It Could Happen Here - The Deadly New Underwater Border Fence

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

Robert and James sit down with Marianna Wright (director of the Butterfly Center) and Jenn Budd (a former Border Patrol officer) to talk about the newest anti-migrant fuckery at the U.S. / Mexico border.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. 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 music, 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. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. I'm Robert Evans and this is a podcast about things falling apart. And nowhere, I don't know, showcases collapse quite as well as the U.S.-Mexico border. And that's my little introduction.

Now I'm going to pivot over to James Stout. James, what are we talking about today? Well, today we are talking about the US-Mexico border, specifically in the great state of Texas, which people might remember from its winter power grid failures, its upcoming summer power grid failures, and Greg Abbott's sort of hilarious and also very cruel and terrible antics on the border. And we're joined today by one guest who, or two guests we've had before to talk about the border on the podcast. We've got Jen Budd,

a former senior border patrol agent and author and an activist, and Mariana Trevino-Wright, who people will remember as the butterfly lady, the previous owner of an M4 assault rifle, the lady who made the cop walk off her butterfly sanctuary once, and hero occasionally of Twitter.com.

How are you guys? We're good. We're good. Good to see you guys. That is nice to hear because we are, this is normally the time of year where Texas is rough climacticallyically in this particular year it's it's downright apocalyptic down there yeah we just don't go outside you're likely to vaporize spontaneously yeah it looks bad yeah and so what i've gathered us here today to discuss is the upcoming implementation of a floating border wall,

a barrier which is going to make children drown. I don't really know how to describe it. Perhaps one of you could sort of describe this proposed. Greg Abbott's talking about it, but it's clearly not just a state thing. So perhaps we could start out by explaining exactly what he's been talking about, what this design looks like. So the floating border wall, I confess in the beginning I was kind of like, I don't get it. Because I'm thinking a wall extending upwards. But essentially what it is are these giant buoys, buoys that are very tightly woven together so that you can't go in between them and then the

buoys also spin so if you grab onto them you're going to just spin down and then underneath the buoys is uh four feet of netting so if you try and swim underneath it, you will be captured in the netting and then you will likely drown. It's originally, I think the original design for the makers was to prevent groups like Greenpeace and so forth from getting to oil, what do you call them, oil stands out in the middle of the ocean and keep their boats from getting to them. So now they're going to use them and string them because the border technically, most Americans I don't think know this, the border technically along a lot of parts of the Rio Grande in Texas is in the middle of the river, depending on where the river is flowing that year.

And so they will have to also be weighted down as well. And so they will have to also be weighted down as well. And the hope for the governor is that most of the people will drown trying to get over to the U.S. side, which means their bodies will remain in Mexico. And then we won't have to deal with them. Easy peasy. Yeah, that is a particularly dark consideration. I hadn't thought of. Our border is already. If people aren't familiar with Decolonial Atlas,

they have some good visualizations, but you can see where migrants die. They have one, I think it's called Where Migrants Die, and there are various sort of colors for different people dying from exposure, people dying from dehydration, drowning. And overwhelmingly, people don't die on the way here. They die within a few miles of our southern border,

normally on the northern side. Our border is already, and Jen has covered this extensively, how our border is already killing people. But this is, I think, particularly cruel. Is it something that, like, Abbott started talking about it maybe a month or so ago, maybe two months ago now. Is it something that he's doing sort of of his own, like the Arizona sort of container wall? Or is it something that he's proposing as a sort of federal operation?

What's going on with? Well, I think he originally probably got the idea because in the Trump administration, they had promoted this. And so I believe that the former chief under Trump, Rodney years, to research this and make something like this happen. But I think that they abandoned that because they knew that that's just not going to fly federally. But although, why wouldn't it? I mean, all deterrence policies are based on this kind of cruelty. So I guess visually, they thought it would be too much. But since Rodney Scott is no longer the chief of the Border Patrol and he resigned, he's been working with the state of Texas and specifically with Governor Greg Abbott to develop new policies and so forth. And he's been down there helping the union and helping other ex-Border Patrol agents come up with new policies and new cruelties for Greg Abbott to install. So I think originally the idea was a federal idea, and now it's come down to the state of Texas. Okay.

So I guess how far along is the state of Texas in? Like I know before Trump built his border wall, we had these little 30-foot prototypes in San Diego, and he gave a lot of contracts to people who'd given him a lot of money in his election campaign. What's it? Wheatland Tube, I think is the big one. It makes steel. But how far is the state of Texas along in its plan to create a floating murder barrier the buoy barrier border barrier is already created and it's available in various lengths and i i should add in addition to the buoys in between the buoys are spinning radial blades so you yeah it just i mean every aspect of this how can i miss that is a bloody nightmare yeah i went to the manufacturer site and it it addresses this too um so you can't even get to

like the middle of the buoy with uh you know something and and cut the string of buoys because they're these radial razor blades too so the state will be deploying it in thousand foot strips and jen and i did a little uh podcast on this uh i don't know a couple months ago, when we first saw these signs appearing on the river, and they were super strange. It was Memorial Day weekend, I believe. And they were numbered. And they said like, RGV for Rio Grande Valley, RGV 191, 19 192 193 we thought are these mile markers like we have on the freeway but they weren't at any particular distance and they were put at various spots that appeared as though they could be areas where migrants cross they can also be the paths where the cows and the horses come down to drink. Jen's been on the river with us. She's observed that at various platforms on the river where

water pump stations are for farmers and irrigation districts and such. So we saw these signs. such. So we saw these signs. The RGV-191 is facing the river, facing Mexico. The backside of it is a caution, danger, risk of drowning sign in English and in Spanish, but it is facing the United States on the bank of the Rio Grande River in the United States. So it's in no way a caution to anyone who might be approaching the river. And we thought, why are they suddenly putting up these signs? Because, you know, forever people have been crossing the river and Border Patrol is on the boats there, Texas DPS, the Coast Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard, now game wardens, now Florida Highway Patrol and Florida Fish and Game and all these. I mean, it is

everybody's floating the river now, not for recreation, but hunting migrants. And so then we thought, well, maybe these are so that when these out-of-state interlopers, and at times even the militia who show up to help them, could easily communicate with the authorities. Say I'm at marker number 191 or whatever. Then it was just a few days after that, that the announcement of this floating border buoy barrier came up. And my guess is the markers will be used to determine where those are deployed, where they get moved, and that sort of thing, so that then they can be accounted for. Right. So are they proposing the entirety of the river be covered by this thing, or are they going to move segments of it to areas where they think it's a high-traffic area?

They're going to begin in Eagle Pass, where four people drown just this weekend uh but then according to steve mcgraw who's head of texas dps it sounds like they will be putting them all along the river in areas they believe are high traffic right yeah yeah and jesus christ it is the darkest thing and yeah eagle pass is where all those people died in the uh in the unair conditioned trailer like i think two years ago right was that eagle pass those kind of trailer horrors have happened near us in Falfurius and San Antonio. Unfortunately, they happen throughout the border region. And there are so many ports of entry, land ports of entry along the Texas-Mexico border, because Mexico is our number one trading partner with the US. And we have NAFTA, which established the North American Free Trade Zone.

So if you have a television or a refrigerator or you drive a car in the United States today, chances are those pieces and parts are manufactured in Mexico in the free trade zone. And then they get brought over by Trump. Same thing with so much of our produce. brought over by truck. Same thing with so much of our produce. So the amount of that trailer traffic is enormous. And those trailers are used for human smuggling at much higher numbers, we should note, than the river area. Same as for narcotics trafficking. Those things are coming across by the truckload and in shipping vessels, not in small bundles across the Rio Grande River. Right. Yeah. I think most narcotics enter the country through ports of entry rather than between ports of entry. Jen's nodding. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. the the narcotics

that are very expensive even when i was an agent in the mid-90s i used to say why do we only get marijuana and and the agents would say well because cocaine's too expensive to put on somebody's back and hike it through the mountain yeah across the river or in the desert so it's just easier to buy off a cbp buy off a CBP agent or a Border Patrol agent and just get waved on through. Yeah, they're not like dumb. Otherwise, like these are huge money businesses. You're not throwing a half a million dollars of cocaine

on some guy's back. Yeah. And risking it floating away in the Rio Grande River. I mean. Yeah, it's just valuable merchandise. Like they're no more cavalier with it than like Target is, you know? real brand river. I mean. Yeah. It's valuable merchandise. Like there, there, there are no, like no more cavalier with it than like target is, you know,

like. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Welcome. I'm Danny. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnal tales from the shadows 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. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian, Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian, Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzales wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother

died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Obviously, this is part of a sort of larger... Abbott does a lot of posturing on the border, right? And that posturing has real consequences for migrants.

And it has real consequences for people living on both sides of the border as well. Especially, I think, people who have listened to our previous coverage of that will be very well aware of that. Perhaps we could sort of characterize this within the context of Operation Lone Star, within the other, like you've said, right, the other deployments. It's not just even Texas National Guard who are now deployed to the border. So could you give us like an overview of all the ridiculous lapping that's been done? of all the ridiculous lapping that's been done? Well, there are 12 or 13 states to date that have sent prison guards, their National Guard,

fish and game or wildlife officers, and state police to the border. And this is related to, you know, two different campaigns, basically by the Border Patrol Union. One is Biden Border Crisis with that hashtag, which they launched in March of 2021. And the other is every state is a border state, which was a battle cry for MAGA politicians during the midterms. And so what we see now are these red states with governors who want to capitalize on looking tough on immigration, sending reinforcements to the border. DeSantis obviously was the first to do that because he's

been very vocal about envying Abbott and how Abbott had kind of a leg up on him in any campaign because Abbott got the border and Abbott got to, as you said, posture there and be, you know, the new sheriff in town and, you know, stepping in where Sleepy Joe is, you know, not performing. But what we see in reality is Brandon Judd, who's the president of the National Border Patrol Council, was stuck to Trump. You know, they were best buddies and, you know, basically campaigning together. And then Brandon Judd kind of fell away from Trump when he lost re-election and has become Greg Abbott's best buddy and press junket sidekick and helped stage the launch of Operation Lone Star, which, you know, was like a 4th of July type parade with the tanks and the helicopters and the planes and the boats and the, you know, the ATV agents and the horses, the whole nine yards. And people think, I think most

people in the United States believe that Abbott is this renegade doing this all on his own. doing this all on his own. And what we see as the reality is it is a joint operation between the state government and the federal government, but the feds won't admit to it because of the optics. It's bad enough that Biden continued border wall construction, which most of his supporters opposed. Now he is working hand in glove with Abbott. And when I say our experience, what we see daily and what I have documented is U.S. Border Patrol working with Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and Operation Lone Star Texas National Guardsmen literally riding in the same vehicles together, responding to scenes, patrolling together. bonding to scenes, patrolling together. And at the Butterfly Center, we had National Guard, Texas National Guard parked on the levee at our property,

blocking our access back and forth. And I went and said, hey guys, you know, this is our property and we have to have access to it during regular business hours for, you know, my staff who are working here and our members and visitors who come to explore and enjoy. So I need y'all to move. I need you to move your Humvee so we can get back and forth. And I recorded this interaction as I do all. And they said, ma'am, we don't take our orders from you. We take our orders from border patrol. And that was a revelation to me when this happened a couple of years ago.

So I actually got on the phone with the patrol agent in charge, the highest ranking border patrol agent at the McAllen station. And I said, his name is Tony Crane. I said, Tony, you need to come out here and tell these guys to move. They're saying they'll only do it for you and they only take orders from you. And Tony drove out there to the butterfly center, to the levee and instructed the National Guard to move their vehicle. And they did. And this is something we've seen over and over. And I now have in email, regional director of Texas DPS, Victor Escalon, who the rest of the nation may know from the Uvalde tragedy. I have email from him where he is invoking the federal statute that DPS claims gives them the authority to ignore our Fourth Amendment rights and enter private property without warrant as long as they're working with Border Patrol. And they are claiming that they are doing so at the request of the

united states attorney general according to the federal statute oh yeah and importantly the like federal government in any of its aspects isn't saying no this isn't true or like you know that they're working like you say hand in hand with these and like it's not even just a joint federal and state operation like i know i think it was south dakota's deployment was it that was funded by a wealthy individual like the state didn't pay for it um i can't remember which dakota it was but yeah it was funded by a wealthy donor who paid for it and Yeah, whichever state Kristi Noem is in charge of, yes. And I believe that also happened in Kentucky or Tennessee. Same thing. It was a wealthy donor who funded their State National Guard deployment. Yeah. And then perhaps, Jen, you could explain to people

why it is so different if they believe they have these um within 100 miles of border and then again within 25 miles of the border so many of your fundamental rights don't apply and could you explain how that works and then how then if the national guard see themselves as also having the ability to sort of waive the fourth amendment what that would mean for the privacy of people living along the border in the united states border patrol academy so i i went through the academy and um i started in june of 1995 so i can at least testify to that they basically you know i had a four-year-in-law so i knew a little basics about it and then going to the academy it was really kind of

sad because they don't really teach you much of anything they're just like you know your their rights are limited we're allowed within 25 miles of the border by the law to go on anybody's private property and even search their buildings as long as it's not a domicile, and that can sometimes be in question, whether it's being used as a domicile or we consider it as a domicile. And then within 100 miles of any land or sea border, which encompasses two thirds of the United States population, we can basically stop you and ask you to prove that you're a United States citizen. you and ask you to prove that you're a United States citizen. And so then they increase that with checkpoints that are a little ways away from the border, where they, under the guise of asking for your citizenship, they then get to police American citizens or legal residents. And as the years have progressed, Border Patrol keeps trying to push those authorities. In the beginning, you know, we weren't allowed to work

with local PD, the local sheriffs. There was a very clear separation, a very clear line between Border Patrol and local cops, or at least legally on written paper there were supposed to be. And after 9-11, what we end up seeing is the Border Patrol decides to get very heavily invested into surveillance. And it's not a coincidence, former Chief Rodney Scott was in charge of that during that time. And his basic statement was, you know, if a car is bombed in Iraq, the Border Patrol needs to know about it. So they considered anything in the world to be important to the Border Patrol. And they wanted the Border Patrol to be the go-to agency in as far as surveillance. So that's why you see them being used in Black Lives Matter protests and things like this.

And we saw them a lot in the Trump administration where they were supposedly guarding federal buildings and then went and attacked them. So what you see is the Border Patrol trying to quietly eke into what is typically considered peace officer authority. So they're trying to get peace officer authority in texas through the state legislature and they just keep trying to expand their authority more and more what i see in texas specifically is when you look at the history of immigration when the united states when we first you know when when when texas first became a state and all this other stuff. Originally, the states did their own immigration patrolling. And so if you went and you decided you're going to somehow you landed on the coast in Georgia,

then you would have to go to a Georgian official and pay whatever it is that they required of you and stuff. And so what I see more and more is like Texas is taking back that authority and saying, we're the ones that are going to say this. And so then they can make money off of the deterrence policies and all of this other stuff. So it's just a constant expand expansion of, of the rights of the cops while at the same time, constantly reducing the rights to to the people who live here. And even the people that cross here, a lot of people think they'll say that migrants don't have any constitutional rights. Well,

that's not true. They have constitutional rights because it says people in the US Constitution. It doesn't say citizens. So in certain areas, it will say citizens, and then that is exclusive to United States citizens. But the basic rights are afforded to even migrants. But because the migrants don't have much of a voice, the Border Patrol gets away with everything, secret teams, cover-up teams, and all this other stuff. secret teams, cover-up teams, and all this other stuff. Border Patrol agents will just flat out tell you, Constitution doesn't exist down here. And they never get in trouble for it. Yeah. One of the things Jen just touched on is Texas DPS getting in on this immigration business is when Governor Abbott declared that Operation Lone Star would be targeting Hispanic males, and in some places they talk about a fighting age. So they're already depicting all of these individuals as like soldiers in some invasion in a gang war and you know that they're again hostile combatants to the United States but they were going to charge them all with criminal trespass. So we hear a lot about how awful the cartel is and how much money they take from migrants and then hold them for ransom and how expensive it is to get across.

Well, once they get across, the state of Texas becomes the cartel. They arrest them, charge them with criminal trespass, put them in the county jail. It's a $5,000 fine. Then when they're released from state custody, they're immediately handed over to federal detention. And that is generally the for-profit, GeoGroup, or CoreCivic. And there, my understanding is fines for detention can be $10,000 to $12,000 for your federal detention. And so here we have, it used to be just the for-profit federal detention facilities cashing in on our criminal immigration policies. And Governor Abbott's like, hey, why aren't we getting a piece of the pie? So that is what Operation Lone Star is really about. It's not about public safety.

It's not that all this fentanyl is coming across the Rio Grande River, being smuggled by migrants. river being smuggled by migrants. It's about cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching, putting all of them in to the county jail at $5,000 a head. Yeah. Yeah. And it's all the while, right? I know some of the Texas National Guard people aren't getting the benefits they would normally get if they'd been mobilized or deployed because it's a state deployment, not a federal deployment. And as much as Abbott and DeSantis try and paint the border as a dangerous place full of, I don't know, drug warlords and cartel violence, overwhelmingly, the people in Lone Star who have died have died because they got drunk and drove because they had an accident with a personally owned firearm because Texas law

doesn't allow them to stop the National Guard bringing their own weapons they're they're not getting into gunfights with sicarios right like it's not it's not any any uh anything like that it's the standard problem of taking a bunch of men away from the place they normally live and making them do mind-numbing duty yeah yeah and they're they're doing mind-numbing duty in you know exasperating heat it's boring as hell. We see them asleep in vehicles, watching Netflix, doing other things. When National Guard totaled their Enterprise rental truck on the gate at the National Butterfly Center, what we found were Bud Light cans on the ground, which we can only assume bounced out of the truck bed when that truck made impact and was destroyed. The local police will not release any public information related to calls and reports that they have to take of drunken disorderly conduct, noise complaints,

property damage, sexual assault, all of these things happening at the hotels where National Guard is staying. But we know from visitors and from property managers and others that this is happening regularly because yeah they don't have good leadership and it and it's it's frankly it's like really young kids that are down there and the other thing that that we need to say too is that the the national guard that's being posted there the the the young National Guard kids are seeing increased rates of suicide. And that's something that's particular to Border Patrol agents, because when you're an oppressor and you do that kind of work, then you're going to end up, the suicide rates go through the roof as they are with the Border Patrol. And now you're seeing that with the National Guard. But Mariana's right.

Border Patrol. And now you're seeing that with the National Guard. But Mariana's right. There's a lot there's a lot of stuff that that they're suppressing about what these National Guard kids are getting into because they're bored down there. So they're sitting down there in Texas drinking and opening it up and getting in trouble. But it's all kind of hush hush quiet about that. Yeah. And not only are they bored, but these are like you said, 18, 19 18 19 20 21 year olds getting paid six thousand dollars a month like they have never had this kind of cash before and what are they going to do with it yeah they're gonna go buy guns at our local pawn shop yep they pay the national guard that well that's what they're being paid. Really?

Initially, their taxes were not being withheld or anything. Because they're on deployment. Yeah, that was a whole other issue. of a regular deployment and the ones who were working in law enforcement already as police officers, firefighters, paramedics and such, they also, while they're on deployment, do not accrue their hours toward their pensions. So they're taking another hit for that. And so these were all things that I guess the state didn't really think through when they called all these people up and forced them to come sit on the border and do mind numbing work for the most part. No, it's just it's a terrible idea, like comprehensive. It's one of those things, if you spent any time studying the surge in Iraq in kind of the later part of the Bush years and some of the shit that happened when they just grabbed a bunch of National Guard guys and threw them. It's a lot of the same shit.

It's people who were finding ways to get alcohol and drugs, who were crashing cars, who were – because, yeah, it's just – this is an inevitable consequence, which is why you shouldn't do something like this unless there's like a dire reason to need to bring the National Guard into a situation like a natural disaster. Yeah, I think. Go ahead. I would I would say that they all need house mothers. Like fraternities have and stuff, because every time I run into one of these young men and they start to like look at me or open their mouth a certain way, I just want to grab them by the ear and be like, you know, Junior, I'm going to spank you, you know. Whippersnapper. Yeah. You are 19. You should not be in this position right now. Yeah. You are 19. You should not be in this position right now.

Go home? Get out of here. Yeah, go back to your mom. Yeah, we spoke to a few- Yeah, shut up or I'll take your gun from you too. Yeah, but we spoke to a few of them, like Robert and I, when we were down there, and one of them was just saying he was trying to get some money for college. I don't think they're accruing those benefits because if they're under state orders, they don't get it.

So Greg Abbott's kind of screwing everyone apart from himself and his little friends, I guess. 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 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. 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. 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, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com.

On Thanksgiving Day 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.

At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Maybe to finish up, I know that one, I think the only case like I can come across of this happening of someone dying or trying to rescue migrants was a National Guard soldier who tried

to rescue people from the river and drowned, from what I understand. Obviously, this drowning barrier is going to, if Border Patrol are even invested in getting people from the river, which they might not be if they're still on the Mexican side of the border, in theory would put the border right it in theory would put those people those like national guard and border patrol agents in danger too and so what have border patrol to say about the the floating barrier so far they haven't said anything about it so far and there have been a few border patrol agents who've lost their lives jumping into the river as well there have been other migrants who lost their lives trying to save their children and so forth. Migrants die every day in that river. And the Border Patrol is just going to stay quiet about it because they like it. It's their management who's going along with it.

And if they didn't like it, and if the Biden administration didn't like it, then they would come out and say so, or they would come out and have Chief Gloria Chavez come out and say, no, we're not going to have this. This is going to kill people. This is not right. You know, on our first blah, blah, blah, which we all know it's bullshit. But the truth is, is they really don't care. They just don't care. And as they say in the Border Patrol, and we learn and you all learn, I knew it, but you all learn from the 1015 group on Facebook.

They call them floaters and take pictures of them and make fun of it. So the Border Patrol could care less. It's just one less migrant they got to process. Well, and, you know, as Jen said, if U.S. Border Patrol was opposed to this new border barrier, they would say something. Well, I think it's even worse than that. In 2018, Trump got border wall funding. And as you mentioned, he had his, you know, commando climb all these border wall prototypes in the desert and all of that. In 2019, he got his second tranche of border wall funding. But 2020 and 2021 were continuing resolutions. So he was getting border wall funding after that, but it was always for existing approved designs.

And those are the concrete with the steel bollards. So for, even though Trump floated the idea of this border barrier, this floating border wall, to get congressional approval or U.S. Army Corps of Engineer approval for such a thing would have been an issue. such a thing would have been an issue. Also, there's the issue of the International Boundary and Water Commission Treaty, which is a binational treaty with Mexico that governs the Rio Grande River, the water that flows in it, the boundaries, who gets to take how much water from it, things that are built and might affect the flow of the river. As Jen mentioned, the international boundary is the middle of the river, no matter where the river is flowing now, because over millions of years, it has shifted. The channel has shifted many, many times and greatly. So we know the feds, probably Border Patrol with the Trump administration, so DHS, wanted this floating border wall.

The easiest way for them to get it is to have Governor Abbott do it. the Real ID Act. In that act of legislation, Congress gave the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to waive every law, local, state, federal, for border barrier. So it doesn't say border wall. It says border barrier. So presumably this buoy border barrier would also be covered. So the feds don't have to worry about something like the National Environmental Policy Act or the Endangered Species Act or the Rivers and Harbors Act in deploying this. But they do not have authority to waive treaties or the Constitution. So since at least 2005, the federal government has been trying to devise ways to effectively waive the IWWC treaty. One of the treaty, in spite of Mexico's objections, thereby setting a legal precedent effectively waiving the treaty.

But now Abbott can do this, and who's going to sue him? The IBWC isn't going to do a damn thing because they have no authority to sue on their own. They have to go to the federal government and ask the Wall fraud fence in violation of the treaty. The other issue is Texas doesn't have to abide by NEPA or any equivalent law. And we know that the feds have in the past devised really nasty reach-arounds for the law, where if they get busted doing something illegal, like having Customs and Border Protection spray imazapyr, a broad-spectrum herbicide that is a known carcinogen, all over people, animals, and plants on the border, they get sued and made to stop that. They'll simply pass the money through to the state of Texas and ask them to continue it. And I think this floating buoy border barrier is exactly that kind of thing. The Biden administration

can say, we're not doing it, and they don't have to get approval for this design. And they'll just find a way to either pass the money through to Texas or. Allow Texas to continue to basically fundraise for it by prosecuting immigrants for criminal trespass and fining them to get out of county jail. Yeah, well, that is dark. I think it's interesting to point out, though, that when Governor Ducey of Arizona put up his train car thing, the Biden administration did get involved with that, and they were upset about that. So far, we haven't seen anything about this and and so we'll see if they deploy it and the biden administration stays quiet about it yeah i mean we're closing in on uh like november 2024 and i think biden really is very sensitive

about being seen as quote-unquote weak on the border and like given the absolute disaster that was the end of title 42 and the way they handled that and you know they didn't really say anything when border patrol was clearly holding people in conditions that are in violation of their own detention uh standards like i don't have high hopes for the biden administration it's yeah it's interesting because you would think like the whole thing from the union and everybody that is pro border patrol and anti-immigrant was like if you end title 42 then then it's just going to overwhelm the border patrol and more people will come and we kept saying for a year like no that's not going to happen it's going to be drastically cut and so it's drastically cut and i you would think the biden administration would be like look what i did yeah no yeah and

but they're not i mean like like they have no clue how to talk about the border and what to do on the border it's sad well it's this double-edged sword of get in line do it the legal way so the people who say we're not anti-immigrant we just want them to do it the legal way. So the people who say we're not anti-immigrant, we just want them to do it the legal way and get in line. So Title 42 ends, we've got the CBP1 app, which gives them an appointment so they can stand in line to cross at a legal point of entry, port of entry and do it legally. And now they've got to find a way to thwart that and to mess it up and and biden as you said is not saying look at what we did we've got everybody standing in line doing it the legal way yeah i think they don't want to look at cbp one too hard given what a disaster it's been and and how how

biased it's been and how bad it continues to be but yeah for sure for sure they've failed to offer any other options and yeah i don't really have any hope that things will not just get worse there seems to be a bipartisan consensus that it's okay to kill lots of people trying to come to our country for help because it's it's bad if fox news is mean to you jen has been uh very vocal and produced lots and lots of research and documentation on um how our deterrence policies are designed to kill and um and they're not a whole lot of people using the g word but jen has been courageous enough to do it. I was recently told by my employer that I could not use it. And I think it's a horror, but Jen can speak to it. We have to do a whole other episode on that.

Yeah, I think we should do. Well, we're definitely going to keep covering this because it's one of the things that just disappears from a lot of national media in between election cycles or in between. Well, and unfortunately, it's one of the things where kind of the numbers are heading in the wrong direction nationwide because like the border,

like the right is winning on border stuff right now. The right is winning on immigration. Like there's some pretty dark polling. Like as much as some of the last couple of elections have been positive in terms of the pitiful performance of like kind of MAGA Republicans. Like if you look at kind of how Americans are polling on border issues and immigration issues, it's pretty bleak at the moment. And I don't really I don't think anyone has a great clear clue as to like how to reverse that at the moment, which isn't to say that it can't be reversed. It's just it's it's it's difficult. Well, it's difficult, especially when the Democrats are always ceding the argument to the Republicans. Like, they're afraid to make the argument that a robust and humane asylum system that can inspect the people requesting asylum is a national security issue. And you need one.

You can't just not have an asylum system. You have to have it. It's an essential part to the national security infrastructure. So people that argue that we shouldn't have an asylum system because it's a threat to national security are completely ignorant about what they're talking about. And so they have to start framing it as a national security issue, you know, one where we can have people come and be inspected and so forth. And then the people who are the nefarious people, yeah, they're going to go in between the ports of entry, fine, arrest those people, but let's have a humane system otherwise. It's also fundamental to the success of our economy. And with, you know, the U.S. birth rate is declining and without a robust, safe, timely immigration system, ideally one that allows people to go back and forth. Because what I hear from people here is,

I miss my country. I want to return to my country. I want to come here to see my family, to work for a season or for a spell, to send money home. But then I want to be able to return. And our current system, it's too deadly to allow them to make it through and then go back and attempt to do that a second second time. Another issue related to the narrative and red winning on immigration is we found at the Butterfly Center that when Biden continued building border wall, and we said, oh my gosh, you know, this is what's happening. And we posted photos and video and everything of it. People who had supported us, Democrats, liberals with a capital L who had supported us said, you're lying or that's just they're continuing Trump's. Trump's, they had to. And then when we contradicted every one of those arguments with facts, then was president about being humane, about needing an effective system, about creative solutions and all of this. And now it's suddenly, well, you know, we can't let everybody in. And so I have honestly found, and I'm going to take a lot of flack for this, but there's basically no difference between a moderate Republican and a liberal capital L.

Yeah, it certainly seems that way. Certainly, Trump had months of Title 42, Biden had years of it. Like it's... Yeah, certainly. I mean, it's, I think, pretty much impossible to argue with that, at least on a broad scale. Like if you're just kind of like looking at national trends,

there's ample support for that argument. Yeah. I mean, Obama deported more people than anyone. Absolutely. Yeah. Massive number. Yeah. Well, cool.

Yeah. Yeah. On that happy note. Yeah. Where can people find out more terrible stuff about the border? Is there a podcast they can listen to? We do have a podcast uh border patrol watch mariana and i have kind of started it just to talk about a lot of these issues that we feel

are being left out and um it's on youtube we also have a tiktok uh account and twitter for the moment we'll see how that goes. And Facebook and Instagram. And there is borderpatrolwatch.com. Yeah. And that list, there's a page on there for all the agents arrested for rape and pedophilia. There's a corruption page. There's a page on how they try and indoctrinate the youth

down here on the borderlands and so forth. So, yeah, I'm all about that jazz. Yeah, that's hashtag on a first. And so where can people, it's all Border Patrol Watch. How about you two? Do you guys have individual accounts? Where can they find you? Jen is doing most of this, and I believe it's under the Border Patrol Watch banner. Yeah, it is. most of this and I believe it's under the border patrol watch banner because um you know both of us found ourselves targeted or throttled or um being you know really uh suppressed by twitter

and uh facebook and lost my 40,000 followers yeah oh wow yeah but bottom trial which is great you had a great thread on uh agents who are facing charges for sexual assault and that's a very small minority of agents who have done sexual assaults certainly uh but yeah there's some really good information for people on there yeah those are just the ones who are being prosecuted or have been convicted yeah exactly yeah most of them sadly have not and even the ones who are being prosecuted or have been convicted. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Most of them sadly have not. And even the ones who have, it took too long and it was far too convoluted.

We can talk again on that happy topic another day. But thank you so much for giving us some of your afternoon, guys. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you guys for all you do and for getting the word out. 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.

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