Ira Glass

Her story was edited by Laura Starczewski.

Coming up, a judge issues some court orders, tells the government to release a bunch of people from detention.

The government doesn't do it.

The judge calls him in to ask why not.

What the lawyer says was not what he or anybody expected.

That's in a minute.

Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.

This is American Life from Ira Glass.

Okay, so we've named our program today after the song that Jiminy Cricket sings to Pinocchio, Give a Little Whistle.

You know that one?

When you get in trouble and you don't know right from wrong, give a little whistle.

We have two stories today where lawyers from inside the government give us rare and factual accounts of what is really happening inside ICE with fascinating details of a broken, chaotic kind of mess.

We have arrived at Act 2 of our program.

Act 2, don't trust the process.

So this next glimpse inside the world of ICE comes from a transcript of a court hearing that happened last month.

In it, this government attorney got increasingly kind of beaten down by the facts and by the end really opened up about what it's like to do her job right now.

You do not hear government lawyers talking in court the way she did in this hearing.

She's very candid, very unguarded, very personal.

The reason for the hearing in the first place was kind of notable.

Basically, there's been an explosion of what are called habeas petitions in immigration cases.