History of Border Patrol (Part 4)

0:11 Hi everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is Estodias, known a podcast where we talk about Latin American history. Sometimes it's horrible and deals with tivy topics like criticism, corruption, and genocide. But more than that, it's supposed about resistance, power and community. We're continuing our history of La Pinta Migra the Border Patrol. Yes, so yeah, what so far we've talked about a lot. This is part four and we talked about the origins the border patrol after the US passed the series of anti immigrants and racist loss. Essentially the men who made up the early Border Patrol, the racism, their violence, their lies and methology, their first attempt at reformation, which only happened a few years after they began, right and held, the targeting of Mexicans by the Border Patrol, how the Mexican government dealt with Mexican immigration, and then last time we talked about how the border patrol developed in California, which was a little different than Texas but still racist. So yeah, today we're going to get into some changes in the border patrol, a little bit about how the Mexican government collaborated with the Border patrol, including the Arcado program, and I think that's basically going.

1:28 To cover it. So during World War Two, the Border Patrol expanded their work. Along with patrolling, the border officers were reassigned to guard against enemy submarines and the golf of Mexico. They also were reassigned to transport Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants to internment camps, and they worked as guards at the internment camps. I didn't know that. I didn't know this, but I'm really surprised about this. But I'm like, someone had to do the job, and who else? Who else perfect? Who would be? There's no one more perfect for this shitty ass job in border patrol. To round up people like this is what they love to do. So yeah, of course they did it.

2:11 Yeah, I just I feel like I don't. First of all, as soon as I write this, I'm been telling everybody, I'm like, guess what, guess who did you know? Yeah, And everyone's like, oh oh wow, But no one's surprised. No one's privybe they weren't. Okay, well, the white people have told them. It's surprise. I well, I'm not surprised about that, but I forgot where the rest of my tried thought was going, so I'll just move on, okay. They also interrogated German and Italian immigrants about their sympathies for Hitler and fascism. Some would say that was anti fascist of them. Oh my god, it's Border Patrol Antifa. These are the actually uh founders of Antifa. Border Patrol was once Antifa and look at them now? How the mighty have fallen? The Border Patrol budget and staff grew during World War Two, and it also brought the Border Patrol into a federal operating level that they were not at before.

3:11 Does that make sense? So basically they were working with federal agencies in a way they weren't before, like with the FBI and others. Yes, yeah, yeah, And during this gross I mean, you would think they had so many other things to focus on, like World War two, potential quote subversives, communists right now, You think they would focus on those things. But no, no, they just continued to focus on Mexicans. I was gonna say, is this a time period where they finally leave Mexicans alone for a little bit? But no, oh, they never They never did that. The only time they did that was in the early beginnings of border patrol, when they were. Chasing the Chinese. Okay, okay, yeah, oh in California, they were focusing more on Europeans. Right, surprisingly, right, that was shocking. That actually did drop my job a little bit. So the war developed in Europe, the US called for strengthening the border, and as a result, in nineteen forty, Congress transferred the INS and this is the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

4:15 I forgot the name of that. Wow. They transferred them from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice. This is where that shift, This is where happened. Yeah, they became more like criminalization based than before. And Congress also added two hundred thousand dollars and seven hundred and twelve officers to the Border Patrol, and this only doubled by the following year. This transferred to the Border Patrol. I always said that, but basically, like I said, on the same playing field as the FBI, the Bureau of Prohibition, which would later become the DA another demon organization. I didn't know that.

4:55 Yeah, So why we have this podcast. We learned so much? No, but yeah, no, no, yeah no, but yeah, And along with this change, the US Attorney General also worked to consolidate the border patrol and move away from the previous era of regionalization, so a more like top level top head, I don't know they call it, but a more hierarchical organization with the direct chiev a supervisor for all the places, all the regions to answer to, instead of each region basically being its own border patrol. They're organizing restructuring right right, because we talked about how each region basically developed their own way of being border patrol and they had no oversight. So now they had, you know, someone at the federal level to answer to those actually making them answer them to them.

5:52 Okay. And technology was also improving during this time, and border patrol gained access to radio communityations and planes all to better chase down migrants. I thought you were gonna say, all the better chase down Mexicans. Yeah, I mean during this time. And of course there was always other Latinos during this time, but you know, everyone wants skin to them, especially they were coming from Mexico, you know. Yeah, with this. Growth came new recruits who changed things up and were not keen to follow the old timers way. Because there was war time there was a constant flux of men coming in and out due to being called to the warm and this caused extreme shortages. And as they had done before, the Boarder Patrol lowered their standards even more, even more more, if that was possible then they already had.

6:46 Where are they at now, like the fucking floor, like this is hell? Or fourth time the bar has to be in help by now? Like what the fuck right? Like who there's just straight up the generous joy this point, like how to throw their Eugenus language back at them. These are just feeble minded people who are now working for a border patrol and ice. So yeah, they lowered the standards even more, and they also shortened the training time at the Border Patrols training school. Oh my god, in. Order to try to hire more officers and retain more You know what's crazy. You could take that sentence and like saying them seeing.

7:32 Now and it would apply. Yeah, but worse, I mean, are they even training now? They're probably just giving them guns and being like, okay, they're there. They don't know okay, like they don't know how to properly restrain people. They're out here, they don't know having on the backs of teenage girls choking people. They're dropping their weapons right, fumbling and then picking them frantically checking on them at crowds. Yeah, so, yeah, I don't know what they're doing now. They probably only have like one week of training now. Yeah, these new recruits were a lot more different. They were different than old timers, how namely that most of them were not from the border regions though they came from the Midwest, and the old timers tried passing on their ways reyelling stories from their heyday. In one story in old Thimer talked about a time he needed a defense because he killed a quote smuggler, right, but they could call anyone a smuggler that was there that was part of their defense. And this supposed smuggler didn't even have a weapon, and this Oldzheimer shot him and killed him. And then he needed like a reason, right, So then his fellow officers and knew he needed an alibi gun. And by the next morning, because it's happened at night, they were looking for the gun that the smuggler supposedly had, and they fetched out five to six guns out of the river because his fellow officers knew that he needed a gun. So that's

9:04 like the kind of stories and traditions they were trying to pass on, and these new Midwestern recruits were like, no, we're not doing that. Yeah, wow, okay Midwestern recruits right. Yeah. So, no matter how much the old timers tried to force their ways and pass on, you know, their tradition of violence, like we have been talking about, the new recruits would not outright act violently. Okay, I'm surprised this. I I'm surprised that. Yeah. Yeah, but it gets worse. Oh anytime you think it's gonna get better, it's not. No. Yeah, I should know that by now. Yeah. And there was another instance of a new recruit refraining from using excessive force against migrants who resisted arrests and old timer Jim conning him. If you don't remember him, he was a fellow whose brother Jack indiscriminately shot at Mexicans to avenge Jim who had been shot by smugglers.

9:58 Do you remember that story? Oh, and this is just a story that they would repeat. Oh yeah, this is one of the things, Like so the things, the things I have been talking about, like the guy they were avenging and they killed like six people to avengin. Yeah, this is it. Yeah, these are the kind of stories they would tell over in Oregon. But Jim, who you know, had this experience, told the new recruit who refused to use excessive force on migrants who were resisting arrest, he was like, you should have just shot the alien. Oh my god. And that was the kind of shit that that they used to do all the time, right, And I wish I had looked up and maybe we could do this later because they still have one more part. But I remember we talked about last episode about Jen but I think is her name, and the video she had with was We talked about it last nime, but I think she talked about actually.

10:51 Don't know if this was not. She has two videos with him, but. She talked about how in a certain time span of decades, there has been no border patrol or ice agent that has been held to account at all for killing a migrant, like they get away with it. And I'm trying to remember during this time if anyone had ever been any officer had ever been had ever been convicted or phase charges or arrested for violence against migrants. But I don't think so. I think that because we talked about migrants, you know, being violent. Not sorry, now migrants, border patrols just being violent and the reform that happened, and that they were murdering people, but it seemed like it was like outside of right. And you know what I think, whenever border patriusians seemed to be actually reprimanded or comfort anything is for outside things that don't happen within border patrol because like I you know, what comes to mind is that Juana with Thieves, a serial killer border patrol agent. He you know, we don't know what his record looks like within the agency, his work in there, but he literally killed the four five women. Yeah, but that seems to be the only time they are held to any sort of account. But just because the new generation of border patrol officers didn't engage in the same kind of violence doesn't mean they were any better than the Oldheimer's Okay, that's okay. In fact, in many ways they were even

12:22 worse because they ushered in a new form of violence that we are still dealing with today even worse ways, and one that costs has caused even more harm and depths to migrants. But before we get there, there's a lot of information in the book about the Mexican government working with the US government to create the Betaseta program and how they work together to police Mexican migrants who were ineligible for the better set of program. And we'll only touch briefly on it for the take of time, but if you want to learn more, this book talks about that the best Utter program was established after negotiations between the US and mex to go to create a controlled and managed system of legal migration. And the thing was that not all Mexicans were eligible to be rescoto, so this didn't actually stop on tiction and trained to the US by Mexican migrants. Yeah, and not to mention the Brasco program was also created in part not only because Mexico wanted the workers back to actually work in Mexico too, but they also wanted to create standards to protect Mexicans who were going and facing like horrible working conditions.

13:31 If you were a farm owner employing Brasselo people in the Resco program, you were supposed to do certain things. Yeah, and they weren't and the lot of the time they weren't into it. More about that aspect of it and how Texas refused for a long time to participate in the MATACTA program because of the standards that they were supposed to be meeting, and they eventually did agree, and some brascos still faced bad conditions, but. Was supposed to help out with that. Yeah, and it was supposed to set like a price, like a certain wage. But then there were still undocumented workers that were not part of the rest of the program crossing into it, and still farm owners hiring them over the rest of the program workers because they didn't have to meet any of those standards, and that caused a lot of conflict between Mexico and the US that we're going to get into next episode. But also like the Mexican government was like saying these things and trying to put these protections in place, by the same time, they were helping the United States subjugate migrants who were unauthorized undocumented migrants. Yeah, and they're in lies the hypocrisy of no but yeah. Yeah. So only healthy, landless and surplus mile agricultural workers from regions that weren't experiencing a labor shortage were qualified to apply to the rest of the program, and many Mexican women and children began immigrating into the United States dura, this time without authorization, so

15:02 they could be together with their husbands and dads, and so did many of the Mexican men who were in eligible for the program. So the US and Mexican government forged a partnership during World War two, not only to establish the rest of the program, but to work together to police the Mexicans that had been left out of the program. And with this partnership, the Mexican government linked its economic development to the United States, which was the ultimate downfall, which one might say was not the right thing to do. It's never the right move to link yourself as a country from the global self to the US.

15:47 So then President Manuel La Villa Camacho hoped to strengthen the economy through industrialization with the help of the US. And at a time, many Mexican labor activists, intellectuals, elits, artists, and politicians believe that industrialization would solve all of the economic struggles, and they placed social justice ideals like wealth redistribution on the back burner, placing capital accumulation as more important. So they thought capitalism did that Capitalism. Yeah, I mean I was going to. Go like a roundabout way of saying it, but yeah, they thought that capitalism would solve the wealth inequalities of Mexico.

16:31 And now I'm like, in what world, honey, and what world? Yeah, as victims of capitalism, we know now that that wealth that it happens because of it, It only is sort of select, pre selected, if you will, group of people. I furthers wealth inequality. Capitalism further is wealth inequality. You need impoverished people. You'll need a working class to make capitalism work. Someone has to work, and that's not the people on the top, and they're the ones that are going to ultimately make the most money. Yeah. And so this eagerness to create capital opened up business opportunities in Mexico for the United States, and both United States and Mexican businessmen took advantage of the situation. And there's more detail information to this perano. They gained their wealth, they hoarded it, they screwed over the poor and working class Mexicans m HM. As part of these business agreements and partnerships, the US and Mexican Commission advocated. I think there's more to that commission, but I don't wrote commission.

17:40 I think it was like some agricultural or some shit. But whatever, Oh, Okay. They advocated shifting agricultural production away from domestic products and more towards oil and seeds, which had been designated as essential for the wifort. And this is where monsanto comes in. That's not a fact. But it does lead. To famine though, and yeah, of course it did. So. This meant that between nineteen forty two and nineteen forty three, seven hundred thousand hectors were reassigned from producing corn to instead producing war related products, and the combination of fewer hectors being planted and bad conditions led to near famine conditions in most of Mexico.

18:21 Wow, I didn't know this. Yeah, I'm either. In Durango, things were so bad that the governor seized a railroad car of corn that was on its way to Mexico City so he could feed his people. Wow. And the food schorges continued during most of the nineteen forties, and the poor were the most affected since they relied the most on corn as a staple to their diets. Oh my god. As Kelly wrote, the decisions made by the US and Mexican officials to shift production away from the meslive products reflects the premacy of war production in their decision and the collusion of the Mexican and the US elite in the pursuit of a system of Mexican economic development that did not benefit the Mexican poor. So of course, these neo famine conditions led to more unsanctioned border crossings, despite the establishment of the rest of the program, which is supposed to resolve the problem of quote illegal immigration. And so it's like I've been saying since forever, always, forever and always, the reason that there are undocumented people here, not even only on documented people, but like asilum seekers, refugees, immigrants is directly because of the United States.

19:39 Here we have an example. And sure Mexicani also the Mexican elite was a part of this, but they would not have made this deal with the United States if the United States elite and capital interests were not wanting to take advantage of these conditions in Mexico. And because they made this financial agreement for them to gain wealth cause famine, yeah, near famine conditions in Mexico, and people, people gotta eat, people gotta work. They enter the. United States as undocumented immigrants because of the United States. So I'm like, don't you owe these people something you are causing their starvation. Yeah, so yeah, I believe that the United States owes all of us as the Senates of the Global South. Like we wouldn't be here if they had just left our parents' countries alone and let them thrive. Yes, we wouldn't be here, So shut the fuck up, and people wouldn't be trying to come here because they continue to subjectate the Global South.

20:44 Yeah. I was gonna say, you could say everything you just said in any time period and it applies. It applied then since colonization, and it applies now. Foreveren always exactly forever as always. We laugh because it's different, because it hurts, it hurts us. Yeah. If we don't laugh, we cry. I'm sorry. I know a lot of people hate him. I'm sorry. Both the US Border Patrol and Mexican agricultural businessmen were opposed to unsactioned Mexican immigration and Mexican businessmen were demanding that both the United States and Mexican governments do something about this rise in immigration because it affects their bottom line, and the Mexican government also urged US Immigration enforcement to do something about it. In a meeting with US Federal agencies, including the ins and border patrol.

21:40 A Mexican government official complained about the great number of laborers that were successfully gaining unlawful entry into the US and urged the US government to fix the problem because Mexico was facing labor shortages too, and Mexico even often threatened to revise or revoke the best of the program, and they did it. But we'll get into that next episode. I was gonna say, I feel like I covered a time period where it was revoked completely and it led to something happening, but I can't remember. Was it a riot, maybe the So I'm gonna talk about it more next episode, because there was a lot of conflicts during the rest of the program. Of course it affected Mexican migrants. But there was a time period where the Mexican government, because of the labor shortages of Mexicans emigrating, you know, into the United States, the Mexican military popped themselves in front of the border and prevented migrants from entering the United States.

22:39 Oh wow, and I read. About a riot, but I can't remember if it was on that was on the Mexican side or on the but it was like related to that that's what I'm thinking of. It could be. Yeah, well it's like the saying, like people keep crying about the wall, the wall, the wall, but like Mexico is the wall and has always served that purpose in this time period to prevent their own workers from leaving Mexico and then in more recent times to prevent to hold people there so they don't cross. And it's like working for the United States in that way, where like again they are the wall, and it's not only working for but they all they wanted these things because it was also affecting the Mexican elites, the Mexican ranchers. Yeah right, yeah, I meant that more for now than back then. They're working for because now it's like preventing Haitian Central Americans or holding them at the border where conditions are.

23:31 Not very rough. So a period of growth followed the US Border Patrol, and during this time and the work of the border patrol once again became even more focused. It's just I mean, it never really left, but they just get more and more, you know, concentrated at the US Mexico border, and the US and Mexican governments began working more closely together to prevent unauthorized migration and six month, oh, I guess during this time they were threatening to advise the BESIDA program until they agreed to you know, the conditions that they agreed to and whatnot. But six months after Mexico threatened to revise the program, the Border Patrol launched a new program of immigration law enforcement and many new methods of enforcement and policing were introduced. And this was because, right the Mexican government was pushing for more enforcement from the US.

24:24 This is what they wanted, right, And so one of these new methods of enforcement and policing was called Special Mexican details also drives like Mexican drives, Mexican Special Mexican Drives, Special Mexican Deportation Parties, and the Mexican Explosion program. But basically these are old timy terms for what we can now understand as raids target rates. Okay, I was like, what is what are all these I was so confused when I first read Mexican deportation parties and I was like, are the partying because they're supporting Mexicans? But no, that's not what it means. But basically it means that they would temporarily reassigned border patrol officers from slower areas like Minnesota and North Dakota to hotspot areas like Chicago, Texas in LA, which actually makes a lot of sense, right, And so they were the hell were they doing in Minnesota anyways, That's what I'm saying, I guess to pretend to patrol the Canadian border. I don't know, right, And uh yeah, So they would move them from these other areas that were you know, not as quote I mean, not as immigrant heavy, I guess, and they would move them and they would have them do raids for periods of time and they would move them, reassign them. And that's why it was called like special like parties or drives.

25:44 Wow. And this was like the first one of the There was not many raids before this period time frame, so this could be considered the inception of rains uh huh. And it was a precursor to the tactics that were used in operation went back. Oh wow, okay, And so yeah, the goal of these details was to increase apprehensions of undocumented Mexican immigrants. And I already mentioned that before this, the raids like this weren't really done, but the practice of these special details continued from about nineteen forty four until the nineteen fifties, and the fifties was when operation went back and then an operation went back to Gover yes, okay wow. And this practice of constantly reassigning border patrol agents affected the dynamics of the borderlands. And although racism and discrimination had always been a part of life in the borderlands, for the most part, border patrol agents used to work in the regions where they were raised and lived right right. They often were to maintain the status quo and the community, both ranchers in power and sometimes even the Mexican community. They often kept border patrol and check and border patrol when it was the old timers.

27:09 They often work with ranchers like they're like, oh, hey, don't you know, don't take my migrants or my workers, like during this time, not yet after this time, you can, yeah, like things like that they would do. But now that there was newcomers and people that were not from these regions, they were not embedding themselves into the community like they used to. They didn't respect the old ways of community based Yeah patrolling was better, I mean yeah, I mean again, the centers are in hell so yeah, we're talking about comparing the low to even lower than that. Yeah, And like, for example, we talked about a couple episodes ago, I think maybe part one or two, where there was an instance, if we're one of the agents was going to shoot someone who had he had caught with alcohol during the prohibition, and he didn't because the community was like reacting and he was afraid they were going to surround him. So things like that were no longer really respected.

28:15 Wow. And so yeah, with the new practice of the Special Details Border Patrol, and their families would move, you know, from town to town wherever they were being sent, and they would just rely on each other, be like a community within a community. This is and this is where you get, like the the more indoctrinated mindsets, the more like oh, we're brothers brothers in a yeah, the thin blue line, like more radicalization you could say, yeah, yeah, and then you carry I mean I feel like with every move and every town, even like maybe getting close to the border, they get more and more racist, yeah, xenophobic beliefs. But you pair that with like this newer within their own group, then yeah, that sounds very dangerous.

29:04 I'm not surprised that things are worse, and because of this disconnect, the Border patrol agents were less likely to hold back and avoid upsetting local interests, like when the Central Office demanded increased enforcement and higher apprehension rates. And I think I'll just mention it now because I don't think I'll get into it next episode. But there were instances where Border patrol agents were in the past they would respect the ranchers and not really detain their workers. Now you know, that wasn't a thing anymore, and they would go in the middle of the night, they would do raids at the ranchers' homes. Ranchers would have standoffs with the bard patrol agents. Yes, I've heard about this. Yeah, even in the Border Patrol episodes of Behind the Bastards they talk about because you know he read this book too, and I'm just like, yeah, but you are, Robert, Yeah, exactly exactly. They talk about one instance where a border patrol agent was kind of like shocked that a twelve year old son of a rancher pointed a rifle at him and was like, get off our lands, and there was all I mean, obviously this was all wrong because the ranchers were taking advantage of the Mexican workers. During these conflicts and standoffs between the federal border Patrol and the ranchers, the ranchers would like talk to their kids about like, oh, this is this is wrong. This this is just like when the Civil War happened and the

30:35 North was trying to take away the slaves from the South. So they would compare it to that and a laugh because it's disgusting. Yeah, so they would they were they would romanticize this like as a battle between the federal government and you know, the South. Yeah, but but it wasn't in the interests, of course of the workers. It was because of their own capitalist interests. And really the only comparison would be like the ranchers treated their workers in slaves like conditions. Yes, they were in shacks, you know, poor living conditions, almost unlivable living conditions. And yeah, and there's there are stories of ranchers having lookouts, like their sons would be looking out for raids. They would run warned their workers. The workers would scramble a nanny, you know, the kids took off the MiG The border patrol was like, where's your nanny, And they held they held this family like inside their homes, not at gunpoint, but they were like basically like entered their home like forcefully, and they're like.

31:39 Where are your workers? Solves where your workers are at? So there was like a lot of things like that happening. Wow. Yeah, And that's just like an example of like, oh, these these are new border patrol who are not part of the community, and so they have no qualms and they're no again, no longer respecting the whole. Like oh wait until this day and then you can take the workers, deport them to detain them. But like before that, but now they're not. They were just going in whenever, and these standoffs were happening. Yeah, and where tween tween aged boys were pointing pointing guns at border patrol agents. Yeah. Man, that's the good old us of A for you though, Like it doesn't surprise me and it makes sense how that happened to me, but like just reading about that, I'm like.

32:26 What the hock? Yeah yeah, And Kelly describes that the consequences were high for persons of Mexican origin in the borderlands as the border patrol surveillance expanded in the region. For example, interrogations by border patrol increased from four hundred and seventy three thousand, one hundred and twenty in nineteen forty to nine million, three hundred and eighty nine thousand, five hundred and fifty one in nineteen forty three. That's that percentage increases. Insane. I'm not doing it, but it's insane. I'm not. Yeah, but if we're going from the thousands to the millions, oh my god. And again, this demand of enforcement immigration enforcement was being pushed by the Mexican government too, So Kelly described the Mexican government helping Mexican Americans be recognized as white, you know, because this was there in their eyes, how they would not be discriminated against by aligning themselves with whiteness, right and pitting themselves against blackness basically, and that along with the battle for whiteness, Mexican officials participated in the mexicanization of the cast of illegals in the United States, so basically meaning that they helped define quote illegal immigration as Mexicans, they.

33:45 Mexican mexicanized illegals. Basically, they helped Oh my god. Yeah, in the Mexican government helped in this in their own people, be your own people. Oh my god. I mean it makes sense. So it's everything I knew already, but like, yeah, period and being put into words, and it makes sense, right, because like the Mexican identity came to be with the subjugation of the indigenous and black people in Mexico to create the Mestiso. Yeah, so of course they would have no problem subjugating and because I mean realistically, it's the more impoverished Mexicans out lest Mexico for work in the United States, and those people tended to be more brown Mexicans and white Mexicans too, so like I'm sure they had an aspect to do with that.

34:42 Wow. And the collaboration between the United States and the Mexican government and enforcing immigration laws grew during these special Mexican deportation parties because Mexico had never experienced this large amount of Mexican nationals returning to Mexico at a time, like all at once, you know, so collaborative deportations developed between the US and Mexico, and on January eleventh, nineteen forty five, US and Mexican authorities signed an agreement to work closely together to control the return of undocumented Mexican migrants and part of this agreement included diverting Mexicans who were not from the interior of Mexico to the interior of Mexico right when before they would just get deported and they would be, you know, in the border regions of Mexico. Yeah, and there's a memo that I was going to read, oh that described this collaboration on page one twenty. So this collaboration included like the United States Border Patrol taking the Mexican deportees to trains in Mexico or like bridges in the middle of Mexico and United States, and then exchanging custody paying for train rides into the interior. So that's what train lifts means. Okay, I'll just start over.

36:11 As described in the nineteen fifty six memo, the procedure for the train lift to Chihuahua was for US Border Patrol officers to drive a busload of migrants to the middle of the bridge that connected Presidio, Texas to Okinaga, Mexico. At the middle of the bridge, all Border patrol and in ins personnel would leave the bus and return to the inspection station. As the US officers left bus, Mexican officers entered to conduct the party from the middle of the bridge the railroad station. At this point, the deportees and the financial responsibility for their detention, supervision, transportation, and care were officially transferred from the US to Mexico. So they were literally exchanging the deportees and then the Mexican Migration Department would train them into the interior of Mexico.

36:58 Wow. And this disrupted because there was systems of support within the border towns already, so like migrants new where to go to be like, hey, can I stay here for the night, can you, you know, help me get food? Like things like that, And this disrupted the system supports system that was already exists, the system, yes, okay, And so I thought that Kelly described this perfectly. She said, in the US, those identified as illegal immigrants were subject to surveillance, attention, and deportation. In Mexico, they faced the disruptions and anxieties forced this location to unfamiliar places. Man.

37:40 And this was yeah, hand in hand together. Yeah, And that's something she talks about like a lot, even the I think in the intro where people have this misconception that any immigration enforcement that Mexico has engaged in has been for the United States, like because they're being told to do so, but then in states, but that wasn't really the case, not during this time period. It was something they. Were demanding from the United States and in collaboration with the United States. And yeah, and that's such an important thing to point out. I think it points out like the state, yes, the nation state, right, it's not always looking.

38:24 Out for the people. Yeah, that's probably the most polite way of seeing it. Yeah, and this was just one of the new determined strategies and probably one of the least worst ones. In nineteen forty five, the US Board Patrol started noticing that more crossings were happening in California as opposed to Texas, and to address this issue, they sent four thousand, five hundred feet of chain link fencing to Collexico, California. Chain link the tool of the oppressor, truly, And so yeah, they sent this chain link fencing too Colexico in California. And they then they sent leftover or like recycled chain link fence material to the Mexicans side of the border that had been used at the Japanese and German camps. So it's like literally like when you said, the tool of the oppressor. Like literally this chain link material had been used to subjugate and oppress Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans was now being used to subjugate Mexican immigrants.

39:30 Oh my god. I was like, of. Course, full loword. Yeah, like I would have never thought, like, where is the material coming from? Oh and it's been It's it's like double used for pressures by instead of trying to align with the whiteness. Everyone needs to align with each other, but we don't, Like we don't. Yeah, Like what we need is solidarity. Like appealing to whiteness is never gonna win that. We're never gonna win with that. If it's not you today, if it wasn't you yesterday, and it's not you today, it's gonna be used tomorrow. And so the goal of the fencing was to compel quote, to compel persons seeking to enter the US illegally to attempt to go around the ends. Of the fence.

40:11 And at the end of the fence the fences defencing was desert and mountains, and the goal was to discourage illegal immigration by exposing migrants to the elements, to dehydration, to hypothermia, and. So the death. Yeah, and this was the first time this was done intentionally, purposefully as a deterrence method, And holes were cut into the fence pretty much immediately while they were building it. So the US asked Mexicali, which would be the Mexican side of the border, for help, and the governor happily obliged by providing soldiers to protect the fence while it was being built.

40:53 So here we have another. Example of the Mexican government while working with the US to stop immigration. And so yeah, the Mexican government was complicit and forcing migrants to use more dangerous routes. Oh my god. The holes continued, though, because when there's a will, there's a way, And so Bard Patrol started doing sweeps in the middle of the night in the desert, and an officer described picking up migrants whose feet were completely frozen. And worse. I mean, I think we've all heard horror stories of yeah, locals down when you're crossing, yeah, and people that don't make it.

41:36 Yeah. And by the nineteen fifties, it was a common occurrence to find the bodies of Mexican migrants in the desert in the water. Oh yeah, I don't. Remember what I was looking at recently where someone was like in between here and Mexico, like between the US and the Mexican border, it's a graveyard. Yeah, it is and has ever since this type of border protection the forties and fifties. Yeah, it's just been terrible, Like even out because this book is more on the dry side, but even reading about this, like I was crying because yeah, like so much people died. Yeah, just trying to make their way, you know, into the United States because of the United States and right forcing them.

42:28 Yes, of course. In on February fourth, nineteen fifty to, an employee of the Imperial Valley Irrigation District found five dead Mexican mills near some small shrubs who had apparently succumbed to the extreme heat of the desert. And with more and more guardrails and roadblocks through the desert, many migrants started crossing through the All American Canal and the Rio Grande, and the border patrol knew the dangers of the waters, and knowing that migrants would not would likely not survive crossing these waters, they left them mostly unguarded. Yeah, they don't need to elpments. They are going to do it. For them.

43:08 Yeah, and this reminds me of I think it was during an Operation Loan Star, which we were we are going to do an episode one, but when Abbot put up those boys that were like weaponized, right, Like, I don't obviously we're gonna actually research. This is just at the top of my head, but like these things were like causing more deaths. Yeah, and I don't know, I just I don't understand how horrible you can be as a person to defend defenders that has caused countless deaths. Yeah, but it's like shouldn't come here, But like I said, they are because of the United States. Yeah, like what do you want people to do?

43:51 Starve and die? Obviously that's what they want. No, that's exactly what they want. And earlier I had mentioned how the new generation of Borbital didn't engage in the same outright violence as old timer's, but they were no better because this was way worse. They purposefully exposed migrants to the elements and pushed them further and further into more dangerous routes of crossing into the United States. But here now they can say, oh, what was in our fault? Exactly. My next points, God, the way your mind works. Yeah, and so Kelly wrote, quote, border patrol officers had given up their brutality, but the body count of migrants paying the penalty of death while trying to evade apprehensions for illegal immigration continued. Immigration law enforcement techniques shifted responsibility for the number of deaths associated with undocumented immigration to migrants themselves.

44:49 No longer were apprehensions the primary side of danger. Rather, the border patrol had relocated the danger of immigration law enforcement to the natural landscape of the borderlands. Migrants battle deserts and rivers rather than men with guns end quote. And uh, yeah, they basically absolve themselves of any responsibility and guilt or the depth of migrants because they're like, oh, they're the ones crossing any guilt to begin with, right, But yeah, now they can wash their hands free of having to do it themselves, and they can say, oh, it's in God's hands now while they're putting in place the system that like, they have moved it to where they have to cross through here, and now they don't have to kill them themselves.

45:36 The river is going to do it. Yeah, and Kelly described this as have you heard a foul called fa coal i? Don't know how to say his name. This sounds very fail that's wrong. How do you spell it? F o u c l f o U see a L T for call? Yeah, this sounds very It's like an important like literary figure or something. Yes, but I don't think we're not like, yeah, we're dumbidges. We don't know this. I'm so sorry. I don't know this man. But he had I guess he he I know if it's like he has like a lot of like grim writings. I guess French historian called French historian. Okay, so he's not a Michelle or Michael. How do they pronounce Michael? I thought maybe it was Mitchell an idea Michael, Like yeah, maybe because it's like Michael without an age, Yeah Michael. But yeah, so he had this French philosopher, historian and author and political actom Okay, Okay, he just always say a little more.

46:31 Okay. Yeah, I'm like I knew he was some kind of literary figure because that's how I have heard of him. But again, we're dumb bitches. But apparently he has this this theory or like a theme theme that comes up in his writing a lot is the power to let die. And that's basically how she described, like, oh, the border patrol embraced this power to let die. And I'm gonna look into this man because maybe a little resid even more because it is spun on. It's like the state has the power to let anyone they choose die and they are doing so right now. They can choose who let live and let die, who gets to ascend the ladder of capitalism and who is flicked off and I don't know left to die. Yeah, it's disgusting and facet is onto something. Now let's lookt into him, let's read his work. We're like these dumb bitches.

47:37 No again, we have never pascascinating anything. But everyone probably knows about except except us. Hey, I didn't go to college. I won't. I did like three separate half semesters. I have degrees, and my dumb bitch studies of psych major and I can speak for all psych majors. It didn't involve much. And then my ms. I didn't read this man, So I'm sorry to this man. But what a powerful theme, right, oh yeah yeah. And in nineteen forty nine, it was estimated that one person died every day while trying to cross into.

48:21 The Rio Grande. Oh my god, wait year nineteen forty nine, okay, wow. And during this time more women and children began crossing it into the US, and they made up a lot of the migrants who unfortunately died trying to get into the US. And Kelly has more examples in the Book of Migrants you know that died crossing. I'm sorry, but I will always think of Oscar Roberto Martinez Ramidez and his twenty three month old daughter, Angi Valeria. Yeah, that's I literally had them in my mind as I was reading it. I think that's why I wanted to cry, because I remember, I'm going to cry right now. It is truly, it's it was the saddest thing to see and it was just him and his daughter, like a three shows year old little girl. Uh and yeah, they passed away trying to cross and like you know, borbatuts on the other side. It's just it's just inhumane, like how can you let well again, they have the power to let migrants die and you could easily like try to help these people, and they don't. They let them die.

49:36 That image is forever and grazed in my head, and it literally had it in my head as I was reading about Yeah, any anytime I hear the river or especially right now that we're reading enforcement immigration enforcement at the river or people dying at this river, this is who I think of, just because it's I don't know, it was like you you you see it, and because you know who our parents are, we know like yeah, yeah, it's like this could have been them, This could have been any You're family loved the ones people we know and if we had been in another oh, it could have been us at some point. Yeah, if we had Yeah, we're saying the same thing. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, because we had the luck to be born here, Yeah, that could have been any one of us. And you know what, the further the you uh, a migrant is leaving their home country, the more dangerous their journey.

50:36 Like you think about the da Yan. Gap, Oh my god, Yeah, horrors they have to go through and then to go and get here and then like be held up by Mexico so long that they are desperately like you know what, fuck it, let's go through the river and then possibly die at the river. Like that's already surviving the gap, Like yes, and it's just like like I don't care who because people are thinking, you have to have some rules, Like why, I really. Why, That's what I said last time. Why should there be rules when the United States doesn't have rules when they're over there fucking up the rest of the world. No, exactly, they don't give one fine fuck about rules. They're over here shooting Venezuelans who are currently fishermen. Yeah, they're making up gangs. They have literally made up cartels to cause violence, to shoot people. Like they made up a whole cartel. I forgot the name of it.

51:30 It doesn't exist. They made it up just to have an excuse to go shoot up some people. And they're literally extra judicially killing Venezuelans right now. M and for what they are just discussing and humane people who want to kill the rest of us, honestly, Yeah, yeah, and yeah. In the book, she talks about an eleven year old girl who and she says her name I remember right now, but but just it's so many people that have lost their lives. And I remember also like something else that I'm like always thinking about, especially around Day of the Dead. I remember years ago some artists made like a almost like an altar but they put up like figures of like skeletons hanging on the fence of the border, like to represent all the people that have lost their lives.

52:29 They put this at at the border. Oh yeah, I haven't seen this, And you know what, this is why I'm sick of Like people on TikTok love the phrase like, oh, you don't have to see yourself as victims or I'm tired. I'm tired of this victim mentality of the understand that. I'm like, where's your empathy? Some of us are not so far removed, Like our parents made this journey. Our grandparents made this journey. Yes, and a lot of people themselves made the journey exactly. Yeah. And so anytime I hear the words victim mentality, I'm like, those are the worst of the colonizer. I'm sorry, but they are because there's something there's a mentality. But then there's some things that are just the objective truth, and that's that like colonization was real. The US and their policies foreign policy has created a my great immigration crisis and like you haven't saying this whole time, none of us would be here. Yeah, And I feel like to anyone who thinks like, oh, they're they're tired of these stories.

53:34 You should read more books that like, like, what is it the one that I still have to read a button? All of those all of us who are here are gone? What is it called? Oh? I have a right here one? Okay, there's there's the one we both read that's by a journalist. You're talking about everyone who is gone is here? Yes? That one, amazing, amazing book. Hold, I'm putting my stack back. Do you have the other one with you? Two? Or? Now which one was the other one? The other one is. The one that talks about the nine to eleven immigrants, the immigrants that died on nine to eleven, that they call them the Delivery Voice.

54:16 Is it the same book? Oh? I know we're talking about the undocumented Americans, right, yes, Oh my god, yeah, read read those books before your link entire This narrative persists because these stories are still never ending, like they're ongoing. Shut the puck up. But I mean, yeah that basically, after all of our tears, the only other thing I was mentioning was that more women and children were uh crossing, and a lot of them died, as did many men crossing into the US and but during this time, the Board Patrol was wary of the optics of detaining women and children because they didn't want the negative attention of screaming children and crying women.

55:05 I say, they still cared about this. Yeah, that's literally what I have write down. Yeah, they still cared about this. They often they didn't detain families, right, and they also wouldn't separate them. They wouldn't put them on the bus lifts or the airlifts what are they're called. And they would complain that once because if there's one thing that we are as our people are resilient and uh, what's the other word that you you learn your situation and you like that whustas at dol Like I can't think of the word silient, and like you, I know, you know what word I'm trying to say. I cannot think of it. I do because we had to say it a bunch of the army. Oh okay, I know, it's like at the tip of my tongue and I can't remember it. But it's like they learn you're like flexible or whatever. Yeah you readjust like a yeah, I don't know, readjusted.

56:05 And so the migrants cut on real quick, that the border patrol would would be hesitant to detain families, and so they would just grab onto each other like as. Couples and children and they were related, and they'd be like, we're family. Oh my god. I love that. Yeah. I love that because they have to do what they have to do. Yeah, And there's a lot. Of stories in here that I haven't you know, got to talk about about migrants finding back. There's one I read about where the I don't remember I it was a Mexican border patrol or the US Border patrol, but they were like trying to like detain migrants and then the migrants are like, wait, there's more of us than you guys. And there's there's stories of resistance within this.

56:46 Of course there is, there's always yes. I also read about the migrants who escaped through like air vents when they were being detained, and you know that kind of stuff. It helps to read this because it's it's hard and it's hard to know, you know, everything that's going on, but like we know, there's always you know, there's always people resisting, and it's important to focus on that. And I guess, yeah, that's a good place to leave off. Next week we'll talk a little bit more about collaboration between the US, but also conflict between the Mexico and the Mexico and the US about immigration, the establishment of the Mexican Border Patrol, because so far we have been talking about the Mexican Department of Migration. Oh wow, okay, Yeah, and then some more in humanity perpetrated by both the United States and the Mexican Border Patrol, and that'll be that'll be the last part. I am sick of talking about border patrol. We're not gonna be done because I'm gonna after this, I'm doing an episode on Operation Lone Star that I always forget. I think we said that's what it was called. We think it's what if if that's not what it's called. We're just talking about the increased border security operation that happened in Texas, which we are now seeing I guess, implemented in an even larger scale, leaching wide. But yeah, it's like you were saying, even right now and back then, there's always stories of resistance,

58:19 and that's that's what we had to hold on to. Yeah, that and learning, learning so we can readjust so we can yeah, adjust, not readjust I don't know something, do you know what I'm saying? Something? Something? You know? And wow, thank you Carmen again for your hard work reading and writing all this, putting this together for us to learn. And a quick reminder that yeah, this is going to come out Thursday, so yeah, you can still catch just the number first twenty twenty five and in a spooky capacity in Yakima, Washington at our event, the KUGUOI is going to get you where We're going to tell some scary stories. And also you can support us on Patreon. If you join, you get a weekly so far as those have been weekly for sure, weekly bonus episode where we just go through what's been happening.

59:07 Sometimes it's like fun internet discourse, but lately it's been just depressing news story. After you will have to we're yelling, streaming, crying, throwing. Up about it. So yeah, so yeah, and other than that, we hope that this is one less Ordia known for you. Bye bye. Estorias Are Known. Is produced by Carmen and Christina, researched by Carmen and Christina, edited by Christina. You can find sources for every episode at unknown dot com and in our show notes creating the podcast has a lot of work, so if you want to help us out financially, you can do so by supporting us on Patreon at patreon dot com. Slash She studied as an own podcast