Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s12e04 Episode Script
ICE Detention
1
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".
I'm John Oliver, thank you
so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week!
The U.S. paused intelligence
sharing with Ukraine,
the Defense Department
continued Trump's purge
on anything "DEI"-related, tagging
thousands of images for deletion,
including this photo
of the Enola Gay,
the plane that dropped
the first atomic bomb on Japan,
apparently because its file
included the word "gay".
And in the world of science,
there was a possible breakthrough.
A lab mouse with a potentially
mammoth impact.
Scientists have created
the woolly mouse,
a genetically modified rodent that has
several woolly mammoth-like traits.
Yeah, Colossal Biosciences,
that's a private company in Dallas,
calls this a step forward
in an effort to bring back
animal traits lost to extinction.
Yes! New mouse just dropped!
And I for one love it!
These little guys are
what the "Jurassic Park" sequels
should have been about.
I'd have much rather have watched
"Jurassic Park: No Dinosaurs,"
"Just Two Hours
of Woolly Mice Hanging Out".
And look, if I wanted
to be a buzzkill,
I'd tell you some scientists question
the ethical and environmental impact
of trying to bring back
an extinct species,
and whether this is even an
advancement toward that goal.
But even one of those
doubters has admitted,
"I'm pretty skeptical about this,
but that mouse is pretty adorable."
And yeah, exactly.
It's a fucking good mouse!
And the way the world
is right now, let us have this!
Unfortunately, this week
wasn't all mouse innovation.
On Tuesday, Trump addressed
a joint session of Congress.
And before the speech even started,
House speaker Mike Johnson,
Keebler Elf middle management,
and a man who definitely
says grace before having sex, said
he'd like to frame it "in gilded gold".
And this isn't important,
but gilding is a technique
where you cover things that are not
gold in a thin layer of gold
to make them look like gold.
So, you wouldn't gild gold,
because gold is gold already.
Like JD Vance wearing a T-shirt
that says "unbearable bitch" on it.
It is simply redundant.
Some Democrats didn't turn up
for the speech.
AOC live-posted online instead, and
Maxine Waters explained her absence
saying, "You know that I was not
about to put up with that bullshit."
And in hindsight, no-showing
might've been the right move.
Because Democrats in the room
didn't seem to have
a coordinated plan to respond.
Some dressed up in matching outfits,
while others held up signs on paddles.
One member stood up to protest
during the speech,
an action 10 Democrats, incredibly,
then joined with Republicans
in censuring him for,
despite similar protests
during Biden's term
triggering no such repercussions.
That move was in keeping with
centrist Democrats' current insistence
on bending over backwards
to cater to conservatives,
something on display in Elissa Slotkin's
official rebuttal to Trump,
in which she criticized
his treatment of Zelensky like this.
Reagan must be rolling in his grave.
We all want an end
to the war in Ukraine,
but Reagan understood that
true strength required America
to combine our military and
economic might with moral clarity.
As a Cold War kid, I'm thankful
it was Reagan and not Trump
in office in the 1980s.
Trump would have lost us
the Cold War.
Yeah, she criticized Trump
by praising Reagan.
And I will admit there are positive
things you can say about Reagan,
like, "He was our only president to
make a movie with a chimp,"
or "He's dead",
but his "moral clarity"
might come as a surprise to any gay
people who lived through the 1980s.
If you brought Reagan back from
the dead and told him the racist shit
Trump's managed to do
in less than two months,
he'd cum so hard
he'd die again.
The most frustrating thing about
the Democrats' current floundering
is that Trump is
by no means invulnerable.
His approval rating
is "the lowest on record"
of any president
at this point in their term,
with the sole exception
of himself eight years ago.
Which is why it was so refreshing
to see some clear pushback
this week
from other places.
Justin Trudeau reacted to
Trump's latest volley of tariffs
by issuing a forceful response,
which, for Canada,
amounted to white-hot rage.
Canadians are hurt,
Canadians are angry.
We're gonna choose to not go
on vacation in Florida
or Old Orchard Beach
or wherever.
We're gonna choose to try
to buy Canadian products,
and forego bourbon and other
classic American products.
And yeah, we're probably gonna
keep booing the American anthem.
Okay, so,
there's a lot to unpack there,
starting with the fact that
it really seemed like Trudeau
just forgot anything America
makes other than bourbon.
Canadians will forego bourbon
and…
What's that beer that tastes like
a lime shit itself? Bud Light!
That's right.
We won't have any of that either.
I get booing the anthem. But please,
don't boycott Old Orchard Beach,
the Maine resort town home to the one
and only sponsor of this program:
Jungle Adventure blacklight mini golf.
I know we don't do advertisers,
but they're cool and said
we only have to run ads
for them once every 12 years.
Which actually reminds me…
Ready for a walk on the wild side?
Come to Jungle Adventure.
If you say there's a more fun safari
themed blacklight mini golf course
including pinball in the state
of Maine, buddy, you're "lion".
The point is, Trump's inconsistency
on tariffs caused absolute chaos,
to the point that even Jim Cramer
couldn't seem to believe
how poorly planned this all was.
There's just vast confusion.
No one knows.
The automakers don't know
what this is gonna mean.
Packaged goods companies
don't know what it's gonna mean
when it comes from another country.
There's no clarity whatsoever.
Anyone who thinks that there's
clarity is just completely wrong.
They haven't given us anything!
We don't know what we owe.
The lack of any thought about this,
David, is stunning!
He's right!
Holy shit, Jim Cramer is right.
This was a policy so stupid,
even Jim Cramer,
a man who is to finance
what Carrot Top is to finance,
couldn't find a way
to be wrong about it.
Ordinary citizens have been voicing
their anger at Trump, too.
Many have been calling
their representatives to yell at them,
to the point that Senator
Lisa Murkowski asked for patience,
as a flood of calls
overwhelmed phone systems,
claiming the Senate was receiving
"1,600 calls a minute,
up from an average of 40."
And just think about that,
1,600 people a minute
were going through the hassle
of physically calling their senators.
That means they were
picking up their phones,
Googling their senator's
contact information,
opening the phone app, realizing
their flashlight's accidentally on,
opening the flashlight app,
tapping the on/off button,
assuming the first tap
didn't register so tapping it again,
realizing the first tap did,
in fact, register,
so the second just turned
the flashlight back on again,
muttering "shit" to themselves,
getting distracted by a text
from their friend that says,
"OMG, did you see
they made new mice!?"
wasting 10 minutes reading
exciting mouse news,
discovering the headline,
"Mice Seen Giving 'First Aid'
to Unconscious Companions",
texting that article to their friend,
adding "mouse to mouse resuscitation!"
then asking themselves,
"Wait, what was I doing?"
Remembering they were
gonna call their senator,
Googling their contact info again
and then finally placing the call.
That is a lot to go through.
But it turns out,
1,600 people a minute
were angry enough to do it.
And that energy has been on display
in town halls over the last weeks,
because Republicans
have been having a rough time.
There's been a mandate
to the president from
the American people. Am I correct?
No!
The DOGE program…
Do your job!
I think across the board, he's
done some very good things.
This is one of the rudest audiences
I've ever had.
Wait, hold on!
"One of the rudest audiences
I've ever had"? Grow up!
Your job is to listen to people
complain and act on their concerns.
If you're not doing that,
people don't owe you politeness!
You know who gets to complain
about a rude audience?
Patti LuPone when
someone's texting, end of list.
So shut the fuck up!
He's not the only one who hasn't
handled angry constituents well.
Missouri representative
Mark Alford tried this tack.
I think you're living in the greatest
time in American history.
The crowd groaned or spoke
over most of Alford's answers.
Elon Musk came up a lot.
Whether you like it or not, Elon Musk
does have a security clearance.
Alford told federal employees who've
lost their jobs to keep faith.
There are jobs available.
God has a plan.
Okay. I think relying on God's plan
when Elon Musk is part of the equation
is a little hard to swallow.
Especially because, if Elon himself
was following God's plan,
he'd clearly be bald by now.
As for that claim that
we're going through
"greatest time in American history",
we are absolutely not doing that.
For the record,
the "greatest time in American history"
was when Ted Cruz
liked a porn tweet on 9/11.
Name a greater moment.
You can't do it. Case closed.
These events have caused
such a firestorm,
Republicans have been advised
to avoid in-person town halls.
And some have gone even further,
painting attendees as part
of a massive liberal conspiracy.
The videos you saw of the town
halls were for paid protesters
in many of those places.
These are Democrats
who went to the events early
and filled up the seats.
They had Democrats come and fill
the seats early, all right?
This is an old playbook that
they pulled out and ran,
and it made it look like that what is
happening in Washington is unpopular.
Good, so, we're basically
back to this shit again!
Look, "the only reason anyone
wouldn't like me"
"is if they were
being paid to hate me"
would admittedly be a pretty
iconic Housewives intro,
but it's an utterly
transparent political move.
Did you seriously get into this
line of work expecting zero haters?
Now, ideally, Democrats
would be able to harness outrage
over constituents' legitimate concerns
being dismissed like that.
But unfortunately, this was
the incredibly awkward response
from House minority leader
Hakeem Jeffries.
I'm told that Donald Trump,
Mike Johnson
and the extreme MAGA Republicans
are claiming that Democrats
are sending paid protesters
into their town hall meetings.
What's wrong with y'all?
We don't need paid protesters, bro!
The American people are with us!
What's wrong with you?
What's with those arm gestures?
Are you trying to dry off your hands
without using a paper towel?
Also, maybe don't say
"the American people are with us"
with literally not a human soul
around you,
except for your camera person,
who is, I'm just going
to guess here, drunk.
That kind of performative nonsense
just is not matching the moment
that we are in right now.
And while it can be dispiriting
to watch, it is worth remembering:
the last couple of weeks
have also demonstrated
there are effective ways to push back
against what is happening right now.
And while it's clearly not guaranteed
to be effective at curbing this
administration's worst impulses,
I still believe making those people
in power answerable and uncomfortable
is worthwhile.
So, scream at them, flood their phone
lines, make your voices heard.
And when you are done,
as a reward,
why not visit Jungle Adventure
blacklight mini golf
in Old Orchard Beach, Maine?
Mention John Oliver at the door
and get a weird look before
paying full price admission!
And now, this.
And Now: Did You Know Jim Cramer
Worked at Goldman Sachs?
I started at Goldman Sachs.
I'd been courted by Goldman
for three years before I got a job
in what was then
the security sales department.
I took a job at Goldman Sachs,
the firm everyone wanted to work at
and I made good money
right out of the chute.
I love gold,
it's a great inflation insurance,
something I learned
when I worked at Goldman Sachs.
Eddie Lampert did that when I worked
next to him at Goldman Sachs.
I know her father. He was my boss
at Goldman Sachs.
And I worked at Goldman Sachs.
I love to mention that because…
Those fees are why I always loved
Morgan Stanley's embrace
of wealth management,
although I did say no to Morgan
Stanley and went to Goldman.
A guy who screamed at me
and ridiculed me
in front of a floor of 80 people
at Goldman
and I, because
I'm a masochist, liked it.
Maybe it's 'cause I did work
at Goldman Sachs
that when I was there…
Jim, you were there.
- You were on a different floor.
- I was on a better floor.
I did everything but this.
I'm talking Goldman Sachs.
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns immigration.
The surprising subject of the White
House's actual Valentine's Day tweet,
which read, "Roses are red,
violets are blue,"
"come here illegally
and we'll deport you."
Though I guess that's exactly
the kind of romance you'd expect
from a house occupied
by this loving couple.
Since Trump took office,
he's made a big show
of having ICE conduct immigration
raids, often with news cameras
and even Dr. Phil,
tagging along,
to try and generate
positive coverage.
Though it hasn't always gone well.
For instance, they raided
apartment complexes in Colorado
that were supposedly
centers of gang activity, only
to return with very few arrests
and some humiliating footage.
As the team went door-to-door,
they found blood-stained walls
but no gang members.
The entire complex
was virtually empty.
At a second Tren de Aragua-linked
complex,
ICE was met by activists
who taunted them.
You dumb assholes!
What is wrong with you?
Get out of our community!
Excellent. We all need more
of that woman's energy.
I don't know what she has in that mug,
but I do know what she doesn't have:
any fucks left to give.
These raids are in fulfillment
of Trump's campaign promise
to implement "the largest deportation
operation in American history."
To do that, it seems every week, he
devises a new place to send migrants,
from Costa Rica,
to Panama, to even this.
The latest piece of the mass
deportation puzzle,
bringing as many
as 30,000 criminal migrants
to the navy base at Guantanamo Bay.
So, we're going to send them
out to Guantanamo.
This will double
our capacity immediately, right?
And tough.
It's a tough place to get out of.
I mean, yeah, it is. Although, calling
Gitmo a "tough place to get out of"
is a bit of an understatement.
A corn maze is
a "tough place to get out of".
A low-hanging hammock
is "tough to get out of".
Gitmo is a legal black hole where
the Constitution goes to die.
Last month, Trump actually flew
178 Venezuelan migrants there,
only to quickly reverse
course and fly them out,
after the administration
started facing lawsuits.
Most experts agree that, for both
legal and logistical reasons,
Gitmo is unlikely to house
30,000 migrants any time soon.
And what that means is, most of
the people who get arrested
will be funneled into our existing
immigration detention facilities.
I know we've talked
on this show a lot
about our immigration system's
problems before,
from the fact our immigration courts
are arbitrary and incredibly slow,
to the many holes in our
asylum process, to the truth that,
for many, there is no way
to "come in the right way",
to the failures of Joe Biden's
immigration policies
and the cruelty of Trump's.
But tonight, we're going to focus
very narrowly on detention centers.
They don't tend
to get talked about much,
despite the fact
a lot of people go through them.
ICE currently has the budget
to hold just over 41,000 people
on any given day, and last year,
more than 260,000 people
cycled through ICE detention
in total.
Trump is already talking about sending
even more people into that system,
which, in some quarters,
is cause for celebration.
After the election, stock prices
for private prison companies
like GEO Group and CoreCivic soared,
with their CEOs bragging to investors
about how much money
they were going to make.
The GEO Group was built
for this unique moment
in our country's history, and
the opportunities that it will bring.
I have worked
at CoreCivic for 32 years,
and this is truly one of the most
exciting periods in my career.
Look, as a general rule,
if something happens that causes
a private prison company to get
really excited, that thing was bad.
If you ever come home
and your spouse tells you,
"Honey! I did something today and
the GEO Group is excited about it!"
you are in for a relationship-altering
conversation.
And the thing is,
immigration detention facilities are,
by law, not supposed
to be a punishment.
ICE's own website even states
that "detention is non-punitive".
Though, as you're about to see,
that's like claiming
that the ocean is not wet,
or that the "Wicked" movie
wasn't 30 minutes too long.
It is a bold assertion, sharply
undercut by empirical evidence.
So, given all of that, tonight, let's
talk about ICE detention facilities
and try and answer
a few basic questions.
Who's in them? Who runs them?
What's it actually like inside them?
And let's start
with who's getting sent there.
Trump and those around him
often try and sell
their immigration roundups
as being about
cracking down on crime.
Here's his press secretary answering
a question
about exactly who was arrested
in the first round of ICE raids.
Of the 3,500 arrests ICE has made
since President Trump
came back into office,
can you just tell us the numbers?
How many have a criminal record
versus those who are just
in the country illegally?
All of them, because they illegally
broke our nation's laws,
and, therefore, they are criminals,
as far as this administration goes.
I know the last administration
didn't see it that way,
so it's a big culture shift
in our nation
to view someone who breaks
our immigration laws as a criminal.
But that's exactly what they are.
Hold on, because
that is not actually true.
Entering the U.S. without authorization
can be a criminal offense,
many who are undocumented entered
legally and overstayed their visas
and simply being undocumented is
a civil violation, not a criminal one.
That is an important distinction that
her boss should frankly understand,
given that he has committed both.
To be clear, more than 50% of those in
ICE detention have no criminal records
and "many more have only minor
offenses, including traffic violations."
What's more, a lot of them are
already in the asylum process.
As of last year, almost half of those
in ICE custody were seeking asylum.
And that is actually true
of some of those who got scooped up
in Colorado last month.
One man got detained
even though he'd done everything
he was supposed to do.
He'd committed no crimes and had
an asylum hearing court date.
Despite that, listen to his brother
describe what happened.
On Wednesday, Luis' brother
Jhonthan was driving him to work.
- No ID, though?
- ID.
They didn't get past the parking lot
at the Cedar Run apartment complex
where ICE detained at least five
people as part of a raid Wednesday.
They asked us for documents from here.
We showed them the asylum processes,
the form
the court stamped for us.
Luis says officers wouldn't
accept his brother's paperwork,
even though he showed his asylum
documents as he waits on a work permit.
He has so many questions
about how his brother was detained
without a criminal record.
If he doesn't have a deportation order,
how can they take him?
Yeah, that's a good question!
It's actually one of many things
I find hard to understand
about watching that,
including why those agents were
wearing camouflage while doing it.
You're in a parking lot,
not dense foliage.
If you actually wanted to blend in,
you should've dressed up
like a Claire's Accessories
in a strip mall.
Holding someone in detention
is only meant to be done
in limited circumstances,
like if they're a flight risk,
or to make sure they show up
for an immigration hearing.
But the vast majority
do show up for those hearings,
because they want
their case heard.
And for those with asylum claims,
like that guy's brother,
a recent study found,
of those who weren't detained,
95% attended all of their
immigration court hearings.
Now, there are some immigrants
who are subject to what's called
"mandatory detention",
like if they've been accused
of breaking the law.
That used to be confined
to serious offenses
like murder or gun trafficking,
but that all changed when Bill Clinton
expanded it to also cover minor crimes,
from low-level drug convictions
to writing a bad check.
And those convictions
don't even have to be recent.
Take this man,
who was brought from Jamaica,
to the U.S., by his family
when he was a teenager.
He served in the military,
but after completing his service,
pled guilty to marijuana possession
in 1997.
He moved on, started a business
and a family, but then, in 2010,
this suddenly happened.
About 5:30 in the morning,
I heard a big knock on the door…
And I open the door.
And then they were like,
"Did you apply for citizenship
like six months ago?"
I'm like, "Yeah." And they was like,
"Turn around, that's why we're here."
I didn't think that that in 2010,
that the marijuana conviction
that happened 14 years ago would
have came back and haunt me.
That is ridiculous.
Clearly, no one should be punished
for a minor mistake
they made 14 years earlier.
Otherwise I'd have hell to pay
for playing Vanity Smurf
in the 2011 "Smurfs" movie.
I was already punished when I saw it
and again when I had to pose
for this press photo.
I think I've suffered enough.
The point is,
that Clinton-era expansion
supercharged the detainee population,
which passed 20,000 in 2001,
only to expand through Bush,
Obama, Trump, and Biden,
to the point where we now have
"the world's largest immigration
detention system".
Which should be
a massive embarrassment.
America has the world's largest
of a lot of things,
and they're mostly either awesome
or, at worst, fantastically weird.
We have the world's largest
paint can,
the world's largest office chair,
and my personal favorite,
the world's largest basket.
It is seven stories tall,
not including the handles.
And fun fact: it doubled as
the headquarters for Longaberger,
a basket-manufacturing company
in Ohio, and was the brainchild
of the company's founder,
who wrote in his memoir,
"I figured if Walt Disney could build
an empire around a mouse,"
"the Longaberger home office
building could resemble a basket."
Adding, "Whenever I talked about it,
people looked at me like I was nuts."
Sadly, the company
"vacated the basket in 2016"
and it's been abandoned ever since.
Though you can find videos online
of admirers who've made pilgrimages
to see it since then, like this one.
I don't think the pictures
are doing it justice.
This looks way, way bigger in person
than when I was seeing it in photos,
for a very long time.
And here I am, in the shadow
of a seven-story basket.
More companies need to do this.
Build their offices and headquarters
in oversized buildings
shaped like their products.
I could not agree more with that.
I say the same thing for years.
There is nothing I want more
than for General Mills
to be housed inside
of a giant Cheerio
or for L'Oréal to be housed
inside of a giant lipstick,
or McDonalds to be housed inside
of a giant ice cream machine
that's always out of service.
All that said,
I'd argue being home to the empty,
decaying carcass of the world's
largest basket office is still
less embarrassing than being home
to the world's largest
immigration detention system.
See?
I brought it back home in the end.
I bet you forget what I was even
talking about,
but I knew
where I was going with this.
I always know, sometimes.
And while the average length of stay
for a person in ICE custody
is just over 44 days,
that is just an average.
There are more than 2,800 people
who have been detained
from six months to a year,
and nearly 700 who've been
detained for longer than that.
And that is the thing.
If you are sent into detention,
you don't know
how long you'll be there.
There is no set timetable
for your release.
And even some
of those in charge of these centers
can almost acknowledge
the problems with that.
It's not like a jail inmate that's
in here sentenced to a certain time,
they know the day they get out.
They have no idea when
they're going to leave.
And I know, I mean,
if I was in their place,
it would be very difficult
to not know when I'm leaving.
People see it sometimes as
a punishment. We don't punish.
I know it's viewed that way,
but we aren't going to hold somebody
to punish them.
Okay, but the thing is, being locked up
and not knowing when you get to leave
is basically the definition
of a punishment.
Just ask this studio audience
right now.
Not only are they stuck here,
they have no idea
when this is going to be over.
They're just trapped in this room,
getting sadder by the minute,
wishing this was
a taping of "Drew".
Sorry guys!
She's in the studio next door!
There's a cooking demonstration
today! They're giving out blenders!
That is who is in these facilities.
But where, exactly, are they?
Sometimes, ICE detains people
in local jails,
which is already a little weird,
given that, again,
ICE detention
is supposed to be non-punitive.
But the vast majority,
over 90%, in fact,
are held in facilities owned or operated
by private prison companies.
That is why those CEOs were
so excited on their earnings calls.
These companies
make a ton of money
out of detaining immigrants.
America's very first private prison
was built for immigrant detention.
American business is becoming
bullish on prisons!
Firms like the Corrections
Corporation of America
in Nashville, Tennessee,
believe there will be no business
like jail business in the 1980s.
This construction site
in Houston, Texas, will soon become
the first completely free enterprise
prison in the United States
designed, built, owned, and
operated by a business corporation.
It is being built
for the U.S. Justice Department
to detain up to 300 aliens charged
with entering this country illegally
and awaiting deportation hearings.
The market is enormous.
There are over a half a million people
in this country
incarcerated at the present time.
So, there is a lot there. The sheer
unblinking creepiness of that man alone
is a little distracting, as is the weirdly
upbeat tone of the rest of the segment.
"No business like jail business"
isn't something you should be
saying in a news report.
It sounds like a musical
where Bernadette Peters shanks
someone in their sleep.
And the fact is, business has been
good for private prisons ever since.
CoreCivic and GEO Group derive,
respectively,
27 and 30% of their revenues from
contracts for ICE detention alone.
And you can see why this is such
an appealing model for ICE.
They get to outsource the headaches
and responsibilities of these facilities
and sometimes ICE even adds
another layer of remove,
by contracting
with local governments,
who then in turn
contract with private companies.
That is attractive because
those particular arrangements
are subjected to
"significantly less scrutiny"
"than is required
for ordinary federal contracts."
This system seems to work great
for the companies and for ICE.
But it works much less well for
anyone who needs to go through it.
So, let's talk about
what these facilities are like.
And let's start with the fact
they're often located
in incredibly remote areas.
That is actually a big deal,
because it means detainees can be cut
off from legal representation.
"Some facilities have
only one immigration attorney"
"within a 100-mile radius
for every 200 people detained."
And because phone calls are often
denied, or difficult to schedule,
lawyers like this one
can spend a ridiculous amount of time
just trying to get to their clients.
I leave my house in the mornings,
get on the road,
and typically just try to power all
the way through to the detention center.
We typically go only to Pine Prairie
and so that's about a three,
three-and-a-half-hour drive.
Today, we're making the trip up
to Jackson for some special cases.
That's a four-and-a-half-hour,
five hour depending on traffic, drive.
Yeah, that is a big problem.
Especially given,
among detained immigrants,
those with representation were twice
as likely to obtain immigration relief
as those without.
So lawyers are very important.
I know I make fun of them
sometimes
because "lawyer"
used to be this guy's job.
But without them,
we would be fucked!
There'd be no "Good Wife".
No "Michael Clayton".
There'd definitely be no this show.
We'd have been shut down
years ago
after being sued into oblivion for
sexual harassment by Adam Driver.
And that is before you get to
the conditions inside these facilities,
which can be hard to see,
as access is so heavily controlled.
The glimpses you tend to get are
either from heavily managed tours
given to local news crews, or videos
produced by the facilities themselves,
like this one,
about a New Mexico facility
owned by a company called MTC.
The Otero facility hosts various
sporting tournaments
and other activities
to keep the men engaged.
Just like the Imperial facility,
detainees have access
to medical and dental care.
Staff are trained to treat detainees
with great respect and dignity.
We call it a BIONIC,
"believe it or not I care" approach.
Okay, if your starting point to
saying "I care" is "believe it or not",
you've already got off
on the wrong foot.
If I told you,
"Believe it or not,"
"I don't draw erotic fan fiction
of the Honey Nut Cheerios bee",
the fact I said "believe it or not"
suggests you already assumed that I do.
It's an assumption that is already
damning on its own. Because I don't.
He's not really my type,
cartoon-bumblebee-wise.
This, for instance, does nothing
for me. Nor does this.
Not even this one.
And for what it's worth,
I definitely didn't draw
any of these myself…
Believe it or not.
And while they paint
a lovely picture there,
the fact is, conditions
in ICE detention can be brutal.
Detainees are often expected
to do a lot of the cooking
and cleaning themselves.
And while ICE does require
the jobs to be paid,
the amount is pitifully small.
In many places, it's "1 dollar a day".
And detainees who refuse to work
can be threatened
with the withholding of food,
or "disciplinary segregation",
also known as solitary confinement.
GEO Group was once sued over
this at one of its facilities,
and in court, made a bold argument
that the judge wanted no part of.
GEO says even if it comes down
to choosing between punishment
or work, that's still a choice.
Listen to this exchange between
GEO's lawyer and a judge
who questions
the company's rationale.
Disciplinary segregation can be used
as a sanction for the refusal to work.
They make a decision each time,
whether they're going to consent
to work or not.
Or eat. Or be put in isolation.
Right?
I mean, slaves had a choice.
Right?
That is not great.
When a judge is likening
your client's practices to slavery,
that's generally a pretty bad
sign for your case.
There really shouldn't even
be a verdict at that point,
a trap door should just open up
beneath you
while they call the next case in.
That's not the only time detainees
have been subjected to solitary.
One study found,
over a five-year period,
ICE facilities
placed people in solitary
"14,000 times, with an average
duration of 27 days",
well exceeding the 15-day threshold
human rights experts
have found constitutes torture.
That is not all. ICE itself reported
that between 2017 and last year,
at least 70 detained migrants
died while in its custody.
And the details in some
of these cases are horrifying.
Take Kamyar Samimi.
He immigrated from Iran in the '70s
and became a lawful
permanent resident.
In 2005, he pled guilty to possessing
less than a gram of cocaine
and was sentenced
to community service.
But 12 years later,
ICE suddenly decided
his drug conviction
rendered him deportable.
That's already bad enough.
While he was held in detention,
the staff cut him from the methadone
he took to manage his drug addiction,
completely cold turkey.
He started vomiting blood clots.
But the staff delayed several
more hours before calling 911
and Samimi died just two weeks
after entering the facility.
And this is how
his daughter found out.
I got a text from my coworker
letting me know
that an immigration officer had
stopped by my place of work
and had left a business card
and wanted to speak with me.
And he answered the phone
and told me that my father
had suffered cardiac arrest.
That he was taken to a hospital
and then he was pronounced dead.
My dad died on Saturday
and I got the call on Monday.
I think it's very strange
that ICE observes business hours
to tell people
that their loved ones are dead.
Yeah, "strange" is definitely
one way to describe it.
"A fucking disgrace"
would be another.
And incredibly,
that story is not even a one-off.
One study found "95% of deaths
in ICE custody were preventable,"
"or possibly preventable,"
"if ICE had provided clinically
appropriate medical care."
One of the cases it cites
is a man from Angola,
who began to demonstrate
symptoms of mental illness.
He refused to eat meals, losing
30 pounds in about 30 days.
At one point,
he agreed to drink Ensure,
but the staff never provided any,
the ICE coordinator responsible
"was trying to find it at
a reasonable or discounted price."
That facility, by the way,
was the same one in that upbeat video
about how
"believe it or not, they care."
I guess they mean that phrase
in the exact same way
"Ripley's Believe It or Not" means it.
"Look, we're completely full of shit.
How you feel about it is up to you."
And if, after all this, you're thinking,
"Well, it sure seems like we're doing"
"an incredible amount
of damage unnecessarily",
you are absolutely right!
And don't just take that from me.
Here's a former director of ICE
basically saying the same thing.
We detain lots of people who are not
dangerous and aren't a flight risk.
And it makes no sense to me.
We should ask ourselves,
why are we in this business?
What do we get out of this?
And it's just the politics of it.
The politics, the public likes to
hear "detention". Sounds tough.
I mean, that is true. The public
does love things that sound tough.
It's probably why Mark Sinclair
made his stage name "Vin Diesel"
and not
"Reginald Chugglewums III".
But when he asked there,
"Why are we in this business?"
the very fact this is a business
is part of the answer.
And that is a fact not lost on some
of those inside these facilities.
By keeping us here
for seven or eight months,
they are making money on us.
Because we are a business for them.
Immigration in this country
is a business.
Immigration is a business like any
other for-profit endeavor in America,
whether it's
Toxic Rage Circle Jerk, Inc.,
the Small Business Elimination
Omnicompany, or Pottery Barn.
I actually don't have
anything bad to say about Pottery Barn.
They made high-quality
home goods at affordable prices.
Keep doing what you're doing,
Pottery Barn!
Everything I've shown you
so far has been from before
Trump took office
for a second time.
What comes next will
almost certainly be worse.
Congress recently expanded
mandatory detention even further,
to cover undocumented people
charged with any theft-related offense.
Trump's also started placing migrants
in federal prisons,
and is reopening facilities
that had been forced to shutter
amid allegations of unsafe or crowded
conditions. So, what do we do?
At the federal level, honestly,
for the next few years, we're fucked.
But some states have found
ways to mitigate the harm.
Illinois, for instance,
"barred private companies"
"from contracting with local
communities to detain immigrants."
It also prohibited cities and counties
from contracting with ICE
to house or detain immigrants
at local jails. Which is great.
I would argue all states should be
doing that, and to its credit,
New Mexico is considering
a similar proposal right now.
Trump's government is clearly
going to do everything in its power
to act as callously as possible
for the next four years.
I know no one wants to hear
another heartfelt soliloquy
about how this administration's
immigration policies fly in the face
of America's founding ideals.
We are well past that.
But moving forward,
we're gonna have to find ways
to push back hard
at the state and local level,
against those determined
to score political points
at the expense of an incredibly
vulnerable population.
And to anyone who continues
to support that agenda,
there is really only one thing to say.
You dumb assholes!
What is wrong with you!?
Yeah. Exactly.
And now, this.
And Now: Stone Cold Steve Austin
Loves His Solid Ass Cats.
What's up? It's Steve, coming to you
from the Broken Skull Ranch,
fixing to open the horse barn.
Just let the chickens out already, and
I'll let Pancho and Macho out.
There he is, good ol' Panchy,
good morning, buddy!
Man, that's a solid-ass cat
right there, buddy.
Macho, where you at,
you little motherfucker?
There he goes!
That goddamn cat right there,
I tell you, he's a motherfucker.
Imagine a cat so tough,
you can only pet him with
genuine leather gloves on.
That's some good-ass cats.
Fucking Macho turned to
a solid-ass cat, didn't he?
God damn, it's been a while since
you solid-ass cats been on Instagram.
Here they are, live and
in living color. Panchy!
And Pancho come over here and
jumped on the back of my tailgate.
That's a solid-ass cat right there.
Everybody's been asking about him.
Well, here he is, Pancho.
Solid-ass cat.
Look at this solid-ass cat right there.
I tell you what, man,
that's a solid-ass cat. He is in shape.
Dang, look at that cat go.
That's a solid-ass cat.
Pancho!
God damn it.
Pancho, don't leave me!
That motherfucker's the best!
That's our show, thanks for watching.
We'll see you next week, good night!
Short shorts, apple bottom,
give me peaches 'cause I want 'em.
Cake, cake, whip it up,
fresh bellini in my cup.
Money maker, I'm in love,
put 'em on and roll the cuff.
Bad boys, size you up,
bust it down and zip it up.
I like short shorts.
Ooh, yes, that's what I adore.
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight".
I'm John Oliver, thank you
so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week!
The U.S. paused intelligence
sharing with Ukraine,
the Defense Department
continued Trump's purge
on anything "DEI"-related, tagging
thousands of images for deletion,
including this photo
of the Enola Gay,
the plane that dropped
the first atomic bomb on Japan,
apparently because its file
included the word "gay".
And in the world of science,
there was a possible breakthrough.
A lab mouse with a potentially
mammoth impact.
Scientists have created
the woolly mouse,
a genetically modified rodent that has
several woolly mammoth-like traits.
Yeah, Colossal Biosciences,
that's a private company in Dallas,
calls this a step forward
in an effort to bring back
animal traits lost to extinction.
Yes! New mouse just dropped!
And I for one love it!
These little guys are
what the "Jurassic Park" sequels
should have been about.
I'd have much rather have watched
"Jurassic Park: No Dinosaurs,"
"Just Two Hours
of Woolly Mice Hanging Out".
And look, if I wanted
to be a buzzkill,
I'd tell you some scientists question
the ethical and environmental impact
of trying to bring back
an extinct species,
and whether this is even an
advancement toward that goal.
But even one of those
doubters has admitted,
"I'm pretty skeptical about this,
but that mouse is pretty adorable."
And yeah, exactly.
It's a fucking good mouse!
And the way the world
is right now, let us have this!
Unfortunately, this week
wasn't all mouse innovation.
On Tuesday, Trump addressed
a joint session of Congress.
And before the speech even started,
House speaker Mike Johnson,
Keebler Elf middle management,
and a man who definitely
says grace before having sex, said
he'd like to frame it "in gilded gold".
And this isn't important,
but gilding is a technique
where you cover things that are not
gold in a thin layer of gold
to make them look like gold.
So, you wouldn't gild gold,
because gold is gold already.
Like JD Vance wearing a T-shirt
that says "unbearable bitch" on it.
It is simply redundant.
Some Democrats didn't turn up
for the speech.
AOC live-posted online instead, and
Maxine Waters explained her absence
saying, "You know that I was not
about to put up with that bullshit."
And in hindsight, no-showing
might've been the right move.
Because Democrats in the room
didn't seem to have
a coordinated plan to respond.
Some dressed up in matching outfits,
while others held up signs on paddles.
One member stood up to protest
during the speech,
an action 10 Democrats, incredibly,
then joined with Republicans
in censuring him for,
despite similar protests
during Biden's term
triggering no such repercussions.
That move was in keeping with
centrist Democrats' current insistence
on bending over backwards
to cater to conservatives,
something on display in Elissa Slotkin's
official rebuttal to Trump,
in which she criticized
his treatment of Zelensky like this.
Reagan must be rolling in his grave.
We all want an end
to the war in Ukraine,
but Reagan understood that
true strength required America
to combine our military and
economic might with moral clarity.
As a Cold War kid, I'm thankful
it was Reagan and not Trump
in office in the 1980s.
Trump would have lost us
the Cold War.
Yeah, she criticized Trump
by praising Reagan.
And I will admit there are positive
things you can say about Reagan,
like, "He was our only president to
make a movie with a chimp,"
or "He's dead",
but his "moral clarity"
might come as a surprise to any gay
people who lived through the 1980s.
If you brought Reagan back from
the dead and told him the racist shit
Trump's managed to do
in less than two months,
he'd cum so hard
he'd die again.
The most frustrating thing about
the Democrats' current floundering
is that Trump is
by no means invulnerable.
His approval rating
is "the lowest on record"
of any president
at this point in their term,
with the sole exception
of himself eight years ago.
Which is why it was so refreshing
to see some clear pushback
this week
from other places.
Justin Trudeau reacted to
Trump's latest volley of tariffs
by issuing a forceful response,
which, for Canada,
amounted to white-hot rage.
Canadians are hurt,
Canadians are angry.
We're gonna choose to not go
on vacation in Florida
or Old Orchard Beach
or wherever.
We're gonna choose to try
to buy Canadian products,
and forego bourbon and other
classic American products.
And yeah, we're probably gonna
keep booing the American anthem.
Okay, so,
there's a lot to unpack there,
starting with the fact that
it really seemed like Trudeau
just forgot anything America
makes other than bourbon.
Canadians will forego bourbon
and…
What's that beer that tastes like
a lime shit itself? Bud Light!
That's right.
We won't have any of that either.
I get booing the anthem. But please,
don't boycott Old Orchard Beach,
the Maine resort town home to the one
and only sponsor of this program:
Jungle Adventure blacklight mini golf.
I know we don't do advertisers,
but they're cool and said
we only have to run ads
for them once every 12 years.
Which actually reminds me…
Ready for a walk on the wild side?
Come to Jungle Adventure.
If you say there's a more fun safari
themed blacklight mini golf course
including pinball in the state
of Maine, buddy, you're "lion".
The point is, Trump's inconsistency
on tariffs caused absolute chaos,
to the point that even Jim Cramer
couldn't seem to believe
how poorly planned this all was.
There's just vast confusion.
No one knows.
The automakers don't know
what this is gonna mean.
Packaged goods companies
don't know what it's gonna mean
when it comes from another country.
There's no clarity whatsoever.
Anyone who thinks that there's
clarity is just completely wrong.
They haven't given us anything!
We don't know what we owe.
The lack of any thought about this,
David, is stunning!
He's right!
Holy shit, Jim Cramer is right.
This was a policy so stupid,
even Jim Cramer,
a man who is to finance
what Carrot Top is to finance,
couldn't find a way
to be wrong about it.
Ordinary citizens have been voicing
their anger at Trump, too.
Many have been calling
their representatives to yell at them,
to the point that Senator
Lisa Murkowski asked for patience,
as a flood of calls
overwhelmed phone systems,
claiming the Senate was receiving
"1,600 calls a minute,
up from an average of 40."
And just think about that,
1,600 people a minute
were going through the hassle
of physically calling their senators.
That means they were
picking up their phones,
Googling their senator's
contact information,
opening the phone app, realizing
their flashlight's accidentally on,
opening the flashlight app,
tapping the on/off button,
assuming the first tap
didn't register so tapping it again,
realizing the first tap did,
in fact, register,
so the second just turned
the flashlight back on again,
muttering "shit" to themselves,
getting distracted by a text
from their friend that says,
"OMG, did you see
they made new mice!?"
wasting 10 minutes reading
exciting mouse news,
discovering the headline,
"Mice Seen Giving 'First Aid'
to Unconscious Companions",
texting that article to their friend,
adding "mouse to mouse resuscitation!"
then asking themselves,
"Wait, what was I doing?"
Remembering they were
gonna call their senator,
Googling their contact info again
and then finally placing the call.
That is a lot to go through.
But it turns out,
1,600 people a minute
were angry enough to do it.
And that energy has been on display
in town halls over the last weeks,
because Republicans
have been having a rough time.
There's been a mandate
to the president from
the American people. Am I correct?
No!
The DOGE program…
Do your job!
I think across the board, he's
done some very good things.
This is one of the rudest audiences
I've ever had.
Wait, hold on!
"One of the rudest audiences
I've ever had"? Grow up!
Your job is to listen to people
complain and act on their concerns.
If you're not doing that,
people don't owe you politeness!
You know who gets to complain
about a rude audience?
Patti LuPone when
someone's texting, end of list.
So shut the fuck up!
He's not the only one who hasn't
handled angry constituents well.
Missouri representative
Mark Alford tried this tack.
I think you're living in the greatest
time in American history.
The crowd groaned or spoke
over most of Alford's answers.
Elon Musk came up a lot.
Whether you like it or not, Elon Musk
does have a security clearance.
Alford told federal employees who've
lost their jobs to keep faith.
There are jobs available.
God has a plan.
Okay. I think relying on God's plan
when Elon Musk is part of the equation
is a little hard to swallow.
Especially because, if Elon himself
was following God's plan,
he'd clearly be bald by now.
As for that claim that
we're going through
"greatest time in American history",
we are absolutely not doing that.
For the record,
the "greatest time in American history"
was when Ted Cruz
liked a porn tweet on 9/11.
Name a greater moment.
You can't do it. Case closed.
These events have caused
such a firestorm,
Republicans have been advised
to avoid in-person town halls.
And some have gone even further,
painting attendees as part
of a massive liberal conspiracy.
The videos you saw of the town
halls were for paid protesters
in many of those places.
These are Democrats
who went to the events early
and filled up the seats.
They had Democrats come and fill
the seats early, all right?
This is an old playbook that
they pulled out and ran,
and it made it look like that what is
happening in Washington is unpopular.
Good, so, we're basically
back to this shit again!
Look, "the only reason anyone
wouldn't like me"
"is if they were
being paid to hate me"
would admittedly be a pretty
iconic Housewives intro,
but it's an utterly
transparent political move.
Did you seriously get into this
line of work expecting zero haters?
Now, ideally, Democrats
would be able to harness outrage
over constituents' legitimate concerns
being dismissed like that.
But unfortunately, this was
the incredibly awkward response
from House minority leader
Hakeem Jeffries.
I'm told that Donald Trump,
Mike Johnson
and the extreme MAGA Republicans
are claiming that Democrats
are sending paid protesters
into their town hall meetings.
What's wrong with y'all?
We don't need paid protesters, bro!
The American people are with us!
What's wrong with you?
What's with those arm gestures?
Are you trying to dry off your hands
without using a paper towel?
Also, maybe don't say
"the American people are with us"
with literally not a human soul
around you,
except for your camera person,
who is, I'm just going
to guess here, drunk.
That kind of performative nonsense
just is not matching the moment
that we are in right now.
And while it can be dispiriting
to watch, it is worth remembering:
the last couple of weeks
have also demonstrated
there are effective ways to push back
against what is happening right now.
And while it's clearly not guaranteed
to be effective at curbing this
administration's worst impulses,
I still believe making those people
in power answerable and uncomfortable
is worthwhile.
So, scream at them, flood their phone
lines, make your voices heard.
And when you are done,
as a reward,
why not visit Jungle Adventure
blacklight mini golf
in Old Orchard Beach, Maine?
Mention John Oliver at the door
and get a weird look before
paying full price admission!
And now, this.
And Now: Did You Know Jim Cramer
Worked at Goldman Sachs?
I started at Goldman Sachs.
I'd been courted by Goldman
for three years before I got a job
in what was then
the security sales department.
I took a job at Goldman Sachs,
the firm everyone wanted to work at
and I made good money
right out of the chute.
I love gold,
it's a great inflation insurance,
something I learned
when I worked at Goldman Sachs.
Eddie Lampert did that when I worked
next to him at Goldman Sachs.
I know her father. He was my boss
at Goldman Sachs.
And I worked at Goldman Sachs.
I love to mention that because…
Those fees are why I always loved
Morgan Stanley's embrace
of wealth management,
although I did say no to Morgan
Stanley and went to Goldman.
A guy who screamed at me
and ridiculed me
in front of a floor of 80 people
at Goldman
and I, because
I'm a masochist, liked it.
Maybe it's 'cause I did work
at Goldman Sachs
that when I was there…
Jim, you were there.
- You were on a different floor.
- I was on a better floor.
I did everything but this.
I'm talking Goldman Sachs.
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns immigration.
The surprising subject of the White
House's actual Valentine's Day tweet,
which read, "Roses are red,
violets are blue,"
"come here illegally
and we'll deport you."
Though I guess that's exactly
the kind of romance you'd expect
from a house occupied
by this loving couple.
Since Trump took office,
he's made a big show
of having ICE conduct immigration
raids, often with news cameras
and even Dr. Phil,
tagging along,
to try and generate
positive coverage.
Though it hasn't always gone well.
For instance, they raided
apartment complexes in Colorado
that were supposedly
centers of gang activity, only
to return with very few arrests
and some humiliating footage.
As the team went door-to-door,
they found blood-stained walls
but no gang members.
The entire complex
was virtually empty.
At a second Tren de Aragua-linked
complex,
ICE was met by activists
who taunted them.
You dumb assholes!
What is wrong with you?
Get out of our community!
Excellent. We all need more
of that woman's energy.
I don't know what she has in that mug,
but I do know what she doesn't have:
any fucks left to give.
These raids are in fulfillment
of Trump's campaign promise
to implement "the largest deportation
operation in American history."
To do that, it seems every week, he
devises a new place to send migrants,
from Costa Rica,
to Panama, to even this.
The latest piece of the mass
deportation puzzle,
bringing as many
as 30,000 criminal migrants
to the navy base at Guantanamo Bay.
So, we're going to send them
out to Guantanamo.
This will double
our capacity immediately, right?
And tough.
It's a tough place to get out of.
I mean, yeah, it is. Although, calling
Gitmo a "tough place to get out of"
is a bit of an understatement.
A corn maze is
a "tough place to get out of".
A low-hanging hammock
is "tough to get out of".
Gitmo is a legal black hole where
the Constitution goes to die.
Last month, Trump actually flew
178 Venezuelan migrants there,
only to quickly reverse
course and fly them out,
after the administration
started facing lawsuits.
Most experts agree that, for both
legal and logistical reasons,
Gitmo is unlikely to house
30,000 migrants any time soon.
And what that means is, most of
the people who get arrested
will be funneled into our existing
immigration detention facilities.
I know we've talked
on this show a lot
about our immigration system's
problems before,
from the fact our immigration courts
are arbitrary and incredibly slow,
to the many holes in our
asylum process, to the truth that,
for many, there is no way
to "come in the right way",
to the failures of Joe Biden's
immigration policies
and the cruelty of Trump's.
But tonight, we're going to focus
very narrowly on detention centers.
They don't tend
to get talked about much,
despite the fact
a lot of people go through them.
ICE currently has the budget
to hold just over 41,000 people
on any given day, and last year,
more than 260,000 people
cycled through ICE detention
in total.
Trump is already talking about sending
even more people into that system,
which, in some quarters,
is cause for celebration.
After the election, stock prices
for private prison companies
like GEO Group and CoreCivic soared,
with their CEOs bragging to investors
about how much money
they were going to make.
The GEO Group was built
for this unique moment
in our country's history, and
the opportunities that it will bring.
I have worked
at CoreCivic for 32 years,
and this is truly one of the most
exciting periods in my career.
Look, as a general rule,
if something happens that causes
a private prison company to get
really excited, that thing was bad.
If you ever come home
and your spouse tells you,
"Honey! I did something today and
the GEO Group is excited about it!"
you are in for a relationship-altering
conversation.
And the thing is,
immigration detention facilities are,
by law, not supposed
to be a punishment.
ICE's own website even states
that "detention is non-punitive".
Though, as you're about to see,
that's like claiming
that the ocean is not wet,
or that the "Wicked" movie
wasn't 30 minutes too long.
It is a bold assertion, sharply
undercut by empirical evidence.
So, given all of that, tonight, let's
talk about ICE detention facilities
and try and answer
a few basic questions.
Who's in them? Who runs them?
What's it actually like inside them?
And let's start
with who's getting sent there.
Trump and those around him
often try and sell
their immigration roundups
as being about
cracking down on crime.
Here's his press secretary answering
a question
about exactly who was arrested
in the first round of ICE raids.
Of the 3,500 arrests ICE has made
since President Trump
came back into office,
can you just tell us the numbers?
How many have a criminal record
versus those who are just
in the country illegally?
All of them, because they illegally
broke our nation's laws,
and, therefore, they are criminals,
as far as this administration goes.
I know the last administration
didn't see it that way,
so it's a big culture shift
in our nation
to view someone who breaks
our immigration laws as a criminal.
But that's exactly what they are.
Hold on, because
that is not actually true.
Entering the U.S. without authorization
can be a criminal offense,
many who are undocumented entered
legally and overstayed their visas
and simply being undocumented is
a civil violation, not a criminal one.
That is an important distinction that
her boss should frankly understand,
given that he has committed both.
To be clear, more than 50% of those in
ICE detention have no criminal records
and "many more have only minor
offenses, including traffic violations."
What's more, a lot of them are
already in the asylum process.
As of last year, almost half of those
in ICE custody were seeking asylum.
And that is actually true
of some of those who got scooped up
in Colorado last month.
One man got detained
even though he'd done everything
he was supposed to do.
He'd committed no crimes and had
an asylum hearing court date.
Despite that, listen to his brother
describe what happened.
On Wednesday, Luis' brother
Jhonthan was driving him to work.
- No ID, though?
- ID.
They didn't get past the parking lot
at the Cedar Run apartment complex
where ICE detained at least five
people as part of a raid Wednesday.
They asked us for documents from here.
We showed them the asylum processes,
the form
the court stamped for us.
Luis says officers wouldn't
accept his brother's paperwork,
even though he showed his asylum
documents as he waits on a work permit.
He has so many questions
about how his brother was detained
without a criminal record.
If he doesn't have a deportation order,
how can they take him?
Yeah, that's a good question!
It's actually one of many things
I find hard to understand
about watching that,
including why those agents were
wearing camouflage while doing it.
You're in a parking lot,
not dense foliage.
If you actually wanted to blend in,
you should've dressed up
like a Claire's Accessories
in a strip mall.
Holding someone in detention
is only meant to be done
in limited circumstances,
like if they're a flight risk,
or to make sure they show up
for an immigration hearing.
But the vast majority
do show up for those hearings,
because they want
their case heard.
And for those with asylum claims,
like that guy's brother,
a recent study found,
of those who weren't detained,
95% attended all of their
immigration court hearings.
Now, there are some immigrants
who are subject to what's called
"mandatory detention",
like if they've been accused
of breaking the law.
That used to be confined
to serious offenses
like murder or gun trafficking,
but that all changed when Bill Clinton
expanded it to also cover minor crimes,
from low-level drug convictions
to writing a bad check.
And those convictions
don't even have to be recent.
Take this man,
who was brought from Jamaica,
to the U.S., by his family
when he was a teenager.
He served in the military,
but after completing his service,
pled guilty to marijuana possession
in 1997.
He moved on, started a business
and a family, but then, in 2010,
this suddenly happened.
About 5:30 in the morning,
I heard a big knock on the door…
And I open the door.
And then they were like,
"Did you apply for citizenship
like six months ago?"
I'm like, "Yeah." And they was like,
"Turn around, that's why we're here."
I didn't think that that in 2010,
that the marijuana conviction
that happened 14 years ago would
have came back and haunt me.
That is ridiculous.
Clearly, no one should be punished
for a minor mistake
they made 14 years earlier.
Otherwise I'd have hell to pay
for playing Vanity Smurf
in the 2011 "Smurfs" movie.
I was already punished when I saw it
and again when I had to pose
for this press photo.
I think I've suffered enough.
The point is,
that Clinton-era expansion
supercharged the detainee population,
which passed 20,000 in 2001,
only to expand through Bush,
Obama, Trump, and Biden,
to the point where we now have
"the world's largest immigration
detention system".
Which should be
a massive embarrassment.
America has the world's largest
of a lot of things,
and they're mostly either awesome
or, at worst, fantastically weird.
We have the world's largest
paint can,
the world's largest office chair,
and my personal favorite,
the world's largest basket.
It is seven stories tall,
not including the handles.
And fun fact: it doubled as
the headquarters for Longaberger,
a basket-manufacturing company
in Ohio, and was the brainchild
of the company's founder,
who wrote in his memoir,
"I figured if Walt Disney could build
an empire around a mouse,"
"the Longaberger home office
building could resemble a basket."
Adding, "Whenever I talked about it,
people looked at me like I was nuts."
Sadly, the company
"vacated the basket in 2016"
and it's been abandoned ever since.
Though you can find videos online
of admirers who've made pilgrimages
to see it since then, like this one.
I don't think the pictures
are doing it justice.
This looks way, way bigger in person
than when I was seeing it in photos,
for a very long time.
And here I am, in the shadow
of a seven-story basket.
More companies need to do this.
Build their offices and headquarters
in oversized buildings
shaped like their products.
I could not agree more with that.
I say the same thing for years.
There is nothing I want more
than for General Mills
to be housed inside
of a giant Cheerio
or for L'Oréal to be housed
inside of a giant lipstick,
or McDonalds to be housed inside
of a giant ice cream machine
that's always out of service.
All that said,
I'd argue being home to the empty,
decaying carcass of the world's
largest basket office is still
less embarrassing than being home
to the world's largest
immigration detention system.
See?
I brought it back home in the end.
I bet you forget what I was even
talking about,
but I knew
where I was going with this.
I always know, sometimes.
And while the average length of stay
for a person in ICE custody
is just over 44 days,
that is just an average.
There are more than 2,800 people
who have been detained
from six months to a year,
and nearly 700 who've been
detained for longer than that.
And that is the thing.
If you are sent into detention,
you don't know
how long you'll be there.
There is no set timetable
for your release.
And even some
of those in charge of these centers
can almost acknowledge
the problems with that.
It's not like a jail inmate that's
in here sentenced to a certain time,
they know the day they get out.
They have no idea when
they're going to leave.
And I know, I mean,
if I was in their place,
it would be very difficult
to not know when I'm leaving.
People see it sometimes as
a punishment. We don't punish.
I know it's viewed that way,
but we aren't going to hold somebody
to punish them.
Okay, but the thing is, being locked up
and not knowing when you get to leave
is basically the definition
of a punishment.
Just ask this studio audience
right now.
Not only are they stuck here,
they have no idea
when this is going to be over.
They're just trapped in this room,
getting sadder by the minute,
wishing this was
a taping of "Drew".
Sorry guys!
She's in the studio next door!
There's a cooking demonstration
today! They're giving out blenders!
That is who is in these facilities.
But where, exactly, are they?
Sometimes, ICE detains people
in local jails,
which is already a little weird,
given that, again,
ICE detention
is supposed to be non-punitive.
But the vast majority,
over 90%, in fact,
are held in facilities owned or operated
by private prison companies.
That is why those CEOs were
so excited on their earnings calls.
These companies
make a ton of money
out of detaining immigrants.
America's very first private prison
was built for immigrant detention.
American business is becoming
bullish on prisons!
Firms like the Corrections
Corporation of America
in Nashville, Tennessee,
believe there will be no business
like jail business in the 1980s.
This construction site
in Houston, Texas, will soon become
the first completely free enterprise
prison in the United States
designed, built, owned, and
operated by a business corporation.
It is being built
for the U.S. Justice Department
to detain up to 300 aliens charged
with entering this country illegally
and awaiting deportation hearings.
The market is enormous.
There are over a half a million people
in this country
incarcerated at the present time.
So, there is a lot there. The sheer
unblinking creepiness of that man alone
is a little distracting, as is the weirdly
upbeat tone of the rest of the segment.
"No business like jail business"
isn't something you should be
saying in a news report.
It sounds like a musical
where Bernadette Peters shanks
someone in their sleep.
And the fact is, business has been
good for private prisons ever since.
CoreCivic and GEO Group derive,
respectively,
27 and 30% of their revenues from
contracts for ICE detention alone.
And you can see why this is such
an appealing model for ICE.
They get to outsource the headaches
and responsibilities of these facilities
and sometimes ICE even adds
another layer of remove,
by contracting
with local governments,
who then in turn
contract with private companies.
That is attractive because
those particular arrangements
are subjected to
"significantly less scrutiny"
"than is required
for ordinary federal contracts."
This system seems to work great
for the companies and for ICE.
But it works much less well for
anyone who needs to go through it.
So, let's talk about
what these facilities are like.
And let's start with the fact
they're often located
in incredibly remote areas.
That is actually a big deal,
because it means detainees can be cut
off from legal representation.
"Some facilities have
only one immigration attorney"
"within a 100-mile radius
for every 200 people detained."
And because phone calls are often
denied, or difficult to schedule,
lawyers like this one
can spend a ridiculous amount of time
just trying to get to their clients.
I leave my house in the mornings,
get on the road,
and typically just try to power all
the way through to the detention center.
We typically go only to Pine Prairie
and so that's about a three,
three-and-a-half-hour drive.
Today, we're making the trip up
to Jackson for some special cases.
That's a four-and-a-half-hour,
five hour depending on traffic, drive.
Yeah, that is a big problem.
Especially given,
among detained immigrants,
those with representation were twice
as likely to obtain immigration relief
as those without.
So lawyers are very important.
I know I make fun of them
sometimes
because "lawyer"
used to be this guy's job.
But without them,
we would be fucked!
There'd be no "Good Wife".
No "Michael Clayton".
There'd definitely be no this show.
We'd have been shut down
years ago
after being sued into oblivion for
sexual harassment by Adam Driver.
And that is before you get to
the conditions inside these facilities,
which can be hard to see,
as access is so heavily controlled.
The glimpses you tend to get are
either from heavily managed tours
given to local news crews, or videos
produced by the facilities themselves,
like this one,
about a New Mexico facility
owned by a company called MTC.
The Otero facility hosts various
sporting tournaments
and other activities
to keep the men engaged.
Just like the Imperial facility,
detainees have access
to medical and dental care.
Staff are trained to treat detainees
with great respect and dignity.
We call it a BIONIC,
"believe it or not I care" approach.
Okay, if your starting point to
saying "I care" is "believe it or not",
you've already got off
on the wrong foot.
If I told you,
"Believe it or not,"
"I don't draw erotic fan fiction
of the Honey Nut Cheerios bee",
the fact I said "believe it or not"
suggests you already assumed that I do.
It's an assumption that is already
damning on its own. Because I don't.
He's not really my type,
cartoon-bumblebee-wise.
This, for instance, does nothing
for me. Nor does this.
Not even this one.
And for what it's worth,
I definitely didn't draw
any of these myself…
Believe it or not.
And while they paint
a lovely picture there,
the fact is, conditions
in ICE detention can be brutal.
Detainees are often expected
to do a lot of the cooking
and cleaning themselves.
And while ICE does require
the jobs to be paid,
the amount is pitifully small.
In many places, it's "1 dollar a day".
And detainees who refuse to work
can be threatened
with the withholding of food,
or "disciplinary segregation",
also known as solitary confinement.
GEO Group was once sued over
this at one of its facilities,
and in court, made a bold argument
that the judge wanted no part of.
GEO says even if it comes down
to choosing between punishment
or work, that's still a choice.
Listen to this exchange between
GEO's lawyer and a judge
who questions
the company's rationale.
Disciplinary segregation can be used
as a sanction for the refusal to work.
They make a decision each time,
whether they're going to consent
to work or not.
Or eat. Or be put in isolation.
Right?
I mean, slaves had a choice.
Right?
That is not great.
When a judge is likening
your client's practices to slavery,
that's generally a pretty bad
sign for your case.
There really shouldn't even
be a verdict at that point,
a trap door should just open up
beneath you
while they call the next case in.
That's not the only time detainees
have been subjected to solitary.
One study found,
over a five-year period,
ICE facilities
placed people in solitary
"14,000 times, with an average
duration of 27 days",
well exceeding the 15-day threshold
human rights experts
have found constitutes torture.
That is not all. ICE itself reported
that between 2017 and last year,
at least 70 detained migrants
died while in its custody.
And the details in some
of these cases are horrifying.
Take Kamyar Samimi.
He immigrated from Iran in the '70s
and became a lawful
permanent resident.
In 2005, he pled guilty to possessing
less than a gram of cocaine
and was sentenced
to community service.
But 12 years later,
ICE suddenly decided
his drug conviction
rendered him deportable.
That's already bad enough.
While he was held in detention,
the staff cut him from the methadone
he took to manage his drug addiction,
completely cold turkey.
He started vomiting blood clots.
But the staff delayed several
more hours before calling 911
and Samimi died just two weeks
after entering the facility.
And this is how
his daughter found out.
I got a text from my coworker
letting me know
that an immigration officer had
stopped by my place of work
and had left a business card
and wanted to speak with me.
And he answered the phone
and told me that my father
had suffered cardiac arrest.
That he was taken to a hospital
and then he was pronounced dead.
My dad died on Saturday
and I got the call on Monday.
I think it's very strange
that ICE observes business hours
to tell people
that their loved ones are dead.
Yeah, "strange" is definitely
one way to describe it.
"A fucking disgrace"
would be another.
And incredibly,
that story is not even a one-off.
One study found "95% of deaths
in ICE custody were preventable,"
"or possibly preventable,"
"if ICE had provided clinically
appropriate medical care."
One of the cases it cites
is a man from Angola,
who began to demonstrate
symptoms of mental illness.
He refused to eat meals, losing
30 pounds in about 30 days.
At one point,
he agreed to drink Ensure,
but the staff never provided any,
the ICE coordinator responsible
"was trying to find it at
a reasonable or discounted price."
That facility, by the way,
was the same one in that upbeat video
about how
"believe it or not, they care."
I guess they mean that phrase
in the exact same way
"Ripley's Believe It or Not" means it.
"Look, we're completely full of shit.
How you feel about it is up to you."
And if, after all this, you're thinking,
"Well, it sure seems like we're doing"
"an incredible amount
of damage unnecessarily",
you are absolutely right!
And don't just take that from me.
Here's a former director of ICE
basically saying the same thing.
We detain lots of people who are not
dangerous and aren't a flight risk.
And it makes no sense to me.
We should ask ourselves,
why are we in this business?
What do we get out of this?
And it's just the politics of it.
The politics, the public likes to
hear "detention". Sounds tough.
I mean, that is true. The public
does love things that sound tough.
It's probably why Mark Sinclair
made his stage name "Vin Diesel"
and not
"Reginald Chugglewums III".
But when he asked there,
"Why are we in this business?"
the very fact this is a business
is part of the answer.
And that is a fact not lost on some
of those inside these facilities.
By keeping us here
for seven or eight months,
they are making money on us.
Because we are a business for them.
Immigration in this country
is a business.
Immigration is a business like any
other for-profit endeavor in America,
whether it's
Toxic Rage Circle Jerk, Inc.,
the Small Business Elimination
Omnicompany, or Pottery Barn.
I actually don't have
anything bad to say about Pottery Barn.
They made high-quality
home goods at affordable prices.
Keep doing what you're doing,
Pottery Barn!
Everything I've shown you
so far has been from before
Trump took office
for a second time.
What comes next will
almost certainly be worse.
Congress recently expanded
mandatory detention even further,
to cover undocumented people
charged with any theft-related offense.
Trump's also started placing migrants
in federal prisons,
and is reopening facilities
that had been forced to shutter
amid allegations of unsafe or crowded
conditions. So, what do we do?
At the federal level, honestly,
for the next few years, we're fucked.
But some states have found
ways to mitigate the harm.
Illinois, for instance,
"barred private companies"
"from contracting with local
communities to detain immigrants."
It also prohibited cities and counties
from contracting with ICE
to house or detain immigrants
at local jails. Which is great.
I would argue all states should be
doing that, and to its credit,
New Mexico is considering
a similar proposal right now.
Trump's government is clearly
going to do everything in its power
to act as callously as possible
for the next four years.
I know no one wants to hear
another heartfelt soliloquy
about how this administration's
immigration policies fly in the face
of America's founding ideals.
We are well past that.
But moving forward,
we're gonna have to find ways
to push back hard
at the state and local level,
against those determined
to score political points
at the expense of an incredibly
vulnerable population.
And to anyone who continues
to support that agenda,
there is really only one thing to say.
You dumb assholes!
What is wrong with you!?
Yeah. Exactly.
And now, this.
And Now: Stone Cold Steve Austin
Loves His Solid Ass Cats.
What's up? It's Steve, coming to you
from the Broken Skull Ranch,
fixing to open the horse barn.
Just let the chickens out already, and
I'll let Pancho and Macho out.
There he is, good ol' Panchy,
good morning, buddy!
Man, that's a solid-ass cat
right there, buddy.
Macho, where you at,
you little motherfucker?
There he goes!
That goddamn cat right there,
I tell you, he's a motherfucker.
Imagine a cat so tough,
you can only pet him with
genuine leather gloves on.
That's some good-ass cats.
Fucking Macho turned to
a solid-ass cat, didn't he?
God damn, it's been a while since
you solid-ass cats been on Instagram.
Here they are, live and
in living color. Panchy!
And Pancho come over here and
jumped on the back of my tailgate.
That's a solid-ass cat right there.
Everybody's been asking about him.
Well, here he is, Pancho.
Solid-ass cat.
Look at this solid-ass cat right there.
I tell you what, man,
that's a solid-ass cat. He is in shape.
Dang, look at that cat go.
That's a solid-ass cat.
Pancho!
God damn it.
Pancho, don't leave me!
That motherfucker's the best!
That's our show, thanks for watching.
We'll see you next week, good night!
Short shorts, apple bottom,
give me peaches 'cause I want 'em.
Cake, cake, whip it up,
fresh bellini in my cup.
Money maker, I'm in love,
put 'em on and roll the cuff.
Bad boys, size you up,
bust it down and zip it up.
I like short shorts.
Ooh, yes, that's what I adore.