Judge John Hodgman - Special Episode: JJHo Visits Tijuana with Al Otro Lado

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

We are excited to share this very special bonus episode featuring our trip to Tijuana and the border wall with the non-profit group Al Otro Lado. If you'd rather watch the full video version of this episode, tap here. Al Otro Lado is a bi-national organization that provides free legal and humanitarian aid to immigrants, deportees, and separated families. Thanks to the leadership of Jesse Thorn and his wife,  Theresa Thorn, and especially to all of our listeners, we were able to raise over $400,000 to support Al Otro Lado’s humanitarian and legal efforts. Join us as we travel to their headquarters in Tijuana to see their good work in action, meet the staff who make it possible, and meet some of the people who have benefited from Al Otro Lado’s work. We recorded this episode at Friendship Park, which is located on the water in Tijuana next to the border wall. We hope you listen to our powerful conversation with Nicole Ramos, Director of the Border Rights Project at Al Otro Lado, and Cassandra Lopez, Director of Litigation at Al Otro Lado, who work in San Diego and Tijuana to advance the rights of all immigrants, refugees, and deportees, on both sides of the border. We know this is a departure from our usual content, but we believe in this powerful work and wanted to share it with you, our listeners. Learn More about Al Otro Lado and donate to support their work at: AlOtroLado.org Follow Al Otro Lado on Instagram here Support Baraka’s GoFundMe here Support Baraka’s Music and Merch at linktr.ee/frankiejaxnomad ---Judge John Hodgman is member-supported! Become a member to unlock special bonus episodes and more. Memberships start at just $5 a month. Just tap here!

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I am Bailiff Jesse Thorne. With me is Judge John Hodgman. Hello. We have a very special episode of our program today. It is a little trip to Tijuana with John and me and our friends from Alo Trollado. So you know about Alo Trellado. It provides direct legal and humanitarian support for people in migration on both sides of the U.S. and Mexico border. You probably remember that with Jesse and Teresa's leadership, thanks to you listeners, we were all able to raise over $400,000 to support Outralado's humanitarian and legal efforts down there in Tijuana. And it was just, well, I mean, it was a profoundly moving thing to raise all those funds and provide that support, but even more moving to get to go down there and visit them at their headquarters in Tijuana. Yeah, it was so exciting and amazing to meet the staff down there, many of whom are themselves.

folks who have been clients of Alotrolado, many of them are deportees, and to see firsthand the work that they were doing with not just Mexican and Mexican-American migrants, but also Central American migrants, folks from Haiti and the Caribbean, all of whom come to Tijuana because they are seeking a better and safer life. So this episode that you're about to hear, we recorded at Friendship Park, which is on the water in Tijuana, and it is at the border wall. And the border wall is this huge, terrifying edifice in this park. It is like, what is it 20, 30 feet tall, something like that? It was, I think, 15 to 20. They just raised it another 10 recently. And, you know, on the Tijuana side, it is, in large part, just a beach park. But then it is also this,

you know, the home of this terrifying symbol of the ways that families are separated, people are separated from their lives and people are kept unsafe by U.S. policy. So it was a very, it was a very powerful place to record this conversation that you're about to hear, which is with AOL's co-founder and legal director, one of whom works in San Diego, one of whom works in Tijuana. And John, you were nice enough to lead this thing. It was a really cool, it was a really cool conversation. There's video on our website as well, if you want to watch it or share that video. But I just, I was like, man, that was a really interesting conversation. We should share this on the podcast. Let's take a listen. Hi, my name is John Hodgman. Over there is your friend in

mine, Jesse Thorne. We are here in Tijuana, Mexico, with Nicole Ramos and Cassandra Lopez of Alotrolado. We are right at the edge of Mexico and the United States and the ocean by the border wall. This is not the border wall. This is a nice wall. The border wall, which you will see in a moment, is much larger and more oppressive and strange and sad. And we are not in its shadow, but the shadow of this lovely overpass, keeping us from the sun, to talk a little bit about Al-O-Trolado. Al-O-Trolado, well, Nicole, you're a co-founder of Al-O-Trolado with Erica Pinheiro, right? How would you describe the mission of Al-Otrolado?

We are a binational immigrant rights organization working to protect immigrants, refugees, and deportees on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. And why is it important to have representation on both sides of the border? Well, as we have seen in recent years, this campaign to deportees, to deportees. report as many immigrants from the U.S. as possible and the increased cooperation between the U.S. and the Mexican government around preventing people from entering the U.S. and deporting as many people to Mexico as possible. It's very important to have attorneys on both sides of the border wall protecting people's rights. And so when was Al-Otrolato founded and how did you come to do this

kind of work? We previously started as an all-volunteer effort and then we came together as a formal organization in 2017 in response to the entrance of Trump to the White House. Initially, when we were running as a volunteer group, we would have large legal clinics in Tijuana for deportees who were interested in trying to understand if they had a legal path to go back home to their families because they have long histories of living in the U.S. decades, children, spouses, their communities. And then as the Trump administration came the first time, we saw this dramatic increase of turning away asylum seekers from U.S. ports of entry where they're supposed to begin the process to seek asylum. That is a legal process. And so we decided we couldn't in good conscience just stand by and watch the Trump administration do this to people.

And so we put all of our efforts into al-Otor-Ladolado and suing the federal government for violations of. the right to seek asylum at the U.S. port of entry. And so when you moved to Mexico and started this work, it was for a connected reason. Yeah, I moved to Mexico in 2014 because my partner at the time didn't have a path to go back to the United States. They were deported, and I initially thought

I was going to move here just for love, but it ended up, you know, I found this work and this calling and started working with asylum seekers at a local migrant shelter. And the work evolved from there. And that's where I also met Erica. And we just, you know, started cooking up plots and strategies to fight this administration. And Cassandra, you work on the U.S. side.

That's right. As director of litigation, right? So tell me a little bit about your work. Yes. So I joined Al Otro Lado last summer and pretty immediately started focusing on petitions for habeas corpus to fight to get people released from immigrants. detention. The Trump administration, this time around, has dramatically expanded the use of immigration detention as a tool to deport people and also to prevent them from fighting their cases. It's much harder to access a lawyer when you're in immigration detention. And it's also just,

it's really difficult. It's hard on the family. People don't want to be in detention. So a lot of times people will end up saying, just deport me. I'm not going to fight my case. You know, you're both attorneys. I am not trained in the legal profession in any way. Before we got started, Nicole, you had asked, am I a real judge? I'm a phony judge just like I'm phony everything. And you said, well, that's fine because most immigration judges are phony as well. Can you explain what you mean? Yes, immigration judges are not Article III judges, which means they are not vetted by Congress and they don't have a lifetime appointments. They serve as employees of the Department of Justice, and they serve at the pleasure of the president, which means they are

beholden to the political wins, including this current Trump administration. Now, that was not something that I knew before we had that conversation. I didn't know that they were not vetted by Congress. Jesse, do you want to check? Is there still Congress? I mean, I don't see them, but I presume so. Interesting. One of the other things that maybe I understood academically, but not fully, was until we were at the offices here in Tijuana yesterday talking and this morning. talking to some of your clients who have been deported and that they were deported to this country, having been born here, but maybe never having lived here.

Tell us a little bit about what that experience is like and what their needs are. It is an incredibly disorienting experience because not all of them are even fluent or can speak Spanish. They have no ID documentation to show who they are, which means they can't access the formal labor market, which makes them more vulnerable to being exploited. They may not have family that lives in Mexico, so they may be homeless. They don't have any information about how to access the health care system,

how to access education and advance their studies. And for those that have family members in the U.S. who would consider joining them in Mexico, no information on the legal processes to reunite and bring their family over to Mexico. And one of the things that came out in our conversations was not only did they sort of be dumped here without access to all these services, and often alone, you talked about it as jumping off a skyscraper, right? That's correct. Yeah, jumping off a skyscraper and not really knowing, you know, as you're falling, if there's going to be an end or if there's anything that you can grab onto.

And there's also a profound sense of isolation and even shame that people reported feeling. Yes, because it's changing very slowly, but there's a perception in Mexican society that if you were deported, it must have been for a reason. You must have done something bad. And, you know, when people are first deported, they're even more vulnerable to being exploited by law enforcement. And so they're being harassed by the police who are also assuming bad intentions on their part. And so they're hard pressed to find a friendly and familiar face. And that makes it harder for them to build community because they're operating in the shadows from the shame. Well, on this side of the border, at the Alacharawada office that we've been visiting, there is a real feeling of community.

This is a place where people who have been deported can reach out and get advice and access to resources. And also just feel at home and safe, it seems to me. Would that be correct? That would be correct for both deportees and then asylum seekers that are trying to make their way north. And that is because our programming isn't parachuted in. Our community coordinators and program managers are members of the deportee community, are members of the asylum seeker community. So they understand really well what the stakes are and what people need because they were in that position at one time.

One of the things that keeps coming up in the conversations and seems to be really important to the mission is meeting people where they, are. What does that mean to you? It means not expecting someone to come into an office for a legal appointment if they don't have transportation, if they're afraid to navigate the city, ensuring that people who are linguistically isolated have access to interpretation so they can communicate with us, understanding that maybe if someone doesn't come to an appointment, it's not because they're not interested, it's because they're scared, they didn't have a bus fare, and and just really trying to identify what are people's needs in stages and take them through those stages at the pace at which they want to go.

Right. I have a really basic question. And maybe Cassandra, you're in court in the United States. You can take this. What you hear in the States is if you don't want to get deported, do it the right way. Yeah, we hear that a lot. How real is that? If I live in Mexico, I live in Central America, I live in Europe, I live in Europe,

I live in Europe, wherever, how real a path is there to do it the right way? It's pretty difficult, if not impossible for most people, to do it the right way. If people are in the United States, for example, and they entered without permission, it's almost impossible for them to get legal status to stay in the United States. There are certain opportunities, but they're just difficult and really, complicated and complex. Or even entered with permission in state. I have a family member that that was their circumstance. So, you know, for people that are not yet in the United States, but have family in the United States, the family member can, if it's a brother or a spouse,

can file a petition for that person to immigrate. But if it's say your brother and you're in Mexico, the line to wait for the visa is like 25 years. It's really long. And for people that are already in the United States, there is no possibility to get a visa to stay in the United States legally. So it's really difficult for people. And there's just really no options. And the United States, I think, has been increasingly making it difficult

for people to get legal status that are in the United States, even if they've been working and following all the laws. And if they have children, I hear oftentimes, from people, you know, I haven't, I don't have a criminal record, and I have three kids that were born in the United States, and there's really no options for them if they cross the border without permission. I mean, the thing that I remember when I worked in an immigration law firm for a little bit was we would have clients who had done nothing wrong, many, many times clients who hadn't even entered the United States, who were doing everything right and were on year 10, 15, 20 of, waiting for permission to get into the country. Yeah, that's, I think, a pretty common tale. And, you know, it's really frustrating, I think, for people,

especially if they have family that are in the United States, because if they can't immigrate, either they are living in the United States in the shadows where they are subject to exploitation and, you know, life is just really difficult or they're in Mexico and they're separated from their family. So it's really common. We see that all the time. Nicole, I think it's easy to forget the circumstances that bring most people to migrate.

What are the kinds of stories that you hear that bring people to Tijuana from not just all around Mexico, but all around the world? Yeah, we see thousands of asylum seekers come every year who are fleeing the outbreak of war. They're fleeing persecution because they are a member of the LGBTQ community, particularly trans women. They are fleeing cartel violence, but not just cartel violence, but forced recruitment of their family members, their children, being dispossessed from their land by cartels, but also international mining companies and other industry that exploits natural resources, people that are indigenous or are religious minorities in various countries that are fleeing persecution because of their indigenous. identity or their religious identity. A lot of very serious reasons that if you met this person out at a cafe or a bar, you know, you would understand why it is that they had to pick up and head for the border because, you know, staying home is a death sentence. I mean, people don't do it casually. It's not for fun. No, it is definitely not for fun because the journey itself is so

dangerous. And it's not just because they might be able to earn a higher salary in the U.S. because everyone understands the cost of living in the U.S. is a lot higher. You don't put yourself and your children in that kind of dangerous journey unless staying where you are is an even bigger threat to your life. Right. Isn't there a legal right to asylum? There is a legal right to asylum, which is an outgrowth of the Holocaust after the U.S. government turned away the ship, the MS. St. Louis, which had over 900 Jewish refugees, a third of them who were later killed in the Holocaust because they were not allowed to enter the country from the coast of Florida. And so we have international law and domestic

law that replicates international law that gives people the right to seek asylum at international borders. And the way you do that here at the southern border is you walk up to the port of entry and you explain to the official that you want to seek asylum and you're afraid to go back to your country and they're supposed to give you access to the legal process. You're supposed to be able to get an interview with the asylum officer. But what we have been fighting for the last nine years is this practice of the U.S. government to turn people away when they come to the port of entry and just tell them no, which then forces people to take matters into their own hands and try to cross through the mountains or the desert or the river because they have to keep moving in order

to find safety for themselves and their family. And another thing that we've been seeing with respect to asylum is there are a lot of people that, you know, did it the right way. They came to the port of entry and they were given permission to come into the United States. They were paroled in and they're living their lives, following all the rules. They get valid employment authorization. They are here. They filed their application for asylum. They're doing. everything right. And then the Trump administration this time says, everybody gets detained and they are, you know, walking down the street or driving their car and they get picked up by immigration and put into immigration detention. And, you know, they come to us and they're like, I was doing

everything right. Why am I detained? How does someone who's detained in that way get in contact with you? Well, I think my word of mouth now. My phone is blowing up. I have phone calls basically all day. But I think that so in the facilities and the two detention centers, in San Diego, people know about us, and so they call me directly. Oftentimes, too, they tell their family members to call, because if I don't answer the phone from the detention facility, they can't leave a message, but if they can, if their family members call me, they can leave a message and I can call them back. So I think there are also just, there's a network of organizations in San Diego, so people will refer cases to us. So. And that's lucky if their family even knows that

they're in detention and where they're in detention, right? Yes, sometimes it takes a while to figure out. And we have seen also a lot of people that are detained. I've had clients detained in Miami, clients detained in New York. They get transferred out here to, usually to the Imperial facility in Calexico. And when they're released, then that's a whole other story if they're released. They have to get back to where they're from, and the government doesn't pay for them to do that. So it's, you know, it's a big hassle.

I don't know anything about the Imperial facility that you mentioned. What's it like? It is out in Calexico, which is a remote part of the Imperial Valley. It's run by the Gio Group. And, you know, it feels like... What is the GEO group? It's a corporation. It's a private prison corporation.

And it is... They're not the bad guys from an action movie? I mean, they are the bad guys. The GEO group and Corsivic as private prison corporations, they have a work program. So they overcharge immigrants detained for things like snacks or ibuprofen from the commissary phone calls, which forces them to have to work in the facility. And for an eight-hour shift, they make $1 a day. And they're, you know, they call them detention facilities, but it feels like jail.

You know, I was just there this morning and there's concertina wire. You have to go through several layers of inspection. There are high walls. They're confined to their cell for most of the day. They're wearing uniforms or jumpers. It's jail, literally. Do they have appropriate medical facilities? There is medical care, but I think people that have unique or specialized medical needs,

you know, there is not specialists. And they're doing, I would say, the bare minimum to provide medical care for people. So, you know, if you have, say, like an abscess tooth, like it might take them, you know, days or weeks to get you to see a dentist. If you need glasses, sometimes that can take a long time, if at all. And we're under this Trump administration, the number of people that have died in ICE custody has skyrocketed. I haven't looked at the numbers in over a month, but the last time I checked, it was 18 people that have died in ICE custody. Well, I wanted to ask about that, because you were formed during Trump administration one. When we all read and heard about family

separation, denial of asylum, all of that kind of. Now it's Trump administration too. We hear about quotas for deportation. How bad has it gotten? So bad that they will deport people that have actually been given protection against deportation. So for example, Cassandra represented a client from Mexico who was given protection under the Convention Against Torture. So an immigration judge said, you cannot be sent back to Mexico because you will be tortured. And they still detained him and we're trying to send him to some country in Africa. They were trying to send him to Latin America. To another country where he'd never lived and had no connections, no family ties.

Right. And so that's also what we're seeing on the Mexico side. We're seeing people who are not Mexican citizens who were given protection under the convention against torture from deportation to their home country. They get deported to Mexico. the Mexican officials have no idea what the reason for their deportation is, just that they're accepting them. And so then they try to deport them to their home country, not knowing that they've already received international protection.

And so that's where our Mexico legal team comes in, and they're filing what's the equivalent of a restraining order against the federal agencies here to prevent them from being deported to places like Nicaragua or Venezuela. So that way they can try to seek some kind of immigration status. here in Mexico. I have to say, you know, I live in Los Angeles where ICE was and CBP were incredibly conspicuous on the streets where, you know, outside of our office, literally outside of our office, through the windows of our office, there was, you know, a military rally in the park.

And I know about all these folks being put in detention, moved from place to play. and the apparent hopes that they will just accept deportation. To what extent to you does this feel like a legal effort, a policy effort, and to what extent does this feel like an intimidation campaign? Yeah, where the objective is to make people's lives miserable. I think that's exactly what's happening. I think that the people that are part of the Trump administration's immigration team like Stephen Miller, they are virulently anti-immigrant.

and want there to be no immigration to the United States. And so they're doing everything possible to make it as hard as possible to access the courts, to fight your immigration case, by using detention, by deporting people that otherwise before would have been allowed to remain in the United States while their case went forward. People like youth, people that were the victims of crimes and could be eligible for a U visa, people that were in the midst of their asylum case. Now they're basically trying to deport everybody. and also using, I don't know if you heard about this, Nicole,

but they're starting to do these like mass master calendar hearings or they're going to bring in like 100 or 200 people at a time and not give them due process, not give them an opportunity to fight their case and deport them or hope that many of them will just say, give up, I give up, I'll just go back to my home country. So let me ask you this. I think for a lot of legal organizations that are working on immigration issues,

there is a win, which is somebody gets to stay in the United States. And there is a loss which is they don't get to stay in the United States. And that's the scorecard. Why is Al-Otrolado invested in both groups of people? I think that we cannot let the United States be our North Star. They are not the beacon of human rights that they have created a lot of propaganda to put out for us to all believe. So that's the first response. And then we need to meet people where they are.

And just because they've been sent to Mexico doesn't mean that we can't help them find security in a place like Mexico. We can also fight policies and create programs on this side to create spaces which are dignified, which people can flourish and feel safe and have community because your dreams don't stop just based upon a border wall. And so that is the way that we approach this work. That's a really important word because I'm thinking a lot visiting with you here. You know, Cassandra, you were saying not only is it the position of this administration and its team on immigration to make it hard, but also make it terrifying and to rob people of dignity. And it really feels to me like a big part of the mission about what

Trilotto is to give them that dignity back or remind them that they deserve it. Remind them that they deserve it and remind them that they didn't get this far to let, you know, that orange toddler in the White House dictate what their life is going to be like and how they build community and how their life is measured. What I heard when I was talking to folks who are served by Al-Trolado earlier today and yesterday was I heard all these stories of various kinds of forced migration, people who had to leave home for so many reasons, right? And that is a trauma and it's not a choice. That's something that people are forced to do. Nobody wants to leave home. And what I heard was people telling me that what Al-Ottor Olator

gave them was their agency back. That even just presenting the bad choices, if all the choices were various amounts of bad, even simply that made them feel as though they could make that choice and reminded them of the courage that it took them to get out of the terrible situation they were in before and the potential for a new and better future. Yeah, I think a lot of people have questions after they get deported, that's one thing that we do as well, like provide people information. Like, here's, you know, there is no option for you to go back to the United States legally. Here's what happens if you go back illegally. It looks like there could be a pathway for you to return.

Here are the options for you. So we're giving people information after they get deported, which is also really important because there aren't other organizations really in Mexico that are doing that. I was joking with a Cuban woman that I talked to this morning about documents because I got a temporary residency here in Mexico recently. I've never apostilleed so many documents in my life. And I'm going to be frank with you, I had no idea what apostillement was until I had to walk into that.

No, I had to go into the Secretary of State's office and be like, do you know what apostillement is? And one of the basic services that Al-Otrolato can help people with is just helping them have a piece of paper that says they are who they say they are. That's like the price. That's the table ante for engaging with the bureaucracy, not just of the United States,

but even of Mexico if they want to stay here. Yeah, and how to navigate systems because one of the principles of our work is that people have an absolute right to accurate and timely information about the systems that are impacting their lives. And so now with so many people being sent, to this side of the border or being unable to seek asylum through the port of entry,

they have to register their kids for school. They need to access the healthcare system. They need to work and understand what their labor rights are. They might need to leave their husband and get a restraining order. And so that way people are not staying in situations which are undignified and dangerous, giving them information on how to self-advocate and how these systems work empowers them. They take that information. They use it for their own lives, but then they share it with their community. And so it's a way not only of empowering the individuals that we serve, but being a ripple effect to empower communities with this information. Why is it important that so many people who work at and with Al-Otrellado have been through programs at Al-Otrolado because they

needed them because they themselves were migrants of some kind or another? Because the ills of the world are not going to be cured by lawyers alone. It doesn't matter if you have... Strong disagree. Lawyers are fantastic. You know, you can have a really fancy pedigree and a Harvard degree. Or from Yale. Or from Yale. Or from UC Santa Cruz, which does not issue legal degrees. Sorry. It would be in history of consciousness. Go ahead. But, you know, the programs are designed by people who understand what the needs are of our clients because they once had those needs and they might have received services in other places and thought, you know, this is not how I would like to be helped. And they are the closest to the communities because they might have friends or family that are

still migrating. And so they know about new trends. And so the way for us to be responsive and respectful is to ensure that the people that are leading the work know what the work is truly about. I kept being reminded of my father, who was a veterans organizer and was a veteran himself. And I thought of all the times that I saw him working together with other vets. And the extent to which it was implicit in what they were doing that no one could understand what they were doing the way that a vet could. And that no one could understand them the way that a vet could. And when I talked to people who had been deported, who worked at Al-Otrolado, I heard over and over, I can say to someone, I have been in this position. Because there's a lot of people saying you can trust me when you're in the most vulnerable point you could possibly ever be.

And being able to say, like, hey, I'm one of you. We're one of one. And not only that, I've been there and I'm here now, which is an important thing I would imagine for people to see and experience. It's really exciting to see our staff who maybe when they joined the organization, they were really passionate about the issues, but they still weren't sure, do I have the right to be here? Do I have the right to speak on these topics? And now they're going out and they're traveling internationally and they're presenting at conferences and they're talking to reporters and they're realizing the power. that they have within themselves. And so when you see someone that empowered that had that experience,

which you're experiencing right now, that gives you hope that this is not the end. Now, obviously, hiring the staff and running the programs that you do cost money. And the good news is, I believe, in 2014, you discovered a mountain of gold worth $25 billion.

John, that was a presumption on my part. I wrote that on a piece of paper and handed it to you, but I did not verify that. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize. Yeah. How do you support the work that you do financially? The first year, we worked without salaries.

And now our work is supported by a mix of state grants through the state of California and individual donations and then larger grants from philanthropic foundations. So obviously, the next part is if people wanted to help Alitralado, what's the best way to do so? You can go to our website. You can donate at the website. We have different links. You can send us Venmo. You can pay in crypto.

You can pay in stocks. You can leave us in your will. And then people who want to have small events where they want to talk about our work and maybe get a speaker, get some materials. We can work with you on creating events to spread awareness about our work because it's not just the money. It's also changing hearts and minds. So that way we are all invested in.

an immigration system and a border that reflects the dignity of all human beings, not just those who have white skin and those that have sufficient income to cross borders easily. I mean, and spreading awareness, it would seem to me, would be very important, too, because I spent a lot of time in the state of Maine, which is a border state, but a different kind of border state. And, you know, around the same time as Minneapolis this year, ICE came in and started The Operation Catch of the Day was the name of the ICE operation that was picking people off the streets in Maine, particularly members of the Somali refugee community,

some of whom, I think all of them had protected status, and some of whom were teenagers. And I don't think that people in Maine, and certainly not people, necessarily the people in those communities, were aware that this was going to be happening there. These people were taken to detention centers in Texas and other places, and who they could possibly turn to. So just talking about the organization, I think,

and spreading awareness is probably pretty important too, right? It's really important. And we also have a community-facing TikTok page where we're putting out information about immigration policies for people that are in the United States, as well as people who are at the border, in 19 different languages, because people don't realize how diverse the immigrant population is

and how many languages people speak. And so along the lines of, you know, ensuring everyone has a right to access that information in their own language that they can understand. Right. And there are many languages spoken in Altauado as well. I mean, I think I heard French earlier today. Yes. Our staff speak French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Spanish, and English. So I was really struck by your saying that the United States is not the North Star. The goal to repatriate people to the United States. And the other and the idea that the United States, United States is not the beacon of human rights that we told ourselves we were.

It's very, the future is very uncertain as to whether that will ever be true again, right? So with that in mind, what do you see the future for Alotrolado being? How does that affect your sense of mission? Well, we're not leaving the United States. They're not going to kick us out of the United States. No, I know. We have to keep fighting for the kind of due process that we believe people are in titled to under the U.S. Constitution.

Oh, I remember that thing. Yes, it's a paper. I heard that we should follow it, unclear whether we are. Yeah. So, you know, we're going to keep representing individuals, particularly individuals in detention. We're going to keep advancing litigation to challenge policies and conditions in detention centers.

But we're going to continue to expand our presence here in Mexico and Latin America because, you know, they keep pushing, the U.S. government, keeps pushing the southern border further and further south and sending ICE officers to train Guatemalan border officers how to prevent them from entering Mexico. And so wherever they are, we need to be. So we can be informing people what their rights are, collecting information on the way that they violate people's rights, and then working with attorneys across borders and advocates across borders to demand respect for the rights of people in migration. And I think, I think one of the strength of Al-Otrolado and one of the reasons I was really excited to join the organization is that the organization is so nimble and pivots to address an issue.

Like when they closed the borders and there were refugee camps or people that were refugees here in Tijuana, they were like, we got to address this. What do we do? How do we do? If there are, you know, this in the wake of family separation, first off, Al-Otrolava was a plaintiff in that litigation. They're like, we've got to fight back. We've got to address this issue. So the organization is really responsive to, you know, whatever immigration crisis, you know, of the moment. Now we're, you know, focusing on habeas and my work because they've increased the use of immigration detention and it's like so necessary, so needed. So I think it's a really, it's a strength of al-a-lado that, you know, we're not just like, this is what we do.

We're doing this one thing. But, you know, we pivot and we address the needs of the immigrant communities as they come up. And where they are. and where they are exactly. Physically and emotionally. I have a selfish question on behalf of the Judge John Hodgman audience, which is, like, we did this fundraiser for El-Trolato a year or so ago. I just, you know, my wife and I had a personal connection to the organization

and were very passionate about the cause and want to do something good. And I thought, well, look, if we're going to make a donation, maybe we'll put it on Judge John Hodgman and see if we can get the audience to match it. And I said, no way. But then Jesse told me a little bit more about the organization, and my oppositional defiance disorder abated. And I said, yes, we did.

In the end, what I thought, maybe I thought I could turn our 30 grand into 60 grand, turned into just about $400,000. And, you know, that wasn't like our donation anymore. That was the gift of thousands of our, frankly, not that huge audience. And I wonder if you have a message for them, all those folks that signed up to just send $10 a month to Al-Otrilato or to give $50 instead of going out to dinner this week. Well, yeah, because as the campaign was running, we were talking about it in our presentations with immigrant communities here on the Mexico side and explaining, you know, we know it looks bleak. We know the border is closed.

We know that you're receiving all this messaging coming from the U.S. that we don't want you here. You should all leave. But you should know that there are a lot of good people that don't believe that and that are actively fundraising right now. So that way we can continue to provide services, that we can expand services, because they believe that you have the right to migrate. You have the right to reunite with your family. You have the right to be somewhere safe. And you might never, ever meet these people, but just know that they represent the kind of America that we're fighting for. And I think people really took that to heart to know that even if they couldn't see who was helping them, that they weren't alone.

and that even if they were receiving messages that their lives didn't have any value and were not wanted, that that was not what everyone in the United States thought about them. And when people donate to al-Otrolado, you're really every dollar, but that donation has a direct impact

on their immigration case, their options. Unlike in a criminal situation, if you can't afford to hire an attorney, the government will appoint one for you. That doesn't exist in immigration. So if you can't afford to hire an attorney, you have to represent yourself. And immigration law is so complex that if you don't have a lawyer representing you, it's just impossible to navigate.

So donating to al-Otrulado is providing real services that have direct impact on people's lives, getting them out of detention, helping them navigate the immigration system, winning their cases, and giving them a path forward. I saw the look on the face of a refugee woman who came to Tijuana from Guatemala with her two children by herself with her two kids. And what it was like when she first saw her kids in the school uniforms that all those real out helped her get. And I know that it means a lot to me to work with an organization

that is not only doing large-scale advocacy, not only pushing the system on a grand scale, but... But also has a real sense of style because you love... You love fine tailoring, like those school uniforms, right? But also is in a position to find the real human points of friction that can make somebody's life a lot better. And in some cases, save somebody's life. And sometimes that's just a uniform for school, you know? Sometimes that's just people kept telling us, I didn't know where the airport was.

I didn't know how to talk to a lawyer. I didn't know I could talk to a lawyer. All those things are quotidian in their own weird ways, but they're things that change the trajectory of people's lives. Anyway, sorry, I'm crying about this. Thanks for making jokes, John.

We hear that a lot. I mean, I hear from clients and their families every day. Thank you so much for the organization for, you know, and I'm not fixing, we're not fixing everything. Sometimes even I'm not helping them win their immigration case. Just getting them out of immigration detention, you know, has all of these ripple effects.

They have young children. They're the breadwinner. You know, they have health issues. A spouse has health issues. There's so many different things that just the one thing that we do do has really tremendous impacts. And, you know, people are really grateful that we are able to help them. I mean, I'll tell you, one of the things that really says, my feelings about the immigration system was when I was in my late teens, my dad worked with

the Lao community across the United States, but especially in the Bay Area where I lived. And there was a very elderly Lao man who had been put into immigration detention. He was in his 80s. His family did not know where he was. And he was without medication that if he went more than a day or two without it, he would die. And the Herculean effort it took an entire community to find a man that my government was hiding in detention, was trying to prevent us from finding so that he could get some kills that would save his life. Now, this was obviously, this wasn't a guy who was getting deported because he just murdered someone. this is somebody that just got picked up. And the fact that not only was my government detaining this person,

not only did my government think it was an appropriate use of my money to put an 80-something-year-old man in jail, but that my government, and again, this is long before the Trump administration, that my government felt that its job was to take him away without telling his family where he was or indeed anyone where he was so that he could get the pills that he needed to keep himself alive. They wouldn't provide him a loud translator. Unfortunately, we hear stories like that every day. It's really awful. And, you know, as a taxpayer, certainly that's not how I want my government money, my taxpayer dollars to be spent.

But really, you know, targeting good people, decent people, hardworking people that are living their lives, raising their kids. They're just like you and me, right? And then, you know, all of a sudden, one day, you know, they get picked up and they're thrown into immigration detention. Maybe they're deported. And, you know, it's a real tragedy for not just them, but for their entire families. And sometimes for their communities as well.

Well, as somebody that comes from an immigrant community who has a parent who is undocumented, who has lived and worked and been friends with migrants of all kinds and documented and undocumented my whole life, I'm so grateful for your work and I'm so proud and grateful of the audience of our show and of all of the folks who support Al-o-Shalalo. It just has been such a comfort to me in really scary and difficult times to know that you guys are out there working and to know that our folks helped make that possible. So thank you for that. Yeah, indeed. Thank you. Thank you. Well, and I'll just say, you know, like, ICE is on the streets sending a message of terror. And it's really, really hard to look at if it doesn't directly affect you and you

don't have to look at it. Now I'm very grateful to all the people in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Portland, everyone else who went out there to demonstrate. Because what they're demonstrating is not everyone feels this way. You were talking about that earlier. And that's really, really powerful and important. But it's also important to remember that all those people who get put into the back of a van or who are deported here, they have real material needs that need to be taken care of. The demonstration is really important, but if you can't get out there in the street, there's another very important direct way you can help, which is by supporting Alo Trilado. You know, I've seen this.

We're in Friendship Park in Tijuana. I've seen it on camera before myself, but never in person. And it's really upsetting and haunting to see. Obviously, there are beautiful murals painted on the wall that are inspiring, some of them, by your clients. Aviar contributed to one of them. And then I walked down to the ocean and the wall goes out into the ocean

and then understandably stops. And you see the waves crashing against the wall and one half of the wave goes to next bill and one half of the wave goes to the United States. And it's absurd. Those are my reflections. I saw this. I was speechless. You've been here, you've been working on these issues. You've seen this.

what do you think about when you come down here and look at this wall? I think about how many people have died trying to cross it, including trying to swim around it. The current's very strong and people have regularly drowned. I think about all the pieces of the wall that have just been added over the years because when I first got here, all of this concertina wire was not there. People could visit their families on the weekends through the wall. Whoa. And then they added all of this wire and mesh, metal mesh.

And then people couldn't touch hands through the wall. They could only touch pinky tips. And they used to call it the pinky kiss. That was the only human contact that they could have with their family members. I see all the murals on this side of the wall. It's a great act of defiance for us to show that the wall does not define us. But it's quite unnatural to see. And, you know, I think as those of us who are old enough to remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, being televised and thinking, you know, all walls must fall and we're entering a new era.

Since that time, there are even more walls at borders across the world. And that is a product of the U.S. government. The U.S. government, we send CBP, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers and ICE officers all over the world to show other governments how to create stronger, border enforcement to prevent people from the global south from getting to Europe and from getting to the United States, which is deeply ironic because people are often fleeing conditions that were created by European nations and by the United States and Canada. So in that sense, we are criminalizing and penalizing the victims of our own foreign policy. When I look at the wall, I see a tremendous waste of energy, time, resources.

And it feels kind of, it maybe seems like not quite right, but like it seems so futile, right? Like you can go under a wall, you can go around a wall, people find ways to cross the barrier. And no matter how big we build it. So it just seems like we're constantly pouring, you know, attention, energy resources into this wall. For what to what purpose? To visually traumatize people? Right. It feels really... Visory on purpose, you know, I guess.

Something I was thinking about, as I looked at the end of the wall, as it extends out into the ocean, was I thought, you know, does this border continue on into the ocean? There's no wall there. And really, the wall is a symbol of a thing that is, purely a construct of our imaginations, that a human being born here is no different from a human being born 100 feet that way. And seeing that wall end into nothingness reminded me of the extent to which this border and all borders are imaginary. They are constructs. They are not inalienable

human rights. They're the opposite. And, you know, on the one hand, it's a sad thing to see. It's this big reminder of the ways that we hurt people's lives in the name of borders. But in a way, it's inspiring to be reminded of how imaginary borders are. If I could get you to just react to one more thing, are you checking out these cute baby squirrels over here? Because they're amazing. I have. I don't know. Something else to look at, I suppose.

Well, that's interesting, though, because the wall also impacts nature. There's a lot of degradation of the environment by the construction of the wall, and it's also been built over sacred ground for indigenous communities. The last few weeks, they've been blowing up part of a mountain along the California-Mexico border that has real deep significance to one of the local indigenous communities that has been protesting. And it has also impacted indigenous communities that have been accustomed for thousands and thousands of years to go back and forth to visit family that live on both sides of the wall. And now we are destroying communities and cultural traditions.

The government's moving ahead to build a wall in Big Bend National Park, which is a remote, beautiful area in southern Texas, and they're going to build this ugly wall through there. It's really sad. I just wanted to talk about these baby squirrels, but you're right to remind me of these things. This is also important. So I'm a native-born American citizen.

I have a U.S. passport. I've been to a fair number of countries in the world. And I've never been prevented from crossing a border. Because that U.S. passport gets me across. most borders in the world easily. And I think that for most people in my position, that is an unexamined privilege. What is it like if you are one of the most of the people in the world who can't cross borders freely?

Well, I think we see people taking desperate steps, desperate actions. Both Nicole and I actually have a background also doing federal criminal defense where we were representing people charged with illegal reentry. That's a whole other thing. But people are so desperate to cross that they'll risk going to prison for years just to get over to maybe be reunited with their family or get into the United States. It's like you, I'm an American citizen. It's hard to imagine not being able to just go wherever I want to go. And yet that's the way it is for many people in the world.

And I think it's, you know, it's dehumanizing. It makes people feel. just like they don't have the same rights. They're not, they don't have the same access to the things that we consider fundamental. And that, you know, Americans can't even imagine what that would be like, I think many of us at least. And so for, I think for many people, it is, it's like they're lesser than. They're not quite the same degree of person. They don't have the same rights as other people, as Americans do.

Well, and to be denied freedom of movement is a kind of detention. Yes. I think a lot of Americans also forget that there are millions of Americans that live abroad, including hundreds of thousands that live here in Mexico, and not all of them are here legally in proper immigration status. But because they are American, no one is questioning whether they belong. And it's easy for me to get a furniture set from Thailand or a television made at a factory in Juarez. But the people don't have the same freedom of movement as objects.

And, you know, why is it okay for a retiree or a digital nomad to post up in Mexico City because they want to have this different or what they view as a better quality of life? but it's not okay for, you know, a indigenous Guatemalan woman who is fleeing, you know, a persecution by an international mining company to resettle in Los Angeles so her children don't die. What are some other ways that people can get involved? We have a national, international network of volunteers. You don't have to be in Southern California or Tijuana or Mexico City to volunteer with us. We have a lot of remote volunteers.

that speak another language that help ensure people on both sides of the border have access to the information that they need in their language. And we also accept volunteers from all different walks of life. We have retired teachers. We have law students. We have lawyers. We have social workers. One time I had a woman who was a baker, and she was making these fabulous wedding cakes because we were helping refugees get married here in Mexico. And so there really is a place for everyone to contribute because to build this movement of respect for the human rights of people in migration, it's going to take all of us. Go do it. We talked about the individual small-scale legal advocacy that Al-Otrilado does. What is the legal advocacy that the organization is doing

on the largest scale possible in the United States going before the Supreme Court? Yeah, we also do impact litigation, so where we're challenging, large-scale national policies. We recently were at the Supreme Court in March challenging a policy known as metering, which basically forces asylum seekers to register themselves with the Mexican government in order to get a turn to seek asylum in the U.S., even though the Mexican government has its own history of violating the human rights of migrants. And we've been fighting this policy for eight, nine years now. And we've won at the federal court trial level.

We've won at the appellate level in the Ninth Circuit twice. And the U.S. government, they don't like to lose. So they hauled us before the Supreme Court. And we expect to hear from them in the coming weeks and the coming months. So we are living in this like intimidation campaign. This like relentless. intimidation campaign, that things are hopeless for migrants, particularly in the United States, immigrants all kinds. What are the signs that there are actually hope or opportunity for those folks?

I see the hope in the outrage of everyday citizens that don't necessarily come from a protest orientation. You know, they're not, you know, regularly trying to burn down the hall. of government. They're just regular people that are coming out and saying, not in my name, not with my tax dollars, you're not taking my neighbor. And they're really going toe to toe with ICE, with CBP, which, you know, we've seen has resulted in the deaths of U.S. citizens. And so I think that is hopeful that people are willing to leave their comfort zone that, you know, I saw on the news a clip of senior citizens in wheelchairs and walkers leaving a senior citizen care home to go to a protest. So even though they can barely walk, they are taking steps to protect the rights of immigrants.

So that gives me hope that not all is lost. And to channel that anger and that frustration and that nodded my name impulse and put it to direct good work, those people can volunteer and donate to Allotrolava. Absolutely. Fighting and not giving up are profound expressions of cold. Yeah. So thank you, Cassandra and Nicole, for fighting and not giving up and letting us be a part of your effort. Thank you for coming down here. Thank you. So, Jesse, I didn't understand that this friendship part used to be a place where people would meet across the border.

Yeah, I mean, we can look through. the border wall here. And what we saw when we were looking through it earlier was just CBP guys in pickup trucks driving back and forth. And what it used to be was two gardens. So if somebody was separated from their family, they could meet here and, you know, love each other through the wall, have a picnic together, whatever. but what we see now is there's another wall beyond this wall.

And the effect of that is that it prevents people from coming together. Yeah, I guess separated families coming together to just see each other was too dangerous. Yeah. How are you feeling having been here a few days? I mean, the answer is profoundly moved. Like, first of all, meeting with yellow trollado folks who are not just activists, but people who have experienced. deportation, displacement, terror, the kind of misery on purpose that the system is designed to instill. And also could bear witness to surviving that and building something that extended

hope to others. So that already was amazing. And when Javier was describing this mural that he helped work on with the condor and the eagle, you know, it was hard for me to picture. Just what an incredible work of protests. This is just to add beauty to something that is so monumentally ugly and divisive and oppressive to experience in person. I've been thinking a lot about the ways that Al-Otrolato puts agency into people's hands. Like people who are migrants are people from whom agency has been taken in large part. People who are forced to travel across borders don't do it because frivolously, you know?

Right. And we heard so many stories about little things that put control back into the hands of people who have experienced extraordinary trauma. And not like problems solved. Like, sometimes little problems solved, but you can't fix the whole system with one action, but you can change the course of someone's life by making sure that their kids have clothes to go to school with. Yeah, and, you know, the whole system is built on robbing people of dignity and agency, as you say. And so, yeah, it's not like the day-to-day work solves a huge problem every day, and at the end of the week, all done.

But each day of contact between people like Priscilla and Javier, between Bridget and the people that she works with, particularly in the trans and the LGBTQ community, it just restores dignity, which is a massive thing to offer to somebody. And I think that's really important and not a part of it that I understood for coming here.

Although Trollato is not a huge, huge organization. And going to this office in Tijuana, seeing, you know, five, ten, 15 people working. I think to that money that our audience gave. Yeah. And I think that kept people employed. Yeah, absolutely. That wasn't just a drop in the bucket of the United Way. God bless them. Right. That was, that kept people on the ground in Tijuana, helping people get a paintbrush in their helping people walk to the border so they can present themselves in their asylum case. All these things that Al Uralado does are happening directly because of the people that listen to our show, and it is really moving to me that that is the case.

It is breathtaking to me. That's something that I thought about, too, walking around the office and, you know, seeing the printer paper and seeing the lights on, but mostly seeing the incredible people who are not merely volunteers, but employed to do this work and not professional. I mean, obviously, there are attorneys who are invaluable, do invaluable work for this, but people have been through this system, survived it, grew through the help of Al-Atrolado, are giving back to it, and they're being compensated. And knowing that, you know, our listeners and so many others contributed to making that possible for now? I mean, my dad was an organizer and being in that Alotrolado office,

talking to the folks who work there who have been through the programs at Alo Trolado, who are themselves migrants, themselves refugees, themselves deportees. I thought about my dad's commitment to the idea that if you are organizing, if you are trying to help people, the way to do it is to ask them what they need and help them provide it. Yeah. And I thought, these are people who know these pains personally. And that's not just essential because they can then prescribe the solution. It's because they can speak to someone who is in pain as a peer,

as somebody who knows what that person has experienced. And that person can then trust them. I mean, in general, there's nothing more offensive than telling people what they need. And in particular, telling people, why don't you just do it the right way? I mean, I thought that Cassandra spoke about that really powerfully. Like, the right way is an imaginary path that a lot of people who don't want to reckon with all of this and what it means and how it divides lives and destroys lives. It's a nice story that they could say, well, they just had this opportunity to press this other button. But that's not available.

And when you listen to people, that's when you start to realize every case is different, distinct, and often people are trapped. I mean, this is not, as you say, a pleasure journey. You know, people are fleeing dangerous situations in other countries, even in their home country of Mexico in particular. They're searching for safety, not for five-liter Coca-Cola. bottles in the way of life, quote unquote. They're searching for safety, for something that the United States promised to the world. And that promise is being broken in the most painful and awful way, including and certainly not limited to taking people who did do it, quote unquote, the right way, got asylum or got protected status to be in the United States while they were, you know,

working through their immigration status and putting them in the backs of vans and disappearing them to places, you know, without legal representation and into makeshift jails that are run for profit. I mean, it's truly, it's truly disgusting and frankly, criminal. To me, this wall is like a, it is a physical manifestation, not of the reality of this border, but of the unreality of this border. Yeah. That if you don't build a giant metal edifice, Yeah. It is clear that the people who are people here are the same as the people who are people six feet away from where we're standing right now. Yeah, well, that was why it was so dangerous, I guess, to let them see and touch each other through the wall. Because just being in Tijuana, for that matter, being in San Diego, for that matter of being Southern California, for that matter of being in Northern Maine, if you live anywhere near a border, you know that these worlds and these cultures are interconnected no matter what.

And it's just an arbitrary piece of paper or accident of birth that essentially condemn some people to a lifetime of being trapped. And nothing could be more sort of illustrative about how arbitrary and cruel and weird and dumb this wall is, is that it ends of the ocean where there are no borders. and you know like I went down there and even though I knew that that was the ocean and this wall had to end there seeing the end of the wall they couldn't even get that far out into the ocean and seeing waves crash against it and the waves being divided into Mexico and United States it's just stupid they're waves their people it's all the same so you want to walk to the end yeah um like looking at the wall I've been thinking about WWJD. What would Jesse do?

What would Jesus do? And thinking about how clear the Bible is about how we are supposed to treat migrants. And look, I can't tell you that I'm sitting around reading my Bible every night. But I can tell you that if you claim that Christ's words are guiding your actions, you need to think about whether this reflects those values. Yeah. You need to think about would Christ tell somebody who had traveled on foot from Guatemala with her two children to Tijuana because she needed a safe place to live, that she has to go back?

And I think about it, you know, another foundational document, which I was rereading recently. for a pluribus motto, what we call the United States Constitution, particularly the 14th Amendment, which guarantees birthright citizenship, among other things, equal protection under the law, and, you know, due process for persons in the United States and set aside what's happening in Mexico, the United States. The whole country amended the Constitution to put in its founding document. we all agreed on it. Everyone is allowed due process under the law, and it does not say citizens.

It says persons. And it does not say citizens on purpose because in the previous sentence, it says citizens. This is, if you are one of these people who believe that I'm a strict constitutionalist, I believe in the Constitution, I don't believe in activist judges, because I'm a strict constitutionalism.

It's got to take you gallons of melatonin to sleep at night, watching ICE disappear people off the street without due process, without legal representation, without access to face their quote-unquote accusers, without even acknowledging the convoluted immigration system that they are trying to participate in for the most part. People need to look at their principles. and put them into action. You know, birthright citizenship is under attack from the White House right now.

And we've seen that the Supreme Court does not really seem to care a lot about the Constitution and is willing to reinterpret and rewrite and be the most activist pack of judges, with some exceptions, obviously, that has ever sat on that bench. And it could be that birthright citizenship is wiped away, even though it's in the Constitution. And I think it just speaks to how important taking action is showing your disapproval of what's going on through protest and voting and especially volunteering and helping organizations like El El Trelado. I think it's just impossible to look down at the end of that wall, see it lead into the ocean, and think that this wall is anything other than imaginary. Right. it's impossible to look out of that expansive ocean and think borders are real.

Right. Absolutely. He's saying that I can walk through that wall. Well, if you say so, Jesse, I'll give it a try. Thank you for listening to our conversation with the folks from Alo Trollado, and thank you to them for inviting us to Tijuana to get to see their work firsthand and get to see the impact of Judge John Hodgman listeners. incredible efforts to raise money for their work. I was thinking, like, what were the things that were really powerful about it for me?

But the first thing that was really impressive to me was to meet the people of Alotrolato, both the people that they serve and the folks that work there. You know, one of the big things that they do is services for folks who have been deported. and deportees are not a focus of services often. They're not a focus of charity because people would prefer to forget that they exist. Certainly the United States government would prefer to forget that they exist. When we were talking with Rigo, one of the staffers of Alosrolado, he told us he got deported when he was 18, 19 years old, and he had lived in the United States his entire life.

And he said they just drove him across the border, took the leg shackles off of him, and the CPB guy said, welcome to Mexico, don't come back. And so folks who are crossing that border often don't have family. They sometimes don't speak Spanish. Many of them have never lived in Mexico. And so one of the big things that Al-Otrilado does is just things that can help folks who have been deported build a new life for themselves in Mexico, as well as look at, you know, the legal possibilities for migration back to the United States or elsewhere. But like, the biggest thing was just like, how do you build a life? But I was reminded of, you know, my dad was an organizer.

And when I was a teenager, he started an NGO in Laos because he had, he co-founded it with a Lao American woman named Buntan. And the aircraft carry that my dad served on had bombed the place where Buntan's family lived. And one of the things that he always said was that international. National aid in particular is so obsessed with telling people what they need. And you just have, you have to, what you actually have to do is ask people what they want. Right. Ask people what would make their lives better and find out how you can facilitate them getting that. And Al-Loralado was so there for that.

I mean, the other thing that it reminded me about, about my dad was, like, my dad, when I was a kid, my dad got clean and sober when I was. I was like, or something like that shortly before I'm my memory. And, but I do remember going to a lot of AA meetings with him and also him having a lot of organizing meetings at our apartment in San Francisco for fellow vets, both the AA meetings and the organizing meetings. And what I saw over and over and over was the way that. that four vets who had been through trauma, being in a group of other vets meant the world to them

because they did not have to explain themselves to each other. It was like a world where everyone could feel safe because everyone could feel understood by each other. And that was both from folks that we talked to who were getting services and the folks who were providing services so important and central was like folks who have just been pushed across the border or just shown up in town from Southern Mexico or Central America or Haiti,

they're looking around for who they can trust, but they are in the midst of trauma and not sure who they can trust. And so to have people there who are providing the services who have been through those experiences themselves and understood them themselves meant that they could, you know, they could feel safe. in accessing those services in a way that they couldn't with, you know, these are people who have been abused by governments and other power structures.

Yeah, that's something that really struck me. Just how many people at Al-Oterlado who are providing services for people in need had already received services from people in need? That's how they became part of Al-O-Trolado. Now, because we were on the Tijuana side, a lot of the stories we were hearing were primarily about people who had been deported from themselves, from staff members. You had mentioned Rigo, who was deported as a young man.

We met Priscilla, who had been deported, and she has a new grandchild on the U.S. side, I believe. We don't know when she'll have a chance to meet that person. She came as a deportee to Mexico, to Tijuana, a place she had never experienced or been. She, you know, she's from California. Yeah, Central California. She grew up right near UC Santa Cruz, where I went to school. Al El Trilado helped her get situated and find her way in a city and a country that was completely foreign to her. And she pointed out, as did others, that, you know, deportees have a profound stigma attached to them in certain Mexican communities.

because sometimes they are deported from prison or they have tattoos. And the stories that I was told, or we were told, was that often, you know, Native Mexicans will look at them and say, you had your chance in the United States and you blew it. And we won't give you a job. Bridget is a woman who transitioned, trans woman who transitioned while in U.S. prison and then was deported to Mexico, originally her. home community in Mexico, had to flee that home community pretty quickly after that because

the cartels were controlling that neighborhood, came to Tijuana, a city she had never lived in. And you can imagine being a deportee, having that stigma attached, and then also being a trans person, how difficult it would be to find a job, to find your way without performing sex work, you know? And Bridget met Nicole, who was one of the co-founders of Al O'Trolato, who invited Bridget to come in and lead the LGBTQ out. program at Alva Trulotto in a paid position and had just, when we spoke with her, had just returned from Bangkok at an international conference on migrant rights. What a profound change of life for someone who could easily have been the victim of violence or oppression on either side

of the border. And now in a country where, you know, she spoke Spanish in that case. But, you know, Javier, an artist that is one of Priscilla's clients, you know, if I remember correctly, came to the United States at four months, four months grew up in Oakland and ended up being deported at the age of 34. Yeah, with a wife and everything and became an artist living in Mexico. He uses the internet handle, the deported artist, and created some pretty, incredible artworks on the border. Yeah, he runs an art program at Alo Trollado. There's a former client there. And he told us that when he was first living in Mexico after having been deported again, in his mid-30s, having never lived in Mexico, he was profoundly depressed because he didn't

know anyone. Of course, the stigma attached to being a deportee. His Spanish wasn't great. He spoke Spanish with an American accent and people would make fun of him. And he really, and, you know, his entire life had been upended and not by his choice. He said he was really depressed. He told us that he was talking to his wife and said, how come Bob Ross is always so happy? That's right. He was watching Bob Ross.

videos of the old joy of oil painting. And his wife bought him a paint kit and he became a painter. Look, immigration and immigration policy has been a mess for a long time. Friendship Park, you know, used to be on both sides of the wall. The U.S. side got torn up. And according to Nicole, one of the co-founders, that happened during the Biden administration. There's a lot of blame and recrimination and criticism to go around, right? But there are a couple things to remember that I was reminded of, and I try to remind myself of a lot right now, which is that, A, these two communities, San Diego, Tijuana, are profoundly entwined through family connection and constant border crossing.

That chain-ling fence, right, or, you know, that you could play volleyball. all over. You know, the border used to be a lot more porous down there. And guess what? As a country, we were pretty okay. Four years, decades. It, you know, the crisis is, is one of political convenience to some degree, right? Yeah. And it, and it is not about, it's not about bad guys and good guys. It's about humans. One of the things that we were reminded of, and constantly, And I think people need to remind themselves is no one leaves their home country for another country for fun, you know, whether you're seeking asylum, crossing the border to the United States or being deported or whatever it is that puts you in that profoundly vulnerable situation, it's not fun. It's not a trick. It's not sneaky, you know. Javier was brought over at four months. That wasn't his choice, you know, grew up. and was in his community. And even if you get into legal trouble, to be deported, it's no fun.

To be walked over the border and to be left there in that district, you know, one of the things that they had outside that kiosk was in English deportee welcome center. That's for people who just got dropped off. And before Al-Aralado, that didn't exist. So how would you find your way? Daniel Spear, our video editor is down in the control room with a microphone. Hi, Daniel. Hey. You came with us on the trip, and you had been to Juana many times when you were growing up.

But you also were sort of in the midst of a really intense experience coming at you from the United States at the same time that we were down in Mexico. Yeah. I don't want to overstay how close I am with this friend. I've worked with him before in the past, but I have a friend Baraka, who's a musician. I've made a music video with him. He goes by the stage name Frankie Jacks Nomad. He was detained by ICE May 14th at 1.30 in the afternoon. They picked him up outside of his apartment where he's been staying in Portland for a residency up there.

He's currently staying in the Tacoma, Washington, ICE facility. he has a lawyer he has been connected with a lawyer they're raising funds to try and get him released he was born in Kenya but he's lived in L.A. and Portland for over 11

years we'll put a GoFundMe link in the show notes but there's merch if you like merch free Frankie Jacks Nomad he's also got music you can buy on band camp all of that will go to his legal defense And it's weird.

It's weird seeing stuff on social media get closer and closer to your circle until it starts to be people you know. It's scary and surreal. And as that circle closes, it's, I don't know, it's nice to have people that care, that people that know. and his partner is supporting him through this, and he has a big support system. And Alutrolado helps a lot of folks that don't have support systems. But I'm very glad that he has a community

that can hopefully help him and hopefully get him out of that facility as soon as possible. It must have been quite the experience for you, Daniel, to be down there. As somebody who grew up with the border as like a source of enrichment in your life. Your mom is from Tijuana. And, you know, your dad also Mexican from Mexico City.

And like, you grew up going over the border once a month. Like it was just like part of your life to have that binational life. Yeah. I mean, growing up in San Diego, it was pretty normal for any Mexican family to just cross, like, once a month. to the point where as a kid, it's so normalized. You're like, oh, mom, I don't want to go to TJ this month, you know? Like, it was almost an inconvenience. But now, looking back, those are some of my fondest memories of, like, we have a routine.

We go to the Mercado where you can get, like, the hand-picked, like, groceries and the coconut. We always get a coconut. There'd be a dude in the corner with a machete, and he would cut it and put, like, the chili powder in it and everything. And it just is a huge part of what, um, you know, was something so easy to do, you know, like crossing back and forth. And now going through al-Otro-lado, every single person there, almost every single person had a story about family separation and not being able to go back. And about the last time they saw somebody and loss, whether it be somebody in their family that they just couldn't see anymore because of the border and deportation or someone. who had died because of the circumstances of the border and of these relations between these two

countries. Well, I was really grateful that you could come with us. I was really grateful that they invited us and that we got to go. You know, they were very clear with me. When I went to see Erica Pinero in Mexico City a few months ago, Erica, who, you know, I knew as a young man in one of my first jobs working at an immigration law firm, Erica was very clear with me. She's like, you know, the new administration led directly to huge cutbacks in any kind of help or aid for immigrants and migrants. And one of those, one of the ways that that manifested itself was Alotrolado lost some big contracts to provide legal training to migrants, among other things.

Because the government no longer wants migrants to know their rights. and she said very directly to me, if it weren't for the money that Judge John Hodgman listeners supported all those Rolato with, we would have had to cut back on services pretty dramatically and lay people off. And I didn't really know or understand that until she said it to me. I'm still reckoning with the generosity of Judge John Hodgman listeners, and I'm just so grateful for it. If you're somebody who's supported with a one-time donation and want to make it a regular donation or you weren't in a position to support Al-O-O-O-L-O-O-L-O-O-O-O-O-L-A-O-O-O-O-O-O-R-O-O-R-G, meaning the other side in Spanish. And you can become a regular donor, you know, you can send them 10 bucks a month or, you know,

you can send them $15 right now if that's what you got in your pocket. because we're really grateful for the work that they are doing in the world. It is really making a direct impact on people's lives. Thank you, everyone, for your support. One of the most moving things about and sobering things about being there and looking at that border wall was knowing that Jesse and I could come back to the United States and there would be no problem. Our thanks to our friend Daniel Spear, our video producer who came down with us,

to our friend Dan Wally, DJW, who came down as a volunteer. and helped us with so much of the video production stuff and audio production stuff down there. Our thanks to Rugu Madavalin and A.J. McKeon, who contributed to the production of this episode that you are hearing here. And most of all, thanks to everybody who is a Judge Sean Hodgman listener and has supported this incredible work that Al-O-Trollato is doing. Again, you can go to al-o-Trolato.org, or there's a link in the show notes here and become a supporter right now. Maximum Fun A worker-owned network

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