The time has come and Donald J. Trump is, once again, President of the United States. President Trump hit the ground running with sweeping promises to shut down the southern border, ramp up oil drilling and exports, and keep the definition of gender to two strict categories: male and female.
Latino USA teams up with Futuro Media’s political podcast, In the Thick, to hear how folks are reacting to Trump’s inauguration speech and his day 1 executive orders. First, we hear diverse testimonies from folks across the country and at the border, including from Pablo, a Venezuelan migrant who’s appointment to apply for asylum on January 20th was suddenly canceled. We also hear reactions from Norma, an undocumented domestic worker in New Jersey; and Daniel, a trans student and activist in Arizona.
“So many of my friends, my community, my family are angry and scared,” Daniel told Latino USA and In The Thick, reacting to Trump’s day 1 words.
Then, our host Maria Hinojosa sits down with Princeton Professor of African American Studies and author Dr. Eddie Glaude and Senior Political Reporter for Vox, Nicole Narea. They discuss how they’re processing the news on a personal level before delving into the specifics of Trump’s day 1 approach to immigration, diversity, equity and inclusion, and more. Glaude looks to the past to understand how to approach the present.
“There’s a kind of tragic choice that’s at the heart of the American founding, a compromise, and that compromise had everything to do with our democratic principles and with greed and selfishness rooted in slavery. And because of that compromise, we have bequeathed to succeeding generations, right?, a kind of political culture of evasion and deferral. We don’t want to confront the ugliness of who we are,” he said.
Reporter Nicole Narea also shares her on-the-ground insights from reporting on immigration in the state of Texas.
“Of course, via executive order, he can basically undo anything that Biden passed via executive order. One of the first ones he signed was reversing many Biden regulations around climate, around immigration, and I think we’ll see more of that in the days ahead. I think there are still a lot of questions about what exactly this means in practice,” Narea told us.“So especially on immigration, he really is laying out a very sweeping vision for changing immigration enforcement in this country, looking inward rather than just outward at people who are coming in.”
Produced by Ariel Goodman, Inés Rénique and Tasha Sandoval. Edited by Andrea López-Cruzado and Maria Garcia. Mixed by Stephanie Lebow, Julia Caruso, JJ Querubin.
Featured image by AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes.
