Though Wisconsin hasn’t been faced with the major ICE raids as we’ve seen in LA, Chicago, and Minneapolis, there is growing concern that ICE will arrive in Wisconsin. Governor Evers said this week that the state is preparing for this inevitability. To talk about ICE raids and the larger context of anti-immigrant sentiment in the US, host Allen Ruff is joined by Armando Ibarra.

Ibarra works with Voces de la Frontera, an organization with deep roots in Wisconsin. Founded in 1994, the organization responded to the displacement of people from NAFTA. Over the years Voces has helped more than 16,500 families create “family disruption plans” and has held “know your rights” sessions for more than 30,000 people across Wisconsin. Voces de la Frontera will be holding its annual assembly this weekend.

Ibarra also discusses the US as a land of immigrants in a land of anti-immigrants, from colonization, Westward expansion, and the Chinese Exclusion Act, to the present. Ibarra says that the US is no longer pretending not to be an empire, as we’ve seen with the Trump administration’s aggression in Latin America.

They also discuss the Supreme Court ruling that legitimizes racial profiling, the reframing of protest as “domestic terrorism,” the rise of state-sanctioned violence against immigrants, and the 287(g) programs that deputize local law enforcement to act as immigration agents.

Voces organizes a 24-7 emergency ICE hotline at 1-800-427-0213.

Armando Ibarra is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the School for Workers. He’s the co-author of the award winning book, The Latino Question: Politics, Labouring Classes and the Next Left.

Featured image of the mural “Labor Solidarity has no Borders” (1992) by Mike Alewitz via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The post A Land of Immigrants or a Land of Anti-Immigrants? appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

It takes the average Latina, 12 extra months to earn what the average White, non-Hispanic man earns. That is because Latinas are only paid .55 cents to the dollar of […]

The post Yo Quiero Dinero! Storytelling with Midwest Mujeres appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the United States. In the past year, we’ve watched as Trump delivered on his campaign promises of “mass deportation now” with violent assaults on immigrant communities, most recently in our neighboring state of Minnesota. On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow is joined by scholar Sara McKinnon to talk about what has been predictable and surprising about the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement.

McKinnon says that the scale and speed of what has been put in place is unprecedented, from deportation flights, detention, to ICE raids. We’ve seen that ICE activity in city centers has become more visible, public, and long lasting, with sometimes months-long occupations and tactics that challenge what is lawful. The rhetoric that justifies mass deportation relies on a message of crime and criminality that has been popular with Christian nationalists. On Trump’s first day in office, he limited the Refugee Resettlement Program from 125,000 recipients to 7,500, which will be available to white South Africans.

They also discuss the power and authority of ICE to kill at will, as with the killing of Renee Good earlier this month, the exponential growth of ICE forces and detention centers, and the racially motivated fear of immigrants that the Right cultivates.

Sara McKinnon is Professor of Rhetoric, Politics & Culture in the Department of Communication Arts, and Faculty Director of Latin American, Caribbean & Iberian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. McKinnon has published three books, including Gendered Asylum: Race and Violence in U.S. Law and Politics (University of Illinois Press, 2016), which examines the gender discourse that emerged in U.S. immigration and refugee law between the 1980 Refugee Act and 2014. Her current research explores the dynamics of human migration in Latin America and analyzes foreign policy relations and rhetoric in a transnational context. Additionally, she leads a collaborative project aimed at expanding legal information about US immigration and refugee programs, as well as legal counsel available to migrants across the Americas, helping them to explore options for safe migration and residence.

Featured image via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The post One Year of Immigration Enforcement on Steroids appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.