On Wednesday, the Trump administration issued a memo directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to detain lawful refugees who have yet to secure permanent U.S. residency. Jonathan Blitzer, New Yorker staff writer and the author of Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis (Penguin Press, 2024), discusses the latest news, including his reporting on how the agency's bureaucracy works.

Photo: Observers film ICE agents as they hold a perimeter after one of their vehicles got a flat tire on Penn Avenue on February 5, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)