One Refugee’s Journey Through ICE Detention

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and the New Yorker. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Jonathan Blitzer, I'm a staff writer at the New Yorker. This is a special episode of our program today. I've covered immigration for more than a decade.

And I think it's pretty clear that immigration is the defining political issue of our time, beyond all the other disruptions of the Trump administration. When Trump launched his twenty sixteen campaign. He blamed Mexico for sending rapists, drug dealers, and criminals across the border. There was the Muslim ban, family separation. A whole host of radical actions.

But the current term has made the first one seem almost quaint. Trying to overturn birthright citizenship. Racially profiling US citizens. jailing tens of thousands of immigrants in appalling conditions. And then there's been nearly two dozen shootings by immigration agents.

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