Title 42 Border Update

But I did want to update everyone because I think that what's happening it has a sense of urgency to it, and certainly like some of the mutual aid requests have a real sense of urgency to them, and folks who follow me on Twitter dot com and sort of noticed that, like in between the ship posts, and I've been down at the US Mexico border for most of the tail end of last week and the start of this week, sort of depicting what's going on there, along with my

friend Joe Joe Ariyama's who's a freelancer who we're going to be working with on the scripted series. And people can find Joe at Joe or Ori photo on Twitter. Joe's got some really good photos if you want to see kind of what's going on. But the longer than the short of it is that Title forty two ended on well, to begin with, exactly the moment that it ended was a subject of some contention. Right, we knew it was going to end on the eleventh of May.

Title forty two, if folks don't remember, is a emergency public health measure. It's part of the United States Public Health Law, the United States Code Public Health something something. Then allows border patrol to expel people from the United States without giving them their due process, their asylum here. So basically they bounce the straight back to Mexico. Right. This has been in place since March of twenty twenty.

We now know that the Trump mistation pressured the CDC, So in theory it was it came through the CDC, right, the Center for Disease Control under pressure from Drug Administration, direct pressure from from Pence and Stephen Miller.

There is a a very concerted plan to make people suffer more than it's necessary at our border, and it would have been very easy to avoid this. So title forty two. Basically there are no consequences for cross but it's also very hard to get asylum. The the CBP officer can like spontaneously decide to give you your rights. Basically, if you're like, come on, bro, I'm gonna get killed if I go home, then that person can kind of decide to liow you to be processed for asylum, which

is what a lot of the Ukrainian folks got. Surprise, surprise, and I feel like we should.

now is about like a ship ton of money. But at the end this is actually happened in Libya too. Is the Italian government paying the Libyan and sort of Sudanese parabilitaries a ship ton of money to like keep refugees like basically like trap to something sit enslave them in camps to keep them from like getting to Italy to try to request asylum. So yeah, this is a yeah, like Fredecks does this, like this this is sort of like a global.

for instance, and are trained by our CBP people. CBP agents would deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan. Yeah, this is a global thing. And like where I guess where I am now, where I've been for a while is the place where that all began, right, and where we continue to see CBB innovating new and exciting ways to fucking take some of the most desperate people in the world and make them suffer and spend a shit ton of money and preventing them from accessing their legal right to asylum or

detaining them while they do it. And so what has happened as so Title forty two was supposed to end on the eleventh of May, right that was when the federal COVID emergency ended, so there was no reason for it to exist anymore. There wasn't reason for it to exist to begin with.

They didn't we here we are in May, there was a complicated legal challenge, which there always is, and it doesn't matter because here we are right and it's supposed to drop on the eleventh for me, so we're all thinking, right midnight on the tenth of May, we'll be out there. We'll see what goes down. They announced the day before that it is dropping on midnight on the eleventh, so

they're going to ring every minute out of it. And so in the days before, a number of migrants have told me that they understood that they basically had to get across before the end of Title forty two because it was their understanding that if they crossed under Title eight, they would be ejected and they wouldn't be allowed to return for five years and they would face felony charges. So they did this. I don't quite know often these this information spreads about like WhatsApp in camps, right, or

sort of like a game of telephone in camps. So I don't quite know where this information came from, but it closely parallels something that mayorcus is as Secretary of Home lanun Security said in the press conference where he

mischaracterized internationally Greac law. And he's done this multiple times, right, he himself someone who is a migrant to this country who apparently family left Cuba when he was one year old, has just some of the most dog shit statements on the record, and I've depicted some of those in the

scripted episode. Folks can look up my piece I wrote for NBC a couple of years ago about the Biden administration's policy towards Haiti if they they want to see more of the dog shit stuff that he and Biden have said. So in the days before the end of Title forty two, a lot of folks started to try to cross right because of this information that they had.

They ended up at least where I am, which is in southern California, right the sort of extreme southwestern border in the United States, literally the end of the wall. Folks were crossing like around the end of the wall right at low tide and turning themselves into border patrol asking to make their case for their right Twist Island. And I think sometimes when we think about migrants, you know, we made me think about people from South America or

Central America, every single continent. I don't maybe not any like Australasians, but like just in it. In a day at one camp, I spoke to someone from Angola. I spoke to someone from Congo. I spoke to someone from Sudan. I spoke to a Kurdish guy. I spoke to people certainly from all over South America, Russians, Tagik people, Jamaican people,

and like. For instance, just to give you a sense of like how global it is, I spoke to a Jamaican lady who is caring for a sixteen or seventeen year old pair of Tagik siblings who didn't speak any of the relevant languages for communication with border patroller with other people in the camp, so she would use her phone to call their mother, who spoke some English, give information to the mother who would translated back to these two young children. And all of these people had presented

like there were a lot of afgun people too. I probably could have mentioned that up top, But like, these are the people who we fucking abandoned once and now we're trapping, trapping them in between little fences. And it's hot in the day, right Like I slept out in the desert last night and it was above one hundred. It's not that hot in San Diego, but in he cumber where they're also holding people, it's absolutely getting into triple digits every day, and it's cold at night, and

it's a really inhospitable environment for people. So folks were held there, you know, up to a week in some cases and are now I think being processed by a border patrol. There was a ruling by a Florida judge.

I'm not exactly clear on when because I was down at the border and my phone didn't work very well, but at some point right before Title forty two drop that they could have been released on humanitarian parole, which means in theory, they have to be released with a court date, right with a court date to a their asylum hearing, which will slow down the process of releasing them,

right And so I've heard of court dates. I've heard of folks being released already kind of with court dates in twenty twenty seven, which this whole thing has just been like a disaster in terms of the federal response, right like, and in just the cruelest possible way. It was. Everyone could see this coming, right that there will be more people trying to cross. There are sixteen thousand people give or take in Tijuana alone, right, So it's just

across from where I live. Waiting to come to the United States because they've been denied that right for three years, because they need somewhere safe to go, and because they're not safe there. And the best estimate we got for how many they could process from border patrol was two hundred a day at the Tijuana porta ventry or Sannysedra

port of entry. Really, but we don't know. There's no clear I don't know how many people they're processing every day, right, but these people who do come in now have to have a hearing date before they can be released when

if they get through. So I spoke to a young man and his son who I spoken to at the border, and he had been released into the United States where a charity in San Diego will provide him with two nights what like two nights of accommodation, right, and then it can't quite work out what then, like he's out on his own, you know, Like I guess we'll find

out tonight. But he has to find a sponsor. I don't quite understand how he was released without a sponsor, but it seems like the system is kind of bungling things up, and these folks have to fund their own flights to wherever it is a sponsor is right, So they have family or community, they're having to work out how to get to that family and community, so be they're the greyhound or a plane or a train. So it's all in all a giant classifuck with very human consequences.

Like I can't stress enough how like every possible demographic has represented old people, little tiny children, right, Like I was talking to a little Afghan girl, not really talking to we don't share any languages, but I was more just like making funny faces for a while and sort of pointing at things, and like it just breaks my heart that there are little children who like especially you know,

she's a little girl. She's in Afghanistan. We told her shit ton of lies about Afghan women to justify twenty years of killing people and of certain people making money from killing people, and like this was supposedly they're like canard was that this was for Afghan girls and women, right, And here's an Afghan girl sleeping in the fucking dirt, like twenty twenty minutes from where I live. And I can't even give this kid like hot meal because I

can't fit it through the bars of the fence. Like Everything that goes across to these people has to go through the bars of the fence. Right, So someone worked out that pizza pizza could fit through because flat right, people have been getting pizza. But other than that, they're getting you know, bottles of water, granola bars, you know things that fit through a fence, beef jerky. And they've

been there for days in some cases. And that's a camp that's relatively accessible, right, I can pull off the interstate, drive down a dirt road and be there in like I say, twenty minutes. The camps are less accessible. We've heard the conditions are much worse. A couple of Jamaican guys told me that there was another camp that we weren't we tried to get access to, weren't able to get access to, that was further west from where we were, where people were hungry they're getting. This is all just

from that source. I have reached out a border patrol, but as of today, they haven't got back to me, saying that they were getting a bottle of water and a granola bar every day, and that like some of these other folks had taken it upon themselves to like walk over there to try and get them food, right, people who are already not in the great situation themselves, and they kept asking why couldn't we go there, why

couldn't we help them? Like it was very admirable right to see folks who are in a pretty bad way be like, hey, these people need help more than we do. So, yeah, that's a situation. I think we should take a break for advertising then sorry, I h hopefully not for a drone or some shit. All right, we're back and this is another happy and exciting episode in which I tell

you things that will brighten your day. So something I wanted to talk about because I think it's important is the mutual aid response to this, and it's been really really impressive. You know, I live in a place where the Democrats are absolute dog shit. Well we'll do. It's America, right, but like just the particularly cringe like cast real liberalism of San Diego Democrats is like as always on display. Right.

I saw one of them tweeting today about how CBA, DHS and CBP are doing a great job and keeping us safe, and like, my like makes me want to say things I shouldn't say on the podcast, I guess. But what that means is that like our government isn't going to do shit, right, Like it is entirely on us to look after each other. And people have done that.

The groups like American Friends Service Committee, which is a great organization which has really good stuff on the border, have been down there every single day, right, Like there have been days when I've left at one am there's still someone there. They've been giving people water, giving people food. A huge need that people have is to charge their phones. And the way that migrants interact with CBP, at least in theory, the way you get an asylum appointment is

booking it through an app called CBP one. We've talked about this on the podcast before, but CBP one is terrible. It is a terrible app that doesn't work. And that's for people who have phones and Wi Fi. Right, if you are stuck in between two fences and a dusty piece of ground, how the hell are you supposed to charge your phone? You don't have Wi Fi, right, you may not have a data plan that works in that area.

So a huge unmet need was charging charging phone. So we were able to get some donations from the team and buy a big charger. Other folks turned up with charges even all the news see to include like like Fox National weren't there, which is a good thing, but like and we could talk about that actually as well. My goods will specifically ask which news network you're with, which I think is that? I think that's good. I

think it's good. They tell Fox News to fuck off, because yeah, someone who participates in your dehumanization doesn't also deserve to make money from your trauma. And so every news network that was there, right, all the local folks from San Diego were just constantly shuttling back and forth to their vans, charging phones constantly, constantly, constantly, and it became a bit of a cluster because obviously there's literally just hundreds of people in this small area, dozens of

hands reaching to a defense. Charge my phone, Can I have my phone back? Charge my phone? And in the English and Spanish and French and command Gy and Vietnamese and all these other languages, right, So it was very hard to organize that. So folks came down, Folks from San Diego from different sort of mutual aid groups came down and they organized a system. Right, They got Painter's tape, wh the names of the people on the back of

the phone. We had this huge ash battery that we were able to get and that they were able to charge people's phones, get them their phones back to them. And that is a crucial thing, right that in that scenario, not only is it your only way to communicate with border patrol, it's your only way to communicate with your family. Right. Like one guy had lost his phone, and so I just bought him a burner phone or you know, one of those Walmart phones so that he could call his

family because the family didn't know where he was. Right last they'd heard he was in Mexico or maybe even further south. So the phones are super important. Other mutual

aid groups have been getting blankets, right. I saw an Afghan family turn up and had they had crayons for the Afghan kids who were there, right, and like coloring books and things for children to do, because it's probably boring being a kid, and it's probably being a kid where like every day men with guns and camouflage gear turn up and they speak a language you don't understand, and then you don't know what they say, and then you stay there.

you know. And that's the same. It's several places up and down the border, right, they're starting to clear them out now, and so sort of Tuesday, Monday. So some people got there a week ago, I think, and they've been stay there for a long time. And yeah, like it's at no point does there seem to have been any consideration for even giving people shade or shelter or like, yeah,

the very basics, and like I should reinforce it. In twenty eighteen, when Trump blocked a large group of migrants from entering in the United States, the government of Mexico did considerably better than this. It was by no means a good situation for those children at all, but they did better than this, which it's a bitterly extremely low bart clear, but we have failed to clear it completely as a country and that's kind of to our eternal shame, I think.

a fucking issue about numbers. Every single one of those numbers is a person who has people they love and things that they've done and choices that they've made that got them there, And every single one of them is someone who deserves compassion and empathy. And it's not just another you know, like a number in an Excel chart, which is how it's treated. And yeah, it hasn't always

been this way. This is a very recent innovation and it's I mean we've talked about this before as well, but right, this is the proving ground for state surveillance, state violence, fascism, all these things.

But yeah, if you if you're worried about the government intercepting your communications with an abortion care provider, that has happened because at some point they've been allowed to do stuff to migrant that was equally bad, if not worse and and like this will hurt you even if you are like Kathy the liberal in Minnesota, Like when we let the state have these powers, they don't just use them benevolently, and that they weren't using them benevolently in

the first place, like they say, innocent people who've done nothing wrong.

and make a very meaningful difference to someone's whole experience. Right, Like myself and Joe were down there when this this guy had lost his phone and like, you know, it wasn't that expensive to buy this guy a phone. Other like, people will remember Mandy and people will remember Alex, who are two guests I've had on different San Diego episode that they've both been down there. I know Alex gave his EpiPen to someone who needed an epipenn, like we

acutely needed an EpiPen. Like things like that, you can maybe save someone's life, maybe just make someone's day a little bit less shit. You know, maybe you can let a kid kick a football and you'd have to deflate the football to get through the defense early. But like you know, you can give a doll to a little kid so they can play with it, or something just something that will for a moment take them out of

the utterly miserable place that we forced them into. And if folks want to support that, I know I'd posted Mandy's cash app and Venmo and I think some people very generously did contribute, which is great. If you're not at the border. Look at Border Kindness, which is a group out of San Diego who I know are doing aid runs to Hocumber. I think the Hocumber Hotel Hucumber For those not familiar, Jacu Mba, the Hookcumber Hotel was housing folks and providing it there a huge amount of

water and shelter to people. This morning. People can look at the American French Service Committee that I wrote about, and I know that Joe and myself have shared some Amazon wish lists that people have and that kind of thing. But it's it's a massive task, but it's not one

that's like insurmountable. The amount of people I've seen show up to include like and you know, I'm not a religious person, and I'm not a person who particularly cares for organized religion either, but it does make me happy when I see like old church ladies in high heels with perms coming out like and like giving ordered to children, charging phones and seeing I think it's like, certainly, I've lived on the border for fifteen years. It's been a

fundamentally radicalizing experience for me. Like I think you're supposed to grow old and grow out of your anarchist politics or whatever, But I don't know how anyone could live

here and think that like police state good. It's and I think anybody who can get down here should it's good for you too, like, and I always think about how Oscar Wild has this thing about like how seeing people living on the streets like not only under mind stare humanity, but also his humanity because like seeing someone else suffering should make us feel bad, and so like he benefits when he helps someone, and like, you know, we're all lifted up, right, Like I I guess one

of the things I struggle with most of the journalist is that, like that like feeling of living in comfort while other people can't, especially when it's such like it's one thing if I if I go somewhere, right, if I'm in Myanmar, and I'm aware that things are difficult, scary, and then I get on a plane and it takes

two days when I come back. But just from like a personal like mental health perspective, seeing a little child sleep in the dirt, right, or someone asked me for fucking bin bag so they can keep their baby out of the rain, like a trash back or a kid without shoes, you know, and then going home to my

relatively comfortable existence is really hard. And I think we should all have to face up to that because it's what it's what our government is responsible for and supposedly we've got the best fucking option in twenty twenty, right, this is the this is this is the good choice of the two. But it doesn't make any meaningful difference whether you choose Trample Biden to these people, really, because they both treat them like shit.

guess it's twenty four three, twenty five years ago. None of this ship existed even within like the framework of the nation state, right like, this is not a thing that you that we have to do, which we simply do.

of liberals can see that this is right. And they did see that this shit was wrong in the Trump administration, and they do see this is wrong when they come right, Like I've some of the best mutual aid groups I've worked with are like middle aged folks from churches who have time and the means to help and just didn't realize that. It was like no one was coming and we had to do it ourselves. And when they did that,

they were very effective. And so I would encourage folks who are in the border communities near the border, and near the border meets a different thing if your border patrol because their jurisdiction applies one hundred miles from the border. That's the other thing, right, the border will come to you. Yeah, Statistically, odds are.

pretty bleak. We're working on some scripted stuff, but I want to get into a bit of the history of border patrol and rereading Border Patrol Nation, which is a great book if people haven't read it, And I want the other thing I should say about border reporting is if people don't center migrants and they're reporting about migration, then you shouldn't be reading that reporting. Like sometimes it

can be hard. One other thing I guess I do want to say is you're seeing my photos, and you'll see in Joe's photos, you're not going to see many faces. And that's because people have legitimate fears for their wellbeing. That's why they are fucking here. Yeah, and not obtaining consent before taking photographs is making a terrible situation worse. And like that's something that we can work on as the media, right, Like something I will continue to call

out when I see it. But if you don't speak the language, find someone who does that, don't take the goddamn photo. You'll see some faces the mind. Like I like to pass my camera through the fence and give it to like teenage kids so they can run around and take photos and have fun. And so when they take like goofy selfies, I'll post those. They get concerned from them or their parents, and their parents are around,

and that's fine. But yeah, when you're looking at border coverage, always understand that the people and if we don't tend to those people and their stories, then we're doing it wrong.

you have right, if you have language skills yours. There are people I met a guy who spoke Commanji, like the Kurdish dialect of North and East Syria, right, people

who speak a Vietnamese almost every language you can conceive of. Right, Those people really struggle to get information and they just can't talk to anyone because there's no one else to talk to and their phone, you know, the phone charges is a precious commodity and it's cost a lot of money to dial into Nashley, so those people could just be lonely. So if you have those language skills, go. Someone broke their finger in San die you are getting cushed up against the fence. You know there was a

medic there to help them. If there hadn't been, that could have been worse for them. And sometimes the ambulance can come in and take people out. But there are valuable, meaningful things that you could do if you have the time, if not, if you have the money, there are really important places to donate. And those are just a couple of them. Will highlight a couple more as we go forward. Oh, one more thing I did want to plug is miles for migrants, where if you have if you don't have money,

but you do have airline miles. Like I was speaking to this guy today who got across. He has two days and he has to get himself in New York where he has family. I don't have the means to buy four airline tickets or I would, but if you have air miles and you want to donate them, you can.

be appalled by it. And I think if you can convey to those folks that now at the time when something that costs them nothing materially, right, Like I know tons of people have more miles that they can use because they fly at the time for work. You don't want to fly when you're done flying, you want to stay at home. So that's another way that people can help. And yeah, just I guess it's it's a crisis that will continue unabated because the cruelty is the point, and

it's for once. Like you know, we can't stop all the climate change and all this bad shit, but this is something that it is within our power to a bet. We can't. We can't make it go away yet. But like we spoke to the people who are doing water drops on the border, there are meaningful things every single one of us can do to help.