CBP and ICE Report: New Orleans, Minneapolis, Greg Bovino & Apple Pie (Half the Answer #66, with Amanda Moore)

Caitlin and Trent talk with journalist Amanda Moore about her work tracking the DHS "surges" all over the United States, her efforts to get close to former commander at large Gregory Bovino, and her experience trying to form conclusions about the broader patterns of immigration forces' violence over time.

Half the Answer can be heard on Spotify, on Apple, on YouTube, on Amazon, and elsewhere via its RSS feed.

Resources:

https://substack.com/@noturtlesoup17

https://www.instagram.com/noturtlesoup17/?hl=en

https://bsky.app/profile/noturtlesoup17.bsky.social

Bovino's legacy of violence https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUbhHF7jCI8/

Trump's War on History https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/02/america-freedom-task-force-250-trump-anniversary-history-smithsonian-kennedy-center/

The Horns and Whistles Work https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/12/the-horns-and-whistles-work/

Transcript

**Caitlin M. Green [00:00:29]**
Happy days are here again. It's happening. I'm willing it. We're here. The happy days are here, and we are here. We bring them. So this is Half the Answer, where understanding a question is half the answer. I am your increasingly husky-voiced host, a thing I can say easily and without messing up, and with me is Trent. We are Liberal Currents employees, and we also do other things in our lives, including history, philosophy, linguistics, sewing janky-ass dolls together for our kids, and podcasting. Here we are. Trent, who'd you bring me?

**Trent R. Nelson [00:00:45]**
Well, Caitlin, we do all those things, and we do them sometimes with people we've just gotten to hang out with once. Maybe we've never even gotten to hang out with them. Maybe we've gotten to hang out with them two times, but never three. All right, never a third time. This is the first third time that you're getting from us.

And who did I bring? Well, I brought our great friend Amanda Moore. And well, you don't know her like we do, but you get these little glimpses into our world. So Amanda, well, she's a journalist. She covers the far right. And in our current environment, that means parts of the federal government, in that funny way we have. Unfortunately, Amanda Moore here, she follows Border Patrol. No, it's unfortunate that she has to cover these terrible people. We would love to have her on to talk about not the worst things in the whole wide world, but unfortunately, she's our source for bad things.

Amanda, you are beloved by not only the people who follow you, but also by the people that don't like it, like the former commander Gregory Bovino of Border Patrol. We'll get into him in a hot second. But we brought you on because we needed to talk to you about what's been going on in your life since last we chatted, which was when you were in New Orleans, and we covered where you had been previously, which is Chicago, which was Portland, which is Charlotte for a hot second, and then you were going down to New Orleans. And well, we got to get to Minnesota, where you also were, and we also got to get to Gregory Bovino. We got to get to how Minnesota was and how it is and how it's going to be and all that. But let's start from where we last chatted. What have you been doing since last we talked?

**Caitlin M. Green [00:02:00]**
Wow. Unfortunately, we have Amanda.

**Amanda Moore [00:03:05]**
Well, last time we talked, I was in New Orleans, and I was there for the launch of Operation Catahoula Crunch, as they called the immigration surge or whatever there. And the rain is Antifa. And so it rained, and it was impeding a federal investigation, so they delayed the operation a couple of days. So I talked to you guys. I had not actually seen anything in New Orleans because it was raining.

And so I've lived many lives. I've been to New Orleans, I went to Minnesota, I went back to New Orleans, then I went back to Minnesota, and then I went home and went back to Minnesota in the time since we last talked. So things are going great in the world. Everything is fine. No, I got home Friday, and today is, I don't know, Thursday.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:03:20]**
Really helpful.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:03:35]**
Such a luxury.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:03:47]**
Wait. Are you in Minnesota now?

**Amanda Moore [00:03:51]**
No.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:03:54]**
Okay, oh my gosh. It sure is okay. Almost a week. Congrats on almost an entire week at your own home. Okay, so yeah, the rain, the rain in New Orleans. I mean, I'm sure with all their little Nazi fade haircuts, they were getting damp and floppy, and that's no good. And so they had to go and do something else. So yeah, okay, so they left New Orleans.

Seems like a lot of news has been coming out of Minneapolis. A lot of things seem to have changed. There's been announcements of policy changes. Mr. Greg got sent home. We gave him a resounding "bye, bitch" here on our show, and he will not be missed, right? He's still making noise online. What is all that about?

**Amanda Moore [00:04:43]**
Well, the thing is, I think he misses me. So Bovino led this Border Patrol, he's like the on-the-ground face. I have been tear gassed by him personally. I have been shot at with pepper balls in Broadview outside of Chicago. They had people on the roof sniping us. So that was cool. I got shot with a rubber bullet at my foot once. That was awesome.

Yes, so, but now we're separated. Bovino has been banished to the part of California that's kind of like, you know, I'll say it, it's like the worst part of California. Come on, I love California, but it's like, I don't wanna be there. He's been banished, and now he's tweeting at me asking me to bake him a pie. Let's go. And I will. I want to be clear, I will bake that guy a pie, please, as long as he is in the kitchen with me when I do it.

No, look, I don't even have groceries. When that snowstorm happened, I came home, the big East Coast snowstorm. I came home the day before, and I was like, well, guess I die because I don't have any food, because I left for four days and was gone for three weeks. No, I don't cook at all, so I'm gonna have to sneak a pie in my purse into the kitchen and then put it out. Yeah, it's a first pie.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:04:47]**
It does? He does?

**Trent R. Nelson [00:04:48]**
He does.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:05:21]**
Yeah, yeah, he's in like, yeah.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:05:22]**
Hey, it's true.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:05:31]**
Right, so yeah, well, how's your baking? Do you bake very much?

**Caitlin M. Green [00:05:48]**
All right.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:06:05]**
First pie. That's fine.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:06:04]**
Right, yeah, put it on its own plate, and then, yeah, it's fine. Well, I know he misses you so much, and it's just important to remember that when you look out of your windows, you are seeing the same moon, and you can just hold that in your heart.

Yeah. So, okay, so the Twitter exchange that happened between you two sent shivers up my spine. They rustled my jimmies. They gave me goosebumps of the wrong variety. What the fuck happened? What was that? So he was trying to neg Governor Pritzker, sorry. He was trying to, that's what it is.

**Amanda Moore [00:06:18]**
Yes. What is true? That is true.

**Amanda Moore [00:06:45]**
No, Pritzker, actually. He wants, well, yeah, he really loves Chicago. He wants to go back. So he was trying to, and I literally texted in a group chat of journalists who were at all the cities, and I was like, I'm gonna quote tweet this, because we got to know where he's going next. Like, what's Bovino's life like? I was like, we know he's gonna respond to me. But we did not think he would -- this is not the kind of response I've ever caught from this man before. It was a lot. I've had journalists from all outlets reaching out to me like, I cannot believe this is happening to you.

So I quote tweeted him. I actually don't even remember what I said, but I remember his response was inappropriate. Yeah, we need the exact, yeah.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:06:47]**
Pritzker, let's go.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:07:09]**
It was very flirty. It was very flirty.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:07:25]**
Yeah, let's, I want to find it because I want to have the, we need the entire -- Trent, do you have it easily accessible? I feel like my phone is gone. Okay, let's take a look at it, because we value journalism and fact-checking above all else here at Liberal Currents, Half the Answer, featuring your friends Trent and Caitlin. So yeah, how did the tweet exchange go? I need a Twitter play-by-play here.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:07:38]**
Yeah, I do. I do.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:07:53]**
It's true. It's true. Let's get to her in just a hot second. Well, the commander, he said, "Nah, Governor, too busy leading agents to arrest illegal aliens." He was quote tweeting Governor JB Pritzker, who had said, "Kristi Noem has to go. Gregory Bovino has to go. Stephen Miller has to go." He responds, "Nah, Governor, too busy leading agents to arrest illegal aliens. Besides, Chicago may need another double digit drop in a whole smorgasbord of violent crime, compliments of the Green Machine. Perhaps we could meet for a sugar-free slice of heirloom apple pie on me." American flag, American flag, gator, gator, laughing emoji. Now let's go. Let's go.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:08:19]**
Okay, so --

**Caitlin M. Green [00:08:48]**
Okay, I need help understanding a lot about this. Why did he call him "Governor"? First of all, what is he trying to do there? Because I remember when, I guess Bush Jr. was president, people would refer to him as "the governor," and it was an insult, because he was play-acting cowboy stuff. But yeah, I didn't expect that there. Okay? And why is the pie a sugar-free heirloom apple pie? Oh, gotcha, okay, so like we're putting you on a diet. Got it. Okay.

**Amanda Moore [00:08:55]**
Oh, he always does that. That's how he refers to him. It's to be demeaning in some fashion.

**Amanda Moore [00:09:20]**
Well, the sugar-free, because he loves to call Pritzker fat. Yeah. Yes. Heirloom, people have suggested that's some type of dog whistle in the replies. I honestly don't know. I don't know what an heirloom apple is. I just think about tomatoes, so I keep thinking about tomato pie.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:09:45]**
Yeah, okay.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:09:48]**
Yeah, right. Okay, so we've gotten through that, and then Amanda says -- she quote tweets him, and she goes, "Greg Bovino is now offering to meet Governor Pritzker for pie, while suggesting CBP should return to Chicago." And she follows that up with, here we go. He comes in and he says, "You didn't say it correctly, a sugar-free slice of heirloom apple pie. Perhaps you could make the pie for us."

**Caitlin M. Green [00:10:17]**
This is a real Elon Musk, "I am, become me" moment where he's like, no, no, you have to pay homage to my awesome jab, my thick burn about the heirloom sugar-free whatever pie, and because you didn't -- okay, and that's really not cool, dude.

**Amanda Moore [00:10:21]**
I need you guys to know that when he said this, I kind of screamed. I was shriek laughing, and then in retrospect, this is nothing, because it gets worse.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:10:44]**
What? Yeah, yeah, honestly.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:10:51]**
It gets worse. Well, Amanda, would you like to be you and I could be commander? It'll be fun. I'll read the Bovino tweets, yeah, absolutely.

**Amanda Moore [00:10:57]**
Oh, as long as I don't have to read his tweets, sounds good to me.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:11:02]**
Yeah, right. Trent has to.

**Amanda Moore [00:11:07]**
"Commander, it would be my honor. Just tell me where to go."

**Trent R. Nelson [00:11:11]**
"Most excellent. I'll let the governor know you'll be taking care of his appetite in a healthy way."

**Caitlin M. Green [00:11:20]**
I want to die. I want to leave this earth. I want to dig a hole and lay my corpse down in it and pull the earth over myself. What the fuck, Amanda. "In a healthy way"? You know, you're gonna satisfy his appetite in a healthy way.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:11:36]**
In a healthy way.

**Amanda Moore [00:11:40]**
So I said, "Only if you're there, Commander."

**Trent R. Nelson [00:11:49]**
"I'd love to see you bustling around the governor's kitchen fixing us a pie. I truly would."

**Caitlin M. Green [00:11:56]**
And I believe that. I believe that he would. I believe that he thinks about it at least once a day.

**Amanda Moore [00:12:02]**
Please. Jesus Christ.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:12:06]**
It's a real problem. It's a real problem. And it is not comforting to say these words, just so you know.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:12:17]**
Do you feel that this is raising or lowering your chances of being invited on a ride-along with Pritzker or with Bovino?

**Amanda Moore [00:12:23]**
Extremely unclear. Extremely unclear.

**Amanda Moore [00:12:32]**
TBD, hopefully raising. I've been trying so hard.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:12:33]**
You know, it's real bad. It's real bad. This is old school Dennis, yeah, this is the implication, for sure. Yeah, no, "I never would. She's just gonna do the pie thing because of the implication."

**Trent R. Nelson [00:12:35]**
It's giving off big Dennis Reynolds vibes for all of my Always Sunny people, right? It's giving off big Dennis Reynolds. This is the implication. "Are you gonna hurt that woman?" Right? Like, literally, "What? Would you keep saying that word?" Right? Yeah, terrible.

So Amanda, what came next in this accursed discussion? And that's -- I believe that's where it ends, yeah. Well, you were so much nicer than you needed to be.

**Amanda Moore [00:12:45]**
The Greg system.

**Amanda Moore [00:13:06]**
I said, "Would love to also talk about all your accomplishments."

**Amanda Moore [00:13:18]**
Well, I've spent months in this man's replies being like, every time he shares one of my videos, I'm like, "Thank you so much for sharing my work, Commander Bovino. I am independent new media, and I would love to get a ride-along, please." He just never, ever, ever responds to me. I mean, he knows who I am. Well, yeah.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:13:20]**
Yeah, maybe if you bring a pie.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:13:34]**
Wow. Well, Commander Bovino, if you love Amanda, and we know that you do, you might have caught an episode of Half the Answer once or twice. If you're watching us, consider a sugar-free pie from Walmart. Amanda.

**Amanda Moore [00:13:55]**
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will meet you wherever for a slice of pie at a diner that is not my or your home. If I could bring a tall male photographer who maybe has some type of security detail training, I will meet you anywhere, really. Yes, sure.

Okay, this is so crazy. He knows who I am. His whole team knows. They know our socials, they know our names, they're greeting us city to city. I mean, sometimes you get hit, but part of why some of my video is so close is that I can stand really close to these agents, and they don't care, because they know who I am. It's not like he thought he was replying to some random person. He knows who I am.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:13:56]**
On one of our own plates.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:14:09]**
Yeah, that seems fair.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:14:16]**
There we go. That seems very fair.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:14:19]**
It's a date, yeah.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:14:56]**
No, that's right, your J6 pardon or new media, whatever. Or Amanda Moore.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:15:01]**
Well, you don't just ask a random person to make you a pie. That's very dangerous. He trusts you, yeah.

So Amanda, the non-baker. You found yourself in Minnesota. You found yourself in New Orleans. Minnesota has been in the news a lot. Obviously, your commander friend is no longer there, but what did you see? I mean, obviously the reporting, we know it at this point, much of it, right? The violence, the deaths. It seems like every person that has a friend in Minnesota, has family in Minnesota, they're all of a sudden contacts for real, on-the-ground stuff. It's been really, really harrowing to hear and read and feel their experiences.

To be sure, what did you see and how did you see it sort of change or not change over the course of all of the times that you were there?

**Amanda Moore [00:15:06]**
That's true. That's right. He trusts me. He trusts me. Yeah, that's very nice.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:15:07]**
We've all seen The Help. That's beautiful.

**Amanda Moore [00:16:03]**
Yeah, so I was there in December. I was actually in Minnesota the day that Bovino went back to Chicago in December. And I was like, well, this is probably done for Chicago. And while I was in Minnesota, ICE had been there, but they moved to Columbus for Operation Buckeye for literally the five days that I was there. So there wasn't a ton of ICE activity, but I got to see the way that Minnesota was handling these chats, the Signal chats. They had dispatchers. They would actually have call-ins where you could talk. And that was unique. I had not seen that in the other cities. And so I kind of got a feel for the land and checked out some of the areas where I knew ICE had been hitting a lot.

And I had planned to come back, actually, the first day after Renee Good was killed, but obviously, as soon as she was shot, I booked a flight that day and went up. I was supposed to only be there a couple of days. I ended up staying for a few weeks. It was obviously much more active. Border Patrol had arrived that day, and so it's like, Border Patrol shows up, but the first thing that happens is an immigration agent shoots a white woman in the face. That's not a great start for them, because they had killed people in Chicago, they just were not white. So that's different.

In Chicago, they had waited a few weeks to tear gas neighborhoods, and right away, in Minnesota, they were like, no, we're gonna tear gas all these neighborhoods, we don't give a shit. A lot of what was different was that you had had this ICE presence so heavy for the month prior. And I think there was probably some communication between ICE and Border Patrol that didn't really exist in Chicago, because in Chicago they were like, "Does anybody know where the brown people live?" But ICE had been there, and also once Renee Good was killed, that kind of area, I think there was some coordination.

I spent a lot of time in various parts of the cities, within Minneapolis and St. Paul, while a lot of the ICE raids were going on in the suburbs. But yeah, the amount of violence that happened, it happened quicker. In Chicago, they could protest at the facility for a few weeks, and they did protest. When I'd been there in December, the Whipple building is where ICE does their processing in the Twin Cities. And when I was there in December, the protesters, the activists, they were in the parking lot for the little light rail, across the way with binoculars looking at the plates that were coming in and out. And when I got back the day after Renee Good was killed, they were literally walking up to the actual property line, which kind of resulted in tackling, tear gas, and pepper balls, the same stuff. But the local police, the sheriffs, took over much faster at the local building. It was very violent, very fast, in a public way. The violence in Chicago the first couple of weeks was mostly in Broadview.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:17:27]**
Yeah, sure.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:18:06]**
So you'd say that violence escalated more quickly in Minnesota.

**Amanda Moore [00:19:38]**
Yes, though I do think Chicago was just as violent. It's just not -- yeah, they did absolutely.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:19:41]**
Yeah, it's just they hit the ground running in Minneapolis. So we had Renee Good day one, we had Alex Pretti about a week later.

**Amanda Moore [00:19:52]**
It was over a week. So one week after Renee Good was killed, they shot somebody else. It was this weird situation where they're like, "We went in to get this immigrant, and they were beating us with broomsticks," like some fucking Home Alone, Looney Tunes shit. "We were getting hit with mops and brooms, so we had to shoot them."

So then there's that night. It's literally a week to the day. That night, very cold outside. In this neighborhood, everyone's outside, it's freezing. There's tear gas everywhere. That's when they threw a flash-bang grenade into a car that a child was in. The six-month-old went to the hospital, stopped breathing. And then Pretti was further out from that.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:19:53]**
No, my timeline. Yeah, right.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:20:41]**
After that, right? Okay, time is fake. It's really hard to keep track of, but yeah, everything happened so fast. And this whole Minneapolis story has been just thing after thing after thing, right?

The baby in the car thing was so mind-boggling. And I am so sensitive about babies and little kids and things, because I'm full of parent hormones. I'm so bad, I will just cry at the drop of a hat when I think about stuff like that, and I have experienced what it is like to watch a child lose consciousness, and it is the worst thing in the history of things to look at with your eyeballs. And I just hate that that happened to that family, and I hate that it's always happening in these detention centers. These kids are getting sick, they're traumatized.

We've got Liam Ramos, who everybody's like, "We got him out! Hooray!" And, hooray, right? But he's still experiencing PTSD from his time, because he was fucking five years old and he got put in jail. So that's crazy to me.

The kid stuff, it's so hard, because I became the lady at Liberal Currents who is like, you can't use "think of the children" as a way to get people activated about stuff that sucks, like hurting trans people and stuff. And then I'm like, see, they're tear gassing babies. Think of the children! And I start freaking out. Oh God, but they're tear gassing babies. What can you do?

**Trent R. Nelson [00:21:48]**
He's traumatized, yeah.

**Amanda Moore [00:22:00]**
Yeah, and that's obviously, I mean, one of the journalists I know has a newborn at home, and so when he goes home, it's this whole ordeal, because we get gassed pretty bad, and sometimes it gets in the cars. You gotta be very, very careful, air out the car. You don't want to put a newborn in a car the day after.

For us too, it's harder, because we're in it. If you're in it enough, you're just like, "Oh, I just cough every time I put on my jacket because it's covered in tear gas. I guess I can clean it. I don't know. They're just gonna do it again tomorrow." But you can't do that if you've got a newborn at home.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:22:42]**
Yeah.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:22:50]**
That's just how it is.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:22:57]**
Right, right. If you go back to the interview that I did with Jack in front of the Portland ICE facility, you can see me slowly have a harder time with the interview and cough more and more, because we're sitting on the ground across the street from the facility, and there's like, last night's pepper balls are just quietly leeching into the air. And so by the end, I'm like, "Thanks for talking to me."

**Trent R. Nelson [00:23:01]**
Right, yes. Well, that was our time on the ground. Reporting time on the ground. Amanda, you have a rare vantage point, having been in all of these different places, to see not only how Border Patrol functions, not only how ICE functions when they're also in those places when you are, but also how the people react and respond. And so I'm wondering, what did you see in Minneapolis-St. Paul similar to how you saw other Americans responding?

**Amanda Moore [00:23:20]**
Yeah, amazing. I love it.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:23:34]**
Literally sitting on the ground.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:24:02]**
We had our dispatchers. That was cool. What else?

**Amanda Moore [00:24:05]**
They will, and they have their accents, which I think is so charming, because they have their accents, but they're saying, "Go fucking kill yourself, you ICE trash." And I'm like, it's so funny. It's the most charming, nice little accent.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:24:16]**
Yeah, really badass shit.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:24:26]**
And it makes it sting more, I think, because these sweethearts are being like, "I think the world would be better if you got taken out of it."

**Trent R. Nelson [00:24:35]**
Well, you got Minnesota Nice. You also got Minnesota Mean, proportionally, right? If they can be that much nicer, they can -- "Oh yeah, you're a real piece of shit, don't you know?"

**Caitlin M. Green [00:24:39]**
Yeah, working, yeah.

**Amanda Moore [00:24:45]**
Yeah, there was one of the first days I was there. We were in a diner in the suburb, and there had been all these reports that ICE, their cars were stuck on ice. And it took us, we were 20 minutes away. It took us 25 minutes to get there because we saw a different ICE agent pull someone over. We're like, surely they're gonna have their cars out by the time we get there, it's a waste of time. They do not.

They were still pushing this car, and it's this really nice neighborhood, big houses, big yards, and everybody's out, and they're just making fun of them. And they're like, "It's a billion-dollar budget. You don't have four-wheel drive? What are you doing? Go back to Texas. Get out of here."

There's a moment where the agents finally get the car out, and they're trying to cross the street back to the other cars. There's five or six cars, and one of them almost slips, and then another one almost slips, and they're hugging each other, shuffling across the street. It's so funny. And then just the commentary is going from all around. They got a megaphone out. They finally get out, and then we get stuck in the exact same spot, and the people who were just making fun of ICE, they're like, "Let me get some salt for you." But not for them. So funny.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:25:25]**
Great for you. We're here to help. Not for them.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:25:39]**
Yes, right?

**Caitlin M. Green [00:26:01]**
We're just gonna roast their asses while they slip-slide around. That's lovely. Yeah, the one agent slipping and falling right on his butt was really nice. I've watched that a lot of times when I'm having a hard time. Just fire up that little clip and everything seems a little bit better. Sometimes nature helps, you know?

**Amanda Moore [00:26:21]**
It was just incredible.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:26:29]**
Right, right. Rain was Antifa, so is the ice, obviously.

**Amanda Moore [00:26:34]**
Yes.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:26:34]**
Yeah, well, it's just hardened rain, right? It's just rain that got cold. So there we go. Okay, so we had what's been referred to as a step-down, a ramp-down. What functionally was that? What did that look like when they were, yeah, the first one, not the one today.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:26:55]**
The first one.

**Amanda Moore [00:26:57]**
Yeah, so when Bovino left. So I was there. Bovino had kind of disappeared. He had gone to Philadelphia, and I was supposed to go home. I was supposed to go home a lot of times during this trip, I'll tell you that. I just kept extending. At one point they called and were like, "So are you coming back?" And I'm like, "Do I need to?"

So, yeah, the 21st, two weeks after I got there, I was gonna leave, but I wake up and everyone's saying it's popping off, Bovino is back. So I was like, well, I'm not gonna go catch my flight. I'm gonna keep being here. I followed him around. And that day they tear gassed an entire park and neighborhood. The green smoke, all of it, all of this stuff in the snow, kicking the canisters at people. And I went home the next day, and then it was a couple days later that Alex Pretti was killed. So I wasn't there when he was. I was home, and I was also extremely sick, so I was not attached to reality.

When Bovino was there, one of the primary differences is that there's stuff happening, like children being in cars that are flash-banged, entire neighborhoods being tear gassed. It's kind of an MO with Border Patrol. They're going to tear gas a neighborhood when they feel stuck. That's why a lot of times when they have these car accidents, whether they hit a traffic circle or they hit a person with their vehicle, a lot of times they get out and they just tear gas. And I think it's because they're worried about being boxed in. Of course, they have weapons, there's no real reason for them to be worried about this, but they are. At least, that's my assumption.

So after Bovino leaves, I'm not there for a few days, but then I did go back this past week. But I can see the chats. I know other journalists who were there, both people who have been in other cities and people who are from and live in the Twin Cities, and it's different, right? There's still violence, and there's still abductions, but as far as I can tell, the "Papers Please" stops of pedestrians go down quite a bit. The likelihood that your neighborhood will be tear gassed goes down quite a bit.

There's a video. I was actually on the plane out to Minnesota last week when this happened. Ford Fisher got video of it. It's agents arresting observers, and they've got their guns, live rounds, pointed at these people. And one of the journalists there is like, "Did they pull a weapon on you guys?" And they're basically like, with hand gestures, and it's like, what? Finger guns? And I think part of that is, they were probably told, "Let's chill out on tear gassing entire neighborhoods, okay?" And so they're like, "Well, you didn't tell me I couldn't point my gun at someone, like a toddler."

I think that's part of it. When I got back that last week, I was in situations where, like, they had a flat tire. Every journalist I know that was there, we all were like, man, if this had been 10 days ago, this would be a different situation. Because usually when they have a flat tire, they wreck a car, it's tear gas all over the place. And you could tell they wanted to, but they didn't do it. They got a lot of reinforcement, but it was literally the most calm I think I've ever seen them in that kind of situation.

So that drop-off is real. People did leave, agents did leave. I know someone who was on a flight yesterday to Dallas-Fort Worth, and there were at least 30 agents that came in and checked in with the crew, because to carry a weapon on the plane you have to tell the crew and the pilot. And so they are presumably ICE or Border Patrol going home to Texas.

But in some ways it doesn't matter, right? We're sitting and we're watching ICE vehicles sitting in a neighborhood, and if you live in that neighborhood, it probably doesn't feel better. We all know kind of the patterns of how this works, because city to city, it's been pretty similar, but the people don't. And there's an emotional spike that I don't have. I don't have any emotional attachment to the Twin Cities, or New Orleans, or Charlotte. So if you live in that neighborhood, and you've been previously tear gassed and had flash-bang grenades thrown at you, seeing ICE agents sitting outside of your house is probably not very comforting. It's still basically a form of terrorism. It's terrorizing these neighborhoods.

And so you also have, people in the city are so on it. A lot of it's probably happening in the suburbs, which is much harder to track. But in the cities, they are so on it. You have four ICE vehicles parked around a neighborhood, and then observers have found at least three of them. And so you've got all these people, and it probably makes their job quite difficult. I think the amount of people they were taking probably went down. I know the numbers for the deportation flights, they look to me like they've gone down, though I've not thoroughly mapped it out, but it does seem like fewer people being sent out on the flights.

But I think that is really making their jobs difficult, because when Bovino was in town, a lot of people who were interested in stopping ICE or Border Patrol would follow him, and now he's not there anymore. So it's like, well, we're all gonna just sit on this one car and watch this one car, watch this one house. And so that's different.

But they still, there was a car accident yesterday where they hit someone. There was, I think, also another instance of them pulling out guns on observers or whatever. With the flat tire, they told us we were impeding a federal investigation. Well, they said it to me, but they also said it to other people, if you got too close, you were impeding a federal investigation, which was just them changing their own flat tire.

So stuff is still happening, but it's different. And I think what will probably happen now is it'll be more of a withdrawal in the other cities. ICE is still active in Chicago, ICE and Border Patrol are still there. They're still active in Charlotte. They're still active in Los Angeles, quite active in Los Angeles, and they're still active in New Orleans and Louisiana. But it's different. Your odds of being hit with a beanbag gun from three feet away diminish, I think, a great deal in Minnesota today. But yeah, still taking people.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:27:11]**
Sure.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:28:01]**
Yeah.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:31:47]**
Yeah, right.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:31:52]**
Yeah, because you kind of never know when they're gonna return to being overtly violent in that way.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:33:20]**
So, real quick, before we continue on that, because I do think that is important to carry on with. Do they have all of these, in your thoughts, do they have all these little outposts in all of these different places that you say they're not functioning at high levels, but they still have a presence in? Is this to sort of enable a faster restart if they do decide to send major forces to any one particular city, or is it just trying to maintain the illusion of force by being in all of these different places?

**Caitlin M. Green [00:34:38]**
Maintain a repressive atmosphere.

**Amanda Moore [00:34:41]**
It's really complicated, I think, because there's a nationwide surge, everywhere, right? It's happening. They're still here in D.C., but they're also in Virginia, and not the suburbs of D.C. but like Norfolk and stuff. My computer is scolding me for my hand gestures. Jesus.

Okay, so I think that "surge" at this point probably specifically refers to what we have witnessed in these particular cities. But there's going to be an increase. It's not going to go back to pre-surge numbers. It's going to be an increased presence of ICE and Border Patrol in Minnesota and the field office, the outpost there. It's in St. Paul, but it covers North and South Dakota, I think Iowa, and all of Minnesota. So it's not just that there's going to be more agents there. I think it's just everywhere, and they want to increase that. So it's never going to return to normal numbers, at least not under this administration.

I think Chicago was supposed to be the test case for what it would be like to return, because they were gonna do it in March. We know Minnesota was supposed to last until March 2, and Bovino had said multiple times, "We're going to go back in the spring." And so I think that they don't know. When they come into a city and do the surge, local government knows it's coming. In Broadview, the mayor knew. They don't know what's coming, but at this point they should. But there is an indicator. The sheriff's office gets an indicator. This is my understanding of how it's working in every city, and that's even if the police are not cooperating. It's just that they have to know the infrastructure is going to be different.

The problem now is that while I know that, and the places that it's happened know that, every place in America is like, "We're next." And they're not all next. I'm also not sure, whatever structure Bovino had set up, I don't know if ICE and Border Patrol know where they're going next. And if they know now, I'm not sure they knew a week ago. I think that when Bovino was removed, a lot of plans changed, because his campaign was literally just, "Where can we make the biggest show of force?" And I don't think that's necessarily Holman's approach.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:37:21]**
Right, yeah. I mean, it's funny, I've seen local sort of Facebook or other social media things be like, "Oh, we're next. Our city is next." And it's like, okay, so not exactly. You're not going to have that kind of surge, where it's like a big show. However, you are going to have agents in your town snatching people, because that's what they've been doing. So you do need to continue to do the ICE watch and the monitoring and find out the names of people who are getting taken and connect them to resources and whatever you can do. But it doesn't mean that it's gonna be this weird siege thing that they do one place at a time, or at least with some gray area in between the phases.

But these operations with the snazzy little names, that's not always how it's gonna be. Operation Midway Blitz, what was the other one? Catahoula Crunch. I'll never remember that because they give it a local flair. I'm not from there, so I don't know. Catahoula Crunch. It sounds like a cereal.

**Amanda Moore [00:38:15]**
Yeah, Catahoula Crunch.

**Amanda Moore [00:38:33]**
It feels like a cereal, right? In this context, like the Trump administration is bringing Catahoula Crunch to Louisiana, like, what the fuck.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:38:33]**
Yeah, yeah.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:38:42]**
Delicious, yeah.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:38:43]**
Yeah, it's like Cap'n Crunch, but he's flying the stars and bars. I don't know.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:38:53]**
That cereal almost, yeah. It tastes like loser, though.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:38:53]**
I'm sure it's almost as delicious. So in Minneapolis, we have people on the ground being like, "We really hope that this sort of pullout thing does chill things out for us, right? But we do have to continue to do ICE watch, because that's an important part of keeping your neighbors safe." So even if things aren't flashy, we still have to maintain the activism at a level that helps protect people, right?

**Trent R. Nelson [00:39:20]**
So who have they put in? Is it Tom Holman as the replacement for Gregory Bovino? Is there a new Commander Bovino in the ranks? Is it like the Prince of Wales, like everybody gets called Commander Bovino before they ascend?

**Amanda Moore [00:39:44]**
Well, he had his own thing. His position was created for him. That operations-at-large commander role was created for him. So we are all eagerly waiting to see who will be the new at-large operations commander, if anyone.

The thing is, New Orleans was so boring for these people, because the state police would just shut down the highway. They would shut down the roads. They would keep us separated. So they're not getting the videos they want, because at the end of the day, they like us there. They like our videos, they like our photos. And then we're not getting the conflict that they wanted with the protesters. And it's like, "Oh, thanks so much to the police for keeping everyone safe," but they don't mean it.

And then they went back to Chicago for three days in December because they were like, "Oh my God, this sucks." So I think the problem is, you have these guys, and they have just gotten so used to pulling out weapons and firing off tear gas, and it's exciting. There's no fucking way anybody is able to go back to the way it was. They might be able to control it for a little while, but that toothpaste is out of the tube. We can't put it back in. And they also have their jobs. So I find it completely implausible that it is over. As long as these same guys are there and they're allowed, there's no way they're not going to be flinging out tear gas in a matter of weeks or months. It's just impossible.

They worked in New Orleans. They worked literally noon to four. They barely worked New Orleans. In the other cities, they're like 5, 6, 7 A.M., they're out there. But not New Orleans. It was like, "Oh, let's get this shit over with."

**Caitlin M. Green [00:39:56]**
It sounds made up as hell. So here we are.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:41:33]**
Yeah, right. I think every day that they're not doing it, it hurts them. They have to, yeah.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:41:49]**
Lazy assholes, yeah.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:41:57]**
Oh, that's sad. That's really sad. So something that we get the sense of, as people who are not on the ground in multiple places, is it does feel like the media news cycle has this spotlight effect, right? The place where the most stuff is happening, we're going to show you that, and then if more scary stuff happens somewhere else, then we have to go over there, and you maybe won't hear so much about what's happening over here.

And I think that if you're in Minneapolis, and the spotlight was on you, and now the spotlight is moving to another place, you feel really frustrated because you're like, bad things are still happening in my city, and they're extremely bad, actually. And we are feeling like we're being lied about, or like the story is not being told about what is happening here anymore. When things are happening that are important.

And that is kind of a thing about news, that it does that, even when the reporters are like, we're not saying that the bad stuff isn't happening. We're just saying I have to go over there now, because something is happening over there. And I know that you experienced that sort of conversation in a way that maybe wasn't so fun.

I just thought it would be good to kind of honor the two sides of that by saying, we know that things are still happening everywhere, right? People are having a bad time in lots of cities across America because of the actions of DHS, CBP, ICE, HSI, all of them. It's a bad time. And it kind of sucks to leave the town that you've been reporting on to go somewhere else, but that is the job, right?

**Amanda Moore [00:43:42]**
Yeah. I mean, I have a lot to say on this, but I will try to keep it short. During the course of what was going on in Minneapolis during the actual surge, there was a weekend where they took 500 people from West Virginia. It's happening everywhere.

I was almost -- I cannot imagine anything but purposely misconstrued in a quote tweet by a huge account who has my phone number, on Bluesky, could have texted me for clarification, and chose to drive a million people to tell me to kill myself.

But this is a different story. Now, there's a dozen of us that have been in every city, and that's who the activists see, right? We are the ones who are chasing Border Patrol around, and so are they, and they see us, and now we're all gone, because that's not what's happening anymore. And the violence is still there, it is still real, but it is not what it was. It's objectively not. It's hard to be in it, I think, to be living it and to have that objectivity. But I have it. I don't live there.

And so, it's like a war zone. I didn't really realize this. I did an interview a couple weeks ago, and somebody was like, "How many times have you had a weapon pointed at you or seen a weapon pointed at someone else?" And I was like, "Wait, do you mean live rounds, like lethal?" And they were like, "No." And I'm like, "I don't know. Who could, who has any fucking clue? I don't even think about it anymore."

There's this aftermath of what is basically living in a war zone. This PTSD that people are going to have, the city is going to have, at an individual level too, of having this extreme violence.

I mean, there was a reporter, a writer. I'm always like, writers need to be shot at more by federal police. Then a bunch of writers came out to Minnesota, and I was like, I take it back. Get the fuck out of my way. You're all so annoying. Holy shit.

But a friend of mine, he came, and he was like, "I have two hours. I want to see what Bovino was up to." And I was like, bro, I could be around for 10 hours and not see him. But all right, follow me. And it just so happened, he watched this gas station thing where there was tear gas and tackling, someone got their window busted out and then beaten until they passed out and then dragged to the agent's car and taken away. And he was like, "This is a lot." And I was like, "I guess. It's just a day."

And that is just not happening right now in Minnesota. It's not happening in Chicago. It's not happening anywhere right now. And so there is going to be this time now. I'm home, but there's other writers and other photographers who are flying out to Minnesota. They are the ones who, a lot of them, are going to be speaking the language of immigrants that I don't speak, various immigrant populations. I know people who are in the homes with Somali families who are afraid to leave, and that's a different, quieter kind of reporting that you're not going to see out on the street. But it's happening, it's real, but it's not breaking news. "Hey, I'm here, day 72, we haven't left the house, reporting live." Not gonna do that.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:47:02]**
Right. Yeah, it's just a different type of reporting. The kind that you're doing is needed somewhere else, and the kind that they're doing is needed there now.

**Amanda Moore [00:47:12]**
Yeah. It's also really important to remember that they came to Minnesota. ICE was already there, but Border Patrol showed up day one, white woman gets shot in the face, and it becomes above the fold, front page news in the New York Times for at least two and a half weeks. Every single day. I don't think Chicago was ever once above the fold. I don't think it was ever once front page. And if it was, maybe once or twice, and that shit was just as violent as Minnesota was, absolutely, and for a long time. And it just, no one gave a fuck.

And it's also very frustrating as someone who was in all of these cities to have this class of media fly in, like hundreds of people, all these live streamers, all these writers, everybody coming in and first getting in the fucking way. Get the fuck out of the way. You have 100 followers. You have a live stream with one person watching. You have a Getty photographer behind you. Fucking move, man.

Okay, whatever. You've got all of this, and it's just this insane amount of attention catered towards the media. And I get it, there's historical reasons, whatever, that you hate the media, but I don't know what to tell you, because you're telling us to fuck off and kill ourselves, and then on the other hand you're like, "Well, why aren't you covering this the way that I want?" And it's like, what am I supposed to do here?

And I think part of that is because so many people came into town. I was annoyed. I'm positive people who live there were annoyed. It was too much media, too much. And the other cities had too little media. Chicago is a big fucking city with huge papers, and still they had too little media. Nobody was really flying in. I mean, Reuters had someone out a lot, but you know, obviously the Tribune is sometimes there, they're based there. But it's completely crazy how overlooked other places were that had violence and this large-scale assault. I don't know, it's just very frustrating.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:48:35]**
Yeah. So yeah, I think it probably comes down to partly not always knowing exactly how this kind of reporting works, that just because these people are leaving doesn't mean that no reporting is happening. It just means that the people who are best suited to cover how it's going right now are going to be there doing it. And also that, yeah, those local outlets are so good and they can be trusted to handle things. And the larger outlets can use that reporting, and that's okay.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:49:00]**
Yeah.

**Amanda Moore [00:50:09]**
Yeah. And I mean, the Times has a famous photographer in Minnesota. He's from Minneapolis. He came back from Syria to cover this, and was supposed to go back to Syria and just stayed in his hometown. And they also, the magazine has a writer who grew up in Minneapolis, so they sent him out there. There are still people either there or with eyes on it.

And I always tell people, you should follow the photographers of these outlets or the freelancers, the wire services, on Instagram, because they post photos. They're allowed to post whatever they want. They own those photos. They can post ones that their wire doesn't use. And sometimes you get a different story, and sometimes there's a great deal of conflict between writers who are almost never on the ground, and the photographers who are always on the ground, and a difference of opinion on how things should be portrayed. So follow more photographers on Instagram.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:51:13]**
That's good advice. I like that.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:51:15]**
Thank you, Amanda. And yes, it is always good to keep in mind that when we are in the midst of something terrible and traumatic, we can lose sight of the fact that many of these things are happening all over, and that people are suffering even when no one's talking about them, and that we've got to keep the fight going when it's in our location.

And certainly we appreciate you going all around and doing your great work. And you're recovering from illness. Where are you gonna be next, Amanda? Where does the tour bring you next, do you figure?

**Amanda Moore [00:51:57]**
Well, I'm going to vacation to Chicago for a week or two on Sunday. So I'm sure there's going to be some constitutional crisis on Wednesday that will cut my vacation short. But for right now, I just have a nice little trip. But who knows. Last time I planned a little vacation, Greg Bovino was like, "We have to go immediately abduct people in Charlotte, North Carolina," and I'm like, "But I'm supposed to be on vacation."

**Trent R. Nelson [00:52:03]**
Hey.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:52:15]**
Exciting, right?

**Trent R. Nelson [00:52:16]**
We love that.

**Amanda Moore [00:52:26]**
It was only four days.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:52:26]**
But my vacation!

**Caitlin M. Green [00:52:30]**
I'm so sorry. Well, I hope you really have a little bit of time now to hone your baking skills, right? And learn more about pie and how to make a really nice pie, and then heirloom, whatever the fuck that is. Well, okay, is it heirloom apples, or is it a pie, an heirloom apple pie? Like, where's the bracketing? Yeah, oh, heirloom is up there. What? Yeah, what do they taste like? No, come on, okay, don't do that to me. Amanda, I thought we were friends.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:52:47]**
Heirloom apples.

**Amanda Moore [00:52:49]**
We're gonna start with, what the fuck is an heirloom apple?

**Amanda Moore [00:52:59]**
Oh, I'm going to send you a tweet later that Bovino posted ranking various types of apples that I have never heard of. It's in there. And there's also a discussion about canned raccoon meat.

**Amanda Moore [00:53:19]**
Literally.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:53:19]**
Okay.

**Amanda Moore [00:53:22]**
He loves raccoon meat. He loves canned meat. There's a lot going on.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:53:26]**
Oh my God.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:53:27]**
Fascinating.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:53:28]**
Heirloom apples are historic, open-pollinated varieties cultivated for generations. All right, this is clearly from the Heirloom Apple organization. Right, right, right, right. They're not these hyphenated apples.

**Amanda Moore [00:53:38]**
That's the heritage American of apples. They came over on the Mayflower, like good apples do. No, they're not an import.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:53:39]**
Right? It's from Big Heirloom, as we call it.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:53:52]**
Or indigenous apples, of course. Well, maybe, yeah, you know what? We'll do more research on that. That'll be how we open up the fourth time Amanda comes on the program.

Amanda, we appreciate you so much. You're the apple of our eyes. Before we let you go, will you remind the listeners and the viewers where they can read your work, where they can see your work, where they can follow you, where they can bother you about why you like turtles so much?

**Caitlin M. Green [00:53:54]**
I mean, Fuji, that's not even American.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:54:06]**
It's going to be a review of apples.

**Amanda Moore [00:54:28]**
Yeah, I'm NoTurtleSoup17 on every platform -- Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky, all of it, except YouTube, where I'm just NoTurtleSoup. And then I also Substack at TurtleDiaries.net. But for Border Patrol and ICE, I'm also working with Mother Jones, so they've got some of my stories. And then there's also videos I'm doing for them, where I talk about Gregory Bovino more, if you're into that kind of thing.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:54:56]**
You came up on my TikTok For You page. I was like, oh, Amanda, stop. Talking. Very proud of you. You looked right into the camera and you did some talking.

**Trent R. Nelson [00:55:03]**
You're very good. You're very good. We like you here, and again, we know that you'll be going all around the country. We hope you get some good Italian beef in Chicago. Maybe have your hot dog dragged through the garden. I don't know what you like, but we know that we like you here, Amanda, and we also know that understanding a question is half of an answer, and this is, of course, Half the Answer with Caitlin and Trent and Amanda. Well, it's again, three times a guest. Now you are a special co-host. So until next time, we hope you all do so well.

**Amanda Moore [00:55:05]**
They wanted me to set it up on a tripod. And I'm like, we can do that, but what if we do it the way I do TikToks, which is, I'm just leaning forward. Just like a FaceTime. So thank you. I appreciate the feedback, because I think it's better.

Yeah, thank y'all. Thank you.

**Caitlin M. Green [00:55:17]**
Yeah, yeah, it's more human. It's like, yeah, no, I'm with you.