Episode 80

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Published on:

14th Jul 2025

Immigration Unveiled: The Hidden Layers of America's Crisis

Immigration is more than a headline—it’s a complex web of economics, demographics, and security. In this episode, hosts Jerremy and Dave dive into the hidden layers of America’s immigration crisis, from LA’s recent raids to historical policies that still shape today’s debates. Discover the untold stories and rigorous research behind their bold solutions, setting the stage for a series that promises fresh perspectives on a polarized issue.

Timestamps:

  • (00:00) Introduction: Setting the Stage for America's Immigration Crisis
  • (00:28) Current State: Unpacking the 3.7 Million Pending Court Cases
  • (01:04) Economic Impact: How Immigrants Add $8.9 Trillion to GDP
  • (04:21) Historical Context: From Colonial Biases to Modern Policies
  • (07:35) Personal Perspectives: Hosts Share Their Immigration Stories
  • (08:48) Political Stances: Trump, Obama, and the Immigration Debate


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Transcript
Jerremy:

Dave Conley, we're gonna go behind the scenes for

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solving America's problems.

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Dave: Yeah.

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Jerremy: To look a little

bit into how we are going to.

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Potentially the most

complex subject to date.

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Dave: Mm-hmm.

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Jerremy: With so many different thesises

and one that we are also not directly

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impacted by, nor have we been a part of,

nor have we could have been a part of.

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And that's immigration.

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Mm-hmm.

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We're gonna be discussing it,

talking about it, diving into it.

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But these episodes really stem

from the recent episode that we had

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catching everyone up on the current

state of affairs of the world.

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And one of those big issues was ice.

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And of course the huge LA raids and riots

that occurred over the immigration thesis.

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That's happening right now.

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And what we do know is the United States

Immigration System is experiencing

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unprecedented strain with over 3.7

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million, so almost 4

million pending court cases.

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And a president who is

extremely big on border control.

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That coupled with one of the things

I think a lot of people probably

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overlook or maybe overlook, I'm not

right the exact term, but immigrants

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definitely add a humongous portion

to our gross domestic product.

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8.9,

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not million, not billion trillion to the

top line of the GDP of America, Dave.

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So now we're talking balancing the

humanitarian point of it, balancing the

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actual balance sheet part of it, and just

discussing the humanistic standpoint.

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That is gonna be immigration.

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This is gonna be a big one for us to

cover, and it's gonna be a multifaceted

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multier episode that people are gonna

really absolutely fall in love with.

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Dave: I think this one's an easy one

to say, look, this is super polarized.

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Can we back up from this and

be like, okay, you know, like

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there's a lot of opinions.

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There's a lot of data, there's

a lot of, you know, like people

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who are dug in on both sides.

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And it's, I think it's really important

when we're looking at the problems.

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One is, hey, nobody's looking

at immigration saying,

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Hey, this is working great.

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Mm-hmm.

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And this is also not one of those

things where it's solved with

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executive orders and deportations.

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It's solved with like real

legislation, real practices, real

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things that we don't talk about.

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And also just understanding it

from those three key components.

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Like there's a huge

economic piece of this.

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There's also like a demographic piece

of this, you know, like we're not making

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enough babies in the United States and

we, you know, a society's only going

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to survive if it has enough, you know,

young people supporting the old people.

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Unlike like Japan, which has

been, cratering or China or

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You know, like these are

countries in crisis because they

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don't have enough young people.

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So we, we need to have it.

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And also the talent that comes on board,

you know, all of the stem folks that

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come over both, you know, documented,

under documented, that's the thing.

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And then balancing the

security aspect of it.

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This, which is really important.

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It's like if somebody's coming in, we

just wanna know who you are, right?

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Mm-hmm.

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And like, you know, so if we can really

kind of tease these things apart.

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A, pour some water on the rhetoric and

be like, okay, now we understand what the

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problems are and now onto the solutions.

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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So tell people a little bit about,

as you started building kind of the

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framework for myself and yourself on

not only research, but conversations

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that we're gonna have with some amazing,

incredible people in the future.

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How did you start and how did

you build the framework around

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this incredibly polarizing topic?

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Dave: Well, I think, I mean, this

goes back to a little bit of behind

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the scenes, you know, before we start

any of these topics, whether it's

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homelessness or debt or school or

safety, any of these things, what we

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start with is a whole lot of research.

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So like, what's going on out there?

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Because I don't know,

you're not an expert.

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I'm not an expert.

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You know, there's a few things that we are

expert in, but it's none of these topics.

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So, for instance, with immigration

we're staring at like a 14 page brief

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that I put together, and it covers as

many things as that I could think of.

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It's the key statistics,

it's the history of this.

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I mean, I didn't understand

the history of immigration.

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Like it goes back to before

there was a country and it's been

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poked at, you know, like

every 10 or 20 years.

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And, and we keep on poking at it, but

it goes, it, you know, like there's a

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huge foundation in the United States.

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Like we, you know, like

what was this all about?

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So yep.

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This huge historical context and

then sort of like the recent history,

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basically like the last 25 years,

what have the president's done?

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Mm-hmm.

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What are, you know, what are the

major legislation, if any, you

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know, like what, what has been

like, the big, big pieces with that.

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Then overall, what the problem is,

and that's like the core of it.

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Like what is the problem that

we're actually looking at?

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And then what are the solutions, not

just the ones that are proposed, but

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the solutions that have been tried

sometimes in the United States, like

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we do have some things that are working

right now, which surprised me, but

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also what are other countries doing?

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Like, like there are so many countries

that are struggling with immigration and

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there's a lot of experiments out there.

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I think, you know, we think that

we have to reinvent the wheel

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over and over and over again, and

that's just, that is not the case.

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But we're also looking at a

system that nobody is saying,

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Hey, this is, this is working.

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So it's like, okay, what does

work and can we build on that?

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Definitely also looking at what the

controversies are, what the divides

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are, what are the things where there

is like a lot of energy, like border

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walls or the dreamers or asylum

seekers, sanctuary cities, all of that.

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So like where, where is there like, like

this, where is there energy around things?

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And then also understanding what

people don't know about this.

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You know, like what are the, what

are sort of like the mysteries

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of this that people don't like?

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You know, one of my

favorite ones, uh, was that.

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That most undocumented or, you know,

illegal aliens, undocumented, however

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you wanna describe people who are, are

overstaying visas or coming into the

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nation without, you know, without a

visa or without any kind of information.

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Four outta five of those folks

have lived here for over 10 years.

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These people are already here,

they're in our communities.

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They're not just recent border crossers.

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They have been here and

they're part of our lives.

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So it's like, oh, you know, like, we

really want to take a look at this

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systemically as solutions of not

like, okay, let's deport them all.

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Also know that you're deporting

families and like there's gotta be

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this humanitarian aspect of this.

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It's not just that.

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So that's what we start with.

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That's what you get.

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Sometimes actually our guests

get this as well, so that we can

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have more vibrant communications,

talks about what's going on.

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That's the behind the scenes

and that's what we're doing

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this week is sort of laying out.

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Some of the information that we are

interested in, some of the things that we

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are gonna explore, and some of the people

that we want to talk with on this, whether

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it's policy, people or, recent immigrants,

maybe even undocumented or illegal aliens,

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whoever we can get around this to really

explore this and explore their things.

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Jerremy: Yeah.

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So on that kind of general topic, Dave,

earlier you mentioned the word problem,

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which is what we do in this podcast.

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Do you feel Trump was the first

president in recent decades to

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take a very, uh, what's the word?

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Overwhelming stance on immigration, and

he also proposed a very tactical solution.

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I'm not calling it a workable solution.

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I'm saying this is a solution to him.

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A k the wall.

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In your recent memory, was

this the first person to really

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take that type of a stance?

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Dave: He took, or he takes a

very energetic stance, right?

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Like there's a lot of energy behind what

he's saying, and it's not positive, right?

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Mm-hmm.

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You know?

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Mm-hmm.

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When he came down the escalator in

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problems you're having and these are the

people that are causing those problems.

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You know, it's an us versus them.

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And that is very polarizing, right?

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And that puts people very much on edge.

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And that is pretty much the first

time in, you know, like our living

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history where that's happened.

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It is not the case in the

United States that has actually

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happened many other times.

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Back to the colonial era,

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there was like this real

like, oh no, no, no, no, no.

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You know, like we are going to.

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Make sure that it is only these

kind of people like, um mm-hmm.

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Mid 19th century, basically we're saying,

okay, no Chinese people not allowed.

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Mm-hmm.

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But we would allow like a huge

number of Europeans, right?

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We had 14 million people that came in

in 40 years, which is actually more than

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what we've seen in the last 10, 15 years.

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Like, it's a huge number.

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It was 15% of the US population.

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And then, uh, in the 20th century,

again, long before we were born,

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there was a real bias against Southern

Europeans or eastern Europeans.

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Like they were, they were like, oh, no,

no, no, we're not gonna have any of this.

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And they actually shut down immigration

starting in about 19 20, 19 24,

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which I didn't realize, but like,

there wasn't a lot of immigration

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between the twenties and the eighties.

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Like there was this 60 year period.

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Where not much happened.

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We did actually allow a lot

of Mexican laborers to come

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in because we needed labor.

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And, but outside of that there was,

it was a real small number and it

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really was, it was quite prejudicial,

you know, like it was a lot of like,

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oh no, no, we're not doing that.

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Changed in the eighties.

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And, and this is, I have some memory of

this, and I wanted to ask you about this.

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Because I, this is how I sort of have,

you know, my thinking about immigration.

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It happened where I was, you know,

like how I grew up and where I grew up.

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Uh, and I wanted to get your, your

vibe on things like what was it like

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you, when you were growing up, like

what was your view of immigration?

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Did you have a sense of it, you

know, like where, where, where were

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sort of the beginnings of Jerremy

newsom's thinking on immigration?

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Jerremy: Sure.

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It really wasn't a issue, topic

or really overall thought for me.

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Dave: Yeah.

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Jerremy: Growing up in Georgia,

I would say probably the number

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one politically divisive topic was

probably more racism than immigration.

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Um, because what was interesting is in

Georgia where I grew up, immigration

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was very welcomed isn't the right word,

probably swept under the rug because

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they're like, Hey, we have a lot of jobs

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Dave: Yeah.

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Jerremy: That we need, or I

shouldn't say we need, they really

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want cheap labor for, right?

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And it was like, oh, well,

let's give cheap labor to

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immigrants or illegal aliens.

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And that was very common, very

popular in the farms, right?

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Picking watermelons, picking peanuts,

doing extremely hard construction work.

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Uh, very, very often was.

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Immigrants, and I didn't know if

they were illegal or not, but again,

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most of the farmers or owners of the

land or owners of the construction

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companies, they didn't really care.

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Dave: Yeah.

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Jerremy: So that's how I kind of saw it.

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And so I guess subconsciously, if we

had to dive deeper, my thought would've

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been, Hey, immigration, even if it is

illegal, is probably perfectly normal.

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As long as we get them jobs

and we get them working.

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Like that's probably

gonna help the economy.

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And so I think that was probably a

subconscious belief that I had and

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probably still have, where it's like,

listen, is there a better way to do it?

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Yes.

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But they're gonna have people that, Hey,

you want the Big American cool dream?

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Amazing.

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That dream is probably gonna be,

initiated somehow by a lot of work.

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And so if you want a lot of work,

we're gonna give you access to that.

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So if you come here looking for jobs,

looking for opportunity, looking

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for employment, hey, guess what?

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We got tons of it.

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Dave: Yeah.

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Jerremy: And I think that is probably.

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A way to inject excitement

into this world.

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And at the same time, you mentioned

earlier the solution of, okay,

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cool, so how do we do that?

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Dave: Mm-hmm.

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Jerremy: Um, that was really

kind of my upbringing.

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What about yours?

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Dave: So I grew up just outside

of Washington DC and it was a real

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turning point in immigration actually.

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There was a lot of stuff happening

around Vietnam at the time.

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There was a big humanitarian crisis and

we had, what was called boat people.

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A lot of churches got together with

politicians and be like, oh my God.

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We have all these boat people

and 'cause they were primarily

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Christians actually fleeing poverty.

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And there was droughts and all, you know,

like huge things that were going on.

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I mean, they'd just gotten outta

the Vietnam War and now they were

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having humanitarian crisis and

a lot of 'em were Christians.

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And so a lot of the churches in the

United States actually like, were

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pounding on the doors of, particularly

Republicans and Reagan to be like, oh

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my God, we've gotta rescue these folks.

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And so they did.

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And the State Department scooped

up tens of thousands of Vietnamese,

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and they dropped them in three

places in the United States.

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One of them was in Los Angeles,

the other one was Houston, Texas.

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And, the third one was.

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Right outside where I lived

in Falls Church, Virginia.

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And in fact, falls Church still has one

of the largest Vietnamese populations in

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the United States, outside of Vietnam.

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To this day, my comfort

food is Vietnamese food.

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Every time I'm back in DC I'm like,

I'm going for Vietnamese food.

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I love it.

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Right.

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And so my friends, a lot

of them were Vietnamese.

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And then just down the road

in Annandale, Virginia, there

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was a huge Korean population.

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You know, they had had the war in the

fifties, but they'd also, uh, lived in

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sort of like this strange, like communist

sort of like disaster in South Korea.

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You know, South Korea being a

democracy is actually pretty new.

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I, you know, I don't think a

lot of people realize that.

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And so a lot of refugees from Korea came

and they were deposited again by the

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State Department in Annandale, Virginia.

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And then outside of that, not a lot

of, um, Mexican laborers but a lot of

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people from other nations in Central

and South America, a lot of Honduras, a

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lot of Venezuelan, uh, some Brazilian.

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So like, it wasn't a

lot of, of, of Mexican.

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Like what, what you would, you know,

see in, in Texas or in California.

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The south.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Mainly in the south.

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But it wasn't like an agrarian area.

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It was the suburbs.

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Right.

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And here's what was nuts again,

this is a history that I don't

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think a lot of people realize.

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All these Vietnamese come into the

United States and with a stroke of a

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pen, a fine Republican, Ronald Reagan

made tens of thousands of Vietnamese.

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Instant citizens.

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I mean, instant like, just signed

and said you're an American.

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That was pretty much my

upbringing because, you know,

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DC was incredibly multicultural.

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I was surrounded by, you know,

people that weren't like me.

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You know, like a lot of Vietnamese,

a lot of Korean, a lot of Asian, and

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DC being very, you know, just like

everybody's from everywhere else.

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And that really was my thinking

around, like, it wasn't a thing.

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It just like people existed.

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And you know, like looking at

how polarizing it is today, I

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didn't grow up with any of that.

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You know, everybody was just there.

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And like, there was plenty of work.

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Like it was an abundance thing, you

know, it's like there was plenty of

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work you know, like, particularly the

Vietnamese and the Koreans as a population

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they, they really fundamentally changed

Northern Virginia, which was like this,

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sleepy little, slightly southern, part

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of Washington DC completely transformed

it into like, a lot of stores, a lot of

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entrepreneurship, you know, just, it just,

it completely changed the fabric of the

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area and made it really amazing actually.

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I mean, to this day I

love going through there.

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It's like, it's a really special

part of the United States.

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And so that was, that was sort

of my foundation, which was

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like these folks are just here.

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And by the way to this day, you know,

some of the most patriotic people I

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know, because a lot of folks that became

instant US citizens, because it was

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Washington DC and it was a company town,

a lot of them joined the government.

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And so when I joined the government

30 years later, I was surrounded

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by Koreans and Vietnamese.

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Yeah.

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Uh, who had now been in the

government and their parents had

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been in the government for, 40 years.

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And I'm like, okay, this is awesome.

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So, you know, my views

were always very positive.

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Uh, you know, there wasn't, you

know, sort of an underclass.

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I'd say it changed, you know, I left

DC I think, uh, 10, 15 years ago now.

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And what was really clear was and

actually a lot of people in the

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government got in trouble for this,

which was hiring people under the table.

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And so, like, can you imagine

like, this was the thing that got

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a politician, like, ousted or like

a senior executive out, right.

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Because they, they had a, they had

a nanny or they had somebody who was

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like mowing their lawn who was like

undocumented their pan under the table.

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You know, like that was the thing

that would ruin people's careers.

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Now, you know, not so much.

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So like, there really is, underneath now,

this world of people who just work under

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the table, which is now one of my issues.

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And I think we can talk about that maybe

next of what are the problems that we see,

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you know, like now they, this was my, my

foundation was like, hey this is awesome.

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And that's evolved.

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Jerremy: Yep.

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Alex: "From Dave’s multicultural DC roots

to Jerremy’s Georgia farm days, we’ve

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uncovered how history and personal stories

shape America’s immigration debate.

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But knowing where we’ve been

is just the start—what’s next?

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In our upcoming episode, we dig into the

bold solutions that could redefine our

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borders, from economic game-changers to

foreign policy fixes that hit at the root.

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You won’t want to miss it."

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Solving America's Problems
Solving America’s Problems isn’t just a podcast—it’s a journey. Co-host Jerremy Newsome, a successful entrepreneur and educator, is pursuing his lifelong dream of running for president. Along the way, he and co-host Dave Conley bring together experts, advocates, and everyday Americans to explore the real, actionable solutions our country needs.

With dynamic formats—one-on-one interviews, panel discussions, and more—we cut through the noise of divisive rhetoric to uncover practical ideas that unite instead of divide. If you’re ready to think differently, act boldly, and join a movement for meaningful change, subscribe now.