In 2018 former Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, what we didn’t know was that beginning in 2017 the Trump administration ran a secret pilot program that began rapidly separating children from their families in El Paso, Texas. After running this pilot program, Customs and Border Protection unequivocally told the administration that the program was a failure because they were unable to track parents and children after separation. In the face of these conclusions, the administration went forward with their policy which ultimately separated over 2,500 children, many of whom will most likely never be reunited with their parents. In this week’s episode, we speak with artist, immigration lawyer, and activist Carolina Rubio MacWright on the ongoing travesty of family separations, the inherent trauma of U.S. detention centers, and how we can begin revamping our laws, values, policies, and systems when it comes to migration. 

Beyond our conversation on the moral imperative of dismantling detention centers, we also explore how we can destroy invisible borders of segregation, the power of conversation, and how communal art classes foster environments of connectivity and work to change harmful narratives that have been pushed by a small political elite to criminalize Indigenous peoples of so-called North, Central, and South America.

Carolina Rubio MacWright is an artist, immigration lawyer, and activist fighting for immigrant and humanitarian rights. She believes ART is the most powerful way of bringing humans together and dissolving walls and cages that separate us. She has thus mixed her law and art into a non-profit called Touching Land that uses hands-on experiential arts to empower, build bridges and decolonize food. 

♫ Music featured in this episode is “My Heart Beating Drum” and “Sanguine” by Madelyn Ilana and “Garden of Dreams” by Samuela Akert. 

Episode References

Touching Land

BKLYN CLAY

Carolina’s Recommendations

Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America by Maria Hinojosa 

Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity  by Paola Ramos 

Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown

Carolina’s Action Points

1. Understanding your rights in order to know how to intervene in a situation that requires intervening for a POC or more vulnerable populations, is incredibly important and impactful. Do you know your 4th amendment? Take a look at the constitution to understand how these laws affect others.

2. Are you hiring immigrants as domestic workers, gardeners, dry cleaners? Are you paying them a minimum wage that is truly livable? Are you paying them for sick days and holidays? Sit down with them one afternoon and offer to go over a Know Your Rights video. Print them out a Know Your Rights card. 

3. Boycott companies that abuse immigrants and be more diligent as to where you spend your money. Are you buying locally? Are you supporting your local farmers? Are you decolonizing traditions and whitewashed history?

4. Look up the "informed immigrant" videos and see what is an emergency plan of action for immigrants.

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