Season 2 (2024): Episode 6, “The Border Inside: Notes from Belgrade and El Paso”

It might seem strange for a podcast about displacement in the Middle East to suddenly pivot to two other continents. But that’s exactly what we’re doing here! In Belgrade, Serbia, Zach talks to his friend Zaki, who left Afghanistan to seek safety in Europe. And from El Paso, TX, USA, Zach speaks to Jesús de la Torre and Aimée Santillán of the HOPE Border Institute to reflect on what’s happening at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The point of this journey is to see how migration policies around the world are interconnected. Too many governments have bought into the same erroneous philosophy: the idea that a security response can answer humanitarian and political questions. How can we rethink migration, and our policy approach to it, so that displaced people can restart their lives again, meaningfully and on their own terms? 

Background reading