The Campaign to Free Albeiro From ICE

Summary

It Could Happen Here: The Campaign to Free Albeiro From ICE

Date: January 20, 2026
Host: Be A Wong (Cool Zone Media)
Guest: Ellie Bell (Community Organizer)

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Overview

This episode centers on the campaign to free Albeiro, a father and community leader from Chicago, currently detained by ICE in Indiana. Host Be A Wong and guest Ellie Bell, an organizer on Albeiro’s support team, explore the personal, legal, and political dimensions of his detention, placing it within the wider context of escalating ICE raids, state violence, and resistance. The dialogue is candid, urgent, and deeply rooted in concern for community action, solidarity, and the struggle against racist and inhumane immigration policies.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Escalating ICE Violence and Ethnic Cleansing

• ICE Repression Isn’t New, but It’s Getting Worse
  • “One of the many, many, many, many, many crises that are unfolding in this country right now is a rolling ethnic cleansing carried out by ICE and Border Patrol with the assistance of the cops.”
    — Be A Wong [01:35]
  • ICE raids and killings are spreading and intensifying, with the number of victims rising quickly and accurate data deliberately withheld by authorities.
• Recent Killings and Community Reactions
  • ICE agents recently killed a woman named Renee and shot two people in Portland (ongoing confusion if it was ICE or Border Patrol) [05:08–06:21].
  • “There are so many people missing from Alligator, Alcatraz. What we saw happen in Minneapolis last week is horrendous.”
    — Ellie Bell [06:21]

2. Albeiro’s Detention: The Personal Story

• Who is Albeiro?
  • An asylum-seeker, father, husband, and community leader, described by neighbors as “a beacon” [08:29].
  • “There’s no such thing as a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ immigrant. Nobody deserves to be treated this inhumanely.”
    — Ellie Bell [09:31]
• How Was He Taken?
  • Early morning ICE raid in Chicago (Dec 29), agents approached Albeiro and his wife as they got into their car for work, with no warrant or probable cause as required under the NAVA consent decree [10:02–11:13].
  • ICE’s targeting is fundamentally racist and opportunistic: “They go after nonwhite people, kidnap them, and ask questions later just because they think no one is going to care.”
    — Ellie Bell [11:14]
• Family Impact
  • His wife was also detained, coerced to sign an “official paper” (actually a voluntary deportation document in English, which she doesn’t speak), but refused [22:04–22:14].
  • “These are real people’s lives. This is a real man whose three young children have now gone to bed without him every night for two weeks. They don’t know where their dad is.”
    — Ellie Bell [13:12]

3. ICE’s Methods: State Violence and Manipulation

• Dehumanization & Public Health Abuses
  • Detainees suffer inhumane conditions (cold, poor food, denied medical care):
    “He has a severe seizure disorder and he requires medication to be administered at least, I think, twice a day. Even one missed dose can be fatal.”
    — Ellie Bell [28:22–28:52]
  • The environment is intentionally cruel, aimed at control and deterrence:
    “These conditions happening are orchestrated. What’s worse is they do care, but they care about creating the suffering.”
    — Ellie Bell [32:48]
• Lack of Oversight & Accountability
  • ICE conducts zero meaningful background checks on hires, showing disregard for even basic legal standards [34:47].
• Legal Entrapments
  • Raids often rely on intimidation and linguistic trickery, coercing signatures on documents not understood by detainees [22:14].

4. Resisting Disappearance: The Importance of Witnessing and Action

• Call to End Complacency
  • “They count on us to not be paying enough attention… the more of you that there are at a thing, the less likely they are to kill you.”
    — Be A Wong [12:35, 15:43]
• Community Responsibility
  • “We owe each other everything and we owe each other witnessing. The job of telling these stories, of trying to help get vulnerable people out of detention, is falling to a select few people who are the most vulnerable already.”
    — Ellie Bell [16:33]
  • Discussed need for logistical as well as frontline roles in the resistance [19:13].

5. Systemic Challenges and Opportunities

• Legal Advantage: The NAVA Consent Decree
  • In Chicago, a consent decree restricts warrantless ICE arrests; violations can be challenged in court, offering a rare point of leverage [44:51].
  • “Nothing remotely legal about what they did… [this can be used] to push back and say, you need to release him immediately.”
    — Ellie Bell [44:57]
• Racism in Support and Solidarity
  • Vast disparity in public (and financial) support for detained Black and brown immigrants versus white victims of ICE brutality [11:39].
  • “White people get all that money when… [we] can’t even push past $14,000 for Albeiro.”
    — Ellie Bell [47:37]

6. What Can Listeners Do? Concrete Steps

• Direct Action
  • Donate to Albeiro’s crowdfund (link in episode description) and sign the petition for his release [47:20].
  • “If we can use this as a case study, we know what we can get done through people power, through sheer will and through not allowing things to just fall through the cracks of social media.”
    — Ellie Bell [48:27]
• Amplification & Network Building
  • Share Albeiro’s story, fundraisers, memes, and information widely—every individual’s action can have community impact [50:12].
  • Activate your own networks: “Text five people and tell them… and they text five people, and they text five people. That’s the whole world, baby.”
    — Ellie Bell [50:12]
• Human Solidarity
  • Show up for nonwhite immigrants in your communities; offer emotional support, challenge racism, and take everyday anti-authoritarian action [51:15–53:18].
  • “Every single one of us has a community that we can activate at any time.”
    — Ellie Bell [50:55]
• Rest and Sustainability
  • “Rest is not resistance, but me getting the rest that I need… allows me to resist in a way that helps someone else to get free.”
    — Ellie Bell [23:15]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Nature of ICE Raids:
  “They describe it as operational tempo. I describe it as they don’t have the people to kidnap this many people at once.”
  — Be A Wong [04:02]

• On Witnessing and Resistance:
  “We owe each other everything and we owe each other witnessing.”
  — Ellie Bell [16:33]

• On the Power of Action:
  “Even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. You never know if you don’t go. You’ll never shine if you don’t glow.”
  — Be A Wong [53:32], quoting the Andor Manifesto & Smash Mouth (with Ellie Bell)

• On Community Care:
  “We are in this together. And we really owe that to each other—to maybe shut up and show up.”
  — Ellie Bell [26:44]

• On Overcoming Helplessness:
  “There are not enough cops to evict us all. There simply aren’t.”
  — Be A Wong [26:39]

• On Small Actions’ Consequences:
  “Your smallest actions could be the difference between someone losing their life or not.”
  — Ellie Bell [53:18]

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Key Timestamps

• 01:35 – Introduction: The scale and horror of current ICE actions.
• 05:08–06:21 – ICE killings and escalation.
• 08:29–13:12 – Albeiro’s background and his family’s ordeal.
• 15:43–19:32 – Importance of mass presence, mutual aid, and activism logistics.
• 22:04–22:14 – ICE’s coercive tactics and manipulation.
• 28:22–32:59 – Detention conditions; public health crisis; deliberate cruelty.
• 34:47–36:13 – ICE recruitment failures; lack of institutional checks.
• 44:51–47:10 – Legal tools (NAVA decree); precedent and advocacy.
• 47:20–50:12 – Practical steps for listeners to help.
• 53:32–54:56 – Closing words: Andor, Smash Mouth, and hope in collective action.

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Resources & Action

• Albeiro’s Crowdfund & Petition: Linked in episode description. Donations critically needed.
• Follow Ellie Bell:
  • Instagram: @literally
  • Newsletter on community care (link via social media)
• Support Ongoing Campaigns: Share, donate, organize, and participate in local efforts to resist deportations and state violence.

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“Solidarity forever. I believe that we will win if what you do is make memes. Make a meme… Take whatever you got and find a way to spread the news.”
— Ellie Bell [50:19]

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This episode is both a rallying cry against the normalization of ICE terror and a practical guide to supporting targeted community members. Its raw honesty, calls for humanization, and insistence on collective responsibility and grassroots power make it a must-listen—and a call to action.

Transcript

[Ellie Bell]

This is an I Heart podcast.

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[Ellie Bell]

You are welcome Cool Zone Media.

[Cool Zone Media Host]

Welcome.

[Be A Wong]

To It Could Happen Here, a podcast where so many things are happening here that we frankly have worn out the bit about trying to use this as our introduction. I am your host, Be A Wong. One of the many, many, many, many, many crises that are unfolding in this country right now is a rolling ethnic cleansing carried out by ICE and Border Patrol with the assistance of the cops. And we have talked about this from a lot of angles, but a thing I want to sort of draw attention back to in this moment where there's increased attention and scrutiny from truly a series of really hideous ice shootings is what it's like to be in detention right now and how possibly people can be gotten out of detention. And with me to talk about something that I feel like I can't even describe as the horrors because it's simply worse than that is Ellie Bell, who is a community organizer, does many things, wears many hats. Welcome to the show.

[Ellie Bell]

Thank you. Hello, I'm Ellie and the reason I am here right now for this specific podcast conversation is that I am on a team that is trying to help many immigrants, but one in particular that I will be talking about tonight, Albero, who is a father and a husband and is currently detained in an ICE detention center in Indiana after being transferred from his home in Chicago. And, you know, we are trying to get him out and to get his family's story out there and his story out there, and, you know, among many other things that ICE is doing and the way that fits into all of that, that's what I am here to talk about today.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. So let's begin. So I guess one thing that I want to sort of lead off with here is obviously the sort of. The most intense ICE repression and raids have shifted to places like Minneapolis right now. I mean, who knows? As you're listening to this, maybe they've pivoted it to another place. I don't know. Everything is moving so unbelievably fast and horribly. But also raids are still continuing in the places where ICE has normally pulled out. Now, the frequency of those raids has decreased because they simply don't have the personnel to run these kind of. I don't know, they describe it as operational tempo. I describe it as they don't have the people to kidnap this many people at once.

[Ellie Bell]

They can't kidnap or kill us all.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. Which, you know, not enormously happy to see people chanting that here. I. I have a bunch of visceral memories of the last two times that I saw people chanting that and didn't go great. So let's not go on the, like, Sudan 2019 tangent.

[Ellie Bell]

Yeah, actually, no, no, sorry.

[Be A Wong]

Sorry, I am wrong. The Sudan one was we are not afraid to die, which is in some ways bleaker.

[Ellie Bell]

There is. There is so much. There's so much history packed in here.

[Be A Wong]

Moving to the presence of, you know, our version of the ethnic cleansing. Can you go to sort of the start of this and talk about what the specific raid here looked like?

[Ellie Bell]

Yeah. So, I mean, I think I want to zoom out for a moment before I get into the specifics of what happened with this man, this father and husband and his family, and then get into it. But, you know, as I'm sure you know, we are. We are all talking about. We are seeing ICE escalating their tactics in just an egregious way. They killed a woman in cold blood and just executed her in the street the other day, Renee, and good. Now, of course, this is not the first or only person that they've killed recently. It's one of many. I think there are now 11. It might be 12. The number just keeps rising every day.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. So we still don't have enclosure, very good information about what happened. But literally the next day in Portland, someone either ICE or border patrol at the time I'm recording this, It's Tuesday the 13th. We still don't know whether it was ICE or Borderfield, but someone shot two people in Portland. So. Yeah, and I think they're being charged right now for terrorism because this is just what happens now.

[Ellie Bell]

Yeah, these are all connected. But. But you know, we know that there are. I believe there's been two. It was nine two days ago. Then it. Now it's like 11 or 12. It just keeps rising. The number of people that we know of. I want to be really clear that we know of. And as you said, we don't have good data on this. We do not have correct data on this, which is also an intentional tool of the state to obscure what is happening. But there are so many people who have been killed by ice, and those are the ones that we know of, you know, since let's say in the last two or three months. There are so many more. There are so many people missing from Alligator, Alcatraz. What we saw happen in Minneapolis last week is horrendous. And you know, the same way that Albero, who I am part of this team trying to help get him out of detention. He did nothing wrong. He has had no criminal activity. There was nothing to warrant the excuse that he must be detained or treated violently. It's the same as how Renee did nothing wrong and nothing to deserve being murdered. She was witnessing. She was witnessing and being there for her neighbors and she was sitting there in her car and that is what we know. But her murder, the same way that these raids and everything going on, it's an escalation tactic used by ICE that's part of deep rooted, old school fascist and authoritarian measures to test what they can get away with while people remain complacent in times of genocide and ethnic cleansing and forced societal upheaval. You know, they just want to see what they can get away with and how much control they can exercise. So that being said to get into what happened to Alberto and his wife is they are in Chicago and they've been there for a little over a year since they came here to seek asylum. And they were first in a shelter and then they finally were able to get the work they needed to have a home with their three kids. You know, I want to be really explicit that this person is A father, a husband. He has other family members here who look up to him who he is, a father figure or an uncle to. He is a community figure and a leader. After he was taken, you know, I was told by a family friend who is part of the team that I'm working with, they told me that the women in the neighborhood, the other, like immigrant women who all like, work together and know each other, called him a panda Dios, like a loving term for someone who is just like a community member, like a shining beacon in a community. And that is. That is who he is. And I also really want to emphasize that it wouldn't really matter if that wasn't who he was and if he was somehow, quote, unquote, lesser than that or not a saint, because there's no such thing as like a good or bad immigrant. Nobody deserves to be treated this inhumanely. Unless, of course, you're a fascist, then I think, you know, fair game.

[Be A Wong]

Hey, look, I'm going to put my foot down there and say we are more than capable of dealing with fascists internally.

[Ellie Bell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can.

[Be A Wong]

We could simply hold the line on no deportations and simply deal with them here. I believe in us.

[Ellie Bell]

But, but so, so what happened was it was early, early morning, the morning of Monday, December 29th. Okay. It's officially been two weeks since this happened. Monday, December 29th. It's like somewhere between maybe 5 and 6am 6:30, it's still dark out. He and his wife, whose name I'm not going to use to protect her anonymity and her identity, but he and his wife got into their car and the windows were rolled down the slightest bit. They were getting in their car to drive to work so that then she could go back home and be with her kids after taking him to work. And I want to be really explicit that we know that when ICE agents came to do this raid, they didn't have their names when they approached them. They didn't know anything about them until they took them in in the Chicago area. You know, you can talk about this a little if you want, but I have to have a warrant for the people they're picking up. They can't just pick up anyone based on the NAVA consent decree, which was just extended by the appeals court. We know that in Chicago this is something that has been continuously happening.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

And as we look at this from a broader context, they go after non white people, kidnap them and ask questions later just because they. They think no one is going to care. And part of the reason that I'm talking about all of this is because I want to be very clear that people are watching, people care, and more people need to be watching and more people need to care when it happens to people who are not white.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

Not just white women, because obviously Renee's murder is horrific, and I saw her be able to raise $1.4 million in less than a day. And Alberto's campaign has been at $14,000 for more than a week. And we can't raise more money because people have so much more sympathy and empathy for white people. And that is actually so tied into why ICE does the things they do. Because of that same whiteness, that same white supremacy, where they think we can do whatever we want to immigrants and brown people. Who's gonna care?

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. And that is one of the major constituent elements of this entire rolling ethnic cleansing, is that, you know, and this has been a thing in Chicago since the raids really kicked off, is that every fucking day someone just disappears and everyone just goes about their lives.

[Ellie Bell]

Absolutely. And they count on us to do that, and they count on us to not be paying enough attention that we can't keep track of how shitty their data is and how inconsistent their data is and all of the numbers we don't have.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. Well, and the other thing they're relying on is they're relying on there not being any attempt to stop them.

[Ellie Bell]

Right, Absolutely.

[Be A Wong]

What they're relying on is, you know, once. Once they grab someone, everyone just going, okay, well, this is. You know, this is. This is a statistic counting up an encounter and not. This is a life that needs to be fought for.

[Ellie Bell]

Exactly. And that is why I find it so important and why I am doing the work that I am doing alongside everyone else who's doing this kind of work to uplift stories and tell them because they can't be told by the immigrants themselves right now because they're being tortured inside detention. And. Yeah, it's so crucial for people to understand that, like, these are not numbers. These are not just names on a page. These are real people's lives. This is a real man whose three children. Whose three young children have now gone to bed without him every night for two weeks. They don't know where their dad is. They don't know why he's not there.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

They don't know why he's apparently being tortured. They just know that their dad isn't there. And I need people to understand, you know, think about, can you imagine. Can you imagine being away from your family for two weeks and Counting not knowing when you're gonna come back, if you're gonna come back, if you're gonna die in detention. Can you imagine being the child of someone? And a lot of people don't have to imagine. I'm saying this for like, you know, white people and privileged people who don't have to think about these things or can get away with just going about business as usual. Because there are a lot of us who have immigrant family and have loved ones who this has been done to, and we don't get to go about our day's business as usual because it's just not possible. It's just not possible. It would be like asking me to go about my life business as usual when my family in Lebanon and Palestine are being bombed.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

Like, it's not possible. It is not possible. All of these things are connected. Our lives are connected. And we owe it to each other to pay attention and to witness. Especially because we are seeing that they will kill you for paying attention and witnessing because they don't want you to be able to exercise that. Right.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. Well. And, you know, the secondary thing, and this is something that's been pretty well known for a very long time, is that the more of you that there are at a thing, the less likely they are to kill you.

[Ellie Bell]

Yeah.

[Be A Wong]

And this has been a thing with, you know, US Police killings and protests forever, which is the US doesn't, like, fire regular bullets into crowds because it's a terrible idea. It's how you get uprisings. Right. Like, you know, I mean, I say this on the show all the time. This is how the Mexican government lost control of the city of Oaxaca. Like, there is.

[Ellie Bell]

They.

[Bethany Frankel]

They.

[Be A Wong]

They literally accidentally started like. Like a pseudo anarchist revolution in that city by doing that. Right. So normally what they do is they. They pick off people when they're on their own.

[Ellie Bell]

I'm gonna be totally honest. I kind of wish that the government would make a ridiculous mistake right now that lends itself to people being able to get justice. That's all I'll say. I'm not going to give specifics, but.

[Be A Wong]

I mean, you know, but. But it's also. Thing I'll say about that, right, is like, whether or not they get away with this is also up to us.

[Ellie Bell]

It is. It absolutely is. And that is. That is why I say we owe each other everything and we owe each other witnessing. Because the thing is, the job of telling these stories, of trying to help get people vulnerable, vulnerable people out of detention is also falling to a select few people who are the most vulnerable already and who have things on the line and things we're risking to do this because we know it's the right thing. And there are so many people with so much privilege who could be doing something, whether it's really, really small, like donating $5 or sharing someone's story or calling Congress to have them pressure ICE to let immigrants out, whatever it is that you could be doing. There are so many people who are not doing that, and when there are so many people who are not doing any of the labor, all of that labor gets distributed so unevenly among a few people. You know, I always think about the. What is it, James Baldwin quote about how it is the job of, you know, like, a few people. It's only a few people on this earth who are, like, doing the job of, like, loving people. Well, I'm completely butchering it right now because it's late at night and I can't think of it, but it's. It's something like that, and I think about that all the time. And something that I'm thinking about right now a lot and having a lot of conversations, mostly with white people about is, hey, you need to start doing something because you have a lot of privilege that you're not utilizing. And when you don't utilize it, you actually are doing a lot of harm. Not in necessarily the same way that the ICE agents are, but you're still kind of capitulating to what they want you to do by putting all of this labor on vulnerable people who have so much to lose and so much to risk. And we can't afford to burn out constantly because we don't have the support and the more equitable division of labor that's needed. Like, we need everyone. We need everyone who can possibly do anything, whether that's putting your bodies on the line in person or. Or if you're a disabled person and you're in bed and you can post something online or you can tell someone, like, we need to activate our community networks for each other.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. And there's also a lot of sort of logistical stuff. You know, I mean, there's like the old line about the army that, like, five or 10 to 1, like, logistics people for every, like, person who's out on the front. And that's also the way that if you're going to have an organizing thing that works, there's a massive sort of logistical tail behind everyone who's out doing stuff.

[Ellie Bell]

Absolutely right. You need. You need safety people, too, at home. Yeah.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. There's A lot of stuff to be done.

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[Ellie Bell]

I'll finish telling the story of what happened to Albero too because I want to, you know, center that because again, you know, this is a community issue and this is a community member who is missing now, who can't do his part as a part of a whole community because he has, he's been taken. And like when he was taken, they had guns. They had one pointed right at his wife. Yeah, he was saying, you know, they were saying we're not resisting. But they, they kept banging on the car window and they reached inside the car window and they like, you know, he and his wife emphasized that they were just going to work, they weren't doing anything and ICE didn't care. Yeah, they see a non white person and they grow hungry for violence. And after detaining her, you know, they asked her to sign a document so that she could go get her kids. She refused because she didn't trust them.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

And she told them that she wasn't going to sign anything. And then later they found out, I think the lawyers found out that what it was is that they were giving her a voluntary deportation paper.

[Be A Wong]

Yep.

[Ellie Bell]

For, for the whole family. And that level, they do this all the time. They do this all the time. That level of deceit and trickery is just.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah, horrible.

[Ellie Bell]

Because they did it. They gave it to her in English and she doesn't speak English. They thought they could just get her to sign it to get them out. Yeah, this is being run by like the same people who are banging doors down and just going into houses in Minneapolis. Yeah, it's all connected. They use the same tactics of violence and fear mongering and it's terrible. Yeah.

[Be A Wong]

And I mean, they've been moving personnel around so there's like a non zero chance it was literally the same person. Like that person could be in Minneapolis now. We don't know. And this has become the sort of background noise of American life. And it used to fucking not be the background noise because they're fucking grabbing people out of cars.

[Ellie Bell]

It shouldn't be. I mean, every day I see people post some type of video on TikTok or Instagram Reels or Twitter or Blue Sky. Like I just see people everyday people post. God, you know, it feels so horrific to watch all of this happen and have to go to a 9 to 5. And I have empathy for that, especially as someone who does community organizing. And I mean, I think there is a lot of sacrifice. I know there's a lot of sacrifice in the types of things that I do. And there's also a lot of privilege in the fact that I even have community and loved ones who help me to pay my rent so that I can do this kind of organizing without worrying about not having shelter. And it's like we were saying before we, you know, started the recording, like, I take it very seriously that I need to rest and I need to feed myself and I need to take care of myself. Because rest is not resistance, but me getting the rest that I need and the care that I need allows me to resist in a way that helps someone else to get free. And that's like what we all need to be doing for each other.

[Be A Wong]

I'm just gonna say this because, you know, there used to be a thing people would do whenever, whenever there was a large social upheaval. It was called the occupation of the factories. Yeah, you could go read Bella Testa writing about it in like 1921. Very old thing. See, the Seattle general strike was like the most famous example, people doing this in, in the us but it was like, okay, so there's some shit going on. We need to stop something from happening. So we are going to take over our workplaces and run the parts of it that need to be run so that people can get food and Then otherwise we're not. And otherwise we're getting control.

[Ellie Bell]

You don't actually just have to go to your 9 to 5.

[Be A Wong]

The people in Seattle, those people didn't know what a television was.

[Ellie Bell]

Yeah.

[Be A Wong]

And they were able to do this. If you showed one of the people in, like, in like The Seattle, like, 1919 General Strike people who, who did this. Like, if you showed them a computer, they would have a heart attack. And they did this. So I believe in all of you, you have seen things that would have obliterated these people's minds.

[Ellie Bell]

Like, it's. I have. I have, like, a slightly different take. I don't know if this is like a hot take or a cold take or a lukewarm take, but my perspective is one. Who said that you just have to go to your 9 to 5 while you watch all of this happen? Who said that? You are saying, oh, I have to do that. No one is actually making you do that. The consequences of that are that if you don't go to your 9 to 5 or you take a sick day or something, you might get fired and you might be in a similarly vulnerable position to someone whose life is already on the line. But if we all stood in solidarity with each other, that would be less dangerous. Like, if we chose each other over capitalism, that would be so radical. But that's my take there.

[Be A Wong]

There are not enough cops to evict us all. There simply aren't.

[Ellie Bell]

There really just aren't. I think that people forget or conveniently compartmentalize the truth that we, as a collective, when we band together, when we refuse to participate in individualism the ways that they want us to, we are so powerful. And I think that that scares people because that's a lot of responsibility. But again, that's really only so much responsibility. If you see yourself as an individual, as opposed to part of a collective, if you see yourself as bearing a piece of responsibility as part of a collective, the same way that ants all move in a colony and carry, like, a piece of bread together, maybe you wouldn't feel so much overwhelmed because you would understand that we are in this together. And I think that we really owe that to each other to reframe that in our minds and in our nervous systems as well, so that we can just, like, maybe shut up and show up.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. Now, speaking of showing up. Okay, yeah, we're locking back on.

[Ellie Bell]

We're locking in.

[Be A Wong]

We're. We're locking the fuck in. We can do this. I believe in us. So going back, I guess, from the sort of macro perspective to the micro, individual perspective of the exact, specific ways that one individual person gets treated.

[Ellie Bell]

Totally so sure. Locking back into what is happening on a more micro level. Giving an example of how ICE is dehumanizing immigrants in detention, whether they are here, quote, unquote, illegally or not. Albero is not here illegally. Okay. He's going through the asylum process. When the immigration attorneys on our organizing team spoke with Alberto and specifically asked about his conditions at Clay county, he said that and granted this, I believe, was sometime in the last week. I think they haven't spoken to him in maybe a week. It's been hard to. But when they asked about his conditions, he said that he had all the basics, is now being given three meals a day, and was at least at that point, being administered medication. We don't have very good context and accurate data on how often that's actually been happening. He has a severe seizure disorder and he requires medication to be administered at least, I think, twice a day. And even one missed dose can be fatal. It's been a while since they've been able to talk. I do know that he checks in with his family and a family friend every morning, only briefly. I spoke to them just before this call to get any updated information. There was a day this week where he didn't text first thing in the morning, and we were all really worried and we had no idea what that meant. It turns out that the wi fi just was down. But, oh, my God, how horrifying. Every day I wake up and I just. I don't know if he's still alive. And he's only one of many, many immigrants that I have worked on cases for and that I am trying to bring attention to. And it's terrifying to never know if he's going to be one of the many, many people who have died in there because it's been weeks or months for a year. And so, you know, as far as conditions go, we don't have a lot of information about his specific condition. We know that he has been struggling. We know that it's been very hard on his health. It would be hard on anyone's health whether they were disabled or sick or not, because the conditions are inhumane. We do know, as reported by other clients of the immigration attorneys on our team, we. We know that at different detention centers, many have told her that it's very cold. One who was with the gen pop and could only speak with her from a tablet in the room while other detainees were around, Several have told her that they were denied access to nurses and medical care when they had headaches or a sore throat.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

I also want to tie this back to, you know, the global pandemic. We've seen a lot of people die of COVID or other illnesses while in detention. This is a public health issue. This is a public health and safety issue. Just the same way that people who are in prisons are treated poorly and not given the medical care they need, and that. That cruelty is part of the point. Immigrants in detention are also completely deprived of medical care that they need. And again, that would be really dangerous for anyone. But for Alberto, he has a severe seizure disorder. Like, one thing could go wrong and he would be gone.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

Like his life hangs in the balance. There's another client she has with gastrointestinal problems. Told her that they basically can't eat anything because the food quality is so poor. And coupled with their condition, they just vomit and have diarrhea constantly. This is what is happening in ICE detention facilities. They are just completely overrun with these public health and safety disasters and they don't have the care or attention because those conditions happening are orchestrated.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. Like, they don't give a shit.

[Ellie Bell]

Or they're orchestrated. They're a part of the cool feed. They don't care.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

What's worse is they do care, but they care about creating the suffering.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. Well, it's like, like, for them, it's like these people's ultimate goal is to not have non white people in the U.S. right. You. You could. You can look at like, you know, Stephen Miller's wife, like, yeah. Last week was like, posting shit about what will happen when they deport 100 million Americans. It's like, yeah, right.

[Ellie Bell]

They want an ethno state. Absolutely.

[Be A Wong]

No. Like they. And they don't. It doesn't really matter to them. Like, you know, it's. It's kind of bad PR if people die in their. In their fucking camps. But they don't give. These people don't give a shit whether these people die or, like, are sent away. Like, they don't fucking care. Like, they care about hurting people. They don't care where they live or die.

[Ellie Bell]

They don't care about bad priority either, to an extent. Because, I mean, you know, this is what the show is about. Authoritarian regimes and, and fascism is about control.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

I mean, sure, I guess. Maybe if there's enough bad pr and they can't literally control people on the streets who are overtaking the situation and fighting back because they've gotten bad pr, that's A problem. But in and of itself, I don't really know if they care about the bad pr. They should care about the results of the bad pr, which is why we should all keep giving them bad pr. We've seen a lot of that. There are so many things that have happened since the escalation in Minneapolis last week where Renee and Good was shot and killed. Okay. I was collecting notes before this call, and I already had many. And then when I was collecting notes, just from today alone, I was like, oh, my God, 20 things have happened.

[Be A Wong]

Yep.

[Ellie Bell]

We found out in the last day alone. There was a huge piece published in Slate today that ICE is doing zero background checks on their applicants. A journalist got officially hired despite being a prominent person who speaks about leftism online. They failed a drug test. They didn't even complete all the proper paperwork. ICE has literally no idea who they're hiring. And they don't care because they'll take anyone who is willing to terrorize people. Yeah, like that's going to. Cause it's already causing a lot of community ruptures. It's going to ruin communities. And the reality is they don't care if it does, because it's actually the point. If this were about accuracy or real, quote, unquote, justice for Americans who are, you know, quote unquote being wronged by immigrants or whatever their narrative is, they would have a vetting process. They would want the best of the best. But they don't, because it's just about annihilation and control.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. Well, and the other part of that, too, if you want to look at the sort of more positive angle of it, is like, part of what's going on here is that they can't find enough people who want to commit an ethnic cleansing.

[Ellie Bell]

Here's my thing. I'm a little concerned that's not true. They are incentivizing people to betray their values. And part of what's going on in this country is that people are out of work. People need to stay fed and housed.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah, but here's the thing. Like, if they were able to really easily like, recruit those people into doing this, then they wouldn't be continuously upping the bonus rates and they wouldn't be trying to, like, steal cops from other agencies. Like, I think they seem to be having legitimate problems even in a shitty job market.

[Ellie Bell]

And we should. We should give them more. I think we should give them more. I think that we should incentivize. I personally would love to figure out how to incentivize ICE agents to Quit their jobs. Like, I don't know what I have to do. Maybe I'll gather my like, sex worker friends to organize some kind of campaign. I don't. I don't know. I. I don't know.

[Be A Wong]

Well, you can you just. Just make their lives miserable until they quit. Like that's the, that's the easy, like.

[Ellie Bell]

Sure. Yeah. And I. And by the way, I say sex worker friends specifically because DOMs are tough and they would bully ICE agents to no end. And I say this as a former dom.

[Be A Wong]

I believe in us. I believe in us. We can make these people's lives hell. We could do this.

[Ellie Bell]

I really think that if we take collective action and we all take stock of what are my skills and then use that to put the pressure on the people who are making this terror possible. I think that we can. I think we can take them all down. Yeah. I think that we truly could convince people to quit if we make their lives a living hell. Do not let them stay at hotels. Do not let them buy groceries. Don't let them show their faces anywhere in public. Okay. This is also another thing that happened today. I think it was. There was the largest data breach ever. There was a data breach today or Yesterday. That was. 4,500 names got leaked.

[Be A Wong]

Yep.

[Ellie Bell]

With info in them, so they can't be anonymous. We have to take that and run with it.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. Now, legal disclaimer. We are not advocating illegal actions here. We are simply not doing this.

[Ellie Bell]

I'm just saying anything is possible if you believe.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. However, comma, what other people do with this data is not something we can really control. It exists now. Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

I actually think it would be a shame if we did something with that data, you know.

[Be A Wong]

Now, speaking of doing things with our data, I don't know, I was probably supposed to have taken like two ad breaks right now, but fuck it, we're gonna. We're doing one here. I believe in us. And we are back. Now, one of the bleak things and something that you wanted to talk about, Ellie, is that the conditions that we're seeing here are things that have already killed people. And the danger here compounds, the more risk you're at, the more, you know, for. If you. Again, to take it to take a completely non abstract example, if you need seizure meds twice a day or you might die, the odds of terrible stuff happening to you increases. But yeah, can we talk a bit about the other people who this has already fucking happened to?

[Ellie Bell]

I mean, yeah, there's so many and we can't name them all. Because we don't know all of their names. Because again, we don't have all the proper data. We only know some things. But that's why we're part of a big part of this campaign has been asking people to put pressure on congresspeople to release Albero, to show that we're not going to give up on him the way that other people have just been given up on and died in detention, and that we're going to work relentlessly to get him out because he matters. But you know, as ICE escalates its attainments across the country and in the Midwest, specifically in Ohio and Minnesota and all these places, Chicago, Minneapolis, Columbus, what happens to him sets a precedent for others. The same way that what's been happening to other immigrants has set the precedent that this is going to keep happening. You know, showing that I can't just take someone and disappear them and get away with it really matters for everyone else. People are watching for every immigrant detained recently and everything that ICE is rolling out and this is. God, the. I don't even know, I've lost track because the numbers keep changing and growing. I wanted to say that's the second person that we know of that, that Renee was the second person that we knew of that ICE had murdered since New Year's Eve. But it wouldn't be surprising if there are, you know, so many, there's just so many immigrants who have died in custody and are currently dying in custody, which is what we're trying to prevent for Alberto. And like in la, ICE killed Keith Porter in his own home. Meanwhile, you know, in Chicago or now, I guess Indiana, because that's where they're keeping him. They're violating and detaining families like Alberto's who have done nothing to deserve this treatment. Who we saw a 44 year old woman, Marie Ange Blaise from Haiti, who died in a U.S. iCE facility two or three weeks ago after being detained since February of 2025, I believe, who was captured and taken into custody at an airport outside of US territories and you know, once again showing ISIS lack of regard for the law, just total lawlessness. She was transferred to Louisiana and then somewhere else where she died after vocalizing chest. And as far as I know, she didn't go in with a disability, she didn't go in with a health condition, but the conditions are so horrifying there that that is just to be expected, which is terrible. And this dangerous pattern can't continue to unfold. We don't want this to be Albero and his family's reality, nor any immigrants living nightmare. You know, like, this is such a community issue across the world. Like, every one of the people connected to anyone who has died in ICE detention is impacted for the rest of their life by this. You know, like, it's what I was saying when I said people who have immigrant family, we can't just go about business as usual.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

Every day I wake up and I don't know if something is going to happen to one or all of my loved ones who might be targeted by virtue of having dark skin, which is not a crime. But in America, we're trying to make it one. And, like, again, we don't want this to happen to Alberto. He's a community member. Everyone in the community is saddened. He's a father, he is an uncle, he is a husband. His wife is so upset and so worried and doesn't understand why this is happening, because to her, he is a man who goes to work day and night to help his family, to provide for his family, and there just is absolutely no reason for him to be in there. And she was originally in detention, too. They were both detained, but they let her out. And that also feels like part of the cruelty, you know, part of the cruelty. And the conditions of dying in ICE custody are also rooted in being separated from hair. Yeah. And love. They let her out. You know, probably. We don't know. We have no idea why. We can't begin to imagine or guess. But it probably has something to do with separating them because it makes the experience more excruciating.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. And, you know, as. As bleak as the situation is, and it's really, really bad, we do. In terms of being able to. To turn this. A, try to save one person's life, and B, use this as a precedent we can use to try to get other people out. There is a legal advantage we have here that we don't in most places, which is that. Yeah. As you're talking about earlier, this stop was so illegal. They literally did a whole bunch of things that they were specifically ordered by a judge not to do.

[Ellie Bell]

Yes.

[Be A Wong]

And that gives us. That gives us a little bit of hope in a situation where it allows us to put pressure in ways that normally, like, would be very, very difficult to see. Can you talk a bit more about that?

[Ellie Bell]

The NAVA consent decree.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. Or like. Or how. How it can be deployed here.

[Ellie Bell]

Yeah. I mean, so. Right. There was nothing remotely legal about what they did. The NAVA consent decree that exists in Chicago specifically, you know, limits ice's ability to carry out warrantless arrests and vehicle stops. They require predetermined probable cause, with the most recent rulings enforcing that despite constant violations by ice. But, you know, groups like the National Immigrant justice center have used that to successfully challenge those violations, leading to potential releases and actual releases for people who have been detained and orders for officers being retrained, which, I mean, they're just.

[Be A Wong]

Going to keep doing it, right?

[Ellie Bell]

But, like, they're just going to keep doing it. But, you know, with. With what happened in Minneapolis, for example, with Renee and Good, they got in trouble, actually. The officers had something sent to them to remind them, like, hey, so you actually, like, can't do things the way that you did. And things like the Nava consent decree. Right. They cause problems because you can wave around a paper and say, hey, like, you. You can't do this. And, like, is it kind of as fake as the Constitution in some ways? Yeah. Like, they. They kind of don't care about it.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

But it is a tool that can be used by lawyers, like the wonderful immigration lawyers that we have on our team. We have Paula and Ange, who are the immigration attorneys helping Alberto and his wife. And they can use that, like, they've filed a habeas, and they can use all of this evidence of how they were illegally detained and violated without any grounds to push back and say, you need to release him immediately.

[Be A Wong]

The piece of paper from the judge does give us a little bit of openings here. And could you explain to people, like, what, you know, what people listening to the show right now can do to help here?

[Ellie Bell]

Yeah, I mean, I would say twofold. If we are looking at Alberto's case and his family's case, there is a crowdfund that they can donate to. I can send you the link that you can share.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah, we will link it in the description.

[Ellie Bell]

We really need people to donate to that. Again, Renegood was able to. Her wife was able to raise $1.4 million in a day. And while I am hoping and have faith that they will redistribute that to other people in need who are impacted by situations like this, it doesn't really feel great to see white people get all that money when we can't even push past the $14,000 for Alberto. So we really need people to donate. There is also a Change.org petition for people to sign. We have a few thousand people who have signed it, but we need more asking for Congress to pressure ICE to release him. This would also be monumental for other immigrants in detention.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

Okay, if we can use this as a case study, we know what we can get done through people power, through sheer will and through not allowing things to just fall through the cracks of social media because you're too busy doom scrolling. That being said, what people can also do is they can post. I mean, I think that people should doom scroll less if it means that their nervous systems will be more regulated so that they can show up to defend community members and protect community members. But if what you have is your phone in bed and you're scrolling, post share. Let people know what is happening. Refuse to be silent. Refuse to just go about your day business as usual. Talk about things. Let them know that people see what's happening and they're paying attention. And we are not going to just let people be disappeared or killed and die in detention. We are not going to abandon vulnerable people. Every single one of us has the opportunity to use our voice. You don't have to be me. You don't have to be a well known person who has large platforms. Every single one of us has a community that we can activate at any time. You text five people and tell them about something that is being done to someone and they text five people and they text five people. That's the entire world, baby. Like we got this shit.

[Be A Wong]

I believe we can appropriate pyramid scheme tactics to help people. I believe in us.

[Ellie Bell]

Pete Seeger said solidarity forever. Okay. I believe that we will win if what you do is make memes. Make a meme, Make a copy pasta. Make a copy pasta and send it to people. Like if your method is shitposting. Sure. Take whatever you got and find a way to spread the news and you know, do it for other immigrants too. You know, do it for, do it for whoever. But the more you speak out, the more you make it possible for other people to speak out.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

Because they realize they're not going to be the only ones even if they're afraid to say something.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah. And it's hard. It's harder to crack down on everyone.

[Ellie Bell]

Sure. And also the more you show people, like I actually have no idea if he knows how much support he has. I would love for him to know that.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah.

[Ellie Bell]

So that it helps him to get through. I know he knows that he has his family support and that's a lot. That's more than enough. But I would also, you know, love for people to just really like care for immigrants and non white people in general right now who are on this soil that we call, you know, the land of the United States because Basically, anyone who is not white right now is terrified of what might happen to them if they're on the wrong street at the wrong time. And they're rolling out these terror campaigns in Oregon and Columbus and Minneapolis and Chicago and New York. I knew they were going to escalate things in New York after Zoron took office because it's a great excuse. Everyone is terrified right now. And the best thing that you can do is show up every day and be human to each other. Buy someone a coffee, like, offer to just listen to a non white person in your life. Take an anti racism course. Show up as a human being who cares about other human beings, because that is the thing that matters most. When I think about stories that we have from way back in history, like, I'll just flag, you know, Anne Frank, because that's the one that everyone knows. The thing that mattered for her, the thing that kept her alive for longer than she could have maybe been alive, is people being human to each other. Like, I think that's such an underrated way to show up. And we take it for granted every day because we don't consider always how our smallest actions impact each other. And the truth is that your smallest actions could be the difference between someone losing their life or not.

[Be A Wong]

Yeah, I don't know. I'm gonna close this by doing.

[Ellie Bell]

As.

[Be A Wong]

Is tradition, about one in every 12 episodes. It ends with something from the Andor Namic Manifesto.

[Ellie Bell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Be A Wong]

You know, this is the. He has this lie where he goes, remember that the frontiers of the rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And it does. Right? It's impossible to know until it happens what the single push that makes the damn break is going to be. But it will be something.

[Ellie Bell]

Yeah.

[Be A Wong]

And it is literally impossible to tell what it's going to be until you know. The only way you can find out if the action that you are taking is going to be the one that knocks everything over is by doing it. So go do.

[Ellie Bell]

Absolutely. Yeah. We owe each other everything. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna do something kind of silly because I am who I am. But this is one of my favorite favorite songs in the world. And this is a Shrek reference.

[Be A Wong]

Oh, my God.

[Ellie Bell]

All Star by Smash Mouth. Like, you know, all that glitters is gold. Only shooting stars break the mold. You'll never know if you don't go. You'll never shine if you don't glow. Like, that's a directive. That's a directive. I think we should Listen to Smash Mouth. And we should try. We should just try for each other. I take that song very serious.

[Be A Wong]

You know, I really, really, truly. When I was planning this episode like a week ago, I did not think it was going to end with Andor and Shrek. But, you know, this is why you could never look. You never know how things are going to go. And sometimes they end well. Yeah. Ellie, do you have anything else that you want to make sure people know and where can people find you?

[Ellie Bell]

I don't have anything else that I think people should know. People can find me on Instagram at literally L, I, T, E, R, E, L, L, Y. Like literally, but with my name E, L, L, Y.

[Be A Wong]

Incredible. Well, we'll have this in the description, too.

[Ellie Bell]

Great. That's been my username everywhere on social media since I was 15. So it's been 16 years. People are always like, how did you get that username? Go, Go, baby. You had to. You had to be on. On Twitter as a. As a kid. But yeah, that's. That's. It's my same username everywhere. I have a newsletter that you can find on my social media where I write about community, care and what we owe to each other. I'm way less concerned about people being able to find me, except to just, you know, go, go share the campaigns that I've shared on my page for Alberto and other immigrants. Because I am constantly sharing things. If, you know, this helps me to get more of a platform so that people share more of the crucial campaigns that I share, that is great. My main concern is I don't need to be seen or heard or listened to any more than is necessary to get people to take action to help more vulnerable people than me. But if people also want to listen to things I have to say, sure, go for it. I quote mash mouth a lot and I'm very gay.

[Be A Wong]

We love to see it. Okay, this has been It Could Happen Here, a podcast done by the girl who posted I supposed to be destroyed after every single post for eight goddamn years. And now we're here. So let's go fight.

[Ellie Bell]

And now we're here. And for its ebooks, everything Happens so much.

[Be A Wong]

Yes.

[Ellie Bell]

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia. Com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here, listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed.