Advertise on podcast: Unsettled: Immigration in Turbulent Times

This episode revisits birthright citizenship, both the Supreme Court’s opinion and Trump v. Barbara, and the more recent executive orders where the Trump Administration, once again, tries to take a whack at birthright citizenship.

This episode takes a comprehensive look at the first year and a half of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. How different or similar are the policies and actions we’re seeing today compared with earlier times in U.S. history? What do these scores of changes add up to?

This episode looks at two cases that the Supreme Court heard in March and April of this year: Noem v. Al Otro Lado and Trump v. Barbara. They’re significant cases that address very different aspects of immigration and citizenship.

This episode looks at immigration detention in the second Trump administration. The administration has been greatly expanding detention facilities by buying warehouses to be converted into eight large-scale detention facilities, with the goal of having these facilities operational by the end of September of this year. The administration intends to use military procurement to speed up this transformation.

This episode reflects on immigration enforcement in the United States from the perspective of civil liberties, assessing the broader implications of contemporary enforcement practices for constitutional rights and the rule of law.

Elora Mukherjee, Jerome L. Greene Clinical Professor Law at Columbia Law School, joins Alex Aleinikoff and Hiroshi Motomura to discuss her December 2025 op-ed in the New York Times, “I’m an Immigration Lawyer. Trump Is Shattering My Clients’ Lives” and the broader context around immigration law in our current moment. Please note: this episode begins with a discussion of the events in Minneapolis, but was recorded prior to the Janaury 24, 2026 shooting of Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis, MN.

David J. Bier, Director of Immigration Studies and The Selz Foundation Chair in Immigration Policy at the Cato Institute, joins Hiroshi Motomura and Cristina Rodriguez to discuss the implications of 2025 Executive Order on H-1B visas, what might be motivating that Executive Order, and the ins and outs of economic, labor, and employment migration.

Jon Blitzer, staff writer for The New Yorker, discusses his recent article in the magazine, “Enemies of the State: How the Trump Administration declared war on Venezuelan migrants in the U.S.” In telling the story of a Venezuelan couple living in Chicago, one of whom was sent to CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador, and one deported to Venezuela, Blitzer lays bare the unconscionable policies of the Administration. He also describes his reporting on Aurora, Colorado, the city visited by Trump during the 2024 campaign and where Trump announced his plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act.

Immigration was a salient issue in the 2024 presidential election and that it hurt Democrats. Arrivals and entries had skyrocketed under Biden. The so-called Biden “reset” late in his administration was to deter asylum claims at the border, work with Mexico and other countries to prevent flows, open up alternative legal pathways, including large parole programs for designated nationalities. But the efforts to close the border came too late, and they left very few people persuaded. And Democrats again were lambasted as the open border party, and overall support for US immigration policies seemed to be shifting. However, the Trump administration has overreached. Even among Republicans, the change in sentiment is noteworthy. Can the Democrats can come up with a narrative and a set of policies that can appeal to a wide swath of the American public. But what should those policies be? And can the Democrats shed the label as the party of open borders? Our guest speaker is Frank Sharry, a longtime advocate and policy expert.

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.