Letters from an American - October 23, 2025

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

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October 23rd, 2025. Julia Ainsley and D.D. Martinez of NBC News reported today that immigration and customs enforcement rush to get new recruits onto the street has meant they have pushed into their training program more than 200 people who have disqualifying criminal backgrounds, fail drug testing, or don't meet the academic or physical requirements. The budget reconciliation measure the Republicans passed in July, the one they call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, included more than $170 billion over four years

for immigration and border security. The law tripled ICE's annual budget, giving it more than the annual expenditures on police by state and local governments in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, combined, according to Margie O'Haron of the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan pro-democracy law and policy institute. Part of that money was to hire about 10,000 deportation officers.

As O'Haron notes, a 2017 report by the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General found that to hire 10,000 officers would require vetting 500,000 applicants. Currently, law enforcement agencies have been having trouble finding enough applicants. O'Harean notes that ICE can bypass the usual requirements for federal employees, but in the past, when the government tried to hire 5,000 Customs and Border Patrol officers quickly, the result was dramatically higher corruption rates, including for bribery by trafficking and smuggling operations. In August, ICE began to offer a $50,000 signing bonus and got rid of its age limits. To fill the ranks, Ainsley and Martinez note, ICE has already shortened its training

program from 13 weeks to six. They report that nearly half of those dismissed from ICE over the past three months could not pass an open book exam. Others could not run 1.5 miles in less than 14 minutes 25 seconds or do 15 push-ups and 32 sit-ups. Sociologist Ian Carrillo, called attention to a 2020 article by political scientists Adam Sharp and Christian Glacell, looking into why secret police agents are often surprisingly mediocre in skill and intellect. By examining the 4,287 officers who served in autocratic Argentina from 1975 to 1983, they discovered that the ranks of secret police are filled by those who perform poorly in merit-based systems. Facing firing for their poor performance, they turn to more burdensome secret police

work. Today, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker established the Illinois Accountability Commission to compile evidence against federal agents who have harassed, intimidated, brutalized, and detained American citizens and legal residents in Illinois. None of this is about crime or safety, Pritzker said. If it were, they would be coordinated. with local law enforcement and judicial warrants. Under normal circumstances, he said, federal agency supervisors and inspectors general would enforce proper legal procedures and protocols,

but Trump has fired 17 inspectors general and installed cronies at the Department of Justice, while MAGA Congress members refused to hold hearings or conduct oversight. Administration officials are acting as if they are immune from investigation or accountability, Pritzker said. They are not. The commission will create an official public record

of every instance of abuse or law-breaking or violations of rights. While states have limited abilities against federal immunity, Pritzker said, we must remind everyone that there will come a time where people of good faith are empowered to uphold the law. When the time comes, Illinois will have the time. testimony and the records needed to pursue justice to its fullest extent. Dictators also enforce

loyalty by protecting those who have been found guilty of crimes in the nation's nonpartisan justice system. Last week, Trump commuted the sentence of former Representative George Santos, a Republican of New York, ending his seven-year sentence for fraud with just three months served and removing his obligation to pay $373,749.99 to the victims of his crimes. Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of more than 1,600 people, far more than most presidents do in four years. Those convicted of crimes related to the January 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol received most of the president's clemency, but former assistant U.S. attorney Jeffrey Tubin, notes in an essay for the New York Times that Trump has been free with pardons or commutations for

criminal supporters. Tubin notes Trump's social media post after commuting Santos's sentence. Santos had the courage, conviction, and intelligence to always vote Republican. Today, Trump announced a pardon for Chang Peng Zhao, the founder of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to money laundering. paid a $50 million fine and served nearly four months in prison. His company paid a $4.3 billion penalty. Graham Slattery and Chris Prentice of Reuters note that in May, Binance accepted the stable coin U.S.D.1,

put out by the Trump family's World Liberty Financial crypto venture, as payment for an investment in Binance made by an investment firm from Abu Dobby. The deal enables World Liberty Financial to keep any profits from the two billion dollar investment, likely worth tens of millions of dollars a year, and it significantly boosted the venture. Trump's full and unconditional pardon enables Zhao to return to the business. On social media, Zhao posted that he was deeply grateful for today's pardon and to President Trump for upholding America's commitment to fairness, innovation, and justice. He added, we'll do everything we can to help make America the capital of crypto. This afternoon, CNN's Caitlin Collins asked Trump about the

pardon and whether it had anything to do with Zhao's involvement in the Trump family's cryptocurrency venture. Which one? Who is that? The recent one? Yes, I believe we're talking about the same person because I do pardon a lot of people. I don't know. He was recommended by a lot of people. A lot of people say that, are you talking about the crypto person? A lot of people say that he wasn't guilty of anything. He served four months in jail and they say that he was not guilty of anything. That what he did, well, you don't know much about crypto. You know nothing about, you know nothing about nothing. You're fake news. But let me just tell you that he was somebody that, as I was told, I don't know him. I don't believe I've ever met him. But I don't know him. But

I've been told a lot of support. He had a lot of support. And they said that what he did is not even a crime. It wasn't a crime. That he was persecuted by the Biden administration. And so I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people. The White House today released a list of those donating to Trump's ballroom that he intends will replace the now demolished East Wing of the White House. The list includes the Altria Group, Inc. Amazon, Apple, Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc., Caterpillar Inc., Coinbase, Comcast Corporation, J. Pepe and Amelia Fonjul, Hard Rock International, Google, HP Inc., Lockheed Martin, meta-platforms, Micron Technology, Microsoft, Next Era Energy, Palantir Technologies, Inc., Ripple, Reynolds American, T-Mobile, Tether America, Union Pacific Railroad, Adelson Family Foundation, Stefan E. Brody, Betty Wold Johnson Foundation, Charles and Marissa Cascaria, Edward and Sherry Glazer, Harold Hamm, Benjamin Leon Jr., the Lutnik family, the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Foundation, Stephen A. Schwartzman, Constantine Sokolov, Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecker, Paolo Tiramani, Cameron Winklevoss, and Tyler Winklevoss. Economist Robert Reich notes that the list includes Google, whose CEO thanked Trump for the resolution of an antitrust case, Palantir, which has lucrative contracts with ICE, and Blackstone's Stephen Schwartzman, who would profit from Trump's regulatory rollbacks

for private equity. Reich commented, pay to play. By definition, those who could not make it in a merit-based system and those who are dependent on the goodwill of an authoritarian leader have neither the skill nor the priorities to deliver good government for the country. Today, economist Paul Krugman noted

that the administration's $20 billion gambit to save Trump ally Javier Malay's government in Argentina, with another $20 billion in the works, is a visceral wake-up call for parts of rural America in a way that cuts to social welfare programs have not been, despite the fact that rural areas depend on those programs more than urban areas do. Now Trump is talking about importing beef from Argentina.

Farmers were already upset that Trump's tariff war ended Chinese imports of U.S. soybeans, now ranchers are outraged at Trump's focus on Argentina rather than on Americans. Trump responded by insulting them. The cattle ranchers, who I love, don't understand that the only reason they are doing so well for the first time in decades is because I put tariffs on cattle coming into the United States, including a 50% tariff on Brazil. If it weren't for me, they would be doing justice they've done for the past 20 years. Terrible. It would be nice if they would understand that. But someone in the White House must have paid attention to yesterday's news that a survey from the Public Religion Research Institute,

PRRI, a nonpartisan independent research organization, found that 56% of Americans agree that President Trump is a dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy, while only 41% see him as a strong leader who should be given the power he needs to restore America's greatness. Today, after threats to send what he called a surge, a military term, of agents to San Francisco, Trump announced he had changed his mind. Trump attributed his change, of course, to friends of mine who live in the area. On November 4th, 2025, California voters will go to the polls to vote on Proposition 50,

which would redraw the state's congressional map to create more Democratic-dominated districts until 2030, in response to Texas' new Republicans-kewed maps. Ice agents storming the streets of San Francisco two weeks before the vote would likely have added votes in favor of Prop 50. Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson. It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts.

Recorded with music composed by Michael Moss.