CZM Rewind: Title 42, Pt 4: The Border Patrol  ## Metadata - Author: [[It Could Happen Here]] - Full Title: CZM Rewind: Title 42, Pt 4: The Border Patrol - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/6affbbe9-34b4-4a3e-8ff4-79d35a90b362 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Border Enforcement Reaches Deep Inland** - The US border enforcement system stretches far beyond physical borders, creating a 100-mile constitutional-free zone that affects two-thirds of the population. - This legal framework lets CBP conduct suspicion-free searches and interior checkpoints with weakened Fourth Amendment protections. Transcript: James Stout The history of the border and its enforcement begins in 1492 with the colonization of what would become known as the Americas. It goes through the 1842 Mexican-American War and the sale of indigenous peoples' lands without their knowledge or consent in the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, and of course through the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and numerous other explicit attempts to prevent non-white people from moving to the USA. From there, it weaves its way through the Mexican Revolution and the First World War's German proposal to ally with Mexico to reclaim those territories it had lost in the decades before. Then, the Border Patrol story itself begins in May 1924, and in the 99 years since, it has encompassed everything from David Duke to 9-11 in its journey to becoming the biggest and least Accountable law enforcement agency in the federal government. People from the colonial periphery have always migrated to the metropole. It's why a man called Fat Led singing a song about Vindaloo is basically my country's second national anthem, and why every four years France accepts black French men onto its football Team before it returns to vilifying them in other forms of discourse. Migration to the United States is no different. Climate change and US imperialism have destabilized impoverished nations from the Americas to Afghanistan, and driven people to the US border looking for a better life. What's distinct about the US is how obsessed it has become with keeping these people out, and enforcing the longest land borders in the world. But the US border is much bigger than the land boundary between the USA and Mexico to the south and Canada to the north. If you're listening to this in the United States, the chances are that you live in the border enforcement zone. This swath of territory outside the constitution has been established since the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 established that a reasonable distance of the border would Extend 100 air miles around the outline of the country. Two-thirds of the US's population live within this zone. Washington DC, San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans and Boston are all within it and that means that CBP agents can search vehicles and vessels to look for property that's in the country Without the right documents. They can board public transportation or set up interior checkpoints and stop, interrogate and search citizens and non-citizens without the need for a warrant. Within 25 miles of the border, they can enter your property provided it's not a domicile. The Fourth Amendment, part of a foundational bill of rights the US likes to tout as what makes it different from the rest of the world, doesn't apply when you're near the border. ([Time 0:02:54](https://share.snipd.com/snip/db35b96b-3759-4b76-9560-e3ab2e68b39e)) - **Recording Sacred Sites And Border Walls** - James describes driving and recording along the southern border and meeting Kumeyaay people whose sacred sites were desecrated by wall construction. - He recounts BORTAC agents confronting ceremony participants and the arbitrary, destructive logic of border walls. Transcript: James Stout Let's start with the Gadsden Purchase, when a party of military surveyors first bumped into T'Hornaud elders as they attempted to draw a line dividing T'Hornaud people from T'Honautum People. The southern border is no more obvious today than it was then, and of course to the autumn, it was and remains an aberration that divides them from much of their ancestral and current Homelands. It has, over the years, seen violent enforcement on members of the nation, and a growing encroachment of the border patrol into today's T'Honautum reservation, which is the second Largest in the USA, but only represents a fraction of the tribe's historical homeland. These surveyors were in the process of finalising most of the California and Arizona border, a border I drove most of in the days after Title 42. The southern border, as it looks now, was largely shaped by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico lost 55% of its territory, including all of what is today California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and parts of what is today Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The Gadsden Purchase of 1853 added more of Southern Arizona and New Mexico. The specific border in San Isidro withdrawn so that San Diego Bay would fall to north of the line. The border in Akumba seems more arbitrary, a straight line in the desert that runs into a pile of rocks. Of course, long before the border divided San Ysidro from Tijuana, this was Kumeya land, and despite the border it still is. The name Tijuana derives from Tijuana, which means by the sea in Kumeyaay. Despite this, the Kumeyaay and many other indigenous peoples were ignored when the border crossed them, and it's becoming harder and harder for them to cross it. In parts of the desert, it can be pretty hard to see the border at all. In 2020, while out with a group of Kumeyaay people who are in ceremony to honour their ancestors, whose burial sites have been and continue to be desecrated by border wall construction, I had to be wary of stepping over it to better frame my shots. The emergency declaration Donald Trump made allowed wall construction to sidestep legislation in place to protect archaeological and sacred sites, but it didn't allow me to sidestep Into Mexico to get a better shot. Luckily, BORTAC, a team of armed border patrol agents who you might remember from Portland in 2020, provided a guy dressed like he was in the Battle of Fallujah to help me. I would say the border is a line in the sand, but at the time there wasn't a line that was visible at all. In Valley of the Moon, a few miles east of where that BORTAC patrol guard shouted at people for stepping too close in 2020, the border wall is about waist high, rusty, and essentially Comprised of a a single strand of barbed wire. In Hukumba, the 30-foot trump wall pushes right up to a boulder pile, and then stops. ([Time 0:05:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/680b174b-ff94-4125-a2b1-41fd8a9a2053)) - **Gatekeeper Pushed Migrants Into Deadlier Routes** - Operation Gatekeeper shifted enforcement to forward deployments and physical barriers, deterring crossings in urban areas but pushing migrants into harsher terrain. - The strategy increased apprehensions in other sectors and contributed to a rise in migrant deaths. Transcript: James Stout The modern era of border enforcement began, as far as we can pinpoint a single date, with Sylvester Reyes, the then sector chief of the Border Patrol in McAllen, Texas, and his Operation Hold the Line. The community around McAllen had got tired of Border Patrol snooping around businesses and even schools in the Rio Grande Valley. And instead, Reyes deployed his agents forward in a sort of human fence along the Rio Grande. Reyes would later become the chief of the El Paso sector and a Democratic congressman. He lost his seat to Beto O'Rourke in 2013. But this strategy would long outlive his career with Border Patrol. The following year, on September 17th, 1994, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno announced the start of Operation Gatekeeper. The first phase of the operation focused on the first five miles of the western border, including the place where I recorded all those interviews you heard earlier this week. According to a piece written a quarter of a century later in the LA Times, the strategy was to deter migrants from illegally crossing in the first place, and, for those who remained undeterred, To encourage them to cross in more isolated wilderness areas to the east, where they could be more easily captured. There were already fences in 1994, first a chain link fence, and then one made of helicopter landing mats left over from Vietnam that had horizontal struts that closely resembled and Were used as a ladder. ([Time 0:11:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4d6618d4-1bcd-4d98-a940-26120ca25d7e)) - **Agent's View Of Gatekeeper's Deadly Logic** - Jenn Budd recounts joining Border Patrol in 1995 as Operation Gatekeeper walls grew and agents were deployed to fill city areas. - She says pushing traffic into mountains was intentional and expected to cause injuries and deaths as a deterrent. Transcript: Jenn Budd My name is Jen Budd, and I'm a former senior patrol agent with the United States Border Patrol. I was a senior intelligence agent as well at San Diego sector headquarters. James Stout Jen has since left the Border Patrol, but she realized that the impact of Operation Gatekeeper on migrants was anything but positive. Jenn Budd Yeah, Operation Gatekeeper started in 1994 in october of 1994 and i got to campo in november of 1995 and um so right afterwards in the fence was just getting to when i got there so most of My class i think we had i don't know 40 people graduate or something most of them went down to imperial Beach and they had a wall there. And so that was the idea is to fill the San Diego city area with as many agents and weapons and all this. And then that would push the traffic further out to the mountains, making it more difficult for them to cross. And some of them would get injured and we knew some of them would die. So it was intentional. The death and the injuries, according to management, would deter future crosses. ([Time 0:13:58](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d36ae092-f9ac-4a0a-b91b-9e0f0b371f65)) - **Surveillance Technology Mirrors Occupation Tools** - Border surveillance expanded post‑9/11 with drones, cameras, and towers by firms like Elbit, mirroring technologies used in occupied territories. - These tools intensified militarization on tribal lands and raised deep opposition within those communities. Transcript: James Stout The Israeli company Elbit Systems has built fixed surveillance towers, which they pioneered in the West Bank on tribal land, with the permission of tribal council. Meanwhile, other members of the nation strongly oppose the militarization of their homeland, in the name of security of whatever homeland the Department of Homeland Security is Securing. I'll quote here from Tob Miller, whose excellent work on the border is required reading for anyone interested in the subject. Amy Juan and Nellie Jo David, members of Tohhono-Ottem Hemagicum Rights Network, TOHRN, joined a delegation to the West Bank in October 2017, convened by the Palestinian organization To stop the war. It was a relief, Hwan says, to talk with people who understand our fears, who are dealing with militarization and technology. In 2017, Tahun Autumn Vice Chairman Verlin Jose said that a wall would be built, quote, over my dead body, and the tribe released a video saying there is no autumn word for wall. The 62 miles of the border on their reservation would remain without one, they said. By 2020, the Trump administration had fought through a wall on much of the border using what is known as the Roosevelt Reservation. This is a 60-foot wide strip of land that the federal government owns along the border in California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Although much of the autumn nation remains wall-free, and some has what's called a vehicle barrier or a Normandy barrier, approximately one-third of the Roosevelt Reservation is On tribal land. Since 2005's Real ID Act, environmental surveys and laws have been waived for border security, and this gave the Trump administration a way to justify the destruction of Atom and Kumeyaay Burial grounds, sawaro cacti that the Atom see as relatives, and other sacred sites along the border, despite efforts by tribal members and allies to stop the construction. ([Time 0:16:49](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8b21f15b-9f21-40fb-93ee-59641f865eb6)) - **How Critical Incident Teams Shield Agents** - Jenn describes how Critical Incident Teams (CIT) arrive first, shape narratives, remove witnesses, and coordinate cover-ups in agent-involved incidents. - She says the teams simply rebranded under CBP OPR after being ordered disbanded in 2021. Transcript: James Stout This is because they investigate themselves using so-called critical incident teams. I talked to Jen about what those teams do. Jenn Budd And so what they would do is they would get there first on the scene because we would call them first. We wouldn't call anybody else. We'd call them first. And then they come, they get rid of the witnesses. They set the scene up the way we want to be done. And they tell you the narrative that you're going to stick with. You talk to your union reps and it's all this giant cover-up. James Stout Here's John Carlos Frey, a journalist who covered CIT cover-ups, talking to Democracy Now! About how these teams work. Within the actual agency of the U.S. Border Patrol, there is an investigative body called SIT, the Critical Incident Team. They are tasked with investigating incidents that involve Border Patrol, and it can be anything from a car accident to, in this case, an individual who's killed at the hands of the U.S. Border Patrol. In this particular case of Anastasio Hernandez-Rojas, Border Patrol agents deleted video. They collected evidence at the scene. They were present in the hospital when Anastasio was being treated. They were present at the autopsy. Speaker 2 They fudged reports. They deleted reports. They coached their own agents on what kind of testimony they were to give. James Stout They were present at every one of the depositions. They made sure that they were the victims in this case. And when I say that, what I mean is that Border Patrol agents, sit team agents, make sure that border patrol agents are looked at as the victims in any sort of an incident, meaning that They are allowed then to use lethal force. If a border patrol agent has rocks thrown at them, or in the case of Anastasio, they allege that Anastasio was violent and that he was kicking and punching and he needed to be subdued. Speaker 2 If we take a look at the videotape, that's not actually what happened. He's handcuffed. He's prone on the ground. His face is down. Agents are on top of him. James Stout But if you read the reports in this case that were prepared by SIT, Anastasio was a violent man and needed to be subdued. In 2021, Border Patrol was ordered to disband these teams. But Jen says they simply moved them somewhere else and gave them a different name. Jenn Budd So then they said that they disbanded them because we brought the truth out and how they did all this and we proved it. But what they actually did is they did a retention. So they had the Border Patrol agents resign from the Border Patrol and move over to CBP OPR and rehired them under there. So the team that likely went to go investigate the Tohono Odom killing, I believe his name is Matia, Matia, Raymond Matia, is likely the border patrol sit teams. ([Time 0:19:14](https://share.snipd.com/snip/190d8388-7447-4553-9556-92f8b1bb5a79)) - **Longstanding White Supremacist Links At The Border** - Border Patrol has documented links to white supremacist activity and rhetoric dating back decades, including KKK 'Border Watch' stunts. - Such groups aimed to assist or inform Border Patrol and inflamed local tensions and violence. Transcript: James Stout Course, the vast majority of people whose families will never find justice because of these CIT teams are not white. And of course, border patrol has longoted links to white nationalism. In 1977, about 45 minutes from San Diego, and another 45 minutes from Hukumba, David Duke, Grand Dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan at the time, announced the official beginning Of Klan Border Watch. Duke claimed there were hundreds of Klansmen on the border, but local newspapers at Desert Sun reported that there were, in reality, at least 10. I'll quote directly from The Desert Sun's reporting at a time here. Duke said Klansmen would refrain from direct contact with illegal aliens. If any are found, he said, Klansmen would not talk to them or contact them. But if any illegal crossings are seen, they're going to use CB radios to relay the information to Border Patrol, Duke said. Duke, of Metairie, Louisiana, claimed the Klan has the support of the American people in helping the Border Patrol stem the influx of illegal aliens into this country. He claimed the illegal aliens take jobs away from US citizens. We feel this rising tide washing over our border is going to affect our culture, he told reporters at the time, in a statement that wouldn't sound out of place on Fox News today. ([Time 0:22:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/40e993d1-d7f6-45d2-accd-40c5aaa3c9a7)) - **Agent Texts Reveal Dehumanizing Language** - James recounts the 2019 case where agent Matthew Bowen sent texts calling migrants "disgusting subhuman shit" and referenced derogatory terms. - The defense argued such language was commonplace in Border Patrol culture, highlighting systemic bias. Transcript: James Stout In 2019, a Border Patrol agent from Lugales named Matthew Bowen was accused of knocking down a Guatemala man with his vehicle and then lying to a court about the incident. The prosecutors in the case showed the jury text Bowen sent, including one which called migrants, quote, disgusting subhuman shit unworthy of being kindling for a fire. In several text messages, Bowen references, quote, tonks. This is a derogatory term for border crossing migrants. The origins of the term are a little bit unclear, but it seems to be derived from the sound of a flashlight hitting the back of someone's head. In an argument against admitting the text, defense lawyer Sean Chapman wrote that he would argue certain terms are, quote, commonplace throughout the Border Patrol's Tucson sector. This is part of the agency's culture, and therefore it says nothing about Mr. Bowen's mindset. Jen says this kind of language and attitude was not uncommon in her time in Border Patrol, from the mid-90s to the early 2000s, but things have got worse since. ([Time 0:27:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7815a7ff-c634-4f11-8886-a1808446b05c)) - **Language Shift Fueled Securitized Culture** - Post‑9/11 rhetoric reframed migrants as 'invaders,' shifting vocabulary and mindset toward securitization and dehumanization. - That language change accompanied recruitment shifts favoring veterans and militarized culture. Transcript: James Stout Course, this kind of language isn't just restricted to Border Patrol. The U.S. Speaker 2 Has become a dumping ground for everybody else's problems. Thank you. It's true. And these are the best and the finest. When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems. And they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some, I assume, are good people. ([Time 0:28:35](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0d07a456-c6c3-4294-8f90-a89a2c70130a)) - **Youth Recruitment Into Border Patrol Culture** - The Border Patrol Explorer program recruits teens with training in tracking, shooting, and detaining migrants, often in economically depressed, Latino-majority towns. - Jenn and James compare it to indoctrination, with photos of kids in uniforms featured on sector pages. Transcript: James Stout Since the mid-1980s, the Border Patrol's Explorer program has recruited young men and women of high school age. The program is chartered through Learning for Life, which is a subsidiary of the Scouts of America. For kids, often the children of immigrants, living in border towns where industry has long since gone and a decent wage is hard to come by, the program offers the chance at a starting Salary of $62,000, twice the median income in some of these towns. Young explorers will learn tracking, survival, shooting, and how to detain and process undocumented migrants, people who in some cases are walking in the footsteps of their own parents. According to an article by Morley Music in the Nation, young explorers have to earn the right to their uniform by participating in a 60-hour Basic Explorer Academy, of which they learn CPR, drills, and the methods of conducting vehicle stops. It also offers courses in radio communications, public speaking, report writing, and ethics and integrity, and introduces the use to criminal juvenile immigration and Fourth Amendment Law. While I was writing this, I checked out the San Diego sector page, which seems to show young people running, shooting, and one who looks like he's just been maced in the face. The next photo on the Facebook page dedicated to this Border Patrol sector shows a man in handcuffs. Above this is a video of someone dropping a child from the top of the border fence. Without figures from the CVP, it's hard to tell if participation in the Explorers has dropped as public awareness of family separation, assault, and other behaviour doesn't exactly Fit with the Border Patrol's motto, honour first, has spread. ([Time 0:31:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/99bf474f-704a-4d09-b015-658caebf87cc)) - **Hands-On Aid During The 2018 Caravan** - James describes volunteering with migrants from the 2018 caravan in Tijuana, supplying food, coordinating with mutual aid groups, and creating small comforts for children. - He contrasts grassroots aid with the media's depiction of migrants as an 'invasion.' Transcript: James Stout In late 2018, I was enjoying a break from work in a caravan near Ensenada. If you think back to that time, right before the midterms, you might remember some of the rhetoric that circulated around a large group of migrants making their way to the southern border. I'll play you some of the clips from Fox that NPR cut together in their coverage of the issue. The sympathetic, overwrought coverage of this invading horde is, calling it a caravan is a misnomer and frankly sickening. Speaker 2 Or sample the chipper morning show Fox and Friends. I've gotten so many email from people who said, don't call it a caravan, call it an invasion. Yes. Is that fair? Host Steve Doocy put the question to conservative pundit Michelle Malkin. Speaker 4 Of course it is. It is a full scale invasion by a hostile force. And it requires our president and our commander-in to use any means necessary to protect our sovereignty. Speaker 2 CNN's Brian Stelter found that Fox News featured segments using the phrase invasion more than 60 times this month about the migrants. On Fox Business Network, Lou Dobbs' program invoked it dozens of times. Trump ordered 5,000 troops to the border. He tweeted yesterday, quote, this is an invasion of our country. And Trump has without evidence claimed gang members and criminals and Middle Easterners are among them. Over on Fox, guests have similarly, without supporting facts, suggested people from ISIS and the Taliban might be among those migrants. Even so, the network's chief news anchor, Shepard Smith, tried to put on the brakes yesterday. Jenn Budd Tomorrow is one week before the midterm election, which is what all of this is about. There is no invasion. No one's coming to get you. There's nothing at all to worry about. Speaker 2 This month, Fox hosts and guests have repeatedly questioned whether the migrants might bring in infectious diseases, again without evidence. James Stout Laura Ingram. Speaker 2 We don't know what people have coming in here. We have diseases in this country we haven't had for decades. James Stout I'll leave you to process the incredible irony of the network that killed a decent percentage of its viewers by denying that COVID was serious or a disease or that vaccines and masks Were useful, panicking about infectious diseases just two years before the pandemic began. The Tree of Life shooter, who we won't name here, who is currently facing a death penalty trial for murdering 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue, was obsessed with the caravan. The victims of the largest anti-Semitic mass murder in US history included a beloved community doctor, a great-grandmother, and a couple who'd gotten married at the same synagogue More than 60 years earlier. The shooter's last post, on hate speech social media site Gab, posted just minutes before the synagogue massacre began, spells it out, with a reference to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Jewish non-profit that resettles refugees in the United States. Hi, I'd like to bring invaders to kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics. I'm going in. The shooter was obsessed with the idea that a caravan of migrants was not a group of people trying to save their own lives, but a coordinated and somehow Jewish-led invasion, an attempt To demographically restructure the United States. If you're wondering where he got that idea from, here's America's favorite job seeker, Tucker Carlson, on the caravan. Speaker 2 Over the past month, a caravan of Central American migrants has gradually made its way up from Honduras through Mexico all the way to Tijuana, opposite San Diego. At one point, Mexican authorities claimed they broke up the group, and American media, of course, dutifully reported that they did. But they didn't. That was just a PR gesture and a temporary one. In fact, during parts of the trip, Mexican police escorted the migrants northward. In other words, the Mexican government abetted illegal immigration into this country, as it has done for many years. Well, tonight, the caravan is on our southern border. Rather than wait for the crossing station of San Ysidro to open, many of them just jumped the fence. Some waved Honduran flags when they got to the top. And that tells you everything. When you arrive in a country to contribute to it and to assimilate into its culture, you don't wave the flag of a foreign nation. James Stout That's what you do in triumph when you invade a country. On my way home from Ensenado in 2018, I saw that, quote, invading horde in the Benito Juarez sports complex. And probably turned around and went back. My instinct as a journalist is to cover things like this, but my instinct as a person is to help first. On the first day I was there, with two friends I know from the weird world of pro cycling, things were pretty bad. We'd obtained a backpack full of Stroopwafels that a friend who makes Stroopwafels had given us. Once we gave those out, I'd talked to a few people about what they needed. We coordinated with mutual aid groups in Tijuana and offered to support her however we could. In the next few weeks, my friends and I spent tens of thousands of dollars at a Tijuana Costco, received thousands of dollars in donations from people we hadn't seen in years, and in one Memorable instance, Rigged Up had projected at someone who tactically obtained from an office to a DVD player which we'd installed in the roof of a dilapidated nightclub full of little Children and their mothers, so they could watch Beverly Hills Chihuahua and forget about the fact that the country they were travelling to was portraying the little infants as invaders. I have a lot of very complicated memories of those few weeks. Little girls braiding my hair. Little boys and girls trying to comprehend exactly how I could be this bad at football. And people from San Diego churches, Tijuana anarchist kitchens, and mutual aid groups around the region coming together to look after a group of people who'd been so heavily demonized By folks who'd never met them or even been here. ([Time 0:40:36](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c10ac945-719a-4042-b2ee-b09812cbc37c)) - **Surveillance Targeted Journalists And Activists** - DHS created databases like Operation Secure Line to flag journalists and activists, leading to repeated secondary inspections and passport flags. - Targeting extended to U.S. citizens and organizers working with migrants, chilling reporting and aid. Transcript: James Stout Under the umbrella of what was called Operation Secure Line, the Department of Homeland Security created a database of activists, journalists, and social media influencers tied To the migrant caravan. When they crossed the border, individuals in that database were often subjected to hours-long screenings, and in some cases had flags placed on their passports. A PowerPoint slideshow which Peternak leaked to NBC7 lists some of the people. Some of them have been guests on this show. They include 10 journalists, 7 of whom are US citizens, a US attorney, 48 people from the US and other countries who are labelled as organisers, instigators, or having unknown roles. The target list also includes organisers from groups like Border Angels and Pueblos Sin Fronteras. I asked journalist Brooke Binkowski to describe her experience of increased border scrutiny in 2018. Speaker 5 If you don't have a pre-approved card, you have to like go through, wait in line, wait in this long ass line. And then you go and get vetted by CBP. They ask you some questions or they just wave you through depending on what kind of day they're having or whatever. So in my case, I started getting pulled into secondary inspection more and more. So they would wave my car over and then take me into the secondary place where it's sort of like this back. It's like a Quonset hut sort of. And in it, like all these cars drive in and out. And they'll go through your things. They'll get in your face. You know, they'll do all kinds of stuff. And I don't, there have to be cameras in there somewhere, but I've never seen any. So I just kept getting pulled into secondary more and more, as though I was a suspicious person, as though I was suspected of something. And every time I asked, they'd be like, I know it's just random ma'am and ma'am it's just random so actually this started about 2014 for me um but it started to escalate in 2018 2017 2018 Started to escalate and I was like a Trump administration of course it's going to escalate right under Trump she said things got worse from 2017 through 2018 it kind of worked where I'd Push back and I'd be like, you need to let me fucking go. You know, I'm sentry, I'm already pre-checked. If you think that there's something wrong that I'm doing, then take my fucking sentry away. And I want to talk to your manager type stuff, right? So I was doing that. That worked until 2018. And then it started to get really gnarly. James Stout Eventually, things came to a head the day before the migrants of the caravan were tear gassed and the scene most people remember from 2018 so um but on that that night as i was coming back Speaker 5 Um i drove through and i did the century thing you know the usual stuff and got pulled into secondary and this time it was really like gnarly the time before that had also been really gnarly Like nobody hurt me nobody did anything but they got really close to my face like right in my face you know and started screaming at me like people remember from 2018. Over me. And I kept going, I'd like to speak to your manager, sir. Please, please get out of my face, sir. And it was gross. And they were going through my shit. And that was gross. They didn't find anything. But it was just an invasive, hostile, disgusting thing. And that was when... So I said, can I speak to your manager? Which is a magic phrase when you're a middle-aged white woman. So I say this. And they bring over some guy. And he goes, ma'am, can I help you? I'm like, yeah, what the fuck? Why are you treating me this way? Why did any of this happen? And he goes, oh yeah, I'm sorry. Your name's on a list somewhere. You've been flagged. And I'm like, so every time I've crossed, I've been flagged. He's like, yeah, there's a flag on your passport or against your name. And that's why. And I said, well, why is there a flag against my name? And he goes, I don't know, you're going to have to do a Freedom of Information Act request or something. I don't even know if he knew I was a journalist. Sadly, ([Time 0:47:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/00c75e1c-f6aa-4ead-ab1f-f6d4cc25ae60)) - **Desert Routes Turned Into A Deadly Deterrent** - Driving migrants into remote deserts makes survival unlikely; death by exposure increased as enforcement used the landscape as a deterrent. - Volunteer water caches and search teams often mark the last resting places of those who die trying to cross. Transcript: James Stout Eastern California, Southern Arizona. Places I know from years of hiking, climbing and cycling. Places where one mistake can be fatal. I know from my friends who spend time resupplying water caches and searching for missing people that you don't have to make any mistakes to die in the desert. Especially if you're young or old or sick or afraid to ask for help. These are the places we force people to travel through, on foot, to come here and create a better future for themselves. Dehydration, exposure and drowning all rank highly as causative death along the border. Last year saw a record for border deaths and was Biden attempting to take a hard line going into 2024 and climate change and instability continuing to drive migrants north to the place That causes so much of that climate and instability, there's no reason to believe things will get better. I want to point to one tragic loss, one of thousands, that happened not far from where I live. In February of 2020, Juana, Margarita, and Paola Santos Arce were traveling by foot from Oaxaca to their future in the United States along a trail sometimes known as a shrine trail. Their family told media back home that they were searching for El Sueño Americano, the American dream. Along their route is a small religious shrine, which marks the last point from which you can see Mexico. It's well inside the US, along a dry creek bed in the Laguna Mountains. It can be hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Last November I camped out there, and even with thousands of dollars in gear, I was dangerously close to cold injury. I've also rescued hikers with dehydration symptoms near here. The desert and the weather might be part of the story, but the desert doesn't kill people on its own. It's the border that forces people deep into the desert that kills them. The desert is just a tool for a system that uses death as a deterrent. When the girls crossed the border near Campo on the 9th of February, it was raining. As they climbed the Laguna Mountains, it started to snow. They huddled under a boulder for warmth, and the two men smuggling them across struck out to get cell reception and call 911. By the time Borstar, Border Patrol's search, trauma and rescue team arrived, two of the girls had died. As they tried to save Juana, their request for air support was declined, and she died with one of the agent's jackets wrapped around her, and another agent's beanie on her head. For some reason, the girl's remains were not recovered right away and they were not rewarmed. And so they lost their last chance at the American dream and at life. ([Time 0:52:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f810b2ac-1766-4bcd-b79a-5fbd2caefdad)) - **Take Small Local Actions To Help** - Show up and take action locally to challenge the growing border surveillance and militarization. - Support small efforts and organizations that provide direct aid and advocacy at the border. Transcript: James Stout DHS aren't numbers many nations' armies and it's considerably better equipped. But unless people show up and take action, things are going to get considerably worse, regardless of who you vote for or what they say in order to get you to vote for them. As Katie said, little things can make a difference. And if you listen this far, I hope you'll take the time to try and do those little things. ([Time 0:57:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e8b7560e-9f1b-478f-b36e-3cc8f9713ae5)) - **Support Trusted Border Relief Groups** - Donate or volunteer with listed grassroots groups like Al Otro Lado, Border Kindness, and Haitian Bridge Alliance. - These organizations provide legal aid, supplies, and direct support to migrants at the border. Transcript: James Stout Today I was told there are about a hundred of them. They're waiting there often for days. Most of them are getting turned away. They're all frustrated with CBP1, which continues to be buggy, offer no appointments, and struggle to photograph black faces. I also wanted to mention some of the organizations you can find and donate to if you'd like to support their efforts. They are the Asian Solidarity Collective, Al Otro Lado, the American Friends Service Committee, Border Kindness, Borderlands Relief Collective, the Haitian Bridge Alliance, The Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, and Prevencasa, P-R I'd also like to thank Joe Orellana. ([Time 0:57:47](https://share.snipd.com/snip/99b7184b-d6b9-47cd-9088-61688382ad14))