Fresh Air

Mahmoud Khalil’s 104 days in ICE Detention

I was born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, holding temporary cards or ID cards. It was written on a temporary ID card for Palestinian refugees. Then when I fled to Lebanon, the same happened when I had to renew my residency every year because it was a temporary residency. So to be in the United States and for the first time in my life having, you know, something written on it permanent, it meant to me stability. It meant to me that I finally would have a chance to actually plan for more than next year or next month.

Fresh Air

Mahmoud Khalil’s 104 days in ICE Detention

But where was home? Syria, where I was born but couldn't return to? Germany, where my family lived but I had no right to stay? Algeria, where I had a passport but whose soil I barely knew? America, which had given me a green card and then snatched me off the street? Or Palestine, the only answer that ever felt true, the only place that ever made sense, even though I had never set foot there.

Throughline

The report that changed public education | It's Been a Minute

Americans become convinced that public school systems are the way to transform the immigrant poor into Americans. Look, we will build a school and we will transform society eventually through that school.

Book of the Day

Chang-Rae Lee on whether his new novel 'A Tender Age' is autobiographical

Everybody sizing one another up as being fresher off the boat, more foreign and weird. These were critical determinations, often coming down to the strangeness of some kid's sneakers or shirt or haircut. I don't recall any of the sort of taunting and name-calling we had at the apartment complex, but there was patent discrimination.

Code Switch

Trump is demanding English — while defunding ESL

So even before this executive order, if you wanted to do the thing Trump is asking for, which is to speak English, you were going to have to wait to learn how. But now they're just being told to do it without the funding for these classes.

Code Switch

How farm work became the exception to Trump's border crackdown | Code Switch

There's a common phrase in agriculture that's you either import your food or you import your labor. And, you know, no one wants to be reliant on other countries for our food supply, and automation is nowhere close to replacing human labor.

The New York Times

Why Ceuta's Residents Don't Want the Migration Crisis to Be Politicized

Scenes of mass migration events like this one have struck a nerve across Europe, where many politicians are hardening their immigration policies to appease the far right.

TED

“To My Bones” / “As the River Flows” / “In Dictum” | Wallis Bird | TED

Don't tell me borders are for jobs and civic order. When I know you see it differently, you want your pallet white. You want it clean.

The New York Times

Why Ceuta's Residents Don't Want the Migration Crisis to Be Politicized

Ceuta is a multicultural peninsula with a large Muslim population. Many of them are of Moroccan descent. Even residents who are concerned about the sudden influx of migrants still shouted away the far-right activists.

The New York Times

Why Thousands of Cubans Are Migrating to Guyana

We need the migrants as much as the migrants need us, and they are really filling huge gaps in the system.

Code Switch

The 'white genocide' myth is shaping immigration policy | Code Switch

The claims of persecution behind this refugee program are based on this wildly debunked far-right conspiracy about South Africa. That white farmers are being killed by gangs of black South Africans and that their land is being seized by the government.

Fresh Air

Julio Torres spins immigrant stress into satire

the fact that I would have $6,000 saved somewhere is just laughable. That's what it takes to renew the visa? I mean, when I was doing it, yeah, I don't doubt that it's more expensive now. In my experience, around $6,000, which includes the government fees, but also the fees for the lawyer that because it's such a complex system, you don't want to get rejected because you feel something wrong, and they certainly make it so you're dependent on lawyers.