ICE at PHL, Package Thieves on Your Stoop & a Major Film Fest This Weekend

This is CityCast Philly. I'm Trinaneri, and here's what Philly's talking about. Before we start talking about increased ice activity in the city, package theft, and the 15th anniversary of the Black Star Film Festival, y'all, it's been a rainy summer. I feel like every day it is pouring. And not just like little church, it's pouring raining. And I'm like, what the heck? I can't plan a cookout. I can't plant certain things. So I'm like, all right, what else? Can I do in the city when it rains? Well, since this... weather is conspiring against me and the pool days that I wanted to have. I know, right? I like to spend some time inside at a museum or gallery just because I like to take my time when I'm looking at art versus sometimes when I go with my friends. They're just rushing through, which I'm like, what was the point of paying the ticket? So just like really immerse yourself for a few hours because you're not going anywhere because it's raining. Some of my favorite places that are free to go to the fabric workshop. museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art in University City, Vox Populi, and Crane Arts has multiple galleries in its space, so the Icebox Project space, the Tilt Institute. So you definitely want to check their hours to see when they're open because maybe they're closed on that one rainy day. But if you're lucky, I would definitely recommend those galleries to head up and immerse yourself for a few hours. That's great. Lots of art. That's Siani Cologne, our creative producer here at CityCast, Philly. What about you, Kamal? So for me, I am blessed to have a three-year-olds. So rainy days are not good for a little one who is bouncing off the wall. So we try to get as creative as possible. My wife and I, like, there's a neighborhood, children's space called Kith and Ken here in Brewery Town. which we like to head to every once in a while. Of course, the police touch museum is always an option when they're open. Also the jump parks, the trampoline parks that are out in the suburbs and whatnot, they're kind of cool. to get into? I love thrills, even as an adult. Thrills is a huge trampoline park, and I play dodgeball. Exactly, exactly. So, I mean, those are good to go to, especially since they're about like a half an hour away sometimes, it's a nice little way to get him to sleep, either going to or coming from. And then, of course, there's a natural science museum downtown, a few things that are just walkable. Is he into bugs because the Academy? Natural Sciences is having a bug festival. Bugfest is August 8th, I believe. Oh, it's this weekend. Yeah, nice, nice, nice. So, I mean, that's an, that's, that's an option. I think the last time I took them to the Academy of Natural Sciences, he was frightened to death by the bears and the encasement area and whatnot. Oh, my God. Well, the taxidermy. Yeah, exactly. Well, maybe the small bugs won't be as scary.

Exactly. It's great that Philly has so many options for our littlest Philadelphians. That's Kamal Morel, a Philadelphia DJ artist and community connector and filmmaker, which we will talk a little bit later in the show about. Speaking of kids, I've been there, done that with the three-year-olds. My kids are like... Preteen and a teenager. So the options start to dwindle a little bit because now they've got voices and perspectives on what they want to do. What's cool? I actually like to spend family time at the board and brew in University City. 500 plus board games, card games. There's food and drink options for everyone in the family. Alcoholic, non-alcoholic. And it's about $5 or $6 for adults to play. And if you bring your kids with you, they're free. They also have some weekday specials tonight because it's a weekday, 50% off all gaming before 4 p.m. And then they have a happy hour from 3 to 6, 25% off alcoholic drinks, small plates, and desserts. So you can make it a whole thing. All right, shifting gears. I read in WHOI that immigration advocates say that the airport is beginning to be a hot spot for federal immigration and customs enforcement agents to arrest people. We don't have exact numbers from ICE on how many Philadelphians have been detained and deported, but... Advocates say that ICE activity is ramping up in our area. And we have a few examples. Advocates say that from their accounts, at least seven people were arrested at PHL since the second week of July. And the timing of this is really interesting because remember, just a few months back, city council had passed ICE out legislation. Mayor Parker signed six of those seven of those seven bills. And those ICE out laws went into effect July 7th. But because ICE has federal jurisdiction, Philly Police can't disrupt. ICE operations. I think the complicated thing here is that although the ICE legislation was supposed to restrict, you know, how the city is cooperating with ICE, it doesn't necessarily stop ICE enforcement from still happening. So that was restricting public property as like staging areas, maybe like before they do a raid, like instead of like, say using like a school parking lot or something, which is city property. And another complication that happened just this past July that a federal judge.

ruled that one of the bills that was restricting federal agents from masking themselves, you know, hiding their identities and you're not really being able to identify them if they're even are an ICE agent because you just can't see their face. Federal judge ruled he can't do that. And I think also it includes like their like unmarked cars as well. Unmarked vehicles. So a federal judge ruled that. the city can't enforce that. So now you have one of these bills from this legislation that is not enforceable. And now this just calls into question, you know, what other new complications are going to come out of this legislation, but also how is the city enforcing that legislation? You signed the bills. Now, how are we making sure that what was signed is actually being followed? Yeah. And I think that's what, um, can become like murky when it comes to what we hear versus what we actually see implemented. I think that's a difficult part because over the few months we saw like there was a push for ice out and that kind of legislation to be put to be passed to. consider the individuals who are who are being traumatized by this by ice and whatnot and I think when we hear it we hope that what we see put in practice actually follows through with the things and so I think what we're learning is that there seems to be difficulties when it comes to who's actually overseeing it what we can do to implement it and if anything how are Our city legislators really pushing to continue to make sure that these things that we've seen discussed put in the legislation actually are followed through with, you know. The Philadelphia International Airport is not just the only hotbed right now. It is one of at least 15 airports that have seen an increase of ICE arrest. And that was from reporting from the New York Times. And this is not the... only place that we could see more ice activity. Ice is looking to open a detention center in Philly. They're looking for a space that will hold 1,800 beds and is located no more than 50 miles from a local airport. Recently, state rep Mary Gay Scanlon visited Moschannon, which is the biggest detention center in Pennsylvania and one of the largest on the East Coast. And she made an unannounced visit, you know, because sometimes when politicians are going to go somewhere, they try to spruce things up, you know, pretend. how things are better than they are in terms of their conditions. So she came unannounced and she said she was frustrated that she couldn't speak directly to any detainees. She was able to enter the women's pause but couldn't go into the men's pause can only just kind of like see through. And.

She had said that an administrator had essentially conceded that they can't run the food or laundry service without detainee labor. And these are just things that she was able to gauge when, mind you, she can't speak directly to detainees. It's been really difficult to get a sense of what's happening on the inside, especially as people continue to get transferred from one detention center to another. So there's... You know, a lot of things that we don't know what is happening inside that these same poor conditions can be happening if another detention center opens in the Philadelphia area. And to really put things in perspective of... how dangerous things can get. Two people have already died at Delaney Hall, which is an ICE facility in Newark, that also detains immigrants from our area in the last eight months. So you see this shuffling of immigrants coming from one detention center to another. So these are the type of conditions that immigrants are facing in these detention centers. And those are just the ones we know about. And Delaney Hall is in Newark, New Jersey. All right. We've got more news after the break.

Have anyone of you gotten a package stolen? Don't get me started. Oh, so it's happened to you. Once twice, many times? Too many times. And in one instance, they left the box. So they took my books. I hope they enjoyed it. You know, we have a literacy crisis. But they took the books and left the box behind. That's crazy. I'm very familiar. My wife and I are very, very, very familiar with, we call them the porch pirates. I don't like calling like community folks names or things of that nature. But yeah, things get stolen often, especially during the pandemic, things were going missing left and right. Yeah. Fortunately, for my memory, I don't believe I have had a package stolen. yet or at all knock on one. You just jigs yourself. That's because I lived in an apartment that had like a package room and so my packages have been protected. But I now live in a row home and pretty much I like keep my eyes glued to the ring camera when I know and can anticipate a package coming and I just go shoo. But again, I feel like I'm lucky to have that privilege because some people, they're not working from home and they can't intercept as quickly. So these are the neighborhoods, like these are the hotbed neighborhoods or when people have reported. Because I think that's the key is that a lot of us who are like victims don't report the crime. Because like what could like the police really do? if you get your package stolen. Have you reported a package stolen to the police? I've never reported one to the police. No, no. I don't think it's gotten that far. If anything, once I get done losing my brain and crashing out on Amazon or DHS or whoever is UPS, whoever is delivering the package, I've just been burned out by it. So never, never called the cops on it. I feel like it has to be like a really high value product to like report it stolen. So you didn't report those books. No, but I was, you know. You're pissed. Okay. So let me go back. So NBC had got some information from the police. In 2025, the 22nd Police District, which is North Philly, Strawberry Mansion, Brewery Town, number one spot. For the porch pirates. Oh, come all. It is. I'm right there. I can attest to it. Like when I say literally, I think that they just have some sort of strategic conglomerate of like who takes what, who follows what van, who drops it off, where they drop it off. There's a whole system to it. Like I said, I've kind of, I've caught people doing it. I've had to snatch something from somebody's like out of somebody's IKEA bag that they were carrying up a tree with just with just a whole bag of like.

people's stuff. It was my wife's triathlon outfit. And they took it. I'm like, what are you going to do with that? So yeah, it got as bad as... I was asking my wife, like, do you think we should open up our own package store somewhere in brewery town? Because it's so bad. And I knew the people in the neighborhood were just getting frustrated as far as like what was being taken, the frequency. And even if you do work from home, they work so quickly, you know? So, come on, did you just tell us that you confronted a porch pirate? I had to. I had to do it. It happened. My wife was working. We actually got cameras in our, like our space now because of the things being stolen as frequently as they were. And I was coming home from work, driving up parked. And my wife was outside and she was like, I just watched her take whatever it was off the steps. she's across the street right now. And I had to go and I had to get like, I had to be North Philly Mall. You know, I really had to go there with him. And I had to snap. And it wasn't me and I'm looking like I had a whole suit on, but I just had to let it know like, yo, that's not cool. And of course, like, the interaction, I have to be mindful because I always want to be aware of like who I'm confronting and who I'm interacting with in the community. Right. Those are some of the people who look out for you, but also those are some of the people who have been in the neighborhood for so long that you never really know who they know, you know? Right. Especially. So I did it in a way that was very familial, like, in a way that she would understand, like I wasn't okay with it, but I wasn't about to call the cops on it. You know, so I just wanted to be as mindful as I could with that interaction. But yeah, it happened and I had to encounter it. Like, granted, she wasn't like a... somebody who was 6.5-280, so that would have gone differently. But either way, there was a conversation that needed to be had about it not being okay with just, like, snatching people's items. Listen, I think, you know, some people, like you mentioned, use your security cameras. Some people have lock boxes. I think, go into your point of, should we create a space to keep packages safe in our neighborhoods? The spaces are already there. I think the corner stores, coffee shops should start holding packages. Not only would this reduce. package theft, I think it also would be a community building activity because now you're forced to talk more to your neighbors. You're forced to like interact in these spaces in small businesses and maybe support those businesses financially by picking up a coffee or getting some other stuff. And maybe that communal neighborly behavior reduces.

the theft to begin with because you see each other differently. You see your neighbor as a neighbor and not as that's the house to hit up at 12 o'clock. I mean, I would encourage that. Yeah, I would say that, you know, I think one deterrent from some places maybe opening that is, like, maybe they're, you know, afraid of being, like, liable when it comes to packages. But we already have some, like, rent-a-bott, like, mailbox spaces in the city. Like, there's Northern Liberty's mailbox store, Philly Mailhub and East Pass-Yunk, Postbox Philly, Fishbox. Even just USPS if you want to have your, you know, like a PO box in there. So you have options that exist primarily for the mail. But if someone is listening to Citicast right now and needs an idea for a business, come buy any ideas. We already have cafe and plant shops. Let's get our cafe and postal office at this point. Yeah. Now that's a good idea, actually. Because I ran a cafe and we actually would have some people in our like above us. have their packages delivered. It can be a little bit annoying, of course, when you have like boxes of coffee along with somebody's like two or three Amazon packages. But what I will say is I think that would be a great business if a lot of the neighbors actually engage with the community. You know, I think in certain neighbors, especially Strawberry Mansion and Brewer Town, there are a lot of individuals more so are transplants who don't necessarily engage with spaces in the community to really get to know their neighbors in a way that they would. trust them to bring their packages to them or deliver their package safely. So I think there's also a conversation about what the neighborhood looks like and how much are you actually engaging with it. Because, you know, some places they still have block captains. You still have those two or three older women or older men on the neighborhood. Like they are always outside or they always know what's going on. And so it definitely takes a lot of like community engagement and that kind of way to consider other ways to combat the porch pirating and whatnot. Let me tell you all knowing your neighbors comes in clutch because there was one weekend I was away. I was down the shore and I had an Xbox delivered to my house and it's just sitting on the front steps looking pretty for the taking. So when I was told that arrived, I immediately texted one of my neighbors, who lives up the block, mind you? Not like my immediate next door neighbor because I know they weren't home. And I said like, can you hold this for me until I get back in a few days? And that's exactly what they did. someone who saw them passing by was like, what the heck is going on here? But that was good looking out. It's because I've built those relationships with my neighbors to have that trust and know, okay, you'll look out for me when I'm away. I'll look out for you and your way. There it is. And that is community building, which we will talk about in our next segment. We've got more news after the break. Okay.

Speaking of community building, there's a huge community here in Philadelphia that is celebrating its 15th year. And I'm talking about the Black Star Film Festival. Come on, you and I, we're going to go to the festival this year. And this is a festival that showcases films from black, brown, and indigenous filmmakers. This year will feature 91 films from more than 30. countries and it's not just films it's workshops it's talkbacks with the filmmakers which is one of my favorite parts because i get to learn more about like the thoughts um and the camera angle shots and you know some of the challenges it took to put the film together so kind of like behind the scene stuff there's going to be a bizarre dance parties tons of networking so much but come on how do you decide which event to go to when it's to the brim with stuff to do. Yeah, so for me, I mean, I just try to balance it out. I think, like, there's a lot of different shorts that are being displayed over the course of the weekend that I want to check out. There are a few different documentaries. So I'm open to everything. I mean, there's a life and art that I'm looking into. It's called Through the Eye of Dr. Leslie King Hammond. She's an art historian and a former dean of Dean of Arts at Johns Hopkins. And I think just thinking about her. Her experience and her journey as a black woman in the arts is really important to me to know. I think West Side Familia is another one that I'm looking into, which is the Puerto Rican community's cultural influence on the other west side of Manhattan. And then, of course, I have my son, so I have to look into some animation. And I think there's one called Child Please that I'm looking into if I think is short. Child Please, right? And so I'm looking into those. I mean, anything that sort of like appeals to me, but also something that can spark my imagination and motivate me is really what I'm into. That's great. You also are a local filmmaker. And I'm curious, is Philly a good city to make films and showcase your work? Yeah, I think it is. I think our arts community here, especially in film, is very rich and has a lot of, just a lot of depth as far as what we create. The documentary series that I created is called In Concert Artist Series, and it's a docu-series about amplifying the voices of black creatives in Philadelphia. It's a five-episode docu-series, which is really, really dope. It's on YouTube. Enough of that, shameless plug. No, no, not enough. When you say creatives, like, who have you talked to so far? When I think artist here, I think people think that it's just like visual art and whatnot. But for me, I think art, when you look at the definition of it, it's pretty much anyone who is mastering a sort of craft that they're really engaged in and interested in. And so for me, I didn't want to just stop a visual artist. I have a young man, Nazir, Sabri. who is an amazing visual artist here in Philadelphia. He is in the collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as other spaces throughout the country. Andre Chaney, who is an illustrator, a muralist, Dr. Anya Love, who is a filmmaker, writer, and actually a professor at the Community College of Philadelphia.

Zinzi Harley, who is an amazing art curator. And the last one is Rebel Foster, who is just one of an amazing DJ producer here in Philadelphia from Chester. Got to make sure that I note that. Yes, he wraps Chester hard. The thought of in concert was that there's this. conversation that we can have as artists that can happen together. For me, it was a matter of, like, we're all in the same spaces at different times together. So how about let's have this conversation and figure out a way that we can tell our stories and make that connection. And hopefully the audience can fill those connections as well. And I think, honestly, that's what we see with Black Star. It's a way to connect with the audience. It's a way for us to see ourselves in different spaces, whether it's from a producer, from a director, being on camera. or behind the camera, it's really, really crucial to make sure that we are represented in that way, you know. And it's not just the artist talks that are happening at the film festival, too. Like I notice there are wellness sessions around like yoga and acupuncture and journaling. And I think that's a nice touch because some of these films can deal with tough subject matter. So it's like how do we ground ourselves as we process the different themes and questions that are coming up in this art as well. So it's just like so many ways you can engage. It's not just in person either. I notice that some of these screenings are also virtual. So if you're just not able to physically go or just like want to watch them to comfort from your own home, there are just so many different ways that you can support artists and what shape that art is taking at Black Star. Yes. And I'm so glad that you mentioned that because WHY had highlighted the Black Star Film Fest in some recent reporting. And there was a recent. study from the Wallace Foundation that looked at 18 American art organizations centered on communities of color and Black Star was a part of that. And the study looked into how this festival has been like focused on. the storytelling and creating spaces for folks to have their voices amplified, have their films amplified, as well as taking care of the community, taking care of the folks in the diaspora. And so, yes, that's why, you know, it's not just about watching films and just, you know, eating popcorn. this festival kind of goes deep. And I'm glad that these conversations have been happening for 15 plus years. I'm looking forward to screening Mayori, Carmel Holmes, who is the founder of Black Star. She's doing a special screening of her film, which basically started the Black Star Film Fest. It is called Scene.

Not heard. Women in Philadelphia hip hop. The screening is happening on Friday, August 7th at 430 at the Suzanne John Roberts Theater on South Broad Street. I haven't seen the film yet, but I'm excited because it's going to feature artists that we've heard on the radio. Lady Alma, Lady B, Moni Love, Bahamadilla, and so many others are featured in the film. And they're going to have a conversation about... What went into making this film on Saturday, August 8th at 2 p.m. at the Daily John stage at the Kimmel Center during the festival. So looking forward to that. All right. Kamal Siani, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of CityCast, Philly. All right. See you guys at the movies. Thank you. Take care. all for today here on City Cats Philly. Our executive producer is Matt Katz. Our creative producers are Abby Fritz and Siani Cologne. Our producers are Matildoio and Francisco Kilgore. Our senior account executive is Maureen Kiser. Our audience development manager is Spencer Morris. And our host is me, Trinay Noree. Music is by Philly's own, interminable, with additional music from all the kimonos. If you enjoyed this week of episodes, share this with a friend. Also, don't forget to rate the show. Leave us a review and hit that subscribe button. Be sure to sign up for our morning newsletter to learn more about what else Phillies talking about. And don't forget, you can support the show and get great perks by becoming a citycastfilly neighbor at membership.citycast.fm slash Philly. And we've got a lot of swag to give away so you don't want to miss out on any of it. All right, we'll be back Monday morning with more news from around the city. Have a great weekend and be safe, y'all. Bye.