KOJO NNAMDIYou're tuned in to The Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU 88.5. Welcome. Later in the broadcast local student organizers are amped up about gun control, school diversity, and more. We'll meet leaders from Montgomery County Students for Change and learn what change they want to see in the school district and beyond.

KOJO NNAMDIBut first Amazon made big news last year when it announced it would split its headquarters between Queens in New York and Northern Virginia, but last week it announced it wouldn't be moving forward with its New York location after all. What does this latest development mean for Virginias those who want Amazon here and those who oppose it? Joining me in studio is Ally Schweitzer. She is WAMU's Business and Development Reporter. Ally, good to see you.

ALLY SCHWEITZERGood to see you as always.

NNAMDIWhat justification did Amazon give for pulling out of its New York location?

SCHWEITZERI mean, they essentially said in that statement, you guys don't want to play ball with us, well, bye. You know, that's kind of Amazon's approach to a lot of relationships that it has with government's across the country is that, you know, they have expressed a desire to be in control. And I think that, you know, we saw that play out in Seattle with the head tax that was proposed. Amazon was very aggressive saying, you know, we're going to pull out of here. We're going to cancel our projects if you don't play ball with us. And we saw a very similar thing happen in New York where they decided that the heat was a little too much for them, especially from the New York City Council. And just said, yeah, we need partners and you guys aren't being partners. So we're out of here.

NNAMDIBut New York had to submit a bid for Amazon to choose their city for the new headquarters. If officials wanted Amazon to choose Queens enough to court the company last year and did not fundamentally change the deal, what changed?

SCHWEITZERI think -- well, the deal, the initial deal was made really behind closed doors because that's what Amazon required. It required anybody who wanted to make a pitch to sign a non-disclosure agreement. And that's what we saw here, of course, in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. These deals didn't become public unless officials made them public through legislation or when the deal -- when the cities were actually picked. Then those deals went public.

SCHWEITZERSo once the three billion dollar incentive package from New York went public I think that's when you started to see a lot more scrutiny particularly from New York City councilmembers. So it wasn't like it was this roundly approved thing from the beginning. You know, it was something that was negotiated pretty quietly and then once it got out that's when you started to see a lot more controversy.

NNAMDIWell, as Amazon turned away from its New York plans, eyes are now looking to Northern Virginia where Amazon still plans to base 25,000 jobs. The company and local officials say nothing about that plan will change. Is that a realistic expectation?

SCHWEITZERWell, it's realistic on the level that, you know, the state incentives packages is a done deal. I mean Northam signed that into law a couple of weeks ago. The MOU is final. You know, it's fairly -- from Virginia's perspective it's set in stone. And also the agreement allows the company to get incentives up to something like 38,000 jobs. So the base agreement is 25,000 jobs. But it can stretch. So, you know, I think it's that people I've talked to from the Virginia economic development partnership and on the state level have said, This doesn't change anything for us. So they're saying, No, nothing changes. The only thing that remains in play is the Arlington County incentives package, which has yet to be approved by the Board.

NNAMDIAre D.C. and Maryland looking to benefit from the news out of New York? I know apparently Prince George's County is.

SCHWEITZERWho isn't? I mean, basically when Amazon pulled out of New York you had folks coming out of the woodwork again saying, Hey, remember us? You know, Newark was in there.

NNAMDIEven though Amazon said that it would not intend to reup its search for a second headquarters, volunteers were pouring out anyway.

SCHWEITZERIt's politics, baby. I think that a lot of -- I think a lot of leaders are taking their play in the long game. You know, they're looking at Amazon for future investments. I mean, Amazon is probably only going to continue to get bigger. They have a presence in many cities across the country. So I think cities are looking at them and states are looking at them and saying, Look, if it's not now maybe later. You know, maybe you'll take me to the prom. You know, that's sort of the game I think they're playing.

NNAMDIJoining us in studio is Danny Cendejas. He is an organizer for LaColectiVa and For Us Not Amazon. Danny, thank you for joining us.

DANNY CENDEJASOf course. Thank you for having me.

NNAMDIWhat was your take away from the news about Amazon last week?

CENDEJASSo first off, that was big news right? And I think for us what we recognized is that it's a real victory for communities of color, for low income communities, for the people that many elected officials in that area left out of the conversation, out of the process. And so what we see is that our communities definitely have an opportunity to fight back against corporate take overs that are trying to attempt to happen in our communities.

CENDEJASAnd in particular again we recognize it as a victory for all of us. And here in Northern Virginia we're recognizing that the same processes or lack of, right, are happening here where the deal was largely negotiated behind closed doors. And we're making sure that our communities' voices particularly those, who will be most harmed are centered in this process.

NNAMDIWell, did you think an about face like that occurred in New York was possible and do you think an about face is also still possible here?

CENDEJASI mean, I think anything is possible when people are organized and together and can fight back, right? I really trust the power of people. And so here what we have had unfortunately is, again, where elected officials have failed to really include communities that, again, would be most harmed by HQ2 opening here. And so we are doing the work of engaging with families. For example, the father of the family that that family has been leaving 13 years in Arlington County. And when I met him he had just gotten home with paint all over his hands, paint all over his clothes. And when we had the conversation, he hadn't even heard that Amazon was planning to come to Arlington County.

CENDEJASAnd that was symbolic of the failure of elected leadership locally to engage the communities. Particularly, again, that are most left out. Also the family, who I know her partner was detained by ICE a couple of months ago. And it's unfortunate, because these are the families that are going to be most harmed by higher rents. But also by welcoming a big contractor of ICE, right, that Amazon is.

NNAMDIWe're going to talk about Amazon and ICE later in the broadcast. You can also learn more about what Amazon means for local activists by reading Ally Schweitzer's report for WAMU. There's a link at our website at our website kojoshow.org. Danny, what do you think it says about the differences in organizing in New York and in Virginia that Amazon is pulling out of Queens, but still forging ahead in Northern Virginia?

CENDEJASAs I mentioned, there has actually been unfortunately lack and leadership and engagement from county officials and also state level officials here. And in New York organizing and the power of people was also -- also led to elected officials being accountable to their constituents and holding Amazon accountable and grilling them even publically asking them about their work practices, asking them about their contracting with ICE, asking them about the lack of plans to make sure that community members could stay in their neighborhoods. And here in Virginia we've seen the lack of leadership and lack of courage from elected officials to do the same for our communities.

CENDEJASAnd so the work is falling on people on the ground not organizations to go do the work on the ground to make sure that our community's voices are heard, that all people are heard in Arlington County not just the few people that are in support including the Chambers of Commerce and including the developers who are excited about this, right?

CENDEJASBut, again, we in our conversations that we've been having doing door knocking and canvassing and deep community engagement in the past few weeks the majority of conversations that we have about this, the majority of people are actually opposed to Amazon coming here and are definitely opposed to the Arlington County Board supporting any incentive giveaways to Amazon being the wealthiest corporation in the world. People believe that we should be investing in our education, in our communities, in our housing and infrastructure as opposed to Amazon.

NNAMDIBefore I go to the phone, speaking of incentives, Ally, earlier this month Virginia passed a huge state level incentives package for the company. Remind us of the important details.

SCHWEITZERSo the core of that deal is a maximum of $750 million in grants to Amazon. Now that's conditional. It's based on the creation of up to 38 -- pardon me, 38,000 jobs. And that's over time. So that's the big kahuna. That 750. And it's also $550 million for the 25,000 jobs. And like I said earlier that can stretch. So that's kind of the core of it. And then thrown into there are also investments in education and infrastructure and things like that that have sort of been angled as community benefits.

NNAMDIHere is Alex in Arlington. Alex, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

ALEXYeah. Hi there, Kojo. My view is -- by the way, I live in the neighborhood. I'm in Arlington Ridge so I'm just a mile from where Amazon will be located. I tend to think that the activists are very short sighted thinking that Amazon should solve all the community's problems. Here in our area I was at your roadshow in Crystal City and the activists there wanted Amazon to give them $500 million to solve all the community's problems. Well, Amazon will help solve the problems by providing some jobs. And remember that the money is conditioned on the receipt of those jobs.

NNAMDIOne of activist of that road show was one Danny Cendejas. So you might want to respond to our caller.

CENDEJASSure, so we don't want Amazon to fix all of our problems. We want our elected officials to actually take these problems seriously, right? We know that housing has been an issue already in Arlington County in the Northern Virginia region and beyond for a long time already, right? Many of the families that I work with in Arlington County are already being displaced, are already being priced out of the area. And so seeing the track record that Amazon has had in other places including Seattle of the increased, the spike in rents, the spike in living costs, and the mass displacement and gentrification that happened in that area is the evidence that we have of the real risks and threats that our families are facing here in Arlington County and in the region.

CENDEJASAnd so for us, again, we believe that the county and the state should not be giving corporate welfare to the wealthiest corporation in the world. Instead they should be investing and finding solutions to the issues that our communities have right now. And prioritizing us and not prioritizing the needs or lack -- not really needs actually -- the takeover that Amazon is trying to have into our community. And so we need to be prioritizing -- our elected officials should be solving these issues for our communities.

NNAMDIAlex, thank you for your call. Here now is Carrie in Crystal City. Carrie, your turn.

CARRIEHi. I actually am right across from National Landing. Every day I wake up to my apartment being filled with dust from the construction across the street. So I know firsthand on that basis what it's doing. I called for a couple of reasons. Look it, I attended the Arlington Town Hall. And I recorded it. I attended Terry McCollum talking at DCA Live and I recorded him. This is has been a five year conversation according to Terry McCollum. This didn't happen -- this pitch for city's 18 months out. And at the Arlington Town Hall I asked two very pertinent questions that when the demand was not for applause, but for finger waving, the room burst out in applause.

CARRIEOne I asked about the concern of the timing of Mr. Bezos's affair being disclosed with there already being a history in the record of divorces in the country, of spurned spouses getting a portion of the lover's assets. There's the issue of privacy. That then is now privacy, our data part of assets people will battle for. And then I asked another question more impactful on the Arlington Commission who admitted throughout the whole event that they knew very little. They had very little information.

NNAMDIOkay. We're running out time. What was your question?

CARRIEIt's a point I said to them, Are you all going to guarantee now that you will not take a job with Amazon forever? And to a man and woman they all said, No. Forever is a very long time. So I'm looking at the motivation --

NNAMDIYeah, I suspect you won't get any guarantees from any current elected officials, who can be voted out of office that they won't ever ever work for Amazon again in life. We have certainly seen the revolving door here in Washington of former elected officials, who become lobbyists for corporations.

SCHWEITZERIt's a direct pipeline. Yeah.

NNAMDIWe don't know exactly how that will work out. But thank you for your call. Last week on The Politics Hour Arlington County Board member, Katie Cristol, said that there's still a case to be made for Amazon benefiting the local residents in Arlington County. Let's hear what she had to say.

KATIE CRISTOLThat seems to be a big part of what was motivating on and the pushback was just the size of the incentives and whether the people in our community would be benefiting as well as Amazon would be benefiting. And I believe that we really can make the case that people of Arlington County stand to benefit from this location decision here in Arlington.

NNAMDIIs that possible, Danny? Is that likely in and if it is indeed possible what can make it probable? Is there a case to be made for how local benefits -- how local residents can benefit from Amazon?

CENDEJASI haven't seen a single good case for that so far. So, again, what we know already is that our families are already being harmed by displacement by the increased rents. In this past year alone, the majority of the families that I work with in Arlington County have already seen a $200 increase in their rents every month, right? Again, for families who are working paycheck to paycheck, who are fighting, right, to survive and thrive in Arlington County, those differences will be huge.

CENDEJASAnd if Amazon opens up here, that will increase by a lot. And there has been no plan presented of what will be done to preserve the communities that are currently here, what will be done to ensure that our families can continue to afford living in the county. So so far again, we haven't seen any positive signs about prioritizing our communities. Unfortunately it seems that the prioritization is of the bottom line as opposed to our communities.

NNAMDIAlly, a lot of local activists have brought up Amazon's relationship to Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. What's going on there?

SCHWEITZERSo, I mean, at the very least Amazon has pitched ICE on its facial recognition technology. And that came out in a news report last fall. They had met with officials from ICE trying to sell this technology that they had made called Recognition. It's essentially, you know, facial recognition surveillance technology. This is technology that's already in use by various other law enforcement agencies and government offices.

SCHWEITZERAnd it's been extremely controversial particularly here within folks, who Danny has been working with who are very troubled by the idea of subsidies from Arlington County going directly to a company that has this, you know, relationship with law enforcement that has in some ways also been used to carry out immigration enforcement in the country. So that's -- I wouldn't necessarily go as far as to say that Amazon is a confirmed partner of ICE, but at the very least they support ICE technology on their platform and they have offered to sell facial recognition surveillance technology to the agency.

NNAMDIAnd that's one of the things that Helen in Fairfax is concerned about. Helen, your turn.

HELENHi, yeah. So something that I have been thinking about a lot is there's a professor in Philly named Tameron Oper (sp?) and she said that we need to challenge the premise of job creation in terms of the impact on spaces, social relations, and our social and moral health. It's not just about the type of jobs that we have. It's not about the jobs that we are getting, but also the types of jobs that we're having and how they impact our physical and social and spiritual health as individuals and communities.

NNAMDIOkay, okay. Enough of the theory. What do you see of the practical effects?

HELENYeah, I'm just wondering like where is Arlington County and where is Virginia going to be drawing the line. Like if this was 25,000 jobs that was going to help create the border wall would we be like, yeah, we need those jobs, right? If it was for like a prison, would we be saying, yeah, we need those jobs. When the end result is that people are getting deported and people are getting incarcerated with their technology.

NNAMDIAnd Danny Cendejas, Helen is also making that in terms of Amazon's alleged relationship or the pitch that Amazon has made to ICE.

CENDEJASYeah, so it actually goes beyond that pitch. They actually have a contractual relationship with ICE. There's a report by the National Immigration Project, immigrant defense project at Mi Gente that really shows the way that Amazon is a huge huge piece of ICE's deportation machine. That they already provide a lot of the technological infrastructure for case management that ICE uses for cases of people who are in detention and also in deportation proceedings.

NNAMDIDo you think that that and that alone should be -- should keep Amazon out of Arlington County?

CENDEJASThat should definitely be a huge red flag for the county officials, right, because, again, if you go to the county board above the county board room there is a banner. I don't remember the exact wording. But it says something to the tone of the value of immigrants is what makes our community stronger. And so when Arlington County is a county that supports immigrants they should also be making sure that whoever they're -- you know, doing and -- or, you know, we shouldn't be giving money away to corporations at all, right? But whoever we're doing business with that actually supports the values that we taught.

NNAMDIWe only have time for one more call, because Chin describes himself as an economically educated socialist. Chin, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CHINThanks, Kojo. Look, I have been listening to this debate and reading about it for I guess several weeks now. And even though I am a socialist by heart I am economically educated. I am so tired of people like Ocasio-Cortez and other people, who try to vilify Amazon and for getting the best deal that we can. Are we really supposed to withhold the economic development of regions, because we're saying that it's going to what, lead to gentrification, lead to other people maybe being priced out of a certain community? I mean, look economic development is better for everybody. And there's things that people can do if they have to move a little bit further away. That may not sound like the most --

NNAMDILike I said, we're running out of time. Very quickly, Danny, you've got about 30 seconds to respond.

CENDEJASSure. So we believe in making sure that everybody has a fair shot at making sure that they are stronger economically. That they have an opportunity to, again, survive and thrive in their communities and choose to -- be able to choose where they want to live and raise their families. And right now if the plans for economic development, if the plans for economic growth are to be happening off the backs of low income community members, black and brown community members, folks with disabilities, aging community members, that is not the economic growth that we want, right? And so we want to make sure that we prioritize plans that are for all of us not giving away corporate welfare, but really bring up all community members in that so we can all live here.

NNAMDIDanny Cendejas is an organizer for La ColectiVA and For Us Not Amazon. He's hosting a community forum around this issue tonight at Café Sazon in Arlington. That starts at seven. Danny, thank you for joining us.

CENDEJASThank you very much.

NNAMDIAlly Schweitzer is WAMU's Business and Development Reporter. Ally, good to see you.

SCHWEITZERYou too.

NNAMDIGoing to take a short break. When we come back local student organizers amped up about gun control, school diversity, and more. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.