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The Intelligence from The Economist

Tip of the ICE work: the immigration raids that weren’t

The Intelligence from The Economist

The Economist

Global News, Daily News, News

4.53.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 July 2019

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There was little evidence this weekend of the widespread immigration raids long promised by President Donald Trump. But his campaign of sowing fear seems to be working. Many of China’s infrastructure projects in Africa have been costly flops, and China is tightening its purse strings. Also, Colombia’s centuries-old ceremonies under the influence of a hallucinogenic brew are bringing in tourists and new problems.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio.

0:07.0

I'm your host Jason Palmer.

0:09.0

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

0:18.0

China has developed a reputation for lending easy money in Africa to huge projects such as railways and ports.

0:24.0

But many of them have turned into costly flops and China is starting to tighten up its perstring.

0:32.0

And for centuries tribes in Colombia have taken a hallucinogenic brew called Ayahuasca in all-night ceremonies.

0:39.0

Now tourists wanting on the visions and some shamans are all too happy to oblige.

0:55.0

But first, for weeks President Donald Trump had promised raids to arrest and deport undocumented families living in America.

1:06.0

Over the weekend agents from immigration and customs enforcement or ICE were expected to target at least 2000 migrants across 10 major cities.

1:15.0

It starts on Sunday and they're going to take people out and they're going to bring them back to their countries.

1:21.0

But there was little evidence of that. What drew more attention was Mr. Trump's Twitter die raid against four democratic congresswomen who have vocally criticized his immigration policies.

1:31.0

The kind of crackdown Mr. Trump promised didn't come to pass but it still might and that will keep plenty of migrants fearful.

1:40.0

This is the second time that the Trump administration has pre-announced that there will be widespread immigration raids leading to deportations.

1:48.0

John Prado is our United States editor.

1:50.0

That in turn created a lot of fear in corners of America where there are a lot of undocumented migrants.

1:57.0

Only the raids didn't really materialize in the end. There was some fairly routine immigration enforcement but not the mass roundups that had been trailed in advance.

2:08.0

And why do you suppose that is? Why didn't the administration fulfill its promise to really go for these people?

2:14.0

I think there are two reasons. The first one is an operational one. In the sense that the administration had said that it was going to target 2000 migrants who had been sent final orders for removal for failing to appear in court.

2:27.0

And that suggests that ICE can surgically target undocumented migrants out of the large overall population of undocumented people in America.

2:37.0

There are about 10 and a half million people we think in America who don't have the papers required to stay there.

2:45.0

And picking out just 2000 people from that population when you don't necessarily know where they live is an extremely hard thing to do.

2:53.0

I think there was a certain element of kind of promising something that couldn't be delivered.

...

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