It Could Happen Here - Title 42 pt 4: The Border Patrol

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

In the final episode James explains some of the history of the border and how CBP grew into an agency that operates without oversight across the USA and the world.   You can now listen to all Cool Zone Media shows, 100% ad-free through the Cooler Zone Media subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. So, open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “Cooler Zone Media” and subscribe today! http://apple.co/coolerzoneSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami? Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The history of the border and its enforcement begins in 1492 with the colonization of what would become known as the Americas. It goes through the 1842 Mexican-American War and the sale of indigenous people's lands without their knowledge or consent in the 1853 Gadsden Purchase and of course through the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and numerous other explicit attempts to prevent non-white people from moving to the USA. From there, it weaves its way through the Mexican Revolution and the First World War's German proposal to ally with Mexico to reclaim those territories it had lost in the decades before. Then, the Border Patrol's story itself begins, in May 1924. And in the 99 years since,

it has encompassed everything from David Duke to 9-11, in its journey to becoming the biggest and least accountable law enforcement agency in the federal government. People from the colonial periphery have always migrated to the metropole. It's why a man called Fat Les singing a song about Vindaloo is basically my country's second national anthem, and why every four years France accepts black French men onto its football team before it returns to vilifying them in other forms of discourse. Migration to the United States is no different. Climate change and US imperialism have destabilized and impoverished nations from the Americas to Afghanistan, and driven people to the US border

looking for a better life. What's distinct about the US is how obsessed it has become with keeping these people out, and enforcing the longest land borders in the world. But the US border is much bigger than the land boundary between the USA and Mexico to the south, and Canada to the longest land borders in the world. But the US border is much bigger than the land boundary between the USA and Mexico to the south and Canada to the north. If you're listening to this in the United States, the chances are that you live in the border enforcement zone. This swath of territory outside the constitution has been established since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952

established that a reasonable distance of the border would extend 100 air miles around the outline of the country. Two-thirds of the US's population live within this zone. Washington DC, San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans and Boston are all within it and that means that CBP agents can search vehicles and vessels to look for property that's in the country without the right documents. They can board public transportation or set up interior checkpoints and stop, interrogate, and search citizens and non-citizens without the need for a warrant.

Within 25 miles of the border, they can enter your property provided it's not a domicile. The Fourth Amendment, part of a foundational Bill of Rights the US likes to tout as what makes it different from the rest of the world, doesn't apply when you're near the border. An all-encompassing history of the border and its enforcement is beyond the scope of this podcast. Even a history of the southwest border could take up a whole bookshelf. But we will try and skim the high points here. Let's start with the Gadsden Purchase,

when a party of military surveyors first bumped into Tohono O'odham elders as they attempted to draw a line dividing Tohono O'odham people from Tohono O'odham elders as they attempted to draw a line dividing Tohono O'odham people from Tohono O'odham people. The southern border is no more obvious today than it was then and of course to the autumn it was and remains an aberration that divides them from much of their ancestral and current homelands. It has over the years seen violent enforcement on members of the nation and a growing encroachment of the border patrol into today's Tohono O'odham Reservation, which is the second largest in the USA, but only represents a fraction of the tribe's historical homeland. These surveyors were in the process of finalizing most of the California and Arizona border, a border I drove most of in the days after Title 42. The southern border, as it

looks now, was largely shaped by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico lost 55% of its territory, including all of what is today California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and parts of what is today Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The Gadsden Purchase of 1853 added more of southern Arizona and New Mexico. The specific border in San Ysidro was drawn so that San Diego Bay would fall to the north of the line. The border in Okumba seems more arbitrary, a straight line in the desert that runs into a pile of rocks. Of course, long before the border divided San Ysidro from Tijuana, this was Kumeyaay land, and despite the border it still is. The name Tijuana derives from Tijuana, which means by the sea in Kumeyaay.

Despite this, the Kumeyaay and many other indigenous peoples were ignored when the border crossed them, and it's becoming harder and harder for them to cross it. In parts of the desert, it can be pretty hard to see the border at all. In 2020, while out with a group of Kumeyaay people who are in ceremony to honour their ancestors, whose burial sites have been and continue to be desecrated by border wall construction. I had to be wary of stepping over it to better frame my shots. The emergency declaration Donald Trump made allowed war construction to sidestep legislation in place to protect archaeological and sacred sites, but it didn't allow me to sidestep into Mexico to get a better shot. Luckily, BORTAC, a team of armed border patrol agents who you might remember from Portland

in 2020, provided a guy dressed like he was in the Battle of Fallujah to help me. I would say the border is a line in the sand, but at the time there wasn't a line that was visible at all. In Valley of the Moon, a few miles east of where that BORTAC patrol guard shouted at people for stepping too close in 2020, the border wall is about waist high, rusty, and essentially comprised of a single strand of barbed wire. In Hukumba, the 30-foot Trump Wall pushes right up to a boulder pile, and then stops. The logic, as much as there can be any logic in spending $25 million a mile to desecrate sacred spaces and defile the landscape, is that people will be deterred from crossing by the harsh landscape, brutally hot days and brutally cold nights.

This logic, of course, fails to consider not just where people are going, but why they're leaving the places they've come from. Risking one's life crossing the border makes sense only when one considers the danger that many people in places around the world face every day. It hasn't always been this way. For your reference, here are Reagan and Bush talking about migration in 1980. I'm going to ask you what you would do about Cuba, but now we're going to have some questions from the audience. Yes, my name is David Grossberg and I'd like to know, do you think that children

of illegal aliens should be allowed to attend Texas public schools free, or do you think that their parents should pay for their education? Who are you addressing that to? I think you're first in this. He was looking right at you. I said he was. Look, I'd like to see something done about the illegal alien problem that would be so sensitive and so understanding about labor needs and human needs that that problem wouldn't come up.

But today, if those people are here, I would reluctantly say I think they would get whatever it is that they're, you know, what the society is giving to their neighbors. But the problem has to be solved. The problem has to be solved. Because as we have kind of made illegal Some kinds of labor that I'd like to see legal. We're doing two things. We're creating a whole society of Really honorable decent family loving people that are in violation of the law and secondly We're exacerbating relations with Mexico the chain the answer to your question is much more fundamental

Then whether they attend Houston schools, it seems to me. I don't want to see a whole, if they're living here, I don't want to see a whole, I think a six and eight year old kids being made, you know, one totally uneducated and made to feel that they're living with outside the law. Let's address ourselves to the fundamentals. These are good people, strong people. Part of my family is a Mexican. Can I add to that? I think the time has come that the United States and our neighbors, particularly our neighbor to the south,

should have a better understanding and a better relationship than we've ever had. And I think that we haven't been sensitive enough to our size and our power. They have a problem of 40 to 50 percent unemployment. Now, this cannot continue without the possibility arising, with regard to that other country that we talked about, of Cuba and what it is stirring up, of the possibility of trouble below the border, and we could have a very hostile and strange neighbor on our border. Rather than making them, or talking

about putting up a fence, why don't we work out some recognition of our mutual problems, make it possible for them to come here legally with a work permit, and then while they're working and earning here, they pay taxes here. And when they want to go back, they can go back and they can cross and open the border both ways by understanding their problems. The modern era of border enforcement began, as far as we can pinpoint a single date, with Silvestre Reyes, the then sector chief of the Border Patrol in McAllen, Texas, and his Operation Hold the Line. The community around McAllen had got tired of Border Patrol snooping around businesses and even schools in the Rio Grande Valley.

And instead, Reyes deployed his agents forward in a sort of even schools in the Rio Grande Valley. And instead, Reyes deployed his agents forward in a sort of human fence along the Rio Grande. Reyes would later become the chief of the El Paso sector and a Democratic congressman. He lost his seat to Beto O'Rourke in 2013. But this strategy would long outlive his career with Border Patrol. The following year, on September 17, 1994, US Attorney General Janet Reno announced the start of Operation Gatekeeper. The first phase of the operation focused on the first five miles of the western border, including the place where I recorded all those interviews you heard earlier this week. According to a piece written a quarter of a

century later in the LA Times, the strategy was to deter migrants from illegally crossing in the first place, and, for those who remained undeterred, to encourage them to cross in more isolated wilderness areas to the east, where they could be more easily captured. There were already fences in 1994, first a chain-link fence, and then one made of helicopter landing mats left over from Vietnam that had horizontal struts that closely resembled and were used as a ladder. Anti-migrant rhetoric was already there too.

California Governor Pete Wilson became an outspoken advocate for Prop 187, a ballot measure that cut off state services like healthcare and education to undocumented people. Here's a clip of Wilson's re-election ad. They keep coming, two million illegal immigrants in California. committed people. Here's a clip of Wilson's re-election ad. pay taxes and obey the laws, I'm suing to force the federal government to control the border, and I'm working to deny state services to illegal immigrants. Enough is enough. Governor Pete Wilson. Under the operation, a much higher number of agents were deployed to the border. Apprehensions increased, and with them, so did funding for border enforcement. It was around this time that the narrative around the border began to change. It was also around this time, a few months earlier in fact, that the US,

Mexico, and Canada entered into the North American Free Trade Agreement, which made it easier than ever for capital to move across the border and take advantage of lower wages in Mexico. To learn a little bit more about Operation Gatekeeper, I spoke to one of the agents who was tasked with executing it. My name is Jen Budd, and I'm a former senior patrol agent with the United States Border Patrol. I was a senior intelligence agent as well at San Diego sector headquarters. Jen has since left the Border Patrol, but she realizes the impact of Operation Gatekeeper on migrants was anything but positive. Operation Gatekeeper on migrants? Was anything but positive?

Yeah, Operation Gatekeeper started in 1994, in October of 1994. And I got to Campo in November of 1995. And so right afterwards, and the fence was just getting to Tecate when I got there. So most of my class, I think we had, I don't know, 40 people graduate or something. Most of them went down to Imperial Beach and they had a wall there. And so that was the idea is to fill the San Diego city area with as many agents and weapons and all this. And then that would push the traffic further out to the mountains, making it more difficult for them to cross. And some of them would get injured and we knew some of them would die. So it was intentional. The death and the injuries, according to management, would deter future crosses. But of course, that's not the case. Alan Burson, U.S. attorney in San Diego, was named the so-called border czar by President Bill Clinton a few years later to implement that same gatekeeper strategy

across the rest of the southwest border. Burstyn saw things a little differently. Neither side claims it, but gatekeeper was probably the most important domestic achievement accomplished in a purely bipartisan manner through three administrations, and the greatest accomplishment since President Eisenhower and the Democrats put together the state highway system in the mid-1950s. But in fact, while apprehensions did drop in San Diego, in the mid-1950s. But in fact, while apprehensions did drop in San Diego, they spiked by 591% in the Tucson sector between 1992 and 2004. The LA Times quotes the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service as saying, one unintended consequence of this enforcement posture and the shift in

migration patterns has been an increase in the number of migrant deaths each year. On average, 200 migrants died each year in the early 1990s, compared with 472 migrant deaths in 2005. Many of those deaths are now in a sector that encompasses the O'Harnam Reservation. The desert there is particularly hard to cross, and the enforcement that began with Operation Gatekeeper pushes more and more people onto the reservation. Tohono O'odham people used to travel between the United States and Mexico fairly easily, on roads without checkpoints, to visit family, go to school, visit a doctor, or perform their traditional ceremonial practices. But after 9-11, the United States and its Border Patrol began a more visible and violent occupation of the reservation. It started with a vehicle barrier in 2007, and it continued with CBP's quote-unquote

virtual wall of surveillance technology, cameras, and drones. The Israeli company Elbit Systems has built fixed surveillance towers, which they pioneered in the West Bank on tribal land, with the permission of tribal council. Meanwhile, other members of the nation strongly oppose the militarization of their homeland, in the name of security of whatever homeland the Department of Homeland Security is securing. I'll quote here from Todd Miller, whose excellent work on the border is required reading for anyone interested in the subject. Amy Hwan and Nellie Jo David, members of the Tohon Autumn Hermajkum Rights Network, TOHRN, joined a delegation to the West Bank in October 2017, convened by the Palestinian organization Stop the War. It was a relief, Hwan says, to talk with people who understand our fears,

who are dealing with militarization and technology. who are dealing with militarization and technology. In 2017, Tohon Autumn Vice Chairman Verlon Jose said that a wall would be built, quote, over my dead body. And the tribe released a video saying there is no autumn word for wall. The 62 miles of the border on their reservation would remain without one, they said. By 2020, the Trump administration had fought through a wall on much of the border using what is known as the Roosevelt Reservation. This is a 60-foot-wide strip of land that the federal

government owns along the border in California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Although much of the autumn nation remains wall-free, and some has what's called a vehicle barrier or a Normandy barrier, approximately one-third of the Roosevelt Reservation is on tribal land. Since 2005's Real ID Act, environmental surveys and laws have been waived for border security, and this gave the Trump administration a way to justify the destruction of autumn and Kumeyaay burial grounds, saguaro cacti that the autumns see as relatives, and other sacred sites along the border, despite efforts by tribal members and allies to stop the construction. the border, despite efforts by tribal members and allies to stop the construction. Members of the Tohono O'odham Nation have been pepper-sprayed, beaten, tailed, and shot by Border Patrol. In 2002, a Border Patrol agent ran over and killed an O'odham teenager. Last week, the same night I

was waiting down by the border for the end of Title 42, Border Patrol agents shot and killed Raymond Mattia, an O'odham man who had called and asked him for help. He was shot 38 times, just two feet from his front door, according to his family. While Mr. Mattia's death is still being investigated, the Border Patrol has a long tradition of literally getting away with murder. This is because they investigate themselves

using so-called critical incident teams. I talked to Jen about what those teams do. And so what they would do is they would get there first on the scene because we would call them first. We wouldn't call anybody else. We'd call them first. And then they come, they get rid of the witnesses. They set the scene up the way we want to be done. And they tell you the narrative that you're going to stick with. You talk to your union reps and it's all this giant cover-up.

Here's John Carlos Frey, a journalist who covered CIT cover-ups, talking to Democracy Now! about how these teams work. Within the actual agency of the U.S. Border Patrol, there is an investigative body called CIT, the Critical Incident Team. They are tasked with investigating incidents that involve Border Patrol. And it can be anything from a car accident to, in this case, an individual who's killed at the hands of the U.S. Border Patrol. In this particular case of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, Border Patrol agents deleted video. They collected evidence at the scene. They were present in the hospital when Anastasio was being treated.

They were present at the autopsy. They fudged reports. They deleted reports. They coached their own agents on what kind of testimony they were to give. They were present at every one of the depositions. They made sure that they were the victims in this case. And when I say that, what I mean is that Border Patrol agents, sit team agents, make sure that Border Patrol agents are looked at as the victims in any sort of an incident, meaning that they are allowed then to use lethal force. If a Border Patrol agent has rocks thrown at them or in the case of Anastasio,, they alleged that Anastasio was violent and that he was kicking and punching and he needed to be subdued. If we take a look at the videotape, that's not actually what happened. He's handcuffed, he's prone on the ground, his face is down, agents are on top of him. But if you read the reports in this case that were prepared by SIT, Anastasio was a violent man and needed to be subdued. In 2021, Border Patrol was ordered to disband these teams. But Jen says they simply moved them somewhere else and gave them a different

name. So then they said that they disbanded them because we brought the truth out and how they did all this and we proved it. But what they actually did is they did a retention. So they had the Border Patrol agents resign from the Border Patrol and move over to CBP OPR and rehired them under there. So the team that likely went to go investigate the Tohono O'odham killing, I believe his name is Matia, Matia, Raymond Matia, is likely the Border Patrol SIT teams. So if the Border Patrol agents, a lot of people don't understand, it's like a cult. You know, they always say you bleed green, you know, and you don't go back from green. And probably one of the few that ever left, you know, and tells the truth about it. Of course, the vast majority of people whose families will never find justice because of these CIT teams are not white.

And of course, Border Patrol has long-rooted links to white nationalism. In 1977, about 45 minutes from San Diego, and another 45 minutes from Mugumba, David Duke, Grand Dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan at the time, announced the official beginning of Klan Border Watch. Duke claimed there were hundreds of Klansmen on the border, but local newspapers at Desert Sun reported that there were hundreds of Klansmen on the border, but local newspapers of Desert Sun reported that there were, in reality, at least 10. I'll quote directly from the Desert Sun's reporting at the time here. Duke said Klansmen would refrain from direct

contact with illegal aliens. If any are found, he said, Klansmen would not talk to them or contact them. But if any illegal crossings are seen, they're going to use CB radios to relay the information to Border Patrol, Duke said. Duke, of Metairie, Louisiana, claimed the Klan has the support of the American people in helping the Border Patrol stem the influx of illegal aliens into this country. He claimed the illegal aliens take jobs away from US citizens. We feel this rising tide washing over our border is going to affect our culture, he told reporters at the time, in a statement that wouldn't sound out of place on Fox News today. In response, more than 1,500 brown berries threatened to rally against Duke,

and protests far outnumbering his patrols popped up along the border. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Texas Knights had the KKK leader Louis Beam, a Vietnam War veteran who had helped to organize and promote Duke's Border Stunt, established paramilitary camps around Texas, and trained children as young as eight in the deadly guerrilla warfare tactics he learned overseas. He rallied white fishermen against Vietnamese migrants and burned their boats. and burn their boats. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things

that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2019, I bought a Patrol agent from Nogales named Matthew Bowen was accused of knocking down a Guatemala man with his vehicle and then lying to a court about the incident. The prosecutors in the case showed the jury text Bowen sent, including one which called migrants, quote, disgusting subhuman messages, Bowen references, quote, This is a derogatory term for border-crossing migrants. The origins of the term are a little bit unclear,

but it seems to be derived from the sound of a flashlight hitting the back of someone's head. In an argument against omitting the text, defence lawyer Sean Chapman wrote that he would argue certain terms are, quote, commonplace throughout the Border Patrol's Tucson sector. This is part of the agency's culture, and therefore it says nothing about Mr. Bowen's mindset. Jen says this kind of language and attitude was not uncommon in her time in Border Patrol, from the mid-90s to the early 2000s, but things have got worse since. her time in border patrol from the mid 90s to the early 2000s but things have got worse since there have been some definite changes in the border patrol in the training

from before 9-11 to after 9-11 and what you also see um so so their vocabulary has changed so like they refer to migrants and asylum seekers as invaders We never used that term prior to 9-11. We did have racist words that we used for them, and I use them as well. I'm not denying that. Of course, this kind of language isn't just restricted to Border Patrol. The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems. I want to meet you. Thank you. It's true.

And these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. There has been white supremacist violence

at the border ever since Duke, and long before. Often it's been at the hands of groups outside of the state. Sometimes it's been at the hands of the state. In Arizona, groups like Arizona Border Recon and Minutemen American Defense have terrorized border communities for decades, and gained renewed momentum from Trump's consistent demonization of migrants. I spent a bit of time looking for them in the desert in Arizona last week, but I didn't see much. Not that I really wanted to. Interaction with these militias, probably far more often than we have documented evidence for, can be fatal, just like interaction with Customs and Border Protection. Here's just one example, culled from David Newhart's excellent book, and how it followed with her.

and hell followed with her. On May 30th, 2009, Shauna Ford, Jason Eugene Bush, and Albert Gaxiola, all members of Ford's vigilante group Minuteman American Defense, forced their way into Raul Flores Jr.'s home in Alavica, Arizona, by pretending to be Border Patrol agents. The group planned to steal and sell drugs they thought Flores had in his house. The FBI knew about this, but did nothing to stop them. Finding no drugs in the house, the vigilantes murdered Flores and his nine-year-old daughter, Brisenia. Flores' wife and Brisenia's mother, Gina Marie Gonzalez, were shot three times. She played dead, but when attackers returned,

she exchanged fire with them using her husband's handgun. In doing so, she hit Bush. Bush had previously been charged with the September 1997 execution of an Aryan Nation associate for the supposed crime of being a race traitor. Both Ford and Bush are currently on death row in Arizona. The KKK was not the only group recruiting children for border patrolling. Since the mid-1980s, the Border Patrol's Explorer program has recruited young men and women of high school age. The program is chartered through Learning for Life, which is a subsidiary of the Scouts of America.

For kids, often the children of immigrants, living in border towns where industry has long since gone and a decent wage is hard to come by, the program offers the chance at a starting salary of $62,000, twice the median income in some of these towns. Young explorers will learn tracking, survival, shooting, and how to detain and process undocumented migrants, people who in some cases are walking in the footsteps of their own parents. According to an article by Morley Music in The Nation, young explorers have to earn the right to their uniform by participating in a 60-hour basic explorer academy, of which they learned CPR, drills, and the methods of conducting vehicle

stops. It also offers courses in radio communications, public speaking, report writing, and ethics and integrity, and introduces the use to criminal, juvenile immigration of Fourth Amendment law. While I was writing this, I checked out the San Diego sector page, which seems to show young people running, shooting, and one who looks like he's just been maced in the face. The next photo on the Facebook page dedicated to this Border Patrol sector shows a man in handcuffs. Above this is a video of someone dropping a child from the top of the border fence. Without figures from the CBP, it's hard to tell if participation in the Explorers has dropped as public awareness of family separation, assault, and other behaviour doesn't exactly fit with the Border Patrol's motto, honour first, has spread. I asked Jen for her take on the Explorer programme. Well, I call it Border Patrol youth because it reminds me a lot of the hitler youth where we go into the high schools

and we get the kids that are in trouble and typically they are uh latino dominant high schools and and we teach them how to be mini border patrol agents and we teach them to hate somebody else instead of themselves we indoctrinate them into the same stuff that i was indoctrinated into but it's even gone so far now as to they do the dog and pony shows at the elementary school. So they're getting them when they're like six, seven years old. And they go there with, you know, a little Border Patrol bulletproof vest and put them on them and take pictures and put it on social media.

And they have them sit in their tracks and turn the sirens on and all this other stuff. That indoctrination is crucial to Border Patrol culture. And to be honest, the reason I wanted to talk to Jen was to understand it better. In Okumba, I'd seen a young Border Patrol agent, a woman, giving volunteers rides. I'm not about to get into a Border Patrol truck myself, and I wasn't going to get a response if I asked the agent how she squared up her role in holding people in the desert with the fact that some volunteers said

she'd spent her own money buying supplies. Jen said that this kind of behavior can be pretty common with young agents. I had intended to go to law school to be a civil rights attorney when I joined the border patrol. And for me, I ignored my core values and ignored that I was enforcing laws that sent thousands of human beings to their deaths because I felt like I was trying to survive. I was raped in the academy by a fellow agent and they covered that up. And I was really trying to get out of the South and start my life. I often say like, especially with female agents, they call us the first 5% because there's never been more than 5% women in the border patrol ranks. And they say, oh, it's because it's very hard.

It's not because it's very hard. I mean, it is very hard to get through, but it's also, it's because they're sexually assaulting us all the time in the academy and harassing us. So I go back and forth in my mind, and I would imagine this young woman, you know, she has days where she arrests some some pretty decent criminals every now and then once in a blue moon but the majority of them um if she's paying attention and not completely self-absorbed she'll realize that that they're not criminals and their family's just simply seeking asylum so she at some point has to decide

in her mind is this what I got into? Is this what I want to do with my life? In the wake of 9-11, and quite tellingly, the Border Patrol moved from oversight by the Department of Justice to the new Department of Homeland Security. This move from justice to security has been echoed in its recruiting, which once drew heavily on those with humanitarian aid experience, echoed in its recruiting, which once drew heavily on those with humanitarian aid experience, and now tries to appeal to veterans of the two decades of war that have accompanied the growth of DHS since 2001. When the DHS was first established, the name struck many as problematic. In a 2002 article in the New York Times, Elizabeth Becker wrote that the name had worrying similarities to the way the Nazis talked about their fatherland, and it didn't really fit with the way Americans spoke. Nobody in 2001 was talking about the

homeland. But two decades and billions of dollars later, it's hard to find much in the way of criticism of the agency in DC, despite the fact that the 2022 budgets of CBP and ICE were 16 and 8 billion respectively, and that every year since 2001, DHS has obtained more guns, more drones, and more surveillance technology that is inevitably used to spy on citizens as well as non-citizens. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonoro. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters,

to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola, mi gente. It's Honey German, and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture, musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities,

artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme, laughs, and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything

from music and pop culture to deeper topics like identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral.

Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough.

So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. In 1995, there were about 4,000 CBP agents. By 2020, there were 20,000, with 17,000 stationed on the southern border. This is a slight drop from a peak of just over 21,000, with 17,000 stationed on the southern border. This is a slight drop from a peak of just over 21,000 under Obama, who is often called the deporter-in-chief for his fondness for

expelling people from the United States for crimes like having a pipe or financial misconduct, the so-called aggravated felonies, and crimes of moral turpitude that only exist for non-citizens. These agents today have the ability to operate in what the ACLU calls a constitution-free zone and can conduct suspicion-free searches of electronic devices, use cell site simulators, and sweep up data about thousands of people never accused of any crime. One of the more notable examples of this

happened only a few yards from where I was recording last week in San Isidro. It's a story worth recounting in detail because it brings together the themes we've spoken about so far. Demonization of migrants, government overreach, and a frank disregard for international and national law. In late 2018, I was enjoying a break from work in a caravan near Ensenada. If you think back to that time, right before the midterms, you might remember some of the rhetoric that circulated around a large group of migrants making their way to the southern border. I'll play you some

of the clips from Fox that NPR cut together in their coverage of the issue. The sympathetic, overwrought coverage of this invading horde is, you know, calling it a caravan is a misnomer and frankly sickening. Or sample the chipper morning show Fox and Friends. I've gotten so many email from people who said, don't call it a caravan, call it an invasion. Yes. Is that fair? Host Steve Ducey put the question to conservative pundit Michelle Malkin. Of course it is. It is a full scale invasion by a hostile force, and it requires our president and our commander in chief to use any means necessary to protect our sovereignty. CNN's Brian Stelter found that Fox News featured segments using the phrase invasion more than 60 times this month about the migrants. On Fox Business Network, Lou Dobbs' program invoked it dozens of times.

Trump ordered 5,000 troops to the border. He tweeted yesterday, quote, this is an invasion of our country. And Trump has, without evidence, claimed gang members and criminals and Middle Easterners are among them. Over on Fox, guests have similarly, without supporting facts, suggested people from ISIS and the Taliban might be among those migrants. Even so, the network's chief news anchor, Shepard Smith, tried to put on the brakes yesterday. Tomorrow is one week before the midterm election, which is what all of this is about. There is no invasion. No one's coming to get you.

There's nothing at all to worry about. This month, Fox hosts and guests have repeatedly questioned whether the migrants might bring in infectious diseases, again without evidence. Laura Ingram. We don't know what people have coming in here. We have diseases in this country we haven't had for decades. I'll leave you to process the incredible irony of the network that killed a decent percentage of its viewers by denying that COVID was serious or a disease, or that vaccines and masks were useful, panicking about infectious diseases just two years before the pandemic began.

The Tree of Life shooter, who we won't name here, who is currently facing a death penalty trial for murdering 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue, was obsessed with the caravan. The victims of the largest anti-Semitic mass murder in US history included a beloved community doctor, a great grandmother, and a couple who'd gotten married at the same synagogue more than 60 years earlier. The shooter's last post on hate speech social media site Gab posted just minutes before the synagogue massacre began, spells it out with a reference to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Jewish non-profit that resettles refugees in the United States. Hi, I'd like to bring invaders to kill our people. I can't sit

by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I'm going in. The shooter was obsessed with the idea that a caravan of migrants was not a group of people trying to save their own lives, but a coordinated and somehow Jewish-led invasion, an attempt to demographically restructure the United States. If you're wondering where he got that idea from, here's America's favorite job seeker Tucker Carlson on the caravan. Over the past month, a caravan of Central American migrants has gradually made its way up from Honduras through Mexico all the way to Tijuana, opposite San Diego. At one point, Mexican authorities claimed they broke up the group, and American media, of course, dutifully reported that they did.

But they didn't. That was just a PR gesture, and a temporary one. In fact, during parts of the trip, Mexican police escorted the migrants northward. In other words, the Mexican government abetted illegal immigration into this country, as it has done for many years. Well, tonight the caravan is on our southern border. Rather than wait for the crossing station of San Ysidro to open, many of them just jumped the fence. Some waved Honduran flags when they got to the top. And that tells you everything. When you arrive in a country to contribute to it and to assimilate into its culture, you don't wave the flag of a foreign nation.

That's what you do in triumph when you invade a country. On my way home from Ensenada in 2018, I saw that, quote, invading horde in the Benito Juarez sports complex and probably turned around and went back. My instinct as a journalist is to cover things like this. But my instinct as a person is to help first. On the first day I was there,

with two friends I know from the weird world of pro cycling, things were pretty bad. We'd obtained a backpack full of Stroopwafels that a friend who makes Stroopwafels had given us. Once we gave those out, I'd talk to a few people about what they needed. We coordinated with mutual aid groups in Tijuana and offered to support however we could.

In the next few weeks, my friends and I spent tens of thousands of dollars at a Tijuana Costco, received thousands of dollars in donations from people we hadn't seen in years, and in one memorable instance, rigged up a projector that someone had tactically obtained from an office to a DVD player which we'd installed in the roof of a dilapidated nightclub full of little children and their mothers, so they could watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua and forget about the fact that the country they were traveling to was portraying the little infants as invaders. I have a lot of very complicated memories of those few weeks. Little girls braiding my hair. Little boys and girls trying to comprehend exactly how I could be this bad at football. And people from San Diego churches, Tijuana Anarchist kitchens, and mutual aid groups around

the region coming together to look after a group of people who'd been so heavily demonized by folks who had never met them or even been here. Here's Trump defending calling the caravan an invasion and simultaneously explaining why migrants' low-wage labor is desirable for people like him. Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to challenge you on one of the statements that you made in the tail end of the campaign in the midterms. Here we go. Well, if you don't mind, Mr. President, that this caravan was an invasion. I consider it to be an invasion.

As you know, Mr. President, the caravan was not an invasion. It's a group of migrants moving up from Central America towards the border with the U.S. Thank you for telling me that. Why did you characterize it as such? Because I consider it an invasion. You and I have a difference of opinion. But do you think that you demonized immigrants in this election to try to keep— Not at all. Not at all. I want them to come into the country, but they have to come in legally. You know, they have to come in, Jim, through a process.

I want it to be a process, and I want people to come in, and we need the people. Your campaign— Wait, wait. You know why we need the people, don't you? Because we have hundreds of companies come in and we need the people. You know why we need the people, don't you? Because we have hundreds of companies moving in. We need the people. Trump, as you heard in the clip, used the migrant caravan as a prop for his racist and bigoted midterm campaign. It didn't work and he lost control of the house, but he did succeed in forcing these people to spend months in the cold, first in a sports stadium and then in an old nightclub. Even as the migrants gradually reduced in a sports stadium, and then in an old nightclub.

Even as the migrants gradually reduced in number, with many finding work and a new life in Mexico, and some finding their way north, the long legacy of that caravan was only just starting. In the months that followed, journalists who'd covered the caravan, as well as those who offered assistance to caravan members, said they felt they'd become targets of intense inspections and scrutiny by border officials. I got pulled into secondary only once during this time, and that was entering Mexico. The worst I got was a chance to inspect my 1980 pickup truck's oil pan. But for others, things weren't so easy. Homeland Security Investigation Special Agent turned whistleblower Wesley Peternak helped NBC to document that. Under the umbrella of what was called Operation Secure Line, the Department of Homeland Security created a database of activists, journalists, and social

media influencers tied to the migrant caravan. When they crossed the border, individuals in that database were often subjected to hours-long screenings, and in some cases had flags placed on their passports. A PowerPoint slideshow which Peternak leaked to NBC7 lists some of the people. Some of them have been guests on this show. They include 10 journalists, 7 of whom are US citizens, a US attorney, 48 people from the US and other countries who are labelled as organisers, instigators, or having unknown roles. The target list also includes organizers from groups like Border Angels and Pueblos en Fronteras. I asked journalist Brooke Bencalci to describe her experience of increased border scrutiny in 2018. If you don't have a pre-approved card, you have to like go through,

wait in line, wait in this long ass line. And then, you know, you go and get vetted by CBP. They ask you some questions or they just wave you through depending on what kind of day they're having or whatever. So in my case, I started getting pulled into secondary inspection more and more. So they would wave my car over and then take me into the secondary place where it's sort of like this back. It's like a Quonset hut sort of. And in it, like all these cars drive in and out and they'll go through your things.'ll get in your face you know they'll do all kinds of stuff um and i i don't there have to be cameras in there somewhere but i've never seen any so i just kept getting pulled into secondary more and more as though i was a suspicious person as though i was suspected of something and every time i asked they'd be like i don't know it's just random just random, ma'am. Ma'am, it's just random. So actually, this started about 2014 for me.

But it started to escalate in 2018. 2017, 2018 started to escalate. And I was like, fuck the Trump administration. Of course, it's going to escalate, right? Under Trump, she said, things got worse. From 2017 through 2018, it kind of worked, where I'd push back. And I'd be like, you need to let me fucking go. I'm century.

I'm already pre-checked. If you think that there's something wrong that I'm doing, then take my fucking century away. And I want to talk to your me fucking go. You know, I'm sentry. I'm already pre-checked. If you think that there's something wrong that I'm doing, then take my fucking sentry away. And I want to talk to your manager type stuff, right? So I was doing that. That worked until 2018. And then it started to get really gnarly. Eventually, things came to a head the day before

the migrants of the caravan were tear gassed. And a scene most people remember from 2018. So, but on that night, as i was coming back um i drove through and i did the century thing you know the usual stuff and got pulled into secondary and this time it was really like gnarly the time before that had also been really gnarly like nobody hurt me nobody did anything but they got really close to my face like right in in my face, you know, and started screaming at me, like screaming over me. And I kept going, I'd like to speak to your manager, you know, sir, like, please, please get out of my face, sir. And it was, it was gross. And they were going through my shit. And that was gross. Like they didn't find anything. But it was just an invasive,

hostile, disgusting thing. And that was when, so I said, can I speak to your manager? Which is a magic phrase when you're a middle-aged white woman. So I say this and they bring over some guy and he goes, ma'am, can I help you? I'm like, yeah, what the fuck? You know, why are you treating me this way? Why did any of this happen? And he goes, oh yeah, I'm sorry. Your name's on a list

somewhere you've been flagged and i'm like so every time i've crossed i've been flagged he's like yeah and yeah you've been there's a flag on your passport or against your name and that's why and i said well um why is there a flag against my name and he goes i don't know you're gonna have to uh do a freedom of information act request or something i don't even know if he knew i was a journalist sadly brook last crossed in 2018. And since I photographed those Kumeyaay folks in ceremony near Campo, the border wall has only got longer. Every mile it stretches out means another mile into the desert people have to walk. And that means that more people won't walk out of that desert. Those people who lost their lives in an attempt to save them

are marked with little red dots on the various maps that attempt to put the humanitarian crisis into a visual form. Those dots begin in South America as people die traveling north, but they're sparse and isolated. Where that changes is the places I've been driving all week. Eastern California, Southern Arizona. Places I know from years of hiking, climbing, and cycling. Places where one mistake can be fatalaces I know from years of hiking, climbing and cycling. Places where one mistake can be fatal. I know from my friends who spend time resupplying water caches and searching for missing people that you don't have to make any mistakes to die in the desert, especially if you're young or old or sick or afraid to ask for help. These are the places we force people to travel through, on foot, to come here and create a better future for themselves.

Dehydration, exposure, and drowning all rank highly as causes of death along the border. Last year saw a record for border deaths, and with Biden attempting to take a hard line going into 2024, and climate change and instability continuing to drive migrants north, to the place that causes so much of that climate change and instability, there's no reason to believe things will get better. I want to point to one tragic loss, one of thousands, that happened not far from where I live.

In February of 2020, Juana, Margarita and Paula Santos Arce were travelling by foot from Oaxaca to their future in the United States, along a trail sometimes known as the Shrine Trail. Their family told media back home that they were searching for El Sueño Americano, the American Dream. Along their route is a small religious shrine, which marks the last point from which you can see Mexico. It's well inside the US, along a dry creek bed in the Laguna Mountains.

It can be hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Last November I camped out there, and even with thousands of dollars in gear, I was dangerously close to cold injury. I've also rescued hikers with dehydration symptoms near here. The desert and the weather might be part of the story. But the desert doesn't kill people on its own. It's the border that forces people deep into the desert that kills them. The desert is just a tool for a system that uses death as a deterrent. When the girls crossed the border near Campo on the 9th of February, it was raining. As they climbed the Laguna Mountains, it started to snow. They huddled under a boulder for warmth,

and the two men smuggling them across struck out to get cell reception and call 911. By the time BORESTAR, Border Patrol's search, trauma and rescue team arrived, two of the girls had died. As they tried to save Juana, their request for air support was declined, and she died with one of the agent's jackets wrapped around her and another agent's beanie on her head. For some reason, the girls' remains were not recovered right away, and they were not re-warmed.

And so they lost their last chance at the American dream, and not life. Today, their final resting place is marked by three crosses and a cache of supplies, placed there by volunteers. At the time I'm recording this, we don't know where all the folks we met at the border are now, and we might never know. Not being able to follow stories is the sad part of this reporting sometimes. You know, people all have my phone number, but they might not anymore have their phones, or the scrap of paper I wrote

it on. Often these things can be taken from them in custody. What we do know is that on May 18th, exactly one week after Title 42 ended, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, tweeted a video of Customs Enforcement and Removal Operations agents walking down the corridor of a flight full of masked people. The caption read, ICE conducted multiple removal flights including Ecuador, Guatemala and Honduras as part of dozens flights conducted each week. On the wall of my office as I write this, there are several propaganda posters from the Spanish Second Republic. One is as simple as it is heartbreaking. The poster depicts a squadron of fascist bombers

and the dead body of a child. The slogan underneath reads, If you tolerate this, then your children will be next. The poster was, of course, correct. It was the inspiration for songs by the Clash and the Manning Street Preachers, which are what in turn made me want to learn about the Spanish Civil War. The slogan, coined in 1937, feels as relevant today as it does then. It was one that folks on the border might as well have been screaming by 2018, but one that went ignored

just as it did in 1937. In 2020, folks began to realize what it meant when Border Patrol drones circled the skies around Minneapolis and cell phone signal interceptors tracked citizens all over the US when they came together to demand that the police stop murdering people. It became more real in 2023, when under DeSantis, Florida began the process of legalizing state kidnapping of trans and gender non-conforming kids from their loving families. But that all began when the state ripped indigenous children from their families in the 19th and 20th centuries

and tried to destroy their culture by punishing them for wearing their clothes, speaking their languages or using their names. It wasn't a big leap from there to Trump's family separation policy, which detained kids on their own, away from their families, as a means of punishing and deterring migrants. And it's reached its obvious endpoint in Florida, because, despite all the people chanting about kids in cages in 2020, there's almost universal bipartisan agreement on treating people of our southern border like humans without rights. And because for two decades, we've allowed the border's surveillance industrial complex to grow to an unprecedented and uncontrollable scale that watches us all. Changing things now will be very difficult. DHS outnumbers many nations' armies, and it's considerably better equipped. But unless

people show up and take action, things are going to get considerably worse, regardless of who you vote for, or what they say in order to get you to vote for them. As Katie said, little things can make a difference, and if you listen this far, I hope you'll take the time to try and do those little things. Before we go, I want to update you on what's happened in the week we've been publishing this. Although there are no longer people held out in the open in Nogumba and San Ysidro, there are still many people trying to present themselves at the San Ysidro border to claim asylum. Today I was told there are about 100 of them. They're waiting there often for days. Most of them are getting turned away. They're all frustrated with CBP1, which continues to be buggy, offer no appointments, and struggle to photograph black faces. I also wanted to mention

some of the organizations you can find and donate to if you'd like to support their efforts. to mention some of the organizations you can find and donate to if you'd like to support their efforts they are the asian solidarity collective al otro lado the american friends service committee border kindness borderlands relief collective the haitian bridge alliance the partnership for of New Americans, and Prevencasa, P-R-E-V-E-N-C-A-S-A. I'd also like to thank Joe Orellana. His Twitter is at Joe or Photo, for his reporting, which very much contributed to this series. 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.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of rife. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. lord of latin america listen to nocturnal on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast hi i'm ed zitron host of the better offline podcast and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned silicon valley into a playground for billionaires from the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from.

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