December 17 2023 Is it time to move the US-Mexico border? Let’s consider the consequences.

A geopolitical Cold War simmers with China. The Mexico-Central America humanitarian migration crisis only worsens. A long-view immigration strategy has eluded the Western Hemisphere.

Lurking and hunched across 2,000 miles of sand, binational urban clusters and desert voids, this crisis is the America’s most intractable ongoing challenge.

Do we have the imagination as Americanos to rethink a long-term response?

Greg Custer has been an observer and student of Mexico for over 40 years, working for Mexico’s tourism ministry for over 25 years. He has resided Lakeside since 2015 and brings his perspective on Mexico-US relations through a unique lens nurtured by a Southern California upbringing and decades of observation and reflection.

Is it time to move the US Mexican border let’s consider the con oh no I’m not to do that our speaker is Greg kuster Greg is currently on the Lake Chapala Society board of directors he continues to work in the international travel industry with a keen focus on

Mexico he worked for over a decade observing the front lines of immigration at the Los Angeles International import with three airport with three International Airlines receiving inbound international flights from Mexico Central America and Europe while this experience ended over 30 years ago studying Mexico for over 40 years and

Living here since 2015 have influenced his views on borders and immigration please join me and welcoming great thank you Cat I appreciate you starting with an attempt at a little border humor to get us going this morning thank you for that uh good morning everyone 10s great to see such a

Good turnout today uh I’ve lived Lakeside since 2015 as a as a full-timer and uh this is my first go at at presenting it open circle but uh I’ve always appreciated and respected this forum and how uh so many brave souls uh turn up each week to you know show up

And and argue their point um Mexico is my passion and that includes time growing up adjacent to the Border in the Border buffer zone and just like in Mexico there’s a 100 km line that runs from the international border south in New Mexico there is a parallel line that

Runs 100 km North into the United States and if You’ ever driven on the five freeway between San Diego and Los Angeles for decades there was an immigration checkpoint right on the freeway very near where I grew up uh in Orange County so for me as a kid Mexico

Was sort of always sort of looming and sort of just Out Of Reach to someone who grew up with a very Anglo you know Southern California upbringing I’m going to ask you folks uh two things this morning if you’ll uh help me one is that you come to this presentation with an

Open mind and the second thing is that you listen with a sense of humor please um I’d also like to do some random polling this morning uh this is voluntary of course but I think if we could get a show of hands on some of these topics if you choose to

Participate I believe it’ll give us some insight into this very special place this very special open circle Community uh and maybe challenge some of your leld beliefs uh free to participate uh it’s not mandatory uh you can close your eyes if the polling becomes in any way uh too

Uncomfortable um our home here in akih Heek is a very very special and unique cultural space and I think it’s like like any other place in all of Latin America we’re a village of around 12,000 Mexicans that’s also home to around 4,000 permanent foreign born residents

This is according to the 2020 census um author Tony Burton if you don’t know Tony you should he’s our a local historian has written eight or 10 books uh that are all about Mexico and his most recent book uh is one that came out a couple years ago go that I highly

Recommend for you folks called foreign Footprints in aiek it’s available for sale at several outlets around town and it’s in the LCS uh library but one of the things that Tony points out in this book is how that we may be the most Cosmopolitan Village anywhere in the

Western Hemisphere now the key word there being Village because we’re a small setting but we have according to what he writes and statistics that the electop society has produced people from over 30 different countries living in this small village really remarkable um and so as such

Uh you know it it always makes me chuckle also to hear how that uniqueness of our community has allowed people to put labels on us living here too so one of the labels has put on us which I think is it’s kind of funny is that

We’ve been called a colony you know like we should all be caring muskets or something you know marching on the malyon with little hats on or something so I’m not sure where that term came from but in fact the newspaper that we all read on H Friday afternoons when it

Comes out the guadalahara reporter was for years and years called The Colony reporter and if you haven’t seen this week’s issue there is a really fun story about the fact that this month December is the 60th year anniversary of this Chronicle being being produced so uh if you don’t have this issue pick

It up it’s fun is Dale Paul here okay she didn’t make it today but we have you know Wonderful Chronicles that are happening about living Lakeside and a lot of it is say thanks to this and the fact that they’ve been around for 60 years is is really uh pretty remarkable

The other one I love is someone once categorized us living here as the Island of Misfit Toys and if you’re from the US you may remember that from the Rudolph the Nose Reindeer cartoon but it does sort of characterize the uh you know the reasons

We come here why we stay and to some extent how we connect uh with our Mexican neighbors I also want to respect the the fact that this topic the US Mexican border and borders in general is a lightening rod for very emotional expressions from EST unes exos and especially Mexicans as I

Developed today’s talk and asked foreign born and Mexicans their opinions about migration it revealed how this topic is sort of like taking an inflated balloon and trying to hold it with ice piics okay because a lot of people um go to their sort of ideological Mothership with very strong views on borders and

Immigration so what I’d like to attempt to do today is try and gently hold this balloon and not have emotional and long-held beliefs blow up the whole discussion so let’s see if we can do that this morning okay great uh it’s very likely that most of us are leaning

If not fully endorsing one of two views about immigration and borders and one of those views is open borders the other view is let’s build a wall I’m not saying we’re in those camps completely but we may be leaning one way or the other on that a similar and related view

Might be that flowing across the southern border so heading into Mexico is mostly good things like us right and flowing north from Mexico Central America into the United States there’s Sometimes some bad things so there also has to be ample room in this discussion for the viewpoints of our Mexican

Neighbors and their views on nationhood on racism migration and historical realities and it’s a topic best expressed by a Mexican and not me and the final perspective I think we all need to bring into this discussion is the fact that we have perspectives that Surface by living here how we navigate

Our daily bicultural existence or choose not to all of us to some degree live in a cultural bubble I watch way too much college football um and I’m sure we all have Tendencies to stay you know tied to us or Canadian or overseas media and we do other things to create a comfort

Level here that is not really part of a full integration into living uh in Mexico or living overseas my purpose here today is not to attack defend or insult your views on migration but I do want to take a provocative stance in asking this unique audience of foreigners and Mexicans living side by

Side to perhaps reassess certain assumptions about our hyperconnected and Hyper conflicted 21st century world my title today is a time to move the US Mexico border okay that’s pretty provocative but let’s be honest I’m not really going to answer that question or propose a physical move of the

2,000m line that divides us I hope to illuminate whether the Western hemisphere can continue with the current dysfunctional border and most importantly do we have the imagination to foresee a better future for the Western Hemisphere and the Americas right ready to start okay okay let’s do

A little poll uh here’s poll number one raise your hand if you are an immigrant to Mex okay I’m going to Define migrant immigrant is quote a person who moves from one place to another especially in order to find work or better living conditions can I ask for that poll

Again okay very good okay let me ask you a second question raise your hand if you consider the right to migrate a fundamental human right okay now keep your hand up I’m going to modify that statement just short quickly here if I added the words legally migrate would more hands go

Up yes okay interesting um I’d love to spend today’s talk on the fascinating history of the US Mexico border uh time won’t allow this but I can highly recommend a book called Line in the Sand uh for anyone interested it uh but we really can’t talk about the current

Situation uh between the United States and Mexico border without addressing sort of how did we get here right this is a topic that just won’t go away and it’s just in our in our face all the time if you’re paying any attention to Mexican and uh us International uh media

Right now some basic border facts though are are kind of a good place to start first of all the US Mexico border stretches for 1954 Mi that’s 3145 km from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico so basically think San Diego to Brownsville Texas um it’s the 10th longest international border anywhere in

The world and most would agree it’s the most it’s the demarcation with the greatest level of socioeconomic disparity anywhere on the planet as part of the reason why it is the relationship between the United States of Mexico is Al often times categorized as being distant Neighbors a great book written

In the 1980s about this by that title um it’s legally crossed every year by over over 350 million times legally crossed that’s a statistic from 2010 so today there are over a million daily Crossings of the US Mexico border almost always for need serving Commerce familial ties and and tourism

The vast majority of this line over 12200 miles of this demarcation between the US and Mexico is based on Rivers one of them being the Rio Grande which by the way in Mexico it’s not the Rio Grande it’s the Rio Bravo is the name used and and a portion of the Colorado

River now this may have seemed like a really good idea back in the 1840s but it’s a real problem today to use a river as a demarcation of an international border especially with so so much activity happening why because Rivers do what they move as anyone know the last

Time the US Mexico border was moved the line was actually legislated to be moved well it’s in 2009 when the Mex two team the two Nations got together because the river had shifted there’s some bizarre things that happen when the river moves too and people in land and property that was

Once in one country all of a sudden finds out it’s it’s not anymore so the borders is being moved on a regular basis U so let’s agree that this the unique challenges of this line are not easily resolved in a way that serves both Nations and in learning more about

Border history we can point to some watershed moments on both sides United States and Mexico of this shifting line of water sand and urban clusters that make up the border and I want to emphasize this Urban cluster concept there are 14 giant urban areas that

Exist right on the line I mean the line is literally right here and one side is United States the other side is Mexico and the fact that you have these Urban zones existing at such close proximity creates a number of significant challenges if the Border were a line

Drawn in the middle of nowhere the situation would be greatly simplified but that’s not the reality we Face the US Mexico border as many of you know was the result of some interesting historical forces um one of them being the expanding US national experiment of becoming a nation and the other one was

A 19th century Mexico that was coming out of 300 years of Spanish colonial rule so one nation the United States was projecting strength growth expansion while the other was barely able to field the national government and even less prepared to stake any sort of territorial limits on this vast expanse

Of land that was almost geographically unfathomable um Mexico had no ability whatsoever to in fact enforce any kind of territory borders it was barely existing through most of the 19th century to to put you know a federal government in place um a war ensued as you many of you know and

Mexico is CED into selling half of its physical territory and just later years later sold another block of land to the US because the US needed more land to build railroads through what is Day New Mexico and Arizona so it wasn’t just the war it was subsequent to that another

Negotiation that peeled off another large chunk of southern New Mexico and Arizona called the gadston perches which is where the borderline uh exist uh today across that that stretch of land surprisingly once the actual line was jointly agreed upon it’s a fascinating story about how this happened so you

Have some you know basically politicians deciding a parallel where this line was going to be but then someone had to go actually on the ground and decide where the heck is this and Joint teams between the United States and Mexico spent seven years on Expeditions trying to figure

Out where the hell are we going to DeMark this this line in this vastness of nothing and the original markers that were put down were over a 100 miles apart okay now what is that really putting any sort of you know configuration on um so it was a big big

Challenge just to get through gullies over rivers mountains deserts you know no access to water um Native uh tribes very hostile to the whole process and it took s years to just kind of have an idea of where this line was going to be uh in fact drawn um

The uh both Nations jointly also confronted the fact that uh there was still a very pressing threat when this border was was created and that is Apaches and other Sovereign Nations living in this ter continue their autonomy by moving freely between a meaningless Line in the Sand it it was

Not until the 1880s that the United States of Mexico uh jointly quelled this threat to Anglo and Mexican settlements at the expense of people whom borders were utterly meaningless so you get the the the war in the 1840s it was till the 1880s that finally both countries working together could claim that they

Had some sort of you know control or the beginnings of of a demarcation now there are three other historic ER eras that need to be touched upon briefly in this fascinating History of the United States of Mexico the first is the n the period 1910 to 1920 which corresponds to the

Mexican Revolution and the United States entrance into World War I these were profoundly important to the efforts to regulate and control uh what had been a a comparatively free Cooperative flow of people in Commerce uh us investment moved into the Western border with mining ranching and railroads and

Because we’re talking about the Western border here there’s no rivers to deal with because the Rio Grande is primarily in Texas and uh and into New Mexico um the the line just didn’t really matter very much but the Mexican Revolution and World War I created new hostilities and

Vulnerabilities for both Nations so you had guns for going south into Mexico and you had some free passage being afforded to Mexican Rebels who were fighting and much of the Mexican Revolution was fought in northern Mexico you had refugees and contrabands coming north escaping the ravishes of a 10-year

Mexican civil war there was also an exposed plan by the German government to enlist Mexico’s entrance into World War I in exchange for Germany helping Mexico recover the land lost by Mexico to the United States States it’s called the Zimmerman Telegram and it was intercepted but this was an attempt by

The Germans to establish a new front in World War I right on the US border and then you know we’ll get we’ll win that land back for you if you fight on our side so a lot of Suspicion and a lot of when you have bullets flying across the border Contraband refugees this

Highlighted the need for some sort of demarcation that was going to have some some meaning to it the second critical Tipping Point was how the US morality police okay began closing Americans access to Vice and this started uh around alcohol principally and expanded to other vices but in

Response to the prohibition laws of 1920 to 1933 we all remember that right uh American capitalists never making a good chance to cash in on on on an opportunity establish these Vice way stations basically for prostitution drinking gambling Contraband that fell just outside the sovereignty of the US government okay and it started

Where where specifically welcome toana Marana if you if you know that song that man chow song uh yeah start one and eventually spread to outposts for lascivious immoral Behavior by Americans and try as it may the US was powerful powerless to stop America’s demand for vice sound familiar now there’s another kind of

Funny story about this uh period as well this is for you Canadians in the audience uh during prohibition there were some Creative Solutions to getting around how the thirst for alcohol could be satisfied in a recreation setting so in Maine where men meets New Brunswick someone in 1920s built a golf course and

They built the car Golf Course specifically saw that the parking lot in the clubhouse was in the United States and the golf course was in Canada why so you can go check in get your tea time go on the golf course and drink alcohol and that worked beautifully for decades of decades until

2008 when the United States went into the zero tolerance and started focusing not so much on the Southern border but now on the northern border with Canada and they shut that down so now if you want to go play that golf course you have to drive 20 minutes go through an

Immigration station and then come around into the parking lot in the clubhouse and you can go play the golf course so it’s not just the US uh Mexico border that’s been uh impacted there and so the third era after this period of the Revolution you know the morality being

Imposed another little story about the morality in position you know the this happened mostly in the San Diego Tijuana area but the authorities there decided it be good good idea is to shut down the border at 9:00 at night that’ll stop all this Vice right because everyone’s got

To be back home and ready to go to church in the morning or something well what did the capitalists end up doing they invented the hotel industry on the border so you just spend the night what’s what’s the big problem so there’s always going to be you know there’s

Always going to be this friction if you will but some great creative responses in demand to uh to the you know the desire for vice that just doesn’t seem to be waning and then the third era I want to touch on is 1994 the North American Free Trade

Agreement NAFTA swept the United States Canada and Mexico and an alliance that foretold a new future of integration and yes opening the border to the free movement Freer movement of products services and people and you can hear the desire for openness in speech after speech up until even early 2001 from

Vicente Fox the president of Mexico from John cren the prime prime minister of Canada and yes even George W bush you go back 20 years before in the early 1980s when you had uh Ronald Reagan competing as a presidential candidate and he repeatedly in public statements Falls over himself embracing immigration and

Ining embracing inviting Mexicans to become part of American society and open immigration and it’s Ronald Reagan who in 1983 passed the most sweeping amnesty Bill giving 3 million Mexican who are living in United States a path to residency and a path to citizenship now we can’t imagine and that’s not part of

The Ronald Reagan Legacy but it’s a reality an indication of how 40 years later how did we get where we are today um so but of course this openness and this idea all changed with September 11th after September 11th the US government went into a zero tolerance immigration and Border strategy that

Really torpedoed many of the concrete efforts tied to globalization’s uh full realization so up until 2001 the world was really in sort of a a golden age of globalization right ironically the globalization story portended its greatest vulnerability globalization integrated products people and services across the planet okay but this integration generated

Extraordinary social economic political criminal and environmental disruption and the very thing that made globalization possible which is this low friction movement of ideas uh people Commerce Services was also highly vulnerable to this new world order of conflict and today you can argue the US Mexico border remains profoundly

Impacted by the debate about openness versus shutting down um let’s turn to today’s reality and what’s what’s happening uh at this Line in the Sand and across the world according to the United Nations some 281 million people are living outside their birth countries in the year 20120

We have to believe that number has gone up dramatically since then um the UN also estimates that there are some 110 million displaced humans all living in a state of flux with their home countries un inh habitable could be due to climate change uh persecution political

Conditions crime um all sorts of of war and conflict refugees are exercising a basic human right to migrate and this could in fact apply to the person sitting next to you remarkably to me of the 11 million illegal aliens in the United States it’s estimated that some 5 million of these

People are are simply people who arrived legally in the United States and overstate their visa so we have this image of these hordes of people coming in the United States illegally and not going home in fact nearly half of the people are people who legally migrated and stayed

And I love there was a comedian in the 1990s who had a solution to this problem because everyone remember Blockbuster Video yeah I happen to come from by this town in the United States that has the one remain Blockbuster Video Store anywhere on the planet Earth Bend Oregon

Okay but a comedian came up with a plan he said you know what we can fix this Visa problem all we have to do is put Blockbuster Video in charge of enforcement because you’re one day late return that VH T and they are all over your ass of course that policy wasn’t adopted

But uh it’s still amazing to me that that’s the major uh block of people living the United States they came the United States legally okay what’s also astonishing to me is that how The Who and why of migrants showing up at the US Mexico border has changed dramatically

In recent years today the largest national groups presenting themselves uh at this border are from four different countries Cuba Haiti Nicaragua and Venezuela none of these groups have have played much of a historic role uh at that Line in the Sand but that’s not all uh turning up at the US Mexico border

Are Eastern Europeans and Africans now some of these cases of Africans these are people who are flying into Brazil crossing the Amazon jungle coming up through Central America and arriving at this line between our our two countries and all these groups are bringing children and in 2022 23 the number of

Chinese at the border has shot up to over 24 ,000 that’s more than the last 10 years combined so what is what is going on here finally we must uh I think explore the local situation and as a community of of Migrant uh Invaders who live side by side in Village settings

For over eight decades and where attitudes between foreigners and Village residents are a fascinating to me anyway laboratory of interpersonal and transactional engagements and you don’t have to go far in aiek to encounter borders and I’d like to point to three examples I find very interesting the first one being is that foreigners

Majority of us here we could stand up right now walk out the door go to the airport get on an airplane and go essentially anywhere in the world we want to and that’s not the case with our Mexican neighbors uh mostly because of passports visas uh you know to go to the

United States right now a Mexican will wait for over a year just to get an appointment spend hundreds of dollars to get that Visa appointment and very likely are going to be turned down with no explanation and no returning of the of the of the money by the way to go to

Canada I just founded this out the other day there is no Visa but you have to fill out an online form it’s never turned down if you have a valid passport as a Mexican and it cost $7 so a very different reality for Mexicans who want

To go to the United States um with a passport and or go to Canada with a passport so that to me is kind of a line we have that freedom that our Mexican neighbors do not have and that’s another form of a border we also live our daily lives at

Immigration Crossroads playing out at Pope’s speed bumps along the Kara this is more obvious during Co but it’s still here even today take a closer look and you’ll see that most days we come face to face with people who are migrants moving North or returning to their nation of origin through

Mexico we are the foreigners here who have settled in they are on an arduous dangerous task but we share momentarily at that speed bump a common Bond we’re all migrants I saw a beautiful little vignette of that just yesterday I was walking in front of the Walmart debacle

And there’s a family unit father son and a young child who’s there on a regular basis they’re not Mexicans they’re from Central America and they were standing there putting Christmas ornaments on a bush that they stand by to wash windows from Cars passing by so we are we have this

Unique it’s another example of how this Crossroads here creates a very special ex Community here that doesn’t really exist uh anywhere else I don’t think and my third example is just steps away from where we sit today there are imaginary lines and many of the folks who host us

Who put up with us who benefit financially from us living here also feel uncomfortable and somewhat unwelcome entering certain physical spaces like LCS and other community uh locations LCS volunteers and staff see that see this almost every day and I work at the front gate on Friday

Afternoons and I observe this and many of you volunteers are here as well as Mexican locals and Mexican visitors will approach our front entrance and hesitate to come in happens all the time or when Village vendors stand outside our entrance at open circle and don’t enter now LCS is actively addressing this

Dynamic with volunteer training signage offering tours and all the other things that were mentioned earlier scholarships for Mexican kids English classes joint events with area nonprofits and so much more and it’s one reason I really encourage you all to become active members of this hosting organization one

Final poll raise your hand if you’re currently an active LCS member outstanding Bravo to you all in closing some some personal observations if history has taught us anything it’s that International borders are always changing and many of today’s Global conflicts are the result of lines imposed on people that just don’t work

Um history and Humpty Dumpty teach us that great walls are not great answers walls barriers fencers oceans rivers mountains deserts can never stop human migration because they all succumb eventually to Humanity’s most basic motivation for Crossing Lines and that is economic self-interest although very powerful political symbols fencers are not the

Most effective way to deal with problems of drug trafficking and undocumented migration my next observation is that that the United States and Mexico are much better served in a 21st century by actions that Unite and integrate our economies our culture and our societies both United States and

Mexico we want the same thing we want peace we want security and we want international trade and Innovative response to the Border Quagmire could become the economic engine and social justice solution for our batural mid 20th century connectedness around a north south hemispheric future okay we are today all Americans in the

Hemisphere that’s far more connected north to south than it was Generations ago when European immigration dominated much of American culture today that has changed the United States and its Southern neighbors are becoming far more integrated not just economically but also socially if you have if your grandparents when was the last time you

Went to a birthday party in the United States that didn’t involve soccer and patas yeah you know the change is here and it’s not it’s not going to it’s only going to get strong stronger and the sooner we Embrace that connectivity the better the hemisphere is going to be I

Also believe that most opposition to migration aside from the US Legacy of racism relates fundamentally to a fear of loss and it comes down to the size of the pie everyone understand what I talked about when I say the pie the pie is all the good stuff right and for many

In the US and in Mexico more people coming to live in their home country means a smaller peace for me so there’s a lot of fear associated with the concept of free movement of of people and the fact is that’s just not true because why the pie is always getting

Bigger that’s the thing it’s not one pie being shared by more and more people The Pie gets bigger the US economy in the year 2000 was about a 13 trillion doll economy in 2023 it’s going to probably hit $27 trillion so so the pie is always

Getting bigger and the same is true in Mexico for the US and Mexico inbound immigration is sort of a secret weapon okay it’s bringing people to the US and or to Mexico to see what it’s really like and the ones that stay enrich the United States and Mexican society and

Have the possibility to make extraordinary contributions and the ones who go back take the United States and Mexico values with them how can that be a bad thing an any us effort at isolating Mexico invading Mexico stopping Commerce and stopping human connections do not serve us or Mexican interests similarly

Mexico’s actions in this crisis are often unacceptable allowing refugees from across the planet to freely cross its territory without any basic service being provided denying a migrant his or her legal right to be here or the right to work and then being negligent about safety from predatory government

Officials and criminal gangs is not sustainable for Mexico’s interest so there are responsibilities here on on both sides clearly and I’ll finish today with with two quotes the first comes from a book that I’ve cited called The Line in the Sand where the ra the author Rachel St

John says the following quote the history of the borderline has shown that the Border can mean many things a customs and immigration checkpoint and a divide between political and legal regimes but also a site of Transporter exchange and Community formation and a place that people call home the Border

Has not always been a barrier and there’s no reason to think that it will not become something else in the future end quote and finally for our US citizens in the audience today there’s this Abraham Lincoln keeps coming up here I don’t understand why that is Abraham Lincoln

Said in a speech almost 200 years ago the following not about immigration but about the existential threat that was facing the United States before the Civil War and ab Lincoln said this quote at what point then is the approach of danger to be expected I answer that if

It ever reaches us it must spring from amongst us it can never come from abroad if destruction be our lot we ourselves must be authors and finisher wow thank you very much that was so good this is where it gets tricky we want you to be as good as he I

Can imagine that some of you would like to spout your viewpoints very strongly or maybe disagree with him in some way though he’s made it almost impossible to um so really what this time is about asking questions so we maybe you like to learn more what he’s thinking what he’s

Learning what he discovered and so much of that now if anybody goes into any kind of controversial stuff I’m going to take the mic because that’s not what we’re here for as wonderful as it would be to spout I believe please don’t ask questions raise your hand I’ll bring a

Mic when can he come back when can he come back okay soon as soon as he wants I think okay I’m coming to the back would you consider giving some kind of a seminar here to discuss this in more detail I find the topic absolutely fascinating oh thank you yeah I mean

Look you guys I I would love to do that I as I said Mexico is my passion I’m not an authority on this uh subject but I do have you know these 40 years working in the travel industry and working uh in Mexico and so I you know I have ideas

And I have you know I just love observing things in this community and I just spot things I think sometimes we can all get caught in sort of this cycle of you know how come they don’t and why don’t they and how you know but there’s

So many little things here that are just Treasures of of uh cultural connectivity that that if we just spend a little more time observing and then sharing those observations I think we become a much richer uh place but yeah I want to I want to teach more here at LCS and

Hopefully maybe I’ll offer some courses in 2024 thank you okay my name is Angel CA I was one of the Ben beneficiary or their amnesty program of the grown up Dron so uh you’re right there’s so many uh Mexicans that they overstay in the United States okay they’re they go with

The VISA and they overstay okay do you have any statistics on how many xats overstay in h good question bravo bravo well the thing is no and you know the other thing that kind of makes me chuckle is when we it continues to be written that we are the largest

Colony of Americans living outside the United States well that’s baloney okay there are more if you again you just just say if you’re a holder of a US passport you’re a US citizen right but there’s probably 10 places in Mexico that have way more US citizens living

That we do starting with every city on the border guadalahara you guys there’s 5 million people there you don’t think you can find 10,000 US citizens living in the city of Mexico City so so that’s just fallacy um but yeah the one who are overstaying have no idea we don’t

There’s not even a clear number as to how many of us are living here because it’s a it’s a hard thing to count and Mexico gives us very liberal 60 days and if we stay let’s face it it’s 25 bucks at the airport when you leave no big

Deal yeah yeah well first of all I would like to thank you so very much you know these gave us a lot of very interesting information and I just want to make the remark that we are I am Mexican okay we are not distant friends sorry distant

Neighbors we are close friends and you know that Mexicans do love Americans and I think that most of the Americans here love Mexico so we can all help you know to create this lovely environment between all of us and to enjoy you know the time here we are here to enjoy life

And I think he brings so much beautiful things so thank you so very much thank you [Applause] magnificent thank you what guidance can you give us about approaching the people of the top in Walmart well approach it with thinking with your heart and not your head and

For me it’s very clear to me and I don’t say this in a in any sort of discriminatory uh undertone but it’s very clear to me when someone is really on the move as a migrant and someone who’s just you know someone in the community who lives here and needs some

Help it’s pretty pretty easy to to spot these people and I’m in my world I’m more generous with people who I know are migrants and they’re on a journey and they just happen to be here you know just how would you find your way to here a lot of people are flowing through

Guara because some of you know there’s a a train called laesa that starts down in chapas that every day is bringing hundreds of women children men clinging to the exterior finding you know sitting on top and this rail journey that comes right through guadalahara and can use North to the Border that’s happening

Every day and there are giant migrant camps in downtown guara but some of those people find their way to this little stretch of highway and uh when I spot those people I’m I’m as generous as I can be or stop and talk to them you know it’s amazing how many of them speak

Speak Eng English too because some of these people are coming from Honduras and from bise of course bise the language is is English a lot of Hondurans and Central Americans have very Advanced English skills so you’re not even going to have that barrier to to stop you from engaging oneon-one with

These people yes um on December 22nd they’re having a Mexican pada at uh Kasa Delo and you can have all the tamales you want I think we going to have music okay okay I guess she’s saying we’re all invited at the at the where did you say

At the kasad soul the 25th and what is 22nd I’m not saying anything right it’s 22 at what time uh at 5 o’ at 5 o’cl and you’re saying everybody’s welcome you pay for it you buy your tamali Etc okay can you comment on the comparison between the migration of the Europeans

And the migration of the uh Latin American and Mexican communities today I mean it seemed like it was much more organized in those days and of course 911 put the kabash on things but I think doing a study on on comparing migration of Europeans and migration could be interesting yeah when

You say migration of Europeans meaning within Europe migrations from countries into Europe yeah well here’s another fascinating thing you know the America’s Western hemisphere has an extraordinary uh Advantage if your idea is to put out barriers one of them’s called the Pacific Ocean the other one’s called the

Atlantic Ocean the entire land mass of the rest of the planet you can walk from Africa the Middle East Asia Europe they’re all physically connected you can just with your two feet move across this landscape but to come here you have to cross these these gigantic uh barriers

So you know that definitely flavors the you know how migrants move but the fact that the extraordinary one for me is still people coming from Western Africa into Brazil and finding their way thousands of miles through very arduous journey across you know this vast Wilderness to to come to this line just

Extraordinary and it’s it’s not going to stop anytime soon anybody else okay I I was amazed at at the at you’re saying you know that the Border most of the of the people coming up through there are not Mexicans but other other countries is there any data on that at

All well in fact that’s not maybe necessarily true there was a period from 2005 2015 where net migration from Mexico went down more Mexicans were leaving the United States than were coming into the United States now that that has changed again but what is interesting to me

Today is what’s showing up at the boorder there’s basically two cohorts One Core Accord is the people who say I’m going to come and I’m just going to sneak into the United States because I have familiar ties I know where I’m going to go I’ve been working there I

I’m going to start a new life under that fashion the other big group is the one who cross over the line and just say one word Asylum and that’s what’s happening more and more today and that immediately will give these uh these migrants essentially instant access they’re all carrying a

Phone number of a contact that they have in the United States uh families friends and they are given put in into the queue for that Asylum uh uh hearing interview that Asylum interview can take up to five years and they are given the right to legally work and live in the United

States during that period And so and it could be another five years of a transition to to appeal that uh so the whole question of Asylum and a lot of Mexicans are not coming to United States for Asylum they were coming and they still do come because of of Narco

Violence and things like that but most of the people are now coming from across the across the planet and so the United States I think is going to have to eventually come up with some form of of adjustment to that because if you walk through five countries you’re you’re

Seeking Asylum country you live and you don’t apply for asylum in any of those five countries that you went through are you saying the United States is the only place on the planet Earth can get that can give you relief and I think that’s what we’re going to see very soon is on

The news this morning there going to be a new bipartisan rule that’s going to change that Asylum and say look you have to have applied in another country before you come to the United States we can’t be the United States can’t be the only refuge for political Asylum so

That’s those things but it’s fascinating it’s changing every day it’s changing yes um I’m sorry I arrived wait wait wait wait wait I know you probably have a great loud voice but I just wanted to know if you have a book that you’ve written about this

Topic not yet not at all not yet isn’t that that your answer not yet not yet thank you Cat oh I got one more okay you think it was loud for you what it was like for me I just wonder I live in Lille Kentucky and I used to volunteer with Kentucky Refugee

Ministries they would bring in political refugees from all over the world and and it’s been a few years since I volunteered with them but as I understood things the state department will give an agent genes such as Catholic Charities immigration and Kentucky Refugee Ministries $950 per political Refugee when they

Arrive in the country they get a green card uh Medicaid uh food stamps uh Section 8 uh eligibility and uh you know it’s really a struggle for a single person to to make and I know a good friend of mine was Cuban and came from Santiago de Kuba

15 years ago and with his family five of them and it’s a big transition for a lot of people they they think that ascended the streets are paved with gold and they’re not yeah but uh what what is the situation with the financial assistance from the US government towards political

Refugees yeah I really I don’t have an answer to that I know lot of is is charitable but also there’s a lot of of you know federal state Municipal funds that’s why you know this shipping migrants to from City to city and then having them show up you know on a bus

And the strains this is putting on on major urban areas is is part of one of the pressure points that’s going to probably change the political uh you know flavor of this of this discussion and very very soon I mean I I think this week there’s going to be uh changes as

To especially how Asylum Seekers are are fre being freely locked uh into the into the US yeah okay that’s it everybody I’m sorry than