Southern California Stay At Home Order Extended As COVID-19 Floods Hospitals

Speaker 1: 00:00 Stay at home orders could be extended as hospitals prep for another service Speaker 2: 00:04 Yesterday, we only had six ICU beds available in our healthcare system. Today we have 12 staff beds available, but unfortunately that's as a result of nine deaths. Speaker 1: 00:12 I'm Jade Heintzman with Maureen Kavanaugh. This is midday edition, A trans woman's journey to seek asylum at our border and a close look at how our immigration system is working. Plus a look ahead at how a new administration may change that Speaker 3: 00:35 People have been returned to their desks, who arguably were the kind of people that the system was created to protect Speaker 1: 00:42 That's ahead on midday edition. Speaker 1: 01:01 After Thanksgiving gatherings and holiday shopping, COVID-19 continues to spread at a fast pace. ICU's are filling up to capacity, and now the governor is considering extending the state. Stay at home orders. It's an effort to slow. The spread just as vaccines are being dispersed and scientists are looking into the possibility of a more contagious mutation in the virus circulating through California. So how are hospitals fairing? Joining me is Chris van Gorder, CEO of Scripps health. Chris. Welcome. Thank you very much. So the Southern California region is still at 0% ICU capacity. How is scripts doing right now? Speaker 2: 01:39 Well, right now we are 89% fault. It's actually a little bit better than we were yesterday. Uh, yesterday we only had six ICU beds available in our healthcare system today. We have 12 staff beds available, but unfortunately that's as a result of, of nine deaths, uh, COVID deaths in the last 24 hours. And, uh, the good news is we were able to discharge 48, uh COVID patients back home again. So there's a lot of turnover of patients, a lot of admissions, um, and a lot of discharges every day, but we're staying very full. Speaker 1: 02:10 Um, and how is that impacting care a little over a week ago, we began hearing about ambulances waiting outside hospitals for hours before being able to transfer patients. Is that something scripts has experienced, Speaker 2: 02:22 I'm not aware of, of ambulances having to wait hours outside of our, um, hospitals. Uh, clearly we try to clear them as soon as we possibly can, but as I said, we're full. Um, right now, um, we have 413 COVID patients, uh, in house. Um, but we have 16, uh, in the emergency rooms right now waiting for bed availability. So anytime we have regular emergencies, plus this large amount of COVID patients that are in the emergency rooms in this case, 16 more waiting for beds inside the hospital, it will have an impact on the EMS system as well. Speaker 1: 02:57 And is the virus extending wait time in the ER for care? Speaker 2: 03:03 Well, we're very busy. So care probably is extended a little bit longer. I don't have the actual numbers in front of me right now, but, uh, we try to get our patients through the system as fast as we can. Obviously most of the patients that come to the emergency room are sent home the very same day. Um, but, uh, as busy as we are, and as busy as every hospital in San Diego County is I'm sure the wait times are a little bit Speaker 1: 03:25 And has scripts had to transfer patients to other hospitals to increase capacity at all. Speaker 2: 03:29 We transfer patients every day within our healthcare system, we have not had to transfer outside of our system. So every day we transfer non COVID patients to open up capacity, primarily at Scripps mercy, Chula Vista and scripts, mercy, San Diego. So last night, uh, we transferred three COVID patients, one to LA Jolla and, uh, uh, two to green hospital. Speaker 1: 03:52 And are you accepting patients from other hospitals in the County? Speaker 2: 03:55 Well, we were a tertiary healthcare system with a, with a trauma center. So, uh, we accept trauma patients from other hospitals, um, every day. Uh, that's part of our, our responsibility. We are not accepting transfers. Uh, COVID transfers right now from outside of the County, uh, Imperial County, for example, but we do accept trauma cases, uh, or, uh, cases that need a higher level of care from Imperial County that happens on a regular basis. Speaker 1: 04:21 Home order went into effect on December six at scripts. Have you started to see the impact of that order yet? Speaker 2: 04:27 Really? Um, we, you know, saw a big surge, uh, after Halloween. Uh, we saw an even bigger surge as a result of Thanksgiving. Um, yesterday for example, uh, we, our, our COVID census went up by 26 patients. So that's actually a very large increase in our overall census, uh, in the County there's 1,590 COVID patients in our hospitals and our County hospitals right now. And that has been increasing every day for several weeks. So we haven't really seen a flattening out yet. And unfortunately we anticipate another surge, uh, because of Christmas. And we expect a surge on a surge out of surge, uh, after new year's, which is why we're pleading with everybody out there to try to stay at home, limit your travel, follow the guidelines, uh, because we are maxing out a hospital capacity of San Diego County. Speaker 1: 05:19 I've been speaking with Chris van Gorder, CEO of Scripps health. Thank you so much for joining us, Chris. My pleasure. Thank you. Or we turn now to Scott Evans, who is the CEO of sharp Grossmont. He's joining us from the hospital's COVID vaccination clinic. Scott. Welcome. Good morning, Jane. How are you? Good, thanks. Uh, can you tell me how staffing and capacity are holding up in your ICU is right now? Speaker 2: 05:42 Sure, absolutely. Well, it certainly has been rough Jade. Uh, right now we're using 69 of our 75 ICU beds, of course. Um, but many of those patients are extremely sick. The issue really isn't about physical beds. It's more about, uh, today Speaker 4: 05:58 Actually we're doing a little bit better than yesterday, but we are running usually a four or five, uh, ICU nurses short, and we tend to use nursing extenders to fill those roles, which are nurses that float in from non ICU units that cover. And so that's how we're, we're making it work. Speaker 1: 06:16 And how does that impact patient care? Well, Speaker 4: 06:19 Um, we hope that it doesn't, but of course it could cause delays in care at any given time. And so we have, you know, a very busy emergency room here at sharp Grossmont, and we have patients that are needing to come up to beds. And so those hold times are longer in the emergency room, which I think is an impact. The other item that actually impacts that a little bit is the discharge process. And so if we have patients that are going to a skilled nursing facility, some of those skilled nursing facilities are closed to admissions at this time. And so it sort of backs up the process as you, as you might imagine, it makes it very tight. Speaker 1: 06:54 If governor Newsome's predictions of COVID cases are right with 100,000 hospitalizations in the coming weeks. Do you see your hospital having to ration care at any point? Speaker 4: 07:05 Uh, well we hope not. Uh, but we certainly do, uh, have those processes in place if we need to move to a crisis level of care. Uh, San Diego County, uh, has many plans prepared in order for hospitals to do that as well as hospital and other and health systems. And so while we are hopeful that that is not the case and that we're able to continue to operate at a standard level of care we are prepared to do so if the need arises, Speaker 1: 07:34 Have you all been able to get any relief so far by sending patients to the Palomar field hospital forests, Speaker 4: 07:40 Uh, Grossmont has not, uh, sent any patients over there. Um, we are essentially monitoring our situation, you know, daily, uh, if not, uh, several times a day to see what our needs are. Uh, we are really trying to be self-sufficient to, to the extent that we can, uh, and continuing to deliver care. Um, but, but we do know, uh, that that is, uh, an available option. Uh, if we do need to use it, Speaker 1: 08:05 Have you guys had to send any patients outside of sharp? I'm Speaker 4: 08:08 Not aware of any that we have yet. Okay. Speaker 1: 08:11 Uh, you know, with scientists looking into a more contagious variant of this virus, are there ways you all can prepare for far more hospitalizations than what's being projected? Speaker 4: 08:21 Well, I think we're learning a lot right now. Um, and we're certainly learning a lot about how to manage our capacity, um, and having been doing this now for, uh, several months, I think we're actually getting better at it. Although I will say that the, um, the exhaustion level is high, uh, with, with much of our staff. Um, I think that, um, that we're, we, the things that we're learning will absolutely inform us, uh, going forward. And so, um, we, we certainly are making sure that we are always we'll have enough ventilators we'll have enough ECMO machines, uh, those type of things. And I think even as we're going forward on things like master campus planning, uh, where we're looking at, uh, capacity for, for our hospitals, I think, um, especially I know at our hospital, uh, we're certainly taking a stronger look to make sure that we're not minimizing any of the truly critical care areas, um, in, in any plans going forward. You know, um, people have thought for a long time that care is moving more outpatient, but we see that when a, a crisis and a pandemic like this develops, um, certainly that inpatient capacity is needed. And so I think that we're going to have to take a strong look at that. Speaker 5: 09:36 Is there anything you'd like for people to keep in mind, uh, as we continue in this pandemic? Speaker 4: 09:41 Yeah. I, I think, you know, people keep saying this, but it is important to reiterate. Uh, we really do have to make sure that we're doing all of the things to keep ourselves healthy. Uh, when vaccination is available, we certainly want to make sure that folks are vaccinated. There's an order to that. And, you know, we've vaccinated, uh, literally thousands of people now at Grossmont, um, and across the sharp system, of course, and I know other health systems are doing that. I think that, uh, social distancing and masking is extremely important, um, especially around the holidays. Uh, and I know that people are getting weary of that, but that is, uh, that is what works. Um, and so we always want to, uh, uh, make sure that people are doing that so that we're here to take care of them in the event that they have non COVID related issues as well, like strokes and, uh, heart attacks. Uh, as you might imagine Speaker 5: 10:38 In speaking with Scott Evans, CEO of sharp Grossmont, Scott, thank you so much, Speaker 4: 10:42 Joining us. Thank you very much, Jay. You have a great day. Speaker 6: 10:50 This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Maureen Cavenaugh with Jade Heinemann Luna. Guzman has risked everything to seek asylum in the U S a transgender woman. She left her native Guatemala behind to find a life in California, the one place in the world where she could imagine being safe today, we bring you a documentary special about Guzman from the California report magazine host. Sasha Coca has followed her over the last two years, reporting from a migrant shelter in Tijuana, an ice detention center here in San Diego and a tiny drag bar in Modesto. Her story says a lot about how U S immigration policy fails when it comes to recognizing people who live outside the gender binary, how the Epic backlog of asylum cases in the U S can add to their trauma and how transgender migrants at the border are particularly vulnerable to COVID. 19. Speaker 5: 11:48 Recently, I got a voicemail from somebody who was breathing so heavily. I could hardly tell who it was. I felt my stomach drop. When I heard the voice in Spanish lungs fighting the Corona virus. It was someone whose story I'd been following for almost two years. Someone whose life I couldn't imagine could get any harder. Now sick with COVID in the ICU, 26 years old, HIV positive in and out of ice detention. Speaker 3: 12:30 Yes, Speaker 5: 12:33 Her name is Luna Guzman, and she was calling me to thank me for following her all this time, traveling to a migrant shelter in deep Juana, to an ice detention center in San Diego and a tiny drag bar in Modesto. She said, if she dies from COVID, she hopes people will remember a little bit about her and just a warning. This piece contains descriptions of sexual violence. She turned 15, like so many girls in her town in Guatemala, Luna who smart, celebrated with a keen Sangeeta Speaker 3: 13:17 [inaudible] Speaker 7: 13:18 [inaudible]. They will not companera, but Chiara you're my friend. Let me the dress because she started away scribe a time past the dress shop on the way to school, all of those beautiful dresses. I was just pressed my hand up against the glass and stare at them for a long time. The dress she bought Speaker 5: 13:39 Road was turquoise with a long skirt. She took off her tennis and put on heels and a Tiara. Speaker 3: 13:50 [inaudible] Speaker 5: 13:50 She and her friends, girls she'd known since kindergarten listened to the classic song. Quincenera by Talia, the lyrics are all about growing up, changing into a woman, your body changing Speaker 7: 14:03 Your dreams, changing Speaker 3: 14:08 [inaudible] Speaker 7: 14:10 [inaudible]. We had a cake two or three bottles of champagne. [inaudible] boys Speaker 5: 14:19 Dressed up in suits to escort her into the party, but no one was there from Luna's family. It was a secret party at a friend's house whose parents were away. And that Luna says was her coming of age as a young woman, a 15 year old, whose mother loved her as a son, totally accepted her as a gay son, but couldn't fathom her as a girl. Speaker 3: 14:46 [inaudible] Speaker 5: 14:46 Those moments putting on the turquoise dress, the heels, the Tiara, still linger in Luna's memory. As a time, she truly felt delight and freedom, something to be savored again and again, as the next decade began to unfold. Even as she put back on her soccer jerseys and tried to look like the boy, she knew she wasn't inside. Even as she dealt with brutal violence. And even as she decided to take a terrible risk and leave everything behind in Guatemala, to try to find a life in California, the one place in the world where she can imagine being safe, being Her story says a lot about how U S immigration policy fails when it comes to recognizing people who live outside the gender binary, how this country's Epic backlog of asylum cases can add to their trauma about the tenacity. It takes to try to come to California from central America. If you're transgender, Growing up in Guatemala, Luna says everyone in her town knew she was different. An openly gay kid who referred to herself in the feminine pronoun in Spanish over the years, she says neighbors harassed her repeatedly. Speaker 7: 16:07 Some women started throwing rocks at me. I was a bad example for their kids. Some of the women to water, water Speaker 3: 16:17 With bleach. Speaker 5: 16:22 And one day when Luna was 13, just on the cusp of adolescence, she says she was raped by an older man who was a neighbor. I would ask Speaker 7: 16:37 [inaudible] if anyone is up there, explain it to me. Why me? Speaker 5: 16:43 By the way, that voice you're hearing in English is Zoe Luna, no relation. She's a pioneering trans actress. And we've asked her to do the voiceover in English for Luna story. Sex trafficking is rampant in Guatemala. The UN has denounced. The shocking number of children forced into sex trafficking rings because of poverty and Luna became one of them. Some powerful men in her town forced her into prostitution. The clients were older. Men who Luna says, would pay hundreds of us dollars to sleep with young boys and transgender girls. Speaker 7: 17:21 I made them a lot of money. They forced me to use drugs, drug save it's out of my clients so much older than me. [inaudible] Speaker 5: 17:32 The trafficker is had connections with police. Luna says, so there was nowhere she could complain. Then when she was 16, she says, she found out she was HIV positive. And she remembers the harassment from her neighbors getting once she remembers some of them beat her up so badly, they broke her collarbone telling her they wanted her to behave like a real man. Speaker 7: 18:00 [inaudible] my town is so small and there was no information about sexual orientation or HIV, no information about anything it's. So close-minded Speaker 5: 18:12 When she turned 19, she says she was still being forced into sex work sometimes, but she started to take some small steps to rest back control of her life. She signed up to become a volunteer. Firefighter went through the training course, saved money for the uniform. She felt so powerful. Rescuing people from car accidents, hosing down burning buildings. But then she says the other firefighters found out she was HIV positive and kept haunting her with homophobic slurs. Speaker 7: 18:46 San Francisco. I dreamed about coming to California to San Francisco. Speaker 5: 18:52 She'd seen videos online of San Francisco's massive pride parade. She knew California was a place. She couldn't be fired or evicted for being transgender, where she would have the legal right to get an ID in the name she wants to use or use the restroom that matches her gender identity. Speaker 7: 19:11 They completely miss venues. [inaudible] to follow my dreams, not so much to get ahead financially, but just to make enough money to pay for my transition to flee the life. I lived in Guatemala [inaudible]. Speaker 5: 19:29 So one day about four years ago, she decided to leave her town. Leave her family, the fire department, the neighbors, the pimps. She was 22 years. Speaker 7: 19:40 I feel [inaudible] Speaker 5: 19:45 Luna shows me pictures from the journey of her sitting on top of that famous train. Love best. Yeah. That migrants take North. It's easy to pick her out. She slight with the same gap, tooth smile and mischievous Glint in her eye. She didn't wear women's clothes on the journey, but as she's done for most of her life, she kept her hair short and wore men's t-shirts and shorts for safety. But presenting as a man, didn't always protect her. Speaker 5: 20:17 When Luna made it to de Quana, it was August of 2017. Back then she could just walk up to the border crossing and ask for asylum. She told an officer she feared homophobic violence, but border patrol officials didn't check the boxes on her intake form saying she identified as LGBT. And that's where things started to go wrong for her ice. Put her in the OTI Mesa detention center near San Diego gave her a bed in a crowded men's unit. 10 days after being taken into custody, an asylum officer vetted her story and found her credible. She told the officer she was gay, HIV positive and was afraid she would be harmed in Guatemala because she sometimes dressed as a woman. According to its own policies. The government is supposed to give detainees like Luna access to a special trans detention unit, but they didn't. Luna spent months in the men's unit before her asylum case could be heard in front of a judge. Speaker 7: 21:22 Good morning. This is immigration judge Olga at sitting in the immigration court in OTI Mesa, California, Speaker 5: 21:28 Day 50 in detention. Luna has an interpreter, but no lawyer, Speaker 7: 21:35 You have the right to be represented by an attorney or a qualified representative of your own choosing at no expense to the government. Speaker 5: 21:44 If you didn't catch that, the judge is saying that if Luna wants an attorney, she has to find one and pay for one herself. Speaker 7: 21:52 [inaudible]. I want to look for an attorney. Speaker 5: 21:55 Day 90 in detention. Luna tells the judge she can't afford her own lawyer, and she's had no luck finding a pro bono one after sending letters to lots of organizations, Speaker 7: 22:05 Cecil [inaudible]. Yes, your honor. I am ready to proceed and speak on my behalf. Speaker 5: 22:12 Now that I have day one 56 in detention, Luna finally gets a chance to officially submit her asylum application. You can hear the judge stamp it. There you go, sir. And tell her it looks complete. But then the judge tells her there are no available appointments to hear the merits of her case for another five months. The courts that backlogged Day one 82 in detention, after nearly six months, the judge says Luna can be released on a bond of $4,500, but like many asylum seekers, she has no one to help pay that kind of money. Luna pleads with the judge telling her being locked up is harming her psychologically. Speaker 7: 23:04 [inaudible] Speaker 5: 23:05 Two 26 in detention. Luna does something she never expected to do. She gives up on her asylum case and asks to be deported, right? Speaker 7: 23:22 [inaudible] so then it's going to be about eight months that I've been detained here at the detention center, the [inaudible], um, and I feel alone and I do not have the words to explain to you, your honor. I apologize Speaker 8: 23:46 For the interpreter would like to mention Speaker 5: 23:49 The interpreter takes a pause. She's confused. She thinks Luna is a man because of her appearance and her legal name, but Luna's referring to herself in the feminine, in Spanish. The judge asks for clarification still calling Luna, sir. Speaker 8: 24:06 Now you've indicated to the courts or that you no longer are interested in pursuing your application for asylum. Is that correct? Speaker 5: 24:18 Luna says yes, but you can hear her voice cracking. There's no way to win. She's either got to stay locked up in the men's facility or give up her only ticket to be able to stay in the U S Speaker 7: 24:28 Yes. Speaker 5: 24:32 On the plane ice chartered back to Guatemala. Luna says she had a panic attack, shaking so badly. She could barely walk out onto the tarmac when they landed in Guatemala city. As soon as she could, she got back on buses and trains to begin the long journey North towards California. Again, I meet Luna several months later on a trip to Tijuana at a migrant shelter called Casa [inaudible]. I'm reporting on the migrant caravans at the border. And I interview so many central American asylum seekers, but something about Luna strikes me. Maybe it's her persistence. When she talks about coming to California, Speaker 7: 25:21 I'm a transgender woman. I'm not going to live my life dress as a boy. No, no, no, no. One day I want everyone who knows me to say Luna. Nana made it. She fought for her dreams and they can true. Speaker 5: 25:44 One night, about six months after I started following Luna's story, I get a collect call from a detention center to accept the call Luna. Speaker 8: 25:55 Oh no. Speaker 5: 25:58 Luna is back at OTI Mesa, the detention center, just East of San Diego in the same cell in the same bed where she had stayed the year before Ice grants me permission to visit her. There a guard leads me to a tiny room where Luna is waiting the word detainees emblazoned in white letters on the back of her blue uniform. Speaker 7: 26:32 Love it. Speaker 5: 26:34 She looks gaunt and exhausted, but her eyes are still bright. She says the sexual harassment here has been a nightmare. Luna tells me she can't afford to buy shampoo or soap or chocolate bars in the commissary. She says other inmates have offered to buy them for her in exchange for sexual favors. Speaker 7: 27:03 [inaudible] I'm not going to do something I don't want to do for a cup of soup that cost 60 cents or some chocolate or a packet of oatmeal that costs 30 cents. I'm not going to have sex with anyone here. [inaudible] I'm guessing [inaudible] discrimination on the outside here. It's a different world. It's worse. Okay. You're trapped. Speaker 5: 27:31 What Luna's telling me resonates with a study showing that LGBT migrants are nearly a hundred times more likely to be sexually victimized in detention. Luna says that clink of handcuffs, the crackle of the guards walkie-talkies has come to hunt her dreams. Speaker 7: 27:50 Listen, you hear that. [inaudible] that sound all the time, day and night. And I'm traumatized from hearing the sound of the keys. Really like Jarvis wait all the time, even in your dreams, you think they're coming for you to handcuff you or your sound of the keys. The sound of the doors. [inaudible] Speaker 5: 28:39 This stint in detention lasts only a couple of months. Luna crossed without papers after being deported once already, even the second time around, she might've had legal grounds to make a claim to stay, but without a lawyer, she didn't know her options. I supported her back to Guatemala. Again, Speaker 3: 29:13 [inaudible] Speaker 5: 29:14 An official with a megaphone stands in the Guatemala city, airport, greeting deportees, almost all young men with a warm welcome plus a sandwich and an orange soda. Luna gets off the ice chartered plane. She counts out for us dollar bills from a plastic bag, marked personal property it's money. She says she earned working in the laundry at the detention center, a human advocate, warns Luna that she could be killed here and sends her to a safe house. But Luna wants to get out of Guatemala and try once again to make it to California. And she finds a way to do it with some money wired to her from an unexpected source of help. It's a Friday night at the brave bull. One of the oldest gay bars in California. It's not in San Francisco or LA, but Modesto, a huge old fashioned disco ball twirls above a trio of drag performers in cowboy hats, a guy strumming, a guitar and two very glamorous gals in high heeled boots, lip sinking to Ana about, about us song. Speaker 7: 30:28 Okay. Speaker 5: 30:29 [inaudible] I'm looking for a heart. It's a song. These drag performers are dedicating to Luna. Speaker 7: 30:39 I just want to say thank you to everyone to comes out to support every time we perform and then do shout out to a friend of ours, um, Luna, who is a trans woman who has been deported. And we have been trying to show her so much love all the way from the California. Think everyone, Speaker 5: 31:01 This surprising crew rooting for Luna is led by a kind of fairy godfather. Tony Rodriguez. He first heard about Luna. When I reported a short part of her story from the wanna for the California report back in 2018, Tony's a former truck driver who came to Modesto, looking for his own California dream, a place where he could transition to male. He grew up in the Bronx, in a Puerto Rican family and his mom rejected him, Speaker 4: 31:30 But it was California where I had set my sights because that's just where I knew I could really be the person that I wanted to be. It turns out that for me, it worked out great. I had great support from my coworkers. I have great support from my friends. Then I hear about Luna and I'm like, well, I had it. Okay. So you know, why not help somebody else? So maybe their transition and their journey could be a little bit easier. Speaker 5: 31:58 Tony sent Luna $80 after she got deported money that helped her make her way back to Mexico. Now they've been talking over WhatsApp ever since Speaker 4: 32:15 [inaudible] Speaker 5: 32:25 Now it's spring 2019. Luna leaves me a voicemail saying she's made her third journey North to [inaudible] in Chiapas, just across the border from Guatemala. She's feeling safe enough to dress. As a woman, she meets up with some new friends who are also transgender for dinner at a cafe. And she calls me at six. The next morning Speaker 7: 32:58 Champ. Speaker 5: 33:02 She tells me she was the last one waiting for a taxi. After her friends left the cafe, then a car pulled up. She says five armed men abducted her, took her to a remote area and raped and beat her. Speaker 7: 33:21 Why does it go wrong? Speaker 5: 33:22 I urge her to go to the hospital to tell the police, but she tells me just like in Guatemala, the Mexican police in Chiapas would probably do nothing. Just laugh at her and say homophobic things. I haven't been able to confirm Luna was raped because she didn't report it to anybody. And this is part of the paradox for asylum seekers. They're expected to document and prove all the horrible things that have happened to them. When sometimes in fact, the act of reporting these abuses could put them in more danger. Of course, as a journalist, I've done my best to vet her story kick. UED where we produce the California report even had to Sue the department of Homeland security to get her records released from ice, which we finally did after almost a year, It's fall 2019 now. And Luna finally gets some good news. She's granted a humanitarian visa to stay in Mexico. At least temporarily. I go to Tijuana to meet her at the section of border fence, where she crossed the last time she tried to come to California. She points to squirrels and dragonflies flitting between the slats of the fence between countries, without even knowing it Speaker 7: 34:43 [inaudible] at those squirrels coming and going. And that cap, it just crossed the border through the gaps in the fence, and then slipped back into Mexico. It's only we humans who don't have that freedom. Speaker 5: 34:56 She takes a rock and bangs on the metal border fence. Speaker 7: 35:00 It's in that solid wall. It's a wall that kills your dreams takes away everything. I told myself. Then when I climbed over this wall, I would leave my past behind. I would be reborn [inaudible] Speaker 5: 35:26 [inaudible] hi. Yeah. [inaudible] I asked her what she thinks as she looks through the fence to California, Speaker 7: 35:35 The United States so close, but I can't get there. That's California and I can't be there one day. I will, California. Can I be 20, 50 or 21 hundreds, but I will get there Speaker 5: 36:03 That trip about a year ago was the last time I saw Luna when COVID-19 hit, she left me a voicemail that she planned to shelter in place with a friend outside of Ensanata Speaker 7: 36:24 [inaudible] Speaker 5: 36:24 We chatted a bit about the COVID outbreak at OTI Mesa, where she was detained the year before among ice detention centers. It turned out to have one of the biggest outbreaks of COVID. In fact, the first detainees in ice custody to die of it died there. Hearing that I felt relieved that Luna was far away from detention that ironically being deported may have saved her life. And then I got that phone call that she had COVID Then as it's done so many times over the last two years, my WhatsApp feed with Luna went quiet for weeks. I tried to call the public hospital in Tijuana to track her down, but I couldn't get through, but a few weeks later, Luna left me another message from her hospital bed. They took her off the vent, Speaker 7: 37:25 Got God. I thought it was going to die. Speaker 5: 37:30 This Luna. Speaker 7: 37:32 She's still here resisting everything. I know this virus isn't going to kill me. I've gotten a lot more life than me, a lot. I still want to say I don't need a ventilator because I'm a strong woman. I've made it through everything. I'm going to make it through this. I'm still here. Speaker 5: 37:58 An epilogue to Luna's story. She says in November, the Mexican government extended her humanitarian visa for another year, but she's having trouble earning a living in Tijuana. She has lingering symptoms from COVID-19, including fatigue, difficulty breathing and sore vocal chords. Her immune system is also struggling to fight HIV, but Luna says she's ready to try for asylum in the U S again, she's hopeful. President elect, Joe Biden will make good on a campaign promise to quote and president Trump's detrimental asylum policies. This is KPBS midday edition. Speaker 6: 38:36 I'm Maureen Cavenaugh with Jade Heinemann just before the break, we heard KQ ETS report on Luna Guzman, a transgender woman who has tried to escape persecution and violence in her native Guatemala by seeking asylum in the U S Luna's journey has a spanned a number of years and several attempts to claim asylum, but she's still a long way from achieving her dream of living in America. This year at the San Diego union Tribune produced a multi-part series of in-depth reports on the us asylum system. The series is called returned and joining me is San Diego union Tribune, immigration reporter, Kate Marcy, Kate, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having no, for all practical purposes. Does the us have a working asylum system in place right now? Speaker 8: 39:25 Well, we don't really have, um, people entering into it, uh, fresh right now. So if somebody comes to the border today and with, with the intention of seeking protection, um, most likely they're going to be turned back under, um, this pandemic policy through, through an order issued by the CDC that, um, you know, basically says anybody who's, who's a migrant seeking asylum. We're not going to let them into the country during the pandemic. So they either get returned back to the country that they were most recently in. So most likely Mexico, um, or in some cases put on planes back to their home countries. It's, it's sort of a mix. Speaker 6: 40:07 Now, the situation has gotten a lot worse for asylum seekers in the last four years. What are some of the changes that Trump administration has made? Speaker 8: 40:16 The first changes that we really saw came through, um, the attorney general and the department of justice because immigration court, unlike most courts that we think about in the United States is actually in the executive branch of government. And the attorney general is the boss of the judges. So the attorney general has these special powers to, um, sort of redisign, uh, precedent and case law in immigration. And, uh, we've seen the attorney general do that over and over again, and sort of restrict definitions and, and cut out groups of people who might otherwise have been considered as qualifying for asylum. Um, and then we saw, you know, the remain in Mexico program, which has been a huge change for asylum seekers experiences when they're, when they're coming to the United States. Um, it requires people to, to stay in Mexico while they wait for their cases to, to happen in immigration court, they cross back and forth to go to their hearings, but they are on their own trying to find, you know, places to live food, to eat, figuring out how to sustain themselves and stay safe in, in, you know, border cities in Mexico where migrants are, are notoriously targeted for, for all kinds of harm. Speaker 8: 41:25 So, and then we've seen, you know, restriction after restriction since then trying to sort of every kind of tweak imaginable, make fewer people eligible for the system, or even have access to the system. And even just in the last couple of weeks, we've seen more rule changes coming out of the administration. So that's, that's still an ongoing thing. Speaker 6: 41:44 Yeah. Could the new Biden administration reverse those changes and make the asylum system workable again? Speaker 8: 41:50 Well, the Biden administration could work to, to undo what the Trump administration has done, um, that will take time and, and a lot of figuring out of how to go about it. Uh, you know, the Trump administration has had four years to put these different measures in place, and there are rules about how to go about undoing different kinds of regulations. So it's not something that can happen overnight. You know, even if we return to what we had before the Trump administration, that system was not itself terribly functional. As, as we've shown in, in my reporting over the past year, the system has been full of disparities and bias for years. Um, and people have been, you know, returned to their deaths who arguably were the kind of people that the system was created to protect. Speaker 6: 42:40 Do you think Kate, that there's a fundamental issue here that many Americans no longer support the idea of taking in refugees from around the world? In other words, does the broken system actually reflect our changing attitude toward helping refugees? Speaker 8: 42:57 Well, I think one of the things that, um, really stuck out to me as I looked back at the history of this system and, and the history of the American public's perception of the system is that by and large, the American public has never been super enthusiastic. We initially were in talks with other countries, right after world war II to create something like this. We didn't sign on to those international agreements until the mid sixties. And we didn't actually pass laws that created this system until 1980. And so you see over the course of, of us history, a lot of feet dragging and, and pretty immediate xenophobic or, or other sort of anti-immigrant anti asylum seeker rhetoric coming out, even, you know, even in the 1980s. Speaker 6: 43:42 So what's the case in favor of this? Why should America continue to accept people who are being persecuted in their homelands? Speaker 8: 43:51 Well, when you think about, about why the system was created, when you look at, you know, what happened during the Holocaust, or when you look at sort of these, these widespread issues of forced displacement around the world, it's a global problem when people are not safe when they don't have the basic idea of security to live in when their lives are in danger, they're going to try to live somewhere else, rather than having, you know, an orderly and efficient way to get people, you know, resettled and, and, and living their lives. It, it creates a lot of still being in danger, your most report focused Speaker 6: 44:32 On how we could re-imagine the U S asylum system. What are some of the key points of that new vision? Speaker 8: 44:39 One of the big ones is moving the immigration court to the judicial branch. And so, you know, everyone from the immigration judges union to the federal bar association are all pushing for this and have been pushing for it for a long time. Um, there's also possibilities of creating a system that looks more like the Canadian system. So if, if somebody comes to the United States, uh, with a student visa and says, Hey, you know, it's not safe for me to go back to my country after they've been here. Um, they don't go through the immigration court process right away. They actually just go to the asylum office. They do an interview with an asylum officer and that asylum officer can grant them asylum. So it's not adversarial in the way that you think of a court where you have a very well-trained attorney arguing against your ability to get protection. Um, and so Canada has a system that looks more like that. Um, they also provide, you know, legal help, legal support to asylum seekers going through that process. And then, uh, another one would be ending, uh, detention for asylum seekers, which would actually, um, save, you know, us taxpayers, quite a bit of money. Speaker 6: 45:49 I've been speaking with San Diego union Tribune, reporter Kate Marcy, her multi-part series on the us asylum system is called returned. And Kate, thank you. Speaker 8: 45:59 Thank you.