3.75M Case Backlog: Can We Fix Immigration? (Full)

Episode Transcript
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Alex (00:00):
Solving America’s Problems
—Jerremy and Dave just sat down with Audrey Medina and Jerry Valerio,
two voices who’ve lived theimmigrant story from the inside.
Jerry’s parents landed from thePhilippines in the sixties with almost
nothing — powdered milk, canned food,racism waiting at every corner — yet
still built a life, raised five kids, andended up with a seven-figure portfolio.

(00:25):
Audrey’s grandmother fled domesticviolence while pregnant, crossed into the
U.S., gave birth to an American citizen,then watched that same system treat her
family like second-class for decades.
Both guests agree on one ice-coldfact: today the legal path their
families took barely exists anymore.
3.75 million cases rot in immigrationcourt backlogs — some waits now

(00:50):
stretch past twenty-five years — whilethe same immigrants dump nearly a
trillion dollars a year into theeconomy and get called a burden.
Jerremy and Dave dig into why the systemstays broken on purpose, who profits
when it does, and whether America canever build a line that actually moves…

Jerremy Newsome (01:09):
Dave Conley, what are we addressing and solving in this episode?

Dave Conley (01:16):
In this week's episode of Solving America's Problems, we're
asking why the land of opportunitynow feels like a waiting room.
More than 3.75 million people are stuckfor years in immigration court, while
those same immigrants pour almost atrillion dollars into the economy.
Yet the system keeps them andus on hold to unpack the gap
between promise and practice.

(01:38):
We're joined today by Audrey Medina, adata-driven second generation American
who turns data into action by day andbuilds companies and stories by night.
And Jerry Valerio, a first generationAmerican executive coach and strategist
whose decades across tech giants nowhelp professionals rise without burnout.
Together they reveal where policystalls, where people thrive anyway,

(02:01):
and how their parents and grandparentsflipped obstacles into momentum.
And that's this week on solving America'sproblems, backlogs to breakthroughs,
fixing America's immigration gridlockwith Audrey Medina and Jerry Valerio.

Immigration is no longer and never has been just a policy.
personal, it's powerful.
It is the pulse of America right now.
Millions, over 3.7 million peopleare stuck in court backlogs waiting
years for their shot at the AmericanDream, and who's hearing them?

(02:40):
Just judges each buriedthousands of cases.
Yet these same immigrants, they'repouring hundreds of billions, almost a
trillion dollars into the economy, payingtaxes in a system that is failing them.
Failing us all.
I'm Jerremy Alexander Newsomwith my co-host Dave Conley, and

(03:02):
this Solving America's Problems.
Today we have two voiceswho embody this fight.
Audrey Medina, a second generationAmerican lives, the immigrant story,
data driven by day entrepreneurand storyteller by night.
And Jerry Valero, a first generationAmerican and career coach who brings a

(03:24):
decade of experience to help professionalsrise without breaking so first and
foremost, what are you two seeingwith the current pulse and current
information as it relates to immigration?
What's on your overall media radar?
with Audrey first.

Audrey Medina (03:44):
Currently a lot of what I am seeing is propaganda intended to
cause fear in immigrant populations.
It's intended to causedivision amongst Americans.
It's intended to make us thinkthat immigrants are the problem
We need to get rid of.

(04:04):
What I've been seeing.
That's what a, just peoplein general are feeling.

And Jerry, you live really close to
Washington, dc What about you?
What's currently coming up on your radar?
What's the narrative?

Jerry Valerio (04:16):
Well, I, I see both sides of the spectrum simply
You could talk to one friend and they'llhave one perspective and then another
friend, and they'll have the opposite.
So in some ways, I've learned tolike temper opinion and listen
to both and see where I couldlearn and be educated, right?
There are those that seeimmigrants as a problem.
then there are those that acknowledge thatthe immigration process has been broken

(04:41):
for quite some time, and that immigrantsare not to blame for where we're at today.

Yep.
So with that being stated, Jerry,your parents immigrated from the
Philippines to Minnesota in the1960s arriving with whatever little
money they had in their pockets.
a story from their journey that stillshapes how you see America today?

So I am super proud of my parents because I, they're a reflection
of that spirit that immigrant spirit
To the states to make abetter life for themselves.
And what I truly appreciate aboutwhat they've done is they've had the
I'll say grit about them to figurewhatever out to survive, to make a

(05:29):
living and to grow, you know, a family.
So they came here, uh, when theywere in their early twenties, 21, 22.
They got married a year later.
They were actually childhoodsweethearts, grew up in the same
small town in northern Philippines.
And so, and then they had fivegreat kids in a span of six years.

(05:51):
I'm the oldest of the five.
And what I've learned from them is justthe, the work ethic the commitment to,
holding themselves to high standard,
Under the pressure of racism, theydid not let that deter them because
it could have been easily the case.
They're like, you know what?
I'm not gonna do my best because I'mnot gonna be acknowledged or anywhere.

(06:14):
Instead, they're like, I'm gonna domy best in spite of what others try
to say about me or do or, or do.
Know, they we grew up from what I referto as in, in, in retrospect maybe what I
would consider somewhat of a poor life.
Grew up on canned foods and I had noissue with it until I learned visiting

(06:36):
a friend's place who, when we moved outto the suburbs, like what food could be.
And I even had powdered milk allthe way until I got into maybe early
high school, and my mom's like, oh,we should just get regular milk.
Why?
You know, why are we givingthe kids powdered milk?
Which, you know, once you haveregular milk, oh my God, you
realize how bad powdered milk is.

(06:57):
I can't believe I lived through this.
So yeah, I'm greatlyappreciative for them.
Uh, they've done well and theystill have that immigrant mindset
because they're successful.
My, my dad learned howto you'd appreciate this.
He had a million dollar stockportfolio that he learned to develop
and playing the stock market.
Uh, and then he lost half of it inthe 2000 crash, but then he took it an

(07:22):
order of magnitude to where it is now.
And I keep telling my parents,enjoy what you've earned.
You deserve it.
But they're like, the frugal self.
We go take them out to dinner.
Like, no, it's too expensive.
Don't spend money on that.
and
Simple joys,

but what kind of milk are they drinking?

regular milk

Okay, good.

we go.
There we go.
Yeah.
I love that man.
I love that.
And

That's amazing.

It is.
And Audrey, you said, and for thelisteners, I'll throw out a quick fact.
Audrey's known me sincethe age of six years old,

Wow.

Yeah.
So on this podcast, she's knownme the longest and, uh, she's also
one of our avid listeners, so thankyou for making it to the show.
Uh, Audrey, you said, you'vesaid the immigrant story is
your story, that it built you.
a moment or experience that helped definehow you see immigration in America?

More.
I had a lot, uh, more recently Iwas actually doing genealogy and
learned that mom's side of thefamily has been here multiple times.
They would immigrate here justin time for a war draft, get
drafted, go to war, gets him back.
And that happened in.
Two different wars.
So one and two, that is, is arecent one that kind of reshaped it.

(08:40):
But as far as just experiences in general,for me it's as a second generation
American, there was a little bit of aduality that occurred where I wasn't fully
Mexican, I wasn't fully American and notbeing fully, I guess not fully belonging

(09:01):
in either category, but also havingthe ability to effectively code switch.
kind of just lifts the veil off whenyou like anything that's obscuring
what the big picture story is whenyou're actually experiencing it.
When you have people that don'tunderstand it because it's not relevant
in their life and they're some ofthe closest people in your life.

(09:26):
It's offered that.
I think one of the larger ones thoughthough, my grandmother came up here
when she was pregnant with my mother.
she was fleeing a domestic situation.
It wasn't like per se, like yourstandard refugee story, and it
wasn't exactly an economic story.
It was she and her children needed out.

(09:47):
She had come up here, shewas pregnant with my mother.
My mother was born here.
They actually did have to return toMexico for a period of time while
waiting on all of that paperwork.
But then coming back living through, Imean, a period of time where speaking
Spanish was not a good thing, especiallyin la This was at some point or another
during the LA walkouts going throughthe discrimination and what she saw when

(10:12):
she came here about just, it's not asrosy a picture as a lot of immigrants
think it is before they come here.
And then they come here andthey're like, well, why is all
of this oppression happening?
Why is this like it's, we're supposedto be the city on the hill, right?
The shining city on the hill,and yet these unspoken cast

(10:33):
systems effectively still exist.
Um, so that was one of thethings, Tristen speaking with my
grandmother, who by the time shedied, had a decent grasp of English.
But when I first met her, therewas a lot of just language barriers
there Learning of her experiences,where she came from and working.

(10:54):
She worked herself to the boneand there wasn't a safety net
for her when she was ill and oldand aging, just things like that.
Those were some of the shaping moments.
And then outside of that, uh, my firstmarriage was to, uh, Salvador and
child refugee who joined the service,got, eventually got their citizenship.
And the way that, that also panned outnot only for them but for their family.

(11:18):
And I just, honestly just stories uponstories, it's been, it hasn't been any
one moment in life that shaped my outlook.
It's just been a consistentpatchwork of them.

Yeah, you brought up a very unique word that I don't
think a lot of people probably openlyuse caste system, where immigrants
who come over and they become a legalpart of this country, they still are.
Potentially seen or noticed aslesser than, and people often
say, we're a nation of immigrants.

(11:54):
sometimes that can be a phrasepacked with pride, nostalgia,
to your point, maybe complexity.
But what does that actuallymean to each of you today?
A nation of immigrants.
Start with Jerry.

So to me, a a nation of immigrants really goes back to from other
countries seeking a better life, right?
America continues to be aspireddestination for having a better
life beyond you may have been born.
You know, you, we also hearthe term melting pot, right?

(12:33):
So in some ways, depending on whereyou live, you can be a melting pot in
like urban and city type environments.
I would say maybe in more rural wherethere's disposition against immigrants
feel more of the, uh, isolation andlack of acceptance and therefore

(12:53):
you might just exist in your owngroup of friends and neighbors in a
pocket inside of a town that stilldoesn't understand you or accept you.

What's making you shake your head on that?
You have like this No backand forth thing going on.

Oh, no, no, I was, no, I,
yeah, no, I had, honestly, Iwas just sort of processing it.

Sure.
Exactly.
But it feels, it feels what I, what Isense is like, it just feels like both
you and I. we don't totally have thisstory, we don't really have this journey.
We're kind of taken backa little bit as we've,

I, well, I guess it, it goes into another question of mine I
don't have a strong identification with,with, you know, sort of like my ancestry.
You know, it's, it's like sort ofa mix of mostly British and some
Irish, and for some reason my brotherlike really resonates with the
Norwegian side, which I don't evenknow what part that is in my family.

(13:54):
And so I'm kind of curious beingfirst generation and second
generation how important or how,how, what is it like for you as you
know, the Philippines and Mexico?
Like, what does that mean for you?

go ahead, Audrey.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna answer a couple of things.
First of all, our countries andour cultures that we come from
and those experiences and those,those traditions and everything
that we bring, what gave us roots.
This country gives us wings,and I think that that's part of.

(14:32):
What is missing in, um, some ofthe discourse, especially when
you see like the protest movementsthat are occurring right now.
And know a lot of people, you know, theysee a, a Mexican flag being waved and
they don't understand, well if you're, ifyou like Mexico so bad, what was so bad?
Why don't you just go back?
And it's not, it's not about that.
That gave us our identity, our roots,our foundation, we were able to

(14:55):
come here and give it wings or ourfamilies were, our ancestors were.
And it ultimately, it is the samething for, you know, on, on the
other side of my family, there'sa lot of British Irish as well.
There's a lot of other stuff, butBritish Irish tends to make up the
largest percentage of that side.
And ultimately there was thatat one point for them as well.

Yeah.
Do you, do you think, you know, withyour kids or further generations that
they will still resonate as much?
I now I, I'm asking this question not aslike a judgment, I don't think there's
a good way or a bad way in any of this.
I'm just, I'm really honestly curious,like, Jerry, with, with your experience
as first generation and your parents, howdo, do they identify as Filipino Americans

(15:41):
or do they have a strong connectionwith the Philippines, which I, you
know, personally I think sounds awesome.
Uh, you and I talked about how, youknow, like you, you wish you'd actually
spoke more of the, of the language.
So what, what's your view?

Um, I, I would say my parents consider themselves
Americans or Filipino Americans.
I wanted to comment on your pointabout as the generations progress,
I think you've all heard the, that,you know, by the time you get to
the third generation the identityof who they are becomes more muted.
So like, I have still a strongtie to my heritage and my culture.

(16:21):
And coincidentally, I actuallydidn't learn that until I got
to college because, you know, myparents were always, always so busy.
And what little culture I had was,you know, at family events and if
anything, the one common theme,regardless of generations is food.
So

Yeah,

that the food will continue to perpetuate generation to generation,
and that'll be the commonality.
But in terms of tie to heritage andculture, it kind of diminishes as you go.
Yeah.
I mean, I can see thatin my nephews and nieces.
They're second generation, they'reless connected to, they love Filipino
food, but they're less connectedto the culture and the heritage.
And time their kids grow up,it will be even, much less.

Actually, fun story as a second generation, I
didn't find out that I was Mexicanuntil I was five going on six.
We were moving across the countryfrom Georgia to New Mexico, and
on the route my mom's like, okayguys, I have something to tell you.
You're Mexican.
And it was like, it was a dark secret,but we didn't even know what that was.

(17:22):
And then when we moved to thetown, we were one of three white
children, I'm sorry, three families.
And so then being just immersed, andthat's where, where the, the, that duality
started to occur where we belonged insome ways and didn't in others, and
were accepted in some and not in others.
And unfortunately because of the waythat things were going in the country,

(17:46):
leading up to my mom, actually, youknow, getting married and all of that,
and having children, she wasn't reallybig on like teaching us the language.
That was something we had to do later.
Hence the language barrier between,you know, my grandmother and myself.
As a result, it, when I did learnSpanish, I didn't necessarily learn
it specifically around like myfamily or in Mexico, around Mexicans.

(18:07):
It was around people from just allover different areas of Latin America.
So even in just speaking, thereare times where people are
like where did you learn that?
How did you learn?
We don't understand.

Yep.
Now Jerry, your family came through abig strict legal process in the sixties.
Your parents found opportunity througheducation, hard work, community.
Do you think that same pathbe possible for them today?
or why not?

I do think so because the demand for people with
medical backgrounds remains strong.
And I do see people even Filipinosnow coming to the states, going
through the same path and processthat my parents went through.

Yep.

So what do you think about that, Audrey?
I know you and I talked before this aboutthat, so like hearing about Jerry's family
story and how his parents went through it.
How, how do you think that experiencewould play out today for similar
families based on what you've seen?

When you say that, you're saying in the same exact scenario
or different types of scenarios?

I think what I'm trying to get at is what, what is the experience
like, what was the experience like inthe sixties and what do you, what's
the actual experience like today?

Okay.
So, prior to, honestly, aboutthe late, early eighties, early
nineties, immigration still kindof just, it, people just crossed.
They came over, they either declaredthemselves or not, you know, and they.
Started life and started the process.
As time has gone on, the paths togetting here, particularly speaking

(19:49):
from the Latin American perspective,has become more treacherous.
There is a lot more nefarious actors inplay, and I'm not referring necessarily to
immigrants, but rather people that exploitand prey upon immigrants that are trying
to make it here or that do make it here.
So to say, like with my, for example,with my, my mother and the fact that

(20:11):
they came over here and she was bornhere and that gave them a pathway to
legal status to include for her siblingsthat were already, older than her.
I couldn't say with like a greatdeal of confidence that that same
exact scenario could play out.
It's not impossible that someone couldeffectively get lucky and that could

(20:34):
occur, but with the, all the laws thathave occurred, all the tweaks to the laws
that have occurred, the exploitation,the, I mean, you gotta, you can't talk
about migration through Mexico withouttalking about the cartels and the
different, the way that traffickinggame has greatly and it's become.

(20:54):
Much more vicious and hard to get out of.
I couldn't say with, with any bit ofconfidence that if right now, if I
were in my grandmother's shoes andI were trying to come up here, if
I would be able to make that samejourney and have that same experience.

So I actually did wanna bring up something for thought.
differences between both Audreyand my parents' experience, right?
Because there's a certain, there thothose are two different processes.
One's through like what I would refer toas like quota based system, where there is
the need to attract talented individualswith certain types of backgrounds.

(21:33):
That's one path.
There's another path alsofor students to come in.
And then there's the, then thereare also those that are seeking from
wherever they're, they're at, right?
So those, those are three processesthat are well established.
And then of course you have thosethat come into the country un
undocument and then try to find a pathto be able to get the citizenship,

(21:57):
which again, they find they have tolive in the shadows to begin with.
And it's a challenge them to feellike, can I feel secure coming out?
Or am I gonna get shipped?
Back?
And so, again, in, in all caseswith all of the immigrants, it
really is still to come here andseek a better life for themselves.
I mean, that's the one commontheme, just different paths.

(22:18):
And, so one thing I also do see isthose that come here for education,
maybe get their jobs, go back totheir wherever they came from.
And so in some ways, Americaloses from the talent we've
honed because now it's helping.
Whatever other country, sometimes evenincluding, countries that are, gonna be
our future, I don't know, competitorsor whatever you want to call it.

Can I touch on that last point?

Yeah.

So even if they were to come here educate, become, get
their education, go back to theirhomeland, to utilize that education
the grand scheme of things, when youcompletely zoom out, that actually
does reduce, it has a ripple effect.
That does a reduction in immigrationflow because anytime you have someone

(23:06):
who is bettering their own nation,it, little by little has that effect
of reducing the need to immigrate.
It may only be by one or two or threepeople, but the more people that are
doing that, honestly, the better.
Now, that's not to say thateverybody should come here, use
what they can, and then ditch.
It's just one of those,
Fluid, very complex andvery interconnected.

(23:31):
where foreign policy, uh, naturaldesign, all sorts of different
things play a factor in immigration.
And so therefore it's, it'salways going to be a little messy.
That's also why it's as complex as it is,is because every situation is different.
You can take, a thousand differentimmigrants from Mexico and you may
find some threads of commonality,but by and large there are different

(23:54):
circumstances and differentnuances in every single case.
And unfortunately, that is also whatleads to the backlog as well, is
because we have such a nuanced, Iguess, system, such a, a nitpicky down
to the little nuts and bolts system.
And truthfully, like there is a reasonthat it is like that for good and for bad.

(24:15):
I mean, you, you could talk aboutthe security aspect because, nine
11 costing massive shift in the waythat we handle immigration policy.
So there was a reason for thetightening of the bolts and
screws at the immigration system.
with this many years in the rearview mirror, now we're looking at, we
have the same problems and honestlyin some cases bigger problems.

So you said they're the fun word policy.

Wow.

Let's talk about that for a moment.
Because I agree with you.
There's.
Because you're talking about humans, soevery human is different down to the DNA.
Do you think there is a policy shift?
Let me ask it this way.
would be immigration policy that youwould change tomorrow if you could?

(25:07):
Audrey and then Jerry.

One policy that I would change tomorrow.

Yep.
If you could.

Hold on.
Now you're gonna make me go tothe end of my notes because Okay.
There's, there's a couple of policies.
Let me start with the first one.
When you understand the monetary aspectof immigration and know that every
single process pretty much has a form forit, there's little forms within forms.
It's like a nesting doll offorms and pro procedures that

(25:34):
have to be met along with fees.
One of my bigger issues is the price tagswith them, and it doesn't seem like a lot
because if you look at one of the mainforms, it's like five to 700 bucks right?
Does not seem like a lot.
But when you're looking at that exchangerate in another country, that could
be half a year, a year, or two yearsworth of salary of somebody working

(25:58):
consistently, unless they are notwhat's considered low skill or low wage.
that would be one.
It needs to be so much moretransparent to the actual immigrants.
That are trying to come herebecause there are also situations
in which people just, they want tocome here to make a better life.
The, their, their life isn't necessarilyon fire, but because of how lengthy and

(26:22):
arduous the process is, circumstanceschange and then they have to go.
They just absolutely have to go.
And that's how it that setof people could end up in the
shadows for that amount of time.
So that, that would be another oneis honestly just the transparency.
And we do need to, policy-wise, I knowI was only supposed to pick one, but
there's so much stuff to shake a stick at.

(26:45):
But the other one would be just, hold on.
There needs to actually be alegitimate line to stand in.
Not what we say is a line, butit's actually like a pinball
machine that's just shootingpeople around all over creation.
but also we just need moreresources specifically to the
actual processing of those petitions

Yeah.

claims.
That is one of the biggest

Yeah.

is the fact they're just simply, you said
it in towards the intro, there's

Yep.

there's not enough.
And we keep taking away resourcesfrom that and instead putting
it towards enforcement andcrackdowns and stuff like that.
And yet we're not actuallyfixing the real problem.

That's one of the things I was mentioning, um, in an, in an earlier
episode that Dave and I were kind of justripping back and forth, was this backlog.
and again, maybe I'm totally missingit, but if I'm driving around, you
know, I live in Vegas, California,back and forth pretty often,
and I'm driving around the city.
I never see immigration offices againunless I'm just missing it, right?

(27:45):
There's 418 smog checks here in Vegaswhere I can go check my smog meter,
but there's no immigration offices.
Where it's like, hey if you are animmigrant and you want to come here and
fill out the forms and learn and be,and through the process and have someone
look over your case or have someonediscuss with what you are or where you
wanna go or why you wanna go there,I don't see any of those buildings.

(28:08):
Do you, am I missing these?
Are

hiding.
hiding.

They're deep somewhere where I have no clue where they are.

Yeah.
No, they're, they're hiding.
And then, just, uh, anotherproblem is honestly the immigration
attorney side of things.
Of course, I was closer to the situationin the nineties and the early two
thousands, but the amount of money thatthey charge, I mean, a lot of times
you, at least for people that I knew,they were going to the back of like
bodegas where the immigration attorneywas to go and say, Hey, I just got

(28:39):
this form and they're denying me here.
Oh, well it's 'cause you, you, maybeyou misspelled this or you did that,
and here's another bill for 600 bucks.
And then that
Around.
And so it, there's a lot of exploitationbecause at the end of the day,
immigrants are a commodification.

That's.
That's what's, I mean, there's so manyfrustrating parts about this because
I don't think anybody stands up andsays, Hey, immigration is working right?
Like, I'm, I'm going through thispersonally with a, with my situation
and we're interviewing immigrationattorneys right now, and it, as far
as I can tell, and you know, likeI'm, I'm just average American dude

(29:16):
and I've gone to the DHS website.
It looks like something somebodytook the worst aspects of filling out
your taxes, got voraciously drunk andsaid, immigrate in you, here you go.
Like it's, I mean, itis absolutely medieval.

(29:37):
And I it's, and it seems to beintentionally designed that way.
You know, like it it's absolutelymedieval Audrey or Jerry can, I
don't think we've had any legislationyou, you know, since the eighties.
Do you guys, do you guyshave any background in this?
Do you guys know like, what are the laws?

(29:57):
Like what, what, what dopeople live under today?

I've got like six pages

Oh,

of notes just on that.

Love.

Jerry, Jerry, when your, when your parents came over, was it a visa?
Was it like tied totheir jobs and like, I.

it was a student visa that eventually as they continued to
work it converted to a regular visaand then they became American citizens.

This was like a multi-year process.

Yes.
Like they came in the mid sixties and Idon't think they got their citizenship
until the late seventies, so probably adecade and a half, maybe even two decades.

Wow.
And of course, all of your siblings, likeyou have six, six brothers and sisters.
All, all of them by birthare American citizens.
Yeah.
And Audrey, what, what's,what's the deal like?
Like what do, what do people live under?
Like, what's, what's the jam?

Okay.
Okay.
You guys ready for this?
I'm gonna try to, I'm gonna try to,to truncate this as much as possible.
To understand immigration, lawand policy, you have to understand
how America became America.
And so the very first step, andthe first thing that we're aware of

(31:16):
is some dude got lost in the oceanwhen he got lost in the ocean, he,
you know, quote unquote discoverssomething that was already discovered.
at that point, for the nexta hundred and some odd years,
there was consistent efforts.
To bring stuff over to theseareas that were discovered.

(31:39):
The only problem was that the itemsthat they were bringing over, or the
people that they were bringing over wereinfected with lots of different types of
diseases and things that the indigenouspopulations, they didn't have immunity to.
Which led to what's known as the greatdying throughout indigenous populations.
During the period of the great dying,over 95% of indigenous populations

(32:04):
died, now meant that across the us whatwas now the us, Mexico, south America,
central America, all of that, indigenouspopulations during that roughly a
hundred and what about 20 year period oftime, went from approximately 50 to 60

(32:25):
million down to just a little fractionof that, approximately six ish million.
and I could be doing mymath wrong, but either way.
So now you had a decreas,decreased population that was
ripe for conquering that point.
Didn't make it easy,but ripe for conquering.
And so now you have the push for thepilgrimage, the push for coming over

(32:49):
here and establishing and conqueringeffectively the land and the people.
Now in the period of time that followed,that is approximately 150 years, you
have 150 years of slavery where slavesbuilt the infrastructure of this nation.
They built the backbone ofthe nation, all of that.
And then you start to get into,uh, about the last 60 years of that

(33:12):
was actually the very, very firstnaturalization act that was passed
that only applied to white males.
you have to wait until the late1890s until you, or 1880s, geez,
1880s, I wanna say, um, to actuallyget the Chinese Exclusion Act.
So our very first piece of trueimmigration law was based in racism.

(33:36):
But the important fact to know is it wasdirectly after we as a nation utilized
Chinese immigrants to build our railways.
And then we're like, oh, okay.
We're done.
We don't want none of them here.
We don't have them wantthem having any rights.
None of that.
Get 'em outta here.
Can't, it's not as easy to deportpeople back then as it is now,
like logistically speaking.

(33:57):
So now you get into a periodof time in which being.
or in, in other, I assume, just giventhe way that we handle things nowadays.
If you were of any form of Asiandescent, you were probably discriminated
against the same way that theChinese immigrants at the time were.
And then from there, now you starthaving a little, a little like trickle

(34:20):
of some little acts, but nothingreally monumentally shifts until
about 1924, which was also basedin xenophobia and racism because
this one was to stem the flow.
They did not want immigrants fromEastern and Southern Europe point blank.
They just wanted them fromthe Northwestern portions.
And that's pretty much it.

(34:41):
Also, if you were coming here and youwere a little too brown, there's a good
chance you are not gonna be a free person.
That's just it.
Once you get into about the, the,the big one, this is the one that
family would've been more immediatelyimpacted by was the one in 52 it
started to abolish a lot of the quotas.
It started to more effectively like openthe doors, that sort of thing, and started

(35:06):
prioritizing skilled labor to come over.
Because before all of that, inorder to get into the country, you
arrive on a boat, you literallyhave what they call a six second
review where everybody's coming in.
There was a place a little bitbefore Ellis Island, I wanna
say it was called Castle Garden.
Something like that.
But effectively it ran the same way.

(35:26):
A ship comes up, they check it, makesure there's no plague on there.
If it's plagued, they have to likequarantine in and make sure people
live, remove the sick people.
Those would go to a different island.
you would have what was called asix second review where the, just
the whole crowd of people arestarting to come up the stairs.
And you had a bunch of panel ofadopters who are looking and trying
to spot people who are havinglabored breathing symptoms, who are
stumbling, anything like that woulddenote that they were maybe not okay.

(35:49):
And they wouldn't takethem and kick them out.
They would take them to a hospital.
And then from there, the registrationprocess was, Hey, what's your name?
How much money do you have on you?
What class?
Did you come here?
Were you in an actual class?
Were you in steerage?
Were you in, like, what?
How did you get here?
That was it.
All right, cool.
Go to a bathhouse.
Go get clean and move on.

(36:10):
But once you get into the post, EllisIsland era, you've got ports of entry all
over, and you've got people are fallible.
So people handle things differently.
Even if there's, a rule of law orwhatever, there's, they're still
handling things the way that they wantto for their own microcosm of a space.
that particular law in, in 52 is what madeit easier for my grandmother's situation.

(36:34):
For example, once you getinto, you know, about the.
The 1980s is probably the bigone that everybody remembers,
which was the Refugee Act.
And this is a really important onebecause this gets us a lot closer to
our modern day immigration system.
What the Refugee Act did was it basicallyaligned our views of refugee and seeking

(36:58):
asylum to, um, align better with the restof the world with international standards.
It protected from what was calledref, ref foment, which was basically
like returning someone to a countrywhere they could face persecution.
It allowed them to access thingslike basic rights such as, or let
me rephrase, be considered eligiblefor asylum outside of it being war.

(37:26):
Did you have, do you haveaccess to healthcare?
Did you have access to, uh, education?
Stuff like that.
Like those were things that werealso allowed you to request asylum.
It into placenon-discrimination principles.
It ensured that refugees were tobe treated without distinction.
Um, so basically the same thing thatwe have where you're not supposed

(37:48):
to be treated differently becauseof your, your race, religion,
nationality, uh, political affiliations,unless I guess it's with the enemy.
If we're like at war, Iguess that could be an issue.
But it also recognized thatthe act of seeking asylum.
It's not a crime.
And it outright stated that itwasn't cons, it wasn't outright

(38:09):
considered that before, but itactually laid it down letter.
The law.
It's not a crime.
When it came to work, there wassupposed to be fair remuneration.
So basically like goodcompensation for the work.
Now that doesn't actually necessarily playout in the real world the way that that
was supposed to, to play out because andtime again, immigrants are still being

(38:32):
exploited for their labor and underpaid.
But it was supposed to.
And then when you get into,uh, about 86 ish, there was
the IRCA, which was the reform.
So now they're looking at, oh, okay,well we've done all of this from the
fifties through this refugee thing.
Let's, let's try to, let's try totighten this down a little bit.
And that is when they made itillegal to hire undocumented workers.

(38:57):
But they wanted to provide a pathto to legalization for those that
were undocumented who had beenin the country for a long time.
gets kind of thrown around for a while.
And then you get into 1990, and 1990is where the Immigration Act, they
had noticed that it was like, youknow, the, the immigration levels
were just in general, just increasing.

(39:18):
And, uh, it created new categoriesof visas, reformed the visa
system, the visa preference system.
and then in the, the, the otherthing is, so when you're like,
okay, so they made it illegal for.
For corporations or for companiesto hire undocumented workers.
Well then explain all of this happening.
they were initially doing this,they actually had really steep

(39:41):
penalties, like super steep whenthey were first drafting the bill.
But as time went on and they startedhaggling by and large conservatives were
like, Hey, this is gonna cripple industry.
We can't do this.
So they started whittling it awayand it basically, by the time it
was passed, it was the equivalentof a, of a slap in the wrist.
Unless you were just areally prolific offender.
But you'd have to honestly get caught withdoing other things like human trafficking

(40:05):
or something like that in order for itto really, really blow up in your face.
If you're sitting here just bringing ina whole bunch of undocumented workers to
work your fields or you know, whatever.
There was a small Reforma ReformationAct and what they called an Immigrant
Responsibility Act in the midnineties that occurred, which was
where they expanded the grounds fordeportation, for things that were

(40:28):
drug related violent offenders.
So domestic, domestic violence didactually fall into that category.
Things like stalking, um, sexual offenses,and they implemented that retroactively.
from there there's been justlittle teeny tiny things.
There hasn't been anything major untilyou get into when they dec after nine

(40:48):
11 when they said, you know what?
We're gonna go.
this out of INS and put it under DHS,and then now you've got, what that does
is that shifts public perception thatnow immigrants need to be vetted because
they could be the enemy, and that'swhere you see the, the larger shift
occur xenophobia and stuff like that.
Or renewal, I should say.

Boom, mic drop.
Fascinating.
I love it.
I mean, one aspect that Idefinitely agree and think.
You for the history lesson.
And I say that truthfully becausereally do feel like one aspect
of immigration that a lot ofpeople forget is the history of it

Yeah.

the sense of, hey most, pretty much everyone here has immigrated
at some point relatively recently.
And by recently, I meanthe last 200 years.

Yeah.

It is a really, really fascinating component to
just kind of drill down into thoseparticulars, into the specifics.
Jerry, what about you, man?
If you have one policy that youchange regarding immigration as it
stands presently, what would that be?

I said earlier that our process is broken.
I'm not sure what is the rightlevers in terms of policy.
'cause in, in some ways, I do think thereneeds to be some sort of pause to process
those who are in the backlog and those whoare already here who want to come forward.
And it's like, in some wayslet's do justice to those who
are already here first before we.

(42:12):
I mean, in other words, it's like we'vegot a, a, a faucet that continues to run
and it's like we're overflowing, right?
How do we take care ofthose who are already here?
can't continue to exacerbate the problemby continuing to accept, people, right?
Again, it's kind of a revisit ofwhat makes sense, what's the right
set of, of levers to figure out?

(42:34):
I think, again, figuring out how thosewho are already here get that path.
First of all, that should be thepriority, followed by, we have
that, then let's figure out what'sa manageable process and fix it.
And then also figure out what are allof the different things that are broken.
Like I, I agree with Audrey.
There are so many people exploitingthe immigrant process and so like,

(42:55):
immigrants are like being unjustlytreated, not just simply by applying,
but those who are part of the process.
To take as much and extractas much money from them,
Hear of, I hear about it from peoplein the tech space who are pursuing
H one visas and the difficultiesthere and trying to get sponsorship.
And of course corporations have goneback and forth, like in the, uh,

(43:18):
early two thousands, H one visa,visa, H one B visas were like huge.
And now companies are like,Nope, we're not sponsoring.
So it makes it difficult for a lot ofthem to come here as a student visa
and they're like, well now I can'tget an H one P 'cause no one's gonna.
me or sponsor me.
I mean, we, in the tech space,we certainly come full circle and
I think the tech space is like,well, we have enough workers now.
We don't need to, you know, encourageother people to see H one b.

So I, I, that's my question.
I do you think that em do you thinkimmigration should be based on employment?
And what I mean by that?
It's like, okay, you, you know, you haveto have a job here and that has to be
sponsored by, uh, somebody who's hiring.

I, no I don't think it should be just purely on unemployment.
I think ultimately at the end ofthe day, the whole point about
having immigrants come into thecountry is to contribute, right?
You don't have to seekemployment through a corporation.
And in fact, there are immigrants who comein here because there's like a a business
visa, you're bringing in a certainamount of money, or you're bringing
a business, or you're hiring people.

(44:21):
That's another, I mean, you hear aboutit there, there's that pathway too.
But that only is affordable tothose who are already wealthy.
They're coming here not for so much aboutthe American dream, but they just wanna
have a life here or have a presence here.
Uh, and they could be leaving their owncountry because it is a form of asylum.
And they now have this uniquepath where, oh, if you know, bring
a business, if you, whatever,

they're bringing a business.
if they're bringing a business,I mean, that would be a form
of employment though, right?
It's like they, they're bringing ajob to here, so even though they don't
have one here, they're bringing one.
So that would, that'd kind ofbe the same thing though, right?

I do believe there had, there's a revenue
thing involved in that worry.
So if I'm just, you know, reallygood at doing fruit that yes, on the
side of the road or whatever, and Ican get like 10 people to do that,
that's not gonna qualify for that.
People love fruit and I'm gonna sell, butit's not gonna get me the visa to be able

(45:15):
to do that, to come here specifically.
And I'm like, maybe I can make gorgeousfruit creations in two seconds flat and
I can teach other people how to do that.
That that's not, that's not gonnanecessarily translate I guess to anybody.
Uh, so I, I would say that immigrantsvery resilient people because you
have to do what you have to do.

(45:36):
And so if you come here and you can'tjust find work or you, you couldn't
get in through the avenue of what youractual education back home is for.
Because the amount of people thatI've known that were lawyers, they
were paramedics, they were allthese things back in their homeland
and for all, for different varyingreasons, had to leave and end up here.

(45:57):
And now they're in fields andthey're building homes, they're
cleaning houses, they're cleaningwhatever to make ends meet.
And if you follow their story long enough.
Eventually you are gonna find enoughof them that out of just a, a brilliant
idea and the ability to do so.
Because again, keep in mindthat this nation has the
capacity to give people wings.

(46:18):
They build something they buildsomething that they're no longer
doing that it may not be in any fieldin relation to whatever it is that
they had gotten, uh, their field ofexpertise, their apprenticeship their
education or whatever back home.
But it is something.
So there's a lot of innovation that comesthrough immigrants because you're bringing
a patchwork of experiences together.

(46:39):
And by doing that, it's only strengtheninga nation and a in a population.

Yeah, I, that was my experience too, like where I
grew up when I was very young.
It was a very sleepy part of the city.
And like there, it waskind of nothing there.
And it was a complete flood of mamainly Asian, Korean, and Vietnamese.
And the I'll tell you right now, thegreatest entrepreneurs on the planet,

(47:06):
and they just created one business afteranother, and now 50 years later, you
know, their children and their children'schildren are the leaders in the community.
I, you know, like I, my experience was,you know, fantastic entrepreneurship,
you know, starting everything andjust, just seeing a million ways to
make a buck or, or provide a service.

(47:28):
And, uh, it just grew andgrew and grew from there.
I, I'm with you.
I don't, I don't think, uh, immigrationshould be tied directly to employment.
I know I was dating somebody afew years ago and PhD, you know,
research scientist, and her job wassponsored by her company, a really,
really big, you know, pharma company.

(47:49):
And, uh, she wanted to change jobsand it was extremely difficult because
it was the H one B and it had tobe sponsored by another company.
And so she was basically trapped.
And then she wasn't allowedto leave the country.
Uh, she actually had to go backfor family and No, no, no, no.
They were gonna restart theprocess of her, uh, her green card.

(48:11):
So yeah, I is, it's all bonkers.
So, yeah, I don't, yeah.
What do you think, Jerremy, do youthink it should be tied to employment
or, or building business or not?
I mean, the other side of this is, well,you know, we don't want people on like
government assistance or, you know,like you hear the arguments on the, on,
on like, well, you know, our hospitalsand that and that and the rest of it.

(48:34):
So like, what?
Tell me, balance this.

Here's an interesting challenge is take is if you are coming
here as an immigrant, as Jerry said,you probably are here for a better life.
And a better life generally isgonna translate to an increase in
commerce or an increase in safety.

(48:59):
And if you feel more safe, you'reprobably gonna end up eventually
creating more commerce anyway.
And some of our greatest entrepreneurs.
On this, I mean, Elon Musk, Liketons and tons and tons of very,
very successful entrepreneursare immigrants into this country.
I don't believe that theyshould all be tied to it.
But what's ironic is in all threeexamples listed so far, going to

(49:25):
be creating jobs almost anyway.
And the ones that put the largest strainfrom a government assistance standpoint
are current Americans anyway, right?
Like not the immigrants.
It's the people that are to provideand that choose simply, in my opinion,

(49:49):
it's a choice to not create commercebecause they've already been here and
they're already kind of living off thegovernment Tet, so to speak, anyway.
And I would, I would wager that the vastmajority of them are not immigrants.
I would probably say more than70% of the people that are living
on are probably not immigrants.

(50:10):
'cause it's extremely hardfor an immigrant to receive
welfare in the first place.
that being stated, I do personallybelieve that there should probably
be some type of general quota ornumber that we allow into the country.
So if, for example, America said, okay.

(50:32):
Every year, 1 million immigrantscan come in And out of that
million we have this, and this.
Some type of brackets or parameters.
Just simply because to everyone's point,we do know that the system is backlogged.
we go, all right, we're gonna havea million, and out of that million
people, we'll have 10% that are seekingasylum will have 10% potentially,

(50:54):
that are refugees will have 10%that are, coming for student visas.
Right?
And you have these percentages you areallowing certain numbers to happen.
And then those have lines, locations,companies, people, industries that are
focused and targeted to actually receivethem, talk to them, communicate with 'em.

(51:18):
Because what it does do backto Audrey's point, it starts
to slowly compartmentalize thecomplexities that do exist.
So if you have a department of immigrationthat is designed, dedicated, and focused
on asylum seekers, they're gonna have,yes, very complex cases, but those
individuals that are working on thosecases now know we're not here looking

(51:39):
for student visas, we're not herelooking for H ones, we're not, we're not
here looking for someone who's tryingto get a job and come entrepreneur
or who came across illegally that nowwants to become a naturalized citizen.
They have a very, very specificdomain that they're focused on.
And so I do think arelatively large percentage.
Already would say, if I'm animmigrant to this country, it's

(52:00):
because I want a better paying job.
'cause my country sucks.
not leaving their country.
If they're making a bunch of moneyand they feel safe, they're not.
They're gonna be just finestaying where they're staying.
But if they're coming to America,it's because they want more money,
more freedom, and more safety.

Let me, okay, let me ask you this about asylum
seekers in particular, right?

Okay.

So I am totally down with asylum seekers.
I think it's, it's critical.
Like we gotta be able to say, Hey,you know, like if you are in fear
of your life, like come on in.
That sounds great to me.
And almost every country.
Signs on to the exact same uncharter about asylum speaking.

(52:41):
Right.
And so, like if you werein Venezuela, right?
Not a, not the greatest place right now.
And we, we, we have a lot of asylumseekers in, in, in the United States, in
fact, right where I live from Venezuela.
Yet, if you were to travel fromVenezuela all the way up to the

(53:01):
United States by land, every singleone of the countries between here
and there accepts asylum seekers.
And so is there something to be saidabout like, well, do you really want
asylum if you keep on skipping all thecountries that will accept asylum seekers?

Valid point, but I mean, uh, go ahead Audrey.
Yep.

I was just gonna ask if I could speak to
that, uh, just a little bit.
The path from, say, Venezuela,for example, to here is also laid
in with just a ton of treachery.
So the, a lot of the same problems thatexist in Venezuela in other countries.

(53:48):
The problem with Venezuela rightnow is that they have collapsed.
So it's, it's, they were, there werealready asylum seekers before the collapse
from Venezuela that were coming here.
Part of it had to do with, becausetheir government was going through what
their government was going through and,we're, we kind of had our fingers in

(54:08):
the pie trying to help them get somebodywho was not a socialist in power.
That ended up leading to if you hadpeople that were there that maybe
they, they supported whoever it wasthat we were, we were pushing, or the
fact that maybe they weren't okay withthe, um, government that was there.

(54:28):
They couldn't just stop anywhere.
Because when you're pushing massivegroups of people, it's not just the
one person who's seeking asylum.
There's, there's people that eventually,especially as a country collapses,
that we're gonna be some of those samepeople that were perpetrating things
on the civilian population that arealso moving upward at the same time.

(54:49):
In addition to that, once you startgetting into stuff like drug cartels and
human smuggling and stuff like that, nowyou're also getting into the fact that,
that the whole chain of that exists allthrough, central America, into Mexico and
actually in the United States as well.
And so if you get swallowed up intothat, now you've got a whole other

(55:10):
thing that you're also fleeingfrom that exists beyond the borders
of the homeland that you left.

Yeah.
I guess what I'm trying to teaseapart a little bit is, you know, like
you seek asylum for reasons, right?
Like political, um, you know, some,you know, like there's underlying,
you know, like fear for your life.
If you're in Venezuela, likeColumbia signs onto the exact same
UN thing that the United States does.

(55:37):
So does Panama, Costa Rica,Belize, Mexico, I mean, like,
these are solid countries.
They're democracies, they haverule of law, and like, I'm, I
don't think I'm against peoplehaving asylum in the United States.
I'm just like, is it truly asylum?
If you've, you know, you've gonethrough all of those countries

(55:59):
and you haven't gotten, you know,you haven't applied for asylum.
That's what I'm tryingto, trying to get at.

Maybe it's the marketing.
As the city on the hill, we, wemarket ourselves as the best.
So I mean, if I have to leave myhomeland I'm too afraid to stay there,
I'm not gonna necessarily just selectthe thing that's right next to me
just because it's right next to me.
Just because they're a democracy.
I'm gonna say, where's the placethat I can thrive the best?

(56:27):
Where's the place that I can makesure that my children will be okay?
Where's the place that I can actuallybuild, truly build a life and

None of those are, but none of those are reasons for asylum.
Not one of those, uh, the bestplace to raise my kids the best.
You know, all the, like those,you can't seek asylum for
economic reasons like that, right?

But you can.
So if the economy is in such shambles inthe country or in such difficult points,
or maybe you can't access healthcare,you can't access education, you can't
access these things in those othernations that you're looking at, then
technically you're going to the nextbest place, wherever that geographically

(57:10):
is, wherever, however you can get there.
Wherever it is, right?
Wherever you claim as is the,wherever you show yourself, I
guess is what I'm trying to say.
Because if you just pass through acountry and you didn't declare yourself
in that country, then it's technically bytechnicality and the way that it works.
That's not somewhere that you haveto declare yourself as requesting
amnesty or am Amnesty Asylum.

(57:34):
Sorry.

I get it.

that, that one's just like a little nitpicky thing that
just exists because that's the sameargument that came up when Syrians
were fleeing and ended up in Greece.

Yeah,

it's, you go, I know why people do the things
that they do, and I also knowthat they have their valid fears.
But at the same time, if you were tostop and say Honduras, that's where
you, you feel safe, and then youfind out, oh no, I'm not safe here.
Now you've just exhausted youropportunity to try to get that asylum

(58:05):
to be in a now another country, itadds another layer of complexity to it.
So people just, they're, they again,it kind of, I feel like it comes
back to the market, the marketing.
We did it to ourselves.

Yeah.
Yeah.
I think,

have the wheels turning

yeah.
No, I, I love the discussion therebecause I think ultimately it's
like, well, listen, if you're afleeing a country, there's plenty of
other places that you can be safe.

Yeah.

right, to Audrey's point, Dave, it was like, Hey, if you're
gonna be safe, might as well shootmy shot and try to get into the best.
Yeah, if I'm gonna go,if I'm gonna seek asylum.
But to Dave's point, Dave's like,well, listen, if you're fleeing
a country, just go to any countrythat's safe other than yours.

There's a lot of great countries between wherever you
are and wherever you need to go.
And

Yeah.

I'm not against people coming here for asylum.
I'm just saying if Ipersonally, I'm feeling like.
Your asylum claim is untrue.
If you've passed a dozen opportunitiesto be safe and to have asylum, you
know, if you keep on skipping thoseand you keep on traveling and you
keep on going, I'm like, are youreally, I mean, does it, is it valid?

(59:15):
I don't get it.
Because you keep on passing perfectlygood, robust economies with rules of law
and you know, like you're not gonna beprosecuted because of who you are and
you know what you believe or who you lovebecause those countries have laws, right?
Like you can be gay in Mexico, right?
So I, I, I don't know.

(59:36):
I, I, I think this is worthyof a further conversation.
I'm like, I don't know if you have like,really an asylum claim if you, if you
travel a thousand miles, if you comefrom, from Africa or China, you know,
if you come from like thousands of milesaway for asylum, I'm like, oh, come on.
Does that make any sense to anybody?
I.

I, I, and I get that, I do feel that there's probably, one
of the things that's missing is thefact that if you have a thousand people
walking from one country to the next,there's gonna be some that stay in
that next country, and then they go tothe, maybe now it's only 900 going up.
There are people that stay along theway, but there are other people that are
just simply not going to, and it couldbe that the fear that they have, they

(01:00:15):
feel that the only safe place that theycan be, and this is all, this is all
just formulated around violence, asylumseeking, like literally fleeing violence.
But there's a lot of other factorsat play in asylum seeking, if there's
mass famine happening, if there'sthere, there's, again, it kind of
gets back into the, the fact that it'scomplex and it's very, very nuanced.

(01:00:38):
I do get your point though.
I entirely get your point.
And I do feel that there's a lot ofpeople, I mean, just in talking with.
Again, most of my the people that I'veknown personally, it was throughout
the nineties and the two thousands,but just listening to their stories
and how people just stopped alongthe way and they said, you know what?
I feel safe enough here.

Dave Conley (01:00:54):
On the flip side, you know, like if you have any kind of like even
remote family anywhere in a country

Audrey Medina (01:01:01):
That's

I do, yeah.
I have family in Spain.
So like, would I seekasylum in Mexico or Canada?
Well, I might actuallythink about Spain, right?
And it's, it's further away.
So

Yeah.

I think I'm just arguing against my own thought on that one.

Jerremy Newsome (01:01:15):
No, it's what a great place to be,

yeah.

we live here.
This I can absolutely see whyNY anyone would want to be here.
And to Jerry's point, so Jerry, youbrought up something interesting about,
didn't mention it specifically, butyou're kind of talking about those
that are coming over to America that dohave extreme wealth in other countries
that essentially buy their visa, right?
I think currently we have the golden visa,I believe it was called, where you, you

(01:01:41):
pay a million and essentially you bring ina business and poof, uh, you're a citizen.
Now, what would be interesting,Audrey, and then I'll ask,
I'm gonna ask Jerry too.
Do you think in that way, if they're gonnapay a million, do you think a portion of
that proceeds could go to an immigrationbucket that other immigrants could use

(01:02:06):
to fill out all their forms so that theydon't have to spend as much money so that
they have some type of provocation orprovidence where it's like, Hey, we did
have someone from our country, so let'ssay a, a Cuban nationalist comes over and
they're doing extremely well and bang,they set up and they're now a citizen and

(01:02:26):
they can put into this pot, Hey, any otherCuban comes over, they can use portions
of my money that I just now contributedbecause I'm now a citizen to fill out all
their forms and things of that nature.
Do you think that could besomething that could work?

I think it could, and the reason why I think it could
is 'cause there used to actuallybe something very similar to that.
It was baked into, I want tosay the brae So it basically
covered some of those costs.
Now would it be a little bit yourthought process would be a little
more I guess not, not broad.
It would philanthropic,it would be a little more

Yeah.

than

Yeah.

other one But basically, I mean, part of the partnership and
the, and I'm going on memory here,not my gazillion notes, 'cause I'm not
gonna scroll through that right now.
But with the proto program they had, theyhad a really, really strong agreement.
With Mexico and how that was going tooperate and what those fees were and
how that was gonna gonna function.

(01:03:23):
And then they used, they kind ofpiggybacked of that process and some of
the subsequent things on how they weregonna fund things so that it's possible.
It's, it's, I think it'sabsolutely possible.
I think it could work.
I think we have a long wayto go before we get there.

What do you think, Jerry?
You think that would work?

Jerry Valerio (01:03:41):
Yeah I did wanna actually add something somewhat related to the
discussion because I think one of youtalked about Asian communities, right?
There is a, there is an opportunityto take a look in what happens
in those immigrant communities tofigure out what can we borrow and
bring forward into American cultureand make it a standard practice.

(01:04:02):
One of the things I've come to learnabout is like in the Korean community,
they have opportunity circles.
That's the reason why Korea townsthroughout the US thrive, it's
usually like five to 10 people andthey all commit and put money in
to help each one one get up thrive.
they can choose to disband orstay part of the circle and they

(01:04:24):
continue to help their people.
Imagine if we created opportunitycircles not tied to a specific.
Cultural community, butit was for all Americans.
We would have an America that basicallylifts each other up collectively.
We can also break down the barriersthat exist between people of different
races or heritages or culture becauseyou're now part of an opportunity circle

(01:04:48):
and you're all looking for a betterlife, and you're all helping each other
through that connection that you make.
We get a tighter community anda much better American culture

like that.

Hmm.
Area there.
I think there's a, I don'tknow if it's a misconception.
It's a, it's a con, a conceptthat immigrants want to pull
up the ladder behind them.
Uh, that they wanna actually make itdifficult for people who came from
their original country to actuallycome in because they're, they're in.
And, and do you, is that a, a real thing?

(01:05:22):
Have you heard that?
Do you have any experience with that?

it.
It's called the crab mentalitybecause people wanna climb up and once
they made it to the top, they don'tcare about the people below them.
That I think, happens inall cultures to some extent.
It is.
And it I've talked tomy parents about this.
It is called the crab mentality.
There are people who climb to the top butdon't want you to be at their level, and

(01:05:45):
they'll do whatever they can to I likethe idea, you said pull the ladder up.
And so now there's no ladder,

Yeah,

uh, it's it's destructive, right?
Because it's on, youdon't need to do that.
There's enough abundance for everyone.
Help each other, uh, level up.
Uh, and that's what I lovealso about what the Koreans do
with their opportunity circles.
I'm like, that's a great idea.
We should just be doing thatas a general broader practice.

I, I lived right outside of a town, uh, where I grew
up that was completely built byKoreans, I mean, like ground up.
And it was amazing.
To this day, my comfort foods orVietnamese and Korean food, because
I grew up outside of Washington, DC.

Yeah, that's, some level of, mean, I guess ultimately
the question Jerry was like, howdo we make that a requirement?
'Cause that, that's really thethought process would be would
that, that'd be it, right?
If you leave it to everyone else to doit, thus there will be a minority of
groups of individuals that will, but ifeveryone's required to create, like you

(01:06:44):
said, that opportunity circle or a coessentially a cohesive community where
it's almost, you've gotta do this, if youfill out this bubble in your form, right?
And you are saying, I am a part ofthis, race background, nationality,

(01:07:04):
immigration status, I'm gonna helpthis, then this type of situation.
I think that'd be unique.
And I think,

It sounds a little racist.
It sounds a little racist to me.

I think it has the potential to be misused.

It does, anything can be misused because there's always
gonna be people with other agendas.
But if you, if you useit under the guise of.
This is the American spirit.
It's all about paying it forward.
Your success, you get to pay it forwardto the next people who come after you.
So I think that's,

I feel the challenge, sorry, the, the, I feel like the
challenge in that is people don'tlike to be required to do anything.

Hmm.

Just in general.
Everybody, all Americans, nobodywants to be required to do anything.

I,

to do something

so I would call it a requirement.
I would call it a give, get exchanged.

Ooh,

for you to get the support, you're gonna have
to give something in return.
not a requirement.

reciprocity.

Yes.
So don't call it a requirement.
Call it reciprocity.

Fair.

And I know my Australian friends would never do this.
There'd be a lot of expletives.

That's right.
Wouldn't be a lot of

I.

No, this, this is awesome guys.
This is really fun.
It's a beautiful discussionbecause again, I do think that
I just love the word Audrey.
I mean, it sums it up soperfectly, like complexity.
Like there's very, challengingcountries everywhere that I
don't know one specifically wherethey're like, they have nailed it.
I don't, I don't know if there'sone country, but I will ask that.

(01:08:43):
Is there a country that you feel currentlyis a plus tier immigration policies?

I know there was a Nordic country recently that was doing just
amazing, and now for the life of me, Ican't remember which one it was, but it
was one in which there's a period of timein which you have this transitory period
of time when you immigrate somewhere orseek refuge or whatever, where it has the

(01:09:14):
safety nets to help get you on your feet.
It has we have languageresources here, but they're not
like wild, widely available.
They're not, it's not easy to access.
And so I know that there are somecountries that that is literally part
of the process is, okay, all right, wellyou're here now, so now we gotta get you
to where you're comfortable being here.
So let's start with the language.
I think things like that would probablygo way into helping kind of the scenario

(01:09:40):
that we find ourselves in as a nation.
But as far as one that's doing itperfectly, I'm gonna be honest with you.
Humans are fallible.
Humans are messy, and Idon't think there's a perfect
system that exists anywhere.
But that doesn't mean that we allowperfect to be the enemy better.
there's not

Progress over perfection.

Yeah.
You know, you just keeptrying to improve it.

Yep.

What do you think about the open borders?
Uh, there's, there's plenty of advocatesthat be like, borders aren't a thing.
Why don't you come on in?

Me personally,

Yeah.
What do you think I.

I, so I'm neither here nor there in a certain,
from a certain perspective.
So don't believe that humans areillegal by existing in a location.
Personally speaking, do I see that wehave created a system and an order of

(01:10:33):
doing things that now means that if youdon't have certain things and you don't
follow a certain process, that you're nowgonna be into this other this otherized
group and now it's gonna make it harderand now people are gonna like point their
I towards you and, and stuff like that.
And so then maybe it's probably betterif we had a system in which our borders

(01:10:55):
acted like an actual border and we,traded back and forth, but we also,
had an actual system in which we knewand everybody was going what direction?
I think we've built a systemthat technically requires that
unless we change the system,

What about you, Jerry?
Open Borders.
Just come on in.

I.

I'm not sure how that's gonna make things better.

Fair.

And so, an interesting concept, so years.
I think what that's practicenow in Europe, right?
Because they've opened the borders,but they're also challenged with
the problems that they do have.
So think it's an opportunity to see whereit then may have worked successfully
or learn from that and then figureout, well how can we make it better if
we wanted to do something like here?
Mean, I think in some ways NAFTA and tradeand all that stuff was like an attempt

(01:11:46):
to like, oh, let's have, open borderswhen it comes to economics and trade.
But you know, obviously that'snot an easy problem to solve.

Yeah, great question.
Um, here's another fun one.
Okay, so if you had to immigrateto a different country right now,
so let's put you in that position.
You're not being deported, but you,you've gotta go to another country.
country are you currentlychoosing and why?
I'm gonna start with Dave.

(01:12:15):
I wanna hear what Dave says,and then Jerry, and then Audrey,
and then I'll give an answer.

You know, actually just talked about this with, uh, because of,
uh, political instability where my boo isand political instability where I live.
Um, we were seriously, uh, andwe're seriously talking about Spain.
It has, uh, great healthcare.
It has lots of greatinternational airports.
It has access to Europe youknow, pretty good laws, you

(01:12:39):
know, pretty decent economy.
Uh, it's fairly, and youget value for your money.
I got family there.
We like the weather.
It's right on the Mediterranean.
Like, it, it checked a lot of boxes.
So, you know, like actually seriouslyconsidering like, oh, maybe get a place
in Barcelona or, or somewhere on thecoast, uh, and just, have it as a, as a
place to at least, uh, have a second home.

All right.
Jerry, what about youGotta go somewhere else.
Dave's going to Spain or is Jerry going?

Oh, Jerry, you, you can live with us.
I'm good.

so

you can also go to Spain.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

I think my choices, and this is just me, where I'm at
with my life, fighting a place wherethe comforts that I've already become
accustomed to would be also available.
if I look purely at like, okay,it's probably gonna be a, a country
where speaking mostly because that'sthe language I know the most of.

(01:13:32):
But then also to some degree of diversity.
I think my first choice would first beCanada because it is like the us it's
a kinder, gentler American culture.
And I've worked thereand I love Canadians.
I love their spirit, their openness.
They're welcome.
So in, in some ways, you know,they figured things out that
we can certainly learn from.

(01:13:53):
Uh, and then probably the secondplace I would consider is, my
parents' homeland, the Philippines.
'cause they speak English there.
Um, and they have culture.
They're not only just Filipino culture,but there's a lot of different other
countries, whether it's Chinese,Korea, or Japan or, or whatnot.
There's a, you know, many Americanexpats, because again you have

(01:14:17):
English speaking people, right?
have incredible, you're, you know, ifyou took your American dollar, whatever
you're making here, you're like.
Over there, right?
So your money goes a long way.
It's a great life.
And, and you know, in, in, in thecase of the Philippines, they're known
as some of the warmest people theearth, friendliest and, and whatnot.

(01:14:39):
So I mean, that's why I chosePhilippines as the second.
But I think Canada, if I'm choosingbased on I'd consider Canada just, just
because it's very similar to America,and then the Philippines probably next.

Audrey, where you going?

So we've actually had this thought experiment because of things going
on in the nation right now as a MexicanAmerican truthfully listen, I, I grew
up near Gators and stuff, but I don't,I don't necessarily wanna be fed to one.
So that obviously thatwas that bad humor from.
Who was it, the advisor tothe president or whatever.

(01:15:14):
But with that being said we'veteased out different scenarios
based on what would cause us leave.
So if it's because now all of asudden, you know, protections are
gone for members of the L-G-B-T-Q orsomething like that, that dictates

(01:15:34):
which countries we would look at, um,no matter what, that would dictate it.
Even if it wasn't specificallythe reason why we left.
We would have to go somewhere withthose strong protections, which limits
the playing field to a certain degree.
Then there's also languagebarriers and also coming from an
immigrant family and understandinghow difficult it was for them.

(01:15:55):
Knowing that it's not gonna bea walk in the park, where is it
that I can go and try to hit theground running as fast as possible.
So with that being sad, if it wasa fight or flight, have to leave.
Right now I'm close to the Canadianborder, so that's an easy peasy.
Let's say I can't do that and I haveto go somewhere where my lineage is at.
Then I've got Mexico.
I've also got Spain, 'cause I dohave a grandfather from Spain,

(01:16:17):
or great-grandfather, sorry.
So there is that option.
But one of the places that we've alsolooked at was Portugal for the protections
offered to the LGBT community and Ireland.
And Ireland is extra helpfulbecause there's no snakes.
No snakes and I do love me a norope, but my partner does not.

(01:16:39):
and they

it.

English already, so that makes it a little easier.

Fair.

All right, Jerremy.
Where what's the answer?
Where, where are you going?

And then
You,

and the correct answer is I'm going to, I'm going to Aruba.
That's where I'm going.
I'm going to Aruba.
Beautiful time zone.
They speak all the languages.
Nice melting pot safe.
No one messes with 'em.
A lot of very strong tourist economy.
Beautiful place.
I've been there before.
Perfect Beaches.
I'm gonna go there to have fun.

(01:17:08):
Yeah, that, that's my,essentially my answer.

doing this for World War iii?
Because then that changes my answer.

No, nothing for, we're just doing it in
this hypothetical example.
Yeah.

Yeah.
If it was just like a straight upimmigration, like I'm, you know, I'm
probably Spain, Jerry, you're, you'reheading to, to, to Canada or Philippines,
Audrey, you know, maybe Spain.
Maybe Canada.
Jerremy.
Aruba.
I, I dig it.

Yeah.

That'll.

camp, maybe I'm just going around camping in Airbnb in it for the

Sounds like it.

just blogging about my experiences,

yeah.
That would be fun.
That'd be fun.
If you had to sum up the currentImmigration nation that is America
and use it in a summation ofone word, the immigration system
in one word, what would it be?
Jerry.
Conflicted.
Alright.
Audrey.

Discombobulated,

Yeah, Dave.

Immigration, I would the words drunkard.
But like immigration, like assimilation,uh, you know, the best, I, I don't, I
think there's no place better in theworld that, opens its doors to immigrants.
I think, you know, we are thatshining star, like, I don't think

(01:18:26):
there's any country on the planet.
I think it's the bestplace for an immigrant.

Fantastic.
Fantastic.
I, I would, I wouldprobably use the word messy.
Yeah.
To the point that I do believewith us four, we definitely
know some of the policies.
We're very aware, but I think as ageneral public, there is this really
undereducated aspect of both thehistory of immigration to this country

(01:18:54):
also an undereducated aspect of how dopeople actually come into this country.
And I think most Americans, if Ihad to unfortunately surmise how
they probably think it, they comein, they, they all come in illegally
and they all just come across theborder, go to Canada, come down, go
to Mexico, come up, and that's it.
That's the only way they come in.

(01:19:15):
that's just not the,that's just not the case.
Yes, Biden did open the borders a lot.
And there were a lot of peoplecoming across the borders.
And now Trump has created ice.
And now not createdunfortunately revamped it.
And now ICE is the 14thlargest military on Earth.
And so we're spending so much money toJerry's Point, deporting the current

(01:19:40):
existing individuals where in reality,if we spent that same amount of money
saying, Hey, they're already here.
Let's figure out who needs to be heresafely, legally, And yes, there's
definitely people in this countrywho came here who should not be here.
But I would personally feel, and Ido personally feel that that number
is probably dramatically small.

(01:20:01):
of the immigrants who come over.
I think that's a, viciously,tiny percentage of those who are
here for the cartels, here fordrugs, here for human trafficking.
'cause the unfortunate newshuman trafficking has yes,
something to do with immigration.
Absolutely.

(01:20:22):
But it is horrifically smaller than wewould think it is impacting this nation
in forms of millions of people a year.
the cities that are not evenremotely close to the borders.
Example, Nashville, Tennesseeone of the largest hubs in the

(01:20:44):
nation for human trafficking.
So is Atlanta, so is Indianapolis.
So is Minneapolis.
These are some of the largest hubs inthe country for human trafficking we
like to blame it on the immigrationaspect, but in reality there's a
lot bigger problems going on and

a demand for it.

which is appalling to me.
Still can't figure that one out.
But not only is the demand, it is, Ido not believe at all represented by
the people that want to come to thiscountry And I do think that uh, there's
probably a very fascinating of somedegree of individuals that should, if we

(01:21:30):
created a system that was work dependent.
'cause I actually am probably morepro if you come here to this country
and you do sign up for some job,it should become a lot easier.
And that job, could it just be, Hey,I'm gonna come here as an entrepreneur.
Cool.
We'll check in on you and we'll makesure that you're submitting 10 90 nines.

(01:21:52):
Check.
Thanks for being here.
I do think if we create it as ajob dependent entry, I don't really
think that's gonna deter mostimmigrants realist realistically.
And I don't see that as a, as an ultimateproblem because they're gonna work anyway.
That's why they're coming here.
They're coming here to work in thiscountry with the freedoms that we do have.
Because to your point,Dave, we are the best.

(01:22:13):
This is the place that you want to go.
This is where you want to go.
You don't want to go anywhere else.
You're not gonna Croatia,although you probably should.
Croatia is amazing, but you're not goingthere because the economy's not thriving.
not the strongest empire on earth.
So this is where they gotta go.
And we do have a big problem as itrelates to in on how to keep the

(01:22:39):
current population of immigrants inthis country so that they can thrive.
And I do believe that theimmigration aspect really in this
country has always been a whois president, top down approach.
And I don't think that there are manyleaders in this nation that stand up
for the immigrants that are, that arestand up might not be the perfect word,

(01:23:02):
but leaders in the immigration realmthat say, this is how it should be.
And I'm going to take the burden tocarve a really beautiful path and
make the policy changes and make theupdates and battle the president.
Because I feel, and this could be me,I feel that the president, whoever
it is, whoever gets elected, isalmost always the most influential

(01:23:24):
person as it relates to integration.
And I don't know if thatthat should be the case.

I am not sure that the policies that affect
hundreds of millions of peopleshould be down to one human being.

I agree.

re, I

Totally agree.

a lot of voices and a lot of perspectives.
'cause
Even in this little teeny tiny groupthat we're discussing, I mean, we have
altering thought processes, alteringideas, altering the different experiences,
and it takes a, taking all of those andputting 'em in a blender and looking
at them and saying, what do we create?
Or, you know, what can wecreate with these ingredients,

Yeah.

to get to some kind of a policy.
But I also think that we need to startbeing honest about our own history
and our own usage of the immigrationsystem order to be able to fix it.
Because it is, it stays broken in orderto create an exploitable population.

Stays broken to exploit.
I feel if I were president, I wouldjust task the House of Representatives.
Figure out immigration.
That's your guys' job for the next year.
Go for it.
Because again, now youhave a larger melting pot.
You have people that arerepresentatives from individual states.
They have more boots on the ground,they have more individuals they can

(01:24:42):
collaborate with, communicate with.
They start figuring outindividual policies.
I do also think thatimmigration should be a state.
decision as well.
Because there are certain, ahead.

go.
Going back to to the house ofrepresentative, are you saying
you actually want them to do whatthey're supposed to be doing?

I think that's a crazy statement to make.
I know.
I feel like, I don't know why.
Why did

Yeah, we, we heard the history, like the last time
they actually did their job was,before, most people that are
listening to this were born, right?
Like, it was 19,

in diapers,

For real.

And then there was like little pokes, it's like a little bit
of daca, you know, they just passed theLincoln Riley Act with basically only
said, Hey, if you, if you do somethinghorrible, you know we're gonna deport you.
Which we already do.
We already do, right?
So it wasn't like new work, you know,they're just like, let's do this again.

so have you done an episode on government reform?
Because Dave, we talked earlier

Every single show is about government reform

true,

It's ultimately,

about our government and the elected public servants,

on.

They're no longer truly representative of

come on.

of America.

now.

for anyone who wants to run to office, you need to be, in some ways
well connected and well-funded, whetherit's your own wealth or you, the when
government was founded by our foundingfathers, it was with the intent, like
anyone could potentially run for office.
That is no longer

No.
Correct.

And I just feel like every person who gets elected, there's, I
mean, it's very clear their actions speaklouder than the platform they ran on.
And you find a lot of elected officials.
Betraying their constituency andnever living up to the platform
that they said they were going to.
And that's not surprising becauseit's like, while I'm in, at least

(01:26:39):
get four years or six years or

Yes.
Jared.
Yes.
And this is why everyone hates politiciansbecause there's no accountability.
There's none.
I say all these things and thenI just do whatever I wanna do.
And there's no downside, right?
None.

that cycle.
That's why I said everythingabout all of the branches of our
government need to be reevaluated.
We've, we've seen over the lastcouple of decades how things have been
like, Play-Doh, pooled, stretched,put back together, we're seeing how
things can get broken or there'sloopholes and stuff like that.

(01:27:13):
I think now's a good time tolike, reflect and figure out how
do we make this better for theAmericans experience moving forward?
That's a big ask, Because you

Yeah.

break the system that's been in place now for however long.
Yep,

now, the system thrives on the fact that the American public
is by and large uninformed or dis, and

yep.

doing that, they can do things like the Lake and Riley act,
even though all of that already exists.
They're gonna get all thatapplause and all that attention
because they did something.
But they

Yeah.

anything, and

Yeah.
If you're.

Of government.

So you're, you're talking about the power of politics, right?
When it comes to politics, it'sall about the optics, right?

Media,

optics look good.
Then people are like, okay, it's done.
They look away and they'relike, okay, now we can stop.

Right?

and that's where we're at.
That's the broken system.
We

Yeah.

out how to solve that.

ironically enough the number one I get when I tell
people the ultimate goal for meis to, is to run for president.
They always go, well, you haveno background in politics.
And I'm like.

great.

Exactly.
Yeah.
I don't, and I don't believe that weshould, everyone should have term limits.
Duh.
That's mind boggling, right?
That our boy, Bernie Sandersis still in government.
He's still 37 years later, right?
Still con whatever.
Unbelievable.
And they should be public servants,they should be individuals.

(01:28:41):
They go, Hey, listen, I have made it tosome degree in whatever field, doesn't
have to be business and money, right?
But I am at the point now where I haveenough knowledge, influence information,
and connections where I going throughthis service, that's what, public
service, it should be a service role.
And I now have the ability to goback to the people that I worked

(01:29:02):
with or worked for and have directcommunication with those individuals
and actually bring up the entirepopulation of America right through that.
Because we've also

outta politics.

In, in so many forms.
In so many forms.
And I really do think that unfortunatelythe presidential aspect, the one thing
that Trump did, do a, among many otherthings, but one thing he definitely did
is said, Hey, shouldn't say a regularperson, non deeply career politician

(01:29:35):
can ascend to extremely high ranks.
That's something that I do vehementlybelieve should be the overall policy
of this nation is the individualsthat are at the highest levels
should be those that have ascendedthrough the American dream itself.

(01:29:56):
have actually started, that have built,that have created, that have produced
and have actually been boots on theground and haven't had their nose stuck
in the entire system the entire time andonly have their best interests at play.
'cause that's exactly what's happening.
The fact that Congress and the Houseof Representatives can buy stocks is

(01:30:18):
one of the most blatant broken systemswe have because they are building
the policies agreeing to the tradeand to the commerce that directly
affect the businesses that they areable to invest in, which is the most

Corrupt.

corrupt insider trading of all time and insider trading, which
Martha Stewart went to prison forand many other people have, right?
To all tons of other people, they'vegone to prison for insider trading.
That's what all the Congress is doing.
All of them.
And that is mind blowing to me.
So aspects like that, thatare trickle down effects to
the immigration piece because.

(01:31:02):
You're saying that, we are keeping thesystem broken so that we can exploit them.
They're doing it for money and thesystem is being controlled by money and
it is being controlled by money becausethey are making so much money doing it.
And so if you,

deportation centers are owned by publicly traded corporations,
which now commodifies a different, weare basically complicit in a form of
human tra human trafficking, becausenow we have ice going in and just
grabbing people and discriminately,depriving them of due process,
putting them into these facilities,and that raises the stock price.

oh, shoot.
And then the Congress can buy that stock.
Yep.

To your point on public service so indigenous
people have long held, way beforethis, this country existed.
The way that we, we now know it, system ofreciprocity where those that were in some
form of public service to their tribe, totheir community they were taken care of.

(01:32:02):
And that was, that, that was part ofthe reciprocity, just a natural working
order of things so that the person whowas providing, said public service, be
it medicinally, spiritually, whatever,that leadership, whatever that was, they
weren't focused on matters of securingfood or, you know, whatever it was.

(01:32:24):
They, the community did that so thatthey could focus on the community.
I think in the public service sectorthere, we do need to really, really
analyze the way money poisons itand it needs, it needs a person
who dedicates their life to publicservice shouldn't be broke per se.

(01:32:44):
They shouldn't be able to notafford things, but maybe that
shouldn't even be a concept.

I mean, I mean ultimately it's, they they should
be the, at the point where for fouryears, again, hashtag term limits.
They can afford to not makesubstantial profits for that
four to eight year term, right?
Like if I become president at the ageof 40, between 40 and 48, I'm good

(01:33:13):
like that, that eight year timeframe.
I have other streams of income thathave, I've already created where I don't
have to, where other presidents wouldn'thave to, or other members of Congress or
House of Representatives wouldn't haveto these backdoor deals to make more
money because they already have someform of investments, passive income.

(01:33:37):
They've worked the American dream sothat they can now go be a public servant
so that other people can also win.
just makes logical sense tome too bad, too much logic.
There

Yeah,

It's really, really, really fascinating.
So as we go ahead.

was gonna say, gone are the days of, like Jimmy Carter when he
divested from his peanut farm becausehe didn't want it to look bad because
there used to be a, an ethical code ofhonor that people just naturally went
by there wasn't the same level of moneyin politics that you could just polish
something out and, and, you know, peoplehad to actually like, want you and

(01:34:17):
trust you and then they'd vote for you.
And I feel like that's definitelymissing what we have now as negative
partisanship where we just don't wantthe other guy to win and they spend
billions of dollars to get there.
But, that's the one we're goingfor, even though we don't like 'em.

That's also another problem of our, our political system, but the
two party system needs to be revamped.

Speaking of, since we have plenty, we have plenty of
time an American immigrant, AKA ElonMusk is creating a third party, the
American Party as he's calling it.
So with a five minutes, I wouldlove each of your take on that,
just or five, five minutes or less.
Jerry, what's your take on,building a third party, I would say.

(01:35:01):
What's your thoughts?
Is it gonna work?

I think it opens up the door to, for more accountability from our,
in our political system by having we can'tjust be two, there has to be more choice.
So whether it's three, four,or five parties, seen that
happen in other countries.
And I think it some ways ithelps, balances the spectrum.
'cause with two parties right now, we justhave a push pull with extremes, right?

(01:35:29):
That needs to be moderated byha having other options, right?
So like libertarians are not large enough.
I think by and large, most people,would consider themselves libertarian,

Yep.

I think we also vote with the understanding that I want
my vote to be able to impact andtherefore I'm gonna choose the one
party that has the best shot at winning.
It's a bad way to look at it.
I actually like the idea thatI'm seeing in some states about
this whole rank voting process.
Where you have multiplecandidates and then you, then

(01:36:01):
you have a, a runoff, right?
So let's say the top three of thefive or whatever gets a runoff
whoever gets the most votes.
I think that seems to be a much,much better option to be being able
to break the two party cycle if weintroduce something like that as well.

Audrey.

I, I'm also pretty heavy on the rank choice.
Idea because it allows people tosay, well, hey listen, I really
like this Green Party candidate,this independent this, libertarian,
this, whatever, you know, person.
I don't know that they'll win,but I wanna vote for them anyway
because that's who I align with.
And you know what?
Just in case they don't get thenumbers, and here's the one I

(01:36:40):
think might win, and yada yada.
And then based on what, wheneverything comes through, it, it,
you're not throwing away your vote.
You've said, I prefer this one.
However, if that doesn't work,then I'll go to my next choice.
And then it gets counted into there.
as far as will it work?
So the fun fact about why thirdparties have not historically gained

(01:37:03):
traction in the US is primarilybecause it requires getting them in
all the lower forms of governmentto even be considered functional.
So you have to have your schoolboards, you have to have your
railroad commissioners, you haveto have your judges, you have to
have your mayors throughout thenation that are also in this party.

(01:37:25):
And if you're only focusing on thepresidential portion, you're gonna have
a lot of pushback and you're gonna havea very ineffectual government at the
federal level without the participation.
And people advocating for that,basically that that political structure
that shows and demonstrates that,yeah, it can work, it works in my

(01:37:47):
community, da da da works in my, uh,in this section for this district.
And it, there's just nodemonstration of it working.
There's not that faith.
And so then what happens is when you havesomebody who's going to make it to that
level in this other party that's neverbeen tried before, I think we're at a
point in human, in, in American history,and there's so much division that I

(01:38:09):
think we're up to that boiling point.
But then the problem's gonna be thatparticular candidate is almost set up for
failure because there's not gonna be thetype of cooperation that's gonna be needed
to do anything meaningful in their term.
And so that's where the, the rub is, ishow when you're setting up this for Elon
Musk, for example, with the AmericanAmerica, what does American Party,

Markable.

if he, if he sets that up, he's got years basically to get
people throughout the country, notonly to join this political movement,
but to run in that political movementin order for by the time you're
doing well, less than three years,by the time you count the political
trail or the, the election period.
To actually do something andshow and have some kind of, of.

(01:38:57):
Return on investment, I guess you couldsay, showing that, hey, it's functional.
I've got all these people all across, lookat all these positions that have now been
filled by people in the American Party.
That one's a tricky one, but I think thatwhere we are right now as a nation that's
figuring it itself out, this is verymuch reminiscent of the, um, Dixie party.

(01:39:18):
When the party Democrats andRepublicans basically swapped their
platforms, it's very reminiscentof that time period where there

Right.

be some, some, maybe it's just an interim, and then eventually
we just swap back and forth again.
I, I don't know, but it doesfeel like we're getting to that
boiling point, that pressure point.

Yeah, which is fascinating.

I did wanna add something.
Earlier, Audrey, you had talkedabout, the American public being
un uninformed or misinformed.
an interesting concept.
Your right to vote.
You don't automatically get it there.
There could be just like a driver'slicense, a whole education demonstrating
you understand the process, youunderstand the current themes, that

(01:40:04):
are affecting America, and you have topass just like your driver's license.
That gives you the privilege.
I think if we had somethinglike that, then people would
hopefully take advantage.

we used to, and it was highly weaponized and it was.
Used to disenfranchise the vote.
And that is where as a nation, likeregardless of if we go back to that or
not, without us actually looking at ourpast, understanding it and building from

(01:40:35):
that experience and saying, Hey, yeah,no, we did some really bad crap throughout
all of those many, many decades.
We, we weaponized this,we weaponized that.
And actually being honest and, and notshying away and not trying to just only
say we're the greatest nation on earth.
We are, but we could lose that.
It's a freedom has to be kept.

(01:40:58):
Like you have to protect it.
And if we are only looking and saying,oh, look at this shiny stuff and not
fixing our problems, then we run the riskof running into the exact same cycles.
And the only problem with those types oftests is that this nation, they have only
ever been used to disenfranchise the boat.

(01:41:19):
I would love to have amore informed public.
I would love to have real journalism.
Again, I know it exists, but it'shard to find and it's also not free.
That's another problem that wehave is the free sources for news.
It's all skewed sources, left or right.
It's all over the place,but it, that's what's free.
And what's actualjournalism now costs money.

(01:41:42):
And most people simply willnot do that or cannot do that.
So now it's like up to a public, tothe person to stay informed, but at
the same time, we've now built a systemwhere getting that information is
its own version of Act of Congress.

Yeah.
Well, this will be fun tohear from Dave, just about the
American Party, which you thought

I mean, I, I like it and I think, you know, you
and I have to seriously look atwhat they're talking about, but
we, third parties already exist.
I mean, the, you know,the what's his name?
Yang, uh, the, for

Yeah,

Yang, the, the Forward Party.
There's the No Labels Party which is,you know, already a bunch of oligarchs,

was Yeezy's party, but I
What

li you know, Libert, right?
Libertarians, the Greens, the,I, you know, like, I, I mean,
don't ever bet against Elon,you know, like him of anyone.
I mean, the, the Republicanshave gone through a significant
shift in the last 10 years and.
The Democrats have not.

(01:42:44):
And it's time, you know, like everyparty goes through its evolutions.
And it's, it's, you know, beyond timefor the Democrats to go through their own
evolution and to, to be something new.
I think if I was looking atsomething structurally, I, you
know, I'd be looking at things.
I mean, I like the ideaof ranked choice voting.
I had that within in SanFrancisco, and it, it really did,

(01:43:06):
you know, do some good things.
I like that.
I definitely like the idea ofhaving public funding of candidates.
It allows for anybody to run.
You know, like that's what happenedin New York City was public matching,
so that enabled somebody who waslike, kind of nobody to come out
of, somewhere and really, you know,really make a difference quickly by

(01:43:29):
having, you know, a coherent messageand actually having money behind it.
I think if I was looking at somethingstructural we have 438 representatives
in the, in the US Congress, andthat's been capped for decades.
You know, by legislation, butit's against the constitution.

(01:43:49):
So I would lift that cap.
Like we have one representativebasically for 80, 90,000 people.
I would say, no, no, no, no, no, no.
We need to have a representative forlike every, every 20,000, 40,000, you
know, like double and triple the numberof congressional representatives.
And that would, by definition create alot more coalitions, uh, because they're,

(01:44:11):
they're like the Tea Party coalition inthe, in the Democrat or the Republicans
had a lot of power, you know, uh, 10,20 years, uh, 10, 15 years ago because
they were able to stick together.
And so like coalitions stickingtogether can actually get
some interesting stuff done.
So I would, I would raise the cap on thenumber of, of representatives in Congress.
That's where I'd start.

Yeah.
Fascinating.
Very, very fascinating.
Friends, family team, Americans, thankyou so much for listening to this episode.
Audrey has a poem, first poem that's beenon the podcast that she would love to
read to wrap up this episode immigration.

(01:44:50):
So, Audrey, the floor is yours.

I read the poem, I am going to do just a little
disclaimer, disclaimer, warning.
poem is specifically from a refugeeperspective in regards to immigration.
with that, it's, it'sdefinitely a deeper topic.

(01:45:14):
And I am also gonna say thereis one racial slur in there,
and it's an important one.
I've read it many times, and there's kindof no way to get around it because as,
as somebody who also writes, I have todo justice to the person who wrote it.
And it was a veryintentionally selected word.

(01:45:36):
With that disclaimer in mind,the poem is called Home.
It is by Warsan Shire, and uh, here we go.
No one leaves home unlesshome is the mouth of a shark.
You only run for the border when yousee the whole city running as well.
Your neighbor's running faster thanyou breath bloody in their throats.

(01:45:58):
The boy you went to school with whokissed you dizzy behind the old 10 factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body.
only leave home whenhome won't let you stay.
No one leaves home unless home chases youfire under feet, hot blood in your belly.
It's not something you everthought of doing until the blade

(01:46:20):
burnt threats into your neck.
And even then you carried the anthemunder your breath, only tearing up your
passport in an airport toilet sobbingas each mouthful of paper made it
clear that you wouldn't be going back.
You have to understand that no oneputs their children in a boat unless

(01:46:41):
the water is safer than the land.
No one burns their palms undertrains beneath carriages.
No one spends days and nights in thestomach of a truck feeding on newspaper.
Unless the miles traveled meanssomething more than the journey.
No one crawls under fences.
No one wants to be beaten, pitied.

(01:47:03):
No one chooses refugee camps or stripsearches where your body is left aching
or prison because prison is safer thana. City of fire and one prison guard
in the night is better than a truckloadof men who look like your father.
No one could take it.
No one could stomach it.
No one skin would be tough enough.

(01:47:23):
The home, the go home, blacks, refugees,dirty immigrants, asylum seekers
sucking our country dry niggers withtheir hands out, they smell strange,
Savage messed up their country,and now they wanna mess up hours.
How do the words the dirtylooks, roll off your backs?
Maybe because the blow issofter than a limb torn off.

(01:47:44):
Or the words are more tender than 14men between your legs or the insults
are easier to swallow than rubble thanbone, than your child body in pieces.
I want to go home, but homeis the mouth of a shark.
Home is the barrel of a gun andno one would leave home unless
home chased you to the shore.

(01:48:04):
Unless home told you to quicken your legs.
Leave your clothes behind.
Crawl through the desert, wadethrough the oceans, drown, save,
be hunger, beg, forget pride.
Your survival is more important.
No one leaves home until homeis a sweaty voice in your ear
saying, leave run away from me.

(01:48:26):
Now, I don't know what I've become, butI know that anywhere is safer than here.

Powerful.
I love poetry.
I love the way it pierces the soul andopens up new paradigms and beliefs.
Jerry, you would like to havea closing remark as well.

I am of the strong belief that the American spirit
is built on the immigrant spirit.
And the one phrase that resonatesin my mind, and it's funny because
I actually shared this with earliertoday, phrase is, I can, because I am.
And the I can, because I am immigrant,I can because I am American.

(01:49:07):
Those are equivalent.

Ah, man.
Thank you so much for listening to anotherepisode of Solving America's Problems.
Please feel free to subscribe.
Drop a five star review and makesure you share this episode.
us.
Solve USA Pod on X or.
Solving America's ProblemsPodcast on Instagram.

(01:49:30):
Thank you so much for listening.
Did I learn?

What did you learn?

Oh, this is a big one.
That's what I learned.
This is not one of those we're gonnasolve with a, I do this I, what I
also learned is it's gonna be reallygreat for me, another portion of.
Information from a very politicallyvested aspect that, as I mentioned

(01:49:58):
earlier, I do not think that this shouldbe on the shoulders of one person.
not think the President should have thatmuch say so, how immigration is created,
because especially if the president isa direct immigrant or not, historically
they're not 'cause they can't be.

(01:50:19):
I really don't truly see thatone individual having the to
make such a powerful judgmentcall over so many people.
I do think that there can definitely beelements that the president can protect
and can provide and can be aware of.
And as a a, I love the questionthat you asked, like, Hey, should

(01:50:41):
we just open up everything?
I, I think that aspect of the presidentialpolicy of having a protection,
having something in place, having theawareness that yes, every country should
have a country should have borders.
That's what makes a country.
And knowing the facilitation thatthere are other people, there are
other individuals like you mentioned,representatives like the house, that

(01:51:04):
that could be expanded upon more,representatives that would be tasked
with something of this magnitude, I thinkis much more relevant and prevalent.
And I also truly believe that.
Audrey made a great point.
There's every aspect of our societyis probably gonna be at some point
touched upon immigration, and Ithink we kind of demonize it in

(01:51:25):
such a way that it's us versus them.
It's the people that have made itversus the people that haven't.
And I think that's really what causesa lot of the uproar and the riots and
the anger and the frustration is reallybecause it is a a caste system, right?
If you are, even if you are a anAmerican resident citizen, there's

(01:51:46):
a massive difference, right?
If you are an immigrant that became acitizen, there's still a difference.
If you were born here, if youwere not born here, if your
parents came, they didn't come.
There's this classification that probably,I think ultimately shouldn't be there.
And I think that probablyis a top down approach.
Someone who is ultimately able to sharethe vision that all Americans, why they're

(01:52:08):
here, what we should all do together,what type of value we should all create.
that focus and having thatawareness, I think is gonna be a
really, really key aspect to makingthese proper, adequate changes.
What did you learn, Dave?

I am still processing it.
Like I, I've been sitting here, I wasthinking about it when you were wrapping
up and I'm like, what did I learn?
And I don't know, uh, I'm gonna actually,I'm gonna listen back to this as we edit
it and, and I'm, I'm not exactly sure.
I know I learned something like there'sa, there's a, there's nuggets in there and
I'm sort of just kind of going through it.
I know basically, like immigrantsare awesome and like first generation

(01:52:46):
immigrant, you know, like, I mean,the amount of bravery that I feel
like it takes to pull up stakesfrom wherever you are on the
planet and be like, you know what?
I'm moving.
I'm, you know, like I'm, I'm going tolike, go someplace else on the planet.
I'm gonna go to America andsee what it's all about.

(01:53:07):
It feels like an incredibly brave thingto me and to the grit and resolve and
the drive that someone has in order togo do that and create a family and then
create wealth and businesses and likeimmigrants are amazing and like, that's
exactly what this country's all about.

(01:53:28):
And I, um,
and it's, it's complicated.
Uh, you know, it's, it's complicated.
I mean, I live in, I live in Miami andyou know, like I'm very much in like
it's, I feel very much in the minorityyou know, being a. English speaking.
And it's a different experience for me.
You know, like, it definitely feelslike a foreign country in a lot of ways.

(01:53:51):
And I think sometimes I, I, sometimesI have like a, like a negative
emotion to that and I'm like, oh myGod, is this a little bit of racism?
And I'm like, ah, I'm not racist,but like, yeah, that's, that's
not the best, you know, like,step back check yourself, Dave.
Like, what's that?
You know, what is that?
Right.
Like, why, why do you feel that?
When I was talking to, to Audrey and,and to Jerry before this, you know, just

(01:54:15):
to get a sense for where they wantedto go, and so we could have this they
both said something independently.
They said, you know, what wasreally key for their parents and
their parents' parents and Audrey'ssense, what was incredibly key for
them was, uh, the English language.
You know, Jerry said, you know,like I, I, I can't speak Phil,
you know, Filipino tag along.

(01:54:37):
I'm, I'm not sure I'm, forgive me folks.
Yeah.
For, for not knowing that.
And he said it, it kind of sucks, youknow, like I, you know, I have trouble,
you know, sometimes, you know, withfamily and, like, I, I wish I'd, I'd, I'd
paid more attention, you know, growing.
But then he said, and the thing thatassimilates you more than anything
else is not having that language.

(01:54:58):
And just having English.
And I think that that's, that'san interesting thing to say.
I, I, you know, I, I like that, in,in that, it, it is very unifying
to have a unified language.
And I think we already havethat, even though we don't
really have a national language.
I, I think it's, it's pretty cool thatwe can say, okay, like, English is, is
like our, you know, how we get along andhow we get around and saying that, most

(01:55:22):
of the things around here are in Spanish.
But uh, I think it's an easy thingto do and say is like, you know,
like, we're going to, we're gonnahave our education in English.
We're going to, you know, makesure our kids know English.
I know a lot of countries besides theirlanguage, they also teach English.
I think, you know, having a real emphasison the English language for anybody you

(01:55:44):
know, who, uh, doesn't speak Englishas a native language or, uh, speaks a,
speaks a different language primarily.
I think that that'd be kind of a thing.
That's something I learned.

Love it.

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