#FilterTheNoise Podcast: On Immigration

This bonus episode provides tips on how to have a healthy discussion when speaking about topics that can be polarising, sensitive or with entrenched beliefs, including immigration. The five tips: Ask questions in order to learn and articulate others' point of views. This broadens your perspective and leads to a more fruitful discussion. Nuance and complexity should be the norm. Oversimplificat...

Conclusion to this series on immigration. The creator and presenter Jonathan shares his personal journey as he dug deep into the subject and challenged some of his assumptions. Through the voices of immigration officers in the UK - aiming to find a balance between doing their jobs and applying the rules while showing empathy and humanity to fellow humans - Jonathan highlights the need to tap into...

How would Isabel Allende, with her mixed identities and life experience, answer the question "Where are you from?" ? How much of our nationality fits into our identity? Are our identities defined by more than the lottery of where we are born? In a media landscape which often paints immigration as a problem, what if we changed the narrative around immigration and told a different story? S...

Integration is a word often associated with immigrants. If we can agree that more integration is a good thing, we often do not specify what we mean by it. This episode looks more deeply into integration, asking questions of what may be expected of immigrants, but also the role of the state in helping immigrants settle in. The approach has changed over the decades with integration seen today as a t...

🛠️ Immigrants come here and take away jobs from locals. 🩺 Immigrants abuse the welfare state. 🚨 Immigrants are a major source of crime. 🏘️ Immigrants increase the cost of housing. You may have heard statements like these before, elevated into the public conscience as fact, scapegoating immigrants for many of society's ills. Is there any truth to these statements? This episode looks at the da...

We often hear politicians speak of "controlling and limiting" immigration. The recent and short lived French Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, in an interview in September 2024, used those words himself, even going as far as saying that the numbers of immigrants coming to France had become "unbearable”. Meanwhile the French Interior, Bruno Retailleau, said in an interview the same mon...

Ever heard of the passport index? It ranks nationalities by mobility score, the ease of use in travelling to and living in other countries. What passports do you think are the best to possess? What happens when two passport holders, one at the top of the index and the other towards the middle, meet? We hear of the story of Nina, an immigrant from Ecuador living in Spain, and how her meeting with a...

Imagine you're at table with friends or family and you've entered "serious topic time". After talking about the latest headlines, conversation turns to immigration and the refugees coming into the EU. Suddenly, someone says: "We can't welcome everyone here!" How would you respond? This episode breaks this statement down... Do we actually "welcome everyone here&...

Do you know why the Mediterranean Sea has been dubbed "Europe's graveyard"? Andrea shares her work experience with Sea Watch, a civil search and rescue organization, on the island of Lampedusa. She provides a first hand account of the work they do in saving people in distress in the Mediterranean Sea. - How is this NGO treated by the EU? - What are the EU's policies towards peopl...

In the film The Terminal starring Tom Hanks, a man is unable to return to his native country because of a military coup and thus ends up in limbo, stateless, not recognised as a citizen of any country and living in an airport. Have you ever thought of stateless people, those not associated with any state? They face challenges in accessing basic rights and services such as education or health care,...

Hear the gripping story of Azad who was forced by the Taliban insurgents to flee Afghanistan in 2012, making his way to Europe through the known migrant routes. Eventually ending up in Belgium, he lived in the shadow of society for 10 years, working on the black for miserable pay with no access to basic healthcare, while not being able to rent a home legally or even open a bank account. His persev...

How many times when speaking on the topic of immigration have you used interchangeably migrant and immigrant? What about asylum seeker and refugee? Many misunderstandings in conversations stem from different comprehensions of a word. Words matter, because they invoke different feelings within us. Think of the words expat and immigrant. Which one, in your view, has a more positive connotation? We s...

Gently introduces you into the topic... Starting with a flow of negative words often associated with immigration! If you are a citizen in the EU, according to polls, there's a good chance that your view of immigration is somewhat negative or even hostile, a pale reflection of how immigrants are painted in the media and by politicians. They can play on the "group-threat theory", the i...