He's running, get him.

This is from over the weekend in Washington, D.C. Two federal agents are in the middle of the street struggling to detain someone.

You all right, dude?

The agents appear to tase the man as they forcefully wrestle him to the ground. More officers show up. One officer falls backward, hitting his head on the pavement in the struggle. As they get up and load the man into the car, bystanders have some questions.

Boys, let's see some badge work.

Do I have to answer to you?

You gotta answer to somebody. So, wait, so you guys are just masked?

The agents have their faces covered. It's not exactly clear what agency they work for. They won't identify themselves, but they do occasionally respond.

No, you guys are ruining this car. You know that, right?

Liberal's already ruined it.

Oh, there we go. Okay

Now, the Department of Homeland Security says the man who was detained entered the country illegally from Venezuela, had several warrants for traffic violations, and was under a final removal order from a judge. The department also claims officers were harassed and taunted by the crowd and did identify themselves and had their badges clearly visible. But it's just the latest immigration arrest that has played out in dramatic fashion. From a TikToker yanked out of her car during a livestream. To a family coming under fire after two federal agents were allegedly struck by the man's vehicle, questions are being asked about aggressive, sometimes violent tactics. President Donald Trump has clearly empowered federal agents, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE in particular, to ramp up arrests as part of a massive push to deport illegal immigrants. But what happens if the agency starts to push the envelope? My guest today is John Sandwick. He was the acting director of ICE during the Obama administration. We're gonna talk about why a push for quantity over quality could hurt migrants and the agents trying to arrest them. From CNN, this is One Thing. I'm David Rind.

We're back in a bit. I guess I want to start off big picture. These immigration raids that we've seen across the country these first couple of months of the Trump administration, do they look different compared to the ones you've been a part of or oversaw?

'Yeah, David, I mean, they look different for a couple of reasons. First is that during the Obama administration, we really dialed these kinds of operations back. The primary reason is when you go do these worksite raids, there's no way of knowing what kind of person you're gonna get. But by and large, what you're getting in terms of the targets, the immigrants you might encounter when you do the operation. By and large we found it's a very low percentage of criminals. That is because the criminal population, people who are genuinely dangerous, the gang members, those kinds of population. They're not showing up at job sites. They're not working these kind of low-skilled labor jobs who are working for an hourly wage. They're just not who you find there, what you end up encountering by and large. I mean, there are always exceptions, but by and larger finding a lot of people who've been here a long time, who are supporting family members. Oftentimes those family members are US citizens. And so from our perspective, you're ending up with a very low quality apprehension, somebody who doesn't really move the needle in terms of public safety. Um, and so these operations were just really disfavored during Obama and during the Biden administration and candidly during the Trump administration.

And this idea of agents rolling up to some of these sites wearing masks, is that normal?

Now, David, this is a whole new development, and I think it's an unfortunate one. I will tell you that in five years of working at DHS, very closely with ICE, you know, including my stint as the acting director, and in all the years I've been working on immigration issues since then, I've never seen widespread use of masks like this. I certainly never was familiar with a policy. Very rarely you do it, you know. Sometimes you have agents, you're doing a gang operation, and you have the agents who also work under cover cases. And you need to make sure that those guys are not identified as federal agents. So there is a, I'm not saying it's never used, they have been, but generally, there's a really strong objective basis for it. Obviously, what we're seeing here is, look, this administration's immigration policies have really created an uproar, obviously. You're seeing these protests, you're seeing this individuals out there trying to frustrate the ICE efforts, and unfortunately, we are seeing a lot of. An uptake, a real uptake in assaults. I mean, that is real on the agents themselves. So, you know, I understand why the agents are reverting to the masks, right? There's fear of the doxing. There's a fear that they or their families are going to be harassed. And that's a real thing? Yeah, it's a really thing. It is, unfortunately. And I'm sympathetic. I'm very sympathetic to the agents. When you're working these jobs, David, the number one rule is you've got to protect your workforce, right. Officer safety is the most important thing. But I worry that I think that in a way that the masks are kind of only feeding that outrage, right? They're reinforcing this narrative that unfortunately, I think a lot of people put on ice of a lawless agency that's just out there, right. There's not really, I mean, the administration likes to say the focus is on criminals and gang members, but unfortunately, I think the masks and these type of operations only reinforce this narrative that that's not what's really going on, right, that the administration's using them as an arm to kind of. Eliminate the undocumented population in the United States.

'Yeah, and it goes without saying, you know, there's this kind of double standard. The Trump administration has kind of said that they want pro-palestinian protesters on college campuses to not wear masks. But it's not just the masks, too, right? Like a lot of the times in these videos that we see these agents are aren't wearing really much identification that they're law enforcement at all, just in the way they're dressing. So is there a danger in not having any way of knowing if the person behind the mask has a badge to go along with it?

'Yeah, I divide the world into two, this issue into two halves. There is almost no excuse for agents to go out in the field and not clearly identify themselves as federal agents. And I've talked to dozens of retired, you know, career special agents and ICE officers who all say the same thing. It is incredibly dangerous for the officers themselves to be effectuating public arrests without clearly identifying themselves either as ICE. Federal law enforcement, a police, federal agent, and the risk is really obvious, right? You're sitting there and all of a sudden a bunch of masked men run up and you're grabbing someone on the street. There are good, well-intentioned bystanders who might think they need to step in and help that they're witnessing a kidnapping. Traditionally, when you're conducting an immigration enforcement operation, you are coordinating with your local law enforcement partners. Now, they might not... Because of, you know, let's say it's local politics or sanctuary policies, things of that nature. The LAPD might say we cannot participate ourselves in this civil immigration enforcement operation, but you still need to do what's called deconfliction. Let them know we are going to be operating in this area at this time, and here's what we intend to do. I think one unfortunate thing is over the last, during this administration is it appears that some of that has declined.

So it sounds like when the Trump administration comes out and says there's been this huge uptick in assaults on agents and all this doxxing that's going on, they don't necessarily provide what the basis for those numbers are. But beyond that, it sounds like you're saying there are steps that could be taken to provide even more safety for these agents than is happening at the moment.

Yeah, I mean, of course. Look, some of these solids, one other thing about these, so you have to understand, is it's a byproduct of the types of operations that they're running as well.

Breaking overnight, a standoff between federal immigration agents and protesters outside a cannabis farm in California.

You know, the other day, a couple of weeks ago, there was a large operation at a agriculture site in California, and they mount up a large number of ice agents. They're out there in public area for a while.

A spokesman for Homeland Security said that they were conducting criminal warrants at Glasshouse Farms. There's a marijuana facility. They had two different locations and there were raids happening at both of those locations. And then what happened is protesters quickly descended upon those farms when word got out. This lasted for hours. There were people who were well into the night being taken away, detained.

You know, these operations take a couple of hours. You hit the site, you start pulling together people, you start working at identification of them, protests form, and unfortunately, there are bad actors in those protests who start throwing rocks at the agents.

And this devolved very quickly, it got out of control. The FBI says that a man is actually, they're looking for information for a man who may have fired a gun towards officers, and there were all kinds of chaos. At one point, protesters actually blocked the entrances into the farm.

'Several workers were critically injured. One, 57-year-old Jaime Alanis Garcia died after falling 30 feet from a greenhouse roof while fleeing ICE agents. That's according to his family.

Typically, when you're doing a more targeted operation, they're not in such public view. You don't have so many agents mounted up into one area, and you're in and out more quickly. And what all I'm saying is that the nature of these worksite operations, especially some of the ones we've seen in California, unfortunately do increase the risks to the officers because they're exposed in a very overt manner for a lengthy period of time.

We're not letting ICE agents in. We're now letting ICE Agents out. We've been trying to block in since we're not giving them what they want.

And I, in no way, shape or form, though, I want to be very clear, I mean, there is, I appreciate and respect people's right to protest. What I don't support is obviously any assaults on the officers. The men and women of ICE didn't create these policies. And I will tell you, having worked with them, that the vast, vast majority of officers got into this business in order to make a difference on public safety. And I think, I am confident there are plenty of officers right now who question whether some of these tactics are promoting public safety, but the point is, I think it's unfortunate that they're bearing the brunt of it.

'We should say, DHS says they were not pursuing Jaime Alanis-Garcia, the farm worker who died following the raid on the marijuana farm in California. Border Czar Tom Homan defended the actions of immigration agents, but called the incident sad and told CNN, no one wants to see people die. We'll be right back. Do you think that's part of the strategy as well on the Trump administration side, to have these worksite rates that are by nature just more public and more out there?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I certainly don't think they're shy about saying that. I mean Tom Holman says that, right? He'll talk about how we're going to flood New York City with agents after an event or we're gonna target sanctuary city. So I think that's part of it. I also think a bigger part of that though, David, is this quota, right. They've put this quota on ice. You need to arrest, what is it, 3,000 a day. The problem is that in immigration enforcement, there is a tension between the quality of your arrests and the quantity. And by that, I mean, is that your most serious criminals, your professional gang members, guys, they don't show up for work. They also know they're being hunted and they're hard to find. You know, you could put in hours to get one targeted. Plus that's just hours out in the field. Before you go out in the field, you've spent hours building out a targeting list, right? Researching the guy and finding out where, you know, where you're likely to find him. My point is that you make one arrest, but the impact on public safety for that one arrest is significant. Unfortunately, in immigration, we've always kind of fallen into this trap where the successor failure of ICE is judged not on the quality of its arrest, but by the quantity. The Trump administration is steering into that. They're most interested in volume. Where can I make the most number of arrests as quickly as possible? And the natural way you do that is worksite is a big part of that.

What is your direction to ICE when it comes to arresting farm workers here illegally, other workers in industries that are pretty critical to Florida's economy?

Well, we're very much cognizant of that. And as you know, I won the farmers by 92%. And I'm not going to be abandoning my farmers.

What's going to be interesting to me, though, is this, is that all these migrants came to this country for a reason, David. That's because there's jobs here. We employ them. There's a need for them in large industries. And you've already seen some of this tension form where at the White House, you know, the president put out on Truth Social, right, a few weeks ago, you that they were going to potentially dial back enforcement in the hospitality and agriculture.

We're going to work something where the farmers can be responsible for some of the people that have been. They have people run for 10, 15 years that they know very well.

That tension is only going to increase as this pressure mounts on these communities, then it's going to be very interesting to see how the White House reacts to that because I think there are traditional allies of the president who, for better or worse, rely on this undocumented labor.

They're not gonna have citizenship, but they'll be working, they'll paying taxes. We need to get our farmers the people they need, otherwise our farmers aren't gonna be able to do their land.

I mean, the reality though is in this country, we don't have visa programs that allow for low skilled labor. And for better or worse, employers have grown to rely on undocumented population. That's been the draw that brings people here. If the administration is successful in putting a dent in that and driving people out of this country voluntarily or otherwise, it'll be interesting to see, you know, as that pressure amounts at the White House, but from those employers, what the administration does about it.

You kind of mentioned this, but I assume you were still in touch with folks who still work for ICE, still doing this kind of work. Are they telling you anything about the work they're being asked to do or how they're being asked

You know, look, ICE is a big agency. I think one thing the public never understood, and it's an interesting thing at ICE, is half the agency is actually dedicated to criminal investigations, right? ICE is the second largest criminal investigative agency, and after all these funds come in, they might actually become the largest criminal investigative agency in the United States. So, you know, the new, the big, beautiful bill included, you now, a tremendous amount.

75 billion dollars in extra funding. It would become the highest funded law enforcement agency in the entire government

Yeah, there's a lot of people who feel like, unfortunately, it's so easy with these types of operations to label it as almost like a rogue agency, and that's a narrative I feel like ICE has fought for a long time when it's full of, it really is full of dedicated men and women who really want to make this country safer. I think the other byproduct of this is you have roughly 7,000 special agencies These are criminal investigators who... Were focused on a array of federal crimes, including human trafficking, including child exploitation. That kind of work, agents are getting pulled off at to do immigration. And yeah, it's frustrating, right? They're now being told that the highest priority is to go hit the Home Depot parking lot and get these kind of low level day laborer migrants. Is this really what we want to be doing? And I think there are a lot of people, I know there are lot of at ICE who are frustrated by the fact that the agency is now prioritized, not just civil immigration enforcement, but immigration enforcement that's not targeted in any way. But is rather just about the numbers.

Is there a concern that younger folks who may be looking to get into law enforcement see these slick videos that the administration is putting up of migrants being locked up or news reports of protesters trying to block these arrests and say, wow, this looks cool. I'd love to get in there, put on a mask and, you know, and mix it up.

Yeah, like I am very concerned about this. ICE is about to embark on the largest hiring spree in the agency's history, right? In the big, beautiful bill, there's sufficient funds to double the agency and the administration's going to want to put these additional agents on the street as quickly as possible. I worry about the agency cutting corners and I worry the agency not getting those people who are saying I'm interested in federal law enforcement because I want to make my country safer but who genuinely have some sort of antipathy towards immigrants. And view this as a way of just getting into it for the wrong reasons. And I think that the agency's done a remarkable job that that is not who populates it. I am always a defender of ICE because I worry that there's just a lot of myths out there, David. People think that these are people who enjoy, just want to go out there and round up migrants. That's just not been my experience in working with the agency at all. But yeah, I worry here that in this zeal to get these new agents out on the street, that you're going to see a real rush where the ICE lowers its own standards. And maybe we cut corners on background checks. I mean, one of the things that's interesting to me is that the hire, what is it, the thousands of agents they want to hire, there's just under the normal course, there's no way to get those agents hired, vet them, background check them, clear the background checks, then get them down to the FLETC, the Federal Law Enforcement Academy in Georgia, get them trained, then get him deployed. There's just no way you're going to see that significant increase in number of ICE agents. During the Trump administration, during the three and a half years that are left of the administration. You've seen them already engage in some creative tactics like they're offering huge bonuses to retired federal agents to come back to work for ICE. But again, I have very serious concerns that we are going to embark on one of the biggest hiring sprees ever. And there's just a lot of temptation and a lot a pressure the agencies can get put over to lower its standards, to lower it's training standards in order to just get agents out on the street as quickly as possible. And that is a recipe for disaster, both. In terms of the quality of the people we're hiring, but also in terms of the training that they're gonna receive in advance.

That, especially on the left, I do think that opinion of ICE is that of a rogue agency. What does that do to trust in law enforcement in general, if that is the reputation? It makes it toxic.

You get these police chiefs say I just can't cooperate with you anymore because of the politics and they scare the local communities from sharing information with you. It really undermines the quality of what ICE can do and I worry too David that frankly it's going to tarnish the candidates of people whose goal is to maybe one day be a special agent working on complex you know criminal cases and you know it was ICE agents who were involved in the arrest of Chapo Guzman you know I mean really good law enforcement work they might see that ICE's brand is so tainted. That they're no longer interested in joining the agents.

This has been really interesting. John, thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

Hey, my pleasure, David. Thanks for having me on.

That's it for us today. We'll be back on Sunday. In the meantime, please leave us a rating and a review wherever you listen, let us know what you think, and I'll talk to you later.