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.
In This Episode
- Intro
- Who is Felicia Escobar Carrillo?
- Doug does his best Simpsons Teenager voice
- Felicia cuts her teeth in Texas
- “It’s very easy to testify at a state hearing”
- Plyler v. Doe and the right to education
- Organizing for the DREAM Act
- The bravery of undocumented youth speaking up
- The tenacity of Sen. Dick Durbin
- How to work in the White House while finishing law school
- The nailbiter DREAM Act vote of 2010
- Obama comforts his team: “We’re gonna get there”
- Why didn’t the DREAM Act pass?
- Doug can’t stop ranting against the filibuster…
- …and nativists
- Dreamers keep getting deported under Obama
- What can we get done without Congress?
- The White House gets serious
- What makes DACA legal?
- Obama announces DACA in the Rose Garden
- The 60-day sprint to get DACA running
- Implementation Day
- The amazing stories of individual Dreamers
- Congress still has to act
- Conclusion – “for anyone out there who’s just paralyzed by cynicism…”
Learn More
Amanda, Claire, and Doug express their own personal opinions on The Melting Pod. This episode was produced by Michael Palmer (palmer.media). Read more about the topics in this episode:
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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.
Next EpisodeWho’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.