America’s $200 Billion Dollar Mistake: A Conversation with Garrett Graff

Summary

Podcast Summary: "America’s $200 Billion Dollar Mistake: A Conversation with Garrett Graff"

Introduction In the July 29, 2025 episode of The Politics Girl Podcast, host Lee McGowan engages in a compelling discussion with renowned historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Garrett Graff. The focus of their conversation is Graff's incisive analysis presented in his Mother Jones article, "Why Spending $200 Billion on ICE is a Terrible Idea." Together, they dissect the ramifications of the Trump administration's substantial investment in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), exploring the historical context, current challenges, and potential future consequences of such a massive budget allocation.

Historical Context and Growth of Federal Law Enforcement Graff begins by drawing parallels between the post-9/11 expansion of federal law enforcement agencies and the current surge in ICE funding. He states:

"When you look at all of the money we threw into homeland security after 9/11... the pitch there was a very patriotic one. It was, come be the front line of defense, join an elite counterterror force, be the first line of defense against Al Qaeda." ([00:00])

In contrast, he highlights the stark difference in ICE's current recruitment approach, which McGowan aptly summarizes as a departure from patriotic motives, focusing instead on aggressive and punitive measures.

Issues with Rapid Expansion and Corruption A significant portion of the discussion centers on the pitfalls of rapidly expanding law enforcement agencies without maintaining stringent hiring and training standards. Graff emphasizes:

"No healthy law enforcement agency can grow at the scale and scope and speed that ICE is apparently going to attempt to grow... Every police agency, state, local, federal, that has ever tried to grow at this scale and speed has failed." ([09:15])

He cites historical examples, such as the CBP's hiring surge post-9/11, which led to rampant misconduct and corruption:

"From 2005 to 2012, there are 2,100 CBP officers and agents arrested themselves for crime and misconduct... one CBP officer or agent was arrested every single day." ([08:02] – [11:52])

Current Budget Allocation and Its Implications The crux of Graff's argument revolves around the proposed $200 billion budget for ICE, which dwarfs the combined budgets of other major federal law enforcement agencies. McGowan probes deeper into the fiscal misallocation:

"This bill is a statement of a whole series of public policy priorities that I don't know why you would get into public service to further." ([03:54])

Graff elaborates on the breakdown of the $200 billion, highlighting allocations for new ICE detention officers, detention facilities, and border security. He warns that such disproportionate funding will transform ICE into an entity akin to the U.S. Marine Corps:

"We are going to be funding ICE not at the level of a federal law enforcement agency, but we're going to be funding it effectively at the level that we fund the US Marine Corps." ([08:02])

Cultural and Ethical Concerns within ICE The conversation delves into the cultural degradation within ICE due to rapid expansion. Graff asserts:

"ICE has lost the basic public legitimacy that we appreciated their work, and now we're seeing... a split between ICE and the American population in a way that we've never really seen at a national or societal level in American policing." ([20:53])

McGowan and Graff discuss the negative public perception of ICE agents, exacerbated by their covert operations and lack of accountability. Graff points out the shift from transparent police operations, like those of the FBI, to ICE’s masked and unmarked enforcement tactics:

"ICE has gone in the absolute opposite direction where in just a matter of months, they have adopted these sort of masked, unmarked enforcement tactics that really are terrifying for a free and open society like the United States." ([25:03])

Impact on Immigrant Communities and American Society The discussion highlights the human and economic toll of aggressive ICE policies. Graff criticizes the focus on deporting low-level offenders and the resultant disruption of communities:

"This is not about justice. It's about preference, particularly Stephen Miller's preference." ([31:57])

McGowan adds that such policies lead to labor shortages, loss of tax revenue, and overall economic instability, further emphasizing the financial imprudence of the ICE budget.

Political Dynamics and Lack of Oversight A critical point raised is the influence of Stephen Miller over ICE policies, sidelining even direct presidential interventions. Graff recounts an incident where despite President Trump’s intentions to scale back certain ICE operations, Miller’s directives overruled him:

"Within a couple of hours, within a day or two, Stephen Miller... said, 'Hey, the President's not in charge of this policy. I'm the one in charge of this policy.'" ([35:21])

This underscores a troubling erosion of checks and balances, with ICE operating unchecked and unresponsive to public dissent.

Future Implications and Call to Action As the conversation draws to a close, Graff expresses deep concern over the future trajectory of ICE under the current administration’s policies:

"ICE is acting as if they will never be accountable to ordinary checks and balances in a constitutional system ever again." ([43:55])

McGowan reinforces the urgent need for public vigilance and advocacy against the overreach of ICE, urging listeners to remain informed and proactive in defending American democratic values.

Conclusion The episode concludes with a brief discussion of Graff's upcoming project, Long Shadow, a narrative podcast exploring the rise and fall of the Internet and social media. Both hosts emphasize the importance of understanding these intertwined societal issues to foster a more informed and engaged citizenry.

Graff's insights paint a dire picture of ICE’s future, warning of increased corruption, erosion of civil rights, and economic fallout. McGowan and Graff collectively advocate for heightened awareness and collective action to counteract these detrimental policies, reinforcing the podcast's mission to inspire and educate listeners about America's fragile democracy.

Key Takeaways:

• Massive Funding Misallocation: $200 billion earmarked for ICE overshadows other law enforcement budgets, leading to disproportionate power and influence.
• Historical Precedents of Corruption: Rapid expansion without proper oversight historically results in increased misconduct and inefficiency.
• Erosion of Public Trust: Covert operations and lack of transparency have severely damaged ICE’s legitimacy and relationship with the public.
• Human and Economic Costs: Aggressive deportation policies disrupt communities, create labor shortages, and negatively impact the economy.
• Unchecked Executive Power: Stephen Miller’s control over ICE operations bypasses traditional checks and balances, leading to unregulated enforcement actions.
• Call to Action: Urgent need for public awareness, advocacy, and policy intervention to safeguard democratic principles and humane governance.

Notable Quotes:

• Garrett Graff, [00:00]: "When you look at all of the money we threw into homeland security after 9/11... the pitch there was a very patriotic one."
• Lee McGowan, [03:54]: "This bill is a statement of a whole series of public policy priorities that I don't know why you would get into public service to further."
• Garrett Graff, [08:02]: "We are going to be funding ICE not at the level of a federal law enforcement agency, but... at the level that we fund the US Marine Corps."
• Garrett Graff, [25:03]: "ICE has gone in the absolute opposite direction... masked, unmarked enforcement tactics that really are terrifying for a free and open society like the United States."
• Garrett Graff, [35:21]: "I'm far from an FBI apologist... ICE is acting as if they will never be accountable to ordinary checks and balances in a constitutional system ever again."

Follow Garrett Graff:

• Podcast: Long Shadow
• Newsletter: doomsdayscenario.co
• Social Media: Blue Sky, Facebook, LinkedIn (@VermontGMG)

Subscribe to The Politics Girl Podcast: Stay informed and engaged by subscribing to The Politics Girl Podcast for insightful discussions and analyses on pressing political issues every Tuesday.

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This summary is intended to provide a comprehensive overview of the podcast episode for those who haven’t listened, capturing the essence of the discussions, key points, and critical insights shared by Lee McGowan and Garrett Graff.

Transcript

[Garrett Graff]

When you look at all of the money we threw into homeland security after 9, 11, you know, we put a lot of money into new FBI agents, other corners of federal law enforcement. But the pitch there was a very patriotic one. It was, come be the front line of defense, join an elite counterterror force, be the first line of defense against Al Qaeda. That's not the hiring pitch that ICE is making right now. In social media clips, in, you know, Fox News stories, in news headlines, it is. Are you someone who gets really excited to dress up like you are storming Fallujah in tactical gear with long guns to go round up some roofers in the Home Depot parking lot?

[Lee McGowan]

Hello and welcome to the Politics Girl podcast. I'm your host, Lee McGowan. Let's get into it. Anyone looking around America right now can see that what's happening with ICE is not only a tremendous waste of money, but a shocking infringement on our constitutional and human rights. To talk about border and immigration enforcement, I am joined today by Garrett Graff, the best selling historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist who spent nearly two decades covering politics, technology and national security. A former teacher at Georgetown, Garrett is the author of nine books on topics ranging from presidential campaigns to Watergate, 911 and cybersecurity. Garrett is known for using history to explain the story of where we've been to better reflect where we're headed. You can read his work in multiple publications, but he has a regular newsletter called Doomsday Scenario that's really worth checking out. I'm having him on today to really dig into one of his most recent posts published in Mother Jones titled why spending $200 billion on ice is a terrible Idea. So without further ado, please welcome my guest historian, award winning journalist and bestselling author, Garrett Graf. Welcome, Garrett.

[Garrett Graff]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Lee McGowan]

Oh, thanks for coming. I mean, I read this article that you wrote and I was just like, yeah, that's exactly right. Like it was just such a clear way of saying it. And I think so many of us don't understand what's going on with ICE except to know what we see through our social media. That it was sort of wonderful to see you break it down, why this was such a bad idea. You were saying that there's many reasons why, why Trump's new domestic agenda as it's laid out in the Big Beautiful Bill is gonna be such a tragedy for the country. He wrote that not only is it mean spirited and life wrecking and community destroying with all the cuts to our social safety net and healthcare and food assistance, but also that we're doing it for the blatant reason of just giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest, to the people that don't even need it. And you wrote in your article, you know, how cruel do you have to be to raise taxes on people making less than $15,000 a year? Who are you? If you're looking at that group and thinking like, yeah, those people have it too easy, and it's the billionaires who really need more.

[Garrett Graff]

Yeah. You know, I think that this bill is a statement of a whole series of public policy priorities that I don't know why you would get into public service to further. This bill reflects a country that is not the country that I like to believe that America is that. I sort of like to think we are a kinder, nicer, more caring country than the country that shows up in this bill. There has been a lot of evidence over the last 10 years in American politics that I am wrong about the country that we are. But I still, in my heart of hearts, think that this is not reflective, at least of the tradition of public service that I think think motivates most people who get into government and politics.

[Lee McGowan]

And you say that basically. I mean, I'm looking at what's behind you for people that can't see it and are just listening to the pod. You have a Nixon poster. You have a Goldwater poster. Like you would be, I'm assuming, some sort of a traditional conservative or Republican. And yet you're looking at this same budget when you say, you know, show me your budget and I'll show you my values. And this budget does not match with the values of what we're seeing from this current Republican government.

[Garrett Graff]

My Nixon Goldwater is actually a reflection of my time writing about Nixon in a book that I did on Watergate. So I.

[Lee McGowan]

Perfect.

[Garrett Graff]

I'm not what one would call a traditional conservative, but I grew up in Vermont. I live in Vermont. I worked for Howard Dean when he was governor of Vermont and then when he was running for president. And in most of the rest of the country, in traditional terms, Howard Dean would be a Republican.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah, a classic centrist. Right?

[Garrett Graff]

Classic centrist. And I think one of the things that I believe in my heart of heart in politics is that the role of government is to help smooth out the unlucky, that we are all unlucky at various times in our lives. It is one of the few things that we have no control over in our lives, whether it's a health scare, whether it's a family scare, whether It's a, a community scare, as we've seen in Texas in the last couple of weeks, as we're certainly going to see in some American cities or towns in hurricane season this summer. I've always believed that the role of government is to sort of help the unlucky, assuming that sort of all of us will be unlucky at various times and need that government help. And this is a budget that sort of top to bottom guts most of the parts of government that work hardest to protect the unlucky.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah. And if you are looking out for the unlucky, it's like you're only as strong as your weakest link. And if you're helping the weakest link at that moment, then theoretically you're strengthening the entire nation. But as you point out, as someone who has covered federal law enforcement for the last two decades, someone who has written books about the fall of fascism in Europe, it's also impossible to not look at this new piece of legislation and see that not only are we hurting people with these policies, we're turbocharging what will ultimately be a form of a lawless regime with all the money that we're allowing into Border Patrol and ice. So talk to me about why you wrote this article and what your biggest concerns are about giving a blank check to essentially a giant unchecked secret police.

[Garrett Graff]

Yeah, so I've spent most of the last 20 years covering federal law enforcement. I have written books about the FBI, I've written articles about ICE and the postal inspectors and the marshals and ATF and lots of Alphabet soup agencies. And I spent about five years covering cbp, the Customs and Border Protection, and specifically looking at the wave of corruption, crime and misconduct that followed a hiring surge that the Border Patrol did in the bush years post 9 11. In the wake of the original creation of DHS, that agency sort of tried to double from about 9,000 Border Patrol agents to about 18,000 in a very short period of time. And how. What ended up happening was the agency was just swamped by misconduct, crime, corruption of a whole lot of people who should have never been federal law enforcement officers. And I'll come back to that in a second. But to then pivot to the modern moment, this new spending legislation this summer puts about $200 billion into immigration enforcement. That includes money to hire about 10,000 new ICE detention officers, as well as about $40 billion for new detention facilities, $50 billion for border security.

[Lee McGowan]

So it's personal enforcement, but it's also money for detention and surveillance. They want Money to build more walls, more prisons, immigration agents out in the street, more ICE agents out in the streets, to basically round people up and. Or terrify us into behaving the way they want us to.

[Garrett Graff]

Yeah. And I think it's really easy in sort of politics to like, throw around these really large numbers with millions and billions and like to not have people really understand what those numbers really mean. To put that $200 billion in context, ICE's annual budget right now is about $10 billion. We are going to be funding ICE at a level that is larger than the combined budgets of the FBI, the atf, the dea, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, again combined. So we are going to be funding ICE not at the level of a federal law enforcement agency, but we're going to be funding it effectively at the level that we fund the US Marine Corps. Like an actual, you know, pillar of the armed services.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah. I think they said if I swear the military unto itself, it would now be the sixth largest military budget in the world.

[Garrett Graff]

Something in that range.

[Lee McGowan]

In the world.

[Garrett Graff]

Yeah. And coming back to the CBP example, the challenge is no healthy law enforcement agency can grow at the scale and scope and speed that ICE is apparently going to attempt to grow. ICE is not a healthy law enforcement agency to begin with. For all of the ways that you can see on your social media accounts and daily news headlines right now, every police agency, state, local, federal, that has ever tried to grow at this scale and speed has failed. And the examples are notorious across the history of American criminal justice. Miami in the 1980s, which tried to vastly increase its police force. You can talk about the infamous class of 1989 of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. where Mayor Marion Barry tried to increase the size of the local police by 50% in a single year. And what ends up happening is you have this, like, long trailing arc, this long tail of crime and corruption that follows these officers. Because in order to grow at this scale, you cut your education standards, you cut your hiring standards, you cut your oversight standards, you cut your supervision and training standards. And that's exactly what ended up happening with cbp. Cbp, sister agency to ice. Like, we don't have to look very far for examples of how this goes wrong. Doubles in size again, 9,000 to 18,000 agents. And what that ends up meaning is that from 2005 to 2012, there are 2,100 CBP officers and agents arrested themselves for crime and misconduct. Which means that for seven years, one CBP officer or agent was arrested every single day. And by as late as 2017, more than a decade after the hiring surge started, the pace of arrest for crime, corruption and misconduct among CBP had slowed to only one agent or officer every 36 hours. So, like, this is still a, like, titanic tidal wave of crime and corruption within the ranks of the own Border Patrol that they are sort of still trying to sort out today.

[Lee McGowan]

What Garrett is saying is when you try to supersize an agency, when you try to hire people this fast, history shows us, based on Garrett's research, that when any law enforcement agency grows too fast, their hiring standards fall. They limit their training. The officers end up being inexperienced. The supervisors don't know what their doing. You know, people who are supposed to be familiar with the procedures don't know them. So they end up making a lot of mistakes. And law enforcement usually regrets that speed in which they hired people because the mistakes that are made during that time often take years to fix. I mean, you told a story in your article about how Border Patrol tried to increase their hiring and they ended up with a bunch of cartel members and even like one serial killer in the mix and they put them on patrol.

[Garrett Graff]

Yes. This isn't just about the new officers coming in. That's the problem. It's also that it sort of corrupts and breaks the whole organization. Because in order to bring on these new officers, what ends up happening is you end up promoting the current officers into sort of levels of supervision and executive ranks that they're not qualified for either, that they haven't had the field experience they haven't had the training for, they haven't had the sort of supervision in order to do those jobs well. And so then you sort of end up with this, like, whole house of cards where across the entire organization, no one is qualified, no one has the training, no one has the supervision. And again, that's in your healthiest law enforcement agencies. What sort of specifically terrifies me about throwing this amount of money at ICE is we already can see that ICE is not a healthy law enforcement agency. That sort of the speed with. At which it has moved towards masked, unmarked law enforcement operations. Enforcement operations. The speed with which they have resorted to sort of brutal tactics. And then also think about who this is going to attract as the next generation of this turbocharged ICE agent.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah. You laid out four major reasons we should be deeply worried about what the Trump administration is doing with immigration. And you're starting right now with saying, like, listen, no one is supposed to supersize a law enforcement agency this fast. That's rule Number one, because we know it goes badly. We know the mistakes are made, we know we hire the wrong people, promote the wrong people, and they're already making mistakes. That many more people in what will happen? And the second one that you're going on to now, which I think is like, who does this then attract to be these officers? That would be the second one. Three, you talk about the funding disparity between ICE and Border Patrol and how much bigger their budget is going to be now than the Justice Department. And the Justice Department is supposed to be a very big part of this. There's supposed to be a whole process through the courts that we work through. But they're putting all the money into enforcement rather than the legal system that goes. Should go hand in hand with it. And then finally, if we're not prioritizing the law because we're not putting money into the Justice Department or new immigration judges per se, we're putting it all into law enforcement. It's a really bad time for the Supreme Court to be turning a blind eye to the lawless behavior of the executive branch. So that's kind of the four main pillars. And we were just, you and I were just discussing this idea that, like, I shouldn't be growing that fast because really no agency should be growing that fast. But then you're talking about now, who wants to be an ICE agent right now, right? Like, who's drawn to this job when we know it has like a social stigma to it and a sort of political nature to the brand itself? Have you ever tried to buy wine but you have no idea what to get? There's just too much to choose from. 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[Garrett Graff]

Yeah. And I think that, like, after 9 11, when you look at all of the money we threw into Homeland Security, after 9 11, you know, we put a lot of money into new FBI agents, other corners of federal law enforcement. But the pitch there was a very patriotic one. It was, come be the front line of defense, Join an elite counterterror force, be the first line of defense against Al Qaeda. That's not the hiring pitch that ICE is making right now in social media clips, in Fox News stories, in news headlines. It is, are you someone who gets really excited to dress up like you are storming Fallujah in tactical gear with long guns to go round up some roofers in the Home Depot parking lot? You know, are you watching the news and are excited to, like, scuffle with Democratic members of Congress who are trying to do their legal constitutional duty to provide oversight of detention facilities? Do you get your rocks off, like, beating up America's abuelas outside of churches and schoolyards and, you know, shipping them off to South Sudan or El Salvador? Torture gulags? I mean, this is, I think, a recruiting pitch for America's worst bullies. I think sort of. Unfortunately, the Onion covers politics more accurately than a lot of political outlets these days. And there was an Onion headline last week about every trait that made an ICE applicant bad for every other job. Makes them perfect to be hired by ICE right now.

[Lee McGowan]

Like, xenophobic, racist, sadist, bully, incompetent, unprepared. Like, all these things.

[Garrett Graff]

Right.

[Lee McGowan]

Might be an asset in ice.

[Garrett Graff]

Exactly. We've just. We've never seen a hiring surge in a law enforcement agency that was so polarized, so partisan, had such a sort of loss of legitimacy in a free and democratic society. In a free, democratic, open society, policing requires the permission of the police. Like, that is one of the sort of fundamental tenants of policing, dating back to Sir Robert Peel founding the London Metropolitan police in the 1800s as the first modern police force. Like, the reason that police have authority is that we, the police, respect them. What Ice has lost in the last six months, which Ice had for most of the 19 and a half years of its existence prior to January 20, 2025, is the sort of basic public legitimacy that we appreciated their work, and now we're seeing you know, this split between ICE and the American population in a way that we've never really seen at a, like, national or societal level in American policing. There are certainly, like, communities or neighborhoods that have bad relationships with their local police departments. You know, that's nothing like the idea that we're now seeing, you know, federal law enforcement jeered at sporting events.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah, well, it's hard to respect masked men in unmarked cars with no identification who can do whatever they want. And I don't know if you're doing that job or not. Like, if that's you, you're not the good guy. It literally doesn't matter if your paycheck is signed by the US Government, you're not the good guy. If you show up somewhere, don't tell anyone where you are, you're masked, and you throw people into cars and don'. Answer any questions, that does not make you the good guy. Doesn't matter who's paying your salary. And I think we have to remember, too, that they've talked about giving these new recruits just extraordinary bonuses and extraordinary paychecks. They're talking about paying off their student loans and giving them federal universal health care. And it's kind of one of those things where it's like, they're going to make it almost impossible for people not to take the job, but also to leave the job, even if they see things that they shouldn't be seeing. Because where else are they going to get that kind of paycheck, that kind of bonuses, that kind of extras, perks? You're not getting that anywhere, especially in a job that has no education requirement.

[Garrett Graff]

Exactly. And that's where, again, like, part of the challenge of this is ICE already has among the lowest hiring standards, education standards, and training standards of any federal law enforcement agency. ICE today, right now, is the best educated and trained and most mature ICE we will see for the next decade. Which is a terrifying sort of thought for American society.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah, it's like that old Simpsons thing where it was like, this is the worst day of my life. And he's like, so far. You know, like, that's what it's like. This is the worst ICE has ever been. You're like, so far. I mean, the thing is that. But I think one of the problems, and you wrote about it in your article, is that the culture that we're seeing play out in ice, the people that are attracted to it, this group clearly believes they're never gonna face any kind of accountability. Right. So they are attracting that kind of person. They are. Then behaving like no one's ever gonna hold them accountable for what they do. And that is a problem unto itself.

[Garrett Graff]

Yeah. And I think it is indicative of the unhealthy culture that sort of underlies this, which is, you know, there are plenty of federal law enforcement agencies that operate in plain clothes. The FBI, atf, Secret Service, US Marshals.

[Lee McGowan]

But we've been seeing those guys on TV show us their badges since the dawn of time.

[Garrett Graff]

Right. And so what you see is that those agencies, and part of the poison of Donald Trump politics is it makes you into an apologist for things that you don't actually mean to be an apologist for. So I am far from an FBI apologist in my normal hat. But for a moment, let me talk about sort of how wonderful the FBI is as an agency, which is when the FBI is doing an enforcement operation, they go out of their way to make clear that they're federal law enforcement. They have those iconic blue FBI ray jackets with the bright yellow FBI letters on the back. Same with dea, same with atf. And sort of the whole point is, when a team of FBI agents arrives on your doorstep, you are never going to confuse them with anyone else, like with an.

[Lee McGowan]

A home invasion.

[Garrett Graff]

Right, Right. And ICE has gone in the absolute opposite direction where in just a matter of months, they have adopted these sort of masked, unmarked enforcement tactics that really are terrifying for a free and open society like the United States. Like. Like we have never been a country where sort of a state officer can come up to you on the street and demand your papers and sort of tell you whether it's okay for you to go down to the corner store.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah. No, that's antithetical to American freedom. It's what people would never expect to happen here. You know, it's something that happened in 1930s Germany. The show us your papers on the train kind of stuff.

[Garrett Graff]

Exactly.

[Lee McGowan]

But we're now living in Donald Trump's America. But Stephen Miller's vision. Right. And Stephen Miller's version of America is completely different than what we see in our constitutionally protected America.

[Garrett Graff]

Yeah. And, you know, I'm for the listeners who can't tell this. Like, I'm a very white guy and, like, I don't think I probably have to worry too much yet about carrying my passport with me when I go down to my grocery store. But there are a lot of Americans who are, you know, by any definition American, who don't look like me, who I think in this next phase of ICE's growth and turbocharging are going to feel like they need to be carrying their birth certificates and passports anytime that they're leaving the house.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah. I think that we forget that a lot of these agencies that we're dealing with now haven't been around for that long. They're not like, built into our system. They are result of reaction to 9 11. Like the Department of Homeland Security was never designed to handle all of this. You know, there's supposed to be a lot of people involved, including immigration courts and the Department of Justice. Stephen Miller is talking about deporting 3,000 people a day. He's saying that he thinks the country should only have 100 million people. We currently have 300 million people. Right. That isn't something you just say and then try and accomplish. The Justice Department is supposed to be deeply involved. They should have an equal budget, but there's no way they're going to be able to keep up with what the way the budget has been set up now, it's not even realistic to think about processing that many deportations daily. So then you start thinking about the human cost of that. I mean, obviously, due process is going to take a hit, but also legal oversight, that kind of thing. And so I think people need to remember that it's not just like, well, these are my rights and your rights might not make it into this new iteration of what they're trying to do.

[Garrett Graff]

Yeah. And it's also, it's a huge change in who is getting deported, who is getting targeted by these raids. For most of ice's existence, it has operated with what was known and was codified in a series of policy memos with what was known as prosecutorial discretion, which is sort of a fancy way of saying ICE tried to be smart about who it targeted. ICE has a limited number of officers. You know, everyone has a limited number of hours in the day. And on any given day, there are more people in the country illegally than ICE can arrest and deport. So what ICE focused on, and again, I'm not saying ICE was absolutely perfect for the last 19 and a half years. I'm not saying that this accounted for 100% of their cases, but it accounted for. For the main drive of the agency was to go after people who were not simply criminals because they were here, but people who were doing crimes here in the United States, which is also.

[Lee McGowan]

What Donald Trump said they were going to look for. Because if you're here overstaying your visa, that's a civil case. He said they're going to go after the worst of the worst. The gang members, the rapists, the murderers, and they went immediately to immigration courts and picked up people that were doing it genuinely the legal way.

[Garrett Graff]

Exactly. And the difference is that ICE really did target the, you know, quote unquote, bad criminals for most of its existence. But that work is really resource intensive. You know, you have to identify them. You have. It takes a lot of officers to sort of find them and launch the raid to arrest them. You know, you're dealing with actually violent people. And so you need to sort of have a different scale and posture for the raid and different level of organization. When Stephen Miller showed up at ICE headquarters and decreed this sort of magical we need to arrest 3,000 people a day number, what that meant was ICE has to go after the aboaylas that ICE sort of has to go after the easiest, lowest hanging fruit in America. And that's when you sort of started to see this huge shift in May towards the, like, SWAT teams raiding Home Depot parking lots and, you know, rounding up migrant workers on farms and, you know, arresting people in immigration courts and schools and churchyards. You know, I watched a horrific video of, you know, dad getting arrested, dropping his kid at daycare today.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah, it's terrible video. And if anyone hasn't seen it, they just take him away and they leave the kid in the car. And they've done that multiple times.

[Garrett Graff]

And you just like coming back a little bit to where our conversation started. Like, I don't understand how ICE officers who are doing this are going home feeling good about their contribution to America's security and America's society. At the end of the day, we're watching, you know, thousands of people get arrested per day who are not making America any safer and are, in fact, you know, ripping the hearts out of many communities, you know, around the country.

[Lee McGowan]

Not to mention financially ripping the heart out of the country. Like, I find that so crazy. Like, we have to remember that as we round up all these immigrants, there's going to be major economic fallout, like labor shortages and loss of tax revenue. And like, ultimately we could be, you know, destroying our own gdp, increasing the deficit with these giant ICE budgets, and just basically messing up our entire lives with the uncertainty that it adds to it. So it's not only, like, morally wrong, it feels financially foolish to be doing it the way they're doing it.

[Garrett Graff]

Yeah. Immigration has always been controversial in American history, but it has also always been our greatest source of strength. And one of the things that I think make clear, the racism and xenophobia that drives Stephen Miller's Agenda in this is he is not just trying to shut down illegal immigration, he is also going after legal immigration. You know, he is actually also going after the students trying to study at universities here. He is also trying to go after the scientists and researchers who are coming here to set up their labs and do work and launch startups.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah. That gentleman from the video you were talking about, if it's the same one I'm thinking of, he's a major doctor in the community. And it's like, we're not going to have these people that come and give their skills to this nation if this is how they're going to be treated by the government.

[Garrett Graff]

Yeah. What you see day by day in this moment is the sort of fig leafs being ripped off the talking points around immigration such that we see that at its core, this is a white nationalist, white supremacist agenda being advanced now by the full weight of a federal law enforcement agency.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah. I don't think we can look at it any other way. I mean, if even just to look at who they're hiring, like we were saying before, I mean, 10 to 20 times the amount of ICE officers to bring people in, but they're only adding 100 judges to immigration courts. Right. So that's impossible. We already have a backlog of people going through the system properly. They want to capture people, which seems to be far more important, but then not give those same people their due rights, civil rights, their due process, because they're not hiring. It's such a number disparity between the officers and the judges. Right. And there's also supposed to be this separation between the Attorney General, who's currently Pam Bondi, and the Department of Homeland Security, which is currently run by Kristi Noem. But both those women clearly work directly for the President. And the president just does whatever Stephen Miller tells him to when it comes to immigration. So really there's no checks and balances on this whole group. And I think we really have to point out that you're saying, like, we can't just be doing this at the same time that the Supreme Court has given this administration an appallingly wide berth when it comes to what he wants to do. Like, as long as we call it a national security issue, he can kind of pick and choose what laws apply to him. Right. Like we can ship people off to, like you were saying, Sudan or El Salvador. That's illogical. Right. Those people have never been there before. Why would we do that? Right. Like, that doesn't make any sense. And then there's this whole group of people, the ICE agents included, who can just ignore federal law if the President says they can because the Supreme Court told him he could. And I think that should concern all of us.

[Garrett Graff]

Yeah. And Lee, you actually said a really important thing in there, which I want to sort of unpack for a moment, which is what has also become clear in the last two months, is the extent to which this is Stephen Miller driving it and not Donald Trump. That actually Donald Trump is not the one in charge of this. And we saw this in a really interesting way that I think most Americans sort of skipped over where six weeks ago, two months ago, you know, as these large scale raids started, Brooke Rollins, who's the Agriculture Secretary, talked to Donald Trump and said, hey, look, these workplace raids are devastating hospitality, they're devastating farms, they're devastating construction sectors. There's a lot of sectors that are really feeling a big chill from them this. And Donald Trump said, you know, you're right, we're going after a lot of people who are not violent. He made a public announcement that, you know, we're going to sort of come up, we're going to scale back the workplace enforcement, actual policy went out in the field to ICE officers saying, stand down on workplace enforcement. And then Stephen Miller, you know, within a couple of hours, within a day or two, who basically said, hey, the President's not in charge of this policy. I'm the one in charge of this policy. And I say we are going after these workplace raids. And ICE actually revoked the policy guidance that had gone out to officers leading Donald Trump at his Fourth of July rally in Iowa to sort of again say, you know, hey, like, I think we're gonna try to look at this differently. And, you know, Brooke Rollins says, you know, we need to, to, you know, be smarter about this and figure out how we can keep the workers on the farms. And just nothing came of it.

[Lee McGowan]

And then he went into that whole thing about, about slavery and how the farm people who own the farms can take responsibility for their workers. And it all sounded, started sounding very slavery esque. But that's Donald Trump talking off the cuff. And I think what we're both saying here is that Donald Trump can say whatever he wants to say. The person running this show is Stephen Miller and his hired muscle is Tom Homan. And they are both sadists when it comes to immigration, immigrants, people who don't look like you and me. And I think we should, you know, point out that it doesn't matter if Trump's in charge. These are not his necessarily immigration policies. They are the immigration policies that are happening under him. And the success of it is gonna be dependent on who follows through, but also on the popularity of it. And I would say the immigration policy popularity is, is definitely already waning. If I look at the numbers, well over half of America now opposes this level of deportation. The public sentiment in favor of immigration itself is going up rather than down. People do not like ICE agents. So how does the administration square public sentiment with what they're planning to do? Or they just plan to ignore us on all fronts? Because that's what it feels like. I'm really excited about this new sponsor because, you know, I love a certain meal prep organization, but I don't always have time to cook them. I order three times a week, but that leaves me with four extra nights and very little time. This is why I'm excited to try CookUnity. CookUnity meals are delivered fully prepared. They are ready to eat meals delivered directly to your door from a roster of all star chefs, including Food Network alumni, James Beard Award winners and acclaimed restaurateurs. CookUnity's platform is simple to use and you can filter by chef by product, protein, cuisine or dietary needs. I personally wouldn't mind losing a little weight going into the new school year And I think CookUnity's community is going to be very helpful with that. All meals are created in small batches. Take as little as five minutes in the oven or microwave to cook and they are ready to go. So get what you're craving. Try the freshest, best tasting meal delivery service made by your favorite celebrity chefs. Go to cookunity.com politicsgirlfree or enter the code Politics Girl Free before checkout for free Premium Meals for Life. That's free Premium Meals for Life by using the code politicsgirlfree or going to cookunity.com politicsgirlfree that's countless global cuisines from 160 award winning chefs delivered right to your door and ready in [e-mail] politicsgirlfree terms and conditions apply. Go to cookunity.com for details. Right now the headlines are packed with data breaches and regulatory rollbacks and phishing expeditions that make us all vulnerable. But you can do something about it. Deleteme is here to make it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online. The fact of the matter is we're all at risk. How many times have you gotten a text or an email or a letter saying your data has been breached? It's very upsetting, but the Good news is Deleteme can help. Deleteme does all of the hard work of wiping you and your family's personal information from data broker websites. Sign up and provide Deleteme with exactly what information you want deleted and their experts take it from there. DeleteMe then sends you regular personalized privacy reports showing you what they found, where they found it and what they removed. Deleteme is constantly working for you, monitoring and removing your personal information that you don't want on the Internet. And it is not some sort of one time service. As someone with a very active online presence, privacy is incredibly important to me. You hear these stories about hackers obtaining the names and addresses and phone numbers and family member names of people. I'm just very grateful that there's groups like Deleteme available to help keep our information off these sites and keep it from falling into the wrong hands. So take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Deleteme now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your delete me plan. When you go to join delete politicsgirl and use the promo code politicsgirl at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to JoinDeleteMe.com politicsgirl and enter the code politicsgirl at checkout. That's JoinDeleteMe.com politicsgirl code politicsgirl so how does the administration square public sentiment with what they're planning to do? Or they just plan to ignore us on all fronts? Because that's what it feels like.

[Garrett Graff]

Yeah, I think you're right. Which is this is a administration that sort of doesn't care about public opinion, which is concerning.

[Lee McGowan]

Right. Because you're like, there should be an election in 26. Like, why don't they care that we hate what they're doing and that this.

[Garrett Graff]

Is a president that is not bound by the normal set of constraints and checks and balances in a political system, you know, from Congress, from the courts, that would provide a meaningful check on some of these excesses. I think one of the things, again, that worries me about the culture of ICE is it is a young agency and so has not been through these sort of pendulum swings of American politics before. You know, one of the reasons you wouldn't see the FBI again, not me saying the FBI is a Perfect agency for 100 years, et cetera, et cetera.

[Lee McGowan]

But Gary, you're like, I'm not an FBI apologist. Just let me just say that up front.

[Garrett Graff]

However, one of the reasons it's a lot harder to get an agency like the FBI to do corrupt and unconstitutional things is the agents and executives in that agency have sort of lived through scandals before. And so they know, like, the people who are out of power right now might be back in power in the future. And I don't want to be the one in the congressional hearing in, you know, two years or four years whose career is ruined over this set of decisions. ICE is not acting like that. You know, one of the reasons that other federal law enforcement agencies don't rough up the minority members of Congress on a routine basis in the streets of America is because those agencies are like, these guys might be the ones who are in charge next time of our budget. And, like, I don't want, like, one of my agents to have personally punched the head of the House Judiciary Committee or, you know, the head of the Homeland Security Committee in a couple of years. ICE seems totally willing to do that because ICE is acting as if they will never be accountable to ordinary checks and balances in a constitutional system ever again.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah, and that is seriously problematic. I mean, I think about Tom Homan saying, you think we're arresting people now? Wait till we get the funding to do what we want to do. You know, and I think it's terrible. And I think that most people can see that it's terrible. And I think we have to keep our eyes on it and a light on it. And I think we have to shame ICE officers. I mean, you called ICE a masked monster, and then I'm gonna quote you, you said ICE is a masked monster, one uniquely unsuited for its new power, authority, reach, and funding levels. And I think that that's the gist of it all. Like, they are not prepared for this. They do not have the expertise for this. They do not have the training for this, and they don't have any sort of historic background to lead them to know anything about this. It's just a brand new group of shiny green people who really hate everybody. And they are going to show you with their fists and their money now behind them, and they think they'll be accountable to no one. Now, listen, this is depressing, and I agree with you. And I think we need to keep our eye on it, and we need to be really vocal about how we feel about both the agency and how we are dealing with immigration right now. But before you go, I really did just want to ask you about your newest project because you do so much deep research on things and you have a way of putting things together so that we understand the Bigger picture. And you have a podcast that's a narrative podcast. It's a big award winning podcast called Long Shadow. You drop it once a year. It's a limited release. This season, you're doing a deep dive into the rise and fall of the Internet and social media and how this tool that was supposed to be bringing us together is really driving us apart. And I think in many ways it's so important right now, because if we're talking about ice, it's the Internet that's going to keep us informed about what these agents are doing. So in some ways we need that kind of thing. But we can also see how it's made us hate each other, how it's made us fight with each other, how it's spread disinformation. Now, I know the podcast is only seven episodes and the one that's recent is actually about the Russia attacks on the 2016 election, so. So good on you. We're right back there in the news. But tell us a little bit about Long Shadow before you go, because I think my audience would get a lot out of it.

[Garrett Graff]

Sure. So every season for Long Shadow, we tried to take a sort of public policy or political issue and explain why America is the way that it is today. So, for instance, in the second season, we did the rise of the American far right and sort of tried to show the white nationalist roots of our current politics, dating back to the bombing in Oklahoma City, the siege in Waco, Ruby Ridge, you know, and earlier. And then last year, we did gun violence and gun policy in America and sort of how America became a country of mass shootings.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah, where are our Second Amendment warriors now? I mean, weren't they supposed to rise up against a tyrannical government? Like, I am waiting.

[Garrett Graff]

Yes, Another good Onion headline of late. NRA forgets to rise up against tyrannical government.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah, exactly. Right.

[Garrett Graff]

And so for this season, exactly as you said, we're diving into really the last 35 years of the rise of the Internet and social media, which is a story I've lived a lot sort of personally in my career as a journalist in new media outlets. I remember this sort of age in the 2000s of sort of the arrival of social media, the arrival of blogs, the first years of Twitter, the first years of Facebook, and this sort of idea that the Internet was going to deliver this amazing era of transparency and accountability, that democracy was going to win because authoritarian regimes could never stand up to the power of the people organized online. And that was a big part of Barack Obama's Message and the sort of hope and change and optimism of that era. It was a big part of the Arab Spring in the early years, Twitter and Facebook revolutions in the Middle East. And then over the course of the 2010s, we saw the Internet change, and we saw this sort of much darker moment. And now we have seen this sort of tool that was supposed to bring us together and deliver sort of unparalleled access to the world's information really become this unbelievable cesspool of racism and misogyny and hate and harassment and polarization. And so we wanted to try to figure out why that happened. And so across these seven episodes, we trace year to year, moment to moment, the sort of major moments of this. What really surprised me in the course of this was the Internet that we ended up with today is actually a very specific set of very deliberate choices by social media companies in sort of specific and identifiable moments. They chose very consciously, polarization over harmony.

[Lee McGowan]

They chose profit over everything.

[Garrett Graff]

Exactly. Because what it turns out is polarization is far more profitable than harmony. And you see this actually in the algorithms that power our news feeds, sort of, et cetera, et cetera. And at one point, Facebook had its dislike button ranked five times as powerfully as the like button. So sort of the angrier you were with something, the more you saw other things that made you even angrier. And that. That becomes actually a major part of the backdrop of how we ended up with where we are right now.

[Lee McGowan]

Not to mention we have, you know, the Internet came on us with very little regulation, so we weren't ready to regulate these industries the way we did with, say, news channels and that kind of thing back in the day. Even cable news isn't regulated the way it should be. And it allows disinformation and misinformation to travel so quickly with no one holding it back. We lost the fairness doctor and we lost slander laws in many ways. And it allowed. The Internet just supersized all of that. And this thing that was supposed to, as you said, I remember when Facebook, it was supposed to connect us. It was a way for me to, like, be friends with all my friends who were living all around the world, and wouldn't this be wonderful? And now, you know, I get five or six death threats a day. You know what I mean? And so that seems like we've made a mistake somewhere. But as you're saying, it's really. It's not a mistake. It's a deliberate choice by the people that ran these agencies of what they were gonna promote what they were gonna push, what they were gonna highlight, because at the end of the day, the profit was the goal. And now we're seeing power is the goal. That's why we saw all those people who run these social media industries behind Donald Trump at the inauguration. It's all profit and power. Kind of the driving force there.

[Garrett Graff]

Yep. And you are talking exactly where the season ends in two weeks in our seventh episode where that inauguration is a major scene. And I encourage your listeners to go back and start with episode one and sort of follow us along. But the these next couple of episodes, episode six looks at 2020, you know, sort of how America lost its mind across Covid and the George Floyd protests on into January 6th. And then the final episode really looks at Gamergate and the rise of the manosphere and the rise of Elon.

[Lee McGowan]

Yeah, I actually think 2020 might have been our tipping point and we went the wrong way. I want to thank you so much for joining us today, Garrett. I know this isn't good news, but I do think it's. It's important news and it's important that we know and we're aware of it. I might have to go back and listen to the second season of your thing. I need to know more about white supremacy and the rise of it. I think, especially when we look the way we do, I think it's our responsibility to stand up to it more than anybody else's. Tell people how they can follow you and your work moving forward.

[Garrett Graff]

So you can find Long Shadow anywhere that you listen to your podcasts. My newsletter is doomsdayscenario.co. you can find me on Blue sky or Facebook or LinkedIn or wherever you like to find your stuff as Vermont GMG.

[Lee McGowan]

Thank you so much for coming, Garrett. I really appreciate your insight.

[Garrett Graff]

My pleasure. This was really great.

[Lee McGowan]

So that was Garrett Graff reminding us that the role of the government should be to help smooth out the world for the unlucky. But this new budget tells us that not only does this administration not care about the union lucky they are willing to prey on them if it forwards their agenda of bigger tax cuts for the rich and whiter people. For the pews at the end of the day, supersizing our immigration enforcement, surveillance and detention centers, but not our immigration courts. Tell us everything we need to know. This isn't about justice. It's about preference, particularly Stephen Miller's preference. And we are giving an untrained juvenile agency an unlimited blank check to make it happen. I want to thank Garrett for joining us today and you for caring enough about this country to be here. I know this information is distressing, but the more we know, the better equipped we are to fight back. Until next week, pgm. Before you go, I just want to thank the premium members of this podcast for their support and to encourage non members to join us. The independent media space is where real information comes from. Now this is where the truth is and we are working really hard against some really destructive forces out there who want to bring you only propaganda. So if you aren't a member of Politics Girl Premium, please go to politicsgirl.com and sign up. You will get this podcast ad free, along with my rants and bonus content sent directly to your inbox. So even if my work is silenced on social media, you will still get access to the truth. There is a link to sign up in the bio of this episode, but [e-mail] and as always, please like and share these podcasts so we can grow the audience. The more people who have access to real information, the more effective we can be at defeating what's going on. As always, thank you for your time and support. The Politics Girl podcast is written and performed by me, Lee McGowan and produced and edited by Happy Warrior Entertainment. All rights reserved.