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Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Tina and Ann met as journalists covering a capital murder trial, 15 years ago. Tina has been a tv and radio personality and has three children. Ann has a master's in counseling and has worked in the jail system, was a director of a battered woman's shelter/rape crisis center, worked as an assistant director at a school for children with autism, worked with abused kids and is currently raising her three children who have autism. She also is autistic and was told would not graduate high school, but as you can see, she has accomplished so much more. The duo share their stories of overcoming and interview people who are making it, despite what has happened. This is more than just two moms sharing their lives. This is two women who have overcome some of life's hardest obstacles. Join us every Wednesday as we go through life's journey together. There is purpose in the pain and hope in the journey.
Real Talk with Tina and Ann
Border of Hope: I love the Me I See in You with Gil Gillenwater
We bring the border into focus as a lived place, not a line, and confront how wealth disparity, US demand, and policy choices shape human lives. Gil Gillenwater shows why enlightened self interest, housing with dignity, and education beat walls and fear.
• wealth disparity between $18 an hour and $14 a day
• the border as community, not an abstract boundary
• enlightened self interest as a guiding principle
• youth loneliness, consumerism, and loss of purpose
• how US drugs, guns, and corporations fuel violence
• post 9 11 militarization and the Devil’s Highway
• predation and the cost of crossing
• from charity to reciprocity in service work
• Rancho Feliz housing plus education model
• measurable outcomes and middle class mobility
You do not want to miss it. Join us next week for part two with Gil Gillenwater.
Book: Hope on the Border
Rancho Feliz Charitable Organization
Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne, where we dive into real stories, real people, and the places where pain turns into purpose. I am Anne, and today's episode opens with one of the most intense beginnings of a book that I think I've ever read. The book Hope on the Border by Gil Gillenwater begins with a scene from November 14th, 2009, just after sunrise in a smuggling corridor on the US Mexican border. The brush is shoulder high. The trucks come roaring toward him. Six masked gunmen jump out, rifles raised, shouting things at him. Time slows, six fingers on six triggers. He has no idea if this is his last day alive. Well, he is obviously here. And I am very glad that he is. Today we're going to be talking about the border, not in a political way or in the headlines, but as a place where people live, lead, hope, die. And because of Gil and his team, rebuild their lives. Gil Gillenwater is a founder of Rancho Feliz Charitable Foundation, Inc., a cross-border organization that has spent nearly four decades transforming cardboard shelters into real communities and granting thousands of scholarships, building over a thousand homes, and helping families find their American dream without leaving Mexico. His book is visually stunning and money from every copy supports this work. Today we will be exploring why the border is not a line, it's a place, and how American money, drugs, and guns drive violence, what crossing really costs to the human lives, and why education, not walls, is the long-term solution, and how enlightened self-interest lifts both sides. And we're going to find out what that is. This conversation will be intense at times, hopeful at others, and deeply real and eye-opening. And I guarantee that you will hear things on this podcast today that you have never heard about the border. Gil, I am very honored to have you here today.
SPEAKER_02:Well, thank you, Ann. It's wonderful to be with you. That was one of the most uh comprehensive introductions that I've ever had, but I'll tell you, you're spot on. You obviously read the book.
SPEAKER_00:I did. You are an amazing man. Your team are just amazing people. Your book reads like a documentary. I mean, every picture tells a story. Let's start with that moment that I just read about on the smuggling quarter. You wrote, Life on the border is constantly on edge. It bleeds. Can you explain the tension on the border?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I can. And it's so interesting that I live in Phoenix, Arizona, a mere four hours away from the largest wealth disparity on the planet. You know, if you live in India and you take a step into the next country, you're in Pakistan. It's not a big deal. Here, you take a step from Arizona into Mexico, you go from a minimum wage of about$18 an hour to$14 a day for a good job in the McLilladora.$14 a day? How do you raise a family on$14 a day? And it's that wealth disparity that creates the suffering that happens down there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, when you stand at the border, what does the quote by Paul Farmer state? It says, some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world. What does that look like for you in real life when you look at the people down there and that area?
SPEAKER_02:You bring up a very good point. And that's why I have spent so much time and energy on recruiting volunteers to actually cross the border and go into Mexico. Since inception, we've had over 28,000 volunteers cross the line and see. You know, it's so easy to sit up here in Scottsdale in our little bubble, which by the way, I live in about the top 1% of the world, and say, well, why don't those darn Mexicans stay in their own country? Come down with me for a weekend and let me show you the challenges that these people have to deal with on a daily basis, and you will never say that again.
SPEAKER_00:You know, you just mentioned something that's really important is that we act as if people in our immediate circle are the only ones who matter.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:But you point out that if the community falls apart, the individual does, it doesn't survive either. So why is it dangerous to live as if anything outside of our immediate bubble is someone else's problem?
SPEAKER_02:That's such a good question. I I don't know that we introspect as much as we should as a species. I mean, let me give you, I came across this the other day. Do you know what Americans spent on pet clothing in the year 2024? No. No. Five billion dollars. Five billion. Do you know how many years of high school education I could purchase with five billion dollars? 17 million years of high school education for students, people down here that can't afford it. As a species, we are so unbalanced and we do. We sit up here in our little bubble. I find myself doing it. If I don't go down, you know, I go at least once a month, I'll get really upset when my dry cleaning is a day late. Now, give me a break. I call those first world problems. It does us all good to cross that border and see how, you know, there's eight and a quarter billion people on the planet. 44% of them live on less than$6 a day. That's a close to 4 billion people. And I'm worried about my dry cleaning. So, yes, that's why I built the place down there so people can actually travel and smell it and taste it and feel what most of the world wakes up to every morning.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you you uh talked about some numbers there. You bring numbers into this book that are just like a punch in the gut. And like you just said about luxury items. I mean, they spent, I think your number was something like$387 billion in luxury items. I mean, the amount of luxury items that we spend is unbelievable. And you just talked about, you know, the amount could educate every child in the Western hemisphere. Right.
SPEAKER_02:It's it's sobering if you if you if you know the facts and the figures. And uh I tell you what, those of us that live in the United States of America have won the largest lottery ever conducted.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:We've won the lottery of opportunity, the lottery of freedom.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, and then yet here we are. I mean, we're surrounded by things that we don't need, feeling lonelier and more burned out than ever. And when kids cross the borders, you know, they lack clean water, safe housing, and access to education. And you quote, and I'm not sure if I'm gonna say this right, but you will know a Harari, unlike ants, humans have no instinct for mass cooperation. And it really shows when you talk about immigration, poverty, and the border, you draw a clear line between two instincts. There's cultural survival. And I mean, you know, my family, me first, my country protect identity and resources. And there is truth in that. I mean, there are there's some importance to that, that we need stability, but then there's collective survival, and we are connected whether we like it or not. And poverty and violence do not stay neatly contained, as you point out. Helping others is not charity, it's a strategy. It is how we ensure long-term stability for everyone. One side fears losing their homeland, the other fears losing their life. But both fears are real, and the only way for our is for our mindsets to come together to build a future. What I appreciate about Rancho Feliz is that you are not arguing to open the borders. You are arguing for opportunity where they live, for giving people a reason not to flee, for creating conditions where families can thrive in the places that they call home. So here is the real question: how do we help Americans move from protect what's ours to recognizing that by helping them, by lifting others up, that it's actually protecting us too?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. You you really cut right to the core of the book, and I call it enlightened self-interest. We are self-interest. We had to be, we got to the top of a food chain in a very, very predatory environment. We had to look out for ourselves and then our families and then our communities and then our nation states. That's just called survival, the fittest. Well, at some point you realize that those instincts that got us to where we are now are not serving us anymore. We need to have a correction in consciousness, if you will. We need to exchange this individual uh ego for the communal ego, because if the community doesn't survive, we're certainly not as individuals.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You state that money has become a religion in America.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Money is a religion in America. I see it all the time. And unfortunately, and this is this is a long, this is kind of an in-depth subject, but unfortunately, we look for our happiness through our five senses. And we will never find it. We will only find a temporary happiness that's kind of indexed into our sadness. Our five senses were never meant to provide us sustained, sustained joy. They're like a thermostat, okay? Gil Dillonwater, I'm hungry. I'm really hungry, okay? And so I take a cheeseburger and I'm not so hungry, and another cheeseburger, and I pass through that moment, and then I have a third and I'm stuffed. So it's this pendulum motion. I call it the pendulum motion of relative duality. If we look in our five cinches as a place to bring us happy, a new car, a new wife, a new house, blah, blah, blah, a new thing to bring us joy, we're never gonna find it. And just look around, look around in America. Uh, we are not a happy people.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, I know I feel it. I mean, I see it in our young people. Right. And it's really scary. You reference the CDC data that suicide is now the leading cause of deaths at and for 14 to 15 year olds. And these are alarming numbers. It doesn't surprise me either. Suicide overdoses and other forms of violence is rampant with young people. Why are American youth spiritually and emotionally starving? And how does that relate to loneliness and loss of purpose?
SPEAKER_02:We live in a consumer culture. Money is our God. And every message that our young people see on television and on the internet, it's not to make them better people, it's to get them to buy something. Truly, think about it. It's to get them to buy something. In fact, I would challenge people, tell me what is the end game of this technology? And if you really look at it, the end game is simply more comfort and convenience. It's not making us better people, it's not uh instilling values, it's comfort and convenience. And unfortunately, a comfortable life is not necessarily a good life.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Everything that we're feeding them is false, it's fake, it's not real. It's they're not ingesting things that are genuinely love and care and things like that. Everything is uh performative, and and I feel bad for them because when you and I grew up, it was a lot different and it's getting worse and worse.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm glad that the young people are going down to the border, though, to get a different view. That that exactly that was very impressive to me.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. We say we feed their stomachs and they feed our souls. And Anne, I wish you could see it. Uh, first of all, they don't want to go to begin with because they've got their friends and they've got their video games and everything else. But parents get them on the bus and they get down, they're their pants are hanging on, and they get off the bus, and and we get them across the border, and then all of a sudden, it's like looking at a uh a car wreck. You they don't want to see it, they don't want to acknowledge that this really goes on and that they're gonna have to face it. And um we take them. I I love our our food distributions because they pack the food bags and then they hand them to the poor. And there's that moment of of shared humanity when their eyes lock with these people, and all of a sudden, they get this feeling of purpose. It's not a selfie, it's not a a new video, it's a sense of meaning that their lives matter. Right. Do you know how important that is for the human existence, the human experience to believe that we matter?
SPEAKER_00:It's everything. It's everything to have purpose. It really is. It is. Yeah, when you don't feel it, um, you're you're lost. And that's what I see with a lot of our young people today. You you set the scene in Douglas, Arizona, and uh uh Agua Priete, Mexico, if I am saying that right. Um, can you describe the area and how difficult it is for the government to protect its citizens or provide basic job and jobs and housing?
SPEAKER_02:Well, yes, and it it is. It's Agua Prieta, which interestingly means dirty or brackish water. Why they name it? Oh my. Why they would name a city that, I'm not sure, but that is the name. Douglas, Arizona has a population of about 13,000, 90% of which are Border Patrol. Agua Prieta, on the other hand, has 120,000 people, just right across the border. Now, as far as the Mexican government protecting its its people, there's that's a very complicated question, but it's true. And a big part of that is on our backs. We don't like to see it. We don't want to acknowledge it as Americans, but uh let's start with the drug industry. Do you think for one minute that that 40,000 murders would have happened a couple of years ago and almost on an annual basis if the Americans weren't snorting that stuff up their noses? We there would not be a supply if there wasn't a demand. So we are as uh culpable as Mexico and Colombia and everybody else for this drug situation that's going on. Let's start there. How about the maquiladoras? How about in 1994, Bill Clinton passed NAFTA and NAFTA allowed American companies? I'm talking about General Electric, I'm talking about Learjet, I'm talking just about every um company in America can go right across the border and they don't have to follow the insurance. They can pay these people$14 an hour, which in my mind is indentured servitude. It's darn near slavery. So Gil Gillenwater can stroll into a Costco and buy a flat screen TV at a deceptively low price of$150. We're fueling that. That discontent, that suffering, that angst. Can you imagine Ann not being able to provide an education for your child? Or let's say, God forbid your child's got a medical condition. You're making$14 a day, and you can't buy food and help that medical condition. I see this on a daily basis, and it uh it's not right, and it doesn't have to happen. And we're showing people ways that that it that we can fix that. So we are in essentially funding that suffering.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. The names that you listed in the book, the companies, it was so many of them that we use every single day. A slew of companies.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And there's no line uh line item for these people. Well, you are you taking making the world a better place, uh, Chrysler? Or I mean, I'm just looking here. I mean, IBM, Motorola, Hughes Aircraft, Z Rox, Pepsi Code, General Electric, Samsonite, Fender Guitar. It goes on and on and on. Are you making the world a better place? No. You're increasing your bottom line profit because that's the only indicator you care about. And that's the world we live in. Um, I love capitalism, but I love capitalism with a conscience.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Exactly. And one of the other things that you mentioned was NAFTA in 1994. Could you talk about what happened to the farmer?
SPEAKER_02:Well, yeah. I don't know that if if I think people look at bottom line profits again and they forget the human toll. They came in and said, okay, NAFTA, you can bring in genetically altered corn. There's no tariff, there's no price, you can sell it in northern Mexico. And they did, and they put two million campesinos, little little dirt farmers, out of business because they can't compete with Canadian mega agriculture. They just can't. Right. And so there's two million people in northern Mexico. What are they gonna do? Well, they're gonna go up and try to get into the United States. If they really only have two options they can get involved in the drug trade, which is very lucrative and has about a lifespan of about seven months, or or you can try to get up into the United States illegally because there are no, I mean, part of the problem is there's no uh real path, and I don't want to get ahead of ourselves to asylum, though. There, there's no real path to citizenship that's any shorter than 12 years. And so what would you do? Well, you gotta eat. You would jump the line. I know I'd be the first climbing over that wall. I guarantee you. I know my personality, and then you probably would be right next to me, Anne, just to get to a place where we could work all day long and be able to provide for our families and ourselves.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and and the only answer that sometimes they see is to go north because of all of this. And Mexico really is losing its greatest resources. Source, which is people. And you s you say about 16% of Mexico's population lives illegally in the United States. And that journey, which by the way, I just could not believe what they go through on that journey. And many do not make it. And from your perspective, what drives people to risk their lives? I mean, they risk everything to do this.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's uh I mean, it's it's it's pretty simple logic. Um, what they're fleeing is worse than the risk they're taking. You know, we they all have internet down there. They know how they want my life, they want your life. They don't want to struggle buying$14 a day and and and live what that life they'd rather die than live the life that that type of a salary provides them. And it's quite simple. It really is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, what you just said really does say everything about what's going on is that that treacherous exploitation um is worse than the actual mission, which is horrible. I mean, and many don't make it, like we were just talking about. Yeah, we would be it's desperation it it at the absolute worst. And um, of course, if we see our family and I see my kids and I see my kids suffering, I'm gonna do everything I can. If I'm if I look right over on the other side of a wall or through, you know, some holes through the fencing or something like that, and I can see hope. You know, I'm gonna do everything I can to get there.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. So would everybody. Come on, let's be real here.
SPEAKER_00:So would everybody So what you're doing makes so much sense because you're actually bringing them, you're bringing all the hope to them. I mean, that's what I love. I mean, it's just oh my gosh, it makes me want to cry even now. What you're doing is just an absolute miracle. You were a godson that you were placed on that border. Um, I wanted to ask you, what is the Iron River?
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know, violence, uh, unfortunately, the drug violence and the smuggling violence and things like that is pretty intense. Mexico's one of the most dangerous countries in the world. And um and the guns that are used to commit these crimes, there's 7,000 gun stores on the border uh in the United States. On the border, there's one in Mexico. So uh I the number is something like over 90 percent of the crimes uh and homicides uh perpetrated in Mexico are used with guns that are either manufactured in or smuggled through the United States of America. So we have that's the Iron River. It's literally a river of weapons. And uh and we we are behind that. We have a hand in that. I think Americans need to see. It's not why don't those darn Mexicans, it's come on, why don't these why don't these darn Americans take better care of the planet? And um I think we keep circling back to the bottom line profits of these large corporations. Uh suffering is is just not a line item.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uh and it has to do with keeping people less and you know, certain people growing more in power and control. I mean, I see that so much with with what's going on there. And how did policies post-1996 and post-9-11 change what actually happens on the ground at the border?
SPEAKER_02:Well, though those were very interesting times because all of a sudden, you know, when our twin towers came down, we were being invaded. Well, the your first thought is to protect your borders, to protect your sovereignty. Right. And that's one of the things, and we'll get into that later. What happened here in 2023 was absolutely appalling. But at that time, we militarized the border. All of a sudden, our Border Patrol became the largest police force in the entire United States. And um, and so we we unleash the full force of our police and military on people looking for a better life. The fact of the matter is, four 4.3 million 18-wheeler trucks cross our border every year. There are some smugglers that are human mules, but most of the drugs coming through are vehicular. 300 million cars a year cross the border. That's where your drugs, it's not some guy carrying them. But unfortunately, we unleashed the the power of this police force onto poor people trying to get a better life. And um the the the results are a bit disastrous, as you can imagine.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you just described the devil's highway. It is the busiest border in the world.
SPEAKER_02:It's the busiest and and it's the most dangerous land border in the world. It has both of those distinctions.
SPEAKER_00:And you live pretty close to there.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. In fact, part of our program down there is what I call the Halconus, the spotter, the Falcons. And we walk the migrant trails on the American side, and we look for human remains because to me, I have a close family. And if my brother said, Hey, I'm going El Norte, you know, and I don't hear from him for six months, eight months, I can't find him, it would drive me crazy. And the fact of the matter is, in the last 30 years, 65,000 people have died on American soil trying to get a better life. Unfortunately, the desert heat and the animals and everything, we only were able to recover 13,000. That means 53,000 bodies just disintegrated, and nobody's ever gonna know. No mother, no father, no, no uh person in the same church or in the village. We don't, you don't understand, or most people don't, the ripple effect of losing one life, especially in such a horrific way. I've spent a lot of my life in the desert. Trust me, that is about the worst way you can die that there is.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, I sat looking at those pages for a very long time and reading your words about what they go through. Yes. Uh, and what the smugglers promise is, you know, they're promise it's a lie. And the staging towns I found very interesting, preparing those who are getting ready to travel and what they offer them. Could you talk about that?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, that's an entire economy because you've got hundreds of thousands of people coming up looking for a better life. And so towns like Altar Sonora, which is about 60 kilometers from the border, when the people come up on the La Bestia, they call the train La Bestia, and they can actually get on top of it right north of Guatemala. And it's an extremely dangerous ride, but that's how a lot of them make their way up to the border. Then they get to the border, then they have to have a guide because the smugglers control the border. You can't, as an individual, cross. Um uh you can, but boy, if you get caught, I promise you, you don't want to go down that road. So that's why when I got in in 2009, that story of mine, I was absolutely petrified. I was afraid we had stumbled across some smugglers. And um, but that's what they go, what you had just said. They're promise, the people that sign them up, all they get paid when they sign them up. And the crossing, if you can imagine, when I first started down there, it was about$150 to get across the border. Now it ranges anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 per person to get across the line. And um uh the so the recruiters will tell them, oh, you know, it's uh yeah, it's about a four or five hour walk. You're not gonna have any problem. These people are from Chiap, but they're from jungles, they're from Honduras, they don't know what a desert is. And I'm telling you something, the Devil's Highway wasn't named that way by mistake. It is a highway to hell. And that's where most of these people are forced because of the funnel effect. That when we passed the law, I think it was also in '94, that we would fence off the easiest access routes and we'd let the desert be a deterrent to the others. Well, all it did, it wasn't a deterrent. It just funneled people over into these dangerous places. And that's what's happening right now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, it's kind of funny that they thought that they were preparing them with this little small camouflaged backpack with shoe coverings, so people couldn't track where they were walking, and just a little bit of water, uh, not enough to sustain anybody, really.
SPEAKER_02:It's a gallon jug, a black plastic jug, so it can't be seen. It's made in China. And you know what, Ann? They only walk at night. I have come across people that look like teddy bears because they have so many choya cactus stuck in them, they can't hardly they I don't know how they do it. At night, it's it's impossible.
SPEAKER_00:I looked up the cactus and um I saw pictures of just them stuck to their skin like you show like Velcro. Yes. And oh my gosh. I mean, I don't even I mean, their their bodies are covered in these things and they can't see because it is nighttime, like what you said.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And they just keep going because that's the only hope that they have. And then there's rattlesnakes and bears and so many other things that I mean, it's amazing, I think, that anybody would get out alive.
SPEAKER_02:Uh it's true. And Anna, this is a difficult subject for me to talk about. I talk about it in our missing migrant museum because I think people need to know. But when I go to places like Altar and I go into the pharmacy, the pharmacia, and I ask, what is the number one selling item in your store? And you would think it would be an electrolyte drink, you would think it would be band-aids, you been gay. No, it's short-term birth control. Because 80%, this is a UN figure, 80% of the females who attempt that are going to get raped. Can you even imagine that we as a species are allowing that to take place? It's happening right now while you and I are talking on the internet.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, that is just so sad. I I read that number in your book, and I couldn't believe how high it is in that the women go on this journey, knowing that that could happen. And they're willing to just take that birth control pill in order to get to the other side. I mean, the trauma that you are witnessing, you must carry this, like you just said. I mean, it's really hard for you to even talk about what you're carrying, I think, is um is so deep.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and I've thought about that a lot because it does. I have to decompress when I come back to Scottsdale because the disparity is just almost, it's it's overwhelming. I almost feel guilty um for living in my house. But my saving grace is that you know, I've got a ton of volunteer people with me. This I this is my work, but uh it would none of it would happen without our volunteers. And I see firsthand the impact that we're making. And it's huge. That's good. When you educate a woman, that that goes on the those every generation thereon is going to be educated.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And I see they've got jobs, they're doctors. The beauty of being in business for 40 years is we can see what works and what doesn't. And let me tell you, education, wow, it changes everything. And and so the the counterbalance to the horror and the suffering is gratitude number one. Thank you, thank you, thank you that I was born on this side of a fence. And knowing that me and my volunteers are making a tremendous difference in a in a lot of people's lives.
SPEAKER_00:How how do you uh help the people that on this side that just went through a horrific trauma? Because leaving would be a major trauma. Going through that journey would be a major trauma. And now they reach the other side. I mean, you did, and I loved the story. It was difficult, the story of Jose. Um could you talk about that?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and I think it's important to say we don't really, that's not what we do, help the people on once they get across the border. That's really not um what Rancho Felice is about. Rancho Felice is about providing opportunity so people can live with dignity in their home country, not here. But uh Jose's story was so compelling to me. I would I take our volunteer groups, and a lot of them are high school uh kids because they're they're they're still impressionable. And I'll take them to the deportation uh shelters and have them hear these stories firsthand. And Jose's, as you as you I think he was out there for eight days or something. Interestingly enough, I do keep in touch with him. He's in Chihuahua, he can't get back across. He has a wife of 22 years, he lived in New York for 22 years. He has a wife, he has a stepson, and he's got an eight-year-old daughter who he hasn't seen now in almost a year. Uh, they do keep in touch by telephone and by internet. He's trying, I you know, I tell him, don't, because if you get caught this time, you're gonna go into federal penitentiary. But how do you tell a man to not see his daughter? So what I've been in communication with both sides, and um we have offered to we are our uh dormitory complex, we have rooms where we'll get his uh family out, and then he can come up from Chihuahua because see he he won't have to cross the line. So he could see his family, his his family, his wife, and two children are American citizens, so they can go into Mexico. And so what I what I'm working on is staging a reunion there in Agua Prieta where the family can spend four or five days together. Um but I have a feeling the final chapter of that story is gonna be Jose in in prison because um he's doesn't have his odds now of crossing successfully are very slim. But his drive to see his daughter and his wife and his son, um, that almost overpowers everything. So it's it's just it's an untenable situation. It's a situation that future generations are gonna look back. You know, and like we look at the Martin Luther King days, and there were white water fountains and black water fountains. What were those people thinking? You had separated families? You could what were you you didn't have a path for him? What were you thinking? History's not gonna judge us well right now.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, and that's so d sad. I mean, if I remember right, he needed to get to his dad before he passed away. And yes, you know, that cost him everything.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. But he wasn't Mexico, the Mexican people are so family-oriented. There's no way he could allow his father to pass away without saying one last goodbye. Just he wouldn't he didn't care what the cost was, he could not do that.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Yeah. I mean, that really comes clear in in your book, um, the love and the passion that they all have for their families. You uh quote Bill Clinton in the book. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. How do we balance compassion and sovereignty? How can we dangle the American dream and then slam doors? And and how can both truths be uh true at the same time?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and they can't. You know, it's just I'm not gonna get into politics. I'm gonna tell you in 2021, it was called La Invitation. You could talk to any of them come across. They got the invitation to come declare asylum, and they did by the thousands. In fact, 13 million crossed into the United States of America illegally. And I was right in the middle of it, right? SmackDab in the middle. Craziest thing I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_00:You had no idea what you would come across. No, and and you actually, I think, are the one that revealed it.
SPEAKER_02:My brother Troy and I, it was the oddest thing because we were hiking the migrant trails and we were down there and we found this almost brand new backpack. We find backpacks all the time. And we we we we looked through it, which is always kind of strange. You feel kind of like a voyeur because you've got these items that these people have brought so far for their new life. I mean, it's hard, hard to look at. But this was a brand new one, and there were this like origami folded thick paper. And I opened them up, and I'll be darned if they weren't Arabic prayers, since Adam translated, and they were praying to Allah for safe passage, so on and so forth. We saw that, put it in the back of the truck, drove to the border, and all of a sudden we saw people, usually they're going north. These people, and they were they were um Nigerian, I believe. They were walking along the border, going with it, and they were as happy as they can be. And I was looking at them, they're waving at me. I've never seen like it because they typically run the second they see, and they're going, We're in America, we're in America. And I said, Yeah, you're in America, all right. And and we got up and there was a crowd. There had to be 2,000 of them from Senegal. And I talked to these people. I felt a little bit exposed because had they wanted to turn against me and my brother, we wouldn't have had a chance. There were so many of them. But they were coming up, shaking our hands, wanting to hug us. We're in America, we're in America. Yeah, you're in America, all right. And then we could see where the bollards had been cut, the smugglers cut the uh the fence, and they were just pouring through by the literal thousands. And again, I I'm this is what I've saw with my own eyes. I've got photographs of it in the book. Um, I'm not saying right, wrong. Well, I'm just not, I don't want to get hung up on a political position because this this isn't this isn't about left or right. This is about how we treat our fellow human beings. Yeah, right. It's about invited them in. They came, they went through the Darien Gap at a tremendous risk, the women at risk, and we get them up here, and then we say, Oh, we've changed our minds. Now you're gonna be deported back. Shame on us. Good gosh. I don't care what your political affiliation is, that's wrong.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Yeah, I mean, it would have been so confusing to them.
SPEAKER_02:Their whole lives. These are their lives. This isn't something fun they did on the weekend. They sold everything. Going through that Darien Gap, I know that country down there. That's the most dangerous thing. They're exploited every time they turn around because the poor always are. It's a human thing, I suppose. But and then to get up here, do what they were invited to do, and the vast majority of my talk, they weren't they weren't running for fear of this or that. They wanted a better life. Unfortunately, that doesn't. Qualify for asylum. Poverty doesn't, because like we said earlier, you know, four billion people live in dire p poverty. The United States just can't take care of everybody.
SPEAKER_00:So what does qualify?
SPEAKER_02:You know, it's it's fear uh for gender, it's fear for religious beliefs, it's it's fear that your life is in danger. If your life is in danger and you can prove that, then you're eligible for uh asylum. Interestingly, Ann, I've got probably 300 passports from all over the world because as soon as they get across the border, they throw their passports away. They don't want to be identified and they throw their money. I got money from all over the world, you know, not a lot, but coins and bills, but all these passports, because if they could be identified, then it can be proven that perhaps they weren't at risk. It's this is a highly coordinated thing through social media. Every single one of them I talked to knew exactly where to cross. They knew exactly where to turn right, they knew exactly what to say when they saw Border Patrol. This was all choreographed and coordinated on social media. And it I will I will be thrilled. Someday we will find out who was behind that. Uh I don't even want to speculate or even speculate why. There's several theories, right? Improving a voter base, things like that. I don't know. I don't know all of those I saw.
SPEAKER_00:Well, because it was it was hidden. Right. People didn't even know it was happening.
SPEAKER_02:No, and and here's the weird thing. You're right. I would go to the Border Patrol, I go, dude, aren't you gonna do something? No, we've been told to stand down. And what they would do, they would take them to a processing center. Was the processing center on the main highway? No, it was tucked back about a mile down in a valley. You couldn't see it. Everything had chain link with canvas. So nobody uh and the public could see what was going on. Then they put them in unmarked buses. This is really important. Unmarked buses, bus them up to Tucson, bus them to Phoenix. I followed one of the buses and it went to the An Ott School, an old school that the government had bought. And again, it had canvas all around it, and it was loaded with uh illegal immigrants who would they were then put on planes and flew them to uh New York, to Chicago. They flew them all all over the place. But and I tried to, I, I, I, I tried to get in, they wouldn't let me in. And I said, well, what's what's going on? So then I came back and I said, you know, I'm the the founder of the Rancho Felice Charitable Foundation and I'd like to volunteer uh at the facility. Well, then they did let me in, and I got to see what it was about. And it it was just a staging station. I mean, but somebody had coordinated that, and why they're hiding it from me as the taxpayer who's funding it, um, I'd be interested in knowing why. And I know why, because what they were doing was illegal.
SPEAKER_00:Your your book is that there's just so much trauma there that you just talked about. It but there's also hope. And one of the things that I just love about your program is that it's about solution, real, measurable, replicable solutions.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:In 1987, you and your brother again, um, Troy, left Scottsdale for a Thanksgiving road trip, and you took a wrong turn and you ended up in Agua Prieta. Explain what you saw when you first arrived, when you're you're first finding out about how these people are living.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, well, thank you, because that we've intended to go to Nogales. I had traveled in Mexico, I knew the poverty down there. Uh, to some degree, I knew about it. I hadn't delved into it. We did to my brother's a funny guy. He telling, I missed the turn. We ended up in Aguapier and said, this is an important thing. Spirit or God, or whatever you want to call it, reveals itself to those with a higher purpose. I believe that. I'm not a religious guy at all, but I have seen it over and over and over. And it wasn't a mistake that I ended up on a dirt road inside of Aguaprian saw. My Spanish is terrible, but I could make out orphanatario. And here's a 23-year-old girl taking care of eight children, cooking tamales over a burning tire, no indoor plumbing, uh, no heat. And I had I had been at the Sun's game, you know, two nights before in a Coliseum in Phoenix. I'm going, how can how can this be going on on the same planet? And it was so close to four-hour drive from my home. And uh, and then and there I said, you know, I I have an innate sense of just social justice. This just isn't right. It's just not right. And so um my brother and I went back and we got uh and I I I made a a vow at that point. Well, I'll do this as long as it's fun. I've got a mantra, and that is he who dies having had the most fun wins. I I think that's what life is about. So we went to Phelps Dodge and we got them to open the haunted hospital in Jerome, and we had a Halloween party that beat all Halloween parties. We raised$15,000 and went down and funded indoor plumbing. And what what struck me then was you can make such a huge difference in people's lives with relatively small amounts of money. Fifteen thousand dollars. All of a sudden, these kids can take a shower. They can they can eat food cooked in an oven, not over a burning tire. It's not a lot of money, but it makes a tremendous difference.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they had no electricity, no running water.
SPEAKER_02:God bless her. You know, I was working attractive, gal, and I thought, you know, she's not worried about what party, what bar she's gonna go to next. She has devoted her life to collecting these abandoned little souls and seeing that they had food at night and seeing they were safe. It was remarkable. Uh it made what I do look like nothing. I mean, that's commitment there. That's a 24-7 job she had.
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, but you saw a need and you acted on it. You went from just dropping food and clothes off to an entire foundation. So talk about seeing a need and knowing that you are the one to make a difference and putting your heart into action. Because that's what you did.
SPEAKER_02:Because there are two real kinds of poverty. The easy one is the the kids with not enough to eat, no roof overhead. But the the other one that's just as as debilitating in my mind is that poverty of purpose, poverty of meaning. So, what I saw when I would come down, we would bring clothes and we'd hand the clothes out and stuff. But the the groups, the volunteer groups, kept getting larger and larger and larger. And I'm thinking, well, what's going on? Well, they're obviously getting something out of this. So what we did then with this two-pronged approach, and as we came up with this idea of enlightened self-interest, it's it's in your best interest. It's paradoxical. The the more you give, the more you receive. You know, I've heard these statements before, but when you're in service work, I'm just, I could go give you example after example after example how there is a divine guidance. When you're in service to others, your life opens up. Uh, one of the things that I say, and it's kind of crude, and I don't mean to be crude, but don't volunteer. So you've got a wonderful group of people. It's a vetting process. People who volunteer who have a larger vision of the world and their responsibility to it, they're fun to hang out with. And we've traveled all over the world together and we've got difference together. And the most important thing to me, Ann, is when I'm laying on my deathbed, I can say, you know what? I'm leaving this place a little better than I found it.
SPEAKER_00:A lot better, I would say. And you'd have traveled all over the world. You even uh were took a vow from the Dalai Lama to remove suffering. And you you took that seriously and that enlightened self-interest that you talk about. You you teach volunteers that the surest way to abundance is through service, and you are honest that humans are greedy, you can call them what you want, like you just did, but they're greedy, and but we need to harness that and use it differently. Yes. How has that philosophy changed both the people that you serve and the volunteers who show up?
SPEAKER_02:Well, let me give a real quick example. Um, when I first started this, I'd I'd get my friends, I'd say, hey, we found this place down there and they don't have anything, and we're gonna get a good, we're gonna go volunteer. Volunteer is such a weak word. I don't even like it, I don't believe in altruism, number one. I volunteer, we're gonna go volunteer. Uh, it's been portrayed as a sacrifice. I always think of a group of guys sitting around watching a football game, drinking beer, and the game's over, and one says, Well, what do you want to do now? The guy says, Well, I got an idea. Let's go sacrifice. Who's gonna do that? Nobody. So, what I did, I said, Okay, let's let's change this. We're not volunteers, we're guardian warriors, okay? I'd love to we got on our Harley Davidson's, and I got to go around and say, We're gonna do a ride down to Mexico, we're guardian warriors, here's your badge, we're gonna kick some poverty. All of a sudden, everybody and their brother wanted to come. And we've had huge, huge Harley rides down. And I would always pick the alpha. There's always one big alpha male typically, and I'd get him, and his name was Chuck. And Chuck, come here. And I gave him a gift, and I said, This would be they were always around Christmas time. I said, See that little girl there? I want you to go give her that person. All right. So he'd go over there, he'd get down on knee and look at the little girl, and he'd come back to me and he'd be crying. I get choked up, think about it. He said, Gil, she was my little girl. We I we can't leave her here. We we've got to do something. I said, I know, I know, Chuck, and we will, and we will. And his life was forever changed. This big macho tough guy saw his own daughter in that little girl. And so my contention is why I want to get everybody down there. Mine's a little bit different approach. Mine is not love thy neighbor as thyself. That's two-party, that's a two-party system. I don't believe in that. Mine is I love the me I see in you. When we can get people to believe, I love the me I see in you, because this last weekend when I was handing out those foods, I saw myself. I saw myself and every human being. They have the same wants, the same dreams, they look at the same moon. We're all in this together. And the most selfish thing I can do is make sure your journey is easier. And uh, and that's worked. And I think once we can do that, once we can turn that greed from um not enough to go around lack into an abundance, there's more than enough. Here's some of mine, because whenever I do that, I get more back. When we get that chance, flipping consciousness, when it's in our own best interest, that's when things are gonna change. If we continue to present it as a sacrifice, you know, six thousand years of sermons haven't done any good.
SPEAKER_00:And you don't believe in welfare.
SPEAKER_02:You say welfare. Welfare is debilitating.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you well, yeah, I was just gonna say that it robs people of dignity and you believe in reciprocal giving.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And what I love about this so much, both sides contribute. Absolutely. Both sides are empowered.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And I have always said that if we could take the Bible and, you know, unravel the Bible and just put it out there, um, that's what it would look like. What you're talking about. Yeah. I really believe that that was how the Bible intended this and what we and how we are supposed to live. Can you walk us through how the worthy neighbors rent-to-owned housing model works for a typical family?
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Well, again, um, the the border problem is not a problem on the border, and it's not a problem with uh with a border patrol. The problem is the host country. That's the problem. And if we let people come through the border, we're taking the pressure off of what needs to change. This country needs to change. Mexico needs to change, yeah, Venezuela needs to change. So what we do is create situations where people can live with dignity. And we did that with our vecinos dinos sinfranteras subdivision. That means worthy neighbors without borders. It's two and a half acres, 42 duplex-style homes. I get wonderful volunteers. Ron Crater, JBZ architects, land planner, did this wonderful land plan where the houses are in horseshoe shape. So you have to look at your neighbor. You can't run hide in your garage like I do here and have a neighbor uh to my left who I haven't met and been here for nine years. You have to look at your neighbor. We're we're common, we're common-minded people. And um, so to do that, we had to raise$26,000 per home. And then we built a 10,000 square foot uh child care center and a 5,000 square foot learning center. But we had Anne a thousand applications, over a thousand applications for every single home. And that was the hardest. They'd been vetted, they'd been through like six interviews by the time Jim Armstrong and I got to them. We built a home four families with these adorable children, and you had to pick one. Oh, it just ripped your heart.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Had to do that 42 times.
SPEAKER_00:Oh no.
SPEAKER_02:And um, inherent in qualifying for a home, your children are eligible for a$33,000 a year uh private school bilingual school scholarship. So a lot like with the Zagaste family, there's three kids, that's$9,000. That's more than the family's income that they would get in scholarships. Why Ann, I'm here to tell you. One of his daughters is now a doctor, practicing doctor. The other one is um an attorney in Ensenada, and the third, the young man, believe it or not, works for Rolls-Royce in Berlin, Germany. These are kids that were born in the shack because education. They got education. They are gonna raise their children educated. It's just boom, it just goes on from there. So that's why our the education and housing to me kind of go hand in hand. But these people, they're proud of their homes. Uh Reyes Zagassi says, you know what, Gil, I found my American dream right here in Mexico because it's a beautiful home and they've their CC and Rs. He can't paint it purple, he can't put a uh a nail salon on the third floor, and they fought all that stuff for a long time, but then they realize their value is there. Out of 42 homes, we have transferred deeds to 33. So 33 families now own their own homes. We've transferred about a million and a half in equity. They have become firm members of the Mexican middle class. It's just wonderful. And it should be replicated all down the border.
SPEAKER_00:It should be why it's not. It really should be. I uh this is a model program that really it should be the program. It should be the program. Because when you think about it, I mean, they uh contributed to their own self, really. And and they just had to, it was uh interest-free housing, correct?
SPEAKER_02:And they had to you bring up a really good point though, Ann. It's not welfare, just what you said. They had to make payments, but they were principal-only payments. They had to do 200 hours of community service work every year. Most important thing, the parents, if they didn't have a high school scholarship, had to go get a GED equivalent. And lastly, if their kid dropped out of school before he got or she got their high school diploma, they were in default on their lease and could be evicted. That's how important education. Now, would we have evicted any? Probably not, but they don't know that. I want them to know they need to keep those kids in school.
SPEAKER_00:But what you asked them, they all did. And see, it's that's how badly they really want to contribute to their own success. They don't want handouts. So I found that very um important. And you are very clear that it is harder for girls. Gil, this first hour has been incredible. You took us right into the desert with you. You helped us feel the dust, the fear, the urgency, and the humanity behind every story that you share. And what I keep coming back to is a simple truth that you carry so well. When we stop long enough to see each other, really see each other. Compassion has no borders. You have given us so much to sit with, the bravery, the heartbreak, the humor, the moments that changed you forever. And honestly, we are just getting started because there is so much more beneath the surface of this work that you do. So we're going to pause here for part one, take a breath, think about the impact that one life can make, and meet us right back here next week. We talk about the mission behind Rancho Felice, the lives saved, the lives transformed, and the uncomfortable questions that challenge all of us to rethink what responsibility and compassion look like and a world that feels divided. You do not want to miss it. Join us next week for part two with Gil Gillumwater. We will see you next time.
