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Tim Miller gives his take on the intentional cruelty and escalating human cost of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown—from a five-year-old boy detained by ICE on his way to soccer to the father of a U.S. Navy sailor being detained, with the White House defending the decision. Plus, ICE is planning a facility in Louisiana that could hold women and children, developed by the company that operates the state’s notorious Angola prison. Now, immigrants are being sent back to dangerous areas of Haiti and Guatemala, and even deported to countries they aren’t from. In some cases, people sent back to dangerous areas have been killed. Tim breaks down the growing list of horrifying cases and what they reveal about the administration’s immigration policy.
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Bulwark Takes — Trump’s Immigration Policy Is Sending People to Their Deaths. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
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Obviously, I've been talking with you guys a lot about the particular story of Freddy's and Gariani. They've been his wailing couple and they're seven-year-old. I've been stuck in the daily internment camp even though they followed all the rules and have been asking to self-deport, just like the Trump administration said that they wanted people to do. I have some tentative good news. I'm knocking on my wood desk here. It seems like Freddy's and Ed Gariani and their child are going to be able to go back to Venezuela. And this is muted good news. I don't really know why. Asylees from Venezuela shouldn't be allowed to stay in the country if they're working. And learning English, going to the process correctly, but whatever. She's pregnant, she wants to go where she is reliable, medical care, and that's in Venezuela. That's the state of the American dream right now. Yes, got a good offense well for that. So, again, crossing our fingers, but it seems like that is progressing. I appreciate everybody that reached out to Senator Brits office in particular on that.
While all that's been going on, there have been a bunch of other horrific immigration stories I've been wanting to get to. So I thought it would be useful to kind of run through the mall so you can kind of get this sense of scale of the problems here. And if there's something one of these stories touches you, one of these stories, israeli to your community, that might be a place for you to advocate. So starting in Texas, continuing in Texas at the Dilly internment camp, there is another story that ties to something that caught a lot of people's attention, including Senator Brits in Minnesota. You will remember five-year-old Liam in the blue bunny hat who was taken to a detention center there. The same thing happened to another five-year-old Liam in Texas recently. Here's a story. Victor Nieto and his five-year-old son Liam were pulled over and detained by ice in north
Austin on the way to children's soccer game about ten days ago now. Liam wanted to go play soccer so his dad took him to the game while they were out. The truck that they're in was pulled over by ice. They immediately asked him to legal status, a classic Kavanaugh stop. Liam was supposed to start kindergarten this week. What happened then is that they were both detained and sent to Dilly. Victor in at Dilly said essentially similarly to Freddie Stingariani that they were trying to self-deport back to Mexico and asked that Liam be allowed to go with his mother who is still in the Austin area. According to the family, Victor was not given the option for Liam to be released to his mother or any of the family members that live in the area. Great Kazaar, Congressman from the district, Democrat obviously, has been working on this. Similarly to Freddie Stingariani, there's some kind of sense that they might get out of
this hellhole that we have them in. But even still, this is insane. What we're doing is insane. A seven-year-old and a five-year-old in this disgusting internment camp, no access to medical care. They're not eating. The food they're given is terrible. Why do they need to be in a camp at all? This is crazy. These are not criminals. These are not the worst of the worst. If they're wanting to self-deport, you could go through an orderly process to help them do that and stay with family members or stay outside of these camps. Why are children inside razor-wire camps like in less absolutely necessary and for a short term? To that point, the Trump administration is not like they might have been responsive to the outrage over a couple of specific situations, but they are ramping up their efforts to detain children.
Right here, my home state of Louisiana, opposite side of the state, but over in Alexandria, ICE is planning to open a 528-bed facility for families, including unaccompanied children and women. They're going to open it up next to the airport because this airport has been the largest deportation hub. Our governor, Jeff Landry, is not doing anything to help our status at the very bottom of economic development and to the bottom of education, where at the bottom and all these other metrics, but we're really at the top private prison development here in Louisiana. Landry has given them the okay to have a women and child prison in Alexandria and near an airport because that airport is where a lot of these deportation flights are going out of. They're claiming this is like just a 72-hour staging area, but I can investigate into a similar facility. He shows that people are held there well past the three-day limit, that the conditions
are unsafe. I was reading this story and I was stopped in my tracks when I read who was building this prison. This is a private prison, it's like a nonprofit. It's the LaSalle Family Foundation, which is the nonprofit arm of a private prison corporation that runs Angola. Angola is the prison in Louisiana that famously has the Angola Prison rodeo, which is a disgusting, inhuman display that is a stain on our state. Honestly, I'll just get my blood pressure out if I tell you too much about what happens at the Angola Prison rodeo. If you're curious, just Google it, but the way that the prisoners are treated like it's fucking ancient Rome. The whole thing is just racist and disgusting and feels like it's out of a confederacy. The story is about this prison.
I can friends with a lawyer here and I had a lot of stuff. It's going to be public. The treatment of the inmates there is horrific. The idea that the group that runs this infamous prison for violent criminals in Louisiana and treats them awful is now going to run a child prison. People that didn't do anything, these kids literally didn't do anything. It's not like it's Juvie. It's kids that were brought here illegally or overstayed visas or whatever or maybe didn't do anything with his parents. In some cases didn't do anything legally. Maybe they had temporary protected status that the Trump administration is now pulled out from under them. The notion that the Angola prison is going to run a child prison in Louisiana is fucking insane and outrageous and disgusting on the level of what they're doing. Dilly or alligator alcatraz will continue to monitor it as we see that.
There's no reason for a staging area detention center for children. Like if children are going to be deported, there are other ways to go about this despite putting people into prison camps. This message is sponsored by Zbiotics. So I have to tell you all about this game changing product to add to your routine before a night out with drinks. It's called Priyokahal by Zbiotics. Zbiotics Priyokahal Probiotic Drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to break down acetaldehyde byproduct of drinking alcohol. Now Priyokahal produces an enzyme that is designed to break down this byproduct. Priyokahal is your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and enjoy your next day activities. Zbiotics has sold more than 14 million bottles and earned a trust of thousands, including us here at the Bullwork. Try it for yourself today and if you're unsatisfied, they'll refund your entire order.
No questions asked. Head to zbiotics.com slash Bullwork takes and use code Bullwork takes for 15% off your first order. The other story that I want to tell you about this getting some big news is the father of a sailor on the USS Abraham Lincoln was arrested and detained. Luis Manuel Ovious. It was as the father is taken into custody near a publics in Key West where he lives. Luis is originally from Nicaragua. He's been living here for 20 years. He works as a handyman for hotels in Key West. You have to imagine that Trump, I don't have to imagine. We know that Trump has had many people like Luis working at his hotels over the years. This is how he's going to treat them now. He's going to treat the father of a sailor that is volunteered to serve our country. He's living peacefully in South Florida, not breaking any laws, working in the hospitality
industry, doing what is necessary to provide for his family. His son has been going through hell on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Joshua is a 25 year old US Navy sailor. Beyond the story, they've been out at sea for nine months on a mission that is pointless, well beyond what is standard for how long sailors in the military are at sea without coming into port. He's been confirmed by the Navy that Joshua was on the ship and not only that to add just a disgusting insult to injury. The government has put out a statement about this. DHS spokesperson said having a family member in the military is not a free pass to violate our nation's laws. This is just fucking sick. It's just so disgusting and human. Imagine being Joshua, son of an immigrant, doing what you're supposed to do in this country.
If you just work hard and play by the rules, you get an opportunity. His dad is working as a handyman. He grows up, volunteers says, you know, I'm going to serve this country that has given us this opportunity and treated us so well. He gets sent out on a ship and he gets basically stranded at sea. We're trying to kill themselves on the ship. The president and the Department of War have no actual plan for why they're there, what they're doing. The guy that runs the military allegedly, the secretary is spending more time like going to Iowa State Fair and attacking transgender people than he is trying to come up with a plan to win the war. So your Joshua, you're out there, you're stuck on this ship. You're trying to keep a good attitude. You're trying to think about how you're serving your country. You're trying to think about what this service means. And meanwhile back home, if I can mask thugs or nabbing your father and putting them in
a detention camp. Just the lack of gratefulness for the service, just the total indecency of this administration on display in the life of Joshua V. Lys right now. And it just, I feel horrible for him at sucks. Luis's wife was interviewed recently. She said he was counting the days and weeks until his son arrives so he could hug him. And then this happened. Luis again, I've been following the rules showing up for his ice check-ins, how to work permit, how to social security card, how to drive a license. These are the people that are going after. And I brought this up in a podcast recently. I think this is an important thing to understand right now is that they are absolutely going after the people that are following the rules because they're the easiest to find. Here's another example of this 54-year-old named one was detained by ice in Houston earlier
this month. He had called Houston PD to report a shooting in a home depot parking lot. So I said he didn't say what his offense was when they arrested him. So it's like, this is what we want. We want people to be scared. We want people to live in fear in this country that they can't call the police and let them know that there's a shooting. We want them to not do that. We want them to not be part of society. This is like the people that these guys are nabbing and putting into it to just camps that have unimaginably intolerable conditions. The people that we're doing that to are the people that are going to their check-ups, the people that are on the grid. The people that are trying to do this the right way. People that are calling the police and letting them know that there's actual crime happening that they might want to look into. And that's what they're going after. You know, just some of these horror stories. It's just hard for me to get into, but I'll just give you a couple more.
There's been a report from the Washington Post about the overcrowding at the ICE facility in New York City in the first four days of June in 2025. The number of detainees in four holding rooms on the building's 10th floor jumped from approximately eight to more than 80. The room is a square cell with 30 feet on each side. So we got what, 20 people in a room. That's 30 by 30. So what's what we're doing, shackling them. Apparently, the space is wreaked of unwashed bodies. People stop sitting up because there was enough space to lie down. Shortage of medical staff. As you hear this in every detention center, nobody's getting health care. No people serious health conditions aren't getting their medicine. Text among ICE officers showed this. They received via FOIA. The numbers haven't really changed that much either. This is from June 2025. If you look at this chart, she'll put up there.
You know, we're a little bit down from peak, but huge, huge population of people and ICE holding detention centers nationwide. And we just don't have the bandwidth to treat them like humans. So we don't. We treat them like dogs. Enjoy big savings with Red Hot deals at Vons and Albertsons. This week at Vons and Albertsons, baby back pork ribs are 2.99 per pound with membership where applicable limit three racks. And ballpark hot dogs are hamburger buns, 8 count are 2.99 with digital coupon. Plus personal seedless watermelons or canelope are 1.99 each with digital coupon. Enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in, these deals won't last. Visit vons or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. Shop the Serwen Williams Labor Day Sale and get 35% off paints and stains, August 28th through September 9th. Whether you're refreshing your interior or exterior, we've got the colors to bring
your vision to life. And with delivery, getting everything to your door is easier than ever. Shop online to have it delivered or visit your neighborhood Serwen Williams store. Click the banner to learn more. Retail sales only, some exclusions apply. See store for details, delivery available on qualifying orders. One of these deportation stories that just make sure to get up in the morning is an Overland Missouri couple. They were from Guatemala. They did the right thing again, I guess, the right thing, nothing I would want them to do, but they did what they were told that they should do, which is self-deport. And they went back to their hometown in Guatemala. It was very dangerous. And they were killed a couple weeks after they self-deported. The most devastating part of the story, their 14-month-old daughter Giovanni was found
crying beside her mother's dead body in southern Guatemala. The child showed signs of dehydration and was taken to a medical center where she is recovering according to a Guatemalan news outlet. This is the whole point of this country. People like this that are fleeing danger, the one opportunities for freedom, the thing can come here. That's what the whole country is. This is not our country is not hungry. It's not Italy, it's not China, it's not like a country that is based on blood and soil. Where there is a coherent national culture and identity. It's not what this country is, this country is found by immigrants. Had a tradition of welcoming people like this throughout its history and there's also a tradition of people fighting this and using demagoguery.
But this is the first time that just under a bash at demagogu became the president of the United States and let people that are sadistic run our immigration regime. We have a white national sadistic immigration regime that ends up sending people back to dangerous places like Haiti or Guatemala with it off to die. Which takes us to other big story that's been happening that I have an attitude to. Which is we're sending people not even back to their country. It's like sick enough to send people that came here through a legal process, TPS, back to Haiti where things are dangerous, back to certain parts of Guatemala that are still run by gangs where they I get killed. That's bad enough. We're taking people from one example, a guy from Cuba and sending him to Central African Republic, which is a failed state where the Secretary of State says that we shouldn't. There's a travel warning there.
There's a travel advisory. This people shouldn't go and visit there. We're sending people there who aren't even from there, don't know anyone. Don't have any status to have you money. How are they supposed to survive? In case the one man for the Cuban, his wife is a citizen. Like he has family, he has American family. It would be horrific enough to send these people back to Cuba that were embargoing and trying to starve out, but to send them to the Central African Republic. Again, this is sadism. This is intentional cruelty. It is fundamentally un-American. It's just story after story like this. I guess I won out of them, but at a pretty prominent commentator that was Trump's border, react to a video that I put out about our new internment camp several weeks ago about
the Iranian family that we continue to intern in Texas who are here legally on a green card. They were targeted by a campaign of whatever pro-Aronian freedom agitators or whatever. One member of the couple had a parent that had been a regime in Iranian regime official. That is nothing to do with this couple and their child are now interned in an internment camp in Texas just because of their family because they're race because of their nation of origin. It is Japanese internment. That's exactly what it is. So anyway, I said that. I shared that. This person gave me a little heart. Is that a courage? No. You know, but is it a positive sign that if we tell enough of these stories, enough of these
individual stories, that there will be people that got sucked into the Trump orbit that will recoil from it because they come from an immigrant family because they believed in the America laid out by Ronald Reagan when he talked about the shining city on the hill, I think so. So I think it's important to keep driving this and helps more and more people like that person. See these stories. Lastly, I just, this is just an update because this happened on a vacation. Obviously, there was the killing of Lorenzo Araho in Maine, disgusting ice, just murder, have on camera, agents of the state murdered somebody. Two of the three witnesses were in that car. They're still in ice custody. So I assume that they would have testimony for San testimony about the agent that did summary execution in the street on the person in their car or the parent, father.
And so it's harder for them to do that if they're in ice custody. So that's something we'll be continuing to monitor. But on Good Morning America this week, Alex Prede's family spoke out and talked about how they haven't heard from the government and there seems to be not really a lot of effort made going to investigate and look into the person that killed their son. So there it is. This is an uplifting video. So this is happening with just the ongoing escalating horrors from our government and from ice. And so we're going to keep on it. So appreciate you guys if you made it through this whole video. You're of stern stuff. So subscribe to the feed. Tell your friends about what we're doing here and we'll be seeing you soon. Enjoy big savings with Red Hot deals at Vons and Albertsons.
This week at Vons and Albertsons, baby back pork ribs are 2.99 per pound with membership where applicable limit three racks. And ballpark hot dogs or hamburger buns eight count are 2.99 with digital coupon. Plus personal seedless watermelons or cantaloupe are 1.99 each with digital coupon. Enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal. Hurry in, these deals won't last. Visit vons or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.
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