What is it like to experience a disaster as an immigrant? As the frequency of natural hazards increases due to climate change, immigrants are particularly vulnerable to the devastation that natural hazards bring. This episode explores what kinds of disaster relief immigrants have access to and barriers immigrants face when attempting to recover and rebuild after natural hazards strike.

Immigration has been a central issue in the 2024 presidential race, with candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties proposing immigration policies that will inevitably affect im/migrant well-being. In this episode, we discuss some of the central pillars of both candidates’ proposed policies and based on past research, we analyze how these policies may impact im/migrant well-being.

In contrast to the criminal justice system, immigrants who come before a judge in civil immigration court are not guaranteed the right to legal representation should they be unable to afford it, yet in some cases they face consequences as severe as those applied in criminal cases. In this episode, we discuss whether immigrants facing detention and deportation should have access to the right to counsel by evaluating some of the research on the consequences of lacking legal representation and potential policy solutions.

Florida’s SB 1718, a law that criminalized many aspects of life as an immigrant, passed in the Florida legislature and was signed into law in 2023. One year later, how have immigrants responded to this law, and what are the effects and implications for the state of Florida? In this episode, we will discuss SB 1718’s effects on immigrants’ lives and in their communities.

Opponents of immigration often link immigration to crime, and rhetoric in the media has casted immigrants as criminals, leading some public officials to propose greater immigration control as a mechanism to reduce crime. This episode examines the relationship between immigration and crime to debunk the many myths circulating in the media about immigrants to the U.S.

In recent decades security at the US Southern border has increased to stop the arrivals of immigrants and refugees. This episode examines how border security, specifically the presence of the border wall in Arizona communities and Customs and Border Patrol’s practice of screening residents at border checkpoints, affects the Latino/a/x population of young adults in the region. We will discuss racial profiling practices, how they impact human rights, and how they erode residents’—including US citizens’—sense of belonging to the nation.

As immigrants cross into the United States, or in cases where local law enforcement agencies have agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), immigrants are often imprisoned in detention facilities until their immigration court cases can be heard. When they are released, some are subjected to state monitoring through GPS tracking devices. Often neglected in these accounts are what happens to detained immigrants’ children and how they respond to their parents’ detention and their tracking through such devices. In this episode, we will be discussing the impact of immigrant detention and alternatives to detention on children’s well-being.

The Spring 2023 session of the Florida Legislature saw the passage of SB 1718, a law that criminalizes many aspects of immigrant lives in the name of curbing undocumented migration. In this episode, we will be discussing the law’s effects on immigrants and their communities.

Episode 1 features:

Dr. Elizabeth Aranda

Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Im/migrant Well-Being Research Center, University of South Florida

Nanci Palacios

Deputy Director of Faith in Florida

Dr. Heide Castañeda

Professor of Anthropology, University of South Florida