Yes, youʼve heard about the family separations. Youʼve heard about the travel ban. But there are dozens of ways the Trump administration is cracking down on immigration across many agencies, sometimes in ways so small and technical it doesnʼt make headlines. This week, the quiet bureaucratic war that’s even targeting legal immigrants.
-
Download Control-click (or right-click) Tap and hold to download
- Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe in Apple Podcasts Subscribe
- Transcript
Names have been blurred to protect people’s identities.
Ira Glass / This American Life
Note: The internet version of this episode contains un-beeped curse words. BEEPED VERSION.
Prologue
Host Ira Glass goes to Tijuana, Mexico where people trying to come to the U.S. asking for asylum have devised a new way to keep track of their place in line. (11 minutes)
Cindy Carcamo first wrote about this story for the Los Angeles Times.
All Together Now
Reporter Julia Preston goes to a mass hearing in McAllen, Texas where 74 immigrants are being charged in a federal courtroom as a result of zero tolerance. Julia is a contributing writer for The Marshall Project, which published a print version of this story. (13 minutes)
Kitchen Sink
All the little and not-so-little ways the Trump administration is tightening its scrutiny of immigrants. (9 minutes)
The Terminators
A bunch of government emails recently came out as part of a class-action lawsuit. The emails show new appointees trying to roll back one particular part of immigration policy that could result in half a million people having to leave the United States. Producer Nadia Reiman takes us inside the world of these emails. (10 minutes)
Now IRC Me, Now You Don’t
The President has cut the number of refugees officially allowed into the U.S. So a bunch of refugee resettlement offices are shutting down. Producer Zoe Chace goes to one of these offices that’s about to close. (10 minutes)
Why So Few
Refugee resettlement policy changed dramatically from the first week President Trump took office. In that first travel ban, the president halted the entire refugee resettlement program, until we could, in his words from the campaign, "Figure out what the hell is going on." Producer Zoe Chace has the story of the group tasked to figure out what the hell was going on, and why the number of refugees resettling is the lowest in the history of the program.
Related
Act One: Goodbye, Stranger
Act Two: This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land. Or Maybe Not.
Act One: Tornado Prom
Staff Recommendations
Amusement Park
We head to some of the happiest places on earth: amusement parks!
129 Cars
One car dealership tries to make its monthly quota: 129 cars. It is way more chaotic than we expected.