Unsettled: Immigration in Turbulent Times
Episode 9: A Quiet Border and the End of Asylum?
This episode looks at the US-Mexico border, exploring questions such as: are the policies of the Trump administration legal? Where have the record numbers of migrants gone? Have the crises that contributed to the surges of asylum seekers–surges that also occurred during Trump 1.0, and the Obama years– abated? Can current circumstances be sustained through enforcement alone?
Our guest speakers are Lee Gelernt, Deputy Director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, and Gretchen Kuhner, Director El Instituto para las Mujeres en la Migración, a Mexican NGO that seeks to protect the rights of migrant women and families.
Guest Speakers
Lee Gelernt
Deputy Director, ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project
Gretchen Kuhner
Co-Founder and Director of the Institute for Women in Migration
Episode Transcript
Read the transcript for episode 9.
Show Notes
Executive Order, Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion (Jan. 20, 2025)
RAICES v. Noem (D.D.C. July 2025)
Complaint, Al Otro Lado v. Trump (filed June 11, 2025)
Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, Can Near-Historic Low Migrant Encounter Levels at the U.S.-Mexico Border be Sustained? (Migration Policy Institute, June 2025)
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