Episode 3 - A huge show of Military Force, Immigration and Help somebody!

It's December 11, 2018, Denmark gives immigrants the cold shoulder, US forces stage a massive exercise in the Nevada desert, and migrants keep piling up on the US southern border.  I'm Chuck Holton, and this is the Hot Zone.

 

Good morning everyone.  We're going to spend a lot of time on immigration today, but before we get to that, I want to point out a huge exercise that is happening this week in the Nevada desert north of Las Vegas.  It's called a JFEX, which stands for Joint Forced Entry Exercise.  And it's the largest gathering of awesome air power in the world.  Hundreds of planes from jet fighters to the behemoth C-17 starlifters and C5 Super Galaxies, all doing an incredible choreographed aerial ballet that is something to behold.  The ground pounders will be there too, with several mass-tac air drops scheduled to take place.  This footage is from last year.  I tell you what, watching these guys stand up, hook up and shuffle out the door brings back so many great memories.  I was fortunate to participate in about a hundred jumps like that.  and my knees are not happy, but the rest of me loved it.  

 

So Denmark is the latest country in Europe that is deciding maybe massive waves of third-world migrants isn't such a great thing for their collective pocketbook, or their culture.  On Facebook last week the country's immigration minister,  Inger Stojberg, made clear that migrants who cause trouble will be made to feel as unwelcome as possible. She announced plans to house the least welcome migrants - those with criminal backgrounds who can't be returned to their home countries for whatever reason - will be housed on a tiny, 17-acre island with very limited services.  The island sits two miles from shore, and boasts such great tourist attractions as a crematorium and a lab for testing animal diseases.  The minister says it isn't exactly a prison, but it'll be a really brisk in the baltic sea for anyone who wants to leave.  

 

This move is just the latest in a series of measures aimed at making Denmark a less-exciting place to be an asylum seeker.  earlier this year the Danish parliament passed a law that allows the country to confiscate any cash or valuables the migrants bring with them above about 2 thousand dollars to help pay for their care.

 

Ever since the migrant wave into Europe started in 2015, with over a million refugees that year alone flooding into the continent from places like Syria and Afghanistan and North Africa, I've been predicting that the sheer numbers of refugees would fundamentally change europe.  That was abundantly clear.  But what surprised the majority of pundits, including me, was just how much backlash we are seeing from voters across the continent.  The largest mass-migration since World War II is causing a big political shift to the right in many countries, from Hungary, where they built a huge fence along their southern frontier and have refused to take the quota of migrants assigned to them by the EU, to new right-leaning governments in Austria and Italy, Brexit in the UK, and Angela Merkel watching her grip on power slip away in Germany.  

 

Even Norway and Sweden, home to some of the most polite people on earth, are starting to vote more conservative.

 

This summer I spent a couple of weeks traveling across Europe - visiting an average of one country per day.  I talked to people everywhere I went about this issue, and was amazed at how unhappy most people are with the unfettered immigration being encouraged and in some cases paid for by left-wing groups like the UN and George Soros' Open Society Foundation. 

 

Unfortunately, what Europe is finding is that if you bring in millions of people from countries that are essentially lawless, then you shouldn't be surprised if those people have a tough time with the concept of following the law.  That means crime rates are skyrocketing in many parts of europe, especially when it comes to robberies and sexual assaults.  I tried to explain how this could happen on a trip last spring to Berlin:

 

[berlin stand up at bus stop] https://vimeo.com/305632159/eb47938a53

 

This kind of culture clash is causing lots of consternation across the continent, and even more surprising is the number of people who are looking to get a gun for self defense.  So many people in Italy want better ways to protect themselves that one town near Milan began pushing a program to help subsidize the purchase of a firearm for it's citizens.  Listen to part of my interview with the daughter of the mayor of the beautiful town of Borgosesia.

 

[Borgosesia interview 2:20] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnVLAMjhVc8 

 

We found this kind of sentiment all across europe, which I have to say is a big change from even five years ago.  And even more prevalent is the feeling that so many migrants are overwhelming Europe's generous welfare systems...I mean think about it, people coming from Syria or yemen who are accustomed to living on a dollar a day find out that all they have to do is head north and if they make it, they can get free housing, free medical care, free education and up to a couple thousand euros a month...and they don't even have to work for it.  What's to stop EVERYONE from third world countries from trying to get in on that deal.  And can you blame them?

 

Now, let's look at what's happening with immigration here on our side of the pond.  The so-called migrant caravan is still held up at the border in Tijuana, Mexico.  Roughly ten thousand are living in squalid camps there, and when a thousand or so tried unsuccessfully to charge the port of entry a couple weeks ago, their American dream has started to turn into a nightmare.  So many of these humble people from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador were encouraged, even celebrated for deciding to simply walk to the promised land.  They were helped along their way by sympathetic locals, churches and left-wing groups.  But now that help is drying up and the migrants are kind of stuck.  Nobody is going to be helping them go back home now that it's proving a lot harder than they were told it would be to get across the US border.  

 

When I was traveling with the caravan as they crossed from Guatemala into mexico, there were already some people who were having second thoughts.  As I drove north documenting their progress, hundreds of people begged for a ride in my car.  Although I could have easily carried four or five people the twenty miles or so to their next stopping place, I refused to give any rides.  It felt kind of mean, I have to admit, watching those hot and weary travelers, some with tiny babies, walk along in the tropical heat while I rode in comfort in my air-conditioned rental car.  But I wanted to do the most loving thing possible.  And I could foresee what is now happening on the US southern border.  I could tell many of these people would never qualify for asylum, and were being driven on by a false hope.  And it isn’t loving to engender false hope.  Neither is it loving to encourage someone to steal from others - which is essentially what a person is doing when they illegally cross our borders.  They are immediately stealing taxpayer dollars, as we are forced to house them and care for them while they make their way through the asylum process.  And they are stealing from other migrants who are attempting to enter our country the right way.

So I didn’t give any rides north.  But when I got to their next stopping point, a little town called Huixtla, I found thousands of people sleeping on cardboard on the sidewalk, or inside the main catholic church in town.  The heat was oppressive.  Groups were handing out food, clothes and medicine - but nothing fancy.  While there I found a woman who told me she had had enough.  Her name was Yuri, (sounds like Judy) and she had a little 18-month-old named Noely Montserrat.

I was planning to drive back to the Guatemalan border that evening and stay in Tapachula that night.  So I offered to give Yuri a ride.

 

[ video of me giving Yuri a ride] https://vimeo.com/298746299

 

Shortly after leaving town we picked up another straggler, a seventeen year-old kid who had had enough of walking.  I drove them back to the border where we shared a nice supper before I put them on the raft to cross back into Guatemala.  Word had it the Honduran government was offering free bus transport back to their hometown of San Pedro Sula.

I have to say, watching little Noely float away into the darkness on that raft just about tore my heart out.  I gave them some money, but it was pretty clear they would sleep on the ground that night.  But that was their choice.

I've kept in touch with Yuri via whatsapp since that day.  They did in fact make the last bus back to Honduras, and are back at home with Yuri's grandmother in San Pedro Sula.  Work is very hard to come by for a young single mother, though, and so I imagine it won't be much of a Christmas.

Well let's change that, shall we?  I'm going to send Yuri and little Noely a gift for Christmas.  Want to pitch in?  This is the kind of thing we're going to do on this podcast.  Not just make the news...but make the news good.  We're going to reach into the lives of the people affected by world events and show them what love looks like.  I'm super excited that so many of you want to join me.

So that's all for the podcast today.  If you want to get involved, visit our patreon page at patreon.com/hotzone, or send a one-time donation through paypal via hotzoneholton(at)gmail.com.

We'll be back again tomorrow, I hope you have a great one until then.  I'm Chuck Holton, and thanks for joining us on the Hot Zone.

 

End Notes: 

 

Conga Lines of US Airlifters in Nevada Desert.

 

Denmark plans to isolate migrant criminals on island.

 

Facing a long wait on the border, many migrants look for work.