PBD Sosnick pod
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MMA
Right-wing media champion migrant detention camps amid reports of horrific conditions
Pro-Trump podcaster: “You got to break a couple eggs in order to make an omelet”
Written by Chloe Simon & Gideon Taaffe
Published 08/13/25
Since taking office, President Donald Trump’s administration has held thousands of undocumented immigrants — including many without a criminal record — in a network of domestic and international detention centers. Two of these, El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) and the newly opened “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, have already been criticized for appalling conditions and human rights abuses.
As firsthand accounts of these detention centers began to be widely reported, right-wing media have justified the conditions by claiming that people being sent there are “the worst of the worst”; arguing that Alligator Alcatraz is meant as “a deterrent more than punishment"; and suggesting that “you got to break a couple eggs in order to make an omelet.”
The Trump administration has ramped up arrests, targeting many who reportedly have no criminal record
- The number of migrants detained during Trump’s second term has risen sharply from 2024.According to The Guardian, “The average number of people held in Ice detention jumped from 40,000 right before Trump’s inauguration, to about 55,000 in late June.” The Marshall Project published data showing that “from late May to late June, ICE had used 432 facilities to hold immigrants, up from 315 over the month leading up to Trump’s second inauguration.” The administration has also detained hundreds of migrants in foreign camps. The Guardian, [7/23/25; The Marshall Project, 8/1/25; Council on Foreign Relations, 7/1/25]
- CECOT in El Salvador and Alligator Alcatraz in Florida are two of the most notorious detention centers — and reporting shows that hundreds of detainees sent there have no criminal record.CBS News’ 60 Minutes reported that “we could not find criminal records for 75% of the Venezuelans — 179 men — now sitting in prison” in El Salvador. The Miami Herald found “more than 250 people who are listed as having only immigration violations but no criminal convictions or pending charges in the United States” out of at least 700 people reportedly held in the Florida facility. ProPublica, [8/6/25; Human Rights Watch, 7/21/25; CBS News, 4/6/25; The Miami Herald, 7/13/25]
- After Trump toured Alligator Alcatraz, right-wing media claimed that the detention center is for the “worst of the worst.”Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed the detainees “are drug traffickers and child rapists,” while guest host Charlie Hurt said the facility would be used to house the “baddest of the bad hombres.” Media Matters, [7/15/25]
- ## Firsthand accounts and other reporting have detailed the ghastly conditions at CECOT and Alligator Alcatraz
- :{:{Three men deported to CECOT and then released to Venezuela spoke to ProPublica about the abuse they endured, including “physical torture.”The men were sent to CECOT with no record of criminal activity and detailed their experience to ProPublica. The former detainees reported that many inmates attempted suicide rather than live at the facility, and one claimed he was beaten by guards until he could not see out of one eye. ProPublica, [8/6/25; YouTube,}:
]}:
- CECOT deportees told NBC News they were “being beaten, sexually assaulted and told to ‘commit suicide.’”The men detailed physical punishment they received, with one saying that guards “made us get on our knees, they would step on our toes with their boots. They hit us with batons, they hit us on the head.” NBC News also reported that “guards denied them food and access to bathrooms or showers as punishment.” NBC News, [7/28/25]
- Andry Hernandez Romero, a gay asylum-seeker from Venezuela, reported being sexually assaulted by CECOT guards. Romero told NBC News the guards “made me kneel, perform oral sex on one person, while the others groped me and touched my private parts” and “stroked me with their batons.” NBC News, [7/28/25]
- :{:{Detainees at the Florida detention center have reported “feeling a state of torture,” suffering “physical assaults,” and being shackled in “a four-by-four-foot square” guards called “the box.” One contracted guard claimed that “the mosquitoes are filling the bathrooms, the showers” while detainee Anderson Miranda said “most of us have skin irritations from mosquitoes; they don’t give us spray. All of us worry that we’ll get a disease because of the mosquitoes.”}:
A Nicaraguan migrant alleged that guards “chained me to the ground,” called him racial slurs, and put him “in a four-by-four-foot square in the recreation yard” that “was directly in the Everglades sun and heat, for several hours, with no water.” NBC News reported one detainee got foot fungus seemingly due to “limited access to showers and poor sanitation.” Another detainee “reported that people held in Alligator Alcatraz ‘are only allowed one meal a day (and given only minutes to eat), are not permitted daily showers, and are otherwise kept around the clock in a cage inside a tent,’” citing “instances of physical assaults and excessive use of force by guards, along with a lack of medical care and attention.” The Washington Post, [7/17/25; WLRN, 7/22/25; NBC News, 7/22/25, 8/6/25]}:
- After a visit to the Florida facility, members of Congress and state representatives expressed horror, with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) saying migrants were “essentially packed into cages, wall-to-wall humans, 32 detainees per cage.”CNN reported they heard migrant “detainees shouting for help and crying out ‘libertad’— Spanish for ‘freedom’ — amid sweltering heat, bug infestations and meager meals.” CNN, [7/13/25]
- ## Right-wing personalities justified Trump’s detention policies because migrants “acted like animals” and “sometimes you got to break a couple eggs in order to make an omelet”
- CECOT detainees “came into this country and acted like animals,” said Fox host Lawrence Jones, adding, “If you wanted to have a better life, you could have done it the legal way.” Jones continued, “But even, let’s say you didn’t do it the legal way, act like a model citizen. Go out there, find a job, and do all that. But they chose not to. They harassed Americans, assaulted Americans, murdered Americans, raped children, and this is the consequence.” Co-host Brian Kilmeade suggested that he would “rather [face] the death penalty” than be sent to CECOT, adding, “I love it.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [3/27/25]
- PBD Podcastco-host Adam Sosnick dismissed people being detained in “Alligator Alcatraz,” claiming that “sometimes you got to get shit done and you got to break a couple eggs in order to make an omelet.”Sosnick said: “They said, you know, ‘We can't separate kids from their family.’ Well, that's exactly what you do when your father is a drug dealer and he has to go to jail. ‘We can't separate the mother from the children.’ It's exactly what happens when your mother committed a crime. She has to go to jail. It sucks. Nobody likes to see people being rounded up, gathered, and thrown in jail. Nobody likes that. It's not pretty, but none of this is meant to be pretty. Something called G.S.D. — getting shit done. Sometimes you got to get shit done and you got to break a couple eggs in order to make an omelet.” YouTube, *The PBD Podcast*, [7/17/25]
- Fox & Friendsco-host Ainsley Earhardt dismissed concerns about detainees sent to CECOT: “These are criminals, so why do you care?”After Jones claimed that innocent people “are not being deported right now, it’s only the criminals,” Earhardt added, “Isn't it better for them to be in another country that’s paying for them? We paid them $6 million. We would have paid so much more, probably $6 million per person if they stayed in America. But they are criminals and then Donald Trump is shipping them off to another country.” Fox News,*Fox & Friends*, [3/19/25]
- Fox News host Greg Gutfeld mocked concerns about conditions at the Florida detention center, saying, “Oh, not mosquitos! That’s just like my lakehouse.”Co-host Jesse Watters added, “So if someone was charged with rape and they are in Alligator Alcatraz, you are worried about mosquitoes?” Fox News,*The Five*, [7/17/25]
- Trump ally Laura Loomer called migrants “animals” and said, “I think it's actually a really good thing that we're putting illegal aliens in cages and we're letting them know, ‘Hey, you're going to be eaten by alligators.’”Loomer continued, “I apologize to the innocent animals who I’m comparing to these savage, subhuman illegal aliens.” Rumble, *Loomer Unleashed*, [7/1/25]
- ## Other right-wing media figures argued that the prison conditions are a “deterrent”
- Fox’s Jesse Watters suggested stories coming out of Alligator Alcatraz are meant to “deter bad behavior.” Watters: “Trump is not feeding migrants to alligators but sometimes you have to make up scary stories in a way to deter bad behaviour.” Watters also compared the conditions to when he tells his child that if she continues crying, “we’re going to drop her off at Dr. Duncan’s house and he’s really mean and has an angry dog that bites.” Fox News,*Jesse Watters Primetime*, [8/5/25]
- Watters claimed the prisons are “making our communities safer” by getting migrants to self-deport, calling it the “El Salvador special.” Watters: “All it took was a new president. Donald Trump's hard-line approach to the border, let's call it the El Salvador special, is getting the illegals to do Tom Homan's job. Thousands of self-deporting illegals are going back to their home countries, thanks to the handy app Trump reverse engineered from Joe. It is already making our communities safer.” Fox News, *The Five*, [4/10/25]
- Fox contributor and former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway claimed Alligator Alcatraz is meant to be “a deterrent more than punishment and is meant to be a holding place until we can put you where you belong.” Conway: “They are layering the disincentives, Greg. If you hear for the second or third month in a row there are zero, zero border crossings, to the point where Trump said yesterday he didn't even believe the numbers. He said how is it zero? You’re saying, ‘Am I going to be the one who actually slips through? Probably not. And if I am, look what happens. I go there temporarily.’ Or they may be hearing Democrats won't tell you: 150,000-plus square feet, 24/7 air conditioning, 24/7 health facility, 24/7 pharmacy, three hot squares, all the things the Democrats won't tell you, that this is meant to be temporary until you can move people where they belong which is not in the interior of this country.” Fox News, *The Five*, [7/17/25]
- Fox News host Brian Kilmeade claimed that the poor conditions of the Florida detention center “hits the exact criteria necessary.”Kilmeade: “He [Ron DeSantis] is getting push back because I guess there is some mosquitoes on the inside and it is not the greatest accommodations, but I think it hits the exact criteria necessary.” Fox News,*The Will Cain Show*, [7/25/25]
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08/08/25 10:11 AM EDT
08/07/25 9:09 AM EDT
08/05/25
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