

Mansa Musa:

Alright, so you wrote two articles in the Baltimore beat. One you say lack of ICE oversight show how Baltimore has long been at the mercy of outside powers. And the other one is indiscriminate ICE arrests have left Baltimore immigrants community in a constant state of fear and anxiety. Okay, so tell our audience what is it about this particular way looking at the ICE raids? Because as we know this has been going on since Trump was elected as president, he campaigned on that because of the oversaturation of illegal immigrants in this country that illegal immigrants in this constitute primarily criminals that got this country scared to death to come out, people coming out because of the criminal element. So talk about how you came into this space as far as we are not going to deal with the lack of oversight, we’re going to deal with the part of the citizen. How did you unpack that? Why did you get in that space? Because like I said, we are hearing about this, but what is it about this particular issue and the way you looking at it and the way you reporting on it, it makes it different from what everybody else is doing?

Kori Skillman:

Right, thank you. So like you mentioned, Trump ran a lot of his campaign on going after criminal aliens. So even before January we already knew this was going to happen. And I think what made me interested in covering this topic is my experience as a black woman and just kind of experiencing this fear of walking around and being outside and having to interact with city police officers, county police officers, sheriff’s offices. And I can only imagine that our immigrant brothers and sisters or people of Latino descent who are being targeted based on what they look like, I can imagine that they’re feeling that same sense of anxiety and fear when walking around and going outside. So when I started with the Beat in July, these were two of my first articles that I wrote for the beat and it was just really important to me to cover this topic in the context of Baltimore specifically because there is a local holding facility here and it has gotten national attention.

Mansa Musa:

So let’s unpack it from that point on. Alright, so you recognize from your reporting that in Baltimore, because talking about the impact that this ICE raids are having on local communities like Baltimore right there, the day in Charlotte, they’ve been in different parts of the country, but it’s really in the cities and the counties where mostly they labels at. So talk about how what they’re doing impact the Baltimore community and the Baltimore landscape, the rounding up of people. Are they rounding up? Let’s just for the sake of context, are the people that’s being rounded up in Baltimore, MS 13 gang members, the cartel county cartel, are they just everyday people that want to doing honest day’s work and trying to earn a living? Talk about that, the impact that’s having on the Baltimore

Kori Skillman:

Community. So for the most part, no, none of these people, I’m not going to say none of them, but for the most part, majority of the people being rounded up by ICE in the Baltimore area of responsibility are not criminals or have no criminal record. I know from speaking to advocates that one woman was on her way to see her comatose son in the hospital when she was stopped and detained by ICE and then eventually deported in all of 20, 24, 1400 arrests were made in the Baltimore area of responsibility, which means ices coverage of the Baltimore area essentially. And just in the first seven months of 2025, it was almost double that around 2200 arrests were made. So they’re going after people who fit a description essentially, and the description being Latino or Latino presenting. Most of the people detained have come from Central America or have central American descent.

So yeah, it’s definitely based on a look unfortunately. And like you said, it’s people who are here to work and who are here to participate in Baltimore daily life and just be a part of our communities. Unfortunately, a lot of the people live in highly Latino areas, so I knows where to post up and knows where to be. And like you mentioned, they are doing that. It’s like they’re sitting outside of soccer games, sitting outside of festivals that maybe presented toward Latino communities and stuff like that. So it’s very much on purpose, for lack of a better way to put it.

Mansa Musa:

Okay. And talk about this here we have in Baltimore City, a detention center holding cell. Okay. Tell our audience where it’s located and from your investigation, the conditions that people that’s being detained there are subjected to.

Kori Skillman:

Right. So the Baltimore area responsibility holding South is located in Baltimore City of course, and it is alleged has just poor conditions. Detainees are not being properly fed, don’t have three square meals a day. I’ve heard that they are not giving access to hygiene products, they are not receiving proper medical care. I know that two women that I didn’t personally speak to, but I spoke to their attorney both have chronic conditions that were neglected in the holding cell and obviously that is a problem. So it’s a problem and I think the government shutdown allowed the problem to kind of compound unfortunately because the courts are not open, the courts were not open during the government shutdown. So attorneys weren’t able to file motions or anything to get their clients out or to move them or anything like that or to have the conditions looked at. So like I said, it’s unfortunately a compounding issue that under this administration just continually gets worse.

Mansa Musa:

And as I was looking at the article, you was talking about how ordinarily, which is a normal procedure like a right to a path to citizenship, that the Trump administration has taken that and streamlined and expedited people being sent out to the country. In your article you wrote a part about how they got this term they used in catch and revoke and under the previous, prior to this round of and all this hysteria being generated by a Trump administration, a person coming from another country had an expedient path to citizenship or at least a process existed. Talk about what is catch and revoke and how that’s playing into the narrative of people being scared.

Kori Skillman:

So Catch and Revoke refers to expedited removal processes prior to this new Trump administration. It used to be that if someone is arrested within a hundred miles of any US border and has been in the country less than 14 days, no questions asked, they can be deported essentially immediately under the Trump administration since it began in January, that kind of idea has moved to encompass essentially everyone who is not a US citizen. So immigrants are having regular check-ins with ICE and just regular check-ins with people who work in the immigration enforcement. And now at those check-ins, a lot of the times they’re being just detained. So these are regular that they are presumably going to just expecting to have a conversation, give updates on what they’ve been doing in life and how they’ve been existing in this country. And now a lot of immigrants unfortunately are afraid to even attend their check-ins.

Mansa Musa:

Talk about one of the things that the Trump administration was using early when it was campaign was that illegal immigrants criminals as they are, and not only are they criminals, but those that’s not criminals are taking United States citizens jobs. So what impact is this? This is interesting. What impact does these rounding up have on the local economy since everybody that mean if you took my job, that mean that unemployment should cease the exist in Baltimore or really in the world, but how is that impacting the local economy?

Kori Skillman:

Yeah, that’s a really good question. So like you said, what Trump was essentially saying was that all of these jobs would start to open up that non-immigrants or citizens could go and get. And like you said, essentially unemployment would decrease. That has not happened. These businesses, again, particularly in Latino areas that hire a highly Latino workforce are just being left without employees. People are being disappeared, which means they’re just not showing up to work. Which means it does affect the local Baltimore community. I know specifically in Highland Town, a lot of businesses are suffering in particularly just because it’s a highly Latino area of Baltimore city and that’s a continued problem. The streets are desolate in comparison to how they were 10, 11 months ago. Just a lot of things have changed and unfortunately we’re not seeing them change back at this point. People are still scared. Just last week I saw an ICE vehicle I think on 33rd. So this just continues to be a problem and it seems to be there is no end in sight

Mansa Musa:

In terms of the people that’s Hispanic origin and the ones that’s United States. The document, I got paper, I’ve been here all my life, my last name might be Lopez, but it’s a long line. Lopez, we lived in Parkland, we lived in Highline, so we lived there all our life. How are they respond? How Hispanic people in general, what’s the temperament of them? Because like you said, that got people kind of scared. So in your investigation or your outlook on this, you think, what can you say about that segment of the publication?

Kori Skillman:

Yeah, that’s a good question as well. I would say that it almost resembles Doomsday Prep at this point. People are having to walk around with their documents on them like we talked about earlier. It does seem to be a look thing, a race thing, a color thing unfortunately that is basing all of this on. So anyone who gives the appearance of Latino or foreign in any way, it has for the most part started walking around with any of their documents, their passports on them. I know that parents, immigrant parents are having to notify their young children of where documents may be, and if this happens, go look here in this place. They’re having to tell their teachers at school, this is where I put my kids’ documents if something happened to me. I think luckily Baltimore City schools has had a great response with that, but even at schools, kids are nervous. I’ve talked to a lot of teachers and not only the immigrant children or the children of immigrants are showing behavioral shifts just due to the sheer anxiety. Exactly. But also the kids surrounding them. Kids are not dumb. They know what is happening to their friends. They know what’s happening in this city and they’re just having to watch it and it’s been very sad.

Mansa Musa:

And that’s the ripple effect. Not only are you breaking up this particular community, but you breaking up the relationships that people then built over the years multicultural relationships, which leads me to my next question, talk about the impact it’s had. I was looking in your article and he was talking about how because of the rounding up and because of them ICE being real vigilant at different places, how most people that’s undocumented or immigrants in general don’t trust the banking system. Very institutions where they felt sometimes security to deposit their money or the institution where they felt like to cash their check now they’re not doing what they’re doing in alternative, it’s current cash. Talk about that.

Kori Skillman:

Yeah, so another thing about this is it’s leaving people open to be subjected to crimes and being victims of crimes. Again, I talked to caseworkers from Southeast CDC who said a lot of their clients don’t feel comfortable going to the bank, number one for being outside, but also number two as far as putting their money in the bank and then having a fear of not being able to take it out if they’re deported and then they just lost their money. So they’re resorting to just carrying cash, which again, like I said, leaves them open to being victims of a crime. And on that same front, it’s like they don’t feel confident enough when they’re being wronged in other ways to report that or to talk about that. So I mentioned in the articles, a lot of people are having problems with their landlords or housing issues or don’t want to apply for certain government benefits, even local government like city state that they may be entitled to just because they don’t want to put their name out there and subject themselves to being picked up by ICE.

Mansa Musa:

So this is a good point for transition. So now we see that people because of the heavy handedness of this ice and the scrambling manners in which they’re exercising or abusing their authority. But then the question becomes, and this is the second part of your article, this is the second article you wrote, order first, whichever order you want to put it in that the lack of oversight. And you say, well, because of lack of oversight, Baltimore once again is at the mercy of someone else’s authority.

Kori Skillman:

Right? Right. So what’s interesting about Baltimore is obviously we exist under a federal consent decree so that in comparison to what’s happening here and legislators being refused entry into the holding facility here and then the class action not getting granted to the two women I mentioned earlier. Yeah, it seems like we’re an accountability vacuum in general. We have a lot of input from the federal government in this city and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when there’s no one to check them and there’s no checks and balances there, it essentially becomes an issue. And what I want to also touch on is Baltimore is an interesting place in that it seems to be a double-edged sword between local government and federal government when it comes to this war on accountability or this lack of accountability essentially because as we just saw, I’m sure you saw the video, the viral video with the officer almost running a man and then being charged with attempted murder. He was essentially only held accountable because it went viral and made national news

Because we look at other cases, especially two of the three police involved killings that happened over the summer. And in two of those cases officers also violated policy. And when the state’s attorney, Ivan Bates announced the indictment of the officer in the viral video, he blatantly said it’s because he violated policy. And like I said, two of these other cases from over the summer involved officers violating policy and charges are not being brought against them. So again, I think that Baltimore is an interesting place in that the local government fighting the federal government saying, give us our rights, give us our rights. You have no right to come and attack our citizens or attack our residents. And yet in the same breath, local government is inflicting that on black Baltimoreans.

Mansa Musa:

In your honor, you’ve talked about how the relationship between the city and in terms of them allowing some of these things to take place such as the Baltimore Police being complicit, with ICE. Talk about that part of your article.

Kori Skillman:

So the Baltimore police are actually not allowed to assist ICE in any investigation or any detainment. They say that if you see ICE or you see unmarked people in general, of course they tell you to call the police and they’ll come out there. They won’t necessarily impede on an ICE investigation or impede on ice handlings of something. But they do not assist in any, as far as I know, and as far as they say they have not and will not assist in making an arrest on behalf of ICE.

Mansa Musa:

And you already noted that the government, by the government being on shutdown, and that’s the federal government that was just paying for ICE,

Kori Skillman:

Right.

Mansa Musa:

Talk about from your investigation, was they still deporting people to your knowledge during that process or people who was just being held in these detention centers or these detention center in the city and without nobody being able to say nothing about ’em or without nobody being able to intercede on their behalf?

Kori Skillman:

So as far as I know within facilities business as usual, I’m sure there was obviously some ICE agents who weren’t showing up for work, but they were still processing people, moving people through facilities and things like that. I will say it’s interesting, I didn’t see or hear of any ICE vehicles being around Baltimore city. Of course that doesn’t mean that they’re not here or that they weren’t there during the shutdown. And then like I said, on either Friday or Saturday this past weekend, I saw ICE standing outside and their vest very clearly said ICE and things like that. So it’s interesting because I believe the government shut down just ended last

Mansa Musa:

Week

Kori Skillman:

And it’s like they were just immediately at again. So no shame. I guess,

Mansa Musa:

And I’ll even go on record, say everybody else wasn’t getting it paid, but ICE agents was getting paid that the president of the United States got this check, Congress got their check and the Gustapo Ergo ICE got their check. But talk about, because you had mentioned you got two women that you talked about in your article and we want to humanize them. Talk about from your investigation, talk about these two women.

Kori Skillman:

So there are two women that are involved in the class action case. And I use the air quotes around class action solely because it hasn’t been given class action certification, but they were held in the Baltimore holding facility, Ooh, I want to say around May-ish off the top of my head. And the problem with that is both of them have chronic illnesses. They were held for longer than ice, even allows people to be held in their own facilities and like I said earlier, just not given adequate access to their medication to care. One of them is a type two diabetic and the other one has a thyroid condition. Since then, both women have been transferred out of the holding facility, but their lawyers still continue to fight for the class action certification on their behalf, which would effectively close down the Baltimore holding facility while it’s litigated

Mansa Musa:

And tell our audience what crime these women commit, what terrorist act did they commit? Who did they sell drugs to? Who did they traffic

Kori Skillman:

Child,

Mansa Musa:

What was they charge with and ultimately found guilty of that allowed them to be sent out.

Kori Skillman:

So no charges, no guilty verdicts, no even accusations. They are both mothers of multiple children. They are family members, their kids are here and effectively their kids now don’t have their mothers with them. So I think in one case the children are being raised by a grandparent now and then in the other I believe there’s a father, but that doesn’t make up for the lack of their mother. That is. And then on top of that, it’s not even just like their mom is gone, their mom, they know, they’re aware that their mom is being held in inhumane conditions in essentially a prison of some sort and

Mansa Musa:

They don’t have access to Right, exactly. Even a person like you say you innocent until proven guilty. So a person that is indicted for a crime in this country is given the right to have access to lawyer, have visitation rights and certain amenities or things that go with them being not subjected to cruse pun. But from what you’re saying and the lack of oversight is that they’re being subjected to Cruse pun, but talk about, because at one point the lack of oversight, but the people that’s responsible for ensuring oversight, talk about how ICE treat them. Congressmen, state delegates, since they’re the responsible for creating the oversight, I’m duly elected. I sit on this appropriation committee that give y’all money under my mandate is that to ensure that you’re doing what you’re to do with the money, I’ve got the right to come and see where you at. Talk about how they’re treating people that’s duly elected and will be responsible for oversight.

Kori Skillman:

So US congressional members, I believe it’s about six of them a few months ago, tried to enter the Baltimore whole holding facility and were denied entrance into the facility, which is against the law. They are very much allowed to enter when and as they please any time of the day they should be able to be let in. So it was a huge deal that they were not let in back in, I believe July. And the thing is, they don’t have to notify DHS that they want to conduct oversight and oversight visit. They are allowed to just show up. And they were kind enough, and I don’t necessarily want to toot their horn, but they were kind enough to send a letter a week in advance saying that they would be conducting oversight and we’re still denied entry, which I find particularly interesting because at that point, DHS could get in front of that and clean up whatever wrongdoings they’re doing in there. But they didn’t even have enough respect for the law to even do that. They just denied entries to the Congress members and turned them away.

Mansa Musa:

And from what I’m gathering from both of your articles, that this is a pandemic, this attitude that we see coming from ICE Department of Homeland Security and all other federal brands of police and in most cases city police and county police because they’ll be given monies to detain. The incentive that most states and most cities is getting is they’ve been given monies to say, if you go along what we’re doing, provide facilities for us, then we’ll fund your police department. But in terms of what you see on the horizon and the impact that this not only having on the city of Baltimore, but in this nation, if you was able to have to broaden your perspective in that regard, make the connection, how would you look at that?

Kori Skillman:

I mean, I just think that immigrants are a valuable part of our communities in general. They bring different cultures, different foods, different languages, and also just economic prosperity. These are people who risk everything to come here, to build a life to work and to make it work for themselves and their families. And they do have a dedication to do that. So I’m don’t understand why this vulnerable population is being attacked

Mansa Musa:

And for the benefit of our audience. They was trying to get the class action suit. They was trying to get the people that’s duly affected by the policies and the arbitrariness of ice. They trying to get the certified as a class, which would allow them to be able to look at it, the issue in a collective fashion. But because the courts is pretty much in line with the Trump administration, they’re not allowing to certify as a class. So as an individualized individualization automatically leaves open the door for them to be deported without having or hearing.

Kori Skillman:

Exactly

Mansa Musa:

Right. So as we close out, what do you see in terms of the city of Baltimore? How do you see the city of Baltimore ultimately being affected by this and responding to it

Kori Skillman:

Being affected by it? Like I said, I think it just affects community members. Our neighbors are disappearing without a trace, often hard to find. It’s not like the phone number to the closest detention facility is easily googleable. Somebody can be picked up, taken off the street and if no one was around to see it, that person essentially doesn’t exist. They disappeared into thin air. And that affects everyone. That affects, like we talked about earlier, all the businesses that affects school children, that affects children in general, like kids of immigrants. And I think it just makes for less of a whole community.

Mansa Musa:

And that’s the point I wanted to raise because at this point right now, we find that a sense of community is being threatened.

Kori Skillman:

Yeah, absolutely.

Mansa Musa:

Where we find gentrification impacts a sense of community where you have a abandonment all around, but then you have a whole community where people play out in the streets, children play out in the street. In the summertime, kids speak

Kori Skillman:

Spanish,

Mansa Musa:

Some kids don’t speak Spanish learning, Spanish cultures merge. But now we find that in one struggle to pin whole communities, be

Kori Skillman:

Taken away,

Mansa Musa:

Be taken away, or people are so afraid to come out. And then you have the predatorial mentality, as you said earlier, that in order to stay in this country, ICE is compromising people to get them to say different things about people in order to stay. I tell you, you can stay in this country if you tell me where people that don’t live here or don’t have no documentation, and that opens the door for more fear being perpetuated. But how can people, if they want to stay on top of your reporting and your remarkable storytelling? Thank you. How can people follow you?

Kori Skillman:

So you can just go to baltimore beat.com and then my articles will most likely be front page. If not, you can search my name. You can also email me kori@baltimorebeat.com. I’m easily accessible and reachable for any conversation that anyone wants to have.

Mansa Musa:

Thank you, Kori. And we want to encourage our audience to review this article. Look at what the beat is doing. Kori gave us a perspective of the impact this is having on a local community. We hear the national cry, but when you dial down, we’re talking about people that one time just came out, smoked a cigarette, just came out their house drinking some ice tea, just came out their house to take a deep breath. Now they fear even coming out their house in the daytime nighttime, they’re basically being held in detention in their own houses or they’re being rounded up and sent to these black sites that don’t have no, they’re not being afforded due process or law. They’re not being afforded the modicum of rights that human beings are. And the reason why, because they’re not citizens. According to United States and according to United States, if you’re not a citizen, then you don’t have no rights that this country is going to respect.

This is the highest form of hypocrisy known to humanity because this country was found on immigrants. And because of that, this country should be ashamed of itself. When they treat people like in the Baltimore community, in the District of Columbia community in North Carolina, South Carolina, and any part of this country where a person just want to come and live a normal life. They’re being subjected because of their color, not no other reason, not no crime. They committed, not nothing they did. That’s infamous in this country. We ask you continue to support the real news and rallying the ball because guess what? We’re actually the real news.