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[MUSIC]
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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
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I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
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Let's get into it.
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All right, guys, we got a special guest on the podcast today.
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His name is Vincent Vargas, so he's a retired United States Army Ranger.
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He was in 2nd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment, and
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he's a former federal agent with the Department of Homeland Security.
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He's also an entrepreneur, actor, writer, producer, and speaker, so
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he's got a lot of stuff going on.
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But he's most known for his depiction of the character,
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Gilly Lopez on the show, Mayans MC, which is an offshoot of Sons of Anarchy.
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In the actual interview, I couldn't remember the name of the show, but
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it is an offshoot of Sons of Anarchy.
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But he's also the author of a brand new book, and
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it's right here and it's out now called Borderline Defending the Home Front.
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So this book actually details his time spent protecting the United States
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southern border as a member of the US Border Patrol.
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And so the unique thing about this interview is I've obviously read a lot
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of military memoirs.
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I've had a lot of military, retired military guys on this show.
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And what this book is not, it is not just, okay, here's all the crazy stuff
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that happens at the border, and then there I was with my M4 and
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my nods on and blah, blah, and all that, and dude, I love those stories, right?
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I've read literally dozens of those stories, but that's not what this is.
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And he even says at the beginning of the book, like, look, this isn't just a time
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for me to just pretend like my job was crazier than it was.
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But what this book does is it does describe some stories and
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some actual things that they were in and some actual kinetic situations.
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But it dispels a lot of myths around immigration, customs, border enforcement,
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and how these things are just kind of like a mishmash because people don't pay
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that close attention to what's happening in policy.
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And so they just think all these things are combined, right?
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The same thing like somebody overstaying their visa after a vacation is
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somehow the same as somebody just walking across the southern border
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with a whole bunch of drugs and their knapsack.
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And so I really enjoyed this podcast because we didn't just follow the book, right?
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Okay, so what was it like when you decided to do this with your life and
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blah, blah, blah, just kind of work our way through the basically the whole
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second half of the of the conversation today, we're just going through stuff
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like, Hey, what should we do about dreamers?
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Like, you know, how is it hard for Americans to distinguish between border
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security and immigration policy?
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Should we militarize the border?
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Should we completely shut it down?
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Uh, why not just build the wall?
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Isn't border patrol ultimately racist and xenophobic?
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And for a guy like him being Hispanic, you know, isn't it bad that he's keeping
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Hispanics out of this country when he himself is a product of somebody that
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came here illegally?
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We get into all these different subject matters.
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We also talk about his connection with his father and a connection with someone
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else from, um, you know, his Army Ranger days and just the primary goal of what
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he's doing now.
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So I really, really enjoyed my conversation with them.
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So guys, without further ado, let's get into it.
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Vincent Vargas, welcome to Dawn to life of man's podcast.
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Thank you for having me.
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I'm happy to have you in here.
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We had a little get to know each other a session right before this because you
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and I lived in the same town for a little bit.
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You lived in lot of Oklahoma, which is really cool, but there's nothing cool
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about that city.
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So we're not going to talk about it here on this interview.
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But as I told you off air, this is going to be a little bit of a different
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interview from what I do because you have a new book out, which guys, if you're
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listening to this now, it is out this week.
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It's called borderline defending the home front.
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And typically, you know, I'll kind of follow the book and kind of follow the cadence
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of the book, but you brought up so many interesting topics that I think it would
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be kind of stupid if we just followed the book.
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So guys, the book is in the show notes, get the book.
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It's a unique book, especially for guys that have read a lot of military
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memoirs or first responder memoirs.
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There's not a whole lot of stuff with border patrol stuff in it.
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So I think this is kind of a unique blue ocean for you.
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But the book does cover your your military career, your US border patrol career.
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But I just want to know why did you want to write a book about your experience?
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You know, how did you get connected with with Jocko?
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He wrote the forward and it's being put out with Jocko Press and say Martin's
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like, take me through that whole process, because a lot of guys have done what
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you've done, but haven't put it down on paper.
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Yeah.
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So, you know, I started what the book doesn't talk about is that, you know,
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after that I left, I went into the entertainment industry and one of the
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writers and creators of the show that I was on grew up with Jocko.
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They call each other brothers.
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That's how close they were.
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And so he goes, Hey, do you know my brother?
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I'm like, well, who's that?
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He said, Jocko is a holy crap.
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Everyone knows Jock in my world.
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And so I said, yeah, so at the time I had a movie premiere, a documentary that I
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produced coming out and invited Jocko to come see it.
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And he did.
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And from there, we became friends.
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And so as I was kind of watching what was happening on the media, I was very
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frustrated at the Border Patrol career field being demonized and being scrutinized
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and being judged and all the things I heard on the news.
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And I knew it was misinformation and it was frustrating for me.
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And someone who genuinely loved the career field, I couldn't sit back and watch it
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anymore.
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And so for about three years, I had to try and figure out what was the path I was
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going to take into telling the story of the career, right?
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What are they going to make a YouTube series?
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What was they going to do?
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I knew I could do something as a creative.
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And I thought the best way is just to tell my career story in a way that wasn't
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like, look how cool I am.
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But let me explain the career field as best I can so that we could at least
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answer that question for all the people who don't understand immigration.
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Let me let me answer this small part of it, the Border Patrol career field.
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So now that shouldn't be in question ever again, everything else is just a mess.
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But that right there, my goal was to explain what the career field of the
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Border Patrol was looking like.
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And I asked Jocko, is he interested in he read five chapters and said, hell, yes,
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you got a book, you got a publisher now.
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Well, hey, you and also in the book and born like you do a great job of defining
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terms, because again, even for someone like me, that's, you know, well, read and
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I'm really up on a lot of topics, there's stuff in here.
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I was like, Oh my God, I'm so stupid.
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I never really thought that that was it.
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But also Jocko being based in San Diego when he was with the military.
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And now, you know, where he lives, people don't think about that as a, as a big,
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you know, crossing, right?
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Like Eagle Pass or something like that.
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But as you talk about in the book, you have this crazy tunnel system there where
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people are coming across the border from Mexico into San Diego because of this tunnel
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system. And so you really dig into all that.
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And we won't spend a lot of time here because we do want to cover a lot on the
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borderline stuff, but it's very, it used to be very unique for guys that were from
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the spec ops community or from law enforcement to go into kind of Hollywood
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or go into entertainment.
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It's not as unique now because there's quite a few guys that are doing it.
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But it's because of guys like you that are paving the way for other veterans to
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get in, you know, sometimes consulting, but sometimes like, you know, actually
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doing the acting and then for you, you know, as I understand it, you also write
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and you also produce and you're on the, you were on the show, Mayans, MC.
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And, you know, that's kind of an offshoot of, of, of, oh my gosh.
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So a sense of anarchy.
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What the heck?
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And so you have the offshoot of that, but talk to me a little bit about that
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transition because that's not exactly a straight line.
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At least it wasn't when you did it.
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Yeah, yeah.
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No, it's not.
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It wasn't easy.
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Um, you know, I grew up in LA.
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And so being around the acting community wasn't uncommon.
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I saw a lot of kids doing theater because their dads or their uncles or whoever
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was in that Hollywood scene already.
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And so it was always of interest to me, but baseball kind of took my priority.
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And so I stopped really paying attention to what I could do in the entertainment
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side because I didn't think it was possible.
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Later on, I started doing YouTube with some friends and the YouTube series
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really blew up to the point where we decided to produce a movie.
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And that was when like, okay, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
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Right.
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I've always wanted to be in a position to be a writer.
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I've just wanted to be a writer my whole life.
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But how can I write the stories that I feel deserve to be told?
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You know, and so as I was trying to figure out how to become a writer, being
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being an actor was the first thing that came, kind of fell on my lap.
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Uh, when, when we produced that movie, I enjoyed it, but then I started making
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more friends in the industry and I started producing some, um, it was like
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skit comedy stuff called dads and parks.
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You can see it on YouTube.
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It's pretty funny stuff, right?
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But being in LA, filling those dads and parks, I was in the right place at the
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right time because the buddy called me and goes, Hey, dude, mine's is still
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auditioning for guys.
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And I was like, bro, I don't even know how to do that, but I'm him.
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Like what do I need to do?
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So at the time, I already had a headshot.
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I already had my acting real put together.
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So I had all the, my ducks in a row per se.
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I just didn't have a representation like an agent.
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So I called my buddy.
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He said, I know the casting director.
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Let me just ask if they're interested in seeing you.
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He sent my headshot, set my reel.
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And they were just like so desperate to find somebody.
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They were like, he looks great.
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Bring him in. And so I went in the next day with my wife and I did my audition by
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chance. It's, it's kind of like preparation needs opportunity.
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I showed up looking the way I do, you know, being able to act just enough to
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get onto the show.
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And in the five years, you know, I was able to go from just a, you know, a guest
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star to a season regular as well as a writer on the show.
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And so I was able to just kind of grow in the space in those years and using really
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just trying to be a good person and also a good work ethic.
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And from there, it's just kind of continue to blow up.
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Well, half of it is just showing up.
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I was just talking to some parents the other day.
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And I'm like, look, if your kid shows up to the job with a smile on their face
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and bathed, they're so far ahead of their peers.
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But the same thing about what you did, it reminds me, I just heard recently about
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Terry Cruz, who's now, you know, mega star, but he was just kind of hanging around
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and someone invited him to the set of training day to watch Denzel Washington.
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He was like, he's my favorite.
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I'd love to just watch him do what he does.
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And there he is in a tank top and, you know, his traps are, you know, tickling his ears.
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And he's so jacked in Antoine Fuqua that was a director.
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And he came up to him and he was like, hey, do you want to be in this movie?
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And he's like, are you kidding me?
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And they put him in all kinds of different scenes just because of his look and all that.
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And that kind of launched his career.
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So it's interesting that you had that.
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But if we go all the way back to, you know, when you started to make the decision
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that, hey, you wanted to go the military route again in the book, you kind of do a
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lot of description of what kind of led up to that decision making, but specifically,
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I'm always curious about guys that want to go the special operations route.
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So maybe they want to be a green beret or a Navy Seal or, you know, an Army Ranger or
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something like that, recon marine.
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But for you, what kind of helped you make that decision that like, okay, no, I'm going
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army, but I'm not just going to, you know, go the normal route.
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Like I want to be an Army Ranger and not just any Army Ranger.
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I want to be, you know, second battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment.
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Yeah, you know, I wasn't even sure if I wanted to join the military.
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But at the time, like my life was kind of going all over the place.
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I had a daughter that was born.
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I didn't have the money to buy her diapers or anything.
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I just lost a full ride baseball scholarship to a college that I was playing for.
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I was in this city of Owens, Broken, Tucky, like didn't had friends, but it wasn't home, you know.
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And so I was kind of at a loss and I was in, I was in good shape.
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I've always been kind of an athlete.
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And so I said, if I'm going to do this, I just finished watching like Black Hawk down.
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And then the other day with the bands of band of brothers and like, you watch those
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films and you're just like, one, do I have that in me to just, to take the fight to the enemy?
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Like I questioned it.
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I watched the war on TV for the past two years at that time and said, you know what?
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If I'm going to do this, I want to kind of do the best version of that.
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And I want to try and be special operations.
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And so I joined with a Ranger contract and Ranger infantry contract, knowing like, you know,
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it wasn't going to be long before if I made it through, I'd be going overseas.
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And yeah, once I got through all the training and passed the selection within 45 days,
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I was in Afghanistan.
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And you did three tours, is that correct?
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Yes, correct.
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And two to Afghanistan and one to Iraq.
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OK, so just real quick, I want to divert off and then we'll get back, get back on the highway here.
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So I've talked to a lot of guys that have fought in Afghanistan.
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A lot of the guys were special operations.
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And I've gotten a lot of different viewpoints on the American pullout from Afghanistan.
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None of them are positive, right?
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They're happy with what they did in country with the people they were able to
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save, the people that they were able to protect, you know, setting up this.
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Basically this environment where there could be human flourishing until Joe Biden
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decided, hey, we're just going to pull out.
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Yeah, we'll leave a bunch of stuff behind.
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And then obviously everybody could watch the news and see what happened a couple
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of years ago when that all went down.
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But for somebody that actually was there that had very important people to you
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that passed away and maybe not necessarily in Afghanistan, but in the Global War on
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Terror, like, yeah, how does that how does that make you feel when you're
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watching the news?
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And it's like, look, I was there and like we fought for that ground that is
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currently being ran over by Taliban.
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Yeah, it was tough.
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It was it was tough.
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It almost at first, you just feel like it was all for nothing.
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You know, it was all done and that's not a good feeling.
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That's not a, it's not a feeling that you can swallow that pill very easily.
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It's still frustrating, right?
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I'm never going to be happy about that whole situation, how it went down.
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You know, I was also, you know, I spent some time learning the language of posh
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to, you know, I did nine months of training.
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And so I was able to use it in Afghanistan and became close with some
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of the interpreters and knowing that some of those interpreters were left
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behind as well and left to, you know, fend for themselves in an environment
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that was looking for them to kill them.
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And so I was very proud of some of my brothers who went back and tried to
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rescue as many of our, of our, you know, allies and supporters who are out
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there that support America for the past 20 years and then got left behind.
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That was frustrating.
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You know, I can only look back at my time and be proud of the moments that
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was a part of the guys that fought to the left and right of me.
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And, you know, in that moment, I'm sure you've heard before, it's like, we
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don't think about the politics behind it.
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We think about each other.
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The love we have for each other and making sure that we do our job at our
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best so then we could all go home together.
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And so I can compartmentalize it.
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Watching everything that went down, it was hard to watch.
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It was hard to watch for the Afghani people as well, not just American
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soldiers, not just, you know what I mean?
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I mean, if you understand at all, like, man, we had a lot of support over there
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that, that believed in what we were giving them or trying to do for them.
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And, you know, they got screwed over just as bad.
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Yeah.
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And I think it aligns very closely with what you talked about in border
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line when you're talking about, okay, when you're doing certain
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kinetic things on the border, whether it was with Borstar, Bortech, or whatever.
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Like you're not necessary in that moment.
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You're not worried about immigration policy.
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You're not worried about what ICE is doing.
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You're not worried about any of these things.
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And we'll start defining terms here in a little bit.
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You're worried about making sure that everybody gets to go home and, unfortunately,
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for some Border Patrol agents over the years, like that's not a reality for everybody.
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So I do want to talk a little bit about now, like, let's talk about that transition.
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So you're in special operations, you've been deployed, you decide at one point,
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I think it was, you know, that you weren't going to go past your first four years.
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And then there's this transition period.
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And so some people think, Oh, well, you just get out and you just apply for the
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Border Patrol in a couple of weeks later, you're there, not necessarily.
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So so take us through that whole, you know, thought process of, okay, I'm going
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to get out of the military, but I'm going to go do something else.
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What is that something else?
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And then somehow you end up being a Border Patrol agent.
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Yeah, you know, we, we sat in a, in a hooch and something that's very common
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for a lot of us in the military is we started thinking about what's next.
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And my father was a L.A.
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City firefighter for 30 something years.
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So I obviously was going to try and be a firefighter like my dad.
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And so when I got out, I moved directly to Arizona.
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My goal was to get out of L.A.
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When I grew up, it was kind of a gang infested area.
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And I didn't want to raise my kids in that environment.
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So we moved directly to Arizona.
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The first job I could find was a prison guard.
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And so as I was going through the prison guard and working there,
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I was going to school to be a firefighter.
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I was doing my fire one and two, my EMT, my wildlife fire.
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I was going through all the certifications and the Border Patrols in the back of my mind.
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But, but I wasn't sure if I really wanted to do that or not.
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The following the, the legacy of my father was kind of more important.
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And so I ended up getting on to a, it was like a small reserve fire department.
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And I fought a fire, you know, as a, I was lead on the hose.
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And as I was fighting the fire, I sat there realizing like, yeah, this isn't for me.
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I want to get back into, to one and a gun.
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And I, I missed that world.
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I did it for so long that it was kind of second nature to me.
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So my goal was to get back at it.
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And so I applied for the Border Patrol and it took about two years,
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a hiring process for me to finally get there.
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So at the, during that time, I was at the Border Patrol.
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I mean, I was a prison guard and then I was going through some military training
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as well on the reserve side of things.
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But yeah, it took two years.
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And I finally got into the Border Patrol in June, 2009.
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OK, yeah, I remember riding and sorry to anybody watching this on YouTube.
17:03
For whatever reason, my camera has decided that it doesn't want to focus in on my face.
17:07
I don't know if it's because I'm ugly or because I'm not wearing a Dodger's hat or what.
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But this is what I'll say.
17:12
When I was reading through Borderline and you had that, that section where you were
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talking about, it took two years to get through the process, I wrote in the margins.
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Wow. Like, I mean, how many hiring processes take two years from soup to nuts?
17:24
Like that's, that's kind of a crazy thing.
17:25
But now it does dig into Borderline here because there's a quote at the very beginning,
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which kind of sets everything up, but it says, my primary goal in writing this book
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is to help you understand what the Border Patrol does to protect America today.
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But one of the first things that we need to do is we need to define our terms
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and we need to know exactly what in the world are we talking about, which you help me do
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as I was, you know, preparing through this.
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And it's what's the difference in terms of scope of operations for the Border Patrol
17:53
and ICE or Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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So let's start there and then we'll just kind of balloon out from there.
17:59
Yeah. So customs, all right.
18:03
Customs itself are the ones at the port of entry.
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They were the blue uniforms and it's, it's often very confused because people will say,
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first of all, the term border control is not used in our world.
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Border control is a, is a term that sounds right.
18:19
It sounds like you've put the two pieces together, but no one in our world uses border control
18:24
as the name of any of us.
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It's Customs and Border Protection, Border Patrol and ICE.
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And so those three are your big kind of agencies that you would probably immediately
18:37
understand when going to the border, the blue uniforms are the ones who protect the port of entries.
18:42
That's the areas where people can enter and exit America
18:46
by showing documents or whatnot.
18:49
The green uniforms, us as Border Patrol agents, we protect everything in between those port
18:54
of entries all across the border from Northern border and South.
18:57
And our job is essentially to apprehend anyone who crossing the border illegally
19:02
and to process them.
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Our job is not to make a determination of their case.
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Our job is to only process the paperwork and what they say their case is.
19:15
And then once we've had them processed, we hand off to ICE who then determines how
19:20
they're going to be housed and as well as if they're going to be deported or not.
19:23
In most cases that we're seeing today as in the asylum cases are being given notice
19:30
to appears so they can see an immigration judge at a later date and that immigration
19:35
judge will make a determination on their case based on the evidence that's presented
19:39
as well as when they go see them directly in front of them at the courthouse.
19:43
Hey guys, real quick.
19:45
I know that a lot of you in my audience lead very disciplined lives.
19:48
You crush your workouts, you're getting your after it on the mats, you're standing
19:52
out at work, your family actually likes you.
19:54
You seem to have everything under control.
19:56
But I've been a part of enough discussions with men over the years to know without
19:59
a doubt that many of you are dealing with unwanted compulsive behaviors or addictions,
20:04
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20:10
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20:14
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20:15
If you don't get that in check, guys, it can have astonishingly negative consequences
20:20
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Go to the link in the show notes, click that link in the show notes to get started.
21:14
OK, so that's really helpful to kind of understand, OK, who does what?
21:19
And again, all this is in the book guys.
21:20
You got to check out Borderline because you get into all that detail, but
21:23
specifically, you know, most people think like, I guess they don't understand
21:27
anyone else's job other than theirs, you know what I mean?
21:29
And so they don't understand how backed up these judges are that are determining
21:33
these, these immigration statuses and different things like everybody's super,
21:37
super backed up.
21:38
But what I want to know is I want to know what a normal, boring, like super,
21:45
nothing going on day is for a Border Patrol agent.
21:48
And then also I want an idea of like, OK, when you look back on your time in the
21:52
Border Patrol and it was like, that was a really kinetic day.
21:55
That was a crazy day.
21:56
Take us what it is like a day in the life of a Border Patrol agent.
22:00
Super boring to super kinetic.
22:01
Yeah, I mean, the most average days during my time, it was very slow traffic.
22:07
And so it wasn't what you have today.
22:09
And we also had an operation streamline.
22:12
And that was kind of a case by case in different sectors of Texas.
22:17
And if they entered illegally, they were put into holding for a certain amount of
22:22
time. So that changed the traffic.
22:24
And I talk about it as well.
22:25
But a boring day, a normal day is you'll show up to work and you'll go to muster.
22:29
And from muster, they're going to determine where you're working that day.
22:33
Any part of the sector, because hey, today you're going to be either local
22:36
downs or Kamado, different areas in the city.
22:39
And once you get that notification of where you're going to work, then you kind
22:43
of know what you need to bring with you, whether, hey, that's an area that we're
22:46
probably going to just do high vis, right?
22:48
We're going to park on a high point and just turn the lights on or just be there,
22:51
be a be a presence.
22:52
Or you're going to be, hey, I'm going to lay up and try and catch some dope because
22:56
there's a good dope area.
22:57
And so you make that determination either way in all locations, you're going
23:01
to cut the drag.
23:02
And so along the border fence across across America, there's some kind
23:06
of dirt path that is used to identify foot traffic.
23:09
And so as soon as you get on, you call in and say, I'm going to be cutting the
23:13
drag from this point to this point, and you cut it.
23:15
When you say cut it, you're going to be driving really slow and you're dragging
23:18
something behind.
23:19
So you're actually almost like in baseball where they drag something across
23:22
the field, we're cleaning up the dirt.
23:24
So there has nothing, there's no imprints on the dirt.
23:29
And as you cut the dirt, you're looking and seeing if there's anything in front
23:32
of you that you might have to address, what we're looking for is foot traffic,
23:36
potential foot signs on the ground.
23:38
That'll determine that when I was in muster and while the other agent was gone,
23:42
they jumped the fence or they went through the fence or they just went
23:44
through the river and they started running across.
23:46
They obviously know our times of transition.
23:48
They know when we change shifts, they know the whole deal, right?
23:51
And so as that process happens, we're trying to identify that as we drive in
23:56
and identify nothing, well, then every couple hours, you cut the drag again.
24:00
And then you just respond to any camera action, any kind of sensor activities.
24:05
And that's what you do throughout the day.
24:07
You'll find some spots that put your vehicle high and you'll eat your lunch.
24:09
You'll talk to your partner if you have a partner that day.
24:12
And so you can do that for eight to 10 hours of just kind of roaming the area,
24:17
looking for something in a busy day would be something like you start to cut the
24:22
drag and then you see sign of potential 10 to 20.
24:25
Then it's all then you go, Hey, I got positive sign right here.
24:29
It looks like 20.
24:31
Here's the footprints.
24:32
And so you identify which prints you see.
24:34
It could be something like a Nike shock, very familiar soul.
24:37
Everyone knows what that looks like.
24:38
It could be the bottom of an Adidas.
24:40
It looks like a running W. So they call it a running W.
24:42
And so you call those out.
24:43
Say I got three running W's.
24:45
I got a I got a shock.
24:46
I got a flat soul, a working boot, whatever it is you want to call out.
24:50
And that'll help the other ages say, OK, cool.
24:52
What's the line of travel?
24:53
You send them your GPS coordinates, boom, they jump ahead and they're looking for
24:57
that same prints, identifiers up ahead a couple miles.
25:03
And when they find it, boom.
25:04
Now you're going to be kind of hopping over each other to continue to cut off the
25:08
group to try and get to them as fast as possible.
25:10
Every area of operations has these identifying markers, whether it be a water
25:15
tower, whether it be a light that these groups tend to travel towards.
25:20
They're kind of their indicators of like, Hey, this is northbound.
25:23
And so we kind of know those lines of travel because they're very common for
25:26
just being experienced out there.
25:28
And boom, we all jump out and track them.
25:30
And there's days where you can track for 20 miles.
25:33
And eventually you have the group and it's a very fulfilling day that you you were
25:38
working and cutting sign and tracking them for 20 miles to apprehend a group of
25:43
potentially 15.
25:44
Um, that's a good day's work for a board of trades.
25:47
OK, and I think one thing that there's so many myths that you dispel in this book,
25:53
which I'm appreciative for that, but I guess another myth is.
25:56
OK, either border patrol is super or not dangerous at all because y'all are super
26:02
far away from the problem or you guys are getting in kinetic gunfights literally
26:07
every single day with cartel guys and you're shooting it out with El Chapo's
26:10
dudes and it's like, OK, like no, neither one of these things are going to be
26:14
accurate, but you do have a quote in the book is if you ask me today to describe
26:17
the toughest part of being a border patrol agent, this was it, knowing that
26:21
you may not see your kids again.
26:23
Now, whenever I come up to my studio and put a microphone in front of my face,
26:27
I'm not thinking to myself, man, that may have been the last time I kissed my
26:30
boys, right, because it's just not one of those things.
26:32
But if you're a firefighter or if you're a police officer or if you're a
26:37
military member, like, obviously, that's part of it, but it's the same for border
26:40
patrol. So talk to me a little bit about the actual dangers you guys face.
26:44
Again, not not the Hollywood version, but like the real stuff that actually
26:47
goes on on the ground.
26:48
Yeah, we have a lot of agents who are killed by car accidents.
26:52
We have a lot of agents who, you know, there's there's agents who have been
26:57
killed by illegal immigrants who came across with ill intent, you know, we have
27:03
agents that are that are dying in the fields from droughts, right?
27:07
And so there's these incidents.
27:09
I mean, we had we had several National Guard soldiers who are working on the
27:14
border drowned recently.
27:15
And so you're in an environment that's so dynamic that changes from the flow of
27:21
the water to the heat of the desert, you know what I mean, to driving your
27:25
vehicles all over the place, trying to apprehend individuals and then also
27:28
not knowing if these individuals are going to put up a fight at all at any
27:33
point in this career field, you can find yourself in one of the worst case
27:36
scenario. Now, truth be told, that worst case scenario is few and few few of
27:40
those happen, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention it's a possibility of
27:45
what we do daily. Now the the intention of the border patrol is not an aggressive
27:51
posture by means. It is genuinely a humanitarian mission at first. As you're
27:56
coming across and you've entered illegally, I'm going to say stop. You're
28:01
obviously here illegally. We're going to bring you in for processing. Most of the
28:05
time, they're just going to sit down like, Oh, thank God, because I'm tired of
28:08
walking seven days. The other side of it is there's the small percentages they
28:15
put up a fight. And then that's the concern like, what is he fighting for?
28:18
Well, most of the time the fights are from the coyotes. The people were smuggling
28:21
them, right? The bad guys carrying something illegally or they have a
28:25
criminal record. So obviously they don't want to get caught. And so there's these
28:29
moments that you might not expect it to be attention. And then it does. And so
28:33
it's almost like living in the environment of like, if you get too
28:36
complacent, you know, some danger is going to rear its ugly head. And so day in
28:42
and day out, we're not pulling out our pistol very often. We're not engaging
28:46
with cartel like people think sometimes. I had a guy messes and said,
28:50
why are the boards getting so quite quick to shoot Mexicans? I'm like,
28:53
what are you talking about? More law enforcement per capita. We had the
28:57
least amount of use of forced scenarios. We actually get assaulted way more
29:02
than any other law enforcement out there. The statistics are in the book
29:06
in the background. And so it's this really instant career for like, we get
29:09
rocks thrown at us. What's the chance of a rock knocking you out cold and
29:12
then what? Right? We get attacked from from the coyotes. We the list goes on
29:17
and on of how many assaults happen for our agents. You know, and in the book I
29:22
talk about how many shootings you think happened per year. I mean, it's people
29:25
to imagine thousands and it's so low. It actually proves how well trained our
29:30
border patrol is and understanding the environments of what we're dealing
29:34
with. Flowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them.
29:38
That's bullspend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.
29:44
I remember telling my boss, it'll be good for the brand when leads were slow.
29:48
Yeah, it wasn't cut the bullspend. LinkedIn lets you target by company, job
29:55
title and more advertised on LinkedIn. Spend $250 on your first campaign and
30:00
get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com slash campaign terms and conditions apply.
30:05
Well, I think in the book, it was 50 to one like you're 50 times more likely to
30:09
be assaulted by someone that you're dealing with then for you to be assaulting
30:13
someone else or to be killing someone else there on the border. So yeah,
30:17
obviously the idea that you're just sitting down there, you know, welcoming
30:20
everybody like, Hey, come on in versus your sniping people that are sitting
30:24
there like in the desert, like again, it doesn't really make a lot of sense
30:27
that people actually dig into the real data. Now, another thing I think people
30:31
don't really understand is that there is a, I guess, special operations
30:35
element to the border patrol. So in the book, you spend a lot of time talking
30:39
about this. So we'll let, you know, some of the stuff talk, you know, in the
30:41
book for itself, but board, board tech, or star. And then if I remember correctly,
30:46
I think both of those are combined now and it's called SOG special operations
30:50
group or something like that. And so I guess just take us through like modern
30:53
day, you know, 2023, you know, what is the special element of the border patrol?
30:58
And I guess what exactly are they doing? What are their areas of operation?
31:01
What, what type of training, like what, what do they actually do operations
31:04
wise? Yeah, so you have the two talk about is board tech and board star and
31:09
board tech and board star are separate entities, but they also work together
31:12
really well. And so board tech is our border patrol tactical team,
31:17
essentially the border patrol SWAT team. And what they do is anything you can
31:21
think of on the border that it deems it necessary for that kind of kinetic job
31:26
the border patrol is capable of things like assisting on warrants for for
31:31
other agencies, things like search for, you know, escaped convicts. We were very
31:37
known for that in the board tech industry, the board tech world. They are,
31:41
they can do anything you think about what I was attached to them. We did things
31:46
like we gather intel on, you know, cartel and cartel individuals that are
31:51
associated with cartel. And we did our best to disrupt their system, whether it
31:55
be apprehending, breaking down the, you know, having, having any kind of intel
31:59
that you can do to gather to, to find the patterns and disrupt them. And so we did
32:04
that things like that. And it's attached. I was the medic attached. Now me being a
32:08
medic attached to them is because my specialty was tactical medicine. But I
32:12
was a borsar agent first and borsar. We are the pair rescue jumpers of the
32:18
border. Essentially, we are search trauma and rescue medics who carry a rifle and
32:23
are proficient with all of it. And so I've done things from swift water
32:26
rescues to long line rescues to search and rescues for miles and miles of
32:31
looking for someone who's lost in the middle of nowhere. And then as well as I've
32:34
been attached to board tech as their primary medic as the tactical medicine
32:38
experts. And I go along with them on their missions. And so what every, they're in
32:45
every sector, they have an SOD team special operations detachment. Everywhere
32:50
they have one. And then SOG would be kind of like the national team that can get
32:55
response to responded anywhere in the world if need be. And so SOG is kind of
33:00
the tier one element of the border patrol special operations units. Okay, and you
33:05
talked about in the book you actually I think started by teasing it up which
33:08
may be super annoyed because I was like he's not going to get to this until later
33:11
in the book what a jerk but you tease up how there was two escape convicts and how
33:15
the border patrol was like in New York like upstate New York or somewhere like
33:19
trying to track these dudes down and people are like what what the world's
33:21
border patrol doing out there they shouldn't they be on the border. So you
33:25
do get into a lot of that. But but now I really want to spend the rest of our
33:28
time digging into a bunch of random questions that all have to do with the
33:32
border in some way, shape or form. But these are all questions that just came to
33:37
mind for me as I was reading through the book and so I would just write them in
33:41
the margin and be like okay I'll just ask you about it and they're going to
33:43
bounce all over the place so there there's no rhyme or reason there's no
33:45
order to these. And so unlike you I'm not going to like tease something at the
33:49
beginning and then you know screw everybody up guys just let you know what
33:51
he does at the very beginning spoiler alert he kind of teases you like oh my
33:55
gosh there's these two convicts and they're murderers and they're just
33:57
hanging out with the populace and they're trying to track the guys down oh by the
34:00
way I grew up in Los Angeles it's like ah come on I know you're telling me the
34:04
rest of it at the end it's good storytelling it's good writing but it
34:07
just makes me it's just annoying okay but let's go ahead and get in. The very
34:10
first thing I want to read this quote here and then get into this question.
34:13
Homeland border security is the same as personal home security. If you can not
34:18
control who and what enters your personal home you have no security if we
34:22
cannot control who and what enters our homeland we have no security and
34:26
ultimately no nation. So according to these statements Vincent is it fair to
34:32
say that the United States doesn't have any security or ultimately has no nation
34:37
because when you think about how porous the southern border isn't just this
34:40
morning I heard about you know apprehensions at the northern border are
34:45
up almost 400 percent this calendar year again the administration in office has
34:50
something to do with that in the things that they allow for or the things that
34:54
they I basically yeah you know I don't want to speak out of turn here but it
34:58
does seem to me it's where it's like yeah if you don't have borders you don't
35:02
have a nation if you don't have walls you don't have a house so is it fair to
35:05
say that? I don't know if it's fair to say that I would say like the point of
35:12
saying that in the book is trying to establish for people to understand because
35:15
I know who's gonna read this book you got your left right everybody but the
35:19
side of it that talks about like just oh borders a lot of men it's like well
35:21
what's you have adorned your house for a reason don't you? Right same reason
35:27
why we have our border there we're trying to do a job now currently what
35:31
we're dealing with now and I talk about in the book is the dial so if you if you
35:35
want to understand our system is we have two systems going on at once we have
35:39
our immigration policy and then we have our homeland security both of those are
35:42
very important one if we don't have immigration we're not America right we
35:45
have dignity as a country we welcome immigration but legal immigration now in
35:49
the other side of it we have homeland security and that's protecting us right
35:52
that's from 9/11 after 9/11 that was introduced and so when you have both of
35:56
those they both have to be met with whatever whatever's happening at the
35:59
border and currently we're doing more we are we're doing more for immigration
36:02
than we are for security and that becomes a concern for all of us and so
36:06
yeah I think right now the dial is turned to the side where too far one way and
36:10
now we have an immigration coming in influxing because we've incentivized
36:13
illegal immigration we can't incentivize illegal immigration because then what's
36:18
the point of using legal immigration what's the point of using the proper
36:21
channels and so now we have this issue here where the the communication on the
36:27
south of the border from either cartel or or or human trafficking companies
36:32
organizations or just people individually they know like hey it's a lot easier
36:37
just to cross right now because they're just letting us in and so that's why
36:39
we're gonna continue to have this massive influx of illegal immigration
36:43
because they're incentivizing it and that's unfortunate because it's causing a
36:48
lot of chaos and I think the repercussions of this will be will be
36:52
dealt with in the near future and when you incentivize particular behaviors and
36:56
then people are killed because of those behaviors whether they're in the back
37:00
of a of a you know truck and they die because they're left there and they
37:05
basically get cooked to death or if you know they're taken advantage of by
37:09
coyotes or they're a young gal that is basically raped her entire way from
37:13
Central America up to the southern border the United States and then you
37:16
know maybe she sent off into sex trafficking like when you incentivize
37:19
these these certain behaviors like it's it's as if I were to sleep with all my
37:23
doors and windows open it's like that doesn't guarantee that something bad is
37:27
gonna happen to me and my family but it's guaranteed a stupid idea and it
37:31
certainly is gonna make it much easier for a wolf to get in if they wanted to
37:35
do something to me and my family it's going it's more like so forcing you to
37:40
keep your door open at your own house right and not even giving you the
37:44
option of shutting it yeah you're absolutely right okay next question here
37:47
so it seems as if there are not enough border patrol agents to do what they're
37:52
doing so even in the book you talked about it for I forget the exact numbers
37:55
but there were like 20 of y'all that were covering like 140 or 150 miles
37:59
worth of border so why are there seemingly so few border patrol agents
38:03
for such a large border well there's two parts right now it's hard to keep
38:08
border patrol agents in the agency you had guys who were retiring at their 20
38:12
year mark just to retire to get out of the career field because of all the
38:15
scrutiny and and politic politicizing politicizing of the career field the
38:20
morale of the career field currently is the lowest it's ever been they had the
38:24
highest suicide rate per capita of law enforcement officers right and so why is
38:28
that well because the world is telling them they're the worst thing of our
38:31
country and it's completely false they are the best thing we have the defense
38:35
against the defense against terrorism and our border they do it for us at the
38:40
foot of the border and so that is a big part right now they have the lowest
38:44
recruiting numbers because no one wants to come to a career field that is
38:46
scrutinized the way it is and so my another part of my job is trying to be a
38:51
voice for the border patrol agents they can't say this they can't publicly say
38:55
this or they'll lose their job from the lowest all it to the highest i know the
38:58
facts um and so writing this book was my goal is to be a
39:02
voice for them to explain their career field as well as to hopefully help
39:05
with recruiting some of us have to stand up against
39:08
whatever's happening say no i'll still defend this country i'll still defend
39:11
this nation and we're hoping that this book creates a massive influx of
39:15
future border agents who are willing to do the job
39:17
that is thankless that is selfless that is just the most
39:21
unappreciated career field in our nation when i've had conversations with uh
39:26
law enforcement officers just in you know normal uh everyday communities here in
39:31
the u.s and people that are going through academy and their biggest worry is not
39:34
the written test or the physical test or any of those things it's like
39:38
what if i get into a traffic stop with someone that's a person of color and i'm
39:43
a white guy and something goes sideways and i end up shooting that person my
39:46
life's over like my family's life is over and so people are like
39:50
eff it i'll go drive a ups truck like i'll go i'll go do anything else
39:54
and these are people that otherwise would be answering the call
39:58
to protect their local communities or to protect the border so i think it's a
40:01
it's a valuable goal that you have here now trump people are going to love this
40:05
next question because it's basically why not just build the wall
40:08
because here's the thing we talked about it walls walls to a degree they do
40:12
work i remember a cnn anchor was like standing at a border fence like uh one
40:16
of the metal border fences and saying you see there's nobody over here on the
40:20
other side congregating trying to get over and their point
40:23
was opposite the point they actually made because it's like
40:26
because the wall works you jerk like no one's trying to get over that wall
40:30
because they know they can't so i guess for me i know there's a lot of money
40:34
and there's a lot of stuff in it and trump has built his brand on build that
40:37
wall and then he puts it off us for four years and didn't do it
40:40
why not just build the wall yeah you know i think um you know there's a
40:44
misconception of the wall there's people that don't realize there's
40:47
always been a wall you know what i mean and the wall argument is just kind of
40:51
been pulled in different directions for arguments of like political stuff but
40:54
the truth is the wall's always been there they've been adding to it
40:57
there's areas of the border that need it that would actually help support the
41:01
Border Patrol career field right because what it acts as is a
41:05
deterrence but as well as it helps funnel traffic to areas where
41:08
are more manageable for agents to work right and so
41:11
there's definitely areas deep you know in our borders that can
41:14
that could use a border wall that would help us funnel our traffic and be
41:18
more mindful about who it comes in and out
41:21
a wall won't stop everyone there's people that'll go over it through it and
41:24
under it yes but it will slow down the traffic
41:27
for some reason there's people like on social media like bro i've lived it
41:30
forever there's already a wall it's like we are we're not talking about
41:33
that one dude right we're talking about other areas that need the wall
41:36
right and it's just this very confusing thing that our society wants to argue
41:41
on all these things but the truth is i think trump made people just say no
41:45
because it was trump right because people want to just like
41:49
jump all over any kind of trump idea but the truth is the wall was a
41:53
is a good idea in a lot of places that and more technology we need more
41:56
technology to do our job better yeah as long as you understand what the wall
42:00
is not because some people think you build the wall and then we're done
42:03
talking about this we can move on to like fixing roads and bridges it's
42:06
like now like that that's one thing it provides a deterrent
42:10
and then it you know pushes people towards ports of entry or more
42:13
manageable places like you said the terrain is
42:16
you know easier to build a wall as opposed to putting people on terrain
42:19
you know all that kind of stuff all right next question in terms of that
42:21
which kind of works into it is why not just shut down the border
42:25
completely except for ports of entry and so you talk about this a little bit
42:31
later in the book and you you kind of describe this dissonance between
42:34
wanting to have it completely wide open so that we can be seen as loving and
42:38
supportive and empathetic and then having it completely shut down
42:41
and being seen as militaristic and you know all these other different things
42:45
but all i know is i don't want a single american to die
42:50
or to be hurt at the hands of an illegal immigrant that shouldn't have been
42:53
here to begin with you know why not close the border
42:56
enforce many of those here's the other part of it maybe this is too big of a
42:59
question but i think you can handle it but a lot of these people coming over
43:03
the border are military aged males why not say hey the united states is
43:07
closed for business go back to your country and fix it
43:11
okay i'm sorry you weren't born here i'm sorry you were born in you know
43:15
el Salvador or Ecuador or Venezuela or somewhere else
43:19
but go back and fix it if you don't like the way things are going on there
43:23
if you're looking around for someone to fix it you're the guy
43:26
you like hold up a mirror and be like you're the guy to go back and fix it
43:29
why not just shut down the border entirely so when when you say shut down
43:33
the border what does that look like for you
43:36
i yeah i guess i would say to extrapolate that out to where it's like
43:39
people can literally only get in like you know assuming you build the wall they
43:44
go to the normal port of entry so that's where they can go
43:47
to apply for asylum but if they're just coming because they want to work or
43:50
they're just coming because they heard america was awesome it's like nope
43:53
the you're out will process your asylum but you have to stay in particular areas
43:58
you're not just going to gallivander across the country while we figure it out
44:01
well i i think i do talk about some of the book about
44:05
we have to determine how we want that dial do we want to be north korea or
44:08
we want to be a country with no borders meaning no country at all
44:11
right inside we don't want either of those we want something more in the
44:13
middle and both of those like i said uh home security
44:16
and and immigration policy both have to be met right because this is who we are
44:20
as americans and i and i would almost argue that we do
44:23
have a closed border they're not supposed to come illegally
44:25
we have rules they just do and so if we lined up border changes across the
44:30
border outside of the port port of entry if we bring national guard
44:33
and if we bring there still will be tunnels there still will be ways
44:36
up over around under it doesn't matter people will still try and enter
44:40
illegally um i think it's a it's a i say there's not a
44:43
one plus one equals two answer for this this is a multi-layered echelon approach
44:48
this is uh having a diplomatic approach to the
44:51
southern countries below us that people are escaping from and seeing why
44:54
how can we as americans maybe has stepped in and helped them
44:57
do we bring um you know manufacturing that i don't know but is there something
45:01
we can do to help keep that country in in it's safe or they don't want to come
45:06
to america that they can thrive in their own country
45:07
also is there a way that we can you know counter the the intelligence that the
45:11
cartel uses or human trafficking companies organizations use
45:14
to educate people we don't have them educated enough to say hey this is
45:17
dangerous half of you are going to be you know thrown to the wayside some of
45:20
you are going to be raped so there's a lot of levels we can approach to try
45:24
and mitigate this more yes we should we absolutely can't take on as many as
45:29
we've taken on already our resource are depleted
45:32
uh we're spending money in other ways we didn't spend it on the wall well now
45:35
we're spending it in processing centers right and so
45:38
this issue is is continuing to to create more issues
45:43
and so we have to take our our immigration policies more serious we
45:46
have to revamp a lot of what we have and we have to start making sure
45:49
making decisions soon um it's really strange right now that we haven't had
45:54
anyone really focus on how to fix this in a grand scale
45:57
i'm talking from south america all the way into america people that are here
46:01
currently people that the daca right all these different levels that need to be
46:04
addressed when you say immigration that's just the umbrella of
46:08
massive amounts of other issues we have underneath that
46:11
and so yeah i would i why don't we shut the border i think we kind of have a
46:15
closed border but they're no one's listening because we didn't
46:17
incentivize coming over illegally and so
46:21
all those things is we had to like you and i would agree we need to secure
46:24
our borders but your definition of securing that border my definition
46:27
might be starkly different and that's the same as
46:29
everyone so i think we have to first start with the foundation of
46:32
understanding what the border looks like now
46:35
what is the policies we currently have in place
46:37
and what are the jobs that are implemented currently right now from
46:41
customs board patrol and ice and what are their jobs
46:43
what are what do they do daily so once we understand that foundation
46:47
we can now start trying to make an educated decision on
46:49
okay well what's next because right now the the one thing is we've just
46:53
incentivized illegal immigration that's the biggest issue right now
46:57
and everyone seeking asylum well my job is not to determine that as a border
47:01
choice and so i don't [inaudible] know you know what i mean
47:03
i need to stand in the next guy and the ice goes well i don't know either i'm
47:07
going to hand it over to immigration judge
47:09
well immigration judge i think we only have like 400 600 immigration judges so
47:13
they're backed up for years so maybe we start with getting more immigration
47:16
judges how do we do that right how do we how do we streamline that process
47:19
to identify who is here seeking asylum and who isn't
47:22
who do we deport back and so there's a lot of things that we need to kind of
47:26
address and answer that question but you and i and i think everyone who
47:29
listens probably we agree we need to secure this border
47:32
and what we have currently right now is not working
47:35
well and to to a point you made there the beginning you use the perfect word
47:39
it's a dial and how far it's not it's not an on off switch
47:43
it's a dial right it's a dimmer right like how dark do we want this room to be
47:47
how light do we want this room to be and the reality of it is
47:50
and uh someone made this point here recently but it's like okay
47:52
it's easy to be a political commentator it's much more difficult to be
47:56
somebody that is a a lawmaker right in congress because it's like
48:00
yes you can scream and be a a zealot for your side but at the end of the day
48:05
there has to be some sort of policy that's put in place
48:07
the same is true for immigration now this may seem similar to the last
48:11
question but it's really not i've heard some talk it's it's not
48:15
a normal talking point about people saying we should militarize
48:19
the southern border so what they mean is yeah sure have the border patrol
48:23
have the the spec the special operations point
48:26
or uh you know groups within that but we need
48:29
air force army marines navy somehow like we need everybody
48:34
at the southern border and across the entire border we're going to build
48:39
uh build outposts and basically if you if you're coming to the border
48:44
you're immediately pushed back not shot and i were not shooting you know
48:47
tank missiles at people or something like that
48:50
but what is your thoughts overall about militarizing the border because when
48:54
you talk about certain countries like north korea but then even on the other
48:57
side like in israel or different places like that it's like
49:00
not play you're not getting the end and if you try to
49:04
someone in fatigues is going to push you back so so why not just militarize the
49:08
border well the one thing you said that i think
49:10
was was was good was right that most people don't is
49:14
you know they have to know if we did that
49:17
i i don't see the problem in that besides the fact of
49:21
there is two different um postures that that you're seeing here the border
49:27
patrol doesn't take an aggressive posture that's not our job our job is
49:30
humanitarian our job is also we we rescue we save then we
49:34
apprehend then we right and so our job is a very very different
49:38
headspace of how you engage with individuals if you bring the military my
49:42
biggest fear is that they will engage with the intent of
49:45
the aggression side of things first so i don't have a problem with
49:49
lining more people up and trying to stop the traffic
49:52
i would be i would say we would have to integrate their thought process into
49:57
how the posturing should be on the border and it would change their ROV
50:00
or or or use of force how that would be done
50:04
because too many people show up and thinking why don't we just
50:07
stick our guns out until no i was like well then we kind of lose the dignity of
50:12
who we are as a country when we start just doing that and so this is a very
50:17
tough opinions kind of conversation here discussion
50:21
because a lot of Americans like why don't we just put guns in just shoot
50:24
like man that's really hard to say for someone who
50:27
genuinely is a mother carrying her two kids and trying to get away from
50:30
oppression right like that's hard for me as a person who
50:33
has empathy right who is also Hispanic right my grandmother came here
50:37
illegally and i did the most i could with her
50:40
ideologies of being an American and so that's where the dial has to be and
50:45
we have to choose the light reference is great
50:48
how dark do we want to get and i would hope that we keep the light on for our
50:52
country and our ideologies and what our founding fathers believed in
50:56
this is a place of opportunity this is a place a land of freedom
50:59
and we just want people to respect that and continue that my biggest issue is
51:03
people coming here to America and not wanting to continue to thrive but as
51:07
well as invest in America's ideologies this is a land of freedom
51:11
this is a land of opportunity and we should continue that
51:14
well absolutely and again when people make these declarations you have to take
51:19
what you're saying to its logical conclusion and so what i would ask that
51:22
person so somewhere to say we need to militarize the border
51:24
shoot everyone that tries to come across i say okay
51:27
so you have a mother holding her two kids they're all
51:31
you know near death because of starvation and
51:34
you know thirst and you have an 18 year old marine
51:38
with his m4 and you're telling him shoot him shoot all three of them
51:43
is that it like this isn't you know a crazed fundamentalist islamist
51:48
that is wearing an s-vis or something like that
51:52
like running at you and if you if you don't shoot her as the 18 year old marine
51:55
your entire you know group is going to die that's not what this is
51:59
and so it's like again where is the dial because i can tell you
52:03
if somebody's walking up to my front door and they look like they need help
52:06
i'm not going to shoot them but if somebody's walking up to my front door
52:09
and they got that look in their eye or any of those types of things and they
52:12
get in my bubble like i'm at least going to think about it
52:15
i'm at least going to be prepared to do that if things were to go sideways
52:19
but you mentioned something there that you do talk about in the book
52:21
but it's um everyone loves to bring race into everything because it's 2023 so
52:25
why not just call everything racist math is racist snickers bars are racist
52:29
somehow like everything's racist but some people would say the ultimate goal
52:33
a border patrol that the goal is racist and xenophobic and anti-immigrant
52:39
and then for you you have that extra thing of as a Hispanic man
52:43
like you have all these people asking you hey bro why are you trying to be a
52:46
border patrol agent like why are you pulling up the ladder
52:49
and you know letting everyone else drown and that's the ladder that you just
52:52
used to climb up so talk about the racial elements because if we haven't
52:55
gotten in trouble at this point of the conversation we might as well dive in
52:58
with you know at first let's go no i mean
53:02
you know what most don't understand is 60-70 percent of the border patrol
53:06
themselves are Hispanic right it is the Hispanic heavy
53:10
career field and i asked the question to some of my friends who
53:14
are first generation and they said it's like oh we love this country
53:17
where the country has given us the opportunity why wouldn't we not continue
53:21
to defend that and for my own personal belief system is
53:25
my grandmother came here for a reason and she raised her kids here in america
53:28
for them to continue to thrive in america my uncle served our country my
53:31
grandfather served this country my father served this country
53:34
who might have turned my back on the beliefs of my family who
53:38
gave everything from their backs to my mother used to pick cotton
53:42
that's how far removed i am from immigration from my mother's family being
53:48
of immigrants and making the best of they they could in america
53:52
you know it is only right for me to invest into this country that my family
53:55
believes so wholeheartedly into and to raise my kids to believe in this
53:59
country in that same light and that's what a lot of us believe in i believe
54:02
the border patrol is the most patriotic law enforcement agency in the nation
54:07
because day in and day out they see what they're doing to protect this nation
54:12
from the possibilities of terrorist actions and as well as from anyone who's
54:16
here to try and but just take from this country and go back to their country
54:20
if you're not here to invest in this and to continue to uphold these ideologies
54:25
well then all you are is trying to to suffer some from the resources and leave
54:29
and i don't want that well it's a brain dead argument and you know most
54:33
arguments that come from people that would make those arguments are going to be
54:35
brain dead arguments but they're just like they love univariate analysis
54:38
it's like well you're white and these people are brown and you don't want them
54:43
here so you're a racist it's like is that it or is it possible there are 17
54:48
other things that i'm worried about if we just open doors because i don't care
54:52
what you look like i do care if you assimilate i do care if you assimilate
54:55
to our way of life and our way of thinking because again as my senator
54:59
here in the state of oklahoma james likeford pointed out
55:01
i didn't address the congress last year um in the last calendar year that i think
55:07
it was the first calendar year joe bines presidency they apprehended at the border
55:10
at least one person from every single country in the world
55:15
that includes north korea in china and iran and iratria and sudan and uh
55:20
molly everybody like every single country had somebody represent there
55:25
and to say that all those countries believe the same things that americans do
55:29
about human flourishing and about rights and justice and freedom
55:33
would be foolish and absolutely antithetical to any understanding of
55:36
history or anything else now i don't think we really got
55:40
as into as much trouble as i was hoping for because i was a very diplomatic
55:43
answer so screw you vincent we're gonna go into another
55:47
a little bit farther we're gonna go a little bit farther here because you
55:49
brought up daca earlier so that's the dreamers
55:52
i never remember uh what that means but it's the dreamers these are people
55:56
uh you know that were brought here typically as children
55:59
uh it was their parents or their grandparents that came here illegally
56:02
and now they're here and so i think i've heard a lot of arguments about
56:07
hey we should work to deport every single person
56:11
that is in the united states illegally whether they've overstayed their visa
56:14
or whether they came across the border you know whatever
56:17
like we need to work to get all those people out of the country now
56:19
specifically on daca here's my example so let's say my dad
56:24
he was down on his luck and he decided that he wanted to go rob a bank
56:28
so he successfully gets a bank manager in there you know he gets you know 150
56:32
thousand dollars from the vault and he escapes
56:35
and then he says hey kyle i love you you're my son uh i want to make sure that you
56:39
can provide for your family and all that i have 150 000
56:42
dollars i'd like to give you and i have no idea where that money came from and
56:45
i'm like dad this is awesome we're not going to tell the irs
56:48
we're just going to put this in the bank or i'm just going to bury in the backyard
56:50
this is great then my dad gets arrested they found
56:53
out that he robbed the bank do i get to keep that 150 000
56:57
dollars because i didn't know where it came from
57:00
or because you know oh well he had good intentions when he gave it to me
57:04
and that's this that's a small somewhat silly example
57:07
but that's ultimately what we're talking about with dreamers because it's like
57:11
did they do anything wrong no are they innocent of any and all crimes
57:15
absolutely but do they get the fruits uh you know uh of the poisonous tree as
57:20
it were does that make sense right right yeah no i it does
57:23
and i'll i'll say this i am a board drill career field
57:27
subject matter expert not immigration but you know i'm i'm so involved in it right
57:32
right you know i think vivic in the in the last like
57:35
political you know debate he said something that
57:37
i've never thought of and i thought was very interesting about the doccal
57:41
about you know they they should not be allowed to bring their shot across
57:45
give birth and then now they have you know soil of right to be a citizen
57:49
i thought like oh [inaudible] i've never thought of that but
57:53
he's kind of right you know what i mean like that's that's that's completely
57:56
makes sense to me um and i think i think that's started a deeper
58:02
conversation that we're here now it is hard for me to say
58:05
let's deport a kid who's been here for 18 years had no idea he was an illegal
58:09
immigrant and then you send him to a country he doesn't even know either
58:13
it's hard it's the dial how do you do that like how do you do that in a way
58:17
where do you feel like that's a humanitarian decision
58:20
um you know we i think there's a time where we have to do some kind of
58:25
pardoning of those individuals and it has to be a stop
58:29
all right from this point forward this doesn't this doesn't fly anymore
58:32
right there has to be a a change in this at one point there has to
58:36
sorry this is the cutoff line for that it doesn't happen anymore but
58:39
i've been there i've been there where i've worked on a guy who
58:42
who came across illegally we apprehend him i'm ruling his fingerprints and he
58:46
starts speaking english and i said bro he goes dude
58:50
i thought i was here legally i didn't know if i should come back i came across
58:53
i was like i don't even know what to say now like
58:56
now you're screwed because you did it this way and i caught you know i caught you
58:59
and i was so empathetic because the dude was like genuinely breaking down i was
59:03
like man it sucks i have nothing to do anymore i'm
59:06
doing my job right my job was important i just processed what i have in front of
59:10
me and and i just could imagine like i have no
59:13
idea what's gonna have that dude but they might send him back his what happened
59:16
and his mother brought him over here to young age
59:19
his mother got older went back to mexico's and she ended up passing away
59:23
he was in america's whole life dude had no idea goes back to mexico and his
59:27
realizes at that point that he's illegal he doesn't even have his papers come
59:32
back so he had to cross illegally again to get back to work doing into his
59:35
family and he put himself in a hell of a [inaudible] position
59:39
and yeah man i'm empathetic for it i feel bad for the dude and you know his
59:44
his every every i guess every situation is kind of a case by case
59:48
story and you'd have to almost take it as that and try and make a good decision
59:52
on it at some point you send an adult over to
59:57
doesn't matter their country and they don't know even the language
1:00:01
man how we do how how can you call us america to do something like that i feel
1:00:04
bad i would feel bad i would be a little disappointed ourselves at that point
1:00:07
well and it's everybody understands the case by case argument the the problem
1:00:12
obviously is if you do a case by case argument that you can't do a law you
1:00:16
know what i mean and you know that of course you know that like you can't do
1:00:18
a law that says all right we're gonna look at all these things on a case by
1:00:21
case basis because there has to be some sort of a standard
1:00:24
i remember a place i worked at a long time ago there were a bunch of kids
1:00:28
uh from india they came to the united states to study
1:00:30
and they they were computer scientists and they were great coders and great
1:00:34
people and they were going to be getting jobs making
1:00:37
really good money right out of school building families paying taxes all
1:00:40
those different things but i think it's the hate
1:00:42
a h1v visa or whatever it's a lottery system
1:00:46
and so here are all these people they're not knuckleheads they're not criminals
1:00:50
they're not going to raise knuckleheads or criminals
1:00:53
and they're having to cross their fingers
1:00:55
and hope that they get selected in a lottery that would allow them to stay
1:00:59
in this country unless they be sent back to india or pocket center or wherever
1:01:04
they were going or something like that and it's just like
1:01:07
there's got to be a better way than this it's like i'm willing to trade
1:01:10
ten idiots that i know of that i grew up with for that one guy
1:01:14
because that guy's awesome he believes in this country
1:01:17
he's not just gonna sit on his laurels he's gonna help produce for us and i don't
1:01:20
care what color he is or what food he likes he i don't give a crap
1:01:23
about any of that but that's just something i thought about but again
1:01:26
that's not that's not border protection right that is immigration policy and
1:01:30
who the heck knows um one thing i did want to ask about as well
1:01:34
because maybe you saw this maybe you didn't address it in the book really
1:01:37
um but the corruption of particular border patrol agents
1:01:41
you did talk about in the book how in different border towns
1:01:44
there would be just normal regular old people
1:01:47
that were all of a sudden drug mules and they just were like hey you know they
1:01:51
needed some money to get by you know local law enforcement would be corrupt
1:01:55
local politicians would be corrupt they would help facilitate
1:01:59
drugs entering this country and there's been a lot made about fentanyl
1:02:02
and the deaths that have come from that but the product is coming from china
1:02:06
they're they're making it in mexico and then they're muelling it across the
1:02:09
border but there's got to be dirty agents border patrol
1:02:13
agents so it's like how do you identify that what the heck do you even do
1:02:17
like because this isn't like a twenty dollar hand shape to get into a club
1:02:21
this is like you're helping mule stuff that's going to kill americans
1:02:24
while having the job that says border patrol across your vest you know
1:02:29
yeah yeah no there's um there's obviously you know there's i think
1:02:32
there's a website that highlights every border patrol agent or customization
1:02:35
who is caught doing doing the wrong thing um and i think when you're dealing
1:02:40
with drugs and the financial i guess um opportunities that some of these guys
1:02:45
see and take is what's interesting to them i guess they they want to receive
1:02:49
this extra money and the border agents honestly get paid
1:02:52
pretty well compared to the local pop uh you know police department and other
1:02:56
law enforcement agencies but yeah there's corruption in
1:03:00
every law enforcement including the border patrol and
1:03:02
you know i was working in the border with an individual and we were we were
1:03:06
actually workout partners and again i don't know the details of his case but
1:03:10
eventually he had to resign because it was under investigation
1:03:13
i don't hang out with the kid 24/7 i go do my job in the special operations he
1:03:17
goes does his job we go at night we work out we used to go to the bar together
1:03:20
you know he started dating a certain individual that we knew had a
1:03:24
connection to her past which was a you know a guy she dated was a cartel
1:03:29
member and so you start to create distance and so i had to create
1:03:32
distance i found a new workout partner and i was just you know guys were talking
1:03:35
they were saying hey man um that might not be smart to hang out with him anymore
1:03:38
i was like oh dude that sucked because he seems like a really good
1:03:40
dude and it was shortly after he ended up getting released from the agency
1:03:44
which um sometimes i believe they don't find the
1:03:47
hard evidence they're looking for but they're still able to
1:03:50
to remove guys from the agency by having enough information
1:03:54
uh and i think um i think someone someone obviously just
1:03:57
told on him whatever it was but i never saw anything you know i think i hung out
1:04:01
with the dude a lot i worked out with the guy
1:04:03
and never put two and two together because i was so involved in my world so
1:04:06
it's very easy to miss things like that and i feel like i'm a very
1:04:09
in tune individual um and i imagine what would have happened
1:04:13
probably she manipulated him to doing these things and and i think it was
1:04:17
it was the the conversation of transporting um you know
1:04:20
hard drugs cocaine and whatnot and so yeah it's not
1:04:25
it's not uncommon uh as in well i would say it is uncommon but it's not
1:04:30
you know it happens and that's just an unfortunate thing
1:04:33
with dealing with drugs and the financial backing that drugs come
1:04:37
they come with drugs and anywhere that you work you're gonna have people like
1:04:41
that like you know there are people that are wearing
1:04:44
the badge and they're gonna help mule and there's people at your office
1:04:47
building that's still pencils and so it's like there there's always somebody
1:04:50
that is like doing something they shouldn't be doing because we're all
1:04:53
fallen sinful human beings and you know sometimes we make
1:04:56
decisions in our best interests which are not moral or righteous
1:04:59
um as we want to do a close here um this is something i just kind of stuck
1:05:03
at the end of my notes because i was like you know if we had time to really
1:05:05
get into it and maybe it's a little bit or ridiculous to
1:05:07
tack it on here at the end but as i was reading through the book
1:05:11
and i was kind of thinking about the narrative that you're you're creating
1:05:13
for us and obviously you know we we spent all this time talking about
1:05:16
different border patrol type things i saw a connection that you didn't
1:05:20
explicitly make here in the book but i wanted to ask you about it
1:05:23
so very early in the book you have a quote about your father and it's this
1:05:26
his work ethic and fierce love for his family
1:05:29
intimidated me but also inspired me i had much to live up to and failure was
1:05:34
never an option now Vincent when you talk about your father in this book
1:05:38
everything is very very positive but i was struck by the word intimidated
1:05:43
um and it reminded me of when you describe staff sergeant Ricardo Baraza
1:05:48
because this is a guy and again you can read it in the book and you've got
1:05:51
youtube videos out there but Ricardo Baraza was
1:05:54
basically like the model ranger right and this was a guy that you really
1:05:58
looked up to and y'all competed for a while and you know you talked about the
1:06:02
thing after that like pick up football game and kind of what he said to you
1:06:05
and and i'll leave that for people that are going to pick up and read the book
1:06:08
but how that was like a turning point for you
1:06:10
and then no spoiler here but uh uh staff sergeant baraza
1:06:14
passed away he was killed while fighting the gwad i think it was an
1:06:17
Iraq and you know it was one of those moments for you where it's like this
1:06:21
is this is the model ranger he's the perfect ranger how could he die
1:06:24
like a yes it's a dangerous job but he not not for a guy like him
1:06:28
but i just saw a connection at least for me between your father who was
1:06:32
a man that you were deeply intimidated by but you loved
1:06:36
so deeply as well because he inspired you and i feel like you have similar
1:06:40
feelings towards Ricardo Baraza so i guess talk to me
1:06:43
am i crazy or is there a connection for you there
1:06:46
with those two guys yeah definitely so my father was a former marine and he
1:06:50
i don't think it ever you know it it ever got out of his system
1:06:53
there's technically there's technically never a former marine they will tell you
1:06:56
that they're like no one's ever a former marine we're just retired
1:06:59
he was a marine and he is and uh you know he was a
1:07:03
very very stern and and i would say just uh
1:07:08
he was strict you know and you woke up at seven o'clock half the day is gone
1:07:12
at seven a.m half the day it's gone he's already done his walk he hit his coffee
1:07:15
and read the newspaper you know what i mean like he's
1:07:17
that kind of guy so uh there was times where like you try to find a way to get
1:07:20
out of the house or else you know you know the beast dad would become a
1:07:23
clear room noob or bro and so as much as a kid i probably
1:07:28
did not like that as i got older i realized how much i respected that
1:07:31
and how much he's taught me to be a good man
1:07:34
and i think bras was the one who continued to teach me how to be a good man
1:07:39
as a ranger but not only as a ranger as a a thoughtful person
1:07:45
you know we would do training and he'd say is that what you want is that what
1:07:48
you want to answer to when you get to the pearly gates
1:07:51
like how do you how do you engage someone overseas and then you have to
1:07:55
you're gonna have to speak on that when you see god right and those things were
1:07:58
just grounding for me that i continue to hold dear
1:08:01
in my heart and so yeah so on bras i look up to him
1:08:05
like another father in me and in what i don't mention i don't mention a lot
1:08:09
my focus was to give the bottle to all the all the glory i could
1:08:13
but he was younger than me and so to be a man who looked up to a man who was
1:08:17
younger than him it was humbling for me and when i
1:08:21
lost him i was very fortunate to have my father with me at the time when we
1:08:24
we laid him to rest and it brought me and my father even closer
1:08:28
those are two important men in my life and i was able to share one of the
1:08:31
hardest days of my life with my father being there for me
1:08:33
supporting me and so um i love my father he's been
1:08:37
he's all he was a hard hard dude he still is a hard dude
1:08:40
but um when i get to see his heart man it's just been beautiful
1:08:44
when i think that that is a good message that i'm sure you would co-sign for the
1:08:47
fathers out there that have sons that have maybe been influenced by our
1:08:51
feminist culture which says hey don't be too hard on the boys
1:08:54
and you know don't don't try to make things more difficult on them don't
1:08:56
try to instill discipline like give them more space give them more whatever
1:09:00
men need struggle right like this this idea that we're just going to retire
1:09:04
and sit on the beach someday like yeah that's good like as
1:09:06
Jordan Pearson's point yeah that's good for like two weeks and then what are
1:09:09
you going to do i'm just going to drink more pina coladas we
1:09:12
need struggle we need difficult things that we do
1:09:15
whether that's jujitsu or hunting or working out or you know
1:09:19
whatever thing that we're doing or writing a book or whatever that thing
1:09:22
is that's going to tax us it's the strong men in your life that are
1:09:25
showing the other men hey there's a standard here and i'm the standard
1:09:30
bearer and i'm going to show you and remind you of what it is that you
1:09:33
have signed up to live up to as a member of this household or as a
1:09:37
member of this unit or as a member of this whatever
1:09:40
that's a good thing for all of us to do so that's just a good reminder for
1:09:42
everybody so i guess last question of the day that i got for you
1:09:44
Vincent is do i know you well enough now to not call you Vincent anymore can i
1:09:48
just call you Rocco from here on out is that can we do that yep absolutely
1:09:52
all right well that's all for me is there anything else you want to get off
1:09:55
your chest no that's it thank you so much for
1:09:57
the interview i really appreciate it all right Rocco Vargas thank you for
1:10:00
coming on dawn to the life of man's podcast
1:10:03
yeah thank you there you go guys hope you enjoyed my time with Rocco Vargas but
1:10:07
before we let you go we are going to do a quick resilience boost our mission
1:10:09
out on dawn to life is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
1:10:12
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you today is i got a link to the book borderline
1:10:18
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1:10:22
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1:11:00
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1:11:05
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