Welcome back to This Week on ICE.
Kelly and I are still out-of-office this week. So, for this week’s episode, we’re featuring the most important highlights from two great guests we’ve had on the show.
Before we get to it, here’s a rundown of this week’s developments involving ICE and the U.S. immigration crackdown 👇 — Matt
Republicans in the Senate passed a bill in the wee hours of Thursday morning that could send up to $140 billion in funding to ICE and Border Patrol without Democratic support — enough to fund those departments through the rest of Trump’s term. GOP Senators are attempting to circumvent the need to woo at least seven Democrats by using a budget reconciliation process, but it won’t be easy.
Republican Senators Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski crossed party lines to vote against the package, and the arcane rules of the reconciliation process means a final bill won’t be ready to pass until June 1 at the earliest. It also doesn’t necessarily mean the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown will end any sooner, as the House has yet to vote on a similar reconciliation bill meant to restore funding to the rest of that department.
Also on Thursday, NBC reported that DHS has instructed ICE to limit some of its most aggressive detention tactics, including entering homes without judicial warrants and detaining targets during immigration court proceedings. The rollback is part of a larger pattern under new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who is attempting to sharply contrast himself with the bombastic style of his predecessor, Kristi Noem.
President Trump is reportedly considering forcing Afghans who worked with the U.S. military during its twenty-year occupation of their home country to choose between being deported to the Democratic Republic of Congo or repatriated to Afghanistan, where they will almost certainly be tortured and killed. The DRC is hardly a safer option: at least 600,000 people live as refugees and over six million have been internally displaced due to a complex ongoing conflict in the eastern provinces. Lawmakers from both parties have instead urged the president to restore a program he blocked which allowed Afghans to settle in the U.S. after an extensive security vetting.
On Tuesday, the U.S. issued sanction against casinos and individuals associated with the Cartel del Noreste, a Mexican criminal group previously designated a terrorist organization. The particular Cartel’s territory abuts the southern tip of Texas, and the sanctioned individuals are believed to be deeply involved in human smuggling. It’s worth noting that a CNBC poll taken April 15-19 found that 51% of registered voters approve of Trump’s handling of the southern border, one of the few policy areas where he is not underwater.
Finally, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a California law that would have forced ICE agents to display ID while on duty Wednesday. Though the 9th Circuit is habitually skeptical of the Trump administration’s legal maneuvers on migration, the court found California’s attempt to directly regulate federal agents violated the supremacy clause of the Constitution. The finding could limit attempts by other states to impose similar requirements on ICE agents operating within their borders.
Now, onto the best of our guests. Stick with us:
#1: A targeted attack on one of the world’s most vulnerable diaspora communities.
Trisha Mukherjee joined us to break down her investigation into a proposed Trump administration ban on remittances sent from the United States to Haiti — announced not through any formal policy channel, but via a DHS social media post on March 2nd. She went line-by-line through the post’s claims and found that essentially none of them held up.
The $6.1 billion figure? Inflated beyond what World Bank data supports. The characterization of Haitian immigrants as illegal? Flatly inaccurate — most arrived under Temporary Protected Status, granted precisely because Haiti is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe. (By comparison, the U.S. sends over $60 billion in remittances to Mexico annually and over $120 billion to India — Haiti doesn’t even crack the top ten recipient countries.)
“This is just meant to instill fear. It’s meant to make Haitians not feel welcome.” — Trisha Mukherjee
Mukherjee introduced us to one of her sources: Joanne, a 30-year-old Haitian doctor who fled her neighborhood in Port-au-Prince in the middle of the night after gunshots and armed gangs tore through her street — and who was only able to complete medical school because family members in New York City sent money back from their own after-tax earnings. It’s the kind of story that puts a human face on what an abstract policy debate actually costs.
“Plain and simple, there’s a real risk of their family members starving. Just because accessing food is already so difficult.” — Trisha Mukherjee
#2: Inside one of the nation’s largest — and most troubled — immigration detention centers.
Ryanne Mena has been on the Adelanto ICE Processing Center beat for months — and what she’s hearing from inside is alarming.
Detainees describe waiting weeks for medical appointments, only to be handed ibuprofen. Flies in the shower walls. Spoiled vegetables. Water with a smell they can’t identify and are afraid to drink.
Adelanto, which sits just outside Los Angeles, can hold nearly 2,000 people across its east and west facilities, and is operated by The GEO Group — one of the country’s largest private prison companies, which donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Trump’s 2024 campaign and subsequently secured over a billion dollars in federal detention contracts. The facility was down to just three detainees under a COVID-era court order at the start of 2025; that order was lifted, and by mid-February the population had surged to roughly 1,800.
“Many of them have told me that they’re afraid they’re going to die there.” — Ryanne Mena
Five people have died at Adelanto since September — including José Guadalupe Ramos Solano, a Mexican national. The Mexican government has since filed an amicus brief in support of a federal class action lawsuit against the facility and raised the matter with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights — the first time, Mena says, she has ever seen a foreign nation intervene in the conditions of an American immigration detention center.
Introducing Ben Camacho
For the next few weeks we are honored to have investigative journalist Ben Camacho filling in for Matt while he’s visiting his old stomping grounds in China. Ben’s reporting helped expose a police gang and forced the city of Glendale to cancel a contract with ICE, and the Los Angeles Press Club honored his documentary “The Blue Hand” with the Charles M. Rappleye Investigative Journalism Award.
He’s already got some great stories and interviews in the works for you all, so stay tuned.
That’s all for now. Keep sending us your questions, comments and thoughts to thisweekonice@gmail.com. Catch you next time!
