What A Day - ICE Is Still Detaining People

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

President Donald Trump's immigration policies haven't been getting much attention lately. But don't be fooled — the immigration detention industrial complex hasn't slowed down. One infamous facility in Florida, known as "Alligator Alcatraz," is reportedly closing. Katie Blankenship is an attorney representing immigrants across the country – including some who have been detained at "Alligator Alcatraz". Jane talked about what she's hearing from her clients and what you need to know about the immigrant experience in America right now.And in headlines, former First Lady Jill Biden admits she thought President Joe Biden was having a stroke during that debate, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent thinks it's totally normal to put Trump's face on a 250-dollar bill, and Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene vacation in Costa Rica with their partners.Show Notes: Call Congress – 202-224-3121 Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/y4y2e9jy What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/ For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday

It's Friday, May 29th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what today. The show is celebrating a continued President Donald Trump tradition, spending millions of dollars to cover stuff in gold. This time, it's $5 million to cover four bronze horses near the Lincoln Memorial and Gold Leaf. Why? Because why not? There are no rules. On today's show, former First Lady Joe Biden admits she thought President Joe Biden was having a stroke during that debate. And Treasury Secretary Scott Besson thinks it's totally normal to put Trump's face on a $250 bill. But let's start with immigration. Trump's immigration policies haven't been getting much attention lately, thanks in part to all of the other terrible shit this administration has been up to.

But don't be fooled. The immigration detention industrial complex hasn't slowed down. Undocumented immigrants, DACA recipients, green card holders, and U.S. citizens alike are still being detained by immigration and customs enforcement. According to Syracuse, University's transactional records access clearinghouse, at least 60,000 people were in ICE detention facilities as of early April, and many of them are held in truly deplorable conditions, like in New Jersey, where ICE detainees are carrying out a hunger strike to protest the conditions at the Delaney Hall detention center. Advocates for the detainees shared a letter written by those on strike inside the facility with reporters on Wednesday, listing their grievances.

Food containing warms or in a state of decay. Unresolved issues, particularly the bathrooms, which are terrible and inhumane conditions. Ventilation problems, serious health issues. Most people have a persistent flu with phlegm that won't go away. Many have conjunctivitis, urinary tract infections, fever and coughs, medical care issues. If you're sick, you have to submit a request that takes two weeks to be answered, or you never get a response at all. These conditions are not limited to Delaney Hall.

One infamous facility in Florida, known as Alligator Alcatraz, is reportedly in the process of closing down. The detention center was the crown jewel of Trump's immigration regime, costing an estimated $1.2 million per day to house thousands of people in unsanitary conditions. But that price tag may be why the facility could be closing. According to Florida officials, it's just too expensive to operate. Katie Blankenship is an attorney representing immigrants across the country. including some who've been detained at Alligator Alcatraz. We talked about the experiences of her clients and what you're not hearing about the immigrant experience in America right now.

Katie, welcome back to Water Day. It's great to be back. Thanks so much. There have been reports that Alligator Alcatraz, the notorious ICE detention facility in the Florida Everglades, is preparing to close. When we spoke with you the last time, you had clients who were detained there. What have you been hearing from them?

The rumors are true that there are rumors. Okay. There are folks inside who are noticing, I spoke with somebody there yesterday. He confirmed that in his area, you know, they're in these cages, right? And they're broken up in separate tents in certain cages. In his tent, in his area of the cages, they had decreased down to, he thought, about 150 people yesterday. It was around 300-ish. We've also heard from Maxwell Frost office.

Maxwell Frost went in and saw signs that they were breaking down. Now, on the other hand, we have Mark Wayne Mullen saying the exact opposite of Ron DeSantis about a week ago. And I think we talked about last time, Sanctuary the South is a plaintiff in a case called HCR versus Nome. It's about the First Amendment rights access to counsel and how they were blocked at the facility. The federal government, the federal defendants just filed an appeal. it's like two days ago. So why are they filing an appeal if they're shutting this down? And there's obviously been this black hole of information on this site from the beginning. That's how they frankly have been, you know, able to get away with such abuse, massive corruption, complete waste

of taxpayers' money. But this weird relationship between Florida and the use of the emergency management services, who actually runs it? And now what the feds are saying continues to cause chaos. Regardless, it looks like the population is declining. That's very good on one hand. The place should never exist. It needs to disappear from the planet as soon as possible. But when ICE does this, it causes massive pain to those inside. We have clients who just disappeared in the system going through massive transfers. People's due process rights are interrupted. We can't find them for weeks at a time. So it continues to be chaos and a crisis. Yeah, I want to talk about that a little bit because I know that it might seem like, you know, to some people like, oh, alligator, Alcatrazis is closing. That's a good thing. But for the people who are there, that means that they get transferred to another facility. And there are other facilities like in Texas, for example, New Jersey, where there's currently ICE detainees who are holding a hunger strike. You mentioned like a black hole of information. Have you received any official notice about what is next for your clients in this facility, in this facility?

their immigration process? Is there just like nothing, no information for anyone ever? No, this is like professional lack of transparency. They are at a level of expertness in providing absolute obscurity. We're never going to get information about our clients. I am of record on my clients. I've had people that had bond hearings scheduled. I have people that had court appearances to actually have their asylum cases hurt. They're gone. They have to start over in different court. It's going to take ICE weeks to get people re-registered for some reason in a different detention center. So not only can I not find them for a certain amount of days, once I can find them, I have to go and knock on the government's door and say, move their case to this court so I can

refile their bond. And another two, three, four weeks goes by. So it's not that these are a minor inconvenience. You're talking about people who are suffering extreme harm. There's also no ranking detention centers in this country. There never has been. There certainly is not today. Everywhere you go, people are dying. People are living through the greatest trauma they have ever seen and it's impacted on their families. So when you are disappeared on a bus in the middle of the night and sent across the country to California, separated even farther from your family and your attorneys, you know, this is, this doesn't feel like an improvement to people inside. And it's a huge problem. I feel like immigration hasn't been dominating the headline since the end of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota.

It's worth noting that ICE is still working in Minnesota. Have the pace or the methods of ICE detainment changed in that time from what you've seen? We continue to go down a steady decline of lawlessness. So I want to share an example of what's happening in Florida. And it goes directly to this question of Alligator Alcatraz, because I think everybody has heard that Alligator Alcatraz was necessary for Florida in an emergency for all. of the worst people, right? They had to spend billions of dollars of tax

pay or money on this. It had to be. It had to be. So the people that are actually, the human beings that are actually surviving in this detention center, there is a huge trend in Florida right now based on 287G agreements. I think you've spoken about that before on this show. You and I may have spoken about it before. But based on 287G agreements, every police officer in the state is now charged with being an immigration official. And so all up and down from Orlando all the way up to Jacksonville, there's a current trend of stopping people for driving while, brown or black. They stop them. They tell them it's for some sort of criminal or traffic infraction. Take them to jail. Never file a ticket. Never have probable calls for a stop. Never bring charges. There's no record of them

in anything except for they called ICE and said, come pick them up. And that's who's an alligator, Alcatraz right now. And just to clarify, a 287G agreement, that basically just means police officers are now also immigration officers. Basically. Great. Wonderful. Fantastic. It's all we need. Florida, you know, we can always thank Ron DeSantis for charging the way in authoritarian trends. Florida actually passed a law that everyone, all of these law enforcement agencies have to have to engage in 287G agreements. So, if you're looking for, you know, any help from your local police station, what they may supposed to be doing, they're not. They're out there stopping people of color and trying to make

immigration arrest. Is that happening in other states? Like, you know, I know that you work in Florida, but you work across the South. What immigration tactics are you seeing outside of Florida? Well, Florida, like I said, loves to be the blueprint. And so what I just shared about the 287G situation is proliferating straight up through the southeast. So I'm currently based in Tennessee. We're working in Tennessee, obviously, as well. That legislature has passed similar laws to enforce 287G. And you see now local sheriff's office,

sheriff's offices conducting ice rates and just separating families and taking communities by storm. Minnesota, as you said, was very forefront in our minds as a nation, and it's since not in the front pages as much, but folks need to understand that while we stand with Minnesota and what an example our brothers and sisters in Minnesota have given us for a resistance, Minnesota is but one of hundreds and hundreds of communities being terrorized, and that's happening throughout the South. These tactics are in every southern state. Obviously, a lot has happened since we last spoke back in September. And you mentioned Minnesota.

you meant, you know, we've now had multiple heads of the Department of Homeland Security. A lot has taken place. What should people know about the Trump administration's immigration policies right now? Well, it is harming you. That's what you need to know. It's harming you. It's harming you even if you're not an impacted person. It is absolutely destroying our communities and creating fear where there should be civil services. We have hundreds of, hundreds of thousands of children not going to schools because ICE is stalking schools, people not getting medical care, people not calling for emergency assistance when they need it. It is also where our immigrant communities go, so do we, where we allow the government to act lawlessly to completely strip away constitutional rights that are the pillars of the democracy that we have still not realized but are working towards and we'll get to, one day, then we are all affected. Immigration is first on the Trump, I think, priority list of authoritarian goals because they can, because the executive has so much power here, and the propaganda

machine against immigration has been so successful for 59 years, probably more than that. And so it was a place to start, but it is grooming for getting ready to see greater lawlessness from our government. You know, we see that over and over again. And so, It is getting worse. It is costing all of us. It costs $200 a day to detain a person in ICE detention. That's your taxpayer funds. I don't know how anybody else felt.

I'm sure I'm not alone. But the idea of paying my taxes this year, I still want, I need to go to a rage room to talk about paying my taxes to this government when we know what it's going towards. So this is a crisis for the whole country to grapple with and it's harming us and our children. Katie, as always. Thank you so much for joining me. It's such a pleasure to be with you as always. Thank you so much.

That was my conversation with Katie Blankenship, founding partner of Sanctuary of the South and an attorney who works with people going through the immigration process. More gold-plated news in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads.

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So stop what you're doing right now and go ahead and subscribe at cricket.com slash friends. Check it out. Here's what else we're following today. President Trump has done something that no other administration has able to do. We have gotten the Iranians to talk about their nuclear program and to perhaps commit to not having one. That has never happened before it. Hmm. I seem to remember another Iran deal involving their nuclear program. But Treasury Secretary Scott Besson stayed positive and stuck to the script on Thursday

about the potential peace deal between the U.S. and Iran. U.S. officials are reportedly getting close to a draft memorandum with Iran that would extend the ceasefire, open the Strait of Hormuz, and push any discussion of Iran's nuclear program to further negotiations. According to Axios, Trump has not signed off. on the agreement and neither have Iranian officials. And according to Iranian state media, the Axios report, quote, reflected the American side's narrative and could not be confirmed by Iran. So we're actually not exactly close to the end of the war in Iran. But you have to admit,

let's get Iran to discuss limiting its nuclear program as a bit of a climb down from Trump telling the Iranian people back in February, quote, when we are finished, take over your government, it will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations. But I'm sure it's fine. I don't think that there's anything untoward about having the President of the United States, that the person who was President of the United States on the 250th anniversary bill. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant said Thursday that his department has prepared the design for a $250 bill featuring Trump.

Bessent told reporters Thursday he's anticipating the passage of stalled legislation in Congress to put the president on a new bank note. Bessence said that authorizing the new currency will be up to lawmakers, but that, quote, we've created the bill because, quote, we have to be prepared. For what? Expenses that require $250 bills? What happened?

I don't know what happened. I mean, as I watched it, I thought, oh, my God, he's having a stroke. And it scared me to death. Remember that disastrous debate between then-President Biden and Trump in June 2024? The one that was the catalyst for him dropping out of the race? Well, Jill Biden is talking about it. It's part of the press tour for her forthcoming memoir, View from the East Wing. In an upcoming interview with CBS Sunday morning,

she reveals she was surprised by her husband's behavior. Did you ever see signs that he was falling into cognitive decline? No. No. No. Truly. No. Really? Are you sure?

Now we need to get away, unlike my election. We've reeled out, winning it yet. Yeah. Neither could be another one. Yeah. Kentucky Republican Representative Thomas Massey and former Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Green are vacationing together in Costa Rica with their partners. Massey captioned a video, quote,

America First Pacific Summit retreat on Wednesday, showing the crew having a great time while fishing in the ocean. And on Thursday, Massey trolled the Trump administration for striking alleged drugboats, tweeting, quote, Mark's safe. Our fishing vessel survived to Southcom in the East Pacific yesterday with a smiling thumbs-up picture.

What timeline have we entered? As you first heard me mention yesterday, the Trump-affiliated Freedom 250 announced the first wave of performers for the Great American State Fair, an announcement that included pop duo Millie Vanilly. Guess what? Millie Vanilli had no idea they were on the list.

The group singer, Jody Rocko, told the Associated Press that neither she, her sister Linda Rocco, or any of the group's members, had been asked to come. In an email, Rocco wrote, quote, My sister and I were shocked to see our name, Millie Vanilli, as one of the performers. Again, as you heard yesterday, I was also shocked. A Freedom 250 spokesperson did not immediately respond to the Associated Press's request for comment. And that's the news.

Before we go, mark your calendars. On June 8th, what a day episodes will be hitting YouTube and your podcast feeds just in time for the Golden Hour. As you know, the news never stops, and in a week we will get it to you even faster. The latest updates, freshest analysis, and headlines as they happen. Just in time for your evening commute, decompression walk, or your new designated Whataday listening time. If you aren't already, subscribe to Whataday on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and follow at Crooked Media on social, so you never miss an episode. Same show. New release time. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review.

don't use fake endorsements if you're running for Senate and tell your friends to listen. And if you're in the reading, and not just about Georgia Republican Representative Mike Collins, who featured a wide list of endorsements on his website and Twitter accounts, even though they did not, in fact, endorse him, like me, but today is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at cricket.com slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston, and one non-endorsement, a sheriff, told the daily caller,

quote, I wouldn't vote for Collins if he is the only one running. What a day is a production of Crooked Media. Our show is produced by Caitlin Plummer, Emily Forr, Erica Morrison, and Adrian Hill. Our team includes Haley Jones, Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Joseph Dutra, Johanna Case, and Desmond Taylor. Our music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Cantor. We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Hey, Cricket listeners.

If you haven't become a friend of the pod yet, you are missing out on exclusive bonus content that drops every single week. if you do join, you're helping us grow crooked media, which is one of the few independent, proudly pro-democracy media companies left in Trump's America. If you join, you also get ad-free episodes of all your favorite pods.

Add free episodes of Pod Save America. Love it or leave it. Offline. Pod Save the World. You also get bonus content like our new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America Only Friends. Dan Pfeiffer's Polarcoaster. You also get access to all of our

our excellent substack newsletters like Pod Save America open tabs and tons more great content. So stop what you're doing right now and go ahead and subscribe at cricket.com slash friends. Check it out.