REDIRECT: Immigration Law and Perspectives

This week on Redirect, Matthew tries to "both sides" the ongoing coup, we discuss what we can expect from a Biden administration, and more. 

This week we're joined by Austin Kocher (@ackocher) and we engage in some wild speculation about the next three months, what a Biden administration might do, and how best to advocate for those changes. We also recorded a live CLE with Alina Das (@Das_Alina), immigration activist, lawyer, and professor of law at NYU. Her book, No Justice in the Shadows: How America Criminalizes Immigrants, is a mus...

This week we're joined by immigration attorney Matt Cameron to discuss the last presidential debate and the 545 children (that we know of) whose parents cannot be located. 

This week we're joined by Holly Cooper (@abogadatejana), co-director UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic, to talk about the Inspector General's report on family separation at the border. Spoiler alert! Turns out cruelty was the point all along!  Also, the administration is slated to expand the use of "expedited removal." This is a process that could have devastating and lasting consequences for thousa...

This week we're joined by Austin Kocher (@ackocher) to discuss what we could reasonably expect from a second Trump term or a Biden administration. We also note, completely without celebration and always mindful of our tone, that the President has contracted COVID-19. 

Not  everything  is terrible these days, just  practically  everything. This week Matthew and i discuss wrestling with few changes, forced hysterectomies, and the passing of Justice Ginsberg. if you enjoy the show, throw a few dollars our way over at patreon.com/redirect

This week Matthew and I reflect on 9/11, Paul Krugman's comments that we reacted like it was NBD, the agency that was born out of the tragedy (DHS) and the mistakes we made in the aftermath. 

This week we're joined by  Austin Kocher (@ackocher) , researcher at TRAC, to discuss the details and implications of their ongoing research on how COVID-19 is affecting the immigration court system. You can follow the fine work of TRAC over at the Twitter, @TRACreports.  We'll be posting more updates at our Patreon page , and the website ! Did you know we have merch? It's true. Buy a sticker . 

This week we're joined by Professor Laura Briggs to talk about her book, Taking Children. Professor Briggs is an expert on U.S. and international child welfare policy and on transnational and transracial adoption, and an excellent podcast guest. Taking Children argues that for four hundred years the United States has taken children for political ends. Black children, Native children, Latinx childr...

This week we're joined by Jessica Goudeau, author of After the Last Border, to talk about her book and the slow destruction of the refugee resettlement program. Go buy her book at your local bookstore! Jessica Goudeau has written for  The New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Teen Vogue,  among many other places, and is a former columnist for  Catapult.  She produced pr...

This week we're joined by Michael Kagan, Professor of Law at the University of Las Vegas Nevada. We talk to him about his book, The Battle to Stay in America.  Michael Kagan directs the Immigration Clinic and teaches administrative law, professional responsibility, international human rights and immigration law.  In both his research and his clinical teaching, Prof. Kagan focuses on the tension be...

This week it's a crossover with Jeff from Georgia and the Dissident Peasant podcast. Check out his patreon here . Follow Jeff on Twitter, @jeffhisdudeness.  Jeff Sessions embodies many of the pressing issues of our time: crumbling confederate relics, voter suppression, and racist immigration policies. While his political career may be over, his project lives on. 

This week we're joined by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) from the American Immigration Council to talk about how we're ignoring the law when it comes to appointing heads of DHS, Customs and Border Protection (or is it patrol?), what's going on in Portland, and why we need a healthy dose of skepticism when it comes to anything coming from DHS. CBP did an oopsies and lied in federal court...

This week we're joined by Robin Thurston from Democracy Forward to talk about sneaky changes made by the administration at the Department of Labor designed to make it harder for immigrants to get U-Visas.  Robin Thurston is a Democracy Forward senior counsel. Robin is the lead attorney on the U visa litigation. You can check out her bio here . Democracy Forward is suing the administration to stop...

This week we're joined by Matt Cameron (@matt_cam) and Andrew Free (@immcivilrights) to talk about furloughs at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and the critical role of FOIA.  The #DetentionKills network published #FOIA records from ICE that prove the government and its auditors have failed to accurately report and document attempts by people in custody to commit suicide in...

This week we're joined by Amy Maldonado to talk about Trump's latest immigration ban, what's going on with DACA and USCIS, and the recent decision by SCOTUS. It's hard to keep up with all the changes, and I think that's the point. 

This week we're joined by immigration attorney extraordinaire Luis Cortes to talk about his recent victory before the Supreme Court in the DACA case. The program survives, but what does it mean moving forward? Will the administration try to, you know, do a competent job in dismantling it a second time? Will new applicants be able to apply? All this and more on this week's Redirect.  Become a patro...

This week we're joined by Valeria Gomez and Tanvi Misra to discuss the DOJ's efforts to purge the Board of Immigration Appeals, and proposed regulatory changes that would effectively end asylum protections in the U.S.  Tanvi Misra (@tanvim) is an immigration reporter at Roll Call, you can also find her  great work at www.tanvimisra.com. You can read about the DOJ's BIA purge here: https://www.roll...

This week we're joined by Dulce Gutierrez to discuss the ongoing agricultural worker strikes in Central Washington. Dulce works at the Washington State Labor Council and has been helping to spread the word about the strikes on her Facebook page. Hundreds of striking workers are demanding PPE and hazard pay at a series of different warehouses throughout the Yakima area. You can support the workers...

This week Matthew and I discuss the ongoing protests against police brutality. Have the actions of Amy Cooper and the death of George Floyd served as a kind of tipping point? What reforms, if any, will come from this?   

This week we're joined by Max Siegelbaum, Co-founding Editor and Senior Reporter at Documented, to talk about his experience covering the New York Immigration Courts. 

This week Matthew and I talk about how people aren't grateful enough for how good things were just before they got bad.  The Board of Immigration Appeals continues to pick fights with unrepresented individuals.  Immigration laws, who is "legal" and who is "not," continues to be a totally random and arbitrary outcome based on a patchwork of mostly bad laws.  The Justice Department decides not to pu...

This week we're joined by Luis Cortes to discuss Trump's new Immigration Ban, meat packing plants, and trying to stagger our panic attacks so we can be there for each other. 

This week Matthew and I talk about what's happening at the immigrant detention centers where symptomatic detainees are denied COVID-19 tests.  We also talk about the upcoming election. It is possible to be completely void of enthusiasm for a Biden presidency, to recognize his many flaws, and to also understand the unique threat that is a second Trump term. We try to highlight the differences betwe...

This week Matthew and I are joined by Davorin Odrcic and Leo de la Garza, fellow immigration attorneys in Milwaukee and Austin, to discuss how the social distancing is affecting our clients, and whether they will continue to be demonized despite working in "essential" jobs that are, you know, keeping us alive.