Our senior politics editor Leah Feiger speaks with WIRED’s Dhruv Mehrotra about an exclusive WIRED investigation into how serious medical incidents are increasing at some of the country’s largest immigration detention centers.
You can follow Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger and Dhruv Mehrotra on Bluesky at @dmehro. Write to us at [email protected].
Mentioned in this episode:
‘They're Not Breathing’: Inside the Chaos of ICE Detention Center 911 Calls by Dhruv Mehrotra and Dell Cameron
How to Protect Yourself From Phone Searches at the US Border by Lily Hay Newman and Matt Burgess
The WIRED Guide to Protecting Yourself From Government Surveillance by Andy Greenberg and Lily Hay Newman
Here’s What Mark Zuckerberg Is Offering Top AI Talent by Zoë Schiffer
How to Listen
You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how:
If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for “uncanny valley.” We’re on Spotify too.
Transcript
Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.
Leah Feiger: Hey, this is Leah. Do you have a tech-related question that's been on your mind or just a topic that you wish we talked about more on the show? If so, you can write to us at [email protected]. And if you listen to and enjoy our episodes, please rate it and leave a review on your podcast app of choice. It really helps other people find us. And a heads up that this episode deals with sensitive content like suicide attempts and sexual assault, please take care while listening. Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley. I'm WIRED Senior politics editor Leah Feiger, filling in today for Zoë Schiffer. Today on the show, an exclusive WIRED investigation on how serious medical incidents are increasing at some of the country's largest immigration detention centers. By looking at data from 911 calls, WIRED reporters, Dhruv Mehrotra and Del Cameron found that in at least 60% of the ICE centers they analyzed, there were reports of serious pregnancy complications, suicide attempts, or sexual assault allegations. Their findings show how these detention centers have quickly become overwhelmed, following the administration's immigration crackdown, and its mandate for more frequent and often indiscriminate arrests. To dive into the show, I'm joined by WIRED's Dhruv Mehrotra. Dhruv, welcome.
Dhruv Mehrotra: Hi. Thanks for having me.
Leah Feiger: So Dhruv, talk me through how you went about reporting this. What prompted you to look at the 911 calls from ICE detention centers? And most importantly, what did you find?
Dhruv Mehrotra: Well, immigration detention centers are largely black boxes, right? Attorneys can't see living areas. And advocates told us that even tightly controlled tours have mostly stopped getting approved by ICE. At the same time arrests are surging, and we've been hearing reports about deteriorating conditions. So what we really wanted to know here was, what's actually happening inside of these overcrowded facilities right now? People in custody often are too afraid to speak publicly, and ICE can take months or even years in some cases to respond to records requests. So instead Del and I decided to kind of look more locally, right? We looked at local agencies like sheriff's departments and EMS crews for records from people who respond directly to ICE facilities when there's a real emergency. So that led us to these 911 call records, which offered one of the clearest, and frankly the most alarming windows into how overwhelmed the system really is.