The Truth About ICE, with Jason Houser
From calls to abolish ICE to deeply held misconceptions about immigration and criminality, few agencies generate more heat and less light than Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Jason Houser served as ICE Chief of Staff and joins us to sort out truth from fiction: Why is the Trump administration redirecting criminal law enforcement agents to civil deportation work? Is that akin to defunding the police? How many ICE officers actually need to be armed? And what should the future of this agency look like?
Who’s Afraid of the H-1B?
The H-1B is a white-collar work visa, essentially unchanged by Congress since 1990 – before the birth of the first text message, the first website, and 40% of our population. Is the H-1B program an essential step on the far-too-difficult road from international student to new American? Is it a fair object for good-faith criticism and reform? And is it an increasingly loud dog-whistle for ugly nativist rhetoric? Yes. We’ll also take the shine off Trump’s Gold Card scheme, explain why Elon Musk did not in fact “go to war” on the H-1B issue, and field a few excellent questions from our kids.
DACA and the Dreamer Movement, with Felicia Escobar Carrillo
You may know about the plight of Dreamers – over 3 million undocumented individuals who were brought here as children and are Americans in every way but immigration status. And you may know about DACA, the Obama-era policy that has allowed 800,000 Dreamers to pursue higher education, military service, and life out of the shadows. But a quarter-century after the DREAM Act was first introduced, Congress still hasn’t provided permanent relief for Dreamers, and DACA is under threat. Felicia Escobar Carrillo was Special Assistant to the President for Immigration Policy in the Obama White House, and tells the story of how DACA was created – after intensive organizing by Dreamers who continue to carry the torch today.
The Heartbreak of Immigration Reform, with Esther Olavarria
Everyone knows that our immigration system is broken, so why hasn’t Congress fixed it for over 35 years? What you may not know is how close we came to comprehensive immigration reform – not once, not twice, but four times. Esther Olavarria was one of the foremost people working behind the scenes to make it happen, first as a staffer to Senator Ted Kennedy and later as a senior official under President Obama. This is her eyewitness account – of hope and despair, war rooms and whip counts, and honest answers on why it’s so hard for Congress to get the job done.
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