Melting the ICE / Derritiendo el Hielo is a bilingual podcast and radio show dedicated to sharing stories of how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is impacting families across the U.S., unpacking how this current system works and who is profiting, and to sharing information and strategies about how people are fighting back.

Most of all, this series is dedicated to broadcasting messages of love, solidarity and support to people currently held behind ICE detention center walls. This show airs on local, independent airwaves that reach three of the largest ICE immigration detention centers in New Jersey and the surrounding areas, as well as communities across New York City and Connecticut.

We welcome additional radio station partners from across the country to broadcast this series, especially independent radio stations that reach ICE immigration detention centers. Each episode is available for broadcast in a 30-minute or 60-minute format.

If you have a detention story to share, or if you are a radio station interested in broadcasting this series, please write to sylvia.ryerson@yale.edu.  

This project was created in collaboration with a team of amazing individuals:

Liz Martinez, Director of Advocacy and Strategic Communications at Freedom for Immigrants. Through policy campaigns and other initiatives, Liz amplifies Freedom for Immigrants’ mission and message to help end immigration detention.

Daniela Ugaz and Priya Sreenivasan, law students at New York University and student advocates with the NYU Immigrant Rights Clinic, under the supervision of Nancy Morawetz, Professor of Clinical Law at NYU.

Sylvia Ryerson, an independent radio producer and graduate student in American Studies at Yale University, where she is a member of the Migrant Justice Initiative under the direction of Alicia Schmidt Camacho. Prior to graduate school, Sylvia co-hosted Calls from Home, a nationally recognized radio program sending toll-free phone messages from family members to their loved ones incarcerated in the U.S. prison system, and she founded Restorative Radio, a participatory documentary project working with families to create "Audio Postcards" for their loved ones in prison.

Luis Luna, Field Director with the Working Families Party in Connecticut, photographer, community organizer and radio host with WPKN-FM Community Radio, where he hosts his program Modulo Lunar mixing alternative and politically charged music with discussions of social justice issues to amplify collective voices in his community.  

Special thanks to our radio station partners at WPKN-FM Community Radio in Bridgeport, CT; WKCR-FM College Radio of Columbia University; WMSC-FM College Radio of Montclair State University; and WSOU-FM College Radio of Seton Hall University.

This series is also available as a podcast on iTunes and Stitcher.