2340 big deal. really? what year was this? mid-70s, 80s. when i moved here, there was 400 border patrol agents. but now there is over 1200. whoa. that s too many border patrol agents. they are not kidding about the rise of security. in 1992 there were just over 3500 agents along the southwest border. in 2017 there were over 16,000. and they are still hiring. so guess what they put their wall? right behind my property. you hear president trump talking about we need a bigger wall, like a 30-foot hall. what do you think about that? i m not in favor of it, and i don t like it. it doesn t make me feel any safer. do you feel safer? that s the real question. we re not afraid. let that sink in. these are white people who live on the boarder who don t want the wall. over the years, we ll get some crossers.
Cost of america s immigration policy, and i m meeting with one of its leader, father sean carol. tell me where i m at now. this is a place we provide two meals a day, mostly to deportees. this is their first welcome back to mexico? it really is essentially. we provide food, clothing. this is critical work here. are there people coming here who have been in the united states for years? yes. we re seeing an increasing number of people who have been living in the united states for a long time who are being deported in comparison to last year. some people thought their life was set up there, and suddenly they re deported and they find themselves in this room. sometimes almost overnight. since trump took office, no agency in america has had a greater impact on immigrations and customs enforcement, aka i.c.e., an arrests up from 2017. the trump organization made it so any undocumented immigrants in america today are vulnerable to arrest.
the more rebellion, simple as that. what is that saying? do you know what he s saying? oh, it s a supermarket. i thought it was some sort of like the revolution is coming. time to rise up, brothers and sisters. we re going to take down that wall! it s about melons and cucumbers. if you could say something to president trump right now, what would you say? you can look right in there and talk to president trump. senor trump, with all respect translator: mr. trump, all due respect are we not thieves. we are not delinquents. we re people who work and know how to work because we want to help our country, and we re not asking for anything.
Wall. as a metaphor, as a story, it s extremely compelling. i mean, the president is a straight-up performance artist. like he is a really powerful storyteller. he is speaking to people s fear. the story is very compelling. he s like an artist and reality doesn t matter. he s just painting his canvas. it s fiction and it s imagined and for artists our time is really now because we need the metaphors for the future, and artists, you know, that s what we do. we create new symbols. it s the power of culture. artists have a big role to play there, and that s our superpower. yes, you know. yeah, yeah. i knew i would invite you to the bay area, hippie, liberal, leftist. that s right, that s right.
Need to share their data with i.c.e., and so he really grew the entire system and as a result you saw deportations at the highest they had ever been for any president. we re talking at rates of over 1,000 a day, about 1 million people. wow. why is it that people who are quote, unquote anti-immigration, why don t they see those as families or people that need and their family needed help? i think words and language create inconscious bias, symbols, imagery, because in the 90s i remember watching tv and seeing the commercials that say invasion. they keep coming. 2 million illegal immigrants in california. you would see brown guys running are, and the symbol of the border has been such a powerful symbol, really in creating a very lasting anti-immigrant wave. yeah. now let s talk about the wall. yeah. the physical, like, you know, as an artist, how you see it, what your thoughts are when you hear about them building a bigger wall, a more powerful