Caitlin Dickerson

And so since then, ICE has grown.

There have been debates about comprehensive immigration reform to try to help people who don't have status get it.

None of those have succeeded.

And so you had this huge population of people who were like sitting ducks when Donald Trump took office.

I think there have always been concerns about our porous border.

Prior to kind of the current political moment that we're in, people in Congress and most presidents have thought the answer to that porous border is to find a way to give people a pathway to legal status so that we know who they are.

They have full rights and protections under the laws, but they also are able to fully contribute as legal immigrants.

That is the conversation that has fallen away.

I think it's way too early to say anything is in the rear of your mirror because immigration enforcement can look so many different ways.

I mean, I think what we've seen is this administration recognized that the initial approach that they took, which was all about spectacle, all about aggression in the streets, really welcoming these dramatic clashes between civilians and immigrants and people in Home Depot.

But you don't have to do any of that to deport a lot of people.

So ICE has massively expanded its partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies.

That's just one of many ways that ICE uses to shuffle people into this deportation system, deportation machine, as it's been called, and get them out of the country very quickly in a way that we can't see with our eyes, you know, because it starts with a routine traffic stop, even someone going in to pay a ticket and then being taken into custody.

quickly and quietly without news cameras present.

What I learned from the first time that Trump was in office is that Stephen Miller's, one of his greatest passions, you might say, something that he spent a lot of time doing is figuring out every possible way to deport people and to seal the border.

This is somebody who does not see

the kind of slowdown that followed backlash in Minneapolis, the necessary slowdown because the public was so upset with ICE as a failure or as a sign to move on to another issue or maybe change directions.

No, I mean, he sort of gets one no and then finds a way to come up with four or five other yeses.

So I think that's very much what he's still doing.

I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE.