What Happens After Someone Is Arrested by ICE?

21:14Jonathan Blitzer:$50 ,000 signing bonus. $50 ,000 signing bonus. And then there was like a four-hour window during which, like, I think I read an article about how, like, they announced that they were going to be giving people individual bonuses for arresting people, and they decided, like, a few hours later, like, actually, we're not going to do that. So, I mean, I think they immediately understood that that would be a very bad plan. But there's, of course, the recruitment video that was recorded by the actor, Dean Cain, who was Superman in one of the Superman shows that no one actually watched. You know, he's joining ICE now.

21:43But I mean, do these initiatives indicate that Trump's deportation efforts are successful in the sense that they have so much momentum that they need more agents to round people up? Or does this mean that no one wants to join ICE and they have to do these crazy things to get people to do this job?

21:59Jonathan Blitzer:It's a good question. I mean, this is not a great job, to be clear. It's never been a good job. And even if you were to stipulate that officers are acting in good faith at ICE, which I think increasingly you simply cannot say they are. But let's assume, because I've over the years interviewed people who, you know, have a job of, you know, making immigration arrests, which would seem to most people to be a pretty barbaric kind of unpleasant job, who nevertheless took it seriously and tried to do it kind of by following the rules and so on. And they always complained about the fact that the pay wasn't great.

22:31Jonathan Blitzer:You were sort of used as a political cudgel always, depending on the administration. You were the one who became the scapegoat if an administration's agenda went sideways. Everyone had a chip on their shoulder. There was a real, I think, complex among agents, immigration enforcement agents, who basically felt like they never got the respect that other law enforcement agents had. You know, these weren't FBI agents. These weren't U.S. marshals. No one's dressing up as an ICE agent for Halloween. Exactly. And I think there are reasons for that. I think typically if you were a talented or promising law enforcement person, you wouldn't go into ICE.

23:06Jonathan Blitzer:You would go into, you know, the police force, the FBI or so on. So now I don't know how to interpret basically this kind of big campaign. I mean in a certain sense, it's I think probably appealing to a significant number of people to be on the front lines of this campaign that is so central to the Trump administration's own political identity. So I think that's got to lure some people. Obviously, the signing bonuses, I mean, there are all kinds of financial incentives they're giving to people. I mean, certainly what most people are saying and a kind of general view I subscribe to is, you know, at this moment, given the manifest abuses of the current administration's enforcement operations, you can imagine how self-selecting this crowd is going to be.

23:50Jonathan Blitzer:I mean, it's pretty scary to think about the fact that, like, having witnessed everything we've witnessed, someone would say, yeah, I want to join those guys at this time. I can totally see how that would be the case. But I also have to say that when Brad Lander was arrested in New York by ICE agents because he was protesting the arrest of an immigrant, I remember very vividly that the photo of Lander was of him being manhandled essentially by two ICE agents who I believe themselves were immigrants. So how often does that happen? I mean, you could see how, like, for example, I think that with Border Patrol, a lot of Border Patrol agents are Latino and that it's obviously helpful for them to speak Spanish.

24:31Is there a dynamic like that going on with ICE? Or do you think that it is mostly just like the most kind of like MAGA, anti-immigrant people?

24:40Jonathan Blitzer:It's a really good question. I don't know like demographically kind of what the broader makeup is of ICE officers. But I will say, years ago, like many other journalists, I had the opportunity to go on a ride-along with ICE on like an arrest operation. And, you know, I'm very skeptical of these things. I personally don't ever feel comfortable writing about them. I don't think it represents anything other than just a chance to be in conversation with some of these guys as they do their job. I don't think it's like indicative of how they actually do their job when people aren't watching and so on.

25:12Jonathan Blitzer:And you're obviously very cognizant of the idea that you're sort of being conscripted into a form of government propaganda. Anyway, what was very striking and certainly one of the reasons why they wanted me to go along was to see how diverse this particular team was. They were operating in the Bronx. It was early one morning. And I think probably in certain cities, the population of ICE officers is more diverse than you'd expect. I don't know what their immigrant history is. and I do you know I've thought a lot about this like to your question of you know what it what does it mean to have that job you know how do you square your identity as someone say who comes from a family of immigrants with this particular job and I and I think the answer while unsatisfying tends to be that you know you kind of get into this mindset where you have a job to do you feel that you're doing your job well you take a certain pride in doing that job you feel that the world doesn't understand you.

26:05Jonathan Blitzer:It's us against them. It's me and my colleagues versus the world. The politicians don't understand what we're up against. We're just trying to enforce the law. I mean, one of the most common things you hear ICE officers say is, if you don't like the laws, change them, which of course now it's a non sequitur because like they're actually, they're violating the law. But, you know, during the first Trump administration, that's what they would say. And, you know, I was sympathetic to a certain point. You know, theory, that makes sense. But I think now it's really hard to imagine doing this job. I will say there is a former ICE officer who I've interviewed a ton over the years who follows me on social media.

26:44Jonathan Blitzer:And I wrote about the arrest of Brad Lander and other Democrats because that was the other thing that I think has been so striking that the current administration has done. And I wrote a story that to me seemed uncontroversial. I mean, you know, this is extremely alarming development. It was kind of like, this is what is happening. Right, right. And this former ICE officer sent me a message and said, and we have a good relationship. It's always, there's been the kind of baseline understanding that we do not see the world in the same way. And so this is a really bad take, John. And, you know, I tried to imagine how he saw this.

27:16Jonathan Blitzer:And I think he felt like we are demonized to such an unfair degree and we're just doing our jobs. And, you know, I think that's exaggerated. I also think that, you know, if you do a job that is in the service of what it's been put in the service of, you have to face the music in some way. But I think there is a real feeling of kind of solidarity among these officers that like what we're doing, it's thankless. And we become victimized by the general sort of political fight over this broader issue. And like that was his that was his read. I mean, he was sort of chastising me basically for not understanding, you know, what these officers were up against.

27:54Jonathan Blitzer:And I know for a fact that this guy, while much more, much more aggressive than, you know, most of the ice sources I've had over the years, was still someone who I thought kind of came up a little bit short of the kind of Trump era lawless kind of view of the world. And I don't think he – I don't think he necessarily likes Trump per se, but I think he has this sense of kind of loyalty to the rank and file and the rank and file need to look out for each other and protect themselves. And that's how they've rationalized the use of these masks and unmarked cars. That like basically if they didn't do that, if their faces were exposed to public view, if they were showing up in marked vehicles, they would be targeted.

28:35Jonathan Blitzer:Which of course, you know, you or I might think, well, huh, does that raise questions about the nature of the work you're doing or the way in which you're doing it? It's like that's not the conclusion they draw. The conclusion they draw is everyone's against us and we're damned if we do and we're damned if we don't. This is like semi-related, but I do want to talk about kind of the public reaction to Trump's immigration enforcement and whether most people – and by people I mean Republicans specifically are kind of into what's happening, whether they're upset about it. We'll talk about that after break.

29:02This is the political scene from The New Yorker.

29:18So going back to the conversation we were having at the very beginning about the process of deportation and how long it takes and kind of the terrible conditions that people are living under while this is happening. Do you think that the average Trump voter gets what's happening during a deportation? Like, I mean, how much do you think this is kind of just known broadly that this is what's happening at these facilities both here and abroad versus like, you know, we found him. He's gone.

29:46Jonathan Blitzer:I don't think it's known. When people either support Trump or support the idea of mass deportation, as the polls suggested they did going into the 2024 election, I don't think people have any notion of what the particulars consist of or what the actual human costs are. And there's obviously the genre of journalism, which we all read and kind of feel a mixture of emotions about, of people, you know, Trump voters who are now kind of aghast because like, oh, this Trump voter's wife, it turns out, has just been arrested by ICE. Or like a community member who they're very fond of has just been picked up in an immigration raid.

30:19Jonathan Blitzer:I mean, these stories are inevitable. And, you know, part of you as a reader thinks like, my God, really? Are you so surprised? a part of he was like wow it does show you the degree to which people do not understand kind of what it means when you have an administration talking and acting the way this one has i don't think people have any clue and until it touches them in their community i think this whole thing is an abstraction to them and i have to say during the first trump administration there was a worksite raid at a meatpacking plant in tennessee And at the time, it was the biggest workplace raid in history.

30:53Jonathan Blitzer:And the members of the community were pretty aghast. These were conservative. This was Trump country. And there were several people I interviewed who said to me directly, like, my kids grew up with the kids of some of the people who were just arrested. And it didn't sit well with them. And yet, you know, when I'd follow up with them several months later, their political views had sort of gone back to where they always were. So I wonder, I honestly wonder what happens when people have to confront this. Certainly like ideological pro-Trump voters find ways of rationalizing their support for him or for the administration.

31:30Jonathan Blitzer:But I think on the other side of the ledger, I wish Democrats spoke about this a hell of a lot more. because I think that if people did confront on a daily level what this wreckage looked like, what this meant for people, for their families, for the community, I do think people would be pretty appalled. Yeah, it's insane to me that we don't talk about it in this kind of detail more often. So you just mentioned the meatpacking industry. And I remember actually being in a meeting a couple weeks ago where a writer was talking about his surprise at how Trump hadn't been going after the meatpacking industry that aggressively, given that it's sort of notorious for having a lot of migrant labor.

32:10And the implication was that Trump hasn't been going after it because he's worried about the economic consequences. So I don't know if that still holds up today, you know, as of, you know, mid-August. But are there specific industries that you feel like Trump has been going after particularly aggressively or less aggressively than you would have thought?

32:30Jonathan Blitzer:You know, it's funny, like going back even to the Reagan era, there was always this tension inside the Republican Party of the kind of populist wing wanting, you know, harsher immigration enforcement and the Chamber of Commerce wing of the party basically recognizing that this would be bad for business if the government were to crack down too much on immigration. And for the most part, really until Trump, the winning side inside the Republican camp was the Chamber of Commerce side. What I wondered about going into the current administration was at what point, kind of what the tipping point would be.

33:02Jonathan Blitzer:Yeah. When the aggressiveness of the Stephen Miller view of the world would kind of outpace the willingness of the moneyed interests core to the party's identity could accept what was happening. And it seemed like this was the case a couple of months ago. And there was some reporting about the idea that, okay, the administration was actually going to pull back from like the agriculture sector and so on. But then, of course, he doubled right back down. I mean, I think some of that reflects the influence of Miller, that there's really no one close to Miller in terms of his power inside the administration on this or related issues.

33:35Jonathan Blitzer:But I do really wonder about it, honestly, because I don't know what the pain threshold is economically. I mean, obviously, on a human level, we've passed it. But this is a really fascinating question. Like, is there a number or kind of economic bottom line, financial bottom line out there at which point, you know, members of the business community say we can't go any farther than this? You know, we need to increase our pressure on the administration to dial this down. Totally. But I'm not seeing it yet. I mean, I think like it's when the tariffs were first announced, we were sort of like, is Amazon going to say anything?

34:06Like, what about these like massive corporations that have a ton to lose here? And they were for the most part pretty quiet.

34:12Jonathan Blitzer:Right. And I have to say, I mean, you know, that's a very live and important question. And obviously that community, you know, the business community on the Republican side arguably has more influence, say, than mainstream Democrats right now who are out of power in the minority and so on. And I do think that one of the reasons why it's easier for the Trump administration to inflict not just this human pain but also this economic pain even on key donors and so on is that there is politically still no downside. Like there is no – Democrats are not scoring points on this issue. This is a chance for Trump to further consolidate his political control because the Democrats are tied in knots over how to talk about this stuff, which I find mystifying and depressing.

34:56It seems easier than ever to be able to talk about it. That's right. I just think that 99 % of Americans would be upset hearing you, you know, your answer to the first question of this conversation about what goes down when you were picked up off the street by ICE. I mean, it's just not okay.

35:12Jonathan Blitzer:You know, I think two things are happening. I mean, one, what I've heard kind of from Democratic staffers and others is that there's a feeling after the 2024 election that the Democrats need to have a kind of policy answer on the immigration question and that they're not comfortable. I mean the leadership in the party in Congress is not comfortable wading into any of the daily particulars or at least they're reticent to without having this kind of more thoroughgoing vision of what their own agenda should look like on the issue, which I think is completely backwards. I don't think there's really any opportunity to think about this issue programmatically.

35:52Jonathan Blitzer:This is about protecting people's basic rights. This is about the rule of law. This is about abusive behavior that has to be fought. Like I don't think any of these questions are all that much more complex than that. And it's painful to watch that the theory of the case as mainstream Democrats are trying to define it still has to do with the border, which, you know, is old news as far as this administration is concerned. Yeah, as you say, I mean the action is not happening at the border anymore. 100%. And the thing – you know, the second thing I will say is this administration, you know, the depths of its cynicism are such that, you know, the administration is willing to basically brand any of the people it's arresting as criminals even though that's just flat wrong.

36:31Jonathan Blitzer:And so, you know, for instance, in May, we actually hit a tipping point where the percentage of people arrested by ICE, the people who had criminal convictions versus people who didn't started to tip. And now 70 percent of the people in ICE custody don't have any prior arrest or criminal record at all. To say nothing, by the way, of like, all right, if you were to drill down on the people with a criminal record, some of those crimes are pretty minor things. But, you know, we're well past the point where that's even a pretense that should be entertained. But I think it still keeps Democrats on their back foot because they don't want to be seen as defending accused gang members.

37:08Jonathan Blitzer:But, you know, part of standing for something is calling out a lie when it's spoken. And so the fact that a large number, the vast majority of those people had no criminal records, like that should be a pretty straightforward piece of, you know, rhetoric for Democrats to fight back with. But they're scared to touch it because, you know, the attacks right themselves. Republicans say, oh, look, you're apologizing for gangsters. And so I think that also disincentivizes the administration from kind of stepping back at all from a lot of these promises because at this point, this just gets to be one big flex for them.

37:44Is there anything that you could see kind of slowing them down at this point? Like I know that a federal judge ordered a construction pause at Alligator Alcatraz because of legal arguments that it violates environmental law. And I feel like we can't just sort of, you know, rely on environmental law to save us from all of these migrant detention facilities that are being opened up, you know, in states across the U.S. But is there stuff like that where you're like maybe this actually won't take off the way that it seems like it's going to because of this law or this pending court case? Like, what are you kind of looking out for in terms of, you know, the next stage of this plan and potential things that could stymie it?

38:21Jonathan Blitzer:I mean, in theory, the courts, the courts and, you know, clear orders from federal judges would be one check on these kinds of abuses. And to my mind, the scariest fact, one of the scariest facts of what we've seen in the first six or seven months has been the administration's just complete disregard for a lot of these judicial orders. And, you know, it's one of those existential questions for the judiciary. You know, what do you do? when an administration just blows right through whatever stop sign you put up. And we're kind of still starting to see what that looks like. That's one of the reasons why I think the case involving those Venezuelans who were sent to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is so important because the judge, in no uncertain terms, ordered the three initial planes that went to El Salvador to be turned around, and the administration just ignored them.

39:07Well, it was a verbal order. Exactly. You didn't write it down. Exactly.

39:10Jonathan Blitzer:And then when there was a whistleblower who kind of gave specific detail about how, you know, top DOJ officials said, oh, we're going to tell these judges, fuck you. I mean, that was the literal language of one of those top DOJ officials who, by the way, has since been nominated to the appellate court bench and has been confirmed by the Senate. You know, that doesn't seem to have any consequence either. I do think that if Democrats can mobilize and talk about this constantly, which would maybe require a constitutional change in how they view their jobs. That could at least put this conversation more front and center.

39:46Jonathan Blitzer:I do think that there are a lot of uneasy Republicans in the Republican conference in the House, but also in, you know, the Republican governor's offices across the country who just don't want to stick their necks out, but are uneasy about some of the abuses of the current administration's immigration agenda. But to catalyze that kind of unease, there needs to be more of a public mobilization. It's weird that there hasn't been like a kids in cages moment yet. Yeah. With a phrase like that where everyone knows exactly what you're talking about. And just I feel like there are these individual cases, you know, certain people where, you know, the story is on people's radars and it's like, yeah, it was really terrible what happened to that tattoo artist.

40:26But like, I just don't feel like there's been a, yeah, anything that feels universal.

40:31Jonathan Blitzer:Yeah. Yeah. I do think like I'm actually encouraged by public outrage. I think the response in L.A. was pretty striking. And I do really think – I mean, look, this is for whatever it's worth. I am convinced that the public, if actually presented with the realities of what this agenda looks like, will respond in like a basically decent commonsensical way. which is to say like either you know people are outraged because morally this is just insupportable or at the very least there is a feeling of like this is just senseless like this is not what we're about this is counterproductive this doesn't make sense i mean you know as an example the vast majority of the 252 venezuelans sent to el salvador were innocent men um the administration has just accused of being gang members because of the country they come from um and yet the prisoner exchange that finally results in their release involves actually a convicted, you know, murderer.

41:27Jonathan Blitzer:The worst of the worst. Exactly. As Trump would say. And, you know, the same with that Salvadoran Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who, you know, the government basically finally under pressure from the courts had to bring him back from El Salvador after having mistakenly deported him there. There were strict instructions for the fact that he could not be deported. He was deported anyway. The administration fought it. They completely maligned him. They accused him of being a gang member. When he came back to save face, the administration charged him with human smuggling, a crime. He's now facing a criminal trial in Tennessee.

41:54Jonathan Blitzer:And the main witness, government witness against him in that Tennessee case is someone who actually was in federal custody and was going to be deported for various felonies he was already convicted for. But in exchange for his testimony against Kilmar Obrego Garcia is being released and given provisional legal status for at least a year in the United States. Like this line of response would write itself for Democrats. You know, do you feel – does this make you feel safer? But to do that, they have to not be scared of, you know, of whatever recriminations follow from Republicans. But this is pretty powerful stuff.

42:31Jonathan Blitzer:I think if you asked nine out of ten people on the street, does this make sense to you? Someone who had no criminal record in Kilmer Abrago Garcia, who was mistakenly deported, who was finally returned and charged with a crime just so the government could save face. And the only evidence against him comes from a convicted felon who's now in exchange for his testimony being released into the United States. Like, I think most people would be like, what? That doesn't make sense.

42:59Thank you so much, John.

43:00Jonathan Blitzer:Thanks. Thanks for letting me depress you a little. Yeah, anytime.

43:06Jonathan Blitzer is a staff writer for The New Yorker. You can find his latest piece, Can Democrats Fight Back Against Trump's Redistricting Scheme, at newyorker.com. This has been The Political Scene from The New Yorker. I'm Tyler Foggett. This episode is produced by John LeMay, with mixing by Mike Kutchman and engineering by Pran Bandy. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Chris Bannon is Connie Ness, head of Global Audio. Our theme music is by Alison Leighton Brown. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back with Andrew Marantz for our series How Bad Is It? next Wednesday.