Congress's Dissatisfaction Grows

Primary results are sending signals, Republicans are finally simmering out loud, and conditions inside Delaney Hall make the immigration crisis impossible to look away from

We asked in the Substack chat earlier this week what you all want to hear about, and you gave us a great list. Today, we're tackling ICE detention facilities. Delaney Hall in Newark, NJ, is a microcosm of the issues presented by an administrative process that presents itself as a criminal one. It's a heavy conversation, but it's clarifying. The current system is unacceptable. We talk about what could come next.

We also cover this week's primary results, the chippiness among Congressional Republicans 👀, and my new summer rule that wait time is for fiction.

We'd love for you to join us live in Minneapolis in August, and the hotel deadline is coming right up! Find all the details here:

Topics Discussed

Topics discussed:
• Primary results in California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Iowa, South Dakota, and Montana
• Republican caucus friction: the anti-weaponization fund, Todd Blanche's AG nomination, and Bill Pulte as acting DNI
• Delaney Hall ICE detention facility in Newark
• New Jersey's lawsuit against the GEO Group and escalating protests
• The civil (not criminal) nature of ICE detention
• Immigration reform proposals
• Outside of Politics: using wait time for fiction

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Episode Resources

• Primary results from Tuesday’s elections (U.S. News & World Report)

• Delaney Hall visitation access and protest conditions (America Magazine)

• Delaney Hall protests escalate (CNN)

• Delaney Hall background and protests (BBC)

• Louisiana ICE facility and mistreatment of immigrants (New York Times)

Episode Transcript

[00:00:29] Sarah: This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

[00:00:31] Beth: This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we’re going to talk about this week’s primary results and some frustration simmering among Republicans in Congress. We’re also going to talk about Delaney Hall, which is an ICE detention facility in Newark, New Jersey, where there are escalating protests, two lawsuits, and a real microcosm of the issues surrounding immigration detention in the country. And then outside of politics, we’re going to take a very necessary exhale and talk about a summer decision that I’ve made that I think is going to revolutionize my life.

[00:01:08] Sarah: One week from today is the deadline to book the hotel in Minneapolis where we are hosting our one and only live show of the year and the SPICE conference. Would you like to stay in a hotel full of just Pantsuit Politics listeners? Basically a big old Pantsuit Politics slumber party with your own quiet space, of course. This is the chance. We really want to book out this hotel. We think it’ll be really fun to have the whole place to ourselves. So much magic happens when listeners are together meeting each other. They set up local groups. They form friendships. They come back to live events with people they met at previous live events. So we really want to have the space. We genuinely want to sell it out and have this community there together. So you can find more information about how to book a room at the hotel in the show notes, and we hope to see you there.

[00:01:57] Beth: We also want to mention that our Be Good Neighbors shirts are still on sale. Probably want to size up. That’s what we’re hearing, that they run a little bit snug. Make sure that you’re ordering the kind that you want, if you want a women’s shirt, if you want a unisex shirt. And now, by popular demand, we have baby and toddler shirts as well. Not required that you send us a photo of that baby and toddler wearing the shirt, but highly encouraged. Yeah. Highly encouraged.

[00:02:20] Sarah: Agreed.

[00:02:21] Beth: Okay, let’s talk about some elections. Sarah, California’s still counting. Womp, womp.

[00:02:36] Sarah: They’re probably still counting from the last time. Bless their sweet hearts. I don’t know why it takes so long. I would just like to say, this is the technology hub of America.

[00:02:47] Beth: Of the country.

[00:02:48] Sarah: And it really does feel like maybe this is a problem they could have cracked wide open by now. But that’s okay.

[00:02:55] Beth: Looking like the most votes went to Republican Steve Hilton. And it looks like Xavier Becerra, Democratic candidate, former Biden administration official, is coming in second. Tom Steyer was in third the last time I checked, but it looks like Hilton and Becerra are going to advance here.

[00:03:14] Sarah: And look, I’m not mad about this. I really feel like people should have a choice. California’s a big state. Yes, it’s a blue state. There are Republicans that live there. I live in a place where I feel like my vote doesn’t count. It’s not a pleasant experience. And I think not having choices and single party rule can lead to bad outcomes. I think it’s a part and parcel of why Karen Bass is out here being challenged by Spencer Pratt, for the record. So I don’t think this is a terrible outcome. I’m not super excited about Xavier Becerra. I don’t live in California, but I do consider myself 30% Californian, because it’s where I spent every summer of my childhood. So I’m invested.

[00:03:51] Beth: Let’s talk about New Jersey. Senator Cory Booker ran unopposed. His Republican opponent is set now. It’s Justin Murphy, a Navy veteran who has run before. Doesn’t have a lot of money. The FEC says that he had negative $24 in his campaign account recently.

[00:04:06] Sarah: That’s not enough for a Senate campaign.

[00:04:08] Beth: Maybe not a contest of ideas can unfold there. Yes. But we’ll see. The race that everybody was really watching in New Jersey, though, was for the House. Former healthcare executive Rebecca Bennett won the Democratic primary to run against Thomas Kean Jr.

[00:04:26] Sarah: The disappearing congressman. Sounds like a novel I would read. I would read something entitled The Disappearing Congressman. I would.

[00:04:33] Beth: He has missed so many votes.

[00:04:36] Sarah: Over 100 votes.

[00:04:38] Beth: Serious newspapers have headlines like, “We started looking for him, and looked and looked.” And people just don’t know where he is, and I cannot for the life of me understand the public relations strategy at play here.

[00:04:49] Sarah: It’s so weird. He’s like, “Okay. It’s a health issue. It’s super normal, but I’m not going to tell you what it is. But when you find out, you’re going to be like, ‘Oh my God, that was no big deal.’” And I’m like, what? I’m sorry. Huh? If it’s super normal, then why not just tell everybody where you’ve been for months?

[00:05:13] Beth: How many times do we have to learn the lesson? Get in front of it. I understand that people in public office want some privacy. I want that for them. It’s 2026, you have to get in front of things. This is not how you handle it. This is not how you get your privacy.

[00:05:28] Sarah:  This is not it.

[00:05:29] Beth: Congratulations Deb Haaland, who won the Democratic primary for governor in New Mexico.

[00:05:33] Sarah:  Yeah, I’m excited about this one.

[00:05:36] Beth: And then Rob Sand is everybody’s favorite in Iowa. He was unopposed. He has the nomination. It’s exciting there.

[00:05:41] Sarah:  People like him. Listen, I feel like Iowa was trying to defend itself as reasonable. This was what it felt like to me. So the Trump-endorsed candidate for governor lost, and then the moderate Democratic... this is the Senate primary I’m going to start talking about, because Joni Ernst got pushed out by Donald Trump. I don’t understand why when one candidate is a multiple gold medal Paralympian, this is just about progressives versus moderates inside the Democratic Party. I’m like, “I don’t know if that’s true,” because this gentleman is a Paralympian, and that is just a winning story. I don’t care where your policy breaks down on. I love the idea that we’re just really locked in on that these are always policy contests. I don’t really think that’s always true. But they did pick the moderate for the Senate Democratic nominee, and they did pick the he’s not moderate, but not the Trump-endorsed candidate for governor Zach Lawn, which our listeners in Iowa are worried that he could really hit as popular as Rob Sand is for the governor because he’s a farmer, and it’s anti-institutionalist kind of situation. But overall, I just feel like Iowa’s “Trust us again, guys. Look. Please.”

[00:06:58] Beth: I think that whole progressive versus moderate situation is overblown too because it feels to me like we’re often talking a lot more about temperament than policy. What words are you using? What aesthetic are you portraying? How mad do you seem?

[00:07:13] Sarah: Yeah. Zach Lawn I think seems real mad. I think that’s why.

[00:07:18] Beth: So could we call him a progressive Republican? Wouldn’t  people love that?

[00:07:21] Sarah: That’s populist, right? That’s not quite getting it.

[00:07:23] Beth: Yeah, but what does populist mean when you look at this administration that was supposed to be populist, and it’s like let’s take the .1 of the 1% and make them even richer.

[00:07:32] Sarah: Yeah, because I think in the Republican Party it becomes MAGA versus establishment, but I don’t quite think that’s it either.

[00:07:39] Beth: No. Look at people’s voting records. It doesn’t break down this way.

[00:07:41] Sarah: We need a different word. I think you’re right. We’ll work on that.

[00:07:44] Beth: I want to say a brief word for Dusty Johnson in South Dakota. He was in the House. And I thought that he was a little sparklet of hope in the Republican caucus. I think he’s a pretty smart guy, does his homework, takes the office seriously. Left the House to run for governor. He didn’t make the runoff. He finished third. And I just think that’s a bummer because I do think he had... I don’t agree with him on everything, but I think he had contributions to make.

[00:08:12] Sarah: It does not surprise me that someone you would feel that way about would not do well in the current Republican election.

[00:08:18] Beth: I don’t know whether to be offended or reassured by that.

[00:08:22] Sarah: Neither. You should be complimented, but it’s not reassuring because it doesn’t say great things about the future of the Republican Party.

[00:08:29] Beth: It does not.

[00:08:30] Sarah: Which we’re going to get to. Put a pin in that. It got pretty nasty in Montana, too, because the way that Steve Daines coronated his chief of staff was shitty to both the Democrats and, oh, I don’t know, the people of Montana. And so you have Alani Bankhead as a Democrat, but I think really people want to center around this independent candidate, former University of Montana President Seth Bodnar. And look, I’m not mad at this strategy. In Nebraska, in South Dakota, in these deeply red states, if we got to go independent first, fine. Who cares? Let’s just do that. So Bankhead says she’s not dropping out, but we’ll see how bad the pressure gets.

[00:09:11] Beth: He definitely outraised everyone else.

[00:09:15] Sarah: Oh yeah, the University of Montana president?

[00:09:17] Beth: Yes, the independent candidate, which is usually the rub with independent candidates. You know what? Let’s try some things. I’m here for trying things.

[00:09:24] Sarah: That’s a good transition to the current Republican caucus.

[00:09:28] Beth: Is it just getting a little chippy finally at long last? A little  chippiness.

[00:09:32] Sarah: I see it, and I like it. It was even the headline of The New York Times today. The headline was like, “They are slightly resisting.” I like both want to feel giddy, and then I’m also like, “This is what I feel giddy about?” Look, okay let me just say this. The death of the 1.776 billion anti-weaponization fund is absolutely reason to feel giddy. Now, do I wish it had never seen the light of day? That would’ve been a better success, of course, but the fact that they were like, no, is reason to celebrate, guys. It just is.

[00:10:03] Beth: What feels new to me here is that we’ve had moments before where the public has been like, “No,” and so they’ve gone, “Psst, psst, please, Mr. President, let’s change our path on this.” With this, we have reports of people yelling in Todd Blanche’s face.

[00:10:22] Sarah: That sounds like fun.

[00:10:23] Beth: And after Todd Blanche said, “Okay, we’re not going to do it,” they were like, “Don’t believe you. We need to put it in writing. We need to put it in a law.” And so I think we’re maybe getting somewhere. Are we getting somewhere that I’d like to be? Not yet, but I will take the progress in this direction.

[00:10:41] Sarah: No, we are. That’s not true, Beth. We are getting somewhere we want to be because it’s not here. You see what I’m saying?

[00:10:49] Beth: I do.

[00:10:50] Sarah: And that is good and well with my soul. Not here is where I don’t want to be, and so any movement out of the circle that includes here is great. Do you see what I’m saying?

[00:11:06] Beth: In the face of a little chippiness, the president gets chippier, too. So we have reporting that they are yelling at Todd Blanche, raised voices, actual yelling, and Trump goes, “You know what? I’d like him to be the permanent attorney general, not just the acting attorney general, the permanent one.” And I think that’s going to be fascinating. Can he even get out of committee? The way that he’s conducted himself as acting attorney general, the fact that he was the president’s former personal lawyer. Not the only personnel challenge right now either.

[00:11:39] Sarah: Because here’s the thing. I would also like to say it’s not the only raised voices. He apparently also cussed out Benjamin Netanyahu. So the stress is showing, is all I’m saying. The stress is really showing all around. It is so clear to me that no one around the president is telling him the truth. No one is pushing. He has surrounded himself with people, many of which I think sincerely believe his instincts are good, and so we have hit where the instincts are. Not only bad, but harmful. The Senate is pissed because he went after John Cornyn. For why? Cassidy, maybe. Cornyn, why? He was this stalwart, this fundraiser, so now they’re just mad. And they do, thank God, have some power under our constitutional democracy to exercise, and they seem to be doing that.

[00:12:42] Beth: So Trump has nominated Bill Pulte to be the acting director of national intelligence, the position recently vacated by Tulsi Gabbard. And I think it’s helpful to just think for a second about what this job is because this job has not been around forever. It is a post 9/11 creation, born of the idea that we have an enormous, complicated, often competitive intelligence apparatus collecting all kinds of information all over the world and more within these borders than we might prefer and be comfortable with, and that somebody needed to coordinate all of that to ensure that we act on good information in appropriate ways, that we don’t act on bad information, and that we steward that information well. This is one of the most difficult jobs that could exist within the government. It is controversial. There are still people who think this was the wrong answer to a healthy set of questions post 9/11. So it’s a tough gig all around. Tulsi Gabbard was a weird choice, a controversial choice herself because of a lack of experience, and then Trump says, how about we get somebody from housing over here?”

[00:14:05] Sarah: When you make Tulsi Gabbard look like a reasonable nominee, I don’t know what we’re doing. I appreciate Tom Tillis saying, “I’m tired of amateur hour.” You know what, buddy? Same.

[00:14:22] Beth:  So Bill Pulte is currently the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the chair of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We’re going to start getting Bill Pulte Marco Rubio memes because he’s going to do that job while being the acting DNI.

[00:14:38] Sarah: Oh my God. This is our friend from the Fed harassment. This is our bestie who went after the Fed chairs for their multiple homes.

[00:14:47] Beth: Correct. It seems like the most work Bill Pulte has done in his current post is to scrutinize people’s mortgage filings who have ever disagreed with the president about anything.

[00:14:59] Sarah: Which, listen, it is its own form of intelligence. I’m just saying. I’m just saying it is...

[00:15:05] Beth: Oh my God. Here’s where we are. So he’s behind the Lisa Cook action, the Fed governor. He is behind Letitia James action. He hasn’t really gotten far with these ideas, but boy, Donald Trump likes the way he thinks. And so he’s going to now have access to the most confidential information that we have in these United States.

[00:15:30] Sarah: What could go wrong?

[00:15:31] Beth: What could go wrong? So a little chippiness about old Bill simmering.

[00:15:39] Sarah: And now here is what I think I’ve picked up on over the last few weeks. If they’re chippy to the press, they’re real mad behind the scenes.

[00:15:48] Beth: Yes.

[00:15:49] Sarah: And that makes me feel a little bit better

[00:15:52] Beth: Not limited to the Senate, the chippiness, because we did have four Republicans in the House vote with Democrats about the Iran war saying, “Hey, you need to take troops out of Iran, or you need to get approval from Congress.”

[00:16:07] Sarah: Yep.

[00:16:07] Beth: But this excursion situation that you keep describing is not working for us. Now, good news, Marco Rubio says the war’s over. Wild to see that Marco Rubio says we’re done as everybody keeps firing at each other.

[00:16:21] Sarah: Interesting. Bet it doesn’t feel that way in Kuwait with their airport under attack. Just saying.

[00:16:28] Beth: I bet it doesn’t feel that way if you have a loved one serving in the United States military over there. Doesn’t seem to feel that way in the oil industry, where they’re warning that so much oil is just sitting, waiting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, that we are about to see a price shock on a level that we haven’t yet seen.

[00:16:46] Sarah: I think this has a chance in the Senate. Am I crazy?

[00:16:51] Beth: I don’t know what will happen. This is the kind of move that I have been desperately waiting for, and that while I view it as good news, also makes me incredibly nervous. Because when you think about trust and confidence in our systems, is American democracy up for this moment? If this passed the House and the Senate and the White House kept doing whatever it wants over there, which I think is the likely outcome, that is a precarious situation for us. I don’t know exactly what that means. I don’t know the form that precarity takes. I know that it makes my stomach hurt.

[00:17:33] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:17:34] Beth: And so we need it. We have to do this. This is the way and also it’s a scary way.

[00:17:40] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:17:41] Beth: Thinking about the administration doing whatever it pleases, we will now turn our attention to the Department of Homeland Security. Amateur hour is maybe an excellent description of what’s happening in the Department of Homeland Security. I understood the Mark Wayne Mullen nomination. I do not think he’s up for what’s happening in New Jersey right now.

[00:18:09] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:18:13] Beth: Can I tell you a little bit about Delaney Hall? Have you looked at the situation?

[00:18:16] Sarah: Yes. It’s very disturbing.

[00:18:17] Beth: So Delaney Hall is a two-story facility. It’s over 100,000 square feet. It sits on about five acres of land, and its neighbors are a sewage treatment facility and an animal fat rendering plant. So it gives you a picture of where we’re talking about in Newark. The name comes from a person who did really pivotal work around addiction and recovery, Geraldine O. Delaney. But it has been a detention center before. It closed for a while. It has always been controversial. During the Biden years, there was a request to reopen it, and Cory Booker sent an open letter saying, “Do not. It would be a real affront to people here.” It is the largest detention facility on the East Coast. And in 2025, the Trump administration signed a 15-year $1 billion contract with GEO Group, a corporation, to run it. And GEO Group has facilities in Australia, South Africa and the UK, and it is holding in the United States right now, in total, about 24,000 ICE detainees. The CEO said that on an investor call in February, if that paints a picture. It has the largest revenue of any private detention contractor, and it is the industry’s top contributor to political campaigns. A former executive from the GEO Group was hired by the Trump administration last year to spend more money on ICE facilities. The city of Newark says that GEO Group has not done things right, and they do not have a valid certificate of occupancy. So that lawsuit has been going on for a year. And then last May, there was, like, a fight or outside the facility between law enforcement and some elected officials who came to visit. One of those elected officials, Representative LaMonica McIver, has been charged with assaulting a police officer, but she just decisively won her primary to stay in Congress. And then we had four people escape last June as part of a protest about conditions in the facility. They broke through a sheetrock wall. Then in December, a forty-one-year-old man with no known history of medical issues spent one day there and died, and we still don’t know why. And then that brings us to this month.

[00:20:45] Sarah: So on May 25th, where I first started seeing things about this all over social media was because Senator Kim, who’s been a guest on this show, and protesters were pepper sprayed by federal agents outside the facility because there are people inside the facility who are on hunger strike, protesting just truly unsanitary, disgusting living conditions. And to me, this situation with the treatment of immigrants inside these facilities is coming to a head because there’s been ongoing criticisms and protests around some of the facilities in Texas, particularly some of the facilities holding children. At the same time that the Department of Homeland Security has decided to basically do its level best to discourage and shut down legal immigration as well as illegal immigration. It’s just one more example of Donald Trump saying “I’m going to go after China. JK, they’re my best friend. I’m going to end the Iranians’ nuclear program. Just kidding. We’re just going to try to get out of this as best we can. I’m going to bring down prices. Everything’s more expensive. I’m going to go after the worst of the worst immigration-wise.” And what he is going after is not only People who are here illegally who are criminals, which I think everybody agrees, fine. And not only going after people who maybe came here illegally, he is now going after people who are walking through the immigration process legally and making it difficult, if not impossible, to become citizens. He’s also trying to denaturalize people who have already become citizens. It is just a frontal assault, largely driven by racist and nationalist ideas about who belongs in America in just the most inhumane, cruel way imaginable.

[00:22:51] Beth: They get away with some of this because they talk about it as crime fighting. They say, “This is for the worst of the worst.” And what we know from more than a year now of experience with this Department of Homeland Security is that they can pick you up shopping for diapers for your kids and talk about you as the worst of the worst, even if you have no criminal record, even if they’re not sure that you’re here illegally. They just suspect that you might be.

[00:23:18] Sarah: Even if you are, in fact, a child, which they pick up lots and lots of those as well.

[00:23:23] Beth: This is an administrative process. When ICE detains someone, it’s a civil process, civil the way a driver’s license is civil. It is not criminal. These are people who have not been charged with crimes. So they put them in these facilities. They treat them as though they’ve murdered someone, and then they come to the public and say, “It’s not supposed to be the Holiday Inn. We’re holding them.” Some of these people don’t have court dates set. They struggle to have access to visitors. The facilities put all kinds of constraints in place about when you can visit. They shift that whenever they want to. There is an organization set up outside this facility in New Jersey called Eyes on ICE that maintains a box of clothing so that people who go in wearing shorts can come grab some pants if they’ve been denied entry because they didn’t meet the dress code that day. The dress code is confusing. It’s inconsistent. They do everything they can to make it hard for people to meet with their lawyers and their loved ones, and again, this is a civil process. They have not charged these folks with crimes, and that is so offensive to me. Mark Wayne Mullen told the president in a cabinet meeting that there was no hunger strike. There was a handful of people who wanted access to their correct ethnic food. That’s how he put it, but said that they are getting their needed calorie intake every day. Meanwhile, the reports coming out of the facility are that the food has mold in it, that some of the food has worms in it, that people cannot get medical care for chronic conditions, that everything smells like gas and sulfur and rotting garbage because of where the facility is located and how it’s insulated. That the sanitation is awful. Senator Kim has said that. He and Representatives Menendez and Pallone have been in there, and they say it is unacceptable. It falls below the government’s own standards for what these facilities should be doing. And that’s the situation that we have when Governor Mikey Sherrill tries to go visit the facility and is given very limited access. The New Jersey Health Department is given very limited access to inspect it. So now the state of New Jersey has sued the GEO Group, saying, “You need to let us in, and the court needs to be apprised of the conditions that we’re hearing.” They’re worried about tuberculosis transmission because of the level of sanitation happening in here.

[00:25:52] Sarah: You hear stories all the time. I heard a story from an Irishman that was detained and deported, and he was like, “It’s like a concentration camp. I don’t know what other language to use to adequately describe.” And he wasn’t even at this one. He was at one that’s considered not that bad. You hear people who get out-- if they live, let’s not forget about the poor man they dropped off in the middle of the winter who died-- that tell people it’s awful. It is offensive to just basic levels of humanity, how people are treated in there. And again, I think unfortunately people think if you violate the immigration laws, it’s a crime. Like a criminal case. So I think they’re playing on people’s baseline understanding of the immigration process, and they’re playing on this idea that it’s the worst of the worst when it’s women and children and pregnant women who aren’t getting the care they need. And this idea that we just want to make it as hard as possible. The reason they want to treat people so inhumanely is they want to intimidate and scare people. That to get to the deportation levels that white nationalist Stephen Miller wants, people will need to self-deport, and so they’re just trying to scare the shit out of people so they self-deport. This green card change where you have to go back to your country of origin to process your green card because you’re on the legal pathway to citizenship it’s not a barrier. It’s an impossibility. They’re also the same week saying they’re going to close down all these processing places in Africa, so they’re going to send you back to a place you can’t do the process. They want to prevent people from becoming citizens. They want to stop immigration to America, a country built on immigrants. He’s married to an immigrant, for Christ’s sake. It’s just outrageous. It is outrageous, and my fear is that because of the other stresses that this administration has put on everyday Americans’ lives that’s not going to translate. It’s not going to convey. Now, it will to certain populations. It certainly has to the Latino population in places like Texas, and I think we’re going to see it show up in the midterms. But it’s just It’s not who we are. It’s unethical. It’s immoral. It’s a disgrace.

[00:28:18] Beth: I think the conditions being described in this facility would be wrong in a maximum security prison.

[00:28:23] Sarah: Absolutely.

[00:28:24] Beth: I think no matter what you have done in your life, if you are being held by the government, separated from your people, deprived of your liberty, you ought to receive adequate nutrition and medical care and not be psychologically tortured in any number of ways that reports describe going on in this facility. And I think that’s true whether you are an 80-year-old or an eight-year-old or a 48-year-old. The idea that a group of men in middle age are fine to suffer in these conditions but not anyone else also offends me. That this is wrong for people. For human beings, this is wrong. The question that I have is what would be right or what would be better? What is a step forward that the government could take from here? I hate that Holiday Inn remark from Mullen because honestly I think if the government is taking me, again, into its custody away from my people before it’s charged me with anything or proven anything or even demonstrated that it has the potential of proving anything, that yeah, they should put me in the Holiday Inn. Honestly, I should have a certain set of conditions that are pretty nice because I haven’t done anything wrong other than this person has a suspicion of what I might have done wrong. But if we decide, okay, here is a person who’s here illegally, they are waiting on a deportation process to unfold through immigration courts, what could we all agree would be acceptable for that person?

[00:30:08] Sarah: If Stephen Miller’s at the table, I think coming to any level of agreement is going to be very difficult. He has radical views, and he has an enormous amount of power within this administration, and there’s just no other way to say it. He has truly radical, racist, fascist beliefs. You read the reporting about his history when he was in the United States Senate and how the other staffers and senators was, like, the weirdo that everybody kind of tolerated, and now he’s setting the policy strategy. This is what happens. This is what happens when you put a radical in charge of our immigration system. And Mark Wayne Mullins can dress it up, and Tom Homan can pretend like this is just business as usual, but it’s not. It’s not business as usual. That’s why they’re under so many lawsuits. That’s why I think maybe the theme of this episode is my sort of schizophrenic, emotional reaction because I do feel like I’m alternating between hopeful and despondent. It’s getting more regular, this back and forth, because in the same way that Donald Trump’s insane posture towards our energy infrastructure and his actions in Iran is accelerating the electrification of the globe; who’da thunk it, right? He’s so bad. Everybody’s like crap, we better get our act together and electrify everything because he’s made everything so terrible. I think there could be a situation here with our immigration process. I think this could get so bad and so ugly that it could fundamentally break the Department of Homeland Security in ways it cannot come back from, which I wouldn’t be sad about. I certainly hope it gets so bad that we finally for the name of all that is sacred and good in the world, reform our immigration process. It is this weird very painful, very scary, very deadly for some people acceleration to the point where everybody’s “Fine, we’ll fix it.”

[00:32:12] Beth: If I could put some proposals on the table about “Fine, we’ll fix it” I would say, one, immigration should come out of Homeland Security.

[00:32:20] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:32:20] Beth: Homeland Security should be about criminal law enforcement and terrorism prevention and cybersecurity. Cybersecurity for banks, cybersecurity for water systems, cybersecurity for electrical grids. There is plenty of work to do. I would take immigration out of that and have a referral process to federal law enforcement for people who are the worst of the worst. The American public has said loudly and clearly, through elections and otherwise, that they believe people who’ve committed crime here when they are not legally here should be deported. We should have a process in the federal government to do that humanely and expeditiously. For people who are not a danger to society or a threat, the American people still want a process to make sure that people are here legally. I think a department that is focused on that process and that population could do that pretty well. It’s a lot of people. It needs a lot of focus. It’s a complex problem. We should be able to use technology to monitor people who are waiting somewhere in the immigration system in a much cheaper way, to just talk dollars and cents, than these detention facilities. I don’t want a billion dollars over 50 years going to the GEO Group to hold people in completely inadequate warehouses, when we could just monitor people with ankle bracelets. That’s an old technology now that can do so much to ensure that we don’t lose track of people, we are being responsible. We are also being resourceful and humane. I think that there are ways that this could work, and it wouldn’t be that much of a watershed from where the average person is in their views about how this should be handled.

[00:34:19] Sarah: I agree. And I desperately hope that the suffering being inflicted on innocent people, including innocent children, leads to this conversation and understanding and changing orientation to our immigration process and to the people who want to come to America for a better life

[00:34:44] Beth: And in the meantime, kudos to the mayor of Newark who has been courageous and persistent about this to Senator Kim, to Senator Booker, to New Jersey’s representatives, to Governor Cheryl, to Eyes on Ice. There are so many people across the nation who are not letting this fall off their radars and who are every single day, at personal risk often, walking headlong into this situation to say, “I don’t want my fellow human beings treated this way. I don’t want my government overreaching this way. I don’t want my community’s needs and my state’s needs to be dismissed by the federal government, and I want federal officials to do better than, ‘Oh, it’s just a handful of people on hunger strike. Nothing to see here.’ Yeah. So I’m really appreciative of those efforts. Okay, let’s take a big exhale. Sarah, I have been thinking a lot about how I want to feel this summer. I made a series of decisions. I shared one of them on Substack, and I think I’ve maybe touched a nerve for some subset of the population. I have a lot of time in the summer, all year long, but especially in the summer, when I am waiting for my children somewhere. I’m waiting on the deck of a swimming pool because they’re having a practice with their swim team. I’m waiting outside of a theater. I’m waiting at the library while they collect some library books. Just a whole lot of waiting time. And as I started to think about the summer, I was thinking, “Okay, when am I going to carry my laptop in? And maybe I could carry my laptop and my iPad and sidecar it so I could really get some work in that waiting time.” And I realized that makes me miserable. Trying to cram work into every pocket of the day makes me do bad work and also makes me hate everyone and everything. So my rule for myself this summer is that wait time is for fiction. I am not going to read books for work. I am not going to read Supreme Court cases. I’m not going to read the news. When I’m waiting somewhere, whether it is for 15 minutes or an hour, I’m going to pull out a romance novel like a good ‘80s mom and enjoy my life. And it’s working really well for me.

[00:37:06] Sarah: I think about this a lot. I get the question a lot, how do I read so much? So I read about 75 to 80 books a year, and it’s absolutely because times when I would be doing something else, I’m reading. A lot of that is time at night when I might be watching television, I’m reading. I don’t watch television almost at all. But there is an aspect of just reading whenever you have a chance that will definitely improve your reading life. I struggle in the out and about because I’m usually reading probably three to four books at once, and I read sometimes in the afternoon, I read in bed at night. So I have a book cart that kind of moves around my house with me. But because I kind of want to read all of them at the same time, I can’t take them with me. And I hate reading on my phone. Will not do it, hate it. Now, Nicholas has bought this teeny-tiny little e-reader that’s the size of an old-school iPhone. Tiny. And so he keeps that with him all the time. So instead of pulling out his phone, he pulls that out, and I am considering that. I kind of like that idea. And so he’s working through this World War II book that’s going to take him one million years. You could just keep a long, slow read on that and keep it with you. But the novels and stuff I’m reading if I leave the house, I’m not going to think to grab it because it’s in my room. It’s in my book cart. It’s got its little place. I guess I could just pick a car book. Like it’s just my car book. I also don’t do spend a lot of time in my car waiting for my kids though, because I got a driver.

[00:38:41] Beth: I think there are two branches of this idea. There’s a branch for people who want to read more, and that is a goal in and of itself. That is not really what I’m trying to do here. I am trying to avoid the stress and irritableness that arises for me when I am trying to work in those moments. And that’s the reason I’m not picking serious books for those moments too. I need something fluffy that doesn’t take a whole lot of my brain, that’s fun and delightful, and I look forward to. Because then when my kids get back in the car, I’m fine to put the book down. I can be fully present with them. My brain isn’t in the email that I was just writing or the call I just got off of. I can be with them in summer mom mode in a way that I just can’t when I’m shifting in and out of something a lot more serious.

[00:39:41] Sarah: Yeah. It doesn’t make me cranky to squeeze in work. It makes me feel like I’m winning. It makes me feel like I’ve gotten away with something. But it also means I’ll see something, if it takes more brain power, I’ll be like, “Oh, I’ll deal with that later,” and then sometimes I forget to deal with it later. So there is a risk to kind of squeezing it in. But I definitely get that, and I think there’s also space to just not do anything, which I encourage my children all the time. You can sometimes just sit. I’ve been listening to music. I’ve just been staring into the middle distance, which is pretty fun sometimes. Everybody should try it. So I definitely think there’s space to just put your brain on default mode and relax. Reading is definitely my preferred way to do that, so I think it’s a great idea.

[00:40:26] Beth: Yeah. That’s what the romance novel gives me. Or a light mystery or whatever. Just a chance to go into that relaxed space where I’m not trying to be productive. When I shared this on Substack I heard from Kate, who said that she had these pockets of time described as time confetti which I really like because I like the positive spin on this time instead of it being, like, a time suck, which is how I have described it before. And she heard an expert say “Roll those together for productivity blocks,” and I thought, I don’t want to. I want to think of it as time confetti, and what a joy that I get to sit and read my fun book right now and just not feel all the stress. And there’s just an aspect of this that’s trusting myself too. When I sit down at my desk to work, I will get it done. And I will do a good job, and I will have all the appropriate tools, and that thing I need to follow up on, I can either do it then or schedule it as a task that I promise I will do the next time I sit down to work. I’m just learning that no one is clapping for me spending the most minutes on anything. It’s the quality of the work and the attention that I bring to it, and allowing my attention to fully shift away from it in these moments. I think enhances what I do when I’m locked in, as the kids say.

[00:41:50] Sarah: Love it.

[00:41:50] Beth: Erin calls this her emotional support book. If you have emotional support books you’d like to recommend to us for the summer, we’d be delighted to hear those titles from you, or other strategies for your time confetti, ways that you celebrate and delight in it. If you want more celebration and delight with your time, please do consider joining us in Minneapolis at the Spice conference, the EP retreat, or our live show. All the information for that is in our show notes. We’ll be back with you next Tuesday. Between now and then, have the best weekend available to you.Show Credits

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