The Trump Admin Found a Way to Make Mass Deportation Even Crueler

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Hi, Bill Kristol here. Welcome to Bulwark on Sunday. We have a special show today. Two guests. First, my colleague Jim Swift, coming to us from Cincinnati. He's been up in Springfield, Ohio, about 70 miles or so, I think, from Cincinnati. Several times written for us and talked about it on other previous programs. Went up Friday and reported on the terrible, sad, and really disgraceful treatment of the Haitian community up there, which first, of course, came to prominence when they were denounced, totally falsely, of course, eating cats and dogs by the current president and vice president of the United States two years ago. Almost exactly two years ago, right? September of 2024. So, Jim, we'll begin with Jim. Take 10 or 15 minutes with Jim, and then we're going to be joined. I'm very pleased to be joined then by Sarah Mbeta, a leading attorney at the ACLU, who's worked on immigration issues. We'll follow up with her and get maybe a little bigger picture of what's going on, but especially, she's been very involved in the debates and fights about third country, here, in the United States. deportations, which, as we know, if you've read that piece of the New York Times yesterday, are now accelerating. People are being taken to countries they have no connection with and not countries that are safe often either, and just dumped there. These are people who were legally here until two minutes ago, so really terrible. Okay, Jim, welcome, and tell us about Springfield. Hey, Bill, thanks for having me. The last time I was in Springfield, ICE had not yet come, and the last time I was in Springfield, I was in the same place, a church called the Greater Grace Temple, which is right there off of I-70, and when I was there a little over a month ago, ICE had not yet descended, and the pastors were pleading, because they knew the legal writing was on the wall, that ICE would likely be coming, and they were pleading for them to treat Haitian people here humanely, and they were asking to only go after violent criminals, not innocent, hard-working families. who came here legally and just had this legal status stripped of them for no reason other than, I think, cruelty, but Carl Ruby is kind of the main through line. He is the senior pastor at Central Christian Church that I've been following. He runs the G92 Collective Group. It's a consortium of churches that are helping the Haitians there. He missed the beginnings of the ICE raids in Springfield, because he was up in Canada helping a member of his parish flee to Canada, and the G92 Collective, they had an immediate relative there. Canada is not really an option for many Haitians who are here in the country and have been -- their status has been stripped of them. Some people have asylum claims, but the people who have protected status, which is now gone from them, they can just be detained on site and deported, and that's what we're seeing in Springfield right now. So what's happened so far since the crackdown began? A couple of -- I guess they've fully lost their GPS. Yes. I mean, that came a couple of weeks ago, and then ICE showed up, and so what's happened and what do people expect to happen, and what's the mood up there, if I can say that? What are they doing in the Haitian community? It's terrible. Mood is very -- mood's very somber. I mean, people are not going to church anymore. They're not sending their kids to school. They can't work anymore. Some places that have known clusters of Haitian workers, they were -- ICE was raiding to make sure that they weren't there. The irony in all of this, Bill, is that the government knows where these Haitians are. They have to register when they move. They have work permits. All of this stuff -- you know, they're getting notices from the courts. They're coming to Cincinnati, where I live, to the ICE complex here to get digital bracelets, which the pastors kind of compare to shackles. They're actually literally using shackles when they're sending folks on these flights back to Haiti, which we can talk about in a second, because it's not safe to be back in Haiti. And, you know, that's the main thrust of what these pastors are saying, and they're sharing with us some pretty horrific stories, Bill. So how many people have been deported so far? Do you know -- do we know? And then many others are in hiding or waiting or wearing these ankle bracelets that they've -- they complied with the order to show up, I guess, and were given this as a way of -- I mean, as a way -- as you say, they don't really need that to track them, right? This is just a way of humiliating them? I mean. Yes, I think absolutely. Especially because there's also a DHS app that they can use to check in. It has facial recognition and other things. I mean, I haven't downloaded the app myself. I had no reason to. By the numbers, we don't know how many have been deported yet. We do know by some estimates that about 34 individuals from the Springfield area have been arrested and brought to nearby Butler County where their sheriff has a partnership with ICE, and that's where folks are held before they get sent down south to, I think, Texas, Louisiana before folks might get sent back to Haiti. There are about 10,000 Haitians estimated to be in the greater Springfield area and Clark County. Clark County has about 135,000 people, and Springfield itself has about 59,000 people. So this is not exactly a Minneapolis situation. Minneapolis is, you know, about seven times as many people in about twice as much area, so it's way more dense. You know, Springfield is surrounded by farms, and this week that church I was at, Greater Grace Temple, was filled with people doing activity. They were phone banking to raise money for the Haitian support center. They were calling Governor Mike DeWine. They were calling Senator Husted, who's up for reelection, he's never been elected, encouraging him to do something. Bernie Moreno is very clear he's not going to do anything for the Haitians, and they're preparing food. They're writing letters with computers using Google Translate and the Haitian Creole to send to people who are detained and to put into boxes where they're, you know, giving food to people who can't leave. Like, they're afraid to go to the store. There are about, as I said, 34 arrests. One we know was a Haitian pastor called Gilbert Adrian, who's beloved in the community, and he was the main pastor of his church. So they now are a church without a leader. The pastors that I saw on Friday called for his release, but they have not heard anything back. And there's literally none of these people, there's nothing, they're not arresting people who have criminal records or arrest records even, or any kind of records, I mean, except for being, well, except for abiding by the, so far as one knows, the rules and regulations of temporary protective status and checking in, as you say. Just on these, so the flights that we've heard about that have landed in Haiti and, God, the terrible fate, or hope's not, but that some of these people may be subjected to, including children, I think, on these flights, those are flights not from, so far as we know, from Ohio or people from Springfield, those are, I think, were maybe people more from Florida, was that right? Yeah, yeah, I mean, given the small number of arrests, and it does, there is a kind of time lag. Like, we won't know, you know, for probably a couple weeks or months until we get all the data on who has been arrested, detained, and deported, whether or not they had active criminal records. And- There's no reason to think, I mean- No. When this became an issue two years ago, and people looked at this, and you, people could do the data analysis, and do they have a higher criminal record than anyone else? And I think it was pretty overwhelmingly clear- No, a recent, I forget who, I forget who the recent study was, but a recent study showed that a majority of the arrests of immigrants that are getting deported don't have criminal records, you know, kind of dating through Minnesota and other places. So, they would go south before they end up on one of those flights. But this community here is really reactive, and they're trying to make sure that everyone who is remaining in Springfield is getting money and assistance to pay their rent. Because they're not working to get boxes of food. And, you know, on occasion that they do need to go out, they're driving people around, you know, like Ruby was escorting this parishioner family of his to Canada. And they're protecting Haitian churches. And there were a couple hundred people who had signed up to come. I heard some people from Akron, Cleveland, near where I grew up, came down, you know, made a couple hours trip to spend a day or days helping Springfield, and it was, it was really neat to see. Despite all of what's going on, it was heartening to see this group of about 75 people in the church when I was there, all working at different stations for a potluck that they're planning that's actually going to take place here in about an hour around Springfield City Hall, which I'm sad to miss. This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture East. That's with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culture East. This is Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know, when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, okay, hold on, I got a new favorite food. That's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try Kewpie mayo. Yeah, it's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle. You've probably seen it at the grocery store. And this mayo is different. Mm-hmm. Most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Kewpie only uses egg yolks, which gives it this rich umami flavor. It's smoother, deeper, almost buttery. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything. Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers. Chefs use it. Restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. Kewpie, the original Japanese mayonnaise. Happy birthday, America. It's time to celebrate and play your favorite Las Vegas casino games by American-owned SpinQuest.com. What's better than fireworks and American pie? Hitting a blackjack in the palm of your hand, and you won't lose your fingers. Over 1,000 games, including slots and live dealers. And $30 coin packs are on sale for $10. SpinQuest.com. Buy American players for American players. Voidware prohibited. Should it be clear that people who are volunteering to help are not Haitians, particularly? No. Some are there. No, no, no. There are people from whatever. Yeah, there are a couple of Haitians. Yeah, there are a couple of Haitians in the church, like Ville Storsainville, who runs the Haitian Resource Center. And I know a lot of our members have donated money to them. It's one of the best places to help. The St. Vincent de Paul charity has been, you know, kind of the other main charity driving in Springfield. But he's there, and he is a person who had his TPS revoked, and he does have an asylum claim. But Carl Ruby, you know, there was kind of a dramatic scene in this where they paused and Ruby held up this yellow legal pad and was asking Ville if he could share this information. It was about a meeting the two of them had with DHS. And they straight up told Storsainville in this meeting with Ruby that, I know you have an asylum claim, and if we just see you out, we can just detain you, you know, and we can go through our process. And basically, you know, it would be tantamount to almost accelerating his asylum claim. But if you look at the statistics, they're just rammed. They're just ramrodding these folks out and pushing them to deportation. It is not really due process. And I think that's another complaint these pastors have is where's the due process for folks who just had this yanked away and really gave no recourse to a petition for asylum? Because if you didn't do that already before it went away, your chances are pretty much next to nothing, even if you have good lawyers. And then today, I know you're for Obligation Cincinnati. Thank you for taking time out to do this, but just close to this. So what's happening today? And I guess it's shortly, it's a it's a kind of a rally or a gathering on behalf of the Haitians or. Yeah, happening right now as we speak, as we record is around City Hall. There is a I was struck by it says forward together is kind of the motto on City Hall there. And it's a beautiful little park space. And that's where they've had rallies in the past. And they're having a potluck. And after that potluck, they're going to be reading scripture. They're going to be kind of doing a Jericho walk around this City Hall complex. And praying for leaders who understand Mayor Rob Rue, Mike DeWine. They they have all urged that TPS not be cut off. But really, these folks are asking, what can you do now? Are you going to make sure that the local government isn't sharing flock data with ICE? Are you going to lend local police and fire support to these ICE operations? And locals are saying, don't do that. We don't want you to cooperate with them. And finally, there is legislation. Obviously, everyone forgets that somehow it's so annoying that TPS is treated as this thing. And the administration just gets to decide. It's a it's a it's a program established pursuant to obviously, like all programs are, like all policies are, should be pursuant to legislation. Congress could tomorrow pass legislation that extends TPS for Haitians, for everyone, for people meeting certain criteria for six months, 18 months, 24 months. This is all what this is kind of back in the day. This is what actually Congress did. You know, they and now there has been an attempt, right, to extend the TPS for Haitians. Yes. And it would, you know, I think some Republicans in the House, is that right? It did. It passed bipartisan measure in the House, I think was 10 Republicans that crossed over for it. I believe Mike Turner, who's a member of Congress who represents that Dayton area, did it. And it's just waiting in the Senate. Now, you know, Moreno has said, no, I'm not going to do it. You know, temporary is temporary. They need to go. But Husted is not. He was the lieutenant governor before he got appointed to J.D. Vance's seat. He's not weighed in, necessarily. He's not necessarily against it. And he's got a tough election against former Senator Sherrod Brown this year. And Sherrod Brown has been speaking up in support of this community. And he just really hasn't staked a claim yet. So there is a chance, but the Senate would have to act and then, you know, Trump would have to sign it, which, you know, creates its own new news cycle about this if he were to veto it. It would be nice, from my point of view, I'd say, if Democrats pushed hard for when they get back here on September 14th and maybe make any kind of continuing resolution contingent on at least getting a clean vote on this. There's been no vote in the Senate on the floor of the Senate, I believe, on race or anything else much with immigration policy. But certainly on the TPS for the Haitians, who particularly, I do feel, you know, were targeted for obvious reasons by Vance and Trump and who were being deported, A. And B, so there's this sort of racism of the targeting and the injustice of the targeting. But they're also being deported, whatever one thinks of going back to other places or being sent to other places. Those are not the most risk-free or wonderful places. They're not the most dangerous places in the world, and people fled them in many cases for very, very, very good reasons. But Haiti is just another category of awful, and the idea that we're deporting people to that is just to that country right now is astonishing. Well, one detail I yeah, one detail I was struck with, Bill, I mean, the cruelty is the point all the way down, whether it's the digital shackles of the ankle monitors or the actual shackles they're using in the flights. But, you know, you may have seen, you know, the offer from DHS that they've posted on social media in cruel ways, saying, you know, we'll pay for your flight and we'll give you money. Well, that money, which some say has not been materializing for people who have taken the offer to leave, puts an immediate target on their backs. I mean, the gangs in Haiti, they have Internet access. They can read the news, and they can find out that people who are coming back on these flights landing in Haiti are supposedly going to be having thousands of dollars that American taxpayers gave them. And, you know, Carl Ruby talked about somebody had reported to me. He has a reporter who's embedded on the ground. In Haiti about people landing and they just run from the flights. They don't wait to see anybody. They know they just run because they just know that there's a target on their back and they'll find their loved ones later. But they're getting off these planes and they're running because they're scared. And, you know, that's my end is the cruelty is the point all the way down. There's not Humanity being shown at any level by the federal government here. That's an awful story. But I guess an appropriate one to end this on and discussing this awful policy. Jim. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. overwhelmingly, the new agreements are with African countries. And we are seeing flights almost every week now of people who won protection to remain in the United States, they went to immigration court, and they were found to have a really strong and credible fear of persecution or torture. And instead of them being released, these people are being arrested, put on flights, often with no notice and sent to countries they have no relationship with. Just on Friday, the US government sent a flight of more than 50 people to the Central African Republic. 20 of them were Afghan, around a dozen Iranian, Nova Nepali, a Russian mixture of different populations, people that, you know, don't speak French or any local language, people that are being dumped at a place that the US government has said, US citizens should not go if you're going to go leave a DNA sample so we can identify your body. And that's where we are dumping people, effectively putting them in house arrest there. And we talked more about the other countries, but in a range of them, particularly Eswatini and South Sudan, people are in prison, Eswatini people are in a maximum security prison. And so, you know, there's a lot of people who are in prison. Not because they have any pending criminal charges, but that's because that is how this government, with the US consent and knowledge, has decided to hold immigrants. Yeah, what's so appalling about this, just to put the dot the i and cross the t on this, is that the reason they're not being deported to the country they came from is that they have been found to be at such risk of torture or assault there from the government or, I guess, gangs, that they, we, that they can't legally, we can't, we're not allowed to go there, we're not allowed to go there, we, that they can't legally, we can't, the US government can't legally, is that right, deport them to that, back to whatever country, let's say, and therefore, but they're a runner, so instead of simply keeping them in the US, and these are people who haven't broken laws in the US, so far as we know, in general, instead of just leaving them in the US, giving them, letting them stay, we're deporting them to yet another, it's a runner, it's a way of getting around the convention on torture and so forth, but then we're sending them to places that are almost as bad or worse, maybe, since they don't even know anyone there, right? Absolutely, and I'd say, you know, in many ways, what the US government is doing is trying to launder its crimes through other countries, because we are sending people knowingly to countries where they may face persecution and torture there, but also where they are then being sent back to the countries they're originally from, particularly in Africa, where they can be, you know, more easily moved, I mean, it's harder to send an Afghan to Afghanistan from Khar, but we, you know, many cases where people have been sent to Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Lyon, and then find themselves sent back directly to the country that they fled, I was just reading a case this morning about a man from Nigeria who was tortured twice by Boko Haram, this is all in the court findings, and so we could not deport him back to Nigeria, the US government sent him instead to Ghana, and, you know, a few days later, he's back in Nigeria, now living in hiding, and there's, you know, tons of cases like this, a woman who fled female genital mutilation, who was also deported to Ghana and sent back to the country that she's from, basically what the US government is doing is it's creating these sort of blanket, what they call diplomatic assurances, it's literally just a box that the government has to check to say that, oh sure, we'll follow the law, but you can't give a blanket diplomatic assurance to make sure that specific individuals will be safe, and we also now have ample and accelerating evidence that those countries are not actually following international law, and are doing what we call "refoulement," where they're sending people back to the places where they have already been persecuted and tortured. This is Matt Rogers from "Lost Culture East" with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. This is Bowen Yang from "Lost Culture East" with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. You know when people try a new food and suddenly it's like, "Okay, hold on, I got a new favorite food!" That's the reaction a lot of people are having when they first try Kewpie mayo. Yeah, it's the one with the red cap and the little baby on the bottle, you've probably seen it at the grocery store. Mm-hmm, most mayonnaise uses whole eggs. Once people try it, they start putting it on everything: egg sandwiches, fries, burgers. Chefs use it, restaurants use it, people who really care about flavor use it. You know what? It sucks to be bored. But when I get on my phone and play real casino games on SpinQuest.com, the time flies. That two-hour wait at the DMV seems like 10 minutes. Play your favorite slots: live blackjack, live craps, with a live dealer. New players, $30 coin packs are on sale for 10 bucks. Play SpinQuest.com and you'll never be bored again. And is there any remedy in U.S. law for that? Can the U.S. government be challenged for not, in fact, following what they say? What they're supposed to be following, which is getting some assurance that these people are not going to be sent back to the countries from which they are supposedly being protected from torture and so forth? I mean, I certainly hope so. Right now, there's a pending case at the First Circuit that is more about the notice piece of this. And I think right now we're only just starting to be able to document and get evidence. You know, one of the things is a lot of these people are in hiding in the countries that they're in. I've heard from attorneys that around 30 percent of the people sent to African countries who are African are LGBTQ, and they're being sent to countries like Ghana, where that is basic, basically a criminalized status now. So people it's people are not in a situation where they can come forward very easily and talk about what's happening to them. There have been some different cases filed in Africa, actually, by some lawyers from Uganda and other countries that are bringing this up at the African Commission that people are, in their words, being trafficked into their countries by the United States government. Terrible. I mean, the idea, you know, what about what the Afghan story focused on a relative, I believe, of someone who had worked with U.S. troops in Afghanistan had come here and now the relative is being deported, not to Afghanistan. I mean, so, A, so much for our assurance to Afghans that they and their families, if they work with us, would be safe here. And B, not to obviously to Afghanistan. Well, not obvious, not to Afghanistan. Maybe some others have been, I don't know, but to some country thousands of miles from Afghanistan where this person, I think it's a young person, right, knows no one, say a word about that. Yeah, that's exactly right. This is a very young man who was, you know, born just around the time of the war starting between the United States and Afghanistan. And his father and his siblings all helped the U.S. military. There is a Marine colonel who testified on his behalf. His family, most of them have been able to come to the United States after being attacked by the Taliban. As you know, President Trump has ended most of the lawful routes for people to be able to come with advanced permission. So he arrived at the border, waited for months. You know, kept being attacked by gangs and finally did come into the United States. And he won his case again where they said, no, of course you cannot go back to Afghanistan. You were going to be attacked by the Taliban. He's been he was in detention for two years while they figured out what to do with him. Again, he won his case and he was on that flight to Central African Republic on Friday. So he is there now while his family is here in the United States. He's by himself there. Carr also has, unfortunately, a well-documented history of discrimination against Muslims so he's also in a place where, you know, he's in limbo. I mean, the people in Carr are basically under house arrest, but they don't have permanent lawful status. They can't work. They have no way to support themselves. They don't speak the language. This is a young guy who, you know, really has a target on his back. You know, a lot of these people are being harassed by the guards. They don't have any money. They're really sort of beholden on the government to keep them sort of safe in a city that is run by Russian mercenaries. So it's an incredibly dangerous situation for him and, again, just heartbreaking for his family. And for this Marine colonel who came forward to say, you know, we owe a duty to these people that came and helped us and saved our lives in Afghanistan. What are we doing? But unfortunately, this is, again, just part of the Trump administration's campaign to get rid of anybody who is trying to seek protection in the United States. Yeah, there's a very moving video of this, and I think he's given an interview or two, too, of this Marine colonel, active duty colonel, saying, look, I'm speaking as an individual here and he's not wearing his uniform, at least in the video I saw, but very powerfully. He's saying what a betrayal this is of promises we made and a totally unjustified policy to be pursuing. I wish, but again, I'm sort of a little shocked, honestly, the more, who knows what the military people are saying privately, and maybe they are making representations within the U.S. government. It's not as if the Defense Department couldn't go to DHS and say, hey, wait a second, don't do this, right? I mean, in a normal administration, I would say that would happen. It's not like the Defense Department doesn't have interagency access to the head of DHS or-- or various other people at ICE and so forth and say, no, no, no, or at least we want to go to the president and make our case that this is terrible for unjust and a terrible precedent and certainly for-- and will hurt the U.S. military down the road. But I don't have the sense that that's happening much, sadly. I don't. I mean, I think there was an incident a few months ago that you might have read about where there are a group of Afghans who were evacuated from Afghanistan for a stool at a U.S. military base in Doha. And we learned that they were going to move them to the Democratic Republic of Congo. This was right before Ebola started. And there was sufficient outrage at that point because we were able to get it made public. And so they did not send them there. Of course, those people are still in limbo with the U.S. government and Afghanistan saying, you should just go back to the Taliban. So there's no-- there's no real route for them to safety at the moment either. But I do think there was a lot of behind-the-scenes pressure on that because we could find out. What's really insidious about what the U.S. government is doing is, on the one hand, you know, they are doing all of these operations on purpose to terrify people so that people will self-deport. This was their term. Of course, you cannot self-deport to a place where you think you're going to be murdered. But that is what they want people to do. But while they're telling people in detention this could happen, like, we're not-- we're not joking. Like, if you don't get on your flight and go back to Venezuela or back to Nepal, you're going to end up in central african republic they're not telling people what plane they're going to be on until its last minute and so it feels very speculative i think to a lot of people who don't know that this is happening um but it is part of i mean the government's been pretty open that this is their plan you know they have basically renamed at least internally the bureau of migration in the state department the bureau of re-migration and they are trying to get rid of these people again people that have protection people have helped the us military um as quickly as possible and at a time when frankly we are relying on a lot of other countries like ecuador um like a lot of the gulf countries while we have multiple wars going on so it is incredibly short-sighted is the you know is the nicest way of thinking about it but just the cruelty is unbelievable with what they're doing so it is really shocking i've got to say and yeah i didn't i mean i think there probably are people in the military objecting and trying to make a case but certainly one doesn't have the sense that uh pete hicks at the military defense and is is obviously saying anything against this and quite the contrary but it's so bad obviously for people i know young but younger people who served in post-911 wars in afghanistan and iraq for that matter the idea that this is what we're we can't you know these afghan refugees who come here they're doing fine i believe as you know when once they get settled once we let them get settled here they want to be here uh and they uh but but the idea that we're deporting them and they're deporting some of them to third countries you say where they have no connections is really it's really i yeah kind of jaw-dropping you've been in this business quite a while and you've studied the history of u.s immigration policy there's certainly plenty of cases where we've been cruel either inadvertently or some cases knowingly i think one could say and certainly uh nativism is not something new but i just feel like this is a whole different level am i am i wrong about that i mean no i haven't i have never seen something like this before where again the cruelty really is the whole point of the policy it is just to terrify people and just to end our both our legal and our moral commitments to people seeking protection i mean i think people forget you know our laws and most international laws that protect against torture that protect refugees those were largely written by the united states in the wake of world war ii and after the holocaust where we realized really what the consequences are of turning people back to dangers um and now we are actively on writing those laws and encouraging other countries also to abandon asylum uh to abandon refugees it's pretty appalling and also it doesn't make any sense because where are people actually supposed to go the other thing that's really appalling about these flights there was another story about it today in the new york times is the conditions on the flights are absolutely horrendous people are often put in something called rap which is a full body restraint i mean it looks like you're being mummified except for your face is the only part that's free and people are on flights for 20 to 50 hours unable to go to the bathroom um we've heard lots of stories of people being you know beaten up by guards because they were afraid to get on the plane or they're afraid to get off they found out where they were a bunch of people were taken to liberia when they found out they were in liberia they said i don't want to get off the plane and so the u.s government flew them to equatorial guinea where they are now under house arrest many of them with pretty serious medical needs i just talked to a lawyer the other day who has a client who is a liberian pastor who's been in the united states for 30 years he has multiple u.s citizen kids he's they want to fly him to sierra leone he had a stroke in immigration detention so he is right now changed to a hospital he's going to be put on the plane and sent to sierra leone i mean the man is going to die in transit let alone you know be able to get any type of medical care once they're there and again these are you know these are not just a couple of stories that i'm aware of the government knows exactly what it's doing and is really deliberately doing this in order to terrify people but you know what what is the point honestly because these are not people that can go back to the places that they fled um and they are leaving behind u.s citizen kids who are you know alone and abandoned as a result of what they're going through and so i think it's a good result of it yeah of course the trump administration doesn't want them to be u.s those kids to be u.s citizens either so that's part of their let's close on the re-migration thing which you just mentioned in passing i mean uh i wasn't actually aware they either have renamed it or at least internally now call it that i guess congress hasn't i don't know whether congress would have to agree to that or not but um re-migration is sort of a term let's say a term of art i don't know what to call it it's it's a term that it became prominent in very far right-wing circles right in the last decade or two maybe even before that i think in europe maybe first and as a kind of not just closing the border or cutting down on nearly you know an unlawful entry or or stricter you know lower quotas for immigrant immigrants uh it be it's literally be getting rid of people who have come here and in most many cases who've come here legally and in many cases are now naturalized citizens i think in europe at least it very much has that connotation you know that algerians have been in france for 40 years and who are french citizens and voted in french elections and paid french taxes and speak french they should be deported because the people pushing this don't like having people who aren't white or whatever or who haven't been in this country for whatever country it is for 200 years or whatever reason that they don't want those people but i and that is a it's amazing to me that they were even informally would use that term yeah i've heard senior state department officials say it in interviews and as you're noting this is a term basically of ethnic cleansing that is about the mass deportation of non-white minorities um in many ways it's not surprising to see it used by this administration that has used white supremacist white nationalist imagery both to recruit um ice agents uh to promote 100 million deportations you know with these images of a white christian america at the end of it but that is very much the goal here i mean again the only people allowed to come as refugees right now are white south africans and everybody else is being told you have to get out of the as jim was saying in the previous segment they are starting with haitians with venezuelans with people of color um who are they are getting out of the country and using incredibly racist language while talking about them in their place in this country and it's going to have long-term impact you know not just for immigrants but for people of color who live in the united states i mean it's one of the reasons citizenship is so important if we have the 14th amendment is that we have people who could be equal you know under the law and in front of the constitution and those are principles that this administration is pretty committed to well eradicating basically from from our moral and legal life in the united states so it's very chilling to see this as part of the program for the state department for a bureau that used to be in charge of protecting refugees and protecting humanitarian laws and making sure that people could come safely to contribute in this country and is now part of just like the military and every other agency is now part of a larger agenda which is to mass deport people as quickly as possible whatever it takes to get them out of the country and so i think that's one of the reasons that we're going to have to think about how we do this and i think it's important to think about what the court takes whatever the cost i wish this could have been a more upbeat conversation but it's important that people that really do know the truth and i think and thank you for coming and telling the truth but also thank you for what you're doing to fight this because it's not you know these things can be executive branch has a lot of power especially in immigration i guess right but uh there are things that congress and the courts can do and some courts have done some things obviously and you all are Yeah, as you say, there are individual judges that are pushing back and are saying what happened, like bring this person back. We have a case obviously ongoing about Seacott, the people that were sent to be tortured in maximum facility, maximum security facility last year in Ecuador. You know, there is ongoing litigation. And but a lot of this does need a congressional fix. And we need to provide like real durable protection for people so they can't just be plucked from their communities and put on these planes. A lot of that is about citizenship. It's like making sure there's like a real pathway for people that are here and contributing. But we also just need to rein in ICE because these operations are unbelievably violent and horrific. And, you know, we really need to return to a culture of accountability in this country. Yeah, you can't really protect the courts to protect some many civil liberties. And so certainly in individual cases and especially in the easier areas, I can put it that way, where the law is, you know, easier to invoke and easier to have plaintiffs and easier to have resources for the plaintiffs and so forth. But. Congress really is crucial to preserving a decent and free government. And maybe maybe that will change a little bit in a couple of months, but they could they could do more even in the short term. I do think they don't have to fix the whole immigration system, right? They can just for now. I mean, Saturday, Saturday, September 15th, when they come back to Washington, 14th, they could extend TPS patients. I mean, some of this doesn't require the bigger fixes that all of us would also like to see, I think. Yeah, there is some pending legislation like the Dream and Promise Act, for example, that would provide. A pathway to citizenship for a long time residents, people who have DACA, people that have had TPS. You know, there's other pending legislation that has been discussed again about raining and ice. There's a lot of due process reforms that could be put in place to make the court system fairer because people are now going to these mega hearings, including young children who are being deported to traffickers and have just lost their access to attorneys under this administration. So, I mean, there's a lot of like sort of discreet things that should be done. And again, you know, it's been decades and decades since this country passed any legislation that actually provided durable pathways for people. We're really overdue and our system is completely outdated in a way that doesn't protect the people that are living amongst us, that are providing our services, that are our family and that are our neighbors. But, you know, there are some smaller bills that could at least provide some protection, some immediate assistance for the individuals that are really, really at risk right now. And I hope that will be taken up. I know there's quite a lot. I know there's quite a lot of things that we need to be taken up to rein in ICE and reform DHS. But I think we're seeing right now the cost. of kicking the can down the road, that we've really put people in harm's way. Well said. Well, Sarah, thank you for joining us. Thank you for what you've been doing. And thank you all for joining us on Pull Work on Sunday. Healthcare can feel complicated. That's why Optum uses technology to connect the people and processes that make healthcare easier, more affordable, and more effective. We're making it clearer for you to know exactly what your benefits cover. And to help you better manage your health, we're coordinating care between your doctors and your technology. We believe better, simpler healthcare is always possible. That's healthy optimism. That's Optum. Visit Optum.com to learn more. Some people like working twice as hard just to stay right where they are. 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