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We’re learning more about the tactics and technology used by police in Texas during deportation proceedings. The Texas Newsroom has accessed body and dashcam videos from an incident last summer in East Austin that ended with five people in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We’ll discuss the tactics and technology being deployed in these apprehensions.
The fallout from the sexual abuse allegations against Cesar Chavez made public this month continues among community members and in the world of academia. We’ll hear one local perspective as well as what could come in the future.
When this Texas band was at the apex of their popularity there were probably plenty of DJ’s in the studio who did a double take at their name before asking themselves, “Can i even say that on the radio? Jason Mellard from The Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University has the story.
Elon Musk has announced a large-scale chip manufacturing project. What does that mean for Austin?
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The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:09] We’re learning more about the tactics and technology that’s used by police in Texas when they partner with ICE to do immigration enforcement. The Texas newsroom has access body and dashcam videos from an incident last summer in East Austin that ended with five people in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The tactics being deployed in these apprehensions coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:31] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:36] And the fallout from the sexual abuse allegations against Cesar Chavez made public this month continues among community members and in the world of academia. We’re going to hear one local perspective on what we’ve heard and what could come in the future. Plus, Elon Musk has announced a large-scale chip manufacturing project. What does that mean for Austin? Come find out next, right here on Austin’s Signal. Howdy out there. Thank you for tuning in. This is Austin Signal. I’m your host, Jerry Kihono. It is March 24th. We’re glad to be part of your Tuesday. The wildfire that started up Sunday night in Bastrop State Park has burned 46 acres. We told you about it yesterday. That is now 85% contained, according to the latest update from the Texas A&M Forest Service. Bastrop County Emergency Management Officials say Highway 21 through the area has reopened. Though some smoke may still be visible on the highway, just in case you see that on your drive home or to the office or wherever you’re going today and wherever you are headed, thanks for bringing Austin Signal along with you. We’re learning more about the tactics and technology that’s used by police in Texas when they partner with ICE to do immigration enforcement. The Texas newsroom has obtained body and dash cam videos from an incident last summer in East Austin. That ended with the detention of five men by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Here to tell us more about that story is Moe’s Bouchel. He has been covering immigration for the Texas Newsroom. Welcome back, Moe. Thanks, Jerry. So tell us about this incident in question. What happened here?
Mose Buchele [00:02:18] You might remember this one, it happened last July, it was July 31st, and it involved both Texas DPS, Texas State Police, and ICE agents, and also there was at least one ATF agent represented in this operation. Uh… And it happened at a construction site which i think one reason i got a lot of attention uh… Five men that were pulled over in their van heading to the site uh… There were workers that were heading this construction site and they were ultimately uh… Detained by ice uh… So we we we got the body cam and dash cam video of the state trooper who pulled them over and participated in this arrest
Jerry Quijano [00:02:54] and that state trooper was part of a DPS Homeland Security strike team, can you tell us more about that?
Mose Buchele [00:03:00] Yeah, these were announced last year by Governor Abbott as a way to kind of leverage the manpower of state police to further the president’s immigration crackdown, essentially. They work in these strike forces with ICE agents, with federal agents, to do immigration arrests. And in this case, it was a state trooper who pulled over this van saying that the license plates were not properly placed and then eventually called ICE on these five that we’re in the van.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:28] We’ve seen lots and lots of videos of ICE detentions here in Texas and across the country. Some of them are really long and played out, incidences with members of the community in addition to the law enforcement officers. This incident that we’re talking about specifically here, how long did this one last?
Mose Buchele [00:03:44] So this is one of the things that was striking about this particular event. It was about 11 minutes between when the troopers saw this van and when these guys were handcuffed, including by federal agents, and about under 15 minutes before they were kind of led away in detention. This just kind of shows how quickly and almost invisibly these types of arrests can happen, especially when you have state or in some cases local police working in conjunction with federal agents. And in Texas now, state police have also been further in power to do these types of arrests, so it can happen even more kind of almost in the background of life, as one expert said it to me.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:25] Well, through your investigation you were able to obtain these dashcam videos and bodycam videos. What do we know about the men who were actually detained in the video?
Mose Buchele [00:04:34] I mean, unfortunately, this is one of the big remaining questions, right? Arrest documents that I got suggest that many of them were Mexican nationals. But I asked ICE what happened to them, got no answer. I also tried to call up people with the same names, just kind of cold calling people. Nobody was, I didn’t get anywhere with that. Reached out to the Mexican consulate. They said they had no information likewise with local immigrant advocacy groups. Uh, but… It seems that they were likely deported. There is ICE data that is public through public information requests that show five men that were arrested around this time in Austin did end up deported from the country.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:15] Some of the law enforcement that show up to the arrest scene in the videos are wearing masks. What is the Department of Public Safety protocol about wearing face coverings and what have You heard from them.
Mose Buchele [00:05:23] Yeah, this is one of the things that was striking about this video. We saw at least three agents that were masks, wearing ski masks or other similar kind of face coverings, right? It turned, when you watch that, you might assume these are ICE agents. As it turned out, the ones that I could identify by their vest, like, you know, logos. Yeah, because it says HSI, right. Exactly, yeah. If you’re ICE, it’s Homeland Security Investigations. These were state police. These were DPS investigation agents, in some cases, that were wearing masks. That is against department policy. DPS agents with this division are not supposed to wear masks, and Texas DPS tells me that those agents have been counseled as to what the proper policy is.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:00] And the Austin City Council is considering something similar, or considering something when it comes to face coverings?
Mose Buchele [00:06:05] Indeed, yeah, it’s been now proposed by, I think, City Councilmember Vanessa Fuentes that perhaps the city can pass unilateral mask bans for all law enforcement operating in the city. Of course, that does raise questions of where state and federal power preempt local power, but that is a debate now that’s happening in Austin as people do not like seeing police officers wearing masks, and they want a reason when they see it. And so I think you’re kind of seeing that local response playing out right now.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:32] You mentioned the stealth and quick nature of the apprehension in this video. Immigration apprehensions haven’t been as visible here in Texas, but what do we know about the number of apprehensions that have been happening here?
Mose Buchele [00:06:41] Yeah, really, Texas leads the country in immigration apprehensions. I think I heard about a quarter of all of them happen in Texas. And part of the reason this happens so often here is because it kind of happens in the course of daily life as local and state police partner with immigration agents. So we do a lot of immigration enforcement here, but you don’t see the big high profile protests, you know, like you maybe saw in. In L.A., Chicago, so many blue cities like Austin, where you have the kind of local or state political structure in opposition to the Trump deportation push. Here, it doesn’t work that way, and so it kind of happens more in the background.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:25] Okay, we have been speaking with Moe’s Boo Shell, who has been doing some special reporting on immigration for the Texas newsroom. We’re gonna have a link to his latest in today’s show notes and you can find that also at kut.org slash signal. Moe, thank you for being on the show. Thank you, Jared. After sexual assault and abuse allegations against Cesar Chavez came to light in a story reported last week by the New York Times, the ramifications of these allegations sent a wave of emotions through the Mexican American community here in Texas and beyond. Joining us on the show now is Professor Karma Chavez, chair of the Department of Mexican American and Latina, Latino studies at the University of Texas. Karma, thanks for joining us on this show.
Karma Chavez [00:08:18] Yeah, thanks for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:19] So we saw lots of reactions to the news of last week’s allegations. I wanted to ask you, what was your reaction?
Karma Chavez [00:08:26] Well, I think on the one hand, there was a little bit of surprise. And then on the other hand, there was little bit not surprise because we see a lot of similar kinds of stories, right? Where powerful men engage in bad behavior.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:38] You mentioned some people were surprised, others weren’t. This isn’t reflective of the overall Mexican-American community’s reaction, but there were some folks who were maybe more accusatory of the women who came forward and questioned the timing of that. Can you help us understand where that frustration or maybe where that anger against the versus the alleged abuser in this case.
Karma Chavez [00:09:00] It’s really not surprising that that’s one of the reactions that happens. If we look throughout history, anytime women bring up issues related to sexism and especially sexual assault of a famous or powerful man, specifically in leftist movement contexts, we often see people respond really harshly to that and sort of saying, you’re hurting the whole movement. Can’t you just keep this personal issue to yourself?
Jerry Quijano [00:09:23] Well, we’ve seen the overall backlash here in Austin be pretty swift. We’ve seen cancelations of other parades here in Texas and in other states. What do you think has aided in that swift reaction? And why have we not seen that with other people who are accused of similar allegations?
Karma Chavez [00:09:40] I think this is a really good question that a lot of people are trying to figure out. And so, why has nothing like this happened with the Jeffrey Epstein files, for example, and yet the one big leader in the Chicano community is accused of really bad behavior and it’s almost instant, the canceling. And I think we can’t help but make a kind of racialized analysis of what’s happening here. I think there’s a way in which Black and Brown communities are positioned within the broader culture as always a little bit suspect. And so it makes sense for, you know, still white power structures to go ahead and use this as an example of how we’re gonna respond, even though it’s an inconsistent example.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:23] I wanted to ask you personally, what have the discussions been like in the world of academia that you work in and also just the community that you live in and your regular life?
Karma Chavez [00:10:32] Yeah, I mean, I think it’s probably been somewhat reflective of what’s happening elsewhere. I know, you know, in the department, we haven’t had a chance to have a conversation about it yet. In part, that’s because our department, of course, is going to be closed down at the end of this year. So what a time to do that. We don’t really have time to facilitate it like we might like. But you know I posted a thing on Instagram where what my personal response is to hear the department is I went around to all the pictures. In the department and I put up a little note card that said, this man is an important part of Chicano history and he raped children. And I didn’t take the posters down, I didn’t completely cover his face, you can still lift and see who it is. But I wanted it to be known that this is a conversation that we need to be having. And I think that’s actually what we should be doing is like we have to deal with all of the complexity of this situation. He is an an important of Chicana history. I don’t believe he should be erased. I don’t believe he even should be completely canceled. But I do believe we have to reckon with the fact that he raped children and women and we have let those women and former children be the ones to lead the conversation. And it’s not just about him, right? He’s done this, but a lot of other people have done this as well. And a lot women colluded in this. I can almost guarantee there were a lot a women who told other women to be quiet. That’s gonna be what comes out next, I suspect.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:57] Is that something that’s normally part of these kinds of stories?
Karma Chavez [00:11:59] Absolutely.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:00] Okay, I want to circle back to the question about the your department being shut down. Have you seen similar responses from other people in your department, sort of continuing to embrace this this tough conversation, even at a time when your resources are being taken away?
Karma Chavez [00:12:16] Yeah, I mean, I think that’s one of the things that our department has been really good at is what we would call an intersectional analysis. And so I think we’re able to help our students and our community to hold that complexity. And so how do we talk about the importance of a movement for racial justice or a movement for labor justice and talk at the same time about how it might have also been a homophobic or a sexist space? Those things can all be true at the time and they help us to have a fuller understanding of both our history and our presence.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:46] The Texas Education Agency, which oversees what’s taught in elementary, middle school, and high schools, just recently announced that it wants curriculum with Cesar Chavez removed. You spoke a little bit about fears that others have shared about sweeping a broad brush to erase vital aspects of Mexican-American history. How do you see this, and what concerns do you have about the future pedagogy of Mexican American studies?
Karma Chavez [00:13:11] I think it’s an interesting question. So if we’re talking about the TEA and K-12 and getting rid of any mention of Cesar Chávez, it suggests that young people are not able to handle these kinds of difficult topics, which of course is not true. In fact, young people are often the victims of these kinds behaviors, right? So I think we need to give students a lot more credit than just sweeping something under the table. I don’t think it does them a service. And when you now won’t have Mexican-American studies in almost every public. A higher education institution in the state of Texas, we’re doing a real disservice to students across the board. So I think, again, we have to be able to talk about what happened in honest ways, age-appropriate ways, and not just pretend it didn’t happen, because how does that help us to be better in the future?
Jerry Quijano [00:13:56] What else are you gonna be looking for? You mentioned what comes next in this story or what you expect might come next. What else you looking for or watching for?
Karma Chavez [00:14:06] So, you know, I’ve been having some conversations with other community leaders about holding some sort of venue in the next week or two for people to come together and have some conversations about what we want to see, how does this impact us locally? Like, what does it mean for Chicanos in Austin, for example? And what do we wanna do with this to make our own community stronger? And so I really think that is what we have to do is come together, listen to the people who are most marginalized and most impacted in these kinds of situations. And make a collective plan forward, whether that’s about what to do with the street, with the statue, or with the talking about him in courses.
Jerry Quijano [00:14:43] Do you know anything about what’s happening with the statue here on the UT campus?
Karma Chavez [00:14:46] Well, that would assume that UT respects my position enough to ask me, so the answer to that is no.
Jerry Quijano [00:14:52] Okay, we have been speaking with Karma Chavez, professor and chair of the Mexican American Studies and Latina, Latino Studies Department here at UT Austin. Karma, thank you for your time. Thank you. And thank you for spending part of your Tuesday here with community powered public radio. This is Austin Signal, and you can catch up on all the stories that we have bringing you at kut.org slash signal. We have more show coming up for you after this break. Stay with us. This is Austin Signal, welcome back. When this Texas band was at the apex of their popularity, there were probably plenty of DJs in the studio who did a double take at their name before asking themselves, can I even say that on the radio? Well, that name wasn’t enough to hold down the psychedelic guitars and punk sounds that filled the airwaves of 80s, 90s, and even today. For more about that band from just down I-35, here’s Jason Mellard from the Center for Texas Music History. At Texas State University.
Jason Mellard [00:16:09] This week in Texas Music History, the state’s weirdest surfers catch a wave. On March 23, 1993, Capitol Records released the Butthole Surfers album, Independent Worm Saloon. With Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones as producer, the band assembled a sprawling set of psychedelic hard rock, punk, and folk song oddities. The album opens with distorted voices chanting, I’m flying, I’M FLYING, and the electrifying lead single, Who Was In My Room Last Night. A proper bit of disorientation that, along with the accompanying music video, was just the right thing to introduce the offbeat Texas band to new national audiences. The exposure was perhaps unexpected. In a state that has raised its share of Devil May Care avant-gardes, the 13th floor elevators in Red Crayola, the legendary stardust cowboy and culture side, the notion that the butthole surfers would cross over via music video might have seemed far-fetched. The group formed in late 70’s San Antonio with two Trinity University students, frontman Gibby Haynes and guitarist Paul Leary. Their industrial noise rock, upside down walls of sound, throbbing with the dueling drums of King Coffee and Teresa Nerosa, provided a soundtrack to live shows that were as much performance art or deranged stage rituals as rock and roll, spliced films and strobe lights, nudity and frantic dance. Independent Worm Saloon was their first record for a major label, and it marked a turning point for a band whose prior recordings for Touch& Go and Rough Trade had made them legendary in the 80s rock underground. The album’s popularity helped set the surfers up to ride the coming alternative rock wave, but Independent Worn Saloon remains true to the group’s brand of acid-drenched, surrealist punk. You can hear music from the Lone Star State 24-7 on the Texas Music Experience at TMX.fm.
Butthole Surfers [00:18:32] Show me a good one, maybe I’ll cry.
Jerry Quijano [00:18:37] Elon Musk announced plans over the weekend for a $25 billion chip-making factory here in Austin called TerraFab. These plans have many in the industry raising their eyebrows. Based on Musk’s track record, is this something that can be done? And if so, what does that mean for Austin? Joining us now is Shelley Brisbane, a reporter producer with Texas Standard who keeps her fill on the pulse of the tech world for the show. Shelley, thanks for being on Austin Signal.
Shelly Brisbin [00:19:02] Hey Jerry, thanks for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:04] So tell us what exactly were the plans announced by Musk over the weekend.
Shelly Brisbin [00:19:07] Musk announced the TerraFab, which is going to be, according to him, a giant chip-making plant, but it’s vertically integrated. So it’s not just making the chips, it’s designing them, it’s testing them, it’ making them. It’s an enormous project that is going to provide chips to Tesla, to SpaceX, and to XAI, his AI company. And basically he wants to control and have access to all the chips he needs for these giant ventures he has in mind.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:34] And listeners of our show and listeners of KUT will be familiar with these chip making processes. Why are people in the industry unsure about this idea?
Shelly Brisbin [00:19:45] Several things. I mean, Musk has a reputation for making big promises that sometimes don’t come out the way they were originally proposed, or it takes longer than anticipated, and so people are wondering whether these really ambitious plans for a terawatt of power, chip-making power, which is an incredible amount.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:05] Yeah, how much is that?
Shelly Brisbin [00:20:06] It’s a trillion watts. I don’t know if that makes it any more clear. Maybe not.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:10] It’s a lot, well a trillion of something is a lot of something, so.
Shelly Brisbin [00:20:13] So it’s a whole lot and he says that it’s something like that the chips that he’s able to get for his Companies that hit the projected needs that he has it says that he can get like 2% of what he needs So it it’s allot he says and the issues that people have are number one musk doesn’t have any track record in making chips He’s sent rockets up in the space up into space and he’s paint self-driving cars all sorts of things but he doesn’t really have a track record. Also, this is vertically integrated, which means they’re trying to do all the pieces of the chip-making puzzle instead of just one or two of them. And that’s just really ambitious and just the sheer size of it. So people, and also he wants to do this by 2027, by next year. And so it’s really an ambitious project.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:56] Yeah, ambitious indeed. You mentioned that these chips would primarily be used by companies owned by Muska. If these plans do work out, how would they affect the chip making industry at large?
Shelly Brisbin [00:21:08] Well, on the positive side, those companies that provide materials for chipmakers, including Applied Materials, a company that has a big facility in Austin and some other companies, would potentially benefit because they could sell their equipment or their products to Musk. And also for chip makers that are currently faced with difficult supply issues from Taiwan, where most of the chips that are in our gadgets come from right now, there would be less pressure on that if Musk was creating his own chips rather than having to buy them. From companies like Samsung. He actually recently announced he was going to buy a large number of chips from Samsung’s Taylor Fabrication plant, this enormous project that’s outside of Austin right now. And so potentially those chips would be available for somebody else to use or could provide a backup for what Musk needs.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:57] I believe Musk announced this project on Saturday and then there was some clarification on Sunday that this would be a bigger project maybe going beyond Austin, but focusing on Austin, what could the impact be here locally?
Shelly Brisbin [00:22:09] Well, obviously, if he’s hiring people, KUT reported that there are already TerraFab job openings for Austin and for Palo Alto, California, which is another center of chip design in the US. And then just generally, as I mentioned, companies like Applied Materials or anybody who’s supplying equipment and products that chipmakers need would potentially benefit. And then there would be facilities that would have to be created. Musk says he might need thousands of acres for this. So that land has to come from somewhere. One of the places is probably near his Gigafactory out in Del Valle.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:42] All right, we have been speaking with Shelley Brisbane, a reporter producer at Texas Standard. Shelley, thanks for joining us here on Austin Signal. My pleasure. And thank you out there for spending part of your Tuesday here with us. We’re gonna have a link to the stories that we brought you on today’s show in the show notes for today’s podcast. And you can always find more at kut.org slash signal. Rayna Sevilla is our technical director. Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer. And I’m your host, Jerry Quijano- Miles Bloxson will be in the host seat for the rest of this week, so be nice and tune in. And as always, stay with us here on KUT News. This is community-powered public radio.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
