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Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to it could happen here a podcast

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Speaker 1: which today is only me and my guest Nicole, and

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Speaker 1: today we're gonna be talking a little bit about immigration,

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Speaker 1: about immigration policy over the last three or four years,

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Speaker 1: and about some of the strange laws that impacted. So

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Speaker 1: Nicole is joining me. She works for Alotto Lado and

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Speaker 1: Nicole would likely tochuse herself explain a little bit about

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Speaker 1: what you do. Hi, my name is Nicole Elizabeth Ramos,

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Speaker 1: and I am the director of Alto Lavel's Order Rights Project,

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Speaker 1: which is based in Tijuana, Mexico. Great, okay, So I

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Speaker 1: think perhaps to start off with, you could clue people

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Speaker 1: in on a little bit of what you guys do,

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Speaker 1: because you do some incredible work and it's very very

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Speaker 1: valuable to boarder communities, and I think a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: if they don't live in along the boarder, might not

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Speaker 1: be familiar with it. At LAVO, we provide legal orientation

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Speaker 1: to migrants that are considered during seeking asylum in the US.

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Speaker 1: We started off as a project that focused locally on

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Speaker 1: migrants in Tijuana, and over the years we have expanded

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Speaker 1: to serve migrants in Mexicali and then remotely in other

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Speaker 1: cities along the US Mexico border, including Grenosa, Matamoro, Squads,

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Speaker 1: piege Uh and in this legal orientation, we're providing information

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Speaker 1: about what are the current policies at the moment that

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Speaker 1: will impact their ability to seek asylum in the US

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Speaker 1: or prevent them from doing so, or how these policies

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Speaker 1: might be impacting their family composition, so policies that are

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Speaker 1: related to detention or family separation. After we provide legal orientation,

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Speaker 1: we are then identifying asylum seekers that fall into several

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Speaker 1: vulnerability categories to provide additional accompaniment through this process. Because

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Speaker 1: the policies are shifting and changing and becoming more restrictive

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Speaker 1: over time, it's very confusing and cumbersome to we throw

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Speaker 1: all of the fuzz and figure out what you need

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Speaker 1: to do in order to seek asylum in the US.

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Speaker 1: So that's where we come in and we provide the

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Speaker 1: orientation in multiple languages. The border is a very diverse place.

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Speaker 1: It's not just Spanish speakers that are coming, but people

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Speaker 1: that Speakation, Creole, French, Farsi, indigenous languages, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish,

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Speaker 1: um and all of these people need access to information.

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Speaker 1: That's one of the pillars of our program is that

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Speaker 1: migrants have the absolute right to accurate legal information about

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Speaker 1: the process that they will be entering. Among the asylum

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Speaker 1: teachers that we work with, we also identify those that

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Speaker 1: our need of shelter and make referrals and proprilated shelters

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Speaker 1: for medical care. In some instances we assist with obtaining

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Speaker 1: medications or obtaining a needed surgery if the migrant is

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Speaker 1: not have access to those resources, helping them obtain access

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Speaker 1: to HIV medication or hormone treatment, and of those migrants,

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Speaker 1: we are also connecting them with other supportive services from

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Speaker 1: our partners UM that have shelters, that have programs where

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Speaker 1: they're giving them basic dispenses of food because they are

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Speaker 1: struggling with food and security. Trying to create as much

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Speaker 1: of a social safety net as possible because UH folks

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Speaker 1: are waiting at the border for longer and longer periods

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Speaker 1: of time. The border used to be a place that

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Speaker 1: people passed through, maybe they were here for a few

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Speaker 1: days before ultimately they were able to present them at

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Speaker 1: a present themselves at a US port of entry um

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Speaker 1: to a US official and enter the asylum process. However,

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Speaker 1: now we have individuals that have been waiting at the

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Speaker 1: border for years, UM, who may not have work status

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Speaker 1: in Mexico, may not be Spanish speakers, and are really

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Speaker 1: struggling to meet their basic needs. And so we've had

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Speaker 1: to expand our services from not just legal service provider,

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Speaker 1: provider of legal information, but also providing humanitarian aids so

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Speaker 1: that people can be healthy and as well as possible

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Speaker 1: um while they're waiting. Yeah, and it's it's incredibly valuable,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's amazing how you guys can continue to

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Speaker 1: step up and scale up as federal government has continue

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Speaker 1: to fail people. UM. And I think if people haven't

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Speaker 1: come to the border, they probably won't be aware of,

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Speaker 1: like you say that diversity of people who come to

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Speaker 1: the US Mexico boarder. Like I remember a couple of

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Speaker 1: years ago, I was working within a Romo translator and

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Speaker 1: with speaking to people who would come from Ethiopia, people

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Speaker 1: come from Eritrea into it's a very of course, people

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Speaker 1: coming from Ukraine. Now it's very diverse space, which is

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Speaker 1: something that kind of gets collapsed pretty often in border reporting.

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Speaker 1: I think like all that diversity gets collapsed into like

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Speaker 1: like just people are lumped together as migrants or people

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Speaker 1: seeking asylum. And that's a shame because it's what makes

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Speaker 1: part of what makes us so complicated, but also what

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Speaker 1: makes these border places such kind of interesting and special places.

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Speaker 1: And and I like what you said about all the

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Speaker 1: sort of services that are provided as well. It's incredible

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Speaker 1: to look at how these services are provided by huge

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Speaker 1: broad network of like volunteers, of nonprofit of of NGOs,

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Speaker 1: as well as some government agencies, and how people have

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Speaker 1: stepped up consistently, especially in the last I guess six

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Speaker 1: seven it did such a long time, it's like, and

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Speaker 1: how people have stepped up to help each other along

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Speaker 1: the border. So perhaps if we go back you and

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Speaker 1: I we're just talking before we started. If we go

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Speaker 1: back to eighteen, which people may or may not remember,

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Speaker 1: was the mid term, in the middle of Donald Trump's presidency,

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Speaker 1: and a large caravan of people, a group of people

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Speaker 1: that particularly larger remarkability, a group of people arrived at

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Speaker 1: the border and became kind of the center of something

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Speaker 1: of like a and they became I think their their

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Speaker 1: arrival was used by both political parties as part of

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Speaker 1: the sort of midterm messaging. And and I think that

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Speaker 1: was maybe for some people, especially if if they're younger

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Speaker 1: and had been watching their news the sort of first

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Speaker 1: introduction to the asylum process. So can you explain kind

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Speaker 1: of how asylum is supposed to happen, and then maybe

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Speaker 1: we can get into some of the weird and bizarre

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Speaker 1: things that have been happening to it in the past

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Speaker 1: three or four years. Asylum is supposed to be a

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Speaker 1: system that's managed first by by government authorities UM under

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Speaker 1: Title eight, section twelve five of the United States Code,

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Speaker 1: US immigration officer at a port of entry UM or

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Speaker 1: at any point in between ports of entries such as

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Speaker 1: border patrol, when they are presented with a person that

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Speaker 1: expresses that they have a fear of return to their

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Speaker 1: home country, that they fear of persecution, to refer them

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Speaker 1: along the track to be processed as an asylum seeker. Now,

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Speaker 1: that can mean that that person is still detained for

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Speaker 1: the entirety of their asylum case and sent to an

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Speaker 1: immigration detention center. That could also mean that that person

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Speaker 1: is given court paperwork to show up an immigration court

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Speaker 1: at a later date to begin the process of explaining

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Speaker 1: their case to the immigration court and getting a final decision. UM.

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Speaker 1: Over the years beginning at the end of the Obama administration,

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Speaker 1: continuing through the Trump administration, and also continuing even now

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Speaker 1: into the Biden administration, we have seen policies issued by

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Speaker 1: CDP which restrict access to the port of entry for

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Speaker 1: a silent seekers. Initially, it started out in two thousand sixteen,

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Speaker 1: where the Obama administration came up with a policy called

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Speaker 1: the Metering Policy, which was known as the waitlist, which

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Speaker 1: required at first only Haitian asylum seekers to put their

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Speaker 1: name on a wait list with Mexican immigration authorities and

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Speaker 1: then they would be called in groups um to enter

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Speaker 1: the US. And that was in response to the exodus

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Speaker 1: of immigrants that we saw coming from Haiti and through

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Speaker 1: Brazil in two thousand and sixteen. The metering list was

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Speaker 1: later expanded to apply to all nationalities, including Mexican migrants

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Speaker 1: that were trying to flee their own country, including those

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Speaker 1: that had legitimate claims for protection being persecuted by members

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Speaker 1: of their own government. Everyone had to still get on

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Speaker 1: this list. That policy was extended in an ideological framework

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Speaker 1: when the Trump administration came up with a program known

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Speaker 1: as rem in Mexico and just building upon that idea

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Speaker 1: that it is okay to make asylum seekers wait in

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Speaker 1: territory in which they fear persecution because a lot of

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Speaker 1: people here persecution in Mexico UM and under the Remain

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Speaker 1: in Mexico policy also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols

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Speaker 1: m p P. They we always refer to it as

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Speaker 1: the Migrant Persecution Protocols because it feels it's extremely all

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Speaker 1: WELLI in right, like people like to use a welly

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Speaker 1: and wrong. But that that one that one pret Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this program required asylum seekers that were entered. They were

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Speaker 1: placed into a program called MPP. They were given court

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Speaker 1: date and people were to appear at court in their

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Speaker 1: nearest border city where there was an immigration court at

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Speaker 1: some date in the future. It could be a few weeks,

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Speaker 1: it could be several months, it could be a year.

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Speaker 1: And in between their court hearings, they would be required

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Speaker 1: to remain in Mexico. They could only go to the

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Speaker 1: court of Entry you on the date of their court

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Speaker 1: they would be transported to court and then transported back

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Speaker 1: to Mexico after their court, leaving Mexico people in Mexico

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Speaker 1: in limbo for years. And then when the pandemic came,

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Speaker 1: we saw the border closed entirely. Under Title fort you two,

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Speaker 1: the Trump administration build it as necessary to protect the

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Speaker 1: American public from migrants that could be carriers of COVID nineteen.

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Speaker 1: But this is really, you know, no different than other

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Speaker 1: immigration legislation that we've seen throughout history, which tends to

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Speaker 1: paint immigrants as vectors of disease UM, and we need

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Speaker 1: to just keep them out at all costs, and under

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Speaker 1: Title for you too, it's just a wall of policy.

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Speaker 1: People tried to present themselves at the port of entry

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Speaker 1: and they're turned away. People enter the US UH at

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Speaker 1: different points that are not ports of entry without inspection

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Speaker 1: UM and get caught and they're expelled immediately back to Mexico,

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Speaker 1: or if it's not a country that Mexico will accept

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Speaker 1: an expulsion, they could be detained in US custody and

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Speaker 1: then expelled back to their country of origin without any

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Speaker 1: opportunity to speak with an asylum officer UM. Right now,

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Speaker 1: we have been dealing with Title for you two in

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Speaker 1: a process where certain number of people are exempted from

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Speaker 1: this blanket denial every day UH and different ports of

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Speaker 1: entry along the border participate. Each port of entry has

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Speaker 1: its own cap numerical cap UM and initially, when this

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Speaker 1: program started in May the names of people that were

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Speaker 1: being submitted as exemptions. The asylum seekers names were submitted

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Speaker 1: by civil society organizations such as A Lallo LAO. Just

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Speaker 1: this year alone, we've submitted around a seven thousand, five

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Speaker 1: hundred I'm sorry exemption requests UM, and that was from

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Speaker 1: individuals from twenty nine different countries speaking just over thirty

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Speaker 1: different languages. So now though, the system has recently changed

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Speaker 1: to a smartphone application known as c d P one,

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Speaker 1: which requires migrants to download this application to their smartphone,

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Speaker 1: assuming that they have a smartphone, and then complete this

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Speaker 1: lengthy application UM that requires them to upload a photo

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Speaker 1: UM for facial recognition software and wait for an appointment

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Speaker 1: date to be made available. And they have to keep

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Speaker 1: entering the fifth multiple times and until an appointment date

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Speaker 1: becomes available, waking up every morning at five thirty for

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Speaker 1: when the new slots are made available at six am.

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Speaker 1: And the problem, among many problems with this application you

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Speaker 1: just said right now, it's only available in Spanish and English,

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Speaker 1: so if you speak any other language, you are not

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Speaker 1: able to access it UM, and we have to give

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Speaker 1: you an example. UM. We have an online survey where

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Speaker 1: people register or try to seek help from US. We

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Speaker 1: have over since April one, over fifteen thousand unique fifty

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Speaker 1: unique responses. Around half of those are from Haitian creole speakers.

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Speaker 1: Cannot access this app to get an appointment. The other

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Speaker 1: issue is is that the facial recognition software that's integrated

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Speaker 1: into the cd P one app. You know, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of studies throughout the years about how this software

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Speaker 1: will lead to false positives or failure to recognize for

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Speaker 1: individuals that have um Afro descendant features or individuals that

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Speaker 1: have more indigenous features, and we have seen this firsthand.

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Speaker 1: So many of our Haitian clients are unable to even

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Speaker 1: complete the profile, and they are taking photos with cameras

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Speaker 1: that have a decent you know, lens capacity, and they

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Speaker 1: still can't get past the facial recognition software. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: just like a layers on layers of sort of you know,

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Speaker 1: sometimes it's just them being like ineffective. Sometimes it just

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Speaker 1: seems cruel. Let's go back a little bit to title

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Speaker 1: forty two, because that word has been thrown around a lot, right,

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Speaker 1: Title thirty two isn't in It's not immigration law, is it.

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Speaker 1: It's it's public health law? Is that right? I guess

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Speaker 1: it's it's public it's a public health policy that's part

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Speaker 1: of immigration law. Yes, it's public health policy that's being

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Speaker 1: applied in the immigration contact to close the border. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then one thing that I think we've seen a

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Speaker 1: lot recently is like one of the worst accounts on Twitter,

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Speaker 1: which is the Border Patrol Union likes to they do

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Speaker 1: occasionally like tweet they around lossuits, which is kind of funny. Um,

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Speaker 1: But they like to throw out these statistics right constantly

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Speaker 1: about encounters at the border. Can you explain how under

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Speaker 1: Title forty two, each encounter might not be a unique individual? Yeah. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: those individuals are over accounted because people will make multiple

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Speaker 1: attempts to try to enter the US because they're so desperate.

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Speaker 1: It's a dystopian healthscape on this side of the border,

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Speaker 1: with people being trafficked, kidnapped for extortion, tortured, raped, murdered,

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Speaker 1: sold ah. And so if that were any reasonable person,

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Speaker 1: you would try tan fifteen times whatever it took to

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Speaker 1: get across to safe. And the Border Patrol Union is

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Speaker 1: disingenuous because it knows this, and instead it pulls out

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Speaker 1: a figure that is much larger than what it represents

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Speaker 1: in actual people and they're disingenuous and how they describe it. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see

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Speaker 1: through it. And of course when we combine this with

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Speaker 1: the the wall or the fence or whatever you want

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Speaker 1: to call it, people are crossing in more and more

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Speaker 1: dangerous areas, which makes the crossing more risky, right, and

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Speaker 1: results in hiring into people dying or hurting themselves trying

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Speaker 1: to cross, which, as you say, it's it's not a

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Speaker 1: reasonable thing to do when you're faced with these terrible circumstances. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: There's a beautiful poem called Home by Warsha and Sire,

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Speaker 1: who's a Somali British poet, and one of the lines

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Speaker 1: is you don't put your child in a in a

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Speaker 1: boat unless it's safer than the land. No one would

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Speaker 1: attempt to cross a thirty football or wade the Rio

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Speaker 1: grand A across the Arizona desert in the middle of

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Speaker 1: summer unless what was behind them they were so sure

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Speaker 1: was going to kill them. And the way that we've

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Speaker 1: structured the wall and raising the height of the wall

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Speaker 1: to make it harder to cross, and to build as

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Speaker 1: much wall along the places where it would be a

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Speaker 1: little bit easier to cross from people making it so

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Speaker 1: the only way to cross is through the most dangerous parts.

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Speaker 1: That's and that's intentional. That is, you know, designed for

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Speaker 1: people to die because the government mistakenly believes that if

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Speaker 1: it kills more people that folks will be deterred. But

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Speaker 1: that's um, not actually what we see on the ground. No,

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Speaker 1: and like it's not a vacuum, right, people are coming

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Speaker 1: from bad things like making just making the boarder difficult

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Speaker 1: one will do nothing more than kill more people, which

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Speaker 1: is what they've succeeded in doing, sadly, and so and

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Speaker 1: then another thing, I wanted to get it as Title

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Speaker 1: forty two with this this crazy series of court cases

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Speaker 1: around Title forty two, Right, so can you explain, like

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Speaker 1: why titled forty two hasn't been repealed when we've done

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Speaker 1: away with almost every other protection for people in kind

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Speaker 1: of an ongoing pandemic. Title forty two could be repealed

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Speaker 1: if the government was so not so intent on fighting

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Speaker 1: the repeal of Title forty two. The a c l

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Speaker 1: U has been in port for the last few years

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Speaker 1: around Title for you two. UM in a case called

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Speaker 1: we shaw we Sha be my works, and the judge

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Speaker 1: in that case issued a decision in December ruling that

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Speaker 1: turning away asylum seekers using Title for You two as

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Speaker 1: a pretext um to turn asylum seekers away was unlawful. However,

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Speaker 1: that decision was stayed. The government requested that the decision

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Speaker 1: be uh temporarily stayed to give it time to make

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Speaker 1: operational plans. The A C. L. You did not oppose

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Speaker 1: that stay, and as a result, during that time, a

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Speaker 1: group of conservative states filed intervening litigation UM to make

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Speaker 1: their arguments about how their interests were harmed by the decision.

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Speaker 1: So now that cases before the Supreme Court and they

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Speaker 1: will not hear the case until February, and we could

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Speaker 1: be waiting as long as June for a decision. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: many of those lots of those states weren't even along

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Speaker 1: the border, right, there's some of the ones who sued. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's still a mystery to all of us along the border.

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Speaker 1: How interior states that sure might be receiving people coming

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Speaker 1: from the border, but um don't have that close nexus.

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Speaker 1: Is in there are border community and they're being immediately impacted.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, pretty pretty female stuff. And the other issue

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Speaker 1: I want to raise for people is the narrative is

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Speaker 1: that we're in a crisis the borders and a crisis. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's so many people we can't possibly help them all.

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Speaker 1: We close the border for over two years, so of

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Speaker 1: course there's going to be more people because we've made

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Speaker 1: it impossible for people to access. However, the ports of

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Speaker 1: entry have contingency plans for mass migration events. This is

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Speaker 1: something that UM was learned during the context of our

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Speaker 1: litigation UM against c VP around access to the board

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Speaker 1: of Entry, and we see that the government is capable

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Speaker 1: of responding rapidly in a manner that is consistent with

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Speaker 1: human dignity, and how it responded to thirty thousand Ukrainians

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Speaker 1: showing up in Tijuana this spring. In some days, c

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Speaker 1: d P accepted as many as a thousand Ukrainians in

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Speaker 1: a given day, where as both on those days they

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Speaker 1: were accepting zero of other nationality, and they were able

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Speaker 1: to get up to speed so quickly because every port

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Speaker 1: of entry has a contingency plan. We are the United

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Speaker 1: States government. We are arguably one of the most powerful,

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Speaker 1: well resourced governments on Earth. If you buy the line

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Speaker 1: that this is a crisis and we don't have a

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Speaker 1: contingency plan, then we've got a lot of work to

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Speaker 1: do here. Um, And so it's not it's a it's

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Speaker 1: a manufactured crisis. Uh. We have the resources, we have

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Speaker 1: the personnel. C VP has the largest law enforcement budget

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Speaker 1: of all the law enforcement agencies in the federal government,

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Speaker 1: and they have hands of thousands of personnel. It's what

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Speaker 1: we lack is the political will and the emotional capital

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Speaker 1: to do what we've already agreed to under US federal law,

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Speaker 1: as well as the Refugee Convention which we signed uh

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Speaker 1: following World War Two, which was designed to prevent further

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Speaker 1: genocide for their persecution of large groups of people. Um,

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Speaker 1: but we continue to renag on on those obligations to

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Speaker 1: which were to Yeah, yeah, like when we talk about

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Speaker 1: genocide and persecution, Like I personally know people from me

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Speaker 1: and mar who are really struggling with the United States

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Speaker 1: asylum system right now, and yeah, it's really deeply just

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Speaker 1: infuriating to see them continue to pursue this kind of

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Speaker 1: like waving my hands in the air, I don't know

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Speaker 1: what to do kind of things. Let's talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about Joe Biden and his policies, because like they've

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Speaker 1: been blackluster or just completely like in some cases. You know,

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Speaker 1: he he's issued executive orders which basically have gone on

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Speaker 1: fulfilled right regarding asylum. And so they made a statement

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Speaker 1: a few weeks ago now and Biden visited the border,

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Speaker 1: and can you explain what he said in that statement

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Speaker 1: and then sort of what the Biden administration hasn't done

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Speaker 1: to clear up the asylum system that it promised it

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Speaker 1: would do. The Buiding administration made a lot of promises

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Speaker 1: on the campaign trail. UM made an effort to put

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Speaker 1: advocates in places in DHS other key positions to give

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Speaker 1: the appearance that it was serious about reform and treating

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Speaker 1: immigrants in a way that is dignified and humane. UM.

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Speaker 1: But what we've seen is a continuation of Trump policies

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Speaker 1: which restrict access to the border. For example, UM, the

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Speaker 1: new asylum band that they are proposing through regulation where

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Speaker 1: individuals that have translated through another country UM and did

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Speaker 1: not seek asylum in that country, even if that country

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Speaker 1: was not a safe country for them, UM, that they

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Speaker 1: would be precluded from applying for asylum. A lot of

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Speaker 1: people are have been enthusiastic about these new parole programs

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Speaker 1: for specific nationalities like Paraguans and a Swillans, um Haitians, Cubans. However,

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Speaker 1: those programs are really just scraps um. They have a

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Speaker 1: thirty thousand person cap um. The Ukrainian parole program had

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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand person cap which has already been surpassed,

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Speaker 1: surpassed um. Ukrainian sponsors well as of the Ukrainian asylum

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Speaker 1: seekers that were presenting through that pel program, had much

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Speaker 1: less by way of requirements um. And so they've made

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Speaker 1: a separate and not equal program for other nationalities which

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Speaker 1: just happened to be nationalities that aren't white. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's hard not to see a kind of white people

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Speaker 1: first approach to asylum here. Yeah. I it certainly challenges

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Speaker 1: to your ability not to believe it's our right racist.

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Speaker 1: So I wonder like going forward, obviously people listening will

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Speaker 1: probably be sort of upset and concerned the continuing failures

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Speaker 1: of our government. You don't think about it? Can you

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Speaker 1: outline like how people can help? I know there's there's

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Speaker 1: lots of people who will do direct mutual aid right,

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Speaker 1: like people like food not bombs of feeding people in Tijuana,

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Speaker 1: But how can folks maybe who are at the border,

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Speaker 1: and then who aren't near the border how can how

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Speaker 1: can they help well organizations that are at the border,

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Speaker 1: including ourselves, who work with volunteers that are remote, UM,

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Speaker 1: particularly if they have a foreign language skill, because we

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Speaker 1: can't serve tons of thousands of people each year with

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Speaker 1: just the staff that we have UM, and so we

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Speaker 1: have a really robust remote volunteer network. UM. I would

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Speaker 1: also encourage people, as you pointed out, to look for

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Speaker 1: organizations in their own community that are serving immigrants. It

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Speaker 1: is incredibly humbling to move to another country and realize

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Speaker 1: you don't know how to read the light bill, UM,

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Speaker 1: you don't know how to register your kids for school?

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Speaker 1: Can your kids go to school? Where can I go

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Speaker 1: to the doctor? What you know? What is an ambulance?

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Speaker 1: What that you know that I might not have to

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Speaker 1: pay for that? All of these things that might be

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Speaker 1: different from them, And a real lack of volunteers to

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Speaker 1: assist people with those daily integration activities that are so

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Speaker 1: important to figuring out how your new community works. UM.

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Speaker 1: I also encourage people too, when there's an opportunity to

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Speaker 1: have conversations with your elected official, to have those conversations,

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Speaker 1: write emails, go in person if that's an opportunity different

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Speaker 1: officials will have open days for their offices where you

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Speaker 1: might be able to get maybe not face time with

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Speaker 1: that official, but with their point person who is overseeing

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Speaker 1: that issue. Right now, are elected officials, they don't care

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Speaker 1: about immigration because a lot of their constituents are not

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Speaker 1: making it known to them what it is that they

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Speaker 1: care about, and that they're willing to go to drastic

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Speaker 1: measures such as shutting down their office. Um, if they

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Speaker 1: don't take action on immigration. We're all just thinking about

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Speaker 1: it as Okay, well, this is happening to immigrants, This

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Speaker 1: is not me. I am a citizen. But all of

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Speaker 1: the worst fascist policies are tried out first on groups

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Speaker 1: and in society that have less political power, UM, on

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Speaker 1: people that have criminal convictions, on the people who have

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Speaker 1: disabilities that make it impossible for them to communicate, um

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Speaker 1: on immigrants. And so I would really encourage you're, if

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Speaker 1: you're concerned about fascism, if you're concerned about how your

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Speaker 1: rights may be trampled in the future, that focus on immigrants,

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Speaker 1: because they are the testing ground for a lot of

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Speaker 1: fascist government's worst intentions. Yeah, and that we've already seen that,

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Speaker 1: right if people aren't familiar it was Bortech among others

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Speaker 1: who were out there running around Portland chucking people into

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Speaker 1: unmarked vans. It was DHS drones surveiling people in Minneapolis.

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Speaker 1: It was indeed DHS surveiling I think people from Malatlado

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Speaker 1: and other organizations in eighteen when lots of US acrossing

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Speaker 1: the boarder very often to help people who were part

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Speaker 1: of what's called the migrant caravan then, and so like

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Speaker 1: this this is happening to us, right There's a thing

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Speaker 1: that crime think have on some of their posters which

434
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 1: I always like, which is the border doesn't protect you,

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00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 1: it controls you, which I think is it's more true

436
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 1: than ever now, Like it's just sort of, yeah, it's

437
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:54,280
Speaker 1: a place where we experiment with these policies and they

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00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: seem to they seem to get away with them, right Like,

439
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to be something that people care about

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00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: that they did even to a three years ago under

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00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: the Trump administration. I wonder they call it, how can

442
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:09,680
Speaker 1: people another thing that I think people black it's like

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00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: a direct connection to people seeking asylum or to the

444
00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,360
Speaker 1: situation at the border. Right Like every time something happens,

445
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen this more often than I have,

446
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: and someone from l A or d C or New

447
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 1: York or whatever kind of parachutes into border communities does it.

448
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 1: I can see that this is the frustration that you share.

449
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: Does a story which misses masses of context and then

450
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: bug us off back to the place where they came from,

451
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 1: And so like, where where can people find better connections

452
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 1: to the situation for people seeking asylum? I really like

453
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: a blog and it's also a podcast every week quarter

454
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: Chronicles Todd Miller's Border Chronicles. I also would recommend reading

455
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 1: all of Todd Miller's books. He is an incredible investigative

456
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: journalist that does deep dive on how we got to

457
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 1: this militarized state of your border. Um. So I would

458
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: recommend starting with Border Patrol Nation and just going straight

459
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: through there. Um. I also think Pro Publica also does

460
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: really great investigative long dive reporting the intersect. I would

461
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:19,239
Speaker 1: look at those places. Yeah, yeah, And I think if

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00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 1: you're in a border community, like it's really know that

463
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: hard to cross and see what's going on for yourself

464
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:26,320
Speaker 1: and and do a little something to help you make

465
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 1: some of your your money that you set aside. Veloping

466
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 1: other people can go a long way. If you choose

467
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,240
Speaker 1: to use it that way. And Nicole, how can people

468
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: support your work directly because there a website or a

469
00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: Twitter account they can follow to find more about a lot.

470
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 1: Now we do have our own website. We're also on Facebook, Instagram,

471
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: Twitter and LinkedIn. We regularly post opportunities to volunteer remotely,

472
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:55,040
Speaker 1: volunteer in person UM and campaigns that people want to

473
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 1: donate to UM. There's that opportunity as well. Great and

474
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 1: there any girls you want to share about that you

475
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: feel that our listeners should know maybe if they haven't

476
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: been following border situation closely. The border situation is part

477
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: of a larger historical context and briefly I talked about

478
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:16,560
Speaker 1: earlier the US as a signatory to the Refugee Convention,

479
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 1: which is an outgrowth of the horror that the world

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00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: collectively felt um when we came to grips with what

481
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 1: happened during the Holocaust, and you know, we collectively said

482
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: never again, never again. Part of our part in the

483
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: Holocaust was we rejected the m S. St. Louis from

484
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 1: the coast of Florida, and there was over nine Jewish

485
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: refugees that were on that boat. No other country accepted

486
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: them Cuba, Canada rejected and ultimately had to go back

487
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 1: to Europe. And some of those people ultimately died in

488
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:54,760
Speaker 1: the Holocaust, and and those deaths are are on our conscience. Uh.

489
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:59,480
Speaker 1: And any time the asylum seekers are being turned away

490
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: a lot on the border when they have the legal

491
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 1: right to present themselves under existing US law and international law,

492
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: it's a it's a repetition of the m St. Louis,

493
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 1: except it's happening all across the border every single day. Yeah,

494
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 1: that's very well put, and it is. It does matter

495
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: if it's one person or a hundred people, Like, it's

496
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 1: a tragedy every time we can't give some We have

497
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 1: a plenty of safe places for people to go, but

498
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 1: when I'm deciding not to not to welcome them, and yeah,

499
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 1: it's very very sad. Well, thank you so much for

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00:32:27,920 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: giving us some of your afternoon, Nicole Um. Yeah, if

501
00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: people want to find you personally, do you have a

502
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:36,400
Speaker 1: personal social media Yeah, you can find me on Twitter.

503
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: Um and I'm loosen on Twitter. Okay, great, and at

504
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: a laddo is it just a laddo on Twitter? Yes?

505
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:52,240
Speaker 1: Level sometimes we have a love level dot work. Yeah,

506
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: so there's a l O t R O l A

507
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 1: d O. If people are need to spend out right,

508
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:06,120
Speaker 1: thank you wonderful, thank you so much. It could happen

509
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: here as a production of cool Zone Media. Well more

510
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 1: podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone

511
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 1: media dot com, or check us out on the I

512
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:16,480
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

513
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated

514
00:33:19,320 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks

515
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: for listening,