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January 29, 2025 50 mins

If you look at a world map, you'll see one tiny stretch of land connecting South, Central, and North America. As the only break in the great Pan-American Highway, the Darién Gap has long been one of the world's most inhospitable places. It's rife with crime, disease, and danger. Yet, in current decades, this single geographic chokepoint has evolved into what some describe as a migration 'superhighway' -- every year, thousands upon thousands of innocent people risk their lives traversing this lawless land on foot, hoping against hope for a better life in the north. In the first chapter of this special two-part series, Ben, Matt and Noel explore the history of the infamous Darién Gap.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Nolan.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
They call me Ben.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the
Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you argue you are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Guys, I was thinking today we.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
Start with the idea of a journey, So if any
of us are comfortable answering, what's the strangest, most dangerous
trip you've taken.

Speaker 5 (00:51):
I don't think I've taken anything currently that I would
consider super strange or dangerous, but I've got one coming up,
going to the Middle East for the first time. I
life be the most far afield location with kind of
a culture that I am very very much inexperienced with,
so well, that'll probably be it.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
I had a little bit of a weird thing when
exploring the West of the United States, where it's a
little less hospitable than a lot of other places just
out there by the that we visited out by the
Big Old Dam. Oh yeah, I've been out there before,
and just exploring on your own can be hazardous to

(01:31):
your health.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
Sure, yeah, yeah, the wild is alive and human beings
are passengers in the wild of the globe. For some people,
especially thrill seekers. When you're hearing that question, your answer
might be something like cave diving, which is a crazy idea.
I don't know why people do it for fun, but

(01:53):
be safe or We talked previously on other episodes about
things like dark tourism. Dark tourism is where you will
purposely travel to potentially deadly areas like collapse states, war zones,
contaminated land think of you know, Chernobyl, for instance. But
for millions of people year over year, as we record

(02:16):
this evening, the most dangerous trip of their lives is
not consensual. They are not seeking thrills. No one's trying
to base jump or anything like that. They are fighting
instead to survive. So in this series, we're exploring one
of these areas. It's a largely lawless place where tens
of thousands of people are risking their lives on a

(02:38):
daily basis. It's a home to horror, desperation, and ambition.
This is the story of the Darien Gap. Here are
the facts. Okay, maybe will we talk about what the
Dairien Gap is. Maybe we can textualize it a little bit.

(03:02):
This may be familiar to some of our car stuff listeners.
You guys know about the Great Pan American Highway, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
That thing's incredible, incredible when it was first created, wasn't
it starting in South America moving north essentially?

Speaker 4 (03:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's depending upon whom you ask. It is
a roughly nineteen thousand mile network of roads, like you said, Matt,
starting down south in Argentina, going all the way up
to Alaska. The reason we say depending upon whom you
ask is because despite the length of this road, generally

(03:46):
considered to be the longest road in the entirety of
the planet, Uncle Sam does not officially acknowledge the highway.
So if you ask the US government officially, they'll tell
you it starts in Mexico right on the border, and
then it goes down to Argentina. But if you ask

(04:07):
people who drive on the road, they'll say no, it
goes all the way up to all the way up
to Alaska. A roses a rose is a rose despite
what names we may give it.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Well, yeah, let's give that. Let's give that distinction, just
because if you're looking at some of the early maps, especially,
they will say things like, here are all of the
Pan American Highway connections that span through Central America, or
the ones that span through South America, or here are
the highways that span, you know, from Alaska through Canada

(04:40):
to the US. And I think it is those connections
that are not within the US that end up being like,
I don't know the things that the officials going, I
don't know.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
Yeah, they say, look, everybody has roads, all right. It's
a very weird policy thing. And policy can be hilarious.
Policy can be help helpful. Policy can also be dangerous.
We're going to take the global attitude here and confirm
that the Pan American Highway is again the longest contiguous

(05:12):
road on the planet or network of roads and connections.

Speaker 6 (05:15):
Right.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
There is only one break in this great human endeavor.
It is a region of dense rainforest and unforgiving mountains
and ismuth between they're connecting Panama and Columbia. This is
known as the Daryan Gap.

Speaker 5 (05:36):
Right, And every now and again somebody pitches an idea,
some sort of plan to fix this inhospitable area and
this gap in the highway system. In nineteen sixty four,
fifty years after the Panama Canal first opened, some I
don't know, oddball wildcard mavericky types in the US and

(05:59):
Panama we talked about using three hundred and twenty five
nukes nuclear explosions rather to blast a.

Speaker 6 (06:07):
Sixty mile trench through the territory.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
That sounds like a great plan, guys, I don't know
about you couldn't possibly be any unforeseen after effects.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
There's some real brainstorm energy there, agreed someone. It's four
thirty on a Friday, and someone says, you know what's
better than one canal?

Speaker 3 (06:25):
You guys, what about two? And then let's blow up
the moon while.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
We're at right. It's a crazy idea. Nuke a jungle
essentially a rainforest.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
Wait what yeah, yeah, to build the canal.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
And if you go back to the New York Times,
which has an excellent contemporary archive of these kind of
moments in history, there's an article arguing for this, and
they're essentially saying this plan is fine, you know, because
because it's still you know, the sort of a house

(07:00):
yacht Age of an Atomic Future, and they said it'll
be okay because the region is quote is a quote
from the article sparsely populated. And there's an implication here
shout out Dennis Reynolds, which was something like, I mean,
I guess there are people there, but really people, I mean,

(07:20):
do they really matter?

Speaker 3 (07:22):
They really matter? Do they have a subscription to NYT?

Speaker 6 (07:27):
Yeah, that is the question.

Speaker 5 (07:29):
Wow, that is very out of character for the New
York Times, but I guess it was a different New
York Time.

Speaker 6 (07:34):
Super cool.

Speaker 2 (07:35):
And just to be clear, this would be a sixty
mile trench to connect the highways even though the Panama
so after the Panama Canal has been built, all of
the rigmarole that went into doing that, Okay.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
I love the word rigmarole.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
So now we can get get rid of the natural
world and maybe we can just build a big bridge.
We got to be honest, folks. For outsiders, this place,
the gap is terrified. Pull up your map of choice
and check it out. It is a geographic choke point.

(08:09):
It narrowly separates the Caribbean Sea from the Pacific Ocean,
and even without the involvement of the Pan American Highway,
which is sort of an entry point for this conversation
and this exploration, the Darien Gap would still be one
of the most inhospitable regions of the planet. The temperatures

(08:32):
are crazy, the biodiversity is such that there are still
wild animals that can get you. There are mountains, there
are imagine an unpleasant thing when you think of the
word deep forest or jungle.

Speaker 3 (08:46):
It's there. It's definitely there.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah, and it is huge too. It's I don't know
the way it's described. Sometimes on paper it doesn't seem
like it's that much land, but sure it is vast,
especially if you look at it from above on a map,
though the maps available to US citizens it appears at least,
are not.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Very high quality, not super great.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
You will do some digging here, so don't don't rely
on Google Maps for this one. Go to places like
latitude dot t O or go to your satellite observer
of choice, and you'll you'll see something that's a little
less dare I say, sanitized, or a little more, a

(09:33):
little more in detail. And look, we got to be fair.
People have been living in this patch of the planet
since antiquity, and we've got a few funny stories or
tragic stories about this. They're they're kind of like ridiculous history.
In the days of colonial expansion, European forces, you know,

(09:56):
we're figuring out the shape of the world, and and
they thought, hey, look at this little ismuth, this little
connector the term would be a saddle, a continental saddle,
and they said, this is going to be a great
place to settle. This is the park place on our
global monopoly board. You know, it's nestled between the continents.

(10:18):
We can get to one place more easily, and then
we can maybe in the future we can control transit
and commerce through this land based checkpoint. And so the
Spanish founded Santa Maria la Antigua del Daren in fifteen ten,
which makes it one of the first European settlements on

(10:40):
the American mainland. The Vikings beat them candidly, but for
the Spaniards this was.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
A big thing.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
And I think, as we're alluding to, they quickly learned that.
They quickly learned what anybody learns when they're trying to
buy a house.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Right.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
A location on paye can look good, but it often
doesn't give you the full sense of a place in practice.
And it didn't take long for people in this new
community to start leaving the town because it was really
rough there. There was a lot of disease, there were
animal attacks. The locals didn't like them, and that's partially

(11:20):
the fault of the Spanish, if we're being honest. We
were talking a little bit off air some of the
folks who left this settlement from fifteen ten they went
on to found what we call Panama City today.

Speaker 5 (11:33):
And eventually that settlement, Santa Maria, was completely abandoned.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Oh yeah, yeah, basically given back to both indigenous peoples
that were already hanging out there and the wild. But
a lot of those folks when they left, we were
talking about Panama City. That's not that far basically northwest,
kind of wrapping around a little bit to get to
the area where Panama City was founded, and that place

(11:59):
just sprung up into a place. Even now when you
go to it's a center of civilization. It's where you
hang out when you go to Panama and it's beautiful,
it's amazing. But it's just crazy to think back in
you know, fifteen ten. Then just a couple of years afterwards,
they said we're getting out of here.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
Ooh, and they are not the they are not the
only Europeans to roll snake Eyes on the dice of
expansion here. I think that works. Snake Eyes is bad
in gambling.

Speaker 6 (12:31):
I think that sometimes, right, Yeah, it depends on the game.

Speaker 5 (12:35):
It's a gambling heist movie starring Nicholas Cage and Gary
Sinise as well. Okay, if you roll snake Eyes, I
think it's typically not good depending on the game and craps.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
I don't know, guys, and I still don't understand craps.
I don't understand gambling.

Speaker 4 (12:51):
But there is one more thing we have to mention,
which we may explore in depth in a future Ridiculous
History episode. Scotland. It sounds out of the blue. It's
a true story. We beat me here, Dylan, we the
not fellow conspiracy realist. The Darien Gap is part of
why Scotland is no longer independent, which I think a

(13:15):
lot of us didn't see that coming.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Like they expended too many resources trying to do stuff.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
There, one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
And I like that we're talking about resources there, Matt,
because we are going to We're going to explore kind
of resource allocation.

Speaker 5 (13:31):
Hey, guys, I dont we take a quick pause for
a word from our sponsor and then jump back across
the gap.

Speaker 6 (13:36):
Mind the gap, We're back.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
And we've returned. Let's jump back into the story.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
Okay, So the Spanish try, it doesn't work. They make
Panama City or they found Panama City, which does work.
Fast forward sixteen ninety eight. Scottish forces make a trading
colony in the Gap and it's part of something they
call the Darian Venture. This is often described as the

(14:09):
most ambitious colonial scheme attempted in all of the seventeenth century.
Like you were saying, they spent bundles of money on it,
I was going to say bootles, but I don't think
bootles is a word in this language.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Theoretically, this would be a trading post of sorts or
replace to gain resources from this area, then use ships
to get it back to Scottish mainland.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Yes, just so, and they originally they originally entered into
this with a collaborative mindset. It was like a mixtape
or posse track. However, their partners pulled out and Scotland
was continually pumping money, resources, blood treasure into this. More

(14:56):
and more Scottish colonists died from disease at hacks from
rival Spanish forces. Obviously the indigenous communities weren't vibing with them.
Eventually they had to give up their expansionist ambitions.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
In total, we.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
Understand they sent sixteen ships in like three waves. At
the end of the game, only one ship was able
to return to Scotland. This was such a disaster that
at frankly shipwrecked the Scottish economy overall unless than yeah, yeah,
they were they were food bar.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Was it because they got attacked or like they just
couldn't maintain in the.

Speaker 5 (15:40):
Area and it like it was just too inhospitable for them, right,
they just weren't prepared for the conditions that they met.

Speaker 4 (15:47):
Yeah, and transit lines or lines of communication are different there,
so they're getting news very very late, if at all,
and they kept you know, throwing money at the problem,
sort of like someone with a gambling problem.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Well it's kind of like how the colonies didn't work
out so great for the British Empire.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
Yeah take that, guys, Yeah, oh you can't.

Speaker 6 (16:13):
It's hard to govern from afar, you know, in those
days especially.

Speaker 4 (16:17):
And so less than ten years after this disastrous ambitious attempt,
the financial consequences of this endeavor are part of what
led Scotland to sign the Treaty of Union, which leads
to another related allegation of conspiracy. We know that Scotland

(16:40):
is part of the United Kingdom today, and guys, do
you remember it wasn't that long ago when a lot
of our fellow Scottish conspiracy realist were writing to us
and saying the recent referendum for Scottish independence was rigged.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Ooh yeah, but I don't have the details there, not
at least at hand.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
Nor I all right, well, right to the king. Just
get someone to text them.

Speaker 6 (17:07):
Yes, I got his email.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, yeah, what's he doing. I'm sure he's not busy.

Speaker 6 (17:11):
It's the King of England at Yahoo dot com.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
Throughout this entire time, before the age of colonial expansion, uh,
after it, and even now in modern evenings, Indigenous people
have lived in this area we call the Darien Gap,
and they watch outsiders come and go and time and
time again fail to tame this untamable wilderness. Pretty much

(17:37):
every outside exploratory force, uh, including would be colonizers. They
die of all the stuff you would you would be
familiar with if you ever played Oregon Trail Hunger. There's dysentery, right,
animal attacks, they drown, or often they simply disappear somewhere

(17:59):
out there.

Speaker 5 (17:59):
And speaking of the indigenous tribes that hung out in
that region too, in particular, had the best claims to
the land, the Gunna and imbarra Unana people.

Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah, and we want to we want to give space
to the indigenous communities there. They were again there far
before the Europeans and far before the conversations we're having now.
But they, like any other indigenous groups, they're facing tremendous
challenges from the outside world in the modern day, particularly disease,

(18:37):
corruption and crime. Because the Darien Gap we've described it
as you know, it sounds like a terrible piece of
real estate.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Right from what we've heard so far.

Speaker 4 (18:46):
It is a necessity for thousands and thousands of people
to visit. And that's because if you were forced to
move over land from south to Central America and all
points north, this is the only way to get through.
This is the only land passage.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Yep, and even the waters around this area. So you
may be thinking, oh, okay, you can't get through on
the land, we'll just take a boat around this area
and we'll make it to Panama somewhere, or maybe all
the way to Costa Rica, which is, you know, just
on the other side. No, because those waters are fully
controlled by a lot of the same human beings that

(19:28):
are controlling the land.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
Yes, and they have a vested interest in determining how
you fit into their portfolio of profit. How's that for diplomacy? Yeah, okay,
we're gonna look at what makes this area so dangerous
in detail and just a bit. But if you are
like us, if you live in the United States, one

(19:52):
of your first questions may plausibly be something like, well, hot, dang, guys,
we sent humans to outer space. We invented velcrow and automobiles,
you know what I mean. What's another cool invention? Tupperware?

Speaker 2 (20:07):
Tupperware?

Speaker 4 (20:07):
Yeah, mod synthesizers. Why can't civilization, with all these innovations
build one measly stretch of road here as we'll find.
It's a great question, but the answer is kind of complex.

Speaker 6 (20:21):
Right, We built nukes, we could use some of those.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
Maybe we should just nuke every.

Speaker 6 (20:26):
Prop I think that's a good call.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
All right, Our next sponsor is dirty bombs.

Speaker 5 (20:31):
Well, these are important questions and they have important and
complex answers. There are a ton of people and communities
who are completely against the idea of connecting the highway
through the Darien Gap. Indigenous groups on both sides of
the Panamanian Columbian border are against this kind of construction
for obvious reasons, as are associated governments and activist groups,

(20:56):
and of course criminals, being that this would be a
pretty solid area to hide away and do you know crimes.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
Yeah, and the reasons for so already we see there
are multiple what corporate America would call stakeholders they're reasoning
against completing this.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
Stretch of highway. It's pretty valid.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
The critics of construction are going to cite things like
protecting the rainforest. The biodiversity in this little patch is amazing,
and especially given these current times when the larger rainforest,
the Brazilian rainforest, the Amazon, is under such immediate, clear
and present threat, you want to save what you can.

(21:40):
And their argument is that construction is going to inevitably
lead to intense deforestation, is going to endanger native wildlife
right and in some cases this is the primary place
where these life forms reside. And they say, you know,
once damage is done, there's not political will to fix it.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Well, once any type of road, well, let's just imagine
a road is built there, any type of road, even
if it's a two lane highway right, one road going west,
one road going east. And once you put that in there,
what pops up? What else pops up along that road?
People need to get water, people need to get food. Right,

(22:22):
They're going to be entrepreneurial human beings that decide, hey, well,
we're going to figure out how to do this even
if it's not sanctioned legally right in the area, because
we know that's already happening now, even without a road.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
Yeah, to paraphrase Jurassic Park, profit finds a way. And yeah,
this gets us too. I mean, this gets us to.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
The other thing.

Speaker 4 (22:46):
There's a real concern about the spread of disease. And
at first, I'll be honest, I don't know about you guys,
but at first I thought this was propaganda until I
looked into it. The idea that one could use the
gap as a natural barrier against the spread of various
tropical diseases sounds a little politically convenient, But also it

(23:12):
turns out foot and mouth disease is a huge deal.
Despite the kind of silly name.

Speaker 5 (23:18):
And this, yeh did, and could continue to protect livestock,
you know, from getting afflicted with this disease, which can
be devastating.

Speaker 2 (23:29):
It is a big deal, it does.

Speaker 6 (23:32):
You know.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
The protecting livestock makes sense, right, But then trying to
use this gap as a stop gap against human born diseases,
that doesn't make much sense to me, because you know, planes, boats, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:48):
You know, there are a couple of other choices. It's
it's it's a pickle, it's a bag of badgers, for sure.
We will note that neither Central America or North America
entire have had a significant breakout of the viral disease
known as foot and mouth disease since nineteen fifty four.

(24:11):
The third thing, another very valid point, is hey, let's
try to protect the lives and existence of indigenous communities.
And you don't have to look far. You'll have to
look far at all to find the terrifying consequences of
the modern world intruding upon the livelihood of an indigenous group.

Speaker 5 (24:34):
Yeah, deforestation, expansion of infrastructure. Often, you know, the folks
that were there first are the ones that kind of
end up holding the bag.

Speaker 4 (24:43):
Yeah, And that's part of the reason why I love
the example of just building a simple two lane road,
right that will still bring with it knock on consequences
that are often not clear to the public until it's
too late to turn back.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
And it's a slippery slope, right, because it would be
like a single motel gets built, right, and then oh well,
well then we need a like a supply stop. Oh
now we need a gas station. No. Now, you know,
it's just because.

Speaker 4 (25:15):
If you give a mouse a cookie, is a great
is a great parable for that kind of thing, right,
And and this is the last one, just for some levity,
because we'll need it as our journey continues.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
I had to laugh at this.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
Uh, some of the governments in the area, Panama, Colombia,
some Caribbean nations as well, and of course our buddy
uncle Sam from earlier. Uh, they say you can't build
the road because you're preventing drug trafficking. You know who
agrees with not building the road the drug cartels that
run the Darien Gap.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Wait, so they're saying you can't build the road because
the gap is preventing trafficking.

Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, right, you know what I mean.

Speaker 6 (26:00):
I don't know about that, guys.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
I think it's laughable. And it's crazy.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
I just want to commend the comedy chops of people
who are able to say that in public with a
straight face. You know what I mean, you have a
future in improv.

Speaker 6 (26:13):
I mean it's an absolute haven for drug traffickers.

Speaker 5 (26:16):
Like I was saying earlier, it's like the perfect location
to hide away, you know, from prying eyes doing drug
manufacturing and distribution.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
Priying nice.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
I will Devil's advocate just enough to say a highway
would make it easier, maybe, especially if you still controlled
the area.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
Yeah, yeah, that's highway with caveat right. If you still
control what purports to be border security and the rule
of law, then a highway be massive. But these guys
already control generals and kernels, and they're paying off the
right people. Let's get to it, all right, And it's
an excellent point. As a result of all these combined factors,

(26:58):
it does not look like any one is going to
build a road traversing the gap anytime soon. And yet
that does not stop thousands upon thousands of people from
braving the gap, sometimes without their own consent, each and
every year. So our question is why we're going to
pause for a word from our sponsors and then we'll

(27:20):
dive in.

Speaker 3 (27:29):
And we've returned.

Speaker 4 (27:30):
Please be well aware, yet I'm afraid the following may
not be appropriate for all our fellow listeners. Here's where
it gets crazy. The short answer for the vast majority
of people who are temporarily populating the gap is simply
this migration. According to the United Nations and estimated eight

(27:53):
hundred thousand people including children and adolescents, cross through this
area or attempted to do so in twenty twenty four.
They did so on foot. They had very little in
the way of access to food, water, shelter, or safety.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
And that also includes a lot of women who are
imminently going to give birth.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
Very yeah, yeah, And they're coming from countries like Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela,
other South American countries or in the mix. But you'll
find folks from even Haiti or Ethiopia, or the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo, China, even Cameroon, India and

(28:37):
Pakistan again all mixed in with these South American countries.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
And this is theoretically because it's easier to get into
like from those other places that would seem a bit
more far flowng to get into a South American country
and move their way towards the gap.

Speaker 4 (28:55):
Yeah, anticipated this. I love that we're pointing this out.
So think about it this way. If you're looking at
the map still and you're saying, hey, why would you
come from a place as far away as South Asia
or China and go this way? In the example of China,
I don't want to tell too many tales out of school. Here,

(29:16):
you can fly to Ecuador visa free. And once you
get to Ecuador, then the rule of law is a
little more porous, as are the borders, so it becomes
easier to traverse over land. Most people who have an
alternative way of attempting to get to the United States.
And again, most of these people migrating are trying to

(29:38):
get to the US. They're not trying to get to
Gude and stay there or something. They're trying to reach
Uncle Sam. And when they're doing this, they're forced to
travel through the gap because it's their last choice, it's
the one they can afford to do. Otherwise, why would
you not take a boat? Why would you not try

(29:59):
to get a plane? And the US Coast Guard like
bord of you know, Noley just mentioned Haiti Haiti. It
feels like you're doubling back, right, you're going south to
get north in some way.

Speaker 6 (30:14):
Right an ass or out elbow situation.

Speaker 4 (30:16):
And that's because entities like the US Coast Guard are
spotting and stopping boats and they've got a pretty crazy
track record of doing so. So your odds of getting
to the US are actually improved if you go out
of your way and go through this land route.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, that makes so much sense if you look at
the larger map, especially if you're coming in from the
Atlantic side or in the Caribbean, like, you can just
see how the routes could be easily patrolled. And then
Panama's cozy, you know, relationship with the US and via
the canal and all that stuff. You can see why
you wouldn't go straight to Panama or Costa Rica or Nicaragua,

(31:00):
even you would go the other route.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
Or try your luck in the Gulf of America. I
can't remember what we're supposed to call it.

Speaker 6 (31:07):
Only part of it. Apparently there's still a portion of
it that's the Gulf of Mexican.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Okay, right on everything fine.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Still says Gulf of Mexico.

Speaker 5 (31:17):
You see, there's some some dude that came out and
was railing on Google Maps and for not correcting it yet.
But apparently it's also like it's not required. It's only
like a proposal of some kinds and they have thirty
five days or something to enact it or to replace
it on you know, government sanctioned maps and things like that.

Speaker 4 (31:38):
Also check out our earlier episode on textbooks and maritime borders.
I think, I know we've discussed this, but look to
East Asia and see see what each different country in
that region decides to call the bodies of water next
to them spoiler.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
They don't agree.

Speaker 4 (31:57):
This is disturbing because a place that governments and corporations
for centuries have deemed an impossible HQ point or transit
route has become a super highway of sorts, right or
a big sort of a big path for people who
are fleeing disaster in their home communities. And the fastest

(32:21):
growing portion of these migrants, I think the one that
really really bothers us it's children. It's children under the
age of five. They're the fastest growing demographic of people
migrating as a last resort through the gap.

Speaker 6 (32:38):
Wow, oh my goodness.

Speaker 4 (32:42):
Yeah, fifth of fifth of the at least according to
the official numbers, and we'll see why those are tricky.
Of fifth of the people migrating are children adolescents. Part
of the reason why the fastest growing documented demographic is
children under five is to that earlier point, because they're

(33:02):
expectant mothers who not infrequently will give birth in transit.

Speaker 5 (33:09):
Yeah, and I think this might be a good time
to talk about asylum seekers versus refugees. And I know that,
you know, it's certainly an issue that comes up every
time there's a new president. If I'm not mistaken, one
of the executive orders that was signed on day one
had something to do with making it much more difficult,

(33:29):
if not completely cutting off asylum seekers essentially, I believe
it's shut the system down temporarily.

Speaker 6 (33:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
Yeah, a lot of stuff here, as we record on Friday,
January twenty fourth, twenty twenty five, in the United States,
a lot of stuff is like a shoe hanging in
the balance. You know, things have been put on pause.
Courts are deciding what gets to be permanent. In recent decades,
migration has been a what we call a hot button

(34:01):
issue in the United States. Recent moves by the last
few presidential administrations have sought to close access to the
country by various means, and sometimes that means they are
creating new restrictions on who can get a visa, who
needs a visa, how long that visa applies, or they're

(34:23):
returning to older policies with higher barriers to legal entry.
And that's I appreciate you pointing out the concept of
asylum and refugee status. It's worth our time, right just
to break down the difference here.

Speaker 5 (34:36):
It's something that I think I've always been a little
tenuous about myself, all right.

Speaker 4 (34:41):
And the difference really depends upon where you're at. To
qualify in the United States for either asylum or refugee status,
you have to prove to Uncle Sam that you are
going to be persecuted or maybe even murdered based on
your race, religion, nationality, your political activity, or what they

(35:05):
loosely call State Department loosely calls membership in a particular
social group, and that's sort of their miscellaneous umbrella term, right,
So that can include LGBTQ, that could include an activist
group like a fallum gong. There's a big Vin diagram there,
and the big difference there is that you ask for

(35:27):
asylum when you get to the border or when you
are already in the country, and legally right now, again
a lot of things are on pause. We don't know
if this will be true in a few months, but legally,
right now, you have a year to request asylum once
you once you reach the United States. There are exceptions

(35:48):
like Cuba, but that's that's a fine look.

Speaker 5 (35:51):
And just to clarify what I mentioned earlier, one of
those executive orders indefinitely suspended the ability for individual jewels
to legally seek asylum. And apparently it's quite unprecedented. This
has been part of the United States law since the eighties.

Speaker 4 (36:08):
Yeah, so again it'll go to the courts, right And
that reminds me of another sticky wicket, the idea of
removing the constitutionally guaranteed concept of citizenship by birth. That's
going to be that's going to be an absolute mindfield.
To return to what we're saying, the difference with asylum

(36:30):
is and refugee status.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
Is where you're at.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
If you are requesting refugee status, you can do so
outside of the United States. You do not have to
be in your origin country. All you have to prove
is that you are unable or unwilling to return to
your country of origin because of those of one of
those five loose categories we outlined earlier. Unfortunately, as we know,

(36:58):
it's very difficult to get that kind of status asylum
or refugee status. And guys, I don't want to sound
too cynical, but from what I'm seeing, people often have
the highest chance of meeting success if something about their
country or their identity is in the news cycle, or

(37:19):
if there's a larger geopolitical move or if you know,
god willing, they get help from an NGO.

Speaker 6 (37:27):
Absolutely, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
Specifically I'm thinking, I'm thinking about Venezuelan refugees and you know,
think about the news cycle and everything that was occurring
in Venezuela over the past Josh, I don't even know
how many years at this point, but where that was
a that was a big deal to allow in a
lot of people from that country because of the chaos
that was occurring, you know, in the country, but also
in the news.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
Yeah, so the public is reacting, the politicians are reacting
as a result. Right, there's a there's a feedback loop
and now all of a sudden, until the next headline
breaks people care. And with that, since we're mentioning executive orders,
what do you think to want to get some primary
source on that one.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Well, yeah, let's jump to the executive order that Noel mentioned,
because this just came forward on January twentieth, and we're
recording this on the twenty fourth, and it goes into
effect on January twenty seventh. So I mean, this is
just crazy. How fast an executive order like this can
you know, be ordered and then some action can take place. Yeah, exactly.

(38:36):
This is titled you can find it right now, realigning
the United States Refugee Admissions Program, and that is specifically
the US Refugee Admissions Program known as USRAP. It is hereby,
according to the newly inaugurated President, suspended starting January twenty seventh.

(38:56):
It says, quote, I therefore direct that entry into the
United States of refugees under the us RAP be suspended.

Speaker 6 (39:05):
So, like.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
I guess, it's it's a tense time because it as
to go to ask to go to the courts, right,
It's tough.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
People are going to fight it.

Speaker 4 (39:19):
But the question becomes a question of as boring as
it is to say, it becomes a question of procedure,
because the minute that kicks in on the twenty seventh,
people or agencies aren't going to wait for the courts.
You know, you can't tell somebody okay, you're applying for
the status. Here, kick it in the lobby. You know,

(39:42):
we got we got some popular mechanics magazines from twenty twelve.
If you want to just scroll through those and.

Speaker 6 (39:48):
Then we'll leaves digests.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
Yeah, we'll tell you what Scotus says.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
You know, you know, it really reminds me of our
earlier episodes where we talked about the powers that the
executive branch received post nine to eleven, and just this
concept of how you can use an executive order, the
way an executive order is executed, and how all of
that changed as power started to go away from you know,

(40:12):
Congress and the lawmakers the legislature to the presidential seat.

Speaker 4 (40:18):
Yes, the problem with well, this is a non American perspective,
but I've heard it more than once. The problem with
all three branches of the United States government. We're not
counting the media just yet, but they are the fourth estate.
The issue there is that all three of those groups
are expansionist, inherently power begets power, and power like seeking

(40:40):
out more power.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
And they're supposed to all say, hey, we got enough
power each We're cool.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yeah, this checks.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
Supposed to work.

Speaker 4 (40:52):
Yeah, but you know who even balances a checkbook these days, right,
So everybody's just everybody's just going ham on their thing.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
We are going to make this a two parter. Before
we do.

Speaker 4 (41:04):
I believe there is one one concept that we need
to put in mind here as we get closer to
traveling the gap, and it is this. You have to
note that there are differing administrations and different branches of
government that have contradictory policies on the concept of immigration.

(41:27):
But at the same time, if one is being intellectually honest,
we must admit that these crackdowns go across the political
and ideological board. The recent Biden administration did something that
Gollum from Tolkien would call trixie. They spent a lot
of time not super duper in the headlines, not talking

(41:49):
to the US public. They would go to governments Mexico,
Costa Rica, Panama, Honduras like you know, Ecuador, places that
were associated with this, with this swell in migration, and
they would say, hey, guys, you're in our backyard. We
need you to change the laws.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
We don't.

Speaker 4 (42:11):
We're not going to necessarily change our stuff. We need
you to do it. And this is meant to prevent
migration from Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Haiti, Venezuela, of course.
And this is where we get too. Folks like Yale Shatcher,
who is a director for the Americas in Europe at
Refugees International. Guy knows what he's talking about. He was

(42:33):
speaking with the Progressive Magazine in twenty twenty two and
he says, when I've talked to the Biden administration about
the pressure they're putting on these adjacent countries, he says,
what's a little frustrating is they typically say, these are
not our policies, these are the policies of other governments.

Speaker 5 (42:53):
Well, sure, it's like a buffer kind of right, it's
a bait and switch totally.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
Well, in all of those countries we talk talked about
there again, going back to Venezuela, Haiti, Ecuador, Cuba, Columbia,
these are places that are experiencing tremendous changes, right, detrimental
changes due to often activities of criminals, of people who
are on the other side of the law, people who

(43:19):
are seeking to overthrow governments. So there are a lot
of citizens attempting to go other places. And it is
such a your tricksy is such a good way to
describe it.

Speaker 4 (43:28):
Then well it's I mean, okay to micro to take
it microcosmic, and I appreciate that, Matt, to take up
micro cosmic. If you have kids, or if you've interacted
parent family kid groups, then you may be encountered at
some point a parent or an authority figure who sort

(43:50):
of forces a decision on a kid and then wants
the kid to pretend like it was their decision. And
that's sort of what do you Yeah, that's sort of
what the US is doing. They're saying, Oh, oh gosh,
oh geez, guys, it's not us, it's these other folks.
You know, these are sovereign nations. It's their decision. They're

(44:11):
doing what they want and it just happens to be
exactly what we told them to do.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
And also, everybody, just stay where you are, is what
they're saying.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:20):
Yeah, And let's let's also point out, because I know
politics can be very sensitive any time, but especially these days.
These policy changes did not begin with the Biden administration.
They began during the Obama administration.

Speaker 5 (44:37):
Yep, how easily folks forget some of the nefarious things
that the Obama administration was responsible for.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
Yeah, man, it just it goes back to that. It
makes me feel things differently, guys. We've mentioned it before
on the show, just this concept of the United States
having opening arms and saying, give us your tired report,
come to us, come to us. We have opportunity. But really,
even then, way before then, they're just saying we need

(45:08):
cheap labor. Give us your cheap labor because we have
industry and we need human bodies to grow at.

Speaker 6 (45:15):
It masquerading as the American dream.

Speaker 4 (45:18):
Yeah, right, not what you say, but how you say it. Yeah,
since we're quoting poetry there, it's pretty awesome poetry. By
the way, check out that Ma Lazarus poem. It is
worth your time. We've got to say this, these are
hidden hand policies. The US administrations were not being entirely
transparent with the US public and indeed with the global public.

(45:41):
So Dylan, if we can can we get a little wompwomp,
because they earned it.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
It's that terrific there it is.

Speaker 4 (45:47):
And look when these we'll call them hidden hand policies.
When they were enacted, they did not stop what they
were purporting to stop, Just like Nixon and the War
on drugs or the War on crime. They didn't prevent
migration from other countries. Instead, they shifted it. They shifted
the means of migration to other roots. No one solved

(46:09):
the problem, They just moved.

Speaker 6 (46:11):
It a little sleight of hand there.

Speaker 5 (46:13):
This is why you'll find various experts and analysts who
argue that the US has for years not been addressing
migration as an issue, but simply kind of kicking the
can further down the road, effectively pushing their own border
further south.

Speaker 6 (46:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
Yeah, think of it like a house on fire. We
all know that cutesy meme with the dog saying this
is fine, fine, good. Yeah, you find a house on fire,
and instead of putting out the fire, the people in power,
for a panoply of reasons on all sides of political aisles,
they effectively just moved the fire to a different house

(46:51):
in a different neighborhood and said, yeah, okay, all good,
vote for us again. But people were still burning as
a result. Is that too hyperbolic?

Speaker 6 (47:02):
I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
I'm just trying to figure out how you move that
fire without putting it out.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
I know, right, is the technology there? So our next
question is going to be why Darien Gap. We've shared
a lot of context and history in this, but this
is clearly going to be a series, so we're going
to pause it here and we hope you tune in

(47:27):
for our very next episode, which will be which will
be traveling into the Gap. In the meantime, thank you
so much for tuning in, folks. We hope this message
finds you well and safe. In amid grand consensual adventure.
We want to hear your thoughts. Have you traversed the
Gap or do you know anyone who has done so? Like,

(47:51):
what do you wish more people understood about the current
state of migration today, not just in the West, but
in the world over all. Tell us your thoughts. We're
here with you and we can't wait to hear from you.
You can find us via email. You can call us
on a telephonic device. You can even hit up the
internets and talk to us on those lines.

Speaker 6 (48:13):
Boy can you ever?

Speaker 5 (48:14):
You can find us at the handle conspiracy stuff, where
we exist on Facebook with our Facebook group. Here's where
it gets crazy, on YouTube, where we have oodles of
video content for you to enjoy, and on ACFKA, Twitter,
on Instagram and TikTok. However, we are conspiracy stuff show,
and we're also human people that you can find separately.
I am at how now Noel Brown on Instagram, Ben Bolin,

(48:34):
how about you, sir?

Speaker 3 (48:36):
Should one choose?

Speaker 4 (48:38):
You can find accounts calling themselves at Ben Bullen wherever
you find things that have an AT in the front
of them.

Speaker 5 (48:45):
Glad you locked that down, buddy, WHOA.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
My name is Matt Frederick, spelled just like Kevin Frederick.

Speaker 6 (48:52):
You know who that is. I'm sure I don't know
who Kevin Frederick is.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Oh, he's a very very funny comedian.

Speaker 6 (48:58):
Okay, well I'll check him out.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
Yeah, you can find me there. We do have a
phone number. It is one eight three three std WYTK.
When you call in, you've got three minutes to leave
a voicemail. Within that voicemail, please give yourself a cool
nickname and let us know if we can use your
name and message on the air. If you've got more
to say than can fit in three minutes, why not
instead send us a good old fashioned email.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
We are the entities who read every piece of correspondence
we receive and love to hear from you. We can
all see this, we can all respond. Thank you for
the very nice letter from a philosophy grad student who
complimented us on a video we made a while ago,
which was frankly harrowing. We want to read your suggestions

(49:48):
for future episodes. We want to read your responses. We
want to see pictures of your pets. Tell us about
your adventures. Tell us if we can share your name.
If you want a model, we're super down with that.
If you prefer anonymity, but have something your fellow listeners
need to learn, we've got your six as well. Join
us out here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
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