It Could Happen Here Weekly 211

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
As media.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Hey everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let
you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
of the week that just happened is here in one
convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
there's going to be nothing new here for you, but
you can make your own decisions.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
I conducted interviews for this series in Spanish and French.
Then I transcribed them and translated them, and we had
voice actors read them. So when you're listening to this,
please remember that everything you're hearing in English was recorded
another language, and it's through the lens of my translation
that you're hearing these people's words. As we always do,
we have included the sources for this podcast in the

(00:47):
show notes. I've also included a link to Primroses Legal
aid fundraiser people would like to help out. Like most

(01:19):
of you, I wasn't having a great day on the
twentieth of January of twenty twenty five. I wasn't about
to watch the inauguration, so I went for a run
in the mountains Instead, I spent the next few weeks
trying to focus on the things we could do, the
things we had to do to get through four years
of fascism. Just a few miles away from my house,
I set out for my run, and unbeknown to me,

(01:42):
my friend Primrose was staring down from the top of
a thirty foot steel monument to hate Donald Trump had
built the last time he was president. To be ir accurate,
it was one that he had modified. There have been
versions of the border wall in San Diego for decades.

Speaker 4 (01:56):
They said, no, yes, option, we need to take you.
But you know, for me, I had to take it.

Speaker 5 (02:02):
It's because.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
I was scared to stay in Mexico. So they took
us with under the bridge, I think the sewage. We
were walking with our stomach like under the bridge to
get to USA and Mexican borders. So they put ladder
for us to your us. Those people, when they saw

(02:27):
American immigration came, they just removed the ladder and me,
I was on top, so I had yeah, I was stuck.
Then I had no choice, and the kim Balish was
crying like calm, let's go, let's go.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
At that time, I knew nothing about it. But her
daughter Kim had already jumped. As a Biden presidency drew
to a close. But before Trump began signing executive orders
with pens, he tossed into the crowd. She'd made it
to the US. Her mum was in the US as
well the walls inside the border, but the people who
had helped it get up to the top of the

(03:04):
war had fled when border patrol arrived, taking their ladder
with them. So Primrose was left atop the wall, the
literal and metaphorical final hurdle in her long and dangerous
journey that had begun in Zimbabwe, who went through South Africa, Brazil, Colombia, Panama,
Costa Rica, Negaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. But before we

(03:30):
come down from the border wall, I want to take
you back to the Missoak river bank of Maraganti. Last September, Paraya. Daddy,
my fixer and I had woken up a no godly hour,
and so had the jungle birds. Along with half the
population of the village. We walked down to the river bank,

(03:51):
carrying the engines and fuel tanks. At Piraguas. A few
minutes later, a chorus of two stroke engines and smoke
fired up. As the boats set off towards Bajo Jaquito.
I stood in the bow, still trying to master the
use of the pole. As we passed through the faster moving,
shallower water. Daddy sat in the middle and laughed at me.

(04:14):
Despite my best efforts, we arrived in one piece in
Bajo Chiquito, and I launched myself from the bow into
knee deep water on the rocky beach. In front of
us stood hundreds of people patiently waiting for the piragueros
to take them north and out of the jungle. Stretched
like a snake all the way through town. The line
of migrants must have totaled one thousand people. I walked

(04:36):
backwards away from the boats, the only foreigner not leaving
look for people i'd met the day before. About halfway
down the line stood Primrose and Kim, and I stopped
while we chatted for a bit about what the boat
ride was like, what they could expect next.

Speaker 4 (04:52):
Yeah, I'm going there. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to Nadist.

Speaker 6 (04:56):
Do you have family, yeah, no, you just make your
American life.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
It's okay.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
I think I'm just trying. No, it's only me and
my daughter.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Despite this, they had found community on the journey. I
can't describe how scary it must be for two women
to set out on this journey alone. It takes an
awful lot to embark on that journey and to be
able to trust people when everyone is a potential threat.
But if there's one thing I learned in a jungle,
it's in the hardest times and the hardest places, the

(05:27):
only way forward is together. Primos reminded me of this,
telling me how complete strangers had helped her.

Speaker 4 (05:35):
Very nice, especially the Spanish people.

Speaker 5 (05:38):
They are very nice.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
I don't want to life was if you need help,
you forgot them for your Look the other ones they
might run away by the other ones.

Speaker 5 (05:47):
They just for your They.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
Even give us tablets on the road, give us energy drinks,
give my daughter sweets for enage. They push us like,
let's go, guys, let's go, let's go. You make it,
and we really make it.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, yeah, that's really nice to hear. I asked Primrose
a question I asked everyone there. What did she hope
for when she got to America? What was her American dream?
What do you hope for her in America? What do
you want to do in America.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
I want to go to school, then she can I
see something in life. I don't wish my daughter to
go big to sam Or.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
No, yeah, not at all. No, it's very hard.

Speaker 4 (06:30):
Yeah, it's really really Towrogate Gradi.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
I saw them a few days later, Las Blancas Afred
sat with a group of little Venezuelan children playing a
game where we throw bottletops into a broken half cinder block.
We talked about the struggle they face to pay for
the bus north, and we didn't record anything that day,
but as I was leaving for the evening, Kim asked

(07:06):
me if I could buy her a drink. I generally
try not to splash my money around because I don't
have enough money to help everyone, and I still have
some scars from ridiculous concept of objectivity that would lead
some editors not to commission a story from me if
I gave the subject a gift. But this time I
felt like buying her a drink, and I let her
select the biggest bottle of cold soda she could find

(07:26):
in the little store in the camp there. I told
her and her mum to stay in touch and wrote
my number on a piece of my notebook, tore it
out and gave it to them. Months later, Kim was
holding the same scrap of paper, looking up her mum
stuck on the border wall. A whole lot had changed
since I last saw them. A few days after my

(07:47):
scripted podcast and the Daddy and Gap was released, the
United States elected Donald Trump as his forty seventh president.
It was a ship month all round that My phone,
as it often does, lit up with mesthews from my
daddy and friends asking me what this meant and if
Trump was going to close the border. I didn't really
know how to answer those questions, because if it's one
thing we know about Trumps, he changed his mind every

(08:09):
few weeks. As we got closer and closer to the
day he was inaugurated, they got more and more concerned.
Most of them hadn't made it out of southern Mexico.
Many of them had told me that things there were
even worse. In the jungle. They'd all been robbed, some
of them had been sexually assaulted, some of them kidnapped,
and some of them killed. I'd heard about all of

(08:31):
these things every day from September last year to January
this year. In the middle of a run or when
I was having dinner meeting a friend for a coffee,
my phone would ring and I'd be confronted with terrible injustice,
and I'd be totally powerless to set it right. As
time went on, I heard from fewer and fewer of them.

(08:52):
I assume their phones were stolen, but there are, of
course more upsetting explanations as to why they might have
stopped contacting me. Noemi, little girl who wanted to visit
Minnie Mouse video called me once from Tappajula with a
little tiny toy bear that I'd given her and that
she kept with her on the whole journey. It may
be happy to see them and a silly little bear
carved from soapstone that had traveled the lengths of South

(09:14):
America with them. Every few weeks after I'd left, I'd
get photos of the bear in a different country. As
a little Osito worked its way closer to Disneyland, some
people who worked at Disneyland had reached out to offer
suggestions about tickets. Other people had reached out offering to pay.
I was, despite the odds, hoping that one day I
could help one little girl see her American dream come true.

(09:39):
When we spoke. She was with her mum and they
were trying to log onto CBP one hoping for an appointment,
but it wouldn't work on their old Android phones. I
tried to find shelters with reliable internet that would take
them in, and called friends and endious almost every week,
passing along questions or looking for resources. I spent hours calling,

(09:59):
finding it hard to except that the capacity for mutual
aid was so overwhelmed that nobody had a safe space
for little girl and her mom. I'm wondering if it
still felt like a pepper Pig adventure or if even
little indominitable Miami was scared now. Even from where I
was was fast internet and a weather friends across the
Western Hemisphere, I couldn't find the help people needed, and

(10:22):
it made me increasingly angry and anxious the more I tried.
It sucked, but there was still a chance, however slim,
that one day I might get to see Miami meet
Minnie Mouse. So I kept trying, and so did her mom.
Then one day I got no response from her mum's
WhatsApp when I messaged her. Nobody picked up the phone

(10:44):
when I tried to ring. I still haven't had a response,
but periodically, I'll keep trying. Even the last messages and
photos are gone now, after my wordsapp updated, Like so
many of the people who I shared my food with,
whose little children held my hand in darkness of the jungle,
who I desperately wished and wish I could do more for,

(11:05):
they're gone.

Speaker 5 (11:05):
Now.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
That's what strong borders means. It means brave little girls
disappearing so a politician who knows nothing of their struggles
can point to a statistic. I've listened to the interview
I conducted with them so many times since last September.
I still can't really work out anyone with a heart
could hear that and think they wanted to live in
a world where that little girl wasn't safe. But that's

(11:29):
what people voted for. I guess I don't think they did. Actually,
I can't think they did. I think people liked them,
and that's what they voted for. But nonetheless, here we
are now, sitting in a country that didn't want to
help the little girl who flexed he around muscles to
show me how strong she was after climbing the mountain
into the most dangerous land migration route in the Americas,

(11:49):
and told me, it was for her all an adventure.
Her mother gave a different account.

Speaker 7 (11:58):
There are.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
I didn't want to cry because I didn't want her
to see me cry. But sometimes I would explode because
it's hard for your child to ask you for water,
to ask you for food, and you don't have any
to be in a place where you walk. You walk
from five in the morning, it's five in the afternoon.
You're walking, you don't know what to do, going through
more than one hundred rivers and asking God not to
rain and not wanting it to get worse. It rained

(12:25):
and the girl got a fever. She got a fever.
But well, God is good that we pray a lot.
I say that we don't know God so much in
the church from the process and the process that we
are in, and we don't know we can be so
strong until we go through that storm and we see
that He protect us. He knows that He was always
there watching over us, taking care of us at all times.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
I don't want to dwell on this too long because
talking in public about grief is something I'm bad at.
One of my friends died fighting in Ukraine this year.
A colleague died just weeks before we'd planned a trip together.
Some of my Burmese friends died fighting. But even as
someone who talks to soldiers for a living, nothing really
compares to the death toll inflicted by the US border regime.

(13:25):
The little village in England where I grew up, there
are memorials in every town a village for the young
people who died fighting in the World Wars. If we
built those at the border, they'd soon be towering far
above the wall that does so much of the killing.
Things are as bad now as they have ever been.
The wall constructed in the San Diego sector that Trump
administration has proposed will wave environmental and cultural protections and

(13:48):
push migrants further into the desert. In the desert, further
from help, further from water, more of them will die.
Speak to migrants all the time, the ones who stayed
in Mexico, even the ones who took the Venezuelan governments
offerers of flights home. As much as they ask about America,
they also ask about each other. Do I know what

(14:10):
happened to the Angolans who shared their food too generously?
They say, no, I haven't heard from them. What about
the Venezuelan trans girl who braided their children's hair. Well,
she's still braiding hair, but she hasn't made it to
the US. Gradually she did make it, and then she
was immediately deported back to southern Mexico. How about Rose,
they say, the Boliviana who came all on her own

(14:31):
and founder found me along the trail, only to be
separated from them again. I haven't heard from her in
a year. Universally, they're happy to hear about Kim and Primrose.
They're glad to hear that someone made it, that somebody
can make it. Because of the more than one hundred
pages I tore out of my notebook with my phone number,
they are two of the three people who let me

(14:53):
know they made it here. So let's hear from Primrose
about what it looks like to make it here, how
it feels to have the best outcome of anyone I met.
Let's pick up at Last blancas they now shattered migrant
reception center. We're a hundred language for weeks and months
trying to get together in the money to pay for
a bus to the Panama Costa Lika border.

Speaker 4 (15:16):
I think I spent seven days in Banamah. What's short
with money? So I went into immigration trying to ask
them if you can they can help me to take
a bus to Costa Rica, of which they say, no,
you have to pay your sixty dollars you're in your daughter,

(15:38):
which one to India?

Speaker 5 (15:40):
So I pay that?

Speaker 4 (15:42):
So I ask you people man, the people I know,
they helped me with money. So from Banama we took
a bus from Banama to Costa Rica.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
This is a very common story. People borrow money from
a huge range of friends and relatives along the way
they hope to get to the US, work hard, and
be able to pay it back. The whole process takes
every penny they've earned in their life and generate significant
amounts of debt. In most cases. This is made worse
by the fact that on arrival they will wait months,

(16:15):
if not years, for work permit, and their immigration judge
could stop the clock on this at any time for
any reason. Primros and Kim's case, Costady can move them
through it to territory quickly, as they do with nearly
all migrants. Next they arrived in Nicaragua.

Speaker 4 (16:31):
Yeah, to Nicaragua. Then in Nicaragua, I think we walk
from Costa Rica border to Nicaragua border. Then we walk again.
I think it was it was walk from yeah to
Nicaragua bars tam in Us.

Speaker 5 (16:48):
We just walk. Then we when we reached.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
There, we paid again to wander Us. Then there's also
place we walked from Hondas. From nicarag got to wander
Us by Steminas. I think it just was the old day.
Then from wander Us Guatemalam. Yeah, in Guatemala we spent

(17:13):
it three days again because it was tough Guatemala. People
they really need asking for a lot of money. So
my life was like asking people, asking people and do
it and do it? Reach Mexico.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Then exhausted and broke, she in came made it to Mexico.
That you only began in Zimbabwe and took them from
there to South Africa, then to Brazil and across the continent.
Now they had just warn more country to go before
they made it. But I say, where to find out
this one country is the one that so many migrants
don't make it out of.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
Then in Mexico, my life was like in this because
the day we charging a lot of money in In fact,
when we reach Mexico, we reached Tapatola and not before Tapatola,
I just forget the name. So they took us in

(18:13):
the bush where.

Speaker 5 (18:15):
We paid money.

Speaker 4 (18:16):
Again, when we paid money, they started seaching us. If
we don't live CAUs, then they walk with us. It
was two of midnight. They walk with us till they
get a transport to take us to Tapatola. So when
I reached Tapatola, I you know people. We were giving

(18:39):
information to each other. So I was also following other people,
like from Cameroons in Venezuela. So when we reached Tabachelo,
we reached Tarpacholo on the ted of October twenty twenty four.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Tapatula in the south of Mexico. It's where thousands of
migrants sent up. The Mexican government that had a policy
of trying to keep people there and began offering them
free bus rides north. They had a CBP one appointment.
But unlike places like Tijuana, where there have been migrants
gathered for many decades, there are not as many services
in Tapatula, and the shelters and services that exist there

(19:16):
are overwhelmed by the demand. The volume of migrants and
the relative absence of services leaves a space open for abuse.
That's what happened to Primrose and Kimberly. They ended up
paying someone who they thought could help them navigate the
complicated and convoluted system of registration in Mexico, the CBP
one app and then traveling north to the USA and

(19:37):
ultimately being able to make their asylum claim. Finally, in
the end, what they got was the opposite of help.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
Then the agents charged us four thousand each, which is
me four thousand in the main twitter four thousand of
which I was I wasn't lift that month other people
that we're paying. So I just talked to the agent.
Then I said, okay, you please go down a little
bit because I'm a single party. And then I don't

(20:06):
have anyone to help me with that kind of money.
Then he said, okay, three point five. So I started
asking people because the people I know, maybe they can
help me. So I have a lady helped me with
the money, which is she gave me four thousand years.

(20:28):
Then my mom saw my land. I was saving a
land with which she saw which leaves money. Then she
said even also he is stuff to get another man
to complete seven thousand. So we asked someone to send
it to America. Goes in Mexico, they don't receive money

(20:49):
from Africa, so I find someone here in America to
receive the money, so send it to me in Mexico.
But when I paid the man, the agent took me.
He said that way, I'm going to take you. So
you sent the guys, which there were four mixed and guys.

(21:11):
So they come to feature us. We were six seven. Yeah,
I don't even know it.

Speaker 5 (21:18):
They took us.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
So they took us to the to the bush which
is Guajaradella. I can't even remember, is it. Yeah, I
think so. I spent day from October up to January.

Speaker 3 (21:36):
In the background here you're here splashing. That's came playing
in the pool. A little apartment complex where they were
living in East La I just common for migrants to
share a flat with someone else. Didn't have much in
the way of furniture. But the last time I saw
primaries came. It was by the Tuquessa River in Last Plancas. There,
the brown water was something to be afraid of. Migrants

(21:57):
died crossing the river every day, away by the fast
moving water and relying only on strangers to hold them
as the current tried to pull them in. A few
times I walked out into that river I felt the
tug of the current on my boots. I wondered what
it must be like higher up in the mountains. At
six foot three. The river I crossed never came above
waist high. It's deeper higher up. But even then, reaching

(22:21):
out my hand to carry someone's bag or grab a
child's hand as they came from other direction and struggle
to keep their toddlers and their few possessions out of
the current, I get little jolts of fear when I
stepped on a wet rock. His Primrose talking about that
part of her journey, I wasn't good.

Speaker 8 (22:38):
My daughter.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
She was strong, she was strong, but she was crying also,
but she had what wound all over the body. Even me,
I was crying myself. I was like, I want to
just put myself in the water, then I can just go.
The Jane was tough, really really tough. The mountain, the stores,
the river.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
It's not easy.

Speaker 4 (23:00):
It Oh, it's not a very I don't even recommended
someone to say you use that and give no. And
even myself I did know about it. Yeah, I was
regretting myself.

Speaker 5 (23:11):
I was crying.

Speaker 4 (23:12):
I was like, God, I don't know my family and
my family they don't know where I am right now.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Back in Los Angeles, primers told me that she'd fallen
in the river and two Venezuelan men had jumped in
to pull her and came out total strangers on their
own journey, had risked their lives to help a woman
and child who didn't know, with whom they couldn't even speak.
The river kills people who drink it too. The concentration
of human waste and human remains in the water makes

(23:42):
it incredibly dangerous to drink, even for people dying of thirst.
I couldn't stop thinking of that river and how much
it scared people, Feeling so grateful the Kimberley could still
enjoy the water after all of that. Next time, I said,
they could take the train down to San Diego and
we could all go to the beach. Let's go back

(24:12):
to Mexico. Now to Guadalajara, where many migrants told me
that of all the things they had endured, including the jungle,
things were the worst of all. Promoters arrival in Mexico
had not been great, and having paid one person, she
was now being held by another group and asked for
yet more money.

Speaker 4 (24:31):
They were kid nipping me they were asking for fifteen
thousand dollars each. They said, you're not going to take you.
I think I was.

Speaker 5 (24:40):
Crying, Kim. She was also crying.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
The other people they will get money paid and leaves,
I think from my group. For the people they were
kids nipping. It was only me left in the Kim
and I was crying depression. I think of him, but
I tried. I tried, you want to escape, run away?

(25:10):
I feel down and my leg was something else. I
didn't even go to hospital. My leg was swollen, and
the way they would treat us it was paid, especially
when I came the other one once touching me the
whole board like. I was like, please, if you want

(25:30):
to do something, you can do it to me. And
plus don't do it in front of my daughter because
she was also crying. Disturbing. I didn't even go to hospital.
I asked them to go to hospital. They refuse. Yeah, James,
I'm too emotional. I'm sorry because.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Primrose understandably had trouble even recounting this story. It's not
the sort of memory that's easy to share. But just
when things seemed to be beyond repair, when it seemed
like there was nothing to hope for it was Kimberly
who came through to help her mom.

Speaker 4 (26:09):
Yeah, they no, So Kim Malish was like, uh, lending Spanish,
so she was understanding some of the winds.

Speaker 5 (26:18):
So she's just telling me.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
This guy also was like, why can't you leave this
woman because she doesn't live money. Because those people they
took my phone, they even break it in front of
my eyes. The fhe I was heaving from Africa.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
Kim Spanish was pretty good by the time I met
them in Los Angeles this summer. Went out for dinner
and I asked him what she'd liked to eat. She
said she wanted to try seafood and practice her Spanish.
So we went to a Mexican seafood place complete with
cabaina decord taxi dirmy fish on the wall, and the
waitress kindly helped Kim order in Spanish, patiently showing her

(26:56):
different menu items and smiling is Kim read them off.
It was a happy moment for me and what I
didn't think i'd ever be having when I moved here
in the bush Era, but that part of southern California
has always been a welcoming place for me. When I
was in my twenties and racing bugs for a living. I'd
fly into Lax and often ended up spending the night
at Union Station or Alvera Street before taking a train

(27:17):
to San Diego. I speak Spanish. I always felt like
the people I met there were such a better reflection
of la than the betrayal we see of it in
the media. Now. A decade and a half later, sitting
in a Mexican restaurant, when a lady from Nadie helped
the little girl from Zimbabwe speaks Spanish, it felt like
a little glimpse of the way we're told things are
here and the way they can be in working class communities.

(27:41):
A nation built by migrants, yes, on stolen land, but
one that nonetheless welcome people who needed help and took
the time to help them. Sadly, not everyone was helpful
on Kim and Primrose's journey, and when her captors realized
she had no money to pay them, they eventually just
decided to let her go.

Speaker 4 (28:00):
I think on January seven or fifth, I don't remember.
Then they just took us. Then they just doumbus. I
don't even know. Then a star I saw an immigration
immigration officer with the guy with the car. Then I
stop him. Then I translate to ask him to Then

(28:24):
they said, okay, get inside the car. They took us
to immigration, so we get a pass from there to
another town. Because I was like shifting, shifting, shifting, asking
to I get to Joanna. But those guys before they

(28:46):
told me like, wherever you go, even if you are
here in Mexico, we put a tracker for you, so
if you tell anyone, if we find you're going to
kill So me, I was scared. Yeah, I was scared.
So I didn't tell you, even the immigration officer.

Speaker 5 (29:09):
Yeah, yeah. Do I get to te Joanna?

Speaker 4 (29:13):
So we get to John on the trendred of Chanuy.
So I just asked the Mexicans people. Then there's a
guy also said okay, I would try to help you,
but you need to pay ye. Then I said I
don't leave money. Said if you don't leave money, we
can't help you. So I was like, I'm only asking people,

(29:34):
asking every people to help me, and the other people
they were just opening me was I said, people, we
look where I am with my daughter, I'm far, but
my family, the other family, especially my my other family
member the way, don't even know where I am M.

(29:54):
So those guys from to Joanna, they said, guys, if
you're much crossing today, you're not going to crosscous. Look
the president, you said, he's going to shut down all
the borders.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
In between November and January, non stop roomors circulated in
giant whatsap groups. Trump was closing the border, Biden was
opening it. Most migrants didn't have the means to get
to the southern border even if they tried. CVP one
remained mostly useless, and people spent days, weeks, months refreshing
it to no avail. Those who did get appointments would

(30:30):
find them canceled once a new administration came into office.
Their reward for doing things in the so called right
way was to be left with no options in a
country where they were anything but safe and far from home. Mostly,
my friends in the jungle have retained their incredibly good humor.
Delithroil and friends video caught me once when I was
on a hike. They started laughing at me sweating going uphill,

(30:53):
and paused a conversation to shout encouragement for a while.
A year after I left the jungle, I would still
be more than how happy to welcome these people as
my neighbors. But it seems unlikely I ever will. Border
crossings have dropped dramatically. They're not that's the administration sometimes
claims zero, but they are lower. People die crossing the

(31:15):
border still. Sometimes the volunteers you've heard in my last
series have to hike miles into the desert and sift
through sand and rocks to search their remains. Once nature
scatism like leaves blowing around the canyons. Sometimes I'm there
with them. Sometimes we all wooden crosses up mountains. So
don't have names on the map to mark the places

(31:35):
where people's dreams died. Those people don't get a viral
video or a story in the New York Times, because
even at a time where people are more engaged than
they ever have been in my lifetime in advocacy for migrants,
there's still not much attention paid to the actual border
that every single migrant has to cross Tomorrow. That's what

(31:56):
we're going to talk about. But let's hear from Primrose
about had that same day, January twentieth, went for her.

Speaker 4 (32:04):
Then they took us to the boat to the border,
but we couldn't get in the gates while they were closed.
Then they said no, we have an option. We need
to take you. But you know, for me, I had
to take it risk because I was scared to stay
in Mexico. So they took us with under the bridge,

(32:27):
I think the sewage. We were walking with our stomach
like under the bridge to we get to USA and
Mexican borders. So they put ladder for us to help
us to but we paid them three fifty three fifty.

Speaker 5 (32:44):
They charge.

Speaker 4 (32:45):
I found the other people they also we were fifteen
years We were fifteen. Yeah, then the yop us to jump.

Speaker 9 (33:17):
The departy.

Speaker 10 (33:21):
Some of us are illegal and some are not wanted.
Our work contracts out and we have to move on
six hundred miles to that Mexico border. They chase us
like outlaws and rustlers, like thieves. Goodbye I one, goodbye.

Speaker 9 (33:43):
Rosalidados and egos, Jesus and Maria. You won't have a
name when you ride the big airplane, and all we
will call.

Speaker 11 (33:57):
You will be departy.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
On the twenty eighth day of January nineteen forty eight,
a plane took off from Oakland, California. On board with
a crew, an Immigration Nationalization Service officer, and twenty eight
people who had come to the US to work in
the Brasero program. They were being sent to Elcentra, where
they were to be deported to Mexico. The pilot, Frankie Atkinson,

(34:24):
had found a job flying DC three's as a civilian
after flying the legendarily dangerous Hump route between India and
China in the Second World War. His wife, Bobby, herself
the daughter of a migrant mother, was filling in that
day as the usual flight attendants weren't available. On board
with twenty eight passengers, all headed back to Mexico after
United States, where they come to work, had decided it

(34:46):
didn't need or want them any longer. The plane never
landed in El Center. It was overdue for maintenance and
its left engine court fire. Then it's wing ripped off
above co Linger, not so far from the fields where
many of them had worked for year after year. The
passengers were pulled out of the plane into the sky.

(35:08):
Most of them had never flown before. They must have
been nervous before they took off, and now their worst
fears were coming true. And those who survived the loss
of pressure and being ripped from the cabin, in some
cases still strapped to their seats must have had that
very worst fears confirmed as they plummeted toward the ground
that had only stopped being part of Mexico one hundred

(35:28):
years and four days before. Their bodies or parts of
them were scattered through the canyon as the plane slammed
into the ground. There weren't enough seats for all the passengers,
and so three of them were forced to sit on
their luggage at the back. The plane was over its
maximum wake capacity, and that might have been why the

(35:48):
white smoke began pouring out of its left engine over
Colinger Frankie, the pilot had survived crashes in this time
of the Air Force, so hopefully he was able to
keep his pastures and crew calm until the engine burst
into flame. Some witnesses reported seeing people jump from the
plane after its left wing tore off and began to
plummet towards the ground, but it's just as likely that

(36:09):
they were pulled out. The plane hit the ground about
a mile east of Fresno County Industrial Road camp or
incarcerated people were being forced to work. In Mates were
immediately dispatched to comb the hills through remains of people
aboard the plane. Locals like Red shoulders whose rinds are
plane crashed on, rushed up there to join them, and

(36:30):
they hoped to help the survivors. On finding none, they
began to fight the fire. Around the wreckage. Prisoners found luggage,
women's shoes, and babies, clothes, them bodies, some of them
still in their seats, littered throughout the canyon. Only sixteen
sets of remained whoever identified, including the entire crew and

(36:51):
the irons guard. Bobby, identified by her engagement ring, was
pregnant at the time. She was buried with Frankie in
New York. Frankie's co pilot, Martin Ewing, was buried with
military honors. Frank Chaffin, the ins agent, was buried back
in Berkeley. The remains of the twenty eight deportees, or

(37:11):
whatever had been found of them, were buried on mass
in Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno. Hundreds of local Latino people,
most of whom didn't know that, turned up towards to
twenty eight coffins, some of which were empty, be interred
in the eighty four for a hole in the ground
that was reserved for them. The hole was covered with

(37:31):
dirt and eventually with grass, and there they remained without names,
without their families being told, for three quarters of a century.
The next day, The New York Times reported on the
story the worst aviation accident in California history. The names, ages,
and hometowns of the crew and the irons agent were given,

(37:54):
along with quote twenty eight Mexican agricultural workers. Wives apparently
were unremarkable, and even in death, they didn't deserve the
dignity of being mentioned by name. Like people, It's a
story that, eighty years later, is only too familiar. The
song we up in this episode with was written by

(38:14):
an American anti fascist folk musician named Woody Guthrie. Like
many of his songs, it's a protest song. It recalls
the plane wreck. There's one home recording of him singing
it to a tune that isn't used to sing a
song today. It was only uncovered a few months ago.
Guthrie has moved to write it when he noticed that
in a reporting on the crash none of them migrants

(38:35):
who were being deported on the plane were named. He
wrote the song as a poem because at a time
his Huntington's career had made it hard for him to
sing and strum the guitar. Later, a student of Colorado
A and M named Marty Hoffman set the poem to
a Mexican Branchera melody. It didn't become popular as a
song until Guthrie's friend Pete Seger began performing get at concerts.

(38:57):
Hoffman had played it to him when Sega had visited
the campus Ballad club. Guthrie, whose guitar famously carried the
slogan this machine Kills Fascists, was in declining health by
the time he wrote the poem in nineteen forty eight,
and he never lived to hear it sung. Hoffman, who
died by suicide in Red Rock, Arizona, where he was
teaching on the Navajo Reservation, died right as Joan Bayez

(39:20):
was recording the song in the studio. Today, it's one
of Guthrie's best known works, of course, when he wrote
the song to his discuss, Guthrie didn't know the name
to the people on the plane. He imagined them in
his poem as Juan Maria Rosalita, the sort of people
he might meet on any given day as a touring
musician who was finally received by working people wherever he went.

(39:43):
I know a juan A Maria and a rose from
the Darien Gap. I've also searched in the hills and
the mountains, so the remains of people whose names I
don't know eighty years later. So the song resonates with me.

Speaker 10 (39:58):
Father's old father.

Speaker 9 (40:00):
He waited that river.

Speaker 8 (40:02):
Other before him have done just the same.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
They died in the hill, and they died.

Speaker 8 (40:11):
In the valley, somewhere to heaven without any name. Goodbye
to my one good prose a leader adius me amvil
presusbody else.

Speaker 12 (40:29):
You won't have a name.

Speaker 13 (40:31):
When you ride the big airway.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
All they will call you will leader. Before the twenty
five men and three women aboard came to the US
to fill labor shortages after World War Two as a
result of an agreement between the two states called the
Brassero Program. The Mexican government didn't want to lose its

(40:54):
whole agricultural workforce. I wanted to ensure that workers in
the US would send a portion of their wages home,
so it held these wages in accounts, which some of
them never saw again for years. The Mexican government refused
to extend the program to Texas because of racist violence there.
People who entered the program waited months, and when they
crossed the border, they were subject to abusive searches, spraying

(41:16):
with DDT and in some places zyclon B same gas
used in the gas chambers the Holocaust was used to
hose down their clothes. When they got to the US,
many of them worked in very poor conditions. Many chose
not to wait and instead crossed without papers. Some farmers
hired them for much less than the minimum Bressello program

(41:37):
wage and put them to work in worse conditions in
the program permitted. Others worked their alloted contracts in the program,
and they stayed, hoping to make a better life in
the USA or to earn some money they could keep
before they went home. Many of them came and went
several times, returning home until them need to make more
money overwhelmed the desire to remain and work their heroes

(41:58):
or parcels across Mexico. The Mexican government wanted those who
travel without a contract to be barred from being hired,
and in many case government officials in Mexico accepted bribes
to allow worker to enter the program. Just as it
is today, everyone made money apart from the migrants Basserro's
letters were censored to prevent them asking their families to

(42:19):
join them, but nonetheless a racist panic about undocumented migration began,
especially after Frankie and thousands of others return from the
war and the manpower shortage was not so acute. This,
combined with demands from the Mexican government, led to Eisenhower
eventually adopting a program whose name is a slur to catch, detain,
and deport Mexican people to parts of their birth country

(42:40):
they'd never been to, far from the border, far from
their families and communities. The operation, which focused on rapid
deportations and border regions, is often cited as an inspiration
for today's border issue. Seventy six years after Guthrie wrote
his song, very little has changed in the way the
legacy media covers migration. Maybe that's why everyone from Dolly

(43:03):
Parton to Bob Dylan, Chris Christofferson, will and Jennings, Johnny Cash,
Willie Nelson, and Bruce Springsteen a sung a version of
this song. Here's Johnny Cash describing the song before a
TV performance.

Speaker 8 (43:14):
Johnny Cash, I understand this is a true story. This
is from our album The Highwayman. Jona Rodriguez was on
an album as well. On this song, you understand it
is a true story what it got wrote this about
a plane crash in was it Los Bato's Canyon, taking
a plainload of Mexicans back after they worked for whatever

(43:35):
they could get in this country. It's one of those
old stories about malfreedment of aliens.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
One of those old stories. He says, it seems so
hopeful in nineteen eighty seven, like we wouldn't be writing
anymore because most people could accept that nobody should treat
other people like that. Anyway. That was before country music
was entirely dominated by boot liquors. And here I am
playing it to you again, eighty years after it was written,

(44:01):
because it is still relevant. Dolly Parton's singing it.

Speaker 13 (44:06):
My father's own father, he waited that room. They took
all the money he made in his life.

Speaker 4 (44:20):
My brothers and.

Speaker 13 (44:22):
Sisters come working the fruit trees. They rolled the truck
till they took down down. The airplane caught fire over
Lascatto's Canyon, a fireball of lightning that shook all he

(44:50):
who are these dear friends are scattered like dry leys.
The radio set. They weren't yes, the poem.

Speaker 7 (45:04):
Good Night tom.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
I as a song puts it. The bodies of the
workers were scattered like dry leaves across Los Gatos Canyon.
The bodies of those twenty eight people, the parts that
were recovered, were buried in a mass grave at the
Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno, mark later thanks to a
donation with a small plaque calling the Mexican nationals, although

(45:34):
one of them was also Spanish. The hard work of
finding these people's names was taken up by people not
even alive when that plane crashed. Many of their relatives
did not even know they were buried there until Carlos Rascon,
the Fresno Diocese director of Cemeteries, and Tim Hernandez, an
author and professor at UTL Paso, dedicated themselves to naming them.

(45:56):
In twenty thirteen, a new headstone was directed with their
names and as Sarah Many, which packed the cemetery. Hernandez
had found after years of hard work, by locating one
of their nephews a copy of El Faro, a local
Spanish language newspaper, which provided a list that was more
accurate than that in the Fresno County Records Department. It

(46:16):
wasn't until September twenty eighth, twenty twenty four, when I
just left Primrose and Kimberly in Las Blancas, that a
proper memorial was built for them in the Canyon. Families
traveled from across the US and Mexico to open the memorial.
Some of them were funded by Woody Guthrie's grandchildren. The
names of all twenty eight of them were included. They

(46:38):
were Miguel ne Grete, Alvarez, Francisco Jamas, Duran, Santiago Garcia, Elisondo,
Rosalio Padia, Estrada, Bernabe, Lopez, Garcia, Ramon Parerees Gonzalez, Tomas
Alvigna de Garcia, Salvador Sandoval, Ernajui, Lupe Ramerez, Lara Severo, Medina,

(47:04):
Lara Elias, Trujill Massias, Jose Rodriguez, Massias, Tomas Padia, Marquez,
Luis Lopez, Merdina, Manuel Calderon, Marino, Luis Queves, Miranda, Martin, Razo, Navarro, Ignacio, Perez, Navarro,

(47:25):
Roman Choa Choa, Apollonio Ramirez, Placentia, Alberto Carlos, Regosa, Jui,
Lupe Ernandez, Rodriguez, Maria Santana, Rodriguez, Juan Valenzuela Ruiz, Whenceeslao
Flores Ruiz, Jose Valdivia Sanchez, Jesus Mesa, Santos, Baldomero, Marcus Torres,

(47:54):
Francis c. Atkinson, Lillian k Atkinson, Marion h Ewing, and
Frank E. Chaffin. Think about the song an Awful Lot.

(48:18):
The first time I heard it was known a CD
compilation of Spanish anarchist songs. The fundamental decency of giving
a deceased name, treating them like people, not a human waste,
seems so basic, and yet three quarters a century later,
reporting hasn't got any better. A few times in my
years at the border, I've searched for people and the
remains of people whose names I don't know, just as

(48:40):
some of my friends have erected little wooden crosses, some
with names and some without, to people who he never
got to meet but somehow still grieve. There are lots
of people whose names and faces are Dodo who never
made it to the USA. They didn't even get an
anonymous story. The people who die for the American cream
are totally ignored in the coverage of migration. The real

(49:01):
cost of our border externalization, little children and loving parents
who have to die so politicians via the Party can
brag about secure borders are completely invisible to most people
in this country. Seventy seven years less, one week after
Times published its story which are raised People killed in
the Los Gatos Canyon, it published a video. The video

(49:22):
shows Primrose lying on the floor in agony. She climbed
the wall on the ladder and then fell into the USA.
On landing, she broke her leg. The story, just like
that story in nineteen forty eight, doesn't name her or Kim.
It refers to a group of migrants and calls Primros
one woman too fair. The piece did interview other migrants,

(49:44):
but as is often the case, and migrants from Africa
get the worst treatment of all. The piece and the
hundreds of other social media posted a video from other outlets.
Don't tell readers about the persecution and torture Primrose faced
at home about the fact she doesn't know where her
father disappeared to and that her whole family is in hiding.
It doesn't bother to mention that she and Kim walk

(50:05):
for six months to get to the border, that they
were kidnapped, robbed, and traumatized on the way doesn't even
give their names. Unlike the people who died in Los
Gatos Canyon, Primos is here to tell us how it
feels to see her pain turned into pay views by
outlets with huge global platforms.

Speaker 4 (50:23):
Yeah, that's you, to be honest. Even now, I feel
it's embarrassing me because when I was in Texas, like
if I made people they say, are you not the
one will feel downe For me, it's like something else
because I was not a appie for the person who
put me in social media. Even even when I go

(50:44):
to the comments, some of the comments were paid and
the other people they don't even know what was really
happened to me. I was running for my life. But
people they just come into whatever they want. So that
video even now I'm not even happy. Yes, I know

(51:06):
people they make money with my video. Maybe sh you
was supposed the person who posted me was supposib maybe
to close my face or to do something. And a
lot of people they even don't know where I am.
But because of that video, it went viral even in
my country. People that were sending messages.

Speaker 5 (51:30):
That's why.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
Uh, the other people they went to my mom and
started torture DA because they they taught maybe I'm in country,
but because of that video, they went to disturb my mom.
She's not even where I grew up now in the
or she just move. She's somewhere else now. So I

(51:53):
don't even know who posted the video, and.

Speaker 5 (51:57):
I think I need to.

Speaker 4 (51:59):
I don't know what to get it, buddy, I'm very
angry with the personal all posted the video. Maybe they
should maybe asking me, or to find me, or to
hide my face in the way Kim malistay my daughter
when you ask you about the video, she cries to
be honest, just.

Speaker 3 (52:20):
Like those people who died in the plane crash. Promos
reserves better. I first saw the video of her falling
on TikTok. I think I feel like it was shared
by the Wall Street Journal, but I haven't been able
to locate the post again. Where I saw a friend,
someone else saw a way to make a bug. It's
a kind of extractive reporting that I spent my whole
career trying not to replicate. The Times and plenty of

(52:42):
other outlets have what they see is high standards of
journalistic objectivity. I don't think it will surprise anyone that
I fall afoul of those, which is fine. I don't
want to be trying to find the middle ground between
someone running for her life and someone trying to make
money from her misery. Nonetheless, we have to live in
a world where the vast majority of people get their
information from outlets who see migrants of stories and a

(53:03):
political issue, not as people. We have to live with
the consequences of that. We're seeing them all now every day.
This isn't a story about the New York Times. A
long time ago, I realized my career wasn't going in
the direction that was going to put me on the
mast head of those big newspapers, because I care about
people like Primrose and Kimberly and not about big newspapers.

(53:27):
This is a story about Primrose and Kimberley, so let's
hear why they left Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, if you don't know,
has been ruled by the same party since nineteen eighty
the ZENOPF. ZENOPF has been led for three decades with
Robert mcgaby. It has been the only party to hold
the presidency since independence. The office has only changed hands once,
when mcgaby's former VP replaced him after mcgaby resigned and

(53:50):
a threat of impeachment and a coup. The opposition has
taken different forms over time, but never managed to dislodge
one party rule. When it has got close, it has
been with extreme violence. I think Premise knows only too well.

Speaker 4 (54:05):
It's not like we just it's a luxury to come
to America for beggars. If I wanted to come to
America for bigger I would maybe go and apply for
the visa.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
But us is a.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
Youth is people who wants to change our country. They
don't even make you to find a way to go
to make a visa because the zimbabwe Zee a tough country,
especial for us young people, young generation. They can even
kill you in Simbabwe. We can't even protesting for our

(54:42):
rights in Simbabwe because we skied for the government is
running the country, which is NPF. We are really scared.
I if people, a lot of people lose a lot
of friends. Kidney killed me also in Zimbabwe, they even

(55:03):
tortured me wanting to kill me. So that's why even
I don't even know it's Kimbalda's father since twenty seven,
I don't even know where it is. Maybe it's dead
or it's not even dead. I don't even know where
is because they also run away. Even now as I'm

(55:23):
speaking right now, I'm stressed, like I don't even know
where it's my father, Yeah, I don't even know where
he is. Also, it just so our governments, our Zimbabwe,
it's a relative for us. Yeah, they don't give us
time or they don't give us as a young generation.

(55:44):
They think themselves and then they are they are families
and they econ on me. There's no even if you
go to school, there's no jobs. There's a lot of
graduates people staying home. They a vendas podcas, no jobs.

Speaker 5 (56:04):
Nothing.

Speaker 4 (56:06):
If you want to stay in the ends for your rights,
they tortured you, killed you disappear. There's a lot of
people will disappear in Szimbabwe just before see your needs
to change.

Speaker 3 (56:22):
Under Mugabe, Zimbabwe experience rapid economic decline and hyperinflation at
various times. Mugaby has blamed his own form of colonial powers,
which is reasonable and a quote gay mafia, which is
what you get when you have a single manachar to
your state, ruling by whim from the moment of liberation
until just two years before his death from rus Like
many in her country, like many people from all over

(56:44):
the world, wanted a better future. It was something she
and her family had advocated for. Having seen people she
loved disappear, never knowing if they were alive or dead,
never even getting the closure of a funeral, she decided
she couldn't risk leaving Kimberly alone, and so she took
her daughter and fled it. Fled to South Africa, but

(57:05):
violence followed them there.

Speaker 4 (57:07):
Especially in South Africa. People are killed with Sonofobia. People
are killed, you know, so it's not also even safe
for us to stay in South Africa.

Speaker 5 (57:18):
That's why, especially in me. To be honest, the Jena
was not even planned.

Speaker 4 (57:25):
I was just asking people and when I reached brass people,
they were just talking, let's godless, collless. But I was
also following those people do I get here? So it's
not like we came here for luxury or for what.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
For me.

Speaker 5 (57:42):
I just came here for my life. I just ran
for for my life.

Speaker 4 (57:47):
I just need my life in my daughter's life, because
if I died today, I don't know if anybody can
look after my daughter, especially when in my country, because
things are tough for my mom.

Speaker 5 (58:00):
Of course, my father just disappeared.

Speaker 3 (58:04):
What people can't easily travel around the world. Concept like xenophobia, bigotry, sexism, homophobia.
They're not just American issues. They're global issues. And that's
why we say nobody's free until everybody's free.

Speaker 5 (58:16):
We just grew up in a.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
Poor family. So but it's tough to be honest. It's
a relative.

Speaker 14 (58:27):
For me.

Speaker 4 (58:27):
I'm not even one hundred percent, Okay, I'm still lots
of memories trace Yeah, and I remember one of my friends,
her name was Memory. She died also, we were together,
died in the Zimbabwe when they kidnaped us for five days.

Speaker 5 (58:52):
So she just died. Listen to us twenty twenty twenty TWENTYA.

Speaker 3 (59:00):
She just died.

Speaker 5 (59:03):
Because we were fighting for our future.

Speaker 11 (59:07):
Yeah, but.

Speaker 5 (59:13):
It's tough.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Yeah, he's me talking to Primrose on that river bank
about but why she left South Africa.

Speaker 5 (59:22):
I'm just flying. No, it's only me and my daughter.

Speaker 4 (59:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:26):
Was it hard to see a future for her there?

Speaker 5 (59:28):
It's very hard.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
Explain the situation there.

Speaker 8 (59:36):
The.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
Situation where in where the situation for me, it was tough.
I just ran away to South Africa. In South Africa
was not safe. Solophobia and uh, they almost secure me
and my boyfriend and even my my big father was

(01:00:01):
abusive too much. Because of the politics. I'm opposition party,
So it was now even in South Africa, I was
not safe at all. It was those people. They were
like following me and my daughter. So I spent three

(01:00:21):
months on the road coming here. I leave South Africa,
I think fourth of July till now I'm in Panama.

Speaker 5 (01:00:29):
I'm still walking.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
Yes, that was September. She finally entered the USA in January,
crossing into a very different country than the one she'd
set out for. Her story is unique. Every migrant story is,

(01:00:53):
but it's not unusual. He spent as much time talking
to migrant society. You will learn a lot about the
hardships regular people face all over the world. You'll also
learn about the dreams people have and how little they
really differ. Let's take, for example, the protest we recently
saw in Nepal. Those didn't come as a huge shock
because I met dozens of Nepalese political opposition members. Here's

(01:01:15):
when I spoke to us. We sheltered in the porch
of nmber our house in Bahjiqito in a rainstorm last September.
The little room was filled with sleeping pads and tired bodies.
I spent a lot of time there sitting on the
floor talking to people. A new story is one of
many I heard just in that one room, from all
over the world.

Speaker 15 (01:01:34):
Yeah, because it's not safe in my country. That's why
I want to go to the States, because there is
right and freedom.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
Yeah, what makes it not safe in your country?

Speaker 7 (01:01:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (01:01:44):
There are many political reasons. Yeah, and I am from
a different political like Congress. Okay, I'm from Congress. That's
a small member, not a big plans to man, but
that Opposit party, you know, yeah, they won, they won the.

Speaker 7 (01:02:04):
Constitution.

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
So yeah, so they think you uh yeah, Okay, if
you wanting how someone come from the mountains in Nepal
to a small village in the Panamanian jungle and to
be briefly sharing a tiny room with people from Venezuela, Cameroon, China,
and Bolivia, all seeking the same thing.

Speaker 15 (01:02:21):
His hell, I took a plan from Nepal to Dubai,
he said, there two months, okay.

Speaker 7 (01:02:29):
Then after that I went to Qatar.

Speaker 13 (01:02:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:02:35):
From Qatar, I went to Brazil. I stayed in Refusiician
for at least two weeks, yeah.

Speaker 16 (01:02:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 15 (01:02:44):
Then after that I came out from Brazil, took a bus,
then traveled for two much a long time, maybe twenty
four hours or twenty five hours.

Speaker 3 (01:02:56):
Wow.

Speaker 13 (01:02:57):
Ye.

Speaker 15 (01:02:57):
Then I went to I caught some friends. They took
me to Bolivia. We need to cross through jungle, but
it was small, not a long way.

Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
Yeah, it was good.

Speaker 15 (01:03:13):
And after Bolivia I took the ride to bus. I
took at least maybe forty eight hours in a bus.

Speaker 12 (01:03:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 17 (01:03:23):
Wow.

Speaker 15 (01:03:23):
Man. Then I went to the border of Peru and
there was some boat to take us across, and I
went across to Peru, stayed in a hotel that night.
Then after that it came out and again wrote the
bus for twenty six hours to Lima. Then after Lima

(01:03:45):
again twenty six hours to Tulcan. Then after Tulcan, I
got a taxi and that taxi was to cross the
border to equad Okay, and so I went to Effader
in that taxi and they came Cousino.

Speaker 7 (01:04:00):
Well yeah, we stayed for two to.

Speaker 15 (01:04:03):
Three hours in the hotel. Then at night again traveling wow.
Then again traveled to Colombia. After Colombia, rode another bus
and rode to Colombia and Panama borders to Nicoli. Nicoli

(01:04:24):
to Nicoli and we stayed maybe one week in Nicoli.
After that, I took a board to or from Kapurana.

Speaker 13 (01:04:35):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (01:04:35):
There was some bikes. The pike took us to a
camp at the border.

Speaker 4 (01:04:41):
Oow.

Speaker 7 (01:04:43):
At the camp, I raised nearly at six pm.

Speaker 15 (01:04:46):
Then after some people came there and they were responsible
to cross the border to Panama.

Speaker 7 (01:04:55):
Then we walked to at nine pm. We walked through May.
We walked to till here forty four hours.

Speaker 13 (01:05:05):
Wow.

Speaker 12 (01:05:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:06):
I asked a Nuke what he had to say to
people in America, because he had excellent English and I
have this platform to share. He was more than aware
of the US just course her own migrants, and he
said he'd been watching videos about it.

Speaker 15 (01:05:19):
Well, that's everyone is human being. Yeah, yeah, because we
have some problems, so we need to live our country right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
Yeah, we need to be.

Speaker 7 (01:05:29):
Kind to each other. Yeah, we need to be kind. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
I haven't heard from Minuke since then. I have no
idea where he and his friends are or how the
journey across three continents ended. Like so many other migrants,
he disappeared for me in the massive humanity heading north.
I still think about all the people I haven't heard from.
Sometimes I'll see people who look like them and I'll
get excited. But if they're in the USA now, they're

(01:05:55):
probably afraid of going out. Much became all this way,
they rest their lives, They saw people die, and now
once again the hiding from men in masks with guns.
His Rose, young woman from Bolivia. Think about Rose a lot.
She was a young mum traveling alone, trying to find
a better future for her family and risking her life
in the process. She seemed young and happy most of

(01:06:18):
the time, but she had a sort of tiredness in
her eyes that really stayed with me after several conversations
we had in Baja Jigito. I don't really know why.
It just seemed so sad that she was away from
her kids, and someone who so obviously was predisposed to
joy looked so tired and sad all on her own there.
It felt like her only chance had a better future.

(01:06:38):
She was very open about how hard it all was.
I remember one day I didn't feel like recording, just
sitting on the side of the raised walkway in Bajra
Juqito with her feet in the hot, wet mud, watching
people walk by talking with her like I talked with
any other friend about our homes and our families and
the election that was two months away. At that point,
she was hanging out with a group of Venezuelans in

(01:07:00):
but they must have been separated because they've asked me
about her since, just like so many other people, I
have no idea where she is. It seems so sad
to me that we've made a word where a woman
who wants the future for kids has to risk her life,
maybe lose it for a liner, just to come here
and ask for help and then still be denied, and
then if she gets here, to be chased, harried and harassed.

Speaker 11 (01:07:26):
Yes, the situation there in Bolivia right now, we're practically
economically well, we're in very bad shape. It's kind of
like Venezuela. What motivates me to travel is more than
anything work because there you can't work, you can't earn enough,
you know, you have to work a lot, but they

(01:07:47):
pay you very little, you know, so there's a lot
of a lot of poverty. So that's what motivates me
to keep going to work in another country, to migrate,
because I also have a family, they have children. So
that's what motivates me to go to another country to work.
It's the future for them, yes, a better future for them,

(01:08:10):
for my children.

Speaker 3 (01:08:13):
I asked her to share her journey. How have been
just to get this little wet village that welcomes people
in the middle of the jungle.

Speaker 11 (01:08:23):
We left Friday morning to go to the jungle. Right, Well,
let me explain honestly, it's not easy. It's very hard
because I've seen quite a few people. There are many
pregnant women, there are women with children. There are elderly people,
there are adults. There are people who come with crutches.

(01:08:45):
There are people who break bones if they're feet fall
off the edge. There are people who faint. There are
quite a lot of people and have difficult situations because
you have to climb a hill which takes at least
day out. You have to climb. You have to carry
your backpack, your food, your clothes, your supplies, everything you

(01:09:09):
need for the journey, your water. So it's very hard,
very hard. And you go up up and you arrive
at what is the border of Panama with Columbia, which
is called the Flags. You get there and from there
you have to go down down, down. That takes at

(01:09:33):
least another eight hours. You have to go down all day.
On Friday, it took us all day. We had to
sleep on the side on the edge of a river bank.

Speaker 7 (01:09:45):
More or less.

Speaker 11 (01:09:47):
There were about two hundred of us, if I'm not mistaken,
we are about two hundred people, one hundred and fifty
two hundred people traveling and sleeping there. We camped two
hundred of us. Yes, there are children. There are babies
two months old, one month old, three months old.

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
One year old.

Speaker 11 (01:10:10):
So there are children, and they are really the ones
who suffer the most on this journey. Yes, So that
night we slept. The next day, which would be Saturday,
we came back again at six in the morning. We
set off walking all day. We had to climb hills.
We had to cross rivers that come up to your shoulders,

(01:10:31):
up to your neck. They really come up. There are
quite a few rivers. There's mud, there are mountains. There
are those rocks that you slip on and die. There
are mountains that you have to climb. Of course, if
you don't want to go meet God, you have to
climb mountains that are slippery with stones rocks, and you

(01:10:53):
keep going like that. All day downriver, walking walking walking.
There are people who got left behind, There are people
who came with children. They get stuck, they faint right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
It's very hard, it's very difficult.

Speaker 11 (01:11:13):
And I know that all of us who immigrated here
are doing the same thing. We are not bad people.
We are good people. We do it for a purpose
which is our family, right, our children. We need a
good economy to support our family, our children.

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
But I asked rays if there was a dream that
kept her going.

Speaker 11 (01:11:44):
Yes, I have a dream to go there because just
like everyone else, like every person, I need to get
ahead financially to provide for my children, to get ahead.
So my dream has always been to be there. You know,
I set that all for myself before, but I didn't
think it would be like this, so difficult. And once

(01:12:05):
you're in there, well there's nothing you can do but
get out, move forward, get out of there, because you
can't go back, you can't retreat.

Speaker 5 (01:12:14):
You have to get out.

Speaker 11 (01:12:15):
So my dream is that to provide for my children.
I have two sons waiting for me, I have my
family and my dad and my brothers. So for that
reason we set off to go there. We are still
going there.

Speaker 3 (01:12:35):
The American dream is such a nebulous concept. Often it's
used as a byword for exceptionalism and the idea that
the US offers a true meritocracy. You were, hard working
people can thrive in the marketplace of ideas that isn't true.
But dreams don't have to be true, not they have
to be that far fetched. Most people come into America, no,
that work hard in the fields, cleaning homes. So maybe

(01:12:57):
as a lion cook the hands and knees and back
will do the labor that allows for privileged Americans to
still believe in their version of the American dream, the
one where millionaires become billionaires. But the chance to work
and be paid to speak, and not fear consequences, to
be able to feed your kids enough that they grow
up healthy and strong. Those are dreams too. They're dreams

(01:13:18):
that people are willing to risk their lives for, and
dreams that I've seen them chase up and down mountains
in the jungle and in the freezing cold and the
baking heats of the deserts and mountains of California. But
now even those who achieve their humble dreams are in
danger of losing them and tomorrow, I want to talk
about the end of the American Dream and the beginning
of an American nightmare for millions and migrants who are

(01:13:39):
already here. Every time I hear the various versions that
Woody Guthrie song, I think about the friends I made
the jungle, who, as a song says, maybe went to
heaven without any names. So before I go, I want
to share the whole Miami's American Dream one more time,
because I think it's important not to forget what the
entire force of the most powerful state in the world
has dedicated itself to destroy.

Speaker 11 (01:14:02):
Why am I meaning me, me me?

Speaker 3 (01:14:10):
It could be an a par of thousand euros.

Speaker 11 (01:14:13):
A Caroline, Animia.

Speaker 3 (01:14:17):
Acidia, Amidia h for Rose, Miami and Primrose and the

(01:15:04):
dozens of other migrants I met in the jungle. The
goal was to get here. Some of them had friends
they wanted to stay with, but many did not. They
just wanted a chance, a chance to work and be
paid a fair wage, a chance for their kids to
have a dream and a future, a chance to sleep
safely at night. Once they got across that line, over
that wall, or across that river, they wanted to make

(01:15:26):
their case for a silent to ask for help and
someone to keep them safe, to give them an opportunity
to build their lives again. But even for the very
few who made it, the risks weren't over. Within hours
of taking office, Trump had begun signing executive orders that
would make life for migrants on the way to the
USA and those already here even more difficult. To the

(01:15:46):
cheers of the crowd, he signed in order that kept
TikTok online, pardon the people who stormed the Capitol on
January sixth, twenty twenty one, and attempted to rescind birthright
citizenship from the children of migrants. He ended steviep Won
and with his sharpie of the building of mole walls
and the resulting death of more people who came here
to ask for help. Within days of Trump taking office,

(01:16:07):
federal agents from ICE, the DEA, the FBI, and other
agencies had begun a campaign if made for social media raids.
In Colorado, they raided apartment buildings which had played a
load bearing role in right wing conspiracies about tender ragwa
months before. At universities, they grabbed young men and women
off campus for the crime for opposing genocide. People entering

(01:16:28):
the country were stopped and had the device's searched, not
just for evidence of crime, but also for evidence of
mocking the president or the Vice president. Trump added various
organized crime groups the list of foreign terrorist organizations and
attempted to totally ban asylum, including for the people fleeing
those very organizations. People who had waited months for an
appointment on CBP one now had their appointment canceled. They

(01:16:50):
were left totally without hope, at risk, and with nowhere
to go for help. Trump used to border Emergency declaration
to justify his proclamation and quickly followed up with more
military deployments, wall construction, and a huge increase in the
funding for state surveillance. People still cross, but their numbers
decreased if many of them were quickly deported back to Mexico.
Here's Kirsten is it law promos his lawyer explaining the

(01:17:14):
new system.

Speaker 14 (01:17:15):
So there are no new asylum cases. In other words,
people who cross at the southern border are now detained,
only to be removed immediately basically or as soon as possible,
under what's called two twelve F authority. It's under the
Immigration and Nationality Act. Trump has used this authority, which

(01:17:39):
basically broadly says that if the President finds a certain
class of immigrants or the entry of immigrants would be
detrimental to the interests of the United States, they may,
by proclamation, you know, suspend all entry have said immigrants.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
So whereas people used to get credible.

Speaker 14 (01:17:57):
Fear interviews or were parolled into the United States to
be allowed to fight an asylum case, none of that
is happening anymore. And people are, if anything, only screened
for what's called Convention against Torture screenings to just determine, like, hey,
are they going to be tortured by their government or
with the acquiescence of their government if they returned to
their home country. But even then they are not allowed

(01:18:20):
to remain in the United States or fight any relief
in the United States. That just means that they will
be deported to a third country.

Speaker 3 (01:18:26):
For people inside the USA, the situation wasn't much better.
First as a trickle and then as a torrent, we
started to see videos of masked, unidentified men jumping out
of unmarked vehicles to grab people, many of whom were migrants,
and detain them. In most cases, these were federal agents
from ICE and other federal agencies like the FBI, the ATF,
and the DEA, whose offices were detailed to support ICE.

(01:18:48):
An increasing number of cases, they were people imitating ICE
for migrants, many of whom had fled totalitarian regimes where
people were disappeared by the state, they were reminder of
what they'd run away from, the place they had come
to be safe, started to feel like the place they
had to leave because it wasn't safe. Primrose case, things
were a bit different. When Kifton filed a motion to

(01:19:10):
appear remotely, she got an extremely unusual response.

Speaker 14 (01:19:13):
In ruling on my WebEx motion, I was emailed the
order of the judge along with a notice that primos
should self deport.

Speaker 3 (01:19:22):
So judges are.

Speaker 14 (01:19:23):
Sending out these notices with routine other orders in cases
where the immigrant has counsel is fighting their case.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
It's obvious they're fighting their case.

Speaker 14 (01:19:36):
Yeah, So it's one of the things where you just
feel very strongly this administration's influence.

Speaker 3 (01:19:42):
Are they obliged to do that or is that a
choice that the judge is made. No, not at all.

Speaker 14 (01:19:46):
It's it's okay, not at all, and in fact it's
completely inappropriate. The immigration bar is taking a different approach
to it. Some are filing motions to recuse, telling the judges, hey,
you need to recuse yourself. You're you're a non neutral judge.
To send this up out in the middle of the
case is absurd. It's a due process violation. They're entitled
to a neutral judge.

Speaker 3 (01:20:05):
Think just one of the many areas where things are
not as they have been. The Trump administration has flouted
rules and even court orders, sent migrants to hoard Salvador's
megaprisons that god a place where torture is routine and
where few people have ever left. They attempted to bring
criminal charges against migrants to justify their actions, and eventually
ended up in a prisoner change with the Maduro regime.

(01:20:26):
At the same time, my daughter's government began offering quote
unquote humanitarian flights to Venezuelans and Mexico, and some even
took to navigating the Daian Gap southwards to return to Columbia,
where they thought they might have some chance at a
decent life in the USA, a country with more guns
than people. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath and
worrying that we'd seen an increase in lethal violence. But

(01:20:49):
after a few weeks, thankfully that hadn't happened. But more
and more where I stated showed up, local people also
showed up. They called them are number of things, fascists, cowards,
and then people began to organize, following ICE agents around
and announcing their presence, identifying their hotels and making noise outside,
picking up neighbors kids, and getting their groceries so people

(01:21:11):
wouldn't need to expose themselves to the risk of arrest.
If ICE agents were spotted, people alerted their communities. It
is across the US. People began to form networks to
take care of their neighbors. Some of this came from
lifelong activists, but much of it did not. People even
began using apps normally used for suburban racism like nextdoor
and ring to call out the presence of ICE. Raids

(01:21:32):
were reposed and ICE agents were shouted out across the country,
but they still kept going. It wasn't until June that
we saw the first mass protest. Everyone wondered if we'd

(01:21:55):
be in for another hot summer like twenty twenty. CBP
officers had been deployed to LA to conduct a series
of loud and once again curated for Instagram Braids. Board
of Patrols El Centro Sector Chief patrol Agent Gregory Bavino,
became the faith of the operation even before Trump had
taken office. Just a day after Congress had certified the
results of the election, Bavino had sent sixty five agents

(01:22:17):
six hours norse of the border to push the boundaries
of what people would accept. In California's Central Valley, not
so far from Los Gatos Canyon, he led Operation Return
to Sender, accosting Latino farm workers at convenience stores and
on the way to work. Bavino claimed the operation was targeted,
but reporting from cal Matas showed CBP had no prior
records for seventy seven of the seventy eight people had arrested. Bavino,

(01:22:41):
who has bestowed the title of Premiere Sector on the
part of the border he oversees, has five agents on
a team dedicated to producing videos. He likes to praise Eisenhower,
whose Operation WAG often flew migrants to our center before
they were sent back to Mexico. The plane which crashed
in Los Gato's Canyon was headed there. Bovino has a

(01:23:01):
long history of these raids, dating back to at least
twenty ten in Las Vegas, and he is very much
the face of the new border patrol approach. While ICE
numbers are growing, CBP still has several times more offices,
and indeed some reporting suggests that ICE offices and some
offices might be replaced with CBP personnel. Border Patrol notionally
operates within one hundred miles to the border, an area

(01:23:23):
which includes all US coastline and the entire shore of
the Great Lakes, and even then this one hundred miles
is an interpretation and not a hard legal blog. This
remint covers two thirds of the population and gives them
a widely way to infringe on the Fourth Amendment. This
has been the case for decades since the Department of
Home Land Security was founded after nine to eleven, but
mass protests against CBP has been rare. We've seen it

(01:23:45):
on occasion, the lesson you'd think for an agency with
such a broad remit in a country that seems so
proud of the first ten amendments to the Constitution. In
La though people weren't having it following a series of
violent raids, Border Patrol agents hadn't been met with protest
across the city. They'd responded with tear gas, projectile weapons,
and threats. They'd arrested Dennis wuerta leader of the Service

(01:24:06):
Employees United International, one of the largest unions in the country,
as well as dozens of other Angelinos. They'd shut tear
gas out of moving vehicles and a naunched projectiles into
the faces of reporters and bystanders alike. Seeing this, doing
what I do. I got on a train to Los Angeles,
but within being southern California, it took like five hours.

(01:24:31):
Are they throwing or shooting?

Speaker 12 (01:24:50):
Did you get hit?

Speaker 3 (01:24:50):
You're okay? I'm going to that tree on the right.

Speaker 4 (01:24:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:25:00):
After getting off the train in LA, and before I
met my friend Charles McBride to work of some coverage together,
I walked around Olverda Street, grabbed a coffee, and spoke
to some of the local folks. There were tags all
over the walls and windows of the buildings around the
train station, but that's always been how LA has expressed itself.
All I heard from people I met there was support.

(01:25:21):
One man expressed to me that his anxiety made protests
very uncomfortable for him, but he was glad to see
people standing up. Obviously, crimes against property are something that
parts of Los Angeles take very seriously. It's a spiritual
home of conspicuous consumption. But in this instance, it seemed
everyone I've met either didn't care or was so mad
they didn't care. From mid morning to early the next day, LAPD,

(01:25:43):
who are not supposed to assist CBP but who can
enforce state law, chased angry kids around their own city,
its skid row and downtown LA. Tear Gas flooded the streets,
and so did young people from across town. In between
the tear gas and pepper bulls, I managed to talk
to a few of them. Their stories were similar. They
were those kids whose better futures had bought their parents here.

(01:26:04):
They were citizens raised in the USA to believe in
the right to free speech and assembly, something they were
now using to make their voices heard.

Speaker 16 (01:26:12):
I mean, my family, they're you know, susceptible to all
the ice rays and stuff like that, and you know,
being a citizen here, I feel like it's my duty
to come out here and you know, speak out and
know for those who can.

Speaker 3 (01:26:28):
It made me think of Primrose and Kimberly and the
future they might both have I sincerely hope that one
day at Kimberly and every other kid I met the
jungle would feel brave enough to be out here and
just by everything, be strong enough to stand up against
state violence. Unbeknown to me, Primrose and Kim weren't that
far away. They had a check in with ICE at
the DTLA federal building that day, and as they rode

(01:26:49):
by in a bus past the protesting crowds, Kim said
to her mom, look, it's uncle James. Her mom, of course,
told her it couldn't have been, but she was right.
It was. After nine months only speaking on the phone,
can believe somehow recognize me. It might be being wrapped
up in a helmet and a plate carrier. When they

(01:27:18):
first arrived, they went to stay with someone they knew
in Texas. I plan to go and visit them there
and accompany them to their court hearing. At this point,
I say, agents had already begun snatching people in the
corridors of the courthouses after the government withdrew their cases
and placed them in expedited removal proceedings, which meant mandatory detention.
There's not much any of us can do about this,
but I didn't want them to be alone. Then I

(01:27:39):
got COVID and couldn't go his curse in explaining how
this process works.

Speaker 14 (01:27:44):
So INA Section two thirty five applies to people who
entered within less than two years, Like you said, they
can be then subject to what's called expedited removal. That
means that they have to take a credible fear interview
and be detained, and that they only get to fight
a case if they pass their credible fear interview. They
do not qualify for an immigration judge bond, so they

(01:28:05):
only get out if ICE lets them out, which of
course Ice is letting nobody out. So the administration wants
to have people detained under this authority, this two thirty
five authority, as much as possible, to have them have
to fight their case detained and either lose the will
to do so and or not be able to afford
an attorney, because detained cases move along a lot quicker

(01:28:28):
and are very costly as well for that reason. So
what they're doing is anybody who was here two years
or less but was parolled in so they're in the
regular immigration court proceedings. They got out there under two
forty proceedings that's called so DHS attorneys in court are
terminating those proceedings. They're asking the judge to terminate the
two forty proceedings, so then that case is closed and

(01:28:50):
then they immediately restart a case under section two thirty five.

Speaker 3 (01:28:54):
The hearing went relatively smoothly. Their lawyer, who is now
working for whatever Primrose could fundraise able to help them
make their case. They left with another heroic schedules. Soon after,
they decided to move to La to stay with another
friend after the housing situation in Texas fell through. They
were living in East LA when they had their next
ice checking.

Speaker 4 (01:29:13):
Yeah, I was living an appointment and you said they
went back to get some documents and they made you
wake out. Yeah, yeah, I went there, I think around
af eight two four pm. At first they came and
give me my papers. They said, go to chat with
which is close to where you stay. Then too came

(01:29:34):
here in La downtown. So when I walk away, I
realized there was no other documents.

Speaker 5 (01:29:43):
Then I woke.

Speaker 7 (01:29:44):
I go big.

Speaker 4 (01:29:45):
I said to Kim, I let's go big inside. Then
I go to the reception. Then I asked the lady
and she was the ruder it first. Then She took
my documents, then said, oh okay, let me go and
find it. Three hours, four hours, not big. Then she
came in and called me, I think four pm. Then
the ice officer is just telling me I'm going to Detainia.

(01:30:09):
I said, oh why, I said, oh, we are going
to explain more.

Speaker 5 (01:30:15):
We are going, I said, oh, okay.

Speaker 3 (01:30:19):
Like thousands of other migrants who are trying to do
as they're asked, Primros has detained her check in along
with Kim. Previously, she'd been given ice check ins in
Riverside despite living in East LA. I'd helped her navigate
the four and a half hour bus route to get
there on time. Wondered how on earth, someone who doesn't
have a friend here, or who doesn't speak English, she's
expected to do this. She went out of her way

(01:30:40):
to make sure she was there and she had her
documents in order. Despite all of this, but she and
Kim believe were detained anyway, It's not hard for me
to see why people in La were mad.

Speaker 4 (01:30:51):
Then they took me to Santana. We were just sitting.

Speaker 12 (01:30:56):
Not even.

Speaker 5 (01:30:58):
One Ice officer comes to me nothing.

Speaker 4 (01:31:01):
I was just sitting And the other thing, they just
took my phone same time they switched it off. Then
I said, can I tell even one of my friends,
maybe they they are worried, and now said no, no,
we are going to give you a phone. Later on
I said, okay, So in Sanna they took us in
a hotel to sleep. Then the following day they took

(01:31:23):
big us to Sundernard Detention Center, not even one officer.
I was being asking the securities. They said, we don't
even know. We spent the whole day sitting doing nothing.
We were just sitting. Then they took us, I think
around the six pm pack to Los Angeles. Then when

(01:31:46):
that's why I saw the ICE officer. Then she explained
to me we are going to detain. You are going
to put you somewhere because the rules are changing every day.

Speaker 5 (01:31:56):
I even asked you, did I do something well? She
said no.

Speaker 3 (01:32:03):
I've heard this from a lot of migrants. The ICE
agents managing their non detained docket, as opposed to those
enforcement removal or detention, seemed to be struggling to keep
up with the pace of the changes in rules. Many
of the migrants I'd heard from had decent relationships with
the officers who do their check ins and they can't
understand why other officers working for the same organization would
detain them even though they're doing exactly what they're asked

(01:32:25):
to do. They are doing things quote unquote the right way,
but that's not enough for an agency desperately driven by
quotas and the desire to purgenation of people who had
risked their lives to become Americans. Let's hear how this
felt for Primrose.

Speaker 5 (01:32:41):
Then, said Duyev lawyer. I said yes.

Speaker 4 (01:32:45):
Then she said okay, it's fine, so she'd give me
another documentary to sign. Then I signed, like they are
going to detain me. Then I ask you for how
long they are I don't think you guys will you
are going and going to stay more than fourteen days?
Made less than fourteen days. I said, okay. Then I
asked your phone to call a lawyer. She gave me

(01:33:07):
a phone. Then I conduct the lawyer. The lawyer the
phone was off. Then I tried to conduct one of
my friends. Then the aunts, I said, we wanted to
go to the police to ask you because we were
worried because your phone was.

Speaker 7 (01:33:22):
Off, and.

Speaker 4 (01:33:25):
The ice officer, the ice officer the bother I was
gaving a GPS. So my GPS was off for the
way phoning. Uh the person way up to me in
Texas looking for me. Then he also replaced, I'm also
looking for you. I don't even know where she is.

Speaker 5 (01:33:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:33:44):
So people they were worried, maybe I will someone kidnap you.
Something happened to me.

Speaker 3 (01:33:50):
Yeah, yeah, so you and another ice officer is also
looking for you.

Speaker 4 (01:33:56):
Yeah, the other officer, we're looking for me. They were
even sending messages on their up yeah, yeah, asking where
are you charge your GPS? And the other ice officer
was detaining me. Then I even explained to her. She said,
oh no, no, it's okay. Then she took the scissor.
Then she cut the GPS.

Speaker 5 (01:34:15):
She cut it off.

Speaker 4 (01:34:16):
They know we Spain. I think one hour it was
around saving. Then they said okay, or there someone is
coming to take you and your daughter, So to take
you somewhere which is safe with your child. I ask
a way those people they said, we don't know, we

(01:34:38):
don't know. Then I said, oh okay. Then they searched me.
They said, do you want to take your big They
said no, no, it's fine. I can ask if someone
because I know I was saving, I'll was key for
the apartment.

Speaker 3 (01:34:53):
Primrose, like many people seeking asylum, had to wear a
GPS and tag part of ices Alternatives to Detention program.
There are various parts of the program, including facial recognition
check ins via a smartphone app, home visits, and the
Intensive Supervision Parents program, which is administered by Behavioral Interventions
A Geogroupsubsidiary ICE AP as it's known, includes an app

(01:35:15):
through which people can check it, as well as the
GPS monitors and smart watches which can monitor GPS and
do facial recognition. Very obviously, they're not being used in
a systematic way, as one branch of ICE was detaining
Primrose while another was using a GPS tag to try
and find her. All of the GPS devices used to
altern Things to Detention represent massive surveillance overreach, an invasion

(01:35:38):
of privacy, and a huge government dragnet of data they
can use to track down migrants and the people they're with.
Despite this, they're also better than detention, which is where
Primros ended up, but not directly.

Speaker 4 (01:35:51):
Maybe they are going to depot to me. I can't
go with the keys. Then they took my big so
I'll gry. I'm going to put somewhere after one hour,
they took us to Lax Airport. They put us in
a hotel. It was around twelve year twelve feear that time. Indeed,

(01:36:14):
they said, okay, so when you can nave a shower,
then you can nave a nap. So me I was
in the shower in the kimber.

Speaker 5 (01:36:20):
She was.

Speaker 4 (01:36:22):
Already on the bed sleeping. Then the lady came in said,
make fast, we are going to We want to go
back to pick another person where we came from. Ah,
then I wake, I awake him.

Speaker 5 (01:36:38):
She was crying. She was like, I want to.

Speaker 4 (01:36:40):
Sleep because she was leaving headache. Then they said no, no, no,
it's okay, let's go, you're going to sleep where we
are going. We spent the one night.

Speaker 5 (01:36:50):
Up and down.

Speaker 4 (01:36:52):
We came back again to La Downtown to pick another
guy with his side with his son. Then they took
us to San Diego Airport. I think we arrived there.
I think it's five am to take the flight to
San Antonio takes us. Then after that and then the

(01:37:16):
other lead she was rude. The other one she was nice,
she was fine. The other one, if you ask her,
she was like, she was rude. Then I just keep quiet.
Then I think at the airport, we spent three hours sitting.
Then I was flight at eight am to San Antonio. Yeah,

(01:37:36):
they took us to delay immigration. They welcome us, nice everything. Yeah,
then they put us inside. But for me, I was
I was crying to be honesty. Yeah, I was even crying,
like you know, the only pace and make me strong.

(01:38:00):
And it's came and it's a waste for here. Since
our last year, since last year, your life is something else.
I'm just moving from one place to another, moving from
one place to another. You know, she's a strong girl,
but sometimes you can see when you see it's sitting down, startying, crying.

Speaker 5 (01:38:23):
She just remind you something. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:38:30):
So yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:38:33):
The Florida Settlement governed detention of children by immigration authorities.
It limits the time they can be held to twenty days,
and established minimum standards for their detention and treatment. It
was a lawsuit based on this Florida Settlement that eventually
ended the Biden era policy of outdoor attention. The settlement
is widely flouted, but it was the best hope. Promos

(01:38:53):
and Kimberly had Kirstin their lawyer we heard from earlier,
worked tirelessly to the man baby treated according to their rights.
And how was it? You caught me a few times
in Dali, right, like how Kim wasn't having a good.

Speaker 5 (01:39:09):
Time first week?

Speaker 4 (01:39:12):
It was hard even for both of us. Yeah, yeah,
even the food me, I wasn't even it. It was
very hard for both of us. But you know, kids,
she was like used to to.

Speaker 3 (01:39:26):
Primos called me a few times from detention. I pick
up the phone to a robot voice and the number
would identify itself on my phone as Federal detention or
something like that. First, obviously I was afraid, but I
had an idea of what it could be. Yet another
connection that began with a little piece of waterproof paper
in the jungle and was now nine months later, leading
to a phone call from a prison for families in Texas.

(01:39:49):
I'd pick up the phone and then I'd have to
press one or two to accept the call. I always
wondered what I was about to hear. I could tell
she was trying to put on a brave face, but
she sounded so small it was difficult, really hard to hear.
She said Kim wasn't eating a food, which I've often
heard is terrible. I spent hours trying to find out
how to put money on their commentsary account so she
could get something a little better casting for on and

(01:40:12):
on to try and get them released. I remember at
one point hearing from Primrose locked up with her daughter
for the crime of asking this country for help on
the fourth of July. It would be too cliche if
I made that up. But nothing this year really seems believable,
even a nice attention, which is a miserable place for anyone.
Primrose and Kim had an especially hard time as most

(01:40:33):
of the migrants they were detained with spoke Spanish.

Speaker 5 (01:40:36):
And the way.

Speaker 4 (01:40:37):
The other thing is like those people they were, especially
in their room, they put me, all of them, they
were Spanish, and me, I do anything understand the Spanish.
I even asking the ice officer, can you please maybe
because there's another lady also two ladies I think Africans.
We were only four families, so we even ask them

(01:41:00):
can you put us in one room so that we
can understand each other, even especially for the TV. You know,
kids their issues. So sometimes I even had a report
to one of the lady. She was very rude to us.
She came and speak something so me and you came

(01:41:24):
we don't even understand like what she said. So I
just saw people they're doing something. Then letter she was like, yay,
I came here and I said this. Yeah, when you
came here, you just speak Spanish. You didn't even explain
with English, and of which may I don't understand English.
So she just write a report to a boss. So

(01:41:46):
a boss came and called me. Then I explained to you.
Then she was like, oh okay. Then they called Yeah.
She wanted to say no, no, no, I even explained
to English. Then there's another woman inside my room. Then
she spoke with the Spanish. I didn't even hear, but
she was telling the officer no, no, no, this woman

(01:42:06):
she's lying. She just came and speaks spanishye, and not English.
So these people they were just sleeping. They didn't even
know what to do because she just only spoke Spanish only.

Speaker 3 (01:42:18):
I've heard this from lots of migrants. They end up
serving as translators for each other because the agency that
is founded better than most countries' militaries seemingly won't provide them. Often,
people who speak indigenous languages have to find a translator
into Spanish or Russian or whatever other language. They have
a colonial relationship with Other times there's just nobody to
help them, and they're even more alone than afraid. Luckily,

(01:42:51):
Primrose wasn't alone. She had came with her and as
they always do, they looked out for each other. These
aren't things the child should have to do. Certainly childish
young at Kimberly, but in the end it was Kimberly
who could help work out what was going on.

Speaker 4 (01:43:05):
Then the ice officer I started crying, like then they
took me to psychologist and then they said no, no,
it's okay. I think I even spent three days that side.
They removed me in their room, then they put me back.
So Kimbleage was leaning under standing Spanish. So sometimes you

(01:43:27):
see olping me or Mammy they said this, and that,
they said this, and that. I even write it not
to complain, like when these people came, then we have
to accommodate all of us, because it's not like, oh,
we are all Spanish and we don't understand Spanish.

Speaker 3 (01:43:45):
And then it's being overcrowded and underfed. Migrants and ice
facilities were often incredibly bored. I've heard of some of
them trying to teach yoga or share stories, but for
the most part, they're so afraid and isolated that they
are forced to sit with their anxieties day after day.
I can't imagine what this is like for parents. They
have to try and maintain their own mental health and
take care of their children.

Speaker 5 (01:44:05):
But to be honest, we were just sitting. So time goes.

Speaker 4 (01:44:09):
Oh yeah, because I remember one day we went to place.
We went to the gym to play I think Soca
with game. I just fell down. I just felt down.
They took me to hospa to I think I spent
I think three hours then I wake up.

Speaker 3 (01:44:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:44:32):
Yeah, because I think it's depression. So they put me
in depression pills to get it out. Yeah, because my
bibi was high every time and ever time different time. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:44:53):
But I asked my ice officer about my case.

Speaker 4 (01:44:58):
Then she just replied, I'm just waiting for us to
close your case and we can start for asylum.

Speaker 5 (01:45:05):
So I was just sitting doing nothing.

Speaker 3 (01:45:09):
Despite what the detention was doing to her, Premiers remain
determined to keep fighting her case. Every Thursday, an ice
officer would come by and she would be able to
ask about her case. She'd been looking forward to the
only point in her week when she might get some
good news or at least some news about what was
happening to her. Why, Sally, that's not how it went.

Speaker 5 (01:45:30):
Yeah, there was ice.

Speaker 4 (01:45:31):
Officer was very loud, to be honest, everyone just walk
away without and the people they were crying, complaining. Then
it was like I went to him, straight to him.
I wanted to ask him a question. He said, Hey,
I don't have time. The only thing I can even

(01:45:52):
tell you, guys, if you're tired of staying here, because
they were putting papers for self deportation in our rooms,
like if you want to deport it anytime, you can
just sign you put your a number, your phone number, everything,
then they can make you fine ticket here.

Speaker 3 (01:46:12):
In her lowest moment, Premier said she felt like giving up.
Maybe it wasn't worth it. She thought, if you would
do anything to get away from the hell of the
detention center, that's the goal of these places, to break people.
The Kible reminded her what they'd come all this way for.

Speaker 4 (01:46:27):
Because when I was in detention, there's a time I
was like, I'm going to sign any deportation from Oh
he's cream.

Speaker 5 (01:46:34):
She said, no, people, they are going to kill you.
If you want to go back. Oh, it's fine. It's
up to you.

Speaker 4 (01:46:41):
If you want to go, die, go not to me,
sign your paper, not to my paper. You must sign
yours then you can go. Don't sign my name. No,
I do rather stay a year because I know people,
because there's a lot of people happening in the a ice,
especially in my country. Also, so she still remember everything.

Speaker 3 (01:47:05):
The depression, hunger boarder and misery that characterizes ye attention.
It's not a bug, it's a feature. It's supposed to
force people into breaking, into signing those papers, into getting
sent back to whatever they came here to escape. However,
the tenacity that bought Primroses far I hadn't left her,
and she made sure to let them know she was
not willingly going back.

Speaker 4 (01:47:24):
Then I said, no me, I'm not going anyway because
my life is in danger. Then he said, I don't
care even if they kill you, I don't even care.
You have to take a reform and sign if you
are attacked. Then I said, okay, at listen, tell me

(01:47:45):
my kiss. Cause when they teached me, was like, everyone
was asking me, wait, did they catch you?

Speaker 5 (01:47:51):
I explained.

Speaker 4 (01:47:53):
The other officer was like, so did they know, I said,
I don't even know the name, but that officer, he
was very rude.

Speaker 5 (01:48:03):
I don't care. Do you think I cay.

Speaker 4 (01:48:05):
I don't even care whether you go big to your country,
whether they killed is none of my business.

Speaker 5 (01:48:10):
I gave my family.

Speaker 4 (01:48:12):
Oh so people were they were like shouted him, those spanishes,
They were even crying, shouted him. He just walk away
and believe us, So people just also starting to walk away,
go around. We even writing not we prove like a complaint,
but no one even coming.

Speaker 5 (01:48:33):
Your person? Do they day? They just come and call me.
They are going to listening.

Speaker 3 (01:48:40):
Katered spent weeks calling, emailing and demanding the premieres on
Kimberly be treated according to the rites under the Floorida settlement.
I wasn't sure if it was a lost cause. It
was the only option we had, and I was happy
to Kimberley and like so many others in that detention center,
had someone to fight for her. In fact, she had
hundreds of people. People all across the country had donated

(01:49:00):
to her legal aid fund. Here in San Diego, people
put on shows and took collections to pay for her
legal fees. Listeners to this show dipped into their pockets
to support Primrose and Kimberly. Thanks to them, she had
a chance to get out. Like many other legal rights
at Migrant's House, Flores was being widely ignored, and it's
likely that Trump have men will take a run at
removing it altogether soon, but for now, in this one case,

(01:49:23):
it's still applied. But even once I was conceded that
Primrose and Kimberly had a right to be freed, they
still took their time doing it.

Speaker 4 (01:49:31):
They listening on the tenth Yeah, remember you called me
the fund the food. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I called Julia exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:49:38):
Before you were going to get out that week, but
they took longer and long.

Speaker 15 (01:49:40):
Good.

Speaker 3 (01:49:41):
Yeah, the release felt like a victory, but she still
faced the same difficulties she had before. Primrose could not
legally work. She was still in La where border patrol
and a baveno but conducting violent raids and people accused
of no crime other than crossing the border between ports
of entry. Because it was the summer, Kimberly still hadn't
received her education, So that was July and I were

(01:50:05):
in August. Now, yeah, you said, you know, work permit
still hasn't come, right.

Speaker 4 (01:50:12):
Yeah, They clear everything. I was supposed to get my
week permit on July July, but they clear everything like
new everything. They just clear everything's all studying August.

Speaker 3 (01:50:28):
Yeah, November, now there's still no permit. His case in
explaining in May of this year how this system works.

Speaker 14 (01:50:39):
You have a work permit clock, right, which is another
absurd thing for assils that once they file their asylum application,
they have to wait one hundred and fifty days before
they can apply for a work permit. And of course
they're expected to be independently wealthy during those five months
or you know, or star over or I don't know
what they're expected to do.

Speaker 3 (01:50:57):
Yeah, rely on the generosity of others, like exactly.

Speaker 14 (01:51:00):
So if you do something like try to change venue
or a motion to continue, if you do something in
your case that the judge perceives as not moving the
case along and rather like kind of trying to stall
it or possibly pausing it or slow it down, the
judge will stop the work permit clock the days and
it's a whole thing. So Primroses was stopped because the

(01:51:23):
judge wanted her to get an attorney. So then usually
when the case is set for a final hearing, that
code adjournment code they call it. We have the access
to the codes and what stops the clock and what doesn't.
And it always restarts the clock because you move your
case along because you're setting it for trial. It's obviously

(01:51:43):
moving your case along. Hers was not restarted.

Speaker 3 (01:51:46):
That video is still on Primrose's mind as well, still
comes up when she goes to a new church that
meets new people, even eleven months later. One of the
worst days of her life still follows her.

Speaker 4 (01:51:57):
And the person who posted me on my video please, uh.
I don't know how to say, but the comments I
was reading this was really big. And people they just
judge people without if they know their status where they
come from. Yeah, I can't control them, but deep down

(01:52:22):
I'm not okay. And do you see it now I'm
struggling for my knee. Yeah, and the other people they
will laugh at me like yeah, yeah, but it's not funny.
And I wish if the person maybe she was supposed
to cover my face or to cover Kimbal's face.

Speaker 3 (01:52:43):
Yeah, but I didn't want the time in La to
entirely be defined by the detention. I didn't want them
to think that everyone in this country doesn't want them here.
I never really expect the government to make people feel
welcome here. I think that's something we should do. These
people are joining our communities. They risk their lives to

(01:53:03):
come and live here with us, and it's us who
should welcome them. We can't leave that to the whims
of the electoral College. We have to do it ourselves,
just like the people in Bajujiguito did.

Speaker 1 (01:53:13):
So.

Speaker 3 (01:53:14):
I drove up to La Primrose and Kim had another
ice appointment, and I arranged to meet them after. I
freaked out a little bit when I couldn't get through
to them, but eventually I did. The Big Guy's building
has no signal inside. It turns out their place in
La Is where I conducted the interview you heard. I
took them out for a manicure first, because it seemed
like some thing that would make them feel taken care of,

(01:53:34):
and I got Kim some bubblesa because she wanted to
try it. Sitting in the little manicure shop, watching a
Vietnamese lady take great care over their nails felt like
another glimpse of the communities were supplied to build where
people from all over the world can come and be
safe by this time, I hadn't heard from Noemi for months,
and I started to realize I might not ever again.

(01:53:54):
So I decided I wasn't going to let Kimberle live
so close to Disneyland and not go. One of my
colleagues has foundamily who worked there. We got Primrose and
Kimberly day passes. It felt really nice just to give
them a day to be a family and not to worry.
I didn't go with them and record. I wanted them
to enjoy the day on their own, and by all
accounts they did. Primosh be fixtored of them, smiling out

(01:54:14):
said various riots and exhibit, and I felt a little
bit better to help make someone's American dream a little
less of a nightmare. Tomorrow, I want to talk more
about welcoming people in our communities and taking care of them,
because now more than ever, I think that's what we
have to do. The week before you're hearing this, on

(01:55:05):
a beautiful southern California winter morning, I met some friends
in a parking lot near the border. We hopped into
our trucks and drove along dirt road so we reached
a pull up. Once there, we threw on packs and
hiked straight up a steep hillside. Even in late November,
the south facing slope was hot. We're all sweating. By
the time we reached the GPS location we've been given,

(01:55:26):
it wasn't hard to spot a dark patch on the
landscape where someone's remains had returned to the earth. One
friend had carried a heavy wooden cross up the mountain.

(01:55:50):
We dug a hole in the rocky ground and then
placed the white wooden cross in it. Silently, we filled
the whole back up, stamped on the dirt until the
cross stood right up. Then we decorated it with marawgolds
and seashells and dried flower petals, doing the best we could.
One friend carefully picked the petals off the flowers laid

(01:56:11):
them on the arms of the cross. Another sprinkled poppy
seeds into the ground. We stood in silence for a while,
but the construction of the secondary border wall didn't halt
for a minute in silence, and then together we paid
our respects to Graciela Sonton Gormez Hernandez, whose last moments
were spent looking at the same sky we were looking at,

(01:56:32):
gazing down onto the two border walls that were built
to separate us from her. She died in September in
the heat wave. The same month or year before, I'd
had to call nine one one for several migrants with
heat stroke. I'd come across she died, a friend told me,
with her clothes folded next to her, sheltering under a bush.

(01:56:53):
Looking from the place we erected the lonely little cross,
that was all we had left remember her. I could
see four border patrols of ail at Santana's. She was
just a few hundred yards from the wall from the road,
but it took weeks for anyone to find her.

Speaker 17 (01:57:09):
Gracila Gomez presently, Gracila Sion Gomez LANs very Gracila Gormez
LANs very same.

Speaker 3 (01:57:32):
Obviously, we arrived too late to help, but we arrived
soon enough to ensure that least in death, she was
afforded to dignity the world has denied her in life.
Then I strapped half of fifty gallon barrels my backpack
frame where my friends carried slabs to water bottles. As

(01:57:54):
we walked. A construction vehicle above us reeled holes into
the earth for pylons that would hold a second thirty
at wall. On the sixty degree slope above the vehicle,
a helicopter flew around, and then it flew back underneath it.
We were at the date on water bottles and threw
them in a barrel. I tried to dain all.

Speaker 13 (01:58:16):
See okay.

Speaker 3 (01:58:23):
Doing this for years, we said goodbye to a fair
share of people who he never got to say hello
to and whose faces we never got to see. Last summer,
I helped search to the remains of a migrant who
had passed away in a canyon deep in the desert.
Every time I do this fills me with a deep sadness,
especially with all the friends from the jungle who I've
lost touch with since then. It could be easy to

(01:58:45):
look at everything I've laid out in this series and
feel hopeless.

Speaker 12 (01:58:48):
But I don't want you to.

Speaker 3 (01:58:50):
It could be easy to feel afraid as well, because
now is the time that caring about other people is dangerous.
It's possible currently for some folks to keep their heads
stay and try and keep themselves safe, but to can
find their actions to are angry posting on social media.
But our politics shouldn't be about anger. It should be
about love. Now more than ever, it's important to remember

(01:59:12):
that we don't act on our love and our solidarity
with angry tweets. We act on it by taking care
of people. However many walls they build, however many masked
men with guns they send. I don't believe it's within
the power of the state to stop people caring about
each other, and I hope that that care compels people
to do something. In fact, I think seeing so much

(01:59:34):
cruelty makes us all realize that it's up to us
to care for one another. People have cared for Primrose
and kim in all kinds of ways since they came here,
and today we're going to hear from some of them.
Friends bought Kimberly's school books where they were stuck in Mexico.
Some other folks put on a burlesque performance here in
San Diego to raise money for her lawyer. Hundreds of

(01:59:56):
you reach into your pockets to help her pay for
legal living expenses. When the state, both under Biden and
under Trump, made her of Kimberly feel unwelcome, you didn't.
I've carried my fair share of water into the desert
under Biden administration as well. It was Biden's policies that
left little Miomi stuck in Mexico, not Trumps. It was

(02:00:18):
Biden's policies to detain people in the open air and
left them with no food or water or shelter. And
it was everyday people like my friends and I who
fed them and sheltered them and took care of them.
We took donations and dived into dumpsters to grab tents,
who worked hard every day to build shelters, cook food,
and give away clothing so that people could feel welcome

(02:00:38):
and safe here. Not a single elected official gave out
a single sandwich, much less made one in the months
that thousands of people were detained outdoors in a cumber
and salisigral. But people from churches, goodwaras latterday Saints people
and Quakers as what as a whole lot of anarchists
and crosspunks and just desert people with no particular politics did.

(02:01:00):
I'm not saying this to pat Us on the back.
I don't think any of us really wanted to be
mentioned at all. Like many of us, some of my
happiest memories were the days we fed strangers, then sat
around fire, sharing stories and sometimes songs. Since then, I've
been privileged to share the joys and struggles some of
those people faced in their new lives here. I've attended
their weddings. I've tried to help them understand that by

(02:01:22):
action accents, but I've helped them come to turn to
the fact you simply can't get around large parts of
this country without a car. I'm saying this because I
think it's important that whatever happens after this current administration,
we can't ever go back to the way things were before.
We can't let migrants to be invisible in our communities.
We can't let them keep dying at the border. Let's

(02:01:43):
talk about what carying looks like in Primrose's case. This
time last year, I just released my Darien Gap podcast,
and a few weeks later I received a direct message
about my Patreon newsletter. It was from a guy called Matt.

Speaker 12 (02:01:56):
My name is Matt. I'm just a normal person who
listens to a lot of podcasts.

Speaker 3 (02:02:01):
I didn't know him, and he didn't know me, but
he listened to the podcast I made.

Speaker 12 (02:02:05):
I can still very vividly remember where I was when
when I listened to that, which was I was coming
back from a dirt biking trip in Michigan, and so
I had a seven hour drive, and I was like,
oh cool, here's a three hour podcast that I listened to.
And then I started listening to it, and then I

(02:02:27):
was just like I got into that mode where I
was just like I couldn't not finish it, you know,
I was like absolutely hooked and just needed needed to
get all you needed to get all the way to
the end, and was just really really moved by the
whole thing.

Speaker 3 (02:02:42):
Like many Americans until ready to be late in Biden administration,
that knew about immigration, but he hadn't really grappled with
the fact that what secure borders means is killing innocent
people in the jungle, in the desert and everywhere in between.
That's how deterrence works, That's how it's post to work.

Speaker 12 (02:03:02):
Like I didn't realize that that was like intentional, and
then hearing you know, hearing hearing yours, I was just
sort of like, oh, right, Like just the fact that
people would go to such a just such lengths of
of danger on a journey just across a continent and

(02:03:25):
knowing that once they get here, they're not even welcome. Right,
We're going to intentionally put up this like kind of
life or death obstacle. Course, I kept thinking about it,
and the next day I was like, let me like
see if you've done anything else on and I found
a couple of your couple of your other your other
episodes on it, and I was like, wow, this, this
is this is wild. And that was you know you

(02:03:48):
you were You're talking about the open air detention in
the Hakumba area, and and I was like, this is crazy,
Like this is just happening just right outside of San Diego.
I mean, it's just wild.

Speaker 3 (02:04:00):
Matt felt like now that he knew this, he couldn't
not do something about it, so he took some of
his vacation time at work and came to southern California.

Speaker 12 (02:04:08):
The thing, though, was crazy is seeing all the equipment,
you know, the equipment, if you can call that, left
behind by the people traveling through these places where it's
just like normal shoes and just like cheap Walmart backpacks
and just you know, the just basic stuff that you

(02:04:29):
would just like where to school.

Speaker 3 (02:04:32):
Matt joined friends of mine in the mountains, carrying water
and helping with some techi shues we've been wondering about.
He saw the wall, and he saw the damage. He
does he saw the difficult terrain people have to cross
just to get a chance to ask for help here,
the ways they have to risk their lives even after
they make it to the USA. He also got to
experience the where they're helping other people helps us.

Speaker 12 (02:04:53):
As I was heading back home, I definitely had this
feeling about like like way less disc bear getting together
with people to just do something, to just do something
useful to help people, even if it's just like in
a tiny way, like even if somehow it doesn't help,

(02:05:14):
but it's like it probably will. But importantly doing it
with other people it made me feel a lot better.
It made me not feel so like just everything is fucked,
like the world is descending into fascism or when there's
nothing I can do about it. It's like there are
a lot of people who want to help. Doing stuff

(02:05:35):
with them.

Speaker 3 (02:05:35):
Is like is good. Soon after, like all of us,
he saw the board it bringing its violence into cities
across the United States.

Speaker 12 (02:05:43):
I mean, like just masked federal agents, we assume, mostly
refusing to identify themselves, just randomly picking people up. I mean,
it's crazy and it's just a I mean I literally
am a loss for work. I mean it's just it's
so the opposite of what America is all about, straight

(02:06:07):
up like fascism. Like I just I never thought I
would live through something like this. I always just thought
that's the kind of thing that happens in other countries,
you know.

Speaker 3 (02:06:17):
I guess a lot of us thought that. A lot
of us probably thought this kind of state violence was
confined to other places and other times. We wondered, perhaps
absent mindedly, what we might do in those places and times.
For years, as a historian and a reporter, have thought
about them, read about them, visited them. Now I'm living
in them.

Speaker 12 (02:06:35):
It's always just sort of like in the same way
that you would think, what would happen if I was
in this I don't know, movie, Like it's not real, Just.

Speaker 3 (02:06:44):
Think like, oh, what if I was Jason Bourne Matt
Night stayed in touch one day. He was in La
owned business and I mentioned I've been helping Primos navigate
the mass transit nightmare that is Los Angeles so she
could get to her ice appointment. He oftener to stop
buy if you needed a ride anywhere connected them. He
saw her place and he offered to help I guess
with furniture as well, then it was time for him

(02:07:04):
to fly home every day like I do. He had
to worry about someone he knew being snatched. The Florida
Settlement doesn't stop ICE from redetaining people, and in LA
they seem to be detaining anyone they could any way
they could. Kim had been afraid to go out now
because she didn't want to go back to detention. So
once again, Matt decided he wanted to do something, and

(02:07:26):
he asked if Kim and Primrose might like to come
and stay with him on the East coast. That's not
an easy choice to make.

Speaker 1 (02:07:32):
No.

Speaker 3 (02:07:32):
No only does it mean sharing your space, it also
means taking yourself out of the safe group and accepting
that the states I of Sarron might fall on you. Now,
you know.

Speaker 12 (02:07:40):
I talked it over with my wife and we were like,
you know, both wanted to do this, and but you know,
we had to acknowledge like it might mean that like
these assholes and masks show up at our house, like
where our kids are, and are like gonna haul away
this family. That might happen in like right over there.

(02:08:05):
I mean, I don't like it, but I.

Speaker 7 (02:08:08):
I don't know.

Speaker 12 (02:08:09):
I've just I feel like you gotta do just gotta
do something, you.

Speaker 3 (02:08:13):
Know, y end. He says, it wasn't a hard decision
to make.

Speaker 12 (02:08:17):
I mean it was a lot easier because my wife
was actually just like one hundred percent let's do it.
And I was like, well, hold on a second, look,
we should at least think through the outcome. She's like,
I don't care whatever, just do it.

Speaker 3 (02:08:30):
Like a lot of people, Matt had always done things
to help people, but nothing like this, nothing that directly
put him in between someone who needed to be kept
safe and the people who didn't want them to be safe.

Speaker 12 (02:08:39):
Yeah, I mean, nothing is dangerous.

Speaker 3 (02:08:42):
I mean.

Speaker 12 (02:08:44):
Charity stuff, but you know, sometimes with time, but usually
just like giving money to people to you know, who
need it or whatever. But you know, this is definitely
the most like direct involvement to help someone who needs it.
Certainly is the first time that I've exposed my family

(02:09:05):
to any thing like this.

Speaker 3 (02:09:18):
So one day this autumn, Primos and Kimberley said goodbye
to Los Angeles, got on a plane, flew to the
East coast.

Speaker 12 (02:09:25):
I thought I was waiting at the right spot, but
they let them out at a different there, so they
actually walked past me. In the airport. They didn't even
see it, but I eventually figured it out. Luckily, the
airport is not that big, and so I could just
sort of walk, just walk all the baggage. Claym Mary
and I eventually found them.

Speaker 3 (02:09:46):
Then they went for sushi, then for ice cream, a
perfect suburban stripmall American evening, the sort of evening people
crossed jungles and deserts be able to enjoy, the sort
of evening the hundreds of people I met in the
jungle will never be able to enjoy. Of course, it's
hard to sit in a cold stone and talk about
the things people endure to come here. That's just sometimes
it's still difficult to even comprehend what his new friends

(02:10:07):
had been through.

Speaker 12 (02:10:09):
It's hard to answer, like you're asking me a good
question about, like, well, what was it like et and
it's like the difference the distance between, like our shared
experience is so vast it's still often almost doesn't seem real.

Speaker 3 (02:10:22):
I've had that same thought. It's hard to hear stories
from migrants and really think of them as human experiences,
not just stories. That's why I go into the mountains
and the desert. That's why I spent a decade asking
gettus to send me to this daddy in. I didn't
think I could understand migrants journeys if I hadn't experienced
a little part of them. And I don't think we
should write about migrants and not write about what they

(02:10:44):
go through to get to a strip mall sushi place.
Of course, Primrose isn't done with her interaction with immigration
authorities yet. They've had visits from ICE in her new home,
but not from enforcement removal operations.

Speaker 12 (02:10:57):
I mean, like they know where she lives. We told them,
are she lives, so like she lives in my house,
so you know, yeah, they might.

Speaker 15 (02:11:07):
I don't know.

Speaker 12 (02:11:07):
I mean, yeah, I guess I'm like not as afraid
of that. I have to say that the ICE people
in seem just like a bunch of cheery folks. Like
it's seems pretty different than I mean, like I met

(02:11:33):
many of them, yeah, part of this process, and they
were not the like you know, plate carriers and guns guys.
They were just like the you know, they work in
the office and decide whether you get to move here
or not, you know, yeah, yeah, and they were like

(02:11:55):
very friendly and downright helpful.

Speaker 3 (02:11:58):
Promotes your settling in it. That's place now. But it's
Matt explained, the struggle isn't over yet now, like.

Speaker 12 (02:12:04):
Our energy is more on how do we help her
make her case because she has an asylum case that
you know, she she needs to win and it's you know,
I'm not a lawyer, but wow, sounds like what asylum
is for literally running from a hostile government that she

(02:12:27):
was protesting and was going to jail and torture her. Like,
what what is asylum for?

Speaker 3 (02:12:37):
If not for that? Of course, interacting with the asylum
system has shown that some of its absurdities, like the
work permit clock for our bus rides to riverside, the
endless changing regulation. So one has to navigate or trying
to survive without the ability to legally work.

Speaker 12 (02:12:53):
In what way can you do this legally without some
you know, group helping you, without like just somebody saying fine,
I will take you and pay for your living expenses.
What is the legal way to like seek asylum? You
come here, they put you in jail, You stay in jail,

(02:13:13):
which is fucking jail. Yeah they let you out of jail. Good, hooray,
we're out of jail, and now you're homeless. Yeah, you
have no possessions and no ability to legally work. At
least let them work. I mean, come on, like, just
let them get a legal job. That's just like the

(02:13:35):
sort of bureaucracy version of the forcing people across the desert.
It's like, well, okay, you won't die in the desert
in this one. In this one, you will die or
you will suffer under homelessness. More deterrence. You know, everyone
always says, oh, what I support immigration, just got to
be legal. You gotta do it the right way. But

(02:13:56):
they have no idea what they're talking about, Like what
is the right way. I believe everyone who says that
has no idea what the right way is.

Speaker 3 (02:14:05):
Changing that making a law's line up with what anyone
would see is basic decency isn't coming anytime soon. In
the meantime, they have to navigate the asylum system. As
many contradictions. Primo has never got any follow up care
for her leg injury. The only way she could access
care in her new home was once again totally impractical
for someone without a car, just another example of how

(02:14:27):
the system sets people up to suffer and fail.

Speaker 12 (02:14:30):
There's no way to get her to the doctor. Well, okay,
there is a way, a way. Technically, we could drive
like an hour and twenty minutes way out to this
place that like as a thing with the ice that
they will say like, well that's your approved like medical provider,

(02:14:53):
Like I'm not gonna drive quarantine is each way to
just do some minor thing. Yeah, so we pay out
a pocket. So we go to a doctor and we
go here's the problem we have. We don't have insurance.
Let's get this done for as little money as possible,
because in the United States, if you don't have insurance,

(02:15:14):
it is going to costume. Yeah, it loves and mercifully.
My wife and I both know a number of doctors
that we can sort of run ideas by, and if
we didn't have that, like, I don't know what we
would do. It would not be good. I mean, well
I know what we do. We would drive an hour
and twenty minutes to the place and we would just

(02:15:36):
be like, okay, doctor help. But like, because you know,
we have connections and we are also willing to pay
a little bit out of pocket. She needed to get
some medicine. Medicine is super expensive. Yeah, so you go
to the CBS and you're like, well, you know, oh

(02:15:56):
we don't have your insurance on file, and we're like,
I know, but how much is this going to really cost?
And dude, drugs are so expensive?

Speaker 9 (02:16:06):
Like it's just.

Speaker 12 (02:16:09):
What are what are those people supposed to do?

Speaker 3 (02:16:11):
It's brokensistent and it's not one we can really rely
on government to change whoever was in office.

Speaker 12 (02:16:17):
The Democrats don't have a great answer for this either.
I wish they did. I mean, I will still vote
for them because they're at least less bad. You know,
what are the choices do you have? It's like, if
there was a better party, I would be that one
that I mean, if they had a chance of winning, right, yeah,

(02:16:40):
no other party has a chance of winning. So yeah, man,
I'm a Democrat and I will help the Democrats try
to win elections. They push it in the direction that
it needs to go. But the Democrats are part of
the problem. I mean, like they're not radically changing policy.
Is that would change this thing we've been talking about

(02:17:05):
for the last hour.

Speaker 3 (02:17:17):
When I first moved to the US, George W. Bush
as president. Soon after I got hi, Obama was elected
and it was Thanksgiving. I didn't know much about Thanksgiving,
and I didn't have much time for history that overlooks
set a little lonely list them anyway. But the day
before where it's riding my bike down the coast and
I ran into some folks who were also riding their bikes.
They asked what plans I had for the next day,

(02:17:37):
and I told them I was just going to ride
my bike all day and that's what I like to do. They,
having just met me, invited me into their home the
next day. They fed me and we talked for hours
and became friends. A decade and a half later, on
the night before Thanksgiving, my friends cooked as many beans
as they could fit in their giant pot that we
boiled above a propane burn and made from half a
beer cake and the cold of the desert, some Curtish

(02:18:00):
guys helped us ladle out scoops of hot stew for
hundreds of people. I still don't go in for set
like Colneliism very much, but I felt thankful to be
in a position where I could welcome people now. That
same year, on Christmas Eve, I was sitting on the
tailgate of a pickup in the desert, kicking my feet
so my toes wouldn't burn with cold. I spent the
entire day building shelters for people out in the desert

(02:18:21):
left therefore up to a week by the Biden administration.
We'd handed out all our food again, but some folks
who'd been taking care of their kids are trying to
find a warm place how the desert went to sleep,
had missed out on eating. So I'd find a few
boxes of htrs, which are kind of like a worse
but vegan version of MREs, and I took them from
the truck and went over to the people who had

(02:18:42):
missed dinner. They heated them up somehow on a piece
of scrap metal over the fire. I can't really remember
them thinking it was really janky. I struggled to describe
how special it felt for me to be able to
share a little of the welcome I received with other
people like Matt. I feel more hopeful knowing that not
only are other people just as upset as I am,
but that alongside those other people, I can do things

(02:19:04):
that I wouldn't have thought possible if I hadn't seen
them with my own eyes, had done them with my
own hands. From Obama to today, it's been up to
us to welcome migrants. Obama set records for deportation, Biden
beat them, albeit including Title forty two removals, and Trump
will probably beat both this year. In the meantime, it's
up to regular people to help one another. That shouldn't

(02:19:26):
make us feel hopeless. It should make us feel strong.
Matt's doing something remarkable, but I don't think he was
in a very remarkable situation before. He was just a
person lucky enough to have some spare time and some
space to look after someone. But there are millions of
people like that in this country. There are millions of
people who are mad right now. The anger alone is

(02:19:47):
not going to help us take care of people. That's
what the priority should be right now. I don't want
to paint Matt as the only person who helped Primrose,
because hundreds of people help Primrose from the Mberalaan and
the Jungles of Panama, and have fellow migrants WHI wash
across Daddy and Gap, People across a continent took their
time and their resources to help a stranger. I've heard

(02:20:08):
of this from countless migrants as well. Some of them
rode the train from southern Mexico up to the border,
and people threw them food and warm jumpers to total
strangers who they'd never met, who they'd never even got
a chance to see, across thousands of miles. When states
ignored their suffering, the hundreds of migrants I have talked
to found food, shelter, and solidarity from ordinary people, and

(02:20:32):
those people in their own way benefited too.

Speaker 12 (02:20:35):
It was enlightening to me that a it wasn't just me, Like,
it's not just oh, I for some reason, I am
the only one who's like really upset by all this.
You know, there are other folks who are like this,
but also just like a lot of other people are
absolutely willing to take risks, be generous with their time

(02:20:58):
and money, Like there's a lot of them. There's a
lot of people who like want to help, and that
kind of community.

Speaker 3 (02:21:06):
Aspect of it.

Speaker 12 (02:21:08):
It was a surprise to me that the doing it
with other people was so powerful. Like I thought it
was just about the doing the actual act of helping
people somehow, but doing it with other people was just
surprisingly good. Made me feel much more optimistic about our
ability to get through this collectively.

Speaker 3 (02:21:30):
I asked Matt what he wanted people to know about
his experience.

Speaker 12 (02:21:34):
Well, I mean, I guess what I would like people
to know is it's not as hard as you might
think to help folks like primos, Like it sounds insurmountable,
like oh no, I'm exposed to all this risk and
danger and legal hassle or whatever. But it's like it's
not that complicated. It's like they fill out a forum

(02:21:55):
and it just says like, oh, now I live here,
and then once prove it, then there.

Speaker 3 (02:22:01):
The hard part is finding someone, especially now that migrants
are more worried than ever to be out and in
the community. Any database would be a risk for them.
But maybe that's not a problem that someone can solve.

Speaker 12 (02:22:12):
It's kind of like an information sharing problem because like,
these folks are all across the United States, and the
people who could host them are similarly all across these states.

Speaker 3 (02:22:25):
But you don't have to take someone into your home.
There are hundreds of things you can do wherever you are.
You can feed people who are hungry, pick up someone's
kids from school, or take their dogs for a walk,
fix someone's car so it doesn't get towed or ticketed,
or drive someone to a doctor's appointment. Creating safe communities
for migrants is not a distinct act from creating safe

(02:22:45):
communities for everyone. I've never been a big political theory reader,
but I think I've learned everything I need to know
about politics in refugue camps and the deserts and mountains
and jungles that migrants traverse to get to this country
in Panama, and met with the priest who houses migrants
in California, have helped seeks and Quaker friends hand out
warm food in the cold. We can come from a

(02:23:08):
broad range of perspectives and still get to the same place.
When someone needs help, you help them. And if we
all do that, then when we need help, someone will
help us. You don't have to wait four years to start.
You can do it right now. While there are only
some things we can do in the face of a
government that doesn't want to help people like Primrose, there

(02:23:29):
is an awful lot that we can do. For all
the people who didn't make it to the USA from
the jungle, we can help the people who did. We
can also take this principle and make it a cornerstone
of all our politics. The more people come to know migrants,
the more they will see how broken our system is.
The more people who see that, the more people will
demand change. And I hope that they won't stop until

(02:23:53):
we get a system that doesn't look at little children
who aren't safe and say we don't want to help you,
until we get assists to him, that doesn't make them
walk across jungles and through deserts before they even get
a chance to ask for help. Before we go, I
thought I would play a part of the interview I
did year. I speke Tristn on Monday, and he said
his dad's still doing well.

Speaker 18 (02:24:20):
Truly, the migrants on this route are not here because
they want to be. They are here because the economy
and their countries is terrible or something. Everything is going
badly on their countries. How can we mistreat them knowing
that we won't not us never. This is a belief

(02:24:43):
that we have. We are all children of God. God
made the world and humanity, and we are not that different.
We are all brothers.

Speaker 3 (02:24:55):
I want to leave the that's word today to primaries,
because really is the story about her and him and
the incredible tenacity encourage the show to get here.

Speaker 4 (02:25:05):
Even if I say I can me and myself, I
can say thank you. I don't even know how to
say thank you, but I'm just God knows. God, please
blase those people who put ince on me and Kim.
I thought maybe I'm alone, but I realized I'm not
alone here if also people who helped me. You guys

(02:25:28):
who helped me so much. I never even get helped
even in my country the way I get to helped
in America.

Speaker 5 (02:25:38):
And I'm really really glad.

Speaker 4 (02:25:43):
I'm very glad for those people who helped me. I
have especially since when I was even in me, when
I was in Mexico. In my prayers, i just say, God,
just blase those people who put ince on me. You
make me feel better. You put smile in my face
and even came when you came here. I wasn't even

(02:26:05):
heavy clothes to way nothing. They just only the clothes
they gave us in detention when they detain us. That
the clothes I was leaving I was when I want
to wash it was a T shirt jacket. I just
removed the top, then I washed the the inside the
T shirt when it's dry. Then I we bothered and

(02:26:27):
put in you when we were like.

Speaker 5 (02:26:29):
But for now, I'm.

Speaker 4 (02:26:32):
Really really appreciated a lot. I really appreciate a lot
because my life is like changing now.

Speaker 3 (02:26:44):
So yeah, and it's.

Speaker 6 (02:26:50):
Like you were saying, the things came or he would
be so different from the chances you had. Right, she
can she speaks English, she speaks Spanish, she can go
to school here.

Speaker 3 (02:27:04):
Yeah. Does that make you happy when you think about.

Speaker 5 (02:27:06):
Yeah, I'm Reyaby.

Speaker 4 (02:27:08):
Even if I even told you, Kim, I was asking
you one day, I said, Kim, what if I die today?
She was even mentioned your name, said, I would just
ask him maybe I can just go to school?

Speaker 5 (02:27:24):
Yeah, yeah, wish.

Speaker 4 (02:27:26):
Also she was like, Mammy, I want to write my
book when I start high school. I need to write
my story of my life because we have been through
a lot, but now we are happy. I don't want
to live with your support. Guys, I'm really appreciated. Yeah,
because if she go to school, I'm happy.

Speaker 19 (02:27:45):
I know she.

Speaker 5 (02:27:47):
I want you to heave a better life.

Speaker 3 (02:27:50):
Yeah, this is it could happen here.

Speaker 19 (02:28:10):
Executive Disorder our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the
White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you.

Speaker 3 (02:28:16):
I'm Garrison Davis.

Speaker 19 (02:28:17):
Today I'm joined by James Stout and Sophie Lichterman. This episode,
we are covering the week of November twenty fourth to
December fourth.

Speaker 3 (02:28:25):
An extra long week.

Speaker 19 (02:28:26):
Somehow the squeezed a few more days in there to
open us up. James, what are what are some important
small stories we don't want to overlook?

Speaker 3 (02:28:35):
Okay? Yeah, yeah, a lot because of our extra long week, right?

Speaker 5 (02:28:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:28:39):
The United States is flying manned ISR flights over Nigeria
and possibly parts of the Sahel as well. It's not
entirely clear because the flights kind of go dark once
they take off. Sources familiar with the matter have suggested
that you AV strikes might begin soon. It seems that
the ISR flights are targeting Iswapan. J And I am.

(02:29:00):
I'm gonna write about this on my Patreon, probably because
I think it requires visuals and I think it's it's
too much to go into in depth here. But if
you want to check that out, you can. Can you
explain some of those acronyms? No, I just love to
find it's great when you report on military ship because
it's just a wall of acronyms. Okay, I SR flights.
These are intelligence flights, right, Intelligence surveillance reconnaissance. I believe

(02:29:23):
it's an acronym they're looking for stuff for ua V.
On manned aerial vehicle, there's a gender neutral term and
I can't remember unpiloted aerial vehicle walk is back hard.
That's the bid nearer thing, right when you get killed
by an unaccountable drone, But it's gender neutral. The it's

(02:29:44):
what that's the Islamic State williar in that part of
the world, so like Province, West Africa Province. I think
it stands for these are the targets of these flights
and strikes and Jay and I am being another jahardest
group that is not associated with the so called Islamic State,
got it?

Speaker 4 (02:30:00):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (02:30:01):
Yeah, Okay, hit you with another acronym, A foyer. I
think I think we know that. One fire by the
Cato Institute has revealed that the FBI under Biden was
investigating the SRA that's a socialist rifle association. It didn't
bring charges against any of the members, but it did
apparently investigate him for some time. Finally, the National Park

(02:30:23):
Service has announced a new fee schedule and quote unquote
modernized graphics for passes.

Speaker 1 (02:30:28):
Is this the horrific image you sent us?

Speaker 3 (02:30:31):
Yes, it's a picture of Donald Trump. Yeah, that's how
they've modernized it. It's it's not very nice. I I
know there are better things in the parks. I feel like, like,
you know, half Dome is nice, the Yosemite Valley, Yeah,
pretty cool. Shit in wrangle sint Elias that you could
do instead.

Speaker 1 (02:30:49):
That's like him trying to rename that East Institute after himself.
He just keeps trying to put his face and name
on everything. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:31:00):
Well, when you're a dying man, legacy becomes very important.

Speaker 1 (02:31:04):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, But that's exactly it. The US Institute
of Peace is being renamed for Trump.

Speaker 3 (02:31:12):
Really yeah, oh I know I miss that. Great cool.

Speaker 1 (02:31:18):
It's feeling very similar to that, whether he's just putting
his face and name on everything.

Speaker 15 (02:31:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:31:24):
So two things, right, electronic passes for parks it's phony
a good thing, And a one hundred dollars up charge
for non United States I think it's residents as opposed
to citizens in the eleven most popular parks.

Speaker 1 (02:31:38):
How can they even check that?

Speaker 19 (02:31:39):
I might just ask like this, this sounds like a
tourism thing, right, like they just wanted people to dinner,
like visiting the States to pay more.

Speaker 3 (02:31:47):
To be clear, other countries do this. I still think
it's bad. Like some of the Grand Canyon is part
of a cultural patrimony of all of humanity. Yeah, the
National Park Service itself is an exercise in set like colonialism.
But we can talk about that forever. Yeah, I've seen
some stuff with gate ranges, be like, I'm absolutely not
asking feel green cord. Yeah, no, that's silly fear ranges.
But yeah, I think they were just kind of assuming

(02:32:08):
good faith. A lot of other countries do do this,
It's not unusual. I still think it sucks. There's also
an interagency pass. It's two fifty for non residents and
eighty dollars for residents. So those are they're the big
changes there.

Speaker 19 (02:32:22):
Speaking of big changes, a pretty big update in a
case that has lasted nearly five years. This morning, Thursday,
December fourth, a suspect was arrested in connection to the
pipe bombs placed around the capital the night before January sixth,
specifically at the DNC and rnc aad quarters in Washington,
d C. This suspect has been identified as thirty year

(02:32:44):
old Brian Cole Junior, from a Woodbridge, Virginia. Federal law
enforcement sources have told The New York post that the
suspect may have had quote unquote anarchist leanings unquote. This
could mean anything, right, This could be anything from like
anti government, violent extremism like militia movement type extremism, Boogaloo boys, accelerationist,

(02:33:07):
as well as possible left wing anarchist leanings. Sure, it
could be any number of things. There's still very limited
information about this. Even in the like DJ press conference
that just wrapped up a few minutes before we started recording.
They're being pretty tight left about details. And I think
about his gait, Well, yes, people are asking about his gait,

(02:33:27):
and allegedly he had begun building explosive devices in twenty nineteen.

Speaker 3 (02:33:34):
Okay, okay, So like some some background.

Speaker 19 (02:33:37):
This arrest does partially discredit a report from The Blaze,
which Robert has talked about on this show before, which
falsely identified a former Capitol Police officer as the bomber
based on Gate analysis.

Speaker 3 (02:33:50):
Yeah, if they prosecute someone else, the Blaze is going
to get sued out of existence. So I would imagine they.

Speaker 19 (02:33:55):
Critical support to former Capital police officer puts the Blaze
out of business. Wow, pour one out for Glenn Beck.
But this suspect that lives at a home associated with
both their parents. It's unclear if their parents are still married.
Suspects dad runs a bail bond business, which the Sun

(02:34:16):
is supposed to have worked for, and the mom is
a real estate agent. Not much online presence can be
found yet on Brian Cole Junior. I've spent hours looking
and so far not much there. But we'll see if
that changes over time.

Speaker 1 (02:34:34):
A developing story.

Speaker 3 (02:34:36):
Yeah, yeah, we'll do a whole episode if it marriage
it later, I guess sure. Talking of terrible indictment, Garrison,
would you like to hear about a terrible indictment out
of Texas?

Speaker 19 (02:34:46):
I'm going to say yes, but no, I don't know
if i'd like to for what reasons? I feel like
you're going to do it anyway, so I'll play along.

Speaker 3 (02:34:55):
Two Texas men have been indicted for a plan to
invade a small island off hate, kill all the men,
and sexually enslave all the women and children.

Speaker 1 (02:35:04):
What I'm sorry?

Speaker 20 (02:35:05):
What?

Speaker 3 (02:35:07):
Yeah? This is this is a wild one. The indictment
says they we hope to quote lead an unlawful expeditionary
force to the island of Gonave, which is part of
the Republic of at For the purpose of carrying out
their rape fantasies. Weisinberg and Thomas plan to purchase a sailboat, firearms,
and ammunition, then recruit members of the District of Columbia

(02:35:27):
area homeless population to serve as a mercenary force, as
say invader Gnave Island and stage Acudaita. Weisenberg and Thomas
intended to murder all of the men on the island
so they could turn all of the women and children
into their sex slaves. That is what is alleged in
the indictment. Right be an interesting case. One of them

(02:35:47):
had joined the Air Force in twenty twenty five to
get some military experience, or was in the Air Force
this year to get some military experience and has successfully
been transferred to nearer to d C from where they
hope to recruit unhoused people to service merceries.

Speaker 1 (02:36:03):
This is absolutely insane. Who are who are these two
Texas men? Why do they think this is like a
thing that can be like, all.

Speaker 3 (02:36:13):
Right, it's borderline something I considered not including because like
the people are probably pretty unwell.

Speaker 1 (02:36:20):
It seems like are they just obsessed with like Eric
Prince like, I don't, I don't understand.

Speaker 19 (02:36:26):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (02:36:27):
Yeah, Like, if the guy hadn't passed all the background
checks to get into the air Force, I feel like
this would be less remarkable. Right, But while planning to
invade a small island and enslave everybody he got into
the air force. That that in itself like like should
be a story. And of course it is all alleged, right,

(02:36:47):
it's all in an indictment. We don't know what the
evidential basis for a lot of this is.

Speaker 1 (02:36:53):
Well, that was disturbing.

Speaker 3 (02:36:55):
Yeah, it's wild one. I guess we'll keep you informed.
What Garson Garrison.

Speaker 1 (02:37:04):
I like, I like, can't even compute, Like, that's one
of the most insane things I've heard in a really
long time.

Speaker 19 (02:37:12):
Well, fors of economic news, let's has thrown to tariffs.

Speaker 1 (02:37:17):
Let's glow to tariff talk with me a.

Speaker 20 (02:37:23):
Rocking jazz rockety jazz bot rocking jazz rocky jazz bo.

Speaker 21 (02:37:37):
This is mea wong with tariff talk. So obviously, the
biggest tariff news right now is the impending Supreme Court
ruling on the legality of a broad swath of the
terrorists that Trump has imposed using unbelievably dubious legal and
economic authority. And by unbelievably dubious, I mean it is

(02:37:58):
so patently illegal. It is an astounding demonstration of the
complete advocation of the Supreme Court's pretensions at being one
of the branches of government. That this hasn't already been overturned.
But this is ruling has not dropped yet. Everyone's waiting.
So in the meantime, what we have is a bunch

(02:38:20):
of Trump administration officials have been going on TV and
talking about trade policy, and they're saying something that we've
been hearing for a while now, which is that they
believe that they can use different set of legal authority
to impose the same tariffs. Whether they can do this
or not, is I mean, they shouldn't be able to
do this, like all of that, All of the authority

(02:38:41):
they're using is pretty ridiculous. But this has been This
has been their strategy. They've been reiterating their strategy. On
the other side, we've seen some interesting movement in terms
of the opposition, which is that Costco has become sort
of the biggest company to join in this trend of
company and he's like going to court with lawsuits to

(02:39:02):
try to recoup the money that they've spent on these tariffs,
because if the Supreme Court ruling like overturns the legality
of these terriffs, these companies can get their money back retroactively.
Costco is the biggest company we've seen so far short
of moved to attempt to do this remedy to the courts.
So we will, we will, we will keep an eye
on this. And this is you know, I think, I think,

(02:39:24):
especially if this comes overturned, we're going to see a
lot of companies trying to make moves for this. This
is something that is going to piss off the Trump
administration because they've been talking a giant game about how,
oh these are going to fund the like two thousand
dollars tariff checks you're never getting. Trump is literally talking
about and this is the you know, this is an
old sort of right wing thing, but he's talking about how, oh,
terriff's revenue is going to replace income tax, which no,

(02:39:48):
it's not like I just nonsense, gibberish numbers don't work.
Orders the magnitude off just nonsense can't work.

Speaker 3 (02:39:56):
But you know, this is there.

Speaker 21 (02:39:57):
These are things that they're saying, and there's probably going
to be an increasing conflict between the sectors of capital
that just want their money back from these tariffs and
the Trump administration, which you know, wants there's money for its,
you know, nebulus political purposes. There's been some sort of
interesting political developments in terms of Trump and Lula. So
people will probably remember from listening to the show that

(02:40:17):
there have been very very high turiffs on Brazil that
are effectively political tariffs for actually putting one gi Air
Bolscenaro in prison for you know, the mere crime of
attempting to overthrow the government to install himself as the.

Speaker 12 (02:40:34):
Ruler of Brazil.

Speaker 21 (02:40:35):
Now there has been over the past few weeks there's
been some sort of ratcheting down of a lot of
the tariffs. There's been a bunch of goods that have
been exempt from the teriffs as part of Trump's sort
of widespread efforts to like lower food prices, because there's
a bunch of food goods that are being exempt from
this stuff. And there was also very recently we got
an actual call between Trump and Lula which seems to

(02:40:58):
have gone fairly well, you know, at least it seems
to have been cordial. The two seem to both be
coming out of it saying like, oh, we agree on things.
It's going to go great. And this is to a
large extent, an attempt to do a replay of Lula's
positive relationship with the Bush administration the last time he
was in power, where and this is you know, this
has been a trend in the in the sort of
the original pink tide and in this government where you

(02:41:21):
have a kind of mix of the sort of pink
tie center left governments in Latin America, where you know,
Lula has traditionally been the one who's been sort of
playing with the US more. And you know, as we're saying,
right now, you have the US gearing up for, you know,
like potentially a war in Venezuela, and there's been a

(02:41:44):
whole bunch of conflict with Columbia. But Lula seems to
be trying to sort of play the role that he
played in the two thousands. We'll see how that goes.
Trump is astonishingly significantly more unstable than George W. Bush,
which is just good lord, oh god, okay, with enough,

(02:42:05):
Oh my god. They finally found a president who is
less coherent and more unhinged than George W.

Speaker 3 (02:42:10):
Bush.

Speaker 21 (02:42:11):
The final piece of news that we need to touch
on is the US is chief trade negotiator gave an
interview with Politico, and this is Perya who News basically
talked to Politico and told them that Trump is considering,
you know, is talking about leaving or renegotiating the USMCA,
which is the trade agreements that he negotiated to replace

(02:42:33):
NAFTA in twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (02:42:36):
Roll this back again.

Speaker 3 (02:42:37):
This is his deal.

Speaker 22 (02:42:38):
He's talking about leaving or renegotiating his deal. This was
his big thing in twenty twenty is big. One of
his big things was, oh I abolished NAFTA. Oh I
created this deal, and you know, I've one at the
time was like, well, this is just like NAFTA with
like the edges filed off, you know, but like this
is sort of the point that we're at in Trumpian
trade policy where it's like, ah, we're getting ripped off
by Mexico and Canada in the trade deal that I saw.

(02:43:00):
And as Garrison is fond of saying, the defining political
question of our times, he was president in twenty twenty.

Speaker 21 (02:43:05):
Brother, you you did this, this this this was your
trade deal, and somehow, somehow now you know, into in
terms of real terms, right, this is actually a massive deal.
So this deal has a six year term. It was
negotiated in twenty twenty, which means just coming up next year.
And this is a big enough deal that there's already

(02:43:26):
sort of a full court press and the press. You
can see the New York Times running it where every
single faction of capital nhsicle fashion, but a whole bunch
of factions of the capital are getting every single think
tank and lobbying group and you know, like Policy Research
Institute or whatever together to be like, please don't get
rid of this. Because the thing about the us MCA,
and this something we've talked about to some extent in

(02:43:48):
terms of Canada and Mexico tariffs. But one of the
really important things about the teriffs that have been imposed
on Mexico and Canada on the terrorifraces are extremely high,
is that those tariffs haven't been applied to goods that
are covered by the USMCA. And this has been a
crucial lifeline to allow trade to not be annihilated by

(02:44:08):
those American tariffs. And if Trump pulls out of it
and suddenly those goods are covered by these tariffs. It's
going to be a really really significant economic hit for
everyone in the world eventually, but for the US and
Mexico and Canada, this is going to be a massive deal.
And I want to kind of close on a kind

(02:44:31):
of broader point about this for a second, which is
that like, we're not pro NAFTA, Like no NAFTA was bad.
Part of the reason theho administration was able to do
this was because of the ways that NAFTA sort of
hauled out and destroyed fast sections of the American working
class and also the Mexican working classes has not been
good for anyone really involved in this. One of the
things that happens if you if you go into the

(02:44:52):
economic literature. One of the episodes I did a while
back talking about US and Mexico in history of like
trade policy, they're sort of talks about this, which is
that if you go back into the economic literature, all
of the economics people have had to admit that the
leftists from the nineties or whatever were right that this
was not going to benefit the Mexican working class. It hasn't,

(02:45:14):
you know. But on the other hand, Trump's sort of
this is also not benefiting the Mexican or American working classes.
Nothing that these people do on either side really do.
If you want to look at what actual sort of
resistance in NAFTA looks like, and what effective resistance NAFTA
looks like, look at the Zapatistas whose rebellion was sparked
by NAFTA and who went into revolt on the day

(02:45:36):
that NAFTA went into effect. But Trump has been able
to very effectively kind of be the person who comes
in as I'm the champion of the workers, etc.

Speaker 3 (02:45:46):
Etc.

Speaker 21 (02:45:47):
Because I'm renegotiating the evil trade deals and now like
our good American workers would no longer be exploited by
like evil Mexican or Chinese workers, which you know, has
been an extremely effective political strategy for him, and is
you know, awsome. So this sort of this sort of
like national fascist program that he's running is sort of

(02:46:07):
based on, you know, on this kind of trade policy
and on manipulating the sentiments of people who got like
actually screwed over by by NAFTA. So yeah, that's where
we're gonna kind of close on this. As Trump is
thinking about pulling out that is a huge deal. And yeah,
this has been teriff talk.

Speaker 1 (02:46:25):
Let's let's go to an ad break real quick. We'll
be right back, and we're back, Arison, tell me, tell
me something less horrific than what James just told us

(02:46:47):
before me as tariff textion.

Speaker 3 (02:46:49):
I missed a pot. I missed a pot. Okay, do
you do? You want to guess how they were making
money for part of this and cording to the indictment,
this is the Texas many why's been made the island?
How are they making money?

Speaker 1 (02:47:00):
Crypto?

Speaker 3 (02:47:01):
No, it's worse than that. That's a good guest, Sophie.

Speaker 16 (02:47:04):
Mm.

Speaker 19 (02:47:05):
But you've said it's worse than that.

Speaker 1 (02:47:06):
Oh no, manipulating camgirls.

Speaker 3 (02:47:09):
In a sense, it appears they were producing child sexual
abuse material.

Speaker 23 (02:47:14):
Oh yeah, wow, this is I mean, obviously it's still allegedly,
but like, this is one of the worst things I've
ever heard, and I don't even know how to react.

Speaker 15 (02:47:26):
Huh.

Speaker 3 (02:47:26):
Yeah, he was he received he was prosecuted under U
C mjuh for that previously this year. Yeah, I was
prosecuted in Uh. I'm just reading a Task and Purpose
article which builds in the indictment. But the it says,
so he's arrested in July and has since been court martialed. Ah,

(02:47:47):
so good times, good times in the air the Air Force.

Speaker 19 (02:47:52):
Yeah, well I can't I can't believe the Air Force
has done something wrong. Yeah, finally the first blaze on
are prouder glorious Air Force. Maybe the biggest national news
story kicked off the day before Thanksgiving, not just because
of what happened, but then all of the fallout that

(02:48:13):
has resulted from this incident, which James will report on afterwards.
But let's go back to the day before Thanksgiving where
two National Guard troops from West Virginia on assignment in Washington,
d C. It's a part of Trump's crime crackdown were
shot on patrol a few blocks away from the White House.
Other Guard members fired back and tackled the shooter. One

(02:48:35):
of the National Guard members, a twenty year old named
Sarah Beckstrom, died from gunshot injuries on Thanksgiving. The other,
twenty four year old Andrew Wolfe, has so far survived
remains hospitalized.

Speaker 5 (02:48:48):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (02:48:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 19 (02:48:49):
A twenty nine year old man, Romanula Locknwall is charged
with first degree murder and assault with intent to kill.
The criminal complaint alleges he shouted a la akbar as
he fired Lockawall came to the United States as a
part of Operation Allies Welcome in twenty twenty one, which
moved US assets out of Afghanistan as the Taliban gain

(02:49:11):
control of the region. Lockinwall was later granted formal asylum
under Trump. This past April, friend of the alleged shooter
told The New York Times that Lockerwall joined the CIA
backed paramilitary squad Unit zero three to earn money for
his family and get medical training, rather than for ideological reasons,

(02:49:32):
and when he returned from stints with the zero Unit,
his personality changed and he was less socially outgoing. To
quote from the Times quote, Blockenwall told others in his
village that he had been shaken by seeing so many
bodies and bloodshed in.

Speaker 3 (02:49:47):
His role with the zero three unit. Quote.

Speaker 19 (02:49:51):
According to a volunteer who worked with his family, Blockenwall's
mental health started rapidly declining in early twenty twenty three.
He begun self isolated, withdrawing from work and family, stopped
paying rent, and faced deviction in twenty twenty four. This
volunteer wrote in an email to an immigrant nonprofit group,
which was obtained by the AP In the New York Times,

(02:50:11):
which reads that lock Andwell quote has not been functional
as a person, father and provider since March of last year,
twenty three. His behavior has changed greatly unquote. When Lockwell
emerged from quote unquote dark isolation, it was to engage
in quote unquote reckless travel, according to this volunteer, long

(02:50:32):
seemingly pointless road trips across the country.

Speaker 3 (02:50:36):
Yeah, and he seems to be behaving in a way that,
like you said, suggest he has some PTSD or.

Speaker 19 (02:50:43):
Like no PTSD from engaging in combat. This is very
common among veterans and mental health support for specifically these
people in this in this paramilitary unit probably doesn't exist, right,
does not exist the same way it does for veterans
of the United States military, which already is a lacking service.

Speaker 3 (02:50:59):
Yeah, yeah, that's that. Yeah, I mean these the ship
that these guys did was dark. I've included in the
in the show notes a linked to a Human Rights
Watch report. But like, there's a reason that they weren't
specifically under In theory, they were under the Afghan Ministry
of Defense Command, but in practice they operated outside either
chain of control. They did kill or capture missions. There

(02:51:22):
are multiple reports of them killing everybody in a house
and then it being the wrong house. Like really, stuff
that is going to stay with someone, right and unless
they're like, you know, pretty nuts, No, extremely horrifying, Yeah,
terrifying stuff. Pretty much immediately after, the Trump administration began

(02:51:46):
calling for various immigration restrictions based on this. Right Now,
it's worth noting that luck Andwell entered the United States
as part of Operation Allied Welcome, right, but then he
received US asylum under the Trump administration, so that would
have been this year, right, Like, I'm not entirely sure

(02:52:07):
why he went asylum rather than a special immigrant visa,
but both the pathways that are opened to Afghan people, right,
SIV has some benefits, but also it had some different
things that they'd have to jump through, Like one of
them would be a believe to get an officer to
write a recommendation and maybe CIA folks on into doing that.
So following this, the US immediately began to call for

(02:52:29):
a crackdown on Afghan migrants. And as we'll see more
broadly on migrants. I think it's important to contextualize this
globally because it's part of a crackdown on a nation
which is seen nearly half a century of war. Right,
ninety percent of the ten million people who fled Afghanistan
reside in Pakistan or Iran. I've reported on this before

(02:52:50):
on this show, but Iran has deported more than a
million Afghan people since twenty twenty three, right, and they
have very few pathways to permanent residency anywhere. Among refugees,
Afghan people have it particularly difficult. On Tuesday, the us
CIS Citizenship and Immigration Services issued a memo ordering its

(02:53:13):
employees to place on hold all asylum, green card and
citizenship form applications from quote unquote high risk countries and
to investigate all arrivals from them since twenty twenty one.
They are also placing a hold on all forms I
five eight nine, which is the application for asylum and

(02:53:34):
for withholding of for removal, regardless of where the person
is from. So we have this specific halt on asylum
for Afghan nationals that comes first, and then following that
we have these nineteen high risk countries. The high risk
countries are listed in Presidential Proclamation one oh nine four nine,

(02:53:55):
which was issue back in June. I'll just read out
the name, so people who are aware Afghanistan Burma, Chad,
Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Barundi, Cuba, Laos,
Sierra Leone, Togo, Tookmenistan, and Venezuela. If you recall us
covering this back, then you will remember that the reason

(02:54:18):
cited in that proclamation is percentage of visa overstays. This
doesn't have anything to do with risk, right, other than
risk of overstaying one's visa. They do not justify the
inclusion of these countries based on the potential for people
there to do terrorism, right, at least not all of them. Yeah,

(02:54:41):
it's worth pointing out. I guess that percentages visa overstates
isn't that useful of a figure, because if you have
ten people and one over stays, then that's only one person,
But it's also a ten percent overstay rate, right, so
it doesn't look at like raw numbers. Nonetheless, this would
mean from the way I'm reading it, that any application

(02:55:02):
with these people on it might be paused. So that
could include like if someone had applied to have a
spouse or family member come over and obtain legal status, right,
or if someone was sponsoring someone or they were a
duel national. They're like a bor Indian American for example.
We will see how long this lasts. Trump has previously

(02:55:23):
failed to get a total asylum ban, but for the meantime,
like this is catastrophic for people attempting to seek asylum
or permanent residency in the US. The only sort of
upside that I can see on upside, but like you know,
not terrible thing is that I don't think this would
pause the work permit clock. So people have been listening
to my series this week, they will have learned about

(02:55:43):
the work permit clock. Right, because this is a government action,
not an action from individuals. I don't think it would
pause that clock. I guess to just wrap up the
migrant crackdown stuff, Trump announced via a truth that quote,
I am, as President of the United States here by terminating,
effective immediately, the Temporary Protected Status program for Somalis in Minnesota.

(02:56:07):
In the Thanksgiving message, he also repeated a number of
claims about migrants and used a slurt to described him Walls. Yeah,
he called him R word, and I think it is
worth saying. Yeah. He has reiterated this multiple times on
camera when Aspire reporters. Yeah, great stuff. And this is.

Speaker 19 (02:56:24):
Specifically in reference to reporting which has come out of
Minnesota about a series of like fraudulent claims based on
like COVID nineteen food and housing assistance programs this state
was running, and people who were abusing those programs for
their own financial benefit, and some of these specific instances
are now being used to attack the entire Somali community

(02:56:46):
in Minnesota.

Speaker 3 (02:56:47):
Yeah, it's worth noting that the percentage of the Somali
community which is on TPS is very small. It's probably
a few hundred people. I don't know how those COVID
assistance programs like overlap with once immigration status, right, but
it's worth noting that. It's also worth noting, like I've
linked to the statue in the show notes, the Somali
TPS extends until March of twenty twenty six. It probably

(02:57:09):
won't be renewed then, Right, That's what the Trump administration
has been doing, is sunsetting TPS is for all kinds
of people. The statute does not give the president power
to end the TPS, certainly not on a state by
state basis. Right. Yeah, that's a good point. The notice
of revocation would appear in the Federal Register, and the
TPS would then have sixty days if it was being revoked,

(02:57:32):
that people would have sixty days to act on that information. Right,
you can't just post it. That's not how this works.
As of today, when I check the Federal Register, the
last entry for the Somali TPS with its renewal last year.
So there appears to have been no actual legal action
taken on this, But nonetheless there has been ICE enforcement.
Right there are videos of ICE officers specifically asking people

(02:57:54):
if they are Somali in Minnesota, which is troubling. I
think that's about all the ICE crackdown stuff. I have
guess Greg Bavino's in Louisiana, I don't know. So there's
been a lot of discussion this week and House hearings
about the drone strike that began the United States campaign

(02:58:14):
of drone strikes against small boats in both the Caribbean
and the Pacific. Right so called narco terrorists jam yeah,
so yeah, I think so called is doing a lot
of work there. There seems to be a lot of
debate about whether Pete Hegscess directly ordered a second strike
on survivors from the first strike. Excess had denied this, saying, quote,

(02:58:37):
the thing was on fire and it exploded. You can't
see anything. This is called the fog of war. That's
not the fog before yet. It's nobody means you're not
at war. You're in a suit in a room watching
a TV screen.

Speaker 19 (02:58:51):
Also, it doesn't revert to like literal smoke edge fog.
I'm sorry, and this is like absurd.

Speaker 3 (02:58:57):
Yeah, it's a ludicrous claim, right. Yes, there have been
times where I have been in places like for instance,
I was in Java a couple of years ago and
we were being bombed. Right the way for me to
get information, it was better for me to like go
online and find stuff because the access to information on
the ground in conflict times can be difficult. That's not
the case when you're in DC watching a screen readout right.

(02:59:18):
That is why we have people who are not in
combat making these decisions. The White House has claimed that
Admiral Bradley, who was JSOCK commander at the time, ordered
the strike to Cotton Today claimed that two people in
the video were trying to roll the boat to get
back in the fight. What that's not a thing that
one can do, like they're not in just to be

(02:59:39):
clear they're not in like a kayak here, like this
is in what I would call a cigarette boat, like
a fast speedboat. You can't roll those like that.

Speaker 19 (02:59:48):
I don't understand they were not engaged in combat.

Speaker 3 (02:59:53):
No, Like, I don't see any evidence that these people
were equipped to like certainly not to fight against a drone.

Speaker 18 (02:59:59):
Right.

Speaker 3 (03:00:00):
No, Why does this matter?

Speaker 15 (03:00:03):
Right?

Speaker 3 (03:00:03):
Because these people are dead regardless.

Speaker 16 (03:00:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 19 (03:00:06):
Why does the emphasis on this second strike matter more
than simply attacking them the first time? Why is could
this result in haig Seth being in yea a degree
of trouble? Why there's a defensive about this second strike?

Speaker 3 (03:00:20):
Fair question? It is a very clear violation of the
US military's own Law of War manual, which I have
linked and the Geneva Conventions to kill someone who's demonstrably
order to combat right out of combat i e. A
shipwrecked sailor, i e. A wounded soldier who's thrown away
their weapon. These people were very clearly not fighting. From
every report that we've seen, this has been part of

(03:00:43):
the way that war is conducted for centuries, like picking
up shipwrecked sailors after sinking about, etc. I'm not saying
this has always happened. The US has done double tap
strikes for a long time. Yeah, there has been I
should just clarify, guess there has been some debate about
the SEMA antics of the word double tap. First of all,

(03:01:03):
that's not important. What is important is that they killed
people who were not fighting, who are out of combat,
and who are clinging to a burning shipwrecked boat. A
double tap does generally refer to a strike and then
a subsequent strike which is focused on killing the people
who came to rescue the people hitting the first strike.

(03:01:24):
There was no one to rescue these people. But I
don't think that, like, that's not what's at stake here, right,
That is, it doesn't matter what term we use to
describe this other than war crime. There were double taped
strikes at the time that I spoke about when I
was in ri Java, where they did bomb ambulance crews,
and yeah, that shit is absolutely reprehensible. But what happened

(03:01:46):
here is also reprehensible as it's being recounted to us.
Eventually this video will come out, I'm sure. More broadly,
the United States seems to be signaling intent to continue
its campaign against my daughter, saying it will begin land
strikes quote unquote soon. What yeah, like this is extremely worrying,
right like, yeah, tramp of course a great peace president

(03:02:08):
who has ended what is it like nine wars? Trump
the dove, I think is what he personally perfect. It's
a hell of a visual. The people of Venezuela are
the ones who are going to suffer, right Like, It's
not going to be the regime officials for the most part. Yeah,
Venezuela's a vast, mountainous jungle country. It's an easy place

(03:02:29):
for us to do land war, not a particularly easy
place for US to do drone warfare either. You know,
I've written a lot about the United States Duran campaign
in Syria and the disaster that was right in the
amount of what they considered to be acceptable civilian casualties.
We don't have any indications from this DoD or like

(03:02:52):
from HEXF that like he will seek to minimize those
right like this this could be shaping up to be
a disaster for the people of Venezuela.

Speaker 19 (03:02:59):
I mean, yeah, I find it unlike that haig Seth
will actually fall into trouble international law because of this.
People always get away, and I mean you can see
how Trump already pardoned number of work criminals earlier this
year and in his first administration, right, and in his
first administration.

Speaker 3 (03:03:16):
Yeah, as much fun.

Speaker 19 (03:03:17):
As it is to be like haha, like this, I
like to see old peate haig Seth wiggles way out
of this jam.

Speaker 3 (03:03:23):
Yes he will. I think he's expected to do so
quite easily. I mean international doesn't exist for people in
the global North. It's a thing that they do to
prosecute African people for the most part. But yes, very
unlikely that we will see hag Seth in the Hague
for this still bad though. We'll go on another ad
break and be right back.

Speaker 12 (03:03:58):
All right, we are back.

Speaker 19 (03:04:00):
We would like to now expand and clarify some of
our previous previous discussion of Zoron's White has meeting with
Donald Trump and some statements around ice raids and ice detainers.
Let's start by clarifying this one hundred and seventy serious
crimes number. Yeah, while answering a question, Zoran said, quote,

(03:04:24):
we discussed ice and New York City, and I spoke
about how the laws we have in New York City
allowed the city government to speak to the federal administration
about roughly one hundred and seventy serious crimes unquote. This
one hundred and seventy number is in reference to Local
Law fifty eight Administrative Code nine Dash one three to one,

(03:04:46):
which was passed in twenty fourteen and strengthened New York
sanctuary laws and required that they only honor ice detainers
when presented with the judicial warrant issued by an article
time refederal judge or federal magistrate judge based on probable cause,
and when the subject of the detainer and warrant is

(03:05:07):
either listed in a terrorist database or has been convicted
of a violent or serious crime. Now, the term violent
or serious crime refers to a list of approximately one
hundred and seventy crimes which is listed in Local Law
fifty four. I think there's a five year limit as well, right,

(03:05:28):
Like it has to be within five years. So there's
a number of like they like stack on each other. Yeah,
Like there's This is just a one of many like
amendments strengthening their sanctuary laws. And I'm mentioning it specifically
to clarify where the one hundred and seventy number comes
from and where people can find all of the criminal

(03:05:48):
codes that are listed, which is again, approximately one hundred
and seventy crimes. Yeah, and the change that this local
law did is that this person doesn't have to just
be accused of one of these crimes, but actually be
can or listed in a terroor stateabase.

Speaker 3 (03:06:02):
Yeah. And these are mostly like violent felets. Yeah. The
law that Garrison refers to lists them by penal code number.
So I'm working on expanding those into a list of
words that human beings can understand. Yeah, sure, just because
I think people generally don't understand sanctuary protections. Sanctuary laws

(03:06:23):
are not like a They're not the same in every state,
They're not the same in every city in every state,
and I think a lot of people have an understanding
of them, which could do with being improved. So I'm
going to probably do a whole episode on that. I
think with regard to the list of crimes in New York,
I would prefer to do that as a print piece
because it's just better if someone could find it on
the internet, and that doesn't work as well with podcasts

(03:06:46):
other stuff regarding this, Just so people are aware, right like, federally,
one could be deported for a huge range of crimes
from violent crime to thefto over ten thousand dollars to
a vast range of quote unquote crimes involving moral turpitude.
The problem, of course, is that we have fifty different
states with fifty different sets of laws, and we have
to map federal regulations onto them. There is some Supreme

(03:07:08):
Court case law about how we do that. Crimes involving
moral turpitude can be things that you might consider extraordinarily minor,
like turnstile hopping. Yeah, I'm going to do a whole
episode on these, because again, I think you could see
in that press conference, so when Zoran spoke about immigration,
Trump tried to move the topic to deporting criminals. Yeah,

(03:07:30):
and the people who are being deported as criminals, whilst
the DHS twitter feed wants to highlight people who've been
convicted of murder and things, and that's by far look
at an EDU case. Yeah, And I think that's why
he mentioned the one hundred and seventy like serious urvolent
crimes and like specifically that those are the ones that
the New York Sentuary laws do have this quote unquote

(03:07:52):
cooperation on and like in a meeting, Zorn said that
he and Trump talked about how current ice operation in
New York City, I quote unquote very little to do
with serious crime, with these crimes listed on these detainers. Yeah,
and that's a broad thing across the United States, right,
Like even we spoke about this a couple of weeks ago.

(03:08:14):
But like, if you look at Charlotte right where they
have they are legally bound to honor all ICE detainers
by HB ten, you've still got Ice out and about
raiding people, and you have sheriffs complaining about Ice not
picking people up right the detainer, I guess I should
explain what a detainer is as well. A detainer is
an extra forty eight hour hold. It doesn't mean that

(03:08:36):
you just like lock them up forever. It means that
you hold them for forty eight hours such that ICE
can come in and collect the person. Because ICE is
so focused on I don't know what you want to
call it, grabbing people off the street. Yeah, it seems
that they're not collecting these people. There's been some pushback,
like on straight up economic grounds in some states because

(03:08:58):
the detaining people is quite expensive, right, so detaining people
for long periods of time and it's just not showing up.
I can see how not to give support to sheriff's
departments or whatever. But like rural sheriff's departments which are
on limited budgets, would start to get pissed off after
a time about holding people. But yeah, that is what
a detainer is, got it. ICE doesn't necessarily have to

(03:09:22):
abide by local sanctuary laws. And what we have seen
is that, like, cops are cops, and they will make mistakes,
and if someone gets handed over, you can't take them
back if the cops fuck that up.

Speaker 19 (03:09:34):
Yeah, I mean, and this is part of the other
things that Zaron campaigned on to like strength and sanctuary protections,
And specifically in the section of his policies on quote
unquote trump proofing New York City, he talks about like
ending a legal ICE cooperation on Riker's Island or ICE
is currently stationed, which does go against sanctuary laws, and
you've talked about ending that as well as providing one

(03:09:56):
hundred and sixty five million dollars in funding for immigration
legal defend services in the cities, which would be a
massive increase and what is currently provided. Yeah, as well
as just like limiting interactions with police, right is the
more you interact with the police, the more likely is
that you might accidentally or quote unquote accidentally get put
into trouble even though you know, police in New York
are not supposed to ever ask someone that what their

(03:10:18):
immigration status is or or cooperate with ice requests that
do not you know, fall under this specific container law.
But I mean in terms of like ways to limit
interactions with police, this goes back to some very basic
ideas on like, you know, addressing the economic conditions that
create crime in the first place, as well as the
Department of Community Safety, which is soron intends to create

(03:10:41):
which will provide new mental health services, crisis response, and
homeless outreach outside of the NYPD.

Speaker 3 (03:10:47):
Yeah, Like, not criminalizing homelessness and not criminalizing parking are
probably two of the most meaningful things that you can
do to limit police interaction a specifically police interactions from
documented people.

Speaker 19 (03:11:00):
Yeah, and I mean in terms of like turnstile hopping
or like fair evation. It's it's complicated in New York. Mean,
this isn't gonna be something that they honor a detainer for.
But in terms of like you know, just talking about
like the Yeah, how weird and specific each state's laws
are like turnstile hopping can be a misdemeanor crime in
New York due to like theft of services.

Speaker 3 (03:11:19):
It can also just be a civil in fracture.

Speaker 19 (03:11:22):
It can, but it's up to the officer to decide
whether they want this to turn into a criminal misdemeanor
or a civil infraction and just pay one hundred dollars fine.
Even this is like cause confusion among like immigrants and
immigrant rights attorneys over like dealing with like old old
fair ofvation cases and being like, does this now like
disqualify me from certain things or does this, like you know,

(03:11:45):
present a threat of being deported if I if I
declare this and like whatever, like citizenship or the green
card meeting, they may they may have scheduled. Yeah, and yeah,
not not criminalizing fair ovation would be huge. And if
someone's able to make you know, free buses, that'll do,
you know, a considerable dent in preventing cases where ferivation
could be used as a pretext federally support someone.

Speaker 3 (03:12:08):
Yeah, yeah, because that person or that person could leave
New York and be somewhere else, right, or they could
just get swept up in ice workplace raid, and that
could be used as a pretext like there are many
reasons why even if it's sanctuary protected, that person could
still be vulnerable because of that prosecution.

Speaker 19 (03:12:22):
Like you said, yeah, I mean, and then those sorts
of raids are still happening in New York.

Speaker 3 (03:12:27):
An attempted rate happened in Connell Street. Yeah, last week.

Speaker 19 (03:12:30):
It was prevented from being carried out by people who
literally blocked Ice from leaving the parking garage that they
were in, and the NYPD then arrested a few protesters.
It remains to be seen how Zoron will handle incidents
like this going forward. He still does not become the
mayor for but thirty days, right, but a spokesperson for
the mayor elect has said that Zoron quote has made

(03:12:51):
it clear, including to the President, that these raids are
cruel and inhumane and failed to advanced genuine public safety.
New York City's more than three million immigrants are central
to our city strength, retality, and success. The Mayor Electromaine
Steadfast and his emumitment to protecting the rights and dignity
of every single New Yorker, upholding our sanctuary laws, and
de escalation rather than use of unnecessary force unquote, believe

(03:13:11):
that last sentence could be read as in reference to
the police conduct while handling antiites protests, yeah, quote unquote
de escalation rather than use of unnecessary force. But this
is not something that they have talked about much.

Speaker 1 (03:13:24):
Curious to see when he's actually the mayor, what will
happen here?

Speaker 19 (03:13:28):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and that's that's that's a part
of like what governing is going to look like in
this case, which is kind of sure, it's hard to say.
We've never really had a high profile like you know,
dsa person who previously advocated like defunded or abolishing the
police become the mayor of a city.

Speaker 3 (03:13:44):
Yeah, And I think this kind.

Speaker 19 (03:13:47):
Of relates to like so much of what the project
in New York is around New York City DSA and
zoron to rather than just like you know, be like
chasing electoral cars and then crashing once you have control.
Exortins weren't just in like actually running the city and
providing a legitimate example that democratic socialst policies can deliver
on promises for workers and improve life in New York.

(03:14:08):
And if this project succeeds, it can be pointed to
and replicated by others. And there's a very strict focus
on like making sure that he's able to succeed on
a section of like economic policies. He's not in a
federal position, right He's not running on abolishing ice, as
he can't as the mayor of New York And like,
I think it's very unclear right now, like what a
politics of abolishing ice really looks like outside of like

(03:14:30):
this like contemplative, like reflective and like judgmental politics, which
falls further and further away from like taking steps to
do action.

Speaker 3 (03:14:40):
Right, Yeah, I mean a politics abolishing GUS looks like
the United States up until two thousand and one, right,
like we didn't have ice.

Speaker 19 (03:14:46):
Well, but like from now, like what would it mean
to actually stop the quotations completely?

Speaker 3 (03:14:52):
Like what will that look like? What can be done
politically to do that? Right?

Speaker 19 (03:14:55):
And Zorin's not doing this because Soron's the mayor of
New York City. He cannot run for president. People in
his orbit could run for the House and set it
and push forward bills to do this, and they might
over time, But like there is a difference between being
the mayor of a local municipality and like what are
legitimate politics of actually stopping our current process of deportations,

(03:15:19):
what that really looks like and how to actually achieve that,
which a very little thought is being put towards among
the American left right now, And it kind of it
falls back on these like reflective or like contemplative statements.

Speaker 3 (03:15:32):
Yeah, there have been proposals put forward for a long
time on what it would look like to create better
legal pathways and fewer deportations, right, like those who existed. Sure,
like you can look specifically at what people were trying
to get Biden to do in twenty twenty, right, which
he obviously completely failed to do and in effect made
things much worse. But like those policy proposals exist, and

(03:15:54):
they're well thought out and well planned from people who've
been working into space for decades. Right, Danni can do
is like what they call in political science, like the
coketails effect, totally right. As a very popular candidate, people
can ride on his coattails. And I think it's important
in that sense that he continues rhetorically to oppose what

(03:16:16):
Ice is doing, which, like that statement you read, did right,
But it's very important that he if he's able to
successfully have his administration in New York and we will
see how shit goes in that regard. But if he
is and there is an electoral project that can arise
based on that, then like it is very important that
they remain in lockstep that like, we are not going back,

(03:16:37):
We're not gonna have a Democrat com president in twenty
eight and just do a Joe Biden again right where
things get worse. So in that sense, I think it
like it needs to be something that everyone in that
movement retains. I guess, like not uniformity is the wrong word,
you know, but you know what I mean literally that
it continues to be something of a norse staff for

(03:16:58):
whatever is emerging to the left of the DNC.

Speaker 19 (03:17:02):
Yeah, And like I did also, like I guess clarify
some things I would have said last week and not
claiming that sheerly the the process of honoring these detainers
will like vaguely in a causal sense, results in less
ice raids in the city. I mean, these detainers are
they are legally required, even under sanctuary laws, to be

(03:17:23):
to be followed. And I think part of what Zora
was doing was trying to redirect the president's thought away
from these larger raids to these specific serious crimes. And
I think in some of this is based on Trump
kind of has like the last person in the room
syndrome off He kind of just likes or or follows

(03:17:44):
or parrots whoever the last person in the room was.

Speaker 3 (03:17:47):
And like what they told him.

Speaker 19 (03:17:48):
I'm not saying that like honoring these these legally required
detainers is like is simply harmon direction in that sense.
This is more so in reference to the ongoing negotiations
between Momdani and Trump to limit ICE action in the
city outside of these detainer requests, which do address serious crime.
Which Trump and Mom Donnie saw as a point of
commonality on is they want New York to be a

(03:18:10):
safe place for people, focusing on that as opposed to
these general ICE raids. And there's been like some slight
movement on this. Raids have continued, but there's been slight
movement in terms of Trump at least for now, pulling
out of his plans to deploy National Guard to assist ICE. YEA,
and like that is the single point where we see
some movement on. And this will be something that in

(03:18:31):
terms of raids like on Connall Street. Well, we'll see
if this actually makes a larger impact once he takes
office and continues these negotiations.

Speaker 3 (03:18:39):
If National Guard or assisting ICE, is that like because
they can't directly do the immigration enforcement, right, Well, I
mean assisting ICE in the way that they haven't washed
in DC. Yeah, like in terms of like quote unquote
protecting officers or quote yes.

Speaker 19 (03:18:54):
Yeah, and you know the proposals to do so in
Chicago and Portland, which are cotton like legal limbo. But
I mean that the Portland was more specifically for the
ICE facility, Yeah, protecting federal building, this kind of deal,
versus in Washington, d C. They were like on patrol
with ICE, Like they were like roving.

Speaker 3 (03:19:11):
Around and doing roadblocks and shit.

Speaker 19 (03:19:14):
Yeah, and like much of this quote unquote crime crackdown,
as Bridgetes reported on our show, really is actually a
way to do like enhanced immigration enforcement.

Speaker 21 (03:19:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 19 (03:19:23):
There's a lot of fear in New York and discussions
with people in New York and like how are we
going to handle this happening here?

Speaker 3 (03:19:28):
Yeah? And this is like the one point of moment
that we've seen is Trump pulling out of these plans,
which previously we're quite certain he wants to like go
one by one and like invade these cities. Yeah, New York.
You also have the like the added factor that like
New York is technically in that border enforcement zone, right,
So I mean as is Chicago. Yeah, I guess most

(03:19:49):
of these places have been Chicago, Portland is Los Angeles.
Is because of the Laketown Los Angeles, they deployed border patrol. Right,
that's another thing that it could happen in New York.
But like the far hasn't on a massive scale, but yeah,
it remains to be seen. Right, Like Trump has this
like operation at Large that Buveno controls that he could

(03:20:09):
deploy to New York and it'll be yeah, provided to Boston,
where Michelle Bouch has like taken a different approach, right,
like and yeah, I guess we'll We'll have to continue
waiting and seeing. It's really heartening to me that people
showed up in New York as well, you know, like
oh yeah, that people in New York showed up on
Canal Street like that is uh yeah, and prevented ICE

(03:20:31):
from doing any detentions or arrests. Yeah, And I think
like they like the ICE eventually had to leave to
New Jersey, Is that right? Like they had to go
through the tunnel or whatever, like the tunnel, yeah, the
tunnel of shade. Yeah yeah, but like that that is
like that is what kept those people safe.

Speaker 6 (03:20:51):
Rightly.

Speaker 3 (03:20:51):
They didn't have to wait for Eric Adams or man
Downey or anyone else, like it was members of their community.

Speaker 12 (03:20:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:20:56):
Yeah, which is cool talking of communities. They want to
want to talk about the campus campus community and have
freedom of speech. He's under threat on our campuses. Well,
freedom of religion is under threat, James, Okay, religion to
freedom to so tired, freedom to tire, to cite a

(03:21:17):
vibe space interpretation of the religion.

Speaker 19 (03:21:19):
I mean, yeah, this unfortunately, this story did infringe upon
my freedom to not read horrible college essays Garrison.

Speaker 3 (03:21:27):
That is a freedom that I have not had for
many years.

Speaker 19 (03:21:30):
No, no, and this is why I'm interested in your
thoughts on this. A transgraduate instructor has been suspended from
the University of Oklahoma after issuing a failing grade to
a students assignment right a six hundred and fifty word
response to a study on if gender conformity is linked
to popularity or bullying in middle school. This twenty year
old psychology major, a junior, wrote in her response that

(03:21:53):
she does not consider bullying a problem because quote God
made male and female and made us different from each
other on purpose and for a purpose unquote. The response
was entirely personal opinion. It does not even properly cite
specific like scriptures in the Bible. If, like, if I

(03:22:14):
was to write like an unhinged like like a Christian response,
least the least you could do is site specific things.

Speaker 3 (03:22:20):
Should that be valid? No, but even this was not done.

Speaker 1 (03:22:23):
It's like Bible fanfic.

Speaker 3 (03:22:25):
These are the vibes I get from genius.

Speaker 19 (03:22:27):
Well, yeah, she just gestured her own interpretation of biblical
gender roles, right sure, sure, quote women naturally want to
do womanly things because God created us with those womanly
desires in our heart unquote.

Speaker 3 (03:22:43):
So she's women and know like like females. I guess
maybe maybe she was going for a.

Speaker 19 (03:22:49):
It's it's all circular reasoning like this all based on
based on these like biblical gender roles, and later the
essay goes on to self contradict itself on ideas of
gender norms versus gender stereotypes, and it's all just very
poorly written. James, did you read the whole essay. No, Okay,
it's not it's not long. We are not going to

(03:23:12):
read it all on air.

Speaker 3 (03:23:12):
I'll read it right now.

Speaker 19 (03:23:13):
I want you to read the whole thing and just
just give me the chat your immediate thoughts. I dropped
it in the zoom chat.

Speaker 3 (03:23:20):
You have to understand that I might experience like what
it's called a trauma reaction. It's only two pages, so
it's based on a review of an article, based on
a review of an academic study. Yeah, on if gender
conformity impacts bullying or popularity in middle school. Okay, Jesus Christ,

(03:23:40):
that's what she said, but not yet she has excited
him specifically. No, she never said Jesus yeah God mm
hm ah, hell yeah. I love it when they get
into like Hebrew. Oh yeah, yeah, yes, I'm just skinned
penulta paragraph. What class is this in psychology? A psychology course?

(03:24:05):
I would assign this for a psychology close. H wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:24:12):
Can I just read like the last part out loud?

Speaker 3 (03:24:15):
Okay, Sophie, you can. You can read the last part.

Speaker 5 (03:24:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:24:20):
My prayer for the world, and specifically for American society
and youth is that they would not believe the lies
being spread from satan that make them believe they're better
off as another gender than what God made them. I
pray that they feel God's love and acceptance as who
He originally created them to be.

Speaker 3 (03:24:41):
So if you really inhabited that role beautifully.

Speaker 19 (03:24:43):
Thank you, thank you previously and like the paragraph of four.

Speaker 1 (03:24:48):
Do you want me to do it? Yeah, I unfortunately
feel like I could really embody this horrific person. Society
pushing the lie that there are multiple genders and everyone
should be whatever they want to be is demonic It
severely harms American youth. I do not want kids to be.

Speaker 19 (03:25:09):
Teased bullying stuff yet, So, James, as a college college professor,
what is your thoughts on this?

Speaker 3 (03:25:17):
It's just a bad response to the question, right that
there is not a single citation the person has not
done what they were instructed to do. They have just
it's a classic example of that you have answered the
question you wanted me to ask, not the question I
have asked. Genre Sure, and in this case, like I'm
presuming there was some kind of rubric for grading, Like

(03:25:39):
it seems like a like a the sort of assignment
that you would set once a week, right, I don't
know if it's an online course or they're just using
an online LMS, but the comment is clearly from an
online LMS.

Speaker 19 (03:25:50):
Yeah, they do have the rubrick, and that TPUSA published.
The rubrick was that you must write this six hundred
and fifty word reaction paper demonstrating that you have read
the assigned article and includes a thoughtful reaction to the
material presented in the article. Please remember that your reaction
paper should not be a summary, but rather a thoughtful
discussion of some aspect of the article. Possible approaches to

(03:26:13):
reaction papers include a discussion of why you feel the
topic is important and worthy of study or not, or
an application of the study or results to your own experiences.

Speaker 3 (03:26:24):
That's a broader prompt than I had otherwise imagined. Yeah.

Speaker 19 (03:26:29):
Other section is Reaction papers are graded on a twenty
five point scale and are evaluated based on the following
Does the paper show a clear tie to the assigned
article ten points, Does paper present a thoughtful reaction or
response to the article rather than a summary ten points?
And is the paper clearly written five points. The best
reaction papers illustrate the students have read the assigned materials

(03:26:49):
and engaged in critical thinking about some aspect of the article.

Speaker 3 (03:26:53):
Yeah, I mean the way you would do that is
to reference the article more than in the first line
of your paper and then never again, right sure, which
is what this person has done here. Look, at no
point do they quote from the article, mention anything specifically
the article says other than that it was very thought provoking.
And then like they've seen the word gender and just
gone off like a dog after a squirrel, right, like, yes,

(03:27:15):
and then completely gone off on one about god.

Speaker 12 (03:27:19):
Yeah, that's a pretty broad prompt.

Speaker 3 (03:27:22):
It's broader than I would generally write a prompt, but
that's okay with different approaches. They haven't specifically said in
the prompt that they want people to cite their sources,
which I normally do. But yeah, they haven't really shown
any engagement with the article.

Speaker 19 (03:27:36):
Right Like, this isn't a fresh ofment, this isn't a
software this is this is a junior well well into
this semester. The response from the instructor was, quote, please note,
I'm not deducting points because you have certain beliefs, but
instead I'm deducting points where you're posting a reaction paper
that does not answer the questions for the assignment, contradict itself,
heavily uses personal ideology over empirical evidence in a scientific class,

(03:27:59):
and is at times offensive. While you are entitled to
your own personal beliefs, there is an appropriate time or
place to implement them in your reflections. I encourage all
students to question or challenge the course material with other
empirical findings or testable hypotheses, but using your own personal
beliefs to argue against the findings of not only this article,

(03:28:20):
but the findings of countless articles across the ecology, biology, sociology,
et cetera. Is not best practice unquote yeah so.

Speaker 3 (03:28:27):
Again this is a science class. I guess right late,
Like this is not a scientific response. It is yeah, no,
entirely vibespased.

Speaker 19 (03:28:35):
Before becoming a national news story, this grade was reviewed
and approved by another instructor. This isn't just one instructor
who happens to be trans This isn't just their personal grade.
This was reviewed by another instructor. But on Thanksgiving TPUSA
used this story to start a media blitz targeting this

(03:28:55):
quote unquote mentally ill professor, this graduate student instructor, which
has resulted in her being placed on leave as the
university reviews this incident concerning illegal discrimination based on religious beliefs.

Speaker 3 (03:29:10):
That's not what that is, right, Like, like, I have
watched the short form video about discrimination many times of
my years instructing students, and like, this person wasn't discriminated
against because of their beliefs. They were discriminated. They weren't
discriminated against. They were graded for their response which was poor, for.

Speaker 19 (03:29:27):
Failing to follow the rules of these and again not
not even as like a freshman who needs more clear
like you know, first year uniche, Like, no, yeah, this
is this is this is a psychology major in her
junior year.

Speaker 3 (03:29:43):
Yeah, writing this response as a part.

Speaker 19 (03:29:45):
Of it, as a part of a pscient as a
scientific psychology course where it's not about science at all.
You're just talking about your own impression of what God
wants out of gender roles and citing not not even sighting,
but like pointing towards the whole spirit and the heavenly Father.

Speaker 3 (03:30:02):
Yeah, and some Hebrew shit that you've translated. I know
that most instructors who teach at universities now are very
concerned about exactly this, right, about a student writing a
paper which is just bad and then them going to
the pretty much tp USA specific right and being like, yes,

(03:30:23):
it came against me because they hate Jesus, and I
can imagine that that is worse for trans and gender
not conforming and otherwise absolutely instructors from conversations right like.

Speaker 19 (03:30:34):
No, absolutely, and like TPUSA first gained popularity for its
like professor watch lists where people could report their like
woke liberal professors, and this is this is the core
part of the TPUSA model, is attacking academics and people
who work in university in this instants like cause speculation

(03:30:54):
of like how much of this essay was genuine versus
was this intention only bad essay to provoke this response,
which we can't we can't wonder. But the student has
like risen to the ranks of like a minor conservative
celebrity in these in these past two weeks. Yeah, because
of this incident and is doing like TPUSA, like speaking,

(03:31:17):
speaking appearances, news appearances. There's been dozens of articles across
right wing outlets on this. It's it's turned into a
legitimate story for them.

Speaker 3 (03:31:26):
Yeah, I do want to say, well, like it appears Garrison,
I discussed this before, but it appears that this person
is a grad student and not like a ten year
professor adjunct, yes, certainly not tenured, right, Sure, therefore they
are much more vulnerable and they have many fewer protections
than a tenured professor would have. I don't know if

(03:31:48):
they unionize. It depends on where they're teaching, right, But.

Speaker 19 (03:31:51):
Like University of Oklahoma, that is questionable.

Speaker 3 (03:31:54):
Yeah, I mean possibilities points to know, But like, this
is a series is fucking problem for anybody teaching in
these fields, right, especially graduate students. Like I say especially,
I mean imagine you're a graduate student on a student visa, right, Like,
how do you approach teaching this when you know that

(03:32:15):
you could end up on the TPUSA Instagram.

Speaker 19 (03:32:18):
It's trying to chill speech, right, This is this is
part of what they're doing. They're turning this into a
free speech crusade for religious discrimination. But what this is
actually doing is chilling speech at universities by making it
so you can't teach certain topics, especially if you happen
to be trans to yourself. Otherwise TEPA USA in the
right wing media system is going to turn your life
into a living nightmare.

Speaker 3 (03:32:38):
Yeah. I've repeatedly seen a First Amendment cited and ref
to this This has not got anything to do with
the First Amendment. Like, the First Amendment doesn't give you
the right to get a good grade for saying what
the fuck you want? That's that's not in the First Amendment.
But yeah, like Garrison said, it is chilling speech. Good news.
Oklahoma University Workers United is a union sick okay, cool,

(03:33:00):
and it includes grad student instructors unclear okay, hit us
up o uwu and let.

Speaker 19 (03:33:07):
Us know before we close, I do want to mention
another story that's happened this week, which is gonna prompt
of a future episode probably next week. The online gambling
platform cal She. I've never said it before. I'm saying
Calsh has that a serial partnered with c Cashi. I

(03:33:28):
you don't even know what you're talking about anymore. But
the online gambling platform cal she is partnered with CNN
and CNBC this past week to allow the news companies
to use qute unquote real time prediction data for TV
news segments and online content. This is not entirely surprising
if people have been watching CNN like I have, like

(03:33:51):
a complete maniac, because specifically this this past November and
like this whole election season, news pundits on CNN have
been using betting odds in place of polling data to
weigh the likelihood of candidate's winning elections. This has become
an increasingly common practice, specifically at CNN, and now it
appears it's spreading to other news platforms like CNBC. How

(03:34:13):
She announcement of the scene and partnership reads quote. CNN
chief data analyst Harry Enton is an expert in translating
what data and polling are saying on any given issue,
and through this integration, he can tap into real time
prediction markets data to better inform and fact check his

(03:34:34):
reporting unquote what back checking his reporting with gambling data?
Gambling odds from people who are betting on like if
people are going to starve in Gaza, right, this is
this is the sort of stuff that they bet on on. Caliche,
not just who wins elections. Absurd, Jesus.

Speaker 1 (03:34:55):
I like that you've pronounced the day of this company
several different see.

Speaker 19 (03:34:58):
I used to call it heal.

Speaker 3 (03:35:00):
This is the problem.

Speaker 19 (03:35:01):
I think it's I think it's Calshi. I think I
think Calshi is correct.

Speaker 3 (03:35:05):
There's one possible benefit to this. Will it stop Nate
Silva being so fucking annoying. No, it'll cause them to
be more annoying games.

Speaker 19 (03:35:13):
How can you not see that this is this is
a part of the nayverification of everything good and this
this is what I want to talk about in the
full piece. But but no, there was there was a
Sena news segment in October twenty twenty five where this
data analyst talked about how the odds of Democrats winning
the midterms are going down via citing the Calshi odds,

(03:35:36):
and then he did like three minutes of analysis using
selective midterm voting data from twenty seventeen to twenty eighteen
to support the movement in the gambling odds.

Speaker 3 (03:35:45):
Like that was the core piece of data. He was
trying to explain, what the fuck? How big is this marketplace?

Speaker 19 (03:35:52):
Pretty big?

Speaker 3 (03:35:52):
Pretty big? Okay, so I couldn't just come in with
like five hundred bucks and tip it.

Speaker 19 (03:35:57):
No, no, no, I mean it depends on what you're
doing for like these sorts of big these like big races.

Speaker 22 (03:36:02):
No.

Speaker 19 (03:36:02):
But part of the real problem is is if you're
just tuning in to CNN and reading the graphics, it's
really hard to tell that this that these are gambling odds. Yeah,
you're just seeing big percentages and they're only gonna mention
that it's from quote unquote betting markets or prediction markets
like once at the beginning of the segment. After that
they treat the numbers like actual polling data. So it's

(03:36:22):
really really manipulative. And unless you're like super paying attention
to this whole segment, it'd be very easy to interpret
these gambling numbers as genuine as genuine poll information. Wow,
it's incredibly dangerous to democracy and uh overall kind of
bad and fucked up, and it's gonna be spreading.

Speaker 1 (03:36:43):
Uh.

Speaker 19 (03:36:44):
The Calshi competitor poly Market partnered with X Everything app
and Yahoo Financed earlier this year to integrate their quote
unquote prediction data into content on x and Yahoo Finance.

Speaker 3 (03:36:56):
It's only going to become more and more common.

Speaker 1 (03:36:58):
Well, you're gonna you of a long form episode on.

Speaker 3 (03:37:01):
This, I will Yeah, this sucks. I'm just looking at
this website now.

Speaker 1 (03:37:05):
It sucks. I don't like this at all.

Speaker 3 (03:37:11):
If you would like to email us, you can do
so by reaching out to cool Zone tips at proton
dot me.

Speaker 19 (03:37:18):
That does for us that it could happen here. We
reported the news, and now you can bet on the news.

Speaker 15 (03:37:26):
We reported the news.

Speaker 2 (03:37:31):
Hey, We'll be back Monday, with more episodes every week
from now until the heat death of the Universe.

Speaker 3 (03:37:37):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 1 (03:37:40):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts can now
find sources for it Could Happen Here, listed directly in
episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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