>> President Donald Trump signed a 70 billion dollar Republican backed funding bill for immigration enforcement last week.

The move means Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol will be funded through the end of Trump's term.

It comes as many Chicago communities are still dealing with the fallout from Operation Midway Blitz and ongoing enforcement efforts.

And amid concerns from Democrats that the long-range funding takes away Congress's oversight power.

Joining us to discuss the state of immigration enforcement in the U.S.

is Gail Montenegro, who worked as a spokesperson for ICE and its predecessor INS from 1996, to 2017.

And then for the Justice Department's immigration courts until last year.

Welcome to the program.

We appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

So Chicago area, as we mentioned, been a major priority for immigration enforcement.

Obviously extremely high profile with Operation Midway Blitz.

What was your reaction to the of the crackdown from ICE and other immigration agents that we've seen locally?

My first reaction is that it was shocking.

>> And it actually took place in my own neighborhood in the northern suburbs.

we saw at first hand, it was unlike anything I had ever seen.

And this was an agency that I had represented and spoken on behalf for 15 years and it had it became unrecognizable.

Most of the enforcement norms and policies that guided the agents.

One I was there spanning numerous administrations all seem to go away.

For example, when I was there.

Arrests were never ever conducted based on how somebody and now racial profiling is at the forefront in my neighborhood.

Cbp agents were driving around just looking for.

Landscapers and pulling him out of their vehicles.

Now enforcement is being Done Inc in sensitive locations like churches and schools, places that were off limits always before.

And and the driving force between behind immigration enforcement.

While I was there was to conduct it with humanity.

And I'm not seeing that anymore.

One, of course, after the detention, you know, there.

>> These folks have to go somewhere.

There have been allegations of abuses and rights violations in detention centers in the U.S., of course, prisons that some people have been deported to in places like El Salvador.

What's your reaction to the conditions that detained migrants are facing?

>> I concern great concern.

>> If the >> removal process is a civil legal process, it's not punitive in nature.

It's not a criminal proceeding.

So to remove individuals to a 3rd country and to put them in prison there.

I just don't understand what they're in prison for.

They have not committed a crime.

There.

They should not be serving a criminal sentence in another country's prison.

So that is very concerning to me.

I've been inside Broadview many, many times.

That is a location that's called a processing facility.

It's not intended for long-term detention and it just seemed like so many arrests are being made, that that those rules and norms that previously guided the detention process were not being put into place.

Well in in in your introduction, outlined the various positions that you held, the agencies where you work.

>> But briefly, for folks who may not know what were your day-to-day roles like, I'm sure.

Well, I started in 96.

I was the sole media person for the immigration Naturalization Service in the Midwest.

And then when the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security was created, I was put into ice and I was also a media spokesperson for 3 states that sometimes it expanded to 6 states, but always based in Chicago and day-to-day.

My job was to respond.

2 media increase and there were many regarding enforcement efforts by ICE.

I would sometimes take reporters out on ride Alongs when we would conduct targeted enforcement.

That's another thing that I'm that I'm noticing.

Everything that we did was targeted.

It was based on surveillance and a lot of investigation that went into things behind the scenes, whereas now it looks like to me the enforcement is just all encompassing and they're really not conducting much of that surveillance.

You know, when you left your post last year that came after these so-called doge efforts to push civil servants to resign or retire early.

>> What was your reaction when you when you open that now?

>> The fork in the road email it was shock and horror it was to me a shot across the bow that nothing was going to be as it ever was.

>> it >> was the first time that we have ever received a government wide communication typically in the government you receive clear guidance from your specific agency.

It doesn't come from a nameless, faceless email with the subject line like for can the road it was basically giving people 10 days to make a life changing decision without really knowing who it was coming from, what it meant.

Fortunately, for me, I was one of the lucky people that I was close enough to getting my full retirement benefits that I was able to take it and take an early retirement and kind of hold on to most of what I had earned throughout my career.

But many people didn't have that choice.

And I remember reading in one of fake use that it that basically said you should take this deal and you'll get paid for 9 months and you can go sit on the beach and have a nice little vacation.

And it was just a very condescending way for my employer to speak to me.

I have given everything to this job.

Everything weekends, late nights I had earned all kinds of accolades.

The highest honors you can get from an agency.

And then all of a sudden.

It was like my employer had turned against me and nobody understood why.

Why that was happening.

It really just didn't make sense.

And when I opened up that email, I was at home alone.

And I ran to the bathroom and I was physically ill that had never.

Happened to me.

It was that disconcerting.

Yeah.

We mention some of your concerns on the enforcement side.

But of course, you also worked with immigration court system.

>> You know, there have been on mass firings of immigration judges.

The Trump administration looking for, quote, deportation judges.

Are you concerned about the direction of that court system?

100%?

>> One of my dear friends.

She was the chief immigration judge of the immigration courts at the time was fired within one hour of the inauguration on a federal holiday while she was working on a federal holiday.

The 4 the 4 people fired during that hour from my agency were all women.

And and then many of my friends have are part of the hundreds of immigration judges who have been fired since then without cause.

has never happened before now they are hiring new deportation judges to fill those positions.

Now, the term deportation judge.

is troubling and that it sends the message that remove all.

>> Instead of due process is the intended result of this proceeding.

>> And that is an erosion of justice.

Yeah.

Feeling as though there's a conclusion already reached before correct chases heard.

Absolutely.

There's a PBS NewsHour PBS News.

Npr poll earlier this year that found.

>> 60% of respondents disapprove of ICE's actions.

Of course, we've seeing the refrain abolish ice, you know, become common among many of its opponents.

Do you think there is a way to repair ices reputation, its relationship with with the public?

>> that's a hard question.

I feel like so much damage has been done and this is an agency that really had to fight.

For its place.

It had to sort of reinvent itself and create a new identity when the when DHS was created, it combined.

The customs authorities with the immigration enforcement authorities under the INS and merge to those into ICE.

And as with any merger, there's going to be some bumps along the way and ice really worked hard and had become a professional.

Law enforcement agency that deserved respect.

And I was proud to go out there and represent them.

I mean, you're always going to have your critics when it comes to immigration enforcement and, you know, half the people think you're not doing enough and half think that you're doing too much.

But that came with the territory.

But I I'm really saddened to see.

What has become of ICE's reputation and it's going to be very difficult to.

To repair it.

I