Caitlin Dickerson

would describe anybody who is out in the streets protesting or trying to protect immigrants without legal status in their communities.

You can't imagine language that's more broad.

And so I think that's one of the things that makes this technology so concerning.

The money is so staggering and unprecedented that we don't have an image in the past that we can look to to try to guess where all of this is going.

But as you pointed out, it's a military-sized budget, and it's leading to physical changes to the country, large detention centers that are already starting to spring up and that the administration wants to dramatically increase.

Boots on the ground in American cities, you know, armed officers who are questioning people, asking for proof of citizenship, accosting them, who are hostile to protesters and anybody willing to question their work.

Although I think it's important to acknowledge that it's not typical, the level of pushback that law enforcement is facing in the streets either.

I think, you know, they are facing an unprecedented level of challenge to their work and all of that is...

contributing to the conflicts that we're seeing and the chaos that we're seeing, I think it just looks like a very different country than we're used to.

I mean, we're starting to see what that image is.

We can see it on social media and on the videos that have gone viral.

So far, though, most of those incidents are relatively isolated.

Most of the country can look at those videos and say, wow, that looks really scary, but then walk outside their front door and go to work and mostly have the same experience that they were used to prior.

I think those videos are going to become the reality more and more in American communities because the money is there.

As you said, the mission is there.

The mandate is there.

The money is there.

One of the only checks that remains are the federal courts.

And we are seeing significant challenges in federal court to some of what the Trump administration is trying to do financially.

But the courts are sort of hanging on their own right now as a check.