How ICE raids are testing police-community relationships

Here & Now Anytime

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4.1 • 953 Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, discusses how local police departments are caught between following federal immigration directives and maintaining community trust.

And, President Trump has been denigrating the community of more than 80,000 Somali migrants living in Minnesota. Khalid Omar, an organizer with the Minnesota interfaith group Isaiah, explains the impact on his community.

Then, if raccoons are wild animals, why are they so darn cute? There may be a scientific reason: Urban raccoons are showing early signs of domestication. Raffaela Lesch, a researcher at the University of Arkansas, shares more.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for here and now anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design.
0:09.2	MathWorks, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at MathWorks.com.
0:17.0	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:21.8	If the community starts to mistrust the police, they won't report crime, they won't cooperate, they won't serve as witnesses.
0:29.2	That really is, you know, very much established.
0:32.1	The actions of federal immigration agents had a lasting impact on local police
0:37.9	long after the blitzes end
0:40.4	and they leave town.
0:51.4	It's Friday, December 5th,
0:53.3	and this is here and now anytime, NPR and WVUR.
0:56.8	I'm Chris Bentley.
1:00.8	Today on the show, Minnesotans react to President Trump's racist rants about Somali Americans.
1:08.7	The words that are coming from our president are really dangerous and have real consequences.
1:15.1	Also, some decidedly lighter news to mull over this weekend.
1:20.3	Raccoons are showing early signs of domestication, according to a new study.
1:26.3	But they're not exactly cats or dogs.
1:29.2	Yes, I would not recommend owning a raccoon at the moment, since even if they're in the early
1:34.2	stages of domestication, they're still wild animals. Before we get to that story, though,
1:40.3	federal immigration agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol have been deployed in cities across the country for the last few months.
1:49.3	This week, they started sweeps in New Orleans.
1:52.5	In cities like Chicago and Charlotte, North Carolina, ICE agents have used aggressive and violent tactics, shooting tear gas, chasing people through the streets,
2:02.4	arresting protesters, and even in places where local police take a hands-off approach to
	...

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