Living On US/Mexico Border. What’s It Like?

What’s the story, Raul? Right
now we’re going to go look for
one. We’ve got some things set
up, they’re just not confirmed
yet. So meanwhile, we’ll go
look for a story. But the goal
is to find a rancher, right? We
will find a rancher! We will
find a rancher. We’re going to
stumble across one in
somebody’s Ranch. Okay, Raul has
not let us down once this trip,
so I’m confident we’re going to
get into a rancher’s
life here and see what he has
to say. We’re headed to a park
over here in Penitas, where
they caught a few hundred
illegal aliens earlier not too
long ago, maybe within the last
30 minutes or something, so I’m
going to try to stumble across
that.
Basically, they got a bunch of
illegal aliens are crossing a
little while ago, maybe within
the last 30 minutes. What they
do is they come to
this park here. It’s a
part of the little city of
Penitas. Usually you got
families playing here in the
afternoons, walking and stuff
like that.
Okay, so here’s what I was just
told. This is a group that just
came over. River’s not far away.
Most of these people have been
at it for months from Central
America. As you can see,
it’s families, it’s
mothers, it’s children’s
fathers. I’m sure the vast
majority are very good people
coming from bad circumstances.
Now the problem that I’ve
realised over the week here,
talking to different people, is
when this is happening: you
have US Border patrol putting
their resources here. Somewhere
else maybe, half a mile – a mile
down there well, that’s when
the dark stuff happens. And
that’s when, you know, the drugs
are moving across, the dark
human trafficking – that sort of
stuff is happening at this
time. I think the reason why
Border Patrol is not against me
being right up on their space
is because there’s a gag order.
It’s not written, but it’s
the facto – nobody can talk about
anything, and I think they want
the story shown, because it’s
currently.. well, not really out
there. Can you just ask him how
many months they’ve been at it?
For how many months?
1 month 2 months. Honduras,
Guatemala? Honduras. But it is
heartbreaking, it is! It’s
brutal, and you’re seeing that,
you’re seeing the actual thing
yourself. You’re seeing these
little kids.. Luckily, there are
no babies crying or anything. I
said that’s heartbreaking.
I found this thrown. That right
there, if you look at it, it’s..
that’s an undercover
unit right there.. This is
a property bag. Basically
they put their property into a
little bag, and then they
they take off the seal
here and then they’ll
give this to the person, if
they have money in it or
whatever. They’ll put their name
on it, so they’ll take it,
they’ll put their property and
store it away, and they’ll give
them this, because this is their
little receipt. Basically the
receipt number, the receipt will
say, you know, I need my
property back, here’s the tag.
They’ll look for the
property, and they’ll give them
back their little bag with
other stuff in it. Transport
van? Yes, it’s an empty
transport van hitting that way
to go pick up everybody else.
Yeah, the look in their
eyes.. You know, just
tired and fearful and
powerless, you know.. They never
know what’s going to happen on
their journey! You
never know what’s going to
happen, and that’s the
screwed up part. You know what,
at the end of the day,
something might happen to one
of these females and their
family members right there, but
they don’t say nothing or they
can’t do nothing because
they’re helpless also,
they’re in a helpless situation.
At the end of the day we all come
from somewhere in this world
some time or another. United States
is a multi body, they all started off
from somewhere else, and came to this
country and moved on since then.
Other than the Native Americans,
we’re all immigrants.
I had a discussion last night, I
was watching a video from New Mexico,
they were protesting about people
coming across, illegals and all that stuff.
An Indian guy showed up and
and he said: “Wait a minute.
What are you all talking about?
All of you are illegal! You all
came into my country!”
It’s all perspective, right? Yes.
Well.. tell me one country that
doesn’t have a sh*ty history
with a bunch of darkness to it.
Doesn’t discredit any of it,
but look at any country in the
world, whether that be Turkey,
Russia.. But anyways, this is the
only country in the world that
will allow what’s happening to
happen. Any other country..
No, like.. Italy we’ll be doing
this too. You’re right, Italy.
You know, but didn’t they..
didn’t they put a stop to
that also? I don’t know where
it’s at right now in Italy. If
I’m not mistaken they, they put
a stop to it, because they had
that problem where all of a
sudden, everybody went to them
and then they got so
much.. They don’t know what to
do either. I saw last summer
when I was there, I talked to a
guy that came from Afghanistan.
He tried eleven times, his
buddy got shot at the Hungarian
border, he finally got in.
Nicest guy ever! He was like..
That guy taught me something,
he said: never give up. Right?
Yeah. I mean the guy was at it
for years. I agree with you,
I agree that there needs to be a
legal process, because we are a
country of laws and the second
we lose that, then we turn into
a much sh*ttier country. What do we
have once we lose that? Then
we turn into.. Laws are set,
so there’s no chaos or to
prevent chaos. Imagine if we
had no laws, everybody did
whatever the hell they wanted
to. Yeah.. You wouldn’t be
holding that camera, someone was
taking it from you. Yeah, I’ve
been in these places, it’s not
healthy. Yeah.
It’s almost unbelievable, but
Raul saying we’re going to get
on a boat. We’re going to try
to get on it at least. We don’t
have our passports, but he’s
saying we could probably get
over with IDs, get on a boat.. And
they’re pulling five-six cars?
Yeah. It’s a ferry. A ferry
by hand with a rope. Can you
believe that? I can’t believe
that, it’s like something out of
Cambodia. We’re going to.. we’re
going to have a new experience.
I’m going to have a new
experience. Every second
with you. It’s actually
a port of entry also.
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So what do you think with these
people living here? Some of
them are probably stash houses,
right? They’re taking the
migrants in, some of them?
Well, I would think maybe the abandoned
buildings or abandoned houses. There’s people
hiding in them and stuff, because you
got broken windows where people
go in. What’s up with this town?
What happened? Look at that door is
wide open. So here’s an example
of what Raul was talking about:
a lot of abandoned houses and
migrants can go and hide.
So you can see the grass is
trampled down and stuff, so you
can tell people have walked
through here or something’s
gone through there enough to
crash down the grass.
So with the amount of flow you
can easily see how someone can
be cruising like this and pick
up whomever, right? Yes.
Oh, look at this. That’s great.
Bro, I’m going to just
check this really quickly. Okay
I don’t know, I guess this must
have been an old border stop
here, sort of a tourist zone.
Snow cones, ice cream, hats,
caps, t-shirts, and then a bar
over here. One of the very
beautiful things about America
is it’s.. or the United States is
that it’s so mixed up. It’s
almost like, especially these
days with the way different
states have taken the COVID and
other issues, feels like almost
going to different countries
within the same country.
Duty free is closed.
Yeah, it doesn’t look
like a ferry, Raul. Yeah. I haven’t
been here in a while either, so..
There’s a ferry with the
rope? Yeah. It’s like I haven’t
been in years. That’s why.
Yeah. What’s this here?
Pedestrians cost $2, bicycles
$2, motorcycles $3, cars and
pickups $5, very good prices
to get across. Thank you! Take
care. What a business! Nice to
meet you! Nice to meet you! Where
you come from? California. Okay.
My name is Tommy Garcia, the
captain and the business
manager. Alright guys, I love
border crossings in the world
because you get sometimes funky
situations like this, that you
could never imagine. The only,
you’re saying, the only hand
pulled ferry in the world that
connects two countries? Yes.
Yeah, who owns the ferry?
Alright, guys, great border
crossings. Camera down, right?
No, you can have it on, you got a
little longer. Okay.
Every border is different,
couple summers ago I was in
Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan and
the border guy let me just
roll the camera the whole time,
and then other times like
getting into China that camera
better be off or you’re going
to have problems. Okay, so
here’s.. No traffic. Wow! This is
surreal, Raul. Ok, ramps down. With
no passports, right? You don’t
need a passport.
God. You know, South Texas is another
world. I like it! They’re
getting here. Okay, they’re
getting here and there we see
it – they’re pulling on
the rope. You can see
the Rio Grande is not that wide
here, pretty strong current.
When’s the last time you did this,
Raul. I’ve never been on it, here we go.
Turn your engine off. What are your
thoughts on this place, Raul?
They said the other side is
bad, but never been there. I
wouldn’t know.
Alright, coming up on Mexico
here.
And.. Mexico! We’re in! Let’s go
that way and then we’ll come back
Alright, Mexican soil. No
passport, and with Raul
anything is possible. I’ve I’ve
come to conclude that anything
can happen with you. This city
of Mexico is supposedly another
hotspot. Like I said, I’ve never
been to it, but.. Hotspot as in
what? Drug, cartel, violence or
whatever. I want to put
the camera down right now. Did
that just happen? Yes! There’s
another Canadian border, the
Canadian border is completely
different. Okay, guys. We just
walked right through, no
identification, no stop, just
away from the guards. How is
that possible? Well you just
come in to the Mexico
border. You only
get checked on the custom
side in America. Basically,
he’s making you a..
natural lemon or lemon juice.
Ahh, just ice, lemon
or lime. Some spice? Okay.
Gracias! Every time I’ve been to
Mexico, I’ve run into the
nicest people. I’ve only been
twice, but I’ve met the coolest
people in this country. Whole
different world. Cola. Yeah, it
just has stuff stored in there.
We started looking for a rancher today. That
was the the start of the mission. You
want a Mexican rancher or you want an
American rancher? You didn’t
say! We started looking for a
rancher, that was going to be
the story and you saw the story
we saw on the road. We’re going
to stop right here. Now we’re
in Mexico, didn’t expect this.
I’m not going to expect, I’m
not going to guess where we’re
going. Raul, where this is leading to?
Basically we’re just
going to go back, because there
ain’t no going that way. I
don’t know how far the city is,
let’s walk down. You want to
take a ride and get some tacos
or something? How the hell do we
get a ride? How are you going
to trust anyone to bring me? Yeah!
No! That’s why I
drive my vehicle to Mexico.
They pull.
That’s the United
States over there. Peter’s
coming from Mexico He’s on a
ferry, pulling us back to the
United States. Bro, I think you
got a future in this, in YouTube
videos! No, I’m out.
Why are you huffing and
puffing? I was just pulling
that thing across, man! Come
on, you got 6 other
people helping you! That’s
tiring work all day long back
and forth. Imagine for the
money that they’re making. What
do you think they’re making
Well, we just paid them $4 for
both of us. So imagine.. you saw
the prices on the cars and
stuff. Yeah. Different
experience. Nice guy, though,
nice guy but much more
official, it’s much different
facility. Inside
there, there are a lot of
posters for sex trafficking,
human slavery, did you see that?
The women on the posters..
Gracias! Well, I told you that
I’m like a politician, I’ll
shake hands with everybody.
I’ll talk to everybody and..
People think I’m an a**le,
people think I’m always
mad, because I look mad. I don’t
smile for pictures, but if they
really get to know me, I am a
Great guy! You’re a teddy bear, but
you know what, you know
everyone. I try to! At the end
of the day you never know like
this guy might see me throwing
on the side of the road and hey
that’s Cruz. But how do you, do
you judge anyone for
what they’re doing? No, I don’t
judge anybody for anything.
Yeah. I’m nobody to judge, only
he (God) can judge and at the end,
he’ll decide where you
go. Yeah. I’m just the type of
person that.. I’ll say
hello to everybody, I’ll shake
everybody’s hands at the end of
the day I’ll help out
everybody I can, and we just
take it from there. Yeah. I get
that vibe in South Texas.
There’s a lot of people out
there like you guys are
connected here. Community. You
have good community. We’re all
trying to take care of each other.
Oh, wow! You don’t
even see it from the road.
Okay, so this is the wall.
No actually.. Or yeah, you
can call this a wall. What’s
that, thirty-five feet? To the
river curves, if you look at
the water over there, on
the right side is Mexico on the
left side is the United States.
But if you look over here in
front of us, the Mexico’s
actually over here in front of
us. On the other side of the
that brush would be the
river on that side over there.
There are a lot of crossings
into Mexico! Yes. That
one is a little more modern than
what we just went across. Yeah.
We’re going to go into Rama
Village.
What were you saying, Raul? You know some
people in here that were having.. There’s
some people that the other day
came out talking to us and
stuff, that they have a
problem with illegal aliens
coming into their property at
night, they go under the fence,
they go over the fence. Nice
RVs. What are these? They’re
RVs with little houses? what
those are like storage rooms and stuff.
So it’s not necessarily a
ranch, but we ended up here.
This is where, I guess, a lot of
migrants have been coming over
because the river is very close,
and I guess there’s a field
behind these trees, and then
they’ve been coming into
private residences land. It’s
pretty.. it’s been pretty
prevalent here in this
neighborhood. You know, they run
through the neighborhood
because the border is only a
mile that way. Yeah. You know,
it’s right over there. When we
spoke to him today, he told us
and showed us a video tapes and
stuff all the people coming
across coming under fence or
the fence, and cars parking over
here, they run to the cars at
night at 8 o’clock at night, at
3 in the morning and stuff like that.
Can you can you show us? Is that alright?
Yeah. What’s your name?
Randy. Randy, Peter.
Okay, so Randy, what’s the
story? The border is a mile and
a half this way. Okay. In fact,
you can see if you look real
close, you can see where.. right
through the trees, Trump’s wall
was has just stopped but my understanding is
they’re going to try and start
that back up again and build it
again. They are? They start that
back up, that’s my
understanding. So what’s been
going on here? Well, you’ll see
them come and they’ll just come
running across this field,
and they come up to this
barbwire fence right there.
Okay, right on the other
side of the trees here? They
try to get your attention and
for whatever reason I don’t, I
don’t know why, but I had a
couple of them a few nights ago
trying to get my attention and
they’re speaking Spanish,
and I don’t speak
Spanish, so you know.. I sit and
enjoy the evening at night,
because it’s real quiet out
here and nice, and they’re..
They’re running up and down
here. Running up right down here?
Right through this right here,
all the time. So how do you
feel as someone that lives here? What’s
your feeling or take on this? I
mean.. I’m thrilled that the
Border Patrol is out there and
they’re doing their job,
and they’re trying to
take care of this problem. It’s
just a tragedy. It’s so sad
that, you know, our country is
going through this right now
and that we’re allowing this,
you know, to happen. Right. And
it’s such a humanitarian
crisis, that our government just is not
recognising. People that don’t
live here don’t understand,
they just don’t understand. What
do you think they
don’t get? I don’t think they
understand.. it’s not so much
that.. it’s the fact that these
people are.. I mean they’re
looking.. some of them are coming
here looking for a better life,
but what makes people here, and this is an a
retirement community, fifty-five
and older, and people
are here are genuinely
concerned about their safety.
And so you know we’ve got the
Border Patrol and the police on
speed dial, and they’re
genuinely concerned about, you
know, their welfare and their
safety, property values. My
understanding is that, you know,
the cartel owns
property and homes on this side
of the border. So you’ve
seen last few months, because
the policy changes a big influx?
I mean, you can see by the
numbers obviously, it’s very
obvious. Oh yeah. It’s
when you.. when you see them,
they’ll walk through there and
it’s mostly at night, and
they’ll just be wandering down
the street. Down the street
here? Yeah. And so are people
seeing traffickers on the
other side, with cars parked
waiting to take them away? And
you mentioned that, what another
big concern they have is that a
lot of these people understand
this layout and to where they
can get across that fence there,
and get over into this
community, especially at night.
Can we walk over there? Sure.
Thanks. Especially at
night, then they’ve got..
they’ll have the whoever’s
picking them up, the cartel or
whoever, is just they’ll drive
out here, and they’ll come out,
and jump in the car, and drive
off. Yeah, so.. It’s a tough situation,
yeah? Yeah. It is really tough
and, I mean, my heart just
breaks for these people and the
children, that are still in that
detention center down in Donna
Texas. Right. It’s just so
tragic.. Yeah. It’s tragic, what
we’re doing to these people.
It’s messy. The longer I’m
here the more difficult and
confusing it gets to be honest.
Yeah. I mean not confusing as
far as since we have a problem,
there’s a big problem.. Yeah,
it’s huge! ..that needs to be
addressed. It doesn’t seem
like this is sustainable. I
don’t feel like this is
sustainable how it’s currently
going now. No, no. And to
be honest Texans people that
live here, God bless them,
they’re fed up. They’re not putting
up with it, people are
going to put their foot down.
I think so much of the country, I
grew up in Vermont, they just
have no understanding what the
border’s like. I had no
understanding until a week ago,
I had no understanding what
the borders like. Yeah. What do
you have to say to people in
other parts of the country that,
you know.. it’s a big hot topic,
it’s a tough topic, what would
you have to say to people that
aren’t living here? To people
that don’t understand, you
know, imagine having at any
given time day or night, having
just some random person,
that doesn’t know anything
about our country or laws.
And just the only thing
they know is that they come
here, that they get a bunch
of free stuff and have them
at any given time randomly
wander through your property,
and not even giving it a second
thought. Yeah. And, you know, you
don’t know who they are, why
they’re there. I mean if you
in Vermont, if somebody came
and wandered through your yard,
you’d be: hey, what are you
doing? What’s up? You know, what
are you.. What are you doing
here? You cannot understand
what’s really truly going on,
unless you come here and
experience it. My head every
night when I go to bed it’s
about to explode from the amount
of information I’ve been taking in
every day being here, talking
to people. 190,000 people
have come through
already this month..
Those are the ones that have
been caught? Have been caught,
yes, and, you know, and
then you got the drugs on top
of that, and then there’s a
human trafficking, which in
itself is just tragic.
You know, if you want to come
in this country,
you are welcome! Come to the
front door. You know.
Don’t come here uninvited, come
here legally like.. God bless
him – Roberto. This gentleman
who’s been working for me. He
built this pergola for me. He’s
a legal citizen. He has his own
construction company, his son
works for him, he makes
money, he has a house and he’s
done really really well. He’s
been doing that here for 14
years. Everybody loves
Roberto here, he’s a great,
great guy. And I have all the
respect in the world for, you
know, the people that want to
come here and do it legally.
Yeah, just do it the right way.
I think what’s failing
us is policies that are making
illegal acts somewhat legal.
Yeah. And that’s what we’re not
about as a country. That’s not
what we’re about! Like I’ve
lived in Ukraine, I’ve traveled
to many parts of the world. The
beauty of coming back to the
states is like the laws
work, for the most part, there’s
all sorts of corruption here
too, but.. look the system works,
and when you
start chipping at that.. The
influx of people was down a
fraction of what it
is now, and how it spiked so
quickly! I mean it was just
overnight, it’s just as soon as
Biden went in office. It just exploded!
It’s like those Black Friday
videos: the door is closed and
then it opens Black Friday,
what do you expect? Yeah.
I don’t blame anyone for doing it
to be honest. Personally, I
don’t, because I would do
the same thing. If you had to
feed your family.. I would do
that, you know what I mean.
This is the people building the
But they’re not building right now?
Right now they’re actually on a hold.
Southwest Valley contractor
instructors
You see the wall it’s the
company is not screwed. The
The company is not screwed, the company has
already been paid to build that border wall.
So if the the current government
or current administration
decides not to build that wall,
they’ve already been paid.
How are they paid first? I
have no idea how
exactly that government
contract works, but, like I
said, they’ve already been paid
so whether they wanted to build
it, or they wanted to tear it
down, or they wanted to.. because of
rumours, they might cut it in
half to five feet high, so no
matter what they want, the
contractor to do.. the
contractor could care less,
because it’s already been paid
for so they could care less,
what the government decides to
do with the wall. Some efficient
use of government funds. It’s
always wasteful spending
somewhere. Oh my God.. so that’s all
those people there, all those
trucks there, people
actually going to work right
now or what are they doing?
They’re actually just hanging
out doing something somewhere,
but the thing is they’re not
building the wall,
they’re thinking about
restarting up again, according
to the Biden administration,
but whether that was a smoke
signal or not, who knows! None of
these politicians give a sh*t
at the end of the day,
right? Nope. They’re using it as
leverage? Yep. Okay guys, thank
you. Raul! Without Raul we would
not be getting into any of
this, so I want to thank Raul,
and I also want to plug the
organisation he works for the –
United Cajun Navy. They go to
all sorts of different
catastrophes, hurricanes,
tornadoes, and you might be here,
but not yet, correct? Correct.
Okay. Alright guys another day
on the border. If you haven’t
seen the other videos from the
series, I will leave a link
below. I’m trying to hit it
from as many angles as possible
and hopefully got something
out of that. Alright, thanks
Raul, till the next one.