It Could Happen Here - Border Kindness and Mutual Aid Along the Border

Episode Date: August 18, 2023

James is joined by Jacqueline Arellano and James Cordero from Border Kindness to discuss mutual aid along the border and the impact of policy changes and world events on people making the journey to the USA.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, everyone. It's just me, James, today, and I'm joined today by James Cordero and Jacqueline Arellano. They're both from Border Kindness which is a group that does border aid, chiefly like

water drops and support to keep people alive as they're making their journey across the desert here in San Diego. Is that a fair characterization of what you guys do yeah uh we do work all across the border in california uh currently the two of us we're based out of san diego yeah but we do some of our uh water drops in eastern san diego county and imperial county yeah yeah the organization is based primarily in mexicali baja california on the mexico side and that's where it was founded okay in response to the arrival of the migrant caravans in 2018 we've personally been doing drops since 2016 but we brought the program over to border kindness a little over a year ago and we operate programs on both sides of the border

primarily james and i are involved with water drop but we also as an organization have a school on the mexico side we have operated a pro bono clinic on the mexican side and currently we're providing direct aid with um the families of migrant farm workers in imperial and riverside counties nice yeah there's a lot of very important things that uh you don't get enough money or attention so you said you started about a year ago i bet you but you've been doing the border drops for what's that seven that's a long time seven years yeah um since 2016 and i wonder like if we could start by and we can get into some of the details later, but I've been reporting on the border for that long, and there certainly have been notable changes. And I wonder what changes you've seen.

Like, we go back to, like, pre-2015, 2016, like, that was before the whole wall shenanigans. So, like, do you guys want to describe, like, what changes you've seen in, in patterns of migration and like, I guess how safe that journey is or isn't. And how that's changed. Well, as far as patterns, I think it's definitely increased definitely by the year. It's definitely increased by the year.

As far as seeing the amounts of supplies being used, the traces of migrants crossing through in the desert and mountains, seeing the amount of border patrol apprehensions and interactions with people that cross, and the overall militarization of the border yeah yeah and i think like as far one of the biggest changes that we've seen on the border overall and that has reflected in the water drop as well is a change in the demographics of people that are coming through even as recently as when we started in 2016 there were um much more of like the trend that was generally kind of like stereotypically the case of like who was crossing which was men of origin of working age crossing to work and send family send money back to their families yeah that's obviously still a large um part of who is coming through but in the most recent three to five years especially um the demographics are changing not just by country of origin to include all over the world and reflecting like this global migration crisis that's going on but also the reasons and like the desperation is

changing so now it's not just like economic migration there is asylum seekers refugees and it is just changing in tone of like why they're migrating and in what ways they're migrating yeah yeah definitely i've noticed that and like as the climate continues to change, right? Like more and more people come from those countries. I'm sure you've seen that too, that are most heavily impacted by climate change. Yeah. Yeah, and that makes a journey.

As it gets hotter and hotter in the desert, like that makes a journey more and more perilous, I guess. They've come from farther too. And they're at least sometimes like not at all familiar with the weather, with the terrain, what they're up against, with not at all familiar with the weather with the terrain what they're up against with like how you have to move in border towns if you're not from a border town you don't really know how to move and who to trust or more importantly who not to trust yes and people there's a lot of pitfalls to just arriving at the border even from like um internal

migration like within mexico people arrive to the border and even from like internal migration, like within Mexico, people arrive to the border and don't really know how to operate like the day to day there. And it's really made an already incredibly dangerous situation, like just just totally perilous. As more people have migrated from different countries around the world, you're also seeing people who have been on that journey just to get to the United States line for longer amounts of time,

that instead of maybe just weeks or a month, you're talking about months on months that people have been traveling by foot, by train, by bus, sometimes by plane, however they can. And we've seen like invoices for like hotel stays that people traveling from Turkey came and they stayed like in Cancun for like a month. So like, I mean, people are gone from their, from their homelands, you know, longer amounts of time now that, you know, isn't a comfortable thing. So it's not like you can relaxelands, you know, longer amounts of time now that, you know,

isn't a comfortable thing. So it's not like you can relax and not like you can, you know, rest and, you know, mentally and physically, everything like that. So it's definitely making that part harder for, for people crossing. Yeah, for sure. Like I'm seeing more and more migrants from, from Africa and like, I know they are very much like, it's the community for them is hard to find sometimes like you know that like there are different spaces um for them

and like they they end up in like distinct spaces from from other like migrants who are coming from other areas and i know it can be very perilous for them like you say just just moving around border towns and navigating the pitfalls of that yeah it's it's becoming like a more and more difficult and i guess could have complicated issue but i think what's not particularly complicated is that like no one should have to walk across the desert without water right like it's it's pretty basic so maybe we could go through what a water drop is and like what just if we could walk through like you know how far you guys walk what what you're leaving out there what you find that people take what you find that they need in their journeys and and you were talking about the receipts i found tons of those and

plane tickets and stuff like the things that you find that help you understand how better to help people, I guess. You want to talk about how far the drops are generally and all of that? Yeah. So right now, it just depends on the season, the weather, the length of the drops. We hike a lot of our drops. We also utilize 4x4s to get us closer to areas to start our hikes so we don't have to walk even more miles that helps us out and you know being able to carry

more supplies you know with less walking in some areas but when it's a cooler times and the temperatures are you know below 80 degrees you know we can hike you know anywhere up to i think the max that we did was like just about 20 um but on the average you know the cool weather hikes will do you know right around 10 miles or so and then when it gets hot um and the desert gets really hot out there you know like over 110 degrees on a constant basis and starting to get over 120 degrees, you know, we can maybe do about five miles by foot. We've kind of ran a trial and error this season, as far as trying to push further to see how far we can go.

And we attempted seven miles and that i mean we all were gassed right around the five mile mark so like we have to you know set limits because not only is the distance but the time spent underneath the sun without shade and that exposure is you know what drives the internal body temperature up and everything like that and if you don't have a chance to cool down that's when your body starts to wear out you get heat exhaustion and you know, what drives the internal body temperature up and everything like that. And if you don't have a chance to cool down, that's when your body starts to wear out, you get heat exhaustion. And, you know, we want to avoid heat stroke at all costs. And we're trying to, you know, make sure everyone's safety is accounted for.

So we have to kind of cap that in the summertime to like five miles. Yeah. Yeah, sure. We have to definitely make pushes in the winter to stockpile the areas that are just simply not accessible in the summer months and be strategic and like paying attention to what are entry points and can we hit those entry points or exit points so maybe we can't um really access a route throughout its entirety but we can hit certain points of it more um safely as a team during these like incredibly hot months but we leave supplies of

water food and protective clothing and the protective clothing varies depending on season so i mean a lot of people don't really take into consideration how cold it gets in these areas it gets well below freezing in the winter in the mountains of east san diego county it snows um you know some drops have gotten snowed out we haven't been able to to complete them because of the snow and um so the protective clothing varies in the summer it's things like bandanas um cooling towels hats socks we leave throughout the year um People's footwear not being appropriate almost always. Almost always, yeah.

A blister can be a death sentence out there. So if you get a blister and you're not able to keep up with your group, there's a really good chance that you're going to get left. So something like having dry socks to change into can very well save somebody's life. So we leave socks throughout the year, pop- top cans of food, and of course, water. Yeah, in the wintertime, we leave sweatshirts, beanies, like mittens, gloves, scarves, jackets, sometimes puffy jackets, sometimes blankets, you know, stuff to keep people warm when the temperatures you know can be freezing for you

know most of the day you know in those you know harsh months of like january and february where eastern san diego county gets the like the winter storms the freezing cold you know when roads get shut down we can't even access so as jacqueline mentioned you know when it is cooler uh we try to go as much as we can as far as we can to stockpile as much as possible for when the weather prohibits us from doing so otherwise yeah and just give people a sense of like the temperature swings like I've been in the mountains down by the border at like 20 degreesheit which is like uh minus 10 ish celsius i think um and yeah also at 120 which is like almost 50 degrees celsius and so you can they don't swing that much in one day but there are days when it's above 40 degrees celsius and also below freezing in the same day

like it's um it can be really yeah it's a perilous place it's that's why people don't live there as a rule like it's not a place that's kind to people um so i wonder like a lot of people i know we did a series on title 42 we spoke to a lot of people and a lot of people reached out and they like they want to help and i understand that the border i think for a lot of people it's like i think reporting on the border as a as a rule is not great like like we tend to see migrants as numbers and not as people and a lot when when people report on the border right and that's kind of it happens with with more liberal outlets as well as more right-wing outlets but i wonder like a how people who aren't in town like if you're not in if you don't live in the borderlands right it's say you live in the middle of america like how

can they help what what can they do to kind of support the process that you're doing making this horrible thing a little kinder we have um on our all of our social media and as well as on our website, um, ways that people can help. Um, we have wishlists for items if people help want to contribute in that way. And that's literally like contributing the items that we leave. We also have, um, donation links. So have donation links. So if people want to help financially, that goes a huge way in order to facilitate everything that we do. I mean, gas is incredibly expensive.

The supplies that we don't get donated by a wishlist have to be purchased, that sort of thing. So providing material aid is one way of contributing. And then aside from that i think just following along um with this work and sharing it and changing the conversation because like as you said reporting on the border can be really tricky um people tend to not just utilize migrants but utilize the border as a region um in order to have talking points for either like media outlets or campaigns or that sort of thing. And the border gets treated as sort of like its own foreign area that's not related to either country. Like nobody wants

to take responsibility for it. And, you know, residents of the United States also are complicit in that because they don't really, they just talk about the border. They don't say like, this is something that's happening in my country. So I think sharing and discussing and becoming informed of what's going on and also feeling like that kinship and ownership of like, hey, this is happening. I mean, for people, it doesn't have to be as far as like the middle of the country. A lot of people in San Diego don't really engage in that. They don't really engage in. You know, it feels like so far away, even though it's like 20 minutes away.

Meanwhile, people are dropping dead. So close to where people live and they choose to turn a blind eye. So I think kind of demystifying that for ourselves and sharing in that, it goes a long way as well yeah definitely i think that's that's very true it's always amazing to me like how like 2018 or the other big one i guess would be the end of title 42 which was this year in may like people will become more aware of what's happening and turn up and like it's so very

radicalizing for other people in a positive way like it engages them in a way they haven't been engaged before but it's uh i know it's like it shouldn't be like we shouldn't be something we ever get used to how like cruel our border infrastructure is and what it does for us but people are just blown away every time absolutely yeah it did but it's i think you're right like witnessing it is very important even if you you know you can't do any financially or if you can't get down here yeah definitely just share stuff that you know if you know our organization posts something on social media you know i mean it has to be taken as the truth because we're out there firsthand. We're the ones on the ground seeing reporting back.

And by sharing that you get people, you know, in different parts of the country or even different parts of the world, seeing like the realities of the U S Mexico border, because, you know, most people in the United States don't know if they don't, don't see it, they'll live near it. that's you know something that most people rely on the media and what they see on the nightly news and you know even that you know the big media outlets don't take the most realistic or don't share the most realistic uh parts of the border yeah you know only to you know cater to their you know their sponsors or cater to their crowds and so a lot of people get like the headlines but they don't get the the real deal like know, what's going on down the border. And so sharing is, is a big part

of, you know, how the word spreads about the work that we do in other organizations as well. Yeah. I think that's very, very vetted. 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. 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 light-hearted pretty crazy and very fun

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It was interesting to me recently, I don't know if you guys saw this but like the the floating border barrier in texas um yeah like very like this week people have been reporting that it has the blades on it which it does and that's fucked up like they shouldn't this it's horrible but like it was kind of illustrative that i guess none of the other none of the national outlets had someone who'd seen it because the blades have been there for like months when the prototype sat there they were in the 2020 solicitation to like um it just seemed odd to me that someone had to tweet a video for them to like understand because like obviously no one had walked up there and checked it out which i don't know i think it's hard to do border reporting in new york personally but uh

unless i guess you're interested in the northern border um so i wanted to ask about title 42 because i think our listeners are pretty well informed on like what that was and what happened before and after that so did you guys notice when that came into effect um just to recap i guess for people title 42 allowed border patrol to bounce people straight back um south without processing them um and in nearly all cases without hearing that their claims for asylum if they had and then those people were sometimes laterally translated across the border to a to a border town where they may not have had contacts or family or any resources. And it often resulted in those people finding themselves

in an even more difficult situation than they already were or trying to cross in more difficult and dangerous places to avoid that. So did you guys notice any changes like around, and that came in what, March of 2020? As soon as they found an excuse in COVID? Not so much from what we see, because we don't come across people too often face-to-face. We did notice that once the policy was put into place,

meaning Title 42 and with the pandemic starting we did notice a big uptick on the amount of people coming through we've seen you know before that you know just a handful of people maybe like that we'd come across a lot of times, those people crossing at nighttime and it wasn't something that we came across much, but after that went into effect in 2020, we started running into a lot more people. We started seeing people that knew, you know, somewhat of, you know, the policy and that people would try multiple times every day to, you know, cross through. And if they got apprehended and got, you know, taken into Mexico, they try again that same day.

And so we noticed a lot more of our supplies being used, a lot more foot traffic and a lot more interactions with us. We started seeing a lot more interactions with, know board patrol and people crossing through and so when the policy was coming to an end the only thing that we really saw increase was the amount of people trying to get in before you know quote unquote got closed off you know before like the the bands would go into effect and you know like the no you know you can reenter for a certain amount of years and

all that kind of stuff so like the camps in Hakumba you know you see you know thousands of people showing up as that you know stopped as top 42 stopped we really can't notice too much yet that less people are crossing through compared to the beginning the middle of the policy um our supplies are still being used at a high rate. Yeah. Still see a

fair amount of traffic come through, you know, these, these corridors and everything like that. So it's kind of hard on our end, but, you know, we also know that people who do cross not at a port of entry by foot, whether it's over a fence, whether it's around a fence, whether it's through the desert, over the hills. We know that people are still being apprehended, processed and released with their asylum claims so it's hard as you know on the border to know exactly what's going on because a policy can say one thing yeah it doesn't matter exactly like the the presidential administration can say one thing the dhs can say one thing and completely different is happening, you know, right, right there. I don't know. I mean, I can't really say honestly how much it's it's changed from our perspective. I think when these things happen, like it's always really difficult because like like I think the three of us are aware of there's the things that are put in place and there that's how they're going to be applied in theory and then those of us that have been doing this work can

anticipate how it's going to have an impact in practice so like the things that are occurring now in order to so-called like curb the influx of people like um using an app or or like having like bands on certain things like all of these things like we know and and we don't have like any faith that they were put in in good faith and we know like that we can anticipate okay you're gonna be banned if you don't go in through these like really ridiculously inaccessible means and that that word is going to get around that people are going to freak out they're not going to bother and they're going to hit the desert and that's what we're seeing like whether we can actually like attribute it directly to like these policy changes what i think we can attribute it more directly to is like one global migration, regardless of policy, is increasing all over the world.

And that desperation doesn't like really wait for any kind of policy change. Two is like the misinformation and sort of like chatter that people are hearing about like, yeah, this is changing. Oh, I heard that. Like, if you don't use this app, they're going to put you in jail. And like just like literally these things that we're hearing on the border, that is funneling people directly into the desert because they want to avoid any kind of interaction with Border Patrol, even if they have like what would be a, you know, like an asylum claim. you know, like an asylum claim. People aren't trusting because there's so much change and uncertainty at like a policy level. There's no accessibility to this information. There's no clarity to this information. Nobody knows what's going on, whether it's people that are working in border aid or people that are seeking asylum. So people are just, you know, taking their chances and hitting the desert and regardless of the

policy change like ever since the last like you know like we said like three to five years um the increase has been um like exponential every single year it just continues increasing i wanted to add in is that so the title 42 policy was used, you know, in conjunction with the national emergency, with COVID and all that kind of stuff. With the country, you know, ending the national emergency, they couldn't, you know, couldn't justify keeping Title 42 in effect. couldn't justify keeping title 42 in effect. And in a way I feel that the administration was just playing, you know, political chess and using people,

vulnerable people as pawns. And so the rhetoric coming out and you know the you know we're taking a hard stance and this that and the other and a crackdown on immigration and that i i feel was the the current presidential administration just trying to appeal to a larger audience or when the election comes up uh next year you know can say hey look did this did that did this and the way the numbers have been skewed for apprehension you know that's when you'd have like say in san luis and yuma arizona you would see you know hundreds and thousands of people every day showing up to present themselves for asylum those all got recorded as apprehension numbers so you've got in one month you know however many you know thousands now title 42 ends

now that number shrinks down now that looks better that looks tougher on you know immigration that looks like you're doing this then the other meanwhile you have people just you know being vulnerable being you know in limbo you know on the other side of the border or you have them taking to the mountains and deserts and taking a dangerous trek just so they can be apprehended and, you know, plead their case and try to get asylum and try to get released into the United States. So people that way are being used as pawns and in this political theater that we always talk about is always, it doesn't matter the administration,

whether it's blue, whether it's red, whether it's orange, whether it's old, whether it's, you know, money, it's all money. And unfortunately, you know, we have to constantly like dispel a lot of that false narrative that comes out and it, it gets exhausting, but I mean, it's what we have to do because you're not going to find that out any other way. Yeah. You're really not. Um, I think that's an excellent point. Like, and the point about apprehensions is good, right? They always reported. And I've heard find that out any other way yeah you're really not um i think that's an excellent point like and the point about apprehensions is good right they always reported and i've heard like npr do this report apprehensions as if they're individuals which they were not under title 42 like if you cross five times in a day and get apprehended and sent back five times that's five

apprehensions it's one person um and they were deliberately using that to make this to seem like more people were coming and as you say now it will seem like less because that doesn't happen anymore and i think your point about like the jack and the points about the the misinformation is super crucial and one that again often isn't reported but like i'm not a lawyer and i can't give people legal advice, but constantly when I'm in Tijuana, when I'm in Sonora, when anywhere where I'm like on the southern side of the border or on this side of the border, people will ask me, or when the people are trapped in between the two fences

that constitute the border, people will say, hey, have you heard this? Hey, I got this. And they'll play like voice messages on WhatsApp often or show me a WhatsApp and we'll go over like, that's not my understanding. You know, like, I don't think that's the case. But I understand you're vulnerable, you're scared.

And this shit, like I have a PhD and speak all those concerned languages and I don't understand it fully. Like it's complicated and petrifying if this is your only hope of like a dignified life and i think it's something that people don't understand is how hard it is for those people to get decent information about like what they're quote-unquote supposed to do um especially when we have this app which like i don't have a ton of foyers in around the app

but i don't think i'll ever get any documents back from the feds to be honest but um yeah it's atrocious i think it's ridiculous yeah no and then information that people receive isn't even accurate like so whenever there it is that somebody like say um has come to like our office downtown in Mexicali and like you know brought in their paperwork and say like I have a court date there will like there was a time like during um you know MPP and all of that like where people were being given court dates on Sundays or being given court dates in um Texas when they were sent back after their arrest in Arizona to Mexicali, like just crazy stuff. Like, like if people are even lucky enough to get somebody to help guide them through the process, it's not even like a certainty that the information that they're provided is even

going to be accurate on purpose. Like people are given inaccurate information to wade through this process that doesn't seem to make sense to anyone um it's it's wildly like convoluted i mean that's the intention right like it's not meant to be navigated in any way no no it's not it's meant to put people off i think and like even with the work that our friends do and other legal aid groups i was speaking to a ethiopian friend who i met in tijuana and he lives in us and he helps other folks now who arrived more recently and he was saying that like getting a lawyer to represent you can cost you maybe five grand maybe 12 and and you might not have the legal right to work, right? So where is that money supposed to come from?

And then, you know, if your language is, you know, a Romo or something, it's that much harder to navigate that system, to find useful resources to explain it to you. And it's, yeah, it's, people like to talk about like how, I know that their family did legal, quote unquote, migration when there weren't these checks in place and they didn't have to do any of this shit. And I don't know, it's,

I don't think people realize how brutalizing the system is until like they've seen it firsthand. Like the cruelty and the confusion, the like putting people in danger is the whole point. And it's intentional. Like, so if somebody's there and like you said like they speak they're they're not able to even like wrap their heads around the process let alone access like the resources in order to navigate that system then a coyote approaches them and tells them like oh i can take you over here to the rumorosa all you have to do is pay me 300 American instead of 5,000 for this.

Like, eh, you're probably not going to win that case. The town's a mile away. The town's a mile away and it's a straight shot and you'll get there in half a day. And then you're good to go. And I mean, we've heard the most wild stories, like even from people in the middle of the desert lost saying they told me it was two mile walk and that there was they were hiring in the town on the other side of that hill yeah like and i mean like who wouldn't at that point it's like you don't have a country to go back to yeah like it's no longer like oh i'm fleeing my i'm migrating from my country because there's no work no there is no country to speak of at least not for you right and you're here and this coyote presents you this

like so it's misinformation and exploitation like every single step of the way and a lot of the time people's most um straightforward avenue is through the desert even though it's like unbelievably hard and very very often deadly that's like the surest shot that they have and they take it because i mean it wouldn't yeah no it's not like yeah like you say people aren't like you know doing the numbers and thinking they'll make more money in the u.s it's like i will die if i stay at home or someone has already killed someone i love and i have to leave now and especially when like the trump administration like at the end if people aren't aware like towards the end of the Trump administration, like at the end, if people aren't aware, like towards the end of the Trump administration,

Trump started making claims in presidential debates about the number of miles of wall he was, he had built. As far as I can work out, he pulled out of his ass. And then the, like, then they,

they started rushing to build more wall. And they, they, I, I asked them how they came up with that number. And then they like, they just did this thing where they were like, we'll be repaired this much wall and they were like eight miles of border wall prototype and like a cool man um like they they didn't build that

much wall but they started skipping the harder parts right like valley of the moon um even that boulder pile outside hakumba like there are areas that that don't have wall um and those are the areas that are harder and then that's where people try and cross and like i love to go outside i'm a pretty fit person and like valley of the moon is hard going like if you're not going up the road like that's tough travel and that's where people don't have a choice but to cross, right? Right. Yeah. That's where, and that's where like in May it was, I think with the first, second week of May, when, you know, just a few days before Title 42 was ending, that's where thousands of people came through. Yeah. through that area down into the town of Okumba. And a lot of people, I mean, we're talking about, you know, thousands came through there and a lot said that they paid upwards to a thousand dollars ahead to coyotes that brought them there and said, Hey,

when you get down there, you just follow this road. Once you get down to the bottom, there's gonna be a bus waiting for you. It'll take you in. And then they got stranded for days after going through that terrain the temperature that's when like the the season really started shifting so the night really cold the daytime highs were pretty hot and i mean that was the you know designed you know cruelty the invasion that gave that gave the semblance of the invasion because you could yeah huddle people together and then uh claim that you weren't detaining them there right exactly they weren't free to leave they said the border patrol told them that they would arrest them if they left the yeah i mean i say camp loosely because it was just like out in an open field with

that people you know cut down branches and turn into shelters and use areas that they cut down for like fires campfires at night to stay warm yeah and you know border patrol probably didn't expect that a people locally in hukumba were going to care or be that the word would get out and so their cruel practices that they were um enacting on like the first day or two of people showing up and being stranded no food no water then it kind of backfired and then you know i believe you went out there as well you saw how many people showed up to to care and like we were working around the clock to try to you know organize and and make food prepare food pack collect donations everything and you know that's i've gone through that terrain and, you know, after all that was closed down and looking through as, you know, as we did like trash cleanups and people, you know, would have their last remaining food and water that you could see like coming through across, you know, the area where they were brought to.

you know the area where they were brought to and like people shedding clothes because the temperatures were so you know warm during the daytime and then just wondering like okay so they shed their clothes and now they're like freezing down at the bottom of the hill and the terrain's too tough to go all the way back up yeah and you know it yeah there's no fence over there and the fences you know we've said have always been kind of built for the most part where people can see them. So it gives the appearance to the rest of the country that's not out there that there's a fence across the whole border. And, you know, go into a lot of areas where we see that that's not the case. And also we see where border fences stop and migration makes its way right around the edge of that. Yeah, every time.

But the distance now has increased longer for the walks because instead of just being able to walk through like an open area, now you have to go miles out of the way to get around to an opening in the fence or go up and over a mountain. get around to an opening in the fence or go up and over a mountain and you know doing that in the summertime you exhaust yourself from the the strenuous hike on top of the unbearable heat and then you pass away you know an eighth of a mile from a fence you know as someone that we know that happened to them a couple years ago so it's it's, um, yeah, as you're saying, like the fences and like where they're not put, it's, it's just a point of cruelty and part of the prevention through deterrence policy that's been going on for, you know, almost 30 years now. And, um, yeah. And the, the CBP one app and all that kind of stuff.

That's just another extension of prevention through deterrence by making it harder for people and pushing people to ways that they can try to get through or you know what they think they can try to get through easier and as jacqueline said it's just it's become more and more deadly and every year the the numbers go up of confirmed deaths but that doesn't count the amount of people that go missing every year yeah or the people who like border patrol don't find and they you know their numbers are only the people who they found and that's the areas they're going like if people die further north or yeah or the deaths that they they deliberately miscategorize

as non-migrant death they're just john John Doe's, Jane Doe, whatever. You know, they just say like, oh, you know, cause of death unclear or cause of death for exposure, but they don't necessarily call it a migrant death, even though it's someone, you know, traveling with a backpack in the desert. Yeah, just out for a hike.

Yeah, and they, you know, can't say that they were migrating just because they had you know uh enduring passport on them um that happens all the time too because so all of this is like we don't know the scope of their cruelty like it's just what's scary is that like it's so much bigger than we even know even like those of us that are like in it every day yeah there's no numbers like i i would in a sense love, in a sense, love to, in a sense it'd be horrible.

I don't think it should matter. Like I don't think it should matter how many people, like every single one of those is a tragedy and it's someone's mom or dad or brother or sister. And I kind of wanted to maybe talk about like one incident that if you're comfortable doing it, like that you might be familiar with, I think can give people a sense of how dehumanizing this is and how cruel this

is. Um, you guys, I know you're familiar with it, but, uh, the, the,

the young women who died on the shrine trail in, um, was it winter of 2020 or winter of 2021? Yes, that was, uh that was February 2020. Yeah, it's right before COVID. 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,

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Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex 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. So for people who aren't as familiar, I spoke a little bit about it in our series, but can you describe kind of the process that if you're comfortable, I know it's like a, it's a pretty horrible thing, but can you describe like, like how they crossed and what happened to them? I mean, we can give you like some of the background that was like in a newspaper article that we had

come to learn yeah sure we have type of like direct communication no yeah yeah you're not in contact I just like I think it would be helpful for people to realize like you know this this is what happened to them and then also that you guys have been able to respond after that happened to to like at least try and and help like deploy kind of resources to like that a bit less of a treacherous crossing so um as the situation was unfolding uh it was nighttime and there was like a freak storm that came through eastern San Diego County around around the area of, I think, like Live Oak Springs, Mount Laguna area. And it was just, you know, raining and cold before. It was just, you know, raining and cold before, but worked went back home and it was my understanding that they were trying to

save up enough money from what they made here in the united states to open up their own business. And so the day came when they were crossing over. They came through, I think, like in the Campo area, I think it was. And they were led by two brothers that had crossed previously in the same spot and knew the trail of which to go. But I believe it was their first time actually leading people through and not just themselves coming through. So they, you know, they remember the way, got up close to where the shrine is of the shrine trail. There's a little shrine up there that people would, you know, leave little symbols and tokens and little items behind. Mostly to, you know, the the virgin guadalupe and from that point it is that that's the last time you can be hiking on that trail that far north and turn around and still see mexico Anything beyond that is kind of like the point of you can't see Mexico. You've got to

keep moving forward. You've already gone. At this point, it's close to 30, I think, air miles. Walking miles is a lot more than that. They were at this

kind of rock, boulder outcropping, just about five minutes walk shy of the shrine when the sisters couldn't keep going anymore. keep going anymore. And because of the extreme weather and the extreme cold, they were soaking wet from the rain and then the sub-freezing temperatures with the snowstorm, they couldn't keep going anymore.

And so they were kind of huddled up underneath this boulder. It was the only spot that kind of gave like a little bit of shelter from that storm yet i mean those rocks are you know ice cubes you know being out there for that long so the two brothers i believe left to try to get cell phone signal uh because you know you're you're up pretty high in the mountains

i think that elevation up there uh on the mountain i think it's somewhere around 5 000 feet more so that that location where they were um where they passed away and um the brothers that took off to try to get cell phone range to call, you know, EMS, which turns out to be, you know, border patrol in that region. And so we got ahold of border patrol, border patrol arrived to where the brothers were. And first thing, you know, before, you know, rushing to try to make a rescue or anything, they, you know,

detained and arrested the brothers for, you know, for, you know, before, you know, rushing to try to make a rescue or anything, they, you know, detained and arrested the brothers for, you know, for, you know, human smuggling, trafficking, you know, just, you know, being coyotes. And then they put in efforts of trying to rescue. By the time I believe that they got to the three sisters, two of them had already passed away. And there was one that was still barely alive, unconscious. And due to the weather, as Border Patrol has stated, the agents, the BORSTAR rescue agents, the search and trauma rescue they had to take off they couldn't airlift the last remaining sister out because there was zero visibility the helicopter couldn't even get like find them couldn't get like anywhere close to them couldn't hover because the

wind was blowing so hard uh it was just about a whiteout condition so i mean the most you know situation possible and border patrol in order to make sure it didn't turn into uh from a triple fatality to however many of them there were i think there was three or four they were out there so to you know in order to save their lives they they took off they put the the last remaining sister like in a like a puffy overall type of situation and they uh they had taken her wet clothes they cut her wet clothes off her and you know were actively trying to warm her with like heat packs and wrapping her and so they took off and kind of just like left her you know with basically as they said the the best you know chances possible of survival even though someone being left on their own in that condition there's

zero chances of survival yeah uh board patrol took off uh allegedly injured themselves you know in doing so got frostbite, et cetera. Um, I think it was the next day came back out for the, uh, what turned out to be the recovery and all three sisters had passed away, uh, you know, from, you know, freezing to death. And so as we learned about that, you know, as the situation was unfolding, we, uh, reached out to the the journalist who wrote the article in local san diego union tribune his name's alex riggins yeah and through you know some back and forth contact he was covering the trial of the two brothers that brought the sisters through they're in court for their deaths

and reached out to see if we could find out any information if he could if alex could let us know like maybe where the shrine trail was or maybe where the location of the recovery was just something that we would have so we can you know put it on a map figure out how to get there and get boots on the ground to leave supplies you know a few times a year whether it's going to be really hot or really cold we wanted to make sure that you know we responded to the crisis as we found out about it uh that's something that we unfortunately have had to do I'll do common in this work is that's unfortunately in a way that we learn yeah when it's too late sometimes yeah yeah a lot of you have to learn after it's too late and that's part of our you know expansion of areas that we cover uh that's

how we learn stuff um and that's how we work at preventing you know further suffering and further deaths so we uh got more or less a a good location and one of our team members at the time he uh he went out on a weekday that he had off and he just went kind of driving around the area and started hiking out in in this area that looked like from the photos that were in the newspaper could have been this location and he put in a long hike that day and he found the clothing that was um removed from the last sister he found the uh like the puffy overalls he found a bunch of medical equipment like emergency equipment that was used for, you know, the three sisters during that process. And shortly after that, I think it was just like a couple of weeks, we got together some of our strongest hikers and we decided to go out there and leave a bunch of supplies. And that is, it is a hard, hard hike. Um, whether you're, you know, carrying 35, 40 pounds on your

back, or you're just carrying, you know, a backpack with like a bottle of water and some food, like it's hard no matter what. So we got up there and we left supplies and we've been going back usually before seasons change uh whether it gets hot or it's cold and we we track to see if um you know anything's been taken and it doesn't appear that that trail gets too much use but it does get some use yeah and so um you know i don't know if if the three sisters passing weather had anything to do with like future travel for people on the shrine trail or or what but um you know we we made that commitment in their honor and to prevent anything like this ever happening again yeah certainly a very sad very sad situation and like yeah it so many things have to go wrong and so many people have to like turn a blind eye i guess for three people to die like you know there's um blatant negligence on the part of border patrol very regularly

given that they are supposedly like as james mentioned the emergency medical service that's out there um and there is outright blatant deadly discrimination that occurs um when it comes to providing emergency services for migrants in this, they prioritize apprehension over saving people. Every moment is going to count. And regardless of what the conditions were, those are the conditions. And that's the story that they're reporting. I think we rightfully are skeptical of anything that they say when it comes to rescues and how they prioritize doing so when we have seen entirely the opposite occur on a regular basis, when they have the

opportunity to provide aid, them electing to not do so. You know, going back to Hakumba, when people were out there and they had nothing they weren't being provided a sip of water for days and days and days border patrol could have done that if they are the emergency services they could have provided emergency aid um when it comes to a rescue like this they have the agency they are the agency they have the agency to deprioritize processing somebody for apprehension and prioritizing rescue and they chose not to do it like time and time again we see these situations and i think like when you know before we started recording you asked like what's the thing that like we want to talk about

that doesn't often get talked about and i think it's this i think it's the it's not just like the surveillance and the patrolling and all of that stuff that dehumanizes migrants, but like when they're in danger, they're regarded as less than human by the, because the only agency that's out there to help them is like the reason that they're in danger in the first place. So, um, we have come across multiple, um, search and rescues that aren't migrant related, just being out in the desert where either a U.S. citizen or in one instance, a tourist was lost in the desert.

And their response is night and day. When there's a migrant that's lost and we are calling for assistance. You know, any kind of can a search be initiated can we get like the response is so blasé and minimal and there's no accounting there's no holding them accountable for acting or failing to act right and it's blatant like and i think that's the the thing that like the general public that isn't involved in this work like should know about how cruel it is and how little the response is when somebody is lost when they're dying when they're dead like us having to call the coroner repeatedly to have children's bones picked up. That would not happen if that child was not a presumed migrant.

So this is like we have story after story after story of like situations like this is just one tragedy. But there is a lot of could have, should have, would have like on the end of like eight organizations that we carry and it doesn't seem to ever be like a shared weight with any of the agencies that actually have the ability to respond to this kind of thing in like an organized way they don't care they don't do anything about it yeah and there's like so much money spent on our border, right? Like I remember in Hukumba, I was like sitting underneath this thing for shade. And then I look, I'm like, oh yeah, this thing costs a million dollars, right?

That little trailer with the solar panels that intercepts the signals. Like, and they didn't give these people a bottle of water. Like all the water came from other people, from random San Diego people who bought it right like and it it's just such a strange priority well not strange it's a cruel and horrible priority choice right to prioritize that kind of like enforcement over human lives like which are being lost and it's the same like you know i've reported in arizona a time i spent a lot of time

there i spent a lot of time uh here i reported in texas a couple of times like it's the same all across the border right the priority is not rescuing people it's and it's not even particularly enforcing the law as it's written it's just stopping people coming here selectively though yeah selectively because they do let a significant amount of people through like even like in hakumba when people that weren't familiar with this whole kind of like smoke and mirror show of the border were coming and responding they were saying like well why are they letting them through why is this open over here why is like the amount of surveillance um you know

we've had people come out on water drops and say like oh should we be hiding the water should we be doing this and that should we like they have eyes on the whole desert so yeah and it's they do their the point is to stop people from coming through but not completely right that's labor that's coming through you know that it they're they're selective and how much they like you know how much the the gasket is being opened and shut yeah and in different sectors at different times like it seems like things are done and even like yeah there are the other thing i think that people who don't live on the border don't realize is to what degree every single person here, whether they give a shit or not, is surveilled because they live near the border. Like, yeah, but we saw that in 2018 with a lot of a lot of friends of mine who can't go to Mexico anymore.

Right. Who have flagged passports. Yeah. You too. Yeah. Yeah. So many people I know. I don't know how i went over a ton in that time but i guess managed to avoid it um but yeah it's it's that and then like i have been in the middle of nowhere in the desert and found cameras

uh surveillance towers right like um stuff that would not be and the constitution is largely irrelevant but like there wouldn't be legal or just like unjustifiable anywhere else and like this spans from here to like our autumn friends in in arizona to texas right like if you live on the border like or any within 100 miles of the border right the border can come to you it doesn't matter if you live on the border, like, or within 100 miles of the border, right, the border can come to you. It doesn't matter if you care or not. It doesn't matter if you consider yourself to be like an immigrant to the US or if you've sort of decided that that doesn't apply to you or you don't care about those people. Like then it doesn't matter. That surveillance still impacts you.

And often it impacts like our indigenous friends right like like my my autumn friends kumi i friends had their graveyards bulldozed to build the wall and and it yeah even if you don't care even if you think the wall is great that your cell phone still go through this thing right out i know it's wild like how much people who are like very you know right-wing anti like you know pro like freedom and all this stuff like will very readily give up those freedoms and in in exchange for like constant surveillance like if it justifies the means of like you know their bigotry or like whatever like their worldview is like they're they're suddenly like very pro border patrol very pro cop very well that's like in direct conflict with like everything else that

they're saying right but yeah it's freedom for who i guess yeah well it also goes with the same people are saying like well if you're not breaking the law then what do you have to do yeah well everything starts at the border so the surveillance the facial recognition the plate scanners all that stuff started at the border. And now we see that just recently, like the San Diego City Council approved to have the like the streetlight cameras and all that kind of the lamps and all those, you know, hundreds of cameras that are going to be out there, like with that same type of technology. And like, well, if you're not breaking the law, it's like, OK, well, give a little bit of time until you're not breaking the law it's like okay well give a little bit of time until you're not breaking the law then like stuff still happens i mean that's that's how you know things you know snowball hey everyone shortly after we finished talking about why san diego's lampposts

are also spies uh my internet once again died uh so that's where we're going to end it today. It's already been a long episode. But what I would like you all to know is that you can find Border Kindness online. You can find them on Instagram. You can find James there at Brolo El Cordero. You should probably be able to work out how to spell that. You can find them on Facebook and you can find them on Instagram. And you can pretty much find them anywhere. You go on the internet by searching Border Kindness. And like James said, I'm looking at his Instagram profile right now. That's Brolo El Cordero.

I guess B-R-O-L-O-E-L-C-O-R-D-E-R-O. James has a wish list, an Amazon wishlist. So if you're not close to San Diego, then you can just click on there and buy them something. I'm sure you could collect donations and send those as well. So there are a lot of different ways you could help. But I hope you all enjoyed this. If you're in town and you want to help go hike with them,

you can reach out to them on social media as well. And I'm sure they'd be happy to hear from you. Thanks so much for listening. Goodbye. 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 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 iheart Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of riot. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America.

Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals.

You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday.