Podcasts about immigration services

Just how wet has our upstate New York summer been? Really wet. So far, it's the third wettest summer on record.U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services this week canceled a planned naturalization ceremony in Ulster County for the second time. Get the latest here: https://www.timesunion.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new story from Sahan Journal looks at a change in federal immigration policy and what it means in Minnesota. The policy has to do with affirmative asylum seekers, or people who applied for asylum with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Under a new rule, USCIS officers can send their applications straight to an immigration judge, without interviewing them first. The agency said in its announcement the change will help chip away at a massive backlog in asylum cases. But some lawyers in Minnesota say it will land more asylum seekers in court, facing deportation. And it comes as the federal government is rolling back other protections for people who fear returning to their home countries. Sahan Journal reporter Shubhanjana Das has been covering the story and joined Minnesota Now host Nina Moini to talk about her reporting.

El gobierno estadounidense instauró el martes 28 de julio una regla para acelerar los trámites de demanda de asilo de extranjeros, lo que podría provocar la deportación de cientos de miles de solicitantes. Las entrevistas, el momento en el que los migrantes podían defender sus casos de viva voz, serán reducidas de manera importante. El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional explicó que el objetivo de la decisión es reducir el gran atraso en el examen de los que solicitan refugio en el país. Actualmente los demandantes de asilo pasan primero por una entrevista con un funcionario de los Servicios de inmigracion y ciudadanía (USCIS, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, en inglés). Luego la petición es examinada por los jueces de inmigracion, que dependen del departamento de Justicia de Estados Unidos, pero esto cambiaría con la nueva regla. Ahora las peticiones serán examinadas por jueces de inmigración, sin entrevista previa, lo que reduce las opciones de los migrantes para defender sus casos, de acuerdo con la abogada Gloria Contreras, especializada en derecho de inmigracion. La nueva regla no quiere decir que automáticamente se “eliminarán todas las entrevistas”, precisó la abogada. “Todavía pueden entrevistar a ciertas personas, pero hay ciertos casos donde sabemos que ya los van a eliminar de la entrevista” para que pasen directamente a una Corte de Migración, donde enfrentarán un proceso, alertó. "Durante demasiado tiempo el sistema de asilo ha sido explotado con fines de demora y autorización de trabajo, y no por reclamaciones legítimas de protección", afirmó el director de USCIS, Joseph Edlow, en un comunicado. "El sistema de asilo de Estados Unidos existe para proteger a las personas que realmente temen ser perseguidas", dijo Edlow. Casos concretos  Hasta 444 724 casos, es decir, el 31% de los 1,43 millones de casos acumulados de asilo, podrían verse afectados por esta nueva medida, sobre todo aquellos que no hayan documentado bien sus peticiones. Por ejemplo, quienes presentaron su solicitud fuera del plazo de un año desde el momento en que entraron a los Estados Unidos, la abogada estima que pasaría directo a las Cortes de migración. Lo mismo sucedería para las personas que ya hayan pedido asilo, que hayan cometido algún delito o que incumplieron los requisitos de asilo. Por su parte, el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional defiende que muchas de estas peticiones no están justificadas y provocan retrasos. La abogada denuncia que se les quita una oportunidad para defender su situación con tal de acelerar las expulsiones. “Cuando llegan a la entrevista, es ‘la oportunidad' donde pueden explicarle al oficial, aclarar las inconsistencias o explicar cualquier error. Describir en persona los traumas sufridos, la persecución, y responder a las preguntas directamente al oficial. Entonces, ahora los solicitantes deben asumir que su solicitud escrita podría ser la única información que revisarán”. El abogado general del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional, James Percival, señaló que la nueva norma "mejorará la eficiencia y cumplirá" la promesa del presidente republicano Donald Trump de tomar medidas enérgicas contra la inmigración ilegal.

El gobierno estadounidense instauró el martes 28 de julio una regla para acelerar los trámites de demanda de asilo de extranjeros, lo que podría provocar la deportación de cientos de miles de solicitantes. Las entrevistas, el momento en el que los migrantes podían defender sus casos de viva voz, serán reducidas de manera importante. El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional explicó que el objetivo de la decisión es reducir el gran atraso en el examen de los que solicitan refugio en el país. Actualmente los demandantes de asilo pasan primero por una entrevista con un funcionario de los Servicios de inmigracion y ciudadanía (USCIS, US Citizenship and Immigration Services, en inglés). Luego la petición es examinada por los jueces de inmigracion, que dependen del departamento de Justicia de Estados Unidos, pero esto cambiaría con la nueva regla. Ahora las peticiones serán examinadas por jueces de inmigración, sin entrevista previa, lo que reduce las opciones de los migrantes para defender sus casos, de acuerdo con la abogada Gloria Contreras, especializada en derecho de inmigracion. La nueva regla no quiere decir que automáticamente se “eliminarán todas las entrevistas”, precisó la abogada. “Todavía pueden entrevistar a ciertas personas, pero hay ciertos casos donde sabemos que ya los van a eliminar de la entrevista” para que pasen directamente a una Corte de Migración, donde enfrentarán un proceso, alertó. "Durante demasiado tiempo el sistema de asilo ha sido explotado con fines de demora y autorización de trabajo, y no por reclamaciones legítimas de protección", afirmó el director de USCIS, Joseph Edlow, en un comunicado. "El sistema de asilo de Estados Unidos existe para proteger a las personas que realmente temen ser perseguidas", dijo Edlow. Casos concretos  Hasta 444 724 casos, es decir, el 31% de los 1,43 millones de casos acumulados de asilo, podrían verse afectados por esta nueva medida, sobre todo aquellos que no hayan documentado bien sus peticiones. Por ejemplo, quienes presentaron su solicitud fuera del plazo de un año desde el momento en que entraron a los Estados Unidos, la abogada estima que pasaría directo a las Cortes de migración. Lo mismo sucedería para las personas que ya hayan pedido asilo, que hayan cometido algún delito o que incumplieron los requisitos de asilo. Por su parte, el Departamento de Seguridad Nacional defiende que muchas de estas peticiones no están justificadas y provocan retrasos. La abogada denuncia que se les quita una oportunidad para defender su situación con tal de acelerar las expulsiones. “Cuando llegan a la entrevista, es ‘la oportunidad' donde pueden explicarle al oficial, aclarar las inconsistencias o explicar cualquier error. Describir en persona los traumas sufridos, la persecución, y responder a las preguntas directamente al oficial. Entonces, ahora los solicitantes deben asumir que su solicitud escrita podría ser la única información que revisarán”. El abogado general del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional, James Percival, señaló que la nueva norma "mejorará la eficiencia y cumplirá" la promesa del presidente republicano Donald Trump de tomar medidas enérgicas contra la inmigración ilegal.

This Day in Legal History: The Senate Rejects Court-PackingOn July 22, 1937, the United States Senate rejected President Franklin D. Roosevelt's plan to reorganize—critics said “pack”—the Supreme Court, voting 70 to 20 to send the bill to a quiet death. It was a stinging defeat for a president at the height of his popularity, delivered by his own party, and it settled a constitutional question that still shapes how we think about the independence of the judiciary.The background was a collision between the New Deal and the Court. Through the mid-1930s, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court had struck down key pieces of Roosevelt's economic program as unconstitutional. Frustrated after his landslide 1936 reelection, FDR proposed legislation that would have let him appoint a new justice for every sitting justice over the age of seventy—which, not coincidentally, would have allowed him to add up to six new justices and swamp the opposition. He framed it as a matter of efficiency and helping overworked elderly judges, but nobody was fooled; it was a naked attempt to change the Court's decisions by changing its membership.The plan backfired, and the reasons are the lesson. Even senators who supported the New Deal recoiled at the precedent—if this president could enlarge the Court to get the rulings he wanted, so could the next one, and the Court's independence would become a fiction. Meanwhile, the Court itself defused the crisis: in the spring of 1937, Justice Owen Roberts began voting to uphold New Deal legislation, the famous “switch in time that saved nine,” which took some of the urgency out of FDR's demand. The significance of July 22, 1937 is that it established a durable, if unwritten, constitutional norm—that the size of the Supreme Court is essentially off-limits as a tool for a president to overpower rulings he dislikes. The number nine isn't in the Constitution, but the bipartisan rebuke of court-packing helped make it feel almost as if it were.An analysis of the closely watched lawsuit by Meta employees over AI-driven layoffs highlights a hard truth: even when workers suspect an algorithm decided their fate, proving it is enormously difficult. To recap, 26 current and former Meta employees sued, alleging the company's internal AI tools flagged them for termination because they have disabilities or took protected medical, parental, or family leave. Their theory is mechanically specific: because tools like the “Metamate” system scored employees partly on data such as keystroke activity, workers who were lawfully out on leave generated fewer data points and were disproportionately ranked as low-value. Meta cut roughly 8,000 people—about ten percent of its workforce—and says humans, not machines, made the decisions. Here's why these cases are so hard to win. Anti-discrimination law generally requires the worker to show the employer's decision was tainted by a protected characteristic, but the employee usually has almost no visibility into how the AI actually worked—the models, the training data, and the weighting are the company's closely held secrets. On top of that, many employees have signed arbitration agreements, funneling their claims out of open court and into a private process that's harder to see into and to appeal. The significance is that this appears to be the first case of its kind against a major U.S. company, and it exposes a growing gap: as employers hand more consequential decisions to opaque algorithms, the legal tools workers have to challenge those decisions—built for an era of human managers—may not be up to the job of proving what the machine did.Analysis: Meta employees' lawsuit shows that if AI fires you, proving it is the hard part | ReutersA split panel of the D.C. Circuit has struck down a long-standing National Labor Relations Board doctrine that protected unions after a business changes hands, ruling that it conflicts with federal labor law. The doctrine at issue is the “successor bar,” and it works like this: when a company is acquired and a new employer takes over, that employer generally cannot challenge or withdraw recognition from the existing union for a reasonable period—about six months—giving the union and workers a window of stability to bargain with their new boss. The court held that this Board-created rule isn't consistent with the National Labor Relations Act. What makes this ruling bigger than one labor doctrine is the tool the court used to get there. The decision applies the Supreme Court's 2024 Loper Bright ruling, which overturned the decades-old Chevron doctrine and ended the requirement that courts defer to a federal agency's reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute. Without that deference, the D.C. Circuit felt free to substitute its own reading of the labor law for the NLRB's. This is exactly the dynamic I wrote about in my Bloomberg column last week in the tax context—the death of Chevron doesn't erase statutory ambiguity, it just moves the power to resolve it from agencies to courts. The significance is that we're now watching that shift play out across the administrative state: settled agency doctrines, some decades old, are suddenly vulnerable to being reinterpreted by judges, and here the immediate losers are unions and the workers who counted on a bargaining foothold after a merger.US court says longstanding NLRB rule on post-merger union bargaining is invalid | ReutersA federal judge has temporarily blocked the administration from stripping work authorization from tens of thousands of asylum seekers and immigrants with Temporary Protected Status. U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston sided with a coalition of immigrant-rights groups and labor unions, halting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from moving ahead with a set of policies while he weighs a longer-term pause; he said he'll rule by August 5. Here's the stakes and the legal frame. A work permit—formally, an employment authorization document—is what lets many immigrants lawfully hold a job while their asylum case or protected status is pending. Yanking it doesn't just threaten deportation down the line; it immediately jeopardizes people's livelihoods and their employers' workforces. The contested policies were designed to implement immigration restrictions Congress enacted last year as part of the administration's signature tax-and-spending law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The plaintiffs argue USCIS is implementing those provisions in ways that exceed what the law allows and skip required procedures. A temporary block like this one preserves the status quo—keeping people employed—while the court decides whether the government followed the rules. The significance connects to a theme we keep returning to: courts serving as a check on how fast and how far the executive can move in reshaping immigration, insisting that even policies rooted in a real act of Congress still have to be implemented lawfully and with proper process.US judge blocks Trump administration from stripping immigrants of work permits | ReutersAnd finally, in my column for Bloomberg Tax this week, I dig into a self-inflicted mess in California: lawmakers scrambling to rework a business tax-credit cap that they apparently didn't realize would kneecap Hollywood film studios. My core argument is that California is directionally right to resist subsidy bidding wars, but wrong to rewrite the economics of credits it has already issued after companies have started relying on them.Here's what happened. Since 2024, California has capped the total tax reduction a business can take from all its credits at $5 million a year. That cap was set to expire after 2026—right as productions were going to start claiming credits under a newly expanded film incentive the state had just touted as a centerpiece of keeping film jobs in California. Instead, a bill called SB 122 extended the $5 million limit through 2029 and then converts it to the greater of $5 million or 70% of taxes owed. The part that really gets me is the admission underneath it: lawmakers passed a $351.7 billion budget without apparently understanding how this cap would interact with the film credit they'd just enlarged. As one assemblymember candidly put it, “I'm not sure who knew what about what.” It looks like the cap was really aimed at large research-and-development credit stockpiles, and film credits just got caught in the crossfire.My argument is that the distinction between prospective and retroactive matters enormously here. It's one thing for California to decide, going forward, that future subsidies will be smaller or conditioned—that's legitimate fiscal discipline, and I don't think Hollywood should get to dictate tax policy just by threatening to decamp to Georgia. But it's another thing entirely to change the timing and practical value of credits after studios have already committed workers, facilities, and financing in reliance on the old rules. When a state does that, it makes itself a less credible counterparty, and it quietly reduces the value of every future incentive it offers, because businesses will start discounting California's promises for legislative risk. So my prescription is targeted: protect the film credits already awarded under the prior rules, keep a real limit on the big accumulated R&D credits that were the actual target, and replace the blunt across-the-board cap with rules tailored to how these very different credits actually work. California doesn't have to choose between fiscal discipline and keeping its word—its tax policy can be skeptical, but its promises should still mean something.California's Business Tax Credit Cap Needs More Targeted Changes | Bloomberg Tax This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

This Day in Legal History: Madison Introduces the Bill of RightsOn this day in 1789, James Madison rose from his seat in New York's Federal Hall — then the temporary capital of the new federal government — and gave the speech in which he introduced a list of amendments to the Constitution that we now know as the Bill of Rights. Madison had been, until quite recently, a skeptic of attaching a bill of rights to the federal Constitution: he had argued at the Constitutional Convention and in The Federalist that the structure of enumerated and separated powers was a better protection of liberty than a “parchment barrier” of textual rights, and he worried that any enumeration would be read to imply that whatever was not enumerated was not protected. What changed his mind was politics. The Antifederalist opposition in several states had made ratification conditional on amendments protecting individual rights, and Madison — by then a member of the First Congress — concluded that introducing such amendments himself was the surest way to defuse a broader constitutional convention movement that might unravel the work of 1787. The list he proposed on June 8 was longer and somewhat different from what eventually became the Bill of Rights; the House debated it through the summer, passed seventeen amendments in August, the Senate reduced them to twelve in September, and ten of those — the ones we now call Amendments I through X — were ratified by the states on December 15, 1791. June 8 is the date a reluctant convert stood up and made the case that has carried American constitutional law ever since: the proposition that the government's structural restraint is necessary but not sufficient, and that the rights of speech, conscience, due process, and the rest deserve to be written down where everyone can read them.Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island on Friday vacated four U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policies that had, since late last year, frozen work permits, green-card adjudications, naturalization, and asylum claims for nationals of roughly 39 countries on the second Trump administration's travel ban list. The case, Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island v. USCIS, No. 1:26-cv-00132, was brought by a coalition of immigrant-service organizations and labor unions. Judge McConnell held that all four policies — a “Benefits Hold” freezing affirmative benefits for travel-ban country nationals, a Global Asylum Hold halting asylum processing across the board regardless of country of origin, a Comprehensive Re-Review Policy requiring USCIS to re-examine previously approved benefits, and a separate adjudicator-instruction policy treating travel-ban country origin as a negative factor — are unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act. The legal hook is familiar APA territory: the agency, McConnell concluded, failed to provide a reasoned explanation for the freezes and failed to account for the substantial reliance interests of hundreds of thousands of pending applicants. What makes this ruling stand out is the remedy. Other district courts that had blocked these policies in the last six months issued preliminary injunctions limited to named plaintiffs; McConnell vacated the policies themselves, which under standard APA practice means they cease to operate nationwide. That puts USCIS in the position of either rescinding the policies, going back to the drawing board with proper rulemaking, or appealing to the First Circuit and trying to get the vacatur stayed. Expect movement on all three fronts this week.US Judge Strikes Down Trump Policies Targeting Immigrants From 39 Countries | US NewsU.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia entered a temporary restraining order on Friday blocking the Trump administration's $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” from disbursing any money while the underlying lawsuit proceeds. The fund — created by executive order earlier this year and funded out of a settlement the administration brokered in the Trump-IRS litigation we covered in early June — was meant to compensate people the administration described as victims of the Biden Justice Department's “weaponization” of federal law enforcement, with the first contemplated payments going to defendants and witnesses from the January 6 prosecutions. Plaintiffs include former DOJ attorney Andrew Floyd and other former federal prosecutors who argue, in essence, that the fund is an unauthorized expenditure of public money: Congress never appropriated it, the settlement that supposedly funds it is itself under judicial review for whether the United States was actually adverse to the President in his personal capacity, and the program's payout criteria are based on political characterizations of past prosecutions rather than any neutral standard. Judge Brinkema's order, narrowly drawn to “ensure that no funds are irreversibly disbursed,” set a June 12 hearing on whether the freeze should be extended into a preliminary injunction. By the end of last week the situation had escalated further: on June 5 the Justice Department told two federal judges, in writing, that it would stop work on the fund altogether and that the lawsuits challenging it are now moot. That representation will be tested at this Friday's hearing, because the plaintiffs are not satisfied with a unilateral DOJ promise and want a binding court order before they go away. Watch for what Brinkema does with that disagreement on Friday.Justice Department says it will stop work on $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” after judge's ruling | CBS NewsA divided Seventh Circuit panel on Friday upheld Indiana's law restricting who may attend an execution at the Indiana State Prison, holding that the First Amendment does not give reporters a right of access to be present at the execution itself. Judge Michael Scudder wrote the 2-1 majority. The plaintiffs — the Associated Press, the Indiana Capital Chronicle, Gannett, WISH-TV, and TEGNA, represented by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press — had argued that the long line of Supreme Court cases recognizing a First Amendment right of press and public access to criminal proceedings, from Richmond Newspapers forward, extends to the carrying out of capital sentences, particularly given Indiana's recent resumption of executions after a long pause and a 2024 statute that omitted journalists from the list of permitted witnesses. The panel disagreed. The majority emphasized that Indiana's witness list — the warden, execution staff, the prison physician, a chaplain, the prisoner's spiritual adviser, up to eight family members of the victim, and up to five unspecified additional witnesses — leaves journalists free to interview those who did attend, report on every other aspect of the proceeding, and comment on the state's choice to impose or carry out the sentence, and that there is no constitutional difference between watching the execution and reporting on it secondhand. The opinion's most striking passage, candidly weighed against the press claim: allowing “uninvited strangers with no immediate connection to the underlying crime” to watch a prisoner die “risks offending the dignity of their final moments.” The dissent argued the press's structural role in informing public deliberation over the death penalty depends on first-hand observation. The split sets up a possible petition for rehearing en banc and, in the longer run, a circuit-split-ready vehicle if other circuits go the other way.7th Circ. Says Ind. Can Bar Press From Attending Executions | Law360 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

May 26, 2026Demonstrators at the Delaney Hall detention center in New Jersey, including Senatory Andy Kim, were pepper sprayed by federal agents, Detainees have called for help, describing conditions as overcrowded and unsafe, Detainees have not been afforded legal hearings and are being pressured to self deport, The detainees began a hunger strike and members of congress, as well as New Jersey's governor, have visited the facility and confirmed the accounts of cruel and inhuman conditions, US Citizenship and Immigration Services have changed policies for obtaining permanent residency in the US, making it much more difficult to obtain a green card, The criminal charges against Kilmar Ábrego Garcia were dismissed, Alligator Alcatraz, the detention center in Florida that cost taxpayers $1 billion, appears to be shutting down, although neither Trump nor Gov Ron DeSantis will admit it. Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

A significant change to the green card application process announced last week could upend the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in America. The change, released by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services which oversees the program, will require non-citizens to apply for a green card from their host countries. What might this change mean for applicants and their families who are already in the US, studying, working and living with their families? And what's behind the change? Adriel Orozco, senior policy counsel at American Immigration Council, joins The Excerpt to share his insights.Let us know what you think of this episode by sending an email to podcasts@usatoday.com. Episode transcript available here. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On Tuesday, a coalition of groups held a rally to protest ICE's abuses at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City, a 41-story federal building in Lower Manhattan that houses immigration courts, ICE field offices, immigrant detention spaces, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The protest, organized by Hands Off NYC, included advocates from Make the Road New York, the New York Immigration coalition and a surprise guest — musician Tom Morello, who performed “This Land Is Your Land.”

The Center for Immigration Studies has released a new episode of its weekly podcast analyzing the Trump administration's use of travel restrictions and visa limitations affecting dozens of countries.In the episode, Jessica Vaughan, CIS's Director of Policy Studies, explains that the administration has implemented a series of “more expansive and more targeted” travel restrictions than seen in his first administration – affecting 75 countries through a combination of full bans, partial restrictions, and category-specific limitations.“These policies are not one-size-fits-all,” Vaughan notes. “They are tailored to specific concerns, including national security risks, weak identity verification systems, and high visa overstay rates, some exceeding 50 percent in certain categories. The restrictions are subject to periodic review.”Additionally, the podcast examines a January 2026 State Department pause on immigrant visa issuance for certain countries under public charge considerations, affecting nations with high rates of welfare use among immigrants.Vaughan's discussion with CIS Executive Director and podcast host Mark Krikorian covers how Congress has granted the president authority to restrict entry in the national interest, forming the legal basis for these measures. Currently, restrictions vary widely:Some countries face full entry bans;Others are subject to partial limits, such as restrictions on student or tourist visas;Waivers are available for compelling cases.Vaughan emphasizes that these policies coincide with a broader effort to strengthen vetting processes at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department. This includes expanded fraud detection, a new National Vetting Center, and more special agents being hired.The policies are already reducing entries and agency workload, but their full impact remains unclear, as the administration has not yet released detailed data.In his closing commentary, Krikorian discusses two blog posts this week on assimilation in Miami, by Resident Scholar Jason Richwine. The experience of Miami shows that assimilation into the mainstream is not inevitable and automatic, and that large-scale admissions can make receiving communities unrecognizable. Keeping immigration low and slow is the key to successful assimilation.HostMark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestJessica Vaughan is the Director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies.LinksPublic Charge PauseExec Order on travel bansMiami: A Failure of the Assimilation ModelMore on Miami as a Failure of AssimilationIntro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Candidate Trump in 2015 campaign speech.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".

In this thought-provoking episode of John Solomon Reports, we delve into the alarming rise of socialism among America's youth, as thousands take to the streets in protest. John Solomon highlights the influence of educational institutions and social media in shaping a generation that seems to romanticize a system that has historically led to failure. He emphasizes the stark contrast between states embracing socialist policies and those that uphold freedom and fiscal responsibility, pointing to the financial struggles of cities like New York under leftist leadership.The discussion features Congressman Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor of Wisconsin, sharing insights on the current state of Congress and the potential for flipping the state red in the upcoming election. Solomon also welcomes Joe Edlow, the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, who discusses his agency's historic crackdown on citizenship fraud, revealing alarming statistics about those attempting to cheat the system.Finally, Congressman Rich McCormick from Georgia joins the show to shed light on critical legislation he is championing, offering a no-nonsense perspective on the challenges facing Congress as the 2026 elections approach. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this very special episode, Thomas and Lydia Smith celebrate their 11th wedding anniversary in the most normal and romantic way possible: subjecting themselves to an extended interrogation about their marriage by a federal agent. After setting the scene in a (very slightly) parallel universe in which Thomas was born in Canada and committed a series of Nickelback-related misdemeanors before overstaying his student visa, Matt draws from his twenty years of experience in sitting through hundreds of immigration interviews to play out an unscripted simulation of what his clients and their U.S. citizen spouses go through when they are applying for residency through marriage. We then reconvene to review how the Smiths did, and Matt takes us through some of the legal issues raised in this interview as well as some of the more interesting aspects of the residency process generally.  Finally, we discuss some of the weirder aspects of the law surrounding immigration through marriage beyond the facts of this interview, including (among many others): --Do you really have to prove to the satisfaction of an immigration officer that your marriage includes sex? --Why might the US government refuse to recognize a prior divorce from your home country?  --Will federal immigration authorities really recognize a Zoom wedding conducted from completely different continents? --Can you bring multiple partners if you are coming from a country where polygamy is legal? “Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (1/20/2025 edition) “Immigration Consequences of Criminal Activity,” Congressional Research Service (5/28/21) Matter of Peterson, 12 I&N Dec. 663 (BIA 1968) “Kicking the INA Out of Bed: Abolishing the Consummation Requirement for Proxy Marriages,” 22 Hastings J. Gender & L. 55 (2011) “Second Wives Club: Mapping the Impact of Polygamy in U.S. Immigration Law,” Claire A. Smearman, Berkeley Journal of Immigration Law (Dec. 2009)  

Ken Cuccinelli is the national chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative. He previously was the acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Yesterday morning, Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice, said that federal officials discovered tens of thousands of dead people and non-citizens on voter rolls. At the present time, multiple states are being sued by the Trump administration for failing to turn over voter roles to the Department of Justice which is determined to ensure compliance with the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and other laws. Out of 60 million records, they've found at least 350,000 dead people and approximately 25,000 people with no citizenship records. Ken believes that election transparency is the foundation of voter confidence. So review this edition of Crosstalk and find out how Ken views the election landscape and what must be done to protect such transparency and confidence. For example: Most people don't call local voting officials when they move. So as people relocate, do such rolls get automatically "cleaned" or not? Why has there been such a radical turn to the "left" in Virginia? Is there an effort in play in order to gain four more House seats for Democrats? How significant is this to the rest of America? Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger just signed into law a measure that joins the state to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Is this an effort to undermine the electoral college? What is ranked choice voting and does the public really understand it? What is ballot harvesting?

Ken Cuccinelli is the national chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative. He previously was the acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Yesterday morning, Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice, said that federal officials discovered tens of thousands of dead people and non-citizens on voter rolls. At the present time, multiple states are being sued by the Trump administration for failing to turn over voter roles to the Department of Justice which is determined to ensure compliance with the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and other laws. Out of 60 million records, they've found at least 350,000 dead people and approximately 25,000 people with no citizenship records. Ken believes that election transparency is the foundation of voter confidence. So review this edition of Crosstalk and find out how Ken views the election landscape and what must be done to protect such transparency and confidence. For example: Most people don't call local voting officials when they move. So as people relocate, do such rolls get automatically "cleaned" or not? Why has there been such a radical turn to the "left" in Virginia? Is there an effort in play in order to gain four more House seats for Democrats? How significant is this to the rest of America? Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger just signed into law a measure that joins the state to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. Is this an effort to undermine the electoral college? What is ranked choice voting and does the public really understand it? What is ballot harvesting?

Josue Fuentes v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services

The heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and Citizenship and Immigration Services appeared before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday. Among the questions they faced was whether the tactics used by their agents during arrests and deportations run afoul of the Constitution. Lisa Desjardins reports. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Top Homeland Security officials, including Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Rodney Scott, head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection; and Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, will testify before the House Committee on Homeland Security on Tuesday.The FBI said it is not aware of any ongoing communication between “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie's family and any suspected kidnappers, after the search for her mother, Nancy Guthrie, entered its second week, and a ransom deadline set out in a purported ransom note appeared to have passed.

The heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection and Citizenship and Immigration Services appeared before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday. Among the questions they faced was whether the tactics used by their agents during arrests and deportations run afoul of the Constitution. Lisa Desjardins reports. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Our guest today is Patricia Ice from Mississippi Immigration Rights Alliance. Let's learn about immigration rights in Mississippi.In Legal Terms, the show where we break down the law, explain how it works, and help make it a little less intimidating for everyday Mississippians. hosted by attorney Adam Kilgore. legalterms@mbponline.orgIf you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcastToday's Legal Terms on In Legal Terms are: ICE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement, USCIS — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Department of State, Department of LaborBONUS: The Executive Office of Immigrant Review You can listen LIVE to us from the MPB Public Media app or from MPBonline.org/radioThursdays, following our over-the-air broadcast, you can hear Next Stop Mississippi on MPB Think Radio at 4pm Central.If you'd like to know more about immigrant rights in Mississippi you could go to https://yourmira.org/ They have information on breaking barriers, building bridges. There's information about their programs and history and how to donate. Our guest was previously on our show on October 1st of 2019. Here is that podcast.Immigration legislation was in the news in Mississippi last week. Our Shamira Muhammad covered the press conference at the capitol and filed her report on MPB's website.I hope you're registered to vote. Monday (Feb 9th) is the deadline to register to vote to participate in the upcoming primaries. It seems to me that the general election doesn't matter – the primaries seem to be where the big decisions are made. That's my opinion. You cannot register to vote online but you can print out a voter registration form from a computer and mail it in. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All across the country, ICE and Border Patrol agents have conducted police-state-style raids and other actions that have terrorized communities and raised constitutional issues of profound importance. At the same time, numerous changes to immigration policy – many of them adopted without public knowledge or input – have made an already complex system more opaque and confusing than ever. At such a challenging moment, the nation is blessed to have a small and courageous cadre of nonprofit advocates who work each day to monitor and shine a light on the system and advocate for basic American values like due process. And recently Newsline got a chance to talk with one of the most able and best-informed attorneys working in this arena, American Immigration Council Deputy Legal Director, Raul Pinto. In Part One of our recent extended conversation with American Immigration Council Deputy Legal Director, Raul Pinto, we delved into some of the most worrisome front burner issues related to immigrants and immigration policy currently afflicting the nation – including the deeply disturbing mass raids, arrests and violence launched by the Trump administration in numerous communities across the country. In Part Two of our chat, we dug deeper into some of these and related issues, including the matter of transparency and accountability in the immigration law system and an ongoing effort by Pinto and his colleagues to compel the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to simply provide immigrants with their own immigration records. Click here for the full interview with Raul Pinto, Deputy Legal Director at the American Immigration Council Editor’s note: Newsline’s interview with Pinto was recorded before a second U.S. citizen was shot and killed by federal immigration officers in Minnesota. 

A top House Republican is calling on Department of Homeland Security officials to testify in front of Congress. Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino formally requested testimony from the heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Garbarino says he wants to make sure those agencies are effectively using their resources. But his letter comes in the aftermath of another deadly shooting by a federal agent in Minnesota as part of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tucked into neighborhoods across Central Ohio are thousands of Haitian refugees and their families who've built lives, businesses, and communities—many under a federal designation called Temporary Protected Status (TPS). With that protection set to expire on February 3, their futures hang in the balance. This conversation dives into the shifting terrain of U.S. immigration policy and how it's playing out in real time across Central Ohio. We unpack the legal pathways available to immigrants and refugees, the challenges of navigating a system marked by long backlogs and limited resources, and the broader implications for citizenship, deportation, and belonging. Featuring: Lourdes Barroso de Padilla, Columbus City Councilmember Emily Brown, Immigration Clinic Director, The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Sophia Pierrelus, Entrepreneur and Former Secretary of the Mouvement Patriotique des Haïtiens Conscients (MPHC) Angela Plummer, Executive Director, Community Refugee and Immigration Services. The host is Danae King, Underserved Communities Reporter, The Columbus Dispatch. Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin makes opening remarks. This forum was sponsored by Columbus City Council. The presenting sponsor of the CMC livestream was The Center for Human Kindness at the Columbus Foundation. CMC's livestream and promotional partner was The Columbus Dispatch. This forum was also supported by Downtown Columbus Inc. and The National Veterans Memorial and Museum. If you would like to keep exploring this week's forum topic, our partners at The Columbus Metropolitan Library recommend reading Raiding the Heartland: An American Story of Deportation and Resistance by William D. Lopez (2025). This forum was recorded before a live audience at The National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, Ohio on January 21, 2026.

In this weekend's episode, three segments from this past week's Washington Journal. Tensions continue to mount in Minnesota – and elsewhere across the country -- over the role and tactics of Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents. We spoke with two guests about the protests – and threats of the President to invoke the Insurrection Act in response. FIRST: Chad Wolf - former acting Homeland Security Secretary in the first Trump administration. And Sarah Pierce – who served as a policy analyst for U-S Citizenship and Immigration Services under the Biden administration. PLUS – a conversation with Behnam Ben Taleblu -- Iran Program Senior Director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies -- , about the brutal crackdown on protesters in Iran -- and potential U.S. military response. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's podcast:1) Officials have found the dead body of the suspected shooter in a Brown University rampage and the murder of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor in his Boston-area home. The suspected shooter — Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national who was a former student at Brown — took his own life, Providence Chief of Police Oscar Perez said at a press briefing on Thursday night. Meantime, the Trump administration halted the US green card lottery program, which it said was used by the suspect. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X that she’s asking US Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the lottery, officially known as the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program.2) A trove of Justice Department records tied to Jeffrey Epstein is set for release Friday, part of a long-awaited public reckoning over the convicted sex offender’s ties to elites and years of alleged abuse. The documents could shed new light on government investigations dating back nearly two decades. President Trump, who had previously resisted efforts to unseal the files, signed legislation last month mandating their release, while the Justice Department has yet to specify a time for publication.3) European Union leaders have agreed to loan Ukraine €90 billion ($106 billion) for the next two years in a bid to strengthen Kyiv’s hand at the negotiating table and keep the war-torn country afloat. The EU will fund the loan through joint debt raised on the capital markets and backed by the bloc’s budget, a significant pivot from the preferred plan to use Russian assets frozen on European soil. The decision came early Friday morning after marathon talks at a summit in Brussels. Ukraine won’t need to repay the loan until Moscow compensates Kyiv with reparations — and in the meantime, the Russian assets will remain immobilized in the EU.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fredis Ortez Reyes v. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services

The Trump administration is ready to roll out new limits on asylum seekers, refugee processing, and even green card reviews after a suspected radicalized Afghan national was charged in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. President Trump and Homeland Security officials say the move is part of an effort to tighten vetting and shift the burden of proof for those already in the U.S., including refugees admitted during the Biden years. Ken Cuccinelli, former USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) director and current Senior Fellow for Homeland Security, joined host Jessica Rosenthal on the Rundown this past week to explain what these new rules mean for Afghan refugees and the other 19 travel ban countries. Cuccinelli described the vetting system as needing improvement, saying that certain migrants from certain countries cannot be effectively vetted and should not be allowed into America. And in some cases, if they're already here, they should be deported. We often must cut interviews short during the week, but we thought you might like to hear the full interview. Today on Fox News Rundown Extra, we will share our entire interview with Ken Cuccinelli, former USCIS director. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Trump administration is ready to roll out new limits on asylum seekers, refugee processing, and even green card reviews after a suspected radicalized Afghan national was charged in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. President Trump and Homeland Security officials say the move is part of an effort to tighten vetting and shift the burden of proof for those already in the U.S., including refugees admitted during the Biden years. Ken Cuccinelli, former USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) director and current Senior Fellow for Homeland Security, joined host Jessica Rosenthal on the Rundown this past week to explain what these new rules mean for Afghan refugees and the other 19 travel ban countries. Cuccinelli described the vetting system as needing improvement, saying that certain migrants from certain countries cannot be effectively vetted and should not be allowed into America. And in some cases, if they're already here, they should be deported. We often must cut interviews short during the week, but we thought you might like to hear the full interview. Today on Fox News Rundown Extra, we will share our entire interview with Ken Cuccinelli, former USCIS director. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Trump administration is ready to roll out new limits on asylum seekers, refugee processing, and even green card reviews after a suspected radicalized Afghan national was charged in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. President Trump and Homeland Security officials say the move is part of an effort to tighten vetting and shift the burden of proof for those already in the U.S., including refugees admitted during the Biden years. Ken Cuccinelli, former USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) director and current Senior Fellow for Homeland Security, joined host Jessica Rosenthal on the Rundown this past week to explain what these new rules mean for Afghan refugees and the other 19 travel ban countries. Cuccinelli described the vetting system as needing improvement, saying that certain migrants from certain countries cannot be effectively vetted and should not be allowed into America. And in some cases, if they're already here, they should be deported. We often must cut interviews short during the week, but we thought you might like to hear the full interview. Today on Fox News Rundown Extra, we will share our entire interview with Ken Cuccinelli, former USCIS director. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the 2025 holiday season ramps up, a new USGOV intelligence bulletin warns that the terror threat to soft targets—Christmas markets, parades, houses of worship, and New Year's celebrations—remains acutely elevated on both sides of the Atlantic. Lone offenders and small cells, inspired by ISIS, al-Qaida, domestic violent extremists, or a toxic mix of all three, are judged the most likely danger, armed with simple weapons: knives, guns, vehicles, or even hoax threats meant to sow panic and bleed resources. Meanwhile, in a historic move, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has slammed the brakes on all pending asylum applications nationwide and paused green cards, citizenship, and travel documents for nationals of 19 high-risk countries. The directive also triggers mandatory re-vetting—including in-person interviews—for potentially hundreds of thousands of entrants since 2021. We break down the new intel report, the European hot spots, the policy earthquake in immigration enforcement, and what it all actually means for your safety this December. An expanded written version of this report can be found in this week's Threat Journal newsletter. You can subscribe for free by visiting www.ThreatJournal.com. A link to this issue will be sent to you immediately via email. AlertsUSA Homepage http://www.AlertsUSA.com – (Homeland Security Alerts for Mobile Devices) AlertsUSA on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/alertsusa AlertsUSA on Twitter https://twitter.com/alertsusa Threat Journal on Twitter https://twitter.com/threatjournal Threat Journal Homepage https://www.ThreatJournal.com

The Trump administration shortened the work permit duration for asylum-seekers from five years to 18 months. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Thursday said this was due to security concerns with immigrant populations.U.S. Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley testified privately before Congress on the controversial follow-up strike on a drug boat in the Caribbean in September. He said War Secretary Pete Hegseth did not issue a “kill them all” order, but some lawmakers remain concerned.The FBI arrested a suspect for placing pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., the night before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach. Brian Cole Jr. of Virginia has been charged with transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce and malicious destruction by means of explosion.

Congress faces an impending deadline as lawmakers confront the year-end expiration of Obamacare tax credits and renewed battles over healthcare reform. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) joins the Rundown to discuss the expiration of Obamacare tax credits and the debate around reform. Plus, his proposal to make individuals the consumers of healthcare rather than insurance companies, and the ongoing operations by the US military off the coast of Venezuela targeting suspected drug trafficking boats.The Trump administration is ready to roll out new limits on asylum seekers, refugee processing, and even green card reviews after a suspected radicalized Afghan national was charged in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. President Trump and Homeland Security officials say the move is part of an effort to tighten vetting and shift the burden of proof for those already in the U.S., including refugees admitted during the Biden years. Ken Cuccinelli, former USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) director and current Senior Fellow for Homeland Security, joins the Rundown to explain what these new rules mean for Afghan refugees and immigration policy heading into the new year. Plus,  commentary by FOX News Contributor Liz Peek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Congress faces an impending deadline as lawmakers confront the year-end expiration of Obamacare tax credits and renewed battles over healthcare reform. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) joins the Rundown to discuss the expiration of Obamacare tax credits and the debate around reform. Plus, his proposal to make individuals the consumers of healthcare rather than insurance companies, and the ongoing operations by the US military off the coast of Venezuela targeting suspected drug trafficking boats.The Trump administration is ready to roll out new limits on asylum seekers, refugee processing, and even green card reviews after a suspected radicalized Afghan national was charged in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. President Trump and Homeland Security officials say the move is part of an effort to tighten vetting and shift the burden of proof for those already in the U.S., including refugees admitted during the Biden years. Ken Cuccinelli, former USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) director and current Senior Fellow for Homeland Security, joins the Rundown to explain what these new rules mean for Afghan refugees and immigration policy heading into the new year. Plus,  commentary by FOX News Contributor Liz Peek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In today's show, updates to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services naturalization test - making it longer and more rigorous. Also, the inaugural La Posada celebration, and two new features to central Fayetteville's publicly-owned spaces. 

Congress faces an impending deadline as lawmakers confront the year-end expiration of Obamacare tax credits and renewed battles over healthcare reform. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) joins the Rundown to discuss the expiration of Obamacare tax credits and the debate around reform. Plus, his proposal to make individuals the consumers of healthcare rather than insurance companies, and the ongoing operations by the US military off the coast of Venezuela targeting suspected drug trafficking boats.The Trump administration is ready to roll out new limits on asylum seekers, refugee processing, and even green card reviews after a suspected radicalized Afghan national was charged in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. President Trump and Homeland Security officials say the move is part of an effort to tighten vetting and shift the burden of proof for those already in the U.S., including refugees admitted during the Biden years. Ken Cuccinelli, former USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) director and current Senior Fellow for Homeland Security, joins the Rundown to explain what these new rules mean for Afghan refugees and immigration policy heading into the new year. Plus,  commentary by FOX News Contributor Liz Peek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has halted all immigration processing related to Afghan nationals, after two U.S. National Guard soldiers were shot and critically wounded near the White House.

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Louis R. Avallone and Stephen Parr. This is the full show for November 6, 2025. 0:30 We take a look at Speaker Mike Johnson's warning that today’s Democratic Party has been overtaken by an ideological movement far removed from its working-class roots. Once the party that called itself the party of the middle class and moderation, Democrats have shifted so sharply to the left that traditional voices are nearly extinct. 9:30 Plus, we cover the Top 3 Things You Need to Know. Former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi will not run for another term in Congress. The FAA is ordering 40 of the biggest airports in the country to begin restricting flights. The US Supreme Court ruled that the federal government does have the right and the power to insist only biological sex can be listed on US issued passports. 12:30 Get Prodovite Plus from Victory Nutrition International for 20% off. Go to vni.life/agr and use the promo code AGR20. 13:00 We unpack Ronald Reagan’s iconic declaration that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” then contrast it with Mamdani’s modern-day claim that “there is no problem too large for government to solve and no concern too small for it to care about.” If you want to see what happens when government tries to solve everything, look at cities like New York, San Franscisco, Chicago, and Portland. Skyrocketing taxes, tent cities, rampant crime, and deepening inequality despite billions in government spending. 16:30 American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson react to the stunning — but not surprising — election of Zoran Mamdani as mayor of New York City. The Mamas discuss the fiery tone of Mamdani’s victory speech, where he quoted socialist figures like Eugene V. Debs rather than American founders, and how his words reflect what they see as a deeper ideological shift in American politics. If you'd like to ask our American Mamas a question, go to our website, AmericanGroundRadio.com/mamas and click on the Ask the Mamas button. 23:00 We discuss the surge of over 35,000 Americans applying to become “Homeland Defenders” — a new initiative under the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services within the Department of Homeland Security. The goal? Strengthen the nation’s immigration system by ensuring that only those who meet legal standards are granted entry or benefits. 25:30 We Dig Deep into one of the most shocking takeaways from the week’s elections — the erosion of political accountability. We reflect on a time when personal misconduct or moral scandal could end a political career, pointing back to Gary Hart’s downfall in the 1980s as a stark contrast to today. From Zoran Mamdani’s incendiary rhetoric, to Virginia’s new attorney general Jay Jones and his disturbing text messages, to Mikie Sherrill’s Naval Academy cheating scandal, and even an admitted illegal immigrant elected mayor in St. Paul, the discussion paints a picture of a political culture where outrage no longer matters — at least, not for one side of the aisle. 32:00 Get TrimROX from Victory Nutrition International for 20% off. Go to vni.life/agr and use the promo code AGR20. 32:30 We turn to Clearwater, Kansas, where Mayor Joe Sabalas, a non-citizen permanent resident from Mexico, has not only served as mayor—but was just reelected. Even more troubling, records show he voted illegally in U.S. elections multiple times, leading to felony charges of election perjury and unlawful voting. 35:30 Plus, a new Christianity Today report shows Gen Z now leads all generations in church attendance, and that's a Bright Spot. This hunger for truth and spiritual grounding contrasts sharply with the moral confusion shaping politics and culture. It looks like Gen Z realizes that the next generation’s hope isn’t found in movements or ideologies, but in the gospel itself. 40:00 For the sixth straight month, U.S. Border Patrol has reported zero illegal immigrant releases into the country—a stark contrast to the 150,000–200,000 monthly releases under the Biden administration. Trump looked at all the people coming across the border and said, "Whoa!" 41:30 And we finish off with a story about Abraham Lincoln and a letter that was discovered earlier this year that shows his character. Follow us: americangroundradio.com Facebook: facebook.com / AmericanGroundRadio Instagram: instagram.com/americangroundradio See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Host/Producer: Amy Browne Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Senator Angus King, and at least 70 other members of Congress have issued a letter in opposition the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services' (USCIS) recently announced interim final rule ending the automatic extension of employment authorization documents (EAD) for individuals who have filed timely renewal applications. You may submit comments on the entirety of this IFR, identified by DHS Docket No. USCIS-2025-0271, through the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal until December 1st. About the host: Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU's News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021. Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License The post Around Town 11/6/25: Local News, Culture and Events first appeared on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, Maine Local News and Public Affairs Archives.

John Solomon tackles the pressing issues surrounding the recent Hamas-Israel peace deal and its implications for America. He dives into the systemic immigration fraud exposed by significant raids in Minnesota and discusses the potential consequences for those who have cheated the immigration system. Joining him is Joseph Edlow, the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, who provides insights on denaturalization and the government's crackdown on immigration fraud. The episode also honors the memory of a hero from the 9/11 attacks, and features a discussion about the dangers of central bank digital currencies with American Alternative Assets. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to American Ground Radio with Stephen Parr and Louis R. Avallone. This is the full show for October 1, 2025. 0:30 In a massive Illinois ICE operation called Operation Midway Blitz, over 800 illegal alien criminals were arrested in one coordinated sweep.These weren’t first-time visa overstays. We’re talking about gang members, drug traffickers, sexual predators, and violent offenders—people no community should be forced to live next to. Yet, thanks to Illinois’ sanctuary policies, these criminals were shielded from removal until federal agents stepped in. We break down the operation and why the stakes are so high for Americans and our safety. 9:44 Plus, we cover the Top 3 Things You Need to Know. Democrats voted to shut down the Federal Government last night, repeatedly voting against passing a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through November 7th. The Trump administration is suing LA County in California for violating the 2nd Amendment. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services department announced the results of Operation Twin Shield. 12:30 Get Brain Reward from Victory Nutrition International for 20% off. Go to vni.life/agr and use the promo code AGR20. 13:30 We unpack the new American Pope's criticism of President Donald Trump where he suggested that enforcing immigration laws is somehow at odds with being pro-life. We also dive into the controversy surrounding the Archdiocese of Chicago honoring Senator Dick Durbin, a Catholic politician who openly supports abortion, with a “lifetime achievement award.” 16:30 We ask American Mamas Teri Netterville and Kimberly Burleson about parents who put their kids in travel sports. Are they just living vicariously through their kids? Our American Mamas say there’s a lot more to the story. From the sacrifices families make, to the friendships built on the road, to the competitive edge required just to make a Texas high school team, travel sports can be a pathway to scholarships, memories, and life lessons. If you'd like to ask our American Mamas a question, go to our website, AmericanGroundRadio.com/mamas and click on the Ask the Mamas button. 23:00 In Memphis, President Trump has deployed the National Guard alongside federal agents—working with Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Lee—to crack down on violent crime. Within just 48 hours, the operation led to 53 arrests and 20 illegal guns seized. But instead of welcoming the results, Democrats remain silent—or outright protest. Why? We break down why the left won’t credit Trump’s actions, the political games behind crime and safety, and how real families in Memphis are the ones who stand to benefit. 26:45 New voter registration data from Decision Desk HQ reveals a stunning shift: since Election Day last year, over 2.1 million names have been purged from U.S. voter rolls. We Dig Deep into what the numbers really mean, why voter roll maintenance matters, and how the push for automatic registration could be fueling fraudulent enrollments. We also examine why Democrats resist voter ID laws, the risks to election integrity, and how trust in the system erodes when the numbers don’t add up. 32:30 Get NSorb from Victory Nutrition International for 20% off. Go to vni.life/agr and use the promo code AGR20. 33:30 The Biden-era green agenda just took a major hit — and it’s Democrats’ own fault. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has announced the cancellation of $8 billion in green energy funding, wiping out a huge chunk of what critics call “slush funds for climate activists.” Democrats refused to pass a continuing resolution, betting that a government shutdown would hurt Republicans and President Trump politically. Instead, OMB Director Russ Vought wielded the budget axe — and the cuts landed squarely on the Green New Deal. 36:35 Plus, having a sense of purpose may protect your brain health, and that's a Bright Spot. In new study in the Journal of Geriatric Psychology, researchers found that people who felt their lives had meaning were less likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer’s even if they carried the APOE4 gene, a major risk factor. 40:30 Massive immigration raids are underway in Chicago, and former ICE Director Tom Homan says the strategy is simple: target the cities that resist federal immigration enforcement the most. From Los Angeles to Chicago, so-called “sanctuary cities” have become magnets for illegal immigration, gangs, and crime—and Tom Homan is saying "Whoa!" 42:30 And we finish off with a school community who came together to support their school's security guard. Follow us: americangroundradio.com Facebook: facebook.com / AmericanGroundRadio Instagram: instagram.com/americangroundradio Links: Trump Admin Official Says Government Shutdown an Opportunity for Mass Layoffs https://x.com/DC_Draino/status/1973080318631432651 USCIS Announces Results of Operation Twin Shield, a Large-Scale Immigration Fraud Investigation Democrats Lose Over 1.3 Million Voters Since 2024 Election Life Purpose Lowers Risk for Cognitive Impairment in a United States Population-Based Cohort Living With Purpose May Protect Your Brain From Dementia, Shows Huge New Study See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The latest episode of the Parsing Immigration Policy podcast features the audio of a recent sit-down between Executive Director Mark Krikorian and Joseph Edlow, the newly confirmed Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). In a wide-ranging discussion, Edlow laid out his priorities for the agency — from strengthening fraud detection to reforming visa programs and restoring integrity to the naturalization process.On expanding investigative capacity, Edlow said:"When you're adjudicating a green card or a naturalization, that's a law enforcement action...But this is not a police force. What we are looking at incorporating into USCIS is an investigative agency…to really do a deep dive into immigration fraud, national security issues, and other criminality within the agency's jurisdiction."Other highlights include:H-1B visas: “If properly monitored and scrutinized for integrity, H-1B can be a useful tool. But my big concern is the way it keeps U.S. citizens out of the job market, especially recent STEM graduates.”Vetting standards: “We want to know everything about these individuals… Anti-American activities at a certain level are not going to be tolerated.”Naturalization: “Frankly, this test is just too easy. We need to make it more thought-provoking to ensure new citizens have a real attachment to the Constitution.”Temporary Protected Status: “For the first time in a very long time we are not seeing pro-forma renewals...We are looking at all cases and the reasons for the designations, and making a determination based both on whether those conditions still apply … and looking at, again, the foreign policy considerations.”Edlow also addressed:Decades of “profligate” work permit issuance to people whose status doesn't include work authorization and the end of automatic Social Security number approvals.Parole and DACA, calling DACA a “real legal problem” likely requiring congressional resolution.Legislative priorities, including eliminating the Diversity Visa lottery and fixing visa allocations.Expanding Systematic Alien Verification Enterprise (SAVE) access for states to verify voter eligibility, which he called potentially “a gamechanger.”Renewed denaturalization efforts and stronger fraud detection across USCIS.Host Mark Krikorian is the Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies.GuestJoseph Edlow is the Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.RelatedPanel Press ReleasePanel VideoC-Span CoverageCIS Live StreamPanel TranscriptIntro MontageVoices in the opening montage:Sen. Barack Obama at a 2005 press conference.Sen. John McCain in a 2010 election ad.President Lyndon Johnson, upon signing the 1965 Immigration Act.Booker T. Washington, reading in 1908 from his 1895 Atlanta Exposition speech.Laraine Newman as a "Conehead" on SNL in 1977.Hillary Clinton in a 2003 radio interview.Cesar Chavez in a 1974 interview.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking to reporters in 2019.Prof. George Borjas in a 2016 C-SPAN appearance.Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008 comments on the Senate floor.Candidate Trump in 2015 campaign speech.Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes".

Just one month on the job and the new US Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joe Edlow joins the show to discuss how he's reforming and shaking up the USCIS to fix a disastrous problem left to him by the Biden Administration including sending armed agents into the field to arrest immigration lawyers, reinstating neighborhood visits and making the citizenship test MUCH more rigorous. Reporter Willilam J. Kelley joins to discuss the mounting federal stand off in Chicago between Trump, Joe Scarborough, and Brandon Johnson and JB Pritzker. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just one month on the job and the new US Citizenship and Immigration Services director Joe Edlow joins the show to discuss how he's reforming and shaking up the USCIS to fix a disastrous problem left to him by the Biden Administration including sending armed agents into the field to arrest immigration lawyers, reinstating neighborhood visits and making the citizenship test MUCH more rigorous. Reporter Willilam J. Kelley joins to discuss the mounting federal stand off in Chicago between Trump, Joe Scarborough, and Brandon Johnson and JB Pritzker. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. defends his vaccine policy changes and firing of top officials at the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, before the Senate Finance Committee. Almost all the committee's Democrats are calling on him to resign. Secretary Kennedy is also asked about studies on the causes of autism, and about his comments following the school shooting in Minneapolis on side effects of antidepressants; Federal Reserve Governor nominee Stephen Miran tells the Senate Banking Committee he is committed to the independence of the Fed, as he gets questions about any plans to return to his current job at the White House when his term ends in January; Director of U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services talks about bringing in armed law enforcement to the agency and making the U.S. citizenship test tougher; Missouri's legislature takes up a Congressional redistricting map to flip a Democratic seat to Republicans, part of a nationwide effort led by the White House in red states, being countered by Democrats in blue states; First Lady Melania Trump hosts a meeting of the White House Task Force on AI Education at the White House with the leaders of large technology companies including Google, Meta & Apple. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How federal Medicaid cuts could impact Planned Parenthood in California. Also, the launching of new immigration services called Sacramento RISE Hub. Finally, the Alchemist Microenterprise Academy for small food entrepreneurs.

The Social Security Administration has moved on to its third chief information officer of the Trump administration, tapping yet another individual with Department of Government Efficiency affiliations. According to an update to CIO.gov, a federal page that features IT leaders in the government, Aram Moghaddassi has taken over as SSA's top IT official after previously working at the agency in a different role. Moghaddassi, who has also worked at the Labor Department, was at one point given access to IT systems at United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, FedScoop previously reported. Per his LinkedIn profile, Moghaddassi previously worked for two Elon Musk-owned companies: the social media platform X and Neuralink. Moghaddassi is at least the third DOGE associate to be named CIO at SSA since President Donald Trump took office in January. By and large, people don't seem to be trying to access technology created by DeepSeek — the Chinese AI firm that's rattled leading U.S. AI companies and lawmakers — on government systems. But it has happened at least once at a federal civilian agency. Since January, there's been one attempt to access DeepSeek at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a spokesperson for the agency confirmed to FedScoop. The USDA successfully prevented access to the technology and has blocked DeepSeek through Microsoft's Defender for Cloud Application service since Jan. 28, the spokesperson added. DeepSeek is banned along with other public AI sites “based on risk levels that Microsoft provides in their Defender applications,” the person said. The agency did not say whether there were attempts to access the technology before the block was implemented. Lawmakers are increasingly concerned about DeepSeek, a China-based large language model developer that threatens the dominance of American AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. In the view of many federal officials, the company's technology raises serious security concerns. Last Wednesday, lawmakers proposed the No Adversarial Al Act, which would ban the use of DeepSeek on government devices, create a registry of foreign adversary AI systems and establish a method for these technologies to be delisted. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

In the 6 AM hour, Larry O’Connor and Julie Gunlock discussed: NY POST: Vance Says Biden Not Healthy Enough to Be President After Prostate Cancer News: ‘I Blame the People Around Him’ WMAL GUEST: GEORGE FISHMAN (Senior Legal Fellow, Center for Immigration Studies & Former Acting Chief Counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) on the Supreme Court Allowing Trump to Strip Venezuelans’ Temporary Legal Status NY TIMES: Supreme Court Lets Trump Lift Deportation Protections for Venezuelans Where to find more about WMAL's morning show: Follow podcasts on Apple, Audible and Spotify Follow WMAL's "O'Connor and Company" on X: @WMALDC, @LarryOConnor, @JGunlock, @PatricePinkfile, and @HeatherHunterDC Facebook: WMALDC and Larry O'Connor Instagram: WMALDC Website: wmal.com/oconnor-company Episode: Tuesday, May 20, 2025 / 6 AM HourSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In order to become a naturalized citizen of the United States, applicants must pass an oral civics exam. Listeners call in to try their hand at some of the questions on the test, related to what US Citizenship and Immigration Services calls "principles of American democracy" and "systems of government."

In order to become a naturalized citizen of the United States, applicants must pass an oral civics exam. Listeners call in to try their hand at some of the questions on the test, related to what US Citizenship and Immigration Services calls "principles of American democracy" and "systems of government."

Get the Toolbox Magazine! https://immigrationlawyerstoolbox.com/magazine Join our Marriage/Family Based Green Card course and community (includes adjustment and consular processing): https://immigrationlawyerstoolbox.com/courses   Guest: Latchi Delchev, Strategic Director of Mitratech (INS Zoom)   Audio Podcast Link:   Itunes Link:   Share the video: https://youtu.be/eQT2aalJUnI   Our Website: ImmigrationLawyersToolbox.com   Not legal advice. Consult with an Attorney. Attorney Advertisement. #podcaster #Lawyer #ImmigrationLawyer #Interview #Immigration #ImmigrationAttorney #USImmigration #ImmigrationLaw #ImmigrationLawyersToolbox

Get the Toolbox Magazine! https://immigrationlawyerstoolbox.com/magazine Join our Marriage/Family Based Green Card course and community (includes adjustment and consular processing): https://immigrationlawyerstoolbox.com/courses   Guest: Khalil Zlaoui (Founder of CaseBlink.com)   Audio Podcast Link: https://sites.libsyn.com/69112/immigration-service-provider-caseblinkcom-founder-khalil-zlaoui Itunes Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/immigration-service-provider-caseblink-com-founder/id1111797806?i=1000706044033 Share the video: https://youtu.be/7B4F50iJLqU   Our Website: ImmigrationLawyersToolbox.com   Not legal advice. Consult with an Attorney. Attorney Advertisement. #podcaster #Lawyer #ImmigrationLawyer #Interview #Immigration #ImmigrationAttorney #USImmigration #ImmigrationLaw #ImmigrationLawyersToolbox