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A new chapter of ICE terror has begun, but instead of taking place on the street—where agents are held accountable by protesters and their phones—mistreatment and coercion is now happening behind the closed doors of ICE detention facilities. These private prisons are operated by a company with close ties to the Trump administration, and have such abominable conditions that detainees at several facilities are waging hunger strikes. To get an idea of the mistreatment immigrants are facing, Alex speaks with Melissa Shepard, an attorney with Immigration Defenders Law Center, whose clients are given dirty water and spoiled food, retaliated against for participating in hunger strikes, and endlessly pressured to self deport. Then, she puts it all into context with Caitlin Dickerson, an immigration reporter at The Atlantic who recently embedded in Honduras to interview  deportees from the U.S.

TRANSCRIPT

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: Hi, everyone. Months after the murders of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, this week a new chapter of ICE resistance began in the state of New Jersey.

[news clip]: Overnight protesters clashing with police. There were dozens of arrests for violating a curfew the mayor of Newark imposed outside the ICE detention center at Delaney Hall. Anywhere within a half mile is off limits from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., and police moved in to clear the streets.

Alex Wagner: That is ABC reporting on protests outside an ICE prison where inside detainees are waging a hunger strike over their living conditions. While camera phones have captured people being pulled from their cars or shot in the streets, they aren’t there inside these prisons to record spoiled food and filthy latrines, deadly medical conditions left untreated, and retaliation against people who speak out. That is often the reality of what comes after an arrest for people swept up by ICE and sent to detention centers across the country. The horrific conditions and deplorable treatment are being documented by lawyers and they’re shared among families. But when it’s not happening in public, it’s hard to get America to pay attention. And the Trump administration is betting on just that.

[clip of Ras Baraka]: And we believe that it should be shut down because we have actual, irrefutable evidence now that the place is uninhabitable.

Alex Wagner: That is Newark Mayor Ras Baraka who’s suing the company that operates the Delaney Hall ICE Jail. It’s a private company called The Geo Group. If that name sounds familiar, President Trump just named a former Geo Group executive, David Venturella, as the new head of ICE. Borders Czar Tom Homan used to consult for the GEO group as well. And former Attorney General Pam Bondi was a consultant for the company as recently as 2019. It seems like a revolving door of corruption. GEO Group keeps the detainee population growing, offers them the cheapest care possible, and fills its coffers in the meantime. That’s why the company profits soared by 800% between 2024 and 2025. Over 60,000 people are being held in ICE detention centers across the country, ones just like Delaney Hall. And nearly 50 people have died in ICE custody since Donald Trump was re-elected. An apparent consequence of the conditions inside these prisons. Last week, New Jersey Senator Andy Kim was pepper sprayed as he tried to de-escalate a standoff between protesters and ICE agents outside Delaney Hall. [clip of sirens] But this week, Senate Republicans aim to give even more money to ICE in order to seize even more undocumented migrants and pay companies like the GEO Group a very handsome profit to house them in shameful, oftentimes deplorable conditions. As of this recording, Senate republicans are expected to vote Wednesday evening to dump over $70 billion into the laps of immigration enforcement agencies. That is all in addition to the funding ICE already has on hand. $85 billion. But don’t expect Republicans or the Trump administration to attach any strings to this money or any reform, something Democrats have been demanding since the murders of Alex Pretti and Renée Nicole Good. Here’s DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin responding on Tuesday to questions about the inhumane conditions at Delaney Hall.

[clip of Markwayne Mullin]: We have today, I believe, under 700 detainees there. It’s licensed for just over 1,000 beds. We have twice the square footage at Delaney Hall than the state penitentiary does in New Jersey. They said that the medical condition was horrible. We had twice as much medical staff per person than the State Penitentiaries does in new Jersey.

Alex Wagner: Whatever Trump and his party are alleging, the fight is clearly not over. The people stuck in prisons like Delaney Hall in New Jersey, Adelanto Detention Facility in California, North Lake Processing Center in Michigan, and Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania are protesting in one of the only ways they can, hunger strikes. Here’s the BBC’s coverage of what’s happening inside Delaney hall.

[news clip]: Because ever since detainees there went on a hunger and labor strike reporting inhumane conditions, well, not only protesters, but state lawmakers have come down here demanding that the detention facility be closed ultimately, but also let state officials in to fully inspect the conditions there.

Alex Wagner: As conservatives try to flood ICE with even more money to do more of this, what happens to the people in ICE custody? Because the terror around immigration enforcement is still very much outsized. It’s just not outside. I’m Alex Wagner and this week on Runaway Country, as Republicans prepare to give ICE a budget the size of a small country’s economy, what is happening to citizens and non-citizens alike behind the closed doors of detention facilities? We’re going to be talking to one of the best reporters in the country on this topic, Pulitzer Prize winner Caitlin Dickerson, who writes about immigration for The Atlantic. How has ICE’s strategy changed? What parts of the deportation process aren’t being talked enough about? And what can any of us do about any of this?

Caitlin Dickerson: So I went to Honduras to the airport where deportees, every deportee from the United States to Honduras arrives, and I spent a week there embedded, and I talked to people essentially as they were getting off the plane from the United States. Sure enough, more than half of the people that I interviewed said that they had left children behind.

Alex Wagner: But first, since we can’t talk to the people in detention, we wanted to get as close as possible to a firsthand perspective of life inside one of these detention centers. So I’m talking to Melissa Shepard, a removal defense attorney at Immigration Defenders Law Center, in-depth. Here is our conversation. Melissa, thanks for joining Runaway Country and giving us perspective on a part of our democracy that is definitely not discussed enough. Just first, what is life like inside detention centers right now?

Melissa Shepard: Yeah, that’s a really, really important question. Things are tough inside of these detention centers. We are regularly visiting our clients weekly, and we are hearing directly from them about what life is like on a daily basis. One of their main concerns is basing necessities. They are having serious issues with even getting clean drinking water.

Alex Wagner: Really?

Melissa Shepard: Yeah, with the water in particular, they have kind of like a jug that is something that everyone is able to share. Within these clear jugs, they are able to physically see sticks and dirt floating around. The water comes out brown or yellow. So once that jug of water is finished and, you know, essentially they realize that it needs to be replaced, it can take up to eight hours for them to receive a new jug of the water. So they’re not asking for a lot, right? Like, the detainees are asking for really basic necessities that any one of us need to continue to survive. And beyond the water, the food that they receive is often spoiled, and the meat that they eat is undercooked. The portions tend to be pretty small. So especially for men who are burning a lot of calories throughout the day, they’re just not receiving enough food. And so in turn, they’re having to have to go to commissary. To purchase food, to supplement the already rotten and moldy food that they’re being served.

Alex Wagner: To go back to the water for a second, they’re sharing jugs of water in areas of the detention center. Like multiple people are sharing these jugs of water and that’s what they have effectively for the day. Is that what you’re saying?

Melissa Shepard: Yes, correct. So each in each one of their units, they’ll have the this large kind of jug of water that they can serve themselves water throughout the day. And what we’ve heard also is they’re not even provided with cups. So what they are doing is their empty bottles that they had purchased from commissary, they’re able to refill that and use that to continue to to get water and most of the time, you know, the water is subpar quality.

Alex Wagner: It’s dirty, it has objects floating in it. And I’m assuming you’re talking mostly about adults that you’re representing and that you are working with, but I would wonder what it’s like for children in similar detention centers across the country. One of the things that keeps coming up and that we’ve seen as a real point of concern at the Delaney Detention Center where a lot of people have been focused in the last week because Senator Andy Kim was pepper sprayed outside the detention facility. It’s been controversial since the beginning of its inception, if you will, is the issue of medical care. Can you talk to me about what kind of medical services are provided for people inside detention, many of whom, as I understand it, were detained without their medications. They were just kind of snatched, taken away, put into detention. And so one would assume that they need medical care, if not prescriptions.

Melissa Shepard: They are provided with some level of medical care in, in these facilities. However, I, you know, in sharing that the, the medical services that they receive are, are really absolutely awful. I mean, we are regularly seeing patterns of medical neglect, um, delayed medical care, like you said, people are going in there with preexisting issues. So there’s interruptions in, and access to medication. Once they’re actually there, the medical requests are often ignored. Um the the neglect that they’re experiencing is is truly profound you know we just talked to somebody yesterday one of uh in-depth clients who has been asking to see a doctor for over a month for a hangnail that has just gotten worse and has reached the point of infection so we are constantly seeing medical issues that maybe if there was some type of early intervention they could be stopped at that point. However, the neglect has just continued on. And I can give you one example of a recent person that we spoke with who suffers from epilepsy. He is on a regimented routine of when he should be taking his medications, but the detention center decides when it’s convenient for them to distribute medications. So he was not receiving his medications in a timely manner. Suffered a seizure, fell on the floor, hit his head, had a huge gash and needed stitches from that. And once he saw a doctor afterwards, after this seizure, the doctor said, yeah, the fact that you didn’t receive your medication on this regimented schedule is probably the reason that you suffered this seizure.

Alex Wagner: Wow. I mean, you hear that and it gives you real perspective on the fact that I think this year, 18 people have died in detention across the country since the start of the Trump administration. 48 people have die in detention. Do you think, I mean I’m not asking you to say definitively, but I would assume if you’re not getting your medications on time, if small problems balloon into larger problems, things like a hangnail balloons into something that could become sepsis, like. Does that, I mean, does that help explain the mortality rate inside detentions? What are you hearing?

Melissa Shepard: There’s no doubt that because of the neglect that folks are experiencing while detained, it is causing them to lose their lives. Detainees are expressing to us constantly that being there is a death sentence. You know, we have people who have diabetes who maybe are on regular dialysis and are not getting the treatment that they need, and we are seeing it being exacerbated in unimaginable ways. There was a woman that we represented who had a pre-existing eye condition, and because of the lack of medical treatment that she received, she ended up losing her eyesight completely.

Alex Wagner: Wow.

Melissa Shepard: So these are absolutely preventable, but it’s very obvious to us that these are intentional tactics used by this administration to deter people from remaining in the U.S. And fighting for their cases.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, so it’s a mechanism to force self-deportation. What are they legally entitled to in terms of medical care?

Melissa Shepard: They’re supposed to be able to see a medical doctor. And I think a lot of these facilities get away with being able to give people the bare minimum. So sometimes somebody will make a request to go see a doctor after many attempts. They’re finally able to somebody. And they might get something like Tylenol or ibuprofen to treat a much more severe issue. So, you know, I think once they’re even able to speak with any type of medical care staff, the level of care is truly substandard.

Alex Wagner: We’re going to get into who’s actually running these prisons in a second, but are there doctors at on-site at the facility? I would assume there are.

Melissa Shepard: There are, you know, and they sometimes they’re the medical staff isn’t necessarily staffed there, but they’ll go visit the facility. Sometimes if it is a pretty extreme medical condition, and they will send them to a local hospital. Um, and, you know, I think that’s, that’s a whole another can of worms where if, if our client ends up going to one of these hospitals, they are taken off the ICE detainee locator. They will not tell their attorneys which hospital they’re located in. So they essentially go into a legal black hole and we’re not able to talk to them and counsel them and advise them.

Alex Wagner: Wow, okay, so I mean you can understand the desperation and first of all. You know, we of course wanted to speak to a detainee. This is that’s an impossibility sometimes family members and lawyers can’t track track down detainees. There’s so little information coming out of these detention centers. It gives it gives you real context into the hunger strikes that are happening I mean that’s we talked about the Delaney detention center in New Jersey. That’s where there’s a pretty high profile hunger strike apparently underway, although the federal government is denying that. There’s also a hunger strike, correct me if I’m wrong, at the Adelanto Detention Center, which is two hours northeast of Los Angeles. Can you give us any information on that and what started it?

Melissa Shepard: I believe that it started around May 22nd, so we’re, you know, running into a little over a week here at this point, but what started it is basically the detainees got together and said, we are fed up with being treated as subhuman, where we are not even given the basic necessities that we need to survive. And in fact, for many of them, their health conditions are worsening while in the detention center. So. It was a coordinated effort in our understanding as it started with approximately 20 individuals. As of yesterday, we talked to one of our clients who is participating in the hunger strike, and he said that it has risen to about 120 individuals. Um, and they are just protesting these unlivable conditions, um, anywhere from the food and water that we discussed to basic sanitary conditions, they, they don’t have regular janitorial services in there. And so. The individuals who are detained in these facilities are taking turns amongst the other people who are in their area as to who’s on duty to clean any particular day because they don’t want to sit there in their own filth.

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: We’ve heard reports that in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, detention facilities are effectively cutting communication lines during hunger strikes or as soon after they start so that people can’t be in touch with their lawyers or family members. Have you heard about that and is that legal?

Melissa Shepard: No, it’s definitely not legal. I think this is something that we continue to see with under this administration. They’re doing a lot of illegal acts to really impede due process, but that is something we’ve heard for the Adelanto facility in particular. At least the day the hunger strike started, phone lines were cut and nobody was able to make any outgoing call. And obviously it’s a concern. People, in addition to being detained in these facilities, people have their legal cases going on. We need to be able to access our clients, prepare them for their hearings. So these types of retaliation measures are unfortunately very common. Um, our understanding is at least one person who was part of the hunger strike in Adelanto was put into solitary confinement as a form of retaliation. Um, so they’re, they’re definitely the officers there are definitely keeping an eye on who’s participating and trying to intimidate them into giving up.

Alex Wagner: Are the hunger strikes giving them leverage?

Melissa Shepard: I don’t know that it’s necessarily giving them leverage, but I think it’s putting a lot of pressure on those people who are running the facility. We understand that they are trying to get people to eat by any means necessary by bringing them actually good, delicious, nutritious food that they’ve been denied all these months. But I do know, you know, as one other form of retaliation, some of our clients have let us know that uh, they saw the news that there are hunger strikes happening across the US. They saw it on the tv and when the officers noticed that that is what was being portrayed on the news they cut off the tv but I will say seeing solidarity across the country and other detention centers has given them more joy and unity to keep going and fighting for what they know is right.

Alex Wagner: The other piece of this that that that that seems to be really taxing for the detainees is the pace at which their cases are being processed and heard. I mean, at the start, when this podcast first started, one of our first episodes was with an immigration judge who had just been fired, part of a systematic hollowing out of the judiciary meant to hear these cases and hear them in a thoughtful or at least expeditious manner. And she was just talking about the extraordinary backlog that existed back then, right? And it seems like, and Senator Kim was one of the people that sort of brought this, I think, national focus on it, was just the pace, the extraordinary delays people face in detention, getting their cases heard. What is the process like at this point, as far as you understand it?

Melissa Shepard: Yeah, I think you’re right. We’re we’re regularly talking to folks who have not had a hearing in months.

Alex Wagner: Wow.

Melissa Shepard: And especially for somebody who has never had any type of criminal interaction, which is many of these detainees.

Alex Wagner: It’s the vast majority, isn’t it? I mean, I think somewhere I read something like 68 to 70% of the people inside have no record.

Melissa Shepard: Yeah, that’s absolutely correct. And so going from somebody who has had no interaction with any type of criminal justice system to going to literally being put in an ICE prison is absolutely jarring. But you’re right, there are delays. And I think, unfortunately, one tactic that this administration has used to try and deal with the backlog has been to pre-termit cases, essentially say, well, I don’t think that you’re going to have a good chance of winning, so let’s go ahead and close out this case. So people are not even able to get to the point where they’re able to fight their case in court. Interesting that you mentioned the immigration judge, but it’s very obvious that the immigration judges still on the bench are under a lot of pressure to not grant cases or grant really high bonds. We had two clients last week who have no criminal history whatsoever, have lived in the U.S. for decades, have children, have had lived their entire lives here, and they were given a $20,000 bond.

Alex Wagner: Wow. I can’t even imagine, like you make such an important point, which is people who, these are people who may not have their paperwork to be American citizens for their green cards, but they have been living life as Americans without crime for decades. They have CVS pharmacy prescriptions that they pick up. They have cell phones that they use to call their people with. They, you know, they’re, they are living life like everybody else. And one day, all of a sudden that life is snatched away from them and they’re not sent to anything that resembles this country. I mean, it just sounds so extraordinarily appalling. It’s amazing and it’s staggering to think that this is being done in our name to thousands and thousands of innocent people. Which brings me to my question, like, who’s running all of this? GEO group, right? This is a private company, GEO group, that’s GEO for anybody who’s gonna Google it. That’s been running a lot of the largest detention centers in the country, right, Melissa? Is it a coincidence that all of the hunger strikes being carried out by detainees right now are at GEO group run detention facilities, ICE prisons?

Melissa Shepard: Yeah, it’s absolutely not a coincidence. I mean, these, these facilities know what they’re doing. They’re working very closely with ICE to make conditions as deplorable as possible so that people give up on their cases. GEO’s purpose is to their I mean, they’re a for profit prison company, they have billions of dollars in revenue, it is in their interest to keep as many people incarcerated as long as possible. We’ve talked about the delays with their immigration cases. Sometimes we hear from people who have said, I asked to be removed to whatever country it is. And there they are two months later, still unable to leave the United States, even though that’s what they’ve asked for.

Alex Wagner: Why is that? Why would you be denied just because GEO Group wants to keep them as a money-making detainee in one of their prison systems?

Melissa Shepard: I mean, I think a lot of it has to do with the inefficiencies of coordinating deportation flights. You know, they expanded the number of people being detained in this facility exponentially. I think the Adelanto facility in particular had gotten down to less than a handful of detainees and were pretty much at max capacity now, you know, with almost 2,000 people in that facility.

Alex Wagner: Yeah I think I read that it was like 13 people inside the system and now it’s 2000. I mean along with those just the extraordinary uptick in numbers is an extraordinary uptake in profit for GEO Group. In 2024 the company made 32 million dollars and they made in 2025 over 250 million dollars. The for-profit nature of all this seems incredibly ethically compromised. And it also suggests that not only does GEO Group benefit from having people languish in its prisons, it benefits from giving them the cheapest care possible. And I mean, care because these people’s lives are in their hands. Do you think that explains why they’re underfed, drinking dirty water, not seeing doctors and otherwise, you know, having their spiritual legs cut from beneath them as they sit in these ICE prisons?

Melissa Shepard: Yeah, I mean, it’s very obvious that it’s in GEO’s best interest to provide the very minimum care that they can for people who are being detained there. You know, they can say, we’re giving you water. They’re also not going to talk about the fact that this is literally dirty water, the containers that are holding the water have mold growing on them. So I think they’re able to get away with saying we’re providing the basic standard things that anybody needs to survive, but in reality this is continuing to cause additional health and mental health problems for people who are being detained in these types of conditions.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, I mean, it’s just it’s worth noting when you talk about GEO Group and their incentive structure here. President Trump has appointed, I think his name is David Venturella, who’s a former executive at the GEO group to replace Todd Lyons as the head of ICE. Tom Homan, I believe the Border Czar worked at the GEO group as well. It’s a staging ground for Trump administration officials dealing with immigration. Let me just ask you, Melissa, you know, you give me this insanely bleak picture of what’s happening. What is the kind of, what is the emotional tenor of the conversations you’ve been having? I mean, it’s helpful to know that when folks inside these ICE prisons see hunger strikes or forms of protest blossoming around the country, it’s a sense of solidarity and perhaps even a source of hope. But how, what can you tell me about the sort of emotional aspect of all of this?

Melissa Shepard: You’re right, it’s really difficult when we talk to our clients who’ve been detained there for months, you know, maybe they were the breadwinner of their family and they’re leaving behind their, their pregnant partner and a couple of US citizen children. You know, they had a business in the US and were paying taxes. It’s life altering, not only for the people who are detained, but also for their family on the outside who has to completely rethink how they’re going to function without one very important member of their family. So I know that that emotional toll of being torn apart from their family is is really difficult. Many of these people came to the United States seeking safety and have said, being here, I at least know I’m in the United States. If I go back to my home country, I will be killed. So they’d rather take their chances of these absolutely horrible conditions rather than going back to certain deaths. So I mean, I think that is when you know that people are here truly trying to seek safety and they’re not just here to try and take advantage of the system as, you know, this administration has painted.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, they’ve made that test incredibly grueling. But man, to still believe in the goodness of this country and to want to stay here tells you about who they are as people and citizens of our democracy, if not actually with the paperwork. And Melissa Shepard from Immigration Defenders Law Center, it is really eye-opening to get this perspective. I’m really grateful for, first of all, all the work that you’re doing. And for the information and the stories that you’re able to share with us. So thanks for joining the podcast.

Melissa Shepard: Yeah, thank you, Alex. Thank you for just highlighting and humanizing our clients and the very real people who are stuck in this system. It’s absolutely important to keep remembering that these are real people.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, this is ongoing. This is an ongoing situation that Republicans in Congress would like to throw billions of dollars more money at. Thank you, Melissa. Good luck out there.

Melissa Shepard: Thank you Alex.

Alex Wagner: After the break, we will put all of this into context with the immigration reporter Caitlin Dickerson.

[AD BREAK]

Alex Wagner: Caitlin, when we wanted to tackle this topic, I thought we got to get Caitlin Dickerson because your reporting on this has been so essential. So thank you for joining the podcast.

Caitlin Dickerson: Thanks for having me here.

Alex Wagner: I want to start with what’s happening in Washington. It’s a fluid situation always when Republicans are running the government, but they are supposed to vote. I believe it is tonight. Again, I’m timestamping this. It’s Wednesday afternoon on the East Coast. But they’re supposed to vote on a reconciliation bill that will give ICE another, well ICE and Customs and Border Patrol another $72 billion. Given how well-funded their efforts already are, what do you think that practically means for those agencies to just be awash in money?

Caitlin Dickerson: I think it means a lot of deportations, a lot of detentions, a continued expansion of the detention system that we have, and a furtherance of President Trump’s promise that he campaigned on of mass deportations. So yes, there have been shakeups. Yes, the ICE activity in the streets slowed down, certainly after what happened in January in Minnesota when two American citizen protesters were killed. But the detentions and deportations continue, and even despite the shakeups, you know, Secretary Kristi Noem losing her job, being replaced by Senator Markwayne Mullin, the messaging out of DHS and out of Tom Homan, who is sort of the de facto head of this whole operation, has been clear that mass deportations continue. He Tom Homan has even said things. That suggest that we really haven’t seen what mass deportations even look like yet, that they’re going to be even more aggressive. And so this funding certainly allows for that to happen.

Alex Wagner: Yeah I mean, the posture. There may not be as many expensive horse rental bills as there were under Secretary Noem, but the posture of the administration remains incredibly antagonistic, pugilistic, even. Markwayne Mullin, the Homeland Security Secretary, said this on Fox last week.

[clip of Markwayne Mullin]: We’re currently drawing up plans to say, listen, in these sanctuary cities where the local radical left democrats aren’t allowing us to do our job and enforce federal laws, then we shouldn’t be processing international flights into their into their cities either because they don’t want us to enforce immigration, but they want us to process immigration at their facilities. Nothing about that makes sense to me.

Alex Wagner: Okay, that is the scene of protests outside of Delaney Hall in New Jersey, in Newark, which is of course home to Newark Airport. I think the suggestion from the Homeland Security Secretary is they are no longer going to process flights coming into Newark because of protests related to a hunger strike that is happening inside Delaney Hall, which the federal government denies. And that customs agents are gonna stop processing at arrivals into Newark Airport, which is like, I don’t know, is it the dictionary definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face? Like that’s a huge airport in the United States. I’m sure there are lots of Republicans that use it. Also, really, this is the comeuppance? First, let me get your thoughts on Mullin’s suggestion here that this is the retaliatory strike. And then talk to me about what you think of him as DHS Secretary.

Caitlin Dickerson: So my colleague Nick Miroff at the Atlantic did a great story about this plan to cut off international flight processing in sanctuary cities as a way to retaliate or pressure those cities into being less obstructive or to go along with the deportation campaign. And it really doesn’t make any sense. You alluded to that, you know, cutting off international flights to cities really doesn’t hurt the city. It hurts the airlines. People can still get where they want to go, you know, travelers who want to come to New York City, for example, they’re going to get here, whether they fly into Newark, JFK, LaGuardia, or Baltimore, and then drive, you it’s not really going to directly impact. It doesn’t seem at least anything like tourism or local economies, what it does is just create more chaos and frustration for travelers, who, as you pointed out, are Republicans and Democrats who are already facing much higher prices when they’re buying their airline tickets because of the price of fuel, because of war in Iran. And so it doesn’t seem like it will be a successful strategy in any way, but I think it reflects that this administration is really grabbing at straws here, trying to find ways to force cities and states that oppose these mass deportations to go along with them. And this is something that Trump has been doing since the first time he was president and started attempting strategies to go after sanctuary cities. I mean, you see this again and again in his immigration enforcement policies, again, across now two administrations, this kind of throwing spaghetti to the wall to see what sticks effort and that involves I think knowingly on the part of the Trump administration, lots of efforts that they know are going to get tied up in court, that they know aren’t ultimately going to stand up legally, but that they hope will over time chip away at their goals. And so I think, you know, Senator Mullin sort of subbed in here for Kristi Noem as secretary. Obviously she brought her own unique flair to the job, but this DHS secretary job is it’s somebody who’s doing the White House’s bidding, who’s during President Trump’s bidding and Stephen Miller, his chief advisor on immigration’s bidding. And they chose someone who they thought would be a good soldier and go along with what the directives from the White house are. And I think that’s very much what we’re seeing in Senator Mullin.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, and replete with terrible, terrible ideas and execution much like Kristi Noem. I mean, speaking of terrible and insanely stupid ideas, sorry, I’m going to editorialize here, but the move to require green card applicants to apply from their home countries seems pretty catastrophic. Can you offer your thoughts on the practical realities of changing American policy on green holders like that.

Caitlin Dickerson: Yeah, and it seems like the White House is already backing away from at least what they initially announced that policy would look like. But I think my takeaway from that announcement is that, you know, this whole period of time, you have President Trump’s campaign promise to go after people who were illegal lawbreakers. It’s predicated on the idea that if you follow the rules. That you can stay and that we’re not deporting people out of animus. We’re not deporting out of, you know, hatred for immigrants, but we’re deporting people because we want to restore the rule of law. This is what the administration says. And really encourage people by force to only enter the United States if they do things the right way. We know there are a lot of things that are wrong with that narrative that don’t make sense. For most people who want to come to the United states, there is no right way. But I think at the same time that the messaging is what I just described, you see this administration eliminating ways to legalize, ways to—legal processes to gain status, either temporary or permanent, and then turning around and saying, oh, you’re illegal, and so you have to leave. So that includes getting rid of TPS for certain countries, temporary protected status. That includes. You know, going after DACA, which is this long time effort that Trump has been engaged in to take away another form of temporary status. And now it’s an effort that’s targeting one of the only ways, frankly, that people who are in the United States without status to legalize at all. And and I think the initiative, if it moves forward, even in a more limited way, I think will really help the public understand the reality of. What’s happening, I mean, I think it’ll be devastating for families, absolutely, and result in far more family separations than we’re even seeing now, and there are many. But I can’t tell you how often I now am getting emails and DMs from readers who say, you know, Caitlin, you’re writing about this person who’s been in the United States for 10 years or 15 years. Why didn’t they just take the time to legalize? Why didn’t they do it the right way? And I really have to explain to people that there often is no right way. And so this policy to make green card applicants leave the country is an example of the administration taking away one of these major avenues that exist. And so, it’s really putting people in an impossible situation. If you tell them you can only stay here legally, but we’re gonna eliminate all the ways for you to stay here legally.

Alex Wagner: I mean, well, and you talk about family separations, you’ve done really great reporting on this. And I really think that when we talk about the immigration crisis here in the United States, and I say that from the sort of human rights point of view, not the idea that we’re being flooded by brown people. But when you talk about the crisis and the emotional and the sort of the trauma and the moral stain that will be left on the country, the reality is that family separators continue. They’re just happening on the other side of the border, right? Before people were coming to the country having their children ripped away from them. Now, at the border and border processing, now they are being deported from the country at without their children in many cases, their children are left in who knows whose hands. Can you talk to me a little bit about what you have seen in your reporting and and the experience of parents who don’t have their papers and even maybe sometimes those that do as they’re detained and deported outside of the U.S.

Caitlin Dickerson: Like you mentioned, by and large now, people who are being removed from the United States deported, they’ve been living here. And many have been living for years or decades, have homes, have families. And so it’s a very different thing to separate a person like that from their family and their livelihood. It creates logistical challenges. Obviously, it creates emotional challenges and bureaucratic and diplomatic challenges. It’s a big mess. And. You know, the administration has said, we’re not separating families. That’s sort of their official line. And that obviously goes against research that’s been done. Most recently, Brookings came out with a report estimating that the parents of more than 200,000 children living in the United States have been detained and that most of those parents have been deported. The numbers are just huge. And so I wanted to try to verify that with real examples, but you know, also just kind of help give a shape to it because we can look at the data, but. Who are these people and how are their families being affected? How are their children being affected? So I went to Honduras to the airport where deportees, every deportee from the United States to Honduras arrives. And I spent a week there embedded and I talked to people essentially as they were getting off the plane from the Unites States. And sure enough, more than half of the people that I interviewed said that they had left children behind. I should say the percentage probably would have been higher if I focused on people who were, you know, ages 20 to 40, but I didn’t. I also interviewed teenagers. I interviewed elderly people. So, obviously, this isn’t a statistical sample, but it was very, very easy, frankly, to find people who’d been forced to leave children behind and who talked about ICE policy being violated again and again. So ICE has a policy that requires officers to ask actually anybody who’s in their custody at each encounter, are you the parent of a minor child? And to confirm whether a parent wants to either be reunited with their child prior to deportation or to designate a guardian, and if so, do so in a sworn statement or a written statement. Most of the parents I talked to said they were never asked if they had children at all. And I interviewed several parents who said that they begged for help, either reuniting with their child or just being able to make legal arrangements because lots of these children left behind are living in homes with neighbors, with extended relatives, volunteers, people from church who don’t have the legal authority to take them to get medical care, to enroll them in school or counseling or any other services they may need, especially since they don’t now have a parent there to pay for their basic needs. And so parents were begging for help. Trying from ICE officers to make these arrangements in advance of being deported. I had one mom who told me that, you know, she left her three-year-old behind and an ICE officer said to her, it didn’t matter. And in fact, didn’t even note on her paperwork that she was a parent at all.

Alex Wagner: Wow. I mean, this goes to whether that’s just focused cruelty or terrible training or both. But the idea that three-year-olds are being left behind, they’re just collateral damage for a disorganized and inhumane system is just, again, we talk about the family separations policy as if it’s in the past, but it’s ongoing. In my reporting, talking to these undocumented parents who said, you know, we, some of them had a plan for what would happen if mom or dad didn’t come home, but it was almost unthinkable, right? Like your mom would go off to work, and you might never see her again, and who are you going to call if and when that happened? And this is happening to the tune of 200,000 families, potentially. I mean, I also remember in Family Separation 1.0, there were no resources to try and help. I mean, it was completely ad hoc in terms of the groups that existed to both intake and help reunite these families. And I’m wondering, you know, being given that you were in Honduras and you talked to people who were dealing with these deportees as they arrived in a country that maybe wasn’t even their own, what resources exist?

Caitlin Dickerson: Very, very few, in some cases, none. Alex, I mean, there are some aid groups in the United States. KIND is one of them.

Alex Wagner: That’s Kids in Need of Defense.

Caitlin Dickerson: Thank you, yes. There are a handful of groups in the United states that are working to try to help these families, but there is no government that’s taken responsibility for them, and there’s no formal process for families to try and reunite with one another. I mean I think the one thing that. So to speak, obviously, because we’re talking about a devastating situation regardless, so to speak the families that were separated during the first Trump administration, what they may have had going for them is that both the children and the parents for the most part were in U.S. Government custody, so the U. S. Government had some responsibility to do something with them except for the hundreds of parents that ended up just being deported without their children. Now we’re talking about children in the United States, many of whom are United States citizens. So they’re not in removal proceedings. They can’t be deported. And then parents who’ve been dropped off in another country. And the United States has really washed its hands of responsibility for them once they land there. And so you can see how even just from a diplomatic vantage point, it’s not clear who’s in charge or who has any responsibility to get involved. And the hurdles that these families face for getting their children back are just massive because. The children have mixed nationalities. Some are American, like I said. Some are from the country where the parent is currently. Some were born when families were on their migration route. I can’t tell you how many families I’ve met who spent years on the move and often tried to resettle in other countries closer to their home country before they reached the United States, weren’t able to find stability or safety or an economic way to live. And so they kept going. And so you might have a child who was born in a third country and trying to get travel documents and legal authorization to move that child across borders from your home country that you presumably fled for a very specific reason, whether it was economic strain or your safety or what have you, it’s an impossible maze to really try to confront.

Alex Wagner: I mean, and I assume the record keeping in and around where these parents even have been deported to is as abysmal as it was in Family Separations 1.0, when it was just kind of like, we don’t know where anybody is. Good luck.

Caitlin Dickerson: Yeah, I think a gap in records that’s most striking this time around is just that lack of documentation around whether people detained are the parent of a minor child. So DHS has reported some numbers but they seem to be, when compared with records that have been reviewed by academics at Brookings and other places, the University of Washington independently, there’s no alignment. That DHS seems to be really significantly undercounting the number of parents that detained and deported. And that’s no surprise to me, given the interviews that I mentioned to you where parents said, you know, nobody asked me if I had a child. So there’s no documentation of these separations at all.

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Alex Wagner: So you have these deportees who, if their parents have been separated from their families in many cases, have no idea when they’re gonna see them again, have maybe no contact with their legal representatives because they’ve been shuttled around detention centers and have not really had strong communication lines, which is a euphemism. You reported that as of April, ICE is holding 60,000 people in custody. And those are the people that in many cases are landing on Honduras where you were doing on the ground reporting. They don’t have homes in Honduras or they don’t have families in Honduras. They are facing in many cases the threats of gang violence or other incredibly perilous situations on the ground. There are some, the Washington Post has reported on deportees who are being sent back to countries like Togo where they fled human rights violations like genital mutilation. People return to these countries and return is probably the wrong word. They are abducted from the United States and sent to these country. And not only is it emotionally traumatizing, economically devastating, but it’s incredibly dangerous. You worked. Is it just church-run groups that are on the ground as people kind of come into these societies that they have no real place in that could be dangerous for them to reenter?

Caitlin Dickerson: So it varies country to country. In Honduras, where I was reporting, the primary group on the ground is Scalabrinian nuns. And so there’s a Scalabrinian nun who runs as a civil employee of the Honduran government, the reception center where deportees arrive, but she also lives on a small compound. It’s about 10 minutes from the airport. That has a shelter for deportees who have nowhere to go. And there are many of them because, as we’ve discussed, many have not been to Honduras for many years or decades, don’t have anybody there to take them in. And just to give you a sense of the security situation, people are returning to that head nun who I interviewed just days before I arrived in San Pedro Sula. She herself was tied up and robbed at knife point in this property where the shelter exists. Because the landscape in Honduras right now, it remains the gang-ridden country that it has been and that has led so many people to flee to the United States in the first place. So the country is really divided. It’s sort of a patchwork of territories that are controlled by competing gangs. And so, you know, I heard from the nuns. That they’ve had several deportees killed within days of their arrival to Honduras. And lots of the people that I interviewed were grappling with that, who said they’d left children in the United States, that they, of course, wanted to be reunited with their children, but they left Honduras because they feared for their lives in the first place, and those same risks still exist. People who had active and very specific threats and were showing the evidence of those threats, they’re in an impossible circumstance right now because the question is, do they reunite with their child who they desperately want to be with or did they leave their child and maybe not see them again for years or longer because they don’t feel that it’s safe enough to bring their child home. So the nun and the Scalabrinian organization, they were really surprised, frankly, by this robbery thinking we’re in a heavily Catholic country, maybe we’ll have some degree of insulation. And so the fact that their property was breached and that she was robbed, I think. Just really gives you a sense that nobody is safe or as they put it, nobody is untouchable.

Alex Wagner: I mean, you know, you’re listing off this litany of a just impossible, an impossible situation, a devastating situation, and yet the conversation nationally around immigration, I mean we’re talking about it this week because Senate Republicans are trying to give ICE and CPB 72 billion dollars, right? The reason they’re doing it now is because Democrats shut down DHS in a bid to get reforms to these agencies, and you know that effort was not successful. The Democrats don’t have power, Republicans do. We are where we are. It’s going to be passed through reconciliation in all likelihood. But it does bring to the fore the question of like, how do we conduct some oversight over this? Republicans seem uninterested in the question of reform. Congressional Democrats have not been able to get into these facilities. You know, at the beginning of the podcast, we played some sound from Senator Andy Kim, who was trying to get into the Delaney detention center in New Jersey, the state he represents, and was pepper sprayed. I believe it was Maxine Dexter, who went down to San Benito to try and get in touch with unaccompanied minors who were being housed there by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and that office basically scared the unaccompanied miners into not speaking with her. I mean, this is all happening in many cases, either in the sort of bowels of the bureaucracy of our immigration system or behind the four walls of a detention center. And I wonder, you know, how optimistic you are about the ability to, I mean, you’re one of the few people that is firsthand reporting on this, but the national conversation has withered since the days of Alex Pretti and Renée Nicole Good’s murder, because that was the murder of American citizens in plain sight.

Caitlin Dickerson: That’s right. And so it’s really a question for me, you know, I don’t know what it sort of takes to keep this issue on the public’s radar when there are so many things, frankly, going on that feel urgent in the country right now. But I do think that there’s a real strategy behind pulling back a strategy on the White House’s part behind pulling back on the spectacle of ICE, you know, that the horses, the, you know violent clashes, although they haven’t gone away entirely look at Delaney Hall, but that the vastness of the violent clashes with protesters in the streets, there’s a strategy there in, you can very much continue with the deportation campaign, a very effective one, one that impacts hundreds of thousands of people a year, and you can do that pretty quietly. The attack that the Trump administration took right after taking office the second time was to make a splash and to really try to scare people into leaving and sort of brag about the delivering on these campaign promises that Trump had made, obviously that didn’t sit well with the public, but that by no means indicates that deportations need to stop, that family separations need to stop. They can continue. And I think when it comes to Congress and the amount of leverage that Democrats do don’t have, you know, right after the election, Democrats really seemed to be taking a moment to process that the country had had voted in this president who made a very clear promise of mass deportations. And so, you know, they were quieter when it came to supporting this originally $175 billion essentially blank check that went to funding immigration enforcement with no oversight attached to it whatsoever. Alex, I mean, it was it was a really stunning amount of money, but also just amount of freedom and Blanche. That was granted. And now, obviously, there has been enough public backlash that Democrats are trying to push to get into the nuance and the details. And there’s a lot that Congress can do to limit deportations and limit kind of ICE activity, CBP activity, without eliminating by any means immigration enforcement writ large. Congress can set determinations for, first of all. Creating or protecting legal pathways that allow people to sort of make things right in the eyes of the law to gain some sort of legal status that has more protection than the ones that President Trump is sort of just dispensing with the signature. But then Congress can also set rules about, ICE behavior can create oversight offices, some of which Trump has really diminished and limited. There are requirements that come with appropriations. That’s typical, Congress hands out money, but it requires certain things of agencies in order for them to qualify for that money. And so that’s where I think congressional Democrats could play a role in shifting what this deportation campaign looks like and who’s impacted and perhaps, you know, introducing protections for, for example, children who could be left without one or both parents.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, I mean, you talk about the money that is at the root of, I mean, with money should come congressional oversight, right? Congress controls the purse and they could put protections in place. I am stunned to learn about what I see is clear cut corruption at the top levels of ICE and immigration enforcement, the revolving door that exists between the private companies that run these detention facilities in specific, I’m I’m talking about GEO Group. And the government officials who were once employed or will be employed by GEO Group, who then dole out millions of dollars to this group to help them run what by all accounts sound like terribly run facilities that are almost depraved in what they offer people who are being held there for months on end. Can you talk about the exchange, the cross-pollination between who’s running ICE and who’s running a private security companies that are in charge with handling deportees.

Caitlin Dickerson: Yeah, this is an issue that has existed almost since ICE’s inception. There are a number of private prison companies that operate. The two biggest ones are GEO, as you mentioned, and CoreCivic. And you have regular movement between the highest echelons of DHS and its component agencies, including ICE and the executive ranks of those private prison companies who are then negotiating federal contracts to open and and detention facilities. For millions and millions, tens of millions of dollars, and there’s an incentive that you can just sort of imagine on the part of somebody who might want to, let’s say, leave public service one day and work as a high-paid executive for a private company.

Alex Wagner: Who would that be, Caitlin? I can’t imagine anybody in off—I’m kidding. Go ahead.

Caitlin Dickerson: Yeah, or rather, I guess I should say there’s a disincentive to, when it comes to holding these private companies to account and saying, wait, do we really need to be paying this much for this warehouse, or what are you actually doing to make sure that detainees are safe, that health and safety standards are being maintained, that food is edible and available at all whatsoever? I want to say, legally speaking, you described it as clear corruption. They’re following the rules, right? The rules are set by Congress and the rules that exist don’t actually limit the existence of this revolving door. You know, I think the private prison companies are very clear when I’ve reached out to them and reported on this many times that they follow the reporting requirements that exist. That’s another place where Congress could weigh in but hasn’t. And so the reality is that what they’re doing is perfectly legal.

Alex Wagner: Yeah, well, and here we are with detainees being, by all accounts, by some accounts, I shouldn’t say not all, inedible food that’s covered in mold, dirty water, appalling facilities, denied medical care until it is life-threatening. I mean, at any rate. But to your point, this is all as it is, as the law suggests it must be. So until and unless something changes GEO Group will continue to make exponentially large profits on a policy that is enacted by the Congress of the United States and signed off on by the President of the United States. I got one more question for you, Caitlin, because, you know, we’re looking ahead to sort of what we can expect from ICE and you make the really… Important point that ICE has changed its tactics publicly, but privately behind closed doors, it continues to be as dehumanizing and base as it has been since the Trump administration rode back into office. The World Cup is coming up. I’m excited about that as a soccer fan. I am not excited about the prospect of ICE conducting raids. I mean, Secretary of State Rubio has said that ICE is not going to operate inside of stadiums. But other Trump officials haven’t ruled that out. Do you have a thought on on the like? First of all, do you have any intel on what the plan is for these mass sporting events that are going to bring together people from all all backgrounds, all, I’m sure, immigration statuses, people from inside and outside the country for an event that’s supposed to knit us together as a world community? Do you have any sense that ICE is planning anything in and around the World Cup? What’s your expectation, I suppose, as we sort of try and calibrate our level of trepidation?

Caitlin Dickerson: I wish I could say that I had a crystal ball or somebody who could tell me they knew exactly what was gonna happen. I don’t, you know, and I think the reality is that they might not know because what we’ve seen repeatedly is that sometimes to sort of fear-monger is the plan itself. You know, to scare and intimidate people is the plan itself. And then… And that ICE may have never actually intended to follow through. But it’s also the case that sometimes a big enforcement initiative is planned. I remember reporting back in, I think it was 2018, on a plan to specifically go out into the country and target families and detain families and family detention. And the plan leaked and then ICE backed down because of the backlash that ensued. So I think that going after stadiums where cities do have lots of money on the line right now. There’s gonna be a ton of eyes on these places and local economies are really hoping to benefit from the World Cup. And this is supposed to be a celebratory fun thing for the world to pay attention to the United States during and to turn that into a spectacle of immigration enforcement seems like it would carry significant political risks.

Alex Wagner: Mm.

Caitlin Dickerson: But I also don’t think you would ever be wise to rule something like that out, because obviously, we’ve seen these calculations go both ways, and this administration absolutely pursue enforcement that was very politically risky, that did have backlash, and that they followed through with anyway. I think another risk around the World Cup that I want to raise that’s concerning is that there are lots of examples that have cropped up. Of people posing as immigration officers and doing so to rob people, to manipulate them, to take advantage of them, either because they’re trying to make money or just be cruel. And some of these cases has even been violent. And so, one big question is, are ICE officers gonna be present at stadiums? But another is, are there gonna be random people who wear masks and pretend to be law enforcement officers and do that to take advantage of vulnerable people and put them in harm’s way because that is also part of the fallout from the campaign that’s underway right now.

Alex Wagner: Just terrorizing brown people, whether you have the license to do it or not. And giving a middle finger to the global community because Make America Great Again. Okay, we are going to leave it on that depressing note. I still hold out hope that the World Cup can be a joyous event. Maybe watch it from home. Maybe don’t go to a game. Caitlin Dickerson, you are a fount of information and it is a real boon to have you here on Runaway Country. I’m so grateful for your time and obviously everything you do to report on one of the most under-reported traumatizing moments of our recent American history. So thank you, Caitlin, for your

Caitlin Dickerson: My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Alex. It’s a really important conversation, so I’m glad that we could do it.

Alex Wagner: We try. [music plays] That is our show for this week. Please don’t forget to check out the show and our rapid response videos on our YouTube channel, Runaway Country with Alex Wagner. And if for some unknown reason you’re not sick of me yet, please take a look at my Substack How the Hell with Alex Wagner. Last but not least, if you’ve been impacted directly by the Trump administration or its policies, send us an email or a one minute voice note at runawaycountry@crooked.com and we may be in touch to feature your story. A sincere thank you to everyone who has written in already. Runaway Country is a Crooked Media production. Our senior producer is Alyona Minkovski. Our producer is Emma Illick-Frank. Production support from Megan Larson and Lacy Roberts. The show is mixed and edited by Charlotte Landes. Ben Hethcoat is our video producer and Matt DeGroot is our head of production. Audio support comes from Kyle Seglin. Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Adriene Hill is our Head of News and Politics. Katie Long is our Executive Producer of Development. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writer’s Guild of America East.