Speaker 1: Last episode, we heard from taco truck owner Rollodo faux Barientho,
Speaker 1: so I interviewed the dey Daca was defibrillated back to life.
Speaker 1: The weight of its return didn't really hit me until
Speaker 1: I spoke to him. I recorded his raw feelings on
Speaker 1: that day after eating some tacos. This was how he
Speaker 1: felt back then.
Speaker 2: Today, like it's a big victory, but I feel like
Speaker 2: more of a sense of urgency that because it is,
Speaker 2: it is like a huge deal. There needs there needs
Speaker 2: to be more urgency of the matter and you know,
Speaker 2: more action from everyone's part so that it doesn't get
Speaker 2: brush of the rugs, like the things that need to
Speaker 2: be done.
Speaker 1: That was three years ago now and a lot has
Speaker 1: changed since then. We wanted to check in with Rollard
Speaker 1: Fox and see see how he's feeling these days. So
Speaker 1: our team reached out to him and played rodolin Fo
Speaker 1: the recording of his voice from the day Daca was revived.
Speaker 1: This was his reaction.
Speaker 3: Actually, it feels empowering, which is one of the changes
Speaker 3: that I think I've developed as of the last couple
Speaker 3: of years. I personally had a sense of frustration, like
Speaker 3: deep frustration that was feeling me when I was having
Speaker 3: that interview with Eric. So aside from the sadness, aside
Speaker 3: from the fear and the stress, I do think that
Speaker 3: there is like a degree of frustration that comes from
Speaker 3: feeling unvalued that I don't know. To me, it sounded
Speaker 3: like I was very direct and I felt like I
Speaker 3: was certain of what I was saying. The idea that
Speaker 3: I felt empowered, because that's how I feel right now
Speaker 3: listening to it.
Speaker 1: It warms my heart that his raw thoughts and emotions
Speaker 1: made him feel empowered and he still feels that way
Speaker 1: today in spite of uncertainty, because in his words, I
Speaker 1: can hear hundreds of thousands of others just like him.
Speaker 1: Rollotofol is one of many Doaga folks that's built this
Speaker 1: country up. Doca's survival is a big deal for people
Speaker 1: like Rolodo fol but also for the American economy. Whether
Speaker 1: it's takettos or nurses, teachers, first responders, lawyers, and so
Speaker 1: many others. DOCTA recipients contribute billions of dollars to our economy.
Speaker 1: That's billions with a beat. So yeah, this episode isn't
Speaker 1: just about tacos. It's about the money, Baby America.
Speaker 4: Lindo I'm Patti Rodriguez. This is Out of the Shadows,
Speaker 4: a podcast about America's tangled history of immigration. Last season,
Speaker 4: we tackled Ronald Reagan's nineteen eighty six Amnesty Act. This season,
Speaker 4: we're tracing the agents of DAKA, or Deferred Action for
Speaker 4: Childhood Arrivals, a contentious executive order to protect undocumented young
Speaker 4: people from being.
Speaker 1: Deported issued by former President Barack Obama in twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: DACA was meant to be a temporary stop gap on
Speaker 1: a broken immigration system. It was like putting a bucket
Speaker 1: under a leaky roof, But with multiple Supreme Court challenges
Speaker 1: and looming presidential elections, the roof feels like it may
Speaker 1: collapse at any moment, impacting the US economy and American
Speaker 1: culture as we know it. Meanwhile, the future of millions
Speaker 1: of lives hangs in the balance.
Speaker 5: Welcome to Out of the Shadows, Dreamers.
Speaker 4: So the Supreme Court ruled that DACAS here to stay,
Speaker 4: not out of the goodness of its heart, but because
Speaker 4: Trump's administration didn't follow protocol.
Speaker 6: Our lawsuit was about how when the government tried to
Speaker 6: end DACA, they didn't do it the right way.
Speaker 4: That's Luis Cortes Romero, the lawyer with daca's status that
Speaker 4: defended the program in the courts.
Speaker 6: We thought President Trump was just going to come out
Speaker 6: and say, well, fine, I'm going to end it the
Speaker 6: right way. But the thing is that President Trump did
Speaker 6: not want to do that. He knew that it would
Speaker 6: cost him politically.
Speaker 4: One theme that came up during the case was the
Speaker 4: economic concern of ending the program permanently. CEOs of companies
Speaker 4: like Apples sent the Supreme Court amicus briefs, or official
Speaker 4: statements on behalf of the dreamers, warning that ending DACA
Speaker 4: would have a negative impact on the economy.
Speaker 6: One of the things that is allowed at the Supreme
Speaker 6: Court is these things called amicus briefs. Essentially, it reports
Speaker 6: be filed for people who aren't involved with the case
Speaker 6: but want to say something about it. And so Fortune
Speaker 6: five hundred companies got together and collectively signed on to
Speaker 6: a brief. I'm talking about like Airbnb, Yahoo, like a
Speaker 6: lot of them. There's like a whole list of them
Speaker 6: saying if DACA ends, like, let us tell you about
Speaker 6: the economic impact that's going to have of us, Because
Speaker 6: not only do we have DOCTA recipients in our workforce,
Speaker 6: but we also serve a lot of doctor recipients, and
Speaker 6: it's part of our economic ecosystem. And so it's going
Speaker 6: to be a multi billion dollar cost if DACA ends,
Speaker 6: especially if it ends suddenly, and so that weighed on
Speaker 6: the Justice's mind for sure. Tim Cook and Apple both
Speaker 6: independently wrote to the Supreme Court in the Namica Is
Speaker 6: Brief saying, Hey, this is going to impact Apple in
Speaker 6: a really big way. And what I tripped out on
Speaker 6: was it was kind of it's going to tribute the
Speaker 6: American Medical Association. This is twenty nineteen. In late twenty nineteen,
Speaker 6: they wrote an amicus brief to the Court and they
Speaker 6: talked about how a notable portion of its medical association nurses, doctors,
Speaker 6: just medical professionals, were doct recipients and serve under developed communities.
Speaker 6: And in their amicus brief in late twenty nineteen, they mentioned, like,
Speaker 6: if there just so happened to be some sort of
Speaker 6: pandemic and all of our doctor recipients like we're no
Speaker 6: longer allowed to work, we would be at a catastrophic situation.
Speaker 6: And it's kind of trippy because a few months later
Speaker 6: than a pandemic that no one knew was coming, like
Speaker 6: ended up coming.
Speaker 4: It was like some sort of prophecy came true when
Speaker 4: COVID hit the US in twenty twenty. DOCCA recipients were
Speaker 4: invaluable to our survival. They put their lives at risk
Speaker 4: for the health of others. The Center for American Progress
Speaker 4: estimated that nearly a quarter million DOCTA recipients were working
Speaker 4: jobs at the forefront of coronavirus. They feed us, teach us,
Speaker 4: care for us, and protect us. But to put it
Speaker 4: in terms conservatives understand, they are also a vital part
Speaker 4: of our economy.
Speaker 5: We'll be right back after the break.
Speaker 7: My name is Alexandre Padilla, and I'm a professor of
Speaker 7: economics and the chair of the economics department at Metropolitan
Speaker 7: State Chairs Still of Denver.
Speaker 1: We reached out to Professor Badia to help us understand
Speaker 1: the economics surrounding DACA recipients, and he says there's a
Speaker 1: lot of data and studies on it.
Speaker 7: The overall result from a broader perspective is that these
Speaker 7: human beings that cross the border and come to the
Speaker 7: US or to quote unquote rich country or developed countries,
Speaker 7: become far more productive.
Speaker 1: Badia himself is an immigrant and that may or may
Speaker 1: not impact his views on a micro level, but he
Speaker 1: says that data paints a clear picture from a macro level.
Speaker 7: So from a bigger viewpoint, bigger picture of your point,
Speaker 7: the answer is that immigration right is seen as a
Speaker 7: net benefits to the economy, to the society because people
Speaker 7: come with talent, They bring their talent and they can
Speaker 7: exercise their talent in a more productive way. So when
Speaker 7: we think about immigration, it brings more productivity, more entrepreneurship,
Speaker 7: more new businesses, more diverse city in term of products
Speaker 7: and services. With more diversity of the population comes also
Speaker 7: the ability to satisfy more diverse tastes and preferences.
Speaker 1: Though the anti immigration rhetoric might say otherwise, undocumented immigrants
Speaker 1: are hard contributors to the economy. That's especially true of dreamers.
Speaker 7: Undocumented immigrants that are hard contributors to the economy. Whether
Speaker 7: it's in term of working for businesses and industry that
Speaker 7: people don't want to work because wages at the law,
Speaker 7: or in term of paying taxes. Most people tend to
Speaker 7: forget is that DARKA recipients pay a lot of taxes
Speaker 7: right The pay property taxes, the pay sales taxes, they
Speaker 7: pay taxes on their income, and if you eliminate DAKA,
Speaker 7: they are no longer going to earn as higher wages
Speaker 7: than they would be if they were working former economy,
Speaker 7: which means they will pay less taxes on the income,
Speaker 7: which means the governments, the local governments will have less
Speaker 7: tax revenues to do things that benefit to all citizens
Speaker 7: in a given state or given locality, or given county
Speaker 7: or district.
Speaker 1: Docca's contributions benefit everyone in the country, even those that
Speaker 1: tried to end it, or we were making the show,
Speaker 1: we had this idea, maybe optimistically, that DAKA was too
Speaker 1: big to fail. We asked Professor Padiel what he thought
Speaker 1: of that theory, and he didn't immediately laugh in our faces,
Speaker 1: which is good.
Speaker 7: I think, to some extent, your analogies is not completely incorrect.
Speaker 1: Okay, he laughed a little. He sees it a little differently.
Speaker 7: Good analogies like, hey, if you live in it daka,
Speaker 7: you are depriving the US economists of talent. You are
Speaker 7: depriving people from exercising in an efficient productive way their talent. Right, So,
Speaker 7: and I think it's an important economic thing we need
Speaker 7: to remember.
Speaker 1: But of course it's bigger than that. We can break
Speaker 1: down what they contribute in raw data, and maybe people
Speaker 1: get that, but they can still be salty about darker
Speaker 1: recipients having come here in the first place. But the
Speaker 1: answers people are less inclined to understand the factors that
Speaker 1: cause immigrants to leave in the first place.
Speaker 7: When you are at that cab beneficiary, your parents took
Speaker 7: huge risk, and they can both huge risk because they
Speaker 7: wanted the better life of their children. They went to
Speaker 7: escape a life of extreme poverty or like in most
Speaker 7: cases that we tend to forget, they can because they
Speaker 7: were escaping extreme violes. They most they'll come from country
Speaker 7: that are prone to huge balance because the war on
Speaker 7: drugs and that you have drug hotels. So those parents
Speaker 7: decided to have a better life of your children, so
Speaker 7: they took those sutress one thing that you teach your
Speaker 7: children when you do that, you teach them to become entrepreneurs.
Speaker 4: Whether you get why people fled their countries for a
Speaker 4: better life or not, the numbers don't lie. But the
Speaker 4: ess dakas economic benefits on the US economy were pretty immediate, and.
Speaker 7: I was looking at more data from another institute on
Speaker 7: taxation economic policy, but talk about is about one point
Speaker 7: three million in twenty eighteen. Young and documented immigrants enroll
Speaker 7: immediately legible and they contribute at the state level and
Speaker 7: state and local taxes to one point seven billion per year.
Speaker 7: And the idea that immigrants comes to us to take
Speaker 7: away things that belonged to you or to capture go
Speaker 7: to get government paycheck, it just knows true.
Speaker 1: When Doltafoo Barrientos first opened his Loncetta Gracia signor nobody
Speaker 1: really showed up. That's because he parked his truck in
Speaker 1: the Pacific Palisades, an affluent part of LA that's not
Speaker 1: really known for his taco scene. But Olonfo had an
Speaker 1: idea to get people interested. He started giving out free
Speaker 1: samples of Vidria, the tender stewed beef cooked with spices.
Speaker 1: These days, most people have heard of Dia. It's become
Speaker 1: somewhat of a household name at most dacadias say. You
Speaker 1: can even find it at Boyle Loco or Disneyland. But
Speaker 1: back in twenty thirteen, Vidia wasn't popping off like that
Speaker 1: in the streets, especially the suburban ass Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 3: When I first open a shop, I started doing Beria,
Speaker 3: which was like not known anywhere, and nobody wanted to
Speaker 3: take my viria. So I would go out with samples
Speaker 3: because in my previous job, you know, that's kind of
Speaker 3: like one of our one of our go to approaches
Speaker 3: to getting people to understand and try the offerings. So
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, I'm gonna go out to
Speaker 3: provide some samples and and let people know what this is.
Speaker 3: And nobody would even take my samples of viria. So
Speaker 3: it was very it was very difficult to gain the
Speaker 3: trust of the community. And I think that also has
Speaker 3: to do with it, you know, like I guess like
Speaker 3: there is a degree of trust that I mean not
Speaker 3: only were food trucks not that accepted at that time,
Speaker 3: but also you know, with any with any kind of establishment,
Speaker 3: you also have to develop that trust from your clients.
Speaker 1: But we're living in an entirely different part of the
Speaker 1: da Versit these days, the Pacific Palisades has embraced Rolo
Speaker 1: Fos truck. His taco truck is part of the community now.
Speaker 8: It's so trippy that.
Speaker 3: At one point, when it started the business ten years ago,
Speaker 3: people didn't want some people didn't want me in the Palisades,
Speaker 3: and not more than a week ago, two young Palsaates locals.
Speaker 3: They live in the Palisades, and two of them approached
Speaker 3: me to help them give him advice on how to
Speaker 3: start their own pop up. I was extremely honored by
Speaker 3: the fact that they thought of me as a resource,
Speaker 3: and I was also very happy for them because it
Speaker 3: was like, not only are they embracing my culture, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, beyond Mexican food, it's a culture of great
Speaker 3: it's a culture of entrepreneurship, it's a culture of creating something.
Speaker 3: So that it showed me that they saw something in
Speaker 3: what I was doing that they thought was worth than
Speaker 3: trying themselves. So I let them borrow my catering equipment
Speaker 3: and now they're setting up shopping the palasts, they're doing burgers.
Speaker 3: So I feel like I've made a lot of good contributions.
Speaker 3: The fact that someone sees that, you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: better than any like review, any credit could give me.
Speaker 1: People like Reloveful are what makes this country great. But
Speaker 1: he thinks most Americans know that already.
Speaker 3: I don't think this country doesn't want me because or
Speaker 3: I don't feel comfortable saying this country doesn't want me
Speaker 3: or want us. Dhaka recipients because I think my business
Speaker 3: itself is evidence of the support and love that many
Speaker 3: American citizens have for us. Otherwise I wouldn't I don't
Speaker 3: think I would be here. I'm very vocal about who
Speaker 3: I am and like, and you know, my support for
Speaker 3: the immigrant community. So I feel like, if you know,
Speaker 3: people didn't the people in this country didn't want me,
Speaker 3: then you know my business would not be here. But
Speaker 3: I do think politicians or the people in power are
Speaker 3: the ones who you know, are making it very difficult.
Speaker 1: For us, Lutiful says, politicians are leaning into stereotypes and
Speaker 1: fear mongering.
Speaker 3: You often hear about, you know, the the negative descriptions
Speaker 3: of immigrants. You know, they say that we come here without,
Speaker 3: we don't pay taxes, we come here to steal jobs,
Speaker 3: we come here to take from this country. But you know,
Speaker 3: as I was thinking about this interview today, I was
Speaker 3: I was reflecting, you know, what job have I taken?
Speaker 3: I haven't taken a single job. Instead, I've created a job.
Speaker 3: What have I taken financially from this country?
Speaker 8: Instead?
Speaker 3: I give continuously. I'm sure there's a record that the
Speaker 3: government have of the funds that Diress collects for my
Speaker 3: business and for my personal taxes. You know, at this point,
Speaker 3: I am paying property tax, I am providing this country
Speaker 3: with financial wealth, and I am certain that the rest
Speaker 3: of my data peers are doing the same as so
Speaker 3: many other immigrants. So one of the changes that has
Speaker 3: happened as far as my headspace in terms of my
Speaker 3: legal status is that I no longer feel like I'm
Speaker 3: asking the government for any favors. If anything, I want
Speaker 3: the government to recognize how much I am worth and
Speaker 3: to really acknowledge everything that we bring and we have
Speaker 3: been given to this country.
Speaker 1: Stay with us, out of the shadows. We'll be back
Speaker 1: after the break.
Speaker 4: So we all know how things went down because we
Speaker 4: lived it, but let's recap it for the future generations.
Speaker 4: At the end of twenty twenty, Trump loses the election
Speaker 4: and Joe Biden becomes the forty sixth President of the
Speaker 4: United States. And even though Biden was Obama's vice president
Speaker 4: and part of the administration that issue DAKA in the
Speaker 4: first place, Louis does see a difference between Biden's presidency
Speaker 4: and Obama's.
Speaker 6: A lot of people who were following the immigrant right
Speaker 6: stuff who maybe wouldn't have otherwise followed it. During the
Speaker 6: Trump administration, I think believed now that Biden is president,
Speaker 6: things are fine now, right, And so what we know
Speaker 6: about the dangerous thing about President Biden's administration is that
Speaker 6: it's not as immigrant friendly as people think it is.
Speaker 6: And he he in his administration know how to govern.
Speaker 6: They know how to do things the right way, unlike
Speaker 6: President Trump, who just kind of was doing things the
Speaker 6: wrong way and got stopped every way along the way.
Speaker 6: So like knows how to follow a procedure. So it's
Speaker 6: difficult to attack, right, and so that's what I mean,
Speaker 6: the right, right, right. But there's also this kind of
Speaker 6: thought that amongst the states that Biden is very soft
Speaker 6: in immigration. The statistics would say otherwise, but there's this
Speaker 6: there's this idea that he's kind of being soft on immigration.
Speaker 6: So states are taking it upon themselves to pass state
Speaker 6: based legislation to really kind of punish immigrants or deter
Speaker 6: them from being there or or whatever. Just a lot
Speaker 6: of kind of hardline anti immigrant behavior. Florida is a
Speaker 6: great example of that.
Speaker 4: The truth is Biden's administration hasn't made major moves on
Speaker 4: immigration or DACA, so docca's fate still lies in the courts.
Speaker 4: Of course, some people like Pullar serprise winning journalists Maria
Speaker 4: in no Josa, feel that the aftermath of Trump's fear
Speaker 4: mongering is still having an impact.
Speaker 9: My question is, kipaso nos mado, the apparatus, the immigration,
Speaker 9: detention and deportation industrial complex really took control, and I'm sorry,
Speaker 9: scared the shit out of us, out of many of us,
Speaker 9: and that is a human reaction, that is true. I
Speaker 9: have asked myself, dundee de las protestas de las manifestas,
Speaker 9: juni is burghora out. I see the inhumanity that we're
Speaker 9: facing is so intense.
Speaker 4: But Mohammed mo Abdollahi, one of the dreamers who fought
Speaker 4: to make Dhaka happen, thinks the lack of current activism
Speaker 4: is to blame for the inaction.
Speaker 8: I think my overall assessment of how things stand right
Speaker 8: now with immigrant rights and things like that is just
Speaker 8: like immigrant rights advocates are complete cowards, and there's like
Speaker 8: this complete lack of like wherewithal of understanding their own
Speaker 8: power and what is possible for the community, and that
Speaker 8: everything that Biden is doing is really regressing even to
Speaker 8: prior to the even to like the early stages of
Speaker 8: the Obama administration, where there's advocates that feel like the
Speaker 8: things that we fought for in twenty ten, winning stay
Speaker 8: of removals, discretion types of things for people, they find
Speaker 8: that far fetched these days within the Biden administration, and
Speaker 8: a lot of people don't realize that those policies were
Speaker 8: not just like those victories were not just handed out
Speaker 8: by the Obama administration willingly. It was a grueling battle.
Speaker 4: Moe is right about one thing. The immigrants' rights movement
Speaker 4: of today is not the same as it was eleven
Speaker 4: years ago, but it hasn't gone away. It's just gone viral.
Speaker 10: When TikTok came around during the pandemic, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 10: I'm going to start talking about DACA. And that was
Speaker 10: the first video that I made because it was around
Speaker 10: the time that Doc go into the Supreme Court. So
Speaker 10: I made a TikTok video, it went viral. I continued
Speaker 10: doing that and then obviously expanded onto different areas of
Speaker 10: immigration and ever since then, it's just been a huge
Speaker 10: platform that I've been able to use for this purpose.
Speaker 4: Almost every form of social media has been a tool
Speaker 4: for dreamers. And on the next episode of Out of
Speaker 4: the shadows. We're going to break down how that has evolved,
Speaker 4: for better or for worse. Out of the Shadows. Dreamers
Speaker 4: is a Semelo production in partnership with Iheartsmikudura podcast Network.
Speaker 4: It's created, posted, and executive produced by me, Patti Rodriguez
Speaker 4: and Eric Galindo. This show is written by Sessa Hernandez
Speaker 4: and executive produced by Jaselle Vancis. Our supervising producer is
Speaker 4: Arlene Santana. It's produced and edited by Brianna Flores. Our
Speaker 4: associate producer is Claudia Marti Gorena down design, mixing and
Speaker 4: mastering by Jessica Crane Chitch and a special thanks to
Speaker 4: all our Dreamers. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and
Speaker 4: share it. For more Micaela podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.