When you look at all of the money we threw into Homeland Security after 9-11, you know,

we put a lot of money into new FBI agents, other corners of federal law enforcement.

But the pitch there was a very patriotic one. It was come be the front line of defense, join

an elite counter-terror force, be the first line of defense against al Qaeda.

That's not the hiring pitch that ICE is making right now in social media clips in, you know,

Fox News stories, in news headlines. It is, are you someone who gets really excited to dress up like you are storming

Fallujah in tactical gear with long guns to go round up some roofers in the Home Depot parking lot?

You know, Hello and welcome to the Politics Girl podcast. I'm your host Lee McGowan. Let's get into it.

Anyone looking around America right now can see that what's happening with ICE is not only a tremendous waste of money, but a shocking infringement

on our constitutional and human rights. To talk about border and immigration enforcement, I am joined

today by Garrett Graff, the best-selling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist who spent nearly

two decades covering politics, technology, and national security. A former teacher at Georgetown,

Garrett is the author of nine books on topics

ranging from presidential campaigns to Watergate, 9-11, and cybersecurity. Garrett is known for using

history to explain the story of where we've been to better reflect where we're headed. You can read

his work in multiple publications, but he has a regular newsletter called Doomsday Scenario

that's really worth checking out. I'm having him on

today to really dig into one of his most recent posts published in Mother Jones titled, Why Spending

$200 billion on Ice is a terrible idea. So without further ado, please welcome my guest, historian,

award-winning journalist, and best-selling author, Garrett Graf. Welcome, Garrett. Thanks so much for having me. Oh, thanks for coming. I mean, I read this article that you wrote, and I was just like, yeah, that's exactly right. Like, it was just such a clear way of saying it, and I think so many of us don't understand what's going on with ICE, except to know what we see through our social media, that it was sort of wonderful to see you break it down

why this was such a bad idea. You were saying that there's many reasons why Trump's new domestic

agenda as it's laid out in the Big Beautiful Bill is going to be such a tragedy for the country.

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