WCPT 820 Interview: Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL)

Edwin Eisendrath is joined by Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL).

Casten discussed the bipartisan Mental Health in Aviation Act, a bill he introduced with Republican Congressman Pete Stauber of Minnesota. It passed the House earlier this month and awaits action in the Senate. The legislation seeks to expand access to mental health care for pilots and remove the stigma of seeking mental health counseling without fear of being grounded. The provisions in the bill would also apply to air traffic controllers.

"We became aware of this when we got a phone call from a family in Chicago whose son was in pilot school, needed mental health treatment, and his parents found all this out after he'd taken his own life and and learned that, essentially, he had made a conscious decision not to get that help because he knew that then he would be grounded and wouldn't be able to finish pilot school. And as we started digging in and peeling that onion, you hear these stories. I'd go speak to pilot mental health conferences, and on the way in a pilot would come up to me and say, one of my colleagues just took his life yesterday because of this issue." 

In addressing the negative impact of the Trump administration's immigration policies, Casten emphasized the economic and societal benefits of the United States being a welcoming country for immigrants. He paraphrased Republican President Ronald Reagan's stated belief that, in Casten's words, "the day America stops welcoming immigrants to our shores is the day America abandons its position of leadership in the world." 

"Why is the American economy slowing down?" Casten asked. "Well, it's in part because we're kicking out the people who actually do jobs and buy things and have houses and grow the economy. And by the way . . . if you actually look at crime statistics . . . if you look at the data, an undocumented immigrant to the United States statistically commits crime at a lower rate than a documented immigrant to the United States. And a documented immigrant to the United States commits crime at a lower rate than a native born American." 

A video version of the conversation is available on Edwin's Substack page.

Catch “The Big Picture with Edwin Eisendrath” Saturdays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Central on WCPT (heartlandsignal.com/programs/the-big-picture).   

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