ICE and the National Guard Are Acting with Impunity

Autocracy in America

The Atlantic

Society & Culture, Politics, News

4.8 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The transformation of ICE into a type of national police force, backed, in some cases, by soldiers from the National Guard, has been covered as immigration story—but these forces are reshaping democracy for all of us. This shift was evident even before the shootings in Minneapolis and Portland this week. In this episode, George Retes, a U.S. citizen and an Army veteran, recounts how he was detained by ICE and held for three days without explanation. The Atlantic staff writer Anne Applebaum returns as host of Autocracy in America and talks with Margy O’Herron and Liza Goitein from the Liberty & National Security Program at NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice about the potential impact of these forces on elections in November. Get more from your favorite Atlantic voices when you subscribe. You’ll enjoy unlimited access to Pulitzer-winning journalism, from clear-eyed analysis and insight on breaking news to fascinating explorations of our world. Atlantic subscribers also get access to exclusive subscriber audio in Apple Podcasts. Subscribe today at TheAtlantic.com/Listener. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the Atlantic, this is Autocracy in America.
0:03.5	I'm Anne Applebaum.
0:09.3	In this new season, I'm going to ask how the Trump White House is rewriting the rules of U.S. politics
0:14.9	and introduce you to some of the Americans whose lives have been changed as a result.
0:20.6	The president and his entourage are accumulating power in ways that seem familiar to to some of the Americans whose lives have been changed as a result.
0:20.8	The president and his entourage are accumulating power in ways that seem familiar to me.
0:26.0	This is exactly how elected leaders in other countries have distorted their democracies.
0:31.9	I want to understand how these kinds of changes work here and what they bode for the future.
0:38.3	My name is George Rediz Jr. I'm 25 years old. I was born and raised here in Ventura, California.
0:46.3	I'm a father of two, and yeah, I'm a U.S. citizen.
0:50.3	The day I was arrested by ICE agents was July 10th.
0:56.0	This first episode will focus on an issue you've probably heard about,
1:01.0	the transformation of America's immigration and customs officers into a masked and heavily armed paramilitary,
1:08.0	and the deployment of the National Guard to American cities supposedly to defend them.
1:13.7	Americans may think of this as a change that mostly affects illegal immigrants, but this new
1:18.1	federal police force is also establishing standards of lawlessness, and they are operating with
1:23.7	an assumption of impunity that is changing the lives of U.S. citizens as well.
1:29.4	George Redis has already felt the impact.
1:35.7	I was driving to my workplace where I work as a contracted security guard.
1:41.6	When I pulled up, there's just cars on that entire road, bumper to bumper,
1:46.4	people getting out, just cars driving around each other. I was like, all right, well, I just
1:50.7	need to make it to work. So I make my way through, and it's just this roadblock of ice agents
	...

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