ICE Raids and Haitian Voices - Imaeyen Ibanga Interview - Zip Codes Documentary

Award-winning journalist and filmmaker Imaeyen Ibanga (AJ+) joins Esther Dillard to discuss her acclaimed documentary series Zip Codes, which explores the Haitian immigration crisis and the realities Black immigrants face in America.

We talk about:

• The human impact of ICE raids and deportations
• How U.S. history and policy shape Haiti’s struggles today
• Why Haitian voices must be centered in immigration conversations

This is a timely and powerful interview that connects history, policy, and humanity.

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Transcript

0:03

Almost always when people talk about it, they specifically think of brown Hispanic people, maybe sometimes Asians, but very rarely if ever black people. On this edition of the Color between the Lines, we're speaking with journalist and documentary filmmaker Imayan Ibenga. Imayan and I first met back in May at the Gracie's Awards in la. She had won an award for her amazing series on the Haitian crisis and what's happening now. And although our conversation happened months ago, I really believe that it's a wake up call to many who are watching what's happening with ICE and deportations in cities across the country. So without further ado, let's jump into the conversation. Thank you Ima and I Benga for joining us on the Color between the Lines you're award winning YouTube series Zip Codes is about is just an absolute jewel. I loved it. It's deep, it's urgent, it's beautifully reported. And I'm so glad that you were able to speak to me about it. One of the stories, that really just really caught my eye was that two part special that you won the award for, that I met you at the Gracie's Awards and you talked about it and I was just intrigued. I want to ask the first thing, what inspired you to even do or to delve into the Haitian crisis and what was going on in 2021? Right. That's a great question. Thank you so much first of all for having me. Zip Codes is very much about, taking the macro and making it the micro. And so we're always looking for really interesting stories. And one of the things that came on our radar was sort of, I don't know if you remember at the time, just before this happened, there were some, I believe, black Americans who had crossed over the border, into Mexico and found themselves in a particular situation because, people had perceived them as being Haitian and so they had been targeted. And this had kind of been a story that became more major in terms of the US audience. And so that was maybe like the first, first sort of tiny ping that put it like on my radar. And then a producer also came up and was like, hey, there is like more to what is happening here. Which has caused me, which caused me to delve into it even more. And the more I saw and the more I read and research, I was like, oh, because I already knew. You know, I'm a first generation American. I am the child of immigrants. I've always had an interest in kind of immigration and diasporas and stories like that. And so watching sort of this last decade in particular, the evolution of that conversation has been interesting to me. And it's almost always when people talk about it, they specifically think of brown Hispanic people, maybe sometimes Asians, but very rarely, if ever black people. And so that is what made me want to do this story. Haiti, you know, is in crisis. It's teetering on the verge of collapse. Not just because of the things that happen on, you know, that particular side of the island where they were, but it is generations and centuries of history that have brought Haiti to this moment, these people, to this place. It's not by happenstance. And so that's why I think, I wanted to do it and explore there. And then having it be on both sides of the border, I thought was a really good way to showcase that you're in Mexico. You know, on the Mexican side, we're like, okay, these are Haitians looking for the American dream in Mexico. And then those who have made it into the United States. What does that look like? And that journey is not easy, and it's not over. And just as we've seen in the last six months under the new administration, the concept of that, even though this piece just came out literally a year ago, it's totally upended what it would look like to do that story in the same way today. You know, I. I was thinking when all this was going on with ICE now, you know, doing mass deportations and going after people in parking lots and then in grocery stores and such, I wondered what was going through your mind about, you know, your series and if. If anybody watches it, what would you want them to, I guess, take away from, that series that connects to what is happening right now? Because it was a lot in your series. I mean, seeing how the US Government has decided to enforce its interpretation of immigration law, to me, has been really fascinating. I knew that this year was going to be highly focused on immigration. I couldn't have imagined what it looked like. Even to me, that has been a surprise, that, yes, I was right to have an interest in immigration, but. But couldn't have foreseen how it would play out. And the first thing I think I want people to get is that connection that immigration and immigrants, it's not just one race. People of all races immigrate here. And oftentimes that designation of race is given to them when they get here. I often like to give an example of, I'm Nigerian America, and my parents didn't become black. Until they came to the US because in Nigeria, everybody's black. So you're going by ethnic and tribal designations and divisions. You're not like, this is black. Right. And how that changes your interaction and perception of things, which is really interesting when you're going from these cultures that might be sort, of monolithic in race, but not in ethnicity. Right. And so I think that would be the first thing to open up and broaden the idea of who and what immigrants are, what they look like and what their experiences are. Even when we're talking about immigration in the US Regardless of how you feel about it, being black has a specific impact. There is still racism within that process and within, how people treat you. A specific type of anti black racism, not just racism in general, that affects these people and their lives. And so that's one of the things I was hoping people would connect with. And also the idea, I think that a lot of times people are like, well, why can't you go back to your own country? Or why isn't your country functional? And the US has had a hand in what happened to Haiti. Yes, it started as a, you know, a colony of enslaved people by the French. And when it freed itself, it was the, you know, first nation to do so. If you're enjoying this interview, please subscribe to the color between the lines. It will help me continue to do the work that I love to do. Now, let's jump back into the conversation. I remember one of the people in the documentary, Girlene Joseph, who's a Haitian, Haitian American who immigrated here, as a teen. She says, you know, Haiti has been paying the price for freeing itself from enslavement ever since. For how many decades did they have to pay France back the money? Because they were like, okay, well, you have to pay us because we're not getting these enslaved people. And when you turn that into 20,$25, that's billions of dollars that. Right. You've paid to this other nation, which could have been invested here in this island nation. Haiti sits on Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. And so even that country is deporting people to Haiti. They famously have, you know, the word beef is the only one that comes to mind in terms of that. But that feels too, too slight and too flippant. But, maybe disagreements and things like that. Even though, you know, by U.S. standards, right. We would see Dominicans as black, but many Dominicans, even when they immigrate here, do not see themselves as black. And all of these people are on this island, you know, with this border. Borders are lines just drawn by people at different times through history. So many of these people might be and are connected if we looked at it, like, genetically or ethnically, but now it's different. And so it really puts Haiti in, a really delicate place, made even more delicate by the fact that the US Right now has said it's too dangerous for people like me and you to travel to. And yet Donald Trump just a couple of weeks ago said it's safe for them to go back, it's safe for them to be sent there. And so now it looks more likely that that's something that could happen. I want to go back to where you were talking about the difference between, black folks who deal with, racism in this country. One line in your film that kind of really stuck with me was the US Response to Haitian migrants is always met with violence. That was one of the person. Who's one person. Yeah, girl. Yeah. And I just wondered if you could maybe just unpack a little bit of how you saw that play out in your reporting and how does it tie to where we are today? I think one of the things that was really stunning, a few years ago, you may remember, and the audience might remember seeing these images along the Texas border of these people, you know, asylees, like, you know, migrants trying to seek help, coming in and seeing, Border patrol immigration officials on horseback and what looked like whipping. Like, literally the. The whipping of, the leash on the horse and going after these black people. And that looks, you know, I think we showed also in the piece, their depictions by hand, like drawings, from times of enslavement that look very similar. And I think that really sort of stunned people and the idea that the US Is solo in that kind of reaction to them. And also, the disparity when it comes to race, isn't true. We talked to people on the Mexican side of the border who said they were deliberately targeted, because unlike other, migrants who are coming from other Latin American countries who were brown, or maybe even white Hispanic people who are in those countries, the black people stood out more. They're like, oh, we assume you are not from here because we do not expect people to be black and in Mexico. And so they have become targets. So, you know, targeted for kidnappings, targeted for other types of violence. So at every stage of their journey, they're experiencing violence. Starting, you know, in Haiti, in the capital right Now, I believe 90% of Port au Prince is controlled by armed groups. So even getting in and out of there, the audience might recall not too long ago, when I believe it was a spirit's airline flight was shot at during landing. Well, maybe not specifically aimed at, but was hit by, gunfire, during a landing. So there is violence all throughout the Haitian migrant story. And really their story is a story of trying to survive. They had dictatorships. Right. They survived that. They had their presidential assassination, a few years ago. And still, you know, it's. It's not like that has been solved. There have been, people really held to account, like, in a way. And so coming into the U.S. i think, and seeing the response of the government and people's response to them, and perhaps sometimes people not even initially reading them as immigrants, just due to their race. It's when they speak. Right. When they speak, or there's something that you have to do that makes it that quote, unquote, like, giveaway. Oh, you're not from here. Yeah. I don't think people realize there's, like, 1.5 million Haitians that are currently living in the US and, you know, many of them did come, as, on asylum, you know, asylum seeking. And you touched on the emotional toll of deportation, even calling it a form of violence. Have you stayed in touch with any of these families you met? And what's happened since you started that filming and finished. Yeah, since I started that filming, I've tried to. I have an interest in expanding the coverage of, the Haitian migrants to keep it going. I was in Springfield in March of this year, which is the town that Trump infamously said during the presidential debate, they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs. And so I'm working on something on that right now. And even as I'm doing this story, things are changing all the time. I will literally be writing or researching or scripting, and a Supreme Court ruling comes down that changes everything. That means, like, okay, we can deport people, or we can't deport people, or there's a stay here, or TPS, which, Biden had extended and given them 18 months. And then now, US President Donald Trump has knocked it back. And so, right, we're really coming to, an inflection point because it's this summer. Right. We're in July right now, halfway through. But that TPS ends at the end of August, early September, I think September 2nd is when people are thinking it might be actionable, but it's still sort of unclear. So Kept in touch with Girlne, who, is the Haitian Bridge Alliance. And she's somebody who created that, co founded it because, you know, she. Someone saw what was happening at the border and said to her, hey, you're Haitian. You need to come and help your people. Have not been in touch with the people we met on the Mexican side of the border, and continuing to look for Haitians around the nation in different pockets to be able to tell their stories. Because I think we focus a lot on, tps, temporary, protected status, which is one thing, but there's also humanitarian status, which is another thing, which is also something, that Trump has impacted and I think wants to cut, has indicated that he wants to cut. And then you have, right, the kind of delineation in, mixed identity families. Right? What if you have a parent who is here on tps, but that person has since had a child, which would be a US Citizen, that would be birthright. But also the Trump administration has indicated it wants to challenge the constitutional right of birthright citizenship. So I think there's still a lot there with this community. And because, like you said, there are so many and so many would be affected, I would love to continue just kind of telling that story as well as just other immigration stories in general and the impact in general because, what I really like to show audiences, not just here, like in the US but internationally, is how connected these communities are. I think people see or think of them in a silo often because of how, how they've been reported on sort of historically, not even just in the last decade in which Trump has been on the political stage, but I mean, like in the larger context of the US and, I think people are starting to see a little bit more of that. Like, even when you see people trying to lobby the Trump administration to say, hey, we need actually immigrants and people to, for. For farming, right? We want them to be exempt for this. And then that became a conversation. And now they've just said in the last few days that they will not give that exemption, but it looks like perhaps they were. So I think people are really starting to understand more, who these people are and also the trials and tribulations of the immigration system. It's not just how you will often hear kind of colloquially. Well, if people come the right way, asylum is legal. Coming to seek asylum is legal, would, quote, unquote, be the right way. And yet, there are some people who disagree with that and don't want that. So the nation has to deal with all of this, I guess I would ask the, one of my final questions be what. What do you think you took away with from that, doing that story? Because a lot of times, you know, when you do a story that that's. That's that complicated, that deep, there's things that you take away personally, you know, And I know that kind of story. I know it would probably have stayed with me a lot overnight, trying to get through it, because you can see. You can see the faces are like your relatives. There's a. There's, you know, just like kind of a kinship. So what, I guess, what was something that you took away from that story that probably you. You probably will always remember? I, am always thankful when people allow me to tell their stories, and I feel less like I'm telling them and more like I'm amplifying them. I want to be the bullhorn, because I'm not someone that believes in voiceless people. I think it's a matter of which voices we're choosing to listen to and which voices we're trying to amplify. And really, the Haitian story. And I think any story of black people in this hemisphere, to me, is the story of the African diaspora, because that is where these people come from. We would not be here otherwise. Whether you have come through immigration like my parents did, whether it was, your family was impacted by the transatlantic slave trade or however. Right. So what stayed with me was the fact that I want to keep doing stuff like this and keep alerting people to these people's stories, because maybe you're in a place where you don't get to see or know these people one on one. You're. They're not in your community, for whatever reason. Right. You're living in a small town, like. Or whatever city you're living in. So it just made me want to do more of it. And I was so thankful to even be able to learn more and have that understanding and in the hopes that I could bring that understanding to more people. And it also made me want to do just more on immigration in general. Like, I knew I already had an interest, and I'm sort of a general assignment person. I've never really had a B. I just kind of do things that are interesting. And, right now, like, immigration is one of the things I'm uniquely interested in. Well, this is a pleasure to talk to you and see all the wonderful things that you've done. I'm inspired. I know that you can tell probably many journalists some. Some things about what they should be doing these days. Because this is a story that has so many angles and so many things that people need to address. And it doesn't just apply to Haitians. It applies to black folks in general, you know? Exactly, exactly, exactly. The Haitian story is a black story. Black people, you know, for me, blackness is the umbrella because. Because I know some people don't identify as African American. I think a lot of Caribbeans, as an example, don't like that terminology. So I think black being the umbrella. And then African American would fall under that. Or Afro Latina would fall. Also fall under that. But we're still all connected. And I would love to see the larger African diaspora, not just here in the Western hemisphere, but also in the Eastern hemisphere, Northern and the Southern hem is. Understand that connection and community. And there's a lot of shared plights in that, for sure. And then having that, especially here in the US if we're talking solely in the US Context, people understand that, yes, it's not just Mexicans, it's also black people. It's also Asian people. And. Right. That, we share a collective story in that way. That's it for this edition of the Color between the Lines. If you've enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe to the Color between the Lines so I can continue doing this work and continue to listen to many of the other episodes that I have on this channel. I'm Esther Dylan.