Reason Podcast

Maybe Snatching Toddlers From Their Asylum-Seeking Parents Is Who We Are: Podcast

Reason editors discuss what anti-immigration fantasy looks like when translated into policy, and how education diversity goals lead to discrimination.

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||| Chris Kleponis - CNP / MEGA / Newscom
Chris Kleponis—CNP / MEGA / Newscom

Today President Donald Trump published a half-dozen tweets, of varying levels of factuality and inference, in response to his administration's new policy of separating children from their asylum-seeking parents or guardians at the border. (Sample: "It is the Democrats fault for being weak and ineffective with Boarder Security and Crime. Tell them to start thinking about the people devastated by Crime coming from illegal immigration. Change the laws!") Meanwhile, Quinnipiac University has released a striking new poll showing that a clear majority of Republicans—55 percent to 35 percent—favor rather than oppose the new policy, compared to a 24/68 percent split among independents, and 7/91 among Democrats, giving the question an overall negative rating of 27/66.

Given Republican sentiment and Trump's successes running on the issue, as well as Democratic failures and congressional abdication of responsibility, a bracing truth must be confronted: This is who Americans are, right now. At least so argue argue Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Nick Gillespie, and Matt Welch, on today's editor-roundtable version of the Reason Podcast. The quartet also take a deep dive into school-admission diversity programs gone wrong, as well as a brief detour into the artistic world of Anthony Bourdain.

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Audio production by Ian Keyser.

Relevant links from the show:

"Donald Trump Is Terrible on Immigration, But Congress Is the True Monster," by Nick Gillespie

"Trump's Policy of Separating Immigrant Families Makes for a Contentious Father's Day," by Robby Soave

"Mom Brings Coughing 10-Month-Old to the Hospital. Days Later, Cops Take the Baby," by Lenore Skenazy

"Trump's Dreamer Fix Will Drag the Country Back to 1924," by Shikha Dalmia

"Hot August Fright: The Month Republicans Lost Their Minds Over Immigration," by Matt Welch

"Study: Elite Colleges' Race-Conscious Admissions Discriminate Against Asian Applicants," by Robby Soave

"Reason.tv: Crazy U's Andrew Ferguson on How to Get Your Kid into College w/o Going Insane," by Jim Epstein and Nick Gillespie

"Legacies of Injustice: Alumni preferences threaten educational equity–and no one seems to care," by Shikha Dalmia

"Anthony Bourdain, Lover of Food and Enemy to All Tyrants, Has Died," by Mike Riggs

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