Jonathan Blitzer: Our New Internment Camps

Jonathan Blitzer: Our New Internment Camps

From The Bulwark Daily by The Bulwark

July 15, 2026 · 1h 13m

About this episode

The episode discusses the dire conditions in ICE detention centers and the impact on Cuban and Venezuelan immigrants, featuring guest Jonathan Blitzer.

While ICE is still murdering people in the streets, more than 60,000 people are currently being held in ICE detention centers across the country. The largest facility is at Fort Bliss in El Paso—which was an actual Japanese internment site in WWII. Detainees there are being deprived of needed medication; some have been held incommunicado; others have reported that the tent camp was not designed for humans to live there. When the conditions are not dire enough to make detainees self-deport, guards terrorize them into submission. Plus: Cuban and Venezuelan immigrants are particularly caught in the crosshairs of the escalating deportation campaign. And Tim holds forth on Trump's goons murdering our neighbors, ICE's reckless Kavanaugh stops, the straight-up Constitutional violations the administration is encouraging, and the illegal and marauding settler groups in the West Bank. The New Yorker's Jon Blitzer joins Tim Miller. show notes Jon's piece, "Locked Away" Nick Miroff's Atlantic piece on the Maine shooting The NYT on Marco running Venezuela (gift link) The episode of "This American Life" Jon referenced, "What Is Your Emergency?" Jon's book, "Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here" The…

People in this episode

Host: Tim Miller

Guest: Jonathan Blitzer

Topics covered

  • ICE detention centers
  • deportation
  • immigration
  • human rights
  • Trump administration
  • Cuban and Venezuelan immigrants

Keywords

  • ICE
  • detention centers
  • immigration
  • deportation
  • human rights
  • Trump
  • Cuba
  • Venezuela

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: ICE

Books & works: Locked Away, What Is Your Emergency?, Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here, Proud

Places: Fort Bliss, El Paso, Venezuela, Cuba

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