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Speaker 1: My Heart podcasts here, more Gold one on one point

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Speaker 1: seven podcasts.

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Speaker 2: Playlists and listen live on the free iHeart app.

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Speaker 3: Jersey and Amanda jam Nation, Well.

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Speaker 1: We've seen the rights taking place in LA. It's all

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Speaker 1: about an immigration policy that's been targeting migrant workers, some

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Speaker 1: student activists, even tourists with visa issues. Raids are taking

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Speaker 1: place in hotels, in restaurants, on farms. Oliver Maher is

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Speaker 1: a civil rights lawyer based in Los Angeles who visits

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Speaker 1: men of these migrants in detention. He joins US Now Oliver.

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Speaker 3: Hello, Hey, thanks so much for having me.

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Speaker 1: What we're seeing is quite extraordinary, and immigration officials have

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Speaker 1: been instructed to hit a daily quota of three thousand arrests.

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Speaker 1: This is ten times more than the average last year

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Speaker 1: during Joe Biden's administration. I know this was a big

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Speaker 1: election promise from Donald Trump, but what's the real motivation

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Speaker 1: behind all of this?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is something that people here in the US do.

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Speaker 3: I really know. So I go and I volunteer in

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Speaker 3: these detention centers every month, and I speak to the

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Speaker 3: people who are detained inside to give them legal advice.

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Speaker 3: And I remember last month I met a man we'll

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Speaker 3: call him Surgery. That's not his real name, but his

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Speaker 3: story is real. He had followed all of the rules

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Speaker 3: to come here legally through a CBP one appointment, which

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Speaker 3: is the system set up by the US government for

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Speaker 3: people to come here legally. And when he came here,

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Speaker 3: he came at the time in place that the border

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Speaker 3: told him to come. He had his credible fear interview

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Speaker 3: where they determined his fear of going back to his

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Speaker 3: home country was credible, and then they locked him up

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Speaker 3: in an immigration detention center, which is where a lot

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Speaker 3: of these immigrants who are being picked up in the raids.

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Speaker 3: Thousands have been taken, and these centers are really prisons.

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Speaker 3: To see him, I have to pass through seven layers

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Speaker 3: of barbed wires and gates just to see him. This

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Speaker 3: is a man who didn't do anything illegal. He followed

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Speaker 3: all the rules, and after speaking with him, I had

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Speaker 3: to tell him he was be in that center for

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Speaker 3: about a year to two years as his legal process

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Speaker 3: plays out. Wow, people who come here legally through that

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Speaker 3: process are never eligible for bombs, So no matter how

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Speaker 3: much money they pay as a promise to come back

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Speaker 3: for their immigration court hearings, they're never released and during

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Speaker 3: that time, he's working for a dollar a day, which

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Speaker 3: is a lot of the folks in these detentionsitters are doing.

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Speaker 3: That's I think a real motivation for these immigration rates.

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Speaker 3: You know, Trump is saying they're only targeting criminals, they're

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Speaker 3: going after drug dealers, but really they're picking up hard

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Speaker 3: working farm workers, day laborers, and the people who follow

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Speaker 3: the rules to come to this country. We've seen thousands

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Speaker 3: of people with US citizen kids get arrested as well,

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Speaker 3: and they're all being taken into these prisons to work

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Speaker 3: for a dollar a day.

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Speaker 2: So, Serge, when he came into the country, did he

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Speaker 2: come in about or something like that, from a country

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Speaker 2: of hardship? And so he came into the country and

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Speaker 2: he said, look at these guys. If I got back home,

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Speaker 2: they're going to kill me, as you said. And then

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Speaker 2: they said, yep, no worries, and then they put him

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Speaker 2: in the detention center.

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Speaker 3: Yep. So he actually came to Mexico and the border

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Speaker 3: told him on this day and time, you can come

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Speaker 3: to the US border for your appointment. He came, and

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Speaker 3: then after his appointment they locked him up. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Right, But if he knew all that, he wouldn't have

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Speaker 2: gone in. He would have said, Okay, I'll probably did

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Speaker 2: it legally. Yeah, but you know what I.

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Speaker 3: Mean, certainly I think I think a lot of people

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Speaker 3: don't realize this who are coming in a lot of

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Speaker 3: Americans don't know this. And another thing to mention is

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Speaker 3: for each person who is detained in the center, these

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Speaker 3: private they're run by private, for profit prison companies and

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Speaker 3: they charge you, as taxpayers, one hundred and twenty thousand

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Speaker 3: dollars for each person detained for a year.

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Speaker 1: So who's benefiting from this? So obviously the private prisons

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Speaker 1: are they're being paid to take these people in and

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Speaker 1: then they're working for a dollar a day. So who's

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Speaker 1: so who's financial benefit is all this for?

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Speaker 3: So a lot of it is for these private prisons.

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Speaker 3: And the folks who work for a dollar a day

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Speaker 3: in these private prisons can work a variety of jobs.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes they actually work as are firefighters. There's a group

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Speaker 3: of them that work as state firefighters in California. They

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Speaker 3: work when they're in prison, and then when they're released,

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Speaker 3: they're not allowed to work as firefighters because if they

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Speaker 3: have criminal convictions. And then a lot of these for

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Speaker 3: profit companies they end up donating massive, massive amounts of

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Speaker 3: money back into our political system. So GEO, who's one

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Speaker 3: of the main culprits of this one of the for

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Speaker 3: profit prisons, they donated I believe, four million dollars in

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Speaker 3: the twenty twenty four election, and so that's how they

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Speaker 3: end up getting even bigger contracts. When Trump won back

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Speaker 3: in November of last year, their stocks went up about

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Speaker 3: two hundred percent, I think, from around twenty five dollars

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Speaker 3: to about seventy five dollars because they know they're about

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Speaker 3: to make a lot more profit.

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Speaker 2: And on Piper, it just looks as simple. You get

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Speaker 2: rid of the Mexican gangs, you get rid of the

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Speaker 2: drug deals, you get rid of the ripest and all

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Speaker 2: that stuff. And for me, you go, yeah, fair enough.

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Speaker 2: If those people are going to come into my country

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Speaker 2: and do that, I don't want them here either. But

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Speaker 2: if you're ran people who undocumented illegals as they call them, yeah,

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Speaker 2: who working in bread shops for the last year, paying

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Speaker 2: tax and paying their tax, and.

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Speaker 1: Taking them out of communities in front of their kids,

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Speaker 1: that's a very different story.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I want to loss you against the US government

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Speaker 3: over their raids. Back in April, while we won a

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Speaker 3: preliminary injunction and one of our clients. He had lived

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Speaker 3: in the US for twenty years, no criminal convictions for

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Speaker 3: US citizen kids, always worked as a farm worker, and

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Speaker 3: they picked them up and a few hours later they

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Speaker 3: deported him. So what happens with those kids. They don't

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Speaker 3: have their father around anymore. Yeah, their unanswered for it. Well,

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Speaker 3: well a story.

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Speaker 2: It's fascinating, all of it. And thank you for popping

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Speaker 2: up in our algorithm, which is how it happened.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we saw you on social media and we could

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Speaker 1: not believe the stories you were telling. Extraordinary story.

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Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me and for caring about

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Speaker 3: this story.

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Speaker 2: All of them are there coming to his life from Bakersville.

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Speaker 2: This is the world that we're living in.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the world we're seeing on the Telly