It Could Happen Here - Texas Is At It Again

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

James talks with former senior Border Patrol agent Jenn Budd in late January to learn about how Border Patrol has been complicit in Texas’ cruel treatment of migrants.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the 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. Thank you. Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Hi everyone and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about how things are falling apart and people trying to put them back together. Today, more in the how things are falling apart category, we are talking about the border again and i'm joined by jen budd who you've heard from before but just a reminder jen is a former senior patrol agent with the border patrol and now an immigrant rights activist welcome to the show jen thanks for having me again yeah you're welcome so we're gathered here today i guess to talk about this ridiculous spectacle of the Texas National Guard occupying some border-adjacent land.

The border, as I understand, runs down the middle of the river there. So, like, they're not actually occupying the physical border, right? They're occupying the nearest land spot to it. Is that right? Correct. The border in that area is in the middle of the river. Yeah. And preventing Border patrol from accessing the

river and i think like we were just talking before we recorded but the reporting on this has been a bit kind of slap shot a lot of it has just been social media posting so i was hoping that you could help us understand like a this isn't like like a standoff between texas and the border patrol right like but it's not like texas kind of swept in and and suddenly they were there and they weren't there before border patrol had to allow this to happen to a degree is that fair to say i think it's fair to say i mean at the moment i think the administration is trying to portray that, you know, the border patrol tried to come out there and rescue. I think the latest I've heard is that reportedly there were six people in the river that were drowning and and they went to go rescue them. And the Texas military, the I guess Texas guard yeah ended up locking them and saying they

can't go now this park is a very well-known park that during the trump administration they were trying to build a wall they've been wanting a wall there but the people in in that city uh i believe it's eagle pass is that that you know they don't want a wall there that's a city park and and they just don't want a wall right there and so greg abbott has sent in texas national guard to put up all the razor wire all the you know plocation devices with you would call it a saw blade on the middle of it, that they claim saves lives. All this stuff apparently is rescue technique stuff. Yay. And they claim it saves more lives than it hurts.

And so the people that put out this stuff to injure people are claiming that they didn't allow people to drown. So I find that hard to believe. But at the same time, the Border Patrol is always silent. They're always silent about this. They'll let CBP talk for them. They'll let the administration talk for them. The union is claiming that Greg Abbott is the best thing in the world. They think it's great that he stopped their own agents from rescuing a woman and two children. So apparently three of the people got back to shore on the Mexican side. And then the woman and two children ended up drowning and their bodies were found on the Mexican side. side texas military is claiming that when they were notified that people were in the river they went and they shined lights and they looked but they didn't see anything we did have the uh i don't know if it was texas military it was in in the uh area of the state of texas on the same rio

grande where some either national guard or texas National Guard or military or somebody just was sitting in a boat in front of a woman with a child and she was starting to sink into the sand because it's like quicksand over there and they wouldn't rescue her and Border Patrol drove by really fast and put waves so it's not surprising that they wouldn't go rescue them this is the first time that they've publicly said that they've had a confrontation with a border patrol but i don't think the border patrol tried very hard to rescue them i mean they do have boats and stuff yeah they have yeah yeah there are many ways helicopters yeah they they have lots of equipment to rescue people, sometimes just less desire, shall we say.

Yeah, and I mean, to me, the interesting thing is watching Democratic politicians point their fingers at Greg Abbott, and rightly so for this scene. But yet at the same time, what the Border Patrol does every every day their deterrence policies every day kill people every day so the border patrol is not doing anything different so to act like oh my god we didn't get out to save these migrants and we really wanted to is kind of like well i mean people die probably every hour crossing that river and you haven't cared before and we've been doing this since 1994 so it's kind of it's kind of hard to get really upset at Greg Abbott, who's doing nothing but what the National Border Patrol has done for, you know, 30-something years. And at the same time, the victims are always the migrants that, you know, that's what we should be upset about is that our policies whether federal or

state are killing people who are seeking asylum and seeking safety that's what it is yeah exactly i think like this attempt to make it uh like republican governor is killing migrants thing it is an attempt to like distract us from the fact that democratic president is killing migrants in much greater numbers just by virtue of of the amount of land covered by uh you know biden's jurisdiction compared to abbott's but yeah i think it's very hypocritical and it's it's funny to you in that or i'm not funny but ironic and that the border patrol union is putting out the numbers of when trump's last year as president of deaths on the southern border and these are just the ones that they find not yeah the actual number which is usually three

to four times as many and then they're saying oh look in biden's year this has been 2023 was the most deadly year but it's like you know you guys never cared about how many people were dying before and now all of a sudden you're like you're you guys never cared about how many people were dying before and now all of a sudden you're like you're killing more migrants than anybody else what do you care are you jealous what's the deal yeah like the idea that these people are concerned that they're like in jacumba they keep people in open air detention for up to a week and in the freezing cold you know in san diego san ysidro people are you know two people have died san ysidro, two people have died in San Ysidro. One person has died in Nacumba. Probably dozens more people have died crossing in other routes

that we haven't seen this year. It's been not as wet as previous winters, but just in this week, I've seen people in extremely dire medical distress. And I've seen Border Patrol scream at those people and scream that people's going scream at those people and scream that people's going to help those people and not do anything to help so i'm finding it hard to buy that this is all greg greg abbott's fault not that greg abbott isn't a piece of shit uh oh yeah yeah i think we're in agreement on that but like um yeah the the attempt to lay all the blame at

greg abbott's feet suggests that there isn't complete bipartisan agreement it seems on killing migrants even right like we don't see in the trump era we saw you know aoc turn up and cry at the the uh you know unaccompanied children or the separation of family separation detention we don't even see that anymore like we don't have any of that this and that's reflected in the press right we don't see anywhere near as much coverage of the brutality at the border as we used to and one thing that you've mentioned before we started with that you had there's some like there's pretty clear case law or supreme court decisions at least about like what bp could have done or what their rights are vis-a-vis the National Guard. Could you explain some of that?

Well, there's clear immigration precedent. So in 1875, so prior to the Civil War, a little bit after the Civil War, states had always done their own immigration. So if you showed up in a boat in New Orleans Harbor, they would have their own immigration. You would have to pay. A lot of times in the California area, California was charging, especially Chinese migrants who were coming over for the railroad

and the gold rush and things like that. When they brought groups of Chinese women over, then California would label them all as prostitutes and and and no good people and then they would put them in jail and then fine the captain of the ship like five hundred dollars a person which is by today's standards it's like over fourteen thousand dollars so it's a lot of money yeah yeah and so one of the one of the female migrants in 1875 said, you had no right to hold us in jail. You don't have this right. There's nothing that says that you have this right, according to U.S. law back then.

And so the case is called Chai, C-H-Y, Lung, L-U-N-G, versus Freeman. NWNG versus Freeman. And in 1875, the Supreme Court decision was that immigration is solely the federal government's right to enforce and not the state's, simply because of diplomatic relations, also that we have treaties with other countries and we have relationships with other countries. And they believe that while allowing states to do their own immigration would then hurt the United States in diplomacy with these other countries. And then the other thing that they mentioned was that there had been no due process given to the migrants during the time. And that's afforded to migrants, whether they're undocumented or not, based on the Constitution. And then recently, in the most recent time that it was brought up was in 2012, when Arizona sued the United States.

The Supreme Court upheld in that case that law enforcement can question citizenship during a legal stop, but denied other parts of the Arizona law SB 1070, which allowed their peace officers to act like immigration officers. And they said the reason why they can't do that, which is what Greg Abbott is doing. The reason why the Supreme Court said they can't do that in 2012 was because of Article 6, Clause 2, which states that the Constitution, federal laws, treaties made under federal authority take priority over state laws. So it's, you know, the supremacy clause, basically, is what it is. And so it's kind of like what Trump did when he was in office, where he starts separating children and he starts putting everybody who crosses the border whether it's for asylum or for nefarious reasons uh in between the ports he would take away their

children and i mean that is was in violation of the 1980 refugee act and yet nobody really fought it on that basis i'm not sure why they didn't fight it on that basis i'm not an attorney so i can't tell you but at least you know this this Chai Lung versus Freeman, it's been around since 1875. It was brought up in 2012. And the Supreme Court also used Chai Lung to make its argument of why Arizona couldn't have certain parts of SB 1070 out. So what Greg Abbott is doing is the same thing trump is doing is like i'm gonna break the law and you can take me to court and we'll see if this court agrees with what the last court said so they're just breaking the law and then daring people to take them to court is simply what they're

doing and in the middle of this obviously the migrants are caught the humanitarian organizations and everybody's caught it causes chaos basically is what it's doing yeah it's causing an absolute mess at the border and i think understandably what you hear from migrants is like the people who are better informed who have access to information resources finances are telling me that they don't want to go to texas right because right it's a mess and it's a mess that kills people and that's exactly what it's supposed to be it's supposed to be uncertain and it's supposed to be cruel and so people who have the chance to will come here people who can't afford to right they're coming north directly and instead of texas is there you know if they head directly north of that that's where they end up texas has a huge amount of border of course then they're the people who tend to be

the ones who are forced across there and unfortunately that's really a much higher as you said a much higher death rate right nick it's do you have a sense of like i suppose it will be hard to tell because we have very little in the way of proper statistics, but like what is the most fatal kind of part of the border? It's difficult to tell if it's the Sonoran Desert or if it's the Rio Grande River. And I say that because we don't see half the bodies, or we probably don't see 90% of the bodies. I know a lot of reported deaths are on the TO reservation, the Horned Hound reservation in Arizona. There's the bombing, Berry Goldwater bombing area that nobody's allowed in. But when they are occasionally allowed in, they find groups of 1315 skeletons and stuff like that so

i think it's a toss-up between um the sonoran desert and the rio grande river the other problem with texas's border is that primarily the majority of the property on the border in texas is private property and they tend to be very large ranches which maybe no ranch hand or anybody goes out you know through the acres to see this and they might never ever find the bodies it's kind of like the sonoran desert and p.o nation and then the bombing range and then just the fact that the desert will just destroy the bones pretty quickly, especially once the winds cover things up. We have a fair amount in Campo, as you know, in the Hacamba Campo wilderness area in the mountains and the Laguna Mountains. But I don't think it's near as bad because you can look at those mountains and see how bad they are. And most people don't want to dare cross those mountains,

but many still do, i worked out there you you're familiar with that area and so um we have more than our fair share for for certain yeah but i would say i would say probably it's between texas the rio grande and and then sonoran desert for sure okay yeah yeah i, I think that makes sense. It's probably a good time for us to break. The border is killing people. These adverts probably aren't, but they're still not great. So enjoy these products and services.

Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens.

So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all it's light-hearted pretty crazy and very fun listen to post run high on the iHeartRadio 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. 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. 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 iHot Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. All right, we are back. And Jen, I wanted to ask, like, with with regard to these i think there's a couple of things that people might not be clear on we've tried to explain them on the podcast before

the first is like border patrol will always say that all the bp agents are first responders right it's this line that they have and like do they like in terms of rescues are they sort of like technically obliged to make rescues i mean i've seen people in very great stress and i've seen border patrol do nothing more times than i can count and so like i'm wondering like is there some kind of uh like technical obligation that they have that they're just ignoring or is it sort of at the discretion of the agent whether they think it's safe or what's their like official policy there well if you're an agent in the field and you come upon a migrant drowning in the water or you know has slipped and broken their leg and you're trying to decide if you should go down into this area or

jump in the water and stuff it is up to the individual agent to decide if they can handle that so what you find most often the the agents who are in the boats and working on either the the oceans in florida they work on the ocean in california they work on the ocean yeah and then obviously along the rio grande all those agents have specific training obviously in swimming all agents have training in swimming but not at the level that the agents who are working on the water day so you have to go through extra training when you take that position it's like being on the horse patrol you have to go through horse training and so forth but all agents are trained in just basic cpr just basic splinting that kind of first aid stuff but not all agents are what they call was it not vortex but four star the rescue organization that they have now and

that's been starting to like the late 90s and i didn't even see him when i was an agent even though i was there until 2001 i didn't see him out in campo whenever we had a call about a rescue in campo at least the old campo station that was on Forest Gate Road before they changed it all around. We had to go out in teams and that's the only time we worked in teams. Otherwise we, we hiked alone as if we were doing a rescue, especially in the winter time, because it was even more dangerous. And, and we hiked all night until we found them. So us regular agents just on the line would just move our positions and keep going. And we didn't necessarily have any specific training. We didn't rappel out of helicopters back then and do all that stuff.

What I think that they started for was because we had a lot of attrition in the 90s. And it was more about getting us regular agents that patrol the border away from the border because we were having that's when our massive suicide started because of all the death that we were seeing and i think it was an effort to keep the average agent from seeing the brutality of what they were doing quite honestly and. And so like I, as an agent, had lots of experience with dead bodies and so forth. But agents today who are on the line, they don't. They sit in their trucks, they watch the cameras.

And then when a dire thing comes out that somebody needs to be rescued, four-star handles it. They might go do perimeter things and help out a little bit, but they're not involved in the actual rescues. You know, in my day, I didn't know that many agents who had never seen, who had never experienced that. And I kind of think in a weird way that that's what makes today's agents so non-caring, so non-sympathetic to the migrants. We didn't call them invaders. And it's not to say

that we weren't racist and we're brutal. It's just, it's gotten even more brutal and more racist since I was an agent. And certainly, I would say that the brutality that may have happened, that would have happened maybe on an individual basis or with certain groups of agents. It's now policy throughout the whole agency and you're expected to be that brutal. And if you can't be that brutal, then you can't hack it. So, but the idea that they're all first responders,

that just means they wear a badge and have a gun and have a car with, you know, red and blue lights on it, but they're not all necessarily trained in in like the type of rescue that we're talking about in the hakama area in the mountains that yeah it takes very physically i could do it when i was younger but obviously i can't do it now yeah yeah we would have to get our best best agents in some especially if we went north of the checkpoint north of i-8 up into the lagunas we would have to get our best best agents in summer especially if we went north of the checkpoint north of i-8 up into the lagunas we would have to get our best fit agents up there to do that

yeah and it seems like but i don't see them as much certainly like when there's a search and rescue now just like everything else at the border it very often falls on volunteers and community groups and uh people who are willing to give their time and take the non-negotiable personal risk to rescue people? I think we might have rescued more people back then, even with half the amount of agents, simply because when we got the call, we went and we looked. And sometimes we'd meet the federal rallies right at the border

and they'd show us this is the group. And so we'd look for the sign and then we could, know follow the trail frog it and get ahead of it whereas today if you call boar star well all the boar star agents have to get their gear on and then they have to get in the helicopter and then they have to fly out you know yeah and i mean that's even if they're willing so like i know uh was with a group that made a call this weekend for a gentleman who was in distress and had been suffering very greatly from exposure and uh the agent in the office said it would be hours maybe days before they arrived right so like if you can get through if you can get them to come out like um you know that this and that that's very common

that's something that that that is not unusual at all this the disdain for coming to right the disdain for people's lives right for coming to rescue them um it is extremely obvious really and like that's again that's not someone who has to be located like i can give you a gps reading down to you know like i think it's 20 figures you know an extremely accurate location it's just oh yeah we didn't have that in our day i mean we had there was gps but we didn't have gps capability i never worked with gps so i worked with a compass that was pretty much it yeah it's uh it's yeah i mean they have they have more technology than you know i know the agents

today tell me they can see each other in the field so they have something or their gps system allows them to track each other and so they can see where each other is we never had anything yeah they uh it's a military technology it's just like everything else that's trickled down to the border patrol and sometimes trickles from the border patrol down to the military actually with a lot of the surveillance technology and like i think another thing that people might not be aware of and this is something that i think has happened uh recently but it's been going for several years now it's the deployment of the national guard to the border i think people know that that is happening in texas but i think people probably aren't aware that there's also a federal mission to the border right that that encompasses much

more than texas and what are they national guard well i mean they i know they sit outside uh detention camps in hukumba uh shouting at me but i what is their mission in theory at the border what are they doing there well in theory their mission at the border is now they have these giant processing tents you know in san diego and in tucson and other things so in general what they're supposed to be doing is not actively arresting or apprehending people because that according to the law would would violate it what they're supposed to be doing is is maybe sitting in a stationary spot operating the scope where they can tell border patrol at night you know there's a group over here and then the rest of the time they're mostly supposed to be working in the processing centers assisting people if they need to go to

medical or if they need this or that and so they're just supposed to help so that the agents don't have to sit around and babysit so much so that they can be back in the field. That's what they're supposed to be doing. I mean, lots of presidents have done it. Barack Obama did it. So it's not unusual. What is unusual is that in Texas, you have Texas DPS and the military, Texas National Guard, actually pretending like they are Border Patrol agents and running around and apprehending people, even though they do not have that legal authority. The U.S. government has not given it to them. given it to them and then the other thing i think which is legally the most dangerous is where they push the migrants back into the water number one the law is that if you set foot on u.s soil then you're entitled to an immigration hearing if you so choose and you cannot turn somebody back a border patrol agent cannot legally turn somebody back once they've crossed. So once they're across that middle part of the river, they're in the United States and they're your problem now.

So you have to deal with that and you have to process them. You have to figure out who they are. You have to run the records checks and all this other stuff. It would be interesting. You know, the Biden administration hasn't pressed Abbott on this. you know the the biden administration hasn't pressed abbott on this and i've always wondered why are they allowing him to do this and take over immigration as a state authority yeah i think they just don't want to fight it they're just opening yeah they don't want to be attacked on like this like this idea that biden's like there's this myth of biden's opens borders which is

a utterly ridiculous and be like as erica reminded us last week like we all as u.s passport holders have open borders to us all over the world it's very problematic we think other people shouldn't um but yeah i think the idea of like looking weak or like you know he wants to buttress himself against an attack from the right it's the same reason why he won't get rid of the um border patrol union because you know the border patrol union now that donald trump before he left uh died he um gave them what's called security designation so there are they are a security organization now which means they're like the fbi they're like the DA and all this other stuff. And so they can't have a bargaining unit.

So the Border Patrol Union is actually illegal under 5 U.S.C. 7-1-1-2, little b, little 6. But Biden is weak and he doesn't want to look like he hates unions. He always wants to look like he's strong on unions because he's a union politician. And he refuses to get rid of them but the fear and the reason why that law exists is exactly what we see them doing now where the union representatives who are border patrol agents they have national security information and they're actively working against this current administration yeah so that's why we have it but he's just weak and he won't do anything about it. Right. And, and it's certainly, I think whoever wins next time,

they're not going to do anything about it. No. Yeah. I think either way. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, the running interview show where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show,

where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all.

It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio 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. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that

actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. You, like, also pay attention to the BP union, and I think it's one of the worst accounts on twitter.com, Also pay attention to the BP union.

And I think it's one of the worst accounts on twitter.com, but I also like I'm in the event of a Republican victory, which at the moment it's looking like Trump might be the nominee. Right. Certainly it seems to be a lot of support for Trump kind of these people seem to have his ear on immigration and they seem to want the same things. Right. So I'm wonderingiden has been bad his border policy has been objectively bad and it's very hard for me not to see it as racist like it's very hard

for me not to see his immigration policy is specifically favoring white people and specifically disadvantaging black people and i don't think i could be persuaded that's not the case what do you think like it seems that immigration policy only moves one way and it just gets worse and worse and border policy does the same what are they like demanding and what do you think is sort of at stake uh in in the in the upcoming election like this year's election regarding the border so i was paying attention to what speaker johnson was saying before we logged on to to talk and he was saying before we logged on to talk. And he was saying that there was going to be no deal for the border unless Donald Trump was the one doing the deal.

So he doesn't want to even fund the Border Patrol right now. So, I mean, my impression of what the Border Patrol and what the union is trying to do at this moment is that they are trying to make the border as chaotic as absolutely possible and that is their goal they want bodies black and brown bodies coming over that fence and they want the optics of it that's what i think is going on and that's why i think that they're picking specific cities to have a lot of the migrants come through i think is going on and that's why i think that they're picking specific cities to have a lot of the migrants come through i think that that's the reason why they have like specific cities because you saw like a couple of weeks ago they're like oh my god the border's being overrun and oh my god what are we going to do and this and that and then you realize it's just like

three or four sectors and even in within sectors, it's just one or two areas. It's not the entire border. Is it problematic? Is it chaotic? Is it a human rights disaster for the migrants? Yes. Is it that for the Border Patrol? No.

I think the Border Patrol is adding to it. And in fact, when I do the numbers and you compare the staff that we had back when i was an agent and the staff that they have today they're not even apprehending half the amount that each agent apprehended when we were in the patrol back in the day and so you know for them to apprehend a group now when i see them apprehend a group of like even 10 people 12 people yeah they will take five agents to apprehend 12 people. I have apprehended 100 people by myself. And that's not safe. I shouldn't suggest that people do that.

But I have apprehended, and it's normal for a Border Patrol agent to apprehend 20 to 30 people by themselves, including a female agent who at the time was super skinny and super small. And the reason why is because the vast majority of migrants aren't criminals and they're not trying to hurt you. So that's why a single agent can apprehend so many people. But today they use like six or seven agents to apprehend groups. And so I'm not sure why they're overwhelmed quite frankly they they should be able to handle 300 400 000 people a month in the border patrol yeah if they have to yeah and look like even though

a world without the border patrol would be better in a world without this bloated and violent and overfunded and uh and really terribly just a just a mess of cruelty and violence that we have now would be a lot better but things could get a lot worse for those people like even the the time it takes for them to be processed and that the time it takes for them to have their hearing immigration law could change for the worse very quickly if either person wins a presidency and indeed like it seems that biden has floated like a return to title 42 as as a as a compromise to get funding for ukraine so like yeah this inefficiency doesn't just like even when people apprehended their failure to do their jobs hurts people right like it it puts them at greater risk

it does and and i mean a lot of the things that the border patrol has done has created and made these things worse a lot of the areas out near sasa bay a lot of people never even crossed until trump put that wall out there because they didn't have road access to a lot of that area. And if you did have road access, you had to have a very serious four by four to get out there. You can't do it in a regular car and you can't do it in a kind of city type of four by four. You need a serious four by four to get it into some of those areas. And and then just our policies, our deterrence policies. You know, when I was an agent in the 90s,

it cost, you know, probably somebody from Central America cost about $1,800 to get here. Now it's $10,000 or more. So we've made it profitable for people to smuggle people in and cross them illegally. We've created this entire situation ourselves. I mean,

I don't have any doubt that other countries that maybe don't like us, you know, all the migrants coming across, the destabilization that it will cause with people who are racist or who don't know anything about the border, they all see that as a bonus. But the fact of the matter is, is that people who are crossing, they still need asylum. They still have serious needs just because, you know, I've seen some people floating around that people are pushing migrants across our southern border to destabilize us. I don't know if that's necessarily true. We don't have any proof of that. But even if they are, isn't the better attitude to have, because asylum is legal, isn't the better attitude to have, well, how can we better, you know, help these people and not let this destabilize who we are and make them part of our communities and so forth?

I think that's a better choice than sending them out to the desert or to drown in the river. Yeah, absolutely. Like, and I think it bears, I mean, people listening to this will probably be in agreement that, yeah, these people should be treated with dignity and respect regardless. And I generally don't buy that their rights every single advance advance is your own word right but uh increase in surveillance every single increase in state violence every single incursion into individual rights starts at the border and it doesn't stop there right like if you protested in 2020 you were surveilled by technology that came from the border you were sometimes targeted by less

lethal weapons that were first issued to border patrol like your the intelligence that police now gather began with border patrol like so much of the even the stuff that we see used at the border today or the stuff that we see used in surveillance today overwhelmingly comes from either border patrol or the israel gaza border and also most of these things are the same companies right companies that that do one also do the other and so like i guess if people are talking to people who don't seem to care about the rights of migrants which is a worryingly large amount of our society like this will come and bite someone else in it like to include the people who decided to storm the capital on january the 6th 2021 right like lots of the surveillance technology that bit them in the ass came from the border and the people they hated um that's

absolutely true and i mean you know it's the border patrol says this but they mean it in a different way they say what happens at the border doesn't stay at the border. And they mean that because they try and portray migrants as all criminals. So they're trying to tell people, oh, see, these criminals are going to come to Iowa or Illinois or this or that. But I say it in the fact that surveillance is coming to you because, you know, I mean, you know, in San Diego, we got street lamps out here that can listen to us and video us and track wherever we're going down the street from block to block. And it's ridiculous. You can't even walk your dog without being surveilled around here. And yet we're far from them, 20 miles from the border, north of the border, and it's still surveilled around here. And so all of that surveillance, yes yes that's being used on american citizens and when you go to places like mccallan so the rio grande valley sector right now it's

really slow you're getting about a little over a thousand maybe two thousand uh apprehensions a week which is really slow for that size of the sector and they're like you know they have so much surveillance like you can see there's a tower there's a tower there's a tower there and it is all this israeli technology and they can listen to cell phone and you and and that usually needs a warrant but apparently down here on the border and i've had current border patrol agents tell me the fourth amendment doesn't exist down here and it's like what is that what they're teaching here in the fourth amendment doesn't exist down here and it's like what is that what they're teaching here in the academy now doesn't exist down here and apparently that's

what border patrol agents think um and they think they have to id anybody that they see and all this other stuff and it just it's it's interesting how much this is spreading how much the checkpoints are spreading and you know like in my day we didn't do um invasive searches if it wasn't obvious we didn't stop them and nowadays they'll they'll do on full body cavity searches at a checkpoint i'm like what i've never heard of that and so all this stuff is just gonna, it's just getting further and further into the interior of the United States. Like we saw in the Trump administration, like you said, it's going to be brought back out for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. So I wonder like, what, how do we, um, I mean, it does seem very bleak, like I, which is why I like to devote so much of my time to like, like mutual aid work on the border, because it is a meaningful way to help. But how do we move the needle to a more humane place? Like, this is one of the places where, like, I think like we should do whatever we can to make this, like, even if it's it's uh something that would normally be distasteful to us but like

yeah what is it that we can do to either like maybe change people's minds like i'm sure you yourself have changed your mind on what we need to do on the border and like and to to because the conversation around the border is not only toxic but it's also so deeply rooted in ignorance and a lack of understanding and like i don't think we were talking about this before we started but like i encountered a three-year-old girl the other day who was extremely cold she had her feet have been wet and cold for hours days and and she was the cold beyond shivering and we were trying to warm her up and it was very distressing i don't think many people have seen that and i don't think even your like sort of

hardest border bigot facebook uncles would want to look that in the face and be like yeah that's what we should do damn i'm really proud of this country but so how do we move this to a better place do you think i think one of the biggest mistakes that the biden administration did was that they didn't you know in the beginning they hired a lot of really really good people like i think uh andrea flores was was one of the administration people and she she knows her stuff and i think that they had this idea from what she had said that the people that support immigration and immigrant rights and this and that, she asylum system is so important and what the benefits are that it brings to us. And they have never done that. There's no PSAs about it.

There's nothing. And I don't know if NGOs do it on that large environment on cable news or whatever because i don't really watch mainstream news and stuff but americans are just astonished at like when i started doing the tiktok videos and explaining you know border patrol the people in green cbp the blue people didn't know just the basic things the majority of americans who feel that they have a very specific view on immigration, whether they hate it or they love it, they don't know much about immigration. They don't know how it works. They literally think people just get off their couch and go, well, let's just go to America. And they just hop over the fence and they all have money and they're all getting free stuff. So this administration, the government has done nothing to explain what is happening and why it happens.

And I always say that the asylum system is essential to national security. What we saw in the Biden administration when he first opened up the ports of entry to allow specifically Haitians to apply at the ports of entry, we saw the amount of Haitians go from crossing in between the ports irregularly. We saw it going from, you know, thousands down to like a hundred and something. So the idea is that you have to have a robust and humane asylum system where you're processing people, where they don't have to wait so long that they're going to a robust and humane asylum system where you're processing people, where they don't have to wait so long that they're going to give up and cross it regularly.

Because the vast majority of people who believe that they have a legitimate asylum claim, and I do think that what constitutes asylum needs to be revisited because it's outdated, especially now that we have climate change. But is that you want those people to come and be inspected we want people to come and stand outside the port of entry and wait and be inspected by cbp if we're going to have a border and we're going to have all this we would want that so that then we could say okay we've

checked them they appear to be okay they're going to this place now they have an immigration hearing before a judge we're going to make sure that they get the system and, you know, and and then see it more as a system that's a benefit to us instead of creating enemies, which is what we're doing now. Every time a migrant turns around, even if they do are able to get into the United States, the quote unquote legal way at a port of entry, they're still met with you can't work for 150 days. And then you can't do this and you can't do that and you have to show up. And so we're constant. Everything is punishment. Everything is punitive in our immigration system. And we can't do that. We want these people to become citizens. We want these people to become part of our society. We need it. And so we have to have somebody bold enough to explain this to the American people. If you close the asylum system, everybody's going to cross irregularly, just like they did in Title

42. And you're going to get tons and tons of bodies coming across the wall. We need to be bold enough to say we want a humane and robust asylum system where families can wait together and be processed. And then, you know, I mean, the decision between should we fund detention centers and home people who are crossing just waiting for their immigration hearing in detention, or should we fund, you know, humane services like let's get you into whatever city you're going to? Let's help you find a school for your kids. Let's help you learn English. Let's help you find a job.

And you can hire and pay people to do that instead of putting people in detention. It doesn't have to be a punitive system. We've just made it that way because the people in the for-profit prisons before Trump was supposedly elected, they were lobbying Jeff Sessions and Stephen Miller when he was working for Jeff Sessions. And so Geo Group and all them, they're the ones that decided this is how we're going to go. Yeah. And the fact of the matter is, I think we're on a disagreement with open border versus, you know, or having border patrol at all. But I always say an open border is just as dangerous as a closed border. And when you close off the asylum system that forces everybody to then cross in between the ports of entry,

and that is what does overwhelm border patrol. So if you don't want to overwhelm your border patrol, then you have to pull them back. And you have to start processing people like they're supposed to be processed at the port of entry the other thing people forget about is we've had four years literally four years of the asylum system being shut down because of mpp and title 42 there's trump policies it took biden a while to get through all those. But what do you think all those people that were sitting around for four years are doing? They're trying to get over here. So we have a backlog, not just the people in the United States waiting for the immigration hearing, we have a backlog of people in Mexico waiting to come across. So they created this whole thing

themselves. I find it very interesting that the press never mentions that basically what Trump did was close the whole immigration system down and kick the can down the road. Yeah, I mean, consciously or unconsciously, it's like shaking up a can of beer and then someone's got to take a little off at some point, you know, and it's going to blow up. Yeah. And Biden has been willing to. And so it's still going to get kicked down the road i mean people have come in since the end of title 42 but as you say there's a huge backlog and people aren't as you say going to stop coming right because like it's dangerous getting here i've walked those trails and they're not easy and they're certainly not easy when you're carrying

your kid and it's raining and it's dark um but it's i've also been in syria and in iraq and in other places where these people are coming from and i understand why they're doing it and i would do it too if i had a family and i wanted to escape that so i think we're laughing if we think that that we're going to i mean we've tried to make our border as unpleasant as those places and as deadly as those places. And fortunately, we failed. And so that doesn't mean people will stop coming, whatever we do. We've had 30 years of walls and border patrols concept of deterrence policies that they claim will prevent people from crossing irregularly or illegally.

And they've all failed. And I think it's time to try something new. I think it's time to stop listening to the people who get all the money and get all the guns and get all the militarization saying it has to be this way. It does not have to be that way. And I think it's very important to point out that we live in the United States of America, even though we have a lot of problems and we're possibly losing our democracy in our country right now it is still far better than the places that these people are coming from and we should be thankful for that and then just figure out a way to protect ourselves as best as we can you know yeah yeah i think i think that's yeah this is a good place to end like we should be grateful that for now we live in a much more stable place

and that we're able to, we have the resources to welcome people and their benefit to our communities when we don't turn them away from us. Yeah. We need people right now. Yeah. People forever bitching about not being able to find people to work and also at the same time turning away people who would love, you know, every migrant I meet in Okumba messaged me on WhatsApp saying, hey, struggling to find work because they don't get work authorization, right? There are a lot of jobs that need doing and a lot of people who want to do them.

And we're so wrapped up in our bigotry and xenophobia that we won't let them do it. Right. We've made it as difficult for them as we absolutely positively can. Yeah. Jen, thank you for joining us. Is there any way that people can follow you online? You've done a really good job at sort of cracking some of the board patrols nonsense recently.

So where can people find that? They can find it on Jen, J-E-N-N-B-U-D-D dot com. Great. That's a good resource. And thank you so much, Jen. We really appreciate

your time. I appreciate you too. Cheers. Bye. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts

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