S1: It's time for KPBS Midday Edition. On today's show , how our language around immigration enforcement shapes our understanding of what's actually happening. I'm Jade Hindman with conversations that keep you informed , inspired , and make you think. As immigration enforcement grows , political scientists and legal scholars say the terms used to describe detention centers shapes how the public understands their purpose and impact. Today , we have a panel joining us to talk about the distance between our understanding and reality. That's ahead on Midday Edition. So here's a question that a lot of political scientists and legal scholars have been asking. Are we using the right language to talk about immigration enforcement? When we talk about Ice facilities? Should we be calling them detention centers , immigration jails , or even concentration camps? Well , hearing that term , you know , we we instinctively think of the horrors of the Holocaust , the Nazi genocide of Jewish people. But concentration camps actually date back to the turn of the 20th century. They were used by the British in South Africa and the Spanish in Cuba. Merriam-Webster defines a concentration camp as a place where large numbers of people are detained or confined under armed guard. They could be prisoners of war , political prisoners , refugees , or members of an ethnic or religious minority. Still , some say that calling immigration centres concentration camps really goes too far. The language debate around immigration is not a new one , but it's taking on new meaning in this very moment. I'm joined now by a panel of experts to help unpack this. Tom Wong is associate professor of political science at UCSD , where he directs the U.S. Immigration Policy Center. Also , Benjamin Gonzalez O'Brien is a professor of political science at San Diego State University and the editor of the Journal of Race , Ethnicity and Politics. And also Raquel Aldana is a professor of law at UC Davis. She studies immigration law and policy. Welcome to you all.
S2: Thank you for having me.
S3: Thank you.
S1: Thank you all for joining for this important discussion , Tom. I'll start with you because the the language that we use to describe immigration detention has very real implications. Why is it so important we get our words right? Yeah.
S4: Yeah. Thanks for having me back. I think that language is incredibly consequential for how we understand what , uh , government is doing and , uh , the effect of policies. So when we think about immigration detention or immigration enforcement more generally , we know from now to decades old literature in social science that if you very words , uh , you know , talking about , uh , detention versus internment , concentration , concentration camp , uh , you know , decreased funding for Ice versus defund Ice. Undocumented versus illegal. Then we can actually sort of see people's responses change based on the language that we use. So from , you know , public understanding of what the government is doing to support or opposition to certain policies. Words matter. Benjamin.
S1: Benjamin. Your thoughts.
S2: As tongue. As Doctor Wong stated , language is incredibly important , right? It frames how the public thinks about immigration or detention or immigration and Customs Enforcement. Right? It paints the picture that we have in our in our collective consciousness about what these things are , what they do , how they look on the ground , and so how we talk about them , um , is incredibly important for how the public understands those issues for many members of the public. Things like immigration are relatively abstract to them. Um , as a result , the language that they hear from media , the language that they hear from political elites that shapes their understanding of these issues and of immigration and of immigrants themselves.
S1: And , Professor Aldana , what are your thoughts on the importance of language here. Yeah.
S5: Yeah. Thank you. Well , language also matters a great deal in how the particular action by the state is governed by law. And very early on in the development of immigration law. Um , we decided or rather , the US Supreme Court decided that deportation is not punishment , even though that was not a given. And it also decided that the exercise of immigration , of the immigration power is an exercise in foreign affairs , which largely should have been understood as involving state to state relationships. And so , by labeling it this way , it really created a space of , frankly , exceptionalism , or one would even say a lawless space that has contributed significantly to the ways that immigration detention has evolved over over the last century in the United States.
S1: And it's so interesting , too , because there are a lot of folks who understand the power that words have. Um , and they use them again , Benjamin , to to sort of push policy forward or either move it back. Talk to me about that.
S6: Well , we've.
S2: We've seen the Trump administration very successfully use language to frame immigration from the first Trump administration. On to the second Trump administration. The regular discussion of immigrant criminality. The discussion of drug cartels. And this has been used to frame immigrant communities as dangers to American citizens , as something that needs to be contained , as individuals who need to be removed for our own public safety. And they're very aware of the power of language. This administration is very good at using language in ways that shapes public perceptions , or at least the perceptions of the Trump administration's voters. And so they understand it , and they understand that the language of immigrant criminality , the language of the criminality of racial minorities , is deeply rooted in American history and American political culture. And because of that , it is something that is very easy to tap into. It's very easy to tap into that fear , and that fear can easily be transformed into support for policies like the ones we've seen from this administration.
S1: And , Professor Wong , you know , our newsroom had a pretty lively discussion around , you know , the topic. Um , and it was inspired by this article in Poynter. It's called when do detention centers become concentration Camps? And of course , we've got a link to that on our website , pbs.org. But before we get into that specific debate , I mean , what does that question alone tell us about immigration enforcement right now.
S4: Yeah , I think it's really telling. I think that when we sort of think about immigration enforcement under the second Trump administration , I think many have seen on their social media feeds , uh , images from , uh , you know , LA and Chicago and Minneapolis and are saying to themselves , this has gone too far. And so even the question about whether or not we sort of call it a detention center versus a concentration camp , I think conveys the sentiment of how far is too far when it comes to sort of realizing this administration's mass deportation agenda. Um , one one thing I would just add to Professor Gonzalez O'Brien's comments , um , I think he's spot on in terms of the administration , uh , using language very effectively to kind of rile up anti-immigrant sentiment. I mean , we we saw that from the first sort of Trump candidacy. You know , Mexicans as rapists and , uh , criminals. Um , but what we saw with Minneapolis is that when the administration kept on saying immigration enforcement is about the worst of the worst in Ice and Border Patrol , uh , are going after the worst of the worst. But then what we see on the ground , what , you know , neighbors are seeing in their communities , is just general sort of sweeps of people who have been here for decades , no criminal records , as we sort of see in track and deportation data project , uh , FOIA requests. I think that the language and the rhetoric is one thing , but then the experience is when people see it and feel it on the ground , that's when sort of , you know , opinion starts to change. So I think that's why after Minneapolis , we've kind of seen this pause and the sort of large scale visible , aggressive immigration enforcement. It's to be determined where the administration goes from here. But I think , uh , Minneapolis exposed some of the sort of limits of what the administration's rhetoric could produce.
S1: And , you know.
S5: And if I can. Just.
S1: Just. Yeah , absolutely. Go ahead. Sorry.
S5: Sorry. I wanted to add just a little bit of , uh , legal history , uh , perspective to the conversation , because I do think people tend to focus on this moment as an exceptional moment. And it is. And I'll come back to that in a second. But frankly , um , mandatory detention , uh , lifers in immigration detention and also a detention , um , project that is largely privatized , are largely profitable , and also that looks almost identical to the carceral state , has been around for a really long time , for decades. And I think that this moment is interesting to me as a legal scholar , because , you know , the invisibility of that project , because of the rhetoric that we've been discussing , is always there in one saving grace. Or one silver lining in this moment is that people are beginning to have a conversation about how this has both been going on for too long , but also it's it's it's escalating. And just briefly , the escalation is not that it's all that different. The escalation is that it's massive. So we've gone from about 20 to 30,000 people in detention in a given day to more than 60,000. We have gone from about close to 108 detention centers to over 200 in a year's time or in , you know , since the Trump administration came into power. And that really has been because of the enormous resources that Congress has given to President Trump to be able to do this right.
S1: And , you know , when I hear folks talk about what's happening now , I also draw parallels to the mass incarceration. Um , and you could , I'm sure , talk a bit about that , Rachel , because , uh , during that time , you had this just the criminalization of the black community and so many people put in jail , railroaded to jail or sitting behind bars for months , for years , waiting for a trial. Um , talk about the parallels of that. Um , and also what's happening in our immigration system right now , if you could.
S5: Or two quick parallels. One is that there is also an explosion of what we call immigration crimes. And so the , um , immigration , immigration violations , most people tend to think of them as civil violations. But the reality is that increasingly we have been criminalizing people for immigration violations , and that has really increased the number of brown bodies in the traditional carceral state that we know so well. Um , and in addition to that , you know , the , um , punitive the convergence of the punitive and the deterrence rationale to how we treat immigrants who are trying to seek protections and who are in the immigration civil system , the convergence of that , um , and the dissonance between the reality and the law , because the law essentially continues to to sort of not keep pace with what is actually happening means that people who are in the quote unquote , civil immigration system are experiencing exactly the same carceral state with the same level of severity , the same levels of prolonged , prolonged this , the same level of and actually in many ways worse because they don't have access to lawyers. And the oversight and the regulation in that space is even worse than it is in the carceral state.
S1: Well , Professor Gonzalez O'Brien , you are nodding your head. You've got something to add here.
S2: Well , the criminalization of undocumented entry goes back to 1929 , and it remains one of the most prosecuted federal crimes. So a lot of the brown bodies that we see in federal prisons are a result of the prosecution for 1325 and 1326 violations. So 1325 is the initial act of undocumented entry across the land border , and 1326 is re-entry after removal , and those remain the most prosecuted federal crimes. It's one of the reasons that we've seen the the size of the Latino population in federal prisons grow. And it also is if we go all the way back to 1929 , that initial criminalization also shapes how the American public thinks about undocumented entry and thinks about immigration , right? They think about it in terms of of a criminal violation , right. Rather than many of the undocumented immigrants today who are in or many of the immigrants who are in Ice detention facilities or concentration camps or whatever term we choose to use , they are in fact there for civil violations. They are there , maybe for overstaying their visa or violating a work clause in the visa that they hold. They're not there for criminal violations and even the criminal violations. The initial act is a misdemeanor and reentry after removal is a felony. But both parties have chosen to kind of keep that in their back pocket as a way of supposedly controlling Undocumented entry into the United States , even though there's no data to suggest that that actually functions as an effective deterrent for undocumented entry.
S1: Tom Wong. I know you've got something , something to add. I think you may be muted. I thought your hand was raised.
S4: Yeah , I think we can talk for hours about this , but , uh , we I think that it's important for listeners to kind of take what has just been said and kind of really sort of understand the , uh , sort of details at play. So when we think about the undocumented population , uh , roughly half , that's our best guess or visa overstays and that rhetoric of , you know , quote unquote , what part of a legal , don't you understand as kind of this sort of anti-immigrant rallying cry is actually sort of untrue when applied to roughly half of the undocumented population. Overstaying a visa is not a crime. As Professor Gonzalez O'Brien just mentioned. And so when it comes to , uh , you know , the undocumented population and things like imprisonment , uh , initial entry without inspection. So crossing the southern border in between ports of entry , um , that is a misdemeanor for the first offense. And so there is a crime there. Uh , but again , for roughly half of the undocumented population , they have never committed a crime. And when we think about immigration detention now , the 45 billion , uh , sort of to increase detention capacity , this bed mandate almost doubling to 100,000 , uh , many in order to sort of meet the administration's mass deportation goals , are those individuals , again , who aren't the worst of the worst. They are people who have not committed any criminal offence and are just being held in criminal conditions for civil immigration violations. Exactly.
S1: Exactly.
S5: And if I. Can.
S1: Can. Yes , please go ahead.
S5: Sorry if I can just add one important dimension to what was just said , and that is that , you know , who chooses what is criminal versus civil. Is the government and the whether you're an overstay or whether you entered without authorisation , is itself a very classist division , because only people with resources have access to visas , because we impose very strict standards on people to be able to come to the US as visitors and otherwise. And so I think there's also this falsity about why don't they just get in line , or why don't they follow procedures and even the distinction , whereas I agree with it as a matter of law , there is a distinction in the way that law treats people who are overseers. Those are people who entered without authorization in the first place. But even that distinction , I think people have to understand , is a distinction that was very much rooted in discrimination against the poor , and especially discrimination against workers who are coming in and being exploited by the system.
S1: And that's a very important. This is such an important distinction. There are civil violations and then there are crimes. And what's happened here , what I'm what I'm hearing you all say is that first comes the language when we're talking about these civil violations , and then comes the law to criminalize them. Talk to me a bit about that. Professor. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So the you know , the civil violations , I mean , many members of the public have a fundamental misunderstanding. Of what? Of what? You know , what immigration policy is in this country , of what , you know , the various immigrant communities that we have of how people come here , of what the visa process or the legal immigration process looks like. And they also have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the undocumented community looks like , because this is something that is rarely discussed outside of moments , either when it's being used to elicit fear for political advantage or when we're , you know , we're at crisis moments where we're seeing a large number of arrivals across the southern border , you know , making a , you know , for asylum claims and other things. And so there is , um , there is a difficulty in understanding those distinctions between what is civil and what is criminal , because it's not really discussed all that frequently. And I think one other thing that's important to note about that initial act of criminalization in 1929 was it was driven by eugenics. It was driven by a desire to keep Mexican immigrants either out , but also to keep them impermanent , because there was a belief that to allow those individuals to stay in this country would dilute the blood purity of the nation. And that has , you know , that has never been purged from those sections of the US Criminal Code and or the US immigration law.
S1: Well , of course , we are going to continue this conversation right after a short break. If you have any thoughts on this conversation , email us at midday at KPBS. Or you can leave us a voicemail at (619) 452-0228. I may be able to work it into the show. Stay with us. We're back on the other side of this break. Welcome back to KPBS midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. So something we were just kind of discussing in the break here is that here's something that we may be dancing around that we want to get to the meat of , and that is that our immigration system is racist. And so there are so many things to support this. There is a lot of history behind that. Um , in her book in 2018 , One Long Night A Global History of Concentration Camps. Author Andrea Pitzer defines concentration camps as the mass detention of civilians without due process or full trial based on their identity , rather than something they had done. And so with that , in our debate over what we call immigration detention centers , I want to talk about the racial dynamics of what's playing out in immigration enforcement today. Professor Aldana , I'll let you chime in on that. Sure.
S5: Sure. And I want to mention that UCLA has created a really interesting map that can help people understand this phenomena. But the map is tracking , uh , deportations over time and kind of putting the racial face to this. And it has always been predominantly brown people , people of color , and a lot people from Latin America. Like today , the overwhelming number of people who are facing deportation are either Mexican or from Central America. And. And so. And then some people might say , well , that's because they , they're the ones violating the law. And that's , you know , proportionately that's not the case. I think I have also kind of alluded to the fact that illegality is a construction , and that has also been racialized. You know , um , the choices that we make in how we dehumanize , how we criminalize those are policy choices that are driven , driven by racist tendencies. Because we didn't start to create this , um , immigration system until the Chinese came to build our railroads. And the anti-immigrant sentiment is what drove a lot of the ways that we are now regulating the borders. And so it's to disentangle this story from race , I think , is a disservice to the historical record.
S1: And Professor Gonzalez. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. So , you know , in addition to the , you know , the Chinese Exclusion Act in US immigration policy through most of the part of the early 20th century , was driven very explicitly by racial concerns about who could come here , who could settle here , who could own property here , um , with an eye to shaping the protecting the racial and ethnic contours of this country. And what's interesting about criminalization in 1929 is during the debate and in the lead up to the debate , um , under what was nicknamed the Undesirable Aliens Act , which is this initial act of criminalization , there were concerns that placing , um , placing national quotas on Mexico or reducing the access of agribusiness in the early part of the 20th century to Mexican labor , would lead to opposition on the part of the agribusiness lobby , and that this would be very difficult for eugenicist politicians to navigate. And so the compromise was that you criminalize this population. You ensure that agribusiness still has access to Mexican labor , but you also ensure that that that those laborers can be removed as soon as they're no longer needed. And also , there's a lot of parallels with how the Trump administration has discussed immigration in the current context with the eugenicist language of the 1920s. The president himself has said that immigrants are bringing bad genes. He's made comments regarding , you know , we need to defend the West by protecting our borders. And all of that has very , um , very strong echoes of the eugenicist language that was being used very openly in the 1920s. And to not say that that language is racist or to not call our immigration policy racist is ignoring history and its ignoring the very statements made by this administration.
S1: You know , now that we have we've really laid out what is happening in the present and talked a bit about the past. And so I want to talk about some of the the scholarly characteristics of a concentration camp system here as well , because , um , a lot of people see problems with using a term like concentration camps in a modern context , because some argue that that doing so really diminishes the horrors of the Holocaust. So what do you make of that argument , Professor Wong?
S4: Yeah , I think it is a yeah , very important thing to kind of consider when we're thinking about immigration today and any sort of historical , uh , um , yeah. References. I think that the definition that you gave earlier , um , kind of maps on to what my understanding would be in terms of a concentration camp , because the sort of lack of due process component , I think is incredibly important. But I think historically what we saw with World War Two is it wasn't just sort of lack of due process , it was this , uh , sort of absence of human rights that led to the extrajudicial killing and genocide , uh , of of Jews. And I think that when we think about a concentration camp , if the United States were doing something along the lines of , uh , immigration detention centers , no due process , uh , no day before court and putting people , uh , into , um , sort of spaces where , uh , either they're gassed to death or , you know , otherwise shot or killed. Then. Then. Yeah , let's call it a concentration camp. Um , I don't think we're quite there. I think that there are real sort of due process questions that are raised , given our sort of current system of immigration detention. I think rights abuses are also rampant. Uh , deaths in immigration detention , uh , are increasing and occur more frequently than I think the public understands. And also standards in immigration detention , uh , and conditions in immigration detention from sort of , you know , access to , uh , you know , toilets and showers , uh , to , you know , having to eat spoiled food. I think those are all issues to address. But I think given how sort of we generally understand concentration camps using that sort of World War Two , uh , sort of reference and frame. Um , I yeah , I don't think that it's quite appropriate to call immigration detention now. Concentration camps.
S1: Professor Aldana. Yeah.
S5: Yeah. I mean , I may probably have a slightly different take on this point. Um , and I'll just say right. Not to genocides are identical , not to concentration camps are identical. And the project of creating definitions that are going to get us to a better practice , better policies , I think , really have to focus on what are the principles that are guiding us toward a , a label that we need to take a look at seriously. And so I of course , we're not comparing what happened to Jews in the Holocaust to what is happening now. But I do think there are parallels that are substantial that we need to carefully examine. Um , one of those is that these are largely , uh , not not entirely , but largely lawless spaces. And they are increasing , increasingly becoming more so in , for example , um , habeas corpus is something that the court has discussed as , as getting rid of , um , in the immigration context. And that's something that we really need to be thinking about. But importantly , right , the privatization of this space , um , and the lack of government resources going to the oversight and accountability is huge. And when we start to look at the data , you know , just in the last year or so , 52 people have died in detention. Do we know the specifics of exactly of how people have died? You know , some may have been a lack of medical treatment , but the problem has been that there is no , um , serious investigations. And that's just the beginning. Because usually , like people who die as the easiest thing to track , but all of the other things that we're not hearing about because there's no one there , you know , people are being kept in communicating. People are being kept in mandatory detention. And , and I think , I think if we simply allowed ourselves to understand that this isn't about competing for who's experience , who has been the worst , but this is about how do we use these labels to call what is happening and to alert us to the dangers of what we are allowing structurally to happen in our name. You know , it didn't look like the genocide. The Holocaust didn't look like the genocide that we know now. Most people were living parallel lives , not realizing the gravity and the severity of what was happening in those concentration camps. And I think what we're saying is that language matters for us to be really alert and aware of all of the structural things that are happening that can get us to a place where we will regret.
S1: And Professor Gonzalez O'Brien before we go to break.
S2: Yeah , certainly. I agree completely with Professor Aldana. You know , the the Nazi extermination camps or death camps , those were part of an evolution that began with things that were that were concentration camps that were about controlling segments of the population. And no , we are certainly not at the stage where we should call these death camps or extermination camps. But I think we're increasingly at a stage where using a term like concentration camp is appropriate. And also , you know , we're here today to discuss whether or not we should use the term concentration camp. And I'm in favor of using anything that leads to debate of using terms that may be sure , they may be controversial. Some people may disagree , but that leads to a debate over why we disagree over the use of that term , over whether that term is appropriate. And I think that is an important dialogue to have because it prompts discussion. If we were , we wouldn't be called in here. You know , we wouldn't be doing this show today if we were just talking about detention facilities. We're here today to discuss a term that has been used as controversial. And so I think that is important. And I think the conversation that it prompts is incredibly important.
S1: And Professor Wong. Yeah.
S4: Yeah. I mean , I , I understand and I appreciate that , but I think that when we are talking about policy and their effects , then we need to not sort of debate for the purpose of debate. We need to be precise , so that the public understands what is happening so that they can react appropriately. So when we think about , you know , a concentration camp versus the detention center. If we want to talk about sort of the legal implications of both of those terms and what they mean , then I think that sort of directs us to one particular , uh , sort of framework and sort of set of arguments. But if we're talking about what the public understands and sort of an objective of helping the public to better , uh , sort of understand what the government is doing , then I think , you know , throwing out the term concentration camp , uh , may be doing more harm than good. It gets people talking. It gets us debating. Yes , absolutely. But does it move policy conversations in a way where instead of people are arguing concentration camp versus detention center , they stop talking about , you know , congressional oversight of detention facilities , health standards , why people are dying in immigration detention. I would rather focus on policy and how we can improve people's lives than debate semantics. And so I think that this is an incredibly interesting sort of thing to debate. But throwing out the term concentration camp , given how loaded we already know the term is and what we're up against on the other side , I don't think moves the policy needle forward , even if it does make for good conversation.
S1: And we're going to continue this conversation after the break. If you have thoughts on this conversation , email us at midday at pbs.org , or leave us a voicemail at (619) 452-0228. We'll be right back. Welcome back to KPBS midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman , so right now we're talking about the language we use for immigration enforcement and whether a term like immigrant jail or concentration camp might be more accurate than detention center. I'm joined by three experts to help us with this nuanced conversation Tom Wong , Benjamin Gonzalez O'Brien , and Raquel Aldana. Tom. Some argue that neither detention center or concentration camp is the right term for these spaces. They suggest something like immigration camp or immigration jail. What do you make of terms like that?
S4: Yeah , I think the what we are doing is putting people who have not committed crimes for the most part , as we previously discussed. You know , roughly half of the undocumented population , uh , in carceral conditions , we are putting them in prison like conditions for civil immigration violations. I think immigration detention sort of is too sanitary a term. It sort of understates the , uh , sort of ways that we're treating people you know who have not committed a crime. Um , at the end of the day , this administration is treating undocumented immigrants for the most part , as de facto criminals , uh , without sort of , uh , attention paid to individual circumstances. And so if somebody is saying immigration , prison , immigration , jails , I think that is closer to , you know , to the truth than immigration detention.
S1: Raquel , um , to his point and something you mentioned earlier , which is , you know , you describe immigration detention as , um , existing in a legally diminished space. You know , it's called civil rather than criminal , even though people are confined to maybe remain confined for like months or years. What rights does the government avoid recognizing by insisting this is detention rather than punishment?
S5: Yeah , and I certainly will get into some of the specifics. But I also want to acknowledge that even when rights do attach , um , hardly anyone would argue that what is happening in prisons to people who are facing criminal charges , um , doesn't raise significant concerns. So the application of rights is not necessarily a guarantee of more humane practices , but that's a separate conversation. Having said that , I think it's important to mention the differences. One is that there are no lawyers or at least a right to a lawyer. And , um , and therefore a lot of people who are in detention have no access whatsoever to lawyers. A lot of times , the the kinds of things that we attach to people in the cultural state , like , oh , they can call they can , you know , if they call , the state will pay for it. All of these things. None of that exists. In immigration , we're starting to hear also that the expeditious way in which immigration , new facilities are either either being expanded or even new ones constructed , right. The the pattern has been to do these in very remote areas to isolate people and then to keep them isolated and unable to speak to their families. Honestly , I was a human rights lawyer , and the language of forced disappearance is absolutely one that I would attach here. Families cannot find their loved ones. And , you know , let's not forget , children were separated from their parents. And even though that that was during the first Trump administration , to this day , those children have not been reunited with their parents. We have an immigration detention experience , forced sterilization of women. And I just think people need to understand that we have been doing this to immigrants and we are doing them. We are continuing to do it. And so how we regulate what kinds of rights attach are not going to guarantee necessarily a better outcome , but it's a lot better than what exists at the moment in Benjamin. Yeah.
S2: Yeah. To to build on Professor Adorno's points. I mean , I think that there is a lack of understanding of the realities of both our carceral system more broadly , but also our immigration detention system. Right. This is something that has been turned into a money moneymaking enterprise for a lot of private companies , where there is an incentive for to put more , you know , brown and black bodies into detention facilities because that is how you make money. And that shift means that the , you know , with privatization comes cutting corners. It comes with a lack of observation of rights even beyond what , you know , what we would have seen with with federal detention facilities. And so I think it's , you know , it's incredibly problematic. And I think that the , you know , one of the biggest issues is that the scope of the problem is largely unknown to the public. The ACLU just released a report on Fort Bliss , one of the big detention facilities in Texas , documenting a number of instances of physical , sexual and mental abuse , as well as the incredibly , um , horrid conditions in the facility. And. We , you know , for the public , it's hard to conceptualize when we talk about something like a detention facility. It is such a it is such an abstract term. It is a term that suggests just a bureaucratic step right on the road to removing that person , ignoring the fact that in some cases , people have been in detention facilities for weeks , months , or even years as they as they try to challenge their removal. And also , you know , locations like alligator , Alcatraz , Fort Bliss , places that are far from population centers , those are deliberate choices on the part of the administration to limit access to legal representation , to make it harder for public defenders , um , or private , um , private law firms who are working on a pro bono basis to access those individuals who need representation. Tom.
S1: Tom.
S4: Yeah , I know we're sort of running against time , but I think it's also important for listeners to kind of think about , well , what are the alternatives then? So if we're , you know , treating non criminals like criminals , then you know , what what alternatives are there. Um , where are you. We are spending tens of billions of dollars from the sort of big , beautiful bill to the recent reconciliation package and , uh , out of that , we spend a few hundred million dollars on alternatives to detention. And so when we think about what the objectives are as established in immigration law , like we're not trying to sort of put people in prison who haven't committed a crime. We're trying to get people before an immigration judge so that their cases can be adjudicated. And so alternatives to detention , things like house arrest , ankle monitoring. I know that there are issues with those things as well , but that , uh , those alternatives have been shown to be incredibly efficacious. So the federal governments across administrations , uh , whether it's CRS , the Congressional Research Service or the Government Accountability Office , uh , studies of compliance. Uh , so an undocumented person showing up to their immigration court date , we're talking about in some programs , individuals and families near 100% compliance. Getting to that immigration court date , while not having to be in a sort of jail , like in jail like conditions. But I think this kind of goes well.
S1: I hate to leave the conversation there. It was such an interesting one , but we are up against the clock and we'll have to revisit it later. Um , I've been speaking with professors Tom Wong , Benjamin Gonzalez O'Brien , and Raquel Aldana. Of course , we'll have links and resources on our website , KPBS. Thank you all so very much for this very enlightening and important conversation.
S2: Thank you so much for having me.
S7: Thank you.
S3: Thank you.
S1: And thank you all for joining us today. I'm Jade Hindman. We'll talk again tomorrow. Until then. Make it a great day on purpose , everyone.
