Bryan Lehrer: Hey, listeners, we usually use this podcast feed to deliver all the conversations we have on my live radio show, but today we're sending you a little something extra. Yesterday evening, WNYC Studios partnered with Theater of War to do what Theater of War usually does on a stage, on the radio instead. What do they do? Well, they take pieces of important journalism and other original source documents and present them by having top-tier actors perform readings from the articles and documents. Then hold discussions about them, sometimes including a reporter if it's a news article, sometimes including the actors, and always including questions and comments from news consumers like you.

In the coming months, WNYC and Theater of War are planning to have three more of these programs in addition to the one you're about to hear. Follow WNYC and Theater of War on social media to keep track of those upcoming live programs. Without further ado, here's the first edition of Theater of War on the radio.

Kai Wright: From WNYC in New York, this is Theater of War on the radio. I'm Kai Wright. It's good to be here. Tonight, we're going to do an experiment. I'm joined in the studio by Bryan Doerries, who is the artistic director of Theater of War, which he co-founded in 2009. Bryan, explain to our listeners what we're going to set out to do together tonight.

Bryan Doerries: Sure. Thanks, Kai. At Theater of War, we work with some of the best actors in the world to perform texts of all kinds, from poetry to plays to historic documents to pieces of journalism, all in the service of sparking important conversations about challenging topics. That's what we're going to do tonight with all of you listening. For the first time ever, we're attempting to do it live on the radio.

Kai Wright: Here we are. First time ever experiment for everybody. Tonight's conversation, we're going to focus on a story published in The New Yorker magazine that takes us to Minneapolis, where federal immigration agents have mobilized in recent weeks. That military-style mobilization has, of course, led to many alarming images for those of us outside of Minneapolis, and, of course, the killing of at least two people. One disturbing event that captured the world's attention was the abduction by federal agents of a five-year-old boy, Liam Ramos. We're going to dig into that story tonight.

Bryan, set the stage a little bit about what we're going to hear. Tell us what's in this story.

Bryan Doerries: Sure. We're going to hear an article that was written by Jessica Winter for The New Yorker. It tells the story of a school in Minnesota. The article is called ICE's Assault on a Minnesota School District. Like you just said, it isn't just any school district. It includes Liam Ramos' school. Liam, as I'm sure we all know, is the five-year-old boy that we've seen in photos with the bunny hat, Spider-Man backpack. Liam was taken by ICE agents from the driveway of his home with his dad after being dropped off after school.

Kai Wright: It was a horrible, horrible image for a lot of folks to watch. Last week, the Trump administration's so-called border czar, Tom Homan, said the crackdown in Minnesota is going to come to an end. We'll see if that's true. Either way, the impact is obviously going to linger. Here in New York, many families and communities are on edge, wondering what's going to happen next here as well. We're going to get into this. After we hear the story, we want to hear from you, particularly if you're a teacher or a school administrator or a school safety agent, all the kinds of people who played a big part in the story we're about to hear about Liam Ramos' school district.

Bryan, help us think about what do you want listeners to-- what should they have on their mind as they take this story in and get ready to call us after we hear it?

Bryan Doerries: Well, as you listen to the actors perform the story tonight, I want to ask you to think about what's speaking to you in the moment. Are there specific moments in the text that make you think about things you've experienced? Is there a line that jumps out at something that you've said or heard someone say? If you're a school administrator, how does the story speak to conversations you're having to prepare for ICE now?

Kai Wright: Hold those thoughts as you listen. We're going to give you the number to call after you hear. This is a good moment also. If you have friends who work in schools, reach out to them, tell them to tune in, be ready to join the conversation as well. Let's get started. Bryan, you want to set up the reading for us?

Bryan Doerries: Yes. Tonight we have the honor of having three amazing actors here with us in the studio at WNYC. All three of them should have the definite article the before their names, the Julianne Moore, the Daphne Rubin-Vega, and the Sam Waterston in the flesh here to perform this incredible article. The reading is about 16 minutes long. Grab a cup of tea or whatever floats your boat and join me in listening. Julianne is going to kick things off.

Julianne Moore: On Wednesday morning, well before the school run started, Mary Granlund was attempting to coax her dog outside for a brief walk in negative-two-degree weather, and her phone was already pinging with texts. "It's, like, 'Can someone help bring my kids to school today?' 'Can anybody pick my kids up from school today?' 'Has anyone called the police about the abandoned car?'" she told me.

Granlund is the chair of the school board in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, a northeastern suburb of Minneapolis. This community of about three square miles and 22,000 people is, like much of the greater Minneapolis metro area, presently swarmed with agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, and has been for weeks. Many parents who used to ferry their children to and from school every day have either been captured by ICE or are sheltering in place out of fear. Empty cars in the road are a common sight: lights on, engine still running, doors flung open. Educators and parents in the district have been working as chauffeurs, delivery drivers, bodyguards, and deterrence squads.

Among the untold thousands of children nationwide who have been swallowed up in ICE dragnets, six of them are students in the Columbia Heights school district. One is a fourth grader who was abducted with her mother when they were driving to school; they are currently being held in the notoriously abject South Texas Family Residential Center, in Dilley, Texas. Two 17-year-old students were also taken: one, a boy, is back home, but the other, a girl, is in Dilley. On Thursday, a pair of siblings in the second and fifth grade were taken into federal custody with their mother; they, too, are in Dilley.

So is the sixth student, Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old boy from Ecuador. A single image of the little boy, snapped by a neighbor at the scene of his abduction, has become iconic of Operation Metro Surge, which is what the Department of Homeland Security calls their occupation of Minneapolis. In the picture, Liam stands next to a salt-stained SUV, bundled up for the cold and wearing a bright-blue winter hat with fluffy white bunny ears. Behind him, the disembodied hand of a federal agent grips his Spider-Man backpack.

Granlund, in her capacity as school-board chair, has repeatedly demanded that ICE agents leave public-school property. In the first of these encounters, a few weeks ago, a masked ICE agent used his phone to record Granlund, her car, and her license plate, while reciting aloud her full legal name and address. Teachers at Highland Elementary School routinely stick around after dismissal to patrol the perimeter of the high school next door, where Homeland Security agents often loiter, as it lets out for the day.

"I've seen first-grade teachers and music teachers with whistles in hand, running toward ICE," Zena Stenvik, the Columbia Heights Public Schools superintendent, told me. "Literally, educators are putting their bodies between ICE agents and children." On January 21st, an ICE vehicle pulled into the loading dock of the high school. In a video of the incident, taken from a classroom window, students can be overheard in a hubbub of jeering, incredulity, and fear.

Recently, Granlund was picking up her son from the high school when she heard that ICE had descended on a nearby apartment complex, one that is home to many students in the district. She ran with some teachers, blowing their whistles, to the parking lot where ICE agents had been spotted. In a video of the incident, about a half-dozen women, unarmed and dressed for the classroom, square off against at least four masked agents of the federal government, their chests puffed out under bulky tactical gear. The women scream at ICE to get out, that they are not welcome in their community. "Are your moms proud of you?" One calls out. "Do they know what you do? Do they know that you separate families?"

In the video, the ICE guys mill about, menacing yet uncertain. One of them has fashioned a sinister balaclava out of his cap and neck gaiter. "You cos-patriot fucking losers, Jesus Christ, go." a woman yells. As the ICE agents fade back into their vehicles, one of them dawdles as he gets into a passenger seat, making sure to position his gun so that the women can see it before he shuts the door. "Ooh, you have a fucking gun?" One of the women taunts him. "Is it that small?" The ICE agents eventually did leave, empty-handed.

Less than a week later, another encounter on the school run had a different outcome. On January 20th, Granlund was again on her way to pick up her kids when she drove past a familiar sight: a cluster of parked cars, people honking and screaming and blowing whistles. She got out of her car and ran toward the commotion, her school-board lanyard in hand. "The school is here." Someone called out. The abduction of Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, both of whom have pending asylum claims, was unfolding in the driveway of the family's home, on a street where Granlund often walks her dog.

"I kept screaming that I could take him," Granlund said. "It happens all the time that parents miss the bus stop because they had to work late, they got caught in traffic, whatever, and our policy is to bring the kid back to school, and they can wait there." As horrifying as the scene in the driveway was, Granlund could instantly calculate her most useful place in it: she's the lady who looks after the boy whose father is unexpectedly unavailable. She went on, "I've had a background check," meaning that she was vetted to care for kids, "And I knew I could keep Liam physically safe. There was no reason-- I was saying, 'I'm from the school; I can take him, and they took him. I'm, like, where did he go? They took him. They took Liam."

Detainees at the Dilley facility have reported moldy food, unclean drinking water, unsanitary living conditions, and inadequate medical care; Liam has a persistent fever, is lethargic, and is not eating well, Stenvik told me. The Flores Settlement Agreement, which sets minimal standards for children in federal custody, requires that they be placed in the 'least restrictive setting' according to their age and needs. "But there is no reason for ICE to detain Liam to begin with," Ann Garcia, a senior staff attorney at the National Immigration Project, said. "Liam and his family have pending asylum applications. They have done nothing contrary to their immigration obligations that would warrant any detention, especially when Liam is quickly decompensating in detention. The 'least restrictive setting' for Liam is at home with his family in Minneapolis."

On January 28th, three US representatives from Texas, including Joaquin Castro, visited the Dilley facility, and afterward expressed concerns about the mental and physical health of the children who are trapped there. Castro also reported that ICE had taken Liam's bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack, and that Liam is hoping to get them back. Columbia Heights was as prepared for an immigration crackdown as could be reasonably expected of any community or school system, but there has been nothing reasonable about the ICE terror campaign.

After the 2024 election of Donald Trump, who promised mass deportations, the school district partnered with a local law firm to offer parents free informational sessions in English and Spanish on immigration rights. "We were all very prepared for what to do if, naïvely, in my imagination, an ICE agent came to the door with a signed judicial warrant," Stenvik said. "That's not at all what is happening. This is indiscriminate."

Schools also worked with vulnerable families to notarize a form assigning delegation of parental authority, or DOPA, which ensures a temporary transfer of custody and caregiving decisions to a trusted adult, in case a parent is abducted by ICE. "A lot of our families have filled out DOPA forms, so we are able to place those students in caring hands," Jason Kuhlman, the principal of Valley View Elementary, said. Three of Kuhlman's students at Valley View, including Liam, who was enrolled in the pre-K program, are now in Dilley.

"Typically, what we're seeing is that ICE picks up one parent. It's malicious because the other parent probably isn't going to be able to make it by themselves. They're going to self-deport, or they will deport the whole family in order to stay together," Kuhlman said. Not as many families signed ICE's so-called "privacy waivers" before being arrested or detained, giving Homeland Security a pretext for withholding vital information from legislators and schools about the families it has captured.

Valley View's student population is two-thirds Hispanic, with a sizable Ecuadorian population, and thus especially vulnerable to ICE. Kuhlman told me about one of his fourth graders, whose mother was taken by ICE while she was walking to the local supermarket to buy formula for her baby. The student's grandmother, who also lived in the home and was caring for the infant, was too frightened to pick up the older child at school, so officials scrambled to find the child's uncle. At Valley View alone, at least 23 families have had a mother or a father taken by ICE.

"And that's not counting grandmas and grandpas, that's not aunts and uncles," Kuhlman added, noting that many of his students live in multigenerational and extended-family households. School administrators have started calling families after raids to make sure that no children are left behind after their caregivers have been abducted. "There have been many evenings," Stenvik said, "When a home in the community has been raided, and I look up the address to see if any students of ours live there, and then I call the parent or the emergency contact to say-- and I have actually had to say this-- was your four-year-old left alone? Do you know where your four-year-old is?"

School life has both widened and narrowed in Columbia Heights since the all-out assault on Minneapolis began. Local educators now see providing security details for their students as part of their job description. Their schools double as food banks. Kuhlman spent much of January 23rd delivering laptops to students who have opted for remote learning. Absentee rates at Valley View peaked at around 25%, Kuhlman said, before remote learning ramped up.

In a throwback to the pandemic, Kuhlman and his colleagues worked up the new program in a matter of days, but Valley View has none of the funding that poured into school districts during the COVID crisis. Caution and fear, laced with anguish, must inform every decision. Parents who volunteer to drop off or pick up children from at-risk families "have reported being followed by unmarked vehicles or suspicious vehicles," Stenvik said.

"ICE agents have come up to their cars and looked in the back seat to see, seemingly, if there are children there." Masked men in tactical gear sometimes park in unmarked cars outside Granlund's house; on at least two occasions, she said, they stayed all day. After an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis, on January 7th, and after ICE raided a Mexican restaurant just a few blocks away from Highland Elementary, Stenvik began to worry about stray bullets, and directed the elementary schools to keep children inside for recess.

On January 24th, the day that Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Jeffrey Pretti, three ICE vehicles descended upon the Columbia Heights high school, which was hosting a volleyball tournament. "So, apparently, we can't just have a good old volleyball tournament without harassment," Stenvik said. Stenvik cancelled the annual all-district band concert, scheduled for last week, in which players from the elementary, middle, and high schools perform together on one stage.

"It's the most magical thing you've ever heard," Stenvik said. "I thought, Could we live-stream it? Could we do it during the school day?" In the end, she decided "to err on the side of safety," especially as many of the young musicians likely would not show up. "For a high-level ensemble," Stenvik said, "you need all of the parts."

What educators in Columbia Heights are keen to convey to the world outside is that despite national revulsion towards Operation Metro Surge. Despite the shock and sorrow generated by the killings of Good and Pretti and by the abduction of Liam. Despite the recent dismissal of Border Patrol's so-called commander-at-large Gregory Bovino, who worked hard and haplessly to become the public face of the war on Minneapolis. Despite statements on Thursday by President Trump's so-called border czar, Tom Homan, suggesting that he intends to draw down D.H.S. presence in the Minneapolis area, the war is far from over. From some perspectives, it is intensifying.

"It's worse since Bovino got kicked out," Granlund told me. Kuhlman said, "The number of abductions, the number of agents in our community, has not decreased. If anything, it feels retaliatory now." In part because of the attention that Liam's case has received and the awful light it sheds on the immigration crackdown, Three Valley View parents were detained over the weekend of January 24th and 25th. Another was abducted on Wednesday morning. Three high-school students, in separate incidents, were pulled over by ICE on their way to school on Thursday morning; none of these kids were detained.

On Friday morning, Stenvik drove around for an hour before the school run, focusing on areas where ICE has previously targeted students and checking that children were getting to school safely. Sure enough, she spotted a pair of masked agents in an ICE-identified vehicle, parked near Highland Elementary and the high school.

Kuhlman told me that he recently visited a fifth-grade classroom during their morning meeting because, he said, "We were having some issues in there." He asked everyone to put up their hand if they felt afraid of ICE. "My hand went up, the teacher's hand went up, and a lot of the kids' hands went up," Kuhlman said. The subtext was an old adage: courage is not the absence of fear. "Kids look to us to be the strong figures, but you can be strong and afraid," Kuhlman told me. "I was saying, 'Yes, I'm scared, too, but when you're inside our building, we will keep you safe. They are not coming in here. This is your space."

The day before Valley View Elementary launched its remote-learning program, the school had an e-learning day for all students, ostensibly owing to extremely cold temperatures. "I had to tell the students that this would be the last time they'd all be together for a while. It killed me," Kuhlman said, his voice breaking. "We create strong cultures and class communities, and we see that fragmenting. We're telling kids, elementary-school kids, that they can't see their friends because it's not safe. And why is that? Because we have people hunting you."

Kai Wright: That was the article, ICE's Assault on a Minnesota School District. It was written by Jessica Winter. It was performed for us by the incredible actors, Julianne Moore, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Sam Waterston. It was published in The New Yorker on January 31st, 2026. Liam Ramos was released after this article came out. We talked to the author, Jessica Winter, and we learned that as of this week, seven kids from Columbia Heights School District have been detained. At least one fifth grader remains in detention.

Now we want to turn to you. As I said earlier, we want to hear from teachers, and school administrators, and school safety agents in particular. What did you hear in that piece that made you think of your own situation? Have you thought about how you or your school would respond if ICE came in and tried to come inside? What would you do? 844-745-TALK. That's 844-745-8255. You can call us. You can text us with your thoughts, with your reactions to what you've heard. 844-745-TALK. That's 844-745-8255. I'm Kai Wright. This is a live special Theater of War on the Radio, and we'll take your calls after a break.

Welcome back. This is a live special Theater of War on the Radio from WNYC. I'm Kai Wright from The Guardian, formerly of WNYC, and I'm glad to be back here with all of you tonight. I'm joined by Bryan Doerries, artistic director of Theater of War, and we want to hear from all of you. We just listened to an article published in The New Yorker last month that tells the story of a school district in Minnesota, Columbia Heights, Minnesota. It was the district where little Liam Ramos went to school and where he was abducted by ICE. We're taking your calls. 844-745-TALK. That's 844-745-8255. Bryan, remind us what we want our listeners to think about as they pick up the phone and call us.

Bryan Doerries: Thanks, Kai. We want listeners to respond from their hearts and their guts. We want them to respond to what they heard in the story that moved them and resonated with them and their experiences. We want to know if there was a line that jumped out of something you've heard someone say or something you said yourself. If you're a school administrator, how did the story speak to conversations you've been having to prepare for ICE?

Kai Wright: Those are your directions. If you are a teacher, an educator, school administrator in particular, and you have answers to any of those questions, call us up. 844-745-TALK. That's 844-745-8255. While we take your calls, we have on the line Mary Granlund. Mary is the chair of the school board in Columbia Heights, which, again, is a northeastern suburb in Minneapolis. We heard some of her story just now in the article we read. Mary, welcome to WNYC.

Bryan Doerries: Hi. Thank you all so much for having me.

Kai Wright: Thank you, and thank you for the work you do, Mary. I was struck by the line in there. I was struck by when I read it, and I was struck again when I heard it just now when Jessica Winter described you as the woman who keeps children safe. I just wonder how you think about that assignment.

Bryan Doerries: Every kid in Columbia Heights in our school district, in our community, they're all our kids. That's how we talk about these. These kids in our community, they're all ours. We take care of each other in Columbia Heights. We may be a first-string suburb, but that is one of the things that I think we do really, really well is we look out for each other always. They're always all our kids, no matter what. It's hard to hear that because I do like to think of myself as somebody who keeps kids safe, and to know that in these times, that it becomes increasingly more difficult to do that.

Kai Wright: The article is a couple of weeks old now. It came out in late January. I just wonder with the little distance, how does it feel now listening to that?

Bryan Doerries: I still get tearful hearing it, reading through it. I want to say that that spoke about a moment in time that we're far beyond that. We are not. That morning that Liam was abducted, we also had one of our high school students abducted that day, too. While those abductions have thankfully slowed down, we still have ICE in our community. They are still here. They're still hitting, they're going into further out suburbs, some exurbs. We still see them in our community every day, circling around our schools, circling around our stores, around our neighbors' homes. I want to say that that is not the way it is, but it still very much feels like we are under siege.

Kai Wright: We're talking to Mary Granlund, who is the chair of the school board in Columbia Heights, a northeastern suburb just out of Minneapolis. We heard a little bit about her in the story we just heard. We are taking your calls. We want to hear what's on your mind after having listened to that story, after having hearing from Mary. Particularly if you're a teacher, or an educator, or a school safety agent, 844-745-TALK. That's 844-745-8255. Mary is going to stick around with us, but let's go to Michelle, who is in South Minneapolis. Welcome to WNYC, Michelle.

Michelle: Hi, I am grateful that you're sharing stories of what's really happening on the ground. I just called in because I wanted to-- I know how important stories are. There's a million things that I could share. It's been a really hard time. I'm a parent of a couple of middle schoolers.

I'm not an educator. I'm an educator adjacent. I have friends who are educators, and every educator I know of is serving so many different roles. Social workers, they're bringing food to people, toys, Valentine's Day kits. All the parents that I know are driving children to school, who are being courageous enough to work even though it's not safe for them to go to work. Patrolling schools, fundraising to pay rent.

This is still happening. People haven't been able to work for a couple of months now, or if they have been brave enough to go to work, they've been detained. Most people have had at least one stint in detention. There still is no funds coming in. We're still fundraising for every single school. You can probably hear my voice shaking because even though I'm currently traveling and have a little bit of space from it, it's really traumatic, and it's still traumatic, and it's ongoing.

I guess I just want to share that nothing has changed. A few agents have left the state, but I don't know, they're still there, and they're still harming us. Most of all, they're harming our children. I guess one-- go ahead.

Bryan Doerries: No, no, I just wanted to thank you. Please finish with your thought. I just wanted to say--- go right ahead.

Michelle: No, I guess I had said to this call screener that there's not a family that I don't know where it hasn't affected them directly and broken their heart. I'm a white family, and my kids are a white family. We're not the receivers of the direct harm and trauma, but because we care about everyone. Kids are missing from class, and because your friends can't come to your birthday party, and then you find out that your friend's mother was detained at five months pregnant. How does one explain that to their child in any fashion that any of this is just or okay? It's really been hard, and I'm just glad that you're talking about it because it hasn't stopped.

Bryan Doerries: Thank you so much for sharing that and for bringing your experiences and experiences of those in Minneapolis into the show and into the ears of people listening. It's such a powerful thing to hear you give testimony to, and also, I just want to say watching vicariously something happen and not be able to stop it is a form of trauma. It's a form of moral injury. We're listening to you in New York, and it's hard for us to hear it, but I hope you know that we're here listening to you and bearing witness to your story. It's such a powerful thing you've brought to the show tonight. Thank you.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that call, Michelle. We are taking everybody's calls, 844-745-8255. That's 844-745-TALK. If you want to react to the story you've heard, chime in about your experience and what's on your mind. Let's go to Richard in Brooklyn. Richard, welcome to WNYC.

Richard: Hey, good evening. Thanks so much. I'm a high school teacher in a transfer high school in Sunset Park, and I love the reading. I'm incredibly sympathetic to people who are facing this. I'm a white person, educator in New York City. I just want to say, asking us educators what we are going to do if this happens, a little scaremongering. I feel like it's obvious, as people that spend a lot of time and love kids, that we're going to protect them. We're going to yell at them, like the people in that reading that happened in Minneapolis.

We're going to be scared ourselves. We're going to do our best. Your screener asked me if we'd received any sort of official guidance from the city. I personally have not yet. I don't know if there is any. To have a show that's like, what are you going to do? You're scaring me. I'm like, where are officials being asked this question? Why haven't I been told what to do yet, officially? It could be up to me. I haven't done the research. I don't know. I just feel like you scared me. Maybe I should be scared more than I am. I don't know.

Bryan Doerries: You make a very fair point. Of course, our objective isn't to scare listeners, but by bringing your present-tense thoughts into the space and into the broadcast as you wrestle with the guidance you haven't been given, you're scaring me. I think that's a good thing. I love that line in the piece that courage isn't the absence of fear, that actually part of being courageous is leaning into your fear. We take the criticism, but also I'm grateful that you expressed your fear on the show.

Richard: Thank you very much.

Kai Wright: If you are an educator or a parent, actually, to Richard's point, have you heard anything from your school? We'd love to hear what you think. 844-745-8255. That's 844-745-8255. Well, for everybody, but in particular, if you want to follow up on what Richard offered and you've heard something from your school, we'd like to hear from you. Let's go to Marianne in Richfield, Minnesota. Marianne, welcome to the show.

Oh, I don't think we've got Marianne just yet. Marianne, you there? Oh, wonderful. Marianne, welcome to WNYC. No. Okay, well, we'll keep trying for Marianne.

For a second, if Mary Granlund, I think you're still there with us, on this question of guidance from the schools and how educators are being supported in the moment around this, do you want to chime in on that? What have you guys done? What do you think is the best thing for people to be doing?

Mary Granlund: Yes, it's a great question. I just want to say, as a school district, we don't tell teachers that they need to go outside and watch out and make sure kids get there safe. That is a choice. We let our staff make that choice. Those teachers again, it's our kids, right? They're all our kids. There's a fierce protectiveness that our staff feel towards our students. That comes out with them when they come out into those spaces. Like Superintendent Stenvik had said, and was said in the article too, nobody is prepared for this.

We had meetings ahead of time. We started meeting last January, talking about what things could happen, what could look. We had all of our staff took training, our front desk staff took training on what to do, how to tell what a judicial warrant was. None of those things that we carefully planned for a year happened the way they are supposed to happen, the way that we expected to happen. As much as people hate the analogy, we're building the airplane as we're trying to fly it; that is literally what we're doing.

We are not alone. All of the school districts in Minnesota, and especially in the Twin Cities, are doing this without any sort of guidance. In the absence, we are creating it. In a lot of ways, it's like COVID, but without the-- where we all had to pivot and do things we never thought we could do before. Now here we are trying to do that all again. Now, instead of the federal government helping us, they're the ones causing the harm.

Kai Wright: Thanks for that, Mary. Let's go to Greg in Wayne, New Jersey. Greg, welcome to WNYC.

Greg: Yes, hello.

Kai Wright: Yes, welcome to the show. I gather you have gotten some guidance.

Greg: Yes. At the state university here, we have been told on various things, none of them terribly comforting. One is if we do notice ICE on campus, we are to contact the campus police force, and they're supposedly trained to intercede. We're not supposed to intercede, but I live in fear of them showing up at my classroom, where I do teach a lot of Black and brown students.

ICE is in New Jersey, and we hear stories all the time, and I am fearful every time I hear about them going into child care centers or schools. We're placed in a position that it seems reminiscent of how we were back in COVID, where we were given vague instructions and told we were important employees, and we had to show up under circumstances that nobody really understood. That's where I'm at on this.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that, Greg. Let's go to Kieran in Brooklyn. Kieran, welcome to the show.

Kieran: Hey, how's it going?

Kai Wright: We are well. What do you want to tell us about your reaction?

Kieran: Something I've been troubled by, and it's not surprising since I've known that a lot of my coworkers, at least a significant amount of them, are MAGA or pro-Trump, pro-ICE, however you want to put it. It's not that hard to tell who of them don't really have much of a problem, which is going on, and would probably also be willing to cooperate enthusiastically with ICE if they were to show up. That's something I've been troubled by and that we haven't really received--

As another caller said, we haven't really received any instructions on how to deal with ICE in that situation, nor has anyone been told that they shouldn't cooperate or if there's anything consequences for people that do, because yes, there are people that express their-- not so subtly express their support for what's happening in Minneapolis or around the country regarding immigration basically their attitude. Despite being teachers who make their money off taxpayers' dollars, they're the first to complain, saying, "Oh, look at our taxpayer dollars at work with these kids that are in our classrooms that don't belong here essentially," which I'm very troubled by.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that, Karen. Let's go to one more before we take a break. Let's go to Abby in the Upper West Side.

Abby: Hi, thank you for taking my call. One thing as an adult of a traumatic childhood, I'm wondering if anybody is thinking about the long-term effect. I know it's an emergency now, and we need to deal with what's happening now, but is anybody concerned with what's going to happen? What is the effect of these kids that are full of cortisol and adrenaline running through them? What are going to be the long-term effects for these kids?

Kai Wright: Abby, you're a preschool teacher, right?

Abby: Yes.

Kai Wright: I just wonder for you, as you listened, what for you personally came up?

Abby: I know what it's like to grow up being terrified, and I know that it has taken me a lifetime to try and get through that. The cortisol and the adrenaline is running through their brains, and that can chemically alter their disposition. It's horrible enough what's going on now, but I'm thinking, even if this is over, they're still going to have long-term effects on these children that are being terrorized. That concerns me, the long-term.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that, Abby. You're listening to a live special, Theater of War, on the radio. I'm Kai Wright. We are taking your calls about the stories we've been hearing about federal immigration agents showing up at schools in Minneapolis and potentially around the country. 844-745-TALK. That's 844-745-8255 to chime in. We'll be right back after a break. Welcome back.

You're listening to Theater of War on the radio, a live special from WNYC. I'm Kai Wright from The Guardian, returning to my former home on the WNYC airwaves with all of you. I'm joined by Bryan Doerries, the Artistic Director of Theater of War. Bryan, I keep wanting to-

Bryan Doerries: It's okay.

Kai Wright: -insert an extra word in the title. My apologies.

Bryan Doerries: That's no problem.

Kai Wright: Theater of War. We're going to take a break from calls for just a moment to hear another reading. This one's much shorter. The New Yorker article came out on January 31st. That very same day, another text was published, and it's quite different. Judge Fred Biery published an opinion in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Judge Biery ordered the release of Liam Ramos, and this is what he wrote that you're going to hear. Here's actor Sam Waterston again reading Judge Biery's opinion for us.

Sam Waterston: Opinion and order of the court, filed January 31st, 2026. US District Court, Western District of Texas.

Before the Court is the petition of asylum seeker Adrian Conejo Arias and his five-year-old son for protection of the Great Writ of habeas corpus. They seek nothing more than some modicum of due process and the rule of law. The government has responded. The case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.

This Court and others regularly send undocumented people to prison and orders them deported, but do so by proper legal procedures. apparent also is the government's ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence. 33-year-old Thomas Jefferson enumerated grievances against a would-be authoritarian king over our nascent nation. Among others were:

1. "He has sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People."
2. "He has excited domestic Insurrection among us.”
3. "For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us."
4. "He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our Legislatures."

"We the people" are hearing echoes of that history. Then there is that pesky inconvenience called the Fourth Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and persons or things to be seized. US constitution amendment IV.

Civics lesson to the government: Administrative warrants issued by the executive branch to itself do not pass probable cause muster. That is called the fox guarding the henhouse. The Constitution requires an independent judicial officer. Accordingly, the Court finds that the Constitution of these United States trumps this administration's detention of petitioner Adrian Conejo Arias and his minor son, L.C.R. The Great Writ and release from detention are granted pursuant to the attached Judgment.

Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency, and

the rule of law be damned. Ultimately, Petitioners may, because of the arcane United States immigration system, return to their home country, involuntarily or by self-deportation. That result should occur through a more orderly and humane policy than currently in place. Philadelphia, September 17, 1787, "Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have?" "A republic, if you can keep it." With a judicial finger in the constitutional dike, it is so ordered. Signed this 31st day of January, 2026. Fred Biery, United States District Judge.

Underneath is the photograph of Liam, standing in the snow, wearing his school backpack and the blue knit cap with bunny ears when he was first detained by ICE, Credit to a bystander. Beneath the photograph, two passages from the New Testament are referenced. The first, Matthew 19:14. "Jesus said, Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." The second, John 11:35. "Jesus wept."

Kai Wright: That was after Sam Waterston with a live reading of Judge Biery's opinion of about five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father, Adrian Canejo Arias. We're taking your calls. The number is 844-745-TALK. That's 844-745-8255. Bryan, I know you have some ideas for what our listeners should be thinking about as they continue to give us a call.

Bryan Doerries: Well, I'm so struck by both Judge Biery's opinion, but also Sam Waterston's embodiment of it and performance of it. It reads more like a poem than a legal document. He quotes the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and Scripture, and he closes with a judicial finger in the constitutional dike, "It is so ordered." I'm asking those of you listening out there tonight, what did hearing Sam Waterston reading Judge Biery's words say to you tonight? What do you make of that last line about his finger in the constitutional dike?

Kai Wright: His finger in the constitutional dike. Maybe that's all of us.

Bryan Doerries: Yes, fingernail.

Kai Wright: Fingernail, fingernail. Your reaction to that, what do you think when you hear that? 844-745-TALK. That's 844-745-8255. Let's go to Marianne in Richfield, Minnesota. Marianne, welcome to the show.

Marianne: Hi. I think something that I took from that reading, and, yes, you're right, it was more of a poem, and it's funny that you mention that because my class right now is finishing the poetry unit. It made me think of how brave and how awesome one of my students was when she read her poem out loud today to the whole class, making it clear that her family is not an alien, her family is not an animal, that they are human beings, and that thanks to them, she has what she has in today's world.

If it wasn't for her family, she wouldn't know the world that she knows now, and just hearing that made me think of her and myself, obviously, as well. As a DACA recipient, as a student teacher, I don't think I ever signed up for this, but I think this is making me stronger. I guess the one thing that comes into my head is how can I keep my students safe when I'm also a target?

Bryan Doerries: That's such an important question. I really appreciate you putting such a fine point on it. You wear many hats. What you do is so sacred. I love that what resonated with you was the poetry and the judge's opinion and the poetry in your students' recitation in class today, asserting your students' basic humanity. Such a powerful thing to have brought here. Thank you so much for calling in.

Kai Wright: Thank you for that.

Marianne: Thank you, guys.

Kai Wright: Let's go to Chloe in Harlem. Chloe, welcome to the show.

Chloe: Thank you so much.

Kai Wright: What would you like to tell us about?

Chloe: Thank you. Just to reflect on the Judge Biery opinion and the Sam Waterston reading of it about the judicial finger in the dike. That is what judges do, and we're seeing Judge Biery and some other brave people stepping up in that capacity. It also seems like for Minneapolis, and I was able to join about 600 clergy that were hosted there on the 23rd through the 4th. What became so apparent was that there is something that everyone can do in whatever capacity that we are called to.

Whether it was the teachers, or the neighbors, or the parents, or the kids themselves. I think that's true in New York as well, and we're trying to get a hands-off efforts off the ground here with trainings and recognizing New York is pretty different. This strengthening of this civic muscle that we all have and just aren't used to exercising quite as much is super important. That's what I thought.

Kai Wright: Got to strengthen those muscles. Thank you so much for that, Chloe. Let's go to Laura in the Bronx. Laura, welcome to the show.

Laura: Thank you so much. I want to say this quickly, and I have a lot to say. Sam Waterston is brilliant, and I love him; so is Julianne Moore. The readings are great, but I've got to get over that. What we need to do right now in New York and what my community in the Bronx is doing is beginning to organize to do street patrols. We've got our whistles. We've got our Know Your Rights cards. We are organizing, and people need to understand in Manhattan and in the places that haven't yet been assaulted.

If you guys haven't yet seen people getting snatched, let me tell you something. They're coming, and you need to organize now. You need to do street patrols. You need to have people aware so that they can warn the communities as they see the ICE vans, the hoods, the guns, the bullies, the thugs, because they're coming. You need to get out there, whatever your community offers you in terms of a locus to get together, to talk to each other. To figure out what your street patrols are going to be, where are they coming from, what are the entryways, and the access points to your particular community. You know your streets. You've got to get out there and do it now. Get ready.

Kai Wright: Well, thank you for that, Laura. With the message, get ready, I think that's where we're going to have to end with our calls. I think that's the right note to end on, no, Bryan? Let us be prepared. In this last about 40 seconds we've got, what are the parting thoughts you want to leave us with?

Bryan Doerries: Well, the reading for me brought us into the present moment. It brought Minneapolis to us. I think for a lot of us it's an abstraction to think about people, children being hunted and pulled out of their schools or out of cars and taken to detention centers. I really want to thank the actors for making it come alive, and I really want to thank these brave educators and parents for the courage that they're showing by leaning into their fear. I think the fear at the end of this last caller's comments shouldn't be something that should be dispiriting; it should be a call to action and solidarity and fuel for the road ahead.

Kai Wright: Fuel for the road ahead. Bryan Doerries is Artistic Director of Theatre of War. I did it one more time.

Bryan Doerries: It's okay. Theatre of War.

Kai Wright: Theatre of War. Thank you for joining us tonight, Bryan, and for bringing these readings and these performances to us. Thanks to the Donald A Pels Charitable Trust for supporting the program. An incredible, big, huge thanks to our actors, Julianne Moore, Daphne Rubin-Vega, and Sam Waterston. You can read Jessica Winter's article, ICE's Assault on a Minnesota School District, along with additional coverage of ICE and immigration on newyorker.com. I'm Kai Wright from The Guardian. Thanks for spending time with us tonight.

 

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