June 1, 2023 • 46 mins
In the third part of the series on the end of Title 42, James speaks to volunteers who gave their time and resources to help the people detained in the open air by CBP
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Try and carpool, try and shove into cars as best
you can, just so that we don't have a mile long.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Line of cars. We have trash bags, we have gloves,
we have things that we're bringing.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Up there, so what we have cars that you can
get all of that out of.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Once we pull over.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
We're also setting up a couple of pop ups.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
Hocumba, California, is a tiny town. You've probably never heard
of it. It's actually really charming. There's a hot spring
and a gorgeous hotel, a few stores selling our drinkets,
that kind of thing. There's a lovely lake fed by
the spring. And on this Sunday morning, there are about
fifty people outside an old petrol station, nervously pounding bottles
of water, applying sunscreen, and getting ready to head out
(00:50):
of the desert to clear up the ad hoc migrant
camp that has held as many as fifteen hundred people
out in the open when Title forty two ended and
Border patrol made no plans to keep them anywhere. It
was a diverse bunch of people hidden beneath sun hats.
There's an Australian film producer who was at a conference
in Orlando and booked a fly over a grad student painter.
The folks who were in the Hookumber hotel who organize
(01:11):
this whole thing, they're friends from the hospitality industry in
San Diego. There were students and mums and dads and
about the entire population of this tiny desert town. There
were also two form international aid workers who are in
a tower where you can look at the desert, which
is actually a much cooler thing than it sounds. And
there's also a museum of boulders right next to it.
You should probably check them out. During the area. I
(01:32):
spent the day helping out in Neucumber after the refugees,
some of them in handcuffs, had been taken by private
contractors to be processed by CBP's Office of Field Operations.
We met at a petrol station in the middle of town.
The space where the pumps should be was filled with tons,
and I do mean tons of bottled water, masks, hand
sanitized and other necessary supplies. When I'd arrived the night before,
(01:55):
around ten pm, the eerie green and yellow lights reflecting
from the roof had lit up a palace of water
like some kind of giant lava lamp, and driving across
the desert, the town looked like it was glowing. The
town certainly has had a bit of a glow up
in the last few years. Three business partners purchased their
Cumber hot Springs Hotel, a down in the mouth property
that had once been a glamorous desert resort, and they've
(02:18):
been restoring the place for nearly two years. Inadvertently, they
also purchased a lot of land and a few other
rundown buildings in a town that were sold as a
lot with the hotel. It was in one of these buildings,
the old gas station, that they set up a de
facto mutual aid hubbo almost overnight. The hotel's not finished yet,
and they probably didn't make much progress on it during
the week when they were feeding more than a thousand
(02:39):
people in the desert. The town's lake, fed by a
natural spring an old bath house used to be attractions.
Today the bathhouse of roof have fallen off, but it
still makes a pretty cool concert venue, and the whole
town offers commanding views of the border wall, which sadly
is only a couple of hundred yards from the main street.
When I arrived in Cucumber, every think was close the
(03:01):
Mini Mark was sold out, the hotel was still being
worked on, and the hotel kitchen was churning out food
for volunteers at the clean up effort. I asked Marissa,
one of the volunteers I met that day, about her
first impressions on arriving at the meeting point.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I was incredibly impressed by what the people of hu
Kumba and the hotel group of individuals that have organized this,
Like I couldn't believe seeing their donation depot in that
old car wash, just to how well organized everything was,
and that they provided so much for the volunteers, and
(03:35):
just the level of love and compassion and was. Yeah,
it was an amazing opportunity to be part of, very humbling.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
I've been there since late the night before after visiting
border crossings in California and Arizona and Jeff, one of
the co owners a hotel, can you let me pull
up my truck in some desert behind his house. Now,
I'm a person who enjoys sleeping outside, and I do
it as often as I can. I try and camp
police once a month. But that night I was cold
even underneath my down blanket, and I couldn't help. But
(04:06):
think of how desperate it must have been to spend
nearly a week out there with nothing but in my
last base blanket and some thorny bushes to keep you warm.
It's certainly not the welcome that one would expect from
the richest nation on Earth, which had three years to repair.
For the day, Title forty two ended to get a
bit of background out of town. I spoke to Natalie.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
So the previous owner bought it at an auction, and
I don't think that the previous owner didn't realize how
much she was getting, and he kind of just like
neglected a bunch of it, you know. And then he
was older, and so he finally sold off the hotel.
He thought he was just buying the hotel, but he
buying all the land as well. So they when they
bought the hotel, they acquired all the land, and they're
(04:46):
actually putting money into it and fixing everything up, which
is really wonderful.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
The hotel in Lake and hot Spring really are wonderful.
But the scene that had played out there on the
eleventh of May, with anything but within a short period
of time, more than a thousand people of all ages
nationalities will be held in the open desert and left
defend Lardi for themselves. I let Natalie describe the space
there in.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
There's lots of cactuses everywhere, so there's environmental like a
watch out where you're walking that it's hot. It's hot
in the day and really cold at nights. It's the
high desert. There can be gusts of wind that can
just take over, get dust in your eyes, your hair,
(05:27):
everything is just you're just filthy.
Speaker 6 (05:29):
And don't lack of food.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I mean there's no resources. You're in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
I talked to a lot of the volunteers, many of
whom have been in the desert for me at week.
It'd first been made aware of the impending humanitarian crisis
late on Thursday night, but one of the people working
on the renovation of the Hot Springs Hotel got a
call about it. Within a few hours, the hotel zonners
and all this stuff running what became very nearly the
only source of food, shelter, and water for more than
a thousand people trapped and held in the desert by CBP.
(05:57):
I spoke to Sam, another volunteer, to get sensor response.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
Now.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
Sam is a kind of guy who just looks like
he's a home in the desert. His Wi brim hat, boots,
and long cleaved shirt and pants told me he spent
plenty of days under the baking sun out here, and
his readiness with an isoproble alcohol spray disinfect people's boots
after walking in an area that was likely covered in
human shit told me he'd been around one or two
situations like this in the past.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I spent a great deal of my life as his
second career, working for in developmental relief logistics in Southeast Asia,
mainly working with large ege organizations, for example World Food Program,
Doctors without Borders show unise many, many differ from their
place things.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
In the context of that kind of experience, it's easy
to understand why people come to the United States. But
I asked Sam to put the situation here into perspective
for me. It's understandable that folks came to the US,
but why to a tiny desert town of five hundred people.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
These people were radically unprepared for what they were going
to go through because they were sold to bill of
goods by coyotes on the other side about what was
going to happen to them, You understand. So they had
really no idea what they were getting into at all,
and so there was not anything in the way of
life threatening situations for any of those people in any
(07:17):
meaningful way, a great deal of discomfort. It could have
turned very badly if these people here had not stepped up,
because the border patrol was completely overwhelmed, and so there
was never that bad of a situation here compared to
what I have seen in other places in the past.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
A sound pointed out the migrants were now gone, but
we were still surrounded by times of supplies. But at
the time there was no way of knowing the scope
or scale of the need. People reacted as best they could.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Actually it was overkilled, but you had no way of
knowing right at the time. There's just no way to know.
How do you know ahead of time? You always ask
for as much as you can get, because why would
you not. I mean, you never know what. You don't
know how many of them with babies that are on
the other side of the wall right now might be zero,
might be five hundred. You have no idea.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Before anyone knew how if this was going to end,
or really what even was going on. Dozens of people
across the county decided to help. One of them was Katie.
Here she is describing some of the volunteers she worked alongside.
Speaker 7 (08:18):
There was a hard hodgepodge of people and as volunteers
and leading it were some of the owners of a
hotel out there, and that was the main organizers. But
who showed up were people from the town, people that
I knew and recognized. There were some really devout, like
(08:43):
they're twenty four hours a day, and then there was
some coming in and out. But I met people from
all over the county, and most of them answered the
car through instagram of the hotel.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
All those volunteers called their friends, who called their friends,
who gradually coordinated response. Natalie first became aware of this,
as many volunteers did, through an Instagram post by Melissa,
another of the three co owners of the Combo Hotel,
on Thursday night, just as title forty two was ending.
Natalie saw the post and decided to help. At first,
she wanted to leave right then at one am as
(09:21):
soon as she'd seen the post, but after consulting her family,
she decided to make her own post, asking for people
to bring supplies that were needed. Soon she was overwhelmed
by the response.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, I mean immediately, even at one in the morning,
I was getting messages because I posted it. That's when
I posted the story, I immediately got messages from front
say I'll bring a blanket over. What's your address. Yeah,
everyone just kind of rallied and started bringing supplies over,
collecting money as well. Some friends started collecting money and
(09:53):
then bought stuff and brought loads of food and things
to my house.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
Her husband and ferried the supplies to Komba, where they
were joined by donations from all over the county in
the old petrol station. Like Natalie, Katie also saw a
post and immediately felt compelled to help. She called a
friend and some members of her family and seid about
raising funds and buying supplies.
Speaker 7 (10:17):
So I met my friend at a cafe and in
that in the meantime, and I don't know how much
of this is really important. So in the meantime, I
text my mother and my two sisters who live on
the East coast, and just it was late at night
for them, and I just said, I would love for
(10:40):
you to send prayers, because that's something that I believe in.
I believe in prayer or intention and thought reality. And
(11:02):
some of it was just because I felt so touched,
like praying for the community that I love too. And
the next thing, I know, like my venmo was blowing
up and there was one thousand dollars in my venmo
(11:22):
sent from my family members. And so by the time
my friend arrived, we were like, let's go and we
filled our car with Amazingly, we found like organic, there's
grocery outlet, right, so we found organic soup for you know,
(11:43):
dollars something a can, and we spent a few hundred dollars.
And the next morning we met early and we stopped
in El Cone on the way and we spent all
the rest on We went to three or four thrift
stores and bought every blanket and hat and baby carrier.
Because we have both focused on motherhood in our careers.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
I asked people I spoke to about a week later
how the experience had impacted them.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
It was overwhelming, just the the way the community really
came around and supported the people in Hukumba that were
finding help. You know, after we finished cleaning up, when
we were back at the gas station, the Amazon driver
(12:39):
was delivering, like I think he delivered three hundred and
fifty boxes, and so we had to open them up
and sort them and it was there was so much food.
I think that it was insane amount of food, and
it was awesome. It was really cool just to see
how people stabbed up and donated.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
I like some of the people I saw in Santa Cedro. Natalie, Katie,
Sam and Marissa are not part of an NGO or
a mutual aid collective. They're just people who wanted to help,
and that describes most of the people in Hucumber, although
some of them did have previous and regular volunteer experience
with excellent groups like Border Kindness. I asked Katie to
reflect on the mutual aid approach and the absence of massive,
(13:24):
multimillion dollar organizations.
Speaker 7 (13:26):
Yeah, wasn't there, right, No, they weren't there. We were
told that the Red Cross couldn't come unless Border Patrol called,
and Border Patrol told us that they weren't allowed to
call the Red Cross.
Speaker 6 (13:38):
That's a pretty standard.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
The one institution that did show support to people in
Hucumber was one that you might not expect, given the
support for this cruel immigration policy by almost all the
Democrats in DC. But things are different when you can
see the results of these policies with your own eyes.
Perhaps that's why I didn't see a single elected official
in my entire week at the border. But one person
I missed, whoever won't mentioned, was a lady who worked
(14:02):
for California Senator Steve Pidia. I won't name her as
I don't have her permission, but hopefully one day soon
we'll be able to interview her. I'll let Katie describe
the role this woman played.
Speaker 7 (14:12):
There was someone from Steve Padilla's team, and that's the
woman I rode with, and she was incredible. Her brother
in law is the chef at the hotel, so I think,
I mean, she might have came anyway, but she came
(14:33):
faster and there was true connection, and she stood up
to the border patrol and said, you know, said we're allowed.
We're here on behalf of this senator. So I mean
I saw some like had had like arguments about our
right to be there, and most of us didn't. Weren't
(14:56):
paying attention to that. We're paying attention to the people
that we were, you know, around and no one that
was out there what didn't believe that we should be
out there, and that more help should be out there.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Sadly, part of that familiarity with the system this woman
brought to the team also meant a familiarity with the
cruel and arbitrary nature of it. Katie says that they
had to organize for that as well.
Speaker 7 (15:25):
So my friend and I we ended up writing in
her truck, so in Steve Padia's Senator Padia's assistant truck.
So we had the opportunity to ask some questions that
probably everyone out there wanted to know, including the migrants,
(15:47):
And it was like, what will happen in what's the
process from here? And how do you know that these
people are being tended to? And I literally heard her
on the phone getting as many bodies on the ground
to start going to those centers where they're being taken
(16:08):
to make sure that they were but that we would
follow them through the entire process as best possible, monitoring
their well well cared for, that they were well cared for,
as well cared for as possible in a system and
(16:31):
a process like that.
Speaker 6 (16:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (16:35):
Yeah, but she literally said they're going to be busted
off and putt in cages, and that they would do
their best to make sure that that no one was
split up and that everyone was fed, showered, and they
(16:57):
weren't allowed to bring anything with them, so a lot
of the cleanup was all of the things that everyone
donated that had to be left behind, including some of
the stuffed animals.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
For all the volunteers I spoke to, the chance to
be of service was empowering. Here's Natalie discussing that, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I mean, well, like and so many times do you
like feel overwhelmed with like so much suffering in this world,
and like what can one person do?
Speaker 6 (17:31):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And so it did feel good that to actually see
an immediate impact, like I'm doing this and this is
a result, because sometimes you can just get discouraged, you know,
like we're just one person. What can we really do
and can we really make an impact? And just seeing
that and being able to see directly how that one
(17:52):
person can impact, you know, can rally. Like just see
how my friends came together, you know when shopping, bought things,
gathered money, collected money. You know, my really good friend Sam,
she went to her local bar after she collected a
bunch of money, went and dropped stuff supplies off at
my house.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
She was just down at her local.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Bar and just chatting with them and like, oh, what
did you do today, And so she told them, oh,
I collected money and I bought supplies, and then the
people She ended up collecting about two hundred more dollars
at the bar from people hearing her story. And so
then the next day she went and bought more supplies
and she actually ended up driving them out herself. She
ended up doing like three trips just from her own
(18:37):
talking to people and collecting. So just like the little
impact that, you know, everyone just kind of coming together
and making a difference.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Santa Sedro, a pretty diverse range of San Diegan's came
to help. On the first night, I personally left at
about one in the morning, after spending almost two hours
trying to leave but needing to get charged phones back
to their owners by loudly in Spanish and French, then
English describing the backgrounds on the phone or the color
of their case. It wasn't a great system, and by
(19:43):
the weekend, Caber and others had seen that more help
an organization was needed, and they decided to plan a response.
Here's cable describing how they prepared for that.
Speaker 6 (19:59):
Maybe I'll just grabs you know, I was paying attention
to people I knew who were doing and what supplies
they were saying was needed. The particular store near me
has like a wall of travel size like these giant
times where you can basically just scoop out one hundred
deodorant hands and to paste and things like that.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
Capan met up with some other members of a local
mutual aid group. I'll make sure to include donation links
for all the groups I've mentioned at the end of
this series, so please make sure to listen right through
to the end.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
I met up with him, and he had just received
a bunch of donations through through mutually networks, so we
we know even more of a travel size I got
some truth Troo hygiene kits and deodorant and uh and
and a bunch of friends and papers because because the
kids that are between the walls don't really have actually
(20:50):
do unfortunately, so so that those were those weren't really fast,
and so we got a whole bunch of bags of
all those kinds of supplies and then we done.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
In the way from there. By the time they arrived,
various organizations had organized areas along the wall for different
kinds of aid to be passed through. Everything from clothes
to food to medical supplies and toilet paper was piled
up given out.
Speaker 6 (21:13):
They help regulations and you know organized the toilet paper, food,
everything like that, and people just come up to the
wall and if their family needed something, they would just
kind of going to it or ask us if we
were able to you know, if there was a common
language there. So yeah, we just kind of you know, hey,
things as people needed them. I know that I helped
give out some of the prints and tons of paper
(21:35):
and those were those were a big hit. Tons of
kids all came running over from the whole, all the
parts of the camp when they heard that there was
there were toys being given out, So that was it was.
It was heartbreaking, but it was also you know, it
made me smile to see them smile.
Speaker 5 (21:53):
And the smile because of the need to use c
BP one and of course they need to stay in
touch with families back home. There was a constant, an
overwhelming demand for phone charging. News reporters took phones back
to charge in their cars. Some people bought charge bricks
and power strips, and mutual aid groups wrote names on
the back of the phones using painter's tape and sharpie
(22:13):
so they wouldn't get separated from their owners. By the
second day it was a better system, but on the
first day it was chaos. I Let Kaber, who spent
a whole day charging phones, described the system that volunteers
came up with to mitigate that chaos a little bit.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
And obviously they couldn't charge their phones if they're just
in this kind of desert gap between between the walls
that doesn't have any kind of minuities or anything. So
we had a system where they would passed the phone
through and we had we went we went on a
(22:47):
piece of tape on it with their name and give
them a piece of tape with their name the same name,
and then they would give us that if they came
back to give us a tape back, and we would
match their names and phone and and that was It
worked well enough. I mean, it was still extraordinarily chaotic process.
(23:07):
I mean we had we always had at least one
hundred phones on our side of the wallet any given time,
and and some people had, you know, some people like
chargers to people didn't. Some people had Android or Samsung
or all the iPhones, and some people had well adapts,
and some people didn't have the wallet Esta adapters, so
we kind of had to every phone that came through
(23:28):
was we had to find a way to get it,
you know, basically chained into the set of generators that
we had, which was do we have a power strips
and we have to write cables and and and we
have space on those cables and and I think it
was it was a bit of a puzzle the whole time.
The only part of it that really overwhelmed me was
we did overload. Someone brought a bunch of uh USBC
(23:52):
power strips and we blew out one of them, and
so there was now phones attacked, sure that they had
to find new spaces for and I as I was
just frustrated by the situation, and in addition of affair
that I'm charging, I think whatever happened to.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
It, it was chaos, but it was a good nature chaos.
Over several days that migrants were attained in the open
with no shelter and inadequate sanitation, just about two miles
from the discount mall where you can buy cheap Ralpherend's
shirts if that's your jam. People showed up in ever
increasing numbers. The American Friends Service Committee helped organize volunteers
into groups to distribute food, package up wet white snacks, medicines,
(24:46):
give out tarps, and do just about anything else that
they could or anything else that they could fit into
ziploc bags. It could be passed through gaps in the wall.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
At least.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
People who had been immigrants themselves or who were the
children of immigrants were notably numerous and long the volunteers.
I spoke to one of them.
Speaker 8 (25:03):
My name is Lon Chai.
Speaker 9 (25:05):
I'm part of Asian Soliday Collective grass with organization here
in San Diego.
Speaker 8 (25:11):
I've been I've been coming over here since yesterday.
Speaker 9 (25:13):
I came here around five six yesterday, and then I
came back through here this morning and been here since.
I got home at twelve last night and woke up,
dropped my kid off, and came right back with more supplies.
I've been reaching out to family, friends and community to
help donate supplies and things.
Speaker 8 (25:29):
Like that, food, whatever, whatever they may have.
Speaker 9 (25:32):
And I've pretty much been driving around city and collecting
from folks that can't make it so I could bring
it down here myself.
Speaker 8 (25:39):
So that's what I've been doing.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
Lunchai explained to me why it was so important to
show up my community.
Speaker 9 (25:46):
I'm pretty sure they they they're sympathetic to this because
I'm coming from I'm a first generation cambody in American
here in the US, and when my parents and my
family fled their country, they went through this as well.
So somebody somewhere came and provided to support, provided to
aid the donations for them to to be able to
(26:08):
to make it to America to crossover, and and able
to to to provide out here for for me growing
up out here.
Speaker 8 (26:15):
You know. So it's just I just sympathize with it,
with the whole thing. I mean, I mean.
Speaker 9 (26:19):
Everybody should should should feel the same way because somewhere
down the line, our families went through similar situations. If
you're not an indigenous then then then your family somewhere
down down the history went through the same thing.
Speaker 8 (26:30):
So you know that everybody should have a heart for
this and be able.
Speaker 9 (26:33):
To come down here and and and donate or donate
their time or supplies whatever the case may be, you know,
come out in help.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
He also explained why he feels it's important to encourage
empathy for refugees.
Speaker 8 (26:44):
Well, it's it's you have to you have to, you
have to be keep your mind.
Speaker 9 (26:47):
There's there's this families out here, there's this young children,
there's babies. I mean, it takes a lot for for
for a mother to pick up her infant child and
to leave where she's coming from. So that just says
a lot about where what's going on, where she's for
her to trek and to go through this just to
sit out here and the cold and stuff, because if
she would rather endure her endure this and take the
(27:09):
risk and the chances, that means where she's coming from
is not as you know, if she's wanted to take
that risk.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
Later that night, I saw an Afghan family come to
help the other Afghan families. Their kids talk to other
Afghan kids separated by the border war. They passed crayons
through the wall and coloring books, and the little daughter
asked her dad if she could give her watch to
the Afghan girl being held in the camp. Her dad said,
of course, I don't record or photograph people's children, certainly
(27:36):
not without asking, And I wasn't about to interrupt them,
but it was a very sweet moment. The father of
the family had worked in the Army Corps of Engineers.
He'd been to the border before to build this section
of the war. I didn't really need to ask him
how it felt to see folks stuck behind it, but
it said a lot that he and his family had
taken the time to drive down, buy bags and supplies,
(27:57):
and then come face to face with the people who
needed them and hand them out. Like dozens of other folks,
they tried to pass whatever they could through little gaps
in the war to make someone's day a little bit brighter.
Another volunteer who we heard from yesterday came from a
local group called Pana. Hermira had been at the wall
since five in the morning and it was getting on
for five pm when we spoke. I normally ask people
(28:18):
what they ate for breakfast, just to tune in the
volume levels on the recorder a bit, but I'm going
to include it this time, just so you can see
how long her day had been and how hard she'd
been working.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Okay, do you know what do you want me to say?
Speaker 6 (28:29):
So that good? I mean, we have a breakfast again.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I don't remember anymore French shast FRESD shosts, but my
name is Harmaira Yusafi and I'm with a partnership for
the Advancement of New Americans PANA, or an organization in
San Diego that fights for the full inclusion of refugees
and those who come from refugee producing countries.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
We spoke about the emergency that had kept her hair
all day.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
So in terms of this morning, I mean I was
I was very concerned because there was an asylum seeker
who had an emergency and was rushed out of this place.
Where now, like for example, where we are at right now,
is people who are being detained and the most inhumane
way possible. This is going against TBP's own protocols and
(29:17):
policies as to how they're being detained with No they're
not giving them food, they're not giving them bathrooms, they're
not giving them basic basic things that they need to survive.
And so that's why the community is out here today
to do that.
Speaker 5 (29:43):
Sadly, not everyone who showed up at the makeshift detention
facility were showing up in solidarity. Local anti migrant activists
and blogger Roger Ogden showed up.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
Now.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Ogden might be familiar to some listeners due to his
attempts to host he called a Patriot picnic and his
advocacy for the removal of the historic murals in on
A Park often organized gatherings in the park in twenty
seventeen and twenty eighteen, and they resulted in a huge
and overwhelming community response to defend the park, and this
time Olden decided to keep to himself, but Natalie ran
(30:13):
into some people who weren't quite as shy about their opinions.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
You know, a lot of the people in the Hook community.
Speaker 6 (30:19):
Are you know, lower income.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
You know, they are struggling in their own struggle on
their and so I know, you know, maybe I don't know,
like for those people, I.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
Don't know, like, yeah, it's hard, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I mean towards the end, like when I was walking
to my car, this man and this man in a
car like pulled up and he's like, excuse me, what's
going on over there? And I was like, Oh, we're
gathering you know, supplies for the asylum seekers.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
And then I you know, like, if.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
You're from here, you kind of if you're in Hookumba,
you kind of already knew what was going on, and
so him asking me that, I was kind of like,
m and then he just started laying into I've had
illegals you know, have broken into my house a few times.
Why are you supporting illegals? And I'm like, we're trying to,
let like make sure that people don't die, and he
(31:16):
just kept going off on me, and so he, you know,
his the whole all the talking points that people have
about not allowing people to seek asylum here, and so.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
I just walked away. Maurica didn't run into the same
kind of vocal opposition, but she said in her conversations
and attempts to process everything she'd seen, she ran into
some of the sort of need jate responses. So people
can only really make about immigration when they haven't looked
the cruelty that they're advocating for in the face.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
It took me a little while to kind of work
through just how I felt about it on an emotional,
maybe a spiritual level.
Speaker 6 (32:00):
You know.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
I spoke with family and friends about it, about my experience,
and and it's it's difficult to I found it difficult
to explain my experience because I don't know that somebody
can really truly understand that unless they've actually been out
there and done it themselves, because the arguments or or
(32:25):
they're kind of debate, so to speak. What they would
come back at me with when I was sharing that is,
but we don't have enough food or housing to be
able to support this that many people coming in, And
I'm like, but we just had so many people and
(32:46):
so much money put out there to help in a
very short amount of time. Look how many donations were donated,
how much money was contributed in a short amount of
time from not that many people. I'm like, obviously we
do have the money. Obviously we do have the food.
So where's the where's the breakdown? Like, is it our
system that just doesn't allow for that happened? I don't know,
(33:08):
And that that's where like I don't I don't understand
it enough.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
But I feel like.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
It just made me realize that I don't know that
anybody that I spoke to afterward really understands it enough,
either because their arguments or they're a defense and what
they tried to share on the opposite side of me
going out there and supporting just felt like it was
(33:37):
just something to say, you know, and like what they
what they hear from the general media out there, and
they also don't really they can't quite grasp it, so
they're just kind of throwing something out there, I guess
is what it felt like.
Speaker 5 (33:52):
Paper also ran into some less and charitable San Diegans,
this time down the Santasiedra.
Speaker 6 (33:57):
Yeah, so I guess My first is why they might
have or how they might have found.
Speaker 10 (34:02):
Us there, which is there's a a local news organization
San Diego called PSI, which is kind of a I
would describe as a local.
Speaker 6 (34:13):
Equivalent of something like one American News, which is really
unfortunate because we already have more American news here. But
they are are pretty well known for kind of a
lot of like misinformation, kind of scared mandering about and
has people immigrants, vaccines and and all that sort of
(34:36):
sort of thing, but with kind of a local news
sort of aesthetic to it. And they were, as far
as I could tell, they were really the only identifiable
media that were there throughout the day. I read articles
eventually made me realize there were other reporters there, but
they were identifying themselves the way that Hasy was. But
they sided this one cameraman just shooting b role, I guess,
(34:59):
and he was walking to all the different parts of
the wall and like all the different sort of stations
for aid and like trying to really trying to get
as many faces as possible. You could kind of tell
that that's like what he was doing. Everyone who I
was around, I was I was kind of you know,
oriented mostly with kind of their like sort of like
analysts between people. And you know, when they saw the
(35:22):
play with that truck, they were like, okay, point, it's
their masking, you know, and killing in ninety five with me,
so where of that? And I am, you know, slightly
identifying logo on my structure which I take over so
that you know, that image wouldn't show up now.
Speaker 5 (35:41):
KUSI have drifted further and further right since twenty twenty.
Along with their relatively miniscule viewership. These days, they engage
in fake news culture war stuff like repeating the recent
false accusations at Target was making tuckable swimming costumes for kids,
or labeling everyone in the asylum process illegal immigrants. It's
sadly pretty standard for right news organizations now. Okay, but
(36:02):
thinks that some of the people who saw footage on
k USI, or perhaps found the location posted on Obten's blog,
came down to the border like.
Speaker 6 (36:09):
Several hours later that stuff when we started to see
people you know, kind of go buy and and and
we could tell that they weren't volunteers, because like peop
when people like playing people who weren't even necessarily vounteer
which are buy and say like, hey, I just heard
watching on I brought a pace of water, and they
bring up the water and then they drive away. But
the people who are doing who are like cute where
(36:31):
I think, you know, kind of just some kind of
intimidation where you know, they wouldn't approach directly. They would
just kind of get out of their exceptionally large entivies
and and just kind of just kind of watch, and
they would kind of, you know, get a little bit
closer at a time, and then you know, a little
bit closer and kind of whisper to each other and
(36:52):
you know, point at things, and you know, it's just
kind of they were just watching, and you know, they
got close enough that I could read their shirts, and
and the shirts had a slogan that's associated with a
Christian nationalism slogan. So as this whole family is kind
of kind of sad that the kids were wearing shirts too,
and and so I kind of, yeah, I figured out
(37:15):
that that's what was going on. And I never talked
to them. I didn't approach them, but I stood when
I was, you know, something they closer clos or I
kind of positioned myself in between the rest of the
volunteers and in this group and and just kind of,
you know, didn't really start at them, just kind of
looked at them and and just made it clear with
(37:36):
my body language that I, like, I knew, you know,
they were doing like they weren't, you know, they weren't
doing any kind of secret agent thing or whatever, like
they were being really really obvious, and and I just
you know, stood and positioned myself in a way that
indicated that you know, I know what you're doing, and
you're not going to get close, you're not going to
interfere with you know, what we're doing, and you're not
going to contact any wine or thrill anyone or like
(37:58):
what everyone did. And eventually one of the people who
is either volunteer or work for, like one of the engineers,
can definitely tell there was something going on. So she
went over and had a conversation with them that I
could hear, and eventually they decided to move. And I
think she was just kind of trying to be diplomatic,
but just sort of like asked them if they wanted
(38:19):
to help, and if they don't want to help, and
you know, yeah, go be somewhere else, I suppose, And
and it was I mean, the sort of one amusing
part of people like that was that they apparently complained
to this person about me because they said that I
(38:40):
had been watching them and I was I was racially
profiling them because they were white. And I realized now
that this is an around this interview, but just for
the listeners, I am very very white myself.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
I think it's important when we discuss volunteering to honor
how hard this kind of experience could be on people. Obviously,
the trauma associated with seeing people brutalized by the state
and capital. It's not the same as being brutalized by
state and capital yourself, but that doesn't mean it's easy.
I asked Nathlete to reflect a little on children's toys
we found in the shelter when we were cleaning up
the camp.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Like as a mom, like I have my own children,
and it just really it was emotional.
Speaker 6 (39:18):
It's like it's just.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Like I'm like, who's who what child was playing with this?
You know, here in this space, and you know that
no child should be ever in, you know, an encampment
like that or it just no one should be living outside,
no one should be doing that. But also it's like
kind of like the humanity in a way like that.
(39:42):
You know, even a child's going to play wherever child's
going to play, and like that little toy of little
hopefully it brought that kid some joy in that moment,
you know, if it was there a little piece of
home or someone gave it to him or what, you know,
it was Yeah, the reality, it was like it was
(40:02):
like a person, you know, like a little artifact of
someone who was actually there. You know, like it was
a little more tangible than you know, a sock. You know,
that's not that's not I'm not think you know who
wore that sock, but think of who who was playing
with that dooy?
Speaker 6 (40:16):
You know? Was it a little boy a little girl?
At hold?
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Were they did they bring up home? Are they missing it?
When they When I saw they have that, she needed
people to clean up. It was like Okay, I took
a day off of work and went out there and
just felt overwhelming almost. I mean, just one day of
me working out there was really emotional. I can't imagine
(40:40):
how you know, Melissa and all the people that were
on the ground just dealing with it, and I know
they're just struggling a little bit and just processing it
all has been really hard, you know, really hard. It's
just just just how how privileged we are. You know, like,
no one leaves their country because they want to. They
leave because they have to, but they feel like they
(41:02):
have to. And you know, it's I mean, it's respecting
and honoring and understanding the privilege that you're in and
not taking for granted because it's very.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
Easy to both. Katie Marisa said they don't really identify
as political, and that they wanted to be there as people.
Sometimes often politics can become a complicated game of numbers
and statistics, but it's important to remember that what this
is really about is organizing in such a way that
we can take care of one another, and that the
most important politics of war is the politics of feeding
(41:37):
hungry people and maybe bringing a sad child of stuffed animal.
Here's Katie talking about the community response.
Speaker 7 (41:45):
I think I'm a really compassionate person and I'm not
very political in the sense that, like, I don't really participate.
My life in my community's life is solution oriented. So
I saw like that on a large scale, the like
(42:09):
when people come together, we create solutions when and you
don't wait for someone like the government to show up
and fix it, because then people will die. Yeah, you know,
I mean that's the reality is if that community didn't activate,
(42:33):
there would have been a lot of dead people in
the desert.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
Katie shared with me that she's been having a difficult time,
feeling guilty for not having the language skills to do
more and questing her own worthiness to be there helping.
But in the end, she said she felt that what
she'd done was right and important. I'll leave you with
her thoughts and tomorrow I'll be back to talk about
the people who put everyone in this situation in the
first place, the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 7 (42:59):
I think an important thing is like so many times
we hear about things and we say, isn't that awful,
and we kind of shut down because we don't feel
empowered or we don't know how to help. And literally,
(43:20):
a smile makes a difference, A feeling of like I
see you and you belong on this planet makes a difference.
And you know, little kids packing up canned goods and
fruit snacks for other little kids. They didn't see those kids,
(43:44):
but when the adult said they're going to be so
happy to get that package, they felt like they made
a difference. And those little girls are gonna grow up
and not be afraid to step up and make a difference.
I think a lot of people think like they can't
do enough, so they don't do anything. And if we
(44:06):
all just do a little bit or what you can,
then I think we would see a very large impact.
Hakumba is a town of five hundred and they just
fed thousands, house thousands, closed thousands, hugged and welcomed thousands
(44:32):
of human beings. And those people in that town don't
have much excess, and they made a difference.
Speaker 6 (44:42):
And I was.
Speaker 7 (44:45):
Proud to be a part of that community in a
way that I'm on the fringe of it, and it
made me want to be even more a part of it.
My feelings an intuition about that town, we're confirmed by
watching the simplest action make an incredible impact on real
(45:11):
lives and real people, and that this isn't demographics, it's
real bodies that have beating hearts and breathe, and we
all share the same air, in the same water, and
(45:34):
we're all connected. And when you make one little drip
in the bucket, it actually does make a difference. And
I think that stops us sometimes when we think what
we have isn't enough to give, but when someone has nothing,
what you have is more than what they can imagine.
Speaker 5 (46:04):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Try and carpool, try and shove into cars as best
you can, just so that we don't have a mile long.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Line of cars. We have trash bags, we have gloves,
we have things that we're bringing.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Up there, so what we have cars that you can
get all of that out of.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Once we pull over.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
We're also setting up a couple of pop ups.
Speaker 5 (00:29):
Hocumba, California, is a tiny town. You've probably never heard
of it. It's actually really charming. There's a hot spring
and a gorgeous hotel, a few stores selling our drinkets,
that kind of thing. There's a lovely lake fed by
the spring. And on this Sunday morning, there are about
fifty people outside an old petrol station, nervously pounding bottles
of water, applying sunscreen, and getting ready to head out
(00:50):
of the desert to clear up the ad hoc migrant
camp that has held as many as fifteen hundred people
out in the open when Title forty two ended and
Border patrol made no plans to keep them anywhere. It
was a diverse bunch of people hidden beneath sun hats.
There's an Australian film producer who was at a conference
in Orlando and booked a fly over a grad student painter.
The folks who were in the Hookumber hotel who organize
(01:11):
this whole thing, they're friends from the hospitality industry in
San Diego. There were students and mums and dads and
about the entire population of this tiny desert town. There
were also two form international aid workers who are in
a tower where you can look at the desert, which
is actually a much cooler thing than it sounds. And
there's also a museum of boulders right next to it.
You should probably check them out. During the area. I
(01:32):
spent the day helping out in Neucumber after the refugees,
some of them in handcuffs, had been taken by private
contractors to be processed by CBP's Office of Field Operations.
We met at a petrol station in the middle of town.
The space where the pumps should be was filled with tons,
and I do mean tons of bottled water, masks, hand
sanitized and other necessary supplies. When I'd arrived the night before,
(01:55):
around ten pm, the eerie green and yellow lights reflecting
from the roof had lit up a palace of water
like some kind of giant lava lamp, and driving across
the desert, the town looked like it was glowing. The
town certainly has had a bit of a glow up
in the last few years. Three business partners purchased their
Cumber hot Springs Hotel, a down in the mouth property
that had once been a glamorous desert resort, and they've
(02:18):
been restoring the place for nearly two years. Inadvertently, they
also purchased a lot of land and a few other
rundown buildings in a town that were sold as a
lot with the hotel. It was in one of these buildings,
the old gas station, that they set up a de
facto mutual aid hubbo almost overnight. The hotel's not finished yet,
and they probably didn't make much progress on it during
the week when they were feeding more than a thousand
(02:39):
people in the desert. The town's lake, fed by a
natural spring an old bath house used to be attractions.
Today the bathhouse of roof have fallen off, but it
still makes a pretty cool concert venue, and the whole
town offers commanding views of the border wall, which sadly
is only a couple of hundred yards from the main street.
When I arrived in Cucumber, every think was close the
(03:01):
Mini Mark was sold out, the hotel was still being
worked on, and the hotel kitchen was churning out food
for volunteers at the clean up effort. I asked Marissa,
one of the volunteers I met that day, about her
first impressions on arriving at the meeting point.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I was incredibly impressed by what the people of hu
Kumba and the hotel group of individuals that have organized this,
Like I couldn't believe seeing their donation depot in that
old car wash, just to how well organized everything was,
and that they provided so much for the volunteers, and
(03:35):
just the level of love and compassion and was. Yeah,
it was an amazing opportunity to be part of, very humbling.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
I've been there since late the night before after visiting
border crossings in California and Arizona and Jeff, one of
the co owners a hotel, can you let me pull
up my truck in some desert behind his house. Now,
I'm a person who enjoys sleeping outside, and I do
it as often as I can. I try and camp
police once a month. But that night I was cold
even underneath my down blanket, and I couldn't help. But
(04:06):
think of how desperate it must have been to spend
nearly a week out there with nothing but in my
last base blanket and some thorny bushes to keep you warm.
It's certainly not the welcome that one would expect from
the richest nation on Earth, which had three years to repair.
For the day, Title forty two ended to get a
bit of background out of town. I spoke to Natalie.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
So the previous owner bought it at an auction, and
I don't think that the previous owner didn't realize how
much she was getting, and he kind of just like
neglected a bunch of it, you know. And then he
was older, and so he finally sold off the hotel.
He thought he was just buying the hotel, but he
buying all the land as well. So they when they
bought the hotel, they acquired all the land, and they're
(04:46):
actually putting money into it and fixing everything up, which
is really wonderful.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
The hotel in Lake and hot Spring really are wonderful.
But the scene that had played out there on the
eleventh of May, with anything but within a short period
of time, more than a thousand people of all ages
nationalities will be held in the open desert and left
defend Lardi for themselves. I let Natalie describe the space
there in.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
There's lots of cactuses everywhere, so there's environmental like a
watch out where you're walking that it's hot. It's hot
in the day and really cold at nights. It's the
high desert. There can be gusts of wind that can
just take over, get dust in your eyes, your hair,
(05:27):
everything is just you're just filthy.
Speaker 6 (05:29):
And don't lack of food.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I mean there's no resources. You're in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
I talked to a lot of the volunteers, many of
whom have been in the desert for me at week.
It'd first been made aware of the impending humanitarian crisis
late on Thursday night, but one of the people working
on the renovation of the Hot Springs Hotel got a
call about it. Within a few hours, the hotel zonners
and all this stuff running what became very nearly the
only source of food, shelter, and water for more than
a thousand people trapped and held in the desert by CBP.
(05:57):
I spoke to Sam, another volunteer, to get sensor response.
Speaker 6 (06:01):
Now.
Speaker 5 (06:01):
Sam is a kind of guy who just looks like
he's a home in the desert. His Wi brim hat, boots,
and long cleaved shirt and pants told me he spent
plenty of days under the baking sun out here, and
his readiness with an isoproble alcohol spray disinfect people's boots
after walking in an area that was likely covered in
human shit told me he'd been around one or two
situations like this in the past.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I spent a great deal of my life as his
second career, working for in developmental relief logistics in Southeast Asia,
mainly working with large ege organizations, for example World Food Program,
Doctors without Borders show unise many, many differ from their
place things.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
In the context of that kind of experience, it's easy
to understand why people come to the United States. But
I asked Sam to put the situation here into perspective
for me. It's understandable that folks came to the US,
but why to a tiny desert town of five hundred people.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
These people were radically unprepared for what they were going
to go through because they were sold to bill of
goods by coyotes on the other side about what was
going to happen to them, You understand. So they had
really no idea what they were getting into at all,
and so there was not anything in the way of
life threatening situations for any of those people in any
(07:17):
meaningful way, a great deal of discomfort. It could have
turned very badly if these people here had not stepped up,
because the border patrol was completely overwhelmed, and so there
was never that bad of a situation here compared to
what I have seen in other places in the past.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
A sound pointed out the migrants were now gone, but
we were still surrounded by times of supplies. But at
the time there was no way of knowing the scope
or scale of the need. People reacted as best they could.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Actually it was overkilled, but you had no way of
knowing right at the time. There's just no way to know.
How do you know ahead of time? You always ask
for as much as you can get, because why would
you not. I mean, you never know what. You don't
know how many of them with babies that are on
the other side of the wall right now might be zero,
might be five hundred. You have no idea.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Before anyone knew how if this was going to end,
or really what even was going on. Dozens of people
across the county decided to help. One of them was Katie.
Here she is describing some of the volunteers she worked alongside.
Speaker 7 (08:18):
There was a hard hodgepodge of people and as volunteers
and leading it were some of the owners of a
hotel out there, and that was the main organizers. But
who showed up were people from the town, people that
I knew and recognized. There were some really devout, like
(08:43):
they're twenty four hours a day, and then there was
some coming in and out. But I met people from
all over the county, and most of them answered the
car through instagram of the hotel.
Speaker 5 (09:00):
All those volunteers called their friends, who called their friends,
who gradually coordinated response. Natalie first became aware of this,
as many volunteers did, through an Instagram post by Melissa,
another of the three co owners of the Combo Hotel,
on Thursday night, just as title forty two was ending.
Natalie saw the post and decided to help. At first,
she wanted to leave right then at one am as
(09:21):
soon as she'd seen the post, but after consulting her family,
she decided to make her own post, asking for people
to bring supplies that were needed. Soon she was overwhelmed
by the response.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Yeah, I mean immediately, even at one in the morning,
I was getting messages because I posted it. That's when
I posted the story, I immediately got messages from front
say I'll bring a blanket over. What's your address. Yeah,
everyone just kind of rallied and started bringing supplies over,
collecting money as well. Some friends started collecting money and
(09:53):
then bought stuff and brought loads of food and things
to my house.
Speaker 5 (09:59):
Her husband and ferried the supplies to Komba, where they
were joined by donations from all over the county in
the old petrol station. Like Natalie, Katie also saw a
post and immediately felt compelled to help. She called a
friend and some members of her family and seid about
raising funds and buying supplies.
Speaker 7 (10:17):
So I met my friend at a cafe and in
that in the meantime, and I don't know how much
of this is really important. So in the meantime, I
text my mother and my two sisters who live on
the East coast, and just it was late at night
for them, and I just said, I would love for
(10:40):
you to send prayers, because that's something that I believe in.
I believe in prayer or intention and thought reality. And
(11:02):
some of it was just because I felt so touched,
like praying for the community that I love too. And
the next thing, I know, like my venmo was blowing
up and there was one thousand dollars in my venmo
(11:22):
sent from my family members. And so by the time
my friend arrived, we were like, let's go and we
filled our car with Amazingly, we found like organic, there's
grocery outlet, right, so we found organic soup for you know,
(11:43):
dollars something a can, and we spent a few hundred dollars.
And the next morning we met early and we stopped
in El Cone on the way and we spent all
the rest on We went to three or four thrift
stores and bought every blanket and hat and baby carrier.
Because we have both focused on motherhood in our careers.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
I asked people I spoke to about a week later
how the experience had impacted them.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
It was overwhelming, just the the way the community really
came around and supported the people in Hukumba that were
finding help. You know, after we finished cleaning up, when
we were back at the gas station, the Amazon driver
(12:39):
was delivering, like I think he delivered three hundred and
fifty boxes, and so we had to open them up
and sort them and it was there was so much food.
I think that it was insane amount of food, and
it was awesome. It was really cool just to see
how people stabbed up and donated.
Speaker 5 (13:02):
I like some of the people I saw in Santa Cedro. Natalie, Katie,
Sam and Marissa are not part of an NGO or
a mutual aid collective. They're just people who wanted to help,
and that describes most of the people in Hucumber, although
some of them did have previous and regular volunteer experience
with excellent groups like Border Kindness. I asked Katie to
reflect on the mutual aid approach and the absence of massive,
(13:24):
multimillion dollar organizations.
Speaker 7 (13:26):
Yeah, wasn't there, right, No, they weren't there. We were
told that the Red Cross couldn't come unless Border Patrol called,
and Border Patrol told us that they weren't allowed to
call the Red Cross.
Speaker 6 (13:38):
That's a pretty standard.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
The one institution that did show support to people in
Hucumber was one that you might not expect, given the
support for this cruel immigration policy by almost all the
Democrats in DC. But things are different when you can
see the results of these policies with your own eyes.
Perhaps that's why I didn't see a single elected official
in my entire week at the border. But one person
I missed, whoever won't mentioned, was a lady who worked
(14:02):
for California Senator Steve Pidia. I won't name her as
I don't have her permission, but hopefully one day soon
we'll be able to interview her. I'll let Katie describe
the role this woman played.
Speaker 7 (14:12):
There was someone from Steve Padilla's team, and that's the
woman I rode with, and she was incredible. Her brother
in law is the chef at the hotel, so I think,
I mean, she might have came anyway, but she came
(14:33):
faster and there was true connection, and she stood up
to the border patrol and said, you know, said we're allowed.
We're here on behalf of this senator. So I mean
I saw some like had had like arguments about our
right to be there, and most of us didn't. Weren't
(14:56):
paying attention to that. We're paying attention to the people
that we were, you know, around and no one that
was out there what didn't believe that we should be
out there, and that more help should be out there.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
Sadly, part of that familiarity with the system this woman
brought to the team also meant a familiarity with the
cruel and arbitrary nature of it. Katie says that they
had to organize for that as well.
Speaker 7 (15:25):
So my friend and I we ended up writing in
her truck, so in Steve Padia's Senator Padia's assistant truck.
So we had the opportunity to ask some questions that
probably everyone out there wanted to know, including the migrants,
(15:47):
And it was like, what will happen in what's the
process from here? And how do you know that these
people are being tended to? And I literally heard her
on the phone getting as many bodies on the ground
to start going to those centers where they're being taken
(16:08):
to make sure that they were but that we would
follow them through the entire process as best possible, monitoring
their well well cared for, that they were well cared for,
as well cared for as possible in a system and
(16:31):
a process like that.
Speaker 6 (16:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (16:35):
Yeah, but she literally said they're going to be busted
off and putt in cages, and that they would do
their best to make sure that that no one was
split up and that everyone was fed, showered, and they
(16:57):
weren't allowed to bring anything with them, so a lot
of the cleanup was all of the things that everyone
donated that had to be left behind, including some of
the stuffed animals.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
For all the volunteers I spoke to, the chance to
be of service was empowering. Here's Natalie discussing that, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
I mean, well, like and so many times do you
like feel overwhelmed with like so much suffering in this world,
and like what can one person do?
Speaker 6 (17:31):
You know?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
And so it did feel good that to actually see
an immediate impact, like I'm doing this and this is
a result, because sometimes you can just get discouraged, you know,
like we're just one person. What can we really do
and can we really make an impact? And just seeing
that and being able to see directly how that one
(17:52):
person can impact, you know, can rally. Like just see
how my friends came together, you know when shopping, bought things,
gathered money, collected money. You know, my really good friend Sam,
she went to her local bar after she collected a
bunch of money, went and dropped stuff supplies off at
my house.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
She was just down at her local.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Bar and just chatting with them and like, oh, what
did you do today, And so she told them, oh,
I collected money and I bought supplies, and then the
people She ended up collecting about two hundred more dollars
at the bar from people hearing her story. And so
then the next day she went and bought more supplies
and she actually ended up driving them out herself. She
ended up doing like three trips just from her own
(18:37):
talking to people and collecting. So just like the little
impact that, you know, everyone just kind of coming together
and making a difference.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
Santa Sedro, a pretty diverse range of San Diegan's came
to help. On the first night, I personally left at
about one in the morning, after spending almost two hours
trying to leave but needing to get charged phones back
to their owners by loudly in Spanish and French, then
English describing the backgrounds on the phone or the color
of their case. It wasn't a great system, and by
(19:43):
the weekend, Caber and others had seen that more help
an organization was needed, and they decided to plan a response.
Here's cable describing how they prepared for that.
Speaker 6 (19:59):
Maybe I'll just grabs you know, I was paying attention
to people I knew who were doing and what supplies
they were saying was needed. The particular store near me
has like a wall of travel size like these giant
times where you can basically just scoop out one hundred
deodorant hands and to paste and things like that.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
Capan met up with some other members of a local
mutual aid group. I'll make sure to include donation links
for all the groups I've mentioned at the end of
this series, so please make sure to listen right through
to the end.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
I met up with him, and he had just received
a bunch of donations through through mutually networks, so we
we know even more of a travel size I got
some truth Troo hygiene kits and deodorant and uh and
and a bunch of friends and papers because because the
kids that are between the walls don't really have actually
(20:50):
do unfortunately, so so that those were those weren't really fast,
and so we got a whole bunch of bags of
all those kinds of supplies and then we done.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
In the way from there. By the time they arrived,
various organizations had organized areas along the wall for different
kinds of aid to be passed through. Everything from clothes
to food to medical supplies and toilet paper was piled
up given out.
Speaker 6 (21:13):
They help regulations and you know organized the toilet paper, food,
everything like that, and people just come up to the
wall and if their family needed something, they would just
kind of going to it or ask us if we
were able to you know, if there was a common
language there. So yeah, we just kind of you know, hey,
things as people needed them. I know that I helped
give out some of the prints and tons of paper
(21:35):
and those were those were a big hit. Tons of
kids all came running over from the whole, all the
parts of the camp when they heard that there was
there were toys being given out, So that was it was.
It was heartbreaking, but it was also you know, it
made me smile to see them smile.
Speaker 5 (21:53):
And the smile because of the need to use c
BP one and of course they need to stay in
touch with families back home. There was a constant, an
overwhelming demand for phone charging. News reporters took phones back
to charge in their cars. Some people bought charge bricks
and power strips, and mutual aid groups wrote names on
the back of the phones using painter's tape and sharpie
(22:13):
so they wouldn't get separated from their owners. By the
second day it was a better system, but on the
first day it was chaos. I Let Kaber, who spent
a whole day charging phones, described the system that volunteers
came up with to mitigate that chaos a little bit.
Speaker 6 (22:27):
And obviously they couldn't charge their phones if they're just
in this kind of desert gap between between the walls
that doesn't have any kind of minuities or anything. So
we had a system where they would passed the phone
through and we had we went we went on a
(22:47):
piece of tape on it with their name and give
them a piece of tape with their name the same name,
and then they would give us that if they came
back to give us a tape back, and we would
match their names and phone and and that was It
worked well enough. I mean, it was still extraordinarily chaotic process.
(23:07):
I mean we had we always had at least one
hundred phones on our side of the wallet any given time,
and and some people had, you know, some people like
chargers to people didn't. Some people had Android or Samsung
or all the iPhones, and some people had well adapts,
and some people didn't have the wallet Esta adapters, so
we kind of had to every phone that came through
(23:28):
was we had to find a way to get it,
you know, basically chained into the set of generators that
we had, which was do we have a power strips
and we have to write cables and and and we
have space on those cables and and I think it
was it was a bit of a puzzle the whole time.
The only part of it that really overwhelmed me was
we did overload. Someone brought a bunch of uh USBC
(23:52):
power strips and we blew out one of them, and
so there was now phones attacked, sure that they had
to find new spaces for and I as I was
just frustrated by the situation, and in addition of affair
that I'm charging, I think whatever happened to.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
It, it was chaos, but it was a good nature chaos.
Over several days that migrants were attained in the open
with no shelter and inadequate sanitation, just about two miles
from the discount mall where you can buy cheap Ralpherend's
shirts if that's your jam. People showed up in ever
increasing numbers. The American Friends Service Committee helped organize volunteers
into groups to distribute food, package up wet white snacks, medicines,
(24:46):
give out tarps, and do just about anything else that
they could or anything else that they could fit into
ziploc bags. It could be passed through gaps in the wall.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
At least.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
People who had been immigrants themselves or who were the
children of immigrants were notably numerous and long the volunteers.
I spoke to one of them.
Speaker 8 (25:03):
My name is Lon Chai.
Speaker 9 (25:05):
I'm part of Asian Soliday Collective grass with organization here
in San Diego.
Speaker 8 (25:11):
I've been I've been coming over here since yesterday.
Speaker 9 (25:13):
I came here around five six yesterday, and then I
came back through here this morning and been here since.
I got home at twelve last night and woke up,
dropped my kid off, and came right back with more supplies.
I've been reaching out to family, friends and community to
help donate supplies and things.
Speaker 8 (25:29):
Like that, food, whatever, whatever they may have.
Speaker 9 (25:32):
And I've pretty much been driving around city and collecting
from folks that can't make it so I could bring
it down here myself.
Speaker 8 (25:39):
So that's what I've been doing.
Speaker 5 (25:41):
Lunchai explained to me why it was so important to
show up my community.
Speaker 9 (25:46):
I'm pretty sure they they they're sympathetic to this because
I'm coming from I'm a first generation cambody in American
here in the US, and when my parents and my
family fled their country, they went through this as well.
So somebody somewhere came and provided to support, provided to
aid the donations for them to to be able to
(26:08):
to make it to America to crossover, and and able
to to to provide out here for for me growing
up out here.
Speaker 8 (26:15):
You know. So it's just I just sympathize with it,
with the whole thing. I mean, I mean.
Speaker 9 (26:19):
Everybody should should should feel the same way because somewhere
down the line, our families went through similar situations. If
you're not an indigenous then then then your family somewhere
down down the history went through the same thing.
Speaker 8 (26:30):
So you know that everybody should have a heart for
this and be able.
Speaker 9 (26:33):
To come down here and and and donate or donate
their time or supplies whatever the case may be, you know,
come out in help.
Speaker 5 (26:39):
He also explained why he feels it's important to encourage
empathy for refugees.
Speaker 8 (26:44):
Well, it's it's you have to you have to, you
have to be keep your mind.
Speaker 9 (26:47):
There's there's this families out here, there's this young children,
there's babies. I mean, it takes a lot for for
for a mother to pick up her infant child and
to leave where she's coming from. So that just says
a lot about where what's going on, where she's for
her to trek and to go through this just to
sit out here and the cold and stuff, because if
she would rather endure her endure this and take the
(27:09):
risk and the chances, that means where she's coming from
is not as you know, if she's wanted to take
that risk.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
Later that night, I saw an Afghan family come to
help the other Afghan families. Their kids talk to other
Afghan kids separated by the border war. They passed crayons
through the wall and coloring books, and the little daughter
asked her dad if she could give her watch to
the Afghan girl being held in the camp. Her dad said,
of course, I don't record or photograph people's children, certainly
(27:36):
not without asking, And I wasn't about to interrupt them,
but it was a very sweet moment. The father of
the family had worked in the Army Corps of Engineers.
He'd been to the border before to build this section
of the war. I didn't really need to ask him
how it felt to see folks stuck behind it, but
it said a lot that he and his family had
taken the time to drive down, buy bags and supplies,
(27:57):
and then come face to face with the people who
needed them and hand them out. Like dozens of other folks,
they tried to pass whatever they could through little gaps
in the war to make someone's day a little bit brighter.
Another volunteer who we heard from yesterday came from a
local group called Pana. Hermira had been at the wall
since five in the morning and it was getting on
for five pm when we spoke. I normally ask people
(28:18):
what they ate for breakfast, just to tune in the
volume levels on the recorder a bit, but I'm going
to include it this time, just so you can see
how long her day had been and how hard she'd
been working.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Okay, do you know what do you want me to say?
Speaker 6 (28:29):
So that good? I mean, we have a breakfast again.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
I don't remember anymore French shast FRESD shosts, but my
name is Harmaira Yusafi and I'm with a partnership for
the Advancement of New Americans PANA, or an organization in
San Diego that fights for the full inclusion of refugees
and those who come from refugee producing countries.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
We spoke about the emergency that had kept her hair
all day.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
So in terms of this morning, I mean I was
I was very concerned because there was an asylum seeker
who had an emergency and was rushed out of this place.
Where now, like for example, where we are at right now,
is people who are being detained and the most inhumane
way possible. This is going against TBP's own protocols and
(29:17):
policies as to how they're being detained with No they're
not giving them food, they're not giving them bathrooms, they're
not giving them basic basic things that they need to survive.
And so that's why the community is out here today
to do that.
Speaker 5 (29:43):
Sadly, not everyone who showed up at the makeshift detention
facility were showing up in solidarity. Local anti migrant activists
and blogger Roger Ogden showed up.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
Now.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Ogden might be familiar to some listeners due to his
attempts to host he called a Patriot picnic and his
advocacy for the removal of the historic murals in on
A Park often organized gatherings in the park in twenty
seventeen and twenty eighteen, and they resulted in a huge
and overwhelming community response to defend the park, and this
time Olden decided to keep to himself, but Natalie ran
(30:13):
into some people who weren't quite as shy about their opinions.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
You know, a lot of the people in the Hook community.
Speaker 6 (30:19):
Are you know, lower income.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
You know, they are struggling in their own struggle on
their and so I know, you know, maybe I don't know,
like for those people, I.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
Don't know, like, yeah, it's hard, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I mean towards the end, like when I was walking
to my car, this man and this man in a
car like pulled up and he's like, excuse me, what's
going on over there? And I was like, Oh, we're
gathering you know, supplies for the asylum seekers.
Speaker 6 (30:53):
And then I you know, like, if.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
You're from here, you kind of if you're in Hookumba,
you kind of already knew what was going on, and
so him asking me that, I was kind of like,
m and then he just started laying into I've had
illegals you know, have broken into my house a few times.
Why are you supporting illegals? And I'm like, we're trying to,
let like make sure that people don't die, and he
(31:16):
just kept going off on me, and so he, you know,
his the whole all the talking points that people have
about not allowing people to seek asylum here, and so.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
I just walked away. Maurica didn't run into the same
kind of vocal opposition, but she said in her conversations
and attempts to process everything she'd seen, she ran into
some of the sort of need jate responses. So people
can only really make about immigration when they haven't looked
the cruelty that they're advocating for in the face.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
It took me a little while to kind of work
through just how I felt about it on an emotional,
maybe a spiritual level.
Speaker 6 (32:00):
You know.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
I spoke with family and friends about it, about my experience,
and and it's it's difficult to I found it difficult
to explain my experience because I don't know that somebody
can really truly understand that unless they've actually been out
there and done it themselves, because the arguments or or
(32:25):
they're kind of debate, so to speak. What they would
come back at me with when I was sharing that is,
but we don't have enough food or housing to be
able to support this that many people coming in, And
I'm like, but we just had so many people and
(32:46):
so much money put out there to help in a
very short amount of time. Look how many donations were donated,
how much money was contributed in a short amount of
time from not that many people. I'm like, obviously we
do have the money. Obviously we do have the food.
So where's the where's the breakdown? Like, is it our
system that just doesn't allow for that happened? I don't know,
(33:08):
And that that's where like I don't I don't understand
it enough.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
But I feel like.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
It just made me realize that I don't know that
anybody that I spoke to afterward really understands it enough,
either because their arguments or they're a defense and what
they tried to share on the opposite side of me
going out there and supporting just felt like it was
(33:37):
just something to say, you know, and like what they
what they hear from the general media out there, and
they also don't really they can't quite grasp it, so
they're just kind of throwing something out there, I guess
is what it felt like.
Speaker 5 (33:52):
Paper also ran into some less and charitable San Diegans,
this time down the Santasiedra.
Speaker 6 (33:57):
Yeah, so I guess My first is why they might
have or how they might have found.
Speaker 10 (34:02):
Us there, which is there's a a local news organization
San Diego called PSI, which is kind of a I
would describe as a local.
Speaker 6 (34:13):
Equivalent of something like one American News, which is really
unfortunate because we already have more American news here. But
they are are pretty well known for kind of a
lot of like misinformation, kind of scared mandering about and
has people immigrants, vaccines and and all that sort of
(34:36):
sort of thing, but with kind of a local news
sort of aesthetic to it. And they were, as far
as I could tell, they were really the only identifiable
media that were there throughout the day. I read articles
eventually made me realize there were other reporters there, but
they were identifying themselves the way that Hasy was. But
they sided this one cameraman just shooting b role, I guess,
(34:59):
and he was walking to all the different parts of
the wall and like all the different sort of stations
for aid and like trying to really trying to get
as many faces as possible. You could kind of tell
that that's like what he was doing. Everyone who I
was around, I was I was kind of you know,
oriented mostly with kind of their like sort of like
analysts between people. And you know, when they saw the
(35:22):
play with that truck, they were like, okay, point, it's
their masking, you know, and killing in ninety five with me,
so where of that? And I am, you know, slightly
identifying logo on my structure which I take over so
that you know, that image wouldn't show up now.
Speaker 5 (35:41):
KUSI have drifted further and further right since twenty twenty.
Along with their relatively miniscule viewership. These days, they engage
in fake news culture war stuff like repeating the recent
false accusations at Target was making tuckable swimming costumes for kids,
or labeling everyone in the asylum process illegal immigrants. It's
sadly pretty standard for right news organizations now. Okay, but
(36:02):
thinks that some of the people who saw footage on
k USI, or perhaps found the location posted on Obten's blog,
came down to the border like.
Speaker 6 (36:09):
Several hours later that stuff when we started to see
people you know, kind of go buy and and and
we could tell that they weren't volunteers, because like peop
when people like playing people who weren't even necessarily vounteer
which are buy and say like, hey, I just heard
watching on I brought a pace of water, and they
bring up the water and then they drive away. But
the people who are doing who are like cute where
(36:31):
I think, you know, kind of just some kind of
intimidation where you know, they wouldn't approach directly. They would
just kind of get out of their exceptionally large entivies
and and just kind of just kind of watch, and
they would kind of, you know, get a little bit
closer at a time, and then you know, a little
bit closer and kind of whisper to each other and
(36:52):
you know, point at things, and you know, it's just
kind of they were just watching, and you know, they
got close enough that I could read their shirts, and
and the shirts had a slogan that's associated with a
Christian nationalism slogan. So as this whole family is kind
of kind of sad that the kids were wearing shirts too,
and and so I kind of, yeah, I figured out
(37:15):
that that's what was going on. And I never talked
to them. I didn't approach them, but I stood when
I was, you know, something they closer clos or I
kind of positioned myself in between the rest of the
volunteers and in this group and and just kind of,
you know, didn't really start at them, just kind of
looked at them and and just made it clear with
(37:36):
my body language that I, like, I knew, you know,
they were doing like they weren't, you know, they weren't
doing any kind of secret agent thing or whatever, like
they were being really really obvious, and and I just
you know, stood and positioned myself in a way that
indicated that you know, I know what you're doing, and
you're not going to get close, you're not going to
interfere with you know, what we're doing, and you're not
going to contact any wine or thrill anyone or like
(37:58):
what everyone did. And eventually one of the people who
is either volunteer or work for, like one of the engineers,
can definitely tell there was something going on. So she
went over and had a conversation with them that I
could hear, and eventually they decided to move. And I
think she was just kind of trying to be diplomatic,
but just sort of like asked them if they wanted
(38:19):
to help, and if they don't want to help, and
you know, yeah, go be somewhere else, I suppose, And
and it was I mean, the sort of one amusing
part of people like that was that they apparently complained
to this person about me because they said that I
(38:40):
had been watching them and I was I was racially
profiling them because they were white. And I realized now
that this is an around this interview, but just for
the listeners, I am very very white myself.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
I think it's important when we discuss volunteering to honor
how hard this kind of experience could be on people. Obviously,
the trauma associated with seeing people brutalized by the state
and capital. It's not the same as being brutalized by
state and capital yourself, but that doesn't mean it's easy.
I asked Nathlete to reflect a little on children's toys
we found in the shelter when we were cleaning up
the camp.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Like as a mom, like I have my own children,
and it just really it was emotional.
Speaker 6 (39:18):
It's like it's just.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Like I'm like, who's who what child was playing with this?
You know, here in this space, and you know that
no child should be ever in, you know, an encampment
like that or it just no one should be living outside,
no one should be doing that. But also it's like
kind of like the humanity in a way like that.
(39:42):
You know, even a child's going to play wherever child's
going to play, and like that little toy of little
hopefully it brought that kid some joy in that moment,
you know, if it was there a little piece of
home or someone gave it to him or what, you know,
it was Yeah, the reality, it was like it was
(40:02):
like a person, you know, like a little artifact of
someone who was actually there. You know, like it was
a little more tangible than you know, a sock. You know,
that's not that's not I'm not think you know who
wore that sock, but think of who who was playing
with that dooy?
Speaker 6 (40:16):
You know? Was it a little boy a little girl?
At hold?
Speaker 2 (40:18):
Were they did they bring up home? Are they missing it?
When they When I saw they have that, she needed
people to clean up. It was like Okay, I took
a day off of work and went out there and
just felt overwhelming almost. I mean, just one day of
me working out there was really emotional. I can't imagine
(40:40):
how you know, Melissa and all the people that were
on the ground just dealing with it, and I know
they're just struggling a little bit and just processing it
all has been really hard, you know, really hard. It's
just just just how how privileged we are. You know, like,
no one leaves their country because they want to. They
leave because they have to, but they feel like they
(41:02):
have to. And you know, it's I mean, it's respecting
and honoring and understanding the privilege that you're in and
not taking for granted because it's very.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
Easy to both. Katie Marisa said they don't really identify
as political, and that they wanted to be there as people.
Sometimes often politics can become a complicated game of numbers
and statistics, but it's important to remember that what this
is really about is organizing in such a way that
we can take care of one another, and that the
most important politics of war is the politics of feeding
(41:37):
hungry people and maybe bringing a sad child of stuffed animal.
Here's Katie talking about the community response.
Speaker 7 (41:45):
I think I'm a really compassionate person and I'm not
very political in the sense that, like, I don't really participate.
My life in my community's life is solution oriented. So
I saw like that on a large scale, the like
(42:09):
when people come together, we create solutions when and you
don't wait for someone like the government to show up
and fix it, because then people will die. Yeah, you know,
I mean that's the reality is if that community didn't activate,
(42:33):
there would have been a lot of dead people in
the desert.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
Katie shared with me that she's been having a difficult time,
feeling guilty for not having the language skills to do
more and questing her own worthiness to be there helping.
But in the end, she said she felt that what
she'd done was right and important. I'll leave you with
her thoughts and tomorrow I'll be back to talk about
the people who put everyone in this situation in the
first place, the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 7 (42:59):
I think an important thing is like so many times
we hear about things and we say, isn't that awful,
and we kind of shut down because we don't feel
empowered or we don't know how to help. And literally,
(43:20):
a smile makes a difference, A feeling of like I
see you and you belong on this planet makes a difference.
And you know, little kids packing up canned goods and
fruit snacks for other little kids. They didn't see those kids,
(43:44):
but when the adult said they're going to be so
happy to get that package, they felt like they made
a difference. And those little girls are gonna grow up
and not be afraid to step up and make a difference.
I think a lot of people think like they can't
do enough, so they don't do anything. And if we
(44:06):
all just do a little bit or what you can,
then I think we would see a very large impact.
Hakumba is a town of five hundred and they just
fed thousands, house thousands, closed thousands, hugged and welcomed thousands
(44:32):
of human beings. And those people in that town don't
have much excess, and they made a difference.
Speaker 6 (44:42):
And I was.
Speaker 7 (44:45):
Proud to be a part of that community in a
way that I'm on the fringe of it, and it
made me want to be even more a part of it.
My feelings an intuition about that town, we're confirmed by
watching the simplest action make an incredible impact on real
(45:11):
lives and real people, and that this isn't demographics, it's
real bodies that have beating hearts and breathe, and we
all share the same air, in the same water, and
(45:34):
we're all connected. And when you make one little drip
in the bucket, it actually does make a difference. And
I think that stops us sometimes when we think what
we have isn't enough to give, but when someone has nothing,
what you have is more than what they can imagine.
Speaker 5 (46:04):
It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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