Joe Biden and ICE: What's Going On

Today we sift through Biden's version of kids in cages.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, A production of I Heart
Radio Welcome Together. Everything so down, Oh Daniel boys, the pipes,

(00:24):
the pipes are calding from Glen to Glenn and down
the mountains. Size. That's how we starting the show today. Better.
This is how we're starting the show, Welcome to the
Worst Year Ever. I'm Robert Evans and that was O
Daniel Boy, a song I sang for our audio engineer
Daniel with me today Cody Johnston, Katie Stole co hosts

(00:50):
co Friends cos because of the Worst Year Ever. That
song was so beautiful. I don't I think I'm a
little too emotional too a little who worked up to
do the show? Now? The dulcet tones, you know Scott
Skating singing O Daniel Boy for decades centuries. Really it's

(01:11):
it goes very deep and they never knew what it
meant until until now. Um is written written for this
moment centuries earlier. The first time I heard that song
was on Saved by the Bell when they had a
memorial service for I believe a dead iguana. I'm not
sure it was a lizard of some kind, some kind

(01:35):
r I p screech. It was screech died, right, he
did die. I shouldn't have laughed. That's actually a very
sad It seems like it seems like he had a
rough go of it. Anyway, welcome to the worst effort,
right right. Uh, So today we're going to talk about

(02:01):
Joe Biden. Uh. When you wake up in the morning
and your alarm gives out a warning, okay, you get
to the coreer some time to see the buss bussard
by all right, Sorry, go ahead, okay, okay, okay, no,
no, no no, no, no, I lost it. We're gonna talk
about Joe Biden and Ice because there's been a lot
of chat about Joe Biden and Ice, and I think
just to contextualize things before he while while he was

(02:25):
running for president, one of the big things that made
all of the liberals angry during the Trump administration was, uh,
and rightly so was Trump's horrific policies towards immigration, towards
particularly non white immigrants, the separations of families, the kids
in cages. Uh. And of course, some people throughout this
period did point out that while there were aspects of

(02:45):
that that were significantly escalated by the Trump administration, including
like the zero tolerance policy that led to it. Uh,
the family separations again, yeah, and the actual family separation
aspect of it. Yeah, that had also happened to a
lesser degree in the Obama administration and deportations that happened
to a much higher degree during the Obama administration. Trump

(03:06):
did not deport more people than Obama. Now, there are
other factors at were, including the fact that the number
of people coming into the country um dropped over the
course of the Obama administration number of terms, but yeah,
a number of terms also, But Obama still deported a
shipload of people and did separates families. So there were
there were Even though they did stop that at a

(03:28):
certain point when there was pushedback, Um, there was still
a great deal a lot of people being like, well,
you guys really think Joe Biden's got to do anything
to help with to help immigrants, going to improve the
situation in any way. And obviously since now he's been
in office for I don't know, like a monthish month
month or so, Um, we have some information about how

(03:49):
things are proceeding. Now. If you're if you're someone who
consumes most of their news from Twitter, particularly left leaning Twitter,
the overwhelming thing I'm seeing is Biden is doing basically
the same thing. He's no better. Uh, they're putting kitchen
cage is still Um. I don't think that's entirely accurate
from my research, although there are some really solid criticisms

(04:11):
of what he's done and some aspects of what he's
doing that are have where he has not met his promises.
But the whole situation is pretty complex. So we figured
we'd take an episode to talk about what is actually
going on with with Joseph Robinette, Biden and uh and
and our good friends at ICE, Friends of the Pods,
the American Yeah. Yeah, I think this is really important

(04:33):
because there's a lot of different information floating around in
confusion about what it is that is happening and what
is not happening. Yeah, and I guess let's start with
the uh the new immigrant facility for children. There was
a Walkington Post article that dropped on just February with
the title first migrant facility for children opens under Biden. Um, Katie,

(04:58):
did you have something you want to you wanted to
get into one that Yeah. Yeah, So that headline slightly
misleading in that it is not a brand new facility.
This facility Carrizo Springs, UM was actually a facility that
had been opened for exactly one month under Trump back
in summer twenty nine, but had been shut down pretty

(05:21):
quickly over big outcry and protests. But yeah, now it
is being reactivated to hold up to seven hundred children
ages uh, between the ages of eighteen thirteen and seventeen. UM.
This is an influx facility. Uh. It is not one
of the permanent centers that we've seen. It's also not

(05:44):
under ICE's jurisdiction. This is under uh the b c
f S. I want to talk about that and in
just one second, sure, buck face buckfas. The justification for
this is that, uh, you know, the current centers where

(06:06):
you know children are being held are at over capacity
because of coronavirus. You need to separate people. They also
don't want children to be long term in uh you know,
detention centers that are not made for them. They're also
have been has been an uptick in immigration people coming
to the United States during coronavirus. So these are the

(06:29):
different um justifications. Given that said, it's a the optics
of reopening one of the like you know what of
the like for lack of a better word market child
child concentration, but one that was like the poster child

(06:51):
of those things for the Trump administration, right, uh, is
within this first thirty day period is true stunning, and
I think it's important. Yeah, we need to talk about
book Fast because book Fast. Yeah, yeah, before we get
I want to talk about some ways in which because

(07:13):
but when we're getting to Bookfast, we're gonna be talking
about ways in which Biden is doing the same ship
and that Obama did before. I want to talk about
how this is different because this is not the same
thing as this is. And people are like mocking the
folks like, oh yeah, they're not child cages, they're migrant
detention facilities whatever. There is a difference because these are
not children who have been separated from their families as

(07:33):
your children who arrived alone at the border. Yes, and
you can argue, as I would argue, that this is
not the right thing to do with him. For one thing,
there's plenty of sucking open hotels and stuff that would
be much more comfortable. But you have a child m
arrive alone at the border trying to get to an
adult somewhere in the country. There should be some process
to deal with them. And that is not the same

(07:55):
as a family arrives at the border and we separate
them because we have a zero tolerance PULICI solutely. You
can't just have a child that arrives here go on
their mery way, hopefully reuniting with the people that they're
here to meet up with. You need to have a
space for them. UM. That's safe, you know, and you

(08:19):
know and and the laws and humane um and and
they're only supposed to be in these facilities for a
few weeks, maybe forty days tops. But if you look
at well, I definitely under Trump h hundred days twenty days, UM.

(08:40):
And I think that we'll continue to talk about this
as the episode goes, but it's important to keep in
line mind it's something that we've talked about over the
past four years. Under Trump, children hoping to be reunited
with somebody here in the States. UM. That puts a
lot of pressure on the people that they're hoping to

(09:00):
meet if they are undocumented, under coming to you know,
coordinate through ice or this is an ice spect you know.
It puts a lot of pressure on them, and they
have not always felt safe. There's certain things that we
don't necessarily think about exactly and it's what the letter
of what they're saying they're doing, which is, these kids
come and we're taking them and we're putting them in

(09:21):
a safe place while we try to reconnect them with um,
connect them with whatever adult they were coming to live with. Right,
that's the stated goal. Now they also always point out
that like they have an evaluation process to see if
by whatever standards they have, those adults are fit to
receive the children. We don't actually know what their standards are.

(09:42):
What I will say is where this actually a case
where the government is finding kids who come alone to
the border and putting them somewhere safe and comfortable until
and working spent putting resources into connecting them with their
family members in the United States, that would be a
good thing. Part of the problem is that because of
how fucked this whole system has been for decades now

(10:05):
and how little trust anyone involved in this half, I
have no faith that they are actually trying to do
that right, and no one should have any faith. And
if it turns out, if you know, two years standlinet
isn't no. We we matched all these kids up with
their families, We got them out like that's exactly what
they were doing. Then I will say good, maybe things
have gotten better, because that's what should happen, right The
kids should not be left to their own devices to

(10:26):
wander through North America until they hopefully find their family.
They should be be given food and resources and medical
care and ideally even schooling until they are matched with
whatever family maybe they were coming here for. That's the
humane thing. Yeah, if if that's necessary, hopefully they're not
there long enough, you know. Yeah, there's also yeah, it's

(10:47):
it's the kind of thing also that I feel like
it's a little frustrating because obviously there's a and we've
we mentioned this, you know, over the years of the
Trump administration that uh, the the the overtly performed of
like cruel acts of like literally separating these children their
parents and families, uh and doing these facilities. I I

(11:08):
do find it hard to believe that if Trump did
exactly this, then people wouldn't also have a have a
problem with it. Yeah, there's a double standard that's really frustrating.
You know, there's a benefit of the doubt that people
are very quick to give to right now because it's
not Donald Trump that's doing it. Right, and like the
even when like even when Obama was doing it um

(11:31):
and not doing the we're going to purposely separate these people. Uh.
Children were detained with their parents um or family members
in detention facilities, and the conditions are yeah, they they
fought against. There's a thing called the Florist Agreement, which
is basically, like children detained, you need to like give
them toothbrushes and have sanitary conditions and all these things.

(11:53):
The administration fought that because well, technically they're with parents,
so that agreement doesn't apply to this situation. Um. So
there's a lot of sait there and things like that,
where like without like with without Trump, this all seems
very rosy um for for people and it's not, and
it's not. I think that brings us to BCFS because

(12:18):
part of why I don't think we can trust that
the stuff they're saying is reasonable on paper, The stuff
that the Washington Post quotes the people here are saying
is reasonable on paper. When you learn about BCFS Health
and Human Services, which is the the contractor operating this facility,
it is harder to have any sort of good faith

(12:40):
that um, that this will be a humane solution. Yes,
just uh, because of what it is at its core, Like,
this is the industry. It's an industry. UM. And if
you're in the industry of making containers to keep people
temporarily who are quote like here illegally and things like that,

(13:01):
you're going to have the result of which Katie will
get into. It's just it's yeah problem. I'm sure you
guys all have information and stuff to add to the CFS.
UM you might buck fast. UM. Yeah, they run several facilities.
They run six attention facilities in Texas. UM. They also

(13:26):
are behind uh the absolutely horrific torneil in Tent City
that everybody was outraged about this time last year. Maybe
a little further, I don't know. UM, And there's there, there,
there's there's just there are so many stories surrounding this
company at these different facilities that are truly there are

(13:48):
horrific you know, uh, lots of allegations of inappropriate relationships,
inappropriate touching. UM. One of the facilities allegedly served kids
raw food, undercooked food. Uh. One kid at a severe
allergic reaction because they had him eat something that he
was allergic to. At another facility, there is a story

(14:09):
that a staff member helped a kid, right, two family
members or somebody from money, and then the staff member
took the money. Uh. Stories about distributing uh pornographic images
to the kids. Uh. And these are the people that
they're choosing to have run this camp now because it's

(14:30):
for profit, and so both you're going to cut costs
as much as you can and the things that are
meant to keep the children healthy and safe. You're also
going to cut costs as much as possible on the
people who work there, which means maybe you're not going
to make sure that pedophiles or stuff aren't getting these jobs,
you know. And there's this one part of the Washington
Post article that we're currently referencing, UM and and they

(14:54):
quote Mark Webber. He's a spokesperson for the Department of
Health and Human Services. And in the article there's this
little part where I'll just read from it, whatever said,
the facility has received a bad rap under the Trump
administration because many people associated with the detention centers because
by immigration and Customs enforcement. But the children always received

(15:14):
good care and that never wavered between administrations. We know
that that's not true. We know that the children didn't
receive good care. Yeah, how what How am I supposed
to trust you, Like you're not even acknowledging the fact
that they they've received appalling care and we all know it. Uh.

(15:36):
That really jumped out at me when I was reading this.
I don't know if you guys had that same Yeah,
no I did. And it comes back to this problem
of all we did was changed the people at the
top and change the messaging. Right, the messaging is no
longer fuck you because you came here not through a
legal route. Uh, and also you're not white. Now the
messages well, we have to try to reunite these kids

(15:58):
with their families and this is the only as we
can put them and that's more reasonable messaging. But it's
the same people in the same companies and they still
don't give a ship. Yeah, it's still this Like again
it's the well it's not a for profit prison, it's
a nonprofit, but it's still a nonprofit that runs like
large money and like like that's at the core of

(16:19):
what they're doing. Um. Yeah, it's this thing where like, yes,
the basic job needs to be done and that when
children arrive alone at alone at the border and they're
trying to get I don't know, Michigan or something where
they have family. They need to be kept safe, safe
and healthy. Uh And and aided in getting there because

(16:39):
they shouldn't. It shouldn't be up to them to wander
alone across the United States their children. Um. And they
probably need healthcare because that's often something that happens by
the time you've gotten across the border, because it's dangerous. Um. I.
The problem is that the system that is now that
we're trusting to take care of these kids is the
same system that clearly is in different to their survival.

(17:01):
And that system needed to be burnt to the ground
and rebuilt with completely different people, in completely different goals
for me to have any trust in it. And I
just don't, you know. Yeah, And it's just so it
just feels demoralizing. Within a month of his inauguration, a

(17:23):
very clear campaign promise, a very clear expectation from us,
the people that voted from him. Uh. And you're right,
something needs to happen with these children. There are other options.
And Uh, it's just the Again, I come back to
the optics of breathtaking of choosing this facility of all

(17:45):
the places, you know, these people, of all the people. Yeah,
It's one of those things that makes me think, well,
fuck it, if the if the alternative is these people
taking care of them, maybe they're fucking better off wandering
alone across North America until they read their family. At
least they won't be trapped in with with these motherfucker's. Yeah. Ye,

(18:07):
but there are basketball courts on the facility, guys. I
mean that's good, Like the facilities do. Look you look
at al Torneo, which is like the thing that everyone
operated by the same company that everybody got angry at,
which was this horrible tent city where like kids were
kept in a hundred and ten plus degree temperatures in
these tents and we're basically like camping in extreme weather

(18:28):
conditions with adults who could not have given less of
a ship about them. Now, like these are clear these
are trailers, but they're clearly like facilities that have insulation
and presumably air conditioning and heating, and that that's better
and that's this is part of what's frustrating is that like,
I can look at everything Biden's done on immigration so far,
and it is better. It is an improvement, but it

(18:51):
is not the problems that allowed things to get so
outlandishly bad into the Trump administration are not being fixed
and they never will be. They will be temporarily mitigated
until another Republican comes in and turns things up again. Right. Yeah,
it's um, because I mean that's the whole pits. Right.

(19:13):
It's not well, build back better, it's it's but Biden's better,
But Biden's better, So it's okay, um, and when yeah,
but people will be president and more exactly who knows. Um.
But like there's also a frustration just in like because
there's gonna be this sort of because like Katie, you're
talking about the optics of of the situation, which are
obviously not good. Um, and so you're obviously going to

(19:35):
have like a knee jerk reaction of like you said,
no kids in cages here the kids in cages. It's
it's like it's not the same thing because this is
like actual like uh, putting kids in a place. But
like it's the messaging of the two thous dollar checks
and now it's actually fourteen and that's what we always meant,
and it's three and three or four months later after
the original one went. So like maybe there's actually like

(19:56):
a separation of time that makes them separate payments anyway.
But regardless of that, it's like, what do you expect?
What kind of reaction you expect when you have this?
And so when this happens and there's an article like well, yeah,
there's a new migrant children facility, Um, you're gonna have
this neesic reaction of that's well that seems like also bad.
And then you're going to have people who use that
to be like, actually it's good. Um, you're because you're

(20:19):
overreacting and and not admit and not acknowledging there's actually
it's slightly better than before because you're not doing that
that means that this is actually good. And then you
get people throwing their hands up in the air. It
could be slightly better than it was before and still bad, right,
and like the result is just like, well then what's
your idea? What do you do? And it's just throwing

(20:41):
your hands up in the air. Um. And then you
have people like the Daily fucking Wire or like right
wing media who are doing the same thing but for
the other for the wrong reasons. You have people you
have them being like, oh you said no kids and cages,
now here they are and they're doing it because they
didn't give a ship. Uh, and they're just trying to

(21:01):
like own the Libs as opposed to like giving a ship.
I don't know. The whole thing is very frustrating and
like talking about it, um uh in a public form
is fucking useless. And I don't know why anyone bothers. Yeah,
and it's you know, part of the problem is that
all of this ship and by this ship I mean
are securing the border stuff. All of the people whose

(21:22):
job it is to police the border and the people
who come through are again the same. And also many
of them are monsters because monsters are attracted to that
job because you get to do violence to people with
no power. Um. And those people are angry because and
they're angry because Biden has pushed back and has restricted
some of the things that they wanted to do. That

(21:45):
some of the hurting people that they were able to
do under Trump, they get to hurt people less, and
they're angry, which is leading to them doing like I
just want to I'm going to read a quote from
UH an article I read in the Philadelphia Inquirer about
something that happened not long after um Biden took office.
More than a hundred US asylum seekers from strife torn

(22:07):
Haiti suddenly deported across the U. S border into the dangerous,
crime ridden Mexican city of Juarez, including mothers who had
no diapers for their babies and kids with no shoes
on their feet. Nobody was at the bridge to receive them,
said Tanya Guerrero, an immigration attorney from El Paso who
witnessed the midwinter dumping and described it to the Miami Herald.
They were just dropped there and again this this, this

(22:27):
happened about two weeks into Biden's presidency. Um, and this
happened after he had paused deportations, which was blocked by
a federal judge. And we'll talk for that a bit more.
But like the reason like this, it was so cruel.
The cruelty is still the point for the people who
are actually dealing with this on a daily basis. And

(22:47):
you know, it is one of those things I'm sure
that the Biden administration can defend, is like, well, these
people are the entirety of our border policing force. What
are you going to do about it? You can't fire
them all, to which I would say yes, and just
open the border. Ucks, it will be better, but they're
not going to do that, right, don't need to don't
need to fire, or if you abolish the entire organization,

(23:08):
I don't need to worry about security. If there is
no border, for thought, Um, we have to take a
real quick ad break. Speaking of borders, there's no borders
in our hearts between the different products and services that
support the Parkers together everything. You're back, Oh we are back.

(23:41):
Oh my god, so fucking back. So good to be back.
You know what? Fuck? Yeah, I'm sorry. I shouldn't talk
about I shouldn't anyway, powerfully erotic coming back from a break.
Thank you all for every time. It's never not, It's

(24:05):
never not, it's never not. I think it was Plato
who said that the most powerful aphrodisiac was finishing an
ad break coming back for your more podcast. It's called
coming Cody. Oh, that's the root of that word, the
Greek m All right, where were we? What were we

(24:28):
talking about? Doesn't matter? The waking, constant, unending nightmare that
is the United States border and the law enforcement agencies
who patrol it. If it's fine, light topic, what if
it's fine? Everything as fine? Yeah, I haven't I haven't
thought about that, but I know a lot of people
have would prefer to think, like, yeah, it would be

(24:51):
nice to not to pretend it's not happening, Which is
part of why I really appreciate this Philadelphia Inquirer article
that has a lot of good stuff on it um
and there's four bulli to bullet points that just kind
of break down some things that have been happening recently
in regards to immigration that I I'm just going to
read again because it's it. I found it really striking
and a really human summary of the problems that still persist.

(25:15):
The recent dumping of Haitians asylum seekers in Mexico comes
amid what officials and immigration observers had been reporting as
a huge spike in deportations to the Caribbean island, which
has been plagued by political violence and retribution amid a
Trump style constitutional crisis surrounding its current president. In the
day since Biden took office, as many as two flights
a day filled with rejected asylum seekers, many booted under

(25:36):
an executive order aimed to spread the slow of COVID nineteen,
had been arriving in Haiti, compared to just two every
month a year ago. In El Paso, ICE moved hastily
in late January to deport a Mexican native identified only
by her first name of Rosa, who had been a
witness to two thousand nineteens horrific Walmart shooting by a
Trump aficionado who targeted Latinos and killed twenty two people.

(25:56):
The woman had been expected to testify at his trial. Advocates,
including a Texas congresswoman, are now fighting for the return
of Rosa, who had been pulled over for a broken
tail light. As she told The Texas Tribune from her
unfamiliar new home in Mexico, that quote, sometimes you feel hopeless,
and right now I am in that kind of state.
Another other deportation moves have continued or seemingly sped up
since Biden's inauguration and the judges order blocking the new

(26:18):
president's moratorium, including flights to Guatemala, Honduras in Jamaica. A
controversial flight that would have deported Africans back to strife
riven Cameroon, including some who had complained about abuse by
ICE agents during their Trump era US attention, was halted
with last minute intervention from top Biden officials, so What
I think that puts into context is Number one, the
same props, some of the same problems that we're occurring

(26:40):
under under Trump are absolutely still occurring, the deportations of
refugees back to countries that are not safe for them.
It's also not as simple as Biden hasn't changed everything.
This is a fight right that. That court in Texas
and we'll talk more about that blocked Biden's order to
um to stop the deportations, so they are allowed to
depot and they were continuing to deport and there have

(27:02):
been interventions from Biden staffers to stop some of these
flights from deporting people, like in the case of that
flight bound for Cameroon, which is going through a civil
war right now. UM. So it's it's not as simple
as Biden has done nothing. There is a fight going
on here. I think we do have to acknowledge that. Yeah, yeah,
wasn't there. I'm sorry, I don't have it in front
of me, but I can't pull it up. But UM,

(27:24):
something about that they had the ability to schedule when
the deportations could could happen, that they could potentially Biden's
administration would still have the ability to potentially postpone some
of these deportations even well they have postponed some, um,
not all of them. And I don't fully understand some

(27:45):
of It's just that, like, there's so much of this
going on, right, Um, it's such a large organization, and
the people who are doing the deportations do not want
the White House to be particularly well informed in a
particularly timely manner because they they want, because they're racists,
to want to deport these people, um, which is I'm
not none of this should be said to like, uh

(28:08):
sort of apologize for the failures of the administration, but
to acknowledge that there are people within it who are
like there again, there's a struggle going on, um. And
I think that's important to understand. One of the things
that's going to make reform of it difficult is that
all of these people, all these fucking racists, still have jobs. Right.
That needs to change otherwise it's going to keep being

(28:30):
a fight anyway. Yeah. I found a good quote in
that article by Stephen Yale Lower, who's an immigration expert
who teaches at Cornell Law School. Uh, And he said
to the interviewer, um, basically that that he was trying
to trying to explain why it's going to be so

(28:50):
difficult for Biden to undo the policies Trump put in place,
quote first former President Trump and Bolden ICE agents to
arrest anyone they suspected of being here illegally, even if
the person merely overstayed their visa. ICE officials will not
want to return to the pre Trump era where they
were supposed to prioritize supporting immigrants who had serious criminal convictions.
That is harder work, and Biden has through an executive order. Yeah,

(29:14):
it's hard. It's hard when you just can't arrest and
deport anyone who's not white. Biden did put out an
executive order pausing or like directing them to focus on
people who presented some sort of a threat um like
you know, someone who's got a conviction for child molestation
or whatever. But that doesn't mean they're all going to

(29:34):
follow it. And it does, Yeah, just because there's a
directive saying like, you know, only if they're violent criminal
this X y Z only this what do you now, cops?
Don't you do it? Yeah? This is the yeah. And

(29:55):
again it just keeps coming back to the problem that like,
if you're not going to ship and all of these people.
And by the way, eliminate the Department of Homeland Security
at least eliminate ICE. But Border Patrol is much larger
than ICE and a much bigger problem. Right. Ice is
more theatrical with their cruelty, so they get the attention.
Border patrol is a way bigger. If I had to
choose one of the two to get rid of, I

(30:17):
would pick the fucking border patrol because they do a
lot more damage. Um but um ice is is is
the kind of the cutting tip of this. And one
of the things that has made it more difficult for
the new administration to change things is that in like
days before Biden was inaugurated, Trump's head of ICE signed

(30:37):
a labor agreement with the union that represents ICE officers
UH and the deal would give the union the power
to indefinitely delay changes to immigration enforcement policies that it
does not agree with. And I believe this is why
that court in Texas reversed the deportation stay that Biden
had put in, because, yeah, because they didn't want to

(30:58):
do it. And Trump's pick, like the last thing he
did in office was be like, yeah, you guys don't
have to follow any rules you don't want to follow anymore,
Like that was his last fucking thing, and this is yeah,
that's that's a problem. UM. And it's one of those
stories that just goes right under the radar and nobody knows. Yeah,

(31:19):
and it's yeah, and it's it's hugely important. UM. And
there's there has been like this is one area where
if you're again trying to actually look at things, UM,
somewhat fairly, UH, this is an area in which Biden administration,

(31:40):
the Biden administration has fought back. UM. It was Kinko
Chinelli who um uh entered into the agreements with the
the ICE Union, UM that allowed it to indefinitely delay things.
And I believe it was like last week, last Tuesday,
if I'm not mistaken, UM, the Department of Homeland Security
UH put like sent out a message to the ICE

(32:02):
Union telling them that it had determined that this agreement
was quote not negotiated in the interest of DHS and
has been disapproved because it is not in accordance with
applicable law, according to an agency spokesman. UM. Yeah, So
this is something the Biden administration is pushing back on,
UM and saying that like this this does not count anymore.

(32:23):
This is not actually the agreement we have with you.
Ken Cuccinelli did not have the right to make that agreement. Um,
and it's still yeah, like the State of Texas sued
as a result of this agreement, and that's what canceled
Biden's deportation moratorium. And we don't really know how this
is all going to work out, right, this is going
to be a big, big court fight. Um. But it's

(32:45):
not as simple as Biden said, stop deportations. A court
said no, and Biden said, okay, keep deporting. They are
actively fighting the union over this. But it's going to
be some big fucking court facori because that's the way
this ship works, I guess, which is dumb, which is yeah,
And it's frustrating and um, it gets into a lot

(33:06):
of like, you know, okay, he said he would uh stop,
they would put an end to this, and then he didn't.
And now to any of people thinking, well he promises
and didn't promise this, any of people like, well, that's
politicians embellish, that's why it is. People. Yeah, people don't
like that, um. And acknowledging how hard these things were
going to be, Um, it would be refreshing, But it

(33:27):
would be refreshing if he would sit down and do
the president thing and be like, hey, we're trying to
do this. Here's the fight. I'm not a dictator, I'm
the president, and they were given this right and now
we have to fight in court. And I want you
to know this is the fight that I'm going through
now to stop this thing. Right, Just communicate that, articulate

(33:49):
that people understand it, so that we know what we
have to do. We know how to pay attention, and
we understand what things to be upset about and whatnot
what to be pushing. Yeah. Um. And it's always just
so confusing why the Dems don't do those basic things. Yeah,

(34:10):
basic fundamental, like a fundamental quality of like a good leadership.
That's what you want the communicator, and it's Trump was
lying usually when he did it, but it's what he
did well is when he would have an issue, when
there would be a struggle, he would take it right
to his to his supporters. He would go direct to
them and be like, hey, this is what's happening. This
is why this thing isn't going on this ship. Yeah. Yeah,

(34:35):
And part of it works when you're lying. It should
work when you're telling the truth to Yeah, especially since
he has a real case here, he can be like, Hey,
I'm fighting as hard as I can for this. Here's
the problem. Of course, one of the issues is that
he would have to say the problem is that ICE
agents have a union, and maybe law enforcement unions are
fundamentally toxic and outside of the interests of the people,

(34:56):
and Biden is never going to do that. Um, So
there might be a fact yeah can't. Well, there's a
there's a cynical view, like it's it's frustrating because like
the you know, the part part of them problem is
just like incompetence, they can't they can't communicate that type stuff, right.
But also like the cynical view is like they in
certain cases they don't want to because they know X

(35:17):
or y or z. If they try to communicate this,
they would have to arrive at a conclusion that they
don't actually want to get to. Um, they would have
to get to the point of like and actually, here's
the real problem. Here's what we should do. Um. But
they don't want to do the fundamental change. They don't
want to do that. They don't want to actually do
the big stuff. So they can't really communicate the problem

(35:38):
because the logical conclusion is the big stuff. Um. Yeah,
so it helps, it helps to be to be bad
at communicating and bad at messaging because then an office
says everything and you can't really get to the core problem,
which they don't actually want to get to. Um in theory,
I don't know. I don't know these people. Maybe they

(35:59):
really want to and they're just like they don't like
maybe they don't like communicating, Maybe they don't like talking.
Maybe they do that the president has. Maybe they shouldn't
work in politics then interesting, Yeah, communication style is silence. Yeah,
it's just it's all frustrating because, like you can see

(36:24):
with all of this stuff, if the same stuff we're
going on, how would better president might do things? But
it would also require him to be more explicitly left
wing to say, we need to fucking get rid of
this border ship. We need to at the minimum, if
we're going to have a border, because I think most
Americans do want to have a border, and I don't

(36:45):
get my way on this, if we're going to have
a border, and then would be like, well, we need
to fire and we need to replace at least the
majority of people currently doing that job with folks who
are number one, compensated well enough that we can bring
in decent people into people whose goal is to actually
help folks, um, not just to facilitate travel, but help

(37:05):
folks that are suffering and trying to flee here and
make an ethical system to humanity what they're not. Not
even like the pay would probably help, but like just
the responsibilities and what the job entails. If you if
you change it to like, wow, here's this facility that
you work in where you're taking care of these people
as opposed to like watching over them and like keeping

(37:29):
them right, Like there's a there's a treating them like criminals. Yeah,
there's an aspect of the job that's like well regard
regards regards here. Um. And if you have that criminals. Yeah,
if you have that power dynamic and that that that's
the job description, then who are the kind of people
that you're going to attract as opposed to like have
it be a nurturing Yeah, yeah exactly, I don't know.

(37:52):
It's very um. Yeah, but again you can't talk about
I don't want to be you can't talk about I
can't talk about that. Um. There have been some positive developments. Uh.
One that is kind of more of a I don't know.
It's one thing that Biden could do unilaterally. It's not
a big deal compared to the other stuff, but he's
directed Homeland Security officials have been directed to stop using

(38:14):
the words like alien and illegal alien in communications with
the public and within the agency citizens. Yeah, it's not nothing.
It's not a huge deal. I guess in the grand
scheme of things, I don't know, maybe it'll prove to be.
I'm not gonna say it's nothing to change that messaging. Yeah,

(38:34):
Like that always makes me think the two things right
where it's like, well, that's good because the language does,
Um doesn't matter, it does at least the way the
way you talk about things and communicating things, it does
influence people and lead you know. They're like, we talked
about dehumanizing language that has a that has a path,
there's a there's an end goal with that kind of language. Um.

(38:58):
They're like, we know that, and so adjusting that language
could could help. But also part of it. My other
reaction is like, so you're just changing the way you
talk about the shitty thing that you're doing to make
it bad. What makes the most tangent, tangible impact on
somebody's life right now, in this crisis moment, you're just
telling me something that's I mean, like, yeah, sure that's

(39:19):
not let's do that. But also what Yeah, yeah, I
don't at all disagree with you. And I find this
frustrating too, and I found myself having difficulty like even
bringing it up. But also we all complained, and I
think rightfully so about the ways in which the last
administration used language to dehumanize these people. So I do
think if we're actually going to be fair, we have

(39:41):
to point out this is it's positive that this has
been reversed. It's not exactly it doesn't Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's it's just that isn't bad. Um, yeah, it's the
thing that happened isn't bad. And it's the kind of
thing that like, Okay, that's good, rehumanizing lange, which is good.
Humanization of human beings is good. Um, but you need

(40:05):
to pair that with uh with other more material, tangential things.
It's the same thing. Like, yeah, it's like if your
dog got into the garbage and ate an entire rancid
chicken carcass and then for three hours while you were away,
vomited and shat all over four different rooms of your house,
and also your carry talking about my evening last night,

(40:28):
I am Katie, and also your over and spilled a
small amount of coffee on the ground. And you start
by cleaning up the coffee. And it's good, you needed
to get that coffee off of your floor, But you
still have three rooms that are completely coated and dogshit. UM,
and that that is a much that's going to take
you a lot longer. Multi pronged effort is required. Ye,

(40:53):
speaking of coffee, maybe there's a commercial for coffee coming up.
I don't know, you know what coffee doesn't taste like
dog shit? Whatever? This coffee together everything we are back. UM.

(41:18):
The last thing I had to talk about before we
move on to whatever's next is um a thing that
is more concrete and positive as a results of immigration changes.
And I'm gonna I'm gonna quote from an article on
by k que d UM, which believe is a local
California news station. UM. For six years, Armand Derrowe has
been trying to bring his elderly father to live with

(41:40):
him in California. But der aw He's eighty two year
old dad is in Iran, and the Trump administration's travel
band created an obstacle the families struggle to surmount despite
hiring lawyers, applying for a waiver in persistently writing to
US officials. Too much time, too much emotion, and we
do not have our dad here yet, said said de Rowe,
forty two, a naturalized US citizen who has an anesthesiologist

(42:01):
living in the Central Valley of Visalia. It has been
a rough six years for US. Now that President Biden
has revoked the travel restrictions for people from thirteen Muslim
majority in African nations, Derrowe and others feel hopeful that
they'll finally be able to reunite with relatives from those countries,
and so that that's good. That's a that's a significant change. Now. Obviously,
just from this store, you know, this guy and his

(42:22):
family have a significant amount of financial privilege, right, he's
a fucking anesthesiologist. You don't make nothing doing that. They
have the money for the lawyers and stuff. But it's
still a situation where there are thousands, probably tens of
thousands of families who will be able to get reconnected
to their family members as result of this. Someone we've
talked about on the show a couple of times. A

(42:43):
journalist I follow who has done some great cover coverage
in Lebanon, Saloman Anderson, her husband as a Lebanese man,
and after Biden took office, he was able to finally
enter the United States to be with her for the
first time since they got married. Um, that's that's good.
That's that's a that's good. I don't I don't have
a whole lot else to say on it other than like,

(43:04):
this is a meaningful The reversal of that Muslim ban
is a is a meaningful positive step. Um. Yeah, dog
shit and dog puke, it's not all dog shit and
dog puke. Some of it is just billed coffee. Yeah,
some of some of your face and the dog resives

(43:28):
and he gives you pink I exactly. Yeah. There's another
a bigger deal like well, I don't know if it's
a bigger deal in terms of numbers, but a deal
that is helping people who do not have as much
financial prebleus for sure. UM was Biden's One of Biden's
first executive orders, UM was to allow as many as

(43:52):
a hundred and twenty five thousand yearly refugees to enter
the United States. We took in fifteen thousand last year.
That's significant, that's big deal. That's a big improvement. That's
a lot of people helped, and that those are people
who are very desperate. Um, and that's a good thing. Now.
One of the things that's unsettling about that is that

(44:13):
of all of his first month's executive orders, his plan
to allow more refugees to enter the United States was
the only one that was opposed by a plurality of voters,
according to a Morning Consult survey. So that's not that's
not it's great that he did that. It's not great
that that's how a lot of Americans feel, although Morning
Consult is not the most reliable of polsters. So I

(44:34):
wouldn't I wouldn't put all of my faith in That
kind of goes well with something that I've been thinking about.
And I don't know what this looks like in terms
of implementation or how we do this, but the way
we think about immigration as bad as as Americans, most
Americans like, obviously it's tricky. You can't have everybody come

(44:59):
as much as you want to, you know, like, I mean,
maybe you can. Maybe I'm missing the data there, but like,
that's tricky, that's tough. But in general, our approach to
immigration should be so much more open minded because we
need immigrants. We need them, We need them as a
big part of our workforce. It's a part. It's not
just like the American story. We'd we depend upon them.

(45:21):
And and uh, and I've read something recently, I've I've
seen this talked about in a couple of articles. But
there are actually quite a lot of people here, immigrants
here that are very hugely helpful parts of our society,
that want to return home, that don't feel good here.
And one of the reasons that they can't is because

(45:45):
of our immigration system. If you go home, you can't
come back back and forth and stuff like that. And
there's a lot to unpack there about how we treat
people and how we think about it and how we
value their contributions to to us as a sade society culturally.
And there's just this, Yeah, it comes back the use
of the word alien, all of its dehumanizing. Most immigrants

(46:09):
aren't aren't taking away jobs, you know, they're they're doing
jobs that other people don't want to do, and they're
happy to um anyway. It's just it's it's that to
me is something that we don't talk about. Um, it's
the value. You know. I think it goes even deeper
than that, because there's there's the if you want to
argue things objectively, and I do when I'm arguing about

(46:31):
immigration with my conservative relatives, UM, you can point out
that the vast majority, more than three quarters of undocumented
immigrants pay income tax. Right, they actually do pay their taxes.
The i R S allows you to pay taxes if
you are here illegally. UM. And it's smart to do
so because the I R S is not you know,
you can you cannot piss off the I R S

(46:53):
and reduce your risk if you pay your taxes, and
most people in that situation do. UM. And of course
you can are look at the evidence that, like well,
people who came here from somewhere else are less likely
to commit violent crimes, less likely to commit any kind
of crime. Um. You know, there's those sort of arguments
you can make that are kind of material about how

(47:14):
these people benefit our society and kind of a very
straightforward capitalistic way. Try. And I don't think that's worthless
in terms of pointing out, especially when you're arguing with
you know, racists or depend For me, the big issue
is that before you're looking at a lot of communities
when you're talking about Mexico, you know, Baja California, California, Texas,

(47:38):
New Mexico, Arizona, all of these these places, all Latin America,
all the way up through the American Southwest. A lot
of the different people's and and ethnic groups would travel
and interchange constantly. And when these borders came down, people's
families were split up, and some people like, well, now
you're you're a US citizen, you're a Mexican, like, but
that doesn't mean there's not still these bonds that were

(48:00):
effort by these artificial things that we created. Um. So
that's a factor in it for me that like, these
divisions shouldn't be here, shouldn't be separating people because they're unnatural,
and they're splitting up groups that have not that that
have been able to travel between one another for a
long time. There's also this factor of like, well this
is all stolen land, you know, um, And if you

(48:23):
just look at the looking at the situation as it
is politically now, um, people aren't just gonna like give
it all back and and and and leave. That's that's
not a political thing that is particularly close to happening
at this moment um. So the least thing you can
do is stop saying that, like, well, you can't travel

(48:44):
up to see your relatives here or back home because
of these these fake things that we put in place
for the sake of money. That's the least we could do. Yeah,
arbitrary fake things. We can. If you're not gonna like
give it back, you can at least stop make the
fake thing, you would be right, if you're not going
to get rid of it, you can make it less toxic,

(49:07):
you know. Um, So that's where I land, Yeah, build
it back better, right, if you're going to build it back,
which I don't necessarily agree, right, if we at least
if we have to at least do a better job.
You know, I do want to talk about like this
thing that is. I don't know if it's frustrating to y'all,
but I get frustrated at a lot of the left

(49:30):
wing discourse I see around it, which is emotionally right,
and the emotion is that Biden has not done enough
and not fulfilled as promises, but it's not factually right.
When they talk about like, well, they're still kids in cage,
it's the same thing as the try and it's not
the same thing. And I also don't want to make
those arguments because I don't want to be like nickeling
and diming human rights. I just in this because I

(49:51):
pay attention to what's happening. I get frustrated when like
the nuance is lost, I don't know, and it's it's
it doesn't matter in a political sense, because in a
political sense what matters is they're still children. In in
a humanitarian sense, there's still kids being I don't know,
And often they are like I definitely uh sympathized with

(50:12):
that frustration, and oftentimes the call for nuance is used
to dismiss the entire thing, which is why oftentimes, yeah,
talk about amongst yourselves, I'm not going to participate because
like anyone trying to be like, well, actually, it's usually
to be like, so what are you gonna do? It's good, Yeah,
I think my frustration it's not really even with the left,

(50:33):
because everybody does it. It's just my frustration with social
media and the need to have like a pithy and
angry take. The anger is justified. But do we have
to be misstating the facts in order to be angry
because correcting things then you seem like you're defending Biden
and defending the flaws in what's I don't know, And

(50:54):
it's just everything like communication, communication, and the decisions come
from the administration. Then the meat you presents in this light,
and then that is easily taken to do this and
this and this. It's a whole Uh, it's a whole
process that happens, and every little piece makes it worse, uh,

(51:14):
from where it starts to where it ends. Um. And
it makes it very very hard to uh yeah, to
talk about it. And you know, it's hard to criticize
Joe Biden without being told that you actually love Donald Trump. Um. Yeah.
For me, this is the point where I want people
to stay awake, wake back up. I think that there's

(51:36):
a lot of talk about just at least in my
circles online, especially on like Instagram social media, like we
deserve a break. We've survived all this stuff. I want
to check out. And for me, I have a knee
jerk reaction to want to be sharing things and say like, hey, guys, look,
time to I think I did actually post. It's like,

(51:57):
all right, breaks over, wake up, not just a like
this is necessarily the worst case scenario, but to say
now is the time to pay attention. Now is the
time to read things carefully and not just assume that
the headline you saw, the propaganda you saw, or the
really extreme angry take is correct. We have a lot

(52:19):
of information and you have to sit down and you
have to pay attention, and and not just when Donald
Trump's office. Um. Yeah, and we're also hardwired after years
of this like saying like there's there's again with everything.
There's the the healthy way to state and and express
that impulse in the unhealthy way. The unhealthy way is

(52:42):
finally we can go back to brunch. Right, the problems
are over, it's fixed. We have the we have the nice,
polite white man in the office, so everything's good now.
That is unhealthy, that's toxic, that's dangerous. That's how we
got to this as he shoved voters, so he's not
actually that polite. But yeah, he's not all that polite. Yes, yes, Cody,
I'm not I'm not saying he's taking a character. Um.

(53:04):
The healthy thing is to be like I am fucking
exhausted the level of constant outrage and horror and anger
at how fucked up things are and were the last
four years is unsustainable for me as a human being.
And things are still on fire, but the fire is

(53:25):
not spreading quite as quickly right now. And I need
to take a fucking break from being outraged. That's reasonable,
that's perfectly healthy, and you you can and you should,
and you it's this kind of thing. I've been seeing
it with some of the more dedicated chunks of the
Portland protest movement. The people who um keep can't keep

(53:46):
going out, couldn't stop, like, have not stopped going out.
And they're right, the outrages they were angry that last
summer have not abated, or at least have not abated enough.
They should still be angry. Um But also I see
these people destroying themselves, um and and and because you

(54:06):
you do need to take a break. You need to
fucking just look like the military sends people back for
leave after a deployment, right because people burn up and
destroy themselves if they're constantly plunged into traumatic stimuli. Um
and so it's you know, the thing to say is
not we don't have to worry now. But the thing

(54:27):
you you can and should say at points is like,
I can't worry right now. The fight goes on. Other
people people need I need. I need to take a
couple of weeks, I need to take a month, or
I need to cut aspects of social media or whatever
out of my diet. I'm not going to stop fighting,
but like I can't continue to expose myself directly to
the outrage, I'm gonna focus on this one thing that
I can make an impact on. I continue to have

(54:50):
support for people doing the other fights. This is the
thing I can make a difference in. And I just
can't be as plugged in right now because I need
to be healthy. That's perfectly reasonable, and that allow you
to be useful for long such an important part, and
and useful for longer because this is lifelong work. The
changes that we want there aren't happening. Like I get

(55:13):
caught in this thing, or at least at the beginning,
Biden from the beginning, when Biden first got inaugurated, we're
still the beginning. But there was something in me that
was like, all right, there's we've got two years to
do meaningful things that to to really try to maintain
our edge in the Senate and the House and all
this stuff. It's like, well, the reality is is it's

(55:36):
so much bigger than that. It's so much longer, and
and we are all burnt out from social justice issues
that are so important. Coronavirus, you know, our stress, our anxiety,
our fear. Right now, this it's it's a lot. And
I tweeted this the other day. It was just cheeky,
but we all deserve a vacation. Everybody deserves it, even

(55:58):
if you don't think that you do. You you were
under an incredible amount of stress. That isn't to say
that we all get to piss off, but you have
to to listen to your body and you have to
have that perspective that we have one one body in
one life. There's a difference between acknowledging that you're tired
and thinking that ye done, and yeah, exactly, but you

(56:20):
just you have to think the reality is that a
lot of people listening right now, a vacation is not
something they can take either because I don't know, you've
got you've got kids or something. Take a break. Everything
that's difficult, but you still deserve it. Was My point
is like you deserve, and a vacation doesn't have to
mean you're going somewhere tropical to me, it means like

(56:40):
to something for you. Yeah, and even if that thing is,
I am going to not pay is close in attention
for the news for two weeks. I'm going to take
a break from social media from exposing myself to the
fire hose of ship. That's except for listening to and
even more news. And obviously keep listening. You know what,

(57:01):
Just just turn turn the audio on your phone down
and play the whole episode. We get the money either way,
you're good to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just download it,
but you don't have to listen, all right. I think
that's about I think that's about what we got we
did it. Turn your volume up for the end of
the show where we say goodbye. You can find us

(57:22):
online our Worst your pod that's what you turned up
the volume for. Yeah, where's your pod now? You know?
And play us out us theme song, Everything I Tried,

(57:43):
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