Speaker 1: Cause media.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hello Mia, Hello you lot. Hello podcast fans, This
Speaker 2: is it could happen here a podcast about how the
Speaker 2: world is falling apart and some people who are trying
Speaker 2: to pull it back together. Today, we are not talking
Speaker 2: about people who are pulling it back together. We are
Speaker 2: talking about a guy who is constantly struggling to hold
Speaker 2: it together. And that, my friends, is Joseph Robinette Biden,
Speaker 2: old guy, United States President and a border fascist. And
Speaker 2: what's happening. Why are we talking about Joseph Robinette Biden today? Well,
Speaker 2: because you will remember that Biden made some promises when
Speaker 2: he was campaigning in twenty twenty, and it will shock
Speaker 2: you to hear that he is throwing migrants under the
Speaker 2: bus again. In an attempt to get Republicans in the
Speaker 2: Senate to stop stamping their feet and wailing and having
Speaker 2: a tantrum, specifically, the Senate failed to pass an immensely
Speaker 2: spending bill which would find military Among other things, it
Speaker 2: would fund military a to Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel. And
Speaker 2: the reason they did that is because these Republicans are
Speaker 2: having a little tantrum about quote unquote border security. Border
Speaker 2: security probably doesn't mean what you think it means. In
Speaker 2: practical terms, what border security means is killing more innocent people,
Speaker 2: more people who are fleeing the worst things that are
Speaker 2: happening in this world. At our southern border. It is
Speaker 2: making America a more deadly place for the most desperate
Speaker 2: people on earth. That is what border security means. That
Speaker 2: is what I want you to think of when you
Speaker 2: hear people saying we should secure our border, because the
Speaker 2: people you're securing it against are the Azidi mother I
Speaker 2: saw carrying her children to try and come to a
Speaker 2: safer place. They are the Afghan grandmother who I saw
Speaker 2: walking through the mountains last weekend. Those are the people
Speaker 2: who we're securing our border against. Right, And this is sorry,
Speaker 2: This just pisses me off to an unfathomable degree for
Speaker 2: many of you. But the reason we're talking about this
Speaker 2: today is because whatever happens at the border, right, whatever
Speaker 2: policy we have at the border migration won't change because
Speaker 2: what people are leaving is worse than that, and so
Speaker 2: they will still come here because they believe the lies
Speaker 2: in America tells the world, and it tells its citizens
Speaker 2: about itself too, that this is a safe place. And
Speaker 2: for some people that has been a safe place, and
Speaker 2: that's a good thing. But what will change is how
Speaker 2: people are treated when they get here, because what Biden
Speaker 2: has proposed is a return to Title forty two. I
Speaker 2: made a whole series on Title forty two that you
Speaker 2: can listen to. But what he's proposing this time is
Speaker 2: a very similar policy by which the border patrol agent
Speaker 2: who meets people after they cross the border in between
Speaker 2: to entry can send them directly back to Mexico without
Speaker 2: them having a chance for an asylum hearing. Right, this
Speaker 2: is illegal under international law and parts of the US law.
Speaker 2: It's not clear what Biden's proposing or what the administration
Speaker 2: is proposing to do about it. Maybe they could change
Speaker 2: the immigration law. They could probably get enough vote for that,
Speaker 2: given that people in Congress seem to care very little
Speaker 2: about migrants. But this isn't a well fleft out proposal.
Speaker 2: But what it very clearly shows, right, is the intent
Speaker 2: to throw some of the most desperate people on earth,
Speaker 2: and that is It's disgusting, it's ab horror, and it
Speaker 2: shouldn't be unexpected either.
Speaker 1: The executive is a branch in democratic control that is
Speaker 1: utterly incapable of helping a single person. But has the immense,
Speaker 1: terrible and powerful authority to kill any person on earth,
Speaker 1: and then secondarily to I'm just going to call it,
Speaker 1: effectively perform ethnic cleansings by continually removing populations from the US.
Speaker 2: They could just do this, Yeah, and they used the
Speaker 2: executive for yes it is yeah, yeah, yeah. They have
Speaker 2: never once waived that executive power in defense of the
Speaker 2: little guy or people who desperately needed help. It would
Speaker 2: seem certainly not in the last couple of administrations shouts
Speaker 2: or the former Obama administration staffords by the way, for
Speaker 2: showing their whole ass by the screaming racist shit at
Speaker 2: Muslim people in the last few weeks for people who
Speaker 2: hadn't already kind of worked out how terrible the Obama
Speaker 2: administration's policy was. So I want to talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about the things that they're trying to do. So
Speaker 2: the first and foremost would be allowing border patrol to
Speaker 2: summarily expel migrants. Let me explain to you exactly how
Speaker 2: fucking stupid this thing is. I was present with a
Speaker 2: border patrol agent last week who was trying to discern
Speaker 2: who was a child or not. Who was hampered in
Speaker 2: this by not being able to count in Spanish. Border
Speaker 2: patrol agents do take a Spanish class in their academy, right,
Speaker 2: but how the fuck are we expect this guy to
Speaker 2: discern the veracity of someone's asylum claim when he can't
Speaker 2: count to eighteen? Like this person right under this proposed
Speaker 2: democratic proposal would have the effectively life or death choice
Speaker 2: of whether someone can make an asylum claim or they
Speaker 2: get immediately bounce back to Mexico. Right, this person would,
Speaker 2: for instance, have the choice to send a trans woman
Speaker 2: who would not be safe quote unquote remaining in Mexico
Speaker 2: while she applied for asylum here back to Mexico to
Speaker 2: apply for asylum here. Right, this person will be able
Speaker 2: to send someone who has very credible fears of violence
Speaker 2: in Mexico back to Mexico where they often have no network,
Speaker 2: they have no resources. It once again be putting the
Speaker 2: strain of our foreign policy and the fucked up shit
Speaker 2: we've done all around the world that has destabilized regimes,
Speaker 2: specifically across South Marica, but also all around the world.
Speaker 2: As a consequence of that, people aren't safe there. They're
Speaker 2: coming here to find safety, and we're placing it in
Speaker 2: the hands of a random border patrol agent who may
Speaker 2: very well not speak the language. You understand anything they're
Speaker 2: saying to bounce them back. That's not how we should
Speaker 2: do think. I think it probably goes without saying. They
Speaker 2: also want to begin a process of what's called expedited removal.
Speaker 2: This allows immigration officials to deport people without court hearings
Speaker 2: if they don't ask for asylum or if they fail
Speaker 2: their initial asylum interview. Again like this treating of people
Speaker 2: seeking asylum like they don't have rights or right like
Speaker 2: they have to they're guilty and to proven innocent almost
Speaker 2: in this system, right and to be proven to get
Speaker 2: these court hearings. To do well in these court inks,
Speaker 2: they need money. They need lawyers. Those lawyers can cost
Speaker 2: anywhere from six to twelve thousand dollars from what I've heard.
Speaker 2: But these people aren't allowed to work in the United States.
Speaker 2: We're creating a de factor system the privileges wealthier migrants. Right,
Speaker 2: ten twelve thousand United States dollars is a lot of
Speaker 2: money if you're coming from large parts of the world,
Speaker 2: we're weighing so much lower. So having that kind of
Speaker 2: money isn't something that people who may be in desperate
Speaker 2: need of help would have. For instance, yesterday I was
Speaker 2: speaking to a USD family is ed. However you want
Speaker 2: to say it who people will be familiar with the
Speaker 2: way their community was treated by isis right. Some of
Speaker 2: the worst genocidal and misogynist violence that we've seen this
Speaker 2: century was enounted upon that community. They're coming to the
Speaker 2: United States to be safe, and I don't think those
Speaker 2: people would have had the money to get together for
Speaker 2: a hearing. Right, they speak Kurdish. I've never encountered about
Speaker 2: a patrol agent who speaks Kurdish. Right, So they would
Speaker 2: have to make their claim on arrival. They could be
Speaker 2: immediately rejected. They could if they fail their asylum interview,
Speaker 2: they could be placed in this expedited removal process, by
Speaker 2: which they wouldn't have a right to a court hearing,
Speaker 2: a lawyer or translator, all those things. And the final
Speaker 2: thing that they've indicated that they want to do, and
Speaker 2: I think this is the most bizarre one, is that
Speaker 2: they have decided that they want to mandate the detention
Speaker 2: of certain migrants while their claims are adjudicated. This one,
Speaker 2: it seems like obviously like a massive concession to this
Speaker 2: sort of insane Republican right wing sort of demand that
Speaker 2: we criminalize all asylum seekers.
Speaker 1: And I think which I want to say something like
Speaker 1: for a second about this too, because like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the ways that all this whole anti migranting
Speaker 1: has ramped up, like when I was a kid, like
Speaker 1: because there was you know, I was like growing up
Speaker 1: when this this first sort of like anti immigration hysteria
Speaker 1: was like ramping up. And back then the hysteria was
Speaker 1: illegal immigration. It's like this stuff is all legal, Like
Speaker 1: you have the legal like these are literally people doing
Speaker 1: legal immigration. Yeah, they and we're just here now where
Speaker 1: it's like no, like like you try you, if you
Speaker 1: attempt to come into the US legally, we are going
Speaker 1: to fucking put you in a camp. Like it's fucking insane.
Speaker 1: It's like like this is shit that like even like
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, people would have been like what the
Speaker 1: fuck are you talking about. But the way that the
Speaker 1: way that this has been accelerated, and this is something
Speaker 1: that's you know, like the fact that Biden is fucking
Speaker 1: just like just going like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: should this is this is fine, Like we're gonna do
Speaker 1: like this is this is stuff that would have been
Speaker 1: unimaginable for a Republican president in the two thousands. Yeah. Like,
Speaker 1: the thing about this too is that none of this
Speaker 1: would have been possible without democratic implicity. This is this
Speaker 1: is this way this system has worked this entire time. Right,
Speaker 1: is the reason they called a bomb of the Deporter
Speaker 1: in chief because he was the guy who could could
Speaker 1: have actually turned the tide against this stuff and just
Speaker 1: didn't and was just like, fuck you, We're gonna deport
Speaker 1: millions of people. And that's that's how we're fucking here
Speaker 1: with this shit over again. People who are literally coming
Speaker 1: to the country legally, which is what all these people said,
Speaker 1: spent all this fucking time saying you're supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the claim of it by
Speaker 2: the administration is I don't fucking know, Like they want
Speaker 2: people to use CBP one, right, CBP one is the
Speaker 2: biggest fucking disaster in applications. I can't think of anything.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's like as bad as fucking Testa's
Speaker 2: auto pilot. If Testa's auto pilot got to decide your
Speaker 2: whole future, right, every single person I have met at
Speaker 2: the Southern border has tried CBP one. People aren't. Like,
Speaker 2: No one wants to pay someone to drive them off
Speaker 2: road across the desert to a shitty hole in the
Speaker 2: wall in the middle of the freezing mountain range eighty
Speaker 2: miles east of here, and then to sit with their
Speaker 2: children while it rains, snows, freezes and wait for one, two,
Speaker 2: three nights in this shitty conditions with maybe a con
Speaker 2: tent that we dumps to dive from a Susan g
Speaker 2: comen event, right, or maybe if they're really lucky, like
Speaker 2: a yurt that me and my friends built from palaps, right.
Speaker 2: And no one in their right mind would want to
Speaker 2: do that. These people don't want to do that. They've
Speaker 2: tried fucking CBP one. Most of them who I have
Speaker 2: spoken to are carrying visa rejection letters, right. They've been
Speaker 2: to embassies all around the world, have just been summarily dismissed.
Speaker 2: They don't give a reason for rejecting your visa, right,
Speaker 2: and they've exhausted all their options. No one wants to
Speaker 2: spend their life savings and walk across the desert. It's dangerous, right,
Speaker 2: but that is the only way they can do it.
Speaker 2: And as you say, it is perfectly legal to enter
Speaker 2: the country between ports of entry and immediately surrender to
Speaker 2: the first law enforcement agent you see to claim asylum.
Speaker 2: That that is how one claims asylum when one is
Speaker 2: fleeing persecution. And when we have shut the door through
Speaker 2: this stupid app that only recognizes white faces and crashes
Speaker 2: all the time and isn't in most languages, and it's
Speaker 2: entirely understandable that people have taken this route. We have
Speaker 2: cooked the bottler of migration and then shaken it up
Speaker 2: right for three years with the title forty two, which
Speaker 2: is this Trump era policy that co opted the COVID pandemic,
Speaker 2: which they allowed to rip through large segments of the
Speaker 2: United States community and pretended that by expelling migrants who
Speaker 2: are protecting us. It didn't have any provisions for vaccination,
Speaker 2: it didn't have any COVID testing. It was just a
Speaker 2: cynical attempt to use the pandemic. And we've seen through
Speaker 2: public records request is something they've planned long in advance
Speaker 2: to evict people from this country without giving them a
Speaker 2: chance of an asylum hearing, and now Biden is doing
Speaker 2: it without even the pretense of an excuse. Right at
Speaker 2: least Trump made up some bullshit. It was transparent. But
Speaker 2: Biden isn't even bothering to do that, and he's just
Speaker 2: going to boot these people back into a place where
Speaker 2: they're going to be vulnerable. I've spoken to migrants who
Speaker 2: have been abused, who have been robbed in Mexico. It's
Speaker 2: it's not a safe place of vulnerable people. And the
Speaker 2: more vulnerable people you put into it, they're less safe.
Speaker 2: It's going to get and nor is it. Mexico's a
Speaker 2: fucking problem, right, Like Henry Kissinger didn't fucking run Mexican
Speaker 2: policy and then get to live to one hundred and
Speaker 2: die in's bed, right, It's it's a lot of these
Speaker 2: countries people are coming from, they're coming from because we
Speaker 2: fucked up their policy as a country. We fucked up
Speaker 2: their future, right. We we did this neoclonial thing where
Speaker 2: we stole everything we thought was a value. We imposed
Speaker 2: dictators upon them when they chose socialist or more progressive regimes,
Speaker 2: and then we'd split our hands up in the air
Speaker 2: and said no, you can't come here to no space. Sorry,
Speaker 2: And it's it's fucking inexcusable and it's imhorrent me. Do
Speaker 2: you know what else is inexcusable? And abhorrent?
Speaker 1: Is it the products and services that it is?
Speaker 2: Mar Yeah, yes, the products and services that we so
Speaker 2: greatly love. Oh hang on, I got something say about
Speaker 2: the fucking products and services. We're doing this now because
Speaker 2: we've got time. There was an advert for Novo nordisking
Speaker 2: our podcast the other day, and I just want to
Speaker 2: take this opportunity to say an extra special fuck you
Speaker 2: to them, because I have held in my hand as
Speaker 2: a little fucking children who have died because they can't
Speaker 2: afford insulin. And the reason they have died is because
Speaker 2: these fucking ghouls want to extract every penny out of
Speaker 2: those of us who have diabetes. So I'm sorry that
Speaker 2: you heard those adverts and you won't ever again. But
Speaker 2: here's some other adverts we are back without, hopefully adverts
Speaker 2: for evil pharmaceutical companies. It's me and Meir, and we're
Speaker 2: talking about Joe Brandon and his terrible immigration policy. So
Speaker 2: the final part of this, and perhaps the most bizarre one,
Speaker 2: is that the White House but mandating the detention of
Speaker 2: these migrants pending their claims. The US has never had
Speaker 2: enough enough detention space to do this, and we don't now.
Speaker 2: It remains extremely fucking unclear how this will be done.
Speaker 2: I will say that there was a big fuss made
Speaker 2: me and maybe remember this that Biden was canceling private
Speaker 2: prison contracts when he first came into office. Do you
Speaker 2: remember his executive order on this vaguely? Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: think it got a lot of attention. That may have
Speaker 2: specifically applied to people who are in federal criminal incarceration.
Speaker 2: It's certainly never applied to people seeking asylum because those
Speaker 2: people have always been detained by third party contractors like
Speaker 2: cour Civic Right, and they continue to be so on
Speaker 2: the the Biden administration because again right, it is seemingly
Speaker 2: the implicit policy of the Democratic Party that these people
Speaker 2: are of less value and have fewer rights than US
Speaker 2: citizens or then people seeking permanent restudency in this country
Speaker 2: through other means.
Speaker 1: You know. One of the things I was, I was
Speaker 1: doing this for other reasons, for not this story, but
Speaker 1: I was going back through and I was reading the
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party platform from twenty twenty and if you
Speaker 1: go back and read the Democratic Party platform from twenty
Speaker 1: twenty eight, the opening thing is them talking about the
Speaker 1: like how they're they're when they're in power, they're gonna
Speaker 1: do us need to dismantle structure and racism in this country?
Speaker 2: Fuck me?
Speaker 1: And it's like my ass, Like, and this is one
Speaker 1: of these these really really sort of grim things about this, right,
Speaker 1: is like the Democrats really really cynically capitalized off of, like,
Speaker 1: like people's revulsion at the fucking horrible suffus doing it
Speaker 1: at the border, and then they got into power, they
Speaker 1: did all of the same shit, and nobody fucking cares
Speaker 1: now because that's that's literally what the Democrats are there for, right.
Speaker 1: They're there to diffuse people's ability, capacity and desire to
Speaker 1: resist doing the exact same fucking things Republicans are doing.
Speaker 1: And it's really effective. And the consequence of this is
Speaker 1: that now we're fucking here with like trying to bring
Speaker 1: fucking the same shit Trump was doing back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're right, like so many people poured so
Speaker 2: much rage and passion into like I'm sure you can
Speaker 2: remember the whole no more kids in kGy thing, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I will.
Speaker 1: I will say this. I was always kind of cynical
Speaker 1: about that because I remember Occupy Ice. Now, I remember
Speaker 1: all those fucking liberals who told me they'd be marching
Speaker 1: in the streets just fucking abandoning us and leaving us
Speaker 1: to like deal with the fucking cops on our own.
Speaker 1: So like I think, I think it is like there's
Speaker 1: been a sort of mythologization to some extent of how
Speaker 1: willing people were to actually do shit it or Trump,
Speaker 1: but they sure is fuck not here under Biden.
Speaker 2: So then yeah, there ain't no one in the streets
Speaker 2: saying no more kids in cages now, right, Like they're
Speaker 2: not here for the little children I've met, you know,
Speaker 2: day in day out for the last six months, who
Speaker 2: are going to be detained, who might be separated for
Speaker 2: their families.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I want to this is kind of off
Speaker 1: topic too, but like, so this is this is a story,
Speaker 1: Like at some point I'm going to do an actual
Speaker 1: episode about this. There's been I've been I've been trying
Speaker 1: to get to talk to people about this for a bit.
Speaker 1: But so there's been a whole bunch of shit with
Speaker 1: a lot of So one of the subsequent things that
Speaker 1: was happening with all these people is that like the
Speaker 1: government in Texas has been like shipping them to random cities. Yes,
Speaker 1: so a bunch of people have been shipped to Chicago,
Speaker 1: and it turned and there there eventually were protests here,
Speaker 1: but like our fucking progressive mayor tried to have a
Speaker 1: basically a concentration camp company set up like a camp
Speaker 1: for these people on land that it turned out have
Speaker 1: been a toxic waste dump and only just didn't do
Speaker 1: I I don't even think he ever backed up the
Speaker 1: a story years kind of. I think what happened, if
Speaker 1: I'm remembering correctly, is that the governor was like, like
Speaker 1: pritz Crew was like, what the fuck are you doing?
Speaker 1: You can't have this stuff beyond a toxic waste site.
Speaker 1: But so that's like temporarily to stopped. Like that's that's
Speaker 1: the kind of shit that's happening, like in you know,
Speaker 1: like like Brandon Johnson like nominally is one of the
Speaker 1: most left wing mayors in the US, And this is
Speaker 1: what is fucking happening even in this from of the
Speaker 1: sort of progressive wing the Democratic Party, like the concern
Speaker 1: like the Joe Biden conservative wing is like even worse
Speaker 1: than this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like the entire Democratic Party in so much
Speaker 2: as has and there was a time when it genuinely
Speaker 2: did show up for people trying to come to this
Speaker 2: country to seek asylum at least it wouldn't. This is
Speaker 2: like the immigration system is like a ratchet and it
Speaker 2: only moved to the right, and the democratic government it
Speaker 2: wouldn't move to the right. It does now. And this
Speaker 2: means something. There is not an electoral option for you, right,
Speaker 2: You cannot just vote if you give a single fuck
Speaker 2: about innocent people living outside of this country wanting to
Speaker 2: come here and be safe. You don't. There is nothing
Speaker 2: on the ballot box for you to tick that represents
Speaker 2: a serious option. And that's sad. Yeah, it's a pretty
Speaker 2: fucked reflection of our electoral politics. But I think it
Speaker 2: also impels us to like, look, look as someone who
Speaker 2: believes that there is not a ballot box option that
Speaker 2: is going to deliver us a system with dignity and
Speaker 2: democracy and justice. Anyway, I think this is where we
Speaker 2: have to step up and do the stuff that we
Speaker 2: always talk about. Like this happened a little bit in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, it happened a little bit under Trump, but
Speaker 2: like now more than ever, the need to do mutual aid,
Speaker 2: especially for migrants, but also for in house people within
Speaker 2: your community, for all the fucking human detritus of Joe
Speaker 2: Biden's dogshit, evenance, it's right now, and like it is,
Speaker 2: as I've seen personally, within the power of a very
Speaker 2: small group of people to impact the lives of a
Speaker 2: very large group of people through organizing. I've participated in
Speaker 2: mutual aid for a while. I'm sure many of the
Speaker 2: people are listening have as well. But like if you,
Speaker 2: if you haven't found the play or the way to
Speaker 2: do so, like it's it's a great time to start
Speaker 2: organizing something. The options in the next electoral cycle are
Speaker 2: that things get worse or that things get much worse.
Speaker 2: I don't think we have an option which is dismantling
Speaker 2: the structural racism that is within the United States, or
Speaker 2: even just not punching down on some of the most
Speaker 2: vulnerable people in the world. It would appear, and so
Speaker 2: to protect those people, it falls upon our communities, And
Speaker 2: that's that's a big burden to shoulder, right. When the
Speaker 2: state has enough money to send one thousand pound bomb
Speaker 2: state Israel, that means that we have to pay for
Speaker 2: beans for hungry children. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, And I mean the thing that this too, right
Speaker 1: is like if you if you spent the amount of
Speaker 1: money that the US was spending on trying to keep
Speaker 1: Ale out of the country, on just like giving like
Speaker 1: if you just gave that money to the same those
Speaker 1: same people, we wouldn't be having this problem right now.
Speaker 1: Like it isn't like putting people in a prison is
Speaker 1: like the least cost efficient way to do possibly do anything,
Speaker 1: And it doesn't matter because the whole point of this,
Speaker 1: like and this is one of these things with this
Speaker 1: sort of ratchet, right is eventually you're gonna get to
Speaker 1: fucking like you know, I mean, like the situation we
Speaker 1: have now right now in Greece where you have effectively
Speaker 1: a fascist government who's up like pot like when like
Speaker 1: when when boastload boatloads of people go down to the Mediterranean,
Speaker 1: like go down the Mediterraneans, every hundred people die, their
Speaker 1: popularity goes up because you know, and then and this
Speaker 1: is the thing you're gonna be We're gonna we're We're
Speaker 1: not that far away from in the fucking US. Is
Speaker 1: the Republican demand in like maybe like eight maybe ten
Speaker 1: years is going to be just shooting like literally just
Speaker 1: machine guns at the.
Speaker 2: Border like that. This is this is this is where
Speaker 2: this is fucking going, right. You haven't seen the replies
Speaker 2: to my to my posts, like when.
Speaker 1: When I when I say exa. I mean like like
Speaker 1: this is gonna be the demand of the fucking House,
Speaker 1: like Republican caucus, right, like this is this is, this
Speaker 1: is where this is fucking going. And the Democrats, like
Speaker 1: you know, and the Democrats will take power fucking twelve
Speaker 1: years later and be like, well, we're only going to
Speaker 1: shoot some of the people at the border. People are
Speaker 1: going to call this progress, right, and the only way
Speaker 1: that this can be and this this cannot be stopped
Speaker 1: by voting for the Democrats. This is like you know,
Speaker 1: and like people people thought this about Obama, and people
Speaker 1: also thought this about Biden, was that we're going to
Speaker 1: vote for these people because they're going to be good
Speaker 1: on immigration, and like this is the reason why we're
Speaker 1: fucking are where we are now. So so like there
Speaker 1: there there there is no solution to this that doesn't
Speaker 1: revolve around like fundamental systemic change to what the US is,
Speaker 1: because otherwise we're just going to every single fucking year,
Speaker 1: we're gonna back here.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Talking of being back here, we needed a second
Speaker 2: advertising pivot. I think right there there are two mid
Speaker 2: roles in these Yeah. Yeah, so we are back here
Speaker 2: once again lamenting the fact that we have to introduce
Speaker 2: these adverts for you here. You are all right, and
Speaker 2: we have returned to lament the big fine of the
Speaker 2: United States. I wanted to talk briefly about what Title
Speaker 2: forty two does to migration flow. Right. As many of
Speaker 2: you will be aware, Donald Trump has built a big,
Speaker 2: beautiful wall along the southern border of the United States.
Speaker 2: The caveat to that being only some of it, and
Speaker 2: that they didn't do the hard parts. Right. So the
Speaker 2: places in Hokombo where people are entering are gaps in
Speaker 2: the war. Right. There are camps at three of these gaps,
Speaker 2: spread over about a fifteen mile area. There are apps
Speaker 2: all up and down the wall, right, And you'll very
Speaker 2: often see people saying, oh, you couldn't climb this war.
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter. You just walk along until you find a
Speaker 2: gap and get through. You also can climb the war.
Speaker 2: We've seen people climb the war. We've seen people cut
Speaker 2: it with angle grinders. Right. But what happens with Title
Speaker 2: forty two. What happens right now, under what's called Title
Speaker 2: eight of the United States Immigration Law, people enter the
Speaker 2: country through a gap in the wall, and they wait,
Speaker 2: and they surrender to a border patrol agent and say
Speaker 2: I'm here to claim the silent, right, and then they
Speaker 2: end up in these open air detention sites in Cucumber,
Speaker 2: et cetera. What happens on a title forty two is
Speaker 2: that if you think you're going to be bounced directly
Speaker 2: back to Mexico and you believe that you aren't safe there,
Speaker 2: you attempt to avoid border patrol, right, and so you
Speaker 2: go to the places where they're going to be watching
Speaker 2: these gaps in the war one would issue. So you
Speaker 2: go to the furthest places, and the hardest places and
Speaker 2: the highest places, in the most rugged places, right, and
Speaker 2: you try and walk through those routes. Instead, you try
Speaker 2: and walk through, for instance, value the Moon, which is
Speaker 2: just to the east of the Cumber, where just last
Speaker 2: week some of my friends are involved in the search
Speaker 2: and rescue operation for a four year old child who'd
Speaker 2: become separated from their family coming from Afghanistan, and then
Speaker 2: they found that child, fortunately, but fucking no one else
Speaker 2: would have done if they hadn't been there, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the result of this is that people will die in
Speaker 2: greater numbers crossing our body. And that's what we saw
Speaker 2: rounder title forty two under Trump, and it's what we
Speaker 2: saw in title forty two and Biden because there was
Speaker 2: that like I have attended that you've heard about on
Speaker 2: this podcast and the ones that I haven't and that
Speaker 2: you haven't heard about on this podcast are not going
Speaker 2: to stop because Joe Biden offered a concession to the Republicans,
Speaker 2: they will keep happening. The poverty that we have created
Speaker 2: in much of the world is not going to stop.
Speaker 2: It will keep happening. Transphobia a thing that we have
Speaker 2: exported culturally. That's on Britain too, which I definitely.
Speaker 1: It's a a colla It's been a collaborative effort between.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what a special relationship is about it. JK.
Speaker 2: Rowling and Temple.
Speaker 1: If the French are also complicit in this too, they're
Speaker 1: not getting sucking off the hook for this ship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is not the pubcast that it's fronts off
Speaker 2: the hook for anything.
Speaker 1: But but you know, like I mean, this is something
Speaker 1: I think you're getting at too. But like we in
Speaker 1: large part, like the US and the UK, are responsible
Speaker 1: for why schensphobia is as bad as it is in
Speaker 1: Mexico right now, which is it is so much more
Speaker 1: like as bad as it is to be trans in
Speaker 1: the fucking us. It is so much worse in Mexico.
Speaker 1: Like the odds of you being killed are indescribable. Even
Speaker 1: if you're not fucking killed, there's you know, like, well
Speaker 1: this is actually like the one of the episodes next
Speaker 1: or what week will that be? The week after next,
Speaker 1: Like I'm gonna we're gonna replay the epithet, like the
Speaker 1: interviews that I did with Mexican trans organizers talking about
Speaker 1: the turfs there because they are armed and they will
Speaker 1: fucking like actually they will attack people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's they United Nations because yeah, it's bleak.
Speaker 2: The UN says that life expectancy for trans people in
Speaker 2: Central America is thirty five or less. Right, that's a
Speaker 2: di am older than that. That is abhorrent. Right, that
Speaker 2: you are extremely likely to die young if you are
Speaker 2: transit in places not so far from here, right, And
Speaker 2: I think that's what I want to get it. And
Speaker 2: it's the fundamental conceit of this whole thing is that
Speaker 2: border policy doesn't change migration. Migration happens because people aren't
Speaker 2: safe where they are, and that's why they leave. They
Speaker 2: don't take this journey because it seems easy. Because even
Speaker 2: right now it's incredible hard. People walk thousands of miles,
Speaker 2: they walk across mountains, they run, and they take risks
Speaker 2: and hop on trains. They get extorted, they get robbed,
Speaker 2: that they get assaulted. Young women often get sexually assaulted. Like,
Speaker 2: it's a terrible and dangerous journey, and people won't stop
Speaker 2: taking that journey because Joe Biden decided to do something different.
Speaker 2: The things that are driving them to leave their homes
Speaker 2: will still keep happening, and they will now have to
Speaker 2: take a more dangerous journey. And all that this does
Speaker 2: is make it more likely that there's people will die
Speaker 2: on the way here, or that when they get here,
Speaker 2: they have to live their whole lives always wondering if
Speaker 2: they're going to get sent back, right, never really feeling safe.
Speaker 2: It rubs people of what some of us can take
Speaker 2: for granted, right, which is being able to go to
Speaker 2: sleep at night and feeling safe. And yeah, that's I
Speaker 2: guess what we all voted for when we chose an
Speaker 2: anti fascist guy in twenty twenty. Like, it's a pretty
Speaker 2: fucking bleak vision of politics in this country and the
Speaker 2: impact I have for people who don't get a choice
Speaker 2: to vote in this country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's you know, it is a it
Speaker 1: is it is a functional, definitional totalitarian regime, and it
Speaker 1: will never be fucking described as that by the academics
Speaker 1: who fucking use this language. But you know, how how
Speaker 1: how else do you describe living in a condition where
Speaker 1: you can at any point be removed and are spending
Speaker 1: literally all your time attempting to flee a police date, Like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the US, the US is and has always been an
Speaker 1: unbelievably authoritarian state, and it's getting more so fucking every day.
Speaker 1: And you know, and this is also one of these
Speaker 1: things where it's like, I mean, we literally saw this
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, the people who got sent in to
Speaker 1: put down the uprising in Portland. It was fucking Bortac, right,
Speaker 1: it was. It was it was the the it was
Speaker 1: it was it was the border patrols like special forces units, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's that's the inevitable logic of this state, is that
Speaker 1: you any person who wants to resist the state, eventually
Speaker 1: one day these people will fucking come for you too.
Speaker 1: And the question is whether you know, it's whether you
Speaker 1: start Because Vortec didn't win, really and like the stuff
Speaker 1: that they were trying to do in twent like they
Speaker 1: they basically kind of got beaten, but you know they're
Speaker 1: still there. They're still getting fucking money like they're getting
Speaker 1: I mean to give more money. Yeah, So you know,
Speaker 1: either either we stop them now before they fucking have
Speaker 1: another trillion dollars to spend on this shit, or you know,
Speaker 1: we fight them again in like five years when there's
Speaker 1: more of them and they're better funded.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And like, the final thing I'll say with regard
Speaker 2: to that finding is, maybe you're meeting your family over
Speaker 2: the holidays, right, Maybe hanging out with people he don't
Speaker 2: often hang out with, even if you don't care about
Speaker 2: you know that their mother bringing her baby from Chino
Speaker 2: in to hear who I met last night, Right, even
Speaker 2: if that doesn't bother you and you're so somehow heartless
Speaker 2: so that you don't care. I will say that, like
Speaker 2: every single time we put more money into border security
Speaker 2: to ends up with all of us being surveiled more.
Speaker 2: If you attended a protest in twenty twenty, you might
Speaker 2: have been surveiled by border patrol. Right. If you walk
Speaker 2: around in the desert where I live, you're probably being
Speaker 2: surveiled by border patrol. If you use your cell phone
Speaker 2: without encryption, you might be being surveiled at the border. Right,
Speaker 2: the companies, many of them are based in the US
Speaker 2: and with them based in Israel that are surveilling Palestinians
Speaker 2: are the same ones that are surveiling us at our border.
Speaker 2: And this will come back to bite you at the ass.
Speaker 2: In the ass. This will come back to bite you
Speaker 2: in the ass, even if you don't care about migrants,
Speaker 2: because the moment you are not in lockstep with the government,
Speaker 2: you become a potential victim of that surveillance. Right, and
Speaker 2: a big thing with undocumented immigration is it essentially makes
Speaker 2: you a legible and therefore untaxable to the government. Right.
Speaker 2: What the government state at its very core want people
Speaker 2: to be is legible and taxable and accountable. If you
Speaker 2: think that it isn't going to bounce back on trans folks,
Speaker 2: right and making them specifically lon binary folks too. Right,
Speaker 2: like the idea that you don't have a box to
Speaker 2: tick on a form, and that makes you harder to
Speaker 2: be legible and statistically quantifiable by the government. All of
Speaker 2: this will come back and hurt you. Even if you're
Speaker 2: just a super right wing libertarian who doesn't want to
Speaker 2: pay their taxes like this, border security is a thing
Speaker 2: that will eventually be used against you, and I don't
Speaker 2: think it's in any of our interests to just keep
Speaker 2: handing these tools to the state that end up being
Speaker 2: used against the most desperate people in the world. And
Speaker 2: so hopefully I know there's no one you can fucking
Speaker 2: vote for to change the Yeah, yeah, you can feel
Speaker 2: free to write your legislators. I have been on the
Speaker 2: phone to my legislators about individual cases of people who
Speaker 2: I care about very deeply, who are in a very
Speaker 2: grave amount of danger and they haven't done shit. So
Speaker 2: instead I go to the border and I build shelters,
Speaker 2: add of pallettes and tops for people because it's the
Speaker 2: only thing that makes me feel like I'm not completely
Speaker 2: fucking powerless. And so if you want to take that
Speaker 2: paradynamic back, you know, cook some beans, make some rice,
Speaker 2: buy some tops with your holiday money, and go out
Speaker 2: there and start doing mutual aid. You don't even have
Speaker 2: to go on x dot com or Reddit to do it.
Speaker 2: Just fucking go out and start helping people. You'll find
Speaker 2: other people who want to help. You can organize, and
Speaker 2: it's about the only way I can see that you
Speaker 2: can make things meaningfully better right now?
Speaker 1: Yeap, Yeah, I think that's a good message to end on.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is. If you want to give your money
Speaker 2: to my a little mutual laid gang of wonderful people,
Speaker 2: you can go to go fundmeed dot com, slash Hercumber,
Speaker 2: hyphen migrant hyphen camps he cumber is JA c U,
Speaker 2: N b A. But you can also keep it. And
Speaker 2: I would love it if you started something yourself and
Speaker 2: told us what you were doing that would make things
Speaker 2: less shitty for us.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 2: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It could happen here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com slash sources.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.