From Texas to South Sudan: ICE's deportation pipeline
The US federal immigration law enforcement agency — ICE — is sending migrants incarcerated in the U.S. to detention camps in Africa. How could this impact the future of migration and citizenship?
CBC News ·
US President President Donald Trump tours a migrant detention center, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz," located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport in Ochopee, Florida on July 1, 2025. President Trump is visiting a migrant detention center in a reptile-infested Florida swamp dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz." Trump will attend the opening of the 5,000-bed facility -- located at an abandoned airfield in the Everglades wetlands -- part of his expansion of deportations of undocumented migrants, his spokeswoman said. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP) (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images) (Andrew Caballero/AFP/Getty Images)
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Front Burner27:41From Texas to South Sudan: ICE’s deportation pipeline
The U.S. federal immigration law enforcement agency — ICE — is offshoring migrants incarcerated in the U.S. to detention camps in Africa. In at least one of these cases, migrants were told they would be transported to a domestic detention facility and instead were taken to a prison located nearly 10,000 KM away from the U.S.
This decision to deport groups of people in American prisons, against their will, to detention camps in nations they have never visited marks a radical and unprecedented shift in American policy. Legal experts say it might well be unconstitutional.
Hamed Aleaziz is an immigration reporter with The New York Times and joins us for a conversation about the offshoring of immigration detention, the future of the migration crisis, and the two facilities at the centre of Trump's immigration detention plan: 'American Siberia,' and 'Alligator Alcatraz.'
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