Micah Rosenberg (1:38)

your own life no matter what your preferred diet is. Follow Project Swagger wherever you get your podcasts.

Ariana V. (1:47)

Hello, my name is ariana V. I'm 14 years old and I'm from Honduras. I've been detained for 45 days and I have never felt so much fear to go to a place as I feel here.

Micah Rosenberg (2:01)

I met Ariana when she was detained in the Dilley Immigration Detention center in South Texas.

Ariana V. (2:09)

I've been in this country for almost seven years and in those seven years my mom and I found a home and made a bigger family.

Micah Rosenberg (2:18)

She was a high school freshman in New York and she went in with her mom for their regular ICE check, in which they had actually been doing for years last December, and they went in in the morning and by that evening they were sent across the country to Texas to a detention center.

Ariana V. (2:42)

Since I got to the center all you will feel is sadness and mostly depression.

Micah Rosenberg (2:48)

I had been corresponding with her mother, who actually has two US citizen children, a toddler who's almost two and a five year Old and they were left behind because this particular detention center, you know, can't hold US Citizens.

Ariana V. (3:06)

I have never been separated from my siblings and it's honestly sad because they're little and they need their mom and their sister.

Micah Rosenberg (3:15)

They ended up in the Dilley Immigration Processing center, which is the nation's only immigration detention center that's operating right now for families. The Biden administration actually ended the practice of family detention in 2021. But when Trump was re elected, he quick reopen this facility for families. There's an increasing number of families that are like Ariana's who are people who've been living in the United States for years and are getting swept up in these broad immigration arrests all around the country.

Ariana V. (3:53)

Since the day my mom and I got detained in Manhattan, New York, my life was instantly paused.

Micah Rosenberg (4:03)

My name is Micah Rosenberg and I'm an investigative reporter at ProPublica. So I was able to meet Ariana and her mother in person. After I met with them, Ariana sat down and wrote me a letter about what she was going through.

Ariana V. (4:19)

Not a lot of people know what is happening in the centers where immigrants are placed, that I haven't been getting any school time either, or the other kids in here.

Micah Rosenberg (4:30)

She later recorded herself reading her letter to me so we could hear it in her own voice.

Ariana V. (4:36)

Every single person in here had their jobs, they had their lives. They aren't any danger for this country.

Micah Rosenberg (4:43)

I was able to speak with people via video calls as well. One thing that we were really trying to accomplish with this reporting was to really get that perspective of the children who, you know, you really don't hear from very often. You know, one of the things that we asked is if the kids would be interested in writing us letters or sending us drawings about what they were actually experiencing.

Ariana V. (5:15)

Hola.

Micah Rosenberg (5:16)

My name is Gabby M and M.

Ariana V. (5:18)

I'm 14 years old. I'm from Colombia.

Micah Rosenberg (5:21)

Hello, I am Ender and I am 12 years old. I have been at the center for two months. My name is Usage F and I'm nine years old. They didn't understand why they were there. They said that they weren't criminals and, you know, they thought that the administration would be going after criminals. ICE used me to catch my mom and now I am in jail and I'm sad and I have fainted two times here inside. When I arrived, every night I cried and now I don't sleep well. Antonia, age 9 they missed their friends, they missed their teachers, they missed their homes. I don't want to be in this place. I Want to go to my school. I miss my grandparents. I miss my friends. Mia, age 7.

Ariana V. (6:04)

I have a home and school. I get bored a lot and I don't know what to do. Gabby, age 14. Kids are being damaged mentally. They witness how their parents and other people are being treated.

Micah Rosenberg (6:17)

So this facility, you know, at the time that I was meeting her, there was holding hundreds of people, parents and families together, where up to 12 people are sharing a room together. Some of the families told me about, you know, food where they said that they found worms in the food or that it was moldy, the food is bad.

Ariana V. (6:39)

I feel so much sadness and depression of not being able to leave.

Micah Rosenberg (6:43)

They don't give me my diet. I'm vegetarian. I don't eat well. There's no good education, and I miss my best friend, Julieta. Another kid that I met was Alexander Perez, a 15 year old from the Dominican Republic. He told me about what it was like to go to school at Dilley. He said school was limited to, you know, an hour a day. It was in these classes that were mixed with a bunch of different ages and were capped at 12 kids. There was, you know, handouts and worksheets that, you know, were sort of too simple. So, you know, a lot of boredom, a lot of, you know, sickness because so many kids were packed together to

Ariana V. (7:42)

get any medicine pill or anything. It takes a while. There are various viruses in here. People are always sick.

Micah Rosenberg (7:50)

One baby who I met, who on video call was, you know, waving at me and blowing kisses. Her name was amalia. She was 18 months old and, you know, she was really adorable to look at on the call, but she had just recently ended up being hospitalized. She was diagnosed with COVID and rsv and it developed into pneumonia and bronchitis. And she was in a very serious state. After more than a week in the hospital, that family was transferred back into detention.

Ariana V. (8:23)

Serious situations happen, and the officers can't take them serious enough. They don't even care.

Micah Rosenberg (8:30)

Some of the parents told me about more difficult instances of, you know, kids who had actually tried to harm themselves or talked about suicide. The Trump administration and ICE and CoreCivic, the private prison operator that runs the facility, they said that, you know, no one is denied medical care and that they take health and safety standards as utmost importance. But this was the experiences that we heard from the detainees inside.

Sean Ramesh (9:11)

Are there legal limits that protect children in these situations or can they just be detained indefinitely?

Micah Rosenberg (9:20)

So there is this long standing legal settlement that's basically been in place since the 1990s. It's called the Flores Agreement, and it gives sort of general guidelines that children shouldn't be held in immigration detention for longer than 20 days.

Reese Gorman (9:37)

After nearly two years of work by

Sean Ramesh (9:38)

the Department of Homeland Security and health

Reese Gorman (9:40)

and Human Services professionals, the Trump administration has established a new rule to respond to the realities of current immigration flows.

Micah Rosenberg (9:47)

The Trump administration has argued that this settlement is outdated, that there's new rules and regulations that govern the detention of children and families that, you know, are now in place, and that this, this settlement should be terminated.

Reese Gorman (10:02)

Florist settlement agreement is operationally outdated and does not respond to the current immigration crisis.

Micah Rosenberg (10:07)

The families who have been detained at Dilley, there's hundreds of them that we found through our analysis have been held past, you know, past that limit. They told I could only be here

Reese Gorman (10:17)

21 days, but I have already spent

Micah Rosenberg (10:19)

more than 60 days waking up and eating the same repetitive meals. 50 days in daily immigration processing center, 113 days in detention. And I miss my friends. I feel that they're going to forget me.

Sean Ramesh (10:32)

And what about the kids you spoke with? What about Ariana and all the rest? Are they still in Dilly, Texas, or have they gotten out?

Micah Rosenberg (10:41)

So a lot of the people that we spoke with, especially after we asked the administration about specific cases, have been subsequently released. Some of them have been released into the U.S. others have been deported. There's not a clear pattern to who was released and who wasn't. The center really sort of burst onto the public stage after the arrest of Liam Conejo Ramos, the five year old who was arrested in Minnesota in his little blue bunny hat. And, you know, once he was taken there, there was a lot of public out, you know, Congress, Congress members started trying to visit there, and the detainees themselves staged a protest in the yard. One of the things that we heard from detainees after all of that happened is that they had experienced guards confiscating art supplies like colored pencils and crayons and paper and things that they had used to, you know, write these protest signs and the letters in past weeks. You know, some of their communications, like Gmail and Google services, were cut off. After I met with Ariana and her mother in Texas, they were released. And I was there after they were reunited with their family in New York. It was really quite moving, obviously. And I think one thing we've been seeing in our reporting is not only the effect that these detentions are having on the kids who are actually detained, but then on, you know, the kids who are left on the outside. Gadiana's little siblings in the case of Jacob, he was afraid to go to kindergarten in the morning because he was worried that his mom and his sister wouldn't be there when he came home. You know, he finally was convinced to go back to school, but he wanted to spend the whole night in there in her bed. And, you know, was. Was really affected by their sort of sudden disappearance from. From their lives. You know, a lot of the kids said that, you know, there wasn't a whole lot to do at Dilley. A lot of them ended up, you know, playing sports. And one of the things that was there was a volleyball net. And so, you know, Ariana told me that she ended up playing a lot of volleyball in Dilly. When she ended up going back to her high school in New York, she was playing volleyball in gym and realized that she had actually gotten a lot better and was better than some of the kids at the school. And so she was thinking about signing up for the volleyball team.

Sean Ramesh (13:52)

Find Micah Rosenberg's investigation the Children of Dilly at propublica.org FYI we had people read the letters kids at Dilly wrote Micah, except for Ariana. That was her voice. Regime change is underway at the top of the Department of Homeland Security. We're gonna ask if the new guy is gonna run detention and deportation any differently when we're back on today. Explained. Support for the show comes from Indeed. When you're looking for talent, Indeed Sponsored jobs can be just the boost you're looking for. Indeed says you can save lots of time searching and instead get matched with quality candidates that meet your specific criteria like skills, certification, or location. I'm always looking for people with skills. According to their data, sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed are 95% more likely to report a higher than non sponsored jobs. You can spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this can be a job for Indeed. Sponsored jobs and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves. Indeed.com podcast. You can just go to Indeed.com podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring do it the right way with Indeed.

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Sean Ramesh (17:09)

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Reese Gorman (18:16)

Hey everybody, Astette Hernton here. I wanted to let you know that

Sean Ramesh (18:19)

Vox Media is returning to south by Southwest in Austin for live tapings of your favorite podcast.

Reese Gorman (18:25)

Join us from March 13th through March

Sean Ramesh (18:28)

15th for live tapings of Pivot Teffy Talks. Professor G's Markets.

Reese Gorman (18:33)

Where should we begin?

Sean Ramesh (18:33)

With Esther Perel and the special live taping of Today Explained, hosted by yours truly. The Vox Media podcast stage will also

Reese Gorman (18:42)

feature sessions from Brene Brown and Adam Grant, Marcus Brownlee, Keith Lee, Vivian Tu,

Sean Ramesh (18:48)

Robin Arzon, and more.

Reese Gorman (18:50)

Visit voxmedia.comsouthbysouthwest to pre register and get

Sean Ramesh (18:55)

a special discount on your SXSW Innovation badge. That's VoxMedia.com south by Southwest.

Reese Gorman (19:03)

Hope to see you there.

Sean Ramesh (19:10)

Reese Gorman reports on politics at Notice. And if you're like, who do you work for?

Reese Gorman (19:15)

Notice who? Notice. I don't even know what the hell that is. Notice stands for News of the United States. So it's a little play on potus, scotus, all that good stuff. Get yourself a realist. So the new pick for the Secretary of Homeland Security is Mark Wayne Mullen, a senator from Oklahoma. The junior senator. He was elected in 2022. He is a staunch conservative. He is a staunch Trump supporter, a staunch Trump ally. And this really kind of all led to him getting this position following Kristi Noem's ouster.

Sean Ramesh (19:43)

And before we spend half of our episode talking about him today, how likely is he to be confirmed by the Senate?

Reese Gorman (19:49)

I would say it's about 99% chance.

Sean Ramesh (19:51)

Okay, well, in that case, let's talk about him. And we have to start with his name, Mark Twain. Where does that come from?

Reese Gorman (19:57)

So his two uncles were named Mark and Wayne, and they combined the names to Mark Wayne. And at some point, his parents thought that they would drop one of them, but he just kept him. And it's just a very Oklahoma name. Mark Wayne Mullen.

Sean Ramesh (20:12)

Okay, and what's his origin story? How'd he get into politics?

Reese Gorman (20:15)

So Mark Wayne Mullen is a member of the Cherokee Nation, one of the few Native American citizens in Congress. That is something that he is really proud of, that he talks a lot about. He is also from Stillwell, Oklahoma, which is one of the poorest cities in the United States. He grew up there and he never graduated college. He has an associate's degree. He started a plumbing company. Hi, I'm Mark Wayne Mullen with Mullen Plumbing, the Red Ritter. Do you have a school that just doesn't flush? Right. And as someone who went to college there and worked there for a while when I was just a student, Oklahoma, you would see Moland Plumbing vans all over the state. This is one of the biggest plumbing companies in the state. And he decided to run for Congress as this outsider where his literal, his tagline, his cards were not a politician, a Businessman. I got fed up when I realized that my biggest competitor isn't my competition, it's the government.

Sean Ramesh (21:10)

And in the Senate and in the House, he has a reputation for being something of a fighter, which comes from his reputation from being an actual fighter.

Reese Gorman (21:20)

He was an actual professional MMA fighter. He is big into wrestling. And one of the most viral moments of his career is when Teamsters President Sean o' Brien testified before Senate committee. And Mullen, being from Oklahoma, which is famously not a very friendly state to labor unions. You want to run your mouth? We can be two consenting adults. We can finish it here. Okay, that's fine.

Sean Ramesh (21:44)

Perfect.

Reese Gorman (21:44)

Teamster press shot of Brian and him were going back and forth. You want to do it now? I'd love to do it right now. And Mullen told him to, quote, stand your butt up. Stand your butt up. Then. And then Sean o' Brien responded, you stand your butt up. Oh, hold up. Stop it. Is that your solution? Every poll. Mullen then stood up and started taking off his rings as if he was about to get in a fight. And then Bernie Sanders basically was like,

Sean Ramesh (22:05)

you're a United States Senator.

Reese Gorman (22:07)

No, no, you're a United States Senator.

Ariana V. (22:09)

Sit down.

Micah Rosenberg (22:09)

Acting it.

Reese Gorman (22:09)

Okay, Sit down, please. And his voice like, you're act like it. And it was one of the most viral moments of definitely of his career, I believe. You're not pointing me. That's disrespectful. I don't care about respecting you at all. I don't respect you at all. All right, hold it. Let me hold it.

Micah Rosenberg (22:24)

No.

Sean Ramesh (22:28)

Okay. But most pertinent to our conversation today is that President Trump likes this guy. President Trump has a soft spot for this hard dude from Oklahoma. How did their relationship develop?

Reese Gorman (22:39)

Their relationship developed really early on. Mark Wayne has somebody that, to his credit, is really good at building relationships. And so in Trump's first term, I mean, that was no different. He was really close with Trump. Their relationship really grew when Mark Wayne, Mullen's son, had a really traumatic injury, an almost life threatening injury from wrestling. He had to go. He was. He had to be flown out to California to a specialty hospital to be operated on. It was a really scary moment for Mullen and his family. Trump would visit his son at one point and would routinely call weekly to check in on Mullen and his son.

Sponsor Voice (23:16)

Wow.

Reese Gorman (23:16)

And Mullen really credits that to his growing relationship with Trump.

Sean Ramesh (23:20)

Didn't know the President was out there checking on people like that. That being said, as you earlier let us know, this was not a guy who had A lot of experience in, say, I don't know, law enforcement, defense security, anything of the sort. He was a plumber, a radio host, an MMA fighter. Does he have the typical resume for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security?

Reese Gorman (23:50)

I mean, if you look, if you're compared to Krissi Noem, it's pretty similar. I mean, Noem equally did not have a glowing resume. But if you look at a lot of Trump's Cabinet secretaries, he doesn't really go with the most qualified choice. At times, Trump really tends to pick people who he likes and who he thinks will be good at the job and also just who'd give him loyalty. And that tends to be one of the main things that Trump looks for when appointing people to the Cabinet.

Sean Ramesh (24:17)

And what was it that turned Trump against Mark Twain's predecessor or potential predecessor, Kristi Noem?

Reese Gorman (24:28)

The straw that broke the Campbell's back was her answer to a hearing question last week by Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, where he asked if Trump had approved of this $220 million ad campaign, which looked almost as though a political ad. And she said that Trump had signed off on it. The president approved ahead of time. You spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently?

Micah Rosenberg (24:58)

Yes, sir. We went through the legal processes. Did it correct?

Reese Gorman (25:02)

Yes, he did.

Micah Rosenberg (25:04)

Yes.

Reese Gorman (25:04)

Okay. Which incensed Trump. He was adamant that he did not approve this.

Micah Rosenberg (25:09)

Have you had sexual relations with Corey Lewandowski? Mr. Chairman, I am shocked that we're going down and peddling tabloid garbage in this committee today.

Reese Gorman (25:20)

Reclaiming when she was asked about her alleged affair with her advisor, Corey Lewandowski, and she did not say no, she just completely, just dodged the question, said she was appalled that it was even being asked. And that was something that also infuriated Trump.

Sean Ramesh (25:35)

But she didn't say no because she is having an affair with Corey Lewandowski.

Micah Rosenberg (25:38)

Right?

Reese Gorman (25:39)

That is the rumor. No one's really been able to prove it, but, I mean, they've been seen together. I was at Trump's watch party last in 2024 when he won. There's a group of reporters and I, we were sitting at the pool, and who walks down but Corey Lewandowski and Kristi Noem just hanging out by the pool, and we're just looking. It's like they're not even trying to hide it.

Sean Ramesh (25:58)

They're poor. They're poor spouses.

Reese Gorman (26:00)

They're both married. And the thing that's crazy is when Kristi Noem was asked about her alleged affair with Lewandowski her husband was sitting right behind her while she was denying to answer the question.

Sean Ramesh (26:13)

Has Mullen said how he wants to run DHS differently than, you know, Kristi

Reese Gorman (26:20)

Noem did following the death of Alex Brady when he was shot and killed by Border Patrol. Mullen statement was not much different from Chrissy Noems. He said individual deranged individual that came in to have to cause max damage with a loaded pistol with an extra mag that was completely loaded was shot and killed. How much more does this got to go on before the Democrat leaders there take responsibility for their words and so that he didn't go as far as say he was a domestic terrorist, as Noem had said. From that sense, I think that you won't necessarily see a lot of change maybe in the rhetoric or the mission of deporting people who are here illegally. But what I think you might see is more loyalty to Trump. No one was constantly on TV getting ahead of the administration and was really obsessed with the visuals of it all. And so I think maybe some of that might change the more visuals of it, but the actual overall mission is still going to be to this mass deportation effort of people who are here illegally.

Sean Ramesh (27:22)

And as much as Republicans in Congress may have wanted leadership change at the Department of Homeland Security, they haven't yet come out and said we want a

Reese Gorman (27:32)

policy change from the White House, not at least publicly. There's definitely members who I talk to on a daily basis who are do express some reserve about the administration's efforts right now, but they are afraid to go on the record or publicly. Being a Republican and criticizing the administration is it's not great for your political success. And so a lot of these members are afraid to criticize us publicly, but it is a real concern that a lot of them have especially vulnerable members. The optics of this are really not good.

Sean Ramesh (28:10)

Reece gorman, notice.org he also hosts the On Notice podcast. If you can't get enough Reese Peter Ballin on Rosen made our show today. Miranda Kennedy edited Andrea Lopez crusado fact checked David Tadashore and Patrick Boyd mixed I'm Sean Ramis Firm and this is Today Explained.