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Speaker 1: Also media.

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Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Robert Evans here, and we're doing a rerun

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Speaker 2: episode because I need the time to get caught up.

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Speaker 2: But I figured we do this week. We rerun two

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Speaker 2: of our old episodes, cut out a bunch of extra

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Speaker 2: ads and put them in as long single episodes, and

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Speaker 2: a couple of topics that are very important. First off,

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Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about the Department of Homeland Security,

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Speaker 2: which as an organization is as bastardy a bastard as

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Speaker 2: we have ever discussed on this show. So here, please

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Speaker 2: listen up to a series of episodes that have unfortunately

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Speaker 2: only gotten more relevant as time has gone on. You know,

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Speaker 2: introducing a podcast is a little bit like Megan Love.

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Speaker 2: It's not it's not at all. I'm so sorry. I'm

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Speaker 2: Robert Evans failing to introduce my podcast yet again. It's

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Speaker 2: behind the bastards. It's about terrible people. I'm so sorry everyone.

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Speaker 2: I was. I was trying to open with my folksy wisdom,

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Speaker 2: but I have none, and I now I've watched the

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Speaker 2: start of this episode here to attempt to take away

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Speaker 2: some of my shame. Is Caitlin Duranty. Caitlin, how are

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Speaker 2: you doing today?

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Speaker 3: Oh? You know, I'm just barely keeping it together at

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Speaker 3: any moment, but otherwise.

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Speaker 2: Caitlyn, Okay, think of any similarities between introducing a podcast

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Speaker 2: and making love?

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Speaker 3: Well, let me think about that. Oh, I have one,

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Speaker 3: I have one. I have one. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: The audio levels can go up and down.

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Speaker 2: The audio levels can go up and down.

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Speaker 1: That's a good similarity, thank you very much.

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Speaker 3: Sure, maybe an entire episod, not just introducing an episode,

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Speaker 3: but in an entire episode. I think you could draw

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Speaker 3: some parallels between because you've got you know, there's like

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Speaker 3: the intro is sort of like the foreplay, and then

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Speaker 3: you've got, you know, usually a big climax. Dick finished

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Speaker 3: to the episode.

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Speaker 2: Well, there you go, everybody.

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Speaker 1: If we figured it out, we figured it out.

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Speaker 2: You wanted to compare a random episode of my podcast

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Speaker 2: about bad people to making love, Caitlin Duranty has kind

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Speaker 2: of made it easier. Maybe, Caitlin, how are you doing today?

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Speaker 3: I'm all right, you know, I'm just.

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Speaker 1: You're in your closet recording.

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Speaker 3: I'm in my.

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Speaker 2: Cloth, you're in your closet. I'm looking at your luggage

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Speaker 2: right now. Nice luggage. I see you go with the

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Speaker 2: hard shell.

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Speaker 3: Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Yes, it is a really nice closet, if I remember

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Speaker 1: from the photos you sent me like it's a very

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Speaker 1: good sized closet.

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Speaker 3: It truly is. Thank you so much.

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Speaker 2: You want to hear a little story about me, Caitlin, please,

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Speaker 2: I'm a narcissist. Okay, so you know I travel a

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Speaker 2: lot too, Caitlin, and I have refused my entire traveling

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Speaker 2: life to have like a hard shelled roly suitcase, even

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Speaker 2: though they're much more comfortable to use at the airport

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Speaker 2: than a backpack, because as a young man with an

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Speaker 2: indestructible spine, I was like, only stupid old people use

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Speaker 2: the rollly backpacks. I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be a

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Speaker 2: young adventurer forever and I just get to wear a backpack.

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Speaker 2: And now I just hurt myself every time I go

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Speaker 2: to the airport out of pride. And that's why men

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Speaker 2: shouldn't be allowed to hold political office.

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Speaker 3: I couldn't agree with you more. Yeah, you mean you

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Speaker 3: you carry around one of those like big like backpacking.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, big old, big old, Yeah, horrible, horrible. Sometimes they

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Speaker 2: carry a duffel bag even worse.

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Speaker 3: That's absurd.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a terrible idea. But you know, it does

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Speaker 2: tie in with the theme of today's episode, because what

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Speaker 2: do you do with what do you do with backpacks

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Speaker 2: and rollly suitcases, Caitlin.

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Speaker 3: I mean you bring them with you to travel.

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Speaker 2: You bring them with you to cross borders. Yeah, and

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Speaker 2: today we're talking about the motherfucking migrat the border patrol.

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Speaker 1: Oh boy, I just want to say, nice job.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, thats It's been a long journey to starting the

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Speaker 2: episode this week, but I think we got there nicely. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Sorry to everyone who's been you know, this has been

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Speaker 2: a little bit of a weird run of Behind the

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Speaker 2: Bastards the Uprising episodes. We're still going to be doing

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Speaker 2: the dictators and grifters, you know, that are bread and butter.

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Speaker 2: But I keep getting obsessed with different law enforcement agencies,

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Speaker 2: particularly the ones you know, shooting at me. And so

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Speaker 2: I started just kind of reading a bunch about customs

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Speaker 2: and border patrol this last week or so, and I

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Speaker 2: couldn't stop, and so I wrote a lot about them.

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Speaker 2: And now we're all going to talk about border patrol

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Speaker 2: because Kaitlin, did you know the border patrol kind of problematic?

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Speaker 3: Wait a minute, what do you mean?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Not nice dudes, as it turns out, and have

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Speaker 2: kind of been dicks for like a hundred something years

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Speaker 2: or like one hundred years. They've been dicks for a

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Speaker 2: long time, very close to one hundred years.

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Speaker 3: Okay, ninety six years, all.

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Speaker 2: Right, yeah, which you know, they still have time to change.

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Speaker 2: You know, a lot of people have their best, you know,

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Speaker 2: their second act after age ninety six.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I would say that applies to a large number

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Speaker 3: of people.

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Speaker 2: A lot of tortoises, at least a lot of tortoises

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Speaker 2: go on to do very cool things after age ninety six.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Trees as well. There's a lot of old trees that.

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Speaker 2: Are recent border patrol could be like a sequoia mm hmm, yeah,

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Speaker 2: but I don't know how likely I think that is.

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Speaker 2: So we're going to talk about We're going to talk

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Speaker 2: about lemigra today because they're terrible, and I don't think

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Speaker 2: most people know how terrible they are. And their terribility

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Speaker 2: is important because it is tied in with a lot

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Speaker 2: of horrible things about this country and the very concept

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Speaker 2: of whiteness. So how are you feeling about that, Caitlin?

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Speaker 3: You know, I don't feel good about it, I really don't.

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Speaker 2: That's good because my cunning plan has been to blame

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Speaker 2: you personally for all of the historical crimes of the

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Speaker 2: US border patrol.

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Speaker 3: Well, I did, yeh invent them.

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Speaker 2: You you launched the Immigration Act of nineteen twenty four.

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Speaker 2: That's Caitlin Doranty's that's a sorry resume. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I didn't want that to be my legacy. But here

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Speaker 3: we are.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: A lot of people don't know this, but you used

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Speaker 2: to be all of Congress in the early nineteen twenties.

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Speaker 3: M Yeah, yeah, I mean pretty impressive when you think

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Speaker 3: of it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it really is. Yeah, Congress Dorante.

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Speaker 1: Yeah you were. You were instead of Caitlyn, you were

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Speaker 1: Congress Dorante.

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Speaker 3: That's true.

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Speaker 2: If we're going to talk about the border patrol, we've

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Speaker 2: got to talk about the border. And given that the

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Speaker 2: territory we currently know as like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona,

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Speaker 2: and even Mexico is all land that was stolen from

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Speaker 2: indigenous people, this is not like a case where there's

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Speaker 2: a lot of good guys to choose from. If you're

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Speaker 2: talking about like conflicts over the US Mexican border, you're

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Speaker 2: talking about like a bunch of different states that kind

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Speaker 2: of sucked fighting each other for land that wasn't theirs

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Speaker 2: like that. That's the whole that's the whole deal, right.

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Speaker 2: So the US Mexican War of eighteen forty six eighteen

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Speaker 2: forty eight is the conflict that gained our nation most

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Speaker 2: of the modern Southwest. It was a naked war of

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Speaker 2: imperialist aggression against another nation that brutally subjugated indigenous peoples.

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Speaker 2: One can argue that Mexico was like a broadly better

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Speaker 2: country than the US at this point, since it didn't

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Speaker 2: allow slavery. But both countries not great to anyone any

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Speaker 2: like indigenous peoples or whatever. Just bad governments. So at

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Speaker 2: the end of the US Mexican War, the United States

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Speaker 2: wound up occupying Mexico City, and that nation was forced

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Speaker 2: to seed fifty percent of its northern territory in the

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Speaker 2: resulting treaty. And I think a lot of Americans who

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Speaker 2: grow up kind of outside of the Southwest don't really

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Speaker 2: have a clear idea of how much land the United

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Speaker 2: States scott as a result of the US Mexican War.

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Speaker 2: But we took a shitload of land from Mexico. It's

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Speaker 2: fucking crazy how much of this country used to be Mexico,

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Speaker 2: Like up into Oklahoma.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't have a good gauge on that because

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Speaker 3: I grew up in Pennsylvania and that just wasn't something

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Speaker 3: that they bothered to tell us in history class.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we were, like most of the Southwest was kind of,

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Speaker 2: at one point or another part of Mexico. And so, yeah,

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Speaker 2: we took about fifty percent of Mexico's northern territory, and

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Speaker 2: a new US Mexican border was redrawn along the Rio

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Speaker 2: Grande from the Gulf to El Paso and then along

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Speaker 2: more or less an arbitrary line further west up the Pacific. Now,

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Speaker 2: this meant that a huge number of people who'd previously

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Speaker 2: lived in Mexico and had been able to travel freely

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Speaker 2: around territory that was all part of one nation now

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Speaker 2: found themselves living in between two nations. This included roughly

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Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty thousand members of indigenous tribes, as

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Speaker 2: well as about one hundred and fifty thousand Mexicans. So

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Speaker 2: these three hundred thousandish non white folks owned most of

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Speaker 2: the land, and like the territories in the Southwest that

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Speaker 2: you know became Texas and some of the surrounding states.

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Speaker 2: In the decades after the US Mexican War are kind

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Speaker 2: of best viewed as a gradual process of white people

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Speaker 2: taking this land from non white people, some of it

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Speaker 2: through purchase, some of it through like violent threats and intimidation,

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Speaker 2: some of it as a result of the reservation system

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Speaker 2: kicking indigenous people off of their ancestral land, and some

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Speaker 2: of it through just like good old, you know, good old,

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Speaker 2: good old fashioned genocide, Caitlin, just like that, just like

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Speaker 2: really getting your boots in it, you know.

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Speaker 3: I mean, those are the main principles that the US

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Speaker 3: was founded on, right, white people stealing land from non

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Speaker 3: white people and genociding them.

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Speaker 2: Your gosh darn right, Caitlin, Your gosh darn right. And

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Speaker 2: that's why when I get up in the I'm just

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Speaker 2: thinking of like a Folger's coffee commercial, you know, one

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Speaker 2: of those old ones where was like a cowboy getting

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Speaker 2: up on the range, sipping a Folger's coffee and then

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Speaker 2: just like stepping into a pile of and just being like, ah,

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Speaker 2: nothing like a nice morning walking barthrop through a pile

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Speaker 2: of bones, the thing that I do every day as

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Speaker 2: a cowboy.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, why wasn't that their ad campaign for folders.

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Speaker 2: Folgers, Well, murder everybody. Coffee helps.

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Speaker 3: Oh.

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Speaker 2: I was drinking coffee and it went down the wrong hole, Caitlin.

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Speaker 1: Oh.

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Speaker 2: Now, see, coffee can't be stopped from attempting genocide.

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Speaker 3: Even coffee wants to murder.

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Speaker 2: Coffee wants nothing but to murder. So, as we discussed

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Speaker 2: in our last episode of the Behind the Police mini

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Speaker 2: series that we just did, the Texas Rangers was kind

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Speaker 2: of the first border patrol type force in you know,

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Speaker 2: the Southwest, and they began their history as as a

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Speaker 2: group like a paramilitary organization to protect white settlers in Texas.

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Speaker 2: They were formed by a local mayor named John Jackson Tumlinson,

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Speaker 2: who was part of the old three hundred white families

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Speaker 2: who first settled in Texas with Stephen F. Austin. Now,

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Speaker 2: it wasn't a popular decision for these three hundred families

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Speaker 2: to settle in Texas, and the Comanches, Tunkawa's, Apaches, and Carnkawa's,

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Speaker 2: who already resided in the area, got kind of angry

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Speaker 2: and started murdering them. So Tumlinson ordered the formation of

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Speaker 2: a roving defensive patrol. This patrol became the Texas Rangers.

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Speaker 2: But Tumlinson never got to see it formed, because he

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Speaker 2: was almost immediately killed by Karankawa and huaco In indigenous

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Speaker 2: people before he got off the ground.

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Speaker 3: Well, it sounds like karma to me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like it's fine. Like a shame they

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Speaker 2: didn't get more people. So the Rangers were kind of

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Speaker 2: this country's first border patrol force, and the primary method

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Speaker 2: of action for them was just again really just straight

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Speaker 2: up genocide. In the early days, there were like a

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Speaker 2: paramilitary army. They acted as scouts for actual militias. They

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Speaker 2: would swoop in and force Indigenous people out of their

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Speaker 2: homes and onto reservations, but would also just burn their

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Speaker 2: villages sometime and murder their women and children because you

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Speaker 2: know whatever, Sometimes you come into the office and you

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Speaker 2: want to do things different. I don't know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: They also engaged in the murder and intimidation of Mexicans

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Speaker 2: in border communities, and by the early nineteen hundreds, the

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Speaker 2: indigenous folks had mostly been forced off of their land

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Speaker 2: and the Rangers had become a police force focused mainly

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Speaker 2: on Mexicano Mexicano communities on the border. The primary strategy

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Speaker 2: was known to historians as revenge by proxy, and for

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Speaker 2: an example, of how that looked. I'm going to quote

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Speaker 2: from the American Crossroads book Migra quote. On June's twelfth,

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Speaker 2: nineteen oh one, a Mexicano rancher named Gregorio Cortes stood

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Speaker 2: at the gate of his home in Cairanes County, Texas.

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Speaker 2: There he resisted arrest for a crime that he did

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Speaker 2: not commit. The sheriff persisted, drew his gun and shot

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Speaker 2: Gregorio's brother in the mouth. When he charged at the

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Speaker 2: sheriff to protect Gregorio, Gregorio shot back and killed the sheriff,

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Speaker 2: an act that was sure to bring the Texas Rangers

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Speaker 2: to his doorstep. When they came, Gregorio and his family,

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Speaker 2: including his wounded brother, were gone. All that remained was

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Speaker 2: the dead body of the sheriff. The news of Gregorio's

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Speaker 2: deadly fiance quickly spread across southern Texas, and Yeah, for

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Speaker 2: ten days, the Texas Rangers and posses, numbering up to

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Speaker 2: three hundred men hunted for him. When they could not

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Speaker 2: find him, they sought revenge by proxy, arresting, brutalizing, and

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Speaker 2: murdering an unknown number of Mexicanos. So that's like how

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Speaker 2: the Texas Rangers kind of worked for a while. Is

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Speaker 2: a Hispanic person commits a crime or a perceived crime,

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Speaker 2: and if they can't catch him to murder him publicly,

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Speaker 2: they just kill a bunch of other random Mexicans so

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Speaker 2: that like people don't get up at e that's the

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Speaker 2: that's the first border patrol. Horrible, pretty bad, Caitlin, pretty bad.

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Speaker 3: Don't like it. I don't like it one bit.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so you are you are on the You are

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Speaker 2: on the record now about not being in favor of

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Speaker 2: murdering random people as part of a fear based system

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Speaker 2: of law enforcement.

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Speaker 3: Yes, and I am. I am happy to be on

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Speaker 3: the record.

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Speaker 2: Of state dance. That's a bold stances. Some advertisers, Caitlin,

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Speaker 2: especially our big advertiser, Raytheon. Yeah, when you really need

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Speaker 2: a group of people intimidated by violence, there's no other

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Speaker 2: option but Ratheon Raytheon.

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Speaker 1: It's not even robot, it's not even time for an

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Speaker 1: ad break. You're just doing this. I know.

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Speaker 2: That's a that's a free that's a free one. Raytheon

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Speaker 2: just had to lay off a lot of employees. Sophie

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Speaker 2: and I, for one, have a sense of loyalty, so

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Speaker 2: I'm trying to help Raytheon out with some free ads.

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Speaker 2: So look, if you've got a couple billion extra dollars

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Speaker 2: that you need to spend on missiles that are filled

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Speaker 2: with knives in order to assassinate, you know, insurgent leaders

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Speaker 2: in Yemen. Look, don't go to Lockheed Martin, go to Raitheon. Okay, there,

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Speaker 2: it's just better knife missiles. Right. That's that's all I'm

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Speaker 2: gonna say.

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Speaker 3: Mm hmm.

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Speaker 2: I have a sense of loyalty. So for the first

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Speaker 2: twenty years of the century, the US Mexican border was

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Speaker 2: policed by a mix of Texas rangers and like local sheriffs.

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Speaker 2: Such enforcement was always piecemeal, with hundreds of miles of

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Speaker 2: borderland operating basically autonomously, as it had for generations. Like

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Speaker 2: the idea that we would police our border like didn't

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Speaker 2: exist until pretty recently. For most of American history, it

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Speaker 2: was just like, well, yeah, you've got this big empty

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Speaker 2: chunk of country, and eventually it becomes Mexico, and it's

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Speaker 2: nobody really gives a shit. Yeah, you see, all these

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Speaker 2: communities had existed for forever, for hundreds of years in

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Speaker 2: a lot of cases, and you know, they had family

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Speaker 2: who would be up in Mexico or up in the

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Speaker 2: United States, and it would have seemed like it would

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Speaker 2: have seemed like madness to try to try to split

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Speaker 2: these communities up based on an arbitrary borderline that nobody

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Speaker 2: could even see. But yeah, in the nineteen twenties that

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Speaker 2: started to change. In nineteen twenty four, the Immigration Act

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Speaker 2: was passed and the Immigration Act banned all immigration to

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Speaker 2: the United States from Asia, and it massively reduced immigration

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Speaker 2: in from the south from southern and eastern Europe. The

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Speaker 2: goal of the Act was for the first time, to

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Speaker 2: enshrine in law the federal government's preference for Nordic whites

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Speaker 2: above non white people when it came to immigration, so

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Speaker 2: basically set up a quota system. Yeah, yeah, have you

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Speaker 2: heard about this. This is when we decided that only

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Speaker 2: one kind of white people were allowed in the country.

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Speaker 2: This is the Italians aren't white enough law. But people

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Speaker 2: used to really care about that, right in the nineteen

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Speaker 2: twenty four Immigration Act, A big part of it was

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Speaker 2: stopping Italians or as they would have called them, Italians,

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Speaker 2: which it used to be I think more racist than

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Speaker 2: it is and is now just a funny, old timeyway

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Speaker 2: of making fun of Italians, which I'm always I'm always

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Speaker 2: in favor of Caitlin. How do you feel you know, you.

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Speaker 3: Do know that my last name is Derante and that

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Speaker 3: I am I partly Italian?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so am I? That's why it's okay, good?

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Speaker 3: All right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah? Yeah? Are we are we white? How's that?

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Speaker 2: How's that work?

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Speaker 3: Uh? I have heard slightly varying things, but I think

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Speaker 3: by in law, large Italian people are considered white.

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Speaker 1: Yes.

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Speaker 2: I was looking at a Nazi cartoon the other day

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Speaker 2: because I do things like that for my mental health,

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Speaker 2: and it was like, the point it was making is

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Speaker 2: that like, social justice advocates are always white, and fascists

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Speaker 2: are actually really diverse, and so like it was a

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Speaker 2: bunch of white people lecturing Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohido, but

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Speaker 2: because it was drawn by a fascist, they drew in

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Speaker 2: Mussolini as a black man because they don't think Italians

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Speaker 2: are white. So it's just like there were a lot

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Speaker 2: of layers of wrongness there to parse through. Is one

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Speaker 2: of those things that looked very confusing to people who

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Speaker 2: don't immediately recognize, Oh, these are the kind of racists

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Speaker 2: who don't even think Italians count as white. It's very funny,

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Speaker 2: but in the nineteen twenties, that was all of Congress, sure,

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Speaker 2: and they were like, we got to pass a lot

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Speaker 2: to stop these Italians from coming in. So yeah, the

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Speaker 2: Immigration Act in nineteen twenty four bans all Asian immigration

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Speaker 2: and tries to restrict to only the right kind of

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Speaker 2: white people. And the one real exception to this. The

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Speaker 2: only kind of like non white folks who were allowed

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Speaker 2: into the country under the Immigration Act without any kind

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Speaker 2: of restriction were Mexicans. And this is because of hardcore

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Speaker 2: labor or lobbying by the agricultural industry, right, because like

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Speaker 2: basically you had all these ranchers and farmers in Texas

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Speaker 2: particularly and in the Southwest, where like our entire industry

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Speaker 2: doesn't work without these people, so you have to let

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Speaker 2: them in. So the nineteen twenty four Act does kind

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00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:37,879
Speaker 2: of make an exception for that. It's very heavily based

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Speaker 2: on race science, and in fact, like a big factor

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Speaker 2: in what got the Act passed was a bunch of

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Speaker 2: bogus studies conducted by the Eugenics Research Office at cold

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Speaker 2: Spring Harbor that kind of provided intellectual justification for the

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Speaker 2: law by arguing that the wrong kind of immigrants would

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Speaker 2: leave the surges and violent crime and declines in IQ. No,

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Speaker 2: this is bad. This is bad. And the nineteen twenty

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Speaker 2: four Immigration Act is what establishes the US Border Patrol

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Speaker 2: for the very first time. So this fundamentally racist law,

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Speaker 2: written by people who justified it explicitly with race like

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Speaker 2: bad race science, is where the border patrol is initially established.

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Speaker 2: So literally born in an orgy of racism. And in fact,

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Speaker 2: the nineteen twenty four Immigration Act that established the border

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Speaker 2: patrol was so nakedly racist that Adolph Hitler took inspiration

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Speaker 2: from it in nineteen Yeah it's bad. It's really bad, Caitlin.

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Speaker 2: This is where borter patrol comes from. Oh no, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's not great. In nineteen twenty eight, Hitler wrote this,

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Speaker 2: of the law, there is currently one state in which

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Speaker 2: one can observe at least a week beginnings of a

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Speaker 2: better conception. This is, of course, not Germany, but the

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Speaker 2: American Union. The American Union categorically refuses the immigration of

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Speaker 2: physically unhealthy elements and simply excludes the immigration of certain races.

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Speaker 3: So wait, Hitler in the twenties took a look at

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Speaker 3: what we were doing in the US and was like,

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00:20:06,520 --> 00:20:10,840
Speaker 3: I like the looks of that. Let me copy paste

385
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:13,600
Speaker 3: and do that.

386
00:20:14,200 --> 00:20:18,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly what happened. That's exactly what happened. That's exactly.

387
00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:20,959
Speaker 2: And he wrote extensively about how inspired he was by

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Speaker 2: US immigration law, which was like the most racist in

389
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Speaker 2: the world at the time. Holy shit, you want to

390
00:20:26,800 --> 00:20:29,200
Speaker 2: know something else, Cool, Caitlin, this is a neat story.

391
00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:29,919
Speaker 2: You're gonna love this.

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Speaker 3: Please tell me the story.

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Speaker 2: You know, El Paso, great town, solid tacos. A lot

394
00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:38,720
Speaker 2: of immigration in Del Passo, right, always has been because

395
00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:41,520
Speaker 2: it's the pass right, you know, that's just where it's located.

396
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Speaker 2: Back in like the twenties and thirties, when immigrants would

397
00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:48,440
Speaker 2: come in, racist white people were so worried about how

398
00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:52,399
Speaker 2: dirty they thought Mexicans were that they would mandate delousing

399
00:20:52,400 --> 00:20:55,920
Speaker 2: bats for everybody who entered the country, and they would

400
00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:59,719
Speaker 2: just douse them in pesticide, and the pesticide that they

401
00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:01,600
Speaker 2: chose with zyklon.

402
00:21:01,280 --> 00:21:03,760
Speaker 3: B Wait, what is that?

403
00:21:03,760 --> 00:21:06,000
Speaker 2: That's what they killed all the Jews with and the

404
00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:09,679
Speaker 2: good yeah wow, yeah, that's another thing. The Nazis were like, Oh,

405
00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:12,000
Speaker 2: this seems like something we could modify a little bit

406
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Speaker 2: to make better for us. That's good stuff.

407
00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:17,359
Speaker 3: It's not really shit.

408
00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:20,680
Speaker 2: It was super flammable and sometimes people burned horribly to death.

409
00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:26,760
Speaker 2: Good stuff on the border kind of always a nightmare,

410
00:21:27,640 --> 00:21:29,879
Speaker 2: kind of If you study the history of the border,

411
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:33,359
Speaker 2: maybe the only reasonable conclusion is that borders are fundamentally

412
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:34,600
Speaker 2: toxic but.

413
00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:40,000
Speaker 3: And completely made up. They're just yeah, and totalitye of

414
00:21:40,359 --> 00:21:45,439
Speaker 3: like horrible usually racist ideology.

415
00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:48,520
Speaker 2: They're just lines, racist lines we draw on a map

416
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:52,840
Speaker 2: that murder tons of people. It's awesome, it's really good. So, yeah,

417
00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:55,720
Speaker 2: the Border Patrol comes out of is formed from a

418
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:58,119
Speaker 2: law that the Nazis look at and go, that's a

419
00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:05,359
Speaker 2: good law, says we the Nazis. Sweet stuff, Caitlin. Yeah. So,

420
00:22:05,560 --> 00:22:08,520
Speaker 2: because the Immigration Act was passed alongside a surge of

421
00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:11,520
Speaker 2: racist nativist fear about those dastardly non white immigrants, it

422
00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:14,520
Speaker 2: mandated that the new Border Patrol be established quickly. The

423
00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:17,280
Speaker 2: first version of the force was basically built overnight from

424
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:20,000
Speaker 2: May twenty eighth to July first, so rapidly that there

425
00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:22,320
Speaker 2: was no time for the patrol to actually create any

426
00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:25,320
Speaker 2: kind of qualification exam for its new recruits. The first

427
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:27,800
Speaker 2: wave of men to wear the service's green uniform were

428
00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:31,679
Speaker 2: instead required to pass the Railway Mail Clerk Civil Service Exam,

429
00:22:32,119 --> 00:22:36,480
Speaker 2: which I'm sure is basically the same thing. Yeah. So

430
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Speaker 2: as a result, and this is something we'll talk about

431
00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:41,560
Speaker 2: in part two, this winds up being a long trend

432
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:44,200
Speaker 2: in the border patrol is every decision they make, they

433
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:46,840
Speaker 2: have to like immediately adopt it, and they never have

434
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:49,120
Speaker 2: time to train anybody to do the job that they're

435
00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:51,879
Speaker 2: going to do, and everyone's just fine with this, and

436
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:53,639
Speaker 2: it persists for ninety six years.

437
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 3: So the whole thing every like decisions are made all

438
00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:01,679
Speaker 3: willy nilly people are brought in yeah, with no training,

439
00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:06,280
Speaker 3: no training implemented, with nobody no thought given to it.

440
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:10,359
Speaker 3: They're just like, here's what we decided, and we're not

441
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:13,200
Speaker 3: going to take a second to examine this at all.

442
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:14,520
Speaker 3: We're just going to do it.

443
00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, the current DHS Secretary Chad Wolfe, has

444
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:21,919
Speaker 2: no law enforcement experience, was never in the military, and

445
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:25,240
Speaker 2: I think went to college on like a tennis scholarship.

446
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:31,040
Speaker 2: So it's great, it's cool how things are always exactly

447
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:31,960
Speaker 2: the same forever.

448
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 3: Hmmm.

449
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 2: Because yeah, again, if people ever learn a single lesson

450
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 2: from history, the world will explode. So we have to

451
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:44,399
Speaker 2: not do that anyway.

452
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:47,320
Speaker 3: But there's also a conundrum there too, right, because so

453
00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:50,840
Speaker 3: much of history that gets taught, at least in schools

454
00:23:51,000 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 3: is so horribly whitewashed, and revisionists that like, how can

455
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:58,000
Speaker 3: anyone learn anything from it?

456
00:23:59,359 --> 00:24:05,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, that's a good point, Caitlin. And

457
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:07,840
Speaker 2: that's why as I see all these kids in the

458
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:11,400
Speaker 2: street who just aren't going to school anymore and are

459
00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:14,679
Speaker 2: instead spending their nights dropkicking the doors of a federal

460
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:17,600
Speaker 2: courthouse to try to taunt the agents inside to attack them,

461
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 2: I think, probably fine, probably learning about as much, right, true. So, yeah,

462
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:31,400
Speaker 2: the very first Border Patrol men were mostly mail clerks,

463
00:24:31,760 --> 00:24:35,760
Speaker 2: and obviously mail clerks maybe aren't super meant to be

464
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 2: tramping around the desert hunting people, and about a quarter

465
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:41,720
Speaker 2: of everyone in the Border Patrol quit in their first

466
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 2: month of the job. Turnover remained incredibly high for basically

467
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 2: the whole history of the organization, but particularly its early years,

468
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:50,800
Speaker 2: and this made it kind of impossible for it to

469
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 2: develop any kind of functional internal culture at the start.

470
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 2: By nineteen twenty seven, the Border Patrol had been forced

471
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 2: to hire inspectors who could not even pass civil service exams.

472
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 2: The agency tried desperately to recruit military veterans and men

473
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:06,600
Speaker 2: with law enforcement experience, but the vast majority of their

474
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 2: new hires were just unemployed men who lived in border towns.

475
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,439
Speaker 2: These were white, working class folks who'd had trouble keeping

476
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 2: a job and were kind of desperate for a leg

477
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:18,640
Speaker 2: up and the regular income that a law enforcement career

478
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:21,359
Speaker 2: would allow, as well as kind of the respect in

479
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:23,560
Speaker 2: pride or respect that you would get as a member

480
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 2: of law enforcement. Right, Like they wanted some power. These

481
00:25:26,640 --> 00:25:28,639
Speaker 2: were like, poor working class whites.

482
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 3: Don't give anybody power. It never goes well.

483
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:41,800
Speaker 2: No, especially not poor white men in the country. Yeah,

484
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 2: so immigration from Mexico into the United States had not

485
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:48,639
Speaker 2: traditionally been like a major subject of national political debate.

486
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:51,360
Speaker 2: People in Texas, you know, there were folks who cared

487
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 2: about it, but like, really, on a national level, if

488
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 2: you'd like run based on your plan to build a

489
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,399
Speaker 2: wall around Mexico, ninety nine percent of Americans had been like,

490
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 2: what the fuck is your problem? Like, why do you

491
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:05,199
Speaker 2: give a shit about that? Right, everyone is dying of

492
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 2: diphtheria and the economy is permanently crashed. Please please stop,

493
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 2: which I guess now we're back at so maybe that'll help.

494
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:17,440
Speaker 3: I mean, wow, the parent I don't hear.

495
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 2: As many people giving a shit about the border these days.

496
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:20,440
Speaker 2: I'll say that much.

497
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 3: That's true.

498
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 2: Maybe it's because nobody wants to come here anymore. We

499
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:27,400
Speaker 2: did it, Caitlin, We finally stopped it.

500
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 3: Just turn the US into a disease uh ridden hellhole.

501
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 2: All it took was a runaway plague that we completely

502
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 2: give up any hope of ever dealing with. Yeah, you

503
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 2: know what, President Trump figured it out. Good for him.

504
00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 1: You know what President Trump didn't figure out.

505
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,880
Speaker 2: Oh, the products and services that support this podcast, that's right.

506
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 2: We keep them a secret from the president. Yeah, but

507
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 2: if you listen in, it can be a secret that

508
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,200
Speaker 2: you and I share and hide at all costs from

509
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:13,640
Speaker 2: the administration. We're back. Oh my gosh, I for one

510
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:17,479
Speaker 2: love that Trump for America bought up all of our

511
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 2: advertising space. When I think of President, I think of

512
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:29,000
Speaker 2: the president anyway. So immigration from Mexico had not traditionally

513
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 2: been a big, big political debate issue, right The wealthy

514
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:36,560
Speaker 2: agribusiness owners in Texas preferred simple immigration from Mexico, and

515
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 2: they fought to ensure that Mexicans were not subject to

516
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 2: the same harsh immigration restrictions as other immigrants. In the

517
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,439
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty four bill, one business owner put it simply,

518
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:51,159
Speaker 2: without the Mexicans, we would be done, which hasn't really changed,

519
00:27:51,200 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 2: you know. And it's like we'll talk about this a

520
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:56,399
Speaker 2: little bit later on, but it is this kind of

521
00:27:57,040 --> 00:27:59,120
Speaker 2: one of the things that you I didn't even realize

522
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:01,439
Speaker 2: was a really problem when I was a young person,

523
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 2: kind of dealing with the mix between outwardly hateful racists

524
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:11,679
Speaker 2: in the Southwest and nice people who don't realize they're racist.

525
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:15,359
Speaker 2: Is like the nice people, the outwardly hateful people are like,

526
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:17,360
Speaker 2: you know, the Trump type folks that you know, who

527
00:28:17,480 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 2: want to build a wall and kick all the rapist

528
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 2: Mexicans out.

529
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 3: Sure, they're easy to spot, yeah.

530
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then you have this chunk of people who

531
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 2: are like, well, I hate what Trump's doing, and like

532
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:31,720
Speaker 2: I'm happy to have Mexicans here because you know, they

533
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 2: they do great work, and you know, they're they're they're

534
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 2: great at this, and they're good at that, and they're

535
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:38,760
Speaker 2: good at And it's this thing where like, especially like

536
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 2: you know, you don't necessarily notice, especially as like a

537
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 2: young white person is eighteen nineteen, like what what's actually

538
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 2: being said there, which is like the commodification of non

539
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 2: white bodies, which is like not cool. But we're going

540
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:57,480
Speaker 2: to talk more about that later because this is where

541
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 2: that all starts in an organized way, which is awesome.

542
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 2: So the white working class in text so obviously like

543
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 2: these kind of these kind of landowners, the kind of

544
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 2: aristocracy in Texas in this period, right, like the ranchers

545
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 2: and stuff. They were broadly like they wanted more Mexicans

546
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 2: and they could never get enough because like they needed

547
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 2: people to actually work their farms. But the white working

548
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 2: class in Texas and the white working class even in

549
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 2: rural areas, really had nursed like a growing hatred of

550
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:28,480
Speaker 2: Mexican people and had been for years. And this was

551
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:31,080
Speaker 2: based on a mix of like fear that Mexican immigrants

552
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 2: would take their jobs, that was always like a core

553
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 2: part of it, and also based on kind of like

554
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 2: good old fashioned racism. One labor union official in Texas

555
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 2: at the time noted, quote, I hope they never let

556
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 2: another Mexican come to the United States. The country would

557
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 2: be a whole lot better off for the white laboring

558
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:52,160
Speaker 2: man if there weren't so many inwards and Mexicans. Oh yeah, Well,

559
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 2: and this is one of those things if you're like

560
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 2: kind of squaring yourself with the history of labor, you know,

561
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 2: I'm a big fan of labor history, and I think

562
00:29:57,920 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 2: there's a lot of wonderful stuff there. You do have

563
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 2: to square with the fact that, like a lot of

564
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:03,960
Speaker 2: those dudes who were right about a lot of important

565
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 2: things were incredibly racist and hated non white people because

566
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 2: they saw them as a threat to white working class people.

567
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 3: I mean, which that all stems from capitalism more or less.

568
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 3: Where was any fairness or parody when it came to

569
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 3: income and labor. People wouldn't have to be worried about

570
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 3: other people. There wouldn't be this fear of like, who

571
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 3: is my job in danger? Who's going to take my job?

572
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 3: Because they're like a more just just socialized economy would

573
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 3: eliminate that fear absolutely.

574
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the actual laws on the books in this

575
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 2: period of time had been written largely by the rich

576
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:56,360
Speaker 2: land of gentry who needed Mexican immigrants. But now that

577
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 2: the border patrol existed post nineteen twenty four, the men

578
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 2: in forceeing those laws were working class whites who really

579
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 2: just hated Mexicans and they honestly didn't give a shit

580
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 2: about the needs of farmers, and in fact, a lot

581
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:11,960
Speaker 2: of them saw kind of being able to police undocumented

582
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 2: migrants as a way of kind of equalizing their level

583
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 2: of social power with farmers, because like, you know, they

584
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,560
Speaker 2: were poorer than these guys, they didn't have property, but

585
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 2: now they had the ability to arrest these dudes workers,

586
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 2: and like that gave them a level of power in

587
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 2: their culture and a level of power of these people

588
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 2: who had kind of previously been the bosses. And you know,

589
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:36,960
Speaker 2: kind of for a lot of these guys who became

590
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 2: the first border patrol workers. These were obviously, these were

591
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 2: white men, but there were men whose kind of sense

592
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 2: of whiteness had been hanging on by a thread prior

593
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 2: to this, this opportunity coming around. And I'm going to

594
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 2: quote again from the book Migra quote. Early officers may

595
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 2: have lived in white neighborhoods, worshiped at white churches, and

596
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 2: sent their children to white schools. But as salesman, chauffeurs, machinists,

597
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 2: and cowpunchers, they had labored at the edges of whiteness

598
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:02,440
Speaker 2: in the borderland. The steady pay and everyday social authority

599
00:32:02,440 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 2: of US immigration law enforcement work dangled before them. The

600
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 2: possibility of lifting themselves from a marginalized existence as what

601
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 2: Neil Foley has examined as the white scourge of borderland communities.

602
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 2: Policing Mexicans, in other words, presented officers with the opportunity

603
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 2: to enter the region's primary economy and in the process

604
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:23,719
Speaker 2: shore up their tentative claims upon whiteness. As immigration control

605
00:32:23,800 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 2: was emerging as a critical site of simultaneously expanding the

606
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 2: boundaries of whiteness while hardening the distinctions between whites and

607
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 2: non whites. The project of enforcing immigration restrictions therefore placed

608
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 2: border patrol officers at what police scholar David Bailey describes

609
00:32:37,640 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 2: as the cutting edge of the state's knife in terms

610
00:32:40,840 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 2: of enforcing new boundaries between whites and non whites. So

611
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 2: that is the border patrol in this period, the cutting

612
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 2: edge of the state's knife, you know, cleaving the boundaries

613
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 2: between white and non white people. The way to look

614
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 2: at it, very picturesque.

615
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:58,840
Speaker 3: Yeah.

616
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 2: Now this has made a lot more complicated by the

617
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 2: fact that a chunk of the early border patrol were

618
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 2: Mexican American and these guys in a lot of cases

619
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 2: saw their ability their career in law enforcement as a

620
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 2: way of separating themselves from non white people. The League

621
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 2: of United Latin American Citizens or LULAC, specifically stated that

622
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 2: Mexican American association with colored races is what held them

623
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:24,240
Speaker 2: back from full acceptance by white society in this period

624
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:27,600
Speaker 2: of time. And the book Migra includes the story of

625
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 2: one early officer patrol inspector Pete Torres, who was marked

626
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 2: by a colleague for being Mexican. In response, he shot

627
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 2: at the man's feet and yelled, I am not a Mexican,

628
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:41,160
Speaker 2: I am a Spanish American. Yeah. So this is like.

629
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 3: Internalized.

630
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a complicated history here, and I'm not going

631
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 2: to I'm not going to go into tremendous depth about

632
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 2: this aspect of the history because I'm just I'm not

633
00:33:56,880 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 2: at all the right person to do so. The right

634
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 2: person to do so, in fact, is probably Kelly Little Hernandez,

635
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 2: author of the book Migra, History of the US Border Patrol.

636
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 2: She does talk about this in more depth, and I

637
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 2: really recommend her book. But you should know that's like

638
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 2: an aspect of what's going on here. And as a rule,

639
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 2: one of the things that starts to happen in particularly

640
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:21,839
Speaker 2: around like the forties is kind of a growing Spanish

641
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:26,719
Speaker 2: or Mexican American community who are very pro immigration enforcement

642
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:30,880
Speaker 2: and pro like harsher immigration laws and laws against illlegal immigration.

643
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,799
Speaker 2: They start to solidify as a voting block in the

644
00:34:34,840 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 2: Southwest in this period too, and they still are to

645
00:34:37,040 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 2: this day. It's a lot of people are like shocked

646
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 2: when they see Hispanics for Trump and stuff, and there's

647
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:46,160
Speaker 2: actually pretty deep roots for a lot of that stuff. Yeah.

648
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:50,240
Speaker 2: So most early border patrol men though, we're white dudes,

649
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,640
Speaker 2: and it would probably be fair to call them white supremacists.

650
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 2: And as the years went by, our government gave them

651
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:58,560
Speaker 2: increasing powers to exercise racism with stay of authority behind it.

652
00:34:58,880 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 2: From a write up in the Inner While the nineteen

653
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 2: twenty four immigration law spared Mexico quota, a series of

654
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:06,759
Speaker 2: secondary laws, including one that made it a crime to

655
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:09,399
Speaker 2: enter the country outside of official ports of entry, gave

656
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 2: border and customs agents on the spot discretion to decide

657
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:14,320
Speaker 2: who could enter the country legally. They had the power

658
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 2: to turn what had been a routine, daily or seasonal

659
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:18,840
Speaker 2: event crossing the border to go to work into a

660
00:35:18,920 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 2: ritual of abuse. Hygienic inspections became more widespread and even

661
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 2: more degrading. Migrants had their head shaped, and they were

662
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 2: subjected to an increasingly arbitrary set of requirements at the

663
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 2: discretion of patrollers, including literacy tests and entrance fees. The

664
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 2: Patrol wasn't a large agency at first, just a few

665
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:37,799
Speaker 2: hundred men during its early years, and its reach along

666
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 2: a two thousand mile line was limited, but over the

667
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 2: years its reported brutality grew as the number of agents

668
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:46,360
Speaker 2: that deployed increased. Border agents beat shot, and hung migrants

669
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,879
Speaker 2: with regularity. Two patrollers, former Texas rangers, tied the feet

670
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 2: of one migrant and dragged him in and out of

671
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 2: a river until he confessed to having entered the country illegally.

672
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 2: Other patrollers were members of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan,

673
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 2: active in border towns from Texas to California. Yea, practically

674
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 2: every other member of Elpaso's National Guard was in the klan,

675
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,879
Speaker 2: one military officer recalled, and many had joined the Border

676
00:36:06,920 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 2: Patrol upon its establishment. So not great ideally, you know,

677
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,400
Speaker 2: if you ask me, we keep coming back to the

678
00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:19,840
Speaker 2: KKK and how it repeatedly infiltrated law enforcement.

679
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: M M.

680
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:26,319
Speaker 2: Someone maybe ought to do something about that. So for

681
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 2: its first ten years of existence, the Border Patrol operated

682
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:31,319
Speaker 2: under the authority of the Department of Labor, and when

683
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 2: FDR was elected, he appointed Francis Perkins to be Secretary

684
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:36,719
Speaker 2: of Labor, and she tried to curtail the violence of

685
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 2: the Border Patrol and reform it, and this didn't really

686
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:42,879
Speaker 2: work out in the long run. She attempted to cut

687
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:45,640
Speaker 2: down a warrantless arrests. She mandated that detained migrants had

688
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 2: a right to receive phone calls. She fought to provide

689
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:49,359
Speaker 2: migrants with at least some version of the civil rights

690
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 2: they lacked as non citizens. But before long, FDR was

691
00:36:52,520 --> 00:36:55,280
Speaker 2: pressured by the agricultural industry to put the Border Patrol

692
00:36:55,400 --> 00:36:58,759
Speaker 2: under the control of the Department of Justice. Now this

693
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 2: might seem surprising at first, because like these rich farmers

694
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 2: were the same folks who'd fought to ensure Mexican immigrants

695
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 2: wouldn't be subject to quotas in the nineteen twenty four

696
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 2: immigration law. But there's a reason behind it. Because these

697
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 2: folks had wanted these ranchers and stuff, had wanted Mexicans

698
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 2: here to work their farms, but they hadn't wanted these

699
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 2: people to actually stay in the United States lobbyist S.

700
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:24,120
Speaker 2: Parker Frizzell had told Congress in nineteen twenty six, the

701
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 2: Mexican is a homer, like the pigeon he goes home

702
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 2: to roost. And Frizell's promise had been that Mexicans weren't

703
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,400
Speaker 2: really immigrants, and thus they should be exempt from the

704
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 2: USA's white supremacist immigration laws. They were birds of passage,

705
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 2: he argued, just hanging around for a little while to work.

706
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 2: But by the turn of the decade, as we hit

707
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:44,800
Speaker 2: like start going into the nineteen thirties, Mexicans had started

708
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 2: to settle all across the Southwest, buying homes and starting

709
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 2: communities and places like Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California.

710
00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 2: In nineteen hundred, only about one hundred thousand Mexican immigrants

711
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 2: had lived in the United States. By nineteen thirty, there

712
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 2: were one and a half million Mexican immigrants this country.

713
00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:05,680
Speaker 2: So this starts to freak out a lot of white agriculturists,

714
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 2: right and it kind of you know, they had been

715
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 2: they had been okay with these people coming into work.

716
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, there were the

717
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:18,440
Speaker 2: same kind of white supremacists as the border patrol men.

718
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 2: They were just a little bit more refined, and once

719
00:38:20,560 --> 00:38:23,760
Speaker 2: it started to look like these these Mexicans were coming

720
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 2: in and actually going to be contributing and changing the

721
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 2: demographics of the nation, they panicked. And the only thing

722
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:32,160
Speaker 2: they could really think of to do was give the

723
00:38:32,200 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 2: border patrol more power to enforce how many Mexicans could

724
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 2: enter the country. And there was a real big like

725
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 2: debate over this, right because you still needed at as

726
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 2: these farmers, you still needed a certain minimum amount of

727
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 2: migrants coming in every year in order to actually like

728
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 2: keep your farms working. And the guy who kind of

729
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 2: figured out a solution to this problem with Senator Coleman

730
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 2: Livingstone Bliee, was a white supremacist congressman who first took

731
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:04,879
Speaker 2: office in nineteen twenty five, and his solution was, rather

732
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,239
Speaker 2: than creating a system of quotas and caps that would

733
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 2: have reduced manpower in American fields, he just wanted to

734
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:14,879
Speaker 2: criminalize unmonitored border crossing. So this is the very first

735
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 2: time that it becomes illegal to cross the US Mexican

736
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:22,280
Speaker 2: border without doing it at a border station. That's nineteen

737
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 2: twenty nine. That law has passed. And I'm going to

738
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 2: quote from an article in The Conversation explaining what happened here.

739
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:32,360
Speaker 2: According to Bliss's bill, unlawfully entering the country would be

740
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 2: a misdemeanor, while unlawfully returning to the United States after

741
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 2: deportation would be a felony. The idea was to force

742
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 2: Mexican immigrants into an authorized and monitored stream that could

743
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 2: be turned on and off at will at ports of entry.

744
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 2: Any immigrant who entered the United States outside of bounds

745
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:48,759
Speaker 2: of the stream would be a criminal, subject of fines, imprisonment,

746
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 2: and ultimately deportation. But it was a crime designed to

747
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:55,800
Speaker 2: impact Mexican immigrants in particular. Neither the Western agricultural businessmen

748
00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 2: nor the restrictionists registered any objections. Congress passed Bleiz's bill

749
00:40:00,040 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 2: the Immigration Act of March fourth, nineteen twenty nine, and

750
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 2: dramatically altered the story of crime and punishment in the

751
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:09,319
Speaker 2: United States with stunning precision. The criminalization of unauthorized entry

752
00:40:09,320 --> 00:40:12,759
Speaker 2: caged thousands of Mexicans Mexico's birds of passage. By the

753
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:15,960
Speaker 2: end of nineteen thirty, the US Attorney General reported prosecuting

754
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:18,799
Speaker 2: seven thousand cases of unlawful entry. By the end of

755
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 2: the decade, US attorneys had prosecuted more than forty four

756
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:27,279
Speaker 2: thousand cases. Now Bleeze's law applied technically to like Canadians

757
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 2: as well, but basically everyone prosecuted under it was Mexican,

758
00:40:30,800 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 2: and it was mainly used as kind of a method

759
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:37,719
Speaker 2: of non mostly non violent ethnic cleansing. Like I don't

760
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 2: even know if I I know if i'd say mostly

761
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 2: non violent. It was used for ethnic cleansing. Throughout the

762
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 2: nineteen thirties, Mexicans made up at least eighty five percent

763
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 2: of all immigration prisoners. Sometimes some years they made up

764
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 2: ninety nine percent. Three new prisons were built on the

765
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 2: border to hold them all, and over the course of

766
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:57,799
Speaker 2: the decades, somewhere around one million Mexicans were deported from

767
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 2: the United States, and most these people were US citizens.

768
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:06,240
Speaker 2: Historian Francisco Balderama argues that sixty percent of the million

769
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:09,360
Speaker 2: people who were deported were US citizens of Mexican descent,

770
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 2: and border patrol forces would call what was happening here

771
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:16,680
Speaker 2: repatriation to make it seem voluntary, but what was really

772
00:41:16,719 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 2: happening in the thirties was border patrol was just rounding

773
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 2: up all of the Mexicans they could get and throwing

774
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 2: them across the border and kind of accusing people of

775
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:28,319
Speaker 2: unlawful like crossing of the border basically as a justification

776
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:32,400
Speaker 2: for kicking them out. So that's cool.

777
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:40,319
Speaker 3: I just the resources that get used and spent to

778
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:47,960
Speaker 3: enforce these laws and build prisons and maintain the prison

779
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:52,800
Speaker 3: and just like all of that cost so much time

780
00:41:53,040 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 3: and is so much effort. Why, like it would be

781
00:41:56,560 --> 00:42:01,760
Speaker 3: so much easier if we would just let immigrants come

782
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,879
Speaker 3: and then just let them live and be a part

783
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:06,759
Speaker 3: of the community.

784
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 2: I mean, I know why, Because yeah, racism, Yeah, yeah,

785
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:16,920
Speaker 2: it's absurd. Yeah, the Border Patrol's pretty lame, okaylin you

786
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:18,840
Speaker 2: know this is like that, But like this, this is

787
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,480
Speaker 2: what it is from the beginning, Like one of the

788
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:23,959
Speaker 2: first things the Border Patrol ever does is to port

789
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 2: a million people, more than half of whom are US citizens.

790
00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:30,439
Speaker 2: And it just lies about what it's doing because it's

791
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:33,560
Speaker 2: from the beginning, its job has never been to actually

792
00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 2: enforce the rule of law or even protect the border.

793
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 2: Its job is to protect whiteness, right yep. So the

794
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 2: very the primary method of action for Border Patrol agents

795
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 2: from the beginning up to now was violence. The force

796
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:50,760
Speaker 2: was always undermanned and underfunded, with a handful of officers

797
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 2: responsible for thousands of miles of rugged terrain, there was

798
00:42:53,600 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 2: little to no oversight and agents generally used violence at

799
00:42:56,640 --> 00:42:59,759
Speaker 2: their discretion, as this anecdote from the book Migra Illustrates

800
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 2: Quote one day in nineteen twenty eight, explained Stoveall, who

801
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 2: was a Border patrol agent. He was patrolling alone near

802
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:09,200
Speaker 2: San Elizario, Texas, when he decided to drive through town.

803
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 2: San Elizario was this little Mexican town on the Rio Grande,

804
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:14,560
Speaker 2: said Stoveall, who remembered that when he got to town

805
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:16,840
Speaker 2: that day, he saw a mexicanyo come out from behind

806
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:18,919
Speaker 2: the bank of a drainage ditch and then duck back.

807
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:21,359
Speaker 2: Stoveall admitted to knowing the man, but stopped the car

808
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 2: and asked him, what do you have there in your bosom?

809
00:43:23,680 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 2: The man reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out

810
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 2: two bottles of beer and put them down on the

811
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 2: bridge and broke them so he wouldn't have any evidence.

812
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 2: Reflecting upon the incident, Stovall wondered, why didn't I pull

813
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:37,000
Speaker 2: out my gun and fire at that Mexican. I don't know,

814
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 2: I don't know why. Instead of reaching for his gun,

815
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:42,880
Speaker 2: and firing. Stoveall fled. I got in my car and

816
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:45,800
Speaker 2: got away from there, remembered Stoveall, because it was in daylight,

817
00:43:45,840 --> 00:43:48,000
Speaker 2: about one o'clock. If I had pulled my gun and fired,

818
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:50,360
Speaker 2: there would have been fifty Mexicans around me that quick.

819
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 2: According to Stovall, God spared his life that day by

820
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:56,800
Speaker 2: taking charge of his hands and preventing him from shooting

821
00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 2: at the mexicanyo. So this is nineteen twenty eight and

822
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:04,760
Speaker 2: kind of a common additude, Like this border patrol agent

823
00:44:05,239 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 2: approaches a guy who's got a legal alcohol and the

824
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:10,680
Speaker 2: dude breaks the bottles on him, and the man's lingering

825
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 2: question that he's wondering for years afterwards is why didn't

826
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 2: I shoot that man to death? Like?

827
00:44:16,880 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, what some people think justifies killing another person is

828
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 3: something I will never comprehend.

829
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think they thought they were people, true. Yeah,

830
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:35,400
Speaker 2: And it's probably worth noting how common brutality was, like

831
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 2: open brutality was among US law enforcement officials, even at

832
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 2: like pretty high levels in politics at this time. In

833
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:45,800
Speaker 2: May of nineteen fifty four, Herbert Brownell, the Attorney General,

834
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:49,919
Speaker 2: Eisenhower's attorney General, gave a speech where he asked US

835
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 2: labor leaders for their support in the event that Border

836
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:56,960
Speaker 2: patrol agents quote shot wetbacks in cold blood. So again

837
00:44:57,239 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 2: not saying like, hey, we might have an accidental shooting

838
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 2: and I need your support because like what we're doing

839
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 2: is hard, and you know people are going to mess up.

840
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:06,880
Speaker 2: Is like, you know, my guys might murder some some Mexicans.

841
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 2: You know, my guys are absolutely going to commit murder

842
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 2: in cold blood, and I need you to like have

843
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:15,040
Speaker 2: my back, right. That's the Attorney General of the United

844
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:19,320
Speaker 2: States nineteen fifty forties. Cool stuff?

845
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: You know what else is cool stuff?

846
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 2: Don't, Sophie. I can't imagine what you're going for here.

847
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 2: What is cool stuff?

848
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:32,200
Speaker 1: That's fine? Don't that's fine. I'll just leave.

849
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:37,400
Speaker 2: You know who isn't the Attorney General of the United States,

850
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 2: hopefully the products and services that support this podcast. So

851
00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 2: racism's not good. You know who else isn't good? The

852
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,120
Speaker 2: head of the Border Patrol in the nineteen fifties.

853
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:51,720
Speaker 3: Pivot.

854
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 2: Nice, yeah, a great pivot. So the guy in charge

855
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 2: of the Border Patrol as we turn into the nineteen

856
00:45:56,200 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 2: fifties is an outright monster by the name of Harlan Carter.

857
00:46:00,160 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 2: Now Carter was, by the time he became the head

858
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 2: of the Border Patrol, a convicted murderer who Yeah, in

859
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:12,120
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty one, as a teenager, he'd shot a Mexican

860
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 2: boy in the chest at point blank range with a

861
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:17,560
Speaker 2: twelve gage shotgun, and the two had been having an argument,

862
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 2: and the Mexican boy had a knife, but he was

863
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 2: not actively threatening Carter, and in fact, he'd laughed at

864
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 2: the boy's gun because he just kind of seemed to

865
00:46:23,920 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 2: think it was silly that they were having a fight

866
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:28,360
Speaker 2: at all, and Carter shot him to death because he

867
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:30,800
Speaker 2: was angry for being laughed at. He was convicted of

868
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:33,279
Speaker 2: murder and sentenced to three years in prison, but he

869
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 2: was let out after two owing to a technicality. So

870
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:38,439
Speaker 2: back in nineteen thirty one, by the way, you could

871
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:40,319
Speaker 2: shoot a man in the chest with a twelve gage

872
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:44,839
Speaker 2: and get three years. That's neat. Um.

873
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 3: I love laws, Yeah, just so our justice system is cool.

874
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, he got rehabilitated. He went on to become the

875
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:56,399
Speaker 2: head of the Border Patrol and also was the head

876
00:46:56,400 --> 00:47:00,439
Speaker 2: of the NRA. Uh Oh, Harlan Carter's an interest piece

877
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:05,280
Speaker 2: of shit. So throughout the forties, apprehensions by the Border

878
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 2: Patrol were kind of ad hoc and disorganized, and they

879
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:11,200
Speaker 2: were mostly the result of individual agents seeking out undocumented

880
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:14,040
Speaker 2: immigrants by catching them in transit. This meant that large

881
00:47:14,120 --> 00:47:16,439
Speaker 2: numbers of people were almost never apprehended at a time.

882
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:18,799
Speaker 2: It was more just like agents kind of going out

883
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 2: and hunting people down and grabbing a couple of folks.

884
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 2: This was an easy system for dumb, violent men to

885
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 2: like figure out, you know, you're just kind of it's

886
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:29,040
Speaker 2: like hunting basically, and it appealed to the kind of

887
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:32,600
Speaker 2: folks who became Border Patrol agents. But starting in nineteen fifty,

888
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:35,800
Speaker 2: a young agent named Albert Quillen began to change things.

889
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:38,839
Speaker 2: He was intelligent and ambitious, and when the chief supervisor

890
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 2: of Border Patrol demanded that he and his colleagues increase apprehensions,

891
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 2: Quillen began experimenting with bold new strategies. At five am

892
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 2: on February eleventh, Quillan took a detail of twelve patrol

893
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 2: men with two buses, one plane, one truck, and nine automobiles.

894
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:56,320
Speaker 2: The men drove out to a small station in real Hondo, Texas,

895
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:59,239
Speaker 2: and then split into two groups to clean as well

896
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 2: as possible certain section of illegal aliens. The plane acted

897
00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:05,240
Speaker 2: as a spotter while the buses were used to quote

898
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 2: Haull Wets to the border. One hundred people were apprehended

899
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:11,399
Speaker 2: in short order, and they were deported the next day.

900
00:48:12,000 --> 00:48:14,200
Speaker 2: Quillan soon moved on with his force to a series

901
00:48:14,239 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 2: of farms near Los Fresnos, Texas. They found five hundred

902
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:20,319
Speaker 2: and sixty one wets, which is again always the term

903
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:21,799
Speaker 2: they use for that. Do you understand where that term

904
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:22,280
Speaker 2: comes from?

905
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:25,400
Speaker 3: I don't know that I actually know the source of it. No.

906
00:48:25,920 --> 00:48:29,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. So basically the idea is that there were kind

907
00:48:29,440 --> 00:48:31,799
Speaker 2: of two two options for Mexicans at this time. There

908
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 2: was the Bracero program, which was a program by which

909
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:36,880
Speaker 2: they could kind of enter the country quasi legally and

910
00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 2: get like legal working rights to be like a laborer

911
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 2: or something like that. And then there was you could

912
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,480
Speaker 2: just cross the border right illegally, and that usually meant

913
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:49,319
Speaker 2: crossing the Rio Grande, which is a river, right, so

914
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:51,680
Speaker 2: you wind up wet on the other side of the river,

915
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 2: so they call them wetbacks like that's that's still to

916
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 2: this day a racist slang term for particularly Mexicans, be

917
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:01,640
Speaker 2: kind of all people of Hispanic descent. And a lot

918
00:49:01,640 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 2: of Texas like you hear it a lot from raises

919
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:06,399
Speaker 2: there and the Border Patrol. It is their standard term

920
00:49:06,480 --> 00:49:08,600
Speaker 2: for these people. This is like on all of their

921
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:12,040
Speaker 2: professional documents and everything. This is what they call migrants. Yeah.

922
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 2: So Quillan's forces catch five hundred and sixty one wets

923
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 2: on their second day, and on their third day they

924
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:21,719
Speaker 2: catch two hundred and sixty four. On the fourth day

925
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:24,279
Speaker 2: they catch one hundred and thirty four. In less than

926
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 2: a week, they captured and deported more than a thousand

927
00:49:26,680 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 2: undocumented laborers. And this was like unprecedented. The Border Patrol

928
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 2: had never caught this many people this quickly. It was

929
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:35,719
Speaker 2: seen as an astonishing achievement by Quillan's superiors, and they

930
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:39,120
Speaker 2: began setting up other raids in imitation of his Border

931
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:42,160
Speaker 2: Patrol supervisors noted that these new task forces, as they

932
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:45,800
Speaker 2: started being called, we're quote pounding away on these wets

933
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:49,799
Speaker 2: cool dudes. Soon multiple task forces had been established throughout

934
00:49:49,840 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 2: California and Texas, carrying out constant raids and netting huge

935
00:49:53,040 --> 00:49:56,120
Speaker 2: numbers of undocumented persons. On some single days, more than

936
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 2: five thousand Mexican nationals would be apprehended and shipped to

937
00:49:59,239 --> 00:50:02,520
Speaker 2: temporary to ten camps before being sent back across the border.

938
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:06,359
Speaker 2: Patrolman handed deportees notes that read quote, you have entered

939
00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:08,879
Speaker 2: the United States illegally and in violation of the laws

940
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:11,080
Speaker 2: of your land and those of the United States. For

941
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 2: this reason, you are being returned to your homeland. If

942
00:50:13,239 --> 00:50:15,800
Speaker 2: you return again illegally, you will be arrested and punished

943
00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 2: as provided by law. We understand that the life of

944
00:50:18,280 --> 00:50:20,799
Speaker 2: a wet back is difficult. Wetbacks are unable to work

945
00:50:20,800 --> 00:50:22,800
Speaker 2: for more than a few hours before they are apprehended

946
00:50:22,840 --> 00:50:25,480
Speaker 2: and deported. Remember these words and transmit the news to

947
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:27,359
Speaker 2: your families and countrymen if you want to do them

948
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 2: a favor. So that's fun. Yikes, nice letter there.

949
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:38,279
Speaker 3: Oh, terrifying language. Also, you had said alien that that

950
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:42,439
Speaker 3: was something that had been and still gets like. That

951
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:51,840
Speaker 3: language is still used and it's just the most dehumanizing word. Yeah,

952
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:57,200
Speaker 3: to you'll refer to simply someone who travels to another

953
00:50:57,280 --> 00:51:00,160
Speaker 3: place and wants to stay there.

954
00:51:00,360 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 2: It's pretty crazy because we don't use that word for uh,

955
00:51:05,400 --> 00:51:08,480
Speaker 2: I don't know us. I'm I'm excited for when we

956
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:11,799
Speaker 2: have finally the big civil war that we're we're all

957
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 2: planning to have and suddenly a shipload of.

958
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 1: But continue like.

959
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:23,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm I'm excited for the people who treated Syrian

960
00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:27,399
Speaker 2: refugees and treat Guatemalan and Honduran and Mexican refugees like shit,

961
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 2: and I'm excited for them all to I don't know,

962
00:51:30,520 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 2: get gutten down by Canadian border guards as we deserve

963
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:38,320
Speaker 2: as a nation. I don't know. I'm angry all the time, Kitlyn,

964
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:39,160
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.

965
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:41,920
Speaker 3: That's not right likewise, so am I.

966
00:51:42,719 --> 00:51:47,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway, it'll be up to Canada to be racist

967
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:52,160
Speaker 2: then and then eventually Alaska and then the biosphere will die.

968
00:51:53,200 --> 00:51:58,799
Speaker 2: So you know what won't die, Caitlin, are.

969
00:51:58,719 --> 00:52:03,120
Speaker 1: You doing necessary transous? Do your podcast? Do your podcast?

970
00:52:03,160 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 2: I know I went off on a really sad rant,

971
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 2: and so I decided to throw in a raytheon ad

972
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:13,239
Speaker 2: because everybody likes thinking about raytheon. So back to the

973
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 2: border patrol. So the border patrol would like pick up

974
00:52:16,520 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 2: all these folks, huge numbers, thousands in a day sometimes

975
00:52:19,160 --> 00:52:21,520
Speaker 2: and they would put them in these like temporary camps

976
00:52:22,120 --> 00:52:24,440
Speaker 2: and then would take them into Mexico where the Mexican

977
00:52:24,440 --> 00:52:26,799
Speaker 2: military would basically dump them in the middle of the

978
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:29,360
Speaker 2: country as far away from the border as possible, and

979
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 2: these were generally places where there was no work and

980
00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:34,400
Speaker 2: where these migrants had no family connections, and it was

981
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:38,240
Speaker 2: just a horrible situation for most people. As a result

982
00:52:38,280 --> 00:52:41,200
Speaker 2: of these new tactics, between nineteen fifty and nineteen fifty three,

983
00:52:41,239 --> 00:52:44,600
Speaker 2: the number of Border Patrol apprehensions nearly doubled, from four

984
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:47,359
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty nine thousand to almost eight hundred and

985
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:51,640
Speaker 2: forty thousand. This caused immediate problems for ranchers and farmers,

986
00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 2: who started to realize that the new legal powers they'd

987
00:52:54,080 --> 00:52:58,000
Speaker 2: given the Border Patrol had vastly realigned the organization's power

988
00:52:58,080 --> 00:53:00,359
Speaker 2: in a way that allowed the white supremacists too ran

989
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 2: it to harm agribusiness by wiping out their workforce at

990
00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 2: stake was also a sort of cultural readjustment. Farmers and

991
00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:09,239
Speaker 2: ranchers were used to occupying a position at the top

992
00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:12,360
Speaker 2: of society, but now Border patrol men could exercise the

993
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:15,840
Speaker 2: power of deportation again and take away their workers. And

994
00:53:15,960 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 2: Texas border towns like Marfa, farmers hired armed guards, hired lookouts,

995
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:23,640
Speaker 2: and booby trapped farm gates in order to protect their workforce.

996
00:53:23,640 --> 00:53:26,880
Speaker 2: There were gunfights with border patrol with these like white

997
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:30,320
Speaker 2: farmers trying to defend their workforce, and as the conflict

998
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:33,560
Speaker 2: between the farmers and border patrol grew uglier, white border

999
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 2: town farmers suddenly found themselves facing off against the same

1000
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 2: men who'd hunted their workers. The book Migra tells the

1001
00:53:39,560 --> 00:53:42,280
Speaker 2: story of D. C. Newton, whose family were border patrol

1002
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 2: farmers who posted guards to warn about raids. They went

1003
00:53:45,520 --> 00:53:47,280
Speaker 2: to sleep they want to sleep one night in nineteen

1004
00:53:47,320 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 2: fifty two and woke up to find that dozens of

1005
00:53:49,239 --> 00:53:51,919
Speaker 2: Border patrol agents had snuck in with their headlights off,

1006
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:55,480
Speaker 2: and to surprise everyone sleeping in the farmhouse and adjacent quarters.

1007
00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:58,719
Speaker 2: The Newton's oldest son was faster, though, and he succeeded

1008
00:53:58,719 --> 00:54:01,919
Speaker 2: in warning the undocumented migrants staying on the farm, which

1009
00:54:01,960 --> 00:54:03,839
Speaker 2: gave them the time they needed to run like hell

1010
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:06,279
Speaker 2: and height in the trees. When the border patrol men

1011
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 2: came up empty in their search, they went after the

1012
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:11,600
Speaker 2: white folks who awk actually owned the farm. And I'm

1013
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:14,640
Speaker 2: going to quote from book migrenow they entered Newton's parents

1014
00:54:14,719 --> 00:54:17,359
Speaker 2: bedroom and began shining the flashlights in my mother's eyes

1015
00:54:17,360 --> 00:54:19,839
Speaker 2: and my father's eyes, telling them to get up. We're

1016
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:21,799
Speaker 2: going to go out and find where your Mexicans are.

1017
00:54:22,080 --> 00:54:24,960
Speaker 2: With my father and his pajamas, his mother in a nightgown,

1018
00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:27,160
Speaker 2: and no one wearing any shoes, the officers forced the

1019
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 2: family out of the house while pushing physically pushing my

1020
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:31,960
Speaker 2: mother in the back, pushing my father in the back,

1021
00:54:32,160 --> 00:54:34,560
Speaker 2: and demanding to know where the wet backs were. Most

1022
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:37,360
Speaker 2: of the workers had fled, including Newton's nanny Lupe, for

1023
00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:39,840
Speaker 2: whom the officers claimed to be searching. In particular, she

1024
00:54:39,880 --> 00:54:42,120
Speaker 2: had heard the arrival of the patrolmen and climbed out

1025
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:44,160
Speaker 2: of the window on the second floor of the farmhouse,

1026
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:46,200
Speaker 2: rolled down onto the roof of the garage, and run

1027
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:48,760
Speaker 2: off to the southeast and was gone. Although the Newtons

1028
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:51,360
Speaker 2: believed they had outsmarted the border patrol by alerting the

1029
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:54,239
Speaker 2: migrants to the raid, the head border patrol inspectors still

1030
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:57,920
Speaker 2: led fifty three apprehended workers away, saying, see how you

1031
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:02,760
Speaker 2: handle your groves. Now, now that's like a bad story

1032
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:07,920
Speaker 2: and everything. What's interesting here is I guess how horrible

1033
00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:11,719
Speaker 2: Newton's family is here too, because the interview with him

1034
00:55:11,760 --> 00:55:14,319
Speaker 2: goes on and he makes it clear that he kind

1035
00:55:14,360 --> 00:55:16,560
Speaker 2: of when his dad explained to him what was happening

1036
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:19,560
Speaker 2: with the Border Patrol. His dad compared the conflict to

1037
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 2: the Civil War, and the side that he identified with

1038
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 2: was not the good side. Quote. Newton's father believed that

1039
00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:30,240
Speaker 2: by taking away their workers, the damn Yankee Border Patrol

1040
00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:32,759
Speaker 2: were splitting up a household. As he explained it to

1041
00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:35,760
Speaker 2: his son, the South Texans protected their homes, their families,

1042
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:37,600
Speaker 2: their property, and their way of life from the Border

1043
00:55:37,640 --> 00:55:40,960
Speaker 2: patrol raids. He was the master. The Mexican illegals were

1044
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:43,400
Speaker 2: equivalent to the black slaves, and together they formed a

1045
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:45,920
Speaker 2: household a system of labor relations in a world of

1046
00:55:45,960 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 2: tightly bound intimacy and inequity. The Border Patrol threatened their

1047
00:55:49,520 --> 00:55:53,920
Speaker 2: household by reducing the farmer's control over Mexico's unsanctioned migrant workers.

1048
00:55:54,120 --> 00:55:56,680
Speaker 2: So as the Southerners had rebelled against intrusions upon their

1049
00:55:56,719 --> 00:55:59,759
Speaker 2: labor relations and plantation lives, the Newton family had to

1050
00:55:59,760 --> 00:56:03,040
Speaker 2: defe itself against the US Border Patrol. Newton's brother took

1051
00:56:03,040 --> 00:56:05,239
Speaker 2: the lesson to heart. When the Border Patrol raided on

1052
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:07,360
Speaker 2: another night, he stood in the family driveway with a

1053
00:56:07,400 --> 00:56:10,359
Speaker 2: shotgun named at the officers. Startled by the hostile twelve

1054
00:56:10,400 --> 00:56:12,800
Speaker 2: year old boy. The officers left the property and returned

1055
00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:17,319
Speaker 2: on another day. So yeah, this is what's happening here

1056
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:18,560
Speaker 2: is really complicated.

1057
00:56:18,960 --> 00:56:22,240
Speaker 3: Yeah right. There's an important thing to remember here, which

1058
00:56:22,320 --> 00:56:28,400
Speaker 3: is that even of the like white ranch farm owners

1059
00:56:29,239 --> 00:56:34,880
Speaker 3: who are maybe not in favor of their workforce being

1060
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:39,480
Speaker 3: sent back to their country of origin, they are still

1061
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:46,400
Speaker 3: exploiting these workers, these migrant workers, and you know, probably

1062
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 3: not paying them well, probably not offering them you know,

1063
00:56:51,560 --> 00:56:55,719
Speaker 3: good benefits, except.

1064
00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:59,799
Speaker 2: And probably like keeping them in very primitive living situations,

1065
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:02,800
Speaker 2: often like little more than a shack, often like like

1066
00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 2: kind of nightmares situa like these guys did. These migrants

1067
00:57:07,160 --> 00:57:10,239
Speaker 2: often did live very similarly to slaves. Right, it wasn't

1068
00:57:10,280 --> 00:57:13,160
Speaker 2: quite that bad, but it was bad. And these these

1069
00:57:13,200 --> 00:57:17,400
Speaker 2: farmers are like the border patrol agents want these migrants

1070
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:21,120
Speaker 2: out because they're racist as fuck, and these farmers are

1071
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:24,360
Speaker 2: also racist as fuck. They just want the migrants to

1072
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 2: stay because.

1073
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:27,200
Speaker 3: It because they can exploit the basis of.

1074
00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:30,600
Speaker 2: Their power exactly right. So again, no one to root

1075
00:57:30,600 --> 00:57:33,880
Speaker 2: for here other than like these migrants, but they seem

1076
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:36,439
Speaker 2: to mostly get just fucked over by everybody, and that's

1077
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:41,840
Speaker 2: not fun. Yep. So yeah, it's important to remember that

1078
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 2: kind of the struggle between border patrol and these border

1079
00:57:44,280 --> 00:57:47,000
Speaker 2: farmers in Texas was a struggle between two different groups

1080
00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:50,400
Speaker 2: of white supremacists, and one group of white supremacists was

1081
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:54,560
Speaker 2: broadly in the right, because I guess it's it's worse

1082
00:57:54,720 --> 00:57:57,240
Speaker 2: to round up thousands of people in cattle cars and

1083
00:57:57,280 --> 00:57:59,360
Speaker 2: buses and throw them back across a border for no

1084
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:04,360
Speaker 2: good reason. M but there's no one you should be

1085
00:58:04,480 --> 00:58:07,720
Speaker 2: rooting for here. But what's really interesting I find fascinating

1086
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:11,320
Speaker 2: about this whole conflict is that these racist plantation owning

1087
00:58:11,480 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 2: white border farmers wound up like fighting the border patrol

1088
00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:18,040
Speaker 2: by kind of co opting the language of social justice.

1089
00:58:18,880 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 2: Starting in the nineteen fifties, ranchers began to argue that

1090
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:26,160
Speaker 2: Mexican nationals were being unfairly targeted for deportations. They complained

1091
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:29,120
Speaker 2: that the buses, planes, and trains used to take migrants

1092
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:33,080
Speaker 2: away were cruel, in human and outrageous practices, trading in

1093
00:58:33,160 --> 00:58:36,080
Speaker 2: human misery. They began to argue that hiring Mexicans was

1094
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 2: an act of kindness by American ranchers. Mexican laborers deserved

1095
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:42,160
Speaker 2: the chance to win a better life by working low

1096
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:45,440
Speaker 2: paid jobs as domestic servants and laborers. The Border Patrol

1097
00:58:45,560 --> 00:58:49,000
Speaker 2: was in fact actually fostering communism by sending these men

1098
00:58:49,040 --> 00:58:51,520
Speaker 2: and women back to the interior of Mexico, where they

1099
00:58:51,560 --> 00:58:53,919
Speaker 2: would no doubt live on in miserable poverty and join

1100
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:55,360
Speaker 2: some leftist gorilla movement.

1101
00:58:56,040 --> 00:59:02,800
Speaker 3: So yeah, because they're lies being exploited farm hands in

1102
00:59:02,840 --> 00:59:08,000
Speaker 3: the US was so much better. What, Oh my gosh.

1103
00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:11,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty cool. How naturally that came to these farmers.

1104
00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:16,240
Speaker 2: I like it. So the Border Patrol obviously didn't listen

1105
00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:18,840
Speaker 2: to the protests against them. They continued to, in their

1106
00:59:18,880 --> 00:59:23,120
Speaker 2: own words, pound away in the borderlands, raising apprehensions. The

1107
00:59:23,200 --> 00:59:27,440
Speaker 2: increased workload necessary necessitated more men in facilities, and in

1108
00:59:27,520 --> 00:59:30,200
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty three, the Border Patrol attempted to hire two

1109
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:33,400
Speaker 2: hundred and forty additional officers and made plans to build

1110
00:59:33,440 --> 00:59:36,240
Speaker 2: two new detention centers at the lower Rio Grand Valley.

1111
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:39,960
Speaker 2: This enraged local farmers, and one quote threatened to arm

1112
00:59:40,000 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 2: his wetback laborers against the Border Patrol, threatening that there

1113
00:59:43,160 --> 00:59:45,400
Speaker 2: is liable to be a couple of dead Border patrolmen.

1114
00:59:45,800 --> 00:59:48,600
Speaker 2: Death threats against patrolman became a daily occurrence and farmers

1115
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:51,120
Speaker 2: in the Lower Rio Grand lobbied their congressmen to deny

1116
00:59:51,160 --> 00:59:54,440
Speaker 2: the appropriation request necessary to fund the new men in facilities.

1117
00:59:55,000 --> 00:59:57,840
Speaker 2: These farmers insisted they weren't lobbying for their own benefit,

1118
00:59:57,880 --> 01:00:00,320
Speaker 2: but we're doing it for migrants who were victor of

1119
01:00:00,360 --> 01:00:04,000
Speaker 2: the Patrol's cheap vindictiveness, a great hunger to ruler, ruin

1120
01:00:04,280 --> 01:00:07,440
Speaker 2: to control, to govern, anything to carry a point, reckless

1121
01:00:07,440 --> 01:00:10,080
Speaker 2: of the consequences to the poor workmen which they heard

1122
01:00:10,120 --> 01:00:12,560
Speaker 2: around us cattle. And they weren't wrong in this. The

1123
01:00:12,600 --> 01:00:15,240
Speaker 2: facility the Border Patrol wanted to build was essentially a

1124
01:00:15,280 --> 01:00:20,480
Speaker 2: concentration camp. Eventually, Congress listened and the appropriations request was denied.

1125
01:00:20,520 --> 01:00:22,760
Speaker 2: So like the protest of all these guys in Texas worked,

1126
01:00:22,960 --> 01:00:24,760
Speaker 2: the Border Patrol had to send its two hundred and

1127
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:28,040
Speaker 2: forty men back home and cancel construction. According to the

1128
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:31,960
Speaker 2: book Migra Quote, one month after losing the supplemental appropriation,

1129
01:00:32,280 --> 01:00:34,960
Speaker 2: Chief Kelly announced the Border Patrols withdrawal from the Rio

1130
01:00:35,000 --> 01:00:37,680
Speaker 2: Grand Valley to a new defense line ten miles to

1131
01:00:37,720 --> 01:00:41,040
Speaker 2: the north of Kingsville. Fall furious, and Hebronville rather than

1132
01:00:41,040 --> 01:00:43,280
Speaker 2: fight a losing battle in the Lower Rio Grand Valley.

1133
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:45,280
Speaker 2: The Border Patrol decided to pull out of the area

1134
01:00:45,400 --> 01:00:48,280
Speaker 2: because with limited forces we can best control the wet

1135
01:00:48,280 --> 01:00:51,920
Speaker 2: back invasion as at the line farther north. It's one

1136
01:00:51,920 --> 01:00:54,080
Speaker 2: of those things, I guess I always kind of debate

1137
01:00:54,160 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 2: when you've got like something that is essentially a slur,

1138
01:00:56,840 --> 01:00:59,160
Speaker 2: or is a slur in an episode of like this,

1139
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 2: how often to say it? And it's one of those

1140
01:01:01,800 --> 01:01:04,280
Speaker 2: things where I kind of feel like cleaning up. The

1141
01:01:04,280 --> 01:01:09,000
Speaker 2: Border Patrol's official statements in the matter would be, I

1142
01:01:09,000 --> 01:01:11,720
Speaker 2: don't know, making it seem like they were less of

1143
01:01:11,760 --> 01:01:15,240
Speaker 2: a naked force for white supremacy than they were, Like

1144
01:01:15,920 --> 01:01:18,920
Speaker 2: if you replace that with Mexican nationals, that's not really

1145
01:01:18,960 --> 01:01:21,920
Speaker 2: what they're saying, right, Yeah, I don't know.

1146
01:01:22,240 --> 01:01:24,240
Speaker 3: That's yeah. I mean that puts you in a pretty

1147
01:01:25,080 --> 01:01:27,640
Speaker 3: tricky position. Yeah, I don't know.

1148
01:01:28,480 --> 01:01:32,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, they use it a lots. It's the Border Patrol

1149
01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:34,760
Speaker 2: are cool guys, And we're about to hear it used

1150
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:38,200
Speaker 2: again in another big way. So the men of the

1151
01:01:38,200 --> 01:01:40,760
Speaker 2: Border Patrol did see the immigration of Mexicans into the

1152
01:01:40,840 --> 01:01:43,040
Speaker 2: US as an invasion, and they sought to repel it

1153
01:01:43,080 --> 01:01:45,280
Speaker 2: with military force. As kind of that language above, right,

1154
01:01:45,400 --> 01:01:47,480
Speaker 2: referring to it as a defensive line and stuff like

1155
01:01:47,520 --> 01:01:51,400
Speaker 2: they're defending whiteness again, and they see the encroachment of

1156
01:01:51,440 --> 01:01:56,440
Speaker 2: these undocumented migrants as like an assault on white blood

1157
01:01:56,560 --> 01:01:59,920
Speaker 2: more than anything else. In nineteen fifty three, with the

1158
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:03,040
Speaker 2: rebellion of the Texas Ranchers in full swing, Harlan Carter,

1159
01:02:03,080 --> 01:02:05,200
Speaker 2: who's again the murderer who became the head of the

1160
01:02:05,200 --> 01:02:08,479
Speaker 2: Border Patrol, sat down with two US generals to ask

1161
01:02:08,520 --> 01:02:11,080
Speaker 2: for their help. He wanted the military and the National

1162
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:14,480
Speaker 2: Guard to assist the Border Patrol in a nationwide purge

1163
01:02:14,680 --> 01:02:19,960
Speaker 2: of undocumented Mexican nationals called Operation Cloudburst. The first step

1164
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:22,840
Speaker 2: for this would be an anti infiltration campaign to seal

1165
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:24,760
Speaker 2: the border with the help of twenty one hundred and

1166
01:02:24,760 --> 01:02:28,480
Speaker 2: eighty troops. Border Patrol would station soldiers at strategic locations

1167
01:02:28,480 --> 01:02:31,360
Speaker 2: and build several long fences to block areas of heavy traffic.

1168
01:02:31,680 --> 01:02:34,080
Speaker 2: This part of the operation is fairly standard, aside from

1169
01:02:34,080 --> 01:02:36,800
Speaker 2: the presence of US troops. Part two, though, would be

1170
01:02:36,840 --> 01:02:40,480
Speaker 2: a containment operation, which would involve roadblocks on every major

1171
01:02:40,560 --> 01:02:43,560
Speaker 2: highway from the southwest to the interior of North America.

1172
01:02:43,960 --> 01:02:46,680
Speaker 2: These checkpoints would be used to search vehicles for illegal

1173
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:50,040
Speaker 2: migrants around the clock. Part three was the mopping up phase,

1174
01:02:50,080 --> 01:02:52,400
Speaker 2: and this would involve a massive series of raids in

1175
01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:56,040
Speaker 2: northern locations, places far from the border, like San Francisco

1176
01:02:56,360 --> 01:02:59,360
Speaker 2: where groups of migrants were believed to have gathered. Businesses

1177
01:02:59,360 --> 01:03:01,640
Speaker 2: and camps would be raided and the arrested migrants would

1178
01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:04,480
Speaker 2: be airlifted or sent by train to the interior of Mexico.

1179
01:03:05,120 --> 01:03:09,200
Speaker 2: Now again using the military. This was essentially he wanted

1180
01:03:09,200 --> 01:03:12,440
Speaker 2: to bring in the army to carry out a military

1181
01:03:12,560 --> 01:03:16,480
Speaker 2: action to purge the United States of Hispanic people. That's

1182
01:03:16,520 --> 01:03:18,520
Speaker 2: what the head of Border patrols trying to do here,

1183
01:03:18,800 --> 01:03:21,040
Speaker 2: and all of the military guys he talked to are like,

1184
01:03:21,120 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 2: this sounds like a great idea. We'd love to help,

1185
01:03:23,600 --> 01:03:26,680
Speaker 2: but it's illegal, right possecomatadis means you can't use the

1186
01:03:26,800 --> 01:03:30,400
Speaker 2: army for shit like this. The only way around it

1187
01:03:30,480 --> 01:03:34,120
Speaker 2: is a presidential proclamation, and Dwight Eisenhower was actually initially

1188
01:03:34,320 --> 01:03:38,200
Speaker 2: all on board with issuing that proclamation, but in the

1189
01:03:38,280 --> 01:03:41,280
Speaker 2: end he kind of backed away and instead he appointed

1190
01:03:41,280 --> 01:03:44,040
Speaker 2: a General Joseph Swing to be the new Commissioner of

1191
01:03:44,080 --> 01:03:48,280
Speaker 2: the Immigration and Naturalization Service and was basically like, we

1192
01:03:48,320 --> 01:03:52,040
Speaker 2: can't use soldiers for this because it's unconstitutional. But I'm

1193
01:03:52,040 --> 01:03:54,200
Speaker 2: going a promoted general to be in charge of the

1194
01:03:54,240 --> 01:03:57,400
Speaker 2: i INS and you figure out a way to do

1195
01:03:57,520 --> 01:04:01,640
Speaker 2: the same thing with the resources Border Patrol has, like, yeah, yeah,

1196
01:04:01,640 --> 01:04:04,400
Speaker 2: I still want a military operation to clear out these

1197
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:07,600
Speaker 2: Hispanic people. I just can't use soldiers.

1198
01:04:08,240 --> 01:04:14,760
Speaker 3: So that's good grief. Yeah, the mental gymnastics that what, yeah,

1199
01:04:14,920 --> 01:04:20,880
Speaker 3: that these people do to justify their horrible actions. Anyway, sorry,

1200
01:04:20,960 --> 01:04:21,720
Speaker 3: go ahead.

1201
01:04:21,960 --> 01:04:25,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty great. I don't know. So one month

1202
01:04:25,040 --> 01:04:28,360
Speaker 2: after joining i INS, General Swing announces that he's going

1203
01:04:28,400 --> 01:04:30,760
Speaker 2: to be leading the Border Patrol in a new paramilitary

1204
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:34,800
Speaker 2: campaign based on the tactics pioneered by Albert Quillen. The

1205
01:04:34,880 --> 01:04:40,560
Speaker 2: new operation is given the name Operation Wetback Again. That's

1206
01:04:40,600 --> 01:04:43,120
Speaker 2: the Border Patrol's official name for it. That's what all

1207
01:04:43,120 --> 01:04:44,960
Speaker 2: these guys call it. That's what it's written up in

1208
01:04:45,200 --> 01:04:46,360
Speaker 2: the documents and stuff.

1209
01:04:46,400 --> 01:04:47,280
Speaker 3: She's Louise.

1210
01:04:47,800 --> 01:04:50,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just didn't have a fuck to give on

1211
01:04:50,520 --> 01:04:53,760
Speaker 2: this matter. So true to form, Border Patrol was only

1212
01:04:53,760 --> 01:04:55,960
Speaker 2: given four weeks to prepare for what would become the

1213
01:04:56,040 --> 01:04:58,960
Speaker 2: largest operation in their history. The plan was to engage

1214
01:04:58,960 --> 01:05:02,320
Speaker 2: in an unprecedented deporting hundreds of thousands of people. No

1215
01:05:02,400 --> 01:05:06,120
Speaker 2: one received any training or specialized equipment to actually do this, though.

1216
01:05:06,760 --> 01:05:09,560
Speaker 2: All that most agents had on June ninth, nineteen fifty four,

1217
01:05:09,640 --> 01:05:12,240
Speaker 2: when the operation began, was a letter from General Swing

1218
01:05:12,800 --> 01:05:16,439
Speaker 2: ordering them to purge the nation by removing the huge

1219
01:05:16,520 --> 01:05:18,920
Speaker 2: number of Mexican nationals who were in this country in

1220
01:05:19,040 --> 01:05:22,959
Speaker 2: violation of the immigration laws. Always good to hear about

1221
01:05:22,960 --> 01:05:28,040
Speaker 2: a purge. Y. Yeah, So in its first day, California

1222
01:05:28,680 --> 01:05:30,640
Speaker 2: or in the first day of this operation, California and

1223
01:05:30,680 --> 01:05:34,440
Speaker 2: Arizona agents apprehended nearly eleven thousand migrants. The flood of

1224
01:05:34,440 --> 01:05:36,960
Speaker 2: people only accelerated after that, and the sheer number of

1225
01:05:37,040 --> 01:05:40,760
Speaker 2: deportees overwhelmed the Border Patrol's capacity to hold or carry them.

1226
01:05:41,000 --> 01:05:44,520
Speaker 2: People were left in primitive exposed concentration camps for days.

1227
01:05:44,800 --> 01:05:47,720
Speaker 2: The Border Patrol turned a Lesion Park in Los Angeles

1228
01:05:47,720 --> 01:05:53,200
Speaker 2: into an open air concentration camp. Yeah, that's Nate, go

1229
01:05:53,320 --> 01:05:54,120
Speaker 2: to Alesian Park.

1230
01:05:55,920 --> 01:05:59,120
Speaker 3: I've been there before and I'll never go again.

1231
01:05:59,520 --> 01:06:01,120
Speaker 2: A lot of the men who were in turn there,

1232
01:06:01,120 --> 01:06:03,920
Speaker 2: men and women, got sick and sometimes died of sunstroke

1233
01:06:04,040 --> 01:06:06,720
Speaker 2: because there was no care given to their health. And

1234
01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:11,400
Speaker 2: it can get very hot down there. Twenty five percent

1235
01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:14,200
Speaker 2: of all deportees were transported by boats, many of which

1236
01:06:14,200 --> 01:06:16,920
Speaker 2: were so cramped and filthy that their occupants later compared

1237
01:06:16,920 --> 01:06:22,920
Speaker 2: them to slave ships or penal hell ships. So that's great.

1238
01:06:23,360 --> 01:06:26,120
Speaker 2: The Mexican government's capacity to take and transport all these

1239
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:28,680
Speaker 2: people broke down almost immediately, and they were like, we

1240
01:06:28,760 --> 01:06:31,520
Speaker 2: need you to not send these people to us so

1241
01:06:31,600 --> 01:06:34,520
Speaker 2: quickly because we can't handle them. And the US government said,

1242
01:06:34,720 --> 01:06:38,840
Speaker 2: we don't give a fuck and kept just shotgunning people

1243
01:06:38,840 --> 01:06:42,000
Speaker 2: on over there, and the sheer scale of deportations began

1244
01:06:42,040 --> 01:06:44,760
Speaker 2: to fuck with American industry. But border patrol didn't really

1245
01:06:44,760 --> 01:06:46,600
Speaker 2: give a shit about this either. I'm going to quote

1246
01:06:46,600 --> 01:06:50,320
Speaker 2: again from the book Migra. Between June seventeenth and July

1247
01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:53,800
Speaker 2: twenty sixth, nineteen fifty four, twenty eight hundred and twenty

1248
01:06:53,840 --> 01:06:55,920
Speaker 2: seven of the four thousand, four hundred and three migrants

1249
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:58,760
Speaker 2: apprehended by the task force assigned to the Los Angeles

1250
01:06:58,800 --> 01:07:01,600
Speaker 2: area had worked in industry. After border patrol raids during

1251
01:07:01,600 --> 01:07:04,160
Speaker 2: the summer of nineteen fifty four, three Los Angeles brickyards

1252
01:07:04,160 --> 01:07:07,080
Speaker 2: were left without sufficient numbers of workers and temporarily closed

1253
01:07:07,080 --> 01:07:10,840
Speaker 2: down their operations. Similarly, Border Patrol officers paid close attention

1254
01:07:10,920 --> 01:07:14,200
Speaker 2: to the hotel and restaurant business, which routinely hired undocumented

1255
01:07:14,200 --> 01:07:18,000
Speaker 2: Mexican immigrants as bus boys, kitchen help waiters, etc. Officers

1256
01:07:18,000 --> 01:07:21,080
Speaker 2: reported apprehending such workers at well known establishments such as

1257
01:07:21,080 --> 01:07:25,080
Speaker 2: the Biltmore Hotel, Beverly Hills Hotel, Hollywood, Roosevelt Hotel, Los

1258
01:07:25,120 --> 01:07:28,040
Speaker 2: Angeles Athletic Club, and the Brown Derby. At times, the

1259
01:07:28,040 --> 01:07:31,080
Speaker 2: Border Patrol raids created moments of chaos at popular restaurants

1260
01:07:31,080 --> 01:07:33,920
Speaker 2: when migrants attempted to escape by running through the serving area.

1261
01:07:34,520 --> 01:07:37,480
Speaker 2: The raids were public and regularly drew significant attention from

1262
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:39,440
Speaker 2: the press, and this was part of the point. The

1263
01:07:39,520 --> 01:07:42,560
Speaker 2: reason the Border Patrol focused so much on Los Angeles

1264
01:07:42,560 --> 01:07:45,880
Speaker 2: onlike raids in big Hollywood locations is because they were

1265
01:07:45,880 --> 01:07:48,120
Speaker 2: trying to make a point to these like these ranchers

1266
01:07:48,160 --> 01:07:50,400
Speaker 2: who were still fighting them in South Texas. And the

1267
01:07:50,760 --> 01:07:53,280
Speaker 2: message was, if we're willing to do this shit in

1268
01:07:53,360 --> 01:07:55,840
Speaker 2: fucking Hollywood, you'd better believe that one day we're going

1269
01:07:55,880 --> 01:07:57,640
Speaker 2: to come to your ranch and fuck you up, right,

1270
01:07:57,920 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 2: Like if we'll do this to the Biltmore, we'll ruin you,

1271
01:08:00,360 --> 01:08:02,760
Speaker 2: Like we don't give a shit, we're the Border Patrol.

1272
01:08:04,360 --> 01:08:06,920
Speaker 2: And in the end, Operation Wetback was responsible for the

1273
01:08:06,960 --> 01:08:09,640
Speaker 2: deportations of somewhere between a quarter of a million at

1274
01:08:09,640 --> 01:08:12,200
Speaker 2: the low end and about one point five million people

1275
01:08:12,240 --> 01:08:16,599
Speaker 2: at the high end, and at the end of the day, yeah,

1276
01:08:16,720 --> 01:08:19,280
Speaker 2: it kind of ended in retreat by the Border Patrol.

1277
01:08:19,880 --> 01:08:22,160
Speaker 2: Part of this was that around the same time, the

1278
01:08:22,280 --> 01:08:26,000
Speaker 2: US government reformed the Brassero program, which allowed Mexican nationals

1279
01:08:26,000 --> 01:08:28,519
Speaker 2: to get legal working status in the US, and that

1280
01:08:28,560 --> 01:08:30,920
Speaker 2: became much more popular after this time, So a lot

1281
01:08:30,960 --> 01:08:33,920
Speaker 2: of these these ranchers and farmers started making sure that

1282
01:08:33,960 --> 01:08:36,360
Speaker 2: their workers kind of went through a legal path to

1283
01:08:36,400 --> 01:08:39,560
Speaker 2: gain working status in the United States. And some of

1284
01:08:39,600 --> 01:08:42,560
Speaker 2: it was just that, like there was blowback to this program.

1285
01:08:42,640 --> 01:08:45,679
Speaker 2: It wasn't very popular all of the massive public raids,

1286
01:08:46,439 --> 01:08:49,520
Speaker 2: and kind of as a result, border patrol apprehensions plummeted.

1287
01:08:49,520 --> 01:08:52,639
Speaker 2: The next year, in nineteen fifty five, the task forces

1288
01:08:52,680 --> 01:08:54,760
Speaker 2: that had once captured thousands of migrants in a day

1289
01:08:54,800 --> 01:08:58,040
Speaker 2: were disbanded and demobilized, and for a little while it

1290
01:08:58,080 --> 01:09:01,080
Speaker 2: seemed as if the Border Patrol had gone into hibernation.

1291
01:09:01,640 --> 01:09:04,960
Speaker 2: Of course, that Caitlin was not the case, and in

1292
01:09:05,000 --> 01:09:07,479
Speaker 2: Part two, we're going to talk about the fact that

1293
01:09:07,680 --> 01:09:09,400
Speaker 2: we haven't even talked about any of the worst shit

1294
01:09:09,479 --> 01:09:12,360
Speaker 2: that the Border Patrol gets up to in this episode,

1295
01:09:12,439 --> 01:09:14,560
Speaker 2: because that's how much worse it gets.

1296
01:09:14,960 --> 01:09:18,320
Speaker 3: Oh, they can't wait to hear about it.

1297
01:09:18,840 --> 01:09:20,000
Speaker 2: So how are you feeling?

1298
01:09:21,840 --> 01:09:22,960
Speaker 3: I feel pretty terrible.

1299
01:09:23,400 --> 01:09:25,559
Speaker 2: That's good. I love it when people feel terrible.

1300
01:09:27,400 --> 01:09:29,840
Speaker 3: I'm always like, oh, I can't wait to be a

1301
01:09:29,920 --> 01:09:33,280
Speaker 3: guest on Behind the Bastards, And then every time I

1302
01:09:33,320 --> 01:09:37,280
Speaker 3: do it, I'm like, oh, yes, I'm reminded by how

1303
01:09:37,360 --> 01:09:39,760
Speaker 3: horrible people have been to each other.

1304
01:09:41,080 --> 01:09:42,920
Speaker 2: Yes, and you were the one who picked this topic

1305
01:09:43,000 --> 01:09:46,000
Speaker 2: with a text message. Lol. I think the Border Patrol

1306
01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:54,479
Speaker 2: sounds fund.

1307
01:09:52,600 --> 01:09:58,599
Speaker 3: That did never happen. But yeah, I mean it's good

1308
01:09:58,640 --> 01:10:02,360
Speaker 3: to be informed about these things, so I appreciate learning

1309
01:10:02,400 --> 01:10:08,240
Speaker 3: and being further informed about it. So yeah, thank you,

1310
01:10:08,400 --> 01:10:09,040
Speaker 3: thank you for that.

1311
01:10:10,439 --> 01:10:13,400
Speaker 2: Yep, you're welcome, Caitlin, Thank you for coming on.

1312
01:10:13,800 --> 01:10:17,160
Speaker 1: Is there a place as people might be able to

1313
01:10:17,320 --> 01:10:22,040
Speaker 1: find you, listen to you, ways to support your work?

1314
01:10:22,800 --> 01:10:27,040
Speaker 3: Why? There certainly are places to do that, starting with

1315
01:10:28,200 --> 01:10:32,400
Speaker 3: You can follow me personally on Twitter and Instagram at

1316
01:10:32,439 --> 01:10:35,720
Speaker 3: Caitlin Durante. You can also check out my podcast right

1317
01:10:35,760 --> 01:10:39,000
Speaker 3: here on this network. It's called The Bechdel Cast. I

1318
01:10:39,080 --> 01:10:43,080
Speaker 3: co host it with Jamie Loftus, and we talk about

1319
01:10:43,880 --> 01:10:48,200
Speaker 3: the representation of women in film and just film in general,

1320
01:10:48,400 --> 01:10:53,280
Speaker 3: examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. So that is

1321
01:10:55,000 --> 01:10:57,200
Speaker 3: what we do, and you can, yeah, check out.

1322
01:10:57,680 --> 01:10:59,559
Speaker 1: Podcast screenwriting classes right now.

1323
01:11:00,160 --> 01:11:03,320
Speaker 3: Oh yes, I am, thank you so much for bringing

1324
01:11:03,320 --> 01:11:08,120
Speaker 3: that up. I also teach screenwriting on account of a

1325
01:11:08,160 --> 01:11:12,479
Speaker 3: master's degree in screenwriting that I absolutely hate to mention

1326
01:11:12,720 --> 01:11:17,080
Speaker 3: or ever just bring up, but it does allow me

1327
01:11:17,160 --> 01:11:20,839
Speaker 3: to teach online classes. So if that's of any interest

1328
01:11:20,840 --> 01:11:25,200
Speaker 3: to anyone, go to my website Caitlinderante dot com slash

1329
01:11:25,280 --> 01:11:31,400
Speaker 3: classes and I usually have news sections coming up starting

1330
01:11:31,439 --> 01:11:33,000
Speaker 3: soon at any given point.

1331
01:11:33,600 --> 01:11:36,400
Speaker 2: And if you want to learn from me, I don't

1332
01:11:36,439 --> 01:11:40,080
Speaker 2: teach screenwriting, but I do teach screenwriting, which is where

1333
01:11:40,720 --> 01:11:42,760
Speaker 2: you sit down with a pencil and paper and I

1334
01:11:42,800 --> 01:11:45,400
Speaker 2: scream at you and then eventually you give me money

1335
01:11:45,400 --> 01:11:45,960
Speaker 2: to go away.

1336
01:11:47,360 --> 01:11:49,680
Speaker 3: That sounds very educational.

1337
01:11:50,640 --> 01:11:57,280
Speaker 2: We all have to have an extra couple, so either

1338
01:11:57,720 --> 01:12:01,120
Speaker 2: pay Caitlin for an actual service or pay me to

1339
01:12:01,320 --> 01:12:01,920
Speaker 2: abuse you.

1340
01:12:02,520 --> 01:12:07,679
Speaker 1: Either way, don't love that as an You know what Sophie.

1341
01:12:07,800 --> 01:12:10,880
Speaker 2: Look everybody, look, you gotta. You gotta be mean to

1342
01:12:10,920 --> 01:12:12,200
Speaker 2: the audience, Sophie, you gotta.

1343
01:12:12,400 --> 01:12:16,879
Speaker 1: I don't know about who. I love them, I appreciate them,

1344
01:12:18,000 --> 01:12:21,720
Speaker 1: and I appreciate you, Robert, so kindness.

1345
01:12:22,439 --> 01:12:25,640
Speaker 3: Is there any way in which you think that, like

1346
01:12:25,760 --> 01:12:29,439
Speaker 3: closing out a podcast is similar to making love just

1347
01:12:29,479 --> 01:12:31,479
Speaker 3: to bring things full service? Wow? Good question.

1348
01:12:32,479 --> 01:12:36,800
Speaker 2: Here's how closing a podcast is like making love. Both

1349
01:12:36,840 --> 01:12:39,680
Speaker 2: of them are inherently disappointing.

1350
01:12:40,000 --> 01:12:46,639
Speaker 1: And you can, Robert and I write, okay on Twitter.

1351
01:12:46,680 --> 01:12:49,080
Speaker 1: You can follow us at Bastards Fought on Twitter and Instagram.

1352
01:12:49,120 --> 01:13:07,920
Speaker 1: We have a tea public store. Uh that's it, Bye.

1353
01:12:54,920 --> 01:13:08,400
Speaker 2: Bye, hello world, but specifically Australia. This is Robert Evans

1354
01:13:08,400 --> 01:13:11,320
Speaker 2: hosted Behind the Bastards, and I just wanted my Australian

1355
01:13:11,320 --> 01:13:13,479
Speaker 2: listeners in particular to know that I stood up for

1356
01:13:13,520 --> 01:13:18,799
Speaker 2: you against Caitlin's cruelty. Just a minute ago, she pronounced

1357
01:13:18,840 --> 01:13:24,879
Speaker 2: the name of your greatest city, Melbourne, Melbourne. I guess, savage, Yeah.

1358
01:13:24,680 --> 01:13:29,080
Speaker 3: I said Melbourne. And then okay, well, what about the

1359
01:13:29,080 --> 01:13:35,280
Speaker 3: people who live in Sydney or other cities in Australia.

1360
01:13:35,600 --> 01:13:38,439
Speaker 2: One city in Australia, its name is Melbourne, and that's

1361
01:13:38,479 --> 01:13:42,680
Speaker 2: the end of this digression. Hello, Caitlyn Duranty, guest for

1362
01:13:42,760 --> 01:13:44,200
Speaker 2: today's episode. How are you doing?

1363
01:13:44,680 --> 01:13:44,840
Speaker 1: Ah?

1364
01:13:45,080 --> 01:13:47,280
Speaker 3: Well, I would be doing better if you would pronounce

1365
01:13:47,320 --> 01:13:48,960
Speaker 3: my last name correctly.

1366
01:13:49,760 --> 01:13:53,799
Speaker 1: Speaking of mispronunciation, donte Caitlin.

1367
01:13:53,920 --> 01:13:57,479
Speaker 2: Yes, I think we've all learned a lesson about maybe

1368
01:13:57,479 --> 01:14:00,040
Speaker 2: not judging each other, because it's impossible to ever know

1369
01:14:00,080 --> 01:14:01,400
Speaker 2: how words are supposed to be said.

1370
01:14:01,640 --> 01:14:02,040
Speaker 3: He thinks.

1371
01:14:02,040 --> 01:14:05,200
Speaker 1: Ariana Grande's name is Ariana grand So you.

1372
01:14:05,160 --> 01:14:07,879
Speaker 2: Know, Sophie, you've been giving me guff about that one.

1373
01:14:07,720 --> 01:14:11,080
Speaker 1: For a while, as it deserves mm hmm.

1374
01:14:11,840 --> 01:14:14,000
Speaker 2: Well now I'm sad.

1375
01:14:14,560 --> 01:14:16,080
Speaker 1: Don't be sad, Robert.

1376
01:14:16,520 --> 01:14:17,320
Speaker 2: This is part two.

1377
01:14:17,600 --> 01:14:19,680
Speaker 1: If we get to pick on a white man at

1378
01:14:19,720 --> 01:14:23,639
Speaker 1: the beginning of an episode, then like, what's the point?

1379
01:14:24,240 --> 01:14:28,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is a whole episode about I

1380
01:14:28,080 --> 01:14:28,519
Speaker 2: don't know.

1381
01:14:30,479 --> 01:14:33,040
Speaker 3: Series. Let's pass the Bechdel test right now, Sophie.

1382
01:14:33,080 --> 01:14:37,200
Speaker 1: Oh, Caitlin, I I'm really enjoying the bluish shirt you're

1383
01:14:37,200 --> 01:14:38,000
Speaker 1: wearing right now.

1384
01:14:38,760 --> 01:14:40,559
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Well, I'm so glad you brought it

1385
01:14:40,640 --> 01:14:45,759
Speaker 3: up because it's it's a Paddington shirt that says migration

1386
01:14:46,120 --> 01:14:51,200
Speaker 3: is not a crime, which is relevant to today's episode.

1387
01:14:51,720 --> 01:14:54,680
Speaker 1: Oh wow, it really is relevant today's episode.

1388
01:14:54,960 --> 01:14:59,320
Speaker 3: That But then I said Paddington and that that I

1389
01:14:59,360 --> 01:14:59,599
Speaker 3: was like.

1390
01:14:59,560 --> 01:15:02,040
Speaker 1: Are we just during Paddington right now because.

1391
01:15:02,600 --> 01:15:05,840
Speaker 3: Heddington is a non binary asexual icon.

1392
01:15:06,080 --> 01:15:09,320
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, so I kind of passed the

1393
01:15:09,320 --> 01:15:11,320
Speaker 1: backl Thats okay, Robert, you want to ass your show

1394
01:15:11,360 --> 01:15:12,879
Speaker 1: behind the bastards right now because.

1395
01:15:12,640 --> 01:15:15,920
Speaker 2: I don't actually know if we passed the Bechdel test there.

1396
01:15:16,040 --> 01:15:18,240
Speaker 2: But you know what test we did pass is the

1397
01:15:19,320 --> 01:15:23,920
Speaker 2: writing for many hours about the border patrol test. Yes,

1398
01:15:24,000 --> 01:15:31,000
Speaker 2: which is a more important test, I think. So you

1399
01:15:31,040 --> 01:15:33,400
Speaker 2: know this one we're splitting up a little bit weirdly

1400
01:15:33,880 --> 01:15:37,320
Speaker 2: over the course of two weeks because my entire life

1401
01:15:37,400 --> 01:15:40,800
Speaker 2: and schedule has been continually thrown into chaos. So I

1402
01:15:40,800 --> 01:15:43,240
Speaker 2: do apologize for this one being done a little bit

1403
01:15:43,240 --> 01:15:47,360
Speaker 2: differently than others are done. On December sixth, twenty eighteen,

1404
01:15:47,680 --> 01:15:51,120
Speaker 2: seven year old Jacqueline Call crossed the US Mexico border

1405
01:15:51,120 --> 01:15:54,519
Speaker 2: near a place called Antelope Wells, New Mexico. She was

1406
01:15:54,520 --> 01:15:57,439
Speaker 2: with her father, twenty nine year old Nary Call. Both

1407
01:15:57,479 --> 01:16:00,000
Speaker 2: were Kekchi Maya, and they'd lived most of their life

1408
01:16:00,000 --> 01:16:03,200
Speaker 2: lives in the Alta Vera Paz region of Guatemala. Starving

1409
01:16:03,240 --> 01:16:05,400
Speaker 2: and desperate, she and her family turned themselves into the

1410
01:16:05,400 --> 01:16:08,519
Speaker 2: border Patrol. When Jacqueline was taken into their custody, she

1411
01:16:08,600 --> 01:16:10,840
Speaker 2: was already beginning to show signs of illness what would

1412
01:16:10,880 --> 01:16:15,280
Speaker 2: turn out to have been a streptococcal infection. DHS maintains

1413
01:16:15,320 --> 01:16:17,720
Speaker 2: that they conducted an initial screening and that there was

1414
01:16:17,880 --> 01:16:21,400
Speaker 2: no evidence of health issues in the little girl. Jacqueline

1415
01:16:21,400 --> 01:16:24,320
Speaker 2: was placed on a border patrol bus feverish and vomiting

1416
01:16:24,320 --> 01:16:27,879
Speaker 2: from severe dehydration. Eight hours after being taken into custody,

1417
01:16:27,920 --> 01:16:30,800
Speaker 2: she began to suffer seizures. She died the next day.

1418
01:16:32,040 --> 01:16:36,160
Speaker 2: Gomez Alonzo, age eight, crossed the Aos Mexico border sometime

1419
01:16:36,240 --> 01:16:39,639
Speaker 2: around December eighteenth. He and his father, Augustin, were members

1420
01:16:39,680 --> 01:16:42,840
Speaker 2: of the Chuj people, another Mayan group who came from

1421
01:16:42,880 --> 01:16:46,559
Speaker 2: the Juahuitenango region of Guatemala. Gomez spent six days in

1422
01:16:46,560 --> 01:16:49,679
Speaker 2: border patrol custody, shuttled around from New Mexico to El Paso,

1423
01:16:49,920 --> 01:16:51,720
Speaker 2: and then back to New Mexico to be interned in

1424
01:16:51,760 --> 01:16:55,400
Speaker 2: an attention facility named near Alamagordo. He started to show

1425
01:16:55,400 --> 01:16:57,639
Speaker 2: symptoms of sickness. On the twenty fourth, he was taken

1426
01:16:57,680 --> 01:16:59,599
Speaker 2: to the hospital, where he was tested for the cold,

1427
01:16:59,720 --> 01:17:02,599
Speaker 2: but not for influenza, which he had. He was given

1428
01:17:02,640 --> 01:17:04,960
Speaker 2: medicine that could not help him and sent back to jail,

1429
01:17:05,000 --> 01:17:10,360
Speaker 2: where he died on Christmas Eve, twenty eighteen. No, yep, good,

1430
01:17:10,400 --> 01:17:11,040
Speaker 2: good times.

1431
01:17:11,880 --> 01:17:12,439
Speaker 3: That's awful.

1432
01:17:12,800 --> 01:17:15,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's real bad. The deaths of Gomez and Jacqueline

1433
01:17:15,960 --> 01:17:18,600
Speaker 2: were briefly very big news in the United States. It

1434
01:17:18,680 --> 01:17:20,719
Speaker 2: was believed that the two were the first child immigrant

1435
01:17:20,760 --> 01:17:24,840
Speaker 2: deaths in border patrol custody since twenty ten. In twenty nineteen, though,

1436
01:17:24,840 --> 01:17:28,519
Speaker 2: it was revealed that another child, Darylyn Cordovaval of l Salvador,

1437
01:17:28,600 --> 01:17:32,920
Speaker 2: had actually died back in September twenty eighteen under similar circumstances.

1438
01:17:33,160 --> 01:17:35,600
Speaker 2: The Trump administration received a lot of blame, both for

1439
01:17:35,680 --> 01:17:37,920
Speaker 2: covering this death up to try to influence the midterm

1440
01:17:37,960 --> 01:17:40,639
Speaker 2: elections and for their failure to push DHS to take

1441
01:17:40,680 --> 01:17:43,599
Speaker 2: any meaningful action to stop kids from dying at the border.

1442
01:17:44,120 --> 01:17:46,839
Speaker 2: Three dead children is a tragedy, but their little corpses

1443
01:17:46,840 --> 01:17:49,280
Speaker 2: are actually just the top of an iceberg of dead people,

1444
01:17:49,720 --> 01:17:51,960
Speaker 2: many of them Guatemalan, that we can lay at the

1445
01:17:52,000 --> 01:17:54,880
Speaker 2: feet of border patrol agents and you might be surprised

1446
01:17:54,960 --> 01:17:57,559
Speaker 2: to learn how that whole situation came about. You want

1447
01:17:57,600 --> 01:17:59,480
Speaker 2: to hear about this, Caitlin.

1448
01:18:00,080 --> 01:18:03,759
Speaker 3: So I have to also what colorful language you used

1449
01:18:03,760 --> 01:18:07,240
Speaker 3: in terms of the corpses or at the top of

1450
01:18:07,280 --> 01:18:08,440
Speaker 3: an iceberg.

1451
01:18:08,760 --> 01:18:12,840
Speaker 2: I mean, well, yeah, you know, I think if you're

1452
01:18:12,840 --> 01:18:15,000
Speaker 2: gonna talk about dead kids, you should do it with

1453
01:18:15,040 --> 01:18:19,600
Speaker 2: a little bit of panazz, pizaz panash.

1454
01:18:19,640 --> 01:18:21,439
Speaker 3: All right, I'm ready, I'm keep going.

1455
01:18:22,360 --> 01:18:26,360
Speaker 2: All right, So let's talk about the border patrol and

1456
01:18:26,880 --> 01:18:31,160
Speaker 2: in Central America. We're gonna talk about something I don't

1457
01:18:31,160 --> 01:18:34,160
Speaker 2: think a lot of people know about because usually, as

1458
01:18:34,160 --> 01:18:36,080
Speaker 2: a rule, when we talk about how bad the border

1459
01:18:36,080 --> 01:18:38,599
Speaker 2: patrol is, we talk about like how mean they are

1460
01:18:38,680 --> 01:18:40,960
Speaker 2: to people who come up to the border. But we

1461
01:18:40,960 --> 01:18:43,599
Speaker 2: don't talk about what a lot of border patrol guys

1462
01:18:43,640 --> 01:18:47,240
Speaker 2: did in the countries that these people are fleeing from

1463
01:18:47,520 --> 01:18:50,120
Speaker 2: before people started fleeing from those countries. So this is

1464
01:18:50,120 --> 01:18:53,679
Speaker 2: gonna be fun, Okay, It's gonna be good time for everybody.

1465
01:18:54,640 --> 01:18:54,800
Speaker 1: So.

1466
01:18:55,120 --> 01:18:58,479
Speaker 2: John P. Longan was a US Border patrol agent in

1467
01:18:58,520 --> 01:19:01,240
Speaker 2: the nineteen forties and fifties. He worked near the Mexican border,

1468
01:19:01,240 --> 01:19:04,240
Speaker 2: close to where both Jacqueline and Gomez crossed over. Most

1469
01:19:04,280 --> 01:19:06,120
Speaker 2: sources you find on the manner will note that he

1470
01:19:06,200 --> 01:19:09,559
Speaker 2: had a reputation for violence, but this was not at

1471
01:19:09,600 --> 01:19:11,720
Speaker 2: all uncommon among the men of the Border Patrol, nor

1472
01:19:11,840 --> 01:19:14,920
Speaker 2: is it uncommon now. During Operation wet Back, when the

1473
01:19:14,920 --> 01:19:18,240
Speaker 2: Border Patrol reformed itself into a paramilitary force to wage

1474
01:19:18,320 --> 01:19:21,360
Speaker 2: war on Mexican immigrants, Longan run The Patrols ran the

1475
01:19:21,360 --> 01:19:25,479
Speaker 2: Patrol's equivalent of a military intelligence service. Longan's base was

1476
01:19:25,479 --> 01:19:28,680
Speaker 2: an unmarked building near Alameda. He and his men interrogated,

1477
01:19:28,720 --> 01:19:31,639
Speaker 2: captured migrants, extrapped into information, and used it to find

1478
01:19:31,680 --> 01:19:34,320
Speaker 2: and capture other groups of migrants. Few of the men

1479
01:19:34,320 --> 01:19:36,840
Speaker 2: who endured these interrogations ever spoke about it, but a

1480
01:19:36,840 --> 01:19:39,160
Speaker 2: lot of what happened in those cells probably verged on

1481
01:19:39,200 --> 01:19:42,240
Speaker 2: what we'd consider torture. Long End was good at his job,

1482
01:19:42,320 --> 01:19:44,600
Speaker 2: and his performance and Operation wet Back earned him a

1483
01:19:44,640 --> 01:19:48,160
Speaker 2: transfer to the State Department's Public Safety Program. Now, this

1484
01:19:48,320 --> 01:19:52,240
Speaker 2: was in reality a CIA operation geared at providing counterinsurgency

1485
01:19:52,320 --> 01:19:56,280
Speaker 2: training and advice to Allied nations combating Communist insurgencies. The

1486
01:19:56,280 --> 01:19:58,920
Speaker 2: CIA hand picked a number of Border Patrol agents to

1487
01:19:58,960 --> 01:20:02,080
Speaker 2: travel to places like the Zezuela, Thailand, the Dominican Republic

1488
01:20:02,120 --> 01:20:05,960
Speaker 2: in Guatemala. They particularly liked recruiting guys like long End

1489
01:20:06,000 --> 01:20:09,040
Speaker 2: because they were likely to speak Spanish. Now, the way

1490
01:20:09,080 --> 01:20:12,520
Speaker 2: the State Department framed this program was training law enforcement.

1491
01:20:13,479 --> 01:20:17,120
Speaker 2: So uh yeah, the State Department framed this program as

1492
01:20:17,160 --> 01:20:19,880
Speaker 2: training law enforcement. The reality, though, is that Longan and

1493
01:20:19,920 --> 01:20:22,280
Speaker 2: his fellow Border patrolmen were sent over to places like

1494
01:20:22,280 --> 01:20:26,599
Speaker 2: Guatemala to create and train death squads during Operation Went Back.

1495
01:20:26,680 --> 01:20:29,360
Speaker 2: Border patrol administrators had described their work as fighting back

1496
01:20:29,400 --> 01:20:32,439
Speaker 2: against an invasion. In Guatemala, where long En arrived in

1497
01:20:32,520 --> 01:20:35,200
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty five, he was finally able to wage a

1498
01:20:35,320 --> 01:20:38,479
Speaker 2: real war using real weapons. I'm going to quote now

1499
01:20:38,520 --> 01:20:42,599
Speaker 2: from an article in The Nation. Quote. Longan taught local

1500
01:20:42,640 --> 01:20:45,439
Speaker 2: intelligence and police agencies how to create death squads to

1501
01:20:45,479 --> 01:20:48,800
Speaker 2: target political activists, deploying tactics that he had earlier used

1502
01:20:48,840 --> 01:20:51,800
Speaker 2: to capture migrants on the border. He arrived in Guatemala

1503
01:20:51,800 --> 01:20:54,080
Speaker 2: in late nineteen sixty five, where he put into place

1504
01:20:54,080 --> 01:20:57,200
Speaker 2: a paramilitary unit that early the next year would execute

1505
01:20:57,200 --> 01:21:00,599
Speaker 2: what he called Operation Limpieza, or Operation and clean Up.

1506
01:21:00,840 --> 01:21:03,679
Speaker 2: Within three months, this unit had conducted over eighty raids

1507
01:21:03,680 --> 01:21:07,519
Speaker 2: and multiple extrajudicial assassinations, including an action that, over the

1508
01:21:07,520 --> 01:21:10,400
Speaker 2: course of four days, captured, tortured, and executed more than

1509
01:21:10,439 --> 01:21:14,040
Speaker 2: thirty prominent Left opposition leaders. The military dumped their bodies

1510
01:21:14,040 --> 01:21:16,200
Speaker 2: into the sea, while the government denied any knowledge of

1511
01:21:16,200 --> 01:21:19,600
Speaker 2: their whereabouts. According to Stuart Schrader in his up forthcoming

1512
01:21:19,640 --> 01:21:23,920
Speaker 2: Badges Without Borders, how global counterinsurgency transformed American policing, It

1513
01:21:24,000 --> 01:21:26,519
Speaker 2: was common practice during the Cold wartis and former Border

1514
01:21:26,520 --> 01:21:29,120
Speaker 2: Patrol agents like long End to train foreign police through

1515
01:21:29,120 --> 01:21:32,080
Speaker 2: CIA linked public safety programs. Since they were more likely

1516
01:21:32,080 --> 01:21:34,200
Speaker 2: to speak Spanish than agents from other branches of law

1517
01:21:34,280 --> 01:21:37,599
Speaker 2: enforcement in countries like El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, they

1518
01:21:37,600 --> 01:21:40,479
Speaker 2: did the dirty work that Reagan's envoys said needed doing.

1519
01:21:40,800 --> 01:21:43,519
Speaker 2: Until the early nineteen seventies, the United States, according to

1520
01:21:43,560 --> 01:21:46,559
Speaker 2: a nineteen seventy four Los Angeles Times report, was flying

1521
01:21:46,600 --> 01:21:49,360
Speaker 2: its Latin American Death Squad apprentices up to the Border

1522
01:21:49,600 --> 01:21:53,040
Speaker 2: Patrol Academy in Los Fresnos, Texas to receive training from

1523
01:21:53,080 --> 01:21:56,280
Speaker 2: CIA instructors and the design, manufacture, and potential use of

1524
01:21:56,320 --> 01:21:59,960
Speaker 2: bombs and incendiary devices. Long End himself in nineteen fifty

1525
01:22:00,080 --> 01:22:02,200
Speaker 2: seven clearly describe what he thought he was doing at

1526
01:22:02,200 --> 01:22:05,439
Speaker 2: the border. We're fighting a war on a wide battle front,

1527
01:22:06,200 --> 01:22:06,840
Speaker 2: so that's good.

1528
01:22:07,560 --> 01:22:11,479
Speaker 3: So they're just basically training kill squads. They're just telling

1529
01:22:11,520 --> 01:22:14,000
Speaker 3: people to murder people.

1530
01:22:14,439 --> 01:22:17,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're they're pulling border patrol guys off the

1531
01:22:17,120 --> 01:22:19,760
Speaker 2: line to do some of the training to be like, oh,

1532
01:22:19,840 --> 01:22:22,679
Speaker 2: you already are good at like tracking down these groups

1533
01:22:22,680 --> 01:22:26,519
Speaker 2: of people who are trying to facilitate movement of migrants

1534
01:22:26,560 --> 01:22:29,240
Speaker 2: through the United States. You can use those skills to

1535
01:22:29,320 --> 01:22:32,599
Speaker 2: track down political activists, except that, you know, since it's

1536
01:22:32,600 --> 01:22:34,919
Speaker 2: in a foreign country, you can just have them brutally

1537
01:22:35,000 --> 01:22:38,640
Speaker 2: murdered by death squads. And these guys are happy to

1538
01:22:38,640 --> 01:22:40,719
Speaker 2: do it because they want to be murdering people anyway.

1539
01:22:40,720 --> 01:22:44,639
Speaker 2: They just can't quite usually murder people, you know, at

1540
01:22:44,680 --> 01:22:46,920
Speaker 2: the border. I mean they do it a lot anyway,

1541
01:22:47,000 --> 01:22:48,559
Speaker 2: but like they have to be a little bit careful.

1542
01:22:48,600 --> 01:22:50,440
Speaker 2: But you don't have to be careful at all in Guatemala.

1543
01:22:50,520 --> 01:22:51,320
Speaker 2: So that's great.

1544
01:22:51,640 --> 01:22:54,479
Speaker 3: Oh, gie, Whiz, have you ever.

1545
01:22:54,320 --> 01:22:58,479
Speaker 2: Been to Guatemala, Caitlin, I have not, rules. Yeah, yeah,

1546
01:22:58,479 --> 01:23:00,360
Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time there. It's a great country,

1547
01:23:00,400 --> 01:23:05,120
Speaker 2: beautiful place, completely dysfunctional government, and you can see like

1548
01:23:05,240 --> 01:23:08,080
Speaker 2: signs of the horrible Civil war there all over the place.

1549
01:23:08,200 --> 01:23:10,120
Speaker 2: Just like you'll cross the street and there'll just be

1550
01:23:10,200 --> 01:23:12,400
Speaker 2: a bunch of guys who are all missing arms and legs.

1551
01:23:13,479 --> 01:23:15,280
Speaker 2: You'll be driving through the middle of nowhere and you'll

1552
01:23:15,280 --> 01:23:17,840
Speaker 2: see like businesses that have been like were shot up

1553
01:23:17,880 --> 01:23:20,479
Speaker 2: decades ago with mortars and stuff, and it you know,

1554
01:23:20,520 --> 01:23:24,360
Speaker 2: it all kind of descends from this. The series of

1555
01:23:24,360 --> 01:23:28,120
Speaker 2: political conflicts that launch in this period of time, particularly

1556
01:23:28,160 --> 01:23:31,280
Speaker 2: in the early nineteen eighties, that are backed by the

1557
01:23:31,400 --> 01:23:35,160
Speaker 2: United States and supported enthusiastically by the Reagan government, and

1558
01:23:35,200 --> 01:23:40,160
Speaker 2: these kind of networks of right wing murder crews that

1559
01:23:40,240 --> 01:23:43,479
Speaker 2: were trained up and sent out by the CIA and

1560
01:23:43,840 --> 01:23:46,880
Speaker 2: their buddies and groups like the Border Patrol. This all

1561
01:23:46,920 --> 01:23:49,400
Speaker 2: starts now, and it's cool, it's great, and.

1562
01:23:49,320 --> 01:23:53,800
Speaker 3: It's probably it's I mean, it's refugees from yep, these

1563
01:23:53,840 --> 01:23:57,160
Speaker 3: conflicts that are seeking refuge in right up to the

1564
01:23:57,160 --> 01:24:01,040
Speaker 3: today US and then and then they get here and

1565
01:24:01,080 --> 01:24:05,439
Speaker 3: they're like, well, sorry, fuck, you were either going to

1566
01:24:05,560 --> 01:24:10,439
Speaker 3: murder you or the peligeon and let you die in

1567
01:24:10,479 --> 01:24:13,800
Speaker 3: our custody or send you back to this you know,

1568
01:24:14,200 --> 01:24:16,559
Speaker 3: war torn country. You're in.

1569
01:24:17,040 --> 01:24:19,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. If you listen to right wingers, they'll usually say

1570
01:24:19,400 --> 01:24:21,800
Speaker 2: something like, oh, they should go back to their own

1571
01:24:21,800 --> 01:24:24,840
Speaker 2: country and fix its problems. And the reality is that, like, well,

1572
01:24:25,080 --> 01:24:26,840
Speaker 2: some of them tried to do that, and then we

1573
01:24:26,920 --> 01:24:29,599
Speaker 2: trained death squads to murder them and throw their bodies

1574
01:24:30,320 --> 01:24:35,679
Speaker 2: in rivers and stuff in the ocean. And that's why

1575
01:24:35,720 --> 01:24:38,519
Speaker 2: people are less willing to try to fix problems because

1576
01:24:38,560 --> 01:24:40,880
Speaker 2: they get killed, and so did their children because of

1577
01:24:40,920 --> 01:24:43,280
Speaker 2: the guys that we hired and trained to kill them

1578
01:24:43,280 --> 01:24:48,080
Speaker 2: and their children when they attempt to fight for economic justice. Oops,

1579
01:24:48,240 --> 01:24:51,360
Speaker 2: it's good. It's really good, is what I'm getting at.

1580
01:24:51,479 --> 01:24:55,599
Speaker 2: So Operation Limpieza, which you know Longen the Border Patrol

1581
01:24:55,680 --> 01:24:59,160
Speaker 2: guy orchestrated himself, was a major moment in the history

1582
01:24:59,320 --> 01:25:03,360
Speaker 2: of Guatemala's collapse into a nightmare. The military intelligence system

1583
01:25:03,400 --> 01:25:05,839
Speaker 2: he helped to build would eventually eliminate tens of thousands

1584
01:25:05,840 --> 01:25:09,479
Speaker 2: of leftist, activist sympathizers and random people mistaken for either

1585
01:25:09,920 --> 01:25:13,800
Speaker 2: More than two hundred thousand people were massacred openly. Tens

1586
01:25:13,800 --> 01:25:16,080
Speaker 2: of thousands more were tortured in this way. The brave

1587
01:25:16,080 --> 01:25:18,120
Speaker 2: men of the Border Patrol wound up at both sides

1588
01:25:18,120 --> 01:25:21,520
Speaker 2: of a tragedy. The genocide they trained right wing Guatemalan

1589
01:25:21,520 --> 01:25:24,439
Speaker 2: militants to execute fell heavily on various Maya peoples of

1590
01:25:24,439 --> 01:25:27,760
Speaker 2: the region, including the Kecchi in the Jews. The right

1591
01:25:27,760 --> 01:25:30,360
Speaker 2: wing dictator who helped to organize much of this violence

1592
01:25:30,439 --> 01:25:33,680
Speaker 2: was General Afrain Rios Mont. He rose to power in

1593
01:25:33,760 --> 01:25:36,439
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one and nineteen eighty two, cooping his way

1594
01:25:36,439 --> 01:25:38,439
Speaker 2: into command with the help of his good friends. The

1595
01:25:38,560 --> 01:25:41,760
Speaker 2: US Ronald Reagan described him as a man of great

1596
01:25:41,840 --> 01:25:46,320
Speaker 2: integrity who was totally dedicated to democracy. The nation's ride

1597
01:25:46,400 --> 01:25:51,720
Speaker 2: up makes it continues quote. On June seventeenth, nineteen eighty two,

1598
01:25:51,720 --> 01:25:54,599
Speaker 2: Guatemalan soldiers under the command of Rios Mont entered the

1599
01:25:54,640 --> 01:25:58,840
Speaker 2: San Francisco Catalyst State immediately adjacent to Yallam Bulock. The

1600
01:25:59,080 --> 01:26:01,920
Speaker 2: estate's owner, a military colonel, had fled because of guerrilla

1601
01:26:01,960 --> 01:26:04,639
Speaker 2: activity in the area. Soldiers went house by house, rounding

1602
01:26:04,680 --> 01:26:07,200
Speaker 2: up workers in their families whom they accused of supporting

1603
01:26:07,200 --> 01:26:10,040
Speaker 2: the guerrillas. They separated children from their parents and killed

1604
01:26:10,080 --> 01:26:13,040
Speaker 2: them by slashing their stomachs or smashing their heads against poles.

1605
01:26:13,200 --> 01:26:15,960
Speaker 2: Women were raped and then burned alive. The soldiers killed

1606
01:26:15,960 --> 01:26:18,280
Speaker 2: them in with bullets or by beheading. After a day

1607
01:26:18,320 --> 01:26:20,920
Speaker 2: of slaughter, three hundred and fifty people were dead. A

1608
01:26:20,960 --> 01:26:24,320
Speaker 2: lone survivor made his way into Mexico, where Guatemalan anthropologist

1609
01:26:24,320 --> 01:26:27,679
Speaker 2: and Jesuit priest Ricardo Fala interviewed him. The San Francisco

1610
01:26:27,800 --> 01:26:31,679
Speaker 2: massacre was highlighted in Guatemala's nineteen ninety nine Truth Commission report.

1611
01:26:32,120 --> 01:26:35,400
Speaker 2: After the massacre, Yellum Biloc residents fled along with thousands

1612
01:26:35,400 --> 01:26:38,599
Speaker 2: of others, leaving the border corridor between Guatemala and Mexico

1613
01:26:38,640 --> 01:26:42,559
Speaker 2: completely depopulated. As government troops raised their villages, some were

1614
01:26:42,600 --> 01:26:44,760
Speaker 2: captured and killed by the army as they fled. Others

1615
01:26:44,840 --> 01:26:48,160
Speaker 2: ended up in refugee camps or dispersed throughout Mexico's southern states.

1616
01:26:48,400 --> 01:26:50,880
Speaker 2: Still others continued on to the United States, beginning the

1617
01:26:50,880 --> 01:26:55,320
Speaker 2: Great Movement of Guatemalans to El Norte. All told, one

1618
01:26:55,360 --> 01:26:58,439
Speaker 2: point five million people were displaced by the Guatemalan armies

1619
01:26:58,479 --> 01:27:01,280
Speaker 2: scorched Earth campaign in nineteen eighty one. In nineteen eighty two,

1620
01:27:01,600 --> 01:27:05,479
Speaker 2: Guatemala's Commission for Historical Clarification called the violent displacement in

1621
01:27:05,520 --> 01:27:09,679
Speaker 2: the Maya Cheus region an active genocide. Young Felipe Gomez

1622
01:27:09,720 --> 01:27:12,040
Speaker 2: Alazano's father. He was the little kid, one of the

1623
01:27:12,080 --> 01:27:15,320
Speaker 2: little kids who died. Augustine Gomez Perez was a child

1624
01:27:15,320 --> 01:27:18,360
Speaker 2: of eleven during that execute. Y'all Unblock's villagers stayed away

1625
01:27:18,360 --> 01:27:20,800
Speaker 2: for fourteen years, returning only after the signing of the

1626
01:27:20,840 --> 01:27:25,760
Speaker 2: Peace Accords in nineteen ninety six. So that's cool, m.

1627
01:27:27,439 --> 01:27:30,240
Speaker 3: What can you say science that's horrible.

1628
01:27:30,640 --> 01:27:33,240
Speaker 2: You can say that, Like, we're focusing on Guatemala right

1629
01:27:33,280 --> 01:27:37,360
Speaker 2: here because it's one where there's a bit more documentation,

1630
01:27:37,439 --> 01:27:39,200
Speaker 2: but like, this shit happened in Al Salad, or it

1631
01:27:39,200 --> 01:27:41,280
Speaker 2: happened in a bunch of different parts of Latin in

1632
01:27:41,320 --> 01:27:47,639
Speaker 2: Central America where you know, refugees come from all the time.

1633
01:27:47,680 --> 01:27:51,519
Speaker 2: Now it was, it's still in a lot of ways

1634
01:27:51,520 --> 01:27:53,120
Speaker 2: going on today if you want to read about like

1635
01:27:53,120 --> 01:27:55,920
Speaker 2: Plan Columbia and stuff like, there's aspects of this that

1636
01:27:55,960 --> 01:27:59,519
Speaker 2: are very much still occurring, and that the border patrol

1637
01:27:59,640 --> 01:28:02,280
Speaker 2: still ends up getting tied up and from time to time,

1638
01:28:02,360 --> 01:28:03,440
Speaker 2: and that's great.

1639
01:28:05,280 --> 01:28:05,920
Speaker 3: Good grief.

1640
01:28:07,000 --> 01:28:10,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is like the stuff that part of me

1641
01:28:10,400 --> 01:28:12,880
Speaker 2: that like is optimistic wants to believe that, oh if

1642
01:28:12,880 --> 01:28:16,920
Speaker 2: people just knew this, like knew how this all, how

1643
01:28:17,040 --> 01:28:24,880
Speaker 2: US policy and US plotting played into the tragedy being

1644
01:28:24,960 --> 01:28:28,240
Speaker 2: suffered by these people, and like the insecurity of these regions,

1645
01:28:28,760 --> 01:28:33,240
Speaker 2: they would have better attitudes towards you know, Guatemal immigration

1646
01:28:33,400 --> 01:28:37,080
Speaker 2: and whatnot into the United States. And then the part

1647
01:28:37,120 --> 01:28:39,519
Speaker 2: of me that has been paying attention for the last

1648
01:28:40,000 --> 01:28:44,160
Speaker 2: several decades knows that like, no, actually people would cheer

1649
01:28:44,280 --> 01:28:46,680
Speaker 2: the murders of the folks and the destruction of these

1650
01:28:46,720 --> 01:28:51,840
Speaker 2: areas because Americans have been so thoroughly broken by propaganda

1651
01:28:52,040 --> 01:28:54,240
Speaker 2: that the people who are still on the right and

1652
01:28:54,280 --> 01:28:59,200
Speaker 2: still broadly pro American can't be convinced by any reason

1653
01:28:59,240 --> 01:29:04,520
Speaker 2: that any amount of murder or violence is not justified

1654
01:29:04,560 --> 01:29:08,560
Speaker 2: by the fact that America is cool as hell.

1655
01:29:08,600 --> 01:29:16,280
Speaker 3: It is this what a toxic mentality that we as Americans,

1656
01:29:16,360 --> 01:29:19,120
Speaker 3: or at least some of us have, because like, and

1657
01:29:19,160 --> 01:29:21,920
Speaker 3: this is I'm not about to say anything new or

1658
01:29:22,000 --> 01:29:26,759
Speaker 3: profound here, but the fact that you know, the white

1659
01:29:26,800 --> 01:29:31,320
Speaker 3: European settlers were escaping the same you know, kind of

1660
01:29:32,840 --> 01:29:37,040
Speaker 3: civil unrest or religious persecution or whatever it was the

1661
01:29:37,120 --> 01:29:42,639
Speaker 3: coust them to flood their countries, and then we settled

1662
01:29:42,680 --> 01:29:48,839
Speaker 3: here by killing millions of indigenous people, and now we're like, well,

1663
01:29:48,920 --> 01:29:52,479
Speaker 3: our borders are closed now. Sorry everyone, And it's like,

1664
01:29:52,600 --> 01:29:55,320
Speaker 3: how can you live? How can these people live with

1665
01:29:55,360 --> 01:30:00,760
Speaker 3: the hypocrisy of that simple fact.

1666
01:30:02,120 --> 01:30:06,880
Speaker 2: Because they're they're ship anyway. Uh So, most of these

1667
01:30:06,880 --> 01:30:11,679
Speaker 2: death squads were trained in the United States because like, hey,

1668
01:30:11,720 --> 01:30:14,519
Speaker 2: if you're gonna build a death squad for a foreign country,

1669
01:30:14,680 --> 01:30:17,360
Speaker 2: you don't want to like train it there. That's kind

1670
01:30:17,360 --> 01:30:19,519
Speaker 2: of ghosh. Uh So you bring them into your country

1671
01:30:19,560 --> 01:30:22,599
Speaker 2: to train them there because you're you know, you're good

1672
01:30:22,600 --> 01:30:25,639
Speaker 2: at training death squads. So the facility where they actually

1673
01:30:25,680 --> 01:30:27,640
Speaker 2: trained a lot of these death squads, and again not

1674
01:30:27,760 --> 01:30:30,599
Speaker 2: just in Guatemala, but for places like Columbia and El

1675
01:30:30,680 --> 01:30:34,240
Speaker 2: Salvador all throughout fucking world. The place where they would

1676
01:30:34,320 --> 01:30:36,920
Speaker 2: like take these men to teach them how to be terrorists,

1677
01:30:37,240 --> 01:30:39,600
Speaker 2: how to make bombs and all this shit was the

1678
01:30:39,680 --> 01:30:44,759
Speaker 2: Los Fresnos, Texas Border Patrol facility. It was an existing base,

1679
01:30:44,880 --> 01:30:48,479
Speaker 2: it was in a good location, and the Border Patrol

1680
01:30:48,560 --> 01:30:51,280
Speaker 2: was perfectly happy to have minsilt over there to learn

1681
01:30:51,360 --> 01:30:54,799
Speaker 2: how to become murderous gorillas and then set off terrorist

1682
01:30:54,920 --> 01:30:58,000
Speaker 2: bombs in the middle of their own countries because they

1683
01:30:58,000 --> 01:30:59,719
Speaker 2: were like that sounds like a thing the border patrol

1684
01:30:59,720 --> 01:31:03,519
Speaker 2: should be involved with. Now. The Technical Investigations course that

1685
01:31:03,640 --> 01:31:07,240
Speaker 2: was given to foreign police there was taught by CIA instructors.

1686
01:31:07,720 --> 01:31:11,959
Speaker 2: It lasted for weeks and it included curriculum like terrorist concepts,

1687
01:31:12,120 --> 01:31:15,679
Speaker 2: terrorist devices, fabrication and functioning of devices and provides, triggering

1688
01:31:15,680 --> 01:31:20,240
Speaker 2: devices and scendiaries, and assassination weapons, a discussion of various

1689
01:31:20,280 --> 01:31:22,960
Speaker 2: weapons which may be used by the assassin. And when

1690
01:31:22,960 --> 01:31:24,479
Speaker 2: you read it like that, you can kind of trick

1691
01:31:24,520 --> 01:31:27,400
Speaker 2: yourself into thinking it might not be like it might

1692
01:31:27,400 --> 01:31:29,639
Speaker 2: be a reasonable thing for cops to learn. Right, of course,

1693
01:31:29,680 --> 01:31:31,960
Speaker 2: cops might need to learn about terrorist concepts and the

1694
01:31:32,040 --> 01:31:34,960
Speaker 2: kind of weapons assassins use. But these were not just

1695
01:31:35,080 --> 01:31:38,479
Speaker 2: informational courses. They were instructed. So the police who attended,

1696
01:31:38,520 --> 01:31:41,320
Speaker 2: we're just learning, Oh, here's weapons that assassins sometimes use.

1697
01:31:41,360 --> 01:31:44,160
Speaker 2: They were learning, like, if you're going to assassinate somebody,

1698
01:31:44,360 --> 01:31:46,599
Speaker 2: here's a variety of different weapons that you can use

1699
01:31:46,640 --> 01:31:49,519
Speaker 2: to assassinate people. And we're just learning, like, here's different

1700
01:31:49,560 --> 01:31:52,719
Speaker 2: ways terrorists build triggers for bombs. They were learning, here's

1701
01:31:52,720 --> 01:31:54,840
Speaker 2: how to build triggers for the bobs you're going to

1702
01:31:54,880 --> 01:32:00,080
Speaker 2: make to kill people. The reality of the whole The

1703
01:32:00,080 --> 01:32:03,920
Speaker 2: whole program came out during congressional investigations in the nineteen seventies.

1704
01:32:03,920 --> 01:32:05,559
Speaker 2: And I'm going to quote now from a book titled

1705
01:32:05,560 --> 01:32:09,720
Speaker 2: Instruments Instruments of state Craft, US Guerrilla Warfare, Counterinsurgency, and

1706
01:32:09,760 --> 01:32:12,280
Speaker 2: counter Terrorism, which is available for in full for free

1707
01:32:12,320 --> 01:32:16,719
Speaker 2: online right now. Quote. During congressional investigations led by Senator

1708
01:32:16,800 --> 01:32:21,200
Speaker 2: James Alboresque in nineteen seventy three, eight officials admitted that

1709
01:32:21,240 --> 01:32:23,400
Speaker 2: the Los Fresno sessions, what the press would call the

1710
01:32:23,439 --> 01:32:26,320
Speaker 2: Bomb School, offered lessons not in bomb disposal, but in

1711
01:32:26,400 --> 01:32:29,000
Speaker 2: bomb making. The course is not designed to nor does

1712
01:32:29,040 --> 01:32:31,160
Speaker 2: it prepare the student to be a bomb or explosive

1713
01:32:31,640 --> 01:32:35,280
Speaker 2: disposal technician. The thrust of the instruction introduces trainees to

1714
01:32:35,280 --> 01:32:39,120
Speaker 2: commercially available materials and home laboratory techniques in the manufacture

1715
01:32:39,160 --> 01:32:42,360
Speaker 2: of explosives and incendiaries. Different types of explosive techniques and

1716
01:32:42,400 --> 01:32:45,600
Speaker 2: booby traps and their construction and use by terrorists are demonstrated.

1717
01:32:46,080 --> 01:32:48,120
Speaker 2: And again, all these classes were taught at a border

1718
01:32:48,120 --> 01:32:51,240
Speaker 2: patrol facility. And while the main instructors were CIA agents,

1719
01:32:51,280 --> 01:32:53,479
Speaker 2: it was not just the convenient location that made the

1720
01:32:53,520 --> 01:32:56,799
Speaker 2: ad agency use Los Fresnos. The Border Patrol had always

1721
01:32:56,800 --> 01:32:59,719
Speaker 2: had within it the seeds of a national secret police force.

1722
01:33:00,160 --> 01:33:03,840
Speaker 2: Decades before CBP agents were operating in unmarked snatch fans

1723
01:33:03,840 --> 01:33:05,840
Speaker 2: on the streets of Portland and it was Customs and

1724
01:33:05,880 --> 01:33:09,120
Speaker 2: Border Patrol who was doing that. They helped to train

1725
01:33:09,280 --> 01:33:12,479
Speaker 2: foreign police to do the exact same thing and much worse. Besides,

1726
01:33:12,920 --> 01:33:16,280
Speaker 2: that's fun, Like I carry, I keep like wanting to say, like, ah,

1727
01:33:16,479 --> 01:33:18,760
Speaker 2: what a fun thing. What I don't know what else

1728
01:33:18,800 --> 01:33:21,200
Speaker 2: to say. It's just like this kind of litany of

1729
01:33:21,200 --> 01:33:23,960
Speaker 2: ours that we've all just kind of blithely funded our

1730
01:33:24,120 --> 01:33:27,479
Speaker 2: entire lives, even though a great deal of information exists

1731
01:33:27,479 --> 01:33:32,280
Speaker 2: on how bad this agency has always been. Because the

1732
01:33:32,280 --> 01:33:35,000
Speaker 2: only real if you actually get into it as we

1733
01:33:35,080 --> 01:33:37,719
Speaker 2: are today, the only real conclusion is that like, oh,

1734
01:33:37,880 --> 01:33:40,680
Speaker 2: maybe when you have people whose job it is to

1735
01:33:40,720 --> 01:33:43,600
Speaker 2: police the border, they're they're they're just going to be

1736
01:33:43,640 --> 01:33:46,720
Speaker 2: the worst people. And and maybe you shouldn't police the

1737
01:33:46,760 --> 01:33:49,000
Speaker 2: border at all because this happened.

1738
01:33:49,560 --> 01:33:55,880
Speaker 3: But borders are completely arbitrary and mean nothing, And why

1739
01:33:56,439 --> 01:34:00,479
Speaker 3: or why have we decided that they that cross them

1740
01:34:00,800 --> 01:34:01,559
Speaker 3: is a crime.

1741
01:34:03,520 --> 01:34:07,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's bad. And the kind of people who

1742
01:34:07,439 --> 01:34:10,000
Speaker 2: decide that they want to make their whole lives about

1743
01:34:10,080 --> 01:34:13,120
Speaker 2: punishing desperate people for the quote unquote crime of crossing

1744
01:34:13,120 --> 01:34:17,320
Speaker 2: a border are monsters, and when you start giving them

1745
01:34:17,320 --> 01:34:21,640
Speaker 2: guns in power, they use it to enable genocides and

1746
01:34:21,680 --> 01:34:24,840
Speaker 2: political oppression abroad and then inevitably do so back at home,

1747
01:34:25,360 --> 01:34:28,280
Speaker 2: which is what's happening now. So when it comes to

1748
01:34:28,360 --> 01:34:32,439
Speaker 2: government agencies that Americans, particularly liberals, rage against, customs and

1749
01:34:32,479 --> 01:34:34,920
Speaker 2: Border Patrol has spent most of its history kind of

1750
01:34:34,960 --> 01:34:38,000
Speaker 2: sliding under the mainstream radar. But liberals who only started

1751
01:34:38,000 --> 01:34:40,640
Speaker 2: paying attention to the agency after Trump took office might

1752
01:34:40,680 --> 01:34:43,320
Speaker 2: be surprised to know that NYT Report or New York

1753
01:34:43,360 --> 01:34:46,759
Speaker 2: Times reporter John Crudsen won a Pulitzer Prize in nineteen

1754
01:34:46,840 --> 01:34:49,200
Speaker 2: eighty for a series of articles about the Border Patrol

1755
01:34:49,439 --> 01:34:51,599
Speaker 2: whose titles would not look at all out of place

1756
01:34:51,600 --> 01:34:55,120
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, titles like Border Patrol sweeps of illegal

1757
01:34:55,160 --> 01:35:00,719
Speaker 2: aliens leave scores of children in jails a little familiar.

1758
01:35:01,360 --> 01:35:05,800
Speaker 2: The intercept summarizing his work notes patrollers he reported regularly

1759
01:35:05,840 --> 01:35:09,040
Speaker 2: engaged in beating's, murder, torture, and rape, including the rape

1760
01:35:09,080 --> 01:35:11,479
Speaker 2: of girls as young as twelve Some patrollers ran their

1761
01:35:11,479 --> 01:35:14,840
Speaker 2: own in house outlaw vigilante groups. Others maintained ties with

1762
01:35:14,880 --> 01:35:17,640
Speaker 2: groups like the Clan. Border patrol agents also used the

1763
01:35:17,720 --> 01:35:20,080
Speaker 2: children of migrants, either as bait or as pressure. A

1764
01:35:20,120 --> 01:35:23,320
Speaker 2: pressure tactic to force confessions. When coming upon a family,

1765
01:35:23,400 --> 01:35:26,080
Speaker 2: agents tried to apprehend the youngest member first, with the

1766
01:35:26,120 --> 01:35:28,400
Speaker 2: idea that relatives would give themselves up so as not

1767
01:35:28,439 --> 01:35:31,360
Speaker 2: to be separated. It may sound cruel, one patroller said,

1768
01:35:31,479 --> 01:35:35,040
Speaker 2: but it often worked. Separating migrant families was not official

1769
01:35:35,160 --> 01:35:38,160
Speaker 2: government policy in the years Crudsen was reporting on abuses,

1770
01:35:38,320 --> 01:35:41,200
Speaker 2: but left to their own devices, Border patrol agents regularly

1771
01:35:41,200 --> 01:35:44,040
Speaker 2: took children from parents, threatening that they would be separated

1772
01:35:44,080 --> 01:35:46,400
Speaker 2: forever unless one of them confessed that they had entered

1773
01:35:46,439 --> 01:35:50,439
Speaker 2: the country illegally. Mothers, especially an, agents said, would always break.

1774
01:35:50,760 --> 01:35:53,400
Speaker 2: Once a confession was extracted, children might be placed in

1775
01:35:53,479 --> 01:35:56,479
Speaker 2: foster care or left to languish in federal jails. Others

1776
01:35:56,520 --> 01:35:59,519
Speaker 2: were released into Mexico alone, far from their homes, forced

1777
01:35:59,520 --> 01:36:03,480
Speaker 2: to survive, according to public defenders, by garbage can scrounging,

1778
01:36:03,560 --> 01:36:07,200
Speaker 2: living on rooftops, and whatever. Ten year old Sylvia Alvarado

1779
01:36:07,280 --> 01:36:10,080
Speaker 2: separated from her grandmother as they crossed into Texas was

1780
01:36:10,160 --> 01:36:12,240
Speaker 2: kept in a small cinder block cell for more than

1781
01:36:12,280 --> 01:36:16,000
Speaker 2: three months. In California, thirteen year old Julia Perez, threatened

1782
01:36:16,000 --> 01:36:18,720
Speaker 2: with being arrested in denied food, broke down and told

1783
01:36:18,720 --> 01:36:21,120
Speaker 2: her investigator that she was Mexican, even though she was

1784
01:36:21,120 --> 01:36:24,400
Speaker 2: a US citizen. The Border Patrol released Perez into Mexico

1785
01:36:24,479 --> 01:36:26,839
Speaker 2: with no money or way to contact her US family.

1786
01:36:27,160 --> 01:36:29,519
Speaker 2: Such cruelties weren't one offs, but part of a pattern

1787
01:36:29,680 --> 01:36:32,200
Speaker 2: encouraged and committed by officers up the chain of command.

1788
01:36:32,400 --> 01:36:35,839
Speaker 2: The violence was both gratuitive and systemic, including stress techniques

1789
01:36:35,920 --> 01:36:37,719
Speaker 2: later associated with the war in Iraq.

1790
01:36:38,040 --> 01:36:41,680
Speaker 1: I mean, wow, what.

1791
01:36:41,800 --> 01:36:47,280
Speaker 3: Kind of truly inhuman monster do you have to be

1792
01:36:48,360 --> 01:36:53,639
Speaker 3: to use to be yes, and more specifically to use

1793
01:36:53,920 --> 01:37:00,000
Speaker 3: children as bait or to like snatch them first as

1794
01:37:01,439 --> 01:37:05,520
Speaker 3: just like I can't even form a sentence.

1795
01:37:05,160 --> 01:37:07,240
Speaker 2: That is Yeah, it's not great.

1796
01:37:08,240 --> 01:37:11,200
Speaker 1: I mean the sentence that you said, like I got

1797
01:37:11,360 --> 01:37:15,559
Speaker 1: teary eyed with the mother, Yes, the mothers broke first

1798
01:37:15,760 --> 01:37:18,400
Speaker 1: or whatnot? Yeah? That was yeah, horrible.

1799
01:37:19,280 --> 01:37:22,280
Speaker 2: No, it's I don't know, you know, when I talk

1800
01:37:22,479 --> 01:37:25,360
Speaker 2: about how this all actually makes me feel, there's no

1801
01:37:25,479 --> 01:37:29,160
Speaker 2: way to do that without repeatedly urging other people to

1802
01:37:29,240 --> 01:37:33,920
Speaker 2: commit federal crimes up to when including assault and murder.

1803
01:37:34,000 --> 01:37:36,839
Speaker 2: So I'm just like gonna stop right there and continue

1804
01:37:36,840 --> 01:37:40,640
Speaker 2: talking about the Border Patrol instead, because we shouldn't do

1805
01:37:40,720 --> 01:37:44,200
Speaker 2: that on a podcast. One tactic the Border Patrol came

1806
01:37:44,200 --> 01:37:46,400
Speaker 2: to a door was the locking of migrants in freezing

1807
01:37:46,479 --> 01:37:50,040
Speaker 2: cold rooms called hellieras or ice boxes. This goes back

1808
01:37:50,080 --> 01:37:52,759
Speaker 2: at least to the nineteen eighties. According to Krudsen, agents

1809
01:37:52,800 --> 01:37:55,920
Speaker 2: would tell prisoners in this place, you have no rights.

1810
01:37:56,360 --> 01:37:58,680
Speaker 2: Since these people had committed no crime beyond crossing a

1811
01:37:58,720 --> 01:38:01,160
Speaker 2: line in the dirt, their detention serve no real purpose

1812
01:38:01,200 --> 01:38:05,360
Speaker 2: beyond cruelty. Cruelty was the point. Border Patrol agents throughout

1813
01:38:05,360 --> 01:38:09,320
Speaker 2: the seventies, eighties, and nineties were repeatedly documented torturing migrants.

1814
01:38:09,640 --> 01:38:12,360
Speaker 2: A popular method was handcuffing them to squad cars and

1815
01:38:12,400 --> 01:38:14,880
Speaker 2: then making them run alongside the video as it half

1816
01:38:15,000 --> 01:38:18,200
Speaker 2: dragged them to the border. Outright murder was common as well.

1817
01:38:18,439 --> 01:38:21,920
Speaker 2: One patrol agent told Krudsen that agents commonly pushed illegals

1818
01:38:21,960 --> 01:38:24,720
Speaker 2: off cliffs so it would look like an accident. Much

1819
01:38:24,720 --> 01:38:27,840
Speaker 2: of the agency's behavior was indistinguishable from that of a

1820
01:38:27,840 --> 01:38:31,599
Speaker 2: straight up Gang. Agents with ins Border Patrol's parent agency

1821
01:38:31,640 --> 01:38:34,040
Speaker 2: at the time were caught trading Mexican women to the

1822
01:38:34,080 --> 01:38:39,559
Speaker 2: Los Angeles Rams in exchange for season tickets. What yes,

1823
01:38:39,760 --> 01:38:40,759
Speaker 2: the thing that happened.

1824
01:38:44,520 --> 01:38:46,000
Speaker 3: I can't.

1825
01:38:47,640 --> 01:38:50,640
Speaker 2: Brave men and women of the Border Patrol. We're in

1826
01:38:50,640 --> 01:38:51,080
Speaker 2: the green.

1827
01:38:51,760 --> 01:38:54,160
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's time for an AD break so

1828
01:38:54,200 --> 01:38:55,200
Speaker 1: that I can go vomit.

1829
01:38:55,960 --> 01:39:01,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know who doesn't trade women for it?

1830
01:39:02,080 --> 01:39:04,719
Speaker 1: Vomit. It's an AD break.

1831
01:39:05,520 --> 01:39:16,240
Speaker 2: Products and services and we're back. We're having a good time.

1832
01:39:18,840 --> 01:39:19,479
Speaker 3: Jeez, so.

1833
01:39:21,040 --> 01:39:24,080
Speaker 2: I n S agents were also caught supplying Mexican prostitutes

1834
01:39:24,080 --> 01:39:27,599
Speaker 2: to congressmen and judges in exchange for political favors. Over time,

1835
01:39:27,720 --> 01:39:30,120
Speaker 2: the Border Patrol found ways to get over their long

1836
01:39:30,160 --> 01:39:34,200
Speaker 2: standing conflicts with UH with Texan ranchers. In numerous cases,

1837
01:39:34,240 --> 01:39:36,599
Speaker 2: they worked out deals with ranch owners whereby they would

1838
01:39:36,640 --> 01:39:39,599
Speaker 2: hold off on immigration raids until right before payday, giving

1839
01:39:39,680 --> 01:39:42,080
Speaker 2: ranchers the use of migrant bodies without the need to

1840
01:39:42,120 --> 01:39:44,679
Speaker 2: pay them. Border patrol men got to hunt and fish

1841
01:39:44,720 --> 01:39:46,680
Speaker 2: for free on their ranches as payments. This is kind

1842
01:39:46,680 --> 01:39:49,200
Speaker 2: of how they they worked out that that little set

1843
01:39:49,200 --> 01:39:53,200
Speaker 2: of disagreements, that little UH. The the uprising in Texas

1844
01:39:53,640 --> 01:39:55,720
Speaker 2: that had been sparked by a lot of.

1845
01:39:55,680 --> 01:39:59,519
Speaker 3: The labor and then have an agreement with the border

1846
01:39:59,520 --> 01:40:02,040
Speaker 3: patrol and like, okay, seize them on this day.

1847
01:40:02,360 --> 01:40:03,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that.

1848
01:40:03,080 --> 01:40:05,920
Speaker 3: I don't have to pay all My god, it's good.

1849
01:40:06,400 --> 01:40:09,600
Speaker 2: Yeah crudzen. That New York Times journalist even documented that

1850
01:40:09,640 --> 01:40:12,000
Speaker 2: one of the rangers the Ranch's border patrol worked at

1851
01:40:12,040 --> 01:40:15,240
Speaker 2: an arrangement with was owned by President Lyndon B. Johnson

1852
01:40:15,479 --> 01:40:21,519
Speaker 2: while he was president. Oh holy shit, good stuff. Between

1853
01:40:21,600 --> 01:40:24,439
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five and nineteen ninety, federal agents gunned down

1854
01:40:24,479 --> 01:40:27,799
Speaker 2: twenty two migrants just in the area around San Diego.

1855
01:40:28,240 --> 01:40:31,960
Speaker 2: The Intercept reports quote on April eighteenth, nineteen eighty six,

1856
01:40:32,000 --> 01:40:35,240
Speaker 2: For instance, patroller Edward Cole was beating fourteen year old

1857
01:40:35,320 --> 01:40:38,080
Speaker 2: Eduardo Corrillo Estrada on the US side of the border's

1858
01:40:38,160 --> 01:40:40,920
Speaker 2: Chain League fence when he stopped and shot Eduardo's younger brother,

1859
01:40:41,000 --> 01:40:43,760
Speaker 2: Humberto in the back. Umberto was standing on the other

1860
01:40:43,800 --> 01:40:46,280
Speaker 2: side of the fence on Mexican soil. A court ruled

1861
01:40:46,280 --> 01:40:48,439
Speaker 2: that Cole, who had previous incidents of shooting through the

1862
01:40:48,439 --> 01:40:50,639
Speaker 2: fence at Mexicans, had reason to fear for his life

1863
01:40:50,680 --> 01:40:55,200
Speaker 2: from Humberto and used justifiable force. Such abuses persisted through

1864
01:40:55,200 --> 01:40:57,720
Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties and two thousands. In nineteen ninety three,

1865
01:40:57,760 --> 01:41:01,439
Speaker 2: the House Subcommittee on International Law, immigran and Refugees held

1866
01:41:01,439 --> 01:41:04,080
Speaker 2: hearings on border patrol abuse, and its transcript is a

1867
01:41:04,160 --> 01:41:07,280
Speaker 2: catalog of horrors. One former guard, Tourney Hefner, at the

1868
01:41:07,280 --> 01:41:10,760
Speaker 2: Ions Detention Center in Port Isabel, Texas, reported that a

1869
01:41:10,760 --> 01:41:14,160
Speaker 2: young Salvadoran girl was forced to perform personal duties like

1870
01:41:14,280 --> 01:41:18,200
Speaker 2: dancing the Lombarda for IONS officials. In twenty eleven, Hefter

1871
01:41:18,240 --> 01:41:21,400
Speaker 2: published a memoir with more accusations of sexual abuse by

1872
01:41:21,520 --> 01:41:25,599
Speaker 2: as Hefner writes, the Ions brass Roberto Martinez, who worked

1873
01:41:25,600 --> 01:41:28,120
Speaker 2: with the San Diego based US Mexico Border program for

1874
01:41:28,160 --> 01:41:31,679
Speaker 2: the American Friends Service Committee, testified that human and civil

1875
01:41:31,760 --> 01:41:34,760
Speaker 2: rights violations by the Border Patrol run the gamut of

1876
01:41:34,760 --> 01:41:38,919
Speaker 2: abuses imaginable, from rape to murder. Agents regularly seized original

1877
01:41:38,920 --> 01:41:42,080
Speaker 2: birth certificates in green cards from Latino citizens, leaving the

1878
01:41:42,160 --> 01:41:44,280
Speaker 2: victim with the financial burden of having to go through

1879
01:41:44,320 --> 01:41:47,240
Speaker 2: a lengthy process of applying for a new document. Rapes

1880
01:41:47,280 --> 01:41:50,240
Speaker 2: and sexual abuse in Ions attention centers around the United

1881
01:41:50,280 --> 01:41:53,599
Speaker 2: States Martinez said, seemed to be escalating throughout the border region.

1882
01:41:53,880 --> 01:41:59,280
Speaker 3: Okay, I have to talk through something here. So, in theory,

1883
01:42:00,320 --> 01:42:09,000
Speaker 3: law enforcement is there to prevent crime, stop crime, find criminals,

1884
01:42:09,240 --> 01:42:11,679
Speaker 3: et cetera. We know that that's barely what they do, right,

1885
01:42:12,000 --> 01:42:16,800
Speaker 3: But that's in theory the purpose of law enforcement. And

1886
01:42:16,880 --> 01:42:22,559
Speaker 3: so by extension border patrol if it is since it

1887
01:42:22,640 --> 01:42:26,040
Speaker 3: is for some reason illegal to you know, cross a

1888
01:42:26,080 --> 01:42:31,759
Speaker 3: border undocumented or without the proper documentation, that is quote

1889
01:42:31,840 --> 01:42:36,720
Speaker 3: a crime according to ridiculous standards, right. And I also

1890
01:42:36,880 --> 01:42:42,840
Speaker 3: understand in theory the concept of like punishing things that

1891
01:42:42,920 --> 01:42:47,360
Speaker 3: are actual crime. That makes sense to me as long

1892
01:42:47,400 --> 01:42:51,120
Speaker 3: as it's done responsibly, which it never is. The idea

1893
01:42:51,240 --> 01:42:56,360
Speaker 3: of seeing crossing a border without the proper documentation and

1894
01:42:57,040 --> 01:43:02,320
Speaker 3: deciding that the punishment for that crime, I'm warrants things

1895
01:43:02,479 --> 01:43:11,559
Speaker 3: like human trafficking, murder, sexual assault, all manner of other horrible, horrible,

1896
01:43:11,640 --> 01:43:18,599
Speaker 3: unmentionable things like where I just it is the most

1897
01:43:18,640 --> 01:43:19,719
Speaker 3: disgusting thing.

1898
01:43:19,920 --> 01:43:23,920
Speaker 2: I think the problem here that you're having is in

1899
01:43:24,000 --> 01:43:27,200
Speaker 2: thinking that the goal, the purpose is ever to prevent crime,

1900
01:43:28,479 --> 01:43:33,080
Speaker 2: whereas the reality is the purpose is to is to protect.

1901
01:43:33,400 --> 01:43:37,519
Speaker 2: It's to protect whiteness exactly, Yes, yeah, And it's to

1902
01:43:37,720 --> 01:43:42,880
Speaker 2: provide an outlet for for fascists in this country to

1903
01:43:42,920 --> 01:43:46,479
Speaker 2: do horrible violence on people in a way that is,

1904
01:43:47,080 --> 01:43:51,400
Speaker 2: rather than being disorganized and sort of being anti state

1905
01:43:51,640 --> 01:43:56,680
Speaker 2: and being something that like causes disorder, being violence that

1906
01:43:56,680 --> 01:44:00,680
Speaker 2: they are allowed to carry out, that that enforces the uh,

1907
01:44:02,160 --> 01:44:05,160
Speaker 2: the kind of the state itself that like that like

1908
01:44:05,280 --> 01:44:08,479
Speaker 2: backs up the existence of the state. Right, Like you

1909
01:44:08,520 --> 01:44:11,599
Speaker 2: have all these you have all these tremendously violent people, right,

1910
01:44:12,880 --> 01:44:16,400
Speaker 2: and you can do a couple of things to them,

1911
01:44:16,720 --> 01:44:20,040
Speaker 2: but they're there. So either you you try to like

1912
01:44:20,120 --> 01:44:23,360
Speaker 2: deal with them and deradicalize them and make them less dangerous,

1913
01:44:23,439 --> 01:44:27,160
Speaker 2: you kill them, or as we do, you give them

1914
01:44:27,200 --> 01:44:30,080
Speaker 2: guns and make them unaccountable and allow them to do

1915
01:44:30,160 --> 01:44:32,880
Speaker 2: horrible violence to large groups of people who have no

1916
01:44:32,960 --> 01:44:34,000
Speaker 2: political agency.

1917
01:44:34,680 --> 01:44:37,360
Speaker 3: Yes, that is exactly what it is. Like people who

1918
01:44:37,400 --> 01:44:42,680
Speaker 3: are like, well, the general population thinks that, you know,

1919
01:44:42,880 --> 01:44:46,720
Speaker 3: being a member of a hate group like the KKK

1920
01:44:47,560 --> 01:44:50,160
Speaker 3: is bad. So I'm going to do the same exact

1921
01:44:50,200 --> 01:44:55,840
Speaker 3: things that the KKK does, but it's being masked as

1922
01:44:56,360 --> 01:45:00,800
Speaker 3: a government agency. Like basically, this terror terrors organization, this

1923
01:45:00,920 --> 01:45:07,880
Speaker 3: hate group is protected and quote justified because it is

1924
01:45:08,240 --> 01:45:13,600
Speaker 3: a government agency, even though they're committing the same heinous

1925
01:45:13,600 --> 01:45:19,080
Speaker 3: acts in the name of under the guise of some

1926
01:45:19,160 --> 01:45:24,200
Speaker 3: kind of protection. But truly it is the like you said,

1927
01:45:24,240 --> 01:45:30,280
Speaker 3: protection of whiteness and criminalizing being not white.

1928
01:45:29,880 --> 01:45:33,200
Speaker 2: And that's the that's the only way it's ever been,

1929
01:45:34,840 --> 01:45:36,720
Speaker 2: and that's the only way it ever will be, as

1930
01:45:36,760 --> 01:45:42,080
Speaker 2: long as we have a border and we consider there

1931
01:45:42,080 --> 01:45:45,760
Speaker 2: to be some sort of fundamental value in the sanctity

1932
01:45:45,800 --> 01:45:49,080
Speaker 2: of that border. Right, And that's good.

1933
01:45:49,640 --> 01:45:50,599
Speaker 3: I want to cry about it.

1934
01:45:51,439 --> 01:45:54,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's good to do that sometimes. Other times

1935
01:45:54,960 --> 01:45:58,360
Speaker 2: it's good to continue reading a podcast script, which I

1936
01:45:58,439 --> 01:46:01,599
Speaker 2: will now do, okay, because this is how I deal

1937
01:46:01,640 --> 01:46:05,200
Speaker 2: with problems. This is the only way that I deal

1938
01:46:05,240 --> 01:46:09,360
Speaker 2: with problems is by reading podcast scripts.

1939
01:46:09,520 --> 01:46:14,040
Speaker 3: I mean informing the people helps.

1940
01:46:14,400 --> 01:46:17,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a way that you can describe this as

1941
01:46:17,200 --> 01:46:21,559
Speaker 2: informing the people. I don't know, you know. In nineteen

1942
01:46:21,600 --> 01:46:24,920
Speaker 2: seventy nine, Maria Contreras, nine months pregnant, crossed back into

1943
01:46:24,920 --> 01:46:28,040
Speaker 2: the United States from Mexico legally after shopping for food.

1944
01:46:28,360 --> 01:46:30,960
Speaker 2: Border patrol agents found the suspicious and they tortured her

1945
01:46:31,000 --> 01:46:33,959
Speaker 2: to try to get her to reveal information about undocumented migrants.

1946
01:46:34,120 --> 01:46:38,160
Speaker 2: She died under interrogation, leaving six children behind. This sort

1947
01:46:38,160 --> 01:46:39,720
Speaker 2: of thing happened all the time. You know, we have

1948
01:46:39,800 --> 01:46:43,160
Speaker 2: documentation about Maria Contreras's case, but this is maybe even

1949
01:46:43,160 --> 01:46:46,000
Speaker 2: a daily matter, and it's something that continues to this

1950
01:46:46,200 --> 01:46:50,240
Speaker 2: day in dark and terrifying corners of the border where

1951
01:46:50,360 --> 01:46:54,640
Speaker 2: such things are not documented most of the time, but

1952
01:46:54,760 --> 01:46:57,240
Speaker 2: which we all pay for. Throughout all of this, the

1953
01:46:57,240 --> 01:46:59,240
Speaker 2: border patrol and i ins were sort of the red

1954
01:46:59,240 --> 01:47:02,280
Speaker 2: headed step chat to federal agencies with law enforcement powers.

1955
01:47:02,920 --> 01:47:05,400
Speaker 2: They were barely funded because, if you can imagine this,

1956
01:47:05,720 --> 01:47:08,680
Speaker 2: illegal immigration was not something people cared about. So for

1957
01:47:08,720 --> 01:47:10,640
Speaker 2: most of these period, this period, while all of the

1958
01:47:10,680 --> 01:47:13,360
Speaker 2: horrible things we've been talking about have been happening, border

1959
01:47:13,400 --> 01:47:18,840
Speaker 2: patrol has basically no money and very few agents considering

1960
01:47:18,920 --> 01:47:21,080
Speaker 2: like what it's supposed to be watching in its purview,

1961
01:47:21,120 --> 01:47:22,800
Speaker 2: it's just kind of a place where we keep all

1962
01:47:22,840 --> 01:47:26,439
Speaker 2: of our most violent law enforcement officers and they don't

1963
01:47:26,439 --> 01:47:29,760
Speaker 2: have the money to do much, but nobody's watching them,

1964
01:47:29,760 --> 01:47:32,160
Speaker 2: so they can carry out horrific acts of violence. And

1965
01:47:32,200 --> 01:47:35,559
Speaker 2: that's the border patrol and really ins too for the

1966
01:47:35,560 --> 01:47:41,000
Speaker 2: most part. Yeah, states probably had you know not. Probably

1967
01:47:41,080 --> 01:47:43,759
Speaker 2: border states had debates on the matter of illegal immigration.

1968
01:47:43,800 --> 01:47:46,320
Speaker 2: It was certainly like, you know, a political issue in Texas,

1969
01:47:46,880 --> 01:47:50,439
Speaker 2: in New Mexico and stuff. But random people in random

1970
01:47:50,439 --> 01:47:53,599
Speaker 2: Americans and Duluth or you know, Wichita or bubble fuck

1971
01:47:53,640 --> 01:47:56,639
Speaker 2: Montana or whatever didn't really care about the border right

1972
01:47:56,880 --> 01:47:59,479
Speaker 2: eighties and nineties, it was not a big vote getter

1973
01:47:59,640 --> 01:48:02,200
Speaker 2: for most to that period of time. Now, at the

1974
01:48:02,240 --> 01:48:04,880
Speaker 2: start of the Clinton administration, there were only about four

1975
01:48:04,920 --> 01:48:09,439
Speaker 2: thousand border patrol agents watching both Canada and Mexico, which

1976
01:48:09,479 --> 01:48:11,200
Speaker 2: is not a lot if you think about how big

1977
01:48:11,200 --> 01:48:12,200
Speaker 2: both of those borders are.

1978
01:48:12,520 --> 01:48:13,800
Speaker 3: There are many miles long.

1979
01:48:14,080 --> 01:48:17,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're pretty big. In nineteen ninety three, NAFTA became

1980
01:48:17,240 --> 01:48:19,880
Speaker 2: a thing, the North American free trade thing of a jigger,

1981
01:48:20,479 --> 01:48:24,599
Speaker 2: and illegal immigration grew by leaps and bounds alongside right

1982
01:48:24,640 --> 01:48:28,080
Speaker 2: wing fear mongering about illegal immigration. The border patrol more

1983
01:48:28,120 --> 01:48:30,400
Speaker 2: than doubled in size by the turn of the millennium.

1984
01:48:30,439 --> 01:48:32,120
Speaker 2: So this is like the first thing that really leads

1985
01:48:32,160 --> 01:48:34,799
Speaker 2: to a massive surge in the border patrol is NAFTA

1986
01:48:34,840 --> 01:48:37,080
Speaker 2: becomes a thing, and suddenly a shitload more people are

1987
01:48:37,080 --> 01:48:40,360
Speaker 2: trying to cross the border. Illegal immigration by the end

1988
01:48:40,400 --> 01:48:43,799
Speaker 2: of the nineteen nineties is a major national political issue

1989
01:48:43,920 --> 01:48:47,040
Speaker 2: in the Border Patrol more than doubles under Clinton. In

1990
01:48:47,080 --> 01:48:50,520
Speaker 2: the year two thousand, our nation's peak year for illegal immigration,

1991
01:48:50,920 --> 01:48:55,680
Speaker 2: border patrol agents apprehended one point six million people. This, though,

1992
01:48:55,800 --> 01:48:57,960
Speaker 2: was just a fraction of the total that got through.

1993
01:48:58,280 --> 01:49:01,360
Speaker 2: Border Patrol agents were unhappy about the fact that most

1994
01:49:02,360 --> 01:49:05,439
Speaker 2: undocumented migrants were still getting through the border, and that

1995
01:49:05,479 --> 01:49:07,439
Speaker 2: the many rules and that there were many rules in

1996
01:49:07,479 --> 01:49:10,839
Speaker 2: place to stop them from you know, doing Operation Wetback

1997
01:49:10,880 --> 01:49:13,600
Speaker 2: type stuff and basically carrying out an ethnic cleansing to

1998
01:49:13,600 --> 01:49:17,479
Speaker 2: get rid of non white people from border areas. From

1999
01:49:17,520 --> 01:49:20,200
Speaker 2: an article in Politico quote quote. Near the top of

2000
01:49:20,200 --> 01:49:22,559
Speaker 2: the Border Patrol's list of complaints was the policy known

2001
01:49:22,600 --> 01:49:26,120
Speaker 2: internally as KARP or the catch and release policy. By

2002
01:49:26,120 --> 01:49:28,439
Speaker 2: the end of the Clinton administration, eighty percent of people

2003
01:49:28,439 --> 01:49:30,639
Speaker 2: who were caught and released with a notice who appeared

2004
01:49:30,640 --> 01:49:33,519
Speaker 2: a deportation hearing never showed up in court. But despite

2005
01:49:33,600 --> 01:49:36,160
Speaker 2: millions of border crossings, the Border Patrol had the financing

2006
01:49:36,160 --> 01:49:38,640
Speaker 2: in two thousand and one for just sixty detainees a

2007
01:49:38,720 --> 01:49:41,640
Speaker 2: day across the entire country. They could turn themselves in

2008
01:49:41,680 --> 01:49:43,559
Speaker 2: and have a high confidence that they wouldn't be returned

2009
01:49:43,560 --> 01:49:46,800
Speaker 2: to their home countries, recalls Michael Cherdoff, who would go

2010
01:49:46,880 --> 01:49:50,080
Speaker 2: on to become President George W. Bush's second Secretary of

2011
01:49:50,080 --> 01:49:53,800
Speaker 2: Homeland Security. Mostly, agents just asked border violators for their

2012
01:49:53,880 --> 01:49:56,799
Speaker 2: names and then did a cursory background check before returning

2013
01:49:56,840 --> 01:49:59,479
Speaker 2: them to Mexico or releasing them into the United States.

2014
01:49:59,680 --> 01:50:03,080
Speaker 2: Sometimes they ran fingerprints, sometimes they didn't. In June nineteen

2015
01:50:03,160 --> 01:50:05,840
Speaker 2: ninety nine, agents captured one of the FBI's ten most

2016
01:50:05,840 --> 01:50:09,640
Speaker 2: wanted fugitives, a rapist and serial killer named Angel Maturino

2017
01:50:09,880 --> 01:50:14,360
Speaker 2: Racindez aka the Railway Killer, and unknowingly released him back

2018
01:50:14,400 --> 01:50:17,920
Speaker 2: into Mexico, whereupon Rascindez promptly sneaked back into the United

2019
01:50:17,960 --> 01:50:20,680
Speaker 2: States and murdered four more people before being apprehended by

2020
01:50:20,720 --> 01:50:24,360
Speaker 2: Texas rangers. So the story of the Railway Killer was

2021
01:50:24,400 --> 01:50:26,719
Speaker 2: of course used to justify the need for more funding

2022
01:50:26,760 --> 01:50:30,240
Speaker 2: to the Border Patrol. What the whole story really illustrates

2023
01:50:30,320 --> 01:50:32,639
Speaker 2: is that even when the Border Patrol had occasional chances

2024
01:50:32,680 --> 01:50:36,320
Speaker 2: to actually protect Americans by apprehending people, they were as

2025
01:50:36,400 --> 01:50:38,439
Speaker 2: likely to fuck up as anything, because most of them

2026
01:50:38,479 --> 01:50:42,000
Speaker 2: were shit ass incompetent in anything besides doing violence. So

2027
01:50:42,680 --> 01:50:46,759
Speaker 2: nine to eleven happens. You remember nine to eleven, I remember,

2028
01:50:47,760 --> 01:50:49,280
Speaker 2: It's good. You're not supposed to forget it.

2029
01:50:49,520 --> 01:50:49,720
Speaker 3: Now.

2030
01:50:49,920 --> 01:50:52,160
Speaker 2: Nine to eleven happens. And if you were alive and

2031
01:50:52,200 --> 01:50:54,759
Speaker 2: cognizant at the time, you might remember that. Basically everybody

2032
01:50:54,760 --> 01:50:57,439
Speaker 2: in their grandma was obsessed with the imminent possibility that

2033
01:50:57,439 --> 01:51:00,360
Speaker 2: al Qaeda might drive a regiment of terrorist nuclear tanks

2034
01:51:00,400 --> 01:51:03,200
Speaker 2: or whatever across the Texas border. As someone who lived

2035
01:51:03,240 --> 01:51:04,880
Speaker 2: in Texas at the time, we were a bunch of

2036
01:51:04,880 --> 01:51:07,360
Speaker 2: people freaking out about how, like terrorist hit squads we're

2037
01:51:07,400 --> 01:51:08,760
Speaker 2: going to be making their way up through the border.

2038
01:51:08,840 --> 01:51:11,640
Speaker 2: Kids at my suburban Texas high school were certain that

2039
01:51:11,680 --> 01:51:13,639
Speaker 2: al Qaida was going to be sending people to shoot

2040
01:51:13,720 --> 01:51:17,200
Speaker 2: up our school because, like Plano, Texas was real high

2041
01:51:17,240 --> 01:51:19,479
Speaker 2: on fucking Osama bin Laden's hit list.

2042
01:51:20,240 --> 01:51:22,800
Speaker 3: Wait, did they think they were going to like go

2043
01:51:22,880 --> 01:51:25,240
Speaker 3: to Mexico first and then cross the border?

2044
01:51:25,400 --> 01:51:25,439
Speaker 1: Is?

2045
01:51:25,560 --> 01:51:28,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, what they thought? It didn't really scan a lot.

2046
01:51:28,280 --> 01:51:31,280
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll say this, I think that it's maybe

2047
01:51:31,320 --> 01:51:33,680
Speaker 2: not talked about enough that agree to which guys like

2048
01:51:33,720 --> 01:51:36,800
Speaker 2: John Milnius and movies like Red Dawn prepared everybody to

2049
01:51:36,840 --> 01:51:39,559
Speaker 2: believe the bullshit the Bush administration said about how terrorists

2050
01:51:39,560 --> 01:51:43,400
Speaker 2: we're going to be sneaking through the border, but like, yeah, whatever,

2051
01:51:43,920 --> 01:51:45,840
Speaker 2: it was very dumb. It was a very dumb time.

2052
01:51:46,040 --> 01:51:48,639
Speaker 2: But also like you know, a bunch of guys had

2053
01:51:49,439 --> 01:51:52,240
Speaker 2: worked together to ram planes into the Pentagon and destroy

2054
01:51:52,280 --> 01:51:54,760
Speaker 2: two skyscrapers in New York City. People were really to

2055
01:51:54,800 --> 01:51:57,719
Speaker 2: believe a lot of terrible things were possible. And because

2056
01:51:57,760 --> 01:52:01,679
Speaker 2: the border, you know, right wing pundits had been convincing

2057
01:52:01,720 --> 01:52:05,599
Speaker 2: everybody that the border was this dangerous and unmonitored place

2058
01:52:05,760 --> 01:52:07,640
Speaker 2: for so long. People were like, oh, my god, of

2059
01:52:07,680 --> 01:52:11,479
Speaker 2: course the terrorists will try there. They never did, but

2060
01:52:11,560 --> 01:52:15,559
Speaker 2: you know they still might any day now, Caitlin, any

2061
01:52:15,640 --> 01:52:18,599
Speaker 2: day Al Kaita's got out. Finally get a squad up there.

2062
01:52:19,200 --> 01:52:23,640
Speaker 2: Nobody will notice all of the anyway. Whatever. So yeah,

2063
01:52:23,680 --> 01:52:26,840
Speaker 2: Tom Ridge, the former governor of Pennsylvania, was made President.

2064
01:52:26,920 --> 01:52:29,519
Speaker 2: Bush's homeland securities are Now this was before the Department

2065
01:52:29,560 --> 01:52:32,320
Speaker 2: of Homeland Security existed. That came about in like November

2066
01:52:32,360 --> 01:52:35,160
Speaker 2: of two thousand and two. But as soon as like

2067
01:52:35,240 --> 01:52:37,200
Speaker 2: nine to eleven is a thing, Bush is like, ah,

2068
01:52:37,240 --> 01:52:40,599
Speaker 2: we got to have somebody whose job is to think

2069
01:52:40,600 --> 01:52:44,160
Speaker 2: about safety for the country, which like, there were already

2070
01:52:44,160 --> 01:52:46,240
Speaker 2: a bunch of people doing that and it hadn't helped.

2071
01:52:46,920 --> 01:52:51,360
Speaker 2: But anyway, whatever, So Tom Ridge is like is made

2072
01:52:51,439 --> 01:52:55,360
Speaker 2: the czar of Homeland Security, and he made border control

2073
01:52:55,439 --> 01:52:58,680
Speaker 2: one of his priorities. He realized pretty much immediately that

2074
01:52:58,760 --> 01:53:00,680
Speaker 2: the border patrol was going to be issue for him.

2075
01:53:00,960 --> 01:53:03,240
Speaker 2: Robert Bonner, who worked with Ridge and later became the

2076
01:53:03,280 --> 01:53:06,320
Speaker 2: first head of Customs and Border Patrol, told Politico quote,

2077
01:53:06,840 --> 01:53:09,800
Speaker 2: within the ions structure, they were the poor stepchild. That

2078
01:53:09,920 --> 01:53:12,200
Speaker 2: was how most ofs viewed them at every level. They

2079
01:53:12,240 --> 01:53:14,920
Speaker 2: weren't appreciated and weren't viewed with respect, and that created

2080
01:53:14,920 --> 01:53:18,479
Speaker 2: this defensiveness and insolerity within the Border Patrol. There was

2081
01:53:18,520 --> 01:53:20,200
Speaker 2: a lot of debate about what to do with the

2082
01:53:20,280 --> 01:53:22,360
Speaker 2: organization and whether or not to just take all the

2083
01:53:22,400 --> 01:53:25,439
Speaker 2: different groups that handled various border related things and merged

2084
01:53:25,479 --> 01:53:28,320
Speaker 2: them into one border agency. But that would have meant

2085
01:53:28,439 --> 01:53:32,080
Speaker 2: several different cabinet secretaries would have each lost tiny amounts

2086
01:53:32,080 --> 01:53:34,040
Speaker 2: of power and money because you know, you have this

2087
01:53:34,120 --> 01:53:36,280
Speaker 2: group that's like, you know, your job is to look

2088
01:53:36,320 --> 01:53:39,680
Speaker 2: for war criminals who might have like accidentally gotten citizenship

2089
01:53:39,720 --> 01:53:42,040
Speaker 2: or green cards. You have this other group. His job

2090
01:53:42,120 --> 01:53:44,599
Speaker 2: is to like, you know, handle customs enforcement. You know,

2091
01:53:44,640 --> 01:53:47,320
Speaker 2: you have the Border Patrol. You have like the group

2092
01:53:47,360 --> 01:53:49,439
Speaker 2: that's job is to go around and look for people

2093
01:53:49,479 --> 01:53:51,559
Speaker 2: who might be violating immigration law. You have all these

2094
01:53:51,560 --> 01:53:54,120
Speaker 2: different groups that are like under different sort of people's purview,

2095
01:53:54,560 --> 01:53:58,200
Speaker 2: and putting them all in one like organized border patrol

2096
01:53:58,200 --> 01:54:00,080
Speaker 2: that does everything would have meant that all of the

2097
01:54:00,080 --> 01:54:02,719
Speaker 2: different cabinet secretaries lost a little bit of money in power.

2098
01:54:02,920 --> 01:54:05,880
Speaker 2: So they all vetoed that idea in unison. No no, no, no,

2099
01:54:05,960 --> 01:54:10,000
Speaker 2: fuck that shit. Instead, the decision was made to dissolve

2100
01:54:10,120 --> 01:54:13,080
Speaker 2: i INS and put the Border Patrol under the purview

2101
01:54:13,240 --> 01:54:16,360
Speaker 2: of the new Customs and Border Patrol, which would itself

2102
01:54:16,439 --> 01:54:19,000
Speaker 2: be part of the brand new Department of Homeland Security.

2103
01:54:19,560 --> 01:54:22,320
Speaker 2: The final nail in Ins's coffin was the fact that

2104
01:54:22,360 --> 01:54:25,160
Speaker 2: the agency had approved visas for two of the nine

2105
01:54:25,160 --> 01:54:29,160
Speaker 2: to eleven hijackers after nine eleven. So this is kind

2106
01:54:29,160 --> 01:54:31,800
Speaker 2: of what like, yeah, that's the that's the wrong time

2107
01:54:31,840 --> 01:54:35,920
Speaker 2: to do that. Somebody probably should have gotten on the

2108
01:54:35,960 --> 01:54:38,800
Speaker 2: phone immediately after that and been like, hey, you we

2109
01:54:38,840 --> 01:54:40,840
Speaker 2: should run these names, like just make sure we're not

2110
01:54:40,880 --> 01:54:44,920
Speaker 2: going to embarrass everybody, but they did. And when the

2111
01:54:44,920 --> 01:54:47,560
Speaker 2: news kind of came out that i INS had approved

2112
01:54:48,000 --> 01:54:50,320
Speaker 2: visas for two of the people who had just carried

2113
01:54:50,320 --> 01:54:52,720
Speaker 2: out the biggest terrorist attack in the US history, the

2114
01:54:52,760 --> 01:54:56,440
Speaker 2: Bush administration was really not happy with IONS, and that

2115
01:54:56,520 --> 01:54:59,720
Speaker 2: kind of that kind of spelled their doom, and in fact,

2116
01:55:00,000 --> 01:55:02,560
Speaker 2: in they dissolved the agency. No one from the White

2117
01:55:02,560 --> 01:55:09,280
Speaker 2: House even thought to call the INS commissioner and tell him.

2118
01:55:09,320 --> 01:55:12,880
Speaker 2: I'm going to quote again from Politico's article, i INS

2119
01:55:13,040 --> 01:55:14,920
Speaker 2: was such a broken bureaucracy that it would be the

2120
01:55:14,960 --> 01:55:18,000
Speaker 2: single agency in the entire US government to receive the

2121
01:55:18,120 --> 01:55:21,000
Speaker 2: ultimate death penalty. After nine to eleven, in the wide

2122
01:55:21,120 --> 01:55:24,720
Speaker 2: ranging bureaucratic reorganization that led to the Department of Homeland Security,

2123
01:55:25,000 --> 01:55:28,440
Speaker 2: i INS was completely disbanded, its responsibilities removed from the

2124
01:55:28,560 --> 01:55:33,440
Speaker 2: Justice Department, and its duties reassigned among three new DHS agencies,

2125
01:55:33,640 --> 01:55:38,600
Speaker 2: Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE, Citizenship and Immigration Services CIS,

2126
01:55:38,640 --> 01:55:42,000
Speaker 2: and Customs and Border Protection CBP in the newly created

2127
01:55:42,040 --> 01:55:44,680
Speaker 2: DHS would be a reality in less than a year.

2128
01:55:44,960 --> 01:55:46,440
Speaker 2: So that's the situation.

2129
01:55:48,160 --> 01:55:48,360
Speaker 3: Now.

2130
01:55:48,440 --> 01:55:52,000
Speaker 2: The man tasked with creating the CBP was Robert Bonner,

2131
01:55:52,080 --> 01:55:55,280
Speaker 2: a federal judge and a former DEA head. His first

2132
01:55:55,320 --> 01:55:57,960
Speaker 2: and most pressing decision was whether or not to change

2133
01:55:58,000 --> 01:56:02,200
Speaker 2: the agency's famous green union, which is obviously more important

2134
01:56:02,200 --> 01:56:06,600
Speaker 2: than like the rapes, the right trading of women for

2135
01:56:06,680 --> 01:56:07,800
Speaker 2: sports tickets and stuff.

2136
01:56:08,080 --> 01:56:10,360
Speaker 3: Why is that the first order of business? Why are

2137
01:56:10,360 --> 01:56:11,520
Speaker 3: they us?

2138
01:56:11,960 --> 01:56:15,160
Speaker 2: Look, Caitlin, These brave men of the Border Patrol who

2139
01:56:15,200 --> 01:56:18,920
Speaker 2: only occasionally commit mass rape and sex trafficking that includes

2140
01:56:18,960 --> 01:56:22,000
Speaker 2: sex trafficking of twelve year olds, and only occasionally torture

2141
01:56:22,000 --> 01:56:25,120
Speaker 2: pregnant women to death. Those brave men have a lot

2142
01:56:25,160 --> 01:56:26,840
Speaker 2: of pride in their uniform, and they want to know

2143
01:56:26,880 --> 01:56:29,200
Speaker 2: that that uniform is not going to change.

2144
01:56:29,440 --> 01:56:29,640
Speaker 1: You know.

2145
01:56:30,200 --> 01:56:34,200
Speaker 3: They have to be presentable. That's the most That's the

2146
01:56:34,240 --> 01:56:34,920
Speaker 3: most important thing.

2147
01:56:35,240 --> 01:56:37,160
Speaker 2: The most important thing is that they they get to

2148
01:56:37,200 --> 01:56:39,400
Speaker 2: still feel like they're part of the part of the

2149
01:56:39,400 --> 01:56:41,360
Speaker 2: old Border Patrol that they love. You know, the old

2150
01:56:41,400 --> 01:56:45,400
Speaker 2: Border Patrol. Let them torture all those people and throw

2151
01:56:45,480 --> 01:56:49,560
Speaker 2: kids into into t dank, freezing cells for months on end,

2152
01:56:49,760 --> 01:56:53,320
Speaker 2: many of whom are actually American citizens. That's just how

2153
01:56:53,320 --> 01:56:59,200
Speaker 2: it's it's important, you know, yeah, so uh from Politico

2154
01:56:59,360 --> 01:57:02,280
Speaker 2: quote weeks before the new agency officially launched on March

2155
01:57:02,400 --> 01:57:04,440
Speaker 2: first two thousand and three, he invited all of the

2156
01:57:04,440 --> 01:57:07,800
Speaker 2: Border Patrols twenty sector chiefs to Washington to discuss the transition.

2157
01:57:08,120 --> 01:57:11,120
Speaker 2: They all arrived in DC in full dress, green uniforms,

2158
01:57:11,160 --> 01:57:14,360
Speaker 2: shoes polished brass, buttons gleaming. As Bonner walked into the room,

2159
01:57:14,560 --> 01:57:17,640
Speaker 2: everyone stood and snapped to attention. The new Commissioner began

2160
01:57:17,680 --> 01:57:21,200
Speaker 2: his remark, simply, the Border Patrol will remain green. The

2161
01:57:21,280 --> 01:57:24,440
Speaker 2: room erupted in applause and cheers. They're proud of the green.

2162
01:57:24,560 --> 01:57:27,320
Speaker 2: They were very proud of that uniform, Bonner recalls today.

2163
01:57:27,480 --> 01:57:30,480
Speaker 2: They were concerned about losing that identity.

2164
01:57:31,760 --> 01:57:36,360
Speaker 3: Eh, who cares about your green uniform?

2165
01:57:36,520 --> 01:57:36,680
Speaker 1: Oh?

2166
01:57:36,680 --> 01:57:38,000
Speaker 2: The Border Patrol cares.

2167
01:57:37,840 --> 01:57:40,640
Speaker 1: Fuck off and fucking losers.

2168
01:57:41,160 --> 01:57:45,280
Speaker 2: See this is why, as I've always said, uh and

2169
01:57:45,320 --> 01:57:47,040
Speaker 2: so if you can back me up on this, Caitlin,

2170
01:57:47,200 --> 01:57:49,360
Speaker 2: you would be a terrible head of the Border.

2171
01:57:49,080 --> 01:57:54,240
Speaker 3: Patrol because I don't respect the green exactly.

2172
01:57:54,280 --> 01:57:57,120
Speaker 1: Well, I don't even I don't wear green. But it's

2173
01:57:57,160 --> 01:58:00,960
Speaker 1: because I hate the Celtics. I can't have Aby there.

2174
01:58:01,040 --> 01:58:01,360
Speaker 3: Okay.

2175
01:58:02,240 --> 01:58:04,680
Speaker 2: See, Sophie, you'd be bad at this too, because as

2176
01:58:04,680 --> 01:58:08,320
Speaker 2: a Border Patrol agent, you should be trading kidnapped women

2177
01:58:08,360 --> 01:58:10,440
Speaker 2: to the Celtics in exchange for season tickets.

2178
01:58:10,680 --> 01:58:12,880
Speaker 1: Oh my god, can we just go to an ad break,

2179
01:58:13,000 --> 01:58:14,400
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ.

2180
01:58:14,600 --> 01:58:18,520
Speaker 2: Speaking of the Celtics, you know who else supports this podcast?

2181
01:58:18,720 --> 01:58:19,320
Speaker 3: Hey?

2182
01:58:19,360 --> 01:58:20,120
Speaker 1: You know who else is?

2183
01:58:20,160 --> 01:58:20,280
Speaker 3: Who?

2184
01:58:20,520 --> 01:58:30,280
Speaker 1: Nope, nope, nope, and we're back that that that Celtics.

2185
01:58:30,320 --> 01:58:33,720
Speaker 1: Dig I just would like to denote that. I will

2186
01:58:33,800 --> 01:58:35,400
Speaker 1: keep doing that and also high prop.

2187
01:58:36,440 --> 01:58:40,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that I don't understand who the Celtics are Celtics.

2188
01:58:40,600 --> 01:58:42,760
Speaker 2: I don't understand any of this. This is all Sophie.

2189
01:58:43,280 --> 01:58:46,200
Speaker 2: If you love that team, if you love that team,

2190
01:58:46,720 --> 01:58:48,080
Speaker 2: send your death threats to Sophie.

2191
01:58:48,160 --> 01:58:49,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you love that if you love that team,

2192
01:58:50,240 --> 01:58:52,960
Speaker 1: just unfollow me because we will never be friends.

2193
01:58:53,080 --> 01:58:54,120
Speaker 3: Also, I don't know.

2194
01:58:54,000 --> 01:58:54,320
Speaker 1: Who they.

2195
01:58:55,840 --> 01:58:59,720
Speaker 3: If you, if you don't give a ship about sports

2196
01:58:59,760 --> 01:59:03,320
Speaker 3: teams in existence tennis, follow me.

2197
01:59:04,440 --> 01:59:04,680
Speaker 1: Yeah.

2198
01:59:04,720 --> 01:59:08,040
Speaker 3: Except for soccer, Soccer is allowed. Soccer's cool. Soccer is

2199
01:59:08,040 --> 01:59:08,640
Speaker 3: the only sport.

2200
01:59:08,760 --> 01:59:08,960
Speaker 1: No.

2201
01:59:09,080 --> 01:59:10,480
Speaker 2: Soccer is definitely not allowed.

2202
01:59:10,880 --> 01:59:12,640
Speaker 1: What soccer soccer is allowed.

2203
01:59:12,440 --> 01:59:12,800
Speaker 3: There is.

2204
01:59:12,880 --> 01:59:16,160
Speaker 2: There is one sport allowed in my ideal world, and

2205
01:59:16,200 --> 01:59:18,840
Speaker 2: it's that that game they play in Afghanistan where they

2206
01:59:18,840 --> 01:59:20,880
Speaker 2: all ride around on horseback with a goat head and

2207
01:59:20,880 --> 01:59:24,800
Speaker 2: people get killed sometimes because they it's it's yeah, you.

2208
01:59:24,840 --> 01:59:27,960
Speaker 1: Just fully Robert died this entire thing. Anyway, it's follow

2209
01:59:28,040 --> 01:59:30,200
Speaker 1: Caitlin on Twitter on Instagram. She's a great follow.

2210
01:59:30,320 --> 01:59:34,480
Speaker 2: Continue with your podcast Afghanistan to play sports anyway. They

2211
01:59:34,480 --> 01:59:37,400
Speaker 2: were not particularly concerned the Border Patrol with making any

2212
01:59:37,480 --> 01:59:39,680
Speaker 2: changes to reduce the number of migrants killed by border

2213
01:59:39,680 --> 01:59:42,680
Speaker 2: patrol agents. Since two thousand and three, border Patrol agents

2214
01:59:42,720 --> 01:59:45,200
Speaker 2: have killed at least ninety seven people. Six of those

2215
01:59:45,240 --> 01:59:48,240
Speaker 2: people were children. They've also taken repeated action to stop

2216
01:59:48,280 --> 01:59:51,240
Speaker 2: other people from saving lives. As summers grew more brutal,

2217
01:59:51,280 --> 01:59:53,760
Speaker 2: more and more migrants started dying in the Sonoran Desert.

2218
01:59:53,920 --> 01:59:56,360
Speaker 2: In two thousand and four, the faith based organization No

2219
01:59:56,440 --> 01:59:59,320
Speaker 2: More Deaths started leading gallant leaving gallon jugs of water

2220
01:59:59,400 --> 02:00:01,880
Speaker 2: out near cop and footpaths and the desperate hope that

2221
02:00:01,920 --> 02:00:04,040
Speaker 2: it might stop a few people from dying horribly in

2222
02:00:04,080 --> 02:00:06,600
Speaker 2: the desert. They soon noticed that their water bottles were

2223
02:00:06,600 --> 02:00:10,000
Speaker 2: being slashed open. No More Death set up hidden cameras

2224
02:00:10,160 --> 02:00:13,720
Speaker 2: they found in every case border Patrol agents destroying water

2225
02:00:13,800 --> 02:00:16,800
Speaker 2: caches almost with visible glee. You can see one of

2226
02:00:16,840 --> 02:00:20,240
Speaker 2: these videos for yourself and the PBS documentary Need to Know.

2227
02:00:20,720 --> 02:00:24,440
Speaker 2: Salon dot COM's description is quite good. Quote. Three Border

2228
02:00:24,480 --> 02:00:27,000
Speaker 2: Patrol agents, two men and a woman are walking along

2229
02:00:27,080 --> 02:00:29,920
Speaker 2: a migrant trail and approaching half a dozen one gallon

2230
02:00:29,960 --> 02:00:32,320
Speaker 2: jugs of water. The female agent stops in front of

2231
02:00:32,320 --> 02:00:34,440
Speaker 2: the containers and begins to kick them with force down

2232
02:00:34,440 --> 02:00:37,879
Speaker 2: a ravine. The bottles crash against rocks, bursting open. She's smiling.

2233
02:00:38,120 --> 02:00:40,280
Speaker 2: One of the agents watching her smiles as well, seeming

2234
02:00:40,280 --> 02:00:42,920
Speaker 2: to take real pleasure in the spectacle. He says something

2235
02:00:43,000 --> 02:00:45,680
Speaker 2: under his breath, and the word tonk is clearly audible.

2236
02:00:46,000 --> 02:00:47,120
Speaker 2: Do you know what tonk means?

2237
02:00:47,680 --> 02:00:48,120
Speaker 3: I don't.

2238
02:00:48,600 --> 02:00:51,040
Speaker 2: So we talked about wetback in episode one and how

2239
02:00:51,040 --> 02:00:55,960
Speaker 2: that was the Border Patrol's old term for particularly Mexican immigrants,

2240
02:00:55,960 --> 02:00:58,800
Speaker 2: because of the river they have to cross. Tonk is

2241
02:00:59,320 --> 02:01:02,000
Speaker 2: new the new slur that the Border Patrol uses for

2242
02:01:02,040 --> 02:01:05,320
Speaker 2: a documented immigrants, and it comes from the sound that

2243
02:01:05,360 --> 02:01:07,640
Speaker 2: a flashlight makes when you hit someone in the head.

2244
02:01:08,240 --> 02:01:11,200
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you'll hear.

2245
02:01:11,120 --> 02:01:13,640
Speaker 2: This if in any article you read about the modern

2246
02:01:13,680 --> 02:01:16,600
Speaker 2: Border Patrol that they the word tonk is like their

2247
02:01:16,680 --> 02:01:20,520
Speaker 2: standard term for migrants, and it's a term because of

2248
02:01:20,600 --> 02:01:22,960
Speaker 2: what it sounds like when they beat these people with flashlights.

2249
02:01:23,120 --> 02:01:29,880
Speaker 3: Well, m okay, let me just process that.

2250
02:01:30,560 --> 02:01:32,960
Speaker 2: New slurs were. Of course, of course, far from the

2251
02:01:33,000 --> 02:01:35,440
Speaker 2: only changes to hit Border Patrol during the Bush years.

2252
02:01:35,520 --> 02:01:37,920
Speaker 2: By the time President Obama took office, the Border Patrol

2253
02:01:37,960 --> 02:01:40,640
Speaker 2: had gone from an underfunded force of about nine thousand

2254
02:01:40,880 --> 02:01:44,160
Speaker 2: to a twenty one thousand person army, the largest federal

2255
02:01:44,240 --> 02:01:48,240
Speaker 2: law enforcement agency in the country. There are actual armies

2256
02:01:48,280 --> 02:01:52,400
Speaker 2: smaller than the Border Patrol and less well equipped. They're

2257
02:01:52,440 --> 02:01:55,880
Speaker 2: the largest law enforcement agency in the country now, so

2258
02:01:55,920 --> 02:01:58,760
Speaker 2: that's good. All those new officers had to be trained

2259
02:01:58,840 --> 02:02:00,960
Speaker 2: up quick, and this did not lead time for rigorous

2260
02:02:01,040 --> 02:02:04,160
Speaker 2: vetting and background checking that other federal agents go through.

2261
02:02:04,360 --> 02:02:07,240
Speaker 2: Border Patrol agents today still have the least average years

2262
02:02:07,240 --> 02:02:10,160
Speaker 2: of experience of any federal law enforcement agency. They also

2263
02:02:10,200 --> 02:02:12,920
Speaker 2: have the lowest standards for new recruits. This may have

2264
02:02:12,960 --> 02:02:14,920
Speaker 2: something to do with the fact that Border Patrol agents

2265
02:02:14,960 --> 02:02:17,680
Speaker 2: are involved in more fatal shootings than any other federal

2266
02:02:17,800 --> 02:02:22,440
Speaker 2: law enforcement agency. Yeah, you know, probably. It's not like

2267
02:02:22,520 --> 02:02:25,080
Speaker 2: any federal lawenforcement agency is good about giving us numbers

2268
02:02:25,080 --> 02:02:27,920
Speaker 2: about how many people they shoot, but probably they kill

2269
02:02:27,960 --> 02:02:29,000
Speaker 2: more than any of the others.

2270
02:02:29,360 --> 02:02:30,280
Speaker 3: Okay, I believe it.

2271
02:02:30,920 --> 02:02:34,760
Speaker 2: Yeah. One senior DHS official even admitted to Politico quote,

2272
02:02:34,920 --> 02:02:37,240
Speaker 2: the agency has created a culture that says, if you

2273
02:02:37,360 --> 02:02:39,480
Speaker 2: throw a rock at me, you're going to get shot.

2274
02:02:40,360 --> 02:02:43,040
Speaker 2: Between two thousand and five and twenty twelve, roughly one

2275
02:02:43,040 --> 02:02:46,560
Speaker 2: CBP officer was arrested for misconduct every single day. During

2276
02:02:46,640 --> 02:02:49,600
Speaker 2: President Obama's first term. Things got so bad that DHS

2277
02:02:49,640 --> 02:02:53,560
Speaker 2: Secretary Janet Napolitano ordered the CBP to change its institutional

2278
02:02:53,560 --> 02:02:56,080
Speaker 2: definition of the word corruption so they wouldn't have to

2279
02:02:56,120 --> 02:02:58,440
Speaker 2: admit to as many problems. When they were questioned by

2280
02:02:58,440 --> 02:03:03,640
Speaker 2: Congress about all of the murder, it's yeah, wow again

2281
02:03:06,160 --> 02:03:15,280
Speaker 2: under Obama, it's pretty much impossible. No, I just like, yeah, Like,

2282
02:03:15,360 --> 02:03:17,520
Speaker 2: we're not even really gonna get into the Trump years

2283
02:03:17,720 --> 02:03:20,360
Speaker 2: in this two parter because that's like a whole nother

2284
02:03:20,440 --> 02:03:24,200
Speaker 2: thing to start talking about. Yeah, like most of this

2285
02:03:24,520 --> 02:03:28,760
Speaker 2: that we're talking about today, I mean it's Reagan Bush Senior,

2286
02:03:28,920 --> 02:03:32,560
Speaker 2: Clinton Bush Junior, and Obama, Right, those are the guys

2287
02:03:32,600 --> 02:03:34,839
Speaker 2: that this is happening under. Those are the guys funding

2288
02:03:34,840 --> 02:03:39,680
Speaker 2: this right enthusiastically. All of the politicians that everybody thinks

2289
02:03:39,720 --> 02:03:42,600
Speaker 2: are fine now because Trump is such a such a

2290
02:03:42,640 --> 02:03:47,680
Speaker 2: dick anyway. Yeah, it's pretty much impossible to exaggerate how

2291
02:03:47,720 --> 02:03:51,880
Speaker 2: bad Border patrol ISNT. Was like, I'm gonna guess that

2292
02:03:52,040 --> 02:03:54,560
Speaker 2: most of our listeners come from a broad position that

2293
02:03:54,640 --> 02:03:58,080
Speaker 2: like Feds are not good, which is fine and accurate.

2294
02:03:58,320 --> 02:04:00,720
Speaker 2: But even among that company, like even if you're like, oh,

2295
02:04:00,840 --> 02:04:03,720
Speaker 2: federal agents are pretty much all bad, it's shocking how

2296
02:04:03,840 --> 02:04:07,720
Speaker 2: bad the agents of the CBP are. It's like, it's

2297
02:04:08,920 --> 02:04:14,280
Speaker 2: staggering how shitty they particularly become in the aughts. And

2298
02:04:14,320 --> 02:04:17,560
Speaker 2: I'm going to quote from Salon again. There was the

2299
02:04:17,600 --> 02:04:20,560
Speaker 2: Miami CBP officer who used his law enforcement status to

2300
02:04:20,600 --> 02:04:24,680
Speaker 2: bypass airport security and personally smuggle cocaine and heroin into Miami.

2301
02:04:24,880 --> 02:04:27,440
Speaker 2: There was the green uniformed agent in Yuma, Arizona, who

2302
02:04:27,520 --> 02:04:30,280
Speaker 2: was caught smuggling seven hundred pounds of marijuana across the

2303
02:04:30,280 --> 02:04:32,800
Speaker 2: border in his green and white Border patrol truck. The

2304
02:04:32,880 --> 02:04:35,160
Speaker 2: brand new twenty six year old border patrol agent who

2305
02:04:35,240 --> 02:04:37,680
Speaker 2: joined a drug smuggling operation to distribute more than a

2306
02:04:37,760 --> 02:04:40,840
Speaker 2: thousand kilograms of marijuana in Del Rio, Texas. The thirty

2307
02:04:40,840 --> 02:04:43,000
Speaker 2: two year old border patrol agent whose wife would tip

2308
02:04:43,080 --> 02:04:45,920
Speaker 2: him off on which buses filled with illegal immigrants to

2309
02:04:46,000 --> 02:04:48,839
Speaker 2: let through his checkpoint on I thirty five in Laredo, Texas.

2310
02:04:49,120 --> 02:04:51,240
Speaker 2: Some cases were more obvious than others, like the new

2311
02:04:51,280 --> 02:04:53,880
Speaker 2: Border Patrol agent who took an unusual interest in maps

2312
02:04:53,880 --> 02:04:56,760
Speaker 2: of the agency's sensors along the border and was arrested

2313
02:04:56,800 --> 02:04:59,400
Speaker 2: just seven months into the job after he sold smugglers

2314
02:04:59,400 --> 02:05:03,000
Speaker 2: those maps fifty five hundred dollars. In November two thousand

2315
02:05:03,040 --> 02:05:06,360
Speaker 2: and seven, CBP official Thomas Winkowski wrote an agency wide

2316
02:05:06,360 --> 02:05:09,839
Speaker 2: memo citing numerous incidents or, as he called them, disturbing events,

2317
02:05:09,960 --> 02:05:12,960
Speaker 2: saying that the leadership was concerned about the increase in

2318
02:05:13,000 --> 02:05:16,520
Speaker 2: the number of employee arrests. The memo, never made public,

2319
02:05:16,520 --> 02:05:19,560
Speaker 2: but obtained by the Miami Herald, reminded officers and agents,

2320
02:05:19,600 --> 02:05:22,720
Speaker 2: it is our responsibility to uphold the laws, not break

2321
02:05:22,760 --> 02:05:27,280
Speaker 2: the law now. Right around that time, internal CBP investigations

2322
02:05:27,360 --> 02:05:30,320
Speaker 2: uncovered that the agency had, in dozens of cases, hired

2323
02:05:30,320 --> 02:05:33,640
Speaker 2: members of Mexican drug cartels and gangs like MS thirteen

2324
02:05:33,720 --> 02:05:37,120
Speaker 2: to be agents. They'd also hired at least one serial killer,

2325
02:05:37,320 --> 02:05:40,760
Speaker 2: Juan David Ortiz, who murdered five women during his time

2326
02:05:40,800 --> 02:05:43,800
Speaker 2: as an intelligence analyst for the agency. He is also

2327
02:05:43,800 --> 02:05:46,440
Speaker 2: suspected of kidnapping a woman. We'll never really know the

2328
02:05:46,480 --> 02:05:48,680
Speaker 2: exact extent of his crimes, and in that regard he

2329
02:05:48,680 --> 02:05:52,520
Speaker 2: fits in with another border patrol veteran Esteban Manzanares. It

2330
02:05:52,600 --> 02:05:55,600
Speaker 2: is possible that Estebon Manzanares was not a serial killer.

2331
02:05:55,680 --> 02:05:57,760
Speaker 2: He hasn't been convicted of any murders, but he was

2332
02:05:57,800 --> 02:06:00,600
Speaker 2: caught abducting three migrant women, a mother and her two

2333
02:06:00,640 --> 02:06:03,720
Speaker 2: teenage daughters. He attempted to bury one alive, and he

2334
02:06:03,840 --> 02:06:07,480
Speaker 2: raped another. And yeah, earlier this year, in appeals court

2335
02:06:07,520 --> 02:06:09,920
Speaker 2: ruled that his victims could not sue the federal government

2336
02:06:09,960 --> 02:06:13,040
Speaker 2: as Mensinares was not acting in his official capacity as

2337
02:06:13,080 --> 02:06:16,440
Speaker 2: a border patrol agent when he assaulted those women. Sure,

2338
02:06:16,480 --> 02:06:19,120
Speaker 2: he arrested them during his duties as a border patrol agent,

2339
02:06:19,240 --> 02:06:21,680
Speaker 2: and he took them to a border patrol processing facility

2340
02:06:21,720 --> 02:06:24,200
Speaker 2: before taking them to a gated compound to assault them,

2341
02:06:24,440 --> 02:06:27,120
Speaker 2: but he wasn't acting as a border patrol agent.

2342
02:06:27,600 --> 02:06:34,960
Speaker 3: Oh wow, the mental gymnastics as people do.

2343
02:06:33,880 --> 02:06:34,960
Speaker 2: Just legal ones.

2344
02:06:36,360 --> 02:06:38,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, yeah.

2345
02:06:38,760 --> 02:06:41,360
Speaker 2: Now, the good news is that a few bad apples

2346
02:06:41,400 --> 02:06:44,200
Speaker 2: like Manzanares and Arties, and also all of the thousands

2347
02:06:44,240 --> 02:06:47,160
Speaker 2: of agents who got arrested on an early daily basis

2348
02:06:47,200 --> 02:06:50,560
Speaker 2: for seven straight years didn't stop the orchard from detaining

2349
02:06:50,560 --> 02:06:53,640
Speaker 2: more migrants than ever before. During the Obama years, DHS

2350
02:06:53,640 --> 02:06:57,560
Speaker 2: deported more undocumented migrants than ever four hundred thousand a year.

2351
02:06:57,800 --> 02:07:00,960
Speaker 2: As President Obama said in twenty eleven, the presence of

2352
02:07:01,000 --> 02:07:03,480
Speaker 2: so many illegal immigrants make a mockery of all those

2353
02:07:03,480 --> 02:07:10,120
Speaker 2: who are trying to immigrate legally. Now, yeah, that's good, mama,

2354
02:07:10,720 --> 02:07:15,879
Speaker 2: it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. What a problem this was. Yeah,

2355
02:07:15,960 --> 02:07:20,160
Speaker 2: so and again, all of these legal immigrants make a

2356
02:07:20,200 --> 02:07:23,360
Speaker 2: mockery of everyone trying to immigrate illegally. The data shows

2357
02:07:23,400 --> 02:07:26,040
Speaker 2: that during this period, this like fucking seven year period,

2358
02:07:26,240 --> 02:07:29,240
Speaker 2: an average of one border patrol agent per day almost

2359
02:07:29,280 --> 02:07:32,920
Speaker 2: was arrested for serious crimes like ranging from like rape

2360
02:07:32,920 --> 02:07:36,920
Speaker 2: and sexual assault to attempted murder to you know, drug smuggling.

2361
02:07:37,320 --> 02:07:40,320
Speaker 2: Like every day a border patrol agent basically was getting

2362
02:07:40,400 --> 02:07:45,000
Speaker 2: arrested during these years. But that's not making a mockery

2363
02:07:45,440 --> 02:07:52,200
Speaker 2: of life, right, law enforcement or whatever. Yeah, yeah, Now,

2364
02:07:52,320 --> 02:07:54,440
Speaker 2: there were a number of reasons why things got so

2365
02:07:54,520 --> 02:07:56,880
Speaker 2: bad in border patrol. We've talked about some of them,

2366
02:07:56,920 --> 02:07:59,560
Speaker 2: just sort of like the inherent racist nature of the

2367
02:08:00,080 --> 02:08:03,200
Speaker 2: existence of the Border patrol. But there are also just

2368
02:08:03,240 --> 02:08:07,160
Speaker 2: sort of some some reasons that you would describe as

2369
02:08:07,280 --> 02:08:10,520
Speaker 2: kind of broadly bureaucratic. There were a bunch of bureaucratic

2370
02:08:10,600 --> 02:08:12,960
Speaker 2: reasons why it happened to right, kind of outside of

2371
02:08:13,000 --> 02:08:19,040
Speaker 2: the inherent, you know, problems of policing a border. For

2372
02:08:19,160 --> 02:08:21,920
Speaker 2: one point, like, they were increasing the size of the

2373
02:08:21,960 --> 02:08:25,840
Speaker 2: Border Patrol faster than any law enforcement agency had ever

2374
02:08:25,880 --> 02:08:28,680
Speaker 2: been increased, and that meant bringing in a shitload of

2375
02:08:28,720 --> 02:08:31,960
Speaker 2: people who weren't qualified. They had all of this money,

2376
02:08:32,000 --> 02:08:34,120
Speaker 2: and they did not have enough people who could actually

2377
02:08:34,120 --> 02:08:36,600
Speaker 2: responsibly do the job. So they were just throwing people

2378
02:08:36,680 --> 02:08:40,920
Speaker 2: in chairs and giving them guns and badges. Now, the

2379
02:08:41,000 --> 02:08:43,280
Speaker 2: issues of hiring a bunch of people for an agency

2380
02:08:43,320 --> 02:08:47,200
Speaker 2: based on assaulting non white people and giving them, you know,

2381
02:08:47,320 --> 02:08:51,720
Speaker 2: broad powers, were compounded by structural problems within the like

2382
02:08:51,760 --> 02:08:53,920
Speaker 2: the way the border patrol was set up. Most border

2383
02:08:53,960 --> 02:08:58,280
Speaker 2: patrol men are agents. This differs from special agents, which

2384
02:08:58,280 --> 02:09:00,800
Speaker 2: are the cool dudes like Fox Molder. Everyone who becomes

2385
02:09:00,800 --> 02:09:04,280
Speaker 2: a FED wants to be Special agents can both arrest

2386
02:09:04,320 --> 02:09:09,280
Speaker 2: people and investigate crimes. Agents only have arresting powers. They

2387
02:09:09,280 --> 02:09:13,480
Speaker 2: cannot investigate crimes now. Because CBP is seen as the

2388
02:09:13,520 --> 02:09:16,640
Speaker 2: shittiest federal law enforcement agency, the dumping ground for all

2389
02:09:16,680 --> 02:09:19,480
Speaker 2: of the violent assholes, our government doesn't like to make

2390
02:09:19,480 --> 02:09:23,040
Speaker 2: them special agents. According to Politico Quote. In many ways,

2391
02:09:23,040 --> 02:09:25,920
Speaker 2: the difference between the two is CBP's original sin, a

2392
02:09:25,960 --> 02:09:29,240
Speaker 2: seemingly minor technical distinction made in the harried heat of

2393
02:09:29,360 --> 02:09:32,320
Speaker 2: DHS creation a decade ago, that would allow hundreds of

2394
02:09:32,320 --> 02:09:35,320
Speaker 2: cases of corruption in CBP's Office of Field Operations and

2395
02:09:35,400 --> 02:09:38,880
Speaker 2: use of force abuses in the Border Patrol offestor for years.

2396
02:09:39,240 --> 02:09:42,280
Speaker 2: The problem was that no one at CBP received what's

2397
02:09:42,320 --> 02:09:45,960
Speaker 2: known as eighteen eleven authority. When DHS was set up,

2398
02:09:46,040 --> 02:09:49,680
Speaker 2: ICE was given exclusive eighteen eleven authority to conduct investigations

2399
02:09:49,680 --> 02:09:52,440
Speaker 2: in the border region. CBP was only given so called

2400
02:09:52,480 --> 02:09:55,400
Speaker 2: eighteen oh one authority, a lesser classification that allowed border

2401
02:09:55,400 --> 02:09:58,560
Speaker 2: patrol agents and customs officers to make arrests an enforced

2402
02:09:58,600 --> 02:10:01,360
Speaker 2: federal law, but not in investigate. They could be cops

2403
02:10:01,360 --> 02:10:04,600
Speaker 2: but not detectives. This didn't particularly matter, and the daily

2404
02:10:04,640 --> 02:10:07,560
Speaker 2: performance of CBP's duties the borders were patrolled to the

2405
02:10:07,560 --> 02:10:11,720
Speaker 2: ports of entry watched except that CBP was legally prohibited

2406
02:10:11,920 --> 02:10:17,400
Speaker 2: from policing its own workforce. Yeah, and it's again one

2407
02:10:17,400 --> 02:10:19,879
Speaker 2: of these things. Every single person who's ever been involved

2408
02:10:19,880 --> 02:10:22,280
Speaker 2: in running the CBP agrees, like, yeah, this is a

2409
02:10:22,320 --> 02:10:25,080
Speaker 2: real big problem because it means that they're even less

2410
02:10:25,080 --> 02:10:28,520
Speaker 2: accountable than other law enforcement agencies because those ones are

2411
02:10:28,520 --> 02:10:32,200
Speaker 2: barely accountable and those ones are barely accountable. But like,

2412
02:10:32,280 --> 02:10:34,640
Speaker 2: even when Border Patrol agents commit a crime that other

2413
02:10:34,680 --> 02:10:39,200
Speaker 2: border patrol agents think is horrible, like they can't investigate.

2414
02:10:40,320 --> 02:10:44,480
Speaker 3: Wow, no accountability, Holy crap.

2415
02:10:45,400 --> 02:10:49,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, other law enforcement agencies look at Border Patrol

2416
02:10:49,600 --> 02:10:52,000
Speaker 2: and go Jesus Christ, those people are unaccountable when they

2417
02:10:52,000 --> 02:10:53,760
Speaker 2: commit acts of unspeakable violence.

2418
02:10:54,320 --> 02:10:56,840
Speaker 3: That is bleak. That's bleak, very bleak.

2419
02:10:58,120 --> 02:11:01,880
Speaker 2: By twenty twelve, the problems in Border Patrol were obvious

2420
02:11:01,960 --> 02:11:04,320
Speaker 2: enough that they spilled out into the public's fear. The

2421
02:11:04,360 --> 02:11:07,440
Speaker 2: Arizona a Public conducted an investigation which showed that agents

2422
02:11:07,440 --> 02:11:09,640
Speaker 2: had killed at least forty two people, thirteen of whom

2423
02:11:09,680 --> 02:11:12,240
Speaker 2: were citizens, since two thousand and five. In none of

2424
02:11:12,240 --> 02:11:14,960
Speaker 2: these killings was any agent known to effaced consequences of

2425
02:11:15,000 --> 02:11:18,200
Speaker 2: any kind. Congressional pressure forced the agency to submit to

2426
02:11:18,200 --> 02:11:21,839
Speaker 2: an investigation by the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington,

2427
02:11:21,920 --> 02:11:26,120
Speaker 2: DC based law enforcement think tank. The PERF investigated sixty

2428
02:11:26,120 --> 02:11:29,160
Speaker 2: seven cases of lethal force by Border Patrol agents. They found,

2429
02:11:29,200 --> 02:11:32,200
Speaker 2: among other things, cases of agents firing at fleeing vehicles.

2430
02:11:32,440 --> 02:11:35,160
Speaker 2: The report concluded too many cases do not appear to

2431
02:11:35,200 --> 02:11:37,720
Speaker 2: meet the test of objective reasonableness with regard to the

2432
02:11:37,800 --> 02:11:41,480
Speaker 2: use of deadly force. The PERF report advised, among other things,

2433
02:11:41,480 --> 02:11:44,280
Speaker 2: that agents should not use lethal force on unarmed drivers

2434
02:11:44,360 --> 02:11:47,040
Speaker 2: or rock throwers. The agency rejected this out of hand,

2435
02:11:47,080 --> 02:11:49,080
Speaker 2: with the head of Border Patrols saying in an interview,

2436
02:11:49,280 --> 02:11:51,680
Speaker 2: I've known agents who have almost died from being rocked

2437
02:11:51,680 --> 02:11:54,320
Speaker 2: along the border, and I think it was completely ridiculous

2438
02:11:54,320 --> 02:11:57,000
Speaker 2: that they wanted that prohibition. I should note here that

2439
02:11:57,080 --> 02:11:59,560
Speaker 2: no Border Patrol officer has ever been killed by Iraq.

2440
02:12:00,000 --> 02:12:02,560
Speaker 2: I can't really find evidence of one being seriously injured

2441
02:12:02,560 --> 02:12:05,120
Speaker 2: by Iraq either. What I can find is that in

2442
02:12:05,160 --> 02:12:09,040
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, CBP leadership estimated a full twenty percent of

2443
02:12:09,080 --> 02:12:12,000
Speaker 2: their force was corrupt. Attempse at reform were made in

2444
02:12:12,040 --> 02:12:14,600
Speaker 2: the last two years of the Obama administration, and in

2445
02:12:14,600 --> 02:12:17,520
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen it looked like things might finally be headed

2446
02:12:17,560 --> 02:12:20,320
Speaker 2: in a less murdery direction. But then Donald Trump became

2447
02:12:20,360 --> 02:12:24,240
Speaker 2: the president, and here we are a presidential administration filled

2448
02:12:24,240 --> 02:12:26,800
Speaker 2: with literal Nazis. Was handed a vast, heavily armed force

2449
02:12:26,840 --> 02:12:29,640
Speaker 2: of sociopaths and rapists who just spent the last two

2450
02:12:29,720 --> 02:12:31,880
Speaker 2: years being told that they had to rape and murder less,

2451
02:12:32,080 --> 02:12:33,840
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden they were told, whatever

2452
02:12:33,880 --> 02:12:35,640
Speaker 2: you want to do is find just get these brown

2453
02:12:35,640 --> 02:12:37,840
Speaker 2: people out of the United States. And that's kind of

2454
02:12:37,880 --> 02:12:41,280
Speaker 2: where things stand today with the Border Patrol as sort

2455
02:12:41,320 --> 02:12:44,560
Speaker 2: of the turning into the official armed wing of the

2456
02:12:45,240 --> 02:12:50,280
Speaker 2: racist right, with these CVP and BORTAC units set up

2457
02:12:50,360 --> 02:12:53,960
Speaker 2: using Border patrol men being sent into American cities to

2458
02:12:54,160 --> 02:12:58,000
Speaker 2: police dissent because they're the most dedicated and least accountable

2459
02:12:58,040 --> 02:13:02,960
Speaker 2: and most violent law enforcement officers the country has. And yeah,

2460
02:13:03,000 --> 02:13:05,840
Speaker 2: there's a lot more I could and should get into

2461
02:13:06,040 --> 02:13:10,760
Speaker 2: about where things are at the moment with Border Patrol,

2462
02:13:11,080 --> 02:13:13,880
Speaker 2: But this is it took me this long just to

2463
02:13:13,880 --> 02:13:16,480
Speaker 2: get us up to the fucking Trump administration.

2464
02:13:16,160 --> 02:13:18,400
Speaker 3: Right, and yeah we're not even at the you know,

2465
02:13:18,560 --> 02:13:24,320
Speaker 3: the whole the frenzy around Yeah, build the wall and

2466
02:13:25,040 --> 02:13:30,760
Speaker 3: just like yack, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I guess that's

2467
02:13:30,800 --> 02:13:31,760
Speaker 3: another podcast.

2468
02:13:33,000 --> 02:13:36,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's another kind of podcast. And I guess if

2469
02:13:36,640 --> 02:13:41,120
Speaker 2: I'm gonna lead leave somewhere or in this somewhere, I

2470
02:13:41,280 --> 02:13:46,160
Speaker 2: probably it would probably be good to end by talking

2471
02:13:46,320 --> 02:13:50,680
Speaker 2: again about Harlan Carter for just a little bit. Do

2472
02:13:50,680 --> 02:13:53,720
Speaker 2: you remember Harlan Carter. He was the former Border Patrol

2473
02:13:53,760 --> 02:13:56,080
Speaker 2: head it was in charge during Operation Wetback, and who

2474
02:13:56,080 --> 02:13:59,000
Speaker 2: was a convicted murderer in nineteen thirty one, he shot

2475
02:13:59,240 --> 02:14:02,880
Speaker 2: a Mexican boy in the chest. So yeah, the young

2476
02:14:03,920 --> 02:14:06,520
Speaker 2: Mexican boy that he murdered was named Raymond Cassiano. And

2477
02:14:06,560 --> 02:14:09,560
Speaker 2: there's actually a really good song about the Border Patrol

2478
02:14:09,640 --> 02:14:12,120
Speaker 2: and about Raymond Casiano by a band I quite like

2479
02:14:12,200 --> 02:14:15,480
Speaker 2: called Drive By Truckers, And there's a line in it

2480
02:14:15,680 --> 02:14:18,720
Speaker 2: about Harlan Carter. You know, this former head of the

2481
02:14:18,720 --> 02:14:20,520
Speaker 2: Border Patrol who goes on by the way to become

2482
02:14:20,520 --> 02:14:22,240
Speaker 2: the head of the NRA and is like one of

2483
02:14:22,240 --> 02:14:24,120
Speaker 2: the guys in charge of the NRA when it turns

2484
02:14:24,160 --> 02:14:26,720
Speaker 2: into the NRA we all know today from the organization

2485
02:14:26,760 --> 02:14:31,240
Speaker 2: that was like, oh, people should learn how to shoot

2486
02:14:31,280 --> 02:14:33,480
Speaker 2: accurately so they can hunt deer, right, like the NRA

2487
02:14:33,640 --> 02:14:35,680
Speaker 2: used to just be like a normal, pretty normal thing,

2488
02:14:35,800 --> 02:14:37,920
Speaker 2: and then it turns into this crazy thing that it

2489
02:14:37,960 --> 02:14:40,960
Speaker 2: is today, this quasei military or not quasi military, but

2490
02:14:41,040 --> 02:14:47,080
Speaker 2: like this explicitly fascist organization urging political violence. Anyway, Harlan

2491
02:14:47,160 --> 02:14:48,680
Speaker 2: Carter is the guy behind that too.

2492
02:14:48,920 --> 02:14:51,840
Speaker 1: So not somebody we'd want to get a drink.

2493
02:14:51,600 --> 02:14:53,960
Speaker 2: With, not somebody you'd want to get a drink with.

2494
02:14:54,080 --> 02:14:56,120
Speaker 2: And there's there's a couple of lines about him in

2495
02:14:56,160 --> 02:14:59,240
Speaker 2: this song Raymond Casiana, which is named after the guy

2496
02:14:59,280 --> 02:15:03,880
Speaker 2: that Harlan Carter killed, and it's it's a song yeah,

2497
02:15:03,920 --> 02:15:06,320
Speaker 2: really about not just Harlan Carter, but about the kind

2498
02:15:06,320 --> 02:15:10,440
Speaker 2: of men who become border patrol agents. He had the

2499
02:15:10,480 --> 02:15:13,080
Speaker 2: makings of a leader of a certain kind of men

2500
02:15:13,440 --> 02:15:15,920
Speaker 2: who need to feel the worlds against him, out to

2501
02:15:15,920 --> 02:15:19,480
Speaker 2: get him if it can, men who's trigger pull their fingers,

2502
02:15:19,760 --> 02:15:23,200
Speaker 2: of men who'd rather fight than win united in a revolution,

2503
02:15:23,840 --> 02:15:27,960
Speaker 2: like in mind and like in skin. Yeah, yeah, it's

2504
02:15:27,960 --> 02:15:28,480
Speaker 2: a good song.

2505
02:15:28,800 --> 02:15:30,520
Speaker 3: Mm hm, well good it a listen.

2506
02:15:31,120 --> 02:15:34,640
Speaker 2: So Caitlin, you wanna you wanna plug your pluggables?

2507
02:15:35,360 --> 02:15:41,000
Speaker 3: Sure well, thank you for enlightening me with this information.

2508
02:15:41,320 --> 02:15:45,720
Speaker 3: A lot of it I did not know, so I

2509
02:15:45,720 --> 02:15:50,760
Speaker 3: I appreciate now knowing depressing and upsetting though it may be,

2510
02:15:51,800 --> 02:15:56,080
Speaker 3: it's good to be informed. You can follow me on

2511
02:15:56,160 --> 02:16:01,480
Speaker 3: Twitter and Instagram at Caitlyn Dante, and you can check

2512
02:16:01,520 --> 02:16:06,200
Speaker 3: out my podcast on this network called The Bechdel Cast.

2513
02:16:06,440 --> 02:16:09,600
Speaker 3: So you know, that little conversation that Sophie and I

2514
02:16:09,680 --> 02:16:12,760
Speaker 3: had at the beginning was a reference to that. We

2515
02:16:12,800 --> 02:16:19,120
Speaker 3: talk about the representation of women in film. A yeah,

2516
02:16:19,320 --> 02:16:23,720
Speaker 3: check check, check it all out, check it all out.

2517
02:16:23,880 --> 02:16:26,520
Speaker 1: And you can follow Robert on Twitter at I Write Okay.

2518
02:16:26,560 --> 02:16:29,160
Speaker 1: You can follow this podcast on Twitter, at Instagram at

2519
02:16:29,200 --> 02:16:34,080
Speaker 1: Bastards Pod. You can now email us at Behind the

2520
02:16:34,160 --> 02:16:38,800
Speaker 1: Bastards at iHeartMedia dot com. And you can buy merch

2521
02:16:38,840 --> 02:16:40,880
Speaker 1: at our Tea Public Store. You can also buy merch

2522
02:16:40,920 --> 02:16:44,080
Speaker 1: from Caitlin and Jamie's Tea Public Store, which has some

2523
02:16:44,120 --> 02:16:47,039
Speaker 1: of my absolute favorite items in the entire planet.

2524
02:16:48,840 --> 02:16:49,440
Speaker 3: This diicon.

2525
02:16:49,600 --> 02:16:50,760
Speaker 1: How's that for a plug?

2526
02:16:52,000 --> 02:16:53,320
Speaker 3: That great? Thank you, Sophie.

2527
02:16:53,480 --> 02:16:56,400
Speaker 2: Feminist icons. You know who else is a feminist icon?

2528
02:16:57,000 --> 02:16:58,560
Speaker 3: I can't wait to see who? You say?

2529
02:16:58,640 --> 02:17:00,400
Speaker 2: Dear Caitlin Durante.

2530
02:17:00,480 --> 02:17:04,520
Speaker 3: Oh thank you, all right, I'll.

2531
02:17:04,360 --> 02:17:07,199
Speaker 1: Say very very very very warmly.

2532
02:17:08,720 --> 02:17:09,000
Speaker 3: Thank you.

2533
02:17:09,600 --> 02:17:11,400
Speaker 1: That's the that's the episode Bye Guys.

2534
02:17:12,440 --> 02:17:15,680
Speaker 2: Episode.

2535
02:17:16,879 --> 02:17:19,600
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

2536
02:17:19,959 --> 02:17:22,560
Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

2537
02:17:22,640 --> 02:17:26,600
Speaker 1: Zonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

2538
02:17:26,680 --> 02:17:29,840
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the

2539
02:17:29,879 --> 02:17:33,920
Speaker 1: Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday

2540
02:17:34,040 --> 02:17:37,680
Speaker 1: and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash

2541
02:17:37,879 --> 02:17:39,359
Speaker 1: at Behind the Bastards