Harm Reduction in NYC; Immigrant Private Detention Expanded; Debt Collectors & Social Media

Remain in Mexico policy reinstated and expanded. How the Biden administration reneged on campaign promises for immigration reform.

Dr. Sheila Vakharia, Deputy Director of Research and Academic Engagement for the Drug Policy Alliance, joins us to discuss the news of New York City opening two safe injection sites, one in East Harlem and the other in Washington Heights, which are the first of their kind in the nation and look to deliver on saving lives, saving money, and increasing public health and safety writ large. We also talk about the pushback against these sites, which some argue may encourage drug use, and how this represents a misunderstanding of harm reduction strategies that strive to look at and treat addiction from a public health perspective and not a criminal one.

Juan José Gutiérrez, immigration lawyer and executive director of the Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition, talks to us about how the Biden administration is expanding the use of for-profit detention facilities for immigrants, and how this represents yet another broken campaign promise that has left migrants in the lurch and keeps entrenching a two-tiered justice system in the country. We also talk about the reinstatement of the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which the Biden administration promised to rescind, but now is back in place after several state lawsuits, and how it has now been expanded to not only include Latino immigrants but immigrants from Haiti, as well.

Jon Jeter, author and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist with more than 20 years of journalistic experience, former Washington Post bureau chief and award-winning foreign correspondent on two continents, joins hosts Michelle Witte and Bob Schlehuber to talk about the tools the U.S. government is using to track down people involved in the January 6 Capitol insurrection, and how it’s setting off alarm bells for some people who warn that the use of this kind of bulk data collection and facial recognition software could go beyond identifying these rioters and further expand the surveillance state. We also talk about Twitter announcing a rule change to prevent people’s private images from being shared, unless those images are of public figures, and how debt collectors are now contacting people through social media.

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