Transcripts For CSPAN University Of Michigan Ford School - B

Ford school for policy and International Policy center. We want to give a special thanks to cspan for the interest they have taken in this conversation today and for joining us here to capture the discussion. Director of wallets house which is home to the night wallace fellowship for journalists. Its the livingston awards for young journalists that brings us here today. The livingston awards is a prestigious prize often referred to as the polluters for the young but awards excellence in journalism by journalists under the age of 35. Brooke jarvis, our special guest won the livingston award for National Reporting in 2017 for her story unclaimed and it is that story that brings us to our talk today beyond the wall, the human toll of border crossing. Tell thells that story of an anonymous, undocumented man left in a vegetative state after a tragic truck accident during a border crossing. Unclaimed, he languished in a hospital bed for nearly two decades. The man came to be called 66 garage because there was no information on him and no one knew his name. Perhaps that name was a reference to the truck route on which the accident occurred but no one ever knew for sure. Time when immigration stories are in the news every day, sometimes on a repeating loop throughout the day, so much so that we can become desensitized, the stories are politicized policy debates and political factions. Its easy to just stop listening. Brooke jarvis is unclaimed captured and achingly human story. It explored the hope, the dreams, the tragedies and the disappointment is not just to the unknown man at the center of the narrative but to the hundreds of families who thought that his story might contain a missing longed for piece of their own family story. I will read just one paragraph from the story before we turn it over to our panel. Story, or really the news of the lack of a story spread, people began to contact the hospital to ask detailed questions about his moles or his scars. Her own Family History is also included interby mystery. Each had a son or a brother or a friend or a cousin or a who had headed north and disappeared, leaving no answers about what might have happened to him, whether he was dead or incarcerated or suffering somewhere. Whether he had abandoned them. On the anguish of their uncertainty, they looked to the man in the bed and saw hope. Past peered into his anti and so the possibility of themselves. Acknowledging these human stories is what brings us here today. Believe thee house excellent journalism presents an opportunity for communities. It prompts us not just to think and observe stories in solitude and also to talk, to explore, to debate, to try to understand the issues and the stories together. And so we have brought Brooke Jarvis here to join us in cap us today for a conversation with two esteemed scholars would to experience and interest in the issues her work explores. We are pleased to have joining associatejason professor at the university and director of the undocumented migration project. His research on latin american migration, violence, death, and morning. Is the author of the book the land of open graves. He was awarded a 2017 macarthur genius thet for his work that Macarthur Foundation cited for challenging audiences to confront the complexity of International Migration and american policy choices. And to moderate the discussion today, we are pleased to have ann lynn, associate professor of Public Policy at the ford school where she teaches courses on Public Policy and implementation , Qualitative Research methods, and a range of topics tied to immigration. Annll turn things over to to guide her conversation today but before we do, i want to policyyou that its our at Wallace House to invite our audience to participate in our conversation. You will notice we have given question cards when you came in. If you dont have one in the conversation is going on, raise your hand, someone will pass you a card and if you have a question, please jot it down. We will have people in the aisles. They will collect those question cards and making sure they get down to the front for when we open it up for question and answer. For those of us who dont want to write down a question but would rather join the conversation on twitter either from the room or the livestream, you can submit your question to twitter using the hashtag Wallace House. I will come back up at the end and we will have a brief reception after our conversation for you to meet our panelists and hopefully talk to one another. I will welcome you to stay for that and with that, i leave it in the able hands of ann lynn. [applause] thank you for that. Really honoring your story today. I wonder if you can just tell us a little about it. It starts with a man in a bed and nobody knows who he is. Tell us how he got there and what happens. As lynette began, for a long time, the story of how we got into the bed was all that was known about him. Accident near the border and the other people in the car were migrant so it was assumed he also was but no one was very sure. Its common for people to be advised not to carry their for afication with them variety of reasons but smugglers and courage that. Is this microphone working right . There were very few clues about his past. In his pocket, he had a calling card that has been purchased in mexico and some dollars and pesos and that was it. He became this mystery. , no the mystery of his name one i talked to was able to clarify how such a strange name came about and the nurses who treated him would make up names for him because they needed something to call him. His story was so short. It was just a shadow of a story. What was so interesting and what true me to write about him was how the lack of a story affected other people. There are tens of thousands of people who have someone they love and they dont know what happens to them. They set out across the border and then something happened and it could be a wide variety of things. It means a lot of people left wondering. One of the people i spoke to when i was researching this story, i worked with a lot of families trying to make the between mysterious remains and unfinished stories, she said the family she worked with turned to psychics, they believed in dreams. Many of them were convinced their person was the one case where someone had amnesia. Unlikely thing but people were eager for something to believe. She said its a kind of torture that she would not wish on anyone, a special kind of torture of not knowing. The point of the story was to learn more about all of these families and what their experience was like. When i first started working on it, i thought a lot about this novel that i love which is called the heart is the lonely hunter. At the heart of the novel is a mute man. Deaf, they feel he is the one person they can talk to end the person they can trust. They see themselves reflected back by this man. Of the man ing the bed as kind of a similar person in this persons lives. He reflected back all of their fears and their hopes. One of the people that you write a lot about is she is from mexico originally. She currently lives in houston. She has a legal visa to be in the United States. She is missing her brother. How do she come to know about the man in in the bed . What do she do to find her brother . Itthe time i met louis anna had been 1999, so 16 years. Missing hist went family look for him. The call had cut out, his calling card had ran out of juice. Then they never heard from him again. Then they went to the last place they knew he was in the little they look at a hotel and another hotel. They looked in morgues and Detention Centers and the people in the county showed them pictures of people who have died in the desert. Is this him . And every time it wasnt him. It was a common enough story that there were these other to themhat were offered for identification. And they didnt know what to do. Of thisshe had heard man, who was in san diego by that time, there are large Online Networks for people in this family and other family situations that have run up very grassroots people believe in the age of the internet. Out and ita photo gets wide enough circulation, maybe the right person will see it and maybe somebody will get an answer to their question. So there are more than a dozen from what i found, possibly more, of facebook groups with followers ranging from ten thousand to 200,000 people, and its this whole world of people sharing stories and sharing pictures, either of someone they lost or someone who has been found although usually not the way that you would want to eventually find your Family Member. People will share sometimes very disturbing photos of bodies found in the desert or a backpack and just these little clues for people to follow up on. On. And lilliana came across one of those one of her cousins saw it and forwarded today her because they thought that the man looked like her brother. Jason, you have done a lot of thinking and writing and work with the clues that might migrants leave behind in the desert. Can you say a little bit about your own work and talk about groups like the one that lilliana used to try to find her brother. Yeah. I mean, first i want to say the story is amazing. I you havent readded, i highly recommend you read it. Theyre going to give out copies later. I think for me one of the amazing thing bet the story, its not a story about immigration and i dont necessarily think we need more stories about immigration at this point. Were flooded with them. We need people to see statistics and the word migrant associated with people, with faces, stories, names, will real trauma that people live with daily, and the work ive been doing since 2008 has been trying to piece together what actually happens along the border, what do border crossings look like from an archeologyam perspective, ethnographic perspective. Forensic perspective, trying to piece together stories that are often difficult to document because they happen in the middle of know. We pick up things the migrants leave behind, like backpacks. Spent time with might grands in shelters after theyve been deport or trying to attempt a desert crossing and then we focus on the forensic packet packet. What happens to people who die more people have guides crossing the borner since 2000 since 9 11 and Hurricane Katrina combined. Those are recovered bodies. There are a lot of different places where we drastically under count the number of fatalities. That only two people die out not only do people die out there, the trauma continues to carry on until now. These families who are looking for loved ones, it is a really horrific thing missing a loved one. And some of the work we have done has focused around the story of the 15yearold kid. And he went missing. Has not been heard from since. Maybe he has amnesia, maybe he has been kidnapped. Families live with this trauma forever. 9 11. In the context of this loss could never be resolved. You will never have information of someone who was alive or dead. But these families, they have to go to facebook to start to coordinate. There is minimal support for this kind of stuff, the federal government could care less about the bodies. There are some nonprofits who are trying to ways trying to raise money and awareness about the stuff. Your relative goes missing in the desert, who do you call . Do you call the Mexican Consulate . Do you call someone in tucson . You just dont know. If you call someone in tucson they may send you to 12 different places. Packed aroundts willynilly. And a handful of organizations are working. Orthe moment there are 800 900 dead bodies in arizona alone. There is nobody working in the to alleviate this horrific humanitarian u. S. s had that the his hand in for a long time. Maybe you can tell us about how you got to know about this story. How did you begin to where to write about it and the work you did to research and write about it. Um, i lets see. I think i was first considering there was a story that made National Headlines a few years ago. My gracious routes my gracious routes shifted and happened to pass through this county in texas that was not directly a border county, and there was a Border Patrol checkpoints that people had to go around to not get caught. And in doing so , they many of them tied of expires ranchs find them. Some would leave out water and supplies but still, many people were dying and the county with no medical examiner, didnt know that would do and buried a lot of the bodies in a mass grave. Which made a lot of headlines and i was considering writing about that. I thought about theres an anthropologist who has a project to try to identify the people they exhumed them and are following what clues they can to find out what their stories are. But didnt feel like the right way. For a number of runs. One it was early. Had only identified one person, and it felt, as you said, many times stories about immigration can feel lie an extractions and like abstractions and we hear numbers and statistics and i wanted to find some people stories and that wasnt yet available. I was a little leery, like, the as a magazine writer, the story of, like, the white detective is who going to solve this, its a trope, and but thats what made me aware of the scale of this problem. Talked to that anthropologist who you probably know and she put it in the same terms. A katrina and a 9 11 that is going unaddressed. How can that be . So i had as something i wanted to write about but had not found out how. Then i was reading somewhat randomly because i have written about physician assisted suicide and right to die movements, death and dying issues, and i was ready story about the number of people kept alive at government expense in california, and there was a mention of this man who was 66 garage and it mentioned that families had come forward hoping he was their missing person, and when id been thinking about these massive numbers of missing people, i hadnt been thinking about their family i. That what a whole part of the stories that had not occurred to me. When i read that, it just caught me. Its not hard to imagine that Emotional Experience of having to live in doubt and fear because you dont know what happened to someone you loved. So then i went in to find the families to talk, to which was rick because theres a lot of privacy considerations, especially when it comes to things that are health care involved. But eventually i found some. One of the heartbreaking parts of the story is at the very end where you talk bat woman, paula who sort of adopted this man and visit him and spoke to him and then helped to publicize him. And then at the end, when he is identified, she is no longer able to speak to him anymore. Yeah. That really breaks her heart it and is a heartbreaking part of the story. The timing just happened to work that way. If i had started reporting this i didnt know he would be identified. For 16 years had not been identified and was a photo mystery and that allowed people involved in his life to tell me things if i had started reporting after he was identified would have been considered private or at least at the discretion of the family. And then, surprise, which is a great outcome for that family, which is one of the rare so many people i talk to, they continued looking for years and decades, and in this case, he had a living sister who after many years of not hearing from him, had given him up for lost and was surprised to find he was alive. President trump talked about open borders and how he felt that prior to his administration, the borders between america had his open border policy that allowed in all these drugs and crime. Jason, can you Say Something about whether whatted the e what the border looks like and how its not open. You know, the open border question is just one that is not based on any kind of truth or facts. And if you think about who the people pushing for the wall, the wall is going to solve this whole thing. Its not people high up in dhs. Its not agents on the ground. People recognize that the border is a very complex place and its not we dont have an open border. We dont have what is being said politically and publicly, is not a reflection of what is happening on the ground. So this whole notion of an open border, you know, numbers have been down, obama deported more people that george w. Bush. These things are much more complicate than the way theyre being portrayed now. And the policy we have in place that the way our Security Work nows started in the clinton administration. So, yeah, this idea were being overrun by ms13 and drugs and terrorists, these are falsehoods. Theyre not true. And what we have done over the years is conflated the war on terrorism with southern Border Security which is a very savvy sleight of hand and its a way to generate lots of fear, way to generate spending for things like wall we know will not work and will destroy the environment but will put money in certain peoples pockets. But we throw these things out there and unfortunately they pick up steam. And but from my experience and from many hours of conversations on the ground, these things were being told public publicly are not true. One thing i think people often dont real how many border enforce. Contributes to the enforcement contributes to the difficulty of getting across the border and also to the existence of a large undocumentedded population in the u. S. , because once people come across they dont want to risk going home because they fear they cant cross again. Crossing is not i as easy as walking across a dotted line. As a lot of your work talks bit, it can be a weeks long, months long process, and i wonder if you can just say a little bit about that. Its not this idea that the wall is going to stop this whole thing. I love the quote that it use from Janet Napolitano says show me a 50foot wall. Ry show you a dude on the side renting a 50foot ladder. People are constantly responding to change inside enforcement but not necessarily in ways that are super obvious. So putting occupy up a wall is an an, a architectural imopossiblity. What we stated with obama the way the immigration has changed in 2014 we were afraid of the poor brown children from Central America who were floodings our International Policy<\/a> center. We want to give a special thanks to cspan for the interest they have taken in this conversation today and for joining us here to capture the discussion. Director of wallets house which is home to the night wallace fellowship for journalists. Its the livingston awards for young journalists that brings us here today. The livingston awards is a prestigious prize often referred to as the polluters for the young but awards excellence in journalism by journalists under the age of 35. Brooke jarvis, our special guest won the livingston award for National Reporting<\/a> in 2017 for her story unclaimed and it is that story that brings us to our talk today beyond the wall, the human toll of border crossing. Tell thells that story of an anonymous, undocumented man left in a vegetative state after a tragic truck accident during a border crossing. Unclaimed, he languished in a hospital bed for nearly two decades. The man came to be called 66 garage because there was no information on him and no one knew his name. Perhaps that name was a reference to the truck route on which the accident occurred but no one ever knew for sure. Time when immigration stories are in the news every day, sometimes on a repeating loop throughout the day, so much so that we can become desensitized, the stories are politicized policy debates and political factions. Its easy to just stop listening. Brooke jarvis is unclaimed captured and achingly human story. It explored the hope, the dreams, the tragedies and the disappointment is not just to the unknown man at the center of the narrative but to the hundreds of families who thought that his story might contain a missing longed for piece of their own family story. I will read just one paragraph from the story before we turn it over to our panel. Story, or really the news of the lack of a story spread, people began to contact the hospital to ask detailed questions about his moles or his scars. Her own Family History<\/a> is also included interby mystery. Each had a son or a brother or a friend or a cousin or a who had headed north and disappeared, leaving no answers about what might have happened to him, whether he was dead or incarcerated or suffering somewhere. Whether he had abandoned them. On the anguish of their uncertainty, they looked to the man in the bed and saw hope. Past peered into his anti and so the possibility of themselves. Acknowledging these human stories is what brings us here today. Believe thee house excellent journalism presents an opportunity for communities. It prompts us not just to think and observe stories in solitude and also to talk, to explore, to debate, to try to understand the issues and the stories together. And so we have brought Brooke Jarvis<\/a> here to join us in cap us today for a conversation with two esteemed scholars would to experience and interest in the issues her work explores. We are pleased to have joining associatejason professor at the university and director of the undocumented migration project. His research on latin american migration, violence, death, and morning. Is the author of the book the land of open graves. He was awarded a 2017 macarthur genius thet for his work that Macarthur Foundation<\/a> cited for challenging audiences to confront the complexity of International Migration<\/a> and american policy choices. And to moderate the discussion today, we are pleased to have ann lynn, associate professor of Public Policy<\/a> at the ford school where she teaches courses on Public Policy<\/a> and implementation , Qualitative Research<\/a> methods, and a range of topics tied to immigration. Annll turn things over to to guide her conversation today but before we do, i want to policyyou that its our at Wallace House<\/a> to invite our audience to participate in our conversation. You will notice we have given question cards when you came in. If you dont have one in the conversation is going on, raise your hand, someone will pass you a card and if you have a question, please jot it down. We will have people in the aisles. They will collect those question cards and making sure they get down to the front for when we open it up for question and answer. For those of us who dont want to write down a question but would rather join the conversation on twitter either from the room or the livestream, you can submit your question to twitter using the hashtag Wallace House<\/a>. I will come back up at the end and we will have a brief reception after our conversation for you to meet our panelists and hopefully talk to one another. I will welcome you to stay for that and with that, i leave it in the able hands of ann lynn. [applause] thank you for that. Really honoring your story today. I wonder if you can just tell us a little about it. It starts with a man in a bed and nobody knows who he is. Tell us how he got there and what happens. As lynette began, for a long time, the story of how we got into the bed was all that was known about him. Accident near the border and the other people in the car were migrant so it was assumed he also was but no one was very sure. Its common for people to be advised not to carry their for afication with them variety of reasons but smugglers and courage that. Is this microphone working right . There were very few clues about his past. In his pocket, he had a calling card that has been purchased in mexico and some dollars and pesos and that was it. He became this mystery. , no the mystery of his name one i talked to was able to clarify how such a strange name came about and the nurses who treated him would make up names for him because they needed something to call him. His story was so short. It was just a shadow of a story. What was so interesting and what true me to write about him was how the lack of a story affected other people. There are tens of thousands of people who have someone they love and they dont know what happens to them. They set out across the border and then something happened and it could be a wide variety of things. It means a lot of people left wondering. One of the people i spoke to when i was researching this story, i worked with a lot of families trying to make the between mysterious remains and unfinished stories, she said the family she worked with turned to psychics, they believed in dreams. Many of them were convinced their person was the one case where someone had amnesia. Unlikely thing but people were eager for something to believe. She said its a kind of torture that she would not wish on anyone, a special kind of torture of not knowing. The point of the story was to learn more about all of these families and what their experience was like. When i first started working on it, i thought a lot about this novel that i love which is called the heart is the lonely hunter. At the heart of the novel is a mute man. Deaf, they feel he is the one person they can talk to end the person they can trust. They see themselves reflected back by this man. Of the man ing the bed as kind of a similar person in this persons lives. He reflected back all of their fears and their hopes. One of the people that you write a lot about is she is from mexico originally. She currently lives in houston. She has a legal visa to be in the United States<\/a>. She is missing her brother. How do she come to know about the man in in the bed . What do she do to find her brother . Itthe time i met louis anna had been 1999, so 16 years. Missing hist went family look for him. The call had cut out, his calling card had ran out of juice. Then they never heard from him again. Then they went to the last place they knew he was in the little they look at a hotel and another hotel. They looked in morgues and Detention Centers<\/a> and the people in the county showed them pictures of people who have died in the desert. Is this him . And every time it wasnt him. It was a common enough story that there were these other to themhat were offered for identification. And they didnt know what to do. Of thisshe had heard man, who was in san diego by that time, there are large Online Networks<\/a> for people in this family and other family situations that have run up very grassroots people believe in the age of the internet. Out and ita photo gets wide enough circulation, maybe the right person will see it and maybe somebody will get an answer to their question. So there are more than a dozen from what i found, possibly more, of facebook groups with followers ranging from ten thousand to 200,000 people, and its this whole world of people sharing stories and sharing pictures, either of someone they lost or someone who has been found although usually not the way that you would want to eventually find your Family Member<\/a>. People will share sometimes very disturbing photos of bodies found in the desert or a backpack and just these little clues for people to follow up on. On. And lilliana came across one of those one of her cousins saw it and forwarded today her because they thought that the man looked like her brother. Jason, you have done a lot of thinking and writing and work with the clues that might migrants leave behind in the desert. Can you say a little bit about your own work and talk about groups like the one that lilliana used to try to find her brother. Yeah. I mean, first i want to say the story is amazing. I you havent readded, i highly recommend you read it. Theyre going to give out copies later. I think for me one of the amazing thing bet the story, its not a story about immigration and i dont necessarily think we need more stories about immigration at this point. Were flooded with them. We need people to see statistics and the word migrant associated with people, with faces, stories, names, will real trauma that people live with daily, and the work ive been doing since 2008 has been trying to piece together what actually happens along the border, what do border crossings look like from an archeologyam perspective, ethnographic perspective. Forensic perspective, trying to piece together stories that are often difficult to document because they happen in the middle of know. We pick up things the migrants leave behind, like backpacks. Spent time with might grands in shelters after theyve been deport or trying to attempt a desert crossing and then we focus on the forensic packet packet. What happens to people who die more people have guides crossing the borner since 2000 since 9 11 and Hurricane Katrina<\/a> combined. Those are recovered bodies. There are a lot of different places where we drastically under count the number of fatalities. That only two people die out not only do people die out there, the trauma continues to carry on until now. These families who are looking for loved ones, it is a really horrific thing missing a loved one. And some of the work we have done has focused around the story of the 15yearold kid. And he went missing. Has not been heard from since. Maybe he has amnesia, maybe he has been kidnapped. Families live with this trauma forever. 9 11. In the context of this loss could never be resolved. You will never have information of someone who was alive or dead. But these families, they have to go to facebook to start to coordinate. There is minimal support for this kind of stuff, the federal government could care less about the bodies. There are some nonprofits who are trying to ways trying to raise money and awareness about the stuff. Your relative goes missing in the desert, who do you call . Do you call the Mexican Consulate<\/a> . Do you call someone in tucson . You just dont know. If you call someone in tucson they may send you to 12 different places. Packed aroundts willynilly. And a handful of organizations are working. Orthe moment there are 800 900 dead bodies in arizona alone. There is nobody working in the to alleviate this horrific humanitarian u. S. s had that the his hand in for a long time. Maybe you can tell us about how you got to know about this story. How did you begin to where to write about it and the work you did to research and write about it. Um, i lets see. I think i was first considering there was a story that made National Headlines<\/a> a few years ago. My gracious routes my gracious routes shifted and happened to pass through this county in texas that was not directly a border county, and there was a Border Patrol<\/a> checkpoints that people had to go around to not get caught. And in doing so , they many of them tied of expires ranchs find them. Some would leave out water and supplies but still, many people were dying and the county with no medical examiner, didnt know that would do and buried a lot of the bodies in a mass grave. Which made a lot of headlines and i was considering writing about that. I thought about theres an anthropologist who has a project to try to identify the people they exhumed them and are following what clues they can to find out what their stories are. But didnt feel like the right way. For a number of runs. One it was early. Had only identified one person, and it felt, as you said, many times stories about immigration can feel lie an extractions and like abstractions and we hear numbers and statistics and i wanted to find some people stories and that wasnt yet available. I was a little leery, like, the as a magazine writer, the story of, like, the white detective is who going to solve this, its a trope, and but thats what made me aware of the scale of this problem. Talked to that anthropologist who you probably know and she put it in the same terms. A katrina and a 9 11 that is going unaddressed. How can that be . So i had as something i wanted to write about but had not found out how. Then i was reading somewhat randomly because i have written about physician assisted suicide and right to die movements, death and dying issues, and i was ready story about the number of people kept alive at government expense in california, and there was a mention of this man who was 66 garage and it mentioned that families had come forward hoping he was their missing person, and when id been thinking about these massive numbers of missing people, i hadnt been thinking about their family i. That what a whole part of the stories that had not occurred to me. When i read that, it just caught me. Its not hard to imagine that Emotional Experience<\/a> of having to live in doubt and fear because you dont know what happened to someone you loved. So then i went in to find the families to talk, to which was rick because theres a lot of privacy considerations, especially when it comes to things that are health care involved. But eventually i found some. One of the heartbreaking parts of the story is at the very end where you talk bat woman, paula who sort of adopted this man and visit him and spoke to him and then helped to publicize him. And then at the end, when he is identified, she is no longer able to speak to him anymore. Yeah. That really breaks her heart it and is a heartbreaking part of the story. The timing just happened to work that way. If i had started reporting this i didnt know he would be identified. For 16 years had not been identified and was a photo mystery and that allowed people involved in his life to tell me things if i had started reporting after he was identified would have been considered private or at least at the discretion of the family. And then, surprise, which is a great outcome for that family, which is one of the rare so many people i talk to, they continued looking for years and decades, and in this case, he had a living sister who after many years of not hearing from him, had given him up for lost and was surprised to find he was alive. President trump talked about open borders and how he felt that prior to his administration, the borders between america had his open border policy that allowed in all these drugs and crime. Jason, can you Say Something<\/a> about whether whatted the e what the border looks like and how its not open. You know, the open border question is just one that is not based on any kind of truth or facts. And if you think about who the people pushing for the wall, the wall is going to solve this whole thing. Its not people high up in dhs. Its not agents on the ground. People recognize that the border is a very complex place and its not we dont have an open border. We dont have what is being said politically and publicly, is not a reflection of what is happening on the ground. So this whole notion of an open border, you know, numbers have been down, obama deported more people that george w. Bush. These things are much more complicate than the way theyre being portrayed now. And the policy we have in place that the way our Security Work<\/a> nows started in the clinton administration. So, yeah, this idea were being overrun by ms13 and drugs and terrorists, these are falsehoods. Theyre not true. And what we have done over the years is conflated the war on terrorism with southern Border Security<\/a> which is a very savvy sleight of hand and its a way to generate lots of fear, way to generate spending for things like wall we know will not work and will destroy the environment but will put money in certain peoples pockets. But we throw these things out there and unfortunately they pick up steam. And but from my experience and from many hours of conversations on the ground, these things were being told public publicly are not true. One thing i think people often dont real how many border enforce. Contributes to the enforcement contributes to the difficulty of getting across the border and also to the existence of a large undocumentedded population in the u. S. , because once people come across they dont want to risk going home because they fear they cant cross again. Crossing is not i as easy as walking across a dotted line. As a lot of your work talks bit, it can be a weeks long, months long process, and i wonder if you can just say a little bit about that. Its not this idea that the wall is going to stop this whole thing. I love the quote that it use from Janet Napolitano<\/a> says show me a 50foot wall. Ry show you a dude on the side renting a 50foot ladder. People are constantly responding to change inside enforcement but not necessarily in ways that are super obvious. So putting occupy up a wall is an an, a architectural imopossiblity. What we stated with obama the way the immigration has changed in 2014 we were afraid of the poor brown children from Central America<\/a> who were floodings our Detention Centers<\/a>, and people got really concerned about this humanitarian crisis they recognize for about a new york minute and then it went away. In and obama comes out and says we tougherrenned up border enforce; more boots on the ground we have outsourced immigration enforce into the mexico. Put political pressure on them to stop Central America<\/a>ns in country. So they deport equal numbers of Central America<\/a>ns that we do. As part of this plan that was initially called they dont have ha name for it and deny it exists we train agents in mexico and honduras to catch people leaving the country. Thats where this border enforce. Is happening. The stuff at the u. S. Mexico border, much of that is a smoke screen. One thing i think is onmissed often missed in this discussion is is that its not very easy to come to the u. S. Legally. People talk about waiting in line and how its important for people to do the right thing and wait in line. But the fact is that American Immigration<\/a> policy is really about who you know because it is centered around sponsorship. So either you have an immediate Family Member<\/a> who can sponsor you, a parents, child, an adult child, a spouse, a brother and sister, who can sponsor you, or you have to have an employer sponsor you. And sponsor you by name. That is, not just say, i need workers of this particular type. But i need this person here now, and im willing to make that application. So, if you go back to the issue of waiting in line for a lot of people there is no line for them to wait. In theres never a line that they can join that will get them to the United States<\/a>. So people develop all of these other ways of getting to the United States<\/a>. One of the things you were talking about earlier is ms13 and how its become powerful in part because it smuggles people over the border and i wonder if you could Say Something<\/a> about that, jason. I didnt watch the state of the union last night. I was joking just got my update from the onion how that went. What the trope of the ms13 is going to destroy america, we made ms13 in america. Its a homegrown problem. We then sent people back to Central America<\/a> with skills to become more organized around criminal activities but ms13 is like the new the kind offing intoe man. Thats ing intoe man, they scary think we can throat out there and now need a wall. Ms13 starts in l. A. We start deport people who are fleeing Central America<\/a> because of u. S. Intervention policies that were making the countries unliveable so the come to the u. S. , they get marginalized in the u. S. , start gangs and then we send them back to Central America<\/a>, get more organized there, make life even more miserable for aberdeen else in Central America<\/a>. As for everybody else for everybody else in Central America<\/a>. Its a back and forth but ms13 is an american problem we had a hand in creating and we want had this historical am niece should how they amnesia who have come to be. Amnesia about how they came to be. In msed for a lot of guys 13 who loved donald trump. Every time he says im going to build this big wall, they can say thats more money i can make. I know the wall isnt going to do anything but my people that smuggle dont know that. They think that this wall is going to require more things from me so now i can jack up my prices. Ms13 now largely control his controls the controls the movement of Central America<\/a>ns across mexico. So they control the train tracks and the routes cartels control particular geographic aread. You cant cross mexico without paying ms13 to smuggle you across and those guys money now. Those guys are making lots of money now. Things were slow after the election because people were afraid to come, prices have gone up. But ms13 now, they look every time trump says something about them, for. The its like, yeah, more money in our back pocket. So i have interesting conversations with those folks about the perception of what these things were said in the u. S. , those impacts theyre having on people in Central America<\/a> and mexico. I want to remind everybody that we are looking forward to your questions later on and so please write your questions on your question cards. If you need a card, just raise your hand a little bit. Remember you can also tweak your questions tweet your questions. I wanted to ask you about a story you have been working on more recently. This is about citizen children of parents who fear deportation. Up ofin the great ramp deportation policies under president obama, and then with change intrumps to ice,e to isis Immigration Enforcement<\/a> it encourages ice to pick up any undocumented immigrant, even if they do not have a criminal background or criminal record. The fear of deportation has really gone up tremendously. I wonder if you can tell us about what some of those families are doing to deal with it. Childrenying the adult are able to sponsor through citizenship. Children are not. You really dont have a right to have that person in your life in america. Its a very interesting situation where in the best interest of the child is the Legal Standard<\/a> used. The only country not to ratify. Sooneres a custody to do custody decision these are the criteria they are considering. There are lots of people who are. Eported leaving behind even if they do leave. Maybe you dont speak the language, people are planning better for this now. They didnt have any kind of paperwork there, so how are they mexican schools are having a hard time right now because they are overrun with american schools who dont speak spanish. And so families are very afraid from what ive seen in my reporting. Many of them are planning for the eventuality of what happens if you have a small child and one day your parents doesnt come home from work or pick them up from school because theyve been detained and theres nonprofits to work with families to make a play and who are they going to call, who has the bank account information, who has the documents. A story that i recently worked on the bus specifically about a woman in miami, something many people do do is sign a power of attorney letter to allow someone to step in in a legal sense and take care of the children or see them through this transition, they are a person who can find the School Paperwork<\/a> or the doctors paperwork. Its all this legal stuff you wouldnt necessarily imagine a big problem. Theres a woman in miami where parents have signed the paperworkpaperworkfor more than a thousand children for her and its gone up a lot since the election she is reported she sees people being much more afraid and of the effect that has on the whole family. There is a psychologist who refers to these children as as hinted invisible citizens whose rights are not being remembered or respected as he described it and having interviewed analyzed them he found clinical levels of separation anxiety selfesteem and so many of these kids live in fear they will be the one to mess up like they have their parents in their hands in hands and what if they do something wrong and its their fault their family falls apart. So it is a terrifying prospect for kids. They would report dreams where they are hiding from i. C. E. In the middle of the night this is a dream that one girl reported. She had a ping could and she couldnt hide. Or james that having to sacrifice themselves for their parents. Who have hadildren parents deported or are afraid of having parents supported. The effect is pretty heartbreaking. How do you get people to trust you in situations like that . How dosomething they say, sog they do will bring them to the attention of ice and lead to deportation. Why do people trust you enough to speak to you . I am very cautious about things like that. My First Response<\/a> ability is to readers. Different writing about public figures. Its not like you arent going to knock on doors with immigrants and neighborhoods. Who wants to talk about your its important to lain to people and when the circumstances require it to. Require to anonymize your details. Whether these are young men who are coming across the border. You have worked with Border Patrol<\/a> agents who probably dont see a professor from the university of michigan as somebody whos going to be sympathetic to my beliefs. How do you create trust . How do you get sources . I was working on a project once, a sociology survey is part of a we knocked on doors asking peoples status and it totally fell flat. It was the worst. It was a good learning moment for me as a graduate student. This isnt really working. But for me,its a couple of things. The communities and people i work with have the luxury of spending years with them so it takes a long time to develop trust. And in that length of time they become committed, so part of it is just when you tell someone im interested in your story im going to be back tomorrow and you come back and they are like like like you werelikeyoure not kidding and when you say i will be back next week and the next. They realize youre not going to go away until things are figured out so part of it is a methodological thing. Dother part of it to his people want to talk to you . Im here to do the best job i can and also to be fair to the people that are trusting me . Ive had great working relationships with Law Enforcement<\/a> and i come to all of it with this openness of i want to tell the stories. I cant do it if im here with this kind of agenda. People are not always open to this in the beginning. We disagree about certain things, but we recognize at the end of the day if im going to ride that write about them i want to maybe we disagree about certain things. They work with people who do a lot of horrible stuff, but i want to understand how to someone come to that position . You have this thing you just bring in people pick up on that. Maybe i dont quite know what you are doing that i can trust that i think or the relationship we are having. People have a pretty good detector for not being forthcoming about stuff. Im wondering if you can Say Something<\/a> about the kind of journalism you try to do. My senses you write for different magazines. You pitch stories to a lot of different places. What do you look for . Thats a really hard question. The best dancer is the story, it needs to be the kind of story that would stick with you and you and tell your friends. Whatever but he only says in journalism is to teach a story and not a topic. When it comes to Something Like<\/a> this, i dont have any policy agenda or thoughts. I want to tell the story of the people involved so we understand them better. When you can do that anyway that cuts through what people expect and what they think they already know, thats the most effective. The largest barrier is feeling. Ike you already got the answer that can be frustrating because they always think they have heard that story before. You always have to find a new way in. I have never been very good about talking about what i do. The goal is to tell good stories. I want to know peoples motivations and what they were thinking and why they did what they did. Anything thats going to make me see the world in a different way. I think that is a valuable experience. I have a somewhat related question for you. You work with people over years and years and years. How do you select from that material . Quotes and artifacts, many more events are in your. Esearch how do you make a selection . Can i use theory in a different way echo i would consider myself to be, on an anthropologist in the field, but i dont think him an anthropologist or social scientist. I much more interested in being a writer. Im much more interested in being a fake journalist or some other thing that values work. And is thinking about the reader. I saw my colleague. Its ok if you think you are a journalist, thats not a bad thing. And with the social science stuff, you have to figure out then what to include and what to leave out in terms of what can the reader handle. And how you do that in a concise i had to figure out how to be more honest about the editing process. It doesnt matter how much data i put in there, its indecipherable. Its hard. Whether its a journal article or a public piece, i just now want to think about the editing process. Inad a lot to work with, but thinking about it much more in a journalistic or novelistic way. I think its probably time to invite everyone else into the conversation. Isee people collecting cards, know the cards are coming down here. Some of the fellows will be asking the questions. Do we see . This is a question from our wallnce, would a physical the truly ran the length the border prevent death . No. Its not the wall. We have walls. We have giant walls in san diego. You have to walk five or six days to get across. Whether it is walking through suit or or through the southern desert of arizona, that is the wall, that is the physical barrier to movement its not going to stop the flow of people. They can go around it. At the end of the day doesnt get at the core reason why people are coming or what is pulling them here. If we wanted to stop immigrants from coming here, we would release the workforce in a real way. Economy,d crash our that would make a lot of people upset. When obama came out and said that the border had slowed things down. Thats not what slowed immigration down in 2008. Always been. s labor or are things happening that are forcing them to leave, whether it is Global Climate<\/a> change, political stability in places like Central America<\/a>, the trump war, mexico. The u. S. Has a big hand. I think we are going to have this stop having this conversation. We are talking about these physical anxieties. Smokescreenrfect not thinking about these other issues. Question is not my area of expertise, if i have an area of expertise. Mind isg that brings to that spain has two al posts in morocco that are considered spanish territory. And they are very small borders to protect. It is to cities with an elaborate series of senses around them. They are killed and injured in the process frequently on a weekly basis. That is a microcosm of what we are trying to accomplish, and it has not been successful. I would add,hing when you make it difficult to get into the u. S. , you create a market for people who tell you they can help you conquer those difficulties. There are undocumented immigrants from asia who are smuggled in. Towe make it hard for people cross but theres still an economic incentive for them to be in the United States<\/a>, there are still family reasons for them to come to the u. S. With no legal way to do it, then people will pay smugglers and be in debt to those smugglers for to get through the checkpoints that are between them and the u. S. Government fought in the early 90s. The thinking was if enough people died you can look this up you can seenet these policy documents were people say people die in the desert the people wont stop them. If hundreds of deaths per year wont stop them, i dont know what this wall is going to do. That still is not going to stop people from coming. I wanted to stay before the next question, the question cards are being collected by the amazing Wallace House<\/a> fellows. Im one of the night wallace fellows. This question is from the audience. Does the country of origin affect specific routes taken through mexico . Then a related question, of those crossing the u. S. Border, do you know the breakdown between mexico and Central America<\/a> . Routes are segregated by country of origin. You have people from african countries. Hondurans come through two routes. Trying to get to Houston Texas<\/a> or new orleans. You will see these routes in mexico. People will differentially come. There are segregated routes. At the border, the breakdown right now is 98 or so. Pretty evenlyplit these days between mexico and Central America<\/a>n countries. It would be unexpected, like china for example. This is also from our inhouse audience. Can one of you talk about the Sanctuary Movement<\/a>, our churches the only state that can provide sanctuary . What does that mean . Do you know about the church in detroit that is a test case for this movement . Let me just start that by saying there is actually no against ice oron or any Law Enforcement<\/a> officer going into a house of worship or anywhere else. The Sanctuary Movement<\/a> is built on a particular belief. Belief is if Law Enforcement<\/a> agents have to force their way into a church to pick up a particular family, that that will create a Public Relations<\/a> form for them that their agency cant tolerate. Theres nothing else that keeps Law Enforcement<\/a> from going into mosque,a synagogue, a any other house of worship. I think there are two issues to go on here. Wayink it is an important for congregations, for americans to think about if they approve of the policies of a government, which is in their name saying we cannot survive as a country if these people, who did not come through Legal Immigration<\/a> status here. Its a way for americans to see what they really accept. Its tremendously useful in teaching people about the issues of immigration and documented migration and a great way of teaching people about the millions of people in the united that are protected against deportation. But they have no legal status and no way of getting legal status. Peoplethe situation of who are under temporary protected status. That is people who received daca as well as people who are undocumented and do not have any program or decree protecting , so i think its important. Concerned and are care about it. But as an actual policy to prevent deportation, its not very helpful. This question is also from our inhouse audience. Migration across the border has aspects of intersection allergy. Intersectionality can you speak how the border are also feminist issues, particularly at the time of the me too movement. I guess i have a wide definition of what a feminist issue is. These are peoples families and lives. Is thethe trends majority of people who were deported from the u. S. Interior are men, so that leaves a lot of families with just a mother. Thats a major impact on a lot of peoples families. I think thats really important. The image of undocumented migrants is usually a young man coming to the u. S. And maybe hes going to stand in the home depot parking lot. It really closes her eyes to the fact that families come over that closes our eyes to the fact that families come over. It closes our eyes to the fact that families come over. Way and i think another way of thinking about what goes on at the border as a feminist issue is two things. First, whether formerly through smuggling or or informally, one of the fears women facing the men faced last is the fear of Sexual Violence<\/a> and that is certainly a feature of the experience particularly when women are trusting smugglers to get them across the border. And then the other thing i would say thats also important is the u. S. Created a set of Legal Protections<\/a> of a way to get legal status for women who were battered with abused and where one of the elements is that the husband controlled the immigration visa and if they were divorced in no longer have the ability to stay in the u. S. Or she is the principal applicant for a visa. They wouldnt have the ability to play on her own. Is it the case. And todays the face families have been fragmented. There was no paperwork of him in the obituary. She couldnt leave the country because it is illegal without all kinds of paperwork. It differentiates those that are migrating. It comes up constantly. Those that dont know about ten years ive been trying to use this as one method to understand this process be we treated it like an assemblage. Is an invisible part of the immigration system because its discretionary. When they look at the application. Say in general you are absolutely right. That is definitely not the case. All of the things that make us identity, ourur sexuality, all of these things come but in all kinds of ways. The ways in which families have been fragmented by transitional migration impacts family , it puts different pressures on members of different households. Something happened right now. Women fleeing honduras with kids. Theyre fleeing violence. , a femaleh a smuggler smuggler who work left honduras with their kids. There was no paperwork of him in his obituary. Thecouldnt come into country because its illegal to leave honduras as a single parent without all kinds of paperwork. Theres a whole new set of. Ollocated issues working to feed your kids through human smuggling. Dealing with corrupt Law Enforcement<\/a>. Its not just at the border. Issues of sexuality, constantly. Only scratching the surface in terms of dynamic. This question is for you. What are some of the artifacts and stories you found in the desert and are they on display ever on display anywhere. For those of you who dont know, from us 10 years ive been trying to use archaeology as one method of understanding the process. We have several objects and the university of michigan. Have four pieces on display in an exhibition called many voices, one nation. It took a lot of fighting to get those artifacts in the same conversation with ellis island. Used forhose can be historical connections. What is it like to be an immigrant in the 21st century . Shockingly, not well. Now with the materials we collected i worry about the stuff, because we always focus on the archaeology its just a way to leave them behind. A lot of people sort of theres lots of interesting objects we found. One way to think about what it a story a migrant. About humanity, these global kind of connections. I would rather talk about a woman whose body we found in 2012 and the struggle that her family went through to find her. And the difficulty that was andlved in finding her body the trauma of repatriating this poorly decomposing body that had been sitting in cold storage for six weeks, and opening the casket because they wanted to see the Family Member<\/a>. They are more uncomfortable and they speak to the brutal reality that has a name interface to it. As opposed to the artifacts themselves they can get lost in romanticizing them. This relates to your answer. What would a trauma informed policy need to look like in order to support immigrants in the United States<\/a> . Im not a policy person. The u. S. Has a refugee policy now. The u. S. Past the refugee act of 1980 that recognized our countrys obligation to thatees, created a program would screen refugees abroad. I think this is an improvement in our refugee policy, which prior to this was very haphazard , very dependent on political ,upport for a particular group and it did not create any sort of longstanding infrastructure that would allow refugees from different places to be treated equally. That, one thing that i think was important about our previous refugee policy was withse it was so haphazard Political Support<\/a> for people of a particular national origin. It also kept us very much in with th the u. S. The was waged a war in vietnam. We have an obligation to people whose lives were destroyed by that. Among these hill drilling people dont speak any english, weht fiercely on our side should protect them. We have an obligation to protect them. We have the same policy toward cuba and cuban refugees. This was a country, an outpost of communism in north america. We wanted to make sure we stood who could escape from cuba, from communism. We currently dont have a policy thatthat, a policy recognizes our historical obligations. Policiesno given our for people from countries where we are a large part of the reason why they are migrating. One thing i would say about a policy that recognizes policy migration would also be a policy it, moremore gives in recognition of particular circumstances where the u. S. , i to thehas an obligation places in the world that have this. Policiesg about trauma , we recognize our federal immigration policies kill people, hundreds of them per year. Thats not a liberal bias, im not making this up. We knowingly do this. Story, if webrooks are going to kill people and acknowledge we are going to kill people, the least we could do is spend some time and Energy Sending<\/a> those bodies back, repatriate these bodies so they arent in some Hospice Care Center<\/a> for 15 years because nobody knows you are editors note energy and investment in identifying these people. Theres no money in dna samples. We kill them at the border and then we let them to create these a moresting army sensitive policy would be to at invest in they das example in the repatriation folks to helping those do work that needs to be done, i think thats the minimal amount of work we could do. Happened murder that and we cannot let this thing continue. Shows, this sort of , continues forever. That is something the Mexican Government<\/a> addresses. There are people whose job it is to solve some of these mysteries, but they dont solve a lot of cases. They have a backlog of 30,000 cases. , they have a dna lab on retainer. Its what they consider their governmental duty. One of the things that was amazing to me is you talk about how the mans fingerprints were finally identified. They had existed in the american database all along. It had just never been thoroughly checked out. Came to the attention of somebody who was wellconnected, politically. He brought it to the attention of the head of dhs who said to make it a priority. They went to the hospital and ran the prince in one database. They ran them in an older database and there was his name. Did you develop your own relationship with 66 maras . How did you do the story without getting emotionally evolved involved . Interviewingu are somebody in there, it is amazing what people will tell to a stranger. People have these intense stories to tell, they are eager to talk about them. Haunting stuff that they tell you. That is going to have an effect on you. That compromises as journalistic intricately. Story. Dy has a i did not meet him, it was not possible given the privacy. People, to a number of but never met him in person. This also relates to that. Facts,ra of alternative is there a role for journalism and academia in fighting for humane immigration policy . Yes. [laughter] have a journalist, people different ways that they draw. He line of what is journalism for specificate policies or politicians. There are certain things i dont see as a bias. Planet is avable handy thing to have. I dont think that should be considered a bias that disqualifies me from reporting on environmental issues. There are different ways that we can protect it. There are all kinds of gray area and difficult questions. And i dont need to be the devils advocate. When it comes to immigration, i am very happy to claim the bias. The people involved are real people whose humanities should be respected and understood. Keep that in mind when it comes to writing policies that affect these people. Thats what i can do. Think after the election last year, there was a moment where people started looking around and going what is it that i do . Of brilliant colleagues who write about important topics, of global interest. I think for a long time we either havent thought about the Public Outreach<\/a> component, or we are in these systems where i want to get tenure if i am a public intellectual. I jump through hoops, then i can become those things. I have to write the journal article that six people are going to read. Thats what gets me tenure. What has happened recently is i see a lot of colleagues look at people who do public anthropology, readable and understandable to the layman. People would say thats what so and so does. It means you are not very theoretical. We have gotten to a point where we have to take stock and go what is it that i do . Doing what i am doing and not think about the Dumpster Fire<\/a> of the world that is happening. How am i going to contribute to the conversation. There has been a shift where they are seeing public scholarship has distinction from what they do. The worldmmitment to and sharing information about the work we do in an accessible way. Now, more than ever, do we need social scientists to be working to be understandable, readable, and louder in terms of interpreting to this counter to the alternative facts. [applause] we have time for one last question. How does the current antiimmigrant wave compared to other historical periods is there any discernible connection with the economy and unemployment rates over time . We currently have an antiimmigrant wave. Nativist sentiment in the United States<\/a> is not unknown. Early 1800s, the it was directed against , it was directed against chinese, in the late 1800s it was directed against southern europeans. A constituent part of our country. Also an important part of our story. Whenever you confront nativism, the right response is not to say these people are racist, i dont want to talk to them. The right response is you very care very much you care very much about what this country stands for, i do too. Can we have a conversation about what your values and my values are, understanding that we are both part of a country that we want to protect and respect . To bring this conversation back to the alternative facts, in many ways the fact about immigration are not particularly complicated. What is complicated about immigration is we have a bunch of different values that run against each other. We have to have that conversation about values. If we dont, and we yell at each with policyd up that doesnt serve our country well, and policy that doesnt serve people who want to come to our country very well. Important to understand first that nativism is not really related to Economic Conditions<\/a> or wars around the world. It can exist in good times and bad times. One of the things that indicate it is a good time is many immigrants are coming in because there are jobs. People react to the new population of immigrants. It is not really a discussion about americans who are suffering, isnt it time to love them more than it is people another country . It is about what we think this country stands for and how we think it is going to grow and flourish. [applause] President Trump<\/a> sent his 2019 budget request to congress this morning to be one of the topics secretary Sarah Sanders<\/a> discusses during the white house briefing. Begin atcheduled to 3 30 p. M. Eastern, about 20 minutes away. We will take you there live. 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