July 3 - China and South Korea Warn the North's Young Leader; Obama Considers Changes that would Allow for Swifter Deportations; Poverty Increases Across the South

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with the meeting in Seoul between the presidents of China and South Korea where they both urged the North not to test any more nuclear weapons. Donald Gregg, a former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea whose forthcoming book is “Pot Shards: Fragments of a Life Lived in the CIA, The White House and the Two Koreas”, joins us to discuss this apparent snub to North Korea’s young leader by his country’s only ally China, and the broader strategic changes underway in the region following Japan’s decision to change its long-standing defense posture to allow its military to fight abroad.

Part 2

Then we speak with Kamal Essaheb, an Immigration Policy Attorney at the National Immigration Law Center where he engages in advocacy and technical assistance relating to immigration law and access to legal status for immigrants. We discuss the changes to the TVPRA Act of 2008 the Obama Administration is considering that would remove the requirement of unaccompanied minors being handed over to the Department of Health and Human Services, thus enabling the Border Patrol to conduct swifter deportations of the thousands of unaccompanied children arriving on the southern border.

Part 3

Then finally we look into the new report by the Census Bureau that finds poverty is increasing across the South where 25.7 percent of Americans in southern states are living below the poverty line set at $23,850 for a family of four, up from 18.1 percent in 2000. Thomas Hirschl, the Director of the Population and Development Program and a Professor of Development Sociology at Cornell University, and co-author of “Chasing the American Dream: Understanding What Shapes Our Fortunes”, joins us to discuss how the solidly Republican South is sinking into poverty, exacerbated by the policies of their Republican leaders who have spent the last decade cutting the social safety nets across the South.