A quick warning, there are curse words that are un-beaped in today's episode of the show.
If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.
From WBZ Chicago, it's This American Life, I'm Eric Glass.
This summer, three people from our show, Zoe and Nadia and Angela,
spent weeks at immigration court in New York City,
witnessing this extraordinary thing that you might have read about or heard about happening in the hallways there.
And there was one group at the center of that thing that nobody ever got to hear from.
They would not talk to reporters until now, when they've been talking to us.
We had the one today's show.
We're going to get to them in a few minutes.
But first, Zoe Chase now joins me in the studio.
Zoe, let's first describe what you witnessed at the courthouse.
OK, so we visited the courtrooms at 26 Federal Plaza downtown.
It's basically just a bunch of very old looking courtrooms.
Normally immigrants are coming in and out, going for their hearings in this place.
It looks like it hasn't been redone since the 90s.
And now you take the elevator, you get to the 12th floor, the door's open and it's just crowded.
Like three or four different kinds of law enforcement, ICE,
DHS, the FBI, I saw the diplomatic security service.
Whatever that is.