Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Season 12 Episode 10
Aired on May 4, 2025
Main segment: Immigrants and deportations under Trump
Other segments: 2025 Canadian federal election, Minor league baseball team names
John Oliver discusses the recent deportations by the Trump administration, the conditions in the facility people are being sent to abroad, and why even Henry Winkler could be in danger of being expelled from the U.S. Yeah, even national treasure Henry Winkler.
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♪ (“LAST WEEK TONIGHT” THEME MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
JOHN: We’re going to dive straight in with our main story tonight, which concerns immigrants. Once again, named Group of the Year by Right-Wing Scapegoat Magazine. While campaigning, Trump promised a draconian crackdown on migrants, and his administration has since made a big show out of following through on that, from inviting Dr. Phil on a ride along with ICE to nauseating social media posts like this one, titled, “ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight,” featuring sounds of manacles and handcuffs, and this one, which is somehow in even worse taste.
♪ Closing time ♪
♪ You don’t have to go home But you can’t stay here ♪
♪ I know who I want To take me home ♪
JOHN: That is real. They used “Closing Time” by Semisonic, which obviously isn’t the right song choice. The right song choice would be no song at all, because deportation Instagram reel is a combination of words that should never exist, like “Oscar winner Mr. Beast,” or “Stephen Miller nudes,” or “Bill Belichick speaks about his relationship with 24-year-old girlfriend.”
(AUDIENCE GROANS)
Now, Semisonic denounced that video, saying, “We did not authorize or condone the White House’s use of our song in any way. The song is about joy and possibilities and hope, and they have missed the point entirely.” And of course they have, because according to the band’s drummer, the song’s about the “anticipation of fatherhood, a song about being sent forth from the womb as if by a bouncer clearing out a bar.” And obviously it is. We all knew that and got it from the lyrics.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
It’s closing time. You’re a baby. Get out of that uterus and finish your whiskey and beer. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. It seems every day brings terrible news concerning deportation policy, some of which has been so surreal, local news has had to run fact checks on it, like in this sponsored segment.
ANNOUNCER: Tonight’s “Fact or Fiction” is brought to you by America’s Finest Carpet.
Tonight, we’re looking into a comment allegedly made by the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A story that you may have seen today claims acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said that he would like the agency to be run like Amazon Prime for human beings. And this is true.
JOHN: Yeah, it is true. And spare a quick thought for that station and its sponsor, America’s Finest Carpet.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Because verifying ICE’s director wanted to expel humans with the speed of a pack of emergency tampons on same-day delivery clearly isn’t what their “Fact or Fiction” segment is for. It’s for getting to the bottom of actual questions that they’ve answered like, “Sharks test positive for cocaine?” “Woman arrested for cinnamon roll attack?” and “Ford creates ‘very gay’ raptor?” Which you’ll be pleased to know was very much fact.
But the intention behind that Amazon Prime idea gets to something important here. For all this administration’s talk of prioritizing hardened criminals, in practice, it seemed to value speed, volume, and spectacle over all else. Perhaps best summed up by the fact, at a rally on Tuesday, Trump directed the audience’s attention to a grotesque video of men getting deported to a Salvadoran prison, being marched off an airplane, and having their heads shaved. Prefacing it by telling the cheering crowd those men were “the worst of the worst.” Despite the fact, when 60 Minutes looked into it, they couldn’t find criminal records for 75 percent of the men on those flights. And Trump’s own administration has conceded that at least one man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was sent there due to an administrative error. For weeks now, it has been scrambling to come up with reasons why it was okay to send that man to a foreign prison, which has been hard for them to do given that he had a court order protecting him from deportation to El Salvador and no criminal record. At one point, Trump posted a photo of himself holding an image that had been circulating online of Abrego Garcia’s hand with labels added, suggesting the tattoos on his knuckles were somehow secret code spelling out MS-13. Multiple gang experts have disputed that, pointing out MS-13 tattoos tend to feature things like the letters “M” and “S” and the numbers “1” and “3.” But in an interview on Tuesday, Trump not only defended posting that image, he argued that the letters and numbers that had clearly been superimposed were actually tattooed on his hand, and he refused to let go of that idea for an agonizingly long time. And while you may have seen small clips of this exchange, it is worth watching the full 90 seconds, because it is absolutely incredible.
DONALD TRUMP: The man that you picked out, he said he wasn’t a member of a gang, and then they looked, and on his knuckles he had “MS-13.”
TERRY MORAN: There’s a dispute over that.
TRUMP: Wait a minute, wait a minute. He had “MS-13” on his knuckles, tattooed.
MORAN: He had some tattoos that are interpreted that way. But let’s move on.
TRUMP: Wait a minute. Hey, Terry, Terry, Terry.
MORAN: He did not have the letter “MS-13.”
TRUMP: It says “MS-13.”
MORAN: That was Photoshopped. So let me just–
TRUMP: That was Photoshopped? Terry, you can’t do that. Hey, they’re giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you’re doing the interview. I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you, but that’s okay. I picked you. Terry, but you’re not being very nice. He had “MS-13” tattooed.
MORAN: We’ll agree to disagree. I want to move on to something else.
TRUMP: Terry, Terry… Do you want me to show you the picture?
TERRY: I saw the picture.
TRUMP: Oh, and you think it was Photoshopped? Well…
MORAN: Here we go.
TRUMP: Don’t Photoshop it. Go look at his hand. He had “MS-13.”
MORAN: He did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way. I’m not an expert on them. I want to turn to Ukraine.
TRUMP: No, no. Terry, Terry. No, no. No, no. He had “MS,” as clear as you can be, not interpreted. This is why people no longer believe the news, because it’s fake news.
MORAN: When he was photographed in El Salvador, they aren’t there. But let’s just go on. They aren’t there when he’s in El Salvador.
TRUMP: Oh, they weren’t there, but they’re there now, right?
MORAN: No.
TRUMP: But they’re there now.
MORAN: They’re in your picture.
TRUMP: Terry.
MORAN: Ukraine, sir.
TRUMP: He’s got “MS-13” on his knuckles. Okay?
MORAN: We’ll take a look at that.
TRUMP: It’s such a disservice.
TERRY: We’ll take a look at that, sir.
TRUMP: Why don’t you just say, “Yes, he does,” and, you know, go on to something else.
MORAN: It’s contested.
JOHN: Terry! Terry! Terry! You’re in hell, Terry!
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Terry, this is hell right now.
I’m genuinely shocked Trump doesn’t drink alcohol because that is the most “drunk at an IHOP” conversation I think I’ve ever heard. And no disrespect to Terry, but maybe don’t move on from that. I know you’ve got other questions to get to, but if the president of the United States is trying to tell you that this amateur hour Photoshop is real, let him go get the picture and make him say it again. Point to that Helvetica-looking “M” and make the president say, “Yes, I believe that artless ‘M,’ that’s weirdly clearer and darker than all the other tattoos, is real.” Make him say, “I believe that man went to a tattoo parlor and said, ‘The skull’s pretty spooky, but what I’d really like is a neatly aligned ‘3’ directly on the bone of my knuckle, and can you please make it so that it doesn’t stretch or bend with the natural curves of the human hand, and also make it look like a typewriter did it?'” Because, Terry, sometimes… when Trump’s doing his normal racist blue-skying, you do need to cut him off to slow the flow of hatred into the world. But if he wants to tell America that this laughably doctored picture is evidence of a major threat to American safety, you have an obligation to let the man cook.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS, CHEERS)
And for what it’s worth… if Trump’s going to hash out those claims, he probably should be doing that in court, not on TV, and after he’s already shipped someone off to a foreign prison. But Abrego Garcia is just one of many horrifying stories surrounding immigration right now, from tourists being detained for weeks, to US citizens being caught up in ICE dragnets, to videos like this.
ALYSHA PALUMBO: You can see an agent using a large hammer to break the back passenger window of their car. Marilu said the agents were focused on her husband, Juan, but kept calling him Antonio. That’s the name of another man who lives in their building. Thinking this is a case of mistaken identity, Juan called his attorney, who told him to stay in the car until she got there. But instead of waiting for their lawyer, the agent smashed the car window, broke into the vehicle, and dragged the couple out.
MARILU: They had no reason to detain him. We’ve been following the rules of this country. We are doing things the right way. That’s why we have a lawyer.
JOHN: Right. They’re trying to do things the right way. We have an asylum process in place. And while it is not perfect, I don’t think a key step in it is “guy smashes your car with a hammer while screaming someone else’s name at you.” But that’s just the tip of the iceberg here. So, given that, tonight, let’s look at Trump and deportations, the aggression of his administration’s crackdowns, its blatant contempt for the law, and where this could be heading. Let’s start with the fact Trump’s off to a much quicker start than last time around. In its first 100 days, this administration has taken 181 immigration-specific executive actions, a six-fold increase over that same period in Trump’s first term. And that is deliberate. As the head of one anti-immigration group that advised the White House has put it, the plan has been to “do everything, all at once, everywhere.” Which sounds less like rational government policy and more like a knock-off DVD sold on the subway.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And to do that, they’ve employed a wide variety of tactics. Sometimes they’ve gotten creative by looking through old statutes for cheat codes to expedite deportations. We’ve talked before about how they’ve tried using an obscure provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act to remove people if the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe their presence here would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences. That is the reason they gave for arresting students like Mahmoud Khalil. And while that was clearly a targeted attempt to frighten students out of voicing solidarity with Palestine, they’ve also taken much broader swings using a federal database that tracks even the slightest interactions with law enforcement to revoke visas and put thousands of international students in jeopardy. And some of the cases have been truly absurd, like this grad student who was suddenly told he had 15 days to leave the country.
PATRICK TERPSTRA: Suguru Onda, getting a PhD at Brigham Young University in Utah, had his legal status in the US suddenly revoked after a criminal records check. But Onda, from Japan, had no criminal charges on his record, just two speeding tickets and a citation for catching “one too many fish,” his attorney says.
JOHN: That is ridiculous. If you can be flagged for deportation for catching “one too many fish,” then I truly fear for Henry Winkler.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
We could be just days away from seeing him in an El Salvador prison.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
Which I’m sure the White House will then justify by badly photoshopping an “MS-13” tattoo onto his neck.
And while they later reversed that specific decision, this all feels like the inevitable result of a campaign that fearmongered about an epidemic of so-called “migrant crime,” which, as we’ve discussed before, was wildly overblown. But having promised mass deportations and even printed signs for people to wave around demanding them, they’re now scrambling to deliver.
While the administration denies it, ICE officials have reportedly been told to aggressively ramp up the number of people they arrest, from a few hundred per day to at least 12 to 1,500, with the idea being each of the agency’s field offices should make 75 arrests per day. And for all of this administration’s promises of a “worst-first” strategy, where they focus on those with criminal histories, as a former director of ICE pointed out three months ago, that was always unlikely to last.
REPORTER: Sarah Saldaña believes if arrest numbers don’t increase as rapidly as the administration hopes, it might abandon the worst-first strategy and begin targeting community locations like day labor sites.
SARAH SALDAÑA: That is really a big concern of mine, because that’s not, again, a stretch, to think that that might happen next. If the numbers are not coming through, let’s get the low-hanging fruit.
JOHN: Right. And you should avoid low-hanging fruit. I tried to do that. If I were to constantly go for low-hanging fruit, I’d say that “worst-first” doesn’t describe Trump’s immigration policy so much as it describes his children.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
But again, I’ve avoided saying that because I have standards, so I won’t do it.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)
And the administration now seems desperate to scoop anyone up. Police in places like Upstate New York have been stopping Hispanic drivers for minor traffic violations, and if they’re undocumented, handing them over to Border Patrol agents. Also, at one point, tens of thousands of people received emails explicitly telling them to please leave the United States immediately. Some of those were sent by mistake to American citizens, while others went to migrants with a legal right to be here. The fact is, what the administration is doing is sometimes targeted, sometimes arbitrary, usually blatantly racist, and always cruel, and sometimes breathtakingly so.
REPORTER 2: Tonight, the administration is facing criticism from migrant advocates over the removal of two American citizen children of an undocumented woman from Honduras, including her four-year-old son. A migrant rights group says he was sent to Honduras without his medication for stage 4 cancer.
How is going after families with young kids targeting the worst of the worst?
First of all, we said we were going to prioritize the worst of the worst.
You feel like that’s what you’re doing?
Absolutely. But when you prioritize something, it doesn’t mean you forget about everybody else. I said from day one, if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table.
JOHN: Okay, first, Tom Homan can truly rot in hell.
(AUDIENCE CHEERS)
Though I’d expect nothing less from a man who clearly answers the question, what would Shrek look like as a white ogre?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And while the government insists that woman “chose” to have her son deported with her, her lawyers insist that was not, in fact, the case. And either way, between the government putting that kid on a plane without his medication and the cuts to research at the NIH, it seems this administration’s actively coming out pro-pediatric cancer. I feel there’s a non-zero chance Trump’s about to add a fucking brain tumor to his cabinet and then presumably RFK’s either going to eat it or point at it and say, “It’s from Wi-Fi.”
But one of the boldest moves they’ve made to circumvent due process is invoking what’s called the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law that “allows the president to detain or deport non-citizens without a hearing and based only on their country of birth or citizenship, if he decides that an invasion or predatory incursion by that country is underway.” It was famously used to justify the internment of Japanese, Italian, and German immigrants in World War II, but Trump has now invoked it again, saying, “It lets us do a lot of the things we wouldn’t be able to do.” He’s issued an absurd proclamation, declaring a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua, or TDA, has invaded the United States. And he’s used that as a pretext to sweep people up in raids, label them as gang members, and deport them. Some have been shipped off to CECOT, a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador. And if you’ve only seen it in Trump’s propaganda videos or in Kristi Noem’s grotesque photo-op, it is worth knowing just how grim it is in there.
DAVID CULVER: Inmates are assigned to one of eight sectors, each roughly the size of an airplane hangar, basically prisons within the prison. Once inside, it’s said to be a life sentence. They’ll never leave their assigned sector. Each sector holds more than two dozen large cells, roughly 80 inmates per cell, but that can fluctuate. Inside each cell, toilets, a concrete basin for bathing, and a barrel of drinking water, several rows of metal bunk beds. No mattresses, no sheets, no privacy.
JOHN: Yeah, it is awful in there. The Salvadoran Justice and Security Minister has even bragged that “no one who enters the CECOT will ever walk out. They will only be able to leave in a coffin.” And, “You’ll only be able to leave in a coffin,” is a horrifying statement no matter where it is. Even if it was on a sign outside a literal coffin dealership… (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) …it’d be a bit much. I get you’re just trying to make a sale, but come on, tone it down.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And look, sending anyone there is unforgivable, whatever they’re accused of. But it’s worth noting, we’ve not only done it without due process, in many cases, we’ve done it without cause. Remember, on those first plane loads, three-quarters of the people had no discernible criminal record. And while Tom Homan has insisted that that doesn’t mean anything because “a lot of gang members don’t have criminal histories,” you clearly shouldn’t be sending people to a Central American forever dungeon just on vibes.
And the government’s evidence in some of these cases is just absurdly weak. Take Andry Hernandez Romero, a Venezuelan stylist who was in the middle of seeking asylum in the US to escape persecution for his political views and the fact that he’s gay. Time magazine photographed him having his head shaved upon arrival at CECOT, with the photographer saying he was “crying for his mother.” And as his lawyer points out, the evidence the government’s shown to justify that is ridiculous.
CECILIA VEGA: In Andry’s case, the only evidence the government presented in immigration court were these pictures of his tattoos. Crowns, which immigration authorities say can be a symbol of Tren de Aragua.
LINDSAY TOCZYLOWSKI: The crowns themself were on top of the names of his parents. The most plausible explanation for that are that his mom and dad are his king and queen.
CECILIA: A Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman said on social media that its intelligence assessments go well beyond just gang affiliate tattoos. She said Andry’s own social media indicates he is a member of Tren de Aragua. We went back a decade and could only find photos like these.
JOHN: That is utterly infuriating. That is your evidence? What about this man screams violent gang member? The only thing I’m actually confident he’s a genuine threat to is unaccented cheekbones.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And for what it’s worth, there are no tattoos that denote membership to TDA. An expert who wrote the book on them has said Venezuelan gangs are not identified by tattoos. But apparently the Trump administration’s been relying on an Alien Enemy Validation Guide, specifically its scoring system, under which eight points are required for any individual to be identified as a member of Tren de Aragua. But that is not a high bar, as you can get four points simply for having tattoos denoting membership or loyalty to TDA, which, again, is not a thing, and four points if you display logos or dress known to indicate allegiance to TDA, which can be as simple as being dressed in high-end urban streetwear, especially basketball jerseys from the Chicago Bulls.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
But that is clearly bullshit, because if that is all it takes, then 75 percent of the city of Chicago are TDA from October to April. And somehow, it gets even dumber.
CECILIA: Tattoos and social media were also used to link another Venezuelan migrant, Jerce Reyes Barrios, to the Tren de Aragua gang. Immigration court documents include this Facebook post from 14 years ago, showing him flashing what officers said was a gang sign. His girlfriend told us it was all about rock and roll. Immigration agents also flagged Jerce’s crown tattoo as a gang symbol, but they did not mention the crown is above a soccer ball. Jerce was a soccer player in Venezuela. His lawyer says the tattoo honors his favorite team, Real Madrid.
JOHN: That is pathetic. And as for this picture of Jerce supposedly throwing up gang signs, if that were true, Rihanna, Fergie, and Former President George W. Bush are all Tren de Aragua too.
(AUDIENCE CHEERS, APPLAUDS)
But when confronted on this in court, the government’s been completely unrepentant. Early on, they violated a judge’s orders to turn around planes carrying deportees to El Salvador. And even after the Supreme Court explicitly directed they facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody there, they’ve chosen to dick around about the exact meaning of the word “facilitate.” As for Trump, when he was pressed on whether the people he sent to El Salvador deserved any sort of due process, he said this.
TRUMP: You know, we have thousands of people that are ready to go out. And you can’t have a trial for all of these people. And a judge can’t say, “No, you have to have a trial.” The trial is going to take two years. And we’re going to have a very dangerous country if we’re not allowed to do what we’re entitled to do.
JOHN: But that’s not how anything works. You can’t just opt out of due process because it’s inconvenient. It’s why court orders don’t tend to end with, “If not, no worries! You do you!”
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And the thing is, this could all get worse, because while thankfully the courts have tried to curb Trump’s use of these two acts, they’ve also seemed to sign off on a new diabolical strategy the administration’s been using, involving a decades-old legal provision called “registration of aliens.” It allows the administration to require undocumented people register with the government and carry proof of that registration. And it is clearly a trap. Because if you register and give the government all your information, you become an easy target. But if you don’t, or are caught not carrying proof, you can be charged with a federal misdemeanor, allowing them to label you a criminal and putting you at risk of deportation. And this is already happening. People have been charged in Texas and Arizona using this mechanism. Basically, they can’t find enough criminals to deport, so they found a way to turn more people into criminals so that they suddenly can. It’s a desperate but depressingly effective move.
And that’s not even getting into the other plans that they’ve teased, from Marco Rubio saying, “We are actively searching for other countries to take people,” to the administration floating the idea of labeling suspected gang members as “enemy combatants.” They’ve also tried to stop anyone who stands in their way. Just last week, they arrested a judge in Wisconsin for supposedly helping an immigrant evade ICE.
(AUDIENCE BOOS)
And on Thursday, ICE made a big production out of serving a search warrant as part of an investigation into these flyers that were posted months ago with information about ICE agents on them. They even released dramatic footage of them rolling up to the house of their target’s parents, who were understandably pretty surprised.
REPORTER 3: Drone video this morning shows ICE agents moving into an Irvine neighborhood. Annie Yang and YuZong Chang are still in shock after being woken up by Homeland Security investigators.
NEIGHBOR: Woke up to this this morning.
REPORTER 3: Neighbors captured the scene outside their home. They described hearing, “We have a warrant, come out with your hands up,” over a loudspeaker.
Never happened to us before.
I feel like I was in a movie set or something. I mean, it was so unreal.
JOHN: Yeah, I’m afraid this is real life though. Seventeen vehicles with armed agents did a Zero Dark Thirty on a lovable, middle-aged couple, looking for a guy who’d put up flyers warning about ICE overreach. Fun fact, guess who was on site for that raid? The ICE acting director who said the Amazon Prime thing. Guess who wasn’t there? The guy they were looking for, as he apparently “moved to New York last month.” A mistake, for the record, that Amazon would not make.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
And while that’s almost laughably absurd, it’s also obviously scary and extremely dangerous. And it kind of gets to the heart of all of this, which is Trump loudly selling his supporters the lie that he’ll protect them from existential threats, only to further government overreach and state violence, even while deporting makeup artists, unlucky soccer fans, and four-year-olds with cancer. So, what can we do? Well, some of this depends on elected leaders. And to their credit, a number of prominent Democrats have gone to El Salvador to call attention to this, which is definitely preferable to the approach that others have taken, with some anonymous House Democrats quoted as saying, “Should it be the big issue for Democrats? Probably not.” And complaining, “Rather than talking about the tariff policy and the economy, we’re going to go take the bait for one hairdresser,” which is absolutely enraging, especially as many voters do seem to get the clear problem with deporting people without due process to a prison for life, even in red states. Here’s Chuck Grassley being confronted at a town hall in Iowa.
[…]
JOHN: Exactly! Exactly!
(AUDIENCE CHEERS)
That man…
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS) …who definitely owes a real 1,200-dollar ticket… (AUDIENCE LAUGHS) …is right on the nose there. The president is clearly not following the law as he is required to. And look, if your elected officials aren’t holding town halls, you can still tell them you care about this issue. Call them and say if they believe in due process, they should work to repeal the Alien Enemies Act and amend the part of section 237 of the INA that lets Marco Rubio decide whose free speech is a threat. But in the meantime, we’re going to need to help immigrants defend themselves. Remember, those in the immigration court are not guaranteed a lawyer. And if they don’t have one, their chances are basically zero. So if you can, it is worth supporting nonprofits like these that provide legal services for immigrants or local ones in your community. And this is an issue where I do think there is a practical value to public protest, because this is going to be in the courts. And those inside them need to be made aware of public opinion on this. Because it can make a difference. Former Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist once wrote that “no honorable judge would ever cast his vote because he thought the majority of the public wanted him to vote that way.” But that in certain cases, “judges are undeniably influenced by the great tides of public opinion.” And I would argue the moment we’re in right now isn’t just worthy of a great tide, it is worthy of a fucking tsunami. Because this is an absolute outrage.
(AUDIENCE CHEERS, APPLAUDS)
And it is one where it is important to remind our elected leaders that all people are worthy of safety, protection, and due process. Because that is indisputably, in the words of this country’s single weirdest carpet-sponsored local news segment, a fucking fact.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)
