Jacobin Radio: The Machinery of ICE Detention w/ John Washington

A prisoner is held, in theory, for something they did. The people inside America’s roughly 250 immigration detention camps are held for who they are, or where they’re from. That distinction anchors journalist John Washington’s new book, How to Close a Camp: Dispatches from the Fight Against Immigrant Detention. He joins Suzi to trace the bipartisan machinery behind ICE detention — from the reservation system to today's $240 billion buildout — and the local permits, contracts, and licenses that make these camps more vulnerable than they look. In Surprise, Arizona, a thousand residents showed up to block a $70 million warehouse conversion. “The opposite of a camp is community,” Washington argues — and closing one, keeping it closed, depends on exactly that.

Plus: Meleiza Figueroa remembers David Cobb, who died on Labor Day.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.