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Have a Cup of Johanny
Where every "oops" is a gateway to "aha!" Join Johanny Ortega, the dynamic host of this one-woman show, as she takes you on a journey through the transformative power of self-reflection and learning from mistakes. In Have a Cup of Johanny Podcast, Johanny shares her personal experiences, from embarrassing moments to life-altering missteps, and shows you how to pivot and thrive through adversity. Each episode is packed with valuable insights and practical tips for self-improvement and personal growth that you can apply in all aspects of your life. Whether you're looking to boost your resilience, enhance your communication skills, or simply find inspiration, this podcast is your go-to source for motivation and empowerment. Don't miss out on these inspiring and actionable episodes to help you turn every setback into a stepping stone to success!
Have a Cup of Johanny
Beyond Papers: The Human Cost of Immigration Policy
"They knew what they were doing" - five words that cloak inhumanity in the disguise of justice. Every time I hear this phrase used to dismiss the suffering of immigrants caught in our broken system, something inside me recoils. Not just because it's callous, but because it's incomplete.
Today's episode cuts through the rhetoric to expose one of the most persistent and harmful myths about immigration. Drawing from my personal journey through the labyrinthine process of "legal" immigration as a child separated from my parents, I invite listeners into the chaotic reality of endless paperwork, bureaucratic obstacles, and impossible choices that define our immigration system. This isn't about politics - it's about policies that fail human beings.
I share the harrowing story of Mark Daniel Lyttle, a US citizen with bipolar disorder who was wrongfully deported to Mexico simply because of how he looked. For 125 days, he wandered homeless through Latin America until someone finally helped him return home. His story isn't an anomaly - it's a devastating glimpse into what happens when enforcement trumps humanity, when paperwork matters more than people.
The truth? Being undocumented is not a crime - it's a civil violation, like a parking ticket. Over 70% of people in ICE custody have no criminal record whatsoever. Yet our rhetoric criminalizes their very existence, giving permission to stop seeing immigrants as fellow human beings worthy of dignity and basic rights. This dehumanization doesn't just hurt the undocumented - it threatens all of us. Because once a system gets comfortable deciding who deserves rights and who doesn't, that list only expands.
Join me in asking better questions: Why did we build a system where someone's worth depends on a document? Why are we okay with punishing people for seeking safety and opportunity? And what might happen if we remembered that before anyone is documented or undocumented, they are human - just like us?
Want to dig deeper?
Data & Reports:
- “Nearly half of ICE detainees have no criminal record; 71.7% as of June 15, 2025”
- “Only ~8% of detainees have violent convictions; civil infractions dominate”
Case Study:
If you’re enjoying these conversations, check out my YouTube channel! Explore Defining Latinx, Latine, Latina, Latino, where I reflect on books by Latine authors and uncover the diversity and strength of our community.
Don’t miss #TheOrdinaryBruja, my serialized story about Marisol, a bruja rediscovering the power of her ancestry and her own worth.
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🌳 Step Under The Flamboyant Tree! 🌳
Experience a story of family secrets, magical realism, and the rich heritage of the Dominican Republic. Under The Flamboyant Tree follows Isabella Prescott as she unravels her past, seeking healing and redemption in her homeland.
Preorder today and be among the first to journey into this unforgettable world of resilience and self-discovery.
Oh we could, we could fly. Welcome back to have a Cup of Johnny. This season isn't about hustling harder. It's about coming home to yourself, to your voice, to your breath, to the quiet truth that you're still here and you're not starting over. You're starting again. This is your space to reflect, reset and remember who we tell you. So pour your cafecito and let's begin.
Speaker 1:Have you ever heard someone say they knew what they were doing? They broke the law, so they deserve whatever happens to them. Yeah, me too. And every time I hear it, something inside of me just recoils, because I know that sentence isn't just cold, it's incomplete. Today I want to talk to you about that sentence, about what it leaves out, about the families, the fear, the paperwork, the impossible choices, and about the myth that there's some perfect, clean line between good immigrant and a bad immigrant. Welcome y'all, welcome to have a Cup of Joannie. I am Joah, and this month we are cutting through the noise and getting to the roots.
Speaker 1:This is episode one of our July series Debunking Immigration, and today we're starting with one of the most persistent lies in the book. They knew what they were doing. Now I want to start with something personal. There was a time in my life when I was just floating, y'all heard my immigration story and last month I was a child separated from my parents because of a technicality in documents, like I explained, depending on administration changes on either certain paperwork, that certain paperwork then required a seal, so we had to go to another office to get a seal. And guess what, before we turn in that paperwork, I needed a new physical, because then the last one was about to expire before we can process the paperwork. You see what I'm saying, and all of these things took a lot of money, it took a lot of time and it took a lot of back and forth as well, from where we live to the various offices in Santo Domingo, chaotic, and I try to explain that to people who have no concept of immigration, but then, at the same token, these same people sometimes have a whole opinion on it without the experience of actually living through the bureaucratic tape between two countries.
Speaker 1:You know, trying to immigrate from one to another and do it in the quote-unquote legal way Best thing that I can think of to compare it to is kind of like trying to traverse an ocean, knowing that the ocean at times will be great and in other times will be not so great. The waters may be choppy one day, maybe calm the next day, so it really just depends when you set out on your boat to go from point A to point B and that's the best way that I can equate this process of doing it the legal way you may get lucky where you time it just right and there are no changes in anything between the two countries, and then things may go as smooth as they can. Murphy will always have a role in here. Something will always happen as it does in life, but usually that's when it's smooth sailing. You may come into your journey and have to do it when the waters are really choppy and that is gonna suck because it's gonna take away a lot of your time, a lot of your resources. And if halfway through you run out of those resources, say you just you're done. You know you're done. You have to go and regroup or you have to do it another way.
Speaker 1:And for years I was living in this, in-between, in this, going back and forth with my grandma and with my sister to all these offices, because I had to be present, even though I was a child, as the person requesting. You see what I'm saying. So I lived through this and no one seemed to think that that was a problem. You know, it's just the way that it is right. No one had an issue. It was just me and my sister getting caught in the legal process, you know, going back and forth, and it's just everybody just shrugging and was like, well, you know, that's just how it is and that's how it will continue to be until we actually make an attempt to make this better for everyone involved. You see what I'm saying, and I just want to like make a note, before we go into this theme and into this episode, to know that this is not about either or party. It's not about that. It's about the policy and the procedure in place that makes it almost impossible for anyone to try to do it the right way or to get after and reach the goal of doing it the right way. That's what I'm talking about here. So it really that has no play in this argument. It really is just about making effective and efficient policies. People that are struggling are facing death. Where they are at, they can seek solace in new soil in an efficient way. That's what this is about.
Speaker 1:Now you heard my story. I'm going to tell you about this guy called Mark Daniel Little. Mark was born in North Carolina, a US citizen diagnosed with bipolar disorder. In 2008, he was arrested and, instead of getting support, he was funneled into ICE custody and ICE assumed he was Mexican because of the way that he looked. However, no passport, no hearing, no lawyer, just a one-way ticket to Reynosa. Now here's the kicker. Mark is a US citizen. He didn't speak Spanish. He had no family in Mexico. He wandered through Latin America, homeless, scarred, barely surviving for 125 days, folks, until someone helped them get home. You hear that 125 days, until someone helped them get home. What did they say when he got back? Oops, it was a mistake, and that's the thing, right. I hear that often that it's like well, it was a mistake, right, or that won't happen to you because you're a citizen, you know, or that won't happen to you because you were born here, but here it is right.
Speaker 1:When policies are implemented in a way that can be aggressively enforced or in a way that gives it a lot of loopholes or a lot of leeways to be enforced, then it just lends to violations of human rights, because, at the end of the day, we are all human beings. Therefore, we all have human rights, we all have the right of dignity. But when policies are implemented in a way that makes it easy for those that have to enforce these policies to bypass human rights, to bypass certain things, then it's very easy for people to just grab someone and say you look like you don't belong here. Therefore, I need to take you back to where you belong here. Therefore, I need to take you back to where you belong. But there's so much wrong with that action, with that statement. You know, because what does someone who belongs here looks like Look around you? What does that look like? If you really look around you and if you have surrounded yourself with a diverse group of individuals, you will know the answer to this. You will know that people that belong here, people that are born here, varied Different skin colors, different hair texture, different eye color, different body build, different stature you name it. There is not one size fits all American. There is not. But when policies are put in place that can lend to aggressive enforcement, that's what's going to happen. More stories like the one that I just said about Mark Daniel Little will occur.
Speaker 1:But even if Mark Daniel Little wasn't documented, it's still not a crime. Because, let's be clear, being undocumented is not a crime, it's a civil violation. I'll say it again being undocumented is not a crime, it is a civil violation. But what do we hear? What is the rhetoric that we hear? We must get rid of all those criminals. That is what we hear over and over and over, to the point where now people are bypassing logic and rationality and equating immigrants to criminals, period.
Speaker 1:I've heard, I've seen that argument over and, over and over. Where they're criminals? Because they're automatically assuming that if they're being detained, if they're being deported, it is because they're criminals. But it's not. It's not. The truth is that over 70% of people in ICE custody today have no criminal record, not even a speeding ticket, y'all. And most of those who do is things like expired papers, missed hearings, reentry without inspection. You know civil issues, not violent crimes. So 70% of people in ICE custody today have no criminal record.
Speaker 1:But you wouldn't know that from the rhetoric. You will not, because when you criminalize someone's presence, when just existing here becomes a threat, you give permission to stop seeing them as humans. And that's why I go back to this has nothing to do with a political party. It has everything to do with the policies being passed that are allowing for this aggressive enforcement to occur and that is being backed through dehumanizing rhetoric. That's the crux of the problem here. This problem has persisted for us long, even longer than how long I've been here in the United States, so both parties have done something to this. You see what I'm saying. And let me be real. This myth doesn't just hurt undocumented, it hurts all of us, all of us, and I'm going to say this, I said it on the video on TikTok. It doesn't matter whether you just you're choosing to keep your head in the sand and not look up, or te hace la loca and pretend like you don't know what is going on or it's not going to affect you. We are all connected. This is hurting all of us Because once a government creates a system where some people don't deserve rights, that system gets real comfortable expanding that list.
Speaker 1:And you've seen this meme of like first they came for these group of people, right, but I didn't care because I wasn't that group of people. Then they came for this group of people, but I didn't care because I wasn't that group of people. I know you've seen that meme. Some of you may have bypassed and be like I know you've seen that meme Some of you may have bypassed and be like bollocks doesn't pertain to me. Why should I care about that? I'm at the top, you know. But that's the thing. When systems get really comfortable, that list will continue to expand until you're not even at the top anymore. That's the kicker Easier. I'm saying that's just the nature of the beast, okay, because all it takes is just for someone in power to decide you don't belong.
Speaker 1:The myth of they knew what they were doing is designed to numb us. It's designed to separate us, to convince us not to care for the other. Because when they say they knew what they were doing, it's like they're telling you don't care about them because they didn't care about doing something wrong. Therefore, you shouldn't care because you're the one doing it right, you see? So it's already starting to divide us by putting an us versus them. You know we're the good ones here. We're following the rules. They decided not to. Therefore, they deserve everything that is coming. And then that keeps us from looking into this deeper, into assessing it, into dissecting it, because here is the real question. It's not whether did they know what they were doing.
Speaker 1:I think better questions would be why did we build a system where someone's worth depends on a document? Why are we okay with systems that punish people for needing safety, family or opportunity? Why are we okay with a system that can just send someone like Mark Little away and then just say, oops, it's a mistake. Because, if you ask me, no one deserves to be just simply sent away because of paperwork, or to be reduced to a file or to be erased because we just didn't want to look at them, because they're just, you know they deserve that.
Speaker 1:And I always think about these cases where the policies got it wrong and then these people have to like fight tooth or nails to show, to prove that they were right all along. And I always think, well, what about if they didn't find that right person, like on Mark Little's case? He found this what I call as angels right that come at the nick of time, and he found that one person that was able to help him out with resources so that way he can come back. But what about if he wouldn't have? What about if, god forbid, something horrible would have happened to him and we would have never known what happened to Mark Little? I always think about that. That haunts me whenever I hear about these cases, because for every case where somebody founds that one person, that angel that helps them out, that lawyer that goes pro bono, you know, and brings the state or whatever powerful agency to their knees and finally they admit oh shoot, we got it wrong, we enforced it wrong. There's a ton of others that didn't get that same chance, that didn't find that same luck, and that is what haunts me a lot of the time those names, those cases that we don't hear. Because I go back to the policy that makes it so easy for those who have to enforce it to fall into immoral or unethical practices in order to enforce these policies, such as racial profiling, such as lack of due process you see what I'm saying Such as taking people away without even giving them a chance to go to their court hearings or to miss their appointments that would have allowed them to do it the right way. You see what I'm saying. So that is what I think about whenever I hear these cases, and I'm not saying to be bogged down, like me, but I want you all to think about that Dissect, that rhetoric, when you hear it, because already a lot of people, a lot of people are equating immigrants with criminals, and that is so wrong on so many levels, or equating undocumented.
Speaker 1:You may be like no, I know not all immigrants, but the undocumented ones are. No. Just because they're undocumented does not mean that they're criminals. I just said it in here being undocumented is a civil violation, for those of you all have gotten parking tickets. Are you a criminal? No, no, you're not. It's the same thing as someone who is undocumented. And we can go deeper into how an undocumented individual still contributes to the society and all of that. But I don't want to go through that because then it makes people think like the only reason why undocumented people even have worth is because of what they do.
Speaker 1:But an undocumented person, just like a documented person, is worthy of dignity and respect. You know why? Because they're human beings, just like all of us. That's it. Not because they clean houses, not because they work the farms that put food in our tables every day, not because they drive buses that take us to every place that we want to go to. Not because they care for our children when we're at work. Not because they pay taxes but they don't get anything back when it comes to government benefits because, oh, by the way, they're undocumented, so they don't get none of that. No, that's not why they're worthy. That's not why they're worthy. They're worthy because they're human beings. That's it, and no one who is a human being should be getting snatched up from the streets the way that is happening right now. No one, no one. I've seen serial killers get treated better. I've seen mass shooters get treated better.
Speaker 1:I want you to sit with that one, all right. If this episode didn't scare you, come back for more. We will be debunking another myth, and you know what. Yes, we will be debunking another myth, and you know what? Yes, I get passionate about this. Yes, I get like super hyped over it, and you're going to hear that in my voice, because that's me, these are my people, I am them.
Speaker 1:And whenever somebody says, with their whole chest, all these horrible things about immigrants, I take it personally. You know, because I know that's not us. I know we're not that, but I'll see you all next Wednesday. Come back for more, don't let me down. And if this stung a lot and you're like, ooh, I don't think I want to hear it, you need to come back because you're the one that needs it the most. See you next Wednesday. Bye. If today's episode spoke to you, share it with somebody who's finding their way back too, and if you haven't yet, visit haveacupofjoanniecom for more stories, blog posts and the bits that started it all. Thank you for being here. Until next time, be soft, be bold and always have a cup of joannie.
