It Could Happen Here - Technology and Surveillance on Migrants, with Austin Kocher and Jake Wiener, Pt 1

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

James is joined by Austin Kocher and Jake Wiener to discuss CBP ONE, the app which makes asylum inaccessible for thousands of people.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. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Eliane Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast which I'm recording at 8 in the morning and thus without any of my colleagues.

And I'm joined today to discuss the technological aspects of the border regime by Austin Coker of Syracuse University and by Jake Wiener of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Hi guys. Morning. How are you doing, James? I'm good. I'm very excited to talk more border stuff. I like covering this, even though it's sometimes terrible. So what I wanted to start off with is,

I think our listeners will be familiar with CBP1, right? The most cursed cell phone app of all time. And both of you have written a lot and very insightfully about CBP1. So I thought we could kind of do a little bit of a breakdown of, A, the issues with it, and B, the issues with it as an app, and then the fact that we're using an app being a problem inherently. So perhaps we could start with, I know, Jake, you mentioned you wanted to talk a little bit about the design of the app and the process of sort of commissioning it and making it, should we start there?

Yeah. And I think this story is pretty interesting and unique because CBP One was built in-house by a small team at the Office of Field Operations in CBP. Yeah, which is unique. There's one other app that they built and I don't really know of other mobile apps that have been rolled out with anything close to the size of CBP One

that have been designed by a government agency. Yeah, that's kind of an odd choice. You know, conceptually, it's not something I'm critical of. Like, i think if we're going to have a government that's providing services it's good for them to do things in-house like it means you're not relying on third parties who are able to like use information from the app and benefit off of it um but it does mean you need the institutional competency to be able to design an

app. And so to just like provide a quick history, basically a CBP one app was built off of the framework of an older app called CBP Rome. That app was used just for people boating on the great lakes, because technically if you go like boating on lake michigan you will leave the united states if you chase a fish over the boundary to canada yeah um and cbp felt that it was very important that people who did that reported leaving and coming back into the united states um yeah right questionable but they built an app to let people do that. And the framework for that app used a GPS ping to verify when you're back in the US. Okay.

So this is a small app. You know, I don't think they encountered too many problems with it because you have maybe a couple hundred visitors a day. And on that framework, they built out CBp1 to do a couple of things it's used for folks like customs folks so if you're importing goods into the country you can do some of that reporting through cbp1 and also use it to apply for the and obtain the i-94 travel form which is the form that like most folks coming to the united states are going to need and then critically for for our uses is that if you are applying for asylum you can use it to schedule an appointment yeah that's been the bulk of my reporting on it is that the bulk of its use i think so yeah okay and so that's i'm still blown away by the fact they designed in-house

it's crazy uh did you ever find the job the job postings by the fact they designed in-house. It's crazy. Did you ever find the job postings for the people who designed it? Or did they just get some people who were good at IT to kind of take a swing at it? So as far as I know from... I've talked to one of the people involved in the creation. I think Austin has as well. My understanding is that it was like an in-house team that already existed. Okay. But Austin, you may be able to clarify that.

Yeah, that's my understanding too. I think they have a technology team within the agency that is using technology in various ways. I don't think we have a full understanding of the scope of their responsibilities and the work that they've done. I think, to Jake's point, it is quite interesting that they produce something for the public. It's not unusual, of course, for large agencies to have teams in-house that deal with all of the general technological challenges that every agency in 2023 faces. Databases, keeping government cell phones working and secure and all of that, all of that kind of thing. But a lot of the things that are public facing from federal agencies tend to be contracted out to a private vendor in some way. So this is, it's quite unique. And, and, but I don't think we have a full scope of what they, what they are, aren't producing in-house.

Yeah, they, that's interesting because interesting because they heavily rely on outside contractors for so much of that. There's a whole industry that starts here in San Diego and goes over to Tucson and probably further into New Mexico of people providing surveillance technology to Border Patrol. And then goes over to the West Bank too,

where lots of it can be seen. where lots of it can be seen. Welcome. I'm Danny Threl. 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. 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 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 and 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. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast

where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. podcast having talked about the uh their sort of unique approach to design it's probably a good idea to then talk about the implementation of zap and it's kind of lackluster lackluster is an understatement it just fucking sucks it's terrible um so like what in what many ways has it been unfit for the purpose that it's supposed to do? So I guess first we can talk about its technological inadequacies, and then more broadly about why this isn't a problem you can really solve with an app on a telephone that needs broadband and Wi-Fi. Yeah, so I'll start by saying that I think a lot of what's happening

with the problem with the CBP One app is institutional blindness. So the people who design the app, I genuinely think want it to work well. And I think they're simply not asking the questions that you need to be asking when you design an app like this, which is who's really going to be using it? What are their needs? What technology? What wireless services? What phones are they using? Basically, if you're someone on the southern border with very little money,

and probably an outdated phone, are you going to be able to use this app? Not a great camera. And so I think the first place to start with that is simply the fact that the app requires a strong Wi-Fi or cell signal to use, which is not always present. And I think Austin has some good insight into the problems with insufficient Wi-Fi. Yeah, definitely. I think some of what's interesting here is the way not only that the app relies on Wi-Fi, but then the kind of real-world social consequences here for how people then try to cope with these problems. I want to take one step back just really quickly and discuss the world that CBP was dropped into because there's some important context here. So as I know you've already covered, James, you know, over the past three years, the dominant border control policy was Title 42, a COVID era policy that was purportedly motivated by concerns about public health. This is where Title 42 comes from. Title 42 of the U.S. Code pertains to issues of questions

of public health. It's not an immigration policy. It was a public health policy, although detailed reporting has, I think, pretty well established that it was more of a political moment of political opportunism rather than a legitimate public health concern. But regardless, that policy allowed Customs and Border Protection to effectively turn back anyone who arrived at the border, whether they attempted to cross unlawfully or not. And the primary human rights concern here was people who were seeking asylum, which is their right to do. One of the aspects of Title 42 was that there was a rare exemption clause built in that allowed people who were particularly vulnerable or particularly humanitarian concern to attempt to effectively apply for this kind of exemption. And until January of this year, that process was run by nonprofit organizations. year, that process was run by nonprofit organizations. CBP had this sort of informal outsourced system where NGOs on the Mexican side of the border would effectively conduct massive

amounts of intake and prioritization and triaging of these cases, and then submit names to CBP to allow people to come to ports of entry. CBP-1 effectively replaced that system in January, which meant that instead of migrants going through the NGOs, they would have to download this app, fill out the information, and send it in. This is really important to mention because the groundwork was actually laid by a tremendous amount of effectively unpaid labor on the backs of NGOs on the southern side of the border. And, you know, it is fair and accurate to say that this was an extremely imperfect system and that there were absolutely, you know, significant issues with this.

But one of the interesting things is that the role that NGOs played meant that people coming and seeking asylum would then, in some ways, be potentially connected with a broader network of NGOs, support services, advocacy, and so forth. So the introduction of CBP1 purportedly bypassed the work of NGOs in screening people for the exemption process. However, NGOs still ended up performing all this kind of invisible labor because they're the ones who effectively were working with migrants to make Wi-Fi available. And it's not just Wi-Fi, it's actually charging your phone. When I visited shelters and camps on the southern side of the border at the end of 2022, a big part of having camps and shelters was actually providing electricity. When I was there, and I know others have reported on this,

James, I'm sure you've seen this too, people would be huddled around the outlets because they needed to charge their phone. If their phone didn't work, if their phone wasn't charged, they didn't have access to CBP1. This was already a challenge because the primary form of communication with CBP was phone calls. Individuals would get phone calls. In fact, I interviewed a Russian family on the Mexican side of the border in Matamoros last November. And the family now, many of the other migrants I spoke with, and this was also true for many migrants, by the way, the families, typically the wife and children, if there were a family unit, would stay either in a hotel or a shelter or someplace that was more

safe. And then the men would effectively have nights on the street where they could actually get cell phone coverage and things like that. So CBP1 introduced all of these kinds of technological demands. It's not that they weren't there before, but I think it's a different matter when you go from interacting with a network of NGOs to saying, now you're actually interacting with the US government and this is the only way that you're going to be able to enter the country. I think those demands were quite high. And they've clearly had some tremendously negative impacts from migrants trying to come through that way.

Yeah, definitely. I know I have one here, but we bought so many of these like solar powered charging brick things and distributed those. solar-powered charging brick things and distributed those. But I have so many photos of people's hands reaching through the wall and people trying to charge their phone on the other side of the wall, you know. And it's been a big demand for a while, but it's certainly when CBP were detaining people in places where they didn't have power and then expecting them

to also communicate using their telephones, that became a particularly sort of ridiculous issue. Very upsetting to see it done like that. So, yeah, this app really isn't a solution for the problem we're facing, which is, as you said, like a three-year backlog on people who have legitimate asylum claims being able to make those asylum claims. And I guess, can we talk about who it favors in you know implementing this system as a catch-all right not an option but the option who does that favor and

who does it not yeah before we get there i think it might be helpful to just run through like what it is like to use cvp1 oh yeah let's talk about you have to go through because it is a yeah and that's i and when you're thinking about that think that every step is a potential failure point right every step you could have a glitch and anytime you have a glitch happen it's going to kick you out of the app and you have to restart yeah so if you're on the southern border, you need to apply for asylum. You've been walking for months from Venezuela, Guatemala, etc. You got your phone. First thing you have to do is log into the app through login.gov. That's the single sign-on service that many government agencies use. It works fairly well, so you register yourself a profile.

Then you're going to navigate over hopefully you speak one of the languages that CBP one is available in. As of now, I believe that's English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole, although they may have added a new language recently. You find the right place in the app, not always super clear to submit your asylum application and try and schedule an appointment. And then you're going to have to fill out a ton of information. You're giving CVP, your name, addresses, people you know in the US, big form to fill out, including often information on how vulnerable you are. So are you pregnant? Are you disabled? Have you been threatened in Mexico?

Information that they want to use to prioritize you, hopefully. And then you're going to need to take a facial photograph. That's going to go into CBP and Department of Homeland Security's databases. It will be run against facial recognition searches that they populate with this massive facial recognition system, the Traveler Verification Service. That can flag people who are on CBP's target list, TSA's target list. You could be wrongfully flagged by that because facial recognition is not a perfect technology. You're also going to take a facial liveness scan. It's related to facial recognition, but it is different. It's a different technology and it is untested.

There's been no government agency that has evaluated facial liveness or bias. a no government agency that has evaluated facial liveness or bias and that basically is trying to figure out are you a real person or are you like a picture of james that you're holding up yeah because you're you know trying to get james uh yeah an appointment and then sell it to him later or something um do the facial liveness scan that's been the sticking point where folks with darker skin and indigenous folks have not been able to get through it. We can talk about that a little later. You're also going to do a GPS ping. So your phone pulling from both cell towers and GPS data is going to try and establish your location and send it to CBP.

That can create problems if you're pinging off a U.S. cell tower. Suddenly it's less reliable. Might look like you're in the U.S. hanging off a US cell tower. Suddenly it's less reliable. Might look like you're in the US. And once you get through all these steps, then you're able to submit your information and you're in a lottery

for whether or not you get an appointment. Great. Yeah, the photo thing, I think has been covered. Maybe I perceive it to have been covered extensively because this is what I do. But I think maybe some people aren't aware of the complete inadequacy of those

facial liveness scans. And I know some nonprofits in Tijuana have light booths, which can help with that, but it's not, you know, it's again, like that money could be doing something more useful. Right.

And then making like a, like an Instagram booth for people who just want to use the exercise, their legal right to claim asylum. So let's talk about that, that technology and how it's not working. Yeah, I think one really important factor here, and the reason I wanted to paint some of the context was, and partly it's selfish because as a geographer, I'm always very eager to evangelize about the importance

of understanding social geography for thinking about questions of, you know, human rights and asylum and immigration. So the facial life test is a great example of that. So, you know, it's hard to see this unless you've been on the ground in some of these places. But, you know, again, just a historical thing that I think will be pretty non-controversial. Anti-Black racism is something that's existed for a very long time. It's not just in the United States. It's around the world, obviously. Not everywhere, but obviously through colonialism, through settler colonialism and so forth,

it's really shaped not just anti-Black racism, but anti-Black racism itself has produced many of the geographies that we have from redlining, segregation, educational access, all kinds of things. The way that the social world looks today is already shaped by these issues of racism. What that then means is questions like who has access to cell phone towers and fast Wi-Fi and who can afford up-to-date smartphones that can meet all of the threshold of require the technological requirements to use this, use this app and use the software is already distributed and fractured by questions of race and identity. What that means is, even if the facial liveness test worked perfectly, and there were no issues with the software, which is not true, but let's even just assume that, it is still true that access to that technology and software is already structured by race. So one of the things I noticed, you know,

having spent time along the border was just how much even in some of the shelters, and where black and African migrants had access to shelter was itself much tended to be more pushed to the out outside of this, where you're less likely to get good cell phone coverage, less likely to have electricity, much more likely that the roads, even where I visited, were not paved. And I was there when it was raining in Reynosa one day. And, you know, even getting to some of the places where African migrants and African families were staying, and Black migrants, by the way, from Latin America,

let's just remind everyone that there are Black Latinos living in Latin America, right? We're also pushed, you know, more to the outskirts. And as a result of that, those factors contributed to access. So it wasn't just issues with the software itself, which may be there, it's hard for me to evaluate. It's not, you know, because it's not like we've done our own evaluation of that. But it's also all of those contextual factors. And I just want to make a fine point on this. We know this already. CBP should understand that already and understand the various social factors that impact access. So simply saying, for instance, if one wanted to take a defensive position and say, look we ran the test the software works as intended there's no racial bias in the software that doesn't get cbp out of the responsibility of saying yes but you absolutely had all the information and and a reasonable person

should have known that this the access to this app had these kind of technological requirements and there were then that access was not evenly distributed yeah i think it's really important you said that actually because a lot of reporters it does get reported on there are people doing great work but like sometimes it gets missed because african migrants might not speak spanish black african migrants uh and a lot of reporters don't have the language skills to talk to people in i worked with a fixer who spoke um a romo and to grion and and a lot of other like five or six other languages and and that helped to get me an insight into the very difficult situation that lots of african people face and you know that their isolation the relative lack of resources even in what's a pretty resource bar setting for

everyone and i know haitian people i've spoken to a lot of haitian people um plus then you add that like if i think about last month the languages which i was able with through friends through translation to speak to people with you know vietnamese kumanji which is a dialect of kurdish french French, right? Swahili, Spanish, evidently, Dutch. Aside from Spanish, those are not covered. Maybe if you're French, you can, I think it would be still hard to work in Haitian Creole if you spoke sort of more mainland French.

Those are not covered by the app, right? So you have to find a way to access that via translation. And then it's very the information makes you incredibly vulnerable to whom whomever if you're asking someone to share right like it's imperfect it's not a sufficient way to describe it but it's an extremely flawed system 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. 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 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. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep

into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations

with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture

to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. to jake's point like i'm also like kind of open-minded about you know about using an app like this i mean there's i mean jake's right i mean if you're going to have a government in the in 2023 like having some reasonably up-to-date ways to do things is not an unreasonable expectation. But there's just so many blatantly

obvious sort of shortcomings that are not difficult to identify in preparing this app and understanding what people are likely to need. So to have those gaps, and then also to roll out the app at a time when the same policy announcement that rolls out this app is also a policy announcement that says this is the only way to do it. I mean, imagine if your new policy for some particular healthcare thing was like, you have to go through this route. We know that 80% of people aren't going to be able to use this, but now this is the only treatment you have an option for.

I mean, that would be just strange. I think one thing to just think about creatively here is I can imagine a phased rollout of this where they did improve it over time, but there were adequate outlets for people who didn't fit into the categories that they had built into the app. outlets for people who didn't fit into the categories that they had built into the app. And I think that would be a more complex and more nuanced and maybe a more interesting way to do it. I just don't think it was rolled out responsibly in that way. Yeah, I think we should be honest that beta testing an app on hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable people in the world is incredibly irresponsible. Yeah, it's just cruelly it's not uh in any way appropriate so i guess uh we've talked a lot about this app let's talk about let's say you're fortunate enough to get an asylum appointment to enter the u.s

um you would then in most cases enter something which is called CBP's Alternative to Detention System. ISIS. ISIS, sorry. Yeah, you're right. Let's explain a little bit. Why is it an alternative to detention? Why would one be detained? You haven't, in theory, done anything wrong. Well, in many people's perspective, haven't done anything wrong, I guess. And then what does ATD mean?

And then we can get into some of the uh privacy issues and the way that it affects not just migrants but also everyone yeah one thing before we go there i think would be great um just closing the loop on the racial bias discussion um this is like an element of my advocacy that i talk about all the time in different areas of like how facial recognition is used when it's using the criminal justice system is that there absolutely is bias in most facial recognition systems. They work really well for white men and increase increasingly less well, basically, as you run down the privilege spectrum. That's an element of how these systems are designed, right? It's they get fed a lot of images of white men and fewer images of other folks. That's fixable, right? Like you can

provide a training database that is a whole, you know, a good spread of people. It seems to not necessarily have been done with the facial liveness for CBP1, in part because the British company that designed it probably did not have access to a lot of images of the type of people who would be on the southern border. You're talking about indigenous Mexican folks, Ishii folks, just a very large number of different ethnicities. But any bias like that is, as Austin said, sitting on top of a series of other biases, right, of structural biases. And so the result we see with a lot of facial recognition systems, and this facial blindness system in CBP1 is no different, is that a little bit of even a little bit of bias in how the facial recognition works gets amplified. And it's amplified by social biases.

It's amplified by the biases of people who run the system and people who interact with it every day. And then it's amplified by institutional blindness as well, failure to recognize a problem. by institutional blindness as well, failure to recognize a problem. We had facial recognition systems rolled out on some level since the early to mid-2000s. And we didn't even know that bias was a problem in any facial recognition system until 2018. So when you're thinking about and you're hearing about bias testing and the fact that it's been bias tested, those tests are never incredibly reliable because they're not done in the real world. They're not done with the people actually using the technology. They're done in a controlled setting and they're not done by people who have a nuanced understanding of how the technology impacts people. Yeah, I think it's very important to remember that yeah there's

layers upon layers of bias and they stack to make it harder and harder for certain people coming to the united states to get again what's that right and often to just be safe right like some people especially the less advantaged you are sort of on a global scale the likely the less safe you are sort of on a global scale, likely the less safe you are waiting in Mexico to make an appointment for your asylum, right? Like if you can't get into a shelter or you're from a group where you don't have community to look out for you, you're just that bit more likely to be taken advantage of or have something bad happen to you or your family. So yeah, it all stacks up, I guess, to make for a very unfortunate situation for people. Yeah, it all stacks up, I guess,

to make for a very unfortunate situation for people. Yeah, which means the consequence of having a glitch happen is way higher. Yes, I've personally known people who have had terrible consequences from what should have been a very, very straightforward asylum application and very easy to process very rapidly. Yeah, it's a whole mess.

And I know I'm trying to speak more to some of the folks who work with african migrants um because i think that often yeah their stories just don't get told especially at our southern border where like i think obviously there's this like uh a lot of people like to report on the border but not leave new york or um dc or wherever they have their studio or newspaper or what have you and i think it's easy to miss that if you haven't like gossard said like like being around a lot and seeing all these things that stack up on top of one another but yeah it's an important topic that we don't especially as like i know that it doesn't get reported on because everyone likes to report on ukraine and only Ukraine, but like as more wars in Africa or wars in,

you know, people from Myanmar, it's very hard for them to get to the southern border, actually, from hearing from thousands, maybe different cases where people can't leave Thailand. But again, the system,

you know, when you have a whole other alphabet that you're trying to access the system in and it doesn't work for you, then that makes it incredibly difficult for those people. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a cliffhanger in the podcasting industry because we will be back tomorrow with more on how ICE tracks migrants

and how that tracking of migrants can impact other people, people who live with them, people in their communities. I hope you'll join us then. Thanks. Bye. who live with their own people in their communities. I hope you'll join us then. Thanks. Bye.

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. 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. 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, 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. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.

Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.