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Journalist Nathan Stone and Producer Josh Carmody invite you to sit down for deep dives on the rapid changes happening in Trump’s new America.
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The burning of an American flag in protest is always controversial, but not illegal. Until President Trump signed an executive order on August 25th entitled, prosecuting the burning of the American flag, and made it a crime. Or did it? Well, no, actually it didn't. Flag burning is still protected by the First Amendment. So, what did it accomplish? Welcome to the politics of New America.
01:24
On the show today, we look at Trump's bizarre flag burning EO and figure out if it's a nothing burger to placate the mega base or if there's a method to the madness. We'll also check in on the immigration front as a new survey from Pew Research shows a massive decline in immigrants in the United States. I'm your host, Nathan Stone, and with me today is producer Josh Carmody. Josh, welcome back. I was just about to say I'm back. I'm bringing it back.
01:51
Yeah, I'm really glad that I was still kind of too sick yesterday because now we don't have to go through all of the Trump is dead jokes that I was going to make and Trump is apparently alive. So let's go with that. Allegedly Trump is alive. Yeah, boy, we haven't talked in a little while and I feel like everything in the world happens. So yeah, we had the Trump is dead rumors.
02:18
We've had all of this flag burning stuff. Apparently the United States may just go to war with Venezuela, kind of out of the blue for something to do. They were teaching cops how to use mortars. like, yeah, you know, I don't know if I've ever really thought that guys who are coming here to like pick potatoes need like undirected shelling. know, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, it's an escalation, one would think.
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But yeah, so it's absolutely wild out there right now. And if we sound a little different this episode, it's because we're doing this episode remotely. And Josh is very health conscious and doesn't want to get me sick. And I also don't want to get me sick. So we're staying a little bit apart here. You've got a child. haven't, we can't get the child sick. Oh God, no.
03:14
You know what? No. Honestly, all uh likelihood, the child's gonna get you sick. That is the usual. Yeah, that's her MO. uh From January to May, I think I had more illnesses than I have had the last 10 years. So I'm just waiting for cold and flu season to start right back up again. And I'm sure you'll be able to hear it in my voice in like four or five weeks.
03:41
It's hard when you got like a small human just coughing directly in your mouth. oh Oh or sneezing in your eyeballs. That's her thing. Yeah. Yeah, she's good at that. The pepper spray. All right, Josh, let's talk about burning some flags. This is kind of a classic protest move. If you want to let someone know that you're very serious about your dislike.
04:09
uh for their politics. uh Burying the flag of a country is quite common in a lot of parts of the world, and the American flag is honestly probably one of the more common victims of this if you look at it from a worldwide view. However, at home in the United States itself, uh obviously a controversial act, but a powerful one and one that's been used in protest for a long time. And this is something that apparently has stuck in the craw of
04:39
the president and the uh Trump administration. But this is kind of an interesting time to be going after it. I know their policy is very scattershot and we've kind of covered the oddities about that in previous episodes. But this one just kind of dropped out of the blue. Now I know what a lot of people are thinking, which is it is yet another direction away from the Epstein files, which we...
05:08
still haven't gotten to peak at. I'm sure that's coming any moment now. But yeah, this one was interesting because it dropped in the news cycle and it got picked up by a lot of places and got a lot of commentary about it. But not a lot that I saw kind of digging into the meat of this EO. And when you do that,
05:36
It's kind of like an empty hamburger. There's a, there's a very nice bun. It's got sesame seeds, maybe some poppy seeds too. It's kind one of those everything topping buns. Uh, so it looks very impressive, but there's actually very little of substance here. And we're going to kind of get into to why that might be. Um, so if you haven't come across this, basically the argument that
06:04
the Trump administration is making here is that the flag is one of the most sacred and cherished symbols within the United States. And, you know, it's been around for two and a half centuries and so many patriots have fought and died because, you know, this flag, it's all the usual appeals to patriotism, your rights, your liberty, your security, you know, and the argument is that burning is... You're going to sew it into underwear.
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That's right. Yeah, put it on put it on merchandise of all shapes and sizes turn it into a cape get shot by Secret Service. Look, it's all there. It's all right there for you
06:46
Exactly. Now, burning this most sacred representation of America that was made, I guarantee you, either in Vietnam or China, uh might incite people to violence. And they also argue that American flag burning is used by groups of foreign nationals as a calculated act to intimidate Americans or threaten them with violence in some way.
07:15
They say because of their nationality in place of birth that they're doing this because of course they hate us because of who we are and they hate our freedoms, which is an oldie, oldie, but a goodie. Uh, now some of that is arguably true. It's, it's certainly, uh, the American flag burning is used by groups of foreign nationals, usually in their own nations to signal their displeasure at the United States.
07:45
Uh, I would argue though, it's not because of their national Americans nationality or place of birth. think it's probably more likely that the shrapnel in their house reads Lockheed Martin. Uh, so I, I really don't think that's a, argument that flies, but that's, that's kind of the, the purpose behind this, right? That's it. That's our section one of this EO and section one is always great. Cause that's the cell that's, that's where they want to kind of
08:15
tell you why this executive order is so good. uh, you want to be more American? Get a hold of this law. Yeah. Get under these. Yes. That's right. Obeying these orders. That'll make you American. Gets you all hot and bothered for these, uh, for these executive directives. Yeah. Now the, the section one though does have kind of a little disclaimer and, and this is where we start to get into
08:43
thinking, oh, hold up a second, this EO isn't all it's saying it is. uh Trump says, notwithstanding the Supreme Court's ruling on First Amendment protections, the court has never held that American flag desecration conducted in a manner that is likely to incite imminent lawless action or that is an action amounting to fighting words in quotations here uh is constitutionally protected. And they uh reference a case that we'll go over in a moment.
09:14
So that's, that's kind of an odd word salad of a paragraph. Uh, and basically what it is. they're already starting off at a bad place where like, it's hard to take them seriously where they get upset over flag burning. And I'm like, if the Eagles win the Superbowl, you guys riot. Like if the Eagles lose the Superbowl, you guys riot. like, what, what am I, where am I supposed to draw the line of taking you seriously over something that you're truly clutching the pearls about? Yeah. Yeah.
09:43
Honestly, I feel like there's probably been more incitement to violence about the Eagles and their Super Bowls wins and losses than there has been about flag burning. If you ever remember that movie, Baseball, but they talk about it was like the Detroit team wins and they're like, the scene's here now from Detroit who just won the Baseball World Series. And it's just got people setting cars on fire. They're like, tally, eight dead, 13 injured.
10:12
But it's like, well, yeah. Well, the yeah, it does kind of ring uh of an odd, uh just kind of nonsense. And it really is because they say notwithstanding the Supreme Court's ruling on First Amendment protections. Well, that's because the Supreme Court did in fact rule on First Amendment protections.
10:40
in regards to flag burning and the Supreme Court by five to four decision ah said that actually, yeah, that is protected speech and it's an important part of protest. And yes, ah it might offend you, but that is the point. And again, constitutionally protected. So
11:03
This doesn't leave very much wiggle room for the administration in this case. And so he ends off the first section by saying that my administration will act to restore the respect and sanctity to the American flag and prosecute those who incite violence or otherwise violate our laws while desecrating the symbol of our country. And so that's kind of the giveaway here. uh So you actually have to commit other crimes.
11:32
while desecrating the flag for this to in any way affect you. So section So I like do like a a batador thing where I get someone like all charged up and get them to like run through the the the flag but then when they burst through the flag I punch them in the face like that- could get you there. That's that's that's desecrating the flag and assault.
12:01
Yes. The big one that they would be going after people for is probably incitement. So incitement to violence is a crime. And so you can be arrested for that. But that is actually completely separate. It doesn't have anything to do with burning an American flag. You might burn an American flag and then also incite people to protest.
12:31
but they still can't really do anything about the flag burning. They have to get you for the incitement. what we have here... wrap baby up and smoke it right in their face before you incite some good old fashioned violence. Yeah. So what we have here is an executive order that already can't deal and can't do what it says on the tin.
12:59
It cannot prosecute burning of the American flag. It is not uh legal for them to do so. so section two is always kind of our meat, right? Section one is the cell. Section two tells us how is this going to happen? And there's four sections to this, but what it comes down to is ordering the Department of Justice to
13:29
Focus on...
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those who are burning or desecrating the American flag, because it's not just burning. It can be desecrating in any way. You can let your imagination run wild with that one. ah I can think of a few things. So it says vigorously prosecute those who violate our laws in ways that involve desecrating the American flag. So again, it's just you have to still be doing something else illegal. Otherwise.
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this has no uh jurisdiction, it has no teeth. And all that this ends up doing is telling the DOJ, hey, look out for people who are burning the American flag and see if they're doing something else that you could maybe nail them with. That is pretty much all that they can do here. And
14:33
So the reason why I wanted to cover this, other than the fact that I do find this kind of humorous, is that it hasn't been covered in that specific way in a lot of the mainstream media uh attention and articles that I've seen.
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A lot of people have kind of uh misconstrued this as Trump creating a law. And so that is a really dangerous thing to kind of have out there. And because of the separation of powers between the executive and the Congress, it's so important to understand that this is not creating a law because he can't do that. oh Only Congress may create laws.
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ah If Congress ever cedes that power to the executive, they might as well retire and go home because that is their uh reason to be. They do a lot of things, Congress, but the main one is creating laws. As soon as you cede that to the executive, you have a one-man government and a kingdom, if you will. A kingdom. Some kind of uh dictatorship even, if you wanted to go that far.
15:52
But it's so, important that we look at this EO and we see it for what it is, which is just old man yells at flag burning because I'm worried that this is a little bit of a trial balloon, right? Which is the, okay, I can't create this law, but here's what I can do with this EO. I can...
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tell the Department of Justice that I want to see people who burn the flag arrested for something, but I can also needle the Supreme Court a little bit to see if I can get them to maybe take a look at this again and maybe come down with a different decision. Because all it would necessarily take for that to happen would be another flag burning case to reach the Supreme Court, right?
16:51
If that were to happen and if the Supreme Court deigned to look at that case again, right. They might find differently now in this new ultra conservative era, then the court found originally. don't say this, this Supreme Court, are you sure we're talking about the Supreme Court? know it sounds a little wild, right? So now just to give you a little bit of backstory on,
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American flag burning the the kind of history of it um
17:28
It's, it's actually quite interesting. uh, 1989, there was a case of the state of Texas.
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versus Gregory Lee Johnson. So this was, this took place at the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas. So Gregory Johnson was out with fellow protesters protesting and someone handed him a flag which Johnson doused with kerosene and set on fire.
18:06
From the from the court records several observers were being on records as saying they were seriously offended by his behavior But no one was hurt or in any way threatened with injury or threatened in anything else This feels like we're reading the court document of Ozzy biting the head off the bat like it's the formal way of this rebellion It's just very funny to me So Johnson uh was convicted of violating a Texas law
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regarding the desecration of a venerated object. He was sentenced to one year in prison and fined $2,000. Now, he appealed to the Texas Court of Appeals, which ruled in his favor and quashed the conviction. And they held that the flag burning, uh or prosecuting Johnson for the flag burning violated the First Amendment.
19:03
And of course, this is the free speech version of the First Amendment, right? Because the First Amendment covers several things, but...
19:14
To achieve its stated goal of keeping the peace, in my own quotations there, without violating First Amendment protections, the appeals court said that the state of Texas only needed to criminalize incidents that would truly incited violence and not the act of burning a flag in general. So Texas didn't like that and they appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.
19:43
which ultimately agreed with the appeals court's decision. And so they released their opinion in June of 89. And basically saying that the first amendment protects a variety of forms of expressive conduct, not just actual speech, right? So it's freedom of speech without the speech part. It's freedom of expression, And so that flag burning can become
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one such protected form as it did in Dallas. And they said that Johnson burned the American flag as part, indeed, as the culmination of a political demonstration that coincided with the convening of the Republican Party and the renomination of Ronald Reagan for president.
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And the expressive and overtly political nature of the conduct was both intentional and overwhelmingly apparent. So that basically just said that, this is freedom of speech. What are you going to do? And...
20:44
Now, the fact that it can be protected speech doesn't mean it always is. And that's kind of important because the court clarified that as well. And yeah, so they said the states that retain the power, and this is a quote, to prevent imminent lawless action. So again, inciting riots, that kind of thing. But they did note that offending observers is not the same thing as promoting lawlessness, which I
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feel like is a fact that's going to get lost pretty quick nowadays. If I had to guess. Yeah, but quite possibly. So this isn't the end of the story, though, because Congress didn't like what the Supreme Court did. So they passed a law criminalizing flag burning nationwide. It was called the Flag Protection Act of 1989, and it outlawed mutilation, defacement and other attacks on the American flag.
21:39
while still allowing for the disposal of worn or soiled flags. So that's important because otherwise you just have to keep every flag you ever get forever. And who wants to do that? uh But then the Supreme Court looked at that law. it decided uh that by a five to four majority um that the Flag Protection Act actually did
22:08
still violate the First Amendment. so it, is the closest we've gotten to like a sleepover story. uh Okay. And so then the Supreme Court said Congress showed up in the exact same dress that they wore at the last Democratic convention. And that was a no go. And so then Congress told me about how the Supreme Court slept with, uh, big oil. And
22:37
It's so like just the, the fleeing mudbag at four. Oh my God. Yeah. There's some, real hair pulling stories there. Yeah. So it's, it's Hanwan. So that, was the latest ruling. Uh, that has kind of been the standing ruling on flag burning ever since Congress has actually tried several times to add anti flag burning amendments to the constitution.
23:06
Uh, but those proposals, especially to add an amendment like that requires the support of two thirds of the Senate, which they've never been able to do. So that's, that's where we are on, on flag burning. Um, it's, it's wild. Now.
23:29
So yeah, before you're going to go out and burn flags, make sure you look into the laws in your local jurisdiction. uh know, give the appropriate gear. Yeah. If you are, uh one of the easiest ways they can actually arrest you for burning a flag is because a lot of public parks and public spaces prohibit burning of any kind. In which case...
23:55
ah They wouldn't charge you for burning the flag, they would just charge you for burning anything, like setting a little fire in a public area. think they call that the effigy paradox. Yeah. So, yeah, that's one thing. you're really raring to go out and burn some flags, just keep some of those local kind of laws in mind. And otherwise, though, go express your freedom of speech all over the place. Yeah. Get flags from other countries. What are they going to do?
24:25
That's right. Yeah. So yeah, what this this is kind of a funny EO and I, I do think it's, it's kind of Trump really wishing he could, he could just make just one little law. And that is kind of where I feel like there's some danger here, especially if there's not a lot of pushback to this.
24:53
And I can see why there isn't a lot of pushback is because it's really nothing. It's really nothing. It could have been an email, but there's a little bit of kind of sinister intent behind it, which is part of the reason I wanted to cover it. The other reason being, of course, it's quite funny. But we're going to shift a little bit and we're going to go from talking about something that makes me smile to more normal.
25:21
politics in New America topics, is. Yeah. So I figured since the fall is. The fall is here. Oh, it's pumpkin spice season. Let's let's check in with immigration. We've done a lot on immigration, but. know. OK, yeah, nice transition. Yeah, let's go.
25:47
Look, man, this show is hard sometimes. We talk about some stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So we've done a lot on immigration on this show and it's the kind of thing where we've done more kind of towards the beginning of the show and we've gotten into other things, but it's such a big part of what this administration is all about. And because of that, um it's worth
26:17
keeping an eye on this stuff. And there's been a lot of kind of developments that we haven't gotten the chance to cover. like Alligator Alcatraz having to close. uh Just this week, there's been so many things that I'd love to get to that can't. I did want to just, but just before we get into the actual topic itself, the children from Guatemala. Let's just take a moment for this because this is one of the more heinous things that I have read lately.
26:45
Yeah. So if you miss this, uh the Trump administration in the middle of the night on a holiday weekend decided that they would love to deport 76 Guatemalan children and minors from the United States, protected uh children, uh back to Guatemala. Now- Unaccompanied. Unaccompanied, yes. These are children oh that were in foster care or shelters.
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Uh, which both of those things, if you've ever had, uh, you know, a chance to talk to anyone who has gone through those systems, they're not great. You know, there's not to say there aren't really, really good caring foster parents, right. But like, these are kids that have gone through a lot and seen a lot. And of course they're in a foreign country unaccompanied. And some of them are very, very young. Some of them are sick even.
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There was uh one child, especially that needed, uh, needs dialysis. Um, and so this is absolutely ridiculous, but there is, there's, there's some more kind of nuances to this story. this, this wasn't done without the Guatemalan government's, uh, knowledge. Like it wasn't like they were just going to show up with 76 kids. Uh, so the, the Guatemalan government did.
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expressed concern about some of these children because some of them were aging out of some of the supports, right? Some of those shelters, some of those foster situations and were worried about how they would be treated and what would happen to them. And if you raise concerns like that with this administration, I think they're going to read that as, you want them back. a lot of them do. mean, assumption already was just Trump was like,
28:43
Look, I was in this movie, Home Alone 2, Lost in New York, child, he goes to New York, he's all alone, thriving, thriving. Just send him back, send him back to be Home Alone 9, Lost in Guatemala. It'll be beautiful. They'll make a movie about it. That was my assumption. So that's interesting to know that Guatemala did have some idea about this happening. So that is important. there are a lot of them do have
29:12
family in Guatemala, but a lot of them also have family in the United States. so a lot of times when unaccompanied minors cross the border and they go through these, they go through the process of having to become kind of migrants in the United States, they're placed with shelters or foster families.
29:41
before they're released to the family members that they have. if you're in a company of mine, that's honestly probably why you're going to the United States is because you have family in the United States that you are trying to get to. But of course, the immigration rules being as strict as they are, they're not just going to give you to this family. And there's probably a lot of really good reasons for that, but...
30:10
The idea that they were already going through this system, a lot of them were going to have, you know, safe, supportive places to stay in the United States and then kind of just taking them and out of the blue, trying to load them up on an airport or an aircraft and having a poor judge that has to get out of bed at 2 30 a.m. to stop this, this wild deportation is
30:40
a whole other level. And if I can digress and just put on my history nerd glasses for a second, uh Americans getting upset about Guatemalan refugees is very rich. Now, I don't know how many people are familiar with American history in Guatemala, but if you are, I would like to know. So uh the CIA. uh
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the wonderful organization that they are, especially in the 50s. So the CIA backed a coup in 1954 on behalf of the United Fruit Company. This was a uh large American fruit corporation that was active in Guatemala. uh overthrew the democratically elected government, uh which uh ushered in decades
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of American supported dictatorships. And of course, this was all justified by Cold War fears of communism and the fact that they accused the Soviet Union of interfering in Guatemala's politics, which is really the pot calling the kettle black here. uh Also, the amount of Soviet influence in Guatemala was uh sharply, sharply lower than they claimed. uh
32:10
The things that followed this American coup uh led to a brutal civil war, uh which of course includes widespread human rights abuses, genocide against the Mayan population, and uh ongoing kind of instability that the country really still hasn't recovered from. You made this mess. I'm sorry. I'm not actually, but you made this mess. This is on you.
32:40
As far as I'm concerned, those kids should have gotten American citizenships the moment they arrived. But yeah, this is the kind of thing that makes me crazy because stuff like this is done without any kind of eye to the history or context of why people are showing up in your country. If you destabilize their country and destroyed their democratically elected government on behalf of one of your large fruit companies, maybe throw them a bone is all I'm saying. Yeah.
33:09
Yeah, look, you know, it's it's not every day that people really focus in on the Chiquita Banana uh logo and see like the people getting whipped in the background and stuff. know, that stuff just kind of glosses over people. Yeah, we how quickly we forget. So I spent more time on that than I wanted to, but I wanted to talk about that because it just blew my mind. So Pew Research, Josh, it released a uh
33:38
new survey, the results of a new survey last week about the state of immigration in the United States. And so this is actually a really interesting read. If you want to go out there and go through the whole thing, it's quite long, but it's very, very detailed. We're just going to kind of talk about the effect that we're seeing on immigration and kind of the policies of
34:08
the Trump era, it's affected this. So we've had in the United States, they've had 50 years of kind of rapid population growth through immigration. And for the first time in more than 50 years, the immigrant population is in decline. So as of January of this year, they had 53.3 million immigrants.
34:38
counted as living in the United States, which was the largest number uh ever recorded.
34:45
But by June, the country's foreign-born population has shrunk by more than a million people, which marks its first decline since the 1960s. Now, we've gone from 53.3 million to 51.9 million. And of that, 15.4 % of all
35:14
United States residents were immigrants, which was down from the historic high of 15.8. And so percentage-wise, that's not a massive drop. But when you think of suddenly losing over a million people, it's also shrunk the US labor force, of which 19 % were immigrants, down from 20%.
35:43
And so that represents about 750,000 workers. So when you hear about worker shortages in states, especially in agriculture, people not showing up for work, well, if you have three quarters of a million less workers, that's, that's going to be an issue. So a couple of things have, I should say a couple of things. That's, that's a bit of a misnomer.
36:06
There's been a lot of things that have really affected this huge downturn in immigration. actually started before Trump uh in June of 2024. uh Biden uh announced restrictions on asylum applications, which actually led to a sharp decline in border encounters uh with people seeking asylum protections.
36:33
And so that was really kind of the start of the downturn. Cause we remember like 2022, 2023, we were seeing these record numbers of people showing up at the border. And of course the Republicans are saying that it's an open border. Everyone's just coming through. Joe's destroying the country, sleepy Joe. And so he did actually take action. And it wasn't a thing that I think made a ton of news, but it did actually cut into asylum seeking encounters.
37:02
quite substantially, but honestly, that was a drop in the bucket compared to Trump. So in his first hundred days, so from January to whenever that was in April or May, uh the president took 181 executive actions on immigration. So that is
37:30
Absolutely massive. so that includes all of his immigration EOs, of which there are several that, and we've covered several of them. And so that, that has contributed to a declining immigrant population, especially the undocumented immigrant population, which is the, the, largest target of, uh, you know, Trump's, uh, anti-immigrant policies.
38:00
Now, there's some reasons to be a little suspicious here of what we're reading because, and Pew Research uh says as much here.
38:15
Part of this might be artificial, this population loss. Because uh more and more people are declining to answer their surveys, especially on immigration, because more and more people are worried that this is somehow going to link them or out them to the United States government and they're going to get a visit from ICE.
38:43
can't say that their fears are unfounded. So this might be giving us kind of uh a false positive here because this news came out to thunderous applause from the Trump administration itself. I think it was Pam Pondy who was kind of gloating about this. yeah, so what it could mean, a lot of people have left and there are numbers that back that up.
39:13
But it might mean that just as many people have kind of gone to ground Which is honestly kind of a worst-case scenario because now you have someone who is Not able to work. They're too scared to go to work but they they also you know, they they desperately don't want to leave the country and They're kind of caught in this limbo situation and the what's scary about that is
39:43
Either this person might be driven by desperation to, you know, have to, to, to steal or, or to have to commit some kind of crime just to, to, to stay alive. Or they are having to rely on family members whose budgets might already be stretched, right? Who, who might not have the resources to, to keep them and keep them, you know, kind of in this.
40:13
this hiding state that some folks are in because they're worried that they're going to get sent away. So it's the kind of thing where the numbers, if you're hardcore anti-immigration uh as an American, these numbers look impressive, but we don't know how many people have actually self-deported versus how many people are just too scared to go to work.
40:42
aren't answering surveys and are trying to, you know, keep a low profile. And whenever you have uh a large population of unaccounted for people that are fearful, right? That's, that's a bad situation to have. Uh, it's bad for them and it's, bad for the country. So yeah, uh, this, this is absolutely a great, um,
41:14
survey to check out. can get to see where people are from, where immigrants are coming from, where they've come from in the last 60, 70 years and how that's changed over the years. If you're interested, Mexico is the largest share of US immigrants as a place of their birth. It's at 22 % or 11.4 million people.
41:41
in the United States, immigrated from Mexico.
41:47
Yeah, it's, in all fairness, a lot of lower America used to be Mexico.
41:58
Yeah, exactly. So.
42:04
So I'm just trying to find my spot here.
42:19
So we also have a little bit of stats that were released by ICE and by uh Customs and Border Patrol.
42:31
They, they're a little cagey, honestly, with their numbers when it comes to how they've been doing with this whole, uh, you know, snatching people off the streets and sending them away. The latest figures, and this was reported by CNN quite recently, um, is 350,000 deportations since Trump took office.
42:57
Now this includes... uh
43:03
US Customs and Border Patrol deportations, ICE deportations, as well as anyone encountered by the Coast Guard that gets sent back, as well as people who choose to self-deport and report that, that they're leaving.
43:21
Prior to Trump taking office, ICE had already recorded about 71,000 deportations between October 2024 and the end of 2024. So what we're looking at here is ICE, or sorry, is kind of a record year for deportations once you look at it in a, from kind of
43:50
fall 2024 to 2025, it's looking like ICE could surpass 300,000 deportations for the 2025 fiscal year, which would end the end of September this month. And that's actually around where they deport, it's around as many deportations as was under President Obama, who was a big deporter.
44:18
And he oversaw the deportation around 316,000 people in 2014. So yeah, that's kind of where they're at. Now, again, though, this is self-reported data. And I think if we know one thing about the Trump administration is they don't like numbers that make them look bad. So...
44:45
Yeah, yeah, as the Fed is finding out, know, they really don't like being shown up by bean counters. um Now, this is definitely ramped up since we last talked about it, because when we talked about this earlier in the year, we were saying they need, you know, this infrastructure is being built, it's not in place yet, and they're really nowhere near their target. They're getting close.
45:14
But they're still kind of well below what they're looking to do. They're their own goals. So right now ah
45:29
ice is
45:35
arresting.
45:39
uh, about double the people that they were under the Biden administration. And so arrests in the United States have, have fluctuated between 1000 and 2000 arrests a day. So that's, that's according to the, their own internal data. Uh, however, that is still well short of the White House's quota of 3000 arrests a day. So it, it's still, it's still a challenge.
46:06
Uh, and they're, still having a lot of trouble with this. Uh, the, people in ICE, uh, in, in detention centers has ballooned. So I think last time we were saying it was around 48,000, I think the last time we checked in with this, uh, it's close to 60,000 now, uh, because more detention centers have come online and of course they're, they're arresting, uh, you know, over a thousand people a day. So that's,
46:35
That's kind of where we're at with this. again, we're not, the government can't meet its own quotas for this, ah but it's clearly having a uh massive, massive impact, even in its current state with immigration in the United States. And I took a look out of curiosity about the, how many people they're encountering at the border.
47:05
every day. Because that's always a kind of yardstick to see how America is viewed by people who are looking for refuge or people who are, you know, economic migrants, that kind of thing. And so it's down to, I think it is 30 year lows at this point. It's around 7,000, I think a month, which is just a trickle.
47:33
It's a trickle where it used to be a flood. So in a lot of ways, you know, this is working as intended. It's just that intent is questionable. But one last thing we're going to take a look at just because it's important and it affects you if you are an immigrant in the United States, especially if you are looking for citizenship. And citizenship at this point kind of
48:03
You know, it's, it's almost that safe harbor or should be that safe harbor. And we'll see. Um, but a lot of people, course, when they come to the United States, the dream is to become a naturalized American. Well, the, uh, Trump administration is reinstating what was basically a long forgotten practice of conducting neighborhood checks. And basically they're looking to vet immigrants that are applying for us citizenship.
48:31
And what they really want to do is expand and aggressively scrutinize immigration applications. neighborhood checks would involve basically on the ground investigations by officials at citizens and immigration services that could include interviews with neighbors, um coworkers, basically just the people in your life, the people
49:01
geographically near you and
49:07
So one of the things that stuck out to me when I was reading this was that uh the government investigations.
49:17
would be conducted to determine if the citizenship applicants satisfy the requirements uh for American citizenship. And the problem with that is, like everything written in this country, so much of it is
49:41
Vague in a way that worries me. So for example, Josh, going to say, was like, oh, is he going to say something new here? Oh no. It's how everything's extremely vague and how they keep making new more vague laws. And then we can just interpret those however we want and have a grand old time. Yes. I'm sorry. I do feel like a broken record sometimes, but the problems are just so, uh, I think it's worth like kind of hammering it in that it's like, yeah, look at all kind of keeps coming back to this and not being specific.
50:11
American politics is a flat circle, So some of those requirements, I'm going list for you, showing good moral character, adhering to the United States Constitution, because your neighbors and coworkers are going to be such constitutional scholars that they will be able to inform on you if not. But this is the worst one or the best one. I don't know. uh
50:38
well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States.
50:46
Do you smile enough? Define happiness. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what is what what what are we happy about? What is the that is? Yeah. All of it is pretty insane. Like things that the the level of interpretation is open to the worst and the best of everything in that it is the most vague thing I think that we've come across on the show. think we're to have to start a segment of just like big stuff.
51:15
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I really wish that someone had added some damn footnotes to these things. Just a little bit of vague thing that we've had on the show, though. I think that's truly the most vague law of whatever that's come into contact with this show. And we really have had some tremendously concerning statements on his show. yeah, this is a one for the ages. We went back in time when they thought everyone was an altruistic
51:45
ready leader. And it wasn't that bad. So where this comes from, these neighborhood checks, is it's a decades old US government policy. they are within US law. They can also be waived, which the government has done since 1991. And
52:12
Since then, they've mainly relied on background and criminal record checks, usually by the FBI, ah to vet citizenship applications. So again, this is solving a problem that wasn't a problem, but solving it in the worst way that is going to cost an obscene amount of money and also is prone to the worst kind of abuse. so...
52:42
The US Customs and Immigration Services uh themselves have kind of latched on to this vague wording. And so that's one of the things that's really worried me. uh Because in August, in a release, they said that they would more heavily scrutinize the good moral character requirement for US citizenship and probe anti-American views and activities.
53:10
of those applying for green cards, work permits, and other immigration benefits. So we're right back to the red scare apparently with, with us customs and immigration. Uh, so
53:24
What this could do and what it sounds like it's designed to do is create uh another layer of bureaucracy, but also kind of intimidate those who are looking to become naturalized citizens. Because with so much of this open to the worst interpretations, it's not going to take much to
53:54
maybe find that you are guilty of some kind of un-American action, right? Have you backed uh a protest, Palestinian protest online, right? Like, could they find that? Could they say, oh, this is not toward the happiness of the United States? And could they then uh basically throw out your
54:23
citizenship application and put you on a much different path. And so that's, that's gotta be a little bit terrifying. If I'm a, you know, if I'm an immigrant, a legal immigrant in the United States and I was pursuing this or I'm thinking about pursuing this, I might pause and say, maybe I'm just going to keep my head down rather than try this because I don't want the attention. I don't know what my coworkers are going to say about me. I don't know if one of my coworkers hates me and is going to
54:53
to say that, you know, I'm secretly uh Chairman Mao's 13th cousin twice removed. don't... Like, this is the kind of stuff that can really uh stop people from pursuing that American dream.
55:09
Yeah. And I mean, it's hard enough for people just wanting to come visit the United States who get turned away with JD Vance memes and their folks. mean, hey, if listeners are willing to fund both our lawyers and the trip, we can see if me and Nathan can get it across the border. I don't think we will. I don't think so. No, they'll take one look at this podcast and we will never be seen or heard from again. We can host the next episode from Seacat. Oh, God.
55:38
Oh, that's too dark. I should think too dark. All right. Well, that's that's gonna about do it for this one. It was a bit of a grab bag, but there's been a lot of stuff happening that I wanted to talk about and it happens. Yeah. Yeah. So uh next week. Oh, boy. I'm sure we'll have all sorts of things to talk about. Maybe a war. That'll be. Yeah. Interesting. Maybe a war. We'll see what Trump had to say now that he's risen from the grave. Yes.
56:05
Good to see they have a necromancer on staff at the White House. Or at least a very good Marian. Oh no, JD, don't weekend at Bernie's, him. Honestly, I would love it if it came out that they did put someone in a life mask, like a realistic looking mask of Trump, and that's what we saw where he just looked dead. He probably had some intense medical events this past week.
56:35
80. It happens. Yeah. Thank you for saying that because this was not at all surprising. Like there's really no conspiracy theory you need to think about here. This is an 80 year old man who loves fast food and maybe exercises kind of on the golf course. This is not surprising in any way, shape or form. I think my absolute favorite piece of news that came during the is Trump possibly dead? uh Fiasco of less than a week.
57:06
was that someone in the Lincoln bedroom was throwing garbage bags out the window. I saw that, yeah. The second floor of the lighthouse, from what I read, it was definitely the Lincoln bedroom, and they were just whipping garbage bags outside. And that is the funniest thing. Like, what more white trash president can you ask for than just throwing garbage bags up? A building that has secret...
57:31
tunnels meant to deal with such things. Just throw garbage bags out the window. Truly fascinating stuff. It's a time, man, to be following American politics. Every day, I kind of wonder if this is all just a big joke. And everyone knows this, and I'm on some kind of crazy reality TV show. But here we are.
57:54
Alright folks, thanks so much for listening and join us next week when I'm sure we'll have something just as insane to talk about. We'll see you then.
58:06
Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, give us a five star rating on your podcast platform of choice, and tell all your friends. The Politics of New America is hosted by Nathan Stone and produced by Josh Carmody. You can follow us on Blue Sky at Politics New America.
58:25
And this has been a Honda Mouse Production. Cut that out.