This Week On ICE

Team TWOI
  • 5.0 (3)
  • 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. 2d ago

    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 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisweekonice.substack.com

    40 min

  2. Jun 19

    15 Minnesotans charged with conspiracy, DACA under pressure, ICE threats at midterm polls, and two key SCOTUS cases wrapping up

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. First, the biggest news of the week: On Wednesday, President Trump signed a new bill that gave ICE a $70 billion windfall that will fund the next three years of immigration enforcement activity, putting an end to a months-long stalemate in Congress. It was this stalemate that led to a partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year, ICE agents in airports across the country, and 90 percent of Homeland Security’s 260,000 employees working for over a month without pay. The funding from this new bill is in addition to a $75 billion windfall the agency received last year from The One Big Beautiful Bill. “Because [the bill] was passed during a reconciliation process, Democrats will have a really hard time taking any of that money away, even if they win elections in November. It also includes about $23 billion for Customs and Border Protection.” — Matt Plus: This week marks the one-year anniversary of ICE raids conducted across Los Angeles resulting in the arrests of dozens of immigrants and massive, city-wide protests that shook the nation and resulted in the Trump administration deploying thousands of National Guard officers. The event marked a new phase of the Trump administration’s nationwide crackdown on immigrants that would spread across the country - in cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, Charlotte, and beyond. “LA was the beginning of everything. It became a real testing ground for mass demonstrations against ICE. It became a testing ground for volunteer community patrols, for mutual aid centers, for organizing in the name of immigrant defense.” — Kelly We have so much to talk about this week. Let’s get into it. The top line: Trump has called detainees at Delaney Hall “the worst of the worst.” This professor says the data tells a different story. Matt sat down with Austin Kocher of Syracuse University, whose work on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has become invaluable to journalists, academics, and advocates tracking ICE activities. He revealed key data he managed to dig up on Delaney Hall, where detainees have been holding a hunger strike for two weeks amid appalling conditions. (You can brush up on Delaney Hall in Episode 15 and Episode 16.)  “Not only are most of the people in ICE’s national detention network people who don’t have criminal histories, Delaney Hall is actually unique in [that] a vast majority of people in the system have no criminal conviction whatsoever… Very few people have anything close to a serious criminal conviction of any kind, and this is ICE’s own data.” —Austin Kocher Support This Week on ICE Podcast Austin said as much as 80 percent of detainees in Delaney are categorized within the lowest possible security classification, meaning they do not pose a risk to others. But as the ongoing hunger strike approaches its third week, his concern is that immigration authorities will begin reclassifying strike participants in retaliation, placing them in a “higher-threat” security category that allows for placement in solitary confinement. “That’s something we’ve seen in the past. Certainly, I worry that it might happen here,” said Austin. He writes his own newsletter decoding the U.S. immigration system, which you can subscribe to here. Also on our radar: The investigative team carefully uncovering the full story of ICE-linked deaths. Kelly sat down with Aisha Wallace-Palomares, Memo Torres, and Izzy Ramirez, who work for the LA-based news source LA Taco to learn more about their ongoing investigation that they’ve called “the death tracker.” It documents every single death linked to immigration enforcement across the country since the start of the immigration raids last year. But what began as a means to track the hard numbers became a greater need to get to the bottom of a much larger story: They noticed major differences between what the families of the deceased knew versus what DHS would report. Support This Week on ICE Podcast “So we started noticing… there's more to the story on each person [and] we should probably try to get the information and the real stories for everybody to humanize them and honor them,” said Memo. “The level of tracking went in deep. We went as far as going through Facebook posts and Instagram posts, finding cousins or family members in Mexico or any other country. … A lot of these cases [the families] didn't even have information; we had more information than they did,” he said. Their tracker comes at a critical time, as earlier this week, ICE announced it has rescinded a Biden-era policy that required the agency to report the deaths of detainees that occur within 30 days of their release. To the team at LA Taco, this doesn’t change anything, as they suspect ICE has hardly honored the policy to begin with, or have found accountability loopholes: “We've seen instances where they try to release people … by sending them to the hospital to try to not get the credit on them that they died in ICE detention,” said Memo. “We suspect they are going to try to do a lot more of that.” As of this recording, LA Taco has tracked 66 total deaths of immigrants under ICE custody, including 6 deaths that occurred shortly after release. 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 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisweekonice.substack.com

    37 min

  3. Jun 12

    A new $70 billion windfall for ICE — and Delaney Hall data that disproves DHS misinformation

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. First, the biggest news of the week: On Wednesday, President Trump signed a new bill that gave ICE a $70 billion windfall that will fund the next three years of immigration enforcement activity, putting an end to a months-long stalemate in Congress. It was this stalemate that led to a partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year, ICE agents in airports across the country, and 90 percent of Homeland Security’s 260,000 employees working for over a month without pay. The funding from this new bill is in addition to a $75 billion windfall the agency received last year from The One Big Beautiful Bill. “Because [the bill] was passed during a reconciliation process, Democrats will have a really hard time taking any of that money away, even if they win elections in November. It also includes about $23 billion for Customs and Border Protection.” — Matt Plus: This week marks the one-year anniversary of ICE raids conducted across Los Angeles resulting in the arrests of dozens of immigrants and massive, city-wide protests that shook the nation and resulted in the Trump administration deploying thousands of National Guard officers. The event marked a new phase of the Trump administration’s nationwide crackdown on immigrants that would spread across the country - in cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, Charlotte, and beyond. “LA was the beginning of everything. It became a real testing ground for mass demonstrations against ICE. It became a testing ground for volunteer community patrols, for mutual aid centers, for organizing in the name of immigrant defense.” — Kelly We have so much to talk about this week. Let’s get into it. The top line: Trump has called detainees at Delaney Hall “the worst of the worst.” This professor says the data tells a different story. Matt sat down with Austin Kocher of Syracuse University, whose work on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has become invaluable to journalists, academics, and advocates tracking ICE activities. He revealed key data he managed to dig up on Delaney Hall, where detainees have been holding a hunger strike for two weeks amid appalling conditions. (You can brush up on Delaney Hall in Episode 15 and Episode 16.)  “Not only are most of the people in ICE’s national detention network people who don’t have criminal histories, Delaney Hall is actually unique in [that] a vast majority of people in the system have no criminal conviction whatsoever… Very few people have anything close to a serious criminal conviction of any kind, and this is ICE’s own data.” —Austin Kocher Support This Week on ICE Podcast Austin said as much as 80 percent of detainees in Delaney are categorized within the lowest possible security classification, meaning they do not pose a risk to others. But as the ongoing hunger strike approaches its third week, his concern is that immigration authorities will begin reclassifying strike participants in retaliation, placing them in a “higher-threat” security category that allows for placement in solitary confinement. “That’s something we’ve seen in the past. Certainly, I worry that it might happen here,” said Austin. He writes his own newsletter decoding the U.S. immigration system, which you can subscribe to here. Also on our radar: The investigative team carefully uncovering the full story of ICE-linked deaths. Kelly sat down with Aisha Wallace-Palomares, Memo Torres, and Izzy Ramirez, who work for the LA-based news source LA Taco to learn more about their ongoing investigation that they’ve called “the death tracker.” It documents every single death linked to immigration enforcement across the country since the start of the immigration raids last year. But what began as a means to track the hard numbers became a greater need to get to the bottom of a much larger story: They noticed major differences between what the families of the deceased knew versus what DHS would report. Support This Week on ICE Podcast “So we started noticing… there's more to the story on each person [and] we should probably try to get the information and the real stories for everybody to humanize them and honor them,” said Memo. “The level of tracking went in deep. We went as far as going through Facebook posts and Instagram posts, finding cousins or family members in Mexico or any other country. … A lot of these cases [the families] didn't even have information; we had more information than they did,” he said. Their tracker comes at a critical time, as earlier this week, ICE announced it has rescinded a Biden-era policy that required the agency to report the deaths of detainees that occur within 30 days of their release. To the team at LA Taco, this doesn’t change anything, as they suspect ICE has hardly honored the policy to begin with, or have found accountability loopholes: “We've seen instances where they try to release people … by sending them to the hospital to try to not get the credit on them that they died in ICE detention,” said Memo. “We suspect they are going to try to do a lot more of that.” As of this recording, LA Taco has tracked 66 total deaths of immigrants under ICE custody, including 6 deaths that occurred shortly after release. 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 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisweekonice.substack.com

    45 min

  4. Jun 5

    ICE detention hunger strikes spread, sanctuary cities under pressure, and 1A freedoms put to question outside Delaney Hall

    In this week’s episode, we welcome back OG co-host Matthew Kendrick after a month away. It was such a pleasure bringing in LA-based investigative journalist Ben Camacho into the fold as temporary co-host. Throughout that time, Ben and co-host Kelly Kimball discussed the possibility of ICE’s presence at World Cup matches across the U.S., what historic highs of ICE detention deaths say about the condition of facilities nationwide, the end to fast-track ICE agent trainings, and the re-opening of asylum cases at the U.S. southern border. Ben, you will be missed! We have so much to talk about this week. Let’s get into it. The top line: What transpired outside Delaney Hall, and what it says about the state of first-amendment protections today. Tensions between ICE and demonstrators soared over the weekend as a peaceful demonstration that began in solidarity with a labor and hunger strike led by 300 Delaney Hall detainees quickly evolved into a standoff between protesters and NJ State Troopers after New Jersey governor Mikie Sherrill called troopers in to take control of security in the immediate area surrounding the facility. Support This Week on ICE Podcast  “Once state troopers stepped in [on May 29], First Amendment rights were heavily policed, and this is where protesters and members of the press have said that the access to the First Amendment was really put to question.” —Kelly During this time, state police in riot gear and on horseback pushed protesters away from the facility, creating scenes reminiscent of recent crackdowns in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis. In the same window, Newark’s mayor imposed a curfew (later lifted on Tuesday), the FBI raided a long-standing community triage center that had supported families visiting detained loved ones. This week, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and the New Jersey Attorney General filed suit against the GEO Group, which owns Delaney Hall, calling for the facility to be shut down. We also talked about the strange way state troopers attempted to sort out “credentialed” press from demonstrators, and how that underscores fraught debates in the courts about what makes a journalist and what doesn’t. Support This Week on ICE Podcast Also on our radar: The Trump administration’s new challenge to sanctuary cities could backfire. The Trump administration is threatening to withdraw Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents from major U.S. airports located in “sanctuary” jurisdictions, which are cities, counties or entire states that have policies that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Should this happen, it would effectively shut down international arrivals at these hubs. In fact, seven out of the ten busiest airports for international travel are located in jurisdictions that could be targeted by DHS, which together accounted for 70 percent of international passengers in 2024 (the latest year for which data is available). “It's difficult to overrate the severeness of this disruption. The air travel system is so interconnected, and there's just no precedent for this kind of action.” — Matt But despite the Trump administration’s attempt to bully local governments through lawsuits and threats, the law protects sanctuary policies. Namely, the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which says the federal government can't commandeer state and local officials to carry out their policies.  “But let's be clear, I don't think the administration is filing all of these lawsuits because they have any expectation of winning. This is a political tool. … Even though they know they will not win in the court of law, but they'll win in the court of public opinion. When these lawsuits fail because they're meritless, they'll just blame liberal activists, judges, and Democratic governors in states and cities across the country.” — Matt Share This Week On ICE Podcast And Finally: An interview exclusive with Wali Khan, who is a photojournalist that has tracked the Delaney Hall hunger strikes since day 1. Independent photojournalist Wali Khan (left) and This Week on ICE co-host Kelly Kimball on Wednesday, June 3, 2026. Wali Khan is an independent documentary filmmaker and photojournalist who has been documenting the ongoing protests outside of Delaney Hall since before the start of the hunger and labor strike that began on May 22. He sat down with Kelly to talk about what he has seen on the ground, and how it compares to other flashpoints he’s seen amid Trump’s protracted immigrant detention campaign. “There is a tendency to mythologize the struggle. To say that we are showing up for our neighbors, that this resistance is noble. We have to look at it through a material lens. … Functionally, nothing has changed about the immigration system or the enforcement at Delaney Hall. … As a journalist, I think it's important for me to document all this violence, but … I really worry that Americans could get used to this, and that they will start seeing migrants as a number.” — Wali 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. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisweekonice.substack.com

    38 min

  5. May 29

    We need to talk about Delaney Hall.

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. Major moves happened this week, so before we get into our official run of show, here’s a quick rundown of the latest: Alligator Alcatraz will be officially dismantled by early June, per a Tuesday report by the New York Times. The closure follows a year of intense legal challenges, controversial operational costs, and allegations of inhumane conditions. The 1,400 people currently detained at the facility are expected to be moved in the coming weeks. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed on Wednesday that former private prison firm executive Dave Venturella will become the new acting ICE director beginning June 1. He will succeed Todd Lyons, who is expected to leave the administration for a role in the private sector at the end of this month. And finally, a new wave of ICE deployments has officially begun, with the agency deploying about 330 agents to cities in more than 40 states, plus Puerto Rico, to bolster existing immigration enforcement. We have even more to share. Let’s dive in. The top line: What the 2026 Border Security Expo in Phoenix says about future DHS activity The big story out of Phoenix? How the U.S. government plans to act on its reclassification of major cartels like the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel as global terrorist entities. That label has blown open a Pandora’s box of new counterterrorism authorities, beefed-up sanctions, expanded surveillance, and a growing military role in fighting these groups. Expected, sure. But here’s where it gets interesting. DHS isn’t just redefining who counts as a terrorist organization abroad. It’s quietly redrawing the lines at home, too. The FBI’s FY2027 budget request from March asks Congress for roughly $166 million to go after entities engaged in so-called “anti-American activities.” The expo’s fixation on a sweeping, ever-expanding terrorism umbrella makes that budget line hard to ignore. “This is what they’re designating as anti-American activity: anything that is anti-capitalist, anything that is anti-Christian, anyone who behaves in extremist ways on migration, race, and gender. … The FBI’s new designation of terrorism is particularly worrisome, because what human rights experts are warning is that expressing beliefs even as banal as a critique of capitalism can now be considered a precursor for domestic terrorist activity. And they now want a multi-million dollar budget directed toward this.” — Kelly Also on our radar: Deaths in ICE detention facilities are on track toward historic highs Deaths in ICE detention facilities across the country have hit grim milestones this month. On May 1, a Cuban man identified as 33-year-old Denny Adan González, died inside the privately run Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, becoming the 18th person to die this year in the custody of ICE, and the fifth death believed to be by suicide, according to Physicians for Human Rights, which warned of a pattern of “increasing suicides” in these facilities. “We’re five months into 2026 already, and we have 18 deaths – that’s one death every six and a half days. If the pace holds through December, we’ll see about 56 deaths by the end of the year. Last year was the deadliest year for ICE detention in over a couple decades… We’re on track to nearly double that stat that we saw last year.”— Ben Plus: An interview exclusive with James Cordero, a water drop coordinator for Al Otro Lado Ben sat down with James to talk about what it’s like to hike into the California desert every week to leave water and food for people crossing the border, how ramped up enforcement has pushed migration routes into more remote and deadly terrain, and what happens when you find someone out there who did not make it. “Way too many people are dying while they're trying to cross into the United States, and every year temperatures keep getting hotter and hotter, colder and colder, depending on the season. It is a dangerous journey. And the more surveillance, the more border walls, more militarization on the border, it just keeps pushing people into further and further dangerous areas. … I have a death kit inside my backpack at all times, because you never know what you’re going to come across.” — James That’s all for now. Keep sending your questions, comments and thoughts to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Catch you next time. — Kelly, Matt and Ben This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisweekonice.substack.com

    40 min

  6. May 22

    The team meticulously tracking ICE deportations to third countries

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. Major moves happened this week, so before we get into our official run of show, here’s a quick rundown of the latest: Alligator Alcatraz will be officially dismantled by early June, per a Tuesday report by the New York Times. The closure follows a year of intense legal challenges, controversial operational costs, and allegations of inhumane conditions. The 1,400 people currently detained at the facility are expected to be moved in the coming weeks. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed on Wednesday that former private prison firm executive Dave Venturella will become the new acting ICE director beginning June 1. He will succeed Todd Lyons, who is expected to leave the administration for a role in the private sector at the end of this month. And finally, a new wave of ICE deployments has officially begun, with the agency deploying about 330 agents to cities in more than 40 states, plus Puerto Rico, to bolster existing immigration enforcement. We have even more to share. Let’s dive in. The top line: What the 2026 Border Security Expo in Phoenix says about future DHS activity The big story out of Phoenix? How the U.S. government plans to act on its reclassification of major cartels like the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel as global terrorist entities. That label has blown open a Pandora’s box of new counterterrorism authorities, beefed-up sanctions, expanded surveillance, and a growing military role in fighting these groups. Expected, sure. But here’s where it gets interesting. DHS isn’t just redefining who counts as a terrorist organization abroad. It’s quietly redrawing the lines at home, too. The FBI’s FY2027 budget request from March asks Congress for roughly $166 million to go after entities engaged in so-called “anti-American activities.” The expo’s fixation on a sweeping, ever-expanding terrorism umbrella makes that budget line hard to ignore. “This is what they’re designating as anti-American activity: anything that is anti-capitalist, anything that is anti-Christian, anyone who behaves in extremist ways on migration, race, and gender. … The FBI’s new designation of terrorism is particularly worrisome, because what human rights experts are warning is that expressing beliefs even as banal as a critique of capitalism can now be considered a precursor for domestic terrorist activity. And they now want a multi-million dollar budget directed toward this.” — Kelly Also on our radar: Deaths in ICE detention facilities are on track toward historic highs Deaths in ICE detention facilities across the country have hit grim milestones this month. On May 1, a Cuban man identified as 33-year-old Denny Adan González, died inside the privately run Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, becoming the 18th person to die this year in the custody of ICE, and the fifth death believed to be by suicide, according to Physicians for Human Rights, which warned of a pattern of “increasing suicides” in these facilities. “We’re five months into 2026 already, and we have 18 deaths – that’s one death every six and a half days. If the pace holds through December, we’ll see about 56 deaths by the end of the year. Last year was the deadliest year for ICE detention in over a couple decades… We’re on track to nearly double that stat that we saw last year.”— Ben Plus: An interview exclusive with James Cordero, a water drop coordinator for Al Otro Lado Ben sat down with James to talk about what it’s like to hike into the California desert every week to leave water and food for people crossing the border, how ramped up enforcement has pushed migration routes into more remote and deadly terrain, and what happens when you find someone out there who did not make it. “Way too many people are dying while they're trying to cross into the United States, and every year temperatures keep getting hotter and hotter, colder and colder, depending on the season. It is a dangerous journey. And the more surveillance, the more border walls, more militarization on the border, it just keeps pushing people into further and further dangerous areas. … I have a death kit inside my backpack at all times, because you never know what you’re going to come across.” — James That’s all for now. Keep sending your questions, comments and thoughts to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Catch you next time. — Kelly, Matt and Ben This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisweekonice.substack.com

    41 min

  7. May 16

    He leaves water for migrants at the southern border and carries a "death kit."

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. Major moves happened this week, so before we get into our official run of show, here’s a quick rundown of the latest: Alligator Alcatraz will be officially dismantled by early June, per a Tuesday report by the New York Times. The closure follows a year of intense legal challenges, controversial operational costs, and allegations of inhumane conditions. The 1,400 people currently detained at the facility are expected to be moved in the coming weeks. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed on Wednesday that former private prison firm executive Dave Venturella will become the new acting ICE director beginning June 1. He will succeed Todd Lyons, who is expected to leave the administration for a role in the private sector at the end of this month. And finally, a new wave of ICE deployments has officially begun, with the agency deploying about 330 agents to cities in more than 40 states, plus Puerto Rico, to bolster existing immigration enforcement. We have even more to share. Let’s dive in. The top line: What the 2026 Border Security Expo in Phoenix says about future DHS activity The big story out of Phoenix? How the U.S. government plans to act on its reclassification of major cartels like the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel as global terrorist entities. That label has blown open a Pandora’s box of new counterterrorism authorities, beefed-up sanctions, expanded surveillance, and a growing military role in fighting these groups. Expected, sure. But here’s where it gets interesting. DHS isn’t just redefining who counts as a terrorist organization abroad. It’s quietly redrawing the lines at home, too. The FBI’s FY2027 budget request from March asks Congress for roughly $166 million to go after entities engaged in so-called “anti-American activities.” The expo’s fixation on a sweeping, ever-expanding terrorism umbrella makes that budget line hard to ignore. “This is what they’re designating as anti-American activity: anything that is anti-capitalist, anything that is anti-Christian, anyone who behaves in extremist ways on migration, race, and gender. … The FBI’s new designation of terrorism is particularly worrisome, because what human rights experts are warning is that expressing beliefs even as banal as a critique of capitalism can now be considered a precursor for domestic terrorist activity. And they now want a multi-million dollar budget directed toward this.” — Kelly Also on our radar: Deaths in ICE detention facilities are on track toward historic highs Deaths in ICE detention facilities across the country have hit grim milestones this month. On May 1, a Cuban man identified as 33-year-old Denny Adan González, died inside the privately run Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, becoming the 18th person to die this year in the custody of ICE, and the fifth death believed to be by suicide, according to Physicians for Human Rights, which warned of a pattern of “increasing suicides” in these facilities. “We’re five months into 2026 already, and we have 18 deaths – that’s one death every six and a half days. If the pace holds through December, we’ll see about 56 deaths by the end of the year. Last year was the deadliest year for ICE detention in over a couple decades… We’re on track to nearly double that stat that we saw last year.”— Ben Plus: An interview exclusive with James Cordero, a water drop coordinator for Al Otro Lado Ben sat down with James to talk about what it’s like to hike into the California desert every week to leave water and food for people crossing the border, how ramped up enforcement has pushed migration routes into more remote and deadly terrain, and what happens when you find someone out there who did not make it. “Way too many people are dying while they're trying to cross into the United States, and every year temperatures keep getting hotter and hotter, colder and colder, depending on the season. It is a dangerous journey. And the more surveillance, the more border walls, more militarization on the border, it just keeps pushing people into further and further dangerous areas. … I have a death kit inside my backpack at all times, because you never know what you’re going to come across.” — James That’s all for now. Keep sending your questions, comments and thoughts to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Catch you next time. — Kelly, Matt and Ben This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisweekonice.substack.com

    38 min

  8. May 8

    No more fast-track ICE trainings, landlords weaponize ICE against tenants, and U.S. border migration developments

    Welcome back to This Week on ICE. While we were recording this week’s episode, news broke that the Trump Administration is in talks to shut down the Florida Everglades ICE Detention Center known as Alligator Alcatraz. These talks are still preliminary, with DHS officials having said it has become too expensive to keep operating the center, which at one point burned $1.2 million taxpayer dollars per day. It’s also a facility that continues to be mired in federal reimbursement delays. Meanwhile, The U.S. State Department announced yesterday it will begin revoking the U.S. passports of those who owe $100,000 or more in unpaid child support. The revocations will begin today and will apply to about 2,700 American passport holders, per the State Department. Moving forward, this revocation program will expand to cover parents who owe more than $2,500 in unpaid child support, which could encompass many more thousands of people, officials told the Associated Press. There’s much more to tell you. Let’s get into it. The top line: The Trump Administration has announced an end to fast-track ICE agent trainings. Yesterday, POLITICO broke the news that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will overhaul its training program for immigration agents, including restoring training that had been axed amid a rush to put thousands of agents on the streets. This comes amid a year defined by controversial ICE crackdowns in major U.S. cities, as well as a massive dip in approval ratings for the Trump administration across party lines. “During the partial government shutdown, there were negotiations that were made on Capitol Hill. I should highlight that the wanting to reform how ICE is trained was a bipartisan issue. A major push from the Democrats, for sure, but overall a lot of the lawmakers saw that there needed to be a change to reel in ICE,” — Ben So, what will this mean for arrests, raids and detentions going forward? For this, we look toward Border Czar Tom Homan: While speaking at The Border Security Expo on Thursday, Homan said during opening remarks: "If you think last year's historic number is good, wait till next year and we have 10,000 more agents on the border. You ain't seen s*** yet." Meanwhile, DHS is still working to increase ICE detention capacity. Homan quite famously said last year that these detention facilities are going to be “Amazon Prime, but for human beings.” This is the same man who also said, “We’re gonna flood the zone” with ICE agents to increase arrests just this week. While it remains to be seen what the scope and content of these trainings will look like moving forward, Homan’s language hasn’t shifted, indicating that we may continue to see highly consequential ICE raids and detentions in the future. Also on our radar: Landlords are allegedly using the threat of ICE arrests by harass immigrant tenants In late April, the New York-based news site Documented reported that New York City landlords are allegedly using ICE threats to intimidate immigrant tenants, according to various advocacy organizations and elected officials who testified at a joint oversight hearing of a City Council committees on Housing and Immigration. But this isn’t the only instance of this. Kelly dove into how, across major cities in America, some landlords are weaponizing ICE against their tenants, with some landlords even facing criminal charges for harassment. She also explained the ways some cities are fighting back to protect renters from having this happen to them. “To be sure, there are several laws protecting immigrant tenants. In New York, you can’t retaliate against a tenant for reporting housing issues. Yet advocates say immigration enforcement is regularly used against immigrant tenants who report landlords for bad conditions. And these are only the reported issues. For every reported issue, there are countless more that fall into the shadows.”— Kelly Plus: An interview exclusive with Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh of the Migration Policy Institute Putzel-Kavanaugh’s specialty is on migration along the U.S. Mexico Border. She has spent years conducting field research and humanitarian work with migrants. During her chat with Matt, she explained how asylum seekers and migrants have felt the impact of the administration’s actions over the past year. “When we see that immigration has become a sort of ‘all-of-government’ problem’ we mean every-step-of-the-way government — not just federal government, but down to the state level. It’s sort of a new phenomenon that has been growing for years, ” — Colleen That’s all for now. Keep sending your questions, comments and thoughts to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Catch you next time. — Kelly, Matt and Ben This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thisweekonice.substack.com

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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

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