This Week On ICE

Team TWOI
  • 5.0 (4)
  • News Commentary
  • Updated Weekly

A weekly podcast covering the latest developments of the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies, hosted by journalists Kelly Kimball and Matthew Kendrick. thisweekonice.substack.com

  1. 13h ago

    ICE spying in Minnesota, deportee bounty hunters, and a journalist’s 300+ days in detention

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. A third ICE detention death in Delaney Hall: The troubled ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, is back in the headlines this week for tragic reasons — this time following news of the death of Guatemalan immigrant José Chajón-Raxón. His death reportedly occurred over one month ago, but the public only learned of it last week, after New Jersey Democratic Rep. Rob Menendez brought it to light. Chajón-Raxón was arrested by ICE on July 18, and the following day, while detained in Delaney, he reportedly suffered seizure-like symptoms; was hospitalized on July 22. At some point around this time, Chajón-Raxón died — though questions remain about exactly when, whether he was discharged before his death, and what condition he was in when ICE released him. At the top of the show, we break down how Chajón-Raxón’s case connects to recent ICE directives to cease documenting certain ICE-related deaths. [Catch up: Track our coverage of Delaney Hall here, here, here, and here — and our interview with the investigative team tracking every ICE-linked death here.] “ Over a month ago, ICE changed its policies so that it is no longer reporting deaths of recently released detainees.” — Kelly Support This Week on ICE Podcast The top line: New financial incentives arise for law enforcement units (and civilians) deputized by ICE We’ve talked a lot on this show about local law enforcement’s increased cooperation with ICE — but it’s about to get even deeper. ICE is now planning to offer local police departments insurance (to the tune of up to $500,000 per officer) to cover liabilities and legal fees that officers may incur while making immigration-related arrests. Critics say this practice could further erode accountability by encouraging police with financial protection for their actions helping ICE. At around 6:36, Matt discusses what the pitch is and how ICE is spending the enormous budget Congress has set for the agency. “It’s a tool to remove accountability, right? Local police in the past may have not committed certain immigration-related arrests or not taken the risk to help ICE carry out its enforcement activities if they felt that they could be held personally liable for the consequences of that arrest.” — Matt But local law enforcement is the only ones receiving incentives from ICE. The Department of Homeland Security is reportedly hiring bounty hunters to find and photograph deported people’s homes abroad. It’s part of a far wider scheme called the Tracing and Payment Recovery Services to collect unpaid immigration fines. (So far, DHS has issued more than $84 billion in fines to immigrants it has accused of failing to depart the United States, citing an obscure 1996 provision of immigration law.) Also on our radar: Documents reveal a sweeping undercover operation in Minneapolis, where agents tried to entice anti-ICE activists to commit violence A court filing on Thursday showed that ICE attempted to infiltrate activist groups resisting their crackdown in Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota earlier this year, which resulted in the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Not only did the agency penetrate Signal group chats and in-person, rapid-response trainings in order to collect evidence of violent dissent against the government, but at least one agent made an offer to “build items that might assist other groups with more ‘direct-action’ protests.” At around 10:50, Kelly discussed what these documents reveal about the extent of ICE’s surveillance of groups attempting to resist their enforcement activities. So, what were undercover agents trying to find out? A DHS report from February said the agency was looking into people who were “providing material support to violent opportunists and agitators.” But, this follows an earlier executive order issued by Trump that designated “Antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization. “ The question that I am asking myself is: ‘what happens to First Amendment protections when an ordinary political organizing project criticizing government policy becomes the subject of federal criminal investigation?’ When you put these two in the same space, there is no space left for First Amendment freedoms.” — Kelly Interview: The journalist spending over 300 days in an ICE detention facility At around 18:45, we sit down with Adam Rose, who is the deputy director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation and a board member of the Los Angeles Press Club. He recently wrote a piece in The Intercept about the case of undocumented journalist Carlitos Ricardo Parias, who has been held at the Adelanto ICE Detention Facility in California for over 300 days. It’s the longest known period a journalist has ever spent in U.S. custody. In Adam’s own words, “Parias’s case is extraordinary. Perhaps no journalist has endured such a sustained sequence of violence, prosecution, and imprisonment at the hands of the U.S. government.” “He is continuing to commit acts of journalism behind bars and informing the public about what he and fellow detainees are going through.” — Adam That’s it for us this week. Keep sending us your questions, comments or tips to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, look out for your neighbors, and we’ll see you next time. — Kelly and Matt P.S. - We’re building a community with official TWOI Instagram, YouTube and TikTok accounts. Give us a follow if you’d like to get to know other fans of the podcast and receive up-to-the-minute developments on ICE and immigration outside of our weekly episode drops. You can also follow Kelly and Matt on Instagram. Get full access to This Week On ICE Podcast at thisweekonice.substack.com/subscribe

  2. Aug 12

    Inside ICE's new body camera policy — and the surveillance concerns it raises

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. ICE will release body camera footage, but only on their terms: The killings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero last month renewed calls for ICE to equip its officers with body cameras, which the agency had promised to do earlier this year. Now, ICE claims it will roll out the cameras completely by the end of September — but that doesn’t mean it’s going to let you see the footage. The agency says its policy requires releasing footage only after determining if “it is in the best interests of the agency.” Matt broke down the new policy and what it says about the shape surveillance could take moving forward. [Catch up: We dove into the Congressional debate that occurred earlier this year over ICE body cameras here.] “ If ICE is not releasing body cam footage, and there’s not a good way for people to access that body cam footage, that kind of indicates to me that the body cams are going to be used for another purpose. … If ICE is walking around all day with a live feed feeding into facial recognition software, they can build a database of who lives in neighborhoods they’re targeting, their routines and patterns. [That feed] can build license plate databases based on that video footage. It can build databases of activists and journalists who are covering ICE.” — Matt Support This Week on ICE Podcast Also on our radar: Five border wall projects bulldoze through Big Bend National Park The Trump administration has begun construction on a new stretch of border infrastructure through Big Bend National Park in southern Texas, one of the country’s most ecologically significant protected landscapes. The project is part of a broader effort to expand the administration’s border wall strategy into environmentally sensitive areas. At 9:57, Kelly explained the scope of the construction, the 31 environmental laws that were waived to expedite it, and why both immigration activists and environmental advocates say the project offers little security benefit despite its $1.7 billion price tag. [Catch up: We spoke to James Cordero of Al Otro Lado about his efforts to leave life-saving supplies for migrants crossing the southern border.] Interview: Sophie Hurwitz of Mother Jones on her reporting of one family’s deportation tragedy Kelly sat down with journalist Sophie Hurwitz, whose recent report in Mother Jones tells the story of 27-year-old asylum seeker Glendy Marisol González de la Cruz, who took the advice of DHS officials to self-deport with her three young children back to her native country of Guatemala to reunite with her husband, who had already been deported one year prior. Just weeks after the family reunited, they were both found shot and killed in a sugarcane field. At 17:22, Sophie talked about what happened, how the family’s circumstances are linked with the Trump administrations broader deportation scheme, and how it’s part of a growing phenomenon, where ICE’s deportation surge presents a budding financial opportunity for local law enforcement. “Despite the fact that [Glendy] had so much community support, despite the fact that she had such a network, that she was part of this group, Fuerza, where she and a bunch of other mostly immigrant women would get together and try to figure out how to collectively advocate for their rights. … she was essentially economically coerced and coerced by fear into leaving the United States in July of this year.” — Sophie That’s it for us this week. Keep sending us your questions, comments or tips to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, look out for your neighbors, and we’ll see you next time. — Kelly and Matt P.S. — We’re building a community with official TWOI Instagram, YouTube and TikTok accounts. Give us a follow if you’d like to get to know other fans of the podcast and receive up-to-the-minute developments on ICE and immigration outside of our weekly episode drops. You can also follow Kelly and Matt on Instagram. Get full access to This Week On ICE Podcast at thisweekonice.substack.com/subscribe

  3. Jul 29

    Her ICE arrest at SFO went viral. Now, her friends are working to bring her home.

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. TPS ends for Haitians and Syrians: On Monday, at least 300,000 Haitians in the United States lost their Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — a special humanitarian protection for nationals originally from countries deemed far too dangerous to return to. They are now subject to imminent deportation, and the Department of Homeland Security says it is already in the midst of an operation to begin rounding up and expelling Haitians. Nowhere is this more evident than in Ohio, where the community was the subject of national scrutiny raised by President Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign. [Listen to previous episodes about TPS for Haitians and Syrians here, here and here.] But it’s not just Haitians. About 6,000 Syrians also lost access to TPS on Monday, and people from over a dozen of the most unstable countries on the planet are in the crosshairs for deportation too. Matt dove into the historic consequences. “An entire community — I mean, this is even larger than the town I grew up in — is now being forced out of the lives they have built, oftentimes over the course of 10 years here. … My suspicion is that the President will take advantage of this and end TPS for essentially anybody who enjoys that status now.” — Matt Support This Week on ICE Podcast Also on our radar: New government agencies are cooperating with ICE. A July 2026 map of all participating agencies that have signed up for the 287g program. The most agencies are located in Texas and Florida. Source: ICE From local police departments to airline safety authorities, ICE is getting a lot of outside help these days. Kelly broke down how cooperation across wide swaths of government is driving record arrest levels for ICE. One of the latest offices to cooperate with ICE is the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for resettling refugees in the United States that are fleeing war and persecution, as well as unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. This week, a Reuters investigation found that since January of last year, ORR has shared more than 460,000 leads with ICE about unaccompanied children, their parents, their relatives, and even their household members. “The safeguards against sharing data with ICE have been completely reversed,” Jen Smyers, who served as deputy director of ORR during the Biden administration, told Reuters. While new government agencies are forging bonds with ICE, other agencies appear to be deepening ready-made programs with the agency: A federal program known as 287g gives local police officers the authority to arrest undocumented immigrants on behalf of ICE. This year, 287g programs have expanded rapidly. “When Trump began his second term, there were about 135 police precincts signed up for 287g. As of Monday, ICE has signed 2,179 memorandums of agreement in 39 states and two U.S. territories.” — Kelly [Catch up: Journalist Ava Sasani on her investigation into ICE-involved shootings, and how ICE is deputizing law enforcement to do its bidding.] Interview: Andy Eblin on what it takes to get a loved one out of ICE custody. Andy Eblin (left) whose close friend Iryna Gorb was detained by ICE last week, sits down with This Week on ICE co-host Matt Kendrick (right). Iryna Gorb, a Ukrainian national, was forcefully detained and arrested by plainclothes ICE officers at San Francisco International Airport last week for overstaying her visa. A video of her arrest has gone viral online, and since then, Gorb has been detained at the California City ICE detention facility north of Los Angeles. Andy Eblin, a close friend of Iryna, has been working tirelessly alongside nearly two dozen friends to bring her home. Matt sat down with Andy to talk about the circumstances of her detention and offer a firsthand perspective on what it is like to try to get someone out of ICE custody. “That video has been really central to getting attention on her case in a way that a lot of folks haven’t gotten… Her case is part of a much, much larger situation — one that is escalating, one that is having untruth after untruth after untruth told by the [Trump] administration. One that requires all of us and all of our attention.” — Andy That’s it for us this week. Keep sending us your questions, comments or tips to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, look out for your neighbors, and we’ll see you next time. — Kelly and Matt P.S. - We’re building a community with official TWOI Instagram, YouTube and TikTok accounts. Give us a follow if you’d like to get to know other fans of the podcast and receive up-to-the-minute developments on ICE and immigration outside of our weekly episode drops. You can also follow Kelly and Matt on Instagram. Get full access to This Week On ICE Podcast at thisweekonice.substack.com/subscribe

  4. Jul 22

    The journalist documenting her uncle's self-deportation

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. The FBI stops investigating ICE encounters: On Monday, the New York Times reported that the FBI has stopped investigating ICE-related incidents, and all such issues will be handled internally by the Department of Homeland Security. The reported plans signal a grave shift away from accountability for ICE in the wake of two deaths by shooting in less than a week. We broke down what we know so far and what it says about the state of justice and accountability surrounding ICE encounters. “ It’s part of a larger sweep that we’ve seen since the shootings of Joan Sebastian Guerrero and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo —  where this kind of ‘quiet’ approach that DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullen publicly espoused is being just completely done away with. … Independent oversight is falling away.” — Matt Support This Week on ICE Podcast Interview: Kimberly Avalos on documenting her own uncle’s self-deportation to Ecuador This Week on ICE co-host Kelly Kimball (left) speaks with The News Movement’s Kimberly Avalos (right) for Episode 23. The News Movement’s Kimberly Avalos has been reporting on immigration for several years. But she never expected the day would come that her beat would hit so close to home. Earlier this year, her uncle received a notice from ICE requiring him to appear in court for a routine check-in related to his pending asylum application in the United States. But with the flood of news about arrests at immigration courts, Kimberly’s uncle took it as a sign that something had to be done — that it was time to make the difficult decision to return to his home country of Ecuador. “My worlds kind of clashed, and a story that I was covering at work was also something that was happening with my family.” — Kimberly This process has come to be known as “self-deportation.” David’s story reflects a growing reality for many immigrants who face an impossible choice: remain in the United States despite the mounting risk of arrest, death, detention, or third-country deportation, or return to the very country — and the dangers and challenges — they had tried to escape. Kimberly produced a documentary for The News Movement tracking her uncle’s journey from his final days in the United States,  through his flight back to Ecuador, and into the early days of rebuilding his life there. “[My uncle] always thought that if he were ever to go back to Ecuador, his son would be there to greet him at the airport.” — Kimberly David sought asylum in the United States after cartel members kidnapped two of his children for ransom, releasing them only after he surrendered his car as collateral. He hoped that obtaining asylum would eventually allow him to bring his entire family to the United States to live in safety. But a few years into this process, the worst happened. David’s son, Alexis, was working as a taxi driver when cartel members targeted one of his passengers, killing both the passenger and Alexis. David could not return to Ecuador for his son’s funeral, as leaving the United States while his asylum case was pending would have jeopardized his ability to return. He never got to bury his son. “He never saw him again. … [He said] the first thing he would do when he got to Ecuador was go to see him at the cemetery. I could actually kick myself because as I was recording I stopped, and that’s when he started saying things like, ‘This was the price I paid for the U.S. Was it potentially all for nothing?’” — Kimberly On your way out: Follow us on social media  We’re building a community with our brand new, official TWOI Instagram, YouTube and TikTok accounts. Give us a follow if you’d like to get to know other fans of the podcast and receive up-to-the-minute developments on ICE and immigration outside of our weekly episode drops. You can also follow Kelly and Matt on Instagram. That’s it for us this week. Please keep sending us your questions, comments, or tips to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, look out for your neighbors, and we’ll see you next time. — Kelly and Matt Get full access to This Week On ICE Podcast at thisweekonice.substack.com/subscribe

  5. Jul 17

    A second ICE shooting in less than a week

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. An ICE killing in Maine: If you received our newsletter last week, this introduction may feel all too familiar. That’s because in less than seven days, ICE agents have killed another person. Joan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, who was shot and killed by ICE in Biddeford, Maine, on Monday, was a 26-year-old Colombian national with a valid U.S. work permit and a Social Security number. He was not the target of the warrant ICE agents say they were attempting to serve. His wife and three-year-old daughter witnessed the killing from their front yard, where Joan had just left for work. ICE alleges that Joan attempted to use his vehicle to ram federal officers — the same claim officials made after ICE officers shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas last week and Renee Good in Minnesota in January. In its statement, ICE described Joan as a “threat to public safety” without providing any additional details. The killing prompted a rapid response from the Maine community. Protesters attempted to enter Senator Susan Collins’ office in Biddeford and took to the streets to demand that ICE leave the state. The backlash also led ICE to announce Tuesday that it was halting most of its traffic-related enforcement activities, although President Trump said in a statement Thursday that he encouraged the agency to continue making traffic stops.    “All I have left are the photos and a blanket with the three of us on it that he gave [our daughter] a few weeks before. My soul is broken. He was everything to me.” — Karolina Rojas Alvarez, Joan’s wife, during a press conference Thursday. [Catch up: What we know about Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s killing in Houston.]  The ICE agent who allegedly shot Joan, identified by the Associated Press as Army veteran David Brouillette, has a long history of mental health struggles and violent behavior, according to family members interviewed by the AP. Relatives told the AP that Brouillette had experienced serious mental health issues since childhood and “never should have been given a badge and gun.” They also described a history of domestic violence and accused him of assaulting women over many years. The family shared a voicemail with the AP in which Brouillette allegedly told a woman that he thought “someone should slit her throat.”  “It really goes against what the Department of Homeland Security has said about how it closely vets recruits, how it trains them, and the hiring spree that we have seen since the beginning of Trump 2.0.” — Kelly There’s much more to cover. Let’s get into it. Support This Week on ICE Podcast Exclusive interview: Camilla Forte discusses her months-long investigation of a Chicago street corner, known to be a popular spot for day laborers. Camilla, who reports for Borderless magazine, sat down with us to discuss how ICE's Operation Midway Blitz and immigration raids have deeply impacted both day workers and the contractors that hire them, how immigration enforcement has impacted the local community and economy, and what the grassroots response has been so far. This conversation starts around 9:59. “Because [street corners like this one] are known sites, they were being targeted [by ICE] pretty heavily during the height of Operation Midway Blitz. That created a lot of disruption to the day labor workers. There were violent arrests, there was pepper spray being deployed, all sorts of things. I think that made business owners and people living nearby these corners maybe warier of workers and made the contractors who were going to pick up folks wary of being in these areas because they were not sure what would happen. The situation was very volatile, and it made workers very scared to go and try to seek out work at these corners.” — Camilla [Catch up: We speak with a legal expert on third-country deportation deals, and the leader of a team that leaves water for migrants crossing the southern border.] On your way out: Rachel Schmidtke on documenting third-country deportees stranded in Costa Rica  We're here with Rachel Schmidtke, who is a senior advocate for Latin America at Refugees International. She is currently working in Costa Rica, where she and Refugees International are among the only organizations documenting the new realities of hundreds of third-country deportees from the United States, many of whom have no connection whatsoever to the Central American country. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, BBC, the UK's Channel 4 News, El País, and The Hill, among many other outlets. This conversation begins around 22:22.  “I spoke with one person who didn't even know the name of the country that he was in while we were interviewing him. People arrive here often not knowing that they're coming. So, part of the work that I'm doing is just trying to monitor how they were treated while they were in the United States, [whether] they had applied for asylum, and how they ultimately arrived here to Costa Rica, as well as how they're being treated currently.” — Rachel That’s it for us this week. Please keep sending us your questions, comments, or tips to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, look out for your neighbors, and we’ll see you next time. — Kelly and Matt Get full access to This Week On ICE Podcast at thisweekonice.substack.com/subscribe

  6. Jul 10

    Lorenzo Salgado Araujo is the latest person killed by ICE. Here's what we know.

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. An ICE killing in Houston: On Tuesday, armed ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a traffic stop in Houston, Texas, as he was driving a work crew to a homebuilding site. The killing has sparked an international incident, with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum vowing to pursue “legal measures” beyond mere diplomatic complaints. While fighting back tears during a press briefing on Thursday, Salgado Araujo’s 29-year-old son, Ronaldo Salgado, conveyed the grief and devastation experienced by his family:    “At 6:55, unbeknownst to all of us, my dad had been shot inside his van near the intersection of Wayside and Canal by ICE agents in unmarked cars. … By 8:35 a.m., I arrived in the East End to find Canal Street blocked off. I saw my dad's van, but no sign of him. I frantically called family, friends, loved ones to see if they can find any information. I saw a video posted on Facebook that he had been shot. I recognized him immediately, not from his appearance, but from his voice, crying for help as he lay on the street bleeding out.” — Ronaldo Salgado [Catch up: The investigative team tracking the full story of ICE-linked deaths.] After being shot, Lorenzo died in a nearby hospital, incidentally the same hospital where Ronaldo was born. Locally, the League of United Latin American Citizens is offering a $5,000 reward for information and videos from witnesses to the shooting, and demanding an independent investigation along with other civil rights groups. “We know that a man is dead — a man who was in the process of pursuing U.S. citizenship, who had U.S. citizen children, who had never had a criminal conviction, and was a hardworking person his entire life. This is a guy who put his sons and a grandchild through college by building houses. And it’s an absolute tragedy.” — Matt Lorenzo is at least the eighth person killed by federal agents during enforcement actions since President Trump took office last year. Some news outlets, including The Guardian and L.A. Taco, documented Lorenzo’s killing as the tenth made by ICE officers. There’s much more to cover. Let’s get into it. Also on our radar: ICE just made 10,000 arrests in five days. Here’s what it says about DHS’s new calculus. Leaked ICE records show the agency arrested about 10,000 people between June 26 and June 30, a rate of roughly 2,000 people per day in cities across the United States. That’s nearly double the previously highest known rate of ICE arrests in December of 2025. Kelly brought us up to speed on the new DHS playbook. “[It] speaks to the shift in calculus between former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and the current DHS Secretary, Markwayne Mullin. [He] said himself: ‘My goal in six months is that we’re not in the lead story every single day.’ It indicates these arrests are not going to happen in massive citywide surges like what we saw in Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Rather, these arrests are going to happen everywhere, all at once.” — Kelly Meanwhile, quieter policy shifts are unfolding beneath the surface, many of them reflecting an expansive definition of what the government considers a national security threat. In March, the FBI expanded its national security concerns to include anti-capitalist or anti-Christian ideology, extremism related to migration, race, gender, and gender identity, as well as threats against ICE employees. [Catch up: We unpacked the FBI’s $166 million budget request, which hinges on a broader definition of “national security concerns.”] A Wired investigation published this week offers a glimpse into how that broader framework is being applied. The U.S. government’s Office of Professional Responsibility — an agency originally established to investigate internal government misconduct — has opened more than 130 cases involving individuals accused of doxxing or threatening ICE employees. The story leads with the case of Syracuse resident Paigelynne Gonyea, who was investigated after sharing an Instagram post that ICE alleged amounted to doxxing an agent. But her post simply cited a Minnesota Star Tribune article that had already publicly identified ICE agent Jonathan Ross in connection with the fatal shooting of Renee Good, raising questions about where authorities draw the line between the sharing of publicly reported information and conduct they consider an imminent threat. “When I think about DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullins’ promise that ICE will become a quieter organization, have quieter tactics, I think about the ways his department is building the legal and governmental infrastructure against those criticizing ICE. He’s laying the groundwork so that he can enact change in ways that we’re going to see explode in a matter of weeks to months.” — Kelly Support This Week on ICE Podcast Exclusive interview: Reagan Williams on the human rights crisis during Operation Metro Surge Kelly spoke with Reagan Williams,  who is a researcher in the Crisis, Conflict, and Arms  Division of Human Rights Watch. Her team just published a 180-page report that investigates the rash of human rights abuses at the hands of ICE officers deployed to  Minneapolis and St. Paul during Operation Metro  Surge between December 2025 and March. At around 22:19 of the episode, we talked about the most damning findings, and how ordinary citizens are demanding oversight. “People [in Minneapolis and St. Paul] were so terrorized by Operation Metro Surge that they restricted their movements, particularly immigrants and people of color. In some cases, sheltering in their homes for weeks or months. … All of this is leading to human rights abuses on a new scale, and I think, at this moment, requires rapid intervention by Congress to rein it in.” — Reagan [Catch up: Track our reporting of Operation Metro Surge here, here, and here.] On your way out: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s unexpected wedding guest On July 3, American pop star Taylor Swift and NFL star Travis Kelce were married at Madison Square Garden in New York. Amid the star-studded celebration, however, controversy emerged over one of the reported guests: Steven J. Dimitriou, executive chair of Amentum, the company that operates Camp East Montana, an ICE detention facility located at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. The facility is the nation’s largest ICE detention center and is situated on the grounds of a former World War II-era Japanese American internment camp. Fans of the couple have since speculated about why Dimitriou was included on the reported 1,000-person guest list. According to online speculation, Dimitriou is the adoptive father of Reggie King, reportedly one of Travis Kelce’s closest childhood friends, which could explain the connection. For now, however, neither Swift nor Kelce has publicly addressed his reported presence at the wedding. “In inviting this man, who runs and operates one of those brutal ICE detention facilities in this country, there is a nod to complicity that is particularly egregious, and one that I do feel is worthy of discussion amid everything else going on right now.” — Kelly That’s it for us this week. Please keep sending us your questions, comments, or tips to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Thanks for listening, stay safe, look out for your neighbors, and we’ll see you next time. — Kelly and Matt Get full access to This Week On ICE Podcast at thisweekonice.substack.com/subscribe

  7. Jul 3

    Birthright citizenship survives — for now. Inside this week's biggest immigration rulings

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. A devastating earthquake in Venezuela: Last Wednesday, on June 24, the country experienced a magnitude 7.5 earthquake just west of Caracas, the capital. The quake collapsed huge numbers of buildings in highly urbanized areas, leaving at least 2,200 people dead and 50,000 missing. The part that deeply relates to what we cover here on this podcast is that among the missing and dead are those who had recently been deported to Venezuela from the United States just hours before tragedy hit.  “What happened to these deportees speaks to the theme of our show this week — the courts. Whatever the courts decide here in the United States, it changes real lives of immigrants in this country, and immigrants that may be deported out of this country. These decisions are increasingly becoming life or death.” — Kelly [Look back at our reporting on Venezuelan immigrants here and here.] Among the missing is Abelardo Rincón, a 24-year-old Venezuelan immigrant and car technician who lived in Georgia for six years before being deported on Flight 164 from Miami to Caracas among 140 other Venezuelans. Abelardo was recently married, and was expecting the birth of his daughter soon. Hours later, the earthquake hit, and his family still does not know where he is. When asked by the BBC whether the U.S. government was responding to news of the missing deportees, a DHS spokesperson said:  “This flight safely reached Venezuela and all illegal aliens on board were returned home. … When an individual is no longer in ICE custody, ICE is no longer responsible for them.” “I think this is exactly the point: deporting people who may or may not have entered the country illegally is more important to [the U.S. government] than preserving their lives, preserving their safety.” — Matt We have even more to tell you — the good news, and the bad. Let’s get into it. The top line: A major win for the protection of birthright citizenship — for now. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of upholding birthright citizenship in the United States as outlined in the 14th Amendment to the constitution, rejecting an executive order from President Trump that sought to make birthright citizenship illegal. That’s the good news, but dig a little deeper into the ruling and we find some troubling doors left open for the White House to pursue the most radical aspects of its immigration agenda: While the Supreme Court justices ruled in a 6-3 decision to throw out Trump’s executive order itself, the margins on actually banning birthright citizenship were far more narrow. “Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not sign on to the idea that the 14th Amendment explicitly outlines birthright citizenship as enshrined in the Constitution. He instead based his opposition to the President's executive order on the 1952 Immigration and Naturalization Act. He basically said the executive order contradicted established federal statute and opened the door to Congress legislating a new version of an immigration statute that he would then support. … He was joined by Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas, who all took the government's argument more seriously.” — Matt So, what does this mean about the future of birthright citizenship? Experts suggest that overturning birthright citizenship could become a litmus test for future federal appointments of judges under Republicans, much in the way that Roe v. Wade and overturning abortion protections in the United States was this litmus test in the past. Support This Week on ICE Podcast Also on our radar: The lower courts say mass detentions are a no-go, but fast-track deportations can run full speed ahead. On the same day that the Supreme Court announced its ruling on birthright citizenship, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against President Trump's policy of mandatory detention for migrants. But just a couple of days later, federal judges agreed that Trump can leverage an old policy intended for undocumented migrants near the border to fast-track deportations to undocumented migrants anywhere in the country without a chance for them to appear before a judge. So, what do these seemingly contradictory decisions actually mean moving forward? Let’s focus first on the Court of Appeals ruling on mass detentions: While this is the fourth court to reject ICE’s bid to subject millions of people to detention without bond, not all courts have ruled this way. “This is the next legal fight, one that the judge who ruled on this case has said himself is bound for the Supreme Court once they are back in session in the fall.” — Kelly And, what of the Court of Appeals decision on fast-track deportations? “What this is being applied to are folks who have been in the country for a long time, who do have court dates, who do maybe have some chance of staying in the country… and those folks are being deported before they ever get to see a judge, and sometimes in as little as a week or a few days.” — Matt Support This Week on ICE Podcast On your way out: The class action lawsuit attempting to protect immigrants from mandatory ankle monitors. Kelly spoke with Sarah Decker, senior staff attorney of U.S. Advocacy & Litigation at the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center. She has been working on a federal class action lawsuit with the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and Zuckerman Spaeder challenging ICE’s use of ankle monitors and wrist-worn devices that have subjected nearly 50,000 people to a system of arbitrary electronic surveillance. This is a classic case of ‘follow the money.’ The private company that is supplying ICE with these ankle monitors and GPS-enabled wristwatch devices is the GEO Group, which is a private prison giant in this country. These GPS devices … are causing enormous expense to U.S. taxpayers and enormous harm to the people that are forced to wear these devices. And the only group that is benefiting from these devices is GEO.” — Sarah You can listen to the full exclusive interview with Sarah at around 22:38. That’s it for us this week. Please keep sending us your questions, comments, or tips to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Thanks for listening, stay safe, look out for your neighbors, and we’ll see you next time. — Kelly and Matt Get full access to This Week On ICE Podcast at thisweekonice.substack.com/subscribe

  8. Jun 26

    The Supreme Court ruled on two major immigration cases in Trump's favor. Here's what this means for immigrants.

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. Breaking news from the U.S. Supreme Court: SCOTUS ruled Thursday that the Trump administration can end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians and Syrians in a 6-3 decision along party lines, impacting hundreds of thousands of people from two of the world’s most dangerous countries. The ruling also appears to clear the way to end TPS for over a million other people from 11 similarly unstable countries — from El Salvador to Myanmar to Yemen — who have sought refuge in the United States.  “The dominoes are starting to fall. It really was the ruling last year on [revoking] TPS for Venezuelans that set the precedent for what we’re seeing today with Haitians and Syrians. … The Trump administration basically argued that the ruling on Venezuelans should have applied to Haitians and Syrians too — and the Supreme Court agreed. That became the Trump administration’s winning argument.” — Kelly [You can dive into all our reporting on TPS here, here, here and here.] Also on Thursday, SCOTUS ruled that it will allow the Trump administration to end asylum applications from refugees arriving at U.S. borders, in what appears to be a complete victory for the White House’s immigration agenda.  “The Supreme Court has allowed the, the Trump administration to say, ‘Well, actually [asylum-seekers at the southern border] are still in Mexico. So therefore, we don’t even have to consider your case.’ … What effectively this does is reduce the U.S. asylum program to almost nothing.” — Matt We even more to talk about this week. Let’s get into it. The top line: A groundbreaking investigation found ICE overwhelmingly targeted Latinos in the east coast. A new report by City Reporter found that 93 percent of ICE street arrests in the tri-state area involved Latinos — a figure that far exceeds Latinos’ estimated share of the undocumented population. One immigration lawyer described the disparity as “pure racial profiling.” Currently, there is little that courts can do to influence ICE’s actions on the street, but a federal judge in California has just made a ruling that could stop immigration agents from making arrests at courthouses. Matt broke down what the investigation revealed and the state of play between ICE and the judicial branch. “This is deliberate targeting. And why is this targeting allowed? It’s because of another Supreme Court decision that allows these things called Kavanaugh stops. A Kavanaugh stop is basically when an immigration agent believes, within certain reasonable parameters — including someone speaking Spanish or someone appearing, by the judgment of the agent, not to have legal status — that a federal agent can stop that person and ’briefly detain’ them. But as we know, these detentions are rarely brief.” — Matt Support This Week on ICE Podcast Also on our radar: The Delaney Hall strike has ended. But its impact echoes in detention facilities nationwide. This week, detainees at Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey ended a hunger strike one month after it began — but not because conditions have improved. Allegations of heavy-handed retaliatory tactics by ICE and detention center staff, including a form of solitary confinement and the suspension of family visitation, have forced detainees’ hands. “Strikers ended the strike because it was becoming far too dangerous to keep going,” said Kelly. She talked about what the strikes achieved in spite of these challenges and how other ICE facilities are reacting to nationwide attention. “The message that originated from Delaney Hall did not end. If anything, it has expanded.” — Kelly [You can dive into all our reporting on Delaney Hall here, here, and here.] Before the strike ended, it gained significant national attention and expanded on June 12 when nearly 40 detained women joined and issued their own demands, including the release of all women under 21. The women also alleged that a female guard was sexually assaulting detainees and stated that the guard remained employed at the facility despite those accusations. Meanwhile, at least six other hunger and labor strikes are being conducted in facilities across the country, including at Adelanto ICE Detention Facility in southern California. There, at least 20 men have been on a hunger strike since mid-May, with some participants even meeting with members of Congress, including Rep. Judy Chu, to highlight the severe conditions inside the facility. Here, the echoes of Delaney are readily apparent: strikers have faced retaliation for their actions, including solitary confinement, physical abuse, and deportation. Support This Week on ICE Podcast On your way out: An LA journalist on how immigrant communities make — and break — the city’s history. This Week on ICE co-hosts Matt Kendrick and Kelly Kimball sit down with LA Times journalist Gustavo Arellano (center) for Episode 19 on Thursday, June 25, 2026. Gustavo Arellano is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where he writes about Southern California and the Western United States. He was a finalist for Pulitzer Prizes in 2025 and 2026, and was part of the team that won a Pulitzer for the LA Times in 2023 for their coverage of leaked audio from the LA City council that included racist disparagement of fellow elected officials. As if that weren’t enough, he is a leading expert on the food of the gods: tacos. His book, Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America, documents the Mexican-American experience through its most iconic food. He joined us to discuss ICE, local politics, and what Mexican-Americans are going through during these uncertain times. “ [The U.S. government is] always gonna be better funded than us. They’re always gonna be more powerful than us. But as the old leftist saying goes, they try to bury us but they don’t realize that we’re seeds. We are not going to stop fighting against tyranny. We are not going to stop standing up for our undocumented brothers and sisters and friends and even strangers.” — Gustavo That’s it for us this week. Please keep sending us your questions, comments, or tips to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Thanks for listening, stay safe, look out for your neighbors, and we’ll see you next time. — Kelly and Matt Get full access to This Week On ICE Podcast at thisweekonice.substack.com/subscribe

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About

A weekly podcast covering the latest developments of the Trump administration’s mass deportation policies, hosted by journalists Kelly Kimball and Matthew Kendrick. thisweekonice.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Team TWOI
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    27
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © This Week On ICE
  • Show Website
    This Week On ICE

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