John Oliver Says ICE Assertion That Detention Is “Nonpunitive” Is Like Claiming ‘Wicked’ Wasn’t Too Long: “Undercut By Empirical Evidence”

deadline.com:

For his main topic of the evening, Last Week Tonight host John Oliver delved into ICE detention centers, exploring the various ethical and legal issues revolving around detaining undocumented immigrants for uncertain periods of time.

At one point, the political comic quipped that ICE’s website’s assertion that their holding facilities are “nonpunitive” was “like claiming … the Wicked movie wasn’t 30 minutes too long.

It is a bold assertion sharply undercut by empirical evidence.” Elsewhere during the segment, Oliver addressed Democrats’ floundering to meet the current political moment, saying that opposition members like U.S.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are failing to “harness outrage” from constituents. Addressing Slotkin’s Democratic response to president Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress, Oliver questioned her slamming of POTUS by uplifting Ronald Reagan: “I will admit, there are some positive things you can say about Reagan, like he was our only president to make a movie with a chimp or he’s dead, but his moral clarity might come as a surprise to any gay people who lived through the 1980s.