Citizen journalist documents ICE activity around the Twin Cities all from his phone
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity was caught on live stream on Saturday in Chanhassen, Minnesota, with thousands watching as a citizen journalist was one of the first on the scene.
For Andrew Mercado, his truck is his home office.
"It's truly like we're on call, that's why it's this style for story, how we're able to cover it," he said.
He was working while WCCO interviewed him Tuesday morning, live streaming to roughly 660 people on YouTube. More than 100,000 people follow him on Facebook. Nearly 100,000 have subscribed to him on YouTube.
For the Army veteran and Twin Cities native, it's a career he stumbled upon almost on accident.
"When George Floyd was murdered in 2020, I went, I was tired of watching it from TV, I wanted to go out there and see it for myself," he said. "I went live on Facebook, it went very viral."
Mercado has since covered protests around the country and war all over the world, all from his iPhone. This month, his live coverage of ICE raids in the Twin Cities have been viewed tens of thousands of times.
He says he'll stick at it as long as it takes.
"I don't have millions of dollars in funding. I don't get corporate anything. I don't even have sponsors, but it's our ability to be able to get to the story on the ground and talk to people and get the trust of the community, because I'm just a citizen," he said.