Patricia Kullberg hosts this episode of the Old Mole, which features a re-broadcast from Against the Grain, titled Driving out Immigrants.
The United States has often been celebrated as a nation of immigrants. Yet over the last century, the U.S. government expelled more people than were allowed to stay permanently. In an interview with host Sasha Lilley, historian Adam Goodman describes the U.S. state’s “deportation machine,” motivated by a shifting combination of bureaucratic self-interest, capitalist gain, and racism, which Trump has now put at the center of his presidency. He also discusses how immigrants and their allies have fought back over this long history of expulsion and terror. Adam Goodman is author of The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants Princeton University Press, 2020. This segment originally aired on May 28, 2025. Against the Grain is a weekly radio show hosted and produced by Sasha Lilley and C.S Soong on KPFA Pacifica Radio in Berkley, California. It’s a program of ideas, in-depth analysis, and commentary on political, economic, social, and cultural issues important to radical thinking and activism.
Photo by Diane Krauthamer and licensed for public use via Creative Commons: https://www.flickr.com/photos/diane_krauthamer/54418241379