It Could Happen Here - What Happens When Temperatures Soar at the Border?

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

James talks to Josef from Borderlands Relief Collective about a day of dropping water in triple digit temperatures at the border, and how you can help.  Los Angeles Del Desierto Paypal Los Angeles Del Desierto Homepage: https://losangelesdeldesierto.org/en/how-to-help/ Borderlands Relief Collective https://linktr.ee/borderlandsreliefcollective Sources: San Diego County Medical Examiners' OfficeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Call Zone Media. Hi, everyone. It's me, James. This is a pickup. It's Thursday morning. I recorded with Joseph on Wednesday night. Someone destroyed

or removed one of our coolers since then. I've received photos this morning of a place where we put it and it's gone. You can probably draw

your own conclusions as to how I feel about that and probably tell from how I'm talking to you that I'm pretty pissed off. Also, our friend Rafael, Rafael from Los Angeles del Desierto, is without a vehicle at the moment. His truck broke. This is a person who gives every ounce of his being to rescuing migrants. He is there with them in their hardest times.

When they pass away, he's there to recover their remains with dignity to connect their families with the passing moments of their loved ones he's there to rescue people he rescued a woman and child on monday his truck's broken and if you're able to give i'm going to include a link in the show notes i talked to borderlands relief collective and we all agreed that the most important thing right now is to get money to rafael so he can continue doing that life-saving search and rescue work as we hit record temperatures here and before it gets freezing cold in the winter so if you can please please just a few bucks like we'll buy him an old truck i'll fix it i i just don't want more people to die out there and i think having a truck for Raphael would meaningfully

make it safer for people. So if you're able to give, please give. Otherwise, please enjoy this podcast. And yeah, I understand if you can't, it's a hard time for everyone. But yeah, either way, help if you can. Enjoy this podcast. Bye. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the podcast. Today it's me James and I'm joined by Joseph Hauser who's a volunteer from Borderlands Relief Collective who was out with me on Sunday. We're recording this on Wednesday night and we were dropping water at the border. We wanted to describe for you a little bit of what we saw out there. It was very hot and things were in a bad way. I think it's fair to say. Despite all of our best efforts, things were really difficult there.

There's only so much we can do when it's 105 degrees. And there are dozens of people and we're trying to get water to all of them. So welcome to the show, Joe. Yeah, thank you, James. Thanks for having me on. No, I appreciate you being here. So I think if we begin by describing preps for people, we first started messaging about going out on Sunday, like Saturday afternoon, right? Yeah, it was early Saturday afternoon. I had just finished getting my haircut. And I saw a message from you in one of our group chats that some of the local grocery stores were selling those big orange five-gallon water jugs for like $13. Apparently, they're trying to get rid of their stock or something.

So you, me, a couple of other people were scrambling around the county trying to buy up as many of them as we could. Yeah, I think they're like normally 100 bucks for reference there like a insulated water vessel with a spout on the bottom and given that we knew it was going to be a record temperature and it was already really hot on saturday we wanted to try and get folks water that was as cold as possible so yeah we went all around bought all the uh all the ones from that chain of grocery stores that we could and sort of corralled them. And then we put ice in them, right? This is the next day on Sunday.

And then you and I met up and we went out. Do you want to just give people a sense of the people we met, right? From all over the world, the different places we met them and then the sort of conditions that we found them in. Yeah, so the first group of people we met, we ran into four four mauritanian men uh yeah they seemed to be in pretty good spirits they were all traveling together uh gave them some food gatorade water kind of our typical stuff that we hand out yeah and i don't know maybe

three minutes down the road from there i don't know where the man was from but it's a asian man that did not look to be in great shape his clothes was torn up uh his face was really dirty he um from what we could understand uh he was saying he had been mugged his uh his cell phone had been stolen from him yeah and he just looked in a bad way so we yeah you know gave him water gave him uh again some gatorade and when we tried to give him some food he was just like i i can't like i'm i'm so like he's just so dehydrated he he couldn't stomach anything other than liquid yeah it was like we see people all the time who are who are in a bad state but like it's pretty rare for people to be like i can't eat i'm too dehydrated i can't face food right now

because he'd been walking for at least seven eight hours i'm guessing if not days yeah depends how he came man because we were just driving along and he came out of the verge with his hands in the air, looking just so afraid. Like, I'll stay with me for a while. Like the absolute fear that he had. Yeah, like he just looked stricken. Yeah, yeah. Like, just really, I don't know. It's just so sad to see someone reduced to that.

I'm glad we were able to help him and get him the stuff that he needed. And then from there, we were able to help him and uh get him the stuff that he needed and then from there we moved on to i'm trying to think where we went next we went up to the top right we uh drove up to the top of the mountain yeah we went up to an area where borderlands relief collective has set up what we call a welcome station it's up on top of one of the smaller peaks in the area uh it gives us a good view like you can see all the way down to the actual border and stuff and kind of take note of like okay like we've got a group coming up they're here there's some people crossing over there and then we've primarily done that in the winter time just to greet people with some like some hot

teas some water food just basically things to say like hey like you know you're here yeah and at least give them a friendly face because who knows what they've you know what everyone's been through just to get to that point but yeah so we dropped one of our uh water jugs there and then went a little bit further down the road to a gate that i think border patrol maintains that gate maybe cal fire yeah as well um they they keep that locked pretty much always but we know people take that road up obviously so uh we left one of the smaller uh water jugs we were able to pick up um i think that one was like a two or three gallon that we left there right yeah because people people walk up to the border i always like that spot oh it's Right. Yeah. Because people walk up to the border.

I always like that spot. Oh, it's weird because sometimes you see people and you're like, oh, they've got a long walk and it's hot and I'm up here and they're down there. And that sucks. Sometimes it's a really, if it was anywhere else, it'd be a beautiful view. There's a valley below with a little oak grove.

And like, sometimes you'll see like a red-tailed hawk or something and it'll be like level with your eye line because you're at the top there. But unfortunately, yeah, it's at the border. So people have to suffer miserably there. Yeah, it's absolutely gorgeous, like natural landscape, but it is like just so unbelievably deadly and unforgiving. Yeah, like you and I have both hiked,

like alongside hiking up and down the road, we've hiked on the trails that migrants often take. And I've hiked a lot. You've hiked a alongside hiking up and down the roads we've hiked on the trails that migrants often take and I've hiked a lot you've hiked a lot yeah it's incredibly difficult going yeah it's difficult for us as like fit people with technical apparel and good shoes and like we often see people in flip flops or like crappy sneakers yeah if they have footwear at all at that point yeah I remember a number of the people we ran into um didn't have shoes like later in the day yeah and i've definitely given away shoes before i normally have some in my truck but i'm a giant person not everyone fits that's like penguin

flipper feet so i wasn't able to help everyone um so yeah we went from there we dropped another we hiked to water in a little bit because we the road was too narrow to turn the truck around and we dropped that in another gate and then i think at that point things were pretty normal and that was like a a normal water drop day or like a driving water drop day i should say not a hiking one do you want to describe what we saw at the next place you went to because i think that was when both of us realized that like things were going to be worse than normal and people needed as much help as we could possibly get them yeah so um basically once we finished up in that area we went from where we were we went a little bit further south i don't

know it's like maybe a 10 minute drive you think once we got back to the main road yeah we ran into um a group of three men uh believe they were mauritanian again a different group of men yeah when we came across them they were kind of walking almost like just middle of the lane on the road yeah yeah which was kind of like keyed us in that like oh like we should stop and check on these guys they overall seem to be doing pretty well like they were obviously very tired exhausted from their journey but they were telling us that you know like oh we've got another two we've got two more they fell behind so we gave these guys you know again the normal like food gatorade water checked in with them to see if they had like any wounds or anything we could treat and they seemed pretty good um so we hung out in that area for i don't know it was maybe five ten minutes max before we saw the people that they had mentioned were further down the road uh so another two guys came

up we again gave them what supplies they seemed like they needed the um the fifth guy in that group seemed to be in the worst shape of all of them um yeah he was upright and you know like moving under his own power but like you just kind of see that little wobble in his step um so we kind of took some extra time with him i believe we got him uh like a little ice pack to put on the back of his neck just to try and bring his body temperature down and then kind of just got that all five of them regrouped together under a tree uh in some shade and then from there we went i don't know maybe we got maybe 300 feet down the road and we uh came across a group of five i believe they were all spanish speakers i didn't catch where they were from yeah i think one said from colombia um i can't remember where the whole group were

from though uh but that was so far everyone we had run into uh was by appearance middle-aged men i shouldn't say middle-aged uh like young adult yeah yeah like 30 35 maybe like you know somewhere in that range yeah yeah they could be anywhere from like twenties to thirties. Yeah. Like I think some of that is because it was such a difficult day that like some folks who have children or older people maybe decided not to make the journey that day. Yeah.

They had that choice. But this, yeah, this group was, yeah, this group of five, we, I want to say it was three men in that age range.

There was a woman with them and then a kid that if I had to guess, probably 15 at the oldest. I seem to remember clocking that he had braces on. He seemed young. Yeah, he seemed like a child. It wasn't like a young man. And so we got off to the side of the road again. We're giving them food, water, all that. Again, like this is all off the main road for that area.

And like as we're interacting with these groups, you know, like several Border Patrol cars are just zooming past. Like, yeah, just cruising by. Nobody, nobody's stopping to check in. Nobody's, you know, like, you know them from, big finger quotes here, invading. Getting on a bus, as people got so mad about last week, before they got mad about Haitian people. But yeah, so we worked with that group. Nobody really seemed to be in dire straits there.

So we're working towards a trailhead, which we could actually see from where we were working with this group of five. And there's like a little bridge there. And we just kind of see some heads popping up. Yeah. And we're like, oh. I think you have my binoculars and we were like checking to see yeah and so we're like oh like we like we need to get over there so we uh get back

in the truck after we get them kind of you know as settled as we can and we get over to this trailhead which is like really i think where the day because like you said like it was kind of a normal day up until we got to this trailhead and then things kind of seemed to take a turn. Yeah. Talking of taking a turn, why don't we take a turn to advertisements and then come back?

That's why they pay you the big bucks. That is, yeah. Did you see that? No one saw that coming. All right. 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. I live with my boyfriend, and I found his piss jar 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, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community

of 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 of the brilliant writers behind them. Black Lit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life.

Listen to Black Lit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search,

Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel winning economists to leading journalists in the field. And I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening

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

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Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we are back. I hope that you haven't bought anything. You could give money to Borderlands Relief Collective. Google it.

Oh yeah, that would be really nice. I would appreciate that. Yeah, so would I. Do that. Don't go to Chamba Casino. Yeah, so we got over there and like that location just to give people like paint a picture Who would I do that? Don't go to Chamba Casino. Yeah. So we got over there and like that location, just to give people like paint a picture,

there's the road which we were traveling on. And then parallel to that, oh, not parallel to it, 90 degrees, there's a dirt road, which we pulled into. The road that we are traveling on was going over a creek, which is dry at this time of year.

So there's a bridge. And it was under that bridge that people were hiding from the sun. And so that's why we couldn't see them until we were very close. And yeah, describe what we saw there, because that was when I was like, oh shit. That was when we started to run out of enough bottles for people to drink out of. So we had to just just start opening like cans

of energy drink and beer and stuff or whatever we had in the truck just to use them as bottles yeah so we um we pull off the road and underneath that bridge i i mean i didn't do like a a head count necessarily or anything but it's a group of like 15 20 at least yeah you know again like mostly men in that like 20 to 30 age range uh but there were moms with kids uh and there's just there were so many people we um at that point we had you know some water bottles some gatorades um we had that one five gallon jug with the ice water in it left yeah that we were going to take up to the top of this pass and we just like by the time we got done getting everyone water we ran out of water in the jug i think we had just about cleared out all the food we had we had no more gatorades we were

scrounging around in the back of your truck trying to just find vessels essentially to give people what liquid we could you know like get that shake out of the ice yeah it was not good and so then that was when uh there was uh one young man i believe he said he was from jordan he was from Jordan. He was trying to get our attention and telling us, you know, like, I've got two, like, I've got family up there, two, two family. And he keeps pointing up, up the mountain toward the pass and saying he's got two family members up there. And then another man, I didn't catch where he was from, but he was telling us there were two family members of first man and then there was another three men traveling up there and um they were trying to indicate to us that um one one of them had heart problems yeah uh was how they uh how they put it so we kept

telling like hey like you know we're we're gonna help them. But the gate to access that dirt road that goes up that pass was locked. So first we had to figure out, like, who we could contact to get through the gate. And then that poor guy that, you know, said his family members were up on that mountain, like, he he desperately desperately wanted us to drive him up there with us but yeah we had to keep telling him like we just we can't like it is so illegal for us to put you in a vehicle yeah take you anywhere yeah like at least the interpretation of the law is border patrol sees is that we would be like trafficking them at that point and like maybe one could defend it in court if the person was like bleeding out or you know something but pretty much that is something that we can't do yeah we've been out on a water drop together and just handing out food and water to people

on foot next to the truck and border patrol has threatened like an agent has threatened to uh write us up for trafficking. Yeah, in this particular incident, which like I don't really care, this agent can go fuck himself. Like we were, this girl was probably four years old, I would say. I don't know exactly.

I didn't ask. It wasn't the most important thing at the time. She was with her mother. They were both from Guinea and a Nigerian woman. I speak French, so I was speaking to the Ghanaian family. And I remember you were trying to feed the little girl, right? Yeah, another volunteer and I were trying to feed her some trail mix I had. And she wouldn't touch any of it but the dried banana chips that were in there.

So actually ever since then, anytime I make trail mix for drops, touch any of it but the um but the dried banana chips that were in there so um yeah like actually ever since then anytime i make trail mix for drops i always make sure that i've got dry banana trips in there just you know in case there's another kid that that's all they'll eat yeah and i remember like she wasn't very responsive i've been talking to her mom and her mother's feet were in a very bad way like uh like foot. And after a while, we were like, this little girl is not very talkative at all, maybe to a degree that we should be concerned. And I think we all kind of quickly realized she was very cold,

like potentially hypothermic. I remember having the... I tried to record some of this for the podcast, but I had to wrap her up in a mylar blanket such that like i was sitting behind her so that she would um get like warm from me right and i unsit my jacket and so she would get warm from me uh and uh obviously the whole fucking podcast bit is mylar blanket noise which is a shame because at that point a border patrol agent, started swearing at us, accusing us of trafficking.

Just like as if this little girl wasn't having the worst day of her life anyway. Yeah. Just like someone who's paid by my taxes and your taxes turns up to scream at the only people who are helping her that day. And her, right? Like it scared them. And eventually, one of our friends was able to de-escalate that situation and uh those people got taken and hopefully processed and i hope that they are living a happy life in the u.s yeah for sure but yeah it that was a bad day so yeah we as you said right we can't take this guy with us back up the hill and we're

now trying to get so it's about 10 kilometers to the top and it's 10 kilometers and i have no idea how it's a lot of climbing like it's it's 10 kilometers all uphill yeah and so like it's not really possible for us to hike up that road and get to these people who need help in a timely manner, in a manner that would allow us to drive. I think in the end, we ended up calling 911.

I think that was what... We also called a friend who personally contacted us. Yeah, somebody got Cal Fire out for us. They opened the gate and let us take the lead up that dirt road yeah i thought that was really cool of them like it would have been easy for them to be like yeah we're here to save you and uh like credit where it's due they were like your truck is going to

go faster than our fire engine you guys should go first yeah so we get um a portion of the way up, and we run into the group of three men that we were told were there. And at this point, I think is when we realize, like, oh shit, like, the only water we have on our, that we have at all, is our personal water. So I, actually, I have a water bottle right here next to me i um i like was literally pouring what i had left into their water bottle for them yeah luckily this is like an insulated thing so it's cold for them but you know we're trying to figure out like shit like when we get to when we find these you know two women the family members the guy kept talking about like yeah what are like what are we gonna do then like um i think we ended up giving when we came across them further up the mountain at that point like we basically just had my backup nalgene yeah left so uh we were like hey

we want you to to take this like we just gave them the full now gene and tried our best to explain to them that we were going to go to the top make sure that there wasn't anybody else up there and then we were going to come back down to check on them so we do that we go up to the top where uh you and some other volunteers have built like a little shade structure to try and just give people some relief yeah i didn't build that one i built the uh that previous one that that got torn down okay by some type of cop lovely yeah great really nice really helpful it wasn't actually a cop to be fair i'm pretty sure it was it was some other federal agency, BLM or BP or someone. But so when we got up to the top, we didn't see anybody else.

We couldn't find anybody up there. We were doing our best to try and use our language skills to... Yeah, we were just shouting in various languages to see if anyone needed help. Then the CAL FIRE guys met back up with us up there, figured out like, hey, we're not seeing anybody else. So you and I decided that basically all we could do at that point was go back down the mountain and go further south to a little town that's pretty much right on the border, I think.

Yeah, it's literally a border crossing. Yeah, because we ended up, we drove down, checked in on the women, the two women that were traveling down. They seemed to be doing about as okay as they could at the time. Again, it's like, I don't know, 105? Yeah. Completely exposed up there. Yeah, there's no tree cover.

You're not getting any shade. I don't remember it 105? Yeah. Completely exposed up there? Yeah, there's no tree cover. You're not getting any shade. I don't remember it being particularly windy at all. So it's just like hot, still. Still, yeah. Miserable. But we get down the mountain, kind of give everyone, like the big group that's there under the tree

at the bridge at the bottom, a heads up of what we're doing we go into this little town and like again like tiny little place like it's basically from what i saw just parking lots and then like a gas station and a border crossing yeah and that's it we went into this gas station and bought i think like 16 gallons worth of water yeah like they had to go around the back to get the rest of the water like we uh we took all the gallons jugs they had they had one of those little like displays of like i don't know i think it was like little keebler like cheese cracker sandwiches like we just bought the whole display yeah um

sandwiches like we just bought the whole display yeah um just to try and give people some uh some more food and then from there like we just hightailed it back yeah to the bridge like distributed out some more water checked in with them again just like explain like we're going back up and as we were going back up the mountain we started seeing these like little raindrops hitting our windshield yeah like oh that that can't be good you know so we continue up when we when we found the two women they were both just kind of lying in some shade just on the road yeah it was not a good scene yeah and so we got out we mixed i think it was we got one gallon of cold water and then we took another of the gallon jugs and just mixed up like a full thing with some gatorade powder we found in your truck yeah and uh just kind of sat down with them and then um we got help well with

some translation over the phone trying to like talk to these women, figure out like what exactly was going on. Cause one of them kept like kind of pointing to her chest. Yeah. And she was doing the like thump, thump, thump. Yeah.

Which is concerning. Yeah. You know, like through, through the help we got translating over the phone, just basically explained like, we, we just absolutely cannot transport you like we we

want nothing more in this world than to be able to take you down the mountain but we just can't yeah like i would have very happily put those ladies in my truck and driven them down like it that would have considerably improved my day yeah to do that because it is fucking heartbreaking trying to tell someone they have to keep walking when they're maybe halfway down and they're like just lying there exhausted ready to yeah i don't know what just give up but um yeah it fucking sucks it sucks we now know that several people died that day and the day before and the day after i guess i don't know exactly how many because the medical examiner hasn't confirmed and i'm not going to say their names uh or really much about the location beyond that because i want to respect the privacy of

their remains and their family yeah and so until we hear from them i won't but like it's i found out some people had died in the vicinity of where we were and i it was only i don't know exactly where people died i don't know who they were but like it's a really fucking hard thing to sit with like i think those people we helped were probably okay um i think between the fact that as we'll get onto a giant thunderstorm, soaks, soaks them to the degree that we had to give them like ponchos. And then just having to deal with like, I would happily have driven up and down that road all day,

but people in my truck would not bother me in the slightest. We're not, not able to, and somebody's journey ended in tragedy. And like, it's, I don't know, like we try our best rather a lot and it's not, we do more than enough. Like I'm not saying that,

like I say, it's on any way on us, but like we would love to do more if they would let us. And like shit like that, like not being able to put people in the vehicle, it's just hard to live with. You know, when you're sitting in bed at night or whatever, having your dinner, not being able to put people in the vehicle is just it's just hard to live with um you know when you're sitting in bed at night or whatever yeah having your dinner like uh it sucks but yeah

because like there's i feel like there's this picture like when you talk about san diego or just kind of southern california in general it's oh like it's sunny beaches it's nice days like it's mild weather year round but as we've said multiple times at this point like it gets fucking hot it gets it was 105 degrees on that mountain a thunderstorm rolled in and in a matter of i don't know 20 30 minutes our conversation went from like oh like i hope they are you know are not coming down with like a heat illness or you know gonna get heat stroke to like oh shit like are they gonna go hyperthermic like what what do yeah what do we have to get them warm we're trying to cool them down now we're trying to warm them up like what what kind of cruel joke

is this yeah like it does seem like this is the most perverse thing to be like then worried about fucking lightning on the other side of the valley you know like it was insane just from like we then we carried on up the mountain dropped some water and then returned down to check on these women again and when we were at the top of the mountain we could look down on the thunderstorm yeah see it beneath us and then yeah we drove into it and like just what an apocalyptic scenario to be in you know like it's dumping with rain triple digit temperatures and all you have the only thing you're allowed to do is walk like it was difficult and then like i guess the last thing the last person we ran into as we came down the mountain

was the guy who'd been pleading with us to go help them yeah god and like had decided border patrol had collected everyone to take them to process them right for their asylum claim and that we've heard on this podcast before about what it's like when that happens it's not nice it's not a pleasant stay it's now considerably worse i imagine people are being moved to texas they stayed for weeks. I met a young man a few months ago now who was in detention for three or four weeks before I presume being deported back. I can't find any record of him being released,

which fucking sucks. So like this guy had chosen not to go back and instead he'd chosen to hike back up the mountain without any food, without any water to try and rescue these women, which I mean, it's an incredibly selfless thing to do. But he was in a bad, bad way, right? Yeah. So we passed the two women on the way down, kind of gave them little snacks here and there, like just tried to encourage them as much as we could. little snacks here and there, just tried to encourage them as much as we could. And then when we

ran into this man, he kind of had that I don't know what other word to use, but kind of crazed look in his eyes. He wasn't sure, do I just go back down? I can't leave them. I need to keep going. I feel like I can't. And so we

tried to get him settled as much as we could. We got him some water. I think you dug out some gummy worms or something from one of your bags. Yeah, I had a bag of hot... It was like an open bag of Haribo that he was happy to receive.

Yeah, and we just did our best to try and convince him to just kind of sit there, rest a little bit, and you know like assure him that they're coming they're walking down now and um it was honestly kind of beautiful the um the one woman because the two women had kind of split up uh a little bit while they were walking downhill so the one comes around the bend and like when they saw each other like he just kind of like

you could see like just everything about him just kind of elevated and he you know pep and his stuff was like oh my god like i'm so happy to see you and yeah he got up because he'd just been kind of slouched there almost like just looking exhausted yeah so like seeing them kind of reunite was really nice and they had a quick conversation and seemed like they kind of decided she was going to keep going down and um you know he just seemed like energized by that and decided to keep going up to find the other woman to make sure she made it down as well yeah which was like not an easy choice i'm sure for him like no yeah like at that point again we were out of food we uh we mixed him up some gatorade i think we took the

sugar packets from an mre and like mix them in there and some salt just to like yeah try and give him like i guess something some fluid he could hold on to so he doesn't get hyponatremic right which is definitely something when you see the amount of salt on people like the white crusting on them like like and they're only drinking water and they're not replacing electrolytes like it becomes a concern and yeah that i guess was us for the day right like we we drove home yeah and like we don't get to really find out how anyone did and we don't get to follow up out how anyone did. And we don't get to follow up, right? Like, it's kind of not how that works. But yeah, that's just one day.

Like, I spoke to Rafael from Angelis del Desierto and he was out on Monday, said it was just as bad, right? Doing a search and rescue on Monday for a mother and child. And they were able to rescue them. and rescue on Monday for a mother and child. And they were able to rescue them. And like, I felt like it was a value to highlight what we saw in one day because it's every day.

I mean, it's cooled off now on Wednesday. It's a little less hot, which is good, but it's every day at the moment. Well, and I guess for like context, cooled off means it's like low to mid 90s. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like low to mid 90s yes yeah yeah yeah it's still like it's still not safe to make that hike without water people are often mugged right when they cross the border or sometimes before sometimes they get their bags stolen that often involves them getting their

water bottle stolen that they've taken with them right yeah makes that journey a lot more dangerous they also get their phone stolen so even if they need help they can't call 9-1-1 border patrol sometimes has like rescue beacons that you can press them and it calls border patrol on the route that we were on for the back half of the day there are none of those i saw um like i know i came back and you know sort of tried to process my day and get on with my life, which we do. And I saw the presidential debate last night, and it just makes me so fucking angry. I mean, we shouldn't expect any more from these people.

They're politicians. They don't give a shit about you. They don't give a shit about me. And they certainly don't care about these poor, desperate people. And, like, I understand that people want to vote for Kamala because maybe she's less bad than trump but like i have a real fucking hard time thinking about the parents of the young man who died at the border yeah having to deal with okay well she's less bad than trump cool it doesn't bring that

baby boy back you know like and uh just seeing both of them like the whole framing of the immigration discussion was how do we reduce numbers and make it harder they didn't entertain for a moment that someone might come here because they've got nowhere else to go and they need to be safe or because they want to work hard and have a better future for their family there are a million reasons to come here right i came here to fucking do a phd in spanish history and no one made me uh race my bike no no one made me walk across the desert you know yeah it's uh their reasons are a lot more valid than mine were and like i don't i guess i guess we should take a commercial break

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. 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. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar 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, Black Lit. It's the one with the green guy on it. to protecting and celebrating our stories. Blacklit 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 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. 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, 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. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with.

His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzales wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network,

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, we're back. I guess I want to finish up. You told me a story about why you started volunteering which i thought was really meaningful and i'd like people to hear it so would you mind sharing that with everyone oh yeah no problem so my grandmother on my father's side came to the u.s from panama uh to go to college My grandma on my mother's side, my understanding is they originally came to the US

because somewhere down the line, they were German. One of them was a Duke, fell in love with a servant girl or something. That old story. Got ostracized from the family and fled to the United States. And so even though looking at me, like, I'm a white is white can be freckles and all, right? Like, my family is immigrants. Like, you go back, like, you know, as we all are. And this was 2019.

I didn't know what I was doing. I felt stuck in my job. I just kind of wanted to get away from my family, for lack of a better phrase. And I thought, oh, why not the Peace Corps? Go do something good on the government's dime, and see the world. It's big, it's sexy, it's foreign. And so I got placed in Eswatini, which is a country in southern Africa. And I was in the youth development sector there.

So I got placed, I was working at a high school there and i was having a conversation one day with the religion teacher who just couldn't he could not understand the idea of like why we don't teach religion in high schools in the u.s like he's like you know how can you learn to understand somebody else's point of view if you're not allowed to learn about it and so like talked about like how we value the concept of separation of church and state and just kind of got on the topic of different viewpoints between our two cultures like that and this man looked at me and said i feel so blessed that there is a country in this world, like the United States, where there's no poverty, nobody goes hungry, everybody has a job, and there are people like you willing to leave such a beautiful place to come here and help us. Which, you know, naturally I was like, oh, like,

that's, you know, really nice of you to say. But in the United States. We have people that go hungry. We deal with poverty. Homelessness. Etc. And I'll never forget. This guy looked me dead in the eyes.

And just said. Oh. Then why are you here? Why aren't you at home helping them and it just kind of shattered me in this you know like yeah no like you're right like i totally and completely joined the peace corps for like these super selfish reasons and so like i said i was there 2019 so um i was there. I don't know if you or the listeners heard about this thing called COVID and the pandemic that happened, but I was part of the global evacuation order that went out for Peace Corps,

came back to the US, moved around a little bit. And last year, I was listening to your podcast at work. You interviewed a couple of people that do work with Borderlands Relief Collective and just kind of thought to myself, well, shit, I live near there. I can carry stuff in a backpack. I know how to hike. Why not me? Why not go see how I can help out? And it's been a year and some change at this point that i've been with the group and you know like it's not like i've got some big fancy degree in like international relations or

anything like that i'm just a i'm some guy i'm a graphic i'm a graphic designer that can carry stuff in a backpack yeah uh but you know that makes all the difference sometimes. Yeah. It's just being willing to go out there and, you know, like put that compassion to, you know, to work. Yeah. I think it, like, we're just two dudes with a truck and like a credit card to buy water bottles. Like it doesn't take either brilliance or like command. I speak a couple of other languages, but often like maybe I'll make the image for

the show, my Google translate app for that day, like we were just using the tools that most of us have, right. Like, and it doesn't have to be at the border. Obviously lots of people listen on the border, but like things would be so much worse there if, if local folks didn't just take it upon themselves to do the things that the state refuses to do. And like that applies to the unhoused population too, right? Like I know my friends were also carrying water for them this weekend because it was hot. And the city shut down the homelessness resource center because the temperatures were too high in for the staff which

is fucking just something else but i don't think we should expect any more from the state that's not what it's for it's not to keep us safe it's to keep capital safe it's to keep wealth safe it's to keep a certain class of people faith and it camouflages itself in all these institutions which say they're there to look after us but like when it comes down to it like when those ladies are lying on the dirt it's just two toots in a truck kind of yeah scrounge around for gatorade right and like i want people listening i know i harp on this a lot but like the only way that we fix it is you it's not someone else it's not posting i would love it if you could donate right i mean i'll include a link in the show that'd be great but i would love it if you could donate right i mean i'll include a link in the

show that'd be great but i would love it so much more if you could do something wherever you are like just don't think that anyone doing this is special like we of course the things that i think special people enjoy spending time with them but like you could do it too there's nothing that's inherently stopping you from doing it and it doesn't matter who wins the election right it really doesn't matter every year that joe biden has been president more people have died than the year before and he was the guy who was supposed to be kind he didn't even run on a harsh border policy harris is running on a hard border policy it's it's only going to get worse she's even reneged on building more wall like they are beginning to construct wall around

okumba and the places where we looked after people last winter so that'll push people to valley of the moon where it is impassable terrain yeah where more people will die in the cold and more people will die in the heat and i guess we'll probably be out there too trying to help them but in the cold and more people will die in the heat and i guess we'll probably be out there too trying to help them but i just want everyone listening like i know we've covered the election a lot it doesn't i don't want to tell you it doesn't matter i'm sure it matters like it matters for my friends in kurdistan who trump fucking abandoned left to die after they gave thousands of their children to fight isis right uh but even if harris wins like donations went down so much in the biden era compared to the trump era and people died in

the desert people died in tijuana right because that's what this system does but people stop caring when a lot of big commercial networks start reporting on it. And I would like you all still to care whoever wins the election. I'd like you all still to care before the election and the way you can show that you care is showing up for your community, whatever it is, right? Armando isn't going to fucking solve homelessness either. So yeah.

You got anything to leave people with, Joseph? Anything you want to say, want to plug? Just, you know, Borderlands Relief Collective, Border Kindness, Rafael's group, the Ángeles de Desierto, I think. Yeah. You know, just if you can come out, like if you're in the area, if you can come out, you can help, great.

Like the more people that carry supplies, the more we can leave. If you're not in the area or you know like hiking carrying heavy things is not what you're into donating always super appreciated um i know specifically borderlands relief collective every single cent that is donated to us goes to supplies that we leave for migrants um and even if it's only a few dollars i mean like we're talking bottled water i mean the 16 gallons of water that we bought i think ended up running somewhere in ballpark like 50 bucks like yeah you know like it's it's water gatorade sometimes it's you know off-brand gatorade so like a few dollars can go a long way and that long way

could mean saving someone's life yeah totally so you know whatever you can give that would be appreciated I know our friend Rafael from Los Angeles del Desierto is his vehicle broke this weekend he does search and rescue like if you got a few bucks and you want to pass him his way it's Los Angeles like like the town, del desierto.org. I'll put that in the link too. We'll put both those in the show notes. Please do whatever you can. And yeah,

hopefully next time I talk to you about border stuff, it'll be better news. Thank you, James. Yeah, thanks, man. 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 now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions.

Thanks for listening. 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. of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks

while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network,

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T. Connecting changes everything. Hey, I'm Gianna Pertenti. And I'm Jamee Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline

from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. If you're early in your career, you probably have a lot of money questions. So we're talking to finance expert Vivian Tu, aka Your Rich BFF, to break it down. Looking at the numbers is one of the most honest reflections of what your financial picture actually is. The numbers won't lie to you. Listen to this week's episode of Let's Talk Offline 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 collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take phone calls from anonymous strangers as a fake gecko therapist and try to learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept,

but I promise it's very interesting. Check it out for yourself by searching for Therapy Gecko 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.