Transcript

Jacob Soboroff on Trump-Era Immigration Tactics | Fresh Air

From Fresh Air · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 42 min · 7,541 words · 98 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Jacob Soboroff on Trump-Era Immigration Tactics | Fresh Air", an episode of Fresh Air published August 5, 2025 (42 min, about 7,541 words). It mentions 12 people, works and ideas, including Donald Trump, ICE, Narcisso Barco, Alejandro Barco, Home Depot.

What this episode is about

The discussion focuses on Trump-era immigration tactics, highlighting the discrepancy between the administration's stated goals of targeting violent criminals and the reality of detaining mostly undocumented individuals with no serious criminal records. Evidence shows that a significant percentage of those apprehended, especially in California, are everyday workers rather than the high-profile criminals initially claimed as targets.

Key takeaways

  • ICE says they're targeting 'the worst,' yet 94% of detentions are of the undocumented—hardly a criminal roster.
  • Families are searching for loved ones while ICE obscures the locations and identities of their own detainees—classic misdirection.
  • In a twist, 6% of undocumented immigrants detained had committed homicide—proving narratives can be as misleading as policy.
  • Both Trump and Biden administrations have upheld punitive immigration policies; only the intensity and tactics have evolved.
  • Raids focus on 'low-hanging fruit'—those simply seeking work—showing enforcement targets laborers, not the violent criminals promised.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Home Depot, Julia Aninsley, Laura Strickler
  2. – 10:00: Alejandro Barco, Adilanto, Ursula
  3. – 15:00: Donald Trump, Home Depot
  4. – 25:00: Donald Trump
  5. – 30:00: Donald Trump, Ventura County Farm Bureau
  6. – 35:00: Donald Trump
  7. – 40:00: Donald Trump, Jose Antonio Vargas

Notable quotes from "Jacob Soboroff on Trump-Era Immigration Tactics | Fresh Air"

  • Yeah. So, my colleagues Julia Aninsley and Laura Strickler have done some extraordinary reporting where they have looked at going back to the Biden administration last October who's.
    about Julia Aninsley · at
  • Has been a constant of American political and civic life for many decades. And so, this is a continuation of it in the way that Trump promised he would do. who many people I think didn't actually believe that he would carry out.
    about Donald Trump · at
  • Alejandro Barco, the Marine Corps veteran whose father Narcisso was taken off the street as he was literally cutting bushes outside of an IHOP. He's a landscaper. He also has two active duty sons in the Marine Corps today at.
    about Narcisso Barco · at
  • And he didn't know where he was going to go next. And then soon thereafter, he got the answer, which was Otilanto, the ice private prison in the high desert outside of…
    about Adilanto · at
  • Family separation inside the epicenter the Macallen Border Patrol processing center. the Ursula is the name of it and it's where I saw you know children sleeping on those mats on the concrete or lenolium floors under the myar blankets being.
    about Ursula · at
  • One of the things that many people are questioning are the tactics. So, ICE has been approaching people wearing masks and wearing all black. And what are you hearing about the…
    about ICE · at
  • Oh, yeah. the Ventura County Farm Bureau, you this is not just limited to Los Angeles County. We're seeing it in Orange County and Ventura County to the west down in San Diego.
    about Ventura County Farm Bureau · at
  • Haven't seen and lived in or walked in the shoes of the real lives of so many of these people. And I just think of Jose Antonio Vargas, the journalist who famously came out as an undocumented American has to be over a decade ago now.
    about Jose Antonio Vargas · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Donald Trump — Person · Referenced political leader / policy driver · 9 mentions · first at
    Central reference point for the episode’s discussion of intensified immigration enforcement, detention conditions, and mass deportation strategy attributed to his administration.
  • Narcisso Barco — Person · Referenced detainee / case example · 2 mentions
    Used as a concrete example of an interior apprehension and the resulting family separation, detention conditions, and difficulty locating detainees.
  • Alejandro Barco — Person · Referenced family member / case example · 1 mention · first at
    Presented as a Marine Corps veteran searching for his detained father; his account illustrates confusion about detainee whereabouts and detention conditions.
    Alejandro Barco, the Marine Corps veteran whose father Narcisso was taken off the street as he was literally cutting bushes outside of an IHOP. He's a landscaper. He also has two active.
  • Julia Aninsley — Person · Referenced journalist (supporting reporting) · 1 mention · first at
    Cited as an NBC colleague whose reporting analyzed detention data to show most detainees lacked serious criminal records.
  • Laura Strickler — Person · Referenced journalist (supporting reporting) · 1 mention · first at
    Cited alongside Julia Ainsley as contributing to data-driven reporting about who is being detained.
    Yeah. So, my colleagues Julia Aninsley and Laura Strickler have done some extraordinary reporting where they have looked at going back to the Biden administration last October who's.
  • Jose Antonio Vargas — Person · Referenced advocate/journalist (framing quote) · 1 mention · first at
    Invoked to frame language and ethics around undocumented status ("No human being is illegal") and public perception.
  • George Herbert Walker Bush — Person · Referenced historical comparator (policy lineage) · 2 mentions
    Mentioned as expanding Border Patrol and creating DHS post-9/11, supporting the episode’s argument of long-running enforcement escalation.
    Of border walls. They knew people would die trying to come into the country. George W. Bush, exponentially increased the size of the border patrol in the wake of 911 when they…

Companies & orgs

  • ICE — Company · 1 mention
  • Home Depot — Company · 2 mentions · first at
    Home Depot, go to the lowhanging fruit where undocumented folks hang out looking for work. that's when things started to change and obviously over the last four weeks here in…
  • Ventura County Farm Bureau — Company · 1 mention · first at

Places & events

Full transcript with timestamps

as this operation, you know, everything sort of is blurring together, the people taken off the streets, where they're actually going, um who they are, how to find them. Uh it seems to be getting increasingly harder by the day. And I say that based on talking to family members and attorneys for these families and people literally searching for their loved ones. Can you um quantify this ramp up and what you're seeing? You've been to several of these over the last few months and I know that in the news we've been seeing more of them, but just trying to wrap our heads around exactly what we're seeing, not only here in the state of California, but really across the nation.

I think what we're seeing is most important to emphasize, not what they said they were going to be doing, which was going after the worst of the worst. um the violent criminals, the rapists, the murderers, uh the drug kingpins, the cartels, they're going after workingass folks. And in Los Angeles, um since the beginning of this operation, the numbers approaching 2,000 people taken from the streets of the city from fruit carts, uh and flower stands and sort of people's cotian activities. Let's talk a little bit more about your latest reporting because according to ISIS's own data, almost twothirds of those detained since October had no serious criminal record.

Can you break this down for us? Describe who these people are who are being detained.

Yeah. So, my colleagues Julia Aninsley and Laura Strickler have done some extraordinary reporting where they have looked at going back to the Biden administration last October um who's being taken off the streets uh of the United States of America. And by and large, uh, the answer is not people with violent criminal convictions, people with civil immigration, um, enforcement issues. Basically, they're in the country without authorization.

They're undocumented. They're undocumented. Exactly. Period. Full stop. I think the number is 6% of the known uh, undocumented immigrants who have committed a homicide have been picked up

since that time period. Only 6%, 06, not 60%. And so when you continue to hear them talk about we're going to rid the streets of the worst of the worst, the numbers just simply don't bear that out.

Um the date of October that predates the Trump administration. So was this effort happening? It was happening during the Biden administration as well.

Sure. Of course. Immigration enforcement has been a a staple of both Democratic and Republican administrations going back decades. this is sort of the most extreme extension of it. Uh and I say that having covered the family separation crisis during the first Trump administration.

Um but yeah, of course, punitive based, deterrencebased immigration policy. In other words, punishing people for being here um without authorization has been uh has been a constant of American political uh and civic life for many decades. And so, you know, this is this is a continuation of it in the way that Trump promised he would do. who many people I think uh didn't actually believe that he would carry out.

Well, he said on day one from day one I am going to carry these out and for a period of time it seemed pretty quiet and then started to ramp up.

Yeah, I think I think that that's right. I was thinking about that the other day that when you look at the chart actually now and there's some reporting that indicates Stephen Miller wasn't happy. So this is when he went in and basically told people, directed people, go to the Home Depot, go to the lowhanging fruit where undocumented folks hang out uh looking for work. Um that's when things started to change and and obviously over the last four weeks here in Los Angeles, we have seen it play out every I mean there's a Home Depot not 5 minutes from where you and I are are sitting talking right now that was the um target of one of the raids I think just last week.

I think we understand the lowhanging fruit to go to some of those places where people are working and traditionally maybe some of those folks have been undocumented. But how else are how is ICE operating? How are they finding people in other contexts?

Well, I think that you that first of all, if they were to go after the worst of the worst, they'd be going after people who have outstanding criminal warrants against them or ongoing investigations. They, you know, you would be seeing multiple and massive large-scale operations that targeted the types of places that they said they were going to uh go after drug houses, um, you know, large scale human trafficking, uh, operations, sex trafficking operations.

Do you have any indication that they're doing that as well? I think that they certainly point to that and there have been some operations. They say that that fashion district raid that kicked all this off was a targeted workplace enforcement um, operation. The issue is the transparency has been pretty limited, frankly. And you know, under the Trump administration, that has always been an issue. It has been long been an issue in immigration enforcement to understand exactly who's being targeted, where they're being taken, um, and why. Um, but it seems here as this operation, you know, everything sort of is blurring together, the people taken off the streets, where they're actually going, um, who they are, how to find them. uh it seems to be getting increasingly harder by the day and I say that based on talking to family members and attorneys for these families and people literally searching for their loved

ones. Give give us some examples of what people have told you. Alejandro Barco, the Marine Corps veteran whose father Narcisso was taken off the street as he was literally uh cutting bushes outside of an IHOP. He's a landscaper. He also has two active duty sons in the Marine Corps today at Camp Pendleton. And when he was taken down in the middle of the street in Santa Ana by those agents, violently taken down, looked like he was being punched in the face by them after running away. You know, the DHS says, and I should say, um, that he tried to attack them with his weed whacker.

That's not really what the video shows, at least to my eyes. I'm one person, and maybe other folks would have a different opinion. Looks to me like he was running away. Uh, his son says he was terrified. He was scared. He was doing his job. and these agents rolled up on him and you know obviously he didn't want to be taken. They don't identify themselves. They're wearing masks on their face that you know you don't see on their on their uniforms what their names are and so he ran. Um and it did appear that he you know put the weed whacker kind of angled in between him and the and the agents.

But um when they caught up with him uh you know everybody saw what played out in that video. So, with regard to where he is or the trouble finding him, he went first to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles and that was the location of the first um protests

after that fashion district rajand. He couldn't find his father for days or couldn't get in touch with him. And when he finally did, I spoke to him right after he got out. Um he came and joined us on NBC on MSNBC and he said that his father had been in a cell for days with 70 other guys. He said it felt like a cage.

Uh hadn't showered, had gotten minimal food, had still had the blood on his clothes. His eyes were still stinging from the pepper spray that they had sprayed in his eyes as he was running away.

Uh and he didn't know where he was going to go next. And then soon thereafter, he got the answer, which was Otilanto, the ice private prison in the high desert outside of California. Um but it's not like they're giving family members a call and saying, "Here's what's happening next." In fact, for a lot of people, I think um folks could very well end up being deported before you can even figure out where they are.

We've been hearing um over the last few days conditions in these detention centers. There are hundreds of them, including the one that Alejandro visited. What are you hearing about what is happening inside of those centers?

It's those are not places anybody would want to be. Uh let me put it that way. Um I I've been inside myself. I I went during the family separation crisis and in fact conditions were so bad there during COVID that a federal judge uh disallowed them, stopped them, prevented them from bringing in anyone else. Now it's at capacity again. Um I think around 1,900 people when I was there and I'll never forget it. Uh I saw I mean all kinds of trauma, but in particular something that sticks out to me is a man curled up in a fetal position almost like in an isolation cell laying on the floor, you know, these concrete floors.

Um they found newses uh an inspector general report famously reported inf infamously I should say about adilanto people attempted suicide inside these facilities. That's and that's not an outlier.

This happens inside these centers um all across America. I went at the height of family separation

inside the epicenter um the Macallen Border Patrol processing center. Uh the Ursula is the name of it and it's where I saw you know children sleeping on those mats on the concrete or lenolium floors under the myar blankets um being supervised by security contractors in a watchtowwer. These are not places that are designed especially the processing centers for people to be beyond 24 72 hours by law much less stay there for days and days and days because the system becomes so overcrowded and actually you know it's a that's too is an important point for people to understand. Um, none of these places are meant to be housing people for

extended periods of time and the government understands that and they know when they pick up um massive amounts of people it will lead to backlogs and processing them through the system yet they do it anyway.

Are you seeing parallels between the actions from child separation in 2018 to today in that tactic? Because one of the things you revealed in your book about child separation

is the function of separating children from their parents was not just an outcome of of uh the deportation efforts. It was actually a tactic. They wanted to send a message. Are you getting any indication that what is happening with these detention facilities like it's purposefully this way as a means to send a message?

Yeah. the I mean Adam Surer famously coined the phrase the cruelty is the point uh in the Atlantic and I think with family separation you know don't take my my word for it um objectively the facts bear that out in the film that I made with Errol Morris about of family separations I mean you can see emails um documenting that they knew exactly what they were doing and why they were doing it and in fact when children were starting to get released and reunited with their families at that point um there are emails that literally say this undermines the whole effort um the point was to inflict harm to scare people away from coming to the country. A government officials told me that directly as well and you know when I say that's been the sort of the bipartisan um punitive based deterrence-based policy of of decades um it's true and you know you go back to Bill Clinton doing prevention through

deterrence when he built the first wave of border walls. They knew people would die trying to come into the country. Uh George W. Bush, you know, exponentially increased the size of the border patrol in the wake of 911 when they created DHS. Barack Obama deported more people than any president in the history of the country. And that's why with the snap of a finger, you know, Donald Trump was able to implement family separation. What they're and Joe Biden, I should say, kept in place a lot of those restrictive policies of the Trump administration. I went to Haiti. I saw them deporting a record amount of people back to Haiti, knowing full well that they could face danger or death um when they did that after they were all um you know all those migrants were under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas. Um, what Donald Trump is doing right now is what Stephen Miller wanted to do during family separation, which was separate

not just 5,500 kids before he was stopped by a federal judge and the American public. Um, but separate tens of thousands of families from each other using administrative uh tactics, separations. And so today what he's carrying out this mass deportation policy is I think what they wanted to do what they wanted to do back then a superersize of family separation and uh I've often said mass deportation is family separation just by another name. It's not separating children from their parents at the border. It's taking parents away from their children in the interior at their jobs or in their homes or you name it. And I, you know, I would say that before I had real and concrete examples, but now look at Narcisso Baronco as one. And if there's one Narcisso Baronco that's on television and on video, um, I promise you that there are hundreds more, uh, maybe even more than that of the of the nearly

2,000 people taken so far in the last three and a half weeks. One of the things that many people are questioning um are the tactics. So, ICE has been um approaching people wearing masks and wearing all black. And what are you hearing about the reasons why they are choosing to approach people that way versus being fully um it being fully transparent who they are?

What I hear is that they're worried about um being doxed, you know, being outed by protesters. uh their their private details being posted for the public to find. Um you know, I have I I obviously nobody wants anybody to be unnecessarily harmed. Um but when I hear that and then I also hear the administration and law enforcement officials say the protesters should reveal themselves. They should take their masks off.

Right. There are some city councils right now that are passing Yeah. ordinances to to require people to be unmasked. So, it seems like a double standard to me. Again, I'm not a law enforcement expert or analyst, but um for these law enforcement agents to go in and hide their faces when there's they have an expectation of the public to show their faces to them. Um it sure seems like, you know, rules for for thee, not for me. H um what have they said about their aggressive approach

that it's necessary to protect themselves during sort of operational um when they're in an operational mode.

The the the fact that they went out with B what appeared to be BRTAC which is the most elite tactical unit of the border patrol to that Home Depot the day before you and I are talking in Cypress Park. You know, I haven't spoken to them directly about it, but I I I my guess is what they would say is we have been faced with so much protest on the streets. We have to protect the agents that are actually taking people into custody with uh a use of force or a show of force, a potential use of force or at least a show of force. That too is why I think um the National Guard and the Marine Corps have been deployed to Los Angeles at least nominally to protect federal property and federal agents when they go out on these operations. But from everything I've seen, um, and yesterday morning I was with Unon Delbario, which is a part of the large community self-defense coalition that has sort of mobilized here in Southern

California. Dozens of organizations, hundreds of people that are going out basically trying to spot immigration enforcement, ICE, Border Patrol, um, whatever the other federal agencies, DEA FBI

um, their goal is not to interfere with the operation. to document it so that there's evidence of what's happening when the next Narciso Bronco story happens and to warn other people in the community to stay away.

You know, their tactics are not to pick a fight. Obviously, um they would lose. They're not showing up uh with with with armed um agents.

They're showing up with a bullhorn. They're showing up in sweatshirts of their organization. Um and they're being faced with military style tactics and force.

They're also being arrested, some of them. Have you um received any word that that any folks have gotten um caught in these roundups who are not undocumented?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There have been um you know, I've seen uh I don't want to I don't want to give you too high a number. I mean, I've seen several examples of US citizens being detained and ultimately uh obviously released, which raises questions about racial profiling. Clearly, uh, that's I think, you know, primary concern is if you don't have a warrant and you're out on the streets, how are you picking people that you stop?

Speaking of not having a warrant, also, can you kind of break down maybe the scope of where these agents can go? I I know there was a story not too long ago about them showing up around Dodger Stadium, right? And

I was there. You were there for that. Can you can you describe what happened there? And also because that is a private entity, like they wouldn't need a warrant to get inside of Dodger Stadium right?

Yeah. But there's no criminal undocumented crime happening inside Dodger. I mean, I don't mean to laugh, but it's true. The places that they're showing up are are shocking to so many people. Um the Dodger Stadium incident happened when after an operation supposedly they went at these Home Depots I think um they went back to Dodger Stadium in the hopes that they could process this is the Dodger story the hopes that they could process the people that they picked up within the gates of of Chavez

Ravine and the Dodgers um say that their security folks at the gate this was gate E at Dodger Stadium off the 110 freeway didn't allow allow the federal agents into the property to process. So they parked on the street outside the stadium in order to do that. And they were spotted by some of these organizations that I mentioned to you. And so a protest formed outside basically um pinning down sounds too serious but trapping these agents and their vehicles in between the protesters and media that showed up myself included and the gate of Dodger Stadium which they weren't permitted to go through. And so what happened was the LAPD had to come and they allowed the federal agents out the back gate um in order to avoid a conflict with the people that were there because they literally couldn't get out through them and drove them out the back way and and let them out onto public city streets again. But you're right um

without a warrant they can't be entering um private property. And we've seen them that's why it's so confusing I think to a lot of people watching. What are they doing running through the middle of car washes? um what are they doing uh entering businesses? These videos are everywhere. Uh and the answer is often times when confronted with people who know their rights

and that's why these know your rights literally cards are being distributed throughout the city. The the Catholic Church, our dascese here, there are more Catholics in LA I believe than any other um dascese in the country. Um they too have have spoken out historically, especially during family separation, the first Trump term about teaching their parishioners. so many of them are who are Latino migrants

um to understand that they don't have to go if if there's not a warrant for their arrest.

Attorney General Pam Bondi says that quote sanctuary policies were driving the cause of violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement. You've been at a lot of these protests. What What are you seeing? What have you seen? The protests that I have seen and been at, particularly on No King's Day on that Saturday, um were peaceful protests. I stood on literally on the front line, the skirmish line between the Los Well, I've stood on a lot of those lines, especially on that day. Um I stood between the Marines and the National Guard and the protesters.

Literally between. And I mean, I think maybe the Marines and the guard were three feet on one side of me and the protesters were on another side of me. I was live on TV. You can look it up if you want. And it was tense. They the protesters were screaming at the garden at the Marines, but it was definitely not violent.

Um, I watched as 20,000 or maybe more people peacefully protested through the streets of downtown Los Angeles. I was up on the Tom Bradley observation deck, 26 floors up uh in city hall looking down. It was really an extraordinary thing to see so many people um come together in a peaceful way like that. um what the government and I mean the federal government has been pointing to consistently and by the way in in one of the court cases um Newsome versus Trump about the National Guard's deployment on the streets of Los Angeles the federal government the Trump administration was arguing that there was a sustained and violent federal uh mob of a thousand people going after the federal building on that day that I was there just wasn't true I mean based on what I saw with my own eyes and again I'm one reporter one journalist one person from one perspective and vantage point, but it's just not what I saw. And so I think

that, you know, look, on the first uh couple days of this, that Friday night and into Saturday, there was violence and it was limited and it was in a several square block area of downtown Los Angeles, the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, put into place a curfew. And we had a lot of cops here, whether you like it or not, in Los Angeles that handle all kinds of tenuous situations like that all the time. um Lakers parade, Dodgers parade. I mean, stuff happens, you know,

and that's why the governor and the mayor both said, "We don't need the National Guard. We don't want the Marines here. We have handled and can handle this ourselves, especially when the vast majority of people out on the streets are protesting peacefully."

Your reporting is under scrutiny. Former acting ICE director and Trump borders are Tom Holman. He accused you of chopping up an interview that you all did together. um uh he seemed to call for the arrest of of California Governor Gavin Newsome and um Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles and that was the cut that you played. What has been your response to those type of accusations because I mean the scrutiny is high on what you're reporting out.

It's so interesting because you know I I think I have a good relationship actually with the folks in the Trump administration. Tom Hman, I texted him directly and he came and showed up at the interview. I mean,

Mhm. as far as that interview is concerned, we played the full uh clip in its entirety um both before and after he made those statements and it was really clear, really clear. And again, I'm I invite anybody to go look it up online that what I said to Tom Hman was, "You have threatened in the past to arrest officials." I'm paraphrasing myself, but you've threatened in the past to arrest public officials who get in the way of immigration enforcement operations. Does that apply to Gavin Newsome and Karen Bass, the governor and the mayor? Uh, and I said, uh, we made really clear he hasn't, uh, said that they have crossed that line yet, but we wanted to know would he if they did. Uh, and he said yes.

And then the next day, Governor Nuome responded to me because I met with him in the emergency operations center and said, you know, um, again paraphrasing, bring it on, you know, arrest me if you want to. And I think that it elevated to a place where perhaps it made home and uncomfortable, but those were his words, not mine. And uh I feel lucky to work at an organization like NBC News and MSNBC where we were able to go put that reporting back on the air the minute after he said it's a show um that we were always very clear that if they crossed the line he would be willing to arrest them which by the way he has subsequently said uh he's continued to say and President Trump specifically endorsed what Hman had said after my interview uh with him too. So, um I think frankly I think it was a little bit of of of theater which we see from all sides at this point in the in the political universe.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean uh your your reporting is happening in real time uh because they're developments happening um by the minute. How do you verify video? Because we're seeing all of these viral videos everywhere of these arrests and we're also in the age where you can manipulate it so easily. I'm really lucky and blessed at NBC News to work with a social news gathering team that has a whole standard and practice of vetting these types of videos. And frankly, I don't even think I would do their process justice, but they triangulate in essence to make sure that um we've got the right kind of sourcing um that they can trust it. So nothing that you see on our air is put out before um we feel that it's verifiable and it's trustworthy information.

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about economic impact. Um I know it's anecdotal in the moment, but but many of these people who are being swept up are foundational to the country's economy.

Um do we have a sense yet of how these detainments are affecting the economic fabric in local communities?

I give you one really concrete example that I saw with my own eyes. Literally strawberries sitting in a field with no one picking them at the height of strawberry season. they're going to sit there and rot.

Um maybe seems small to some people, but that's one example that's playing out um across Southern California every day now. People are not showing up at work. And you know, I mean, the the list is so long that I couldn't name everything about all the different industries that are being being affected by this. Um communities, vibrant communities and places of business are are dead quiet, empty. um drive around any part of uh Los Angeles, frankly, right now, and people aren't in hiding. So, you know, economically, anecdotally, what does it mean? It means that there are less people out on the streets, less people doing their their jobs. I'm not an economist, but it's not hard to sort of extrapolate that um eventually when all these folks stay home or or in the worst case scenario get deported, um what are you going to do?

Have you talked to business owners or or farmers about this? Oh, yeah. I mean, the Ventura County Farm Bureau, you this is not just limited to Los Angeles County. We're seeing it in Orange County and Ventura County to the west um down in San Diego. Uh the Ventura County Farm Bureau, um we someone got in touch with us, one of the farmers to to basically say, "I'm happy to speak out. I'm willing to speak out. I want people to understand how critical these uh men and women are to get literally literally getting food on the table." H I want to go back to these uh detainment centers because this week uh President Trump is visiting an opening of what is being called Alligator Alcatraz. It's a new center in the swampy Everglades.

Um and he has stated that um part of security will actually be the wildlife in keeping people in. Um what have you heard about this? It's the visual imagery obviously now, you know, operationalized of of of the harm that would befall people if they cross Trump administration immigration policy. I mean, surrounding a facility with alligators,

is there anything comparable in history? I know you took us back at the beginning of our conversation talking about um some of those um efforts to deport Mexicans in the 20s, 30s, and 40s.

I don't I mean, it just brings to mind National Guard troops with dogs, doesn't it? I mean, it's it's it's hard to believe that we're having this conversation in 2025 um about about human beings. That's what I think gets so lost in all of this is that so often conversations about immigration become about uh numbers. How many people are coming in? How many people do we have to stop? How can we get the numbers to zero? Talk about it like it's a weather event. The flow, the surge, the inundation. Um we look at bar graphs, but we're talking about human beings. And that's where I feel really blessed to be in this job because because I get to be on the street and talk to people to see them in their real lives. And when we talk about this from Washington DC or from New York or whatever, we talk about it like it's some kind of phenomenon. M um but we're talking about there are millions of people at any given moment in every part

of the world you name the hemisphere on the move migrants leaving danger um persecution climate change in a lot of instances I've been to Guatemala chicken a capoa where I saw in the dry corridor literally you know fields like I said rotting for different reasons people don't leave to go on the move um because it's a walk like a walk through Central Park as Donald Trump once said people don't go through the most dangerous cartel held territory uh in Mexico because this is easy. They do it because they feel like they have to and and we talk about them um like they're a data point to be extrapolated.

I want to you mentioned a little earlier about um this um this effort to get people to self-deport and um there's something called self-deport and forgive fines because that is another part of this deportation plan

finding people actual money for being undocumented in the country. How effective have you heard this to be where people will then some of the fines are as high as $9,000 um if they self-deport then they won't have to pay that?

I haven't seen the data on on this app this app. So they what happened was there was an app called CBP1 which was the Biden administration's effort to create legal pathways for people to come who are

and in some cases have been sitting on the other side of the border for a long time trying to get into the country because the Biden administration even though a lot of people got in it was restrictive for certain populations and a lot of people couldn't and so either from home country or from the other side of the border people were able to sign up and and try to get in line. Wasn't easy. There were a lot of problems with the app, but but they had it. And the Trump administration turned the app on its head and basically said, for people inside the country, why don't you sign up and we'll help you get home.

Um, I don't know how many people, the data may be out there. Um, I don't know how many people have signed up for the app, but but again, what they're trying to do is uh scare people in some form or fashion by saying, "If you don't and we find you and we're coming for you, look what's happening in LA. It's going to cost you a lot of money. Uh and and you'll be barred from re-entering the country ever again. If you go home, you can apply to come quote unquote the legal way, which honestly um is a near impossible task for anybody given the amount of people that want to come into country. I'm not saying it's impossible to come to the United States legally. Of course, you can. Um but it's not easy. And the so-called line that people say you should get into. Um it's it just isn't as simple as that. And that's the truth.

One of your arguments in the book, and we've touched on this, but I want to go a little bit deeper into it, is that the harm to the children was actually the point,

but also um what I thought Lee said was really interesting about using language to describe um and kind of hedging his kind of backing down from from um real harsher language because of the political climate. Where do you think we are today in describing what's happening now?

What's interesting about what Lee said there is that, you know, should he call it child abuse? Should he call it torture? He made the judgment call early on that maybe that wasn't the way to capture the nation's attention. But I do think that ultimately, and I wonder if if I or Errol Morris asked him this now, um would do you feel differently about describing it that way? Because uh ultimately the American Academy of Pediatrics uh did call family separation government sanctioned child abuse and Physicians for Human Rights, which won a Nobel Peace Prize actually, um said it met the United Nations definition of torture.

And I do think that that did capture the attention of of the nation in some way. Dana Sabra, the judge in the Southern District of California who ended the policy, I believe, cited both of those characterizations and called family separation one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country. This is a Republican appointed judge uh who stopped the policy in this district in San Diego. And I, you know, when I look back at it now, I do think I understand why initially people were hesitant or reluctant to call it what it is.

Excuse me. Yeah. Um, but ultimately when the facts were sort of laid out for everybody to understand, it's exactly what it was. Same thing now. um there's a lot of people on the streets who are calling the federal agents uh kidnappers or that these are renditions or that you know you hear a lot of stuff tossed around. It's sort of the I hate to say it but it's sort of the fog of war, pardon the pun to use the title of another Morris film where people are just so confused about what's going on. Um are these bounty hunters?

um you know, all this language is is is coming from a very visceral place. And I think that eventually when the dust settles here, when we can look back at it, um some folks will say some of those characterizations were correct and others weren't. As a student of history, I'm just wondering how you're assessing this because I've always wondered when we hear about atrocities of the past, when we learn about them in school, um

what were people doing at the time? What were they thinking? What did they know?

No, it gives me the chills when you say that actually. Um yeah, I think that Judge Sabra sort of called it like it was that family separation, you know, will be one of the most shameful chapters in the history. Certainly the modern history of our country will remember it with all of the ignoble chapters, genocide and slavery and um Japanese American internment, turning the St. Louis back and sending Jews back to the Holocaust. I mean, it's part of the reason why I wrote uh the subtitle of Separated. My book was uh inside an American tragedy. It is sort of a uniquely American story

and it fits into our history. And we're watching the first draft of this chapter play out right now in real time. And so, how will we look back? Will we look back and say Donald Trump was successful in emulating Dwight D. Eisenhower's operation with a name so racist that I'm not going to say it uh here. I won't say until I mean I just I don't um that deported a million Mexicans and some Mexican-Americans. Was this part two? Was this the sequel

with Dwight Eisenhower's actions? What impact was that did that have on our country?

Imagine um you don't have to imagine. It's playing out right now. That's the same thing. um ripping families apart in the interior of the country. Many of those families came in legally during the Brero program to work here and the decision was made to send them away. There are experts and scholars who have studied this as their life's work much more than I have. Um but the parallels are very obvious that today as children who are in the uh Los Angeles Unified School District schools um ended their year, their parents were afraid to show up at their graduation because they didn't know if ICE would be there to take them away.

That's what's playing out. That's what played out and that's what's playing out again. Now

the New York Times um is reporting deaths in some of these facilities. at least 10 people have died they're reporting in ICE custody in the last six months since January 1st. What is what is your reporting revealed? Those numbers are publicly available because uh and I believe also by statute they they have to be released and under every administration people die within the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and and a lot of these facilities are run by private companies and it's obvious I think that when these facilities are overcrowded or at or near capacity they're just the volume of of incidents is going to go up. And my sort of analysis of it is that that's that's what's happening right now. Um these I'm not surp I hate to say it, but I'm not surprised to hear these stories.

I wasn't surprised to hear them when people would die during the Biden administration. Um these are really tough places and and by design.

And so these types of deaths happen. I'm not saying that they should um but they do. um you know, we're taught to try to be as objective as possible, to look at all sides of it. And in this case, I mean, the argument for many will be, well, these people are here illegally.

They're undocumented. And so the ways that our administration is trying to fix that because previous administrations have not been able to solve what is perceived to be a problem in our country, President Trump is taking direct action that may hurt a lot of people but in the end may be effective. How how do you reconcile that with your reporting and trying to stay objective in reporting out what you're seeing in real time? I spent a lot of time and I do every election season on the road across the country talking to all kinds of people from all walks of life and immigration was certainly a big issue this time around again especially with President Trump running you know for his second term and I don't discount people's lived realities that a picture has been painted that makes them very scared of undocumented people that are living in this country see images and stories and hear numbers about during

the Biden administration how there There's so many people that are here and from Chicago to New York to whatever you name it. Um there are scenes playing out where it seems like municipal governments are overwhelmed and people feel like it comes at their expense as citizens of the United States of America. Um I think that the Trump administration has been very effective in creating a message of fear and a feeling of fear. And I think that people really do are scared. Some people um and understand why, but I also believe that they haven't seen um and lived in or walked in the shoes of the real lives of so many of these people. And I I just think of Jose Antonio Vargas, the journalist who famously came out as an undocumented American um has to be over a decade ago now.

Yes. and he and others have said, "No human being is illegal. They may be unauthorized to be in the country, but the moniker of uh you're you're illegal um has a has a negative and disparaging connotation when it comes to policy. You know, again, I'm not a policy maker. I'm a reporter. But it sure seems like for decades under Democrats and Republicans, um, this punitive deterrencebased policy, punishing people, um, for being quote unquote illegal, hasn't worked. People still come to the country no matter how harsh or how punitive it is.

And Donald Trump might say today, well, it's the lowest number of people ever crossing the border ever, Jacob. You know, you're full of it.

Um, we released zero people into the interior last month. First time ever that that's happened.

That's really That's true. Yeah, they send them to ICE instead of releasing them into the interior to be deported.

Um, interior meaning like into the country. Yeah. Into the country. But I promise you, people will come again. People will show up at the border because what this administration and others have done historically is uh is deal with the people who are inside, not the people who are continuing to come. And if we don't understand why and how and who they are, um, none of that will ever change. And by the way, I'm not advocating for this, but the last person to have a significant departure from this was Ronald Reagan. And he gave amnesty to people who were here and met certain criteria understanding that they had contributed to the society of the United States.

And so what I see is a failed immigration policy in my, you know, and other people have reported on this for decades and decades. I've been at it for about 11 years. Um, it just seems obvious the way that this is happening is not working to everybody, Democrats and Republicans. And I just I'm so I just want people to know this is what I'm seeing through my own eyes.

Jacob Soberof, thank you so much for your reporting and thank you for taking the time.

I am so grateful to be here. Good to be with you. Thank you.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Jacob Soboroff on Trump-Era Immigration Tactics | Fresh Air"?

Jacob Soboroff (Guest), Terry Gross (Host).

What is "Jacob Soboroff on Trump-Era Immigration Tactics | Fresh Air" about?

The discussion focuses on Trump-era immigration tactics, highlighting the discrepancy between the administration's stated goals of targeting violent criminals and the reality of detaining mostly undocumented individuals with no serious criminal records. Evidence shows that a significant percentage of those apprehended, especially in California, are everyday workers rather than the high-profile…

What is mentioned in this Fresh Air episode?

12 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Donald Trump, ICE, Narcisso Barco, Alejandro Barco, Home Depot, Adilanto. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Jacob Soboroff on Trump-Era Immigration Tactics | Fresh Air"?

The episode runs 42 min; the transcript is about 7,541 words in 98 timestamped sections.

More from Fresh Air

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.