Hundreds of thousands of people, mostly from Central America, arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border every year. What to do with these migrants is one of the most divisive issues in Washington. New Yorker staff writer Jonathan Blitzer says the crisis is partially the result of decades of American policy. Blitzer's new book is called Everyone Who is Gone is Here. He also recounts the stories of those attempting to cross the border. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
On the Ted radio hour, linguist Ann Curzan says she gets a lot of complaints about people using the pronoun they to refer to one person.
I sometimes get into arguments with people where they will say to me, but it can't be singular.
And I will say, but it is the history behind words causing a lot of debate.
That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.
This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Terry Gross.
The battle over immigration is continuing in Congress and in the presidential campaign.
States in the south and in the north are trying to manage the influx of more migrants than they can deal with.
While theres a humanitarian crisis at the border, migrants crossing the southern border or trying toused to be primarily from Mexico, now theyre primarily from central and South America.
Trump is promising that if he wins, hell oversee the largest mass deportation in american history.
My guest, Jonathan Blitzer, is the author of a new book about how todays crisis at the border connects with us foreign policy and immigration.
Immigration policy, starting with the cold War of the mid 1960s through the Reagan era, when the US bolstered latin american dictators in an attempt to prevent the spread of communism.
He writes about the Trump administration as well.
The book is told through the personal stories of three people and the choices they made to deal with or escape terror, corruption, and economic crises in their countries and the consequences they faced.
He also examines how their personal stories illustrate the history of american politics that helped create the crises in Central America.
Blitzer is a staff writer at the New Yorker covering immigration.
His new book is called everyone who is gone is the United States, Central America, and the making of a crisis.
We recorded our interview yesterday.
Jonathan Blitzer, welcome back to FReSh Air.
So I have to say that over the years, I've done a lot of interviews about how the US helped bolster dictatorships in Central and South America to prevent the spread of communism, the logic being that the authoritarian rulers were keeping back the communists, and if they fell, communists would take over.