The Case for 'Pod Save Immigrants'

An Open Letter to Crooked Media.

Dear Pod Bros,

You all built one of the most influential progressive media platforms in America. Millions tune in. Lawmakers tune in. Staffers tune in. Half of Capitol Hill pretends not to tune in.

But in all that reach, all that impact, there’s one subject you’ve never really taken on with the seriousness it deserves: the Democratic Party’s long, painful failure to deliver legalization for the millions of undocumented immigrants who were told again and again that help was coming.

I say that as someone who was in the trenches when the hope was still fresh. In 2008, when I was organizing for Barack Obama, the message was simple enough to build a movement on: legalization for millions.

Photos by me (2008)

We built “Latinos for Obama” pages across Indiana like we were laying down railroad track. And it worked. Indiana flipped. I shook Obama’s hand in Springfield the day he introduced Joe Biden. The promise felt as real as the sun on that rally stage.

Then came the governing. Then came the math.

Between 2009 and 2016, the Obama administration deported more than 3.1 million people—more than George W. Bush across two terms. In 2012 alone—the year before reelection—the administration deported 409,849 people, the highest annual total on record. That’s not a detour from a promise; that’s the promise buried under concrete.

And the old logic—“if Democrats show toughness on deportations, Republicans will meet them halfway”—was always a fairy tale. As Tupac said, “They got money for war but can’t feed the poor.” Democrats poured resources into enforcement, and Republicans still refused to negotiate. Pain was inflicted on immigrant communities for nothing.

Yes, Obama created DACA. It mattered. It still matters. But it was exactly what it was called: deferred action. A temporary reprieve for 790,000 young people. Not legalization. Not stability. A pause, not a path.

Why This Matters

You can see the fallout now in every poll and precinct. Latino voters who backed Obama and waited for legalization watched Democrats pivot to “border security first,” including in 2024 when Kamala Harris talked more about enforcement than status for the 11 million undocumented people who have waited 30 years for the promise to come true.

And Congress just approved what is essentially an enforcement windfall: $160 billion for DHS through 2030. $45 billion for detention. $30 billion for deportations. Enough money to cage 100,000 people at a time. Nothing like this has ever been passed in the history of American immigration policy.

My Pitch to You

I propose a five-episode series: Pod Save Immigrants. Two topics: mass deportations and legalization. You reach over a million people per episode. You have influence with the same Democratic establishment that urgently needs to reckon with this issue. You’ve shown—most recently in 2024—that when you decide to push, the party listens.

Why You Should Do It

The old excuses—“political headwinds,” “comprehensive reform is dead”—let leadership off the hook for decades of retreat. A real conversation would start with a simple, unavoidable truth: Democrats promised legalization. In power, they expanded enforcement instead.

That’s not a messaging problem. That’s a credibility problem.

And I learned something about power and credibility the night I declined a photo with Barack Obama at Tyler Perry’s mansion in Beverly Hills on June 18, 2015. Roses everywhere—red, white, pink—like a campaign promise made visible. “No photos allowed,” we told the donors, but the staff were offered a chance on the photo line. I said fuck no. I didn’t want a photo with the Deporter in Chief, a title that is no longer true for Obama … especially now during Trump’s second term.

This is all to say: power knows how to protect itself. Migrants rarely get that luxury. You all have the platform to force a reckoning—to ask the questions no one else will ask, to hold Democrats to their own promises, to tell the story straight.

A five-episode series won’t solve everything. But it can start the honest conversation the party keeps dodging. And if ever there was a time to speak plainly, it’s now. Let’s do Pod Save Immigrants.

Best,

Pablo

P.S. If you bros haven’t subscribed to Migrant Insider, we are the very best on the beat. That’s not even disputed. Consider subscribing: