Sure, the Trump administration is deporting a lot of people , but over at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Senior Adviser Kari Lake is goin
Lisa Needham at Daily Kos:
Sure, the Trump administration is deporting a lot of people, but over at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Senior Adviser Kari Lake is going above and beyond. She’s trying to deport her own employees at Voice of America, a government-funded news outlet. Lake has overseen the destruction of Voice of America and USAGM, slashing 85% of their staff, with a plan to eventually replace the venerable institution with D-list right-wing content from One America News Network. Many people she fired were, unsurprisingly, not native-born American citizens, because VOA’s international broadcasts required a large number of highly fluent translators and broadcasters. Those workers usually had J-1 visas, which are issued to students, au pairs, doctors, professors, scholars, and specialists, among others. The problem is that the VOA’s J-1 visas are tied to their continued employment by USAGM. Since Lake fired them, they have 30 days to leave the country or find an alternative way to stay here. These fired workers face a huge crisis. Do they return to their home countries? Apply for asylum here? What about those people who are from a country where they will be harmed if they return? Lake doesn’t care. To her, it’s a big joke—literally. She joshed with right-wing media hack Eric Bolling, saying, “If I have to go to the airport with them, and accompany them to the airport and get them on the flight, I will do that.” When Bolling said they could instead go to Florida’s immigrant detention facility in the Everglades, the so-called “Alligator Alcatraz,” where human rights abuses are rampant, Lake laughed.
“If you overstay your visa, ICE is going to find you,” she said. “And they will find you in this case as well.”
Kari Lake is a no-class disgrace to USAGM and VOA.
From the 07.31.2025 edition of Real America's Voice's Bolling!: