MIBF Board Member Rafa Rodriguez’s Interview with César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández

In this conversation, Midwest Immigration Bond Fund (“MIBF”) Board Member and “Bond Squad” volunteer Rafa Rodriguez (“RR”) sits down with legal scholar, professor, and author César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández (“CCGH”) to discuss the role of immigration bonds in the broader system of immigration enforcement. García Hernández is the Gregory Williams Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and the author of Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants (2019), a critical examination of how immigration policy has become deeply entangled with the criminal legal system. As a member of MIBF’s “Bond Squad,”  Rodriguez reviews incoming bond assistance applications, responds to referral requests, and coordinates bond payments with ICE through CeBonds, ICE's online platform. ​​

Together, they explore the coercive power of bonds, the rise of electronic monitoring, and how bond funds can play a role in building a more just and abolitionist future. What follows is an edited transcript of their discussion:

This conversation, recorded on April 25, 2025, includes mention of Rumeysa Öztürk, who at the time was detained, but has since been released from ICE custody.

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RR: Thank you so much, César, for making the time and space to talk to me about immigration bonds and how they relate to immigration enforcement. I want to start with your book, Migrating to Prison, published in 2019, which, for some folks, might feel like twenty years ago. I was struck by your description of how immigration enforcement has become deeply intertwined with the criminal legal system. How do you see immigration bonds fitting into that framework?

CCGH: Thanks, Rafa, for the opportunity to chat. Immigration bonds are a key component of the coercive power that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) wields over migrants. Congress has granted ICE remarkably expansive authority to detain people, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld those powers. At every opportunity, ICE has used that authority to detain as many people as Congress has funded them to.

But even when ICE is forced to release someone, they often fight to get a judge to deny bond. When someone does get out of detention, bonds are a tool ICE uses to remind that person, and their loved ones, that they are still under surveillance. The bond process doesn’t just affect the person in custody; it extends to their family, friends, and community members who are gathering the money to pay that bond. In this way, bonds extend ICE’s power well beyond the individual targeted by enforcement.

RR: Thank you for that. One of the things we at the Midwest Immigration Bond Fund (“MIBF”) have grappled with is whether, by providing funds to people who can’t afford bonds, we’re unintentionally reinforcing a harmful system.

People have the right to fight their immigration case outside of detention, surrounded by support and resources. But the way the bond system works is that, at the end of a case, the money (often with interest) is returned to the person or group that posted it. Still, it feels like we’re giving ICE thousands of dollars unconditionally. As we discussed off-record, MIBF has helped release 25 individuals from ICE custody so far. Those bond amounts have ranged from $5,000 to $10,000, a lot of money that may not come back for years.

We’re also seeing an increase in electronic monitoring as an alternative to detention (“ATD”). In Migrating to Prison, you wrote, “Nor is it acceptable to support reforms that simply inject some twist into the path toward confinement.” You critique round-the-clock GPS monitoring. Do you see electronic monitoring as a step forward or just a rebranding of carceral control and deeper surveillance into immigrant communities?

CCGH: I don’t see ICE’s electronic monitoring programs as a step forward or simply a rebranding; I see them as an expansion. They’re analogous to building a new prison facility or contracting with a private company or sheriff’s department. These so-called "alternatives to detention" often sweep in people who likely wouldn’t have been surveilled otherwise, and for whom there’s little justification for surveillance.

The ATD programs aren't limited to individuals who would otherwise be detained under ICE’s mandatory detention criteria, which are already extremely broad. They include people with no record, no history of missing court, and no indication they’d pose a threat. Yet ICE frequently defaults to ankle monitors or app-based surveillance to exert maximum control.

This approach completely ignores the established legal criteria for detention: public safety and risk of flight. In the criminal legal system, judges weigh those factors every day. But ICE uses a secret algorithm to make these decisions, an algorithm they won’t make public. And we’ve learned they sometimes tweak the algorithm if it starts releasing more people than they’d like. It's an opaque and deeply problematic system.

RR: Thank you for clarifying that. I also see it as an expansion, especially for people who might not otherwise be caught up in the system. I'm thinking particularly of individuals from mixed-status families, where ankle monitors become a visible, daily reminder of ICE’s control, even for those not directly targeted.

ICE frames electronic monitoring as a compliance tool, something more humane than incarceration, a way to help people attend their court dates. But as you’ve said, that’s a façade. It's still deeply rooted in coercion.

CCGH: Let me jump in. Yes, ICE will argue that more coercion equals more compliance. And sure, if you detained everyone in removal proceedings, attendance rates at hearings would be very high. But policy shouldn’t be built on a single outcome.

We also need to look at cost, financial, yes, but also psychological and social. Electronic surveillance limits people's movement. It affects their ability to work, to care for children, to go to the doctor. These are real, material burdens, and ICE refuses to take them into account.

RR: Right, it’s about looking at the whole person. Many people in detention are parents, caregivers, workers, and members of our communities. In Migrating to Prison, you talk about taking steps toward an abolitionist future, like ensuring everyone has legal representation and the right to work.

Where do you see bond funds fitting into that future? So much of our work is reactive. Once a bond is set, we step in. But how can we be more proactive?

CCGH: The core goal of any bond fund is to free people from confinement and that’s central to any abolitionist project. It’s about returning liberty to individuals who have been taken by the state.

Of course, ICE operates efficiently: when one person leaves, another often takes their place. So yes, freeing 25 people is a big achievement, but it’s also just a fraction of the nearly 50,000 people detained on any given day.

Bond funds can play a unique role in exposing what happens inside ICE detention centers. Most of the public has no idea, because very few people go in, and even fewer come out able or willing to speak. ICE works hard to keep its operations hidden. That’s why so many facilities are in remote parts of Arizona, South Texas, or Louisiana, hard to reach, sparsely populated, and isolated from legal advocates.

Bond funds, in partnership with people they’ve helped release, can tell those stories. These human experiences have the power to shift public understanding. It’s not well known that lawful permanent residents are being detained. Or that your time in the U.S. doesn’t protect you. Or that children and families have been incarcerated. I’ve shown my law students photos of Border Patrol holding cells, Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”), not ICE, and even they are shocked to see a mother changing a diaper on the floor next to an open toilet.

That lack of awareness isn’t willful ignorance, it’s the result of a system designed to hide itself. Bond funds can help pull back the curtain.

RR: That resonates so much. It connects to the closing line of Migrating to Prison: “Whether we know it or not, whether we admit it or not, we are all becoming migrants. For that profoundly ordinary fact of human existence, none of us deserve to see the inside of a prison.”

What I hear you saying is that bond funds should amplify the voices and experiences of those who’ve been detained. Understanding their stories can help grow this movement.

CCGH: Absolutely. The human side of migration is our most powerful tool. Migrants sharing their experiences, their strength, their survival, their extraordinary journeys, can shift public perception in ways statistics never could.

I’m constantly reminded how ordinary people facing extraordinary situations are the true experts. When someone tells me they crossed the Darién Gap with a six-year-old, I think, Wow, I’m the one living the ordinary life. Their stories need space, and they need to be heard widely. That’s how we push back against the federal government’s continued use of immigration prisons.

RR: You and I share something in common, our grandfathers were both part of the Bracero Program. I was born here because of a decision my grandfather made long ago. That’s a privilege and it shapes how I view immigration. But today’s migrants face different challenges. The immigrant identity isn’t monolithic. It’s shaped by policy and surveillance. We need to create space for those stories to be told.

One final question: I want to touch on the racialized nature of immigration enforcement, particularly who gets detained, who gets denied bond, and who receives bond. One high-profile case we’ve seen recently involved Rumeysa Öztürk, detained at Tufts and denied bond after speaking out against the genocide in Palestine. At MIBF, we operate on a merit-blind, first-come, first-served basis for folks who request assistance. But how can bond funds more effectively highlight the racialized nature of detention and bond decisions?

CCGH: There are two parts to that question. Who is being denied bond? What amounts are being set? There’s a vast difference between a $1,500 bond and a $15,000 one, and judges have a lot of discretion.

But very little is known about how that discretion is used. Most people don’t realize how much power immigration judges have. Bond funds, especially in collaboration with academics and researchers, have an opportunity to uncover patterns and tell the story behind the numbers.

RR: I agree. I see so much potential for collaboration, between bond funds, researchers, advocates, and people who’ve been directly impacted by detention. Thank you again, César, for taking the time to talk with me and for helping us think about how to strengthen our work, now and in the future.

CCGH: Thank you.