REDIRECT: Drug Wars and Sanctuary Cities

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Guy Lawson

This week Guy Lawson joins us to talk about the ongoing drug war in Mexico. Guy is a journalist and author who covered the subject extensively for Rolling Stone. Even though his work on the subject is a few years old, the “escape” of El Chapo shows us that sometimes the more things change the more they stay the same.

Guy’s newest book, Arms and the Dudes, is available in a bookstore near you and (spoiler alert) it’s awesome. Guy also makes an excellent follow on facebook, so check him out.

 

Also joining us is Cesar Hernandez of crimmigration.com. We talk about sanctuary cities in light of the recent events in San Francisco.

Matthew and I also dig into some of the more wonky immigration news, for example, Donald Trump’s terrible hats. Enjoy!

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07/25/2015: The Week in Review

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Wow, what a week in immigration.

Last week Matthew and I talked about Donald Trump and how his whole existence teeters between “depressing” and “hilarious.” I’ve decided to quantify this with an official DONALD SCALE (TM):

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For example, when I’m driving to work and I hear people in my community call the local AM talk radio station to talk about how Donald Trump has “tapped in to something important,” and that he’s “in touch with the real” America, that’s a -8 on the Donald Scale. Very, very depressing.

When Donald Trump gives out Lindsay Graham’s telephone number at a fundraiser, well, that’s Donald being a straight up 10.


But it’s not all fun and games. According to the polls Donald Trump is squarely in 1st place for the Republican nomination. He got there by running a fear-based, anti-immigrant campaign. This last week he went down to the border, wore a terrible hat, and continued to promote his super-awesome TRUMP WALL (TM).

This week’s Trump Score: -2

But it’s not all bad news. Yesterday a Federal District Court Judge delivered a major blow to the Administration’s family detention policies. This should be good news for Matthew and all this liberal, hippy friends who think “detaining” “women” and “children” is a “bad idea.”

Speaking of Matthew, he won a big case yesterday and you should all congratulate him. For real. Nice work.

Last week Democratic presidential candidates Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders were shouted down by Black Lives Matter activists. My feelings on this have evolved over the last few days. At first I felt like the criticism of the candidates (especially Bernie Sanders) was a bit unfair, and as progressives we should be careful about division amongst our ranks.

But what was the outcome here? O’Malley, Sanders, and even Clinton immediately began talking about Black Lives Matter. So it worked. They were compelled to respond to the controversy surrounding the arrest and death of Sandra Bland. These politicians do not answer to these issues unless we absolutely force them to. So much respect to Black Lives Matter, an important movement at an important time.

REDIRECT: Evenwel v. Abbott and More

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chemerinskyThis week the one and only Erwin Chemerinsky joins us to talk about Evenwel v. Abbott, a Supreme Court case with huge implications for the immigrant community.

Professor Chemerinsky was very kind, and (spoiler alert) he said he’d be happy to come back “any time.” Sorry, Matthew. I think I found a new co-host. :-/

In the interview I mention a Yakima City Councilman, Dave Ettl, who wrote this piece about how only U.S. Citizens should be counted when drawing districts. He says it’s a simple question of math. Not so fast, says Professor Chemerinsky.

A few weeks ago Donald Trump was hilarious. It seems like now he’s just depressing. Sure, there’s this:

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But then there’s this:

A guy says some racist stuff, gets catapulted to #1 in the polls, and suddenly everyone is comfortable coming out and being dramatically racist. Steve King never really had a problem with that in the first place, but there’s something terribly, terribly depressing about watching the immigration debate go from “How many of the 12 million deserve a path to citizenship?” to “What percentage of Mexicans are actually rapists?”
What’s not depressing is when Louie Gohmert talks about ISIS training camps south of the border. I feel like ISIS: Mexico deserves it’s own nickname. MexSIS? ISICO? I dunno. Just spit-balling here.

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