It Could Happen Here - Fighting ICE’s Warehouse Prisons

Episode Date: February 11, 2026

James is joined by Sam Hamilton to discuss how people in Social Circle, GA are organizing against an 8,000 person detention facility that ICE is planning to build in a warehouse in their community. Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/12/24/ice-immigrants-detention-warehouses-deportation-trump/?itid=lk_inline_manual_7See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Bowen-Yin. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan-Cortina-2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Boen, hi, Matt, hi, hello.

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And I had built up this idea that music and being musician was my whole identity. I had to sort of relearn who I was if you took this thing away. Who am I? Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Also Media. Hi, friends, and welcome to the show. It's me, James, today, and I'm very lucky to be joined by Sam Hamilton, who is the senior litigation staff attorney at Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta. Hi, Sam.

Hi, James. Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for joining us. And we are gathered here today to talk about the new proposals that DHS has to detain people in literal warehouses, right? If people aren't familiar, maybe you could start out by explaining what those proposals are and how they specifically relate to the areas where you're organizing in Atlanta. Sure. So around December of 2025, a journal. journalists leaked a list of about 20 different cities across the country where ICE was intending to open new detention facilities in warehouses specifically. And this list contained the names of the cities and the expected or projected occupancy of each of these facilities. And so I live here

in Atlanta, Georgia, and there were two cities on that list with warehouses contemplated. One is located in the city of Flowery Branch, where the warehouse there is intended to detain up to 1,500 people, and the other is in the city of Social Circle, Georgia, where ICE intends to use a warehouse that is over one million square feet to detain about 8,500 people. That's vast. Like, I think that this would dwarf the capacity of any, like, I'm trying to think if there are maybe prisons sort of bigger than that. I don't know, but like, in immigration terms, I don't think there is anything.

Yeah, I mean, you know, so for the last four years or so, I've worked with, I've worked on various different shutdown ice campaigns here in Georgia. And for the last four years, I've been working with the campaign to shut down the Fokston Ice Processing Center, which is a nice facility in South Georgia, pretty close to Florida, but it's about a five-hour drive from Atlanta. And that ended up expanding last summer, but the number of beds at that facility was projected to be around 3,000. and at the time, that was going to be the largest ice detention facility in the country.

So to jump from 3,000 to 8,500 is, yeah, it's massive, obviously. Yeah. I mean, people want it, like, it's not fascism, and if it comes from the fasci area of Italy, right? Otherwise, it's, like, sparkling authoritarianism or whatever. But, like, unless you're looking for, like, a gate with Arbeckmarked Fry on it or whatever, like these are concentration camps. Like that is what this is. It was really interesting.

In 2023, we had outdoor detention under the Biden administration. And like, we didn't really have much coverage from the US media when we were participating in mutual aid there. But we'd had a lot from non-US media, like folks from Japan and Singapore and Italy.

And they'd just come and be like, oh yeah, this is a concentration camp. And then they'd write the story and be like, oh, these are concentration camps. And like, I would never have got that past an editor in L.A. or New York. To them it seems so self-evident. Now we're just doing it on an even bigger scale, I guess.

It's terrible. It's shit. So I know you've been organizing in social circles specifically, right? Or part of an organizing group, I should say, that's been opposing this detention center. So I think it'll be really instructive to people, because these are going to be all over the country. And this won't be the only expansion of immigration detention

we see in the next few years, I imagine, given the massive budget and the priorities of the administration. Can you explain a little bit about how that campaign got started and then the nuts and bolts of how this is being opposed? Yeah. So before I get into that, I think providing some context on who the social circle community is, you know, would be instructive. So it's a pretty small, it's a very small city. It's got a population of about 5,000 people. overwhelmingly Republican,

overwhelmingly white, and pretty wealthy. Okay. And it's about an hour drive outside of Atlanta. And in December of 2025, a news article was published in the Washington Post

announcing, you know, the list of the 20 cities where these warehouses would be popping up. Yeah. And it was that article that told the residents of social circle and the elected officials of social circle for the first time that this ICE mega prison was coming to their community. There was no notice to the city by ICE or anyone in the federal government at all. Certainly no opportunity to respond, no opportunity for public input.

Yeah. So they felt really blindsided. Yeah. And I'm not from this community. And, you know, I've, I've met many of these people only for the first time, you know, within the last couple of months. But I think it would not be so far-fetched to say that some of these people feel, you know, especially the ones who identify as Republicans or as, you know, conservatives. I think they feel really betrayed by, you know, by their government, by their party. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, a lot of these people, I mean, I've just described the demographic. I think many of them have never been involved in organizing of any kind before.

Some of them have, I think, but I think due to, you know, their life circumstances just might not have found themselves in a place where they've needed to organize for anything. Yeah. So a bunch of these residents got together and have been holding, you know, in-person kind of town hall community meetings. And they held one in January where they were about, you know, I think 40 to 50 people in the room. in the room and they wanted to get together and, you know, just have a public discourse about what could be done. Yeah. And I was invited to this meeting because of my history of involvement with shutdown campaigns

here in Georgia. I got started with shutdown campaigns in 2020. Okay. When a nurse, a whistleblower who worked at an immigration detainee, detention center here in Georgia called the Irwin County Detention Center, alerted the public that there was a doctor who was contracting with ICE, who had been providing medical services to women detained in this facility. Well, he had actually been performing non-consensual and medically unnecessary medical

and gynecological procedures on women in ICE detention. I remember this year. Yeah. And when these women spoke out about it to their family members, to journalists, to their lawyers, to members of Congress, or staffers for members of Congress, they were retaliated against by being swiftly deported. And I'm talking, put on planes within hours of speaking to a congressional staffer. And at the time, I was working at the University of Georgia School of Law's First Amendment Clinic, where we were providing, you know, free legal services to people across

the state, including, you know, helping people with getting access to public records. And, suing the police and, you know, and federal agents when they were retaliated against. And so we represented those women. And it was through my work at Irwin and, you know, connecting with the organizers there that I got involved with shutdown campaigns, or rather the shutdown Irwin campaign here in Georgia. And then from there, later got involved with the shutdown folks in campaigns. So I had been asked to speak to this group of people who I think we're new to the immigrants' rights struggle to talk about, you know, what it's like to try to prevent a detention center from popping up in their community.

And like you say, like, it's not a community that might traditionally be demographically the same as the people who we associate with, like, migrant advocacy, migrant activism. I guess when a group like that comes into a moment like this, I mean, there are some areas of like activism, I guess, civil society stuff where like white suburb, and folks have some experience, right? Planning is one of them, right? Like, the reason bike planes only go north-south in San Diego is because they think that those of us who can't afford to live by the sea don't deserve to cycle safely.

Like, there are many other examples of this. But what were their, like, thoughts when they first met? I'm really interested to know. They're, like, they're obviously upset and they feel abandoned and betrayed. But, like, how did they want to organize to prevent this? well, a lot of them were upset about the decrease in their property value. That was what was really bringing them. Yeah, that was the radicalizing moment.

Same with the bike lanes, actually. Oh, yeah, I bet. And, you know, but in addition to the property value stuff, it's also, you know, the strain that this would impose on their small community. I mean, you know, a number of the people who live there might be of, you know, well-to-do means, but. You know, their city police department employs a total of 14 officers, and they have two on duty at any given time. They have a fire department of, you know, comparably, you know, small size. And they have, you know, water and sewer infrastructure that was built to accommodate about as many people as live there now, you know, between 4,000 and 5,000 people. Yeah.

And it's that impact that is also, you know, really maddening and activating and agitating to people. Those arguments are not new to us who have organized in South Georgia, in also very red areas, a lot more rural and a lot less wealthy. Yeah. You know, we'll try to, we've canvassed door to door in the city of Folkston to try to ask people, how do they feel about this mega prison opening up in. in their community. And a lot of people, you know, were, we're against it, despite the fact government officials might try to bill it as, you know, an economic boon, you know, an employment opportunity. A lot of people said, like, hey, I mean, I don't necessarily want a prison in my backyard, but if it's bringing jobs, then, you know, that's what this community needs. That's something

that I think makes social circle distinct from the previous shutdown campaigns I've worked on in Irwin County and in Folkston, is that this isn't really an area that is starved for employment or starved for, you know, economic support. Like, these people are doing okay. And, you know, another thing that makes it distinct is before all of this warehouse business, the vast majority of facilities in this country are formed through intergovernmental service agreements you know, or IgSas for short is the acronym, but there are agreements between the federal government and the county, the local government,

where the local government says, yes, you can use our land or our facilities, and in exchange, you pay us, I mean, in the case of Focston, it's a comparably measly amount. It's only $200,000 per year. Jesus, no much, yeah. Even though the federal government is giving,

I mean, $50 million a year to insert your favorite private prison corporation here, you know, whether it's CoreC Civic or Geo Group. Yeah, I mean, your favorite. There are only two, really. Yeah, yeah, yeah, not much of a choice. Yeah, yeah. And so typically, like, we see this sort of, like, co-opting and manipulation of the local community and the local government by the federal government, you know, coercing them economically to, you know, to take on these detention centers or else. But here, I mean, social, like I said, social circle is doing fine. They're not starved for economic investment.

Yeah. And I didn't, you know, consult them at all. It really just like, you know, in the dead of night, just bought this warehouse from a private company and pushed this deal through. So those are some aspects that I think might throw, you know, some of us who might have been involved in these similar fights before, like for a loop a little bit because, yeah, there's this assumption, I think, by some of the local officials that. The Supremacy Clause governs here and the federal government can do whatever it wants.

So there's no point in us trying to use our local zoning ordinances or what have you to try to put a stop to this because there's nothing that we can do. Right. Is at least what, you know, some people might be saying. Yeah. Let's take a break for advertisements. I can't think of anything mean to say. I don't know, buy some shit. This has come from a, don't, don't buy anything you don't need.

Okay. Canadian women are looking for more. Mort of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I'm Bowen-Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, and the lead-up to the Milan Quartina-26 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bob, hi, Matt.

Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt, hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys Five Rings on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Minilic Lamouba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. have both been assassinated. And Black America was out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale.

In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's Al-Mermata, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King's senior and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. to be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people would die. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A-building on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your Podcast. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the on-purpose podcast. On a recent episode, I sat down with Nick Jonas, singer, songwriter, actor, and global superstar. The thing I would say to my younger self is congratulations. You get to marry Priyanka Chopra Jonas. And also, you know, your daughter's incredible. That's beautiful, man. Yeah. Thank you. That's so beautiful. I can see that got you a little. Yeah, for sure.

Our daughter, she came to the world under sort of very intense circumstances, which I've not really talked about ever. Growing up on Disney in front of a million, how did that shape your sense of self? I went blank, I hit a bad note, and then I couldn't kind of recover. And I had built up this idea that music and being musician was my whole identity. I had to sort of relearn who I was if you took this thing away. Who am I? Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty,

on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We are back. So you were talking about this assumption that the supremacy clause would mean that the federal government could build a mega prison in a warehouse in your town without asking you if it could do that first. Can you explain like how people are able to use, like you said, like various local tools to oppose this? Like you said, it's a huge burden.

When I first read this story, I remember thinking about just like the water and sewage demands of housing 8,000 people would be crippling for the infrastructure in a lot of places. So how are people opposing this? Well, it's been really inspiring for me to see these local leaders, who again, many of whom have never been involved in activism or organizing before. They've been very consistent in holding. demonstrations on a weekly basis at the site of this facility and have garnered the attention of different media who have come and interviewed them. So that's been one way that they've been trying

to get their message out there. I was just talking about, you know, the residents who are concerned from, you know, sort of fiscal perspective and are concerned about, you know, their own property values and things like that. But there are a fair number of people who are concerned about, you know, the core human rights abuses. And, you know, sure, some of the lines might be, well, this isn't the right place. Right. You know, our city is not the right place for a detention center suggesting, you know, implying that there are some places that are suitable for a detention center. But there are a fair number of people in this community who are opposed to detention centers in general. I mean, they see that they see the violence that ICE is inflicted.

in broad daylight on public streets. And I think they're horrified. And they don't want to be complicit in something like that, you know, coming to their community. And I do think that along the way I'm seeing more of a shift in the consciousness, or at least an openness to understanding the different influences that bring us to the same. table. That's cool. Yeah, it is. It has been very cool. Yeah. And we can agree that, you know, we're not going to have 100% unity of ideas, but we can have a unity of action. And, you know, we can save these debates on, you know, I mean, whether someone is illegal or not. Right. Yeah.

But, you know, we can continue to have them along the way as we are also identifying the very concrete ways that we can work together. And I'm thinking of one, for example, I work pretty closely with some staffers for different members of Congress. I mean, in terms of like uplifting, you know, human rights and civil rights abuses that we see in detention center, it's because as part of my job, I go inside detention centers, immigration detention centers in Georgia pretty frequently. Also federal prisons. Okay. And we'll meet with people and, like, learn about the conditions that they're facing and will, you know, fight for them to get released and also share what I learn from them with, you know, different members of Congress. And

most of our connections are with people who are aligned with the Democratic Party, you know, I mean, to be, to be frank, you know, I've never initiated correspondence with a Republican, but I think I kind of just assumed that they wouldn't want to, that I wouldn't get anywhere with them or that they wouldn't, you know, that they wouldn't talk to me. But what's been effective in working with this coalition of residents is some of these people, I mean, yeah, like they, you know, they've been card-carrying Republicans for a long time and feel that they, you know, can wield influence over, you know, certain Republican elected officials. And one of them, you know, I mean, well, I don't know how many of them, but, but a number of these local residents

have gotten Republican, you know, Mike Collins to come out against this ice facility. Yeah, that's especially right now in the Republican Party. And like that could be very difficult for them to do. I sort of want not hugely sympathetic to Republican politicians. And I would still like to see them get better. Like, we want people to get better. That's the whole thing. And like, I think for these people whose politics may not be the same as ours,

sharing the space, sharing the movement, showing the struggle. Like, I hope it makes people better. I hope being exposed to people who are not of the same background as you, be it, like, class-rise, race-wise, politics-wise, whatever, like, makes people realize that things are not quite how they're presented to them on the television or in the media they consume. Totally. So I'm sure that's, yeah, like, I hope that is positive. What can, like, local government do or even, like,

elected officials do, given that, elect officials on a federal level do, given that I just appears to be operating without a great deal of oversight right now. Yeah, I mean, with each of these warehouses, there are different circumstances around each of them. I've been really inspired, honestly, by the folks in Maryland who are dealing with a warehouse, maybe multiple warehouses, I'm not sure.

Yeah, I can't remember. Where, you know, at both the local and the state level, they have really pushed for legislation that would effectively, yeah, I mean, prevent these warehouses from existing at all. It is a different set of facts than what we're working with here in Georgia because there's more involvement by private actors.

And so the government, you know, the local government can regulate them more. But Maryland is certainly not the only place where those fights are happening. And so I would really encourage folks to, yeah, to learn from Maryland. And I get, you know, I'm talking about, you know, legislation. I mean, I will be the first to tell you as a lawyer that I don't think legal tools will liberate us.

You know, the law will not make us free. Sure. Yeah. And I do think it's it's the people power. it's the coming together, it's the mass collective action that is, you know, that's what's going to do it.

And also there are multiple, you know, there are multiple tools and multiple instruments that we can wield. And so right now, I mean, with respect to the Social Circle warehouse, ICE is saying that they intend to detain people in their starting in April. Jeez.

In less than two months. Yeah. And so right now, the strategy truly is to use just like every tool at our disposal. Identifying, yeah, like, what legislation can be filed, what litigation, you know, what lawsuits can be filed, what, you know, demonstrations, what kind of, you know, canvassing, door knocking, you know, you name it, like, how can people come together?

How can we try to identify which companies would be supplying the labor to turn this warehouse into something, you know, where people will be detained. I mean, not that I think ICE gives a damn about making any type of facility habitable for humans. But there's going to be some work that needs to be done in order to, you know, turn this, you know, would-be Amazon warehouse into a place for people. And is there work that, you know, local organizers, Because they're organizers. We're all organizers.

You know, we're all organizers. Um, is there work that local organizers can do to try to unite with laborers, with workers who, you know, might be working on this facility to try to, like, prevent them or like city workers. Like, can they prevent city workers from, like, actually hooking up this warehouse to the city utilities? Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Presumably, yeah, there will be a building contractor, right? Like, they will want to build thousands of cells in this giant, yeah, like, all of that stuff. And especially with it happening so quickly, like, you know, anything that delays that will cause it to at least slow it down, I guess. Yeah. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are of them.

And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

I'm Bowen-Yen. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan Cortina 2020-2016 winner Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. I'm going to nap. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt, hey, Bowen.

Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to two guys, five rings on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to the A building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm in Alec Lamoma. It's 1969.

Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated. And Black America was out of breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's Almermata, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr., and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people would die.

In 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to the A-building on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the unpurposed podcast. On a recent episode, I sat down with Nick Jonas, singer, songwriter, actor, and global superstar. The thing I would say to my younger self is congratulations. You get to marry Priyanka Chopra Jones.

And also, you know, your daughter is incredible. That's beautiful, man. Yeah. Thank you. That's so beautiful. I can see that got you a little. Yeah, for sure. Our daughter, she came to the world under sort of very intense circumstances,

which I'd not really talked about ever. Growing up on Disney in front of a million, How did that shape your sense of self? I went blank. I hit a bad note, and then I couldn't kind of recover. And I built up this idea that music and being musician was my whole identity. I had to sort of relearn who I was if you took this thing away. Who am I?

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think another angle that we haven't talked about yet is the environmental angle. Like with Social Circle, you know, this is. I mean, a town of 5,000, it's going to nearly triple the number of people in this place. And I mean, and also triple the amount of waste and sewage that's going to be coming out of this place. I mean, so that's one thing. Another thing for people to look at is, you know, what would the environmental impact of these warehouses be on local waterways, for example? And that's what, you know, temporarily put a stop on the detention facility in the Everglades in Florida was a legal challenge in federal court under NEPA, the National Environmental Protection Act, because the federal government had failed to conduct the proper environmental impact assessments. And the only thing that they actually really had to do was, you know, something very procedural and, you know, take a box.

And ultimately, the facility ended up moving forward. But it was a tool to buy time to figure out what other types of organizing can we do. Yeah. And it's still like, even if it's only time, right, like harm isn't being done in that time. And it's still a good thing. Yeah. It means like a form of harm reduction. It reminds me a lot of the struggles here against the newer, larger border wall that we've seen since 2015, 2016, you know, when Trump got elected.

Like I'm thinking about how there have been ecological. challenges to it. There have been social challenges to it, right? The city of San Diego is currently trying to sue the Fed to trespass for part of its war construction, which, like, I'm not a big fan of our city government, but like, I'm glad they did that. And all these different tools have at least, like, at least in the last Trump administration, I remember in the late summer of 2020 being out with some Kuma Yai folks who were in ceremony because the wall construction was destroying Kumia ancestors, right, who are buried there, and then the spaces where they are buried.

And they ran out the clock on the Trump administration, right? By using their rights as indigenous people to be in ceremony, the refusal of the workers to literally drive a dump truck through the middle of their ceremonial practices, they were able to run the clock out on the Trump administration. Unfortunately, now we have another one, but like all those different things had to work together to mean that like in that little part of the border,

somebody's great-great-grandparents remains weren't dynamited out of the earth. And that's still a good thing. Like, however we got there, that's a good thing. Absolutely. It makes me happy to hear that like, even folks who might have otherwise been politically aligned with this project were appalled by this.

Because the idea of literally warehousing humans, like, it's so fucking bleak. Like, there's these big warehouses where we fill them with shit that we, don't need and now they're filling them with people that apparently we don't want. Like, it's one of the more horrific things. I don't know. It's so bleak to me.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Like, the veil has just been totally lifted. Like, we know that they don't view immigrants as human. Yeah. But now they're like not even pretending anymore. Just truly treating people like chattel.

Yeah. Again. Yeah. Again, right? In the same places in this instance. I guess I'm glad that even people who are not politically on the same team maybe are opposed to this because it's yeah, it's repugnant. Yeah.

I guess what if people are hearing about this for the first time, right? And we'll include that link to the article so people can look up where these locations are. If they're near them, what advice would you have for people? If you're listening to this, you click on that link, you find this one half an hour from your house or whatever. Like what advice do you have for those people? I think if you're already an organizer, regardless of whether you've been in the immigrants' rights fight or not, now is a time when it really is like all hands on deck.

So don't be afraid to get involved. But also, you know, like we were talking about before we started, is I think guarantee that there is some immigrants' rights, movement in your locale or somewhere close by. And I think it's just so important to, you know, approach this work, not with the assumption that you are starting, you know, launching this new campaign, spearheading this, you know, new previously untapped, you know, area of work because I guarantee you that, you know, there are people who have worked on this before. And so I think connect with, you know, connect both with people who have been doing this work for a long time and also try to connect with people who you might not otherwise have thought to connect with. And I think it's important to call out the NIMBYism, the not in my backyardism of how, you know, some people are coming at this issue because they're, you know, they're worried about their property value. But it's also something that we can capitalize.

on, right? It's energy and oftentimes it's people with capital and connections that, you know, that you might not otherwise have had access to either. So I think, you know, the connecting, you know, and the community organizing needs to go in multiple directions. But I do think it's important to move. Yeah. It's important to move fast. Yeah, seriously. Like that is a very constrained timeline. Like everybody has to be. But that means it's also important to move respectfully, right? Because like if we just blow each other shit up because, yeah, people assume that

migrant communities have somehow not been advocating for themselves and each other for centuries, then we're not going to have time to organize because we're going to be dealing with that shit. And I've seen that so much just personally, right? Like having been involved for some time in migrant advocacy and, uh, seeing folks like pop in and tell us how to do everything. It's tires them. I understand that you'll want to help.

But yeah, if this is something that like you're organizing around, it's super easy to find those organizations to be like, how can I help? Yeah. And it's also such a good, like this fight in particular is such a good vehicle for fighting for abolition overall.

As someone who's been saying abolish ICE, for years. It is amazing to see how much traction that phrase has gotten, especially over the last six months. And we can't just be fighting against, you know, preventing new ice facilities. We need to be fighting for shutting down all ice facilities and for abolishing ICE as an institution. We've been around before ICE and we will be around after ICE. As, you know, as an agency, ICE has only been around since, since 2000. Sure, there was a predecessor. There was the INS, but I mean, it didn't operate in nearly the type of way that ICE does now as this, you know, law enforcement agency.

And even before Trump, like, ICE was still a really, you know, horrible, like a horrible agency. And so, yeah, I think it's important to continue to, you know, point these things out while also, you know, welcoming people into the fight and and pushing them. pushing them farther. Yeah, I think that's really, that's really important. Like, I think we have to rebut the assumption that this is an aberration and we can fix it and go back to normal because normal was bad and you just couldn't see it because it wasn't on your screen, right? Like, children died in outdoor detention under Biden.

I saw people suffer immensely in outdoor detention under Biden. Like, we don't want to go back to that either. And I think it's really important that when we build the, these coalitions we build them with that in mind that like we're organizing very quickly but also we're in this for the long haul until everybody's free. Is there anything that you'd like to leave people with resources or a bit of advice and any closing words you'd like to share with them? Abolish ice. That's all I got. Perfect. It could happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcast from Cool Zone Media,

visit our website, poolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. I'm Bowen-Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers.

During this season of the Two Guys' Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan-Cortina-2026 winner Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Boen, hi, Matt. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt, hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Now the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears.

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On a recent episode, I sat down with Nick Jonas, singer, songwriter, actor, and global superstar. I went blank. I hit a bad note, then I couldn't kind of recover. And I built up this idea that music and being musician was my whole identity. I had to sort of relearn who I was if you took this thing away. Who am I? Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.