A Democrat and a Republican in Congress on the Blowback from Mass Detention
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Jonathan Blitzer, sitting in today for David Remnick.
How did the episode introduce the controversy over Trump’s immigration crackdown?
Today, we're looking at the controversies over immigration in Trump's second term. The enforcement crackdown has been in the headlines almost every week. Just recently, there were two fatal shootings by ICE of unarmed people in a single week. The crackdown has been broadly unpopular, and I wanted to talk with lawmakers in both parties who are dealing with its consequences. I started with Jason Crow. He's a Democratic congressman from Colorado. His district was at the center of some of Trump's most inflammatory rhetoric during the 2024 election, the claim that the city of Aurora, Colorado, had been taken over by a Venezuelan gang. Jason Crow is an Army veteran and a lawyer. He's also the Democratic Party's recruitment co-chair for the midterm elections.
So he's an important voice in helping candidates figure out what to say, and particularly how to talk about an issue where Democrats have been on the back foot. Talk to me about your district, because your district has sort of been ground zero for a few different plot lines. I mean, I'm thinking most recently of the recent influx of Venezuelan migrants in particular and the misinformation spread by Trump on the campaign trail.
Yeah, which is which is all BS. It is. So, Aurora is the core of my district. It's about half my population, and it is one of the most diverse cities in the country. And the fact that Donald Trump would try to use it to demonize immigrants and refugees to, you know, serve as a pretext for his mass deportation and tell lies about this gang takeover, which never happened. We, like many communities, have had criminal gang issues. Mm-hmm. But the vast majority of it are domestic gangs, not transnational gangs. And it's being dealt with. It is being dealt with by local law enforcement. It has been. But, you know, in so many instances, it's not based on the reality. It's the opposite of the reality in our case.
So we pushed back very, very hard. And those local elected officials who actually joined with Trump to perpetuate that narrative all got beat in the election because our community was like, enough is enough. We're not going to sit here and take that.
Why are Democrats seen as not being the party with answers on immigration?
Well, Democrats did have a chance to do bigger things than immigration and we didn't. And what is clear is that.
Why is Aurora, Colorado, central to Jason Crow’s argument about misinformation?
we weren't able to hold conflicting views or what might seem like conflicting views, but they're really not at the same time, right? We should be able to say that it's important that we have secure borders, right? The vast majority of Americans agree with that. Why can't we say that, right? And at the same time as we must also be able to say, we are going to enforce the laws against violent criminals, right? If there are violent criminals, immigrant criminal organizations, we will go after those. But that is a very small portion, obviously. The vast majority of violent crime in America is domestic-related violent crime. But we have to be able to say those things, to have credibility, to then take the next step and say we want a system based on dignity and humanity, and we want a pathway to citizenship for people that are here, living, working, following the rules, who want to be and will be great Americans.
Right. But you have to take that first step to have the credibility to take the next steps.
And did you feel like during, say, the Biden years, the party didn't take that first step to a sufficient degree?
I absolutely feel that. Absolutely. In the Biden campaign, and don't get me wrong, I'm a proud Democrat and I supported the president's campaign, but they were going to come and do an event in Colorado. And the request was, don't talk about immigration. We're not going to talk about the immigration issue. I said, what do you mean we're not going to talk about the immigration issue? It's the single biggest issue in my community. We just had 30,000 Venezuelan immigrants surge into Colorado, the largest number, more than Philadelphia and L.A.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–0:07
2
How did the episode introduce the controversy over Trump’s immigration crackdown?
0:07–2:39
3
Why is Aurora, Colorado, central to Jason Crow’s argument about misinformation?
2:39–10:26
4
How does Jason Crow explain Democrats’ messaging failures on immigration?
10:26–19:04