Inside the ICE Detention Boom: Soaring Abuse Claims and Little Oversight

On with Kara Swisher

New York Magazine

Society & Culture

4.2 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2026

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While the Department of Homeland Security publicly claims to be resetting its tactics around immigration arrests, it's been building out its capacity to house detained migrants by buying up almost a dozen warehouses. If opened, they would dramatically expand a system that’s seen more than 40 deaths since Trump took office and is facing staggering accounts of human rights abuses. Kara speaks with three experts who’ve been tracking the Trump administration’s detention boom: Ximena Bustillo, Homeland Security Department and immigration policy correspondent for NPR; Austin Kocher, a political and legal geographer and a research assistant professor at the Syracuse University who tracks immigration enforcement data on his Substack; and Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a lawyer and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	His goal is a million deportations a year.
0:02.5	I don't think they're going to hit it,
0:03.8	but they're going to try to spend every penny of that funding that they can in order to reach that goal.
0:09.3	And that means more people caught up in this rapid system, more people held in detention,
0:14.1	more people subject to awful conditions, and more people who see what's happening and say,
0:19.1	I can't take it anymore.
0:20.5	I just want to give up, even if I could have a chance to stay in this country. Hi, everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network.
0:38.7	This is on with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher.
0:41.7	The Department of Homeland Security is in the middle of a major shakeup.
0:45.3	President Trump fired Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this month, making her the first cabinet departure of the second term.
0:52.2	Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen is expected to take over once he's
0:56.1	confirmed. By all accounts, Nome's downfall had more to do with her attention-seeking and not because
1:00.9	she failed to deliver on Trump's mass deportation agenda, nor did it have anything to do with the horrifying
1:06.5	allegations of human rights abuses at U.S. detention centers under her leadership.
1:11.6	2025 was the deadliest year to be in immigration custody in decades. This year is on track to be
1:18.0	worse. We've got three experts here to talk about the U.S. detention system and how it's being
1:22.8	radically reshaped by the Trump administration. Jimena Bustillo covers the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration Policy for NPR.
1:31.2	Austin Coker is a research assistant professor at Syracuse University.
1:35.1	He's been tracking immigration data trends and writes about it on his substack.
1:39.6	And Aaron Reiklin Milneck is a lawyer and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. I think people
1:45.6	should not be taking their eye off the immigration story because the nonsensical clown,
1:49.8	Christy Noam and her strange sidekick Korolundowski, are out of the picture. At the heart of it
	...

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