What is the price of freedom of expression in the land of the free? A US visa, citizenship maybe? Do you consider your online identity and associations as an accurate representation of your true values? And somewhere, the constitution has to fit into this equation. To help work out this math we welcome Erickson Immigration Group attorney Ryan M. Knight.

Today is a special episode — we are celebrating the Immigration Nerds podcast's first anniversary! We started in a tiny room with a few attorneys and a producer, all of us racking our brains to tackle the day. We now have a guest list and audience that is truly worldwide.

We are humbled have the brightest minds in immigration sit down with us, and especially thank Dave Bier, Laura D. Francis, Ian Kullgren, and Claudia Cubas for being our first five guests. You were truly our guinea pigs, and we thank you for trusting in us. Over the next few months,we will release a few bonus episodes titled “A Year in Immigration” highlighting the special guests that have brought context and insight into the immigration issues during 2019.

This week was filled with news of consecutive restrictive measures taken place within immigration. To make sense of the week and to address what is being done about it, we brought in a dedicated advocate within the space, Greg Chen. Greg is the Director of Government Relations for American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). He directs his team in congressional advocacy, legislative reform, and interacting with major government agencies providing services to over 16,000 AILA lawyers to help make sure their cases with families and agencies are handled appropriately.

The idea of denying outsiders based upon their likelihood of success in America is an enforcement, that predates immigration law itself. It’s the question of, are you likely to be a burden on society or not? In history, the faces and nationalities of who America deemed capable of carrying their weight, has changed throughout time. So today we take a historical approach to the idea and welcome History professor Hidetaka Hirota from Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan. We discuss how culture, religion, and race have explicitly been used to determine who would be a drain on society within the eyes of ruling America.

BONUS EPISODE: 4-6 million Venezuelan’s have fled the country to date, nearly 20% of the entire country's population. Brookings Institution’s Dany Bahar details the surrounding political, social and economic conditions responsible for this mass migration, and what it means for the Venezuelan people, government and neighboring countries.

David M. Rubenstein Fellow, Dany Bahar, from Brookings Institution, joins Immigration Nerds.

How do you quantify the economic value of cultural knowledge? The ability to share one's unique know-how within the marketplace which ultimately leads to new innovations. How would you collect this hand full of intangibles and somehow alchemize it into numbers, graphs, and powerpoints? Dany is tackling just that. Through his studies and research, we discuss the more implicit factors of how migrants contribute to economic growth in a nation.

Who is the man now charged with carrying the weight of an entire country, and holding the keys to its destiny. A man of the people? Or a product of the institution? Legal Writer Kahn Branch joins again, giving us an update on Brexits status and what their new prime ministers plans for it.

Storm Estep, Senior Attorney for Erickson immigration group joins the podcast. Over the past several weeks we have been bombarded with Immigration updates and news, and rather than do a separate episode for each topic we decided to condense all into one. We cover HR 1044 and how it will affect application times. Trump’s asylum plan, the latest in the proposed Safe Third Country agreement with Guatemala and Lastly congress’s attempt to tackle processing delays.

Today we are joined by Taylor Gibson, Law Clerk for Erickson Immigration Group. We discuss her week as a volunteer working with unaccompanied minors at the border. Through her account, we enter the lives and stories of those separated from their families and explore fully the conditions they’re currently living in. Sometimes, to properly appreciate a circumstance, we need someone to take our hand and guide us through reality. Timely and proper insight.

Director of Immigration Advocacy at Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Megan Essaheb, joins the podcast.

We talk about how new immigration policies are introduced and advocated for in Congress. In addition, we touch upon the latest in humanitarian aid at the border and how her organization works to stay at the forefront of influencing immigration legislation.

From grassroots to the Hill AAJC covers the full spectrum.