One Refugee’s Journey Through ICE Detention

20:06Jonathan Blitzer:That's Andrea Nunes, an immigration lawyer in New York. Our story continues in a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stay with us.

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21:34That's policygenius.com. The Wired newsroom is known for award-winning reporting on how technology shapes our world. On Wired's Uncanny Valley, we take that curiosity even further. Each week, journalists from Wired break down the biggest stories in tech while speaking directly with the people building, challenging, and reshaping the future. Is the AI boom sustainable? How do you protect your privacy in an age of constant surveillance? Uncanny Valley tackles the questions driving today's tech debates and lighting up your group chats. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

22:11Jonathan Blitzer:This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Jonathan Blitzer. I'm a staff writer at The New Yorker, and I'm sitting in today for David Remnick. On today's episode, we're taking a close look at the ways that the Trump administration has been overhauling the nation's immigration system. We'll continue with the story of a man from Guinea who was detained after an immigration hearing. That's an unprecedented step that ICE began taking in 2025. The man's name is Alsani. We're only using his first name for his safety. At his asylum hearing, a judge denied Alsani's asylum status, but she granted what's called withholding of removal.

22:47Jonathan Blitzer:That meant that Alsani couldn't be deported back to Guinea. Before Trump's second term, most people who had won withholding of removal would be released from government custody. But that's not what happened to Alsani. He spent the rest of the fall in Moshannon. By December, he'd been locked up for six months, even though the government wasn't appealing the judge's ruling in his case. And meanwhile, the Trump administration was in the midst of a highly public battle about withholding of removal. Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Remember Kilmar Abrego-Garcia from El Salvador? That's the Maryland man who, in the beginning of the Trump administration, was picked up and deported to El Salvador, mistakenly put in a prison there, and then had to come back to the U.S.

23:32There's an ongoing fight to deport him to Liberia. Abrego's attorneys say he should be sent to Costa Rica instead.

23:39Jonathan Blitzer:In the first year of Trump's second term, the government deported some 15 ,000 people to third countries. One group wound up in South Sudan, another in Eswatini. Afghans and Iranians were sent to Panama, a Colombian woman to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It wasn't just that these people were deported to an unfamiliar country. That country was often just a short stop on the road back to the place they'd fled. This has now happened to two of Andrea's Guinean clients. Both had one withholding of removal in immigration court, and both were deported to Ghana. But the government of Ghana doesn't care about the ruling of a U.S.

24:17Jonathan Blitzer:immigration judge. And so Ghana has since sent both men back to Guinea. Both of them are currently in hiding. So even with the withholding of removal decision in his case, Alsani, like Abrego Garcia, was in a new kind of jeopardy. If they're sending me to a third country, they're just putting me into a worse and worse situation. There was a bond hearing to determine if Alsani could be released now that he had won withholding of removal. But it was full of mishaps. The translator kept getting the facts wrong, garbling Alsani's answers. Instead of a rash from his illness, the interpreter said Alsani had pimples on his skin.

24:52Jonathan Blitzer:Sometimes the interpreter used French words, which Alsani couldn't understand. They lost the bond hearing. Andrea filed a motion to challenge the decision. In the meantime, though, Alsani and Andrea knew that he could be sent out of the country at any moment. They came up with plans for what to do if that seemed to be happening. We would practice. I would pretend to be ICE. And he would be Al Saini and I would be like, oh, Al Saini, we're going to send you to Ghana. And then Al Saini would like do his practice and he'd be like, I cannot be removed to Ghana because I have an appeal pending with the BIA and I have an automatic stay.

25:26But like we would do this.

25:28Jonathan Blitzer:You had to come up with a script. We would practice it all the time just because, you know, thankfully, again, Al Saini did speak. He speaks really. I'm really impressed by his English. Again, it's not good enough for court. But, you know, for... Well, he essentially learned it in immigration detention. In detention, yeah. It's so wild. But he can advocate for himself. The new American dream. Yeah. It's such an incredible dystopian version of cultural assimilation. But I thought to myself, okay, like, maybe if they accidentally try to send him somewhere, he can advocate for himself and they'll understand.

25:57Jonathan Blitzer:ICE tends to move people with little to no warning. Often, the only way that someone finds out that they are about to be moved is that their commissary account is frozen. They can't buy food or make calls. One day, late in December, Alsani's account stopped working. He tries to make a phone call, but can't. He and Andrea have a plan for this, too. They've put money on a friend's account. He calls Andrea and puts Alsani on the line. You know, my commentary's been shut off. He was really worried. He was like, I'm scared. And those are, like, I feel like the worst words to hear from someone, especially in his situation.

26:35Jonathan Blitzer:Within hours, Alsani's on a bus, heading who knows where. Once we got off the bus and then they took us into an airplane, then I said to myself, oh, wow, so they're finally actually going to be deporting me. So I was really, really worried at that point. When the plane finally lands, the ICE agents say, Some of you are staying here, but then others are going to be continuing. They read through a list of names. A few people get off. Alcini does not. The plane takes off again. Another landing, another list of names. Alcini stays shackled on the plane. They land for a third time, and finally... They call my name and said they pointed to a separate vehicle.

27:18They said that's where I was going to go in.

27:20Jonathan Blitzer:A short drive later, the van pulls into a prison complex. Alcini and the others are still in the United States. They're in Indiana at the Miami Correctional Center. Yeah, when I first get there, one other guy was getting released. and we ask him how the place looked like. And he says, the place no good. Immigration detention centers like Moshannon are not supposed to be like prisons. Most of the detainees are not criminals. But the Miami Correctional Facility is a prison. ICE rents space there. Malzani was put in a small cell with one cellmate. He couldn't go outside for recreation. We'll be locked up for 20 hours a day.

28:01The only time you will come out is to either eat or go take a shower.

28:06Jonathan Blitzer:So you spent 20 hours of every day in essentially a cell? Yes, there were two of us in a cell. The bathroom was also within that cell. Everything was there. What was the food like?

28:26The food was in, there was no food, really. It was only sandwich that they gave you, like a peanut butter sandwich or bologna sandwich. That's what you will get.

28:39Jonathan Blitzer:Alcini doesn't eat pork, so he'd have to trade the bologna sandwiches for something he could eat. For me to get a peanut butter sandwich, I needed two bologna sandwiches to get one peanut butter sandwich. That was the rate. That was the going rate. Many of the people working in the ICE detention center were inmates from the prison. Cleaning, doing other menial jobs. Alcini said the prisoners had more opportunities to be out of their cells than the immigrants did, which reminded me of something another person being detained by ICE told me recently. We're less than prisoners. Their staff, I think, was really violent.

29:15Alcini got pepper sprayed by staff there at least one time.

29:20Jonathan Blitzer:Weeks go by. Alcini says officers would come by to ask who was willing to be deported. They would also look for people who were willing to be sent to third countries. ICE will come every day and tell you so-and-so country is willing to take you, and so you just sign and get deported to that country. Did you know anyone who got sent to a third country, to a country that wasn't their home country? Yeah, I knew the Senegalese guy who got sent back to Ghana, but I knew a lot of people who got sent to a third country. countries that they were not from. So I better be detained than get out and do something good for my life than being sent back and getting killed.

30:06Because if you're taking me home, they will kill me. So if you're sending me home, I'll tell you to kill me right now.

30:14Jonathan Blitzer:Alcini and I talked about this a lot. He really means it when he says that he'd rather die in the U.S. than go back to Guinea. He and Andrea are increasingly desperate to get him out of detention. She files a petition known as a writ of habeas corpus. Habeas is one of the bedrock legal rights in a democracy. You cannot be held indefinitely without any actual charges. Andrea wants a judge to evaluate whether ICE could go on holding Alsani. At the Miami Correctional Facility, things are getting worse by the day. These are men from all over the world, locked up in abysmal conditions, with no idea when they might be released.

30:50You have to understand the state of mind of people in that kind of situation, because people are hopeless. And so they feel like they have nothing to lose. And so they are always frustrated. And it can take that frustration up onto you.

31:08Jonathan Blitzer:Fights sometimes broke out. Guards reacted harshly. They pepper sprayed men and threw them into solitary confinement, regardless of whether they were instigators or victims. One morning, Alsani is on the breakfast line when he notices another detainee having some sort of emotional breakdown. He was screaming and crying and saying, if they don't take him out of there, he's going to hurt someone. The guard said, if you want to kill yourself, kill yourself. You want to kill someone, kill someone. I don't care. Remember, Alsani is short and thin. In moments like this, he's an easy target. Before Alsani realizes what's even happening, the man is attacking him.

31:45This guy comes from behind me while we were waiting for food. He comes from behind me and ripped my dread and then almost took out my eye.

31:56Jonathan Blitzer:When the guards finally get the man off him, Alsani's lost a chunk of hair. His scalp is bleeding. But worse, he's really worried about his eye. He can't open it. It's bleeding badly. When he asks for medical attention... They said they don't care about it. They told me to get out of their face and leave. If I didn't leave, they were going to pepper spray me or stuff like that. Back in the cell later in the morning, when someone comes around to count the detainees, Alcini asks again for medical assistance. The woman doing the count says she'll ask, but she doesn't come back. A few hours later, someone else does, though, with major news, news about a legal development.

32:34Jonathan Blitzer:A judge has finally decided on Alcini's habeas petition. And after nine months of being held in detention, the judge orders that he has to be released immediately. It's February 12, 2026. I was sleeping and then the lady came and called my name. She said, you're going home. I said, going home where? She said, you're going back to New York. You should stop packing your stuff. We can't keep you here even for 20 minutes. Andrea's overjoyed. She arranges for a volunteer to pick him up from the detention center, buy him a bus ticket. And by the next day, he's back in New York. And that's where he is now.

33:12Jonathan Blitzer:Kind of back where he started. Learning his way around the city, looking for work, trying to make a life for himself.

33:21Jonathan Blitzer:Alsany isn't the kind of person to talk much about his trauma. But clearly, everything he's been through, first in Guinea, now in the U.S., had added a layer of difficulty and chaos to his life. It's surely having an impact on how he thinks about his future. At the time of his release, there were nearly 70 ,000 people being held in immigration detention. more people than ever. And that number doesn't begin to capture the millions of lives that have been turned upside down by the president's mass deportation campaign. In the meantime, the legal landscape was shifting. The administration's courthouse arrests began to face legal setbacks in court.

33:55A federal judge in California is banning federal officials from making arrests at immigration courts nationwide in a setback for the Trump administration's crackdown.

34:05Jonathan Blitzer:In New York, a judge ordered the government to stop detaining people at 26 federal plaza, where all of this started for Alsani. In the ruling, the court wrote that while, quote, there is a strong governmental interest in enforcing immigration laws, there is also a serious interest in allowing migrants to pursue asylum claims without fear of arrest. But the morning after the judge's ruling, massed ICE agents were back outside the courthouse, ready to make more arrests. An activist named Peter Melt-Cattell was there at the time. He tried to show them copies of the decision. The image, it reminds me of Alsany leaving the courthouse a year ago, holding a printout from the judge listing the date and time of his next appointment.

34:47Jonathan Blitzer:You'd think the documentation might actually mean something. As Cattell described it later to a local paper, he showed them the decision, and the agents waved him away and said simply, we don't care.

35:07Jonathan Blitzer:This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Jonathan Blitzer, sitting in today for David Remnick. More in a moment.

35:20The Wired Newsroom is known for award-winning reporting on how technology shapes our world. On Wired's Uncanny Valley, we take that curiosity even further. Each week, journalists from Wired break down the biggest stories in tech while speaking directly with the people building, challenging, and reshaping the future. Is the AI boom sustainable? How do you protect your privacy in an age of constant surveillance? Uncanny Valley tackles the questions driving today's tech debates and lighting up your group chats. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

35:55Jonathan Blitzer:This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Jonathan Blitzer, sitting in today for David Remnick. I'm a staff writer covering immigration, and we're spending all of today's episode on the controversies over immigration in Trump's second term. The enforcement crackdown has been in the headlines almost every week. Just recently, there were two fatal shootings by ICE of unarmed people in a single week. The crackdown has been broadly unpopular, and I wanted to talk with lawmakers in both parties who are dealing with its consequences. I started with Jason Crow. He's a Democratic congressman from Colorado.

36:32Jonathan Blitzer:His district was at the center of some of Trump's most inflammatory rhetoric during the 2024 election, the claim that the city of Aurora, Colorado, had been taken over by a Venezuelan gang. Jason Crow is an Army veteran and a lawyer. He's also the Democratic Party's recruitment co-chair for the midterm elections. So he's an important voice in helping candidates figure out what to say, and particularly how to talk about an issue where Democrats have been on the back foot.

37:03Jonathan Blitzer:Talk to me about your district, because your district has sort of been ground zero for a few different plot lines. I mean, I'm thinking most recently of the recent influx of Venezuelan migrants in particular and the misinformation spread by Trump on the campaign trail. Yeah, which is all BS. It is. So Aurora is the core of my district. It's about half my population, and it is one of the most diverse cities in the country. And the fact that Donald Trump would try to use it to demonize immigrants and refugees to serve as a pretext for his mass deportation and tell lies about this gang takeover, which never happened.

37:44We, like many communities have had criminal gang issues, but the vast majority of it are domestic gangs, not transnational gangs. And it's being dealt with. It is being dealt with by local law enforcement. It has been. But, you know, in so many instances, it's not based in the reality. It's the opposite of the reality in our case. So we pushed back very, very hard. And those local elected officials who actually joined with Trump to perpetuate that narrative, all got beat in the election because our community was like, enough is enough. We're not going to sit here and take that.

38:22Jonathan Blitzer:Why are Democrats seen as not being the party with answers on immigration? Well, Democrats did have a chance to do bigger things than immigration, and we didn't. And what is clear is that we weren't able to hold conflicting views or what might seem like conflicting views, but they're really not at the same time. We should be able to say that it's important that we have secure borders. The vast majority of Americans agree with that. Why can't we say that? At the same time as we must also be able to say, we are going to enforce the laws against violent criminals. If there are violent immigrant criminal organizations, we will go after those.

39:06But that is a very small portion, obviously, vast majority of violent crime in America is domestic-related violent crime. But we have to be able to say those things to have credibility to then take the next step and say we want a system based on dignity and humanity, and we want a pathway to citizenship for people that are here, living, working, following the rules, who want to be and will be great Americans. Right? But you have to take that first step to have the credibility to take the next steps.

39:35Jonathan Blitzer:And did you feel like during, say, the Biden years, the party didn't take that first step to a sufficient degree? I absolutely feel that. Absolutely. In the Biden campaign, and don't get me wrong, I'm a proud Democrat and I supported the president's campaign, but they were going to come and do an event in Colorado. And the request was, don't talk about immigration. We're not going to talk about the immigration issue. I said, what do you mean we're not going to talk about the immigration issue? It's the single biggest issue in my community. We just had 30 ,000 Venezuelan immigrants surge into Colorado, the largest number, more than Philadelphia and L.A.

40:11combined. Right. This is the thing that we're talking about. Everybody's worried about. So I am not going to sit up there and give credence to a campaign and legitimacy to it if you're not going to talk about an issue that everybody needs to talk about. Yeah. I'm just not going to stick my head in the sand on it. What was their response? Well, we ended up not I ended up not doing the event. Wow. Right. I'm not going to be a part of something that I didn't think had legitimacy. So there was a sense that if we don't talk about it, if we ignore it, it'll go away, which never works in politics. Right.

40:44And never works in governing either. So we basically gave the issue to Donald Trump. And then we see the consequences of that, the inhumanity, the brutality and the violence of his immigration crackdown. And, you know, that is in some part a consequence of us ceding ground on the issue.

41:05Jonathan Blitzer:Your role, I mean, among the many things that you do in Congress, you're helping Dems across the country kind of message this issue. I want to hear from you how you're thinking through the messaging element of this. I'm not somebody that believes that you need to choose a lane and just focus on one lane on immigration. Like some people will say, you just have to talk about it through an economic lens. Others will say a morality lens or some combination. I think you can do both. I think we have to do both. And because the cruel inhumanity of this administration is going to increase, right, they're going to do the mass deportation.

41:43They're going to continue it. There's been no relenting and no pullback on Stephen Miller's grand vision for mass deportations in America. It's going to happen. And what's going to result from that is people are going to see the extent to which immigrants and refugees are integrated into American society. They're going to see vast swaths of our workforce disappear. They're going to see our businesses shutter. They're going to see our economy contract. They're going to see their friends and neighbors and co-workers disappear from their lives. The children that go to school with our children will someday stop showing up.

42:20These are all horrible things. So there is a morality and humanity argument as well as an economic one. And we should also be making the economic one. Now, we have a housing crisis, right? We're 200 ,000 housing units short in Colorado, much like much of the country. and close to half of our workforce is disappearing or at risk of deportation in one way or another under the Stephen Miller plan, what is that going to do to the housing crisis as well as any other service industry in the state? So that's just one example and every state has examples like it. And you talk to Americans and they don't disagree with a lot of Democratic Party platform items.

43:01But what they do say is that Democrats lack confidence of their convictions. They don't have confidence. They seem weak and timid. So go in there, dammit, and own your issue.

43:11Jonathan Blitzer:Congressman, thanks so much for your time. Thank you.

43:18Jonathan Blitzer:Jason Crow is a Democratic representative from Colorado. But the blowback for mass deportations is also something I heard about from one Republican in Congress, Maria Salazar. Salazar is a former TV news anchor who was elected in 2020. Her district includes most of Miami, one of the country's most heavily Latino cities. So Salazar is in a tricky spot. She's a diehard Trump supporter. But her constituents, many of whom voted for Trump, are outraged at how ICE has been operating in their streets.

43:51Jonathan Blitzer:You're a Cuban-American who's generally supportive of the president, but you've broken with him on his signature issue, let's say, immigration. Sure, indeed. Where do you think the president has gone too far or has made kind of fundamental mistakes? Lay out for me where you think the administration has has erred in this issue. I think the administration, first of all, enforcement last year in 2025, enforcement went to a place where it did not need to go. Because when the president promised that he was going to deport the bad hombres, we all clapped. Enforcement should have been concentrated on those people who have criminal records and there are illegals or undocumented in this country.

44:37Not the ones who do not have a criminal record, who did not come in during the Biden years, who have set roots in this country, may have American children, are contributing to five key industries in the country. In other words, they're giving and they're making us stronger as an economy. I think that that enforcement part was misguided and has caused the Hispanics to flee and not consider the GOP their home anymore, which happened in 2024, as you know. 55 percent of male Hispanics voted for the president for the first time in history because unfortunately, you know, that we had not spoken to them before.

45:26The president did speak, attracted them. They like Trump. And now because of the enforcement policies, that has crumbled.

45:35Jonathan Blitzer:I know, for example, you know, when you look at the statistics from 2025, ICE arrests in the Miami area are among the highest in the country. The vast majority of people who are being arrested do not have criminal records. And so you've said that the president or the administration needs to, and these are your words, course correct. Are you seeing signs of that? Are you seeing any indication that the administration is paying attention? But not to the degree of what we need, because I go back, you know, the dignity legislation, which is the my signature legislation, addresses those issues. When you look at 80 percent of Americans, they want some type of immigration reform, immigration, fix this immigration period.

46:18And how can you fix it? Well, I think that the Dignity provides a wonderful opportunity, is very much in the middle.

46:25Jonathan Blitzer:She's talking about a piece of legislation called the Dignity Act, the only major immigration bill before Congress right now. Salazar first introduced it in 2023, along with a Democratic co-sponsor, Veronica Escobar of Texas. The bill has since gone through some changes. When it was originally introduced, the Dignity Act offered a path to citizenship for people who were undocumented. Salazar later removed that path to citizenship. But for now, the bill still doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Washington is not understanding it. The GOP is not really understanding, does not have the foresight, the understanding.

47:02There is a disconnect within my own party. And I think dignity, after five years of thinking about it and making it better, evolving this legislation, we have a perfect vehicle for the president to embrace.

47:19Jonathan Blitzer:What is your sense right now of the biggest roadblocks to the Dignity Act? I mean, the White House has to be one of them. Lack of understanding, lack of foresight, lack of not understanding that the Republican Party needs what you call the swing voting block of the Hispanics, which is the largest minority at this hour and is the fastest minority growing in the country. If you want to win elections because elections have consequences, you need to have votes. You've said you've written that addressing the president, you've said you could be for immigration, what Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism.

48:02Jonathan Blitzer:I guess the general question I have is. Tell me. It's unmistakable that, you know, the president. I mean, look, he's he's endorsed, you know, your reelection bid and so on. So there's been support. And he treats me really well. And I told him the other day, hey, sir, are you you're not mad at me. You're not. OK, come then. Come give me a guess. And he did. But but then but so but then we pan out a bit and I look at the kind of sum total of the actions taken by the White House. I mean, we just got a ruling from the Supreme Court on birthright citizenship, which the Trump administration has tried to end.

48:34Jonathan Blitzer:I mean, these are foundational assaults on even the most basic understanding of who belongs here. That doesn't fly in the face of the legislation you're trying to move through Congress. Well, listen, you know how politics works that one day is white and the next day is black and vice versa. So I have all the hope in the world that before the president is out of the White House, he will be the one signing this bill because he's a smart guy and he gets that he could be for immigration when Lincoln was for slavery. I'm sure that Lincoln had a pretty tough time convincing the Union or the North to side with the South.

49:12You know, I'm sure that it was not easy for Lincoln. But I do think that this is going to hit the White House and is going to be suddenly like the Bible says, you know, things happen with President Trump suddenly. And and he will get it because he is a business guy. And not only that, he is construction and hospitality. What does that tell you? Those two need a lot of hands. And most of those hands come from the immigrant community.

49:43Jonathan Blitzer:I mean, what kind of things are you hearing? I mean, from the start of the president's second term to now, what sorts of things are you hearing on the local level from constituents? The Republicans who voted for Trump, the independents who voted for Salazar and for Trump are saying we did not vote for this. We do not want those. We do not have a criminal record and are contributing to construction, hospitality, agricultural manufacturing or health care to be taken out. Because the reality here is that it's true that those people broke the law. Of course they did. But someone let them stay for 20 years.

50:25So right now, those people may have assets. They have American children and they have a job that needs them. So that's reality. And I am starting to tell the president, Mr. President, you've got to change the way when it comes to immigration. Otherwise, we're not going to have a Republican Party. Hmm. Period.

50:49Jonathan Blitzer:Yeah. Mr. President, listen to what I'm telling you, sir. You're a smart guy. You are playing with fire. Hmm. Thank you, Congresswoman. Okay. Un abrazo. Thank you. Ciao. Bye.

51:07Jonathan Blitzer:Representative Maria Salazar of Florida. Her congressional district includes much of Miami. I'm Jonathan Blitzer. You can find my reporting on immigration at newyorker.com, including a piece we just published about a detention facility in Texas. That's at newyorker.com. David Remnick will be back with you next week. Thanks for listening.

51:31The Wired Newsroom is known for award-winning reporting on how technology shapes our world. On Wired's Uncanny Valley, we take that curiosity even further. Each week, journalists from Wired break down the biggest stories in tech while speaking directly with the people building, challenging, and reshaping the future. Is the AI boom sustainable? How do you protect your privacy in an age of constant surveillance? Uncanny Valley tackles the questions driving today's tech debates and lighting up your group chats. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.