Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: It's me James, and before we listen to this episode today,
Speaker 2: I just did want to make you aware that I
Speaker 2: conducted these interviews in French and Spanish, mostly Spanish, and
Speaker 2: then transcribed and translated them. So what you're hearing is
Speaker 2: a translated interview that's being edited for brevity and content.
Speaker 3: I hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker 2: Ramato. Some of you recognize the audio that we opened
Speaker 2: this show with, and then if you won't, it's a
Speaker 2: sample from the fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle that
Speaker 2: Manuchow used to open his shows with. It's a piece
Speaker 2: of music that's very emotive for me. Obviously, I'm a
Speaker 2: white leftist guy in my thirties who learned Spanish and
Speaker 2: decided to live in Barcelona. So I have a story
Speaker 2: about running into Manuchow once where he was busking, but
Speaker 2: that's not what I want to share today. Because I'm
Speaker 2: technology challenged, I can't seem to get my phone to
Speaker 2: download songs, but I've managed to download the same Manuchow playlist,
Speaker 2: and I ripped off a rewriteable CD when I was
Speaker 2: in high school and put it on the various headphones
Speaker 2: and garment. Watch it that I've had of the last
Speaker 2: two decades or so. When I'm away for work, I
Speaker 2: like to run whenever I can. Obviously, I wasn't just
Speaker 2: going to go for a jog straight into the Darien Gap.
Speaker 2: But once we were out of Bajajiqito, it gave me
Speaker 2: some time to run and think and process the things
Speaker 2: that I've seen. And while I do that, I listen
Speaker 2: to the same does and al So MP three files.
Speaker 2: I was listening to this song one day after I
Speaker 2: got back from LaaS Blancas as I sweated my way
Speaker 2: up ahead in the rainforest, hoping to see a sloth.
Speaker 2: I didn't see a sloth, but it seemed like an
Speaker 2: appropriate soundtrack. Manucho himself as a child of refugees from
Speaker 2: Francoist Spain. He sings in French and Spanish, while off
Speaker 2: and Galician and Portuguese, among other languages, often several of
Speaker 2: them in the same song, the product of growing up
Speaker 2: among other migrants of diverse backgrounds. I like the way
Speaker 2: he plays with language because it reminds me of the
Speaker 2: way I so often speak to my friends Spanglish, for example,
Speaker 2: or Franglais. It's the way people talk in border regions
Speaker 2: and refugee camps, languages that don't have the support of
Speaker 2: a state or the academy, but nonetheless convey so much
Speaker 2: meaning for so many people. That song in particular reminds
Speaker 2: me of my first time reading about Zapatismo in a
Speaker 2: tiny anarchist cafe in the West Midlands. I remember being struck,
Speaker 2: as a kid from Europe who would frequently drive to
Speaker 2: France or Belgium to race bikes and buy cheap beer,
Speaker 2: that the USA still maintained a fortified border with Mexico.
Speaker 2: People couldn't travel freely, but money could. It was its
Speaker 2: realization and the writings in particular Socomante Marcos, along with
Speaker 2: my talks in Spain to old anarchists, that encouraged me
Speaker 2: to learn Spanish, which I pursued by spending months in
Speaker 2: Spain and Venezuela and learning thanks to the patient to
Speaker 2: the people around me. It was a new anarchism which
Speaker 2: came from the periphery, not only a liberal corps, which
Speaker 2: gave me my first serious politics. I traveled to Venezuela
Speaker 2: to understand the revolution there. I did a PhD to
Speaker 2: try and understand the revolution in Spain. It's all very
Speaker 2: well understanding things, but I think it's much more important
Speaker 2: to do things, and I tried to practice mutual aid
Speaker 2: as much as I can. Since I got back from
Speaker 2: the daddy En, I've loaded up a heavy backpack and
Speaker 2: carried water into the desert and spent hours trying to
Speaker 2: connect the friends I made in the jungle with services
Speaker 2: along the way. In the face of so much cruelty,
Speaker 2: it feels it's good to be doing something to help
Speaker 2: a carrying the water is away. I can make a
Speaker 2: material difference in a terrible situation. But in all my
Speaker 2: time reporting, I've really never felt as disempowered and helpless
Speaker 2: as I did in Last Blancas. Here at the first
Speaker 2: official migrant reception center after Daddi Enne. The Panamanian government
Speaker 2: registers migrants NGOs, offer a few services, and the US
Speaker 2: funded process of deportation for migrants from Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela
Speaker 2: and India begins. Some of those sent to India might
Speaker 2: well be Nepalese who often travel on fake Indian passports.
Speaker 2: The Siddle cluster of cheap tents, shipping container offices, un shelters,
Speaker 2: and barbed wire offences is where the rubber meets a
Speaker 2: road for the USA's border and migration policy, and it's
Speaker 2: heartbreaking to witness as migrants were called up to the
Speaker 2: security office to begin the deportation process. I tried to
Speaker 2: narrate the scene into my voice recorder, but I struggled,
Speaker 2: in part because their family members asked me questions, hoping
Speaker 2: I can help.
Speaker 4: Yeah, planks on a side.
Speaker 2: But in a larger part this was also difficult because
Speaker 2: I couldn't help, and I deeply wanted to. The best
Speaker 2: I could offer was an arm around someone's shoulder, and
Speaker 2: I promise to email anyone who I could think of
Speaker 2: and ask what was going on.
Speaker 4: This guy's just sobbing.
Speaker 5: Ah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really tough. Some people's parents, some people's partners.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 2: I'll explain exactly what was happening in a moment, But
Speaker 2: first I want to explain how I got here. On
Speaker 2: the day we left Maragante, we set off at the
Speaker 2: same time some migrants who are making their own journey
Speaker 2: to last Blankets is carrying only myself and my fixed
Speaker 2: daddy and Aguero, so we're moving a lot faster than
Speaker 2: the boats full of migrants on the way north. We
Speaker 2: passed them, they smiled and waves we rode by. Many
Speaker 2: of them had met me the day before. All of
Speaker 2: them were ecstatic to have survived the daddy en and
Speaker 2: be heading north. You know, it's a pretty busy stretch
Speaker 2: river that's probably three or four Piagua was full of migrants.
Speaker 4: Hello, they're kids shogging at me.
Speaker 2: Going to taught them some English words yesterday and they're
Speaker 2: shouting them back to me today.
Speaker 4: Which is nice. We got it family from Panama. They
Speaker 4: might be Indio people are something.
Speaker 2: They're littleville shocked to the whole scene. Here we are
Speaker 2: passing another bit of Agua. Now they're all waving in
Speaker 2: the it's got to be uncomfortable pack that don't see
Speaker 2: into a bi Agua one, two, three, four or five, six, seven,
Speaker 2: eighty nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirty sixteen people.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Once they boath arrived, they disembark in Last Blancas. The
Speaker 2: next day I was there to meet them. We're just
Speaker 2: walking into Las Blancas. It's hectic here, so it's a
Speaker 2: new shop here, and outside the shop they've made like
Speaker 2: a line of outlets to charge people. It's a dollar
Speaker 2: an hour to charge your telephone. As we go in,
Speaker 2: there are a row of like kind of sheds which
Speaker 2: represent shops. And then further in every ngo has its
Speaker 2: own little kind of shed. They're all covered in tarps.
Speaker 2: They're like canvas and tarp tents. Actually here so see
Speaker 2: UNISEEF I see oh I am.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they have that sort of little tent office here.
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 2: See here as for example, has route information, psychological supports.
Speaker 4: They've spaced for women.
Speaker 2: WONISEF has some workshops for children. And then in the hours,
Speaker 2: I guess, nice little chairs in there.
Speaker 4: Yeah see. Then you can't take photographs in there, which
Speaker 4: is good. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then it's just a crowd of people coming out.
Speaker 2: And there's also Mormon, little little Mormon situation.
Speaker 4: See me.
Speaker 2: I guess thee o I am are supported by Church
Speaker 2: of Jesus Christ on that today Saints and the.
Speaker 4: Red Cross has got a shipping container.
Speaker 2: I've been hoping last Black Gusts would be a better
Speaker 2: scene than Bajugito, with more organized sleeping arrangements and hopefully
Speaker 2: basic necessities like clean water, food and Wi Fi provided
Speaker 2: by their numerous NGOs who work there. But if any
Speaker 2: think it was worse in Bajo Jugito. In Bajuquito, migrants
Speaker 2: were exhausted but also ecstatic to be at the jungle.
Speaker 2: They you they'll be moving forward the next day, and
Speaker 2: for a few bucks they can get anythink they needed
Speaker 2: in the village. The locals told me that if kids
Speaker 2: didn't have their money to eat, they fed them for free.
Speaker 3: I didn't see this, but nobody's seen.
Speaker 2: That they're having a very hard time in any of
Speaker 2: the dayta viceded the village, at least not for financial reasons.
Speaker 2: Maggots can get as far as Bajo Jiguito on a
Speaker 2: few hundred dollars in their t nasty They pay Columbian
Speaker 2: guides a few hundred bucks to bring them across the
Speaker 2: ocean from Necopie and to walk them from the border,
Speaker 2: and they parried and barra Perraguero's twenty five bucks for
Speaker 2: the ride up the river. But once they get to
Speaker 2: last Blankerts. For a good number of migrants, their journey
Speaker 2: grinds to a halt. Many of them told me they've
Speaker 2: been stuck in the camp for weeks or even months
Speaker 2: because they couldn't get that sixty dollars that they needed
Speaker 2: to pay for their travel north. There's no Western Union
Speaker 2: in the camp, and the only way to transfer money
Speaker 2: is very local intermediary who charges between twenty and twenty
Speaker 2: five percent of the sum being transferred as a fee.
Speaker 2: In the morning, migrants arrive on their paraguas, just as
Speaker 2: we did. I dropped down the boat ramp when I
Speaker 2: saw them to help with their bags, and I'll go
Speaker 2: about their journey from there. They formed two lines, one
Speaker 2: for men and one for women and children. They have
Speaker 2: their bag search and their passport checked. They're given a
Speaker 2: welcome kit for the Red Cross with some basic necessities
Speaker 2: toilet paper, a toothbrush, some soap, stuff like that, or
Speaker 2: some of them get a kid. When the kids ran out,
Speaker 2: it was long before the line of people did. By
Speaker 2: the time the men were finished, they were given a
Speaker 2: little more than a shrug and good wishes better Red
Speaker 2: Cross volunteers and allowed to head off into the camp.
Speaker 2: Within the camp, there are a few rows of small
Speaker 2: casitas that are allocated to un accompanied children and families.
Speaker 2: They're little more than four walls in a roof, but
Speaker 2: they offer a bit of privacy for most migrants, though
Speaker 2: there isn't space and they have to search for a
Speaker 2: spot of empty ground in the crowded camp where they
Speaker 2: can pitch. The same tents. They bought a necko Keley.
Speaker 2: The WiFi, which a Red Cross usually provides, wasn't working
Speaker 2: when I arrived, so I had to let people hot
Speaker 2: spot off my phone all day. At least the promised
Speaker 2: food really was free, but the migrant told me it
Speaker 2: was far from good. Still, this is supposed to be
Speaker 2: a temporary camp. People register here, get any medical attention
Speaker 2: they need, and then move forward to Costa Rica. That's
Speaker 2: the theory anyway. In practice, if you can't get the
Speaker 2: sixty bucks, you need to move forward, or someone stole
Speaker 2: it from me in the jungle, or you are forced
Speaker 2: to walk to the camp because you didn't have twenty
Speaker 2: five bucks for the boat and then someone rubbed you.
Speaker 2: Then you're stuck.
Speaker 7: We have been here a month. You have people who've
Speaker 7: been here a month and a half. I've been twenty
Speaker 7: seven days here. Well, I thank god because we have
Speaker 7: three meals a day, we have water, but it still
Speaker 7: hurts the girls. The food and water always make me
Speaker 7: sick with diarrhea. It bothers me. I vomit and the
Speaker 7: heat is so desperate. But we have to hold on
Speaker 7: because even though we don't have the resources, like we
Speaker 7: don't have enough to pay for a ticket. We have
Speaker 7: to hold on here a little longer. We don't have
Speaker 7: any family members can give us support.
Speaker 3: Either.
Speaker 2: What's keeping the migrants here is money, or rather a
Speaker 2: lack of it. They need sixty bucks to leave. Buses
Speaker 2: used to take five free passengers per bus, but under
Speaker 2: Panama's new regime it seems like they don't. Instead, migrants
Speaker 2: just gradually a mass in growing number of tents that
Speaker 2: populate the grassy areas of LaaS blankets. They might try
Speaker 2: and do some informal work. I saw one guy who
Speaker 2: was cutting hair for a dollar a time, but I
Speaker 2: couldn't really get a satisfactory response to what they're expected
Speaker 2: to do. If they don't have the money and can't
Speaker 2: get someone to send us seventy five dollars, they'd need
Speaker 2: to cover their travel costs and the twenty five percent transfer.
Speaker 7: Feel if you're short ten dollars, they don't put you
Speaker 7: on the bus or anything. So things are terrible here.
Speaker 7: There should at least be support for migrants who at
Speaker 7: least come with few resources. They don't have money or anything.
Speaker 7: They can search your bag so they can see that
Speaker 7: you're not lying that you don't have money, because nobody
Speaker 7: wants to be stuck here. You have to move forward,
Speaker 7: because nobody wants to be stuck here in Panama. The
Speaker 7: idea is to move forward to get further ahead. We
Speaker 7: brought our children to look for a future, not to
Speaker 7: be locked up here in Panama, as if we've been imprisoned.
Speaker 2: The group even tried to leave on foot, hoping to
Speaker 2: begin walking north, and so it's for better future and
Speaker 2: a way to make money on their way. But they
Speaker 2: were caught, they say, and returned to the camera.
Speaker 7: And they beat me hard. I gave myself up because
Speaker 7: they had caught her, a grandmother with my other daughter.
Speaker 7: I returned myself voluntarily, and they beat me up anyway.
Speaker 7: And from there we've lost the desire to walk back there.
Speaker 7: What can we do rights? They don't care about them.
Speaker 7: We are human beings, but we don't have rights here
Speaker 7: in Panama.
Speaker 2: If they do have the money, Margarets could take a
Speaker 2: bus to the Costa Rican border. When the busts first arrived,
Speaker 2: I tried to describe the scene as migrants rushed to
Speaker 2: buy food, not only for this journey, but also for
Speaker 2: their journey through Costallika, where food and other basics are
Speaker 2: much more expensive. I'm here in La Lablancas when the
Speaker 2: first buses have arrived.
Speaker 4: It's about noon.
Speaker 2: The first bus is going to be followed people who
Speaker 2: had been waiting in line for hours already, so they're
Speaker 2: kind of lining up by the bus.
Speaker 4: And then.
Speaker 2: The next bus is people seem to be kind of
Speaker 2: rushing to get to them. They're rushing to my food.
Speaker 2: I can just see this guy has like an entire
Speaker 2: carrier bag full of pink Wave for biscuits and coke bottles,
Speaker 2: that that's going to be his food for the next
Speaker 2: eleven hours.
Speaker 4: I guess other guys.
Speaker 2: Will see with bags of bread, rolls and stuff, and
Speaker 2: they're the first people.
Speaker 4: Are getting on the bus.
Speaker 2: Now, these buses aren't entirely safe. In twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: forty two people died in a bus crash. This year,
Speaker 2: seventeen were innted in a crash in August. Now, migration
Speaker 2: offices ride in each bus with the migrants to check
Speaker 2: on safety protocols and make sure they don't get off
Speaker 2: anywhere else in the country, just like everywhere else on
Speaker 2: their journey.
Speaker 3: People make money off the migrants.
Speaker 2: In Las Blancats, a bus costs sixty dollars ahead and
Speaker 2: has fifty five passages three thousand, three hundred dollars a bus.
Speaker 3: More than a dozen buses.
Speaker 2: Leave every day, and even half of a thousand or
Speaker 2: so people who arrived us a transfer service to get
Speaker 2: their bus fare. That's seven five hundred dollars in transfer
Speaker 2: fees alone. Of course, not everyone in the community is
Speaker 2: making thousands of dollars off the migrants. I interviewed local
Speaker 2: shopkeeper who still sits just outside the camp gates, and
Speaker 2: I asked him to explain his stock, which included the
Speaker 2: oddly popular I backed the blue Thin blue.
Speaker 3: Lion T shirt. So I'd seen several people across the
Speaker 3: daddy and gap.
Speaker 8: In Okay, Mayamo your only fucking money.
Speaker 2: I asked him what was the most common shopping list
Speaker 2: for migrants.
Speaker 8: See Cassie lay.
Speaker 9: Yes, almost all of them coming by sets for ten, fifteen,
Speaker 9: twenty dollars. It depends there are many who don't have them.
Speaker 9: I have children's sets for five dollars. I have sets
Speaker 9: for five dollars that are pants and sweaters, which is
Speaker 9: what they're looking for the most. Those that are socks
Speaker 9: without underwear, backpacks for fifteen dollars. Because the backpack is
Speaker 9: so worn out and they need it so much that
Speaker 9: it carries their belongings. Look, it's not really everyone who
Speaker 9: can buy. There are certain people who buy, of course,
Speaker 9: if everyone bought, but there are very few can buy
Speaker 9: something to leave here. Almost seventy percent leave dirty because
Speaker 9: they don't have anywhere to get money, and the little
Speaker 9: they can get often comes from selling their phones, their watch,
Speaker 9: a cap, or their sneakers to be able to get
Speaker 9: money to pay for their fare to keep going.
Speaker 2: I asked him how the migration had impacted the community
Speaker 2: with people making a lot of money, I asked, were
Speaker 2: they mad about the trash and the pollution of the river.
Speaker 2: These are legitimate concerns, even if they used in bad
Speaker 2: faith against the migrants.
Speaker 8: No effect.
Speaker 9: Though nobody is perfect, but I can tell you one thing. Honestly,
Speaker 9: the migrants suffer a lot to be able to carry
Speaker 9: out this journey. And there are many times when I've
Speaker 9: even had to give them clothes, some because they don't
Speaker 9: have any. And well, when a father and family with
Speaker 9: children comes, what can I say, Look, I have a family,
Speaker 9: I have to do this.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I asked him what he felt the solution was to
Speaker 2: the suffering here the damage done both to people and planet.
Speaker 9: Hey, I say that oppressing people so that they don't
Speaker 9: go through the dairyen is not the solution because if
Speaker 9: you put it to the point, even if they don't
Speaker 9: know an exact percentage, the immigrant gives the economy of
Speaker 9: the United States a balance because the people born there.
Speaker 9: Not to criticize them, people born there want a stable job,
Speaker 9: and he doesn't want to feel like he's very very low. However,
Speaker 9: the immigrant is there and he's picking fruit, going to
Speaker 9: the fruit trees, going to the vegetable fields, going to
Speaker 9: the garbage dumps, going picking up things that many Americans
Speaker 9: who live there don't do, of course, and so they
Speaker 9: need them to say that they don't go. They need
Speaker 9: the support of the immigrant to be able to have
Speaker 9: the balance that they have today.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of Panamanians I met, he was broadly
Speaker 2: in solidarity the migrants. I didn't really encounter anti migrants
Speaker 2: sentiment at all in my time at Panama. In the
Speaker 2: capital city, which locals just called Panama but we can
Speaker 2: call Panama City, migrants are not really physically present, nor
Speaker 2: are they present in conversation. I found the transition for
Speaker 2: the jungle and the refugee camps back to the bustling
Speaker 2: city pretty challenging a lot of ways. I find I'm
Speaker 2: oddly comfortable amidst the chaos and trauma of a refugee camp.
Speaker 2: It's a familiar environment for me, and I know how
Speaker 2: to conduct myself. I feel safe with the migrants, and
Speaker 2: I tend to find them very open and welcoming to me.
Speaker 2: I can talk to anyone, and they can talk to me.
Speaker 2: I bring toys for children and try to bring resources
Speaker 2: for adults, and sometimes I bring my harmonica if I
Speaker 2: being really cliche in a weird way. Refugee camps are
Speaker 2: a little safe space for me, and even though I
Speaker 2: know it's bad, I can console myself that I'm helping
Speaker 2: a little or at least giving people some hope and
Speaker 2: some information. That made me feel a bit better. But
Speaker 2: in the city I found it hard, knowing that people
Speaker 2: were in a terrible situation and that nobody here seemed
Speaker 2: to care. I went for a running the jungle near
Speaker 2: the city, trying to get some perspective and clear my head,
Speaker 2: but I just ended up screaming and didn't considerate driver.
Speaker 2: I was angry at them for nearly hitting me, but
Speaker 2: I was just angry at everyone all over the US
Speaker 2: and even here in Panama City for their indifference at
Speaker 2: so much human suffering. The lack of concern about migrants
Speaker 2: in Panama City made what I saw next at Last
Speaker 2: Blankets even more surprising. An announcement of the loud speakers
Speaker 2: called several Colombian passport holders to the migration office. At first,
Speaker 2: it seemed like they were just going to a little
Speaker 2: wooden shed with a couple of cene front officers in
Speaker 2: it to return their documents. I had already noticed that
Speaker 2: some migrants, and seemingly most of the African migrants, were
Speaker 2: being called to a different shed to do biometric scans.
Speaker 2: I wondered if this was part of the same process.
Speaker 2: But shortly thereafter a truck rolled up and several of
Speaker 2: the Colombians were loaded in. Apparently neither they nor their
Speaker 2: partners knew what was going on. They're taking some of
Speaker 2: the Columbian guys away to deport them. You can hear
Speaker 2: a little kid crying for his dad.
Speaker 4: Okay, listen, you sell a.
Speaker 2: Jure taking his brother and his brother's wife, taking some
Speaker 2: other lady's husband, some of little.
Speaker 4: Kid's dad and making them sit on the floor. I
Speaker 4: don't know why. Yeah, I don't know what they're going
Speaker 4: to do.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: She's trying to.
Speaker 2: Give her husband the money and a SIM card so
Speaker 2: he can call her.
Speaker 4: You're gonna go get some more food.
Speaker 2: Other margarets approached me to us if I knew, which
Speaker 2: I didn't. The one lady who'd been there for weeks
Speaker 2: told me that people who leave this way never come
Speaker 2: back and they end up being deported, So we assume
Speaker 2: that's what's happening here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this really sucks.
Speaker 2: Now they're taking the deportation by. There's men crying.
Speaker 4: Becau said.
Speaker 2: Wives are on their women crying, their husbands are on
Speaker 2: their kids are crying, their parents are on there, and
Speaker 2: they've just done this crossing and now they're going to
Speaker 2: send them back. By the time I got back to
Speaker 2: the city, I was getting texts from migrants with photos
Speaker 2: of them in handcuffs. More and more of them were
Speaker 2: being deported, particularly the Colombians. One of them, texting me
Speaker 2: after being returned to Columbia on a flight, gave the
Speaker 2: following account of detention.
Speaker 1: They treated us very badly verbally and psychologically. We all
Speaker 1: had to do our business in the same cell and
Speaker 1: they threw food on the floor for us to eat
Speaker 1: as we were all in handcuffs. They told us that
Speaker 1: of Venezuelan had burned down the migrant detention center in
Speaker 1: San Vincente and that we would all pay for it,
Speaker 1: and that the Colombians didn't need to leave the country
Speaker 1: because the president there said it was doing well and
Speaker 1: there's plenty of work. None of that is true.
Speaker 2: The American facility in sambacent they was burned out, and
Speaker 2: the people working there top it was a Venezuelan migrant
Speaker 2: who did that.
Speaker 3: But all of that excuses any of this.
Speaker 2: We weren't able to access that facility as the people
Speaker 2: who had detained there. I can't really consent meaningfully to
Speaker 2: an interview. That's a fair enough for paction. But the
Speaker 2: migrant who was deported also alleged that they received no
Speaker 2: hearings or a chance to appeal their deportation. Instead, they
Speaker 2: were detained for eight days, spent their last US dollars,
Speaker 2: and were then kicked out of the country. They were
Speaker 2: not detained or arrested upon reaching Columbia, which makes it
Speaker 2: a little more difficult for me to believe the claim
Speaker 2: that only people without standing warrants in Columbia were being deported.
Speaker 2: These weren't the only allegations of mistreatment I heard. Margrants
Speaker 2: came to me and whispered about the abuse of black
Speaker 2: migrants who were forced to walk to Lahas Blancos because
Speaker 2: they couldn't afford the boat ride. I should note that
Speaker 2: it wasn't the migrants who had been robbed or abuse
Speaker 2: that came to me, It was other migrants. There was
Speaker 2: a group of guys had given a water filter too
Speaker 2: while they were leaving to walk from Lahas Blancas. I
Speaker 2: hadn't been able to join them, but when they got there,
Speaker 2: we ran into each other again, and they came up
Speaker 2: to meet to share their concerns for the black men
Speaker 2: who had walked with them. In one instance, one migrant
Speaker 2: told me he was robbed by what he called quote
Speaker 2: police dressed as thieves. The deportations, which seemed to be
Speaker 2: increasingly commonplace, are being funded by US taxpayer dollars. The
Speaker 2: same day that Molino took office in July, Homeland Security
Speaker 2: Secretary Alejandro Majorcas, himself the child of migrants.
Speaker 3: Visited Panama.
Speaker 2: Panama's a relatively young country and one which the US
Speaker 2: occupied part of from much of the last century, but
Speaker 2: despite a real struggle for independence, the Panamanian government didn't
Speaker 2: seem concerned that the U. S Secretary of Homeland Security
Speaker 2: was present at the inauguration of a president in a
Speaker 2: country that decidedly not the U S homeland. The official
Speaker 2: DHS readout of his trip notes that the US has
Speaker 2: enjoyed a flourishing strategic relationship with Panama for over one
Speaker 2: hundred years, which is certainly one way to sew up
Speaker 2: decades of occupation, violence, and profit from the Panama Canal
Speaker 2: and one of the more brutal dictatorships in the long
Speaker 2: list of authoritarian regimes that the US preferred to com minister,
Speaker 2: even socialist governments in the Western Hemisphere. They also announced
Speaker 2: that the US government would quote help the Panamanian government
Speaker 2: to remove foreign nationals who do not have a legal
Speaker 2: basis to remain in Panama. Obviously, actually take this moment
Speaker 2: to note that under the United Nations Refugee Convention, refugees
Speaker 2: do have a legal right to travel.
Speaker 3: Through a country on route to another. His Erica describing
Speaker 3: that right.
Speaker 5: The refuge you canvention is complex, then, does afford a
Speaker 5: lot of rights to people who have fled their countries
Speaker 5: based on persecution. You know, you're supposed to be able
Speaker 5: to pass through whichever country you want, go to, whichever
Speaker 5: country you want, not be criminally prosecuted for crossing the
Speaker 5: border between ports of entry and not be turned back
Speaker 5: to a country or you face harm.
Speaker 2: The US allocated six million dollars for a six month
Speaker 2: pilot program of repatriations. If the program meets the USA's goals,
Speaker 2: they might consider expanding it to other countries along the
Speaker 2: migrant route. According to reporting in routers, as of early October,
Speaker 2: they've deported five hundred and thirty people to Columbia. That's
Speaker 2: half of the people I saw arriving in a single
Speaker 2: day in Bajojigito. Because Panama's government and Venezuela's government have
Speaker 2: ceased relations after the election, Panama is now struggling to
Speaker 2: deport Venezuelan's back to Venezuela, and it's actively searching for
Speaker 2: a third country into which to deport them. But even
Speaker 2: if the program resulted in one plane loaded day, which
Speaker 2: it hasn't yet, that would be roughly ten percent of
Speaker 2: the total DADDY in traffic, and far fewer planes are traveling.
Speaker 2: What it will do like so many other DHS policies,
Speaker 2: is play into the hands of smugglers. Already, new ocean
Speaker 2: routes are being used which see migrants, many of whom
Speaker 2: cannot swim, taking long journeys around Panama on ill equipped boats.
Speaker 2: This doesn't help anyone apart from the DHS contractors and
Speaker 2: staff equipping and training Panamanian personnel, and the human traffickers
Speaker 2: making more and more money from migration. I also shopkeeper
Speaker 2: his opinion on this.
Speaker 8: Look.
Speaker 9: I'll tell you I think that instead of giving them
Speaker 9: a reward for deportation, they should give them support, a
Speaker 9: lot of support, because it is a huge sacrifice to
Speaker 9: leave your country where you were born, your children, your family,
Speaker 9: leave it to be able to have a future, and
Speaker 9: you go with your mentality that your future is the
Speaker 9: United States that will give you an opportunity to get
Speaker 9: ahead and give well being to your children. Now, ten
Speaker 9: percent of those who go are going to destroy the
Speaker 9: good name of the migrants, But what people really want
Speaker 9: to do is help their family, and this balance unbalances
Speaker 9: everything that is being done by good people. Because there
Speaker 9: are many good people who want to get ahead. And
Speaker 9: I think that the United States should support give support
Speaker 9: to people who really want to fight and move forward.
Speaker 9: As I just told you, they give a lot of
Speaker 9: benefit they contribute to the country.
Speaker 2: After leaving Las Blancas, I felt pretty down about the
Speaker 2: fact that people were just hitting a wall that they
Speaker 2: couldn't overcome. Since then, I've stayed in touch with many
Speaker 2: of them. For some a friend or family member was
Speaker 2: able to send the money and they made it to
Speaker 2: Costaly on the bus. From there, they crossed quickly into
Speaker 2: Nicaragua and Guatemala before arriving in.
Speaker 3: The Mexican border city of Tapachula in the state of.
Speaker 2: Chiapas and ironically not so very far from whether the
Speaker 2: Zapatistas made their revolution thirty years ago. Once they crossed
Speaker 2: the southern border of Mexico, migrants can begin their application
Speaker 2: for asylum using the CBP one app that we've talked
Speaker 2: about so much on the show before. They can use
Speaker 2: it in Tabasco and Chiapas, the southern border states, and
Speaker 2: then once again when they're north of Mexico City. To
Speaker 2: recap very briefly, the app is terrible and almost every way,
Speaker 2: including its inability to recognize blackfaces. It's limited functionality on
Speaker 2: Android phones, which is a vast majority of devices used
Speaker 2: by migrants. It's constant crashing, an eight to nine month
Speaker 2: wait time for Sylum appointments. His Erico, explaining some of
Speaker 2: those problems.
Speaker 5: You have to have a relatively new smartphone, you have
Speaker 5: to have an address, all the people you're traveling with
Speaker 5: have to be with you right, and you have to
Speaker 5: first get through the initial kind of registration phase, which
Speaker 5: doesn't always work.
Speaker 6: The program is very glitchy.
Speaker 5: You have to take a live photo, and you have
Speaker 5: to wait essentially, so you know, it's kind of random too.
Speaker 5: Some people will get an appointment within three months, but
Speaker 5: I would say most people are waiting nine to twelve
Speaker 5: At this point. You don't have any legal status in
Speaker 5: Mexico while you're waiting, unless you can apply for some
Speaker 5: other status in Mexico independently.
Speaker 2: That it is yet very poorly designed. It's also a
Speaker 2: de facto a metering system on asylum.
Speaker 5: Erico explaining that we've been litigating against the use of
Speaker 5: CBP one for a few years now. My organization out
Speaker 5: at the level and Haitian ViRGE Alliance, and the reason
Speaker 5: why we are fighting against the required use of CBP
Speaker 5: one is first because it is an illegal metering system.
Speaker 5: So we've already litigated the fact that there is no
Speaker 5: number limit on the amount of individuals who can seek
Speaker 5: asylum at the US Mexico border, and Customs and Border
Speaker 5: Protection legally does not have the right to turn people away,
Speaker 5: and CBP one essentially allows them to do that. You know,
Speaker 5: there were physical metering lists at ports of entry before
Speaker 5: CBP one was implemented as essentially the only way to
Speaker 5: access the US asylum system at ports of entry, and
Speaker 5: now it's a digital metering list and it's very limited.
Speaker 2: Recently, the Department of Homeland Security lost a court case
Speaker 2: which forced them to release records in there with some
Speaker 2: of the app plugs and data regarding CBP one. I'm
Speaker 2: still in the phase of coming through that asking my friends,
Speaker 2: you know more about technologies than I do. Eplain exactly
Speaker 2: what the limitations with the app are, but it doesn't
Speaker 2: really matter. DHS is well aware of the app's flaws,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't really seem to see the most flaws
Speaker 2: at all. The goal of the app is to make
Speaker 2: it harder for people, even those with very legitimate asylum claims,
Speaker 2: to obtain asylum in the USA. As we heard yesterday.
Speaker 2: The CHNV program is no better a recently Reddit thread
Speaker 2: of applicants who've been waiting nearly two years. What I
Speaker 2: didn't mention yesterday is a parallel program for another group
Speaker 2: of migrants, which I'll let Erica explain.
Speaker 6: I want to mention the fact that there is a
Speaker 6: cap right.
Speaker 5: I think it's thirty thousand a month or something like
Speaker 5: that for those four countries.
Speaker 6: But it's almost identical to.
Speaker 5: The Ukrainian United for a Ukraine program, which doesn't have
Speaker 5: a cap right, so there's no limit to how many
Speaker 5: Ukrainians can get the same benefit. And they are renewing
Speaker 5: the humanitarian prole for Ukrainians, which I believe was just
Speaker 5: announced almost within weeks of them announcing that they're not
Speaker 5: renewing for the other four countries. So it's really a
Speaker 5: very stark demonstration of how the US immigration system, even
Speaker 5: when it's a relatively meter or benefit, is based on race,
Speaker 5: is based on which country you're from.
Speaker 2: What this means is that in practice, the migrants I
Speaker 2: spoke to face a long and dangerous way in Mexico
Speaker 2: while others skip ahead. I've got nothing against the Ukrainians,
Speaker 2: and I don't think many of them do either. I
Speaker 2: tried to go to Ukraine and report, but the avisas
Speaker 2: ended up taking so long that I missed the flights
Speaker 2: that I'd booked. I have, however, a serious problem with
Speaker 2: a Biden administration which left people who fought alongside its
Speaker 2: own US troops to die in Afghanistan and turned away
Speaker 2: migrants small over the world, but then opened its arms
Speaker 2: to a country that just happened to have the majority
Speaker 2: of its citizens be the same race as the president.
Speaker 2: It's cruel and it's wrong, and it's barely ever even
Speaker 2: mentioned in national media coverage. But that's not fortunate enough
Speaker 2: to be Ukrainian. Here's what waiting in Mexico looks like.
Speaker 5: The incidence of crime director at migrants is horrifyingly high.
Speaker 5: We had done an electronic survey a few years ago,
Speaker 5: and this was during Title forty two, when people were
Speaker 5: just being expelled to Mexico, and if I remember correctly,
Speaker 5: it was like around twenty five to thirty percent of
Speaker 5: people had been either raped.
Speaker 6: Sex traffic assaulted, kidnapped. I mean, the list goes on
Speaker 6: and on.
Speaker 5: We've seen a lot of people lose their lives just
Speaker 5: due to violence and the kidnapping rates are through the roof.
Speaker 2: Almost everyone you've heard from in this series is now
Speaker 2: stuck in Mexico. Some of them have been kidnapped, paid,
Speaker 2: ransomed and released. Some of them have been sexually assaulted.
Speaker 2: Many of them have been robbed. Some of them have,
Speaker 2: after surviving one of the most deadly land migration routes
Speaker 2: on Earth, been killed while waiting in Mexico for an
Speaker 2: app to stop crashing on their phones. Over a week
Speaker 2: since I got home, I've seen them go gradually more
Speaker 2: desperate and afraid just to get to Mexico. Many of
Speaker 2: them have spent several thousand dollars. Once they're in Tapatula,
Speaker 2: they faced with the astronomical costs for the trip north,
Speaker 2: often several thousand dollars more, and many of them, their
Speaker 2: phones exhausted, have slept on the streets. Those didn't speak
Speaker 2: Spanish struggle to find refuge. Those who did wanted to
Speaker 2: move quickly north, but struggle to find the money here.
Speaker 2: The Iranian migrants you heard earlier in the series explaining
Speaker 2: what they'd already heard about CBP one.
Speaker 8: It's so tough because the some polices in their way,
Speaker 8: they are two to our money that we came from Iran.
Speaker 8: It was so difficult for us, and the resumed a way.
Speaker 8: So Mexico, Mexico is so difficult for us, and something
Speaker 8: is CBP one is not working for our for us,
Speaker 8: for Iranian people, Yeah, I hope the people who are
Speaker 8: in Mexico City for about three months, for three.
Speaker 4: Months, yeah, CPP wanted.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Because of that, Iranian people go through the wall and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 8: it's it's not our choice. We have to do this.
Speaker 8: We don't want them, but it's we have to do this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's good to explain that.
Speaker 2: According to a study conducted at the University of Texas,
Speaker 2: wait times are as high as eight or nine months
Speaker 2: on average now Mexico and out. It's on the thirty
Speaker 2: first of August that it will provide security and food
Speaker 2: for migrants who have an appointment to travel north from
Speaker 2: the south of the country to the place where they
Speaker 2: have a CVP one appointment. Margarets absolutely have been robbed
Speaker 2: or kidnapped on their way to their appointment and missed
Speaker 2: it as a result, But they're just as honorable in
Speaker 2: the eight or nine months that they have to wait
Speaker 2: for one. Margarets and Tapajula are at a very high
Speaker 2: risk for kidnapping and are often held until their families
Speaker 2: pay ransoms. But without money or an appointment, they have
Speaker 2: little means of leaving the city. Some choose to travel
Speaker 2: a little further north and then hop on a freight
Speaker 2: train known as Labestia the Beast, an extraordinarily risky endeavor
Speaker 2: that several of the people I spoke to for this
Speaker 2: series have undertaken. The only place to ride on these
Speaker 2: trains is on top of carriages, exposing migrants to freezing
Speaker 2: temperatures in the desert night. Even on the train, they're
Speaker 2: not safe from kidnapping. Like many migrants, the Iranian group
Speaker 2: were well informed about domestic politics in the US, and
Speaker 2: they said that when they made their journey north, they
Speaker 2: wanted to be sure to avoid the states where local
Speaker 2: law enforcement was likely to turn them over for deportation.
Speaker 2: In reality, that could be any of the states, but
Speaker 2: they're probably right that their life would be a little
Speaker 2: easier on the West Coast.
Speaker 8: I heard it's so difficult and about three months, four months,
Speaker 8: more than seven months, they will arrest us in the US.
Speaker 8: I heard in Mississippi it takes us in Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 8: I think that the California is a little little, little.
Speaker 10: Yeah earlier, Our money is very excuse me, shds money
Speaker 10: in the world, and we have to pay a lot
Speaker 10: of money for this way because.
Speaker 8: How one yeah, one dollar is sixteen thousand.
Speaker 2: Some of course, which use to cross the border between
Speaker 2: ports of entry as they become desperate to see their
Speaker 2: families or afraid of remaining in Mexico. Since President Biden's
Speaker 2: executive audio earlier this summer, doing this can result expedited
Speaker 2: removal proceedings, and effectively, Biden's new ruling denies asylum by
Speaker 2: default to anyone crossing the border when daily crossings sur
Speaker 2: passed twenty five hundred. In fact, this is the continuation
Speaker 2: of extremely punitive and cruel politics that have been in
Speaker 2: place since he was finally forced to stop using Title
Speaker 2: forty two, which, if you're not aware, is a public
Speaker 2: health law used by the Trump administration and embraced by
Speaker 2: the Biden administration as an asylum law. It has already
Speaker 2: resulted in the deportations of people back to places where
Speaker 2: they have extremely credible fears of harm and created a
Speaker 2: system whereby migrants have no idea how they will be
Speaker 2: treated on any given day. Again, it's play into the
Speaker 2: hands of anyone seeking to smoke or migrants into the
Speaker 2: country and detective well also harming innocent people coming to
Speaker 2: this country to US for protection. He's Erica's short history
Speaker 2: of Biden's asylent policy since last year.
Speaker 5: So when the Biden administration lifted Title forty two, they
Speaker 5: essentially imposed what I call a transit then.
Speaker 6: So there's a couple of components to it.
Speaker 5: One is, if you do not enter the United States
Speaker 5: out of port of entry with a CDP one appointment,
Speaker 5: you are presumed ineligible for asylum unless you fall under
Speaker 5: a few narrow exceptions which are not consistently applied. So
Speaker 5: the exceptions are things like you were having a medical emergency,
Speaker 5: you were running for your life, you know, you couldn't
Speaker 5: access the app for some reason. But in practice those
Speaker 5: exceptions are almost never applied at ports. There's been a
Speaker 5: few kind of alternative programs run by shelters or local
Speaker 5: governments where people with extreme medical vulnerabilities, for example, can
Speaker 5: be let in without an appointment, but we don't know
Speaker 5: whether the ban applies to them once they enter without
Speaker 5: that appointment, right, So it's like I said, inconsistently applied exceptions.
Speaker 5: If you enter between a port of entry, you're presumed
Speaker 5: and eligible for asylum again unless you meet some narrow exceptions.
Speaker 6: And what that means is you can still.
Speaker 5: Apply for other types of protection in the United States.
Speaker 5: So there's two principal types of protection. One it's called
Speaker 5: withholding a removal, which is like asylum but with a
Speaker 5: higher standard. And then the other is Convention against Torture,
Speaker 5: which you just have to prove it's more likely than
Speaker 5: not that your own government will torture you, which is
Speaker 5: more extreme than persecution. But is it necessarily based on
Speaker 5: a protected ground, So the torture gived you for any reason,
Speaker 5: but it's a high hurdle. But the most important thing
Speaker 5: is those two types of protection are not pased to
Speaker 5: citizenship and they do not allow you to petition for
Speaker 5: your family. So, for example, if you get asylum in
Speaker 5: the US and then you want to ask for your
Speaker 5: life and children to join you, there is an avenue
Speaker 5: for that, and all of you can eventually become citizens.
Speaker 5: Withholding a removal and Convention against Torture, you basically get
Speaker 5: a work from it. If conditions in your country change,
Speaker 5: they can deport you and you can never leave the
Speaker 5: United States, and you can never reunify with your family,
Speaker 5: and you could never become a citizen.
Speaker 2: This won't deter people. I speak to people every day
Speaker 2: who cross the Daddy in We're kidnapped, robbed, and sometimes
Speaker 2: raped on their way here. They're going through all of
Speaker 2: that because we refuse to give people a dignified or
Speaker 2: safe way to come here. They know it's a risk,
Speaker 2: and they continue to come because they think it's the
Speaker 2: only option. His powers from Cameroon and explaining.
Speaker 6: That it's deadly, how will I to you it's fifty
Speaker 6: fifty alive on date, honestly speakause.
Speaker 4: But we had to take their rigs because I think
Speaker 4: that was the.
Speaker 10: Only all from that we had.
Speaker 2: If you can't imagine taking those risks, it's likely because
Speaker 2: you can't imagine the things these people are.
Speaker 3: Leaving behind either.
Speaker 2: As a conflict reporter, I've been able to see a
Speaker 2: small amount of what they're fleeing, war, death, poverty, state violence.
Speaker 2: I don't know if i'd be brave or strong enough
Speaker 2: to do the same, but I have a lot of
Speaker 2: respect for people who can. Tomorrow we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about the people who help them along the way and
Speaker 2: what you can do to support them when the state works.
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