New Episode of Ms. Magazine’s On The Issues with Michele Goodwin Podcast Asks: Has The U.S. Forgotten Its Immigrant Roots?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | September 10, 2020

On the Issues with Michele Goodwin is a new issues- and policy-focused podcast featuring feminist analysis, insightful conversations and exciting guests. This is the first podcast from Ms. magazine, a legacy feminist publication.

In each bi-weekly episode, host Dr. Michele Goodwin and special guests will tackle the most compelling issues of our times, centering feminist concerns about rebuilding our nation and advancing the promise of equality.

A new episode—Has The U.S. Forgotten Its Immigrant Roots?—is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and MsMagazine.com.

In the new episode, Dr. Goodwin and her guests discuss the future of immigration in the U.S. The Trump administration’s immigration policies have resulted in children being separated from their families, huge camps on the Southern border, a stalled immigration system, and much more. Together, they ask: has the U.S. forgotten its immigrant roots?

Dr. Goodwin was joined this week by Domingo Garcia, attorney and national president of The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC); Mary Giovagnoli, senior counsel for legal strategy for Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), former executive director of Refugee Council USA and former deputy assistant secretary for immigration policy in the Department of Homeland Security; and Kevin Johnson, dean of the University of California, Davis, School of Law and author of How Did You Get to Be Mexican and Opening the Floodgates: Why America Needs to Rethink its Borders and Immigration Laws.

Their conversation covered a wide range of topics; you can find a full transcript here, as well as a few excerpts below:

“Many times people are coming here because they have no choice. They’re fleeing persecution, they’re fleeing incredible violence, they’re fleeing economic devastation, climate change, more and more.” —Mary Giovagnoli, senior counsel for legal strategy for Kids in Need of Defense

“Where are the good Americans? Where are the adults in the room at the White House? Why do they believe that being mean and cruel and evil is the American way? We’ve had to fight them.” —Domingo Garcia, national president, The League of United Latin American Citizens

“What the Trump administration has engaged in over the last few years is what I would call a new Latinx repatriation—an effort to remove as many Latinx non-citizens from the country as possible… We’re seeing a series of very concerted efforts to reduce the immigrant population and, in particular, reduce the Latinx population… You can look at workplace raids, you can look at immigrant detention, you can look at removals. You look at all those areas, you see disparate impacts on Latinx immigrants.” —Dean Kevin Johnson, University of California, Davis, School of Law

Meet the Host of On the Issues: Dr. Michele Goodwin is a frequent contributor to Ms. magazine and on MsMagazine.com. She is a Chancellor’s Professor at the University of California, Irvine and also serves on the executive committee and national board of the ACLU. Dr. Goodwin is a prolific author and an elected member of the American Law Institute, as well as an elected Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and the Hastings Center. Her most recent book, Policing The Womb: Invisible Women and The Criminalization of Motherhood, is described as a “must read.”

About Ms. Magazine: Co-founded by Gloria Steinem in 1972 and published by the Feminist Majority Foundation since 2001, Ms. magazine has been a trusted, popular source for feminist news and information in print and online for nearly 50 years. Ms.’s time-honored traditions of an emphasis on in-depth investigative reporting and feminist political analysis have never been more relevant, bringing a new generation of writers and readers together to create the feminism of the future.

####