Chewing the Fat with Jeff Fisher - Jeffy's Corner: 'The Abolitionists' w/ Tim Ballard

Episode Date: May 14, 2016

More on 'The Abolitionists' here: http://bit.ly/1V0ZDTCFollow Tim on Twitter: @TBBallard1Follow Jeffy on Twitter: @JeffyMRA Like Jeffy on Facebook: www.facebook.com/JeffFisherRadioFollow Jeffy on Instagram: @jeffymra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Jeff Fisher Show. The experts at web.com want to bill your business a successful website for free. Plus, we'll promote it on all the major search engines. If after 30 days you're happy, we'll continue to provide promotion, hosting, support, and maintenance, all for one low monthly fee. If not, cancel and pay nothing. Call right now, and you'll also get a free.com or dot net domain name for your new website, powered by Veracine, the world's leading domain name provider. Call 800-215-0-4-65. That's 800-215-0-4-65.

Jeff Fisher. Welcome to it. 888-90-3-33 is the phone number. You can follow me on Twitter at Jeff E-M-R-A, Facebook, Jeff Fisher Radio, and Instagram at JeffEMRA. This coming Monday, the 16th, there's going to be a movie out called The Abolitionists. you need to go and see it. Joining me now, a man who, you know, it's not really a starring role,

but it is a starring role in the movie, the abolitionist, is Tim Ballard, who is in charge of Operation Underground Railroad, Our Rescue. I met Tim a few years ago, and I was blown away at the work that they do. And if you want to be able to see a movie that will, this is, I don't know if this is a good sell or not, but it will make you cry, laugh, feel sad, feel happy, cry, be angry, all in one movie.

That's pretty much what will happen during the abolitionist. Tim Ballard, welcome to the broadcast. How are you, sir? Thanks so much, Jeffie. We're having me on the show. I appreciate it. No problem. Listen, so the movie is Monday.

What do I have to do to go see it? And then we'll talk a little bit about what happens in the movie. Well, go to fathomevents.com. That's who's hosting this in about 600 different theaters nationwide. And you just put in your area code and they, or your zip code, and they'll tell you what theaters are near your town. So they're everywhere. It's a one-night event?

That's right. With fathom, it's one night. And if enough people show up, of course, we hope that's the film, it's picked up all over the place. I hope so, too. Now, a little bit about the movie. What you do and what your operation does is rescue children from different places around the world who are being traded as sex slaves, correct?

That's right, yes. Go ahead. So my team, Operation Underground Railroad is made up of former law enforcement. We have former CIA, former Navy, C. for a military, and what we do is we go in and we work with governments all around the world and show them how, I give them the tools that they need, and we go along with them as they infiltrate the black markets that sell children. And in the film, you're going to see our first two operations in Haiti and in Colombia, where we do

just that. And how many, okay, so how many of these operations do you do a year? any specific amount or is it just as needed? You know, every year just keeps growing. The more funding that we get, the more we do. We're not even able to keep up with the demand. We're being invited all over the place. But we have been in 12 countries.

We've been able to conduct about 20 operations a year, which, you know, yields about anywhere from 10 to 30 children in each operation. And so it's been quite a, you know, and we continue to grow. I mean, we're in, like I said, we're in 12 countries. I have teams out right now of three different teams as we speak, setting up and doing an operation. You are amazing. The first time that we met and I heard and saw what you guys were doing, and I mean, it's like I can't, I want to help. I remember telling you, I'll go.

I'll do whatever you need me to do. I'll just go. And then the more I hear and see and listen, I don't know that I can, I could do it. I might just want to have to end someone's life immediately. I don't know that I could ever get to the end. You know what I mean? I don't think I could get through the process of getting to the end

to actually put these people away and end what they're doing legally. It's hard. I mean, you're sitting across face. face with these guys who are selling kids, and they're showing these kids to you as if, you know, they're talking to you like they're selling a bicycle or a computer part.

Like, it's a total commodity, and it's absolutely just punches you in the gut. And yet you've got to smile at them, and I'm like your friend in it, you get this, and you want this. It's tough. Boy, no kidding. Okay, so how did you get started on this? I mean, what, did you just one day say,

you know what? this is something I need to do. I spent 12 years as a special agent in the government doing these cases almost exclusively working child crimes, child trafficking cases. And mid-2000, the laws changed in the United States and allowed for agents, kind of open the doors for agents to go work overseas. And that's what my eyes were really open. I mean, I've heard the statistic, you know, two million children's work in the criminal

But when I actually got into the situations and went in undercover, I couldn't believe how blatant it was. I mean, just in your face, children, 10 years old, 11 years old, younger, sold on the beach on the street corners. And unless there was a U.S. nexus, in other words, unless there was an American involved in the case, it wasn't a big business of the United States for the most part. And so it was hard to get a lot of resources. And that's where I decided, you know, if I was private, we could move quickly. We could, we wouldn't have jurisdictional limitations and we could just go in. You know, we could be in Thailand on Monday and Mexico on Wednesday and back in the States on Friday. And so that's what we've been able to do.

And that's why I left to create the operation under our road. It is amazing. Are those numbers, you say two million kids, are those numbers, is that number low? Oh, that's conservative, I think, absolutely. Yeah. Wow. Okay, so in the movie, tell us a little bit about the movie, what we're going to experience in the film on Monday.

Well, the producer of the film is Jerry Mullen. He's the Oscar winner of Schindler's List. He did Jurassic Park. So I was extremely humbled when he came to me and told me he wanted to make this film. And the idea he had was kind of crazy. I didn't know if he's going to work because what he wanted to do was put cameras on the ground and he so you actually are watching this in real live you know it's it's a it's so it's not documentary right it's not a reenactment it's not a reenactment right it's not a reason I thought that's

what he wanted to do when he first brought to my attention but he said no no no let's put my guys my camera guys undercover with your team and we'll put he's undercover cameras I try people accuse us of actually falsifying footage only because it's so good because these camera members are so brave, and they went right undercover with us. So you're in the middle of this scene. I mean, you're two feet away from traffickers selling kids, and you forget you're watching a documentary because you're right there. I mean, it's amazing, and it plays more like an action thriller, I think, than a documentary

because you're actually just watching this happen as it's happening. It, so, all right, a couple of things. First, Monday night, go to fathomeevents.com and find out where the abolitionists are playing in your area and go and see it. Well worth, well worth your time, effort and money. I mean, my, the first time that my daughter even heard a little bit about this and she's only eight, She's putting quarters in an envelope and telling me help them. So how do we help when we can? Well, if you go to our website, which is o-U-R-rescue.org, you can learn all about us, what we do, who we are.

We're extremely transparent charity. We are a charity, though. So all of our operations are conducted through the charity and contributions of people who want to give. We're a 501c3 organization. And so, yeah, it's oUR rescue.org and come learn about us. The good thing about us is, like I said, we're so transparent because we have cameras all I guess around everywhere we go. So you know what we do.

It's right there for you to see. So we encourage people to come check us out. Now you, for many years or for however long, you said you started and you went undercover yourself, Are you undercover anymore at all? I mean, your face is pretty out there now. Yeah, I've had to give up that role. Are you okay with that? It's bittersweet.

You know, sometimes I feel like I never want to do this again because it's hard to do it. Right. At the same time, it's a bittersweet thing, you know, because when you're in there, when you're in there and you get to pull off the rescue and begin to pull the kids out, then, of course, there's nothing better on earth to experience. but it's bittersweet, but I know that I have to give it up just simply because my face is out there. And I've been able to recruit guys who do it better than I do anyway. So we're just moving along.

And I kind of, my role was kind of shifted. The kids, the children, when you rescue them, does the movie talk about what happens after at all? Yes, it does. I mean, this is so important. I mean, there is no rescue without the healing. And so we won't even, we will not even go into a country to operate unless we have a partnership that we trust with a vetted organization that we know has all the tools that a child would need to really be raised into adulthood if necessary because often, way too often the families,

there is no family to go back to or the family is part of the problem. And so we, I mean, there's been times when we've had to wait up to a year to operate even after an invitation comes in from the country, we will not go in until we know that piece is in place. And the film shows that right on the heels of the arrest, our partners are in there hugging these kids, identifying them and telling them it's going to be okay and getting them to safety into a place where they could heal.

I mean, the healing process has got, if ever, I don't know that, I mean, I guess we all hope and pray that they do heal and it doesn't affect them, but it has to, right? I mean, you're not going to get away from that forever. It is a long and difficult process. I mean, you know, they brainwash these kids and they think that they're some kind of commodity. To undo that, you know, takes a lot of professional care and insurance. Right.

Okay, so you've done this for a number of years now. How, have you gone back and visited or at least met with or got reports on the first rounds of people that you've rescued, the kids that you've rescued? Absolutely. In fact, in the movie, the opening scenes is exactly a scene of that where we're going back and we're visiting the kids that we had rescued earlier and to see how they're doing. And we continue to do that to this day. we have a whole, we have a director of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, she goes in with a team and coordinates, uh, with our partners, make sure they're vetted,

and then she takes the teams back and to make sure that, that everybody is, um, you know, still doing well, what do they need? And the same thing be said for the bad guys. I mean, we, we, we follow up to make sure they stay in jail, you know, um, there's a scene in the film, towards the end where we've done a couple operations in, in Columbia, and then, and And we go back to Columbia and we are talking to street vendors who otherwise would be the ones who would introduce us to traffickers. And nobody in Cartagena in the areas that we operated in, nobody would tell us kids. And they all referenced the media about the Americans who kept getting arrested for coming down. And we recognized in that moment that, you know, we've cut it down.

It's working. And there's kids that we've been able to rescue who never knew they needed to be rescued because they were not. never trafficked in the first place. And those are the kids we love to rescue. And that's our goal is to shut it down and to prevent it. That is fantastic. Tim, you are a modern-day hero. I'm telling you, the work that you do is unbelievable.

All right. So the movie Monday, the abolitionists, you can go to Operation Underground, our rescue. Dot org and check it out. There's a link there to check out where the movie is in your area. or you can go to the abolitionist movie.com and get the information there as well. Fathom events has it up as well. Monday night, don't miss it.

Tim, thank you very much. It's good to talk to you. I look forward to seeing you soon. You too. Wow. I don't know if you have seen any previews or footage or video of what these. guys do, but I'm telling you, the first time, I said it a little bit when we first started talking to Tim.

When I first saw and heard what these guys are doing, I want to help. I want to help. And then you see what they have to go through. And it isn't an act. You know, it isn't a movie where you're playing a bad guy, but you have to be a bad guy to rescue these kids. It's unbelievable. and he seriously, he is a modern-day hero.

This is the Jeff Fisher Show. On the Blaze Radio Network. The experts at web.com want to bill your business a successful website for free. Plus, we'll promote it on all the major search engines. If after 30 days you're happy, we'll continue to provide promotion, hosting, support, and maintenance, all for one low monthly fee. If not, cancel and pay nothing. Call right now and you'll also get a free. or dot net domain name for your new website, powered by Veracine, the world's leading domain name provider.

Call 800215-0465. That's 800-215.0465.