What's missing in the immigration debate

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Immigration is a top concern among U.S. voters this election cycle. But Zeke Hernandez, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who studies immigration,thinks politicians and the media aren't giving the public the full story. Too often, he argues, they paint immigrants as objects of pity or fear, when the reality is much more complex — and positive. Today on the show, we look beyond the binary and explore the less talked about ways documented and undocumented immigrants shape the U.S. economy.

Zeke's book is called The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers.

Related listening:
Is the border crisis really a labor market crisis? (Apple / Spotify)
Do immigrants really take jobs and lower wages? (Apple / Spotify)
Welcome to the USA! Now get to work (Apple / Spotify)

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	NPR This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Darren Woods.
0:14.3	And I'm Adrian Ma.
0:15.3	Pop quiz Darien.
0:16.8	According to a recent survey by Pew Research, 61% of voters say what issue is very important to them.
0:24.3	Can you guess what I'm thinking?
0:25.6	Well, I know number one is the economy, but we're here today to talk about immigration,
0:30.4	so is that what it is?
0:32.0	Yes, I guess pop quizzes are hard to do when you work on the same show together.
0:36.0	Today's topic is immigration.
0:39.0	One person who's really noticed how much of an issue this is in the news is Zeek Hernandez.
0:44.4	He's a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School and he says
0:49.0	amid all of the coverage and the political speeches he's really noticed two narratives about immigrants taking hold.
0:56.0	Immigrants are villains who are here to steal your job and undermine your safety and destroy American culture and our heritage.
1:04.0	The other narrative is immigrants are the poor huddled masses who need our compassion and
1:10.0	we must help them even if it costs us. It's either kind of fear or pity.
1:14.4	I'm definitely one of the villain immigrants.
1:17.4	I was not going to say anything but since you said, it's out there in the open now.
1:22.1	But you know, Zeke says this dichotomy between fear and pity
1:27.3	It distracts us from the larger truth about immigrants
1:31.5	Today on the show we break out of that binary. Yeah, we hear about about
1:34.0	the show we break out of that binary. Yeah, we hear about the less talked about ways all immigrants,
1:38.0	documented and undocumented, shape our economy.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.