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Zooming In at The UnPopulistDefending liberal democracy against authoritarianism in the U.S. and around the world. Author: The UnPopulist
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ICE Is Only Getting Started, the Worst Is Yet to Come: A Conversation with David J. Bier
Friday, 9 January, 2026
Immigration enforcement is the dominant focus of Donald Trump’s second term. He promised to get tough, and he has. Many who voted for him because this issue was important to them believed he would mainly crack down on criminal aliens.On today’s episode, host Shikha Dalmia and guest David Bier of the Cato Institute dismantle that illusion. They discuss how in his second term, Trump has launched an all-out assault on all immigrants: Illegal and legal. Undocumented and documented. Criminals and law-abiding ones.Moreover, Trump is going about immigration enforcement in an unimaginably cruel and indiscriminate way. He is engaging in mass arrests without due process, sweeping in citizens as well as immigrants.They point out how things are only going to get worse going forward as an agency that has no respect for life and a vast contempt for the rule law has been granted expanded funding by Congress.This episode was recorded just before Christmas. As if to prove their point, this week an ICE agent killed Renee Good, a peaceful, natural born American citizen, in Minneapolis. Good was a 37-year-old mother of three and, according to her family, a devout Christian with not an unkind bone in her body. She was driving home after dropping her toddle, when she encountered an ICE raid in progress. She was shot at point blank range as she tried to get away.Mass deportation cannot happen without mass collateral damage. Good’s death was not a freak accident. It was the foreseeable outcome of a system that treats visibility as provocation and accountability as an obstacle.This episode of Zooming In is about immigration policy, yes. But it’s also about the deeper logic of unchecked state power. As immigrants are targeted and lose their rights, Americans will not be spared. Freedom is not divisible.A transcript of today’s podcast appears below. It has been edited for flow and clarity.***Thanks for checking out The UnPopulist! Subscribe to support our project.Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X.© The UnPopulist, 2025 Get full access to The UnPopulist at www.theunpopulist.net/subscribe
