S1: It's time for Midday Edition on KPBS. Today , we are talking about how the Trump administration's threat of a mass deportation campaign could impact San Diego. I'm Jade Hindman with conversations that keep you informed , inspired , and make you think. We'll look at how people with protected status could face deportation , too.
S2: There's a whole host of folks from a very wide range of areas of the world who have legal status now , that will probably have them terminated by this administration.
S1: Then we'll talk about immigrants rights. Plus Trump's pick for deputy chief of staff of policy and the architect of the family separation policy , Stephen Miller , and the influence he could have on immigration policy moving forward. That's ahead on midday Edition. President elect Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions of undocumented people. He calls it the largest effort in history , between 150,000 and 170,000 undocumented people live in San Diego County. On top of that , 150,000 San Diegans live with undocumented relatives. If you add up those two groups , that's almost the population of Chula Vista. 6 in 10 undocumented people in San Diego have been in the country ten years or longer. So how is the threat of a mass deportation campaign being felt in San Diego , and what could it mean for our community ? Well , joining me now is Tammy Lin. She is a professor and supervising attorney for the USDA School of Law immigration clinic. Tammy , welcome back to Midday Edition. Hello.
S2: Thanks for inviting me.
S1: Well , I'm so glad you're here. Um , first , you know , Trump has vowed to use military assets to carry out his mass deportation plan. Legally speaking.
S2: He even referenced the Aliens Enemy Act of 1798. No one knew that we would go that far back in history , where that was actually used. When he. When a president declares war on another country. So legally , I'm not entirely sure where he's going to get the power to use the military to go into states. And I think , fortunately for California , we have policies in place to kind of protect all of our mixed status families.
S1: And for years , Trump has promised to deport millions of people in a massive push. But it didn't happen during his last administration.
S2: They've talked about this. It's not just hyperbole , but I think this time around they're probably more organized. Um , but again , I find that this administration typically tries to attack or do things , um , trying to do kind of novel legal arguments , and I'm not really sure if it's there for them to justify what they want.
S1: He's also said he'll count on local police to help the deportation effort.
S2: So I think there's threats coming on from the incoming Trump administration about withholding federal funding to law enforcement. Um , I think what folks aren't , aren't really looking at , and they need to understand is they don't have the capacity at the federal level with the Ice agents and the CBP. Agents , customs , Border Protection , immigration , Customs Enforcement to actually do this. And so they're really going to rely on the states. But when the local law enforcement is tasked to do this , that takes them away from already policing and , you know , for public safety purposes , taking care of our local , um , local folks on the ground.
S1: Well , San Diego is by far the largest city on the US-Mexico border.
S2: I think when he's talking about these mass deportations , folks are immediately thinking of folks that are undocumented , the new arrivals. But , you know , they've they've tried to attack DACA before. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals , a good portion of the families here , a lot of the employees and all the different businesses is our DACA. They've been on DACA for over a decade under Obama's administration. And you know employers are scared. Employers are nervous about how are they going to meet their their workforce needs. If it's unknown whether or not other people such as those on temporary protected status , we have huge populations of TPS folks in San Diego County , if they automatically have their work authorizations canceled. And then , you know , based on the rhetoric rounded up and put into deportation proceedings. Jade , I think the other thing to note is that because we are within 100 miles of a port of entry , that's basically all of San Diego County. Ice , typically , especially if the folks are Mexican citizens , nationals can , you know , make an argument to do expedited removal. So that means that they don't even get their due process rights before a judge , and they can just be taken over to the border and put into Mexico. I think these are the real things that we're concerned with. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. And I mean , does this essentially just translate to a Border Patrol , just sort of taking people off the street , whether they're , um , um , here with documentation or not , and then simply just deporting them to Mexico.
S2: It can happen. And it's it's happened under other administrations where you may have some CBP officers , Border Patrol officers , Ice officers that might feel emboldened , um , to use what the rhetoric is going on by this administration , this incoming administration , to take it upon themselves , to take people and just take them across the border if they're Mexican nationals or citizens or even of Mexican descent. I think that my you know , the other concern also is any type of retaliatory practices from neighbors or employers or anything like that , um , just putting in tips to Ice and maybe that person is actually allowed to be here , but it just it's , it's it's concerning that there might be a level of harassment against folks that are of color that we haven't had to deal with before.
S1: Well , and to the point that you made earlier , basically anyone who's of color could really be targeted in this immigration campaign , even Haitian immigrants. Tell me more about that. Yeah.
S2: And , you know , um , a while ago , there was the I can't remember exactly what it was , but there was I think it's a Western Hemisphere or something or another that said that if you're within 100 miles of a port of entry , you can always be asked about your status. Um , you know , there's some exceptions to that and everything. But I remember thinking , because I am a daughter of immigrants , my family came. My mother came from Hong Kong , my dad from Taiwan , that if my mother's driving around in San Diego County and gets pulled over and doesn't have proof that she's a citizen because who carries their naturalisation certificate or their passport. She could find herself detained unjustly for a length of time. In my wallet , I carry my passport card with me. That's mostly because I'm afraid that I might accidentally , you know , miss the last exit into Mexico. But you just never know. And I'm hearing that , actually from other folks who are born , you know , native U.S. citizens like I am , who are concerned just by the fact of what we look like , that that might give them motivation to to stop us and ask us for our immigration status.
S1: Well , and as you said , it's not just undocumented immigrants who could be impacted by these federal immigration policies.
S2: They will either not renew it , not redesignated and extend it out. I know that for I think some maybe the Ukrainians. I think their TPS ends in April of 2025 , and I've already had some consultations with some folks saying , let's just believe that it's going to end. Either it won't be renewed or it might just be terminated. They did this before in the first administration. They'll do it again. I think that immigration groups and legal organizations are prepared to file any lawsuits to join them on these actions , but what that happens is it creates instability in our communities. It creates instability in our economies with the employers who depend on these workers. And and it also impacts the safety of people. The folks that have TPS are from regions where there's conflicts , there's military conflicts fighting civil wars. There's , you know , environmental hazards , everything like that. And I'm pretty sure that's going to that's going to be at least attempted to by this administration to be stopped. We're also concerned about DACA. And , you know , I feel like a majority of Americans do agree that DACA should have a way the DACA , the dreamers , those folks should have a way to legally get their status in check and maybe have a pathway to citizenship. But they've also in the past administration attacked DACA as well. So there's a whole host of folks from a very wide range of areas of the world who have legal status now that will probably have them terminated by this administration.
S1: Well , immigration advocates and attorneys have said they're planning to mobilize and resist Trump's efforts.
S2: Who's going to take those kids and take care of them and have all the legal documents to make sure they're not put in the foster care system. And then the other aspect of it is the legal organizations. I'm , you know , pretty sure that they've already come , come across and prepared lawsuits to be filed to at least get these cases heard through the courts. All right.
S1:
S2: Um , and , you know , ultimately it will go through the courts. Ultimately , it will maybe go to the Supreme Court as the ultimate , ultimate arbiter. But what's difficult about this situation is it puts everyone in limbo so these folks won't know it. You know , that's kind of what we had. We had this chaos , this instability the first time around with the Trump administration , where he enacted a policy or was shouting out about a policy through Twitter. Then they tried to do it the proper way. And next thing you know , there's a lawsuit that stops it , but then that gets overturned. And then there's another lawsuit for that one. It's appeals all the way up. And it it can just give whiplash to anyone , not only just me as a practitioner or teaching my students at the law school , but it could also just make it just so emotionally draining. For those that don't know what's going on right now with their legal status.
S1: Coming up , how people can prepare for the incoming Trump administration and the importance of connecting with reputable immigration attorneys.
S2: You want folks that know what's going to be going on with the immigration laws. That is what they do because it is complex and it is going to be fast moving under this second administration , under Trump.
S1: Hear more when KPBS Midday Edition returns. You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. I'm speaking with Tammy Lynn , a professor and supervising attorney for the USDA School of Law immigration Clinic , about how the Trump administration's threat of a mass deportation campaign could impact San Diego. So , Tammy , economic issues like inflation and cost of living were said to be a major factor in the outcome of the election.
S2: They can make all these declarations of deporting these mass deportations , rounding up folks. But are they going to be detained ? That is taxpayer money right there. When they are taken and detained , maybe they ultimately go before a judge and have the ability to stay permanently. But what happens is they are detained and can't go to work. So what happens ? Their local local businesses are losing out on hard working employees that have the legal right to work with work authorization. Um , they , you know , boots on the ground. They they don't have the the manpower. And I think I'm not entirely sure if all of this has been thought through besides just kind of this visceral rhetoric. Um , because even if they were to get funding to hire more officers , the training on that , it takes six months at minimum , I believe , to train an officer. And , you know , the turnover rate is already so high with Customs Border Protection officers. So where are they getting these folks from ? And they've already tried the last administration last time they were here , uh , to lessen the standards to hire CBP officers , such as foregoing a polygraph test. And these are folks that we need to know what is their motivation. And , you know , we also see on the news not all CBP officers are bad. Not all immigrants are bad , but they also are an easy access at the border for any type of drug trafficking. And we've had instances where we've seen that where they maybe are colluding with some of the drug traffickers. So I think that it's a big mistake if they try to fast track the hiring. I think it's a it's a mistake if they try to forgo the standards and lower them , such as forgoing polygraph tests for any new potential recruits. I think the fear is really what's going to be very , uh , very palpable in the county if something does transpire with this administration here.
S1: Given what we know about immigration policies the last time Donald Trump was president.
S2: They they could be held indefinitely , uh , for a very long period of time. I know that the first go around with the Trump administration , a lot of discretion to release people from facilities while their cases are being heard was taken away , uh , based on policies from the higher ups and DHS , Department of Homeland Security. The way it works and the way folks are housed is that you may have someone that has no criminal history , that gets caught up in these roundups , that only their only violation is they overstayed their status or they don't have status , and they're housed with folks that do have criminal records. So it is not a good place to be. It is basically a prison. Um , some of the things that have been said about opening detention camps , um , also are very concerning because whenever there I think the last time with this administration , when there was a surge at the border , they were having folks in tents out in the in the weather , out out in the cold or the hot , uh , of things. So I've met people in my practice , uh , for consultations or whatever , who have been in detention for several years. Um , and oftentimes some of these folks , maybe they've they've lost their cases all the way through , but it becomes an issue of their country won't accept them. Um , so I think that's the other aspect of it , too , that this administration sounds like they're going to try to do some , uh , Negotiating with countries to take back folks. And it may be folks that aren't even from that country. Hmm.
S3: Hmm.
S1: And to be clear , you know , when you say that you said that , you know , maybe someone who's overstayed their status or doesn't have status , but people who have status could also be snatched into this system as well.
S2: Yeah , though , that that's true. And , you know , we've already heard the rhetoric from Stephen Miller , the architect of the immigration policies that you've seen in project 2025 that he's going to do D naturalization supercharged. So these are folks that are U.S. citizens have , you know , done what everyone always says , get in line. Do it the right way. They did it eventually they got their citizenship. But what's going to happen is Department of Homeland Security , if they are tasked with this , is going to go back and look for reasons to take away U.S. citizenship , which is highly unusual. And and , you know , that impacts down the line. If that person is a U.S. citizen , they naturalize ten , 15 , 20 years ago. But they maybe had a you know , they didn't disclose something that is argued to be material to why they should or should not have gotten their citizenship. The impact of that is if they get de naturalized anyone that they ever brought over , who's here on a green card now or who is here with citizenship will also be impacted because it was all based on that first person. So , you know , entire families could see themselves swept up in this. And it's not conjecture. You know , the first time around with the Trump administration up in Dearborn , Michigan , largest population of Chaldean Iraqis , uh , I think a good portion of them voted for him last go around , hoping that he would protect , protect the Christians and Chaldeans in Iraq. And what ended up happening was a mass roundup of de naturalizing U.S. citizens that were originally from Iraq.
S3: Um , and then the.
S1: Question of how many generations back does would would they be looking to naturalize people , you know.
S2: Exactly , exactly. And so what we're talking about is , you know , people talk about immigration , they talk about numbers and statuses and green cards , but deep down it's about people. That's why I like to do the work that I do. I am helping people. I'm reuniting families. And I think what we're going to see is a lot of pain and hurt , especially in our local communities , when these families are going to be separated and it's going to be very hard. You know , one of the good things about the Biden administration is they made it more transparent to try to find out if a family member or someone is detained. Where are they ? It is almost a full time job to find people , because they could be in some small town on the other side of the country. And , you know , I would not be surprised if under this second Trump administration that it goes back to being very opaque , and then you're going to have very desperate families concerned because they don't know where their family member is in the US or if they were already sent away. Hmm.
S3: Hmm. Well , you know.
S1: Earlier you said that it's really important for folks to know their rights.
S2: I'm glad you brought that up , because if there's anything I can convey to folks that live in the community in San Diego , is that especially if you are mixed status household , for those that don't have status , don't sign anything. Ask to see a judge. Maybe have your family have a reputable , you know , contact information for an immigration attorney. When I tell folks about this , even in my nonprofit days , I say , hey , I know there's a lot of attorneys that say they do a lot of everything. You don't want that. If they say they can give you a divorce and get you off of your traffic ticket and do immigration. I be hesitant. You want folks that know what's going to be going on with the immigration laws. That is what they do because it is complex and it is going to be fast moving under this second administration , under Trump. So I would say designate a family member , make sure you have the paperwork in order so that if someone is picked up , who is the parent or guardian of a student , that those students have someone that they have that will be able to take them home and have the legal permission to take home ? I'm very concerned about how this is going to impact our local foster system when they can't find family members , so I would hope that folks get ahead of this. It may sound a bit premature , but I think that as we get closer to inauguration , it's very important that people have action plans , have phone numbers for reputable legal organizations , nonprofits , clinics , attorneys , and have your paperwork in order. Find where your naturalization certificates are , your birth certificates , anything like that so that if someone in your family is detained and they're actually a citizen , or they have lawful permanent resident status , their green card holder , you have that proof that you say , hey , you guys shouldn't have this person detained. They should be released.
S1: I've been speaking with Tammy Lynn. She is a professor and supervising attorney for the USDA School of Law immigration clinic. Tammy , thank you so much for being on the show today.
S2: And thank you for talking about this. I really appreciate it.
S1: Still to come , Jean Guerrero , the author of Hate Monger , joins us to talk about Trump's pick for deputy chief of staff , Stephen Miller , and his agenda.
S4: It's meant to further this idea that the real oppressed group in the United States is not black people , it's not women , it's not trans people. It's it's white men. And that is what I think is going to inform his policies going forward.
S1: KPBS Midday Edition returns after the break. Welcome back to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. President elect Donald Trump has quickly assembled a slate of cabinet officials and top advisers who will shape his future presidency. A mix of television personalities , former Democrats and diehard loyalists are among his selections. One of them is Stephen Miller , Trump's pick for deputy chief of staff for policy. He was a senior adviser during Trump's first administration , and he's widely considered the architect of many Trump immigration policies , most notably his move to separate thousands of immigrant families through the so-called zero tolerance policy. Here's Miller speaking at Trump's Madison Square campaign rally just last month.
S5: Who's going to stand up and say the cartels are gone ? The criminal migrants are gone. The gangs are gone. America is for Americans and Americans only.
S1: Miller came to power while railing against immigrants and working to make U.S. citizenship less attainable. So what will that mean for immigrant communities like San Diego ? Well , joining me now is award winning investigative journalist Jean Guerrero. She is author of the book Hate Monger Stephen Miller Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda. Jean is also a former border and immigration reporter for KPBS. Jean , welcome back to Midday Edition.
S4: Great to be here.
S1: It's so great to have you here with us.
S4: And I wanted to understand the man who was essentially the architect of these policies. I wanted to understand what was motivating him , how it was possible that somebody who grew up in Los Angeles , uh , in a very diverse high school , ended up being becoming one of the most , uh , the architect of some of the most anti-immigrant immigration agenda that we had seen in many decades.
S1: Well , let's dig into that. I mean , take me back to Stephen Miller's early years.
S4: he would attend school board meetings to rant about Cinco de Mayo festivities and other multicultural celebrations at the school. Was having , uh , I interviewed classmates of his who said that he would , you know , tell his immigrant classmates and his Mexican American classmates to speak English. If he would hear them speaking Spanish , he would sometimes tell them to go back to their countries. So he had this really adversarial streak early on in his life. And around this time is when he met two mentors who who played an instrumental role in his political rise. One of them was Larry Elder , a right wing , uh , talk show host based in Los Angeles as well , who at the time had written a book and and often talked on the radio about how , in his opinion , black people are more racist than white people , and creating this idea that white people are actually the real victims of racism. This is an idea that David Horowitz , another mentor of Stephen Miller's , who also met him in high school , was also espousing creating this idea that in society today , the real oppressed minority is white people and specifically white conservative men. And this is an idea that informed Stephen Miller's policies during the first Trump administration , and continues to inform his work at a nonprofit that he started called America First Legal , which is focused on targeting racial justice initiatives and any sort of programs that are meant to address a , you know , historical wrongs towards black Latino Americans or towards women. He he attacks those initiatives as being racist towards white people.
S1:
S4: Um , this is this is something that is clear from emails that I obtained for the book. Uh , he repeatedly asked the right wing blog Breitbart to promote ideas that were taken from openly white supremacist websites that he was sharing with them. Um , I won't even name them because it's , um , it's not worthwhile to give them additional publicity , but but these ideas , uh , clearly informed his policies , which I can talk about in a moment , but they it's why a lot of his policies and majority of his policies weren't so much targeting people who are in the country illegally or who have committed any crime , but rather cracking down on legal immigration to try to radically re-engineer the racial demographics of this country. So it is unquestionable that white nationalism has informed Stephen Miller's views from the time that he was a young man , and and continue to do so to this day.
S1: Well , Miller rose to prominence in the Trump orbit as a speechwriter , but his influence quickly grew beyond political messaging and deep into policy mechanics.
S4: And he consistently pushed him to the far right on immigration so that it wasn't just about , you know , quote unquote , building a wall and quote unquote , securing the border , but also about , for example , strangling refugee admissions into this country , uh , dismantling the legal asylum system as we know it , denying green cards to people who are deemed too low income. You know , he was also a key architect of the family separation policy that led to a public outcry on both sides of the political spectrum because of its cruelty , which is one of the policies that led me to want to write this book about Stephen Miller , because I was reporting on on these families who had who had not broken any laws and who were being subjected to what essentially amounted to permanent trauma for both the parent and the child. Um , he was also the key architect of the Muslim ban , which they planned to expand on in a second administration to include , uh , refugees from Gaza. And there's there's many other policies that I can talk about that they intend to implement , uh , that will hurt people who are in this country legally. And that includes citizens as well.
S1: Right ? Stephen Miller has been promised a spot in Trump's next administration. Deputy chief of staff for policy.
S4: He's going to Trump. It's going to continue to lean on him for the immigration issue. But I expect that in this new position , he will have an expanded role in other types of policies as well. And I think they're going to reflect on what he has been pursuing at this nonprofit called America First Legal , where they're not only targeting immigrants and people who were born in another country , but also targeting members of the LGBTQ community , um , initiatives that are meant to uplift , uh , trans and , and , you know , queer identifying Americans. I suspect heavily that he is going to be targeting them as well. Um , and this , this nonprofit that he has , which I think is going to deeply inform his policies in a second administration. It's meant to further this idea that the real oppressed group in the United States is is not black people , it's not women , it's not trans people. It's it's white men. And that is what I think is going to inform his policies going forward. And and they're not only going to expand their attacks on legal immigration to include , you know , ending birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants , turbocharging , naturalization. So stripping citizenship from people who've who've received it through naturalization , they're also going to be creating new scapegoats in society and new new victims of their policies.
S1: Well , President Trump has vowed to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history. Here's Stephen Miller describing the plan last February at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
S5: Seal the border and nobody goes in. Everyone here goes out. That's very straightforward in terms of the policy sets to accomplish this. As President Trump showed in his first term , it's a it's a series of interlocking domestic and foreign policies to accomplish this goal.
S1:
S4: I think a lot of people have the the impression or the belief that Trump is solely going to be going after undocumented immigrants and people who are in the country illegally. And , and even some people have the impression that he's only going to be targeting serious criminals. So undocumented immigrants who have a serious criminal record , and given the fact that Stephen Miller is going to be playing a central role in this , I can say firmly that that is not the case that they're going to be targeting , you know , any person who is in this country illegally , regardless of whether they've committed any other crime , and they're going to deport families together. This is something that the borders are. Tom Homan has also said that they're that they're willing to do. They've said nobody is off the table. They've even , you know , talked about how they want to put in place the , uh , or revive the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 , which would give them the authority to detain anyone from a country that they deem a quote unquote , enemy country. This is a wartime authority. It's very questionable legally how it would withstand a legal challenge. But it's something that they have said that they that they intend to do. And it speaks to Stephen Miller's open , long standing antagonism toward court immigration period , regardless of whether it's legal or illegal.
S1: You know , when I hear this , I'm wondering how a Border Patrol agent would be able to even discern whether someone here is with papers or without papers. You know , I would imagine that really , anyone could be snatched into this system , into these detention facilities. Talk a bit more about that.
S4: Yeah , that's a very good point , Jade. And I want to mention that there was a similar operation to this , although much smaller in scale in the 1950s with a name that includes a slur , which I won't repeat. But during that operation , my great uncle , who was a US citizen who was born in the United States , was deported in one of these massive roundups that included many US citizens because of how indiscriminate they were. And it is clear that because of the unprecedented scale of this deportation operation , it is it is very likely that we're going to see us citizens , green card holders , people who have legal authorization in this country to be in this country. We're going to see them removed from this country , sometimes in some cases permanently.
S1:
S4: But from the more than 100 interviews that I did with his colleagues , with his family members , with his friends for this book , what I've what I've been able to derive from this reporting is that this this is really about destroying the notion of the United States as a multicultural and a multiethnic democracy. It is an idea that he has been hostile toward since he was a teenager and that has not changed. He has only become more radical and more extreme as the years have gone on. And the only thing that has changed is that he has become much more powerful and he's able to to have a greater impact than he's ever had before. Um , and to actually normalise these ideas and to see them through by doing a lot of harm to , to people across this country.
S1: And , Jean , another thing that we should consider is the corporate interest at play here.
S4: and , you know , refusing to recognize any of their rights or human dignity. It is fundamentally about exploitation. And unfortunately , Stephen Miller has been able to distract people from the reality of what it means to maintain a second class population. In this way. He he he creates this idea that , you know , that liberals and that progressives , the ones who want to protect immigrants , are the ones who want cheap labor in this country , when in fact they are the ones who are advocating for a pathway to citizenship , for a pathway to legalization for these individuals , so that we don't have this mass inequality and these grave injustices that take place as a result of people not being able to come forward and talk to the police when they're being abused in the workplace or when they've had their wages withheld. And so at the end of the day , that that is a huge part of it , is the corporate interests that are aligned with Donald Trump and hoping to maintain this subjugated class of millions of people who contribute to this country in millions of ways , and who are being forced to do so in abhorrent circumstances because they have not been given an opportunity to come out of the shadows.
S1: Well , and I remember during Trump's first presidency covering the family separation policy and the Otay Mesa detention facility. I remember a day when Vice President Kamala Harris , then Senator Harris , came down for a visit , and after her walkthrough , she came out and gave a speech. She said that the people in that detention facility were being exploited for their labor. They were being paid somewhere around a dollar a day , and then charge somewhere around $0.99 just to make a phone call to find their children and their family. Talk to me about what the day to day may look like inside of these detention facilities , and if there's even really an effort to deport people rather than just keep them in detention.
S4: So that's another great , uh , point that you just made Jade about when it comes to the corporate interests , these detention centers , which they're going to be building so many more of they they are for profit and they , they it's an entire industry that is built on the mass incarceration of people who whose only crime , in most cases , is having come into this country in an unauthorized way because they had no other way to come into this country. And they wanted to come here to save their lives , to save their children's lives for better economic prospects , whatever it may be. But but there's an entire industry that has been built around keeping them in these detention centers , uh , you know , these camps , there's there's not accountability for what happens inside of these , these these camps. And oftentimes people are kept in the dark about the most basic rights that they have , such as speaking to an attorney , being able to call their attorneys , being able to talk to their families. One of the men who I interviewed for KPBS when I was covering the family separation policy was a father from El Salvador who came here with his one year old son , and for eight months he was locked up without for much of that time knowing where his one year old had been sent. His one year old was taken from him , even though he had the the one year old Mateo's paperwork. He had his birth certificate. Um , but he was taken away from him and for for many months he was in severe agony. I remember interviewing him for KPBS , and he was crying and telling me , you know , like , the only thing he ever wanted in life was to be a good father because he had been raised without a father , and so it was just incredibly painful to him to be locked away and to not even know where his son was and to not be able to protect his son. And I think a majority of the people who are kept in these detention centres are people like that man , Jose , the merchants , who are simply trying to do their best for their families , are trying to contribute to this country in a meaningful way and are being denied an opportunity to do so because of this racist industry that exists around the exploitation of of brown and black bodies.
S6: You chose to use the.
S1:
S4: I mean , I think ultimately it was there were a few different things. One was having studied his long time relationship with David Horowitz , who has made an entire career of demonizing , demonizing immigrants , Muslims , people who are marginalized in this country and who are easy to scapegoat when you want to distract people from the fact that you have nothing else to offer them. And and David Horowitz had worked on a strategy paper about how the Republican Party needed to reinvent itself around hostile emotions. You know , he was talking about how Obama used hope to win his elections. And he said , fear is a much stronger and more compelling emotion than hope. So initially we were thinking of calling the book Fear Monger , but something about it didn't quite sit right with me , and I realized it was that when it comes to fear , when you fear something , you don't , you don't want to hurt it. You don't want to go after it and and do harm to it. You just want to get away. Hate is the emotion that makes you want to punish and and , you know , persecute an entire class or whoever it is that you're directing this emotion towards. And so I ultimately decided that it was the most accurate term to represent the actions , the viewpoints that I saw Stephen Miller openly advocating for.
S1:
S4: Um , but there's immigrant rights organizations across the country that are , you know , preparing , um , to help these families and are already helping a lot of these families. Um , they have deportation defense. They have no your rights workshops. And these are organizations that are woefully underfunded. Um , so so if you want to donate , uh , please look up immigrant rights organizations near you or , um , in one of these states that are extremely hostile to immigrants such as Texas and Arizona.
S1: All right. I've been speaking with award winning investigative journalist Jean Guerrero. She is author of the book Hate Monger Stephen Miller Donald Trump and the White Nationalist Agenda. Jean , thank you so much for joining us.
S4: Thank you so much , Jade.
S1: And that's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
