Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-07-02 Wednesday

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Headlines for July 02, 2025; “Not a Done Deal”: After Senate Passes “Big, Ugly Bill,” Progressives Fight to Stop It in the House; GOP Budget Bill Would Make ICE “Largest Federal Law Enforcement Agency in the History of the Nation”; “Alligator Alcatraz”: Florida Activists Resist Everglades Migrant Jail as ICE Deaths Rise in U.S.; “Arrest Now, Ask Questions Later”: Why Did L.A. ICE Agents Arrest and Jail U.S. Citizen Andrea Velez?

From New York, this is Democracy Now. We're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator, okay, if they escape prison. How to run away. Don't run in a straight line. Alligator Alcatraz. As President Trump tours a massive new immigrant jail in the Everglades, the Senate passes the budget bill with Vice President J.D. Vance needed to cast the tie-breaking vote. On this vote, the yeas are 50. The nays are 50. The Senate being evenly divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative. The bill as amended is passed. What many call the big, ugly budget bill includes massive cuts to Medicaid and historic levels of funding for mass detention and deportation.

We'll go to Florida and D.C. to talk about alligator Alcatraz, the contents of the Senate bill, and what's being done to oppose it as it goes back to the House. Then to Los Angeles, where armed, masked federal agents have carried out arrests in communities across the city. And families and immigrant advocates say they're struggling to find their loved ones after they are taken, then disappeared. And ICE has arrested yet another U.S. citizen. Everything happened so fast. So, yeah, and they didn't identify themselves. So I was kind of scared. This comes as the Trump administration is suing Los Angeles and the L.A. mayor over their sanctuary policies.

We'll go to California. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. The United States Senate has approved a sweeping package of tax. for the wealthy and deep cuts to social programming, including Medicaid and food assistance. On Tuesday, Vice President J.D. Vance cast the tie-breaking vote to deliver a major legislative victory to President Trump. On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 50. The Senate being evenly divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative. The bill as amended is passed. Three Republicans broke ranks to join all Democrats and independent senators in voting no.

Senators Tom Tillis ran Paul and Susan Collins. The legislation passed after a compromise was worked out with Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, despite her concerns that slashes social safety net programs. The Senate reconciliation bill also includes a historic increase in funds. to ramp up Trump's mass detention and deportation efforts, deregulates AI and cryptocurrency industries, ends subsidies for renewable energy, and even imposes new taxes on solar and wind farms.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned of political consequences to Tuesday's vote. Today's vote will haunt our Republican colleagues for years to come. As the American people see the damage that is done, as hospitals close, as people are laid off, as costs go up, as the debt increases. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the Senate bill will add $3.3 trillion to the national debt over a decade. House members are rushing to return to the Capitol to vote on the Senate-approved version of the bill ahead of a Trump-imposed July 4th deadline. We'll have more on this story after headlines. Here in New York, election officials have declared Zoran Mamdani the winner of last month's Democratic primary for New York City mayor.

Tuesday's release of ranked choice voting results show Mamdani, a New York State Assembly member and Democratic Socialist easily defeated second-place finisher and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo with 56% of the vote compared to Cuomo's 44%. Mamdani won with 545,000 votes, more than 27 U.S. senators received in their most recent elections. On Tuesday, President Trump threatened to arrest Mamdani over his campaign pledge not to cooperate with federal immigration agents carrying out Trump's mass deportation orders. Well, then we'll have to arrest him. Look, we don't need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I'm going to be watching over him very carefully. on behalf of the nation. A lot of people are saying he's here illegally. He's, you know, we're going to look at everything.

In his statement, Zoro and Mamdani condemned Trump's threat as an attack on democracy and pledge, quote, we will not accept this intimidation. Mamdani also spoke with TV station New York One. What we're seeing in President Trump's rhetoric is an attempt to focus on who I am, where I'm from, what I look like, how I sound. as opposed to what I'm actually fighting for, because to do so would be to display the stark contrast in our sincerity and actually delivering for the very working people who've been left behind by our politics.

In Gaza, Israeli forces have killed at least 43 more Palestinians, including people seeking aid and displaced family sheltering intents. Al Jazeera reports in just five weeks, Israel's killed at least 600 Palestinians as they sought aid at distribution sites run by the militarized U.S. Israeli-backed so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This comes as Gaza's largest hospital, Al-Shefa, has exhausted its supplies of fuel to run generators due to Israel's ongoing blockade. At least 350 kidney failure patients in Gaza face imminent death as Al-Shefa doctors Tuesday were forced to shut down the hospital's dialysis ward. Israel's continuing

slaughter and blockade came, as President Trump claimed Israeli officials have agreed to finalize a 60-day ceasefire in Gaza, though Israel has not yet confirmed its approved conditions for a new deal. A new study finds the Trump administration's halt to foreign assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development could result in 14 million additional deaths by 2030. Reachers, researchers publishing in the British Medical Journal, The Lancet, compared the impact of the Trump administration's cuts to a pandemic or major. arm conflict, warning, quote, unlike those events, this crisis would stem from a conscious and avoidable policy choice, one whose burden would fall disproportionately on children and

younger populations and whose consequences could reverberate for decades, unquote. The study was published as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio celebrated the end of U.S. AID on Tuesday, writing in an online post, quote, we will not apologize. for recognizing America's long-standing commitment to life-saving humanitarian aid and promotion of economic development abroad must be in furtherance of an America-first foreign policy, unquote. The Trump administration notified states Monday

it's withholding $6.8 billion in funds designated for public schools. The money was approved by Congress four months ago and due to be dispersed by July 1st ahead of the new school year. Instead, school districts and states are now scrambling to shut down services, including after-school programs and support for English language learners. The Trump administration has not said when or if it'll release the funds. In an email to states, the Education Department says it, quote, remains committed to ensuring taxpayer resources or spent in accordance with the president's priorities, unquote. A federal judge in Rhode Islands halted the Trump administration's efforts to radically restructure the Department of Health and Health. Human Services. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Melissa DeBose ruled HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy

Jr.'s mass firing of staffers and his elimination of entire programs is likely unlawful, writing, quote, the executive branch does not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress, unquote. RFK Jr. is seeking to eliminate 10,000 jobs while slashing programs, including disease prevention, anti-smoking campaigns, and food safety inspections. President Trump toured Florida's new immigration jail dubbed Alligator Alcatraz Tuesday, flanked by Homeland Security Secretary Christy Knoem and Florida Governor Ronda Santis. Alligator Alcatraz is a hastily built camp on an isolated airfield in the Everglades with massive tents that will hold.

immigrants in cages with multiple bunk beds. Trump mocked detained immigrants saying they would have to learn how to fight alligators in order to escape. The jail is surrounded by alligators, pythons, and other Everglades wildlife. Hundreds of protesters rallied outside in response. This is Makosaki Leader. We just, we love our land. We love our water. We love our habitat. We love the trees. We love the immigrants. We think it's very wrong what they're doing. Trump's visit came ahead of plans to transfer the first group of immigrants to the jail this week. The ICE jail is expected to hold up to 5,000 people awaiting deportation, costing an estimated $450 million a year to operate. We'll go to Florida for more after headlines. The Trump administration's quietly transferred more immigrants to Guantanamo Bay, U.S. Base in Cuba, including nationals from China, Jamaica, Liberia, and the United Kingdom.

CBS News reports that as of Tuesday, at least 54 immigrants are currently detained at Guantanamo. The Trump administration suing Los Angeles seeking to overturn the city's sanctuary policy, which Trump's Department of Justice claims is obstructing the enforcement of mass raids. On Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass publicly condemned Trump. crackdown. We know that Los Angeles is the test case, and we will stand strong. And we do so because the people snatched off city streets and chased through parking lots are our coworkers, our neighbors, our family members, and they are Angelinos.

This is the latest in a string of lawsuits that Trump administrations filed against other sanctuary jurisdictions, including New York, New Jersey, and Colorado. We'll have more on Trump's ICE raids later in the broadcast. A New York federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration's early termination of temporary protected status or TPS for over half a million immigrants from Haiti. DHS Secretary Christie Nome had previously announced the relief would end in September, placing over half a million Haitians at risk of deportation. Judge Brian Kogan, who's a George W. Bush appointee, ruled the move was. unlawful and ordered the relief remain in place until its scheduled end date of February 2026. The Supreme Court's rejected an appeal from oil and gas giant ExxonMobil to halt a record

$14 million penalty for thousands of air pollution violations at its plant in Baytown, Texas, one of the largest petrochemical sites in the country. The case was filed in 2010 by Environment, Texas and the Sierra Club on behalf of residents living. nearby. The violations fell under the Clean Air Act, a federal law that limits air pollution from industrial emitters. The Trump administrations found Harvard violated federal civil lights law, saying the university failed to address reports of harassment of Jewish students on campus in response to Gaza's solidarity, peaceful protests. This comes as the University of Pennsylvania's cave to Trump's demands to ban transgender athletes from women's sports teams and erase the records

set by trans swimmer Leah Thomas. Thomas is a UPenn graduate who won the 2022 NCAA championship in the women's 500-yard freestyle. The parent company of CBS News has agreed to pay $16 million to settle a $20 billion lawsuit brought by Donald Trump, who objected to the way CBS News 60 minutes edited an interview with his opponent, Kamala Harris. Paramount Board Chair, and controlling shareholder Shari Redstone reportedly sought the settlement to ensure the FCC approves paramount's $8.4 billion bid to merge with Skydance Media. In April, 60 Minutes longtime executive producer Bill Owens resigned amidst disagreements over how to respond to Trump's lawsuit, saying he'd, quote, lost the independence honest journalism requires, unquote. In May, CBS News president, CEO Wendy McMahon, also. stepped down, saying in a parting memo, quote, the company and I do not agree on the

path forward. And here in New York, jurors have reached a verdict in all four but one count in the crimes trial of hip-hop mogul Sean Diddy Combs, the judge overseeing the case said jurors had unanimously agreed on four counts, two on counts of sex trafficking and two prostitution charges, but remain deadlocked over racketeering charges. Prosecutors accused homes of repeatedly assaulting several women, drugging, and coercing women and men to perform sexual acts, and being part of a criminal organization that engaged in sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and other crimes since at least 2008. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now. Democracy Now.org, the

War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now as Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. Hi, Juan. Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. House members are rushing to return to the Capitol to vote on what many are calling the big, ugly budget bill by President Trump's July 4th deadline after it passed the Senate just barely eeked by on Tuesday. The Senate reconciliation bill includes tax cuts for the rich while increasing barriers for millions to access to Medicaid and food assistance. It also deregulates the AI in crypto industries and subsidies for renewable energy even imposes new taxes on solar and wind farms. The bill includes a historic increase in funds to ramp up Trump's mass detention

and deportation efforts, which we'll talk about next. Vice President J.D. Vance was needed to cast the tie-breaking vote after hours of negotiations with three Republicans joining all Democrats in voting no, Senators Tom Tilsen, Rand Paul, and Susan Collins. The legislation passed after a compromise was worked out with Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, despite her concerns that slashes social safety nut programs around the country. On Tuesday, Democratic Congress member Jim McGovern lamb-based at Murkowski for voting yes despite her concerns. And listen to this quote from Senator Murkowski, who just caved and voted for this bowl.

And you've got to love this. She said, quote, my hope is that the House is going to look at this and recognize that we're not there yet, end quote. I mean, my question to her is, if you really believe. that, then why the hell did you vote for this bill? It doesn't make any sense. It's a dereliction of your duty as the United States Senator and as a representative for the people in Alaska. I mean, when was the last time this current House of Representatives has fixed or solved anything? I mean, where have you been, Senator Mikowski? This Republican House is dysfunction on steroids. And let me say to my Republican friends, I understand that the

Senate just jammed you, but you don't have to be complicit. I get it. I know the Republican leadership and Trump don't want scrutiny. They don't want the American people to understand what's really happening here. This bill is a middle finger to millions of Americans. It isn't just a bad bill. It is the most dangerous piece of legislation in modern history. Dangerous because of the very real damage you will do to real people, sick people, hungry kids, families just scraping by. If this is Republicans' top legislative priority this Congress,

it tells us everything about where your values lie. And it's not with working families, not with struggling communities, but with mega-corporations, billionaires, and Donald Trump. That's Massachusetts Democratic Congress member Jim McGovern. Republican Senator

Lisa Murkowski of Alaska responded to criticism of her vote in favor of Trump's budget bill during an interview with NBC News, Ryan Nobles, who caught up with her in the hallway. Senator Paul said that this was, that your vote was a bailout for Alaska at the expense of the rest of the country. Oh, my God. That's what Senator Paul said.

I said it was easy. Senator, we've got the, uh... I didn't say it, ma'am. I'm just asking for your response. My response is, I have an obligation to the people of the same. state of Alaska. And I live up to that every single day. I fight for my state's interests and I make sure that Alaskans are understood. When people suggest that federal dollars go to one of our 50 states in a, quote, bailout, I find that offensive. I advocated for my state's interests, I will continue to do that, and I will make no excuses for doing that. Do I like this bill?

No, because I tried to take care of Alaska's interests. But I know, I know that in many parts of the country, there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. But I know. I know that in many parts of the country, there are many Americans who will not be be advantaged by this bill, the Alaska Senator said. For more, we're joined by Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, grassroots movement with over a million participants and counting. They're calling on voters to contact lawmakers to oppose the bill as it goes back to the House. So, Ezra, this is not done. The Senate required J.D. Vance, the vice president, to cast the tie-breaking vote. And now it goes to

back to the House. Can you talk about what's at stake here and indivisible strategy in dealing with the House, both Republicans and Democrats? I mean, what's at stake is the worst bill in modern American history passing the largest transfer of wealth from working class and lower income Americans to the rich, a massive cut to Medicaid, a massive cut to snap, historically massive and funding a mass deportation force in this country at the levels of the Russian military. They want to take what they're doing in L.A. and move that show on the road. Do it in Austin, do it in Seattle, do in Chicago, do it in New York. That's what's at stake right now. And the good news is it's not a done deal. As you said, they passed it by the skin of their teeth in the Senate.

It took J.D. Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. And now they can lose up to three votes in the house. Just three votes. If they lose four votes in the house, it's done. And right now, I can tell you, they don't have the votes. They do not have the votes right now. The House leadership is doing their best to whip those votes, to try to convince them to come over, but they don't have it yet. So our strategy right now is very, very simple. We need as many people as possible today, this morning, calling in to their representatives. If you've got a Democratic representative, great. Call them up, thank them for fighting hard, tell them that you are watching and that you're

cheering them on. If you've got a Republican representative, congratulations. You have such a large amount of power right now because your representative might be the vote that kills or delays this bill. It is very important. If you've never called your member of Congress, today is the day to do it. If you have called your member of Congress before, great. Get in touch with family members, colleagues, friends, neighbors.

Tell them this is the day they need to get outside their comfort zone a bit and call their member of Congress. And if you've already done that and you feel in a little bolder, get a few friends together and go to your local member of Congress's district office and show up. And in a friendly way, ask them to represent you. That's the strategy. We've got 26 targets of House Republicans. We need four of them on our side today. And Edgar, could you talk about some of those targets of House Republicans who are the key figures that are more likely to vote no on this bill? So there are two types of House Republicans who are possibly going to vote no on this bill.

The most right-wing members of the Republican caucus, the folks like Marjorie Taylor Green, who don't think this bill goes far enough, would like bigger deportation forces, would like, bigger cuts to Medicaid, would like bigger tax cuts for billionaires. That's one segment of the caucus. The other segment of the caucus are the folks who are in vulnerable districts, who are worried that they might lose their re-election because this bill is one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation in modern American history. This is folks like in California 40th, Ken, Representative Ken, California 22nd, Representative Valadeo, Schweikert in Arizona for Siscomani in Arizona 6th. This is representatives in Colorado in Michigan, in New Jersey, in New York, in Pennsylvania, in Virginia. They're all over the country. If you are in a quasi-swing

district and you were Republican right now, the top thing on your mind is what happened in 2017 and 2018. Republicans attempted to push forward a repeal of the Affordable Care Act. It was deeply unpopular. The public focused on it. The public was angry, and it led to the largest midterm margins in the history of the Republic in 2018. Republicans don't want to repeat of that if they're in a vulnerable district, so they're very nervous. What they hope is that people aren't paying close enough attention. Millions upon millions of Americans don't even know this bill exists, let alone what's in it. That's why Congress is moving so quickly. Now, I ask yourself, where is this deadline coming from?

Is there a July 2nd deadline that we're just not aware of? Why is the vote coming right now? They could do it next week. They could do it next month. They could do it two months for now. Why now? The answer isn't about policy. It's about politics.

They understand how deeply unpopular this bill is. Leadership in Congress understands that the more time this takes, the more public attention there is. and the more difficult it's going to be to wrangle their caucus to actually vote for this thing. That's what's driving this expedited process. So I don't know if we can win outright today and just kill the bill. I think that we can delay it and delaying it might lead to a win. And when you mention that most Americans don't know much of what's in the bill,

could you talk about some of the provisions that have received least attention? For instance, what's happening with the slashing of Pell Grant funding? Oh, my gosh, Juan. So here's what we, everybody listening to this program, I think, understands this is an egregiously bad bill. They've looked at the reports. They've seen the cuts to Medicaid, the cuts to education, that cuts to environmental programs, the cuts to billionaires' taxes. The sad fact is that most of the time, most people aren't paying attention to what Congress does, because most of the time Congress isn't doing anything.

They're not passing legislation. It's a lot of partisan squabbling. It's a lot of yelling at each other. But ultimately, it's gridlock. Congress just doesn't move forward. The most recent poll that I saw found that only 8% of the American public knew that there were Medicaid cuts in this bill. Medicaid cuts are deeply unpopular.

They've got a 15% approval rating in the deepest red districts in this country. We're talking in Marjorie Taylor-Green's district. Medicaid cuts poll at 15%. And yet, less than 10% of the public even knows that Congress is proposing the largest cut to Medicaid in American history. What I would recommend to folks, if you've never engaged with your member of Congress, if you've kind of checked out, you don't think you have a role here, I would encourage you, don't hold back now. You don't have to be an expert in this bill. You don't have to be an expert in Pell Grants or in Medicaid or in tax policy. that's not where your legitimacy comes from.

Your legitimacy comes from the fact that you were a constituent, and your vote counts as much as the highest paid lobbyist in Washington, D.C. And if you happen to live in a Republican district right now, it counts for even more. So don't let your, if you haven't read the thousand-page bill, that's okay. You have valid opinions, and you should express them now because they could actually do so good. Let me ask you something, Ezra, at the same time that this bill passed, we got the confirmation that Zoranamadani won, this huge upset win. He won by 12 points over the former governor of New York. I mean, there was a point where Zora Mamdani had 1% name recognition. Of course, Andrew Cuomo was extremely well known, was 40 points ahead. The whole campaign was about affordability. Many of the issues that are being dressed in this bill. In fact, Zeran Mamdani won more votes than U.S. senators in 27 states, including the Senate Majority Leader. Is this a warning to everyone in the House right now around this bill?

Look, Momdani ran an incredible campaign, and he was up against a bully and an abuser and a tool of a broken establishment. And so it's no surprise to me that he was catapulted, not just to win by the skin of his teeth, but he trounced him. He really blew Cuomo out of the water. And that is great to see. I think what it highlights is a couple of things. One, the voters want people to help solve their basic problems. They want to lower the cost of rent. They want to lower the cost of child care.

They want to lower the cost of transportation. That's what government should do. The government should make it easier for people. to live their lives. And that's what Mondani is actually promising. Now, I think he won in part because of that proactive vision, but he was winning in a Democratic primary against a Democratic establishment that couldn't be further from rank-and-file Democrats right now. You don't have to be the leftmost member of the Democratic Party to think the folks currently in charge have failed us and we need a new vision. And I think both of those things fit into Mondani's historic win here.

if the Democratic establishment is smart right now, they would be rallying around him as the primary winner because this is not the last contentious primary this cycle. We're going to see contentious primaries in mayoral and congressional elections for the next year or so. And if the Democrats fail to rally around Mom Domney because of some concerns about his progressive program, you might see a lot of progressives who maybe they don't win their primaries refuse to rally around the Democratic establishment candidate. So I think for the good of the party and, personally, for the good of the agenda that Mom and Doni is pushing forward, I think it's very important that Democrats close ranks around him to go forward to a big win.

Mr. I'm 11. We want to thank you for being with us, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, a grassroots movement with over a million participants and counting. When we come back, what many are calling the big, ugly budget bill, including historic levels of funding to ramp up mass detention and deportation, the expense of millions who will lose Medicaid funding in this country. We'll go to Florida and D.C. to talk about alligator alcatraz, as well as the contents of the Senate bill. And stay with us. Eva, Passing the Trapo

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Much of the discussion around Trump's budget bill has focused on the massive cuts to Medicaid, the tax giveaways to the rich, and the impact on the national debt to the tune of $3 trillion. Meanwhile, Vice President Vance, who cast the tie-breaking vote, was focused elsewhere on immigration. He wrote on social media, quote, everything else, the CBO score, the proper baseline, the minutia of the Medicaid policy, is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions, unquote. This bill provides a whopping 100,000, $270 billion to transform immigration enforcement and detention.

This includes $45 billion for new detention jails. That's 265% more than the current ICE detention budget and more than the budget of the federal prison system. ICE's enforcement budget would increase by $30 billion, a threefold increase, and there's some $46 billion for border walls and more. American Immigration Council calls the bill, quote, the largest investment in detention and deportation in U.S. history, a policy choice that does nothing to address the systemic failures of our immigration system while inflicting harm, so in chaos and tearing families apart, unquote. For more, we're joined by Aaron Reiklin Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, which just published the end-up analysis of the immigration enforcement provisions of the bill. Aaron, welcome back to democracy now. So you have the bill being passed, eke through, needed the vice president to pass the, to cast the tie-breaking vote.

And Trump wasn't celebrating in D.C. He was deflecting attention from the millions who would lose Medicaid funding, something like 17 million, to go to what he's calling alligator alcatraz in the Florida Everglades. Talk about the significance of this and this proposed massive increase to the ICE budget. Yeah, if we look at the reconciliation bill, we can see that the amount of funding that ICE would get under this bill would be transformative for the agency. We're talking nearly 20 years worth of detention funding to be spent only in a four-year period and an increase to ICE's enforcement budget beyond anything we've ever seen before, allowing the agency to expand mass deportations over the next four years to have every community nationwide. budget proposal, immigration enforcement was costing the federal government more than all of the other federal law enforcement agencies combined. We're talking about the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, the Secret Service, and the Marshal Service. The law enforcement, the immigration enforcement budget was already larger than all of those together. So what size are we talking about now in terms of this expansion?

Yeah, we are talking about a significant increase beyond every other federal law enforcement agency. If this money goes through, if the House votes for this bill, you will see ICE now being the single largest federal law enforcement agency in the history of the nation, potentially with enough funding to hire more law enforcement agents than the FBI, and more detention potentially than the entire Federal Bureau of Prisons. And beyond that, the funds also provide billions of dollars to state and local governments, meaning that when you look at the Everglades detention camp that Trump was at yesterday, you could see every cent of that facility being paid for by the federal government and not by Florida. similar facilities are likely to open in other GOP states because we see that the reconciliation

bill contains $3.5 billion for ICE to hand out to states that are looking to do similar things to what Governor DeSantis has done already. So really transformative at a national level and at a state level for immigration enforcement in this country, like nothing we've seen in the modern era. And could you talk about the impact that this is having on the ground and the community is affected. For instance, there are reports now that in Los Angeles County, the ridership on mass transportation there has dropped about 15%. And largely, Latinos and immigrants are the ones riding the buses

and rapid transit in Los Angeles. Measurable drop in civic participation in communities where this kind of enforcement is being. carried out. People aren't going to their jobs. People aren't going to school. Children are staying home. Parents are keeping their kids in safety. They aren't riding the buses. They aren't going to the parks. They aren't going to restaurants. Takeout is up in New York City and places where these crackdowns have gone on. So we are seeing immigration enforcement ripple through the United States and the impacts being felt, particularly in communities that have been the target for

heavy enforcement by the Trump administration. And should this bill pass, they could potentially get the resources to do heavy enforcement in not just Los Angeles, but in New York, in Chicago, in Philadelphia, in every major city around the country. You could see another Los Angeles. Aaron, can you say why you refuse to use the term Alligator Alcatraz instead saying Everglades detention camp? I mean, Alligator Alcatraz is a public relations name. It's, you know, Alcatraz was a prison where it held people who had been convicted of crimes and were serving their sentence.

But immigration detention is not for people serving criminal sentences. The people held in detention often have no criminal record, or they have minor, lower misdemeanors, or if they do have a serious criminal record, they've usually served their time, and if they were U.S. citizens, would have already been released. You know, the Trump administration loves to say that it's only going after the worst of the worst. but when they sent hundreds of people to Guantanamo Bay, fully a third of them had no criminal convictions at all. And we've seen with their deportation of people to Sikot in El Salvador to be imprisoned without trial that hundreds of those people were likely innocent of any claimed gang ties and had no criminal records at all. So this is not Alcatraz. It's a detention camp that ICE is using to hold immigrants, many of whom will likely have no criminal record.

Aaron, my Reiklin Melnick, I want to bring into this conversation, an activist in Florida. President Trump toured the new immigration jail in the Florida Everglades flanked by Homeland Security Secretary Christi Nome and Florida Governor Ronda Santis. What he's calling alligator Alcatraz, a hastily built camp on an isolated airfield in the Everglades with massive tents that hold immigrants in cages with multiple bonds. bunk beds, Trump mocking the jailed immigrants saying they'd have to learn how to fight alligators in order to escape the jail surrounded by alligators, pythons, and other Everglades wildlife. In fact, I think he said it'll cost less to control them because you don't have to pay the alligators. The detention camp is expected to have a detention capacity for 5,000 people. At a press conference, Trump claimed the

immigrants who would be held at the site would be some of the, quote, most vicious people on the planet. It's known as Alligator Alcatraz, which is very appropriate because I looked outside and that's not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon. But very soon, this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet. was surrounded by miles of treacherous swamp land, and the only way out is really deportation. The Florida Attorney General coined the nickname Alligator, Alcatraz.

He posted a promotional video about the jail in June scored with hard rock music, including a graphic that shows an alligator with red eyes. Past state leaders to identify places for new temporary detention facilities. I think this is the best one. As I call it, Alligator Alcatraz. This 30-square-mile area is completely surrounded by the Everglades. Presents a efficient, low-cost opportunity to build a temporary detention facility because you don't need to invest that much in the perimeter.

People get out, there's not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Attorney General Uthmire is also selling Alligator Alcatraz merchandise. on his website. On his tour of the site, President Trump repeatedly echoed the idea the jail would be secured by alligators and snakes. You know, snakes are fast, but alligators are, but we're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator, okay, if they escape prison. How to run away. Don't run in a straight

line. Run like this. And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%. Okay? It's not a good thing. They have a lot of bodyguards and a lot of cops that are in the form of alligators. You don't have to pay them so much. But I wouldn't want to run through the Everglades for long. It will keep people where they're supposed to be. This is a very important thing. As this new Everglades jail is built and other expansions in Florida are being discussed,

Florida's leading the nation in immigrant detention deaths. Isidro Perez, a 75-year-old man from Cuba who, live most of his life, 60 years in the United States, died last week in ICE custody. He was held at the Chrome Detention Center in Miami as the Trump administration pushes for 3,000 arrests a day and detention numbers reach historic levels. At least 13 people have died while in ICE detention this year. For more about the Everglades jail and immigration detention, we're joined by Neri Lopez in Florida, senior organizer with Detention Watch Network, also an organizer with the Florida Detention Coalition.

Neri, thanks so much for being with us. There were major protests outside as Trump was touring the jail. If you can talk about what your governor, Governor DeSantis, has called a one-stop shop because the jail is on an airfield and people can be detained, then deported immediately. Yes, it's truly inhumane what's happening in this new built of a detention center in the middle of the Everglades is going to isolate people tremendously. It's going to have an increase of conditions like overcrowding and hot temperatures and also a lack of food. There's going to be so many transfers that's going to cut people from their loved ones and their support networks. So talk about how this all came about. Talk about your major concerns right now.

Who is being held there? And also the deaths in ICE detention. Yes. So as we found out that this was happening, people were of different sectors like environmentalists. Our folks who are in the Everglades area from the Miccoso, and seminal tribes and community of immigrant folks have been absolutely just heartbroken that this is happening here. And as we were finding out, it was truly just something that is making it harder for people

to see the vibrant community of Florida, right? This is not part of Florida's values. People are resisting. We are seeing protests happening there. where they are seeing for themselves just what is happening and the fact that they're building this tent building in the middle of the Everglades is truly inhumane. I wanted to bring Aaron Reiklin Milnick back into the conversation, Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council. You have deaths in ICE detention. And you have Congress members all over

the country, from Colorado to New Jersey, to New York, to California. attempting to inspect these often private detention facilities, and they are prevented from doing so. And most recently, the president said he can prevent these Congress members from moving in. Can you explain what's going on there? The oversight that they were empowered with, not being allowed to carry it out? Yeah, for multiple years, Congress has written into the appropriations law, a provision that says that any member of Congress may confirm. perform a surprise inspection at any facility used to detain people for the Department of Homeland Security. So when a member of Congress goes to a detention center by law, they should be allowed

in. And in fact, the law expressly says that they cannot be told that they have to make an appointment, only their staff. But unfortunately, we've now seen the Trump administration say, well, due to operational concerns, we are going to force members to actually make an appointment ahead of time, even though the law says they are not allowed to do that. This is happening as the detention infrastructure has skyrocketed. The administration is holding 59,000 people in detention, despite Congress having budgeted only for 41,500. And given their overcrowding that we are seeing in detention facilities, the lack of medical staff, oversight is needed now more than ever, but it's becoming harder to do.

Let me ask Neri Lopez about President Trump during his tour of the Everglades jail, saying he would approve a plan by Florida Governor DeSantis to speed up deportations by deputizing National Guard members to work as immigration judges. I want to repeat that. deputizing National Guard as immigration judges. Talk about the significance of this. This is so dangerous. What we're seeing is just something that we haven't seen before.

It's national guards don't have a background in immigration law. And so this is only going to create more deportations. It is going to create more separation of families that people, are not going to understand what's happening. And it's truly just very scary. It is not the values of Florida. It's not the values of our country to have national guards posing as judges. What is popular opinion Neri in Florida right now? I mean, we know that overall, you know, Trump calls it the big beautiful bill. So many people are calling it the big, ugly, terrible bill, that it has just hit new lows in terms of popular support, even among Republicans

around the country? What about in Florida? People don't want ice. People don't want eyes. Don't want people detain. People who are being detained are mothers, their church members, there are people in the community, everyday working people. And we don't want ice in our area. don't want detention centers here. They are not helping our economy, is not helping our community who are here doing different types of jobs. And the fact that this 45 billion funding, ICE funding, is going to detain 100,000 people more. It's truly just very dangerous and very scary for so many people. So what happens now? And in terms of Florida politics, I mean, it was unusual, neary, to see President Trump standing with Florida Governor DeSantis.

They were run against each other for president. They became very alienated. You have DeSantis wanting his wife to run for governor. President Trump has supported Congressman Donald. As we wrap up, how does this play into state politics? Yeah, Trump's and Governor DeSantis crew detention extent. expansion is only going to exasperate so much confusion and fear into people. It's actually going to make a lot of people realize what's happening here and pay attention

to the state politics. Once elections happen for governor and elected officials who are backing this agenda, is going to affect them as well because people will be out there voting. People are realizing that this is happening here. and they are in the know of immigration detention. Now people are starting to actually be knowledgeable of what's happening and want to know. And this is only going to make more people go out to vote. It's going to make people be calling their representatives because people power is here.

And we are able to make a difference. And they can't keep doing this. They will not keep doing this without people raising their. voice. Neri Lopez, I want to thank you for being with us, Detention Watch Network, speaking to us from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Aaron Reiklin Melnick in Washington, D.C. with the American Immigration Council. When we come back, we go to Los Angeles where armed, masked federal agents have carried out arrests in communities across the city. Families and immigrant advocates say they're struggling to find their disappeared loved ones. And ICE has arrested yet another

U.S. citizen back in 20 seconds. I want to go all over the world and start living free. I know that there's. I know that there. Somebody who is waiting for me. I'll build a boat, steady and true as soon. Dear Someone, by Lila Downs in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. We go now to Los Angeles, where our mass,

federal agents has spent the last month carrying out arrests across the city families. Immigrant advocates say they're struggling to find their loved ones when they are disappeared. In one case, the family of a community activist and mother, Yoriana Ulliana, they call her Yuli, Peles Calderon, said she was taken at gunpoint on June 25th by two men in unmarked cars who pulled over as she went to work at night, which is uncommon. She used a borrowed phone to call her family to say she was taken to a warehouse where women are held alongside men. She compared the men who took her to bounty hunters and has not had proper food or access to her medication. This is Stefano Medina, managing attorney with the L.A. Office of California Center for Movement Legal Services. So DHS is out now saying that this is a hoax. and that this is all made up because they don't have any record of Julie in their system,

which I don't doubt. She's not in their system. But Julie in that phone call that she made to her family from a borrowed phone told us that she was taken directly from where she was picked up in South Central Los Angeles to San Ysidro, where she was presented to an ICE official and pressure to sign a voluntary self-deportation agreement. And Medina says Uly's family filed a missing persons report with the LA Police Department as they continued their search for her. Meanwhile, the family of Andrea Velas, a U.S. citizen, described her arrest by ICE last month as a kidnapping. Andrea had just been dropped off at work by her mom and her sister when the pair witnessed mass federal agents grabbing her and taking Andrea in a unmarked car during

an immigration raid. One video shows a mass agent lifting Andrea off the ground. and carrying her away. Andrea's sister, Estreya Rosa, spoke with CBS News, Los Angeles. They didn't have a vest that said ice or anything. Their cars didn't have license plates. Just because of the color of our skin, they think that we're criminals. My sister was there, so they like, oh, like she looks Hispanic, so let's take her too. Ultimately, Andrea Velas was released but was charged with assaulting a federal

officer during her arrest. She spoke in a news conference last week. They didn't identify themselves. I can't go through it. But, yeah, I was just going to work. It was just a day of work. And, like, everything happened so fast. So, yeah, and they didn't identify themselves. So I was kind of scared. For more, we're joined in Los Angeles by Dominique Bouillon. She is an attorney helping to represent Andrea Velez. This is just, such an astounding story. Dominique, can you explain what happened as we watch her being carried with their arms under her chest as she walking forward? Where was she taken? Where was she held? How did you find out when she was disappeared and her family panicked? Yes, of course. So we were

contacted by the family later that day in the afternoon because the mother has seen her daughter being taken by ICE agents but didn't know they were ice, had no idea who they were. And so they were terrified and looking for help just to locate her. And the video that you mentioned where she's being lifted and carried up, that's actually when she went to the police officers, the LAPD, asking for help, telling them these men are taking me. So I'll back up and explain what happened. If you can explain that point, we're watching her being carried.

Who is carrying her? And I do see police. I see the police cars, the LAPD. Who is carrying her? So that is an ICE agent. She now, we now know as an ICE agent. And she was being carried away from the LEPD officers that she went over to her help because she didn't know who the men were or where she was being taken.

She had no idea. That morning, just minutes before, her mother had dropped her off at work on 9th and Maine, downtown L.A. And as she exited the vehicle, she walked three, four steps onto the sidewalk. And suddenly there was a swarm of vehicles surrounding her. So as she's kind of getting her bearings, what's going on, she sees vendors over to her right, and she assumes, okay, this must be, maybe it's a rate, I don't know. She sees men approaching them, but she looks for her left,

and she sees an ice agent about 10 feet away running full speed at her and becomes terrified. She's 4.11. This is a man who, in her estimation, is over 6 feet. He's masked. And he does not stop. So she becomes, she gets scared. and her reaction is to hover and block herself to protect herself, and she's thrown to the ground. The ICE agent continues on for about another 10, 15 seconds to get their target, and then

returns and tells her she's under arrest for what she describes as interfering. She gets put into a vehicle, a van, an unmarked van, and she's in handcuffs, and while she's waiting, she sees the officer, so she walks over to the officer and asks if he would help her. She doesn't know who these men are. And that's when you see the ICE agent pick her up and take her back to the unmarked van. Why was she picked up, Dominique? She physically picked up, or why was she arrested? Arrested. So what she is being charged with is assault on a peace officer. So the version of the story that the federal agent is putting forth is that Andrea Valet, purposefully walked into his path in order to protect whoever their target was and knocked that

ice agent off balance and hit him in the head it's a complete fabrication didn't happen and it i believe it's more of a number one racial profiling they were speaking to her in spanish even though she was demonstrating that she was could speak fluent english and that she was a u.s. citizen and i think it was a matter of let's see if she is a u.s citizen um and And if she is, then we'll slap on these charges. It's an issue of, it's arrest now, ask questions later. So straight up racial profiling? 100%.

Andrea Volez has, she's a darker-skinned Latino, and 100% I believe that this was racial profiling. We have to leave it there. We'll continue to follow this case, Dominique Boubjona, and one of the attorneys hoping to represent Andrea Veles, a U.S. citizen arrested by ICE. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.