Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2026-06-01 Monday

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

Headlines for June 01, 2026; NJ State Police Join Crackdown Against Supporters of Hunger-Striking Immigrants at Delaney Hall; “We Closed Our Account”: Advocates Call for Boycott of Citizens Bank for Financing ICE Jails; “Revolving Door”: Former GEO Group VP David Venturella Is New Interim ICE Chief; Meet Bajun Mavalwalla, Veteran Convicted for ICE Protest in Unprecedented Use of Conspiracy Charges

New York, this is Democracy Now. We all need to do everything we can to cool things down now. I will not give ICE the pretext to expand operations in our state. For that reason, New Jersey law enforcement is today establishing a peaceful, protected protest zone in the area right outside Delaney Hall. New Jersey Governor Mikey Cheryl calls in New Jersey state troopers. outside the geo-run massive immigration jail, Delaney Hall, as the Newark mayor implements a nightly curfew. Inside the jail, detainees are on their 11th day of a hunger and labor strike.

We'll go to New Jersey for the latest. Then de-ice Citizens Bank, a grassroots campaign focusing on the funders of private prisons is gaining momentum. We'll speak with former Wall Street Journal and Business Week reporter Paul Barrett and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julie Cohen. We're protesting Citizens Bank. We're shutting down our accounts at Citizens Bank

because of their financing the private prison companies behind Delaney Hall and other ICE detention that is responsible for so much abuse of our immigrant neighbors. And finally, three protesters in Spokane, Washington, were found guilty of conspiracy after attending a protest outside an ICE jail. My name is Beijan Malvala. I'm an Army veteran and regular guy. And I was just convicted of aiding and abetting a conspiracy for a peaceful protest that happened.

in Spokane, Washington, June 11th, 2025. We'll go to Spokane to speak with Bajan Mabawala, as well as Aaron Glanz, who's reporting this story for The Guardian. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, DemocracyNow, DemocracyNow.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.

The U.S. attacked Iranian radar and drone sites and the island of Keshem over the weekend, while Iran said it launched a retaliatory attack on a U.S. base in Kuwait. This comes as Iran's foreign ministry claims it's not currently engaging in talks with the U.S. on the details of its nuclear program and that Iran and Oman are the only two countries that have a right to, quote, exercise sovereignty, unquote, in the Strait of Hormuz. Despite this, President Trump claimed on social media that, quote, Iran really wants to make a deal unquote. On Saturday, Trump said during an interview with his daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, on Fox News,

that the U.S. should not have waged war on Iran. You look at what happened with Iraq. We did so bad. That was such a foolish thing, what we did. Shouldn't have been there in the first place, by the way, and shouldn't have been in Iran. But Iran has the capability. If we didn't hit them with the B2 bombers nine months ago, they would have a nuclear weapon right now. In southern Lebanon, Israeli troops captured the medieval Beaufort Castle over the weekend, raising the Israeli flag over the fortress and what the Army described as its deepest incursion in Lebanon in over a quarter of a century.

That's despite an April ceasefire brokered by the U.S. between Israel and Lebanon. This comes as Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered strikes on southern Beirut. targeting Hezbollah. Overnight, Israeli attacks killed six people in a village near the city of Nabatia. This is a local resident. Over there in the area where we are, the shelling is towards the Ali al-Tahar hills, around the Buford Castle.

We're in these valleys over there, sitting in an orchard. You never know how the drones might carry out some airstrikes on us. They're not sparing anyone. In Gaza, Israeli attacks have killed two Palestinians and injured several others. On Saturday, Dr. Jamal Abu-Abon, head of the anesthesia department, Al-Jafa, medical hospital, and Central Gaza, was killed in an Israeli drone strike that injured three other civilians, including a two-year-old girl. Since last October's U.S. brokered so-called ceasefire, Israeli attacks have killed at least 922 Palestinians. The House Armed Services Committee has unveiled its proposed 2027. National Defense Authorization Act, which would see a record-shattering $1.15 trillion

spent on the U.S. military over the next fiscal year. Among the bill's many provisions is Section 224 entitled The United States Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative. Unquote. The provision would bring the U.S. and Israel into an unprecedented partnership covering technology sharing, the co-production of weapons systems, and bilateral research and development across multiple domains of warfare, including biotechnology, autonomous systems, AI, cyber warfare, and more. During a closed-door testimony with the House Oversight Committee on Friday, former Attorney General Pam Bondi claimed she lacked real authority in overseeing the release of the Epstein files.

Instead, she blamed her successor, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer. Bondi also reportedly told committee members Blanche was managing, quote, the entire investigation, unquote, and determined which documents would be released. That's according to Congressmember Robert Garcia of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee. A federal judge has ordered a temporary halt to the Trump administration's efforts to set up a nearly one. $1.8 billion slush fund for Trump supporters who say they were wrongly investigated or prosecuted by previous administrations. The so-called anti-weaponization fund was announced by the Department of Justice last month as part of a settlement between the IRS and Donald Trump and his family after the president sued his own administration's IRS for $10 billion over the leaking of his

tax returns by an employee of a federal contractor. The Wall Street Journal reports more than a dozen Republican senators have privately urged top Trump aides to abandon the fund over concerns it could award millions of dollars to Trump supporters who attack the Capitol and its police on January 6, 2021. Vice President Mike Pence also condemned the fund. Let's get rid of this fund. I mean, I mean, it's deeply offensive to me that you could have a fund that could even possibly compensate people who assaulted police officers or vandalized the Capitol on January 6th. And I think that's broadly held by most Republicans.

In Newark, New Jersey, today marks the 11th day since hundreds of immigrants detained at the ICE jail known as Delaney Hall began a hunger and labor strike demanding their immediate relationship. Protesters and organizers continued to gather near the jail Sunday after New Jersey State Police erected a barricade about a half a mile long around Delaney Hall's perimeter. Activists have denounced New Jersey Governor Mikey Cheryl for deploying state police against protesters with some officers wearing riot gear. Newark Mayor Ross Baraka has imposed a nightly curfew around Delaney Hall until further notice. There were reports of more arrests Sunday night as some protesters defied the curfew. Governor Mayor Baraka's move came after another weekend of clashes between protesters and law enforcement. New Jersey Governor Cheryl said family visitations at Delaney Hall were partially restored Sunday after the Department of Homeland Security suspended visits citing the protests. Many organizers and relatives of detainees said they were denied entry to the facility.

after waiting for hours. This is Karen Marino, whose uncle, Gabrielle Marino, has been jailed at Delaney Hall since August of last year. She said her uncle lived in the United States for most of his life after migrating from Oaxaca, Mexico as a teenager. My uncle is starving to death in there. His molars have fallen out. It is chaotic in there. It is hell. This is just like Auschwitz. It is history repeating itself. My uncle is in one of the hunger-striking detention units. He is in there supporting this, but my uncle is feeling very weak, and I feel that he is dying in there.

He is in the detention unit where guards have beaten and assaulted detainees. Again, Karen Marino's uncle, Gabriel, has been at Delaney Hall since last August. She was speaking to Democracy Now as Maria Teresena. We'll have more on Delaney Hall after headlines. In Texas, police have arrested an immigration and customs enforcement agent who faces charges of felony assault and falsely reporting a crime during an immigration raid in Minneapolis in January. Hennepin County prosecutors allege 52-year-old Christian Castro shot Venezuelan immigrant Julio Sosaceles in the leg through the door of a home, then lied by claiming the assault was in self-defense. Castro was booked into the Cameron County Jail in Texas Friday if he challenges his extradition. Democratic Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota will have to make a formal request from Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott, a Trump ally.

The U.S. military says it struck a vessel in the eastern Pacific on Saturday, killing three men. U.S. Southern Command claimed the vessel was, quote, engaged in narco-trafficking operations, again, providing no evidence. Since September, the Pentagon says it's killed more than 200 people in strikes on boats in the Caribbean Pacific. The attacks have been widely condemned as unlawful, extrajudicial killings. In Colombia, a pro-Trump lawyer and businessman took lead over an ally of outgoing leftist President Gustavo Petro. In the first round of the presidential election on Sunday, far-right candidate of Alardo de la Espreya took nearly 45, percent of the vote compared to 41 percent for Ivan Cepeda, whose vowed to continue Petro's progressive agenda and negotiate peace deals with armed groups.

De La Aspreyea has promised to crack down on crime and build mega prisons like Secott. That's the Salvadoran prison inspired by El Salvador's president, Naibu Kele. The two candidates will head to a runoff later this month. A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump's name to be removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the performing arts. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled Friday Trump's rebranding of the center to include his own name constituted an illegal act, writing, quote, Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it, unquote. Judge Cooper also temporarily barred Trump from closing the Kennedy Center for, what Trump claimed are renovations. Trump announced a two-year closure after a wave of artists and

performers resigned or canceled performances. Meanwhile, President Trump has lashed out at prominent artists who've canceled plans to perform at the Great American State Fair. That's the name of a series of events on the National Mall to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of independence. A number of performers say they were misled by organizers and did not know of the events' connections to Trump and his MAGA movement. Among those canceling are young MC, Maristay, Martina McBride, CNC Music Factory, and the Commodores. In response, President Trump blasted the artists who dropped out his third rate and said he might replace their performances by delivering a major speech, unquote.

Brooklyn Rivera, prominent Nicaraguan indigenous leader, died in prison over the weekend. He was 73 years old. Rivera was a former lawmaker and leader of the Mosquito people, the largest indigenous group in Nicaragua. In the 1980s, Rivera fought against the Sandinista government alongside the CIA-backed Contra rebels. He was imprisoned three years ago by Nicaraguan authorities. Three days before his death, the government published photos of Rivera bedridden, intubated, and emaciated. prompting outrage from Human Rights Group. And here in New York, family and friends gathered at Riverside Church Saturday

for a memorial service celebrating the life of Asada Shakur, the legendary Black Panther and Black Liberation activists who died last September at the age of 78 in Cuba. Asada Shakur was convicted in the May 2nd, 1973 killing of a New Jersey state trooper during a shootout that left one of her fellow activists, dead. She was shot twice by police during the incident. In 1979, she managed to escape from jail and flee to Cuba, where she received political asylum. She long proclaimed her innocence. This is the renowned abolitionist, author and activist Angela Davis speaking at Saturday's

memorial service. And so when we defend Asata Shakur today, we We are defending all radical movements, anti-racist movements, abolition feminist movements, anti-Zionist movements, anti-war movements, anti-capitalist movements. And those are some of the headlines. This is DemocracyNow.org.org, the war and peace report. I'm Amy Goodman. We begin today's show in New Jersey, as today marks 11 days since an estimated 300 immigrants detained at the Delaney Hall, Newark Ice Jail, began a hunger and labor strike demanding their immediate release.

Protesters and organizers continued to gather near the massive jail over the weekend after New Jersey State Police imposed a barricade about a half mile long around Delaney's Hall perimeter. Activists denounced New Jersey Governor Mikey Sherrill for deploying state police, with officers in riot gear reportedly beating up protesters. Newark Mayor Ross Baraka has imposed a nightly curfew around Delaney Hall until further notice. There were reports of more arrests Sunday night as some protesters defied the curfew. Mayor Baraka's announcement Sunday came after another weekend of clashes between protesters and law enforcement. Democracy Now's Maria Tarasena was on the ground and spoke to several people. This is Sally Pillay, a mutual aid advocate with Eyes on Ice, New Jersey.

She described the chaotic scene as state police swarmed the protest outside Delaney Hall Saturday night. There was no announcement. There was nothing. It just came. There was an escalation of police with shields, mounted horses, flashbangs, tear gas, smoke bombs that was just one. one after the other, one after the other. And there was just no sense of, you know, safeness that people in the crowd felt.

We do mutual aid and support for the families. We had nothing to do with the protests that were going on. But the way the police, the state police moved and the local police moved against the crowd from the north side coming down Doremus Avenue. It started to shove the crowd towards the one. mutual aid tent. And so we felt very trapped.

And then the smoke was coming in. And so we had to escape. Meanwhile, union workers led a picket line near Delaney Hall Sunday afternoon, demanding the ICE jail be shut down. For more on the latest, we're joined by Bob Henley. He's the award-winning investigative journalist, general manager of WBAI Pacifica Radio in New York, also host of what's going on Labor Monday and has been covering the protests at Delaney Hall. His new piece for Salon is titled, Escalating Tensions at Newark Migrant Prison, draws ire of lawmakers.

Bob, if you can go through the weekend with the New Jersey governor who actually has called for Delaney Hall to be shut down, calling out New Jersey state troopers and take us through the weekend right through the state of exception or, emergency that the Newark mayor has now imposed. So I do think we do have to introduce one element here that in your comprehensive lead-in, you didn't include, which was the decision by the Trump administration last week, with Secretary Mullen threatening to actually close the international rival function at Newark Liberty Airport, right as the World Cup is about to start. And both the, all of the states in this region have invested heavily in that. Also, what is most, most disturbing perhaps is that anyone who's been around for a while, and I have the fortune

privilege to be in that category, you have to recall that in 1967, the deployment during what has been called the rebellion in Newark, with the state police and National Guard, and the same kind of freelance vibe. It's got actually disturbing, resulted in the death of 27 people. And a subsequent report by the Lilly Commission, which was convened by Governor Hughes, much like the Turner Commission, found that actually the state police and national. Guard extended the period of time of civil unrest, contributing to the length of chaos, because they actually targeted black businesses for destruction. I'm not suggesting that happened here.

But it is disturbing that it's such an historical response. And what it does do is make the conflict and the police violence, which, of course, the likes of the New York Post in 770, that's what they want, takes us off the heroism of the detainees who have written these three letters. said last time I was lucky enough to be on with you, where they've written something that I think that historians will say is equivalent to the Declaration of Independence because they so vividly described the way they've been deprived of all the basic human rights that we come to associate with this nation that we know from speaking with scholars they enjoy. And yet we have a period

of lawlessness in this country where the Trump administration is just systematically ignoring rid of habeas corpus that have been issued by Article III courts. And I just think it's also foreseeable. You do know, because you covered it when it happened, back in May of 2025, Mayor Baraka was taken off the street by masked federal agents. I recall this all the time because this is when it really started. And Bonnie Watson Coleman, Congresswoman, 80 pounds, went wet. and Representative McGeiver, Representative Menendez, all wrapped around in the tradition of nonviolence,

self-defense Gandhi has tradition to slow down the process of these masked agents, taking the elected mayor of New Jersey's largest city into custody. Now, at that point, I submit that's when the state of New Jersey, under the prior administration, needed to stand up a protective corridor for the humanitarian work that's going on there. And that's the upset here is that unintent folks who are well-intentioned, who see what happened in Minneapolis with the assassination of Renee Good and Alex Prady. They come there ready to engage with the helmet on, gas masks. And what they may not know is that there's a very fragile humanitarian effort, which, of course, I'm not surprised your report are captured with Sally there,

where they were, when things are calm, individuals are released who have been detained or imprisoned. And it's so important that they be encircled by the beloved community, not by a pool of reporters or protesters that they be cared for, that they end up, and you know, you may know this area, that part of Ironbound is an industrial area. And so they're literally dumped on the sidewalk, no means to connect with their family.

and with these aid workers, this faith-based community enterprise, it's been going on since the winter of 2025 before people knew what Delaney Hall was, that gets fractured when there's not the discipline, nonviolent protest going on outside. And so these folks don't get the advantage of being debriefed. First, they may not get released. And second, many of them don't have legal counsel. They're denied the interaction with the social worker, the ability to have resources to get on with their life and to continue to

fight for their freedom. And Bob, if you can explain what the state of exception is that Mayor Baraka has imposed, and then the labor groups that came out yesterday, Sunday, around 4 o'clock. Right. So, and this is course, has a historic irony. Amiri Baraka is the late poet and cultural leader, was one of the key leaders in Newark at the time of the intersection, been beaten by the New York police. His son is Mayor Ross Baraka. Mayor Baraka does not impose this kind of thing like a curfew without having, I say, some reasonable concern.

It's only in the area around Ironbound, this distinct area of Ironbound, because Ironbound itself is diverse. There's a part of Arnabound that is a rich cultural music community, residential community, and then there's a part of it says industrial. So that you need to understand that. The union turnout was underreported. I'm so glad you mentioned it. HPAE, the Nurses Union in New Jersey, 32BJUCIU.

They do see the labor connection here because remember, as we spoke last time, these inmates are getting a dollar a day while the head of geo, a private corporation, is getting over $11 million. So there's actually, and I'm wondering at what point to a America Corrections unions stand up and say, listen, this isn't good across the board. And that's, we are seeing labor step up and seeing the connection between this fundamental civil liberties question. Bob Henley, I want to thank you for being with us.

We're going to continue to follow what's going on at Delaney Hall. Bob Henley, award-winning investigative journalist broadcast in print for more than 40 years, general manager of WBAI Pacifica Radio, which is doing wall-to-wall. coverage of what's happening at Delaney. He's host of what's going on Labor Monday. Up next, Oscar-nominated director Julie Cohen and former Wall Street Journal reporter Paul Barrett on the De-Ice Citizens Bank campaign. Stay with us. My friend, by the Malian singer Fatumata Jouara, performed in Democracy Now years ago.

This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. We look now at a growing boycott against Citizens Bank amidst a campaign to pressure the corporation to divest from financing core civic and geo-group two of the nation's largest private operators of ICE jails. An interfaith coalition of dozens of religious groups in Boston said Citizens Bank has failed to adequately address its concern about financing private prisons.

So the group is now withdrawing a million dollars from its estimated $14 million account with the bank. The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization plans to continue pulling out a million at a time until the bank addresses its concerns. This is Senior Minister of Old South Church in Boston, Bishop John Edgerton, explaining the decision on MS Now. We pulled a million dollars out today. We transferred it to another bank because we want citizens to stop doing this dirty business. Citizens is one of the only banks in the country that banks with and provides financing for CoreC Civic NGO group, two of the most notorious private prison companies in this country.

This year, Emmanuel Damos, who is a neighbor, a Boston resident, a 56-year-old man, he died in Corsevic detention in Arizona from a toothache. He had a toothache. He complained about it. They didn't give him proper care. His toothache became an infection. His infection became sepsis, and he died. And these are the practices that CoreC Civic is notorious for,

group is notorious for. And they will not be abusing our neighbors, not with our money. That's Reverend John Edgerton, speaking to Rachel Maddow, a Citizens Bank spokesperson, responded to democracy now in a statement that said, quote, citizens is deeply committed to the communities we serve investing $2 billion in 2025 to help build or preserve more than 8,000 affordable housing units, contributing over 265,000 volunteer hours. and partnering with nonprofits across our footprint. People have strong and often differing views on issues like immigration. It's an important public policy debate, but it's not the role of the banks to set policy.

Our role is to follow the law and apply our standards consistently as we serve all of our clients, Citizens Bank, said to Democracy Now. For more, we're joined by two guests here in New York. Julie Cohen is an Oscar-nominated director who's made many films, including RBG about the Supreme court justice. Everybody. My name is Polly Murray. She and her husband Paul Barrett, who is a former reporter with the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Business Week, wrote an op-ed this weekend for NJ.com about their decision to close their accounts at Citizens Bank over the bank's complicity with Delaney Hall and other ICE jails. We welcome you both to Democracy Now. Thank you so much for

being with us. Julie, let's start with you. Talk about what this. Citizens Bank campaign is all about and about your personal decision? Yeah, the campaign to protest Citizens Bank is about their complicity. They finance both Geo Group, which operates Delaney Hall and other ICE detention, and Core Civic, which operates the Dilley Center in Texas, which you may remember is where Liam Ramos was held, and many other children are still being held. And the idea is, to basically use our collective economic power to speak out about those who are kind of aiding at abetting this system.

I mean, I'm taken aback hearing the statement that Citizens Bank just gave you. I'm hearing it for the first time just now. But there was a phrase in there where he said they're committing to upholding the law. Well, some of what's going on, a lot of what's going on in these ICE detention facilities is not lawful. because people are being detained there, immigrant neighbors, most of whom have not committed any crime beyond immigration violations, are being held there without due process. So that's unconstitutional, so they're not upholding the law if they're helping finance

these facilities. And explain. We're talking about hunger and labor, a hunger and a labor strike inside the jail. The labor part of it isn't talked about as much. While DHS denies this is going on, interestingly, the border czar Tom Holman has talked about force feeding, though he has denied that the hunger strike is happening. Yeah, he's done all kinds of things. He's denied the hunger strike is happening.

He's saying that they might have to force feed people, which you obviously wouldn't have to do if there was no hunger strike. And he has also deeply inaccurately claimed that the reason this just happened, I think, on Fox yesterday. He was saying the reason that the hunger strikers are striking is because they feel that they have the right to the ethnic food of their home countries made up out of whole cloth. The issue is their unconstitutional incarceration. They also have complained about conditions including putrid water, not enough food, and worms in their food. Nobody's talking about wanting to get their own specialized ethnic food. That's just crap. Paul Barrett, you're a former reporter with the Wall Street Journal and with Business Week.

If you can talk about core civic NGO, these corporations and Citizens Bank relationship with them. Sure. These are major corporations that require continued financing from banks and other financial institutions in order to operate. Over more than a dozen years, Citizens Bank has arranged for and helped provide some $2 billion in financing for a Geo Group and Core Civic. Without that money, these corporations literally could not function. In 2019, other major banks and financial institutions pulled back from precisely this type of financing. Not because of what's going on in Delaney Hall. Delaney Hall wasn't open at that time. They pulled back because they could see that association with the private prison industry was hurting their brand reputation, and they said, no more.

We're out of this business. Banks do care about what consumers think about their business. Citizens just decided to stay in to keep taking the profits from this financing, and as a result, now finds itself enmeshed in this obscene policy of the Trump administration. And we're just calling for them to step back. They can just stop doing it. It's not that complicated. Last year during a quarterly earnings call for the private prison company Geo Group, the CEO, David Donahue, claimed that Delaney Hall, another ICE detention center in Michigan, North Lake, would represent potentially an additional $130 million in annual revenue in the need for over 160,000 ice detention beds nationwide. To date, the Delaney Hall and North Lake contract announcements represent in excess of $130 million,

of this annualized revenue potential. However, these facilities are expected to generate only partial revenue and earnings contribution in 2025 due to the timing of these facility activations. As a reminder, once a contract has been awarded, our typical facility activation period is 60 to 90 days to hire, train, and clear staff, and to get the facility ready for occupancy, followed by a gradual ramp up and utilization. As we have previously discussed, before the passage of the Lake and Riley Act, the Trump administration had indicated a need to ramp up to 100,000 total ICE detention beds

for increased interior enforcement operations. Based on public statements from ICE, the implementation of the Lake and Riley Act could require an incremental 60,000 ICE detention beds or more. We continue to believe that an increase to between 100,000 and 160,000 total detention beds will require a range of solutions for the detention and processing of migrants in the United States. That's David Donahue, CEO of Geo Group, the for-profit prison company that runs Delaney Hall, Paul Barrett. Well, one of Geo Group's top former officials has just become the top official of ICE. Today, actually. A guy named Venturella. And this indicates, it indicates

the tight enmeshment between the Trump administration policy, this private prison corporation, and in turn Citizens Bank, which provides the vital financing that Geo Group needs to operate. So this is what we want to see disentangled. We want to see Citizens Bank walking away from this situation. Julie, you write in your piece at NJ.com. There are multiple ways to protest the Trump anti-immigrant agenda, and not all of them require you to show up in person at an ICE detention facility. You talk about... pressuring your local government to refuse to allow ICE to open one of its privately operated jails where you live. Can you describe how this has happened around the country? And also,

you and Paul have been protesting outside Delaney dozens of times. Yeah, I mean, we've been going to Delaney pretty much ever since it opened last spring. We were there the same week. I think just maybe the day before or the day after, Representative McIver was arrested there and is still facing potentially 17 years in prison, by the way, another thing that should be protested vehemently. This is La Monica McIver, the New Jersey Congress member who said she was trying to protect the mayor who was arrested, Mayor Ross Baraka of Newark. And she has been indicted by Alina Haba actually was.

the U.S. attorney at the time who's been removed because they said she was unlawfully there as U.S. attorney. President Trump's former personal attorney. Yeah, it's just illegality on top of illegality, which is almost leading me to forget what I was saying, but we go there. You know, you had earlier on the show one of the mutual aid supporters of the people detained there and their families, Sally. And really, we've just been, there are people there every single day, Paul and I had been going about once a week, you know, just for a few hours to support what they're doing and to just stand outside with signs kind of reminding the community, which on that strip of Newark is basically short-haul truckers, what's going on inside? Holding up signs saying no detention without due process, saying no concentration camps in the USA.

And what are the shoes? Okay, yes. So the mutual aid groups, one thing that they do is help me. make sure that visitors can get inside the facility to see their loved ones at the scheduled visiting time. The guards at Tulani come up with kind of an ever-shifting list of reasons that people can be kept out. And often a wife will be kept out because she's not wearing the right kind of shoes. She has open-toed shoes. In some cases, she's wearing crocs. She's wearing yoga pants. The mutual aid... There is a dress code to visit? Well, there is a dress code, but the problem is that the dress code tends to change and shift over time, so people are never quite sure,

and depending on what guard is at the gate, you know, there's no waiting room inside. This isn't like a regular prison. There's like this little outdoor now. First, there was nothing, and then there's like a few kind of stadium bleachers with a little thing over them. And so if someone goes up and says, no, you can't see your husband who was grabbed, like in one case, you know, while he was out getting diapers for your kids, you can't see your husband now. Um, you can't see your husband now. because you're wearing crocs, then there's this mutual aid tent that's right out there saying, hey, what size shoes? We have shoes. We have pants if you need pants. And that's what, and people are then able to go in to see their loved ones.

And Paul Barrett, the pressuring of local governments to refuse to allow ice to open jails in their community? Right. Well, this is actually succeeding all across the country. There are many communities in multiple states, including New Jersey, where local pressure on city, councilmen and mayors and so forth is actually causing the communities to put up barriers to the opening of these facilities. And people just need to keep the pressure up because there is a successful campaign to slow down this process. And I will predict that in coming months, I think we're going to see ICE backing away from opening some of these facilities altogether. Well, I want to thank you both for being with us, Paul Barrett, former reporter at the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Business

week. And Julie Cohen, Oscar-nominated filmmaker who made the film including RBG. They wrote an op-bed this weekend for NGA.com about their decision to close their accounts at Citizens Bank because of the bank's complicity with Delaney Hall and other ICE detention camps or jails. And actually, Saturday is a big day of action, Julie. Yes, we are taking part. We didn't start this movement, but we have. have joined in enthusiastically in a National Day of Action. Anyone who wants to check it out can go to D.I. Citizensbank.org, and you will find right now there are more than 90 protest planned outside citizens branches all over the Northeast Midwest. There's the map of it.

If there isn't one near your citizens, just set one up yourself. We did. We'd been going to our friends at Montclair Indivisibles, and then we decided we would do our own in Bloomfield this weekend. So you can just click on and find out where the one nearest show up with your citizen sign or someone will give you a sign. It's so easy and it's so worth doing. And this citizen pressure really has made a difference. It stopped of Lowe Airlines from, you know, flying detainees out of the country doing deportation flights. Like citizen action can really make a difference. And that's what we're not banking on.

I want to thank Julie Cohen and Paul Barrett. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. As Paul Barrett said, the acting director of immigration and customs enforcement, well, he officially resigned from the agency just about a year after his appointment to oversee Trump's rapid expansion of nationwide ice raids, immigration, detention, deportations. Yesterday was Todd Lyons official last day heading.

up ICE. After he announced in April, he'd be stepping down by the end of May. Lyons was never confirmed by the Senate during his tenure. He repeatedly defended ICE's tactics, even as the agency face mounting scrutiny over its agents' violent crackdown on protesters and dehumanizing treatment of immigrants. The man who continues to be ice head today, who takes over from Lions, Trump tapped David Venturella, a former ICE official, private prison executive. who was the vice president at Geo Group to replace Lyons. Senator Elizabeth Warren's demanding Venturella disclosed more details about his ties to Geo Group, which, according to public citizen, saw its profits jump from $32 million in

2024 to more than $254 million last year as the Trump administration expands government contracts with ICE jails nationwide. Senator Warren's letter to Venturella said in part, quote, you worked at the Geo Group, the largest private prison contractor operating immigrant detention facilities across the U.S. for over a decade prior to joining ICE. That history and your reported use of DHS personnel and resources for personal or political favors raise serious concerns about your ability to effectively serve as ICE's leader, especially at a time when the Trump administration's mass deportation agenda is systematically violating fundamental human rights.

Senator Warren wrote. For more, we're joined by Satara Kandahari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network. Tell us more about who David Venturella is and what role Geogroop has played with the expansion of these for-profit private prisons around the country holding immigrants. Good morning, Amy. Thanks for having me. Yes, as you mentioned, David Venturella is an official who has basically been bopping in and out of ICE and Geo Group for decades now. He has served at ICE in the past under both the Bush and Obama administrations, spent time at Geo Group for the past year, has been an advisor, sort of a contractor with ICE and is now going to be heading up the agency. And, you know, in his role at Geo Group, he oversaw the contracts that Geo Group was. negotiating and developing with ICE over the last couple of years. Delaney Hall being one of those

contracts, that's a relatively new detention facility that has opened over the last year or two. That one, along with several others that we had been keeping an eye on since the Biden administration opened over the last couple of years and have been detaining people in ICE custody now under the Trump administration. And as your guest, previous, mentioned the conditions at these facilities, like the conditions at detention facilities across the country, whether they're run by Geo Group or one of the other private detention contractors or, you know, local or federal or state government, the conditions are horrendous. And Venturella has had sort of a really direct role in how all of this has developed over the last year,

two years, specifically, but really decades. I mean, it is very interesting that both Venturella and Tom Holman, the so-called Borders Tsar, who's denying that immigrant detainees are on hunger strike, but then threatening to force-feed them, worked under Obama, President Obama. Exactly. And this was, you know, just like we're seeing now under President Trump with this campaign of mass detention and deportation, the Obama years was the last period of mass deportations that we saw. Your viewers may remember he was dubbed the Department. reporter-in-chief by many immigrant rights advocates. He oversaw a huge number of deportations during his tenure. And of course, Ventrella was at the agency during that time. And now he is

supporting the current Trump administration and carrying out really a brutal mass detention and deportation campaign. He was senior vice president at Geo Group, which runs Delaney Hall and many other immigrant jails. And now, starting today, is the head of ice. If you could comment on the amount of money that Geo Group is getting, as Detention Watch has noted, earlier this year, GEO Group reported a company record of $254 million in profit last year, roughly a 700% increase from the year before. Yeah, I'm going to say that again to make sure your viewers heard. 100% increase in profits. I mean, that's really, really unheard of. And, you know, we heard throughout the election cycle how excited the private prison companies were about a potential Trump administration coming in. You know, already under the Biden administration, there had been ongoing negotiations around expansion. We had been keeping an eye on Delaney Hall, North Lake and Michigan, several other facilities that had been under negotiation for new contracts with ICE. And then, of course,

with the Trump administration coming in and with this expanded detention and deportation campaign have really made a massive, massive profit. And I think it's really critical for folks to understand really the intricate relationship that private prison companies have with ICE. It's really revolving door. And this is a classic example, as I said before, Venturella, being at ICE previously under Bush and Obama and then going back to GO and now back under the Trump. administration. And it's really hard to see where the interests of ICE end and those of private

prison companies begin. They're so intertwined that it's hard to see a separation between them. Finally, the Washington Post observed a federal ethics rule generally bars government employees from working on contracts awarded to their former employers for a year. But the administration granted Ventrilla a waiver from this rule. As a nice advisor, Venturella has advocated for the use of warehouses to detain immigrants, a practice that's drawn nationwide outrage. NBC News noted that after he retired from Gio, Venturella was a consultant for the company advising a new and existing contracts according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Your final comments in this last 30 seconds, Satara. It really shows the depth of corruption with this administration, the fact that he was able to get away You know, by the way, former Attorney General Pam Bondi also was a lobbyist for private prison companies. I mean, the entanglement runs deep. And at the end of the day, the people who suffer are those who are behind bars in detention centers across the country and their loved ones. And by the way, you know, all Americans, I mean, this is all at great moral cost and billions

in taxpayer dollars as, you know, right now Congress is considering handing ICE another $38 billion, which, by the way, is the same amount of money that they propose to spend on these warehouse detention facilities. So Tara Gandhara, Hara, Aweener, thank you for being with us, advocacy director of Detention Watch Network. Coming up, we go to Spokane, Washington, where three people have been convicted of conspiracy for taking part in a protest. We'll speak to one of them, Army veteran, Bajan Mavuwala, and reporter, Aaron Glant.

Stay with us. too slow you'll lose it. You don't know how Voxid dies until you feed it. You left at my temper, your eyes like December, so cold and blue. You were smiling too. I was jealous of you.

Rapture by Cassie Velazza performed at the Brooklyn Folk Festival. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman. We end today's show with President Trump's escalating crackdown on First Amendment rights. A federal jury last week convicted three people, including a U.S. military veteran of felony conspiracy charges over their involvement in an anti-ice protest in Spokane, Washington, last June. The protesters are awaiting sentencing face up to six years in prison. For more, we go to Spokane, where we're joined by one of them. Beijing Mavala is a U.S. military veteran in the war in Afghanistan.

We're also joined by Aaron Glantz, fellow at the Center for Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. His recent piece for the Guardian headlined, federal jury finds Army veteran and two other ICE protesters guilty of conspiracy. Before we go to Beijing, I'm wondering, Aaron, if you can talk about the significance of this term conspiracy. I want to go to a clip first of an interview that you did on PBS's News Hour. This is former acting U.S. Attorney General Richard Barker on PBS News Hour. Nobody was really hurt. None of the protesters were hurt. Fortunately, none of the law enforcement officers were hurt either.

He was aware that other U.S. attorneys had been ousted for refusing to comply with Trump Justice Department orders. And he worried about his ability to act ethically if he stayed on the job. So he resigned. I didn't feel in this case that a conspiracy charge that would carry a six-year term of incarceration was true to who I was or who I wanted to be as a federal prosecutor. So that's former acting U.S. Attorney General Richard Barker. resigned. Speaking to our guest, Aaron Glantz on PBS News Hour. Aaron, so talk about the significance of this conspiracy conviction just before we go to the military veteran who was convicted. I mean, what we have here is a really large reach of the

conspiracy statute. The charge here conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers, What happened was a relatively minor demonstration at an ice facility in Spokane, Washington. There was a Facebook post by the former president of the Spokane City Council, about two Venezuelan migrants who were going to be, according to him, unlawfully deported. A federal judge ended up freeing one of those migrants saying his arrest was unconstitutional. A number of demonstrators showed up. Bejan was one of them. He went home. He was going about his life. And then a month later, the FBI showed up at his door and a number of other demonstrators and arrested them for conspiracy. The individual you just heard from, Richard Barker, was the head of the U.S. Attorney's Office in eastern Washington State, and he declined to sign the indictment. He resigned. When I spoke with him, He talked about the fact that here you have a case where no protesters were hurt, no ICE agents were hurt, and yet a number of the demonstrators are facing six years in prison.

At the same time, the killers of Renee Good and Alex Pretty in Minneapolis have not been prosecuted at all. And he did not feel good about that. He talked to me about being a Sunday school teacher and needing to go before, you know, his fellow. church members and talk to them about right and wrong, and he didn't think he could stay in his job. And I think that that's ultimately what this case is inbound some way. You're going to hear from Beijing in a second. I was really impressed with him the whole time I've been covering this case over the past year as somebody who signed up to serve his country in Afghanistan in 2021, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban helping individuals come to this country to avoid being killed by the

Taliban who helped the U.S. military, and then standing up for some of his fellow residents in Spokane when the Trump administration tried to unlawfully deport them, always standing up and now facing six years in prison. So let's go to Beja Mavala. This is your first interview since your conviction for aiding the conspiracy for taking part in this ICE protest. Bejan, six of the nine people originally charged took plea deals. But you, Archer and Farrell, decided to fight.

Now you've been convicted. Your response and why you decided to go to trial. Yeah, I definitely felt like it was important to go to trial because if I had taken in a plea deal, it would have essentially been me lying and saying that, you know, I did something that I didn't do. I didn't assault anybody. I didn't destroy any property. And the protest was largely peaceful. And I felt that it was very important to put that in front of a jury. And I think it's important to note that I was convicted of aiding and abetting, which was not included in the original indictment that I was arrested for back in July of last year.

Talk about why you decided to engage in this protest. You're a former U.S. Army, you're a U.S. Army combat veteran. You served in Afghanistan. Why put yourself on the line here? I believe very strongly in the importance for people to be able to immigrate the United States for asylum seekers to find safety here. And I also very strongly believe in the people's right to address their government for things that they believe is wrong.

And I saw a post on Reddit that said, you know, hey, these people are being unlawfully detained. and I had time and I said, you know what, I'm going to go down and do what's right. I'm going to go and tell them, hey, I do not agree with this. I think this is wrong. Inspired by your arrest, your father, who we talked to, announced his congressional run in January will appear at a forum with other candidates Tuesday night. Have you heard from the incumbent Congressman Michael Boundgartner since your conviction? I have not heard anything from him.

I'm not sure if he's made a statement or not. And can you talk about your involvement since you were in Afghanistan and helping Afghan refugees come to this country, how you got involved with this work and how it inspired you to stand up against ICE? My dad also deployed to Afghanistan around the same time that I did, and there was one of the guys that he had trained while he was there. He managed to get on one of the planes leaving as Kabul was falling,

but his wife and young children were not able to. My dad asked if I could help to see if we could find a way to get them out of the country. And it just kind of snowballed from there. I mean, we ended up at one point, we had about 200 people on the list that we were trying to track, and we had to really significantly pair that down because we have 10 seconds, Bejus. So I thought, you know, hey, this is something that's really important to do. I wanted to help those people. Beja Mavuala, I want to thank you so much for being with us.

And Aaron Glantz, fellow at the Center for Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, will link to your article in the Guardian, federal jury finds Army veteran and two other ICE protesters, guilty of conspiracy. I'm Amy Goodman.