Dreamers
American Refugee
They came here as young children, brought illegally into the country by their parents. They might soon all be deported. LISTEN.
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Northside - Pit Bull
American Refugee
A black man walks his pit bull through a white neighborhood. What could go wrong? LISTEN.
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The Secret War
American Refugee
The Laotian Hmong are coopted by the CIA to fight communism. Then the real war begins. Do you want to hear a secret? LISTEN.
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Invasive Species!
American Refugee
Into the Florida Everglades to hunt those displaced and trying to survive. Or is it just evolution? LISTEN.
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Northside - Pastor Galloway
American Refugee
A journey inside the desperate struggle of today's black community in North Minneapolis. LISTEN.
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Rock On
American Refugee
Rock musicians displaced by the pandemic. What happens when the show can't go on? LISTEN.
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Death On The Borderlands
American Refugee
Every night a migrant dies of thirst attempting to cross the Texas backcountry brush. LISTEN.
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Immigrant Scholars
American Refugee
Let's all go to college and meet the immigrant scholars behind America's cutting-edge technology. LISTEN.
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Burpees
American Refugee
To stay fit during the pandemic America is working out with the Russian immigrant known as the Iron Wolf. LISTEN.
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Escape The Room
American Refugee
A shocking episode about domestic violence. The puzzle immigrant women face when they try to escape their abusers. LISTEN.
info_outlineInside a small county jail in central Minnesota, 300 immigrants are caged up to 20 hours a day, never allowed outside, some detained by ICE up to a year.
Some endure special treatment: solitary confinement, abuse, medical negligence, sexual assault.
What if detained immigrants are being subjected to a kind of torture before they're deported? What if entire families are destroyed by county jails profiting from a federal system criminalizing immigration? What if the lives of immigrants are being forfeited as the coronavirus spreads through those jails?
Well get ready, you're going inside to hear about it from the detained immigrants themselves, as well as the activists on the outside trying to free them, the resistance against the authority, all towards an emotional crescendo of love and loss, of family and freedom, and the soul of a nation, all from a place called Sherburne County Jail.
This is American Refugee.
Written, Engineered & Produced: Sam Graber
Music: Rare Medium, Purple Funk Metropolis
Recorded: Minneapolis, MN
Original Release: May 2020