Senator Lankford Announces New Podcast: The Breakdown with James Lankford

CLICK HERE to listen to the podcast.

WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today announced the release of a new regular podcast called “The Breakdown with James Lankford.” The podcast will include episodes that break down some of the most complex issues facing Congress. The first episode covers immigration, specifically the separation of families at the border, the Flores Settlement Agreement, and the difference between the refugee and asylum process. Lankford is joined by his research staffer that covers immigration policy.

Lankford has introduced several pieces of legislation on border security and immigration, including the Secure and Succeed Act and, most recently, the Keep Families Together and Enforce the Law Act. Lankford has worked with his colleagues and foreign leaders on discouraging illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America, including policies to strengthen their economies and crack down transnational criminal organizations.

Podcast Excerpt:

President Trump put in a “zero tolerance policy” on the border in May of 2018. That policy basically says that individuals coming across the border we’re going to hold them and we’re going to work toward prosecution rather than just releasing them into the country. What happened was, obviously over 2,000 families were separated. Where adults went one way to be detained and children went toward HHS custody and care to be able to go into foster care, to be connected with a relative, or some other way to be able to take care of them. And the nation as a whole all raised a corporate yell at that it said ‘whoa, we as a nation like to keep families together not to be able to separate families. ‘My statement to the administration was our default position should be keeping families together. The Trump administration’s response was this is a result of bad casework in the past from a California court that’s causing us to do this and I think the whole country stopped and looked for a moment at something they had never heard of before called the Flores decision. …we worked on a piece of legislation that came out in February of this year to try to resolve the Flores decision itself.

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