S3 Special (1/4): Listening Under ICE - The Ghost Job

Ever notice how fast a single loaded word can shut down your attention? We hit pause on a vanished episode to rebuild it with care and open the door to a world most folks never see: the “ghost job” of professional interpreters working inside immigration systems, courts, hospitals, and the charged spaces in between. We talk candidly about what it means to listen harder than you speak, and why accuracy—not agenda—holds a life together when language becomes a fault line.

I share how I entered the field after a midlife pivot, the surprising hierarchy of assignments, and the long road of certifications and background checks that don’t always lead to higher pay. We pull back the curtain on mental health prep designed for interpreters, not interviewees, because some stories don’t leave when the shift ends. From first contact to hearings and beyond, I explain how interpreters show up, speak in the first person, and then disappear—so the subject’s voice is the only one that matters.

You’ll hear how monitoring works when claimants bring their own interpreters, why integrity checks protect everyone, and how odd hours can make space for family. We explore the tradeoffs between high clearances and personal mobility, the contrast between law enforcement and medical assignments, and the discipline it takes to remain present without drifting into bias. The better the job is done, the less visible the interpreter becomes—and that invisibility is the point.

If you care about language, truth, and the weight of words in high-stakes rooms, this mini-series sets the foundation. We end with a preview of next week’s deep dive into first contact—the moment where anxiety spikes and no one knows what’s about to be said. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves language, and leave a review telling us what part reshaped how you think about listening.

Please contact me at theunclewong@gmail.com

Transcript

Listening Is The Hard Part

SPEAKER_01 0:00

People think the hardest part of my job is speaking. For instance, podcasting, daily meetings, dealing with clients. That's partly true, but it isn't the whole picture. It's actually listening. Listening without reacting. Listening without correcting. Listening when you already know the words coming out next are going to matter. Perhaps not to me directly, but definitely to someone else. I took an episode down recently. Not because I lied or I crossed the line or have anything to hide. No. I took it down because I realized that if people heard one word, they may stop listening. So this time I'm setting it up, right? This is an episode about ice. It's about what it feels like to be the person in the room whose only job is to listen. Welcome back to Agent Uncle. I got a piece of fan mail a while ago from a fan in Memphis, Tennessee. It reads, I love your podcast. What happened to the episode where you talked about working for ICE? Well, firstly, thank you. And if you notice an episode disappeared, that tells me you've been listening closely. And that really means a lot. So if you ever want to reach out to me directly, any of you, please email me at theunkowong at gmail.com. I do read them. The reason I took that episode down is simple. The topic started to attract the wrong kind of attention, especially with everything happening across the country. People tend to react fast, often before they finish listening. Again, I didn't remove it to hide anything. I removed it so I could, I removed it so I could slow it down, rethink the framing, and talk about it properly so it benefits you the most. Therefore, before we officially hear from Paul later this season, I think it's just as important to hear voices not only from the past, but from the present. This will be a four-part miniseries. I'll keep it as short as possible, and I hope you'll find it interesting. So let me be clear from the start: this is not an episode or miniseries about a specific government agency or agenda. It's not even about politics. It's about a job that exists quietly inside these systems. Systems people argue about, fear, misunderstand, and usually only notice when something goes horribly wrong. It's a ghost job. People in this world appear when they're needed, they do their work, and then they disappear. They don't carry weapons, they don't enforce laws, they don't make any decisions. But the words they carry can weigh just as much as the people who do. Given that, I'm referring to professional interpreters working in the background. It's not a high-paying desk job, it doesn't require a prestigious degree. You're never publicly recognized, sometimes even looked down upon, as if being bilingual is something you're born with and not something you develop or worked for. But yet, this job, like no other, makes you here enough that it becomes difficult to walk away pretending nothing happened, if you get what I mean. I love language, I love speech, linguistics in general intrigues me. That's why I do this podcast in the first place. Out of respect for language as an art. I'm sure every one of you feels the same because you two are great listeners. Your brain works in a different pattern because words to you invoke imagination. It entertains you more than others. And that ability to listen with intent, according to Chinese philosophers, is wisdom in the making. Because it glorifies patience. And speaking of patience, I'd like to thank you for yours. This line of work though, it's it's a bit different. Speaking is the easier half. Listening, the discipline kind. Like I said, it's the harder part. Joining the industry with a master's degree, with years of executive experience, it made me feel like I was above the regular people with the regular interpreters. But then I realized that this job required training far beyond just basic fluency. People don't understand that there's a significant difference between interpreting casually for your mom at the groceries and interpreting under professional settings.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

And that difference is mostly invisible from the outside. People think it's easy. I thought it was easy.

Entering The Immigration Pipeline

Monitoring For Integrity

The Toll And The Purpose

Choosing Mobility Over Clearance

SPEAKER_01 5:47

It's interesting too, because even in this tiny industry, there's a pecking order. You can get paid anywhere from minimum wage, typically if you're working at like a call center hotline, to equaling government pay if you work for one of the agencies. Sometimes you can hire as a contractor. And there's some professionals that can make a decent living off of this. For instance, court interpreters. Or professionals that can do simultaneous interpreting. That's what you translate as the subject is speaking, with only maybe two, three second lapse. They can pay thousands of dollars per event. But what people don't know is that for the most part, certifications can take anywhere from months to years. And if you're working at one of these government agencies, background checks can take months. And none of that necessarily comes with higher pay. In fact, the pay is relatively the same, if not lower, sometimes. So you really have to love this job and not plan to get rich with it. But in the end, it's mainly your preference, right? If you like working in a hospital setting, if you like working commercial setting, if you like going to events, if you like working for federal law enforcement. But there's such a mix in this industry that it's hard to tell the professional ones that do it for a living, that are highly certified, and the part-time ones that do it for grocery money. Like the full-time mothers. So this industry is flooded with all different types of people. You see interpreters everywhere: hospitals, meetings, conferences. And again, it doesn't make them professional. I've dealt with plenty of bad interpreters. And I'll share that with you later because it's actually pretty interesting. And there's even a smaller group that works in places that most people don't even think about. Places where language carries extreme consequences. And so this job in general for me came at a point in my life where my kids are getting older, and my long-term work in finance felt boring. Nothing excites me anymore. It pays the bills, I live well, but it doesn't give me any purpose, you know? Especially at my age, towards that midlife crisis. So I wanted to do something different. Something I had never done before. I wanted that experience. I wanted that excitement to feed into my midlife crisis. I wanted the stories. That's why you listen to this podcast too, right? For the stories. And as many of you know, I write, I research, and I spend a lot of time refining my craft as a linguist. Podcasting, speaking with you is part of that craft. So without further ado, let me take you back to what I've experienced throughout the process. So about two years ago, before this deportation became a mass headline, I completed my basic certifications and I began looking for work. And so I reached out to several agencies and eventually I received an email that asked a simple question: Would you like the contract for Department of Homeland Security ICE? And of course I said yes. Not because of the politics, and definitely not because of the money. Again, I was interested in the work itself. And much like you, I was interested in the stories. Even if it meant I could never retell it again. And from there, I passed more language exams. It's something that you have to go through pretty much constantly. Then came the federal background checks. And even with a clean record like myself, the process can take months. You have to document a lot of detail. If you're a federal employee, you know what I'm talking about. And after all that was done, we had to go through training. So what surprised me the most about the training wasn't the language part. That was just common vocabulary used in immigration settings. So I won't bore you with that. What was interesting was the mental health preparation that we had to go through. It wasn't for people that was being interviewed, it was for us interpreters. The general idea was something like you're gonna hear some awful things. Be prepared, and if need be, stop. Something like that. At the time, I didn't really give much thought of it because I knew it was part of the job. But it's definitely there for a reason. Because as the story piles up, so does the mental pressure. Or at least when we first start. And over time, because of my language ability, I went for higher certifications like court, medical, etc. etc. And I began working across multiple agencies, like immigration court, customs and border patrol, customs and migration services. And in some settings, I wasn't even interpreting anymore. I was monitoring. I listened in to ensure the integrity of the interview when language itself becomes a fault line. Meaning, if somebody is, let's say, claiming asylum, they bring their own interpreter. How will the asylum officer know that they're telling the truth? That this is not a paid game. That's where my job comes in. I jump in if I sense there's discrepancies or if there's problems. I'm happy because I work really odd hours, really early morning hours with really late graveyard chips, so it doesn't interfere with my life. It doesn't interfere with me spending time with my kids. But at some point, I realized my professional life as a linguist in the US has come to revolve around just one pipeline: immigration. I deal with them day in, day out. Every single day, I will come in contact with at least one or two subjects or assignments. From first contact, like the arrest to detention to medical screening to paperwork processing to court hearings, bond hearings, and sometimes all the way to the moment someone boards a plane back to their country. I hear the entire sequence. I'm qualified and certified to hear the entire sequence. And that's why I call this a ghost job. I don't just hear the room, I hear the entire building. And I still do medical interpreting when I can. Helping people. Hearing a simple thank you at the end from a patient brings a smile to my face. I don't think I smile much during law enforcement work or even at all. It's just not the type of job. And I think that matters. But I try to think of it like what live Buddha always tells me. For instance, take that negative energy that you hear, use your compassion, and change it into positive energy, for example. So that's what I try to bring to these intense situations. I really try to.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

But that doesn't make the work any lighter. Because once you enter law enforcement side of the system, you start hearing things that don't ever leave you.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

I have friends who work as linguists in intelligence roles for the military, for NSA, CIA, FBI, that path exists, but they're a different breed. They need high security clearances, and it just isn't for me. I value mobility. I like traveling. And when one of these seasons I'm going to take you guys to travel with me to Asia. But I can't do that if I have a top secret clearance, for example. And most of all, I value being able to put the phone down when the work is done, to not think about it anymore. I don't even prefer courtroom settings. Being in court, the formality, the pressure, that emotional strain that you can't even. You can't even underdress, you can't smile when you're not supposed to. And every story is always different. Even on the same topic. Some of them can be deeply tragic and hard to swallow.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

And even for an experienced officer or a judge. So ICE was never the whole pipeline. It was simply the first and the most sensitive. At least nowadays. And so when I see the news and something bad happens, I'm just like, damn. I don't know what to say. I don't even know how to judge.

Accuracy Over Judgment

SPEAKER_01 16:00

I'm not even sure I ever picked a side. Or if I'm just doing my job because my only responsibility in every setting is the same. It's accuracy. It was never to judge or decide. And I think that changes the context. It makes me, I guess, a more independent. I guess that's like a more independent standpoint. Because the cool thing about my job is the better I do it, the less visible I become. I speak in first person. And that's why the earlier episode didn't sit right with me because my job is to persuade you or to read news to you. I don't have a political agenda. Nor do I even care. I have one obligation, and that's to listen carefully. And to carry those words exactly as they are. And then share my experiences with you so that you can think deeper and not judge everything you see with pure instinct. But like you, like these officers, like the protesters, the detainees, we're all human.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

And that comes with consequences, especially emotional ones.

Teaser: First Point Of Contact

SPEAKER_01 17:26

So in the next episode, I'm going to walk you through the very first point of contact. Either an arrest, witness questioning, whatever the case might be. This is the moment that creates the most anxiety and the most adrenaline. Because you never know what you're about to hear or encounter. I'm Uncle Wong. Thank you for tuning in. Have a great day. I'll see you next week.