Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to it could happen here a podcast
Speaker 1: which today is only me and my guest Nicole, and
Speaker 1: today we're gonna be talking a little bit about immigration,
Speaker 1: about immigration policy over the last three or four years,
Speaker 1: and about some of the strange laws that impacted. So
Speaker 1: Nicole is joining me. She works for Alotto Lado and
Speaker 1: Nicole would likely tochuse herself explain a little bit about
Speaker 1: what you do. Hi, my name is Nicole Elizabeth Ramos,
Speaker 1: and I am the director of Alto Lavel's Order Rights Project,
Speaker 1: which is based in Tijuana, Mexico. Great, okay, So I
Speaker 1: think perhaps to start off with, you could clue people
Speaker 1: in on a little bit of what you guys do,
Speaker 1: because you do some incredible work and it's very very
Speaker 1: valuable to boarder communities, and I think a lot of people,
Speaker 1: if they don't live in along the boarder, might not
Speaker 1: be familiar with it. At LAVO, we provide legal orientation
Speaker 1: to migrants that are considered during seeking asylum in the US.
Speaker 1: We started off as a project that focused locally on
Speaker 1: migrants in Tijuana, and over the years we have expanded
Speaker 1: to serve migrants in Mexicali and then remotely in other
Speaker 1: cities along the US Mexico border, including Grenosa, Matamoro, Squads,
Speaker 1: piege Uh and in this legal orientation, we're providing information
Speaker 1: about what are the current policies at the moment that
Speaker 1: will impact their ability to seek asylum in the US
Speaker 1: or prevent them from doing so, or how these policies
Speaker 1: might be impacting their family composition, so policies that are
Speaker 1: related to detention or family separation. After we provide legal orientation,
Speaker 1: we are then identifying asylum seekers that fall into several
Speaker 1: vulnerability categories to provide additional accompaniment through this process. Because
Speaker 1: the policies are shifting and changing and becoming more restrictive
Speaker 1: over time, it's very confusing and cumbersome to we throw
Speaker 1: all of the fuzz and figure out what you need
Speaker 1: to do in order to seek asylum in the US.
Speaker 1: So that's where we come in and we provide the
Speaker 1: orientation in multiple languages. The border is a very diverse place.
Speaker 1: It's not just Spanish speakers that are coming, but people
Speaker 1: that Speakation, Creole, French, Farsi, indigenous languages, Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish,
Speaker 1: um and all of these people need access to information.
Speaker 1: That's one of the pillars of our program is that
Speaker 1: migrants have the absolute right to accurate legal information about
Speaker 1: the process that they will be entering. Among the asylum
Speaker 1: teachers that we work with, we also identify those that
Speaker 1: our need of shelter and make referrals and proprilated shelters
Speaker 1: for medical care. In some instances we assist with obtaining
Speaker 1: medications or obtaining a needed surgery if the migrant is
Speaker 1: not have access to those resources, helping them obtain access
Speaker 1: to HIV medication or hormone treatment, and of those migrants,
Speaker 1: we are also connecting them with other supportive services from
Speaker 1: our partners UM that have shelters, that have programs where
Speaker 1: they're giving them basic dispenses of food because they are
Speaker 1: struggling with food and security. Trying to create as much
Speaker 1: of a social safety net as possible because UH folks
Speaker 1: are waiting at the border for longer and longer periods
Speaker 1: of time. The border used to be a place that
Speaker 1: people passed through, maybe they were here for a few
Speaker 1: days before ultimately they were able to present them at
Speaker 1: a present themselves at a US port of entry um
Speaker 1: to a US official and enter the asylum process. However,
Speaker 1: now we have individuals that have been waiting at the
Speaker 1: border for years, UM, who may not have work status
Speaker 1: in Mexico, may not be Spanish speakers, and are really
Speaker 1: struggling to meet their basic needs. And so we've had
Speaker 1: to expand our services from not just legal service provider,
Speaker 1: provider of legal information, but also providing humanitarian aids so
Speaker 1: that people can be healthy and as well as possible
Speaker 1: um while they're waiting. Yeah, and it's it's incredibly valuable,
Speaker 1: and it's it's amazing how you guys can continue to
Speaker 1: step up and scale up as federal government has continue
Speaker 1: to fail people. UM. And I think if people haven't
Speaker 1: come to the border, they probably won't be aware of,
Speaker 1: like you say that diversity of people who come to
Speaker 1: the US Mexico boarder. Like I remember a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, I was working within a Romo translator and
Speaker 1: with speaking to people who would come from Ethiopia, people
Speaker 1: come from Eritrea into it's a very of course, people
Speaker 1: coming from Ukraine. Now it's very diverse space, which is
Speaker 1: something that kind of gets collapsed pretty often in border reporting.
Speaker 1: I think like all that diversity gets collapsed into like
Speaker 1: like just people are lumped together as migrants or people
Speaker 1: seeking asylum. And that's a shame because it's what makes
Speaker 1: part of what makes us so complicated, but also what
Speaker 1: makes these border places such kind of interesting and special places.
Speaker 1: And and I like what you said about all the
Speaker 1: sort of services that are provided as well. It's incredible
Speaker 1: to look at how these services are provided by huge
Speaker 1: broad network of like volunteers, of nonprofit of of NGOs,
Speaker 1: as well as some government agencies, and how people have
Speaker 1: stepped up consistently, especially in the last I guess six
Speaker 1: seven it did such a long time, it's like, and
Speaker 1: how people have stepped up to help each other along
Speaker 1: the border. So perhaps if we go back you and
Speaker 1: I we're just talking before we started. If we go
Speaker 1: back to eighteen, which people may or may not remember,
Speaker 1: was the mid term, in the middle of Donald Trump's presidency,
Speaker 1: and a large caravan of people, a group of people
Speaker 1: that particularly larger remarkability, a group of people arrived at
Speaker 1: the border and became kind of the center of something
Speaker 1: of like a and they became I think their their
Speaker 1: arrival was used by both political parties as part of
Speaker 1: the sort of midterm messaging. And and I think that
Speaker 1: was maybe for some people, especially if if they're younger
Speaker 1: and had been watching their news the sort of first
Speaker 1: introduction to the asylum process. So can you explain kind
Speaker 1: of how asylum is supposed to happen, and then maybe
Speaker 1: we can get into some of the weird and bizarre
Speaker 1: things that have been happening to it in the past
Speaker 1: three or four years. Asylum is supposed to be a
Speaker 1: system that's managed first by by government authorities UM under
Speaker 1: Title eight, section twelve five of the United States Code,
Speaker 1: US immigration officer at a port of entry UM or
Speaker 1: at any point in between ports of entries such as
Speaker 1: border patrol, when they are presented with a person that
Speaker 1: expresses that they have a fear of return to their
Speaker 1: home country, that they fear of persecution, to refer them
Speaker 1: along the track to be processed as an asylum seeker. Now,
Speaker 1: that can mean that that person is still detained for
Speaker 1: the entirety of their asylum case and sent to an
Speaker 1: immigration detention center. That could also mean that that person
Speaker 1: is given court paperwork to show up an immigration court
Speaker 1: at a later date to begin the process of explaining
Speaker 1: their case to the immigration court and getting a final decision. UM.
Speaker 1: Over the years beginning at the end of the Obama administration,
Speaker 1: continuing through the Trump administration, and also continuing even now
Speaker 1: into the Biden administration, we have seen policies issued by
Speaker 1: CDP which restrict access to the port of entry for
Speaker 1: a silent seekers. Initially, it started out in two thousand sixteen,
Speaker 1: where the Obama administration came up with a policy called
Speaker 1: the Metering Policy, which was known as the waitlist, which
Speaker 1: required at first only Haitian asylum seekers to put their
Speaker 1: name on a wait list with Mexican immigration authorities and
Speaker 1: then they would be called in groups um to enter
Speaker 1: the US. And that was in response to the exodus
Speaker 1: of immigrants that we saw coming from Haiti and through
Speaker 1: Brazil in two thousand and sixteen. The metering list was
Speaker 1: later expanded to apply to all nationalities, including Mexican migrants
Speaker 1: that were trying to flee their own country, including those
Speaker 1: that had legitimate claims for protection being persecuted by members
Speaker 1: of their own government. Everyone had to still get on
Speaker 1: this list. That policy was extended in an ideological framework
Speaker 1: when the Trump administration came up with a program known
Speaker 1: as rem in Mexico and just building upon that idea
Speaker 1: that it is okay to make asylum seekers wait in
Speaker 1: territory in which they fear persecution because a lot of
Speaker 1: people here persecution in Mexico UM and under the Remain
Speaker 1: in Mexico policy also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols
Speaker 1: m p P. They we always refer to it as
Speaker 1: the Migrant Persecution Protocols because it feels it's extremely all
Speaker 1: WELLI in right, like people like to use a welly
Speaker 1: and wrong. But that that one that one pret Yeah,
Speaker 1: this program required asylum seekers that were entered. They were
Speaker 1: placed into a program called MPP. They were given court
Speaker 1: date and people were to appear at court in their
Speaker 1: nearest border city where there was an immigration court at
Speaker 1: some date in the future. It could be a few weeks,
Speaker 1: it could be several months, it could be a year.
Speaker 1: And in between their court hearings, they would be required
Speaker 1: to remain in Mexico. They could only go to the
Speaker 1: court of Entry you on the date of their court
Speaker 1: they would be transported to court and then transported back
Speaker 1: to Mexico after their court, leaving Mexico people in Mexico
Speaker 1: in limbo for years. And then when the pandemic came,
Speaker 1: we saw the border closed entirely. Under Title fort you two,
Speaker 1: the Trump administration build it as necessary to protect the
Speaker 1: American public from migrants that could be carriers of COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: But this is really, you know, no different than other
Speaker 1: immigration legislation that we've seen throughout history, which tends to
Speaker 1: paint immigrants as vectors of disease UM, and we need
Speaker 1: to just keep them out at all costs, and under
Speaker 1: Title for you too, it's just a wall of policy.
Speaker 1: People tried to present themselves at the port of entry
Speaker 1: and they're turned away. People enter the US UH at
Speaker 1: different points that are not ports of entry without inspection
Speaker 1: UM and get caught and they're expelled immediately back to Mexico,
Speaker 1: or if it's not a country that Mexico will accept
Speaker 1: an expulsion, they could be detained in US custody and
Speaker 1: then expelled back to their country of origin without any
Speaker 1: opportunity to speak with an asylum officer UM. Right now,
Speaker 1: we have been dealing with Title for you two in
Speaker 1: a process where certain number of people are exempted from
Speaker 1: this blanket denial every day UH and different ports of
Speaker 1: entry along the border participate. Each port of entry has
Speaker 1: its own cap numerical cap UM and initially, when this
Speaker 1: program started in May the names of people that were
Speaker 1: being submitted as exemptions. The asylum seekers names were submitted
Speaker 1: by civil society organizations such as A Lallo LAO. Just
Speaker 1: this year alone, we've submitted around a seven thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred I'm sorry exemption requests UM, and that was from
Speaker 1: individuals from twenty nine different countries speaking just over thirty
Speaker 1: different languages. So now though, the system has recently changed
Speaker 1: to a smartphone application known as c d P one,
Speaker 1: which requires migrants to download this application to their smartphone,
Speaker 1: assuming that they have a smartphone, and then complete this
Speaker 1: lengthy application UM that requires them to upload a photo
Speaker 1: UM for facial recognition software and wait for an appointment
Speaker 1: date to be made available. And they have to keep
Speaker 1: entering the fifth multiple times and until an appointment date
Speaker 1: becomes available, waking up every morning at five thirty for
Speaker 1: when the new slots are made available at six am.
Speaker 1: And the problem, among many problems with this application you
Speaker 1: just said right now, it's only available in Spanish and English,
Speaker 1: so if you speak any other language, you are not
Speaker 1: able to access it UM, and we have to give
Speaker 1: you an example. UM. We have an online survey where
Speaker 1: people register or try to seek help from US. We
Speaker 1: have over since April one, over fifteen thousand unique fifty
Speaker 1: unique responses. Around half of those are from Haitian creole speakers.
Speaker 1: Cannot access this app to get an appointment. The other
Speaker 1: issue is is that the facial recognition software that's integrated
Speaker 1: into the cd P one app. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of studies throughout the years about how this software
Speaker 1: will lead to false positives or failure to recognize for
Speaker 1: individuals that have um Afro descendant features or individuals that
Speaker 1: have more indigenous features, and we have seen this firsthand.
Speaker 1: So many of our Haitian clients are unable to even
Speaker 1: complete the profile, and they are taking photos with cameras
Speaker 1: that have a decent you know, lens capacity, and they
Speaker 1: still can't get past the facial recognition software. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just like a layers on layers of sort of you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's just them being like ineffective. Sometimes it just
Speaker 1: seems cruel. Let's go back a little bit to title
Speaker 1: forty two, because that word has been thrown around a lot, right,
Speaker 1: Title thirty two isn't in It's not immigration law, is it.
Speaker 1: It's it's public health law? Is that right? I guess
Speaker 1: it's it's public it's a public health policy that's part
Speaker 1: of immigration law. Yes, it's public health policy that's being
Speaker 1: applied in the immigration contact to close the border. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then one thing that I think we've seen a
Speaker 1: lot recently is like one of the worst accounts on Twitter,
Speaker 1: which is the Border Patrol Union likes to they do
Speaker 1: occasionally like tweet they around lossuits, which is kind of funny. Um,
Speaker 1: But they like to throw out these statistics right constantly
Speaker 1: about encounters at the border. Can you explain how under
Speaker 1: Title forty two, each encounter might not be a unique individual? Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: those individuals are over accounted because people will make multiple
Speaker 1: attempts to try to enter the US because they're so desperate.
Speaker 1: It's a dystopian healthscape on this side of the border,
Speaker 1: with people being trafficked, kidnapped for extortion, tortured, raped, murdered,
Speaker 1: sold ah. And so if that were any reasonable person,
Speaker 1: you would try tan fifteen times whatever it took to
Speaker 1: get across to safe. And the Border Patrol Union is
Speaker 1: disingenuous because it knows this, and instead it pulls out
Speaker 1: a figure that is much larger than what it represents
Speaker 1: in actual people and they're disingenuous and how they describe it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see
Speaker 1: through it. And of course when we combine this with
Speaker 1: the the wall or the fence or whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it, people are crossing in more and more
Speaker 1: dangerous areas, which makes the crossing more risky, right, and
Speaker 1: results in hiring into people dying or hurting themselves trying
Speaker 1: to cross, which, as you say, it's it's not a
Speaker 1: reasonable thing to do when you're faced with these terrible circumstances. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's a beautiful poem called Home by Warsha and Sire,
Speaker 1: who's a Somali British poet, and one of the lines
Speaker 1: is you don't put your child in a in a
Speaker 1: boat unless it's safer than the land. No one would
Speaker 1: attempt to cross a thirty football or wade the Rio
Speaker 1: grand A across the Arizona desert in the middle of
Speaker 1: summer unless what was behind them they were so sure
Speaker 1: was going to kill them. And the way that we've
Speaker 1: structured the wall and raising the height of the wall
Speaker 1: to make it harder to cross, and to build as
Speaker 1: much wall along the places where it would be a
Speaker 1: little bit easier to cross from people making it so
Speaker 1: the only way to cross is through the most dangerous parts.
Speaker 1: That's and that's intentional. That is, you know, designed for
Speaker 1: people to die because the government mistakenly believes that if
Speaker 1: it kills more people that folks will be deterred. But
Speaker 1: that's um, not actually what we see on the ground. No,
Speaker 1: and like it's not a vacuum, right, people are coming
Speaker 1: from bad things like making just making the boarder difficult
Speaker 1: one will do nothing more than kill more people, which
Speaker 1: is what they've succeeded in doing, sadly, and so and
Speaker 1: then another thing, I wanted to get it as Title
Speaker 1: forty two with this this crazy series of court cases
Speaker 1: around Title forty two, Right, so can you explain, like
Speaker 1: why titled forty two hasn't been repealed when we've done
Speaker 1: away with almost every other protection for people in kind
Speaker 1: of an ongoing pandemic. Title forty two could be repealed
Speaker 1: if the government was so not so intent on fighting
Speaker 1: the repeal of Title forty two. The a c l
Speaker 1: U has been in port for the last few years
Speaker 1: around Title for you two. UM in a case called
Speaker 1: we shaw we Sha be my works, and the judge
Speaker 1: in that case issued a decision in December ruling that
Speaker 1: turning away asylum seekers using Title for You two as
Speaker 1: a pretext um to turn asylum seekers away was unlawful. However,
Speaker 1: that decision was stayed. The government requested that the decision
Speaker 1: be uh temporarily stayed to give it time to make
Speaker 1: operational plans. The A C. L. You did not oppose
Speaker 1: that stay, and as a result, during that time, a
Speaker 1: group of conservative states filed intervening litigation UM to make
Speaker 1: their arguments about how their interests were harmed by the decision.
Speaker 1: So now that cases before the Supreme Court and they
Speaker 1: will not hear the case until February, and we could
Speaker 1: be waiting as long as June for a decision. Yeah,
Speaker 1: many of those lots of those states weren't even along
Speaker 1: the border, right, there's some of the ones who sued. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's still a mystery to all of us along the border.
Speaker 1: How interior states that sure might be receiving people coming
Speaker 1: from the border, but um don't have that close nexus.
Speaker 1: Is in there are border community and they're being immediately impacted.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, pretty pretty female stuff. And the other issue
Speaker 1: I want to raise for people is the narrative is
Speaker 1: that we're in a crisis the borders and a crisis. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's so many people we can't possibly help them all.
Speaker 1: We close the border for over two years, so of
Speaker 1: course there's going to be more people because we've made
Speaker 1: it impossible for people to access. However, the ports of
Speaker 1: entry have contingency plans for mass migration events. This is
Speaker 1: something that UM was learned during the context of our
Speaker 1: litigation UM against c VP around access to the board
Speaker 1: of Entry, and we see that the government is capable
Speaker 1: of responding rapidly in a manner that is consistent with
Speaker 1: human dignity, and how it responded to thirty thousand Ukrainians
Speaker 1: showing up in Tijuana this spring. In some days, c
Speaker 1: d P accepted as many as a thousand Ukrainians in
Speaker 1: a given day, where as both on those days they
Speaker 1: were accepting zero of other nationality, and they were able
Speaker 1: to get up to speed so quickly because every port
Speaker 1: of entry has a contingency plan. We are the United
Speaker 1: States government. We are arguably one of the most powerful,
Speaker 1: well resourced governments on Earth. If you buy the line
Speaker 1: that this is a crisis and we don't have a
Speaker 1: contingency plan, then we've got a lot of work to
Speaker 1: do here. Um, And so it's not it's a it's
Speaker 1: a manufactured crisis. Uh. We have the resources, we have
Speaker 1: the personnel. C VP has the largest law enforcement budget
Speaker 1: of all the law enforcement agencies in the federal government,
Speaker 1: and they have hands of thousands of personnel. It's what
Speaker 1: we lack is the political will and the emotional capital
Speaker 1: to do what we've already agreed to under US federal law,
Speaker 1: as well as the Refugee Convention which we signed uh
Speaker 1: following World War Two, which was designed to prevent further
Speaker 1: genocide for their persecution of large groups of people. Um,
Speaker 1: but we continue to renag on on those obligations to
Speaker 1: which were to Yeah, yeah, like when we talk about
Speaker 1: genocide and persecution, Like I personally know people from me
Speaker 1: and mar who are really struggling with the United States
Speaker 1: asylum system right now, and yeah, it's really deeply just
Speaker 1: infuriating to see them continue to pursue this kind of
Speaker 1: like waving my hands in the air, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do kind of things. Let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about Joe Biden and his policies, because like they've
Speaker 1: been blackluster or just completely like in some cases. You know,
Speaker 1: he he's issued executive orders which basically have gone on
Speaker 1: fulfilled right regarding asylum. And so they made a statement
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago now and Biden visited the border,
Speaker 1: and can you explain what he said in that statement
Speaker 1: and then sort of what the Biden administration hasn't done
Speaker 1: to clear up the asylum system that it promised it
Speaker 1: would do. The Buiding administration made a lot of promises
Speaker 1: on the campaign trail. UM made an effort to put
Speaker 1: advocates in places in DHS other key positions to give
Speaker 1: the appearance that it was serious about reform and treating
Speaker 1: immigrants in a way that is dignified and humane. UM.
Speaker 1: But what we've seen is a continuation of Trump policies
Speaker 1: which restrict access to the border. For example, UM, the
Speaker 1: new asylum band that they are proposing through regulation where
Speaker 1: individuals that have translated through another country UM and did
Speaker 1: not seek asylum in that country, even if that country
Speaker 1: was not a safe country for them, UM, that they
Speaker 1: would be precluded from applying for asylum. A lot of
Speaker 1: people are have been enthusiastic about these new parole programs
Speaker 1: for specific nationalities like Paraguans and a Swillans, um Haitians, Cubans. However,
Speaker 1: those programs are really just scraps um. They have a
Speaker 1: thirty thousand person cap um. The Ukrainian parole program had
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand person cap which has already been surpassed,
Speaker 1: surpassed um. Ukrainian sponsors well as of the Ukrainian asylum
Speaker 1: seekers that were presenting through that pel program, had much
Speaker 1: less by way of requirements um. And so they've made
Speaker 1: a separate and not equal program for other nationalities which
Speaker 1: just happened to be nationalities that aren't white. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard not to see a kind of white people
Speaker 1: first approach to asylum here. Yeah. I it certainly challenges
Speaker 1: to your ability not to believe it's our right racist.
Speaker 1: So I wonder like going forward, obviously people listening will
Speaker 1: probably be sort of upset and concerned the continuing failures
Speaker 1: of our government. You don't think about it? Can you
Speaker 1: outline like how people can help? I know there's there's
Speaker 1: lots of people who will do direct mutual aid right,
Speaker 1: like people like food not bombs of feeding people in Tijuana,
Speaker 1: But how can folks maybe who are at the border,
Speaker 1: and then who aren't near the border how can how
Speaker 1: can they help well organizations that are at the border,
Speaker 1: including ourselves, who work with volunteers that are remote, UM,
Speaker 1: particularly if they have a foreign language skill, because we
Speaker 1: can't serve tons of thousands of people each year with
Speaker 1: just the staff that we have UM, and so we
Speaker 1: have a really robust remote volunteer network. UM. I would
Speaker 1: also encourage people, as you pointed out, to look for
Speaker 1: organizations in their own community that are serving immigrants. It
Speaker 1: is incredibly humbling to move to another country and realize
Speaker 1: you don't know how to read the light bill, UM,
Speaker 1: you don't know how to register your kids for school?
Speaker 1: Can your kids go to school? Where can I go
Speaker 1: to the doctor? What you know? What is an ambulance?
Speaker 1: What that you know that I might not have to
Speaker 1: pay for that? All of these things that might be
Speaker 1: different from them, And a real lack of volunteers to
Speaker 1: assist people with those daily integration activities that are so
Speaker 1: important to figuring out how your new community works. UM.
Speaker 1: I also encourage people too, when there's an opportunity to
Speaker 1: have conversations with your elected official, to have those conversations,
Speaker 1: write emails, go in person if that's an opportunity different
Speaker 1: officials will have open days for their offices where you
Speaker 1: might be able to get maybe not face time with
Speaker 1: that official, but with their point person who is overseeing
Speaker 1: that issue. Right now, are elected officials, they don't care
Speaker 1: about immigration because a lot of their constituents are not
Speaker 1: making it known to them what it is that they
Speaker 1: care about, and that they're willing to go to drastic
Speaker 1: measures such as shutting down their office. Um, if they
Speaker 1: don't take action on immigration. We're all just thinking about
Speaker 1: it as Okay, well, this is happening to immigrants, This
Speaker 1: is not me. I am a citizen. But all of
Speaker 1: the worst fascist policies are tried out first on groups
Speaker 1: and in society that have less political power, UM, on
Speaker 1: people that have criminal convictions, on the people who have
Speaker 1: disabilities that make it impossible for them to communicate, um
Speaker 1: on immigrants. And so I would really encourage you're, if
Speaker 1: you're concerned about fascism, if you're concerned about how your
Speaker 1: rights may be trampled in the future, that focus on immigrants,
Speaker 1: because they are the testing ground for a lot of
Speaker 1: fascist government's worst intentions. Yeah, and that we've already seen that,
Speaker 1: right if people aren't familiar it was Bortech among others
Speaker 1: who were out there running around Portland chucking people into
Speaker 1: unmarked vans. It was DHS drones surveiling people in Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: It was indeed DHS surveiling I think people from Malatlado
Speaker 1: and other organizations in eighteen when lots of US acrossing
Speaker 1: the boarder very often to help people who were part
Speaker 1: of what's called the migrant caravan then, and so like
Speaker 1: this this is happening to us, right There's a thing
Speaker 1: that crime think have on some of their posters which
Speaker 1: I always like, which is the border doesn't protect you,
Speaker 1: it controls you, which I think is it's more true
Speaker 1: than ever now, Like it's just sort of, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a place where we experiment with these policies and they
Speaker 1: seem to they seem to get away with them, right Like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to be something that people care about
Speaker 1: that they did even to a three years ago under
Speaker 1: the Trump administration. I wonder they call it, how can
Speaker 1: people another thing that I think people black it's like
Speaker 1: a direct connection to people seeking asylum or to the
Speaker 1: situation at the border. Right Like every time something happens,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen this more often than I have,
Speaker 1: and someone from l A or d C or New
Speaker 1: York or whatever kind of parachutes into border communities does it.
Speaker 1: I can see that this is the frustration that you share.
Speaker 1: Does a story which misses masses of context and then
Speaker 1: bug us off back to the place where they came from,
Speaker 1: And so like, where where can people find better connections
Speaker 1: to the situation for people seeking asylum? I really like
Speaker 1: a blog and it's also a podcast every week quarter
Speaker 1: Chronicles Todd Miller's Border Chronicles. I also would recommend reading
Speaker 1: all of Todd Miller's books. He is an incredible investigative
Speaker 1: journalist that does deep dive on how we got to
Speaker 1: this militarized state of your border. Um. So I would
Speaker 1: recommend starting with Border Patrol Nation and just going straight
Speaker 1: through there. Um. I also think Pro Publica also does
Speaker 1: really great investigative long dive reporting the intersect. I would
Speaker 1: look at those places. Yeah, yeah, And I think if
Speaker 1: you're in a border community, like it's really know that
Speaker 1: hard to cross and see what's going on for yourself
Speaker 1: and and do a little something to help you make
Speaker 1: some of your your money that you set aside. Veloping
Speaker 1: other people can go a long way. If you choose
Speaker 1: to use it that way. And Nicole, how can people
Speaker 1: support your work directly because there a website or a
Speaker 1: Twitter account they can follow to find more about a lot.
Speaker 1: Now we do have our own website. We're also on Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 1: Twitter and LinkedIn. We regularly post opportunities to volunteer remotely,
Speaker 1: volunteer in person UM and campaigns that people want to
Speaker 1: donate to UM. There's that opportunity as well. Great and
Speaker 1: there any girls you want to share about that you
Speaker 1: feel that our listeners should know maybe if they haven't
Speaker 1: been following border situation closely. The border situation is part
Speaker 1: of a larger historical context and briefly I talked about
Speaker 1: earlier the US as a signatory to the Refugee Convention,
Speaker 1: which is an outgrowth of the horror that the world
Speaker 1: collectively felt um when we came to grips with what
Speaker 1: happened during the Holocaust, and you know, we collectively said
Speaker 1: never again, never again. Part of our part in the
Speaker 1: Holocaust was we rejected the m S. St. Louis from
Speaker 1: the coast of Florida, and there was over nine Jewish
Speaker 1: refugees that were on that boat. No other country accepted
Speaker 1: them Cuba, Canada rejected and ultimately had to go back
Speaker 1: to Europe. And some of those people ultimately died in
Speaker 1: the Holocaust, and and those deaths are are on our conscience. Uh.
Speaker 1: And any time the asylum seekers are being turned away
Speaker 1: a lot on the border when they have the legal
Speaker 1: right to present themselves under existing US law and international law,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a repetition of the m St. Louis,
Speaker 1: except it's happening all across the border every single day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's very well put, and it is. It does matter
Speaker 1: if it's one person or a hundred people, Like, it's
Speaker 1: a tragedy every time we can't give some We have
Speaker 1: a plenty of safe places for people to go, but
Speaker 1: when I'm deciding not to not to welcome them, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very very sad. Well, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: giving us some of your afternoon, Nicole Um. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: people want to find you personally, do you have a
Speaker 1: personal social media Yeah, you can find me on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Um and I'm loosen on Twitter. Okay, great, and at
Speaker 1: a laddo is it just a laddo on Twitter? Yes?
Speaker 1: Level sometimes we have a love level dot work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's a l O t R O l A
Speaker 1: d O. If people are need to spend out right,
Speaker 1: thank you wonderful, thank you so much. It could happen
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Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated
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Speaker 1: for listening,