Is Immigration Still Trump’s Strongest Issue?

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4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

As Donald Trump strives to deliver on his harsh immigration enforcement campaign promises, the president’s approval rating on the issue has dropped. But very public mistakes—with very real consequences—and dipping polls don’t seem to be slowing the administration down yet. Guests: Adrian Carrasquillo, author of the Huddled Masses newsletter from The Bulwark Primitiva Hernandez, executive director of 805Undocufund, a central California non-profit providing legal and financial assistance to immigrants Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Isabel Angell, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	If you're undocumented and you live on the central coast of California, there's a phone number you might want to have in your back pocket.
0:14.4	And on the other end of the line, we'll be Primitiva Hernandez.
0:20.8	Primi's hotline is keeping track of immigration and customs enforcement.
0:25.4	Get detained. She wants to hear about it.
0:28.2	Need a real-time update on raids in the area?
0:31.0	She'll text you.
0:32.7	We were able to verify the first activity in the region, which was on January 26.
0:39.3	From there on, it's been just very busy.
0:42.5	We get calls early in the morning, late at night.
0:47.6	So far, Primi's organization, 805 Undacufund, has reported on 52 detentions, mostly farm workers, mostly men.
0:59.0	I first got interested in what Primi's up to because I caught some video her organization posted.
1:04.7	Like there's one that's an interview with a gas station attendant.
1:09.2	He says ICE just stopped by that morning.
1:12.7	They approached a guy who was pulled up in front of a pump and detained him, leaving behind his two children.
1:20.3	So that's the video that has been circulating around social media, but you'd be surprised to hear that that's not even the worst scenario or arrest
1:30.9	that we've seen here in the Central Coast. That's what's caught the most attention, but certainly
1:35.3	not the most cruel and inhumane one that we've seen. What's the worst? I would say, you know,
1:42.0	it's the arrest of a mother in front of her nine-year-old when she was bringing her nine-year-old to the Camarillo Ice Facility for a routine check-in.
1:55.0	And I was arrested right there on the spot in front of her nine-year-old.
1:58.8	Her nine-year-old was left under
2:00.9	ICE custody for several hours before our volunteers were able to drive family members to
2:08.2	pick up the child. And the mother is still detained. We heard from family members that
	...

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