Speaker 1: Alson media.
Speaker 2: As we always do, we have included the sources for
Speaker 2: this podcast in the show notes. I've also included a
Speaker 2: link to Primrose's legal aid fundraiser of people would like.
Speaker 3: To help out.
Speaker 2: The week before you're hearing this, on a beautiful southern
Speaker 2: California winter morning, I met some friends in a parking
Speaker 2: lot near the border. We hopped into our trucks and
Speaker 2: drove along dirt roads so we reached a pull up.
Speaker 2: Once there, we threw on packs and hiked straight up
Speaker 2: of steep hillside. Even in late November, the south facing
Speaker 2: slope was hot. We're all sweating. By the time we
Speaker 2: reached the GPS location we've been given. It wasn't hard
Speaker 2: to spot a dark patch on the landscape where someone's
Speaker 2: remains had returned to the earth. One friend had carried
Speaker 2: a heavy wooden cross up the mountain. We dug a
Speaker 2: hole in the rocky ground and then placed the white
Speaker 2: wooden cross in it. Silently, we filled the whole back up,
Speaker 2: stamped on the dirt until the cross stood straight up.
Speaker 4: Then we decorated it with.
Speaker 2: Marrow golds and seashells and dry flower petals, doing the
Speaker 2: best we could. One friend carefully picked the petals off
Speaker 2: the flowers, laid them on the arms of the cross.
Speaker 2: Another sprinkled poppy seeds into the ground. We stood in
Speaker 2: silence for a while that the construction of the secondary
Speaker 2: border wall didn't halt for a minute in silence, and
Speaker 2: then together we paid our respects to Graciela. Sonton Gormez
Speaker 2: had an this. His last moments were spent looking at
Speaker 2: the same sky we were looking at, gazing down onto
Speaker 2: the two border walls that were built to separate us
Speaker 2: from her. She died in September in the heat wave
Speaker 2: the same month. A year before, I'd had to call
Speaker 2: nine one one for several migrants with heat stroke. I'd
Speaker 2: come across she died, a friend told me, with her
Speaker 2: clothes folded next to her, sheltering under a bush, looking
Speaker 2: from the place where erected the lonely little cross, that
Speaker 2: was all we had left remember her. I could see
Speaker 2: four border patrol surveilled at Santanas. She was just a
Speaker 2: few hundred yards from the wall from the road, but
Speaker 2: it took weeks for anyone to find her.
Speaker 5: Gracilasi and Gomez ls presently Gracilas vomits er lambs Gracila
Speaker 5: Gormez lands.
Speaker 2: Obviously we arrived too late to help, but we arrived
Speaker 2: soon enough to ensure that least in death, she was
Speaker 2: afforded to dignity the world has denied.
Speaker 4: Her in life.
Speaker 2: Then I strapped half of fifty gallon barrels my backpack frame,
Speaker 2: where my friends carried slabs of water bottles.
Speaker 4: As we walked.
Speaker 2: A construction vehicle above us drilled holes into the earth
Speaker 2: for pylons that would hold a second thirty foot wall.
Speaker 2: On the sixty degree slope above the vehicle, a helicopter
Speaker 2: flew around, and then it flew back, and then he
Speaker 2: think we were at the date on water bottles and
Speaker 2: threw them minute barrel.
Speaker 4: I tried to gain all.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Doing this for years, we said goodbye to a fair
Speaker 2: share of people who he never got to say hello
Speaker 2: to and whose faces we never got to see. Last summer,
Speaker 2: I helped asserch to the remains of a migrant who
Speaker 2: had passed away in a canyon deep in the desert.
Speaker 2: Every time I do this fills me with a deep sadness,
Speaker 2: especially with all the friends from the jungle who I've
Speaker 2: lost touch with since then. It could be easy to
Speaker 2: look at everything I've laid out in this series and
Speaker 2: feel hopeless. But I don't want you to. It could
Speaker 2: be easy to feel afraid as well, because now is
Speaker 2: the time that caring about other people is dangerous. It's
Speaker 2: possible currently for some folks to keep their heads down
Speaker 2: and try and keep themselves safe, or to confind their
Speaker 2: actions to are angry posting on social media. But our
Speaker 2: politics shouldn't be about anger. It should be about love.
Speaker 2: Now more than ever, it's important to remember that we
Speaker 2: don't act on our love and our solidarity with angry tweets.
Speaker 2: We act on it by taking care of people. However
Speaker 2: many walls they build, however many masked men with guns
Speaker 2: they send. I don't believe it's within the power of
Speaker 2: the state to stop people caring about each other, and
Speaker 2: I hope that that care compels people to do something.
Speaker 2: In fact, I think seeing so much cruelty makes us
Speaker 2: all realize that it's up to us to care for
Speaker 2: one another. People have cared for Primrose and Kim in
Speaker 2: all kinds of ways since they came here, and today
Speaker 2: we're going to hear from some of them. Friends bought
Speaker 2: Kimberly's school books where they were stuck in Mexico. Some
Speaker 2: other folks put on a burlesque performance here in San
Speaker 2: Diego to raise money for her lawyer. Hundreds of you
Speaker 2: reached into your pockets to help her pay for illegal
Speaker 2: living expenses when the state, both under Biden and under Trump,
Speaker 2: made her of Kimberly feel unwelcome.
Speaker 4: You didn't.
Speaker 2: I've carried my fair share of water into the desert
Speaker 2: under Biden administration as well. It was Biden's policies that
Speaker 2: left little Mioomi stuck in Mexico, not Trump's. It was
Speaker 2: Biden's policies to detain people in the open air and
Speaker 2: let them with no food or water or shelter.
Speaker 4: And it was.
Speaker 2: Everyday people like my friends and I who fed them
Speaker 2: and sheltered them and took care of them. We took
Speaker 2: donations and dived into dumpsters to grab tents, who worked
Speaker 2: hard every day to build shelters, cook food, and give
Speaker 2: away clothing so that people could feel welcome and safe.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: Not a single elected official gave out a single sandwich,
Speaker 2: much less made one in the months that thousands of
Speaker 2: people were detained out doors in a cumbu and salusigital.
Speaker 2: But people from churches, goodwaras, latterday Saints people and quakers,
Speaker 2: as what as a whole lot of anarchists and crosspunks
Speaker 2: and just desert people with no particular politics did I'm
Speaker 2: not saying, mister Patus on the back, I don't think
Speaker 2: any of us really wanted to be mentioned at all.
Speaker 2: Like many of us, some of my happiest memories were
Speaker 2: the days we fed strangers, then sat around fires, sharing
Speaker 2: stories and sometimes songs. Since then, I've been privileged to
Speaker 2: share the joys and struggles some of those people faced
Speaker 2: in their new lives here. I've attended their weddings. I've
Speaker 2: tried to help them understand that by action accents, but
Speaker 2: I've helped them come to terms with the fact that
Speaker 2: you simply can't get around large parts of this country
Speaker 2: without a car. I'm saying this because I think it's
Speaker 2: important that whatever happens after this current administration, we can't
Speaker 2: ever go back to the way things were before. We
Speaker 2: can't let migrants be invisible in our communities. We can't
Speaker 2: let them keep dying at the border. Let's talk about
Speaker 2: what carrying looks like. In Primrose's case, this time last year,
Speaker 2: I just released my Darien gap podcast, and a few
Speaker 2: weeks after, I received a direct message about my Patreon newsletter.
Speaker 4: It was from a guy called Matt. My name's Matt.
Speaker 6: I'm just a normal person who listens to a lot
Speaker 6: of podcasts.
Speaker 4: I didn't know him and he didn't know me, but
Speaker 4: he listened to the podcast I made.
Speaker 6: I can still very vividly remember where I was when
Speaker 6: I listened to that, which was I was coming back
Speaker 6: from a dirt biking trip in Michigan, and so I
Speaker 6: had a seven hour drive and I was like, oh cool,
Speaker 6: here's a three hour podcast that.
Speaker 4: I listened to, and then I started listening.
Speaker 6: To it, and then I was just like I got
Speaker 6: into that mode where I was just like I couldn't
Speaker 6: not finish it, you know. I was like absolutely hooked
Speaker 6: and just needed needed to get all you needed to
Speaker 6: get all the way to the end, and was just
Speaker 6: really really moved by by the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Like many Americans, until read to be late in by
Speaker 2: an administration, Met knew about immigration, but he hadn't really
Speaker 2: grappled with the fact that what secure borders means is
Speaker 2: killing innocent people in the jungle, in the desert and
Speaker 2: everywhere in between. That's how deterrence works. That's how it's
Speaker 2: supposed to work.
Speaker 6: Like, I didn't realize that that was like intentional. And
Speaker 6: then hearing you know, hearing hearing yours, I was just
Speaker 6: sort of like, oh, right, Like just the fact that
Speaker 6: people would go to such a just such lengths of
Speaker 6: a danger on a journey just across a continent and
Speaker 6: knowing that once they get here they're not even welcome, Right,
Speaker 6: We're gonna intentionally put up this like kind of life
Speaker 6: or death obstacle.
Speaker 4: Course, I kept.
Speaker 6: Thinking about it, and the next day I was like,
Speaker 6: let me like see if you've done anything else on it,
Speaker 6: and I found a couple of your couple of your
Speaker 6: other your other episodes on it, and I was like, wow, this,
Speaker 6: this is this is wild. And that was you know
Speaker 6: you you were you're talking about the open air detention
Speaker 6: in the Hakumba area, and and I was like, this
Speaker 6: is crazy, Like this is just happening just right outside
Speaker 6: of San Diego.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just wild.
Speaker 2: Matt felt like now that he knew this, he couldn't
Speaker 2: not do something about it, so he took some of
Speaker 2: his vacation time at work and came to southern California, The.
Speaker 6: Thing that was crazy is seeing all the equipment, you know,
Speaker 6: the equipment if you can call that, left behind by
Speaker 6: the people traveling through these places where it's just like
Speaker 6: normal chose and just like cheap Walmart backpacks and just
Speaker 6: you know, the basic stuff that you would just like
Speaker 6: where to school.
Speaker 2: Matt joined friends and mine in the mountains, carrying water
Speaker 2: and helping with some techi shoots we've been wondering about.
Speaker 2: He saw the wool, and he saw the damage he does.
Speaker 2: He saw the difficult terrain people have to cross just
Speaker 2: to get a chance to ask for help here, the
Speaker 2: ways they have to risk their lives even after they
Speaker 2: make it to the USA. He also got to experience
Speaker 2: the where the helping other people helps us.
Speaker 6: As I was heading back home, I definitely had this
Speaker 6: feeling about like like way less despair getting together with
Speaker 6: people to just do something, to just do something useful
Speaker 6: to help people, even if it's just like in a
Speaker 6: tiny way, like even if somehow it doesn't help, but
Speaker 6: it's like it probably will. But importantly doing it with
Speaker 6: other people it made me feel a lot better. It
Speaker 6: made me not feel so like just everything is fucked,
Speaker 6: like the world is descending into fast, or when there's nothing.
Speaker 4: I can do about it. It's like.
Speaker 6: There are a lot of people who want to help
Speaker 6: doing stuff with them is like is good.
Speaker 2: Soon after, like all of us, he saw the board
Speaker 2: it bringing its violence into cities across the United States.
Speaker 6: I mean, like just masked federal agents, we assume, mostly
Speaker 6: refusing to identify themselves, just randomly picking people up. I mean,
Speaker 6: it's crazy and this is ah.
Speaker 4: I mean, I literally am a loss for words.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's just it's so the opposite of what
Speaker 6: America is all about, straight up like fascism. Like I
Speaker 6: just I never thought I would live through something like this.
Speaker 6: I always just thought that's the kind of thing that
Speaker 6: happens in other countries, you know.
Speaker 4: I guess a lot of us thought that.
Speaker 2: A lot of us probably thought this kind of state
Speaker 2: violence was confined to other places, and other times we wondered,
Speaker 2: perhaps absent mindly, what we might do in that places
Speaker 2: and times for years, as a historian and a reporter,
Speaker 2: have thought about them, read about them, visited them. Now
Speaker 2: I'm living in them.
Speaker 6: It's always just sort of like, in the same way
Speaker 6: that you would think, what would happen if I was
Speaker 6: in this I don't know, movie like it's not real.
Speaker 4: Just think like, oh what if I was Jason Bourne.
Speaker 4: Matt Knight stayed in touch.
Speaker 2: One day he was in LA on business and I
Speaker 2: mentioned I've been helping Primrose Naver get the mass transit
Speaker 2: nightmare that is Los Angeles so she could get to
Speaker 2: her ICE appointment. He offered to stop buy it if
Speaker 2: you needed a ride anywhere. I connected them. He saw
Speaker 2: her place and he offered to help. I guess with
Speaker 2: furniture as well. Then it was time for him to
Speaker 2: fly home every day like I do. He had to
Speaker 2: worry about someone he knew being snatched. The Florida settlement
Speaker 2: doesn't stop ICE from redetaining people, and in LA they
Speaker 2: seem to be detaining anyone they could any way they could.
Speaker 2: Kim had been afraid to go out now because she
Speaker 2: didn't want to go back to detention. So once again
Speaker 2: Matt decided he wanted to do something, and he asked
Speaker 2: if Kim and Primrose might like to come and stay
Speaker 2: with him on the East Coast. That's not an easy
Speaker 2: choice to make. No no need doesn't mean sharing a space.
Speaker 2: It also means taking yourself out of a safe group
Speaker 2: and accepting that the states I have surn might fall
Speaker 2: on you.
Speaker 4: Now, you know.
Speaker 6: I talked it over with my wife and we were like,
Speaker 6: you know, both wanted to do this, and but you know,
Speaker 6: we had to acknowledge like it might mean that like
Speaker 6: these assholes and masks show up at our house, like
Speaker 6: where our kids are and are like gonna haul away
Speaker 6: just this family. That might happen in like right right
Speaker 6: over there. I mean, I don't like it, but I.
Speaker 4: Just I don't know.
Speaker 2: I've just I feel like you gotta do just gotta
Speaker 2: do something, you know. The end, he says, it wasn't
Speaker 2: a hot decision to make.
Speaker 6: I mean, it was a lot easier because my wife
Speaker 6: was actually just like one hundred percent let's do it.
Speaker 4: And I was like, well, hold on a.
Speaker 6: Second, we should at least think through the outcome.
Speaker 4: She's like, I don't care whatever, just do it.
Speaker 2: Like a lot of people, Matt had always done things
Speaker 2: to help people, but nothing like this, nothing that directly
Speaker 2: put him in between someone who needed to be kept
Speaker 2: safe and the people who.
Speaker 4: Didn't want them to be safe. Yeah. I mean, nothing
Speaker 4: is dangerous. I mean.
Speaker 6: Charity stuff, but you know, sometimes with time, but usually
Speaker 6: just like giving money to people to you know, who
Speaker 6: need it or whatever. But you know, this is definitely
Speaker 6: the most like direct involvement to help someone who needs it.
Speaker 6: Certainly is the first time that I've exposed my family
Speaker 6: to any thing like this.
Speaker 2: So one day, this autumn promotion and Kimberdy said goodbye
Speaker 2: to Los Angeles, got on a plane, flew to the
Speaker 2: East coast.
Speaker 6: I thought I was waiting at the right spot, but
Speaker 6: they let him out at a different so they actually
Speaker 6: walked past me in the airport. I didn't even see it,
Speaker 6: but I eventually figured it out. Luckily, the airport is
Speaker 6: not that big, and so I could just sort of walk,
Speaker 6: just walk all the baggage claim Mary and I eventually
Speaker 6: found them.
Speaker 2: Then they went for sushi, then for ice cream, a
Speaker 2: perfect suburban stripmall American evening, the sort of evening people
Speaker 2: cross jungles and deserts be able to enjoy, the sort
Speaker 2: of evening the hundreds of people I met in the
Speaker 2: jungle will never be able to enjoy. Of course, it's
Speaker 2: hard to sit in a cold stone and talk about
Speaker 2: the things people enjoyed to come here. MAT's is sometimes
Speaker 2: it's still difficult to even comprehend what his new friends
Speaker 2: had been through.
Speaker 6: It's hard to answer, like you're asking me a very
Speaker 6: good question about like, well, what was it like? And
Speaker 6: it's like the difference the distance between like our shared
Speaker 6: experience is so vast it still often almost doesn't seem real.
Speaker 2: I've had that same thought. It's hard to hear stories
Speaker 2: from migrants and really think of them as human ex experiences,
Speaker 2: not just stories. That's why I go into the mountains
Speaker 2: and the desert. That's why I spent a decade asking
Speaker 2: Gettus to send me to this daddy in. I didn't
Speaker 2: think I could understand migrants journeys if I hadn't experienced
Speaker 2: a little part of them. And I don't think we
Speaker 2: could write about migrants or not write about what they
Speaker 2: go through to get to a strip mall sushi place.
Speaker 2: Of course, Primrose isn't done with her interaction with immigration
Speaker 2: authorities yet. They've had visits from ICE in her new home,
Speaker 2: but not from enforcement removal operations.
Speaker 4: I mean, like they know where she lives. We told
Speaker 4: them where she lives, so like she lives in my house,
Speaker 4: so you know, yeah they might. I don't know. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 4: I guess I'm.
Speaker 6: Like not as afraid of that. I have to say
Speaker 6: that the ICE people in seem just like a bunch
Speaker 6: of cheery folks. Like it's seems pretty different than I mean,
Speaker 6: like I met many of them, yeah, part of this process,
Speaker 6: and they were not the like you know, play carriers
Speaker 6: and guns guys. They're just like the you know, they
Speaker 6: work in the office and decide whether you get to
Speaker 6: move here or not. You know, yeah, yeah, and they
Speaker 6: were like very friendly and downright helpful.
Speaker 2: Promos are settling in at Matt's place now, but it's
Speaker 2: Matt explained, the struggle isn't over yet.
Speaker 6: Now, Like our energy is more on how do we
Speaker 6: help her make her case because she has an asylum
Speaker 6: case that you know, she needs to win. And it's
Speaker 6: you know, I'm not a lawyer, but wow, sounds like
Speaker 6: what asylum is for literally running from a hostile government
Speaker 6: that she was protesting and was going to jail and
Speaker 6: torture her. Like what what is asylum for? If not
Speaker 6: for that?
Speaker 2: Of course, interacting with the asylum system has shown that
Speaker 2: some of its absurdities, like the work permit clock for
Speaker 2: our bus rides to riverside, the endless changing regulation. So
Speaker 2: one has to navigate or trying to survive without the
Speaker 2: ability to legally work.
Speaker 6: In what way can you do this legally without some
Speaker 6: you know group helping you, without like just somebody saying, fine,
Speaker 6: I will take you and pay for your living expenses.
Speaker 6: What is the legal way to like seek asylum. You
Speaker 6: come here, they put you in jail. You stay in jail,
Speaker 6: which is fucking jail. Yeah, they let you out of jail. Good, hooray,
Speaker 6: we're out of jail, and now you're homeless. Yeah, you
Speaker 6: have no possessions and no ability to legally work. At
Speaker 6: least let them work. I mean, come on, just let
Speaker 6: them get a legal job. That's just like the sort
Speaker 6: of bureaucracy version of the forcing people across the desert.
Speaker 4: It's like, well, okay, you won't die in the desert
Speaker 4: in this one.
Speaker 6: In this one, you will die or you will suffer
Speaker 6: under homelessness.
Speaker 4: More deterrence.
Speaker 6: You know, everyone always says, oh, what I support an
Speaker 6: immigration just got to be legal, you gotta do it
Speaker 6: the right way. But they have no idea what they're
Speaker 6: talking about, Like, what is the right way. I believe
Speaker 6: everyone who says that has no idea what the right.
Speaker 4: Way is.
Speaker 2: Changing that making a law's line up with what anyone
Speaker 2: would see is basic decency isn't coming anytime soon. In
Speaker 2: the meantime, they have to navigate the asylum system. In
Speaker 2: as many contradictions, Primer has never got any follow up
Speaker 2: care for her leg injury. The only way she could
Speaker 2: access care in her new home was once again totally
Speaker 2: impractical for someone without a car, just another example of
Speaker 2: how the system says peep it up to suffer and fail.
Speaker 6: There's no way to get her to the doctor. Well, okay,
Speaker 6: there is a way a way. Technically we could drive
Speaker 6: like an hour and twenty minutes way out to this
Speaker 6: place that like as a thing with the ice that
Speaker 6: they will say like, well that's your approved like medical provider, Like,
Speaker 6: I'm not gonna drive, just do some minor thing. Yeah,
Speaker 6: So we pay out a pocket So we go to
Speaker 6: a doctor and we go here's the problem we have.
Speaker 4: We don't have insurance.
Speaker 6: Let's get this done for as little money as possible,
Speaker 6: because in the United States, if you don't have insurance.
Speaker 4: It is going to costume. Yeah, it loves and mercifully.
Speaker 4: My wife and I both know a number of doctors
Speaker 4: that we can sort of run ideas by and if
Speaker 4: we didn't have that, like, I don't know what we
Speaker 4: would do. It would not be good. I mean, well
Speaker 4: I know what we do. We would drive an hour
Speaker 4: and twenty minutes to the place and we would just
Speaker 4: be like, okay, doctor help.
Speaker 6: But like, because you know, we have connections and we
Speaker 6: are also willing to pay a little bit out of pocket.
Speaker 4: She needed to get some medicine. Medicine is super expensive. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so you go to.
Speaker 6: The CBS and you're like, well, you know, oh, we
Speaker 6: don't have your insurance on file, and we're like, I know,
Speaker 6: but how much is this going to really cost? And dude,
Speaker 6: drugs are so expensive? Like it's just.
Speaker 4: What are what are those people supposed to do?
Speaker 2: It's brokensistent and it's not when we can really rely
Speaker 2: on goverment to change whoever is in office.
Speaker 6: The Democrats don't have a great answer for this either.
Speaker 6: I wish they did. I mean I will still vote
Speaker 6: for them because they're at least less bad. You know,
Speaker 6: what are the choices do you have? It's like, if
Speaker 6: there was a better party, I would be that one
Speaker 6: that I mean, if they had a chance of winning, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: no other party has a chance of winning so yeah, man,
Speaker 6: I'm a Democrat, and I will help the Democrats try
Speaker 6: to win elections. They push it in the direction that
Speaker 6: it needs to go. But the Democrats are part of
Speaker 6: the problem. I mean, like they're not radically changing policies
Speaker 6: that would change this thing we've been talking about for
Speaker 6: the last hour.
Speaker 2: When I first moved to the US, jeoj W. Bush
Speaker 2: as president. Soon after I got har Obama was elective
Speaker 2: and it was Thanksgiving. I didn't know much about Thanksgiving,
Speaker 2: and I didn't have much time history that overlooks set
Speaker 2: like colonialism anyway. But the day before where it's riding
Speaker 2: my bike down the coast and I ran into some
Speaker 2: folks who were also riding their bikes. They asked what
Speaker 2: plans I had for the next day, and I told
Speaker 2: them I was just going to ride my bike all
Speaker 2: day and that's what I like to do. They, having
Speaker 2: just met me, invited me into their home and the
Speaker 2: next day they fed me and we talked for hours
Speaker 2: and became friends. A decade and a half later, on
Speaker 2: the night before Thanksgiving, my friends cooked as many beans
Speaker 2: as they could fit in their giant pot that we
Speaker 2: boiled above a propane burn and made from half a
Speaker 2: beer cake and the cold of the desert. Some Kurdish
Speaker 2: guys helped us ladle out scoops of hot stew for
Speaker 2: hundreds of people. I still don't go in for set
Speaker 2: like colonism very much, but I felt thankful to be
Speaker 2: in a position where I could welcome people now. That
Speaker 2: same year, on Christmas Eve, I was sitting on the
Speaker 2: tailgate of a pickup in the desert, kicking my feet
Speaker 2: so my toes wouldn't burn with cold. I spent the
Speaker 2: entire day building shelters for people out in the desert
Speaker 2: left therefore up to a week by the Bide administration.
Speaker 2: We'd handed out all off food again. But some folks
Speaker 2: who've been taking care of their kids or trying to
Speaker 2: find a warm place how the desert went to sleep
Speaker 2: had missed out on eating. So I'd find a few
Speaker 2: boxes of htrs, which are kind of like a worse
Speaker 2: but vegan version of MREs, and I took them from
Speaker 2: the truck and went over to the people who had
Speaker 2: missed dinner. They heated them up somehow on a piece
Speaker 2: of scrap metal over the fire. I can't really remember
Speaker 2: them thinking it was really janky. I struggled to describe
Speaker 2: how special it felt for me to be able to
Speaker 2: share a little of the welcome I received with other
Speaker 2: people like Matt. I feel more hopeful knowing that not
Speaker 2: only are other people just as upset as I am,
Speaker 2: but that alongside those other people, I can do things
Speaker 2: that I wouldn't have thought possible if I hadn't seen
Speaker 2: them with my own eyes, had done them with my
Speaker 2: own hands. From Obama to today, it's been up to
Speaker 2: us to welcome migrants. Obama set records for deportation, Biden
Speaker 2: beat them, albeit including Title forty two removals, and Trump
Speaker 2: will probably beat both this year. In the meantime, it's
Speaker 2: upt to regular people to help one another. That shouldn't
Speaker 2: make us feel hopeless. It should make us feel strong.
Speaker 2: Matt's doing something remarkable, but I don't think he was
Speaker 2: in a very remarkable situation before. He was just a
Speaker 2: person lucky enough to have some spare time and some
Speaker 2: space to look after someone. But there are millions of
Speaker 2: people like that in this country. There are millions of
Speaker 2: people who are mad right now. The anger alone is
Speaker 2: not going to help us take care of people. That's
Speaker 2: what the priority should be right now. I don't want
Speaker 2: to paint Matt as the only person who helped Primrose,
Speaker 2: because hundreds of people helped Primrose from the Mberllane, the
Speaker 2: Jungles of Panama, and her fellow migrants while she crossed
Speaker 2: Daddy and Gap. People across a continent took their time
Speaker 2: and their resources to help a stranger. I've heard of
Speaker 2: this from countless migrants as well. Some of them rode
Speaker 2: the train from southern Mexico up to the border, and
Speaker 2: people threw them food and warm jumpers to total strangers
Speaker 2: who they'd never met, who they'd never even get a
Speaker 2: chance to see. Across thousands of miles. When states ignored
Speaker 2: their suffering, the hundreds of migrants I have talked to
Speaker 2: found food, shelter, and solidarity from ordinary people. And those
Speaker 2: people in their own way benefited too.
Speaker 6: It was enlightening to me that a I wasn't it
Speaker 6: wasn't just me, Like, it's not just oh I for
Speaker 6: some reason, I'm the only one who's like really upset
Speaker 6: by all this. You know, there are other folks who
Speaker 6: who are like this, but also just like a lot
Speaker 6: of other people are absolutely willing to take risks, be
Speaker 6: generous with their time and money, Like there's a lot
Speaker 6: of them. There's a lot of people who like want
Speaker 6: to help, and that kind of community aspect of it.
Speaker 6: It was a surprise to me that the doing it
Speaker 6: with other people was so powerful. Like I thought it
Speaker 6: was just about the doing the actual act of helping
Speaker 6: people somehow, but doing it with other people was just
Speaker 6: surprisingly good. Made me feel much more optimistic about our
Speaker 6: ability to get through this collectively.
Speaker 4: I asked Matt what he wanted people to know about
Speaker 4: his experience.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, I guess what I would like people
Speaker 6: to know is it's not as hard as you might
Speaker 6: think to help folks like primos, Like it sounds insurmountable,
Speaker 6: like oh no, I'm exposed to all this risk and
Speaker 6: danger and legal hassle or whatever.
Speaker 4: But it's like it's not that complicated.
Speaker 6: It's like they fill out a forum and it just
Speaker 6: says like, oh, now I live here, and then once.
Speaker 4: Prove it, then they live there.
Speaker 2: The hot pot is finding someone, especially now that migrants
Speaker 2: are more worried than ever to be out in the community.
Speaker 2: Any database would be a risk to them. But maybe
Speaker 2: that's not a problem that someone can solve.
Speaker 6: It's kind of like an information sharing problem because like
Speaker 6: these folks are all across the United States, and the
Speaker 6: people who could host them are similarly.
Speaker 2: All across the United States. But you don't have to
Speaker 2: take someone into your home. There are hundreds of things
Speaker 2: you can do wherever you are. You can feed people
Speaker 2: who are hungry, pick up someone's kids from school, or
Speaker 2: take their dogs for a walk, fix someone's car so
Speaker 2: it doesn't get towed or ticketed, or drive someone to
Speaker 2: a doctor's appointment. Creating safe communities for migrants is not
Speaker 2: a distinct act from creating safe communities for everyone. I've
Speaker 2: never been a big political theory reader, but I think
Speaker 2: I've learned everything I need to know about politics in
Speaker 2: refugee camps and the deserts and mountains and jungles that
Speaker 2: migrants traverse to get to this country. In Panama, i
Speaker 2: met with a priest who houses migrants. In California, I've
Speaker 2: helped Seeks and Quaker friends hand out warm food in
Speaker 2: the cold. We can come from a broad range of
Speaker 2: perspectives and still get to the same place. When someone
Speaker 2: needs help, you help them. And if we all do that,
Speaker 2: then when we need help, someone will help us. You
Speaker 2: don't have to wait four years to start You can
Speaker 2: do it right now. While there are only some things
Speaker 2: we can do in the face of a government that
Speaker 2: doesn't want to help people like Primrose, there is an
Speaker 2: awful lot that we can do. For all the people
Speaker 2: who didn't make it to the USA from the jungle.
Speaker 2: We can help the people who did. We can also
Speaker 2: take this principle and make it a cornerstone of all
Speaker 2: our politics. The more people come to know migrants, the
Speaker 2: more they will see how broken our system is. The
Speaker 2: more people who see that, the more people will demand change.
Speaker 2: And I hope that they won't stop until we get
Speaker 2: a system that doesn't look at little children who aren't
Speaker 2: safe and say we don't want to help you, until
Speaker 2: we get a system that doesn't make them walk across
Speaker 2: jungles and through deserts before they even get a chance
Speaker 2: to ask for help. Before I go, I thought I
Speaker 2: would play a part of the interview I did with
Speaker 2: Senor last year. I spoke to his son on Monday
Speaker 2: and he said his dad's still doing well.
Speaker 7: Truly, the migrants on this route are not here because
Speaker 7: they want to be. They're here because the economy and
Speaker 7: their country this is terrible or something. Everything is going
Speaker 7: badly on their countries. How can we mistreat them knowing
Speaker 7: that we won't, not us never. This is a belief
Speaker 7: that we have. We are all children of God. God
Speaker 7: made the world and humanity, and we are not that different.
Speaker 7: We are all brothers.
Speaker 2: I want to leave the that's word today to Premieres,
Speaker 2: because really is the story about her and kid and
Speaker 2: the incredible tenacity encourage they show to get here.
Speaker 8: Even if I say again me and myself again say
Speaker 8: thank you. I don't even know how to say thank you,
Speaker 8: but I'm just God knows. God, please blease those people
Speaker 8: put ins on me and Kim. I thought maybe I'm alone,
Speaker 8: but I realize I'm not alone here if also people
Speaker 8: who have me.
Speaker 1: You guys, will helped me so much.
Speaker 8: I never even get helped even in my country the
Speaker 8: way I get helped in America.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm really really glad. I'm very glad for
Speaker 1: those people who helped me.
Speaker 8: I have especially since when I was even in when
Speaker 8: I was in Mexico. In my prayers, I just say, God,
Speaker 8: just blame those people who putings on me. You make
Speaker 8: me feel better, You put smile in my face and
Speaker 8: even came when you came here. I wasn't even heavy
Speaker 8: clothes to way nothing. They just only the clothes they
Speaker 8: gave us in detention. When they tetainers that the clothes
Speaker 8: I was leaving, I was when I want to wash
Speaker 8: it was a T shirt jacket.
Speaker 1: I just removed the top, then I washed.
Speaker 8: The the inside the T shirt when it's dry.
Speaker 1: Then I we bother and putting you.
Speaker 8: And were like, but for now, I'm really really appreciated
Speaker 8: a lot. I really appreciate a lot because my life
Speaker 8: is like changing now.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and it's like you were saying, things Kim.
Speaker 4: Will have will be so different from the chances you had. Right.
Speaker 2: She can she speaks English, she speaks Spanish, she can
Speaker 2: go to school here.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Does that make you happy when you think about?
Speaker 8: Yeah? Maybe even if I even told you, Kim, I
Speaker 8: was asking you one day, I said, Kim, what if
Speaker 8: I die today? She wasn't mentioning your name, said I
Speaker 8: would just ask him maybe I can just go to school?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, wish.
Speaker 8: Also she was like, Mammy, I want to write to
Speaker 8: my book when I will stuty high school. I need
Speaker 8: to write my total of my life because we have
Speaker 8: been through a lot, but now we are happy. I
Speaker 8: don't know unt to lie with your support. Guys, I'm
Speaker 8: really appreciated. Yeah, because if you go to school, I'm happy.
Speaker 1: I know she. I want you to heave a better life.
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Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.