Tempest Tossed

According to a new book by Ruth Milkman, the frequently heard argument that immigrants undercut wages and conditions for US workers gets it exactly backwards: deteriorating wage levels and working conditions drive US workers from jobs that employers then seek to fill with immigrant labor. Professor Milkman joins Alex Aleinikoff for a discussion of Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat.

Jessica Goudeau discusses her new book, After the Last Border, in which she tells the stories of two refugee women--Mu Naw from Myanmar and Hasna from Syria--and the promise and problems of the US resettlement program.

Law professors Adam Cox (NYU) and Cristina Rodriguez (Yale) offer a revisionist view of presidential authority in their new book The President and Immigration Law. Through authority delegated by federal statutes as well as power to decide who among a population of more than 10 million undocumented migrants should be removed or permitted to stay, the President, they argue, is in fact a "co-principal" with Congress in the making of U.S. immigration law and policy.

For migrants, the border is no longer just a physical place at the edge of a country: states have found ways to push their borders outward and collapse them inward, and to rely on new technology to monitor migrants wherever they are located. These developments challenge theories of state sovereignty and force rethinking of traditional debates in migration studies. Ayelet Shachar, law professor at the University of Toronto, discusses her new book, The Shifting Border.

NYU Professor Alina Das discusses with Alex Aleinikoff her book No Justice in the Shadows: How America Criminalizes Immigrants--a powerful critique of this nation's mass deportation machinery and how it arose out of, and reflects, America's history of racially exclusionary immigration policies.

How did COVID-19 provide the Trump Administration the ‘silver bullet’ to accomplish long-standing immigration goals that in fact had little to with the pandemic? And why has COVID had a disproportionate impact on immigrant communities?

Trump immigration policies have spread fear through immigrant communities, threatening deportation of long-resident migrants and inflicting deep harms on family members who remain in the United States. Journalist Julia Preston and NYC Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs Bitta Mostofi assess the consequences.

Two Presidents have taken actions with dramatic consequences for more than 700,000 "Dreamers." Cecelia Munoz, domestic policy advisor to President Obama, discusses how DACA came to be; law professor Michael Olivas explains the Supreme Court opinion invalidating President Trump's order to end DACA; and DACA recipient Daniela Alulema tells us how these actions have affected her life.

Author and journalist Hector Tobar joins Alex Aleinikoff and Deb Amos to discuss the how "the Wall" and Latino immigration are shaping understanding of race and belonging in the United States.

How much of Trump's border wall has been built? Will it stop undocumented migration? What do people living in the border region think about it? Alex Aleinikoff and Deb Amos talk with Washington Post reporter Nick Miroff and DW Gibson, author of the recently published 14 Miles: Building the Border Wall.