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

Episode Date: August 30, 2026

Bill Kristol talks with Jim Swift, reporting from Springfield, Ohio on ICE's crackdown on Haitians who lost protected status, and ACLU attorney Sarah Mehta on third-country deportations, "remigration," and the legal and legislative fights over immigration enforcement.

Hi, Bill Crystal here. Welcome to Bullwork 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 what, 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 we'll report on the terrible, sad and really disgraceful treatment of the Haitian, the Haitian community up there, which first, of course, came to prominence when they were denounced totally falsely, of course, for eating cats and dogs by the current president, the vice president of the United States two years ago,

almost exactly two years ago, right? September of 24. So Jim, we'll begin with Jim. Take 10 or 15 minutes with Jim, and then we're gonna 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 a maybe a little bigger picture of what's going on, but especially she's been very involved the debates and fights about third country deportations, which, as we know, if you've met that piece of the New York Times yesterday, are now accelerating people 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, you know, two minutes ago. So really terrible. Okay, Jim, welcome and tell us about Springfield. Hey, Bell, thanks for having me. 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 Haitians people here humanely. And they were asking to only go after violent criminals, not innocent, hardworking 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 consort 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 only reason that that person could do that is because they had an immediate relative there. Canada is not really an option for many Haitians who are, you know, 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 fully lost their TPS. I mean, that came a couple of weeks ago and then I showed up. And so what's happened and what, what do people expect to happen or what's the mood up there? If I could 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, you know, not sending their kids to school. They can't work anymore. You know, some places that have known clusters of Haitian workers, you know, they were, the 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 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 what we know? And how 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 we're given this as a way of, I mean, as a way, as you say, they don't really need that to track the 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 has facial recognition and other things i mean i haven't downloaded the app myself that had no reason to um by the numbers we don't know how many have been deported yet um we do know by some estimates that about 34 individuals um in the 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 in 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 about seven times as many people. in about twice as much area. So it's way more dense. 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 Hustead, who's up for re-elect or for election, 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 prepared. They're wearing food. They're writing letters with computers using Google Translate in the Haitian Creole to send to people who are detained and to put into boxes where they're giving food to people who can't leave. Like they're afraid to go to the store. They're 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 no, none of these people, I mean, none, but there's nothing, they're not arresting people who have criminal records or arrest records even or any kind of records, except for being checking, well, except for abiding by the, so, of course, 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, what I 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 even for people from Springfield. Those are, I think, 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, is my impression. When this became an issue two years ago, and people looked at this and people could do the data analysis.

And do they have a higher criminal record than anyone else? I think it was pretty overwhelmingly clear. No, a recent, I forget who the recent study was, but a recent study showed that a majority of the rest of immigrants that are getting deported don't have criminal records. Right. 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 parishion or family of his to Canada. And they're protecting Haitian churches. And there were a couple hundred people who'd 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 it a day or days helping Springfield. And 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. So it'd be clear that people who were volunteering to help are not Haitians, particularly. No, I mean, some people are there. No, I mean, there are people from whatever. Yeah, there are a couple of Haitians. Yeah, there are a couple of Haitians in the church like Velae-Straignville, 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 DePaul 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 VALA if he could share this information. It was about a meeting the two of them had with DHS.

And they straight up told Dorsanville 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 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 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 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 have your application insanity and thank you for taking time I have to do this, but just close with 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's 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, you know, who understand Mayor Rob Rue, Mike DeWine. 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, you know, 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, if it gets to somehow it's so annoying that TPS is treated as this thing, and then the administration just gets to decide. It's a program established pursuant to, obviously, like all programs are, like all policies are, should be pursuant to legislation. Congress could tomorrow and 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. Is that right? It did. It passed bipartisan measure in the House. I think it 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 Hoosstead has not. He was the lieutenant governor before he got appointed to J.D. Vanz's seat. He's not weighed in 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 stake to 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 ordered it to veto it. It would be nice, from my point of view, I'd say if Democrats pushed hard for it when they get back here on September 14th and maybe make voting for any kind of continuing resolution contingent on at least getting a clean vote on this. There's been no vote on the Senate on the floor of the Senate, I believe, on that's correct. Or anything else much without immigration policy. But certainly on the TPS for the Haitians, who particularly I do feel, you know, were targeted for obvious reasons.

Vance and Trump and who were being deported, A, and B, so there's the 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 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.

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, which is we will pay for your flight and will 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 him. 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 the soft policy. Jim, thanks for going to Springfield and all the reporting you've done. I think you'll be in warning shots and our morning newsletter tomorrow morning, writing up a little more detail of what you saw there in Springfield, also what happened today in Springfield. So, Jim, thanks for joining us. And we're now going to move to Sarah Mehta, the deputy director of policy for the Equality Division.

I think I've got that right for the ACIU, someone who's been working on immigration law and policy for really most of your career, right, for over a decade. And who's been a real key, I think, in the discussion and debate over third country deportations. So thank you for joining me and us, first of all. And say a word about what Jim was saying and about the temporary protected status program and thoughts about that. Yeah, I mean, what Jim was reporting on and sharing is just absolutely horrifying. And it's something we're seeing not just for Haitians, but for other communities all over the country. As you know, after the Supreme Court decision, the Department of Homeland Security really ratcheted up its messaging that all communities that have protected status need to get out of the country that includes people from Venezuela, Nepal, South Sudan, Ethiopia. Over the last few days, we've seen a lot of reporting in Florida, in particular, where Venezuelan

communities have been targeted by ICE, literally going to bus stops and arresting parents once their kids are on the bus so the kids have no one to come home to. And unfortunately, just to pick up on something Jim also said, they are targeting people with humanitarian protection. I think there's two reasons for that. One, as Jim noted as well, they know where they are. There is a quota for arrests and deportations that's probably been set by. Stephen Miller. And if you want to meet that quota, you go for the people that you can easily

get. That's people that are checking in, who are following the rules, who are going to court, who have applied for protection. That's the easiest people to go after. But the second reason, I mean, it's wrapped up in the racism as well, but this is an administration that is trying to end all forms of humanitarian protection. You know, it's ended the refugee system. It is, except for white South Africans, it is ending asylum. It is now sending people to conflict zones. frankly, to punish them for trying to get protection in the United States. Yeah, terrible. Say a word about the, more than a word, about the third country deportations,

which are also truly astonishing and appalling. And the New York Times had a big piece on it yesterday. And it's been a little below the radar for most of us. There's so much going on in this area and other areas that, but the, so these are people who are being deported, not to the country they fled or they left, but to other countries, often ones where they have no, that have no, they have no, they have no, so. with, so to speak. But anyway, explain what's what's going on? How did this begin? How can they do this even? Yeah, that's right. So right now, the U.S. government over the last year and a half has deported around 23,000 people to countries that they are not from.

Mostly they've sent them to Mexico, I think, like 19,000. But one new scheme that has really been accelerating this year is to create agreements with other countries. They're now, well, we know of 35 agreements. Many of these agreements are secretive, and we've never seen them or they haven't been made public yet. 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 then 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 U.S. 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 don't speak French or any local language, people that are being dumped at a place that the U.S. government has said, U.S. 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 can talk more about the other countries, but in a range of them, particularly Eswetini and San Sufadam, people are in prison. Eswatini people are in a maximum security facility, not because they have any pending criminal charges, but that's because that is how this government, with the U.S. consent and knowledge, has decided to hold immigrants.

Yeah, what's so appalling with this, just to put the dot the eye and cross the tea 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 the u.s. government can't legally is that right to deport them to back back to whatever country let's say and therefore but they're run around so instead of simply keeping them in the u.s and these are people who haven't broken laws in the u.s and so far as we know in general instead of just leaving them in the u.s have giving them uh letting them stay uh we're deporting them to yet enough it's a runner it's a way of getting around the you know the convention on torture

and so forth but but then we're setting 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 U.S. 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 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 Carr, but we know many cases where people have been sent to Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, and Sierra Leone,

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 U.S. government sent him instead to Ghana. And a few days later, he's back in Nigeria now living and hiding. And there's tons of cases like this, a woman who fled female genital mutilation, who was also deported to Ghana and sent back to the country.

country that she's from. Basically what the U.S. 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 Rafael Mon, where they're sending people back to the places where they have already been persecuted and tortured. And is there any remedy in U.S. law for that? Can the U.S. government be, you know,

challenged for not, in fact, following 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% of the people sent to African countries who are African are LGBTQ, and they're being sent to countries like Ghana, where that is basically a criminalized status now.

So 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. Oh, terrible. I mean, the idea, you know, what about the Afghan, the Times 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 Afghan. 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, is 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, 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 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. Car 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, 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 really has a target on his back. 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, that'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 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, I don't know, 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, they don't have interagency access to the head of DHS 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 thing. 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, just 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 and 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 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 is 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 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. But it is part of, I mean, the government's being pretty open that this is their plan. You know, they have basically renamed at least internally the Bureau of Migration in the State Department. to the Bureau of Remigration, and they are trying to get rid of these people, again, people that have protection, people have helped the U.S. military as quickly as possible. And at a time when, frankly,

we are relying on a lot of other countries like Ecuador, like a lot of the Gulf countries, while we have multiple wars going on. So it is incredibly short-sighted is the nicest way of thinking about it, but just the cruelty is unbelievable. No, it is really shocking, I've got to say. And yeah, I didn't. I mean, 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 Pete Hickseth, the Secretary of Defense, and 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-9-11 wars

in Afghanistan and Iraq, for that matter, the idea that this is what we're, you know, these Afghan refugees will come here. They're doing fine, I believe, as, you know, once they get settled, once we let them get settled here, they want to be here. And they, but the idea that we're deporting them, and then deporting some of them to their countries, as you say, where they have no connections is really, it's really, I kind of draw a job.

And you've been in this business quite all around. 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 nativism is not something new. But I just feel like this is a whole different level. Am I wrong about that? 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 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. And now we are actively on writing those laws and encouraging other countries also to abandon asylum, to abandon refugees. It's pretty appalling. And also, again, 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. We've heard lots of stories of people being beaten up by guards because they were afraid to get on the plane or they're afraid to get off when 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 US 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. They want to fly him to Sierra Leone. He had a stroke in immigration detention.

So he is right now changed to a hospital bed. And they are still saying, we're going to put you on a plane and send you 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. And they are leaving behind U.S. citizen kids who are, you know, alone and abandoned as a result of it. Of course, the government administration doesn't want them to be U.S.

those kids to be U.S. citizens either. So that's part of their. And let's close on the remigration thing, which you just mentioned in passing. I mean, 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, Remigration is sort of a term, let's see, a term of art. I don't know what to call it. It's a term that it became prominent in very far right-wing circles, right, in the last decade or two, or maybe even before that, I think in Europe maybe first.

And as a kind of not just closing the border or cutting down on a lawful entry or stricter, you know, lower quotas for immigrants, it's literally getting rid of people who have come here. and in most, many cases, 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 were French citizens and voted in French elections and pay 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, in whatever country it is for 200 years or whatever reason that they don't want those people. But, and that is, it's amazing to me that they were even in, formally 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. 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 ICE agents, to promote 100 million deportations, you know, with these images of like 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 country. As Jim was saying to the previous segment, they are starting with Haitians, with Venezuelans, with people of color, 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. It's one of the reasons citizenship is so important. And we have the 14th Amendment, is that we have people who can 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 our moral and legal life in the United States.

So it's very chilling to see this is 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 it's 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, 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 that's a lot of power. or especially in immigration, I guess, right? But there are things that Congress and the courts can do. And some courts have done some things, obviously. And you all are fighting very hard on this. So I really admire your efforts.

Well, thank you for having us. 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 Seacot, the people that were sent to be tortured in maximum facility, maximum security facility excuse me last year in Ecuador.

You know, there is ongoing litigation. But a lot of this does need a congressional fix. And we need to provide real durable protection for people so they can't just be plucked, you know, 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 rain 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 can protect many civil liberties and so certainly an 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, you know, a decent and free government. And maybe that will change a little bit in a couple of months. But 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 in ice. There's a lot of due process reforms that could be put in place to make the court system fair 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 discrete 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 service. 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 of things that we need to be taken up to rain in ice and reform DHS. But I think we're seeing right now the cost of kicking the can down the road that we really put people in harm's way.

Well, Sarah, thank you for joining us. Thank you for what you've been doing. And thank you all for joining us on Pullwork on Sunday.