AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Comedian Ben Palmer specializes in pranks. He once created a website to gather complaints about Cracker Barrel changing its logo. Recently, he had a more controversial idea for a prank to set up a fake tip line for people to call in and report undocumented immigrants. Now, he wasn't sure he would get that many calls, but it turns out he got hundreds. NPR's Jasmine Garsd reports.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: Ben Palmer says sometimes he needs to take a break from all the calls, which can get pretty intense - calls reporting immigrant neighbors, immigrant employees, immigrants who are now dating your ex. He posts these calls on his YouTube page. In this one, a man from Boston tells Palmer he was at a Walmart recently, and a Hispanic guy looked at his girlfriend.
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UNIDENTIFIED CALLER #1: Yeah, I'm not a jealous dude, but I'm a protective dude.
GARSD: He wants the guy deported. If he could, he says, he'd join ICE and do it himself.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER #1: I'm from Boston. I used to box. I'm not afraid. I'd like a job collecting them.
BEN PALMER: Collecting them, as in, like, the Pokemon?
GARSD: Palmer talks to the caller about the possibility of working in immigration enforcement.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PALMER: First, we wanted to see, like, which Pokemon character you could identify most with. How do you identify with Jigglypuff?
GARSD: Jigglypuff, as in the pink Pokemon cartoon character.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER #1: I have no identity with that - with the gays. As long as they don't bother anybody, I - you know, that's their business.
PALMER: And see that - now, when you say that, that kind of reminds me of Squirtle.
GARSD: Palmer is based in Tennessee and often plays these clips in his stand-up act for conservative audiences. He says the material does well, and he hopes it's a sign that he's getting through with humor.
PALMER: Well, once you start telling people or it sounds like you're preaching to them, they dig their heels in, and then you don't make any progress. You know, I'm not just preaching to the choir, and I'm still getting through to people in my own little unique way.
GARSD: But some of the prank calls can get pretty dark. Palmer has no way of confirming if his callers are who they say they are. But in this one call, a woman claiming to be a kindergarten teacher in the suburbs calls to report her American-born student's parents. They're from Central America.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER #2: I just think it's odd, you know? It's just sad for them to even be here. Like...
PALMER: 'Cause you normally see those people where?
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER #2: Like, in the city.
PALMER: Got it. OK, Hispanics out of place, now in country, not where they belong in city.
GARSD: So much of the act depends on Palmer playing the deadpan bureaucrat who's just taking notes.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PALMER: Sorry. No, I'm just writing this down for my own personal notes...
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER #2: OK.
PALMER: ...And my supervisor.
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER #2: OK.
PALMER: Teaches at school, wants kindergarten child's parents deported.
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER #2: (Laughter) You make it sound terrible. You make it sound like it's terrible.
GARSD: ICE has a tip line, and Palmer never claims to be affiliated with DHS or ICE, but the calls are sort of, like, pulling back the curtain on what the real calls to ICE's tip line might sound like. And Palmer says they're a snapshot of something bigger, a society that has been encouraged to police one another.
PALMER: A lot of people will say that they're doing this not necessarily 'cause they want to, but they feel like it's their duty. And they're doing their job because that's what they've been called to do. So, you know, whatever messaging that's coming from the top down, it's working on these people.
GARSD: Palmer says he struggled with the kindergarten teacher's call. It made him sad. And of the over a million people who have seen the video on YouTube, many are more enraged than humored. After all, where's the humor in a teacher attempting to get her student's parents sent to an ICE detention center? What's funny about an American child potentially losing his parents to deportation? And Palmer says, ultimately, the humor isn't in what the woman who says she's a teacher wanted to do. It's in how shocked she was when she heard her thoughts read back to her. He ends the call with her like he ends most of his immigration tip line pranks, with a follow-up call in which he pretends he's had the family checked out. They're fine, he tells her. They're documented.
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PALMER: So yeah, it's good because we don't have to deport a 6-year-old. And yeah, I mean, you know, that little fella could have been a threat to our national security.
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER #2: Why are you talking to me like this?
PALMER: Say again.
UNIDENTIFIED CALLER #2: Why do you talk to me like this?
GARSD: The jig is up kind of. The caller asked to speak to Palmer's manager. She wants to file a complaint. Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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