Speaker 1: This week's trip Cast is sponsored by south By Southwest.
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip Cast for Tuesday,
Speaker 1: February seventeenth, twenty twenty sixth. I am Matthew Watkins, editor
Speaker 1: in chief of the Tribune. My co host Eleanor Klebanoff
Speaker 1: is off today covering the rollout of early voting and
Speaker 1: traveling for reporting. It is, of course, the first day
Speaker 1: of early voting, so I hope you are making your
Speaker 1: way to the polls, and I just want to give
Speaker 1: a quick shout out before we get started to our
Speaker 1: live trip cast next week, February twenty fourth in Austin,
Speaker 1: nine am. If you want to hear us preview those primaries,
Speaker 1: both the Republican and the Democratic, you can join me
Speaker 1: and Eleanor live in Austin in our downtown study. You
Speaker 1: can find that at Texastribune dot org slash events. But
Speaker 1: today we're not going to talk about the primaries. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about in a usual incident that happened
Speaker 1: in El Paso last week many of you, I'm sure no.
Speaker 1: Last Wednesday, El Paso Wins woke up to find that
Speaker 1: their airport had been shut down for ten days due
Speaker 1: to national security concerns. The restrictions didn't end up lasting
Speaker 1: nearly that long. They were lifted essentially that same day,
Speaker 1: but they did bring a good amount of political turnmoil
Speaker 1: in fighting within the federal government and anxiety and fear
Speaker 1: on the ground in El Paso. And they've raised a
Speaker 1: lot of further questions about the government's border security operations
Speaker 1: and their impacts on the lives of people who actually
Speaker 1: live across the Rio Grande from Mexico. Joining us to
Speaker 1: talk about this today is my friend Robert Moore, CEO
Speaker 1: of El Paso Matters More found at al Paso Matters
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, is a nonprofit news site to use
Speaker 1: journalism to expand civic capacity in our region, and in
Speaker 1: that time he's established it as in what's in my book,
Speaker 1: sort of the leading local news source in El Paso. Bob,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. Matthew, it's good to see you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great to see you. So I wanted to start
Speaker 1: by if you could just sort of walk me through
Speaker 1: your morning on this day when news sort of broke.
Speaker 1: I know you had a story up on your website
Speaker 1: very early in El Paso. You know, even earlier for you,
Speaker 1: given that ol Passos in mountain time, how did this
Speaker 1: sort of land? And you know what went through your mind?
Speaker 1: Does this happen? So I was.
Speaker 3: Actually going to bed just about eleven o'clock and I
Speaker 3: was settled in, and I keep my phone by the bed,
Speaker 3: just because it's an old journalistic habit, and I got
Speaker 3: two dings on my phone at about eleven fifteen indicator
Speaker 3: I got a text messages. Yeah. My initial instinct was
Speaker 3: just certainly, can wait until the morning, and I was
Speaker 3: going to letting go.
Speaker 2: But you can relate to this. There's no way I
Speaker 2: wasn't going to look at it.
Speaker 3: After a minute, I did look at it, and it
Speaker 3: was the first of what became too notices from elected
Speaker 3: officials from El Paso that the FAA was about to
Speaker 3: implement an order shutting down the airspace over il Passo
Speaker 3: for ten days, which it took me a little bit
Speaker 3: a little while to process that. Fortunately, my wife is
Speaker 3: a licensed drone pilot and is somewhat familiar with FAA
Speaker 3: regulations and how to find stuff. So I got up
Speaker 3: and I opened up my computer, found the air restrictions,
Speaker 3: and what really caught my attention was that these air
Speaker 3: restrictions authorized use of deadly force for any planes viewed
Speaker 3: as a threat. That like woke me up, and so
Speaker 3: that set me off on what would turn out to
Speaker 3: be at like a seventeen hour journey. I actually did
Speaker 3: not sleep for about thirty eight consecutive hours.
Speaker 2: Is this from the private day?
Speaker 3: And then as this was unfolding, so we got our
Speaker 3: initial story up just a little after midnight. I think
Speaker 3: we're the first news organization to report on this, and
Speaker 3: then we kept kind of updating it throughout the morning,
Speaker 3: and as you indicated, by about six am local time
Speaker 3: here that FAA had lifted the Alpasso restrictions. But interestingly enough,
Speaker 3: and this didn't get a whole lot of attention, there
Speaker 3: was a parallel flight restriction in a part of New
Speaker 3: Mexico just west of El Paso, and that stayed in
Speaker 3: effect for another two days.
Speaker 2: And I'm happy to talk about sort of my theories
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 3: But the you know, the big thing was that there
Speaker 3: was no explanation to this. There's no communication with local folks,
Speaker 3: so obviously the only comparison anybody has to these flight
Speaker 3: orders is nine to eleven.
Speaker 2: So it's like, oh my god, what is happening here.
Speaker 3: You know, the Trump administration has talked openly about, you know,
Speaker 3: bombing drug labs in Mexico, so we're worried about about that,
Speaker 3: and there's just no explanation whatsoever. And then as the
Speaker 3: hours unfolded and as the days unfolded, we got a
Speaker 3: lot of explanation, and it just it comes down to
Speaker 3: just good old fashioned government confidence at every level.
Speaker 2: So that's sort of the short version.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you mentioned you know, you're well, you're working
Speaker 1: through the night. I am blissfully asleep, unaware that any
Speaker 1: of this is going on. But then I wake up,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty early to help start getting my kids
Speaker 1: ready for school, and I see this and have that
Speaker 1: sort of disoriented reaction of like am I still dreaming?
Speaker 1: Like are we under invasion?
Speaker 2: Right now?
Speaker 1: You mentioned, you know, the the only real comparison, the
Speaker 1: last time this had happened was on September eleventh, right,
Speaker 1: And so that's like the sort of context when these
Speaker 1: things go on. I mean, my understanding from your reporting
Speaker 1: from other people as reporting, is that local officials did
Speaker 1: not get any kind of like heads up or advance
Speaker 1: warning on this. I mean, what are they saying to you?
Speaker 1: What are their reactions to this in those early hours,
Speaker 1: as there don't seem to be any answers here.
Speaker 3: Well, most local officials were finding out from us, and
Speaker 3: so like the general reaction is, Bob, what can you
Speaker 3: tell us?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: And so when you've got, you know, the local leadership
Speaker 3: of the community trying to get information about what happened
Speaker 3: from a journalist who hasn't now slept in a full day. Man,
Speaker 3: it's not a recipe for success. And you know, the
Speaker 3: collors from an Escobar was involved in trying to reach
Speaker 3: out to the folks at the FAA to get answers.
Speaker 3: I was able, interestingly enough in the restriction noticed there
Speaker 3: was actually a bone number like if you have more,
Speaker 3: if you need more information about this restriction, called this number.
Speaker 3: So I did a two or two number of DC
Speaker 3: and I got this poor guy uh uh at the
Speaker 3: f a A. And I said, you know, okay, and
Speaker 3: I identified myself that I'm a journalist. I said, can
Speaker 3: you tell me what's going on? And he said he said,
Speaker 3: I can't. And it's and it's not because I won't,
Speaker 3: it's because I don't know. They just handed me this
Speaker 3: and said to post it Uh. So again that was
Speaker 3: not particularly reassuring. Uh And and so there was you know,
Speaker 3: by the time the restrictions got lifted with no explanation,
Speaker 3: you did have the uh uh sectory of transportation. Sean
Speaker 3: Duffy posts a tweet early about you know, a drone
Speaker 3: uh impeding in the airspace and it was taken out
Speaker 3: and we had to do this. So that was just
Speaker 3: said the lie right that that didn't happen. And it's
Speaker 3: kind of very typical of what happens a lot with
Speaker 3: the Trump administration. For those of us on the border.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, whatever the truth is, like default
Speaker 3: to some kind of attack from Mexico, whether it's drones
Speaker 3: or people or whatever.
Speaker 2: And you know, the truth that those of us who
Speaker 2: live on the border know.
Speaker 3: That there have been drone incursions across the border since
Speaker 3: drones got invented. Essentially they happen all the time. And
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that's a good thing. Clearly, the cartels
Speaker 3: are using it primarily as a surveillance technique to try
Speaker 3: to figure out where the border patrol is. But those
Speaker 3: those incursions aren't viewed as a threat to our airspace.
Speaker 3: And it turns out what is views of the threat
Speaker 3: to our airspace by the FAA is the border patrol
Speaker 3: firing off lasers with no real discussion about the safety.
Speaker 1: Right, And so this is what sort of becomes revealed
Speaker 1: over time in the twenty four hours after this happens,
Speaker 1: is essentially that the unic Department Defense was using a
Speaker 1: new our Homeland Security was using a new high end
Speaker 1: energy laser weapon to take out drones what they believed
Speaker 1: were drones being used by Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs
Speaker 1: across the border. This laser is essentially being used pretty
Speaker 1: close to the El Paso Airport, causing the FAA to
Speaker 1: determine that this is unsafe. It's unsafe for planes to fly,
Speaker 1: you know, to the airport in this case, right, am
Speaker 1: I getting that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And so lots of interesting things to unpacked there for
Speaker 3: those of us who live here. So one is why
Speaker 3: are they testing lasers at toward Blitz. The military has
Speaker 3: a massive testing facility an hour up the road at
Speaker 3: White Sands Missile Range, which has, by the way, cleared
Speaker 3: airspace from ground to orbit that nobody can fly over
Speaker 3: for exactly this reason.
Speaker 2: And so for whatever reason, the.
Speaker 3: Department of Defense is testing these lasers, I think reported
Speaker 3: from the New York Times and some others later said
Speaker 3: that this has been going on since about twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: and then in January of this year, the Secretary of Defense,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, the Secretary of War, Pete Heegs, that told
Speaker 3: the Army to share their weapons with Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 3: So at some point in January, DHS, which is almost
Speaker 3: certainly a border patrol, gets access to these laser weapons,
Speaker 3: and that apparently is where the FAA gets a little
Speaker 3: bit nervous. They've been in conversation with the Department of
Speaker 3: Defense around these issues and hadn't made any headway, and
Speaker 3: then they really ran into obstacles trying to work with
Speaker 3: Homeland Security. And you know, right, that's the FAA's job
Speaker 3: is to keep airspace safe. And some of the reporting
Speaker 3: that's come out nationally has been that the relationship between
Speaker 3: the FAA and the Department of Defense have been really
Speaker 3: strained since last year when you had the tragic accident
Speaker 3: at Reagan Airport in DC, where an Army helicopter collided
Speaker 3: with an airplane coming in to land.
Speaker 2: So those tensions exist.
Speaker 3: As sort of a backstory here, and so Apparently they
Speaker 3: were supposed to have a meeting on February twentieth to
Speaker 3: talk about it. The FAA he wanted that meeting move up.
Speaker 3: Nothing really happened with that. And then when you have
Speaker 3: this deployment of the laser near a Passo International, that's
Speaker 3: when the boarder or the fa said, Okay, we have
Speaker 3: to act and we have to put in this restriction.
Speaker 3: And the restriction they wound up putting in is just insane.
Speaker 3: So they shut down the airspace around El Paso and
Speaker 3: then a secretary in New Mexico for ten days, starting
Speaker 3: late at night on February tenth, supposed to run through
Speaker 3: February twentieth. This restriction grounded military, grounded public safety flights,
Speaker 3: grounded air ambulances, like everything.
Speaker 2: El Paso was a no flism.
Speaker 3: That is an unprecedented restriction, both in length of time
Speaker 3: and scope of restrictions at a major, major city. Even
Speaker 3: after nine to eleven, things weren't that drastic. They allowed
Speaker 3: public safety flights and some other flights to continue.
Speaker 2: So also because there's no conversation.
Speaker 3: With local leadership, this is like massively disruptive to the
Speaker 3: local economy of the nation's twenty third largest city.
Speaker 2: Al Passo International Airport.
Speaker 3: Is a major economic engine, not just for passenger flights,
Speaker 3: but for cargo flights. Hospitals rely on getting medical goods
Speaker 3: flown in on a just in time inventory basis.
Speaker 2: Since it was a threat to our economy, it.
Speaker 3: Was a threat to public safety, it is a threat
Speaker 3: to public health, and no conversations at all from the
Speaker 3: federal government to the local government. And also it's worth
Speaker 3: noting that Alpasso International Airport is a city owned airport.
Speaker 3: They own this property and obviously they're going to have
Speaker 3: people coming in in a few hours looking to catch flights.
Speaker 3: The airlines weren't notified, so it was just just this
Speaker 3: sprawl event.
Speaker 1: Is there any have you heard or seen in El
Speaker 1: Pasa matters reporting like did this have you know? It
Speaker 1: happened during a sort of low flight traffic time, right,
Speaker 1: there's not I'd imagine there's not a lot of El
Speaker 1: Paso flights coming in, you know after midnight. But did
Speaker 1: this actually impact operations in any way? Were there you know,
Speaker 1: air ambulance or flights into El Pasa that were disrupted
Speaker 1: because of this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there were Metavac helicopter flights that were rerouted
Speaker 3: to Las Cruises in southern New Mexico. Fortunately none of
Speaker 3: them as far as we could tell. We're carrying Level
Speaker 3: one trauma Patients University Medical Center in Olpasa at the
Speaker 3: only Level one trauma center in the region. If somebody
Speaker 3: had been in a bad traffic accident or had been
Speaker 3: shot in some kind of outlying area, they would not
Speaker 3: have gotten the medical care that they needed. But there
Speaker 3: were some disruptions, and also the airlines wound up canceling
Speaker 3: fourteen flights that were in and out of our Past
Speaker 3: International in the morning. They had to preemptively take those
Speaker 3: out and then once the restrictions were lifted. Fortunately there
Speaker 3: weren't any other disruptions to passing through traffic anyhow, there.
Speaker 2: Was a total fourteen flights that got canceled.
Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean I think like nationally,
Speaker 1: you know, this was viewed as sort of a crazy, wild,
Speaker 1: you know, experience in some people's perspectives, almost a sort
Speaker 1: of comical like example of the dysfunctioning federal government. Right,
Speaker 1: But I mean it did. I was, you know, sitting
Speaker 1: there watching this sort of play out that during that day,
Speaker 1: and I think it did really kind of lay out
Speaker 1: you know why you want a functioning, you know, professional
Speaker 1: government that communicates with each other and operates, you know,
Speaker 1: with an understanding of the risks and what's important going on,
Speaker 1: and it's communicating and and all the different things that
Speaker 1: you ask for for your government, that it does have
Speaker 1: real impacts. Right, people did have their flights canceled, you know.
Speaker 1: I think lucky too that there wasn't some kind of major,
Speaker 1: you know, accident or anything like that during that time.
Speaker 1: But like, people's lives really could have been at risk here,
Speaker 1: if you know, due to this miscommunication and maybe a
Speaker 1: lack of understanding of the impact of their their actions here.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit of people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there were people who bugged out of El Paso,
Speaker 3: uh when there was this uncertainty uh. And it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, if something's going to happen here, I don't
Speaker 3: want to be here when it happens. So they kind
Speaker 3: of jumped in their car and drove off until the
Speaker 3: all clear sounded. So, you know, I think the one
Speaker 3: thing all those impacts you you layout or real, But
Speaker 3: I think the other thing not to lose sight of
Speaker 3: is that you had eight hundred thousand people living here
Speaker 3: who are waking up in the.
Speaker 2: Morning or in some cases staying.
Speaker 3: Wing through the night, like, what the hell is about
Speaker 3: to happen to me? What decisions do I need to
Speaker 3: make for my family? That those are pretty serious implications
Speaker 3: of this field too.
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Speaker 1: T R B T sorry t R I B c
Speaker 1: A s t okay, so bob. This then set off
Speaker 1: a lot of anger by you know, the mayor, the
Speaker 1: local members of Congress and everything like that. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about just what folks have been saying,
Speaker 1: you know, from you know, the leadership capacity in El
Speaker 1: Paso in the days following this.
Speaker 3: Now the main message was that not communicating with local
Speaker 3: partners is unacceptable and dangerous and and you're right, there
Speaker 3: was a lot of anger.
Speaker 2: Initially. Mayor Renard Johnson, who is a pretty laid back
Speaker 2: guy and not a boat rocker.
Speaker 3: Uh, he was really really upset and really more outspoken
Speaker 3: than I've seen him in the year he's been in office,
Speaker 3: really really critical about what had happened. Congress from an
Speaker 3: Escobar who was kind of on the front lines of
Speaker 3: having to deal with the federal government, also extraordinarily frustrated
Speaker 3: with not being able to get information. And then, you know,
Speaker 3: I think we also have to acknowledge that there are
Speaker 3: others who I think, for parties and reasons, weren't particularly critical.
Speaker 3: Congress Montoni Gonzalez, who represents a part of our passo
Speaker 3: and interestingly, in the last redistricting fight, was trying to
Speaker 3: get the legislature to throw all passive.
Speaker 2: International airport into his district unsuccessfully.
Speaker 3: He basically has not had anything to say other than
Speaker 3: all we need to kind of figure out where you know.
Speaker 2: Where things might have went wrong.
Speaker 3: Senator Cruz, I think has been a little bit more
Speaker 3: outspoken kind of saying we need a briefing. The Congresswoman
Speaker 3: Escobar and three members of Congress from New Mexico have
Speaker 3: requested a classified briefing from the affected UH executive agencies.
Speaker 3: They asked UH the two Texas manators and Congressman Gonzalez
Speaker 3: joining that letter, and they didn't. So even in this
Speaker 3: really serious moment for all pass I think to be
Speaker 3: frank a warning sign of dysfunction for our government that
Speaker 3: we really ought to be paying attention to. You, you're
Speaker 3: still seeing this kind of partisan breakdown here where Republicans
Speaker 3: and Democrats seem unable to come together and say, let's
Speaker 3: fix this problem together. And you know, I think that
Speaker 3: this this is a hugely embarrassing moment for the Trump administration,
Speaker 3: I'm sure, but their embarrassment shouldn't be our principal concern
Speaker 3: right now. And I think in public safety and trying
Speaker 3: to make sure that you.
Speaker 2: Know, a bunch of things don't happen again.
Speaker 3: Make sure we don't have a government agencies firing off
Speaker 3: experimental lasers in airspace near major cities. Make sure that
Speaker 3: the FAA has more clear policies on when to impose
Speaker 3: fight and restrictions over majorities. All of these should be
Speaker 3: sort of non partisan or bipartisan sorts of points of agreement.
Speaker 3: But you know, because of our broken political system, we
Speaker 3: can't even get there.
Speaker 1: Right now, right, you know, I mean, you know, we
Speaker 1: talk about the deploying of this laser, right and Sean
Speaker 1: Duffy among other people, you know, saying that they were
Speaker 1: shooting at a drone. I mean, among the things that
Speaker 1: were reported by the New York Times and other national
Speaker 1: media is that it wasn't actually a drone they shot down,
Speaker 1: but rather a what has been described as a party balloon,
Speaker 1: and I think in another New York Times article kind
Speaker 1: of described it as a sort of metallic you know,
Speaker 1: like one of those like you know, balloons you buy
Speaker 1: at the grocery store that you know, for a kid's party,
Speaker 1: which you know, I mean a lot of people laughed
Speaker 1: at and chuckled at, you know, again to to show dysfunction.
Speaker 1: But again I think it's just worth repeating, right that
Speaker 1: that dysfunction has human impacts. It you know, terrifies hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of people, that it shuts down travel and
Speaker 1: and and all those different types of things. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like it also raised a question in my mind,
Speaker 1: and I'm curious about how you think about this as
Speaker 1: someone who actually lives in this community around just like
Speaker 1: you know, the understanding of like how life is actually
Speaker 1: experienced in the border, right, There's been you know, for
Speaker 1: across administrations for a very long time, of course, places
Speaker 1: like El Paso and other along Texas and New Mexico,
Speaker 1: in California, in Arizona, conversations about you know, the whether
Speaker 1: the border is lawless and all those different issues that
Speaker 1: are going on, whether you know, even people in government
Speaker 1: might have a sort of caricature of the border as
Speaker 1: opposed to the reality. And this sort of act of
Speaker 1: shooting down a balloon thinking that it's a cartel drone,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of puts that into sharp relief. Is
Speaker 1: what about that? I mean, are people sort of did
Speaker 1: that kind of aspect of that hit home with people
Speaker 1: in El Paso this this past week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I want to start by saying, mistakenly, shooting
Speaker 3: down a balloon is objectively funny and.
Speaker 2: Should be fair enough. Don't hold that.
Speaker 3: Against anybody, But I think the one thing and I
Speaker 3: may be sensitive because I live here, but the one
Speaker 3: thing that really jumps out and me from this whole
Speaker 3: saga is there was never any discussion at any point
Speaker 3: about the people who live here, right and in this
Speaker 3: decision making chain and the federal government, there really no like, hey, uh,
Speaker 3: if we fire off this laser, could could there be
Speaker 3: some disruption to the hundreds of thousands of people who
Speaker 3: live here, And not to mention the one point two
Speaker 3: million people on the other side of the border. No
Speaker 3: conversation that I've seen from anybody in the FAA like
Speaker 3: what would a decision to shut down airspace do uh
Speaker 3: for El Paso. So there's no sense that there are
Speaker 3: real people who live here and there are lives that
Speaker 3: are that are going to be affected. And as you indicated,
Speaker 3: that's not a new phenomenon here unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And and while it has happened across administrations, and as
Speaker 3: you indicate, I don't want to give the Trump administration
Speaker 3: a pass here, it is far more pronounced in both
Speaker 3: Trump's first term and second term. It's not an accident
Speaker 3: that the Trump administration in Trump one, began the family separation.
Speaker 2: Policy in Il Passo.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not a coincidence that Trump came to
Speaker 3: al Passo to do a build the Wall thing without
Speaker 3: any kind of real indication of what the people on
Speaker 3: the ground thought. And it's certainly not an accident that
Speaker 3: Trump decided to come to al Passo in the days
Speaker 3: after the Walmart mass.
Speaker 2: Shooting in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: It's quite bipartisan pleading from people in all Passo to
Speaker 3: stay away because the community was hurting. So there's no
Speaker 3: recognition that there are human beings with real needs and
Speaker 3: fears and concerns and hopes and dreams. Al Passo is
Speaker 3: sort of this handy political prop which I think Sean
Speaker 3: Duffy immediately plays into. It's like, oh, there's a you know,
Speaker 3: we shot down this drone that that came over.
Speaker 2: He knew that wasn't true.
Speaker 3: But but it's a message that plays very well.
Speaker 2: With with the base. Uh.
Speaker 3: And you know, I think all people, you know, even
Speaker 3: if you don't live here in the border should should
Speaker 3: have some concerns about I think the overlooking of the
Speaker 3: humanity that's here. And you know, I'll Passou is not
Speaker 3: a perfect city. We've got like any other community, we've
Speaker 3: got flows, we've got challenges and things like that. But
Speaker 3: there are good people who live here, and and and
Speaker 3: people just wanting to take care of their families and
Speaker 3: and be able to go to work, be able to
Speaker 3: board a flight, uh, be able to come home from
Speaker 3: a business trip. You know, all of that was just
Speaker 3: sort of invisible to the decision makers in this whole
Speaker 3: chain of events.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting you sort of had me thinking about that.
Speaker 1: Like the I the explanation that we were shooting down
Speaker 1: a drone, you know, using this dangerous laser we had
Speaker 1: to do. This makes a lot more sense if you
Speaker 1: are bought into the idea of you know, the border
Speaker 1: as a almost like sort of war zone, you know,
Speaker 1: where like communities are under siege, right And you know,
Speaker 1: whether he believed that or not, it was probably a
Speaker 1: message that you know, to a certain segment of society,
Speaker 1: of our population, made it seem like a more rational
Speaker 1: choice to deploy that laser. But but again, like even that,
Speaker 1: I mean that's frustration that has gone back for a
Speaker 1: very long time of this idea of like, well, that's
Speaker 1: not exactly how people in Olpasso experience living here. This
Speaker 1: it's not a place of lawlessness and disorder. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, a growing community.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's a vital community, and it's and it's
Speaker 3: important for the country. It is a huge economic engine
Speaker 3: for Texas. For example, that because of our isolation, a
Speaker 3: lot of Texans kind.
Speaker 2: Of lose sight of that.
Speaker 3: And and I get that, you know, we're in a
Speaker 3: different time zone from everyone else, and and it could
Speaker 3: be kind of hard to get here. But but El
Speaker 3: Paso is a vital part of Texas, and and we
Speaker 3: feel connected to the state here, and and you know,
Speaker 3: I think all of that kind of gets lost in
Speaker 3: the political shuttles.
Speaker 1: What about just like broadly, like how how does El
Speaker 1: Paso feel different now than maybe it did two years ago.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there have been times in recent years,
Speaker 1: particularly in the Biden administration, where I know, local officials
Speaker 1: are really concerned about, you know, the amount of migrants
Speaker 1: coming over being you know released. You know, there were
Speaker 1: times where Al Paso was you know, bussing migrants to
Speaker 1: other destinations because they felt like they're services were being overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: We are now in a time, of course, where border crossings,
Speaker 1: border encounters have dramatically shifted, in large part because of
Speaker 1: you know, the actions that the Trump administration has taken
Speaker 1: but there are also, i know, concerns about the military,
Speaker 1: militarization of the community and things like that. Just what
Speaker 1: is what is different about El Paso in February twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six than you know, February twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think first of all, to understand, even at
Speaker 3: the height of migration, when there were some really really
Speaker 3: difficult things happening here, people sleeping outside in the dead
Speaker 3: of winter, you know, by the hundreds, most of that
Speaker 3: never impacted the daily life of El Paso.
Speaker 2: Believe it or not. There are things that happen here other.
Speaker 3: Than migration, right, and so I think that that's an
Speaker 3: important thing to understand. So the lives of our past
Speaker 3: ones have not changed dramatically because of the change in
Speaker 3: immigration policies. People still go about their business here like
Speaker 3: like like they always have.
Speaker 2: The community remains very safe by by US standards.
Speaker 3: Primary that's much lower than what you see in other
Speaker 3: major cities.
Speaker 2: I think I'll pass.
Speaker 3: Ones by and large are more worried about, you know,
Speaker 3: getting jobs that.
Speaker 2: Pay well here so that they can raise a family.
Speaker 2: I'll pass.
Speaker 3: The biggest issue is we are exporting young adults. You
Speaker 3: mentioned earlier that I'll pass those a growing community. It
Speaker 3: turns out that's really not acturate. I'll Passo is a
Speaker 3: community that's dealing with population stagnation because of economic challenges.
Speaker 3: Primarily are our low wading structure here, so those those
Speaker 3: issues really rise a lot more for people who do
Speaker 3: deal directly with micro It's obviously been a huge change.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: The Trump administration does like to say that it hasn't
Speaker 3: released any migrants from custody since it took office.
Speaker 2: That may not surprise anybody not to be true.
Speaker 3: There are still shelters here that are taking in people
Speaker 3: who have been released by border.
Speaker 2: Patrol or various reasons.
Speaker 3: One of the issues we're dealing with now, and the
Speaker 3: Tribune has written about this too, is this rapid rise
Speaker 3: and previeous corpus petitions that are overwhelming the federal court
Speaker 3: system because El Paso has become sort of this major
Speaker 3: holding area. We have the largest ice detention facility in
Speaker 3: the country here and that's taken in a lot of
Speaker 3: people from Minnesota in the last month. Those people are
Speaker 3: filing previous corpus petitions seeking the release, largely with success.
Speaker 3: Both and I'll pass on some other areas of the
Speaker 3: western District of Texas. So that's been the primary migration
Speaker 3: issue we're seeing. Again, if you're not a lawyer or
Speaker 3: you're not on the front lines of providing assistance to migrants,
Speaker 3: you're probably not aware of it. Or unless you're a
Speaker 3: loyal reader of El Paso Matters or Texts Tribute, maybe
Speaker 3: you're away.
Speaker 2: But the issues kind of have receded further into the background.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, if you are not a loyal reader
Speaker 1: of l Paso Matters or Textas Tribute, you should be.
Speaker 1: It's elpasomatters dot org. Thank you, Bob, this has been
Speaker 1: really valuable. I appreciate your insights. I also want to
Speaker 1: say thank you to Robin Chris, our producers, and thank
Speaker 1: you to our sponsors. South By Southwest. Secure your badge
Speaker 1: again at SXSW dot com slash trip cast and also
Speaker 1: join us for the live trip cast on February twenty
Speaker 1: fourth at nine am Texas Tribune dot org slash Events.
Speaker 1: For that, Bob, it's been a great talking with you. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll be back next week for another trip cast.
Speaker 3: H