Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
Speaker 2: name is Nolan.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben.
Speaker 4: We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the
Speaker 4: Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you argue you are here.
Speaker 4: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: Guys, I was thinking today we.
Speaker 4: Start with the idea of a journey, So if any
Speaker 4: of us are comfortable answering, what's the strangest, most dangerous
Speaker 4: trip you've taken.
Speaker 5: I don't think I've taken anything currently that I would
Speaker 5: consider super strange or dangerous, but I've got one coming up,
Speaker 5: going to the Middle East for the first time. I
Speaker 5: life be the most far afield location with kind of
Speaker 5: a culture that I am very very much inexperienced with,
Speaker 5: so well, that'll probably be it.
Speaker 2: I had a little bit of a weird thing when
Speaker 2: exploring the West of the United States, where it's a
Speaker 2: little less hospitable than a lot of other places just
Speaker 2: out there by the that we visited out by the
Speaker 2: Big Old Dam. Oh yeah, I've been out there before,
Speaker 2: and just exploring on your own can be hazardous to
Speaker 2: your health.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, yeah, the wild is alive and human beings
Speaker 4: are passengers in the wild of the globe. For some people,
Speaker 4: especially thrill seekers. When you're hearing that question, your answer
Speaker 4: might be something like cave diving, which is a crazy idea.
Speaker 4: I don't know why people do it for fun, but
Speaker 4: be safe or We talked previously on other episodes about
Speaker 4: things like dark tourism. Dark tourism is where you will
Speaker 4: purposely travel to potentially deadly areas like collapse states, war zones,
Speaker 4: contaminated land think of you know, Chernobyl, for instance. But
Speaker 4: for millions of people year over year, as we record
Speaker 4: this evening, the most dangerous trip of their lives is
Speaker 4: not consensual. They are not seeking thrills. No one's trying
Speaker 4: to base jump or anything like that. They are fighting
Speaker 4: instead to survive. So in this series, we're exploring one
Speaker 4: of these areas. It's a largely lawless place where tens
Speaker 4: of thousands of people are risking their lives on a
Speaker 4: daily basis. It's a home to horror, desperation, and ambition.
Speaker 4: This is the story of the Darien Gap. Here are
Speaker 4: the facts. Okay, maybe will we talk about what the
Speaker 4: Dairien Gap is. Maybe we can textualize it a little bit.
Speaker 4: This may be familiar to some of our car stuff listeners.
Speaker 4: You guys know about the Great Pan American Highway, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: That thing's incredible, incredible when it was first created, wasn't
Speaker 2: it starting in South America moving north essentially?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's depending upon whom you ask. It is
Speaker 4: a roughly nineteen thousand mile network of roads, like you said, Matt,
Speaker 4: starting down south in Argentina, going all the way up
Speaker 4: to Alaska. The reason we say depending upon whom you
Speaker 4: ask is because despite the length of this road, generally
Speaker 4: considered to be the longest road in the entirety of
Speaker 4: the planet, Uncle Sam does not officially acknowledge the highway.
Speaker 4: So if you ask the US government officially, they'll tell
Speaker 4: you it starts in Mexico right on the border, and
Speaker 4: then it goes down to Argentina. But if you ask
Speaker 4: people who drive on the road, they'll say no, it
Speaker 4: goes all the way up to all the way up
Speaker 4: to Alaska. A roses a rose is a rose despite
Speaker 4: what names we may give it.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, let's give that. Let's give that distinction, just
Speaker 2: because if you're looking at some of the early maps, especially,
Speaker 2: they will say things like, here are all of the
Speaker 2: Pan American Highway connections that span through Central America, or
Speaker 2: the ones that span through South America, or here are
Speaker 2: the highways that span, you know, from Alaska through Canada
Speaker 2: to the US. And I think it is those connections
Speaker 2: that are not within the US that end up being like,
Speaker 2: I don't know the things that the officials going, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they say, look, everybody has roads, all right. It's
Speaker 4: a very weird policy thing. And policy can be hilarious.
Speaker 4: Policy can be help helpful. Policy can also be dangerous.
Speaker 4: We're going to take the global attitude here and confirm
Speaker 4: that the Pan American Highway is again the longest contiguous
Speaker 4: road on the planet or network of roads and connections.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: There is only one break in this great human endeavor.
Speaker 4: It is a region of dense rainforest and unforgiving mountains
Speaker 4: and ismuth between they're connecting Panama and Columbia. This is
Speaker 4: known as the Daryan Gap.
Speaker 5: Right, And every now and again somebody pitches an idea,
Speaker 5: some sort of plan to fix this inhospitable area and
Speaker 5: this gap in the highway system. In nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 5: fifty years after the Panama Canal first opened, some I
Speaker 5: don't know, oddball wildcard mavericky types in the US and
Speaker 5: Panama we talked about using three hundred and twenty five
Speaker 5: nukes nuclear explosions rather to blast a.
Speaker 6: Sixty mile trench through the territory.
Speaker 5: That sounds like a great plan, guys, I don't know
Speaker 5: about you couldn't possibly be any unforeseen after effects.
Speaker 4: There's some real brainstorm energy there, agreed someone. It's four
Speaker 4: thirty on a Friday, and someone says, you know what's
Speaker 4: better than one canal?
Speaker 3: You guys, what about two? And then let's blow up
Speaker 3: the moon while.
Speaker 2: We're at right. It's a crazy idea. Nuke a jungle
Speaker 2: essentially a rainforest.
Speaker 3: Wait what yeah, yeah, to build the canal.
Speaker 4: And if you go back to the New York Times,
Speaker 4: which has an excellent contemporary archive of these kind of
Speaker 4: moments in history, there's an article arguing for this, and
Speaker 4: they're essentially saying this plan is fine, you know, because
Speaker 4: because it's still you know, the sort of a house
Speaker 4: yacht Age of an Atomic Future, and they said it'll
Speaker 4: be okay because the region is quote is a quote
Speaker 4: from the article sparsely populated. And there's an implication here
Speaker 4: shout out Dennis Reynolds, which was something like, I mean,
Speaker 4: I guess there are people there, but really people, I mean,
Speaker 4: do they really matter?
Speaker 3: They really matter? Do they have a subscription to NYT?
Speaker 6: Yeah, that is the question.
Speaker 5: Wow, that is very out of character for the New
Speaker 5: York Times, but I guess it was a different New
Speaker 5: York Time.
Speaker 6: Super cool.
Speaker 2: And just to be clear, this would be a sixty
Speaker 2: mile trench to connect the highways even though the Panama
Speaker 2: so after the Panama Canal has been built, all of
Speaker 2: the rigmarole that went into doing that, Okay.
Speaker 3: I love the word rigmarole.
Speaker 4: So now we can get get rid of the natural
Speaker 4: world and maybe we can just build a big bridge.
Speaker 4: We got to be honest, folks. For outsiders, this place,
Speaker 4: the gap is terrified. Pull up your map of choice
Speaker 4: and check it out. It is a geographic choke point.
Speaker 4: It narrowly separates the Caribbean Sea from the Pacific Ocean,
Speaker 4: and even without the involvement of the Pan American Highway,
Speaker 4: which is sort of an entry point for this conversation
Speaker 4: and this exploration, the Darien Gap would still be one
Speaker 4: of the most inhospitable regions of the planet. The temperatures
Speaker 4: are crazy, the biodiversity is such that there are still
Speaker 4: wild animals that can get you. There are mountains, there
Speaker 4: are imagine an unpleasant thing when you think of the
Speaker 4: word deep forest or jungle.
Speaker 3: It's there. It's definitely there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it is huge too. It's I don't know
Speaker 2: the way it's described. Sometimes on paper it doesn't seem
Speaker 2: like it's that much land, but sure it is vast,
Speaker 2: especially if you look at it from above on a map,
Speaker 2: though the maps available to US citizens it appears at least,
Speaker 2: are not.
Speaker 3: Very high quality, not super great.
Speaker 4: You will do some digging here, so don't don't rely
Speaker 4: on Google Maps for this one. Go to places like
Speaker 4: latitude dot t O or go to your satellite observer
Speaker 4: of choice, and you'll you'll see something that's a little
Speaker 4: less dare I say, sanitized, or a little more, a
Speaker 4: little more in detail. And look, we got to be fair.
Speaker 4: People have been living in this patch of the planet
Speaker 4: since antiquity, and we've got a few funny stories or
Speaker 4: tragic stories about this. They're they're kind of like ridiculous history.
Speaker 4: In the days of colonial expansion, European forces, you know,
Speaker 4: we're figuring out the shape of the world, and and
Speaker 4: they thought, hey, look at this little ismuth, this little
Speaker 4: connector the term would be a saddle, a continental saddle,
Speaker 4: and they said, this is going to be a great
Speaker 4: place to settle. This is the park place on our
Speaker 4: global monopoly board. You know, it's nestled between the continents.
Speaker 4: We can get to one place more easily, and then
Speaker 4: we can maybe in the future we can control transit
Speaker 4: and commerce through this land based checkpoint. And so the
Speaker 4: Spanish founded Santa Maria la Antigua del Daren in fifteen ten,
Speaker 4: which makes it one of the first European settlements on
Speaker 4: the American mainland. The Vikings beat them candidly, but for
Speaker 4: the Spaniards this was.
Speaker 3: A big thing.
Speaker 4: And I think, as we're alluding to, they quickly learned that.
Speaker 4: They quickly learned what anybody learns when they're trying to
Speaker 4: buy a house.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: A location on paye can look good, but it often
Speaker 4: doesn't give you the full sense of a place in practice.
Speaker 4: And it didn't take long for people in this new
Speaker 4: community to start leaving the town because it was really
Speaker 4: rough there. There was a lot of disease, there were
Speaker 4: animal attacks. The locals didn't like them, and that's partially
Speaker 4: the fault of the Spanish, if we're being honest. We
Speaker 4: were talking a little bit off air some of the
Speaker 4: folks who left this settlement from fifteen ten they went
Speaker 4: on to found what we call Panama City today.
Speaker 5: And eventually that settlement, Santa Maria, was completely abandoned.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, basically given back to both indigenous peoples
Speaker 2: that were already hanging out there and the wild. But
Speaker 2: a lot of those folks when they left, we were
Speaker 2: talking about Panama City. That's not that far basically northwest,
Speaker 2: kind of wrapping around a little bit to get to
Speaker 2: the area where Panama City was founded, and that place
Speaker 2: just sprung up into a place. Even now when you
Speaker 2: go to it's a center of civilization. It's where you
Speaker 2: hang out when you go to Panama and it's beautiful,
Speaker 2: it's amazing. But it's just crazy to think back in
Speaker 2: you know, fifteen ten. Then just a couple of years afterwards,
Speaker 2: they said we're getting out of here.
Speaker 4: Ooh, and they are not the they are not the
Speaker 4: only Europeans to roll snake Eyes on the dice of
Speaker 4: expansion here. I think that works. Snake Eyes is bad
Speaker 4: in gambling.
Speaker 6: I think that sometimes, right, Yeah, it depends on the game.
Speaker 5: It's a gambling heist movie starring Nicholas Cage and Gary
Speaker 5: Sinise as well. Okay, if you roll snake Eyes, I
Speaker 5: think it's typically not good depending on the game and craps.
Speaker 3: I don't know, guys, and I still don't understand craps.
Speaker 3: I don't understand gambling.
Speaker 4: But there is one more thing we have to mention,
Speaker 4: which we may explore in depth in a future Ridiculous
Speaker 4: History episode. Scotland. It sounds out of the blue. It's
Speaker 4: a true story. We beat me here, Dylan, we the
Speaker 4: not fellow conspiracy realist. The Darien Gap is part of
Speaker 4: why Scotland is no longer independent, which I think a
Speaker 4: lot of us didn't see that coming.
Speaker 2: Like they expended too many resources trying to do stuff.
Speaker 3: There, one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: And I like that we're talking about resources there, Matt,
Speaker 4: because we are going to We're going to explore kind
Speaker 4: of resource allocation.
Speaker 5: Hey, guys, I dont we take a quick pause for
Speaker 5: a word from our sponsor and then jump back across
Speaker 5: the gap.
Speaker 6: Mind the gap, We're back.
Speaker 2: And we've returned. Let's jump back into the story.
Speaker 4: Okay, So the Spanish try, it doesn't work. They make
Speaker 4: Panama City or they found Panama City, which does work.
Speaker 4: Fast forward sixteen ninety eight. Scottish forces make a trading
Speaker 4: colony in the Gap and it's part of something they
Speaker 4: call the Darian Venture. This is often described as the
Speaker 4: most ambitious colonial scheme attempted in all of the seventeenth century.
Speaker 4: Like you were saying, they spent bundles of money on it,
Speaker 4: I was going to say bootles, but I don't think
Speaker 4: bootles is a word in this language.
Speaker 2: Theoretically, this would be a trading post of sorts or
Speaker 2: replace to gain resources from this area, then use ships
Speaker 2: to get it back to Scottish mainland.
Speaker 4: Yes, just so, and they originally they originally entered into
Speaker 4: this with a collaborative mindset. It was like a mixtape
Speaker 4: or posse track. However, their partners pulled out and Scotland
Speaker 4: was continually pumping money, resources, blood treasure into this. More
Speaker 4: and more Scottish colonists died from disease at hacks from
Speaker 4: rival Spanish forces. Obviously the indigenous communities weren't vibing with them.
Speaker 4: Eventually they had to give up their expansionist ambitions.
Speaker 3: In total, we.
Speaker 4: Understand they sent sixteen ships in like three waves. At
Speaker 4: the end of the game, only one ship was able
Speaker 4: to return to Scotland. This was such a disaster that
Speaker 4: at frankly shipwrecked the Scottish economy overall unless than yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: they were they were food bar.
Speaker 2: Was it because they got attacked or like they just
Speaker 2: couldn't maintain in the.
Speaker 5: Area and it like it was just too inhospitable for them, right,
Speaker 5: they just weren't prepared for the conditions that they met.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and transit lines or lines of communication are different there,
Speaker 4: so they're getting news very very late, if at all,
Speaker 4: and they kept you know, throwing money at the problem,
Speaker 4: sort of like someone with a gambling problem.
Speaker 2: Well it's kind of like how the colonies didn't work
Speaker 2: out so great for the British Empire.
Speaker 3: Yeah take that, guys, Yeah, oh you can't.
Speaker 6: It's hard to govern from afar, you know, in those
Speaker 6: days especially.
Speaker 4: And so less than ten years after this disastrous ambitious attempt,
Speaker 4: the financial consequences of this endeavor are part of what
Speaker 4: led Scotland to sign the Treaty of Union, which leads
Speaker 4: to another related allegation of conspiracy. We know that Scotland
Speaker 4: is part of the United Kingdom today, and guys, do
Speaker 4: you remember it wasn't that long ago when a lot
Speaker 4: of our fellow Scottish conspiracy realist were writing to us
Speaker 4: and saying the recent referendum for Scottish independence was rigged.
Speaker 2: Ooh yeah, but I don't have the details there, not
Speaker 2: at least at hand.
Speaker 3: Nor I all right, well, right to the king. Just
Speaker 3: get someone to text them.
Speaker 6: Yes, I got his email.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, what's he doing. I'm sure he's not busy.
Speaker 6: It's the King of England at Yahoo dot com.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: Throughout this entire time, before the age of colonial expansion, uh,
Speaker 4: after it, and even now in modern evenings, Indigenous people
Speaker 4: have lived in this area we call the Darien Gap,
Speaker 4: and they watch outsiders come and go and time and
Speaker 4: time again fail to tame this untamable wilderness. Pretty much
Speaker 4: every outside exploratory force, uh, including would be colonizers. They
Speaker 4: die of all the stuff you would you would be
Speaker 4: familiar with if you ever played Oregon Trail Hunger. There's dysentery, right,
Speaker 4: animal attacks, they drown, or often they simply disappear somewhere
Speaker 4: out there.
Speaker 5: And speaking of the indigenous tribes that hung out in
Speaker 5: that region too, in particular, had the best claims to
Speaker 5: the land, the Gunna and imbarra Unana people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and we want to we want to give space
Speaker 4: to the indigenous communities there. They were again there far
Speaker 4: before the Europeans and far before the conversations we're having now.
Speaker 4: But they, like any other indigenous groups, they're facing tremendous
Speaker 4: challenges from the outside world in the modern day, particularly disease,
Speaker 4: corruption and crime. Because the Darien Gap we've described it
Speaker 4: as you know, it sounds like a terrible piece of
Speaker 4: real estate.
Speaker 3: Right from what we've heard so far.
Speaker 4: It is a necessity for thousands and thousands of people
Speaker 4: to visit. And that's because if you were forced to
Speaker 4: move over land from south to Central America and all
Speaker 4: points north, this is the only way to get through.
Speaker 4: This is the only land passage.
Speaker 2: Yep, and even the waters around this area. So you
Speaker 2: may be thinking, oh, okay, you can't get through on
Speaker 2: the land, we'll just take a boat around this area
Speaker 2: and we'll make it to Panama somewhere, or maybe all
Speaker 2: the way to Costa Rica, which is, you know, just
Speaker 2: on the other side. No, because those waters are fully
Speaker 2: controlled by a lot of the same human beings that
Speaker 2: are controlling the land.
Speaker 4: Yes, and they have a vested interest in determining how
Speaker 4: you fit into their portfolio of profit. How's that for diplomacy? Yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: we're gonna look at what makes this area so dangerous
Speaker 4: in detail and just a bit. But if you are
Speaker 4: like us, if you live in the United States, one
Speaker 4: of your first questions may plausibly be something like, well, hot, dang, guys,
Speaker 4: we sent humans to outer space. We invented velcrow and automobiles,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. What's another cool invention? Tupperware?
Speaker 2: Tupperware?
Speaker 4: Yeah, mod synthesizers. Why can't civilization, with all these innovations
Speaker 4: build one measly stretch of road here as we'll find.
Speaker 4: It's a great question, but the answer is kind of complex.
Speaker 6: Right, We built nukes, we could use some of those.
Speaker 3: Maybe we should just nuke every.
Speaker 6: Prop I think that's a good call.
Speaker 3: All right, Our next sponsor is dirty bombs.
Speaker 5: Well, these are important questions and they have important and
Speaker 5: complex answers. There are a ton of people and communities
Speaker 5: who are completely against the idea of connecting the highway
Speaker 5: through the Darien Gap. Indigenous groups on both sides of
Speaker 5: the Panamanian Columbian border are against this kind of construction
Speaker 5: for obvious reasons, as are associated governments and activist groups,
Speaker 5: and of course criminals, being that this would be a
Speaker 5: pretty solid area to hide away and do you know crimes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the reasons for so already we see there
Speaker 4: are multiple what corporate America would call stakeholders they're reasoning
Speaker 4: against completing this.
Speaker 3: Stretch of highway. It's pretty valid.
Speaker 4: The critics of construction are going to cite things like
Speaker 4: protecting the rainforest. The biodiversity in this little patch is amazing,
Speaker 4: and especially given these current times when the larger rainforest,
Speaker 4: the Brazilian rainforest, the Amazon, is under such immediate, clear
Speaker 4: and present threat, you want to save what you can.
Speaker 4: And their argument is that construction is going to inevitably
Speaker 4: lead to intense deforestation, is going to endanger native wildlife
Speaker 4: right and in some cases this is the primary place
Speaker 4: where these life forms reside. And they say, you know,
Speaker 4: once damage is done, there's not political will to fix it.
Speaker 2: Well, once any type of road, well, let's just imagine
Speaker 2: a road is built there, any type of road, even
Speaker 2: if it's a two lane highway right, one road going west,
Speaker 2: one road going east. And once you put that in there,
Speaker 2: what pops up? What else pops up along that road?
Speaker 2: People need to get water, people need to get food. Right,
Speaker 2: They're going to be entrepreneurial human beings that decide, hey, well,
Speaker 2: we're going to figure out how to do this even
Speaker 2: if it's not sanctioned legally right in the area, because
Speaker 2: we know that's already happening now, even without a road.
Speaker 4: Yeah, to paraphrase Jurassic Park, profit finds a way. And yeah,
Speaker 4: this gets us too. I mean, this gets us to.
Speaker 3: The other thing.
Speaker 4: There's a real concern about the spread of disease. And
Speaker 4: at first, I'll be honest, I don't know about you guys,
Speaker 4: but at first I thought this was propaganda until I
Speaker 4: looked into it. The idea that one could use the
Speaker 4: gap as a natural barrier against the spread of various
Speaker 4: tropical diseases sounds a little politically convenient, But also it
Speaker 4: turns out foot and mouth disease is a huge deal.
Speaker 4: Despite the kind of silly name.
Speaker 5: And this, yeh did, and could continue to protect livestock,
Speaker 5: you know, from getting afflicted with this disease, which can
Speaker 5: be devastating.
Speaker 2: It is a big deal, it does.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: The protecting livestock makes sense, right, But then trying to
Speaker 2: use this gap as a stop gap against human born diseases,
Speaker 2: that doesn't make much sense to me, because you know, planes, boats, Yeah.
Speaker 4: You know, there are a couple of other choices. It's
Speaker 4: it's it's a pickle, it's a bag of badgers, for sure.
Speaker 4: We will note that neither Central America or North America
Speaker 4: entire have had a significant breakout of the viral disease
Speaker 4: known as foot and mouth disease since nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 4: The third thing, another very valid point, is hey, let's
Speaker 4: try to protect the lives and existence of indigenous communities.
Speaker 4: And you don't have to look far. You'll have to
Speaker 4: look far at all to find the terrifying consequences of
Speaker 4: the modern world intruding upon the livelihood of an indigenous group.
Speaker 5: Yeah, deforestation, expansion of infrastructure. Often, you know, the folks
Speaker 5: that were there first are the ones that kind of
Speaker 5: end up holding the bag.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's part of the reason why I love
Speaker 4: the example of just building a simple two lane road,
Speaker 4: right that will still bring with it knock on consequences
Speaker 4: that are often not clear to the public until it's
Speaker 4: too late to turn back.
Speaker 2: And it's a slippery slope, right, because it would be
Speaker 2: like a single motel gets built, right, and then oh well,
Speaker 2: well then we need a like a supply stop. Oh
Speaker 2: now we need a gas station. No. Now, you know,
Speaker 2: it's just because.
Speaker 4: If you give a mouse a cookie, is a great
Speaker 4: is a great parable for that kind of thing, right,
Speaker 4: And and this is the last one, just for some levity,
Speaker 4: because we'll need it as our journey continues.
Speaker 3: I had to laugh at this.
Speaker 4: Uh, some of the governments in the area, Panama, Colombia,
Speaker 4: some Caribbean nations as well, and of course our buddy
Speaker 4: uncle Sam from earlier. Uh, they say you can't build
Speaker 4: the road because you're preventing drug trafficking. You know who
Speaker 4: agrees with not building the road the drug cartels that
Speaker 4: run the Darien Gap.
Speaker 2: Wait, so they're saying you can't build the road because
Speaker 2: the gap is preventing trafficking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: I don't know about that, guys.
Speaker 3: I think it's laughable. And it's crazy.
Speaker 4: I just want to commend the comedy chops of people
Speaker 4: who are able to say that in public with a
Speaker 4: straight face. You know what I mean, you have a
Speaker 4: future in improv.
Speaker 6: I mean it's an absolute haven for drug traffickers.
Speaker 5: Like I was saying earlier, it's like the perfect location
Speaker 5: to hide away, you know, from prying eyes doing drug
Speaker 5: manufacturing and distribution.
Speaker 3: Priying nice.
Speaker 2: I will Devil's advocate just enough to say a highway
Speaker 2: would make it easier, maybe, especially if you still controlled
Speaker 2: the area.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's highway with caveat right. If you still
Speaker 4: control what purports to be border security and the rule
Speaker 4: of law, then a highway be massive. But these guys
Speaker 4: already control generals and kernels, and they're paying off the
Speaker 4: right people. Let's get to it, all right, And it's
Speaker 4: an excellent point. As a result of all these combined factors,
Speaker 4: it does not look like any one is going to
Speaker 4: build a road traversing the gap anytime soon. And yet
Speaker 4: that does not stop thousands upon thousands of people from
Speaker 4: braving the gap, sometimes without their own consent, each and
Speaker 4: every year. So our question is why we're going to
Speaker 4: pause for a word from our sponsors and then we'll
Speaker 4: dive in.
Speaker 3: And we've returned.
Speaker 4: Please be well aware, yet I'm afraid the following may
Speaker 4: not be appropriate for all our fellow listeners. Here's where
Speaker 4: it gets crazy. The short answer for the vast majority
Speaker 4: of people who are temporarily populating the gap is simply
Speaker 4: this migration. According to the United Nations and estimated eight
Speaker 4: hundred thousand people including children and adolescents, cross through this
Speaker 4: area or attempted to do so in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: They did so on foot. They had very little in
Speaker 4: the way of access to food, water, shelter, or safety.
Speaker 2: And that also includes a lot of women who are
Speaker 2: imminently going to give birth.
Speaker 5: Very yeah, yeah, And they're coming from countries like Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela,
Speaker 5: other South American countries or in the mix. But you'll
Speaker 5: find folks from even Haiti or Ethiopia, or the Congo
Speaker 5: Democratic Republic of the Congo, China, even Cameroon, India and
Speaker 5: Pakistan again all mixed in with these South American countries.
Speaker 2: And this is theoretically because it's easier to get into
Speaker 2: like from those other places that would seem a bit
Speaker 2: more far flowng to get into a South American country
Speaker 2: and move their way towards the gap.
Speaker 4: Yeah, anticipated this. I love that we're pointing this out.
Speaker 4: So think about it this way. If you're looking at
Speaker 4: the map still and you're saying, hey, why would you
Speaker 4: come from a place as far away as South Asia
Speaker 4: or China and go this way? In the example of China,
Speaker 4: I don't want to tell too many tales out of school. Here,
Speaker 4: you can fly to Ecuador visa free. And once you
Speaker 4: get to Ecuador, then the rule of law is a
Speaker 4: little more porous, as are the borders, so it becomes
Speaker 4: easier to traverse over land. Most people who have an
Speaker 4: alternative way of attempting to get to the United States.
Speaker 4: And again, most of these people migrating are trying to
Speaker 4: get to the US. They're not trying to get to
Speaker 4: Gude and stay there or something. They're trying to reach
Speaker 4: Uncle Sam. And when they're doing this, they're forced to
Speaker 4: travel through the gap because it's their last choice, it's
Speaker 4: the one they can afford to do. Otherwise, why would
Speaker 4: you not take a boat? Why would you not try
Speaker 4: to get a plane? And the US Coast Guard like
Speaker 4: bord of you know, Noley just mentioned Haiti Haiti. It
Speaker 4: feels like you're doubling back, right, you're going south to
Speaker 4: get north in some way.
Speaker 6: Right an ass or out elbow situation.
Speaker 4: And that's because entities like the US Coast Guard are
Speaker 4: spotting and stopping boats and they've got a pretty crazy
Speaker 4: track record of doing so. So your odds of getting
Speaker 4: to the US are actually improved if you go out
Speaker 4: of your way and go through this land route.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes so much sense if you look at
Speaker 2: the larger map, especially if you're coming in from the
Speaker 2: Atlantic side or in the Caribbean, like, you can just
Speaker 2: see how the routes could be easily patrolled. And then
Speaker 2: Panama's cozy, you know, relationship with the US and via
Speaker 2: the canal and all that stuff. You can see why
Speaker 2: you wouldn't go straight to Panama or Costa Rica or Nicaragua,
Speaker 2: even you would go the other route.
Speaker 3: Or try your luck in the Gulf of America. I
Speaker 3: can't remember what we're supposed to call it.
Speaker 6: Only part of it. Apparently there's still a portion of
Speaker 6: it that's the Gulf of Mexican.
Speaker 3: Okay, right on everything fine.
Speaker 2: Still says Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 5: You see, there's some some dude that came out and
Speaker 5: was railing on Google Maps and for not correcting it yet.
Speaker 5: But apparently it's also like it's not required. It's only
Speaker 5: like a proposal of some kinds and they have thirty
Speaker 5: five days or something to enact it or to replace
Speaker 5: it on you know, government sanctioned maps and things like that.
Speaker 4: Also check out our earlier episode on textbooks and maritime borders.
Speaker 4: I think, I know we've discussed this, but look to
Speaker 4: East Asia and see see what each different country in
Speaker 4: that region decides to call the bodies of water next
Speaker 4: to them spoiler.
Speaker 3: They don't agree.
Speaker 4: This is disturbing because a place that governments and corporations
Speaker 4: for centuries have deemed an impossible HQ point or transit
Speaker 4: route has become a super highway of sorts, right or
Speaker 4: a big sort of a big path for people who
Speaker 4: are fleeing disaster in their home communities. And the fastest
Speaker 4: growing portion of these migrants, I think the one that
Speaker 4: really really bothers us it's children. It's children under the
Speaker 4: age of five. They're the fastest growing demographic of people
Speaker 4: migrating as a last resort through the gap.
Speaker 6: Wow, oh my goodness.
Speaker 4: Yeah, fifth of fifth of the at least according to
Speaker 4: the official numbers, and we'll see why those are tricky.
Speaker 4: Of fifth of the people migrating are children adolescents. Part
Speaker 4: of the reason why the fastest growing documented demographic is
Speaker 4: children under five is to that earlier point, because they're
Speaker 4: expectant mothers who not infrequently will give birth in transit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think this might be a good time
Speaker 5: to talk about asylum seekers versus refugees. And I know that,
Speaker 5: you know, it's certainly an issue that comes up every
Speaker 5: time there's a new president. If I'm not mistaken, one
Speaker 5: of the executive orders that was signed on day one
Speaker 5: had something to do with making it much more difficult,
Speaker 5: if not completely cutting off asylum seekers essentially, I believe
Speaker 5: it's shut the system down temporarily.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of stuff here, as we record on Friday,
Speaker 4: January twenty fourth, twenty twenty five, in the United States,
Speaker 4: a lot of stuff is like a shoe hanging in
Speaker 4: the balance. You know, things have been put on pause.
Speaker 4: Courts are deciding what gets to be permanent. In recent decades,
Speaker 4: migration has been a what we call a hot button
Speaker 4: issue in the United States. Recent moves by the last
Speaker 4: few presidential administrations have sought to close access to the
Speaker 4: country by various means, and sometimes that means they are
Speaker 4: creating new restrictions on who can get a visa, who
Speaker 4: needs a visa, how long that visa applies, or they're
Speaker 4: returning to older policies with higher barriers to legal entry.
Speaker 4: And that's I appreciate you pointing out the concept of
Speaker 4: asylum and refugee status. It's worth our time, right just
Speaker 4: to break down the difference here.
Speaker 5: It's something that I think I've always been a little
Speaker 5: tenuous about myself, all right.
Speaker 4: And the difference really depends upon where you're at. To
Speaker 4: qualify in the United States for either asylum or refugee status,
Speaker 4: you have to prove to Uncle Sam that you are
Speaker 4: going to be persecuted or maybe even murdered based on
Speaker 4: your race, religion, nationality, your political activity, or what they
Speaker 4: loosely call State Department loosely calls membership in a particular
Speaker 4: social group, and that's sort of their miscellaneous umbrella term, right,
Speaker 4: So that can include LGBTQ, that could include an activist
Speaker 4: group like a fallum gong. There's a big Vin diagram there,
Speaker 4: and the big difference there is that you ask for
Speaker 4: asylum when you get to the border or when you
Speaker 4: are already in the country, and legally right now, again
Speaker 4: a lot of things are on pause. We don't know
Speaker 4: if this will be true in a few months, but legally,
Speaker 4: right now, you have a year to request asylum once
Speaker 4: you once you reach the United States. There are exceptions
Speaker 4: like Cuba, but that's that's a fine look.
Speaker 5: And just to clarify what I mentioned earlier, one of
Speaker 5: those executive orders indefinitely suspended the ability for individual jewels
Speaker 5: to legally seek asylum. And apparently it's quite unprecedented. This
Speaker 5: has been part of the United States law since the eighties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so again it'll go to the courts, right And
Speaker 4: that reminds me of another sticky wicket, the idea of
Speaker 4: removing the constitutionally guaranteed concept of citizenship by birth. That's
Speaker 4: going to be that's going to be an absolute mindfield.
Speaker 4: To return to what we're saying, the difference with asylum
Speaker 4: is and refugee status.
Speaker 3: Is where you're at.
Speaker 4: If you are requesting refugee status, you can do so
Speaker 4: outside of the United States. You do not have to
Speaker 4: be in your origin country. All you have to prove
Speaker 4: is that you are unable or unwilling to return to
Speaker 4: your country of origin because of those of one of
Speaker 4: those five loose categories we outlined earlier. Unfortunately, as we know,
Speaker 4: it's very difficult to get that kind of status asylum
Speaker 4: or refugee status. And guys, I don't want to sound
Speaker 4: too cynical, but from what I'm seeing, people often have
Speaker 4: the highest chance of meeting success if something about their
Speaker 4: country or their identity is in the news cycle, or
Speaker 4: if there's a larger geopolitical move or if you know,
Speaker 4: god willing, they get help from an NGO.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2: Specifically I'm thinking, I'm thinking about Venezuelan refugees and you know,
Speaker 2: think about the news cycle and everything that was occurring
Speaker 2: in Venezuela over the past Josh, I don't even know
Speaker 2: how many years at this point, but where that was
Speaker 2: a that was a big deal to allow in a
Speaker 2: lot of people from that country because of the chaos
Speaker 2: that was occurring, you know, in the country, but also
Speaker 2: in the news.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the public is reacting, the politicians are reacting
Speaker 4: as a result. Right, there's a there's a feedback loop
Speaker 4: and now all of a sudden, until the next headline
Speaker 4: breaks people care. And with that, since we're mentioning executive orders,
Speaker 4: what do you think to want to get some primary
Speaker 4: source on that one.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, let's jump to the executive order that Noel mentioned,
Speaker 2: because this just came forward on January twentieth, and we're
Speaker 2: recording this on the twenty fourth, and it goes into
Speaker 2: effect on January twenty seventh. So I mean, this is
Speaker 2: just crazy. How fast an executive order like this can
Speaker 2: you know, be ordered and then some action can take place. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: This is titled you can find it right now, realigning
Speaker 2: the United States Refugee Admissions Program, and that is specifically
Speaker 2: the US Refugee Admissions Program known as USRAP. It is hereby,
Speaker 2: according to the newly inaugurated President, suspended starting January twenty seventh.
Speaker 2: It says, quote, I therefore direct that entry into the
Speaker 2: United States of refugees under the us RAP be suspended.
Speaker 6: So, like.
Speaker 4: I guess, it's it's a tense time because it as
Speaker 4: to go to ask to go to the courts, right,
Speaker 4: It's tough.
Speaker 3: People are going to fight it.
Speaker 4: But the question becomes a question of as boring as
Speaker 4: it is to say, it becomes a question of procedure,
Speaker 4: because the minute that kicks in on the twenty seventh,
Speaker 4: people or agencies aren't going to wait for the courts.
Speaker 4: You know, you can't tell somebody okay, you're applying for
Speaker 4: the status. Here, kick it in the lobby. You know,
Speaker 4: we got we got some popular mechanics magazines from twenty twelve.
Speaker 4: If you want to just scroll through those and.
Speaker 6: Then we'll leaves digests.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll tell you what Scotus says.
Speaker 2: You know, you know, it really reminds me of our
Speaker 2: earlier episodes where we talked about the powers that the
Speaker 2: executive branch received post nine to eleven, and just this
Speaker 2: concept of how you can use an executive order, the
Speaker 2: way an executive order is executed, and how all of
Speaker 2: that changed as power started to go away from you know,
Speaker 2: Congress and the lawmakers the legislature to the presidential seat.
Speaker 4: Yes, the problem with well, this is a non American perspective,
Speaker 4: but I've heard it more than once. The problem with
Speaker 4: all three branches of the United States government. We're not
Speaker 4: counting the media just yet, but they are the fourth estate.
Speaker 4: The issue there is that all three of those groups
Speaker 4: are expansionist, inherently power begets power, and power like seeking
Speaker 4: out more power.
Speaker 2: And they're supposed to all say, hey, we got enough
Speaker 2: power each We're cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this checks.
Speaker 2: Supposed to work.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but you know who even balances a checkbook these days, right,
Speaker 4: So everybody's just everybody's just going ham on their thing.
Speaker 3: We are going to make this a two parter. Before
Speaker 3: we do.
Speaker 4: I believe there is one one concept that we need
Speaker 4: to put in mind here as we get closer to
Speaker 4: traveling the gap, and it is this. You have to
Speaker 4: note that there are differing administrations and different branches of
Speaker 4: government that have contradictory policies on the concept of immigration.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, if one is being intellectually honest,
Speaker 4: we must admit that these crackdowns go across the political
Speaker 4: and ideological board. The recent Biden administration did something that
Speaker 4: Gollum from Tolkien would call trixie. They spent a lot
Speaker 4: of time not super duper in the headlines, not talking
Speaker 4: to the US public. They would go to governments Mexico,
Speaker 4: Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras like you know, Ecuador, places that
Speaker 4: were associated with this, with this swell in migration, and
Speaker 4: they would say, hey, guys, you're in our backyard. We
Speaker 4: need you to change the laws.
Speaker 3: We don't.
Speaker 4: We're not going to necessarily change our stuff. We need
Speaker 4: you to do it. And this is meant to prevent
Speaker 4: migration from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Venezuela, of course.
Speaker 4: And this is where we get too. Folks like Yale Shatcher,
Speaker 4: who is a director for the Americas in Europe at
Speaker 4: Refugees International. Guy knows what he's talking about. He was
Speaker 4: speaking with the Progressive Magazine in twenty twenty two and
Speaker 4: he says, when I've talked to the Biden administration about
Speaker 4: the pressure they're putting on these adjacent countries, he says,
Speaker 4: what's a little frustrating is they typically say, these are
Speaker 4: not our policies, these are the policies of other governments.
Speaker 5: Well, sure, it's like a buffer kind of right, it's
Speaker 5: a bait and switch totally.
Speaker 2: Well, in all of those countries we talk talked about
Speaker 2: there again, going back to Venezuela, Haiti, Ecuador, Cuba, Columbia,
Speaker 2: these are places that are experiencing tremendous changes, right, detrimental
Speaker 2: changes due to often activities of criminals, of people who
Speaker 2: are on the other side of the law, people who
Speaker 2: are seeking to overthrow governments. So there are a lot
Speaker 2: of citizens attempting to go other places. And it is
Speaker 2: such a your tricksy is such a good way to
Speaker 2: describe it.
Speaker 4: Then well it's I mean, okay to micro to take
Speaker 4: it microcosmic, and I appreciate that, Matt, to take up
Speaker 4: micro cosmic. If you have kids, or if you've interacted
Speaker 4: parent family kid groups, then you may be encountered at
Speaker 4: some point a parent or an authority figure who sort
Speaker 4: of forces a decision on a kid and then wants
Speaker 4: the kid to pretend like it was their decision. And
Speaker 4: that's sort of what do you Yeah, that's sort of
Speaker 4: what the US is doing. They're saying, Oh, oh gosh,
Speaker 4: oh geez, guys, it's not us, it's these other folks.
Speaker 4: You know, these are sovereign nations. It's their decision. They're
Speaker 4: doing what they want and it just happens to be
Speaker 4: exactly what we told them to do.
Speaker 2: And also, everybody, just stay where you are, is what
Speaker 2: they're saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And let's let's also point out, because I know
Speaker 4: politics can be very sensitive any time, but especially these days.
Speaker 4: These policy changes did not begin with the Biden administration.
Speaker 4: They began during the Obama administration.
Speaker 5: Yep, how easily folks forget some of the nefarious things
Speaker 5: that the Obama administration was responsible for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, it just it goes back to that. It
Speaker 2: makes me feel things differently, guys. We've mentioned it before
Speaker 2: on the show, just this concept of the United States
Speaker 2: having opening arms and saying, give us your tired report,
Speaker 2: come to us, come to us. We have opportunity. But really,
Speaker 2: even then, way before then, they're just saying we need
Speaker 2: cheap labor. Give us your cheap labor because we have
Speaker 2: industry and we need human bodies to grow at.
Speaker 6: It masquerading as the American dream.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, not what you say, but how you say it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: since we're quoting poetry there, it's pretty awesome poetry. By
Speaker 4: the way, check out that Ma Lazarus poem. It is
Speaker 4: worth your time. We've got to say this, these are
Speaker 4: hidden hand policies. The US administrations were not being entirely
Speaker 4: transparent with the US public and indeed with the global public.
Speaker 4: So Dylan, if we can can we get a little wompwomp,
Speaker 4: because they earned it.
Speaker 3: It's that terrific there it is.
Speaker 4: And look when these we'll call them hidden hand policies.
Speaker 4: When they were enacted, they did not stop what they
Speaker 4: were purporting to stop, Just like Nixon and the War
Speaker 4: on drugs or the War on crime. They didn't prevent
Speaker 4: migration from other countries. Instead, they shifted it. They shifted
Speaker 4: the means of migration to other roots. No one solved
Speaker 4: the problem, They just moved.
Speaker 6: It a little sleight of hand there.
Speaker 5: This is why you'll find various experts and analysts who
Speaker 5: argue that the US has for years not been addressing
Speaker 5: migration as an issue, but simply kind of kicking the
Speaker 5: can further down the road, effectively pushing their own border
Speaker 5: further south.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, think of it like a house on fire. We
Speaker 4: all know that cutesy meme with the dog saying this
Speaker 4: is fine, fine, good. Yeah, you find a house on fire,
Speaker 4: and instead of putting out the fire, the people in power,
Speaker 4: for a panoply of reasons on all sides of political aisles,
Speaker 4: they effectively just moved the fire to a different house
Speaker 4: in a different neighborhood and said, yeah, okay, all good,
Speaker 4: vote for us again. But people were still burning as
Speaker 4: a result. Is that too hyperbolic?
Speaker 6: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to figure out how you move that
Speaker 2: fire without putting it out.
Speaker 4: I know, right, is the technology there? So our next
Speaker 4: question is going to be why Darien Gap. We've shared
Speaker 4: a lot of context and history in this, but this
Speaker 4: is clearly going to be a series, so we're going
Speaker 4: to pause it here and we hope you tune in
Speaker 4: for our very next episode, which will be which will
Speaker 4: be traveling into the Gap. In the meantime, thank you
Speaker 4: so much for tuning in, folks. We hope this message
Speaker 4: finds you well and safe. In amid grand consensual adventure.
Speaker 4: We want to hear your thoughts. Have you traversed the
Speaker 4: Gap or do you know anyone who has done so? Like,
Speaker 4: what do you wish more people understood about the current
Speaker 4: state of migration today, not just in the West, but
Speaker 4: in the world over all. Tell us your thoughts. We're
Speaker 4: here with you and we can't wait to hear from you.
Speaker 4: You can find us via email. You can call us
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Speaker 3: Should one choose?
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Speaker 5: Glad you locked that down, buddy, WHOA.
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