San Antonio, Texas — Today RAICES Texas released a new documentary podcast called ‘Homeland Insecurity’. In the podcast we explore the roots of the Department of Homeland Security, and how an agency created to protect us from terrorism has instead been weaponized against immigrants.
This is a story about how fear changed America. It takes you behind the scenes of how the DHS has grown over the years. We set out to answer the question: How did we get there? And trace it from 9/11 right up until today.
Host Erika Andiola, a leader of the Undocumented Youth Movement and the RAICES Chief of Advocacy, asks how she and immigrants like her became the enemy. In this 8-part series, the first half of which is available today wherever you listen to podcasts, we explore the unwritten history of DHS and how we got so off-course over the past two decades – chasing the imaginary threat of terrorism coming up through the Southern Border to justify a pattern of injustice and cruelty towards immigrants. The podcast takes us from the creation of DHS in the aftermath of 9/11 to the present day, when we see families separated at the border, a near-total ban on asylum, and culminating in the government’s utter disregard for the lives of detained immigrants who are locked up during a global health pandemic. DHS was set up to protect the homeland but this podcast looks at how immigration has been used as an imaginary threat by politicians on both sides of the political spectrum.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for separating families, denying asylum, and locking up hundreds of thousands of adults and children alike in squalid conditions – even during a global pandemic. It’s a history that’s often overlooked and we believe it’s important to understand at a time when our government is using today’s crisis to further target immigrants.
This podcast was inspired by a question Erika Andiola asked: “How did I, and immigrants like me, become the enemy?” This is the question that led us to launch Homeland Insecurity.
We are shining a light on how fear changed America – and how we can rid ourselves of this racist system in a bid to reclaim our American values.
The podcast episodes are available on: homelandinsecuritypodcast.com.
Homeland Insecurity was created by RAICES – a nonprofit agency that promotes justice by providing free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children, families, and refugees. With legal services, social programs, bond assistance, and an advocacy team focused on changing the narrative around immigration in this country, RAICES is operating on the national frontlines of the fight for immigration rights.
—Contact: Lucia Allain
[email protected]
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