A Decision on DACA, No Relief for Rohingya, Exploring Empathy

Coming up on today’s show:

• The White House is expected to announce a decision today about the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. Indications are that President Trump will give Congress six months to come up with a plan to end the program, which covers about 800,000 undocumented youth. Wendy Feliz, the communications director for the American Immigration Council, has the latest.

• Ciriac Alverez is one of the so-called Dreamers watching and waiting for an announcement on DACA’s fate. An immigration rights activist and college graduate, she came to the United States from Mexico when she was five years old and has called Utah home for 17 years. She shares her concerns with The Takeaway.

• Tensions continue to escalate after North Korea carried out on Sunday its most powerful nuclear test to date. The U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting Monday to address the latest escalation and to urge stronger measures against North Korea. Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, joins The Takeaway to discuss the news.  

• The House and Senate are returning from recess with some pressing items to resolve, including decisions about raising the debt ceiling and sending relief funds to Houston in the wake of Hurrican Harvey. Mike DeBonis, who covers Congress and national politics for The Washington Post, discusses the checklist that Congress must tackle in coming weeks.

• In the past week, nearly 50,000 Rohingya Muslims have been on the run from violence in Myanmar, and nearly 20,000 of them are trapped in a no man’s land between Myanmar and Bangladesh. Debra Eisenman, the executive director of the Asia Society Policy Institute, describes the recent surge in violence. 

• Last week, it was reported that Hurricane Harvey was a 1-in-1,000-year flood event. Adam Sobel, the director of Columbia University’s Initiative on Extreme Weather and Climate and the author of “Storm Surge,” says that the 1-in-1,000-year statistic is misleading, and that even though we can’t say for sure, hurricanes like Harvey provide important teaching moments for a country that often misses the point about climate change.

• Americans near and far have donated their time and money to helping victims of Hurricane Harvey. Halfway around the world, South Asians suffered their own environmental catastrophe as monsoons swept the region. Does the experience of a natural disaster at home make us more empathetic to a crisis abroad? Stephanie Preston, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, weighs in. 

This episode is hosted by Todd Zwillich.