Caitlin Dickerson

Thank you for having me.

It's an honor.

Okay, so obviously there's a lot that is novel that Donald Trump is doing on interior enforcement of our immigration laws right now.

But if I think about your question, most of what we're seeing and most of the issues, frankly, that the public is taking with the current system come from many, many presidents ago.

What do you mean?

I think you're probably alluding, tell me if I have this right, but to DHS, to the creation of DHS out of 9-11.

You could even go back a little bit further.

So basically, just gonna rush through it quickly.

1986, we have Ronald Reagan's amnesty policy, and it's intended to give the United States a clean slate.

So it offers a pathway to citizenship for most people who'd been living in the United States without status.

It was supposed to be paired with border security.

And then we get a fresh start.

But of course, that never happened because the border remained porous.

People continued coming to the United States to work for jobs that largely don't have visas available.

But when 9-11 happens, the focus becomes anti-terrorism and anti-terrorism kind of

becomes equated or synonymous with immigration enforcement.

And so you have this highly funded federal agency that's created, DHS, and then underneath it, ICE, and law enforcement officers who are told, the country's safety is in your hands.

You have to protect us from terrorists.

But the way that you have to do it is by doing work-a-day immigration enforcement on the ground and deporting people from the United States.

Even though the two have really never had that much in common with one another, people working in the United States illegally and anti-terrorism.