Speaker 1: Keep on riding with us as we continue to broadcast
Speaker 1: the balance and defend the discourse from the Hip hop
Speaker 1: Weekly Studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I'm your host
Speaker 1: ramses Ja. He is Rams's Jah. I am Qward.
Speaker 2: You are hopefully still or tuning back into Civic Cipher.
Speaker 1: And that is what we hope and we hope that
Speaker 1: you stay tuned because we are joined by Wendy Amara,
Speaker 1: who is an activist board member of Roots and Wings,
Speaker 1: the content creator group that uplifts the stories of immigrants,
Speaker 1: and she's the host of the Yes Muher Build It
Speaker 1: podcast who can be found online at Wendy Amara. So
Speaker 1: we are going to be kind of digging a little
Speaker 1: bit more into the weeds and uncovering really the conservative
Speaker 1: approach to immigration. We're going to get some talking points
Speaker 1: out of the way and fleshed out, and we definitely
Speaker 1: think it's going to help if you're having tough conversations
Speaker 1: around the dinner table or at work. So stick around
Speaker 1: for that and so much more. But right now it
Speaker 1: is time to be Aba. Become a better ally Baba,
Speaker 1: and today's Baba. We want you to check out MDEF
Speaker 1: dot org. That's IMMDEF dot org that stands for Immigrant
Speaker 1: Defender's Law Center MDEAF and Immigrant Defender's Law Center is
Speaker 1: a next generation social justice law firm that defends immigrant
Speaker 1: communities against injustices in the immigration system. M DEAF was
Speaker 1: created in twenty fifteen from the vision of a small
Speaker 1: group of immigration lawyers and.
Speaker 3: Advocates who believe there was a better way to.
Speaker 1: Protect the due process rights of immigrants facing deportation. At
Speaker 1: its founding, MDEAF was solely focused on ensuring that every
Speaker 1: immigrant before the immigration court had a lawyer by their side. However,
Speaker 1: in the years that followed, they recognized the need to
Speaker 1: not only help individual sorry individuals facing deportation, but also
Speaker 1: work towards systemic change that reimagines a more just immigration system.
Speaker 1: You are needed in this fight. Become an immigrant defender
Speaker 1: every day asylum seekers and refugees face new challenges to
Speaker 1: seeking safety. Follow their work to learn more on how
Speaker 1: to help immigrants feel welcome with dignity, and you could
Speaker 1: sign up for their newsletter, donate, or simply learn more
Speaker 1: at mdef dot org. And we definitely wanted to shout
Speaker 1: out these folks out because there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people around the country who are not in California. Maybe
Speaker 1: they're not connected to California, but they have an immigrant
Speaker 1: story or they just have a beating heart and they
Speaker 1: see the humanity in this moment. And we wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that we went through and vetted an organization
Speaker 1: that you could donate to, even if you couldn't be
Speaker 1: on the ground protesting or helping out in a physical way,
Speaker 1: you could send money. And these folks have a full
Speaker 1: five oh one C three again, check out more and
Speaker 1: vet them yourselves. It's immdf dot org. That is Immigrant
Speaker 1: Defender's Laws Center.
Speaker 2: Okay, so.
Speaker 1: The conservative approach to immigration, Now, we talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about this in the first half of the show,
Speaker 1: and nothing is ever really cut and dry, but I
Speaker 1: think that oversimplifying immigration has really allowed for them to
Speaker 1: interject falsehoods into what is a normal immigrant story in
Speaker 1: this country. Donald Trump famously says they're sending their worst,
Speaker 1: their rapist, their murderers, that sort of stuff, right, And
Speaker 1: by simplifying an immigrant and distilling a human being down
Speaker 1: to simply a misdemeanor, they may have committed a paperwork
Speaker 1: violation by naming it something more alarming than what it
Speaker 1: actually is, which is again in many instances of the
Speaker 1: clerical violation. In other instances, it's simply a misdemeanor by
Speaker 1: calling those people criminals and then using that criminalization of
Speaker 1: them to justify denying them due process and to you know,
Speaker 1: kidnap them and sensationalize all of this stuff so that
Speaker 1: you can peddle it to your base to say, hey, look,
Speaker 1: I'm an effective leader. I'm getting all these criminals and
Speaker 1: rapists out of the country and it's not going to
Speaker 1: make any material changes to people's lives. I think you
Speaker 1: mentioned the first part of the show, Wendy, that you
Speaker 1: know people depend on immigrants. We all depend on immigrants.
Speaker 1: Immigrants pay taxes, so there's a tax implication there. Immigrants
Speaker 1: are a huge part of the workforce in many cities
Speaker 1: around the country, not just LA and these people are
Speaker 1: our people. They're fabric of our community and they didn't
Speaker 1: just come here last week. These are people that have
Speaker 1: been here decades, have children here, so forth. Right conservatives
Speaker 1: often overlook that part, but we need to speak to
Speaker 1: their talking points. So I will start with one that
Speaker 1: comes up quite a bit, and Que's going to help
Speaker 1: out of course, because Q and I went through this already.
Speaker 1: But what would you say to a person that says, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, they should have come here legally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we get that question quite a bit in our
Speaker 3: comments section.
Speaker 1: I bet you do with.
Speaker 3: Our posts with roods and wings. Yeah. Okay, Well, let's
Speaker 3: break it down. What does it really take to become
Speaker 3: legal and get legal paperwork right? The last time the
Speaker 3: process was actually a process was during the Reagan administration.
Speaker 3: Since then, there has been no clear pathway, no one
Speaker 3: clear pathway, like here are the five steps you need
Speaker 3: to take to apply for citizenship, to apply for asylum,
Speaker 3: for example. So it is difficult. It is a difficult
Speaker 3: process that takes years. I know somebody who's been going
Speaker 3: through the process for ten years, ten years to get
Speaker 3: their paperwork in order right. That keeps being pushed back
Speaker 3: from the government. And then every four years we change
Speaker 3: the administration, so then the laws changed, the policy has changed.
Speaker 3: So what worked for you five years ago? Oh well
Speaker 3: now we got a new policy, so that's changed. So
Speaker 3: you might have already been in process with a certain
Speaker 3: policy five years ago, and then that changed, and now
Speaker 3: new policy, you got to start all over. This is
Speaker 3: why it takes people ten fifteen to twenty years, sometimes
Speaker 3: five years, six years.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: Secondly, it's expensive. I don't know if you guys know
Speaker 3: how much an immigration attorney costs to fill out paperwork. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we're talking about in the thousands. I've heard people pay
Speaker 3: as much as ten thousand dollars, five thousand dollars for
Speaker 3: their immigration paperwork. And that's per person. Right, So if
Speaker 3: you have a mom and a dad and it's seven
Speaker 3: thousand dollars at the end of the day to get
Speaker 3: them through immigration paperwork, then we're talking about fourteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: What that's a lot of what these families make in
Speaker 3: two three years, right combined. So it takes a long time.
Speaker 3: Policies keep changing, there is not a clear pathway. Secondly,
Speaker 3: it's expensive. A lot of families can't afford it in
Speaker 3: the long run. Right. Apparently you can get citizenship and
Speaker 3: a green card if you have a million plus dollars
Speaker 3: and you just pay directly to Trump. Yeah, and you
Speaker 3: get that. What's it called the Golden nugget.
Speaker 1: The Golden ticket thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Golden ticket thing, the Golden ticket thing.
Speaker 2: Right, I like the Golden nugget, go with that.
Speaker 3: I like it. Yeah, whatever, it's called. So there is
Speaker 3: a way to buy your citizenship if you're rich, right,
Speaker 3: And apparently you can also get amnesty by the way,
Speaker 3: if you know this, if you happen to be South
Speaker 3: African and white. Yeah, so there is an amnesty program
Speaker 3: for them because they're under attack in their country. Right,
Speaker 3: this is what we've been told. But for the man
Speaker 3: who's literally been working here for thirty years and has
Speaker 3: been paying his taxes and everything forever, and maybe even
Speaker 3: as trying to get his paperwork, maybe he's in process.
Speaker 3: If he shows up tomorrow for his trial at immigration court,
Speaker 3: he's going to get picked up by Ice. His case
Speaker 3: is going to be dismissed, and he's going to get
Speaker 3: picked up by ice and then sent back to wherever
Speaker 3: he came. So even people who were trying to do
Speaker 3: the right thing, who at this point have tried to
Speaker 3: follow the path, this is why people don't do it legally.
Speaker 3: There is no real way to do it legally, quote unquote.
Speaker 3: It's challenging. And you know what, Mexico's right next door,
Speaker 3: So you're going to have people that are going to
Speaker 3: figure out a way to come in. In fact, we
Speaker 3: used to have programs right that, but ASSETO program was
Speaker 3: a program that existed for many years where Mexico and
Speaker 3: the United States actually traded people to come over. So
Speaker 3: whenever the United States has needed labor, Mexico has raised
Speaker 3: their hand and said, okay, we'll send you some of
Speaker 3: our laborers, and then people came over and worked. To
Speaker 3: this day, there are sections of Tijuana where people just
Speaker 3: cross the border into the US work during the day,
Speaker 3: and they go back to tj And it's been peaceful
Speaker 3: up until now, up until recent times. But listen, there
Speaker 3: have been deportations happening through all of the administrations. So
Speaker 3: there were deportations happening, you know when Biden was in office.
Speaker 3: In fact, when Biden was in office, there were more
Speaker 3: deportations at this point than what has happened now with Trump.
Speaker 3: But the way in which it's being done is different.
Speaker 3: It is being done in a terrorising way. I cannot
Speaker 3: tell you the fear. I, as an American citizen, am
Speaker 3: in fear because I think I'm going to get stopped
Speaker 3: just because I look brown. I'm going to get stopped
Speaker 3: and asked where was I born? And if I can't
Speaker 3: come up with it immediately, then they start to question
Speaker 3: you and this is random. And when we have footage
Speaker 3: of people going to the swamp meet and just going
Speaker 3: about their day, American citizens shopping at the local swap meet,
Speaker 3: which out here in La r swap meets or where
Speaker 3: you get some of the best food. I'm the best merchandise, right,
Speaker 3: that's where you want to and there's ice all over
Speaker 3: the swap meat and stopping random people who look illegal.
Speaker 3: I don't know what you guys consider looking illegal, but
Speaker 3: look illegal, and then actually go up to them and
Speaker 3: ask them where were you born? Where were you born?
Speaker 3: What hospital were you born in? What city were you
Speaker 3: born in? One man got nervous because he was adopted,
Speaker 3: and he was like, I don't know, but I'm American citizen,
Speaker 3: but I don't know where you know, I don't actually
Speaker 3: know what hospital I was born in. These are questions
Speaker 3: just to throw them off, to get them to feel
Speaker 3: an intimidation. That's what's happening, is an intimidation. So if
Speaker 3: it was easy, everybody would do it. Trust me, everybody
Speaker 3: wants to be an American citizen. Is not easy. It's
Speaker 3: time consuming, the process is hard and keeps changing, and
Speaker 3: it takes a lot of money and or an attorney.
Speaker 3: That's why people don't do it the legal way.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's intentionally complicated, because what we've now
Speaker 2: heard and learned that if you're rich and or white,
Speaker 2: it's actually quite simple. It's just intentionally complicated for everyone else.
Speaker 2: So they can check a box and decide that you
Speaker 2: don't fit, so we're going to get rid of you.
Speaker 2: It's a very very interesting thing to watch play out
Speaker 2: in real time and let them determine who's legal or
Speaker 2: criminal based on how they look. The first time I
Speaker 2: heard that, I exclaimed, and people told me I was
Speaker 2: being fearmongered too, and friends of mine gas lit me
Speaker 2: because every fear I had for my family became real
Speaker 2: on election day, because we knew this was happening. This
Speaker 2: was not some shock or some surprise that they did,
Speaker 2: you know, as some covert mission. The man campaigned on
Speaker 2: this idea. We've heard people, strangely enough, say that due
Speaker 2: process should be reserved for citizens, not criminal immigrants. What
Speaker 2: would you say to people who adopt that position? Forgive
Speaker 2: me for laughing, but it's to hide anger and frustration
Speaker 2: that I do.
Speaker 3: So Yes, no, thank you for that Every human being
Speaker 3: deserves due process. Every human being and is guaranteed it
Speaker 3: and is guaranteed it. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: If you are standing in front of somebody and you're
Speaker 3: witnessing what is happening to them, and this is actually
Speaker 3: what's waking a lot of people up. Is when we
Speaker 3: witness it and it's right in front of us, or
Speaker 3: we're being shown video that we cannot turn away from
Speaker 3: because there's ten people videoing the same thing, and then
Speaker 3: you see it from ten different angles, you're starting to understand,
Speaker 3: oh crap, this is real. This is what's happening to people.
Speaker 3: People are being yanked, people are being killed, right, democratic
Speaker 3: lawmakers are being killed. This is actually what's happening. Every
Speaker 3: human being deserves due process. Every human being, every mother,
Speaker 3: every father, all of us can feel it in our hearts.
Speaker 3: And I think if more people were opening their eyes
Speaker 3: to this is the truth of what is really happening.
Speaker 3: Talk to someone who is an immigrant, talk to someone
Speaker 3: who knows someone who is married to someone whose uncle
Speaker 3: is an immigrant, whose father is an immigrant. Hear their stories.
Speaker 3: Because the more we humanize this, the more people will
Speaker 3: start to realize, oh crap, this is really happening. This
Speaker 3: is happening in our streets. This is happening in my family,
Speaker 3: this is happening in my neighborhood. And that's how we
Speaker 3: start to open people's eyes and open people's hearts to
Speaker 3: the reality. Yeah. Also, let me tell you, I've heard
Speaker 3: of a lot of businesses, privileged space, businesses, businesses in
Speaker 3: privileged spaces that are no longer, no longer supporting Trump supporters.
Speaker 3: So if you walk in with a Maga hat, you're
Speaker 3: being asked to leave.
Speaker 1: Good mm hmmm.
Speaker 3: This is starting to happen across the board. So yeah,
Speaker 3: for that, people are getting it and people are speaking up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I kind of did a deep dive into Nazi
Speaker 1: Germany and the denazification of Germany in particular, and I
Speaker 1: I really do feel like, at some point in the future,
Speaker 1: because I now that I see how big it is
Speaker 1: and how insidious it is and how kind of evil
Speaker 1: it is and divisive, at some point this country is
Speaker 1: going to have to have a deep, deep, deep purge
Speaker 1: of trump Ism and Maga and so I and that
Speaker 1: and a lot of people are going to have to
Speaker 1: eat their words, and they got to come back down
Speaker 1: black people streets and brown people streets. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people that turn their noses up. So and
Speaker 1: then even you know, another thing that exists on the
Speaker 1: far right, and it's it's like well documented that it
Speaker 1: tends to exist in the far right more than it
Speaker 1: does on the left, on the right than it does
Speaker 1: on the left, especially so on the far right is
Speaker 1: sort of like conspiracy theory type of things, right, And
Speaker 1: these are things that you know, people have to confront
Speaker 1: in their workspaces, at home, around the dinner table with
Speaker 1: their racist uncle or with their Trump supporting grammars or
Speaker 1: whatever it is that they have to deal with, these
Speaker 1: people with conspiracies in their heads. So what would you
Speaker 1: say to people who say, you know, immigration is a
Speaker 1: leftist conspiracy to get more votes, get more bodies in
Speaker 1: the country, so these illegal immigrants can come into the
Speaker 1: United States and vote.
Speaker 3: What do you say to people that that's their truth? Yeah,
Speaker 3: I say, let's talk about history. California, the United States
Speaker 3: has always been full of immigrants. Are in country that
Speaker 3: is built on immigration, always and always has been. So
Speaker 3: there is no like new policy of We're going to
Speaker 3: bring in more immigrants so that we have more Democrats
Speaker 3: and then we get more votes. Right, we can also
Speaker 3: look at the fact that just because you get more immigrants,
Speaker 3: doesn't mean you're going to necessarily get the vote, because
Speaker 3: look at what happened with the Latino population. First of all,
Speaker 3: the Latino population is very, very diverse. I don't know
Speaker 3: if y' all know that. We're very diverse, right. Also,
Speaker 3: South Americans are different. If you talk to Venezuelin or
Speaker 3: a Colombian, they think slightly different. I'm from Guatemala. Most
Speaker 3: people are like, oh, what part of Mexico is that in.
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's another country. It's not in Mexico, it's
Speaker 3: Central America. So a lot of people don't even know,
Speaker 3: you know, what part of the world that's in. So
Speaker 3: we're very diverse. There's lots of different opinions, there's lots
Speaker 3: of different policies. Some of us come from countries that
Speaker 3: have been taken over by dictators. Some of us come
Speaker 3: from countries that experience civil war, like in Guatemala there
Speaker 3: was a civil war, very much funded by the United States,
Speaker 3: by the way, but that's another topic. So we have
Speaker 3: differing beliefs. We're not all a monolith. There's different cultural backgrounds,
Speaker 3: even different ways in which we speak Spanish. Some of
Speaker 3: us hate the term Hispanic. Some of us love it.
Speaker 3: Some of us use the term LATINX, some of us
Speaker 3: hate it Latina. I mean, have so many different ways
Speaker 3: right rasa, we don't even know what to call ourselves
Speaker 3: as a unifying force. So because of this, the differentiation
Speaker 3: in terms of how we see things, just because we're
Speaker 3: going to be a country of immigrants doesn't mean we're
Speaker 3: all going to vote in one particular way. This idea
Speaker 3: that oh well, let's stop letting immigrants in because if
Speaker 3: they all come in, then we're just going to become
Speaker 3: this democratic blue country, I think is a bunch of bs.
Speaker 3: People are coming from lots of different countries. We haven't
Speaker 3: even talked about Asian population, which by the way, is
Speaker 3: also being targeted by ICE. Vietnamese people, Cambodian people, parts
Speaker 3: of Los Angeles that have large immigration from East Asia
Speaker 3: are being target So ICE is showing up at nail salons.
Speaker 3: ICE is showing up at hair salons like places like that.
Speaker 3: So this is not just a Latino thing. This is
Speaker 3: an immigrant challenge. But what I say to them is
Speaker 3: we've always been a country of immigrants. I don't think
Speaker 3: you're going to stop immigration all of a sudden, and
Speaker 3: you're not going to stop immigration because you're going to
Speaker 3: realize eventually as a country that there are jobs that
Speaker 3: Americans simply are not willing to do, and we're going
Speaker 3: to start to experience the change in the economy. And
Speaker 3: although Trump I think wants to bankrupt Los Angeles and California,
Speaker 3: we pay a hell of a lot of money into
Speaker 3: the federal government. We are the fourth largest economy California,
Speaker 3: fourth largest economy in the world, in the world, guys,
Speaker 3: look up the statistic. It blew my mind. I was like,
Speaker 3: what California. Yep, the United States is first, but we're
Speaker 3: right there. We're not that far behind. For number four.
Speaker 3: You do not want to bankrupt us, and this will
Speaker 3: not bankrupt us. We will figure it out. We will
Speaker 3: fight our way to the top, and we will remember.
Speaker 3: We will, of course remember.
Speaker 1: I want to say this before you jump in Q.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that I say that. Another
Speaker 1: thing that I think is important for people to remember
Speaker 1: is that you know, people that come across the border,
Speaker 1: because they make it seem like it's an invasion, like
Speaker 1: there's the borders wide open and they're just letting all
Speaker 1: these voters in or whatever. First off, it is not
Speaker 1: an invasion. That's a word that is sensationalized. But these
Speaker 1: people cannot vote. You know, you can't just come across
Speaker 1: the border and vote in the United States election. That
Speaker 1: doesn't work that way. You know, citizens vote, you know,
Speaker 1: outside of that, you don't vote. And for people to
Speaker 1: think that that's true again, you are kind of in
Speaker 1: the conspiracy theory, sort of part of part of your timeline.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're just here to remind you that
Speaker 1: that's just not a real thing.
Speaker 3: SOQ go ahead.
Speaker 2: You know, prior to this most recent election, voter fraud
Speaker 2: was a net zero right almost never ever, our election
Speaker 2: tend to be very very secure, except this last one
Speaker 2: where they rigged it. And the guy keeps saying on
Speaker 2: camera and microphones that they rigged it over and over
Speaker 2: again and nobody cares. But you know, we won't keep
Speaker 2: saying he rigged it because you know, people might be listening,
Speaker 2: and we don't want to give people the impression that
Speaker 2: the election was rigged. You know that Donald Trump and
Speaker 2: Elon Musk may have rigged the machines in the most
Speaker 2: recent election. We don't want to give that impression to
Speaker 2: people that they rigged the election, because you know, we
Speaker 2: would never say such a thing on the radio. Right,
Speaker 2: This has just been such an incredible experience and experiment
Speaker 2: for all of us. And I know our time is
Speaker 2: kind of windening down here. Any thoughts for people who
Speaker 2: have kind of just lost hope and the things that
Speaker 2: are supposed to protect us and the idea resilience that
Speaker 2: we're supposed to have that there's a light at the
Speaker 2: end of the tunnel, Like, if there was a wear
Speaker 2: from here, what direction would you point us in?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're from here. Community unity, Yeah, I like that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: We protect ourselves, we protect each other, and we come
Speaker 3: together more unified than ever. Community is the medicine. Community
Speaker 3: is the antidote to what we're experiencing right now.
Speaker 1: Well, I uh, I'm not going to disagree with you,
Speaker 1: because one of the things that Q often tells me
Speaker 1: whenever we end up in a new city supporting some
Speaker 1: civil rights organization or you know, we're there to speak
Speaker 1: or to do a live show or something like that,
Speaker 1: is we get out of our studio where it's just
Speaker 1: me and him, and we get around people who feel
Speaker 1: the same way, so we know we're not alone. And
Speaker 1: these people have great ideas and they help us with
Speaker 1: our ideas and so forth, and that community really does matter,
Speaker 1: and it fortifies us and it helps us remain strong.
Speaker 1: And so those are absolutely wise words and words that
Speaker 1: we intend to live by. So with that in mind,
Speaker 1: we're going to leave it right here. Thank you very much,
Speaker 1: Wendy for taking the time to hang out with us.
Speaker 1: A real quick shout out your social media, as, your podcast,
Speaker 1: your website, all that, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. You can find me on Instagram
Speaker 3: at Wendyamara. My website is Wendyamara dot com, and you
Speaker 3: can find the podcast everywhere that you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 3: It's called Yes, Movehead, build it.
Speaker 2: And don't forget.
Speaker 1: You can find us on all social media at Civic
Speaker 1: Cipher and be sure to hit civicipher dot com. That's
Speaker 1: where you can submit any questions, any topics you want
Speaker 1: us to cover. You can also make a donation. The
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Speaker 1: social media at ramses job I.
Speaker 2: Am qword on all social media as well.
Speaker 1: And we don't keep it going.
Speaker 2: And until next week, y'all peace,