S6 Ep22: Put Excuses on ICE (with Adrian Carrasquillo)

Summary

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The Focus Group Podcast – S6 Ep22: “Put Excuses on ICE” (with Adrian Carrasquillo)

Date: January 31, 2026
Host: Sarah Longwell
Guest: Adrian Carrasquillo (The Bulwark’s immigration correspondent, author of “Huddled Masses”)

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Main Theme and Purpose

This episode delves deep into the growing national outrage and anxiety over recent deadly encounters between ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and American citizens, including the high-profile killings of Renee Goode and Alex Preddy. Host Sarah Longwell and guest Adrian Carrasquillo unpack what is happening on the ground in Minneapolis and how these incidents are resonating with swing voters—particularly Trump voters who now disapprove of his handling of immigration enforcement. The show combines reporting, voter focus group insights, and analysis of shifting public opinion and political fallout.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Minneapolis on Edge: Inside the Community’s Fear and Grief

• Adrian’s On-the-Ground Reporting (02:48–06:38)

  • Adrian describes his immersion in Minneapolis post the Renee Goode shooting:
    • Community organizers are fielding an “incredible crush of incoming”—helping undocumented and documented immigrants alike, who are now “locked in their homes” out of terror.
    • Business owners, even those who are US citizens, are losing up to 90% of their business as Latinos are too afraid to go out.
    • The fear isn’t limited to undocumented folks: “He’s been a US citizen for 25 years. The Renee Goode shooting terrified him because now he’s scared to leave work. If they’re going to do that to a white woman, what are they going to do to him?” (Adrian Carrasquillo, 04:24)

• Protest Mood and Community Response

  • White, native-born Americans are joining in Minneapolis protests. It’s not just about individual incidents, but a broader rejection: “Broadly, we don’t want you here.” (Adrian Carrasquillo, 05:56)
  • Organizers are openly targeted and harassed by federal agents.

2. Focus Group: Voters React to the Killing of Alex Preddy

• Swing Trump Voters, Now Critical of ICE (09:13–14:29)

  • Voters express unease and anger over the violence and lack of accountability:
    • “If he had a weapon and he pointed it at them…I understand, they’re federal agents. But if it was just that they saw a gun and shot him…that’s not right.” (10:18)
    • “It doesn’t look justified…I’ll give it more time, but right now it looks bad.” (09:50)
  • Skepticism over the official story, immediate justification from officials without investigation, and rising calls to remove leadership (“Kristi Noem should be removed…She’s setting fear in a lot of communities. That’s not what I voted for.” [12:00–12:26])

• Shift From Past Incidents

  • Voters felt Alex Preddy’s killing was different and less ambiguous than Renee Goode’s. Now, “everybody’s like, I don’t know, there were seven guys. They were on top of him. He was down on the ground.” (Sarah Longwell, 13:46)
  • Even swing voters, who usually “give benefit of the doubt,” are losing patience.

3. ICE’s Harsh Tactics and Eroding Public Trust

• Mask-Wearing, Lack of Accountability, and Heavy-Handedness (18:50–23:58)
  • Focus group sentiment: calls to reform or even abolish ICE are rising. Voters, even those critical of immigration, recoil at masked agents and secretive tactics:
    • “Their police wear masks… that makes no sense. It seems like [Trump’s] using it as a private police force to intimidate, to scare.” (Trump Voter, 18:50)
    • “They can go into people’s houses…that is very reminiscent of the Holocaust.” (Sarah Longwell, 22:11)
  • Concern that ordinary citizens, not just undocumented immigrants or criminals, are being harmed or unjustly targeted.

4. The Liam Ramos Case and the Emotional Center of the Debate

• Five-Year-Old Detained as “Bait” (32:25–34:55)
  • Harrowing group testimony from a Trump-voting mother: US-citizen children detained at gunpoint alongside her Puerto Rican family.
  • Detainment of a five-year-old as “bait”:
    • “People see their own kids…Liam Ramos is sent 1200 miles away to Texas…celebrated their fifth birthday in detention.” (Adrian Carrasquillo, 32:49)
  • Conditions described as “horrible”—children in detention for months, food with bugs, etc.
  • Broad agreement that targeting children “should bring the Trump administration to its knees.”

5. Debate Among Democrats: Reform vs. Abolish ICE? (27:02–29:53)

• Focus group and political panelists agree most Americans want some enforcement, but are increasingly repulsed by cruelty and excess.
• Adrian: Democrats lack imagination and creativity in policy response compared to Trump’s team (“creative in their cruelty"). Suggests policy avenues: remove Border Patrol from cities, increase transparency and accountability, focus on individual stories to connect with the public.

6. ICE’s Political Fallout and the Administration’s Calculus (39:07–41:12)

• Even some immigration “hawks” critical of the administration:

  • “If they wanted to actually get rid of illegal immigrants…just say it’s illegal to employ them…Go after the employers.” (Trump Voter, 37:47)
  • ICE’s methods are causing more division than effective enforcement.

• Some in the administration see Stephen Miller’s tactics as intentionally “screwing” their own side for midterm political reasons, misjudging the backlash.

7. Wider Context: Cameras, Cruelty, and Trust in Law

• The most chilling moments—Alex Preddy’s shooting, the treatment of children—are documented and public, raising fears about worse behind closed doors.
  • “What are they doing when the cameras aren’t on them?” (Sarah Longwell, 42:15)
  • “Americans don’t think deeply about detention—but the reality is, it’s horrible.” (Adrian Carrasquillo, 42:58)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On pervasive fear:
  “People are locked in their homes right now, scared to come out. I was with her and she filled up someone's gas tank because they were too scared to go to the gas station.”
  — Adrian Carrasquillo (03:31)

• On ordinary citizens feeling targeted regardless of status:
  “He’s been a US citizen for 25 years…the Renee Goode shooting terrified him, because now he’s scared to leave work. If they’re gonna do that to a white woman, what are they gonna do to him?”
  — Adrian Carrasquillo (04:24)

• On ICE’s lack of transparency and accountability:
  “Their police wear masks…that makes no sense. It seems like [Trump’s] using it as his own private police force to intimidate, to scare.”
  — Trump voter (18:50)

  “In a liberal democracy, that kind of accountability, like, comes with the package…It is insane. The guy who said, it looks like a South American dictatorship through the police forces covering their faces—that is not what we do here.”
  — Sarah Longwell (25:19)

• On the moral line for voters:
  “It’s clear to me that the voters in their minds said, no, he’s gonna deport dangerous criminals. Like, that is what they heard.”
  — Sarah Longwell (22:11)

• On children in detention and broader moral outrage:
  “Liam Ramos should bring the Trump administration to its knees…People see their own kids, people see their classmates of their children.”
  — Adrian Carrasquillo (32:49)

• On systemic trust breaking down:
  “That loss of faith that we live in a place where, like, there’s a covenant that keeps us from killing each other…we can protest, but, like, people aren’t going to get shot wantonly. And that’s what’s happening.”
  — Sarah Longwell (34:55)

• On policy deadlock and opportunity:
  “The discourse is maddening…like, the sides are abolish ICE or have them running rampant in cities and, like, murdering people. There are policy places in the middle.”
  — Sarah Longwell (29:53)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:48 – Adrian’s Minneapolis reporting: fear, depression, business collapse among immigrants.
• 04:24 – Extending fear: even US citizen, long-time residents terrified.
• 09:13–14:29 – Focus group: Trump-to-Biden voters, new anti-ICE sentiment.
• 18:50–23:58 – Abolish/reform ICE? Voters cite masked agents, overreach, targeting citizens.
• 30:46–34:55 – Harrowing first-hand story: US citizen, Puerto Rican woman, and her daughters detained by ICE.
• 32:49 – The Liam Ramos case: child used to capture his father, broad public revulsion.
• 37:47–39:07 – Gen Z Trump voter: ICE “nonsense,” wants focus on employers, criticizes current tactics.
• 42:15 – Concern about what ICE/Border Patrol does when cameras are off.
• 45:18 – Democrats starting to lean in: growing willingness to confront Trump’s ICE tactics.

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Flow & Tone

The episode is urgent and empathetic—Longwell and Carrasquillo are both clearly deeply affected by what they’ve witnessed and heard from voters, but maintain their commitment to factual, on-the-ground storytelling. Focus group clips reveal unexpected anguish and disillusionment, even from voters historically supportive of Republican immigration messaging. The tone balances emotional shock with analytical rigor, especially regarding how these events shape political realities.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• The violence of ICE enforcement has become a flashpoint issue, breaking through to voters who are not usually plugged into policy debates.
• Even conservative and Trump-voting groups are registering disillusionment and horror—especially when children are involved or tactics seem cruel and excessive.
• Public anger is focused not just on outcomes (deaths, detentions) but on the lack of accountability, faceless and masked agents, and the sense of living in something resembling an authoritarian state.
• Policy debate is stuck between “abolish ICE” and status quo, but there is political opportunity in creative reforms and restoring moral/constitutional guardrails.
• These incidents are fundamentally shifting the political and moral conversation about immigration enforcement—potentially setting the stage for realignment within both parties.

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Transcript

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[Sarah Longwell]

Hello everyone, and welcome to the Focus group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, and this week we are covering yet another killing of an American citizen by our own government. We've heard a lot from Republicans calling for investigations, a lot of finger pointing inside the Trump administration, and today you're going to hear from some of the real people driving Trump's declining poll numbers on immigration. A majority of the country now disapproves of how ICE is handling its job right now. According to a recent YouGov poll, including about 1 in 5 Republicans today, every voter you're going to hear from voted for Donald Trump in 2024, and a lot of them are not happy. I think this group is interesting because while you, dear listener, were probably extremely mad, as I know was about the killing of Alex Preddy this past weekend, many of the voters we talked to were more like sad and anxious and also confused. And we're going to try to make sense of all of it. My guest today is Adrian Carrasquillo, the Bulwarks immigration correspondent and author of the excellent Huddled Masses newsletter. If you're not reading that, you gotta be. It's so good. One of the best things we're producing here. Adrian, thanks for coming back, man.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Sarah, it's great to be on with you.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I know. Thanks for coming back. You have to be here. I. May I make you come? Yeah. But Adrian, you were in Minneapolis over the last few weeks because of the Renee Goode killing. Just tell me about your time there. What were you reporting on? What'd you find out? What'd you see?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

I always think about these trips, like, what are the stories? If I never run into an ICE agent, you know, if. If they're, you know, hitting people in the face with tear gas, we kind of know what the story is. And I just feel like we want to know what this has been from the beginning, which is if you're doing interior enforcement, what does that look like in communities? And how are you affecting businesses? And how are you affecting organizers? People? I think in the last few years, particularly I've heard the word activists, and it's all of a sudden this big scary word. These are people who are organizing their communities who are worried about their own parents or their own families. And on top of that are getting just like this incredible crush of incoming. So I did like a day with one of the top activists out there. She runs a group called Copal, which is a group what I thought was really fascinating there is they have like a Midwest immigrant defense network of 106 groups in the Midwest, clearly, like, if those people are not existing to help people with rent assistance, with groceries, with, you know, utilities, no one's getting that help. People are locked in their homes right now, scared to come out. I was with her and she filled up someone's a gas tank because they were too scared to go to the gas station. You know, I mean, so this is the kind of stuff. And then I saw on top of that just sort of how she was like depressed and the things she's good dealing with. So I talk to folks like that on the ground, business owners who've lost 90% of their business. And the way they say it is like only really the Americans are coming, basically, like the Latinos are too scared to come and they have kids, so they have to keep working. So, you know, can I ask Adrian.

[Sarah Longwell]

Just to be clear, is it people who are undocumented who are scared, or is it anybody who is worried that they're going to end up in a confrontation with ICE because they're brown.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Yeah. There was a guy who's Ecuadorian. You know, I'm a half Ecuadorian, so I'm talking to this guy. He sells Ecuadorian food. He's been a US citizen for 25 years. Like the Renee Good shooting terrified him because now he's scared to leave work. Because if they're going to do that to a white woman, what are they going to do to him? You know, so. And I've seen this throughout our, our coverage. Like when Charlotte happened, there was a baker and he was like, he used to be in the Colombian armed forces. This guy's not like, scared of stuff. And he was like, when agents come up to me, I'll just show them my documentation. And he saw a couple blocks from his bakery, just some Latinos get just like thrown on the concrete before they could even show documentation. So he like, ran to his bakery because he's like, that's what's going to happen to me. There's no time to be like, don't worry, guys, here's my documents. So it was really eye opening to see. And the folks who prepared to be a negative 20 degree weather to protest and to do the general strike they did the other day, I mean, really remarkable folks as we've seen. And it was really eye opening. It was really special. And I felt privileged to be able to do that and tell those stories.

[Sarah Longwell]

Unfortunately, so many of us are seeing the protests through the eyes of the shootings. Right. And what's happening around there. And that this was something that struck me about Renee Good was like, she was just dropping her kids off and she clearly, like came upon a group of people who were protesting in some way and she like got involved. And so is it just people kind of coming out of their houses saying, these guys are in our city and we don't want them here. And they're not trying to like, impede something specific necessarily. They're trying to say, like, broadly, we don't want you here. Is that right?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Broadly, we don't want you here. I think there was a, like a viral tweet recently that was like the sort of ICE handbook stuff where they're like, people can curse at you, people can yell at you. You know, some of these folks that are observing are just like kind of following ICE to see what they're up to. One guy who I wrote about, who a drummer who was at the protest on Friday, he had ICE agents show up to his house, calling his wife by name to scare them to let them know we know who you are. So it was the day he did that, the day before Renee Good shooting. But these folks are still doing stuff after these shootings, as we saw with Alex Pred and. And I've. That's been a really remarkable part of this, of just like everyday Americans, like everyday white folks in Minneapolis, who are like, this is not cool what they're doing in my neighborhood to my neighbors. And. And I'm going to stand up and be vocal about it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. I mean, the thing that I want to really highlight as we go into the focus group sound is that when you listen to voters week in and week out, the way that I do, of all different types, but the thing that you really have to learn is, hey, man, a lot of these voters are not clocking what we are talking about in D.C. like, they are not in the minutia. They might know the government shut down. They don't really know why. They know prices are higher. This is where sometimes people are like, well, voters don't care about policy. And I'm like, it's not that they don't care about policy. It's that they don't care about the minutiae of a lot of it. They're not following the news super closely. But there are certain things that end up becoming flashpoints for them, things that break through. One is things that are personal consequences for them, like costs and prices. But this has just blown me away. The extent to which everyone we talk to in the groups have seen these videos, they can frame by frame tell you what happened in these instances. And so as a matter of, like, all the eyes of the country looking into something, like, all the eyes are on Minneapolis right now. Like, the American people are following this. They see it and they have feelings about it.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

It.

[Sarah Longwell]

Are people on the ground there aware that the nation's eyes are on them at the moment?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

I think they do. They are aware that the nation's eyes are on them. I think a lot of the folks I spoke to felt how I felt, which is that they hoped and they thought that the Renee Good shooting would be some watershed moment. And then it sort of wasn't enough. And I heard some of your focus group stuff on that. Folks that were still kind of like, accepting this authoritarian thing of like, oh, don't do anything with law enforcement or they might kill you. And you're like, wait, what? Like, that's not what we signed up for here in America. But I think think the Liam Ramos thing, which I'm writing about now and I know we're going to talk about later, the little boy who was taken and then the shooting of Alex Preddy. I mean, it's like, I've heard you talk about this before, the way that, like, social media affects us and the incoming that we have. And just like you're on Instagram to get away from, like, your responsibilities for two minutes and watch a fun video and all of a sudden you're watching, like, executions by the state. And that stuff's really terrible, but, yeah, just the way that it has been out there.

[Rocket Money User/Testimonial Speaker]

Yeah.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

When I was there, I think I felt that people knew that it is national, but it's also smaller because it's personal to them. That's the people they love and that's the community. I mean, the drummer that I spoke to told me that a friend of his is moving back to Minneapolis because she's realizing how much she loves the community, how much she misses it. So, yeah, there's. There's something special there. And it felt really nice to see the way these people were coming together for each other.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, I want to get into the immediate reaction to the shooting of Alex Preddy. We talked to a group of Biden to trump vot the Monday after that shooting took place. So that's just this past Monday. And here's what they thought of the events and how the government responded to them. Let's listen. The way Homeland Security is running things, I'm all for the ice. I'm all for get the criminals out, but the way they're approaching and separating families and the killings and like getting a little kid from schools, and I'm against that. So I feel like she has to get impeached for sure.

[Trump Voter 1]

We've seen law enforcement interactions that on paper, initial response, everyone freaks out. And then you get a much longer view of it. I just don't know. It looks bad. It kind of looks like seven people had them and they were trying to wrestle them down. They seen a gun and then fired. It doesn't look justified, but I think it's. It's so early to tell. Give me about a week or two, get more information out there. Get any body cam from any of those people.

[Trump Voter 2]

If he had a weapon and he pointed it at them, then I can understand, like they are federal agents. Come on. Like that's what's gonna happen. I mean, they're gonna do that to you. But if it wasn't like all of that happened, like, if it was just they saw a gun and they shot him, that's not right. A lot of people carry weapons. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to use it on them. I think the ICE maybe also are like, on edge because everybody hates them so much and they don't know what's going to happen. So I don't know what to think about it.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'll Just give it time until the full investigation completes, because right now, we can't really judge about what's going on right now. So we don't have the full details. And I'm sure there's way more story to this. But the way they went about it, I didn't like how Kristi Norman was like, oh, but he had a gun in his hand. He had a 9 millimeter, but it was his phone. So I'm like, do you not see what we see? Like, it's like a little off kind.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Of the day of the shooting. Okay, Bundingo, whatever is. I forgot his name right now. The head of ICE and her came out hours after the shooting saying it was justified shooting without an investigation. So right away, antenna goes up and you're like, oh, I've seen a video this morning. You see the ICE officer remove the gun from the holster of. He's a male nurse. He's laying on the ground on his knees, and they see the gun and they remove it. When he takes the gun, he. That's the officer screams, gun, gun, gun. And he pulls it. And then they all pull their gun down and they shoot him 10 times. Where's the justification? I'm sorry, There is none. Okay.

[Trump Voter 3]

I do think communities of color are being targeted despite politics or, you know, their affiliations. So regardless of that, I do think communities of color are being targeted. And I think that that alone is reason for Kristin Ome to be removed from her position. You know, she's setting fear in a lot of communities. That's not what I voted for. That's not something that.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Something I strongly disagree with, you know.

[Trump Voter 3]

Because even on my case, you can see my face, you can see my name. Even if I'm a citizen, I might get questioned.

[Sarah Longwell]

So I should note that we did in the screen over index slightly on Hispanic voters. But I'm just telling you that sort of for awareness, they were not all Hispanic, but several of them were. And look, to a lot of people, the killing of Alex Preddy, I think this looks and feels different, actually to the killing of Renee Good, where we did have, as you mentioned, right, we had done a similar group of Biden to Trump voters, and they were much more willing to give ICE the benefit of the doubt than this group was. Like I will say, especially with swingier voters, you do tend to get a kind of let's wait and see, you know, let's see about the investigation. But I would say that the previous group after Renee Goode was just a little more, you know, if they tell you to get out of your car. You got to get out of your car. And I think it's a difference in just, like, the nature of the actual killings, which I did not think there was much ambiguity on the Renee Goode killing, but it got very quickly into, well, but did she turn her wheels and where was he? And did he get knocked over? Whereas this one, everybody's like, I don't know. There were seven guys. They were on top of him. He was down on the ground. Like, they know he's a nurse. That's a lot of information for average voters to have for a news event. It just is, based on what I see. So you can tell that the White House feels differently about the reaction, too, to this, because they went from smearing him immediately, which people also picked up on, to, you know, maybe looking for someone to blame. But I was, like, surprised that a number of them were like, yeah, get rid of Kristi Noemi. And so you wrote several weeks ago about how Kristi Noem could be on the chopping block. Do you think she's on thin ice? Pun intended. And since so much of immigration policy is driven by Stephen Miller, how much does it matter even who's in charge at dhs?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Yeah, well, remember. Right. They put us on the naughty list for writing that Noam's job was in jeopardy and that it was driven by not just issues with her, but also Cora and Lewandowski and this idea that kind of the knives are out for both of them and maybe they'll both go. And then the Atlantic reports that besides Bovino being out, that the next two people that are up in line is Noem and Lewandowski. It's like, even you can see now when people sort of take the counter approach to, like, Bavino's taken off, but it's still Miller, and it's like they're just looking for someone to blame. Well, these people have not covered themselves in glory in these moments with these big operations that are going on in Minneapolis, the way that they're invading this occupation of the city. And the big difference, I think, was the way that Republican senators and Republicans in general responded to Alex Brady's killing. Right. Like, with good. And I remember hearing those focus groups, there was more of like, well, the car could have been a weapon, but here, this is not Fast and the Furious, where one person can take on 10 people. As you see this man being beaten by all of these agents, you know that he's. He's down. He's not going to do anything. And it just looked like an execution. It was like 10 shots. So I think that that's where we just see the voters immediately being like, this is different. I'm going to be curious to see. I'm starting to see some stuff pick up in Phoenix. And I wrote that Phoenix was going to be one of those cities in the new year that they were going to go to and see how the operations look different because they quickly can escalate into this violence again. And when there's border patrol in cities, they're just ready to engage in violence so quickly.

[Sarah Longwell]

What you guys did just hear in Adrian's answer, if you didn't notice, it was him pointing out how his reporting was proven correct, despite the fact that the White House, you know, tried to act like it wasn't. We don't need the Atlantic to confirm it. You were the first on that, buddy. Way to go. This show is sponsored by Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. It's time to lower your spending and create wiggle room in your budget so you can afford your subscription to the Bulwark, which is the most important subscription you'll need. A couple guys in the office, they were just talking about Rocket Money and they find it super helpful that you can cancel subscriptions with just a few clicks, and that is fewer clicks than usual. Rocket Money users have been known to save hundreds of dollars a year off their unwanted subscriptions. And decluttering your credit card statements is one of the best feelings in the world. Trust me, this is exactly the thing I need because I have subscriptions I want to cancel, and not a lot of patience or time. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. [e-mail] the Focus Group. That's RocketMoney.com the Focus Group. RocketMoney.com the Focus Group. Now, everything you're about to hear came in the aftermath of the Renee Goode shooting. But I still think it's pretty instructive about how people are thinking about ICE at the moment. We talked to another group of swingish voters about immigration enforcement recently, including some of the sort of abolish ICE discourse. And the people in this clip voted for Trump in 2024, but currently disapprove of his job performance. So sometimes we screen just to explain how we do it. We'll say, okay, we take a bunch of people who voted for Trump, and then we'll ask them, do you think he's doing a very good job? You know, a regular good job, neutral, somewhat bad or very bad job. And so we like to talk to these people who are on the sort of, no, I voted for him, but I really disapprove of how he's doing. And so that's who this group is. And just have that in your mind as you listen. Let's go. I don't like the way ICE is being run right now. I don't think they're doing a good job. I don't think they're training enough. Whatever policies they're telling her workers to do, I don't agree with. I don't think it's going very well. But the idea of completely removing it, I think is also not a good idea. I think it should be reshaped to be a lot less violent and not a deport at all costs type of mindset. But I think the idea of completely removing it is a bit too far because we still need an agency that carries out, you know, let's say a criminal or a sex offender that happens to be an illegal immigrant. I think that still needs to happen, just in a different manner.

[Trump Voter 3]

While I'm about abolish ice just because from the simple fact, I mean, obviously, the way Trump's using it now, it kind of seemed like his own little private police force. The fact that they don't have to show their faces. Can you imagine any other country if they would have shown us a video from Name your country. I don't care. Guatemala. Their police wear masks. What are you talking about? Their police wear masks. That makes no sense. And then to have that be a part of what they do here in the United States of America. Yeah, it just seems like he's using it as his own little police force to intimidate, to scare. The fact that moving forward, obviously Trump's not gonna be in office forever, thank God. But whatever you do comes back to you. So let's say the next president is a Democrat. Now they want to use ICE to do it that way. So now we're just going back and forth, everybody using ICE as their own little police force. And by the end of the day, it's just gonna degrade into chaos. So, yeah, I don't see the function of ice. I think policing can be done by the FBI. I think policing can be done by the local police departments. I don't think a separate entity that it seems like only reports to the president is a good idea in the country.

[Trump Voter 2]

My mom's insurance agency her employee, you know, is Hispanic, and several of her, like, extended family members were picked up by ice. And I mean, some of them even have, like, a green card and everything. Like, it's just a little crazy. Like, they just poor pulling people out of cars. I mean, the aggression and the violence part, part really needs to stop, you know, because. And a lot of times they're taking, you know, people that are citizens. But regardless of that, I don't think that, you know, people that have lived here their entire lives, right. Maybe they didn't, you know, get the official documents to be a citizen, but I feel like, like, that's kind of not fair. You know what I mean? Now, if this is like a wanted criminal, like, okay, that's a death different story, right? But the violence, regardless, needs to stop. I mean, they have Tasers they can use, you know, like, it. I just think it should never. I don't know, just some of the things I've heard, I. I just. I can't even believe that we have an agency that operates in that way.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Yeah, I just think there should be some type of reform for ice, like, to remove it. There was ICE before Trump came into office. I just think that there needs to be better training with the, with the officers that are participating in ICE more.

[Trump Voter 2]

Than anything with the ice. It's like your face isn't shown. So, like, there's like, almost little to, like, no public, like, accountability, like, as far as personal accountability, you know, when you're doing things behind this mask. And I also think that it gives a lot of these agents, you know, this, this, like, I don't care. I can do whatever I want. And like, this, like, intimidation tactic and like, this, like, I'm invincible, you know, like, people are going to say and do things a lot differently, right? And. And do probably a lot more, like, bad things when their face is covered rather than, you know, when it's shown. And at least when something bad happens with a local police department. Right. You know, you kind of know, and you can see, like, who that person is, you know, so if something does.

[Sarah Longwell]

Happen, they can go into people's houses without having a certain type of warrant and detain people. I just think that is very reminiscent of the Holocaust time, in my opinion, you know, searching and seizing people, like, without having the proper paperwork. I did read about the young child this morning as well, who was used as bait to capture his father and I think one other person in the household. I feel like that's a little excessive. When originally I had voted for okay we're going to get criminals, people associated with drug trafficking, etcetera, out of the country. And now, like, I just saw the news this morning that some 5 year old kid was taken from school and they used his dad to, like, lure him out. I'm like, that's crazy. That is crazy. I cannot stress this enough. No matter how angry you get at the voters for voting for Trump, and then you say, what did you think was going to happen? Right? And we all have that impulse. You're like, Trump said he was going to deport like millions and millions of people. Like, did they think they were all criminals? It is clear to me that the voters in their minds said, no, he's gonna deport dangerous criminals. Like, that is what they heard. We can all argue over. Well, that's not what he said, guys. If you're listening to what he said, that's not it. But, like, that is what they believe. I just hear them say it over and over again. Yes, I want dangerous criminals out of the country who are here illegally, but, like, people who've lived here a long time, people who aren't breaking the law, using excessive force. Like, the masks come up all the time, the fact that they don't show their faces, and whether they told themselves that so they could vote for Trump because they thought he was going to bring them a better economy or, you know, whatever, it's just clear to me that people have made, drawn this line for themselves. Does that sound right to you?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Yeah, we're on the same wavelength. Because the first thing I was going to tell you that even though we've talked about this, it's just a reminder that interior enforcement looks different up close. And people heard mass deportation, but they really were like, the border's really porous under Biden and I want that fixed. And folks that are steeped in the immigration world were like, this means, like kicking open a door in Queens, New York. Like, this means going into your neighborhood, into your schools, supposed sensitive areas like churches and schools and hospitals no longer off limits. When I was in Minneapolis, ahead of my pre interviews, figuring out who to talk to, and the woman that I ended up profiling, she sort of dumped all the worst things she had heard. And one of them was someone in urgent care being scared to come out of the bathroom. Like, it was a scene from the Pit because ICE was outside waiting. And I'm with you, and I've heard it from plenty of people. And it's sometimes hard to be like, what did you expect was going to happen? I think the knife's edge here a little bit is fairness. Because on the one side, they were like, it's not fair that these people are coming in and it's not working for me. And the economy is a. It's not fair. But now the fairness and accountability comes on. Like, why are these guys have masks on? Why this guy get shot 10 times in the back? You know? And so they're like, if you just had the guy's face in a video, the border patrol guy who shot Alex Preddy was taken out. And Tim Wall said today to Tim Miller, we don't even know who he is. We don't know the names of these people. People are just like, what the hell?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, we should just pause on this. So. So Waltz did sit down with Tim. And so we're taping this on Tuesday. And it was incredible to me that the governor of the state has not been told who the guy is who shot Alex Preddy. Like, we don't know. And like, in an open society like ours, in a. In a liberal democracy, that kind of accountability, like, comes with the package. This covering their faces. I mean, I've always ran a whole campaign here in D.C. about taking off their masks. When ICE was here, you'd see them around with their faces covered. It is insane. The guy who said, it looks like a South American dictatorship throughout the police forces covering their faces. That is not what we do here.

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[Sarah Longwell]

So I want to go back to, like, the discourse, unfortunately, because there's been a lot between sort of the center left where they're like, don't say abolish ice. And then there's other people they would rather say, let's reform it. Which I do think Americans love this. Americans want to believe that they are being reasonable, and everyone thinks they're a moderate. I'm telling you, man, boy, everybody thinks they're the moderate center. And so everybody's like, yeah, reform. So what are the various schools of thought on how to handle ICE if Democrats are back in power in 2029? Do you think Democrats are going to take the lesson from this? And who knows where this ultimately lands, but that the American people are now with them? They want to protect immigrants. They want to abolish ice, because abolish ICE is now like a plurality of people in the bowling do say abolish ice, which is wild. But Democrats, you know, you just, you have certain Democrats who I feel like have internalized the lesson that that kind of talk, defund the police, abolish ICE is a net negative for them in the long term. On the other hand, the American people are getting sort of fed up. How do you think that's pushing on Democrats right now in leadership?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

My two lines are in this. I was like, the abolish ICE discourse was very frustrating to me because I thought I just broke down among familiar fault lines, and I wasn't sure, like, where Democrats were going. What I find interesting is, like, no matter how much you hate the Trump Miller, what they're doing on immigration, they are imaginative and creative in their cruelty. When they think about how they can make an immigrant's life difficult, from using their tax forms to using all manner of ways of tracking them down, they are creative. And Democrats are not similarly creative in ways to figure out how you can sort of start trying to get some accountability here or how you can start pushing back. You know, I literally spoke to a Democrat after Renee Goode, and then there was the second federal officer shooting, and we were just like, there's going to be a third shooting, a fifth shooting, and a tenth shooting unless Democrats start pushing back here in ways that, like, really resonate. And clearly there was a third shooting. I think the conversation that was not being had, and I was losing my mind, but finally it started happening was, why are there border patrol in American cities? Doug Stafford, Rand Paul's chief strategist, had a tweet where he said, what border is in Minneapolis? And since when is it illegal to carry a gun? And then he deleted that tweet, and now we see Chris Murphy wants to do legislation around. I think you can say, look, ICE is going to keep its funding. I mean, they're going to have funding. This is the least amount of ICE agents we're going to have in, like, the next four or five years. There's going to be more ICE agents. But you can say, get Bovino out, get Border Patrol out of American cities. These guys that are used to being at the border and wrangling immigrants there are now treating US Citizens like they're criminals. The Democrats need to truly understand this entire space and how much billions of dollars is going in and ways that you can try to start reining in the Trump administration.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, that's a good point. The discourse is also often maddening in how reductive it can be that there's like the sides are abolish ICE or have them running rampant in cities and, like, murdering people. Like, there are policy places in the middle that could get us to a much better place to talk about. They don't fit on a bumper sticker, maybe quite as well. All right, let's keep going on the clips. For these next couple of clips, we're going to play people who are not swing voters. So the last two groups were all Trump voters, but they're swingy. They're people who did Biden in 20, Trump in 24. These are much more like Trump's space, I guess, and we're not getting from them kind of the widespread criticism of ice, but there's still kind of enough of it in there for it to be notable. We heard about a harrowing encounter with ICE from a woman in a recent group who voted for Trump all three times. Let's listen.

[Puerto Rican Woman Detained with Children]

I was actually detained myself with my three daughters with guns pointed in our faces. I'm about to get emotional just thinking about it. And we are US Citizen, born citizen. We are Puerto Rican. I look more Caucasian because of my red hair and freckles. But my daughters, they have the more Hispanic look with the dark eyes and the dark hair. And they did. They detained my children, which was absolutely terrifying. I guess the community has come together when they see ice, they'll post it on the Channel View, like, watch. I guess you can say, hey, heads up. Don't go over here. ICE is over here. Because in here in channel view is 99% Hispanic community. So it's a lot scary. And I've noticed that even my girl, my daughter said that they have come into the school trying to lure out parents, trying, you know, oh, we have your child, you're gonna have to come and get them. And a lot of the children's parents are immigrants. And so it's either they leave their children detained or they risk the chance of being deported unless they have somebody that they trust to come pick up the kids. So I have volunteered myself for families that if they feel as if they're too scared to go pick up their children from school, I'll go pick them up myself and drop them off at their homes. So that way they're not scared to go pick up their children in fear of being detained.

[Sarah Longwell]

So, Adrian, you wrote about Liam Ramos, a five year old boy who was detained by ice, which some people called bait for ICE to find his father. Tell us about what happened there. You just wrote a newsletter about it and what you think the long term consequences of stories like that are. Because I gotta tell you, I was almost surprised about how much that has come up in groups like that story. Also, people know about it.

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

Yeah. What I wrote is Liam Ramos should bring the Trump administration to its knees. Because we saw in the first term when children are involved, people are like, what the hell's going on? And we've already gone through it. Renee, Good, terrible what happened. Or Alex, Freddy, there are people who are like, these were adults who made decisions and then something horrible happened to them. That's not right. But this little boy is. It's just like there's so many parts of it from the hat. Right. I talked to Rob Menendez, the congressman, and he basically was like on the verge of tears on the floor, castigating Republicans for the face of the deportation regime, not being violent criminals, but being this like little five year old boy. And then when I talked to him, he just had like the emotion in his voice. And people see their own kids, people see their classmates of their children. And the reason that I think this is a big deal is because Liam ramos is sent 1200 miles away to Texas to the Dilley Detention center where a third of the detainees are kids and where Eric Lee, which is a lawyer, he's had some viral tweets, he's been on Ms. Now this guy is like really, really angry because he has so many clients. So he has like a family of clients and two of them are five years old and they celebrated their fifth birthday in detention. There's a Florida settlement that says you're only allowed to be in detention as a kid 20 days. They've been in there eight months. Honestly, it's horrible the stuff that he talks about. With the food and the word water, bugs in the food. Just like disgusting, horrible conditions. So there's children in there. They did a protest the other day, like a hundred people, and they were basically screaming, like, let the kids out. So this is the kind of stuff. And, you know, there's this great Washington Post article, a column, and I suggest people check it out. And it's like the art and architecture critic for the Washington Post, and he writes about the power of photos and the way that we're reminded that someone is an innocent child because they have a little hat on or they have a toy or they have a little pet with them. And so it's just like, does the moral thing still happen in this country? Do we still see things and say, that's not correct and that's not what I voted for? And I think this is a big one. I've really seen so many mothers and parents just sharing that photo.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And people were sympathetic to this woman in the group, you know, what she'd gone through. And I just, I think at some point we're going to need to hear more people like her. Her who voted for Trump, who sort of speak out. Right. She's trying to do her bit now. Right. She's saying, I'm going to go show up and try to help people out. This is why I sort of can't help but defend the voters, because I, when I listen to them, it's just so clear they didn't think this was going to happen. And, you know, one of the things that kind of haunts me about Renee Good. And watching her face in the moment before she shot, and then even Alex Preddy, as he kind of puts his hands up and as he's standing between the woman who's getting pepper sprayed in the face, they don't think they're going to get killed. You can tell that they don't think they're going to get shot, that they are used to living in a country where what they're doing is a protected right and people don't get shot for it. It's like their faith in the essential, like, rule of law. Even if people understand that, like, law enforcement isn't always professional, like, they have, like, a higher level of just, like, trust and faith that this is not how this stuff is going to go down. So I feel like the shock in part is just that loss of. And this is a sort of unrecoverable for us as a country is like, that loss of faith that we live in a place where, like, there's a covenant that keeps us from killing each other. We can fight and we can protest, but, like, people aren't going to get shot wantonly. And that's what's happening.

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[Sarah Longwell]

To play one more clip from someone in this group. This guy is a Gen Z Trump voter from Minneapolis who seemed to be something of an immigration hawk himself. Like he was pretty hawkish, but he still had his own criticisms. Vice let's listen.

[Trump Voter 1]

My values on immigration are it is a federal crime. Like these are people I know, people I've worked for years, and yet it's a federal crime to come to the country. The reality is if you're illegal immigrant, I think you should get deported. Part of immigration. I think we should absolutely a strong border, have strong security and deport illegal immigrants. Part of the problem is I don't think that's what Trump's doing. I think this ICE nonsense is a big show. If they wanted to actually get rid of illegal immigrants, all they could simply say is it's illegal to employ illegal immigrants entirely this country. And we're going to prosecute any business owner that gets caught doing that. They deported two people from my restaurant. Who are they not going after? The guy that owns it. Who are they not going after? The people who hired them knowing they were illegal immigrants. Right. There are two and a half million legal immigrants in this country. There's no shot they can deport all of them. But by doing the show on the news where you see ISIS Going hard, ratings places. They're going to deport, what, a few thousand people, tens of thousands. They're not going to get two and a half million people. I wish Trump would actually go hard, hard at the root cause of this illegal immigration. I think these ICE raids are really just ripping our country apart because people stand on either side of things and it kind of destroys cities. Like, my gosh, I've had to leave work a ton early in the past week because of protests. It's really hard to get around. Like, it's just. I don't know, that might be controversial, but that's where I stand on it.

[Sarah Longwell]

So what's the attitude inside the administration on how to handle this kind of ICE presence going forward? Forward?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

There was a Democratic research person who, who hit me up the other day and was like, I think Stephen Miller is just screwing them for the midterms. And they're like, they want to amplify that. And then other folks are like, should we amplify that? Like, maybe they're in such bad shape, like, heading into the midterms because of, as we know, the economy is a big issue, the major issue. But the way that immigration is this second, like, tough issue. You know, even when we were talking about earlier, sort of of how you can limit some of the craziness here, if you even took away masks, which is not going to happen anytime soon. But if you got Border Patrol out and ICE was still doing their thing, a lot of people would say, okay, well, at least they toned it down a little bit. You know, a source close to DHS that I talked to often was sort of telling me that, like, the whole Bovino thing was this Bovino roadshow, and this was kind of this, like, Gnome and Lewandowski thing. And they enjoyed the political theater of it. And we saw him doing that with his, like, little Nazi cosplaying and all this weird stuff stuff. And so now they've been confronted with actually what real people, how people respond when they see these horrible things. And they just cannot limit the fact that there's going to be videos of encounters and these cities are standing up and these are just regular people fighting back. So I wonder if they'll take a break and if maybe the next city won't have the same. But already today I saw that there was. This week I saw that there was a shooting in Phoenix. So you just have to feel that with all these big weapons and these guys that are, like, testosterone crazed, sort of like waiting for a confrontation, that there's still going to be problems as they go.

[Sarah Longwell]

What was the shooting? Was the shooting you're talking about?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

There was a shooting in Phoenix, and I think it's still. There's still some of the details are coming out, but it seemed like it was a border patrol person in Phoenix. And I know that this week there were also some people who were protesting in Arizona. And as the agents drove by, they. They maced the people. So it's like, what is this behavior? What is. This is insane. There's been plenty of times. It also happened in Chicago when I was there, where they just sort of like. Like shoot, you know, tear gas at somebody, and then they just walk away. It's just crazy.

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[Sarah Longwell]

You know, before we go, there's one thought that's been kind of on a loop in my head that maybe you could shed some light on, which is I've seen other people make this point, too. It's incredible what they do when they know the cameras are on them, right? Like, the reason that Alex Preddy, like, some people are like, well, they thought he had a gun. I'm like, no, they all have their cell phones out. Everybody's got their cell phone out. Everybody knows that's what's happening, right? There's a million cameras. What are they doing when the cameras aren't on them? Like, they behave that way when they know people are filming them. And it's going to hit the Internet when they're behind closed doors and they've got people in detention. Like, what does it say about how we're treating them there? Do you know how they're being treated?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

I tweeted that exact same thing the other day. And there was a Cuban man, I believe he was in Texas, and the medical examiner ruled it a homicide because he was choked to death. Because he was basically saying, like, I'm not going in there without my medication. And they just like, kill this person. I mean, look, I don't think any of us really think about it that deeply in a general sense. Americans about what detention is. It's not good times. And it's a lot of denying medical care and saying, take a Tylenol and come back three days later. And then people are like, you know, getting really sick in their cells and stuff. But I think that this is an eye opening part of it. I don't know if people are drawing that distinction from the things they're seeing in the street. So what does that mean is happening in detention? But to me, that's like, again, underscores the power of what they did to Liam Ramos. The fact that he's now in a place where, because we've all seen him, we've all seen his, like, little face and it's like Spider man book bag. So now he's in there with his dad and there's other people and they protested and people think there's going to be retribution for them. One woman gave her full name to the Associated Press and they ran her quote, where she's like, we just want dignity and we just want you to follow the law. We're like people with children. We're not criminals. So are these people going to now face retribution? And that is the second part of this, which is once we see what's happening in our streets, where are they taking these people?

[Trump Voter 3]

Right?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

And if somebody's taken from your neighborhood and they're sent 1200 miles away to Texas Democrats, that's what they did this week. They went to the Dilley Detention Center. Joaquin Castro and some of the state representatives and some of the local groups. A procession from a church went to Dilly. So it is, I think, creating reverberations to bring attention to these issues.

[Sarah Longwell]

Are Democrats starting to lean in on this? You know, for a while, this was a. Because immigration was such a strong issue for Trump then this is another piece of discourse that's kind of been out there is like, well, like with, with Alberga Garcia, there was a lot of like, you know, we don't want to make this a big issue. Americans, they want to secure a border. They do want to illegal immigrants to be sent back to their home countries. And so they're like, so, you know, making the seacot thing a big deal. Don't do it. But now doesn't it feel like maybe you could see Democrats, like, more of them going to Minneapolis, more of them starting to say, actually, we are going to lean into the excesses of this, not just because the political winds have changed, but also because it's genuinely horrifying to watch, or are they still kind of scared on this issue? What are you hearing?

[Adrian Carrasquillo]

I think they're starting to stand up more. And I just remember last February when he had just won. He was like at the top of his power. And like, Democrats were just, like, cowed from November. And they were like, voters aren't really buying what we're selling. And, you know, people who voted for Trump weren't changing on him yet. But we wrote about it recently and Renee Goode was one of those first big shots. But like you said, Abrego Garcia and Andre, the Venezuelans and El Salvador and tear gas in Los Angeles and then Chicago and Charlotte and, you know, New Orleans. So many different places now you just feel that sense that it's going deeper and that, yeah, I think Democrats feel emboldened and it's not purely political. There's been people who told me, like, we're limited in what we can do, as they're trying to do certain things. But, yeah, you would always hear like, health care is a bigger issue or, or we can't do this now or now's the right moment. And I think most of us can agree that immigration is just going to be one of the central issues in November. So I do feel like they are stepping up and trying to figure out ways to fight back and do those pressure points. Going to Minnesota, I've also heard them say, like, a bunch of us going to Minneapolis also causes security things and, you know, just trying to figure out the right way to do things. But going to detention centers and elevating individual stories, I mean, that's how we do our coverage, right? Like, if I tell you 250,000 deportations and I tell you a million people deportations, those numbers are meaningless. Our mind can't figure that out. But if I zoom in and I tell you the story of this little boy and how he represents all these other little kids there, now we're starting to understand because these issues are heavy and people are busy and they have, you know, double shifts and stuff. They're not thinking about this all the time. But then certain things break through. And I think the horrible things that we saw in Minneapolis have definitely broken through.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. Adrian Carrasquillo, thank you so much for joining us. And thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group podcast. Remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the Bulwark on YouTube and become a Bull Work plus member at thebull work.com where you guys can get more great reporting from Adrian. We'll see you guys next week.