Elon’s Border Adventure

to Mockylon Musk. I guess, so, yeah, Elon turned up at the border, and he decided that he was going to learn about the border, and the way that he decided he was going to learn about the border was by assembling a collection of cops and one representative to lie to him about the border, which many of you who follow things like journalism will be aware that cops lie actually quite a lot, and that is what happened

here unsurprising. So I guess I just want to take this chance to a update everyone on what's been happening since we last upbated everyone what's been happening at the border, and be just address some of these myths. I know something we talked about over the break was like lots of people between now and the end of the year will be seeing family members who they might not see very often, and they might not see them too now

in the next election. And there are a lot of myths specifically about migration that we will maybe copy in another episode. But I think there's some valuable stuff here that people can address. If people in your circle have been influenced by Elon Musk citizen journalism, then I think it's really important to just point out that it's all bullshit.

Then so easily discoverably bullshit. Now, obviously, not everyone spends as much time at the southern border of the United States as I do, and not everyone lives on the border. Elon must doesn't live on the border either, and he clearly thinks that people who do exist in some kind of wild West fantasia where people, you know, wear cowboy

hats and cowboy boots. But like for most of us, for many of us, it's is our day to day reality, and so it's easy to go, I guess and talk to some cops and like wave at some people who have been corralled up, like like they like cattle or some kind of animals. Yeah, right, like not engaging with them as people and throughout this right, Like, at no point in his little border screed, which I don't think you have to watch, by the way, if you haven't watched it, like I'm very now.

immigrant to the differences. I didn't have to walk across the desert carrying my child and then be detained in open air concentration camp while people around me got fucking hypothermia and then questioned about the legitimacy of my travel and right to be here, and then I'm able to

work for years. Migration experiences are different, different, and you don't have a right to condescend to people who are often among some of the least fortunate people in the world just because your mum was a Canadian citizen and you came here to go to school, Like, it's not the fucking same. And I say this as someone who came here to go to school, right, Like it's.

border policy. There has never been an open border policy Biden's. So I was in Tijuana at the ped West people know where that is, so at that point in time that on the day Biden was inaugurated, I was there, right. I was there because a large group of migrants were waiting to see if Joe Biden would change any think and they had been stuck in Tijuana for months years in some cases. I spoke to people who had been sexually assaulted. I spoke to people who had been robbed,

I spoke to people who lived in fear for their lives. Right, and they were not safe in Mexico and wanted to come to the United States. And they had seen the way Biden campaigned, and they hoped that he would do something better. Did he fuck know? He did not. For years, he continued the same policies that Trump put in place in COVID. Biden Title forty two more people than Trump did. Right, The Title forty two policy was in place for much

longer under Biden than it was under Trump. It's completely untrue to suggest that Biden not at any point in his presidency opened up the border. What did happen in May, as people will be aware, is that Title forty two ended. It didn't end because Biden decided it had to end. It ended because the emergency for COVID nineteen ended. And Title forty two is not immigration or public health law.

And so with the end of this policy, that allowed the government to do things that would not normally be able to do because it was a quote unquote emergency, they were not able to do this extraordinary and extraordinarily cruel thing, which which was Title forty two. Right. That wasn't a Biden choice, that that was an end that was a decision forced upon him. Indeed, the Biden administration defended Title forty two in court. What has happened since

then is that migrant numbers have dropped. They have decreased since the end of Title forty two. That's because lots of people saw the harsh anti migration rhetoric that was coming from the Biden White House, right Mayorcus out there spouting stuff about bans. You'll be banned from seeking asylum for five years if your court crossing between ports of entry, and that led to people thinking they had to cross

before the end of Title forty two. Right now, what Title forty two did do is create a massive backlog of asylum applications because we weren't processing those applications and we were bouncing people back to Mexico, where as I've hopefully already illustrated, they were not safe. They didn't feel that that was a safe third country for them, and so in the months after Title forty two, those people have tried to cross and to make their asylum applications right,

they're supposed to use app called CBP one. As we've documented in very great detail, that app is completely unfit for purpose. And people can listen to my title forty two episodes. They can listen to the interview when it did with Jake and Austin about CBP one. The issues with it are many. The facial liveness scan that it does doesn't work for people who have darker skin, It

requires Wi Fi, it requires Internet connectivity. These are things that no long migrants have and that the migrants who do have tend to be richer and tend to be whiter, So it facilitates a certain type of migrant. At one point in I believe April of this year, forty percent of the CBP one applications that were CBP one appointments that were made for Sylum applications were made for people who spoke Russian. People who spoke Russian are not forty

percent of the migrants that was in Tijuana. And I guess what that means is that people who you know, especially in my experience, people from African countries are unable to apply for appointments using CBP one. Also, it's only available in a couple of languages, or three languages I believe, English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole. If you don't speak those languages is going to be a lot harder there are many other issues with CBP one and other apps at dhs uses.

But what has happened since the end of Title forty two in May, right is people have tried. This backlog has begun to sort of people have started to try and present their applications. And what's happening now is that people are crossing in very large numbers. That's not untrue that happens at this time of year. So the last kind of quote unquote normal years we had were I

suppose twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen. If people cast their minds back to the November of twenty eighteen, you remember that was the Trump midterm and you remember they quite unquote migrant caravan that arrived in Tijuana at that time with thousands of people. The reason that people are always traveling at this time of year is because it is easier to travel in the months and not as hot, right, So we will see more people arriving the next few months.

That's part of seasonal migrations because of demand for work. If you're working harvesting things right as a day laborer, that happens at the end of the summer. This is part of a normal and natural cycle people have always traveled since human beings have existed, to take advantage of different conditions, different access to resources. But the idea that at some point Biden instituted an open border policy is nonsense.

Biden has closed that border right, He's built walls through Friendship Park, He's built walls in Texas, he's built walls in California, he's funded DHS more. That border is certainly not open. The large groups of people that you are seeing going through the asylum process the US immigration law, as they have under every other president. Right, they come into the United States, they do an initial interview, and they're released with a notice to appear in court. That's

always been the case. Now are those notices to appear for dates at further in the future. Now, Absolutely, And that's because our system is backlogged. Right, because we spent all our fucking money on giving border patrol black hawks, giving our cops tanks, whatever it is that we spend our money on, we haven't spent it on making it easier and quicker for these people to get their asylum claims.

Adjudicated one of the claims that they make in the video, I'm skipping out of the order that they make them in. Is that the repute. He speaking to a representative who's representative for the Southern Water region of Texas. He's in Eagle Past, Texas, right, which is an area which I've seen a lot of migration. The guy says, there's no repatriation here. Of course, there isn't any repatriation there. That's not what happens in Eagle Past.

will be detained there. Some people will be repatriated there, but that's because like del Rio, Texas or Eagle Pass doesn't repatriate people. That's not their role. The courts are the ones who decide who is eligible for Assyglent right. And it's worth noting that this fiscal year, so that's through August of twenty twenty three, recording in October. But

I couldn't find September stats. Immigration judges have issued removal and voluntary departure orders for thirty nine point four percent of completed cases, totaling two hundred and twenty three thousand, five hundred and seventy deportation orders. So it's absolutely ludicrous to say that there's no repatriation. Nearly half of those

cases when they come to court, result in repatriation. It's the representative claims that he called the president of Guatemalan the Guatemalan presidents and will take people back.

see like elected officials making these claims. I know that elected officials just lie to you know, to to reinforce a narrative, but it's still troubling another claim. They were like he was really shocked that people were playing golf next to the border. The US border is thousands of miles long, like we live, like for those of us, for whom it's not like an oddity to come and caseplay at It's where we live, and of course we do stuff near the border because it's our home. Like

I was camping near the border this week. I ride my bike near the border all the time. There are other golf courses near the border. There are parks near the border, and there's a Tommy Hill figure discount store near the border in Santa Sedro.

that go into Mexico for the weekend. You didn't have a pass border or anything like families, you know, would cross to be with each other and stuff like it was, yeah, the way it is.

last weekend was very cold. I was in a camp near Hakumba on Friday night through late Friday night maybe into Saturday morning, and it was cold. It was wet. Temperatures were getting like into the single digits celsius into the forties and fifties fahrenheit. When it's wet and it's that kind of temperature, that's when you start worrying about people getting hypothermia, which is exactly what happened. Right. People

were sick, people had to be evacuated. On Friday night, I was heating up milk for a baby, like a tiny little baby in my camping stove so that the baby could have milk like not freezing temperatures. Right, it gave someone my got jacket. I was there with James and Jacqueline from Boarder Kindness and some other friends. I know some of them listen to the podcast, and it makes me really happy that people who listen to this like take the time out of their busy lives to

show up and help other people. Like that's one of the coolest things that about what we do.

And you've given away all the sleeping bags you have? Like it's fucked. It's not good for you, And I know it's taken a toll on those people, and it would be great if more people could come. As James and Jaqueline said, we're vetting everyone because there are people who would like to do harm to migrants and people

who don't like migrants. And so if you go back and listen to the episode or the relevant links and email addresses to volunteer there, even if you just send money, it's better to send money then to send us stuff. We've had a ton of I spent a decent chunk of Friday afternoon going through donated stuff. Some of it's great,

some of it I'm afraid. Like if a jacket is has giant holes in it for you, it also has giant holes in it for someone who's less rich than you, and it doesn't keep them any warmer than it keeps you. So like you know, it's better if people send money. But that's taken its toll on people. It's taking its toll on the people in the camps too, not to

say that they're not in very good spirits. Like it's so, I was there at about ten o'clock at night when people What happens, right is people walk around the gaps in the wall, which again didn't come up in Elon Musk's video. Right there are giant, yawning gaps in the wall because they were trying to build as much of it as possible before twenty twenty election. And so they skip the hard parts. So people walk through where the wall stops. They're met by border patrol. Boarder patrol then

drives them. I don't mean drive some boy like put them in the back of the vehicle. I mean drive them like you would drive cattle, by going behind them in a vehicle and pushing them forward and walks them into the camp, right, And then they arrive in the camp and it's it's they arrive and like I was going up to ascertained, you know what sort of group it was. Were they people who were in severe distress, right,

like hypothermic or hurt or injured. I know someone came later in a week who had a very bad injury who had fallen maybe trying to climb the wall. And so you're going to kind of tri oute that group, right, And some people were really start they're in America, like and then they wanted to give me like a hug or a fist bump and be like yeah, I'm here. Obviously some of them weren't prepared. None of them were

repared for sleeping outside. And then generally, like there have been large kind of just shelters made out of cacti or brush or scrub or whatever's there, which tend to be based around like national groups, right, just people have their community, so that it's one for Colombian people, Brazilian people,

punt Jabi, Sikh people. There were Kurdish people, Turkish, a lot of Turkish people, Afghan people, and so they kind of because they can talk to each other, they'll be like, hey, come over here, Afghan friend, Like you know, we'll look after you. We've got this shelter set out, We've got a fire going, get yourself warm. And then those people can spend anywhere from one to three days there before

they're taken out. Right, So like, it's an extremely bad situation and it will only get worse, so weather gets worse. Talking of things which which are bad, should should we should we take this opportunity to pivot to things that people don't need to buy.

the number of asylum cases? Are they the number of encounters the border patrol has had, because as we know, right, an encounter doesn't necessarily mean individual. If one person crosses two or three times, that's two or three encounters, right, And they never talk about that because they're just pulling this shit out their asses. If you want information, these people are not people to get it from. None of them are even working in border enforcement. Right. These were

sheriffs that he spoke to. They talk a lot about how there are quote unquote two million of them, but the real number is four or five million because of the quote unquote gotaways a people who have not been processed at all. Right, They have entered between ports of entry and then are undocumented. This is nonsense. People don't want to be undocumented. People are here because they believe

they have a legitimate asylum claim. They are fleeing violence, right, they have one of the We've been over to five categories that you can get asylum for before on the podcast. I won't read them out again, but I have seen people. For instance, I saw one person who they were transported to the hospital, the hospital let them out on the

street in San Diego. They took a cab back to the border because they don't want to just be floating around in the US with no papers and able to work, worried that like a parking ticket or a traffic stop could send them back to wherever they'd fled from, right, because they've fled because they're afraid of something and they don't want to be sent back.

dairy and gap, this is an incredibly dangerous journey. Young men are generally a little more capable physically of it. And also it's you know, especially given some realities of a lot of you know, these cultures, that's who you expect to go and make money and send it back to their families, right, Like that's that's just like it's not They're not invading you. You know, this is like, these are the people who are going to work jobs and send money back to their families.

them there. Also, like if you're a military aged male in some countries Russia or lots of countries in the SA hell, now you could be forcibly drafted right into a one of any number of conflicts that you want no part of. And I wouldn't want to do that either. I'd want to leave right And I've spoken to people who have fled that kind of situation this week. So Yeah,

of the gender balance, I don't know. It's very hard to get a sense of the actual gender balance because border patrol tends to process women and children first, and especially unaccompany children of course first. But it's very hard to get into the actual gender balance without like looking at border patrol statistics, and they take a month or two to come out. Generally they talk about people with

tear drop tattoos. I would estimate that I have seen tens, if not one, hundreds of thousands of people at the Southern border. I've never seen anyone with the tear drop tattoo leg you.

It's just laughable, it's ridiculous. It's all based in myth and not in reality. And like what troubles me the most, I think is I don't know how many people have watched Elon Musk's live stream, right, and hopefully most of them that did saw someone completely incapable of like asking interrogated questions or reversing the camera on his phone, or like dressing like a cowboy. But there has been, to my knowledge, no national network coverage of what's happening in

a cumber right. There has been limited local coverage of what's happening in cu Cumba. What there has has already stopped because like it was a kind of one done situation for a lot of outlets, but it's not one and done for the people who are volunteering, And it's not one and done for the people but who are still arriving right there are We're going to see more of this in between now and twenty twenty four. The border is clearly an area that both parties, I guess,

have decided that they can grandstand on. Biden can show himself as being quote unquote tough on migration. No, I don't want to live in a world where our leaders are tough on little babies who just walked across a desert, like that's a fucked up thing to be tough on. It could be tough on corporate corruption if you want to,

like front up to someone. And I think the Republicans are going to push on Biden being weak on the border, where there will be more migration this year than we have seen a long time because we created a backlog, right because climate change is worse every single year, and like I think, as we've documented extensively on our show, parts of the world are becoming less and less survivable. I went to the Martial Landers this summer. They are disappearing.

So of course people are going to want to come to somewhere where they feel safe. There are record numbers of people crossing the Darien Gap right now. That is something that will result in record numbers of people showing up a border.

to them. Right. I don't have children, but like if I was to take my kids and grab on to a moving train, I would only do that if I thought that what I was fleeing was less safe than that moving train.

increasingly like monolithic. I guess Hindu nationalists, I guess you could call it. And that's fair, right Robert, Yeah, yeah, like Modi, it's not getting any safer for them there, And I've seen tons more seek people than I've ever seen at the border before.

India does. Political assassinations from authoritarian directed by authoritarian countries in Western countries have become more and more common. Right. A lot of this started with what Russia was doing, the poisoning the SCIRPOL, poisonings and stuff. But like this is growing more common as this sort of like rules based international order that I think to some extent we all kind of tricked ourselves into thinking existed increasingly breaks down.

But that's all to say, there's a good reason why a lot of Sikhs might be trying to come into the US right now.

Right I'm seeing people coming from Columbia, Hondura, Squafamala. One of the things that Musk was shocked about was that like none of these people in Mexican. I don't know how big he thinks Mexico is and what what he believes the population of Mexico to be, but at one minute he's like, it's two million a year. Does he think Mexico is just like dwindling and there are like

eight people left. Like Mexico is a large country, but like like it does not provide us with with millions of migrants a year and.

She was useless. But maybe this is an area where like the federal government has water buffalos, right, big water containers, has mr If these were American citizens and this was a hurricane or an earthquake, that shit would be there. It's not because they don't think that they matter as much. San Diego County has declared emergency and said they can't do anything that's complete fucking nonsense. They again, they could if these were American citizens. They would if these people

were like white, wealthy people living in Lahoya. They're choosing not to because they don't think it will hurt them and like it. Maybe it won't, right, But I think you can make a meaningful difference by donating your money, because the only people who are helping are the dozen or so folks right like who all convoyed out there on Friday night down a dirt road in our trucks and handed out the beans and rice and ritz crackers. But you can make a difference of your money. The

border kindness links all put in the description again. You can also make a difference, maybe by calling your representative and shaming them, because this is a government create problem and the government like sticking its hands up in the air and being like, oh no, what a surprise, we'd't know how to do. Yes, they knew this was coming, right, these people, many of them have walked from Colombia. We

knew these people were arriving. We've been putting this off since COVID for three years, since the start of the COVID pandemic. I should say COVID is very much alive. I've seen some people who like obviously weren't able to rap a test everyone. But there are a lot of sick people coughing right, There were people with scabies, there

were people who were very unwell. That again, if you detained people in congregate settings and the only masks are the ones that we bring as volunteers, and that's going to happen, right, We'll probably get some infectious disease that they'll get to share with. Even if you don't care about other people, even sure it'll come bite you in the arts eventually, right when freaking chicken gun yod. That's not vectored in that fashion, but you know, cholera or

something rocks up in America. So I would urge people to do something because so few people are and the only people who are helping our mutual aid groups who are overstretched and stressed and tired and broke. And so if you can help, you should, and well, like whatever that looks like to you, if you want to volunteer, that's great. I would urge you to go through the channels that are set so you don't just show up and look at yourself or someone else in trouble or

just make things harder. But yeah, there are meaningful ways that people can help. Very few people are and largely I think that's because the border exists as some kind of World West fantasy for most people consuming media in America. And hopefully, yeah, if you, if you encounter someone who believes that this will help you, give you a little bit of information, a little bit of some tools to dismiss some of that stuff.

that the labor of recently arrived for migrants. And like I think if you look at the news, I go to places where wars are happening, right, that's part of my job. So it's Robert, you know. And then I see those people at the border. The reason they're here is because they're fleeing something worse, and I think, like maybe grounding it in that, I don't think anyone would want a little baby to be sleeping in there. I know some pretty conservative people who were pretty outraged by

what happened in May, and it's worse now. Yeah, no one in their right mind wants a little baby to be shivering out in the desert. And you know, no one in their right mind wants a mother to be breastfeeding and sleeping underneath a cardboard box because that's what she has. You know, Like, that's not even if you believe in it's very liberal construct of America as a welcoming nation, and that shouldn't be who we are and

it shouldn't be how we treat people. And if you believe that nation shouldn't exist in borders of bullshit, then no one should be treated like that. And it's on all of us to help. I guess, yes, yeah.