What do you call warehouses full of humans?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Next Comes What — "What do you call warehouses full of humans?"

Host: Andrea Pitzer
Date: February 12, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this sobering episode, author and historian Andrea Pitzer draws on her expertise in global authoritarianism and concentration camp systems to examine the rise of mass detention infrastructure in the United States under a Trump administration. Through news reports, analysis, and interviews with policy experts, politicians, advocates, and local residents, Pitzer explores the rapid expansion of warehouse-style detention centers and the implications for democracy, civil rights, and public resistance. She threads historical warnings with concrete steps for opposition, urging listeners to recognize and act against what she deems a grave threat unfolding in real-time.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Emergence of Human Warehousing in America

• Massive Warehouses Repurposed as Detention Centers:
  Andrea and guests describe the acquisition and conversion of vast commercial warehouse spaces by the Trump administration for proposed immigrant detention, likening these facilities to historic concentration camps (00:00–00:28). One such building is 418,000 sq. ft., equal to seven football fields, acquired for $70 million.

  "ICE has spent over half a billion dollars acquiring formerly commercial sites."
  — Andrea Pitzer (00:28)

• 'Black Box’ Detention System:
  Activists warn of a system that makes people—immigrants and citizens—disappear, echoing tactics from other authoritarian regimes (00:41).

  "They are building up and have built a black box system that disappears people, both immigrants and U.S. Citizens alike."
  — Activist / Community Organizer (00:41)

2. Trump’s Deportation Agenda & Rhetoric

• Expansive and Radical Deportation Goals:
  Trump has declared plans to deport up to 20 million residents, supported by staunch allies like Stephen Miller. Ethnic cleansing undertones and violent language abound in some supporters' remarks (00:50–01:12).

  "There is no real halt to the ethnic cleansing project."
  — Andrea Pitzer (01:22)

  "I am your retribution. I am your retribution."
  — Pro-Trump Supporter (00:56)

• Strategic Expansion and Suppression of Dissent:
  ICE and Border Patrol, under the leadership of Trump officials, are becoming more systematic and aggressive, targeting not just immigrants but protesters and dissenters, maintaining databases for potential charges (04:32–04:50).

  "[The agency tracks] names, photos, actions that provoked suspicion, locations and license plates ... intended to spot patterns that could lead to charges."
  — Stephen Miller (04:50)

3. Historical Parallels & Global Context

• Lessons from Global Concentration Camps:
  Pitzer references her own scholarship on camp systems and draws parallels to tactics—commandeering local infrastructure for mass detention—that were hallmarks of Nazi Germany and more recent Chinese policy in Xinjiang (02:10–03:36; 11:26).

  "Dachau was converted from a shuttered factory into a concentration camp in 1933. ... Stadiums, warehouses, racetracks and the like commandeered to hold masses of people."
  — Andrea Pitzer (03:03–03:36)

• International Abandonment of Human Rights Norms:
  The U.S., Pitzer warns, is now openly embracing a model long associated with autocrats, shifting from secretive atomized detention to massive, centralized camps (10:26–11:05).

  "Now the US Government isn't even pretending to espouse human rights and democracy."
  — Andrea Pitzer (10:56)

4. Infrastructure and Policy Choices

• Logistical Scale and Privatization:
  The Trump administration seeks to move beyond networks of local contractors to a federal system of warehouse camps, managed by subcontractors but owned by the government, a move compared to Amazon logistics (10:03–13:33).

  "The ultimate goal is to create Amazon prime, but for people. And that gives you some sense of what they're looking at in the logistics."
  — Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst (13:33)

• Accelerated Hiring by Lowering Standards:
  A surge in ICE and Border Patrol hiring has cut standards and training, with echoes of previous failed expansions under Bush that led to corruption and cartel infiltration (06:01–06:46).

5. Human Impact and Abuses

• horrific Conditions in Detention Camps:
  Firsthand and investigative reports reveal abusive, squalid, and deadly conditions, especially at new tent camps like Camp East Montana: constant noise, lights on 24/7, poor medical care, and abuse by guards (12:34).

  "Three people have already died at the facility, one due to reported inadequate medical care."
  — Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst (13:07)

• Detention of Documented & Undocumented:
  Even legally documented residents or those with revoked documentation are now subject to indefinite detention (13:07).

• Harm to Children:
  Congressional testimony includes heartbreaking letters and drawings from detained children (19:05–20:14).

  “Since I got to this center, all I feel is sadness and mostly depression.”
  — Arianna, 14 years old, detained for 45 days (19:15)

6. Local & National Political Resistance

• Grassroots Opposition and Cross-Party Pushback:
  Opposition to new detention centers emerges from both unexpected allies (Republican and Democratic politicians) and local residents—driven largely by the negative impact on communities and infrastructures (15:45–17:52).

  "Here, finally, is a worthy use of the NIMBY not in my backyard impulse. ... We should embrace it in this case."
  — Andrea Pitzer (16:37)

• Legislative Actions and State Resistance:
  State laws such as New Mexico's Immigrant Safety Act aim to curtail cooperation with federal detention, while other measures remove the possibility for the use of local infrastructure (17:52–18:00).

  “Due process is important. Rule of law is important. It’s what America is founded on. We can’t look the other way.”
  — Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst (17:52)

7. Practical Tactics for Opposition

• Municipal Barriers and Permit Fights:
  Advocates urge communities to refuse cooperation at every regulatory stage—blocking permits, contracts, and local support (22:30–23:17).
• Leveraging Local & Party Influence:
  Even conservative areas can exert pressure, especially where Republican resistance may resonate (23:21–24:01).
• Targeting Corporate Contractors:
  Policies can be enacted to deny contracts, licenses, or public employment to those working with these facilities (24:28).
• Documentation & Protest:
  Maintaining awareness and public pressure is crucial, as is forming networks across affected communities (25:03–25:30).
• Naming the Reality:
  Pitzer advocates using the term “concentration camp” to describe these facilities, reclaiming language to force recognition and urgency (25:30–26:05).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the System's Scope:

  "What we're witnessing is the express repetition of a project on the scale that only the very largest concentration camp systems in history ... have attempted."
  — Andrea Pitzer (13:46)

• On the Dangers of Silence:

  “I wanted those people who lived in those houses to have done something, to have fought back. But of course, most didn’t.”
  — Andrea Pitzer, recalling Neuengamme, Germany (20:59)

• On Resistance:

  "This is also an area where we actually have agency to fight back."
  — Activist / Community Organizer (22:30)

• On Political Divisions and Morality:

  "My brother’s a Republican. But a Republican is different than ... what the leadership is. It's not Republican. It's evil. It's power. It's narcissism."
  — Local Resident / Liberal Social Worker (26:37)

• On the Need to Act:

  “If we are seeing a push to build a similar camp system with a similar reach, we aren't yet faced with those same risks. But we need to act.”
  — Andrea Pitzer (21:11)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introduction to Warehouses as Detention — 00:00–00:41
• Trump’s Mass Deportation Agenda — 00:50–01:39
• Comparisons to Historic Camps — 02:10–03:36
• ICE Databases & Protester Surveillance — 04:32–05:00
• Policy Expansion and Personnel Issues — 06:01–06:46
• Congressional Condemnations — 07:03–08:31
• Expansion of Warehouse Camps — 08:45–11:05
• Tent City Horrors (Camp East Montana) — 12:34–13:33
• Opposition from Local & State Leaders — 15:45–18:00
• Children’s Voices from Detention — 19:05–20:14
• Lessons from European Camp History — 20:14–21:11
• Practical Steps for Community Resistance — 22:30–26:05

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Conclusion

Andrea Pitzer closes with a call to recognize the seriousness of mass detention and to mobilize local, state, and national opposition while there is still time. The episode not only documents the perilous expansion of detainment infrastructure in the U.S. but also serves as a guidebook for action, resistance, and reclaiming collective agency before the machinery of mass repression is fully entrenched.

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For more information or to support further reporting, visit AndreaPitzer.com.

Transcript

[Andrea Pitzer]

More and more news reports are popping up describing warehouses.

[Stephen Miller]

It's massive and it's zoned for industrial development. It's even right next to an Amazon.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Warehouse that the Trump administration is acquiring.

[Stephen Miller]

For a price tag of about $70 million. The 418,000 square foot building is equal to more than seven football fields with.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Plans to convert them to detention facilities.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

Congresswoman, what do you make of the DHS warehouses going up across the country?

[Andrea Pitzer]

ICE has spent over half a billion dollars acquiring formerly commercial sites.

[Activist / Community Organizer]

We're seeing what ICE is doing. I think every American should be alarmed.

[Andrea Pitzer]

That's in addition to the tent cities like Camp East Montana that are already operating around the country.

[Activist / Community Organizer]

They are building up and have built a black box system that disappears people, both immigrants and U. S. Citizens alike.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Before the election, Donald Trump said he would deport as many as 20 million u. S. Residents.

[Pro-Trump Supporter / Commentator]

I am your retribution. I am your retribution.

[Andrea Pitzer]

We are witnessing the mushrooming of something very dangerous here.

[Pro-Trump Supporter / Commentator]

People weren't taking it, I would imagine. They couldn't. God bless you, Bobby. I hope I didn't catch COVID just there.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Whatever noises Trump has made about dialing back after the killings of two US Citizens in Minneapolis, well, I haven't heard.

[Pro-Trump Supporter / Commentator]

That, but certainly shouldn't have been carrying a gun.

[Andrea Pitzer]

There is no real halt to the ethnic cleansing project.

[Pro-Trump Supporter / Commentator]

I want to thank Stephen Miller, who's right back in the audience right there.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Driven by Stephen Miller.

[Pro-Trump Supporter / Commentator]

I love watching him on television. I'd love to have him come up and explain his true feelings and blessed by the president, but maybe not his.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Truest feelings on the streets. The secret police's tactics from ICE and border Patrol are becoming more strategic.

[Stephen Miller]

I have proposed and President Trump has.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Concurred that this surge operation conclude. But the overall mission is full speed ahead. We're going to have a mass deportation. President Trump promised that, and we're committed to that. Last April, acting ICE director Todd Lyons mentioned wanting to run deportations like a business.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

Mr. Lyons, how many times has Amazon prime shot a mom? Times in the face?

[Stephen Miller]

None, sir.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And as most of you know by now, I've done research into concentration camp systems that have existed around the world for over 130 years.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

Author Andrea Pitzer, who literally wrote the.

[Congressman / Politician]

Book on the subject.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And I've seen that when a government is dealing with avoiding due process for millions of people. Joining me now is NBC News senior homeland security correspondent Julia Ainsley. Detaining them, physically, breaking them down and removing them from society, it often comes down to a question of logistics.

[Journalist / Reporter]

I've Been told they would be megadension centers, and they want to position them in the south of the country, in states like Texas or Louisiana, where they would be close to the airports that deport immigrants.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And by the time those questions are the ones that are being asked, a country is typically in a very bad place. The truth is, it takes several years of propaganda, of manipulation of the public, of bending the courts, of weakening legislatures. I've mentioned before that concentration camp regimes in their early stages often make use of large open infrastructure to convert into detention spaces. Dachau was converted from a shuttered factory into a concentration camp in 1933. It's those warning signs and those preemptive things we should be thinking about. Authoritarians tend to seize existing facilities while the government works on building new, more permanent structures. So you'll see stadiums, warehouses, racetracks and the like commandeered to hold masses of people.

[Journalist / Reporter]

We're talking about being able to hold tens of thousands, potentially in one area.

[Andrea Pitzer]

All over the globe for more than a century. How to detain vast numbers of individuals with the least investment in their care.

[Journalist / Reporter]

And of course, there are some concerns about bringing them up to code, how they're going to retrofit them.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And often a deliberate desire to harm them has been a key concern of most of the world's worst leaders.

[Pro-Trump Supporter / Commentator]

They're poisoning the blood of our country today.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I want to talk about this warehousing of humans. Why it's a threat, letting them out.

[Pro-Trump Supporter / Commentator]

Will be a bloody story, and why.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It'S necessary for everyone to move against it as quickly as possible. The government has to manage two key things to lock in this authoritarian expansion and be able to get more complete control over the U.S. two ICE officials.

[Stephen Miller]

Who asked for anonymity to speak to Reuters said the agency has been tracking the names of protesters and an internal database for several months.

[Andrea Pitzer]

First, it has to to expand personnel to grow the numbers of agents in terms of ICE and Border Patrol, enough to be able to suppress dissent more effectively.

[Stephen Miller]

They say the database contains names, photos, actions that provoked suspicion, locations and license plates, and that the effort was intended to spot patterns that could lead to charges.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Secondly, it has to create a lot more detention beds to establish a much larger camp footprint camp system to serve as a tool of autocracy.

[Stephen Miller]

My next guest has been a driving force behind President Trump's immigration policies. He is White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller.

[Andrea Pitzer]

That can be turned against those the administration wishes to target at any point.

[Stephen Miller]

The Democrat party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Trump and his allies are making progress at both, though they are nowhere near where they need to get.

[Stephen Miller]

I am here today with Aaron Reichland Meldick, who is a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council and an expert at all things related to immigration policy in the United States, especially over the past extremely tumultuous year.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Though the Department of Homeland Security announced in January it had doubled the number of officers and agents from 10,000 to 22,000 during the first year of this Trump administration.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

I think best comparison is to the massive hiring surge of the Border Patrol during the Bush administration when about 10,000 new officers were brought on board in a three to four year span. Now we're looking at 10,000 new officers being brought on board in an 18 month span or potentially even shorter than that.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Those gains were only possible due to the removal of age restrictions and cutting training time in half.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

They ended up cutting a lot of hiring standards and they ended up hiring a bunch of people who were manifestly unqualified or outright criminals. There were a number of cartel double agents that got hired during that period and it led to a significant rise in corruption in the years after that because they had really lowered the bar for recruits. Everything that's happening now, is that on steroids?

[Andrea Pitzer]

Even so, that process and its results are under investigation. Right now. Congressmember Delia Ramirez of Chicago, the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, announced she's taking the first steps to impeach Christine O. Meanwhile, ICE and Border Patrol are becoming the focus of shame.

[Congressmember Delia Ramirez]

Mr. Lyons, I want to start with you and I want to talk about ice, because under your leadership, ICE has shot and killed Silverio, Villegas, Gonzalez and Renee good, violated nearly 100 court orders in January alone. You've used banned chokeholds in more than 40 cases, engaged in warrantless arrests despite of a consent decree.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Pariahs to decent people nationwide.

[Congressmember Delia Ramirez]

Now, let's Talk about you, Mr. Scott, and CBP Next. Under your leadership, CBP has attempted to execute Marimar Martinez, shooting her five times and not releasing the footage that you should release so that we can see the evidence. Murdered Alex Preddy, used chemical agents dozens of times in Chicago after a judge ordered you to stop, conducted warrantless surveillance and racial profiling, and acted with total disrespect and disregard for the law while engaging in roving patrols, plate switching, dangerous traffic maneuvers, and observer intimidation.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Stories of agents being forced to eat in hotel rooms when restaurants refuse to serve them and other public humiliations have abounded. This work is good and effective and should be continued.

[Congressmember Delia Ramirez]

Your agencies are unaccountable paramilitary forces, and I have just as much respect for you as I do for the last white men who put on masks to terrorize communities of color. I have no respect for the inheritors of the Klan hood and the slave patrol.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Even more pressing at this particular moment is that DHS is having more success in something that regular listeners will have heard me shouting about for a year now, the acquisition of warehouse style structures around the country for conversion to detention facilities.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

So we just put out a big new report, Immigration Detention Expansion in Trump's Second Term, that looks at the ways in which the detention system has expanded in the last year and where it may go from here.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Several outlets have reported these kinds of acquisitions in places like Kansas City, Hagerstown, San Antonio, and many smaller cities and towns.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

What we found is that already in the first year in office, the system itself has expanded by over 75%. The federal government has brought more than 100 new facilities online that are in use. Most of these are state and local prisons, jails, county jails, those sort of things where local county sheriffs are renting out a few dozen beds.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Last week, Philadelphia Inquirer sent Will Bunch to Tremont, Pennsylvania to report on the plans for a warehouse that is planned to hold 7,500 people there.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

But there have also been a significant number of larger facilities, often run by private prison companies that have started holding hundreds, if sometimes thousands of people for ice. But all of that capacity is by and large in pre existing prisons and jails.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The town itself has a population as of 2020 of just 1,672 people, which means that the detainees would outnumber town residents by a ratio of 5 to 1.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

The Trump administration has a new idea, and that is to purchase commercial warehouses around the country and create a new deportation system, essentially building a federal system rather than a network of contractors that are running everything. Instead, these will be facilities owned by the federal government but operated by subcontractors, not actually operated by federal staffing.

[Andrea Pitzer]

One huge reason that this should alarm everyone in the country is that during the second half of the 20th century in industrialized countries, the push in mass civilian detention was for atomized detention, where people were held in smaller places of confinement, often secretly, then killed, exiled or released, so a new batch of people could be brought in. This was largely in order to be able to carry out state detention a little more quietly and invisibly, so as not to draw condemnation from the domestic population or from other countries. But now the US Government isn't even pretending to espouse human rights and democracy.

[Stephen Miller]

We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world. But are you saying since the beginning.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Of time, that pressure is gone? The shift began early in the 21st century, for the most part during the war on terror, when the fig leaf of anti terror operations led the US to lock up large numbers of people. And that is the model we've seen adopted since by the Chinese government in Xinjiang, by the generals detaining Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, by India, which has created the country's largest detention center in the state of Assam.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

Initially, the administration focused on tent camps. And in August they opened up what is currently the largest ICE detention center in the country, what's known as Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, on Fort Bliss, a military base. This camp started in August holding a few hundred people, and they were literally building the tents as they were already sending people there.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And now the US is openly embracing that large detention camp model for those who by and large, according to its own agency reports, have committed no crime save for crossing the border without documentation.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

The facility is reportedly in horrific conditions. People there sleep with the lights on 24 hours a day. There is very inadequate care. You're literally sleeping in a giant tent, so you constantly have a very loud noise of the H Vac and the air flow going through. People are not held in individual cells. They're sort of large detained cells. They don't look like a traditional prison. And the food is horrible, the guards are abusive, and the medical care is inadequate. Three people have already died at the facility, one due to reported inadequate medical care.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And many who are documented or whose documentation was summarily stripped by this administration are often finding themselves in detention these days as well.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

And because the conditions of confinement are terrible and a lot of people are willing to just give up, the fact.

[Andrea Pitzer]

That the US is currently planning an expansive network of camps holding 5,000, 7,500 or even 10,000 people at a single site is very concerning.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

You know, Todd Lyons, the acting director of ice, said at a conference last year that the ultimate goal is to create Amazon prime, but for people. And that gives you some sense of what they're looking at in the logistics.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It is not just part of the larger shift made possible by the war on terr, but when you consider the number in the tens of millions that the administration is promising to detain or deport. And when you look at the network of planned facilities that we already know about, what we're witnessing is the express repetition of a project on the scale that only the very largest concentration camp systems in history, Soviet Gulag, Nazi concentration camps and Chinese labor camps and the People's Republic of China, have attempted.

[Stephen Miller]

At the end of my statement was, again, to your point, it was a industry day for AI inefficiencies. But I did say at the end of it, but we deal with human beings, so we can't be like them and speak part that you're leaving out.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

Well, speaking of human beings, how many times has Amazon prime shot a nurse? 10 times in the back.

[Andrea Pitzer]

This administration is actively aspiring to a system of that magnitude to reshape society to its racial, political and cultural preferences for generations to come.

[Stephen Miller]

Clearly, we need to have in this country exactly what President Trump called for, which is that we need a moratorium on immigration from third world countries until we can heal ourselves as a nation.

[Andrea Pitzer]

This is not just a fantasy on their part. It is something for which the administration has already acquired the funding and the means to carry out. It lacks only the personnel.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

The idea that no one shows up for deportation is simply false. But therefore detention was pitched as the way to ensure that once you actually get that deportation order, it can be.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Carried out and enough detention spaces.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

So right now we are seeing all of those issues and the ways that the sense the system was built over the last few generations really culminating in in this sort of explosion of detention today, where with the resources the Trump administration has on hand through the one big beautiful Bill act, they may end up creating a new detention system that that rivals the entire size of the federal prison system.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Yet this push for human warehousing too is meeting greater opposition, sometimes from unusual places. Even pet. Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who has publicly praised immigration enforcement operations and supported ICE wearing masks, has recently called for Kristi Noem's removal as DHS secretary. In a letter made public on Saturday.

[Local Resident / Liberal Social Worker]

The Pennsylvania Democrats said, quote, while I have been clear in my support for the enforcement of federal immigration law, Fetterman.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Asked DHS to halt the development of detention centers in Bern and Tremont townships in his state, expressing concern for the strain it will local community, this decision.

[Local Resident / Liberal Social Worker]

Will do significant damage to those local tax bases, set back decades of long efforts to boost economic development and place undue burdens on limited existing infrastructure in these communities.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Here, finally, is a worthy use of the NIMBY not in my backyard impulse. That impulse is so easy to activate, for worse reasons, we should embrace it. In this case, activists fighting a similar warehouse got even more unlikely support from Republican Senator Roger Wicker. And breaking news at this hour, who also happens to be the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. We've been covering this plan for a month now.

[Journalist / Reporter]

The proposed warehouse is on Mount Carmel Road.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Wicker wrote a letter to Kristi Noem on February 3, and Noem has since reportedly agreed to halt work toward that detention site. He posted on Facebook that he spoke.

[Journalist / Reporter]

With Noam, writing, quote, I appreciate her.

[Andrea Pitzer]

For agreeing to look elsewhere, end quote. In New Mexico, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the Immigrant Safety act into law on February 5th. Democratic state lawmakers want to make sure what's happening in Minnesota doesn't happen here, which keeps state and local governments from signing agreements to detain individuals for civil immigration violations, stops the use of public land for immigration detention, and forbids the 287G agreements that let local law enforcement act as immigration agents.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

And to say it's not okay. Due process is important. Rule of law is important. It's what America is founded on. We can't look the other way.

[Andrea Pitzer]

These kinds of agreements will not solve the problem of warehousing humans.

[Stephen Miller]

Recognize a gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Walkinshaw, for five minutes.

[Congressman / Politician]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Lyons, your opening statement referenced the importance of protecting children, and I'm glad to hear your commitment to that.

[Andrea Pitzer]

But they are the first steps on a path by which states can set themselves against the federal government. On these issues, I want to focus.

[Congressman / Politician]

On one of President Trump's mass deportation policies that the experts say harms children. Child detention. In this administration under your watch, ICE has booked nearly 4,000 children and began.

[Andrea Pitzer]

To lay the groundwork for more expansive opposition.

[Congressman / Politician]

1000 of them have been held longer than the court ordered 20 day limit.

[Andrea Pitzer]

While opposition is critical and creative and.

[Congressman / Politician]

Sometimes successful, recently ProPublica obtained handwritten letters and drawings from children detained by ICE.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It will likely not always be possible to stop the sale of property or even the opening of these facilities themselves.

[Congressman / Politician]

This is Arianna. She's 14 years old. Detained for 45 days. Since I got to this center, all I feel is sadness and mostly depression.

[Andrea Pitzer]

In some cases, sales have already gone through with little regard for the will of local communities.

[Congressman / Politician]

This is Mia, 7 years old. I don't want to be in this place. I want to go to my school.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Just as in Minnesota, despite the heroics and successes of city residents and supporters, the federal government remains committed to its cruel agenda.

[Congressman / Politician]

This is a 12 year old going to the doctor, and the only thing they tell me is drink more water. The water here is what makes people sick.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The Associated Press reported that fully one quarter of kids were missing school last week in St. Paul.

[Congressman / Politician]

And this one got me Mr. Lyons, because this is a five year old, Luis Annie. My son's five. He can't write many words, but he can communicate through drawings like this. This is a picture of Luis Annie's family, and you might be able to see that none of the faces are smiling.

[Andrea Pitzer]

When I was researching my first book, I went to the site of the former Nazi camp at Neuengamme outside Hamburg in northern Germany. I went to that particular camp because Vladimir Nabokov's younger brother Sergei had died there in 1945, just months before it was liberated. Sergei wasn't Jewish, but he was an immigrant. He had first been targeted as a homosexual. Later, other reasons were found to detain him. It didn't take much to get sent to a camp. I went on foot for the five miles that early detainees at Nyengama would have had to walk from the train station to where the camp stood. The later tracks were laid so that the train went all the way there.

[Pro-Trump Supporter / Commentator]

There.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The little houses that I passed along the road near the big camp facility really took me aback. Many were obviously quite old, and I thought of the people who lived there during the war or even before it. As the camp was established and then it expanded, eventually becoming the hub for a whole constellation of smaller sites. I thought of the people who went about their lives as the life expectancy for newly arriving prisoners at Neuengama grew shorter and shorter until death came on average just 12 weeks after arrival. I wanted those people who lived in those houses to have done something, to have fought back. But of course, most didn't. And doing so eventually became so difficult. The Gestapo was so established and the camp system so entrenched that the hurdles to be able to build solidarity and do any public resistance became extraordinarily high. Any action had a high certainty of torture or even death. If we are seeing a push to build a similar camp system with a similar reach, we aren't yet faced with those same risks. But we need to act. In the written post this week, I've laid out more specifics, but for the podcast, I'll review the general outlines about ways we can take action against what's happening.

[Activist / Community Organizer]

So I think that where possible, this is also an area where we actually have agency to fight back.

[Andrea Pitzer]

A lot depends on what stage a given facility is at.

[Activist / Community Organizer]

We have power in that because a lot of these warehouses require approvals on the local, municipal and state level.

[Andrea Pitzer]

When possible, localities can preemptively bar all cooperation with ICE and immigrant detention from your community.

[Activist / Community Organizer]

We have to be vigilant about this.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Where negotiations are already underway. You can fight the leases, you can fight the purchases of the facility by getting out the word on the ground and demanding response from elected officials at every level.

[Activist / Community Organizer]

Deny those permits. If your community doesn't want this in your backyard, you can stop this.

[Andrea Pitzer]

You might remember the example I gave last week from Ashland, Virginia.

[Stephen Miller]

This is conservative Hanover, where voters back Donald Trump three times in a row. Yet there is opposition to his stance.

[Andrea Pitzer]

On immigration, in which locals managed to discourage a Canadian company from making that facility available in the end to the US Government.

[Stephen Miller]

The board did just announce that they rejected their proposal.

[Andrea Pitzer]

You could also use the example of accommodations made from Mississippi to demand similar treatment as Senator Wickard. And keep in mind that this might be one arena in which red state residents have particular leverage because Republican officials are the ones most likely to be heard by this current administration.

[Local Republican Neighbor]

One of my neighbors actually is a Republican and he said you we need to put our Virginia flags out. You know why? Semper tyrannis. Thus always ways to tyrants. So he's got his flag out. Republican and all the other Republicans on the street are against Trump.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Where the acquisitions can't be blocked, communities are finding ways to target the employees and the contractors from security services, food services and maintenance. Cities, counties and even states can create local ordinances that make clear that any company providing services to the detention facility cannot get any other municipal contract, that any state or county licenses may be revoked, and that employees will not be able to work in schools or government positions going forward.

[Stephen Miller]

About 150 immigrant rights activists packed at Tacoma City Council meeting urging city leaders to take stronger action against federal immigration.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Enforcement if a given facility comes online. Documenting activity at these facilities is critical. The protesters called on the council to denounce ICE operations and shut down the detention center. And keeping up oppression. Presence that actively demonstrates local opposition is also important.

[Stephen Miller]

Demonstrators want city leaders to revoke the.

[Immigration Policy Expert / Analyst]

Business license of the Northwest ICE Processing Center. They say abuses occur inside the privately operated detention center and outside inspectors have.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Not been allowed inside. Networking with other areas around the country that are similarly affected can share ideas and coordinate strategies to fight this kind of desecration of communities trying to force the them into hosting concentration camps. I think we need to reclaim this term concentration camp for this kind of irregular detention of civilians without trial. In this context, it may be ideal to call them concentration camps consistently, and we need to act before the administration has the personnel in the detention facilities to broaden the scope of its actions.

[Congressman / Politician]

Let me be clear. No child, not Liam Ramos, not Gabby, or any of these children should be used as pawns in Stephen Miller's sick and twisted great replacement agenda.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It's up to us to break the administration's momentum on this front. For many, this has been a faraway issue, debated completely conceptually in the mind and aside, taken as one might for the Super Bowl.

[Local Resident / Liberal Social Worker]

I'm a liberal social worker and proud, and my brother's a republic. But a Republican is different than bad words I want to say about what the leadership is. It's not Republican. It's evil. It's power. It's narcissism. It's on and on.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Faced with whole communities being upended by their presence and strong armed into hosting these camps, there will be many who begin to see the mass deportation movement for what it is. Something abhorrent, something truly abominable, and yet something we can stop. And that's it. Thanks for listening to Next Comes what? Please share this with one person who's looking for ways to survive this mess. To support this podcast, please become a paid [e-mail] and consider giving Next Comes what? A five star review where you get your podcasts.