CZM Rewind: Title 42, Pt 3: The Mutual Aid Response

Summary

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It Could Happen Here – CZM Rewind: Title 42, Pt 3: The Mutual Aid Response

Podcast: It Could Happen Here (Cool Zone Media/iHeartPodcasts)
Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of It Could Happen Here focuses on the grassroots mutual aid response in Jacumba, California, following the end of Title 42, a controversial border policy. Rather than government or large NGOs, it was the small desert community, local volunteers, and mutual aid groups who stepped up to meet the urgent needs of over a thousand migrants abandoned in harsh desert conditions. Through first-hand accounts and interviews, the episode chronicles the rapid, compassionate mobilization of ordinary people and highlights both the successes and emotional toll of their efforts.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Setting the Scene: Jacumba’s Transformation and Crisis

• Jacumba, a desert town with about 500 residents and a hot spring resort under renovation, became the site of a sudden humanitarian emergency after Title 42’s expiration.
• An ad-hoc migrant camp formed near town, growing to as large as 1,500 people (03:17).
• Local residents, business owners, and volunteers organized a supply and mutual aid hub almost overnight, operating out of a disused petrol station and hotel kitchens.
  • “When I’d arrived the night before, around 10pm, the eerie green and yellow lights reflecting from the roof had lit up the pallets of water like some kind of giant lava lamp.” (04:16)

2. First Impressions and Immediate Response

• Community members and hotel owners raised the alarm late one night as they realized the scale of the crisis.
• Volunteers were moved by the organization and care at the donation depot.
  • “I couldn’t believe seeing their donation depot in that old car wash... the level of love and compassion. It was an amazing opportunity... very humbling.” – Marissa (06:02)

3. The Realities of the Desert Camp

• Migrants faced exposure, temperature extremes, lack of food, water, and sanitation.
  • “It’s hot in the day and really cold at night because it’s the high desert. There can be gusts of wind that can just take over, get dust in your eyes, your hair, everything... you’re just filthy. Lack of food, I mean, there’s no resources.” – Natalie (07:54)
• Multiple interviewees emphasize how unprepared most asylum seekers were, having been "sold a bill of goods" by coyotes and with nowhere near adequate preparation for the ordeal.

4. Mobilizing Mutual Aid

• Much of the effort was coordinated via social media, especially Instagram, spreading rapidly through friend networks.
• People donated food, blankets, funds, and their time in a truly communal response.
  • “Immediately, even at 1 in the morning, I was getting messages... everyone just kind of rallied and started bringing supplies over, collecting money as well.” – Natalie (12:18)
  • “My Venmo was blowing up and there was a thousand dollars in my Venmo sent from my family members.” – Katie (13:05)
• Volunteers reflect on how direct action felt empowering and galvanized further participation.

5. The Absence of Government and Major NGOs

• No large NGOs, such as the Red Cross, were present – the Red Cross claimed they could not act unless called by Border Patrol, who said they were not allowed to call (16:15).
• Only one governmental presence mentioned: a staffer from Senator Steve Padilla's office, who advocated for volunteers and monitored migrant well-being during transfer and detention (17:00).
  • “She stood up to the Border Patrol and said, you know, said we’re allowed, we’re here on behalf of this senator.” – Katie (17:00)

6. Humanizing Migrants and Volunteers’ Emotional Reflections

• Volunteers are “not part of an NGO or a mutual aid collective... just people who wanted to help” (15:50).
• The emotional weight of the situation was enormous, especially for parents and those personally connected to migration stories.
  • “As a mom... it just really. It was emotional. It’s just like, I’m like, who’s. What child was playing with this, you know, here in this space, and you know that no child should be ever in... an encampment like that.” – Natalie (50:20)
• The importance of even small acts is strongly emphasized:
  • “A smile makes a difference. A feeling of like, I see you and you belong on this planet makes a difference.” – Katie (54:06)

7. San Ysidro and Mutual Aid Expansion

• Similar spontaneous mutual aid efforts sprang up in other areas, including San Ysidro.
• Volunteers organized supply runs from big-box stores, distributed everything from hygiene kits to toys for children stranded between border walls, and devised a chaotic but effective phone charging system to help migrants contact families.
  • “We had a system... a piece of tape on it with their name and give them a piece of tape... they’d give us the tape back and we’d match the names and the phone.” – Kaber (28:46)
• The joy of helping children, even with something as simple as crayons, was moving but heartbreaking.

8. Diversity of Volunteers and Personal Connections to Migration

• Many volunteers themselves came from immigrant backgrounds and saw helping as re-paying the kindness once shown to their own families.
  • “I’m a first generation Cambodian American... when my parents... fled, they went through this as well. Somebody somewhere provided the supports, the aid... for them to be able to make it to America.” – Lan Chai (32:05)
• Empathy and solidarity were grounding principles.

9. Opposition and Hostility

• Some locals were hostile or suspicious; volunteers reported confrontational encounters with anti-immigrant residents, right-wing media, and intimidation groups.
  • “When I was walking to my car, this man... started laying into, ‘I’ve had illegals... break into my house. Why are you supporting illegals?’” – Natalie (41:23)
  • “They would just kind of get out of their exceptionally large SUVs and just kind of, just kind of watch...” – Kaber (47:17)

10. Emotional Aftermath and Lessons Learned

• Volunteers described difficulty processing their experiences and the trauma of witnessing – and even briefly participating in – systemic crisis and state neglect.
• Many drew profound lessons about the potential for collective action and the need for real, not theoretical, compassion.
  • “You see an immediate impact, like I’m doing this and this is the result... Being able to see directly how that one person can impact.” – Natalie (20:10)
  • “If that community didn’t activate, there would have been a lot of dead people in the desert.” – Katie (52:51)
  • “When someone has nothing, what you have is more than what they can imagine.” – Katie (54:06)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On grassroots action and collective efficacy:
  “Hakumba is a town of 500 and they just fed thousands, housed thousands, clothed thousands, hugged and welcomed thousands of human beings. And those people in that town don’t have much excess and they made a difference.” – Katie (54:06)

• On the impact of small gestures:
  “Literally a smile makes a difference. A feeling of like, I see you and you belong on this planet makes a difference.” – Katie (54:06)

• On the broken system:
  “CBP’s own protocols and policies... [are] being detained with no. They’re not giving them food, they’re not giving them bathrooms, they’re not giving them basic, basic things that they need to survive. And so that’s why the community’s out here today to do that.” – Humayra Yousafi, Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans (35:12)

• On the emotional toll and privilege:
  “Just how privileged we are. No one leaves our country because they want to. They leave because they have to.” – Natalie (51:22)

• On pushback from local residents:
  “Why are you supporting illegals? And I’m like, we’re trying to make sure that people don’t die. And he just kept going off on me. ....I just walked away.” – Natalie (41:23)

• On the value of mutual aid over waiting for institutions:
  “You don’t wait for someone like the government to show up and fix it because then people will die.” – Katie (52:51)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|-------------------------------------------------| | 03:17 | Arrival of volunteers: setting and context | | 06:02 | First impressions at the supply depot (Marissa) | | 07:54 | Harsh conditions at the migrant camp (Natalie) | | 12:18 | Social media mobilization and donation efforts | | 16:15 | Absence of the Red Cross and major institutions | | 17:00 | Senator’s staffer intervenes with Border Patrol | | 20:10 | Empowerment from immediate impact (Natalie) | | 28:46 | Phone charging logistics at San Ysidro (Kaber) | | 32:05 | First-person immigrant perspective (Lan Chai) | | 41:23 | Hostility from some locals (Natalie) | | 47:17 | Intimidation from right-wing observers (Kaber) | | 50:20 | Emotional aftermath and reflection (Natalie) | | 54:06 | Closing reflections on empowerment (Katie) |

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Final Reflections

This episode is a testament to the power and necessity of grassroots collective response in times of crisis, especially when official solutions are absent or actively harmful. Volunteers in small towns and urban centers alike bridged the gap for migrants and asylum seekers, demonstrating that meaningful aid, solidarity, and human connection do not require institutional permission—just willingness to act.

Key Takeaway: “If we all just do a little bit or what you can, then I think we would see a very large impact.... when someone has nothing, what you have is more than what they can imagine.” (Katie, 54:06)

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For more on mutual aid organizations mentioned in this episode, check the show notes at coolzonemedia.com.

Transcript

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[Narrator/Reporter]

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[Lan Chai]

What do we do?

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[Katie]

There's a vile sickness in Ampas Town.

[Narrator/Reporter]

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[Narrator/Reporter]

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[Natalie]

Try and carpool. Try and shove into cars as best you can. Just so that we don't have a mile long line of cars we have.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Trash bags, we have gloves, we have.

[Natalie]

Things that we're bringing up there.

[Lan Chai]

So what?

[Natalie]

We have pockets, cars that you can get all of that out of once we pull over. We're also setting up a couple pop ups.

[Narrator/Reporter]

California is a tiny town. You've probably never heard of it. It's actually really charming. There's a hot spring and a gorgeous hotel, a few stores selling art, trinkets, that kind of thing. There's a lovely lake fed by the spring. And on this sun baked morning There are about 50 people outside an old petrol station nervously pounding bottles of water, applying sunscreen and getting ready to head out to the desert to clear up the ad hoc migrant camp that has held as many as 1500 people out in the open. When Title 42 ended and Border Patrol made no plans to keep them anywhere, it was a diverse bunch of people hidden beneath sun hats. There's an Australian film producer who was at a conference in Orlando and booked a flight over, a grad student painter, the folks who owned the Hukumba Hotel who organised this whole thing, their friends from the hospitality industry in San Diego. There were students and mums and dads and about the entire population of this tiny desert town. There were also two former international aid workers who own a tower where you can look at the desert, which is actually a much cooler thing than it sounds. And there's also a museum of boulders right next to it. You should probably check them out if you're in the area. I spent the day helping out in Akumba after the refugees, some of them in handcuffs, had been taken by private contractors to be processed by CBP's Office of Field Operations. We met at a petrol station in the middle of town. The space where the pumps should be was filled with tons and I do mean tons, of bottled water, masks, hand sanitiser and other necessary supplies. When I'd arrived the night before, around 10pm, the eerie green and yellow lights reflecting from the roof had lit up the pallets of water like some kind of giant lava lamp. Driving across the desert, the town looked like it was glowing. The town certainly has had a bit of a glow up in the last few years. Three business partners purchased the Hukumba Hot Springs Hotel, a down in the mouth property that had once been a glamorous desert resort. And they've been restoring the place for nearly two years. Inadvertently, they also purchased a lot of land and a few other rundown buildings in the town that were sold as a lot with the hotel. It was in one of these buildings, the old Gas station that they set up a de facto mutual aid hub almost overnight. The hotel's not finished yet, and they probably didn't make much progress on it during the week when they were feeding more than a thousand people in the desert. The town's lake fed by a natural spring, an old bath house used to be attractions. Today the bathhouse's roof has fallen off, but it still makes a pretty cool concert venue. And the whole town offers commanding views of the border wall, which sadly is only a couple of hundred yards from the main street. When I arrived in Jacumba, everything was closed. The mini mart was sold out, the hotel was still being worked on, and the hotel kitchen was churning out food for volunteers at the cleanup effort. I asked Marissa, one of the volunteers I met that day, about her first impressions on arriving at the meeting point.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

I was incredibly impressed by what the people of Jacumba and the hotel group of individuals that have organized this. I couldn't believe seeing their donation depot in that old car wash. Just how well organized everything was and that they provided so much for the volunteers and the level of love and compassion. It was an amazing opportunity to be part of. Very humbling.

[Narrator/Reporter]

I'd been there since late the night before after visiting border crossings in California and Arizona. And Jeff, one of the co owners of the hotel, kindly let me pull up my truck in some desert behind his house. Now, I'm a person who enjoys sleeping outside and I do it as often as I can. I try and camp at least once a month. But that night I was cold even underneath my down blanket. And I couldn't help but think of how desperate it must have been to spend nearly a week out there with nothing but a mylar space blanket and some thorny bushes to keep you warm. It's certainly not the welcome that one would expect from the richest nation on earth, which had three years to repair for the day Title 42 ended. To get a bit of background on the town, I spoke to Natalie.

[Natalie]

So the previous owner bought it at an auction. And I don't think that the previous owner didn't realize how much he was getting. And he kind of just like neglected a bunch of it, you know. And then he, he was older and so he finally sold off the hotel. He thought he was just buying the hotel, but he buying all the land as well. So they, when they bought the hotel, they acquired all the land and they're actually putting money into it and fixing everything up, which is really wonderful.

[Narrator/Reporter]

The hotel and lake and hot spring really are wonderful. But the Scene that had played out there on the 11th of May was anything but. Within a short period of time, more than a thousand people of all ages and nationalities will be held in the open desert and left to fend largely for themselves. I'll let Natalie describe the space they're in.

[Natalie]

There's lots of cactuses everywhere. So there's environmental like watch out where you're walking, it's hot. It's hot in the day and really cold at night because it's the high desert. There can be gusts of wind that can just take over, get dust in your eyes, your hair, everything's just, you're just filthy. Lack of food, I mean, there's no resources. You're in the middle of nowhere.

[Narrator/Reporter]

I talked to a lot of the volunteers, many of whom had been in the desert for nearly a week. They'd first been made aware of the impending humanitarian crisis late on Thursday night when one of the people working on the renovation of the Hot Springs hotel got a call about it. Within a few hours, the hotel's owners and all their staff were running what became very nearly the only source of food, shelter and water for more than a thousand people trapped and held in the desert by cbp. I spoke to Sam, another volunteer, to get a sense of response. Now Sam is a kind of guy who just looks like he's at home in the desert. His wide brim hat, boots and long sleeve shirt and pants told me he spent plenty of days under the baking sun out here. And his redness was an isopropyl alcohol spray to disinfect people's boots after walking in an area that was likely covered in human shit. Told me he'd been around one or two situations like this in the past.

[Johnny Knoxville]

I spent a great deal of my life as his second career working in developmental relief logistics in Southeast Asia, mainly working with large organizations, for example World Food Program, Doctors Without Borders, chill, unicef, many, many different things.

[Narrator/Reporter]

In the context of that kind of experience, it's easy to understand why people come to the United States. But I asked Sam to put the situation here into perspective. For me, it's understandable that folks came to the U.S. but why to a tiny desert town of 500 people?

[Johnny Knoxville]

These people were radically unprepared for what they were going to go through because they were sold a bill of goods by coyotes on the other side about what was going to happen to them, you understand? So they had really no idea what they were getting into at all. And so there was not anything in the way of life threatening situations for Any of those people in any meaningful way, a great deal of discomfort. It could have turned very badly if these people here had not stepped up because the Border Patrol was completely overwhelmed. And so there was never that bad of a situation here compared to what I have seen in other places in the past.

[Narrator/Reporter]

As Sam pointed out, the migrants were now gone, but we were still surrounded by tons of supplies. But at the time, there was no way of knowing the scope or scale of the need, and people reacted as best they could.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Actually, it was overkill. But you had no way of knowing at the time. There's just no way to know. How do you know ahead of time? You always ask for as much as you can get because why would you not? I mean, you never know. You don't know how many children with babies are on the other side of that wall right now. Might be zero, might be 500. You have no idea.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Before anyone knew how or if this was going to end or really what even was going on, dozens of people across the county decided to help. One of them was Katie. Here she is describing some of the volunteers she worked alongside.

[Katie]

There was a hodgepodge of people as volunteers, and leading it were some of the owners of a hotel out there, and that was the main organizers. But who showed up were people from the town, people that I knew and recognized. There was some really Devout like there 24 hours a day. And then there were some coming in and out. But I met people from all over the county and most of them answered the call through Instagram of the hotel.

[Narrator/Reporter]

All those volunteers called their friends who called their friends who gradually coordinated a response. Natalie first became aware of this as many volunteers did through an Instagram post by Melissa, another of the three co owners of the Kumba Hotel. On Thursday night, just as Title 42 was ending, Natalie saw the post and decided to help. At first she wanted to leave right then at 1am as soon as she'd seen the post. But after consulting her family, she decided to make her own post asking for people to bring supplies that were needed. Soon she was overwhelmed by the response.

[Natalie]

Yeah, I mean immediately, even at 1 in the morning, I was getting messages because I posted it. That's when I posted the story. I immediately got messages from friends saying, I'll bring a blanket over. What's your address? Yeah, everyone just kind of rallied and started bringing supplies over, collecting money as well. Some friends started collecting money and bought stuff and brought loads of food and things to my house.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Her husband ferried the supplies to Hakumba where they were joined by donations from all over the county in the old petrol station. Like Natalie, Katie also saw a post and immediately felt compelled to help. She called a friend and some members of her family and set about raising funds and buying supplies.

[Katie]

So I met my friend at a cafe and in that. In the meantime, and I don't know how much of this is really important, so in the meantime, I text my mother and my two sisters who live on the east coast, and just. It was late at night for them, and I just said, I. I would love for you to send prayers, because that's something that I believe in. I believe in prayer or intention and thought reality. So. And some of it was just because I felt so touched, like praying for the community that I love too. And the next thing I know, like, my Venmo was blowing up and there was a thousand dollars in my Venmo sent from my family members. And so by the time my friend arrived, we were like, let's go. And we filled our car with. Amazingly, we found like organic. There's grocery outlet, right? So we found organic soup for, you know, a dollar something a can, and. And we spent a few hundred dollars. And the next morning we met early and we stopped in Elcone on the way and we spent all the rest on. We went to three or four thrift stores and bought every blanket and hat and baby carrier because we have both focused on motherhood in our careers.

[Narrator/Reporter]

I asked the people I spoke to about a week later how the experience had impacted them.

[Natalie]

It was overwhelming just the. The way the community really came around and supported the people in Jacumba that were trying to help. You know, after we finished cleaning up, when we're back at the gas station, the Amazon driver was delivering, like, I think he delivered 350 boxes. And so we had to open them up and sort them. And it was. There was so much food, I think that it was insane amount of food. And it was awesome. It was really cool just to see how many people stabbed up and donated.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Unlike some of the people I saw in San Ysidro. Natalie, Katie, Sam and Marissa are not part of an NGO or a mutual aid collective. They're just people who wanted to help. And that describes most of the people in Jacumba, Although some of them did have previous regular volunteer experience with excellent groups like Border Kindness. I asked Katie to reflect on the mutual aid approach and the absence of massive multimillion dollar organizations. Yeah, the Red Cross wasn't there, right?

[Katie]

No, they weren't there. We were told that the Red Cross couldn't come unless Border Patrol called. And Border Patrol told us that they weren't allowed to call the Red Cross.

[Narrator/Reporter]

That's a pretty standard. The one institution that did show support to people in Hukumba was one that you might not expect, given the support for this cruel immigration policy by almost all the Democrats in D.C. but things are different when you can see the results of these policies with your own eyes. Perhaps that's why I didn't see a single elected official in my entire week at the border. But one person I missed, but who everyone mentioned was a lady who worked for California Senator Steve Padilla. I won't name her as I don't have her permission, but hopefully one day soon we'll be able to interview her. I'll let Katie describe the role this woman played.

[Katie]

There was someone from Steve Padilla's team and that's the woman I rode with and she was incredible. Her brother in law is the chef at the hotel. So I think, I mean she might have came anyway, but she came faster. And there was true connection. And she stood up to the Border Patrol and said, you know, said we're allowed, we're here on behalf of this senator. So I mean I saw some like head to head, like arguments about our right to be there. And most of us didn't, weren't paying attention to that. We were paying attention to the people that we were, you know, around. And no one that was out there what didn't believe that we should be out there and that more help should be out there.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Sadly, part of that familiarity with the system this woman brought to the team also meant a familiarity with the cruel and arbitrary nature of it. Katie says that they had to organize for that as well.

[Katie]

So my friend and I, we ended up riding in her truck, so in Steve Padilla's Senator Padilla's assistance truck. So we had the opportunity to ask some questions that probably everyone out there wanted to know, including the migrants.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Yeah.

[Katie]

And it was like, what will happen and what's the process from here and how do you know that these people are being tended to? And I literally heard her on the phone getting as many bodies on the ground to start going to those centers where they're being taken to make sure that they were that, that we would follow them through the entire process as best possible, monitoring their. Well, well cared for. That they were well cared for. As well cared for as possible.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Yeah.

[Katie]

In a system, in a process like that. Yeah. But she literally said, though they're going to be bust off and put in cages and that they would do their best to make sure that, that no one was split up and that everyone was fed, showered, and they weren't allowed to bring anything with them. So a lot of the cleanup was all of the things that everyone donated that had to be left behind, including some of the stuffed animals.

[Narrator/Reporter]

For all the volunteers I spoke to, the chance to be of service was empowering. Here's Natalie discussing that.

[Natalie]

Yeah, I mean, well, like in so many times you like, feel overwhelmed with like so much suffering in this world and like, what can one person do, you know, and, and so it did feel good that to actually see an immediate impact, like I'm doing this and this is the result. Because sometimes you can just get discouraged, you know, like we're just one person. What can we really do? And can we really make an impact? And just seeing that and being able to see directly how that one person can impact, you know, can rally like this. Seeing how my friends came together, you know, went shopping, bought things, gathered money, collected money. You know, my really good friend Sam, she went to her local bar after, after she collected a bunch of money, went and dropped stuff, supplies off at my house. She was just down at her local bar and just chatting with them and like, oh, what'd you do today? And so she told them, oh, I collected money and I bought supplies and there the people. She ended up collecting about 200 more dollars at the bar from people hearing her story. And so then the next day she went and bought more supplies and she actually ended up driving them out herself. She ended up doing like three drips just from her own, talking to people and collecting. So just like the little impact that, you know, everyone just kind of coming together and making a difference.

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32 lost nuclear weapons.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

You're like, wait, stop.

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What?

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Yeah.

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Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s.

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[Katie]

There's a vile sickness in Abbas town.

[Narrator/Reporter]

You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out.

[Lan Chai]

The village is ravaged.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Entire families have been consumed.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

You know how waking up from a.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Dream, a familiar place can look completely alien. Get back, everyone. He's got knacks. And if you see the devil walking.

[Katie]

Walking around inside of another man, you.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Must cut out the very heart of him, burn his body, and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town.

[Ed Helms]

As a warning from iHeart podcasts and grim and mild from Aaron Manke, this is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator/Reporter]

The Devil walks in Abown. If you need medicine, right here, you need medicine, line up for In San Ysidro, a pretty diverse range of San Diegans came To help. On the first night, I personally left at about one in the morning after spending almost two hours trying to leave but needing to get charged phones back to their owners. By loudly in Spanish, then French, then English describing the backgrounds on the phone or the color of their case. How could we describe Wasn't a great system. And by the weekend, Caber and others had seen that more help and organization was needed and they decided to plan a response. Here's Kaber describing how they prepared for that.

[Kaber]

Yeah, yeah, we met. We met up at a Target near my area because I had already thought that maybe I'll just grab some. I was paying attention to people I knew who were doing aid and what supplies, as they were saying, was needed. The particular store near me has like a wall of travel size, like these giant tubs where you can basically just scoop out 100 deodorant cans and toothpaste and things like that.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Caper met up with some other members of a local mutual aid group. I'll make sure to include donation links for all the groups I've mentioned at the end of this series, so please make sure to listen right through to the end.

[Kaber]

And he had just received a bunch of donations through Mutually Network. So we cleaned out even more of the travel size. I got some tooth hygiene kits and deodorant and a bunch of crayons and papers because the kids that are between the walls don't really have much to do, unfortunately. So those went really fast. And so we got a whole bunch of bags of all those kinds of supplies and then we drift down to the border from there.

[Narrator/Reporter]

By the time they arrived, various organizations had organized areas along the wall for different kinds of aid to be passed through. Everything from clothes to food to medical supplies and toilet paper was piled up, given out.

[Kaber]

Organize toilet paper, food, everything like that. And people would just come up to the wall and if their family needed something, they would just kind of point to it or ask us if we were able to, you know, if there was a common language there. So yeah, we just kind of, you know, gave things as people needed them. I know that I helped give out some of the crayons and pads of paper and those were, those were a big hit. Tons of kids all came running over from the whole. All the parts of the camp when they heard that there was. There were toys being given out. So that was, it was, it was heartbreaking. But it was also, you know, it made me smile too. Seeing them smile made me smile because.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Of the need to use CBP1 and of course, the need to stay in touch with families back home. There was a constant and overwhelming demand for phone charging. News reporters took phones back to charge in their cars. Some people bought charge bricks and power strips. And mutual aid groups wrote names on the back of the phones using Painter's tape and Sharpies so they wouldn't get separated from their owners. By the second day, it was a better system, but on the first day it was chaos. I'll let Kaber, who spent a whole day charging phones, describe the system that volunteers came up with to mitigate that chaos a little bit.

[Kaber]

And obviously they couldn't charge their phones if they're just in this kind of desert gap between these walls that doesn't have any kind of amenities or anything. So we had a system where they would pass a phone through and we would. A piece of tape on it with their name and give them a piece of tape with their name, the same name. And then they would give us, if they came back a couple hours later and give us a tape back and, and we'd match the names and the phone and. And that was. It worked well enough. I mean, it was still extraordinarily chaotic process. I mean, we had, we always had at least 100 phones on our side of the wallet at any given time. And some people had, you know, some people had chargers, some people didn't. Some people had Android or Samsung or old iPhones and some people had wall adapters and some people didn't have the wall AC adapters. So we kind of had to. Every phone that came through was we had to find a way to get it, you know, Daisy chained into the set of generators that we had, which was, do we have enough power strips? Do we have the right cables and do we have space on those cables? And I think it was, it was a bit of a puzzle the whole time. The only part of it that really overwhelmed me was we did overload. Someone brought a bunch of USB C power strips and we blew out one of them. And so there was now eight phones attached to it that I had to find new spaces for. And I was just like, that was the only point where I was just, I was just frustrated by this whole situation. In addition to the fact that the phones that were plugged out, plugged into that strip had been charging for who knows how long since nothing short circuited.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Or whatever happened to was chaos. But it was a good natured chaos. Over the several days that migrants were detained in the open with no shelter and inadequate sanitation, just about two miles from the Discount mall where you can buy cheap Ralph Lauren shirts if that's your jam. People showed up in ever increasing numbers. The American Friends Service Committee helped organize volunteers into groups to distribute food, package up wet wipes, snacks and medicines, give out tarps, and do just about anything else that they could or anything else that they could fit into Ziploc bags that could be passed through gaps in the wall. At least people who had been immigrants themselves or who were the children of immigrants were notably numerous. Among the volunteers I spoke to one of them.

[Lan Chai]

My name is Lan Chai. I'm part of Asian Solidarity Collective, a grassroots organization here in San Diego. Diego. I've been coming over here since yesterday. I came here around 5, 6 yesterday and then I came back through here this morning and been here since I got home at 12 last night and woke up, dropped my kid off and came right back with more supplies. I've been reaching out to family, friends and community to help donate supplies and things like that, food, whatever, whatever they may have. And I pretty much been driving around city and collecting from folks that can't make it so I could bring it down here myself. So that's what I've been doing.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Lancia explained to me why it was so important to show up my community.

[Lan Chai]

I'm pretty sure they're sympathetic to this because I'm coming from, I'm a first generation Cambodian American here in the US and when my parents and my family fled their country, they went through this as well. So somebody somewhere came and provided the supports, provided the aid, the donations for them to be able to make it to America, to cross over and able to provide out here for me growing up out here, you know, so it's just, I just sympathize with it, with the whole thing. I mean, I mean, everybody should feel the same way because somewhere down the line our families went through similar situations. If you're not an indigenous, then your family somewhere down the history went through the same thing. So, you know, everybody should have a heart for this and be able to come down here and donate or donate their time or supplies, whatever the case may be, you know, come out and help.

[Narrator/Reporter]

He also explained why he feels it's important to encourage empathy for refugees.

[Lan Chai]

Well, you have to keep in mind there's families out here, there's young children, there's babies. I mean, it takes a lot for, for a mother to pick up her infant child and to leave where she's coming from. So that just says a lot about what's going on where she's coming from for her to trek and to go through this, to sit out here in the cold and stuff, because if she would rather endure this and take the risk and the chances, that means where she's coming from is not as, you know, she's willing to take that risk.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Later that night, I saw an Afghan family come to help the other Afghan families. Their kids talked to other Afghan kids separated by the border wall. They passed crayons through the wall and coloring books, and their little daughter asked her dad if she could give her watch to the Afghan girl being held in the camp. Her dad said, of course, I don't record or photograph people's children, certainly not without asking. And I wasn't about to interrupt them. But it was a very sweet moment. The father of the family had worked in the Army Corps of Engineers. He'd been to the border before to build this section of the wall. I didn't really need to ask him how it felt to see folks stuck behind it, but it said a lot that he and his family had taken the time to drive down, buy bags of supplies, and then come face to face with the people who needed them and hand them out. Like dozens of other folks, they tried to pass whatever they could through little gaps in the wall to make someone's day a little bit brighter. Another volunteer who we heard from yesterday came from a local group called PANA. Hermira had been at the wall since 5 in the morning and it was getting on for 5pm when we spoke. I normally ask people what they ate for breakfast just to tune in the volume levels on my recorder a bit. But I'm going to include it this time just so you can see how long her day had been and how hard she'd been working.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Okay, what do you want me to say?

[Katie]

Is that good?

[Narrator/Reporter]

Tell me what you have for breakfast.

[Katie]

I don't remember anymore. French toast.

[Natalie]

French toast.

[Katie]

My name is Humayra Yousafi and I'm with the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans. Panna or an organization in San Diego that fights for the full inclusion of.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Refugees and those who come from refugee producing countries.

[Narrator/Reporter]

We spoke about the emergency that had kept her here all day.

[Katie]

So in terms of this morning, I mean, I was, you know, very concerned because there was an asylum seeker who had an emergency and was rushed out of this place where now, like for example, where we are at right now is people who are being detained in.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

The most inhumane way possible.

[Katie]

This is going against CBP's own protocols and policies as to how they're being detained with no. They're not giving them food, they're not giving them bathrooms, they're not giving them basic, basic things that they need to survive. And so that's why the community's out.

[Natalie]

Here today to do that.

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[Ed Helms]

Hey, it's Ed Helms. And welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu Every single episode.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

32 lost nuclear weapons.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

You're like, wait, stop.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

What?

[Narrator/Reporter]

Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s.

[Ed Helms]

Basketball player who still wore knee pads. Yes, it's be to going be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Scheer made me feel good. I'm like, oh wow, Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.

[Narrator/Reporter]

What was that like for you to.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Soft launch into the show?

[Ed Helms]

Sorry Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

I forgot whose podcast we were doing.

[Ed Helms]

Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss the that sandwich. So let's, let's, let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator/Reporter]

There's a vile sickness in Abbas town. You must excise it. Dig into the deep earth and cut it out. The village is ravaged and entire families have been consumed.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

You know how waking up from a.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Dream a familiar place can look completely alien. Get back everyone. Let's go, Dax. And if you see the devil walking.

[Katie]

Around inside of another man, you must.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Cut out the very heart of him, burn his body and scatter the ashes in the furthest corner of this town.

[Ed Helms]

As a warning from iHeart podcast and grim and mild from Aaron Manke. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater audio universe, starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator/Reporter]

The Devil Walks in Abbostown.

[Ed Helms]

All I.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Know is what I've been told and.

[Ed Helms]

That to have truth is a whole lie.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Kaber]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[Narrator/Reporter]

I did not know her and I.

[Lan Chai]

Did not kill her or rape or.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.

[Natalie]

They literally made me say that I.

[Kaber]

Took a match and struck and threw it on her.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

They made me say that I poured.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Gas on her.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

From Lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Narrator/Reporter]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley, feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Sadly, not everyone who showed up at the makeshift detention facility was showing up in solidarity. Local anti migrant activist and blogger Roger Ogden showed up. Now, Ogden might be familiar to some listeners due to his attempts to host what he called a Patriot Picnic and his advocacy for the removal of the historic murals in Chicano Park. Ogden organised gatherings in the park in 2017 and 2018 and they resulted in a huge and overwhelming community response to defend the park. And this time Ogden decided to keep to himself. But Natalie ran into some people who weren't quite as shy about their opinions.

[Natalie]

You know, a lot of the people in the Huku community are, you know, lower income. You know, they're struggling in their own struggle on their. And so I know, you know, maybe. I don't know, like, for those people, I don't know, like.

[Kaber]

It'S hard.

[Natalie]

I don't know. I mean, towards the end, like when I was walking to my car, this man, this man in a car, like, pulled up and he's like, excuse me, what's going on over there? And I was like, oh, we're gathering, you know, supplies for the asylum seekers. And then I, you know, like, I, if you're from here, you kind of, if you're in Jacumba, you kind of already knew what was going on. And so him asking me that, I was kind of like. And then he just started laying into, I've had illegals, you know, have broken into my house a few times. Why are you supporting illegals? And I'm like, we're trying to let, like, make sure that people don't die. And he just kept going off on me. And so he, you know, the whole everything, all the talking points that people have about not allowing people to come seek asylum here. And so I just walked away.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Marissa didn't run into the same kind of vocal opposition, but she said in her conversations and attempts to process everything she'd seen, she ran into some of the sort of knee jerk responses that people can only really make about immigration when they haven't looked the cruelty that they're advocating for in the face.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

It took me a little while to kind of work through just how I felt about it on an emotional, maybe spiritual level. I, you know, I spoke with family and friends about it, about my experience, and it's difficult to. I found it difficult to explain my experience because I don't know that somebody can really truly understand that unless they've actually been out there and done it themselves. Because the arguments or, or their kind.

[Katie]

Of.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Debate, so to speak, what they would come back at me with when I was sharing, that is. But we don't have enough food or housing to be able to support this. That many people coming in. And I'm like, but we just had so many people and so much money put out there to help in a very short amount of time. Look how many donations were donated. How much money was contributed in a short amount of time from not that many people. I'm like, obviously we do have the money, obviously we do have the food. So where's the breakdown? Like, is it our system that just doesn't allow for that to happen? I don't know. And that's where I don't, I don't understand it enough, but I feel like it just made me realize that I don't know that anybody that I spoke to afterward really understands it enough, either because their arguments or their defense and what they tried to share on the opposite side of me going out there and supporting just felt like it was just something to say, you know, and like, what they. What they hear from the general media out there and they. They also don't really. They can't quite grasp it. So they're just kind of throwing something out there, I guess, is what it. What it felt like.

[Narrator/Reporter]

KABA also ran into some less than charitable San Diegans this time down in San Ysidro.

[Kaber]

Yeah, so I guess the first part is why they might have. Or how they might have found us there, which is. There's a. A local news organization in San Diego called KSI, which is kind of a. I would describe as a local equivalent of something like One American News, which is really unfortunate because we already have One American News here. But they are pretty well known for kind of a lot of, like, misinformation, kind of scaremongering about and house people, immigrants, vaccines, and all that sort of sort of thing, but with kind of a local news sort of aesthetic to it. And they were, as far as I could tell, they were really the only identifiable media that were there throughout the day. I read articles eventually that made me realize there were other reporters there, but they weren't identifying themselves the way that he was. I was. But they had this one cameraman just shooting B roll, I guess, and he was walking to all the different parts of the wall and like, all the different sort of stations for aid and like, trying to, like, really trying to get as many faces as possible. You can kind of tell that that's like, what he was doing. Everyone who I was around, I was. I was kind of, you know, oriented mostly with kind of the like. Sort of like anarchist mutual aid people. And, you know, when they saw the KSI truck, they were like, okay, everyone needs to get a mask on. You know, I still had N95 with me, so I wore that. And I had a, you know, slightly identifying logo on my sweatshirt, which I taped over so that, you know, that that image wouldn't show up.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Now, Kusi have drifted further and further right since 2020. Along with their relatively minuscule viewership these days, they engage in fake news, culture war stuff, like repeating the recent false accusations that Target was making tuckable swimming costumes for kids, or labeling everyone in the asylum process illegal immigrants. It's sadly pretty standard for right wing news organizations. Now, Kaber thinks that some of the people who saw footage on Kusi, or perhaps found the location posted on Ogden's blog came down to the border, like, several hours later.

[Kaber]

That's like, when we started to see people, you know, kind of coming by and we could tell that they weren't volunteers because, like, when people play, people who weren't even necessarily volunteering would drive by and say, like, hey, I just drove out to a man, I brought a case of water, and they bring out the water and then they drive away. But the people who are doing, who are like here to, I think, you know, kind of do some kind of intimidation where, you know, they wouldn't approach directly. They would just kind of get out of their exceptionally large SUVs and just kind of, just kind of watch and they would kind of, you know, get a little bit closer at a time and then, you know, a little bit closer and kind of whisper to each other and, you know, point at things. And, you know, it's just kind of like they were just watching and, you know, they got close enough that I could read their shirts. And the shirts had a slogan that's associated with a Christian nationalism slogan. So there's this whole family. It's kind of, kind of sad that the kids were wearing shirts too. And so I kind of, yeah, I figured out that that's what was going on. I never talked to them. I didn't approach them, but I stood when I was closer and closer. I kind of positioned myself in between the rest of the volunteers and this group and just kind of, you know, didn't even really stare at them. Just kind of looked at them and just made it clear with my body language that I, like, I knew what they were doing. Like, they weren't, you know, they weren't doing any kind of secret agent thing or whatever. Like, they were being really, really obvious. And I just, you know, stood and positioned myself in a way that indicated that, you know, I know what you're doing and you're not going to get close. You're not going to interfere with, you know, what we're doing here. You're not going to come talk to anyone or troll anyone or whatever you want to do. And eventually one of the people who is either a volunteer or work for, like, One of the NGOs could definitely tell there was something going on. So she went over and had a conversation with them that I couldn't hear. And eventually they decided to leave. And I think she was just kind of trying to be diplomatic, but just sort of like, ask them if they wanted to help, and if they don't want to help, then, you know, you could go be somewhere else, I suppose. And it was. I mean, the sort of. One amusing part, if you call it that, was that they apparently complained to this person about me because they said that I had been watching them and I was. I was racially profiling them because they were white. And I realize now that this is a interview, but just for the listeners. I am very, very quiet myself.

[Narrator/Reporter]

I think it's important when we discuss volunteering to honour how hard this kind of experience can be on people. Obviously, the trauma associated with seeing people brutalized by the state and capital is not the same as being brutalized by state and capital yourself. But that doesn't mean it's easy. I asked Natalie to reflect a little on children's toys we found in the shelter when we were cleaning up the camp.

[Natalie]

Like, as a mom, like, I have my own children, and it just really. It was emotional. It's like. It's just like, I'm like, who's.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Who.

[Natalie]

What child was playing with this, you know, here in this space, and, you know that no child should be ever in, you know, an encampment like that, or it just. No one should be living outside. No one should be doing that. But also it's like kind of like the humanity in a way like that. You know, even a child's going to play wherever a child's going to play. And like that little toy of little. Hopefully it brought that kid some joy in that moment. You know, if it was their little piece of home or someone gave it to him or what, you know, it was. Yeah, the reality, it was like. It was like a person, you know, like a little artifact of someone who was actually there. You know, like, it was a little more tangible than, you know, a sock. You know, that's not. It's not. I'm not thinking, oh, who wore that sock? But think of who.

[Kaber]

Who.

[Natalie]

Who was playing with that joy, you know, Was it a little boy, a little girl? How old were they? Did they bring it home? Are they missing it? When they saw. And I saw they had that she needed people to clean up, it was like, okay, I took a day off of work and went out there and just felt overwhelming almost. I mean, just one day of me working out there was really emotional. I can't imagine how, you know, Melissa and all the people that were on the ground just dealing with it, and I know they're struggling a little bit and just processing it all has been really hard, you know, really hard. It's just. It just. Just how. How privileged we are. You know, like no one leaves our country because they want to. They leave because they have to, but they feel like they have to. And, you know, it's. I mean, just respecting and honoring and understanding the privilege that you're in and not taking it for granted because it's very easy to.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Both Katie and Marissa said they don't really identify as political and that they wanted to be there as people. Sometimes, often politics can become a complicated game of numbers and statistics. But it's important to remember that what this is really about is organizing in such a way that we can take care of one another and that the most important politics of all is the politics of feeding hungry people and maybe bringing a sad child or stuffed animal. Here's Katie talking about the community response.

[Katie]

I think I'm a really compassionate person and I'm not very political in the sense that I don't really participate. My life and my community's life is solution oriented. So I saw like that on a large scale, like when people come together, we create solutions. When. And you don't wait for someone like the government to show up and fix it because then people will die. You know, I mean, that's the reality is if that community didn't activate, there would have been a lot of dead people in the desert.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Katie shared with me that she'd been having a difficult time feeling guilty for not having the language skills to do more and questing her own worthiness to be there helping. But in the end, she said she felt that what she'd done was right and important. I'll leave you with her thoughts and tomorrow I'll be back to talk about the people who put everyone in this situation in the first place. The Department of Homeland Security.

[Katie]

I think an important thing is, like, so many times we hear about things and we say, isn't that awful? And we kind of shut down because we don't feel empowered or we don't know how to help. And literally a smile makes a difference. A feeling of like, I see you and you belong on this planet makes a difference. And, you know, little kids packing up canned goods and fruit snacks for other little kids, they didn't see those kids. But when the adult said, they're going to be so happy to get that package, they felt like they made a difference and those little girls are gonna grow up and not be afraid to step up and make a difference. I think a lot of people think like they can't do enough so they don't do anything. And if we all just do a little bit or what you can, then I think we would see a very large impact. Hakumba is a town of 500 and they just fed thousands, housed thousands, clothed thousands, hugged and welcomed thousands of human beings. And those people in that town don't have much excess and they made a difference. And I was proud to be a part of that community in the way that I'm on the fringe of it, and it made me want to be even more a part of it. My feelings and intuition about that town were confirmed by watching the simplest action make an incredible impact on real lives and real people. And that this isn't demographics, it's real. Real bodies that have beating hearts and breathe and we all share the same air in the same water and we're all connected. And when you make one little drip in the bucket, it actually does make a difference. And I think that stops us sometimes when we think what we have isn't enough to give. But when someone has nothing, what you have is more than what they can imagine.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

It could Happen here as a production.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Natalie]

You can find sources for.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

It Could Happen here updated monthly@coolzone media.com sources.

[Kaber]

Thanks for listening.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Johnny Knoxville Here, check out Crimeless Hillbilly Heist, my new true crime podcast from Smartless Media, Campside media and big money players. It's the true story of the almost perfect crime and the nimrods who almost pulled it off.

[Narrator/Reporter]

It was kind of like the perfect storm in a sewer. That was dumb. Do not follow my example.

[Johnny Knoxville]

Listen to Crimeless Hillbilly Heist on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Ed Helms]

Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu Every single episode.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

32 lost nuclear weapons.

[Interviewer/Commentator]

You're like, wait, stop.

[Katie]

What?

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, it's gonna be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Scheer, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan Klepper. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Katie]

There's a vile sickness in Apostown, you must excise it.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Dig into the deep earth and cut it out.

[Ed Helms]

From iheart Podcasts and Grim and Mike Mild from Aaron Manke. This is Havoc Town, a new fiction podcast set in the Bridgewater Audio universe starring Jewel State and Ray Wise. Listen to Havoc town on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housew wife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Narrator/Reporter]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

[Podcast Advertiser/Announcer]

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[Natalie]

This is an iHeart podcast.