Speaker 1: All Zone Media. Hello podcast fans, Me James and my
Speaker 1: friend Scherene and also Cherene's cat Bunny.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, she is here. She is here and ready
Speaker 2: to pard.
Speaker 1: Yeah. She loves to cast a pod and so do we. Today, Serene,
Speaker 1: we have the great pleasure of talking about the border again,
Speaker 1: which is something I talk about a lot, something that
Speaker 1: politicians also talk about a lot. Today, what I want
Speaker 1: to talk about is the difference between Kamala Harris and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump when it comes to the border, because shockingly,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of crap reporting on her border stance.
Speaker 1: There has been some good reporting, and like, there's always
Speaker 1: going to be right wing disinformation anytime you talk about
Speaker 1: the border.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Just today, Border Patrol released video of a woman falling
Speaker 1: to her death from the border wall. Border Patrol agents
Speaker 1: stood there for twenty four minutes watching her struggle. There
Speaker 1: was a ladder, and they decided to watch her struggle
Speaker 1: until she died as she fell, and then she died
Speaker 1: well watching this like objectively tragic thing, right, Like, when
Speaker 1: we think about how we get to fascism, we get
Speaker 1: to fascism when my taxes pay people to stand there
Speaker 1: and watch a woman die rather than do a single
Speaker 1: thing to help her, and then a bunch of fuck
Speaker 1: wits on the internet immediately start excusing this like it's
Speaker 1: it's so predictable that it was going to happen, And
Speaker 1: I'm just once again disgusted by the whole fucking apparatus
Speaker 1: sit as the border. I guess, so I want to
Speaker 1: talk about the things that have changed, right, and I
Speaker 1: want to talk. We'll sort of start by outlining who
Speaker 1: Kamale is with respect to the aborder. So everything she
Speaker 1: took over from Biden, Kamala has been sort of offering
Speaker 1: more platitudes than specifics, right, Like her campaign is mostly
Speaker 1: based on vibes. Like I went to her campaign website
Speaker 1: to see what her stances were on the border, it
Speaker 1: is not mentioned. I think that's notable. But recently, in
Speaker 1: some speeches she did offer some concrete ideas of what
Speaker 1: her border policy might look like. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: start with her campaign ad. This ad incidentally opens with
Speaker 1: what I'm pretty sure is a drone shot from Campo, California.
Speaker 1: I've taken pictures in reverse of that shot hundreds of times.
Speaker 3: You can find them on my website.
Speaker 1: Slate bought some of them off me maybe a month
Speaker 1: or two ago, No, not even like maybe maybe two
Speaker 1: or three weeks ago.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 1: I watched a mother breastfeed her five month old child,
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of miles from there. It was one
Speaker 1: hundred and five degrees. We were able to give them water.
Speaker 1: I saw someone in severe hypothermia right very hot. We
Speaker 1: were able to call them off. I spoke to a
Speaker 1: Sudanese family who were really struggling with making this long walk.
Speaker 1: They have to make out there. None of that shit
Speaker 1: made it into the Kamela Border advert, right, of course not.
Speaker 1: So I'm just going to play this advert for you, Shulan.
Speaker 3: On the border. The choice is simple.
Speaker 4: Kamala Harris supports increasing the number of border patrol agents.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump blocked a bill to increase the number of
Speaker 4: border patrol agents. Kamala Harris supports investing in new technology
Speaker 4: to block fetanyl from entering the country. Donald Trump blocked
Speaker 4: funding for technology to block fentanyl from entering the country.
Speaker 4: Kamala Harris supports spending more money to stop human traffickers.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump blocked money to stop human traffickers. Kamala Harris
Speaker 4: prosecuted trains national gang members and got them sentenced to prison.
Speaker 4: Trump is trying to avoid being sentenced to prison. There's
Speaker 4: two choices in this election, the one who will fix
Speaker 4: our broken integration system and the one who's trying to
Speaker 4: stop her.
Speaker 2: A cop or a clown? Who should we vote for president?
Speaker 3: And that's exactly it, right.
Speaker 1: She's leaning really heavily on this, like I am a
Speaker 1: cop thing and like we have spent and continue to
Speaker 1: spend billions of dollars on board of cops.
Speaker 3: That is not the fucking solution. It will be the solution.
Speaker 1: We cannot make this giant border so full of cops
Speaker 1: that it's impossible for people to cross it.
Speaker 3: People will still cross.
Speaker 1: It because cops ain't going to go to the middle
Speaker 1: of the desert, because, you know, be inherent in being
Speaker 1: a cop is also being lazy. So I want to
Speaker 1: play some stuff that she said in Atlanta this week.
Speaker 2: So here is my pledge to you. As president.
Speaker 5: I will bring back the border security bill that Donald
Speaker 5: Trump killed and I will sign.
Speaker 2: It into law.
Speaker 5: And so Donald Trump, what real leadership looks like?
Speaker 2: Oh fuck off?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I'm going to subject you to some Carmela
Speaker 1: and some Trump today.
Speaker 2: That's okay. I signed up for this.
Speaker 1: Okay, So here's another one of her, and this I
Speaker 1: think is really telling, right where she is bragging about
Speaker 1: the most conservative Republican supporting her bill.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump, on the other hand, he's been talking a
Speaker 5: big game about securing our border, but he does not
Speaker 5: walk the walk, or as my friend Quavo would say,
Speaker 5: he does not walk it like he talks it. Where
Speaker 5: if so, Look, our administration worked on the most significant
Speaker 5: border security bill in decades. Some of the most conservative
Speaker 5: Republicans in Washington, d C. Supported the bill. Even the
Speaker 5: Border Patrol endorsed it.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to read some transcription that speech as well.
Speaker 1: Just this is pretty much the only point of data
Speaker 1: we have on her proposed border policy. So we're going
Speaker 1: heavy on this speech that she gave in at my
Speaker 1: at a rally.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I went after transnational gangs, drug cartails, and human traffickers
Speaker 1: that came into our country legally. I prosecuted them in
Speaker 1: case after case, and I won, Harris said. Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, has been talking a big game
Speaker 1: about securing our border, but he does not walk the walk.
Speaker 1: That's what you just heard, right, And then she goes
Speaker 1: on to reference Quavo, which is cool and normal. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about that leadership, and let's talk about the
Speaker 1: bill she's proposing.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: This is a bipartisan bill that was proposed last year
Speaker 1: and that didn't succeed. Right, it's the one that Democrats
Speaker 1: are making a big fuss about. Republicans getting the border bill.
Speaker 1: It's one of the only good things they've ever done, actually,
Speaker 1: because it represented a massive right wood swing from where
Speaker 1: Democrats have previously been on immigration. In the bill, DHS
Speaker 1: could close the border if border patrol encountered four thousand
Speaker 1: or more migrants on average over a seven day period.
Speaker 1: The border would then have to be shut down if
Speaker 1: encounters reached a seven day average of five thousand, or
Speaker 1: if they exceeded five hundred in a single day.
Speaker 2: Does that happen on these numbers like realistic?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 1: Well, a really important thing to remember when we talk
Speaker 1: about these numbers is did you notice that it was
Speaker 1: phrases encounters, not people. So this is a thing that
Speaker 1: is apparently impossible if you write for a fucking broad
Speaker 1: cheat corporate legacy newspaper to understand an encounter does not
Speaker 1: represent a unique individual. Border patrol do not give us
Speaker 1: data on unique individuals. They give us data on encounters.
Speaker 1: And this is important because under title forty two, which
Speaker 1: I made a series about last year that you can
Speaker 1: listen to, I would like it if you did, people
Speaker 1: can be returned to Mexico. And as you'll see, and
Speaker 1: under this proposal, people can be returned to Mexico and
Speaker 1: then they will try and come back because most of
Speaker 1: the people coming to our border are not from Mexico,
Speaker 1: nor do they have roots in Mexico, nor can they
Speaker 1: be safe in Mexico. So they will try and come back,
Speaker 1: and they will try and come back in a different place,
Speaker 1: in a more remote place, and that will result in
Speaker 1: a higher risk to their lives making that journey. Right, So,
Speaker 1: eighty five hundred individuals across the whole border doesn't mean
Speaker 1: to have them five hundred people, but yes, those numbers
Speaker 1: are reachable.
Speaker 2: That's just so, that's so disingenuous to word it that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Border Patrol just had, like I don't know, they
Speaker 1: had so much success with doing this under title forty two,
Speaker 1: Like we're flooded with migrants and like I've spoken to
Speaker 1: people who have tried seven times to cross. You know,
Speaker 1: it's extremely disingenuous, and I think we're going to get
Speaker 1: onto this. But this is a debate about the border
Speaker 1: happening by people who never go to the border and
Speaker 1: don't understand what it's like, both in the media and
Speaker 1: in politics.
Speaker 3: And I think that that is a problem.
Speaker 1: So when it's closed, quote unquote, now, we can't close
Speaker 1: the border, right like a physically we cannot be We're
Speaker 1: not going to close the border and be like, Okay, Mexico,
Speaker 1: no tomatoes, Okay, no tourists can come into Orlando now,
Speaker 1: right that that's not what it's about.
Speaker 3: It is open to.
Speaker 1: Capital and is open to wealthy people. All we're doing
Speaker 1: is it to the people who most need a help,
Speaker 1: that being people seeking asylum. Right, So, when it's quote
Speaker 1: unquote closed, they would still process fourteen hundred migrants through
Speaker 1: ports of entry. That would presumably be people arriving using
Speaker 1: CBP one, which is a fatally flawed app which doesn't
Speaker 1: work for black folks, which has been hacked. All the
Speaker 1: appointments are sold booked up month in advance. You can
Speaker 1: only use it north of Mexico City. It's a complete mess.
Speaker 1: Every single migrant I have encountered has tried to use
Speaker 1: CBP one.
Speaker 3: And given up.
Speaker 1: It's not even available in that many languages, right, I
Speaker 1: think it's English, Spanish and Haitian creole right now, Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's ludicrous to suggest that this is accessible, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't work very well on Samsung phones. I have
Speaker 1: a pra a foil. I guess a foyer out to
Speaker 1: CBP about that. But you know, maybe in six years,
Speaker 1: after like several court cases, I'll get it back. But
Speaker 1: I know that people are buying iPhones migrant advocates both
Speaker 1: in Mecha Goo City and north of there, to allow
Speaker 1: migrants to access the app. They're trying to help them
Speaker 1: overcome these hurdles, right, but like, fucking come on, you know,
Speaker 1: we've got the entire US government here and and it's
Speaker 1: my friends trying to get five bucks from from you
Speaker 1: know whoever to buy an iPhone so migrants can share it,
Speaker 1: Like it's obscene.
Speaker 3: Only unaccompanied miners.
Speaker 1: Would be processed if they entered between ports of entry, right,
Speaker 1: So that's people under the age of eighteen without their folks,
Speaker 1: anyone who tried to cross between ports of entries. So
Speaker 1: port of entry is when you cross the border with
Speaker 1: your passport and you go through an office that support
Speaker 1: of entry. Right, So if you cross in another fashion
Speaker 1: over a river, over a wall, around a wall, under
Speaker 1: a wall, through a wall, just across the desert, weare
Speaker 1: there isn't a wall that's between ports of entries. If
Speaker 1: anyone tries two or more times, then during a border emergency,
Speaker 1: they will be barred from the United States for a period.
Speaker 3: I think it's a year.
Speaker 1: I should note that this bill didn't pass, but Biden
Speaker 1: did write an executive order setting an arbitrary cap at
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred encounters per day, which you will notice
Speaker 1: is lower. And it removes the requirement that border patrol
Speaker 1: ask migrants if they fear persecution. So this is really important.
Speaker 1: It's called a shout test. And the difference here is
Speaker 1: between me saying and ensuring you've just come across the border,
Speaker 1: are you here because you fear persecution? Can you not
Speaker 1: safely go home? And me just saying get in the
Speaker 1: fucking van, and you having to articulate that you fear persecution? Right,
Speaker 1: Which is that requires them to know that they have
Speaker 1: to articulate it. It requires them to be able to
Speaker 1: articulate it in a language it's intelligible to the officer
Speaker 1: or whoever's interviewing them. Right, it's a much higher barrier.
Speaker 1: And in both cases, right, you could have the same
Speaker 1: person and they could be rejected because they didn't pass
Speaker 1: this so called shout test.
Speaker 2: It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It's a really bullshit workaround for someone who is clearly
Speaker 1: eligible for asylum.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like any good faith actor wants to find
Speaker 1: out if that person is going to be persecuted when
Speaker 1: they go home. And so moving to a shout test,
Speaker 1: like you are consciously saying some people were going to
Speaker 1: send home they will fucking die, or they will be tortured,
Speaker 1: or they will face persecution of other means, right, because
Speaker 1: they didn't articulate in the right words their fear of persecution.
Speaker 1: And it's just there is not a good faith argument
Speaker 1: for this. It's just get numbers down at the cost
Speaker 1: of human suffering. So in this case, right, I have
Speaker 1: met migrants with pretty rock SOIDID claims. I don't want
Speaker 1: to go into the details of their cases too much.
Speaker 1: I will in the future, but like you know, I'm
Speaker 1: out at the border a lot, and I'm out in
Speaker 1: the back country there a lot, and I try and
Speaker 1: help people whenever I can. I talk to them about
Speaker 1: their claims, and I'm not going to ask someone to
Speaker 1: justify their trauma to me with seventeen documents, right, But
Speaker 1: some of them have shown me things which I do
Speaker 1: believe would would be a very cast iron asylum claim,
Speaker 1: and they seem to be since Biden's executive order, just
Speaker 1: getting booted back across the border. So he kind of
Speaker 1: worked around that part of the bill failing. But let's
Speaker 1: look at what else is in it. So if the
Speaker 1: bill that Harris is saying she will reintroduce, of course
Speaker 1: she herself can't, right, it's a legislative act or senator
Speaker 1: or how over the House would The bill would limit
Speaker 1: border closures to two hundred and seventy days, two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty five days, and one hundred and eighty days
Speaker 1: for the first three years, which no, there's no limit
Speaker 1: in the Biden executive order.
Speaker 3: So I guess that's better. I guess.
Speaker 1: I mean, fucking two hundred and seventy days when you
Speaker 1: can't claim asylum, that's a lot of days. There's also
Speaker 1: funding a lot of funding from more border patrol agents,
Speaker 1: of course, more asylum officers, as well as more than
Speaker 1: one hundred judges. We do need to move people through
Speaker 1: the immigration system. But a lot more pressingly, we need
Speaker 1: to open legal passways that are not walking across the
Speaker 1: desert and passing a shout test. It would mandate detaining
Speaker 1: migrants if they try to enter the US outside of
Speaker 1: ports of entry, depending their asylum claim. So this is
Speaker 1: really big. Actually, it's going to result in a massive
Speaker 1: increase in the amount of asylum detention beds we need.
Speaker 1: The bill contains funding for another ten thousand more beds,
Speaker 1: will probably end up needing more than that. But all
Speaker 1: of these beds are not in state run facilities, right,
Speaker 1: They're in private facilities. ICE coordinates with it's cour civic.
Speaker 1: It's people who when Biden first came into office, he
Speaker 1: wrote he wrote an executive order about getting rid of
Speaker 1: private prisons. These are the private prisons. This is how
Speaker 1: we reallocated money to those same people doing this terrible thing, right,
Speaker 1: which is locking people up for profit. I've heard terrible
Speaker 1: stories about the conditions in some of these detention centers.
Speaker 1: And this is the guy who ran on and bragged
Speaker 1: about closing down private prisons, sending more money to private
Speaker 1: prisons just for migrants dot citizens because apparently their rights
Speaker 1: don't matter. As much that their lives don't matter as
Speaker 1: much talking of things that don't matter, Sharen, should we
Speaker 1: take an at break.
Speaker 3: That was beautiful, James, thank you.
Speaker 1: So we're back, and I want to talk about what
Speaker 1: Harris has done as VP, which is they put her
Speaker 1: on this root causes beat right, what she's supposed to
Speaker 1: go after, the root causes of migration. So I want
Speaker 1: to start with this message, as she sent to the
Speaker 1: people of Guatemala.
Speaker 5: I want to be clear to folks in this region
Speaker 5: who are thinking about making that dangerous track to the
Speaker 5: United States Mexico border, do not come.
Speaker 3: Do not come.
Speaker 5: The United States will continue to enforce our laws and
Speaker 5: secure our border. They are legal methods by which migration
Speaker 5: can and should occur, but we, as one of our priorities,
Speaker 5: will discourage illegal migration. And I believe if you come
Speaker 5: to our border, you will be turned back.
Speaker 2: Do not come. Yeah, I think I've seen that before.
Speaker 3: Yeah. She took a lot of shit for that one,
Speaker 3: rightly understandably.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is not the only time to bide administration
Speaker 1: said this. By the way, they were tweeting, do not
Speaker 1: come in and creole in twenty twenty one, Well from
Speaker 1: the Embassy of the United States in eighty This has
Speaker 1: been their message and continues to be their message.
Speaker 7: Now to the ongoing crisis down at the southern.
Speaker 6: Border, the focus of Vice President Kamala Harris's first overseas
Speaker 6: trip since taking office.
Speaker 8: She had to Mexico today after spending yesterday in Guatemala,
Speaker 8: where she announced several initiatives and delivered a message to
Speaker 8: potential migrants there, do not come to the United States.
Speaker 8: The Vice President also sat down exclusively with the NBC's
Speaker 8: Lester Hoole, who began by asking her about that warning.
Speaker 6: In the news conference here in Guatemala City. You had
Speaker 6: a message for would be migrants, don't come. Why should
Speaker 6: they believe you when they know that people are getting in.
Speaker 5: I've been working on this issue for a very long time,
Speaker 5: and the kind of violence and danger that is associated
Speaker 5: with that track, especially when we're talking about from Guatemala
Speaker 5: through Mexico to the United States, it's extremely dangerous. We
Speaker 5: are looking at a situation where people are fleeing because
Speaker 5: of hunger, because of the hurricanes, because of the pandemic.
Speaker 5: So the reason I am here is to address those issues.
Speaker 5: Knowing that the people who are here for generations. They
Speaker 5: want to stay, they don't want to leave, but they
Speaker 5: need opportunity, they need assistance, they need support.
Speaker 6: Americans don't see a lot of them on a daily basis.
Speaker 6: What they do see it at their own border. Children
Speaker 6: being lowered over offences, children coming in with phone numbers
Speaker 6: stenciled on their hand. And so the question has come up,
Speaker 6: and you heard it here and you'll hear it again.
Speaker 6: I'm sure it's why not visit the border? Why not
Speaker 6: see what Americans are seeing in this crisis.
Speaker 5: Well, we are going to the boarder. We have to
Speaker 5: deal with what's happening at the border. There's no question
Speaker 5: about that. That's not a debatable point. But we have
Speaker 5: to understand that there's a reason people are arriving at
Speaker 5: our border and ask what is that reason, and then
Speaker 5: identify the problem can fix it.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So all of this was while the Biden administration continued
Speaker 1: to defend and force Title forty two. If people haven't
Speaker 1: listened to the series that made it about Title forty two,
Speaker 1: and I've said that twice, but that's like two three
Speaker 1: hours of me explaining Title forty two, So that would
Speaker 1: explain it better than a cand of twenty seconds here.
Speaker 1: Title forty two is a public health law, and the
Speaker 1: idea of Title forty two is to prevent people with
Speaker 1: tuberculosis coming into the United States. An element of Title
Speaker 1: forty two of the United States Code it contains this.
Speaker 1: The idea was never to use it as a de
Speaker 1: facto block on asylum, which is what the Trump administration
Speaker 1: did for a year and the Biden administration did for
Speaker 1: nearly three years.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 1: The Bidens registration did it for much much longer. This
Speaker 1: ended in May of twenty twenty three, and it was used.
Speaker 1: They called it catch and release, right, it was used
Speaker 1: to bounce people straight back. As we spoke about before
Speaker 1: catch and release.
Speaker 2: It's like you're literally like an animal practice, you know, like.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, Like these people are fucking fish, and I
Speaker 1: don't like doing that to fish. Shouldn't stress out of fish.
Speaker 1: It's just vibing down there, ruin its day. So later
Speaker 1: in that same interview, she was very defensive about her
Speaker 1: failing to visit the border. But I think there are
Speaker 1: very reasonable questions. Sometimes these criticisms are used in bad
Speaker 1: faith by Republicans, So is everything right? It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we shouldn't talk about it.
Speaker 3: We should.
Speaker 1: I didn't see a single elected official from the Democrat Party.
Speaker 1: I guess fucking Jim Desmond turned up, but I wish
Speaker 1: he wouldn't. He turned up, told lies about who paid
Speaker 1: for the aid, and then forced his in turn to
Speaker 1: apologize for it when a bunch of people turned up
Speaker 1: at his office.
Speaker 3: Really great integrity.
Speaker 1: I didn't see a single Democrat for the months that
Speaker 1: border patrol held thousands of people in open air attention,
Speaker 1: without food, water, or shelter, and for the months of
Speaker 1: my friends and I took care of them instead. What
Speaker 1: Harris was doing was trying to connect business leaders with
Speaker 1: economies in Central America to quote create jobs.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: She has some success with a Japanese car factor in
Speaker 1: Guatemala and a Swiss coffee processor buying more beans and
Speaker 1: committing to more coffee purchases.
Speaker 3: Right. But this shit does not work and it has
Speaker 3: never worked.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 1: Obviously, my position on global economics is not the same
Speaker 1: as hers. But we can't trickle down the causes of migration.
Speaker 1: We can't do this with like a rising tide levels
Speaker 1: or boats GDP stuff. Even if we do buy this
Speaker 1: kind of freakonomics tier bullshit, it doesn't matter because the
Speaker 1: change is going to take decades to come. Right, you
Speaker 1: can't just just change a national economy. Change deals with unemployment,
Speaker 1: with violence, with state violence, with nonstate violence overnight. And
Speaker 1: it's very likely that the pace of climate change alone
Speaker 1: will outstrip any benefits that these programs provide. Right, because
Speaker 1: we are seeing increasingly people coming from countries that are
Speaker 1: the most impacted by climate change to countries like the
Speaker 1: United States, one of the countries that has made the
Speaker 1: largest contribution to the climate change.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: But this idea of like trickle down economics to stop migration,
Speaker 1: it doesn't address the issue that most of the migrants
Speaker 1: are no longer coming from the places she's going, Right,
Speaker 1: So she's worked pretty extensively in the Northern Triangle, Guatemala, Hondordas,
Speaker 1: in El Salvador. These are places which sent a lot
Speaker 1: of migrants, may be in the earlier Barbera administration, but
Speaker 1: that's not the case anymore. Right, Those are not typically
Speaker 1: places I see migrants from, Right, I see migrants from Venezuela,
Speaker 1: and we're going to get a lot more of those.
Speaker 1: I see migrants from Turkey, many of them, but not
Speaker 1: all of them.
Speaker 3: Kurdish.
Speaker 1: I see migrants from North Africa. I see migrants from
Speaker 1: the Sahel, I see migrants from India. I don't particularly
Speaker 1: see people from the Northern Triangle. So the idea that
Speaker 1: like lifting the economy in the Northern Triangle is going
Speaker 1: to move the needle. It's just not even if we
Speaker 1: buy the idea that it's possible, and I don't think
Speaker 1: it is. So that's let's take a look at Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: I guess I should give people a trigger warning. I'm
Speaker 1: only going to include a little bit of Donald Trump
Speaker 1: audio here, but yeah, you can tap the skiit.
Speaker 3: Button if you don't want to hear Donald Trump talking.
Speaker 1: So Donald Trump's policies largely are in response to things
Speaker 1: that are not real or proposing things that the president
Speaker 1: or Congress cannot do, or that the president cannot do
Speaker 1: without the.
Speaker 3: Support of Congress.
Speaker 1: So his first thing is talking about ending birthright citizenship.
Speaker 1: This is not a thing that he can do by
Speaker 1: executive order. Right, this is an amendment to the Constitution
Speaker 1: that requires an amendment to the Constitution to party back. Now,
Speaker 1: you can mend the constitution, but I don't think you'd
Speaker 1: ever get support for ending birth right citizenship.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: This has been the case since aster the Civil War,
Speaker 1: and it exists to stop people disenfranchising the children of
Speaker 1: formally enslaved people.
Speaker 7: Under Biden's current policies, even though these millions of illegal
Speaker 7: border crosses have entered the country on awfully, all of
Speaker 7: their future children will become automatic US citizens. Can you
Speaker 7: imagine They'll be eligible for welfare, taxpayer funded healthcare, the
Speaker 7: rate to vote, chain migration, and countless other government benefits,
Speaker 7: many of which will also profit the illegal alien parents.
Speaker 7: This policy is a reward for breaking the laws of
Speaker 7: the United States and is obviously a magnet helping draw
Speaker 7: the flood of illegals across our borders. They come by
Speaker 7: the millions and millions and minions.
Speaker 1: So another thing that don Trump wants to do is
Speaker 1: do away with the Diversity Visa program. Are you familiar
Speaker 1: with the Diversity Visa.
Speaker 2: No, I'm going to say no, I'm familiar with it,
Speaker 2: but I have to like know what it is in detail,
Speaker 2: So please tell me.
Speaker 3: James, Okay, I would love to tell you.
Speaker 1: Sharing the DV program, I will avoid using the acronym.
Speaker 3: Because it US. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They we're just sending cops all over the World's Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Diversity Visa program, better known as the Green Card Lottery,
Speaker 1: allows about fifty five thousand or exactly fifty five thousand
Speaker 1: in theory, immigrant visas a year for individuals from countries
Speaker 1: that are underrepresented in the US immigration system.
Speaker 2: I remember that. Well, that sounds familiar, Yes.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, So, like you'll meet people almost everywhere I go.
Speaker 1: I tend not to go to countries that are highly
Speaker 1: represented in the US immigration system, right, Those being countries
Speaker 1: that find it easier for people to get visas like
Speaker 1: h one B's right, because they are more economically maybe
Speaker 1: close to the United States and have educational credentials that
Speaker 1: translate across. So the Trump administration had made the diversity
Speaker 1: visa program, it's such a massive cluster fuck that it
Speaker 1: effectively didn't work. And the way that this happened was
Speaker 1: because you don't just win the Green card lottery and
Speaker 1: they mail a green cards to your house, like come
Speaker 1: on over, Bud. You win the lottery, and that gives
Speaker 1: you the right to go to the embassy to do
Speaker 1: an interview and then you make the application. Right then
Speaker 1: they check check you off on any checklist you might
Speaker 1: be on. All the stuff that would normally apply to
Speaker 1: a migrant it's not like an amnust T visa. And
Speaker 1: what the Trump administration did was make it very hard
Speaker 1: for people to get these appointments, especially during COVID and
Speaker 1: this has been the case with the Bide administration as well.
Speaker 1: They get the lowest priority now the cambuc And appointment,
Speaker 1: but other people's stuff gets to sort of overtake.
Speaker 3: Them in the line.
Speaker 1: Right, because you only have a year from receiving it
Speaker 1: to claiming it de facto, this means that people don't
Speaker 1: get it right. So we are not fifty five thousand
Speaker 1: people are not coming because of the diversity visa. Even
Speaker 1: if they were, this is not very many people, and
Speaker 1: like it's just Trump. I don't know, maybe he saw
Speaker 1: the phrase diversity and became triggered. But it's a weird
Speaker 1: little bugbear like which I guess if you can focus
Speaker 1: on weird little things. But still, the diversity visa is great.
Speaker 1: The people I know who often most deserve visas people
Speaker 1: who can't even afford to make the trip right to
Speaker 1: walk here or you know, if you're not in the
Speaker 1: Continental Americas, it's a lot more expensive.
Speaker 3: You have to fly. I guess you could take a vote.
Speaker 1: But some of those people I mean, my friend who
Speaker 1: driving all around Iraq is applying for a diversity VSA
Speaker 1: and like, I really hope he gets it, lovely man.
Speaker 1: Trump also has this bug there about DHS paying benefits
Speaker 1: to quote illegal aliens crooker.
Speaker 7: Joe Biden is running a NonStop conveyor belt importing illegal
Speaker 7: aliens from all over the world into our country, and
Speaker 7: the Biden Department of Homeland Security is abusing it so
Speaker 7: called parole authority to give them more governmental benefits than
Speaker 7: many law abiding citizens, including our vets. Our vets are
Speaker 7: being taken advantage of. Our citizens are being taken advantage of.
Speaker 7: It's very unfair and it's not going to stand.
Speaker 1: The Department of how My Security doesn't pay and benefits
Speaker 1: to anyone. I guess it pays like border patrol agents
Speaker 1: and people who work for it, but it's not giving
Speaker 1: anyone public benefits. Right, and documented people normally ineligible for
Speaker 1: most benefits, even people who do have legal status. And
Speaker 1: he consistently conflates asylum seekers with undocumented people, right, maybe
Speaker 1: because he genuinely doesn't know the difference, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: care to learn the difference. Even people who have legal
Speaker 1: status face a range of hurdles like sometimes they have
Speaker 1: a forty quarter work bar for example, right, so that
Speaker 1: it means you have to have been working for forty
Speaker 1: periods of three months consecutively. Again, this is kind of
Speaker 1: He might be talking about something called the public charge rule,
Speaker 1: which can interfere with your citizenship or visa application if
Speaker 1: you've taken certain times of benefits. So maybe he's looking
Speaker 1: to make that a little bit broader. But again it's
Speaker 1: really unclear, and it's kind of like identity politics grifting.
Speaker 1: The next thing is we're getting towards QAnon territory.
Speaker 3: Now, great, I.
Speaker 7: Will use Title forty two to end the child traffic
Speaker 7: in crisis by returning all traffic children to their families
Speaker 7: in their home countries and without then, and I will
Speaker 7: urge Congress to ensure that anyone caught traffic in children.
Speaker 7: Of course our border receives the death penalty immediately. And
Speaker 7: that includes also for women, because women, as you know,
Speaker 7: are number one in trafficking children are actually number two.
Speaker 1: This is some weird shit first of all, right, but
Speaker 1: he talks about using Title forty two. This is not,
Speaker 1: as I've talked about three times now, what Title forty
Speaker 1: two is for it's very obvious that he thinks Title
Speaker 1: forty two is immigration law because he very obviously used
Speaker 1: it as that.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: He was not using Title forty two to stop people
Speaker 1: getting COVID because he did square root fuckles stop people
Speaker 1: getting COVID, right, and there were not exemptions for vaccinated people.
Speaker 1: It's very obvious that they use Title forty two cynically
Speaker 1: as an immigration law. That is not what it is. Also,
Speaker 1: deporting someone back to the situation they were trafficked from,
Speaker 1: maybe not smart like maybe especially a miner who is
Speaker 1: trafficked here, maybe we could help them one of the
Speaker 1: richest countries the humanity has ever seen. Maybe not just
Speaker 1: bumping them straight back to that country, maybe showing a
Speaker 1: little bit of compassion. Human trafficking is a problem, but
Speaker 1: this is not the solution. So Harris kind of touts
Speaker 1: her prosecutorial experience when she talks about human trafficking. She's
Speaker 1: actually been better than some not punishing people who were trafficked, right,
Speaker 1: So I was reading that at one point she asked
Speaker 1: prosecutors not to use the term teenage prostitute because that's
Speaker 1: not really a thing. What we're seeing there is somebody
Speaker 1: who is being trafficked, right, or somebody who has been victimized,
Speaker 1: taken advantage of manipulated and seeing them as perpetrators is
Speaker 1: fundamentally missing the fucking problem. And this is what the
Speaker 1: legal system does far too often, right, is it goes
Speaker 1: after the people who are the vactims, not the criminals.
Speaker 1: She twice brought criminal charges against backpage dot Com, which
Speaker 1: is a website.
Speaker 3: I guess whe people can find escorts.
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with these things, but I know that
Speaker 1: some sex workers were opposed to that because they felt
Speaker 1: it drove them kind of onto more underground platforms, which
Speaker 1: which were even more risky to them. But obviously if
Speaker 1: people were also being trafficked on this platform, So like
Speaker 1: her record, I guess it is somewhat mixed. You know
Speaker 1: what else is somewhat mixed? Shereen, what, James, it's the
Speaker 1: products and services that we get to support this show.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes it's the cops, sometimes it's terrible coffee,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's gold. You never know what you're going to get. Ooh,
Speaker 1: we are backed, and we are back to one of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's oldest chestnutes, and that would be his stupid wall,
Speaker 1: right that he wants to build.
Speaker 7: We created the most secure border in US history, by far,
Speaker 7: dealing a major blow to the cartels and traffickers. We
Speaker 7: built hundreds of miles of war, We renovated hundreds of
Speaker 7: miles of water. We never had anything like it. And
Speaker 7: then I got Mexico free of charge. You give us
Speaker 7: twenty eight thousand soldiers to protect us from people coming
Speaker 7: into our country illegally.
Speaker 1: He talks about building hundreds of miles a wall. He
Speaker 1: sets up a couple of times. Right, we've renovated hundreds
Speaker 1: of mile the wall. You know, did they build hundreds
Speaker 1: that maybe just technically that they really.
Speaker 3: Fudged the numbers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've had a lot of freedom of information requests
Speaker 1: for that. I guess what's more relevant is that Biden.
Speaker 3: Also built the wall, right, mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Calm, that's not talking about it. But as we've documented
Speaker 1: numerous times, Biden has continued to build the wall. He's
Speaker 1: continued to build the barrier, which.
Speaker 3: Is a wall.
Speaker 1: He has repaired other sections of war, he has upgraded
Speaker 1: sections of fence to wall. They're both doing this, right.
Speaker 1: There's maybe Donald Trump would do more of it, but
Speaker 1: sometimes I feel like it's general and competence might prevent
Speaker 1: him from doing any more than Biden's like competent migrant
Speaker 1: as they call it, de terrents, right, deterrence through death
Speaker 1: is It's probably a better way of phrasing it. Trump
Speaker 1: also talks about a total ban on taxpair dollars to
Speaker 1: give legal aid to undocumented people. Again, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if he knows what he's talking about. I don't know
Speaker 1: what he's talking about. He might be referring to it.
Speaker 1: We have a program in San Diego County where San
Speaker 1: Diego County pays for some people to defend migrants who
Speaker 1: are detained by ICE, right, so they can have access
Speaker 1: to a lawyer. ICE has responded to that by moving
Speaker 1: those people to Texas.
Speaker 2: Oh that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, totally normal. Good.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we voted for the anti fascist guy. Everything's
Speaker 1: going great, exactly. You can listen to my episode about
Speaker 1: that if you want to know more about that. But
Speaker 1: I don't know if he means like they don't get
Speaker 1: public defenders if they're accused of a crime.
Speaker 3: Certainly.
Speaker 2: Isn't it just true that he can also just like
Speaker 2: use these trigger words to make people mad.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, that is what he's doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, not necessari always has to be base in fact.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, that's to be found with Donald Trump, this
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. And then finally talking of stuff that doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be real, he's absolutely batshit insane idea of
Speaker 1: fucking aiding Mexico to kill members of cartels, which that's yeah, unhinged, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is unhinged. That will resolve in more violence, it
Speaker 1: will result in more instability, it will result in more death.
Speaker 1: I think, I'm it's pretty much unclear when it comes
Speaker 1: to that one, Like she is not proposing invading Mexico.
Speaker 1: So much of what Donald Trump says is insane and
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense. So I wanted to look at
Speaker 1: some of the people who kind of lean on Trump,
Speaker 1: some of the people who might be a little bit
Speaker 1: more coherent right when it comes to crafting that policy.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Couldn't get Steven Mirr on the podcast Sad, but we
Speaker 1: did get these people from the Texas Public Policy Foundation
Speaker 1: who Robert and Gare spoke to at the Republican National Convention.
Speaker 1: So here's them talking about visas and immigration.
Speaker 9: I've tried to hire people from other countries. It takes
Speaker 9: months and months and months to get that done. It
Speaker 9: usually spend a lot of money doing it as well,
Speaker 9: and so the system is disincentivized to do that. So,
Speaker 9: you know, actually doing the last Trump administration, the start
Speaker 9: looking at like let's reduce the number of visas and
Speaker 9: have broader categories. Right, So I think they're trying to
Speaker 9: get down to about seventeen visas, get to more marit
Speaker 9: based program to fit the needs that we have. Make
Speaker 9: sure that you can you know, it's not about like
Speaker 9: what is the total number, but if we are needing labor,
Speaker 9: we needing people in these areas, you can kind of
Speaker 9: like as a dial, you can turn up and down
Speaker 9: in certain areas on certain visas. And so I think
Speaker 9: if you do have to first like stop the problem,
Speaker 9: and then you also have to make systemic changes that
Speaker 9: will overhaul the system and make a lot easier so
Speaker 9: that people are incentivised to actually do it.
Speaker 3: The right way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So these people aren't stupid, right, they won't just spew hate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: They're much more competent in the facts. So I think
Speaker 1: what we're seeing here, right is this undoubtedly is a
Speaker 1: way to reduce what they see is undesirable migration, which
Speaker 1: is to say, poor people and brown people you can
Speaker 1: phrase it however you want, right, bit.
Speaker 2: I mean, in the Republican's eyes, maybe a lot of people,
Speaker 2: all migration is undesirable migration.
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, well, people will talk to me.
Speaker 1: I'm for those of you who have just listened to me.
Speaker 1: I guess a white person British. You're not white, you're British. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is more like a kind of translucent really you
Speaker 1: think about it. Yeah, so yeah, I am a British person,
Speaker 1: which is important, I guess because people will talk to
Speaker 1: me about immigration like I'm one of the good migrants
Speaker 1: and they can go fuck themselves. Yeah that position, right,
Speaker 1: That Like it's a like implicit white people are okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, that's all that means. It's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: you speak English and you're like me, great, come out,
Speaker 2: come on into my racist country.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Yeah, I'm like funny foreign as opposed to
Speaker 1: like evil foreign I guess.
Speaker 2: I think it's also just like they don't see you
Speaker 2: in whatever in their mind is a threat, right like
Speaker 2: to I don't know, it makes no sense logically, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah it does if you understand it's relents of race.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, but I mean their perspective makes.
Speaker 3: No sense to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, same people who are barking about my fellow British
Speaker 1: people being a threat because they happened to be Muslim,
Speaker 1: right or brown, or seek in people that don't understand
Speaker 1: it seeks anon Muslims. So what we actually need is
Speaker 1: more legal pathways. He is correct that the visa system
Speaker 1: needs changing, and we need ways that people can apply
Speaker 1: and come here safely and not have to be trafficked
Speaker 1: and not have to take massive risks.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I wanted to see what Robert and Geh had asked
Speaker 1: them about this mass deportation seeing because I've seen some
Speaker 1: people holding like mass deportations now sign at the RNC,
Speaker 1: and that's always good sign that we're not sort of
Speaker 1: sidestepping into fascism. So let's hear what you said about that.
Speaker 10: Is that plan kind of the mass detention and expulsion
Speaker 10: of undocumented migrants in the US something that you think
Speaker 10: is a good idea, something you support as the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 9: Yeah, generally, you know, obviously you got to look at implementation,
Speaker 9: right and how you actually go about doing that in
Speaker 9: the right way, But yeah, absolutely generally.
Speaker 10: Yeah, and then what kind of time frame then, because
Speaker 10: you just said this is something you have to like
Speaker 10: lay some groundwork on and what time frame do you
Speaker 10: see it being feasible to carry out something like that?
Speaker 9: You know, I actually don't have a good answer for that,
Speaker 9: because you have to first get your arms around the problem.
Speaker 9: We don't even know how many people are here, and
Speaker 9: you don't know where they come from, and so it's
Speaker 9: not like you're just trying to deport them all just
Speaker 9: to Mexico or something like that, or the southern border, right, Like,
Speaker 9: you have to first get your arms around the problem.
Speaker 9: That's the first step, and then I think from there
Speaker 9: you can actually understand figure out what a reasonable time
Speaker 9: frame to do that is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is pretty fucked.
Speaker 1: Like I should point out that the Bilbah Harris is
Speaker 1: proposing also proposes bumping people back to Mexico without the
Speaker 1: permission of Mexico.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I think so many of these policies just rely on
Speaker 1: Mexico being kind of a sponge for US policy, like, oh,
Speaker 1: they'll be fine, like God forbid Mexico act as a
Speaker 1: sovereign country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but this one seems different. Right.
Speaker 1: We had I feel like pretty good liberal support on
Speaker 1: abolish ice under Trump that has completely evaporated under Biden.
Speaker 1: But because we solved racism. Yeah, yeah, we fixed it.
Speaker 1: I've forgotten about that. Yeah, that was that was the
Speaker 1: big crunch point. So what this means is taking people
Speaker 1: who have homes, lives, jobs, and families and tearing them
Speaker 1: away from one of those things and tending them back
Speaker 1: to a country that they may not have been to
Speaker 1: in decades, that they may never have been to at all,
Speaker 1: a place where they will undoubtedly face hardship, if not persecution,
Speaker 1: and certainly having lived here having family here, will make
Speaker 1: them more likely to be ransomed or blackmailed or any
Speaker 1: of these things that happened to migrants when they're deported. Right,
Speaker 1: And this is pretty bleak, Like I guess Harris hasn't
Speaker 1: advocated for this, which seeing the amount of the amount
Speaker 1: of people who fucking respond to my tweets with your
Speaker 1: going home to like I a am a US citizen
Speaker 1: and be fuck you.
Speaker 3: Yeah all the time, all the time. Yeah, it's so funny. Okay,
Speaker 3: got a life.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it does seem that there is a wing
Speaker 1: of the Trump and I talked to Trump people, right,
Speaker 1: I was in the mountains this weekend, like I was
Speaker 1: in Wyoming, mincing about in the mountains.
Speaker 3: It's lovely.
Speaker 1: But in talk to some people and I've never really
Speaker 1: come across anyone who can like in the flesh. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's just because those people are so repulsive, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: talk to them, And it's probably quite likely. But advocated
Speaker 1: for this right, like this idea of mass deportations, Like
Speaker 1: like I said at the start of this show, like,
Speaker 1: how does a country get into full on fascism?
Speaker 3: It is this.
Speaker 1: It is my taxes and your taxes, and some of
Speaker 1: the people who are listening taxes paying for people who
Speaker 1: have done nothing wrong, right, who have lived here, who
Speaker 1: haven't done any crimes, who haven't hurt anyone, to be
Speaker 1: at our expense, expelled from their home, detained in a
Speaker 1: private prison whose owner company makes massive donations to politicians,
Speaker 1: and then flown across the world at our expense, and
Speaker 1: then dumped into a country where they no longer belong.
Speaker 1: And that is as close as we get, I think
Speaker 1: to like someone saying like send them to the camps
Speaker 1: without saying that like, yeah, look, what was the Armenian genocide?
Speaker 1: The Armenian genocide was a mass deportation, right of people
Speaker 1: forced to walk across the desert and die on the way,
Speaker 1: Like if you don't think this Trump ship is fascist,
Speaker 1: Like I really don't know what to do. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter if it's fascist or not. Right, Like this is
Speaker 1: the kind of rhetoric that's genocidal, Like I don't want
Speaker 1: to argue about like Robert Preston and like different definitions,
Speaker 1: because that doesn't matter. Like this shit is it is genocidal.
Speaker 1: It is dehumanizing migrants, which has been a project of
Speaker 1: the right wing news media and increasingly the liberal news media,
Speaker 1: and also the Democrat Party now apparently as well as
Speaker 1: the Republicans.
Speaker 3: But this is.
Speaker 1: A market step to the right. Both of these are right.
Speaker 1: The Overton window has moved so far right migration in
Speaker 1: the last eight years that it's almost an unrecognizable place.
Speaker 1: And I guess what I when they end up by
Speaker 1: saying what I always say about this is like the
Speaker 1: solution is not within the argument about who to vote for.
Speaker 1: Like these are state policies. These are also often set
Speaker 1: by the legislature, as we saw when Biden's board bill failed, Right,
Speaker 1: and that would require a change in the legislature, Like
Speaker 1: there isn't a third party that can get a majority
Speaker 1: in the legislature right now. So the way we fix
Speaker 1: this is ourselves, right like we are seeing in the
Speaker 1: UK right now, like violence towards Muslim people, andoance towards masques,
Speaker 1: violence towards Islamic cultural centers, and people stepping up to
Speaker 1: defend them. That is the only way we fix this
Speaker 1: is by stepping up and shouldering our responsibility to our communities.
Speaker 1: And people did that in the Trump administration to a degree,
Speaker 1: Like when I'm twenty eighteen, when I was down in
Speaker 1: Tijuana looking after folks who are part of the caravan
Speaker 1: that Trump made a big spectacle in the midterms. People
Speaker 1: showed up, showed up, a soccer mom, showed up in
Speaker 1: minivans and helped us, and it was cool. The thing
Speaker 1: was fucked, But like, I respect that we look after
Speaker 1: those people, and that hasn't happened to as much of
Speaker 1: a degree since, right And we've had more people than
Speaker 1: we had in twenty eighteen in the open air detention sites,
Speaker 1: and so like I guess where I want to end
Speaker 1: is whoever wins, it's still our responsibility to take care
Speaker 1: of migrants because neither of them is going to And
Speaker 1: we are continuing with policies that will accelerate climate change.
Speaker 1: We are continuing with policies that will impoverish people all
Speaker 1: over the world and enriching people who are already super wealthy,
Speaker 1: and those things will continue to drive migration. We can't
Speaker 1: change those things in an actionable amount of time, but
Speaker 1: what we can do is try our best to meet
Speaker 1: people who come here with kindness. And so, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would urge you to do that. I guess if you
Speaker 1: want to volunteer, you can email Altro Lado it's Altro
Speaker 1: Lado dot or border Kindness always need your money, Borderline
Speaker 1: Relief Collective always need your money. And those are always
Speaker 1: things that you can volunteer with or places you can
Speaker 1: say your money if you don't have your time. But
Speaker 1: you can also organize in your own neighborhood. I'm speaking
Speaker 1: to some people today who are organizing in Maryland to
Speaker 1: take care of some Kurdish refugees who I know, like
Speaker 1: they weren't doing anything a year ago, right, they saw
Speaker 1: a need and they saw it being a met and
Speaker 1: they realized that they could meet it, and they've made
Speaker 1: a huge difference to people's lives. So like wherever you are,
Speaker 1: there are migrs in your community.
Speaker 3: And you can do that too. It could Happen Here
Speaker 3: as a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 2: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
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