Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Texas Tribune trib Cast for
March twenty fourth. I'm Eleanor Klibanoff, just back from a
week long vacation, thrilled to be here, starting back with
a tribe cast, as I always dreamed would be the case.
I am not joined by Matthew Watkins this week. He
is at a board meeting, or like a board meeting, probably,
which is a joke that's better in writing, I'm realizing
as I say it out loud. But that's all right.
We're trying our best here. I am joined in studio
by my colleague on the politics team, Alejandro Serrano.
Speaker 2: Howdy, what did I miss.
Speaker 3: While I was gone?
Speaker 2: Nothing?
Speaker 1: Absolutely nothing, quiet week in Texas News, and joined on
zoom by the Tribune Star Investigative reporter Lomi Kreole.
Speaker 3: Thanks for being here.
Speaker 4: Star Wow. Eleanor.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 4: I'll try to live up to it.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm promoting you up to Star investigative reporter. Today
we are going to be talking about an issue that
has really dominated the headlines in recent weeks here in Texas,
I mean nationally, but especially in Texas, which is the
state and status of ice detentions as of last month,
almost twenty thousand people were detained in ICE facilities here
in Texas, more than in any other state. We have
the largest ice detention center, Camp East Montana, a sprawling
tent city on the edge of Fort Bliss in El Paso,
which is being seen as a model for the Trump
administration's broader immigration detention plans. We've also seen a really
staggering number of deaths in ice custody here in Texas
and nationally. Last year, in twenty twenty five, there were
thirty two people who died in ice custody, surpassing the
previous high from two thousand and five of twenty According
to federal data, nearly a quarter of last year's deaths
occurred in Texas, and federal data shows that most current
ICE attainees are not accused of crimes beyond civil immigration offenses.
This is something let me, you have been reporting on extensively,
certainly not a new area of reporting for you. You
were deeply involved in reporting on immigration enforcement during the
first Trump administration as well as during the Biden administration
and allhandro you as well have been covering this lo
I mean, maybe you can just sort of start and
give us sort of the lay of the land in
terms of you know, why we're seeing this huge surge
in you know, this push to detain so many undocumented immigrants.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, I mean it's not as surprise, right, Like,
this is what President Trump and pained on. That was
one of his main platforms, and his administration sees it
as a mandate.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: His top advisor, Stephen Miller, has pushed to arrest three.
Speaker 4: Thousand undocumented immigrants a day.
Speaker 5: And I think it's important to understand that this is
actually much harder than it sounds. You know, typically in
the past administrations which sort of arrest immigrants when they
cross pass with the criminal justice system. But in order
to reach that three thousand number, you really have to
go much broader than that, which is why we're seeing
some of these efforts like sharing text information from immigrants
with ICE, right. And so, I mean that's what the
administration has.
Speaker 4: Seen as its mandate.
Speaker 5: And I think now after some of these actions, particularly
in Minneapolis, it seems like there might be some doubt
about are they going too far?
Speaker 1: And I mean you mentioned sort of sharing tax information.
We're also seeing I mean we're recording this on Monday,
so this news was breaking this morning. By the time
this air is on Tuesday, it may have evolved beyond this.
But you know, we're seeing ICE agents at airports. We're
seeing ICE agents showing up at places where previously maybe
they were not. I mean I started this by saying that,
you know, most current detainees are not accused of crimes
beyond civil immigration offenses. Can you sort of explain how
much of a departure that is from before when it
was maybe more like if you're facing additional criminal charges,
will make efforts to detain and deport you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that Bomber administration actually deported more people
than the first ROUNP administration.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I think in general.
Speaker 5: What previously happened is that when there was any interaction
with the criminal justice system, you would you know, be
targeted for deportation or if you had already a removal order.
Speaker 4: But what we're seeing.
Speaker 5: Right now is the Trump administration is, for example, reevaluating
whether refugees who are legally vetted and have a status
in the United States whether they should be deported. So
it is very much a departure from both Republican and
democratic administrations.
Speaker 4: What the expanse of it.
Speaker 5: In order to reach that number that Stephen Miller has
been pushing, you cannot just do sort of the typical
going after criminal immigrants.
Speaker 6: You know, you know way in here, I think when
one thing that kind of I guess Didlumi's point. It's
like it just seems like now more than certainly pass administrations,
like immigration enforcement has gotten really random, and there's like
this certain element to it that, like any cop can really.
Speaker 2: Just help bikes, like shoes to help them.
Speaker 6: And obviously there's some departments in Texas that are more
eager to do that. And I think that's kind of
like the outsized role of Texas has played for years
now because our leader state leaders are politically marching in
lockstep with Trump, so we end up helping the administration
a lot more.
Speaker 1: And I mean a big reason I think, in at
least in our sort of collective imaginations, that Texas plays
such a huge role in all of this is that
we have the longest stretch of border in the country.
But all hundred things have really changed at the border
right in recent Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, it's totally quiet. I mean, I think perhaps changed
too much. I was just working on a story a
couple of weeks ago and interviewing people down in the valley,
the Rio Grande Valley and congressional candidate by Pulito and Dejano.
Star's telling me that, you know, he keeps hearing from
people that like bridge traffic is down because Mexican tourists
don't want to come. That's like really common in border communities,
you know, the cross traffic like I'm going to go
to Walmart and like.
Speaker 2: Americans go have lunch or whatever.
Speaker 6: He said, people are not crossing as much in that
effects city budgets because they collect tolls from that also retail,
he said, it's down, And I think that is also
like it's almost like goding, like too quiet, because when
in legal immigration has tanked, but now it's also like
everything else is tanking.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what we're hearing.
Speaker 6: And also obviously like the enforcement element effects communities right,
like we're hearing from you know, business owners who are
not seeing their employee show up because they're scared, or
projects are not getting done.
Speaker 2: What have you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's talk more about the let me do something dad.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just want to say, you know, Jacob Monty
is actually a huge immigration lawyer in Houston. He was
on the Trump administration's first like border security Council.
Speaker 4: He posted something.
Speaker 5: The other day that you know, they do kind of
these free legal clinics, and people were not showing up
to these free it's like free legal advice from this
guy who was, you know, on Trump's.
Speaker 4: Advisory council in the first administration.
Speaker 5: And people are not coming because they are so fearful
that any interaction that aligns them with like possibly being
undocumented will result in enforcement. So, just to Alejandra's point,
this is having sort of really dramatic consequences beyond what
we've seen before.
Speaker 6: I think it's also interesting in Texas because it hasn't
happened with a lot of the backlash and fanfare is
a poor word for that, but kind of like Chicago,
like Los Angeles, like Minnesota. But it's like ice is
really active here all the same.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I think that it's we have not seen
that same backlash in Texas. But at the same time,
as you both have reported on, I mean, this really
is the epicenter and sort of the blueprint in a
lot of ways for a lot of what's going to
happen in the rest of the country and as love
one of your sources hed in one of your stories.
Like in many for many people, it's like the beginning, middle,
and end of their immigration journeys. You know, maybe they
originally crossed in Texas, went on somewhere else, started a life,
lived maybe here for a long time, and now we're
ending up back in the detention center in Texas. Let me,
let's talk about these detention camps or you know, these
sort of detention facilities. I mean, we can start by
talking about the ElGamal family, which is a mother and
five children who have been stuck at the Dilly detention
facility outside San Antonio for about nine months, which advocates
and lawyers believe is longer than any other family.
Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about who.
Speaker 1: They are, how they ended up there, and what their
experience has been.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so, I guess I first just quickly wanted to
step back. Like so, family detention is long controversial, right,
and it actually started just north of Austin in Hodow,
which was the first family detentions are in.
Speaker 4: The country, and it was shut down in two.
Speaker 5: Thousand and nine after multiple problems, and then the Obama
administration opened Dilly in twenty fourteen with the intention that
it would be more humane, but it's also been plagued
with legal problems, and the Biden administration shut it and
then the Trump administration opened it again. So this is
you know, the concept of family detention is really controversial,
and medical experts say.
Speaker 4: That this is not good for kids.
Speaker 5: Right, So the Algamol family has been detained there for
nine months. There the father was accused of an anti
Semitic attack in Colorado, but the family has maintained that
they had no knowledge of that. They have not importantly
been charged with any crimes, but they've been detained at
Dilly ever since. And that includes the youngest kids, who
are five year old twins. So what they have described
in kind of pretty heartbreaking letters and drawings is just
I mean, there are you know, essentially in a prison.
The lights are on at all hours, the food is
you know, lacking. One of the kids described losing about
twenty pounds. There's almost no schooling. And this is a
little bit of a departure because the eldest girl in
this family actually was recognized as one of the best
and brightest students in the state of Colorado. She wanted
to go to Harvard Medical School, and you know, the
medical care is lacking. The mom has a history of cancer,
she's not been able to see a doctor. One of
the kids has these has not been able.
Speaker 4: To see a dentist.
Speaker 5: But overwhelmingly, what they just describe is being detained with
no end.
Speaker 4: And I think what stood out.
Speaker 5: Me from the conversation with the lawyer and from seeing
kind of their their notes and their their pictures is
the lawyer said, every day I worry that I'm going
to get a call that one of these kids has
has self harmed, because in fact, that did happen to
one of their friends who tried to you know, tried
to kill herself, but then she was deported. So I think,
you know, this is these are diary straits here for
for these kids.
Speaker 1: And what is sort of like the end game for
I'm saying, like the Trump administration's goal in many cases
is to get people to deport, like self deport or
agree to leave the country. You know, why aren't they
doing that? And what sort of is what is what
does an alternative resolution look like?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's not actually despite what we all
I think maybe want to think, it's not that easy
to just support people right there, there's you have to coordinate.
Speaker 4: With countries that have to accept people back.
Speaker 5: People also have legal rights to seek asylum to undergo
their deportation proceedings. So in this case, you know, the
families from Egypt, they have an active asylum claim. The
Trump administration cannot simply deport them while they're undergoing those proceedings,
and so what they're doing is detaining them. They could
release them on a bond. In this case, the family
has a very strong support system in Colorado Springs that
has raised money for them, that have argued that they
would vouch for them. So you know that is the alternative,
but the Trump administration is choosing not.
Speaker 3: To do that, right. I mean, I think this is
I mean the photos.
Speaker 1: I really recommend people checking out Lem's story online because
you obtained these like drawings that the children and letters
that the children are writing, and I think it's very
like you said, family detention is not sort of our
like typical protocol necessarily across the board.
Speaker 3: And seeing this.
Speaker 1: The family, these children who are sort of just stuck
there waiting for this to resolve itself, or waiting for
their legal process to resolve.
Speaker 3: Is pretty shocking.
Speaker 1: Like, these are sort of the cases I think that
have stood out of you know, these high profile moments,
particularly involving children, where sort of national attention centers on them.
So Dilly sort of came into the national consciousness, I
think most recently after photographs of five year old Liam
Conheo Ramos.
Speaker 3: Sort of went viral. This like little five.
Speaker 1: Year old kid who was detained in Minneapolis and sent
to Dilly. There was like a lot of public outcry
around that, a lot of attention. But there's a lot
of cases that never get that attention, right, they're just
families in Dilly that don't you know, sort of capture
our national imagination. Can you tell us a little bit
more about like what are some of the cases you've
heard about, both like I think the concerning medical concerns
things like that, but also just sort of the standard
like what life is like in Dillian.
Speaker 3: Who's there?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, you know, I think what's really different this
time around is that because they're all of no people
can cross the border.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 5: These are generally families that have been detained from the
interior of the country, and many of them have lived here.
Speaker 4: For a long time.
Speaker 5: So that is in and of itself a significant difference
from any previous administration because because typically Dailly was used
to how you know, people who were recent border crossers,
So that is a huge change.
Speaker 4: And then what we're also seeing is just this ramping.
Speaker 5: Up of detention that is overwhelming capacity. In the case
of Dalli, that has meant, you know, there was a
child with leukemia, for example, who was only released after
help from Columbia Law School and multiple habeas petitions, So
you know, there are people and children there with severe
medical conditions that are not they say, getting the care
that they need. The Courcivic, which is a private prison company,
maintains that they're doing, you know, everything possible and giving
the best healthcare, but that is not what we're here
from the families there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would mention another case been reported on publicly
where a two month old boy was detained for three weeks.
He had bronchitis, he was unresponsive, he'd been hospitalized in
the past couple of days. And then you know, even
as Congressman Joaquin Castro from San Antonio was sort of
took up his case and was pushing it, raised a
lot of awareness about it. The young boy and his
family were suddenly deported. I mean, these cases are resolving
or sometimes are like moving faster even than the public
attention can grab them.
Speaker 3: It seems like, Yeah, I mean I.
Speaker 5: Think and I think that you're going to go to
al Hondro to speak about another.
Speaker 4: Case here shortly.
Speaker 5: But I mean I think that the cases that are
getting publicity are so few and far between, right like
the majority. For example, this Colombian thirteen year old girl
who try to harm herself at daily was deported back
to Colombia. She had grown up here her entire life.
So yeah, I mean a lot most of these cases
are not getting public attention.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One other thing that has sort of been reported on
is like the challenges that detainees are facing and just
getting their basic medical care. Especially many are now dealing
with new medical issues sort of stemming from their detention.
Can you just talk a little bit lower me about
what that, what those challenges are and some of these
issues around like are we paying government, are we paying
our medical providers?
Speaker 3: What's going on there?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So, I mean, look, I don't think he is
a secret.
Speaker 5: Medical care and ice, just like medical care and jails
and prisons, has never been great. The difference now is
both like the number of people that are being detained,
which is overwhelming capacity. In addition, there is a bureaucratic
change that the Trump administration made in terms of how
they pay specialty medical providers that is taking some time
to institute and means that basically since October, a lot
of the specialty medical providers have not been paid. In addition,
we have seen reports of a lot of ICE healthcore
or medical providers who work with ICE are really concerned
reportedly that they may be violating their hypocritic oath and
are actually leaving the agency intros and because they feel
that maybe they can't give the best medical care under
these circumstances.
Speaker 1: And then, I mean sort of it sounds like through
a combination of factors, some of which is sort of
the mental health issues you talked about, others sort of
the inadequate training of ICE officials inside these facilities, and
then also the inadequate medical care, we have seen this
unprecedented surge in deaths within these ICE attention facilities all hundred.
Maybe you can talk about the of Mohammad Nazir Paktiawal
who died in ICE custody here in Texas.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was an Afghan man, forty one year old
man who had helped the American military in Afghanistan starting
two thousand and five, and then when the US withdrew
in twenty twenty one, he came with like a special
program that the Biden administration had started. So he comes
to Texas, relocates, and a couple of weeks ago, he
was taking his kids to school and got pulled over
by unmarked agents and they detayed him and told him
he was in the country illegally, presumably, and within a
day he died. And it's not clear what happened. He
called his brother late at night and said he wasn't
feeling well, and then ICE called the family and said
that they were taking him to a hospital, and then
within hours he was dead. His family is obviously pretty
pretty devastated, but also confused, and a group that helps
a lot of these veterans called AFGHANIVAC, it's really trying
to raise awareness to get answers, but so far there
have been very little information from DHS or ICE. They
accused him of not having any provided his military background.
Speaker 2: Afghanivak hause his certificate.
Speaker 6: And the medical examiner has not yet ruled on his
matter of death, so it's not clear yet, but that
is going to be an important I guess the termination
once it's done.
Speaker 1: And we've seen this on a couple of other cases
right where there's sort of this disagreement maybe between the
initial reports and then what the medical examiner ultimately concludes.
Speaker 3: I know, let me.
Speaker 1: You wrote about the case of Haraldo Luna's compos who
died at Camp East, Montana. He was originally his death
was originally attributed to medical distress, but the medical examiner
ruled it a homicide, saying he was suffocated and became
unresponsive while being physically restricted by law enforcement.
Speaker 3: I mean, what is sort.
Speaker 1: Of the I mean, the the system in under which
these deaths are being scrutinized are are being looked at.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I know there's some oversight,
but I think it kind of seems like medical examiners
are playing an increasingly more important role when there is
a suspicious death. I think the case you just highlighted
that Lowemi wrote about is like just like underscorees to
the point of why forensic pathology is important. Like across
the board, right, Like, it's just it's kind of like
a factual establishment of facts, right, you look at a body,
you determine what happened. As far as like internal investigations,
I don't think we've seen any internal repercussions in DHS
or ICE for any of the uses of force. We
haven't even talked about the Americans who have been killed
as part of this crackdown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, what's your sense of sort of
how these deaths are being scrutinized and being you know,
looked at as a sign of whether anything needs to change.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think what Alejandro said is right
that you know, there's doesn't seem to me a lot
of at least publicly, right, we don't know what is
going on here, and DHS has really not been very transparent.
Speaker 4: So in that case of Compass, as you mentioned, I
just want to.
Speaker 5: Underscore that it is pretty shocking and experts said that
to us repeatedly. To have staff accused of a homicide
in the case of a detainee, that is I don't
want to say unprecedented, but you know, maybe so what
happened in that case is we didn't learn the truth
until days or weeks later, and there's another case at
that same facility in Camp East Montana and Alpaso, where
we have not been able to get the autopsy because
they're sending it to the they're deferring to the military
since it's occurring on Fort Bliss. So you know, I
think that there are many questions around the circumstances of
these deaths and what if anything DHS and ICE is
doing to hold people accountable.
Speaker 6: And also aggressive pushback to accountability, right, like we see
this with the masking, like officers don't want their identities revealed.
And then another I guess element of oversight is Congress,
and we've seen members of Congress turned away from detention
facilities not really get answers when they have simple lines
of inquiry into these major like I don't know if
we call them catastrophic events, but obviously there's been a
bunch of these like one off incidents that really capture
the national tension, and even then it's hard to get information.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that's like, I mean, just as journalists,
I think our personal like bone to pick right is
like what is available to the public and when and
sort of how accessible is that?
Speaker 3: Let me.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit more about Camp
East Montana, which is where three of these deaths were
recorded in a very short period of time. The camp
has it's sort of, as I said at the beginning,
this model in some ways of what the Trump administration
wants to do. Build these like huge deportation or these
huge detention facilities. This one is on the edge of
Fort Bliss, was built in two months with a one
point two billion dollar contract and just has faced so
many issues since it started, medical neglect, spoiled insufficient food,
unsanitary conditions, and advocacy groups on a letter from more
than forty five people detaining alleged abuse and serious injuries,
and ICE's own inspectors found at least sixty violations at
the facility shortly after it opened. We should say that
DHS has said the Tribune that any claimed that there
are inhumane conditions at ICED attention centers.
Speaker 3: Are categorically false.
Speaker 1: But it does seem like, you know, you talked to
some experts who said, like, we were struggling with far
fewer detainees to provide adequate care, adequate medical Like what
are we seeing in terms of the feasibility of building
and maintaining these sort of mass detention facilities.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think that's exactly the problem and encapsulated by Camp
East Montana, And in fact, the Trump administration just recently
ended that contract with the previous contractor and is giving
it to someone else that Camp Beat Montana because of
all of the problems. I mean, the issue at Camp
East Montana was that there were you know, these were
like sixty seventy people held in sort of a ton
camp in a pod. It seemed that the people that
were working there had very according to Representative of Roan Kascobar,
who's the congressional resentative from Alpasa, you know, these are
people working there who had very little training. There's been
multiple measles and tuberculosis outbreaks there, and people have not
been able to get not only basic medical care, but
even basic access to their attorneys. And part of the
problem is, as you say that, this is just this
like ramping up when you have so many people, and
when you perhaps have contractors who, in this case Acquisition Logistics,
had no record of detention capacity of business, so you
know you are going to run into problems.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is just I mean, this is like a
sort of an aside. Like I remember this when during COVID,
when like we were looking at I was not here
in Texas yet, but looking at like, oh, we're going.
Speaker 3: To build these sort of field hospitals.
Speaker 1: We're going to staff up, but it's hugely logistically complicated.
Like it's out great to be like we're turning the
fairgrounds into a hospital, and then it's like, oh, this
is hard to do. And that's for a really limited
set of like responsibilities versus like maintaining people's you know,
like keeping people alive for indeterminate amounts of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Also, like when you think of these like highly contagious
disease like measles, like what like two people get it
and you're all confined in this tent, you know it
secluded from it's a community like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is high risk for we're all involved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like that does not stay necessarily limited to
the migrants who are in the camp. I mean we're
starting to see this spread to the communities around that inevitably. Right,
people go to work and come home and bring and
bring things like measles or other diseases. So yeah, really
sort of the ripple effects. I think we're starting to see.
We talked a little bit about sort of the way
that these cases get national attention, and we can see
sort of some individual case reversals.
Speaker 3: I want to talk about the games Quaar family.
Speaker 1: They were you know, this sort of got It was
such an interesting story because they are award the children
were award winning high school Mariachi students. They were invited
to the White House, they were really lauded by Congresswoman
Monica de la Cruz, a Republican from Edinburgh, and then
they ended up in one of these detention facilities because
they were you know, going They were detained as part
of a routine check in with immigration officials.
Speaker 3: Got huge national attention.
Speaker 1: We should say that Representive de la Cruz is in
the middle of a very contentious re election campaign and
she ended up intervening. Antonio Gamez Quaar was detained at
the elval Y, a detention center in Raymondville, and then
the rest of the family were detained at Dilly, including
a fourteen year old and a.
Speaker 3: Twelve year old son.
Speaker 1: You know, Representive de la Cruz took steps to secure his,
you know, the whole family's release. Lem Me, what do
you make of these sort of one off interventions from lawmakers,
particularly Republicans who are maybe you know, sort of part
of the party that is supporting this crackdown generally, but
then intervening on these individual cases.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think this.
Speaker 5: Case was really interesting because we actually haven't seen Republicans
generally get that involved, right, And as you mentioned, the
congresswoman is in a in a contested.
Speaker 4: Re election campaign. Uh.
Speaker 5: I think, you know, it's unfortunate because there are, like
we said, just like some like this family was was
a very compelling family. I mean, in part of the
fact that the congresswoman sort of highlighted them was because
she had invited them to the White House to play
Mariacci and like they had gone security clearance, right, and
and then they were being placed in deportation proceedings. So
so I mean, I guess in some ways it would
have been difficult for her.
Speaker 4: Not to intervene there. But you know, they are the minority.
Speaker 5: The vast majority of people are not getting this attention.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, our colleague Baronice was like outside the
facility when they were being released and talking to other
people who were like, you know, well, like my loved
one is inside my fiancees inside my you know, family
members inside, and they're not getting sort of the same attention.
So I do think those one off cases are really
really interesting.
Speaker 3: Do you have anything to add to that?
Speaker 2: No, it just sent me as an observer.
Speaker 6: It just seems like like the golden ticket to the
Willy Wonka factory, like to make a I guess silly reference,
but yeah, it's just and it's also interesting the case
is that get attention, but nothing happens right, Like there
have been numerous like just chroniclings of going on around
the country that captivate people's ten and then like still
nothing happens, right, And if I.
Speaker 5: Can jump in, like for example, like you know, Liam,
the little five year old from in Yeapolis, his family,
he and his father were just ordered support it. So
despite that national attention, that still happened. And then you know,
in the case of the Alcamal family that you know
we wrote about, it's been really interesting in it and
I think there's multiple dynamics going on here. But it
seems that Congress is hustan to get involved because the
father is accused of these anti Semitic crimes, even though
the family isn't explicitly not so, you know, I think
it starts to become a little bit of like, you know,
a favoritism system, which.
Speaker 4: Is really sad.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it's always kind of been like that.
Now it's just what we see seeing witnessing is how
much the politics have changed. Like well, I mean I
have a shared friend who used to cover immigration for many,
many years, and then she left because she just couldn't
take anywhere. She was like you'd literally right about the
most devastating things and often nothing changes. But now I
think it's interesting to see how Democrats are changing there.
They're tune and talking about like you know, securing the border,
look enforcing the law humanly because of how much overwhelming
support Trump court it that it just feels like the
needle has moved so much that they're not letting up
the throttle at all. Like I mean, like Liam's Family
or Killer Market, We're going to see one of the
first big prominent cases, like they're still trying to deport
him now. It's like it's becoming an ears long effort, expensive,
arduous process to remove this one man.
Speaker 2: And it's just yeah, it just seems like a lot
has changed in recent years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sort of the Overton window shifted pretty sharply. I mean,
do you want to talk about story of the political response, Alejandro.
You have written about sort of we saw in twenty
twenty four Republicans swing very sharply, especially in border communities
for Republicans. And now we've just had a recent election.
You know, what are the tea leaves saying about what
Latino voters are are going to do this election? And
then we can talk about what that says about all
of this.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean it's hard to make swooping statements, right Like,
I think we have a bunch of individual data points
that Democrats are finding hope in and the midterms is
another example of that. In the Valley in particular, the
four counties that make up the Valley, they saw turnout
surge massively. Yeah, Democratic Party did, but so the Republicans
and Republicans have been making gains there for years and
part of that is an investment that they have treated
Latinos like swing voters they think, longer than Democrats have.
But what it means, I don't know. It means to
be seen. I think it also depends who's at the
top of the ticket. I think the hope for Democrats
is that they could win back Latino support and even
just a little bit like ten fifteen percent in some
of these counties could flip seats like and that's kind
of what they're banking on here. And other data points
include like the like the Senate District Texas Senate District
nine special election we had, which was like, I know,
one off the end of January on a Saturday, after
a freeze. But again they saw like Democrat, the Democrat
Center Taylor Remont who won, saw a lot of turnout
in the Hispanic precincts and felt that that helped propel
him to victory, paired with his message of you know,
kitchen table issues.
Speaker 3: Do we have any sense.
Speaker 1: Of how these you know, immigration enforcement actions are playing
with Latino voters and whether that's going to influence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, polling is mixed.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think there's like there's disapproval among Latinos
written large, but I think Latino Republicans are it's like
a little murkier And I don't know. I subscribe to
the school of anyone who says they know exactly what's
gonna happen, is it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see again, like
you're never gonna be able to like parse out exactly
what led to what. But I do think certainly, if
you know, Democrats managed to hold some of those seats
or regain some of that lost ground with Latinos, particularly
in the Valley, I think they at least will be
reading the tea leaves to say like this is an
indictment of President Trump's immigration.
Speaker 2: Totally, totally.
Speaker 6: But I think it's also it's going to be interesting
to see how that affects us at the in Texas
and at the state House as we had into twenty
twenty seven, because Republicans here are not letting any pressure
off the throttle either. I mean, just let me brought
up Stephen Miller at the beginning of the conversation. He
talked to a cohort of state lawmakers Friday AND's grilling
them about what we haven't done.
Speaker 2: And this is the state that has done the most.
Speaker 6: We had our own immigration crackdown for years that people
don't even like talk about now. And you know, they're
talking about like overturning like legal precedent that grants undocumented
kids access to school, like talking about like ways to
ensure that people who crue, medical debt, or cost the state.
Anything can get deported, and just like really doubling down
on immigration crackdown.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, let me.
Speaker 1: I guess that's sort of my final question to you,
which is in terms of we are certainly we hear
backlash to this really you know, increased ramp up of
immigration enforcement. We hear a lot of backlash to the
reports of these poor conditions of detainees and the deaths
and some of these families that are being sort of
separated or families that are being detained. What is your
sense of how much that affects the policy of the
federal government going forward, whether there is there sort of
a tipping point in which they say, like there's too
much backlash, we have to back off from this, or
do you think this is kind of what we're going
to be looking at for the next couple of years
the Trump administration.
Speaker 5: I think it's fluid, right, And what we've seen is,
you know, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Christinome was
fired or left, depending on your perspective. So that was
seen in any case as some sort of indictment of
the very extreme tactics that was used in Minneapolis in particular,
but you know, followed Chicago and Los Angeles and the
kind of border of twelve person in charge of some
of this is also was sort of moved and is
also leaving. And then there have been reports that Republicans
are sort of internally saying, like, look, this isn't polling well,
we need to like dial down the rhetoric a little bit.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: It's a bit of an internal battle, I think because
on the one hand, you have Stephen Miller, who is
very influential in pushing this, and then you have kind of,
you know, maybe some more moderate Republicans who are saying,
look like for example, Congressmen Dela Cruz like perhaps saying
like this is not working.
Speaker 4: For me in my district or reelection.
Speaker 5: So I don't know exactly right, Like, I don't I
think we've seen it kind of dial down a little
bit because we've not seen another Minneapolis, right and there's
been there's high level departures.
Speaker 4: There's also been they've been.
Speaker 5: Releasing more families from Dilley, for example, on Pond. But
I don't think that they're backing down entirely because this
is partly their mandate, So I think it remains to be.
Speaker 4: Seen exactly how they straddle what is a difficult line.
Speaker 6: Now we also only talk about like the most I
guess we often focus on unenforcemently, you know, like the
resting someone, putting them in a car and taking them
away to deport them. But they'll changing, like so many
like the administration is changing so many aspects of migrating
to America, and like even coming here legally has gotten
more difficult, and also like most of the staff has
been directed to the deportation efforts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean we're hearing political candidates in Texas
saying like we should be looking at legal immigrants too,
we should be looking at legal immigration, and like do
we need all of these citizenship and excistionenship I mean,
like basically blocking the H one B visa program. I mean,
all sorts of things are changing, like you said, but
certainly sort of. I think the the human conditions in
these detention facilities getting a lot of that attention. Well,
as let me said, it's a very fluid situation, and
as Alejandro said, anyone who says they know where this
is going is deeply untrustworthy.
Speaker 3: So we will continue to cover this.
Speaker 1: You know at the Texas Tribune, monitor the situation, monitoring
the situation. We've got a lot of great reporters on this,
obviously Low I mean Alejandro, also Colleen de Goes Mon
and Bernice Garcia in the Valley and many others putting
their heads on this, so stay tuned to that coverage.
Are That is it for the Trip cast this week.
Our producers are Rob and Chris. You can get us
anywhere you get your podcasts, and we will see you
next week.