Speaker 1: Hello, podcast fans, it's just me today, It's just James,
Speaker 1: and we're doing another episode about the border. I'm joined
Speaker 1: today by Emmett and David from the Borderlands Relief Collective.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk a little bit about people doing
Speaker 1: mutual aid on the border, the situation on the border
Speaker 1: and for those of you who live a long way
Speaker 1: away from it, and a sort of pretty shitty thing
Speaker 1: that Border patrol did to some supplies which were left
Speaker 1: out on the border earlier this month. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: met and David. If you'd like to sort of introduce
Speaker 1: yourself and expend a little bit about the roles you play,
Speaker 1: that would be great either. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1: My name's Emmett. I am putting my time between being
Speaker 1: a geochemist descriptionsitition of oceanography, a PhD student, and trying
Speaker 1: to reconcile what it means to be living in this
Speaker 1: border lands and being a private community that is partially
Speaker 1: criminalized depending on who you were, where you come from,
Speaker 1: and also what it means for you to seek safety
Speaker 1: and freedom in your life. So I work in several
Speaker 1: organizing spaces trying to shut down different detention centers as
Speaker 1: well as supporting folks just mckends meet in San Diego
Speaker 1: and also supporting people keeping their lives and staying alive
Speaker 1: in this extreme border borderlands that we live on. Hey,
Speaker 1: my name's David. My job I work as a surgeon.
Speaker 1: I've been living in San Diego for about ten years
Speaker 1: and I've been doing humanitarian volunteer work in the borderlands,
Speaker 1: which we call doing water drops, for something like six years.
Speaker 1: Got started with Border Angels and also did volunteer work
Speaker 1: with Border Kindness highly recommend that organization, and more recently
Speaker 1: have been doing water drops in a mountainous area between
Speaker 1: San Diego and TJ with friends and we just recently
Speaker 1: found a name for our group and it's Borderlands Relief Collective. Great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think maybe I think if people think of
Speaker 1: San Diego, they think of like the zoo and maybe
Speaker 1: SeaWorld and at the beach, you know that kind of shit. So, like,
Speaker 1: can you explain what it's like. I've spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time in the area where you guys do water drops.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what it's like and why it's such
Speaker 1: a difficult area to par through for people who are
Speaker 1: trying to move north. Well, yeah, San Diego. As you said,
Speaker 1: people think of the beach, but actually I think someone
Speaker 1: told me that San Diego County has some of the
Speaker 1: most diverse kind of ecosystems of any county in the
Speaker 1: so called USA. We have high mountains where it snows
Speaker 1: when it gets cold out. We have low deserts where
Speaker 1: it routinely exceeds one hundred degrees fahrenheit in the summertime,
Speaker 1: I mean one hundred twenty degrees fahrenheit in the summertime.
Speaker 1: And as far as the geography of migration, it really
Speaker 1: goes back to you know, it's a direct consequence of
Speaker 1: federal border policy. I think many people will be familiar
Speaker 1: with the term prevention through deterrence, which is sometimes elaborated
Speaker 1: as prevention of migration through environmental deterrence, and the whole
Speaker 1: concept is going way back to Clinton administration. The areas
Speaker 1: of the border near cities like San Diego were increasingly militarized,
Speaker 1: with high border fans, intense patrol by armed officers, and
Speaker 1: increasingly recently electronic surveillance, with the idea of relying on
Speaker 1: the extremely harsh terrain of the deserts and mountains to
Speaker 1: form a kind of a natural depense. But they quickly
Speaker 1: found out within you know, basically the first year or
Speaker 1: so of that federal policy, that numbers of people crossing
Speaker 1: the border did not decrease. However, of our deaths skyrocketed.
Speaker 1: And that's something we understood, you know, people in Washington,
Speaker 1: DC understood many many years ago. But the policy persists.
Speaker 1: So the bottom line is people who are crossing the
Speaker 1: border from Mexico to the USA often resort to crossing
Speaker 1: in the most remote and dangerous areas of the border.
Speaker 1: So the area that we're going to be talking about,
Speaker 1: this mountainous region between San Diego and Tijuana. Literally folks
Speaker 1: are going up and over the tallest mountain in the area,
Speaker 1: literally up and over the mountain, extremely arduous walk. When
Speaker 1: we do these water drops, we're well rested. We hike
Speaker 1: all day, and we come home exhausted, and we look
Speaker 1: at our our Gaya apps and find that we've only
Speaker 1: hiked a very small portion of the actual total journey.
Speaker 1: And we're always humbled by just the resilience and determination
Speaker 1: of people who do this crossing. Yeah, it's that's another
Speaker 1: thing I think people don't realize is that the amount
Speaker 1: of like physical just difficulty that people have to enjoy
Speaker 1: coming here is immense. And of course the reason that
Speaker 1: people are willing to take those risks because that it's
Speaker 1: not like they come from a place of safety, right,
Speaker 1: And it's not it's not it's not that they you know,
Speaker 1: the reason they're willing to take risks is because it's
Speaker 1: a risk. Being where they were is a risk. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people will maybe have become more
Speaker 1: engaged with Board of policy during the Trump here is
Speaker 1: certainly like the like legacy media narrative focused on the
Speaker 1: boarder very briefly, like maybe it peaked around the mid
Speaker 1: terms in twenty eighteen, I think, and then people have
Speaker 1: lost a lot of interests insane. So for those of
Speaker 1: us who live on the boarder, it's remarkable how little
Speaker 1: has changed. I think maybe it's not particularly remarkable because
Speaker 1: I don't think we're really effected it too, But like,
Speaker 1: can you explain what if anything has changed since twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one and how things have sort of remained the
Speaker 1: same in many ways? Yeah, I think it's a really
Speaker 1: good question, and it brings up a lot of the
Speaker 1: political nature or kind of skewed identity based conversations that
Speaker 1: exist in migration, and obviously there's a lot of rhetoric
Speaker 1: that is quite hyperbolic around the so called morality of
Speaker 1: people who are migrants in general, and then kind of
Speaker 1: categorizing certain people as worthy or not worthy of entrance
Speaker 1: in to the so called nation, and kind of further
Speaker 1: and more, what does it mean for people to believe
Speaker 1: any of those narratives and then support them at a
Speaker 1: federal political level. And as you're saying, during Trump era,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of conversation in response to very
Speaker 1: very hateful rhetoric from Trump and administration targeted at certain people,
Speaker 1: but not from a deep place of really understanding or
Speaker 1: characterizing the conversation in general or speaking by the fact
Speaker 1: that in San Diego or in California at large, more
Speaker 1: than half of the farm workers who kind of create
Speaker 1: this city that we are or the state that we are,
Speaker 1: and support the very backbone of the fact that we're
Speaker 1: all still having our hearts beat our migrants, and that
Speaker 1: our economy at large, as well as just the fabric
Speaker 1: of our nation is based on migrants and immigration. So
Speaker 1: for us to can choose what that looks like is
Speaker 1: not only missing the majority of the point, but is
Speaker 1: using as a talking piece is really as a talking
Speaker 1: piece for certain identities to feel vindicated to spend money
Speaker 1: and support certain for profit corporations like for example, of course, Civic,
Speaker 1: one of the largest prison corporations d prison corporations in
Speaker 1: the in the country, got one point nine billion dollars
Speaker 1: the previous year from the federal government. And therefore, like
Speaker 1: you think about the connection between these enterprises and stories
Speaker 1: about immigration are quite linked. So I don't have all
Speaker 1: the statistics in front of me about how the sepific
Speaker 1: number of crossings has changed or the population has changed,
Speaker 1: but on the whole, nothing has really changed as far
Speaker 1: as the need goes. So thinking about four years ago,
Speaker 1: what were the specific crises that were occurring that we're
Speaker 1: causing people to seek seek safety United States? Maybe some
Speaker 1: specific decision of change and others have arisen. And as
Speaker 1: more and more people are come to United States leaning
Speaker 1: from climate related disasters as well as ongoing stability, it's
Speaker 1: not as if the US has engaged in any real
Speaker 1: project to support people to begin with or understand the
Speaker 1: underlying causes. So from that standpoint, nothing meaningfully has happened
Speaker 1: from either administration to really understand or create policices that
Speaker 1: would support anyone seeking safety or from making decisions that
Speaker 1: are quote unquote aligned with US best interests. It's never
Speaker 1: been a part of the conversation. It's more to basically
Speaker 1: capitalize off of people in their suffering. Whether will that
Speaker 1: be to the you know, to be a storyline that
Speaker 1: US is helping people or is a savior of others,
Speaker 1: or is trying to crack down on armed bandits or
Speaker 1: or criminals who are crossing crossing this borderland. I think
Speaker 1: it is worth like that's the quote civic example is
Speaker 1: really interesting because Biden made a big thing of like
Speaker 1: talking about shutting down like quote unquote private prisons, but
Speaker 1: it's still very much like funding the same things when
Speaker 1: they're doth people who are citizens of this country or Yeah,
Speaker 1: and for those of those who aren't fully versed in
Speaker 1: kind of the basic relationship between private prisons and immigration UM.
Speaker 1: There are is a relationship that between customs and Border
Speaker 1: Protection UM and different prison corporations to basically UM. But
Speaker 1: people who are apprehended who are not initially deported under
Speaker 1: Title forty two in in the tension while their cases
Speaker 1: are ongoing and investigated UM or asylum or a refugee status.
Speaker 1: And so these prisons make a profit and can basically
Speaker 1: demand a certain money amount of money from the government
Speaker 1: per person who is within one of their facilities. And
Speaker 1: there's also a minimum that they will continually get money
Speaker 1: from the government regardless of whether the beds are filled,
Speaker 1: but they have an incentive to keep beds filled. So
Speaker 1: there is an economic relationship between these corporations and a
Speaker 1: government to basically put more people in detention. So that's
Speaker 1: a huge underpinning of this of this whole conversation is
Speaker 1: who is getting money and how does it kind of
Speaker 1: further the certain aims of corporations but also agencies that
Speaker 1: basically get a larger amount of federal funding through apprehension
Speaker 1: of people. Right, Yeah, like Biden has funded DHS more
Speaker 1: than Trump did, and like DHS's budget does Department of
Speaker 1: homedown security, of which Customs and Border Protection is a part.
Speaker 1: A border patrol is a part of customs and Border protection.
Speaker 1: It's pyramid of yeah, people putting people in prison, and
Speaker 1: it's also worth like reinforcing I think for people that
Speaker 1: like the people have done nothing wrong at the point
Speaker 1: in which they are incarcerated, right, Like they have obeyed
Speaker 1: all relevant laws and are yet in conditions which we've
Speaker 1: decided not befitting prisoners in the United States, but are
Speaker 1: okay for these people. Not that anyone should be incarcerated,
Speaker 1: but yeah, there's still a two tier system. So can
Speaker 1: you explain a little bit about your effort to do
Speaker 1: mutual aid and to like do a little bit of
Speaker 1: kindness on the border and make things a little bit
Speaker 1: better out there for people who are coming north. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what we do again just is in collaboration with other
Speaker 1: organizations that have been around a long time, a lot
Speaker 1: longer than we have a border Angels Order Kindness in California,
Speaker 1: nor our Deaths in Arizona, many other organizations, and it really,
Speaker 1: you know, boils down to we don't want people to
Speaker 1: die on you know, the trails crossing through the borderlines,
Speaker 1: and that actually informs where we drop Unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 1: all of our recent new routes that we supply, they're
Speaker 1: directly because we know that people have died in those
Speaker 1: locations or required rescue. We work in very close relationship
Speaker 1: with other volunteer organizations that focus on search and rescue
Speaker 1: and search and recovery. Search and recovery meaning recovering human
Speaker 1: remains of people who have died. So there's a number
Speaker 1: about standing organizations that operate in California, Arizona, Texas. These
Speaker 1: include Eagles of the Desert, Armadillo's many other organizations. Most
Speaker 1: of these are actually made up of volunteers who are
Speaker 1: first generation immigrants, mostly from Mexico. And so when people
Speaker 1: die or require rescue, we do find out for from
Speaker 1: our our friends and comrades in these uh SAR organizations
Speaker 1: and we build um water drop routes directly around that knowledge.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it really boils down to, yeah, we don't
Speaker 1: want more people to die making making this journey, and
Speaker 1: so as far as what kind of supplies we leave,
Speaker 1: it's what we think may make a difference. We leave
Speaker 1: bottles of water, energy drinks like Electrolyte, Gatorade and so on,
Speaker 1: hands of food with poptops, all kinds of cans of
Speaker 1: fruit beans, you know, chili, whatever, you know, whatever we
Speaker 1: think people may need. Of course, we tailor it based
Speaker 1: on the time of year. In the mountains, in the
Speaker 1: winter gets freezing cold, lots and lots of rain. So
Speaker 1: we've been leaving waterproof ponchos, warm clothing and the summer.
Speaker 1: Of course, it gets scorching hot in the desert. People
Speaker 1: die of hyperthermia. They literally cooked to death. That's where
Speaker 1: electrolytes come in. Handy sun hats, bandanas, baseball hats, first
Speaker 1: aid gets. We leave kits full of medical supplies, and
Speaker 1: more recently, you know, just observing the kind of used
Speaker 1: items that we find on the trail. Kids stuff, diapers, pacifiers,
Speaker 1: you know, we leave you know, tampons, um, you know
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, um, containers of infant formula. So
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's kind of an iterative process.
Speaker 1: M just leaving what we think people need. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of what we do. And just so
Speaker 1: folks are super clear, this is all like an initiative
Speaker 1: among you and your comrades, right, right, then you're not
Speaker 1: supported by any like government entity. That's the government entity
Speaker 1: is kind of doing quite the opposite of what you're doing. Yeah, correct,
Speaker 1: We are all volunteers in the sense that nobody is paid.
Speaker 1: We don't have any formal affiliations with any other NGOs,
Speaker 1: much less governmental organizations. Right, So maybe people are wondering
Speaker 1: they might have been familiar with the court case in
Speaker 1: Arizona or they might not be like, if what you're
Speaker 1: doing is considered to be like legal humanitarian aid or not,
Speaker 1: are you comfortable talking about that? Yeah? So I think
Speaker 1: that's that's definitely a gray area that we find ourselves
Speaker 1: really occupying. Um And I think that's a bit of
Speaker 1: this kind of propaganda machine, is what does it mean
Speaker 1: to engage with somebody who is seeking safety and fleeing
Speaker 1: for their lives. There's a certain place where that's how
Speaker 1: died to be a wonderful thing if you're Catholic charities
Speaker 1: and are providing beds um And for example, I wanted
Speaker 1: to make that distinction between several kind of charity organizations
Speaker 1: who do receive federal money to be engaged in this
Speaker 1: conversation versus grassroots mutual aid networks and communities who are
Speaker 1: doing this because it feels like it's part of their
Speaker 1: communities mission, their families mission, or it means it's part
Speaker 1: of them being true to themselves and true to what
Speaker 1: feels just in this in this very confusing world. So
Speaker 1: what we're doing is very explicitly leaving humanitarian aids supplies
Speaker 1: that are potentially life saving in areas where we know
Speaker 1: people need them. We are not having any specific or
Speaker 1: hands on or person to person engagement with with anybody,
Speaker 1: so they're in in Arizona. Nomamrtes became part of a
Speaker 1: conversation about providing critical medical support, and that was a
Speaker 1: court case that really test the limits of what does
Speaker 1: it mean to be in this gray area and what
Speaker 1: was really important from the nuances in that conversation where
Speaker 1: what constitutes aiding and a betting or so called aiding
Speaker 1: and abetting of legal immigration, which is basically again a
Speaker 1: very large gray area between are you are you enticing
Speaker 1: people to cross? Are you being paid as a smuggler
Speaker 1: to cross? Are you doing something which is encouraging people
Speaker 1: to cross? None of which was activity that was engaged
Speaker 1: with the most MUDs or us, but in their case
Speaker 1: specifically providing medical aid across the boundary, and they were
Speaker 1: rated their their their camp and their impromptu field tents
Speaker 1: where they were providing life saving medical support where it
Speaker 1: was rated and the kind of the finer points of
Speaker 1: that were that the outset being that the First Amendment
Speaker 1: protects humans in their religious freedom to practice whatever it
Speaker 1: be that furthers their religious beliefs in a faith and
Speaker 1: a very large point of their work was their affiliation
Speaker 1: and dedication to preserving human life, which, as we can
Speaker 1: imagine for many folks listening to this or in general,
Speaker 1: that is very core to their belief system. And so
Speaker 1: there are very clear protections in the First Amendment of
Speaker 1: preserve people's right to practice their religion. So that was
Speaker 1: a case that that kind of established a lot of
Speaker 1: what we're working under is these basic protections to be
Speaker 1: humanitarian aid workers, um, following basic belief systems. What we're
Speaker 1: doing specifically is leaving supplies. So leaving supplies, the most
Speaker 1: egregious thing you can you can basically say about that
Speaker 1: is that we're littering or that we're other abandoning property.
Speaker 1: And so again no mass markets. And in this in
Speaker 1: this larger conversation, UH was established in the court that
Speaker 1: leaving humanitarian aid supplies that we're with the intent of
Speaker 1: saving lives is not litter. So that was also a
Speaker 1: very big point, which is saying, no, we are not
Speaker 1: just kind of going walking down the street and throwing
Speaker 1: out your bottle the back of your truck. This is
Speaker 1: specifically with the intent of saving lives. And the third
Speaker 1: place is that we are abandoning something in this in
Speaker 1: this area that would be constituted abandoned property. And as
Speaker 1: we'll speak about Meybere in the future, our supplies are
Speaker 1: consumed quite rapidly, and there is a statute in this
Speaker 1: in this state of it is it a ban of
Speaker 1: property has to be it has to be left for
Speaker 1: more than ten days to be considered a band of property.
Speaker 1: So even if we are leaving things in these regions,
Speaker 1: it is not considered a ban of property. It's been
Speaker 1: less than ten days. So basically I guess just to
Speaker 1: to say that nothing we're doing is illegal from any standpoint.
Speaker 1: And also the case in Arizona kind of helped make
Speaker 1: a distinguishing mixing distinctions between whether our activity is is
Speaker 1: also frowned upon in public land, which it is not,
Speaker 1: because it is constituting humanitarian aid in a place that
Speaker 1: it is desperately needed. Right. And I think if folks
Speaker 1: go out to like I mean most people aren't going
Speaker 1: out to like Value of the Moon or what have you,
Speaker 1: but like, if you want to look for abandoned stuff,
Speaker 1: that it's not hard to find, and it's not you
Speaker 1: guys doing that like shooting barrels or whatever that like
Speaker 1: some almost shooting the barrel last time I was let's
Speaker 1: talk about how quickly those supplies are consumed, because I
Speaker 1: think again that will be like news to some people, right,
Speaker 1: like you guys are out there every week and like
Speaker 1: how much stuff are dropping and how quick news it go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to tell you the truth, we're still we're still finding
Speaker 1: out ourselves because every time we think we know the answer,
Speaker 1: we're surprised by how fast it's being consumed. The bottom
Speaker 1: line is it's being consumed as fast as we can
Speaker 1: leave this supply. So Emma and I and many other
Speaker 1: of the members of our organization, Borderland's Relief Collective, we
Speaker 1: also are active in border kindness and in the past
Speaker 1: with Border Angels, and so we're used to a certain
Speaker 1: rhythm of doing a water drop, circling back usually a
Speaker 1: month later, and we're happy if maybe half of the
Speaker 1: supplies have been consumed, that's a good day. When we
Speaker 1: started doing water drops in this mountainous region, first of all,
Speaker 1: we were just blown away by the evidence of heavy
Speaker 1: foot travel. I mean, these are even though you'll never
Speaker 1: find a hiker, a recreational hiker on these trails, they
Speaker 1: look like like established trails. They're worn in trails, and
Speaker 1: when we started doing these water drops, there's there's just
Speaker 1: a river of discarded water bottles, clothing, food wrappers, and
Speaker 1: just things that we have never seen before, that amount
Speaker 1: of human activity, literally on the top of a mountain
Speaker 1: where you never would think why would someone cross over
Speaker 1: a top of a mountain to get from point eight
Speaker 1: to point B. So, like I said, we're still learning
Speaker 1: what the proper interval is. Some of these locations that
Speaker 1: we drop, we come back a week later and they're
Speaker 1: pretty much one hundred percent consumed. So yeah, we really
Speaker 1: it's become apparent. We've been having a lot of discussions
Speaker 1: that we're very eager in trying to expand our number
Speaker 1: of volunteers because the more we do this in this
Speaker 1: mountainous region, the more we learn how pressing the need is.
Speaker 1: So we're having a hard time just supplying essentially one
Speaker 1: path that goes up and over the mountain, and we
Speaker 1: know that this is just one of many paths that
Speaker 1: are used by people in this region. And so really
Speaker 1: we're finding one hundred percent consumption every week or two
Speaker 1: at most of our drop spots. Yeah, so if people
Speaker 1: did want to, we could just get that in here
Speaker 1: now if people did want to help you and they're
Speaker 1: in the region, it would they be able to deserve
Speaker 1: where they could reach out? Yeah? Sure, we just like
Speaker 1: I said, we just came up with our name after
Speaker 1: a fun communal decision making process, and we just a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago did our first post on social media.
Speaker 1: So if anybody's on Instagram, just search for Borderland's Relief
Speaker 1: Collective and click on you know, the email and send
Speaker 1: us a DM. Get in touch if you're anywhere near
Speaker 1: the San Diego we'd love to talk to you and
Speaker 1: definitely would like to expand the number of volunteers. So
Speaker 1: you spoke a little bit about like we spoke about
Speaker 1: this Arizona case right where people got rated. I know
Speaker 1: you guys have also had some less than stellar interactions
Speaker 1: with CBP Border Patrol specifically, and as I get really
Speaker 1: mad if I call it customs, the Border patrols customer
Speaker 1: Border Protection. So you guys had a thing, was it
Speaker 1: last month now in March? And do you want to
Speaker 1: explain a little bit about what what happened in the instant?
Speaker 1: First of all, Yeah, So as part of our so
Speaker 1: I think, as we already talked about, we go out
Speaker 1: every weekend. And that's again we're all busy lives. David
Speaker 1: is literally a surgeon, and um, we're basically trying to
Speaker 1: find a time that we can get people together to
Speaker 1: go out there. So we picked the weekends, and we
Speaker 1: have a changing number of people who are able to
Speaker 1: be out there with us. So as one of our
Speaker 1: normal water drop weekends, a route that starts basically at
Speaker 1: a road that has been along the ridge of Thaie Mountain.
Speaker 1: We start hiking down on the south side towards towards
Speaker 1: the towards the border. Um and I've established multiple routes
Speaker 1: along that path, and this one particularly is so slow going.
Speaker 1: Um you only go a couple of miles and it
Speaker 1: takes you most of your Saturday because of how steep
Speaker 1: it is, the how thick though the brush is, UM
Speaker 1: and also kind of as they was saying earlier, even
Speaker 1: in the middle of day day daytime, with hiking boots,
Speaker 1: it's really treacherous. And we've we've spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time making sure that we're safe in the process of
Speaker 1: of going there ourselves. So as we we left our
Speaker 1: first drop and then a second and went down to
Speaker 1: our final drop and turned back and started going back
Speaker 1: up the mountain and we came to our second drop site,
Speaker 1: and as we arrived, we found um something that was
Speaker 1: kind of really hard to process at first for us,
Speaker 1: which was that every single item that we had purposefully
Speaker 1: put inside of a crate and we had counted and
Speaker 1: we had a left as we do, was scattered and
Speaker 1: littered across the ground. We had left more than twenty
Speaker 1: liters of water, and every single bottle of water was
Speaker 1: opened and dumped out and thrown indiscriminately around the site.
Speaker 1: We had left again something like twenty hands of food beans, tuna,
Speaker 1: condensed milk, fruit, and every single can had been opened
Speaker 1: and had been its content thrown around the area. We
Speaker 1: had left bags of socks and hats, and those were
Speaker 1: covered in beans and fruit and again thrown into bushes
Speaker 1: like not be used. We had handwarmers because it's very
Speaker 1: cold and handwarmers are essential to kind of keep mobility,
Speaker 1: and every single one was diligently opened, as if someone
Speaker 1: had really enjoyed taking time opening it and thrusting into
Speaker 1: the dirt. And that was something that was like so
Speaker 1: painful and just confusing, very demoralizing, as you can imagine
Speaker 1: after just hiking that far, but more so it's felt
Speaker 1: so deliberate and hurtful, and initially we're, of course wondering
Speaker 1: what had happened. We've done this for several years, many years,
Speaker 1: and never had we seen something like this before. And
Speaker 1: it became very apparent that someone had deliberately destroyed our
Speaker 1: our crate, even the create itself. This milk carton was
Speaker 1: smashed in half. The bottom of it was torn out,
Speaker 1: and that is something that's very hard to achieve. Milk
Speaker 1: cartons are not very light, thin plastic. This was someone
Speaker 1: had had actively put a lot of force into smashing
Speaker 1: a milk cart so that nothing was left behind we
Speaker 1: on the way down. One thing that I didn't say
Speaker 1: a second ago was that we had seen an agent
Speaker 1: on the trail, which was unique for us because normally
Speaker 1: they're just in their cars with binoculars looking from the road.
Speaker 1: So we had seen someone near the trail but lost
Speaker 1: track of them earlier, and we had kind of put
Speaker 1: it out of our minds. So after this happened, we
Speaker 1: had kind of put two and two together and were
Speaker 1: wondering if this agent had followed us down the trail
Speaker 1: to this site. And then while we had left stayed
Speaker 1: behind and destroyed the goods. It seemed like the beans
Speaker 1: were still drying and the fruit was still drying in
Speaker 1: the sunlight, so it hadn't have been too too far
Speaker 1: from the time that we had dropped initially. UM. And
Speaker 1: this is at a moment that there was five of
Speaker 1: us and trying to figure out what it meant for
Speaker 1: us to deal with this. Several two of us, including
Speaker 1: myself UM, raced ahead to try to interact with whoever
Speaker 1: has up the trail, knowing that they couldn't have been
Speaker 1: too far away, not with any specific plan other than
Speaker 1: just ask them what what did they do and why
Speaker 1: did they do that? Just in the sense of outrage
Speaker 1: that this sense of just like moral corruption that someone
Speaker 1: would destroy this in a time that the CBP as
Speaker 1: well as we know that people are losing our lives
Speaker 1: because of lack of access to these very goods that
Speaker 1: were destroyed. Yeah, so we raced race back as fast
Speaker 1: as we could. It was about a forty five minute
Speaker 1: hike back up, and we were really breathless and almost
Speaker 1: at the kind of point of feeling sick to our
Speaker 1: stomach because we were both outraged and also hikes faster
Speaker 1: than we should have. Um, And just as we've gotten
Speaker 1: back to our car, is kind of giving up hope
Speaker 1: that we'd interact with them. We saw two agents in
Speaker 1: their cars kind of pull away, and we flagged them
Speaker 1: down and got in front of them and kind of
Speaker 1: motion for them to come back so we could speak
Speaker 1: to them. And I'm not saying we're the most savvy people,
Speaker 1: but we basically ramped them and said, did you destroy
Speaker 1: these are our supplies, to which they acknowledged that they did.
Speaker 1: And only afterwards were we able to get our wits
Speaker 1: together to start recording them. And as both here in
Speaker 1: the audio, they acknowledged the fact that they knew where
Speaker 1: our site was, and they acknowledge the fact that they
Speaker 1: regularly destroy goods. And for us, the entire interaction was
Speaker 1: just so sickening, um first of it. After a while
Speaker 1: there was five of them with their guns and there
Speaker 1: they're large guns out. As well as their basic intention
Speaker 1: to use intimidation, their sheer numbers, as well as this
Speaker 1: kind of reverse authority they have as the sole kind
Speaker 1: of agents in charge of this public land, this is
Speaker 1: wilderness and BLM land, which they have no authority over us,
Speaker 1: yet use this this sense of just power and ability
Speaker 1: to cause harm, to minimize anybody else being able to
Speaker 1: advocate for themselves. So we tried to stop them from
Speaker 1: from doing that, and it kept asking them did you
Speaker 1: destroy our water? And why did you do that? And
Speaker 1: is that within your job description? Because there was something
Speaker 1: very clear to them to us that they didn't even
Speaker 1: know what their legality was. They kept trying to deflect
Speaker 1: it the conversations saying, oh, migrants are leaving trash all
Speaker 1: the time, and referring to people as illegal aliens with
Speaker 1: this kind of larger rhetoric, as saying that like they're
Speaker 1: they're trashing the mountain side, like it's it's their fault.
Speaker 1: And as we repeatedly asked them, did you destroy our water,
Speaker 1: and they repeatedly said, well have you seen have you
Speaker 1: seen what they do and then kind of also saying well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we try to clean things up, we try to pick
Speaker 1: them up, but but but that specific site was too far,
Speaker 1: so we just left it. We just destroyed it and
Speaker 1: left it. Which as on the on the piggybacking on
Speaker 1: their conversation about this trash and that we're littering, and
Speaker 1: they're accusing us of aiding and abetting illegal immigration. They
Speaker 1: basically have nothing left to say about what their actions
Speaker 1: meant and without within their purview their mandate of their jobs.
Speaker 1: And it was an act you could tell they were
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with because they were not within their job description.
Speaker 1: And we asked for their supervisor. They said they're going
Speaker 1: on the phone supervisor. Upriser never materialized, and we can
Speaker 1: only assume that they had a conversation with somebody in
Speaker 1: a superior saying back down, what you're doing is is
Speaker 1: not correct and don't engage further. And since then we've
Speaker 1: had a conversation with their superiors and with with CVP
Speaker 1: offices to the effect of saying that this was not
Speaker 1: within their job description and this they did not condone
Speaker 1: this act of it, so um kind of looking into
Speaker 1: that further. They were very much acting as individuals, but
Speaker 1: individuals within a culture of abuse and within a culture
Speaker 1: of of sabotaging humans access to life saving supplies. And
Speaker 1: that was nothing new to them, that they did nothing.
Speaker 1: They had never encountered somebody trying to oppose them for
Speaker 1: doing that. It is back to let me ask you,
Speaker 1: let me ask you, SPO that was that yours? Was
Speaker 1: that yours? Too, is your property exactly and you and
Speaker 1: you slash I'm wondering why you did that property? You
Speaker 1: did not we were going on a fight in your
Speaker 1: duck description to slash water and open cans and damn
Speaker 1: this area, tobend the property and it's a long hig
Speaker 1: Would I do that get you? Oh? I'm like curious.
Speaker 1: I'm just so paid for you to do. You have
Speaker 1: and patrols in twenty five and look for property property
Speaker 1: illegal and what do you do with it? What you
Speaker 1: do with it? We destroy, We try to clean it up.
Speaker 1: That's cleaning it up. That's one of the things that
Speaker 1: was not cleaning it up or try to clean it up.
Speaker 1: That was too far for us. So we decided to
Speaker 1: just trash the whole area. Like when when they funded
Speaker 1: and equipped and transported and armed by the state, and
Speaker 1: like's that's not the same as in individuals, just because
Speaker 1: we've seen that in Arizona, right, like people who are
Speaker 1: militias or what have you going out and sabotaging life
Speaker 1: saving supplies as well. But it's still a little different
Speaker 1: when you know, we have to pay taxes for them
Speaker 1: to go destroy water cashes. And these are people who
Speaker 1: regularly as we've seen on multiple occasions use helicopters to
Speaker 1: try to blush people out of under a tree that
Speaker 1: they fly within thirty feet of the ground and use
Speaker 1: the force of the rotors to force people out and
Speaker 1: upper hillside to waiting cars. So their use of money
Speaker 1: and their use of force is definitely central to the tactics. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: or he's helicopters to fied two guests into Mexico and
Speaker 1: it did a few years ago. But yeah, it's certainly,
Speaker 1: and that intimidation is like if I think people again
Speaker 1: who don't live here might not be familiar with it.
Speaker 1: Like I've been out in down by the border with
Speaker 1: KUMIAI people doing religious ceremony and had bought at guys
Speaker 1: dressed like you know, like navy seals hanging out with
Speaker 1: are fifteens and plate carriers. Well, people like burn stage
Speaker 1: and pray. It's yeah, I mean the militarization. If you
Speaker 1: somehow can't conceive the care of people dying in the desert,
Speaker 1: the militarization of the border still affects everyone here and
Speaker 1: it makes our lives left safe. There's a crime crime
Speaker 1: thinks logan that I always like to like use in
Speaker 1: these things, which is the border doesn't protect you, it
Speaker 1: controls you, which I think it's kind of apt for this.
Speaker 1: So now that they've trashed your supplies, right and you
Speaker 1: found out they weren't supposed to, I'm interested like, how
Speaker 1: going forward, does that mean that you can't use that
Speaker 1: you can't terrupt stuff there anymore because you're worried about
Speaker 1: it happening again, or because you're worried about them hanging
Speaker 1: out there to intersect people who are using your like
Speaker 1: supply cash. On the contrary, we've learned from the examples
Speaker 1: of other people who have been doing this work. Emma
Speaker 1: had already mentioned no mas mertes, no more debts in Arizona,
Speaker 1: Doctor Scott Warren. We've learned so much from their example
Speaker 1: where you know, they were hauled into federal court and
Speaker 1: one and so we've learned from from their examples of
Speaker 1: how to how to do this as well as within
Speaker 1: here in California. The history of Border Angels so back
Speaker 1: a few years ago, Border Patrol was slashing gallons of
Speaker 1: water in the deserts of eastern San Diego County as
Speaker 1: well as Imperial County. On one particular day, the Border
Speaker 1: Angels volunteers found about fifty gallons of water slashed and
Speaker 1: the most violent way, and they knew it was Border Patrol.
Speaker 1: And so the way Border Angels responded was number One,
Speaker 1: to change their actics to start dropping supplies deeper in
Speaker 1: the backcountry where the Border Patrol agents. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: it's rare to find a BP agent that's motivated enough
Speaker 1: to really hike hike for too far away from their
Speaker 1: air conditioned vehicles in the summertime. So number one, they
Speaker 1: were going farther away from the roads and highways to
Speaker 1: the actual routes that people are walking. Number Two, they
Speaker 1: punched back hard, h in in public using social media
Speaker 1: back then it was Facebook. You know this is going
Speaker 1: to be you know, right when Instagram was getting popular,
Speaker 1: but just you know, getting the word out. And Border
Speaker 1: Angels is an organization that's been around for decades. They
Speaker 1: have a big following. The words spread and just like
Speaker 1: many bullies, um, you know, they kind of back down
Speaker 1: if you get in their face, uh sometimes so, so
Speaker 1: that was our experience with this practice of Border Patrol
Speaker 1: slashing gallons in the desert with Border Angels. So when
Speaker 1: this um this crime occurred on March eighteenth in the mountains.
Speaker 1: We knew we could not back down, so we went
Speaker 1: back a few days later. That's when, as Emmett mentioned,
Speaker 1: we witnessed Border patrol helicopter for about an hour flying about.
Speaker 1: You know, it seemed like, you know, ten fifteen feet
Speaker 1: off the ground, uh, really really low, using the the
Speaker 1: rotor wash to flush a flush human beings out of
Speaker 1: the brush as if they were hunting animals. Um. And
Speaker 1: then we were back, you know, the next seven days later,
Speaker 1: after they destroyed the supplies, we went back with a
Speaker 1: good group number one to clean up this, uh, this
Speaker 1: shameful mess these these two Border patrol goons left. We
Speaker 1: cleaned up all of all of that stuff, and we
Speaker 1: probably what three times the amount of original supplies and
Speaker 1: on our milk rates. We actually left laminated signs that
Speaker 1: addressed one by one all of the accusations that these
Speaker 1: Border Patrol agents tried to make against us. So the
Speaker 1: signs say, do not destroy, do not remove. This is
Speaker 1: not garbage, We are not littering, and this is not
Speaker 1: abandoned property. This is these are humanitarian aid supplies protected
Speaker 1: by federal case law, the nineteen ninety four Protection of
Speaker 1: Religious Freedom Act, and so on and so forth, So
Speaker 1: we put those signs just prominently on the milk rates,
Speaker 1: you know, just to send a message that no, we're
Speaker 1: not going to back down. We are going to leave supplies. Uh.
Speaker 1: It is within our rights and it is in support
Speaker 1: of human rights to do this. So of course we
Speaker 1: have to be strategic about this. I mean there is
Speaker 1: the danger, you know, if we're always going back to
Speaker 1: the same place. You know, we're kind of you know,
Speaker 1: blowing up the spot as it were. You know, we're
Speaker 1: bringing heat to a route that's that's needed by people
Speaker 1: making a crossing, and so we are we are mindful
Speaker 1: of that, you know, we don't we try to go
Speaker 1: to different places on different weekends and not trying to
Speaker 1: bring too much attention to these paths. Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. And I wonder that like
Speaker 1: if people are I was just thinking for people to
Speaker 1: visualize the area, if there are a place I could
Speaker 1: look up on like Google ass, so they could see
Speaker 1: like where this kind of stuff is happening. If you comfortable,
Speaker 1: you don't have to give like a exact location obviously.
Speaker 1: But yeah, actually, I mean, speaking of Google Earth, you
Speaker 1: mentioned a valley of the moon. I mean Google Earth
Speaker 1: is impressive enough. Anybody can just use Google Earth and
Speaker 1: zoom in all the way and just follow along the
Speaker 1: border and you'll find thousands of footpaths. So yeah, it
Speaker 1: doesn't take yeah, like a much detective work to actually
Speaker 1: visually see these footpaths. But yeah, it's real steep terrain.
Speaker 1: As Emmett mentioned, the last couple times we've gone back
Speaker 1: to this spot where the two agents destroyed the supplies,
Speaker 1: Emmett has actually brought a mountain climbing rope just to
Speaker 1: make certain sections easier where we're kind of repelling down
Speaker 1: this dry waterfalls. So really really steep, very loose trails,
Speaker 1: very easy to break an ankle, and it just in
Speaker 1: that context, it really it really hits you. We see
Speaker 1: so many shoes and boots along the path and just
Speaker 1: have to kind of just pause and think, well, this
Speaker 1: person lost their shoe, if the if they're the soul
Speaker 1: of their boot melted off, and they're hours away from
Speaker 1: the nearest road, what does it mean? How did they
Speaker 1: complete the journey? Did they complete their journey? Um, So yeah,
Speaker 1: a little bit hard to describe, but I guess any yeah,
Speaker 1: anybody who's I guess kind of familiar with with the
Speaker 1: southern California, steep, steep mountains, loose terrain, kind of get
Speaker 1: the picture. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they kind of got value
Speaker 1: the main it's plenty of pictures of the very intimidating
Speaker 1: board offense that they have, like three foot and rusty.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else that you guys wanted to address
Speaker 1: that you feel like maybe people don't the people should
Speaker 1: know about the board that they don't about the work
Speaker 1: you do that maybe is misunderstood. Yeah, I guess I
Speaker 1: want to maybe bring up some of what it I
Speaker 1: think is hard to convey to people who aren't there
Speaker 1: and I aren't m connected to a community who is
Speaker 1: suffering because of this, or who aren't maybe thinking along
Speaker 1: the lines of, um, what it means to be a
Speaker 1: human in this space and actually be risking your life
Speaker 1: and coming up against helicopters and a federally backed militia
Speaker 1: who is actively seeking to harm you. None of us
Speaker 1: in our group are claiming any anything more than just witnessing, um,
Speaker 1: what it means to be out there. But I guess
Speaker 1: what's been true for me and in kind of my
Speaker 1: conversations with my community as over the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: is trying to share this there is there is so
Speaker 1: much pain that is being inflicted upon this landscape, and
Speaker 1: there is so much harm that is actively supported by
Speaker 1: our nation while people are in some of the most
Speaker 1: intimate and painful moments of their lives. Leaving your home,
Speaker 1: whether it be in another continent where you need to
Speaker 1: take a flight over to make this crossing, or whether
Speaker 1: it be piking through Central America starting in South America
Speaker 1: for months before reaching this moment, or leaving your your
Speaker 1: your family, in your in your community closer to the
Speaker 1: to the to the border. These are moments that anyone
Speaker 1: who is alive could feel the pain of and the
Speaker 1: misery of having to abandon all that you know, UM
Speaker 1: and put yourself at the mercy of the desert and
Speaker 1: cbps overly aggressive and and and and harmful tactics. UM.
Speaker 1: So beyond all of the cases and the politics, I
Speaker 1: just I, oftentimes, as we're walking, just try to put
Speaker 1: myself in the position of someone who is who is
Speaker 1: making these decisions. And as Dave was saying, we're coming
Speaker 1: across people's clothing, food, underwear, places they've slept, and the
Speaker 1: amount of UM, the poignancy of human desire to be safe,
Speaker 1: to to come to a place where they feel like
Speaker 1: their lives can be um protected or that that choice
Speaker 1: is worthwhile. Is something that so lost in the numbers,
Speaker 1: in the amount of people who die or what happens
Speaker 1: after it, And so for us, I think making it
Speaker 1: not about your political beliefs or the asylum process, but
Speaker 1: just the actual choices people are are having to make
Speaker 1: very human decisions. That is something that is kind of
Speaker 1: haunts us. And the feeling that all we can do
Speaker 1: is leave water in a place that it might make
Speaker 1: the difference between someone in that position surviving or not.
Speaker 1: And furthermore, just living in a community where you know,
Speaker 1: from the top of the mountain we can see downtown
Speaker 1: San Diego and all of the luxury of this military town,
Speaker 1: all of the universities, and all of this opportunity that
Speaker 1: we enjoy, and just a couple of miles away, the
Speaker 1: lack of access to just water, feeling how similar humans
Speaker 1: are to each other in our basic needs and how
Speaker 1: that's being taken from people is really is really harmful.
Speaker 1: And particularly as you were saying, these are areas held
Speaker 1: sacred by the Kumiai people and have been have been
Speaker 1: places of migration for at least ten thousand years. These
Speaker 1: are places that were difficult to travel and that people
Speaker 1: did for similar reasons to survive, to be safe. And
Speaker 1: there is a legacy of oyas of of clay pots
Speaker 1: buried in the sand for travelers that has been ongoing
Speaker 1: for thousands of years. And for our current administration and
Speaker 1: government to create this wall in this place of so
Speaker 1: much pain is just testament to just the insanity of
Speaker 1: our desire to protect border against something else, protecting the
Speaker 1: borders against something that we feel is harmful to us. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: this migration is fundamentally how we survive and how we
Speaker 1: respond to these moments of change in humanity. And criminalizing
Speaker 1: that and cluding hearts of that is just by back.
Speaker 1: I'll let you collect your thoughts and you can come
Speaker 1: back and make that statement, because I think you do
Speaker 1: it very eloquently. But I want to jump on there
Speaker 1: and just kind of echo and elaborate on what you said. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we find lots and lots of physical items, but we
Speaker 1: also meet people on the trails, and that's a new thing.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been doing these water drops for some
Speaker 1: time now. But you know, when you say what has
Speaker 1: changed under Biden, not much there's more people crossing the
Speaker 1: border than ever, there are more people dying than ever.
Speaker 1: As far as as a volunteer who spends most weekends
Speaker 1: out in the borderlines, the only thing I notice is
Speaker 1: they stopped building Trump's thirty foot high fence and they
Speaker 1: started pouring all that money into electronic surveillance, where every
Speaker 1: single we see more towers popping up all along the
Speaker 1: border with all kinds of very very fancy, military grade
Speaker 1: surveillance equipment, and as well as aerial surveillance, lots of airplanes, helicopters.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if they're using drones, but we certainly
Speaker 1: there's a lot of aerial surveillance. But what we see
Speaker 1: as far as the human dimension is In the old days,
Speaker 1: you know, we see footprints, We see shoe covers, you know,
Speaker 1: which people wear on their feet to hide their footprints
Speaker 1: from border patrol. We see the empty water bottles and
Speaker 1: discarded clothing. But now we're encountering people pretty much every
Speaker 1: time we do a water drop because the number of
Speaker 1: people crossing is so high. People are crossing in the daytime,
Speaker 1: whereas in the past usually they would cross at night.
Speaker 1: So why don't you say emmet like pretty much. It's
Speaker 1: pretty much every time we go out, at least one
Speaker 1: of our volunteers, if not the whole group sees or
Speaker 1: even interacts with a migrant on the paths. And you know,
Speaker 1: and of course we respect, we respect their autonomy, their privacy.
Speaker 1: We don't engage with them if they don't want to
Speaker 1: engage with us. But the thing that I'll never forget
Speaker 1: is about a month ago, we were out in this
Speaker 1: exact same area, supplying the same path, and it was
Speaker 1: a rainy day, cold, we were wearing our gortex insulated clothing.
Speaker 1: We'd done a water drop. While we were doing the
Speaker 1: water drop, we can see on the next mountain peak,
Speaker 1: Border Patrol helicopter landing to pick up somebody who required rescue.
Speaker 1: And this is a case that we had been getting
Speaker 1: updates all night with Armadillos, one of the search groups.
Speaker 1: And thankfully this this person was found alive and Border
Speaker 1: Patrol was so called rescuing him another word for arresting him.
Speaker 1: And after we witnessed that, we hiked back to our
Speaker 1: vehicles and just as we were getting to the trailhead
Speaker 1: the exact same location where on March eighteenth, Emmet and
Speaker 1: other volunteers had this interaction with the two border patrol
Speaker 1: agents who destroyed the humanitarian aid supplies the exact same
Speaker 1: parking spot. We we pop out and start walking toward
Speaker 1: our vehicles, and it starts snowing, and two individuals come
Speaker 1: out of the mist and you know, approach us and
Speaker 1: start talking to us in Spanish and talking to these
Speaker 1: two people, these two men, one one young, one middle aged.
Speaker 1: In the course of the conversation and you know, sorry,
Speaker 1: I kind of choke up when I talk about this stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's okay, but yeah, so this is uh, the
Speaker 1: younger of the two, I was sixteen years old and
Speaker 1: the older dude was his father. We encountered them as
Speaker 1: it was snowing, so of course, first thing we did
Speaker 1: is got them in our vehicles. One of our volunteers,
Speaker 1: Avid Hiker, had his backpacking stove with him and cooked
Speaker 1: up some tea and some um, you know, gave them
Speaker 1: food and and you know, let them warm up. We
Speaker 1: gave them literally the you know, gortex winter coat software
Speaker 1: backs to warm up. And once the you know, the
Speaker 1: dad was shivering violently, really really showing signs of clinical
Speaker 1: hypothermia and talking to the younger man who was in
Speaker 1: better physical shape. He was explaining that the two of
Speaker 1: them were hiking through the mountain because his mother was
Speaker 1: already living in the USA. They were trying to reunite
Speaker 1: with her, and they had been in this mountainous region
Speaker 1: for the past two days. And looking at them, they're
Speaker 1: wearing hoodies, you know, like uh, you know, sweatshirts, sweatpants
Speaker 1: and sneakers in this and anybody who lives down here
Speaker 1: in southern California, you know, we've had a very unusual winter,
Speaker 1: lots and lots of rain. So it had been raining
Speaker 1: heavily over the past two days and nighttime temperatures in
Speaker 1: the thirties. And these two men had been out there
Speaker 1: for two days soaked to the bone. And that's why
Speaker 1: they approached us, because they were in trouble and they
Speaker 1: were asking for help. So after they warmed up, we
Speaker 1: discussed the options. Of course, you know, we respect their autonomy. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, they have the option to try to continue
Speaker 1: going on their way with with supplies or if they
Speaker 1: felt it was unsafe to do so, we were ready
Speaker 1: to help them. The heartbreaking thing is, you know, they
Speaker 1: did ask us could we let them ride in our
Speaker 1: vehicles off the Mountain, and we had to explain that,
Speaker 1: you know, we were we were pretty much guaranteed to
Speaker 1: encounter border patrol agents on that road, and that really
Speaker 1: it's not something that we could do because you know
Speaker 1: that that that you know, we would we could be
Speaker 1: arrested and charged, you know, for federal felony crimes. But
Speaker 1: we said, look, you know, if you really feel you
Speaker 1: can't continue, we will help you contact you know, call
Speaker 1: nine one one. But we explained that's that's one hundred
Speaker 1: percent going to result in border patrol coming. Because as
Speaker 1: folks may know, you know, you know, in the USA
Speaker 1: along the border, you know, emergency medical response, search and
Speaker 1: rescue is unfortunately considered in the domain of law enforcement.
Speaker 1: So if you are a US citizen, or if you
Speaker 1: are someone from another country that happened to come here
Speaker 1: and have a visa or just be considered the good
Speaker 1: type of foreigner, you know, you're gonna have a very
Speaker 1: impressive response with sheriff's Sheriff's Department, search and rescue volunteer organizations.
Speaker 1: If there's any hint that you may be a so
Speaker 1: called undocumented person, it immediately gets sent to border patrol
Speaker 1: and you have you know, boor star respond the Border
Speaker 1: Patrol search and rescue group, which is a far cry
Speaker 1: from the civilian search and rescue folks. So we explain
Speaker 1: to them, if we call nine one one, you're you're
Speaker 1: gonna be apprehended, You're going to be arrested by Border patrol.
Speaker 1: And after thinking about it and discussing, they said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we you know, we cannot continue were where. You know,
Speaker 1: this is too dangerous. So we did call nine one one,
Speaker 1: and Border Patrol did come and risk to them and
Speaker 1: cuff them and uh yeah, yeah, did arrest them, and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, that's not the only time that too often
Speaker 1: we have witnessed human beings being arrested by border patrol. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing that. I think I think it's
Speaker 1: really important to give like put like faces and names
Speaker 1: to these things rather than they could. Border patrol will
Speaker 1: constantly talk about the million whatever encounters, right, they like
Speaker 1: to fucking inflict the numbers. It's often the same people,
Speaker 1: but um, it's each one of those who's a tragedy.
Speaker 1: Right every time someone has to make a choice between
Speaker 1: risking their life in one place or risking their life
Speaker 1: coming to another place just so their kids can have
Speaker 1: a crack at growing up safely, or so they can
Speaker 1: be safe, so they can experience like one tenth of
Speaker 1: the things that we take for granted every day. I
Speaker 1: think that's an incredible human tragedy. And yeah, they happen
Speaker 1: every single day, every hour of every day at our
Speaker 1: border because of the things that our government does there.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's important to feel that stuff, because I
Speaker 1: think that's it should provoke in all of us a
Speaker 1: very strong reaction. It's pretty messed up that there's almost
Speaker 1: universal bipartisan agreement that it's fine and okay by people
Speaker 1: who have never been here and don't understand. One other
Speaker 1: thing I want to add, and you may have other things.
Speaker 1: One thing I wanted to really center is something we've
Speaker 1: referenced several times. Kumyer You know this is this is
Speaker 1: Kumyer Land. These are the indigenous people who have lived
Speaker 1: here since the beginning of time time. Um, the archaeological
Speaker 1: record goes back ten thousand years, but we know people
Speaker 1: have been here since the beginning of human hit time.
Speaker 1: Really and um, look at the map um this so
Speaker 1: called border cuts in half traditional Kuma territory. Uh. When
Speaker 1: we do these water drops out in the desert or
Speaker 1: in the mountains. You know, these these paths that that
Speaker 1: people are using to migrate are often or in many
Speaker 1: many cases traditional Kumya paths, and we see evidence of
Speaker 1: that every time we you know, do a water drop,
Speaker 1: especially out out in the desert areas where it's a
Speaker 1: rare water drop, that we will not find pottery shards
Speaker 1: lying lying in the sand, or come across rock shelters,
Speaker 1: some with pictographs. Um and uh, the you know, it's
Speaker 1: just you know, very poignant juxtaposition of of Kumi cultural
Speaker 1: artifacts with modern day you know, shoe covers, discarded water bottles,
Speaker 1: and of course many people who do migrate are indigenous
Speaker 1: them themselves. Um So yeah, personally, you know, I view
Speaker 1: all of these border issues, uh through the lens of
Speaker 1: history culture with with the core truth that this is
Speaker 1: indigenous land, This is Kumii land and it has always
Speaker 1: been and the modern so called border is a very
Speaker 1: recent uh political um creation. You know that, you know,
Speaker 1: mid nineteenth century, you know before that this was Mexico
Speaker 1: and now now where we call it the US. But
Speaker 1: this is all recent and from my perspective, unless you
Speaker 1: are a Kumier, I really don't know how anybody could
Speaker 1: can really get on their high horse and really speak
Speaker 1: with any authority about who belongs here, who belongs here,
Speaker 1: who doesn't belong here, because the rest of us, we
Speaker 1: are all guests on Kumie land. That includes every single
Speaker 1: border patrol agent. And that's that's something I always like
Speaker 1: to remember. Yeah, yeah, the border is very much like
Speaker 1: colonialism in action. It's even We're going to have some
Speaker 1: Kumi folks, hopefully in the next couple of weeks, to
Speaker 1: talk about the desecration of Kumi burial site by the
Speaker 1: border wall, which is an ongoing thing. Like I haven't
Speaker 1: stopped when they just I can't tell stories about it
Speaker 1: like I could in twenty twenty because you know, Orange
Speaker 1: Man Bad isn't a thing anymore. But yeah, like all
Speaker 1: across the border, right, noticed here that the Yaki all
Speaker 1: across the border is Native. Now the whole of the
Speaker 1: circled United States is Native land, and it's not indigenous
Speaker 1: folks out there trying to kill people in the desert.
Speaker 1: Is there anythink Emmett that you wanted to add? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to say this, Well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: we'll so we can ramble forever. So we'll stop stop
Speaker 1: rambling a second. But Um, I guess I really want
Speaker 1: to say, and this is coming from a very skewed
Speaker 1: white males perspective, but I just feel like so much
Speaker 1: of these power structures that we're engaged with, and us
Speaker 1: as a nation trying to find our identity, it's so hypocritical,
Speaker 1: particularly in this moment where a climate and social instability
Speaker 1: is at it's it's it's height. I mean in my lifetime,
Speaker 1: and I think in many of our lifetimes, we see
Speaker 1: this as a really precarious moment. Yeah, it just feels
Speaker 1: so so hypocritical to police people's sovereignties to find safety
Speaker 1: and to be in safety. UM. You know, we we
Speaker 1: have all of these ideals in our country around respecting
Speaker 1: each other's freedoms, um. And also as we are importing
Speaker 1: and exporting so many goods and also so much culture
Speaker 1: and so fundamentally intertwined with, um, the lives of people
Speaker 1: from all over the world. For us to say what
Speaker 1: is wrong and what is right in this moment, and
Speaker 1: for us to have this this moral authority to to
Speaker 1: put people in in prison just for for for seeking
Speaker 1: safety for many years, and of course I have many
Speaker 1: people who I know and lived with who have been
Speaker 1: in in who when we're in attention for for several
Speaker 1: years UM for seeking that the amount of UM. Just
Speaker 1: how twisted it is that we are comfortable spending our
Speaker 1: lives as Americans never considering UM or never really critically
Speaker 1: engaging UM with this active pursuit, this acting, these actions
Speaker 1: to to to limit people's ability to survive. UM two
Speaker 1: feels like it really needs to be centered in this conversation.
Speaker 1: And again this is coming from my skewed perspective, but
Speaker 1: I just UM, I really want to make the point clear.
Speaker 1: This is not about this is not about these these
Speaker 1: lofty ideals of what a country could be or who
Speaker 1: and who is not justified or useful in our country,
Speaker 1: we make these arbitrary assessments of what's justified or what's
Speaker 1: legal and not legal, and very often those are just
Speaker 1: continuing the legacy of exploitation of black and brown people,
Speaker 1: the exploitation of landscapes, the exploitation of labor, the exploitation
Speaker 1: of people whose voices are not heard and politically, economically
Speaker 1: and continuing a conversation of in O Time Astance Center UM,
Speaker 1: people who are attained are are cleaning their own cells
Speaker 1: and there their their their labors actually being exploited as well.
Speaker 1: You can't distinguish the fact that there is the history
Speaker 1: of policing in our country, and the history of prisons
Speaker 1: is specifically a project to continue white supremacy. Um. And
Speaker 1: you can see particularly the differential policing of immigration currently
Speaker 1: and the differential way that certain people from certain countries
Speaker 1: are or are not valid to enter this country and
Speaker 1: at the very least be treated with respect and dignity
Speaker 1: in their process. And that's what we see CBP every
Speaker 1: single day, violating people's basic access to human dignity, acts
Speaker 1: to life, which are protected by all nations in writing
Speaker 1: and very often not in practice. Yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: this will said like, it's a very basic human thing.
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be like shrouds and in constitutional
Speaker 1: and thank you also said a capital flow is very
Speaker 1: freely across across the border, but people aren't allowed to
Speaker 1: the Yeah, it's pretty messed up. Guys. Where can people
Speaker 1: if they want to support, if they want to just
Speaker 1: send a kind word. Where can people find you on
Speaker 1: the internet? Now? The best way probably is on Instagram.
Speaker 1: We have an account Borderland's Relief Collective reach out to
Speaker 1: us and I do want to give a shout out
Speaker 1: to our sister organizations Border Kindness. Their water drop program,
Speaker 1: led by Jacqueline and James, has been doing tremendous work
Speaker 1: for years. Border Angels, which is kind of the parent
Speaker 1: organization of water Drop volunteer groups in California. Our comrades
Speaker 1: who do search and rescue as well as recovery of
Speaker 1: those who have have died, including Armadillos and Aguilas Eagles
Speaker 1: of the Desert. Very very proud to be in this
Speaker 1: community of people who are trying to help people in
Speaker 1: the borderliness. Yeah, yeah, thank you very much. Guys. That's
Speaker 1: pretty great. It could happen here as a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website cool zonemedia dot com or check us
Speaker 1: out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could
Speaker 1: Happen here, updated monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.