What Actually Happens in ICE Detention

Runaway Country with Alex Wagner

News, Society & Culture, Politics, Government

4.8 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2026

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A new chapter of ICE terror has begun, but instead of taking place on the street—where agents are held accountable by protesters and their phones—mistreatment and coercion is now happening behind the closed doors of ICE detention facilities. These private prisons are operated by a company with close ties to the Trump administration, and have such abominable conditions that detainees at several facilities are waging hunger strikes. To get an idea of the mistreatment immigrants are facing, Alex speaks with Melissa Shepard, an attorney with Immigration Defenders Law Center, whose clients are given dirty water and spoiled food, retaliated against for participating in hunger strikes, and endlessly pressured to self deport. Then, she puts it all into context with Caitlin Dickerson, an immigration reporter at The Atlantic who recently embedded in Honduras to interview deportees from the U.S.

Transcript

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1:20.3	Hi, everyone. Months after the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, this week a new chapter of ice resistance began in the state of New Jersey.
1:30.2	Overnight protesters clashing with police. There were dozens of arrests for violating a curfew.
1:35.0	The mayor of Newark imposed outside the ICE detention center at Delaney Hall.
1:38.9	Anywhere within a half mile is off limits from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and police moved in to clear the streets.
1:45.1	That is ABC reporting on protests outside an ICE prison, where inside detainees are waging a
1:51.3	hunger strike over their living conditions. While camera phones have captured people being
1:56.2	pulled from their cars or shot in the streets, they aren't there inside these prisons to record spoiled food
	...

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