 with them, you know, keeping the world company. And we're going to talk today about the human flow, if you will. We're going to talk about people crossing from the southern to the northern parts of our hemispheres. Why? And whether there's a strange coincidence between the issues on the American southern border and the various borders in Europe. Why do they want to come north? What do they find there? What happens when they meet governments and people that are becoming increasingly isolationist and nationalistic? Maybe that's linked with autocracy. And in general, you know, what is the connection? And how much do we care about this? And one other thing is Ai Weiwei, an artist, Chinese artist and activist, made a movie in 2017 called Human Flow. And he talked about people who didn't make the trip very well and wound up in camps. And he revealed that there were 65 million people in 2017 in these camps with very little prospect of getting out of these camps. But where is this all going? Yeah, welcome to the show. Tim Hapchal, a co-host, Jeff Portnoy, esteemed, distinguished guest. And Stephanie Staldaught, a regular contributor, what a panel. Okay, so what do you think we have this issue with the southern border? And we have this remarkable, if not, you know, precedent in Europe from Africa and Middle East and Central Asia all coming north. And people resisting increasingly so. What's going on in the world? Tim, you first. Well, you know, if we look at the southern border and we look at those who are trying to apply for legal asylum and the failure rate of whether someone qualifies or not qualifies for legal asylum is 90% or greater. So what does that tell you? It tells me that 90% of all those who are trying to get into the United States are looking for a better life, be it poverty, be it if they're farmers and they can't grow their crops anymore due to climate change issues. I don't know exactly what's going on. But it tells me that people are wanting to get out of their countries and seek a better life. And that's what the United States has always been about. But not so much anymore. Yeah, so what? So they want a better life. That's nice. Why don't they vote for a better leader in their own country? Why don't they try to fix things in their own country? Why don't they call upon other countries to help them fix their country instead of running away from it? Well, there's no question that the United States immigration policy is a mess. And there's lots of people you can blame. There doesn't appear to be any cogent policy as to how to deal with the crisis at the border. Either the president or Congress just don't seem to be able to get on the same page. Turning immigrants back and forcing them back to their home countries doesn't appear to be the answer. But the flow of thousands of immigrants into the country, many illegally, without any plan as to what to do, both for legal and illegal aliens just seems to me to be a tremendous political problem. Why people come depends who you talk to, right? If you're pro immigration, they come because, as Tim says, they want a better life and they read back home or watch on television, assuming they have one. You know, this is the land of opportunity. They have corrupt governments. They, as Tim said, may be a living in poverty. So they have this belief that there's a better life here and there probably is for some. But there's no question, I believe, from what I read and what I hear that hundreds and hundreds, not thousands, are coming for more nefarious reasons. You know, they're either involved in drug trade because they've been bought out by the drug cartels. So it's difficult. And then, you know, some of its racists, one way or the other, as you brought up European immigration to the United States has usually been non problematic, except during World War II, where we became isolationists. So, and then, you know, you look at countries like French and France, France and Poland and countries like that that have been inundated with immigrants now from the Ukraine, but before from Africa and the Middle East. Is their society better for that? That's up for debate. You know, I was on a Fort Street Mall a few years ago when this first started happening, the migrants in Europe. I mean, it was something that Tim and I in the old days in the Trump week show covered a lot. It was about the migrants and how the migrants were affecting Europe. In any event, I caught this woman who was a Swedish. She was a student at HPU on the Fort Street Mall. And I said, what do you think about the migrants? And she says, I am disappointed with what my government in Sweden has done. And I appreciate more than ever before the Germans, because the Germans have been very sympathetic to the migrants. This is before Ukraine, of course, very sympathetic to the migrants. And they have allowed the migrants a path, you know, to a better life in Germany, much more than Sweden. So, you know, what you have is at least in some countries in Europe, a very sympathetic response an arms open response. Angela Merkel was a perfect example of that. More than the United States by far. She allowed millions of, you know, seven global south people to come into Germany during that period. So, Stephanie, what is it with us? Are we not sympathetic? Do we not have the moral fiber to do what Germany has been doing and other countries in Europe? Let me also add this. Give me your tired toggle masses yearning to breathe free. For so many years, the United States was the beacon. The beacon is at the top of the Statue of Liberty, isn't it? And the, you know, the United States allowed people to come in for a better life. It was part of our national policy. We allowed millions of people to come in during those years. And now it's 180 different. What happened to us? Good question, Jay. I believe that we've been often on about that Statue of Liberty message. So that has, you know, if you look at the graph of who gets in and how many they're allotted to allow in, there are preferences stated and therefore, you know, they're pushing other people away. But I would like to also mention that Angela Merkel went down because of that immigration policy. So that was problematic once the people came into the country. And that is exactly where we are. We have brought in enormous tides of people and we're still working to meet, to have the government recognize and meet their needs in ways that are humane and that give everybody that chance for reaching their dream. However, I'd like to draw on Jay's earlier point about stay and take it, take on the problems that are in your country. Since a lot of these people are coming from countries that are making it more difficult because the countries won't allow, even under Title 42, they wouldn't allow them to come back in. So other than Mexico, these other countries in Israel and some of the other in Colombia, they wouldn't allow us to deport them back to there. They wouldn't accept them back. So when they do, when they do leave, I think we need more look at why are they leaving? Okay, we get the warfare and we get corruption and we get, we want to know what are those conditions. And then we want to know what are the responses of these various people for them. In other words, we've got Ukraine. That's an incredible model. An example, they stayed and took on the Putin and the Russian state. So they stayed and took it on. So I want to know more about, I think we all need to know there's more work that needs to be done to find out what are the forces at work in this mess that the U.S. has. It's not just us beefing up our policy and looking at that poem again on the Statue of Liberty and getting nice about it. We need to figure out what are, who are these people? What do they want? What do they need? What can we give them given our state of the economy and needs? And then how can we help? So again, you know, I reach out to something like the United Nations or a bigger picture thing. How do we go in and work with these countries, those of us that can, those nations that are able to engage with these other countries to solve some of their economic and governmental problems? So, Tim, I want to ask you a hard question. You know, is this, is this a kind of coincidence that when we looked at the migrant situation in Europe and then we turn around and we find out that the U.S. has the same kind of isolationist thing? Maybe not at first, but after a while, people, the people on the street react to having migrants among them, taking arguably taking their jobs, taking, you know, economic benefit. And, you know, arguably, as Jeff said, you know, undoing the security of our society, they begin to, even though they're sympathetic at first, they begin to react to that. And that becomes a political force, isolationism, jingoism, nationalism. Okay, we have it in both places, seems like, and started in Europe because of the southern borders, and it started in the U.S., or at least it got worse in the U.S. because of the southern border. Is that a coincidence, or is that a worldwide, you know, process, a phenomenon that occurs everywhere? Oh, I think it's definitely a worldwide crisis. And, you know, to address why people aren't going to stay in their own countries and fix things, I think many of those countries are ruled by fascist dictators. And we all know that in a fascist dictator society, people are thrown in jail or just simply disappear if they try to upset the apple cart, which is to say, try to put in a different political flavor. How many candidates are locked up in jail all around the world because they dare try to run to be a different leader than the fascist dictator they were trying to replace? So I think that's a common element, and I think people get frustrated, and they just say, I've lost all hope, and I want to leave. But to get back to your first point is, yeah, most nations are very open-armed at first, until what I believe is a false narrative, and that is those who are immigrating are now getting free government benefits. And in fact, certainly that's a big one here in the United States, oh, they're living off a welfare, and they're getting all these benefits. They don't want to do anything, and they just want to live the life of luxury at our expense, the taxpayers' expense. But I think that's a false narrative. I don't think that happens very much at all. I think there's a lot of private organizations that are set up to help people, immigrants in this country, and I think that's what's being handed out is on a private nonprofit basis. But these false narratives get into our bloodstream, and it becomes a social wedge issue. And then those who are bent against abuse of taxpayer dollars or good old-fashioned racism, they start to spark up. And they like candidates that pontificate about nationalism and shutting off the borders. Donald Trump comes to mind. Well, I may be in a different view than you guys on this one. I just don't think you can have open borders. I don't think that's sustainable. And I think what's happening in the Southwest is a tragedy everywhere you look at it. I have friends in El Paso. It's easy for us in Hawaii to say, oh, everyone who wants to come across should be able to come across because this is the land of opportunity. Go down to these Texas border towns and see what's happening. And now, of course, they ship them off to other cities saying, oh, yeah, it's okay, you all want immigrants? Take them. I mean, you know, there's such a crisis. And frankly, I think there's two types of immigration. There's white immigration, and then there's non-white immigration. You know? I mean, let's be serious about it. Well, Donald Trump doesn't take anyone from the Nordic countries. Right. I mean, if Canada's border is open and people were coming in from Canada, I don't think the people in Maine would be having a very difficult time. So, you know, it's, you know, the irony is it's a political issue that no one has the will in politics to try to fix. They like to criticize one way or the other. But, you know, what's going on down there is just awful. And, you know, I don't agree that everybody in Columbia who's, you know, farm has been damaged or because they have a government that's corrupt should be able to walk into the United States. There is a legal pathway, and people should be given that opportunity. I mean, you know, we have feel that there should be immigration reform, Jeff. Of course, but there won't be. There never has been. You know, not in recent memory. One of our brethren in the bar from Hawaii, a Harvard graduate went through Washington and got a job as counsel for the House Committee on Immigration. And he was there for decades and decades with only one mission to write a bill to reform immigration. It never got the first base. What a frustrating career. They never wanted to do anything. But I am going to appoint you as the chair of that committee now. And I want to know what kind of reform you would do. It's a great question. And I can't even volunteer and answer the comp. It's such a complex issue. And there are a lot of people smarter than me that can try. Oh, there's one right there. I will defer to Stephanie. Thank you, Jeff. Since I was a high school kid in South Texas, and we snuck down to Laredo and all of these other places because we could get booze there and other stuff. And I mean, ever since that youthful experience, it has just been a complete frustration that you take one step over the bridge. And here's all hell breaking loose and people stormed to death in the streets. Okay. So getting back to my other point. Yes, the Marxists and fascists and dictators and all these people are out there. They've been out there for generations and centuries. So the US is an economic power. And we've got the power and the capacity to come up with another model. Okay. So like, why can't we go economically at this stuff? Like, get American companies to have branches down there. Get these people employed. Deal with these governments on an economic basis to make investments in the country that are going to employ people and give them a chance to build their country up into a decent economy. I mean, that's the mess everywhere. And yes, yes, there's those governmental issues at the top. But if we get the people more empowered and educated through, how much money are we paying to handle this immigration situation? Probably can't. It's trillions. So why don't we take those trillions, build the wall, block the borders and start working with the other countries on their economic situation or whatever wedge we've got to go in there with. I mean, and if we can do it in a powerful way, obviously in the Catholic church and get all of these in on NGOs and all these nonprofits and all these people have been working there. But there's one other one other phenomenon that's happened only in the last few days. You know, in I think it's in Sudan or other places in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the Chinese have built, you know, manufacturing facilities and another, you know, industrial facilities. And they have been the target of, you know, of terrorism, the target of violence and all that. And there was an article recently about how the Chinese have changed their policy. They don't like to see their citizens killed in these unstable places. So they're changing their policy to defend themselves. So part of your, you know, model here, Stephanie, is that American companies should go down, for example, to countries in Latin America and try to bring some stability to them. Well, that necessarily involves dealing with violence. And maybe that's what we have to do. What do you say, Tim? Well, yeah, thank you, Jay. Number one is we have a whole political force that both presidents use, be it the GOP or Democrats to say, we're creating jobs for Americans. We're encouraging and asking companies not to relocate offshore for them to create jobs in other countries. That's a huge political shit, if you will, that both sides of the parties are pontificating about. And guess what? Most Americans agree that American companies should be operating in the United States, creating jobs for Americans. Right. But have you seen what China's done in the South Pacific? They're into every island there that has any resources. They've got major... Well, they're drill, baby drill. They're gonna suck up every mineral they can for computer chip manufacturing. And once the material is gone, the minerals are gone, guess what? They're out. Well, it's not necessarily, Tim. They're there for influence. They're there for the future. They're building their brand all over the South Pacific. And even if they use up the resources, they're not going to leave so quickly. Why is it that this country has to take in all of the problems of the rest of the world? Do you like to marry off a boat lift? You know, I mean, it's like this. Don't agree that the health of the world affects us. And if we don't attend to this, we're going to have more trouble. One of the reasons we have the problem at the southern border is we have not been attending to Latin America since the Monroe Doctrine. And, Stephanie, you remember the Monroe Doctrine. Of course I do, Jay. I think she voted for it, as I recall. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but anyway. Trouble now. Look. Jimmy, remember Jimmy? The immigration problem. I mean, you know, it's been with us for a hundred plus years. It was the Irish and the way they were discriminated against. It was the Italians. It was the Jews. But in general, it was a man of public policy. We'd love to see them coming. But they were white and they looked like us. We'd love to see them coming. So it was hard to tell who they were. These people are not white. And nobody, you know, there's just so much racism in the country. And that's really driving a lot of this. But on the other hand, you just can't have the chaos that there is. I mean, you know, there's a lot of people. There's a lot of people. Go ahead. You know, they love to show on the news the mother and her five kids trying to come to America. Yes, I understand. How about others who we don't want? They're not going to contribute. They're coming because of social welfare and whatever. All I'm saying is it is an enormously complicated problem. That no one wants to deal with. No, no one in government. We must deal with it. We must. We don't. OK, well, let's let's look at Europe for a minute. Why did England vote Brexit? Well, a primary reason was, and again, I go to Jeff's point about white versus nonwhite immigrants is they refused to take on the EU's quota of immigration. They just said, no, we're not doing it. And why? Again, I think Jeff's spot on, if they are white, they probably said, well, fine. But they weren't. They were immigrants from Syria and sub, you know, in Africa. And they said, no, we don't want the quotas and we're not going to do it. Let's vote Brexit. That's like shooting yourself in the foot. That's not the foot. But many times we shoot ourselves in the foot when it comes to racism and nationalism and isolationism. Yes. Should we continue to do that? No, we should stop that. Just totally stop. I like legal immigration, not ill legal immigration. I'm spot on with his comment about that. Oh, you fell right in the past, Tim. So how would you reform immigration? Oh, guess what? We had one on Trump administration. We had the gang of six. We had Lindsey Graham. We had John McCain. They had a deal. They had a deal on how to deal with, you know, a flood of immigration. And guess what? What's his face? Miller, I forget his first name, whispered in the ear of Donald Trump and Donald Trump backed out, even though he said he was going to support it and approve it. When it hit his desk, he turned tail and he vetoed it. And that was the end of real immigration reform that we had on the table. It was ready to go and kaboom. It was blown into a million pieces. Thanks to, come on, help me out, guys. What's Miller's first name? Stephen. Thank you. Thank you. Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller came from a family that escaped Europe in the war from the Holocaust. It's extraordinary and hypocritical to the nth degree that he would be the one trying to stop immigrants. Oh, no, Stephen Miller is being hypocritical. That's the least of his problems. There's the headline. There's the headline for today's show. Let's take Facebook. All right. Facebook made so much money. Don't know what to do with it. You can have something going on that's a Facebook thing in Mexico. Why isn't there a subsidiary or a chapter or a whatever down there of Facebook bringing people in to do some kind of work that they could do at the level of entry? Because they kill people there every day. Hundreds and hundreds of people. What they do in the U.S. That's only once a week. Wait, no, wait, no, wait. Wait, wait. That's only once a week. That is all the time. It's a question of the ground up last year. They have put up warning signs about traveling to the U.S. It is too dangerous according to them. Well, you know what? I mean, I think the irony here is, you know, unlike a few years ago, and again, I only know what I read in here, these aren't Mexicans crossing the border. That's the irony. Yeah, three, four years ago was Mexico, Mexico, Mexico. Mexico is doing a great job keeping their people in Mexico. It's from the other Latin American countries who don't care. Oh, it's from everywhere. It's from everywhere. It's from Asia. It's from the Middle East. It's from Africa. When's the last time you saw a bunch of Asians lined up at the border? It's happening. It's happening. People trying to come in from the Mexican border come from everywhere. They come to Mexico, and then they make their way across. I'm not saying they're a majority, but a lot of people are not from Latin America anymore. Because the border is an open SIV. That's the easiest place. You're not going to get into Blaine, Washington at the Canadian Washington border. It's the southern border. It's an open SIV. So an interesting comparison is in Europe, you know, they don't have a wall or anybody wants to have a wall to complicate it. But they do have people coming up and then people in various northern countries reacting and going to the right, you know, creating ultra-right organizations. I mean, there are neo-Nazis in various countries, and it's all built around this might, as you mentioned, for Brexit, built around this migration thing. And I just wonder if, no, it's not a coincidence. No. Well, how did the Italian Prime Minister, how did she get elected? What was her platform? Guess what? Immigration reform or the lack thereof. We're enforcing our sovereign rights to not just let people come into our country without visas or authorization. It's a global phenomenon. It's a copycat phenomenon, sort of like the guns and the violence we discussed last time. No place in the world other than when Ukraine was sending its citizens were leaving to go to Poland. When's the last time you saw an immigration crisis at any other border other than the southern border of the United States? Let's start with that. Vietnam won in 1963? 5? 7? I'm talking about in the last 20 years, other than Ukraine. Well, that went on into the 70s, and the Africans are coming in all kinds of ways. They're not lining up outside between France and England. You don't see the crisis. I understand they're coming to these countries, but somehow it is more organized in the way that these people are processed, allowed in, not allowed. You're talking about two different things. You're talking about a policy in which you let immigrants in or not, and then you're talking about what's clearly a crisis, a humanitarian crisis at the southern border. It's different. Yes. And if Mexico is doing so well, then now that's a real good place to start working together to build their economy. We can make them want it. What can we do? That sounds like Trump. China is putting in millions and millions of dollars into those islands. What complicates this in the United States? The land of AI and Silicon Valley, the land of the biggest tech companies ever imagined around humanity, we do not have the technology to answer a simple question. Who's here and who's not? We don't know. The immigration service has never been able to get a handle on who's here and tell you what's going on. And that goes way back to the time. You remember this in the 80s, when there was an enforced rule where the immigration service could raid your company and pull out your employees and send them away? Notice that hasn't been happening anymore. That's because we don't have data control on who's here and we don't have the resources to deal with it. So I go back to the same question I asked at least a couple of you. And by the way, Stephanie, you've had some great ideas you really have. But let me ask this question. What are we going to do? Okay, yes, it's a mess. I think that's unanimous. But what are we going to do? Let me ask you the same question again, Jeff. You've had some time to think it over. Maybe now you'll come up with a more cogent... Unlikely. Time is not an advantage for me, no. I have no idea. All I can say is, and this isn't very profound, what's going on can't continue. And that's all I know. And how to solve it, what to do. I don't have a clue. Okay, well, definitely. With that frame of mind, you should definitely run for president. Yeah, I could probably do well in that regard. I mean, we're kind of laughing about a really serious problem, but nobody seems to have the will to try to figure it out. And I get back to how I started. It's politics. It's politics. It's nothing more than politics. They're saying that when we fix Congress, when we fix the Supreme Court, then we'll be able to solve this problem. Well, we certainly have an advantage over where we are now where we have an inability to agree on anything, let alone a problem as complex as immigration. Tim, you were shaking your head. Yeah, well, yeah. When we fix Congress in the Supreme Court, how about fixing the leaders of our country that are trying to polarize us in every avenue of social life and political life? How about fixing Donald Trump? Because he's the one that instigated the polarization of America. Well, not instigate, but he certainly put a lot of fuel to the fire on it. And we can't get anything done now because they're GOP, they're MAGA GOP, and we're Democrats and nothing gets done. Okay, Stephanie, you had your hand up, too. Thank you. This morning on Bloomberg, Kristen Sinema was making a big pitch. Okay, so she's got some ideas, Jeff. She's, and that's politics. She's never had an idea. Well, what she was suggesting stuff this morning. Kristen Sinema has an idea. My brother lives in Arizona. Call him. She was pretty compelling this morning. So I'm sure they're going to be running that tape all along. So what's her idea? Well, her idea is to do the kind of things I'm talking about, but is to do things, be partisan about this number one. She's the big bipartisan. I guess that's her theme, but that's the bipartisan thing. Nothing's been done since 19, oh, whatever, that's bipartisan about the border. And so she's calling on that. And of course, she's criticizing the administration, especially the vice president for not getting down there and visiting, including the president. Wait, do we have a vice president? Wait, wait, do we have a vice president? Yeah, she's the one in charge of immigration. Is in her picture up in every post office? That's being missing. Can I take your remarks as your final statement? One more remark is remember if you like peaches or if you like grapes, okay? We are totally dependent on the migrant workers, okay? So right there, we have got this commonality that needs a big bump, needs a big push bump, and that's a way to start working on something because we can't let all of that. We address that to temporary visas for agricultural, you know, harvesting. We address that as a country, as a nation, as a government. You need to make it better. You need to make it better. I think Stephanie has come up. It always takes Stephanie to come up with the answer. Yes, it does. And I like peaches and grapes. I've changed my view in the last half hour. Wait a minute. Okay, does anybody want to make a final comment? Raise your hand. I'll never get to. All right, okay, two out of three. We'll give you a chance to. Okay, Tim, what? Well, like independent cinema, my platform is not unicorns and sprinkle of fairy dust. You need some real, concrete ways of doing this rather than this throwing it out there in the airwaves. Bottom line is it only works when the parties get together and hammer out a deal which we had under the Trump administration. We could do it again, but you got to get out the antagonists. It's almost like the NRA. The second you talk about gun reform, no one's listening. No one even goes to the table and tries to work on it. Immigration is getting to that point, if not already there. Stephanie, your point. And I really would appreciate if you would not suggest repealing them on road doctrine. Okay, well, Jimmy would be so disappointed in us, Jay. Come on. But the thing is that we need to know how much we're spending on migrants. We need a number. And I would like to see that number because I believe it's in trillions. It's probably one of the biggest factors on the chart of our economic spending that is a disaster and useless. So anyway, that's my point. We need to know that. That's a place to start. Let's talk money on this thing and then go from there. Let me ask my twin. Hold on. Let me ask my twin. I want to hear this. What do you think? He says we put them all on ships and send them to China. Okay. And on that note, Cuba already did that to the United States in 1980s. That's right. That's right. I've concluded that this is really, for the moment, it's installable. It will take a bunch of really motivated people in a room to figure out even step one. And the problem is it's connected. It's connected to Europe and for that matter Asia. And if we don't do anything about it, there'll be more violence in the world. More of the things that people run away from, more people in highwayways, you know, human flow camps. I mean, the bottom line, the bottom line is it's a humanitarian crisis. Yes. And it needs to be addressed. Yes. People cannot be kept in camps. People cannot be living on the street for weeks while they're being processed. And the money in the facilities can't deal with what's happening. And so somehow there has to be some kind of organization. I don't mean a nonprofit, but some kind of effort to stop this massive people from trying to come across the border. And that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be allowed in some way somehow. But the way it's happening now, it just can't go on. Anybody want to top that? Hearing none, we're going to close the show. Oh, no. Oh, yes. You know, you do have a dynamic to your Jeff from your opening comments to your closing comments. It sounds like you've had a bit of a change of heart. And I'm gratified about that. Which way did I change? Because I'm happy to change back. Believe me. Jeff, Courtney, Tim Apachella, Stephanie Stoldo, thank you so much for this really, really interesting discussion. Mahalo.