It Could Happen Here - The Importance of Mutual Aid Work on the Border

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

James talks to Heval and Aloe about the increasing number of people in outdoor detention in Jacumba and how you can help.   https://borderkindness.org/donate/ Alotrolado.org/donateSee 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. You should probably keep your lights on for

Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of riot. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. search. Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Hey everyone, it's James. I am just recording an introduction for today's episode, which we recorded on Sunday night.

I'm recording this on Monday night, and you will hear this on Tuesday morning. That's Tuesday the 28th of November. I just wanted to include another ask for donations right up front here, because we are tired, broke, and sad. I spent last night sleeping out by the migrant camp in uh in hakumba one of the camps um it was extremely cold like and i had a good sleeping bag right it must have been much much worse for people who have blankets uh i uh had had a young woman that completely breaking down and crying this morning understandably because it's terrible and people have been there for five six days now we ran out food at all our distribution sites today. We just desperately need more help.

And we need a much larger scale operation, but we can't fund that. So if you're able to help, please, please do. I know it's a difficult time of year. I'm not asking you to give money that I wouldn't give. I'm a thousand plus dollars deep in this. I'm not asking you to do money that I wouldn't give. I'm a thousand plus dollars deep in this. I'm not asking you to do things that I wouldn't do. I'm spending half my week out there.

I'm not just preaching something that I am not part of. This is something I'm very much part of. Something that's very important to me and it would mean a lot to me if people could help however they can, either materially or with their time. Thank you very much, and I hope you enjoy the episode. Hi, hello, it's me, James, the guy who does podcasts, who talks to you when you're driving to work. And today, on this podcast, it could happen here, which is about the world falling apart and people who are putting it back together. I am joined by two friends of mine.

We are in the desert in Okumba at the Okumba Hot Springs Hotel, which is open now, thankfully. We've just spent most of today and the last two months doing a mutual aid project out here. So if you guys would like to introduce yourselves in any way you think is relevant, that would be great to start off with. And then we can talk about what's been going on here. I am Haval. I use they, them pronouns. I live in San Diego, but now currently living in the Hakumba, helping out with the migrant crisis at the border. border. Hi, I'm Aloe, like Aloe Vera. I use she, her pronouns and I've been doing mutual aid for a couple of years now and recently have come into the scene of helping with the refugee crisis at the border. Massive. Thank you. Okay. So I think to start off with, can one of you or both of you describe just what we've seen today? I think it's very hard for people to get a grasp of the scale of what's happening and how bad it is here.

Yeah. So today we are in the wake of a holiday where CB cbp takes off well most of them are taking off for the holiday and probably uh what is it iss action as well who picks up the migrants so there's a huge backlog of people not getting picked up stuck in these open air detention sites and this is some of the highest numbers that we've seen in a long time since the beginning of this, what happened in September, right? Yeah. And it's insane, the amount of people that we were running out of food, basically. We barely made it by on peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

The world famous peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yeah, that's why they're coming here. Because we feed them. They just want the sandwich. That's not true. And it was wild. feed them they just want the sandwich and it was wild it was it's it's you like the desperation is getting worse because as it gets colder you know people are suffering more they're you know shivering more so it's using more energy they're more hungry when we show up they're tailing our van as we pull

up which doesn't didn't always happen and yeah the desperation is real we saw what like 360 i think at one camp willows and then at another camp it was 150 180 at another camp totaling what 700 math is hard yeah and it varies throughout the day right like um so perhaps we should explain uh maybe aloe can do this what What is an open air detention site, right? OADS is the acronym we use. What does that look like? So an open air detention center, from what I've seen, is literally just people left out in the desert with nothing. The shelter that they have has either been built themselves by the shrubs and the manzanita bushes that they find around there that they also burn, which creates awful smoke, as well as what we provide

them in terms of tarps, blankets, tents. What I've seen in the open air detention centers is essentially when Border Patrol has the start of a quarter, they have the money to really get people out of there. You have a lot of people just processed very quickly. It doesn't pile up. And then because of that, all the infrastructure that we put into these places and all of the infrastructure that these refugees build themselves, right?

This is not provided by border patrol, gets basically ruined. And so you have soiled blankets that have become the tops of tents because that's their only use at this point. You have not enough shelters. So people are sleeping just among the rocks and trees because it's the best they can. And I think one of the most notable points of these open air detention centers is, legally speaking, Border Patrol gets around this by not really calling them detention centers, saying that they're not detained and that technically they're free. But the reality is there's nowhere for them to go without getting arrested or deported. But because of this loophole, Border Patrol has no obligation to feed them. And so when they do feed them at the start of the quarter, when they have the budget at which they

blow, it's oranges, it's crackers. It's not enough to live off of when you're stuck there for five days. I spoke to a Kurdish migrant today who had been there for five days. And we've heard of people staying there for an entire week, just stuck in these camps as they overflow with people because they're not cleared due to whether it be a holiday season or whatever it might be that puts us in this circumstance. Yeah. And obviously most people won't have been here. You can look on a map or Google Maps if you want to, but all of is happening like literally in the shadow of the border wall in some cases or right next to the border wall sometimes it's a little bit next a little bit further away and just to explain why there are these locations where they are you guys want to explain like how people are

getting to the because hercumbia if you've got google maps if you're not driving like you can put it up and you can look, right? We're like an hour and a bit east of San Diego, about 70 miles east of San Diego, closer to El Centro than San Diego. So can you explain how people are ending up here by the hundreds or thousands? Yeah, so I've talked to many migrants and they stay in a hotel in TJ. I have no idea which one. I wouldn't give the information if I did.

Hotel and TJ. I have no idea which one. I wouldn't give the information if I did. But yeah, they stay in a hotel in TJ. And they get separated by nationality. So the coyotes take their passports from them and put them in stacks and separate them by their nationality. So you'll get Chinese nationalists together. You'll get people that are from Turkey together, mostly Kurdish.

And then you'll get whatever their nationality is. And I'm sure the outliers get just lumped into whatever is the most, you know, like national. Yeah, language group, exactly. And then they get in the morning, I guess, at like 5 or 6 a.m., they drive all the way out from TJ to Hakumba and get dropped off at, there's three points where there's breaks in the walls. And these walls, obviously, they don't go over the mountains

because Trump was trying to build distance rather than actual stopping people. And so these breaks in the walls are very easy to cross. It's literally just walking over. There was some remnants of concertina wire or barbed wire like in the area, but it's all ripped and super easy to cross and um so the coyotes will drop them off near um or bits away from that point and have them walk in

when that's where border patrol after they cross border patrol will intercept them give them wristbands for the day they arrived we actually just saw this last week they must have ran out of wristbands because they were giving Sunday wristbands when it was a Wednesday. Yeah, I remember seeing that. What the fuck? And that makes our job more complicated too. Not only their job, I'm sure,

because they're trying to process them in order, but our job because we're trying to record how long have people been here. I remember I was talking to a Chinese nationalist and had to call a translator just to see because they had a Sunday wristband and I think it was Tuesday or something already and I was like wait you got you've been here for two days and they were like like trying to explain what the language barrier was a translator like no we got

here three hours ago we kept thinking they got here three days ago they kept showing the number three on their hands and so yeah they give them these wristbands and then tell them to wait in these areas that are very close to where they are intercepted. And Border Patrol will tell them, there's cameras all over the desert. We're watching you.

So don't leave. And if you leave, it'll mess up your migrant process or your asylum process. And so most of them stay. We've actually have seen a lot of people walking on the 80 here

trying to get to town because they're desperate they're cold they're hungry and they're probably just like fuck this you know but it's interesting too how like border patrol in all media aspects denies the existence of these camps yeah they'll deny explicitly to me right like that they don't exist or they don't detain people people that they what they'll say is that people aren't detained here, that they're free to go. Which technically they are and they can walk. But I had a Kurdish friend that I met at one of the camps that we call Moon Camp and 20-year-old from Turkey.

And he said that him and a bunch of friends that he was traveling with just walked to the subway up the street, got a subway sandwich, and then Border Patrol showed up after they had ordered their food and said, you have to go back with us, but finish your food here. Because imagine them walking in being taken back with Subway sandwiches. Everyone would be like, oh, we can just leave and get out of here.

So they finished their sandwiches, and then he took them straight back. So that is detention. If you can't leave, then you're in detention. That's by definition, I feel like. Yeah, and I don't think people think they are free to leave. And I don't think people, certainly they're not told what situation they're in, right? I think that maybe they would assume that,

but there's also not very many places for them to go. We are in the middle of nowhere. So from what I've talked to different people, on top of just like crossing the border, there's also an entire period where these people are traveling and all of them travel in different ways. And some of them are traveling

all the way from South America through Panama, through the jungle. And, you know, people are dying on the route over here. And some of them are lucky enough to just fly in and, you know, right. Yeah, they have to fly to Cancun. Fly into Cancun and then make their way over to TJ and make it through the border. And I have seen, like, for myself with my own eyes, you know, burns from motorcycle exhaust, from, you know, the different methods that they've

used to get here. Um, and I've seen spider bites. I've seen, you know, um, injuries that are infected that have been infected for a long time. Cause they've been that way since they were in the jungle and it's inadequate. I had a woman, um, that I was, uh, helping, uh, give medical care to whose ankles were swollen from a steroid that she was given that she should not have been given and that she had a bad reaction to. And yeah, that's just been their reality traveling here and trying to get here. On top of that, I think that speaking of medical issues and speaking on what you were saying earlier about the threats of becoming undocumented, the threats of, you know, being forced to stay in these camps,

there's even fear of having a medical emergency. So like when EMS comes out, when we call 911 or border patrol calls 911, right. They're not like working in connection with border patrol. They're just going to a hospital as if it was, you know, someone house person on the street going to the hospital. Um, and so they end up there and if they're not given the proper information to, uh, get a court date to, to finish their asylum process and to really like be submitted properly into the country, they are at risk of becoming undocumented. And I think that fear has spread among people.

And I've definitely noticed personally that there is fear to have 911 call, to be taken away in an ambulance because they fear becoming undocumented or being at risk or separated. Separated has been a big thing because if they end up having their process either take longer or just be stuck in the hospital or whatever, it may be they're away from their family. They have to go through a different process.

They're not processed at the detention centers the same way or at the same time. So it's just, there's a lot of fear. And I think that's led to a lot of unnecessary harm. And we do our best in terms of medical care, but there's, you know, we're limited. We, you know, it's over the counter. It's, you know, it's, we can't do much. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's street medicine, really. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Like, and we have some doctors and nurses and other qualified medical people who come and help, but they don't have the diagnostic tools that they need, right? Like today we had somebody who had clearly some heart issues and like the best we can do is say this person needs to go to hospital but then in this case they were able to take the person's

partner sometimes they won't take the person's partner sometimes the person could be separated from their children and so they're obviously very afraid of that and and to compound that i think like the release that they're not released in the way they had previously been released they're just dumped onto the street at certain transit centers right and then again it falls on to volunteers or non-profits to help them get to where they're gonna go 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

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So maybe we just start like literally what we do every day in a day. Again, Havala's here every day. Yes. Yeah. One thing i forgot to mention is i am here every single day now full time uh 10 plus hours a day it's eight days a week um and so yeah every day we wake up i wake up around like 6 a.m and we try to get to the first camp which is down the street from where I'm staying, around 7.30 or 8 o'clock in the morning. And the previous night we have loaded the van up

with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because they have a good hold. You don't need to keep them really refrigerated much or yada yada. And so it's just PB&Js, water and fruit, and we give them each one at least, sometimes more if we have the capability. And then another person who is also here full time will hit another camp on their way because it's on their way to meet up at a central location we call the U Center or the YC, location we call the youth center or the YC, um, where all of our donations end up, whether it's clothes, blankets, um, food items, non-perishables, perishables. We have a fridge. And in that place,

once we get there, we'll assess what we need to do is do we need to make more food? Do we have enough to go feed the third camp, which we call one seven, seven, which is all the way in Boulevard, a little outside of a Kumba. And if we have enough, we'll just hit, which is all the way in Boulevard, a little outside of Hakumba. And if we have enough, we'll just hit, we'll leave and hit that spot and then come back and start dinner. Um, and me in the meanwhile, we have a lot of volunteers that will show up and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Cause that is our easy go-to staple. It's quick to give out. It's, you know, not a whole lot of prep time to make 500 sandwiches, which seems like a lot, but we've gone through probably tens of thousands of sandwiches by this point.

We probably gave out 1,000 PB&Js today. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, we ran out. Today I gave out everything, and there was even people where we got everybody in the line, which i think i think that was around 360 no no it was 360 when we did a count and so in the morning yeah and we ran out and we but we had two so like a lot of the times um especially the migrants that have been there multiple days they'll jump in there's like always two people or three people that are like i'm here

to help kurdish people are amazing help help and are always willing to step up. But yeah, this morning at Willow, one of the camps, we had two guys that were kind of controlling the line and helping keep them back and one of them like send them to us one at a time. And at the very end of it, I had nothing for them. And I was like going to hook them up with a couple of sandwiches, a little like anybody who helps, I'll hook them up with a couple extra sandwiches or food items or water or cigarettes even yeah and uh yeah i had

nothing for them except for kid sandwiches or kid sandwiches a kid pack so we make these little sandwich bags full of like different candies and you know granola bars and things that kids would like to eat and give them a lot of nutrition and stuff. So I just gave them extra that. And once other migrants saw me giving those things out that I had been holding and telling other people, no, these are for kids, then everybody swarmed. And it was just like, okay, well, I'm giving all the kids, whoever's there, whoever's arm is there, they're getting, you know, a kid's pack and got rid of literally all of our food. And I think we put in like 12 plus cases of water, 40 packs, and they were all gone except for maybe like 10 or 15 waters. It was one of the more dire mornings that we've had, especially at these camps.

I know that 360 was the number that you guys got in the morning, but I believe that by the time that we were working in the evening. But I believe that by the time that we were working in the evening, at least when I was doing medical check, the number that I was getting told either around the camp or from border patrol was 500 at Willows. And these are numbers that even border patrol is freaking out over. They are worried because they can't deal with this quantity of people and keep them processing while there's still a consistent flow. And that's, you know, it puts a lot of strain on us because like you were saying, we're running out of food. We don't have enough to feed 500 people, you know, every day, even though we're just doing, you know, two meals, a breakfast and as best we can a dinner, and trying to make sure that that dinner is a hot meal because it is frigid out here. I slept in my

van and I kept having to wake up to try and warm up and do something to keep myself from freezing. And I can only imagine what it's like for them with what minimal equipment they have. Some of them don't even have tents. So it has been a lot. I know that today running medical, I've seen a lot of people with colds and I am suspicious that perhaps there is COVID running around, that perhaps there is something, there's definitely something, some's definitely something, some kind of very severe illness going through the camps

and being in this freezing cold is not helping anyone's immune system. And on top of that, I've seen broken fingers and some other stuff. And that's been my today, has been treating that and then helping out with dinner, which I will say, I tried a little bit of the lentils and rice

and I can say we are feeding them well. It is delicious, delicious food. Sam Schultz an amazing cook um and an amazing helper for us uh making sure that we you know are able to do this for like you were saying for a long time you know this was put on uh you know one family family of locals to really, yeah, one family of Quakers to really take care of these people day in and day out. And it wasn't until you came here and were able to actually like be here full time that there was even just an extra hand around. time that there was even just an extra hand around and, you know, right. Volunteers are here during the week, but the reality is, is we are all still stuck at work. We all still live in this hell scape. We're all still stuck grinding those gears and, um, making ends meet. And so coming out here

for a lot of us is, you know, like for me is, is a weekend task. It's, you know, it's what we can do. It's what we have the ability and the time and the gas money for. Um, and on top of that, a lot of us spend a lot of our own money. I know that I've spent like at least a grand and a half on just like supplies for these runs on supplies for whatever I can. Um, and you know, some, sometimes we get, we're able to get reimbursed by our mutual aidsides and sometimes the money runs dry and we just, you know, we need a lot of support out here that we don't have, that we don't get. And I feel like we really felt that today running out of food. Yeah, it was bleak today. And the thing is like, we can feed 500 people and do this gargantuan effort and then we have to feed the same number

tomorrow and like if we clear out us we on top of like those of us who are able to go out to do medicals to do feeds uh sometimes some of us go out and construct shelters or to check that there aren't people who are sick in the shelters who aren't getting care that they need etc etc like you said people have to cook right people have to make pbjs um people have to resupply our stuff and drive it up from san diego which is an hour and 15 minutes away it's a gargantuan effort that it's exclusively taken on by volunteers and like a relatively small group of volunteers considering the scale of the task at hand i wonder like if you would like talk about your volunteering experience a little bit because i think it's been great like it's a very diverse

group of people we've had so many we have the schultz family who are quakers who are amazing who have been like spearheading this since the start we have like obviously a lot of anarchist people and a lot of people from various migrant advocacy and aid groups uh that's what we had the black panthers the other day and that's probably a ton of people i'm missing but yeah uh in church groups church groups i mean the whole the yc was kind of given to us and i think now we're renting it to my knowledge um but that was given to us by the, what's the church? The Methodist Church.

The Methodist Church here in Hacumba. And then there's a group of Mormons and they're just kind of unaffiliated from their church in a way. Like they're not, they were just a family that saw the need and some of the elders were helping load up this, the beans that they made the other day, you know, from the house that the lady that makes it

um and then another lady a mormon lady makes us these rolls and will just like give us like hundreds and hundreds of bread rolls which everybody loves even the volunteers homemade rolls yeah it's super good so that yeah like you said mutual aid groups anarchists um just individuals random people will show up they heard it we had a couple people show up that heard it on uh national npr kpbs and um you know then they were exported kindness alocho lato um will come out here and send volunteers and whatnot but it's hard to really rely on volunteers like we have a sign-up sheet and everything so we can kind of gauge what the day is going to be like but sometimes people don't show up and uh and sometimes especially around the holiday times it gets really thin because everybody's got their own lives and

things to do and um but yeah i mean i started volunteering just on my weekends when i was working full-time at my dead-end job uh back at home in Diego. And I would, you know, saw the need. I was down at Whiskey 8 in San Ysidro pretty much every day after work and on the weekends. And then when they started doing street releases at Iris Station in San Diego, I would just be there full-time and on my weekends, just be there untilDEF and Haitian Bridge started showing up and kind of took in detention resistance and they kind of took over that scene and so I the need was like oh Hakamba needs help so I just would come after that I just started coming out here every weekend from I would get off on a Thursday at like 2 p.m take care of my cats at home for a sec and then

drive out um help out whatever I could by the time I got here spend the night somehow either I never had to sleep in my car but I would be ready to and then I have some friends here um that would put me up for the night and um stay Thursday night to Friday work all day Friday and all day Saturday until I had to go home. Cause I worked at 5am on Sunday and then all that week I would just be at WA, uh, going down after work. And so I haven't had a day off since this really started. I mean, I think I got the flu for a week, five days, right. I had a fever four or five fucking days in a row, which is horrible, but, um, so not really a day off technically, but yeah. And then, um, I, since I had been coming out here every weekend and dedicating my time to Hakamba and had so many

ties with like the locals and I know the people who own the hotel out here that we are currently at and just, you know, showed face and showed a strong worth work ethic, I guess, to help feed these people and the passion of, you know, and the amount of care that I gave and attention to these people and listening to them. And the Schultz family, who are like the main on the ground people since day one, were like, yeah, this person needs to be out here.

We want Haval out here full time. And Alochalado got a grant to basically fund that. And so once that money came through, I just took a sabbatical from my 9 to 5. And I was like, peace. I got more important things to do than give Jeff Bezos more money. So he needs more yachts, clearly. Yeah, clearly.

And more space trips. More plastic surgery. So yeah, so ever since then, I'm lucky enough to have that and showed that dedication to where I can be out here. And honestly, some people may think, oh, because I'm getting paid, I'm a boss or I'm a lead. And to me, it's like, no, we're all leading. And I'm still just doing the same work I'm just now able to be here well on payroll

48 hours a week but in reality it's 10 hour days eight days a week it's all the time and like yeah I think it's really important that people know actually that we have a very very first group it's not like everybody is necessarily like committed to horizontal organizing as the be all and end all, but that's how we operate. And it works really well. Yeah. Especially Sam and the Quakers.

They're very good at listening to the American friends society. Right. Yeah. It works so well. Like when I was just thinking the other day I was out here and it was a day before the holiday. And first of all, we had this moment where this lady pulled up

and she was like, hey, who's in charge? We were all like, everyone's in charge. And the lady was like, what? How does that? But then like another time we had a bit of a crisis. We ran out of bowls when we were trying to feed people. And like one of us came up with the beans in the bag. Yeah, in a Ziploc bag.

So we were like, we didn't have bowls. We had sandwiches. So we gave them a sandwich and then took the Ziploc bag back and a ziploc bag yeah we made we so we were like we didn't have bowls we had sandwiches so we gave them a sandwich and then took the ziploc bag back and filled it with beans and like it you know it wasn't the person who'd been here for the longest or done the most sessions but it was a great idea and it got us out of a difficult situation and like i think because we organize with respect for each other we we can listen to each other and incorporate those ideas i know you had something to say. Oh, yeah. I want to highlight the community that I've seen built here. I know that in terms of non-hierarchical organizing, I personally have seen everyone step up and lead, even people who are there their first day, right? If there is a task

to be done and they say they know how to do it and they have a good idea, they're leading it, they're spearheading it. There is, you know, there's no second guessing or egos that I've seen, at least not to such a degree that it's been harmful. And I think that that has given us a lot of power and has allowed sort of our creativity to get us through this. I think it's a testament to what non-hierarchical organizing means and how, you know, lack of hierarchy and lack of a dedicated leader doesn't mean a lack of leadership. I think it falls on all of us to lead. It falls on all of us to bring what we know to the table, whether that be from the experience that we've had coming here and working here

and knowing the details and the minutia of what's going on specifically here in Hakumba with this project or what we bring to the table from our past experiences. And I think that that has really beautifully coalesced into a really efficient system as best as we can do, as best as we can manage. We've really made do and kept people alive in a huge way. Yeah. And I think kept people alive is right like if if i don't know how this would have gone down if we weren't here because i don't know if they would have kept doing it but certainly more people would have been very unwell or passed away like i think we can all think of a different medical emergency where we've had to intervene to stop it getting much worse

yeah like just last week i think did you come out the day after or something where it rained on all of us? And there was like a heavy downpour. We weren't even ready. We thought it was, oh, it might be like a little drizzle or it might be light rain here and there scattered. But then we set up and we're cooking, getting ready to do lunch or after breakfast

and getting ready to do our dinner and stuff. And it just started downpouring on us. I remember I was driving and I called you. Oh yeah, you showed up that day. And literally like we, as we got to, we were like, oh fuck, we got to like move now. So we just got all the ponchos that we had a bunch of ponchos,

got them all in the car, drove to the first camp that we had fed that morning. And we're just started handing out ponchos as the rain's coming down they're walking in as you know the coyotes dropped them off and that's a long hike had the moon camp from where they end up to where the break in the wall is that's like a what 30 minute walk yeah or so and so they are arriving in the pouring rain their socks are getting wet it is super cold especially at moon because of the location. It's

just ridiculously cold. And that's like case for hypothermia. And we're there to, you know, to stop them from getting so wet. We're giving them trash bags for their bags, ponchos for their being their persons. We, I remember seeing this little girl, she must've been like five or six. And then we had cardboard and because we didn't think it was going to be so pouring before we when we loaded up the van and we had cardboard to keep you know the ground dry for them to like lay on in their tents or whatever and we people took the cardboard out of the van and we're like blocking the rain and shielding this little child from getting wet you know and it's super windy at moon too at that camp it's the location it gets a lot of the

the wind from uh whatever that passes yeah it comes up from anza borrego yeah yeah 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

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I think the other thing you said, which we should probably touch on, is like, perhaps it's's because of the way we organize because we don't have like strict roles or jobs or low leadership things but like and you'd mentioned it before but like nine times out of ten we end up doing things with people not for people right like the other day I know uh like a Kurdish guy and I set up a ton of tents a Colombian dude and I built this amazing shelter and then it wasn't for him and his family. It was for anyone who needed it. I definitely have seen that sort of collaboration with the migrants. And I feel like it doesn't feel like charity. It feels like mutual aid. And on top of that, when I'm hearing from them, you know, they, you know, they're helping us out, but then on top of that, they're saying,

I'm going to get processed and I'm coming back.'m helping and I'm have you been in touch with anyone who is who has come back yet well yeah actually like early on in iris when I was doing iris there was like a few people that were staying a few days before they traveled onward and they just wanted to be around and help there was also a dude we we just called him columbia because he was from columbia he's kind of that nickname stuck and he stuck around i mean he got sponsored by or pretty much loosely sponsored by one of the organizers um that was helping out at wa and he stuck around he came out to okamba a bunch of times he killed it on everything he did cooking dishes whatever you know cleaning up whatever he

just he just saw that need and yeah i mean i've been in contact with a couple people that said they would come out and you know i don't pressure them i don't and a i won't pressure them to come out because they came here for you know a better life and all that but at the same time it's just hard to get back to some people because i've given my number out to way too many Kurdish people to get back to everyone on WhatsApp. And that's, you know, I got Signal, I got regular text, and then WhatsApp, and that kind of gets buried. Yeah, there were some Afghan folks out here in September,

a few Afghan folks who had come out. I think they had arrived either in May or perhaps earlier, but there were some Afghan folks who came out and were able to help us. Of course, like, it's great because we don't all have all the languages we need and we don't have

all the skills we need. And so the more people we can incorporate, even if temporarily while they're here, then like the better we can help people, right?

Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean, but I think definitely the vibe is there that they want to come help.

And yeah, like the other day I was feeding, we were doing a hot dinner But I think definitely the vibe is there that they want to come help. And yeah, like the other day I was feeding. We're doing a hot dinner and we set up and everything. And then all these Kurdish people, because I will wear this. Get feed like a scarf. Yeah. With the scarf that you gave me. All the way from Kurdistan.

All the way from Karmish All the way from Kamishlo. And so they recognize it. And then I know the sayings, Biji Kurdistan. Oh, you're from Turkey. Oh, you're Kurdish. Because most of the people from Turkey are Kurdish. Yeah. Not all, but most.

And so we'll start talking. And then they get all excited. And then they just want to help. And I think even regardless of if I said that or not or had the scarf on, they would still just want to help. And I remember one time I was surrounded, it was just me serving one of the things, cause we'll serve multiple things, water, like a soup, and then a rice or a bread or whatever.

And then maybe some hand wipes or something. And so we just had all, it was just me in the middle surrounded by Kurdish people. And I remember the dude next to me was it was just like someone videotaped. Yeah, we Kurdish people help really well. Tell the world, you know? Yeah. And then like, even when we're not doing food service,

like guys will often come up to me and be like, hey, do you have bin bags? We'd like to clean up. We'd like, it's a mess here. And we'd like to clean up. Yeah, or unloading. Every time I'm loading, like that's a cell phone charging station,

everyone like, it doesn't matter, you know, what nationality, someone is there to help. They're like, oh, can I grab the table?

Can I do this? How can I plug this in? A lot of times with the plugging in, I'm like, no, I got this. There's a certain way where I like to plug this all in

that makes sense. Relatively high risk activity. I don't want any electrocution. Oh, like the other day I was chopping some stuff with an axe and a guy wanted to help

and I was like, look, if I hurt myself and I can go to hospital if you hurt yourself, it's going to be a rough night. I mean, that could have been his ticket out. Yeah, he could have been.

He had his family. He might have purposely hurt himself at that point. He had his whole family. Yeah. But again, we build shelters and like some people

are really good at that and they're good at tying knots and they're good at seeing things in 3D and some people are not so like often just get a team of people who can help and then you'll get a team of people who need shelter so we'll just cruise around building shelters for people and it's fun like it can't i'm sure it's not a very stimulating environment out there you know so being engaged in a task completing stuff and helping people i'm sure is rewarding or like yeah even tonight we had a dude from Turkey who just like was holding his head. Tia, one of our local residents, she lives around here.

She doesn't have a whole lot of medical experience other than being a mother or a grandmother and working in as a pharmacy tech and knowing a little bit about it and learning and being super badass. She came to me and she's like, look, this guy has a headache. He has a migraine and he has medication from TJ. So this is obviously like an ongoing situation. And my eyes were hurting just from all the smoke, from all the fires that they were starting in the area. And he's just sitting there holding his head, clearly just absolutely miserable. So she took him in her car just to give some heater and to warm him up

and to try to make him feel better, get him away from the smoke. And she's like, yo, we got to get this guy. He's here traveling alone from Turkey. He doesn't have anybody. So we went and found some more. And I think he was Kurdish as well. We went and found another Kurdish person from Turkey. And I grabbed this,

this person and I was like, Hey, I have somebody here who has a gnarly migraine and they just, they need, they're here alone. They don't have shelter they need. And so this guy came over and talked to him and was like, look, I got, we got a tent over here. Come camp with us. Like, that's the kind of shit that we have to deal with. You know what I mean? Just like the migrants will like getting a migrant to help another migrant, you know, it's just like, it's community. That's the kind of shit that we have to deal with. You know what I mean? Just like the migrants will, like getting a migrant to help another migrant. It's just like, it's community. That's what mutual aid is about.

I think that, and that specific situation, I had been talking to the group that took him in. I had been talking with them and chatting with them and I sat by the fire with them, just talking about what was your experience like and trying to get warm. Cause God, it's cold out there, for us volunteers. And, you know, we're far away from the fires and it's really hard because, you know, this road is cleared. And so there's, you know, there's no warmth out there by where they have to stand to get food.

But what I wanted to highlight was that because we are interacting with these people as equals, because we are coming here and seeing them as people and we spend the time to talk with them and to build community with them, we can build those connections which allow people like the gentleman with the migraine to be taken in and to have basically a temporary family while he's there and make sure that he's taken care of. And that's, I think, something that really highlights the strength of this type of organization and this type of work and this type of, the way that our politics, the way that our ideals really shine in this kind of setting. Yeah, I think that's right.

Like I've been around a lot of humanitarian crises and, you know, refugee situations. And I think we're doing a really excellent job, especially given the minimal funding and sort of scale of access to resources that we have. We could do a lot more if we had a lot more money, but we don't. Yeah, we're cooking on like a fucking burner.

It's probably older than us. Yeah, but we're cooking to a propane tank that's made out of an old keg. That's just like, if you turn it on wrong and let the gas bleed, you will blow yourself up. So it's just like, Sam is responsible for everybody at the youth center where we do stuff. So he doesn't really like other people cooking. I mean, even though I know how to do it, he doesn't even like me doing it because he's responsible for everybody at the youth center where we do stuff. So he doesn't really like other people cooking.

I mean, even though I know how to do it, he doesn't even like me doing it because he's responsible for me if anything were to happen. So it's like our capacity is super limited. We don't have enough burners. We don't have enough containers. So we have a couple, one really nice, like locking containers that hold hot food and keep the food hot,

but not enough to serve upwards of 600 people at all three camps and not enough vans like it would be ideal like in my situation to send a van that has charging capabilities to charge everybody's cell phone to feed everybody to give them water and all their needs blankets medical to each camp all at once instead of us driving cooking a mass amount of food at the youth center and hoping we have enough to hit all three camps because the numbers we can try to call border patrol offices and get numbers but the numbers are always a little skewed or just off you know or sometimes it lately they have just been straight up not giving us the fucking numbers like being dicks especially uh Campo Border Patrol office,

which, because we deal with two different, Campo takes care of the Boulevard open air detention site. And then the Boulevard Border Patrol takes care of the willows in the moon camp in Acoma. And straight up, the Boulevard Border Patrol called Campo Nazis. Like, they treat their employees like not they're just nazis and i've seen it in fact yeah but yeah like we have to interact with border patrol

a lot to get people the help that they need right but like yeah there are definitely some cases where like there have been certain people who are much like they they the agent i spoke to today for a border patrol agent he was very accommodating He took the person who was in medical distress and their partner. He drove them himself to where they could meet EMS and ensured that presumably they got to hospital. Like, I don't have a whole lot of knowledge for what happened afterwards. Like, we don't have, we're not entitled

to their private medical information. And nor should we be. But like, other times, it could be much harder. So it's just luck of the draw right like we there's so much we don't control i guess yeah and like we don't know exactly like we can't control who goes when who has the highest level of need you know like constantly people will be coming up to me and being like hey like today i was warming up milk for babies in my camping stove right and it was three or four babies and they were like do you think they'll take us first we have babies and like i think most of the people

there would rather give up their space and let that baby go out because no one wants to see a fucking baby shivering out there like it's fucked uh it's terrible uh but we don't know and we can't tell you and we can't help you um and so like a lot of that stuff's outside of our control but the stuff that's within our control i think we've done a really good job of, I wonder like if people are listening, I think I just want to convey that we're all just weird, like a group of, of, of like, we're not like ragtag crew, extremely like motley crew. Um, and, but we, we're really doing excellent work, I think. Um, if I may blow our trumpet, but. But if people want to come and help,

first of all, you probably can. People think that they can't, they don't have anything useful. I promise you, you do. If you can lift a ladle or a pallet of water bottles or drive a vehicle or make a sandwich. Or talk multiple languages. Speak multiple languages.

Sometimes it's like... or even just one and or even just right or even just one language other than english because i mean even some people speak perfectly perfect english out there and so just going out there and paying attention to them even if you don't have the capacity to cook food or to serve food or whatever if you can go talk to people and you're sociable and you can make connections and listen to their needs and you know there's google translate there's we have a list of translators like a form with numbers so if you have a language barrier you can just call start calling down the line of numbers of mandarin or this language or that language and you can get

i got a hold of somebody one time for mandarin to figure out how many days they had been there. And it was like, called a couple people first, no answer. And then finally someone picked up. And so it's, yeah, you know, anybody, there's always, you could always find something. Honestly, one thing that I miss doing, which when I first started coming out here, we had a little bit more volunteers, especially I was coming out on the weekends. On the weekends, typically we have more volunteers because people have jobs in the weekdays and week days we have less but i i was when i first started coming out to akamba on the weekends i started bringing my guitar and my bongos and my you know different instruments uh tambourines and i remember we gave out all the

instruments to the migrants at night while we were giving them dinner to and they're around a campfire and so that they can play and enjoy themselves and lift their spirits. And so like, that would be rad to have somebody on spot all the time with a guitar and like jamming with the migrants and lifting their spirits because it's, they're miserable. And one dude from Uzbekistan once told me,

spoke really good English. And in fact, he told me about there's like commercials. And so he worked at like a center where they send people over here oh wow yeah like he was on the call center or whatever for it or something like that but well i was like well like how is it like i was like honestly we're just bored yeah like they're just waiting and at that time like the waits were like four or five days you know um it changes it varies it goes from two to three to four or five and and the distance and sometimes they get out the same day if they're lucky but um yeah it was it just we're bored and

we're just waiting and they're anxious and which also just tears at their spirit while they're you know their first day in america you know yeah exactly yeah like welcome to america sleep in the desert it's like just above freezing yeah and here's no blankets no structures no anything no food no water and you're lucky border patrol will bring crackers and water for not enough people yeah and then yeah a bunch of us weirdos turn up with blankets and that's it yeah um and i know that that even if's, you know, I try and include other people, but even just like I go out there with my guitar sometimes and there's a lull and we're waiting to pack up or whatever and I'll be playing. And I think that little moments like that mean everything for

these folks. And I know that I've, you know, I'll bring up that I have, you know, on a day that I don't have my guitar, I'll bring up that I play it and the migrants will be all excited wanting me to bring it out or wanting me to, you know, whatever the activity may be, just to stimulate, you know, their minds a little bit. I mean, this is, it's really bleak and being there for, for days for, um, just stuck in the desert with nothing to do. Right. And I mean, sometimes, you know, I I've seen a soccer ball out there that the kids play with and that's, that's so heartwarming, things like that, that really, you know, we want these people to feel like they can still be in community with each other. Like they're not, and I feel like things like that really help to repair that sense of desperation. Because right now with the level

of desperation, we do see a lot of fighting for supplies, a lot of fighting for resources because it's hard. It's hard out there. People want to make sure that their kids have blankets. People are so cold they can't sleep. And I feel like things that bring them together, activities that really make them feel like a community out there and help us feel in community with them allows us to have a more cohesive relationship and allows things to go more smoothly. And I think it's, you know, in some cases more important than the supplies themselves. Because it makes sure that they go to the right places. It helps us triage.

It helps us, you know, it's its own tool for survival. And it distracts them from their suffering, you know. If they can have an ounce of joy you know in this horrible condition in these horrible conditions it'll distract them enough to smile and to laugh and to not be miserable yeah have a normal moment yeah so i wonder if people want to help what are the ways that they can help um ways they can help are if are coming out here directly hands on the ground money donating money uh is another huge need um because a lot of the supplies that we need cost money we need a new kitchen we need you know a dishwashing station because we're currently

just dumping all of our dishwashing water into a lawn that has a small drain um yeah um and yeah uh alocellato is one organization that takes money um that you can donate to border kindness is another one yeah i know detention resistance is out here a lot. The most direct way would be donating directly to Sam Schultz himself. So yeah, and just following those same organizations. Free Shit Collective

is another one. They mostly focus on W8, but this is all related, right? We had this man from Turkey who came with his dog, bomb yeah or bam bam like he said flintstones but they say bomb bomb i guess um and his he was stuck in in one of the camps and so you know we like took his dog because he was not going to be taken from the camp he spent the night alone because they had enough room for him there's like they don't know how to process a

fucking dog i guess so we took his dog for him and They're just like, they don't know how to process a fucking dog, I guess. So we took his dog for him and so he could get processed. And once he ended up out of detention at central, um, which is where they released them, we reunited his dog with him, um, very emotional on both sides of the separation and the reuniting. Um,

so, you know, there's all these organizations you can, you know, volunteer down in central at the when they release you can you know there's and so yeah um but following all these accounts sharing the stories you know what i mean on your social medias be it uh twitter i'll never call it the other thing um or you know instagram facebook whatever your media is discord yada yada um

yeah i think even sharing the stories is really powerful. People could translate. They can reach out if they want to do that. I looked up the URL. It's for Border Kindness. It's linktr.ee slash borderkindness. And for Alotrolado, it's alotrolado, A-L-O-T-R-O-l-a-d-o dot org slash donate

and they pay me to be out here so please donate to them yeah yeah and Border Kindness, Jackie and James are great they're always out here either one is wonderful I also wanted to highlight the lovely mutual aid groups

that do a lot of work there's not as many of them directly putting their efforts out here but I know that they a lot of work. There's not as many of them directly putting their efforts out here, but I know that they have helped me work out here and make sure that I have the funds I need to, you know, do little store runs that are necessary on a moment's notice at times because we run out of something and we can't wait for a bulk order supply. And these mutual aid groups, they put in the work to reimburse folks when we do things like that, when we have to go make runs because we can't bulk order, we can't do it the most efficient way because we have a need right now. And that has saved us in a

lot of different moments, especially I used to volunteer down at W8 in San Ysidro. And that was the primary way that we got resources was through these mutual aid groups who fundraised. And I just wanted to highlight them and highlight the... So there's the Rose Keep Collective. I know that they do a lot of fundraising. I know that you were saying free shit. and highlight the... So there's the Rose Keep Collective. I know that they do a lot of fundraising. I know that you were saying Free Shit,

Free Shit Collective. Yeah. There's a few... Free Store SD. Free Store SD, yeah. There's a few different ones who, you know, their funds help keep us running, especially in the hardest of times right now. Yeah, because we're all broke.

We're so broke. We have no money. None of us have any money. I'm on the migrant diet because I'm broke all the time. So I'm just eating the food that we feed them when there's leftovers. Yeah, yeah. We've eaten a lot of PB&J and beans. Help us.

Help us feed ourselves. That was wonderful. Thank you so much. Yeah, everyone listening should donate. Thank yeah uh and come down here if someone came from san francisco in may come back like there are places you can stay out in the desert if you want to come and help but even if you have language skills like we there are so many ways you can help come down um i've always had a place to stay uh even though i like like of all i've always been ready to sleep in my van but always had a spot to say come down it's you know

it's worth it um it's a vortex they call it the locals call it call it a vortex you know you you come here and it's like every past lifetime has has been here and you're you're destined to be here there's something special about this town and i've really fallen in love with it since coming yeah uh yeah i hope more people will come it would mean a lot to me if like we could do something cool and like further support something that's very important to me and i think very important for the world. Totally. Alright, sick. Eat. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com. Thanks for listening. 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 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 iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season

digging into Tex Elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Thanks for listening.