10/30/2025

Putin lands in a foreign country and approaches the immigration desk.

The border official reads through his passport and asks: “Occupation?”

Putin: “No, just visiting.”

Administration and its allies defend mass detention

In court, Trump administration lawyers say their reinterpretation of the law is simply a better reading of complicated immigration statutes that courts have labored over in recent years.

“It does not matter whether an alien was apprehended ‘25 yards into U.S. territory’ or 25 miles, nor does it matter if he was here unlawfully and evades detection for 25 minutes or 25 years,” Justice Department attorneys argued in the ACLU case. “When an alien has never been admitted to the country by immigration officers, his detention is no different from an alien stopped at the border.”

But the administration’s primary argument is a policy one. By expanding detention to those who were released in those earlier eras, the administration is hoping to discourage new arrivals of undocumented immigrants and encourage those who are here to leave voluntarily.

Immigration officials are sitting on an extraordinary infusion of funding from the recently passed megabill and are working furiously to expand detention space to keep pace with the influx of detainees.

The Trump administration views the mass detention of immigrants facing deportation as a corrective to prior administrations’ “catch-and-release” policies, when immigration authorities would apprehend border-crossers and quickly parole them into the country.

“From a policy perspective, it’s essential to release as few people as possible who are caught — not just who are caught crossing the border, but even illegal immigrants inside the country — because the goal of an illegal alien is to get into the United States and be able to live and work,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, an administration ally.

“If you’re spending all that money paying a smuggler and airfare and all the rest of it, and taking the risks that are involved in coming here illegally, if you’re just going to be locked up and then sent home, why bother? I mean, the cost benefit analysis is pretty clear,” he said.

By targeting those inside the United States for detention, the administration is also hoping that many will choose to voluntarily leave, rather than face the prospect of indefinite detention. While advocates say this drive to force self-deportations is pernicious, administration allies say it’s precisely the point.

“Do you really want to be locked up? No,” Krikorian said. “And so if the odds of your being locked up are pretty high, you’re going to think hard about whether you want to pack up the kids and go back.”

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No one is above the law.

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