 Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean. CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Friends of Latin America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast every Wednesday at 7.30pm Eastern on CodePink YouTube Live. Today, we are very pleased to be joining conversation with Todd Miller. He's the author of Empire of Borders and Build Bridges, not walls. Todd has been reporting from international border zones for over 25 years. I should also share that this episode was inspired by Leslie Salgado, who leads one of our broadcast partners, Friends of Latin America. So our program tonight and our guests are a huge thank you to Leslie. And so before, before I introduce our guests, let me tell you a little bit about both of his books. The first, the most recent book he's written is Build Bridges, Not Walls. In this book, he and Todd invites readers to join him on a journey that begins with the most basic of questions. What happens to our collective humanity when the impulse to help one another is criticized or criminalized, excuse me, criticized and criminalized criminalized being the keyword. There's a series of encounters with climate refugees, members of indigenous communities, border authorities, modern day abolitionists, scholars, visionaries and the shape-shifting imagination of his four-year-old son. These provoke a series of reflections on the ways in which nation-states create the problems that drive immigration and how the abolition of borders could make the world a more sustainable, habitable place for all. And then in his earlier book, Empire of Borders, United States is outsourcing its border patrol abroad and essentially expanding its borders in the process. The 21st century has witnessed the rapid hardening of international borders, security, surveillance and militarization are widening the chasm between those who travel where they please and those whose movements are restricted. But that is only part of the story. As Todd reveals in Empire of Borders, the nature of U.S. borders has changed. The boundaries have effectively expanded thousands of miles outside of U.S. territory to encircle not simply the American land, but Washington's interests. Resources, training and agents from the United States infiltrate the Caribbean and Central America. They reach across the Canadian border and they go even farther afield enforcing the divisions between the global south and the global north. So everyone, we've got a huge evening ahead of us with a wonderful guest and to discuss two books and some really, really important big themes that we're all witnessing today. So welcome Todd. Thank you. It's my pleasure and honor to be here with you today. So it's really, I'm so thankful you accepted the invitation and I'm so thankful that Leslie put forward tonight's subject and was able to encourage you to join us. So, so thank you Leslie. I guess let me, the best place for me to start and maybe have you talk is that, you know, both of these books, as I was reading them, really, there were some personal anecdotes that jumped, you know, right into my mind, the one with building bridges, not walls, I just so immediately made me think of our code pink friend Carlos Laszlo, he's Cuban American and he has a project called Fuentes de Amor, in which he is uniting people of varying politics surrounding Cuba, particularly Cuban Americans, in finding a way to get part if not all of the blockade lifted in Cuba. And so this is and he's such a prime example of, of, you know, building bridges in an emotional sense, and so that project is Cuba specific just leaped into my mind when I was, you know, reading excerpts from your book. So maybe we should start there, since this is a current project that code pink is involved in and it just meshes so nicely with what, you know, with the theme of this book. Yeah, sure that that's a great place to start. And it sounds like a really great project that you have going with co pink. Carlos's project, but we, we, we partner with him on a good partnership, I should say. Yeah. So, let's um, so when you when you came to title this book and the theme, let's talk about where that came from. And because this is your son accompanied you in in the encounters you had that that book. Yeah, I should say the book, the book was inspired it's in fact I'm in a lot of ways I've the Empire borders book you just mentioned I have two books before that as well, which are very much investigative journalism. And this bill bridges not well it was also investigative journalism but it's it's more of a meditation of, you know, these 20 or so years of looking at border issues and working on working on the border. And it comes from a lot of really, you know, these experiences that I've had reporting on it, and it starts I should, if you don't mind I'll mention how the book starts, of course, yeah, it's great. Um, it starts with an encounter I had with a person I was driving in the on the tonnata nation which is on the, it's a native reservation that borders Mexico and southern Arizona. And I was about 15 miles north of the border and rumbling down a dirt road, when a man appeared at the side of the road and he was waving his arms in distress. And I pulled over and rolled down my window and started talking to him. And I should say, right before that I was going up this mountain with a tonnata elder in the Bobby Keevery peak for those who are familiar with on with a geography in Arizona. And you could see like the, you could see even we're 15 miles away in the Mexico from this top of this mountain peak. And I remember thinking, Wow, this is this is almost like what you would see with a borderless world because you couldn't see the border. It was just the horizon. The borders align on the map. Yeah, it was a line on the map. Yeah. Yeah, it's a wall too. So you would actually see that on the ground but at that level you couldn't see it. So in that moment when I stopped and I was talking to this man, and it turns out he's been walking through he was from Guatemala he had been walking through the desert for a couple days. He needed some water I gave him a bottle of water. And then he asked me. I asked him is there anything else I can do and he said, can you give me a ride to the next town, and then I hesitated. And the reason I hesitated was, I knew what was around me I knew the border apparatus. I knew that for the border patrol, if you, if you further some of what they call further someone's presence in the United States, it could be a felony, you could face years in prison. So I hesitated I knew that from all this years of reporting I knew that, you know, the border patrol was around they could be drones flying overhead there could be a surveillance camera on me there could be an implanted motion sensor that we tripped. The hesitation turned into ire, or just, I just got really mad, because at the same time, you know, here we are on the this man I'm talking to is obviously in distress. I know what goes on in the desert I know that people perish crossing through through the border lands. And all the values that I learned from a very young age was to help other people right like in all the different, like just intrinsic values, you're you learn and then here I am being told, you know, no thinking about the law. And I'm not, you know, I'm not supposed to, to help this, this, this guy. And so that, that was a seed of, of Bill Bridges not walls. It was, it was the criminalization of helping someone. Exactly. And so what I did was I took that moment. And it turned into this book, but I took that moment and I, I took those questions I had from the moment and which is also a meditation of all these years of reporting, but also bring these questions to all kinds of people from visionaries to philosophers to migrants to refugees to even agents. And, and as you mentioned earlier, children, including my own children. And there's this one real real great story we're at the border wall in San Diego I live in Tucson. So San Diego is maybe about five or six hours and car from here. And we were at the border wall right where it meets the sea so people probably know where the ocean just comes crashing against against the border wall it extends deep into the water. Yeah, it's very, yeah. And these surfers are out there they were kind of purposely antagonizing the border patrol, they would go back and forth between the two countries. But anyhow, I was there with, with William, who at the time was four years old. And the, they yelled at William because he was going to run up to the wall and talk to people so the border patrol yelled at him told me couldn't do it. And so, we sat and talked about lack of humanity, the humanity being taken right out of, of a little child. Yeah, so he is baffled right why can't I talk to these people. But it was this is this is I think what captures the spirit of this book was this conversation because we talked about things. But then he looked at the wall, which is made of steel to make a metal ballard what bars it's just like looking at a prison. And he said, Why can't we use what no why can't we take an excavator, because he just you learn that particular word and crush the wall, and then turn the wall into bikes. So there it was right. The wall. Yeah, that was it's like the pro that was that I think captured one of the profound spirit that was just manifested in many different ways throughout this particular book. And that's just what I mean just for you in that moment just a true life physical example of the, the things we learn as we become adults, the things that corrupt us, because here's your son like, Well, let's just tear it down and build my And it's so practical. Yes. And, and, and something that everyone could enjoy. Right, like this, taking it from an a symbol or actually an act of oppression into something that is an act of freedom, like something that impedes movement to the freedom of movement. You saw it. And here I am what you know like all the I'm not going to reveal my age here but all these years and on. And, and I don't even it doesn't even occur to me that you look you can look at this wall and think of it as another thing all together that it could be have Well, he hasn't been corrupted by the media and the paradigm that we live in in the States, you know, he's a child it just really I mean it's such an example of things on on so many levels, you know, we learn and how that, you know, how we evolve, given all the stuff that's, you know, put on the Yeah, I would just like to add something, you know that this brainwashing and training and dividing people is not only happening in the US unfortunately. I mean you go almost to any country in the world and Todd talks about it in this book and also in Empire of the Borders, you know how we are breaking people up in order to have the ones who have everything who have the right to go anywhere. To basically look out for their interests as if the poor people are the ones who are taking things from us without understanding that They are the ones who are helping us with everything. I mean, they are the workers they are the ones who are out there at first responders when this whole pandemic hit us who was feeding us everywhere. My I originally come from Ecuador, and my sister was telling me how the indigenous Ecuadorians, you know, decided that in order to survive, they had to come out and sell their products. Yes, they were wearing masks when they could afford it, but they were the ones who were saving lives right here in the US, who are the first responders that people who are working in medical centers and stores grocery stores, cleaning the streets. I mean, they are the ones. I love your book Todd and I have told you this before because as a retired bridge engineer, I rather build bridges than walls. Definitely. Thank you. She does all of you watching should know Leslie does she is she's profoundly good at her at her Latin America solidarity work she can talk with everyone and we all admire you for that Leslie you're such a great example. Thank you. Yeah. But Todd brings it to the whole world, because what what I love about the work that you do Todd is that, you know, we work in certain regions only because we are close and we know a little bit more about those regions. But the same policies are being applied worldwide. What happens against Ecuadorians or Latin Americans is also happening about Iraqis and is helping against Syrians. I mean it's it's a worldwide problem. And you make that connection is what that's what I love about the work that you do. Todd. Thank you. Well maybe Haiti. Maybe I should say maybe we should, we should continue with this theme that less I have all these notes Todd for all these things that are just leaping into my mind as we talk. I do want to get to Haiti though, as Leslie, the criminalization of helping people. I really got what the thing that pops into my mind about that is the case of Dr. Scott Warren when he was trying to bring water to the desert. I think a lot of I mean he was, that was a terrible situation for him for trying to bring water to the desert. And, and then, oh, we should. Well, let's talk about Haiti and climate change and how how climate change is driving migration governments are driving migration and Leslie kind of touched on that. And, and of course how corporate America and transnational corporations are actually profiting from put me from this created created migration. Yeah, um, I know that's a whole lot, but there's so much and we have you for the. Yeah, no, no, it's great. Um, the, uh, I could start with Haiti because Haiti, you know, the, the whole situation in Del Rio that I'm sure a lot of people here were following on in the US on the US Mexico border and, and I always look at the coverage of, you know, the kind of cable news network coverage of it and it just, it's kind of it's appalling really on the way that it's at the way that it's, it's often, it's often framed but, but looking at this, you know, if we to talk a little bit about the border borders, the border on about the extension of the US border. This isn't the first time they Haitians have been, of course, at the US border, the US border actually goes right up to the Haitian shores. One real, real vivid example of that was the 2010 earthquake that I think people will remember more than 200,000 people were killed. More than a million people displaced in Haiti, Haiti, and on five days after that hurricane, the United States Senate jumbo jet over Haiti, people in the rubble of the devastation in their homes. They were the disembodied voice of the Haitian ambassador speaking in Creole, interpreting what the US Embassy was saying telling people not to leave if they left the island, then they would be interdicted and returned. So what happened is then 16 Coast Guard cutters from the United States came right up to Haitian waters, and we're at the ready. So the border, this is the border at the ready to interdict anyone who came. At the same time, Geo group, which people know as a private prison industry, they opened up beds in want on a mobile Cuba. So if they were to interdict them, they would have detention space for any of the Haitians leaving the island. This is all in 2010. This is just one example of how the board. Excuse me, I have something caught my throat, how the border is not a stat, it's not a static thing. It's elastic, it can expand. And in this case it expanded right up to the Haitian shores. And one more thing I want to mention about this because this is something I go into pretty deeply in Empire borders is that also you know that Haiti shares the island with the Dominican Republic, and the DR had been receiving tons of first pressure, then training, then resources by the United States to form its own border patrol. And so I was able to go and see that firsthand, the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti in the town of the Haboon. And you could see like the formation of this border patrol, how they were sitting their exes, just like you would see U.S. Border Patrol agents sitting their exes on the U.S. Mexico border. You could see the kind of blueprint of training that they were getting. So if somebody were to leave because of that earthquake or later because of any of the reasons that you know the kind of what Christian Kennedy calls the catastrophic convergence, he's a sociologist. He wrote this book on climate climate change called the Tropic of Chaos. And what he calls the catastrophic convergence is when a number of different issues that are often siloed, like your political, economic, social, and in his analysis increasingly ecological issues in his climate change is what he was specifically looking at, increase and converge together to create untenable situations, which often are displacement. So when you have that sort of catastrophic convergence when you see in Haiti, right, with with Katie is there's a group called German watch, and it determined that Haiti was the number one country of that had been hit with weather rate related events. In the past 20 years, tied with Myanmar. So Haiti is one of those countries that's getting pretty nailed in multiple ways by the changing climate. So you have this, this, this, this climate emphasis and if you look at who's emit, you know, when you think of the U.S. border on the Dominican land border up to the shores. And then if you just go and Google or you can go look at who has the historic emissions greenhouse gas emissions, and the United States is responsible for 30% of the entire world if you go back to 1850. So Haiti, I think I have to remember but it's point zero. Something like seven per. So the, so the point is a mere fraction of the emissions. And that's one of the, you know, one of the elements that's, that's behind the sort of displacement yet when, when, when people try to move there's a U.S. And so, so when people arrive to the U.S. Mexico border via, in a lot of cases South America via Chile via Brazil, coming up these long journeys up, up through the Americas to get to get to that border. It's not it's not like they came here out of nothing right it's not like it's often presented. Oh it's thin air out of thin air there's all of a sudden, all these people at the U.S. And no, there's a whole huge story and the United States is very much involved in that story. And then to this the border, they are facing the U.S. border constantly so this is just another manifestation of it. Well I always, we've talked on this program before that, you know the U.S. border basically, I mean I'm talking to all of you from Mexico City tonight the U.S. border goes right down through California, Texas through Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, over Nicaragua, which I would argue is part of the aggression towards Nicaragua right now and then continues on through Costa Rica Panama right and right down into Columbia, and perhaps now even Ecuador. And so, yeah, it is constantly expanding. And there are, you know, U.S. there's U.S. representation in various forms of police and military right on those borders I think so many people watching I'm sure I've traveled the Canada when you come back to the United States from Canada to go through customs and immigration at the airport on the Canada side of the border in the airport in the Canadian. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, with a welcome, a welcome to the United States sign. In Canada. Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about. I just about Haiti mainly because right now we're seeing so many people fleeing Haiti, natural disaster, they've had hit by the hurricanes, a coup led led by the United States assassination of president. I mean just on and on and on it just doesn't, it just doesn't end for for those people. Many are fleeing across the Caribbean to the Colombian shores, and then, and then taking a short boat trip and they're very clandestine like coyotes smuggling into, into the United States from Mexico, these little boat trips to Panama, and then coming up the Mesoamerican Peninsula as you described they're not just coming from one place, and so horrific journey that these people are taking principally Haitian and they are part of that population held in Del Rio. And they're, and they're as they travel north through that whole area. As you just said that's on all of the, all of those places was particularly Panama and Honduras. And as you say Dicaragua doesn't isn't in the, isn't in the equation necessarily, but Honduras Honduras, particularly in Guatemala and Guatemala they've had just incredible amounts of resources put in by customs and border protection. Example, 300 of how the border is extending, putting just tons of money trainings, trainings of police and immigration officials forming border patrols and, and, you know, in these different places, and the whole apparatus much like you see in the United States so like if you're coming up as a Haitian through these places the US border pretty much probably starts at the Panamanian coast, and then, and then you're just facing it constantly everywhere I would really like to get some more information about how many people are getting arrested and I know on the Mexican Guatemala border. There's been quite a few. I know that the Mexico has really ramped it up and really have been targeting Haitians coming across. And then again, it's like, I, I no longer I consider it to be like just extensions. I mean, it's a quite it's a collaboration I guess between the country so the countries are collaborating for sure. And it but it's like, there's a lot of pressure from the United States and, and just tremendous amounts of resources and trainings and, and that are put into like building up these borders and, and you look at the US border policy. You look at the strategy papers and you see the word layered everywhere, layered, layered, layered, layered, layered, and that I you know, before I really went in this endeavor with Empire borders and looking at this. I would more be inclined to think oh yeah it's layered going into the United States into the interior. There's the border patrol works in 100 mile zones ice works in the interior. It's like a border being the whole country but now I know better that it's also very much going rippling out into the world. And that is also part of this layered apparatus and then Mexico has been since 2015 has been arresting and deporting more Central Americans than the United States. So this is a shit that in this, in this case it's a shift of what the US had been deporting more Central Americans, but in 2015 they had a program from Tennessee, which was implemented in 2014, but also just had a bull string of the border. And so a lot of people asylum seekers, people coming north, get stuck at the at the Mexican Guatemala border before they even even come close right US border, which also keeps them out of the cameras of the media, like people don't even know this is happening, because I mean if there's cover like lacking scarcity of coverage on the US border. And the lack of it on the Mexican Guatemala. Oh no, a lot of people have no idea how how violent and aggressive the Mexico, Guatemala border is it's it's really and it and it is extraordinarily controversial here in Mexico, especially since Mexico has such a history of welcoming immigrants throughout history and non and non interventionist and a president who is, you know, really pretty progressive, especially coming out of the select summit in September and yet here's this policy in, you know, collusion with the United States to hold people at the Mexico, the southern Mexico border with Guatemala. I would ask you how much of that I mean has to do with climate change that is dramatically affecting the Northern Triangle countries, which, again, climate change does not get tied into a root cause of migration much in the United States but we're looking at people coming from Guatemala Honduras and El Salvador. What we refer to as the Northern Triangle. It's, it's, it definitely should should be a lot more. And I can give you some, some statistics that show this. I remember when the, the book before empire of borders, I wrote with storming the wall and that was all about like connecting climate change and borders, and I did. I did do some research rate, right. I remember, like in 2015 I was in Tennessee, right on 20 miles from the Guatemalan border and talking to 300 and farmers who are who are saying they they're going north because there was no rain. There was no rain, no harvest and dry quarter. They're from exactly the dry corridor and the dry corridor area on that extends from Guatemala, even southern Mexico into Nicaragua, all the way to Nicaragua through Honduras El Salvador. And that swath of territory is getting bigger and and the kind of unpredictability of the of the reins stronger and the droughts are becoming more persistent and 2018. This is like three years after I was there those the droughts were so bad that on that by the end of it the world food program. It came out with a report saying that 2.4 million people in the dry corridor area were suffering hunger. And even that year customs and border protection admitted that people from Guatemala were coming from these drought stricken provinces or and then I should I want to add to this because that's already a dramatic number, but after 2020 and you have accumulation of more droughts, and then these two back to back hurricanes that hit Honduras and Nicaragua on the coast, and a year ago, nearly a year ago, back to back category for hurricanes that were just the intensified like we're seeing in the climate era. Really rapidly in the warm warm Caribbean waters and then carrying tons of precipitation so the water, the flooding in Guatemala was intense like flooding so high that that it just like one town they described it being underwater except for the church steeple. And, and so after 2020 combined of course with a pandemic and the COVID on everything with COVID that number of 2.4 million people in hunger and in these areas went up and this is again according to the world food program went up to 8 million people in just in just those couple of years, and they also asked, they did survey people how many are people are considering migrating in 2018, 8% said they were concrete plans a user who has concrete plans to migrate in 2018 it was 8% and then in 2000, this last survey I was just mentioning 2000, it happened in January of 2021, that went up to 15%. So all there's all these, these ties that we're seeing to this displacement I would argue again that it's in the kind of catastrophic convergence of many different issues coming together and the ecological issues are are exacerbating situations. Yeah, Leslie. I would like to Well, I just want to make sure that I don't cut you off, but you know, we, a group of us went to Nicaragua last year in January, and we, we went there because we were concerned about the news that we were hearing about what the role of the government was then these upheavals in April of 2018 and all of that. And what you just said you know about what's happening in Honduras and Guatemala, particularly, it's quite different in Nicaragua. Our experience was that. And so what I want you to, to tell us a little bit about what your feelings are about, you know what the role of governments that are there to protect the people like I believe, in this case, you know the governments of Honduras and Guatemala are not, you know, and lots and everything there were this climate change issues like it hits Cuba. It hits Puerto Rico, the difference between the, the number of people that are hurt whose homes are destroyed people who died, you know between Cuban Puerto Rico, and also the difference between the people who died in Honduras versus Nicaragua. It's, it's tremendous. It's huge. Because in Nicaragua, and in Cuba, two countries that have been demonized by the United States are doing the right thing. Can you tell us, you know, what your thoughts are about? Puerto Rico still doesn't have electricity. Yeah, I mean, I think I, my, my own research has been more looking at places that have been like looking at the US and the US border and how that's meeting up and how they're collaborating with governments. So it's hard for me to speak in depth on this but I do I have seen what you're talking about I've seen. It's, they're the noticeable like, especially Cuba. You know, like there's her, I remember Hurricane Irma that was from three years ago, I think, and it just admit that was before Maria, right, that just nailed Puerto Rico. But it went right through Cuba. And I was just amazed like the of the, and there was a bunch of articles about it that and I read and I read a couple of them about how Cuba was able to withstand this cat. And then in the early five hurricane way better than when it hit Key West or when it hit Florida, a few days a day or two later. And, and of course, like you didn't hear anything about Cuba compared to Puerto Rico and that same time Maria hit, maybe three weeks and in the devastation as Terry just mentioned is still like you go to I was just on the west coast of Puerto Rico maybe a year ago and there's still just like you still see the devastation of the hurricanes. Not to say that, of course in Cuba that could be the case to that you'll see the just trees that have been knocked down and stuff like that. But those sort of statistical differences are, I think are very apparent. And I think you bring up these really good points that it does matter what governments are doing and that which goes to this other point, which, which is why are these governments collaborating with the United States so much to then spend all these time and resources and energy. And that's the case that I'm looking at an empire borders of building up border patrols, when instead they could be focusing time and energy and clients on, you know, maybe a force that helps people get through these situations that are like the disasters or, or droughts or you know there could be just, it just go it shows goes to this world that if you look at climate, it's like this is the existential problem. The borders. Oh, you're supposed to think oh there's a threat on the other side of the border we should be scared of they're going to come take something right. And that's both that's I can't I don't know if you can swear but it's a, it's a bunch of BS. The same question you know why why are this country spending so much money in war. And releasing when instead of, you know, spending in medicines medical supplies and cleaning the environment, you know protecting the environment education of our children. I mean, that's the question. That's exactly right. It just makes so much more sense if you're really concerned about well being a people, even if you're concerned about like people not having to be displaced right or if there's like the infrastructure and resources. It really has their, their community flooded but there's resources to fall back on. There's a health system to fall back on there's a, you know there's all these things that people can fall back on. Then you don't, you're not in the such desperate situation, and it creates a whole other different thing there's a whole different element but, but what I'm seeing what I'm seeing like you say like the brunt of the money goes to the militarization of, and borders being one part of that right and it's just bunny that's so ill spent, and it could be just spent making a much better world and then what we have before us. Well, it's that. I don't know the word now less they want to say joke joke. That clash that we're seeing. We've talked about this before specific to Latin American the Caribbean is clash between these two paradigms, those governments and economic systems that are people over profit, or at least a healthier balance and then you have this US neoliberal model that is profit profit profit it's all about profit, and you see places like Puerto Rico, which have not been able to recover from the hurricane everything has been left to fall apart and is is now being bought up cheap and privatized the natural research sources that the public infrastructure public institutions they've all been left destroyed, and are being made into private enterprises, which is part of the problem that's with with the Puerto Rican electorate and we talked about this last week for those of you who watched us that, and my guess last week, the power went out right before she was supposed to join zoom. But it's privatized and the public grid service the whole island, and now you have a private system that only services, you know, a privileged part of the population. And also, we see this with this beat this privatized this people over profit models, Leslie brought up the hurricanes and Honduras that hit well Guatemala to as you said Nicaragua and Honduras, November of last year we, we did an episode, specifically talking about this was after the first hurricane and then five days later the second one, but in between the two we we had a conversation with representatives from both countries, and there was no comparison as to how here this US propped up government in Honduras that has ample resources not going to the people but to the government and no response, hardly at all for people on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, and Nicaragua had, you know, rapid response with everything they could possibly, you know, offer including getting houses within 10 days and the communication tower back up and I mean no comparison in the response. But it's those two models that clash. And I'm sure that has something to do, you know, with the police, but also, you know, one of the things just in the, in the synopsis of your book was how certain a certain demographic on the planet remains free to travel. And so many of us, less and less and less every day. And that's who gets the access in that segment tends to be the wider one, the wider looking one isn't it because of the people in the North, we should talk about your book too. And maybe we should touch on that that disparity between the global north and the global south. Yeah, sure. One of the things that I think is a super important, because when you when you talk about open borders or no borders, it's such a, it's a very stigmatized subject it seems to me. It's hard to mention, you know, and, even in casual conversation, it seems to, but, but, but one of the things is like, what, what do people think of, they think of people coming to the US border and people who have been dispossessed really, you know, and, and it's never thought that there is an already an open borders policy. And there's an open board, like an open borders policy right for us passport holders in many ways, you can get and for us business interest. That's what that's my next point. The main thing I want to I want to talk about it is that right you have the US business US military as well. You can go wherever they please they go over borders at 35,000 feet, they don't have to often like now there's so much extractive industry everywhere just sucking the wealth out of everywhere. All these countries, leaving like water sources poisoned with cyanide if it's a mine. And, and yet, you know, when we talk about border patrols it's always for the poor. Right. When you talk about ice coming in and rounding it up. We're not talking about them coming to round up a mine, or a mine put in Zacatecas or in San Marcos and Guatemala it's a it's a, it's, I, they're not coming to deport and expel people for causing harm. It's always about people, you know, workers, poor workers or the way the way that it's all. It's all like kind of framed is that there's, there's, you know, we only think about it for one set of people and there's another set of people that it's just there are open borders can go wherever they please do whatever they want take whatever they steal whatever it wants and there's and, and there's nothing stopping it so that's, that's one of the, that's one of the, I think it's a major point I think I like to underscore, like when we talk about border patrols we're always talking about one set of people not another set of people. Since colonial times right. Yeah, 500 years. This borders like this are, are definitely like a neocolonial project and in a, but they're just the latest manifestation of that kind of militarization that you've seen since colonial times. Yeah. It's really preventing people from moving around it's a. In fact, like you think of how borders are formed. And it's totally a colonial process right the way that indigenous land, like the US Southern border. It's imposed upon like the town of autumn people who live on, who have time on the Mexican side and the US side. It's a colonial project and if for what we talked about decolonizing right. Well, let's open up the boy right the borders, keep us segmented and, and, and even our thoughts and certain and certain kind of colonized ways like thinking of countries that were all their shapes were made from colonial processes and, and then, you know, and then the asymmetry that we see today and how it plays out in the world really stems back to this kind of colonialism that that is present whether we know it or not today. I think that for me, you know, my biggest in reading both books, but the thing that just makes you want to cry but at the same time make the hair stand up on the back of my neck is that people are being prevented physically prevented from fleeing natural disaster and or you know war. And as you mentioned earlier, a lot of those things are caused by US economic foreign economic policy and foreign policy and military policy. And, you know, to not be able to flee a devastating hurricane to not be able to move somewhere when your farm is no longer aggregable. I mean, that's just, I, it's inhuman. I don't even know how to define I can't even imagine the things that you've seen I know Leslie and I have traveled all over the Americas for most of our working lives and I can't even imagine the things Todd that you have seen, you know, it's particularly it's, it's just awful, I don't even know I don't even have the words for it. It's killing people in a, in a way, I guess it's a form of, of murder for lack of a better. I would argue yeah I would argue that you don't see like it's, it's, it's a new type of warfare. It's, it's, it's how the wars are happening the wars are happening less between countries, nation states, and more between a war of elite on the poor, and that and these wars happen often in these border zones, whether it be the Dominican Haiti border, Panamanian border with Columbia, you know you name it, and, and it happens in places that are just not seen, like what you're talking about this, this kind of block blockading of people is is not seen it forces people out into these really desolate areas where the, the, the war becomes this, you know, these, this confluence of different possible devastating things happening like the prevention through deterrence strategy on the US border forces people into the desert where they cannot carry enough water, like the Juan Carlos the man I was talking about that I met on the on the road. If you bring them water you're arrested and put jam like Dr. Warren. Right, the humanitarian aid efforts those supposedly to be clear your, you're supposedly clear according to the human, the humanitarian or according to the law you can give people water, though, as you just mentioned, that's been contested with and the Scott Warren case, and in other cases like in Southern Arizona people have put out water in like national parks and been arrested by park rangers for littering for littering like putting a full jug of water. So that they get around that sort of like those laws even to do that or there's been the documented cases of Border Patrol going and slicing water jugs but out or kicking them over the side of a mountain or something like that. Yeah, so, but that's the whole the whole thing is that people are getting this. It's either these these forces or having to go through these desolate areas you could talk about the the bestia or the beast going up through Mexico the train. It's part of the day it's part of the same thing anything that puts people in vulnerable areas where they where they're put into dangerous situations, it's supposed to be a quote unquote deterrent. And that's all part of it and I would argue that this is this is like one of the most modern warfare war war zones and what a border does is create a permanent one right there's no longer beginning or an ending. The border is the justification of it. Here's a border just because it exists. Oh, here's a border zone, and you can, like in the United States, there's a, they call it a constitution free zone some places because the elements of the US Constitution, at least become mangled in these areas where I guess a better way to say it is a state of exception right in these states of exception, you're allowed like officials and forces and official forces can do way more than they could do. If it wasn't in those sorts of states so it's like this low intensity, you know to use the low intensity doctrine. You know the kind of war zone that that you could see permeating and different borders wherever you go whatever border like I've been to so many of them. And now they have they're all different but they have all these kind of similarities of I can arrest you. I can pull a gun on you if you cross this line. And that's a criminal act and then you will you I can then you know that gives me a lot of power over you. And that's like when you are at the airport in the United States and if you are coming through migration and get pulled for secondary questioning and additional said, you know you get put in a room by border patrol, and you have, you're like in a constitutional void. Yeah, even as a US citizen with a valid passport when you are putting one of those rooms for additional questions. It's a kind of it's a boy you have that you're just in this void, you know, this black and whatever like the fourth amendment the right not to be searched nor seized gone. You might as well as all of it burn burn it burn it all down because it's not there. I remember one time I crossed the border. And they made me and a friend of mine leave everything in the car including our phones. And we went into this room for secondary and take it interrogation. And they shut the door and locked it so we were actually detained as if in, you're like in a cell. They didn't tell us that they said, Oh, just wait here while we look through your car. But they locked the door is locked so it was like being so and they didn't even say anything, because whatever it is like you say there's a void area, and the border, the actual border and then it's not only the actual border it's 100 miles 100 miles inland. And that's that's one of the things that so they checkpoints are put up in different like all over the border lands roving patrols of the Department of Homeland Security, they're everywhere they can pull you over for for a reasonable suspicion, which could be anything. Right. And so, yeah. And so that sort of reasonable. But not the audience what Todd is talking about when he's talking about this 100 mile zone it's from from what is officially the US border want or even the coast of say like California 100 miles in. So, into the east in California up from the north from the Mexico US border and then, you know, Washington State 100 miles down south from the Canadian border that you mean that's where the border patrol works 100 miles in the whole United States. And if you look at the population of the United States that's 200 million people, or two thirds of the US lives in these these zones. Yeah, and and New York City. Yeah, New York City's in it. And the border patrol has expanded like in the last 25 years and 1994 is 4,000. Now it's 21,000 Customs and Border Protection 60,000, and it's 60,000 agents and it's the largest federal law enforcement agency. So what we are talking about when they deem these zones like in 1950s, and to what it is now, like these forces now or more, they can expand in different places. It's like CBP could send drones over Minneapolis after George Floyd in 1920 CBP sent predator be drones over to do surveillance over Minneapolis, or board or tack which is the special forces unit of the US border patrol could go into Portland, and enslaved people off the streets, and or go into Washington DC and mark green uniform border patrol agents. All those places are in this 100 miles on. I mean it's still definitely concentrated with more on the southern border. For sure, but as it expands that it could just be deployed and met more and more places. This is what we at code pink say is, and Leslie's organization to we say, you know, this is what you're talking about Todd is is the example or is the reality of US foreign and military policy coming home. But can you, has anything changed since President Biden took office, because we, we knew what the former. I don't even want to say his name. Use the former did the former white house occupant. The former was right. What has actually changed since since then, regarding immigration, the rhetoric, the rhetoric has changed. The substance. Yeah, the face of it, the were anti wall but it's now it's being shown that they're still even building the wall. We're going to, we're going to they say we're going to not build one more war foot of wall but we're going to divert the technology as a technology is humane. It's not. We're talking about the survey invasive surveillance technologies that are given out these huge contracts to private companies that become a kind of the border and profit making elements of it. Um, you had that this kind of winding down of the remain in Mexico program that was happening and never fully happened and now it looks like they're trying to implement it yet again. Title 42, which is the covert era, you know the enforcement. How they're enforcing the border like if the title 42 if people cross the border, they can do rapid expulsions including asylum seekers. So they could stop people from asking for asylum and just really deport them back to Mexico rapidly title 42. Trump era COVID-19. Many people are saying that this should be rescinded now is still in effect. And that's just the Trump stuff. I would that the when you look at the Biden administration and I and I always look before Trump because the border, the brutal border apparatus predated the Trump administration, the massive historic buildup of it. You can look into the 1990s with the Bill Clinton administration with operations such as gatekeeper and safeguard and this just massive buildup of infrastructure that went on turbo drive after 911 and and looking at these budgets going growing and growing and growing and growing by the time Trump took office it was a $20 billion budget for CBP and ice. It was more than all of their federal law enforcement agencies combined that that includes like the DEA and the FBI and the US Marshals, and all this emphasis has been putting on border and immigration enforcement. And I think there's no indication in that sense that Biden's not going to is going to stop those bigger, broader trends of building up the border of the prevention through deterrence policy and strategy that's been in effect since 1994 that we found the externalization of the border part of it. It seems to be an emphasis that's being under covered by the, by the media but it's, it's, it seems to me, having covered it that empire of borders aspect of it. There's a lot of emphasis on, on expanding it out further and fortifying areas in Mexico and Central America and going further and further down. And to my eyes, as we proceed now we're, we're more than six months into the, or what, like 10 months into it, we're in October, oh my God, almost a year. It seems to me that oh, it's pretty much the MO right the status quo as one is winning. It's possible that there'll be enough pressure that they'll finally rescind title 42 that there, there's pushback against them starting up the remain a Mexico again and that seems to be what's happening. But it just seems like it's just a continuation of what has been happening and that said I just want to say one more thing about it. Trump, the Trump administration was not, you could not pressure the Trump administration, the Biden administration seems like there is potential the difference is there's potential if there's some grassroots pressure to pressure them about this. They have the rhetoric is is pro immigrant anti wall. They're saying all these things but doing the opposite. So basically calling them out on that stuff, pressuring them. Maybe I don't, I don't know if it will, but could have some effect. Last thing is that they're getting so many count campaign contributions from border industry companies. That sort of things going on as well, which of course so you're up against a wall a mountain. Yeah, exactly. I'm profiting off of migration migrants. Yeah, playing, you know, deadly things. You know, I've got, I just keep talking here. I want to bring in two people from our audience I've got a couple one comment and one question for you. So Rick cone says, there are so many immigrants from Guatemala and on yours compared to Nicaragua. Imagine if we allowed countries to help their own people thrive, like the Nicaraguan government does we wouldn't need the militarization to prevent immigration and that's what we were talking about earlier that that clash between governments that are people of a profit and other models that are profit profit only, pretty much. I understand Stan Becker has a question for you Todd. What would be a humane ethical border and immigration policy short of open borders. Yeah that's, that's a really good question I think on that the way a border is set up right now. The idea of a humane border is a bit of an oxymoron. But that said, it seems like there, there are very palpable things that could be done. For example, if you could, you like if you look at the CBP ice budgets or the border militarization budgets, they just have grown and grown and grown and grown over the last 25 years, even since the 1980s. What if, what if they didn't grow, like what if we were able to stop them from growing, what if we could just bring them down some notches, and then take that money and spend it on something else, like something. Code pinks cut the Pentagon campaign, like code pinks cut the Pentagon campaign, like any, any, you know, like those, those sorts of more like that might be instead of saying no borders or open borders and Washington. You could say, let's stop this increase of the budgets and put that money towards something else. Clean environment. Clean environment. Yeah, like cleaning the environment or there's so much that can be done. And the climate finance is a very interesting one. And, and I should say I'm about I'm co authoring a report for the Transnational Institute that's going to come out this coming week. Wow, you have to send us the link to that. I will, I will. It's called the great climate border, and it looks at the historic emitting countries, and showing that there's a parallel between them and border militarizing. And then it's also showing that they've been neglecting the climate finance and climate finance is the amount of money that the rich countries said they were going to put towards the low income countries that are particularly vulnerable to climate change, because to help them with the adaptation and to withstand some of the impacts of climate change but when you look at climate finance. And it has been woefully, it has been neglected. And at the same time the border budgets of all these countries and we looked at, we looked at the, of course the US but also Canada, Germany, the UK, Australia. I think there was a couple others. We didn't look at New Zealand they did. I mean we could look at New Zealand but New Zealand wasn't in the, we looked at the top 10 historic emitters, and then, and then looked at like, Okay, they have this debt to the world right being the historic emitters. And then we went from that kind of perspective, but it's a it's a big report and there's lots of visuals and and stuff you'll have to share that with us will do I will do yeah. One thing is like why not spend it on climate finance right this if there's so many this so much displacement happening already due to climate change and the internal displacement monitoring center saying 25 million people per year at this point that they can calculate there's probably more because their ability to calculate droughts is is not as good as they want it to be. So, if you if you could put more money into climate finance, and that mitigates, like, you know, and mitigates the people migration need. Yeah, people don't need if things are good people to don't. A lot of people just don't want to mind they want to stay or in their places and, and it's, and it's like, if there's more like, and it'd have to be, you know, there's so much like USA ID and we know we know all about all that right all the kind of investment from the United States is sort of undermines people and that's not what I don't I don't think that's what we're talking about it's more this climate finance that goes to local regional movements and and people to be able to develop to withstand it. And that's one thing like why not do that instead of build more wall right. It just makes so much more sense. And it's not ultimately what it's about for many people. Right, I guess I'm so happy we've had this hour with you. Oh my gosh I want to just keep talking to you. I want to have you come back but I do. I'm going to ask again please be sure to share the link for your report and we should probably take a look at it and then have you come back and talk about it. And also my recommendation to those folks who are watching us is to invite Todd, once this pandemic is under control, we were very lucky here in Columbia, Maryland to have him a couple of times at least. And it's so much better to have you in person with a potluck dinner. You know, we hope to do it next year. I hope so. I really do. I really want to do that. So, yes. And for our audience, build bridges not walls can be purchased at city lights.com. And anyone ordering from the city lights.com site gets an automatic 30% discount. And then Todd I believe Empire of Borders can be purchased at their so books.com VESO books.com. I want to remind all of you watching. So I want to remind all of you you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean code pinks weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. I'm going to broadcast every Wednesday evening for 30pm Pacific, 730, 730pm Eastern, excuse me, I'm, I'm at the seventh time. I'm the two hour difference. And also be sure to watch to listen to code pink radio every Thursday morning, 11am Eastern 8am Pacific broadcast out of New York City WBA New York City simulcasting. And also be sure to check out the WW Washington DC, both what the F is going on in Latin America and code pink radio can be found now on Apple podcast and Spotify and wherever you listen to your podcast. So, so thank you everyone for joining this program will be recorded. Right. Everyone can find it on code pinks YouTube channel. It's an evergreen link on code pink YouTube. And also, you can find it. The audio will be available in by Friday on Apple podcasts and Spotify. So, and those of you who registered will for the zoom will get the link email to you. So multiple ways to listen to this fabulous conversation with Todd and please be sure to read all his books. And as Leslie said have him come speak to your community and your work. I really appreciate it ties with fabulous, fabulous conversation and you do just incredible work it's a real honor to meet you and talk with you real privilege I appreciate it. Thank you as it was my privilege to be on on your program and and to be with with you and Leslie and code pink and friends of Latin America so it's my honor to be with you thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you everyone we'll see you next week. Good night.