AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to plans by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, to nearly double ICE’s detention capacity to 100,000 people. ICE is reportedly racing to build more than — more detention tent camps, after Congress allocated an unprecedented $45 billion in new funding over the next four years to lock up immigrants, as part of Trump’s massive tax and spending package. The Homeland Security Department is also reportedly preparing to start detaining immigrants at more military bases, including in New Jersey and Indiana, as well as to transfer more immigrants to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo, Cuba. That’s according to NPR, which says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved the plans earlier this month.

As ICE jails across the country face dangerous overcrowding amidst nationwide mass raids, the Trump administration is now moving to revoke access to bond hearings for people who enter the U.S. through “non-approved channels.” The new policy could potentially impact millions of undocumented people and orders officers to detain immigrants for the length of their removal proceedings, a process which can take months or even years. The rule will apply to people who have recently entered the U.S., as well as immigrants who have been living here for decades.

For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council.

Welcome to Democracy Now! What does denying bond mean?

ADRIEL OROZCO: It means that, unfortunately, you know, people who have been living in the United States for decades will have to fight their cases behind bars. We know that these detention centers have histories of medical neglect, of horrific conditions and malnutrition. And so, we know that this is one more tool that the Trump administration is trying to use to really scare the community and to get people to give up on their cases, because people do not want to remain behind bars during the duration of their removal proceedings — like you said, can take years.

AMY GOODMAN: So, it will discourage people from continuing to fight their immigration and asylum cases and going through the legal process.

ADRIEL OROZCO: Yeah, that’s right. You know, I’ve had clients in the past who have had to stay in detention centers for three months at a time, and they’ve decided that they would rather accept the removal order, because they don’t have access to be able to talk to their family, or sometimes it’s really difficult to even talk to their attorneys, and the conditions inside. It’s freezing. Right now we know that at least a fourth of the immigrant detention centers in the country, at least of April, using ICE’s data, were overcrowded. And so, people are not getting enough to eat. People are having to sleep on floors. And so, it’s pretty horrific, what people are having to experience right now in detention centers.

AMY GOODMAN: The American Immigration Lawyers Association said members had reported immigrants were being denied bond hearings in more than a dozen immigration courts across the country, including New York, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia. Can you talk about what this means?

ADRIEL OROZCO: Yeah. And so, you know, one of the most troubling aspects of this likely constitutional memo is that, you know, usually when a person who goes before an immigration judge and is in detention, they can ask for a bond. They can show the immigration judge that they’re not a flight risk or that they’re not a public safety threat. And we know that a majority of individuals in immigrant detention right now don’t have a criminal conviction.

And so, unfortunately, what that means is that many of them will not have the opportunity to go before an immigration judge, or an immigration judge might side with ICE’s interpretation of the law and deny them even a hearing for bond. And so, people who have no criminal histories or nonserious criminal histories, who have U.S. citizen children in the United States, will not even have the opportunity to show that they shouldn’t be held in detention.

AMY GOODMAN: So this will fill — guarantee that they will need more jails built. When people don’t get bond, it means they stay, obviously, in these jails longer.

ADRIEL OROZCO: Yeah. You know, obviously, we understand that this administration is using every tool that it has to target the immigrant community, to scare the immigrant community, to hopefully, on their end, you know, discourage people from staying in the United States. And so, what they’re trying to do here is they’re creating a national policy of detention to fill the beds that, unfortunately, Congress recently funded. Congress gave $45 billion to ICE to build more detention capacity, which is 13 years of current funding that has to be spent within four years. So we’re going to see a massive expansion of detention, and this policy is to fill those beds.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, as we see that massive expansion of detention, we’re going to move next into a segment on what these jails look like. We’re going to go to a Human Rights Watch report. Adriel Orozco, I want to thank you so much for being with us, senior policy counsel at the American Immigration Council. When we come back, we’ll look at the report, “'You Feel Like Your Life Is Over': Abusive Practices at Three Florida Immigration Detention Centers Since January 2025.” Back in 20 seconds.

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AMY GOODMAN: “If You’re Coming for Me” by MAKU Soundsystem, here in our Democracy Now! studio.