From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. Step one, you are currently in the custody of the US department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection. You have been charged with the crime of illegal entry into the United States. Step two-- So Kevin, who is this and what is she reading? This is Rachelle Garza. She's an immigration attorney in Brownsville, Texas and she's reading a flyer that was handed to some parents after they were separated from their children. Kevin Sieff is correspondent for The Washington Post. And on the flyer there's a phone number, basically, which is really the only lifeline they have to their children-- the only way they can get information from the government about where their children are, how their children are doing. And explain what she's trying to do. She's trying to locate her client's child. So she represents a man who is detained in an immigration detention center who, basically minutes after crossing the border, was separated from his daughter. How old is his daughter? She's 12 OK, so let's figure out how we're supposed to do this. So action one, call ICE. If you're in a detention facility, call this way. OK, let's call the ORR parent hotline. What is that, the ORR parent hotline? So, that's the phone number that you're supposed to call, either as a parent or as an attorney, to try to locate your child. I mean, it's really the most-- when you look at this flyer, it's the most useful piece of information on it. So yeah, this is the number that Rochelle's about to call. So it starts in Spanish, and then it switches to English. You have reached the ORR national call center, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are calling about a person travelling to the United States who is 18 years of age or older, please press one. If you have a case manager's extension, please press two. For all other calls, please press three or remain on the line and you will be connected with a case manager. Your call will be monitored for quality assurance. OK, so there's hold music and there's a phone tree. This all feels very, like-- the most normal thing in the world. Exactly. It's like you're trying to fix your cable. So on this recording you made, an operator picks up after six minutes-- not that long, really. Please wait as we connect-- Yes, of course. OK, how are you doing Alan? Pretty good. So, my name is Rochelle Garza. I'm an attorney. I'm looking for my client's daughter. I called last week, on the 11th of June, and I was told that I would be contacted by the shelter. The shelter? Yeah. And I haven't been contacted, and neither has my client. OK. What's the name of the minor? So she gives the name of this girl to the operator and he looks her up and finds her in the system. What I can do is to try to do-- try to send the shelter inquiry again. I mean, because they usually do contact. But right now, with the high volume of minors that are entering the United States, it's a little complicated for them. Hey Kevin, when he says the high volume of minors entering the United States, is that what's happening? No. I mean, there is no surge of minors crossing the border. In fact, there are fewer people crossing the border than almost any time in the last decade. What there's a surge of is a surge of families being separated, and that's what's changed. And that's why he's getting so many calls. Right. There are children and parents who can't find each other. Maybe there's a better way for us to do this. Can I send a letter to you or to the shelter somehow, saying that I'm representing her father? That way I can at least confirm, you know, where she is and so I can go ahead and start working on her case. OK. For that-- so basically, we don't release that information of the shelter. We can't release that information to the public. We don't release the information saying what shelter she's in, is what he's saying, right? Right. Due to safety concerns, safety purposes. But I mean, I can type out a little bit of, like, whatever you want to tell them, tell the shelter, and I can make sure they get the message if that'll work for you. Yeah, no. I guess I'm just trying to figure out a way that I can explain that I'm an attorney and that I'm the attorney assisting the parent. And the parent has asked me to locate the child. So that way, I can speak with her. Is there any email address that I can maybe send a letter of representation to? Even if it's to someone at your office. Give me one second. I think that's one of the fundamental problems here, is that they're making it really hard for her to establish that she is, in fact, representing a child. And is the parent in the detention center? Yes. I think you can probably see that in your system, right? I can try to find them. But-- Do you want me to-- I was just asking so that-- Do you want me to confirm his name? Huh? Do you want me to confirm the dad's name? I can give that to you. No, it's OK. No, I only have the information for the minors. I don't have the-- for the adults. I mean, I can't go to the ICE locator and find them, but-- This surprised me. Is he saying that his database lists the child and where the child is, but doesn't have the parent's name attached to that? Yeah. I mean, he's telling Rochelle that he has no record of even that parent's name, let alone where that parent's located. I mean, and this, I think, is the biggest concern that lawyers have right now is, is there even a record in a government database of which child belongs to which parent? We don't know the answer to that question. But there are a lot of reasons, including this exchange, that would make us think that they don't. They don't know. So again, so in the recording, he then heads off to try to answer her question about how can she get through to the daughter. OK, I mean, just give me one second so I can speak to my supervisor about this. Let me ask what else I can do for you. OK. Thank you, I appreciate that. Do you mind holding on-- I do not mind. --for a little bit? Thank you. Kevin, so on his computer screen he actually has the information that she wants, of where this girl is? Yeah, that's basically what he's saying, that he has it. He knows where she is, but he can't give it to her. Now eventually, as this call goes on, the guy gives her an email address. But then it's just the same email address that's on the form that she has, right? Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, I kind of saw her just entirely deflated after he gave that address. Right, so having had it, how do you feel about that call? Not very good. Why? I mean, they're not really trying to help. Yeah. Sorry, it's rough. I just don't know how we're going to track down these kids. That's not helpful. I mean, I can still go through the motions of sending an email to that email address, but I just don't have any faith that it's going to go anywhere. Sorry, I'm getting emotional. But it's very frustrating. And I can only imagine what's going on on her end. OK, so that was a week ago. What's happened since? So, Rochelle reached out to one of the legal service providers who work with children who are detained after crossing the border. And these are organizations that represent children through their deportation proceedings, through their asylum hearings. And these organizations keep track of the kids that they're working with. They each have a list of the kids. And Rochelle kind of got lucky, and the person she reached out to did actually have a record of this girl and was able to tell Rochelle where the girl was being held. She found the name of the shelter? She found the shelter, yeah. So then the next step was for her to get to the shelter to try to set up basically an appointment. So on Thursday afternoon, she drove to the shelter. And she walked in and there the girl was. I talked to her right afterwards. She looked like her dad, so I recognized her right away. I felt-- I felt really emotional about it actually, when I saw her, just because I could see her dad's face in her face. I had to-- obviously, any time you go and you introduce yourself to a child, like they don't know who you are. I obviously explained my relationship to her dad and to her and that I've been looking for her. And her eyes turned really red when I mentioned her dad. And I asked her if she wanted to write him a letter and she was like, yes. And so she frantically wrote this letter, and I gave her the time to do that. And so this girl, she's 12 years old. What did Rochelle say? Is she doing OK? Yeah, the girl's doing OK. Rochelle said she looks healthy. She's wearing a uniform given to her, a sort of polo shirt given to her by the shelter. And she was wearing a bunch of friendship bracelets that I guess she's learned to make there. And then Rochelle had to do this thing, which is explain that this girl probably is not going to see her dad any time soon, and she might not even talk to him any time soon. The way you explain it is, like, you kind of have to explain what's going on in the national realm, right? You have to say there was this executive order and there was this decision out of the courts, and put it in that kind of context so that-- I mean the thing is, I don't have an answer for her, Kevin. Like, I can't tell her, you're for sure going to get a phone call this day. You're for sure going to be reunited with him on this day. All I can say is, I don't know. Kevin, I thought the policy had changed. Like, the president announced that we are no longer separating families from children. And in fact, the government announced that they had reunited over 500 children. Yeah, I mean, the government has made these announcements about their plans to reunify families. But when you talk to the lawyers who are representing the parents, nothing has changed at all. And in many cases, not only are the families not reunified, but these lawyers still can't figure out where the children are being held. And what do we know about the 500-plus kids who the government says they reunited? I mean, the government has said that they've reunited these families. When I talk to lawyers who are representing hundreds of parents-- I mean, there's one organization that's representing 376, another that's representing I think over 400 now. I haven't heard of a single-- at least as of a few days ago, I haven't heard of a single reunification. So I mean, I think in the absence of concrete information about who these families were, how they were reunified, lawyers are really wondering if these kids were among the 2,300 who were separated from their parents. If maybe they were from a different pool of children. It's possible that the government numbers are accurate, but there are just so many questions about them, because there's really no documentation that goes along with it. We reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for clarification about all of this, and a spokesperson told us that the 539 children they've said were reunited with parents were all apprehended since May, as part of the administration's zero tolerance policy, and they all were in border patrol custody before being returned to their families. Presumably, being in border patrol custody means they were only in the country a short time and had never been transferred to other agencies, shelters, and foster homes. The spokesperson declined to provide any names of these families or any information about what countries they were from. But this kind of situation where somebody-- in this case, the President of the United States-- declares that he's changed-- it's all different, he's moving on, no longer separating kids from their parents, but the result is not so clear. That situation, that is what our show is about today. Something happens, maybe you'd like to believe it's true, but you don't know if you should. We have a bunch of different stories that do not involve the current administration, or any previous ones. One of the stories, in fact, takes us into a noisy world of half-clad soap opera stars and daytime TV hosts, none of whom I bet you have ever heard of. Stay with us. Act One, The All Too Real Housewives of Argentina. There's an old saying, don't believe everything you see. But there's a corollary, of course-- don't believe everything you see on TV, especially daytime TV. And it doesn't matter what country you're in. Jasmine Garsd grew up in Argentina and has this story. Quick warning before we start-- the stories in today's show have some curse words that we have un-beeped here in the podcast version of the show. If you want a version with beeps, maybe you're listening with kids, go to our website. And here's Jasmine. I watched a lot of television when I was a kid. My grandmother, Iaia, would pick me up at school and bring me back to her place. Her apartment was dark and humid. It smelled like French bread and the exhaust from the buses on the avenue down below. My grandfather was never around. Iaia would make tea and then we would go to her bedroom and turn the TV on. And suddenly, colors, sound, and sex would pour into the world. It was the early afternoon. It was time for the talk shows. Argentine talk shows are extreme, even for Latin American television. The women are pumped up with silicone and Botox, and sometimes show up wearing almost nothing. The conversation is not just double entendres, but straight up entendres, full-on vulgar language. When I was growing up, it was a parade of pasties, stilettos, feather boas. One of the most popular shows back then was hosted by a guy named Jorge Rial. He's still on TV. He's kind of the Argentine everyman-- charming and a little bit of a hustler. These days, his TV show is called Intrusos, or Intruders. It takes place on a set that is just seizure inducing-- neon colors, walls lined with giant video screens. Jorge Rial likes to stir up fights among his voluptuous guests. Every time something shocking is said, ominous music rolls out. Once in a while, a woman is so sexy that Jorge Rial bites his lower lip and mugs for the camera. This has been Rial's style for years. Back in the day, Iaia would bring the tea and cookies and lie down next to me in her patent leather platform shoes, which she never took off, not even in bed. My grandmother was the target audience for Rial's show, what's commonly known as "doña rosa," a housewife. She loved to hate the show, to look disapprovingly at the women and comment how much surgery she's had. "Una prostituta," a prostitute. "una loca." And they give her expensive gifts-- cars, vacations. And I'd look around me my grandmother's lonely apartment and think to myself, wow. That sounds pretty amazing. I knew I didn't want to be a doña rosa when I grew up. When I was a teenager, I moved to the US and eventually became a journalist. I've lived here for 15 years. Sometimes when I get homesick, I stream Intrusos on YouTube. I leave it on when I cook and clean. When I watch it, I'm not 5,000 miles away. Iaia is alive, nothing has changed much. Nothing ever changes on Argentine daytime TV. Until suddenly, a few months ago, it did. One night in February, I was at home in New York cleaning my kitchen. Intrusos was on in the background and I heard this woman with a raspy Lauren Bacall voice. I turned around, soapy sponge in hand, and squinted at the screen-- a tattooed, heavyset woman wearing sneakers. I recognized this woman, a comedian named Senorita Bimbo. The stage name, Bimbo, is ironic. She's anything but. In fact, the very next thing she did was look directly into the camera and offer a statistic about illegal abortions. "500,000 women in Argentina have illegal abortions every year," she said. She was wearing a bright green handkerchief around her neck, a provocative symbol everyone in Argentina knows-- the symbol of the fight to legalize abortion. For years, activists have been pushing to get Congress to vote on it. When I was growing up, abortion was something you just didn't talk about in Argentina, a Catholic country. It's still not something that comes up on daytime TV. Reproductive rights? That's just not Intrusos material. Though here was Jorge Rial, the host, looking intently at Senorita Bimbo. A few hours later, one of my best friends texted me, "Did you watch Intrusos today?" I sat down at my laptop and started scrolling through the descriptions of the last few episodes. The guests were names I knew-- academics, writers, comedians. What they had in common was, they were all feminists, people who have been on the fringes for years, criticizing sexism in Argentina and demanding women's rights. I started binge watching. In each episode, there was a nuanced conversation about feminism. Rial looked kind of meek, but not in his usual, "I've been overpowered by sexy ladies" way. He kept delivering these really impassioned monologues saying, I don't want to be a misogynist, a "machista." I'm a recovering machista. The Argentine everyman now appeared to be an earnest feminist. This was not the Rial I grew up with. This was not the TV I grew up with. What happened? Could this possibly be sincere? I flew to Argentina to find out. As soon as I got there, I went to the studios where Intrusos is taped. I met Ana Laura Guevara, one of the show's executive producers. Being live involves a lot of adrenalin. I really, really love the adrenalin. To be honest, I wasn't expecting an Intrusos executive producer to be a woman, especially not one like Ana Laura, a self-proclaimed feminist. I had a really hard time wrapping my head around the fact that, for 18 years, she had been behind this totally trashy and objectifying show. Ana Laura told me, it's just a job, one she's good at. It's intensely competitive. In the control room, her face shines from the light of the monitor she's hunched over, like in a casino-- a monitor that, minute by minute, tracks the ratings for Intrusos and every other show that's on the air at the same time. I had no idea this was possible. Right now on Intrusos, there's a fight between a former cabaret dancer and a potential candidate for president. This, like, skyrocketed. The ratings are going up with this segment. It's like four points-- it went from 4.0 to 4.6. This is doing better than the news. Next segment, a fashion model from the '80s says she has her suspicions about a designer's recent death. It dipped to 3.4. The ratings plummet. Nobody cares. Ana Laura orders them to end the segment early. Interest lags for an instant, and Intrusos moves on. The story of how the feminists intruded into Intrusos is its own soap opera. There are a gazillion gossip shows in Argentina. It's like this whole universe. Back in January, one of the shows interviewed this famous singer, a leathery guy in a tropical shirt. In the middle of the interview, the singer casually repeats this awful saying I used to hear as a kid-- if someone wants to rape you, relax and enjoy it. The first time I heard that was when I was nine years old. I was in the locker room and a girl blurted it out. I thought it was advice. A lot of my friends did, too. So the singer says this offensive thing. A few days later, on another talk show, a soap opera star blows up about it. Her name is Araceli Gonzales. When I was a kid, her soap opera was huge. She played a mute. A hunk with feathered hair would talk at her while she listened tearfully. But now she wasn't mute. She said the singer's remark made her sick. It was kind of beautiful seeing her get angry after so many years of playing a character literally defined by silence. Ana Laura, from Intrusos, saw the fight happening on TV and she wanted to get a piece of it. She booked Araceli to come on the show. It was a typical day on Intrusos. Jorge Rial talked about how much granny panties used to turn him on as a kid. Two former showgirls argued. And then it was Araceli's turn. And just because Araceli had gotten mad about the rape comment, one of the panelists introduces her as a feminist. As soon as Araceli got a chance, she corrected him. She says, "I heard you refer to me as a feminist just now, and I am not a feminist." She is vehemently wagging her finger as she says this. "I have a wonderful husband and a lovely son whom I love very much, and I respect men." This set off another firestorm. Here's Ana Laura. So people started tweeting about it. And we saw that feminists started to respond. So everything exploded. There were the kinds of tweets you would expect like, quote, "What the fuck does loving your husband and son have to do with being a feminist, you moron?" And here it was, feminists versus the soap opera star, a fight made for daytime television. And Ana Laura knew it. And she also knew Jorge Rial, the host of the show-- something had been changing with him lately. Like, he'd been saying to anyone who would listen-- I am a machista in recovery. I'm trying to find myself. So she approached him in the dressing room and they started talking. Maybe we should have a feminist on the show to explain what feminism is. We hadn't discussed that beforehand. But this day on the dressing room, I think that he was really into it. They decided on a well-known feminist academic, Flor Freijo. And even she'll tell you she's a safe bet for a show like Intrusos. She's thin and blonde. So Flor gets invited to Intrusos and the very first question Jorge Rial asks her is, what is feminism? I didn't prepare anything. I didn't prepare a speech. I didn't have time. So I went open to listen to the questions and explain things just as I do to my students in a class. Of all the strange things I'd seen on Argentine TV, this might be one of the oddest. Against a neon fizz background, Flor Freijo does a feminism 101. At the bottom of the screen, a banner in bold letters reads, "Feminism-- it's a movement for women's rights." Flor starts explaining, feminism is a movement for women's rights. It started in the 19th century. It has to do with the division of labor, child rearing. Jorge Rial is listening, completely mesmerized, his little eyebrows furrowed, scratching his beard. And while all this is happening, Ana Laura is sitting in the control room upstairs, watching everything, of course-- and also keeping her eye on the ratings monitor. The control room is usually a chaotic mess of yelling, but now, with Flor speaking-- And when we were watching her talking, Flor, the control room went quiet. We were all paying attention to what she was saying. But we were all quiet. We were really like, silently watching and learning from her. And then the spell is broken because the phone rings in the control room. It's Araceli, the soap opera star who's the whole reason Flora's here. She wants to talk to Flor live, right now. Everyone in the control room is geared up for a good old-fashioed Intrusos spat. Flor was kind of shocked. I didn't know that Araceli was going to call. I had no idea of what was going to happen. But it wasn't an ambush. Araceli wasn't calling to fight. Instead she tells Flor, I've been listening really well to what you're saying. And she wanted the audience to know that she didn't know what feminism was until just now, when she was watching TV and saw Flor explain it. She starts telling the story of her life through various generations of women, her own single mother and herself. She talks about how she had been sexually abused as a child and emotionally abused as an adult. And Araceli told Flor, I know what you're talking about and I agree with you. If this means being a feminist, then I'm a feminist. Flor nods, and gives a thumbs up. By the way, this is never how Intrusos finishes. People don't just listen to each other and change their minds. And the ratings-- Ana Laura says the ratings were great, strong enough that she decided, let's do this again tomorrow. And so it began. Over the next few days, some of the most famous feminists in Argentina came onto Intrusos. Comedians, authors, professors-- audiences were stunned. Someone tweeted, "My ideology is starting to converge with Jorge Rial's, and that terrifies me." It was pretty strange for everyone. This very misogynistic show had suddenly become like, the public town hall on feminism in Argentina. And the ratings were not just good. Ana Laura says they were higher than normal. She was delighted that she could keep this going. There's a journalist called Luciana Baker. She is also very important in feminism and she's an old friend from college. And she came to our show. And when we met backstage we were like, not even in our wildest dreams we could have dreamt about this, you being here in this type of show. Midway through all of this is when I tuned in, when I started streaming in New York. The show was like, going through hundreds of years of feminism in a couple of days. They passed through topics like LGBT rights, workplace harassment, income inequality. And then the most taboo thing of all-- abortion. Jorge Rial tied the green handkerchief around his wrist, the one activists who want to legalize abortion wear. And then he invited the large woman with the gravelly voice who I saw at home in New York City, Senorita Bimbo. Right off the bat she said, the fact that there's a fat girl on Argentine TV is already a victory. She told me she was actually pretty nervous. The first thing I thought was, what they're all going to say is like, what is this fat girl doing here, this fat girl feminazi? But she powered through. She had a mission. I knew I wanted to talk about abortion. My plan was to at least mention it. And I just sat down and started talking. I felt like I was going to battle, where I had to use words as arrows, because abortion is something that you don't say. It's something that you talk about in hushed tones if you have one. On Intrusos, Senorita Bimbo talked about how abortion is so taboo, you don't even talk about it in fiction. In Argentine TV and film, unwanted pregnancy is solved by a villain pushing you down the stairs and causing you to miscarry. And then about 30 seconds before they cut to commercial and moved to the next guest, Senorita Bimbo said something about abortion that surprised even her. Misoprostol-- she says, I want girls to know about misoprostol. This is a really big deal. Officially, misoprostol is a drug used to treat stomach ulcers, but it can also be used to induce labor. So in a continent where abortion is mostly banned, women take it if they want to miscarry. People call it the DIY abortion. She's talking about doing something illegal on one of the most popular daytime talk shows, watched by housewives. That same day, misoprostol was one of the most Googled words in the country. "I think you're underestimating your audience," Senorita Bimbo said on the show. Doña rosa is dead-- doña rosa, that stereotypical Argentine housewife. So the woman that is in front of the TV, and who needs her world to be explained to her through daytime TV, she just doesn't exist anymore. Of course, none of this would have happened on Intrusos if the ratings had been bad. And the ratings were great for reasons that Jorge Rial and Ana Laura can claim no credit for at all. Feminism has been gaining critical mass in Argentina for the last couple of years. The movement was triggered by these brutal murders of young women, often by boyfriends, husbands, and fathers. Women started protesting. A whole crusade was born. It was called Ni Una Menos, not one less woman. And since 2015, this has grown to the point where it's impossible to ignore and has expanded to abortion rights, street harassment, and equal pay. It's young people on social media, comedians on YouTube, pop stars on Instagram, gigantic demonstrations. It just wasn't a topic for daytime talk shows until Jorge, Ana Laura, and Intrusos. During that week on Intrusos, there was this explosion of tweets from young girls perplexed but ecstatic to see feminism on daytime TV. This one girl, Anita Ocampo tweeted, "I showed my dad the Intrusos episode with Senorita Bimbo." I dropped by her house and she told me, these feminists were explaining to Jorge Rial all the things she'd tried to explain but couldn't get her parents to understand. So one night she approached her dad. And she told him, if you watch this episode of Intrusos on YouTube with me, I'll massage your feet. She ended up getting the whole family to watch. She showed them Senorita Bimbo. She pointed to Jorge Rial wearing the same green handkerchief she wears and said, look, it's just like mine. It opened up a conversation, which she says they've been having ever since. Anita's mom says she saw Jorge Rial talk about how he's a recovering chauvinist and she says, so is she. I'm at, like, 70% feminism, she says. I still have 30% left to go. During my week in Argentina I kept trying to talk to Jorge Rial, and he kept blowing me off. Had he really converted to feminism? Everyone I asked rolled their eyes and pointed to the last few decades of his career. They pointed to his recent vicious public fight with one of his daughters. They pointed to how late he is to the whole feminism thing. He's a Johnny come lately. He's only doing this because it will make him more popular. After days of giving me the runaround, he told me to just send my questions. And finally, on my very last night in Argentina, my phone lit up. It was voice memos from Jorge Rial. "What happened to me?" Rial says. "What made me bring all these feminists onto Intrusos?" He talks about his 18-year-old daughter, Rosio, and how she's a feminist. "We have these very interesting talks over dinner," he says, "And she started opening this world up to me. I am 56 years old. I was raised in a completely sexist culture and I didn't get it. That's why I say I'm a recovering chauvinist, thanks to my daughter. My daughter made me change." Jorge Rial knows that I think Intrusos is stupid. He knows most people do. That's the show's superpower. "Frívolo--" we're frivolous. We're a show about showbiz. No one suspected that this is where feminism could win. We eluded the firewalls that kept feminism off of TV. There was this wall, you couldn't talk about these things on TV. And suddenly it happened on Intrusos. "But to be honest," he said, "it's all because of feminists. They knew any place is good, if you have a strong message." After the week of feminism, Intrusos was left with a split personality. These days, it's a mix of fighting starlets and women's rights activists. Jorge Rial's social media is a mix of World Cup woes, celebrity gossip, and then these really earnest feminist tweets. Like this one a few weeks ago-- "They came to make things better for the coming generations, for our daughters and their daughters, and also for men. The men who come after us must be better than us. We did everything wrong." The day after he tweeted that on June 14, Argentina's lower house of Congress approved a bill to legalize abortion. After an all-night debate, it barely passed by only four votes. And it yet has to pass the upper house. Still, outside Congress, thousands of women and activists who'd gathered to wait for the results celebrated wildly. Every time I spoke to those women about what role television like Intrusos played in all this, they got uncomfortable. On my last day in Argentina I grabbed a coffee with an old friend from high school, Jordana Timerman. She recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about the push to legalize abortion in Argentina, and we talked about the role pop culture played in that. You need to have people like Rial, or pop culture, doña rosa, understanding that this is a necessary right. Because if not, it's not going to happen. In other words, the message needs to go into homes in the most remote locations of the country. And TV is one of the only ways to do that. Jordana was saying Intrusos helped. But when I asked her about whether we should thank Jorge Rial, she just laughs. I'm not going on record with that. Are you crazy? I have a name. I know what she means. After so many years of awful television and this guy's shenanigans, I just don't want to tip my hat to him. And maybe that's part of his penance. He did something good and no one will ever thank him for it. Jasmine Garsd, she's an NPR reporter. This story was co-produced with Marianne McCune as part of a collaboration with the NPR podcast, Rough Translation. If you have not heard that show, the premise is they look at how things we talk about here in the United States get talked about elsewhere around the world. This leads into all kinds of stories that take you deep into other cultures and countries in this way. This is very unusual. Rough Translation, find it at Apple podcasts or the nine million other places you can get a podcast these days. Coming up, OK, you've heard about good cop, bad cop. But what about a bad cop who now says he's a good cop, and really, really, really, really wants everybody to believe him? That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues. It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's program, Change You Can Maybe Believe In. We have stories where things happen that you want to believe, you wish you could believe, but something tells you maybe you should not believe. We've arrived at Act Two of our program. Act Two, You Have The Right To Remain Angry. This story is about a man whose job was to uphold the law and he was terrible at it. He says he's changed though, completely changed. Lilly Sullivan, one of our producers, heard about him from some video she saw. There's this news story. I've watched it a bunch of times, my friend sent it to me. Not because she thought I'd like it-- she knew I wouldn't. It all went down on this block in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Jameel McGee says he was minding his own business when a police officer accused him of, and arrested him for, dealing drugs. Are you saying the officer made it up? Yeah, it was all made up. This was on CBS national news in 2016. The guy talking, who got framed, is black. The cop who framed him is white. So after it comes out that the guy had been wrongly convicted he gets out of prison. He'd been in for three years. And he gets this job at a coffee shop. You know who his boss is? The cop, the guy who framed him. He was now the manager there. By sheer coincidence, they now work side by side in the same cafe. Excuse me? And it was in these cramped quarters that the bad cop and the wrongfully accused had no choice but to have it out. The cop apologized, and the guy who was framed forgave him. That was pretty much what I needed to hear. Today, they're not only cordial, they're friends. The reporter couldn't stop fawning over how lovely it was. Such close friends, not long ago, Jameel actually told Andrew he loved him. The problem with this story was, it wasn't the whole story. When my friend sent it to me, she told me the cop, whose name is Andrew Collins, he didn't just put one innocent guy in prison. I Googled this cop and it turns out he falsified police reports and warrants. He lied on the stand. At least 62 cases were either overturned or got thrown out. The small town of Benton Harbor ended up having to pay five and a half million dollars in settlements for civil rights violations. Then he befriends one guy and all that goes away? None of the other 61 victims even gets a mention? And then he gets to go on TV and tell his story over and over, because annoyingly, America seems to love this kind of story of forgiveness. This involves my next guest, Jameel, and former police officer, Andrew. That's talk show host, Steve Harvey. And here's Megyn Kelly on NBC. Now our series, "Hopeful Holidays," and the story of two men who prove there is always hope for forgiveness and redemption. Mike Huckabee on Fox. I don't know of anything more powerful to help us through not only forgiveness and grace, but also racial reconciliation. And God bless you both. Racial reconciliation-- really? That's pretty big, as if this one story could hit Undo on a whole country's worth of harm. These stories are always about people who forgive, preaching this forgiveness thing as some kind of tidy remedy that can set the world right. And clearly, if these two guys in the coffee shop can set aside their bitter grounds, what's our excuse? Look, I'm not from this town. This had nothing to do with me. But I wondered if lots of people there saw this coverage and rolled their eyes. What about the people who don't forgive? Visit Benton Harbor. They're not hard to find. Fuck him. Fuck him. I'm serious. I'm good. This is Robert Walker, also known as White Boy Rob. Why do they call you White Boy Rob? Because my mom's white. You don't look white. Why, thank you. I met him at his house. Or the truth is, I surprised him at his house. I found him in his backyard, riding his lawnmower in his sweatpants. Rob's definitely noticed that no one's doing a TV story about how he feels about this cop. When they went to the Steve Harvey show, why you ain't take me? You ain't take me because I was going to tell you the motherfucking truth. You-- you hyping up this big thing about one person forgiving you. That ain't the only person that you fucked over. That's not-- and it pisses me off that, you know, y'all kissing buddy buddies, but what about everybody else that you done in? What about everybody else? Rob says Collins was so corrupt that people would do all kinds of things just to stay out of his way. For a while, one of the local radio stations, 105.3, would warn people whenever Collins was on duty. This one time, they did a special show-- call in and tell us your Corrupt Collins story. So one day, Rob's at a stoplight and he sees Collins in the lane next to him. I was on M139 in Pipestone. I was in a black Impala SS. This is actually like a race car. He was next to me in a Ford Taurus, which is a putt-putt to me. Then when I was at the stop light, I looked over at him. He looked over at me. And then when I turned, he just jumped straight behind me. At this point, I'm thinking that he's going to plant some drugs on me. Collins throws on his lights and sirens. And Rob's like, I'm not stopping. Instead, he says, he just keeps driving, under the speed limit with Collins following him, lights and sirens on. Rob drives for four minutes like this, all the way to the police station, the only place he thinks he might be safe. I went to the police station and told them, he want to search my car. Could you please watch him so he won't plant nothing in my car? What did they say to you? Nothing. They watched. They watched him search. They knew. They knew he was dirty. I mean, come on, what guy is going to pull up to the police station, get arrested, and the whole time, I'm not worried about nothing? I'm just worried about him planting something. Y'all watch him and make sure he don't plant nothing. Rob went to jail that day. Not for drugs-- Collins didn't find any. But he arrested Rob anyway for fleeing and eluding. Rob didn't do much time, a couple of days, bonded out $3,000. But he did get convicted. In Michigan, fleeing and eluding is a felony. It's still on his record. This other guy, Quacy Roberts, suffered more. In 2008, Quacy was leaving his girlfriend's house, hot summer day, when Collins and his partner pulled up. The partner said he'd seen Quacy throw something. Collins patted Quacy down while his partner walked around the block. The partner came back and waved a baggie of crack in Quacy's face. Quacy says it wasn't his, but he ended up serving a year in jail. It was a terrible year to be in jail. He and his girlfriend were about to have a baby. The baby didn't make it. When you have a stillborn, it's really a person. You got to go through all those stages, name it, get a social security number and everything. You got to go through everything. It's a person. You got to bury it. He still thinks about the baby. Yes, because he was mine. Quacy couldn't be with his girlfriend for any of that. He had to hear about it through the prison phone. Not long after that, his girlfriend met someone else. So he's pretty angry at Collins. Quacy's seen those news stories too. His mom called him once and told him to turn on the Megyn Kelly show, one of those stories with Andrew Collins and Jameel McGee, the guy who forgave him. It's good that McGee smiling about everything. He must didn't lose nobody. He blessed. I guess he blessed. He's blessed? Yeah, I guess he did four years and didn't lose nobody. I did a year and lost a son. So I'm-- I think an Andrew Collins interview with me would be-- I won't be showing no teeth for grinning at him. Maybe if I wouldn't have lost my child, maybe I'd be smiling too. Quacy hasn't seen Collins since he went to jail, so Quacy never got an apology. But he thinks he deserves one. I asked if he wanted to meet with Collins. He said yeah. It was easier to find Collins. He actually has a publicist from when he and Jameel wrote a book together. It came out last year. It's described as "an unlikely journey of forgiveness and friendship." Collins is big-- 6'1", blue eyes, dresses like a surfer who's also on the football team, who's also in a Christian punk band-- flip-flops, shorts, a few tattoos, some with scripture. These days, he freely admits that he'd pull people over without probable cause, write phony police reports, falsify warrants, plant drugs in people's cars. I think one of the ways he's able to sleep at night is that he believes nearly all the people he wrongly arrested were drug dealers. He thought they should be in jail. And about those TV stories, I was surprised, but Collins actually agrees with me. He thinks it's messed up how they all focus on him and Jameel and forgiveness and ignore the harm he did to so many people in the community. It's not a story about a community, though. It should be, but it hasn't been. It's been told as a story about Jameel and I, just this fun-loving story, this fun, cute story we can pet. But I don't-- I've never met a reporter that's like, I would like to meet somebody who still hates you. I'm happy to be that reporter. And he said he was game to meet with Quacy. He sees as his responsibility to apologize as much as he can. It's his restitution, he says. And he has a whole way he deals with conversations like this. He's worked out all the words, the best way to do it. It's all about owning what you did and giving people a chance to lament the wrong things you did. And then I'll say, you're exactly-- you're absolutely right. I'm so sorry for those things I did. And it-- it kind of sucks the anger out of somebody when the offender is standing right in front of you saying, you're right. No, no justification, no minimizing, no-- no reason. I can't give you any reason why I did it. There's no good reason why I did that to you, and I owe you an apology. Collins suggested that he and Quacy meet at the office of this Christian organization where he volunteers. It had been 10 years since they'd seen each other. What's up, man? What's going on with you? How you doing? Long time no see. You haven't aged a bit, man. No, I have haven't. What they say, black don't crack? No, it crack. Especially if you drink a whole lot. Right. No, man, you look good. I'm not used to seeing you without a hat, though. Oh, yeah. You is what you is. There you go. There you go. You guys remember each other now? Yeah. I remember like it was yesterday. They sit down. Collins says, I'm trying to remember exactly how I know you. I know we've had plenty of run-ins. I don't want to say that, like, from the beginning. Like, so it's been 10 years since I've even been there. So if I don't remember specifics, like, that's not to disrespect you or anything like that, because I know this was very personal to you. It's just that I don't remember. There was so many people and I did so many bad things, so. I'll start to make it specific, because I still have the police report. They talk about the day that Collins and his partner arrested Quacy. Collins' partner was dirty, too. He went to prison after Collins did. And he's actually the one who said he saw Quacy throw the baggie of drugs, which Quacy says he didn't do. Collins says he remembers going back to the spot later to take photos for the trial and realizing his partner was probably lying. He couldn't have seen what he said he saw. There were trees in the way. So I remember thinking then, like, OK, my partner might have stretched the truth a little bit. But I still was convinced you were guilty because he said you were guilty, right? So-- It's what the police say. I know I wanted you, though. I know I wanted you to be guilty. Why? Quacy bothered me when I was a police officer, because he didn't-- he didn't just shut up. Like, he'd tell me my breath stunk, and-- I'd never-- Quacy thought Collins had gotten off way too easy for what he did. He only spent a year and a half in jail. Colin says he hears that a lot. I think there are some people that would say, day for day, whatever those other people did in jail, he should have to do that now-- day for day. Right. That would have sounded good. That would have been fair. Like whatever, you can set it by saying, one person got two to five. Another person got 40-something months to something months. Take all them, add all of them together, and see can you face up to them? Bad mofo, ooh. Yeah, yeah, that'd be appropriate. Yeah. I'm glad it didn't happen. But I could see that argument. Yeah. A lot of the conversation was awkward. Collins took a long time to get to his apology, and when he did, it was kind of indirect. It seems like Quacy barely even noticed. Even though I wasn't the one that said I saw you throw it, it was my influence in that situation that brought my partner to a place where he felt comfortable saying those lies, if they were lies, right? So therefore, I do owe you an- I believe, man to man, I owe you an apology because I operated in the system that's broken. And I helped make it-- So what you-- --even more broken. So what you saying is, you could have just been more blunt like that. What got to Quacy more than the apology was something that they saw eye to eye on, and kind of bonded over. For most of the hour, they talked about how bad the policing is in Benton Harbor. Benton Harbor is 85% black with a police department that's mostly white that has a history of misconduct. There have been decades of protests against the police and a few riots. Collins has named names in court depositions, talked about how many officers were complicit in bad policing. He spends a lot of his book detailing illegal behavior by cops that he says he witnessed and participated in. He talks to police trainees about corruption and racism and how easy it is to slip into those things. So he and Quacy got into all of that. They know the same stories, same cops and judges and prosecutors, people they both believe to be crooked who never got caught. There's lots of insider talk. Right. You see Officer [BLEEP] on film. I'm telling them, I want to subpoena Officer [BLEEP]. Oh, we can't find him. We don't know where he at. Yeah. He still works there, don't he? Right. That's crazy, man. Different officer, same candy wrapper. But the system itself is-- man, it's just full of corruption. You know, you see corruption day in and day out. You stop viewing people as human. You start to see them as, you know, the next prize, the next notch in my belt, in my career, right? Collins really was trying to connect and win Quacy over. He even offered to help Quacy with a case he has pending. You want me to take a copy of the report? Well, I mean, if you want to, give me the report. Let me look through it. Trust. I'm not a lawyer, but I've seen crooked police work before. Let me look through it and just show you like, hey, fight this, fight this, fight this. They seem to get along fine. They were polite enough. Quacy seemed like, whatever. An ex-cop who says he's on your side? It can't hurt. After it was over, I walked with Quacy to his car. So how are you feeling? I'm feeling all right. You're not mad at him? How can you get mad to a person that we ain't even at the bottom of the situation yet? Meaning, Collins didn't invent dirty policing, but he admitted to it. Collins confirmed everything Quacy already believed about the courts and prosecutors and judges, and about the Benton Harbor police who usually deny everything. But by us talking, we find out, 10 years later, that he on the same page that I'm on, fighting against the same people that I'm fighting against. He looking at the police point of view in the system. I'm looking at the street point of view of the system. So both of us looking at it both ways, his way and my way. And I'm looking at it my way and his way. Rob Walker, who used to be known as White Boy Rob, he sees things differently. At this point in my life, if he did apologize, it don't mean shit. Honestly? I just want one chance to whoop his ass. As I said, he didn't want to talk with Collins. But he told me they did bump into each other accidentally. It's a small town. It happened at that cafe from the news story. So when I see him, I said-- I said, Collins. And he looked. And when he looked at me, I said, man, you've been on some bullshit. He want to talk about how that ain't him no more. Well, I told him, I don't want any of that shit. That don't help me. It don't help me that you want to-- all of the sudden you want to change. Oh, let me ask you-- I'm going to be totally honest with you. Did he understand that I changed? He'd changed a lot. Back when Collins arrested him, he'd been away from drugs for years. Everyone knew that, he says. He even put on his license plate, game over. And it was on his car that day that Collins pulled him over. Rob's gotten plaques from the city for his community work. He started an annual picnic with free rides and food, paid for it all out of pocket. But he still has a felony on his record from that run-in with Collins. So why should I understand he changed? I shouldn't. I should get to treat you the same way you treat me. You never understood that I changed, that that wasn't my life no more. Now that you claiming that you changed, I feel the same way. You still a dirty motherfucker to me. I don't care what did you say. If Collins had a chance to do it all over again, he'd do it all over again. Dirty cop-- he was a dirty cop, he is. And to me, that forgiveness shit is overrated. A takeaway which, of course, is the opposite of all of those news stories. Is there a lesson for America from this? No. The story of someone who doesn't forgive, who thinks being angry is a totally reasonable way to feel. Yeah, maybe it's not heartwarming. But what's wrong with bearing a grudge forever? It could be something to hold onto that keeps you sane. Lilly Sullivan is one of the producers of our show. (SINGING) To make you want me I can fabricate the truth. I'll give you easy, it'll keep me destitute. You hang me up on the line, hang me out to dry, and you got nothing to lose. Our program is produced today by Robyn Semien. The people who put together our show today include Ellen Baker, Ben Calhoun, Zoe Chace, Sean Cole, Whitney Dangerfield, Neil Drumming, Jarrett Floyd, Damien Grave, David Kestenbaum, Nikki Meek, Alvin Mellot, Nadia Raymond, Alyssa Ship, Julie Snyder, Lilly Sullivan, Christopher Swetala, Matt Tierney. Our senior producer is Brian Reed. Our managing editor is Susan Burton. Special thanks to Carolina Iwanow, Louise Seamster, Paz Saravia, Laura Rajchman, Barbara Barisch, Naomi Daremblum, Joanna Broder, Reverend Edward Pinkney, Gregory Warner, Ashley Lopez, and Ben Philpott. Our website, thisamericanlife.org, where you can listen to our archive of over 600 episodes for absolutely free. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia. You know, he was complaining today about how he'd gotten two tickets-- two, both for littering. Different officer, same candy wrapper. I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.