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Former ICE director: 'Why Trump is failing at mass deportation' | LBC
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Jun 11, 2025
Around 700 Marines have been deployed to LA amid protests over ICE migrant raids as Donald Trump says forces will "hit back". Largely peaceful protests turned violent overnight as people took to the streets to protest the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal migrants across the US. US president Donald Trump called the protests in LA "Gavin Newscum inspired Riots". Writing on his platform Truth Social, Trump said: "The insurrectionists have a tendency to spit in the face of the National Guardsmen/women, and others. "These patriots are told to accept this, it's administration. "IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT, and I promise you they will be hit harder than they have ever been hit before. "Such disrespect will not be tolerated!" Trump said he would arrest California Governor Gavin Newsom over the protests in Los Angeles. As the protests develop, Andrew Marr is joined by Laura Trevelyan journalist in New York and former BBC World News America presenter and former ICE Director John Sandweg. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp
View Video Transcript
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Is President Trump getting what he wants
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A big political punch-up covered by all the US networks while he actually fails to deport many immigrants
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Let's hear now from Laura Trevelyan, the New York-based journalist who has been following this story closely
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Laura, in your instinct, do you think this is good news for Gavin Newsom
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in terms of his profile across America? Is he beginning to emerge as the most formidable Democratic opponent of Donald Trump
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Well, it's a very difficult moment for him, Andy, because since the beginning of the year
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Gavin Newsom has been very much tracking to the centre. He's taken great care until this moment
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to be conciliatory towards President Trump, greeting him on the tarmac in Los Angeles
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when President Trump came to L.A. in the wake of those devastating wildfires
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Gavin Newsom has started a podcast, Andy, where he's interviewing leading MAGA figures
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such as Steve Bannon, a key Trump ally. Gavin Newsom has even gone so far, Andy
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as to say that there shouldn't be trans athletes in girls' sports. But now here he is, the person who has been forced into this role of leading
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essentially, the anti-Trump resistance, a role that he didn't want to be in, but one that the
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Democratic base is demanding and the one that the president has put him in the position of
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because he's deployed troops to a state without the consent of a governor
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Well, let me ask, I know there are big constitutional arguments already raging about
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President Trump's right to send in the National Guard, never mind the Marines
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but what about the argument that he's actually getting exactly what he wants which is a big
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sort of televised argument about migration at a time when it's actually quite difficult to find
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and deport as many migrants as he said he would absolutely andy and these images of protesters
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waving mexican flags on top of burnt out vehicles if you look on the feeds of the white House of conservative commentator this is the image that the president wants Immigration is his strongest issue That what
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the polling shows. Since he took office, people have been very much behind all the actions he took
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at the border where immigration is down. But you're right, there's a subtext here. These
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riots in LA, and here is the risk for the president in overreach. The riots have been
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sparked by the fact that people who are not criminals of the being in the u.s illegally
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are being arrested at home depot day laborers outside convenience stores so it's not the
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violent criminals the president said that he was going to go after who are here illegally in order
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to meet their target of arresting 3 000 people suspected of being in the u.s illegally a day
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uh ice that's immigration customs enforcement have been directed to go after people whose crime is
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just being here. So families are being split up. That's what sparked this. So it's a delicate
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match. Laura, thank you very much. You lead me on perfectly to my next interview because I'm going
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to talk to the former head of that US organisation, sparking all the protests with raids across Los
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Angeles, John Sandweg, who is Director of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE
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under Barack Obama. Mr Sandweg, thank you very much indeed for talking to us tonight
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In your experience, is it actually possible for ICE to apprehend and take into custody the numbers of people that President Trump is talking about without there being serious disorder
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You know, Andrew, as we're seeing that these kind of tactics, the tactics that are necessary
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to get even close to this 3000 arrested day, certainly at the current manpower, you know
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the resource outlet, you know, the resources that are available to ice. It is incredibly difficult to do that without triggering a lot of this civil unrest
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And very quickly that the undocumented population in the United States the demographics tell us the data tells us that 75 of them or so have been here 10 to 15 years or more They integrated into our society They have U and children
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They have U.S.'s and spouses. The problem is, though, for ICE to get after these large numbers, they have to do indiscriminate type operations where they go hit these work sites where you find the large numbers of people going into work
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or you flood these hardware store, these Home Depot parking lots and round up the day laborers who are waiting outside
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Those we saw what happened when they engaged in those tactics in L.A. It triggered these protests on the street
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But for ICE, the current manpower to get anywhere near these quarters, the administration is putting on them
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These are the only type of tactics that they can utilize to get those arrests
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So it's a pretty brutal thing that, in a sense, President Trump is doing to ICE, never mind anybody else
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It's making it an almost impossible job. But let me be clear what you're saying
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If I was a very recent migrant who was working for one of the drugs cartels or I had been in America for 15 years and I was working as the widely beloved and taxpaying proprietor of a restaurant, it doesn't really matter
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I'd be equally likely to be lifted and taken away. Yeah, more likely, to be honest with you, Andrew
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So look, the really bad guys, your violent felon, he doesn't punch a clock at the local apparel store, right, or at the warehouse
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House. He's not showing up on a nine to five job. He's making his living engaged in criminal
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activity. So when this administration started, ICE was engaging in those type of tactics where they
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would be looking for those individuals using intelligence, using criminal justice system
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records to find that that individual might be in the U.S., build a targeting plan, go out there and
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make that arrest. Trump did it a little differently. He lowered the standards so anybody who had any
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brush with the law was a fair target. And if you found some undocumented migrants along the way
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you were able to grab them as well. The problem Andrew is that is slow painstaking work Getting criminals is always slower The more the higher the quality of the apprehension the lower the quantity You just put more man hours in finding those hard people That wasn satisfying the administration and they put the pressure on
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ICE to shift their operational tactics to go with more indiscriminate raids. But where you look at
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that... I'm sorry, John, to jump in, but that means that he's putting ICE employees in harm's way
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and a lot of people are now saying that actually these scenes of chaos on streets of some streets
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in Los Angeles, not all of Los Angeles, but some streets is exactly the kind of image that he wants
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to project to his MAGA base of, you know, the danger of the outsider. What do you make of that
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I certainly like it. And I'm not a political expert. I don't know what the real goals of the administration are. I certainly think they like these optics. They certainly seem to be
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drawing more attention to the circumstance. And I agree. I think writ large, the administration
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likes to present Democrats as standing up for undocumented immigrants who are committing crimes
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and whereas he's fighting to get them removed. I certainly think you're also right that in terms
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of his longer terms ambition, you know, as it relates to deporting a million people, that's
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just frankly impossible given the resources that ICE has available to it, but also really given the
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the Supreme Court's mandate that immigrants in the United States get due process before they're
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deported. That's a separate story. The administration is trying a lot of different things to get work around those due process mandates. But yeah, I mean, this is about they're
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not going to hit their million. But I will say, Andrew, I think one other element of this is I do
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think the administration's larger goal as well is to put they know they can't deport 12 million
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people. They want to put pressure on the immigrant communities to get people to leave. They're not
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shy about saying that. But there's this thing that, you know, self-deportation element to this
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as well. Put pressure on the migrant communities, create fear. People will voluntarily leave the
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country's problem solved. Well, problem not solved yet, of course, but Mr. Sandow
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that was really, really interesting. And I'm very grateful of you joining LBC tonight
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