The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - Postgame Show: There Is Nothing Illegal About Being a Human

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

Jose Antonio Vargas is the author of best-selling book "Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen" and is an undocumented citizen himself living here in America. But for Jose, his most important identifier is as "journalist." Jose is here to discuss the upcoming changes to America's immigration policy, the fear undocumented folks feel with another Trump presidency approaching, Stephen Miller's rhetoric against undocumented citizens, why no one can truly be "illegal," and why America historically wants undocumented labor but not the actual people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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No purchase necessary. 21 plus ends November 15th, 2024. See rules at website for participating area and other important details. Sponsored by Diageo Americas, Inc., New York, New York. For those of you who do not want politics with your sports, I understand and this will be easy for you to skip in the post game, but I am worried about a number of different things that are happening in America at the moment and I'd like to get a little more informed

on what is happening with mass deportation because it has felt this cry to get people out of this country has felt so deeply un-American to me as to be just generally appalling and make me feel like my principles run counter to the principles that are most popular in this country. And so it's bothered me for a while as the son of exiles on a show that has a lot of parents who are immigrants in a city where it's built atop the idea that people are from somewhere else and come and make a life here. I wanted to get more informed on my fears

and everything I see happening during an uncertain time. Jose Antonio Vargas is a sensible person and beyond that he's a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Emmy nominated filmmaker, a Tonyony nominated producer also an undocumented immigrant came to the united states from the philippines in nineteen ninety three when he's twelve years old and he is the author of the best-seller dear america notes of an undocumented citizen and the forthcoming book white is not a country jose thank you for joining us. I look forward to getting more informed

here on what is happening. When I'm introducing you this way, and I am both appalled and fearful about everything that's happening in this country, you do what with that assessment? Well, I'm glad that you're doing what you're doing, because I actually think this is a moment for people to speak up at whatever venue they can. Like, as you said, this is a sports show and some people may not need to hear politics in a sports show. But the reality is politics is literally everywhere around us.

It's a matter of, you know, how awake you are and aware you want to be. And to be honest, we can't afford for people not to be aware. Like I live in California, a third of the state, I mean, I'm coming to you from Berkeley, California right now, where people fight over kale. And in California, a third of all of our residents are immigrant, right? So what's going to happen?

And I think what you're seeing now, you know, Governor Newsom, I feel lucky and blessed to live in California, Governor Newsom, I feel lucky and blessed to live in California. Governor Newsom in a couple of weeks is gonna have a special session with the legislature to prepare for what is California going to do, right? And I think that's what you're gonna see happen now. And I have to say, this is the past week or so,

all the messages I've been getting on Instagram and on email from people At least probably ten people who are thinking of leaving like undocumented immigrants a couple of them with DACA I don't know if your audience is familiar with DACA This is the Obama program that gave legal status and work permits to about 500,000 600,000 immigrants who were born here as kids. And then, you know, born here as kids, were brought here illegally as children, and then went through the school like I did.

I didn't qualify for that. I was three months too old. But I've heard from about nine DACA recipients that are waiting for their fate to be sealed and are considering leaving, self-deporting. And maybe this is the intention, right? Scare people. Uh, and I'll say to you that three of them are nurses.

Doesn't this country need more nurses and medical support for an aging country? So I don't know, by the way, uh, these are people from Asia, from Africa, you know, you, you forget one out of 10 black people in this country is a black immigrant. You know, this is not only a border Mexico issue. The third largest undocumented population in this country are coming from India. As a journalist, by the way,

it's been so frustrating that my colleagues, I used to be a political reporter. I covered the Obama campaign for the Washington Post. It's been so frustrating that my colleagues, I used to be a political reporter, I covered the Obama campaign for the Washington Post. It's been so frustrating how, I don't think anybody has asked J.D. Vance's partner, Usha Vance, who is a first generation American whose parents are immigrants from India.

Like what does she think that the third largest undocumented population are from India who overstayed their visas? What are we gonna do with all those undocumented Indian people? Should we make sure? By the way, 700,000 people. population are from India who overstayed their visas. What are we gonna do with all those undocumented Indian people? Should we make sure? By the way, 700,000 people.

Are there more than 700,000 people in Montana? That's a lot of people, right? Kazuntide. Bless you, I mean, we don't have a sneeze button, we have a cough button, but two of your sneezes got out on the air. What are your worst case fears here, Jose? Like what is, without being a fear monger, what are you really living with today?

Thank you, by the way, for saying the fear monger part, because we've had enough fear mongering, right? I am a journalist, I'm constitutionally built like a journalist, which means I want facts, I want reality, I want like what built like a journalist, which means I want facts, I want reality, I want like what's in front of me. And for me, the worst case scenario is we're going to see families ripped apart in real time. That's what we're going to see. We are going to see, because again, the conflict, how complex this issue is, is you have parents who are undocumented, perhaps, and then you have kids who are us born us citizens, right?

Because of the 14th amendment, they thanks to black Americans, you know, who fought to make sure that we had the 14th amendment, right? Thanks to that, those children of undocumented immigrants are us citizens, right? So you're going to see a scenario where they could be ripped apart from each other. This whole denaturalization, have you heard about this denaturalization plan that's part of the equation? Good times. So these are people like my grandmother, my grandmother immigrated here from the Philippines

in 1984. She naturalized 1994. And so what does that mean? Does that mean that because my grandmother does speak perfect English, I do, I speak perfect English enough for the both of us. Does that mean that her citizenship is on the line? Because she may not be what you consider quote unquote, un-American because of her accent.

And because she, I don't know, has a different culture than what people consider to be quote unquote, mainstream. So denaturalization, heartbreak of watching families ripped apart, um, in real time. And for me, the real question around the economy, you know, I don't know. Most people don't know this. Most states in this country don't allow undocumented people to drive. They need us to work, but we can't legally drive in most of the

states. Texas, 1.6 million undocumented, about 1.6 million undocumented people in Texas. Have you heard of like a subway or a train system or a bus system in Houston, Dallas or Austin? They don't exist. How do those 1.6 million undocumented Texans get around? How can half of the construction industry in the state of Texas is based on undocumented labor? Then what happens, right? What happens to these businesses? Who's gonna- Well, you're asking these questions,

but it seems to me obvious that one of the things that will happen if this is executed is the prices of everything is gonna go up. The prices of everything, yes. And so when you start talking about rebuilding or fixing the economy and mass deportation, I don't understand how those things can coexist because if you're already voting because eggs

are too expensive, I don't think people have any earthly idea how expensive produce is about to get if you start sending out people out of the country who or the only people who will do those jobs because generally speaking most people don't see those jobs as a way out of their circumstances because they're just jobs. They're terrible jobs that that most people would not want. Well here not with us again now now we're talking factually

now we're trying to, and to be honest, when it comes to this issue, facts have completely gone out the window, right? The numbers don't matter, right? Logic doesn't matter. Common sense doesn't matter. And mind you, I'm undocumented. I cannot vote.

I lived in this country for 31 years. I pay a lot. I should be a Republican if I paid so much taxes, right? I've never voted, right? And so the reality to me is both of these parties have been responsible for the mess that we're in what Clinton did what Obama did. But right now, Trump has made all of that worse. Right? This is a non partisan issue. This should not be a Democrat Republican issue.

This should be what makes sense, right? And what's actually in the interest of our country. And by the way, I was so moved that you opened up about your own family history, right? Because that's the question that I ask people. You know, I've been at Define American. Please check us out, defineamerican.com. Since I started this organization 13 years ago,

I've been traveling the country nonstop asking this question. And you know, when I go to Ohio or Wisconsin or Alabama, I was in Alabama before the election, I'm finishing reporting on a book and I meet white people. So when you became, before you became white, what were you? How did you get here? How did your family get here? Your grandparents, what laws were in place? Do you understand that all you have to do is open a history book to know that

your legality is really dependent on what year you came, what laws were in place, and the circumstances? So the humility that is required to say, wait a second, why did these people come? Why did my great-grandparents came? How do you connect the dots? And then when people say the country's overpopulated, I don't know, I've been to South Dakota, I've been to Montana, I've been to Wyoming, right? I know what it's gonna require

in an aging economy like ours. So many boomers right now need medical support and help. Who is going to take care of them? Jose, the thing that I've noticed that's the difference in the rhetoric between the previous Trump administration and the current Trump campaign seems to be that before it was a focus on making sure that people, quote unquote, illegal immigrants didn't get into the country. Now it's about taking people who are already living here and kicking them out. It's a swift change in rhetoric between the last time around and this one.

And now they're openly talking about detention camps or ripping people from their homes if they're in blue states that are trying to protect those undocumented immigrants. How do you see that sort of shift in rhetoric changing not just what the result might be here, but also the fear mongering we spoke about and changing the behavior of undocumented people within this country may be deciding to leave.

So let me before I answer that question, let me actually just do some grounding here. So I am here illegally, right? I'm here without authorization from the government, I can get picked up at any time if they decide to do that. But I as a person, am not illegal, because people can't be illegal, right? So you can call it a document, you can go to an authorizing or whatever you want to call it. But again, I am here illegally, I'm not trying to be politically correct. I'm just naming the facts, right? But I think part of the rhetoric is we

have been so brainwashed to think of people who are here without documentation as criminals right that that we have kind of we have labeled an entire group of people it never fails to amaze me by the way because you know my name is Jose Antonio Vargas it doesn't get any more Latino than that I look like this by the way it's called Filipino there's like 5 million of us in the country, just FYI. Right? And so, but it never ceases to amaze me when people use, I was in, again, I was in Birmingham, I was in Selma,

I was in Montgomery. A few people recognized me because of what I do. And somebody said, oh, you're the illegal Mexican guy. And I'm like, no, no, wait, what? Like we have been so used to like make, it's calling people Mexican illegals. I have noticed this specifically in the South. And my mind is just blown by that.

And 35 million Mexicans in this country, millions of whom have been here before there was a United States of America. Mexicans in this country right now are what Germans were in the 19th century, the dominant ethnic group, 35 million of them. And we have like brandished them as quote unquote illegal. So there's that.

But that's part of the question you're asking. I think now this administration has gotten specific, right? And I think this is Stephen Miller doing his homework. By the way, I got to hand it to Stephen Miller. He has done his homework. And I don this is Stephen Miller doing his homework. By the way, I got to hand it to Stephen Miller. He has done his homework. And I don't know how that guy, I think you grew up in Santa Monica in LA. I don't know. I don't know what happened, but I, he has done his homework.

He's going to have a big part in the administration working with the border SAR, and they're going to go layer by layer to say, wait a second, you know, those people that would just apprehended at the border, that dad who has been here for 40 years and has an adjusted status, even though his kids are US citizens, all of those now is in play. And I think you're going to see kind of an onion peeling of the damage that's going to happen. My question is this, what are we in the media going to do about it? Are we going to watch this and follow?

And again, I used to be a Washington Post reporter, right? Are we gonna fall in this objectivity thing where there's two equal sides? Are we gonna make this a Republican versus Democrat thing? Or are we gonna ask ourselves, what the hell are we watching? And is this going to happen in my watch? That's my question.

Jose, Jose, I cannot have you so indignant that you don't even acknowledge that you've been asked that serious question by a Pop-Tart. Oh, well, you know, I just had one this morning. You didn't even notice. It was a very serious question asked by a Pop-Tart. And I understand your level of indignance. I do, but you can't, I thought you't, I thought when you pointed at the camera,

you were gonna say, and I'll ask you this Pop Tart, I thought you were gonna reference at some point that the Pop Tart had asked you a question. Because people tune us out when we get too serious and indignant on this stuff. You know this, right? When we start to get strident on behalf of just basic human rights that I thought

we were all in agreement upon in America. That's the part that's... Wow. That's one of the things that's so confusing to me. Like, really? We want to be Russia now, okay? We want to be Russia. We want to actually be as white as Russia. Well, wait a second, though. But that's how we got into this mess to begin with.

We've gotten into this mess because we have been totally unserious as a country. All we want is to be distracted, right? That's what we want to be. We don't want to know what really happened. I mean, it's fascinating being in Alabama the days before the election, right? And being reminded of not only the history of this country, but the present of this country, right?

Black people in this country who built this country as enslaved people are still fighting for their equal country, right? Black people in this country who built this country as enslaved people are still fighting for their equal rights. Right. And we still don't know the full facts of what happened in the civil war on the reconstruction of the country. And by the way, I'm so used to being asked questions every time that it doesn't matter if it's a pop tart or a dim sum, I will answer, I will answer

any question from anybody. Yeah. Right. I was like, they invited me to go to Alaska. I'll go to Alaska. We're Sarah Palin. Let's talk. There is not a single person that I will not talk to about this. Right?

My only thing is we have to do it with actual facts. We have to know what we are dealing with, not talking points, like facts. Well, Jose, I'm curious, you mentioned several times that you're undocumented. Yeah. Do you not, as someone who's very outspoken and has a big platform, have you ever been afraid of reprisal or any sort of kind of consequences

or repercussions? Oh yeah, well dude, like when I did this, so I, mind you, no one forced me to come out because usually people like me stay under the radar, right? Like you pay us under the table, you know, you wink at us, that kind of thing. So I decided to do this very publicly because in some ways I was in a position where, look, I don't know why I never got caught. Whenever I filled out that form, you know, an employment job at the Washington Post, at the San Francisco Chronicle. I just never got caught.

And I was turning 30, the Dream Act was, you know, in Congress being debated. And I was watching all these young undocumented activists risk their lives. And there I was in my New York apartment, kind of at the height of my career. I just profiled Mark Zuckerberg for the New Yorker. I was like, and I felt really like, wait a second,

I'm a part of something here and here I am succeeding while people can't even pay for their tuition fee because they're undocumented. So I came out, I publicly said, I'm here. I did this during the Obama administration, right? That year, I think President Obama was deporting 400,000 people that year. And I raised my hand, come get me.

And dude, nobody got me. Of course, Bill O'Reilly called. I did Bill O'Reilly. I did all those shows, right? Nobody called. And then I was making a documentary, it's called Documented. I called ICE myself. I was like, hey, I haven't heard from you. Like, what, are you going to deport me? Why? Why not? Again, I'm a journalist. I'm trying to follow this story, which happens to be mine. And they said, we don't comment on your case. That was literally, this was for a Time Magazine cover story.

I was like, I'm writing a cover story for Time Magazine. I need a comment from my government. Are you going to deport me? Why, why not? And the comment of the government was no comment. And then I did get arrested. I'd been arrested and detained once in Texas in 2014. I don't know if you remember 10 years ago

when all those Central American kids were walking across the border through Rio. So I went to Texas. I don't know if you've been to the Rio Grande area. So I got there, the activists invited me, the young activists in the area in the Rio Grande invited me to do an event with them, to kind of connect the dots between these central American kids who are walking

and us who came here as children. So I got there. And then the moment I got there, you know, I moved so fast. Sometimes I don't tell people where I'm going. I get there. My lawyer texts me, Money texts me, he goes, Hey, you're at the border. How are you going to get out? I'm like, what are you talking about? I have a flight tomorrow at Delta. I got to go to LA. Jose, you're at the border. How are you going to get out? Like, what are you talking about? I have a flight tomorrow at Delta. I got to go to LA. Jose, you're at the border. Like, when you leave, when you go through TSA, there's going to be a border patrol agent next to the TSA agent. And I was like, Oh, shh. I didn't

know that. Um, so then I said, I'm at the border. I'm here. And then ended up arresting me. I was detained for like eight hours and then they released me. Your story. So that's what's happened so far. You've devoted yourself to this, right? This is your cause. Oh, this is my- It is your life identity, right?

You have dedicated yourself to the pursuit of making sure that people understand how important this one principle is? Well, I just say it because you know, identity politics comes out a lot. So I'm undocumented. I'm gay and I'm Filipino. But I would say that the biggest identity I have is I'm a journalist. I've been a journalist since I was 17 years old. I'm 43 now.

And being a journalist for me means I ask hard questions. I look around and I go, wait a second, what don't I know? Who's not in the room? Who am I not hearing from? So that's the identity that I probably wear the most. And to your point, asking question how they define American in a country where there's 46 million people in a country that

was founded on the freedom of movement, I think that is going to be my life's work, right? I gotta say though, like, you know, cause it's so easy to call people activists, like, you know, I'm an activist, I'm an advocate. My question is, why aren't you? Why aren't people activists and advocates? Why is it that a group of people have to be activists

and advocates to remind people what's unequal and what's inequitable? I just wanna live my life. I have books to write. I have plays I want to do. Do you know what I mean? And yet every day I have to justify my existence in this country. Talk about taxation without representation.

I've been thinking these past few days, maybe I should gather all my undocumented, you know, people that I know and be like, wait a second, should we like talk to the government about, we paid all these taxes and we're not represented? And then I remind myself, they don't even think of us as human beings. How can we like,

how can we talk about taxation without representation? You've never felt like you're losing like this though, right? You've never felt like wherever your activism resides, wherever your passions reside here, it's never felt like you're losing the way that it feels like you're losing resides, wherever your passions reside here, it's never felt like you're losing the way that it feels like you're losing today, correct? Oh yeah, this is the worst.

This is the culmination of every lie, every, you know, I still haven't, to be honest, I still haven't had time to really reflect on Vice President Harris and how she talked about immigration and this issue, knowing that for her, for Democrats, it's quote unquote a losing issue. They were bad. They were bad.

They were awful. Like, and Obama was bad on this and Biden was bad on it. Like they were all bad on it. Well, I have to say, again, this is why we have to look at the nuance, right? President Biden issued, you know, TPS, temporary protected status, right? For groups of people you know, TPS, temporary protected status, right? For groups of people. And I'm going to wonder what that is. They have tried to do,

because look, thankfully there are people, I don't want to name them, there are people at the White House who know what good looks like on this, who knows what fair looks like on this. But you know what they lose to? They lose to the narrative all the time. We live in Trump's narrative on immigration. We live in Trump and Stephen Miller's narrative and Fox News. What would Fox News do without us? We're like the leading character on Fox News. And I used to go on Fox News, by the way, a lot. I would go there, control my eyebrows, and try not to fall apart in the middle of an interview. It was important to go on Fox News, by the way, a lot. I would go there, control my eyebrows, and try not to fall apart in the middle of an interview. It was important to go on Fox News,

because then I would hear from people who were like, wait, what are you talking about? You've been here since you were 12. What do you mean you pay taxes? So then I'd get invited to the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce meeting, and then I'd go. So their audience is really important. But from a programming standpoint,

I think it's listed somewhere that Fox News is entertainment. Right, like we're part of the reality television show that is America for Fox News. And undocumented illegal aliens are like the leading character. Don't they owe us some residuals? Shouldn't we get something off that? Let me play for you something here.

According to exit polls, more than 45% of Latino voters chose Trump. It's a 14% increase. It's a record for a Republican candidate. Here's one Latino Trump supporter explaining his vote to CNN. If they let in hundreds of thousands of people who already have criminal records, if deporting them creates a mass deportation, I'm all for it. But what if rounded up in all of that are people who work on a farm? If you're doing the jobs that Americans don't want to do, does that worry you?

That wouldn't be fair. Of course, you know, they need to make sure that they don't throw away, they don't kick out, they don't deport people that are family oriented. What's happening there? What's the disconnect? What's the disconnect? Well, first of all, one thing that is important, I think this is again, common sense. We have to know who's coming to this country. We should know. We don't write that we have a system in which you actually don't know who's showing up. But I still

don't know what he verified really was. Right. But that narrative of, we don't wanna let criminals in. When in reality, undocumented people who come here commit way less crimes than native born citizens. And think about the psychology of that, by the way. When you come here, you wanna like go under the radar. You don't wanna do anything that would like rattle that. Right? But now one other point that he made is this is again the dissonance

right well we want to make sure that you know farmers Alabama again so much of the south here in the Central Valley in California where I'm at they want this is where I think we have so focused on immigrants as labor think about that whenever we talk about immigrants the context is high skilled labor, low skilled labor, right? The labor of immigrants is what we want. We don't want the people. Let me repeat, we need and want the labor, but we don't want the people. Now, what does that really mean? It means that I will continue to be afraid about what the future of this country... country looks like jose thank you for being on with us i would tell the people he is the author of the best seller dear america notes of an

undocumented citizen appreciate the knowledge appreciate the facts are thank you thank you so much for having me