An independent journalist has been letting federal agents speak anonymously so they can trash the higher-ups without fear of retribution.
Karl Loftus spoke with WIRED about his project in Minneapolis under @deadcrab_films that aims to capture the moment in history of federal agents as they carry out President Donald Trump's mass deportation plans.
One agent bashed outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as nothing more than a "DEI" hire, a reference to "diversity, equality and inclusion," which conservatives have warred against.
A Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) filmed a confession where they "expressed concerns about DHS colleagues violating the law, and complained of having to pause investigation into child sexual abuse cases to focus on immigration work," the report said.
“If they gave child exploitation cases a fraction of the attention, funding, resources, personnel, analytical support, etc. that they’re now giving immigration enforcement, we could do so much good,” the investigator said.
Loftus said he's never done any immigration reporting before and simply happened to be visiting family in Wisconsin when the shooting of Renee Nicole Good unfolded. He went to Minneapolis. After filming the protests, he asked his large following of military veterans about one of the first cell phone videos uploaded of the shooting of Good.
“Hey, any of the veterans out there that follow my page, I want to know your opinion on this. Watch the video, what do you think? Was this wrong, was this just? What would you have done in this scenario?” the prompt asked.
He then got connected through a network of federal agents that work for HSI, Customs and Border Protection as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"I was like, 'Man, no one has interviewed ICE agents. I don't know how exactly I would pull it off, but it would be interesting,'" he said.
The reality, however, is that federal agents won't speak out frankly with a reporter. "They will be fired instantly," said Loftus.
He has inside the agency that can confirm whether the person is who they say they are. If there is a question about the authenticity, the inside source gives them a question only someone in that specific agency would know.
The response from even ICE critics has been that it's "eye-opening." Those for and against the immigration crackdown are mostly saying the same things.
"I think eventually I'm going to get subpoenaed by the DHS," the reporter said. He assumes that DHS will eventually tell agents to stop doing the interviews, but it hasn't happened yet.
"These people have confided a lot of really sensitive information with me, so I don’t worry they’ll dox me or something, but you hear all these things about the DHS subpoenaing people's Instagrams, so that could be a real concern," Loftus closed. "But some of the HSI agents have really helped me on my opsec [Operations Security]."
