In this episode of “The Opinions,” the deputy Opinion editor Patrick Healy talks to the columnist Lydia Polgreen about the global panic around migration, and what President Trump’s efforts to curb it mean for the United States and its position in the world.

Lydia Polgreen on What’s Missing in Our Conversation About Immigration

And what happens when your country becomes a place people no longer want to come to.

Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio App, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Patrick Healy: I’m Patrick Healy, deputy editor of New York Times Opinion, and this is The First 100 Days, a weekly series examining President Trump’s use of power and his drive to change America. This week I wanted to talk to my colleague the columnist Lydia Polgreen. For the past year, Lydia has been reporting from around the world about migration and how the global population is shifting.

She’s looked at who wins and who loses when a country decides there’s too much immigration. In many of the wealthiest countries, like the United States, these changes have sparked a wave of conservative political victories and policies. Now, as we all know, Donald Trump campaigned on a promise of mass deportation. That hasn’t happened in a widespread way yet. But his administration has started a very public clampdown in ways that courts have ruled unlawful or unconstitutional.

Trump wants to utterly reshape immigration in America and how America sees immigrants, and I wanted to talk to Lydia about what he’s doing here and where it may lead our society.