SPEAKER_01 0:09

Good morning, Boulder County. It's Wednesday, May 20th. I'm Kelly Gary, filling in for Shea Castle. And this is the Frequency. A weekly podcast covering the news, events, and voices shaping the Boulder Valley. In our feature today, we'll hear from people on the front lines in the fight against ice. But first, the headlines. Longmont's Tower of Compassion has officially been recognized as a historical landmark. Built in 1973, the Japanese pagoda was a gift from the Kanamoto family to the city of Longmont in honor of the town's kind treatment of its Japanese residents during World War II, when Japanese Americans were being interned. The tower also recognizes the Kanamoto's many contributions to the community, which include large donations of land in what is today the Southmore neighborhood. The Tower of Compassion has been listed on both the state and national registers of historic places. Part of an initiative by History Colorado for America's Bicentennial and Colorado's Sesquicentennial. Local elections are still months away, but those in the know are preparing now. The Raucus Caucus, a candidate forum hosted by Boulder Progressives, has announced its date and location. The lively forum will be held Saturday, June 6th, from 5 to 7 p.m. at Twisted Pine Brewery in Boulder. Attendance is limited to the first 100 registrants. Follow the link in our show notes to learn more and sign up. 2026 will see another round of City Council elections in Boulder as the contest moved from odd to even years. Three incumbents won re-election in November 2025, along with one newcomer. This fall, the remaining five members' seats are up for grabs. More timely are Colorado's primary elections. In Democrat-dominant Boulder County, this is where most of the real competition between candidates happens. The League of Women Voters of Boulder County will be hosting candidate forums for the House District 19 seat, covering East Longmont, Erie, Decono, Frederick, and Firestone. Find the link to attend and one to submit questions in our show notes. A second forum will focus on the race for Boulder County's Treasurer. That will be held in person on Thursday, June 11th, starting at 6 p.m. at Longmont Public Media, 457 Fourth Avenue. Registration is required. Find that link, plus a live stream to watch virtually in our show notes. The primary election is Tuesday, June 30th. Lastly, Boulder has a new flag. The Museum of Boulder launched a contest at the start of this year that drew more than 100 submissions. The field was narrowed to 10 earlier this month, and a winner announced last week. The new design, Flatiron Sunrise Flourish, features geometrical red flatirons, a golden swath meant to represent the sun and Boulder's gold mining past and a bright sky using the blue from Colorado State flag. It was designed by Michael Stewart Trimmer and refined by volunteers with the North American Vexillological Association. Vexillology is the study of flags, which I did not know. See all the submitted designs at the Museum of Boulder. You can rep Boulder and its new flag with merch dropping on Memorial Day.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

A few weeks ago, we had Boulder County DA Michael Doherty on the podcast to talk about federal immigration action in Boulder County and local law enforcement's policy of non-cooperation with ICE. After that show aired, organizers with the local Rapid Response Network reached out to ask if we'd have them on the show to share the non-law enforcement response to ICE. We were only too happy to do that. We sat down with two representatives of Boulder County's branch of the Colorado Rapid Response Network, or Corn. We talked about how to help, the influx of volunteers after the murders of Alex Predi and Renee Good in Minnesota, and why more people wanting to help isn't always the most helpful. These activists are choosing to be identified by the names they use within the Rapid Response Network. Their identities have been verified by Boulder Valley Frequency. We conducted this interview via Zoom. Listen to the full interview at patreon.com/slash boulder frequency pod.

SPEAKER_03 4:33

Ice and ice operation activity is very much present in Colorado. It just looks a little bit differently compared to some of the other cities that are really loud in terms of like the activity. For example, like Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, Texas. Colorado still ice present is very aggressive here. It's very swift and silent. And it happens because a lot of people don't know also that there is a rapid response to network here ready to show up for them. That's why it's seems a little quieter than it really is. In Boulder County, it looks very much the same way. There is still such a heavy presence of ice here, especially when folks are going to and from the workplace. Usually those are the busy hours in which people get kidnapped and detained and taken away. They happen so quickly that they can't, you know, call a family member. And some of them don't know that there is this network ready. So it's still here, it's still present. And unfortunately, communities, whether it's immigrant communities or citizens, still are operating under, oh, that's that doesn't happen here. We're we're okay, we're fine, they're only getting the bad, you know, undocumented people. And it's like, no, they're actually detaining really anybody, and they're heavily racially profiling folks. And I've actually heard from people that we work with that they didn't think it was gonna happen to them until I showed up at their door.

SPEAKER_04 6:06

So listeners of the podcast and others have already seen very publicly what the local law enforcement response to ICE is with the know your rights trainings and having the DA on the podcast. What does the community, the grassroots organizing response look like to this?

SPEAKER_03 6:23

In Colorado for 10 years now, we've had the statewide network, the Rapid Response Hotline. In terms of like our little local branch, we are still a small group, but it is a tight-knit group that is very much connected and trained up to really respond to different incidences that may occur in Boulder County. And we've been successful in the past of standing with our neighbors, working with them, shooing off ice, making it really difficult for them to carry out their operations, really standing with our neighbors against law enforcement. I feel very proud of the work that we're doing and we're still developing and trying to innovate and strategize to see what more we can do about how we can be even more proactive. For the better, for the worse, it's still a reactive tactic. We get a call and then we go. But what can we do to be proactive to make sure our communities have the tools and resources to stand up for themselves and protect themselves, protect their families, their communities?

SPEAKER_04 7:32

What can the community at large do to support either your the specific organizations you're talking about? And you've mentioned here, mentioned several, or to support one another. And I mean this at the very basic level. Like I'm listening to this, I want to help, but I I know nothing other than I want to help.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

First and foremost, you've got to check in with yourself to know where that desire to help comes from. Is a lot of internal work, is it white saviorism, or is it a sense of urgency that is coming up and emerging from your background and your history and wanting to applicate things? It has to be done with care and responsibility to not cause more harm or to create that effect of not only harming the movement but also harming the people who need it the most and the people who need the protection the most. So I would say for some form of reflection where that desire comes from to help, and then approach any of the local organizations that are serving already the Latino communities or the immigrant communities in general, because they know that they know best and they have been doing it for many, many decades, and they are formed by the local immigrants. But rather than creating new strategies and plans to cultivate that cultural humility and approach the communities that are already doing the work.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

For example, in Logmont, we are working alongside El Comité, we're connected to other organizations in Boulder, El Centro Amistad.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

You know, we have a number of organizations, including the Family Resource Network, uh, our center, His department, that are serving a wider community and communities that have been historically targeted and continue to be targeted. So those are other ways in which you can contribute volunteering of these organizations. Or if you have the financial means to be able to contribute monetarily, I think those will be also contributions that again build community and you can be part of without having necessarily to be at the forefront of the movement.

SPEAKER_03 10:00

Yeah, there's definitely been an increase in more folks wanting to get involved in the strategy of rapid response against ICE. Drastically an increase of people wanting to be a confirmer, wanting to be a part of the network, even replicating their own hotline, even wanting to create their own rapid response through single chat. It just kind of blew up for the better, for the worse. A lot of people wanting to do something. Here it's it's a little bit tricky because people have really taken it upon themselves to kind of show up at these different incidences through the information of the corn hotline information that's meant for trained confirmers. And when that information gets leaked and people with the best of intentions want to do something, but once they're there, they actually do the complete opposite, in which they create because they're untrained and really don't know exactly what they're looking for or how to work with community, they end up driving more traffic there, which for residents in those communities are like why is there an influx of people here? Who are folks driving? Are they iced? Are they not iced? So they're one creating more chaos, and they also are escalating situations or not working with a community member to see what exactly it is that they need in that moment. So that's the tricky part of not training, not understanding how to remove yourself from the situation and figure out what it is that impacted folks need in that moment. The way in which Corn has taught people how to do it is with intentionality and care because things can quickly escalate and people can get hurt and/or people can die. That precedent has already been set. So it's not for anybody to just mobilize quickly and you know, just be there and start making chaos. You might hurt yourself, you might hurt other community members.

SPEAKER_04 12:00

Well, I guess I have the follow-up question to that like kind of shift. Is that in the wake of like Alex Predi and Renee Good just being the system being overwhelmed, or is that something that was already happening?

SPEAKER_03 12:12

Yes, yes. There was definitely an increase in volunteers coming and wanting to participate in the network. And a lot of them, this might be a little bit controversial, they're like, you know, stand up at the moment, go to your rapid response network. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, relax. Sure, that's one way, but that's an influx of people now coming to a system that is volunteer-led and it's gonna overwhelm the network. And it's what happened after Alex Predi and Renee Good got executed, an influx of new people who are new to organizing, like, I want to get into rapid response, I want to do this. And it's like, do you know what this actually means to be in the front lines? And now that the ante has been upped, there's a potential that if you go out there, you don't know what ICE is capable of doing and you might too get executed. Are you ready to risk it? Have you drafted your own safety plan? Have you talked about your family? Do you have kids, pets? Do you have maybe like a fund ready for you? Like those are things that people don't understand sometimes. I want to make sure that people understand that these are really high stress situations. And that is something that a lot of people don't have the skill set or are ready to do that kind of work. And that is fine because in this larger liberation front, there's so many beautiful, wonderful things to be done. We definitely need more dispatchers. That's another part, that's another role in the larger network. Dispatchers are the folks who answer the calls, which is a 24-7 hotline. If you are super bilingual and can quickly work under pressure and share resources and know your rights to people, we need you. Bad. So if folks want to do that from the comfort of their own home, that's one role that a lot of people who can't be on the front lines actually do. There's also other roles in terms of doing like court accompaniments for folks who have different hearings. That's another way you can support the community. Ingrid is not able to be always on the front lines. So she provides her services for taking care of confirmers who are in that high stress situation and provides teas, provides accuracy talks, provides wellness tactics about how we can take care of ourselves. That's so beautiful. Other confirmers, some of them run mutual aid groups, some of them serve their unhoused populations. I know, like right now, ICE and immigration rates is kind of one of many things that are happening in our world. But again, this is for the long haul, right? And that's what we want to let folks know. Like working in the liberation front, doing organizing work, it's through the unsexy times too. And a lot of it is grunt work. It's, you know, working with community, right? Learning how to strategize, learning how to work within conflict. And a lot of people don't know that, that that's what it needs. How do we practice mutual aid, taking care of one another? And how do we continue to do the work even when it's not in the mainstream?

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Again, I will invite people to get close to organizations that are already doing the work. There's an ongoing esperanza fund that is being created by a local organization, also in partnership with one of the local county community foundations to be able to support a lot of the people who are left behind after a deportation happens and the families that struggle not only with the emotional component of losing a loved one, but also the economical and the financial and logistical support that they need when these happen. So that is available through the Longmon Community Foundation and it's open to all the Esperanza fund. And those funds are respectively administered and managed by El Comitado Longman, which is one of the long-lasting organizations that have been serving our immigrant communities and have not only the experience but the trust that community needs and deserves at this point in time where we are afraid and leaving any fear because of the pervasive narrative that we hear every single day.

SPEAKER_04 16:45

Thank you. So I'm hearing a lot of stuff there. Number one, get your own house in order. Number two, clean up your own little corner of the world and use your own skills and talents where you can make a difference. Make sure you're tapping into people who are already doing this work to give your time or money. What else should I be asking that I'm not asking? What's really important to this conversation? And that can be more broadly, or I don't know if you guys want to go in through the lens of like, hey, you already talked to law enforcement, and here's some stuff we should we should talk about, or what else is necessary to this conversation?

SPEAKER_03 17:17

Through our own experiences in calling police in regards to ICE, is that we're usually left on hold for a very long time. Actually, a dispatcher, 901 dispatcher, I was I'm also a dispatcher with the Rapid Response Hotline. She called me yesterday when I was a dispatcher. So just to show you that unfortunately, even 911 dispatchers have their hands tied and they're calling me to report something that they that someone called them about, and they're like, we can't really do anything. Can you guys do something about it here? So we recommend folks call the hotline always. That's just our recommendation that folks call the rapid response hotline. And should they want to call the police thereafter, totally fine. They will find more of value in their situation if they call the hotline. We'll try to get volunteers there as fast as we can. We're there immediately to support our impacted community in any way that we can by slowing down an operation, reminding them of their rights, reminding ICE of our neighbors' rights too, just making it as obnoxious for them to do their job right there as a hotline, as confirmers. We resist and we fight and we take certain risks that police are just not gonna do. Police have their own agenda and mission, and that is to uphold the state, to uphold laws. And sometimes laws are not in our favor. They actually don't protect some of us in this in other ways that other people of other social identities are protected. We're really trying to emphasize like community protects community. We know what we need to do to stand in solidarity with our neighbors in that moment, but police have another role to play. They will not lead that work with the same kind of care and intentionality. Whereas here with the hotline, it's all about centering the community, the impacted person, the target of injustice, working with them and seeing what we can do to resist that situation and ensure that our community member doesn't get abducted.

SPEAKER_04 19:29

One more thing Ocho and Ingrid mentioned is how overwhelmed the organization can get when there's an influx of people wanting to volunteer. It can take weeks or months for someone to respond, but please be patient, Ocho said.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

And unfortunately, I think because we can't take everybody in at the same time, there's been a lot of frustration at times from community members like, I've contacted you so many times and I'm not getting a response. It's like please be patient with the leaders of Hotline. Please be patient with regional organizers. So it's been a lot to take on.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

Thanks again to Ingrid and Ocho for coming on the pod and for the work you do. You can report suspected ICE activity by calling 1-844-864-8341.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Next week, Frequency Co-Founder Jeff Rosick interviews music writer Grayson Haverkurne. But first, on Friday, we're releasing our full interview with a local cybersecurity expert whose warnings about flock licensed plate readers went unheeded at the Colorado Capitol. Before you go, here's one more thing.