Caitlin Dickerson

And so I think the Trump administration really wants to eliminate the possibility that limited bed space could hold them back.

So, you know, immigration detention is legally not actually meant to be punitive, which is a little bit ironic given what we know about the health and safety conditions in detention centers.

Lots of people are dying in detention more than in years past, which is a huge concern for people.

But there's also problems with access to legal representation with adequate food and sanitation and medical care.

So the Trump administration is very much seeing this dramatic expansion of the detention system as an important part of immigration enforcement.

That was a head-scratcher.

It was one of the only caps that existed in the entire bill.

Everything else seems to be about sort of limitless spending.

So there's been a lot of churn on the immigration court since Trump took office.

They've fired dozens of judges, mostly ones, it seems, who were granting too many requests for relief, requests to remain in the United States.

and replacing them with people who they think will be more harsh.

And you're seeing that reflected in the denial rates.

So overall, asylum denial rates were around 50% when Biden left office, and now they're up to 84%.

Immigration courts are a kind of choke point for deportations because you've got someone in custody, but if they have access to a legal remedy, then they're going to fight their case.

And sometimes those cases take years.

I think one thing that the cap on judges could reflect is that the Trump administration is trying to find ways that go around the immigration courts to remove people.

So they're trying to expand the use of something called expedited removal, which allows for people to be deported without going before a judge and trying to fight their case.

They want to be able to effectuate removals more quickly and just go around the courts entirely if they can.

So my reporting was actually done on Zoom because immigration court was being done virtually so that it could go more quickly.

It's something that started during the pandemic and that's continued into this administration as all messaging and goals and systems are being modified to effectuate deportations as quickly and efficiently as possible.