It Could Happen Here - Biden's Title 42 Plot to Make the Border Worse

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

James and Mia discuss Biden's negotiations in the Senate and the plot to bring back Trump's horrific Title 42 to inflict more suffering on immigrants.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hello. Hello, Mia. Hello hello you lot hello podcast fans this is it could happen here a podcast about how the world is falling apart and some people who are trying to pull it back together today we are not talking about people who are pulling it back together we are talking about a guy who is constantly struggling to hold it together and that my friends is joseph robinette biden old guy united states president and uh border fascist and what's happening why are we talking about joseph robinette biden today well because you will remember that biden made some promises when he was campaigning in 2020. And it will shock you to hear that he is throwing migrants under the bus again in an attempt to get Republicans in the Senate to stop stamping their feet and wailing and having a tantrum. Specifically, the Senate failed to pass an emergency spending bill which would fund military aid. Among other things, it would fund

military aid to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel. And the reason they did that is because these Republicans are having a little tantrum about quote unquote border security. Border security probably doesn't mean what you think it means. In practical terms, what border security means is killing more innocent people, more people who are fleeing the worst things that are happening in this world at our southern border. It is making America a more deadly place for the most desperate people on earth. That is what border security means. That is what I want you to think of when you hear people saying we should secure our border, because the people you're securing it against are the Yazidi mother I saw carrying her children to try and come to a safer place.

They are the Afghan grandmother who I saw walking through the mountains last weekend. Those are the people who we're securing our border against right and this is sorry this just pisses me off to an unfathomable degree for many of you but the reason we're talking about this today is because whatever happens at the border right whatever policy we have at the border migration won't change because what people are leaving is worse than that. And so they will still come here because they believe the lies in America tells the world and it tells its citizens about itself too, that this is a safe place.

And for some people it has been a safe place and that's a good thing. But what will change is how people are treated when they get here. Because what Biden has proposed is a return to Title 42. I made a whole series on Title 42 that you can listen to, but what he's proposing this time is a very similar policy by which the Border Patrol agent who meets people after they cross the border in between ports of entry can send them directly back to Mexico without them having a

chance for an asylum hearing, right? This is illegal under international law and parts of US law. It's not clear what Biden's proposing or what the administration is proposing to do about it. Maybe they could change the immigration law. They could probably get enough votes for that, given that people in Congress seem to care very little about migrants. But this isn't a well-fleshed-out proposal, but what it very clearly shows right is the intent

to throw some of the most desperate people on earth under the bus and that is uh it's it's disgusting it's abhorrent and it shouldn't be unexpected either the executive is a branch in democratic control that is utterly incapable of helping a single person but is has the immense terrible and powerful authority to kill any person on Earth and then secondarily to... I'm just going to call it effectively perform ethnic cleansings by continually removing populations from the US.

They could just do this. That's all they use the executive for. Yes, it is. Yeah, they have never once waived that executive power in defense of the little guy or people who desperately needed help, it would seem. Certainly not in the last couple of administrations. Shout out to the former Obama administration staffers, by the way, for showing their whole ass by just screaming racist shit at Muslim people in the last few weeks. For people who hadn't already kind of worked out how terrible the Obama administration's

policy was. So I want to talk a little bit about the things that they're trying to do. So the first and foremost would be allowing Border Patrol to summarily expel migrants. Let me explain to you exactly how fucking stupid this thing is. I was present with a Border Patrol agent last week who was trying to discern who was a child or not, who was hampered in this by not being able to count in Spanish. Border Patrol agents do take a Spanish class in their academy, right? But how the fuck are we expecting this guy to discern the veracity of someone's asylum claim when he can't count to 18? when he can't count to 18. This person, under this proposed democratic proposal, would have the effectively life or death choice of whether someone can make an asylum claim or they get immediately bounced back to Mexico.

This person would, for instance, have the choice to send a trans woman who would not be safe quote-unquote remaining in mexico while she applied for asylum here back to mexico to apply for asylum here right this person would be able to send someone who has very credible fears of violence in mexico back to mexico where they often have no network. They have no resources. It once again be putting the strain of our foreign policy and the fucked up shit we've done all around the world that has destabilized regimes, specifically across South America, but also all around the world. As a consequence of that, people aren't safe there.

They're coming here to find safety and we're placing it in the hands of a random border patrol agent who may very well not speak the language or understand anything they're saying to bounce them back. That's not how we should do things. I think it probably goes without saying. They also want to begin a process

of what's called expedited removal. This allows immigration officials to deport people without court hearings if they don't ask for asylum or if they fail their initial asylum interview again like the this treating of people seeking asylum like they don't have rights or right like they have to that they get they're guilty until proven innocent almost in this system right and to be proven right to to get these court hearings to do well in these court hearings they need money they need lawyers those lawyers can cost anywhere

from six to twelve thousand dollars from what i've heard but these people aren't allowed to work in the united states so we're creating a de facto system that privileges wealthier migrants right you know ten twelve thousand united states dollars is a lot of money if you're coming from large parts of the world where wages are much lower right so having that kind of money isn't something that people who may be in desperate need of help uh would have for instance yesterday i was speaking to a yuzidi family yuzidi however you want to say it um who people will be familiar with the way their community was treated by uh isis right there some of the worst genocidal and and misogynist violence that we've seen this century was enacted upon that community they're coming to the united states to be safe and i i

don't think those people would have had the money to get together for a hearing, right? They speak Kurdish. I've never encountered a border patrol agent who speaks Kurdish, right? So they would have to make their claim on arrival. They could be immediately rejected. They could, if they fail their asylum interview, they could be placed in this expedited removal process by which they wouldn't have a right to a court hearing, a lawyer, a translator, all those things.

And the final thing that they've indicated that they want to do, and I think this is the most bizarre one, is that they have decided that they want to mandate the detention of certain migrants while their claims are adjudicated. while their claims are adjudicated. This one, it seems like, obviously, like a massive concession to this sort of insane Republican right-wing sort of demand that we criminalize all asylum seekers. And I think... Which, and I want to say something for a second about this too, because like, you know,

one of the ways that all this whole anti-migrant thing has ramped up, like when I was a kid, like, because there was, you know, I was like growing up when this first sort of one of the ways that all this whole anti-migrant thing is ramped up like when i was a kid like because there was you know i was like growing up when this this first sort of like anti-immigration hysteria was like ramping up and back then the hysteria was illegal immigration it's like this stuff is all legal like you have the legal like these are literally people doing legal immigration yeah and we're just here now where it's like no like like you try you if you attempt to come into the u.s legally we are going to fucking put you in a camp like it's

fucking insane it's like like this is shit that like even like 15 years ago people would have been like what the fuck are you talking about but the way that the way that this has been accelerated and this is something that's and you know and like the fact that biden is fucking just like just going like oh yeah yeah we should this is this is fine like we're gonna do like this is this is stuff that would have been unimaginable for a republican president in the 2000s yeah like the thing about this too is that none of this would have been possible without democratic complicity this is this is the way this system has worked this entire time right there's a reason they called obama the deporter in chief because he was the guy who could could have actually turned the tide against this stuff and just didn't and was

just like fuck you we're going to deport millions of people and that's that's how we're fucking here with this shit over again people who are literally coming to the country legally which is what all these people said spent all this fucking time saying you're supposed to be doing yeah i mean i think the claim of the biden administration is i don't fucking know like they want people to use cbp1 right cbp1 is the biggest fucking disaster in applications uh i can't think of any i don't know it's like as bad as fucking tesla's autopilot if tesla's autopilot got to decide your whole future, right? Every single person I have met at the southern border has tried CBP1. No one wants to pay someone to drive them off road across the desert

to a shitty hole in the wall in the middle of the freezing mountain range, 80 miles east of here, and then to sit with their children while it rains snows freezes and wait for one two three nights in this shitty conditions with maybe a tent that we dumpster dive from a susan g kohman event right uh or maybe if they're really lucky like a yurt that me and my friends built from pallets right and no one no one in their right mind would want to do that. These people don't want to do that. They've tried fucking CBP1. Most of them who I have spoken to

are carrying visa rejection letters, right? They've been to embassies all around the world or just been summarily dismissed. They don't give a reason for rejecting your visa, right? And they've exhausted all their options. No one wants to spend their life savings and walk across a desert. It's dangerous, right? But that is the only way they can do it. And as you say, it is perfectly legal to enter the country between ports of entry and immediately surrender to the first law enforcement agent you see to claim asylum.

That is how one claims asylum when one is fleeing persecution and when we have shut the door through this stupid app that only recognizes white faces and crashes all the time and isn't in most languages. And it's entirely understandable that people are taking this route. We have corked the bottle of migration and then shaken it up, right, for three years with Title 42, which is this Trump era policy that co-opted the COVID pandemic, which they allowed to rip through large segments of the United States community and pretended that by expelling migrants who are protecting us, it didn't have any provisions for vaccination. It didn't have any COVID testing. It was just a cynical attempt to use the pandemic.

And as we've seen through public records requests, it's something they'd planned long in advance to evict people from this country without giving them a chance at an asylum hearing. And now Biden is doing this without even the pretense of an excuse, right? At least Trump made up some bullshit. It was transparent, but Biden isn't even bothering to do that.

And he's just going to boot these people back into a place where they're going to be vulnerable. I've spoken to migrants who have been abused, who have been robbed in Mexico. It's not a safe place for vulnerable people. And the more vulnerable people you put into it the less safe it's going to get and nor is it mexico's fucking problem right like henry kissinger didn't fucking run mexican policy and then get to live to 100 and die in his bed right it's it's a

lot of these countries people are coming from they're coming from because we fucked up their policy as a country we fucked up their future right right? We did this neocolonial thing where we stole everything we thought was of value. We imposed dictators upon them when they chose socialist or more progressive regimes. And then we just put our hands up in the air and said, no, you can't come here. It's no space, sorry.

And it's fucking inexcusable and it's abhorrent. Mia, do you know what else is inexcusable and abhorrent? Is it the products and services that aren't marketed on the show? Yeah, yes. The products and services that we so greatly love. Oh, hang on. I got something to say about the fucking products and services. We're doing this now because we've got time.

There was an advert for Novo Nordisk in our podcast the other day, and I just want to take this opportunity to say an extra special fuck you to them, because I have held in my hand, it's a little fucking children who have died because they can't afford insulin. And the reason they have died is because these fucking ghouls want to extract every penny out of those of us who have diabetes. So I'm sorry that you heard those adverts and you won't ever again. But here you heard those adverts and you won't ever again. But here's some other adverts. where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about.

It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill.

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Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. We are back without, hopefully, adverts for evil pharmaceutical companies. It's me, Amir, and we're talking about Joe Brandon and his terrible immigration policy. And so the final part of this, and perhaps the most bizarre one, is that the White House mandating the detention of these migrants,

pending their claims, the US has never had enough detention space to do this, and we don't now. It remains extremely fucking unclear how this will be done. I will say that there was a big fuss made me, and maybe you remember this, that Biden was cancelling private prison contracts when he first came into office.

Do you remember his executive order on this? Vaguely, yeah. Yeah, I think it got a lot of attention that may have specifically applied to people who are in federal criminal incarceration it's certainly never applied to people seeking asylum because those people have always been detained by third-party contractors like core civic right and they continue to be so under the biden administration because again right it is seemingly the implicit policy of the democratic party that or civic, right? And they continue to be so under the Biden administration. Because again, right, it is seemingly the implicit policy of the Democratic Party that these people are of less

value and have fewer rights than US citizens or than people seeking permanent residence in this country through other means. You know, one of the things i i was i was doing this for other reasons for not this story but i was going back through and i was reading the the democratic party platform from 2020 and if you go back and read the democratic party platform from 2020 the the opening thing is them talking about the like how they're they're when they're in power they're gonna uh do what's needed to dismantle uh structural racism in this country fuck me and it's like my ass like and this is one of these these really sort of grim things about this right is like the democrats really really cynically capitalized off of like uh like people's revulsion at the fucking horrible stuff trump was doing at the border and then they got into power they did all the same shit and nobody

fucking cares now because that's that's literally what the democrats are there for right they're there to diffuse people's ability capacity desire to resist doing the exact same fucking things republicans are doing and it's really effective. And the consequence of this is that now we're fucking here with trying to bring fucking the same shit Trump was doing back. Yeah, and you're right.

So many people poured so much rage and passion into... I'm sure you can remember the whole no more kids in cages thing. Yeah, I will say this i i was always kind of cynical about that because i fucking remember occupy ice and i remember all those fucking liberals who told me they'd be marching in the streets just fucking abandoning us and leaving us to like deal with the fucking cops on our own so like i think i think it is like there

has been a sort of mythologization to some extent of how willing people were to actually do shit under trump but they sure as fuck not here under Biden. Yeah, there ain't no one in the streets saying no more kids in cages now, right? Like, they're not here for the little children I've met, you know, day in, day out for

the last six months who are going to be detained, who might be separated for their families. Yeah, and I want to, this is kind of off topic too but like so this is a story like at some point i'm going to do an actual episode about this um there's been i've been i've been trying to get to talk to people about this for a bit but so there's been a whole bunch of shit with a lot of so one of the subsequent things that was happening with all these people is that like the government in Texas

has been like shipping them to random cities yes so a bunch of people have been shipped to Chicago and it turned and there eventually were protests here but like our fucking progressive mayor tried to have a basically a concentration camp company set up like

a camp for these people on land that it turned out had been a toxic waste dump and only just didn't do i i don't even think he ever backed up the story here is kind of i think what happened if i'm remembering correctly is that the governor was like like pritzker was like what the fuck are you doing you can't have this stuff be on a toxic waste site but so that's like temporarily been stopped like that's that's the kind of shit that's happening like in you know like like brandon johnson like nominally is one of the most left wing mayors in the u.s and this is what is fucking happening even in this from the sort of progressive

wing the democratic party like the the concern like the the joe biden conservative wing is like even worse on this stuff yeah and like the entire democratic party and so much as it has and there was a time when it genuinely did show up for people trying to come to this country to seek asylum at least it it wouldn't. The immigration system is like a ratchet and it only moves to the right. Under democratic government, it wouldn't move to the right. It does now. And this means that there is not

an electoral option for you, right? You cannot just vote. If you give a single fuck about innocent people living outside of this country wanting to come here and be safe you don't there is nothing on the ballot box for you to tick that represents a serious option and then that's sad yeah it's a pretty fucked reflection of our electoral politics but i think it also impels us to like look look at someone who believes that there is not a ballot box option that is going to deliver us a system with dignity and democracy and justice anyway uh i think like

this is where we have to step up and do the stuff that we always talk about like it this happened a little bit in 2020 and it happened a little bit under trump but like now more than ever the need to do mutual aid, especially for migrants, but also for in-house people within your community, for all the fucking human detritus of Joe Biden's dogshit governance, it's right now. It is, as I've seen personally, within the power of a very small group of people to impact the lives of a very large group of people

through organizing. Look, I've participated in mutual aid for a while. I'm sure many of the people listening have as well. But if you haven't found the place or the way to do so, it's a great time to start organizing something. The options in the next electoral cycle are that things get worse or that things get much worse. I don't think we have an option which is

dismantling the structural racism that is within the United States or even just not punching down on some of the most vulnerable people in the world, it would appear. And so to protect those people, it falls upon our communities and that's a it's a big burden to shoulder right when the state has enough money to

send thousand pound bombs to israel and that means that we have to pay for beans for hungry children yeah well and i mean the thing the thing that this too right is like it if you if you spent the amount of money that the u.s was spending on trying to keep people out of the country on just like giving like you just gave that money to the same those same people we wouldn't be having this problem right now like it isn't like putting people in a prison is like the least cost efficient way to do possibly do anything and it doesn't matter because the the whole point of this like and this is one of these things with this sort of ratchet right is eventually you're going to get to fucking

like you know i mean like the the situation we have now right now in greece where you have effectively a fascist government who's a pot like when like when when when both slow boatloads of people go down in the mediterranean like go down the mediterranean several hundred people die their popularity goes up. This is the thing, we're not that far away from in the fucking US. The Republican demand in maybe

eight, maybe ten years is going to be just shooting, literally just machine guns at the border. This is where this is fucking going. You haven't seen the replies to my post on X.com. When I say Democrats, I mean this is going is this is where this is fucking going right oh you haven't seen the replies to my uh to my post yeah when i when i say democrats i mean i mean like like the this is going to be the demand of the fucking house like republican caucus right like yeah this is this is this is where this is fucking going and the democrats like you know and the democrats will take power fucking 12 years later and be like well we're only going to shoot some of the people at

the border people are going to call this progress right yeah and the only way that this can be and this this cannot be stopped by voting for the democrats this is like you know and like people people thought this about obama and people also thought this about biden was that we're going to vote for these people because they're going to be good on immigration and like this is the reason why we're fucking are where we are now so so like there there there there is no solution to this that doesn't revolve around like fundamental systemic change to what the u.s is because otherwise we're just going to every single fucking year we're going to be back here yeah um talking about being back here uh we need to do a second advertising pivot i think right There are two mid-rolls in these? Yeah.

Yeah. So we are back here, once again, lamenting the fact that we have to introduce these adverts for you. Here you are. Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys,

and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season

digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse

and naming and shaming those responsible Don't get me wrong though, I love technology I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. All right, and we have returned to lament the decline of the United States. I wanted to talk briefly about what Title 42 does to migration flow, right? As many of you will be aware, Donald Trump has built a big, beautiful wall along the southern border of the United States. The caveat to that being only some of it, and that they didn't do the hard parts, right? So the places in Hukumba where people are entering are gaps in the wall, right?

There are camps at three of these gaps spread over about a 15 mile area. There are gaps all up and down the wall, right? And you'll very often see people saying, oh, you couldn't climb this wall. It doesn't matter. You just walk along until you find a gap and get through. You also can climb the wall.

We've seen people climb the wall. We've seen people cut it with angle grinders, right? But what happens with Title 42? What happens right now under what's called Title VIII of the United States immigration law, people enter the country through a gap in the wall and they wait and they surrender to a border patrol agent and say, I'm here to claim asylum, right? And then they end up in these open air detention sites in Cumbria, et cetera. What happens on a Title 42 is that if you think you're going to be bounced directly back to Mexico and you believe that you aren't safe there, you attempt to avoid border patrol,

right? And so you go to the places where they're going to be watching these gaps in the war, one would assume. So you go to the furthest places and the hardest places and the highest places and the most rugged places, right? And you try and walk through those routes instead. You try and walk through, for instance, Valley of the Moon, which is just to the east of Okumba, where just last week,

some of my friends were involved in a search and rescue operation for a four-year-old child who'd become separated from their family coming from Afghanistan. And then they found that child, fortunately. But fucking no one else would have done it if they hadn't been there, right? The result of this is that people will die in greater numbers crossing our border.

And that's what we saw under Title 42 under Trump, and it's what we saw in Title 42 under Biden, because there was, like that I have attended, that you've heard about on this podcast, and the ones that I haven't, and that you haven't heard about on this podcast, are not going to stop because Joe Biden offered a concession to the Republicans.

They will keep happening. The poverty that we have created in much of the world is not going to stop. It will keep happening. Transphobia, a thing that we have exported culturally. That's on Britain too. Definitely an island of turfs. It's been a collaborative effort between the US and the British.

Yeah, that's what the special relationship is about. J.K. Rowling and Tim Pool. The French are also complicit in this too. They're not getting fucking off the special relationship is about. It's JK Rowling and Tim Pool. The French are also complicit in this too. They're not getting fucking off the hook for this shit. But no, yeah. This is not a podcast. It's France off the hook for anything. But, you know, like, I mean, this is something I think you're getting at too.

But like we in large part, like the US and the UK are responsible for why transphobia is as bad as it is in in mexico right now which is it is so much more like as as bad as it is to be trans in the fucking u.s it is so much worse in mexico um like the odds of you being killed are indescribable uh even if you're not fucking killed there's this is actually one of the episodes next what week will that be the week after next we're gonna replay the episode

the interviews that I did with Mexican trans organizers talking about the TERFs there because they are armed and they will fucking like they will attack people um yeah yeah it's look they united nations says yeah it's bleak the the un says that life expectancy for trans people in central america is 35 or less right that's i am older than that that is abhorrent right that that

That is abhorrent, right? That you are extremely likely to die young if you are trans in places not so far from here, right? And I think that's where I want to get at. And it's the fundamental conceit of this whole thing is that border policy doesn't change migration. Migration happens because people aren't safe where they are, and that's why they leave. They don't take this journey because it seems easy. Because even right now, it's incredibly hard. People walk thousands of miles. They walk across mountains. They take

risks and hop on trains. They get extorted. They get robbed. They get assaulted. Young women often get sexually assaulted. It's a terrible and dangerous journey. And people won't stop taking that journey because Joe Biden decided to do something different. The things that are driving them to leave their homes will still keep happening. And they will now have to take a more dangerous journey and all that this does is make it more

likely that those people will die on the way here or that when they get here they'll have to live their whole lives always wondering if they're going to get sent back, right? Never really feeling safe. It robs people of what some of us can take for granted, right? Which is being able to go to sleep at night and feeling safe. And yeah, that's, I guess, what we all voted for when we chose the anti-fascist guy in 2020. It's a pretty fucking bleak vision of politics in this country and the impact it has for people who don't get a choice to vote in this country yeah i mean it's you know it is a it is it is a functional

definitional totalitarian regime and it will never be fucking described as that by the academics who fucking use this language but you know how how how else do you describe living in a condition where you can at any point be removed and are spending literally all of your time attempting to flee a police state like yeah yeah the u.s the u.s is and has always been an unbelievably authoritarian state and it's getting more so fucking every day and you know and this is also one of these things where it's like i mean we we literally saw this in 2020 the the people who got sent in to put down the uprising in portland it was fucking bortak right it was it was it was the the it was it was it was the the border patrols like special forces units right like that's that's the inevitable logic of this

state is that you any person who wants to resist the state eventually one day these people will fucking come for you too and the question is whether you know it's whether you start because portak didn't win really in like the stuff that they were trying to do in 2020 like they they basically kind of got beaten but you know they're still there they're still getting fucking money like they're getting more money to give more money yeah so you know either either we stop them now before they fucking have another trillion dollars to spend on this shit or you know we fight them again in like five years when there's more of them and they're better funded yeah and like the final thing i'll say with regard to that funding is maybe you're meeting your family over the holidays, right? Maybe you're hanging out with people who don't often hang out with,

even if you don't care about, you know, the, the mother bringing her baby from Shingal in Iraq to, to here, who I met last night, right? Even if that doesn't bother you and you're so somehow heartless that you don't care. Um, say that every single time we put more money into border security, it ends up with all of us being surveilled more. If you attended a protest in 2020, you might have been surveilled by Border Patrol, right? If you walk around in the desert where I live, you're probably being surveilled by Border Patrol.

If you use your cell phone without encryption, you might be being surveilled at the border, right? The companies, many of them based in the US, some of them based in Israel that are surveilling Palestinians are the same ones that are surveilling us at our border. And this will come back to bite you at the ass in the ass. This will come back to bite you in the ass, even if you don't care about migrants, because the moment you are not in lockstep with the government, you become a potential victim

of that surveillance. A big thing with undocumented immigration is it essentially makes you illegible and therefore untaxable to the government. What the government state at its very core wants people to be is legible therefore untaxable to the government. What the government state at its very core wants people to be is legible and taxable and countable. If you think that isn't going to bounce back on trans folks and making them, specifically non-binary folks too, like the idea that you don't have a box to tick on a form and that makes you hard to be legible and statistically quantifiable by the government, all of this will come back and hurt you even if you're just a super right-wing libertarian who

doesn't want to pay their taxes like this border security is a thing that will eventually be used against you and i don't think it's in any of our interests to just keep handing these tools to the state that end up being used against the most desperate people in the world and and so hopefully i know like there's no one you can fucking vote for to change that yeah yeah you can feel free to write your legislators uh i have been on the phone to my legislators about individual cases of people who I care about very deeply who are in a very grave amount of danger and they haven't done shit. So instead, I go to the border and I build shelters out of pallets and tarps for people because it's the only thing that makes me feel like I'm not completely fucking powerless. fucking powerless and so if you want to take that power dynamic back you know cook some beans make some rice buy some tops with your holiday money and go out there and start doing mutual aid you don't even have to go on x.com or reddit to do it just fucking go out and start helping people

you'll find other people who want to help and you can organize and it's about the only way i can see that you can make things meaningfully better right now yeah yeah i think i think that's a good message to end on yeah it is um if you want to give your money to my little uh mutual aid gang of wonderful people uh you can go to gofundme.com slash hakumba hyphen migrant hyphen camps hakumba is j J-A-C-U-M-B-A. But you can also keep it. And I would love it if you started something yourself and told us what you were doing. That would make things less shitty for us.

It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show,

where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right.

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