Assignment: Border Stories, part one - Zero Tolerance

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2018 the US government under President Trump introduced a policy of “Zero Tolerance” at its border with Mexico. Anyone attempting to enter the US without documentation would be prosecuted, even if it was a first offence. If they were travelling with children, their children would be taken from them. The policy was cancelled within weeks but not before thousands of families had been separated. Six years on, several hundred are still to be reunited. Migration is perhaps the most important battleground in this year’s presidential election. Both President Biden and his challenger, Donald Trump, have made recent visits to the border. And Zero Tolerance still resonates.

Linda Pressly hears about the pain of separation as experienced by a man from Guatemala; speaks to the people still trying to put families back together; and asks if a new administration might turn again to Zero Tolerance in an attempt to deter would-be migrants to the United States.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Where to be a woman is the podcast celebrating the best of women's well being.
0:05.0	Listen now wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is a documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm Linda Presley and for assignment
0:19.7	this is the first in a two-part series of border stories. We're traveling now. It's just
0:27.2	after six in the morning. It's still inky, it's still dark, and just in the sky the moon like a golden awe.
0:37.0	So we can see twinkly lights there on the horizon. Is that Mexico?
0:45.0	The border town that exists right here is San Luis Arizona.
0:50.0	And that's on the US side.
0:52.0	And across the border is San Luis Rio, Colorado, Mexico,
0:56.0	and we're going to go hit the actual border wall right now.
1:00.0	And there it is, the towering rust red metal fence built by President Trump looms
1:06.6	over us as we make our way along a dirt track in the very south of Arizona.
1:10.8	Migration across the US-Mexico border is fast becoming the biggest
1:15.8	concern for Americans in an election year. In December, one single month, a
1:22.1	quarter of a million people crossed onto US soil without
1:25.8	permission that's an all-time record. So there's a few people hoodies on let's get
1:32.0	out and see who's here. Maybe there's about 20, 30 people
1:37.6	here. Hi there.
1:39.6	Good morning.
1:41.6	What is your guys, good?
1:43.0	Peru?
1:44.0	Peru?
1:45.0	All from Peru.
	...

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