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Summary
Drones, walls, extreme surveillance, racism, and tension are some of the things you will experience when near the US-Mexico border. How have border walls become the solution to a crisis that isn’t really a crisis but a human-made US policy problem that must be fixed?
Today, we speak with author and independent journalist Todd Miller, who recently published a book called “Build bridges, not walls: A journey to a world without borders.” With over a decade of research, conversations, and visits to many border walls around the world, Todd Miller explains the impacts of a border mentality and how we can create the conditions for a world without borders.
To buy Todd Miller’s book: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100678920.
Follow Todd Miller on Twitter: @memomiller or website: toddmillerwriter.com
Check out the podcast’s show notes at: hondurasnow.org
Follow us on Instagram: @hondurasnow
Transcript
Todd Miller:
This is what I was trying to do with Build Bridges, Not Walls. It’s so obvious that we’re in that world that’s just completely off the rails and it’s unsustainable. And now it’s the borders – the structure for which to keep it going. What needs to happen is is a whole new conversation and then, really, if you think of borders, like why are people migrating in the first place? Why are people displaced in the first place? Those are the right questions.
Karen Spring:
Welcome to the Honduras Now podcast. This podcast shares human rights stories from Honduras and connects them with global issues and North American policy. I’m your host, Karen Spring, a longtime human rights activist that has lived in Honduras for over a decade. Thanks so much for listening.
Today I have invited Todd Miller on the podcast to talk about his brand new book, Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders. Todd has written and researched on border issues for 12 years, the last 10 years as an independent journalist and writer. Todd has written three other books, including Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the US Border around the World, and Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security. [And Border Patrol Nation: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Homeland Security.] So without further ado, this is Todd Miller.
Todd, thank you so much for joining me for this episode. It’s a real pleasure to have you.
Todd Miller:
Thank you for having me, Karen.
Karen Spring:
So you just put out a new book called Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders. So to jump into some of the questions I have for you today, in this new book you have, you talk about a concept that you refer to as “wall sickness.” What exactly is wall sickness?
Todd Miller:
Well, the definition of wall sickness comes from Germany. And it came from the phenomenon of people living near the Berlin Wall. So what they detected were that people are having feelings of narrowness, of confinement, of extra anxiety from living so close to a wall that magnitude. And so then they came up with this terminology called wall sickness. And then, according to the lore of that time, wall sickness was then alleviated when the Berlin Wall fell.
But, little did they know, that was just the beginning. And so, in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, there were 15 border walls. And then if you go to today, there’s approximately 70, two thirds of those constructed in the post 9/11 era. And so what was called wall sickness then, and I hate to say it like this, because it might sound a little cliché, but it’s been described this way: There’s a wall pandemic, you know. This is actually described by an author named Marcello Di Cintio. And he describes, actually before the COVID pandemic, but the idea that the walls are spreading like mad, like wildfire, and they’re going around the world.
And in Build Bridges, Not Walls, I bring that up, seeing a border patrol agent who looks like the manifestations of wall sickness are in his very gestures, right? There’s this family on both sides of the wall, like maybe eight or ten people, and they’re separated on both sides of the wall. And you can see it, you know, the wall, like, why aren’t you respecting the law, the law, you know, the idea that this wall is more important than any relationship that you can have with each other.
So I think that the definition that would affect one individual is now expanded to this, like, maybe it’s more of a fervor in other contexts. And if you think about the Trump years, maybe even a religious-like fervor of wall, and it’s a wall as some sort of solution to our problems. So that’s, I mean, that’s it in kind of a nutshell.
I think it’s a term that embodies one of the states of the world we’re in right now, where we’ve never had this many walls in the world. There’s never been so many walls, and I’m talking physical barriers, you know, and the walls can come in many other forms as well. But there haven’t been so many impediments to people, the freedom of movement of people than there are now.
Karen Spring:
So years ago, I got my first taste of wall sickness, I guess, a glimpse of what it could be, when I went to an event that was put on by the School of the Americas Watch right at the US-Mexico border. And I think I actually saw you there from a distance with William on your shoulders, from afar. But it was my first ever experience being around the US-Mexico border. I mean, I’m Canadian. And so I don’t, I’ve never crossed that border. The border that I’m used to is the border between Canada and the United States, which is very, very different from the border with the US and Mexico.
And so it was my first time actually seeing this long border wall. It was my first time getting a sense of the tension that exists in the air when you have this. And then maybe that’s because I was new to the wall. I’d never seen it before. But it was the first sort of glimpse I got into, you know, what you refer to as wall thickness.
There are Canadians that listen to this podcast, and there’s people that have never actually been to a border wall before. Can you describe, for somebody that has never been to the Mexico-US border, what it’s like? And then also, what is the situation right now at the border? And has the border changed at all, the dynamic at the border, with the change of administrations, like now that the Biden administration is in power?
Todd Miller:
I didn’t realize you were there. Yeah, so we probably did know each other from afar at the US Mexico border a few years ago. And I did have William, yeah, who is my five-year-old son.
So if you’re going to go to the border right now, it’s like you describe, Karen, it’s a 20-foot wall. Right now, I don’t know if at the time you were there, if this was the case, but now there’s coiling razor wire. I don’t think it was, actually, during the SOA Watch Encuentro [gathering]. But there’s coiling razor wire that’s been put up since Trump’s been in office, or actually in the last couple years.
And so actually, if you don’t mind, I want to take a little bit of a longer look at the border. So if when you come to the US-Mexico border, and you think about even the transition of power right now, from Trump to Biden, and really the media narratives around that, right? You know, especially the one like, Oh, Trump is the root of all problems at the border, but now Biden’s in power and everything’s going to be fine, which is actually probably where I know it’s probably not a correct analysis.
And so when you go to the border, you literally see, right before your eyes, decades of what has been a massive fortification. And perhaps the most in anywhere in the world, there’s probably a couple competitors out there. For example, I like to start in the mid 1990s, and I’ll do this quick. But in the mid 1990s, you have the Clinton administration starting what’s called the “Prevention Through Deterrence” strategy. And they have a $1.5 billion immigration and border budget, and they start these operations like Gatekeeper, Hold the Line, Safeguard, among others, and that just brought in tons of money. That’s when you see, like in Nogales, where the SOA Watch Encuentro was, the 15 foot wall built, and the chain link fence was extracted. And then Border Patrol agents are hired, technologies are put up, and all designed to force people around into like dangerous places like the desert.
And so that strategy that started there in the 1990s, was then amplified considerably post 9/11. In the US, of course, 9/11 was huge, it created the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security created CBP [Customs and Border Protection] and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], and then it put a counter-terror as its priority mission, which is just like opening up the floodgates of money, and so much money poured into it.
And so if you look, for example, in the Bush years, you just see this massive construction on the border, like 650 miles of walls and barriers, all kinds of technologies, what they called at the time, what you still could call the “virtual wall,” which is using surveillance towers that interact with each other, and ground sweeping radar, and that’s when drones were deployed for the first time. And all these implanted motion sensors going into command and control center of war, they call them war rooms, right, that gives you an idea how how the border lands are envisioned by the designers, right? And it all comes together based on the Prevention Through Deterrence.
So all this kind of loads up in the cities, no way people can cross through the cities. It expands further and further. So that just makes the migrant routes go further and further, until like these desolate dangerous areas. And then the direct result, of course, is that nobody can carry enough water. Nobody can carry enough food. Nobody can carry enough anything. People’s feet will blister up so much so they can no longer fit their feet in their shoes. And those stories are commonplace, like, every day, every single day, there’s stories like that, and the stories of death and near death. And there’s been at least 8,000 remains of people found in the desert since then. The number is most likely much, much higher. The humanitarian aid organization, No More Deaths estimates probably three to ten times higher than 8,000. Like right now, you hear a lot of border crisis, border crisis, border crisis, but in a way – it’s ridiculous how it’s narrated because it’s like, almost as if the border itself can be in a crisis. And it’s like no, the border, it can’t be an in a crisis. It’s designed to create a crisis, a perpetual crisis, a crisis in every day, all the time crisis. And that’s exactly how you see the militarization concentrated in these areas, like in Nogales, and then where people go is far from the eye. Far from the media cameras. No one knows what’s going on, because it’s way deep in the desert. And so the tragedies are often not reported. Sometimes they are, but oftentimes they’re not.
And so when you shift from a Trump administration to a Biden administration, just to finish up, when Trump came into office, all this buildup had come to like, I think the CBP, ICE budgets combined were $20 billion. Different claims made again, $1.5 billion up to $20 billion. So he had massive amounts of resources to work with, to do all the things he did. Now, of course, Trump pushed the cruelty to the furthest reaches that he could possibly do it, right? But he had all the arsenal at his disposal to do that. And that’s exactly what he did. And so as Biden takes office, he’s in a $25 billion. So it’s $5 billion more than Trump, right, as of 2021 budget, I think it is. I’m referring to CBP and ICE combined. And one thing is that he comes down and he says, we’re going to change everything. But you know, we have executive orders, we’re going to reverse the Trumpian policies, on one hand. So that really, at least rhetorically, and there’s some things that he’s doing that, Remain in Mexico, the idea that people are staying on the Mexican side. There’s some things that he’s doing that are creating at least a valve of release or something. I don’t know how to put it.
But the main thing I want to say, it’s still not enough, as far as even the Trump policies. But what Biden is not addressing at all, is this huge arc of fortification that’s been bipartisan in the United States, that both parties have done. That started in the Clinton administration, the Obama administration carried it on when he [Biden] was Vice President, and, of course, as the activists called him the Deporter-in-Chief, Obama, nearly 3 million people deported under his presidency and Biden’s presidency. That was rarely mentioned by, I mean, he mentions that when he’s directly questioned about it, but that’s it.
And so those bigger issues are not addressed, which makes me think, okay, there’s a bit of a cosmetic thing going on. And perhaps some really key policy shifts as far as Trump, because Trump’s just a bit too beyond the pale. But it seems like the overall, like people being forced into the desert, the Border Patrol, the militarization of the border, even the razor wire that’s on the wall that Trump put up five rows of that, that you see everywhere you go, is not being removed by Biden. So it’s all there, it’s all the same thing, the same effects with some policy changes.
Karen Spring:
Yeah, that’s sort of how we see it here in Honduras, at least, although there seems to be more people that are hopeful and that are headed to the border now, I think. I’m in Honduras, which is just continuing the migration that’s been going on for decades and several years.
So two years ago, I sat in a meeting here in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, inside the US Embassy, and we were meeting with staff inside the US Embassy here that were under the Trump administration, the State Department, and I was with American citizens that came down to investigate the root causes of migration with an organization called Cross Border Network that’s based out of Kansas City.
And someone in our delegation asked the officials at the US Embassy, why are people migrating? Why are people leaving Honduras?
And the person that responded said, well, it’s because of climate change. And that was their response to us. And I was really perplexed by that response, because, one, Trump denied that climate change is happening, and he just refused to acknowledge it as a major problem. And it’s interesting because it wasn’t until I picked up your Storming the Wall book that I was able to understand the response that I heard in the Embassy. And as I was reading, Storming the Wall: Climate Change, Migration, and Homeland Security is the name of the book, you give this framework that allowed me to understand why that response was what it was. And you talk about how the Department of Defense, the US government, regardless of what Trump says or not, recognize climate change as this major issue. But instead of actually addressing it, they’re actually spending all this money to fortify borders and to militarize and to ensure that people that are refugees of the climate crisis don’t actually come to the United States, or any other country that’s trying to “protect itself,” quote, unquote, from these refugees, or climate refugees. And so this response by this Embassy person was really interesting, because he was basically fueling that whole idea that we need to spend more money on borders to fortify borders.
And so this sort of leads into my question, there’s a quote that you have, at the end of your book, your most recent book, Build Bridges, Not Walls, you wrote, quote, “Catastrophic climate change alone is an argument for a world without borders.” Unquote. Can you explain this quote? And obviously you can talk about all your books, because I think all your books sort of touch on this issue itself.
Todd Miller:
Yeah. That’s really interesting to hear that that Embassy person answered it that straightforwardly, yeah. So, like that insight that you get from the Embassy visit of the borders being a quote, unquote, “solution to climate change,” I mean, how on earth is that a solution unless, unless, like, the quote, unquote, “solution to climate change” is that some people are protected, and some people are not?
Like when you look at a border system, for example, like climate change is a definite result of business-as-usual capitalism, that has inundated the atmosphere with poisonous greenhouse gas emissions that are now affecting the world, and the historic perpetrators of that, of course, the biggest one was the United States, like 27% since 1850.
And understanding a world of massive displacement is being predicted, as it’s happening in Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador, and everywhere around the world, including within the borders of the United States.
And I’ll swear, to keep a kind of business-as-usual kind of status quo world where things can function, right? It’s like, you get to keep doing what we do, as we’ve always done, and where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. All of that stuff, you know. And now the kind of divide between the environmentally protected and the environmentally exposed. The border becomes the solution when you think of it that way.
And to me, when you think about climate change alone being an argument for a world without borders. It’s like, of course, anyone with any sort of bit of logic knows that that’s not a solution at all, that’s just allowing a situation to keep going and even exacerbate, you know, keeping, perpetuating, and perpetuating it in the interest of the global elite really, and keeping things as they are.
And to look at climate change, things can’t stay as they are. So when you look at the last 25 years, like you’ve had 25, 26 years of the United Nations summits around climate change. And that involves bringing nation-states into conversation. And of course, one of the biggest accomplishments, the 2015 Paris Agreement, while it’s quite an accomplishment, are non-binding. So we know that the Trump administration pulled out of the Paris Agreement, but non-binding means what, you know? So one of the biggest results, you go to 2019, and I’m not going to count 2020 because the pandemic actually made the emissions thin out. But 2019, there’s more emissions than any other time, or in the history that we know about, on planet Earth.
So how could you have 25 years of nation-states coming together to talk about climate change and a solution, and there’s more emissions than ever before? And then coming out of the IPCC, the International Panel on Climate Change, them saying that by 2030, greenhouse gas emissions have to decrease by 50%. And then by 2050, by 90%. I mean, you’re talking about things that nation-states are showing, by their very interest, by, like, especially the asymmetrical relationships like the United States, historic and middle, 27%, 700 times more carbon emissions from the US than Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador combined, since 1900. So definitely a perpetrator and guilty, and yet business-as-usual still continues to pump these emissions into the atmosphere. It’s happening now. And our time is getting shorter. And so what is going on?
And then you have this whole thing, where as I looked at in Storming the Wall, like digging into, Oh, borders are the solution? Like if you look at mitigation versus border, the budgets for border enforcement in the US and around the world is significantly higher than the efforts of input towards resolving climate change.
And then, finally, an issue like climate change is a global issue. Like dividing people into separate places, is not, and especially, you know, whereas the world is divided now with different powers, hegemonic powers, is absolutely not the way this is going to get solved. It’s going to get solved with cross-border collaborations, solidarity between peoples, and the very things that borders impede.
Like I always think about it here, why can’t it be easier for us to organize with our friends in Sonora, in Mexico? But we can’t, because the border is there. Like you can’t just cross, you have to go 70 miles cross and then so it’s another 70 miles, just to get to a place of five seconds away. And then you can’t organize to the same people, because you’re in different countries. It’s all organized in a way that disarms and disorganizes and divides people. And divides people who would otherwise be organizing together.
And to me, this problem, and you can look at a number of other ones, like massive inequality in the world, or like the pandemic right now, right? And just know, this interconnectedness, this solidarity, and this kind of coming together of people are what’s going to bring the solution. And the solutions are going to be maybe different in different localities, there are overall global solutions, but people have to be able to come together and be able to respond to this.
And secondly, the way that it’s now so set in place that there’s going to be this massive displacement, like the estimates range from 150 million to a billion in 2050. Like more than ever before on the planet. So it seems like, okay, let’s think about that. You know, and that’s going to take the border stuff, that is going to cause, and it is causing, and it has caused, and it will continue to cause, and that’s the status quo, immense amounts of suffering, really brutalizing people. And now it’s time to think, okay, this is going to be happening in the status quo business as usual. We have to think about this, and think of a better way to organize the world.
Karen Spring:
So in Honduras, the barrier to entry to the United States isn’t just the wall. It’s actually the entire journey from the checkpoints, like even here in the cities, in San Pedro Sula in northern Honduras, the military and the police are putting up kind of checkpoints, where migrants have to cross checkpoints in their own countries, as caravans, in order to get to the Guatemalan border. And so it’s this entire journey that is the barrier to entry into the United States through Central America, but also the danger that migrants face passing through Mexico.
So how has the United States expanded its borders into Mexico and also into Central America?
Todd Miller:
That is, I would say, like I was stressing the Prevention Through Deterrance strategy earlier, since 9/11, the extension of the border. And you can see this, throughout CBP literature, they talk about it constantly. You go to the conventions, they’re constantly talking about the extending of the border. That has become, or side by side is Prevented Through Deterrance, or you could say the export of Prevention Through Deterrence, because people end up circumventing the checkpoints, right, is fundamental US border strategy now.
And Alan Bersin, under the Clinton administration he was the Border Czar, he causes a paradigm shift, a massive paradigm shift, to say that this shift to externalize the US border, he’s also the person who said in 2012 that the US southern border is no longer the border with Mexico, it’s the border between Chiapas and Guatemala. And really, I mean, he was ridiculed for that in 2012, like how could you say that about a sovereign country?
But he was actually telling the truth, he was talking about this massive resource, like this incredible pressure that the United States is putting on Mexico in this particular case, the Mérida Initiative, in 2008, like counter-narcotic initiative for the US is sending Mexico resources and to revamp, to include the borders in 2012. So 21st Century Border was this project with Mexico so it would bolster its borders. And so that’s what I think Bersin was referring to, how the US was actively participating, by sending resources and doing trainings and a bunch of other things in building up and fortifying Mexico’s border. And then, of course, that wasn’t the end of it. But in fact, it wasn’t even the beginning of it, right?
Here we’re talking about in Honduras and Guatemala, for some of the research, I did go to both Guatemala and Honduras and meet with different task forces that were being created with the US Embassy money in both cases, which were effectively border patrols. And that’s where I learned about the Salvar a un Ángel operation in Honduras. And I believe it was 2014, exactly what you were referring to. When I was interviewing one of the people from the [indigenous group] Maya Ch’ortí from the Honduran side, he talked about this operation, Save an Angel, which was basically an internal checkpoint in Honduras, that was targeting, I believe, people that were single, even mothers, he might have even said mothers with a child, and they would stop them from leaving the country. So these internalized checkpoints. And this is the same agency that’s funded and trained and all that by the United States. And that replicates itself in Guatemala, the Ch’ortí is what it’s called in Guatemala. For some reason, they leave out the Maya part, but they call themselves the Ch’ortí. And so I went there, and they just showed me like their armored jeeps that came from the United States.
When I went to CBP headquarters in Washington, DC and asked them about some of the stuff, one of the officials said, Oh, those jeeps are donations. And then this other guy looked at him and said, Did you just say donation? And he responded, yes, but he said it kind of sheepishly. And then he said, they’re not a donation! And he goes, we expect a return on our investment! And I think that pretty much says it all, right?
Karen Spring:
Yeah, and speaking about return on investment, as you’re talking about this, I’m thinking about, I drive by this Honduran police station in this urban area, frequently, to go to the grocery store. And outside of the police station, there’s often this van that has “Border Patrol,” written on the side of it, and in English, right? And so it’s just like these “donations,” quote, unquote, that aren’t very much donations that are present here. And when I see it, I’m just like, that is just so bizarre. Like it’s just parked on the side of the road, like nothing. Here we have Border Patrol, not necessarily, you know, is present, but just all of their tools and their, quote, unquote, “donations” they’re giving to the Honduran police. So I hear you on that, and I see it, just with that van parked on the side of the road here.
Todd Miller:
Can you take a picture of that, Karen?
Karen Spring:
Yeah, I will, next time I see it, I will take a picture of it.
So, if anything, the trend over the last few decades has been the erection of more walls, the expansion of the wall beyond the US-Mexico border, and also the strengthening of the prison logic. You talk about this at the end of your Build Bridges, Not Walls book, how does the export of the US model of mass incarceration or imprisonment to places like Honduras, I mean, Honduras has three US-style maximum security prisons, my partner was in a prison for, you know, a year and a half. How does the construction of these prisons play into the reproduction of prison and border logic at a global scale?
Todd Miller:
Yeah, I mean, thinking about the export of borders, the export of prisons, and this is what I’ve, I’ve looked at especially like immigration detention, and [inaudible], that’s what I’ve looked at more than anything else. But kind of incarceration apparatus, it goes right along with it. It’s just hand in hand, what like the more, like, forceful the border logic and the more that it becomes, you have an enforcement apparatus, the more you need prisons or, as they call it, detention centers.
One time, I talked to an ICE agent, and I used the word “prison.” And he corrected me quite quickly and told me that they’re not prisons, they’re detention centers. Even though they’re very much prisons, right? There’s razor wire, you can’t get out of them. It’s a prison, but, as far as immigration is concerned, the whole idea of detention, that’s the terminology.
Anyhow, so it goes hand in hand, in that way, for sure. And so when people like when they come to the border, like if you’re crossing a border and you’re criminalized, then you will be, you know, put into, you’re doing, you’re doing a criminal act, and then, obviously, the net result is you go to prison. And so, yeah, there’s that export.
And then the whole idea, like, what I think of as borders, and I’ve heard the border area, you know, even described as a sort of, you’re going through a panopticon, which is like for Michel Foucault, the French philosopher, the panopticon, where there’s so much surveillance around you that, and it was used in a prison setting, where you don’t know if you’re being watched or you’re not being watched, but you always assume that you are, that has a sort of psychological effect on you. And I guess that could link back into the wall sickness stuff. And, to me also, with the border surveillance system that we have, there’s a panopticonical, that’s probably a made up word on my part, effect of crossing the border, where you’re almost like in a sort of prison, there’s so much surveillance around, you don’t know if you’re being watched or not. You know if you get caught, you’re going to jail, that’s for sure.
And so in that sense, you’re just this kind of exportation of this other mentality, and geared towards certain people, that they’re going to be criminalized and put in prison, for, in this case, crossing a border. Or, you know, the export of prisons, as with the case of your partner, I would imagine probably has to do with people dissenting and trying to change things within their own country.
Karen Spring:
In your book, you mentioned Ruth Wilson Gilmore. In an interview with New York Times Magazine, Ruth Wilson Gilmore said, “Instead of asking whether anyone should be locked up or go free, why don’t we think about why we solve problems by repeating the kind of behavior that brought us the problem in the first place?” You talk a lot about this in your book, in different manners, and in different conversations that you have. And I think one of the fundamental questions that prison abolition proposes is, how do we change the conditions under which violence prevailed in the first place? And so with that in mind, when you call for border abolition, or building bridges and not walls, what do we need to do to create the conditions in the world where borders need not exist?
Todd Miller:
Yeah, that’s the question. But that’s exactly, I think, like, going to Ruth Wilson Gilmore and just infusing yourself with the wisdom that she brings, the idea that, abolitionists are used to say, abolition is present, it’s present and I think she’s quoted, and I’m gonna paraphrase with something like, abolition of prisons is 1% destroying the prison and 99% creating a whole new world where prisons do not need to exist.
And then what she goes further into saying is she’ll describe neoliberal capitalism as, she has a term “organized abandonment.” And by “organized abandonment,” you can look at it in the United States, which I think she was mainly focused on, or you can look at the United States’s relationship with Latin America for centuries, right? Like what’s gone on in Central America. And then the economic stratification part of it, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and the economic restructuring, all that, it kind of gets shoved off to the side sometimes, but it’s like there’s a fundamental structure in place that keeps the rich, rich, and the poor, poor.
Like in Mexico when NAFTA was about to be passed, and then the guaranteed subsidies that small farmers would get for their farm, like that’s removed, the guaranteed price that farmers they get from to sell their farm, that’s removed. All of a sudden they’re put in, like, competition with Archer Daniels Midland, right? And there’s no way. So that’s like the organized abandonment.
And so what this whole world of creating this, the border as a solution, just like when we’re discussing climate change, the border becomes the solution of climate change. And this is what I was trying to do in Build Bridges, Not Walls is the conversation needs to be had, you know, this, it’s so obvious that we’re in this world that’s just completely off the rails, and it’s unsustainable. And now it’s the borders of this structure for which to keep it going. And what needs to happen is a whole new conversation.
And then really, like, if you think of borders, like why are people migrating in the first place? Why are people displaced in the first place? Those are the right questions. And if you ask them in good faith, not if you’re them as the person that you refer to, like, you’re asking in good faith, and like, Oh, I have 100 times more greenhouse gas emissions. Okay, that means we’re a little responsible for that. Oh, these economics, the structural adjustment programs have caused this? Okay, let’s take this away. You know, oh, organized abandonment, let’s stop doing this, let’s do something different – It’s really not that difficult, you know.
We had the biggest like, with one of the things about the border is that in, at least in the US, at least the way their rhetoric goes is, you’re always told that the problem is on the other side, right? On the other side of the wall, somebody is going to come and get you, or they’re going to come take this away.
And that whole narrative just refocuses, it redirects your mind from even looking at where the emphasis needs to be made for the well-being of all people. Like, why am I thinking of somebody on the other side of the wall, from Tegucigalpa, you know, instead of like, thinking that, like people, kids drinking contaminated water in Flint, Michigan, is a security issue. Or, like, if you get bit by a cat, and you get some sort of shot, that it will cost you like $50,000, and that’s gonna make you bankrupt, and that’s a security issue. Or your house is foreclosed, and you no longer have a roof over your head. To me, that seems like a big security issue. And that’s happening all the time.
And so like, it’s just a totally misguided way of thinking. And if you think of money, misplacement of money, to where it’s really needed. And I think that really falls into what Ruth Wilson Gilmore says about presence, about, you know, creating another world where all this stuff, prisons, borders, don’t need to exist. I mean, it would be totally illogical for them to exist.
But first we have to have conversations, and get off the fact like, oh, the border is sacrosanct. You can’t say a negative thing about it or challenge it. And really, I think the conversation needs to really go into these new frontiers and new directions, and I think, really there’s a lot of terrain to really begin to imagine a new world.
Karen Spring:
Todd, where can people find your work and also buy your new book and also the books that you have published previously?
Todd Miller:
So the the new book, Build Bridges, Not Walls, you can buy it right from City Lights Publishers, City Lights webpage, and buy it there. And you can also buy two of my previous books, Storming the Wall that you mentioned, and Border Patrol Nation, which is my very first book. And Empire of Borders, Empire of Borders is where I discussed the expansion of the US border, you can buy at Verso Books. It’s always better to go straight to the publisher. And of course there’s other outlets you can buy them on, too. And ToddMillerWriter.com. So just come visit my – I try to keep that fairly updated. Sometimes I forget.
Karen Spring:
Thank you so much for joining me today for this amazing discussion and for continuing, you know, you’ve been doing this work for 12 years, it’s so important. Your book has definitely helped me rethink and understand some of the things that I see here in Honduras. So, thank you so much for joining me today and best of luck with promoting your book.
Todd Miller:
Thank you, Karen. I appreciate being here. It was an honor.
Karen Spring:
So there you have it. That was Todd Miller talking about his most recent book, Build Bridges, Not Walls. And that is the episode for today. As always, check out our show notes at HondurasNow.org. And thank you so much for listening. Until next time, hasta pronto.