The Trump Admin Found a Way to Make Mass Deportation Even Crueler

0:00Hi, Bill Crystal here. Welcome to Bullwork on Sunday. We have a special show today. Two guests, a first my colleague Jim Swift, coming to us from Cincinnati. He's been up in Springfield, Ohio, about 70 miles or so. I think he was Cincinnati. Several times written for us and talked about it on other previous programs, went up Friday and we were poured on the terrible sad and really disgraceful achievement of the Haitian community up there, which first of course came to prominence when they were did outs, totally falsely of course for eating cats and dogs by the current president, vice president of the United States two years ago, almost exactly two years ago, right September of 24. So Jim will begin with Jim. Take 10 to 15 minutes with Jim and then we're going to be joined, I'm very pleased to be joined then by Sarah Ambetta, a leading attorney at the ACLU who's worked down immigration issues. We'll follow up with her and get a maybe a little bigger picture of what's going on, but especially she's been very involved in the debates and fights about third country deportations, which as we know if you've met that piece of the New York Times yesterday or now

1:03accelerating people being taken to countries they have no connection with and not countries that are safe often either and just dumped there. These are people who were legally here until you know two minutes ago so really terrible. Okay Jim, welcome and tell us about Springfield. Hey Bill, thanks for having me. The last time I was in Springfield I said not yet come and in the last time I was in Springfield I was in the same place, a church called the Greater Grace Temple, which is right there off of Viva 70 and when I was there a little over a month ago, I said not yet descended and the pastors were pleading because they knew the legal writing was on the wall that I was likely becoming and they were pleading for them to treat Haitians people here humanely and you know they were they were asking to only go after violent criminals not you know innocent hardworking families who came here legally and just had this legal status stripped of them for no reason other than I think cruelty but Carl Ruby is kind of the main through line. He is the

2:05senior pastor at Central Christian Church that I've been following. He runs the G92 collective group. It's a consortium of churches that are helping the Haitians there. He missed the beginnings of the ice raids in Springfield because he was up in Canada helping a member of his parish fleet of Canada and the only reason that that person could do that is because they had an immediate relative there. Canada is not really an option for many Haitians who are you know here in the country and have been their status has been stripped of them. Some people have asylum claims but the people who have protected status which is now gone from them they can just be detained on site and deported. And that's what we're seeing in Springfield right now. So what's what's happened so far since the correct time we get a couple of I guess they fully lost their TPS I mean that came a couple of weeks ago and and then I showed up and so what's happened and what what are people expect to happen and what's the mood up there if I can say that what are they doing the Haitian Haitian community?

3:05It's terrible. The mood is very safe. The mood is very somber. I mean people are not going to church anymore. They're you know not sending their kids to school. They can't work anymore. You know some places that have known clusters of Haitian workers you know they were the ice was rating to make sure that they weren't there. The irony in all of this bill is that the government knows where these Haitians are. They have to register when they move. They have work permits. All of this stuff that you know they're getting notices from the courts. They're coming to Cincinnati where I live to the ice complex here to get digital bracelets which the pastors kind of compare to shackles. They're actually literally using shackles when they're sending folks on these flights back to Haiti which we've talked about in a second because it's not safe to be back in Haiti and you know that's the main thrust of what these pastors are saying and they're sharing with us some some pretty horrific stories bill. So how many people have been to Florida so far? Do you know to me know and how many others are in hiding or waiting or wearing these ankle bracelets that

4:13they've they complied with the order to show up I guess and were given this as a way of I mean as a way as you say they don't really need that to track the right this is just a way of humiliating them I mean yes I think absolutely especially because there's also a DHS app that they can use to check in it has facial recognition and other things I mean I've downloaded the app myself and a reason to buy the numbers we don't know how many have been deported yet we do know by some estimates that about 34 individuals in the from the Springfield area have been arrested and brought to nearby Butler County where their sheriff has a partnership with ice and that's where folks are held before they get sent down south to I think Texas Louisiana before folks might get sent back to Haiti there are about 10,000 Haitians estimated to be in the greater Springfield area in Clark County Clark County has about 135,000 people and Springfield itself has about 59,000 people so this is not exactly a Minneapolis situation Minneapolis is you know about seven times as many people about

5:17twice as much area so it's way way more dense Springfield is surrounded by farms and this week that church I was at Greater Grace Temple was filled with people doing activity they were phone banking to raise money for the Haitian support center they were calling governor to Mike DeWine they were calling Senator Hustet who's up for reelection he's never been elected encouraging him to do something Bernie Moreno is very clear he's not going to do anything for the Haitians and they're preparing food they're writing letters with computers using Google translate in the Haitian Creole to send to people who are detained and to put in a boxes where they're you know giving food to people who can't leave like they're afraid to go to the store they're about as I said 34 rest one we know was a Haitian pastor called Gilbert Adrian who's beloved in the community and he was the main pastor of his church so they now are a church without a leader the pastors that I saw on Friday called for his release but they have not heard anything back and there's literally no

6:22none of these people I mean none but there's nothing they're not arresting people who have criminal records or arrest records even or any kind of records I've except for being well except for abiding by the so far as one knows the wills and regulations of temporary protect the status and checking in as you say just on these so the flights that we've heard about that have landed in Haiti and God the terrible fate what a good hope stop but that some of these people maybe some Jackson to including children I think on these flights those are flights not from so far as we know from from Ohio or even with people from Springfield those are I think we're maybe people more from Florida was that right and yeah yeah I mean given given the small number arrests and it does there is a kind of time lag like we won't know you know for probably a couple weeks or months until we get all the data on who has been arrested detained and deported whether or not they had active criminal records and there's no reason to think I mean it's no pressure when this began an issue two years ago people looked at this and you people could do the data analysis and do they have a

7:24higher criminal record than anyone else and I think it was pretty overwhelmingly clear no a recent I forget who I forget who the recent study was but a recent study showed that majority of the rest of immigrants that are getting deported don't have criminal records right you know kind of dating through Minnesota and other places so they would go south before they they end up on one of those flights but this community here is really reactive and they're trying to make sure that everyone who is remaining in Springfield is getting money and assistance to pay their rent because they're not working to get boxes of food and you know on the occasion that they do need to go out they're driving people around you know like Ruby was escorting this parishioner family of his to Canada and they're protecting Haitian churches and there were a couple hundred people who'd signed up to a comm I heard some people from Akron Cleveland near where I grew up came down you know made a couple hours trip to spend it a day or days helping Springfield and it was it was really neat to see despite all what's going on it was heartening to see this group of about 75 people in the church

8:26when I was there all working at different stations for a potluck that they're planning that's actually going to take place here in about an hour around Springfield City Hall which I'm sad to miss so it'll be clear the people who are volunteering to help or not Haitians particularly no I mean some some are there no there are people from whatever yeah there are a couple there are a couple of Haitians yeah there are a couple of Haitians in the church like Vila Storsainville who runs the Haitian Resource Center and I know a lot of our members have donated money to them it's one of the best places to help the St. Vincent de Paul charity has been you know kind of the other main charity driving in Springfield but he's there and he is a person who had his TPS revoked and he does have an asylum claim but Karl Ruby you know there was kind of a dramatic scene in this where they paused and Ruby held up a yellow legal pad and was asking Vila so he could share this information it was about a meeting the two of them had with DHS and they straight up told Dorsainville in this meeting with Ruby that I know you have an asylum claim and if we just see you out

9:30we can just detain you you know and we can go through our process and basically you know it would it would be tantamount to almost accelerating his asylum claim but if you look at the statistics they're just ram routing these folks out and pushing them to deportation it is not really due process and I think that's another complaint these pastors have is where's the due process for folks you just have this yanked away and really gave him no recourse to petition for asylum because if you didn't do that already before it went away your chances are pretty much next to nothing even if you have good lawyers and then today I know you're your applications to study and thank you for taking time out to do this but just closer to this so what's happening today and I guess it's shortly it's a it's a kind of a rally or a gathering on behalf of the Haitians or yeah happening right now as we speak as we record is around city hall there's a I was struck by it says forward together is kind of the motto on city hall there and it's a beautiful little park space

10:32and that's where they've had rallies in the past and they're having a potluck and after that potluck they're going to be reading scripture they're going to be kind of doing a Jericho walk around this city hall complex and praying for leaders you know who understand mayor Raab Rue Mike DeWine they evolve urge that TPS not be cut off but really these folks are asking what can you do now are you going to make sure that the local government isn't sharing flock data with ice are you going to lend you know local police and fire support to these ice operations and locals are saying don't do that we don't want you to cooperate with them and finally there is legislation obviously it won't forget the somehow it's one knowing that TPS is treated as this thing and the administration gets to decide it's a it's a it's a program established pursuant to obviously like all programs are like all policies are should be pursuant to legislation congress could tomorrow and pass legislation that extends TPS for Haitians for everyone for people meeting certain criteria for six

11:33months 18 months 24 months this is all what this is kind of back in the day this is what actually congress did you know they and now there has been an attempt right to extend the TPS for Haitians yes and it would you know I think some Republicans go what's that right it did it passed by partisan measure in the House I think was 10 Republicans that crossed over for it include I believe my Turner who's the member congress who represents that date and area did it and it's just waiting in the Senate now you know Marano has said no I'm not going to do it you know temporary is temporary they need to go but who said is not he was the lieutenant governor before he got appointed to JD bands to see he's not weighed in necessarily against it and he's got a tough election against former senator Sherrod Brown this year and Sherrod Brown has been speaking up in support of this community and he just really hasn't stayed to claim yet so there is a chance but the Senate would have to act and then you know Trump would have to sign it which you know creates its own new news cycle about this if he if he were to to veto it it'll be nice my point of view I'd say the

12:38Democrats pushed hard for when they get back here as the time of 14 and maybe make voting for any kind of continuing resolution contingent on at least getting a clean vote on this it has been no vote in the Senate on the floor this Senate I believe on that's correct anything else much with the immigration policy but certainly on the TPS for the Haitians who particularly I do feel you know we're targeted for obvious reasons by Vance and Trump and who are being deported A and B so this sort of racism of the targeting and the injustice of the targeting but they're also being deported whatever one thinks of going back to other places or being sent to other places that are not the most risk for your wonderful places in the world and people fled them in many cases for very very very good reasons but Haiti is just another category of awful and the idea that we're deporting people to that is just to that country right now is astonishing but well one detail I yeah one detail I was struck with Bill I mean the cruelty is the point all the way down whether it's the digital shackles of the ankle monitors or the actual shackles they're using in the flights but you know you may have seen you know the offer from DHS that they've posted on social media and

13:40cruel ways which is we will pay for your flight and we'll give you money well that money which some has seen some say is not been materializing for people who have taken the offer to leave puts an immediate target on their backs I mean the gangs and Haiti they have internet access they can read the news and they can find out that people who are coming back on these flights landing in Haiti are supposedly going to be having thousands of dollars that American taxpayers gave them and you know Carl Ruby talked about somebody had reported to me he has a reporter who's embedded on the ground in Haiti about people landing and they just run from the flights they don't wait to see anybody they know they just run because they just know that there's a target on their back and they'll find their loved ones later but they're getting off these planes and they're running because they're scared and you know that's my end is the cruelty is the point all the way down there's not humanity being shown at any level by the federal government here that's an awful story but I guess an appropriate one to end is on and discussing the self-philosis Jim thanks for going to

14:42Springfield and all the reporting you've done and I think you'll be in warning shots and I'm warning newsletter tomorrow morning writing up a little more detail what you saw there in Springfield also what happened today in Springfield so Jim thanks for joining us and we're now going to move to Sarah Mehta the deputy director of policy for the equality division I think I've got that right for the ACLU someone who's been working on immigration law and policy for the most of your career right for over a decade and and and who's been a real key I think in the discussion and debate over third country deportations but so thank you for joining joining me and us first of all and to say a word about what Jim was saying and about the temporary protected status program and thoughts about that yeah I mean what Jim was reporting on and sharing is just absolutely horrifying and it's something we're seeing not just for Haitians but for other communities all over the country as you know the after the Supreme Court decision the Department of Homeland Security really ratcheted up its messaging that all communities that have protected status need to get out of the

15:43country that includes people from Venezuela and Nepal South Sudan Ethiopia over the last few days we've seen a lot of reporting in Florida in particular where Venezuelan communities have been targeted by ice literally going to bus stops and arresting parents once their kids are on the bus so the kids have no one to come home to and unfortunately you know just to pick up on something Jim also said they are targeting people with humanitarian protection I think there's two reasons for that one as Jim noted as well they know where they are you know there is a quota for arrests and deportations that's probably been set by Stephen Miller and if you want to meet that quota you go for the people that you can easily get that's people that are checking in who are following the rules who are going to court who applied for protection that's the easiest people to go after but the second reason I mean it's wrapped up in the racism as well but this is an administration that is trying to end all forms of humanitarian protection you know it's ended the refugee system it is except for white South Africans it is ending asylum it is now sending people to conflict zones frankly to punish them

16:48for trying to get protection in the United States yeah terrible say a word about the whether to word about the third country deportations which are also truly astonishing that appalling as New York Times had a big piece on it yesterday and it's been a little below the radar for most of us that's so much going on in this area and other areas that but but so these are people who are being deported not to the country they they're flat or they left but to other countries often ones where they have no that don't pay no association with so to speak but anyway explain well what's what's going on how did this begin how can they do this even yeah that's right so right now the US government over the last year and a half has deported around 23,000 people to countries that they're not from mostly they've sent them to Mexico I think like 19,000 but one new scheme that has really been accelerating this year is to create agreements with other countries there now well we know of 35 agreements many of these agreements are secretive and we've never seen them or they haven't been made public yet overwhelmingly the new agreements are with African countries and we are seeing flights almost every week now of people who won protection to remain in the United States

17:52they went to immigration court and they were found to have a really strong incredible fear of persecution or torture and instead of them being released these people are being arrested put on flights often with no notice and sent to countries they have no relationship with just on Friday the US government sent a flight of more than 50 people to the Central African Republic 20 of them were Afghan around a dozen Iranian no one of poly or Russian mixture of different populations people that you know don't speak French or any local language people that are being dumped at a place that the US government has said US citizens should not go if you're going to go leave a DNA sample so we can identify your body and that's where we are dumping people effectively putting them in house arrest there and we can talk more about the other countries but in an arrange of them particularly as wittini and satsudan people are imprisoned as wittini people are in a maximum security facility not because they have any current pending criminal charges but that's because that is how this government with the US consent and knowledge has decided to hold immigrants

18:53yeah but so appalling method is just to put the dot the i across the t on this is it the reason they're not being deported to the country they came from is that they have been found to be at such risk of torture or or assault there from the government or i guess gangs that they that they can't legally we can't the US government can't legally is that right to port them to back back to whatever country that's it say and therefore but they're run or so instead of simply keeping them in the US and these people have been broken laws in the US so far as we know in general instead of just leaving them in the US have giving them letting them stay we're deporting them to yet enough it's a runner it's a way of getting around the pro you know the connection on torture and so forth but but then we're setting them to places that are almost as bad or I'm at or worse maybe since they don't even know anyone there right absolutely and i'd say you know in many ways what the US government is doing is trying to wander its crimes through other countries because we are sending people knowingly to countries where they may face persecution in torture there

19:55but also where they are then being sent back to the countries they're originally from particularly in Africa where they can be you know more easily moved i mean it's harder to send an afghan to afghanistan from car but we you know many cases where people have been sent to Ghana, equatorial guinea and cereliote and then find themselves sent back directly to the country that they've led i was just reading a case this morning about a man from Nigeria who was tortured twice by boko haram this is all in the court findings and there so we could not deport him back to Nigeria the US government sent him instead to Ghana and you know a few days later he's back in Nigeria now living and hiding and there's you know tons of cases like this a woman who fled female general mutilation who was also deported to Ghana and sent back to the country that she's from basically what the US government is doing is it's creating these sort of blanket what they call diplomatic assurances it's literally just a box of the government has to check to say that oh sure we'll follow the law but you can't give a blanket diplomatic assurance to make sure that specific individuals will be safe and we also now ample and accelerated evidence that those

20:57countries are not actually following international law and are doing what we call reformal where they're sending people back to the places where they have already been persecuted in torture and is there any remedy in us law for that can they can the US government be you know challenged for not in fact following what they're supposed to be following which is getting some assurance that these people are not going to be sent back to the countries from which they are supposedly being protected from torture and so forth i mean i certainly hope so right now there's a pending case at the first circuit that is more about the notice piece of this um and i think right now we're only just starting to be able to document and get evidence you know one of the things is a lot of these people are in hiding in the countries that they're in um i've heard from attorneys at around 30 percent of the people sent to African countries who are African are LGBTQ and they're being sent to countries like Ghana where that is basically a criminalized status now so people it's people are not in a situation where they can come forward very easily and talk about what's happening to them there happens some different cases filed in Africa actually by some lawyers from Uganda and other

21:58countries that are bringing this up with the African commission that people are in their words being trafficked into their countries by the United States government yeah terrible i mean the idea you know what about um what um the Afghan the time story focused on yeah well it by believe in someone who would work with us troops in Afghanistan had come here and now the relative is being deported uh not to afghan i mean so a so much for our assurance to afghan that they and their families if they work with us would be safe here and be not to obviously to Afghanistan well not obvious not to afghanistan maybe some others have been i don't know but to some country thousands of us from afghanistan where this person i think it's a young person right knows no one says say a word yeah that's exactly right this uh this is a very young man who was you know born just around the time of the war starting between the united states and afghanistan and his father and his siblings all helped the u.s military um there is a marine colonel who testified on his behalf um his family have

23:01most of them have been able to come to the united states after being attacked by the taliban as you know the president trump has ended most of the lawful roots for people to be able to come with advanced permission so he arrived at the border waited for months would you know kept being attacked by gangs and finally did come into the united states and he won his case again where they could said no of course you cannot go back to afghanistan you were going to be attacked by the taliban he's been in he was in detention for two years while they figured out what to do with him again afghan he won his case uh and that he was on that flight to central african republic on friday so he he is there now while his family is here in the united states he's by himself there uh car also has unfortunately a well documented history of discrimination against muslims um so he's also in a place where you know he's in limbo i mean the people in car are basically under house arrest but they don't have permanent lawful status they can't work they have no way to support themselves they don't speak the language um this is a young guy who you know really has a target on his back you know a lot of these people are being harassed by the guards they don't have any money they're really sort of

24:04beholden on the government to keep them sort of safe in a in a city that is run by russian mercenaries so it's an incredibly dangerous situation for him and again just heartbreaking for his family and for this marine colonel who who came forward to say you know we owe a duty to these people that came and helped us and saved our lives enough how to stun what are we doing um but unfortunately this is again just part of the trump administration's campaign to get rid of anybody who is trying to seek protection in the united states yeah that's very moving video of this uh and if he's given an interview or two two of this uh marine colonel acted you decolonel saying look i'm speaking as an individual here and he's not wearing his uniform at least in the in the video i saw but very powerfully saying what a betrayal this is of promises we made and uh totally unjustified policy to be pursuing i i wish but i again i'm sort of just a little shocked honestly the more i don't know who knows if the military people are saying privately and maybe they are making representations within the u.s. government it's not as if the defense department couldn't go to dhs and say hey wait a second don't do this right i mean in an informal

25:07administration i would say that would happen it's not like the defense department doesn't have they don't have interagency access to the head of dhs or various other people at ice and so forth and say no no no or at least we want to go to the president and make our case that this is terrible for unjust and a terrible precedent and so on and we'll hurt the u.s. military down the road but yeah i don't have the sense that that's happening much or sadly i don't i mean i think um there was an incident a few months ago that you might have read about where there are there are group of afghan who were evacuated from afghana son of rastula at a u.s. military base in doha and um we learned that they were going to move them to the democratic republic of kongo um this was right before a bolus started and there was sufficient outrage at that point um because we were able to get it made public um and so they did not send them there first those people are still in limbo with the u.s. government and afghana son saying you should just go back to the televon so there's no uh there's no real route for them to safety at the moment either but i do think there was a lot of behind the scenes pressure on that because we could find out what's really insidious about what the u.s. government is doing is on the one hand you know they

26:10are doing all of these operations on purpose to terrify people so that people will self-deport it means it's their term or you cannot self-deport to a place where you think you're going to be murdered um but that is what they want people to do but while they're telling people in detention this could happen like we're not we're not joking like if you don't get on your flight and go back to venezuela or back to Nepal you're gonna end up in central afghan republic they're not telling people what plane they're gonna be on until it's last minute and so it feels very speculative i think to a lot of people who don't know that this is happening um but it is part of i mean the government's being pretty open that this is their plan you know they have basically renamed at least internally the bureau of migration in the state department the bureau of remigration and they are trying to get rid of these people again people that have protection people have helped the u.s. military um as quickly as possible and at a time when frankly we are relying on a lot of other countries like Ecuador um like a lot of the Gulf countries while we have multiple wars going on so it is incredibly short-sighted is the you know is the nicest way of thinking about it but just the

27:13cruelty is unbelievable with what they're doing oh it is really shocking i've got to say and yeah i didn't i mean i think there probably are people in the military objecting and trying to make a case but certainly one doesn't have the sense that the fetexath is secretary of defense and is obviously saying anything against this and quite the contrary but it's so bad obviously for by people i know young but younger people who served in post-911 wars and afghanistan and a rock for that matter the idea that this is what we're but we can't you know these afghan refugees will come here they're doing fine i believe as you know one that once they get settled was we let them get settled here they want to be here uh and they uh but but the idea that we're deporting them and that deporting some of them to their countries you say where they have no connections is really it's really i yeah kind of jaw-dropped and you've been in this business quite all around you studied the history of u.s immigration policy there's certainly plenty of cases where we've been cruel either inadvertently or some cases knowingly i think you can one could say and and certainly nativism is not something new but i just feel like this is a whole different level am i am i wrong

28:17about that i mean no i haven't i have never seen something like this before where again the cruelty really is the whole point of the policy it is just to terrify people and just to end our both our legal and our moral commitments to people seeking protection i mean think people forget you know our laws and most international laws that protect against torture that protect refugees those were largely written by the united states in the wake of world war two and after the holocaust where we realized really what the consequences are of turning people back to dangers um and now we are actively unwriting those laws and encouraging other countries also to abandon asylum to abandon refugees it it's pretty appalling and also again it doesn't make any sense because where are people actually supposed to go the other thing that's really appalling about these lights there's another story about it today in the new york times is the conditions on the flights are absolutely horrendous people are often put in something called rap which is a full body restrained and it looks like you're being mummified except for your face is the only part that's free and people are on flights for 20 to 50 hours unable to go to the bathroom um we've heard lots of

29:22stories of people being you know beaten up by guards because they were afraid to get on the plane or they were afraid to get off when they found out where they were a bunch of people were taken to Liberia when they found out they were in Liberia they said i don't want to get off the plane and so that got us going to move them to equatorial guinea where they are now under house arrest many of them with pretty serious medical needs i just talked to a lawyer the other day who has a client um who is a Liberian pastor who's been in the united states for 30 years he has multiple us at his and kids um he's they want to fly him to cierra leone he had a stroke in immigration detention so he is right now changed to a hospital bed um and they are still saying we're going to put you on a plane and send you to cierra leone i mean the man is going to die in transit let alone you know be able to get any type of medical care once they're there and again these are you know these are not just a couple of stories that i'm aware of the government knows exactly what it's doing and is really deliberately doing this in order to terrify people but you know what what what is the point honestly because these are not people that can go back to the places that they've led um and

30:24they are leaving behind us citizen kids who are you know alone and abandoned as a result of it of course the government administration doesn't want them to be us those kids to be us citizens either so that's part of the and to be right let's close down the re-migration thing which you just mentioned in passing i mean uh i wasn't actually aware they either have renamed it or at least internally but now call it that i guess congress hasn't done what the congressman has to agree to that or not but um re-migration is sort of a term let's say a term of art i don't know what to call it it's it's a term that it became prominent in very far right wing circles right in the last decade or two or maybe even before that i think it your maybe first and as a kind of not just closing the border or cutting down on newly you know on unlawful entry or or stricter you know lower quotas for immigrant immigrants uh it'd be it's literally being getting rid of people who have come here and in most case medicases come here legally and in many cases are now naturalized citizens i think in europe at least it very much has that connotation you know that Algerians have been in France for 40 years and who are French citizens and voted

31:26in French elections and pay French taxes and speak French they should be deported because the people pushing this don't like having people who aren't white or whatever or who haven't been in this country for years took in there whatever country it is for 200 years or whatever reason they don't want those people but and that is it's amazing to me that they were even informally would use that term yeah i've heard senior state department officials say it in interviews and as you're noting this is a term basically a ethnic cleansing that is about the mass deportation of non-white minorities um in many ways it's not surprising to see it used by this administration that has used white supremacist white nationalist imagery both to recruit um ice agents uh to promote 100 million deportations you know with these images of like a white christian america at the end of it but that is very much the goal here i mean again the only people allowed to come as refugees right now are white South Africans um and everybody else is being told you have to get out of the country

32:27as jim was saying that the previous segment they are starting with patience with Venezuela's with people of color um who are they are getting out of the country and using incredibly racist language while talking about them in their place in this country and it's gonna have long term impact you know not just for immigrants but for people of color who live in the united states it means one of the recent citizenship is so important and we have the 14th amendment is that we have people could be equal you know under the law and in front of the constitution and those are principles that this administration is pretty committed to well eradicating basically from from our moral and legal life in the united states so it's very chilling to see this as part of the program for the state department for a bureau that used to be in charge of protecting refugees and protecting humanitarian laws and making sure that people come safely to contribute in this country um and it's now part of just like the military and every other agency is now part of a larger agenda which is to mass deport people as quickly as possible whatever it takes whatever the cost uh i wish this could have been a more upbeat

33:31conversation but it's important that people that really do know the truth and i think and thank you for coming and telling the truth and also thank you for what you're doing to fight this please it's not you know these things can be exactly to branch has a lot of power especially in immigration i guess right but there are things that congress and the courts can do and some courts have done some things obviously and you all are fighting very hard on this so i really admire your efforts well thank you for having us yeah as you say there are individual judges that are pushing back and are saying what happened like bring this person back we have a case obviously i'm going about sea caught the people that were sent to be tortured in a maximum facility maximum security facility excuse me last year in Ecuador you know there is ongoing litigation and but a lot of this does need a congressional effects when we need to provide like real durable protection for people so they can't just be plucked you know from their communities and put on these planes you know a lot of that is about citizenship it's like making sure there's like a real pathway for people that are here and contributing um but we also just need to rein in ice because these operations are unbelievably violent and horrific and you know we really need to return to

34:35a culture of accountability in this country yeah you can't really protect the courts can protect some many civil liberties and so certainly in individual cases and especially in the easier areas if i can put it that way where the laws you know easier to invoke and these should have plaintiffs and easier to have resources to for the plaintiffs and so forth but congress really is crucial to preserving you know a decent and free government and maybe it's maybe that will change a little bit in a couple of months but they could they could do more even in the short term i do think i said i don't have to fix the whole immigration system right they can just exist for now i mean Saturday Saturday September 15th when they come back to Washington 14th they could extend TPS relations i mean that some of this doesn't require the bigger fixes that all of us would also like to see i think yeah there is some pending legislation like the dream and promise act for example um that would provide a pathway to citizenship for a long time uh residents people who have DACA people of that have to have had TPS um you know there's other pending legislation that has been discussed again about reigning in ice um but there's a lot of due process for forms

35:36that could be put in place to make the court system fairer because people are now going to do these mega hearings including young children who are being deported to traffickers um and have just lost their access to attorneys um under this administration so i mean there's a lot of like sort of discrete things um that should be done and again you know it's been decades and decades since this uh country passed any legislation that actually provided durable pathways for people we're really overdue and our system is completely outdated in a way that doesn't protect the people that are living amongst us that are providing our services that are our family and there are neighbors um but you know there are some smaller bills that could at least provide some protections and some immediate assistance for the individuals that are really really at risk right now um and i hope that will be taken up i know there's quite a lot of things that we need to be taken up to rein in ice and uh and reform dhs um but i think we're seeing right now the cost of kicking the can down the road that we really put people in arms way oh well sir well sir thank you for for joining us thank you for what you've been doing and thank you all for joining us on

36:38pull work on Sunday