Speaker 1: Alone media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to it, kidap to hear a podcast about ice
Speaker 2: training desk squads. I guess I'm your host via Wong.
Speaker 2: I guess I don't know if formerly or better is
Speaker 2: the correct word, but sometimes also not as the ice
Speaker 2: was be destroyed. Girl, So I'm mad about this one
Speaker 2: with me? Is someone else's extremely bad about the existence
Speaker 2: of ice, which is James Yep, I'm here.
Speaker 3: I'm mad as a waste. I guess, just another Monday. Yeah,
Speaker 3: this shit sucks, This does suck. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 3: had this realization.
Speaker 2: I get this on Twitter a lot, where I realized
Speaker 2: that there are people who don't know what ICE is
Speaker 2: because they're like, they're not from the US, or they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: so ICE is immigrations and customs enforcements. The shortest description
Speaker 2: of what they are is that they are one of
Speaker 2: the like four American border gestapos.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The number of agencies under DHS is fucking baffling.
Speaker 3: They're constantly rebranding every time they have a scandal or
Speaker 3: they kill too many people. That, yeah, ice is kind
Speaker 3: of their flagship evil program.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they like they do raids on fucking houses,
Speaker 2: they do raised on businesses, They suck. Like if you
Speaker 2: vaguely remember, there was a whole bunch of protests in
Speaker 2: like twenty eighteen over this stuff, and that was mostly
Speaker 2: anti ICE stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if someone's getting deported, it's ICE for the most
Speaker 3: part doing it. Like Yeah, they also run detention centers
Speaker 3: where people go, you know, they work with Jeff Bezos
Speaker 3: on deporting people.
Speaker 2: Oh my fucking god. Okay, I just remembered a story
Speaker 2: I had. I had a flashback to standing in a protest,
Speaker 2: a very very large protest in twenty eighteen. This is
Speaker 2: one of like the big pro immigrant rallies. And in
Speaker 2: this fucking protest, I saw a thing for this group
Speaker 2: called Heartland Alliance. Now pro people who probably don't outside
Speaker 2: of Chicago probably don't know what this is. The Heartland
Speaker 2: Alliance runs like fucking child prisons facilities like for ICE school,
Speaker 2: and they were at this protest against ICE. Fucking it
Speaker 2: was the worst. That shit was terrible. You know, this
Speaker 2: whole thing is all extremely bad. But what we've been
Speaker 2: learning more details about recently is this program called Citizens Academies,
Speaker 2: which is run by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations. I didn't
Speaker 2: think HSI was under ICE. I thought HSI was a
Speaker 2: different branch of DHS. I might be wrong, but they
Speaker 2: used to be under ICE as far as I know,
Speaker 2: and then they became HSI. Okay, I might be wrong
Speaker 2: about that because the stuff that I was reading was
Speaker 2: saying that they are still part of ICE, but they
Speaker 2: might not be. It's also possible that it's literally has
Speaker 2: gone back and forward multiple times in the last Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is merecrareck. Things fucking suck, But HSI also does,
Speaker 2: like a lot of the times, there's some of the
Speaker 2: people who like do like physically the people on the
Speaker 2: ground doing a raid will be HSI, like fucking stormtroopers whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they do arrests.
Speaker 3: Yeah, often they appear in like these joint counter terrorism
Speaker 3: task forces, like when they especially when they're doing stuff
Speaker 3: with like drugs and that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the civilian academies are I think really the only
Speaker 2: way you can describe them, even though this is not
Speaker 2: how it's being described, really is that they're treating random
Speaker 2: people to like become desk what.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's what's interesting is like the protest that you
Speaker 3: talked about seem to have been the sort of reason
Speaker 3: that they started this program, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to rewind this a little bit because
Speaker 2: they started in the US as a reaction to those protests,
Speaker 2: like specifically as like a pr thing. But the original
Speaker 2: version of these programs started in Puerto Rico under Obama.
Speaker 3: Look, we don't give Obama or anything like enough shit, right,
Speaker 3: Like fucking Obama just like in terms of killing people,
Speaker 3: in terms of deporting people, fucked up human being.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was the deporter in chief and like, yeah,
Speaker 2: part of what's sort of brutal about the mom administration
Speaker 2: is like a lot of his support had been from
Speaker 2: like the huge undocumented that could have like peaked in
Speaker 2: like two thousand and six, and he comes in on
Speaker 2: this and they just fucking deports everyone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as Democrats too every time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're seeing it again with Biden. Right, It's like
Speaker 2: it's the same sort of process. And under under Obama
Speaker 2: these these programs start. There's specifically, as you're talking about,
Speaker 2: there's specifically supposed to be these like training programs are
Speaker 2: supposed to be for community.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so this is and this is one of
Speaker 3: these things.
Speaker 2: Was like this is what they say that it's for,
Speaker 2: and given what they're doing, I don't know how much
Speaker 2: I believe them what they're what they say that it's
Speaker 2: for is it's because there's been all of these anti
Speaker 2: ICE things, Like, I mean, there's lots of people who
Speaker 2: now are like, don't say shit about ice, who like, like,
Speaker 2: AOC hasn't fucking said anything about abolishing ICE in like
Speaker 2: half a decade, right, and she ran on that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because of how powerful those social movements were. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's like Sean mcguey whatever the fuck guy whose whole
Speaker 2: thing was abolish ice and then he became a Democratic
Speaker 2: staffer and now it never talks about it again, and
Speaker 2: he's like my absolute wordal nemesis, like I will face
Speaker 2: at the end of days. Yeah, I will destroy his
Speaker 2: fucking traitors ass and yeah, many many, many such cases.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Like, and I think probably peak like anti
Speaker 2: ice sentiment was in the Trump era, right when people, Yeah,
Speaker 2: people started to look at immigration as the way that
Speaker 2: like people have immigrant communities and diasporas see it, right,
Speaker 2: which is this thing that tears families apart, that destroys communities,
Speaker 2: that rich children from their parents, and people obviously recognized
Speaker 2: it was bad. And then Biden got in and the
Speaker 2: Democrats had to do this like kind of cover your
Speaker 2: eyes and turn away thing where they continue to do
Speaker 2: the same shit. Kids and cages are good now, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah in cages great democratic kids and cage is incredible.
Speaker 3: What if no cage is? What do we just leave
Speaker 3: them out in the fucking mountains and James's friend have
Speaker 3: to feed them beans will winter?
Speaker 2: Yeah, But the thing is, in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: it's not entirely clear that the Democrats are going to
Speaker 2: swing that way. No, And so you get these programs
Speaker 2: and what's interesting about them, and so a lot of
Speaker 2: this is coming from that. There's a very very good
Speaker 2: piece by Barrizio Guerrero indocumented who got a bunch of
Speaker 2: Foya documents about this program and what they.
Speaker 3: Were actually doing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that he discovers about this
Speaker 2: is that it's like a lot of rich guys. Like
Speaker 2: it's some of them are like really rich. It's also
Speaker 2: it's a lot of like bank employees.
Speaker 3: Yeah. That was a funny almost, I guess kind of
Speaker 3: it got through that little social circle or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like there's this sort of feed in program
Speaker 2: that sends people into this.
Speaker 3: And I actually I realized I had.
Speaker 2: Vaguely known about these but didn't quite understand how bad
Speaker 2: it was because he didn't have a bunch of the
Speaker 2: documents we have now. But this was a big thing
Speaker 2: in Chicago in twenty twenty one, where there was proposed
Speaker 2: to open one of these things. It's like these like
Speaker 2: training centers for these like fucking people. Oh yeah, and
Speaker 2: you know, twenty twenty one was still in Chicago. There
Speaker 2: was still like like there's some protest stuff going on
Speaker 2: because I mean there's you know, like twenty twenty hadn't
Speaker 2: quite faded yet. And there was also like our cops
Speaker 2: We've talked about this a couple times on the show,
Speaker 2: but like shot a fucking fourteen year old, like yeah,
Speaker 2: it's fucking murdered him cold blood. And the protests were
Speaker 2: bad enough that like even lower Lightfoot was like like
Speaker 2: fuck this, like this is this Trump ice stuff.
Speaker 3: We can't let them do it.
Speaker 2: This was back with the when like these people like
Speaker 2: the Democrats were started pretending that they didn't like all
Speaker 2: of these like federal deportation machine things. But the things
Speaker 2: that we have now are we have the actual this
Speaker 2: is like I think were the public most valuable part
Speaker 2: of this whole thing is that we actually have a
Speaker 2: bunch of the documents now of what they were showing people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd love to see the fucking Foyer fight for
Speaker 3: this because I have foyed the Department of Homeland Security
Speaker 3: a lot and getting any Like I have a fire
Speaker 3: out right now regarding the CBP one and the fact
Speaker 3: that it doesn't work on non Apple phones, and they
Speaker 3: very clearly know this, right like, if I know it,
Speaker 3: they know it, And I would love to know if
Speaker 3: that was from the outset that they knew and they
Speaker 3: just didn't give a fuck, Like I would like to
Speaker 3: see those emails regarding it doesn't work on Samsung. I
Speaker 3: think I think they got it from a court order.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, so they went to court to get Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: every like people, Freedom Information Act is great. It only
Speaker 3: works if you have a lawyer who's prepared to sue
Speaker 3: over it like that is the especially with DHS. You're
Speaker 3: just not like, yeah, I've got stuff, so I found
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty. They'll just kick it down, kick can
Speaker 3: down the road, like yep, I'm not going to get it,
Speaker 3: but yeah, kudos to them for doing it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: so hard if you are a First Amendment lawyer, hit
Speaker 3: me up. But okay, the ship that's in this one
Speaker 3: of these things. The first page of this is maybe
Speaker 3: the most deranged chart I have ever seen in anything.
Speaker 3: Which is it is It is.
Speaker 2: A picture of a naked human body, is the friends
Speaker 2: and back of it, right, And they've labeled all of
Speaker 2: the parts of the body by and they've been so
Speaker 2: we only have a black and white version of this,
Speaker 2: but they've they've been they've been labeled by how effective
Speaker 2: it is to hit someone there with the baton?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And they're like green in the in the
Speaker 3: actual document, they're green, yellow, and red. I guess, uh.
Speaker 3: And then it says like reasoning for the red one,
Speaker 3: I'll just read it highest level of resultant trauma injury
Speaker 3: tends to range from serious to lung lasting rather than temporary,
Speaker 3: and may include unconsciousness, serious body injury, shock, or death.
Speaker 3: So I guess like it's saying like, don't hit them
Speaker 3: in the in the in the red area. No, that's
Speaker 3: the thing. That's the thing. They're not saying that, They're
Speaker 3: just saying, these are your options.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is so part of this is supposed to be
Speaker 2: part of like a force escalation thing. But the point
Speaker 2: of this is that it is actually like they're trying
Speaker 2: to explain force escalation, and the thing is that like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you actually can do this, but you can only do
Speaker 2: this if you're in like the highest level of force
Speaker 2: escalation or whatever. Okay, and if any of you have
Speaker 2: ever been around a cop, you know, but those people
Speaker 2: jump to the highest level of force escalation at like, yeah,
Speaker 2: a fucking again, we have literally seen an acorn drop
Speaker 2: and it can't be able to do this, right, and
Speaker 2: so and so what they're what they're teaching these people,
Speaker 2: and this is like I think, like Jenny widely horrifying.
Speaker 3: It's like, yeah, they are.
Speaker 2: Teaching these people like the specific technical details of how
Speaker 2: you like fucking maim someone with a baton.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I meant to reading the force escalation this is
Speaker 3: and they actually did physical training right, like I think
Speaker 3: they did weapons training. I think they did a bunch
Speaker 3: of a bunch of simulation kind of exercises. And then
Speaker 3: if you if you scroll down, this is like a
Speaker 3: PowerPoint for those listening at home. They gave an overview
Speaker 3: of like use of force to include a bunch of
Speaker 3: Supreme Court cases. I think that Supreme Court cases is
Speaker 3: certainly yeah, Supreme court cases about use of force. None
Speaker 3: of these apply to you as a civilian, and you know,
Speaker 3: like unless you're a sworn law enforcement officer, I guess
Speaker 3: I'm not entirely sure like what the use case for
Speaker 3: civilian baton training is aside from like well, I mean
Speaker 3: my guess.
Speaker 2: And this is the way I've been like sort of
Speaker 2: looking at this program is that this is the thing
Speaker 2: partially being designed for PR, but it's partially also being
Speaker 2: designed to create parabilitaries that if you're in a situation
Speaker 2: like twenty twenty but about the border, for example, you
Speaker 2: suddenly have all of these people that you could just
Speaker 2: fucking call up because like part of what's going on
Speaker 2: with this too record you remember, like actually, I guess
Speaker 2: it is, funnily enough, like we are we are the
Speaker 2: only two of the four hosts who didn't end up
Speaker 2: having to deal with fucking Bortak getting deployed in Portland
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty. But Bortak is border patrols like swat teams. Yeah,
Speaker 2: basically yeah, there are stated reason is like, oh, so
Speaker 2: this is this so you understand what it's like to
Speaker 2: like be one of these people, how hot it is
Speaker 2: to be a cop and well, like I think the
Speaker 2: actual reason again is so that you could you're training
Speaker 2: a bunch of people who you can just sort of
Speaker 2: call up and be like, we need a bunch of
Speaker 2: people to come like fucking obliterate a bunch of like
Speaker 2: protesters or whatever, help them do mass deportations. Yeah, which
Speaker 2: is another thing because like part of what this is
Speaker 2: too is they're teaching them to do like raids on houses, right,
Speaker 2: and like how do how do like physically fucking deport people?
Speaker 3: So this is yeah, like like Trump era ICE, which
Speaker 3: were where there were open discussions of how many people
Speaker 3: can we deport, how much will it cost, how easy
Speaker 3: will it be?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like right now, like Trump is like his
Speaker 2: big one of his big things is mass deportations. But
Speaker 2: I think people don't realize that the only reason that
Speaker 2: this stuff didn't happen under Trump was that pushback to
Speaker 2: it was so enormous. Yeah, that like like there are
Speaker 2: democrats now who are screaming about the border, who in
Speaker 2: like twenty eighteen were like sanctuary cities, ICE can't do
Speaker 2: raids here, and sometimes which were sometimes that wasn't Yeah,
Speaker 2: but like there was real systemic pushback to this, and
Speaker 2: I think like we're heading to a place where there
Speaker 2: isn't a kind of reaction to this anymore, where this
Speaker 2: can get really really scary really quickly. And these are
Speaker 2: the kinds of programs that you would need in order
Speaker 2: to just do actual master importations. Is that like yeah,
Speaker 2: like Ice doesn't have enough people, Like they have a
Speaker 2: lot of people, but they don't have enough people to
Speaker 2: deport like several million people.
Speaker 3: You need people like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the scale of this program is kind of small,
Speaker 2: but this is something that can be scaled up right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: To try and extremely large numbers of people, like fairly quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know what, it reminds me of Maya products and
Speaker 3: services and support this podcast does. Yeah, all right, I
Speaker 3: hope you enjoyed this. Products and seven suits way back.
Speaker 3: We let's go do like the other thing they were
Speaker 3: fucking doing. Oh yeah, it's more Jesus wept. So I
Speaker 3: want to quote from the article, yeah. Quote.
Speaker 2: Documents also contain presentations on how to shoot a gun,
Speaker 2: point at targets, and stand in position to fire. The
Speaker 2: shooting practices include military style of rifles likewise, A training
Speaker 2: in Atlanta organized drills to shoot at human like manikers
Speaker 2: and fires M four assault rifles employed exclusively with the military.
Speaker 3: The training.
Speaker 2: Also included isis guidelines for use of force encompassing deadly force.
Speaker 2: One presentation suggests yelling drop the gun as potential cover
Speaker 2: when employing lethal force against someone. So they're telling it
Speaker 2: and this is definitely supposed to be thinking like, oh,
Speaker 2: if you're in playing clothes, like you fucking yell police
Speaker 2: and yell drop your gun, and then you shoot them,
Speaker 2: and this is how you get away with it. So
Speaker 2: like they are straight up teaching people how to murder people,
Speaker 2: like how to get away with murder.
Speaker 3: That's what's happening here. Yeah, wild Yeah, Like the government's
Speaker 3: offered firearms trading for civilians, Like that's kind of what
Speaker 3: the NRA wasn't a government initiative. But yeah, this is
Speaker 3: not that. This is not like, No, I would broadly
Speaker 3: be in favor of the government funding free gun safety
Speaker 3: classes for people, because I've seen some shit with you know,
Speaker 3: like that would be one of the useful things. But
Speaker 3: this is not that.
Speaker 2: No, And like and like the reason those specific classes
Speaker 2: like don't look like that anymore is because and I've
Speaker 2: talked about this in some of the episodes on them, okay, assassination.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, yeah, when the government taught a bunch
Speaker 2: of people how to use rifles, those people use those
Speaker 2: rifles to like fight the cops in the streets. Yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 2: and now they're all this insane shit. That's like teaching
Speaker 2: people how to get away with murder of their cop. Like,
Speaker 2: I want to read a power point slide from that
Speaker 2: from that thing, because it's it's the most deranged thing
Speaker 2: I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: Have you read the Graham versus Connor one, because it's
Speaker 3: one of the more powerful uses of passive voice I've
Speaker 3: ever seen. Oh no, I haven't seen that yet. Let
Speaker 3: me read that while you look for yours. This one
Speaker 3: is just incredible instance of cops speak. Graham comma diabetic.
Speaker 3: Comma asks friend to drive him to convenience store for
Speaker 3: juice good like cops sent is here, ran in and
Speaker 3: out of store. Comma also observed the suspicious activity. What
Speaker 3: suspicious activity, dear listener, I don't know. We're left to imagine.
Speaker 3: Investigative stopped made and Graham was handcuffed by whom doesn't
Speaker 3: say weird. Graham receives multiple injuries during the encounter with police.
Speaker 3: Like someone gave him the fucking injuries? Was it the cop?
Speaker 2: It's just an incredible use of passive voice here throughout. Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's this great tweet that was like the US has
Speaker 2: a passive voice, in an active voice, and a special
Speaker 2: exonerative voice.
Speaker 3: It's only used for.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Israel gets the exiterative voice.
Speaker 3: It rails in the greater cop nation. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And like also, one of the things that I don't
Speaker 2: think people understand on the Streme Court is like, if
Speaker 2: you think that like Supreme Court rulings about abortions are bad,
Speaker 2: like then they are right. But like, if you think
Speaker 2: those things are bad, look up the Supreme Court cases
Speaker 2: about police use of force. You will get you will
Speaker 2: get nine O decisions with like all of like fucking
Speaker 2: like like fucking Thurgood Marshall will be signing on to
Speaker 2: like a nine O thing where he says that cops
Speaker 2: have the right to just like shoot you in the
Speaker 2: back of the head because they couldn't shoot you in
Speaker 2: the back of the head like that the police couldn't function.
Speaker 2: It's it's fucking dranged, like the kind of shit they have. Okay,
Speaker 2: I want to read I want to read the slide
Speaker 2: because it's it's amazing.
Speaker 3: It's just a giant letters.
Speaker 2: It says survival, and then there's like bullet points, and
Speaker 2: the bullet points are never give up, never concede defeat.
Speaker 2: I will not die this way. I must go home
Speaker 2: to my family. How you trade is how you will fight.
Speaker 3: Just imagining that the you know, the person who I
Speaker 3: go to at the bank when I need to take
Speaker 3: out large amounts of cash to go on one of
Speaker 3: my work trips, learning that I will not die this way.
Speaker 2: Okay, So that that that's basically what I have about
Speaker 2: this program, other than the bleak note that on on
Speaker 2: a pr level, of these people one right, they they
Speaker 2: didn't win because of anything they did. They won because
Speaker 2: the Democrats decided that they fucking hated immigrants, and because
Speaker 2: views of integration are largely driven by by party politics,
Speaker 2: are driven by what your party tells you about immigrants, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: all the support that had been built in the late
Speaker 2: twenty tens has evaporated.
Speaker 3: And yeah, even like I did a thing for my
Speaker 3: Patreon yesterday then made me think of this, Like I
Speaker 3: was trying to just do a sort of listing of
Speaker 3: Joe Biden's immigration policies, right, from twenty twenty one to present,
Speaker 3: and like twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, I was
Speaker 3: selling stories to NBC, to slate to the nation right
Speaker 3: about Haitian migration, about Title forty two, about remain in Mexico,
Speaker 3: about especial immigrant visas for Afghans, And after twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two you don't even get a response to your email.
Speaker 3: You know, the same shit keeps having with twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three is the end of Title forty two, right, So
Speaker 3: when we see the beginning of out door detention, arguably
Speaker 3: the most heinous shit that the Biden administration has done,
Speaker 3: it's that's some pretty heanish shit. I mean, genocide is worse, evidently,
Speaker 3: but on the on the border, this is the worst. Yeah,
Speaker 3: some of its worst domestic policy. And you just can't
Speaker 3: tell stories. Literally every time I post about this on Twitter,
Speaker 3: people will be like, what the fuck? Why didn't I
Speaker 3: read about this? Because an editor made a choice that
Speaker 3: they didn't matter, that the people out there in the
Speaker 3: cold and the wind at the rain didn't matter, and
Speaker 3: that they don't have rights because aoc or Joe Biden
Speaker 3: Orkamala Harris decided that that was how it was going
Speaker 3: to be and apparently every corporate media outlet just kind
Speaker 3: of stepped in line and went, yeah, fucking we don't
Speaker 3: care anymore. Yeah, it's pretty bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've achieved their stated aim and they're not moving
Speaker 2: on to their unstated aim, which is mass deportations.
Speaker 3: All right, we're back.
Speaker 2: Everything I know about the program that you were about
Speaker 2: to talk about comes from you, and that is oh boy,
Speaker 2: it's not good.
Speaker 3: All right, So I'm going to read you a small
Speaker 3: story here, and then we're going to talk about whether
Speaker 3: or not it's a good idea for the Border Patrol
Speaker 3: to have programs for children. Okay, and then I gave
Speaker 3: a content warning for sexual assault of children. I'm just
Speaker 3: in kiitch. You don't want to listen to this. In
Speaker 3: August of this year, Aaron Mitchell, a former CBP agent,
Speaker 3: was found guilty of a federal civil rights violation and
Speaker 3: also kidnapping. On April the twenty fifth, twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: in Douglas, Arizona, Mitchell found a fifteen year old girl
Speaker 3: waiting for school to begin. And for this next part,
Speaker 3: I'm just going to read directly from the Department of
Speaker 3: Justice presser. He introduced himself as a law enforcement officer
Speaker 3: and asked for her papers. Next, after flashing his police
Speaker 3: badge and credentials, Mitchell ordered the child into his car
Speaker 3: and explained that he was taking her to the police station. Instead,
Speaker 3: Mitchell drove the car miles away from her school, pulled over,
Speaker 3: and restrained her hands and feet with two pairs of handcuffs.
Speaker 3: The victim testified that after being handcuffs to defend it
Speaker 3: and told her to do everything he said because he
Speaker 3: didn't want to have to hurt her. I'm not going
Speaker 3: to describe an nextpy in detail. He repeatedly sexually assaulted
Speaker 3: this young women fucking christ in his apartment, then returned
Speaker 3: her to the middle school where he had abducted her,
Speaker 3: and reminded her not to tell anyone. Fortunately, she immediately
Speaker 3: reported the abduction to her friends, family members, and multiple
Speaker 3: law enforcement agencies. During an interview with the police, a
Speaker 3: defendant exclaim exclaimed that the victim had better hope I
Speaker 3: don't get out of here, which is an insane thing
Speaker 3: to say when you're being interviewed by the police. Yeah.
Speaker 3: He also googled several times for how long does it
Speaker 3: take to smug someone? And he googled a lot about
Speaker 3: sexual assault, how to stop someone from screaming. It's some
Speaker 3: of the darkest shit fuck you're ever going to read. Yeah,
Speaker 3: oh my god. This is one of the relatively few
Speaker 3: instances of a Border Patrol agent actually being convicted of
Speaker 3: sexual assault. Sexual assault is a massive fucking problem in
Speaker 3: the Border Patrol, and the fact that it's such a
Speaker 3: big problem and people get away with it is why
Speaker 3: we get shit that is horrific, Like the incident that
Speaker 3: I've just related to you right in twenty nineteen. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you remember this, but there was a
Speaker 3: pro publicer thing about this Facebook group which had nine
Speaker 3: five hundred agents in it. The Facebook group they proted
Speaker 3: videos of migrant desks, their children, and rape fantasies, as
Speaker 3: well as doctored images, including ghost images of AFC. At
Speaker 3: the time, Karla provosd, the Border Patrol chief, condemned the
Speaker 3: group as inappropriate. Shortly thereafter, the insect reveal that she
Speaker 3: had been a member of it for years. Yep, just classics,
Speaker 3: dove right. Border Patrol has consistently failed to hold its
Speaker 3: offices to account for rape. Like if you want to
Speaker 3: read more about this, Jen Bud, She's been on the
Speaker 3: show before is the person to go to about this.
Speaker 3: I'm also going to include in the show notes links
Speaker 3: to a story about a Border Patrol agent who was
Speaker 3: sexually assaulted at the academy, which I know is as
Speaker 3: a thing that is not unique to her. This is
Speaker 3: this is a problem. Border Patrol is ninety five percent
Speaker 3: male at this point. They call the women the fierce
Speaker 3: five percent. But it's like it's probably the most like
Speaker 3: gender biased of the federal agencies. Like Border Patrol agents
Speaker 3: by and large, like do not do well around women.
Speaker 3: This is something I've observed, this is something other volunteers
Speaker 3: have observed, Like it's such a like masculine agency, I guess,
Speaker 3: and they just don't encounter women in a professional capacity
Speaker 3: very often. So I think with this in mind, I
Speaker 3: want to talk about the Border Patrol Explorers, Right. It's
Speaker 3: a youth program that teaches kids the skills of a
Speaker 3: patrol agent from as young as forty fucking crust. Yeah,
Speaker 3: what's really weird. There's been very little coverage. The two
Speaker 3: places I would send people these will be in the notes,
Speaker 3: would be Morley Music Write a really good piece in
Speaker 3: the Nation, and Todd Miller's book Border Patrol Nation, which
Speaker 3: is a book that everyone should read. I think really
Speaker 3: like detail is the beginning of how border patrol became
Speaker 3: what it is today. Those are really two of the
Speaker 3: very few places you'd read about it. The training that
Speaker 3: they do is insane. They'll learn firearms drills, they learn
Speaker 3: to do checkpoints, they learned to make arrests. I'm going
Speaker 3: to read from an interview from Monie Music's piece, Fabian
Speaker 3: explained why his posts would practice shooting sometimes, and then
Speaker 3: this is like parentheses. Undocumented migrants are not compliant when
Speaker 3: we find them. He said, they paid all this money
Speaker 3: to get here to start another life. They're just not
Speaker 3: going to give up when they see us. Some would
Speaker 3: fight back, some would be compliant. Maybe they tried to
Speaker 3: kill you or threaten you. Sometimes they pick up an
Speaker 3: element a rock lying around anything, and that could be
Speaker 3: used to kill you. This is not the stuff that
Speaker 3: fourteen year olds should be reckoning with, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is also like I know people have done
Speaker 2: the like connect the border to Palestine things so much
Speaker 2: that it's like hackneyed, but like that is straight up
Speaker 2: that could be lifted from a press release, like from
Speaker 2: the idea yeah yeah about why they shot someone yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's like, yeah, I mean, you shouldn't be teaching
Speaker 2: anyone this, You especially shouldn't be teaching fourteen year olds. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that someone might throw a rock at them, and that's
Speaker 2: a reasonable way people had a gun and shoot them. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like if you back that into your mind at fourteen,
Speaker 3: I would argue that makes you very unsuitable to carry
Speaker 3: a gun in public. Later in life. Kids start out
Speaker 3: by doing this kind of boot camp style academy and
Speaker 3: then they pretty much begin doing stuff like drill PT
Speaker 3: they practice, conducting vehicle stops and tracking Border Patrol. On
Speaker 3: their website, they claim to have more than seven hundred Explorers,
Speaker 3: but over twenty eight posts around the country. It's very
Speaker 3: hard to find anything about them. Like, it's not something
Speaker 3: that they talk about a great deal. You have to
Speaker 3: sort of apply. I looked at how one would apply.
Speaker 3: It's one in Santa Sedra, Right. You sort of fill
Speaker 3: out this form and you get some kind of clearance
Speaker 3: and then I'm guessing they're checking that people are eligible
Speaker 3: to be like hied by Border Patrol. Right, But if
Speaker 3: there is data on how many of these kids go
Speaker 3: on to be hired by BP, I haven't found it,
Speaker 3: but I did find one. I think this is again
Speaker 3: from Morley Music's piece when extremely amusing incident the Douglas
Speaker 3: Arizona chapters. The Explorers teamed up with a local high
Speaker 3: school drama club and they had the kids playing migrants. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ, many of these people will themselves be like
Speaker 3: first generation or like a.
Speaker 2: Wild Anyway, the country cannot be allowed to continue.
Speaker 3: Imagine, like, what are we doing at school today? The
Speaker 3: theater kids are going to get arrested by the border
Speaker 3: patrol kids. Jesus Christ. Some of the theater kids got
Speaker 3: really into character. One of them cried. I guess several
Speaker 3: of them managed to avoid arrest and give the young
Speaker 3: agents the slip, and then they got told by the
Speaker 3: agents overseeing the exercise that they've done it wrong because
Speaker 3: they'd outsmarted the junior gobs.
Speaker 2: There's a story I can't remember what fucking town it
Speaker 2: was in like the fifties that the Army was running
Speaker 2: these like infiltration drills where they would like have a
Speaker 2: town and they talk to people to town. They'd be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're gonna like unleash like a communist diversive agent into
Speaker 2: the town, and then you're gonna help the army capture them,
Speaker 2: and it said, what happens, everyone has hit the agent
Speaker 2: because I just had a great time like stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is the American spirit. It's it's the people
Speaker 3: of dug this Arizona. We salute you. One of the
Speaker 3: things I found really interesting in in the morning music
Speaker 3: piece was this idea of like defensive asylum only being
Speaker 3: for criminals. So it seems like the students learned this
Speaker 3: very binary immigration law. Where defensive asylum, which is when
Speaker 3: you claim asylum as a defense against being deported, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's only for people who are criminals versus affirmative asylum.
Speaker 3: It's for the people who like really need it or whatever.
Speaker 3: We fast forward making an affirmative asylum claims extremely difficult
Speaker 3: right now. Yeah, you know, I spoke to one hundred
Speaker 3: people who wanted to come to this country in the Darien.
Speaker 3: Every single one of those people told me that they
Speaker 3: wanted to use CBP one, that they wanted to do
Speaker 3: it the correct way, that they wanted to wait their
Speaker 3: turn and do an interview. But like every single one
Speaker 3: of those people is now reckoning with the fact that
Speaker 3: if they can make CVP wan work on their phone,
Speaker 3: they will wake eight or nine months in Mexico. That
Speaker 3: is not a safe place if you're a woman on
Speaker 3: your own, God forbid, if you're a trans woman or
Speaker 3: a gay person like aside from like within certain communities,
Speaker 3: it's not a safe place. I think Mexico is the
Speaker 3: second highest rate of killings of trans people anywhere in
Speaker 3: the world. Yeah, I think Brazil is maybe more. Yeah,
Speaker 3: bort I think is the highest. I don't know if
Speaker 3: that's like raw numbers because Brazil is a bigger country,
Speaker 3: or if it's like stags the population.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my memory is that it's the rate, But I'm
Speaker 2: not harm so sure either way that people who are.
Speaker 3: Coming to be safe or not to be in a
Speaker 3: place where they're in danger, that is what they face,
Speaker 3: right And so undoubtedly some of those people who wanted
Speaker 3: to come the right way will cross between ports of entry,
Speaker 3: they will surrender themselves to border patrol, and if they
Speaker 3: get a chance to file for asylum at all, because
Speaker 3: it's it's a shout test now, But there are numerous
Speaker 3: incidents that I've seen described in court cases of people
Speaker 3: doing what sounds to me like asserting an asylum claim
Speaker 3: and not having a chance to then make their case.
Speaker 3: If they do at all, it'll be defensive asylum, right.
Speaker 3: And these are the people who are like textbook asylum places,
Speaker 3: you know, like I am a trans person in a
Speaker 3: place where that might well be punishable by death, de
Speaker 3: facto of du jure right. I am a political dissident
Speaker 3: in a country where my political views would be a
Speaker 3: reason to kill me. I am a woman from Iran
Speaker 3: who doesn't wear hijab, nicab whatever, you know, Like these
Speaker 3: are like why asylum exists. There are lots of people
Speaker 3: who deserve a help who are not covered by these
Speaker 3: little buckets. We put people in to for asylum, but
Speaker 3: even people who are who falls slap in the middle
Speaker 3: of what your average Midwestern liberal dad would be like, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's an asylum case. We should help that person. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they have to come in. They fare the defense of asylum,
Speaker 3: and that's what we're teaching. I guess these border patrol
Speaker 3: kids that these are the quite unquite bad guys, and
Speaker 3: they're not. And yeah, they they're doing this sort of
Speaker 3: twenty eight posts. It's just one. I read a terrible
Speaker 3: account of a young woman who was sexually abused by
Speaker 3: a cop in a police Explorer program. Like these Explorer
Speaker 3: programs go all across law enforcement. They are administered by
Speaker 3: the Boy Scouts of America. They have a serious problem
Speaker 3: with abuse of young people as serious problem, and it
Speaker 3: seems like it's not getting I mean, it does get
Speaker 3: some coverage, like this, this piece about the agent in
Speaker 3: Douglas got some coverage, right, the piece about this this cop.
Speaker 3: But like, I mean, look at this country. We still
Speaker 3: have the Catholic Church. Just because people abuse kids doesn't
Speaker 3: mean they get shut down. But like, yeah, I don't,
Speaker 3: don't don't send your kids. I guess you're listening to this.
Speaker 3: You're quite unlikely to send your kids to be junior cops.
Speaker 3: But like, I get young people living in small towns
Speaker 3: on the border who don't have many economic opportunities. I
Speaker 3: know those towns. I spend a lot of time in
Speaker 3: those towns. And I get that the guys who joined
Speaker 3: Border Patrol, they have big trucks, they have nice houses, right,
Speaker 3: that it's one of the few areas of economic opportunity.
Speaker 3: I get that none of that is worth having your
Speaker 3: kid abused. And like I'm not saying that, of course
Speaker 3: all of these programs resulting child abuse, they don't. But
Speaker 3: like law Enforcement Explorer programs absolutely have a problem with
Speaker 3: child abuse.
Speaker 2: And yeah, yeah, there was a whole thing in like
Speaker 2: the last couple of years about this happening in tension
Speaker 2: facilities in Chicago or intention facilities, things that were supposed
Speaker 2: to be like now figurant housing, and that got reported. Yeah, weirdly. Weirdly,
Speaker 2: the Chicago proces has actually been pretty good on immigration stuff.
Speaker 2: But it's literally solely because they hate Brandon Johnson, and
Speaker 2: Brandon Johnson's the one running it. Because of this, we've
Speaker 2: actually gotten a bunch of good good reporting that accident. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: in many such cases. But yeah, like the culture of
Speaker 2: border patrol is not one that you want to.
Speaker 3: Be introducing your child too. Yeah, absolutely not. You know,
Speaker 3: I would really encourage people to read Todd's book Border
Speaker 3: Patrol Nation, like he talks about this use of They
Speaker 3: invented a new slur, which you know, is cool. Good
Speaker 3: for them for expanding the English language. I guess they
Speaker 3: call people tonks. Oh yeah, yeah, some noise that makes
Speaker 3: when you hit someone on the head with your torch
Speaker 3: your flashlight. Yeah yeah, just really great stuff. Some of
Speaker 3: the worst people who've ever lived. Yeah, don't don't volunteer
Speaker 3: to be a cop. Don't do it for money either,
Speaker 3: Like that's what I got for you. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: think that's all we've got for today. Yeah. Shit fucking sucks.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: We gave you, We gave you some less depressing episodes,
Speaker 2: but yeah, now we're back ruin your week. Actually, I
Speaker 2: could promise. I could promise tomorrow's episode is going to
Speaker 2: be a lot writer for this one. Yeah, come back
Speaker 2: tomorrow to be less horribly depressed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got nothing good for you coming up for
Speaker 3: the near future. To be honest, I'm rite. I think
Speaker 3: about the Darien Gap and having to take little walks outside. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: get for a walk.
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