It Could Happen Here - Border Patrol are Once Again *Not* Detaining People in the Open

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

James talks to Robert and Shereen about CBP’s practice of detaining migrants in the open air with no food, water, or supplies, and then denying they’re detaining them Xavier’s video coverage: https://youtube.com/@sdartivistmedia?si=LZR1a6OeqgzcA6Sf See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. 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. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've 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 brought to you by

an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Hello, everyone. It's me, James. Families with white bracelets. Families with white bracelets. Hello, everyone. It's me, James, and I'm joined by Shireen and Robert today. We're going to be talking about the border, which is where that audio you heard at the start was recorded yesterday. Hi, Shireen and Robert.

Hi, James and Robert. Hello, James. Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Shireen. It's lovely to have this formal introduction time. Okay, so yeah, we're gathered here today to talk about the border. And the reason we are talking about the border is because Border Patrol are doing their thing, their thing that they like to do seemingly like on a quarterly basis, actually exactly three months after the last time,

quarterly basis, actually exactly three months after the last time, which is to hold people out in the open in between the two border fences in San Isidro, just about 15 minutes south of where I live. It's probably worth grounding this discussion in the various claims and counterclaims. So there are about 200 people in between the two border fences right now. People I spoke to were from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, China, Vietnam, Honduras, Guatemala. The reason that sometimes these lists of people sound like you're singing Washington Bullets is because these are all countries that we have destabilized in one way or another. I'm saying we qua the United States, not we as Cool Zone Media. We aspire to destabilize regimes.

We've only destabilized two or three countries. Yeah, and we're proud of it. We don't hide it. We took our shot at Canada, you know. Yeah, yeah. We've taken a good couple of swings in Atamador. I think we landed some punches, but who knows? Time will tell.

So it's people from, like, I think often the migration is constructed as quote-unquote Mexican, which is definitely not the case. I spoke to one family from Mexico yesterday, but even if you look at Border Patrol statistics, about 4,000 out of 15,000 people apprehended in the San Diego sector in July of this year were of Mexican nationality. That's lower than I would assume, to be honest.

Yeah, I mean, it's a number of things, right? Like these countries, like climate change is definitely getting worse. So migration is happening from there. I see a lot of people from Vietnam. I don't have the language skills to speak to them in depth. Like I was speaking to someone, and we'll get onto this, through Google Translate from Vietnam, but hard to conduct a full interview,

especially when folks are guarding their phone charge, which they are because exactly the same as last time, they need the phone to do CBP1. They need the phone to interact with their families, let them know they're safe. Some of their families, I guess, don't know that they're traveling. I was helping people charge phones yesterday. So let's talk a little bit about mutual aid response

and then we'll get on to the Border Patrol shenanigans. So there are two groups down there right now, and I think it's very impressive the services they're able to provide because border patrol claim these people are not detained. That means that they are therefore not obliged to provide any services to them. That would mean they don't have to give them water, they don't have to give them food, they don't have to give them shelter, or sanitation. Sanitation is the one that's really hard to cover because everything has to go through a fist-sized gap in the fence. So that's still an unmet need. But these two groups, Free Shit Collective, they're at freeshitpb on Twitter, and also American Friends Service Committee. I've spoken about them before. They're a freeshitpb on Twitter. And also American Friends Service Committee.

I've spoken about them before. They're a Quaker group. They're really great in terms of turning up and helping people who need help. They're constantly there. And they're a good place to send your money, even if you're not a Quaker yourself. Check out their Twitter. Actually, they probably align with a lot of people

who listen to this show on a lot of things. I think they're prison abolitionists. So those two groups were there and they would, at first, there was myself, one person from American Friends Service Committee and two older volunteers who had come and about 150 to 200 people.

So mostly I just kind of helped because I think in that situation it's more important to help than necessarily get the best audio for your podcast. Um, so we handed out water, handed out food, handed out those emergency survival blankets. Um, and, uh, that was about all we had at first. Some like medical stuff, people had medical and a bit later, uh, free shit

people came and Xavier came, uh, I'm not sure what Xavier's org is, but I will tweet it when I find it. I'll put it in the show notes too. He's great. I've spoken at his events before that he holds down by the border. We had a border media roundtable. He turned up with a massive generator. So that was great. We were able to charge phones. And what's really, I think, notable is how much the people in between the fences are

able to participate in distribution of goods and helping each other. So they have a person who volunteers to be the coordinator for the water distribution and one who volunteers to coordinate for the organizing of people into lines and making sure people don't cut the line. And then one person who was the phone captain who was doing an incredible job of, they'd get the cell phone, write the name of the person, and then assign them a number in the line. And that person would also have that name and number written on their hand. And it's written in duct tape that's taped to them and taped to the phone.

And then when their turn to charge comes just he would shout the name of the number they would come from wherever they were in between the walls they'd come and we would charge the phone and then once it got above 50 60 we'd switch it out and he'd call them again and they'd come get their phone uh so lots of that is stuff that was learned in may and and has been like implemented again much more like it's less chaotic than it was before and fewer people are able to provide better help which is really good uh that it doesn't mean that those people don't need like donations because they do i know the free ship people came with dozens of blankets but there weren't enough blankets for everybody so uh we were prioritizing families with children and

pregnant women um to have a blanket it was cold. It was raining and people didn't have anything to shelter under. There were a few tarps, but not very many. And like, it's a pretty, like they were very young babies there, right? It's a pretty difficult place to sleep with. Like people were very keen to get their hands on cardboard boxes

to lie down on to sleep. That gives you a sense of how kind of underserved they are. There's obviously no toilet facilities because you're just in a how kind of uh underserved they are there's obviously no toilet facilities because you're just in a dusty kind of desert area um by the border so um if people are familiar with las americas the discount mall um we're like maybe a mile west of there along the dirt road um and it's just just kind of dusty field. So very rocky, very difficult for people to sleep, very exposed to the elements, right?

It was hot today. I was out earlier and it was 91, so they won't be having any shade today. They didn't have any shelter from the rain or ways to keep warm last night. They're not allowed to start fires either, even if they have the means to do so. So the situation of these people, I think, is something worth discussing

because it's not exactly super duper clear what role this plays in the immigration process. And there were a couple of examples to illustrate that. So I was able to talk to one person. They presented themselves from, like, they came into the parking lot walking, and they looked very concerned. And so I approached them. I was like, hey, do you need anything?

Can we help you? And they had experienced some kind of medical condition and been taken to hospital, which Border Customs and Border Protection will do that, right? Like, if those people are there and they're having an emergency, they'll open the gate, take that person out and transport them to hospital somewhere in San Diego. That person had then been released from hospital to a taxi, which hospitals in San Diego have

a habit of doing this. They'll dump homeless people. Anyone in San Diego will have seen this. You'll be familiar with people dumped out of the hospital in Hillcrest wearing a hospital gown and maybe having very little other possessions. It's every single day this happens. Unfortunately, people have passed away on being released by the hospital before in Hillcrest. So they release these folks, and I guess they often give them a bus pass

or they pay for a taxi. In this case, they paid for this person's taxi. They asked for a taxi to the border. Their command of English was pretty limited, so they asked for a taxi to the border. They were taken to the formal border crossing at San Isidro, which is a mile and a half east of where we were. And then they walked down the dirt road to where we were. But obviously, because there was a fence in between us and the people being detained, then they weren't able to access that area, right? So that leaves them in a conundrum, right?

They're now in the United States without any status. They were able to... One Border Patrol agent advised them to return to Mexico. Obviously, that will constitute an entry to Mexico in between ports of entry, right? You'd be illegally entering Mexico. It's not Border Patrol's job to enforce Mexican laws, but that person was in the United States and presented a claim for asylum, right? They had a cell phone and they were using Google Translate and they literally, I could see it. It was like, I'm afraid to go back to my country. I'm afraid I'll be hurt if I go back there, which is like a pretty textbook asylum claim.

I would like to claim asylum. And on making that claim, a Border Patrol agent returned them to the area in between the fences, which would suggest that this is a holding facility to border patrol for people. I just want to read the statement the border patrol made to me this morning. This was a couple of hours from when I'm recording this, recording this on Tuesday. CBP has built and retrofitted facilities along the southwest border to enhance our capabilities in this regard. CBP has also significantly increased the number of medical personnel along the southwest border and those providing other

wraparound services, all to better support ensuring getting people appropriate care as quickly as possible. Border Patrol has prioritised the quick transportation of migrants encountered in this environment, which is partially dangerous, particularly dangerous during current weather conditions, to Border Patrol facilities where individuals can receive medical care, food and water. It is important to note that migrants who are between the border barriers are not in Border Patrol custody and are at liberty to return to Mexico if they desire. We have some audio of Border Patrol addressing the migrants in between defences that Daniel's going to drop in right after this. Listen, there's too many of you. We can't do this fast enough. The longer I sit here and talk to you, the less time we have to take people.

So go sit down. We're not designed to take hundreds of people. We're working as fast as we can. Just be patient. All I can tell you. They're shouting at them. They're shouting at them in English. They're not really giving any clear...

So the people obviously have questions, right? They've entered... Lots of them have been given bracelets. When he's talking about the bracelets, and people will have heard that in the intro too, that they were taking people with white bracelets. Those have a day, right? The day that you entered.

So it might say Monday or Sunday or today. Obviously, it's Tuesday. so they would get a bracelet which has a color and a day and they process people in order uh like of priority so the people who arrived on monday first they'll process unaccompanied minors i didn't see any uh obviously like some 18 year old people it could be hard to tell exactly how old they are, 17, whatever, but didn't see any people that young on their own. After that, they will process single mothers with children. I saw a few of those, quite a few of those. After that, they will process a family, which they define to consist of a man, a woman,

and children. After that, they will process men on their own um i guess women on their own then men on their own um they had initially separated people they had people just like they had last time right in in like families and those with children and then single men were somewhere else but it seemed like people were able to come to travel in between the fences down to the place where i was because that was the only place that they were able to access services right um and i guess the claim of border patrol is that these people could go back to mexico i'm not sure how um because obviously that they're in between these 30 foot walls right um you could go around the end that's how people come north um but but uh that's quite a hike

especially if you haven't got any water and food and stuff. This is what they've claimed. It's worth noting that Border Patrol, a number of representatives from the Hispanic caucus requested Border Patrol clarify this after what happened in May. In their letter, they noted that the conditions violate agency guidelines for detention, which they do, and that Border Patrol isn't supposed to hold people in its own custody for more than 72 hours, which some people were held for longer than that in May. CBP responded, I'll just read it out. The individuals in question had not made contact with US Border Patrol personnel and were not constrained from further movement. At the time

of this incident, the US Border san diego sector facilities were experiencing capacity issues and some transportation challenges which have since been remediated border patrol agents encountered and apprehended these migrants as soon as it was operationally feasible to do so again like they were dropped off in may by border patrol vehicles in the place where they were being detained. And it's simply not factually correct to suggest that they had not come into contact with border patrol. I have video of it. I've published video of it on Twitter. We've used audio of it on the podcast.

Again, it's just not true. So border patrol essentially are claiming that this isn't happening when it continues to happen, right? And this time they've taken that to it's like they've already doubled down on that status, I guess, because they're not providing any services, which is probably a good time for us to hear from some products and services. Oh, yeah. Fucking magic. look at that

taking a victory lap i'm quitting now never podcast again all right enjoy these adverts welcome i'm daniel 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 podcast or wherever you get your podcast hey i'm Gianna Parenti and i'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone. But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down.

I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year, you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're gonna get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting eight, that is actually a true raise.

Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world

as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend, and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on

in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Yeah, it's me. I'm back. Everyone else is still still here too now we're talking about the mutual aid response to what's happening at the border right and as i said border patrol aren't providing anything and as i said at least when i left i left after it got dark quite a long time after it got dark last night i was there for probably seven, six or seven hours. And I saw more and more people arriving in that time. And it was a really wide dispersed group of people. I would say maybe the majority was Spanish speaking, but a lot of people were Vietnamese. I was speaking to some Francophone African people of various nationalities right before I left.

Like I said, there are lots of people from tajikistan uzbekistan azerbaijan places like that um those those people were pretty prominent so it's fairly hard for volunteers to communicate with all of them and they don't have any information right and about what's happening to them can they expect to be separated in some cases they can uh can they expect how long can they expect to be there we don't really know. I heard one border patrol agent saying that some of the people who arrived on Monday could expect to be taken out maybe by Wednesday. So that's at least two days. So all of the services that they're being provided, they're being provided through mutual aid right now, which is exactly the same thing that happened last time

right sometimes border patrol last time gave them a granola bar um we haven't come back with their granola bars this time and i think it's really worth us like taking a moment to consider the scale of what like 200 people it's not that many people but it was more than 2 000 people in may and that was provided for by mutual aid. And I think it's a really good, like getting off point for maybe us to have a little talk here about, uh, like how we do mutual aid because, um, the only thing that enabled like little babies to have like a blanket is someone messaging someone else on signal and being like, Hey, this is happening again

do you have stuff can you come down and someone who i don't know weeks ago i guess was like oh these people are doing nice things let me send them some money and because without that those people would just be sleeping in the in the in the dust i think it's really uh it's it's admirable i think and it's something that like i don't know how to say this um that we should take into consideration when we're discussing things like religion and then like doing discourse and then like it could be really easy to get like into like full reddit atheist mode i'm not a person who believes in religion particularly but like i the only people who are helping at some point are people who are at least part of religious organizations look i think that the the perfectly consistent stance to have is that like

if someone is showing up and providing people with uh necessary assistance and not, not asking for anything in return, including the ability to proselytize, then I don't give a shit what, right? Like, I don't care if they're from a church. I don't care if it's like, you know, some, like, as long as they are showing up and helping people in desperate need and not demanding some sort of something from them, including like, you know, them, them listen to a spiel. I don't really... It could be a church. Who gives a fuck, right?

I'm glad they're there. Yeah, totally. It could be a church. There were mosques there last time. I'm sure that there were synagogues and Jewish groups. Fucking kudos to those people, right? Yeah. That's good.

Glad they're there. Yeah. Those people are doing anarchism too, even if they wouldn't, like that's good. Glad they're there. Yeah. Uh, those, yeah, those people are doing anarchism too, even if they wouldn't call it that or whatever, like, uh, you know, the,

the more we can create networks that look after each other without trying to control each other, then the better of a place we make the world. And that's what those people are doing. And we should all celebrate that and support them however we can, I guess. And so as of today, there are still people there uh and they still seem to be putting people in there um i think it's not supposed to be too hot this week

like we had triple digit days last week i think over the weekend was pretty hot yeah it was it was very hot over the weekend so like the possibility for this to get much worse is still there, right? The possibility for people to get... The person I spoke to who had to go to hospital had become dehydrated. That's how they needed... Because you don't... When people were... When we first...

At least when I first got there, people were very hungry and very thirsty and really desperate for a drink of water because often they'd come from some of those other holding areas and like walked down because this was the only place where they could access stuff um so like yeah i guess the potential for this to turn into something as as sad and completely unnecessary as what happened in may is there again yeah so you mentioned that there's no shade, like no shaded area. So when it's triple digits, like there are kids and babies and just everyone's outside. Yes.

That is just, I mean, it's terrible regardless, but like that in particular, that's like brutal. Yeah. I mean, I think I've shared these pictures with you guys before, but like in Hukumba in May, people were making little kind of A-frames and lean-tos out of ossiteos and cacti and stuff, just trying to get out. It was very hot then out there.

Even the photos you sent recently, there's like a, there's a photo you sent with a child's hand, like coming out of the fence and it made me emotional. Yeah. It makes me emotional honestly like i think i've said this before like in interviews i know i did an interview with the rory peck trust about this but like i would rather go somewhere dangerous and and have dangerous things happen than like see a little kid have to be cold not be able to help them or like just be sad like it's not a fun place for children and i don't know that fucks me up in a way that like that's yeah i would i would so much rather

be like physically uncomfortable or in danger than like be in a perfectly safe place where you're watching kids suffer like that's the rough thing i've been to a lot of refugee camps and it's always like you know it's weird because i've also seen a lot of kids like in active combat zones and don't take the wrong thing out of this but like the the kids who have been stuck in a camp with like no chance of ever getting out seem like more depressed in a lot of ways than the kids who every day, you know, they're in, you know, part of the city, even though like the city is a dangerous place to be. They're moving around.

They're usually doing stuff. Obviously, it's a much more worse situation in a lot of ways. But like the degree to which being in this limbo messes with their heads and depresses them and traumatizes them is, and again, I'm not saying like it's better for kids to be in an active war zone, but like that is trauma as well. And I think in a lot of ways, an equivalent trauma, even though the danger to their body is less, the trauma they face being stuck in a place and not having any idea what the future is and not having any ability to influence it really, right?

Being, you know, these kids up at this fence are totally, they have no control over their future or their lives really. 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. Hey, I'm Gianna Pardenti. And I'm Jimei Jackson-Gadsden.

We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, the early career podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. One of the most exciting things about having your first real job is that first real paycheck. You're probably thinking, yay, I can finally buy a new phone.

But you also have a lot of questions like, how should I be investing this money? I mean, how much do I save? And what about my 401k? Well, we're talking with finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it all down. I always get roasted on the internet when I say this out loud, but I'm like, every single year you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15 percent. I'm not saying you're going to get 15 percent every single year, you need to be asking for a raise of somewhere between 10 to 15%. I'm not saying you're going to get 15% every single year, but if you ask for 10 to 15 and you end up getting

eight, that is actually a true raise. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls

we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they don't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it i think that's the really like it strips people of their agency which is a really degrading thing

to do right you're forcing these people yeah they have they can do everything right like that that yeah person presented every perfect affirmative asylum claim. Yeah, it doesn't matter. I think that's very hard. I imagine it's very difficult. I'm not a parent, but I imagine that if you are a parent, you just want your kids to have a safe place to grow up. I don't know.

The first time I ever realized that I was having a trauma response and it was not a good one was in 2018 with the migrant caravan. When like I had been, there was one little child who I speak about a lot, but like she was obsessed with my hair. If people haven't seen pictures of me have long hair and like wanted to braid my hair every time I went there. And so she'd come and she'd sit on my shoulders and I would just do shit. And she would braid my hair while I was, you know, handing out water bottles or, you know, talking to people, doing what I could do.

And like I saw that girl every day for months. Right. And I remember when it's coming back to a Christmas party being seeing this little kid like deprived of so many things that children should have warmth and shelter and good food and a safe place to be and then going home you know 20 minute drive across the border drive home and uh see people just like going about their lives it's it's a really challenging uh like duality and we can't stop it right like it's not in our power to stop this but like um it is in our power one of the things i hear people being like it's like welcome to america like it's a pretty fucked up way to be welcome to america right but

like i like i'm an immigrant my my arrival here was very different um like shireen you you came here when you were younger, right? I didn't immigrate myself. I was born here, a month old, moved back when my parents immigrated. So you can be president. That's important. Oh yes, I can be president. But not James, which is good.

Which is good. Glad we've locked this down. But attorney general, that is my goal for you, James. Yeah, I can see I'd really crush it in that role. I do love a good law. Shireen can take out Ted Cruz, who is not eligible. You can be Shireen's John Mitchell. Wow.

It's a fun little Watergate joke for everybody. I will be hiding Shireen's secret meetings. I'm hoping for Haldeman myself. That's the guy to be. I want to go back further than that. When presidents were chads and Roosevelt got shot five times and still delivered a speech.

I can see Shireen having that kind of energy. Wow. I'll lean into that. Yeah, we're all in on Shireen. Maybe get a vest too. Don't shoot Shireen having that kind of energy. Wow. Okay. I'll lean into that. Yeah, we're all in on Shireen. Maybe get a vest too. Don't shoot, Shireen. A book was enough for Teddy Roosevelt, but bullets have changed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Return. No, jokes aside, I came to America very differently from this. I recently became a citizen after a long time. And you always feel very precarious when you live here and you're not. One thing that I noticed was that so many of the folks down there, at one point all of us, at one point I didn't know,

were also people who had come here themselves and had different stories. And we talked about, another thing I think is really important, actually, it's just because people are in a shitty situation doesn't mean that they are not people. Sometimes it can be really easy to be like, bottle of water, bye, bottle of water, here you go, bottle of water, cheers.

They just want to fucking talk to you and how is your day or what's your favorite football team? That can be a really valuable way of being like look i understand that the government is treating you like shit right now and that's not with my consent like i yeah they want human connection because they're not treated like humans so it's like nice to remember that's like oh it's like yeah someone's seeing me yes exactly and just being like we are in community like we are here to do whatever we can to make this a little bit less fucking barbaric like i always think i should buy like soft toys for the kids uh i've spent a lot

of money on soft toys for kids over the years but um i remember one time we cleared out at costco had them all in the bed of a pickup truck and they were like trying to fly out as we drove down the freeway. It was a good time. But yeah, I think that common humanity is super important. If people have language skills and they want to help, like there are always organizations to help migrants. American Friends Service Committee is a really good one. I don't think they would care if you were not a person of faith. I think lots of the people helping out with them are not. They're just nice people. There are so many languages, apparently, that need translating. It's not just Spanish. I think a lot of people assume it would

just be like, I don't know Spanish. I'm not going to go. But it's so many other languages that would be helpful. Yeah. I speak French and I honestly spend as much time at the border speaking French or Spanish. I have passable communication in Haitian Creole and then can sort of, if some people speak more formal French who are Haitian, so I can speak to them. But yeah, I don't speak Tajik or Uzbek or Russian or Vietnamese. So those people are there for, it's harder for them to access solidarity and to talk to people and to be seen. We can try our best with cell phone apps. The person who had been taken to the hospital was Vietnamese and was just doing a stalwart job of like, obviously they were to the north of the border so among the volunteers

basically and and we were using our phones to talk and they were helping us distribute shit right and then helping explain to the vietnamese people hey like you have to be in this line if you want this and this line if you want that and like so that was nice and it's always like great to see like people empowered by that process like they're not just like asking for stuff they're also helping get other people stuff and i think that that helps both parties and so like there's this means of like i guess like people call mutual aid solidarity not charity which i think that illustrates really well you know like all these people are there to be in solidarity with people who they consider to be members of their community not not to like gain some karmic reward or whatever like um and i think that's a

really laudable thing it's something we should all participate in if we can i understand that everyone's near the border but like yeah we can't change this that we're all supposed to vote for joe biden because he wouldn't be a piece of shit to migrants and he's been a complete piece of shit to migrants uh for the entirety of his time in office and I sincerely believe he'll be a piece of shit to migrants if he is elected again so yeah when you can't fucking change this by uh voting for someone I wish you could I wish it was that easy but like if sadly it requires your active participation and um yeah I'm just constantly impressed by people who will, like the people from Free Shit Collective,

they bought their entire family, right? I sent them a message. They were like, yeah, we're on our way. What do you need? Blankets. Okay, we have like 100 blankets and a generator. And within an hour, at least some of those people had a warmer place to sleep, right?

Before that, I was giving out the blankets I had for camping in my truck, but I have two sleeping bags in my truck. It's not enough. So yeah, I think that's something we can all do in our own communities. But yeah, right now, again, I guess Biden's administration

are back on their bullshit at the border. And it's important that people just pay attention to it, right? I guess you could write your Congress people, but they didn't do shit last time. They won't do shit this time. But people can show solidarity in any way or lend their language skills. I think now is a really important time to do that. Yeah, it's frustrating because the border in general just becomes like a political talking

point right like biden uses it for his benefit and then it's like i'll pick it up when i need it again whatever it is it's it's pretty infuriating it's fucking annoying yeah it's incredibly infuriating for me to see like i guarantee you i was down there yesterday when other media uh folks will be there today. Folks who haven't been there since May will roll up again, who haven't covered the border, who don't have a working knowledge of what's happened since Title 42, which is that apprehensions have dropped, by the way. Travel across the border has gone a lot lower since Title 42, which is what we were told, the opposite of what every op-ed told us was going to happen because people maybe should not be writing about the border

when they live in D.C. or New York. But yeah, Biden will come back to the border next time he gets attacked by Republicans on border staff. And until then, these people will be treated as if they're numbers or as if they don't matter. And each of them has a story and a reason for being here. And yeah, they're not just numbers. They're all people. And every time someone dies trying to come to this country to be safe, it's a tragedy and it's a preventable tragedy. And it's one that the Democrats are just as complicit

as the Republicans in. Yeah. And we've spoken a lot about groups you can you can go to right like we spoke about border kindness we spoke about borderlands release collect relief collective like there are a million and one ways to help i won't detail them all now but um yeah it's something that like we can't erase the like i feel genuinely ashamed every time i'm down there, you know, to be American now, but it's just hard when people are like, Hey, what's going to happen?

You have to be like, well, we don't know, but like, you might be separated from your family. You might be detained. They're probably going to take most of your clothes. They might take your belt off. You know, you can wear one jacket, one shirt, your pants and your shoes. They might take your shoelaces. and then you just go into the fucking abyss of of processing right there might be years till you get your court date and you might not have a right to work until then but it might cost you 10 12 grand to get a lawyer to represent you how do you get that money fuck do i know you know uh and yeah it's deep i feel really ashamed but uh yeah all we can do is just try and help however we can yeah yeah all right yeah sorry that was really depressing wasn't it no no i no no it's good

i really admire that instead of like kind of wallowing in the shame you're like i actually want to do something and it's okay that i feel shame that's valid it's i both things can be true i can be helpful and i can also have perspective on it so yeah yeah it helps to help it helps me it helps other people to feel active not like acted upon and that's why folks on who are migrants want to also participate in migrant aid right like even folks who are in between the wall right now, like organizing the phone charging queue because it helps to not just feel acted upon and removed of agency. Yeah.

So yeah, do mutual aid if you can. Yeah. Be nice. Yeah, be nice. Fuck the border patrol. Mm-hmm. I think that more or less covers it. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's our message. That think that more or less covers it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's our message. That's Shireen's presidential slogan. Yes. That's my campaign. Yeah. I'll work on that. Okay.

Yeah. Bye, everyone. 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. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, 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. 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. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award.

Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards.