Podcast Summary: The David Frum Show

Episode: How ICE Became Trump’s Secret Army

Host: David Frum
Guest: Caitlin Dickerson (Staff Writer, The Atlantic; Pulitzer Prize Winner)
Date: August 20, 2025

Overview

In this episode, David Frum hosts Caitlin Dickerson to dissect the explosive growth of America’s immigration enforcement infrastructure under the second Trump administration, with a focus on ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The conversation explores the scale, funding, methods, and consequences of recent crackdowns, highlighting the erosion of legal norms, immense new budgets, and the disturbing expansion of detention and deportation systems—including legal and humanitarian challenges. Dickerson, drawing on her extensive investigative reporting, discusses the economic incentives now fueling the apparatus, the diplomatic fallout, and what this evolution means for American democracy and society.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Frum’s Opening: Personal Reflections and the Pendulum of Immigration Policy

[00:56 – 09:23]

• Frum discusses his own history as a proponent of stricter, rule-of-law–based immigration control, but decries the Trump administration’s descent into “pornographic fascism” that equates immigration enforcement with authoritarian fear.
• Cites statistics: 2.2 million net decline in foreign-born population in six months; 1.6 million due to illegal immigrants, 600,000 due to legal residents leaving.
• Describes militarized, secret-police tactics:

  “Police officers or paramilitary officers, often dressed in non uniforms, often without badges or identification, often with their faces disguised, are seizing people… some of them even US citizens.” —David Frum [03:11]

• Asserts that Trump’s tactics are destroying both the American tradition of the rule of law and any sustainable immigration restriction:

  “Trump is offering a devil's bargain… in ways that cannot be sustained, that shock the American conscience and that are damaging the American economy.” —David Frum [04:36]

• Warns that the crackdown is fueling “ugly blood and soil nationalism” and setting up a backlash that will swing the political pendulum the other way.

ICE’s “Blank Check”—Budget, Scale, and Ambition

[09:23 – 14:40]

• Dickerson details ICE’s ballooning budget: from ~$8 billion to $28 billion under the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

  “Taking ICE alone… its budget was about $8 billion prior to this bill. It's going up to 28. It's more than tripling.” —Caitlin Dickerson [10:16]

• The total apparatus: $175 billion for immigration enforcement, greater than any other military budget except the US and China.

• $45 billion for detention expansion, $45 billion for the border wall.

• Comparison: ICE now surpasses FBI, NYPD, and DEA budgets combined.

  “ICE alone spending $28 billion on immigration enforcement is far greater, obviously.” —Caitlin Dickerson [12:06]

• ICE seeks to hire 10,000 new agents, more than doubling its size.

Oversight, Waste, and Lack of Accountability

[12:59 – 15:49]

• Historically, Congress (both parties) frustrated with ICE’s chronic overspending, budget mismanagement, and lack of transparency.

• Under Trump, Congress rolls over, approving hikes with minimal oversight.

  “Even though it was being criticized as an agency, the Congress seems to have just accepted the requests of ICE and CBP for these huge pay raises without asking questions and without attaching any oversight requirements.” —Caitlin Dickerson [13:56]

Technology, Surveillance & Militarization

[15:49 – 16:48]

• Funds being funneled into facial recognition, data brokering (e.g., contracts with Palantir), expanding “deep dossiers” on immigrants.
• These technologies are expensive and, according to Dickerson, unnecessary for routine enforcement—but lucrative for private contractors.

Expansion of Detention and the Private Prison Complex

[18:12 – 26:53]

• Detention population to jump from average of 45,000 to 100,000 daily—requiring new construction and conversion of previously shuttered prisons.

• ICE relies mainly on privately-run facilities (GEO Group, CoreCivic), creating new local economies dependent on detention.

  “These facilities will be operated more than likely by the two giants in the private prison industry, Jio and CoreCivic. And they're expecting tens of thousands of additional detainees.” —Caitlin Dickerson [19:35]

• There’s little to no investment in improving living conditions—the bill leaves health & safety standards at the discretion of the Secretary, with key oversight offices gutted.

  “It’s not part of what the money’s for… health and safety standards… should be left to the discretion of the Secretary… Massive expansion of detention and very little oversight.” —Caitlin Dickerson [21:31]

• Economic incentives now drive growth, making future contraction politically and economically difficult.

  “An immigration detention facility… brings jobs… as soon as those jobs are created, families depend on them… the community really comes to rely on it, and it becomes a big political problem to try to close it down.” —Caitlin Dickerson [27:18]

Inefficiency, Delay, and the Contradictions in Policy

[28:52 – 37:23]

• The root bottleneck is not enforcement or detention, but legal and diplomatic hurdles—especially immigration courts, where numbers of judges are being cut.

• Despite mass detention, deportation numbers remain essentially flat.

• Notable diplomatic fiascos: e.g., US trade war with Colombia over shackling deportees, and rehabilitating Venezuela’s dictatorship to deport asylum seekers.

  “Deportation is reshaping the foreign policy of the United States and making Venezuela a more acceptable… partner to the Trump administration than you would think based on its internal policy and its external policy.” —David Frum [37:23]

The “Third Country” Deportations: Legal and Moral Nightmare

[40:27 – 45:45]

• Trump administration adopts unprecedented policy of deporting non-citizens to third countries (e.g., sending non-Salvadorans to El Salvador or to South Sudan).

• Largely done to bypass the need for challenging bilateral negotiations—but on shaky legal ground.

  “It is legally dubious. There is no precedent for, in large numbers… deporting people to countries that are not their own. And so, yes, it is growing because we’ve never done it en masse before.” —Caitlin Dickerson [41:19]

• Some deportees are imprisoned indefinitely in these countries, with no due process.

  “We’re saying… we're putting you in a prison in El Salvador forever, without any trial that you’ve done or any shot… normally in America… if we put you in a prison for the rest of your life, we prove that you’ve done something heinous…” —David Frum [43:10]

• Trump’s legal team, led by Stephen Miller, employs “creative” strategies that knowingly push legal boundaries, aiming to achieve deportations before practices are halted by courts.

The (Lack of) Employer Enforcement

[45:45 – 48:55]

• Frum and Dickerson emphasize that the single most effective way to reduce unauthorized migration—sanctioning and auditing employers—is deliberately untouched, largely for political reasons.

  “Instead of sending ICE agents and bandanas… you send a team of accountants to large employers… Here's your half million dollar fine. …But even now, this crackdown administration is not doing serious work… because that's off limits in a Republican Congress.” —David Frum [45:45]

  “The Trump administration is already butting up against that, already getting pushback from the agriculture industry, from the hotel industry. …We do continue to this day as a country to send a deeply mixed message to immigrants.” —Caitlin Dickerson [46:41]

Reflections from the Field: Human Realities

[48:55 – 53:33]

• Dickerson reflects on her reporting journey through the Darien Gap, witnessing how forces from autocracy (e.g., Venezuela) to climate and economics drive migration.

  “In a previous time, what's happened in Venezuela politically would have made Venezuelans kind of the ideal asylee. …yet the opposition to the massive… migration from Venezuela was obviously much stronger than the diplomatic interest that may have existed in past decades.” —Caitlin Dickerson [49:09]

• Emphasizes that harsh law enforcement methods foster a lucrative ecosystem of smugglers and vested interests, rather than solving migration.

  “When you go about trying to control migration as we have, through simply law enforcement and punishment… what's happened instead… is private industry has popped up. People have figured out ways to make lots of money by getting people through and getting them into the United States.” —Caitlin Dickerson [49:09]

• A holistic approach is needed, with honest acknowledgment of American economic reliance on immigrant labor and realistic, humane policies.

  “We just need to have a more honest conversation as a country… and a way of allowing people in the United States… to live as full people with rights and protections and not live in the state of terror that many are now...” —Caitlin Dickerson [52:20]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Societies based on fear… cannot be truly free societies.” —David Frum [05:21]
• “The optimal number of immigrants is not zero. And the practice of trying to eliminate even all illegal immigration is not feasible, not in a free society…” —David Frum [06:17]
• “These are jobs that not a lot of people want to take and jobs that have a lot of turnover that people leave very quickly.” —Caitlin Dickerson [14:46]
• “This is not rocket science to find undocumented immigrants in the United States. …But it would require employer accountability.” —Caitlin Dickerson [46:41]
• “We are not only building facilities, but we're building vested interests… that may be harder to undo than one assumes…” —David Frum [26:53]
• “All of those standards, which were really difficult to uphold seem to have gone out the window under the bill because it explicitly says that standards should be held… at the discretion… of the Secretary.” —Caitlin Dickerson [22:09]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening & Personal Reflections – [00:56–09:23]
• Size and Budget of ICE – [10:11–12:06]
• Comparison with FBI, NYPD, DEA – [12:06–12:49]
• Oversight Failures – [12:59–15:49]
• Technology and Surveillance – [15:49–16:48]
• Detention Expansion and Private Interests – [18:12–27:18]
• Legal Bottlenecks, Diplomatic Fallout – [28:52–38:28]
• Third Country Deportations & Legal Issues – [40:27–45:45]
• The Employer Accountability Problem – [45:45–48:55]
• Reflections from the Darien Gap – [48:55–53:26]

Tone & Style

Frum is sober and alarmed, balancing self-critique with sharp warnings. Dickerson is meticulous, empirically grounded, sometimes incredulous at the contradictions and excesses of policy. Both communicate urgency and a plea for rational, humane, evidence-based reform—seeking not mere restriction for restriction’s sake, but sustainable legitimacy and functional law.

Conclusion

This episode offers an unvarnished look at America’s evolving immigration enforcement, warning of the consequences—legal, moral, economic, and diplomatic—of pursuing crackdown by brute force and fear. Both Frum and Dickerson call for a return to honest, effective, and just governance that recognizes the real American relationship with immigrants, and the true costs of abandoning democratic norms.