On immigration, "what if fear is the message?"
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Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
The business of incarceration and of detention, everywhere from the coyote to Dr. Phil's ratings, I think it's important to look at who is making that money.
I'm just absorbing what you just said.
I just, I can't with Dr. Phil. Sorry. There's something like almost Orwellian about like Dr. Phil interviewing migrants.
But you've never been deported before?
We got the Phil.
We got the Dr. Phil.
Yeah?
How do you know me?
Yes, you heard that right. Dr. Phil was in Chicago interviewing someone who was actively being arrested by ICE. This was a part of a ride-along operation with Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, amidst the president's much-promised crackdown on immigration. Now, there's been so much action in the president's first few days in office, it's been hard to keep up with the flurry of executive orders he's signed. But there was one in particular that set off alarm bells that could fundamentally change the definition of who's American.
We're the only country in the world... That does this with birthright, as you know. That's not true. Canada does that. Mexico does that. There's other countries who do this. You know, a lot of his executive actions that we've seen, the goal, it's to deter and to limit people from wanting to migrate to the United States at all.
an executive order aimed at changing who gets birthright citizenship. Now, birthright citizenship is protected by the Constitution and guarantees U.S. citizenship to any child born on U.S. soil, with the exception of very specific groups like, say, the children of foreign diplomats. It dates back to the period after the Civil War, when the 14th Amendment was revised to include all persons born or naturalized in the United States. It granted citizenship to newly emancipated Black Americans. And since then, it's changed the face of our nation.
The idea was determining who could and could not be American. I think there's this very similar push of wanting to determine what America looks like and who gets to be here and who gets to stay here.
There have been several attempts to challenge the rule. In fact, this isn't even the first time President Trump has tried to roll it back.
During Trump 1.0, his first administration, he said he was going to do this. The order never came down. And so since then, we have seen the idea of abolishing birthright citizenship move from this kind of like fringe idea into a little bit more of the main stage of the Republican Party during the election.
And even though a federal judge has already blocked President Trump's order, getting the order to stand might not have been the point at all.
The question that keeps coming up for me as a reporter over and over again is, what if the fear is the message?
My guests, NPR's immigration correspondent, Jasmine Garst. Hi. And NPR's Homeland Security Department and immigration policy reporter, Ximena Bustillo.
Hey.
Are here to break down what the battle for birthright says about our nation and who is already cashing in.
I think it's not just about who gets to stay here. It's also about who gets to live a life in peace here. And this sort of like permanent underclass that we have established, which goes back in history a very long time. Yeah.
The racial dynamics of this are hard to ignore. When I think about the popularity of like the white replacement theory, you know, this idea that there is a plot to, quote, replace white Americans with people of color. I mean, this used to be a fringe alt-right theory, but we've seen members of the GOP embrace elements of the, you know, white replacement theory.
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