NDLON’S CHRIS NEWMAN UNPACKS IMMIGRATION ON CELEBRATED PODCAST ‘THE DIG’

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 10 – Chris Newman, Legal Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), tackles immigration, the Democrats, the current calamity – and how we’ll try to get out of it – in a new, deep-diving conversation with Daniel Denvir, the author and educator, on Denvir’s podcast, “The Dig.”

The podcast episode, “Deportation Nation With Chris Newman,” was released on Feb. 9. In his two-and-a-half hour conversation with Denvir, author of “All-American Nativism,” Newman gives an essential perspective on the roots of the country’s slide into nativism and fascism. Newman’s long association with Denvir – whom The Guardian calls “a socialist Terry Gross” – forms the basis of a discussion rich in history, context and clarity.

If you listen, you’ll understand that this didn’t all start with Trump. You’ll learn the overlooked history that links the aspiring Deporter-in-Chief attacks on sanctuary laws to many of the ways the still-champion Deporter-in-Chief (President Obama) criminalized immigrants. You’ll gain a new perspective on why Democrats can’t stop surrendering on immigration – and why that’s a huge problem.

As Newman tells Denvir: “If you do not contest the fundamental premise of your opponent, if you cede that, you are ceding everything, and they’ve ceded it all.”

The following statement is a brief excerpt of Newman on ‘The Dig’:

“It’s tricky because in the immigrant rights advocacy community, there is an aversion to reduce the worth of immigrants to the value of their labor and to think of them merely as workers performing economic functions.

“And I think that that’s a well-intended aversion. On the other hand, there is power in labor, and there’s power in worker identity, and I would say even untapped power among immigrants in this country to achieve economic pain, which might change the terms of the debate. I think we’re going to have to navigate those boundaries at a time when, again, there is this rampant dehumanization of immigrants in general and devaluing of immigrant work.”

A transcript of Newman’s podcast episode is available here. You can follow these links to read Denvir’s essay on Gaza and migration politics and learn about Trump’s immigration executive orders. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig.

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