Understanding The Newest Border Crisis

Sonali Kolhatkar speaks with Jean Guerrero about the newest border crisis.

The Biden administration this week released video footage and photographs of migrant detention facilities in Donna and El Paso, Texas, where thousands of unaccompanied minors are being processed. The point of releasing the images is, in the words of a Customs and Border Patrol official to, “balance the need for public transparency and accountability.”

Citing the pandemic, the Biden administration has not allowed journalists to visit the facilities which have become overrun with young refugees. On the same day, Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar released images of one Texas facility where more than 400 boys were being held in an area meant for 250.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials are visiting Mexico this week to finalize a deal on sending Covid vaccines to the Mexican government. But critics fear that migrants are being used as bargaining chips.

Read Jean Guerrero’s latest article on the Daily Beast called Mexican MAGA Conspiracy Theorists Fan Flames At The Border HERE.

Jean Guerrero, investigative border reporter contributing to NPR, the PBS NewsHour and other public media. She is the author of Crux: A Cross-Border Memoir, which won the PEN/FUSION Emerging Writers prize. Her new book is called Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda. She just wrote a Daily Beast article entitled, “Mexican MAGA Conspiracy Theorists Fan Flames At The Border.”

Rising Up with Sonali is a radio and television show that brings progressive news coverage rooted in gender and racial justice to a wide audience.

Rising Up With Sonali was built on the foundation of Sonali Kolhatkar's earlier show, Uprising, which became the longest-running drive-time radio show on KPFK in Los Angeles hosted by a woman. RUS airs on Free Speech TV every weekday.

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