It Could Happen Here - How You Can Help At The Border

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

Robert sits down with James Stout to talk about the groups saving lives at the U.S. / Mexico border.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. 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. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking música, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle.

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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. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, the podcast that's happening here right now in your ears. It could happen here. I'm Robert Evans. I'm not with any of my normal

co-hosts today because fuck them. No, because I'm elsewhere in the world right now hanging out with someone you might remember from a special episode we recently did on Molotov Cocktails, journalist James Stout. Hi, everyone. Yeah, I'm here with Robert in

a tiny hotel room and we've just woken up, ready to do some podcasting. Yeah, I'm here with Robert in a tiny hotel room and we've just woken up ready to do some podcasting. Yeah, we're not here for any specific purpose. We just decided let's rent a hotel room, cast some pods, you know, hang out. James, how do you feel about the border? Negatively, broadly speaking, I think the border is a tool that we use to harm and kill the most marginalized people in the world. I think that's kind of borne out by stats as well. So yeah, not a big border guy. Yeah. And you and I recently spent a decent amount of time on the Texas-Mexico chunk of the border, specifically near McAllen, Texas, hanging out at a butterfly sanctuary that people can learn some things about if they Google. We'll be coming out, those episodes will be dropping in the not too distant future. But you live on

the San Diego side of the border, which if people don't know, San Diego, California is basically in Mexico. You can hop over across for like lunch and stuff if you really want to and don't mind dealing with CBP. And yeah, so you've done a lot of reporting around the border and about kind of the system of violence that it represents. I wanted to chat a little bit about that. And I wanted to chat about some of the organizations that you've run into that are doing good work out there, because there's a lot that needs to be done. Yeah, definitely. I think it's really important to conceptualize what's happening at the border in terms of the border is a tool for state violence, right? State violence against marginalized people. And what the good groups, groups helping people on the border represent is ways of us helping each other, which are outside the networks of like mutual aid of mutual support like i think they're really important to focus on rather than kind of so many people construct the border in their minds

like uh you can see if you go back on my twitter some guy just being like that is not the border the border does not look like that the border is barren and it's desert and it's full of people with guns and it's really not right like so the border exists as like this mental construct a place where we can do like political theater, especially on the right. So people who are actually down there on the ground and understand it, I think it's vital to support them. Yeah, one of the more striking moments to me when we were in McAllen was hanging out near this chunk of border fence that had been constructed by volunteers effectively. And it's what you would expect, like the stereotype of the border. It's this huge military industrial looking thing.

The wildlife has been cleared from around it so that you can have this towering steel edifice. But then a hundred yards away across the Rio is the Mexican side of the border. And there's like a couple of goat farms and like a little restaurant with a little dock so people can like, you know, take their little boats out and people are drinking and there's party music playing. And like, it's nice, it's pastoral and green.

It looked like a lovely place. It looked much nicer than hanging out by the giant steel tower. Yeah, I found that all along the border, actually. Like, our side of the border looks like something from, I don't know, like Blade Runner or or something like it's this giant dystopian steel construct with with people with guns with watchtowers and it's horrific right like it cuts through some of the most beautiful and important landscapes we have right through the high desert through these very fragile places

um and and like it's important i think people understand as well what the border wall looks like right because you've probably seen a photograph of giant ass wall um and and like it's important i think people understand as well what the border wall looks like right because you've probably seen a photograph of a giant ass wall um and that is part of it but they call it the border wall ecosystem and what that involves is the wall itself uh sometimes a ditch sometimes not a ditch um and then a road that's wide enough for two of the f-150 raptors that border patrol like to drive to pass each other, and then an access road to that. And then generally there's also an access road cut that allows construction vehicles to get to build all of that.

So it's not just some spikes in the desert. It's fucking destroying this beautiful part of both Mexico and the United States, right? Now, before we get into some of these organizations, I'm wondering, first off, when did you start reporting on the US-Mexico border? And is there any kind of specific events that you can recall that really kind of ignited your interest in this particular, like, part of the United States and this particular part of like our ongoing social conflict? Yeah. Like I've always been interested in borderlands, like academically, uh, as part of my PhD. Um, but I guess I'd probably about eight or nine years I've been reporting on the border. The thing that really sort of, uh, took it from being like, uh, the border is sometimes I think I write about, I did a lot of outdoor writing about the border too right i was very interested in getting more people to go outside

in baja california it's amazing um and you should do it but uh what really sort of i guess made me be like oh fuck this is fucking horrible um is the the 2018 quote-unquote migrant caravan right um so i'd been down just just enjoying a weekend uh in in a little further south of Tijuana. There's a really good wine country there. So we'd be checking out these wine places and just enjoying ourselves. And we come back and then these people are in what's called the Benito Juarez Sports Complex. It's just a baseball field and it's raining and it's November and it looks like the fucking, like Battle of the Somme in there, you know,

it's mud, there are little children. And like, I've been in these situations before. I've seen situations with displaced people before, but there was something that just broke my heart about like, so obviously we're going to go in, right? We're going to see what's going on. We're going to see what we can do to help uh and there were little kids i remember there was this little girl i mean this one still makes me really sad right but she would find me there were thousands of people there

every single time i came she would find me uh found me the first day uh and uh she would like uh we talked for a little bit about what she was doing and then she was standing like halfway up her little shins in mud and she didn't have anywhere to like shower or be clean you know she was living in a sort of tarp shelter and it just fucking broke my heart um so i used to she used to like plait my hair a lot so i carry her around and that was just like this realization for me, like of how cruel this thing is. Shortly thereafter, of course, the police stood in the parking lot of the Tommy Hilfiger discount store

in order to fire tear gas at some of the most marginalized and desperate people, certainly in that part of the world, right? And just that. It's a scene that like, yeah, that would, if you put that in a movie, you would be like, this is a little bit heavy handed, right?

Having them shoot from the Tommy Hilfiger at the desperate migrants. That's a little bit heavy. Yeah. Yeah. It's just this advanced fucking parody of where we are as a society. But yeah, the DHS helicopter is taking off from the Tommy Hilfiger store to fire tear gas grenades at the children who just want a safe place to sleep. the children who just want a safe place to sleep. I had a moment like that in a protest where the Portland police,

we were in North Portland, which is like in a neighborhood that was like one of the fairly few like black neighborhoods in Portland. And the cops, you know, went apeshit and started firing impact munitions down Martin Luther King Boulevard. And I, I didn't catch myself at first.

And I was like, the cops are now shooting down Martin Luther King. Yeah. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows presented by iHeart and Sonorum. 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.

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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.

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Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. You've been in and around like you you live there obviously so who are like who are some of the folks that you've come across that are doing the most to actually help there and what kind of help like is necessary because i feel like one of the one of the things i think is the primary shortcoming of it could happen here is a show so far is that the way garrison and i phrase it is like a lot of our episodes are here's a problem goodbye right we're like here's the thing that's bad off we go so what i guess the two chief questions i think that need to be answered because i'm hoping pretty much everyone here is on board with the border is a nightmare uh

something's got to be done what are the kind of things that can actually materially improve people's lives who are being affected by this border ecosystem? And then who are the motherfuckers who are actually out there trying to unfuck things that to the extent that unfucking is doable here? Yeah. So I think like just to further like make people sad first, if you look up decolonial Atlas southern border border you can find this map of where migrants die when they're coming to united states right and we they're often

it's constructed in the news media is like it's dangerous crossing mexico it is it's it's dangerous coming across the darien gap sure it is but the vast bulk of people die within a few miles of our southern border right um and that's because especially now with the way we've constructed the border wall uh right before the uh 2020 election donald trump in a debate made claims about how much border wall he built like everything else he was full of shit uh so they just tried to build as much as they could between then and the election so they just skipped the hard parts they skipped the mountains they skipped the valleys and that often forces people to cross in the most arduous terrain right so that that's increased the amount of people dying um so we can look broadly at like two categories of support right which are

like um i guess like direct aid and then legal aid so um on the legal aid side the guys who guys and girls and other people who who have been, really helpful are Al Otrolado, to the other side, right? They're a legal aid group. They were very, very cool during the migrant care event. Like they, and I realize that's something of a loaded phrase, right? I'm just trying to use a word that people will understand. They were there constantly helping people with good cause letters. They were there filing legal briefs on their behalf.

As a result of that, many of them were illegally surveilled by the department of homeland security uh with had their phones taken uh their communications traced their movements traced their network trace etc um they are wonderful people right like they do amazing things with helping people get legal aid um and then you've got the people who are helping people uh while they cross right and there are a number of these mutual aid groups if you're in a certain region uh there is at the border there is probably someone near you i'm no expert on all of them uh but you can look at like no más muertes in arizona uh armadillos uh i believe i think they i don't know if they operate also in texas but certainly in that california arizona area. You can look at Border Angels, right? Border Angels are probably the

biggest, most public facing one. And they are fantastic, right? They're out there making sure that there are caches of water for people who are crossing, making sure that when it's cold at night, there are warm clothes. And when it's hot, there are clothes suitable for that weather, right? Maybe a new backpack, canned canned food they're like doing the active stuff that stops people dying um and it's that's invaluable right and it's also important in terms of showing that like they'll often write things i've seen like like you're welcome right welcome to this country or whatever it's showing that most of us don't agree with this dehumanizing brutalization of migrants that the state is doing on our behalf

and so showing that welcome is very important there are lots of indigenous groups um i did ask if i could name them but they didn't get back to me so i don't want to but like there are groups within the tohonodham nation there are groups within the kumiyai nation i'm sure there are groups within other tribes uh whom the border crossed right who lived in in in this area long before it was a border who are also out there helping people um there are also individuals helping people out on their property right um if you if you can't find how to donate to one of those groups you can reach out to me that's fine but yeah i think the work they're doing is invaluable both in terms of like

showing people that they are welcome and in terms of saving lives right more and more people die at the border every year especially with things like title 42 which we can get into uh with mpp let's talk about what title 42 sure so title 42 it's a public it's part of a public health law it's very antiquated i think it was last used in the 1930s. The idea behind it was to stop people with tuberculosis coming into the United States. And if they have an infectious or transmissible disease, I think it's called, then they can be immediately sent back without processing, right? This was part of a whole suite of things that they used to do to laborers coming north, right? they would also spray them with uh all kinds of insecticides which obviously is not good for the health um so title 42 the idea being you know you like if you present to me at the border and i'm a border patrol guy and you're like coughing up a

lung and obviously tuberculous tuberculous i don't know you have yeah tuberculi tuber yeah uh tuberculastic then i will send you back and just be like, no, Robert, fuck off until you're healthy. You're going to infect everyone else here, especially if I detain you. Now, what it's being used to do with COVID-19 is to not process migrants, right? To do what's called catch and release.

Just bump them south and let them go. What that means is that these, so normally you could cross, surrender to a CBP agent. That's another misunderstanding, right? A lot of people will want to surrender, right? They have no intention of not being processed. For certain countries,

there's something called a TPS, which I'll explain in a second, which there will be no reason for them not to be processed. So these people will cross and now they could just get dumped on the other side right doesn't matter if they are a person who is pregnant doesn't matter if they're elderly doesn't matter if they're medically compromised or weak they can

just get dumped what this has meant is that um people who are helping them cross right people who maybe charge a fee for helping them cross are offering like crossings without limits uh you know we'll just try again get somewhere else try again and it means like i said before because of the combination of this and then this this hostile infrastructure that we're building right this border wall system that people will try crossing in more and more remote places right uh that is when people die crossing is when they cry and cross in in places that are hotter that are more arduous right it requires days of walking sometimes in like and i've been in that terrain i spend a lot of my time out there and like for a long time it's been more or less my job to be outside out there and it is hard

so if i imagine crossing with everything i need to start my new life and carrying my child it's very difficult for me uh and and i'm more accustomed to it than most so it's it's very difficult and forcing people to just kind of bounce back because when we drop someone in Mexico, right, if they are Guatemalan, Honduran, they don't have any network there, right? It doesn't exactly help. Sometimes we like this construct that the border fuels crime, right? They talk about sometimes cartels is far too broadly used, we like this construct that like the border fuels uh crime right or like crime is that like they they talk about like like uh sometimes cartels is far too broadly used nearly always it's far

too broadly used uh but this idea that the border funds uh like drug running and organizations such as that and what you don't fucking help by dumping someone where they have no other means of making a living right where they're going to be very poor and now they don't have any mates, they don't have anyone to go to, to ask for help, right? Like I don't blame people for trying to find a way to do something. So like understandably, like if, and I don't think, and I think it's largely a lie

that any significant number of people sort of running drugs across the border are migrants or, you know, I's that's largely a racist lie but leaving people dislocated there is a recipe for poverty and i can't you know things like crime do happen more i guess when people are poor and don't have any other options if that makes sense if we go back to tps really quickly because i think that's important too temporary protected status right you'll see people on twitter talking about tps uh what that basically means is that they can't deport you back to a country uh so it took biden an obscenely long time to grant a tps for the people from ukraine

right 500 and something people went into the deportation system between the time in November, December, when Biden's administration started being like, there is going to be war in Ukraine, the Russians are going to invade Ukraine. They were still actively in the process of sending people back to Ukraine at that time. It wasn't until about a week into the shooting war that they said, okay, temporary protected status, we won't send you back. It exists for other countries. It exists for Haiti. It exists for Myanmar, Burma, right?

I don't know if it exists for Syria. I think it does. But these countries where basically, like, we won't send you back there. And TPS is very important, right? Because it stops people being deported to places where they will die. And it's important to understand that you could have everything right

in terms of your asylum application and still be sent back. It's a cruel and very impersonal system. So TPS is important, and if you're into advocating for laws, then it's an important thing to advocate for, I think. Yeah. In terms of more, I think that's important, because kind of the electoral side of things does not tend to be our focus here, but it's also not useless. Like the border is one of the areas

most clearly where you can see both how advocating in that realm can immediately improve people's lives and also how both sides of the political spectrum use the border as a weapon to hurt people. Yeah, exactly. The border is definitely a stage for both sides of political theater. Like, look at Joe Biden, right? He's coming in. He's signing his declaration on the first day. I remember the day he was inaugurated, I went out to the border wall and sat there by myself and, like, wept because it's just this horrible, ugly thing.

There's such a scar on a place that I love. And he's done fuck all, right? He's deported more people than trump and he's he's building his own biden barrier which is the same thing without an anti-client plate but yeah like even if you don't agree with the existence of laws and lawmakers right there's this concept um that i like a lot called normative anarchism i think it's wolf the guy who wrote it but like we can move towards the state doing less cruelty and being a little more free and that is a move in the right direction even if it's not the end goal.

And I think the border is a place where you can really make a difference like that, right? Like some small changes in how things are done would reduce the cruelty to people who have done nothing wrong massively. So I think it is an area where even those of us who might not be generally inclined to like electoral stuff like you can i think i don't know if you can make a distance because like so many people in milwaukee are watching fox news and are fucking completely convinced that the border is just uh i don't know people with guns trying to smuggle children or whatever but yeah it's an area where small changes in policy make a huge, like Title 42, right? Not even a law. It's an executive or it's not even executive order. It's an interpretation.

The wall, right? Most of that shit wasn't built by Congress. It was built by executive order. So like that stuff, I think, is a place where you can affect positive change for people. Now, unfortunately, we've got this giant fucking wall and I don't think it's coming down anytime soon, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't actively try to make things kinder for people coming here welcome i'm daniel thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter nocturnal 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 Duda Podcast Network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline Podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into how 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. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series,

Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me in a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands,

for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Now on the direct action side of things, i i think more of our audience tends to support one of the most obvious things is just like setting out as you said like drops of water food equipment now that's kind of depending on where you are can be shall we say complex from a legal standpoint can you talk to that a little bit? Yeah, certainly. So like the obvious case is the one in Arizona, right? Which eventually ended up, uh, the person was

vindicated, but, um, I guess vindicated is the wrong word, but not, didn't go to prison. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what he was doing was right from the start, but, uh, yeah, it can be complex. I think, especially if you're in some of these states which are like doing culture war, right? Like Arizona and Texas. Yeah, the cruelty is kind of the point. So if you are doing something to alleviate that cruelty, making an example of you is very much in the interest of those culture war politicians and judges and other people,

which is why it's important to do it with a mutual aid group, right? Like these groups are not just like randos. They are extremely organized. I would also just caution that like going out into the desert on your own is extremely fucking dangerous. The desert can kill you with heat and day. It can kill you with the cold night, sometimes on the same day and night, right? This is a hard place.

I'm not saying you shouldn't go out there. You should. It's an amazing place, but you should be careful. You should go with the group. So if you're living somewhere along the border, there is a group of people who are doing this. They will understand what is legal and correct. Like for instance, if you are not a citizen, if you're a green card holder, you should probably not go down to the border with jugs of water. You should maybe do some fundraising. You should maybe do something else. And that's fine right you're still part of a system which is helping people um but yes there have been some prosecutions i think in california there haven't been any to

my knowledge for a while um there was also some interesting tech developments uh one a few a long time ago now uh called the transborder migrant Tool, which was mapping out what at the time we didn't have the border wall then, but water caches, locations of CBP checkpoints. And then I guess it was using Google Maps to make routes, which it was created by a faculty member who at the time was at the University of California who faced pretty terrible career repercussions for doing it. But there are things like that that people can do too, right?

Which you can do from your bedroom, if that's your preference, if that's how you prefer to help. But yeah, I would caution about just going out there. Always look for groups, right? There are people for whom this is their entire life of activism. You can also, I'm sure, I hope I'm not putting a bunch of work on their plate, but talk to Alotrolado see

what they suggest right talk to who uh alotrolado the other side that's this legal aid group um you can just call them i'm sure that they're great they think they've been very helpful to me when i've been uh when i've needed help for people i'm working with uh talk to them about what is what is legal and sensible and what's not whether it's better to give your money or give your time or what you can do given the resources available to you i guess and you can also just show kindness to refugees in your community too like they're probably there um whether or not they're visible is is a different question but that's you know there are places where you can help people uh another one i should mention actually just for folks who are inclined to help in a different way I guess is people just feeding people

I really don't think you can ever blame someone for feeding a hungry person so food not bombs food not bombs are always cool if you want to do kindness without state food not bombs there is one in your area look them up and world central kitchen which is Jose Andres the chef

yeah he's in ukraine or these guys just got shelled in ukraine that's right yeah yeah a number of them got shelled in kharkiv i think um those people like uh i do understand that he has some labor issues yeah although i think he's he recently like came out and said that he had been wrong on that i'd have to double check but yeah that's impressive like uh i've said this before this dude pivoted his whole life after seeing what happened in haiti to feeding people who are hungry all over the world so i do believe he's capable of change and hopefully he can change and treat his workers with decency and respect as well but anywhere i am right where there is a

humanitarian crisis inside the u.s outside the u.s those people are there first they're there before the red cross and msf they don't seem to get tied up in the bureaucratic shit that most large uh global ngos do like i've been in refugee camps where msf and red cross are outside not doing anything yeah if you uh anywhere i have been where there are large groups of refugees refugee camps people dealing with violence the uh the most commonly cursed groups are often NGOs. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There are, you know, people in white lander or people in fancy hotel lobbies, you know, like, and that makes me very angry and very sad, but I don't see that with WCK. Like I have consistently seen them in pretty dire situations,

like times that give me bad sleeps, and that they're always there helping people. So there are also church groups in lots of communities. I'm not a religious person, but I really can't fault any of these church groups that I've seen coming down from San Diego to Tijuana to feed and help people. But I would probably stay clear of those giant NGOs with your giving. I've just seen them be considered bureaucratic and less effective.

Yeah. I mean, one of the rules, this is harder when it's a conflict far from home and you, you know, you see some news that makes you want to help, but you don't have any connections. But if you can ever talk to people on the ground there, it's always best to ask them like, who's actually doing anything? Because sometimes it is MSF, you know, sometimes it is one of these larger organizations, but oftentimes they'll tell you like, you know, the group when I was in Mosul that got the most consistent praise from people who were like living there was the Free Burma Rangers, right? Like there were all these massive international organizations, but when it came right down to it, the people who were like

running under gunfire to pull wounded civilians out were you know those folks yeah uh yeah those those guys do some do some very brave stuff definitely um and yeah it is normally you can find people on facebook like i've never been in in a sort of situation with a lot of displaced people where people were not actively on facebook uh and you can find people there they did just just like you just want to have a chat and again again, it's nice to have a chat. That's such an important point too, because I think that number one, people are often, and it's easier, right? Like everyone has limited time, but you kind of leave it to whatever media you trust to connect you to people in these desperate circumstances. And like people tend to want to connect who are dealing with something like that,

who are fleeing violence, who are, and they also are connected. Like they're not separate from the rest of the world just because they've had to leave their home behind. And they're not, they're generally not excluded from the information networks that we all exist in. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think sometimes they're portrayed as like, um, we talk about them, not to them far too often in the media. And that makes me mad, right? Like I see that all the the time i see that happening when i'm doing reporting right i'll see people hanging out on the peripheries of these camps i understand some people are worried about covid or whatever but so are those people right like uh just be safe and be sensible and yeah these people want to talk i

remember one thing that always sticks out well they want the same things that we want i remembered so in this 2018 migrant caravan they were moved from benito juarez sports complex to this old nightclub a bit further south but further away from the border right it was a very weird scene it was this big nightclub with like uh the mirrors and the dancing poles and the disco balls but it had been like mothballs for like 10 years it was all dusty and they had a special room for um people who were pregnant people can people who had had children and and the the young children themselves right they were sort of just to keep them safe um and we were going there and it was weird because there were still like mirrors on the floor um but then i remember these kids you talk to them right you know what do you want and like first of all one kid asked me for a teddy bear and it just broke my heart like i don't know why it just fucking leveled me uh and then they wanted to like you know they'd enjoyed the same disney films that kids here had right so my

buddy uh managed to acquire a projector we went into the ceiling rigged up this projector and just set up uh like beverly hills chihuahua playing on one wall of this night club and these kids were like fuck yeah it's beverly hills chihuahua like let's go like the you know they were just kids watching a film like like like they can be anywhere else and it's really easy to see them as like different or weak or you know the way they're portrayed in the media is like people without agency and they're not like they've taken huge amounts of agency to try and improve their lives and it's also so much focuses on these things that aren't you know medicine food that are necessary but like having a normal moment where you're like a kid watching a cartoon or playing with a toy is

also necessary yeah like these children will be scarred by their experiences right by whatever's causing them to flee, by the flight itself and by the process of coming into the country. But yeah, we should do everything we can to protect them from those traumatic experiences. And just like, I cannot count the amount of times I have been like shithoused in a game of football by six-year-olds trying to come to the United States, right?

Like, so things like that. I remember someone donated a couple of football goals and I took them down and set them up. And then, yeah, just having those moments of normalcy those moments of fun uh like little little plastic ukuleles and stuff like were very important because it let kids be kids and then that's you know they have every right to do that well uh james i think that's gonna make a soad for us you want to throw your pluggables in before we roll out yeah uh i want to plug like like i said before doing things to help people outside of networks that let people have power over people uh to do that first and then yeah you can put my name james stout into

twitter and find me i have a patreon by the same thing i write about the border a lot you can see it in um if i just plug one popular pop ula i wrote about the 2018 migrant caravan so you can read my writing there uh feel free to message me if you want to find any of these groups and you can't yeah it's about all all right well that's gonna do it for us uh go do something good it could happen here as 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 Brass. Thanks for listening. terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into Tex 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,

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wherever else you get your podcasts from. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking musica, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that

matter to us and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia and that's a song that only Nuestra Gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. 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.

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