Speaker 1: Hi everyone. It's just me James today and I'm joined
Speaker 1: today by James Cordero and Jacqueline Ariano. They're both from
Speaker 1: Border Kindness, which is a group that does border eight.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like water drops and support to keep
Speaker 1: people alive as they're making their journey across the desert
Speaker 1: here in San Diego? Is that a fair characterization of
Speaker 1: what you guys do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do work all across the border in California.
Speaker 2: Currently the of US, we're based out of San Diego.
Speaker 2: What we do of our water drops in eastern San
Speaker 2: Diego County and Imperial County. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The wization is based primarily in Mihigli, Baja, California,
Speaker 3: on the Mexico side, and that's where it was founded. Okay,
Speaker 3: corresponds to the arrival of the migrant caravans in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 3: We've personally been doing drops since twenty sixteen, but we
Speaker 3: brought the program over Border Kindness a little over a
Speaker 3: year ago and we operate programs on both sides of
Speaker 3: the border. Primarily James and I are involved with water Drop,
Speaker 3: but we also as an organization have a school on
Speaker 3: the Mexico side. We have operated in a pro bono
Speaker 3: clinic on the Mexican side, and currently we're providing direct
Speaker 3: aid with the families of migrant farm workers in Imperial
Speaker 3: and Riverside Counties.
Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah, that's a lot of very important things that
Speaker 1: you don't get enough money or attention. So sure, you
Speaker 1: said you started about a year ago, but you've been
Speaker 1: doing the border drops for what's that seven sometime seven years? Yeah,
Speaker 1: since twenty sixteen, And I wonder if we could start
Speaker 1: by and we can get in some of the details later.
Speaker 1: But I've been reporting on the border for that long
Speaker 1: and there certainly have been notable changes, And I wonder
Speaker 1: what changes you've seen, Like we go back to like
Speaker 1: pre twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, like that was for the
Speaker 1: whole wall Shenanigans and so like, do you guys want
Speaker 1: to describe what changes you've seen in patterns of migration
Speaker 1: and like I guess how safe that journey is or isn't,
Speaker 1: and how that's changed.
Speaker 2: Well as far as patterns, I think it's definitely increased,
Speaker 2: definitely impressed by the as far as seeing the amounts
Speaker 2: of supplies being used, the traces of you know, migrants
Speaker 2: crossing through in the desert, and the mountains, seeing the
Speaker 2: amount of border patrol apprehensions and interactions with people that cross,
Speaker 2: and the overall militarization of the border. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think like as far, one of the
Speaker 3: biggest changes that we've seen on the border overall, and
Speaker 3: that has reflected in the water Drop as well, is
Speaker 3: a change in the demographics of people that are coming through.
Speaker 3: Even as recently as when we started in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: there were much more of like the trend that was
Speaker 3: generally kind of like stereotypically the case of like who
Speaker 3: was crossing, which was men of origin of working age
Speaker 3: crossing to work and send send money back to their families.
Speaker 3: That's obviously still a large part of who is coming through,
Speaker 3: but in the most recent three to five years especially,
Speaker 3: the demographics are changing not just by country of origin
Speaker 3: to include all over the world and reflecting like this
Speaker 3: global migration crisis that's going on, but also the reasons
Speaker 3: and like the desperation is changing. So now it's not
Speaker 3: just like economic migration. There is asylum seekers, refugees, and
Speaker 3: it is just changing in tone of like why they're
Speaker 3: migrating and in what ways they're migrating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, definitely I've noticed that, and like as the
Speaker 1: climate continues to change, right, like more and more people
Speaker 1: come from those countries and you've seen that too, that
Speaker 1: most heavily impacted by climate change. Yeah, yeah, and that
Speaker 1: makes a journey as it gets harder and harder in
Speaker 1: the desert, like that makes a journey more and more perilous.
Speaker 3: I guess they've come from farther too, and they're at
Speaker 3: least sometimes like not at all familiar with the weather,
Speaker 3: with the terrain, what they're up against with like how
Speaker 3: you have to move in border towns. If you're not
Speaker 3: from a border town, you don't really know how to
Speaker 3: move and who to trust or more importantly, who not
Speaker 3: to trust.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and the people there's.
Speaker 3: A lot of pitfalls to just arriving at the border,
Speaker 3: even from like internal migration, like within Mexico. People arrive
Speaker 3: to the border and don't really know how to operate
Speaker 3: like the day to day there, and it's really made
Speaker 3: an already incredibly dangerous situation, like just just totally a peral.
Speaker 2: As more people have migrated from different countries around the world,
Speaker 2: you're also seeing people who have been on that journey
Speaker 2: just to get to the United States line for longer
Speaker 2: amounts of time that you know, instead of maybe just
Speaker 2: weeks or a month, you're talking about months on months
Speaker 2: that people have been traveling you know, by foot, by train,
Speaker 2: by bus, you know, sometimes by plane. However they can
Speaker 2: and we've seen, you know, we've seen like invoices for
Speaker 2: like hotel stays that people traveling from Turkey came and
Speaker 2: they stayed like in tang Kun for like a month.
Speaker 2: So like I mean, people are gone from their from
Speaker 2: their homelands. You know, longer amounts of time now that
Speaker 2: you know, isn't a comfortable thing. So it's not like
Speaker 2: you can relax and not like you can you know,
Speaker 2: rest and you know mentally and physically everything like that.
Speaker 2: So it's definitely making that part harder for people crossing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, Like I'm seeing more and more migrants
Speaker 1: from from Africa and like they are very much like
Speaker 1: it's the community for them is hard to find sometimes,
Speaker 1: like you know that, like there are different spaces for them,
Speaker 1: and like they they end up in like distinct spaces
Speaker 1: from other Like migrant too are coming from other areas,
Speaker 1: and I know it can be very perilous for them,
Speaker 1: Like you say, just just moving around border towns and
Speaker 1: navigating the pitfalls of that. Yeah, it's it's becoming like
Speaker 1: a more and more difficult and I guess kind of
Speaker 1: complicated issue. But I think what's not particularly complicated is that, like,
Speaker 1: no one should have to walk across the desert without water,
Speaker 1: right like that, it's pretty basic. So maybe we could
Speaker 1: go through what a water drop is, and like what
Speaker 1: just if we could walk through, like you know, how
Speaker 1: far you guys walk, what you're leaving at there, what
Speaker 1: you find that people take, what you find that they
Speaker 1: need in their journeys. And you were talking about the receipts.
Speaker 1: I found tons of those and plane tickets and stuff
Speaker 1: like the things that you find that help you understand
Speaker 1: how better to help people. I guess.
Speaker 3: You want to talk about like how far the drops
Speaker 3: are generally and all of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so right now, it just depends on the season,
Speaker 2: the weather, you know, the length of the drops we hike.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of our drops. We also utilize
Speaker 2: four x fours to get us closer to areas to
Speaker 2: start our hikes, so we don't have to walk even
Speaker 2: more miles. That helps us out and you know, being
Speaker 2: able to carry more supplies, you know, with less walking
Speaker 2: in some areas. But when it's cooler times and the
Speaker 2: temperatures are you know, below eighty degrees, you know we
Speaker 2: can hike you know anywhere up to I think the
Speaker 2: max that we did was like just about twenty. But
Speaker 2: on the average, you know, the cool weather hikes will
Speaker 2: do you know, know, right around ten miles or so.
Speaker 2: And then when it gets hot and the desert gets
Speaker 2: really hot out there, you know, like over one hundred
Speaker 2: and ten degrees on a constant basis and starting to
Speaker 2: get over one hundred and twenty degrees, you know, we
Speaker 2: can maybe do about five miles by foot. We've kind
Speaker 2: of ran a trial and air this season as far
Speaker 2: as trying to push further to see how far we
Speaker 2: can go, and we attempted seven miles and that I
Speaker 2: mean we all were gassed right around the five mile mark.
Speaker 2: So like we have to you know, set limits because
Speaker 2: not only is the distance, but the time spent underneath
Speaker 2: the sun without shade, and that exposure is you know
Speaker 2: what drives the internal body temperature up and everything like that.
Speaker 2: And if you don't have a chance to cool down,
Speaker 2: that's when your body starts to wear out. You get
Speaker 2: heat exhaustion, and you know, we want to avoid heat
Speaker 2: stroke at all costs, and we're trying to, you know,
Speaker 2: make sure everyone's safety is accounted for. So we have
Speaker 2: to kind of cap that in the in the summertime
Speaker 2: to like five miles.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have to definitely make pushes in the winter
Speaker 3: to stockpile the areas that are just simply not accessible
Speaker 3: in the summer months. And the strategic and like paying
Speaker 3: attention to what are entry points and can we hit
Speaker 3: those entry points or exit points. So maybe we can't
Speaker 3: really access a route throughout its entirety, but we can
Speaker 3: hit certain points of it more safely as a team
Speaker 3: during these like incredibly hot months. But we leave supplies
Speaker 3: of water, food, and protective clothing, and the protective clothing
Speaker 3: varies depending on season. So I mean a lot of
Speaker 3: people don't really take into consideration how cold it gets
Speaker 3: in these areas. It gets wall below freezing in the
Speaker 3: winter in the mountains of Ea San Diego County, it snows.
Speaker 3: You know, some drops have gotten snowed out. We haven't
Speaker 3: been able to complete them because of the snow, and
Speaker 3: so the protective clothing varies in the summer. It's things
Speaker 3: like bendan as, cooling towels, hats, socks we leave throughout
Speaker 3: the year, people's footwear not being appropriate almost almost always. Yeah,
Speaker 3: blister can be a deacent sentence out there. So if
Speaker 3: you get a blister and you're not able to keep
Speaker 3: up with your group, there's a really good chance that
Speaker 3: you're going to get left. So something like having dry
Speaker 3: socks to change into can very well save somebody's life.
Speaker 3: So we leave socks throughout the year, pop top cans
Speaker 3: of food and of course water.
Speaker 2: In the wintertime, we leave sweatshirts, beanies like mittens, gloves, scarves, jackets,
Speaker 2: sometimes puffy jackets, sometimes blankets, you know, stuff to keep
Speaker 2: people warm when the temperatures you know, can be freezing
Speaker 2: for you know, most of the day. You know, in
Speaker 2: those harsh months of like January February, where eastern Sandewo
Speaker 2: County gets the like the winter storms, the freezing cold,
Speaker 2: you know, when roads get shut down, we can't even access. So,
Speaker 2: as Jacqueline mentioned, you know, when it is cooler, we
Speaker 2: try to go as much as we can, as far
Speaker 2: as we can, to stockpile as much as possible for
Speaker 2: when the weather prohibits us from doing so.
Speaker 1: Otherwise, Yeah, and just give people a sense of like
Speaker 1: the temperature swings, like I've been in the mountains down
Speaker 1: by the border at like twenty degrees fahrenheit, which is
Speaker 1: like minus ten ish celsius I think, And yeah, also
Speaker 1: at one hundred and twenty which is like almost fifty
Speaker 1: degrees celsius, and so you can they didn't swing that
Speaker 1: much in one day, but there are days when it's
Speaker 1: above forty degrees celsius. And also the low freezing in
Speaker 1: the same day, like it's it can be really Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a perilous place. That's why people don't live there
Speaker 1: as a rule, Like it's not a place that's kind
Speaker 1: to people. So I wonder like a lot of people,
Speaker 1: I know, we did a series on title forty two,
Speaker 1: spoke to a lot of people, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people reached out and they like they want to help,
Speaker 1: and I understand that the border. I think for a
Speaker 1: lot of people it is like I think reporting on
Speaker 1: the borders as a rule is not great, like that
Speaker 1: we tend to see migrants as numbers and not as
Speaker 1: people a lot when when people report on the border, right,
Speaker 1: and that that's kind of it happens with with more
Speaker 1: liberal outlets as well as more right wing outlets. But
Speaker 1: I wonder, like, a how people who aren't in town, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're not in if you don't live in the
Speaker 1: border lands, right, it's so you live in the middle
Speaker 1: of America, Like, how can they help? What can they
Speaker 1: do to kind of support the process that you're doing
Speaker 1: making this horrible thing a little kind.
Speaker 3: Of We have on all of our social media and
Speaker 3: as well as on our website ways that people can help.
Speaker 3: We have wish lists for items if people help want
Speaker 3: to contribute in that way, and that's literally like contributing
Speaker 3: the items that we leave. We also have donation links,
Speaker 3: so if people want to help financially, that goes a
Speaker 3: huge way in order to facilitate everything that we do.
Speaker 3: It's i mean, gas is incredibly expensive. The supplies that
Speaker 3: we don't get donated by a wish list have to
Speaker 3: be purchased, that sort of thing. So providing material aid
Speaker 3: is one way of contributing. And then aside from that,
Speaker 3: I think just following along with this work and sharing
Speaker 3: it and changing the conversation because, like as you said,
Speaker 3: reporting on the border can be really tricky. People tend
Speaker 3: to not just utilize migrants, but utilize the border as
Speaker 3: a region in order to have talking points for either
Speaker 3: like media outlets or campaigns or that sort of thing,
Speaker 3: and the border gets treated as sort of like its
Speaker 3: own foreign area that's not related to either country, like
Speaker 3: nobody wants to responsibility for it. And you know, residents
Speaker 3: of the United States also are complicit in that. And
Speaker 3: because they don't really they just talk about the border.
Speaker 3: They don't say, like, this is something that's happening in
Speaker 3: my country. So I think sharing and discussing and becoming
Speaker 3: informed of what's going on, and also feeling like that
Speaker 3: kinship and ownership of like, hey, this is happening. I
Speaker 3: mean for people, it doesn't have to be as far
Speaker 3: as like the middle of the country. A lot of
Speaker 3: people in San Diego don't et really engage in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't really bother.
Speaker 3: You know, it feels like so far away, even though
Speaker 3: it's like twenty minutes away. Meanwhile, people are dropping dead
Speaker 3: so close to where people live, and they choose to
Speaker 3: turn a blind eye. So I think kind of demystifying
Speaker 3: that for ourselves and sharing in that it goes a
Speaker 3: long way as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, I think that's that's very true. It's always
Speaker 1: amazing to me, Like how twenty eighteen or the other
Speaker 1: big one I guess would be the end of Title
Speaker 1: forty two, which was here in May, Like people will
Speaker 1: become more aware of what's happening and turn up and
Speaker 1: like it's so very radicalizing for other people in a
Speaker 1: positive way, like get engaged them in a way they
Speaker 1: haven't been engaged before. But it's I know, it's like
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be, like we shouldn't be something we ever
Speaker 1: get used to. How like cruel our border infrastructure is
Speaker 1: and what it does for us, but people are just
Speaker 1: blown away every time. Absolutely, Yeah, but I think you're right,
Speaker 1: like witnessing it is very important, even if you know
Speaker 1: you can't done it financially, if you can't get down here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely just share stuff that you know, if you
Speaker 2: know our organization posts something on social media, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, it has to be taken out as the
Speaker 2: truth because we're out there firsthand. We're the ones on
Speaker 2: the ground seeing reporting back, and by sharing that, you
Speaker 2: get people you know in different parts of the country
Speaker 2: or even you know, different parts of the world seeing
Speaker 2: like the realities of the US Mexico border. Because you know,
Speaker 2: most people in the United States don't know. If they
Speaker 2: don't don't see it, they'll live near it. So that's
Speaker 2: you know, something that most people rely on the media
Speaker 2: and what they see on the nightly news. And you
Speaker 2: know even that, you know, the big media outlets don't
Speaker 2: take the most realistic or don't share the most realistic
Speaker 2: parts of the border, you know, only to you know,
Speaker 2: cater to their you know, their sponsors, or cater to
Speaker 2: their crowds, and so a lot of people will get
Speaker 2: like the headlines, but they don't get the real deal,
Speaker 2: like you know, what's going on down the border, and
Speaker 2: so sharing is is a big part of you know,
Speaker 2: how the word spreads about the work that we do
Speaker 2: in other organizations as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's very very bad age. It was
Speaker 1: interesting to me recently. I didn't if you guys saw this,
Speaker 1: but like the floating border barrier in Texas, like very
Speaker 1: like this week, people have been reporting that it has
Speaker 1: the blades on it, which it does, and that's fucked up,
Speaker 1: like they shouldn't. It's horrible, but like it was kind
Speaker 1: of illiterative that I guess none of the are that
Speaker 1: none of the national outlets had someone who'd seen it,
Speaker 1: because the blades have been there for months where the
Speaker 1: prototype sat there they were in the twenty twenty solicitation
Speaker 1: to like it just seemed odd to me that someone
Speaker 1: had to tweet a video for them to like understand
Speaker 1: because like, obviously no one had walked up to it
Speaker 1: and checked it out, which I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: it's hard to do border reporting in New York personally,
Speaker 1: But yes, you're you're interested in the northern border. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask about Title forty two because I
Speaker 1: think our listeners are pretty well informed on like what
Speaker 1: that was and what happened before and after that. So
Speaker 1: did you guys notice when that came into effect? Just
Speaker 1: to recap, I guess for people, Title forty two allowed
Speaker 1: border patrol to bounce people straight back south without processing
Speaker 1: them and in nearly all cases without hearing that their
Speaker 1: claims were asylum if they had, and then those people
Speaker 1: were sometimes laterally translated across the border to a border
Speaker 1: town where they may not have had contacts or family
Speaker 1: or any resources, and it often resulted in those people
Speaker 1: finding themselves in an even more difficult situation than they
Speaker 1: already were, or trying to cross in more difficult and
Speaker 1: dangerous places to avoid that. So, did you guys notice
Speaker 1: any changes like around and that came in what March
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty as soon as they could, as soon
Speaker 1: as they found an excuse in COVID.
Speaker 2: Not so much from what we see because we don't
Speaker 2: come cross people too often face to face. Did notice
Speaker 2: that once the policy was put into place, meaning title
Speaker 2: forty two, and you know, with the pandemic starting, we
Speaker 2: did notice a big uptick on the amount of people
Speaker 2: coming through. We've seen you know before that you know,
Speaker 2: just a handful of people maybe like that. We'd come
Speaker 2: across a lot of times, those people crossing at nighttime
Speaker 2: and it wasn't something that we came across much. But
Speaker 2: after that went into effect in twenty twenty, we started
Speaker 2: running into a lot more people. We started seeing people
Speaker 2: that knew, you know, somewhat of you know, the policy,
Speaker 2: and that people would try multiple times every day to
Speaker 2: you know, cross through, and if they got apprehended and
Speaker 2: got you know, taken into Mexico, they tried again that
Speaker 2: same day. And so we noticed a lot more of
Speaker 2: our supplies being used, a lot more foot traffic, and
Speaker 2: a lot more you know interactions with us. We started
Speaker 2: seeing a lot more interactions with you know, board patrol
Speaker 2: and people crossing through. And so when the policy was
Speaker 2: coming to an end, the only thing that we really
Speaker 2: saw increase was the amount of people trying to get
Speaker 2: in before you know, quote unquote got closed off, you know,
Speaker 2: before like the bands would go into effect, and you know,
Speaker 2: like the no you know, you can re enter for
Speaker 2: a you know a certain amount of years and all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. So like the camp in Hkomba,
Speaker 2: you know, you see you know, thousands of people showing
Speaker 2: up as that you know stopped, as Top forty two stopped.
Speaker 2: We really can't notice too much yet that less people
Speaker 2: are crossing through compared to the beginning the middle of
Speaker 2: the policy. Our supplies are still being used at a
Speaker 2: high rate. Still see a fair amount of traffic come through,
Speaker 2: you know, these these corridors and everything like that. So
Speaker 2: it's kind of hard on our end. But you know,
Speaker 2: we also know that people who do cross not at
Speaker 2: a port of entry by foot, whether it's over a fence,
Speaker 2: whether it's around a fence, whether it's through the desert,
Speaker 2: over the hills. We know that people are still being
Speaker 2: apprehended processed and released with their asylum claims. So it's hard,
Speaker 2: as you know, on the board to know exactly what's
Speaker 2: going on because a policy can say one thing, yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter exactly, like the residential administration can say
Speaker 2: one thing, the DHS can say one thing, and completely
Speaker 2: different is happening, you know right right there. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't really say honestly how much it's
Speaker 2: it's changed from our perspective.
Speaker 3: I think when these things happen, like it's always really
Speaker 3: difficult because like like I think the three of us
Speaker 3: are aware of there's the things that are put in place,
Speaker 3: and that's how they're going to be applied in theory,
Speaker 3: and then those of us that have been doing this
Speaker 3: work can anticipate how it's going to have an impact
Speaker 3: in practice.
Speaker 1: So like.
Speaker 3: The things that are occurring now in order to so
Speaker 3: called like curb the influx of people like using an
Speaker 3: app or having like certain things, like all of these
Speaker 3: things like we know and we don't have like any
Speaker 3: faith that they were put in in good faith and
Speaker 3: we know like that we can anticipate, Okay, you're going
Speaker 3: to be banned if you don't go in through these
Speaker 3: like really ridiculously inaccessible means, and that that word is
Speaker 3: going to get around that people are going to freak out,
Speaker 3: they're not going to bother, and they're going to hit
Speaker 3: the desert. And that's what we're seeing. Whether we can
Speaker 3: actually like attribute it directly to like these policy changes,
Speaker 3: what I think we can attribute it more directly to
Speaker 3: is like one, global migration, regardless of policy, is increasing
Speaker 3: all over the world, and that desperation doesn't like really
Speaker 3: wait for any kind of policy change. Two is like
Speaker 3: the misinformation and sort of like chatter that people are
Speaker 3: hearing about like this policy is changing, Oh I heard that,
Speaker 3: Like if you don't use this app, they're going to
Speaker 3: put you in jail. And like just like literally these
Speaker 3: things that we're hearing on the border that is funneling
Speaker 3: people directly into the desert because they want to avoid
Speaker 3: any kind of interaction with border patrol, even if they
Speaker 3: have like what would be a you know, like an
Speaker 3: asylum claim. People aren't trusting because there's so much change
Speaker 3: and uncertainty at like a policy level. There's no accessibility
Speaker 3: to this information, there's no clarity to this information. Nobody
Speaker 3: knows what's going on, whether it's people that are working
Speaker 3: in border aid or people that are seeking asylum. So
Speaker 3: people are just you know, taking their chances and hitting
Speaker 3: the desert. And regardless of the policy changed, like ever
Speaker 3: since the last like you know, like we said, like
Speaker 3: three to five years, the increase has been like exponential
Speaker 3: every single year. It just continues increasing.
Speaker 2: I one to add is that so the Title forty
Speaker 2: two policy was used, you know, in conjunction with the
Speaker 2: you know, national emergency with COVID and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff with the country, you know, ending the the
Speaker 2: national emergency, they couldn't you know, couldn't justify keeping Title
Speaker 2: forty two in effect. And in a way, I feel
Speaker 2: that the administration was just playing you know, political chess
Speaker 2: and using people, vulnerable people as pawns. And so the
Speaker 2: rhetoric coming out and you know, the you know, we're
Speaker 2: taking a hard stance and this, that and the other
Speaker 2: a crack down on immigration, and that I feel it
Speaker 2: was the current presidential administration just trying to appeal to
Speaker 2: a larger audience or when the election comes up next year,
Speaker 2: you know can say hey, look did this, did that,
Speaker 2: did this? And the way the numbers have been skewed
Speaker 2: for apprehensions. You know, that's when you'd have like say
Speaker 2: in San Luis and Yuma, Arizona, you would see you know,
Speaker 2: hundreds and thousands of people every day showing up to
Speaker 2: present themselves for asulnd those all got recorded as apprehension numbers.
Speaker 2: So you've got in one month, you know, however many
Speaker 2: you know, thousands. Now Title forty two ends. Now that
Speaker 2: number shrinks down. Now, that looks better, That looks tougher on,
Speaker 2: you know, immergion. That looks like you're doing this, that
Speaker 2: and the other. Meanwhile, you have people just you know,
Speaker 2: being vulnerable, being you know in limbo, you know, on
Speaker 2: the other side of the border, or you have them
Speaker 2: taking to the mountains and deserts and taking a dangerous
Speaker 2: trek just so they can be apprehended and you know,
Speaker 2: plead their case and try to get asylum and try
Speaker 2: to get released into the United States. So people that
Speaker 2: are are being used as pawns in this political theater
Speaker 2: that we always talk about it as we always it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter the administration, whether it's blue, whether it's red,
Speaker 2: whether it's orange, whether it's old, whether it's you know, money,
Speaker 2: it's all money. And unfortunately, you know, we have to
Speaker 2: constantly like dispel a lot of that false narrative that
Speaker 2: comes out, and it gets exhausting, but I mean it's
Speaker 2: what we have to do because you're not going to
Speaker 2: find that out any other way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're really not. I think that's the next point.
Speaker 1: And the point about apprehensions is good, right, They always
Speaker 1: reported and I've heard like NPR do this report apprehensions
Speaker 1: as if they're individuals, which they were not under Title
Speaker 1: forty two. Like if you cross five times in a
Speaker 1: day and get apprehended and sent back five times, that's
Speaker 1: five apprehensions. It's one person. And they were deliberately using
Speaker 1: that to make this seem like more people are coming,
Speaker 1: and as you say, now it will seem like less
Speaker 1: because that doesn't happen anymore. I think your point about
Speaker 1: like the Jackling, the points about the misinformation is super
Speaker 1: crucial and one that again often isn't reported. But like
Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer, and I can't give people legal advice,
Speaker 1: but constantly when I'm in Tijuana, when I'm in Sonora,
Speaker 1: when anywhere where I'm like on the southern side of
Speaker 1: the border or on this side of the border, people
Speaker 1: will ask me or when the people are trapped in
Speaker 1: between the two fences that constitute the border, people will say,
Speaker 1: hey have you had this? Hey I got this, and
Speaker 1: they'll play like voice messages on WhatsApp often or show
Speaker 1: me a WhatsApp and we'll go over. Like that's not
Speaker 1: my understanding, you know, Like I don't think that's the case,
Speaker 1: but it's I understand you're vulnerable, you're scared, and this
Speaker 1: shit Like I have a PhD and speak all the
Speaker 1: concerned languages, and I don't understand it fully, Like it's
Speaker 1: it's complicated and petrifying if this is your only hope
Speaker 1: of like a dignified life, and I think it's something
Speaker 1: that people don't understand. It's how hard it is for
Speaker 1: those people to get decent information about like what there's
Speaker 1: quote unquote supposed to do, especially when we have this app,
Speaker 1: which like I don't have a ton of foyers in
Speaker 1: around the app, but I don't think I'll ever get
Speaker 1: any documents back from the FED, to be honest, But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so trocious. I think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, then the parmation that people receive isn't even accurate. Like,
Speaker 3: so whenever there is that somebody like say has come
Speaker 3: to like our office downtown in Mihikali and like you know,
Speaker 3: run in their paperwork and say, like, I have a
Speaker 3: court date. They're like there was a time like during
Speaker 3: you know MPP and all of that, like where people
Speaker 3: were being giving court dates on Sundays or being given
Speaker 3: court dates in Texas when they were sent back after
Speaker 3: their arrest in Arizona to MEXICALI like just crazy stuff,
Speaker 3: like like if people are even lucky enough to get
Speaker 3: somebody to help guide them through the process, it's not
Speaker 3: even like a certainty that the information that they're provided
Speaker 3: is even going to be accurate on purpose, Like people
Speaker 3: are given inaccurate information to wade through this process that
Speaker 3: doesn't seem to make sense to anyone. It's it's wildly
Speaker 3: like convoluted. I mean that's the intention, right, Like it's
Speaker 3: not meant to be navigated in any way.
Speaker 1: No, No, it's not. It's meant to put love I think,
Speaker 1: and like even with the work that our friends at
Speaker 1: Alato do and other legal aid groups. I was speaking
Speaker 1: to an Ethiopian friend who I met in Tijuana and
Speaker 1: he lives in US and he helps other folks now
Speaker 1: who have arrived more recently and he was saying that,
Speaker 1: like getting a lawyer to represent you can cost you
Speaker 1: maybe five grand, maybe twelve, and you might not have
Speaker 1: the legal right to work, right, So where is that
Speaker 1: money supposed to come from? And then you know, if
Speaker 1: if your language is you know, aroma or something, it's
Speaker 1: that much harder to navigate that system, to find useful
Speaker 1: resources to explain it to you. And it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: people like to talk about like how I know that
Speaker 1: their family did legal legal quote unquote migration when there
Speaker 1: weren't these checks in place and they didn't have to
Speaker 1: do any of this shit, And I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: I don't think people realize how brutalizing the system is
Speaker 1: until like they've seen it first time at.
Speaker 3: The closest the point, like the and the confusion, like
Speaker 3: putting people in danger is the whole point, and it's intentional.
Speaker 3: Like so if somebody's there and like you said, like
Speaker 3: they speak there, they're not able to even like wrap
Speaker 3: their heads around the process, let alone access like the
Speaker 3: resources in order to navigate that system. Then a coyote
Speaker 3: approaches them and tells them like, oh, I can take
Speaker 3: you over here to Romosa. All you have to do
Speaker 3: is pay me three hundred American instead of five thousand
Speaker 3: for this, Like, Eh, you're probably not going to win
Speaker 3: that case. The town's a mile away. The town's a
Speaker 3: mile away, and it's a straight shot and you'll get
Speaker 3: there in half a day and then you're good to go.
Speaker 3: And I mean we've heard the most wild stories, like
Speaker 3: even from people in the middle of the desert lost
Speaker 3: saying they told me it was two mile walk and
Speaker 3: that there was they were hiring in the town on
Speaker 3: the other side of that hill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like and I.
Speaker 3: Mean, like who wouldn't at that point it's like you
Speaker 3: don't have a country to go back to. Yeah, Like
Speaker 3: it's no longer like, oh, I'm fleeing my I'm migrating
Speaker 3: from my country because there's no work. No, there is
Speaker 3: no country to speak of, at least not for you.
Speaker 3: And you're here and the Gooa presents you this upper
Speaker 3: like so it's misinformation and exploitation like every single step
Speaker 3: of the way, And a lot of the time people's
Speaker 3: most straightforward avenue is through the desert, even though it's
Speaker 3: like unbelievably hard and very very often deadly. That's like
Speaker 3: the surest shot that they have and they take it.
Speaker 1: Because I mean it wouldn't Yeah, no, it's it's not
Speaker 1: like yet, like you say, people aren't like doing the
Speaker 1: numbers and thinking they'll make more money in the US.
Speaker 1: It's like I will die if I stay at home
Speaker 1: or someone has already killed someone I love and I
Speaker 1: have to leave now, And especially when like the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: like the people aren't aware. Like towards the end of
Speaker 1: the Trump administration, Trump started making claims in presidential debates
Speaker 1: about the number of miles of war he was he
Speaker 1: had built as far as I can work out, he
Speaker 1: pulled out of his ass, and then the like then
Speaker 1: they started rushing to build more wall, and they I
Speaker 1: asked them how they came up with that number, and
Speaker 1: then they like they did this thing where they were like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we repaired this much wall, and they were like eight
Speaker 1: miles of border wall prototype and like a cool man,
Speaker 1: like they didn't build that much wall, but they started
Speaker 1: skipping the harder parts right like Valley of the Moon,
Speaker 1: even that Boulder Pilo outside of Cumber Like, there are
Speaker 1: areas that don't have wall, and those are areas that
Speaker 1: are harder, and then that's where people try and cross
Speaker 1: and like I love to go outside. I'm a pretty
Speaker 1: fit person, and like Valley of the Moon, it is
Speaker 1: a odd going, like if you're not going up the road,
Speaker 1: like that's tough travel. And that's where people don't have
Speaker 1: a choice been to cross right right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's where and that's where, like you in May, it
Speaker 2: was I think with the first second week of May,
Speaker 2: when you know, just a few days before Total forty
Speaker 2: two was ending. That's where thousands of people came through.
Speaker 2: Was through that area down into the town of Komba,
Speaker 2: and a lot of people, I mean we're talking about
Speaker 2: you know, thousands came through there, and a lot said
Speaker 2: that they paid upwards to one thousand dollars ahead two
Speaker 2: coyotes that brought them there and said, hey, when you
Speaker 2: get down there, you just follow this road. Once you
Speaker 2: get down to the bottom, there's gonna be a buz
Speaker 2: waiting for you. It'll take you in. And then they
Speaker 2: got stranded for days after going through that terrain. The
Speaker 2: temperature that's when like the season really started shifting. So
Speaker 2: the nights were really cold, the day time highs were
Speaker 2: pretty hot, and I mean that was the you know
Speaker 2: designed you know.
Speaker 3: Cruelty, the invasion that gave. That gave the semblance of
Speaker 3: the invasion.
Speaker 1: Because you could huddle people together and then claim that
Speaker 1: you weren't detaining.
Speaker 2: Them that right exactly, they weren't free to leave. They
Speaker 2: said that Border patrol told them that they had arrest
Speaker 2: them if they left the I mean I say camp
Speaker 2: loosely because it was just like out in an open
Speaker 2: field with that people you know, cut down branches and
Speaker 2: turn into shelters and use areas that they cut down
Speaker 2: for like fires, campfires and knights to stay warm. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, Border patrol probably didn't expect that a
Speaker 2: people locally in Hukumba were going to care or b
Speaker 2: that the word would get out, and so their cruel
Speaker 2: practices that they were in acting on like the first
Speaker 2: day or two of people showing up and being stranded
Speaker 2: no food, no water, then it kind of backfired. And
Speaker 2: then you know, I believe you went out there as well.
Speaker 2: You saw how many people showed up to take care,
Speaker 2: and like we were working around the clock to try
Speaker 2: to you know, organize and make food, prepare food pack,
Speaker 2: collect donations, everything. And you know that's I've gone through
Speaker 2: that terrain. And you know, after all that was closed
Speaker 2: down and looking through as you know, as we did
Speaker 2: like trash cleanups and people you know, would have their
Speaker 2: last remaining food and water that you could see like
Speaker 2: coming through across you know, the area where they were
Speaker 2: brought to and like people were shedding clothes because the
Speaker 2: temperatures were so warm dur in the daytime and then
Speaker 2: just wondering like okay, so they shod their clothes and
Speaker 2: now they're like freezing down the bottom of the hill
Speaker 2: and the terrain's too tough to go all the way
Speaker 2: back up. Yeah, and you know they yeah, there's no
Speaker 2: fence over there. And the fences you know, we've said
Speaker 2: have always been kind of built for the most part
Speaker 2: where people can see them. It gives the appearance to
Speaker 2: the rest of the country that's not out there, that
Speaker 2: there's a fence across the whole border, and you know,
Speaker 2: go into a lot of areas where we see that
Speaker 2: that's not the case. And also we see where border
Speaker 2: fences stop and migration makes its way right around the
Speaker 2: edge of that. Yeah, most time, but the disk now
Speaker 2: has increased longer for the walks because instead of just
Speaker 2: being able to walk through like an open area, now
Speaker 2: you have to go miles out of the way to
Speaker 2: get around to an opening and the fence or go
Speaker 2: up and over a mountain, and you know, doing that
Speaker 2: in the summertime, you exhaust yourself from the strategist hike
Speaker 2: on top of the unbearable heat, and then you pass away,
Speaker 2: you know, an eighth of a mile from a fence,
Speaker 2: you know, as someone that we know that happened to
Speaker 2: them a couple of years ago. So it's yeah, as
Speaker 2: you're saying, like the fences and like where they're not put,
Speaker 2: it's it's just a point of cruelty and part of
Speaker 2: the prevention through the terrence policy that's been going on
Speaker 2: for you know, almost thirty years now, and yeah, definitely, yeah,
Speaker 2: and the CBP one app app and all kinds of
Speaker 2: suff that's just another extension of prevention through the turns
Speaker 2: by making it harder for people and pushing people to
Speaker 2: ways that they can try to get through or you
Speaker 2: know what they think they can try to get through easier.
Speaker 2: And as Jacquelin said, it's just it's become more and
Speaker 2: more dead here, and every year the numbers go up
Speaker 2: of confirmed deaths, but that doesn't count the amount of
Speaker 2: people that go missing every year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or the people who like board the patrol and
Speaker 1: find and they you know, their numbers are any the
Speaker 1: people who they found. And that's the areas that go
Speaker 1: like if people die for the North or yeah.
Speaker 3: Or the death that they they deliberately miscategorize as non
Speaker 3: migrant death and they're just John Doe's Jane Doe whatever.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: They just say like, oh, you know, cause of death unclear,
Speaker 3: or cause of death for exposure, but they don't necessarily
Speaker 3: call it a migrant death even though someone you know,
Speaker 3: traveling with a backpack in the desert. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 3: like say that they were migrating just because they had
Speaker 3: you know, under and passport on them that all the
Speaker 3: time too. Be so all of this is like we
Speaker 3: don't know the scope of their cruelty. Like it's just scary,
Speaker 3: is that, Like it's so much bigger than we even know,
Speaker 3: even like those of us that are like in it
Speaker 3: every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no numbers like I I would in a
Speaker 1: sense left to in a sense would be horrible. I
Speaker 1: don't think it should matter, Like I don't think it
Speaker 1: should matter how many people, Like every single one of
Speaker 1: those is a tragedy and it's someone's mum or dad
Speaker 1: or brother. I kind of wanted to to maybe talk
Speaker 1: about like one incident that if you're comfortable doing it
Speaker 1: like that you might be familiar with that I think
Speaker 1: can give people a sense of how dehumanizing this is
Speaker 1: and how cruel this is. You guys, I know you're
Speaker 1: familiar with it. But the young women who died on
Speaker 1: the shrine trail in was it winter of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: or winter of twenty twenty one?
Speaker 2: Yes, that was February twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's right before COVID. So for people who
Speaker 1: aren't as familiar, can I spoke a little bit about
Speaker 1: it in our series, but can you describe kind of
Speaker 1: the process that if you're comfortable, I know, it's like
Speaker 1: a it's a pretty horrible thing, but can you describe
Speaker 1: like like how they crossed and what happened to them?
Speaker 2: I mean, we can give you like some of the
Speaker 2: background that was like in a newspaper article that we
Speaker 2: come to learn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, we have a like direct communication. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not in content. I just like I think it
Speaker 1: would be helpful for people to realize, like, you know, this,
Speaker 1: this is what happened to them. And then also that
Speaker 1: you guys have been able to respond after that happened
Speaker 1: to like at least try and and help like deploy
Speaker 1: kind of resources to that a bit less of a
Speaker 1: treacherous crossing.
Speaker 2: So as the situation was unfolding, it was nighttime and
Speaker 2: there was like a freak storm that came through eastern
Speaker 2: San die County around around the area of I think
Speaker 2: like Live Oak Springs Mount Lagoon area, and it was
Speaker 2: just you know, raining and cold before, but like later
Speaker 2: on that day it kind of turned into snow and
Speaker 2: just turned into heavy winds, like zero visibility snowstorm. And
Speaker 2: these three sisters that were from Wahaka, who've crossed over
Speaker 2: for work multiple times, came worked, went back home, you know,
Speaker 2: for you know, whatever season, came back, worked, went back home.
Speaker 2: And it was my understanding that they were trying to
Speaker 2: save up enough money from what they made here in
Speaker 2: the United States to open up their own business. And
Speaker 2: so the day came when they were crossing over the
Speaker 2: they came through I think like in the Campo area,
Speaker 2: I think it was, and they were led by two
Speaker 2: brothers that had crossed previously in the same spot and
Speaker 2: knew the trail of which to go. But I believe
Speaker 2: it was their first time actually leading people through and
Speaker 2: not just themselves coming through. So they you know, they
Speaker 2: remember the way got up close to where the shrine is,
Speaker 2: of the shrine trail. There's a little shrine up there
Speaker 2: that people would you know, leave little little symbols and
Speaker 2: tokens and little items behind, mostly to you know, the
Speaker 2: Virgin of Wlupe. And from that point it is that
Speaker 2: that's the last time you can be hiking on that
Speaker 2: trail that far north and turn around and still see Mexico.
Speaker 2: Anything beyond that, it's kind of like the point of
Speaker 2: like you can't see Mexico, like you've got to keep
Speaker 2: moving forward. You've already gone, you know. At this point
Speaker 2: it's close to thirty I think air miles, so like
Speaker 2: you know, you know, walking miles is a lot more
Speaker 2: than that. Yeah, And they were at this kind of
Speaker 2: like rock boulder outcropping just about five minutes walk shy
Speaker 2: of the shrine when the sisters couldn't keep going anymore.
Speaker 2: And because of the extreme weather, in the extreme cold,
Speaker 2: they were soaking wet from the rain and then the
Speaker 2: you know, the sub freezing temperatures with the snowstorm they
Speaker 2: couldn't keep going anymore, and so they were kind of
Speaker 2: huddled up underneath of this boulder. It's the only spot
Speaker 2: that kind of gave like a little bit of shelter
Speaker 2: from that storm. Yet, I mean, those rocks are you
Speaker 2: know ice cubes, you know, being out there that long.
Speaker 2: So the two brothers I believe, left to try to
Speaker 2: get cell phone signal because you know, you're you're up
Speaker 2: pretty high in the mountains. I think that elevation up
Speaker 2: there on the mountain, I think it's somewhere around five
Speaker 2: thousand feet more so that that location where we're where
Speaker 2: they passed away, and the brothers they took off to
Speaker 2: try to get cell phone range to call and you
Speaker 2: know EMS, which turns out to be you know, border
Speaker 2: patrol in that region, and so got to hold a
Speaker 2: border patrol order. Patrol arrived to where the brothers were,
Speaker 2: and first thing, you know, before you know, rushing to
Speaker 2: try to make a rescue anything, they you know, detained
Speaker 2: and arrested the brothers for you know, for you know,
Speaker 2: human smuggling, trafficking, you know, just you know, being coyotes.
Speaker 2: And then they put in efforts of trying to rescue.
Speaker 2: By the time I believe that they got to the
Speaker 2: three sisters. Two of them had already passed away, and
Speaker 2: there was one that was still barely alive, unconscious, and
Speaker 2: due to the whether, as Board Patrol has stated, the agents,
Speaker 2: the four star you know rescue agents, the search and
Speaker 2: trauma rescue, they had to take off. They couldn't airlift
Speaker 2: the last remaining sister out because there was zero visibility.
Speaker 2: The helicopter couldn't even get like find them, couldn't get
Speaker 2: like anywhere close to them, couldn't hover because the wind
Speaker 2: was blown so hard. It was just about a whiteout condition. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, the most you know fucked situation possible, and
Speaker 2: Border Patrol in order to make sure it didn't turn
Speaker 2: into from a triple fatality to however many of them
Speaker 2: there were, I think there was three or fours they
Speaker 2: were out there, so to you know, in order to
Speaker 2: save their lives, they took off. They put the last
Speaker 2: remaining sister like in a like a puffy overall type
Speaker 2: of situation, and they had taken her wet clothes, They
Speaker 2: cut her wet clothes off her and you know, were
Speaker 2: actively trying to warm her with like heat packs and
Speaker 2: wrapping her and so they took off and kind of
Speaker 2: just like left her, you know, with basically as they said,
Speaker 2: the best you know, chances possible of survival, even though
Speaker 2: someone being left on their own in that condition there's
Speaker 2: zero chances of survival. Border patrol took off, allegedly injured themselves,
Speaker 2: you know, in doing so, got frostbited, et cetera. I
Speaker 2: think it was the next day, came back out for
Speaker 2: the would turned out to be the recovery, and all
Speaker 2: three sisters had passed away, you know, from you know,
Speaker 2: freezing to death. And so as we learned about that,
Speaker 2: you know, as the situation was unfolding, we reached out
Speaker 2: to the journalists who wrote the article in local San
Speaker 2: Diego Union Tribune. His name is Alex Riggins, and through
Speaker 2: you know, some back and forth contact, he was covering
Speaker 2: the trial of the two brothers that brought the sisters
Speaker 2: through their in court for their deaths, and reached out
Speaker 2: to see if we could find out any information, if
Speaker 2: he could, if Alex could let us know like maybe
Speaker 2: where the shrine trail was, or maybe where the location
Speaker 2: of the recovery was just something that we would have
Speaker 2: so we can, you know, put it on a map,
Speaker 2: figure out how to get there and get boots on
Speaker 2: the ground to leave supplies, you know, a few times
Speaker 2: a year, whether it's going to be really hot or
Speaker 2: really cold. We wanted to make sure that, you know,
Speaker 2: we responded to the crisis as we found out about it.
Speaker 2: That's something that we unfortunately have had to do all
Speaker 2: too common in this work, is that's we're planning the
Speaker 2: way that we learn.
Speaker 3: Yeah it's too late.
Speaker 2: Sometimes, yeah, yeah, a lot of you have to learn
Speaker 2: efforts too late. And that's part of our expansion of
Speaker 2: areas that we cover. That's how we learn stuff, and
Speaker 2: that's how we work at preventing you know, further suffering
Speaker 2: and further deaths. So we got more or less a
Speaker 2: good location and one of our team members at the time,
Speaker 2: he went out on a weekday that he had off,
Speaker 2: and he just went kind of driving around in the
Speaker 2: area and start hiking out in this area that looked
Speaker 2: like from the photos that were in the newspaper could
Speaker 2: have been this location. And he put in a long
Speaker 2: hike that day and he found the clothing that was
Speaker 2: removed from the last he found the like the puffy overalls.
Speaker 2: He found a bunch of medical equipment, like emergency equipment
Speaker 2: that was used for you know, the three sisters during
Speaker 2: that process. And shortly after that, I think it was
Speaker 2: just like a couple of weeks, we got together some
Speaker 2: of our strongest hikers and we decided to go out
Speaker 2: there and leave a bunch of supplies. And that is
Speaker 2: it is a hard, hard hike, whether you're you know,
Speaker 2: carrying thirty five forty pounds on your back or you're
Speaker 2: just carrying, you know, a backpack with like a bottle
Speaker 2: of water and some food. Like, it's hard no matter what.
Speaker 2: So we got up there and we left supplies, and
Speaker 2: you know, we've been going back usually before seasons change,
Speaker 2: whether it gets hot gets cold, and we we track
Speaker 2: to see if you know, anything's been taken. And it
Speaker 2: doesn't appear that that trail gets too much use, but
Speaker 2: it does get some use. Yeah. So you know, I
Speaker 2: don't know if if the three sisters passing away they
Speaker 2: had anything to do with like future travel for people
Speaker 2: on the trying trail or what, but you know, we
Speaker 2: make that commitment in their honor and to prevent anything
Speaker 2: like this ever happening again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sent me a very sad, very sad situation and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it so many things have to go wrong and so
Speaker 1: many people have to turn a blind eye, I guess
Speaker 1: for the three people to die.
Speaker 3: Like you know, there's blatant negligence on the part of
Speaker 3: border Patrol very regularly, given that they are supposedly like
Speaker 3: as James mentioned, the emergency medical service that's out there,
Speaker 3: and there is outright blatant, deadly discrimination that occurs when
Speaker 3: it comes to providing emergency services for migrants. In this case,
Speaker 3: they prioritize apprehension over saving people. Every moment is going
Speaker 3: to count and regardless of what the conditions were, those
Speaker 3: are the conditions, and that's the story that they're reporting.
Speaker 3: I think we rightfully are skeptical of anything that they
Speaker 3: say when it comes to rescues and how they prioritize
Speaker 3: doing so when we have seen entirely the opposite occur
Speaker 3: on a regular basis when they have the opportunity to
Speaker 3: provide aid them electing to do so. You know, going
Speaker 3: back to Hakumba, when people were out there and they
Speaker 3: had nothing, They weren't being provided a sip of water
Speaker 3: for days and days and days. Border patrol could have
Speaker 3: done that. If they are the emergency services they could
Speaker 3: have provided emergency aid when it comes to a rescue
Speaker 3: like this, they have the agency, they are the agency.
Speaker 3: They have the agency to deprioritize processing somebody for apprehension
Speaker 3: and prioritizing rescue, and they chose not to do it.
Speaker 3: Like time and time again, we see these situations and
Speaker 3: I think, like when you know, before we started recording
Speaker 3: and you asked, like, what's the thing that like we
Speaker 3: want to talk about that doesn't often get talked about,
Speaker 3: And I think it's this. I think it's the It's
Speaker 3: not just like the surveillance and the patrolling and all
Speaker 3: of that stuff that to humanizes migrants, but like when
Speaker 3: they're in danger, they're regarded as less than human by
Speaker 3: the because the only agency that's out there to help
Speaker 3: them is like the reason that they're in danger in
Speaker 3: the first place. So we have come across multiple search
Speaker 3: and rescues and that aren't migrant related, just being out
Speaker 3: in the desert where either a US citizen or in
Speaker 3: one instance, a tourist was lost in the desert, and
Speaker 3: they're response is night and day when there's a migrant
Speaker 3: that's lost and we are calling for assistance, you know,
Speaker 3: any kind of can a search be initiated. Can we
Speaker 3: get like the response is so blase and minimal, and
Speaker 3: there's no accounting, there's no holding them accountable for acting
Speaker 3: or failing to act right, and it's blatant, like and
Speaker 3: I think that's the thing that like the general public
Speaker 3: that isn't involved in this work like should know about
Speaker 3: how cruel it is and how little the response is
Speaker 3: when somebody is lost, when they're dying, when they're dead,
Speaker 3: like us having to call the coroner repeatedly to have
Speaker 3: children's bones picked up. That would not happen if that
Speaker 3: child was not presumed migrant. So this is like we
Speaker 3: have story after story after story of like situations like
Speaker 3: this is just one tragedy, but there's a lot of
Speaker 3: could have, should have, would have like on the end
Speaker 3: of like eight organizations that we carry, And it doesn't
Speaker 3: seem to ever be like a shared weight with any
Speaker 3: of the agencies that actually have the ability to respond
Speaker 3: to this kind of thing in like an organized way.
Speaker 3: They don't care, they don't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's like so much money spent on our border, right,
Speaker 1: Like I remember in Houcumber, I was like sitting underneath
Speaker 1: this thing for shade and then I like coming, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: just think us a million dollars, right that little trailer
Speaker 1: with the solar panels that intercepts the signals, like, and
Speaker 1: they didn't give these people a bottle of water, Like
Speaker 1: all the water came from other people, from random San
Speaker 1: Diego people who bought it, right, Like, and it's just
Speaker 1: such a strange priority. Well that's strange. It's a cruel
Speaker 1: and horrible priority choice. Right to prioritize is that kind
Speaker 1: of like enforcement of a human lives like which are
Speaker 1: being lost? And it's the same like you know, ever
Speaker 1: reported in Arizona or a turn, I spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time there. I spent a lot of time here,
Speaker 1: reported in Texas a couple of times. Like, it's the
Speaker 1: same all across the border, right, the priority is not
Speaker 1: rescuing people. It's and it's not even particularly enforcing the
Speaker 1: law as it's written. It's just stopping people coming here.
Speaker 3: Selectively though, yeah, selectively because they do let a significant
Speaker 3: amount of people through, Like even like in Hakumba, when
Speaker 3: people that weren't familiar with this whole kind of like
Speaker 3: smoke and mirror show of the border were coming and responding,
Speaker 3: they were saying like, well, why are they letting them through?
Speaker 3: Why is this open over here? Why is like the
Speaker 3: amount of surveillance. You know, We've had people come out
Speaker 3: of water drops and say like, oh, should we be
Speaker 3: hiding the water?
Speaker 2: Should we be doing this? And that?
Speaker 3: Should we like they have eyes on the whole desert.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and.
Speaker 3: It's they do there. The point is to stop people
Speaker 3: from coming through, but not completely right is that labor
Speaker 3: that's coming through?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that.
Speaker 3: They're selective and how much they like, you know, how
Speaker 3: much the gasket is being opened and shut.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in different sectors at different times, like it
Speaker 1: seems like things have done and even like, yeah, there
Speaker 1: are The other thing I think that people who don't
Speaker 1: live on the border don't realize is to what degree
Speaker 1: every single person here, whether they give a shit or not,
Speaker 1: is surveiled because they live near the border. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: but we saw them twenty eighteen with a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of friends of mine who who can't go
Speaker 1: to Mexico anymore, right, who have flagged passports. Yeah you too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so many people I know. I yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: how I went over return at that time, but I
Speaker 1: guess managed to avoid it. But yeah, it's it's it's that.
Speaker 1: And then like I have been in the middle of
Speaker 1: nowhere in the desert and found cameras, surveillance towers, right
Speaker 1: like stuff that would not be the Constitution is largely irrelevant,
Speaker 1: but like there wouldn't be legal or just like unjustifiable
Speaker 1: anywhere else, and like this spans from here to like
Speaker 1: our Otume friends in Arizona to Texas. Right like, if
Speaker 1: you live on the border, like or any within one
Speaker 1: hundred miles of the border, right, the border can come
Speaker 1: to you. It doesn't matter if you care or not.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if you consider yourself to be like
Speaker 1: an immigrant to the US, or if you've sort of
Speaker 1: decided that doesn't apply to you or you don't care
Speaker 1: about those people. Like then it doesn't matter that surveillance
Speaker 1: still impacts you, and often it impacts like our indigenous friends,
Speaker 1: right like like my myome friends Kumii friends had their
Speaker 1: graveyards bulldos to build the wall. And yeah, even if
Speaker 1: you don't even if you think the war is great,
Speaker 1: that your cell phone is still there through distinctray down.
Speaker 3: I know it's wild, Like how much people who are
Speaker 3: like very you know, right wing anti like you know,
Speaker 3: pro like freedom and all this stuff, like will very
Speaker 3: readily give up those freedoms and in exchange for like
Speaker 3: constant surveillance, like if it justifies the means of like
Speaker 3: you know, their big try or like whatever, like their
Speaker 3: worldview is like they're they're suddenly like very pro border patrol,
Speaker 3: very pro cop very true. Well that's like in direct
Speaker 3: conflict with like everything else that they're saying.
Speaker 1: Right, but yeah, it's freedom for who I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well also goes with the same people are saying, well, well,
Speaker 2: not breaking the law and then what do you have
Speaker 2: to do about Yeah, well everything starts at the border.
Speaker 2: So the surveillance, the facial recognition, the plate scanners, all
Speaker 2: that stuff started the border. And now we see that
Speaker 2: just recently, like the San Diego City Council approved to
Speaker 2: have the like the street like eras and all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, the lamps and all those you know,
Speaker 2: one hundreds of cameras that are going to be out
Speaker 2: there like that same type of technology, and like, well,
Speaker 2: if you're not breaking the law, it's like okay, we'll
Speaker 2: give a little bit of time until you're not breaking
Speaker 2: a law, and then like stuff still happens. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's that's how you know things. You know Snowball.
Speaker 1: Hey everyone, Shortly after we finished talking about why San
Speaker 1: Diego's lamp posts are also spies, my internet once again died.
Speaker 1: So that's what we're going to end it today. It's
Speaker 1: already been a long episode. But what I would like
Speaker 1: you all to know is that you can find Border
Speaker 1: Kindness online. You can find them on Instagram. You can
Speaker 1: find James there Brolo el Cordero prot to be able
Speaker 1: to work out how to spell that, and you can
Speaker 1: find them on Facebook, and you can find them on Instagram,
Speaker 1: and you can pretty much find them anywhere you go
Speaker 1: on the Internet by searching border Kindness and like jameson
Speaker 1: they in his I'm looking at his Instagram profile right now,
Speaker 1: it's Brolo el Cordero. I guess b r O l
Speaker 1: O e l c O r d E r O.
Speaker 1: James has a wish list, an Amazon wish list, so
Speaker 1: if you if you're not close to San Diego, then
Speaker 1: you can you can just click on there and buy
Speaker 1: them something. I'm sure you could collect donations and send
Speaker 1: those as well. So there are a lot of different
Speaker 1: ways you could help. But I hope you all enjoyed this.
Speaker 1: If you're in town and you want to help, go
Speaker 1: hike with them, and you can reach out to them
Speaker 1: on social media as well, and I'm sure they'd be
Speaker 1: happy to hear from you. Thanks so much for listening. Goodbye.
Speaker 2: It Could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 3: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.