Eastern Standard - April 10th, 2025

John Koehlinger is the Executive Director of Kentucky Refugee Ministries. He discusses the atmosphere of uncertainty and fear among refugees and asylees who have resettled in Kentucky as the Trump administration takes aggressive actions to revoke documentation and carry out detentions and deportations.

Becky Jordan, State Coordinator for the Kentucky Office for Refugees. She shares the perspectives of one who has worked with refugee resettlement since the 1990s.

Professor Matthew Boaz teaches Immigration Law at the University of Kentucky. Before getting into teaching law, Prof. Boaz was a Senior Detention Attorney in Newark, NJ, where he represented individuals held in immigration detention centers while in removal proceedings.

Nestor Gomez is a master storyteller and his talents will be on full display at the Paris Story Fest, May 9-11. But we wanted to explore his back story, that of a 15-year-old who escaped civil war in Guatemala to come to the States where he lived for many years as an undocumented immigrant. Gomez has since achieved citizenship. He discusses his journey and what it means to become a documented citizen of the United States.

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