Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome back to It could happen here. I'm
Speaker 1: Robert Evans, and this is a podcast about things falling
Speaker 1: apart and nowhere. I don't know showcases collapse quite as
Speaker 1: well as the US Mexico border. And that's my little introduction.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to pivot over to James Stout. James,
Speaker 1: what are we talking about today?
Speaker 2: Well, today we are talking about the US Mexico border,
Speaker 2: is specifically in the Great State of Texas, which people
Speaker 2: might remember from its winter power grid failures. It's upcoming
Speaker 2: summer power grid failures. And Greg Abbott's sort of hilarious
Speaker 2: and also very cruel and terrible antics on the border.
Speaker 2: And we're joined today by one guest. Who are two
Speaker 2: guests we've had before to talk about the border on
Speaker 2: the podcast. We've got Gen Budd, a former senior Border
Speaker 2: Patrol agent, an author, and an activist. And Marianna Travina Wright,
Speaker 2: who people remember as the Butterfly Lady, the previous owner
Speaker 2: of an M four assault rifle, the lady who made
Speaker 2: the cop walk off a butterfly sanctuary, once an hero
Speaker 2: occasionally of Twitter dot com. How are you guys.
Speaker 3: We're good, We're good.
Speaker 4: Good to see you guys.
Speaker 1: It's nice to hear because we are this is normally
Speaker 1: the time of year where Texas is rough climactically, in
Speaker 1: this particular year, it's it's downright apocalyptic down there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we just don't go outside. You're likely to vaporized spontaneously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks bad. Yeah. And so what I've gathered
Speaker 2: us here today to discuss is the upcoming implementation of
Speaker 2: a a floating border wall, a barrier which is going
Speaker 2: to make children drown. I don't really know how to
Speaker 2: describe it. Press one, if you could sort of describe
Speaker 2: this proposed Greg Abbott's talking about it, but it's it's
Speaker 2: clearly like a not just a state thing. So perhaps
Speaker 2: we could start out by explaining exactly what he's been
Speaker 2: talking about what this design looks like.
Speaker 5: So the floating border wall, I confess in the beginning
Speaker 5: I was kind of like, I don't get it because
Speaker 5: I'm thinking of a wall, you know, going extending upwards.
Speaker 5: But essentially what it is are these giant booyes plastic
Speaker 5: booies that are very tightly woven together so that you
Speaker 5: can't go in between them. And then the booies also spin,
Speaker 5: so if you grab onto them, you're going to just
Speaker 5: spin down. And then underneath the booys is four feet
Speaker 5: of netting, so if you try and swim underneath it,
Speaker 5: you will be captured in the netting and then you
Speaker 5: will likely drowned. It's originally I think the original design
Speaker 5: for the makers was to prevent groups like Green Peace
Speaker 5: and so forth from getting to oil what do you
Speaker 5: call them, oil stands out in the middle of the
Speaker 5: ocean and keep their boats from getting to them. So
Speaker 5: now they're going to use them and string them because
Speaker 5: the border technically most Americans, I don't think. No, there's
Speaker 5: the border technically along a lot of parts of the
Speaker 5: Rio Grande and Texas is in the middle of the river,
Speaker 5: depending on where the river's flowing that year, and so
Speaker 5: they will have to also be weighted down as well.
Speaker 5: And the hope for the governor is that most of
Speaker 5: the people will drown trying to get over to the
Speaker 5: US side, which means their bodies will remain in Mexico
Speaker 5: and then we won't have to deal with them easypasy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a particularly dark consideration. They haven't thought of.
Speaker 2: Our border is already. If people aren't familiar with di
Speaker 2: colonial atlets. They have some good visualizations, but you can
Speaker 2: see where migrants die and they have one I think
Speaker 2: it's called where Migrants Die, and there are various sort
Speaker 2: of colors for different people dying from exposure, people dig, dehydration, drowning,
Speaker 2: and overwhelmingly people don't die on the way here. They
Speaker 2: die within a few miles of our southern border, normally
Speaker 2: on the northern side.
Speaker 3: Our border is.
Speaker 2: Already and Jen has covered this extensively, how our border
Speaker 2: is already killing people, But this is I think particularly cruel.
Speaker 2: Is it something that like Abbott started talking about it
Speaker 2: maybe a month or so ago, maybe two months ago. Now?
Speaker 2: Is it something that he's doing sort of of his own,
Speaker 2: like they Arizona sort of contain a wall, or is
Speaker 2: it something that he's proposing as a sort of federal operation.
Speaker 2: What's going on with I.
Speaker 5: Think he originally probably got the idea because in the
Speaker 5: Trump administration they had promoted this, and so I believe
Speaker 5: that the former chief under Trump, Rodney Scott, was probably
Speaker 5: they were probably researching him and CBP were researching how
Speaker 5: to do this, because it would take a few at
Speaker 5: least quite a few months, if not years to research
Speaker 5: this and make something like this happen. But I think
Speaker 5: that they abandoned that because they knew that that's just
Speaker 5: not going to fly federally. But although why wouldn't it.
Speaker 5: I mean, all deterrence policies are based on this kind
Speaker 5: of cruelty, So I guess visually they thought it would
Speaker 5: be too much. But since since Rodney Scott is no
Speaker 5: longer the chief of the Border Patrol and he resigned,
Speaker 5: he's been working with the State of Texas and specifically
Speaker 5: with Governor Greg Abbot to develop new policies and so forth.
Speaker 5: And he's been down there helping the union and helping
Speaker 5: other ex Border Patrol agents come up with new policies
Speaker 5: and new.
Speaker 3: Cruelties for Greg Abbott to install.
Speaker 5: So I think originally the idea was a federal idea,
Speaker 5: and now it's come down to the State of Texas.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I guess what how far along is the
Speaker 2: State of Texas in? Like I know, before Trump built
Speaker 2: his border war, we had these little thirty foot prototypes
Speaker 2: in San Diego. He gave a lot of contracts people
Speaker 2: who'd given him a lot of money in his election campaign.
Speaker 2: Uh was Wheatland Tube I think is a big one
Speaker 2: and mixed deal. But how far is the State of
Speaker 2: Texas along in its plan to create a floating murder barrier.
Speaker 4: The booy barrier border barrier is already created and it's
Speaker 4: available in various links. And I should add in addition
Speaker 4: to the booys in between the booys are spinning radial blades.
Speaker 4: So you yeah, it just I mean, every aspect of
Speaker 4: this I can I miss. That is a bloody nightmare.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I went to the manufacturer site and it addresses this too,
Speaker 4: So you can't even get to like the middle of
Speaker 4: the buoy with uh you know something and cut the
Speaker 4: string of booiz because they are these radial razor blades too.
Speaker 4: So the state will be deploying it in thousand foot strips.
Speaker 4: And Jin and I did a little podcast on this,
Speaker 4: I don't know a couple of months ago when we
Speaker 4: first saw these signs appearing on the river and they
Speaker 4: were super strange. It was Memorial Day weekend, I believe,
Speaker 4: and they were numbered and they said like RGV for
Speaker 4: Rio Grand Valley RGV one ninety one, one ninety three.
Speaker 4: We thought, are these mile markers like we have on
Speaker 4: the freeway, But they weren't at any particular distance, and
Speaker 4: they were put at various spots that appeared as though
Speaker 4: they could be areas where migrants crossed. They can also
Speaker 4: be the paths where the cows and the horses come
Speaker 4: down to drink. Jen's been on the river with us.
Speaker 4: She's observed that at various platforms on the river where
Speaker 4: water pump stations are for farmers and irrigation districts and such.
Speaker 4: So we saw these signs. The RGV one ninety one
Speaker 4: is facing the river facing Mexico. The backside of it
Speaker 4: is a caution danger risk of drowning sign in English
Speaker 4: and in Spanish, but it is facing the United States,
Speaker 4: on the bank of the Rio Grande River in the
Speaker 4: United States, so it's in no way a caution to
Speaker 4: anyone who might be approaching the river. And we thought,
Speaker 4: why are they suddenly putting up these signs, because you know,
Speaker 4: forever people have been crossing the river, and Border patrol
Speaker 4: is on the boats there, Texas DPS, the Coast Guard,
Speaker 4: the US Coast Guard now Game Wardens now Florida Highway
Speaker 4: Patrol and Florida Fishing Game and all these. I mean,
Speaker 4: it is everybody's floating the river now, not for recreation,
Speaker 4: but hunting migrants, and so then we thought, well, maybe
Speaker 4: these are so that when these out of state interlopers
Speaker 4: and at times even the militia who show up to
Speaker 4: help them, could easily communicate with the authorities, say I'm
Speaker 4: at marker number one ninety one or whatever. Then it
Speaker 4: was just a few days after that that the announcement
Speaker 4: of this floating border buoy barrier came up. And my
Speaker 4: guess is the markers will be used to determine where
Speaker 4: those are deployed, where they get moved, and that sort
Speaker 4: of thing, so that then they can be accounted for.
Speaker 2: Right, So are they proposing the entirety of the river
Speaker 2: be covered by the single They're going to move segments
Speaker 2: of it to areas where they think it's a high
Speaker 2: traffic area.
Speaker 4: They're going to begin an Eagle Pass where four people
Speaker 4: drown just this weekend. But then, according to Steve McGraw,
Speaker 4: who's head of Texas DPS, it sounds like they will
Speaker 4: be putting them all along the river in areas they
Speaker 4: believe are high traffic.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, and Jesus Christ, it is the dock
Speaker 2: se and yeah, Eagle Pass is where all those people
Speaker 2: died in the in the annac conditioned trailer like I
Speaker 2: think two years ago, right was that Eagle Pass.
Speaker 4: Those kind of trailer horror have happened near US and
Speaker 4: fel furious in San Antonio. Unfortunately, they happen throughout the
Speaker 4: border region. And there are so many ports of entry
Speaker 4: land ports of entry along the Texas Mexico border because
Speaker 4: Texas is I mean, Mexico is our number one trading
Speaker 4: partner with the US, and we have NAFTA, which established
Speaker 4: the North American Free Trade Zone. So if you have
Speaker 4: a television or a refrigerator, or you drive a car
Speaker 4: in the United States today, chances are those pieces and
Speaker 4: parts are manufactured in Mexico in the Free trade Zone
Speaker 4: and then they get brought over by Trump. Same thing
Speaker 4: with so much of our produce. So the amount of
Speaker 4: that trailer traffic is enormous, and those trailers are used
Speaker 4: for human smuggling at much higher numbers, we should note
Speaker 4: than the river area. Same as for narcotics trafficking. Those
Speaker 4: things are coming across by the truck load and in
Speaker 4: shipping vessels, not in small bundles across the Rio Grand River.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I think most I think most narcotics center
Speaker 2: the country through ports of entry red than between ports
Speaker 2: of entry against nodings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh absolutely, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, especially the narcotics that are very expensive. Even
Speaker 5: when I was an agent in the mid nineties, I
Speaker 5: used to say, why do we only get marijuana and
Speaker 5: and the agents would say, well, because cocaine's too expensive
Speaker 5: to put on somebody's back and hike it through the mountains, Yeah,
Speaker 5: across the river or in the desert. So it's just
Speaker 5: easier to buy off a CBP agent or a Border
Speaker 5: patrol agent and just get waved on through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not like dumb otherwise, Like these these are
Speaker 1: huge money businesses. You're not throwing a half a million
Speaker 1: dollars of cocaine on some guy's back, yeah, right.
Speaker 4: And risking it floating away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this valuable merchandise. Like there are no like, no
Speaker 1: more cavalier with it than like target is you know, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the obviously this is part of a sort of
Speaker 2: larger I don't know. Abbott does a lot of posturing
Speaker 2: on the border, right, and that posture has real consequences
Speaker 2: for migrants, and it has real consequences for people living
Speaker 2: on both sides of the border as well, right, especially
Speaker 2: I think people our previous coverage that will be very
Speaker 2: well aware of that. Perhaps we could sort of characterize
Speaker 2: this within the context of Operation Loan Star, within the
Speaker 2: other Like you've said, right, the other deployments. It's not
Speaker 2: just even Texas National Guard who are now deployed to
Speaker 2: the border. So could you give us like an overview
Speaker 2: of all the ridiculous lapping that's been done.
Speaker 4: Well, there are twelve or thirteen states to date that
Speaker 4: have sent prison guards, their national Guard, fishing game or
Speaker 4: wildlife officers, and state police to the border. And this
Speaker 4: is related to two different campaigns basically by the Border
Speaker 4: Patrol Union. One is Biden Border Crisis with that hashtag,
Speaker 4: which they launched in March of twenty twenty one, and
Speaker 4: the other is every state is a Border State, which
Speaker 4: was a battle cry for MAGA politicians during the midterms.
Speaker 4: And so what we see now are these red states
Speaker 4: with you know, governors who want to capitalize on looking
Speaker 4: tough on immigration sending reinforcements to the border. DeSantis obviously
Speaker 4: was the first to do that because he's been very
Speaker 4: vocal about envyat Abbot and how Abbot had kind of
Speaker 4: a leg up on him in any campaign because.
Speaker 6: Abbot got the border and Abbot got to, as you said,
Speaker 6: posture there and be you know, the new sheriff in
Speaker 6: town and you know, stepping in where.
Speaker 4: Sleepy Joe is, you know, not performing. But what we
Speaker 4: see in reality is Brandon Judd, who's the president of
Speaker 4: the National Border Patrol Council, was stuck to Trump. You know,
Speaker 4: they were best buddies and and you know, basically campaigning together.
Speaker 4: And then Brandon jen kind of fell away from Trump
Speaker 4: when he lost reelection and has become Greg Abbott's best
Speaker 4: buddy and press junket sidekick and helped stage the launch
Speaker 4: of Operation Lone Star, which you know, was like a
Speaker 4: Fourth of July type parade with the tanks and the
Speaker 4: helicopters and the planes and the boats and the you know,
Speaker 4: the ATV agents and the horses, the whole nine yards.
Speaker 4: And people think, I think most people in the United
Speaker 4: States believe that Abbot is this renegade doing this all
Speaker 4: on his own. And what we see is the reality
Speaker 4: is it is a joint operation between the state government
Speaker 4: and the federal government, but the Feds won't admit to
Speaker 4: it because of the optics. It's bad enough that Biden
Speaker 4: continued border wall construction, which most of his supporters opposed.
Speaker 4: Now he is working hand in glove with Abbott. And
Speaker 4: when I say our experience, what we see daily and
Speaker 4: what I have documented is US Border Patrol working with
Speaker 4: Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and Operation Loan Star
Speaker 4: Texas National guardsmen literally riding in the same vehicles together,
Speaker 4: responding to scenes, patrolling together. And at the Butterfly Center,
Speaker 4: we had National Guard Texas National Guard parked on the
Speaker 4: levee at our property, blocking our access back and forth.
Speaker 4: And I went and said, hey, guys, you know this
Speaker 4: is our property and we have to have access to
Speaker 4: it during regular business hours for you know, my staff
Speaker 4: who are working here and our members and visitors who
Speaker 4: come to explore and enjoy. So I need you all
Speaker 4: to move. I need you to move your humbyes so
Speaker 4: we can get back and forth. And I recorded this
Speaker 4: interaction as I do all and they said, ma'am, we
Speaker 4: don't take our orders from you. We take our orders
Speaker 4: from Border Patrol. And that was a revelation to me
Speaker 4: when this happened a couple of years ago. So I
Speaker 4: actually got on the phone with the patrol agent in charge,
Speaker 4: the highest ranking Border Patrol agent at the McCallen station,
Speaker 4: and I said, his name is Tony Crane. I said, Tony,
Speaker 4: you need to come out here and tell these guys
Speaker 4: to move. They're saying they'll only do it for you,
Speaker 4: and they only take orders from you. And Tony drove
Speaker 4: out there to the Butterfly Center, to the levee and
Speaker 4: instructed the National Guard to move their vehicle and they did.
Speaker 4: And this is something we've seen over and over. And
Speaker 4: I now have in email commander or Regional director rather
Speaker 4: of Texas DPS, Victor Escalon, who the rest of the
Speaker 4: nation may know from the Uvaldi tragedy. I have email
Speaker 4: from him where he is invoking the federal statute that
Speaker 4: DPS claims gives them the authority to ignore our Fourth
Speaker 4: Amendment rights and enter private property without warrant as long
Speaker 4: as they're working with Warner Patrol, and they are claiming
Speaker 4: that they are doing so at the request of the
Speaker 4: United States Attorney General according to the federal.
Speaker 2: Statute am importantly the federal government in any of its
Speaker 2: aspects in saying no, this isn't true, or like they're
Speaker 2: working get like you say, hand in hand with these
Speaker 2: and like it's not even just a joint federal and
Speaker 2: state operation. Like I know, I think it was South
Speaker 2: Dakota's deployment. Was it that was funded by a wealthy individual?
Speaker 2: Like the state didn't pay for it. I can't remember
Speaker 2: which Dakota it was, but yeah, it was funded by
Speaker 2: a wealthy donor who paid for it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So whichever state CHRISTI Noem is in charge of, Yes,
Speaker 4: and I believe that also happened in Kentucky or Tennessee.
Speaker 4: Same thing. It was a wealthy donor who funded their
Speaker 4: state National Guard deployment.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then perhaps Jen, you could explain to people
Speaker 2: why it is so different if they believe they have
Speaker 2: these within one hundred miles the border, and then again
Speaker 2: within twenty five miles of the border, so many of
Speaker 2: your fundamental rights don't apply. Could you explain how that works?
Speaker 2: And then how then if the National Guard see themselves
Speaker 2: is also having the ability to sort of wave the
Speaker 2: with amendment, what that would mean for the privacy of
Speaker 2: people living along the border.
Speaker 5: In the United States Border Patrol Academy, So I went
Speaker 5: through the academy I started in June of nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 5: so I can at least testify to that. They basically,
Speaker 5: you know, I had a four year in law, so
Speaker 5: I knew a little basics about it, and then going
Speaker 5: to the academy, it was really kind of sad because
Speaker 5: they don't really teach you much of anything. They're just like,
Speaker 5: you know, your their rights are limited. We're allowed within
Speaker 5: twenty five miles of the border by the law to
Speaker 5: go on anybody's private property and even search their buildings,
Speaker 5: as long as it's not a domicile, and that can
Speaker 5: sometimes be in question whether it's being used as a
Speaker 5: domicile or we consider it as a domicile, And then
Speaker 5: within one hundred miles of any land or sea border,
Speaker 5: which encompasses two thirds of the United States population, we
Speaker 5: can basically stop you and ask you to prove that
Speaker 5: you're a United States citizen. And so then they increase
Speaker 5: that with checkpoints that are a little ways away from
Speaker 5: the border, where they under the guise of asking for
Speaker 5: your citizenship. They then get to police American citizens or
Speaker 5: legal residents. And as the years have progressed, Border patrol
Speaker 5: keeps trying to push those authorities.
Speaker 3: In the beginning, you know.
Speaker 5: We weren't allowed to work with local PD, the local sheriffs.
Speaker 5: There was a very clear separation, a very clear line
Speaker 5: between Border Patrol and local cops, or at least legally
Speaker 5: on written paper, there were supposed to be. And after
Speaker 5: nine to eleven, what we end up seeing is the
Speaker 5: Border Patrol decides to get very heavily invested into surveillance.
Speaker 5: And it's not a coincidence. Former Chief Rodney Scott was
Speaker 5: in charge of that during that time, and his basic
Speaker 5: statement was, you know, if a car is bombed in Iraq,
Speaker 5: the Border Patrol needs to know about it. So they
Speaker 5: considered anything in the world to be important to the
Speaker 5: Border Patrol, and they wanted the Border Patrol to be
Speaker 5: the go to agency and as far as surveillance. So
Speaker 5: that's why you see them being used in Black Lives
Speaker 5: Matter protests and things like this, and we saw them
Speaker 5: a lot in the Trump administration where they were supposedly
Speaker 5: guarding federal buildings and then went and attacked them. So
Speaker 5: what you see is the Border Patrol trying to quietly
Speaker 5: eke into what is typically considered peace officer authority. So
Speaker 5: they're trying to get peace officer authority in Texas through
Speaker 5: the state legislature, and they just keep trying to expand
Speaker 5: their authority more and more. What I see in Texas specifically,
Speaker 5: is when you look at the history of immigration when
Speaker 5: the United States, when we first you know, when Texas
Speaker 5: first came a state, and all this other stuff. Originally
Speaker 5: the states did their own immigration patrolling, and so if
Speaker 5: you went and you just decided you're going to somehow
Speaker 5: you landed on the coast in Georgia, then you would
Speaker 5: have to go to a Georgian official and pay whatever
Speaker 5: it is that they required of you and stuff. And
Speaker 5: so what I see more and more is like Texas
Speaker 5: is taken back that authority and saying we're the ones
Speaker 5: that are going to say this, and so then they
Speaker 5: can make money off of the deterrence policies and all
Speaker 5: of this other stuff. So it's just a constant expansion
Speaker 5: of the rights of the cops, while at the same
Speaker 5: time constantly reducing the rights to the people who live
Speaker 5: here and even the people that cross here. A lot
Speaker 5: of people think, they'll say, you know that migrants don't
Speaker 5: have any constitutional rights.
Speaker 3: Well that's not true.
Speaker 5: They have constitutional rights because it says people in the
Speaker 5: US Constitution.
Speaker 3: It doesn't say citizens.
Speaker 5: So in certain areas it will say citizens, and then
Speaker 5: that is exclusive to United States citizens, but they're you know,
Speaker 5: the basic rights are afforded to even migrants. But because
Speaker 5: the migrants don't have much of a voice, the border
Speaker 5: patrol gets away with with everything. Secret teams, cover up teams,
Speaker 5: and all this other stuff. Border patrol agents will just
Speaker 5: flat out tell you constitution doesn't exist down here, and
Speaker 5: they never get in trouble for it.
Speaker 4: So yeah, one of one of the things Jen just
Speaker 4: touched on is Texas DPS getting in on this immigration business.
Speaker 4: Is when Governor Abbott declared that Operation Loan Star would
Speaker 4: be targeting Hispanic males and in some places they talk
Speaker 4: about of fighting age. So they're already depicting all of
Speaker 4: these individuals as like olders in some invasion in a
Speaker 4: gang war, and you know that they're again hostile combatants
Speaker 4: to the United States. But they were going to charge
Speaker 4: them all with criminal trespass. So we hear a lot
Speaker 4: about how awful the cartel is and how much money
Speaker 4: they take from migrants and then hold them for ransom,
Speaker 4: and how expensive it is to get across. Well, once
Speaker 4: they get across the state of Texas becomes the cartel.
Speaker 4: They arrest them, charge them with criminal trespass, put them
Speaker 4: in the county jail. It's a five thousand dollars fine.
Speaker 4: Then when they're released from state custody, they're immediately handed
Speaker 4: over to federal detention, and that is generally the for
Speaker 4: profit GEO group or cor civic. And there my understanding
Speaker 4: is fines for attention can be ten thousand to twelve
Speaker 4: thousand dollars for your federal detention. And so here we
Speaker 4: have it used to be just the for a profit
Speaker 4: federal detention facilities cashing in on our criminal immigration policies,
Speaker 4: and Governor Rabbit's like, hey, why aren't we getting a
Speaker 4: piece of the pie? So that is what Operation Loan
Speaker 4: Star is really about. It's not about public safety. It's
Speaker 4: not that all this fentanyl is coming across the Rio
Speaker 4: Grande River being smuggled by migrants. It's about chi ching
Speaker 4: chi ching, Chi ching chi ching, putting all of them
Speaker 4: in to the county jail at five thousand dollars ahead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's all the while, right, like he's that,
Speaker 2: I know. So the Texas National Guard people aren't getting
Speaker 2: the benefits they would normally get if they'd been mobilized
Speaker 2: or deployed because it's a state deployment, not a federal deployment.
Speaker 2: And like as much as Abbott and DeSantis try and paint,
Speaker 2: the border is a dangerous place full of like I know,
Speaker 2: like drug warlords and cartel violence. And overwhelmingly the people
Speaker 2: in that in Lone Star who have died have died
Speaker 2: because they got drunk and drove because they had an
Speaker 2: accident with a personally owned firearm. Because Texas law doesn't
Speaker 2: allow them to stop the National Guard bringing their own weapons.
Speaker 1: They're they're not getting into gunfights with zacarios, right, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not any any anything like that. It's
Speaker 1: the standard problem of taking a bunch of men away
Speaker 1: from the place they normally live and making them do
Speaker 1: mine numbing duty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, they're they're doing mine numbing duty in you know,
Speaker 4: exasperating heat. It's boring as hell. We see them asleep
Speaker 4: in vehicles, watching Netflix, doing other things. When National Guard
Speaker 4: totaled their Enterprise rental truck on the gate at the
Speaker 4: National Butterfly Center, what we found were bud light cans
Speaker 4: on the ground, which we can only assume bounced out
Speaker 4: of the truck bed when that truck made impact. And
Speaker 4: was destroyed. The local police will not release any public
Speaker 4: information related to calls and reports that they have to
Speaker 4: take of drunken disorderly conduct, noise complaints, property damage, sexual assault,
Speaker 4: all of these things happening at the hotels where National
Speaker 4: Guard is staying. But we know from visitors and from
Speaker 4: property managers and others that this is happening regularly because yeah,
Speaker 4: they don't so good leadership and it's it's frankly, it's
Speaker 4: like really young kids that are down there.
Speaker 3: And the other thing.
Speaker 5: That we need to say too is that the National
Speaker 5: Guard that's being posted there, the young National Guard kids
Speaker 5: are seeing increase rates of suicide. And that's that's something
Speaker 5: that's particular to Border Patrol agents because when you're an
Speaker 5: oppressor and you do that cut of work, then you're
Speaker 5: going to end up your The suicide rates go through
Speaker 5: the roofs as they are with the Border Patrol, and
Speaker 5: now you're seeing that with the National Guard. But Marianna's right,
Speaker 5: there's a lot, there's a lot of stuff that they're
Speaker 5: suppressing about what these National Guard kids are getting into
Speaker 5: because they're bored down there. So they're sitting down there
Speaker 5: in Texas drinking and opening it up and getting in trouble.
Speaker 5: But it's all kind of hush hush quiet about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not only are they bored, but these are, like
Speaker 4: you said, eighteen nineteen, twenty twenty one year olds getting
Speaker 4: paid six thousand dollars a month, like they have never
Speaker 4: had this kind of cash before, and what are they
Speaker 4: going to do with it? They're going to go buy
Speaker 4: guns at our local pawn shop.
Speaker 3: They pay the National Guard that will, that's.
Speaker 4: What they're being paid. And initially their taxes were not
Speaker 4: being withheld or anything. So employment, yeah, that was a
Speaker 4: whole nother issue. And then for a while they were
Speaker 4: trying to unionize because they were not getting the benefits
Speaker 4: of a regular deployment. And the ones who were working
Speaker 4: in law enforcement already as police officers, firefighters, paramedics and such,
Speaker 4: they also, while they're on deployment, do not accrue their
Speaker 4: hours toward their pensions. They're taking another hit for that.
Speaker 4: And so these were all things that I guess the
Speaker 4: state didn't really think through when they called all these
Speaker 4: people up and forced them to come sit on the
Speaker 4: border and do mind numbing work.
Speaker 1: For the most part, No, it's just a it's a
Speaker 1: terrible idea like comprehensive. It's one of those things if
Speaker 1: you if you spent any time studying the surge in
Speaker 1: Iraq and kind of the later part of the Bush
Speaker 1: Ears and some of the shit that happened when they
Speaker 1: just grabbed a bunch of National Guard guys and through
Speaker 1: the like, it's a lot of the same shit. It's
Speaker 1: people who were like finding ways to get alcohol and drugs,
Speaker 1: who were crashing cars, who were because like, yeah, you were.
Speaker 1: It's just this is this is an inevitable consequence, which
Speaker 1: is why you shouldn't do something like this unless there's
Speaker 1: like a dire reason to need to bring the National
Speaker 1: Guard into a situation like a natural disaster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 4: I would I would say that they all need house mothers.
Speaker 4: I mean, like fraternities have and stuff, because every time
Speaker 4: I run into one of these young men and they
Speaker 4: start to like look at me or open their mouth
Speaker 4: a certain way, I just want to grab them by
Speaker 4: the ear and be like, oh, you know, junior, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna spank you.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: My first snapper.
Speaker 1: Yeah you are nineteen. You should not be in this
Speaker 1: position right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, get out of here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, go ahead, We'll take your gun. From you too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we spoke to a few of them at
Speaker 2: a grub At and I when we were down there,
Speaker 2: and one of them was just saying he's trying to
Speaker 2: get some money for college, and yeah, I don't think
Speaker 2: they're recring those benefits because if they're under state order
Speaker 2: to say it, they didn't get it. So Greg Abbat's
Speaker 2: kind of screwing everyone apart from himself and his little friends.
Speaker 2: I guess maybe to finish up, I know that one.
Speaker 2: I think the only case like I can come across
Speaker 2: of this happening of someone dying or trying to rescue
Speaker 2: migrants was a National Guard soldier who tried to rescue
Speaker 2: some people from the river and drowned from what I understand,
Speaker 2: and like, obviously this drowning barrier is going to if
Speaker 2: Border patroller even invested in investing in getting people from
Speaker 2: the river, which they might not be if they're from
Speaker 2: the from the Mexican side, if they're still on the
Speaker 2: Mexican side of the border, right in theory, would put
Speaker 2: those people in those like National Guard and Border patrol
Speaker 2: agents in danger to So what have Border Patrol to
Speaker 2: say about the floating barrier so far?
Speaker 5: They haven't said anything about it so far, and there
Speaker 5: have been a few Border Patrol agents who've lost their
Speaker 5: lives jumping into the room as well. There have been
Speaker 5: other migrants who have lost their lives trying to save
Speaker 5: their children and so forth. Migrants die every day in
Speaker 5: that river, and the Border Patrol is just going to
Speaker 5: stay quiet about it because they like it's it's their management.
Speaker 3: He's going along with it.
Speaker 5: And if they didn't like and if the bid administration
Speaker 5: didn't like it, then they would come out and say so,
Speaker 5: or they would come out and have Chief Gloria Chabez
Speaker 5: come out and say no, we're not going to have this.
Speaker 3: This is going to kill people.
Speaker 5: This is not right, you know on our first blah
Speaker 5: blah blah, which we all know it's bullshit.
Speaker 3: But the truth is is they really don't care. They
Speaker 3: just don't care.
Speaker 5: And as they say in the Border Patrol, and we
Speaker 5: learn and you all learned. I knew it, but you
Speaker 5: all learn from the ten to fifteen group on Facebook
Speaker 5: they call them floaters and take pictures of them and
Speaker 5: make fun of it. So the Border Patrol could care less.
Speaker 3: It's just one less migrant. They got a process.
Speaker 4: Well, and you know, as Jim said, if US Border
Speaker 4: Patrol was opposed to this new border barrier, they would
Speaker 4: say something, well, I think it's even worse than that.
Speaker 4: In twenty eighteen, Trump got border wall funding, and as
Speaker 4: you mentioned, he had his you know, Commando Climb, all
Speaker 4: these border wall prototypes in the desert and all of that.
Speaker 4: In twenty nineteen he got his second trunch of border
Speaker 4: wall funding, but twenty twenty and twenty twenty one were
Speaker 4: continuing resolutions, so he was getting border wall funding after that,
Speaker 4: but it was always for existing approved designs, and those
Speaker 4: are the concrete with the steel ballards. So for even
Speaker 4: though Trump floated the idea of this Wui border barrier,
Speaker 4: this floating border wall, to get congressional approval or US
Speaker 4: Army Corps of Engineer approval for such a thing would
Speaker 4: have been an issue. Also there's the issue of the
Speaker 4: International Boundary and Water Commission Treaty, which is a bi
Speaker 4: national treaty with Mexico that governs the Rio Grande River,
Speaker 4: the water that flows in it, the boundaries, who gets
Speaker 4: to take how much water from it, things that are
Speaker 4: built and might affect the flow of the river. As
Speaker 4: Jen mentioned, the International Boundary is the middle of the river,
Speaker 4: no matter where the river is flowing now, because over
Speaker 4: millions of years it has shifted. The channel has shifted many,
Speaker 4: many times and greatly. So we know the FEDS probably
Speaker 4: border patrol with the Trump administration. So DHS wanted this
Speaker 4: floating border wall. The easiest way for them to get
Speaker 4: it is to have Governor Abbott do it. In two
Speaker 4: thousand and five, the Real Id Act, in that act
Speaker 4: of legislation, Congress gave the Secretary of Homeland Security the
Speaker 4: authority to waive every law, local, state, federal for border barrier.
Speaker 4: So it doesn't say border wall, it's as border barrier.
Speaker 4: So presumably this buoy border barrier would also be covered,
Speaker 4: so the FEDS don't have to worry about something like
Speaker 4: the National Environmental Policy Act or the Endangered Species Act
Speaker 4: or the Rivers and Harbors Act in deploying this. But
Speaker 4: they do not have authority to waive treaties or the Constitution.
Speaker 4: So since at least two thousand and five, the federal
Speaker 4: government has been trying to devise ways to effectively waive
Speaker 4: the IBWC Treaty. One of the ways in which they
Speaker 4: have done that is with the we build the wall
Speaker 4: campaign which built you know, they built border barrier on
Speaker 4: the international boundary line in Sunland Park, New Mexico, and
Speaker 4: in Mission, Texas, and the US government settled with them,
Speaker 4: allowing this illegal structure to stand in violation of the
Speaker 4: treaty in spite of Mexico's objections, thereby setting a legal precedent,
Speaker 4: effectively waiving the treaty. But now Abbott can do this,
Speaker 4: and who's going to sue him? The IBWC isn't going
Speaker 4: to do a damn thing because they have no authority
Speaker 4: to sue on their own. They have to go to
Speaker 4: the federal government and ask the Department of Justice to
Speaker 4: sue on their behalf. And it's the Department of Justice
Speaker 4: that has already settled with Fisher Industries for the we
Speaker 4: build the wall fraud fence in violation of the treaty.
Speaker 4: The other issue is Texas doesn't have to abide by
Speaker 4: NEPA or any equivalent law. And we know that the
Speaker 4: FEDS have in the past devised really nasty reach arounds
Speaker 4: for the law where if they get busted doing something
Speaker 4: illegal like having Customs and Border Protection spray, imas appear
Speaker 4: a broad spectrum herbicide that is a known carcinogen all
Speaker 4: over people, animals, and plants on the border, they get
Speaker 4: sued and made to stop that, they'll simply pass the
Speaker 4: money through to the state of Texas and ask them
Speaker 4: to continue it. And I think this floating buoy border
Speaker 4: barrier is exactly that kind of thing. The Biden administration
Speaker 4: can say, we're not doing it, and they don't have
Speaker 4: to get approval for this design, and they'll just find
Speaker 4: a way to either pass the money through to Texas
Speaker 4: or allow Texas to continue to basically fundraise for it
Speaker 4: by prosecuting immigrants for criminal trespass and finding them to
Speaker 4: get out of county jail.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, that is doc.
Speaker 5: I think it's interesting to point out though that when
Speaker 5: Governor do See of Arizona put up his train car thing, yeah, Biden,
Speaker 5: the Biden administration did get involved with that.
Speaker 3: They and they were upset about that.
Speaker 5: So far, we haven't seen anything about this, and so
Speaker 5: we'll see if they deploy it and the Biden administration
Speaker 5: stays quiet about it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're closing in on like November twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: and I think Biden really is very sensitive about being
Speaker 2: seen as quote unquote weak on the border, and like
Speaker 2: given the absolute disaster it was the end of Title
Speaker 2: forty two and the way they handled that, and yeah,
Speaker 2: they didn't really say anything when border patrol with clearly
Speaker 2: holding people in conditions that are in violation of their
Speaker 2: own detention standards. Like I don't have high hopes for
Speaker 2: the Biden administration.
Speaker 5: It's yeah, it's interesting because you would think, like the
Speaker 5: whole thing from the Union and everybody that is pro
Speaker 5: border patrol an anti immigrant was like, if you in
Speaker 5: Title forty two, then then it's just going to overwhelm
Speaker 5: the border patrol and more people will come. And we
Speaker 5: kept saying for a year like no, that's not going
Speaker 5: to happen. It's going to be drastically cut. And so
Speaker 5: it's drastically cut. And you would think the Bide administration would.
Speaker 3: Be like look what I did. Yeah, yeah, but they're not.
Speaker 5: I mean like like they have no clue how to
Speaker 5: talk about the border and what to do on the border.
Speaker 3: It's sad.
Speaker 4: Well, it's this double edged sword of get in line,
Speaker 4: do it the legal way. So the people who say
Speaker 4: we're not anti immigrant, we just want them to do
Speaker 4: it the legal way and get in line. So title
Speaker 4: forty two ends we've got the CBP one app which
Speaker 4: gives them an appointment so they can stand in line
Speaker 4: to cross at a legal point of port of entry
Speaker 4: and do it legally. And now they've got to find
Speaker 4: a way to thwart that and to mess it up.
Speaker 4: And Biden, as you said, is not saying, look at
Speaker 4: what we did. We've got everybody standing in line doing
Speaker 4: it the legal way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think they don't want to look at CBP
Speaker 2: one too, given what a disaster it's been and how
Speaker 2: biased it's been and how bad it continues to be.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 2: For sure, they've failed to offer any other options. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't really have any hope that things will not
Speaker 2: just get worse. There seems to be a bipods and
Speaker 2: consensus that it's okay to kill lots of people trying
Speaker 2: to come to our country for help, because it's bad
Speaker 2: if folks need mean to you.
Speaker 4: Jen has been very vocal and produced lots and lots
Speaker 4: of research and documentation on how our deterrence policies are
Speaker 4: designed to kill and they're not a whole lot of
Speaker 4: people using the G word. But Jen has been courageous
Speaker 4: enough to do it. I was recently told by my
Speaker 4: employer that I could not use it, and I think
Speaker 4: it's a horror but Jen can speak to it.
Speaker 3: We have to do a whole other episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we should be. We're definitely going to
Speaker 2: keep covering this because it's one of the things that
Speaker 2: just disappears from a lot of national media in between
Speaker 2: election cycles or in between.
Speaker 1: Well and unfortunately it's one of the things where kind
Speaker 1: of the numbers are heading in the wrong direction nationwide
Speaker 1: because like the border, Like the right is winning on
Speaker 1: border stuff right now, the right is winning on immigration. Like,
Speaker 1: there's some pretty dark polling likes as much as you know,
Speaker 1: some of the last couple of elections have been positive
Speaker 1: in terms of the pitiful performance of like kind of
Speaker 1: maga Republicans. Like if you if you look at kind
Speaker 1: of how Americans are polling on border issues and immigration issues,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty bleak at the moment. And I don't really,
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone has a great clear clue as
Speaker 1: to like how to reverse that at the moment, which
Speaker 1: isn't to say that it can't be reversed, it's just, uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's difficult.
Speaker 5: Well, it's difficult, especially when the Democrats are always ceding
Speaker 5: the argument to the Republicans like they're afraid to make
Speaker 5: the argument that a robust, in humane asylum system that
Speaker 5: can inspect the people requesting asylum is a national security
Speaker 5: issue and you need one. You can't just not have
Speaker 5: a NASH. You can't have an asylum not have an
Speaker 5: asylum system. You have to have It's an essential part
Speaker 5: to the national security infrastructure. So people that argue that
Speaker 5: we shouldn't have an asylum system because it's a threat
Speaker 5: to national security are completely ignorant about what they're talking about,
Speaker 5: and so they have to start framing it as as
Speaker 5: a national security issue, you know, one where we can
Speaker 5: have people come and be inspected and so forth, and
Speaker 5: then the people who are the nefarious people, Yeah, they're
Speaker 5: going to go in between the ports of entry. Fine,
Speaker 5: arrest those people, but let's have a humane system otherwise.
Speaker 4: It's also fundamental to the success of our economy, and
Speaker 4: with you know, the US birth rate is declining and
Speaker 4: without a robust, safe, timely immigration system, ideally one that
Speaker 4: allows people to go back and forth. Because what I
Speaker 4: hear from people here is I miss my country. I
Speaker 4: want to return to my I want to come here
Speaker 4: to see my family, to work for a season or
Speaker 4: for a spell, to send money home, but then I
Speaker 4: want to be able to return, and our current system
Speaker 4: it's too deadly to allow them to make it through
Speaker 4: and then go back and attempt to do that a
Speaker 4: second time. Another issue related to the narrative and read
Speaker 4: winning on immigration is we found at the Butterfly Center
Speaker 4: that when Biden continued building border wall, and we said,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, you know this is what's happening, and
Speaker 4: we posted photos and video and everything of it, people
Speaker 4: who had supported US, Democrats, liberals with a capital L,
Speaker 4: who had supported US said, you're lying, or that's just
Speaker 4: they're continuing trumps they had to. And then when we
Speaker 4: contradicted every one of those arguments with facts, then they said, oh, well,
Speaker 4: if Biden's doing it, then there must be a good reason.
Speaker 4: And you know, the US can't accept everybody. And you know,
Speaker 4: you get this walking back of all of the the
Speaker 4: things that they were saying when Trump was president, about
Speaker 4: being humane, about needing an effective system, about creative solutions
Speaker 4: and all of this, and now it's suddenly, well, you know,
Speaker 4: we can't let everybody in and and so I have
Speaker 4: honestly found and I'm going to take a lot of
Speaker 4: hit flat for this, but there's basically no difference between
Speaker 4: a moderate Republican and a liberal capital l.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it cly seems that way. Certainly, Uh, Trump had
Speaker 2: months of tible forty two, Biden had years of it.
Speaker 1: Like it's yeah, certainly, I mean it's it's I think
Speaker 1: pretty much impossible to argue with that, at least on
Speaker 1: the on a broad scale, like if you're just kind
Speaker 1: of like looking at at national trends. Uh, there's there's
Speaker 1: ample support for that argument.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Biden, I mean Obama deported more people than anyone absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 2: massive number.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well cool, yeah yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Where can people find out more terrible stuff about the border?
Speaker 2: Is there in podcast they can listen to.
Speaker 5: We do have a podcast, Border Patrol Watch. Marianna and
Speaker 5: I have kind of started it just to talk about
Speaker 5: a lot of these issues that we feel are being
Speaker 5: left out. And it's on YouTube. We also have a
Speaker 5: TikTok account in Twitter for the moment.
Speaker 3: We'll see how that goes.
Speaker 5: And Facebook and Instagram, and there is Border patrol watch
Speaker 5: dot com. Yeah, and that list there's a page on
Speaker 5: there for all the agents arrested for rape and pedophilia.
Speaker 5: There's a corruption page. There's a page on how they
Speaker 5: try and indoctrinate the youth down here on the borderlands
Speaker 5: and so forth. So yeah, I'm all about that jazz.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's hashtag on a first And so where could
Speaker 2: people it's all borderpar watch. How about you two? Do
Speaker 2: you guys have individual accounts? Where can they find you?
Speaker 4: Jen is doing most of this, and I believe it's
Speaker 4: under the Border Patrol Watch banner. Yeah, because you know,
Speaker 4: both of us found ourselves targeted or throttled or being
Speaker 4: you know, really suppressed by Twitter and Facebook.
Speaker 3: And lost my forty thousand followers. Yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But bottom chart, which is great. You had a great
Speaker 2: thread on agents who have facing charges for sexual assault,
Speaker 2: and that's a very small minority of agents who have
Speaker 2: done sexual assaults certainly, but yeah, there's some really good
Speaker 2: information for people on there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, those are just the ones who are being prosecuted
Speaker 4: or have been convicted. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, most of them sadly have not, and even the
Speaker 2: ones who have, it took too long and it was
Speaker 2: far too convoluted. We can yeah, we can talk again
Speaker 2: on that happy topic another day, But thank you so
Speaker 2: much for giving us some of your afternoon guys. We
Speaker 2: really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Thank thank you guys for all you do and forgetting
Speaker 4: the word out. It could Happen here as a production
Speaker 4: of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.