Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews - 3/23/21 - Border Talk, ft. Iliana Santillan

Episode Date: March 24, 2021

Tonight, we cover KY's attempt to protect the feelings of cops, and of course the apparent BORDER CRISIS, including a talk with longtime organizer Iliana Santillan.  Join us!Support the show

Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Today's Tuesday, March 23rd, 2021. I'm Trey Crowder, and that's Mark Aegee. What's up, Mark? Another man. I just want to start the show by nominating myself preemptively for a daily dumbass for apparently, leading our viewers to think of us as a trusted news source. I got a correction from last week. So I got to take a dedicated viewer by the name of Sarah sent me a series of messages correcting me on something. So remember last year, last week we talked about Laura Trump's fake dog charity. Yeah.

Okay. So when I said that the Trump's got banned from running charities in state of New York, which is not technically true. what happens is they agreed to dissolve the Trump organization, the Trump charity fund. And they have to negotiate preemptively with the attorney general the conditions upon which they could serve on the board of a charity going forward. So they were not banned. I wanted to get that straight.

So we're not out here doing Alex Jones shit, apparently. Trey? Am I frozen or you? Trey's frozen. Okay. Well, we got a good show for you guys. Matt, once you know this guy, this isn't on him, guys. Trey, if you can hear me, I guess leave and come back in.

So, yeah, we got a good show for you guys. We got, we're going to talk about immigration. We're going to talk about, I don't know. I'm not good of filibustering. Let me text Trey real quick. Good television. I guess we'll start with the Daily Dumbasses. I'm going solo, guys.

I'm doing it Colin Cowherd-style. Trey says, a literal fucking explosion just happened, and my power went out. If y'all are still going, try and kill time. If not, tell me I'm trying to get back on. This is amazing. So Trey's internet's been out off and on for three days, and apparently something blew up, but a transformer blew up in his neighborhood,

and he's got no electricity, which is why his face for us. So we'll start. I guess let's go ahead and do the Daily Dumbass. We'll do this solo, Matt. Hit the graphic. All right. So the first Daily Dumbass,

if y'all aren't keeping up with the right-wing news cycle, is Joe Biden's legs for jump-starting this new cycle. Hit play, Matt, on that first clip. I like the salute there. Now, who among us has not tripped going up some stairs or like, uh, you ever trip over a sidewalk and fake like you're running for like three seconds? or, you know, like you go the wrong way, and actually you've got a text message to turn around

and go the other direction or something. We've all been there. It could happen to anybody, but also Joe 77. And there's a right-wing meme that he's, you know, disabled, basically. And Kamala Harris or whoever, Bernie Sanders or AOC is running a puppet shadow government or maybe Trump if he's a robot or whatever. So anyway, so that happened, and it went viral, a bunch of right-wing people retweeted it and trying to make a stop.

story out of it. And it did become a story because everything does when you got to fill time and the hell we currently live in. Um, so then, uh, the right wing media caught onto it. And then what came next was a whole fucking three day news cycle. Uh, let's see that. I guess let's see the, uh, the, uh, the Jensaki, uh, video on that. That he, uh, fell going up the steps to Air Force one on Friday. Is he doing okay? He's a hundred percent fine. I don't know if you've been up those steps. They're a little tricky sometimes. But he's doing great.

I've not been up those. Did he see a doctor? Did you have to see a doctor over it? I'm not aware of that being required. There's, of course, a doctor who travels with the president, any president of the United States. But I'm not aware of it needing actual extensive medicine. All right. So that should be the end of it, right?

That should be the end of it. A guy tripped going up some stairs like human beings do. and was asked if you should go to a doctor for it, which God help us if we all start going to the doctor for that shit, what our co-pays will be. But then you think that would be out of it? Nope, Fox News got a hold of it. And then Hannity is basically doing wall-to-wall every night.

So let's see the first. If he had Steve Deucey's the White House correspondent, who I believe he was the one asking those questions about that. So let's hear that see what Henry. Is he supposed to really believe that the wind might have blown Joe over? Is that the official position of the White House? That is. And today, Jen Saki did not exactly directly answer a question about whether or not he ever wound up being seen by a doctor. We did not see him at all today. They did tell us early about 1 o'clock that he was not going to have any in-person events throughout the course of the day. But we did see him yesterday, and he was striding off. Marine went into the White House without any aid or any kind of a boot on his foot or on his hand. And so, They say that he is 100% okay.

Yeah, so it gives me relieved that Steve Ducey, Pete Ducey, Rome Ducey, I don't know, their brothers, the one that was on Fox News, the morning show. I should probably look that up eventually. But so he's informed me that he did not have a boot on his hand. Oh, it's his son. Okay, Matt's saying, hello of the family. Joe Biden, and I have a boot on his hand, so that's how he knows he's all right. He's walking without aid after the disastrous fall up the stairs for half a second.

And then in case, just to bring this full circle. about how unfair they thought the media was to Trump because everybody on Twitter made fun of him that one time that he waddled down the ramp in the rain. I panaded it half an hour on the ramp, including this little segment here. To the ramp that Trump used while speaking at West Point and the commencement ceremony in June of 2020,

it was the only time President Trump walked slowly in dress shoes because it was slippery and he had those shoes on. So he was being smart. And no other time that President Trump have any issue. I'm trying to imagine what happened if, like, North Korea and state television had like a rival channel, what they had the rebuttal they have to do if, like, somebody ran a segment making fun of King Jong-un for being, you know, 20, 30 pounds overweight or whatever, and then

they went to come back and, you know, do a whole night on how actually Kim Jong-un is super ripped. It's basically what Fox News is doing now. I don't care about the ramp. I don't know anybody actually fucking cared about the ramp. It was just funny. And that's how this shit works. It's going to be a meme for four years. Joe Biden is a toddling,

Cina a little fool. I don't know. I don't know him. Does it affect your life? I don't know. Trey is rebooting and he's going to be back in two minutes. So let's go on to the first honorable mention Daily Dumbass. I think we only have one tonight.

This one just to put a button on all crack in lawsuit. Sidney Powell, so she got hit with a $1.3 billion dollar defamation suit. I don't know how they, defamation, I think I got around with that number, but Dominion hit a bunch of people with $1.3 billion suits. They must have wrapped the number somehow. Now, Sidney Powell filed her first response brief, and she's going to get off Scott Free guys, because this is an airtight explanation.

Go ahead and play that clip out. It's official. Sidney Powell is a massive fraud. That's according to Sidney Powell herself. Similarly, the whole election fraud narrative, that too is a complete fiction, a complete fraud. That also, according to Sidney Powell. Yeah, so her explanation is that she shouldn't be him with a defamation suit because nothing she ever said could have ever been taken seriously by a reasonable person. Now, I am not a lawyer, but conceding that you knew what you said,

was untrue the whole time seems to be a pretty shitty defense to slandering somebody and costing their whole fucking business. Yeah, I don't know. So it trades me back in just a second. Hopefully, so I have somebody to talk to

because this is a, this has got to be yeah, it was no, but it's the opposite of the shaggy defense. It was me, but I had no idea the person I was having sex with wasn't you. Isn't that closer to the truth? I don't know. I'm suddenly having a lot of respect for those, like, right-wing YouTubers with, like, three hours talking to a camera.

Yeah, Tucker Carlson did that defense, too, that, like, he said he should not be taken seriously as a newscaster. Cindy Powell's problem is she was staying this shit in court and then try to get an election overturned. I mean, I don't know what the profit is. Yeah, I know what the, yeah, Justin is the exact same defense. I don't know what the profit is for voting machines in general, but I feel like Dominion's going to be away from where. way more money crushed these assholes into the ground than they ever made off making voting machines, which seems like a low margin kind of business. So what I got to do here is get into the voting machine business, make a couple, get involved

in a close election, have somebody say a bunch of bad shit about me, and then cash out, baby, place in Hawaii, get my own weed strain going like Seth Rogen did. All right, so our first story tonight is plugging ahead, if Trey ever figures out I get back on the internet um so we've talked a lot about council culture lately and it's annoying to me because it's not that i think it's real it's that to me the real victims of it are all our regular people who lose their jobs over some innocuous tweet and you never hear about them who you hear about as famous people who lose millions of dollars and the people you also don't hear about for example or regular people who end up tossed in jail for some shit they said which happens fairly

often. And they want to make this formal now. Kentucky has proposed a state law called, it's SB 21, I think, or 221. Hit that clip, Matt. Let's explain it. Named the community and first responder protection act, SB 211 would discourage out-of-state agitators from inciting riots in Kentucky. It was passed by a 22 to 11 vote just two days before the anniversary of Brianna Taylor's death. It's the most sickening thing I've ever. I mean, it It doesn't shock me, honestly, being in Kentucky. The bill would make it a crime to insult or taunt police during a riot, resulting up to three months in prison.

I know this new law of not saying nothing to police. I'm going to jail. Because my mouth is. I said that clip to Tray. He asked Hallie, how did he get his mama on the television news? Because that's great. If you don't know much about Tray's mom, that's pretty close to accurate. So, yeah, they're trying to make it illegal to be mean.

a cop. You can't hurt a cop's feelings, which, one, there's already been court cases about this because police said for us to people for being mean to them before. And the Supreme Court has actually held, but it's actually totally legal to say, fuck you to a cop, because what is the First Amendment for if it's not to tell actual government officials to go to hell? When you see people walk around the gas and flag saying, don't tread on me, I don't know what they think that's for, or what the First Amendment is for. Like, it's not just for pornography. Pornography is like, when you think that free speech is like a core principle and that extraneous concepts they get taken into it to make sure like the court principle doesn't get violated right i don't think it'll survive but who knows

with the supreme court man with all the trump judges that got passed they're going to do so much horseshit that eventually get overturned if soon we don't descend into fascism but the um uh i don't like you if you think of like free speech is like a bubble like with the center of its political speech and then we we so you include stuff like porn and music and stuff on the off chance you actually throw out some free speech by accident, some political speech, they want to just go ahead and go straight to free speech, which is like, you can keep the porn, but not the politics advocacy, I guess. So, Trey's back, guys, the reason we're all here.

Hey, buddy. Can you hear me? Yeah, thanks, Mike. Mike's giving me some encouragement. Oh, my God. I know. So, I know it's literally always something with this show, and I'm so sorry. It's what, like, we'll do a live show.

That'll be fun. and it's all like it any so i've been my internet has been out for the past 36 hours up until about two o'clock today and i was like it's not going to work and then uh and then they got it back on i was like oh great the internet's back on everything's fine and then literally i'm not exaggerating right in the middle of that there was what sounded like an explosion in my neighborhood and right at the same time the power went completely out wifi computer everything just shut off and then it came right back on and it's been rebooting this whole time and here I am and I'm so sorry and I apologize tell me where you got to Mark you're such a champion I know you've been

doing such a good job Mike Mike told me you've been doing such a good job so where are we at I'm sorry no don't be sorry at all man we got through it we got through the dumbasses and we just we just started the top of the cop story the cop cancel culture story and we just saw the clip of your your mama on the news so that was cool yes yes that was my mama I had I had to I I hate I miss my mama's appearance on the skews here. But yes. Now, that lady,

uh, honestly warmed my heart so much in the middle of that, uh, in the middle of that news segment because I didn't, I didn't see that coming. I don't know about you. No. I thought,

yeah, I thought she was going other way on that. I'm going, I'm going. I said, I'm going jail. My mouth is bad. I think of this.

Right. Well, it's funny. Because I mean, I did too. Like, because I'll get upset at people. stereotyping me, but then I also, when she popped up in the middle of that and she's like,

I won't say something about this new cop bill or whatever, even me, even though it's my whole thing, I wasn't expecting the next part of it to be my ass going to jail if that's how it's going to be because I'm not, because my mouth bad. They did, the bill did, the bill has suffered some sort of setback procedural or something maybe they realized there was a bad idea considering how many of these guys are involved in domestic disputes that they could end up with a cop in their yard, taking them to jail for just saying swear words. But yeah, it's pretty, the penalties for this bill, like, okay, the actual language says it could

result in three months imprisonment for a person who, quote, accosts, insults, taunts. So taunts, you can't even, like, dangle a donut on a string or something, know what that means, or challenge the law enforcement officer with a vice, offensive or derisive words, makes gestures. So I'm assuming they mean a middle finger, but also, what? if you do a sarcastic okay symbol or a thumbs up. I guess that could be construed as a violation. You could also,

I hit with the misdemeanor charged for $250 fine and be disqualified from public assistance benefits for three months, which I'm assuming they think is the real hammer because everyone who protest cops is obviously on fucking welfare and food stamps. That's how their brains work. Right. Well, isn't this just like a version of like sort of when they do the curfews or whatever, whenever protests and things are going?

on, meaning like, this is literally just intended to give them a reason or an excuse or an ability to take somebody to jail. So when they make a curfew 5 o'clock, and if you're out after 5 o'clock, you're breaking the law, that's just to give them a way to lock you up. And that's what this is aimed at. Yeah, 8 o'clock curfew is like, we screw it up and killed somebody. So everybody else has to go to bed by 8 or 9 o'clock without supper or whatever. Yeah, so when they talk about Dr. Seuss and all this shit, it's important to remember, they're just trying to, like, it's an okey dope because they can set up a both sides thing, right?

So you can actually complain about actual violations of free speech. I'm not saying there's no like liberal or leftist version of this, but what they're talking about is like they literally criminalized, criminalized actual political speech. Like this is, this is shit the, the attorney general of Arkansas is pursuing. She's proposing two different bills. The first is the Star-Spangled Banner Act. that require each public school to play the Star Spangled Banner at the start of school sancting sporting events. With most places, this is Arkansas.

Who's not? I mean, they're all doing it anyway. Like, who cares? Right. And the second one is the moment of silence act. It changes Arkansas law requiring a moment of silence in Arkansas schools to also mandate a moment of silence after the pledge of allegiance during the start of the school day.

So not only do you have to do an oath to the state. It's weird that America we don't think of these things. Like, if you read about North Korea or Nazi Germany doing this, should be like, wow, it's creepy to do an oil loyalty of the state before, make school children do it before class. But we just, I mean, it's, it's fine. Kids can do the Pledge of Allegiance. I don't really care. But like, if you don't do it, what happens? You know, that's the real thing is like kids are going to get, if you're Jehovah's Witness or if you just don't want to do it, you don't feel like it maybe you're too stoned or tired or whatever you worked on. You had your begging groceries

job all night. You don't want to stand up for the pledge of the National Anthem. You're going to get in trouble. Yeah, it's, right. Like you said, it's one of those things that, like you said, Like, because pretty much all of us at this point grew up doing it, you know, and you're a kid, you don't understand any of this shit. So, like, you don't think twice about it. And because you do it your whole life growing up, you kind of never think twice about it. But if as an adult, you look back on it or try to remove yourself from it and look at it objectively, like you said, it's some, like, North Korea or 1984 type stuff. I mean, it's really, I think if you, like, really look at it objectively and an image of young. school children all standing in the same pose and like reciting robotically this literal

pledge of allegiance it's fucking weird when you really think about it and now adding in a moment of silence after that ends for whatever reason and she's got both these things going at once but this is another one of those things we're like they just you got to make there, I think. I feel like that's what happens with a lot of these state-level propositions a lot of times is people trying to find a way to just make a splash, you know, so they just make some shit up. Yeah, she wants to go viral so she can be more famous and maybe run for governor, so they're just being AG one day.

But it's so weird, like, we don't think about ourselves. We think of ourselves different from other countries, right? Like, there was a clip that went viral. it was a bunch of kids it was like some Chinese school children reciting a pledge whatever the Chinese version of the Pledge of Allegiance is and they were like

you know how Americans think of Chinese people is like automaton's in service to the state or whatever they're standing in like single file rows hand or hand do whatever their pose is reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and conservatives are talking about how creepy it is like it's the exact same thing we do it's the exact same goddamn thing

I don't see really understand what the big deal is yeah but all this stuff is just like I find it moderately I don't know it's frightening is too strong a word for it but we just think of ourselves

in a different category but somebody made this point and I never thought about it this way but like we kind of think of like human sacrifice as being like a pagan thing that we stopped doing when the real religions

like Christianity and I came along but if like if Christians never did human sacrifice then what is the Spanish Inquisition what were the Salem which trials right? We think of those as a different category of thing

so yeah I don't know yeah well all right So speaking of lawmakers making things up out of thin air seemingly to, you know, push their agenda or make some kind of splash, immigration is a hugely hot button topic right now in the news cycle, right? Literally, where did that, at what point did this start, Mark? Like somebody has to at a certain point say, this is about to be the thing now, right? like that decision has to be made by somebody somewhere. So what happened? So all of a sudden, so like the rightway media was warming up for it last week, right?

And there's been a bunch of like advocacy from like like interest groups like fair, which is an anti-immigration group, which is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which the Southern Poverty Law Center can maybe be a little quick on the trigger with those designations. But they suck. I'll at least say they suck. They're bad. They're not nice people. And like Fox News and the Heritage Foundation, they've been warming up for this. But all of a sudden on Sunday, the Washington Post front page story was about Biden's political immigration crisis as a political disaster.

All three Sunday shows just spent wall-to-wall on it. ABC flew their people down to the border to see them sitting at the bottom at the border tray. There's some four socially distant desks. I don't know what that adds to their knowledge about the situation. Right. It's like ESPN Game Day. You know, like they go, when Alabama's playing Ole Miss or whatever, they go to Tuscaloosa and set up because that's the side of the action. That's where you got to be.

But it's just them sitting in the desert in front of a fence for no apparent reason. There's a few basic problems with his narrative. One, to start the obvious one Biden's only been president in two months, right? Two, immigration gums in waves and spikes. and it tends to be big around March for whatever reason. There's probably tons of reasons that are, I just don't know what they are. You think it's the weather? Or do you think part of it is the weather, meaning like, you know, winter is over,

although I know winter is a very different thing down there. But, I mean, if it happens in March every year, there's got to be some reason for it. Yeah, I think it's like a. Yeah, Matt says, yes, it's the weather migration cycles. Yeah. And also like actual, uh, uh, uh, illegal border cross, undocumented border crossings or whatever, or like 25% what they were in the early 2000. So like, when you define something as a crisis, one article is like, well, crisis compared to what and when?

Like, what is the crisis relative to? Because they keep using, like, it's not even the bad as it was under Trump in 2019, right? And so like, who decides this is a crisis and why and why they all said to buy? I mean, I know why. It's because a Democrats got a big win with the COVID bill. And they got to find an issue where the, where it's a fair. fight, right? So they can treat, they can act like it's like, two big teams are going head to head again on a real potential issue. But they have to, like, they have to heighten

this to be like, like, one number I saw. Like, there's a couple different things going on the border, right? And they get mashed up in different categories. Like, undocumented border crossings are in one. Who's actually in the camps? Like the kids in cages and shit like that, those are people that are here legally. They walked through a board station legally requested an asylum, and they're being held in these camps while they're being processed while their claims are evaluated, right? So, like, those are not here. People are not illegally or undocumented. They literally did what they're legally supposed to do, which is the wrinkle in this problem. It's like our government can't decide what to do with these people who follow the legal process

who are just, they're just way more of them than there have been before for a lot of reasons because of economic collapse because of COVID, because of MS-13, because of, like, shitty weather and droughts and the lack of food and political catastrophes and all the shit that we're also involved in South America, by the way. A lot of stuff has to do with American chicanery. Right.

Yeah. That, you know, not only is it seemingly like just sort of come up out of nowhere, it appears, like a, you know, a matter of political theater recently like we were just talking about. There's also

been a lot of reports that have come out recently that seem to indicate that the Border Patrol itself as an entity is contributing significantly to these narratives, meaning it's not apolitical. There's a lot of things that point towards this being kind of a built-up narrative. Also, the fact, like you said, Biden's only been the president for a couple of months. There's also a lot of reports that inside the Border Patrol, they were basically given carte blanche by the Trump administration and a lot of the higher-up people that are still there at this point in time aren't operating any differently, despite the fact that, you know,

the Biden administration is directing them to do so. So they're kind of like almost going rogue, but they're also doing a lot of this, you know, setting the scene for a lot of this stuff, fudging the numbers and doing things like that, right? Yeah, there was a post-in-vower from a former Border Patrol agent, and she was describing how this works. And things they, can do for one like under under george w bush apparently one thing they started to do was tracking quote getaways because the numbers of like detentions were down that the people they caught across the border were down so to justify their funding they start inventing people who got away to jack up the numbers to make it look like they were being overrun and overwhelmed but there's

no way to fact check how many people they they tried to catch and didn't right because yeah they were telling them they were instructing the agents they would give them a certain point like the first gas station over the border or whatever. Yeah. If they get beyond that point, you stop pursuing them right then. And then you report roughly thereabouts how many people you saw get away. So it's just a guesstimate that they made based on what they saw with their eyes after they reached this arbitrary, you know, end point of the pursuit.

So it's just built to inflate the numbers of runaway immigrants pretty much. And it's a great scam because you literally, you don't do any work, and you get more funding to pay you overtime to not have done that work. It's fucking great. And you get to be political heroes and try to sway elections to people who then treat you as patrons and up your budget anyway. And so they do shit like that. Another thing they do, apparently, is the applications for asylum, they will slow walk those and drag the process out. and what they're trying to do is make the person so miserable, they will accept a voluntary deportation to go back home

instead of waiting for their asylum plan to be hurt. So pretty evil shit. But they're not, they're not like non-political actors. I mean, no law enforcement is, but let's just be honest about this. They have an agenda. They have a side. And Matt pointed this out. The Border Patrol Unions has a podcast, which is produced by,

you want to guess, Trey, Breitbart. Right. So, yes, yeah, the Union, the Border Patrol Union, I believe, had never officially endorsed any political candidate before 2016, at which point they endorsed Trump and are pretty baldly hyper-conservative in their leaning. So that also has a huge amount to do with this. Like, I've never been, I've never been much of a, much of a boss. But it doesn't really matter the politics of this. if I was the president of the United States and the law enforcement agency was going rogue and not listening to my directives,

I feel like I'd have to clean house. I mean, that's dangerous. If the Pentagon was doing this, we'd call it a coup. Right, yeah, exactly. So what, I don't know, is that, like, maybe it's too early in this, you know, brand new crisis that's cropped up to see how they're actually going to respond to it.

But yeah, that's what you got to do, right? You have to, you got to go into and make changes. Heads got to roll when shit like this is going on. I wanted to talk about the CNN thing because it's pretty classically terrible, but do you want to bring in Aaliana first? Do you want to go through this real quick first? Yeah, sure. No, let's do it. Let's get to our guest tonight, Ileana Santian. She is a native of Mexico City who has been organizing in North Carolina for over 16 years. She started her career as an educator in Sanford, North Carolina, where she developed a passion for working with youth and elevating the voices of Latinx folks throughout the state. Currently, she serves as the executive director of El Pueblo and Fortaleza. In her role, she seeks to empower rural communities, elevate Latinx leadership. and increased civic engagement across the state of North Carolina. We're very pleased to have join us, Ileana Santi, and, Ileana, are you there? I am here.

Thank you all so much, super excited about this huge fan, so thank you for the opportunity to be here with y'all today. Oh, well, thank you for joining us. First of all, because, you know, people have been following us for a while, know that I don't say words good a lot of time. Am I saying your name right? Is that okay? Yeah, that's fine. Is that good?

Close enough, Tray, but not right. Yeah. All right, so Ileana, actually, let's start by watching this clip that Mark's talking about and then get your feedback on it and kind of talk about the issue at large from there. But go ahead and set this up, Mark, the CNN thing. All right, so CNN went to the border and spontaneously stumbled on these people crossing the river, apparently led by a AI coyote. Now, a lot of things immediately fell apart about this story, but let's show a few seconds out first.

So you get the viable we're talking about. Yeah, Matt's working on bringing it up right now. Okay, that's it. As the sun sets on the Rio Grande, our boat winds its way through the deep bends of the river that separates Texas from Mexico near the town of Hidalgo. That's when we stumble across a group of migrants loading into a raft. Oh, my amigos. Hey.

No, no, enemigos. No, no, we're good. Our group eases the tension. A few men appear to lead the raft full of parents and young children to the U.S. side. The Rio Grande Valley has been ground zero of the latest surge of migration, and here you see the operation unfolding right in front of us. After the first raft crosses the river, the magnitude of this moment reveals itself.

Dozens of migrants emerge and walk down to the river's edge. All right. Okay. So right place, right time for a news crew, Mark, or what happened here? So a few things that people noticed about this almost immediately. The smuggler was wearing a mask, which they would want to blend in with a migrant so they get caught. The officials don't know who the smuggler is, therefore they don't get in actual real trouble. there's typically don't provide face masks and life vests nor they ferry six boatloads of people back and forth like they're doing the Dunkirk extraction and broad daylight

the last thing like the guy wearing the mask is a pretty obvious tell these are new was going to be caught on camera and the last thing was that this part of the river it can only be accessed by a boat slips belonging to the customs and border patrol so right they got took so so so iliana is somebody's you know, worked in this general field for a very long time. How do you feel generally about this subject as it has, you know, came out this week and what's going on? What's your overall take on what's going on here? Yeah, well, first of all, like, I mean, to me as a parent, as a person who, you know, came here at the age of 12, it's heartbreaking to see the families and you hear the children talking. And I mean, I just can't help but to think of like the risk that they're taking, right? How many people have drowned in those rivers? How many people have lost their lives seeking a better life? When I came to this country, we had $50 for names. You know, it was my mom,

my brother, and I, and I just, you know, I feel like the human aspect of it. Like, how can we sit here and look at this and still think through, you know, anti-immigrant legislation? You know, how many of those children are now, you know, DACA recipients who have given so much to this country and yet still they have no pathway to citizenship. So it's really, really heartbreaking to see, you know, that the situation is still like that. And, you know, again, you know, you just look at the images and it's just really, really disheartening to see what's happening at the border. Right. So a lot of your work focuses on trying to ensure that these communities are able to control their own stories because we're seeing the media narrative of this right now.

And so if that actually was allowed to happen in this. country more regularly, if these people were able to control their own stories and narratives, how do you think the public conversation around immigration would look in that reality? I mean, I think it would change. I think people would see the common ground, right? So a lot of these families are seeking better opportunities. Like how many American people move to different states to find these opportunities? The, you know, people seek these opportunities. And I think that they would see that it's not foreign. I think that when we let the media control the narratives, they focus on, oh, you know, like they're, you know, what Trump said years ago, criminals,

rapists, when that's not their reality. And they're just painting this really negative picture that is untrue. And then the other part is that, you know, oftentimes they dehumanize us so much to the point where we're just like, there's dollar signs in, you know, in front of our faces. We're like, oh, you know, the immigrants contribute X, Y, Z in, you know, the fields, like provide food, but like they forget that we're humans too, that we have lives, that we have families, that we're just trying to do what any normal person would try to do in order to improve the lives of themselves, their community. So I think that if the community got the opportunity to really voice out, you know, what their reality is, it would be very, very different.

And again, you know, I hate that sometimes, you know, even in our line or work when we talk to, you know, Republican folks, we have to always think about the monetary contributions. like you don't have to be the quote unquote perfect immigrant to deserve humanness to deserve to be yeah no I'm sorry I didn't mean to cut you off I was just agreeing with you you're right it's like it's sort of it kind of reminds me of how like when there's instances of police brutality and after the fact they they start talking about how well you know well he had warrants or he he had done this or he had done that or whatever and it's like well that and so you're telling me that deserved a death sentence like that is the

appropriate response to, you know, committing a misdemeanor or whatever, what does that have to do with what we're talking about here? And I do think you're right that immigrants get treated kind of in that same way, where it's like if you're not the perfect model immigrant, whatever that even means, then you deserve to be separated from your family or have your kids locked up in cages or whatever. And that's just nonsense. Yeah, we see the double criminalization of our communities here. Right now we're fighting bail SB 101 that seek. to make sure that local law enforcement is collaborating with ICE. So when they draft these bills, they're like, oh, we would only be, you know,

eliminating the bad ones or whatever. When reality, like, when you have immigration collaborate with local law enforcement, you're to your point, you know, doubly criminalizing community members. I, you know, my background is in teaching. And once I left teaching and I started organizing, you know, I would get, I can, I will never remember this call of one of my students and their mom crying because they're dad was in the process of deportation for fishing without a license, right? Like, it was this, you know, no criminal background of any sort. And this person was just

taken to jail because of they were fishing without a license, process of deportation. And right now we're battling that bill because what happened was that a lot of sheriffs in the urban areas, of course, or Charlotte, Raleigh were like, we're not doing this ice thing. We're not going to do the 287G agreement. So then our local legislature. legislature was like, oh, y'all think that's cute. We're not going to do that. So now they want to implement it statewide, which is something that, you know, it's very unique to North Carolina. We have, you know, North Carolina voted for Trump. We have a Democratic governor. The lieutenant governor is Republican, and it's just like a huge mess. But we're constantly, every long session,

we're fighting anywhere from 10 to 15 anti-immigrant bills around police and collaboration with ICE, E-Verify. The state doesn't have driver's licenses. We don't have in-state tuition for undocumented folks. So you think about the many, many young people who are, you know, brilliant and want to further their education, but they have to pay twice or three times as much as anybody else, which is just crazy. There was a, I saw a story today.

It was the list of people that I got turned, like actual anecdotes or human stories, people got turned away at the border. And a bunch of the unaccompanied minors at the border, the parents are already here legally. They've come ahead, they've gotten asylum, and they've gotten jobs. They've established lives

and their kids are coming behind them to try to, you know, be a family again. There's one kid, his mom is like a waitress in Ohio and he, like this 10-year-old kid because of the COVID, what do they call him like? Whatever the order was, a public health order about everybody getting deported because of COVID, they sent a 10-year-old kid back to Guatemala

where he lives by himself. Just like, that's like a completely inhuman thing that no one would, no one would, no one would make that choice individually, but when you make it bureaucratically, it somehow seems okay. Like, it's not something anyone would, like, you're essentially deputizing someone at Border Patrol or immigration to do an evil act, and you're acting like it's not because it's shuffling paperwork, which is very weird to me. Yeah, we have a lot of mixed families, mixed status families, and, you know, you think about the separation of children and, like,

you know, I'm a parent. I'm sure you all have seen those videos of when the kids actually get reunited, you know, the trauma for the children. And then not only that, I think that's like an extreme here in North Carolina. We have children. We have families. And, you know, my background is in education. And my kids, every time we rode the bus together or we were, you know, going somewhere, they were so fearful of going back home because they thought that maybe one day they wouldn't see their parents. And you think about how that impacts you and how that affects you as a young child to think that someday you're going to come home and your parents are not going to be You know, if you think about like every time there's like a, you know, like a checkpoint or there's a police officer behind you and you have to think about, you know, if your parents are going to come home, if they're going to get arrested, if they're going to get deported. And the emotional toll and pain, it's just something that I think is unbearable.

Yeah, for sure. I have, I've got two little boys too. And I'm always like any issue that involves children at all, I just can't, I can't stomach anything that I feel like harm. children, which, like, you wouldn't think that'd be a hot take, you know what I mean? But it, because it happens in this country, too, domestically with things like food stamps for welfare programs, where you've got schools who, like, if their parents don't pay the right amount, then the kid has to eat, like, a slice of loaf bread instead of the actual school lunch because their parents didn't pay for it and things like that. And you have people saying, like, well, you know, you don't pay, this is what happens. And I just, I can't handle stuff like that.

And I felt the same, I feel the same way about these immigration conversations, you know, like, I don't care what any kids' parents did or did not do. It's irrelevant to me in terms of whether or not they should be in a cage, you know, or separated from their family and treated in this way. And I find it so wild that people, that this is apparently, like, hugely debatable among a big chunk of the American populace. And also, a lot of that chunk are the think about the children crowd, right? They're the pro-life. Won't someone think about the children crowd? So how do you, you know, how do you not reconcile that, but how do you feel in response to that whole aspect of it, that hypocrisy? I mean, it's just to me, like secondly we're saying, it's hypocrisy.

How can we have people who are like, you know, pro-life, but then they are okay with putting, you know, children in cages? Is they're okay with, you know, here in North Carolina, they have legislation that's like, oh, if the parent is undocumented, they don't want to give, you know, benefits, like food stamps or anything like that. So it seems very, very hypocritical. And then the other thing, too, that I've been, you know, thinking a lot about because when I moved here, that was back in the 90s. So I'm like 37, about to be 38. And I cannot help but to think about the parents, right? So there's initiatives for DACA. There's initiatives for, you know, all these things to protect the children to, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the.

brightest, whoever, the perfect ones who will go to college and do all this. But then we don't think about the parents who, like, day in and they out, you know, they're mowing our lawns. They're building the houses that we live in. They're taking care of our children. And we never think about what I call the OGs. To me, they're the original gangsters who, like, decided to risk everything to come here. And these folks are aging out, you know, like there's no system for them to have any type of, you know, financial resources for when they're old and they cannot work. So to me, that's very worrisome. And I see, you know, we had DACA and that was a huge thing.

We had DACA. Unfortunately, that didn't come through. But I'm really, really hopeful that the current administration really thinks through how can they think about the whole family unit. And again, you know, stop thinking about the dollar sign that we have in front of us because of what we can produce. But to really think of us as humans and as people who contributed to the state, I know so many young folks who think like, you know, damn, if I get deported, if my DACA doesn't get

renewed, I was in Mexico when I was one. I don't even speak poor in Spanish. Like, how are we going to live? And it just breaks my heart to think about scenarios such as that one. Matt pointed out in the chat that Jeff Bush said that crossing the borders an act of love. Of course, he was run out of Republican politics for saying that, but he's not wrong. And there's nothing more American than trying to, like, give your kids a better life by sacrificing your own stability and your own home. That's literally what everybody came or did. It's like, also, like, this conception of a border, I mean, I understand that every country

is going to have a border, and every building or club or whatever that's ever existed is trying to keep track of who's in it and who's not. And I understand that. But also, like, there's never been solid borders. A solid border looks something like the Berlin Wall. Like, they, like, in the early 20th century before that, like, you just showed up and you were America. Nobody counted you.

there were social security numbers in the 1920. He just walked into America and you were an American. Because there was nobody guarding the beach in North Carolina. You got off a boat in your, I'm here. You know, it's like, it's what it was. But, like, I mean, also borders also always create black markets. Like anybody that's like, you're in North Carolina, I'm from Virginia. I'm sure you've noticed all the fireworks stores right on the North Carolina border because

they're illegal in Virginia, right? We used to drive the North Carolina in about Everclear, too, because that's illegal in Virginia. So like, like we all we talk about, we talk about people in drugs coming north, but we don't talk about all the guns. We send south, by the way, they're killing a bunch of people in Mexico and South America. Like, it's just like, I don't know, it's just like we do, Americans have a very naive way about how this stuff has always worked or it's always going to work. And they want to idealize some perfect future where everything works orderly instead of humanely. And it's like sometimes humanely wins out over orderly. You know, it's got to.

Is it making these, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. There's a question there somewhere maybe. Does that make sense, I guess, is what it is? Okay, so I'll ask you, because I wanted to ask you this anyway. Like Mark said, it's like, this is the same thing that, you know, it's been pointed out of a million times because it's true, that America was founded on our, all of our and my Mark's ancestors did the same thing, left a place seeking a better life for their children and, you know, their descendants or whatever. That's how this country became a country in the first place.

So why is it so completely different now for these people in the minds of so many Americans. Like, is it literally just straight up racism? Is it an element of, well, you know, we got ours and we're done with that now? You know, we did that, but we're here and we're good and that's over now. So fuck everybody else. Is it a combination of the two? Like, what all is going on there do you think that leads to that? Again, hypocrisy. Yeah, I think it's definitely a combination of the two. And I think it's that, you know, I see it more so here currently, like they see the benefit of keeping us oppressed, right? If, you know, more and more people, the, you know,

the students were able to get in-state tuition, they wouldn't be working at the restaurants. They wouldn't be working at the hotels. They would be moving on up in other different careers, right? So I think it's a system that benefits a few, right? So it's like, when I came here, you know, blah, blah, blah, it was different. You know, now that they have better lives and they, a lot of the luxuries that they have are because of the work that we do,

right so farm worker industry like damn you know you go to any field and you see latinx people working you go to um here in the coast right all the fancy hotels who cleans them who is working at the restaurants i think that they have gotten used to seeing us as lesser than as people who will you know like if they just keep us you know with you know whatever things that they want to hand us down that will be okay so i think it's a matter of selfishness racism and then just the fact that they're used to um doing the systems right so that they can benefit. And, you know, meanwhile, the Latinx community here, we pay taxes. Like, we have no retirement funds, no social security.

All of that money is only benefiting one group of people, and that's not us. I was reading earlier today, and this just stuck with me a lot about, like, we're talking earlier about, like, when they say it's a crisis, a crisis compared to what, right? Because there's a worldwide refugee crisis happening or people fleeing North for various reasons. And, like, this stuff blew my mind. one in four people in Lebanon as a refugee. And if America had that same proportion, we'd have 82 million refugees.

And Lebanon is getting by. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like it's weird how like we have this, I don't know, I don't know if we think America's full because we have a collapsing, it's, I don't know, it's very weird. We're getting back to the economic arguments

to dehumanize people, but also we have a collapsing birth rate and giant economic problems, so we need more people. So it's very short-sighted in a lot of ways to be, this mean to people. And I just want to say, people got some pushback in the comments, Matt said. I forgot the Chinese Exclusion Act. When I was talking, people just showed up and got to be here.

That was not true for the Chinese in the West Coast. And yeah, that was my bad. I forgot that. Blind spot. So, Ilya, I wanted to ask, first of all, we want to give you an opportunity to talk about your organization and everything. But first, I wanted to ask specifically sort of how you feel right now about the Biden administration and their role in all of this as we are discussing it to day because you know it's become you know it's a crisis for them started this week and again they've been there for two months and just how do you feel about how the current administration has been handling everything so far what do you think they should or need to do to address all

this going forward and just how all that's going in your opinion i mean i think there's a lot of work to be done i think that you know i am hopeful i mean honestly like at this point anything is better than trump and i'm glad that we don't have him him in office at this time. But I mean, I think about simple things like the stimulus checks, right? So right now, those funds are not reaching undocumented people. And they're the ones who might need it the most. They're the ones risking themselves, risking those lives in these essential job positions. And there's really nothing for them. And I would like to see, you know, an actual piece of legislation that not only includes the brightest and the, you know,

and the youngest, that includes, you know, the parents, my original OGs who made the decision to come here. I would like to see something that's really definitely more inclusive and that moves, right? I think that we oftentimes get like, oh, it passed one chamber and everybody gets excited, but then it goes to the other one and nothing ever happens, right? So I think that it's time for us to push, not just the Biden administration or elected officials at every single level. Because again, what we're seeing in North Carolina is people get hopeful. And they're like, well, Biden's in office. But yeah, that's great. But that's not really changing our day to day life here in North Carolina. So I think it's a moment for everyone to engage with their elected

officials. Like I said, right now, at El Pueblo, we're fighting like six anti-immigrant bills right now. And it's like every year, and it's by the same people, which is kind of like irks me. We have folks who have been in office for like nine or 10 terms. And every single long session, they come up with something stupid. Right now, like I said, and it's hard, right? You know, we're in the middle of COVID. And a lot of the people that we work with are directly impacted, right? So I'm blessed because I, this is my job. I get paid to do this and it's incredible, but we want to get into a place where we're able to, you know, really work with our communities. There's amazing grassroots groups here in our state, like they are incredible. They've been doing

this work for with no compensation for many, many years. I think that we're in an opportunity where we can include these grassroots organizations. And, you know, for folks who are interested in learning more about El Pueblo, please visit our website, el Pueblo.org. You know, love to get donations. You would love to hear back from people. We used to be mostly in Wake County. Now we're branching out. We're statewide. And our goal is to engage young people, elder folks, my OGs, and really think through how we affect change and how we, you know, again, take control of our narratives and how we are, you know, instead of having, you know, all these lobbyists go to the General Assembly and, you know, help us out. It should be us. It should be

us, you know, with our voices, with our demands. And again, you know, I think that, North Carolina is in a very interesting situation with our political climate here locally. And I think it's a moment in time where we should maybe deflect a little bit of the attention of what's going on nationally and work with our municipal elections. And again, you know, the other thing, last year, everybody in their moms was registering voters and it was like, oh, my God, we have COVID. Let's register voters. How many voters have we registered this year, right?

So I think we need to think through what's going to happen in 2022. And we shouldn't wait until 2024 to start thinking about how we're going to. to get our people out to vote and about having a variety of candidates that really align with our vision. Preach, yeah, you said it all. And like the pro you are. You even got into the organization itself without me even having to specifically ask you for it.

So yeah, El Pueblo.org, everybody, if you want to support the cause. And, yeah, Ileana, thank you so much for joining us. This has been a wonderful conversation. We appreciate you bringing your experience and expertise to the subject. subject at hand. Thank you. Thank you. Anytime. I'm a huge fan, so thank you, I appreciate that. Bye. All right. Iliana Satya and everybody, again, hope I'm saying that, right? All right. So we, yeah, let's get into the questions, the comments, whatever y'all got, and I just want to apologize once again for

the universe and what it did to me earlier. Yeah, sorry. I know it's literally something every week. I am so sorry. I feel like it's almost becoming a part of the show at this point. I mean, I guess it's probably been a part of the show for a while now. But it's not that we just don't give a shit, I promise you. We talk about it every week, how we can smooth over the technical issues as they were. And then something like that happens where what's a bomb went off and my power just cut out and here we are. I'm a fan of Jack White, who is not a perfect person, but he can play the show of a guitar. And he was talking about production and why, like you record, he plays a lot, he keeps a lot of first takes.

and it's like because with the pops and cracks and and you get you call them beautiful mistakes right you keep those in the track I don't know if you originally that term yeah this is like this is DIY man it's the fuck up to make it yeah yeah right when you were saying that producer Matt sends a comment that says my mom watches it for the wrecks kind of like NASCAR so yeah yeah part of the show it's what we do what you're most your most memorable stand-up sets right or so or somebody like a table cough fire or my threw something at you or it was horrible. Like those are always the best one.

Those are the ones you remember. Yeah. We blame Matt. Yeah. Christine Remick says we blame Matt, J.K. Matt. Yeah. No. You remember Regis and Kelly had Gilman?

Like it's like, uh, the bats are Gilman, I think. So we're going to. Oh, is that they're like, was that they're like, imagine? I don't, I don't, I don't know a lot of Regis and Kelly lore. Oh, I'm going to lie to you. They had like a scapegoat named Galvin. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. was the floor producer that Regis used to always raggle in and blame for everything. So, yeah, yeah, it's part of the producer's job. You know, what are you going to do? Brian G. says, hilarious country boys who can't internet. It's adorable. Yeah, thank you. You're right.

John Orbit Bainbridge says, Tray, you can't blame yourself for a transformer explosion. Blame it on the rain. Yeah, I was actually thinking the wind, because that's the equivalent of rain out here, is when the wind's blowing real hard, which it is today. like curse this wind you know and then in my head i was like wind shouldn't make that happen but you know it does oh those trees over shit happens yeah a lot of people with the uh similar takes and they are correct aaron mccullough says consistent technical glitches are very on brand for some white trash

people trying to do a thing we can't fix it with duct tape eric we're fucked I meant to shut up, I got a very sweet card from a listener name, Jamie. I owe you a response message, Jamie. I wanted to thank you, but I appreciate it. It was very, very kind. She made a homemade card with Smart Mark written on it and said some kind things about how we helped her get through some family stuff. That was cool.

That's great. But did you just say she made a homemade card with Smart Mark in mind? Is that what you said? Written on it. It said Smart Mark on it. It was very sweet. Oh, it said Smart Mark on it. okay, I thought you said,

I thought you said, she made a homemade card using smart marker. And I was like, oh yeah, you got your own marker merch now, huh? Yeah, smart card.

Yeah, I got an endorsement deal from a Sharpies. Oh. Producer Matt says he didn't get one. Must be in the mail. You're the fuck up, Matt. You fuck up all that.

Yeah, man. Keep your ass in your hole, producer, Matt, where you belong. Yeah. Let's make him the gelvin.

I like that idea. Regis, an innovator. Yeah. um so uh shit did y'all so y'all okay Lisa Guggenheim dache says I just love skews days it's hilarious because we hadn't even we hadn't even thought of that no browser tuesday so thank you for that yeah Tuesdays use that can we use that yeah yeah skews days I like it that's that's uh that's wonderful um Tray, you've been watching.

Oh, I was very good. No, so you covered while I was gone, were you just on here by yourself the whole time talking to the ether? That's wonderful. Yep. Good on you. I know that's hard. Did you, uh, did you? I never appreciated you more.

The Sydney Pals stuff? Yeah. Yeah. That's, oh, that was something else. I was, uh, I was looking forward to it. It's like the idea that no rational person could have believed that I wasn't being a lunatic. So you can't blame me for it. You know, that's just how it works.

It's also, it's a double funny hustle because Dominion's problem is that voters are going to have any faith in the system. Republican voters are going to be faith in their computer systems. And Republican politicians are going to sign the contract. So they're saying that, yeah, you're going to lose millions and millions of dollars in business because Republicans are idiots. But that's not my fault. Right. Yeah. Were you about to ask me if I've been watching college basketball?

yeah i figured you were no because here's why and i get this way i'll come back to it after this week but i watched the tennessee vault my my beloved tennessee valls i watched their game and it was a bloodletting and it was horrific as that is that is our custom we pride ourselves upon that and uh we got yeah blown out by the you know we were five seed they were 12 seed and so i have been too mad to watch the rest of it so far i've been kind of keeping up with it But I'll get back into it. You know, I've got to ease myself into it.

But why do you ask, Mark, what happened? We've talked a lot about women's sports. And I wanted to see if you've seen the viral clips of, they really set up men's and women's bubbles.

And the men got all this fancy equipment and gift bags and shit. And the women literally have like a couple of five pound weights and some like, it looks like, remember the fire festival plates, the lunches and bologian bread set in separate piles? Yeah. It was like, it was like,

like, like there's a, they're all in one place. These aren't spread out, like, 32 locations. Like, there's going to be tons of video clips of this. You're going to get roasted to death because you're, you can't, you can't be this obvious with it. How do you not know? First of all, Bradley Hatfield says, when are you coming to West Virginia, Tray?

I need this in real life. Actually, it's a huge mark of shame for me that we have, West Virginia is one of the, like, three, three or four states in this country we have not been to on tour. and I don't have a good explanation for it. We've tried multiple times and it hasn't worked out, but we will figure it out I'm dying to come to West Virginia, and I'm not just saying that. It's the one of the four that's missing that I want to come to the most.

So hopefully soon. But yes, Mark, like you said, like it blows my mind in today's society that no one realized apparently that you can't do that. You know, like you can't just do that and get away with it. Like, it will come out. It will be a story. Is it not worth the extra money on cheese and condiments or whatever to keep it from being the story?

You know, like, is it really worth that to you? How do you miss something like that? Also, the whole premise of your scam is that this isn't about money. This is about the uplifting student athletes. Right. So when the whole world is watching, you have to keep up your ruse. Spend a few extra dollars because now you're going to have to pay all the fucking athletes. Right.

Yeah. Which is so funny. You know, I'm consistently blown away by their inability to foresee the things that will upset people. David C. Nichols says, spectacular skews day. Look, it's catching on already. Look at that. Frozen Trey, solo Mark, Mattis Gilman, all this, Nilliana, too. And then we've got some wonderful emojis there.

Thank you, David. What are those, Mark? It was clapping hands and hearts, I think. It was clapping hands and hearts. That's what we're all about here at the skews, clapping hands and hearts. All right. So, once again, my sincerest apologies, thank you all for sticking through it. And thank you Mark and Matt for keeping things afloat while I fucked around.

And thank you all for being here on week's excusing. We will be back next week on 3.30, March 30th, yeah, at 5 Pacific. Thank you, all. I love you, bye.