It Could Happen Here - Title 42 Border Update

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

James is joined by Mia to discuss the end of Title 42 and the human cost of the USA’s fascination with border security. https://afsc.org/  https://borderkindness.org/  https://instagram.com/humankinddesignstudio?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ== See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Hello, podcast fans, and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast that today is hosted by me, James Down, and Mia Wong. Hi, Mia. Hello. Hi. So what we're going to talk about today is Situation on the Border. We're working on a scripted episode, which will take a while because they always do. And, you know, we want that to be nice and sort of polished for use.

But I did want to update everyone because I think that what's happening, it has a sense of urgency to it. And certainly like some of the mutual aid requests have a real sense of urgency to them. And folks who follow me on, on twitter.com, um, would have noticed that like in between the shit posts, um, I've been down at the U S Mexico border for most of the, uh, the tail end of last week and the start of this week, um, sort of depicting what's going on there uh along with uh my friend joe joe oriana who's who's a freelancer who we're going to be working with on the scripted series and people can find joe at joe or o-r-e photo on twitter joe's got some really good photos if you if you want to see kind of what's going on. But the long and the short of it is that Title 42 ended on,

well, to begin with, exactly the moment that it ended was a subject of some contention, right? We knew it was going to end on the 11th of May. Title 42, if folks don't remember, is an emergency public health measure. It's part of the United States public health law, United States Code, public health, something, something, that allows Border Patrol to expel people from the United States without giving them their due process, their asylum hearing.

Basically, they bounce them straight back to Mexico. This has been in place since March of 2020. We now know that the Trump administration pressured the CDC. In theory, it came through the CDC, the Center for Disease Control, under pressure from the Trump administration, direct pressure from Pence, and Stephen Miller was probably…er was yeah this is a this is this was a stephen miller like yeah supremacy special yeah bobblehead looking racist motherfucker um has once again uh done something terrible uh not that some of his policies as i will get onto this in a scripted episode the biden administration has like copy pastasted some straight-up Stephen Miller stuff in its transit bans and is absolutely liable for...

I don't want to use the word chaos at our border because it plays into this Fox News narrative. There is a very concerted plan to make people suffer more than is necessary at our border. And it would have been very easy to avoid this. So Title 42, basically there are no consequences for crossing, but it's also very hard to get asylum. The CBP officer can spontaneously decide to give you your rights, basically.

If you're like, come on, bro, I'm going to get killed if I go home, then that person can kind of decide to allow you to be processed for asylum um which is what a lot of the ukrainian folks got um surprise surprise yeah i feel like we should we should also mention that under like multiple legal frameworks you have the right to request asylum this is in this is something that supposedly is inviolable you like you you have the right as a human being to request asylum this is in this is something that supposedly is inviolable you like you you have the right as a human being to request asylum in a country yes and it doesn't matter where you've been before and it doesn't matter how you got there and you don't have to do it at a port of

entry and it doesn't matter how you entered the country or where you entered the country uh yes yeah and yeah under multiple different international frameworks you have the right to do this uh but the usa has been denying that to people for three and a bit years now right three years something like that and you know i also could just want to briefly mention this because i feel like there's this way in which people people people will talk about like one border regime and then never connect the dots between this one and the other ones. But for example, this is something that happens all over the world. Yes.

I mean, part of this sort of crisis that's going on inese paramilitaries a shit ton of money to like keep refugees like basically like trap to some extent enslave them in camps to keep them from like getting to italy to try to request asylum so this is a yeah like fredx does this like border patrol does this this is sort of like a global like yeah regime the border industrial complex is every bit as bad, if not worse, than the defense industrial complex that we're more familiar with. Border policing is something that really came post 9-11, right, with the creation of DHS in the United States. But we have exported that shit everywhere. Our border patrol agents, CBP has an office in lots of embassies or like they train Dominican border agents on the border with Haiti, for instance,

are trained by our CBP people. CBP agents were deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan. Yeah, this is a global thing. And like where I guess where I am now, where I've been for a while is the place where that all began, right? And where we continue to see CBP innovating new and exciting ways to fucking take some of the most desperate people in the world and make them suffer and spend a

shit ton of money preventing them from accessing their legal right to asylum, or detaining them while they do it. So what has happened is, so Title 42 was supposed to end on the 11th of May, right? That was when the federal COVID emergency ended. So there was no reason for it to exist anymore. There wasn't a reason for it to exist to begin with. Yeah. And you know,

don't think too hard about the fact that like, that was the last, that was basically the last COVID policy that was still in place. Yeah. Like there were not vaccine mandates for the people meeting the migrants was still in place. Yeah, like there were not vaccine mandates for the people meeting the migrants at the fucking border, right?

This was never about public health. No, absolutely not. In so far as you can extricate the sort of imperialist state's public health measures from social cleansing stuff, which has been happening for generations and generations.

But yeah, this was not about that. This was just an immigration ban. Yeah, and it became a sort of albatross by the administration who didn't want to be hit on border stuff, right? They didn't want to drop it before the midterms. They initially planned to drop it in December 2022, which is obviously right after the midterms. They initially planned to drop it in December 2022, which is obviously right after the midterms.

They didn't. Here we are in May. There's a complicated legal challenge, which there always is and doesn't matter because here we are, right? It's supposed to drop on the 11th of May, so we're all thinking, right, midnight on the 10th of May. We'll be out there. We'll see what goes down. They announced

the day before that it is dropping on midnight on the 11th. So they're going to ring every minute out of it. And so in the days before, a number of migrants have told me that they understood that they basically had to get across before the end of Title 42, because it was their understanding that if they crossed under Title 8, they would be ejected and they wouldn't be allowed to return for five years and they would face felony charges if they did. I don't quite know. Often this information spreads via WhatsApp in camps, right? Or sort of like a game of telephone in camps. So I don't quite know where this

information came from, but it closely parallels something that Mayorkas, who's the Secretary of Homeland Security, said in a press conference where he mischaracterized international immigration law. And he's done this multiple times, right? He himself, someone who is a migrant to this country, his family left Cuba when he was one year old, has just some of the most dogshit statements on the record. And I've depicted some of those in the scripted episode. Folks can look up my piece I wrote for NBC a couple of years ago about the Biden administration's policy towards Haiti if they want to see more of the dog shit stuff that he and Biden have said.

So in the days before the end of Title 42, a lot of folks started to try to cross because of this information that they had. They ended up, at least where I am, which is in Southern California, the extreme southwestern border of the United States, literally the end of the wall. Folks were crossing around the end of the at low tide, and turning themselves in to border patrol, asking to make their case for their right to asylum. And I think sometimes when we think about migrants, we mainly think about people from South America or Central America. Every single continent, maybe not any like Australasiansians, but just in a day at one camp, I spoke to someone from Angola. I spoke to someone from Congo. I spoke to someone from Sudan. I spoke to a Kurdish guy. I spoke to people certainly from all over South America, Russians, Tajik people, Jamaican people. For instance, just to give you a sense of how

global this is, I spoke to a Jamaican lady who was caring for a 16 and 17-year-old pair of Tajik siblings who didn't speak any of the relevant languages for communication with Border Patrol or with other people in the camp. So she would use her phone to call their mother who spoke some English, give information to the mother who would were translated back to these two young children and all of these people had presented like there were a lot of afghan people too i probably should have mentioned that up top but like these are the people who we fucking abandoned once and now we're trapping um trapping them in between little fences and it it's hot in the day, right? Like I slept out in the desert last night and it was above 100.

It's not that hot in San Diego, but in Hacumba, where they're also holding people, it's absolutely getting into triple digits every day. And it's cold at night. And it's a really inhospitable environment for people. And so folks were held there, you know, up to a week in some cases. And so folks were held there up to a week in some cases and are now, I think, being processed by Border Patrol.

There was a ruling by a Florida judge. I'm not exactly clear on when because I was down at the border and my phone didn't work very well. But at some point right before Title 42 dropped that they could be released on humanitarian parole which means in theory they have to be released with a court date right with a court date to appear for their asylum hearing which will slow down the process of releasing them right um and so i've heard of court dates i've heard of folks being released already with court dates in 2027. This whole thing has just been a disaster in terms of the federal response, in just the cruelest possible way. Everyone could see this coming, that there would be more people trying to cross. There are 16,000 people, give or take, in Tijuana alone, right?

So it's just across from where I live, waiting to come to the United States because they've been denied that right for three years because they need somewhere safe to go and because they're not safe there. And the best estimate we got for how many they could process from Border Patrol was 200 a day at the Tijuana port of entry or San Ysidro port of entry, really. But we don't know. There's no clear. I don't know how many people they're processing every day. But these people who do come in now have to have a hearing date before they can be released. If they get through, so I spoke to a young man and his son who I'd spoken to at the border.

And he had been released into the United States where a charity in San Diego will provide him with two nights. What, like two nights of accommodation, right? And then I can't quite work out what then, like is he out on his own? You know, like, I guess we'll find out tonight. But he has to find a sponsor. I don't quite understand how he was released without a sponsor, but it seems like the system is kind of bungling things up. And these folks have to fund their own flights to wherever it is their sponsor is, right?

So they have family or community. They're having to work out how to get to that family and community. So be that a greyhound or a plane or a train. So it's all in all a giant clusterfuck with very human consequences. I can't stress enough

how every possible demographic is represented old people little tiny children right like i was talking to a little afghan girl not really talking to because we don't share any languages but i was more just like making funny faces for a while um and sort of pointing at things and uh, it just breaks my heart that there are little children who like, especially, you know, she's a little girl. She's from Afghanistan. We told a shit ton of lies about Afghan women to justify 20 years of killing people

and of certain people making money from killing people. And like, this was supposedly the like, Kanaad was that this was for Afghanghan girls and women right and here's an afghan girl sleeping in the fucking dirt um like 20 20 minutes from where i live and i can't even give this kid like a hot meal because i can't fit it through the bars of the fence like everything that goes across to these people has to go through the bars of the fence like everything that goes across to these people has to go through the bars of the fence right so someone uh worked out that pizza pizza could fit through because flat right so people have been getting pizza but other than that they're getting you know bottles

of water granola bars uh you know things that fit fit through a fence beef jerky um and they've been there for days in some cases and that's a camp that's relatively accessible right you i can pull off the interstate drive down a dirt road and be there in like i say 20 minutes um the camps are less accessible we've heard the conditions are much worse a couple of jamaican guys told me that there was another camp that we weren't we tried to get access to it. Weren't able to get access to, um, that was further West from where we were, where people were hungry. They're getting, this is all just from that source.

I have reached out to border patrol, but as of today, they haven't got back to me. Um, saying that they were getting a bottle of water in a granola bar every day. Um, and that like some of these other folks had taken it upon themselves to like walk over there to try and get them food, right. People who are already not in a great situation themselves. And they kept asking, why couldn't we go there? Why couldn't we help them? Like, it was very admirable, right. To see folks who are in a pretty bad way, be like, Hey, these people need, need help more than we do. Um, so yeah, that's the situation I think we should take a break for advertising then

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that will brighten your day um so something i wanted to talk about because i think it's important is the mutual aid response to this and and it's been really really impressive uh you know i i live in a place where the democrats are absolute dog shit uh and well we all do it's america right but um like the just the particularly cringe like carceral liberalism of san diego democrats is like as always on display right i saw one of them tweeting today about how cb uh dhs and cbp are doing a great job in keeping us safe. And like, it's like, I don't,

it makes me want to say things I shouldn't say on the podcast, I guess. But what that means is that like our government isn't going to do shit, right? Like it is entirely on us to look after each other. And people have done that. Um, the groups like, um like American Friends Service Committee, which is a great organization,

which does really good stuff on the border, have been down there every single day, right? Like there have been days when I've left at 1am, there's still someone there. They've been giving people water, giving people food. A huge need that people have is to charge their phones. The way that migrants interact with CBP, at least in theory, the way you get an asylum appointment is booking it through

an app called CBP One. We've talked about this on the podcast before, but CBP One is terrible. It is a terrible app that doesn't work. And that's for people who have phones and Wi-Fi, right? If you are stuck in between two fences on a dusty piece of ground, how the hell are you supposed to charge your phone? You don't have Wi-Fi, right? You may not have a data plan that works in that area. So a huge unmet need was charging phones. So we were able to get some donations from the team and buy a big charger. Other folks turned up with chargers. Even all the news orgs I see, to include Fox National, weren't there, which is a good thing. But we could talk about that actually as well. Migrants will specifically ask which news network you're with, which I think is that, I think that's good. I think it's good to tell Fox News to fuck off because yeah, you, someone who participates

in your dehumanization doesn't also deserve to make money from your trauma. And so every news network that was there, right. All the local folks from San Diego were just constantly shuttling back and forth to their vans, charging phones. Constantly, constantly, constantly. And it became a bit of a cluster because obviously there's literally just hundreds of people in this small area. Dozens of hands reaching for the fence. Charge my phone. Can I have my phone back? Charge my phone. And in English and Spanish and French and Comanche and Vietnamese and all these other languages, right?

So it was very hard to organize that. So folks came down, folks from San Diego, from different sort of mutual aid groups came down and they organized a system, right? They got painter's tape, wrote the names of the people on the back of the phone. We had this huge-ass battery that we were able to get and that they were able to charge people's phones get them their phones back to them and that is a crucial uh thing right in that in

that scenario not only is it your only way to communicate with border patrol it's your only way to communicate with your family right like um one guy had lost his phone and so i just bought him a burner phone or you know one of those wal those Walmart phones so that he could call his family because his family didn't know where he was, right? Last they'd heard he was in Mexico or maybe even further South. And so the phones are super important. Other mutual aid groups have been getting blankets, right? I saw an Afghan family turn up and they had crayons for the Afghan kids who were there. Right.

And like coloring books and things for children to do. Cause it's probably boring being a kid. And it's probably scary being a kid where like every day men with guns and camouflage gear turned up and they speak a language you don't understand. And then you don't know what they say. And then you stay there. Yeah. And I want to kind of just,

there are lots of things that could get called camps that are like not camps right like this is like this is this is not a camp in the sense of like there are buildings that you go into or even like there are tents it's just like oh yeah no yeah i think that's a very good thing that I haven't mentioned. Thank you. Yes, this is people lying on the dirt. Occasionally, they have a Mylar space blanket. Occasionally, they have a tarp.

If they want to make any form of shelter, the only thing they have to use is the wall itself, right? So up against the wall, people have made like a lean-to kind of situation with a tarp, right? But no, this is by no means suitable shelter like literally people are lying on the dirt like it's just a fucking cage like in a desert like it's like yeah it's it's it's it's it's the kind of thing that like like you it's the kind of thing you would put in an apocalypse movement people would be like oh no one would ever do that shit it's like no no like this is just sort of i don't know this is this is what

u.s border policy is it's these like just these open air cages yeah it's you wouldn't like you know i go to the zoo in san diego and the animals have much better conditions than that um there's no running water there was one port porta-Loo toilet for 500 people. Yeah, it's terrible. It is awful. It's people wrapping their babies in Mylar blankets and trying to get them to sleep at night. And

that's the same at several places up and down the border. They're starting to clear them out now. So sort of Tuesday, Monday. So some of Tuesday, Monday. So some people got there a week ago, I think. So they've been staying there for a long time. And yeah, at no point does there seem to have been any consideration for even giving people shade or shelter

or like the very basics. And and like i should reinforce it in 2018 when trump blocked a large group of migrants from entering the united states the government of mexico did considerably better than this it was by no means a good situation for those children at all but they did better than this which is an is an extremely low bar to clear, but we have failed to clear it completely as a country. And that's kind of to our eternal shame, I think. Yeah, and I think in everything I've said, worth emphasizing about this is that

it hasn't always been like this. There's this sort of image that's been constructed that this is always what the US border has been. And it's like, no, I mean, it's not like, it's not like American border policy has always been like good but I mean like in my lifetime it wasn't like this

in the mid 90s there were 4,000 border patrol agents it's increased by a factor of 10 and it's budgeted probably by more than that yeah and you know the consequences of this is just basically in order to appease a bunch of just sort of, like, fucking, like, turbo-racist baked dipshits, like, who live in the suburbs and, you know, have never experienced a single hardship in their entire lives, like, fucking untold numbers of people are put through just in inhuman suffering and for fucking nothing just just like for for nothing for like just dog shit electoral pandering

yeah uh by people who have never seen what goes on at the border they've never experienced where these people come from um yeah it's they're just numbers to people in dc right and and i would really urge people to not read immigration coverage or watch immigration coverage or listen to immigration coverage that isn't written by people at the border because this isn't a fucking issue about numbers every single one of those numbers is a person who has people they love and things that they've done and choices that they've made that got them there. And every single one of them is someone who deserves compassion and empathy. And it's not just another number in an Excel chart, which is how it's treated. And yeah, it hasn't always been this way. This is a very recent innovation. And it's,

I mean, we've talked about this before as well, but this is the proving ground for state surveillance, state violence, fascism, all these things. The reason that you got surveilled by a drone if you went to a George Floyd protest in Minneapolis is because the Border Patrol already had one. The reason that cops listened into your phone if you went to some protest in 2020 is because of border patrol technology right they they have these stingray towers all up and down the border and robert and i have seen him in mexico sorry in texas even yeah and i mean you know even even stuff like this this is sort of recent laws in places like florida and texas that are you know let the state steal

trans kids right like that that's also stuff that was sort of like yeah like the prototype of that came from the i mean all like it came from the border like there's there it all it's also something that came from sort of like like anti-black bullshit that like is sort of deeply rooted in like american family planning bullshit but like yeah like that that's also another one of the places where like that stuff was tested and with indigenous folks like we've ripped into children for their families for decades yeah but yeah we it it's a deeply baked white supremacist system that that always does its experimenting on on marginalized people are very often at the border um but yeah if you if you're worried about the government intercepting your communications with an abortion care provider, that has happened because at some point they've been allowed to do stuff to migrants that was equally bad, if not worse. This will hurt you even if you are like Cathy the liberal in Minnesota.

When we let the state have these powers they don't just use them benevolently and that they weren't using them benevolently in the first place like these are innocent people who've done nothing wrong yeah i mean like that's that's the thing about state power is any any power the state has inevitably they will one day use it on you and so you can't let them take shit like this because you know they will they they will turn your entire society into a sort of hell garrison state yeah and it's just i don't know the inhumanity that your taxes pay for if you're listening to this in america is abhorrent it's disgusting and and yeah you should do everything you can to stop it and like this probably is one of the instances where like you may be able to do something of some value by writing to a politician it's certainly

one of the instances where if you live near the border you can show up and make a very meaningful difference to someone's whole experience right like um myself and joe were down there when when this this guy had lost his phone and like like, you know, it wasn't that expensive to buy this guy a phone. Other, like people will remember Mandy and people will remember Alex, who are two guests I've had on different San Diego episodes. They've both been down there.

I know Alex gave his EpiPen to someone who needed an EpiPen, like acutely needed an EpiPen. Like things like that, you can maybe save someone's life. Maybe just make someone's day a little bit less shit. You know, maybe you can let a kid kick a football and you'd have to deflate the football to get it through the fence early. But like, you know, you can give a doll to a little kid

so they can play with it or something. Just something that will for a moment take them out of the utterly miserable place that we force them into. And if folks want to support that, I know I'd posted Mandy's Cash App and Venmo, and I think some people very generously did contribute, which is great. If you're not at the border, look at Border Kindness, which is a group out of San Diego who I know are doing aid runs to Hukumba,

the Hukumba Hotel. Hukumba, for those not familiar, J-A-C-U-M-B-A. The Hukumba Hotel was housing folks and providing a huge amount of water and shelter to people. This morning, people can look at the American Friends Service Committee that I wrote about. And I know that Joe and myself have shared some Amazon wish lists that people have and that kind of thing. But it's a massive task, but it's not one that's insurmountable. The amount of people I've seen show up to include, and I'm not a religious person,

and I'm not a person who particularly cares for organized religion either, but it does make me happy when I see old church ladies in high heels with perms coming out and like and like giving water to children charging phones and and seeing i think it's like certainly i've lived on the border for 15 years it's been a fundamentally radicalizing experience for me like i think you're supposed to grow old and grow out of your anarchist politics or whatever but i don't know how anyone could live here and think that like police state good it's and i think anybody who can get down here should it's good for you too like and i always think about how oscar wilde has this thing about like how seeing people living on the streets like not only undermines their humanity but also his humanity because like seeing someone else suffering should make us feel bad and so like he benefits when he

helps someone and like you know we're all lifted up right like i i guess one of the things i struggle with most of the journalists is that like that like feeling of living in comfort while other people can't especially when it's such like it's one thing if i am if i go somewhere right if i'm in myanmar and i'm aware that things are difficult and scary and then i get on a plane and it takes two days and i come back but um just from like a personal like mental health perspective seeing a little child sleep in the dirt right or someone asked me for a fucking bin bag so they can keep their baby out of the rain like a trash bag or a kid without shoes you know um and then going home to my relatively comfortable existence is really hard but i think we should all

have to face up to that because it's what it's what our government is responsible for and supposedly we got the best fucking option in 2020 right this is the this is this is the good choice of the two um but it doesn't make any meaningful difference whether you choose trump or biden to these people right because yeah i mean they treat them like shit yeah it's like the kids are still in cages and yes you know until until until the the entire system that enables this shit is destroyed. And it can be, right? Like, and this isn't even on the level of sort of like, you know, of sort of anarchist politics, right? Like this, none of this shit existed 20 years ago, right?

Like this is like, well, okay, I guess it's 20, 23, 25 years ago, none of this shit existed. Even within like the framework of the nation state, right? Like. 25 years ago, none of this shit existed. Even within, like, the framework of the nation state, right? Like, this is not a thing that we have to do. We simply do not have to do this. You could share politics with Bill Clinton and still... No, Ronald Reagan

was better on the fucking border than any president who has been alive in my fucking lifetime. Right? Ronald fucking Reagan. Dwight Eisenhower would have had serious concerns about the industrial complex we're building at the border. Yeah, this isn't a particularly radical political thing, right? It's just that we've become sort of inert to this death state

that's been built up around us. And it doesn't keep anyone safe it just fucking inflicts untold human misery so fucking greg abbott can win an election yeah yeah and it costs us a lot of money right like your universal health care is is an unmanned drone flying over some children trying to cross the desert in arizona right now your free university education is a border patrol smart camera in the desert that goes off every time a fucking deer walks past or it rains like it this stuff is expensive and like if you're in the u.s you are paying for it, I think the most sort of soft of liberals can see that this is wrong.

And they did see that this shit was wrong in the Trump administration. And they do see this is wrong when they come, right? Like some of the best mutual aid groups I've worked with are like middle-aged folks from churches who have time and the means to help and just didn't realize that it was like no one was coming and we had to do it ourselves and when they did that they were very effective and so i would encourage folks who are in border communities near the border

um near the border means a different thing if you're border patrol because their jurisdiction applies 100 miles from the border that's the other thing right the border will come to you yeah like two-thirds like statistically odds are that you are the border already has come to you yes that's yeah yeah two-thirds of people in the united states are in the border patrol uh enforcement zone yeah like i'm in it and i'm in like fucking chicago right oh yeah like yeah i Yeah, I think, yes, people who would not think of themselves as border dwellers, the border affects you.

If you go to other communities in your city, you might realize Border Patrol are around there. ICE are around there. So yeah, it's pretty bleak. We're working on some scripted stuff, but I want to get into a bit of the history of Border Patrol. I'm rereading Border Patrol Nation,

which is a great book if people haven't read it um and i want the other thing i should say about border reporting is if people don't center migrants and they're reporting about migration then you shouldn't be reading that reporting like sometimes it can be hard one other thing i guess i do want to say is you'll see in my photos and you'll see in joe's photos you're not going to see many faces. Um, and that's because people have legitimate fears for their wellbeing. That's why they are fucking here. Yeah. And not obtaining consent before taking photographs is making a terrible situation worse. And like, that's something that we can work on as a media, right? Like it's something I will continue to call out when I see it. But if you don't speak the language, find someone who does, or just don't take the goddamn photo. And you'll see some faces of mine. Like I like to pass my camera through the fence

and give it to like teenage kids so they can run around and take photos and have fun. And like, so when they take like goofy selfies, I'll post those. They get concerned from them or their parents or the parents around it. And that's fine. But yeah, when you're looking at border coverage, always understand that these are people. And if we don't center those people and their stories, then we're doing it wrong. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

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. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly.

I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. Pishar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them.

Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. or wherever you get your podcasts. If you can physically get to these places, you should. This is one of the situations where the amount of good that a very small number of people could do is enormous

and the cost is not that high. No. is enormous and the cost is not that high and no like um i for instance i saw some of my friends had just gone to costco right and just loaded up one of those big costco trolleys and like that is that makes a meaningful difference to hundreds of people yeah and so you should there'll probably be mutual aid networks on the ground at almost every uh border area by now. Reach out to them, see if they need your money. If you can get there and help organize, that's better.

If you have skills, right, if you have language skills, like there are people, I met a guy who spoke Kumansi, like the Kurdish dialect of North and East Syria, right? People who speak Vietnamese, almost every language you can conceive of, right? Those people really struggle to get information and they just can't talk to anyone because there's no one else to talk to. And their phone charges is a precious commodity

and it's cost a lot of money to dial internationally. So those people could just be lonely. So if you have those language skills, go. Someone broke their finger in San Diego getting crushed up against a fence. There was a medic there to help them. If there hadn't been, that could have been worse for them.

And sometimes the ambulance can come in and take people out. But there are valuable, meaningful things that you could do if you have the time. If not, if you have the money, there are really important places to donate. Those are just a couple of them. We'll highlight a couple more as we go forward.

Oh, one more thing I did want to plug is Miles for Migrants. Where if you have, if you don't have money, but you do have airline miles, like I was speaking to this guy today who got across, he has two days and he has to get himself to New York where he has family uh I don't have the means to buy four airline tickets or I would but if you have air miles you want to donate them you can yeah and this is the thing like you know like I have family who for example like work at Hong Kong right and they have like you know and they're like there are people like that who are like you know not radicals but are sort of you know like you you like like there are people in this world who have a shit ton of miles built up for work or some shit that's just sitting there. And that's something that you can – you may not have it.

You might know people who do. You may not have it. You might know people who do. Yeah. Yeah. You might know someone who does a weird credit card flipping thing, you know, where they like get air miles and like make it their whole personality to, to,

to get air miles. But like, whatever, if those people can help, yeah, you don't need to turn them into like Mac novice. So overnight, like,

like nobody wants to see a little baby sleep in the dirt. And anybody who could be there physically would be appalled by it. And I think if you can convey to those folks that now at the time, when something that costs them nothing materially, right? Like I know tons of people have more miles that they can use because they fly all the time for work. You don't want to fly when you're done flying. You want to stay at home.

So that's another way that people can help. When you're done flying, you want to stay at home. So that's another way that people can help. And yeah, just, I guess, it's a crisis that will continue unabated because the cruelty is the point. And it's, for one, it's like, you know, we can't stop all the climate change and all this bad shit. But this is something that is within our power to abet. We can't make it go away yet, but this is something that is within our power to abet.

We can't make it go away yet, but like we spoke to the people who are doing border drops on the border, there are meaningful things every single one of us can do to help. Yeah, go into the world. Do not let the violence done in our name be who we are. Yeah, show people you're better than this i guess 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 iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts you can find sources for it could happen here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com sources thanks for listening you should probably keep your lights on for nocturnal tales from the shadow join me danny trail and step into the flames of right an anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons?

Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app 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 musica, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight-up comedia,

and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.