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United States of PTSD
Season One: Mental health concerns are on the rise in the United States. This podcast will look at the influencing factors contributing to the decline of our culture. With the rise of school shootings, political divisiveness, increasing levels of hate, and a chronic war of peoples' rights, we have entered a domestic war that never ends. Our podcast will look at whether this is done by design or is it an abject failure. We will discuss it from a clinical and common-sense perspective. Secondarily we will discuss ways to protect yourself from being further traumatized. Hosted by Matthew Boucher LICSW LCDP (licensed in RI) who has over 20 years of experience working with people who have addictions and trauma with a specialty of pregnant/postpartum women. Co-host Wendy Picard is a Learning and Development consultant with 15 years of experience, lifelong observer of the human condition, and diagnosed with PTSD in 1994.
Season Two: Is joined by Donna Gaudette and Julia Kirkpatrick BSW. Julia is currently working on obtaining her MSW and her LCSW. She is a welcome addition to the podcast.
Season Three: Cora Lee Kennedy provided research and worked as a temporary co-host. Dr. Erika Lin-Hendel joins as a co-host for season 3.
United States of PTSD
S 3 E:16 Papers Please: Navigating America's Broken Immigration System
Immigration rights are under severe threat as communities across America face increasing persecution and detention without due process, with Kim DeLeon sharing her family's journey through the US immigration system and the fears they still face despite her husband's citizenship. We discuss how the immigration process is far more complex, expensive, and uncertain than most people realize, with many families spending thousands of dollars and years navigating bureaucratic hurdles.
• Legal immigration requires navigating thousands of dollars in fees, complex paperwork, and multi-year waiting periods
• Even with proper documentation, immigrants face constant fear of being detained by ICE
• Privatized detention centers represent corporatized human rights violations with inadequate conditions
• ICE raids are occurring in everyday places like Dollar General stores and potentially targeting schools
• Border militarization parallels historical situations like the Berlin Wall, with similar human costs
• Immigrants contribute enormously to the US economy and social fabric while being denied basic rights
• Local community organization and response has been crucial in helping detained immigrants access due process
• Everyone can take action by joining local politics, supporting organizations like the ACLU and Indivisible
• Recording ICE interactions can provide crucial evidence for legal cases
• Knowing your rights is essential – the ACLU provides free resources on immigrant rights
We strongly encourage listeners to get involved by checking what's happening in their state around immigrant rights and building relationships with frontline organizations that are making a difference in securing due process for unjustly detained individuals.
Homepage | Indivisible
https://open.spotify.com/show/3KNdniw6YDpgDuwrhcpSXw
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/hartzmann/no-time-to-die
License code: S4CEQWLNQXVZUMU4
Artwork and logo design by Misty Rae.
Special thanks to Joanna Roux for editing help.
Special thanks to the listeners and all the wonderful people who helped listen to and provide feedback on the episode's prerelease.
Please feel free to email Matt topics or suggestions, questions or feedback.
Matt@unitedstatesofPTSD.com
This podcast is not intended to serve as therapeutic advice or to replace any professional treatment. These opinions belong to us and do not reflect any company or agency.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the United States of PTSD, and I'm welcoming back Erica and another great guest speaker. So, Erica, I'm turning it over to you.
Speaker 1:Hi, thank you. Thank you everyone for tuning in and hope you're doing well and we're going to start out just quickly Today's conversation. We are going to be talking about immigration again and I'm just going to put this out there that this is one of the frontline issues that are happening right now that we are having to navigate in our communities across the country. We have kind of these communities that have been targeted specifically as scapegoats for so many things, and that includes transgender, expansive individuals as well as immigrant community, and also pro-Palestinian protests or anti-genocide humanitarian protesters, and so also when these three things are intersecting, of course, we have even more vulnerability. So if you want to get involved, what I recommend strongly is to take a look at what's happening in your state around immigrant rights and you can build relationships with those, because usually the local frontline responses are what really makes a difference in getting people who have been unjustly detained and denied due process, that due process.
Speaker 1:So the other place that you can go for great information, the podcast. It Could Happen here. They have just a tremendous amount, both historically, of the history of immigrant, the violation of immigration rights or immigrant rights in this country. Historically speaking, because it didn't just start with the current administration. It is my pleasure to introduce Kim DeLeon pronounce she her. We've known each other for many years and she has been part of the community network that I have. That bolsters in my energy and the things that we have in common passions for ecological, animal and human rights and I will also pass it off to you to talk about some of the things that you care about and starting introducing the story of your family and why you're here to have this conversation today.
Speaker 3:Hi, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I am very lucky to have known Erica for a long time, and back then I was getting ready to start a journey on a trip to Belize, where I ended up living there for two years. I met my current husband and we started our life together there. After my two years there, we decided to move to the United States to have children and start a life here in the United States.
Speaker 3:We followed all of the proper immigration procedures, did the paperwork filed everything appropriately, and we were lucky enough to be granted a marriage visa, permanent residence and then, finally, us citizenship for my husband. We now have a beautiful family that I take care of here in Delaware. I also do all kinds of other fun things to take care of humans and non-humans alike. I'm a preschool teacher, an environmental consultant and a farm worker, and I spend my free time doing activism work with organizations such as the ACLU and Indivisible. I'm also getting involved in local politics by participating in the representative district committee for my area. So thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2:Thank you for being here, kim. Could you just explain what Indivisible is for the listeners, because I'm not sure they would know what that is.
Speaker 3:Sure, no problem. So Indivisible is a political activation group and they focus primarily on democratic issues. They really are big advocates for things like human rights, things like getting people involved in voting, protesting and other activities like that. They also tend to break down into smaller units, for lack of a better word, so I'm in my own little local unit. If you go to indivisibleorg, I think you can find your local chapter of Indivisible and get involved there.
Speaker 1:I love hearing about how you're on a committee, because this is one of those things like it's possible if we get involved in local and this is. Is this at the state level?
Speaker 3:Yes, so it's the. The district that I'm in is for our state representative, and the state representative, and the state representative then goes to the state level and advocates for our particular community.
Speaker 2:I did find the link so I will put it in the notes for the show for indivisibleorg. I think it breaks it down based on state Perfect.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the things that I wanted to ask you, because there's it's, it's been an interesting path that we've lived on collectively around immigration and it's kind of like always something that's always changing. And and some people could say that our first, most recent round of large shifts of immigration so my parents came here in the 70s there was much more how should I say openness of people coming to the United States that contributed to building like industries, so, for example, all of the things that we can thank immigrants for. Workers' rights, right, the majority of our workers' rights happened through immigrant labor movement, through farm workers and we'll probably talk a little bit more about that and also through, like my parents were involved in the computer industry. So huge contributions there, contributions there, and then I would say from my living experience that really started to shift around 9-11, where we started to really see things change drastically about how immigration was treated. And then we had this window of time over the Biden administration where we had more openness again for a period of time where we started to see more people be able to get their citizenship.
Speaker 1:I remember being in Florida and my Lyft driver had just gotten his citizenship and when he shared it with me. I actually started crying because I had had friends who were married to, for example, Prince from Iran, who were not able, had complications about visas and things for a very long time under the previous round of the Trump administration, that were potentially needing to move in order to be able to continue working for the companies that you know had facilitated their immigration because of the, their value. So I cried and so was that. Was that the time period also for for you and your family, where that, where that citizenship was able to be obtained?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my husband was able to get a citizen. That citizenship was able to be obtained. Yeah, so my husband was able to get a citizenship at the end of 2016. So we had obviously been working on the documents for several years.
Speaker 2:We had moved to the.
Speaker 3:United States in 2012. So it was about a four-year process all in all, and we were lucky because it was a marriage visa situation, which is much faster than other types of citizenship applications. It can take many, many more years if it's not through a marriage visa situation.
Speaker 2:Kim, if you could talk a little bit about because I not because I know the listeners. Obviously the people listening to the show probably are not going to be opposed to the stuff that you're talking about because you know who we are, but I would imagine if somebody were and they were listening to it, they would say, well, look how easy that was. She did it the right way and it was just super easy. But that's not the reality of it for most people, right? So can you talk about the maybe the nuanced difficulty of what that's like to get citizenship?
Speaker 3:Yes, of course. So I think it's really interesting. Like you said, a lot of people seem to think it's just, you know, a click of a button or fill out one paper and you're all set. And you know, maybe back in the day when we had the Ellis Island immigration and you could just go to Ellis Island and fill out a paper or get a stamp or whatever the situation was, it was very quick and it was very easy.
Speaker 3:And that is not the reality that I've experienced in this country this day and age. It is a thousands of dollar process with all of the paperwork. It is multi-year, it is significantly complicated paperwork that requires a pretty high level of education, a high level of competency in being able to understand all the legal jargon that's in there. So many people are going to find it inaccessible and if they can't afford a lawyer that specializes in immigration, they're going to really have a hard time getting through all of the legal steps. Not to mention, there is no guarantee, when you file those papers and you pay the money, that you are going to be granted the status that you're applying for, whether it's permanent residence or citizenship, and I've had that.
Speaker 3:I've watched that experience again and again and again with people I know, whether it's friends or extended family, and it could be something as simple as trying to apply for a visitor's visa to the United States and use their skills, their craft, their education that they received in other countries to be able to establish a life here. And it's rejected and that money is gone, that time and energy is gone, and it is so devastating to experience that, to think that I'm doing everything right and it's still not working and I've lost all that time and all of that money for what. It's really devastating sometimes.
Speaker 2:So it's cost prohibitive for most people. It's incredibly confusing, and I think something that a lot of people don't realize too is that while people are here, they're still paying taxes, correct?
Speaker 3:Oh, absolutely, so you're paying into the system, you're paying to be here, you're paying for representation, and you could be denied after spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to be able to get my husband to come into this country legally to step foot on the soil, he was denied two visitor's visas, and I don't know for sure, but my suspicion is that it was because he was a young, strong, capable gentleman who would be able to find a job in many of the industries that hire people with undocumented status so whether it's construction, farming, things like that and they thought that he would just overstay his visitor's visa.
Speaker 3:So they denied him a visitor's visa at all. So we tried that route twice and it didn't work. Then we ended up getting married in Belize, having all of the documentation to prove that it was a real marriage. We had to do interviews, which they asked extremely personal questions. I won't get into it, but let me tell you I was not prepared. I was expecting things about what color toothbrush does he use, or you know what did he get you for Valentine's Day, and it was way more embarrassing.
Speaker 2:Invasive.
Speaker 3:Invasive yes, invasive and embarrassing than that. They wanted to verify that it was a real relationship, apparently, and that's the strategy that they used. So it was very uncomfortable, but we did obviously get the marriage visa. It was very uncomfortable, but we did obviously get the marriage visa, and when you apply for the marriage visa, you fill out the documents, you send in the money and there is no indication of how long it's going to take. It could take weeks, it could take months, it could take years.
Speaker 3:They give you no information, but what you have to prove is that you have a job waiting for you in the United States, you have housing waiting for you in the United States, you have housing waiting for you in the United States, you have some sort of support as far as like being able to have income, and I don't know very many people who have that already established in the United States just waiting there for them for whenever the visa is granted. Now, thankfully, in my particular situation, I had a relative who had a farm and she had some housing space that we were able to use, and so we did have jobs lined up and we could come whenever the visa was granted, whether it was six months after we applied, a year after we applied, two weeks after we applied. So I was really, really fortunate to have all of the things that they require, but I can't imagine there's a lot of people who had that set up already, waiting for them to just fingers crossed and get their visa accepted.
Speaker 2:When you because I know you said you lived in Belize for two years did you have to become a citizen of Belize as well?
Speaker 3:No, I never got my Belizean citizenship. I went there on a work visa, so I worked in a school that was an English immersion school, and that's how I was able to stay there for the two years.
Speaker 2:I was just curious if there was like a comparison, like what it would be like there.
Speaker 3:So I had to fill out some of the papers. The company that I worked for had to fill out the majority of the papers, but it was significantly faster. I have looked into becoming a Belizean citizen and you know it's complicated paperwork. It's expensive, but nothing like here in the United States.
Speaker 2:I remember during the first regime of the Trump years, I had looked at going to Canada and I couldn't believe how expensive it was. It was, I think they had said I mean there were ways around it. They said if I had, if I had been offered a job which I'm sure I could have if I really tried to but outside of that, they wanted me to have a hundred thousand dollars in the bank. And when I was talking to the person on the phone he made it sound like everybody had a hundred thousand dollars in the bank and I was like, really do you? Because, like you know, it's really really expensive.
Speaker 3:It is. My parents, again during the Trump years and the first go around looked into moving to New Zealand and I think they required like a million dollars in the bank if you were over a certain age because you wouldn't be working necessarily a full-time job and contributing to the economy. So you had to prove that you were an asset to the country with your own supplies to be able to afford it. So cost is a huge issue when it comes to immigration.
Speaker 2:That's actually a good point, because it was. The reason why it was so expensive was because of age, because I think at the time I was I don't remember how old I was at the time 43, 42, somewhere around there, and they're like, yeah, you're too old and I was like what.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I recently looked into going to Canada. I have relatives over there and it was if you were over 45, basically forget it. And I just thought, oh my gosh, how is this possible? I have so many years ahead of me and yet it's considered too old?
Speaker 2:But now that I found out how they treat their indigenous people. Plus, there's a program up there called the MAID program, which is an assisted suicide program that they actually try to. If you're costing the country too much money, they actually try to encourage you to commit suicide and that's for mental health.
Speaker 3:Are you serious?
Speaker 2:I actually had somebody from Canada on the show talking about it and he said that they basically will send you information to your house saying we think you should kill yourself Cause, like none of this stuff has been working. So once I found out about that I was like no, Canada, Thanks.
Speaker 1:No, my gosh. Well, I think so, something that I wanted to kind of mention here, since we just talked about this process through the marriage visa and work visa, that and so, for example, the current administration has basically revoked asylum status for a large cohort of people, not only that had status recently, over the last four years as far as places like Haiti, but also are threatening the status of Haiti and Ukraine, but are also threatening status. For example, we have citizens from Bhutan and other areas that have been here for a long time with protective status that are now you know, no one understands People who are naturalized citizens as well as are also nervous about that happening. So, matt, if you're willing to share some of your experience as far as the people that you know around asylum, I only have one experience and that was well.
Speaker 2:I guess I have two technically. One of them was kind of peripherally so I had. This was during the COVID years. I sponsored somebody from Honduras. He had come here seeking asylum because in Honduras, I guess they're not very LGBT friendly and he was tortured many times. He actually had like whip marks on his back and all sorts of stuff he had scarring, and he came here legally. He did it the like I said, the legal way.
Speaker 2:He was seeking asylum and he was taken to one of the detention centers in Texas and he reported that he was raped by the guards down there repeatedly and you know. So it was, I guess, worse for him coming here on some level that he ended up. Luckily he's doing really well. He's in a different state now. He also had a friend that came from Cuba and that friend was being sponsored by a friend of mine. He also, I think, is doing really well, but the stories they told were horrific and scary as to why they left in the first place and then the treatment that they got while they were here. Strangely, one of them is a Trump supporter, which kind of is a little bit baffling to me. But yeah, that's I mean. So that's the limited experience I have.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it emphasizes the fact that when we on talking about how detention has been privatized Same thing with our carceral system, and so we have private companies who are made we have corporatized human rights violations.
Speaker 1:Fundamentally, that is where we are now. We have corporatized the violation of human rights, where immigrants of varying statuses so not just undocumented, but also immigrants that have valid statuses are being denied due process and put into detention centers that are private companies that currently have human rights violation records, right of not being able to provide and their over capacity, don't have enough water and food, and that, additionally, there are some detention centers For example, the Biden administration started the process of open air detentions in areas where people are having heat exposure and environmental exposure. So this is when we talk about this being a deadly situation and how immigrants with valid status are also at risk for being scooped up in this process. This is, this is very serious and so, um, can, can you talk a little bit? Are you willing to talk a little bit about how you and your family have been like preparing around this and how, how this has been impacting both you and your family? Sure?
Speaker 3:So I participated in an ACLU Know your Rights for Immigrants workshop and I had my husband participate as well, and the thing that struck me the most out of all the things they said was if you are here legally, you need to make photocopies of your paperwork and keep it with you at all times so that at the drop of a hat you can provide that documentation to anyone who tries to come and scoop you up. So one morning I woke up early, before my kids got up and before my husband got up, and I had to make photocopies of his citizenship papers. I had to make one to keep in the truck, one to keep in the van, one for him to keep in his wallet, and I did have him send one to his employer. They never requested it, but I wanted them to be able to have it on file just in case there was ever an issue.
Speaker 3:My husband does landscaping and he works in public areas frequently. One of the main organizations that he works for is for a school district, so he's on the side of a road or on the playground or on these sports fields mowing and it would be so easy for ICE to come and scoop him up, and particularly because he, his business, is based in Pennsylvania, which is even more dangerous than Delaware. Thankfully, delaware is so far resisting a lot of what's happening, that we're definitely having issues, but Pennsylvania even more so with the the stories of ICE agents coming in scooping up people. Recently there was a big ICE raid at a Dollar General about a half an hour away from me and it was terrifying. It was like a Saturday morning People were out shopping and they just came to the parking lot and started scooping up people.
Speaker 3:So that keeps me up at night the thought of him just not coming home one day because he was weed whacking on the side of the road and somebody saw that he was the wrong color and decided that he was a danger to our society.
Speaker 3:It's really been terrifying to the point where we're actually talking about moving to Belize to try and return back to family. It just feels like things are getting so stressful right now, so tenuous, and it doesn't feel like there are enough people standing up and championing for people like me and people like my family up and championing for people like me and people like my family. I recently had a situation where my husband was doing something on Facebook marketplace, trying to sell a lawnmower or something and he was having a conversation with somebody who was interested in buying it and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this person just said this really vile racial slur to him and just said this really vile, racial. A long and sad history in our country, but in the 13 years that we've lived here, nothing like that has ever happened before.
Speaker 2:And the fact that it's happening right now I don't think is a coincidence. First of all, I'm sorry that you have to experience that it's just everything about it is terrible. Do you think this is just like a personal opinion? Obviously. Do you think that there's because I think about like Gaza, right, and I think about like Palestine and the genocide that's happening there, and there actually is a lot of people who are against it, but it's really the government that doesn't care. So do you think it's more the people or do you think it's more the people or do you think it's more the government?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I definitely think it's the government.
Speaker 3:However, I will say that I've had a lot of conversations with people that I know in my community, with people I consider friends, and a lot of them feel like they don't have the bandwidth to stand up and say something they don't agree with what is happening at all. They feel like it's tragic, it's a shame, but they're not willing to put their necks out and speak up and stand up and say we won't take this and I get it. I mean, I really do. Everybody right now just is doing their best to keep their head above water, whether it's taking care of their families, trying to keep their families safe, trying to manage full-time jobs, multiple jobs at a time, paying the bills, which is no small feat these days. So I think a lot of the problems is with the government and the structures that we have in place in the government, but I think that a lot of people also feel like this is a real shame, wish I could do something about it, and they do a lot of hand-wringing, but they're not willing to stand up and speak out.
Speaker 2:That's by design too, because there are so many egregious and atrocious things happening right now, human violations all over the place and again, I'm not making excuses for for this, because everybody does need to be doing their part. So many people are feeling burnt out because they're fighting from every angle. I hear it a lot from my students who are trying to be somewhat active politically and they're just, they get frustrated because there's so many things happening all over the place that we just we only have so much bandwidth. Like you said, if everybody could kind of come together, I think, because there's really one issue that permeates through every issue we talk about, and if we could get everybody united on that front, I think we'd be a stronger force, but people would just fried.
Speaker 3:Right? Oh, I agree with that wholeheartedly. I've seen that in my community as well. It's really hard when you feel like you're under attack every single day. What's the new issue, what's the new problem? Pick your lane, pick your speed and do something so you don't have to be active on every topic, but find something you're passionate about and start making a difference in that one area. So for me right now, it's immigrants' rights. That doesn't mean I don't care about rights of other groups of people. I'm very passionate about human rights in general. However, I have the bandwidth to handle the immigrants rights situation right now, and so that's what I'm putting my energy and turning my rage into action, if you will, so that I feel like I can do something. I feel like I can make a difference and not feel helpless and hopeless and depressed.
Speaker 2:You are a great example and I wish everybody could learn from this, kim. So, for the listeners that are out there, kim is doing this really well, taking all of the passion and the anger and channeling it into something incredibly productive and useful, and it's something that you're passionate about and it's something that you're well versed in. And if everybody could, like you said, find their lane and pick a topic and say, okay, this is a topic I'm passionate about, like Erica with veterinarian care, I mean, there are things that we just we're really good at it and that's where we can be putting our effort. I a hundred percent agree with that, kim, and thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1:No problem. One thing that I've been doing is I've been kind of scared. So I live in, I live in the state of Arizona, which you know Arizona, texas, louisiana, florida, probably missing a couple. These are some of the what I would call like frontline states. In the aspect of detention, right, we're actually seeing militarization of the borders. So around the borderlands in Arizona we have a couple and I'm going to refer to the genocide in Gaza because this is actually linked In the borderlands area.
Speaker 1:The actual militarization of the border and the monitoring is technology from Israel and the things that are utilized for monitoring or there's another word for it that I would prefer to use in a situation that's not coming to mind basically like mechanisms of like what a military police state in an occupation does as far as monitoring and surveilling the populace. That is literally now being deployed at the borders. Right, and I'm half German, so once upon a time there was a wall, berlin. So that is like seeing those walls go up, seeing the walls go up in Palestine, seeing the walls go up here, seeing the walls go up in Palestine, seeing the walls go up here and how it interferes with movement of species, right, migratory species that need to go across the border. It interferes with some of the things that they used. As far as water, it's a water, it's an essential resource, utilizing water. As far as the process of building a wall, these things.
Speaker 1:As far as the increased policing of the populace in Arizona, we're feeling it here, right, and it's very important if you are in a state to understand that this is why, when we have people who are being scooped up, their due process is being violated.
Speaker 1:Then they're also flown to the states like Arizona, louisiana and Texas into detention, because the ways that immigrants are handled in those states are different. As far as trying to increase the rapidity of deporting people and actually you can't even necessarily use that, you can't use the term deported for the way that they're going about some of these things, especially as they're dealing with citizens as well but one of the things that's also happening with these detentions is that it reduces accesses of people to their lawyers. All of these things are connected and they're also, you know, it's been a progressive process. So if you're not familiar with this issue especially because this is where our rights will also be eroded over time, especially with the loss of potential loss of due process that's something that we really need to be continuing to talk about. So I do recommend, even if it's not the issue that you want to focus on, at least be informed about it, because it is a place where the Overton window is shifting and the policing window is also shifting onto US citizens as well.
Speaker 2:To add to that, erica, about losing rights, I just got a text today from the ADC about a bill that's going up HR 867, that will criminalize boycotts against Israel. That seeks up to 20 years in prison and a million dollars in fine and it will create a blacklist against companies and organizations that are criticizing or boycotting Israel. I never thought I would live in a country where it's against the law and you're being criminalized to speak out against a country that's committing genocide. It's just wild. So I will put this in the notes too as well. I've already contacted my, my congressman and senator but they're all owned by APEC anyway telling them to not to oppose the bill. But I'll put it in the notes. So that's HR 867.
Speaker 1:That immigrants, especially like like immigrants that are here on visas on, have been speaking out about these things. There's a reason why discussions around human rights and protests around human rights usually include people who are from around the world. People who are from around the world, and that is because these are people who also have organized around human rights under conditions that we have had the privilege to ignore as a citizenry. And yeah, thanks for sharing that, matt, and I'm actually I'm finding myself at a loss for words.
Speaker 2:I can. I'll forward it to you if you want, because you should contact your person as well, or people I should say. Sorry, kim, we had to go off on that for a second.
Speaker 3:I apologize, no worries, that's no problem. I think it's important to talk about. Yeah, I think it's important to talk about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what Kim? You had talked about people who are carrying their paperwork with them, like making sure that they have copies. Is that because we all know that ICE is corrupt and they don't care about? Does the paperwork really stop them?
Speaker 3:So that's a great question.
Speaker 3:One of the things they covered in that ACLU Know your Rights for Immigrants workshop was that the paperwork that ICE often presents is not necessarily what is legally required.
Speaker 3:So they might take a paper that looks sort of legal-like but it might be missing key information like the name of the person they're supposed to be taking, the warrant for the arrest or the scooping up of the person. It could be missing the proper location or you know just these details where if they just flash a piece of paper at you, it looks like that's official and they've got everything they need. So it's really important that people who might be dealing with this take a real close look at the paperwork and know what they're looking for, become familiar with those things that are legally required before they are lawfully allowed to have any sort of contact with ICE or be taken by ICE contact with ICE or be taken by ICE, because I could tell me if I'm wrong about this, because I don't have any experience with this and I've never talked to somebody that has been detained by ICE or has dealt with ICE.
Speaker 2:But I would imagine, just given what they do, if I was walking down the street and I was by myself and I was not native to this country and I had my documents on me and ICE came rolling up and I showed them the paperwork, what's to stop them from actually just ripping the paperwork out of my hand, arresting me anyway and then just saying, like you know, I didn't have it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's nothing to stop you. One of the things that the ACLU recommends is to videotape or photograph anything and everything. Will ICE allow you to hold your phone and videotape it? No, probably not. But if you happen to be somebody who witnesses this happening for instance, the raid that I told you that happened about a half an hour from where I live in Pennsylvania there were people who were witnessing this and recording the entire incident and you can submit that what's the word I'm looking for material over to organizations like the ACLU and they can use that to try and have legal proof that something was done or not done as it was supposed to be. So, even if it's not directly impacting you, if you just happen to be walking down the street and see something, it's important that you stop and you take the time to make sure that it's recorded. It's documented because that could be used later on to help that person in court.
Speaker 2:So what I think the really important thing for the listeners to hear is that really it's our job especially if we are about protecting human rights to be loud If we see stuff like that happening and to take on the role of you know, like a protector, and say, okay, we're going to, we're going to tape record this, we're going to record it. We say, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna tape record this, we're gonna record it, we're gonna, we're gonna do something with it, to be the voice for the people who don't have the voice.
Speaker 1:Basically, Absolutely, that's well said. So I am. So I am currently scanning a signal chat that I am in as of community organizers that were actually talking about a local response to a and I'll send you some links to some articles. There was a Guatemalan woman who is well, was pregnant and gave birth and was for a period of time separated from her baby while she was put into detention. She was put into detention and her baby was in the hospital without clear understanding of what was going to happen to the child when she and her child were going to. Thankfully, they have been reunited and part of that process has been organized by local response just emphasizes the fact that people within your community get, if you care about this issue, absolutely get connected to local community, because this is making a huge difference, because when people are being disappeared like literally, we have people who are being disappeared, have people who are being disappeared.
Speaker 1:This is particularly impacting. You know, venezuelan asylum seekers who have been here for several years, that families who have also come here through legal means are being disappeared and being denied due process and are being sent to facilities internationally and also sometimes being sent to countries that have nothing to do. They're third-party countries right. So we have Chinese immigrants who have been sent to, like Panama.
Speaker 1:There are plenty of news articles about these things, things and it's just this process of having these conversations making sure that you're prepared to record understanding in your state if there are any restrictions on how close you can be to police officers specifically, I don't think that there's anything about ICE specifically knowing that they might not be honest with you. If you see someone being detained and and see if you can get their name, that's even very just calling out and being like what is your name right, so you can try and get that information to people who can help that person. Um, all of these things are important and it's it's wild that these are the conversations that we are having, but it is the way that we need to be prepared.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one thing I didn't mention earlier when I was talking about my own family story is that my children are in a Spanish immersion school in elementary school and one of my biggest fears is that ICE will come in and do a raid or demand that the kids are taken out of the school Not my kids specifically. I feel fairly confident that we are safe for now, but there are certainly families in our community that attend the school who would be targets, attended the school, who would be targets, and the thought of having to witness that or having to face that in some way is terrifying. It's heartbreaking, but it is definitely possible this day and age and there are reports of it happening in places around this country where children are either being taken for school or ICE is going to schools and a Spanish immersion school is going to be a number one target. It's just a terrifying state right now.
Speaker 2:You think about how far down the hole this country has gone, that our kids not only have to worry about getting shot in schools, but they also have to worry about being raided and taken out of schools. Have to worry about being raided and taken out of schools? I mean, at what point do we look at that as a culture and a country and say this is just egregious. There's no reason why kids should be going to school and worrying about their life in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 3:Agreed 100%.
Speaker 2:But yet somehow we continue to call ourselves the greatest country in the world. It's mind-numbing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this disconnect, and I think that when people like to have a tendency to look at complex issues in simple or overly simplified terms, right, when we talk about people who are like, well, these immigrants are getting services that we are being denied, that's not actually what's happening. Right, the decline of our healthcare systems, our education systems this is not due to immigrants, right at all. I think the most recent number that I recollect something like $40 billion or something contributing to the economy. As far as immigrant labor, we know already. So Kim and I both have experience in food systems, right, how immigrant labor is very important. Now, there are ethics involved with that.
Speaker 1:As far as the exploitation of human beings to run our food systems, that is definitely something that could be talked about. But, I mean, I've been asking questions of veterinary medicine as an industry and I have not even like the food animal section of our veterinary industry. I have not been able to get comment out of any of those organizations about anything they're doing to actually support immigrants that are so critical for those food systems. So it's, it's very an example of people voting against their own interests, shall we say, and and also where you know our labor rights originate from. So I don't. Kim, do you have anything that you want to add to that conversation?
Speaker 3:I think it's really important for people to understand just how much immigrants contribute to our society, and, I think, in ways that people cannot even wrap their brain around if this is not something they're familiar with.
Speaker 3:So the industries that I'm familiar with that have a heavy immigration work population and, like you said, the ethics are something that we definitely need to talk about, and maybe that's a different conversation.
Speaker 3:Just things like construction, food systems whether you're talking about the dairy industry or harvesting vegetables, things like house cleaning, landscaping, you know all of these things that help to make our lives run, to help them function, child care, things like that. People rely on these services day in and day out so that they can have a healthy, functional life. And if you remove the immigrants from those structures, who is doing the work? That's my question who is doing the work? And many of those people are paid with a paycheck from the company and taxes are taken out, social security is taken out and they are never allowed to access those services because if they are undocumented, they can't dip into the social security system, they can't dip into the Medicaid system or Medicare system, and so they are contributing significantly to the functioning of our society and the way that they're being treated I mean throughout history in our country, but specifically in this moment, right now is just horrendous.
Speaker 2:And we've seen this happen before in our country with the war on drugs horrendous. And we've seen this happen before in our country with the war on drugs. The war on drugs has been historically targeting immigrants, the LGBT community, anybody who's disenfranchised, because it's profitable, and that's what they do. They use it as a scapegoat, but really, when it's big pharma who has clearly caused quite a few problems in our country with the drug epidemic. But we have seen many different groups of people being targeted as like the war on drugs, and we know that that's a bunch of propaganda and it's BS. It's just a way to continue to divide people. And actually, speaking of that, erica, do you know who Marsha Powell is? Did we talk about this already?
Speaker 1:I don't think so.
Speaker 2:You should look up. So for those of you who are listening, marsha Powell was a woman. I believe she was put in an Arizona prison. That's why I'm asking about this. Her charge was prostitution and drug use and she also had. I might be misremembering the actual diagnosis, but I think she had schizophrenia. She had like a thought disorder going on and they put her in an outside cage in the arizona system and she baked to death.
Speaker 1:They denied her water, they denied her basic needs, exactly what I'm talking about when I tell you they did the autopsy on her.
Speaker 2:I forgot what the, the, the temperature of her internal organs were, but she had cooked to death and this again was over and I she was also like, um, I believe before she got there she was unhoused as well. So it was, I think, years before there was an actual legal response to it because she didn't have any family.
Speaker 1:But that's that's horrific, that happened in this country, and it's not the first time it's happened in this country this arizona has a deep history of organizing um on behalf of immigrant rights because of the dark the level of darkness right with which has been state-sponsored violence against human beings, and I think this is the the thing that I have. You know, like I've grown up like my parents are immigrants, I've grown up in an immigrant community, a multicultural immigrant community. My life is rich because of this right being like, when we think of having this concept of being a citizen of humanity, being a citizen of the world. Right Within Arizona, also, like the indigenous community here, the O'odham, right, their lands are divided by the border the like, the border this is the saying in arizona the border crossed us, the border crossed us. Right, we've always been here. Right, the like, as far as the indigenous community here has been and and we've had, there have been um, indigenous, uh, community members that have had run-ins with ice here, because obviously, if you have brown skin, you don't look like a white person. Um, you, you have potential to to run into problems right and uh, you know, with with some of the community members that I know, especially with the autumn, um, they're like not able to go see family on the other side of the border safely anymore and you know as a kid, and so my family escaped through Berlin before the wall went up, about two weeks before the wall went up. Actually, I have a piece of the Berlin Wall wall came down okay, in 89 I had I had.
Speaker 1:I recommend for people who who don't have a way because we have to think about this not in the context of just the united states right to think about this in other ways, of how migration of people around the world, how that's changed.
Speaker 1:You know it's changed a lot.
Speaker 1:Xenophobia rising has been something across the world, especially in europe, um, uh, after you know the beginning of the syria, um, syrian, um, civil war that was kind of like a big when a lot of this, like death, the, the mechanisms of death, uh, state it sponsored sanctioned death around immigration and migration has been going on and, um, I think about the that wall a lot, um, and I would suggest that anyone go to the checkpoint charlie museum and understand what happens when you separate people by walls and militarize those walls, like seeing the border wall and seeing the wall in Palestine and having that knowledge of the walls in Berlin and the people that died and the families that were separated, it's like it's bad.
Speaker 1:It's just bad, right, when we start to isolate and dehumanize other people and militarize our borders. Right, the whole world needs to get through a lot of things together and this is the issue that is keeping us apart um to solve, like, worldwide problems that we all need to be talking about. As far as um climate crisis, right, and this is why, like, a lot of migration happens because of the us policies in those countries, right, and us imperialistic policies in those countries, right, and the US imperialistic policies in those countries and damage and bombing that we have done.
Speaker 2:Well said, erica, and so true. Unfortunately, kim, because we are running short on time. What for people who were maybe afraid or in similar situations? What would you? What other things would you recommend?
Speaker 3:So you're referring to people who have immigrants in their family or are immigrants themselves Both, actually, I think Okay. So my main strategy that's worked for me and you know everybody's different is to be able to, like I said, turn my rage into action, get involved in local politics, pay attention to what is happening in your communities, in your states, because that's where you can make the biggest difference. So, as I had said before, I have recently joined my representative districts committee, so I it's something as simple as having once a month Zoom meetings for, you know, an hour, hour and a half, and we talk about local political issues and we we share our opinions, we have local political figures, come in and do presentations, and it's a way that I can help to shape what is happening right here in my community right now. I think another thing is to join activist groups if you feel comfortable with that, and activism doesn't necessarily mean standing out on the street corners with a sign, although that's important too. Being able to be loud, I think is really important, but some people are not comfortable with that, and that's okay. There are other ways to be loud, I think is really important, but some people are not comfortable with that, and that's okay. There are other ways to be active, so it could be things like writing emails and letters to your government officials about things that are important to you, sharing your opinion, because they rely on the constituents for information on what their constituents want, and so you have to let them know what's important to you. If immigrants rights are important to you, then speak up, give them a call, email them, get involved.
Speaker 3:I think other ways that you can get involved are to just really look around you and see what's available in your community. Every state is different, every community is different. Like I said before, I'm very lucky to live in Delaware, which is a very blue state, particularly in the community that I live in. So that's not to say that the Democrats are doing everything right. There's a lot I disagree with, but I don't feel that my day-to-day existence is quite in as much jeopardy as in other places throughout our country, and so I have to use that responsibility, that privilege, to face and speak up against the things that I think are wrong, the things that I think are egregious, and I encourage everybody to do the same, in whatever capacity they're capable. And you know, it is important to recognize that we are all just drops in a bucket, but every drop counts, every single drop in a bucket, but every drop counts, every single drop.
Speaker 2:That's also well said. And finding allies too, I think becoming bigger, like finding people who maybe don't have the same issues but they can be an ally in a bigger, more power, obviously. More people, more power.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. There are so many issues, as you had mentioned before, that are all tied together. It's all woven together and even though someone may be passionate about one thing and you're passionate about the other thing, making those allyships, making those connections and finding ways to not have to reinvent the wheel is also huge.
Speaker 2:All right Well thank you so much, Kim.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for telling everybody about Indivisible. I just found there's a local chapter near me and actually there's nothing near me, so that's actually really good.
Speaker 3:That's saying something then Amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much, kim, and just thank you for those reminders of, you know, really building those community connections, getting involved, getting politically activated and having conversations. You know you can go visit your representative's offices. They have times where they're supposed to be speaking with their community and right now, absolutely you know, we know stories of people not answering their phones, etc. So, like Kim did, getting into rooms where you can use your voice in person, if you have the ability to do so or help someone in your life, do that. Do that Because some of those personal connections in this case here, like I'm working with people who have the relationships with these representatives that they call them right and can have access and have these conversations saying we need you to advocate on the behalf of this person where you know due process has been violated, blah, blah, blah, et cetera and that you know that contributes to this community motto of we keep each other safe.
Speaker 3:Excuse me. One other thing I would point out is know your rights, find out what your rights are. If you are not an immigrant, you can find out what your rights are as somebody who is a protester, a demonstrator, just as a citizen of the United States. So websites such as the ACLU's website have fantastic resources If you want to share that information. I know my local ACLU of Delaware has handouts for free. I literally place an order within, I'd say, two to three days. They fill the order, I go to their site, which is about 10 minutes from me, and I pick it up and I distribute it to people.
Speaker 3:I know I've taken it to different organizations that I'm part of of and I've just helped to spread the word, and it's something simple, it's something free. I'm again just being a drop in the bucket, but making a difference in the way that I can, as you had mentioned, erica, I think, speaking up to the representatives, going face-to-face, like you said, or doing the town hall meetings. I know my government officials have had a lot of virtual town hall meetings where you can submit a question ahead of time or you can ask questions there within the forum. I think that's also really important too. So I'm really glad you brought that point up to see your government representatives in any capacity that you're able to, and let your voice be heard.
Speaker 2:Excellent, thank you, thank you so much, and I will put all the stuff that we talked about in the notes as well.
Speaker 1:Hey, stay safe everyone and stay hydrated.
Speaker 2:Thank you for tuning in Hello everybody and thank you again for listening. This is just a reminder that no part of this podcast can be duplicated or copied without written consent from either myself or Wendy. Thank you again.
