Lauren Magarino, KCTV5 Anchor, On Local ICE Programming | 4-16-26

music music Turn listening to Mundo in the Morning on 957 FM KCMO. So last night here in Kansas City there was an event put on by our friends over at American Public Square breaking the ice, see what they did there, on immigration enforcement and federal power. And it was an event at the Medallion Theater and it included Micah Kubik who is the executive director of the ACLU of Kansas. It had on a former ICE director, a local immigration attorney and Sean Smith who is a Jackson County lawmaker. The moderator was Lauren Magarino, KCTV 5 anchor joining us now in studio on KCMO. So it was an immigration conversation that can get testy Lauren but how did things go last night? Yeah, good morning Pete. Thanks for having me on. And it went well. I think one of the things about this event and you're familiar, you've gone to American Public Squares or participated before, is that it promotes civil discussion. And first and foremost all of the panelists, I mean they were part of it, right? They agreed to do it and a big part of that is because they believe fundamentally that there should be this space and a place for people to civilly discuss even the hardest of subjects, the most contentious of subjects and immigration of course is one of those things in a way that is going to be productive. And so there were definitely differences of opinion which we could get into but you went into the panel discussion knowing, you know, we've kind of got these parameters where we're going to keep it civil. We're going to hear what each person has to say and whatever points we want to go back and forth on. We can do that but in a way that's going to promote positive discourse and not just going at it. What was maybe the biggest point of contention last night as you were moderating? I would say the biggest point of contention, we were talking about the accountability factor and how that comes into play when it comes to ICE because there are a lot of folks within the community who support enforcement action and there's also a backlash that has come out of that especially after what we saw play out in Minneapolis. And so there has been discussion over what does it look like for local government to have some sort of lever or check on federal immigration authority and one of the pieces of that boiled down to something called the 287G program. What is that? It is a program that local and state law enforcement can sign up for. They can volunteer. They don't have to do anything in particular for this. In fact, they'll get funded. They'll get funding, training for it for them to be trained in certain types of immigration enforcement. So there are different types of programs that they can decide that they want to be part of. It could be all three. It could be just one. They get the funding and training for it and they're assisting with ICE basically to enforce within the communities. And the idea here, this has been around since the 90s, but it wasn't really used as much and the Trump administration has really promoted this again, reinvigorated it if you will, to work on facilitating federal and local cohesion to be able to enforce. So we have seen, and this is something we had reported on, more than 50 different sheriff's offices, law enforcement, the KBI, you name it, across Kansas and Missouri, go ahead and sign up for this 287G program to get this done. And so that was a big point of contention because you have the former ICE director saying and Sean Smith, Jackson County Legislator, saying there needs to be a relationship between those two. It's safer, it makes it smoother. And this is basically why wouldn't you want to have that relationship established that if you have somebody who was already arrested and taken in for something allegedly criminal and you want them off the street and hey, okay, they're flagged that they're here undocumented, they're here illegally, that that's just a streamlined process. Now, when we talked about accountability, you would hear from Dr. Michael Kubik, so he's the ACLU, the director of Kansas, and he was saying if you're wanting to find a lever for local government to pull further to be some sort of check, that's where that comes into play. It's voluntary that these offices don't have to join. They don't have to be part of that. You can keep your local law enforcement focused on protecting you on the issues that are happening within your community, not necessarily focused on grabbing somebody who got pulled over for a ticket who happened to be undocumented. So you saw some differences of opinion around that program in particular and it makes sense because in the past there are aspects of it that got pretty contentious. In the last couple minutes here, what about something that there was more agreement on than you would have expected? I expected this. It wasn't a surprise at all, but comprehensive immigration reform. Everyone knows it's a mess. Everyone knows it's a mess. Everyone knows it's a mess and there's a lot that can be said about enforcing what the law is, but everybody agrees that the law needs work. What was interesting is you have Sean who is at the local level but can speak to the fact of the politics of it all and how on the ends we are, or it feels like at times with our representatives and with Sarah Saldana, I'm the former ICE director who was testified in front of Congress and they were very pessimistic, skeptical about being able to come together on it, but believed in constituents and having a more informed citizenry to learn, understand the immigration system more because it is complex but important to understand and through that push leaders to do something about it. That was kind of the form that they had around that, but they admitted that it'd be pretty difficult. Yeah. So, Lauren Magarino, KCTV 5 anchor was the moderator last night, which as we were joking about before we got on the air, it's a different skill set moderating versus anchoring. So, things went very well for you last night at Medallion Theater. I know they've got something coming up here, what, next week on this? Yeah, next week on my day. So the conversation doesn't end there. Next Wednesday, they're going to be hosting a continued conversation where, you know, folks are going to be able to expand more. There were a lot of questions that we didn't get to. So this is a virtual small group roundtable. This is with American Public Square in all sides. So you can go onto American Public Square's website and find the details to this virtual event, but this is really where people cross the political spectrum. They're going to come on. There's going to be this structured conversation to help guide, you know, because like you said, moderating is one thing of panel discussion and then continuing the conversation is another. So folks can, you know, get to other questions that we weren't able to get to. There's so much to cover. Well, they're having good conversations over there. AmericanPublicSquare.org is where you find them. And Lauren, great job last night. Thanks for coming in to talk about it. Thank you for having me. You bet. Lauren Magarino, KCTV5 on KCMO Talk Radio. Vince Collinaze is redefining news talk with the Vince Show. It is a reflection of your response to this program that we get to take this thing to the next level. These gigantic shows. This is going to be so much fun. It's unbelievable. In-depth interviews, live-caller interactions, and a front-row seat to the most important conversations of the day. I've got updates. I've got big stories. We'll sort through the truth of what's really going on to buckle up. Here it comes. The Vince Show. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Hey there. I'm Paula Pan. I help people make the smartest money decisions possible. Do not ever worry about your salary. You need enough to make sure that you aren't in a bad financial position. Once you have that, your salary becomes moot. What matters from that point forward, upside gains. 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