For and in a way that is not argumentative but i find highly per was persuasive he makes a strong case and along the way using his incredible stretchtive powers and descriptive powers and second to none in being able to in a concise way describe a scene, a room, a group of people, he carries you along through this own travels, along the southern border and borders around the world, and along the way i believe he makes a strong case for his ideas of how we should deal withour borders. Peter, this is not the first book that you have written and in a moment well enumerate the other books if you have within d have opportunity articles and radio programs, short form news and long form talk shows. Youre quite literate on these matters. And let me begin by talking about some of the Current Issues related to immigration. For example, just a week or two ago, a nurse who turned whistleblower at an i. C. E. Detention center in georgia went public with charges that a medical doctor there had performed hit recollects mys hysterectomies on immigrant wants. This is an example of our inhuman treatment of immigrants we place in dough tenth under draconian policies of the Trump Administration. What was your reaction when you heard this revelation and how does it tie together with the pattern of family separations, kits in cages, violation of the asylum laws in the United States to prevent those with a credible claim from crossing our borders. Its that litany that you just offer and i want to thank Village Books for welcoming me. Has always such a treat to come to bowlingham and thank you. We have worked together a lot and this is a valuable conversation. The think but the most recent revelations, and they really or revelations because this is what the publics fear at work and we should not knee to know what is going need to know whats going on in our name and with our dollars because of approve whistleblower. Anytime one of this pieces of information that guess on about what goes on behind the closed doors and they are closed doctors almost always. Even when reporters get in the rules are oppressive regarding recording and cameras and note, taking and access, every time one of this revelations comes out, the cages for their children, the violation of the asylum laws. Theres supposed to get interest the country so theyre safe while their cases are being adjudicated and now this horror of the surgery being performed, every time we think it cant possibly be more abusive, and to use your word dramatic dramatic conan and we got another one ask this he pattern of the Trump Administration, urn fortunately, although happening in rapid succession and at extreme levels, its also to a great extent the pattern of the United States government visavis immigration into this country historically. Peter in terms of the asylum process, before covid, we saw Jeff Sessions when he was the attorney general redefine the terms of asylum to exclude Domestic Violence and criminal activity in the native lands, they native countries of individuals seeking asylum. Then we saw covid used to shut at the process done after they came up with this convoluted scheme where an individual from el salvador would have to go to guatemala and request asylum there, be rejected, and then they could approach the u. S. Via mexico, and the idea that someone who is at risk in el salvatore would be safe in guatemala or even in men cases in mexico, is not important out by any facts. Its in fact absurd. So we see the twisting of the law, heavy pressure applied to impoverished nations where trump threatened to cut off the meager aid we already goal them and would exacerbate the problem. These are not rational responses to serious issues year, thats one thing i address in the book directly. I lock for consensus. How can be Work Together when there is a problem, and pretty much all of us no matter our opinions of view, can agree that the border is out of control. The border is chaos, the bored is problematic, migration issues are out of control. So i believe that once we have that that we agree theres a problem we can Work Together to find solutions. We cant too that when the cant too that when the goal of the administration is to demonize certain categories of migrants and we cant do that when the administration is using all the tools at hand to the tools being the executive branch of the federal government, to study every possible way to make it difficult if not impossible for the type of migrants that they, the administration, clearly do not want here pause thats been articulated every possible avenue, every possible tool, every possible device, to stop them. These are enumerated in the book. Its what im looking at, both in terms of solutions and in terms of why the problem is as great as it is right now. The book looks at borders, at walls across time, across cultures, but at you point out, it is focused on our border with mexico and my attempts to offer some ideas to deal with this chaotic reality are focused on mexicans coming into the United States because of our special relationship, our special history with mexico, and because of the aadjacenty of the two companies. Were twins. Theres no getting around it. Even if your name is Stephen Miller. Stephen miller is the architect of many of these extreme policies, and i dont know the guy, never midwest him never met him but his public persona is a man who is driven by racism and xenophobia to keep out people who he considers to be the other. And you have actually meet Stephen Miller, so tell us about that exchange and your observations about him. I realize as im smiling, im smiling at the memories and the odditiy of meeting him, not smiling at out about his performances going back to when i met him and he was an underundergraduate al Duke University. We shouldnt spent much time on that history pause his contemporary the words arent there to describe what he is doing now to create ammunition for this war against mexicans and mexico being perpetrated for the last three years, plus including the campaign for the trump presidency, but what happened is in a become prior to this book, prior to up against the wall, called wetback nation which made a case that i consider more evolved and developed now for opening that border. The Duke University conservative club, conservative union, invited me to the university to debate peter, cite famous for having the opposite views that i have, and the two members, go officials of the club, bizarrely, who invited me, were Stephen Miller and a graduate student, richard spencer, and so i spent a couple of days with these two who have since become infamous of course in immigration policy debate and other poll politics whereunder opinions are obviously divergent, but they were gracious, it was Duke University, it was the south and we win out to dinner, and then the debate occurred, and i won, and so the afterparty was sour because they expect told be celebrating my loss and my wife sheila had stashed a battle of champagne in our room and she said, lets get out of here, this place gives me the creeps. This guys give me the creeps. So, yeah,. Did you attempt to reach Stephen Miller to get an interview with him in the preparation for this book . No. I really didnt think it was necessary. What i did when i conducted the research for this book was spend time with what i call along the pouredder and that border stretches from niagra falls to chapas, the border is pourous, the border is evermoving, not just that line that trump claims he wishes to put a wall, this wall. The prototypes here in the back on the cover photograph for the book. My goal was to talk to those who were living this chaos that i mentioned, and to talk with those on the ground and politicians who were attempting to solve the problem and see what kinds of solutions we can consider, conceptualize, engage in, to begin a process to mack things better. City seven miller and his ilk in the white house and the president are doing the opposite, and to talk to them and sit and hear that party line back was not my goal for this book. My foal for this book was seeking solutions. Theyre not seeking solutions. Theyre seeking a strawman to be able to continue to knock down, to try to garner votes. So, i have had the pleasure of knowing professor laufer for almost 30 years now, but for people who are discovering peter laufer for the first time, lets give a little thumbnail brown and ill start. You basically have a career that has been in the parts. As a radio broadcaster, Foreign Correspondent for nbc radio, when that was a vibrant national network. You then kind of morphed into being a book author and magazine reporter or writer. And late in life you became an academic and as claire mentioned in the introduction queue hold the James Wallace chair in journalism at the university of oregon and through these different pursuits you have been a world traveler, and you have crossed many, many borders. So, you bring those experiences to the book in ways that i think are fascinating, and not egocentric, youre sharing experiencenot patting yourself on the back or puffing yourself up. Want to mention some of the books you have written that have some relationship to the topic of your current book. You wrote iron curtain rising but the end of the soavity union and the eastern bloc. Nightmare abroad a story of americans who ran bo trouble outside of our borers. Calexico, true lives of the border lands. You referred to wetback nation. Then you also wrote, see you later amigo, an american borer war, and try to system how many times try to estimate how many time you have crossed crose u. S. Mexico border. Thats a tough one you just through at me. I cant imagine counting that alone in addition to other border i have crossed. If i may take that bat from you and talk about borders which i do so much in the book, conceptually. Not just these National Borders like that border you want me to count how many time i crossed into mexico. You have my head swimming trying to think back to the first time when i was turned back by the federales because i wasnt 18 and we thought we would drive down to baja and got south of ensenada and i almost said cincinnati where er from just got just south of ends espn ends ensend ngata. So, im from marine county marin county california and i was in a restaurant in fairfax. I know the restaurant yourure and i was at table and he was at another table and this spokes to borders conceptually, which is much what the book is out, and overhearing him talking to member at his table, and he said, boy, am i glad to be back in fairfax. Just feels feels so good to abok across the line in fairfax. So i asked him where you . He said san rafael. And of course, peter is laughing and in 0 youve watching may laugh because san rafael is three miles east. Its the county seat but it really is indicative of how we create borders, and not always for bad reasons. Theres nothing wrong with establishing our perimeters conceptually or actually. The problem is when we do something in my opinion that is devious, when we do something that is hurtful, when we do something that is counterintuitive, when we do something that benefits us at the expense of others, when we do michigan that is illegal do something thatting illegal and all of those things in that litany are what the United States government is doing now and unfortunately has done to a great extent historically, just not with the crudeness, the vial behavior and the gasalier numbers fastly numbers of victims. Man that happened during Operation Wetback during the hoover administration. Its a problem when there are victims. Its not a problem when you want to shut the bathroom door and push the button on it. You make a reverence in the back the imaginary line and when i was 12, my dad took me and my brothers and mom to europe, we camped out of a volkswagen bus, and my dad had been a veteran of world war ii and he was a history student of both wars, and he took us to the line, and for people who dont know much about it, it was built after world war i to prevent a second german invasion of france, and they miscalculated because they built these gunnery emplace. S and the guns did 360 degrees when the planes the medieval bareovers these walls, including trumps border wall, are really redickous. You cannot stop ridiculous, you cannot the passage of humans whether they fly oover, tunnel under or get a ladder thats two feet taller than whatever barer you build, and i dont know what your favorite visualization is of the idocy of walls but eye asking for it now. The line is one of them in addition to the luftwaffe sta story there was an end of the line and hitler troops went into the end of the line and came round and win into france. So i lived in berlin for a were before the wall dame down and a year after the wall came down and the idocy is not the word i would use because again that was a place of tragedy, but when one goes back to berlin now and its too tourist attraction. Of course its a historical reality and there are some small sections of the wall still in place in order to study, look at, buy a tshirt and get an ice cream cone, and that reality that something as severe and as eric honnicker said this would be here for 100 years, and it was there for maybe a hundred days after that. Its indicative of as you say and he become documents, human migration especially when it is motivated by economic need, by survival, by family reunification, it is not stoppable. You can make it miserable and certainly stop some individuals but is that the kind of policy we want to have . I say no. I say no in the book, particularly and for a start, with mexico. Because there are some raw realities with numbers and i like to look for the places, as i said earlier, where those who come from different political points of view can agree about a problem and then they begin to agree about a solution. Everybody in the world cant not they would necessarily want to cant come here, but mexico is a special case. What we are doing and what we have done historically going back at least to when we started a war and took half the country, it is aegregious and we do it for our own profit and then some of us hide behind saying, stay out of here, this is ours. Thats wrong it and opportunity work. Peter i believe fundamentally that eave nation has a right to control its borders. But i also believe that control has to be rational, and i believe that for decades now, we have been in an irrational mindset about controlling our border particularly the southern border. And id like you to take couple of minutes here to articulate your arguments for revising the regulations related to mexican entry into the United States and youre not in my view talking about just a wide open border where anybody can cross in either direction at any time. But you talking but reducing the level of regulation to a rational model. Heres the thing, peter. Basically i can article and i do in the poock that any mexican who wants to come north of the border will get here. And so do we want what we have now, which is millions of people in the country, we dont know. That might not be a bad thing. Certainly i certainly my point of view is the opposite of the president s. I think thats the majority of the people who are here from mexico are just like anybody else who is here, basically good people. So, do we want people coming in across the border without knowing who they are . Because as you just said a country like most of us agree wants to regulate its borders just like the front door of the house there because i dont want somebody coming in while were talking. So, if you look at the Canadian Border as a model, pretty much any canadian who wants to can come down here. They dont just come across from manitoba into north dakota via corn fields. They no through Border Control points and we know who they are and we take a look at their passport or other papers and we run them through a check and make sure theyre not wanted and in they come and its six months if im remembering correctly to do whatever they want to in the United States. Its nothing like that for mexico and any mexican who wants to cant come north the way any canadian can come south. Lets make it the same. Lets make it the same. And lets have mexicans who want to come north no, matter what they want to come north for, come their study, come and see relatives, come and work, want to come and good to disneyland . What they want to do come on up. And a lot of where they would come up used to be their country anyway. Come on up and just go through a Border Crossing, and the same thing happens that happens with canadians. We have other problems farther south in central america, we can deal with that later. My issue is lets see if we can couple up with a model for mexico and mexicans. Other factor here. For the most part canadians arent being seduced to come do work so while we supposedly trying to prevent mexicans fromming up here we are actively seducing them to come up and do work and light or not the reality of the cliche i true, work that those who are here dope want to do. Were seducing them to couple here and making them as hard as possible to come up here through any Legal Mechanism and so they come up and they are here as de facto outlaws because we want them here. That none that makes any sense unless you want to demonize somebody and keep them opressed and suppressed and unless you dont like them because of where theyre from, because theyre not norwegians. So, peter, at the base of this, are economic fears, the people who i think inaccurately believe that a mexican wants to take my job or his job . We are no closer to any comprehensive resolution of these complex issues. Then we were at this. 5 years ago were ten or 20 years ago. You can go back further and historically to the administration and the turnofthecentury it starts with the story of my father coming to ellis island and that you can say the mexicans of the time and anybody that wasnt from norway. I interrupted you because you probably had a questionnaire at the end. I just want you to comment because i see any real political desire to resolve these is