'Sand And Blood' Traces History Of US Immigration And Border Policies

Speaker 1: 00:00 The crisis at the u s Mexico border has led to a national debate over what to do about large numbers of Central American families coming to the u s asylum seekers are being forced to wait for their claims in Mexico as concerns over conditions at border detention. Facilities are growing, but to understand what's happening at the border. Investigative journalist John Carlos Frey says one has to look back at u s immigration and border policy over the last three decades. That history is part of his new book, Sand and blood America's stealth war on the Mexico border and John Carlos Frey joins me now by Skype. John, welcome to the program. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. You know, many people claim that what's happening at the border now is unprecedented and that the u s can't possibly accept all the people who want to take refuge here. Is that, in your opinion, the real issue at the border now? Speaker 2: 00:57 It doesn't seem to be, it's difficult to tell the numbers or sort of theory will. At best, it looks like we have a very large spike of women and children that indeed is fairly new. Although the Obama administration had also seen a spike of women and children coming to the US Mexico border. But these are not record numbers. It is a large number and the federal government is having a very difficult time managing that large number. That is true. Speaker 1: 01:22 You write in your books and in blood that the present situation is a continuation of decades of us immigration policy by both Republicans and Democrats. Can you talk about some of the events that you write about that helped us get to where we are today? Speaker 2: 01:40 We have been sort of beating this drum of seal the border, get rid of immigrants, um, make it harder for them to come across a militaristic style approach to solve the very complex issues of migration. This started in the Reagan years with the amnesty program. Uh, there was a lot of backlash to that of seal the border because we just basically gave everybody a free pass. That was a decision that was made by his own fellow Republican lawmakers. And we started to see restrictive policies. Then thereafter we started to see bills, uh, like proposition one 87 in California with Pete Wilson, that four bid services to undocumented immigrants. Uh, the Clinton administration started to build the first border walls, operation gatekeeper operation hold the line that started to deter migrants from coming across. Obviously we can take a look at nine 11 as a flash point. Speaker 2: 02:34 When the Bush administration built 700 more miles of border fence and restrictive policies followed up by the Obama administration. That was the first administration to put family detention on the map where women and children were housed together and Obama was the deporter in chief. And now we have Trump who is brash about his immigration policy. I guess the easiest way to sum up the last 30 years is that we've had restrictive policies on migration and there hasn't really been a comprehensive approach that the problems, why people are coming don't seem to be alleviating, but we are sealing them off more and more as time goes by. Speaker 1: 03:16 So when president Trump says he's just enforcing the law and following the practices of previous administrations, are you saying he has a point? Speaker 2: 03:26 He does have a point. The laws that he is enforcing are laws that weren't necessarily being enforced by previous administration. He has a whole bag of tricks that he can use with respect to how the executive branch enforces a border control and he's using almost anyone now, let's just say that he's also being creative. He has his, his own rendition or his own approach and style that no administration before him has used. Speaker 1: 03:53 Now we've recently heard reports about terrible conditions in which children are being held in detention centers at the border. I know you visited detention centers for this book. What did you find? Speaker 2: 04:05 This issue that we're all seeing today is nothing new. I have been reporting about conditions in detention facilities for well over a decade. Most of what we're hearing about, uh, kids being put in custody facilities has been a habit and a practice of the u s border patrol did. United Nations has condemned practices 10 years ago. The conditions are the same. I saw back then, poor conditions, too many people in a cell not being fed well being kept longer than the 72 hour. A restrictive policy that says that they have to leave after that. It's poorly managed. It's poorly run, and from my reporting, this is on purpose. The custody facilities along the border are meant to shake migrants up. They don't give them beds, they don't give them showers, they don't provide medical attention. In some cases, they take their medicine away and this is to send a signal to the migrants basically saying, don't try this again because you're going to be treated this way. This is our deterrent strategy that we have and it's coming to light today probably because there are so many children coming. Speaker 1: 05:12 I'd like to ask you about something else in the news today. There's a report about a secret Facebook group where current and former border patrol agents are making derogatory comments about members of Congress and the recent migrant deaths. How does this story square with some of the conversations that you've had with border patrol agents? This squares Speaker 2: 05:33 right along. I have inside sources within the u s border patrol who tell me that this comes from the top down. There is a culture of cruelty. It's okay to slur racial epitaphs that migrants, it's okay to say negative things about them. There is somewhat of a good old boy society who is kind of happy in and a little bit sadistic about how they treat it is acceptable within the ranks of the border patrol. I have reported on this in the past, abuses by border patrol of migrants and people they come across. This is common knowledge for us journalists to report on border patrol and I'm not surprised by this behavior. Speaker 1: 06:14 Now in your book sand in blood, I'm wondering do you have any lessons, I mean do you, do you outline anything that we've learned from previous waves of migration that could help the u s address what's happening at the border today? Speaker 2: 06:28 It seems from my reporting and being here for as long as I have a, I'm not a policy expert obviously, but, but those individuals who are say that we need to alleviate the pressure, why people are coming is not necessarily a focus of the Trump administration. There are no summit's what's Central America and the United States to try and figure out why people have to leave their homes. Mexico and the United States are sort of battling back and forth with whether or not they're going to get a tariff. There seems to be a pressure from the u s to these countries basically saying, don't come. As opposed to saying, why are you coming? How can we work together? How can we keep you in your country? That seems to be the piece that's missing here. Border Security by most experts is important, but it's not the remedy to all. Speaker 1: 07:15 I've been speaking with John Carlos Frey, author of the new book, Sand and blood, America's stealth war on the Mexico border, and John, thank you very much. Thank you. Speaker 3: 07:27 [inaudible].