WEBVTT - 2024-10-31 ICHH Darien P5 FINA 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:03.200 All the media. 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:05.800 It's me James, and before we listen to this episode today, 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:07.400 I just did want to make you aware that I 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:11.920 conducted these interviews in French and Spanish, mostly Spanish, and 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:15.040 then transcribed and translated them. So what you're hearing is 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.360 a translated interview that's being edited for brevity and content. 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:30.120 I hope you enjoyed the episode, just you. 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:33.320 Finding yourself there and seeing how the environment looks like 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.479 you feel like you should give up. I cried it 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.560 grace of work for you to actually stand by and 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:43.160 say no, I'll keep on struggling. A lot of people 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:47.040 who give up, a lot of someone dies. Let it die. 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.879 People who were crying. Yeah, yes, we let people swear crying. 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:54.080 They didn't know how they could continue. It's not an 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:59.240 easy situation. It's not really an easy situation. Actually, it's 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:02.160 just the grace of God for us surviving, because I 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:04.720 can't say it's by my strength. It's actually the grace 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:07.880 of God. Because what we actually went through, we met 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:11.399 people living collapsed. We had to help them. You meet 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.440 your body, you give a lifting hand. It's not really 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.400 an easy thing. It's not something that if we are 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.560 fine tomorrow can advise any of our family members to 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.800 go through, because it's so that it's risky if your 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:26.679 family member is in there and it's not out. It 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:28.800 takes the grace of God for you to even lie 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.720 on your bed and close all your eyes either. Once 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.319 I survived, by the grace of God, I almost drowned. 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:36.119 In fact, I was drowning. 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:38.200 By the grace of God. 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:39.160 I was rescued. 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:44.600 Yes, some guys that rescued me. I was already drowned. 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.400 I was gone. I was gone. 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:48.360 I was drinking water. 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:52.440 Very readily all throughout the journey. North Margarets have little 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:54.840 choice but to rely on one another and the solidarity 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.000 of strangers. I heard dozens of stories that you've just 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.960 heard in my time in the Daddy End. Total strangers 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.800 who save each other's lives risk their own in the process. 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:06.440 For vers, it could only be crossed to people from 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.200 three different continents joined arms to form a human chain 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:11.600 the children and smaller people could hold on to to 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:16.200 avoid being swept downstream. Not everyone can help. Just surviving 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:19.040 the Dalian takes all of what many people have, But 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.080 for the people who are in a position to even 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:24.560 in desperate times, there's mutual support among the migrants. 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.880 Very few people who are ever will help you. They're 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.119 very few people. Only people who are time can actually help. 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.120 That people will pass you by, and that people if 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.400 you have lost your strength, it's not easy for another 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.040 person to actually break though. We can really appreciate those 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.640 who help, because having your strength is another You must 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.320 help yourself before you can help another person, right, so 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:48.400 if you can really have their strength, it will be 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:50.480 difficult for you need to help another. So we don't 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.399 really condemn them, but at least we are praying where 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.680 we are bleeding on our brothers worst still behind, that 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.760 if they meet people, if they have the ability to help, 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.960 this should do so. Of course, it's not really uneasy 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.960 something give. 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.800 Sometimes reporting on these places compete them as bleak, unwelcoming 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.000 or just miserable and certainly very sad. Things happen in 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.120 the jungle and in the camps, in human things, But 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.800 just like war or a natural disaster, sometimes the horrible 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.760 circumstances of the migration trail bring out the best in people. 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.280 As I've said before in this series, I'm comfortable in 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:31.880 the refugee camps at least in part because people there 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:34.760 are looking out for one another. Kids don't stop playing 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.680 the moment they become refugees, not an adults stop laughing. 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:40.880 In fact, these things become even more important that how 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.960 we keep our humanity in a system that's inherently dehumanizing. 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:47.280 And people don't stop organizing or caring about one another either. 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.520 It's not just the migrants, of course. One of the 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:52.720 families who've been stuck in Baho Jigito for almost a 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.000 month was given some money by a local Sender Front 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.160 member to take a bus. In Mexico, those who don't 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.320 have enough money to take buses will hop on freight 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.280 trains and as they speed through towns and rail yards 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.720 at night, local people will throw plastic bags of food, water, 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:10.160 and clothing to them. In Panama City, I visited a 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:12.600 Jesuit run shelter for migrants called Fate. 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:25.640 Well Numbers. Cordniho is Coordina or the Promotion Social Accompanimento. 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.000 Panama. 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:31.560 Alberto went down a Darien recently, and we know from 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:35.720 firsthand experience that the difficulty they have is moving. So 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.680 some don't go through the stations, but they stay, so 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:46.200 they appear here in the city, and so they arrive here, 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:49.840 and some decide to stay and forego all the difficulty 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:50.640 of moving forward. 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.480 Despite having been set up as a refuge recent changes 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:58.200 to Panamanian law had made that work difficult. 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.160 We had to start that service because the state literally 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:07.400 prohibited us as agencies from providing a shelter, and under 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:11.120 the premise that if we gave them shelter without them 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:16.000 asking for it, they could consider us as human traffickers. 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.719 So what we do now is we give them food 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:23.479 and if they decide to stay well, we help them 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:29.320 with certain processes that we can call humanitarian aid for sustainability. 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:33.160 I've seen a wide variety of faith based aid in 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.800 my time at the border. Much of it has been fantastic, 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.400 but with more than a decade of refugee camps from 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:40.800 resource pot settings, I've also learned to be a bit 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.760 wary of faith based charity. But something Elias said early 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:46.960 in our talk gave me a great deal of respect 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.760 for him. It's not justin he said it, but he 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:51.720 took the time to address his comments to me as 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:54.080 a journalist because he saw this as a problem in 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.800 part created by the media. Ford it worth. I think 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:59.719 he's right. It's something that as we try and help 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.480 my on a difficult journey. We must always keep in 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:04.880 mind he might come from a very different background than 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:06.960 my mutual aid group, but we do seem to share 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:09.160 the same belief in solidarity with the migrants. 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:11.040 There's a fortunate. 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:14.839 Unfortunately much of the media narrative. 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:19.080 What they do is they victimize and ridicule people in 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:23.280 family groups and turn them into pariahs and beggars. Then 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:27.359 that is insulting to the dignity of the person. So 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.839 the way they portray migration is shameful in some cases, 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:35.400 and this is very difficult. Well for this, yes, I 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:36.640 think that's very important. 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:40.440 After this, I figured I address the issue head on. 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:42.760 I'm asking about the many churches in Christians I see 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.039 preaching hate against people coming to the southern border of 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:49.200 the US. 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.120 There is a sector in the Catholic Church and the 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.799 Evangelical Church that opposes it and is more closely linked, 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:02.080 and they are in fact they are they're benefactors of 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:08.760 Trump's campaign. So this one and this one are there, well, well, 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.920 those are like groups that are rejecting, let's say, the 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.239 basic principle of the church, which is that we must 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:22.800 welcome migrants and refugees. So they fundamentally reject it. So 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:27.600 they invent all these narratives that Haitians practice voodoo and 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.600 they eat pets and this and that or that and 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:36.600 it's shameful mean, or like the Venezuelans, that the majority 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.400 of them are from Triande Aragua gang or that they 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.920 come from areas that are what you call problematic or chauvannista, 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:45.560 and that. 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.840 They are infuriating or that or that. 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.080 All the same narrative that was created when when the 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.920 Maritos left Cuba. And it's not that the Cuban government 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:59.320 is sending all the prisoners on the Mariel boats to. 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.760 Invade the un United States. It's the same narrative. 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.560 Then they asked what he thought of the government's plans 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:10.920 to close the day Enda if they could even do that. 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:13.440 People ask me, do you think the Darian gap is 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.560 going to close and that migration is going to disappear? 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:19.600 And I say, ask the Mexicans and the North Americans 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.760 if the Sonara Desert has stopped being a corridor for 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.400 people after Trump, Because there was a time when all 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:29.720 the media was focused on the migration that passed through 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:34.040 the Sonara and everything continues to happen, But then it 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:38.200 became invisible and ceased to exist for them. But people 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:42.679 continue to pass through and people continue to die. So 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:46.680 as you say this, this is going to continue. Maybe 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.440 not a half a million people, but the flow is 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:50.480 going to continue. 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:51.640 It's going to continue. 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.320 And then the question we should ask ourselves is what 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.800 are we going to do or how are we going 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.280 to accompany this flow? How are we going to accompanies 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.280 these lives? And in what way can let these people's 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.880 lives impact us? 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:09.760 But like so many of us who work along the board, 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.880 he says, he's constantly fighting. It's negative messaging that encourages 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.440 people not to follow the natural impulse to help and 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:16.440 take care of one another. 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:23.120 So it's not a question of how I always say, 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.560 and sometimes they tell me, oh that you always speak 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.640 so badly of Panama, But it's not speaking badly of Panama. 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.080 I love my country and I feel that we in general, 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:38.040 the Panamanian communities are very welcoming and very affectionate with 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.200 the migrants. The problem is the narrative that is created 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.200 and then it generates to stimuli that end up with 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:51.079 a situation where are not seen so positively. And consequently, 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:56.480 last week we had a meeting perhaps on national reality, 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.600 and we touched on the subject of immigrants, and the 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:04.439 first reaction was, no, it's not the state that pays 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:05.640 the fare of the migrants. 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:08.760 It's not that. I mean, they pay their own fare. 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:12.160 After a week of my interview requests being declined by 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:15.480 NGOs and government offices, I found my talk with Father 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.280 Alias refreshing. It's nice to know that you're not the 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:20.640 only one who sees the system as it is, which 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:24.520 is fundamentally flawed and entirely propped up by misinformation, hatred 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:26.959 and ignorance. But I don't want to get bogged down 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.400 on that. Father Alias told me that when he sees migrants, 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:32.720 he sees God in them, and that he experiences his 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.880 faith by helping others. My early experienced religion came in 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:38.000 high school from a priest who was a teacher who'd 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.240 been part of the anti apartheid movement in South Africa. 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.440 I'm not a religious person in myself, but I can 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.440 understand how seeing God and other people is not that 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.240 far from my own politics. Lifit seeing God and know 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:50.640 the people that in pels people stand up against apartheid 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:52.920 or to dedicate their lives to helping migrants. Then I 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.960 respect that. So after we come back, I want to 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:59.000 try and answer the question that pythea Alias ask, what 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:16.000 can you do? 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.360 Ran into them. 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:30.920 After getting back from the Dad End and hearing the 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.280 migrants share their struggles as they waited in Mexico for 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.200 an outlest designed to lay and discourage them, I really 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:38.320 struggled to come to terms with everything I'd seen and 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.640 was hearing. A bid to plenty of dangerous places, and 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:45.800 seen war, state violence, and terrorism. I know the tragedy 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.880 of death and violence, but the slow and deliberate suffering 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:50.960 inflicted on migrants, for people who lied to us every 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:53.240 day on television, is particularly hard to bear for me. 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:56.360 As I mentioned at the start of this series, I 0:11:56.400 --> 0:11:58.719 think the grim reality of our migration system. On my 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:02.280 first day in Barjiguito, little girl's head hanging limply from 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.600 a makeshift stretcher a strangers carried her into town. It's 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:10.320 also cruel, so deliberate, and so unnecessary, and it felt 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:13.480 so disempowering. But that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do. 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:15.560 It doesn't mean there's nothing I can do. 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:21.360 All right, Basically, what we're gonna be doing is we're 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.360 gonna go this way. I mean, we're gonna start. We're 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:26.560 gona go down into this well, We're gonna go that 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:28.199 way and see where the light break is on the 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.000 mid of the hill in between those hills running cut up. 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:32.840 I'm up in that area. 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.160 That's James card Era of Border Kindness, sitting at the 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:38.200 roof of a group of five of us set out 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:40.360 on a water drop in the mountains east of the Cumber. 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.439 It's an area called Valley of the Moon, where boulders 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.320 the size of trucks stack up against each other, where 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:49.599 people have been crossing the border for decades. This is 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.240 a remote area and not unlike the daddy En. Much 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:54.360 of it is nearly impossible to access in a car. 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:57.760 To get water out here, we have to walk. And 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:00.079 if you run out of water or injure yourself, you 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.600 can't walk out of here. It's possible you'll die, just 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:05.560 like the migotes do in the jungle. People get robbed here, 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:07.600 just like in the dad Enn And if it wasn't 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:09.560 for the five of us with our backpacks full of water, 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.600 people could die of first here just like they do 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.679 in the jungle. I thought I was packing water bottles 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.040 into my frame pack. I thought about little kids I've 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.079 met in Baho Chiquito. This isn't the place for children either, 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:23.680 but over the last eighteen months, I've met hundreds of 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.320 them out here. I've given them my jackets and hats, 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:29.600 warmed up milk for babies in my camping stove, and 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:31.840 even wrapped a little girl up in a milar blanket 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.640 with me to warm her up last year. Just like 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:37.040 the Dadienne, the suffering here is out of sight and 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:39.520 out of mind for most Americans, and in a year 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.520 where we're constantly being told democracies under threat, I think 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:44.760 a bear is mentioning that migrants are treated as humans 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.720 without rights even when they're inside this country, and that 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.040 their lives are seen as dispensable so long as whoever 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:53.240 is in office can look quote tough on migration and 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.920 make TV pundits and big money donuts happy. There weren't 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.040 any TV pundits or big money dons on our water 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:02.400 drop a few of us everyday people. Some people come 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.640 out here because their family members across the desert. Some 0:14:05.679 --> 0:14:07.960 come out because everyone who crosses a desert is part 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:12.640 of our family. Like Bonnio said, in all humans are brothers, 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:15.200 and none of us want our brothers or sisters to 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:19.400 die in their mountains, whatever their passport might say. And 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:22.960 so nearly every weekend, people all along the border load 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.200 up heavy bags for supplies. On this drop, each of 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:31.080 us filled our packs with water, cans of tuna, pineapple soup, 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.280 some warm clothing, and in this case an audio. 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:39.640 Recorder recording recording in progress. 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:42.840 Of course, just gave me an opportunity to discuss my 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:46.480 life's calling. Ensuring the correct fit of backpack harness systems. 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:50.080 Yeah, you can release those, Yeah, it. 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:51.520 Just doesn't wrap the cantrap. 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.440 You either haven't drum the weight out or like, please 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:56.560 have adjustable frames so you can make them fit with 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:57.720 those days. 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:05.120 Bad for that. With everyone suitably adjusted and ergonomically optimized, 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.240 we twisted on the audio record as I'd attached the 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.000 straps of our packs and set off. 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:14.400 I just feel bad for you. 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:16.320 What are. 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:21.520 From the edge of the dirt road we took our 0:15:21.560 --> 0:15:22.800 first steps into the desert. 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:30.320 The first part is gonna be a little slippery. You 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:32.400 eat shit, It's okay, and don't be embarrassed. It happens. 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:38.760 This part of the border isn't that far from a 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:41.160 Cumba where this time last year James and I spent 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:44.040 a freezing night trying to keep people alive, running our 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.960 camping stoves on full blast, giving away our own jackets 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:49.920 who needed them more than us. At that time, I 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:51.960 just returned from a trip to North and East Syria, 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.840 which was stressful in its own way, and seeing both 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:57.960 what people are leaving and how we treat them when 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.400 they arrive here really piss me off. A year later, 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.920 with bags full of water, JMS and I spoke about 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:06.520 things and how they got so much worse in the 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:10.720 last two years, but press coverage and more importantly, donations 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.520 have been way lower. It's same story up and down 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:18.440 the border, record deaths, newer and harder migration routes, different 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.000 migration patterns, and the people who cried outside ice detention 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:24.640 centers in Trump's first term cheering for more walls and 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:29.640 bigger DHS budgets. Meanwhile, unlike the Trump era, we don't 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.840 have the support of thousands of liberal people in California's 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:36.200 big cities. After the Democrats cynically use migrant suffering in 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:39.440 their twenty twenty campaign, they abandoned them upon acquiring power, 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:43.480 and their supporters have mostly followed them, so that left 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:46.280 five of us this particular morning to load up bags 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:49.280 and do the life saving work of dropping water. On 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.760 top of all the state violence, there's been more and 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:53.880 more interference with the water drops, and as we got 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:56.680 further into our route, we made the increasingly calmon discovery 0:16:57.120 --> 0:16:59.920 that someone had taken it upon themselves to destroy our supplies. 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.920 O smn of ice. 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.080 See that's probably. 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:14.760 Slash ye sorry by the person's making a smirnoff ice. 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:19.520 Yeah he's wrong. Yeah, they all lunched motherfuckers. 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:21.760 I mean, I'm assuming it's a person who brought the 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:26.800 smirnoff ice because it seems like a smirnofvi's activity feed fella. Yeah, 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:28.760 I don't see a VP agent rolling threw with the 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:29.560 smirnoff Iyes. 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:34.000 This isn't unique to border kindness. Someone has been shooting 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:36.720 supplies left by Borderlands Relief Collective half an hour west 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.240 of here recently, up and down the border. The combination 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:43.679 of total liberal inattention and xenophobic right wing hate whipped 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:46.680 up by streamers who I won't name and pseudo journalistic 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.879 grifters who I will name, like Bill Maluganlugan, of course, 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.159 was previously famous for claiming that the cop had a 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.480 tampon dropped in his coffee. In twenty twenty. Spoiler alert 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:58.080 if you're not familiar, this wasn't true. Belugan now works 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:00.200 as a quote unquite border reporter for Fox. 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:02.640 Danny, Good morning to you. We are in Santa Siegro, 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:04.840 a part of San Diego, right now, where hundreds of 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:08.160 illegal immigrants have just been massed street released from border 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:11.800 patrol custody. This bus you see right here is apparently 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.439 an NGO or volunteer organization bus. They've all just gotten 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.640 off a border patrol bus. Two of them actually, they're 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.800 now waiting to board this bus. I've talked to several 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.440 of them from Peru, from India, from Colombia. The group 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:27.199 from Peru told me they are here to work. They 0:18:27.240 --> 0:18:30.200 are going to Atlanta and Minneapolis to see if we 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:32.200 can talk to some of them real quick. Old espanon 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:39.439 the so Ecuadora. Don't us in New York going to 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:42.199 New York. They're don the so On, They're on the 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:47.320 so Costa Rica. Don't they have us in Los Atlanta. 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:47.840 New Jersey? 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:59.280 Don't the New Jersey, New Jersey. Don't they've us in Chicago? Chicago, Colombia, Columbia, Kerebaja, no, 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:01.920 no I see they yet they say they want asylum, 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:05.320 they don't want to work, they've done their son. Well, 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.040 where are you from? 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:09.399 Sag Sanag? 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:11.879 I think Senegal? From Senegal? We saw a lot of 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.280 Senegalese in Lukeville, Arizona. Where in the US do you 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:18.040 want to go to? What city? 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:23.200 Francis France? Frosse France, France speak France. 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.359 Oh he speaks French. I obviously do not speak French. 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.440 The Loogan's lack of language competency isn't the only issue here. 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:32.159 It's a holy ecosystem of media built up of hyuristically 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:35.120 filming migrants without giving them a chance to humanize themselves. 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:37.199 And it's not just a right wing issue. 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:39.800 This week, each day has been marked by new daily 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:43.119 records of migrants, both crossing the southern border and landing 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:45.840 in custody. The federal government is struggling to keep up. 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:49.280 Three Homeland security official say Customs and Border Protection is 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.040 holding about twenty seven thousand migrants and processing facilities as 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.359 of yesterday. President Biden spoke with Mexico's president about the 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.879 issue earlier today, and NBC News Homeland Security corresponding, Julie 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:03.240 joins me now to dig into this trend. So Julia, first, 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.280 just give us some perspective here. How is Customs and 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.240 Border Protection operating right now and what are your sources 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:11.919 saying about this historic rise in migrants at the border. 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.679 Well, in some ways, there's actually a small victory here, 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:17.560 is in clay when you look at the fact that 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.600 CBP is seeing a record number of migrants, that they've 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:22.480 been at a record high now for three days in 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:25.439 a row. They broke the record of twelve thousand, maintained 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:28.720 that and there are now almost twenty seven thousand migrants 0:20:28.720 --> 0:20:31.800 in CBP custody. When we got to just about twenty 0:20:31.840 --> 0:20:34.720 thousand and twenty nineteen under the Trump administration, there were 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.120 migrants who were there for weeks and couldn't lie down 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.080 to sleep because they were so overcrowded. Now, because of 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.640 the technology, they're actually able to not even hold people 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.520 past seventy two hours and very quickly release them. But 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:47.840 the tragedy comes after that. There are a lot of 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:50.160 migrants who are being released on the streets without being 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.000 taken to nonprofits, and some of them don't exactly know 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.720 where they're supposed to go, even though CBP does try 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.880 to coordinate with the cities where they are released. That's 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:03.160 definitely happening in the Tucson, Arizona area and Eagle Pass, Texas. 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:05.680 Even though they are scrambling as fast as they can 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.320 to release migrants, that are still thousands who remain in 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:11.560 the field, a lot of them crowded under a bridge 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.760 an Eagle Pass, just waiting for CBP to take them in. 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:17.960 The reason a lot of people can give you different reasons. One, 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:21.040 perhaps Mexico is interdicting as many migrants as they were 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:23.639 earlier in the year. They're now lower on funds because 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:26.640 of these record highs. Another reason, sometimes migrants will say 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.480 that they're worried about a future Republican administration or a 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:32.320 future Trump administration that might be harder ANDed, so they 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:33.800 think now is the time to come. 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:36.880 Two minutes into this report and we haven't actually heard 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.320 from a single migrant. All we hear is numbers. We 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:42.960 also haven't heard about door detention, which is the time 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.040 this was released with at its peak. Again, it's just 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:48.200 numbers and CBP statements. 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:49.440 I should also. 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:51.479