BONUS: In his two decades of coaching youth baseball, Youman Wilder never expected ICE agents to show up at his practice. But recently, that’s exactly what happened. On New York’s Upper West Side, Coach Wilder claims to have witnessed armed ICE agents questioning his players—and that’s when he knew he had to step in. On “Deadline White House” Nicolle interviewed Wilder on the experience and what is asked of all of us in this moment. Listen to the conversation here.
Editors’ Note: since the interview aired on MSNBC on July 14th, an ICE spokesperson has refuted this account, saying “ICE has not conducted any recent enforcement activity in the vicinity of Riverside Park.”
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Note: This is a rough transcript. Please excuse any typos.
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Nicolle Wallace: “The Best People” podcast was always about bringing you the best people I knew and the best people I came across in my life, in my career, and on “Deadline: White House.” Yesterday, I met one of those people, Youman Wilder. He answered the question that I think I’ve been wrestling with since November’s election. What would I do? What would I do if I saw someone who I thought was being confronted by ICE, or harassed by ICE, or singled out, or profiled?
To be honest, I’m not sure I’d have the presence of mind that Youman did, to remind people of their rights, to remind law enforcement officials about the letter of the Constitution, but he did in the moment. He tells his story and we want to share it with you, our Best People family, for a couple of reasons.
One, it is entirely inspiring to know that there are people like Youman out there. The second, there’s something we all need to ask ourselves in this moment that he describes, what would you do? Would you stop what you were doing if you were walking your dog or out on a run and you saw what he saw? Would you bear witness at a minimum, or stand up for other people’s rights as Coach Youman did? Or would you walk right by, like the Upper West Side community members that he describes?
Take a listen and let me know what you think. This is from my conversation with Coach Youman Wilder, with University of Maryland Professor Kevin Blackistone, and Democracy Docket founder, Marc Elias on “Deadline: White House” on Monday, July 14th.
Now you should know that since our interview aired, the Department of Homeland Security, it refutes this version of events. They told us ICE agents were not in the area at that time. We’ll continue to follow Youman’s story and bring it to you.
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Nicolle Wallace: Despite Donald Trump’s repeated campaign promises, that his mass deportation raids would target the “worst of the worst,” we’ve seen his administration actually target some of the best, young students, high school students, landscapers, hardworking people on the job at work, and now American kids practicing the ultimate American pastime, baseball, at practice.
One baseball coach, Youman Wilder, described his experience at protecting his players after ICE agent showed up at the baseball practice he runs on Manhattan’s Upper West Side in Riverside Park. Wilder says the agents, who were armed with guns and tasers approached some of the kids, some of the players, and began asking about their country of origin. Here’s what he told local news.
Youman Wilder: I told my kids to walk to the back of the cages right here, and I said, they’re going to invoke their Fifth Amendment right. They’re not going to say anything. Their parents are, you know, from the Dominican Republic, South America, Mexican, Africa. But there are kids who are born here. They have a 14th Amendment entitlement to live here.
I never in my life thought this is going to happen on the Upper West Side in New York City. That whole thing, you know, until it happens to you, you’re not aware, and it happened to us.
Nicolle Wallace: One local assemblywoman who first brought the raid to public attention, warns of this, “The only thing that stood between those kids in Riverside Park and a Florida detention center buried deep in the Everglades was a brave coach who knew the law.” The coach, Wilder, has since moved the location of practice time to try to protect his kids and prevent this from happening again. Despite that precaution, the kids and their parents were so shaken up by the incident that only two, two, have returned to practice so far.
Joining our conversation is that extraordinary baseball coach, Youman Wilder, founder of Harlem Baseball Hitting Academy. Also joining our conversations, Sports columnist for the Washington Post, professor of Journalism at the University of Maryland, Kevin Blackistone is here. Marc Elias is with us as well. Coach, thank you for being here.
Youman Wilder: Thank you for having me.
Nicolle Wallace: I want to ask you and I want to understand, and I want to try to learn where your presence of mind came from, to reach for your knowledge of the Constitution, which not everybody has. But I first want you to just tell me what happened again, just recount this experience for us.
Youman Wilder: Well, practice was pretty much finishing up. We usually practice about two hours, two and a half hours. Whenever my iPhone goes out, we’re finished with practice. We videotape all our practices for the last 22 years.
So, I went over to shoot some hoops, because my kids are telling me how old I was and I couldn’t shoot a hoop like Stephen Curry, which I can’t. And I just saw these ICE officers walking, and I had seen them in Washington Heights. I had seen them in Dyckman, up where more Dominican kids and South American kids live. And when I turned around to get the ball and I turned around again, I saw them approaching my kids, and I just went over and I just heard them stating, where you’re from? Where are your parents from? And I just stepped in and said, this is very inappropriate to ask these kids anything. And I said, as a person who’s supervising them, I’m just going to have them implement their Fifth Amendment right and I’m not saying anything to you.
Nicolle Wallace: What did the agents say when you confronted them and said these kids have rights and you got between the agents and the kids?
Youman Wilder: Yeah. His wonderful words were, oh, another YouTube lawyer.
Nicolle Wallace: What did they do? Did they leave? I mean, were they ultimately persuaded –Youman Wilder: No.
Nicolle Wallace: — to leave the kids alone?
Youman Wilder: No. They kept changing the goal post. It became a thing of we, if they had nothing in the old thing, if you have nothing to hide you should see, you know, just tramping that Fourth Amendment right, didn’t really care. The whole thing came up like, I don’t care what you say. I don’t care what the law says. And the only thing I had that day was my uncle, Pete in my ear, who’s my bishop, my mother in my ear, the Constitution and prayer. That’s the only thing I had that day.
Nicolle Wallace: Tell me how old the kids were and where you guys were. You were in a park on Riverside in 72nd, where there are a bunch of ball fields, right?
Youman Wilder: Well, there’s batting cages there. We usually work in Harlem. We’re at the Harlem Baseball Hitting Academy. And you know, I always tell people it’s very important that we don’t want to be sought out as a victim. This Academy has been around for 22 years. We graduated 400 kids out of college, who walk around with degrees from Stanford, and Princeton, and Harvard, all African American and Latino kids. So, we’re not going around saying, poor little us because we do very, very good work.
Our thing is, this shouldn’t have a person who has a master’s degree in law to know rights, and this can happen to anybody. If it can happen on the Upper West Side of 72nd Street, it can happen to anybody. There’s got to be a better way for the administration to deal with this, and there’s got to be a better way for people to understand their rights.
Nicolle Wallace: Coach, what did people, I mean, it’s a really crowded area. A lot of people run in that area. There’s a lot of organized practices and there are other folks trying to practice in that area. What did the bystanders do?
Youman Wilder: I’m a New Yorker, bone and bone, and we’re tough people here. But I saw cowards. And I hate to say that, as somebody who loves this city.
Nicolle Wallace: It’s okay.
Youman Wilder: Cowards.
Nicolle Wallace: They’re kids. Yeah, tell me, what did you want to see and what disappointed you?
Youman Wilder: Obeying to authority that was out of line, pissing on the Constitution, and they came up with, I don’t care. I don’t care.
Nicolle Wallace: How are the kids now?
Youman Wilder: We usually the carry between 20 and 25 kids. Some of our kids are playing in tournaments throughout the country. Matter of fact, when I get off here, one of our kids will actually be drafted this evening, and he’ll be our 45th Major League draft pick.
Our kids, it’s no one shows up. I mean, we have one kid showing up. We usually carry, you know, between 20 and 25 kids who are playing. And we usually carry, during the summer, between 11 and 15 kids, and we’re having one kid show up at practice right now.
Nicolle Wallace: The Major League All-Star game is this week. And I have to seek in a break, but on the other side, I want to ask you what you’d like. You know, it’s not just an attack on your kids or you, it’s an attack on the sport. I want to ask you what you’d like to say to Major League Baseball on the other side of a break.
I also want to bring Kevin and Marc into the conversation. Please stay with us. We’ll all be right back.
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Nicolle Wallace: We’re back with Youman. Kevin and Marc are here as well. Youman, what do you want Major League Baseball to know, a sport that depends on players from all over the world?
Youman Wilder: Yeah, Major League Baseball has disappointed the African American community so much, that just the action for anything is irrelevant. I mean, unfortunately, when it comes to Black people in the Major League Baseball, they find us irrelevant. They don’t see us. They’ve done everything in their power to erase African American inclusion. So, I don’t have anything to say to the Major League Baseball.
Nicolle Wallace: What do you have to say to the community about how they can do better if this happens again? My son plays baseball, plays travel baseball, and has practiced on those fields for years. I can’t imagine doing nothing —
Youman Wilder: Yes.
Nicolle Wallace: — when kids were targeted by armed agents.
Youman Wilder: Well, I think the only thing we have to do, you know, we have a professor right there, we have to teach kids about civics. We have to have our kids understand the Constitution, no matter what, whether you’re born here or you’re here illegally, that you still have constitutional right.
You have a young man there, who is one of my idols, when it comes to voting rights in this country. So we have to have people like him go out and tell people, and people who understand the Constitution, who can defend people’s Fourth Amendment right, people’s 14th Amendment right, people’s right to be able to live in this country freely, if they’re born, raised and have done nothing illegal to warrant any type of intrusion into their civil rights.
Nicolle Wallace: Kevin Blackistone, your thoughts.
Kevin Blackistone: Well, first of all, Coach Wilder gets an MVP for his actions. It’s unfortunate, of course, he had to go that far at all. But we need more coaches like that everywhere. Everybody needs to be aware of what’s happening, not just from watching the news, but being active in your community.
I’m one of those people who went out at night. I downloaded the ICEBlock app and I’ve been stunned to hear it ping and to see that some of these very same situations are happening not too far from where I live, not too far from where I work.
And it’s really unfortunate that this situation has poisoned sports. You mentioned the All-Star game coming up. I think I counted a couple dozen Latin American baseball players who will be on the field for the All-Star game, and I know that some of them, certainly some with the Dodgers have expressed how upset they are with what happened at Dodger Stadium, talking about ICE showing up and forcing the Dodgers organization turn those folks away, just like Coach Wilder did on his own.
And so, we need more of this. And it really is sad that, you know, it has injected itself into our sports culture. People want to tell you that sports and politics don’t mix, and yet we saw sports and politics mix right here on this show, which Coach Wilder was talking about, with the Dodgers, with the FIFA Club World Cup the other day. You know, I, for one, don’t think that this country, under this administration, is really fit to host the World Cup, or fit to host the Olympics coming up, because those organizations have information in their charters about what they stand for and who they stand for.
FIFA has an entire section about human rights, and yet Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA, had the nerve to embrace President Trump the other day at the championship game of the Club World Cup, someone who does not stand for human rights, but instead is trampling human rights.
Nicolle Wallace: Yeah, including those of kids. Marc Elias, your thoughts.
Marc Elias: Yeah. Look, you and I talk a lot on this show about what it is we all need to do to protect democracy, and Coach Wilder did it. Like, he is the hero of the story because he showed courage and he was surrounded by cowards. The cowards who were staking out and approaching these kids with badges and guns should be ashamed of themselves. History will remember them for the cowards they are.
The bystanders that the coach got so emotional about, what were they doing? You know, we all ask ourselves, what would we do if democracy is at stake? What would we do if we were facing injustice? What would we do if our children were being threatened? Well, those bystanders told us what they did. They did nothing. They are the cowards too.
And we are only going to get through this part of history, we are only going to make it through to the other side if we have more people who are willing to take a stand like Coach Wilder did, and fewer people who will go along and get along, and not stand up and do what is right.
And finally, I’d add this for Major League Baseball. You know, in 2021, you told us that the voter suppression laws in Georgia were bad enough for you to move the All-Star game. Where are you today? Where are you, Major League Baseball? Where are you, the billionaire owners of these sports teams, when democracy needs you? Why aren’t you supporting those kids? Why aren’t you supporting your players? Why aren’t you speaking out in favor of democracy? Because you’re cowards also.
Nicolle Wallace: Youman, you want a last word on this? Youman?
Youman Wilder: My only fear is the gateway. You know, there’s a gateway drug to things. The gateway is now do we, you know, take kids who are going to predominantly Latino schools? You know, I’m in Harlem, but I’m close to Washington Heights where Manny Ramirez and Rod Carew went to high school. It’s 98% Latino. Luperon is another school that is a predominantly Latino.
Now, do ICE agents go to those schools and demand those kids out? And now, when their mothers and fathers come and try to pick them up, do they detain these parents now? So, it’s a slippery road that deals with a lot of things that we have to be very conscious of, and that’s why we have to have people speaking up and we have to have a better way to do this stuff.
You know, I’m no fan of any of this, but I’m also a fan of the fact that we can be better as people and we can protect people.
The only way you can protect people is understanding the Constitutional as right. We have to rely on that and we can’t cherry-pick it. We can’t take people’s First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, Fifth Amendment right. But yet, you want to hold onto your Second Amendment right and that’s to your old God, but we’re willing to take rights from other people and not care and have a concern. We have to care about people, young people.
Nicolle Wallace: Well, any of those kids that have you in their corner are very, very, very lucky, and we feel lucky to get to talk to you today. Please come back anytime. Thank you so much.
Youman Wilder: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Nicolle Wallace: Youman Wilder. Yeah.
Youman Wilder: God bless.
Nicolle Wallace: Youman, Kevin and Marc, my favorite conversation in a very long time. Thank you very much to all of you.
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Nicolle Wallace: Thank you so much for listening to this special bonus episode of “The Best People with Nicolle Wallace.” There will be a new episode, like usual, this Monday, and for MSNBC Premium subscribers only, early access this Friday. See you then.