The Melting Pod
by The Melting Pod
The Melting Pod brings you stories of our dysfunctional immigration system, and where we go from here. Hosted by three friends who’ve served inside the federal government for two decades and four presidents of both parties, The Melting Pod will give you a deeper understanding of the immigration headlines, without jargon or shallow punditry. Amanda Baran, Doug Rand, and Claire Trickler-McNulty will also bring you extraordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell – about how we got here and where we're going.
Episodes
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The Diplomat, with Rena Bitter
Every day, all around the world, 13,000 U.S. Foreign Service Officers are responsible for a potentially life-changing decision: Should the person in front of me get a visa to the United States? Rena Bitter oversaw this global operation as Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs, the...
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From Suing the Man to Serving the Man, with Lucas Guttentag
What happens when you spend decades suing the government, and then help run the government? Back in the 1980s, Lucas Guttentag started the Immigrant Rights Project at the ACLU. He and his team argued hugely consequential cases across the country and all the way to the Supreme Court, securing...
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News Dive: The Great De-Legalization, H-1B Follies, and Midterm Predictions
We plunge beneath the latest immigration headlines to make sense of the senseless. What is the human cost of revoking deportation protections from over a million people? Why is the newly proposed H-1B fee precisely $103,265? Why are your taxpayer dollars giving ICE electric-shock gloves and robot...
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Asylum Is Not a Loophole, with Colleen Zengotitabengoa
What is asylum? Simply put, the United States must not return someone to a country where they have a well-founded fear of persecution. Following the atrocities of World War II, Congress created a U.S. asylum system under international treaty and federal law. But in recent years, as many more…
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Confessions of an Immigration Bureaucrat, with Michael Valverde
Every year, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) makes millions of highly consequential decisions that affect individual people’s lives. Applications for green cards, work permits, asylum and refugee status, even U.S. citizenship – they’re all handled by the 20,000 civil servants at...
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Three Big Lies About Immigrants and Fraud, with Sonya Schwartz
From the first moments of his first campaign for president, Donald Trump has accused immigrants of fraudulently obtaining public benefits, immigration protections, and even votes. Does any of this hold up under scrutiny? We asked Sonya Schwartz, who knows more than just about anyone about the...
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A Winning Message on Immigration, with Beatriz Lopez
In the 2024 presidential election, Republicans spent nearly $600 million on political advertisements pounding Biden (and then Harris) for botching the border. The Democrats’ uninspiring message in response was: “No we didn’t.” Ever wonder why Republicans dominate the national conversation on...
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The Reality-Based Economics of Immigration, with Jenny Hunt
Jenny Hunt is a Rutgers University professor, the former Chief Economist at the Department of Labor, and a key contributor to the gold-standard, 600-page consensus report on the economic consequences of immigration. Don’t worry, we’re going to summarize it together in 45 breezy minutes!…
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News Digest: Green Card Chaos, Hunger Strikes, and Stern Dad Energy
We dive underneath the latest immigration headlines to make sense of the senseless. Why did the Trump administration threaten to shut down U.S. green card processing? Why did the press believe that Markwayne Mullin would be a kinder, gentler DHS Secretary than Kristi Noem? Why is Marco Rubio’s...
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The Truth About ICE, with Jason Houser
From calls to abolish ICE to deeply held misconceptions about immigration and criminality, few agencies generate more heat and less light than Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In this episode, we dig into the reality of how ICE actually operates, including the fact that the vast majority of...
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Who’s Afraid of the H-1B?
The H-1B is a white-collar work visa, essentially unchanged by Congress since 1990 – before the birth of the first text message, the first website, and 40% of our population. Is the H-1B program an essential step on the far-too-difficult road from international student to new American? Is it a…
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DACA and the Dreamer Movement, with Felicia Escobar Carrillo
You may know about the plight of Dreamers – over 3 million undocumented individuals who were brought here as children and are Americans in every way but immigration status. And you may know about DACA, the Obama-era policy that has allowed 800,000 Dreamers to pursue higher education, military...
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The Heartbreak of Immigration Reform, with Esther Olavarria
Everyone knows that our immigration system is broken, so why hasn’t Congress fixed it for over 35 years? What you may not know is how close we came to comprehensive immigration reform – not once, not twice, but *four times.* Esther Olavarria was one of the foremost people working behind the…
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Biden and the Border (Part 2), with Charanya Krishnaswami
You don’t serve four years as a senior official in Biden’s Department of Homeland Security without seeing some things. This episode is Part 2 of Charanya Krishnaswami’s never-before-told story, walking us through the unprecedented border crossings in 2023 and the misunderstood reasons those…
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Biden and the Border (Part 1), with Charanya Krishnaswami
Nobody’s happy with how the Biden administration handled the U.S./Mexico border, but it’s hard to find an honest reckoning. That’s why you need to hear the story of Charanya Krishnaswami, a senior advisor at the Department of Homeland Security during all four of those tumultuous years. She’s...
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Welcome to The Melting Pod
The Melting Pod brings you stories of our dysfunctional immigration system, and where we go from here. In this inaugural episode, Claire reveals how everything going on with ICE is even worse than it looks; Amanda explains how Trump is *de*-legalizing millions of people who thought they were...
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Trailer: What is The Melting Pod?
The Melting Pod brings you stories of our dysfunctional immigration system, and where we go from here. Join experts Claire Trickler-McNulty, Amanda Baran, and Doug Rand, who’ve served inside the federal government for two decades and four presidents of both parties. We’ll give you a deeper...
About this show
The Melting Pod brings you stories of our dysfunctional immigration system, and where we go from here.
Hosted by three friends who’ve served inside the federal government for two decades and four presidents of both parties, The Melting Pod will give you a deeper understanding of the immigration headlines, without jargon or shallow punditry.
Amanda Baran, Doug Rand, and Claire Trickler-McNulty will also bring you extraordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell – about how we got here and where we're going.
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The Melting Pod
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