December 9, 2025 • 21 mins
In this episode of One Thing Trump Did, we talk with Reuters Immigration reporter Ted Hesson about the latest major shifts in immigration policy under President Trump. After the shooting of two members of the National Guard, allegedly by an Afghan immigrant, Trump said he would stop issuing visas to people from Afghanistan and review past admissions. He also called Somali immigrants garbage, as the White House started a new enforcement operation in New Orleans. #Trump #immigration #deportation #ICE #Afghan #Somali #NewOrleans #Minnesota
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This attack here in Washington really triggered an immediate reaction
from the Trump administration to clamp down on various forms
of legal immigration.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
This is One Thing Trump Did, Available exclusively on the
Middle podcast Feed. I'm Jeremy hobbson. This is, by the way,
our thirty ninth episode of One Thing Trump Did. As
you know, each week on this podcast, we pick one
thing coming out of the Trump White House and break
it down in a nonpartisan way with someone who knows
what they're talking about. That means, by the way, we
have to find that person and book that person, and
(00:39):
unlike some other podcasts, it's a different person every single week,
So you can tell us how much you like about
that in our review section five stars. Please. Today we
are talking about immigration because a lot has been happening.
First of all, the city of New Orleans is the
latest community to see a huge enforcement operation in its streets,
following other cities like Chicago, La Charlotte. But secondly, following
(01:01):
the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, d C.
One of whom died, there has been more immigration related
activity when it comes to Afghan immigrants. The suspected shooter
is an Afghan immigrant, and following the shooting, the Trump
administration announced that all immigration applications for Afghan nationals would
be halted indefinitely and that it will re examine green
(01:24):
cards issued to individuals from another eighteen quote countries of concern.
And then there was President Trump's comments calling the Somali
community in the United States garbage.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Look at the nation. Look how bad the nation. It's
not even a nation. It's just people walking around killing
each other. Look, these Somalians have taken billions of dollars
out of our country. They've taken billions and billions of dollars.
They have a representative, Ilhan Omar. She should be allowed
to be a congresswoman. And I'm sure people are looking
(01:57):
at that, and she should be throwing the hell out
of our country and most of those people. They have
destroyed Minnesota. Okay, that beautiful land, that beautiful state. It's
a hell hole right now. And the Somalians should be
out of here. They've destroyed our country. And all they
do is complain, complain, complain. You have her, she's always
(02:19):
talking about the constitution. Provides me with go back to
your own country and figure out your constitution.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Okay, a lot to talk about, and we are excited
to have Reuter's immigration reporter Ted Hessen with us. He's
been covering it all. Ted, great to have you on.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Well.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
First of all, let's talk about New Orleans. What can
you tell us about what has been happening there.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The Trump administration has been doing these city by city
immigration crackdowns across the US. We saw in Los Angeles
over the summer it sort of kicked this off. They
also surged agents to Chicago and to Washington, d C.
Where I am, and one of the latest places where
they've focused their attention is New Orleans. It's their first
(03:04):
foray into the South, but they are going there for
what they say are the same reasons that essentially this
is a city that they're calling a sanctuary, saying that
the local police are not cooperating enough with federal immigration
enforcement and as a result that they're focusing their attention there.
We've seen what we've seen in other places as well,
some local opposition, opposition from residents, and also fear among
(03:28):
immigrant communities there that they could potentially be profiled and
swept up in this.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Even if they're here legally.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Among both, I mean among people who don't have legal
status as well. We spoke with one woman who is
from Mexico and she's been in the US for twenty
years with her family, but she does not have legal status,
and she was actually setting up beds in the restaurant
that her family owned so that they could sleep there
overnight and not expose themselves to the risk of getting
(03:56):
arrested by the immigration enforcement there. She has a ten
year old son who is a US citizen, and I
actually asked her, you know, what do you think might
what's your plan if you get arrested and he's here,
And she really kind of paused and choked up, and
she didn't necessarily have an answer for that. I think
that it's you know, when immigration enforcement comes to these
(04:18):
cities and there are these neighborhood sweeps with groups of
what are actually border patrol agents roaming through and checking
people's ideas and potentially stopping people to see what their
immigration status might be, it provokes a great deal of
fear in the communities.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Is there any rhyme or reason can you tell as
to which cities are being selected? Like why are we
going now? Now? It's New Orleans you know, a little
bit ago it was Charlotte. Who knows what will be next.
Can you get a sense of why individual cities are
being picked.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Certainly they started this by targeting some of the largest
democratic controlled cities in the US, Los Angeles and Chicago.
These are democratic strongholds. There are places that have historically
opposed immigration and enforcement and where they have existing sanctuary
policies or policies that limit cooperation with ICE and federal
immigration enforcement. You know, some of their more recent stops
(05:12):
are less clear. Passing through Charlotte, North Carolina, another city
with a democratic mayor, and New Orleans as well, which
has a sitting Democratic mayor and one incoming is also
But when you look at the rhetoric coming from the
Homeland Security Department in the Trump administration, they're really saying
this is about the city's sanctuary policies, and I think
(05:33):
you know, there's to some degree they're putting a spotlight
on that and saying that these are places where we're
not getting full cooperation from the local jails and the
local police, and where at times there's people who are
either arrested and accused of a crime, or even convicted
of crimes who are then released back into the public,
and that's something they oppose.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Are you seeing the tactics change at all at I
mean we're a year into the Trump administration almost they've
done this now in a number of places. Are they
changing their tactics as they go?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
We have seen an evolution through this administration. I mean,
certainly President Trump ran for re elections saying he would
have record numbers of deportations and has made that a
central part of his presidency so far. But around the
middle of the year this year, we saw a push
to really accelerate ICE's arrest numbers from the White House
in order to basically triple the number of people that
(06:25):
were being arrested, or at least the goal of what
number of people would be arrested per day. And we
did see with that an escalation of tactics of less
of a targeted approach and more of kind of sending
surge forces into cities to roam through neighborhoods, roam through areas,
stop cars in some cases. And there have even been
(06:48):
court cases over this, I mean in Chicago where we
had a federal judge actually rein in some of Border
Patrol's tactics, aggressively moving through cities and using tear gas
and to deploy or sorry to deter protesters or what
they said was used to repel protesters. So yeah, we
have seen an escalation in their tactics, and certainly to
(07:08):
get the sort of arrest numbers that the Trump administration wants,
it's very challenging to do that in a targeted way
that's actually just looking at, say, criminal offenders. If they
were just doing that, I don't believe they would be
reaching the sort of numbers that they have and what
they're striving towards well.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And some of that is about actually deporting everybody, as
Trump said that he wants to do, but also it's
about sending a message. And I wonder, then, when you
hear him say what he said about the Somali community
and calling them garbage, why did he single out the
(07:45):
Somali community in the United States.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
First of all, President Trump has repeatedly made disparaging remarks
against immigrants since he began as a politician. He first
announced his run for office saying that immigrants coming from
Mexico were mostly criminals and rapists. So some of the
rhetoric he's had a long running precedent of using this
(08:09):
kind of language, and also in the more recent campaign
against immigrants from Africa as well, saying that the Congo
was emptying out its jails and sending people from there,
but also in regards to Haiti, saying that Haitian immigrants
in Springfield, Ohio were eating people's pets during the campaign,
maybe most famously, So you've see these kind of remarks
(08:30):
that are mixing both anti immigrant sentiment with racism, and
I think there is some degree of a precedent for that.
With Somalia, there were specific incidents related to fraud in
that community of immigrants from that background that had been
accused of fraud. And there's of course this sort of
long running spat with Congresswoman ilan Omar, who's a Democrat
(08:52):
from the state and who represents the Democratic parties more
liberal wing. So I think it sort of does fit
into a sort of long term political narrative of Trump's,
but also the short term one as well.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Well.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
And ilhan Omar, as you said, a congressman from Minnesota.
There are about eighty thousand Somali people living in Minnesota,
although apparently only seven hundred of them have this temporary
protected status, which it would be easy for the Trump
administration to just end and revoke. Most of those people
who are in Minnesota are permanent residents or US citizens,
(09:27):
that's right.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And even in this most recent ICE action, what ICE
has said is that what's been reported is that they
would be targeting people with final orders of removal, which
generally are a population that the Trump administration overall is
trying to arrest because they're the easiest people to deport.
And there are people where a judge has said they
should be deported from the country and they haven't done
(09:49):
so yet, So that if that is the case, you
know what happens in Minnesota. We don't know what the
scope of it will be. So far, there have been
reports of maybe a few dozen arrests there, but not
necessarily large numbers, and more of a targeted, targeted push there.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And in terms of sending a message, where are we
right now in terms of illegal immigration or border security,
it's like almost none at this point.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Right One of the major shifts of this administration has
just been the complete shutdown of illegal immigration across the
US Mexico border. During the previous administration under former President
Joe Biden, we were seeing record numbers of people being
caught crossing illegally, at a high point two hundred and
fifty thousand people in one month, which is just a
(10:34):
really large number historically, and then after President Trump took office,
we saw those numbers drop to historic lows and they've
mostly stayed there. They've shown that these deterrent policies and
approach that they're taking seems to have had a real
effect on the willingness of people to cross illegally. And
it involves what's happening with ice inside the country of
(10:56):
arresting people and trying to deport them, but also asylum
policies at the order of just denying people access to
asylum under Trump policies, and then this specter of being
deported to a third country, which is a relatively new
phenomenon in this idea that we might not even deport
you back to your home country or another country of
(11:18):
your choosing, but instead send you to one that you
don't want to go to, that's potentially dangerous and where
you don't know what your fate's going to be.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Interestingly, the New York Times just did a kind of
Q and A with its audience about some immigration related topics,
and one of them was what happened to the people
who were deported to third countries, And in fact, it
sounds like many of them spent some time in those
countries and the countries just sent them back to the
countries that they were from.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
In some cases that's happened, and in some cases people
have stayed detained and haven't been able to secure the release.
I know in Eswatini, for instance. In Africa, there have
been issues with access to detainees there deported and them
getting any kind of legal access or ability to make
the case that they should be freed. I mean, these
(12:06):
are people who may have been convicted of serious crimes
in the US, but they serve their time for those crimes,
went through the immigration system, and then they're deported to
another country where they're being held again, but not on
a criminal charge. And it obviously presents sort of human
rights issues and legal issues that have been raised as well. Well.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Another country that is being signaled out when it comes
to immigration is Afghanistan. The White House wants a review
of hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of whom helped
the US during the war in Afghanistan and then came here.
We're going to talk about that in a moment with
Reuter's immigration reporter Ted Hessen, will be right back. Welcome
(13:01):
back to one thing Trump did exclusively on the Middle
Podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. This episode, we're talking about
the latest moves from the Trump administration on immigration, and
I'm joined by Reuter's immigration reporter Ted Hessen. Ted, you're
in Washington, d C. Where President Trump brought in the
National Guard in the name of reducing crime, although, as
we've talked about on this show, given the rules about
(13:23):
what they're allowed to do, some of them have actually
just been beautifying parks or just being present in Washington, DC.
And then two Guard members were shot recently, allegedly by
an Afghan immigrant. One of the soldiers died from her wounds.
What can you tell us about the policy response to
that from Trump when it comes to Afghans in the US.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
This attack here in Washington really triggered an immediate reaction
from the Trump administration to clamp down on various forms
of legal immigration. And one of the first things they
did was essentially pause any immigration related applications from Afghans
which was an extremely broad response to an incident that
(14:06):
did involve an individual as far as we know, and
not necessarily a broad network of people from Afghanistan. But
with that, they've also expanded to pause immigration applications from
another eighteen countries which had already been listed under Trump's
travel ban. Those countries did not have any direct relation
to the attack either or people from those countries. In addition,
(14:27):
asylum applications, which are applications from people in the US
who are seeking protection here to stay, have also been
essentially paused and put through a revetting process to see
if those should go forward. So there's just been a
number of fairly broad measures within the immigration system to
(14:48):
tightened vetting, to slow things down, all within you as
framed as a response to this attack.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Well, and you mentioned eighteen other countries. Now Secretary of
Homeland Security Christi nums that list could expand to more
than thirty.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
That's right, I mean, and we don't know what the
other nations might be. We do know that back before
Trump issued this what we call his travel ban in June,
which was basically blocking I believe twelve of those nineteen nations,
both immigration and non immigrant visas being issued from those
places as well as partially blocking from the other countries.
(15:23):
But we know back then in June they were actually
were also exploring other countries as well. So there are
some additional nations that the Trump administration believes or has
believed for months now, that could potentially be subject to
more visa restrictions.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
The Homeland Security Department also used a term the other day,
which is remigration. What does that mean and what is
the significance of DHS using it.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
There's been pushback against the use of that term in
that it has an anti immigrant sentiment and has connotations
that come with it. I think, you know, in the
broader sense, the Trump administration has one made it clear
that they believe that people who are in the country
illegally need to leave, and they're taking whatever steps they
can to compel that, either by putting them through the
(16:11):
deportation process or by encouraging them to go voluntarily. And
then also that legal migration should be tightened, and I
think what we've seen is a willingness to even reevaluate
people that were granted legal status under previous administrations and
in previous years.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Now.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
While some degree of that is normal, while cases may
get reopen when there's some sort of indication of fraud
or something illegal happening there. I don't believe we've seen
a wholesale sort of effort to review past approved cases
as what has been discussed here, So I do think
it'll be something to watch just how aggressively the Trump
(16:49):
administration goes into this process of looking back into previously
approved visas or even cases where people have naturalized and
become citizens, what they call denaturalization. Now, it's not that
easy to necessarily do that. It's a complex legal process,
and they can't just snap their fingers and remove someone's citizenship.
(17:11):
But even a willingness to wade into that would be
a change in it, weighed into it in a large
scale way, would be a change.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Are there people pushing back against that? I mean, what
are you hearing about how people could stop that kind
of thing from happening.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Some of the advocates who are supporting Afghan immigrants in
the US, for instance, have come out very emphatically saying
that an entire group of people should not be demonized
just based on the actions of one person, who the
alleged attacker in that incident here in Washington, there have
been some lawmakers from both parties actually saying that the
US should not abandon its commitment to Afghans because they
(17:47):
had assisted US forces during the two decade war in Afghanistan.
So yes, I do think that there is some pushback,
as I said, from bipartisan forces, particularly in regards to
Afghan immigrants, and then within the larger within from the
Democratic side. I think there, yes, there's been opposition to,
(18:07):
you know, freezing immigration applications in a broad way based
on this one incident.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Ted. As you said, a lot has changed from the
Biden administration to the Trump administration, even if you just
look at who's crossing the border and who's not crossing
the border, and things could change in a few years
if a Democrat becomes the next president of the United States.
But what do you think, as somebody who covers immigration
all the time, has changed in the last year that
(18:36):
will be felt for years to come.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
I think that when we look at the way the
Trump administration has approached interior enforcement, which is like ICE
enforcement in cities, it's something that we hadn't seen in
this country at this level until now. Previously, ICE had
done its job in a more kind of targeted way,
where they might have been seeking out a certain person
(19:00):
and staking out their house and making the arrest that way.
But in the last few months, with this push to
essentially reach higher numbers, they've really changed their tactics in
ways that have what we've seen, swept in more non
criminal offenders and also just been disruptive. I mean, one
thing that has changed is these arrests at courthouses. So
(19:22):
you have people who are going to court essentially trying
to do what they think they should be doing within
the system, and are finding themselves get arrested similarly at
naturalization interviews or at immigration interviews at government offices, and
you know there could be there will be longer term
ramifications of that, both with you know, the families and
(19:44):
the communities that are affected, but also how people view
immigration enforcement and what might even be possible within it.
Things that maybe previously an administration might have thought was
off limits is shown that president that wants to clamp
down an immigration actually can go there and try and
do this well.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
And ICE has expanded so much because of the so
called Big Beautiful Bill. Also, you wonder if those numbers
will ever come down or we're always going to have
just this enormous police force of ICE in this country.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I mean, we will see. And obviously, as you mentioned,
ICE has gotten a very large amount of funding to
hire ten thousand new officers and greatly expand immigration attention
to hold up to one hundred thousand people or maybe
even more than that, So we could really see a
ramp up in the next year. Some of it is
not totally clear. What we do know is for the
(20:35):
last year, ICE has been benefiting from quite a few
detailed officers from other federal agencies, so they're borrowing investigative
officers from within their own within their own agency, but
also FBI, atf even State Department employees. Pretty much every
federal agency had been recruited in one way or another
to assist with what ICE was doing. And it's not
(20:58):
clear to me ken they or will they just continue
that for the next year, or do some of these
onboarding ICE officers, you know, are they needed to replace
the people who are being detailed there now who may
need to go back to their day jobs. So there
is kind of a question of what the overall force
might look like in the next year.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
That is Ted Hessen, who covers immigration for Reuter's Ted
thank you so much for coming on the show, thank
you for having me, and thanks to you for listening
to one thing Trump did. It was produced by Harrison Patino.
Our next middle episode is coming to your podcast feed
later this week, and we're going to be asking if
going green matters to you, even though a lot of
the tax credits that came along with that are going
(21:35):
away very soon. Our theme music was composed by Noah Haidu.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. Talk to you soon.
This attack here in Washington really triggered an immediate reaction
from the Trump administration to clamp down on various forms
of legal immigration.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
This is One Thing Trump Did, Available exclusively on the
Middle podcast Feed. I'm Jeremy hobbson. This is, by the way,
our thirty ninth episode of One Thing Trump Did. As
you know, each week on this podcast, we pick one
thing coming out of the Trump White House and break
it down in a nonpartisan way with someone who knows
what they're talking about. That means, by the way, we
have to find that person and book that person, and
(00:39):
unlike some other podcasts, it's a different person every single week,
So you can tell us how much you like about
that in our review section five stars. Please. Today we
are talking about immigration because a lot has been happening.
First of all, the city of New Orleans is the
latest community to see a huge enforcement operation in its streets,
following other cities like Chicago, La Charlotte. But secondly, following
(01:01):
the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington, d C.
One of whom died, there has been more immigration related
activity when it comes to Afghan immigrants. The suspected shooter
is an Afghan immigrant, and following the shooting, the Trump
administration announced that all immigration applications for Afghan nationals would
be halted indefinitely and that it will re examine green
(01:24):
cards issued to individuals from another eighteen quote countries of concern.
And then there was President Trump's comments calling the Somali
community in the United States garbage.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Look at the nation. Look how bad the nation. It's
not even a nation. It's just people walking around killing
each other. Look, these Somalians have taken billions of dollars
out of our country. They've taken billions and billions of dollars.
They have a representative, Ilhan Omar. She should be allowed
to be a congresswoman. And I'm sure people are looking
(01:57):
at that, and she should be throwing the hell out
of our country and most of those people. They have
destroyed Minnesota. Okay, that beautiful land, that beautiful state. It's
a hell hole right now. And the Somalians should be
out of here. They've destroyed our country. And all they
do is complain, complain, complain. You have her, she's always
(02:19):
talking about the constitution. Provides me with go back to
your own country and figure out your constitution.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Okay, a lot to talk about, and we are excited
to have Reuter's immigration reporter Ted Hessen with us. He's
been covering it all. Ted, great to have you on.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Well.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
First of all, let's talk about New Orleans. What can
you tell us about what has been happening there.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
The Trump administration has been doing these city by city
immigration crackdowns across the US. We saw in Los Angeles
over the summer it sort of kicked this off. They
also surged agents to Chicago and to Washington, d C.
Where I am, and one of the latest places where
they've focused their attention is New Orleans. It's their first
(03:04):
foray into the South, but they are going there for
what they say are the same reasons that essentially this
is a city that they're calling a sanctuary, saying that
the local police are not cooperating enough with federal immigration
enforcement and as a result that they're focusing their attention there.
We've seen what we've seen in other places as well,
some local opposition, opposition from residents, and also fear among
(03:28):
immigrant communities there that they could potentially be profiled and
swept up in this.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Even if they're here legally.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Among both, I mean among people who don't have legal
status as well. We spoke with one woman who is
from Mexico and she's been in the US for twenty
years with her family, but she does not have legal status,
and she was actually setting up beds in the restaurant
that her family owned so that they could sleep there
overnight and not expose themselves to the risk of getting
(03:56):
arrested by the immigration enforcement there. She has a ten
year old son who is a US citizen, and I
actually asked her, you know, what do you think might
what's your plan if you get arrested and he's here,
And she really kind of paused and choked up, and
she didn't necessarily have an answer for that. I think
that it's you know, when immigration enforcement comes to these
(04:18):
cities and there are these neighborhood sweeps with groups of
what are actually border patrol agents roaming through and checking
people's ideas and potentially stopping people to see what their
immigration status might be, it provokes a great deal of
fear in the communities.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Is there any rhyme or reason can you tell as
to which cities are being selected? Like why are we
going now? Now? It's New Orleans you know, a little
bit ago it was Charlotte. Who knows what will be next.
Can you get a sense of why individual cities are
being picked.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Certainly they started this by targeting some of the largest
democratic controlled cities in the US, Los Angeles and Chicago.
These are democratic strongholds. There are places that have historically
opposed immigration and enforcement and where they have existing sanctuary
policies or policies that limit cooperation with ICE and federal
immigration enforcement. You know, some of their more recent stops
(05:12):
are less clear. Passing through Charlotte, North Carolina, another city
with a democratic mayor, and New Orleans as well, which
has a sitting Democratic mayor and one incoming is also
But when you look at the rhetoric coming from the
Homeland Security Department in the Trump administration, they're really saying
this is about the city's sanctuary policies, and I think
(05:33):
you know, there's to some degree they're putting a spotlight
on that and saying that these are places where we're
not getting full cooperation from the local jails and the
local police, and where at times there's people who are
either arrested and accused of a crime, or even convicted
of crimes who are then released back into the public,
and that's something they oppose.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Are you seeing the tactics change at all at I
mean we're a year into the Trump administration almost they've
done this now in a number of places. Are they
changing their tactics as they go?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
We have seen an evolution through this administration. I mean,
certainly President Trump ran for re elections saying he would
have record numbers of deportations and has made that a
central part of his presidency so far. But around the
middle of the year this year, we saw a push
to really accelerate ICE's arrest numbers from the White House
in order to basically triple the number of people that
(06:25):
were being arrested, or at least the goal of what
number of people would be arrested per day. And we
did see with that an escalation of tactics of less
of a targeted approach and more of kind of sending
surge forces into cities to roam through neighborhoods, roam through areas,
stop cars in some cases. And there have even been
(06:48):
court cases over this, I mean in Chicago where we
had a federal judge actually rein in some of Border
Patrol's tactics, aggressively moving through cities and using tear gas
and to deploy or sorry to deter protesters or what
they said was used to repel protesters. So yeah, we
have seen an escalation in their tactics, and certainly to
(07:08):
get the sort of arrest numbers that the Trump administration wants,
it's very challenging to do that in a targeted way
that's actually just looking at, say, criminal offenders. If they
were just doing that, I don't believe they would be
reaching the sort of numbers that they have and what
they're striving towards well.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
And some of that is about actually deporting everybody, as
Trump said that he wants to do, but also it's
about sending a message. And I wonder, then, when you
hear him say what he said about the Somali community
and calling them garbage, why did he single out the
(07:45):
Somali community in the United States.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
First of all, President Trump has repeatedly made disparaging remarks
against immigrants since he began as a politician. He first
announced his run for office saying that immigrants coming from
Mexico were mostly criminals and rapists. So some of the
rhetoric he's had a long running precedent of using this
(08:09):
kind of language, and also in the more recent campaign
against immigrants from Africa as well, saying that the Congo
was emptying out its jails and sending people from there,
but also in regards to Haiti, saying that Haitian immigrants
in Springfield, Ohio were eating people's pets during the campaign,
maybe most famously, So you've see these kind of remarks
(08:30):
that are mixing both anti immigrant sentiment with racism, and
I think there is some degree of a precedent for that.
With Somalia, there were specific incidents related to fraud in
that community of immigrants from that background that had been
accused of fraud. And there's of course this sort of
long running spat with Congresswoman ilan Omar, who's a Democrat
(08:52):
from the state and who represents the Democratic parties more
liberal wing. So I think it sort of does fit
into a sort of long term political narrative of Trump's,
but also the short term one as well.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Well.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
And ilhan Omar, as you said, a congressman from Minnesota.
There are about eighty thousand Somali people living in Minnesota,
although apparently only seven hundred of them have this temporary
protected status, which it would be easy for the Trump
administration to just end and revoke. Most of those people
who are in Minnesota are permanent residents or US citizens,
(09:27):
that's right.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
And even in this most recent ICE action, what ICE
has said is that what's been reported is that they
would be targeting people with final orders of removal, which
generally are a population that the Trump administration overall is
trying to arrest because they're the easiest people to deport.
And there are people where a judge has said they
should be deported from the country and they haven't done
(09:49):
so yet, So that if that is the case, you
know what happens in Minnesota. We don't know what the
scope of it will be. So far, there have been
reports of maybe a few dozen arrests there, but not
necessarily large numbers, and more of a targeted, targeted push there.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
And in terms of sending a message, where are we
right now in terms of illegal immigration or border security,
it's like almost none at this point.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Right One of the major shifts of this administration has
just been the complete shutdown of illegal immigration across the
US Mexico border. During the previous administration under former President
Joe Biden, we were seeing record numbers of people being
caught crossing illegally, at a high point two hundred and
fifty thousand people in one month, which is just a
(10:34):
really large number historically, and then after President Trump took office,
we saw those numbers drop to historic lows and they've
mostly stayed there. They've shown that these deterrent policies and
approach that they're taking seems to have had a real
effect on the willingness of people to cross illegally. And
it involves what's happening with ice inside the country of
(10:56):
arresting people and trying to deport them, but also asylum
policies at the order of just denying people access to
asylum under Trump policies, and then this specter of being
deported to a third country, which is a relatively new
phenomenon in this idea that we might not even deport
you back to your home country or another country of
(11:18):
your choosing, but instead send you to one that you
don't want to go to, that's potentially dangerous and where
you don't know what your fate's going to be.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Interestingly, the New York Times just did a kind of
Q and A with its audience about some immigration related topics,
and one of them was what happened to the people
who were deported to third countries, And in fact, it
sounds like many of them spent some time in those
countries and the countries just sent them back to the
countries that they were from.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
In some cases that's happened, and in some cases people
have stayed detained and haven't been able to secure the release.
I know in Eswatini, for instance. In Africa, there have
been issues with access to detainees there deported and them
getting any kind of legal access or ability to make
the case that they should be freed. I mean, these
(12:06):
are people who may have been convicted of serious crimes
in the US, but they serve their time for those crimes,
went through the immigration system, and then they're deported to
another country where they're being held again, but not on
a criminal charge. And it obviously presents sort of human
rights issues and legal issues that have been raised as well. Well.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Another country that is being signaled out when it comes
to immigration is Afghanistan. The White House wants a review
of hundreds of thousands of refugees, many of whom helped
the US during the war in Afghanistan and then came here.
We're going to talk about that in a moment with
Reuter's immigration reporter Ted Hessen, will be right back. Welcome
(13:01):
back to one thing Trump did exclusively on the Middle
Podcast feed. I'm Jeremy Hobson. This episode, we're talking about
the latest moves from the Trump administration on immigration, and
I'm joined by Reuter's immigration reporter Ted Hessen. Ted, you're
in Washington, d C. Where President Trump brought in the
National Guard in the name of reducing crime, although, as
we've talked about on this show, given the rules about
(13:23):
what they're allowed to do, some of them have actually
just been beautifying parks or just being present in Washington, DC.
And then two Guard members were shot recently, allegedly by
an Afghan immigrant. One of the soldiers died from her wounds.
What can you tell us about the policy response to
that from Trump when it comes to Afghans in the US.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
This attack here in Washington really triggered an immediate reaction
from the Trump administration to clamp down on various forms
of legal immigration. And one of the first things they
did was essentially pause any immigration related applications from Afghans
which was an extremely broad response to an incident that
(14:06):
did involve an individual as far as we know, and
not necessarily a broad network of people from Afghanistan. But
with that, they've also expanded to pause immigration applications from
another eighteen countries which had already been listed under Trump's
travel ban. Those countries did not have any direct relation
to the attack either or people from those countries. In addition,
(14:27):
asylum applications, which are applications from people in the US
who are seeking protection here to stay, have also been
essentially paused and put through a revetting process to see
if those should go forward. So there's just been a
number of fairly broad measures within the immigration system to
(14:48):
tightened vetting, to slow things down, all within you as
framed as a response to this attack.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Well, and you mentioned eighteen other countries. Now Secretary of
Homeland Security Christi nums that list could expand to more
than thirty.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
That's right, I mean, and we don't know what the
other nations might be. We do know that back before
Trump issued this what we call his travel ban in June,
which was basically blocking I believe twelve of those nineteen nations,
both immigration and non immigrant visas being issued from those
places as well as partially blocking from the other countries.
(15:23):
But we know back then in June they were actually
were also exploring other countries as well. So there are
some additional nations that the Trump administration believes or has
believed for months now, that could potentially be subject to
more visa restrictions.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
The Homeland Security Department also used a term the other day,
which is remigration. What does that mean and what is
the significance of DHS using it.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
There's been pushback against the use of that term in
that it has an anti immigrant sentiment and has connotations
that come with it. I think, you know, in the
broader sense, the Trump administration has one made it clear
that they believe that people who are in the country
illegally need to leave, and they're taking whatever steps they
can to compel that, either by putting them through the
(16:11):
deportation process or by encouraging them to go voluntarily. And
then also that legal migration should be tightened, and I
think what we've seen is a willingness to even reevaluate
people that were granted legal status under previous administrations and
in previous years.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Now.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
While some degree of that is normal, while cases may
get reopen when there's some sort of indication of fraud
or something illegal happening there. I don't believe we've seen
a wholesale sort of effort to review past approved cases
as what has been discussed here, So I do think
it'll be something to watch just how aggressively the Trump
(16:49):
administration goes into this process of looking back into previously
approved visas or even cases where people have naturalized and
become citizens, what they call denaturalization. Now, it's not that
easy to necessarily do that. It's a complex legal process,
and they can't just snap their fingers and remove someone's citizenship.
(17:11):
But even a willingness to wade into that would be
a change in it, weighed into it in a large
scale way, would be a change.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Are there people pushing back against that? I mean, what
are you hearing about how people could stop that kind
of thing from happening.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Some of the advocates who are supporting Afghan immigrants in
the US, for instance, have come out very emphatically saying
that an entire group of people should not be demonized
just based on the actions of one person, who the
alleged attacker in that incident here in Washington, there have
been some lawmakers from both parties actually saying that the
US should not abandon its commitment to Afghans because they
(17:47):
had assisted US forces during the two decade war in Afghanistan.
So yes, I do think that there is some pushback,
as I said, from bipartisan forces, particularly in regards to
Afghan immigrants, and then within the larger within from the
Democratic side. I think there, yes, there's been opposition to,
(18:07):
you know, freezing immigration applications in a broad way based
on this one incident.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Ted. As you said, a lot has changed from the
Biden administration to the Trump administration, even if you just
look at who's crossing the border and who's not crossing
the border, and things could change in a few years
if a Democrat becomes the next president of the United States.
But what do you think, as somebody who covers immigration
all the time, has changed in the last year that
(18:36):
will be felt for years to come.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
I think that when we look at the way the
Trump administration has approached interior enforcement, which is like ICE
enforcement in cities, it's something that we hadn't seen in
this country at this level until now. Previously, ICE had
done its job in a more kind of targeted way,
where they might have been seeking out a certain person
(19:00):
and staking out their house and making the arrest that way.
But in the last few months, with this push to
essentially reach higher numbers, they've really changed their tactics in
ways that have what we've seen, swept in more non
criminal offenders and also just been disruptive. I mean, one
thing that has changed is these arrests at courthouses. So
(19:22):
you have people who are going to court essentially trying
to do what they think they should be doing within
the system, and are finding themselves get arrested similarly at
naturalization interviews or at immigration interviews at government offices, and
you know there could be there will be longer term
ramifications of that, both with you know, the families and
(19:44):
the communities that are affected, but also how people view
immigration enforcement and what might even be possible within it.
Things that maybe previously an administration might have thought was
off limits is shown that president that wants to clamp
down an immigration actually can go there and try and
do this well.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
And ICE has expanded so much because of the so
called Big Beautiful Bill. Also, you wonder if those numbers
will ever come down or we're always going to have
just this enormous police force of ICE in this country.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I mean, we will see. And obviously, as you mentioned,
ICE has gotten a very large amount of funding to
hire ten thousand new officers and greatly expand immigration attention
to hold up to one hundred thousand people or maybe
even more than that, So we could really see a
ramp up in the next year. Some of it is
not totally clear. What we do know is for the
(20:35):
last year, ICE has been benefiting from quite a few
detailed officers from other federal agencies, so they're borrowing investigative
officers from within their own within their own agency, but
also FBI, atf even State Department employees. Pretty much every
federal agency had been recruited in one way or another
to assist with what ICE was doing. And it's not
(20:58):
clear to me ken they or will they just continue
that for the next year, or do some of these
onboarding ICE officers, you know, are they needed to replace
the people who are being detailed there now who may
need to go back to their day jobs. So there
is kind of a question of what the overall force
might look like in the next year.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
That is Ted Hessen, who covers immigration for Reuter's Ted
thank you so much for coming on the show, thank
you for having me, and thanks to you for listening
to one thing Trump did. It was produced by Harrison Patino.
Our next middle episode is coming to your podcast feed
later this week, and we're going to be asking if
going green matters to you, even though a lot of
the tax credits that came along with that are going
(21:35):
away very soon. Our theme music was composed by Noah Haidu.
I'm Jeremy Hobson. Talk to you soon.
Host
Jeremy Hobson
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