4.3 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Drone surveillance, sign language and 'looking American' are all suggestions that Brazilian immigrants are making to each other as ways to avoid being deported. Since the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term, there have been increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement or 'ICE' raids all over the country. These raids are designed to crack down on people from overseas living in the US illegally, and in September ICE focused on Massachusetts, where there is a huge Brazilian population. Many Brazilian people living in the US are there perfectly legally, but many aren't and if they are arrested by ICE they face detention and ultimately deportation. Vitor Tavares of BBC Brasil has been looking into how the Brazilian communities in the US have been using messaging apps to respond to the raids in Massachusetts.
In traditional silk making methods the cocoons are boiled, killing the silkworm inside. But a state in western India is pioneering a new way of making silk, where the silkworm is allowed to mature into a moth, and leave the cocoon still alive. It's called 'Karuna' silk, which means compassion. Shivalika Puri who reports for the BBC in India went to go and meet the people who are making this more compassionate silk.
Spanish people and most Latin Americans have two surnames, but why? It’s a tradition that goes back centuries, but it’s not common across most Christian origin countries – which got BBC Mundo journalist Paula Rosas thinking, and digging into the history.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Caroline Ferguson, Laura Thomas and Hannah Dean.
This is an EcoAudio certified production.
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:13.8 | You're listening The Fifth Floor. |
| 0:17.6 | The Fifth Floor, you know you, listen. |
| 0:20.0 | The Fifth Floor, Farnak, Amid Isobat. The fifth floor is You're listening. We're with us. |
| 0:24.7 | This is the fifth floor, Farnak Amidi, Subt. |
| 0:31.2 | This is the fifth floor at the heart of global storytelling with BBC journalists from all around the world. |
| 0:35.0 | I'm your host, Faranak Amidi. |
| 0:46.1 | Does anyone have the phone number of a Brazilian restaurant in Lowell? |
| 0:52.5 | Brazilians living in the USA use WhatsApp group chats to keep a sense of community. |
| 0:56.6 | Does anyone know a good Brazilian hairdresser around Brookline? |
| 1:01.1 | Questions to other Brazilians, comments on the price of flights, home. |
| 1:03.9 | Hey everyone, I need to unlock my English. |
| 1:06.1 | Does anyone have a teacher to recommend? |
| 1:09.7 | You know, things that come up when you're living as an immigrant. |
| 1:14.3 | But in September, the types of messages on these groups changed. |
| 1:19.3 | They caught a woman and a girl in Milfraud now with four ice cars. |
| 1:20.7 | They came in force. |
| 1:22.8 | May God have mercy on everyone. |
| 1:26.7 | Since the beginning of President Donald Trump's second term, there have been increased immigration and customs enforcement or ice rates all over the country. |
| 1:32.7 | People help locate Carlos family. |
| 1:35.7 | They just got trapped by the ice in Stoughton. |
... |
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