Inside the ICE Detention Boom: Soaring Abuse Claims and Little Oversight

March 23, 2026·1 hr·4 clips

A detainee witness said guards killed a man at Camp East Montana, then was deported despite a court order blocking his removal.

1. On with Kara Swisher hosts a panel on the Trump administration's rapid expansion of ICE detention after Kristi Noem's firing as DHS Secretary. 2. Guests are Ximena Bustillo of NPR, who covers DHS and immigration policy, Austin Coker, a research assistant professor at Syracuse University tracking immigration data, and Aaron Reikland-Milneck, a lawyer and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council. 3. The episode's core question is how detention has been radically reshaped in scale, funding, and conditions since Trump's second term began. 4. Ximena explains the administration's mandatory detention policy, which requires anyone who entered without authorization to be detained regardless of their case status, pushing detention past 70,000 people. 5. Austin describes ICE using military bases and Amazon warehouses to hold people and entering homes without judicial warrants, calling it extra-constitutional and radical. 6. Aaron states detention rose from about 40,000 people in January 2025 to 73,000 at its peak in January 2026, funded by a $45 billion allocation, roughly 13 years of ICE's annual budget, plus $30 billion more for new officers and deportation jets. 7. The panel discusses Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullen's confirmation hearing to replace Noem, noting he walked back calling a Border Patrol shooting victim, Alex Preddy, "deranged." 8. Aaron says the scale of abuse in detention today is worse than anything seen in his roughly decade covering the issue, citing verbal harassment, inadequate medical care, and coerced voluntary removals. 9. Austin notes the Trump administration reopened a South Florida facility previously shuttered by the Biden administration for failing inspection standards, where a second detainee death occurred this week. 10. Ximena details plans for 16 new regional processing facilities holding about 1,500 people each and six larger ones holding up to 10,000, largely repurposed warehouses. 11. Austin explains ICE's use of existing contracts with private companies GeoGroup and CoreCivic and county jails, growing total facilities from about 115 to nearly 200 to 150 since Trump took office. 12. Aaron connects rapid facility openings to a nationwide shortage of corrections officers and healthcare staff, citing 60 inspector-general violations at the newly opened Camp East Montana tent camp within weeks. 13. Aaron recounts a January death at Camp East Montana that ICE calls a suicide, but a fellow detainee witness who said guards killed the man was deported despite a judge's order blocking his removal. 14. Austin states over 40 people have died in ICE detention since Trump took office, calling the deaths a "predictable, normalized part of ICE operations" that Congress and the public largely ignore. 15. Aaron cites research showing about 95% of detained deaths are preventable, including three suicides this year attributable to inadequate monitoring. 16. Aaron describes ICE's plan for eight mega detention centers holding 7,500 to 10,000 people each, larger than the country's largest federal prison, which ICE acting director Todd Lyons reportedly called "Amazon Prime, but with human beings." 17. Ximena notes bipartisan local opposition to the new warehouses, including in Western Maryland and Social Circle, Georgia, over inadequate water infrastructure and lost property tax revenue. 18. The tone is a serious, fact-dense panel interview with the three guests building on one another's points rather than debating. 19. Listeners following U.S. immigration policy, detention conditions, or investigative political journalism would find this episode substantive. 20. Listeners looking for lighter or non-political content should skip this episode.

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