No one has been more on the front line of stopping the fascist dealings of Donald Trump than Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, who joins Nestor from MACo in Ocean City to discuss the visit of Vladimir Putin on American soil, the due process of humans in our country and what he has seen – and hasn’t seen – from I.C.E. in detaining people. Plus, the criticism and his position on Israel and the tactics in the war in Gaza.
Senator Chris Van Hollen discussed his concerns regarding U.S. relations with Russia, particularly under President Trump, whom he accused of empowering Vladimir Putin. Van Hollen highlighted the dangers posed to journalists by Trump and criticized the administration’s immigration policies, arguing that 84% of those detained by ICE pose no threat to public safety. He visited an ICE facility in Baltimore, where detainees face difficulties accessing legal counsel. Additionally, Van Hollen addressed the crisis in Gaza, condemning Israel’s collective punishment of Palestinians and advocating for greater humanitarian aid.
- [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Schedule a meeting with Senator Van Hollen to discuss the situation in Gaza and his stance on the issue.
- [ ] Continue to monitor and investigate the actions of ICE under the Trump administration.
- [ ] Follow up on the Supreme Court’s decision in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case and ensure the Trump administration complies with it.
- [ ] Advocate for clear rules of engagement and identification requirements for ICE agents conducting arrests and detentions.
Discussion on U.S.-Russia Relations and Media Freedom
- Nestor Aparicio expresses concerns about the U.S. President’s meetings with Vladimir Putin, questioning the motives behind such interactions.
- Senator Chris Van Hollen criticizes Donald Trump for empowering Putin, noting that Putin has advanced his army deeper into Ukraine.
- Van Hollen highlights Trump’s inconsistent behavior, backing off sanctions against Russia and excluding Ukraine’s leaders and European allies.
- Nestor Aparicio recalls Van Hollen’s previous comments on journalism being a dangerous profession, especially under Trump’s administration.
Trump Administration’s Attack on Journalists and Press Freedom
- Van Hollen discusses Trump’s hostile attitude towards journalists, labeling them as “the enemy of the people.”
- He notes that White House press conferences are often dominated by supporters of Trump rather than independent reporters.
- Van Hollen criticizes Trump for attacking public media organizations like Public Radio and Public Television.
- He emphasizes the importance of a free press both domestically and internationally, accusing Trump of undermining press freedoms worldwide.
Transition to Immigration and ICE Issues
- Nestor Aparicio shifts the discussion to immigration issues, mentioning photos of Van Hollen visiting ICE facilities.
- Van Hollen acknowledges the historical contributions of immigrants to America’s vitality and criticizes Trump’s current anti-immigrant stance.
- He mentions his efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform and criticizes Trump for targeting individuals who pose no threat to society.
- Van Hollen shares statistics from ICE’s own data, indicating that 84% of people rounded up and detained pose no threat to public safety.
Due Process Rights Violations and Specific Cases
- Van Hollen describes his visit to the ICE facility in Baltimore, highlighting issues with detainees’ access to attorneys and family members.
- He references the case of Kamardo Abrego Garcia, whose constitutional rights were violated according to a Supreme Court ruling.
- Despite Trump administration claims, Van Hollen argues that most individuals targeted by ICE are not violent criminals but long-time residents contributing positively to society.
- He criticizes the arbitrary quotas set by the Trump administration for ICE detentions, suggesting a lack of genuine focus on public safety threats.
Human Impact and Economic Dependence on Immigrants
- Van Hollen stresses the human impact of ICE operations, describing detainees as small business owners, taxpayers, and essential workers in agriculture.
- He criticizes the Trump administration’s selective exemptions for certain industries, calling it hypocritical and cynical.
- Van Hollen highlights the economic dependence of areas like Maryland’s Eastern Shore on immigrant labor forces.
- He condemns the Trump administration’s use of incentives and quotas for ICE agents, suggesting a disconnect between rhetoric and actual policy enforcement.
Legislative Efforts and Ongoing Concerns
- Van Hollen mentions his involvement in legislative efforts aimed at regulating ICE activities, requiring proper identification and procedures.
- He reflects on the historical context of immigration reform attempts, referencing past bills like the one proposed by Senator McCain.
- Van Hollen reiterates his commitment to achieving comprehensive immigration reform, emphasizing the need for a humane and fair system.
- He concludes by underscoring the broader societal implications of the current ICE practices, urging Americans to recognize and oppose the administration’s tactics.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
ICE detention, immigration reform, border security, public safety, due process rights, Trump administration, Russian relations, press freedom, immigrant contribution, detention centers, Supreme Court decision, humanitarian assistance, Gaza conflict, Israeli military actions.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Senator Chris Van Hollen
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 tassel, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We are at Mako in Ocean City, Maryland. It’s our 27th anniversary. We’re eating all kinds of good things, but I’m not eating anything right now. I’m I’m spitting nails because our senators here, Chris Van Hollen, who I have watched your journey over the last seven or eight months in on behalf of democracy and flying around. I think you know this my last name. Everybody in my audience knows I’m a son of an immigrant, a Venezuelan immigrant. I have brothers who were born in Venezuela and live here and are citizens here. I have grave concern about every status you put up. I have grave concern that, as I’m sitting with my sitting senator right now, the president United States is playing footsie with Vladimir Putin on America Senator, you know everything that’s happened here the last eight months, and Putin and and what’s happening right now, respond to the fact that the President United States is meeting with Vladimir Putin. What’s wrong with that? Putin. What’s
Senator Chris Van Hollen 01:03
wrong with that? Well, Nestor, there’s so much to talk about, but let’s start with that. The reason this is a problem is because from day one, Donald Trump said he was going to end the war in Ukraine, but what he’s done instead is further empower Vladimir Putin, and Putin has played Donald Trump like a fiddle, and he has played for time. And during that time, Putin has actually advanced his army further into Ukraine. Donald Trump keeps making noises about how he’s going to push back. He says he’s going to support this bill we have in Congress to impose sanctions, bigger sanctions, on Russia, but when we get ready to do it, he sends the signal up to Republicans in the Senate. No, no, no, no, don’t do that. He backs off. Now he is actually making Putin’s day by allowing Putin to meet with him one on one. Exclude Zelensky and symbolically exclude the people of Ukraine, not include our allies in Europe, and to do it on American soil. So just the spectacle of this is a win for Vladimir Putin, as it was for Kim Jong. Un, the first time as it was for Kim Jong. Un, look, you know, I believe in in dialog, but you want to have a dialog that can lead to some positive outcome. And here, everything that Donald Trump has said and done up to this point is to throw the Ukrainian people literally under the bus and threaten them and and, and and essentially say, you know, Putin’s a great guy. Then, of course, Putin drops some more bombs. And then, you know, Trump says, maybe that’s not so good, but he doesn’t do anything. This is the problem. And Putin knows it.
Nestor Aparicio 02:56
The Trump thing. The second time around, since last time we got together, I think you said something really profound to me last year. You looked at me and you said, in this space, journalist, most dangerous job in the world is what you said to me this time last year. I think it’s even more dangerous now, in regard to Trump being in control of the country again, I’m just stunned the second time around that this has happened, that we’re back doing this all over again after the plague?
Senator Chris Van Hollen 03:21
Well we are and if you listen to Donald Trump, he thinks that you know journalists are like the enemies of the people, when in fact, journalists are the people we rely on to make sure we have transparency, which helps lead to accountability. If you look at a White House press conference these days, you can see that they begin this, begin to stack it with people who are just, you know, Trumpers, right? They they’re people who are essentially mouthpieces for Donald Trump. If you ask him any question that challenges his policies in any way, he attacks you. If you ask him a softball question, he embraces you, and of course, he attacked Public Radio and public TV, which are public goods, any attack them because he doesn’t like people who report the facts. This is a president hates the facts. I mean, he just fired the guy at the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn’t like the facts that he assessed with respect to the state of jobs in the economy. So this is a president who wants to essentially have everybody believe what he says when he lies through his teeth all the time. So press is more important than ever, and he’s not standing up for the press around the world either. I mean, it’s, I think it’s a very important priority for an American president to support freedom of press here at home, but also around the world.
Nestor Aparicio 04:46
Chris Van Hollen is our guest. He’s our sitting senator. All right, let’s get to ice and immigration. Get off the Trump. But it’s all Trump. I mean, it just is. I mean, your seat, you’re playing defense in this civil war. I don’t even know what else to say. It’s kind of uncivil. Quite frankly, I’ve seen pictures of you at doorways of ice. Can you tell me and our audience what you’re seeing that your trip to Central America, all of that, what are you seeing that people need to know about our citizens need to know about, and what you’re not seeing that our citizens need to know about, what might even be more important?
Senator Chris Van Hollen 05:21
Well, well, look Nestor, I know your great Venezuelan roots, and if you look at America over our history, a lot of our vitality comes from waves of immigrants. And what the President is doing right now is an attack on immigrants. And I do want to step back just to frame this issue all of us. I believe, certainly I do believe, in strong border security. I have been working at the federal level for years to try to pass comprehensive immigration reform so we have a sane immigration system. And I’m not going to go through the whole history of this, but I do remember when Senator McCain had a bill back in the day that would have created a comprehensive immigration reform, good border security, good legal immigration system. Passed the Senate came to the house. The speaker the house at the time was john bainer, Republican. He didn’t even let it come to vote. So we’ve had a broken system. What Donald Trump is doing now is going after people who pose zero threat to our communities and countries for the most part, and people who’ve lived here for a long time now, he says he’s going after the worst of the worst. If that were true, that would be appropriate, right? People who’ve committed crimes or pose a threat to public safety, they need to be held accountable, no argument. But if you look at ICE’s own data, and by the way, I went to the ice facility in Baltimore City just the other day, if you look at their data, their own data says that 84% of the people they are rounding up and shipping to detention centers around the country pose zero threat to public safety, zero threat. This is ice data. So I asked the people at the Baltimore Detention Center The president says he’s going after the worst of the worst. They must have given you a definition for who those people are, so you can really focus on those people. Well, of course, they haven’t, because that’s not who they’re focused on. They’re focused on everybody. That’s how he looks like me. Yeah, looks like you. Has a pastor. There was a pastor on the Eastern Shore. There was a you know, there. There are people all over our state and all over the country who have lived here for decades, in some cases, who are incredible contributors to our community, pay taxes, pay Social Security taxes, pay other taxes, and these are the people, overwhelmingly, again, 84% pose no threat to public safety who are being locked up and detained by Donald Trump and ice in the process, we also see many people being deprived of their due process rights, and that was the case with Komar Abrego Garcia, and anybody who disagrees with me should look at the nine to zero decision from the Supreme Court. We don’t get many of those from a Trump stacked Supreme Court. Nine to zero said the Trump administration had violated his constitutional rights and ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return to the United States, and he has his back now, despite the fact the Trump folks said he would never come back. So that’s a longer story, but my point here Nestor is Trump is claiming that he’s going after these people who are like hardened criminals, violent threats to our community, and in overwhelming number of cases, like 84% by their own numbers, this is a lie, and so I do believe the American people across the political spectrum are are very uncomfortable and don’t like what they’re witnessing, because they were sold the idea that he’s going after the violent criminals only, and instead, he’s going after people who were, you know, part of their fabric. And I would say, even for people who don’t, you know, want to focus on this, for the humanity of it, right? We have to ask ourselves, who we are. Do we really want to be throwing out. You know, people who are small business owners and have families are humans. These are human beings, right? If you don’t, but even if you don’t care about the humanity of it, to your point, these are people who were paying taxes. And we’re here on Maryland’s eastern shore. They’re picking the food in Maryland. Maryland’s eastern shore depends on a lot of these laborers, and now you hear Donald Trump’s folks in administration saying, Well, we’re hearing from the farming community around the country. Do you think we should give an exception to the farming community? Well, that just shows the hypocrisy of this whole thing if he’s going to start doling out fake. Waivers to preferred. You know, industries or sectors? Did you vote for me? Are you in a red state? So, right? This just shows how cynical their approach has been. And for those now, now they’re having to backtrack, so they set a quota, as you noticed, Right? Steve Miller, this is the President’s guy on this really, really terrible, dark person, but he set a quota of 1500 people being detained each day, 1500 people. So there’s obviously a huge inconsistency between saying you’re going after the worst of the worst, and you got a quota to go after 1500 people. They even talked about giving bonuses to some of the ice folks, the more people they took. Now, this got them in a little trouble. I’m wondering
Nestor Aparicio 10:51
who these ice people are like. I’m wondering how they get hired, how they get identified, what their background checks are to be, pulling humans off the street with that identification and denying them due process and their rights. Well,
Senator Chris Van Hollen 11:03
we certainly should be setting up some clear rules of engagement. That’s why I’m part of a piece of legislation that requires that people not be able to just come snatch someone off the street without showing you identification and wearing a mask. I mean, we’ve all seen pictures of people coming up with masks and no identification, and I’m seeing video after video after video. So so you know this, we what we, what we that should not be happening in America, and yet, this is what the Trump administration is doing when
Nestor Aparicio 11:39
you signed it to be senator. I don’t think you even thought that this was possible, that a president the United States would have you down in Central America trying to defend someone’s nine to zero due process rights per the Supreme Court. That would be part of your job. The things we talked about eight years ago when you came in at coffee with me over Catonsville that we beat, this is where we are saying,
Senator Chris Van Hollen 12:01
look, we’ve seen a lot of ups and downs in our history over time, but this is a period of time where we see a completely lawless president. States, right? He was asked whether or not he had to comply with the Constitution. You remember his answer? I don’t know the President United States, you took an oath. Man, he took an oath. And now what we’re witnessing. Look at his power grab in the in the district Columbia as we speak, he’s essentially abusing this law claiming an emergency. He didn’t intervene with the National Guard in time for the January 6 insurrection and riots against the Capitol. That was an emergency. Now he’s manufacturing an emergency so that he can try to federalize the DC police force. This is an abuse of power, and we all need to stand up together.
Nestor Aparicio 12:51
What are you finding when you’re finding these what is alligator Alcatraz? What does that look like in downtown Baltimore? What does that facility look like?
Senator Chris Van Hollen 12:59
So in downtown Baltimore, they pretend it’s not a detention center, and just take a second here they it’s supposed to be, quote, a holding facility where people are processed on in transit to these bigger detention centers. And under their rules, there was a limit of 12 hours in which they could hold somebody in the Baltimore, what they call the holy facility. Well, it turns out, because they were snatching up so many people, they were keeping people for more than a 12 hour standard, and so they had to get a waiver from who Christy Nome. So now that’s 72 hour standard, but they’re exceeding that many cases. So when I went there, that was one of my big questions, beds, water, bathroom, food. Well, what’s the longest someone’s been here? Because I’ve seen public reports of like eight days. Now, the reason this is important is because that clearly is a detention center, right? And they’re trying to claim it’s not because they wanted to deny us entry, because the statute, federal statute, says members of Congress, as part of their oversight responsibilities, can just can go to these detention centers and inspect them, but they wanted to claim it wasn’t, which is why they locked us out the first time. They obviously looked at the law and must have realized that was a bad idea. So we went in. And you know my biggest concern is, first concern is so many people being snatched up, you know, are not the worst of the worst. And the second concern is these people who are in the Baltimore detention center, they have real trouble accessing their lawyers. Even family members have a difficult time getting in, and they have to get them to sign a Privacy release in order for ice to tell any of us what’s happening in their case, and it’s hard for them to get the privacy released to their loved ones or their detainees. So this is a this the Baltimore Center is one cog in a really awful system that’s being. Used to violate, in many cases, people due process rights. That’s where Camargo Garcia, that was his first stop before they sent him to another state, and then Texas, and then to see caught the Gulag in El Salvador.
Nestor Aparicio 15:13
Chris Van Hollen, our time is short. I got to let you go. I do. I do want to talk about Gaza with you at some point. So come get a crab cake with me, because I hear you get named. I see you getting you called names on the internet about trying to stop a genocide. Yeah, and it’s a longer issue than that. I want to give you a chance to defend yourself. But Come, come back, get a crack. Well, let’s
Senator Chris Van Hollen 15:31
just, let’s just say one word about this. First of all, because I think it’s important, and you just raised it. As I said from the very beginning, right after the horrendous Hamas attacks of October 7 on Israel, that Israel obviously has a right to defend itself. It has a duty to defend itself and go after Hamas. What they don’t have a right to do, and what is not just is to hold all the Palestinian people, including 2 million in Gaza, responsible and to impose collective punishment on all of them. And when you start withholding food and humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war, that is collective punishment, that is not justified, but that is what has been happening, and that is why you see people who literally have died of starvation. And my view is that while the Netanyahu government, and let’s be clear, we’re talking about government actions here, a government, by the way, that is not very popular right now in Israel, and one that we’re supporting, including the hostage families who are protesting, the majority of them outside of Netanyahu offices. You have a government there that is using American taxpayer dollars for bombs that they’re dropping in Gaza at the same time that they are cutting off access to humanitarian aid, American taxpayers should not be funding bombs for Gaza while the Netanyahu government is using food as a weapon of war and humanitarian assistance as a weapon of war period.
Nestor Aparicio 17:18
Well, I can’t disagree with any of that you know. Thank you. I know you got to go. Chris Van Hollen, our senator, we’re back for more in Ocean City, Maryland, right after this. We’re at Mako. Stay with us. We’re.
