Coming to America, Then and Now
Season 2, Episode 7
With guests Erika Lee and Muzaffar A. Chishti and cohost Amanda Frost.
Read More
Has Conservatism Outlived Its Usefulness?
A short note on a hoary concept
Matt Walsh: The definition of conservatism … It has no definition, I think. We talk about the words that don’t mean anything anymore, words that used to be useful and maybe used to mean something and they just don’t anymore because of how they’ve been used and abused and overused. ...
Read More
Supreme Court
Season 2, Episode 6
This episode looks at two cases that the Supreme Court heard in March and April of this year: Noem v. Al Otro Lado and Trump v. Barbara. They’re significant cases that address very different aspects of immigration and citizenship.
Read More
Trump’s Way With Words
The metapragmatic presidency
Donald Trump has a kingly approach to his presidency—and to language. Yes, it is well-recognized that Trump does not command mastery of the basics of syntax and grammar of any language, including the one his supporters want to be declared the US national language, i.e., American English. No bother: Trump ...
Read More
Immigration Detention
Season 2, Episode 5
Guests Mekela A. Goehring (Executive Director, Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network) and Laura P. Lunn (Director of Advocacy & Litigation, Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network) join the Unsettled hosts in a conversation about immigration detention in the second Trump administration. The administration has been greatly expanding detention facilities by buying ...
Read More
Rights in the Era of ICE Raids
Season 2, Episode 4
In this episode, guest Lee Gelernt, Deputy Director of ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, joins the Unsettled hosts in discussing immigration enforcement in the United States from the perspective of civil liberties, assessing the broader implications of contemporary enforcement practices for constitutional rights and the rule of law.
Read More
“I’m an Immigration Lawyer. Trump Is Shattering My Clients’ Lives.”
Season 2: Episode 3
Please note: This episode begins with a discussion of the events in Minneapolis, but was recorded prior to the January 24, 2026, shooting of Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis, MN.
Read More
One Battle After Another
With ICE in Minneapolis: An eyewitness account
On Tuesday morning, January 13, I was driving home after dropping my 9-year-old son off at school. There were ICE vehicles everywhere, I was surrounded by them on Park Ave.
After a block or two of this, I parked and got out of my car. I saw that there were many ...
Read More
“Things Happen”
On one’s sense of impending doom
Americans have long enjoyed a robust and righteous sense of impunity. No matter how badly our government blundered, we nevertheless clung confidently to the notion that we would always land on our feet.
It has been said (allegedly by Bismarck, but there is little evidence to support the attribution) that “there ...
Read More
H-1B Visas
Season 2: Episode 2
David J. Bier, Director of Immigration Studies and the Selz Foundation Chair in Immigration Policy at the Cato Institute, joins Hiroshi Motomura and Cristina M. Rodriguez to discuss the implications of 2025 Executive Order on H-1B visas, what might be motivating that Executive Order, and the ins and outs of ...
Read More
“Things Happen”
Staging sovereignty
We have become accustomed to the Oval Office ritual by which Trump stages his pugnacious primacy. The protocol of the traditional press conference, in which the president stands and the press remains seated until recognized, is inverted. Trump sits as if enthroned on one of his gilded chairs, though not ...
Read More
The Trump Administration’s War on Venezuelan Migrants
Season 2: Episode 1
Jonathan Blitzer, staff writer for The New Yorker, discusses his recent article “Enemies of the State: How the Trump Administration declared war on Venezuelan migrants in the US.” In telling the story of a Venezuelan couple living in Chicago, one of whom was sent to CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador, and one ...
Read More
