Interviews, podcasts, an anniversary, and some genuinely good news
Hey folks,
I haven't posted new stories here as much recently, and I wanted to let you know why, and tell you about some updates.
But first, some genuinely good news: Thanh Tuan Phan, one of the people ICE expelled to South Sudan last year, has been released and has arrived in Vietnam to start a new life.
Phan, 44, came to the United States as a child and was incarcerated a few weeks after his 18th birthday. He finished his sentence in March of 2025 but, having lost his visa because of his conviction, was transferred to ICE custody for deportation. Two months later, he and seven others were put on a private jet headed for South Sudan, in violation of a court order.
A federal judge ordered the men remain in US custody while the plane was in the air, and it subsequently landed at a US military base in Djibouti. They spent six weeks imprisoned in a shipping container until the Supreme Court cleared the way for their removal to South Sudan, where they arrived on July 4, 2025.
The men have been held at a government-owned house since then, where they had little contact with the outside world. Phan expressed gratitude to the South Sudanese government for treating him well upon his release last Friday (see the second half of the video below), but it must be stressed that he had government officials sitting on either side of him at the time.
I've confirmed that the soft-spoken Phan has arrived in Vietnam and hope to learn more about the ordeal ICE inflicted upon him when he's able to speak more freely.
Phan is the third of the eight men to be released. Five men – two from Cuba, two from Myanmar, and one from Laos – remain detained.
And in other positive news, Denver activists tell me their city council unanimously passed a measure that will help them hold accountable local airline Key Lime Air/Denver Air Connection for collaborating with ICE Air. I sent this letter to council members a few weeks ago.
I have done a lot of interviews recently. On June 14, I spoke with Chicago's Edwin Eisendrath for his WCPT 820 radio show "It's the Democracy, Stupid."
You can listen to that here or watch it here.
On June 11, I talked to The Contrarian's Tim Dickinson. You can watch or read the transcript on their Substack, or on YouTube below. (Please forgive the obnoxious share image, they have to do it for the algo.)
And on June 10, I talked to guest host Joe Sudbay on SiriusXM's "The Dean Obeidallah Show," which you can listen to here.
I was also quoted extensively in recent stories from the Dublin Inquirer and the Guardian, which you can read here:
And I've refreshed and reorganized the Third-Country Removal Tracker. If you haven't taken a look at it for awhile, check it out.
But what has taken up most of my time recently is my new podcast – called "Worst Airline Ever" – that I'm co-hosting with the flight-tracking activist who goes by "JJ in DC." I don't know about you, but I get most of my news from podcasts, so I hope this will be another avenue to get the word out about ICE flights and third-country removals, what makes them so messed up, and what we can do about them.
You can listen to it here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Patreon | Overcast
We also hope this will become another revenue stream so we can continue tracking ICE flights full time. Both of us have been pulling from our retirement funds to sustain our work, and our financial situations are getting increasingly precarious, his even more than mine.
You can support the podcast on Patreon here:
We will probably be adding ads soon, but Patreon subscribers will always have ad-free episodes.
Lastly, please indulge me with a little personal note. Today, June 25, I am celebrating 19 years of continuous sobriety. When I was only a few days sober, my shrink at the time – the one who suggested I might go talk to some people who had stopped drinking – asked me how I felt.
"I feel really young," I said.
Which is hilarious now, because I was young, I was only 26! But what I meant was that I felt like a novice, inexperienced in a way I hadn't felt for a long time.
"How old do you feel? What age?" she asked me.
"Nineteen."
"How old were you when you really started drinking?"
I gasped. "Nineteen!"
It felt like she'd performed a magic trick, but I soon learned that substance use disorders stunt your personal growth. Whatever maturing I might have done in the course of my early adulthood, the regular slings and arrows of building a life, I couldn't do as long as my alcoholism had me in its grip.
So now, 19 years later, I can say that in sobriety my vocation has been characterized by a series of comings into my own – first as a flight attendant with a self-pitying blog who had to relearn how to like people, then as a journalism student learning the tools of the people-are-interesting trade; as a morning radio producer refining my precision; as a video editor reveling in the subtle art of editing with flair; and as a staff writer on the history beat, where I felt a profound sense of purpose but also increasingly constrained.
The past year has been a revelation – all these different layers are actually puzzle pieces! – and the tabs and sockets are clicking into place. I have never felt more purposeful in my work or as capable in doing it. The puzzle isn't done, I don't know where this all leads, and I have not arrived yet at something secure or sustainable. But I'm deeply grateful that, one day at a time for 6,941 days, I've gotten to be here.
Thank you for reading. I am a former Washington Post staff writer, and as far as I know, I’m the only journalist in America covering ICE flights full time. I am committed to keeping this reporting non-paywalled, but if you are able, please sign up for a paid subscription or send me a one-time tip, so I can continue this important work. –Gillian
