Speaker 1: Welcome to It could happen here, the podcast that's happening
Speaker 1: here right now, in your ears, it could happen ere.
Speaker 1: I'm Robert Evans. Um, I'm I'm not with any of
Speaker 1: my normal UH co hosts today because because fuck them, No,
Speaker 1: because I'm elsewhere in the world right now, hanging out
Speaker 1: with someone you might remember from a special episode we
Speaker 1: recently did on Molotov Cocktails. Journalist James Stout. Hi, everyone, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm here with Robert in a tiny hotel room and
Speaker 1: we've just woken up. We need to do some podcasting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not. We're not here for any specific purpose. We
Speaker 1: just decided let's run a hotel room, cast some pods,
Speaker 1: you know, hang out. Um, James, how do you feel
Speaker 1: about the border? Negatively? Broadly speaking, I think the border
Speaker 1: is a tool that we used to harm and kill
Speaker 1: the most marginalized people in the world. I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of borne out by stats as well. Not a
Speaker 1: big not a big border guy. Yeah, and you and
Speaker 1: I recently spent a decent amount of time on the
Speaker 1: Texas Mexico chunk of the border, specifically near McAllen, Texas,
Speaker 1: hanging out at a Butterfly sanctuary that people can learn
Speaker 1: some things about if they google will be coming out
Speaker 1: that those episodes will be dropping in the not too
Speaker 1: distant future. Um. But you live on the San Diego
Speaker 1: side of the border, um, which if people don't know,
Speaker 1: San Diego, California is basically in Mexico. Um, you can
Speaker 1: you can hop over across for like lunch and stuff
Speaker 1: if you really want to and don't mind dealing with CBP. UM.
Speaker 1: And Yeah, so I you've done a lot of reporting
Speaker 1: around the border and about kind of the system of
Speaker 1: violence that it represents. Um, I wanted to chat a
Speaker 1: little bit like about that, and I wanted to chat
Speaker 1: about some of the organizations that you've run into that
Speaker 1: are doing good work out there, because there's a lot
Speaker 1: that needs to be done. Yeah, definitely, I think, Um,
Speaker 1: I think it's really important to like conceptualize what's happening
Speaker 1: at the border in terms of, like the border is
Speaker 1: a tool for state vine right to state violence against
Speaker 1: marginalized people, and like what the good group groups helping
Speaker 1: people on the boarder represent is like ways of us
Speaker 1: helping each other which are outside the networks of us
Speaker 1: having power over each other. Right, So in the broader
Speaker 1: spectrum of like neutral aid of mutual support, Like I
Speaker 1: think they're really important to focus on rather than kind
Speaker 1: of so many people construct the border in their minds.
Speaker 1: Like you can see if you go back on my Twitter,
Speaker 1: some guy just being like that is not the border.
Speaker 1: The border does not look like that. The border is
Speaker 1: barren and it's desert and it's full of people with
Speaker 1: guns and it's really not right. Like, so the border
Speaker 1: exists as like this mental construct a place where we
Speaker 1: can do like political theater, especially on the right. So
Speaker 1: people who are actually down there on the ground and
Speaker 1: understand it, I think it's it's vital to support them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the more striking moments to me when we
Speaker 1: were in McAllen was hanging out near this trunk of
Speaker 1: border fence that had been constructed unlike by volunteers effectively. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's this, it's it's it's what you would expect,
Speaker 1: like the stereotype of the border. It's this huge, military
Speaker 1: industrial looking thing. The wildlife has been cleared from around
Speaker 1: it so that you can have this towering steel edifice.
Speaker 1: But then a hundred yards away across the rio is
Speaker 1: the Mexican side of the border, and there's like a
Speaker 1: couple of goat farms and like a little restaurant with
Speaker 1: a little dock so people can like you know, take
Speaker 1: their little boats out and people are drinking and there's
Speaker 1: party music playing, and like it's it's nice, it's pastoral
Speaker 1: and green. It was. It looked like a lovely place.
Speaker 1: It looked much nicer than hanging out by the giant
Speaker 1: steel tower. Yeah, I found that all along the border actually,
Speaker 1: like we are side of the border looks like something
Speaker 1: from a blade Runner or something like it's this giant
Speaker 1: dystopian steel construct with with people with guns, with watch towers,
Speaker 1: and it's horrific, right, Like it cuts through some of
Speaker 1: the most beautiful and important landscapes we have, right through
Speaker 1: the high desert, through these very fragile places, and like
Speaker 1: it's important. I think people understand as well what the
Speaker 1: border wall looks like, right because you've probably seen a
Speaker 1: photograph of giant ass wall um and that is part
Speaker 1: of it. But they call it the border wall ecosystem.
Speaker 1: And what that involves is the wall itself, sometimes a ditch,
Speaker 1: sometimes not a ditch, and then a road that's wide
Speaker 1: enough for two of the f one fifty raptors, water
Speaker 1: patrol like to drive to pass each other and then
Speaker 1: access road to that and then genermanly there's also an
Speaker 1: access road cut that allows construction vehicles to get to
Speaker 1: build all of that. So it's not just some spikes
Speaker 1: in the desert. It's fucking destroying this beautiful part of
Speaker 1: both of Mexico and the United States. Right now, before
Speaker 1: we get into some of these organizations, I'm wondering, first off,
Speaker 1: when did you start reporting on the US Mexico border
Speaker 1: And is there any kind of specific events that that
Speaker 1: you can recall that really kind of ignited your your
Speaker 1: interest in this particular like part of the United States,
Speaker 1: in this particular part of like our ongoing social conflict. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like I've always been interested in borderlands, like academically, uh
Speaker 1: and as part of my PhD UM. But I guess
Speaker 1: i'd probably about eight or nine years i've been reporting
Speaker 1: on the border. The thing that really sort of took
Speaker 1: it from being like the border is sometimes I think
Speaker 1: I write about I did a lot of outdoor writing
Speaker 1: about the border to right. It was very interesting in
Speaker 1: getting more people to go outside in bak California. It's
Speaker 1: amazing and you should do it. But what really sort
Speaker 1: of I guess made me be the Gulf funk. This
Speaker 1: is fucking horrible. U is quote unquote migrant caravan. Right.
Speaker 1: So I've been down just just enjoying a weekend in
Speaker 1: fettle further south and a little further south of Tijuana
Speaker 1: and having a really good wine country there. So we've
Speaker 1: been checking out these wine places and just enjoying ourselves.
Speaker 1: And we come back and then these people are in
Speaker 1: um what's called the Benito Kuaida's Sports Complex. It's just
Speaker 1: a baseball field, and it's raining and it's November, and
Speaker 1: it looks like a fucking battle of the saw him
Speaker 1: in there. You know, it's mud. They're little children, and
Speaker 1: I've been in these situations before, if I've seen situations
Speaker 1: with displaced people before, but there was something that just
Speaker 1: broke my heart about, like, so obviously we're gonna go in, right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see what's going on. We're going to see
Speaker 1: what we can do to help. And they're little kids.
Speaker 1: Remember there was this little girl and this one still
Speaker 1: makes me really sad. But she would find me. There
Speaker 1: were thousands of people there. Every single time I came,
Speaker 1: she would find me. Found me. The first day ah,
Speaker 1: and she would like we talked for a little bit
Speaker 1: about what she was doing, and then she was standing
Speaker 1: like halfway up her little shins in mud, and she
Speaker 1: didn't have any works like shower or be clean, you know.
Speaker 1: She was living in a sort of tarp shelter and
Speaker 1: it just fucking broke my heart. So used to she
Speaker 1: used to like plack my hair a lot so and
Speaker 1: carry her around. And that was just like this realization
Speaker 1: for me, like of how cruel this thing is. Shortly
Speaker 1: there after, of course, the police stood in the parking
Speaker 1: lot of the Tommy Hill Figure discount store in order
Speaker 1: to fire tear gases some of the most marginalized and
Speaker 1: desperate people certainly in that part of the world, right,
Speaker 1: And just that it's it's a scene that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that would if you put that in a movie, you
Speaker 1: would be like, it's a little bit heavy handed, right,
Speaker 1: having them shoot from the Tommy Hill finger at the
Speaker 1: desperate migrants. That's a little bit heavy. Yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's just dis advanced fucking parody of where we
Speaker 1: are as a society. But yeah, the the DHS helicopter
Speaker 1: is taking off from the Tommy Hill Figure store to
Speaker 1: fire tear grass grenades at the children who just want
Speaker 1: a safe place to sleep. I had a moment like
Speaker 1: that in a protest where the Portland police We were
Speaker 1: in um uh North Portland, UM, which is like in
Speaker 1: a neighborhood that was like one of the fairly few
Speaker 1: like black neighborhoods in Portland, and the cops you know,
Speaker 1: win ape Ship and started firing impact munitions down Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King Boulevard. And I didn't catch myself at first,
Speaker 1: and I was like, the cops are now shooting down
Speaker 1: Martin Luther. Yeah, you've been in and around like you
Speaker 1: you live there obviously, So who are like, who are
Speaker 1: some of the folks that you've come across that are
Speaker 1: doing the most to actually help there? And what kind
Speaker 1: of help like is necessary? Because I feel like one
Speaker 1: of the one of the things I think is the
Speaker 1: primary shortcoming of it could happen here is a show
Speaker 1: so far is that the way Garrison and I phrase
Speaker 1: it is like a lot of our episodes are here's
Speaker 1: a problem. Goodbye, Right, We're like, here's the thing that's bad.
Speaker 1: Off we go, like so what I guess the two
Speaker 1: chief questions I think they need to be answered, because
Speaker 1: I'm hoping pretty much everyone here is on board with
Speaker 1: the border is a nightmare. Uh, something's got to be done.
Speaker 1: What are the kind of things that can actually materially
Speaker 1: improve people's lives who are being affected by this border ecosystem?
Speaker 1: And then who are the motherfucker's who are actually out
Speaker 1: there trying to unfuck things that to the extent that
Speaker 1: unfucking is doable here? Yeah, So I think like just
Speaker 1: to further like make people sad first, Like, if you
Speaker 1: look up de Colonial Atlas southern border, you can find
Speaker 1: this map of where migrants die when they're coming to
Speaker 1: the United States, right, And we often it's constructed in
Speaker 1: the news media is like it's dangerous crossing Mexico. It is.
Speaker 1: It's it's dangerous coming across the Darien Gap. Sure it is,
Speaker 1: But the vast bulk of people die within a few
Speaker 1: miles of our southern border, right. And that's because, especially
Speaker 1: now with the way we've constructed the border wall. Right
Speaker 1: before the election, Donald Trump in a debate made claims
Speaker 1: about how much border war he built like everything else,
Speaker 1: he was full of shit. So they just tried to
Speaker 1: build as much as they could between them the election,
Speaker 1: so they just skip the hard parts, skip the mountain,
Speaker 1: to skip the valleys, and that often forces people to
Speaker 1: cross in the most arduous terrain, right, so that that's
Speaker 1: increased the amount of people dying. So we can look
Speaker 1: broadly at like two categories of support, right, which are like, um,
Speaker 1: I guess like direct aid and then legal aid. So
Speaker 1: m on the legal aid side the guys who guys
Speaker 1: and girls and other people who who have been really
Speaker 1: really helpful to the other side right there there Legal
Speaker 1: aid group. They were very very cool during the during
Speaker 1: the microt care event, like they and I realized that
Speaker 1: something about a loaded phrase, right, I'm just trying to
Speaker 1: use a word that people will understand. They were there
Speaker 1: constantly helping people with good course letters. They were there
Speaker 1: filing legal briefs on their behalf. As a result of that,
Speaker 1: many of them were illegally surveiled by the Department of
Speaker 1: Homeland Security. We had the phones taken, the communications trace,
Speaker 1: their movements traced, their network trace, etcetera. They are wonderful people, right, like,
Speaker 1: they do amazing things with helping people get legal aid. Um.
Speaker 1: And then you've got the people who are helping people
Speaker 1: while they cross, right, And there are a number of
Speaker 1: these mutual a groups. If you're in a certain region
Speaker 1: there at the border, there is probably someone near you.
Speaker 1: I'm no expert on all of them, but you can
Speaker 1: look at like no mass there is in Arizona Armados believe,
Speaker 1: I think they. I don't know if they operate also
Speaker 1: in Texas, but certainly in that California Arizona area. You
Speaker 1: can look at border angels, right. Border angels are probably
Speaker 1: the biggest, most public facing one, and they are fantastic. Right.
Speaker 1: They're out there making sure that there are cashes of
Speaker 1: water for people who are crossing, making sure that when
Speaker 1: it's cold at night there are warm clothes, and when
Speaker 1: it's hot, there are clothes suitable for that weather. Right,
Speaker 1: maybe in a new backpack, canned food. They're like doing
Speaker 1: the active stuff that stops people dying. Um, and that's invaluable, right,
Speaker 1: And it's also important in terms of showing that like
Speaker 1: they're often right. Things I've seen like like you're welcome, right,
Speaker 1: welcome to this country or whatever. It's showing that most
Speaker 1: of us don't agree with this dehumanizing brutalization of migrants
Speaker 1: that state is doing on our behalf, and so showing
Speaker 1: that welcome. It's very important. There are lots of indigenous groups. Um.
Speaker 1: I did ask if I could name them, but that
Speaker 1: they didn't get back to me, so I don't want to.
Speaker 1: But like there are groups within the toronaud Term nation
Speaker 1: and their groups within the Umu nation, I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are groups within other tribes whom the border crossed, right,
Speaker 1: who lived in this area long before it was a border,
Speaker 1: who are also out there helping people. There are also
Speaker 1: individuals helping people out on their property, right. Um if
Speaker 1: you if you can't find how to donate one of
Speaker 1: those groups, you can reach out to me. That's fine.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think the work they're doing is invaluable,
Speaker 1: both in terms of like showing people that they are
Speaker 1: welcome and in terms of saving lives. Right. More and
Speaker 1: more people die at the border every year, especially with
Speaker 1: things like Title forty two, which we can get into
Speaker 1: with MPP sure. So Title forty two it's a public
Speaker 1: it's part of a public health law. It's very antiquated.
Speaker 1: I think it was last used in the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: The idea behind it was to stop people with tuberculosis
Speaker 1: coming into the United States and if they have and
Speaker 1: um um if they have an infectious to transmissible disease
Speaker 1: I think it's called, then they can be immediately sent
Speaker 1: back without processing. Right. Um, this was part of a
Speaker 1: whole suite of things that they used to do to
Speaker 1: laborers coming north. Right. They would also spray them with
Speaker 1: all kinds of insecticides, which obviously is not good for
Speaker 1: the health. And so title fully to the idea being
Speaker 1: you know, you get if you present to me at
Speaker 1: the border and I'm a border patrol guy and you're
Speaker 1: like coughing up a lung and obviously tuberculous, cuberculous. I
Speaker 1: don't know you have tubercule, yeah, tuberculastic, then I will
Speaker 1: send you back and just be like no Robert oft
Speaker 1: until you're healthy. You're going to infect everyone else here,
Speaker 1: especially if I detain you. Now, what it's being used
Speaker 1: to do with COVID nineteen is to not process migrants right,
Speaker 1: to do what's called catch and released, just bump them
Speaker 1: south and let them go. What that means is that
Speaker 1: these so normally you could cross surrender to a CBP
Speaker 1: AG and that's another miss missunderstanding. Right, A lot of
Speaker 1: people will want to surrender right there that they they
Speaker 1: have no intention of not being processed um for certain
Speaker 1: countries as being called a TPS, which I'll explain in
Speaker 1: a second, which which there will be no reason for
Speaker 1: them not to be processed. So these people will cross,
Speaker 1: and now they could just get dumped on the other side. Right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if they are a person who is pregnant,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, if the elderly, doesn't matter, if they're medically
Speaker 1: compromised a week. They can't just get dumped. What this
Speaker 1: has meant is that people who are helping them cross, right,
Speaker 1: people who maybe charge a fee for helping them cross,
Speaker 1: are offering like crossings without limits. You we'll just try again,
Speaker 1: try again. And it means, like I said before, because
Speaker 1: of the combination of this and then this, this hostile
Speaker 1: infrastructure that we're building, right, this boarder wall system, that
Speaker 1: people will try crossing in more and more remote places. Right.
Speaker 1: That is when people die crossing, is when they cry
Speaker 1: and cross in in places that are are hotter, that
Speaker 1: are more arduous. Right, it requires days of walking sometimes
Speaker 1: in like and I've been in that terrain. I spend
Speaker 1: a lot of my time out there, and like for
Speaker 1: a long time, it's been more or less my job
Speaker 1: to be outside out there, and it is hard. So
Speaker 1: if I imagine seeing with everything I need to start
Speaker 1: my new life and carrying my child, it's very difficult
Speaker 1: for me. And I'm more accustomed to it than most,
Speaker 1: so it's it's very difficult and forcing people to just
Speaker 1: kind of bounce back. Because when we drop someone in Mexico, right,
Speaker 1: if they are Guatemalan Honduran, they don't have any network there, right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't exactly help, like uh into like sometimes we
Speaker 1: like this construct that like the border fuels crime, right,
Speaker 1: like crime is like they talk about like like sometimes
Speaker 1: cartels is far too broadly used. Nearly always it's far
Speaker 1: too broadly used. But this idea that the board of
Speaker 1: funds like drug running an organization such as that, well,
Speaker 1: you don't help by dumping someone where they have no
Speaker 1: other means of making a living, right where they're going
Speaker 1: to be very poor and now they don't have any
Speaker 1: mate and I have anyone to go to to ask
Speaker 1: for help, write like, I don't blame people for trying
Speaker 1: to find a way to do something so understandably, like
Speaker 1: if I don't think I think it's largely a lie
Speaker 1: that any significant number of people sort of running drugs
Speaker 1: across the border are migrants or um you know, I
Speaker 1: think that's that's largely a racist lie. But leaving people
Speaker 1: dislocated there is a recipe for poverty, and I can't
Speaker 1: know things like crime do happen more. I guess when
Speaker 1: people are poor and don't have any other options, that
Speaker 1: makes sense if we go back to TPS really quickly,
Speaker 1: because I think that's important to temporary protected status. Right
Speaker 1: you'll see people on Twitter talking about TPS. What that
Speaker 1: basically means is that they can't deport you back to
Speaker 1: a country. So it took Biden an obscenely long time
Speaker 1: to grant a TPS for the people from Ukraine, right
Speaker 1: fived something. People went into the deportation system between the
Speaker 1: time in like November December, when Biden's administration started being
Speaker 1: like there is going to be war in Ukraine and
Speaker 1: Russians are going to invade Ukraine, they were still actively
Speaker 1: in the process of sending people back to Ukraine at
Speaker 1: that time. It wasn't until about a week into the
Speaker 1: shooting war that they said, Okay, temporary protected status, we
Speaker 1: won't send you back. It exists for other countries, exists
Speaker 1: for Haiti. It exists for me and mar Burma, right. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it exists for Syria or I
Speaker 1: think it does, but these countries where basically like we
Speaker 1: won't send you back there. And TPS is very important,
Speaker 1: right because it stops people being deported to places where
Speaker 1: they will die. And it's important to understand that, like
Speaker 1: you could have everything right in terms of your assilum
Speaker 1: application and still be sent back. It's a cruel and
Speaker 1: very impersonal system. So a TPS is important, And if
Speaker 1: you're into sort of advocating for laws, then it's an
Speaker 1: important thing to advocate for. I think yeah, Um, in
Speaker 1: terms of more, I think that's important because we kind
Speaker 1: of the electoral side of things is not does not
Speaker 1: tend to be our focus here, but it's also not useless.
Speaker 1: Like the border is one of the areas most clearly
Speaker 1: where you can see both how advocating and the realm
Speaker 1: can immediately improve people's lives and also how both sides
Speaker 1: of the political spectrum use the border as a weapon
Speaker 1: to hurt. Yeah, exactly. The boarder is definitely a stage
Speaker 1: for both sides political theater. Like look at Joe Biden, right,
Speaker 1: he's coming in, He's signing this declaration. On the first day,
Speaker 1: remember the day he was inaugurated, I went out to
Speaker 1: the border wall just sat there by myself and like
Speaker 1: wept because it's just this horrible, ugly thing that's such
Speaker 1: a scar on the place that I love. And he's
Speaker 1: done funck all right, and he's deporting more people than Trump,
Speaker 1: and he's building his own Biden barrier, which is the
Speaker 1: same thing with that nantikliin plate. But yeah, like, even
Speaker 1: if you don't agree with the existence of laws and lawmakers, right,
Speaker 1: there's this concept that I like a lot called normative anarchism.
Speaker 1: I think it's Wolf, the guy who wrote it. But like,
Speaker 1: we can move towards the state doing less cruelty and
Speaker 1: being a little more free, and that is a move
Speaker 1: in the right direction, even if it's not the end goal.
Speaker 1: And I think the border is a place where you
Speaker 1: can really make a difference like that, right, Like some
Speaker 1: small changes in how things are done would reduce used
Speaker 1: as the cruelty to people who have done nothing wrong massively.
Speaker 1: So I think it is an area where even those
Speaker 1: of us who might not be generally inclined to like
Speaker 1: electoral stuff, like you can I think I don't know
Speaker 1: if you can make a distance because, like so many
Speaker 1: people in Milwaukee, you're watching Fox News and are fucking
Speaker 1: completely convinced that the border is just I don't know,
Speaker 1: people with guns trying to smuggle children or whatever. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's an area where small changes in policy make a
Speaker 1: huge Title forty two right, not even a law, it's
Speaker 1: an executive or it's not even executive, or it's an interpretation.
Speaker 1: Uh the war right, most of that ship wasn't built
Speaker 1: by Congress. It was built by executive orders. So like
Speaker 1: that stuff, I think is a place where you can
Speaker 1: you can affect positive change for people. Now. Unfortunate, we've
Speaker 1: got to driant wall and I don't think it's coming
Speaker 1: down anytime soon, But it doesn't mean we shouldn't actively
Speaker 1: try to make things kinder for people coming here now.
Speaker 1: On the direct action side of things, which I think
Speaker 1: more of our audience tends to support, one of the
Speaker 1: most obvious things is just like setting out, as you said,
Speaker 1: like drops of water, food equipment. Now that's kind of
Speaker 1: depending on where you are, can be shall always say
Speaker 1: complex from a legal standpoint. Can you talk to that
Speaker 1: a little bit, yes, certainly. So, Like the obvious cases
Speaker 1: are one in Arizona, right, which eventually ended up the
Speaker 1: person was vindicated, but vindicated to your own word, but
Speaker 1: not didn't go to prison exactly. Yeah. Yeah, what he
Speaker 1: was doing was right from the start. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: can be complex, I think, especially if you're in some
Speaker 1: of these states which are like doing culture war, right
Speaker 1: like Arizona in Texas. Yeah, the cruelty is kind of
Speaker 1: the point. So if you are doing something to alleviate
Speaker 1: that cruelty, making an example, if he was very much
Speaker 1: in the interest of those cultural war politicians and judges
Speaker 1: and other people, which is why it's important to do
Speaker 1: it with a mutual aid group, right, Like, these groups
Speaker 1: are not just like randos, they're extremely organized. I would
Speaker 1: also just caution that, like going out into the desert
Speaker 1: on your own is extremely fucking dangerous. The desert can
Speaker 1: kill you with heat and day. It can kill you
Speaker 1: with the cold nights, sometimes on the same day and night. Right,
Speaker 1: this is a hard place. I'm not saying you shouldn't
Speaker 1: go out there. You should. It's it's an amazing place,
Speaker 1: but you should be careful. You should go with the group.
Speaker 1: So if you're living somewhere along the border, there is
Speaker 1: a group of people who are doing this. They will
Speaker 1: understand what is legal and correct. Like, for instance, if
Speaker 1: you are not a citizen, if you're a Green card holder,
Speaker 1: you should probably not go down to the border with
Speaker 1: jugs of water. You should maybe do some fundraising, you
Speaker 1: should you should maybe do something else, And that's fine, right,
Speaker 1: You're still part of a system which is helping people.
Speaker 1: But yes, there have been some prosecutions, I think in California,
Speaker 1: there haven't been any to my knowledge for a while. Um.
Speaker 1: There is also some interesting tech developments. One a few
Speaker 1: a long time ago now called the Transport of Migrant Tool,
Speaker 1: which was mapping out like what at the time, we
Speaker 1: didn't have the border wall them right, but like water
Speaker 1: cashier's locations of CVP checkpoints and then I guess it
Speaker 1: was using Google Maps to make roots which it was
Speaker 1: created by a faculty member who at the time was
Speaker 1: at the University of California, who faced pretty terrible career
Speaker 1: repercussions for doing it. But there are things like that
Speaker 1: that people can do too, right, which you can do
Speaker 1: from your bedroom, and if that's your preference, if that's
Speaker 1: how you prefer to help. But yeah, I would caution
Speaker 1: about just going out there. Always look for groups, right,
Speaker 1: there are people for whom this is their entire life
Speaker 1: of activism. You can also I'm sure, I hope I'm
Speaker 1: not putting a bunch of like work on their plate.
Speaker 1: But Talkedado, see what they suggest, right, Altro Lado the
Speaker 1: other side, that's this legal a group you can just
Speaker 1: call them. I'm sure that they they thinking. They've been
Speaker 1: very helpful to me when I've been when I've needed
Speaker 1: help for people I'm working with. Talk to them about
Speaker 1: what is what is legal and sensible and what's not,
Speaker 1: Whether it's better to give your or give your time
Speaker 1: or what you can do give them the resources available
Speaker 1: to you, I guess. And you can also just show
Speaker 1: kindness to refugees in your community too, that they're probably there.
Speaker 1: Whether or not they're visible is a different question, but
Speaker 1: that's you know, there are places where you can help people.
Speaker 1: Another one I should mention, actually, just for folks who
Speaker 1: are inclined to help in a different way I guess,
Speaker 1: is people just feeding people Like I really don't think
Speaker 1: you can ever blame someone for feeding hungry persons a
Speaker 1: food not bombs. Food not bombs are always cool, right,
Speaker 1: if if you want to do kindness without state food
Speaker 1: not bombs, there is one in your area. Look them up,
Speaker 1: um and World Central Kitchen, which is jos Andreas the chef. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's in Ukraine. Or his guys just got sheld in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, yeah, a number of them got shelved
Speaker 1: in Khakee. I think, um, those people, like I do
Speaker 1: understand that he has some labor issues. Yeah, although I
Speaker 1: think he's he recently like came out and said that
Speaker 1: he had been wrong on that. I'd have to double check. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's impressive. Like I've said this before, this dude pivoted
Speaker 1: his whole life after seeing what happened in Haiti to
Speaker 1: feeding people who are hungry all over the world. So
Speaker 1: I do believe he's capable of change, and hopefully he
Speaker 1: can change and treat his workers with decency in respect
Speaker 1: as well. But anywhere I am right where there is
Speaker 1: a humanitarian crisis inside the US, outside the US, those
Speaker 1: people are there first, there there before the Red Cross
Speaker 1: and MS. If they don't seem to get tied up
Speaker 1: in the bureaucratic ship. Most large global NGOs do. Like
Speaker 1: I've been in refugee camps where MSF and Red Cross
Speaker 1: outside not doing anything. Yeah, if you anywhere I have
Speaker 1: been where there are large groups of refugees, refugee camps,
Speaker 1: people dealing with violence. The most commonly cursed groups are
Speaker 1: often in g os. Yes, yeah, yeah, there are you know,
Speaker 1: people in white Lands, people in fancy hotel lobbies, you know,
Speaker 1: like that makes me very angry and very sad, But
Speaker 1: I don't see that with w c K, Like I
Speaker 1: have consistently seen them in this is pretty my situations,
Speaker 1: you know, like times that give me bad sleeps, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're always there helping people. So then there are
Speaker 1: also church groups in lots of communities. Like I'm not
Speaker 1: a religious person, but like I really can't fault any
Speaker 1: of these church groups that I've seen coming down from
Speaker 1: San Diego to Tijuana to feed and help people. But
Speaker 1: I would probably stay clear of those giant NGOs with
Speaker 1: your giving. I've just seen them be consider bureaucratic and
Speaker 1: less effective. Yeah, I mean one of the rules. This
Speaker 1: is harder when it's a conflict far from home, and
Speaker 1: you know, you see some news that makes you want
Speaker 1: to help, but you don't have any connections. But if
Speaker 1: you can never talk to people on the ground there,
Speaker 1: it's always best to ask them, like, who's actually doing anything, um,
Speaker 1: because sometimes it is MSF you know, sometimes uh it
Speaker 1: is one of these larger organizations, but oftentimes they'll tell you, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the group when I was in Mosle that
Speaker 1: got the most consistent praise from people who were like
Speaker 1: living there was the Free Burmer Rangers, right, Like there
Speaker 1: were all these massive international organizations, but when it came
Speaker 1: right down to the people who were like running under
Speaker 1: gunfire to pull wounded civilians out where you know those folks, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: those those guys do some do some very brave stuff, definitely,
Speaker 1: And yeah, it is normally you can find people on Facebook,
Speaker 1: Like I've never been in a sort of situation with
Speaker 1: a lot of displaced people what people were not actively
Speaker 1: on Facebook, and you can find people there they just
Speaker 1: just like you just want to have a chat. And again,
Speaker 1: it's nice to have a chat. That's such an important
Speaker 1: point too, because I think that number one people are
Speaker 1: often and it's easier, right, Like everyone has limited time,
Speaker 1: but you kind of leave it to whatever media you
Speaker 1: trust to connect you to people in these desperate circumstances,
Speaker 1: and like people tend to want to connect who are
Speaker 1: dealing with something like that, who are fleeing violence, who
Speaker 1: are and they also are connected, Like they're not separate
Speaker 1: from the rest of the world just because they've had
Speaker 1: to leave their home behind, and they're not they're generally
Speaker 1: not excluded from the information networks that we all existed. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think And sometimes that portrayed is like, um, we
Speaker 1: talk about them, not to them far too often the media,
Speaker 1: and that makes me mad, right, Like I see that
Speaker 1: all the time. I see that happening when I'm doing reporting, right,
Speaker 1: I'll see people hanging out on the peripheries in these camps.
Speaker 1: I understand some people are worried about COVID or whatever.
Speaker 1: So of those people, right, like, uh, to be safe
Speaker 1: and be sensible, and yeah, these people want to talk.
Speaker 1: I remember one thing that always sticks out or they
Speaker 1: want the same things that we want. Remember, so in
Speaker 1: migrant caravan, they were moved from the need to quire
Speaker 1: a sports complex to this old nightclub a bit further
Speaker 1: south but further away from the border. Right. It was
Speaker 1: a very weird scene. It was this big nightclub with
Speaker 1: like the mirrors and the dancing poles and the disco balls.
Speaker 1: But it had been like moss balls for like ten years.
Speaker 1: It was all dusty, and they had a special room
Speaker 1: for people who were pregnant, people people who had had children,
Speaker 1: and and the young children themselves, right, they were sort
Speaker 1: of just to keep them safe. And we were going
Speaker 1: there and it was weird because there were still with
Speaker 1: mirrors on the floor. But then I remember these kids,
Speaker 1: you talk to them, right, you know, what do you want?
Speaker 1: And like, first of all, one kid asked me for
Speaker 1: a Teddy bearon It's broke my heart, Like I don't
Speaker 1: know why, it just level me. Uh. And then they
Speaker 1: wanted to like you know that they'd enjoyed the same
Speaker 1: Disney films that kids here had, Right, so my buddy
Speaker 1: managed to acquire a projector. We went into the ceiling,
Speaker 1: rigged up this projector and just set up like Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills Chihuahua playing on one water this nightclub. And these
Speaker 1: kids are like it's Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Like let's go
Speaker 1: like the you know, they were just kids watching a
Speaker 1: film like like like they can be anywhere else, and
Speaker 1: it's really easy to see them as like different or
Speaker 1: week or you know the way they're portraying the media
Speaker 1: is like people without agency and they're not like they've
Speaker 1: taken huge amounts of agency to try and improve their lives.
Speaker 1: And it's also so much focus is on these things
Speaker 1: that aren't you know, medicine, food that are necessary, but
Speaker 1: like having a normal moment where you're like a kid
Speaker 1: watching a cartoon or playing with a toy, it's also necessary. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: these children will be scarred by their experiences, right by
Speaker 1: whatever's causing fleet, by the flight itself, and by the
Speaker 1: process of coming to the into the country. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we should do everything we can to protect them from
Speaker 1: those traumatic experiences. And just like I cannot count the
Speaker 1: amount of times I have been like ship housed in
Speaker 1: a game of football by six year olds trying to
Speaker 1: come to the United States, right, Like, so things like that,
Speaker 1: Remember someone donated a couple of football goals, I too,
Speaker 1: come down and set them up. And then yeah, just
Speaker 1: having those moments of normalcy, those moments of fun, like
Speaker 1: little little plastic ukuleles and stuff like, we're very important
Speaker 1: because it let kids be kids. And then that's you know,
Speaker 1: they have every right to do that. Well, James, I
Speaker 1: think that's going to make a soda for us you
Speaker 1: want to throw your plug doubles in before we roll out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to plug, like like I said before, doing
Speaker 1: things to help people outside of networks that let people
Speaker 1: have power over people. To do that first and then yeah,
Speaker 1: you can put my name James Stout into Twitter and
Speaker 1: find me have a Patreon by the same thing right
Speaker 1: about the border a lot. You can see it in
Speaker 1: um if I just plug one popular p O p
Speaker 1: U l A about migrant caravan so you can read
Speaker 1: my writing there. Uh, feel free to message me if
Speaker 1: you want to find any of these groups and you
Speaker 1: can't ye, all right, well that's gonna do it for us.
Speaker 1: Go do something good. It could Happen here as a
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool
Speaker 1: Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
Speaker 1: find sources for It could Happen here, updated monthly at
Speaker 1: cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.