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Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Jan six.

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I'm Frankie Graziano.

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President Donald Trump promised to shepherd the American people into a, quote, golden age during his inaugural address.

But how will he do that?

Trump says by halting immigration and deporting people he calls criminal immigrants.

Already, Trump has started deploying Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials also known as Ice, to major cities across the US.

In Connecticut, Ice agents have been spotted in East Hartford and Willimantic.

Meanwhile, Trump has issued pardons of people convicted of crimes tied to the January 6th Capitol riot.

So this hour, we ask, how is the Trump administration thinking about criminal and civil law, and how might that impact Connecticut residents?

For more on the local contacts, I'm joined now by Andrew Brown, investigative reporter for the Connecticut Mirror.

Andrew, so good to see you here today.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you for coming on the show, folks.

You can join the conversation.

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I want to know about the latest on the presence of federal law enforcement and Customs Enforcement, federal agents here in Connecticut.

And where are we seeing this presence?

Of late, I think since, Trump took office, we have, really seen a, a lot of anxiety in communities that have large immigrant populations.

And so what that has resulted in is, people reporting, ice, some of them verified, others just, guesses of whether there was Ice enforcement.

But, we do know that, towns and cities like Willimantic, New London, Stamford, either confirmed that Ice was there or actually Ice reached out and told their police departments that they were conducting, quote, surveillance or some type of enforcement activities in those locations.

So that goes to the discussion that federal law enforcement are having with state law enforcement.

You're saying that this is more of a, of the presence is at least being felt.

At least the specter of ices is hanging over some of these communities.

It's really hard to know, right, because ice has been around.

And, even under Biden, they were active.

It should not be, ignored that Biden, removed a lot of people from the country under this administration.

What people are afraid of, though, I think, is that the rules of the game and the rules and, and kind of guardrails around ice have changed under Trump.

And Trump has really, allowed ice, given them permission to do things that they weren't allowed to do before.

You mentioned Stamford, New London, as some of the towns, some of the counties as well, with New London counties there.

Is this where we can expect this, this impact to be felt the most?

Is there a reason why these, do do we know anything about why these communities might have been at least targeted by federal officials?

Officials?

I don't have any indication.

Ice doesn't isn't really communicating their strategies or even kind of, their numbers at this point.

I think it's interesting that you can really only find numbers from, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Ice, obviously.

Kind of on X, they're putting out kind of daily, posts about how many people have been arrested, by Ice or removed or deported from the country.

But that gives us little to no indication that's national numbers, and that gives us little to no indication of, what the enforcement practices are looking like here in Connecticut.

In the New England region at large.

We talked earlier in the open about the presence of civil and criminal law, or exactly the definitions here.

This is a civil violation.

If, you are in this country, is that, or what somebody might see illegally that is a civil violation?

Yes.

All immigration courts in the country are civil courts.

And so that puts them a little bit into a different category, obviously.

Then, say the US, District Court or, you know, magistrate judges here, in federal court.

And that is kind of what is different here and what is at play whenever it comes to immigration enforcement.

There's been a lot of advocacy about, people knowing, their rights as far as, ice enforcement and, what Ice can do and what they cannot do, as they are seeking to, arrest people, push them through the federal immigration courts and ultimately remove them from the country.

Is this because of the rhetoric that we hear, like, I think we said earlier, it was criminal immigrants?

Is that why there's this campaign of information maybe to to combat some of that?

I think the biggest thing that people that you've seen in immigrant advocacy groups, groups like the ACLU, the even some elected officials here in Connecticut emphasize is that, Ice does have, the authority to arrest people, and to remove them from the country after a federal immigration case wins through the courts.

But they emphasize that essentially, Ice usually does not have the warrant.

The warrants that are necessary, essentially judicial warrants necessary to enter people's homes, to enter private places, essentially to force their way into private locations in order to, conduct that immigration enforcement.

One place that people are concerned about these, Ice agents going into his schools and, we've seen East Hartford, Glastonbury talk about the potential of this presence and talking about individuals knowing what the rules are and their staff as well.

So what guidance has the state Department of Education given around this, if any?

Yeah.

So the state just last week and my, my colleague Jessica Harkey did a lot of, reporting on this when this came out with me.

What they did is put out guidance, essentially explaining to, school administrators, teachers, etc.

what Ice is allowed to do and what they are not.

I think the main point of all of the advice that the Department of Education here in Connecticut put out is that, again, warrants that Ice uses frequently are what are known as administrative warrants.

These are not the same as a warrant that a police officer would receive when they go to a judge, tell them that they have probable cause of somebody committing a crime, and they get a judge to sign off on a warrant that allows them to, for instance, search somebody's home, either for evidence of a crime or to actually make an arrest.

Ice warrants are administrative, meaning immigration enforcement officials sign that themselves.

There is no judicial, review of that.

And thus the courts have essentially held that that does not enable, under, you know, our Constitution enable Ice to enter someone's private property, without their permission, essentially.

And so they emphasize that if Ice agents were to come to a school and ask for permission to enter, or to provide, you know, this warrant to a school official, the the school officials should check with their legal counsel, actually review the warrant, determine whether there's a judge's signature on there.

And what that warrant actually allows the federal officials to do.

So.

Have you and Jessica found any confirmed sightings of, ice in a school or anything like that yet?

No.

No, and there is a lot of consternation about this nationally.

Right.

And that is coming from the fact that, Donald Trump did something rather significant, in his first couple days in office.

And that is, he removed what was known, as the protected areas, rule.

So ice under the Biden administration had a policy, that they would not make Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests, at protected areas.

And that included things like schools, health care facilities, places of worship, social service providers, you know, think, food pantries and other stuff like that.

That's no longer the case.

That is off the table.

And so just the the idea or the premise that schools are fair game has really set off a lot of fear.

I think, that maybe children would be picked up, as they're, you know, going to their elementary school or going to middle school.

And I think that's where a lot of this, a lot of what you're seeing on social media and a lot of what you're seeing in immigrant communities, that is where that's coming from.

Churches, too.

Is this a is this a source of consternation?

I think so, yeah.

I mean, it says right here in, in the previous rules for protected areas that places of worship and religious studies were a no go zone, essentially for ice to, to do their work.

Again, that's no longer the case.

Now, again, I think a church could probably argue that, it's private property.

So unless Ice gets the correct warrant, they may be on, on solid ground there of actually entering that, a place of worship to make an arrest or to do something like that.

But, all of this is raising a lot of constitutional questions.

And, again, just a lot of anxiety in places where there are undocumented immigrants.

Certainly impactful locally, as, Diane, Orson and I have covered in recent years, several folks who were granted asylum and then were living in churches, throughout this process, I want to ask you about colleges and universities preparing for the possibility of an Ice presence on campuses in Connecticut.

Is this guidance that they're giving similar to K through 12?

Schools are advocacy groups, especially local, I guess college.

Some of the groups at the colleges, are they saying anything about this in particular UConn's.

Administration put out similar policy statements trying to reassure college students that essentially, if Ice were to show up on campus and say, we're looking for so-and-so, Jane Doe, in order to make an immigration arrest, they have assured that those Ice agents, without the proper warrants, would not be essentially allowed to go into non-private areas of the university.

You know, think dorms, classrooms.

They're not going to hand out.

Essentially, UConn said information about where a student may be in a certain classroom, if that were to happen.

So they've also at the university level, tried to quell fears, of people who may, be in the country, with an undocumented status that, you know, UConn is not going to serve as an arm of immigration, some.

800,000 children or something like that, in terms of, DACA recipients that may be in this country and may be impacted, something like that.

Connecticut state law limits when, law enforcement of correctional officers in particular, can cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

Is that correct?

Yes.

And there is a growing debate in this or, I guess, a lingering debate in the state legislature about, when police officers correctional officers here in Connecticut should and should not, essentially cooperate with Ice in facilitating, someone's hand over to immigration officials.

So that they can be, removed and deported from the country.

How does that actually look when it's in practice?

Is it is that is it different than what the law says?

Is there any gray area or is it, fairly standard?

Are they taking the same?

I guess we would.

I want to ask, are they taking the same kind of precautions that some of these other, individuals are like the, like the school administrators and, and collegiate officials as well?

The law is, which was most recently passed in 2019 here in Connecticut, essentially sets the parameters of police and correctional officers cooperation, as being the the law specifies that the only time they are to comply with what is known as a detainer, which is a request from Ice that says, we want this person for to be removed from the country or for to be, you know, part of an immigration court case.

So please hold this person for up to 48 hours after you would otherwise release them from your custody so we can come pick them up.

The law in 2019, essentially limited that cooperation from police and correctional officers only to instances where the person in their custody has been, convicted of either a class A or B felony under Connecticut law.

So trust Act.

This is the trust Act as it's referred to.

And so what that has created, is that, you know, in instances even where someone is convicted of, say, a class C felony, and they are serving a prison sentence and are set to be released.

There are instances just in recent months, even right before Biden handed off the white House to President Trump, in which Biden's, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said, you know, this person was convicted of a class C felony.

We're going to come pick them up.

Please hold them for 48 hours because of the state law.

Doc, let that person out.

It was a class C felony, not a class act or B, and, thus Ice had to go find them once they were released into the community, go pick them up and then, start the deportation proceedings.

And even Biden's Immigration and Customs Enforcement made a big point of that of pointing out that essentially, the Department of Corrections here in Connecticut did not fulfill their detainer, you know, agree with it.

And so that is kind of where we're at.

But that is why Republicans, in Connecticut's General Assembly have been pushing to roll back the trust Act.

Recent years.

We were talking about, changing.

There were individuals who had been charged with crimes when they were younger in Connecticut that, were, immigrants in this country.

And there was the talk about whether or not they actually committed a felony, because that was a distinction in the past, and they tried to change that.

I believe, there was an effort to make that a misdemeanor, that particular offense, so that people wouldn't get deported.

So tell me a little bit more about this effort to roll back.

The Trust Act.

Is that similar in that in that vein.

What what Republicans essentially said the other week, and this is all obviously, as Donald Trump reenters the white House and tries to fulfill his promise of mass deportations, the Republicans here in Connecticut held a press conference calling for the Trust Act to be reformed.

What they ultimately told us at the press conference, though, was that if they were in charge, they would do away with it altogether.

And but what they proposed was essentially changing the trust Act so that, even if someone is accused, or arrested under charges for a class C felony, they would allow they would be allowed to, you know, be handed over by local police to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

So that's a big change, right?

As Democrats pointed out from the current law, which is that somebody could be accused or arrested for, a class C felony, but not actually convicted of that crime.

But in the meantime, they could be picked up by ice before they have a trial or, essentially their cases, you know, pled out or whatever would happen.

And that would be a significant change and would probably, I don't know how many people, you know, might be included in that.

I don't know how many class C felonies by immigrants take place in Connecticut, but it would be a change.

So is this likely that these lawmakers would be able to get this a particularly with this now biggest majority we've seen in Connecticut for Democrats and in quite some time.

I very much doubt it.

But there is that where we could see maybe the federal government, intervene in some way.

I mean, it has been found that Connecticut's law, you know, during the first Trump administration, there were issues with the Trust Act here.

The federal government calling it out and nothing really happened.

It was found that the, you know, the trust Act was operating and, and, the pushback to that didn't work.

I just do not think that under the current Democratic supermajorities that we have in the legislature, that you are likely to see, some type of major change to the Trust Act, especially with all of the anxieties that exists in the immigrant communities here in Connecticut.

Have cities and towns across Connecticut seen an increase in, in ice presence outside of schools or at people's home, for instance?

So I think this kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier.

I know we can't really talk about numbers yet, it sounds like.

But the anxiety's there, it sounds like.

Yeah.

I mean, again, I, I wish there was more information.

It is really hard, to get numbers on what Ice enforcement looks like in real time.

That being said, that doesn't lessen the concerns of people who are in this country without documentation.

You know, there I think there's just a general sense, right?

Whenever you have signs at the Trump rallies in the past year that say, you know, mass deportations, that is what is on people's minds.

So even if Immigration and Customs Enforcement right now are only arresting the same number of people that they were under Biden, I think there's just a general sense, and I have no indication of which way it is going here in Connecticut.

I think there's just a general sense that the fears are are much heightened.

As we finish up here.

I think it's important to go back to this.

Could you just reiterate a refrain that might be happening, among advocacy groups and what they're telling folks in terms of general guidance?

Yeah, I mean, the the ACLU and everyone else is putting out just reminders that if Immigration and Customs Enforcement were to show up your apartment or your home, and they flashed a warrant, that warrant most likely would be an administrative warrant, which, may not grant them.

Would be unlikely to grant them access to your home unless you voluntarily invite them in.

That does not mean that Ice can't make arrests in public, right?

You're walking.

If you were an undocumented immigrant or and have a deportation order in federal immigration court already against you, Ice has the ability under federal law to pick you up on the street to pick you up going to your place of work.

So none of that changes.

But what what immigration advocates have, you know, essentially emphasized is that there are still boundaries that Ice can't cross without the correct legal proceedings happening.

Tremendous work in the segment.

Your reporting has been tremendous on this, as well as Jessica, as they can go to CT mirror.org if folks want to follow this reporting.

Yes.

Thank you so much, Andrew Brown investigative reporter with the Connecticut Mirror.

Thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thanks, Frankie.

Coming up, a deeper look into the Trump administration's stance on the law.

You can join the conversation.

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Oh oh.

This is the Wheelhouse from Connecticut Public.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

Today we're looking into the Trump administration's approach to civil and criminal law.

We just heard a bit about reports of Ice officials in Connecticut and some guidance from advocacy groups.

Now we're going to zoom out here with us.

Doctor Bilal Sekou University of Hartford's Hillyer College associate professor of politics and government.

Good morning.

Good morning and go Hawks.

Good morning.

Very good morning to you.

Also with us.

Charles Venator-Santiago, associate professor with a joint employment in the Department of Political Science and l'Institut, though at the University of Connecticut.

Hi, Frank.

It's good to be here again.

Good to see you.

And we have your colleague here joining us for the first time.

So glad to see you, Beatriz Aldana Marquez, thank you so much for coming on.

The assistant professor of sociology and core faculty member of l'Institut, though.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

And, so glad to have you guys on.

We're gonna have a great conversation.

You can join it.

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The first question is going to go to Charles.

President Trump has cast people who arrive in the US without documentation as dangerous criminals.

For starters, is that assessment backed up by any studies or data or in definition at least, no.

In fact, some available data suggest that the majority of criminals don't want to come to the United States because they have a better deal in their home countries.

Most of what we're seeing here are undocumented immigrants in some cases that just want to work or engage in family reunification.

In addition to that, it's really important that when we look at crime statistics, the majority are not committing crimes against persons.

There might be committed some drug offenses or moving, or burglary, but very little, offenses against people.

We heard earlier.

Being in the country as documented undocumented is a civil violation, not a criminal one.

So why is the Trump administration treating this as a criminal issue?

We've heard, the new white House spokesperson talking about, immigrants as criminals, undocumented immigrants as criminals.

So help us with those distinctions.

And we can share more about this.

But one of the things that we're seeing with data is that the majority of people, well, about half of the people that are being deported are not criminals.

In fact, but I think it just helps with the rhetoric to appease a lot of folks who are anxious about, deportations.

Answer that question, then.

Mayor treats.

And and then I want to know, too, if there's no quantitative data to support this rhetoric, as, Charles says, then why do we keep hearing about this and seeing this discrepancy?

I think it comes from the fact that Ice was created to fight terrorism.

And so in order to maintain the image that the Department of Homeland Security and Ice is effective, you need the numbers.

Even if the numbers don't necessarily qualitatively like, make sense?

So it's far more easier to catch, quote unquote catch people who are, you know, here under mentored through a civil offense than they are like committing crimes, because people work every day.

There's more people coming in to, you know, unify their families to, integrate the communities.

So I think Ice works as a way to, maintain the power that came from, the, the, the attacks on 911.

And so a lot of the reports that I've looked at, the Ice fiscal reports annually kind of, emphasize the fact that, they apprehend a lot of people.

But when you break it down, most of the time, they these, detain people are criminalized not because they committed an actual crime, but for reporting purposes.

And so a lot of it is, like, made up in a structure to satisfy, say, an executive order.

So that's why is that why we're maybe hearing about a quota or that there has to be numbers to back up this effectiveness kind of, stance?

Yeah.

Gotta be tough.

Yeah.

So, though the president, Obama's administration did deport the most people, the first Trump administration apprehended quite a few more people.

That doesn't mean that that people weren't deported, is that people were fighting their cases.

So the quota and the executive orders to extend detention, inside facilities is to, kind of prevent people from fighting their cases.

So the quota satisfies the economic sense of people who rely on the criminal justice system for their money.

The federal government gets to cooperate with these state local, police enforcements.

And so the, the quotas basically create this incentive.

And that's why we're seeing so many reports, not just from, like, traditional immigrant hubs like California or Chicago, but we're looking at like rural areas throughout the country who are similarly, like facing these struggles.

There.

Yeah.

Go ahead can.

Offer a slightly more nuanced sort of, set of ideas about what was just said.

I think the labeling of all undocumented immigrants as criminals is really important for justifying whatever you do to them going forward, that these are not people who, as we know, some of which are climate refugees, who are escaping countries that have been impacted by climate change, which is largely produced by what the West has done to the to the world.

This is a global crisis, not just a crisis in the United States of people moving from their country of origin, trying to get across the Mediterranean and get to Europe, or trying to go through Mexico, central South America to get here.

So we've got climate refugees.

We have people who are still, you know, being impacted by the effects of the pandemic that went on, difficulties with job and employment opportunities to certainly family reunification.

So if you think about those kinds of reasons why people may come to the U.S, but if you label them as criminals, then you have license to do whatever you want to do to them.

So I think this is really important because you othered them.

Then whatever you do, whether you put them in jails in Guantanamo or you send them to El Salvador and put them in jails, or stop them at the border and create a crisis at the border, they deserve this because they're criminals.

They're people who want to come to the country and do bad things to Americans.

Beatriz, we're going to talk about exactly what's being done to these folks when they come here, and then they're apprehended.

Yeah, right.

Before we do that, though, I want to know about the vow to pursue deportations, halt immigration, what that's looked like in the past couple of weeks.

Did you happen to hear Andrew's testimony?

So I think I have a more connected experience with Texas, and I live there for the last ten years.

And right now, I think that a lot of people are nervous because they have connections to the border communities.

But here, even throughout Connecticut, there were rumors on the, like, community side about ice sightings.

Not so very far away from even places outside of Hartford.

So I think what it creates, like you mentioned, is that by focusing on the criminal side of it, it justifies the dehumanized like factor of the suffering that people are going through, the anxiety.

We've seen, a lot of research about people who are undocumented and how their mental health is very much destroyed because of this.

Especially reports of, like people who have DACA or the dreamers and how mental health has really been affected because there is no way to step outside of being in the margins.

800,000 people in DACA program.

Yeah, so it's about 800,000 people who qualified.

The number has changed because of the way that the program has kind of, been closed and open throughout the years.

But many people rely on that for steady jobs, access to things like that we take for granted, like rent.

Right.

Like owning a car, getting a phone.

Right.

So if we take that away, we're actually making the day to day life criminal.

This has to also be understood with the efforts to rethink the birthright citizenship clause of the Constitution, because this is a systematic component of, an effort to change how we think about the nature of the United States, the population of the United States, which might be tied to demographic changes in the United States.

Do you have anything to say about birthright citizenship?

I think he's absolutely right.

I mean, when we really think about what the 14th amendment did and birthright citizenship, it was a rejection of an earlier Supreme Court case, Dred Scott case that said, essentially that the only people who could be citizens of the United States were white people.

And so what birthright citizenship did was it removed this notion that only whiteness could be equated with being a citizen.

And so when we think about this attack on birthright citizenship, which is something they've wanted to do for a long time, I mean, this idea has come up years and years ago, decades ago, actually.

And this really is an effort.

I mean, when you sort of link this larger sort of, movement that I think Trumpism is a part of where this notion that America is a white Christian country and therefore, you know, the demographic changes has created a great deal of anxiety among a lot of whites in our society.

And so Trump, in many ways, is an avatar of this sort of notion that we need to take America back and restore it to the image of the founders, quote unquote, which is that of a country that was created for whites in a country that only whites would be able to thrive in.

And so to me, that's at the heart of what this battle is around the 14th amendment and birthright citizenship.

Patrice, he mentioned Guantanamo Bay earlier.

That's the extreme thing that we think about when we think about, people being, swept up and taken to, prison in the United States here.

I understand Guantanamo Bay may be back on the table and people may be sent back there.

Help us understand what's going on with folks once they're detained.

So, a lot of my research is about, about 110 of the largest detention centers throughout the country.

And so I look at all the inspection reports that happen.

And one of the common things is the denial of medical care.

There's an assumption that when you enter detention that your health doesn't change.

But we see people being denied, like simple Advil or ibuprofen, or being given ibuprofen for things like stomach cancer.

And so these denials of medical care is like a severe issue throughout many, many of the detention centers across the country.

But we also think, about the environmental impacts.

So, being exposed to disease.

So during Covid, that was a big factor that led to many deaths that we probably didn't hear about.

It also is the extension of like having access to bars of soap.

Many people are denied in custody.

The ability to shower when they first get there, even though they're supposed to be able to.

And then we think about things like, access to water, space being cold that people can't, like, regulate their body temperature.

There has been cases of abuse.

A lot of detentions have, interviews with detainees as part of their inspections.

And that's a constant thing that people talk about, the racialized abuse and also just the abuse from if they're housed with other people who are citizens and have committed crimes.

So it creates, very toxic environment where it's rationalized as just because they don't belong here.

And often even though Ice has their own accountability, process and they know about all these things, nothing has really changed.

I think the rule is that if they violate, some of the protocol, they're supposed to lose money, but in the entire analysis from like 22,003 to like 2024, there's only been like one case if, detention center has been closed, it has been because of the community and not because of Ice.

Let me add to the idea of using Guantanamo as a detention center.

It's not new.

In fact, it was popularized by the Democrats during the Clinton years to detain Haitian immigrants.

And it was a total failure.

And in addition, part of the challenge is the lack of funding.

And during the Biden years, he tried to get Congress to approve more funding for detention centers.

And Congress refused to act on it.

So we're dealing with, in some ways, an established precedent of detaining immigrants in Guantanamo and other facilities that are out of reach.

In the case of Guantanamo had of reach, well, out of sight from the population.

Let's talk about state policies.

I'm gonna go to you for this one below.

Is this something that we're seeing happening at a national level where certain states are kind of heeding this and may be, reacting with policy or on the other way, trying to find ways to counteract it.

I think you're saying, you know, really a combination of both.

I mean, you know, certainly in some states they're trying to figure out ways to protect undocumented immigrants.

They're trying to figure out ways, you know, to, prevent things like raids on schools.

Where school children are pulled out of the schools, or you come home and your parents have been taken away because of a raid.

And so, I think, you know, many states, on the one hand, are trying to figure out how to protect college students who may be undocumented.

On the other hand, there are other states, I think, moving in the other direction.

I mean, you look at a state like Mississippi, which actually at one point, introduced someone introduced legislation that would essentially call for bounty hunters who would be paid to, track down and apprehend undocumented immigrants.

And so, and to me, that really is quite similar, at least in my thinking, to what we saw with the Fugitive Slave Act.

And so I think I see some parallels between, you know, that and so certainly there are states that are going to do some really horrible things, you know, going forward.

And I think it's going to be important for people to keep their eye on it.

Relying on organizations like the ACLU and immigrant groups that will be launching lawsuits and really fighting back.

And hopefully lawmakers as well will be pushing back against these.

Just putting this up as we close here from a historical perspective, why is it important to invoke the Fugitive Slave Act and its impact?

I just think there are many parallels that, you know, between, you know, the kind of actions that states are willing to take and also the demands they're putting on people to, play a part, you know, to be complicit in what goes on.

And I think certainly, you know, to the extent, to the extent that, you know, states are being threatened, mayors are being threatened with if you interfere with Ice when they come to your city, that you and you yourself could possibly be arrested and charged criminally to me, is quite similar to some of the things that occurred with the Fugitive Slave Act, which mandated that law enforcement, for example, would have to turn over fugitive slaves.

And so, to see this resurface, you know, in 2025, it's just it's horrifying to think.

About real quick.

Charles one another parallel is that the current apportionment process echoes, in some ways, the 31st class undocumented immigrants.

Any immigrants who can't vote are counted as part of the apportionment process every ten years, and that has an effect on budgets that states are going to affect, as well as the number of representatives that they're going to be eligible to select for the legislature.

Tremendous panel superimpose certain context, from our group here, you've been listening to Beatriz Saldana, Marcus, assistant professor of sociology and core faculty member at l'Institut, though, Charles, mentor Santiago, associate professor of political science.

You got the joint appointment there at l'Institut, though, and velocity Ku, associate professor of politics and government at the University of Hartford.

After the break, we're going to look at the Trump administration's recent January 6th pardons to join the conversation.

(888) 720-9677 (888) 720-9677.

This is the Wheelhouse from Connecticut Public Radio I'm Frankie Graziano.

This hour we're talking about President Donald Trump's approach to the law.

Trump may be cracking down on immigration, but he recently eased up on another legal matter.

The people who committed violent and nonviolent crimes during the January 6th Capitol riot.

Still with me.

Beatriz Aldana Marquez, the associate professor of sociology at UConn.

Charles Mentor Santiago, associate professor of political science.

And Belal Sekou, associate professor of politics and government at the University of Hartford.

Folks, join the conversation.

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Charles, on his first day back in the white House, President Donald Trump, rather famously, or infamously, if you look at it a certain way, was in an arena signing of, executive orders and then did this back at his office as well, issuing pardons and commutations for more than 1500 people charged with crimes associated with the Capitol insurrection on January 6th, 2021.

What does this tell us about Trump's stance on the law and crime?

Well excuse me.

Well, first of all, it's a violation of his own executive order that he stood for years before for the Portland protest, which criminalize, defacing, federal property.

So he's going back.

He's contradict himself.

What it suggests to me is that it's okay if your friends destroying government offices, but it's not okay if anybody protest against your position.

Especially since the pardons included people who committed violent crimes.

Is that.

Correct?

Absolutely.

And and people have been convicted after they were released for other types of crimes.

So in that sense, what I don't understand is how can he get away with this double standard?

And it seems to me an ideological position that folks are willing to tolerate right wing criminals as opposed to sort of more progressive, protesters.

What do you make of these pardons?

I think it's a way that sharply delineates, people who support him and people who don't.

And it really establishes a difference between who is actually a criminal and who is not.

And the frequent criminalization, especially of, yes, Latino people and also black Americans, kind of shows that these particular, people who were pardoned are not part of that realm of criminal activity.

Right.

And so we saw this frequently in the last four decades of just how the overrepresentation of criminal bodies that are black and brown, how they're featured in our media, how they're featured in our popular culture.

Right.

Those images have power and they control how we look at, individuals and how we make assumptions and judgments based on that.

So by doing this, reinforce those dichotomies that have always existed of, criminality just being associated with black and brown bodies.

President Trump chose to fire more than a dozen officials who worked on the criminal investigations against him.

How should we be interpreting this decision and how significant is it?

Yeah.

I think in many ways to understate and what Donald Trump is doing is to really understand this movement on the right, about presidential power and what it means in terms of how presidents can act.

I sort of think about what Richard Nixon tried to say when he was being interviewed on TV, where he talked about this notion that if the president does it, then it's legal.

And I think for many people who are around Donald Trump and on the right people who have constructed this project, 2025 docu ment, the belief is in a unitary president, the idea that a president has a lot more power built into article two of the Constitution than they have historically used, that the president largely can operate like a king.

And I think there are people in this country who really do believe that what we need is a single sort of leader who operates more like a king, who is largely unaccountable to the other branches of government.

So what's astonishing to me about this moment that we're in is that there's been little to no pushback from members of the Republican Party, which is really amazing to think about.

If this kind of grab of power and use of power had occurred by, say, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, they would be losing it on Capitol Hill.

Republicans would.

And yet they have a brain.

They have embraced this pardoning of violent insurrectionists.

And we shouldn't hesitate to use that kind of language.

People who went to court were tried and were convicted for being violent insurrectionists.

A president who himself has been convicted of crimes as well.

The first time we've elected a convicted felon to the white House, who's been charged with various other kinds of things and is engaged in behavior that a decade or two ago would never would have been an automatic disqualifier for anyone who ran for president.

So we're in a very unique place right now as a country.

We've got to figure out, because in many ways, this is a constitutional crisis that we are in.

And this may get worse as these weeks and months go by.

Let me add, in fact, Barack Obama was criticized for the Dreamers Act because it was done as an executive order.

And but but I want to add two more things.

Out the door.

He just wrote executive orders, and this was something Republicans just said.

No, the president should not be doing exactly.

But but let me add two points here.

We have what's called an undemocratic constitution in this country.

You can't I like the president.

The Electoral College selects the president.

We have a moral apportionment of Congress, and we have a number of undemocratic issues, including the right of the power, judicial review.

You add to that the idea of the imperial or unitary president, and then the notion of what Clinton Rossiter, a conservative critic of FDR, called the constitutional dictatorship.

And you have the perfect mix where an imperial president or a unitary president can play off of the weaknesses of the Constitution to authorize, to justify constitutionally what would be called a constitutional dictatorship.

And again, these are terms that are used by the right, the imperial unitary, presidential theory was proposed by conservatives dating back, back to Hamilton, in fact.

A couple minutes left.

We're going to play you a long clip as well.

But, responding to what Belal had said earlier about Republicans and, and sort of the limited response to this, that's what Democrats are saying when they're interviewed and asking what they're doing.

They're saying, is the media going to look deeper into what's happening here?

They're also wondering if the media is going to ask Republicans what they have to say.

Recently, Democratic U.S.

Senator from Connecticut Chris Murphy appeared on Pod Save America and was asked by host John Favreau about whether there was a reticence by Democratic colleagues, even Republicans on the other side of the aisle, to speak up regarding all of the recent executive action from incoming Trump administration members.

The president and his billionaire advisors are literally making things up out of thin air because they want to seize control of federal government spending.

So that they can reward their friends and Elon Musk's friends and punish their enemies so as to suppress political dissent and destroy democracy in this country.

Yeah.

That was also with Michel Martin recently, when he talked to her on NPR.

Charles, any thoughts on what we just heard from Senator Murphy?

Well, yes.

I mean, we're seeing this with the immigration debates.

We have uneven responses by Democrat elected officials in the state of Connecticut on how to respond to the question of immigrants.

Some are not doing much.

Some are taking public stances.

And the challenge is that if you don't have a a critique that can diagnose the problem in an effective way, we're just going to be running around like chickens with our heads cut off.

Final thoughts 30s each start with you, Beatriz.

Just overall, like, I believe that resistance is important.

I think you talked about dissent, and, the fact is that since, 911, the executive power has grown because of this aspect of national security.

And so we have to remember why certain agencies exist, why certain policies of enforcement are being reinforced, and why we are in a position today where executive power is great and big.

Below.

I think we're at a critical moment in our country.

And I just want to say to people like yourself, Frankie, who were in the media, you guys are going to be the difference between whether this experiment and democracy survives or not.

And I say that because the other thing that's happened is a lot of what they're doing, they're trying to do in secrecy, and you guys have to shed light on what they're doing and inform the public about what's going on so that we can make decisions about how we want to guide our country forward.

Charles.

I think the public needs to be open to looking at the contradictions that we're seeing in government, looking at the contradictions that we're seeing in society, and understand the potential effects of these contradictions for long term.

I don't think we have a long term vision.

I've been listening to Charles Venator-Santiago, associate professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Political Science and l'Institut, the University of Connecticut.

Charles, great.

Thank you for having coming on the show today.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

Great debut for your colleague, Beatriz.

Alvina marquez, assistant professor of sociology and core faculty member of l'Institut, though at University of Connecticut.

Beatrice, thank you so much for coming on.

Thank you so much for having me.

And Belal Sekou, associate professor of politics and government at University of Hartford, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you so much.

And go Hawks.

Go Hawks go America.

Today's show is produced by Chloe Win.

It was edited by Rob and Doyin Akin and Meg Dalton.

Our technical producer is the maestro Dylan Reyes.

Download the Wheelhouse anytime on your favorite podcast app.

I'm Frankie Graziano.

This is the Wheelhouse.

Thank you for listening.