The US Tried To Keep ICE Abuse Reports Secret. Here's What's Inside
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 29 August 2023
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For more than three years, under both the Trump and Biden administrations, the federal government fought NPR's efforts to obtain those records. That's despite a Biden campaign promise to "demand transparency in and independent oversight over ICE."
This story contains graphic descriptions of mistreatment and death.
This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Kelsey Snell, and investigations correspondent Tom Dreisbach.
The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Connect:
Email the show at nprpolitics@npr.org
Join the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.
Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is David and Brandon and we just loaded up my U-Haul from Richmond, Virginia and we are |
| 0:06.7 | on the road south to Oakland Park, Florida. We're all finally able to live close by to my |
| 0:12.3 | boyfriend after meeting online three years ago during the COVID lockdowns. This podcast was |
| 0:18.4 | recorded at 2.11 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, August 29th. Things may have changed by the time you |
| 0:25.0 | hear this, but hopefully I will be all settled in my new place and starting my new life together |
| 0:30.9 | with my boyfriend. Okay, enjoy the show. |
| 0:39.0 | It's very exciting. Yeah, I just love when people share their lives with us and we're very glad |
| 0:45.3 | that we could be a part of, you know, hopefully you're listening while you're driving. Yeah, we |
| 0:49.0 | have a great backlog of podcasts. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I |
| 0:58.1 | cover the White House and I'm Kelsey Snelli cover politics and Tom Driesbock is joining us from |
| 1:03.5 | California at NPR West. Hey, Tom. Hey, how's it going? Excellent. So if you listened to our pod |
| 1:10.0 | yesterday, we did a show about how immigration is affecting life in New York City. Today we're |
| 1:17.4 | going to continue that conversation with a look at a different part of the very broken US immigration |
| 1:22.4 | system. And Tom, you have spent years fighting to get government records about detention facilities, |
| 1:30.0 | which are overseen by US immigration and customs enforcement, better known as ICE, and what you |
| 1:36.4 | revealed are, quote, barbaric and negligent conditions in these facilities. Let's start with this. |
| 1:44.6 | What are these facilities? Who's being held in them? How did they end up there? Sure. So these are, |
| 1:49.1 | yeah, as you mentioned, facilities run by ICE and they run what is known as a civil detention |
| 1:54.2 | network. So what's important to realize about ICE detention versus other parts of detention, |
| 1:59.4 | like jails or prison is that ICE detention is civil, not criminal in nature. It's not like prison |
| 2:05.6 | where you're serving time for punishment. It's basically to make sure that immigrants who are in |
| 2:11.3 | deportation proceedings show up for their court dates before an immigration judge. And so that |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.